moving power. It is only a condition, not a source of power to man. No doubt, if we raise a stone it will fall by gravity to the earth, when we drop it from our hand; but the great want of man is a power to raise the weight, and what we mean by a moving power is just one that can raise a weight. Now, the sun, as the great central furnace of the machine, is the prime moving power of the world—the lifter of every weight. He drives the great shaft of the machine, and all that man does is merely to put on a belt upon the drum when he wishes to utilise the power.
Man's body may, no doubt, be regarded as a working machine, its power being derived, as that of all other machines, from the sun; but its chief function is, as the vehicle of intellect, to direct the illimitable power at his command. Man, valued simply as a source of mechanical power, is worth only three tons of coals. Let a man labour all the days of his life, and his labour will not exceed the mechanical power stored up in a single truck of fuel. Nothing can illustrate more strikingly the superiority of intellect, and afford a more convincing proof that the differentia of man is mind, and that his body is but an accident. It was needful, however, that his body should, to some extent, be a source of power to open the sluices of energy stored up in the material world around him. The engine-driver needs bodily strength to work the valves, and so direct the giant
