THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 127 



reasonable ; as absurd as to expect astronomy to put 

 us in possession of property in the moon, say, the " three 

 acres and the cow" that jumped over that luminary. 



The very business of Chemistry is to alter and re- 

 arrange the molecules of matter, and the proper con- 

 dition of food for man is that particular arrangement in 

 which sun and plant power have left them ; nay, even 

 too long delay will permit the subtle energy to escape, 

 and none must rudely violate that shrine of the 

 sun-god, which is concealed in the foliage of all vege- 

 tation, on pain of being misled by false oracles, from 

 deceiving influences which then enter Apollo's de- 

 serted sanctuary. 



For Chemistry is the King Midas of the sciences, 

 and turns to gold whatever it touches ; but in so doing 

 it fatally unfits whatever it but touches for human food. 



And just as in the old myth when Midas was ap- 

 pointed umpire in the contest between Pan and 



proximate principles from their elements ; and have only to re- 

 arrange them as their exigencies may require. The task of form- 

 ing the proximate principles is thus left to the inferior animals, or 

 to plants ; which are endowed with the capacity of compounding 

 these proximate principles from matters still lower in the scale 

 of organisation than the animals and plants themselves. Hence 

 there is a series, from the lowest being that derives its nourish- 

 ment from carbon and carbonic acid, up to the most perfect 

 animal existing: ea.ch individual of the series preferring to 

 assimilate other individuals immediately below itself; but 

 having on extraordinary occasions the power of assimilating all, 

 not only below but above itself, in the system of organised 

 creation." (Dr. Prout's Stom. and Ren. Dis., Syd. Soc., p. 459.) 

 Here we have in Prout's own words a splendid example of the 

 two fatal defects of his learned and ingenious system : 



1. Classification of food, based on chemical composition. 



2. Almost total ignoring of the Law of Interchange. 



