Lecture II

Something is seeking for equipoise; it is as though there were an urge towards mutual saturation. Other words, of course, could be chosen for description, but we shall understand each other more and more. There is an interaction in the first place between the liquefied foodstuffs and the air absorbed into the organism by breathing. This process is intricate and worth attention. There is an interplay of forces, and each force before reaching the point of interplay accumulates in the heart. The heart originates as a “damming up” organ ( Stauorgan) between the lower activities of the organism, the intake and working up of food, and the upper activities, the lowest of which is the respiratory. A damming up organ is inserted and its action is therefore a product of the interplay between the liquefied foodstuffs and the air absorbed from the outside. All that can be observed in the heart must be looked upon as an effect, not a cause, as a mechanical effect, to begin with. The only hopeful investigations on these lines, so far, have been those of Dr. Karl Schmidt, an Austrian medical man, practising in North Styria, who published a contribution to the Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift (1892, No. 15), “The Heart Action and Curve of the Pulse.” The content of this article is comparatively small, but it proves that his medical practice had enlightened the author on the fact that the heart in no way resembled the ordinary pump but rather must be considered a dam-like organ. Schmidt compares cardiac action to that of the hydraulic ram, set in motion by the currents. This is the kernel of truth in his work. But we need not stop short at the mechanical aspect if we consider the heart action as a result of these symbolic inter-penetrating currents, the watery and the airy. For what is the heart after all? It is a sense organ, and even if its sensory function is not directly present in the consciousness, if its processes are subconscious, nevertheless it serves to enable the “upper” activities to feel and perceive the “lower.” As you perceive external colours through your eyes, so do you perceive, dimly and subconsciously through your heart, what goes on in the lower abdomen. The heart is an organ for inner perception.