The reason why : $b a careful collection of many hundreds of reasons for things which, though generally believed, are imperfectly understood. A book of condensed scientific knowledge for the million — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The reason why : $b a careful collection of many hundreds of reasons for things which, though generally believed, are imperfectly understood. A book of condensed scientific knowledge for the million
John Stuart Mill · en
What an eloquent lecture might be delivered upon the old-fashioned
tinder-box, illustrated by the one experiment of "striking a
light." In that box lie, cold and motionless, the Flint and Steel,
rude in form and crude in substance. And yet, within the breast of
each, there lies a spark of that grand element which influences
every atom of the universe; a spark which could invoke the fierce
agents of destruction to wrap their blasting flames around a
stately forest, or a crowded city, and sweep it from the face of
the world; or which might kindle the genial blaze upon the homely
hearth, and shed a radiant glow upon a group of smiling faces; a
spark such as that which rises with the curling smoke from the
village blackmith's forge--or that which leaps with terrific wrath
from the troubled breast of a Vesuvius. And then the tinder--the
cotton--the carbon: What a tale might be told of the cotton-field
where it grew, of the black slave who plucked it, of the white
toiler who spun it into a garment, and of the village beauty who
wore it--until, faded and despised, it was cast amongst a heap of
old rags, and finally found its way to the tinder-box. Then the
Tinder might tell of its hopes; how, though now a blackened mass,
soiling everything that touched it, it would soon be wedded to
one of the great ministers of nature, and fly away on transparent
wings, until, resting upon some Alpine tree, it would make its
home among the green leaves, and for a while live in freshness
and beauty, looking down upon the peaceful vale. Then the Steel
might tell its story, how for centuries it lay in the deep caverns
of the earth, until man, with his unquiet spirit, dug down to
the dark depths and dragged it forth, saying, "No longer be at
peace." Then would come tales of the fiery furnace, what Fire had
done for Steel, and what Steel had done for Fire. And then the
Flint might tell of the time when the weather-bound mariners,
lighting their fires upon the Syrian shore, melted silicious
stones into gems of glass, and thus led the way to the discovery
of the transparent pane that gives a crystal inlet to the light
of our homes; of the mirror in whose face the lady contemplates
her charms; of the microscope and the telescope by which the
invisible are brought to sight, and the distant drawn near; of
the prism by which Newton analysed the rays of light; and of the
photographic camera in which the sun prints with his own rays the
pictures of his own adorning. And then both Flint and Steel might
relate their adventures in the battle-field, whither they had gone
together; and of fights they had seen in which man struck down his
fellow-man, and like a fiend had revelled in his brother's blood.
Thus, even from the cold hearts of flint and steel, man might