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Such is the philosophical web which chemical ingenuity has wove for us,—the device is beautiful, but the fabric will be found too frail to endure the touch. The experiments of Dr. Crawford, in proof of the chemical origin of animal heat, are highly ingenious and plausible, but it is now generally admitted that the temperature of animals depends upon the living principle^[180] which animates them, and that although the absorption of oxygen, in the act of respiration, may directly contribute something to its production, yet that its chief action is that of serving as a stimulus to the living power in generating it; for, as Sir Gilbert Blane^[181] remarks, oxygen plays an interesting and active part as an exciting power throughout all nature, both animate and inanimate. If the heat of the body depended on respiration alone, any one might, by a voluntary effort of quick, deep, and prolonged respiration, increase the temperature of his body at will; the effect also of the emotions of the mind, in generating both heat and cold, adds Sir Gilbert, is proof sufficient of temperature depending on a vital, and not on a chemical cause.