ONE:There must, one would suppose, be some force in the Epicurean philosophy of death, for it has been endorsed by no less a thinker and observer than Shakspeare. To make the great dramatist responsible for every opinion uttered by one or other of his characters would, of course, be absurd; but when we find personages so different in other respects as Claudio, Hamlet, and Macbeth, agreeing in the sentiment that, apart from the prospect of a future judgment, there is nothing to appal us in the thought of death, we cannot avoid the inference that he is here making them the mouthpiece of his own convictions, even, as in Hamlets famous soliloquy, at the expense of every dramatic propriety. Nevertheless, the answer of humanity to such sophisms will always be that of Homers Achilles, μ? δ? μοι θ?νατ?ν γε παρα?δαTalk me not fair of death! A very simple process of reasoning will make this clear. The love of life necessarily involves a constant use of precautions against its loss. The certainty of death means the certainty that these precautions shall one day prove unavailing; the consciousness of its near approach means the consciousness that they have actually failed. In both cases the result must be a sense of baffled or arrested effort, more or less feeble when it is imagined, more or less acute when it it is realised. But this diversion of the conscious energies from their accustomed channel, this turning back of the feelings on themselves, constitutes the essence of all emotion; and where the object of the arrested energies was to avert a danger, it constitutes the emotion of fear. Thus, by an inevitable law, the love of life has for its reverse side the dread of death. Now the love of life is guaranteed by the survival of the fittest; it must last as long as the human race, for91 without it the race could not last at all. If, as Epicurus urged, the supreme desirability of pleasure is proved by its being the universal object of pursuit among all species of animals,177 the supreme hatefulness of death is proved by an analogous experience; and we may be sure that, even if pessimism became the accepted faith, the darkened prospect would lead to no relaxation of our grasp on life. A similar mode of reasoning applies to the sorrow and anguish, mortis comites et funeris atri, from which the benevolent Roman poet would fain relieve us. For, among a social species, the instinct for preserving others is second only to the instinct of self-preservation, and frequently rises superior to it. Accordingly, the loss of those whom we love causes, and must always cause us, a double distress. There is, first, the simple pain due to the eternal loss of their society, a pain of which Lucretius takes no account. And, secondly, there is the arrest of all helpful activity on their behalf, the continual impulse to do something for them, coupled with the chilling consciousness that it is too late, that nothing more can be done. So strong, indeed, is this latter feeling that it often causes the loss of those whose existence was a burden to themselves and others, to be keenly felt, if only the survivors were accustomed, as a matter of duty, to care for them and to struggle against the disease from which they suffered. Philosophy may help to fill up the blanks thus created, by directing our thoughts to objects of perennial interest, and she may legitimately discourage the affectation or the fostering of affliction; but the blanks themselves she cannot explain away, without forfeiting all claim on our allegiance as the ultimate and incorruptible arbitress of truth.
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TWO:As a set-off against the list of paradoxes cited from Plato, it would be easy to quote a still longer list of brilliant contributions to the cause of truth and right, to strike a balance between the two, and to show that there was a preponderance on the positive side sufficiently great to justify the favourable verdict of posterity. We believe, however, that such a method would be as misleading as it is superficial. Neither Plato nor any other thinker of the same calibreif any other there beshould be estimated by a simple analysis of his opinions. We must go back to the underlying forces of which individual175 opinions are the resultant and the revelation. Every systematic synthesis represents certain profound intellectual tendencies, derived partly from previous philosophies, partly from the social environment, partly from the thinkers own genius and character. Each of such tendencies may be salutary and necessary, according to the conditions under which it comes into play, and yet two or more of them may form a highly unstable and explosive compound. Nevertheless, it is in speculative combinations that they are preserved and developed with the greatest distinctness, and it is there that we must seek for them if we would understand the psychological history of our race. And this is why we began by intimating that the lines of our investigation may take us back over ground which has been already traversed, and forward into regions which cannot at present be completely surveyed.
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Art-Director
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TWO:The sudden and varied resistance to line shafts tends to loosen couplings, destroy gearing, and produce sudden strains that are unknown in other cases; and shafting arranged with the usual proportions for transmitting power will soon fail if applied to driving trip-hammers. Rigid connections or metal attachments ace impracticable, and a slipping belt arranged so as to have the tension varied at will is the usual and almost the only successful means of transmitting power to hammers. The motion of trip-hammers is a curious problem; a head and die weighing, together with the irons for attaching them, one hundred pounds, will, with a helve eight feet long, strike from two to three hundred blows a minute. This speed exceeds anything that could be attained by a direct reciprocal motion given to the hammer-head by a crank, and far exceeds any rate of speed that would be assumed from theoretical inference. The hammer-helve being of wood, is elastic, and acts like a vibrating spring, its vibrations keeping in unison with the speed of the tripping points. The whole machine, in fact, must be constructed upon a principle of elasticity throughout, and in this regard stands as an exception to almost every other known machine. The framing for supporting the trunnions, which one without experience would suppose should be very rigid and solid, is found to answer best when composed of timber, and still better when this timber is laid up in a manner that allows the structure to spring and [107] yield. Starting at the dies, and following back through the details of a trip-hammer to the driving power, the apprentice may note how many parts contribute to this principle of elasticity: Firstthe wooden helve, both in front of and behind the trunnion; nextthe trunnion bar, which is usually a flat section mounted on pivot points; thirdthe elasticity of the framing called the 'husk,' and finally the frictional belt. This will convey an idea of the elasticity required in connecting the hammer-head with the driving power, a matter to be borne in mind, as it will be again referred to.
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Art-Director
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