APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 93 



it is very conceivable that catastrophes may be part 

 and parcel of uniformity. Let me illustrate my 

 case by analogy. The working of a clock is a 

 model of uniform action ; good time-keeping means 

 uniformity of action. But the striking of the clock 

 is essentially a catastrophe ; the hammer might be 

 made to blow up a barrel of gunpowder, or turn on 

 a deluge of water ; and, by proper arrangement, 

 the clock, instead of marking the hours, might 

 strike at all sorts of irregular periods, never twice 

 alike, in the intervals, force, or number of its blows. 

 Nevertheless, all these irregular, and apparently 

 lawless, catastrophes would be the result of an 

 absolutely uniformitarian action ; and we might have 

 two schools of clock-theorists, one studying the 

 hammer and the other the pendulum. 



Mathematics may be compared to a mill of 

 exquisite workmanship, which grinds your stuff of 

 any degree of fineness ; but, nevertheless, what you 

 get out depends upon what you put in ; and as the 

 grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat- 

 flour from peascods, so pages of formulae will not 

 get a definite result out of loose data. 



The motive of the drama of human life is the neces- 

 sity, laid upon every man who comes into the world, 

 of discovering the mean between self-assertion and 

 self-restraint suited to his character and his circum- 

 stances. And the eternally tragic aspect of the 

 drama lies in this : that the problem set before us is 



