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Updated: May 8, 2025
But it was soon discovered that this gunpowder, put into a tube with a bullet in front of it, could discharge that bullet in any given direction. A musket was the result, and it combined the three requisites of a weapon mechanical power, controllability, and directability.
While the loaded gun is perhaps the clearest example of the combination of the three factors we are speaking of, the moving ship supplies the next best example. It has very much greater mechanical power; and in proportion to its mass, almost as much controllability and directability.
And while such an act might have no particular value, per se, and prove nothing important, yet, nevertheless, a brief reflection on the possibility may be interesting, and lead us to see clearly into the essential nature of what is here called "directability."
Speaking, then, from the standpoint of the human being, one may say that the fleet has the element of controllability, while Niagara and the thunder-storm have not. One man can make the fleet go faster or slower or stop; he can increase its power of motion or decrease it at his will; he can reduce it to zero. He cannot do so with the forces of nature. Directability.
Not only can one man control the power of the fleet, he can also direct it; that is, can turn it to the right or the left as much as he wishes. But one man cannot change the direction of motion of Niagara or the lightning-bolt. Power, Controllability, and Directability. We may say, then, that a fleet combines the three elements of mechanical power, controllability, and directability.
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