Chapter 11. Old Bones and Boiler Pressure

<<Tick!...Sss-sss-Tick! - Sss-sss-Tick!...Tick-ick-ick!>> The Metal Man pushed through the mob, and slid down into the Bomb Proof. His porcelain countenance, lit from below by the pit's lonely lantern, seemed to grin. He turned a ticking circle, and said, <<My name is Prince-President Franklin Stove, and I am pleased to be your guest here in Fort T-eggs-eggs-eggs-as on-the-Moon.>> His marble eyes gleamed merrily. Tick! Tick! Tick! <<President Polk asked me to give you his compliments. He wishes, he, too were here to reap the rich corn of glory with you. I am looking forward to gnawing on that good ripe corn myself. I am an automaton, property of the War Department. My mission is - # % * @ - is to be the moral surgeon of the fort. But I am not stuffy. I cannot be, with a high pressure boiler in my belly. This metal fellow is a good fellow. I am like you, only you have a soul, and I - # % * @ - eat coal. Well, machines are machines, as I am bound to say. Now what about this - # % * @ - superstructure of bones?>>

<<Gentlemen! I salute your discovery. Bacon's De Augmentis Scientarium - # % * @ - no, it was Cuvier's Researches into Fossil Bones that called this beast a `pterodactyl'. Here lies the bones of mankind's rival.>> With a little jet of escaping steam from his nostrils, he lifted the lantern, and put his metal palm over the chimney, to draw by suction more kerosene into the wick. Letting go the chimney, the wick flamed up, giving enough light to briefly chase away the web of shadows that obscured the terrible bones. Then we saw how fragile they were.

<<Look at it,>> he called. <<Half snake, half eagle. How ridiculous. It would have flown like an oversized bumble-bee. This absurd critter by its very ridiculousness was the champion of unreason. Look at these silly old bones. Why did this ugly old bumble-bee perish, and Man rise to enslave Nature? # % * @ - I will tell you why. Because of Reason. What is Reason? - # % * @ - Reason is the application of logical syllogisms to the irrational by Man. What are syllogisms? - # % * @ - Syllogisms are little three-step piston engines of logic, invented by a Pagan named Socrates. Look at this old carcass. See how it died in brute ignorance and in agony. But my friends and patriots! - Reason conquers Nature, because - # % * @ - because - # % * @ - why? Because - # % * @ - because - # % * @ - because - # % * @ - why? Because Nature has a flaw in it, and Reason is iron-clad. What is the Flaw in Nature?

<<Man has cannon that can out-clap the thunder. Man has magnet- tick!-telegraph, in which Reason enslaves wild lightning to suit the human mind. Man has windmills, sailcloth, and balloons that force order and production upon the random winds. And Man holds the mighty compulsion of Steam, that squeezes that fire of Sin from the old - # % * @ - black - # % * @ - decayed - # % * @ - bones and leaves of flawed Nature ( - # % * @ - and I mean coal) - into an all-powerful syllogism.

<<That syllogism's first premise is furnace fire. That syllogism's second premise is boiler pressure. That syllogism's conclusion is - piston power. Piston power is Steam's Socratic conclusion. That conclusion propels Reason into the wilderness. And that is called Progress.

<<Progress is war on Nature. Nature is inferior to Progress. Nature is - \plain# % * @ - Nature is flawed - # % * @ - Nature is - # % * @ - Nature is irrational.

<<Progress is rational. Reason is the application of Socratic engines to the irrational wilderness by Man. What is Man? (I am not a man. I do not reason. What is Man?) - # % * @ - Man is a particular intelligent creature with the ability to reason. Man is a creature of Nature. Since Nature is irrational, Man is therefore an irrational creature with the ability to Reason. Is this a flaw? Is this an impossibility?

<<No. This flaw makes Man possible. The irrational element is a prerequisite to Man's freedom. If Man were flawlessly ruled by Reason, then - # % * @ - Man would be a flawless machine, with - # % * @ - the flaw of machines:the inability to invent new premises for syllogisms, and - # % * @ - therefore unable to apply Reason to the Irrational, or - # % * @ - in other words, inability to Reason.

<<The Socratic engine would simply run out of coal.>>

The Metal Man's grey swirling eyes glowed dully within the murky veil of coke-smoke. <<The conclusion we must therefore draw from these fossil bones is - # % * @ - the Rational is Irrational, or the Irrational is Rational.>>

Captain Mansfield told the men to move off and make room for the next shift of sappers to do their good work. We shuffled, still staring down at the strange old bones. Old Sock crossed his fingers and kissed the cross. I thought that a fine idea, and did it too. As the Prince-President clambered up out of the pit, the mob drifted off to their bedrolls, and the sappers' iron tore up the fossil, bone by bone, to deepen and lengthen our Bomb-Proof shelter. With dragon wings, war flew closer and closer.

Go to the next chapter of Moonifest Destiny
Go to the table of contents for Moonifest Destiny
Go back to the Quanta home page