COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



formed sunlight. 1 But animals are also directly 

 stimulated by the solar rays, as in the cases of 

 insects which begin to fly and crawl in early 

 summer, and of hibernating mammals which 

 emerge from their retreats at the approach of 

 warm weather. By its stimulating effect on the 

 retina, and thence on the medulla oblongata, 

 sunlight quickens the breathing and circulation 

 in higher animals, and thus facilitates the repair 

 of tissue. In the night we exhale less carbonic 

 acid than in the daytime. Again, the stunted 

 growth and pale sickly faces of men and women 

 who live in coal-mines, or in narrow streets and 

 dark cellars, are symptoms traceable to anaemia, 

 or to a deficiency of red globules in the blood. 

 Whence it seems not improbable that the for- 

 mation of red globules, like the formation of 

 sap in plants, may be in some way directly 

 assisted by solar undulations. 



Mysteriously allied with the vital phenomena 

 of nutrition, innervation, and muscular action 

 are the psychical phenomena of feeling and 

 thought. Though (as previously hinted and as 

 I shall hereafter endeavour to prove) the gulf 



1 As the poet-philosopher Redi says of wine : — 



M Si bel sangue e un raggio acceso 

 Di quel Sol che in ciel vedete j 

 E rimase avvinto e preso 

 Di piu grappoli alia rete." 



Bacco in Toscana ; Opere, torn. i. p. 2. 



334 



