The Conflict of Ages; Or, the Great Debate on the Moral Relations of God and Man (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK I. THE CONFLICT IN ITS PRINCIPLES. CHAPTER I. THE CASE STATED. If into a community but little skilled in the laws of nature and the principles of mechanics a steamship were to be introduced, and if it were stated, as the common traditional direction of mechanics and philosophers, that the wheels should be so adjusted that they would revolve in opposite directions, it may be that the ignorance of the men of that community, and the force of traditional authority, would induce them, at first, to comply with the direction. But if, as would surely be the case, it was found by experiment that, when the wheels so adjusted were put in motion, the boat, so far from obeying her rudder, or taking an onward course. would do nothing but revolve incessantly round, without progress,? and, moreover, that her whole fnune was unnaturally wrenched and strained by this method of procedure, and that, meantime, she had no power so to resist the winds and currents that they would not drift her wheresoever they would,? then, in all probability, the men in that community wuld repudiate the traditionaldirection which they had received, as Inconsistent with tie necessary and immutable laws of mechanics, and introducing discord and conflict into the system to which it was applied. And if, on adjusting the wheels so that they would both revolve in the same direction, it was found that the boat moved straight on in obedience to her rudder, and was able to resist the power of winds and currents, they would feel abundantly confirmed in their conviction of the essential falsehood of the traditional direction; nor could any amount of authority avail against this practical demonstration, taken from the working of the system itself. An argument of the Bame kind, and of no less power, would rational...