The evils that arise from pernicious drugs, which have swept away millions, and which will destroy the whole species if no reform takes place, originate in misunderstanding the first or acute attack, which is but an attempt of nature to heal. Men take acute attacks for disease, whilst _in reality they are the means by which the system is relieved of disease_. Bleeding, blistering, cupping, and drugging, subdue these efforts,--not by emancipating the system, but by so reducing it that it can no longer contend with its enemy. Men praised the unlucky discovery, and hence a host of deadly diseases took their origin, such as destructions and suppurations of the inner organs, dropsy, etc.: complaints which were hardly known in times of yore, and which, but for these causes, would never have reared their heads. However, as the lamentable consequences in some cases do not appear until years after the suppression of the acute conflict, no one thinks of attributing them to drugs. This drug-plague is the most dreadful malady mankind has to contend with; dug by themselves from the black abysses of the earth, it has been cherished as the effect of deep science for centuries; how frequently has the last shilling been offered up at its altar! Upon it as many millions have been spent as would pay off the National Debt: to the study of these dangerous errors, millions of men have applied the whole of their lives and their ability: backed by this so-called science, they contend against nature; but _how_ does Nature punish those who wish to master her? Oh, great unspeakable Nature! how dreadfully beautiful art thou, in thy inexorable and destroying severity! Mankind may still turn back, and regenerate health; but it is not sufficient for them to renounce physic: they must abandon wine, spirits, and poison, in every shape. For the curing of disease, we must not look into the grey mysteries of the future, but far behind us, on the green plain of Nature, and of the times which are past. XXIX.--ASSIMILATION. The preservation of life requires not only that its consumption should be reduced, but its restoration rendered more easy. For this purpose two things are necessary, the perfect assimilation of that which is beneficial, the separation from that which is injurious. Life, as will be seen from the following definition, depends upon the identification, the assimilation, and the animalisation of external matter by the vital power, in its passage from the chemical to the organic world. The power of assimilating other substances into itself is the fundamental principle of nature. This impulse and power is not only prevalent in all organic matter, but also in elemental bodies, that is to say, water, earth, and fire. The globe in the beginning was a rigid rock, upon which air and water effected their power of assimilation.