THE SPIRIT OF ACTION. 119 



For the brain is the womb of the soul, and the held breath during 

 the effort of thinking tends to exclude the desired thought when the 

 determination of all the parts strives towards the right part of the 

 brain. After the effort comes the groan, which shows that the 

 breath has no more will, but has done its work. It would seem 

 that in labor, the rhythm of the uterus takes the lead (pp. 103, 

 117), in commencing the breathing, and the lungs are obliged to 

 follow the strong contractions by shutting their apertures, and la- 

 boring precisely like the womb. The nervous system and the mind 

 labor also at the time in the same ratio. There is neither the free 

 child, the free mother, the free breath, or the free spirit, until the 

 birth takes place ; but the bondage of all is common and oppressive 

 to insure the emancipation. 



We remarked before (pp. 87, 111) that the respiration is divisi- 

 ble into four terms, namely, inspiration, the pause or satisfaction 

 succeeding inspiration, then expiration, and then the deliberation or 

 pause which follows expiration. And we have now shown that in- 

 spiration concurs with the agrSments of sense and feeling. This is 

 the first motive of the lungs, or the pulmonary atom of the pleasures 

 of the world, compounded however of two elements, the nose-breath 

 and the mouth-breath, the former to please or inspire the mind of 

 the brain, and the latter to please the mind of the body. This term, 

 if persisted in, leads to swoon, from defect of expiration ; whence 

 swoon is the prolonged or compound atom of the pause after inspi- 

 ration. The pleased lungs are so gluttonous of this world's life, 

 that the world, bent upon equilibrium, swallows and drowns them 

 in this swoon, which is the ocean of sensual satisfactions. Expira- 

 tion, however, concurs with the spiritual life, and is the condition 

 of intellect or of dying daily. And the pause which follows expi- 

 ration, the refusal to breathe in from the surface, and the stand 

 taken in the depths, is the atom which in its least form concurs with 

 abstraction of thought, but when compounded, runs on into trance. 

 The likeness of this in the animal world is hybernation. Thus 

 every thought is a little trance, and every pleasure an initial swoon, 

 as we shall presently see that each fair breath is a little life, whe- 

 er of sleeping or waking. And thus if the breath is given in inspi- 

 ration, the spirit is impressed upon expiration ; for the spirit of hu- 



