THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 235 



embryonic sensation, to the crowning marvel of con- 

 sciousness and inspired thought ; all the phenomena in 

 the human being are subject to law; and many of these, 

 of much consequence to bodily and mental health, and for 

 the regulation of life, physiologists have already mastered 

 for us. When the various functions duly perform their 

 work, when the whole mechanism, bodily and mental, 

 works smoothly and harmoniously, there is annexed to 

 this state the general sense of health, and feeling of joy 

 and satisfaction in existence; but when any of them 

 fails, when any part of the bodily machinery is out of 

 order, when a certain organ performs its function badly, 

 when the normal relation between important organs is 

 disturbed, or their mutual action perverse, the earth 

 becomes for us " a sterile promontory," and all happiness 

 is attacked at the root. True, some organs may dis- 

 charge their functions ill, without impairing our spirits, 

 but in these cases we are often lulled into a false 

 security. The general rule, however, is that disordered 

 function, however slight, affects our spirits ; when more 

 serious, it produces disease ; and in both cases diminishes 

 happiness or satisfaction in existence. Moreover, our 

 bodily system is a machine so delicate that it is subject 

 to all kinds of disturbing and disordering causes short 

 of those which stop its further action by breaking it up 

 completely. It is subject, in addition, to all "the skyey 

 influences," to evil influences from our fortunes, our 

 fellows, our ill-adapted or adverse circumstances, our 

 passions, as well as to mysterious possibilities of dis- 

 turbance or sudden failure inherited from our ancestors, 

 and lying sleeping possibly for years in the ultimate 

 atoms and cells of the frame. All this Modern Science, 

 physiology and embryology, has taught us ; but she has 

 done more than point out the evil r she has come to our 



