an illustration of this opinion, it was maintained, even by
Aristotle[1], that "food, taken into its appointed receptacles,
is vaporised and transmitted to the veins, in which,
undergoing change, it is converted into blood, and car-
ried onward to the heart."
Note 5, p. 81. There are here three things, &c.] The meaning of this passage, apart from its scientific wording, is sufficiently obvious—that which nourishes is food when digested; for food both acts and is acted upon by the body, and, when so acted upon, it is assimilated to and incorporated with its substance, through the blood. But food, being dead, is contrary to the living matter, which has, however, power to convert it into like, to assimilate it, that is, to the living system. Thus, food, in its first state, is contrary to or unlike, and in its last, or concocted state, it is like the body; and, therefore, the same element is in one sense contrary, and in another sense like, acting upon a contrary or like. So too the rudder, which directs the vessel, represents the stomach, which converts the food into nourishment for the body; and the sensibility, which gives power to the stomach, represents the hand which, through the rudder, directs the motion of the vessel; and the vessel is analogous to the body which is nourished.
- ↑ De Somno, 3. 3.
