154 ASSIMILATION AND ITS ORGANS. 



we tell our sorrows and halve them. Tears abate the grief which 

 they carry and signify, for they roll it out. The excretion of the 

 bile affords a similar vehicle and relief for other strongly troublous 

 states. The saliva, full of melted feelings, is very busy in these 

 clearances. Filthy odors assailing the sense and striking foul upon 

 the mind, are rejected and forgotten by the satisfaction of spitting. 

 It is not merely the material but the animal sense, not only odor 

 but idea, that is thus cast out : were it the former alone, the nose 

 ought to be blown and not the mouth cleared : whereas stenches 

 cause the holding of the nose : the fingers nip it to take no more, 

 while the downright mouth acquits us of that which is already. 

 The motion concerned in rejection goes some way towards the rid- 

 dance of the mind ; hence inner annoyances of various kinds cause 

 shocks, muscular twitches, efforts, throes, and in short bodily strug- 

 gles, by which their effect is not only symbolized, but in part thrown 

 away. Nature begins the cure of diseases in their own first results 

 upon the instincts. It is where no excretion or movement occur 

 that trouble works with terrible energy upon the vitals : the dry 

 eye of great grief is nearly insane ; its motionless attitude is the 

 frost of catalepsy. But the subject of "casting out" requires a vol- 

 ume. As a practice it is resorted to unconsciously every day in 

 medicine, which stimulates the excretions. We are most familiar 

 with its rationale in our Saviour's casting out of the devils, and 

 their entrance into the herd of swine, as it were the carnal salivary 

 medium which conducted Satan to Satan, or spat the devils into the 

 deep. This miracle is no isolated case, but has little miracles of a 

 similar kind and from the same God, happening constantly in our 

 bodies, the name of whose troubles also is legion. I do not know 

 whether this be not the prime law of excrementitious rejection. It 

 is morally true also, for we have the power of clearing the mind 

 through its nutrient tube, the memory, when evil contents come in, 

 by refusing to think of them, and rejecting them. The excretional 

 herd is always ready, and the infernals beseech to pass into the pigs 

 as soon as the whole man is against them, or the divine power is 

 fully present. 



We have further testimony to the ensoulment of the tube in the 

 play of the emotions upon the appetite of hunger. Who does not 



