THREE:"And the mending will be a matter of time?"To the unskilled, or to those who do not take a comprehensive view of an engineering business as a whole, the finishing and fitting department seems to constitute the whole of machine manufacturean impression which a learner should guard against, because nothing but a true understanding of the importance and relations of the different divisions of an establishment can enable them to be thoroughly or easily learned.
THREE:So much only is established in the Physics. Further particulars are given in the twelfth book of the Metaphysics. There we learn that, all movement being from possibility to actuality, the source of movement must be a completely realised actualitypure form without any admixture of matter. But the highest form known to us in the ascending scale of organic life is the human soul, and the highest function of soul is reason. Reason then must be that which moves without being moved itself, drawing all things upwards and onwards by the love which its perfection inspires. The eternal, infinite, absolute actuality existing beyond the outermost starry sphere is God. Aristotle describes God as the thought which thinks itself and finds in the simple act of self-consciousness an everlasting happiness, wonderful if it always equals the best moments of our mortal life, more wonderful still if it surpasses them. There is only one supreme God, for plurality is due to an admixture of matter, and He is pure form. The rule of many is not good, as Homer says. Let there be one Lord.This absolute separation of Form and Matter, under their new names of Thought and Extension, once grasped, various principles of Cartesianism will follow from it by logical necessity. First comes the exclusion of final causes from philosophy, or rather from Nature. There was not, as with Epicurus, any anti-theological feeling concerned in their rejection. With Aristotle, against whom Descartes is always protesting, the final cause was not a mark of designing intelligence imposed on Matter from without; it was only a particular aspect of Form, the realisation of what Matter was always striving after by virtue of its inherent potentiality. When Form was conceived only as pure thought, there could be no question of such a process; the most highly organised bodies being only modes of figured extension. The revival of Atomism had, no doubt, a great deal to do with the preference for a mechanical interpretation of life. Aristotle had himself shown with masterly clearness the difference between his view of Nature and that taken by Democritus; thus indicating beforehand the direction in which an alternative to his own teaching might be sought; and Bacon had, in fact, already referred with approval to the example set by Democritus in dealing with teleological enquiries.
THREE:
THREE:(1.) To what three general objects are machines directed?(2.) How are machines distinguished from other works or structures?(3.) Into what four classes can machinery be divided?(4.) Name one principal type in each of these four divisions.
THREE:At the risk of laying down a proposition not warranted by science, I will mention, in connection with this matter of crystallisation, that metal when disposed in the form of a ring, for some strange reason seems to evade the influences which produce crystalline change. A hand-hammer, for example, may be worn away and remain fibrous; the links of chains and the tires of waggon wheels do not become crystallised; even the tires on locomotive wheels seem to withstand this influence, although the conditions of their use are such as to promote crystallisation.
THREE:The engineering apprentice, as a rule, has a desire to make drawings as soon as he begins his studies or his work, and there is not the least objection to his doing so; in fact, there is a great deal gained by illustrating movements and the details of machinery at the same time of studying the principles. Drawings if made should always be finished, carefully inked in, and memoranda made on the margin of the sheets, with the date and the conditions under which the drawings were made. The sheets should be of uniform size, not too large for a portfolio, and carefully preserved, no matter how imperfect they may be. An apprentice who will preserve his first drawings in this manner will some day find himself in possession of a souvenir that no consideration would cause him to part with.
THREE:"You wished to speak to me," said Gordon. "Pray sit down."
THREE: