Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/114

94 this appetite, and whence comes it? That it is not something inherent in the human frame, so as to be necessarily connected with it, is evident from the consideration above adverted to, that man cannot always command it. In the next place, for the act of eating there is required, in general, the act of mastication or chewing; and for the acts both of eating and drinking, the act of deglutition or swallowing; and afterwards the act of digesting, before the food can be admitted and incorporated in the body: yet how plain is it to see, that all the wisdom of man is utterly unable either to explain, or even discover, all the deep mysteries involved in each of these acts! We are compelled, then, to look to a power above ourselves for the solution of these otherwise inextricable arcana; and we are encouraged to do so by the reflection, that the confession of our ignorance may possibly conduct us to the blessed acknowledgment, made by the holy man of old, “''Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?” [''Psalm cxxxix. 5, 6, 7.]

Yet stupendous as is the consideration of this proximate end of eating and drinking, and of the means employed in its accomplishment, how do all its