ONE:Wheres the one who was on the amphibian wing? Larry wondered.
TWO:Would you be afraid to stay here if I take him to an airport?So far, the sceptical theory had been put forward after a somewhat fragmentary fashion, and in strict dependence on the previous development of dogmatic philosophy. With the137 Humanists it had taken the form of an attack on physical science; with the Megarians, of a criticism on the Socratic dialectic; with both, it had been pushed to the length of an absolute negation, logically not more defensible than the affirmations to which it was opposed. What remained was that, after being consistently formulated, its results should be exhibited in their systematic bearing on the practical interests of mankind. The twofold task was accomplished by Pyrrho, whose name has accordingly continued to be associated, even in modern times, with the profession of universal doubt. This remarkable man was a native of Elis, where a branch of the Megarian school had at one time established itself; and it seems likely that the determining impulse of his life was, directly or indirectly, derived from Stilpos teaching. A contemporary of Alexander the Great, he accompanied the Macedonian army on its march to India, subsequently returning to his native city, where he died at an advanced age, about 275 B.C. The absurd stories about his indifference to material obstacles when out walking have been already mentioned in a former chapter, and are sufficiently refuted by the circumstances just related. The citizens of Elis are said to have shown their respect for the philosopher by exempting him from taxation, appointing him their chief priestno inappropriate office for a sceptic of the true typeand honouring his memory with a statue, which was still pointed out to sightseers in the time of Pausanias.226
ONE:Empire, when it came to Athens, came almost unsought. The Persian invasions had made her a great naval power; the free choice of her allies placed her at the head of a great maritime confederacy. The sudden command of vast resources and the tension accumulated during ages of repose, stimulated all her faculties into preternatural activity. Her spirit was steeled almost to the Dorian temper, and entered into victorious rivalry with the Dorian Muse. Not only did her fleet sweep the sea, but her army, for once, defeated Theban hoplites in the field. The grand choral harmonies of Sicilian song, the Sicyonian recitals of epic adventure, were rolled back into a framework for the spectacle of individual souls meeting one another in argument, expostulation, entreaty, and defiance; a nobler Doric edifice rose to confront the Aeginetan temple of Athn; the strained energy of Aeginetan combatants was relaxed into attitudes of reposing power, and the eternal smile on their faces was deepened into the sadness of unfathomable thought. But to the violet-crowned city, Athn was a giver of wealth and wisdom rather than of prowess; her empire rested on the contributions of unwilling allies, and on a technical proficiency which others were sure to equal in time; so that the Corinthian orators could say with justice that Athenian skill was more easily acquired than Dorian valour. At once receptive and communicative, Athens absorbed all that Greece could teach her, and then returned it in a more elaborate form, but without the freshness of its earliest inspiration. Yet there was one field that still afforded scope for creative originality. Habits of analysis, though fatal to spontaneous production, were favourable, or rather were necessary, to the growth of a new philosophy. After the exhaustion of every limited idealism, there remained that highest idealisation which is the reduction of all past experience to a method available for the guidance129 of all future action. To accomplish this last enterprise it was necessary that a single individual should gather up in himself the spirit diffused through a whole people, bestowing on it by that very concentration the capability of an infinitely wider extension when its provisional representative should have passed away from the scene.
TWO:The boy also had been obliged to retire into France, had been transported from Rheims to Havre, and from there, across the sea, back to Belgium. "Five times already, my dear parents, I have been in the fight; I have asked them not to let me wait long for the sixth. Oh, you cannot imagine how glorious it is to be allowed to fight for my country! Have confidence in the future, dear parents, and say a paternoster for me and my comrades and also one for our Fatherland."
ONE:It is not intended to recommend writing down rules or tables relating to shop manipulation so much as facts which require remark or comment to impress them on the memory; writing notes not only assists in committing the subjects to memory, but cultivates a power of composing technical descriptions, a very necessary part of an engineering education. Specifications for engineering work are a most difficult kind of composition and may be made long, tedious, and irrelevant, or concise and lucid.The second plan of boring by means of a bar mounted on points or centres is one by which the greatest accuracy is attainable; it is like chuck-boring a lathe operation, and [138] one for which no better machine than a lathe has been devised, at least for the smaller kinds of work. It is a problem whether in ordinary machine fitting there is not a gain by performing all boring in this manner whenever the rigidity of boring bars is sufficient without auxiliary supports, and when the bars can pass through the work. Machines arranged for this kind of boring can be employed in turning or boring as occasion may require.
TWO:It is common to use a flat point for draughting pencils, but a round one will often be found quite as good if the pencils are fine, and some convenience is gained by a round point for free-hand use in making rounds and fillets. A Faber pencil, that has detachable points which can be set out as they are worn away, is convenient for draughting.
