LAWS OF GOD IX XATTJEE. 
13 
of laws, the blood coursing through our arteries so yields to us its 
stores of force by another series of laws as to enable us to work with 
brain or hands or feet under still another series of laws. But the 
blood in thus yielding its stores of power becomes powerless and 
effete, it is only fit for burning. And burned it is, within us; 
burned just as fuel is burned in a furnace or fire-grate ; burned by 
action of the air drawn into the lungs; the heat evoked in the 
burning giving to us that warmth without which we could not live 
either asleep or awake, while the gaseous products of the combustion 
pass up through the little chimneys called the bronchial tubes and 
the larger chimney termed the throat, and so out by the general 
mouth to be diffused into the atmosphere. Whence came these laws 
or decrees governing the action of the heart and lungs, alike when 
we are asleep or when we are awake ? They were not devised by 
any human agency, they record not the mandates of any human 
legislature. 
The statement has just been made that the used-up air exhaled 
by the mouth in breathing is diffused into the atmosphere. This 
diffusion is worthy of our attention. For it is as important 
a property of matter, as important a truth or principle or law, in 
relation to man, as the indestructible character of matter or the 
gravitation of matter, though not so far-reaching. Why does not 
this impure exhaled air gather round our mouth and suffocate us, more 
especially when we are asleep and motionless ? Why does not the 
similar product of combustion from our gas-flames, candle-flames, 
and oil-flames, accumulate in our rooms and suffocate us ? Why 
does not the similar poisonous gas generated in our fire-grates and 
furnaces, and which is ever being conveyed by our chimneys into the 
layer of air close to the earth, accumulate there and poison us and 
all animals ? It may perhaps be said that the law of gravitation 
indirectly comes into action; that the impure gas is warm and 
therefore less heavy than the colder air, and that for this reason it 
rises and passes away, its place being occupied by the adjacent pure 
air. All of which is true as regards the laws which momentarily 
come into action; but this action is only local, the warm air almost 
immediately acquiring the temperature of adjacent cool air. We 
still have to deal with the fact that vast volumes of impure and 
poisonous air are constantly being generated on the surface of the 
earth and yet do not accumulate on the surface and suffocate us. 
Nay, the chief impurity thus produced is a gas half as heavy again 
as air, and therefore one which, did it solely obey the law of 
gravitation, most certainly would accumulate below the lighter 
pure air. Here comes in that nice adjustment of law which 
