J4"2 LM'KUDUCXOKY ADDRESSES. 



lion upon those vegetable principles, their developement being aided by 

 the action of oilier chemical agents and the vital force. How peculi- 

 arly interesting is this connection between two of the great kingdoms 

 of nature ! How perfectly adapted are the works of creation to one an- 

 other ! In confirmation of the fact that proteine is the base of organic 

 structure, Liebig refers to an egg during the proces of incubation. Feath- 

 ers, claws, globules of blood, fibrine, membrane, and cellular tissue, ar- 

 teries and veins are produced from albumen, a proteinaceous compound, 

 jnerely by the action of the oxygen of the air." 



The non-nitrogenized articles of food are allied in their composition 

 to fat, and supply this in the body. It only requires a loss of part of 

 the oxygen to etlect it. 



The other external agents needed are water and air. The first is ab- 

 solutely necessary — the human body contains nearly 7-5 per cent of its 

 weight of water. It may be, in addition to its other uses, nutritive, 

 consisting as it does of hydrogen and oxygen, and may contribute to 

 the formation of the tissues. 



The air of the atmosphere, and particularly the oxygen of it is shown, 

 and the interesting statements are terminated with the following fact : 

 "Thus the body is continually balanced ; food enters the stomach, is di- 

 gested, assimilated, and carried to every part of the body to be conver- 

 ted into organic tissue , but it cannot accumulate ; oxygen enters the 

 Jungs, is absorbed, and also carried to every part of the body to act upon 

 the already used particles of this food, and it cannot accumulate; the 

 elements of the former chemically unite with the latter, and both pass 

 out of the system together, leaving it just as they found it, to be fol- 

 lowed by their successors in the same round unceasingly, until the vital 

 power yields up the body wholly to their destructive influences."" 



There is a species of combustion carried on in the body, on which 

 animal heat depends, the fuel of which is furnished by the carbon and 

 Jiydrogen of non-nitrogenized food. The waste of oxygen by respira- 

 tion and other processes, which might appear to threaten a great disaster, 

 is counteracted by the vegetable kingdom, which resupplies by its j)ro- 

 cesses the loss. Thus is there a beautiful adaptation of external agents 

 to animal wants, and a continual circulation is going on, of needed 

 agents into the body, and back again to renew the supply. 



The reflection, which connects itself with all this, and it has not es- 

 caped our author's eye, is that there is a beautiful adaptation of external 

 things to man and of man to external things, a striking display both of 

 the wisdom and goodness of God. The whole discussion adds an in- 

 structive and attractive cliaptct to our natural theology, and might pro- 



