MORAL PARALLELS. 217 



theory, its leanness in moral significance, its comparative heartless- 

 ness, had to be seen, before the former could touch upon physics. 

 Moreover the harmony and union between the body and common 

 life, required to be known and stated, before ever an eye that could 

 see the heart of man could come into the world. But a time has 

 arrived when the feelings of the ancients can be vindicated, or when 

 the communion, or goings and returnings, of the heart itself, can be 

 added to the doctrine of the circulation. 



It may be urged that we are reasoning all along upon precon- 

 ceived opinions, which is not the method in vogue, and that we are 

 expecting nature to conform to our ideas. We reply, that we are 

 investigating the heart of man, in which the main evidence is the 

 feelings. From the height and in the compass of these we would 

 observe and experiment. The relation between them and the heart 

 is of mathematical power, and makes prediction into a duty. We 

 see that they cannot live in harmony with the heart, unless it be so 

 and so; we argue therefore towards the fact; but leave science to 

 find it out. That the present notions cannot be the last, is clear as 

 day; for there is not a common feeling of mankind that attests them; 

 not a thought of human life that connects itself with them ; not a 

 good or a brave heart among us that sees itself in their glass ; and 

 not a moral truth which reposes upon their basis, in the same way 

 as moral relations are founded upon the human heart. They are no 

 better than tricks of hydraulics, which are dead mummeries in our 

 spiritual city. The living body disowns them with horror as having 

 no souls. 



But what a series of moral parallels the current physical doctrine 

 would suggest! Hearts that grasp at their objects for lifetimes, but 

 never catch a drop : disappointment made into an organic principle ! 

 The soul and body founded upon illusions ! Hearts that are as dead 

 as flesh can make them when sundered from our well-known life ' 

 Hearts only cognizable post-mortem, and without a spark of out- 

 spokenness or candor ; not to be trusted till they are stiff and cold ! 

 Hearts without individuality, and which throw everything away upon 

 other organs ! Hearts that are fourfold prisons, each a solitary cell, 

 where the felon-neighbors feel each other thumping, but have no 

 intercourse ! Hearts whose food consists in their own regurgitations ! 

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