distribute nourishment to every part, and having digested
the supplies, filled the veins with pure and wholesome
blood."
The analogy, which this fable bore to the sedition of the Roman people, was understood and felt. The discontented multitude saw that the state of man described by Menenius, was like to an insurrection. They returned to Rome, and submitted to legal government. Tempore, quo in homine non, ut nunc, omnia in unum consentiebant, sed singulis membris suum cuique consilium, sum sermo fuerat, indignatas reliquas partes, suâ curâ, suo labore, ac ministerio, ventri omnia quæri; ventrem in medio quietum, nihil aliud, quam datis voluptatibus frui; conspirasse inde, ne manus ad os cibum ferrent, nec os acciperit datum, nec dentes conficerent. Hac irâ dum ventrem fame domare vellent, ipsa unâ membra, totumque corpus ad extremam tabem venisse. Inde apparuisse, ventris quoque haud segne ministerium esse; nec magis ali quam alere eum; reddentem in omnes corporis partes hunc, quo vivimus vigemusque, divisum, pariter in venas, maturum confecto cibo sanguinem. Livy, lib. ii. s. 32. St. Paul has made use of a similar argument;
"The body is not one member, but many: if the foot shall
say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it,
therefore, not of the body? and if the ear shall say,
Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it,
therefore, not of the body? If the whole body were an eye,
where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where