The science of life : fully illustrated in tone and line and including many diagrams

BOW Kt

CHAPTER 1

THE BODY IS A MACHINE

§ 1. The Fundamental Routine of Two Living Creatures.

§ 2. Why we Call these

Bodies Machines.

§ 1 The Fundamental Routine of Two Living Creatures

E shall begin this work as we shall end

it, with man. There our interest in life begins and there it culminates. First we shall review what is apparent and what is known about his life, in broad general terms. All this work, The Science of Life, is sustained by the question of what life is and what its possibilities are. And to begin with, we have to consider its material facts, to ask how this body, which is either itself life or the expression of life, moves and acts upon surrounding things. To do so, we may have to go over many facts that will be more or less familiar to most educated people. Nevertheless, they may find it advantageous to run over what we have to say to refresh and define their knowledge. We shall find first that the human body is a machine, amenable to the same chemical and physical laws as most of the machines man makes himself for his own ends. But next we shall realize that it is far stranger and more complicated than any machines that have ever been contrived by human agency. And, thirdly, we shall find it is a machine which does its own repairs, sees to its own fuelling and lubrication—though many automobiles attend to the latter need nowadaysand has the capacity of making new machines to replace itself.

For the most part we shall be writing of Man in the opening book. But there are close similarities to him in most of the familiar animals about us, and occasionally it will be convenient to cite the ape, the dog, the cat, and the mouse, to fill in gaps of our description.

Let us first take a Man, Mr. Everyman, and consider certain familiar but sometimes disregarded aspects of his daily life. We will say nothing here of his loves and hates, his dreams, and his political opinions. That must come later. We will consider him first aS a moving body and note little but the facts that illuminate the mechanical processes of his being.

He is, we will assume, a denizen in a

modern city, who works as people say for his living. We will commence our observations while he is still asleep. On the stroke of seven he is roused by his persistent alarm-clock. He stirs and grunts and, since it will continue its clamour until he presses the release, and since he has deliberately placed it out of reach at the far side of the room, he is forced to get out of bed. Mechanically he turns to his ablutions. He washes his face and neck and he brushes his teeth; probably, unless it is Sunday or some other red-letter day, he does not worry about the rest of his anatomy, for that will be effectively concealed by his clothes. Perhaps as he dresses he is reminded of that slow, relentless change that no man can stay—he may drop his comb and note that he cannot stoop as swiftly and supplely as he used to do ; he may look carefully in the glass and pluck a white sheep out of his flock of hair ; if he is very young he may pride himself on the firm manly lines that are appearing on his brow and round the corners of his mouth.

By the time he is dressed and brushed he is well aware of a clamour from his own insidefrom his digestive organs; and they have to be silenced and kept busy before he can attend to anything else. Itisa very persistent clamour. It is even more persistent than his alarm-clock. He might stop his alarmclock and go to bed again without immediate inconvenience, but hunger goes on. It is his machinery demanding fuel. And so he turns to breakfast. For a time his attention is divided between swallowing to satisfy his interior need and reading the newspaper to employ a mind which might otherwise be bored while this primary business preoccupies him. Then he sets out to his work.

It may be that he spends his morning at a desk, or behind a counter, or in some physically arduous employment. He may be one of those rare, fortunate individuals who have an occupation that they enjoy. We will not discuss here how he expends his energy. For most men that takes the form which is called earning a living. He 1s making his food supply secure. Sooner or later he finds his energy slackening, his

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