98 THE HUMAN LUNGS. 



to us? and secondly, What is the use of 'breathing? And with re- 

 spect to this second inquiry, we now see that it will be puerile to 

 say that we breathe in order to breathe. Let us grapple with the 

 problem, and solve it otherwise than by a verbal retort. We an- 

 swer, then, that the use of breathing is to communicate motion to 

 the body, to distribute it to the different machineries or viscera, to 

 enable them each to go to work according to their powers. 



Our position is, that the blood and blood-vessels make and repair 

 the organization, and keep it in working trim ; while on the other 

 hand the lungs and the brains use and work it : like as an engine is 

 made in the factory by one set of artisans, but is taken elsewhere to 

 enlarged conditions of liberty or motion, to be worked by another 

 class of persons. Thus, the heart's fabricative strokes are the lesser 

 motion : the experimental play and employment of the lungs is the 

 greater motion. By the one the hammer is plied upon the engine; 

 by the other, the completed engine is made to use its qualities, and 

 to work according to its construction. Every body contains two 

 bodies — the one which is forming, and the other which is finished 

 and working : the heart is the spring and centre of the first, and the 

 lungs of the second ; the one represents matter, and the other spirit ; 

 and the ratio between the pulses and the breaths gives the constant 

 equation which subsists between these inseparable two. 



It needs but little consideration to show that the organs and viscera 

 of the body require a supply of motion to enable them to perform 

 their functions. These functions consist, firstly, in the reception of 

 a peculiar quantity as well as quality of blood, from which they, 

 secondly, are to separate certain materials, or upon which they are 

 to produce some change : the quantity and quality required varies 

 also at different times. What is it that supplies them with this 

 peculiar blood ? Not the impulse of the heart and arteries, for this 

 could cause no discrimination in the supply to different parts; on the 

 contrary, its action is uniform all over the body. Each organ then 

 requires an individuality to enable it to choose and take what it wants 

 from the common system. How can this individual power be given 

 to the organs, except by their exercising a motion of expansion and 

 contraction, whereby they draw in or shut away the blood, as they 

 find it necessary? 



