bodies by means of the sensations which they excite.

Taste, which has as its excitement appetite, hunger and thirst, is
the basis of many operations the result of which is that the
individual believes, developes, preserves and repairs the losses
occasioned by vital evaporation.

Organized bodies are not sustained in the same manner. The Author
of creation, equally varied in causes and effects, has assigned
them different modes of preservation.

Vegetables, which are the lowest in the scale of living things,
are fed by roots, which, implanted in the native soil, select by
the action of a peculiar mechanism, different subjects, which
serve to increase and to nourish them.

As we ascend the scale we find bodies gifted with animal life and
deprived of locomotion. They are produced in a medium which favors
their existence, and have special and peculiar organs which
extract all that is necessary to sustain the portion and duration
of life allotted them. They do not seek food, which, on the
contrary, comes to seek them.

Another mode has been appointed for animals endowed with
locomotion, of which man is doubtless the most perfect. A peculiar
instinct warns him of the necessity of food; he seeks and seizes
the things which he knows are necessary to satisfy his wants; he
eats, renovates himself, and thus during his life passes through
the whole career assigned to him.