140 ASSIMILATION AND ITS ORGANS. 



held forth to a younger creature ; and milk is thus again a symbol 

 of the food and feeding which are everywhere. 



But let us pass onwards from the food which is the matter, to the 

 fluids which are the medium, and to the organs which are the in- 

 struments, of digestion. Now there is nothing more general in ani- 

 mal life than the digestive apparatus, because matter is the largest, 

 if not the greatest, fact in the material universe. Every creature 

 which is here, must be made of something, and maintained by some- 

 thing, or must be landlord of itself. Every part, and every faculty, 

 of every being inhabiting the planet, must be duly clothed and bal- 

 lasted with stuff derived from the earth, or it would have no ope- 

 ration in the body, or upon the body, much less upon the external 

 world. Hence the stomach is an organ of the first importance to 

 all mortals. You may take away brain and nervous system, and 

 leave their place to be supplied by the fluxions and imponderables 

 of nature ; you may take away the lungs, and consign their office 

 to the circumambient lifeless atmospheres j you may abstract the 

 heart with its blood-vessels, and commit the dull, gluey circulation 

 to the almost mechanical and chemical laws of affinity that obtain 

 in vegetables : and notwithstanding all this, you may still have an 

 animal being remaining. In short, there are animals which are no- 

 thing but stomachs, but there are no animals which are nothing but 

 brains. In the human race also the stomach is of the same para- 

 mount importance ; its existence, and due impletion, are the first 

 or last conditions of the existence of the individual ; they are the basis 

 of humanity, and nothing is so sublime but it rests upon them, and 

 must perish out of this world if they cease, and otherwise follow their 

 vicissitudes. The assured feeding of the nations, is a question 

 that involves in its settlement all other questions, and postpones 

 sublimities until necessities are complied with. Jewelled goblets 

 there are besides, but this earthen cup must be satisfied before the 

 other vessels of the man can begin to be filled. 



The food, consisting of matters from the animal, vegetable, and 

 mineral kingdoms, is at first received by the lips, which present to 

 it a more and more delicately sensitive surface from their beginning 

 at the external skin towards the roots of the teeth ; and especially 

 where the sight is not employed, it is apprehended by a sense of 



