Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/162

142 enabled to discover, in that form or construction, the finger of the most stupendous and adorable goodness, wisdom, and power of the.

Passing by therefore these considerations, which nevertheless merit the most profound regard, and were doubtless intended to excite the most grateful acknowledgment of every rational being, I hasten to direct your attention to some other points connected with the above organs, which perhaps have been too generally overlooked, or, at least, have not been explored with that degree of minute and diligent research which their infinite importance demands.

The first of these points is the continuation of that motion, both in the heart and the lungs, by which the former is enabled to perform its pulsations, and the latter their respirations, during the whole period of the life of the body, to whatsoever length it may be extended.

For what shall we say is the origin, and what the cause of the protraction of this motion? Certain it is that so long as life remains in the body, the heart heats and the lungs play; and in some instances never cease to exercise their respective activities during the lengthened period of more than a hundred years. But how shall we account rationally and satisfactorily for this wonderful phenomenon? Shall we say that those