VIII. The World Underlying the Organs of Life

Among the processes of life, there are three whose organs point beyond the world in which, according to what has been presented above, the origin of the organs of life is to be sought. In generation, the living physical body repeats its own structures; in growth, it adds something new to what already exists, out of the material of that which already exists; in maintenance, what already exists acts on what already exists; and in secretion, something that was only present in the living process is secreted out of it. These, then, are the life processes that take place within the life organs themselves. It is not so with nutrition, warmth, and breathing. These processes are only possible if the life organs absorb something from an external world.