100 THE HUMAN LUNGS. 



Therefore the motion of the organs is indispensable to make them 

 parts of the whole, or to raise them into the animal sphere. 



To return to facts, Ave find in the motion of the lungs communi- 

 cated to the system, the very power which the organs require. For 

 the body is a chain of substances and organs, whose connections are 

 so disposed, that motions communicated from within, vibrate from 

 end to end, and from side to side, and extend to the extremities of 

 the limbs before they are absorbed. And in the intimate fellowship 

 pervading it, and which is brought about by the skin and the mem- 

 branes, we see the condition whereby a general motion, like that of 

 the lungs, amounts to an attraction exerted by the frame and its 

 parts upon the world without and the world within; by which, in 

 each different voluntary expansion, it draws in as it pleases the fluid 

 contained in its own cavities, as well as whatever it requires from 

 the great ocean of the atmosphere. Such is the value of the move- 

 ments of the lungs. They not only breathe themselves, but make 

 the body breathe similarly with them ; and in this consists its life, 

 whereby it becomes an individual, and takes what it wants for itself, 

 suffering no intrusion from within or without, whether from the blood 

 of the heart, or from the pressure of the universe. 



To follow the gear by which the motion of the lungs is commu- 

 nicated to other organs, belongs to anatomy and experiment, but 

 the general fact belongs to common sense, and science has only to 

 confirm it. We do not now enter upon the anatomy, but will con- 

 tent ourselves with observing the effect of the pulmonary engine 

 upon the great departments of the system. And first for the effect 

 upon the nerves and the brain. 



First, with respect to the nerves, the motions of the lungs, occur- 

 ring fourteen times per minute, act upon them more than upon any 

 other part, because they are the most impressible of the organs. 

 Now a large portion of the nerves runs through the chest, a space 

 subject to threatened vacuum during every breath; and more than 

 a third part of the spinal marrow virtually lies open into the same 

 exhausting receiver. The plain consequence is, that the nerves and 

 the spinal marrow are expanded with each inspiration. Either that 

 — or they resist the inspiration, and in this case the unity of the 

 body is at an end. But we cannot make the latter supposition. If 



