But it is not contrary to our reason. So far from it, we are
certain that a dove will produce a dove; and our reason has found out
much of the laws of kind; and found out that they are reasonable
laws, regular, and to be depended upon; so that we can, as all know,
produce and keep up new breeds whether of plants or of animals.
So that the law of kind, though it is beyond our reason, is not
contrary to our reason at all.
So much for things which have life. Take an equally notorious
example from things which have not life.
Is it not above and beyond all our reason--that the seemingly weakest
thing in the world, the most soft and yielding, the most frail and
vanishing, should be also one of the strongest things in the world?
That is so utterly above reason, that while I say it, it seems to
some of you to be contrary to reason, to be unreasonable and
impossible. It is so above reason, that till two hundred years ago,
no one suspected that it was true. And yet it is strictly true.
What is more soft and yielding, more frail and vanishing, than steam?
And what is stronger than steam? I know nothing. Steam it is which
has lifted up the mountains from the sea into the clouds. Steam it
is which tears to pieces the bowels of the earth with earthquakes and
volcanoes, shaking down cities, rasping the solid rocks into powder,
and scattering them far and wide in dust over the face of the land.
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