It is never enough to know that any piece of work is commonly constructed in some particular manner, or that a proposition is generally accepted as being correct; a reason should be sought for. Nothing is learned, in the true sense, until the reasons for it are understood, and it is by no means sufficient to know from observation alone that belts are best for high speeds, that gearing is the best means of forming angles in transmitting power, or that gearing consumes more power, and that belts produce less jar and noise; the principles which lie at the bottom must be reached before it can be assumed that the matter is fairly understood.
ONE:On the whole, Gordon Bruce was persuaded that the world was a pleasant place to live in. He had youth and intellect and ambition that looked likely to be satisfied. Two years before he had recklessly ventured his small capital on a suite of ground floor rooms in Duke Street, and for some little time he had had a hard struggle to keep up appearances, and pay the instalments as they came due on his somewhat showy furniture.
TWO:The whole brilliant house of cards must topple down soon unless help came from somewhere. Already capitalists in the city were asking questions about the securities they held, the hearts of certain tradesmen were beginning to grow anxious.A modern turbine water-wheel, one of the best construction, operating under favourable conditions, gives a percentage of the power of the water which, after deducting the friction of the wheel, almost reaches the theoretical coefficient or equals the gravity of the water; it may therefore be assumed that there will in the future be but little improvement made in such water-wheels except in the way of simplifying and cheapening their construction. There is, in fact, no other class of machines which seem to have reached the same state of improvement as water-wheels, nor any other class of machinery that is constructed with as much uniformity of design and arrangement, in different countries, and by different makers.
TWO:There it appeared that my papers were in good order, but at the same time I was informed that I was to be taken to the commanding officer at the station and could not be allowed to leave Bilsen for the present. I was escorted through the townlet, which appeared to be entirely deserted; but now and then somebody came to his front-door to watch the latest victim of the Germans being led past. At the station I was pushed without much courtesy into a keep where six other civilians sat, who had been picked up as being at large, and whose faces were now covered with a cold perspiration from fear, because they were firmly convinced that by and by they would be shot.
TWO:For the Platonic Idea of Good, Aristotle had substituted his own conception of self-thinking thought, as the absolute on which all Nature hangs: and we have seen how Plotinus follows him to the extent of admitting that this visible universe is under the immediate control of an incorporeal Reason, which also serves as a receptacle for the Platonic Ideas. But what satisfied Aristotle does not fully satisfy him. The first principle must be one, and Nous fails to answer the conditions of absolute unity, Even self-thinking thought involves the elementary dualism of object and subject. Again, as Plotinus somewhat inconsistently argues, Nous, being knowledge, must cognise something simpler than309 itself.458 Or, perhaps, what he means is that in Nous, which is its product, the first principle becomes self-conscious. Consciousness means a check on the outflow of energy due to the restraining action of the One, a return to and reflection on itself of the creative power.459We have here, indeed, something comparable not only to the scepticism of the New Academy, but also to the Aristotelian criticism of Platos metaphysics; and, at first sight, it might seem as if the Peripatetic philosophy was destined once more to regain the position taken from it by the resuscitation of its ancient foe. But Locke was not inclined to substitute one form of scholasticism for another. By applying the analytical method of Atomism to knowledge itself, he created a weapon equally fatal to the two competing systems. Under his dissection, the concrete individual substance of the one vanished no less completely than the universal ideas of the other. Nothing remained but a bundle of qualities held together by a subjective bond.
I think it did! challenged Larry. We thought we saw somebody at the back of the hangarthats why we came in! Im going to see where he is, what hes doing and why hes trying to frightfrighten us!"Impossible," Bruce cried. "At a quarter to five I was at home. The hall porter and two of the maids were down and will testify to the fact."CHAPTER XXI. PERIL.I went up to them and explained that there was no need at all to be afraid of me. They were able to give me news of the inhabitants of Villa Rustica. The owner had died a few days since, from a paralytic stroke, brought on by the emotions caused by the German horrors, whereas madame, who had heroically intervened on behalf of some victims, was probably at St. Hadelin College.CHAPTER XXXV. MILLING.
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THREE:"I have been robbed!" he cried, "robbed of those diamonds! Ah, tell me what is this new trick you have played on me! Help! Help!"Nothing can be more unreasonable than to expect an apprentice engineer to begin by an inductive course in learning and reasoning [3] about mechanics. Even if the mind were capable of such a course, which can not be assumed in so intricate and extensive a subject as mechanics, there would be a want of interest and an absence of apparent purpose which would hinder or prevent progress. Any rational view of the matter, together with as many facts as can be cited, will all point to the conclusion that apprentices must learn deductively, and that some practice should accompany or precede theoretical studies. How dull and objectless it seems to a young man when he toils through "the sum of the squares of the base and perpendicular of a right-angle triangle," without knowing a purpose to which this problem is to be applied; he generally wonders why such puzzling theorems were ever invented, and what they can have to do with the practical affairs of life. But if the same learner were to happen upon a builder squaring a foundation by means of the rule "six, eight, and ten," and should in this operation detect the application of that tiresome problem of "the sum of the squares," he would at once awake to a new interest in the matter; what was before tedious and without object, would now appear useful and interesting. The subject would become fascinating, and the learner would go on with a new zeal to trace out the connection between practice and other problems of the kind. Nothing inspires a learner so much as contact with practice; the natural tendency, as before said, is to proceed deductively.
THREE:The parallel between Aenesidmus and Protagoras would become still more complete were it true that the Alexandrian philosopher also sought to base his Scepticism on the Heracleitean theory of Nature, arguing that contradictory assertions are necessitated by the presence of contradictory properties in every object.
