THE SELF-POSSESSION OF THE SKIN. 269 



mankind. So again, skins are the proper object of the skin ; for 

 this system skims the world, takes a film for itself from every sur- 

 face, and assumes the cream of body as the matter of the sense of 

 touch. This sense is the essence or single substance of the skin, 

 which clothes the mind and the organism with the personable out- 

 sides of things. We are not then to think any longer of assimila- 

 tion as a formula in treating of the skin from its own point of view ; 

 for we have left assimilation behind in the stomach. It is the exter- 

 nal apposition and mutual feeling of the parts which alone belong 

 to the skin. 



"We do not however dwell upon the sense of touch or the pleasures 

 of the skin, for we are not yet treating of the senses, but of the 

 bodily organs. Only let us remember that the armies of the papil- 

 lae, encamped in force upon the frontier wherever great sensation is 

 wanted, and everywhere posted, spaced and grouped for watchful- 

 ness and protection, are armies of industry also, being to their 

 adjacent pores what the hands are to the mouth. They are exqui- 

 sitely quick, attentive and manipulative, and can help the skin to 

 what it may feel, or warn it against destructions or irritations, with 

 an agency more discriminating than our consciousness. But the 

 mind acts with great force upon the skin through the nervous sys- 

 tem, and depressing emotions playing upon the surface, 'destroy its 

 equilibrium, damp its courage, throw it off its guard, and cause it 

 to let in the emanations of disease. Hence during fear the papil- 

 lae desert their posts, and contagion invades us. On the other hand, 

 the might of life is similarly transferable to the skin, which thus 

 encouraged, walks the pest-house unharmed, and feels virtues like 

 its own in the poisons. 



Nor must we forget the motion of the skin, with which we are 

 familiar in the breathing. Our feelings of the universality of 

 respiration are the running accompaniments of the universal respi- 

 ration of the skin. Under this, its constant movement, its other 

 movements are performed. The sympathy of sense between it and 

 the lungs is close : the same air and temperature bathes them 

 both, and the winter that narrows the desires of breath, contracts 

 the skin to fit the diminished visceral spheres. The air and earth 

 of the microcosm both lessen together, and both expand together 



23* 



