Source: Superiority and Subordination as Subject-matter of Sociology (1896), p. 167
“That member is then capable of the greatest variety of motions; it can compel the most varied instruments to execute the most diverse tasks.”
"On the Conservation of Force" (1862), p. 280
Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)
Context: The external work of man is of the most varied kind as regards the force or ease, the form and rapidity, of the motions used on it, and the kind of work produced. But both the arm of the blacksmith who delivers his powerful blows with the heavy hammer, and that of the violinist who produces the most delicate variations in sound, and the hand of the lacemaker who works with threads so fine that they are on the verge of the invisible, all these acquire the force which moves them in the same manner and by the same organs, namely, the muscles of the arm. An arm the muscles of which are lamed is incapable of doing any work; the moving force of the muscle must be at work in it, and these must obey the nerves, which bring to them orders from the brain. That member is then capable of the greatest variety of motions; it can compel the most varied instruments to execute the most diverse tasks.
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Hermann von Helmholtz 12
physicist and physiologist 1821–1894Related quotes

"On the Conservation of Force" (1862), p. 280
Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)
Context: The external work of man is of the most varied kind as regards the force or ease, the form and rapidity, of the motions used on it, and the kind of work produced. But both the arm of the blacksmith who delivers his powerful blows with the heavy hammer, and that of the violinist who produces the most delicate variations in sound, and the hand of the lacemaker who works with threads so fine that they are on the verge of the invisible, all these acquire the force which moves them in the same manner and by the same organs, namely, the muscles of the arm. An arm the muscles of which are lamed is incapable of doing any work; the moving force of the muscle must be at work in it, and these must obey the nerves, which bring to them orders from the brain. That member is then capable of the greatest variety of motions; it can compel the most varied instruments to execute the most diverse tasks.

The Way Into The Holiest (1893)

Session 472, Page 280
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 9

Maturana and Varela (1987) The Tree of Knowledge as cited in: Fritjof Capra (1996) The Web of Life. p. 330
“Choose the duty that you can most effectively execute: that is, finally, all we can do in life.”
A Stranger to Command (Crown & Court 0.5, 2008)

“On the Significance of Militant Materialism” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/12.htm, (12 March 1922)
1920s