sitting in his secret chamber, before his wires, directs the movements of a great army.[1]
223. Let us next suppose that our imaginary army is in rapid march, and let us try to find out the cause of this movement. We find that, in the first place, orders to march have been issued to the troops under them by the commanders of each regiment. In the next place, we learn that staff officers, attached to the generals of the various divisions, have conveyed these orders to the regimental commanders; and, finally, we learn that the order to march has been telegraphed from headquarters to these various generals.
Descending now to ourselves, it is probably somewhere in the mysterious and well-guarded brain-chamber that the delicate directive touch is given which determines our movements. This chamber forms, as it were, the headquarters of the general in command, who is so well withdrawn as to be absolutely invisible to all his subordinates.
224. Joule, Carpenter, and Mayer were at an early period aware of the restrictions under which animals are placed by the laws of energy, and in virtue of which the power of an animal, as far as energy is concerned, is not creative, but only directive. It was seen that, in order
- ↑ See an article on "The Position of Life," by the author of this work, in conjunction with Mr. J. N. Lockyer, "Macmillan's Magazine," September, 1868; also a lecture on "The Recent Developments of Cosmical Physics," by the author of this work.
