FORE:I had more trouble with a wretch who, being heavily wounded in both legs, lay on the top of a dune beyond Mariakerke. He was quite alone, and when he discovered me his eyes glistened, full of hope. He told me of his agonies, and beseeched me to take him to a house or an ambulance. However much I should have liked to do that, it was impossible in the circumstances in which I found myself. Nowhere, even in the farthest distance, was a house to be seen, and I tried to explain the position to him. But he turned a deaf ear to all my exhortations, and insisted that I should help him. It was a painful business, for I could not do the impossible. So I promised him, and took my oath that I should warn the first ambulance I met, and see to it that they came and fetched him.
FORE:The history of Greek philosophy, whether conceived in this comprehensive sense or as an erudite investigation into matters of detail, is a province which the Germans have made peculiarly their own; and, among German scholars, Dr. Zeller is the one who has treated it with most success. My obligations to his great work are sufficiently shown by the copious references to it which occur throughout the following pages. It is in those instancesand they are, unfortunately, very numerouswhere our knowledge of particular philosophers and of their opinions rests on fragmentary or second-hand information, that I have found his assistance most valuable. This has especially been the case with reference to the pre-Socratic schools, the minor successors of Socrates, the earlier Stoics, the Sceptics, and the later Pythagoreans. I must, however, guard against the supposition that my work is, in any respect, a popularisation or abridgment of Zellers. To popularise Zeller would, indeed, be an impertinence, for nothing can be more luminous and interesting than his style and general mode of exposition. Nor am I playing the part of a finder to a large telescope; for my point of view by no means coincides with that of the learned German historian. Thus, while my limits have obliged me to be content with a very summary treatment of many topics which he has discussed at length, there are others, and those, in my opinion, not the least important, to which he has given less space than will be found allotted to them here. On several questions, also, I have ventured to controvert his opinions, notably with reference to the Sophists, Socrates, Aristotle, and Plotinus. My general way of looking at the Greeks and their philosophy also differs from his. And the reasons which have led me to follow an independent course in this respect involve considerixations of such interest and importance, that I shall take the liberty of specifying them in some detail.
FORE:195Referring first to the saving effected by combining several operations in one machine, there is perhaps not one constructor in twenty that ever stops to consider what is really gained, and perhaps not one purchaser in a hundred that does the same thing. The impression is, that when one machine performs two operations it saves a second machine. A remarkable example of this exists in the manufacture of combination machines in Europe for working wood, where it is common to find complicated [69] machines that will perform all the operations of a joiner's shop, but as a rule only one thing at a time, and usually in an inconvenient manner, each operation being hampered and interfered with by another; and in changing from one kind of work to another the adjustments and changes generally equal and sometimes exceed the work to be done. What is stranger still is, that such machines are purchased, when their cost often equals that of separate machines to perform the same work.
THREE:CHAPTER LVII. A WAY OUT.
THREE:
