614 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 



individuals in the same direction. Wonderful possibilities lie before 

 organized scientific research and organized creative engineering 

 based upon the same. 



From the psychological standpoint, electrical engineering has come 

 to exercise a marked influence upon civilization. These psycho- 

 logical conditions are important, because if we compare the con- 

 dition of the world to-day with that which is reflected to us from the 

 history of past times, we are impelled to recognize that there are two 

 salient differences between them. One is the increase in later times 

 of material wealth, including processes, utilities, and conveniences, 

 such as steel structures, the railway, or the printing-press. The other 

 is the change in the general mental attitude of human beings toward 

 each other and toward their surroundings. That is to say, one salient 

 change is material in its nature; while the other is psychological. It 

 cannot be denied that both are of great importance to the progress of 

 civilization, and perhaps the one is as important as the other. The 

 attitude of mind of the ancient Egyptians, as reflected in their writings 

 and remanent structures, must have been markedly different from 

 that of the Greeks in the days of Homer, or from that of the Romans 

 under Nero, or from that of Europeans during the Middle Ages, or 

 from that of the peoples in the modern civilized world. In a certain 

 sense, the psychological condition reflected in a community tran- 

 scends in importance its material conditions. The development of 

 a worthy and potent psychological condition in a people is even more 

 important, from this view-point, than the development of a great 

 and ample material condition. The one is probably necessary to 

 a highly developed state of the other. 



The effect of electrical engineering applications on the psycho- 

 logy of the community has been greatly to extend the radius of 

 mental influence of the individual. In the days before the discovery 

 of written language, the intellectual sphere of influence of an indi- 

 vidual was limited in radius to that distance at which his voice could 

 be heard. Beyond that distance his influence could only be trans- 

 mitted either by his personal migration with respect to his neighbors 

 or by the migration of his auditors and their repetition of his ideas 

 from memory. Gradually, after writing became a familiar mental 

 habit, written words superseded repeated speech, and document, 

 tradition. Writing thus vastly increased the effective sphere of 

 psychological influence, although the diffusivity of the new method 

 must have been but small. Engineering steadily enlarged the sphere 

 of influence by developing the press, the railroad, and the steamship, 

 by which the written word could be reduplicated and carried faster 

 and farther. The old semaphore telegraph from hill to hill, still found 

 in various parts of Europe in sequestered desuetude, went a step further 

 and added speed to the travel of thought ; but the electric telegraph 



