The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
that greater cost of nutrition is inevitably caused and therefore a
correlative tendency to limit growth. This necessity will be seen still
more clearly if we leave out the motor apparatus, and consider only the
forces required and the means of supplying them. For since, in similar
bodies, the areas vary as the squares of the dimensions, and the masses
vary as the cubes; it follows that the absorbing surface has become four
times as great, while the weight to be moved by the matter absorbed has
become eight times as great. If then, a year ago, the absorbing surface
could take up twice as much nutriment as was needed for expenditure, thus
leaving one-half for growth, it is now able only just to meet expenditure,
and can provide nothing for growth. However great the excess of
assimilation over waste may be during the early life of an active organism,
we see that because a series of numbers increasing as the cubes, overtakes
a series increasing as the squares, even though starting from a much
smaller number, there must be reached, if the organism lives long enough, a
point at which the surplus assimilation is brought down to nothing--a point
at which expenditure balances nutrition--a state of moving equilibrium. The
only way in which the difficulty can be met is by gradual re-organization
of the alimentary system; and, in the first place, this entails direct cost
upon the organism, and, in the second place, indirect cost from the
carrying of greater weight: both tending towards limitation. There are two
other varying relations between degrees of growth and amounts of expended
force; one of which conspires with the last, while the other conflicts with
it. Consider, in the first place, the cost at which nutriment is
distributed through the body and effete matters removed from it. Each
increment of growth being added at the periphery of the organism, the force
expended in the transfer of matter must increase in a rapid progression--a
progression more rapid than that of the mass. But as the dynamic expense of
distribution is small compared with the dynamic value of the materials
distributed, this item in the calculation is unimportant. Now consider, in
the second place, the changing proportion between production and loss of
heat. In similar organisms the quantities of heat generated by similar
actions going on throughout their substance, must increase as the masses,
or as the cubes of the dimensions. Meanwhile, the surfaces from which loss
of heat takes place, increase only as the squares of the dimensions. Though
the loss of heat does not therefore increase only as the squares of the
dimensions, it certainly increases at a smaller rate than the cubes. And to
the extent that augmentation of mass results in a greater retention of
heat, it effects an economization of force. This advantage is not, however,
so important as at first appears. Organic heat is a concomitant of organic
action, and is so abundantly produced during action that the loss of it is
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