236 THE HUMAN HEART. 



The viscera are meant in the nature of things for the will and the 

 muscles ; they are meant to be present and serviceable for every 

 action that man performs ; and vice versa, all action is meant to act 

 upon them and to modify them. By means of the muscles they are 

 girded into one body ; each has the benefit of pressure from without, 

 and is forced to do its work in an exact space, or what is the same 

 thing, to refine nature into skill ; and all are set upright, or have 

 their own portion of man's erectness or heaven-sightedness conferred 

 upon them. Thus the liver, the spleen, the stomach become paral- 

 lel with the eyes and hands, and action runs consistently from the 

 soul through the skin, as well as from the will through the fingers. 

 By means of the muscles also they receive the powers of the voli- 

 tions : industry and skill are stricken into their phlegmatic tempers, 

 and they are forced to take part in deeds, and to make blood and 

 humors, not for molecular domestic circulation, but for human aims. 

 The stomach, thrashed by the rods of the voluntary fibres of the 

 abdomen, is allowed to make no sleepy chyle, but a quick and stir- 

 ring milk of support, worthy to feed a workman's blood. And the 

 liver, under the same task-masters, is not permitted to make soapy 

 infantine bile, but sharp decisive stuff, ready in a moment to cut the 

 maudlin of the animal secretions. By means of the muscles also the 

 viscera have the benefit of locomotion and change of air; the will, 

 and these his servants, are the carriage that takes the liver and its 

 companions from London to Paris, or where we please ; the muscles 

 also walk them out, and give them exercise, which they require just 

 as much as ourselves. The muscular system furthermore lends hard- 

 ness to the tender viscera, and contains and corrects their sensibili- 

 ties, just as the will makes the mind firm : thus it enables the vitals, 

 poor jellies without it, to bear what is to be borne, and do what must 

 be done. Where this strength is not given, liver and bowels are as 

 it were out-lying in the world, exaggerated in size, shrinking from 

 healthy sounds and vigorous contacts, and trodden under foot of cir- 

 cumstances that are the playmates of the body in its well-braced 

 powers. In short the viscera are created to receive and appropriate 

 the actions of our muscles, and to be humanized (p. 40), or lose their 

 laziness and animality, by this among other means. It is a fact that 

 they do receive these actions, and being a necessity also, we state it 



