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He had recourse to personalities; he insinuated cowardice that the man who refuses to fire a shot from a cannon is very nearly being afraid of it; that, in short, the artillerymen who fight now at six miles distance have prudently substituted mathematical formulae for individual courage, and that there is as much bravery required to quietly wait for a cannon-ball behind armour-plate as to send it according to all the rules of science.
That argument, briefly, is this, that to attain the ends of the New Republic, that is to say the best results from our birth possibilities, we must continually make political forms, social, political and religious formulae, and all the rules and regulations of life the clearest, simplest, and sincerest expression possible of what we believe about life and hope about life; that whatever momentary advantage a generation may gain by accepting what is known to be a sham and a convention, by keeping in use the detected imposture and the flawed apparatus, is probably much more than made up for by the reaction of this acquiescence upon the future.
We shall meet in united worship in the great cathedrals, but no more to repeat the dead formulae of a past which is gone, but to hear the living word of to-day, the last revelation the Supreme has made, be it through the mouth of poet, prophet, philosopher or scientist.
In vain the minister, apprised of the block, lengthened out the formulae for the other pairs, and blessed them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave off the Leibel-Green item indefinitely, and at last Rose remained the only orange-wreathed spinster in the synagogue.
Here also is a factor of importance: choice is difficult for the great majority. Placed in a situation where more than one response is possible, an unhappy state of bewilderment results unless there are formulae for action.
In truth it is a narrative struggling to describe the aggregate behavior of humans. It seeks to cloak its uncertainties and shifting fashions with mathematical formulae and elaborate econometric computerized models. So much is certain, though that people operate within markets, free or regulated, patchy or organized.
As an abstract proposition it is one of the economic formulae I would leave instructions at my frontiers to have detained until further inquiry as to its antecedents. All these statements may be true, but to make them operative, to give them a dynamic rather than a static character, we must convince people they are true by close argument and still more so by realistic illustration.
"I'm positive of it," said Mr. Baxter. "I've dabbled in chemicals long enough to be certain of this, even if I can't get on the track of the missing dye formulae." "That certainly is too bad," declared Tom. "I wish I could help you as much as you have helped me." "Oh, you have helped me a lot," said the chemist.
Success was now again on the side of Tom Swift. But when that has been said there remains the fact that it was just the other way with the unfortunate Mr. Baxter. Try as he had, he could not succeed in getting the right chemical combination to perfect the dye process imparted to him by his late French friend. With the disappearance of the secret formulae went the good luck of Josephus Baxter.
His church, he will admit, mumbles its statement of truth, but where else is truth? What better formulae are to be found for ineffable things? And meanwhile he does good. That may be a valid defence before a man finds God. But we who profess the worship and fellowship of the living God deny that religion is a matter of ineffable things. The way of God is plain and simple and easy to understand.
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