DESCRIPTION. 169 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE HUMAN HEART. 



The brains animate the body with intention and purpose, and the 

 lungs give it corresponding motion, as the active spirit of the organs, 

 and the basis of the operations of the will ; the heart, as the blood's 

 executive power, gives corporeal substance to the frame, inasmuch as 

 the body itself arises from the blood. The existence of the human 

 machine depends upon the heart, but its usage upon the lungs and 

 brains. The heart is the source whence the finished blood descends 

 to the organs throughout the system ; it is the immediate adminis- 

 trator of the supply of nutrition to the body. And as the life is in 

 the blood, the heart is the agent for bestowing that life upon the or- 

 ganization, and for giving every man a temperament, or peculiarity 

 of animal being, secondary to and seconding that nervous life which 

 he receives from the spirit of the brain. In a word, the heart or 

 blood determines the fleshly tenement. Let what powers there may 

 act upon us from within, or from without, we are made of no other 

 stuff, and carry no other body, than comes from the fountain of our 

 blood. We put it to what use we please or can, but the body it- 

 self is given, limited, constituted by the life-blood poured forth by 

 the heart. 



We have then to consider the heart as the centre of the blood-sys- 

 tem ; as a vessel suited to the whole composition of the blood ; as 

 the forceful agent in various motions whereby the circulation is per- 

 petuated, or whereby the end of bodily life coincides with the begin- 

 ning, and the animal circle is completed : also as the isthmus which, 

 according to its build, receives the wave and shock of the passions 

 advancing body ward on the one side, and transmits them in modified 

 vibrations to the expectant tide of blood on the other side. In short, 

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