COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



more specific than does the laundress who soft- 

 ens a tubful of hard water by a handful of soda. 

 In their adaptations to external coexistences and 

 sequences, there is a wide difference between the 

 proceedings of ancient besiegers, whose batter- 

 ing - rams were indeterminate in their actions, 

 and those of modern artillery officers, who, by 

 means of a specific quantity of powder, consisting 

 of specific ingredients, in specific proportions, 

 placed in a tube at a specific inclination, send a 

 bomb of specific weight on to a specific object, 

 and cause it to explode at a specific moment,'*^ 

 It only remains to note that the difference in 

 specific accuracy, here illustrated by contrasting 

 the operations of science with those of ordinary 

 knowledge, is equally conspicuous when, on 

 a somewhat wider scale, we contrast the pro- 

 ceedings, both scientific and artistic, of civilized 

 men with the proceedings of the lowest sav- 

 ages. The most ignorant man in New England 

 probably knows in June that winter is just six 

 months distant ; the Australian, to whom, as to 

 the civilized child, time appears to go slowly, 

 knows only that it is a long way off. So, too, 

 the crude knives and hammers and the uncouth 

 pottery of primeval men are distinguished alike 

 by their indefiniteness of contour, and by their 

 uselessness in operations which require specific 

 accuracy. And here, as before, in the extreme 

 * Spencer, op. cit. i. 340. [§ 155.] 

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