source from which all things originally | the final abandonment of those dialectic flowed, but simply as a future possibility varieties in which the peculiarities of nanow in process of development-the grand tional character have hitherto found a final totality of perfected humanity. To fitting utterance? In spite of some posus this view seems not only utterly repug- sible commercial and even scientific benenant to every axiom of natural reason, fits, there would be more loss than gain but in its moral aspects blank and desolate in such a change. It would be the vicbeyond expression. Can any effect pro- tory of dry intellect over the soul. For ceed from a cause that is less than itself? the language themselves so elevated into But this theory not only supposes in the sovereignty would lose their original chafirst instance a spontaneous evolution out racter. To adapt themselves to the wants of nothing, but through the entire course of a wide-spread and diversely circumof ensuing development a series of effects stanced population, they would have to ever increasing in potency over their efface their old distinctive peculiarities, causes. Evolution, such as is every where and rub themselves down to a certain displayed in this boundless universe, is to monotonous equality of tone. They would us wholly inconceivable without the as- cease to be the languages of Shakspeare sumption of an infinite fund of power and and Voltaire. Poetry in its higher sense, intelligence behind it. And what religion, as the genuine language of the heart, available for comfort and support, can a would be almost an impossibility. What frail dependent being like man extract still went by the name of literature, from the simple thought, however sublime, would consist in its higher and graver deof the indefinite progressiveness of his partment of scientific treatises, or bare species, and the hope that possibly some statements of fact; in its more popular thousands of years hence the collective form, would find a vent, as it now does wisdom of man may attain a perfection increasingly in the United States, in penny not wholly disproportionate to the idea of sheets, in periodicals and newspapers. God? Strange and repulsive as such With the dying-out of a dialect capable theories must appear to every man whose of rendering the soul's best thoughts into mind has been once imbued with deep re- poetry, art and religion, from their close ligious sentiment, it is undeniably the affinity with poetry, would both lose an tendency of mere science, unchecked by element of vitality-the former degeneother influences, to introduce such bare rating into a mechanical photography, the abstractions into circulation, and to re- latter becoming a speculation, and ceasing place personal agency by mere law as the to be a lofty sentiment full of ennobling ultimate fact of the universe. effect on the life. It is a curious question, what would be the effect of the unrestrained predominance of purely scientific tendencies of mind on some of the most beautiful expressions and precious interests of our nature, on language, poetry, art, religion. It is a remarkable fact, noticed by Hegel himself, (p. 63, English Translation,) that language, as a medium of sentiment and feeling, and even of thought, often deteriorates with the growth of civilization. It lies less close to the soul; it is less simple, genuine, and true; it is a less faithful exponent of what is deepest and holiest in humanity. It acquires more the character of a conventional system of symbols, which express the abstractions of thought, and not the concrete realities of the heart and life. What would be the ultimate condition of literature, if one or two languages, as the English or the French, were to become the sole medium of intercourse between civilized men, to We do not anticipate any such result, notwithstanding some present appearances that may seem to threaten it; for there is a vis conservatrix in human society, which always interposes in time to sustain the balance of our being, and to prevent any one constituent of it from absorbing the rest. As London at the present day is in some degree correcting the evil of its own unwieldy magnitude by breaking down of itself into different municipal wholes, each with its own cluster of associated interests and institutions gathering round a common center, and represented by a local paper; so, when the further advance of the world requires it, that wonderful equalization of thought, speech, and interest, which has for years been converting all Europe and America into one great nation, will doubtless again separate into distinct nationalities, kept even more distinct by their very recognition of a common brotherhood; and give birth once more, under the inspiring what depreciatory influence of economical breadth of freedom, and in the conscious- and statistical inquiries, which often reckness of internal strength and vitality, to on man's worth at so much productive those deep, rich, expressive literatures, power, whether of good or evil, and take no which can only spring from the exuberant note of the interior qualities of his nature. fullness of a nation's heart. With refer- There is one view connected with all speence to this future result, there is some- culations respecting the final destination thing significant in that passion for the of our race, to which Hegel no where discultivation of old literatures, rather in- tinctly alludes, but to which most minds creasing than diminishing with the pro- can not but incessantly revert, though the press of civilization, which keeps alive an data for forming an opinion lie beyond interest in the most beautiful remembrances the sphere which the historian and the of the past, and operates as a healthy scientific theorist, with their particular counteraction to the refrigerating in- objects, can properly enter: and yet, fluence of pure science. The counterac- apart from this view, we feel that no solution is strongest where the local tenden- tion of these high questions can be concies most require it. With what enthu- sidered satisfactory and complete. Does siasm do the cultivated minds of North- man's life finally terminate here? Or is America abandon themselves to the study it only the commencement of a higher of the great writers of England, Italy, life? On this question, science, as science, and Spain, which are to them what the has nothing to say; for its only possible classics of Greece and Rome once were, data do not transcend the visible and acand still are, to the scholars of Europe! tual, and its inferences can not exceed the Jefferson, it is well known, with a sort of warrant of its data. But there is someprophetic insight, was most anxious to thing older, deeper, and more vital than promote classical studies among his coun- science, which if science can not create, trymen. Nor have the most enlightened neither can it touch. Our only postulates and patriotic Frenchmen shown themselves are, a living God, and the worth of the less eager to restore the ancient reputa- individual soul. On these solemn themes tion of their country for classical learning, the heart is wiser than the head. Here as some counterpoise to the rigid scientific not the intellect, but the soul, must detendencies of the Ecole Polytechnique, cide; for the soul lies near to God; in so zealously encouraged by the first Na- faith and prayer it receives communicapoleon. Oriental and archæological stu- tions from him which it can not distrust. dies have long been zealously cultivated Faith is not nourished by science, though in France. the freest science is compatible with it; but by art, poetry, literature-by affectionate converse with other souls, and constant dealing with the spiritual realities of life. The views which result from intellectual speculation, and are opened on us by the ever-widening horizon of science, are in constant process of transmutation; but the affections and the trusts which grow out of them are unchanging and eternal. Literature, which reflects the concentrated result of the universal experience of life and the soul, and is quickened at times by influences from a higher source-Literature, of which the Bible itself is only the highest form—and not Science, is the special nurture for those elements of our being which are permanent and involve indestructible relations with the Unseen and Infinite. Among the secondary causes which, over and above the conviction of its inherent divinity and truth, uphold the authority of Christianity among thoughtful and earnest men, one doubtless is, the perception of its direct subserviency to nourish all those hopes and beliefs in which our moral nature finds its richest nutriment, and which infuse a higher spirit into the pursuits and interests of our daily life. The sublime utterances of the Bible, it solemn appeals to what lies deepest within us, and the awful glimpses which it gives us into the Divine and Infinite, are felt to be in this respect of unspeakable value. They inspire a deep sense of the inherent worth and dignity of the They uphold the value of the individual, as carrying a divine and imperishable life within him, against the some soul. From Blackwood's Magazine. WONDERS AND CURIOSITIES OF BLOOD. BLOOD is a mighty river of Life, the mysterious center of chemical and vital actions as wonderful as they are indispensable, soliciting our attention no less by the many problems it presents to speculative ingenuity, than by the many practical conclusions to which those speculations lead. It is a torrent impetuously rushing through every part of the body, carried by an elaborate network of vessels, which, in the course of the twelvemonths, convey to the various tissues not less than three thousand pounds' weight of nutritive material, and convey from the various tissues not less than three thousand pounds' weight of waste. At every moment of our lives there is nearly ten pounds of this fluid rushing in one continuous throbbing stream, from the heart through the great arteries which branch and branch like a tree, the vessels becoming smaller and smaller as they subdivide, till they are invisible to the naked eye, and then they are called capillaries, (hair-like vessels,) although they are no more to be compared in caliber with hairs than hairs are with cables. These vessels form a network finer than the finest lace-so fine, indeed, that if we pierce the surface at almost any part with the point of a needle, we open one of them, and let out its blood. In these vessels the blood yields some of its nutrient materials, and receives in exchange some of the wasted products of tissue; thus modified, the stream continues its rapid course backwards to the heart, through a system of veins, which commence in the myriad capillaries that form the termination of the arteries. The veins, instead of subdividing like the arteries, become gradually less and less numerous, their twigs entering branches, and the branches trunks, till they reach the heart. No sooner has the blood poured into the heart from the veins, than it rushes through the lungs, and from them back again to the heart and arteries, thus completing the circle, or circulation. This wondrous stream, ceaselessly circulating, occupies the very center of the vital organism, midway between the func tions of Nutrition and the functions of Excretion, feeding and stimulating the organs into activity, and removing from them all their useless material. In its torrent upwards of forty different substances are hurried along it carries gases, it carries salts-it even carries metals and soaps! Millions of organized cells float in its liquid; and of these cells which by some are considered to be organic entities, twenty millions are said to die at every pulse of the heart, to be replaced by other millions. The iron which it washes onwards can be separated. Professor Bérard used to exhibit a lump of it in his lecture-room-nay, one ingenious Frenchman has suggested that coins should be struck from the metal extracted from the blood of great men. Let no one suggest that we should wash our hands with the soap extracted from a similar source! Although to the naked eye the blood appears as a homogeneous fluid, having a color more or less scarlet, the microscope assures us that it is a fluid which carries certain solid bodies of definite shape and size- so definite, indeed, that a mere stain, no matter where, will, to the experienced eye, betray whether it be the blood of a mammal, a bird, a reptile, or a fish. Prick your finger with a needle, place the drop on the glass slide under your microscope, cover it with a thin glass, and look. You will be surprised, perhaps, to observe that the blood which had so deep a tint of scarlet in the mass, is of a pale reddish yellow, now that it is spread out on the slide; whereupon you conclude that the depth of tint arose from the dense aggregation of those yellow discs, which you observe scattered about, some of them adherent together, and presenting the appearance of piles of halfsovereigns. It is these "floating solids" of the blood upon which your attention must now be fixed. They are variously named Blood-corpuscles, Blood-globules, Blood-cells, and Blood-discs. It is a pity that one term is not finally adopted; and A blood-discs seems on the whole the best, | discoveries made in our own day. There It is to Hewson that science is indebted * Leewenhoek: Select Works, i. 89. In the larva of the Ephemeron are the blood- There must assuredly be some relation between the form and size of these discs and their function; but what that relation is, no one has yet made out. In general, the larger discs are found in the less advanced organisms: that is to say, they are larger in the embryo than in the adult, larger in birds than in mammals, larger in reptiles and fishes than in birds. But they are largest of all in the Triton and Proteus, which as reptiles are exceptions to the rule. Nor can the rule be taken absolutely, even within those limits we have named, since although reptiles are less advanced in organization than mammals, and have larger discs, it is not the least advanced among the mammals that have the largest discs; for instance, the ruminants are less advanced than the quadrumana, yet among mammals the ruminants have the smallest discs; and in man they are as large as in rodents.t *Milne Edwards notices a similar denial made by M. Giacomini at the Pisa Congress of scientific men in 1839-a denial which pretended to be based on original investigations. In man their diameter varies between 0 and § Milne Edwards: Leçons sur la Phys. et l'Anat.200 of an inch; and their average thickness is Comp. i. 44. The works of Hewson have been 13.00 of an inch. Vierordt estimates that in about edited, and in a very valuable manner, by Mr. Gulli- of a cubic inch, there are as many as 5,055,000 ver, for the "Sydenham Society." of these discs. VOL. XLV.-NO. I. 2 The structure of these bodies is neces- There are other bodies in the blood besarily difficult of study. Leewenhoek, side these, and they are known as the and others, observed that in the discs of colorless corpuscles, which consist of two, the fish and reptile there is always a cen- if not three, different kinds. The true tral spot, which appears dark, or clear, colorless corpuscle (and it will be conveaccording as it is viewed by transmitted, nient to confine the term disc, or cell, to or reflected, light. This appearance was the red corpuscle) is much larger than the interpreted as indicating a perforation in disc, and seems to be a round vesicle conthe discs, which would consequently imply taining a number of spherical granules imthat they were like quoits. But Hewson bedded in a gelatinous substance. This settled this doubt by proving the central corpuscle has the property of spontaneous spot to be a solid nucleus, which he saw expansion and contraction, which forcibly escaping from its envelope, to float free in reminds the observer of the contractions the liquid-an observation subsequently and expansions manifested by that singuconfirmed. It is worthy of remark that lar microscopic animalcule, the Amaba, this nucleus is seen with difficulty when probably the very simplest of all organic the blood is newly drawn from a vessel, beings. The Amoeba is a single cell: it although it speedily becomes distinct, es- has no "organs" whatever, but crawls pecially if a little water be added. This along the surface by extemporizing an has led Valentin, Wagner, Henle, Don- arm or a leg out of its elastic substance, ders, and Moleschott to the conclusion which arm or leg is speedily drawn in that the nucleus is not present normally, again, and fresh prolongations are thrown but arises from internal coagulation on out; thus, as you watch it, you perceive exposure to the air: a conclusion rejected it assuming an endless succession of forms, by Mayer and Kölliker, the former aver- justifying the name of Proteus originally ring that he has seen the nucleus while the bestowed on it. So like the Amoeba is blood-discs were still circulating in the the colorless blood-corpuscle, that many capillaries of a young frog's foot. We observers have not hesitated to adopt the have not ourselves been able to see this in opinion that these corpuscles are actually the large discs of the Triton, and know animalcules, and that our blood is a select not if Mayer's observation has been con- vivarium; an opinion which is not very firmed by any other microscopist. But tenable, and is far from necessary for the there are other grounds on which we purpose of explanation. We may admit, should be disposed to accept the fact of and the point is of profound philosophic the nucleus being normally present, and interest, that the blood-corpuscles are not simply the result of coagulation: the analogous to the Amoeba, without admitchief of these is, that in the embryo of a ting them to be parasites. Considering mammal we discover nuclei in the discs, the wondrous uniformity in the organic whereas in the adult animal no nuclei are creation, considering how Life seems discoverable, even after long exposure to every where to manifest itself under forms the air; and the philosophic zoologist well which through endless varieties preserve knows in how many minute particulars the an uniformity not less marvelous-so few embryonic state of the higher animals and simple seem to be the laws of organic represents the permanent state of the combination-there is nothing at all imlower. In the discs of all adult mammalia probable in the idea that as the Amoeba is the nucleus is absent; what has some- the starting-point of the animal series, an times been mistaken for it is simply a analogous form may also be the starting central depression of the disc, which gives point of the animal tissues. The blood is, it the form of a bi-concave lens. Never- we know, the source from which the tistheless, although the nucleus is absent in sues draw their substance; the corpuscles the adult, it is present in the embryo; and seem to be the embryonic forms of the I have seen it in the blood of a young blood-discs in vertebrata, and constitute kitten.* the only blood-cells of the invertebrata; we may therefore regard the development of *Mr. Wharton Jones, one of our best investigators, says that the blood of the elephant and the horse contains a few of these nucleated discs. Nasse has seen them in the blood of pregnant women, and Mr. Busk found one in that of a man. Kölliker disputes the accuracy of these observations, and thinks that in each case the nucleus was produced by some alteration of the contents. At any rate, the presence of nucleated discs is the indication of physiological inferiority, and we may perhaps find them in certain cases of disease. |