290 THE HUMAN FORM. 



whole would evaporate. Furthermore, the mind and muscles take 

 this visceral man into their ranks, give him wholeness of progress, 

 make every grain of his organization human, and stamp it with the 

 spiritual seals. 



We may now go a step farther, to a closer truism, namely, that 

 the human body is alive. This is what we have been endeavoring 

 to prove by elaborate argumentations ! For science does not know 

 this fact with which its neighbors all round are acquainted, being 

 scarcely aware that there is any difference between a corpse and a 

 gentleman, or even that " all flesh is not the same flesh, but there 

 is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts." For to say 

 that the human body is alive, excludes animal life or beast body 

 from the subject, and in this light our truism is not recognized 

 in physiology. 



We must, however, proceed from one truism to another, and 

 further affirm, that the living body is a man, with nothing in him but 

 humanity. We may illustrate this in many ways, for all things 

 preach it. For example, in crystallization, a salt that is broken 

 according to its cleavage, is still a perfect salt of that species ; the 

 smallest crystal is as properly the salt as the largest. What is the 

 corresponding cleavage of the human body ? We do not here 

 enter on the question of substantial separations, but of those of 

 thought, in which the cleavage is the representation of the whole in 

 the parts, of the laws of the body in its members, of humanity in 

 the organs and their elements. Take for instance a papilla of the 

 skin — in this we see a delicate nerve — there is its brain ; a minia- 

 ture system of blood-vessels — there is its heart ; contact with the 

 air and movements communicated from the breast — there is its 

 lung; imbibition of stuff from, and discharge of matter into the 

 atmosphere — there is its stomach : finally, it is part of the covering 

 of the body, and is itself covered with a particular vesture — there 

 is its skin. In this way the parts are integers of the whole, and 

 have both complete minds and bodies, and hence the whole is the 

 microscope that reveals them. Wholes, however, are relative to 

 greater integers of which they are the parts : the individual is a 

 little whole compared to the mind or progressive individual, whose 

 whole is a lifetime ; and this too is small compared with society, 



