CONCLUSION OF THE CIRCULATION. 193 



the mere centre of the nerves j it is not a simple turn of fibres in 

 which sensations are converted into motions, but new faculties are 

 there piled upon the summit of sensation, and the brain is a com- 

 manding head to the nervous system. So the larynx is not a sim- 

 ple enlargement of the windpipe, but a super-addition of gifts, by 

 which plain air becomes discourse, and is cast into words of mean- 

 ing, the vocal symbols of intelligence. So the tongue is not a mere 

 thickening of the unconscious gullet and stomach, but a capital organ 

 in which sensation is added to the other functions of the intestinal 

 canal. And so man is not merely an eclectic centre of the world, 

 but he is a spiritual world also, and a set of miracles, if he chooses, 

 playing their will with animalities. In fine, wherever there is a 

 head, it does not differ from its subordinate parts in size and situa- 

 tion alone, but also has a freer life than they, and exercises supreme 

 functions additional to theirs — functions both more in quantity and 

 novel in quality. Therefore, to recapitulate, the heart itself both 

 commixes the elements of the blood ; builds them up in a regular 

 series; and levels and balances the general circulation ; and all this, 

 in addition to the functions which it performs for the arterial system 

 below it, of propelling the blood through the body ; and for the 

 nervous system above it, of receiving and representing the fluxions 

 and passions of the mind. In this way we have a first draught of a 

 beginning, a middle and an end, to some purposes of the human 

 heart. 



Here we conclude our first view of the heart, which we have found 

 to be more than a cross road, or convergence of vessels; in fact, to 

 be the metropolitan city of the blood, the interests and business of 

 whose home-inhabitants are of primary importance in the system. 

 We have then now three great divisions of this subject, viz., the cur- 

 rent through the lungs, the current through the body, and the in- 

 habitation and uses of the most privileged blood in the heart itself. 

 In other words, we have the doctrine of the circulation from the 

 moderns, and a justification, more modern still, of the flux and re- 

 flux of the blood, heart-felt and intuitively seen by the genius of the 

 ancients. 



As to the doctrine of the circulation which was demonstrated by 

 our great countryman, Harvey, it newly teaches us the import of the 

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