Letters on the Human Body/Letter 6
LETTER VI.
On the Bodily Acts of Eating and Drinking, and on the Spiritual Eating and Drinking to which they point.
- My Dear Sir,
My Dear Sir, It is highly satisfactory to me to learn, that you become every day more and more interested in the philosophy of the human body, and that this interest has increased with your perusal of my former letters on the five bodily senses. Encouraged therefore by your partiality for the subject, as well as by its own intrinsic importance, I shall willingly proceed, in compliance with your request, to make some further remarks on what appears to me to be the first and grandest object of philosophical investigation. Allow me then now to call your attention to the two extraordinary, yet ordinary, bodily acts of eating and drinking.
In these acts is exemplified another remarkable case of the effect of custom, in its tendency to render man insensible to the greatest of all mercies and wonders, for no other reason than because they are of daily occurrence, and common alike to all ranks and descriptions of mankind. For how few, at this day, give themselves time to reflect on the various appetites, operations, and provisions, such as hunger and thirst, mastication, deglutition, a supply of food, &c., involved in these acts; and how much fewer, on the powers and instruments necessary to produce those appetites, operations, and provisions! We are made sensible every day of the desire of meat and drink, but where is the man who considers seriously whence that desire proceeds, and that it originates in principles over which he himself has no control, as is evident from the fact, that he cannot at all times command it? We, again, masticate, or chew, our food, and we also swallow it; but whence comes it to pass, that we so seldom, if ever, reflect on the astonishing combination of powers and instruments conducive to effect these purposes! Meat and drink, again, are brought every day to our tables, but (Oh, shame to our want of thought and gratitude!) how rarely do we inquire in our own minds and consciences, to WHOM we are indebted for such blessings, and by what an union of Divine mercy, wisdom, and providence we are made the happy partakers of them!
It is surely high time then to recollect ourselves, that we may no longer eat and drink like brute beasts which have no understanding, but may rather assert the noble privilege we enjoy, as men, and especially as Christians, of regarding an eternal end in all that we think and do. It is time, I say, to take away our reproach, by acting up to the sacred name and character which belong to us; and with this view, by taking into serious consideration both the ends of our daily eating and drinking, and also the means by which that end is every day promoted.
And first, in respect to the ends of eating and drinking.
These ends may be regarded in a threefold point of view, viz. as proximate, more remote, and ultimate; and therefore it will be necessary to consider each of these ends separately, before we can acquire a clear and full idea of the grand and comprehensive design and purpose of the bodily acts of eating and drinking.
Allow me then to call your attention to each of these ends; and first, to what may be called the proximate end.
This end has manifest relation to the health of the body, which, it is evident, cannot be preserved without a due measure of meat and drink; and which, of course, is necessary to be attended to, in order to secure the accomplishment of the more remote and ultimate ends of eating and drinking. This end therefore requires consideration and watchfulness on the part of man, as a guard principally against excess in eating and drinking; since daily experience teaches the melancholy truth, that the health of the body may be injured by too much food, as well as by too little, and that intemperance in the use of meats and drinks is alike destructive to the body as entire abstinence. But what shall we say is the precise limit or boundary, in this case, between the too much and the too little? This can only be discovered by a man’s own experience, in proportion as he consults the blessing of health more than the indulgence of appetite; since if the latter be principally consulted, he may then depend upon it, he will never find the middle point of temperance and order in the daily nourishment of his body, which can alone insure to him the comforts of a sound constitution, and rescue him from the miseries of an impaired one.
But what a multitude of wonders and of mercies are here presented to our view, in the accomplishment of this proximate end of eating and drinking! For, in the first place, it is requisite, previous to the reception of food, that there be an appetite for it; yet, what is this appetite, and whence comes it? That it is not something inherent in the human frame, so as to be necessarily connected with it, is evident from the consideration above adverted to, that man cannot always command it. In the next place, for the act of eating there is required, in general, the act of mastication or chewing; and for the acts both of eating and drinking, the act of deglutition or swallowing; and afterwards the act of digesting, before the food can be admitted and incorporated in the body: yet how plain is it to see, that all the wisdom of man is utterly unable either to explain, or even discover, all the deep mysteries involved in each of these acts! We are compelled, then, to look to a power above ourselves for the solution of these otherwise inextricable arcana; and we are encouraged to do so by the reflection, that the confession of our ignorance may possibly conduct us to the blessed acknowledgment, made by the holy man of old, “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?” [Psalm cxxxix. 5, 6, 7.]
Yet stupendous as is the consideration of this proximate end of eating and drinking, and of the means employed in its accomplishment, how do all its wonders vanish and disappear when compared with the higher and more interesting view of the more remote ends, which view was intended to be presented to our contemplation every time that we eat and drink! Are you surprised at hearing of these more remote ends, and do you inquire what they are and mean? Let me then call to your recollection, that the mind also, as well as the body, has its food, without which it cannot live; and that this food also is of two kinds, answering to the two kinds of bodily food, called meat and drink. Accordingly you read in the Sacred Scriptures of “meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you;” [John vi. 27.]; which meat, it is evident, must be spiritual meat, or food for the mind. This meat is afterwards called the BODY and BLOOD of the GREAT SAVIOUR, Who is pleased to declare concerning it, “Except ye eat the flesh of the SON OF MAN, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed,” [verses 53, 54, 55.]
Do you further inquire into the reason why this food of your mind or spirit is of two descriptions, viz. meat and drink, or FLESH and BLOOD, and why it is necessary to feed on both? It is manifestly this, because the mind or spirit of every man is twofold, consisting of the two distinct principles of will and understanding; the will being created for the reception and enjoyment of the good of the DIVINE LOVE, and the understanding for the reception and enjoyment of the truth of the DIVINE WISDOM; and both for the conjunction of those two heavenly gifts in every human bosom. Each principle, therefore, requires its particular food for its nourishment, and has accordingly its spiritual appetite, called hunger and thirst, agreeable to the Divine declaration, “Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall he filled,” [Matt. v. 6.]. It is evident, therefore, not only that the mind or spirit of man has its food, which food, like that of the body, is of two distinct kinds, but that it likewise has its hunger and thirst; and thus, in regard to its nourishment, bears an exact resemblance to the body, or rather (if you will allow the remark) has imparted to the body that hunger and thirst, or that necessity of a twofold nourishment, by virtue of which the body bears a resemblance to its parent soul, and in so doing manifests its origin.
Behold here then the more remote end, to which, it is more than probable, every bodily act of eating and drinking points, and was originally designed to point! Like every other bodily act, it originates not in the body but in the mind; and was intended to excite the recollection of its origin, and at the same time, a view of that spiritual and immortal food on which the mind was designed to feed, and for which it principally prays when it expresses itself in the Divine language of devotion, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Bodily appetite therefore, in the case of man, is not a mere animal impulse, because it is in connection with that more elevated and interior impulse of heavenly affection, operative in every human being, which hungers and thirsts after the meat which endureth to everlasting life. For the same reason, bodily eating and drinking differs essentially, with man, from the same act as performed by the inferior animals, inasmuch as with man it is an ultimate figure of the reception of incorruptible food, or of all those living principles of heavenly love and wisdom, called the BODY and BLOOD of the GREAT SAVIOUR, by virtue of which man is admitted to the high privilege of dwelling in that SAVIOUR, and of having that SAVIOUR dwell in him, [John vi. 56.]. Every time, therefore, that we take our daily bodily refreshment of meat and drink, if the ears of our minds were opened, we should hear a voice from above calling us to the participation of menial refreshment; and if we would obey this voice, we should be enabled to comprehend what the Scripture teaches where it is written, “He filleth the hungry soul with goodness;” [Psalm cvii. 9.]; and again, “Man did eat angels’ food: He sent them meat to the full,” [Psalm lxxviii. 25.]. Thus, were this more remote end of eating and drinking- attended to, both soul and body would be nourished at one and the same time; and the feast of the latter—instead of immersing the former in all the filth and uncleanness of disorderly appetites, and thus separating it from GOD and heaven, as is too frequently the case—would then tend to elevate it to the purities of true bliss, by leading it every day to sing a new song of gratitude, praise, and thanksgiving to the DIVINE GIVER OF ALL GOOD.
But there is yet another end of bodily eating and drinking, which I have called the ultimate end, though perhaps it ought more properly to be called the first and principal end, and which every sincere Christian, like yourself, will immediately and gladly acknowledge. For it is the high privilege and bliss of such a Christian to believe in the Divinity of the GREAT SAVIOUR, and that by virtue of the union in Him, of FATHER and SON, or of DIVINITY and HUMANITY, He is the ONLY GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH; or, as He stiles Himself, “The ALPHA and OMEGA, the BEGINNING and the ENDING, WHICH IS, and WHICH WAS, and WHICH IS TO COME, THE ALMIGHTY,” [Rev. i. 8.]. Such a Christian is further persuaded therefore, and this on the authority of the BOOK OF REVELATION, that the HUMANITY of this SAVIOUR is a DIVINE HUMANITY, and thus is the ONE ONLY OBJECT of worship on the part of angels and men, being the DIVINE SOURCE of all LIFE, and consequently of every grace and virtue connected with life, and also of every truth and knowledge conducting to life, agreeable to the testimony of JESUS CHRIST Himself, “I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE,” [John xiv. 6.]. The sincere Christian then, in every article of his bodily food, sees and acknowledges the continual bounty of this GREAT GOD and SAVIOUR, and receives it, as from His own hand, with a becoming gratitude. In the food also of his mind, or in all the heavenly affections of love and of wisdom, of goodness and of truth, with which his mind is every day nourished and replenished from the WORD OF GOD, he is delighted to discern and confess the same bounty, ascribing all to the above DIVINE HUMANITY, and connecting all with this its benevolent and DIVINE SOURCE.
Behold here, then, the grand and ultimate end of all bodily eating and drinking, as presented to the view of the devout Christian, and exalted both in his life and practice! For in the idea of every such Christian all eating and drinking, whether it relates to the body or the mind, involves in it an appropriation and incorporation of what is eaten and drunken; thus, in the case of bodily food, an appropriation and incorporation of such food by and into the body, and in the case of mental or spiritual food, an appropriation and incorporation of such food also by and into the mind. The true Christian therefore, in consequence of connecting all food with its DIVINE SOURCE, the GLORIFIED HUMANITY OF THE GREAT SAVIOUR, receives it in that connection, and of course receives, at the same time, the blessing of that GREAT and HOLY GOD, and with the blessing that GOD HIMSELF, since GOD and His blessing cannot possibly be separated. The bodily eating and drinking of such a Christian is thus complex act, including in it the appropriation and incorporation of all principles, from the lowest to the highest, whether material, rational, spiritual, or celestial, which have a tendency to nourish and strengthen either corporeal or mental life. And (what is, of all other considerations, the most astonishing and the most affecting) it includes also the appropriation and incorporation of JESUS CHRIST, with all the feast of fat things of His Divine love and wisdom, agreeable to the words of that GREAT SAVIOUR, “He that eateth ME, even he shall live by ME;” [John vi. 57.]; and in another place, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come to him, and sup with him, and he with ME,” [Rev. iii. 20.]. Are you surprised at hearing, that the reception of bodily food on the part of man has such an extended and sublime end? Look only with a humble and grateful heart to JESUS CHRIST in His DIVINE HUMANITY, on every occasion of such reception, and you will soon be convinced, to your inexpressible joy that, howsoever surprising such an end may be, it is nevertheless the holy and blessed end which JESUS CHRIST has appointed for the eternal happiness of His creature man.
But it is time to hasten from the consideration of the ends of eating and drinking to contemplate the means by which those ends are accomplished. Allow me then to detain you, for a moment, on this interesting subject.
These means are included in the two important and significant acts of mastication and deglutition; the former, viz. mastication, consisting in the chewing or mincing the solid food which is received into the mouth; and the latter, viz. deglutition, consisting in the swallowing, or letting down into the stomach, through the œsophagus, what is so chewed or minced, that so it may be incorporated in the bodily frame.
I therefore call these two acts both important and significant, because their importance must be manifest from the consideration, that until solid food be well masticated, it cannot possible be swallowed; and until it be swallowed, it cannot possibly be received into the body so as to supply that full and perfect nourishment which it was designed to do.
Much might be said on this importance, and also on the wonderful provisions made by the GREAT CREATOR for the purpose of effecting both mastication and deglutition; as for instance, on the operations of the jaws and teeth in masticating, and of the tongue and other organs in swallowing; likewise on the constant supply of saliva, necessary to soften the hard substances which require mastication. But leaving these points to be the subjects of your own private contemplation, which, I am persuaded, will not fail to discern in them the most manifest proofs of Divine wisdom and goodness, I am eager to call your attention to what appears to me equally deserving of it, viz. the figurative and significant character of both the bodily acts of which I am speaking.—I shall begin with the act of mastication.
You are probably surprised at hearing of any figurative and significant character, as applicable to an act which, in itself, appears so trifling and insignificant as the act of chewing food. But allow me to remind you, that this act, trifling and insignificant as it may appear, is yet thought worthy to be noticed in the Volume of Revelation, where you will find it recorded, under the name of chewing the cud, as a mark and character by which a clean animal is to be distinguished from an unclean one, [see Levit. xi. 3 to 9.; Deut. xiv. 6 to 9.], And can we conceive that the ALMIGHTY Himself would have noted such a bodily act, and dignified it as such a sign, unless, it had involved in it some higher and more interior meaning than what relates to the body? Rather, are not we compelled to believe, that all the words of GOD, as being SPIRIT and LIFE, [John vi. 63.], were intended to convey spiritual and living ideas; and that, consequently, chewing the cud is an act which relates to the mind as well as to the body, since no other chewing can be supposed to be either a spiritual or living act, or to suggest a spiritual and living idea?
Are you still at a loss to comprehend how the act of chewing can have any reference to the mind? Let me call to your recollection then, what hath been already noted, that the mind has its food as well as the body, with this only difference, that the food of the mind is spiritual, consisting of all the various principles of goodness and truth; whereas the food of the body is material, consisting of all the variety of material meats and drinks. Let me further call to your recollection, that bodily mastication, or chewing, consists in mincing the food, or grinding it into minute parts, that so it may be capable of being swallowed, and thus received into the body, which it could never be until it was so minced and ground. And cannot you now discern, that a similar act of mincing and grinding takes place in the mind at the time of its reception of its meat, and that without such mincing and grinding the meat could never be received into the mind? For what think you of the intellectual act of meditation, consideration, or serious thought? The mental meat to be received is, for instance, the good of the love of GOD and of our neighbour; but how is it possible for you to receive this GOOD into your mind and life, whilst you view it in the gross only, or under a general idea, without ever being at the pains to particularise it, so as to see distinctly and minutely all its several qualities, characters, properties, privileges, &c.? As well might you attempt to swallow a whole loaf of bread without first chewing it, as to admit this good, this spiritual loaf of immortal bread, into the inward recesses of your spirit, so long as it remains a loaf, unbroken and unminced by devout reflection on its origin and on its peculiar marks of distinction from all other bread! For consider, what an indefinite number of things are involved in the three terms, love, GOD, and neighbour; and how then can you hope to attain the infinite blessing of incorporating into your life the love either of GOD or your neighbour, unless you comprehend the meaning of those terms; that is to say, unless you first scrutinize, meditate on, or mince them well in your understanding?
And here I wish to call to your remembrance that the Latin verb rumino, from which our English term ruminate derived, originates in the substantive rumen, which signifies the cud; thus plainly proving that the Latins had some idea of a spiritual rumen, or cud, since the verb rumino is solely applied to the mind. It is remarkable also, that when our BLESSED SAVIOUR instituted the sacrament of His holy supper, in His delivery of the bread to His disciples, He adopts this form of expression, “Take, eat, this is My body;” [Matt. xxvi. 26.; Mark xiv. 22.]; where it is plain that two distinct ideas were intended to be suggested by the two distinct terms, take, eat,—the former having relation to the understanding, and the latter to the will; thus instructing us, that all the heavenly food of His love, figured by the bread, can never be fully incorporated into the will or life of man, until it be first taken; in other words, well considered, meditated, and ruminated on by the understanding. Probably too, in agreement with the same idea, it is recorded of the two disciples who were favoured with a sight of the RISEN SAVIOUR on their way to Emmauss, that He “was known of them in BREAKING OF BREAD;” [Luke xxiv. 35.]; for unless some spiritual meaning be annexed to the expression, breaking of bread, it is difficult to conceive how such an act could make the SAVIOUR known; whereas when it is considered, that by breaking of bread is figuratively described the operation above mentioned, of masticating or mincing the good of the Divine love, by meditating or ruminating upon it with the understanding, the expression then acquires an edifying force and clearness which render it worthy of a place in the Divine Record.
Having thus then, I trust, satisfied you, that the bodily act of mastication, or chewing of food, is a figurative act, applying to the mind as well as to the body, need I be at any pains to convince you, that the same is true of the bodily act of deglutition, or swallowing of food? For doth not every one know, that by the act of swallowing, the food is received more interiorly into the body; and that unless this act followed the act of mastication, or chewing, this latter act would be of no effect whatsoever in regard to bodily nourishment? And who doth not know, or may not know, if he be disposed to know, that this is precisely the case in respect to the mind; since the food of the mind, which is every spiritual good and truth relating to the love of GOD and our neighbour, is capable of a twofold reception, one external, or in the memory and understanding only; and the other internal, or in the will and life: and that if the external reception be not succeeded by the internal, the former is of no manner of use in regard to mental nourishment, but may be compared with the case of a man who keeps his food constantly in his mouth without swallowing it? It is then absolutely necessary, with a view to the full reception and incorporation of the good of heavenly love, and of the truth of heavenly wisdom, that it not only be received in the mouth, or in the thought, and there well masticated by meditation or rumination, but that it afterwards be swallowed; in other words, be admitted interiorly into the will, the love, and the life, that so it may become that blessed “meat which endureth unto everlasting life.” How plain then is it, that there is a spiritual deglutition as well as a corporeal one, and that the latter was intended of the Divine providence of the MOST HIGH to call mankind perpetually to the recollection of the former! I wish only to observe further on this subject, that as the act of bodily swallowing requires a distinct exertion on the part of man, since the bodily food will not descend, of itself, into the stomach, in like manner, and for the same reason, a distinct exertion is requisite in regard to the swallowing, or interior reception, of spiritual food, and that probably this exertion is excited in every state of mental trial and trouble.
Having thus then, I hope, convinced you, my dear Sir, that the bodily act of eating and drinking is not only a most extraordinary act in itself, and on that account deserving of all serious consideration, but is also a figurative act, as pointing to the reception of mental food, by which the soul or spirit of man is nourished and kept alive, I shall now leave you to your own reflections on the important subject. Only let me be allowed to add, that this figurative character of the above bodily act, is another stupendous proof of the goodness and wisdom of our HEAVENLY FATHER, Who has been pleased to write on our very bodies lessons fraught with instruction the most interesting, because the most conducive to our eternal happiness and salvation. That we may then be attentive to these lessons, especially on every occasion of receiving our bodily nourishment, is the devout prayer of,
Dear Sir,
Yours truly, &c.