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a few words upon the last (supposing it in conformity with general 

 opinion to obtain at least to some extent), I shall proceed to in- 

 quire into the laws of that which we perceive to be mutually 

 essential, viz. the spirit which presides in the seat of these operations, 



10. The chymical constitution of chyle being determined by 

 appropriate analysis, it is to be asked whether such a chymical 

 production necessarily involves that state of the elements of infor- 

 mal life which is essential in this stage of preparation for the 

 maintenance of the living principle/ or, whether latent spiritual 

 changes do not take place in this conversion, to which the chymi- 

 cal are, so far as regards subsequent relations with life, mere 

 accompaniments? 



11. To ascertain this point is perhaps beyond the scope of 

 experiment. The constituents of chyle, such as they are men- 

 tioned by chymists, may be easily drawn from foreign sources, 

 and put together. But we cannot thus ascertain whether this 

 artificial combination involves the prepared state of the spiritual 

 elements, unless it were possible to keep an animal alive, by filling 

 his lacteals with this production of the laboratory, without sub- 

 jecting it to the influence of the stomach or intestines; an experi- 

 ment not likely to be attempted, and still less likely to succeed. 



12. That a process so complex as that of chylification should 

 be performed merely for the purpose of producing a few chymical 

 constituents (such as have been enumerated in books) appears very 

 improbable; and we have the more reason to suspect that the 

 latent are also the most essential changes, when we consider that if 

 an animal were fed with chyle, or substances which approach very 

 near to it, the same conversions, or nearly the same, would take 

 place as when fed with ordinary food. An heterogeneous mass 

 would be produced by the stomach and duodenum, and the agents, 

 so far from availing themselves of a chyle ready made at their 

 hands, would still go through the regular business of preparing a 

 part for the purposes of the animal, and another part which is 

 termed excrementitious. 



13. Indeed, whether the chymical involves all the changes 

 which occur in the formation of chyle, or whether others exist, of 

 the spiritual kind, which are superadded to the chymical (chyle 

 being made a medium for their circulation), it seems scarcely worth 

 while to inquire; since it is clear, 1st, that chyle possesses pro- 

 perties which concur to maintain the assimilating spirit; 2nd, that 

 the fluid, or medium of these properties, will not support the 

 assimilating spirit, if the changes which are produced in it in any 

 stage of its passage through the preparatory organs be. omitted; 

 and, 3rd, that therefore, the function of every seat of these organs 

 is to produce changes, which, among other purposes, refer to the 

 aptitude which must subsist between the elementary and the for- 

 mal life. 



14. This business, this progressi/e adaptation, may take place 

 in two ways, or by a complication of them : 1st, it may be, that 



