NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 119 



time in the Spanish Inquisition, and with difficulty obtained their freedom, we 

 may infer that in those days even such a toy appeared great enough to ex- 

 cite doubts as to its natural origin. And though these artists may not have 

 hoped to breathe into the creature of their ingenuity a soul gifted with moral 

 completeness, still there were many who would be willing to dispense with 

 the moral qualities of their servants, if, at the same time, their immoral 

 qualities could also be got rid of; and accept, instead of the mutability of flesh 

 and bones, services which should combine the regularity of a machine with 

 the durability of brass and steel. The object, therefore, which the inventive 

 genius of the past century placed before it with the fullest earnestness, and 

 not as a piece of amusement merely, was boldly chosen, and was followed 

 up with an expenditure of sagacity which has contributed not a little to 

 enrich the mechanical experience which a later time knew how to take ad- 

 vantage of. We no longer seek to build machines which shall fulfil the 

 thousand services required of cue man, but desire, on the contrary, that a 

 machine shall perform one service, but shall occupy in doing it the place of 

 a thousand men. 



From these efforts to imitate living creatures, another idea, also by a mis- 

 understanding, seems to have developed itself, which, as it were, formed the 

 new philosopher's stone of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was 

 noAv the endeavor to construct a perpetual motion. Under this term was 

 understood a machine, which, without being wound up, without consuming 

 in the working of it, falling water, wind, or any other natural force, should 

 still continue in motion, the motive power being perpetually supplied by the 

 machine itself. Beasts and human beings seemed to correspond to the idea 

 of such an apparatus, for they moved themselves energetically and inces- 

 santly as long as they lived, were never wound up, and nobody set them in 

 motion. A connection between the taking-in of nourishment and the de- 

 velopment of force did not make itself apparent. The nourishment seemed 

 only necessary to grease, as it were, the wheelwork of the animal machine, 

 to replace what was used up, and to renew the old. The development of 

 force out of itself seemed to be the essential peculiarity, the real quintessence 

 of organic life. If, therefore, men were to be constructed, a perpetual motion 

 must first be found. 



Another hope also seemed to take up incidentally the second place, which, 

 in our wiser age, would certainly have claimed the first rank in the thoughts 

 of men. The perpetual motion was to produce work inexhaustibly without 

 corresponding consumption, that is to say, out of nothing. Work, however, 

 is money. Here, therefore, the great practical problem which the cunning 

 heads of all centuries have followed in the most diverse ways, namely, to 

 fabricate money out of nothing, invited solution. The similarity with the 

 philosopher's stone sought by the ancient chemists was complete. That 

 also was thought to contain the quintessence of organic life, and to be capa- 

 ble of producing gold. 



The spur which drove men to inquiry was sharp, and the talent of some 

 of the seekers mast not be estimated as small. The nature of the problem 

 was quite calculated to entice poring brains, to lead them round a circle for 



