You may be certain, he would like to know, how many boilers, cylinders, valves, wires, ladles, oars, pumps, hooks, pins, spokes, and knobs there may be in this factory; more especially would he wish to know, whether the engine of this wonderful establishment be made of steel, wood, cast-iron, silver or gold, or of diamonds.
Now, if you were to tell him, "It contains nothing of the kind. Of all the factories you have seen in your life, there is none that bears any resemblance to this one. And I will tell you furthermore, that it is not even a complete factory, but it is continually developing; it becomes larger and heavier like the child's body itself; moreover, the factory does not consist of iron or steel, nor of gold or diamonds, but it reproduces itself at every moment; it does so merely from the milk that the child drinks,"—then, to be sure, your hearer would begin to doubt his own senses; he would exclaim: "What is the intellect of the intelligent, the judgment of the judicious, what is the wisdom of the wise, when compared to a little of the mother's milk?"
And yet, you are well aware, my friendly reader, that mother's milk is, after all, nothing but milk; and that milk, again, is nothing but a means of nutrition; and nutrition, in its turn, is nothing but a part of the action of the human body.
May I hope that you will favor me with your attention, while, in a few articles, I speak to you about the nutrition of the human body?
CHAPTER II.
MAN THE TRANSFORMED FOOD.
Before speaking of the process of nutrition in the human body, we must first obtain a correct idea of what is meant by nutrition.
Why are we obliged to eat?
Of course we know that hunger forces us to do so. But every one is aware also, that above all we must ask, whence hunger arises; that we must first get better acquainted with hunger itself, in order to understand nutrition.