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CHAPTER VI 



THE BREATH OF LIFE 



It is a faithful saying that we do not live on food alone. 

 Life is a fire, now slow, now fierce, and therefore needs 

 air as well as fuel. Changefulness is of the very 

 essence of being, and all our rest is but hidden activity. 

 Growth, movement, development — all the expenditure 

 of force, which are the shows of life — involve trans- 

 formation of our substance. We burn that others 

 may have light ; and just as the sparks fly upward 

 under a fire's breath, so wc and all beings need a fan 

 if the fires of life are to become active. Food is but 

 the laid fuel ; oxygen, that which fans it. The fire 

 was lighted long ago. The twinkling flames hidden 

 in thought, patent in conduct, have come from the 

 vestal lights of other generations. Every moment 

 of restful or restless activity they maintain the trans- 

 formation of our bodies. We are renewed year by 

 year, and to make way for the new being the old 

 is slowly burnt away. We breathe out coal-gas, we 

 radiate warmth, our muscles work by innate explosion. 

 For every breakdown which is the necessary preface 

 to this constant renewal, oxygen is essential. We rise 

 on our dead selves only by their combustion. But so 



