128 WRITINGS OP JOSEPH HENRY. [1855- 



house we live in," but it may be more truly denominated 

 the machine we employ, which furnished with power and 

 all the appliances for its use, enables us to execute the in- 

 tentions of our intelligence, to gratify our moral natures, 

 and to commune with our fellow beings. 



This view of the nature of the body is the furthest re- 

 moved possible from materialism; it requires a separate 

 thinking principle. To illustrate this, let us suppose a loco- 

 motive engine equipped with steam, water, fuel, — in short, 

 with the potential energy necessary to the exhibition of im- 

 mense mechanical power; the whole remains in a state of 

 dynamic equilibrium, without motion or sign of life or in- 

 telligence. Let the engineer now open a valve which is so 

 poised as to move with the slightest touch, and almost by mere 

 volition, to let on the power to the piston; the machine now 

 awakes, as it were, into life. It rushes forward with tremen- 

 dous power, it stops instantly, it returns again, it may be at 

 the command of the master of the train ; in short, it exhibits 

 signs of life and intelligence. Its power is now controlled 

 by mind — it has, as it were, a soul within it. The engine 

 may be considered as an appendage or a further develop- 

 ment of the body of the engineer, in which the boiler and 

 the furnace are an additional capacious stomach for the evo- 

 lution of the power; and the wheels, the cranks and levers, 

 the bones, the sinews, and the muscles by which this power 

 is applied. 



There is however one striking difference between the ani- 

 mal body and the locomotive machine which deserves our 

 special attention, namely, the power in the body is constantly 

 evolved by burning (as it were) parts of the materials of the 

 machine itself, as if the frame and other portions of the 

 wood-work of the locomotive were burnt to produce the 

 power, and then immediately renewed. The voluntary mo- 

 tion of our organs of speech, of our hands, of our feet, and 

 of every muscle in the body is produced, not at the expense 

 of the soul, but at that of the material of the body itself. 

 Every motion manifesting life in the individual is the result 

 of power derived from the death (so to speak) of a part of his 



