218 THE HUMAN HEART. 



Hearts in short which are bloodless, lifeless, sympathyless, the fools 

 of peddling rills of circumstance, purveyors of blood to the troughs 

 of the senses! Carbon and oxygen carriers, or coal-porters and 

 scullions to the body at large ! Truly materialism is never so ludi- 

 crous as when we see its upshot translated into the terms of life. 



Our aim is the very contrary. We desire to see in the body a 

 heart that gains its object every moment, and in so doing, ministers 

 to the body at large. In the man, a heart that throbs with the 

 enjoyment of his own life. We desire to take the doctrine of the 

 heart from our noblest breasts, and to have the kingdom of the 

 living body come over again in the sciences of the physical body. 

 We desire to see the heart central in its relations, unspent in its 

 operations, a communal sun, giving life, but keeping life for itself. 

 We desire to see its separate affections open as day to the warmth 

 or streams of their neighbor's lives and fires. We desire to see the 

 heart built up before all things from its own immediate objects, and 

 provoked to life by no coronary squirts, by no circuitous after- 

 thoughts. In short, we desire that the heart should be alive and 

 loving j that the blood should be the life; very much in physics after 

 the same fashion that the Bible commands for our hearts in that 

 which in these days of divorce is thought to be a different sphere. 

 But whether or not the present doctrines of the heart may not be 

 equivalent to the treatment of man's heart by the world, we leave 

 to others to follow out. 



In this place we will take occasion to illustrate to the reader the 

 nature of abstract ideas, taking our instance from the feelings, which 

 are so vital to us, and generally considered to be of an abstract 

 nature when thought about. What are human feelings ? In the 

 concrete, i. c, as substantial things, they are clearly the man him- 

 self alive to certain relations. Thus, a friendly feeling is no other 

 than a particular friend through whom is passing that motion or 

 emotion which produces certain results when occasion serves. So 

 too friendship is the gathered maniple of all friends, quick with 

 these emotions, and gravitating like an atmosphere to satisfy them. 

 What then are the feelings in the abstract? They are the hearts of 

 these same people with attention inwardly directed to them ; the 

 skin and ribs of the manly image are peeled away, and the naked 



