NATURAL PHILOSOPHY — SWANN 237 



discoA^ery is revealed, lias encouraged man to the hope that he may 

 some day understand them. 



While to-day nature has revealed many treasures unknown to 

 Newton, there are few Avho, realizino- the p;reat stride made in the 

 " Principia " wall not to-day join with Halley in his eulogy of that 

 great work, " So near the gods man can not nearer go." 



When an outstanding genius causes science to take a leap forward 

 beyond the vision of his contemporaries, there usually foUoAvs a 

 period of depression in which it seems that all that is worth doing 

 has been done, and that what the universe has not already revealed 

 must forever defy the power of man to fathom. Such a period 

 followed Newton. Of course, much valuable work was done in the 

 3^ears which came after, but it took more the form of a development 

 of the consequences of Newton's labors than of the discovery of new 

 paths of knowledge. And then, only about a century ago a new 

 page in the architectural designs of the universe was turned, and the 

 heading on that page was electricity. 



The forerunners in the march of science do not often come heralded 

 by much ceremony suggestive of the power that lies behind them. 

 Often in apparent trivialities do they reveal themselves — trivialities 

 so void of spectacular content that but few can be found who deem 

 it worth while to listen to their story. A hundred and fifty years 

 ago little more was known of the science of electricity than the fact 

 that if a black rod is rubbed with the skin of a cat it will acquire 

 the power to pick up small pieces of paper, and, if viewed in the 

 dark, will be found to emit a blue glow. One can harcll}^ imagine 

 a set of phenomena more vulnerable to the scoffer; for black rods 

 and cat* have been the stock paraphernalia of witches from time 

 immemorial — the blue light visible in the dark adds no particular 

 prestige to the phenomena. And then we find that these things will 

 not reveal themselves in the presence of water. Now, we should say 

 that water destroys the electrical insulation, but the scoifer who had 

 heard so much of the fundamentality of that triumvirate, " earth, 

 fire, and water," might find ample wherewithal to whet his sarcasm, 

 and even though he should admit the reality of the phenomena them- 

 selves, he might well attack them on the basis of their futility, for 

 it would appear that if all the black rods in the world were rubbed 

 with the skins of all the cats the most that might hope to be accom- 

 plished would seem to be the raising of a small weight of totally 

 insignificant amount. And yet, on this earth at that very time there 

 existed, and within the reach of man, the Avhcrewithal to nuUce a 

 dynamo. 



To one who contemplates the enormous manifestations of elec- 

 trical power to-day, it seems almost inconceivable that all of these 



