Now, to imagine nutrition passing entirely into the domain of the atmosphere, it is only necessary to observe that, as a whole, a complete aliment is made up of albumen, of sugar, of fat, and of salt, and to imagine also that an atmospheric fluid, in place of being composed of azote and of oxygen only, should be formed of these different substances in a gaseous state. These aliments are found in the solids that you absorb; digestion is the function which separates them, and which causes them to assimilate with the organs to which they belong. When, for example, you eat a morsel of bread, you introduce into your stomach a grain of starch, a substance insoluble in water, and which is not found in the blood. The saliva, and the pancreatic juice, transform the insoluble starch into soluble sugar. The bile, the pancreatic juice, and the intestinal secretions, change the sugar into fat. Both sugar and fat are present in the blood, and it is by the processes of alimentation that substances are separated and assimilated in your body. It astonishes you, my friend, that after living five years--according to terrestrial reckoning--in the celestial world, I can remember all these material terms, and condescend to make use of them. But the memories that I have brought from the Earth are still vivid, and as we speak on this occasion on a question of organic physiology, I do not feel ashamed of calling things by their own names. If, then, we suppose that in place of being combined or mixed in the constitution of bodies, solid or liquid, these aliments could be found in a gaseous state in the composition of the atmosphere, we should create by this means nutritive atmospheres, which would dispense with digestion and its attendant coarse and humiliating functions. That which man is capable of imagining in the restricted sphere of his observation, Nature has put in practice in more than one spot of the universe. Besides, I can assure you that when one has ceased to be accustomed to this material process of the introduction of nourishment into the digestive tube, one cannot avoid being impressed with its coarseness. This was the reflection I made a few days ago whilst observing one of the richest countries on your planet. I was struck by the suave and angelic beauty of a maiden, reclining in a gondola as it floated gently on the blue waters of the Bosphorus before Constantinople. Red velvet cushions, embroidered with brilliant silks, whose heavy tassels of gold touched the water, formed the divan of this young Circassian. Before her knelt a little black slave playing upon some stringed instrument. Her form was so juvenile and graceful, her bended arm so elegant, her eyes so pure and innocent, her pensive brow so calm under the light of heaven, that for an instant I was captivated by a kind of retrospective admiration for this masterpiece of living nature.