AGATHOS. The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of
the secondary creation- and of the only species of creation which
has ever been, since the first word spoke into existence the first
law.
OINOS. Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of
nonentity, burst hourly forth into the heavens- are not these stars,
Agathos, the immediate handiwork of the King?
AGATHOS. Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to
the conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can
perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands,
for example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and, in so doing,
gave vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration
was indefinitely extended, till it gave impulse to every particle of
the earth's air, which thenceforward, and for ever, was actuated by
the one movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our
globe well knew. They made the special effects, indeed, wrought in the
fluid by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation- so that
it became easy to determine in what precise period an impulse of given
extent would engirdle the orb, and impress (for ever) every atom of
the atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no
difficulty, from a given effect, under given conditions, in
determining the value of the original impulse. Now the
mathematicians who saw that the results of any given impulse were
absolutely endless- and who saw that a portion of these results were
accurately traceable through the agency of algebraic analysis- who
saw, too, the facility of the retrogradation- these men saw, at the
same time, that this species of analysis itself, had within itself a
capacity for indefinite progress- that there were no bounds
conceivable to its advancement and applicability, except within the
intellect of him who advanced or applied it.
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