“Each minute, each hour, each day we are losing part of our atmospheric envelope. In course of time it will all be gone; when it is we shall be all desert. For instance, take a look outside. This is Arizona. Once it was the bottom of a deep blue sea. Why deny when we can already behold the beginning.”
The other laughed.
“Pretty good mathematics at that, professor. Only—”
“Only?”
“That it is merely mathematics.”
“Merely mathematics?” The professor frowned slightly. “Mathematics do not lie, Charlie, you cannot get away from them. What sort of fanciful argument are you bringing up now?”
“Simply this,” returned the other, “that you depend too much on figures. They are material and in the nature of things can only be employed in a calculation of what may happen in the future. You must have premises to stand on, facts. Your figures are rigid: they have no elasticity; unless your foundations are permanent and faultless your deductions will lead you only into error.”
“Granted; just the point: we know where we stand. Wherein are we in error?”
It was the old point of difference. Huyck was ever crashing down the idols of pure materialism. Williams was of the world-wide school.
“You are in error, my dear professor, in a very little thing and a very large one.”