gth. 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?

SECT. XXXIII. Of Veins and Arteries.

There are in man's body numberless branches of blood-vessels. Some
of them carry the blood from the centre to the extreme parts, and
are called arteries. Through those various vessels runs the blood,
a liquor soft and oily, and by this oiliness proper to retain the
most subtle spirits, just as the most subtle and spirituous essences
are preserved in gummy bodies. This blood moistens the flesh, as
springs and rivers water the earth; and after it has filtrated in
the flesh, it returns to its source, more slowly, and less full of
spirits: but it renews, and is again subtilised in that source, in
order to circulate without ceasing.

SECT. XXXIV. Of the Bones, and their Jointing.

Do you consider that excellent order and proportion of the limbs?
The legs and thighs are great bones jointed one with another, and
knit together by tendons. They are two sorts of pillars, equal and
regular, erected to support the whole fabric. But those pillars
fold; and the rotula of the knee is a