ABSORPTION. 263 



&c., &c. ; and when all these qualities will be elucidated in their 

 most intimate relations to one another. None of these properties 

 should for the time to come be regarded as accidental, for in nature 

 nothing is accidental ; the different properties of matter are the 

 necessary result of certain fundamental conditions. When once 

 we shall be able to form a logical judgment of the nature of those 

 substances in which vital phenomena are manifested, when sharply 

 defined ideas of the diversity of matter can aid our judgment regard- 

 ing the relations of each individual substance to the whole, we 

 may perhaps be able to express, in the simple but clear language of 

 mathematico-physical conception, those conclusions which are 

 deducible from our sensuous observations of the movements of 

 matter in the living body. We shall not on that account be less 

 able to contemplate the wise arrangements of the animal organism, 

 although we may no longer indulge in visionary dreams of the 

 spirituality of matter, or seek to conceal our own inactivity in the 

 incomprehensibility of nature ; for these very arrangements are 

 merely the perfected expression of that which may be attained 

 by the co-operation of simple physical forces, when acting upon 

 differently formed and qualified matter under the most various 

 mechanical conditions. 



Although such a future may yet be far distant, and the attain- 

 ment of such aims may require the most arduous efforts of many 

 zealous labourers in science, we yet know the direction in which 

 our endeavours will secure a satisfactory result in this department 

 of our inquiries. We know what we have to seek, and, emanci- 

 pated from a belief in supernatural forces of matter, we feel that 

 we are not striving for that which is unattainable, but that every 

 step and every scientific result, once gained, will bring us nearer 

 to the goal of our desires. 



This being the point of view from which we began our analysis 

 of the movements of matter in the animal organism, it will not 

 appear singular if we commence the consideration of the process 

 of digestion by establishing the qualities of the objects to be 

 digested. The qualities which principally demand our attention 

 are those which involve the different relations of such matters 

 to water; for these essentially control the form and the nature 

 of the absorption which the matters undergo in the intestinal 

 canal. Now as all the properties of a substance stand in the most 

 intimate relations to one another, we scarcely think that we shall 

 be in error if we insist upon the existence of a certain relation 

 between the capacity of a substance for absorption and its other 



