that of 275,000 muskets, she has the power of all the guns, twelve
14-inch guns, and twenty-two 5-inch guns, whose projectiles, not
including the torpedoes fired from four torpedo-tubes, have an
energy at the muzzle equal to 750,000 muskets, seven-eighths of
all the muskets in the German standing army. Now any one who has
seen a battleship at battle practice knows that all the various
tremendous forces are under excellent direction and control. And
while it cannot be strictly said that they are absolutely under
the direction and control of the captain, while it must be admitted
that no one man can really direct so many rapidly moving things,
yet it is certainly well within the truth to say that the ship
and all it contains are very much more under the control of her
captain than the German standing army is under the control of the
Kaiser. The captain, acting through the helmsman, chief engineer,
gunnery officer, and executive officer, can get very excellent
information as to what is going on, and can have his orders carried
out with very little delay; but the mere space occupied by an army
of 870,000 men, and the unavoidable dispersion of its units prevent
any such exact control.

In other words, the captain of the _Pennsylvania_ wields a weapon
more mechanically powerful than all the muskets of the German standing
army: and his control of it is more absolute than is the Kaiser's
control of that army.

_Mechanism vs. Men_.--Now what is the essential reason for the
efficient direction exercised by the helmsman of the _Pennsylvania_,
and the relative impotency of generals? Is it not that the helmsman
acts through the medium of mechanism, while the generals act through
the medium of men? A ship is not only made of rigid metal, but all