MATTER AND SPIRIT 



ample, the heat which now raises the tempera- 

 ture of a pound of water just one degree of 

 Fahrenheit has acquired its present form of ex- 

 istence through the transformation of as much 

 molar motion as is implied in the fall of 772 

 pounds of matter through one foot of space ; and 

 it will lose its present form of existence as fast 

 as it is retransformed into molar motion of ex- 

 pansion, or into other modes of molecular mo- 

 tion, according to superinduced circumstances. 

 So when food is taken into the organism and 

 assimilated with the tissues, the quantity of 

 molecular motion involved in the secretion of 

 bile by the liver, or in the raising of the arm by 

 an act of will, or in the knitting of a new plexus 

 of associated ideas by the opening of new com- 

 munications between brain cells, may equally be 

 said to have acquired its present specific forms 

 through transformation from the potential mo- 

 tion latent in the prepared food. So we may 

 say, very roughly, that there is a metamorpho- 

 sis of molar motion into heat and actinism ; of 

 heat and actinism into the potential motion la- 

 tent in the nutriment ultimately derived from 

 sun-nourished vegetable tissues ; of this poten- 

 tial motion into undulations among the mole- 

 cules of nerve ; of these undulations back into 

 molar motions of the muscles which move limbs, 

 or into molecular motions of secreting glands, 

 and so on, in a never-ending circuit. The circuit 

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