Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/135

Rh the kingdom of mind, and especially when seen as figurative of these latter processes.

You are surprised, I see, at hearing of any such connection and figure: allow me then to endeavour to explain myself on the interesting subject.

In my former letters on the bodily senses, and also on the bodily acts of eating and drinking, I have attempted to convince you, that there is nothing transacted in the body of man, in a bodily way, but what is transacted also in his spirit in a spiritual way; thus that as the body sees, hears, smells, feels, eats, and drinks, so likewise doth the mind, or spirit—with this only difference, that all those acts, in one instance are of the body in conjunction with its mind, or spirit, and in the other instance are solely and exclusively of the mind. The mind therefore hath its food, as well as the body, which mental food is every thing that hath respect to science, intelligence, and wisdom. Consequently, the mind hath its faculty of digesting its food, since intelligence is nothing else but well digested science; and wisdom is nothing else but well digested intelligence; and accordingly the term digestion is applied to the mind by the best English writers, as your own extensive acquaintance with those writers may serve to convince you.

But if digestion be applicable to the mind, so likewise