Herbert Spencer

“ The relation between special activity and special waste, is illustrated, too, in the daily experiences of all: not indeed in the amount of decrease of the active parts in bulk or weight, for this we have no means of ascertaining; but in the diminished ability of such parts to perform their functions. That legs exerted for many hours in walking and arms long strained in rowing, lose their powers—that eyes become enfeebled by reading or writing without intermission—that concentrated attention, unbroken by rest, so prostrates the brain as to incapacitate it for thinking; are familiar truths. ”

“ The germ of every organism is a minute portion of encased protoplasm commonly called a cell. It is by multiplication of cells that all the early developmental changes are effected. The various tissues which successively arise in the unfolding organism, are primarily cellular; and in many of them the formation of cells continues to be, throughout life, the process by which repair is carried on. But though cells are so generally the ultimate visible components of organisms, that they may with some show of reason be called the morphological units ”

“ Manifestly, too, if we are thus to interpret the reproduction of an organism from one of its amorphous fragments, we must thus interpret the reproduction of any minor portion of an organism by the remainder. When in place of its lost claw a lobster puts forth a cellular mass which, while increasing in bulk, assumes the form and structure of the original claw, we cannot avoid ascribing this result to a play of forces like that which moulds the materials contained in a piece of Begonia-leaf into the shape of a young Begonia. ”

“ If when the leg of a lizard has been amputated there presently buds out the germ of a new one, which, passing through phases of development like those of the original leg, eventually assumes a like shape and structure, we assert only what we see, when we assert that the entire organism, or the adjacent part of it, exercises such power over the forming limb as makes it a repetition of its predecessor. ”

“ Plants do not waste to any considerable degree, for the obvious reason that the sensible and insensible motions they generate are inconsiderable. Between the small waste, small activity, and low temperature of the inferior animals, the relation is similarly one admitting of a priori establishment. Conversely, the rapid waste of energetic, hot-blooded animals might be foreseen with equal certainty. And not less manifestly necessary is the variation in waste which, in the same organism, attends the variation in the heat and mechanical motion produced. ”

“ Assuming that the organs which absorb and circulate nutriment are in proper order, the restoration of the body to a state of integrity, after the disintegration consequent on expenditure of energy, is proportionate to the diminution in expenditure of energy. ”

“ Were the activity of every organ quite independent of the activities of other organs, we might expect to trace out this relation distinctly; but since increased activity in any organ or group of organs, as the muscles, necessarily entails increased activity in other organs, as in the heart, lungs, and nervous system, it is clear that special waste and general waste are too much entangled to admit of a definite relation being established between special waste and special activity. ”

“ Deductive interpretation of the phenomena of Repair, is by no means so easy. The tendency displayed by an animal organism, as well as by each of its organs, to return to a state of integrity by the assimilation of new matter, when it has undergone the waste consequent on activity, is a tendency which is not manifestly deducible from first principles ”

“ And here, indeed, we are introduced to a conclusive proof that special repair is ever neutralizing special waste. For the rapidity with which the eyes recover their sensitiveness, varies with the reparative power of the individual. In youth the visual apparatus is so quickly restored to its state of integrity, that many of these photogenes, as they are called, cannot be perceived. ”

“ With a rich blood and vigorous circulation, the repair of the visual nerves after impressions of moderate intensity, is nearly instantaneous.
Function carried to excess may produce waste so great that repair cannot make up for it during the ordinary daily periods of rest; and there may result incapacities of the over-taxed organs, lasting for considerable periods. We know that eyes strained by long-continued minute work lose their power for months or years: perhaps suffering an injury from which they never wholly recover. ”

“ We know that a night during which the quiescence, bodily and mental, has been less decided, is usually not followed by that spontaneous overflow of energy which indicates a high state of efficiency throughout the organism. ”

“ It is an inevitable corollary "from the persistence of force, that each portion of mechanical or other energy which an organism exerts, implies the transformation of as much organic matter as contained this energy in a latent state;" and that this organic matter in yielding up its latent energy, loses its value for the purposes of life, and becomes waste matter needing to be excreted. ”

“ Day and night the lungs dilate and collapse; and the muscles which make them do this must therefore be kept in a state of integrity by a repair which keeps pace with waste, or which alternately falls behind and gets in advance of it to a very slight extent.
On a survey of the facts we see, as we might expect to see, that the progress of repair is most rapid when activity is most reduced. ”

“ This series of illustrations conclusively proves that the rebuilding of the organism is ever making up for the pulling down of it caused by action; and that the effect of this rebuilding becomes more manifest, in proportion as the pulling down is less rapid. From each digested meal there is every few hours absorbed into the mass of prepared nutriment circulating through the body, a fresh supply of the needful organic compounds ”

“ Reptiles, too, maintaining no great temperature, and passing their lives mostly in a state of torpor, suffer but little diminution of mass by waste. When, however, we turn to those higher orders of animals which are active and hot-blooded, we see that waste is rapid: producing, when unchecked, a notable decrease in bulk and weight, ending very shortly in death. ”

“ Among men and domestic animals, the relation between degree of waste and amount of expended energy, though one respecting which there is little doubt, is less distinctly demonstrable; since waste is not allowed to go on uninterfered with. ”

“ Even were there warrant for the doctrine that the germ of every organism contains the perfect organism in miniature, it still could not be contended that each considerable part of the perfect organism resulting from such a germ, contains another such miniature. ”

“ We have already seen ( § 23) "that whatever amount of power an organism expends in any shape, is the correlate and equivalent of a power that was taken into it from without." Motion, sensible or insensible, generated by an organism, is insensible motion which was absorbed in producing certain chemical compounds appropriated by the organism under the form of food. As much energy as was required to raise the elements of these complex atoms to their state of unstable equilibrium, is given out in their falls to a state of stable equilibrium ”

“ Besides finding that waste is inconsiderable in creatures which produce but little insensible and sensible motion, and that it becomes conspicuous in creatures which produce much insensible and sensible motion; we find that in the same creatures there is most waste when most motion is generated. This is clearly proved by hybernating animals. "Valentin found that the waking marmot excreted in the average 75 times more carbonic acid, and inhaled 41 times more oxygen than the same animal in the most complete state of hybernation. ”

“ The highest animals, however, thus repair themselves to but a very small extent. Mammals and birds do it only in the healing of wounds; and very often but imperfectly even in this. For in muscular and glandular organs the tissues destroyed are not properly reproduced, but are replaced by tissue of an irregular kind which serves to hold the parts together. So that the power of reproducing lost parts is greatest where the organization is lowest ”

“ That is to say, in the hybernating animal the parts least consumed are the almost totally quiescent motor-organs, and the part most consumed is the hydro-carbonaceous deposit serving as a store of energy; whereas in the pigeon, similarly unsupplied with food but awake and active, the greatest loss takes place in the motor-organs. ”

“ And if in the case of the crystal we say that the whole aggregate exerts over its parts a force which constrains the newly-integrated molecules to take a certain definite form, we seem obliged, in the case of the organism, to assume an analogous force. ”

“ When sitting on the far side of a room, and gazing out of the window against a light sky, a person who is debilitated by disease or advancing years, perceives, on transferring the gaze to the adjacent wall, a momentary negative image of the window—the sash-bars appearing light and the squares dark; but a young and healthy person has no such experience. ”

“ Such a power cannot be claimed for the component units of the blood without being conceded to the component units of every tissue. Indeed the assertion of this power is little more than an assertion of the fact that organs composed of specialized units are capable of resuming their structural integrity after they have been wasted by function. ”

“ Vision still better illustrates this simultaneity of waste and repair. Looking at the Sun so affects the eyes that, for a short time, they cannot perceive the things around with the usual clearness. After gazing at a bright light of a particular colour, we see, on turning the eyes to adjacent objects, an image of the complementary colour ”

“ Illustrations are not wanting of special repair that is similarly ever in progress, and similarly has intervals during which it falls below waste and rises above it. Every one knows that a muscle, or a set of muscles, continuously strained, as by holding out a weight at arm's length, soon loses its power ”

“ Experiments have shown that "the starving pigeon daily consumes in the average 40 times more muscular substance that the marmot in the state of torpor, and only 11 times more fat, 33 times more of the tissue of the alimentary canal, 18.3 times more liver, 15 times more lung, 5 times more skin." ”

“ We know, too, that when exhausted by labour, sitting brings a partial return of vigour. And we also know that after the violent exertion of running, a lapse into the less violent exertion of walking, results in a gradual disappearance of that prostration which the running produced. ”

“ A fragment of a Begonia-leaf imbedded in fit soil and kept at an appropriate temperature, will develop a young Begonia; and so small is the fragment which is thus capable of originating a complete plant, that something like a hundred plants may be produced from a single leaf. ”

“ And though we have no direct evidence to this effect, there is little danger in concluding that muscles exercised until they ache or become stiff, and nerves of sense rendered weary or obtuse by work, are organs so much wasted by action as to be partially incompetent.
Repair is everywhere and always making up for waste. ”

“ In the more highly-organized Actinozoa the half of an individual will grow into a complete individual. Some of the lower Annelids, as the Nais, may be cut into thirty or forty pieces and each piece will eventually become a perfect animal. As we ascend to higher forms we find this reparative power much diminished, though still considerable. ”

“ The several organs of the special sensations yield us like experiences. Strong tastes, powerful odours, loud sounds, temporarily unfit the nerves impressed by them for appreciating faint tastes, odours, or sounds ”

“ The reproduction of a lost claw by a lobster or crab, is a familiar instance. Some of the inferior Vertebrata also, as lizards, can develop new limbs or new tails, in place of those which have been cut off ”