CONSUME THE BODY. 29 



oxygen is impeded ; for example, in the arm-pits, or 

 in the soles of the feet, peculiar compounds are given 

 out, recognisable by their appearance, or by their 

 odour. These compounds contain much carbon. 



Respiration is the falling weight, the bent spring, 

 which keeps the clock in motion; the inspirations 

 and expirations are the strokes of the pendulum 

 which regulate it. In our ordinary time-pieces, we 

 know with mathematical accuracy the effect pro- 

 duced on their rate of going, by changes in the 

 length of the pendulum, or in the external tempe- 

 rature. Few, however, have a clear conception of 

 the influence of air and temperature on the health 

 of the human body ; and yet the research into the 

 conditions necessary to keep it in the normal state, 

 is not more difficult than in the case of a clock. 



V. The want of a just conception of force and 

 effect, and of the connection of natural phenomena, 

 has led chemists to attribute a part of the heat gene- 

 rated in the animal body to the action of the ner- 

 vous system. If this view exclude chemical action, 

 or changes in the arrangement of the elementary 

 particles, as a condition of nervous agency, it means 

 nothing else than to derive the presence of motion, 

 the manifestation of a force, from nothing. But no 

 force, no power can come of nothing. 



No one will seriously deny the share which the 

 nervous apparatus has in the respiratory process ; 

 for no change of condition can occur in the body 



