Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/353

Rh of the principles of thunder and lightning. I saw this machine some years ago. [Here follows a description of the electric machine and its operation.] The friend who showed it to me said, 'Thunder and lightning are caused truly by this same principle. Why, then, should we fear them? The reason why some people dread them so much is that they do not understand their principle. This is very foolish.' 'Verily,' replied I, 'this is an admirably constructed machine. Whether the actual thunder and lightning are really of the same nature is a matter on which I am unable to form an opinion. But supposing that to be the case, is not the production of lightning [the electric spark] by it dependent upon you and me and our friend, one holding one thing, another another, while the third turns a handle? Well, then, the same principle applies to the real thunder and lightning of the universe. It cannot be produced without the action of something corresponding to you and me. Moreover, this machine, made by the skill of man, is merely a small engine, entirely subject to our control, and so there is no need to fear it. But the real thunder rages among the clouds, turning them to confusion, or, leaving them, comes down to earth and indiscriminately splits trees or grinds rocks to powder. It may be thought a thing of no feeling, yet there are frequent instances in history of evil things and wicked men having been destroyed by it.

Mutatis mutandis, is not this precisely the position taken up by Paley in his well-known apologue of the watch?

The conversation ended in a hot discussion, in which both parties lost their tempers. Hirata saw no prospect of convincing his opponent, and returned home.

Good and evil, according to Hirata, flow from the