verred. However
marvelous his design, however apparently transcending not alone the
bounds of human invention, but those of divine creation, yet the
proposed means to be employed were alleged to have been confined within
the sober forms of sober reason. It was affirmed that, to a degree of
more than skeptic scorn, Bannadonna had been without sympathy for any of
the vain-glorious irrationalities of his time. For example, he had not
concluded, with the visionaries among the metaphysicians, that between
the finer mechanic forces and the ruder animal vitality some germ of
correspondence might prove discoverable. As little did his scheme
partake of the enthusiasm of some natural philosophers, who hoped, by
physiological and chemical inductions, to arrive at a knowledge of the
source of life, and so qualify themselves to manufacture and improve
upon it. Much less had he aught in common with the tribe of alchemists,
who sought, by a species of incantations, to evoke some surprising
vitality from the laboratory. Neither had he imagined, with certain
sanguine theosophists, that, by faithful adoration of the Highest,
unheard-of powers would be vouchsafed to man. A practical materialist,
what Bannadonna had aimed at was to have been reached, not by logic, not
by crucible, not by conjuration, not by altars; but by plain vice-bench
and hammer. In short, to solve nature, to steal into her, to intrigue
beyond her, to procure some one else to bind her to his hand;--these,
one and all, had not been his objects; but, asking no favors from any
element or any being, of himself, to rival her, outstrip her, and rule
her. He stooped to conquer. With him, common sense was theurgy;
machinery, miracle; Prometheus, the heroic name for machinist; man, the
true God.

Nevertheless, in his initial step, so far as the experimental automaton
for the belfry was concerned, he allowed fancy some little play; or,
perhaps, what seemed his fancifulness was but his utilitarian ambition
collaterally extended. In figure, the creature for the belfry should not
be likened after the human pattern, nor any animal one, nor after the
ideals, however wild, of ancient fable, but equally in aspect as in
organism be an original production; the more terrible to behold, the
better.

Such, then, were the suppositions as to the present scheme, and the
reserved intent. How, at the very threshold, so unlooked for a
catastrophe overturned all, or rather, what was the conjectu