168 THE LAWS OF ORGANIC 



words, enlarged glands, swollen veins, and a florid 

 and vascular appearance of almost every viscus. 

 The veins seem to be proportionally larger than 

 the arteries, because the blood can sojourn in 

 them with greater facility than in the arteries, 

 in which motion is communicated to the blood, 

 by the heart, at all times sufficiently strong to 

 make the accumulation less in the one than the 

 other ; and it was simply from this reason that 

 MANGILI observed the veins larger than the 

 arteries, and, from this and other causes explained, 

 that PALLAS had remarked the glandular bodies 

 of the throat more prominent and vascular than 

 usual. 



CLXXXVI. The state of the system during 

 repose is evidently not mere slumber, as has 

 been supposed, for this does not retard the or- 

 ganic functions, but is an extinction of nine- 

 tenths of those powers that constitute its active 

 life, and the fraction which remains is not occu- 

 pied, as in health, in the assimilation of food, or 

 in attending to the multifarious secretory and 

 absorbent actions, but is sluggishly engaged in 

 the performance of respiration and circulation. 

 The former is employed in oxygenating the blood, 

 and in removing from the body certain excre- 

 mentitious matters, the product of the vital ac- 

 tion still going on ; and the latter is feebly con- 

 tracting in order to propel the slender stream of 

 blood to the various parts of the system. In fine, 



