sense discloses; only, as
science aims at controlling its speculation by experiment, the hidden
reality it discloses is exactly like what sense perceives, though on a
different scale, and not observable, perhaps, without a magic carpet of
hypothesis, to carry the observer to the ends of the universe or,
changing his dimensions, to introduce him into those infinitesimal
abysses where nature has her workshop. In this region, were it
sufficiently explored, we might find just those solid supports and
faithful warnings which we were looking for with such ill success in our
rhetorical speculations. The machinery disclosed would not be human; it
would be machinery. But it would for that very reason serve the purpose
which made us look for it instead of remaining, like the lower animals,
placidly gazing on the pageants of sense, till some unaccountable pang
forced us to spasmodic movement. It is doubtless better to find material
engines--not necessarily inanimate, either--which may really serve to
bring order, security, and progress into our lives, than to find
impassioned or ideal spirits, that can do nothing for us except, at
best, assure us that they are perfectly happy.

[Sidenote: Dissatisfaction with mechanism partly natural.]

The reigning aversion to mechanism is partly natural and partly
artificial. The natural aversion cannot be wholly overcome. Like the
aversion to death, to old age, to labour, it is called forth by man's
natural situation in a world which was not made for him, but in which he
grew. That the efficacious structure of things should not be
intentionally spectacular nor poetical, that its units should not be
terms in common discourse, nor its laws quite like the logic of passion,
is of course a hard lesson to learn. The learning, however--not to speak
of its incidental delights--is so extraordinarily good for people that
only with that instruction and the blessed renunciations it brings can
clearness, dignity, or virility enter their minds. And of course, if the
material basis of human strength could be discovered and better
exploited, the free activity of the mind would be not arrested but
enlarged. Geology adds something to the interest of landscape, and
botany much to the charm of flowers; natural history increases the
pleasure with which we view society and the justice with which we judge
it. An instinctive sympathy, a solicitude for the perfect working of any
delicate thing, as it makes the ruffia