Sect. II.] Phjslology, 979 



difler only from the rest of the universe hi the 

 variety and complexness of ils machinery. 



Bellini, of Florence, was the first who attracted 

 much attention by the introduction of matlieniatics 

 into physiology. Professor Horelli pursued the same 

 course of reasoning, and soon became one of its 

 most enthusiastic admirers. He employed it so 

 well in showing how the muscles act as cords, and 

 the bones as levers, that he thence undertook to 

 explain, with happy effect, the phenomena of stand- 

 ing, walking, leaping, flying, and swimming, in 

 ditferent animals*. Emboldened l)y the success 

 of his hrst attempt, he afterwards ventured to ex- 

 plain on the principles of mechanism all the in- 

 ternal motions and their proximate causes. On 

 the same ground he gave a minute account of the 

 pulsation of the heart, of the circulation of the 

 blood, of the office of the lungs, the kidneys and 

 the hver, of the nervous fluid and the semen, of ve- 

 getation, generation, nutrition, hunger, thirst, pain, 

 lassitude, and febrile heat. Y^y this ardent specu- 

 latist all nature was interpreted on mathematical 

 principles; for, except the mechanical, he \\as wd- 

 ling to admit no other secondary powers in nature. 

 He thought, with Plato, that the Deity nimself was 

 'dhvixys geovielrishig ; and was fully persuaded that 

 physical knowledge could only be acquired through 

 the medium of geometrical demonstrations and 

 forms. 



With what eagerness and zeal Dr. Pitcairn 

 adopted mechanical physiology, and to what un- 

 reasonable extremes he was disposed to carry it, is 



* See his ^vork, De Moiii AnimaUum. 



