THE END OF ASSIMILATION. 151 



their food, the air; and in the next moment swallows along the 

 whole line; then eats again; and so forth. It is in this way that 

 the lungs are continually drawing up the food to the blood, which 

 is seconded by every point of the tube, successively contracting and 

 expelling it ; somewhat as the arteries contract upon the blood, and 

 produce the pulse. And by the same agency, through the general 

 framework of the body, the lungs harmonize and combine these 

 creeping parts and their motions, peristaltic and vermicular, into one 

 coordinate system. 



We have seen above that the work of assimilation terminates in 

 the blood, in the introduction of new elements into the living circle, 

 and we have to note that the blood itself, so soon as it is formed, 

 begins to undergo the process of regeneration, or to be eaten by 

 higher purposes and powers, and charged with impurities that must 

 be put aside. Thus as there is a scale of stages leading upwards 

 from the food to the blood, there is a parallel scale leading down- 

 wards from the blood, and consisting of its excretions, or the various 

 salivas, which come out of the system near the spots where the new 

 materials are entering it, and uniting with the latter, as the similar 

 old with the similar young, lead them to a certain distance through 

 the first schools that conduct them towards their destination in the 

 organs. 



"What is the end in view in all this digestion and assimilation? 

 In one sense, the formation of the blood; but let us advance beyond 

 this answer, and inquire after the human end for which we instinct- 

 ively, and our bodies organically, appropriate the substances of the 

 external universe. The end is, that we may live in the world by 

 means of a body derived from the world, and representing the world. 

 Each place has its laws, and when we are at Home we must do as 

 the Romans. To be full freedmen of nature, we require to be allied 

 to her by our constitution ; to marry into all her royal families ; and 

 to take a body from every kingdom, in order that we may enter, 

 inhabit, appreciate and understand it. The sense of taste, and that 

 alimentary series which we have been considering, afford us our 

 material embodiment, by which we are brought into fellowship with 

 the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms ; the sense of smell and 

 the pulmonary series draw down our aerial food, by which we gain 



