214 THE HUMAN HEART. 



of our nature. Thus this blood is more than arterial in any ordi- 

 nary sense. We will here also note another point in the doctrine 

 of the heart, viz., that the flesh is prior in dignity to the cavity; 

 the flesh being the substance of the heart itself, while the cavity is 

 only the general high-road of the circulation. Harvey's great dis- 

 covery has had the effect of throwing this obvious truth into the 

 back-ground for a season, but by the love we bear to whatever 

 is solid and central in our hearts, it must be replaced, and the 

 doctrine of the circulation subordinated to it. The body will be 

 but a hollow shell, so long as the heart is regarded from its hollows, 

 and not from its substances. But in order to investigate these, a 

 new course of observations and injections will be necessary, under- 

 taken expressly under the light which the correspondence of the 

 feelings casts upon the physical organ. 



Here we begin to see how profound is the reason for that doctrine 

 that the heart absorbs its own blood through its walls, and does not 

 depend upon the coronary rills for its supply, which would beggar 

 it of what it grasps, and put an end to its motives for contraction. 

 We must never suppose that the heart's wisdom lies in doing that 

 which we should be fools to do in similar circumstances. If all 

 the stores of the earth passed through our hands, should we trans- 

 ship them, and then get our own sustenance back in a little skiff 

 from a foreign country ? Should we not open a retail on the spot, 

 to secure ourselves against difficulties, winds and tides; and come as 

 near to the wholesale stores as possible, avoiding the dearness and 

 losses of trade? And if it were the monarch's palace through 

 which all the goods were carried, as in the case of the sovereign 

 heart, would he not take the pick of every object on the spot, with- 

 out trusting to any honesty less than that of his own eyes ? Our 

 hearts feed more at the fountain-head than our societies ; what is 

 wise in our conscious arrangements is but the broken meat of the 

 organic wisdom: the passions browse upon the mountains of the 

 heart, and lap the blood of the life-covenant at first hand. We feel 

 that they are our bodily life — that they are our blood, and that if 

 anything in the world goes direct to its objects, it is they. For they 

 are the exemplars of all-grasping, all-possessing, and all-holding 

 man; and the heart is they. 



