A Perpetual Motion-Seeker

Here the story of a watchmaker in pursuit of a perpetual motion machine is recounted. The narrative, ascribed to a French physician, Pinel, describes how the man chasing this “chimera” experiences a dream in which he is beheaded only to have his head mistakenly replaced for a diseased one. Consequently, the watchmaker has fits of insanity and is confined to an asylum, where he continues to work on his machine. He finally abandons his experiments with perpetual motion after an initial failure.