GENERAL FUNCTIONS. 253 



What is true of the man, is true of bis molecules. The microscope 

 affirms that the smallest organic atoms which are visible are little 

 rounded vesicles or cells, very similar in appearance to some of those 

 low forms of animal life denominated infusoria. These cells are the 

 brick-field of the animal body, and each of them with its contents is 

 a small skinful of liquid. Here we have the simplest form of active 

 and passive — of skin and fluid ; and if in imagination you attempt 

 to skin the primordial vesicle, you have the simplest instance of what 

 would happen if you could abstract the skin from the human body. 

 For the frame in its mighty details is even such a vesicle, but con- 

 tracted into chambers innumerable, and its wall folded inwards into 

 the whole complexity of our organization. 



Let us, however, concentrate attention upon the skin proper, es 

 being the face and index of the other skins, observing first, that the 

 general presence to which we allude in speaking of the skin, is a fact 

 which holds, in structure or in function, of every great division of 

 the organism. If the skin passes inwards, and seems, as we trace 

 it, to be the whole body, the same wholeness and ubiquity may be 

 alleged for other parts. Any separate life can be pursued to the 

 end of the frame. The arteries and veins, issuing from the heart, 

 so permeate the regions, organs and tissues, that when they are in- 

 jected with wax or mercury, the shape of the parts seems complete, 

 though with nothing but blood-vessels. The nerves likewise form a 

 tree which ramifies everywhere; which has eyes, nose and mouth, 

 body, limbs, and ends; and in short, represents the human shape. 

 Even the viscera, as the lungs, the liver, and the like, which do not 

 substantially extend beyond a limited space, yet reach by their mo- 

 tions, fluids and influences to the body at large, and draw their sup- 

 port from the common stock, whether far or near. The human body 

 consists of universal principles; it is one system, or many systems, 

 according as it is viewed ; and every part is in all, and for all. Man 

 therefore is the coalescence of many men, each fulfilling the inter- 

 stices of duty that the others do not occupy, and this plenitude it is 

 which makes him into a substance, private from the world. There 

 is no room in his body, but only humanity completing humanity. 

 This is nowhere better exemplified than in the skin, which is the 

 end of the whole and the parts. For the skin-man stands beyond 

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