INTRODUCTION. THE human body is a living machine, constructed for the use of a spiritual being. It is adapted to the elements amid which it dwells, but, while in its own substance partaking of their nature, it is nevertheless so constituted as to be actuated by powers, the mode of whose existence and operation can not be explained by reference to the known laws of matter. As far as history informs us, mankind have continued, from parent to child, through all generations, from the first pair, with an entail of suffering and disorder, in a manner which science can not explain. The perfection of omnipotent design, in the original formation of a human being, appears to have been disturbed, but how, or why, philosophy can not discover. Undoubtedly, the idea of God was not defective, and Hé can never be disappointed; therefore, while our doubting minds wonder how there can be a difference between the permission and the appointment of the Almighty, our reason, enlightened by Himself, rests assured that it shall hereafter be satisfied that evil itself is but the means of more completely demonstrating the omnipotence of Goodness. Reference to our origin is not unnecessary in such an inquiry as the present. No investigation of God's. works can be properly commenced, nor happily con-: ducted, without regarding the religious bearing of the subject. Science is but meretricious, if not the handmaid of religion. We are never free from obligation to our Maker; and without a distinct acknowledgment of the great First Cause, we can neither reason rightly concerning design, nor form any expectation concerning our individual destiny. The value of satisfying ourselves that the doctrines of the Bible, respecting our Maker, are really His own revelations of himself for our benefit, arises from the certainty that we can not receive them as true without confiding in the benevolence of his purpose and the providence of his power. From this revelation we learn that the human body, stupendous because of its adaptation to the more marvelous soul, was not a gradual invention, but at once produced perfect, with all its organs, constituting an individual harmonious in itself and with the universe. No after-thought was needed for its improvement. The hand that modeled the dust into the abode of a sentient being, touched it with perfection; and no better type of form or finish will be required by the spirit of man through the dispensations of earth, be they dark or be they glorious, than a body like that in which the first man bowed in worship, or walked erect in fellowship with his God. Still we must revert to the fact that the inherited body is prone to disorder, and placed amid a multitude of causes which constantly tend to develop its predisposition to derangement, death, and decay. It therefore remains for us to discover, as best we may, the causes and the cure of all those manifold evils, to which we find both the spiritual and physical modes of our being are now exposed. By studying our nature, we shall the better understand our necessities, and be the better qualified to avoid our dangers or overcome our difficulties. We can not, however, in the least, apprehend the nature of our position, without, in some measure, examining the relation in which we stand to other existences; nor can we fully discern on what our wellbeing depends, without an insight into our formation and some knowledge of the place which we occupy in the universe of God. Every organ of the body is developed according to a specific plan, and for a specific purpose, yet, though perfect in itself as an apparatus adapted to a particular end, it holds relation to other organs and their functions. All the body, united by one life, subserves one soul. Each part harmonizes with the rest, and the purpose of the whole is to furnish a fit medium through which the intelligent spirit may become acquainted, by actual experience and reasonable inference, with the properties of things, and thus supply its innate faculties with appropriate impressions. Ideas are but the images of objects which the mental principle perceives through the bodily senses. The body must, therefore, be fabricated in keeping with the world which it inhabits. Hence we find it subject to the common laws of matter, and only prevented from being resolved into its elements by the life that resides within it. The body is formed with peculiar reference to two principles—namely, motion and perception: motion administering to the desire of action; perception, to the desire of knowledge. The simple idea of a being placed, by Almighty Wisdom, within a body, in order to employ it for intelligence and enjoyment, would appear to re quire that the organization and functions of that body should be so exactly adjusted to the being using them and so perfectly coördinate with the conditions of ex ternal nature, that no disorder might by possibility occur and no pain be experienced, but rather that every per ception should be pleasure, and every action happiness Probably there are such beings, and such abodes among the many mansions of the Father's boundless dwelling |