C
/ | \
/ | \
A /—–+—–\
E
/ | \
/-----+-----\ E
Ground / | B \ Ground
---------/ | \------------
| D | | D | D |
--+-----+--+---+-----+------
| | | | |
|
Now look at this figure. It represents a section
of a volcano; that is, one cut in half to show you
the inside. A is the cone of cinders. B,
the black line up through the middle, is the funnel,
or crack, through which steam, ashes, lava, and everything
else rises. C is the crater mouth. D D
D, which looks broken, are the old rocks which the
steam heaved up and burst before it could get out.
And what are the black lines across, marked E E E?
They are the streams of lava which have burrowed
out, some covered up again in cinders, some lying bare
in the open air, some still inside the cone, bracing
it together, holding it up. Something like this
is the inside of a volcano.
Why, you ask, are there such terrible things as volcanos?
Of what use can they be?
They are of use enough, my child; and of many more
uses, doubt not, than we know as yet, or ever shall
know. But of one of their uses I can tell you.
They make, or help to make, divers and sundry curious
things, from gunpowder to your body and mine.
What? I can understand their helping to make
gunpowder, because the sulphur in it is often found
round volcanos; and I know the story of the brave
Spaniard who, when his fellows wanted materials for
gunpowder, had himself lowered in a basket down the
crater of a South American volcano, and gathered sulphur
for them off the burning cliffs: but how can
volcanos help to make me? Am I made of lava?
Or is there lava in me?
My child, I did not say that volcanos helped to make
you. I said that they helped to make your body;
which is a very different matter, as I beg you to
remember, now and always. Your body is no more
you yourself than the hoop which you trundle, or the
pony which you ride. It is, like them, your
servant, your tool, your instrument, your organ, with
which you work: and a very useful, trusty, cunningly-contrived
organ it is; and therefore I advise you to make good
use of it, for you are responsible for it. But
you yourself are not your body, or your brain, but
something else, which we call your soul, your spirit,
your life. And that “you yourself”
would remain just the same if it were taken out of
your body, and put into the body of a bee, or of a
lion, or any other body; or into no body at all.
At least so I believe; and so, I am happy to say,
nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred
and ninety-nine people out of every million have always
believed, because they have used their human instincts
and their common sense, and have obeyed (without knowing
it) the warning of a great and good philosopher called
Herder, that “The organ is in no case the power
which works by it;” which is as much as to say,
that the engine is not the engine-driver, nor the spade
the gardener.
