EXTRACT XLI.A. 

 ON HUNGER AND THIRST. 



THESE are two expressions that must have been in use 

 since the origin of articulate speech, and which have a 

 more or less definite meaning throughout the whole 

 domain of animated nature, as well as inanimate, for over 

 large tracts of the globe is it not periodically realised that 

 the words " the showers that usher in the spring and 

 cheer the thirsty ground" are true to nature, and that 

 " earth hunger and thirst " is not a mere " form of 

 words," but a truthful description of a natural condition ? 

 The feelings or sensations expressed by them are but too 

 well known to many of the sons and daughters of Adam, 

 and cannot be long absent from the experience of any 

 and every member of the human race. Moreover, they 

 are the great determining agencies in providing for the 

 continuance of life in every living creature, spurring it 

 on to procure the " means of existence " by the assuaging 

 of their imperative insistence and satisfying their demands. 



Do the views expressed in the foregoing pages enable 

 us to realise their meaning to any further extent than 

 " the man in the street" is fully conscious of ? We think 

 they do, and we shall, therefore, attempt to extract some 

 justification for making the sanguine assertion. 



Let us begin with the feeling or sensation of thirst 

 first, because of its greater prevalence and more oft- 

 recurring character, and let us localise the feeling or 

 sensation, so as to derive as much physiological light as 

 these views, when focussed on the subject, can shed on it, 

 in order to perceive, in true perspective, its relationship 



