128 TUB HUMAN LUNGS. 



spirits, that is again to say breaths or attractions towards one 

 Eternal Object, who, through our finite organism draws us to Him- 

 self. Finally, we read of the breath of life that was breathed into 

 the nostrils of our first parents, and man became a living soul. Now 

 we have attempted to show that these phrases are nature's own ana- 

 logies ; that the functions of the lungs are so identified with that 

 motion which is the representative of life, that life cannot be imaged 

 save in words borrowed from the lungs and their august ministra- 

 tions. In this respect, I trust to have the whole of the depositories 

 of past truth and genius, the old wives, upon my side, which will 

 atone for the absence of others, because there are no better begin- 

 nings of physiology than these old wives' tales. Most of them are 

 point blank true, and will come out more and more as they are 

 wanted, constituting in time the last novelties of a sublimely scien- 

 tific age. 



But when shall the theme be ended of the atmosphere of the 

 microcosm ? Or what is the entire drift of these iEolian harmonies 

 let out upon the sciences from the lungs ? We can only further 

 say, without pretending to a formula, that the planet-air is the double 

 of the lung air. For in the human sphere the viscera stand as 

 trees with the lungs for leaves, and quiet absorption subsists in this 

 vegetable degree. But furthermore, the superincumbent lung-air 

 presses down upon the vitals, whence the physics and mechanics of 

 the atmosphere run parallel with those of the lungs. But again, 

 the lung-air has its system of winds, beginning whencesoever the 

 will pleases, and blowing from the poles either of matter or spirit, 

 love or hate, passion or consideration, and making the climate of 

 the ruling state to travel through the whole body. Then also the 

 lung-air is as full of the soul as the world is full of the sun. And 

 lastly our little atmosphere in motion, like the great atmosphere, 

 rubs our atoms against each other everywhere with electric rustle 

 and collision, and by its congenial friction magnetizes the assem- 

 bled parts, and they open the cases of the life-gems. But for the 

 rest, the voice would cease to speak before these truths are exhausted 

 that chant themselves up from the deep well of the lungs. For ever 

 and anon as we listen we hear a more inward chorus. 



At least we have seen that the body lives in alternation ; that 



