VITAL ENERGY. 585 



It was also maintained by the celebrated Boer- 

 haave, that all the operations of the living body 

 are governed by the agency of an universal ca- 

 tholic fluid, the most subtile and elastic principle 

 in nature, termed by the Greeks and Romans ani- 

 ma mundi. But he supposed that the action of the 

 heart, stomach, and other involuntary organs, is 

 owing partly to the influence of arterial blood, 

 and partly to the agency of a nervous fluid, gene- 

 rated in the cerebellum ; while the voluntary 

 muscles derive their power from the influence of 

 a nervous fluid secreted in the cerebrum, as first 

 suggested by Willis. And so confused were his 

 notions in regard to the source of animal heat, 

 that with Bacon, Boyle, Borelli, and other me- 

 chanical physiologists, he represents it as an 

 effect of the heart's action, friction, and motion of 

 the blood, because when the circulation is vigorous, 

 the body is warm, but cold when it is languid.* 

 (Institutions in Physic, pp. 1661116.) 



Although it must be confessed, that this logic 

 is not precisely after the manner of Euclid, it is 

 not a bad specimen of what may be found in the 

 works of our most distinguished modern philoso- 



* He further maintained, that every variety of fever and in- 

 flammation is owing to a deranged condition of the blood, and 

 its too slow, or too rapid movements, as during the cold and hot 

 stages that all spasmodic affections are owing to a vigorous in- 

 flux of nervous influence into the muscles, and paralysis, to a stop- 

 page of that influx. Op. Cit. pp. 216 250. 



