WITH RELATION TO VITALITY. 41 



gans, be rendered fluid, any more than the other 

 could be rendered gelatinous or solid and, in 

 neither case, could it ultimately be fashioned or 

 formed into the different and varied parts, for 

 which it was especially designed. 



The same reasoning equally applies to its 

 attributes of color and of flavor. If any parti- 

 cular color in the food, permanently inhered, 

 that color would be constantly retained ; by 

 being retained, it would be always imparted to 

 the blood, and the complexion, instead of being 

 different in the individual of every species, 

 would be invariably the same. This is proved 

 when substances are introduced for food, whose 

 sensible properties cannot be altogether oblite- 

 rated. Hence it is, that madder imparts a red, 

 turmeric, a yellow, color to the system at large. 

 No proof, indeed, is more strong, of the disor- 

 ganisation total and complete, which the most 

 minute particles of matter, in general, undergo 

 by the process of digestion, than the loss of 

 flavor and of color which they suffer; the 

 most odorous and sapid, are rendered inodo- 

 rous and tasteless, the most colored, (as far as 

 it is possible) colorless, retaining no quality 

 whatever, bulk alone excepted. 



It is by the energy of this same living power, 

 resident in the seed of plants, and in the fecun- 

 dated ova of animals, that the acorn becomes 

 evolved into an oak, the infant foliage expand- 



