160 ASSIMILATION AND ITS ORGANS. 



come into dietetic use. Yet we cannot infer that food and medicine 

 are the same thing, though they touch each other and are not in- 

 compatible at the extremes. 



However this may be, the nomenclature of a subject from its 

 abuses is inadmissible : we might as well name rich and provocative 

 viands from gluttony as good wine from drunkenness. We might 

 call fruits after diarrhoea, plum-pudding after vomiting, or peas after 

 flatulence. But who would have evil courage enough to go through 

 with such a dictionary ? 



But here the chemists occur, and tell us that alcohol is never 

 absorbed j they have smelt the brains of sots, and the reek of un- 

 altered liquor was manifest in the tissues. Thence they argue that 

 stimulants are poisons which the body naturally refuses. We 

 distrust this argument from drunkards to humanity and from the 

 dead to the living. Bather let good men's boards be canvassed, 

 where temperance reigns, and let it be seen whether there is no 

 assimilation of wine. Surely the flow of soul can drink the 

 measured cup, and fill its mood better than when the intellectual fire 

 is dry. It is at banquets like Plato's that wine is vindicated. 

 Their guests show the scope of human assimilation. What this is 

 in extenso may be briefly sketched in an English fashion. The 

 laborer wants the support of labor in good solid food, which under 

 the magic of assimilation becomes muscle and sinew. The artisan 

 wants nicer feeding, to support and not overbear the finesse of his 

 fingers. Intellectual artisans need greater temperance still. We 

 are now speaking of the hours of work. As for stimulants, the 

 laborer may moderately mingle them with his food ; the hayfield 

 and cornfield, especially at cutting and reaping times, are wisely wet 

 with cans of wholesome harvest ale. But as we rise in the quality 

 of labor, work and stimulants are more incompatible ; for the edge 

 of the eye must be sharp and hard to bear the weight of the soul 

 behind it. So much for work, which thus becomes ascetic, or shall 

 we say, stimulating in itself, and intolerant of secondary excite- 

 ments. The case alters in play hours, when a new set of faculties 

 and feelings, and a new set of assimilations begin. The spirit of 

 play mates with the spirit of wine ) the pleasant emotions and the 

 brilliant saws and dreams of society, like wine-lilies naturally rock 



