Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/208

188 And first, in regard to bodily health, I wish to observe, that the expression suggests a complex idea, viz. that of a living, active, and healing principle, combined with a dead, passive, and material subject,—inasmuch as every day’s experience testifies, that the body doth not inherently, or of itself, possess health. The above healing principle therefore, in respect to the body, may be considered as life in respect to the soul, since, as the soul is a spiritual form and substance, created to receive life from, in like manner the body is a form and substance created to receive a principle of health from the same. As the soul, again, is perfectly distinct from the life which it receives, in like manner the body is perfectly distinct from the healing principle which it receives.

It is then another wonder, in addition to those which have been noticed in my former letters, that there exists in the bodies, both of men and other animals, a healing principle, which is ever at hand, and ready to exert its blessed influence, by repairing injuries and expelling diseases. Of this fact you may have, at any moment, an experimental proof. For only cut your finger, and then bind up the wound, so as to secure it from the disturbance which outward objects might occasion, and how suddenly do the dissevered parts meet together, and recover their former harmony and