CENTER FOR AGENCY REFORM |
| DIRECTOR Santuzza Scheidegger |
ABOUT
Young friends, I am not fanciful; I only assert the constitutional capabilities of your nature. God made you to be happy. He gave you all your powers and faculties for good ; and if you suffer evil, depend upon it, it comes not from the legitimate and undisturbed economy of your original constitution.
Whatever, therefore, increases your knowledge of your constitutional nature, and makes you better acquainted with those laws of life upon which your health and happiness depend, cannot be otherwise than interesting to you.
Constituted as man is, two grand Functions of his system are necessary for his existence as an individual and as a species. The first is Nutrition ; the second is Reproduction.
Nutrition is the general function by which the body is nourished and sustained; and includes, in its detail, digestion, absorption, circulation, respiration, secretion, excretion, &c Reproduction is the function by which an organized being propagates its kind. The first is necessary for man's individual bodily existence; the second is necessary for the continuation of his species. Man is accordingly furnished with organs fitted for these great functions of life.
As the function of nutrition is necessary for the sustenance, and growth, and continual subsistence of the body, so it must commence when his individual existence commences, and continue constantly while his bodily existence continues ; and therefore the organs constituting the apparatus necessary for this great function, are among the first formed portions of his system, and are complete at the time of his birth.*
But the function of reproduction is not necessary to man's individual existence, and therefore its final cause, or constitutional purpose, does not require its constant exercise; and accordingly, the organs constituting the apparatus necessary for this function, are not all complete in their development and functional powers, until many years after birth.