VASTNESS OF THE ASSIMILATIVE FUNCTION. 165 



is the home of the virtues and powers, which shelters them in their 

 nonage, and which they enlarge and furnish in their maturity, until 

 it includes the images, pictures and tastes of them all. Or again it 

 is the native land of man as different from the beasts. Or to speak 

 without figure, temperance, including eating as well as drinking, is 

 the foundation of our refinement, as involving constant acts of 

 physical judgment or bodily wisdom. Intemperance is the devil 

 opposite to this angel, temperance. It dulls every sense, burns out 

 passion prematurely, and turns the mild light of intelligence, as it 

 flickers towards extinction, into a horrid reproach against a swine- 

 hood which is reeling down to disciplines of which total abstinence 

 is but a shadow. For intemperance fosters and aggravates nearly 

 every disease that flesh is heir to, and sharpens the power and sting 

 of every sin, nay, calls out fresh legions of infernals : the ghastly 

 troops of malady and wickedness deploy before it, and muster, as 

 on a field day of death, where excess of wine is a prevalent vice 

 among the people.* 



But now to recur to our main subject, the vastness of the assim- 

 ilative function may be comprehended from the great agencies set 

 in motion by the palate and the stomach. The skin or cloth-making 

 spirit enjoys a considerable realm, but the spirit of the stomach is 

 the owner of three-fourths of the world's navies, the ultimate land- 

 lord of three-fourths of the cultivable earth. Every sea is benetted 

 with the lacteals of the social intestines ; every road is laid down 

 from men to men, as a vessel for food. Agriculture and commerce 

 in their staples are an instinctive obedience to the claims of the 

 belly. Armies are the guardians of its interests ; and the dynasties 

 of a thousand years are transmitted in security, or rock and dissolve, 

 according to the dinners of the people. Such is the material force 

 conferred upon hunger, thirst and assimilation. And in working 

 out this destiny, whereby the globe is remodeled upon the base- 

 ment story of the human body, and converges to our mouths by 

 trains of produce from every climate, man grows socially also, and 



* To those who wish to know what can be said chemically, medically and 

 experimentally in favor of total abstinence, we recommend the perusal of Dr. 

 Carpenter's essay, On the Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Liquors in Health and 

 Disease ; 8vo., London, 1850. 



