204 THE HUMAN HEART. 



Let us commence from the right auricle, which is " the first part 

 of the heart to live, and the last to die;" the primordial feeling and 

 the latest passion of our bodies. And first we have to ask, what it 

 is that this hand would seize ? For the hand has many objects, but 

 wherever it closes, it has a desire of possession, and the grasp is 

 proportioned to the object. And so of the heart, which is the vis- 

 ceral will, or the inmost hand of the body. Now vessels and their 

 contents signify one and the same thing, under active and passive 

 conditions, and as each part desires to perpetuate its life, each 

 grasps at its alter ego in the fluid form. The fluid, therefore, is the 

 index of the solid which holds it ; the organic cup answers to the 

 cordial; the ruby of the chalice is the wine in a mineral metamor- 

 phosis. We have, therefore, to interpret the desires of this auricle 

 by noticing their objects. What are they? The old blood of the 

 body, the elderly blood of the brain, itself wise or cerebrated by its 

 visit to those upper regions, the return blood of the heart, and the 

 white young blood, or the conjoint chyle and lymph, meet together 

 in one common chamber. The end and beginning of life are there 

 represented j at the point of completion of the circle the extremes 

 of existence touch. It is the house of the heart where the elders 

 behold their posterity about them. All that could die of the old 

 blood during its last generation or circulation, has been put aside 

 through the medium of many secretions, and the activity of nume- 

 rous organs, and in the heart again it is a mere abstract or passion, 

 immortal for at least another circle : hence the old blood is but the 

 old in the young, about to continue the gyre through another curri- 

 culum of ages. Father-love and mother-love, or the love of race, 

 naturally exists in such a group ; the bond which seizes the inmates 

 is that which makes families out of individuals. The tide of feel- 

 ings sets in from this first grasp of the heart, whose contents in the 

 right auricle are embraced by the family tie. The free blood re- 

 ceives the impression, and is a patriarchal clan. The right auricle, 

 the first parent of the blood, sends down parental love, as the first 

 river of life, through all its generations, and also recruits itself 

 every moment from its latest offspring. On opening this chamber, 

 then, we see the perspective of race in its various phases j proces- 

 sions of parents and children, the everlasting progeny of the heart : 



