Animus

1. Life
2. Sorcery
3. Clockwork (Mechanical Engine)
4. Steam Engine
5. Combustion Engine
6. Computer

These are six of the seven heads of the mouse king. They chart a historical (mythological) progression of animation--from the original spark of life through the various forms of mechanics humans have created to mimic this movement.

Of course the mouse king has seven heads. I am missing one.

While this progression of heads is not necessary to the story (the element of sorcery is--the mouse king is descendant of a mouse witch mother) I find it an acceptable embellishment for two primary reasons. 1. As an homage and development of Hoffmann's fascination and horror with the automaton. (If only he knew what was to come. Perhaps he had an idea.) 2. As a facet of one of my primary themes--the size of man in the age of the machine. As the machine grows from a clockwork toy that sits in the palm of the hand to a war machine of world wide conflagration human development changes course. Now the machine is so large we don't even see it. Somewhere back in the combustion age our philosophy veered. We can't go back, but I want to sniff around the lost path and see if we can find a forward part of it.