Of the wonderful results which the machine was sure to accomplish, Mr.
Minford was never tired of talking, nor Mr. Wilkeson of hearing,
although, at these times, his eyes followed the flying motions of Pet's
fingers, as if they were a part of the wonder of which the inventor
discoursed so glowingly.
Precisely what the machine was to effect, when completed, Marcus
Wilkeson would never have known, if he had been the most attentive of
listeners. Mr. Minford spoke in vague, general terms, that afforded no
clue to the mystery. He talked of old philosophers and mechanicians, who
had failed to discover an unnamed secret of Nature, because they had no
faith in its existence. Complete faith in the existence of the thing to
be discovered, as well as in the ability of the searcher to find it, he
regarded as indispensable conditions of an inventor's success.
The fact that the natural law which he was trying to demonstrate had
been pronounced an impossibility by professors of science, should weigh
as nothing in the mind of any man who remembered how every great
invention of the age had in turn been stamped "impossible" by those
dogmatizers in their academical chairs, their books, and their reviews.
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