pathetic
chord in the constitution of our race. Are we not the lords of
creation? Have we not girdled the earth with wires through which we
speak to our antipodes? Do we not journey from continent to continent
over oceans that no animal can cross, and with a speed of which our
ancestors would never have dreamed? Is not all the rest of the animal
creation so far inferior to us in every point that the best thing it
can do is to become completely subservient to our needs, dying, if need
be, that its flesh may become a toothsome dish on our tables? And yet
here is an insignificant little bird, from whose mind, if mind it has,
all conceptions of natural law are excluded, applying the rules of
aerodynamics in an application of mechanical force to an end we have
never been able to reach, and this with entire ease and absence of
consciousness that it is doing an extraordinary thing. Surely our
knowledge of natural laws, and that inventive genius which has enabled
us to subordinate all nature to our needs, ought also to enable us to
do anything that the bird can do. Therefore we must fly. If we cannot
yet do it, it is only because we have not got to the bottom of the
subject. Our successors of the not distant future will surely succeed.

This is at first sight a very natural and plausible view of the case.
And yet there are a number of circumstances of which we should take
account before attempting a confident forecast. Our hope for the future
is based on what we have done in the past. But when we draw conclusions
from past successes we should not lose sight of the conditions on which
success has depended. There is no advantage which has not its attendant
drawbacks; no strength which has not its concomitant weakness. Wealth
has its trials and health its dangers. We must expect our great
superiority to the bird to be associated with conditions which would
give it an advantage at some point. A little study will make these
conditions clear.

We may look on the bird as a sort of flying-machine complete in itself,
of which a brain and nervous system are fundamentally necessary parts.
No such machine can navigate the air unless guided by something having
life. Apart from this, it could be of little use to us unless it
carried human beings on its wings. We thus meet with a difficulty at
the first step--we cannot give a brain and nervous system to our
machine. These necessary adjuncts must be supplied by a man, who is no
part of the m