442 OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS, common boiler of the stomach, and are carried thence through the intestines, there is a white juice strained out of the strange mixture called chyle, which from the lacteal vessels is conveyed into the blood, and by the laws of nature is converted into the same crimson liquor. This being distributed through all the body by the arteries, is farther strained again through proper vessels, and becomes the spring of nourishmentto every different part of the animal. Thus the God of nature has ordained, that how diverse soever our meats are, they shall first be reduced to an uniform milky liquid, that by new contrivances and divine art, it may be again diversified into flesh and bones, nerves and membranes. How conspicuous, and yet how admirable are the operations of divine wisdom in this single instance of nourish- ment ! But it is no wonder that a God who could create such astonishing and exquisite pieces of machinery as plants and ani- mals, could prescribe such laws to matter and motion as to nou- rish and preserve the individuals, as well as to propagate the species through all ages to the end of time. SECT. V.An amusing Digression concerning the Changes of Matter. PERHAPS it may not be amiss to follow a track of plea- sing amusement, which by a very easy and natural inference arises from the subject in hand, and which was very happily re- presented in a late conversation among some ofthe great and the wise. Theron, a man of wealth and figure, but unacquainted with philosophic science, sat in the midst of his friends of both sexes in a stately room with rich variety of furniture. Among other conversation Theron was complaining, that he had heard it often said, how much we were all indebted to the country and the plough; but for his part he knew no obligation that we had to that low rank of mankind, whose life is taken up in the fields, the woods and the meadows, but that they paid their rents well, that the gentlemen might live at their ease. Critowas pleased to seize the occasion, and entertained the gay audience with a surprising lecture of philosophy. Permit me, Theron, said he, to bean advocate for the pea- sant, and I can draw up a long account of particulars, for which you are indebted to the field and the forest, and to the men that cultivate the ground, and are engaged in rural business. Look around you on all the elegant furniture of the room, survey your own cloathing, cast your eyes on all the spendid array of Therina, and Persis, and the other ladies near them, and you will find, that except a few glittering stones, and a little gold and silver which was dug out of the bowels of the earth, you can scarce see any thing that was not once growing green upon the ground, through the various labours of the planter and the ploughman. Whence came the tfloor you tread on, part whereof is inlaid with
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