28 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



well differ. The one is of a beautiful, bright, 

 vermilion colour, teaming with the living prin- 

 ciple, pregnant with all those elements from which 

 the whole of the body, and all its fluids, except one, 

 are elaborated, and in a condition readily and in- 

 stantly to part with those elements, each at the 

 proper moment and in the proper place, accord- 

 ingly as the nutrition of the several parts of the 

 body requires them. This vermilion blood is, as 

 it were, in a state of excitement, being surcharged, 

 not with the principles of electricity, but with the 

 principles of living matter ; and, as it circulates 

 through the minute vessels, parts with those living 

 elements with the readiness and freedom with which 

 a highly -excited body parts with its electricity. 

 This blood is conveyed in vessels called arteries. 

 The other kind of blood is a filthy, thick, purplish, 

 blackish, inky puddle, unendowed with any good 

 quality, endowed with many pernicious ones, produc- 

 tive of much mischief, but incapable of any one good 

 with which I am acquainted ; save only, that from it 

 the bile is formed. This blood is contained in ves- 

 sels called veins. Some of the principal differences 

 between arteries and veins are the following : The 

 arteries carry the living blood from the heart to 

 every point of the body, The veins, like so many 



