And, too, this inorganic life may be parted from the plant or vegetable, if it be too long severed from the medium which transmits the spiritual life, from the inorganic world to that of organic matter. Vegetables, fresh from the ground, or parent stem, retain this life if at once prepared for food, if not overcooked, which is so often ignorantly done. This is the secret of sustenance from foods. Nature's perfected fruits and vegetables are overflowing with the life-giving essences, and, if eaten direct from the tree or parent stem, that life is not lost, but transmitted to our organisms, and replenishes the wasting system with a living life. Much less of such food is required to completely satisfy and nourish the body than if the life had partly departed or been destroyed. Briefly stated, then, everything within organic Nature is the expressional symbolic manifestation of spirit; every form being a congregation of innumerable atoms of life, revealing their presence in material states; each organic form, or, rather, organism, evolving under the central control of some dominating Deific atom or soul, which, by virtue of past incarnations and labors in its cycle of evolution, from the mineral up to man, has achieved the royal prerogative to rule within its own state. Man being the highest representative form--the grand finale in the earthly drama--sums up and contains within himself everything below, and THE GERMS OF EVERYTHING BEYOND, THIS STATE. He is truly a microcosm, and represents in miniature the grand Cosmic Man of the Heavens. Every living force beneath him corresponds to some state, part, or function, which he has graduated through and conquered, and which, in him, has now become embodied, as a part of his universal kingdom. Consequently, all things are directly related to him, in the grand universal unity of spiritual life. This cannot be realized and comprehended by the physical man, nor conveyed to his outer senses by the physical sciences. He must bring into active use the inner man, the real being, which inhabits and controls the outer organism, and through its instrumentality, understand the interior source and workings behind the phenomena of manifested being. So we see that, exact science cannot take us far, yet, it is a mighty factor, in the evolution of the microcosm Man, and in consciously relating him to the Infinite Macrocosm--God, Spirit, All. CHAPTER VIII. ALCHEMY-PART II Paracelsus, the most celebrated of the alchemists of the Middle Ages, thus mystically speaks of his art: