 Varieties of Thought Volume I |
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This foreword I write in order to explain and defend the writings which can be found in this book. I am fully aware that it will be criticized, even heavily criticized. Perhaps my work will even be censored or banned.
I do not mend objective and constructive criticism and will accept anyone who can bring any reasonable arguments against what I have written. But I will and I do strongly object to any subjective or unreasonable criticism. Of course I strongly suspect the priests to slander my work with unreasonable arguments and their religious propaganda. One should not believe their lies, but rather try to form one's own opinion about what I have written. This is of course best accomplished by reading what I have written. I beg my readers to have an open mind when reading these words and not let their judgment be clouded by religious fundamentalism or propaganda.
The only defense I can bring forth is reason itself. And as long my critics can only slander, the light of reason will be still on me and not on them. If one is reading is reading my words in this attitude, one will clearly see that my words are reasonable and therefore truer than what the priests will say about my writings.
Part One: On Science
A lot don't consider science an important subject; some even say that it is unnecessary. Of course nobody says something against mathematics, since this is important in every day's life. Also alchemy is commonly accepted, even when I do not consider alchemy to be pure scientific. The reasons for this I will state later on. But as soon as you begin to talk about techniques and mechanics, people are no longer interested or even afraid. The Dwemer seemed to be the only people who understood the usefulness of those two things. I talked to a lot of people I consider to be intelligent and wise, but most of them gave me the following answer: "Why do we need technology, when we have magic?" This question I will answer in this part and it is my goal to prove that science is not only useful but that we need it.
What is science? There are different sections of this subject, which I mention quickly, so that there are no confusions. There are certain sorcerers who consider their "art" to be scientific and sadly some people believe in such lies. So, here are the different sections of science:
First I will distinguish between different groups of science. There are sciences which concern themselves with the intelligent beings of Tamriel, like men and mer. These sciences are history, rhetoric, archeology (this could also be described as "practical history"), art, music and lingual sciences (which concern themselves with analysis of literature, grammar, spelling and pronunciation). Then there are the sciences which do concern themselves with nature in some way. These are medicine, alchemy (there you have to be careful, what actually is science and what is magic), mechanics and biology (the science which concerns itself with living beings).
The first group is somehow accepted by most people or should I rather say by the nobles and intellectuals; the answer is of course that they do not touch the domination of magic. But natural science is concurrence to magic and therefore it is not spoken of or even banned. Of course the wise do sometimes practice medicine and alchemy, even biology and of course simple people from the countryside have sometimes a great knowledge about medicine. But mechanics are especially not common in our world, the only people which practiced this were the Dwemer. I want to show now that mechanics are also useful and necessary.
Most people consider magic to be sufficient in every part of life. This might be true: magic can solve a lot of problems. But magic stays the same, it doesn't change, there is no development at all. Not only this, magic is illogical and not bound by any laws of nature; it even acts against those laws.
Therefore I propose to use mechanics instead of magic. It is logical, reasonable and can be controlled far better than magic. Mechanics bring order into the mess of magic. Perhaps even one day Mechanics will explain how magic works? But I do not see the purpose of Mechanics to be to explain magic. I see the purpose of mechanics to improve our way of life. To this conclusion I came through the study of Dwemer ruins. The Dwemer had some fascinating inventions which could really aid us. Power through steam is one example. I found such devices on the Dwemer ruins on Stros M'kai and experimented with them. After some time of research I was not only able to recreate the "steam engine" (in lack of the original Dwemer name for this device, I titled it like this), but I found ways to power other devices, like a pump or an elevator.
These are the promises of Mechanics and the other sciences. Shouldn't we begin to walk on this path towards glory? We stand at its beginning, I and some of my colleagues are researching in this matter and we have made some quite extraordinary findings. We have found new ways to cure illnesses, one colleague of mine, a Dunmer doctor, even found a natural cure for the blight disease! If House Indoril doesn't babble something about "blasphemy against the tribunal" I can promise to you that this medicine will be standard issue in every store on Vvardenfell in some years. Ah, but now comes the most extraordinary discovery we have made: As a colleague of mine, he is archeologist, researched in some Dwemer ruins; he found a construction plan for an extraordinary machine: the printing machine. With this machine we can produce books in very short time; we are even now trying to improve it in our laboratories in Cyrodiil. At that very moment we are trying to use the power of the steam engine to improve the printing machine.
I know, the magical purists, like House Telvanni from Morrowind or the mages guild will accuse me of blasphemy, since they consider their magic to be divine. I answer to them: The gods do exist, this I cannot disprove. But I do not believe that perfect beings could create something as illogical and chaotic as magic. And that is a reason why I believe that the beings we call "gods" are not truly gods. Science is divine, not magic. Science represents the order of the universe, or if you wish to have it that way, the order of the gods or god. Science cannot come from the same gods which created magic, no; science must come from the being which is truly a god.