38 EX VIRIBUS VIVIMUS. 



is no longer accumulated but is destroyed ; thus the 

 inherent cause of death has a structural existence. 

 The apparent absence of inherent decay in many 

 trees, in fish, in some reptiles, is alluded to by Mr. 

 Spencer. He attributes it, as we have done above, 

 to their exceedingly small expenditure ; trees and 

 plants generally exhibiting no personal expenditure 

 at all, whilst fish and cold-blooded inert reptiles 

 shew very little indeed. Mr. Spencer also remarks 

 that a strict inductive confirmation of the > law of 

 increase of expenditure and of growth must not be 

 expected, since the bodies compared, e. g. fish and 

 mammal, are not of the same density or chemical 

 constitution entirely. 



Another circumstance co-operates with the arrival 

 of a period of balance between the expenditure and 

 the accumulation (and depends on that period) to 

 influence the natural termination of life. The con- 

 dition of equilibrium between expenditure and nu- 

 trition, growth having ceased, might be maintained 

 for an indefinite time, were it not that precisely at 

 this period a new form of expenditure, involving a 

 very severe tax, sets in — namely, reproduction. It 

 is when a stationary condition has been reached that 

 we may anticipate from general laws new adjust- 

 ments of the whole aggregate ; whilst the changes 

 of the more adaptable state of growth were in course, 

 whilst concrete shape was being built up, discrete 

 shapes were less likely so to be ; and hence it is. 



