232 THE HUMAN HEART. 



after part, as it were successive choirs of faery-footed, guardian 

 organs. 



It may further be remarked, that all substances inside the body, 

 propagate their state as interpreted by their feel, to the body at large. 

 See p. 136. This we illustrated in that place by certain considera- 

 tions touching the feel of oil and other objects in the mouth, as 

 affording sensations of an agreeable kind, apart from the sense of 

 taste, and which seem to be a kind of structural taste that travels 

 beyond the tongue, and soothes the frame at large. The action of 

 demulcents, gums and mucilages, and of cold water, are in part of 

 this kind. And medicines act also in this double way, propagating 

 themselves, and working out their specific problems, both by quality 

 or taste, and by quantity or vibration. If this be true of inanimate 

 substances, a fortiori the living fluids propagate their vibrations in 

 the same way; the organic feel of what goes on in the heart, for 

 example — the groupings, marriages and thrills of the blood, are pro- 

 pagated per sensum in like manner, and influence the general state. 

 Nay more, by incessantly jogging the body, and giving it these 

 atomic hints, the impassioned blood-populations insert into man the 

 beginnings of an impulsion that comes out at last in full actions of 

 a correspondent order; the still small voices whispering year after 

 year, grow louder as the audience of vibrating organs enlarges, and 

 ultimately play their tunes in concert with the whole world of man. 

 The largest wheels begin to stir, to start, to move slowly, and finally 

 to revolve, after the least; and the speed increasing, the revolution 

 is swift enough in time to make one drop of passion into a great ring 

 of fire, as consistent as our fate. The "biting of the maggot" that 

 sets impulse in motion, is an ugly metaphor for these words of com- 

 mand that issue from our eager blood. A fairer saying is, that "all 

 men have their hobbies," and these begin in little toys of globules, 

 or blood-dolls, which the heart dandles, dresses, and nurses, intend- 

 ing that the big body shall one day do the same, when the vibration 

 has grown up, and can be the mother of bodily action. The pri- 

 mordial affections of our blood, are our nature's hobbies, but after 

 they become disanimalized or humanized, they change this name, 

 and become good ends. 



External nature also plays upon the sensorial body, and we sym- 



