The body has been called "the
house we live in"; the house is quite as much the body we live in.
Shall I tell you some things the Professor said the other day?--
Do!--said the schoolmistress.
A man's body,--said the Professor,--is whatever is occupied by his
will and his sensibility. The small room down there, where I wrote
those papers you remember reading, was much more a portion of my
body than a paralytic's senseless and motionless arm or leg is of
his.
The soul of a man has a series of concentric envelopes round it,
like the core of an onion, or the innermost of a nest of boxes.
First, he has his natural garment of flesh and blood. Then, his
artificial integuments, with their true skin of solid stuffs, their
cuticle of lighter tissues, and their variously-tinted pigments.
Thirdly, his domicile, be it a single chamber or a stately mansion.
And then, the whole visible world, in which Time buttons him up as
in a loose outside wrapper.
You shall observe,--the Professor said,--for, like Mr. John Hunter
and other great men, he brings in that SHALL with great effect
sometimes,--you shall observe that a man's clothing or series of
envelopes does after a certain time mould itself upon his
individual nature. We know this of our hats, and are always
reminded of it when we happen to put them on wrong side foremost.
We soon find that the beaver is a hollow cast of the skull, with
all its irregular bumps and depressions.
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