absurd to speak of one man controlling and
directing a great ship, but that is pretty nearly what happens
sometimes; for sometimes the man at the wheel is the only man on
board doing anything at all; and he is absolutely directing the
entire ship. At such times (doubtless they are rare and short)
the man at the wheel on board, say the _Vaterland_, is directing
unassisted by any human being a mass of 65,000 tons, which is going
through the water at a speed of 24 knots, or 27 miles, an hour,
nearly as fast as the average passenger-train. In fact, it would
be very easy to arrange on board the _Vaterland_ that this should
actually happen; that everybody should take a rest for a few minutes,
coal-passers, water-tenders, oilers, engineers, and the people
on deck. And while such an act might have no particular value,
_per se_, and prove nothing important, yet, nevertheless, a brief
reflection on the possibility may be interesting, and lead us to
see clearly into the essential nature of what is here called
"directability." The man at the wheel on board the _Vaterland_,
so long as the fires burn and the oil continues to lubricate the
engines, has a power in his hands that is almost inconceivable.
The ship that he is handling weighs more than the 870,000 men that
comprise the standing army of Germany.

Now can anybody imagine the entire standing army of Germany being
carried along at 27 miles an hour and turned almost instantly to the
right or left by one man? The standing army of Germany is supposed
to be the most directable organization in the world; but could
the Emperor of Germany move that army at a speed of 27 miles an
hour and turn it as a whole (not its separate units) through 90
degrees in three minutes?

The _Vaterland_ being a merchant ship and not fully representing naval
power, perhaps it might be better to take, say, the _Pennsylvania_.
The weight is about half that of the _Vaterland_, that is, it is
nearly twice the weight of the men of the British standing army;
and the usual speed is about, say, 15 knots. But in addition to
all the power of the ship, as a ship, or an energy greater than
that of 275,000 muskets, she has the power of all the guns, twelve
14-inch guns, and twenty-two 5-inch guns, whose projectiles, not
including the torpedoes fired from four torpedo-tubes, have an
energy at the muzzle equal to 750,000 muskets, seven-eighths of
all the muskets in the German standing army. Now any one who has
seen