THE DIVERS SPEEDS AND OBJECTS OF THE BLOOD. 213 



ing of body, and of a realm where everything is bodily. Does the 

 heart then obtain nothing of that which it clutches ? Is the ox 

 muzzled that treads out the corn ? And is all the real blood thrown 

 outwards from the monarch of the feelings? Analogy forbids. 

 If the heart is a hand that grasps, it is also a person that gets ; it 

 is a very lord of its own objects. The caverns with which it is 

 sculptured, are so many means for retaining the blood; the little 

 mouths with which these are studded, are eagerly absorbent and re- 

 tentive ; and as the heart contracts, it fills its substance with im- 

 mediate blood, by the same act with which it drives the mass of the 

 blood into circulation (p. 189). The heart, we aver, takes the 

 central and most living blood. This it does by the love-laws and 

 justice of physics. The best blood is the fleetest, and enters the 

 cavities first, skirting along the walls (p. 189) ; the next living is 

 another layer which comes up afterwards; and lastly, into the mid- 

 dle, comes up the slowest blood in the rear. The assembled blood 

 in each cavity is grouped in a peculiar form, and contraction works 

 upon it according to the form. The first part of the contraction is 

 stimulated by the fastest and most feeling blood proper to that ca- 

 vity, which is driven by the dead pressure of the central blood, and 

 the counter-pressure of the solid walls, into the substance of the 

 heart itself, where it constitutes the realized life of that one feeling 

 or heart-beat. The racers however are different for the different 

 cavities; the family-blood is fastest, and wins the cup, in the right 

 auricle ; the amorous blood, in the left auricle ; and so forth ; and 

 centre and circumference vary as the goal is changed. We see all 

 this well enough in life or in the play of the great heart. - Each 

 being is prompt and rapid in the working of his own relations ; he 

 who is a laggard in friendship, comes to the surface, and shines with 

 vigor and promptitude when love catches him ; showing that each 

 man belongs to a centre, and lives eminently in and from its fires. 

 And for the parallel of the first point, we know that the heart is 

 not satisfied with grasping at its objects, and feeling their slipperi- 

 ness and flux, but that it must have possession, or the hollowness 

 of perpetual mockery makes it cease to grasp. 



Although then the blood of the right side of the heart is private 

 or venous, yet it is its most spirited portion that enters the living 

 solid of the heart, and feeds the home-fires that blaze on this side 



