mechanism, and uses its activities
and powers as it wills for its own purposes and ends. This spirit or
power we call its life, which gives to the form its existence, together
with all that it possesses, as its powers, activities, energies and
productions, for all are but the effects of the hidden life. If this
mysterious something, termed its life, becomes in any way separated from
the mechanism or organism, then as a distinct and separate organism it
ceases to be; and though the mechanism may still exist for a time, yet
all its powers are gone, while the organism, robbed of its very life,
begins slowly to decay.

We cannot see this power; we cannot find it We may search for it, rend
and tear part from part, only to find that it baffles all our skill, and
laughs at our endeavours to discover the secret of its existence. We
know that it is there, just as truly as we know that in these forms of
ours, these living stoves, these perfect mechanisms called our bodies,
there exists and dwells a spirit, a living, conscious, self-acting and
controlling power. A spirit which we know is not the mechanism itself,
and which by experience and observation we know to be distinct from the
organism. It is this mysterious spirit which controls and governs all
our acts, that rules and reigns as king of our bodies, and makes the
physical mechanism, with all its wondrous parts, obey and do its
bidding. That this is so, that the spirit is distinct from the body, and
is the controlling and governing principle within us, is evident in a
thousand ways. If, however, that spirit departs from the mechanism of
our bodies, then the controlling and governing influence is gone; and
the mechanism, robbed of its life, ceases to work, ceases to fulfil its
functions, and ceases to exist in that particular form.

Just as it is with ourselves, so it is with the Universe. For look where
we will, from the smallest atom to the great aggregation of atoms, as
our earth, or even to the more stupendous orbs of heaven, the working of
a secret and mysterious power or spirit meets our gaze. A spirit or
power that is not the form or the mechanism, but is separate and
distinct from the mechanism, while at the same time it is inseparably
connected with each and all. For everything that we see, from an atom to
the Universe itself, is a perfect mechanism, or complexity of
mechanisms. The entire Universe is one vast, intricate, and elaborate
piece of mechanism, beginning