216 THE HUMAN HEART. 



But how are we to see this in the anatomical heart ? It is true, 

 the heart itself tells us that it is there, but how shall we make it 

 visible ? In the first place, by holding it as among the greatest of 

 facts, and not losing heart in it. In the second place, by investiga- 

 tions and injections with an end and a purpose. In any case, the 

 beginning of success must lie in the belief that the physical heart is 

 the centre of blood communion, as the feeling heart is the centre of 

 human communion; a fact which is very certain, though how the 

 case stands has yet to be worked out. Something however has 

 been probably contributed to this by Swedenborg, in his deduc- 

 tions respecting the intercommunications of the cavities. In the 

 meantime we affirm, that the heart, which unites all the feelings 

 and their blood-streams, is the bodily blood-maker j that its blood 

 contained in its own flesh is so transcendent, that it keeps gyrating 

 through the centres many times before it is fatigued or exhausted; 

 that it is more constant to its objects than any of the blood of the 

 body; thus that the circulation of the heart is not to be termed 

 circulation but community ; or if circulation, that it is many times 

 circular — a knot of living rings; that the left side flows into the 

 right, and vice versa, without the intervention of the. systemic or 

 pulmonary circulations; the heart being a spheral thing of cycle 

 and epicycle, a globe of golden girdles suspended in the central life. 

 Through this passes the great arterial curve which attaches it to the 

 earth, and the pulmonic ring by which it is hooked to the air; but 

 the heart, so far as it is true to its place, does not swerve from its 

 own roundness, but remains in every respect central, in its feelings 

 alike as in its blood. 



If this be so, it would appear that the ancients were engaged upon 

 this higher problem of the circulation, but were unable to solve it, 

 when Harvey came, and took us down to a lower field, where truth 

 could become more definite at the time. They felt the fluctuations 

 of nature in their bosoms, and argued that the blood went to and 

 fro in its channels. There was a manliness and mutuality in the 

 thought beyond the science of the time; for certainly the immediate 

 relations of the heart are of a more spiritual power, than that large 

 and roundabout intercourse which makes the tour of the world be- 

 fore it touches the centre. But the incompleteness of the latter 



