We were all
feeling warmly on the matter at that time. But, at any rate, our Board
of Trade Inquiry, conducted by an experienced President, discovered a
very interesting fact on the very second day of its sitting: the fact
that the water-tight doors in the bulkheads of that wonder of naval
architecture could be opened down below by any irresponsible person. Thus
the famous closing apparatus on the bridge, paraded as a device of
greater safety, with its attachments of warning bells, coloured lights,
and all these pretty-pretties, was, in the case of this ship, little
better than a technical farce.
It is amusing, if anything connected with this stupid catastrophe can be
amusing, to see the secretly crestfallen attitude of technicians. They
are the high priests of the modern cult of perfected material and of
mechanical appliances, and would fain forbid the profane from inquiring
into its mysteries. We are the masters of progress, they say, and you
should remain respectfully silent. And they take refuge behind their
mathematics. I have the greatest regard for mathematics as an exercise
of mind. It is the only manner of thinking which approaches the Divine.
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