To invent a sound-deadener to put on the pistol is working on wrong lines; it is not simplification but it is complication.
Instead of first making a noise and then inventing something to destroy that noise, why not avoid making that noise?
The idea that ugliness does not matter is also a fallacy.
I was objecting to a pistol a man was shooting (and of which he asked my opinion), on the ground that it was so ugly. “What has ugliness to do with a pistol?” he said. “In my opinion, everything,” I answered.
Nothing correct mechanically is ugly, that is the Law of Nature.
The early, impractical, automatic pistols were extremely ugly; the best at present, the U. S. Army Colt, has graceful lines, and the perfect one will be beautiful.
The essence of architecture is beauty in utility.
Look at a first class hand made gun built by an Artist; it has the graceful lines of a classical piece of sculpture.
An automatic pistol should be as simple as possible, the simpler the less likely to go wrong.
The supposed antagonism between Art and Mechanics, between Science and Religion are imaginary.