Tears contain a little phosphate of lime, chloride of sodium, mucin, and water." He went on speaking, without observing the spasm of pain that contracted Josephine's features; he was again astride of Science, which bore him with outspread wings far away from material existence.
"This analysis, my dear," he went on, "is one of the most convincing proofs of the theory of the Absolute.

All life involves combustion.
According to the greater or the lesser activity of the fire on its hearth is life more or less enduring.

In like manner, the destruction of mineral bodies is indefinitely retarded, because in their case combustion is nominal, latent, or imperceptible.

In like manner, again, vegetables, which are constantly revived by combinations producing dampness, live indefinitely; in fact, we still possess certain vegetables which existed before the period of the last cataclysm.

But each time that nature has perfected an organism and then, for some unknown reason, has introduced into it sensation, instinct, or intelligence (three marked stages of the organic system), these three agencies necessitate a combustion whose activity is in direct proportion to the result obtained.