THE SENSE OF POWER. 239 



the body, so they are designed to govern the world ; and that loco- 

 motion, for example, as an end, knows no end but the utmost velo- 

 city of nature ; in other words, that the little world of man is the 

 will of which the great world of nature is the muscles. In this 

 way, when the child says, " I want to go to that hill top," he 

 expresses an end of which railroads are but proximate means ; an 

 end which is successively to enter upon horseflesh, steam, mag- 

 netism, and whatever other ways there are ; an end which is not a 

 picture only, but a spiritual world working upon this kosmos, and 

 claiming it as a highroad and avenue of man. By this rule, every 

 art is as possible as every muscular action, and the goodness and 

 power of human wishes are the only limit of the obsequiousness of 

 nature. The grander ends of a single head have light and magnet- 

 ism for their muscles, and the stars fight for them in their courses. 

 For observe, it is not necessary to know the order of things in order 

 to govern or produce them; the conscious will in commanding a 

 dance has no knowledge of the muscles of the limbs, or of the fibres 

 in the muscles ; yet it stirs them accurately, because the end that it 

 proposes, contains the means, or is anatomical by nature. And 

 again observe that the size of the agent has nothing to do with the 

 power, for a little nerve puts a large muscle in motion, and the will 

 is of no size, relatively to the mortal body. In spiritual leverage, 

 every good action attests the Archimedean power,* and standing on 

 the higher world, actually moves the lower. For the laws of nature, 

 are the laws of the inner man ; as witness Jesus Christ, whose dis- 

 ciples said, " What manner of man is this that the winds and the 

 waves obey him ?" 



We cannot quit the muscular system without noticing also that 

 the heart itself is a muscle, and that the powers of formation in the 

 viscera, depend upon it (p. 98). All muscular action also depends 

 for its continuance upon the supply of arterial blood. And as the 

 heart is pervaded by the feelings, and the muscles are governed by 

 the same feelings under their decisive name of wills, the correspond- 

 ence between the two is regular and exact. The firmness that 

 plants its steel in the heart, has already given iron to the muscles; 



* Archimedes used to say, that given a place to stand on (Jos 7rov <na>), he 

 could move the world by his mechanism. 



