Now, with propositions of this kind I never find fault. I am satisfied to play my part as a biped in this breathing world, and to go out of it too, without any rivalry with Methuselah. But I'll tell you with what I am by no means satisfied,--nor shall I ever feel satisfied--nor do I entertain any sentiment within a thousand miles of gratitude to the man who tells me, that food--beef and mutton, veal, lamb, &c.--are nothing but gas and glue. The wretch who found out the animiculas in clean water was bad enough. There are simple-minded people who actually take this as a beverage: what must be their feelings now, if they reflect on the myriads of small things like lobsters, with claws and tails, all fighting and swallowing each other, that are disporting in their stomachs? But only think of him who converts your cutlet into charcoal, and your steak into starch! It may stick to your ribs after that, to be sure; but will it not stick harder to your conscience? With what pleasure do you help yourself to your haunch, when the conviction is staring you in the face, that what seems venison is but adipose matter and azote? That you are only making a great Nassau balloon of yourself when you are dreaming of hard condition, and preparing yourself for the fossil state when blowing the froth off your porter. Of latter years the great object of science would appear to be an earnest desire to disenchant us from all the agreeable and pleasant dreams we have formed of life, and to make man insignificant without making him humble. Thus, one class of philosophers labour hard to prove that manhood is but monkeyhood--that a slight adaptation of the tail to the customs of civilized life has enabled us to be seated; while the invention of looking-glasses, bear's grease, cold cream, and macassar, have cultivated our looks into the present fashion. Another, having felt over our skulls, gravely asserts, “There is a _vis à tergo_ of wickedness implanted in us, that must find vent in murder and bloodshed.” While the magnetic folk would make us believe that we are merely a kind of ambulating electric-machine, to be charged at will by the first M. Lafontaine we meet with, and mayhap explode from over-pressure. While such liberties are taken with us without, the case is worse within. Our circulation is a hydraulic problem; our stomach is a mill--a brewing vat--a tanner's yard--a crucible, or a retort. You yourself, in all the resplendent glory of your braided frock, and your decoration of the Guelph, are nothing but an aggregate of mechanical and chemical inventions, as often going wrong as right; and your wife, in the pride of her Parisian bonnet, and robe _à la Victorine_, is only gelatine and adipose substance, phosphate of lime, and a little arsenic.