26 OP LIFE. 



*#. The nerves and brain serve merely as conductors 

 to the impressions which excite passions by irritating or- 

 ganic life. The brain arrests the impressions that excite 

 intellect, but it conducts the passions to organic life. 



Q. Will you name some of the effects of the passions 

 on our organs? 



fl. Anger hurries the action of the heart; joy does so to 

 some extent: terror enfeebles the energy of the heart, so 

 that blood is not sent to the capillaries. These passions act 

 so intensely on the source of the circulation, as sometimes 

 to stop the action of the heart, producing syncope. Sor- 

 row affects the respiratory organs. The passions variously 

 influence the stomach, spleen, intestines, liver, and even 

 the blood-vessels, so as to occasion lesions in them. Ex- 

 halation, absorption, nutrition are less influenced by the 

 passions. Now, observe, that under all these alterations 

 of organic life by the passions, the animal functions are 

 unhurt. 



Q. But if organic life is the seat and source of the pas- 

 sions, how is it that these passions so excite the organs of 

 animal life? 



/?. As some of the passions increase the heart's action, 

 it follows that an increased volume of blood is sent to the 

 brain; thus the centre of animal life is excited, and the 

 functions dependent on it are exalted. So likewise in those 

 passions which enfeeble the heart's action, the impetus of 

 blood being lessened, the functions of animal life are, by 

 the diminished energy of its centre, debilitated. 



Q. Is there a common epigastric centre for the passions? 



A. There is not. The impulse of passion arises in dif- 

 ferent persons, under different circumstances, from differ- 

 tnt passions, involving different abdominal organs. 



