UNIVERSAL ATTRACTION. 105 



tent with remarking, that, during embryonic existence, the main 

 business is the work of formation ; the body is then upon the stocks ; 

 and as the blood first and the heart afterwards are the builders of 

 the body, the brain or nervous principle operates through them, 

 and its movements keep pace with theirs; but after birth, the usage 

 of the body is the main thing; the life becomes more than the 

 meat; the body is now to be worn out in action; its growth and 

 repair are secondary, and all with reference to its employment; and 

 this, as we have seen, depends upon the lungs; wherefore, in the 

 second case, the brain shifts its patronage and alters its step, and 

 works through and with the lungs. It is what might be expected — 

 that the brain should respire with the heart in the heart-epoch, 

 which anticipates the period of birth, but in the epoch of the lungs, 

 or conscious life, should sympathize or synchronize with those 

 organs which have the ruling mission, and transfer its sceptre to the 

 younger dynasty of the chest. 



The views we have been considering find an agreeable response in 

 established laws of nature, constituting a branch of the doctrine of 

 universal attraction, whose appliance they show in the human frame. 

 Nor is this an insignificant support that they receive. When a law 

 is sure for one department, we have a right, assuming unity of sys- 

 tem, to look for that law in every sphere, though modified in each 

 by its new circumstances. So, if attraction be the most general 

 law of the dead universe, we know that in a new sense it is the 

 general law of organization, and also of the human or living uni- 

 verse. But, in the actions of the lungs we have found it omni- 

 present in the body; and have seen the spring of an attraction 

 applied to the organs, which causes them to operate ^ery much ac- 

 cording to the Newtonian formula. Here then we join forces with 

 the discoverer of material attraction, who regarded it as the imme- 

 diate finger of God, freshly noting the solidity of whose wisdom, we 

 find in the body that attraction is no abstract formula, but palpable 

 and living lungs. Nor can we doubt than when analogy is better 

 known, and can be boldly worked, the light that issues from the 

 unfolded doors of the human body, will stream forth into the vault 

 of nature, and kindle celestial physics with a breathing wisdom that 



