Neurospasts

(...) But the shows went on.

At length a voice out of the Void explained things. ‘You see,’ it said, ‘that—over there—you were not remarkable for a sense of humour, but you were distinguished by a marked business capacity. And business capacity consists, if you come to think of it, in treating your fellow creatures, not as if they were sentient beings, but as if they were puppets. The result is that the living beings who come here do not care to associate with you. We are trying to find what amusement we can for you. This is really the best we have to offer.’

Here Gribble lost his temper. ‘How long, confound it, am I to go on looking at the infernal things?’ he said, getting purple.

‘You might be more polite. I said we were doing our best.’

‘How long—that’s what I want to know—am I to go on looking at the conf—the toys? It seems an age already since—’

‘It is an age. It’s exactly a hundred years.’

From purple Gribble turned ghastly pale. His teeth chattered. ‘A hun—a hundred years! Good God! . . . And to—how long must I go on still?’

‘Ah! That I can’t say. Possibly for eternity. If so it can’t be helped.’

Charles Francis Keary,  ‘The Puppet Show’, ’Twixt Dog and Wolf (1901)

 

They that are acted onely by an outward Law are but like Neurospasts,* or those little Puppets that skip nimbly up and down, and seem to be full of quick and sprightly motion; whereas they are all the while moved artificially by certain Wires and Strings from without, and not by any Principle of Motion from themselves within; or else like Clocks and Watches, that go pretty regularly for a while, but are moved by Weights and Plummets, or some other artificial Springs, that must be ever now and then wound up, or else they cease. But they that are acted by (...) the Law of the Spirit, they have an inward principle of life in them, that from the Centre of it self puts forth it self freely (...) a kind of Musicall Soul, informing the dead Organ of our Hearts, that makes them of their own accord delight to act harmoniously to the Rule of God's word.

Ralph Cudworth, A Discourse Concerning the True Notion of the Lord’s Supper (1670) 

 

* Greek νευρόσπαστον, a puppet moved by strings; νεῦρον sinew, string + σπᾶν to draw, pull. Cf. Henry More, Psychathanasia, Book 1, Canto 2, Stanza 33: That outward form is but a neurospast; / The soul it is that on her subtile ray, / That she shoots out, the limbs of moving beast / Doth stretch straight forth, so straightly as she may. / Bones joynts, and sinews shap’d of stubborn clay / Cannot so eas’ly lie in one straight line / With her projected might, much lesse obey / Direct retractions of these beames fine: / Of force, so straight retreat they ever must decline.