Or was Jupiter Pluvius awakened by the
sound after two thousand years of slumber, and did the laws of
nature become silent at his command? When we transcend what is
scientifically possible, all suppositions are admissible; and we
leave the reader to take his choice between these and any others
he may choose to invent.
One word in justification of the confidence with which I have
cited established physical laws. It is very generally supposed
that most great advances in applied science are made by rejecting
or disproving the results reached by one's predecessors. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. As Huxley has truly said, the
army of science has never retreated from a position once gained.
Men like Ohm and Maxwell have reduced electricity to a
mathematical science, and it is by accepting, mastering, and
applying the laws of electric currents which they discovered and
expounded that the electric light, electric railway, and all other
applications of electricity have been developed. It is by applying
and utilizing the laws of heat, force, and vapor laid down by such
men as Carnot and Regnault that we now cross the Atlantic in six
days. These same laws govern the condensation of vapor in the
atmosphere; and I say with confidence that if we ever do learn to
make it rain, it will be by accepting and applying them, and not
by ignoring or trying to repeal them.
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