attained with the minimum expenditure of energy and cost: it is rather the succession of processes of subjugation, more or less profound, more or less mutually independent, which operate on the thing itself; it is, further, the resistance which in each case invariably displayed this subjugation, the Protean wriggles by way of defence and reaction, and, further, the results of successful counter-efforts. The form is fluid, but the meaning is even more so⁠—even inside every individual organism the case is the same: with every genuine growth of the whole, the “function” of the individual organs becomes shifted⁠—in certain cases a partial perishing of these organs, a diminution of their numbers (for instance, through annihilation of the connecting members), can be a symptom of growing strength and perfection. What I mean is this: even partial loss of utility , decay, and degeneration, loss of function and purpose, in a word, death, appertain to the conditions of the genuine progressus ; which always appears in the shape of a will and way to greater