spring the spirits, which are so subtle that they escape the sight;
and nevertheless so real, and of so great activity and force, that
they perform all the motions of the machine, and make up all in
strength. These spirits are in an instant conveyed to the very
extremities of the members. Sometimes they flow gently and
regularly, sometimes they move with impetuosity, as occasion
requires; and they vary ad infinitum the postures, gestures, and
other actions of the body.


SECT. XXXII. Of the Skin.


Let us consider the flesh. It is covered in certain places with a
soft and tender skin, for the ornament of the body. If that skin,
that renders the object so agreeable, and gives it so sweet a
colour, were taken off, the same object would become ghastly, and
create horror. In other places that same skin is harder and
thicker, in order to resist the fatigue of those parts. As, for
instance, how harder is the skin of the feet than that of the face?
And that of the hinder part of the head than that of the forehead?
That skin is all over full of holes like a sieve: but those holes,
which are called pores, are imperceptible. Although sweat and other
transpirations exhale through those pores, the blood never runs out
that way. That skin has all the tenderness necessary to make it
transparent, and give the face a lively, sweet, and graceful colour.
If the skin were less close, and less smooth, the face would look
bloody, and excoriated. Now, who is that knew how to temper and mix
those colours with such nicety as to make a carnation which painters
admire, but never can perfectly imitate?