SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 253 



plan. As in a dissolving view, new objects emero;e from old ones, 

 and new forms spontaneously appear without the exercise of any 

 periodically creative act, there is a transmutation of individual form 

 to form. 



As in the tree, having an inherent power to arrange the ele- 

 ments to perfect its fruits, as we said, by energy imparted to its 

 atoms by the sun, so animal life has an instinctive force within her 

 own tissues to carryforward her work to build her fair fabric. But, 

 unlike the vegetable kingdom, does not have to gather her building 

 material from invisible substratum, but finds "it already for use in the 

 vegetable world, in countless forms, to enter into new forms. 



Perhaps a simple illustration will suffice to elucidate this prob- 

 lem. Take, for instance, wheat flour, as an article of food. The 

 vital powers of the stomach will reduce it to starch, of which it 

 principally consists — first into chyme, then into chile; each muta- 

 tion it undergoes has an impulse imparted to it by the physical sys- 

 tem, converting the wheaten flour into casm-fibrin and albumen, 

 substances, until very recent times, thought to be distinct sub- 

 stances, but chemical experiment has found they are but modification 

 of one substance, which is now regarded as the original of all the 

 tissues; and, further, that protein, in every respect identical with 

 that which forms the basis of the three aforesaid animal principles, 

 may be obtained from similar elements in the vegetable kingdom. 



To return to the flour, in its onward course, it still undergoes 

 changes in the lumen of the system not fully settled by physiolo- 

 gists. It becomes blood, abounding in globules of marked construc- 

 tion, all fabricated beyond doubt from the flour. By a farther corre- 

 lation, its globules undergo changes that neither the chemist or the 

 observation of the microscope can explain. The blood has become 

 vitalized and becomes a form, and when this transmutation is com- 

 plete, and converted into animal tissue, not one particle of the orig- 

 inal flour can be detected by all the modern tests of a vaunted 

 science. 



The scientist can tell the exact number of the molecules that 

 enter the flour's make-up. He can follow it through its mechanical 

 changes until it is converted into muscular plasma, but how it is vital- 

 ized and becomes a living force is beyond his ken. Yet we can but 

 marvel at the extraordinary changes which a simple alimentary sub- 

 stance may undergo in the animal frame; and if we admit with the 

 ancient philosophers, that every such substance is resolvable into one 

 or more of the elements, and that all the elements are but a differ- 

 ent modification of one common matter, how wonderful a thing 

 must form be, since it imparts such varied appearance and qualities 

 to one common substratum, T cannot but feel this mechanical energy 

 has for its ultematum to build up a form that will be eternal, what- 

 ever it may be, matter or spirit. 



