A CHAPTER FOR GIRLS 441 



The Human Form Divine.— Go with us to one of 

 the large cities, and we will show you one of the most 

 marvelous pieces of mechanism ever invented, a tri- 

 umph of ingenuity, skill, and patient, persevering labor 

 for many years. This wonderful device is a clock 

 which will run more than one hundred years. It is so 

 constructed that it indicates not only the time of day, 

 the day of the month and year, itself making all the 

 necessary changes for leap year, but shows the motions 

 of the earth around the sun, together with the move- 

 ments and positions of all the other planets, and many 

 other marvelous things. When it strikes at the end 

 of each hour, groups of figures go through a variety 

 of curious movements most closely resembling the ap- 

 pearance and actions of human beings. 



The maker of this remarkable clock well deserves 

 the almost endless praise which he receives for his 

 skill and patience ; for his work is certainly wonderful ; 

 but the great clock, with its curious and complicated 

 mechanism, is a coarse and bungling affair when com- 

 pared with the human body. The clock doubtless con- 

 tains thousands of delicate wheels and springs, and is 

 constructed with all the skill imaginable; and yet the 

 structure of the human body is infinitely more delicate. 

 The clock has no intelligence; but a human being can 

 hear, see, feel, taste, touch, and think. The clock does 

 only what its maker designed to have it do, and can do 

 nothing else. The human machine is a living mecha- 

 nism ; it can control its own movements, can do as it will, 

 within certain limits. But more curious still, the human 

 machine has the power to mend itself, so that when it 

 needs repairs it is not necessary to send it to a shop 

 for the purpose, but all that is required is to give na- 

 ture an opportunity, and the system repairs itself. 



