Page:Philosophy and Fun of Algebra.djvu/78

PHILOSOPHY AND FUN OF ALGEBRA Why they thought so I cannot conceive. But there's no end to the rubbish that people get to think when they argue about what X is, instead of trying hypotheses in an orderly manner.

The Unknown Powers let them shout all day long; and then Elijah got a spark out of a thundercloud.

The same sort of thing happened again about a hundred and fifty years ago. Various sorts of priests were shouting and arguing about what "I Am" wished people to believe and to think; and then Benjamin Franklin and his friends, who had not been mixing up with the argument or making wild guesses, but quietly experimenting and dealing logically with the fact of their own ignorance, sent up a kite into a thundercloud, and got a spark down; and the consequence of that is that all kinds of people say, "What a wonderful man Benjamin Franklin was!" and all sorts of people are able to ride about in electric trams!

But the curious part of the matter is that many people use electric trams to go to meetings, 74