194 THE HUMAN HEART. 



circle, by life and substance added to the strictness of mathematics. 

 It is also a cardinal instance in a line of universal truths. For there 

 is a circle of all things, as there is a circulation in the human body. 

 Not a fluid is contained in our frames, but according to its perfec- 

 tion aspires to circulate on the model of the circulation of the blood. 

 There is a grand current from the fluid to the solid, and from the 

 solid back into the fluid; a circulation of perpetual life — "formation, 

 destruction, and reformation/' (p. 174.) There is a circulation from 

 the universe into the body, through the food, the skin, the lungs, 

 the senses, the brain ; a circulation back again from the food, the 

 ♦skin, the lungs, the actions, and the mind itself. And the world is 

 an everlasting circulation. The mineral ascends into the vegetable, 

 and both into the animal, and all into man; and man's body de- 

 scends into the dust, and completes its circle there. In short, where- 

 ever we go, we meet this old emblem of eternity : the Midgard- 

 serpent with his tail in his mouth hoops the whole world round ; 

 ends and beginnings meet, and nature is bending round from her 

 first issues towards her source; like the weapon of the Australian, 

 she comes back into the hand that flings her, and the human body 

 is a permanence of her cycles, which are the pulses of our hearts. 



The heart, in common with the other organs, is the subject of a 

 twofold discourse, and has two sets of books and votaries appropri- 

 ated to its consideration. Indeed we may say that the present 

 world has two hearts, which have very little to do with each other. 

 There is the one heart of which Shakspeare is an interpreter, and 

 the other where Harvey reigns. Two Englishmen have been high 

 priests in the service of these two organs, and it would seem to be- 

 long to the same race, to mix the flames of the altars into one com- 

 mon pyre and ascension. Shall Cupid then learn anatomy, and the 

 ace of hearts, transfixed with his ancient dart, stand for something 

 in Carpenter's Physiology, or in the dissecting room? The one 

 heart, it is to be observed, is much older than the other; the heart 

 of love beats through human tongues before sciences were born; its 

 affirmers are that great cloud of men now above and beyond us, who 



