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- 8514
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z
- extracted_by
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- start_line
- 8463
- text
- dolphin, stronger than the lion, more cunning than the ape, for
industry an ant, more fiery than serpents, and yet, in patience,
another ass. All excellences of all God-made creatures, which served
man, were here to receive advancement, and then to be combined in one.
Talus was to have been the all-accomplished Helot’s name. Talus, iron
slave to Bannadonna, and, through him, to man.
Here, it might well be thought that, were these last conjectures as to
the foundling’s secrets not erroneous, then must he have been
hopelessly infected with the craziest chimeras of his age; far outgoing
Albert Magus and Cornelius Agrippa. But the contrary was averred.
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 conjecture here, is
now to be set forth.
- title
- Chunk 9