Purification

“ Water of purification which is disallowed, must not be kneaded in mortar, lest it bring misfortune to others. R. Judah said, “it is worthless.” “A cow which drank water of purification?” “Her flesh is unclean for twenty-four hours.”750 R. Judah said, “it becomes worthless in her intestines.” ”

“ On the other hand, the theory of manuring, the purification of rivers, the treatment of sewage, the use of opsonins and of serum-injections,—all illustrate the ministration of one form of life to another; they exhibit the contribution of beneficent organisms,—that is, of forms of life which promote higher development and conduce to well-being. ”

“ The Ṣúfí Shaykhs have fully discussed the true meaning of purification, and have commanded their disciples not to cease from purifying themselves both outwardly and inwardly. He who would serve God must purify himself outwardly with water, and he who would come nigh unto God must purify himself inwardly with repentance. ”

“ And water in which there are no ashes, is saved by the covering bound upon it.
2. Every doubt implies cleanness in the heave-offering and cleanness in purification. Every reason for suspense in the heave-offering causes pouring away of the water in purification. If acts requiring legal cleanness be afterward performed, they are in suspense. Shallow water755 is clean for holy things, and the heave-offering and purification. R. Eleazar said, “trickling water756 is unclean for purification.” ”

“ He who is cleansed for purification, when he touches that which is expelled, is unclean. A jug for purification, when it touches that which is expelled, is unclean. He who is cleansed for purification, when he touches eatable or drinkable things with his hand, is unclean. ”

“ For efficient purification, therefore, some method of reducing and modifying the character of organic solids, particularly those in solution, must be selected. In seeking a method by which this may be accomplished, scientific men found years ago that this very process was being carried on continually by natural forces, although at a very slow rate of purification. All organic matter, however formed and wherever present, is subject to the natural forces of decay. ”

“ The physician of the soul is aware that his patient will receive no nourishment unless he has been cleaned out; and the soul of the Great King himself, if he has not undergone this purification, is unclean and impure. ”

“ Therefore, outward and inward purification must go together; e.g., when a man washes his hands he must wash his heart clean of worldliness, and when he puts water in his mouth he must purify his mouth from the mention of other than God, and when he washes his face he must turn away from all familiar objects and turn towards God, and when he wipes his head he must resign his affairs to God, and when he washes his feet he must not form the intention of taking his stand on anything except according to the command of God. ”

“ One of them is legally purified. The water in the second is not purified. There are holes from one trough to the other like the pipe of a bottle, or water overflowed from above only as much as the peeling of a garlic, and the owner had purified one of them?” “The water in the second can also purify.”
9. “Two stones which are placed near to each other, and one made of them a (drinking-) trough, and also two kneading-troughs, and also a drinking-trough, which was divided?” “The water, which is between them, does not purify.” ”

“ The organism always takes up the greatest amount possible under the circumstances, exactly as, in the inorganic world, water takes up the greatest amount possible of salt or any other soluble substance; the growth of a crystal, and the oxidation of iron are illustrations of the same principle. Of the limit of this capacity to take up new matter into the organism we know nothing; all recent experiments go to show that the organism is capable, under propitious circumstances, of an enormous receptivity, such as, under natural conditions, it never reaches. ”

“ Many of the microbes and bacteria and low forms of cell life are beneficent in this way; and it is our function,—as ourselves one of the forms of life,—now consciously to intervene and take control of these vital processes. By investigation and study we can gradually understand the condition and life-history of each organism, and then can take such measures as will encourage the beneficent forms whether plant or animal, and destroy or eliminate those which from the human point of view are deadly and destructive,—attacking them at their weakest and most vulnerable stage. ”

“ I do not believe that a single experimenter says to himself when he gives curari to a rabbit, or cuts the spinal marrow of a dog, or poisons a frog: ‘Here is an experiment which will relieve or will cure the disease of some men.’ No, in truth, he does not think of that! ”

“ Now if the compound molecules of the blood, or of an organism considered in the aggregate, have the power of moulding into their own type the matters which they absorb as nutriment; and if they have the power when their type has been changed by disease, of moulding materials afterwards received into the modified type; may we not reasonably suspect that the more or less specialized molecules of each organ have, in like manner, the power of moulding the materials which the blood brings to them into similarly specialized molecules? ”

“ So the study of the products formed and set free in the life processes of these germs opened a new line of intricate and delicate chemical procedure. Think of the complexity of the processes which are induced in the body by the presence and action of these living organisms! We have, on the one hand, the body cells, each one, small as it is, a chemical factory, setting free unnumbered complex substances, some of which are to be used by the body as a whole, some to be resolved into other forms, some to be eliminated, since they are powerful poisons. ”

“ But in preserving the protoplasm it also preserves the entire cell group, or body. Life is thus the most essential condition of the body. With life all portions of the body are concerned, and toward its maintenance all the activities of the body organization are directed.
The Nutrient Fluid in its Relations to the Cells.—The maintenance of life within the cells requires, as we have seen, that they be supplied with water, food, and oxygen, and that they be relieved of such wastes as they form. ”

“ Simple as a cell, a minute particle of protoplasm, may appear, it is none the less a most wonderful laboratory where toxins, anti-toxins, and an infinite variety of secretions, highly poisonous and protective, are being produced, for the keeping in existence of that insignificant, microscopic bit of living matter. Self-preservation is the central aim of all life-activities.
The tendency of all organic processes is the maintenance of the life of each particular individual organism. ”

“ In the inoculated animal the same micro-organism must again be found. The chain of evidence will be still more complete if, from artificial culture, a chemical substance is obtained capable of producing the disease quite independently of the living organism. ”

“ Is it a property of matter that transfers the digestible and animal food we eat into man? Does man exhibit nothing but the properties of matter? It is evident that after the strictest chemical analysis the vital life principle common to all matter remains unreached—thus indicating its great ultimate character, which is beyond the reach of both chemical and mental analysis.
What is this power by which the nucleated protoplasm of the various species always produces representatives of the one which furnished the germ? ”

“ N. B. Here it is to be noted that for preparing a pure medicine, a pure subject is to be made use of; for if so be that any one would endeavour the transmutation of an herb, wood, or any animal into a medicament by the help of the secret fires, then all the ashes and feces which were in the herb would also adhere unto the medicament and would render it impure, therefore necessity requires that you do not take the whole herb, or the whole animal, but onely their essential salt, the which being void of feces consists onely of the pure principles of the herb ”

“ In living bodies also, the same principle operates; Living tissues, whether of animals or vegetables, usually select from their nutrient fluids, and assimilate, particles only of those kinds of matter which are suitable for their structure; in this way, a bone assimilates lime and phosphoric acid from the multitude of different substances conveyed to it by the blood. And in all these cases, the selecting material appears to act as if it possessed the powers of instinct, perception, comparison, judgment, and {113}volition. ”

“ The chemist or entomologist expects to spoil many materials in the course of his tests. Human material is, however, so precious that the experimenter is not justified in assuming the risk of spoiling it. The child is more precious than the problem. The only field in which experiment on the human being is recognized, or rather practiced without recognition, is medicine, where the material is already threatened with destruction through sickness, and the physician introduces an experimental change, say the use of a serum, which gives a chance of preserving life and restoring health. ”

“ These chemical factories consist of cells, manufacture special substances, which act upon the other cells of the body and so start and determine the countless processes we call Life. Life, body and soul emerge from the activities of the magic ooze of their silent chemistry precisely as a tree of tin crystals arises from the chemical reactions started in a solution of tin salts by an electric current.
Man is regulated by his Glands of Internal Secretion. ”

“ Each is in its way a chemical laboratory indispensable to the right conduct of the organism, but the precise nature of its operations remains inscrutable. The vast importance of the operations of these intermediate organs is unquestioned. ”

“ The chemical materialist conceives certain compounds, never well-known ones mark you, enzymes for example, to be thus supremely endowed. The biological materialist on the other hand, ascribes this exalted role to imaginary, invisible living bodies hidden deep within the germ and other cells. Biology of the last three decades has bestowed mighty powers upon such bodies under the designation "determinants." Only those familiar with the technical literature of the science during this time can have any notion of the influence these bodies have had. ”

“ When we succeed in proving that all disease originates from a few simple causes, it will not seem so strange and improbable that all disease can be cured by a few simple, natural methods of living and of treatment. If Nature Cure can accomplish this, it establishes its right to be classed with the exact sciences. ”

“ The result is that the purifying organs have more to do than they can perform; some portion of the waste matter remains in the blood, is circulated and re-deposited, and the tissues and organs become laden with humors and diseases of every form and every degree of severity and loathsomeness. How much better to conform to Nature's physiological chemistry and not attempt to nourish life with the elements of death! ”

“ When speaking thus they do not however reflect that they are affording the strongest possible testimony in support of the system which they seek to decry, inasmuch as every physiologist, from Cape Clear to the Giant’s Causeway, admits the principle, that the cure of disease is to be sought for in the powers of the living organism alone; and it must be evident that the more you strengthen that organism, the more you increase its powers to cure itself, and diminish its liability to future disease. ”

“ For the same reason that there must be an invisible substance that permeates the germ cell and controls its particles and adjusts them, there must be a substance that permeates the aggregate of cells or the whole body, and regulates it. ”

“ We come next to the agency of chief importance among those that work changes in organic matter; namely, chemical affinity. How readily vegetal and animal substances are modified by other substances put in contact with them, we see daily illustrated. Besides the many compounds which cause the death of an organism into which they are put, we have the much greater number of compounds which work those milder effects termed medicinal—effects implying, like the others, molecular re-arrangements. ”

“ If natural causes have produced a crystal, by successive new combinations of molecules of matter through gradations rising successively into higher forms, why should not natural causes, acting upon other molecules in a corresponding way, have produced organic life, or animated organisms? If natural causes have evolved out of certain molecules the substance known as organizable protein, why should not the continued operation of the same or similar causes have modified organizable protein into some distinct and recognizable animated organism? ”

“ Unity of treatment is ultimately as essential in history as codification is in law; and it is essential for much the same reason. The old proverb tells us that the wood may be invisible by reason of the trees.
We may trace the influence of science also in the greatly deepened sense of the importance of origins. In science the chief triumphs have been won by tracing things to their beginnings; in physical structure to atoms and molecules, in animal life to nerve cells, protoplasm, or whatever is simplest and most primitive. ”