They all, however, in return give to the blood their waste particles, which it carries to that part of the human body where they may be secreted.
If any member of the body is so bound, that the blood cannot circulate, it must decay; for the life of the body consists in its constant change and transformation, in the continual exchange of fresh substances for waste ones. But this vital exchange is only kept up by the constant circulation of the blood, which, while it decreases by being transformed into vital parts of the body, is always formed anew by our daily food.
Food is therefore very justly called "Means of Existence," and the blood may rightly be called the "Juice of Life."
CHAPTER VII.
CIRCULATION OF MATTER.
Thus we have seen that the human body is vital blood, transformed and solidified. Now, blood is food transformed; food consists of primary elements prepared and changed by nature; hence, man himself is primary matter transformed and vivified.
But the human race being thousands and thousands of years old, and there being upon the earth besides man the whole of the animal kingdom, developing, preserving, and nourishing itself bodily like man; the question arises: Whence do they all come, these primary elements that are obliged forever to undergo transformation before they can become animated vital matter? Do these primary elements not incessantly decrease during the long process of their being changed into plants and consumed by man and animal, in order to form human and animal bodies afterwards?
The answer to this interesting question has been given already. The human body is not framed or created anew at every moment by food; but it is at every moment, that small particles of the human body die. These particles are returned to mother earth from which they sprang, thus going back to the primary elements.
It is not only those who are dead, that render to the earth what belongs to her, that return to nature what she gave them; but in a far greater degree it is the living, that pay their debt to nature.