ACQUIRINGFIRST-HANDKNOWLEDGE 441
may remain almost as impure as before, but it has become
just a little easier to get into touch with the good than if
gross food were used.
On the other hand if, despite annoyances, an equable
temper is cultivated, also literary and artistic tastes, the vital
body will produce an effect of daintiness and fastidiousness
in physical matters and will also engender ennobling
feelings and emotions in the desire body.
Seeking to cultivate the emotions also reacts upon the
other vehicles and helps to improve them.
THE SCIENCE OF NUTRITIONIf we begin with the dense vehicle and consider the
physical means available to improve it and make it the best
possible instrument for the spirit and afterward consider the
spiritual means to the same end, we shall be including all the
other vehicles as well; therefore we shall follow that
method.
The first visible state of a human embryo is a small,
globulous, pulpy or jelly-like substance, similar to albumen,
or the white of an egg. In this pulpy globule various particles
of more solid matter appear. These gradually increase in
bulk and density until they come in contact with one
another. The different points of contact are slowly modified
into joints or hinges and thus a distinct framework of solid
matter, a skeleton, is gradually formed.
During the formation of this framework the surrounding
pulpy matter accumulates and changes in form until at
length that degree of organization develops which is known
as a fetus. This becomes larger, firmer, and more fully
organized up to the time of birth, when the state of infancy