160 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



One of these aspects is concerned with its bearings on 

 the subject of " circulation " generally, but more especially 

 of " circulation," as it is to be met with, and illustrated, 

 in the economy of animal, and vegetable, life. 



This subject is now well worn, and has done great and 

 good work in clearing up many of the secrets of animated 

 nature, and, we think, it has still much to do in the same 

 field, ere we can afford to lay it aside as an instrument 

 which has ceased to be of use to the exponents of modern 

 biological science. Personally, we think that a wider 

 and fuller use, may still be made of it, in the study of 

 animal and vegetable, or biological, statics, and dynamics, 

 with a sure prospect of its being able to advance the 

 conquest of research into some of the mysterious regions 

 of this field, and others, that lie immediately ahead of the 

 pioneers of natural science. As proving our confidence in 

 this sanguine forecast, we are tempted to permit ourselves, 

 at the outset of our supplementary remarks, rather than 

 at their close, to crystallise our belief in the truth of what 

 we say, as we have done before, by using a form of words 

 after the manner of the illustrious Greek philosopher 

 whom we have quoted, to the following effect, and in 

 the following order, viz. : circulatio circulationum omnia 

 circulatio. 



The truth of these words, and of this thesis of varieties, 

 we shall now endeavour to make manifest, and, in doing 



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so, we shall confine ourselves, more especially, to that 

 aspect of the subject which finds its illustration in the 

 animal, and more especially, in the human economy. 

 Here we find that the principle of circulation is universally 

 operative, in all the processes which we denominate vital, 

 and that by, and through, it, the manifold operations of 

 building up, and taking down, of taking down, and 

 building up, of ministering to the wants of conscious 

 being, and, finally, of effecting the resolution of the 

 component corporeal parts into their inorganic elements. 

 In attempting to accomplish this large, and self-imposed, 

 task, we must confess our inability adequately to compass 

 it, or in any appreciable degree to exhaust it ; but we 

 flatter ourselves that we may, in our restricted efforts, 

 be at least, " aiding, and abetting," others in carrying 



