The Law of Labor [pp. 404-419]

THE LAW OF LABOR.
port of the animal, while a considerable portion of the inorganic
substances make up the vegetable.
But we must view this subject in another aspect. A living
body has no power of forming elements, or of converting one ele
mentary substance into another; and it therefore follows, that the
elements of which the body is composed, must be the elements of
its food. The essential constituents of the human body are thir teen; and the same, therefore, must be the elements of our food.
They consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus,
sulphur, iron, chlorine, sodium; calcium, potassium, magnesium,
and fluorine. Traces of silicon, lithia, iodine, manganese, and al uminum, are also met with in a few animal substances. Silica
forms a principal element in the ash of plants, but only a trace of
it can be detected in the ash of animal matter.
It is not necessary to our purpose to examine in detail the sub ject of the transfer of the fibrin, albumen, casein, etc., of vege bles. into the muscle, the blood, the brain, the skin, and the bones
of animals, by the process of digestion and assimilation. It will
be understood from what has been said, that plants are merely a
species of manufactory, where food is prepared in such form that
the animal can build up and subsist its own body with the least
possible trouble; and that, in eating animal flesh, we eat a more
concentrated form of nitrogenized substances, that can only be had
in a vastly greater bulk of vegetable diet.
It must now be apparent, that the primary conditions of the
maintenance of animal life, are a constant supply of articles of
vegetable food and of oxygen in the shape of atmospheric air;
that man can secure his food only by carefully superintending the
production of ample supplies of edible vegetables for himself and
for the animals that are necessary to his purposes; and that all
this requires a rigid obedience to the demands of the Law of
Labor.
It will also be perceived, that in the endless series of compounds
produced from the simple elements existing in nature, by chemical
action, under the control of the law of life, there is no blank or in terruption; the first substance capable of affording nutriment to
animals, being the last -product of the creative energy of vege tables. The one begins where the other ends its work. The first
is servant to the last. And, taking a wider view, so as to em brace the common rocks, precious stones, metals, and the products
of the sea, which are useful in architecture, arts, manufactures,
agriculture, or for food, we will find that nothing has been made
in vain or for naught; but that every element existing in nature
belongs to the treasures which the beneficent Creator has laid up
in store for the use of man; and that they are ceaselessly moving
in one vast cycle, being combined, decomposed and re-combined,
over and over again, in metalic, mineral, vegetable, and animal
organisms, for the use of the successive generations of men.
A remark or two, and we have done with this division of our
subject of investigation.
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