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 compared
with the human body. The clock doubtless contains 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
mechanism; it can control its own movements, can do as it will, within
certain limits. What is very curious indeed, 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 nature an opportunity and the system repairs itself.
A Wonderful Process.--We have not space to describe all the wonderful
mechanism of this human machine, but must notice particularly one of
its most curious features, a provision by which other human beings,
living machines like itself, are produced. All living creatures possess
this power. A single potato placed in the ground becomes a dozen or
more, by a process of multiplying. A little seed planted in the earth
grows up to be a plant, produces flowers, and from the flowers come
other seeds, not one, but often a great many, sometimes hundreds from
a single seed. Insects, fishes, birds, and all other animals, thus
multiply. So do human beings, and in a similar manner. The organs by
which this most marvelous process is carried on in plants and animals,
including also human beings, are called sexual organs. Flowers are the
sexual organs of plants. And flowers are always the most fragrant and
the most beautiful when they are engaged in this wonderful and curious
work.
Human Buds.--A curious animal which lives near the seashore, in shallow
water, attached to a rock like a water plant, puts out little buds which
grow awhile and then drop off, and after a time become large individuals
like the parent, each in turn producing buds like the one from which
it grew. Human beings are formed by a similar process. Human buds are
formed by an organ for the purpose possessed only by the female sex,
and these, under proper circumstances, develop into infant human beings.
The process, though so simply stated, is a marvelously complicated one,
which cannot be fully explained here; indeed, it is one of the mysteries
which it is beyond the power of human wisdom fully to explain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account