118 
OF THL ANIMAL STRUCTURE 
“ Durst we make a single movement,” asks a lively French 
writer, “ or stir a step from the place we were in, if we saiv 
our blood circulating, the tendons pulling, the lungs blow¬ 
ing, the humours filtrating, and all the incomprehensible 
assemblage of fibres, tubes, pumps, valves, currents, piv¬ 
ots, which sustain an existence, at once so frail, and so pre¬ 
sumptuous?” 
V. Of animal bodies, considered as masses, there is 
another property, more curious than it is generally thought 
to be; which is the faculty of standing: and it is more 
remarkable in two-legged animals than in quadrupeds, and, 
most of all, as being the tallest, and resting upon the small¬ 
est base, in man.* There is more, I think, in the matter 
than we are aware of. The statue of a man, placed loosely 
upon its pedestal, would not be secure of standing half an 
hour. You are obliged to fix its feet to the block by bolts 
and solder; or the first shake, the first gust of wind, is sure 
to throw it down. Yet this statue shall express all the 
mechanical proportions of a living model. It is not, there¬ 
fore, the mere figure, or merely placing the centre of grav¬ 
ity within the base, that is sufficient. Either the law of 
gravitation is suspended in favor of living substances, or 
something more is done for them, in order to enable them 
to uphold their posture. There is no reason whatever to 
doubt, but that their parts descend by gravitation in the 
same manner as those of dead matter. The gift, there¬ 
fore, appears to me to consist, in a faculty of perpetually 
shifting the centre of gravity, by a set of obscure, indeed, 
but of quick-balancing actions, so as to keep the line 
of direction, which is a line drawn from that centre to the 
ground, within its prescribed limits. Of these actions it 
may be observed, first, that they in part constitute what we 
call strength. The dead body drops down. The mere 
adjustment, therefore, of weight and pressure, which may 
be the same the moment after death as the moment before, 
does not support the column. In cases also of extreme 
* Anatomy explains the mode in which the weight of the body is 
transmitted to the feet; and we have seen that the muscles which prevent 
the head from falling forward in standing, have their fixed point in the 
neck; that those which perform the same office with regard to the verte¬ 
bral column, have theirs in the pelvis; that those which preserve the pel¬ 
vis in equilibrium are attached to the thighs, or to the bones of the legs; 
that those which prevent the thighs from falling backward are inserted into 
the tibia; and lastly, that those that preserve the tibia in their verti¬ 
cal position have their fixed point in the feet; these preserve us firm in 
a standing position.— Paxton. 
