The devil can always be beaten if we go about it seriously:
Morphy, the American chess-player, looking at the picture of a youth playing chess with Satan, and, apparently, doomed to inevitable defeat, studied the position, called for chessmen and board in reality, and by one move won the hypothetical game.
(1985)
Mastery Necessary to Progress—See [Conquest by Man].
MASTERY OF CIRCUMSTANCES
One of Mr. Ingersoll’s most eloquent chapters is on “Man as an Automaton,” played upon by the blind forces of nature. A clot in the brain explains Benedict Arnold’s treason. A foul taint in the arteries that is like a fungus luring a merchant ship on the rocks. Penury and vicious environment fill our jails and must fill them. But the argument was born of a great man’s beautiful sympathy for his fellow sufferers. It did not issue from logic or nature or events. Indeed, all life and daily experience stood up and shouted against his affirmation. What! Man a puppet with whom nature plays an endless game of battledore and shuttlecock! Man a victim of heredity and environment! Some years ago I met a successful merchant, living in a beautiful house on one of the best avenues in his great city. His mother was an evil woman, his father a river thief, he was kicked around the river front until he was eight, slept in the loft of a livery stable until he was nine, killed a man when he was ten, taken home by one of the participants in the trial, became the partner of his benefactor and achieved universal recognition and honor.—N. D. Hillis.
(1986)
MASTERY OF NATURE
Until a generation ago our great lakes of the north were closed with the ice, which stopt all navigation until the thaw of the spring came. Now there are ice-boats, made of steel with powerful engines, that not only cut paths for themselves and the heavy freight which they carry, but also make a path for less powerful craft. They pound their way through the ice-fields, and thus make all-the-year-round navigation possible. The ports of northern Europe used to be locked with ice until these great ice-breaking ships were brought into use. There is nothing short of an iceberg which they can not overcome. Our lakes do not have bergs, of course, and hence these great ice-cutting ships have a marvelous mastery over the obstacles.