OF NUTRITION; OE, WHY WE GROW. 47 



show that for the origination or formation of one 

 organic body, there is a necessity for a simultaneous 

 disorganization or decay of another ; so that in all 

 life both these processes are in operation together. 

 His words are : " Thus are two essentially distinct 

 and opposite processes concerned in producing the 

 phenomena of active life ; are of necessity in opera- 

 tion for the production of what we imply when 

 we say of a thing f it lives ; ' and thus, too, it becomes 

 apparent how death is essentially a part of life." 

 Again, in some papers published in 1852, Dr. Freke 

 says, in discussing the nature of the vitalizing pro- 

 cess: "We find that what one was obtaining, the 

 other was losing ; at the same time that the elevation 

 of dead matter to the organized condition was in 

 progress, another and directly opposite process was 

 taking place : namely, the body which was con- 

 ferring that organization was itself undergoing the 

 process of disorganization ; was itself descending in 

 the scale of life." 



Dr. Henry, also, of the Smithsonian Institute at 

 Washington, has advocated the same doctrine. In 

 a Report on Agriculture, published in 1857, he thus 



