Am I wrong
in thinking of the Martian canals as one of the greatest triumphs of the
human mind? An African savage might find an elephant's skeleton and from
that reconstruct the animal in life. Only science can reconstruct an
elephant from a half-inch fragment of the bone of his hind leg. Only a
scientist could have reconstructed the Martian canals from a few
photographic scratches. Of such reconstructions our civilisation is
largely made up. We build up a statesman out of a bit of buncombe and a
frock coat; a genius out of two sonnets and half a dozen cocktails; a
dramatic "star" out of a lisp and a giggle; a two-column news story out
of the fragment of a fact; a multitude out of three men and a band; a
crusade out of one man and a press agent; a novel out of the trimmings
of earlier novels; a reputation out of an accident; a captain of
industry out of an itching palm; a philanthropist out of a beneficent
smile and a platitude; a critic out of a wise look and a fountain pen;
and a social prophet out of pretty small potatoes. I need not allude
here to the process of making mountains out of molehills, beams out of
motes, and entire summers out of single swallows.
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