32 PHYSICAL FORCE 



then, in spite of these further complexities, the 

 mechanical aspect of the body can still no more be 

 ignored than can the prime mover of a loom produc- 

 ing the most wonderful and artistic textiles. For 

 good or ill, that machine has as much or little a right 

 to be considered the man as his soul or brain. The 

 attempt to amputate the spiritual from the physical 

 world paralyses both. 



The mechanistic notion of life, the representation 

 of the body as primarily and fundamentally a machine, 

 is often bitterly and not very intelligently opposed. 

 We are told that the machine the scientist's imi- 

 tation of life is not merely a purely inanimate 

 mechanism. In its cunning combination of valves 

 and regulators it has a brain, part of the brain of its 

 designer. The partial likeness is that of the machine 

 to the man, of the limited imitation to the original ; 

 not the other way about, which is true enough. But 

 let us bear in mind one essential and undeniable fact. 

 Machine or man, inanimate mechanism with the 

 mechanical imitation of a brain, or brain controlling 

 an animate mechanism, what of the power? The 

 power to live, the power to do work, is not in the 

 brain nor in the body, not in the valves nor the 

 moving parts. The power, whether of life or of 

 mechanism, is external. That is the real ground of 

 the analogy. 



Inanimate energy, which before ran to waste or 

 lay in the ground unused, began to be guided by 

 human intelligence and shaped for human ends. 

 What this energy can do for good and evil the world 

 is everywhere now the witness. Primitive man froze 

 on the site of what are now coal mines, and starved 

 within the sound of the waterfalls that now are 

 working to provide our food. The energy was there, 

 the knowledge to utilise it was not. So while we are 

 leading cramped lives and fighting among ourselves, 



