OFFICE OF THE LUNG-MOVEMENTS. 97 



emancipates you from the effort, and bids you breathe as you 

 please, unobservant of the fact, is release from a straitness which 

 could not be long endured. The same thing is experienced more 

 or less, whenever it is necessary to use great stillness, to control 

 the breath. The consciousness which is then awakened comes into 

 collision with a power whose resources we never estimate practically 

 but at such times of struggle. Ask any of those who have been 

 engaged in poses plastiques, and they will tell you that of all hard 

 work, standing still is among the hardest. 



What becomes of the power created by the air falling with the 

 whole weight of its column upon the movable lungs, and displacing 

 or expanding them, and by the subsequent living contraction of the 

 lungs ? Can we imagine that its use is confined to the outside 

 of the system ? to the admission of fresh and the expulsion of con- 

 taminated air ? This would be as reasonable as to suppose that the 

 main office of a water wheel, connected with an extensive and com- 

 plicated machinery, was confined to the water which falls upon it, 

 and that the mechanical power engendered was not communicated 

 inwards to the plant. At this rate nature would be less thrifty 

 than our engineers, who know that power is precious, to be husband- 

 ed f o the last degree, conducted where it is required, and never ex- 

 pended without a result. Suppose that a portion of the water be 

 needed inside the mill, as is generally the case, this is easily sup- 

 plied by some sideward allowance of the machinery, or by the 

 pressure of the water itself, which contains the power in an un- 

 mechanized state; but the main action is never spent upon that 

 which comes of its own accord. The blood is aerated in some ani- 

 mals, and the juice in plants, without any motion of the lungs, 

 which may suggest that the aeration of the blood is not the grand 

 office of these movements. But in machineries, any motion which 

 is superabundant, or not turned to use, is hurtful to the object 

 sought, precisely because motion always has effects, which in the 

 latter case mix with the intended result, and confuse or disarrange 

 it. This applies more strongly to the human frame than to any- 

 thing of man's making. 



Thus, we observe that there are really two questions which have 

 been confounded with each other : Firstly, What is the use of air 

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