nded by effects conducive to the transfer, and retardative of
dissipation._

This statement is, I think, perfectly general. It has been in
part advanced before, but from the organic more than the physical
point of view. Thus, "hunger is an essential characteristic of
living matter"; and again, "hunger is a dominant characteristic
of living matter,"[1] are, in part, expressions of the statement.
If it be objected against the generality of the statement, that
there are periods in the life of individuals when stagnation and
decay make their appearance, we may answer, that

[1] _Evolution of Sex._ Geddes and Thomson, chap. xvi. See also a
reference to Cope's theory of "Growth Force," in Wallace's
_Darwinism_, p. 425.

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such phenomena arise in phases of life developed under conditions
of external constraint, as will be urged more fully further on,
and that in fact the special conditions of old age do not and
cannot express the true law and tendency of the dynamic relations
of life in the face of its evident advance upon the Earth. The
law of the unconstrained cell is growth on an ever increasing
scale; and although we assume the organic configuration, whether
somatic or reproductive, to be essentially unstable, so that
continual inflow of energy is required merely to keep it in
existence, this does not vitiate the fact that, when free of all
external constraint, growth gains on waste. Indeed, even in the
case of old age, the statement remains essentially true, for the
phenomena then displayed point to a breakdown of the functioning
power of the cell, an approximation to configurations incapable
of assimilation. It is not as if life showed in these phenomena
that its conditions could obtain in the midst of abundance, and
yet its law be suspended; but as if they represented a
degradation of the very conditions of life, a break up, under the
laws of the inanimate, of the animate contrivance; so that energy
is no longer available to it, or the primary condition, "the
transfer of energy into the animate system," is imperfectly
obeyed. It is to the perfect contrivance of life our statement
refers.

That the final end of all will be general non-availability there
seems little reason to doubt, and the organism, itself dependent
upon differences of potential, cannot

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hope to carry on aggregation of energy beyond the period when
differences of potential are not. The organism is not accountable
for this. It is being