THE HUMAN HEART. 
361 
ture, and subsequently retain it in action, endowing it witli that 
exquisite irritability or sensitiveness by which it becomes, on 
the application of suitable stimuli, a working, nay, a living and 
self-repairing machine, or what even is the essential force in 
those stimuli, — these are things which neither the knife of the 
anatomist, the microscope, nor chemical analysis, nor any other 
re-agent at our disposal can reveal. 
Indeed, it is probable that they are beyond the scope of our 
present faculties to comprehend, yet they also are the works of 
the Creator, and, doubtless, intended to display His power and 
skill to intelligent beings ; so that from our very ignorance and 
incapability for such knowledge here we are led to hope for a 
higher state of being, where, with more perfect faculties, we 
may be permitted to satisfy the longings of the mind for a 
knowledge of the hidden laws of the Creator, and so of the 
Creator himself, and to explore all those mysteries of nature 
which here are among the things unknown. 
