ON THE DIGESTIVE FUNCTION, ETC. 



and previously to its being sent to the Royal Society was read over before 

 the patient's parents, who were known to be persons of great honesty, as 

 also before the elder of the parish, who appears to have been an excellent 

 man ; and, when sent, was accompanied by a certificate as to the general 

 truth of the facts, signed by the minister of the parish, the sheriff-depute, 

 and six other individuals of the neighbourhood, of high character, and most 

 of them justices of the peace. 



Yet even with the freest use of water, what can we make of such cases 

 upon any chain of chemical facts at present discovered ? what can we 

 make of it even in conjunction with the use of air ? The weight and solid 

 contents of the animal body is derived chiefly from that principle which 

 modetn chemists denominate carbone ; yet neither water nor air, when in 

 a state of purity, contains a particle of carbone. i\gain the substance of 

 the animal frame is distinguisheci from that of the vegetable by its being 

 saturated with nitrogene, of which plants possess comparatively but very 

 little ; yet though the basis of atmospherical air consists of nitrogene, 

 water has no more of this principle than it has of carbone ; nor is it hitherto 

 by any means established, that even the nitrogene of the animal system is 

 in any instance derived from the air, or introduced by the process of re- 

 spiration : for the experiments upon this subject, so far as they go, are in 

 a state of opposition, and keep the question on a bsds-nce—factis contraria 

 facta. 



Shall we then suppose with others, that the circle of perpetual mutation, 

 which is imposed upon every other species of visible matter, is in these 

 cases suspended, and that the different organs of the system are, so long 

 as the anomaly continues, rendered incorruptible. But this is to suppose 

 the intervention of a miracle, and without an adequate cause. Let us 

 then rather confess our ignorance than attempt to be wise upon the basis 

 of conceit. All that we do know is, that bodies of every kind are reducible 

 to a few elementary principles, which appear to be unchangeable, and are 

 certainly invisible ; and that from different combinations and modifications 

 of these proceeds every concrete and visible form : hence air itself, and 

 water : hence mineral, vegetable, and animal substances. Air, therefore, 

 and water, or either separately, may contain the rudi mental materials of 

 all the rest. We behold metallic stones, and of large magnitude, fall from 

 the air, and we suppose them to be formed there : we behold plants sus- 

 pended in the atmosphere, and still, year after year, thriving and bloomings 

 and difliising odours : we behold insects apparently sustained from the 

 same source ; and worms, fishes, and occasionally man himself, supported 

 from the one or the other, or from both. These are facts, and as facts 

 alone we must receive them, for we have at present no means of reasoning 

 upon them. There are innumerable mysteries in matter as well as iff 

 mind ; and we are not yet acquainted with the nature of those elementary 

 principles from which every compound proceeds, and to which every thing* 

 is reducible. We are equally ignorant of their shapes, their weight, oi? 

 their measure. 



