MATTER AND PORCH. 395 



ject is that of the poet, who, when asked whence came the 

 rhodora, joyfully acknowledged his brotherhood with the 

 flower: 



Why tliou wert there, O rival of the rose! 



I never thought to ask, I never knew, 



But in my simple ignorance supposed 



The selfsame power that brought me there brought you.* 



A few exceptions to the general state of union of the 

 molecules of the earth's crust vast in relation to us, but 

 trivial in comparison to the total store of which they are the 

 residue still remain. They constitute our main sources 

 of motive power. By far the most important of these 

 are our beds of coal. Distance still intervenes between 

 the atoms of carbon and those of atmospheric oxygen^ 

 across which the atoms may be urged by their mutual 

 attractions; and we can utilize the motion thus produced* 

 Once the carbon and the oxygen have rushed together, so 

 as to form carbonic acid, their mutual attractions are satis- 

 fied; and, while they continue in this condition, as dynamic 

 agents they are dead. Our woods and forests are also 

 sources of mechanical energy, because they have the power of 

 uniting with the atmospheric oxygen. Passing from plants 

 to animals, we find that the source of motive power just 

 referred to is also the source of muscular power. A horse 

 can perform work, and so can a man; but this work is at 

 bottom the molecular work of the transmuted food and 

 the oxygen of the air. We inhale this vital gas, and bring 

 it into sufficiently close proximity with the carbon and the 

 hydrogen of the body. These unite in obedience to their 

 mutual attractions; and their motion toward each other, 

 properly turned to account by the wonderful mechanism of 

 the body, becomes muscular motion. 



One fundamental thought pervades all these statements: 

 there is one tap root from which they all spring. This is 

 the ancient maxim that out of nothing nothing comes; 

 that neither in the organic world nor in the inorganic is 

 power produced without the expenditure of power; that 

 neither in the plant nor in the animal is there a creation of 

 force or motion. Trees grow, and so do men and horses; 

 and here we have new power incessantly introduced upon 

 the earth. But its source, as I have already stated, is the 



* Emerson. 



