came in time an entire dependant.

In the eyes of Nature this was a twofold crime. It was first a disregard
of evolution, and second, which is practically the same thing, an
evasion of the great law of work. And the revenge of Nature was
therefore necessary. It could not help punishing the Sacculina for
violated law, and the punishment, according to the strange and
noteworthy way in which Nature usually punishes, was meted but by
natural processes, carried on within its own organization. Its
punishment was simply that it was a Sacculina--that it was a Sacculina
when it might have been a Crustacean. Instead of being a free and
independent organism high in structure, original in action, vital with
energy, it deteriorated into a torpid and all but amorphous sac confined
to perpetual imprisonment and doomed to a living death. "Any new set of
conditions," says Ray Lankester, "occurring to an animal which render
its food and safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule to
degeneration; just as an active healthy man sometimes degenerates when
he becomes suddenly possessed of a fortune; or as Rome degenerated when
possessed of the riches of the ancient world. The habit of parasitism
clearly acts upon animal organization in this way. Let the parasitic
life once be secured, and away go legs, jaws, eyes, and ears; the
active, highly-gifted crab, insect or annelid may become a mere sac,
absorbing nourishment and laying eggs."[95]

There could be no more impressive illustration than this of what with
entire appropriateness one might call "the physiology of backsliding."
We fail to appreciate the meaning of spiritual degeneration or detect
the terrible nature of the consequences only because they evade the eye
of sense. But could we investigate the spirit as a living organism, or
study the soul of the backslider on principles of comparative anatomy,
we should have a revelation of the organic effects of sin, even of the
mere sin of carelessness as to growth and work, which must revolutionize
our ideas of practical religion. There is no room for the doubt even
that what goes on in the body does not with equal certainty take place
in the spirit under the corresponding conditions.

The penalty of backsliding is not something unreal and vague, some
unknown quantity which may be measured out to us disproportionately, or
which perchance, since God is good, we may altogether evade. The
consequences are already marked within the stru