Human Life. 



191 



the body material wherever it touches it ; but as the 

 creature became more complex, in course of time 

 there was built up a separate apparatus for digest- 

 ive purposes. At first 

 this was but a simple 

 thing, a tube running 

 through the body of the 

 lowly, worm - like crea- 

 ture, by which food could 

 be received, moistened, 

 made soluble, and 

 drawn into the hungry 

 tissues, the waste being 

 rejected. Such a tube, 

 having developed to 

 serve the needs of the 

 simple creatures whence 

 it originated, is seen 

 to have been retained 

 through form after 

 form of higher ex- 

 istences, growing 

 more complex with 

 glands and convol- 

 utions as the neces- 

 sity for greater nu- 

 trition increased, but never quite losing its primi- 

 tive form, and through all life, including that of 

 man, remaining but a tube for the transformation 

 of crude food materials into soluble matter grate- 

 ful to the hungry tissues. 



