EXTRACT II. c. 



ON CIRCULATION AS ALL-PERVADING THROUGHOUT 

 THE HUMAN BODY. 



WE have attempted, somewhat irregularly, in these " ex- 

 tracts " to trace and describe circulation as the all-pervading 

 manner of nature's procedure in the disposition of living as 

 well as dead matter. We have endeavoured to trace the 

 various circulatory acts and series of vascular and inter- 

 spatial or interstitial arrangements by which it is carried 

 out in the animal, and more especially human, economy, 

 and have satisfied ourselves of the truth of our introductory 

 contention that all is circulation within the human micro- 

 cosm. Matter, from its entrance into the body, is in 

 perpetual motion until its restoration to the outer world in 

 the form of exhalation, transpiration, exudation, excretion, 

 and exfoliation, as gaseous, liquid, and solid effete elements, 

 or residua, its period of relative rest within it being repre- 

 sented by the temporary individual molecular rest amid its 

 various tissues and visceral developments, where the dis- 

 placement of one molecule is followed by the replacement 

 of another in continuous succession, procession, or circula- 

 tion, along the lines of least resistance and in obedience to 

 the operation of the physical law of impenetrability no 

 two substances being able to occupy the same space at the 

 same instant of time. A succession of circulatory acts, or 

 disposals, of a gradually increasing complexity of detail, lead 

 up, or forward, to the final act of the molecular incorpora- 

 tion, or nutritive supply to the various structures of the 

 body, of the pabulum which they respectively require, and 

 which they respectively assimilate, and afterwards release by 



