nconscious; and no man
whose reasoning faculties had been trained by the exact methods
of engineering could forget it for a moment. The whole structure
of that noble science rests on facts that have been demonstrated
to be facts, and the art rests on actions springing from those
facts; and neither the science nor the art would now exist, if
machines created by engineering skill had been committed to the
charge of men unskilled.

It is obvious that the more complicated in construction any machine
is, the more time and study are needed to understand it fully; and
that the more complicated its method of operation is, the more
practice is needed in order to attain skill in operating it.

The more simple the method of operation, the more closely a machine
approaches automatism; but even automatic machines are automatic
only in so far as their internal mechanisms are concerned; and
the fact of their being automatic does not eliminate the necessity
for skill in using them. An automatic gun, for instance, no matter
how perfectly automatically it discharges bullets, may be fired
at an advancing enemy skilfully or unskilfully, effectively or
ineffectively.

In operating some machines, such as a soldier's rifle, or a billiard
cue, the number of mental, nervous, and muscular operations is
apparently very few; yet every physician knows that the number is
very great indeed, and the operations extremely complex--complex
beyond the knowledge of the psychologist, physicist, chemist, and
biologist. The operation of more complex mechanisms, such as
automobiles, seems to be more difficult, because the operator has
more different kinds of things to do. Yet that it is really more
difficult may be doubted for two reasons; one being that each single
operation is of a more simple nature, and the other reason being
that we know that a much higher degree of skill is possessed by
a great billiardist than by an automobile chauffeur. Of course,
the reason of this may be that competition among billiardists has
been much more keen than among chauffeurs; but even if this be
true, it reminds us that _the difficulty of operating any machine
depends on the degree of skill exacted_. It also reminds us that,
if a machine is to be operated in competition with another machine,
the skill of the operator should be as great as it can be made.

The steaming competitions that have been carried on in our navy
for several years are examples on a large scale of