Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/134

114 that organized matter which forms the stomach, and in the absorbent and secreting vessels with which it is encompassed? Is a separation thus effected between what is salutary to the constitution and what is noxious, so that what is salutary is by degrees incorporated into the life, and what is noxious is discarded and ejected? Is the number of vessels also requisite for these purposes out of the reach of all numerical computation, some of them being so minute as to be indiscernable to the naked eye? Lastly, are we compelled to confess, that a latent superior power, like a skilful but invisible alchemist, is ever present, ever operative, ever watching over, directing and forwarding the above processes? Is this, I say, a correct statement of the practical and experimental philosophy of the human body? Then what intelligent mind is not constrained to exclaim, “Surely the is in this place; and I knew it not:” and then too, observing that the human body is the laboratory of so many wonders, will not the same mind be disposed to add, “This is none other hut the house of, and this is the gate of heaven?”

Astonishing, however, as are these digestions, absorptions, and secretions, when considered as momentarily effected in the kingdom of matter, it ought to be recollected that they become infinitely more so when viewed in their connection with similar processes in