2nd. The _phenomena_ which accompany _functional repose_ correspond to the building up of the reserve-stuff destroyed in the preceding period, to the organizing synthesis. The latter remains “internal, silent, concealed in its phenomenal expression, noiselessly gathering together the materials which will be expended. We do not see these phenomena of organization directly. The histologist and the embryogenist alone, following the development of the element or of the living being, sees the changes and the phases which reveal this silent effort. Here is a store of substance; there, the formation of an envelope or a nucleus; there, a division or multiplication, a renewal.” This type of phenomena is the only type which has no direct analogues: it is peculiar, special to the living being: what is really vital is this evolutive synthesis. Life is creation. _Criticism of Claude Bernard._—All this is perfectly true. Thirty years of the most intensive scientific development have run by since these lines were written, and have not essentially changed the ideas therein expressed. His work in its broad lines remains intact. Does that imply, however, that everything is perfect in detail and expression, and that there is no reason for making it more precise or for giving it fresh form? No doubt this is not so. Although Claude Bernard contributed to establish the essential distinction between the real living protoplasm and the materials of reserve-stuff which it contains, he has not drawn a sufficiently clear distinction between what belongs to each of the categories. He has not specified, in relation to organic destruction, what bearing it has on the organic materials of reserve-stuff. Sometimes he uses the term “organic destruction,” which is correct, and sometimes “vital destruction,” which is of doubtful import. Further, he employs an obscure and paradoxical formula to characterize the obvious but nevertheless not specific phenomena of organic destruction, and he says: “life is death.”