NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



star at the same tremendous speed. On the other 

 hand, various facts lead us to believe that the 

 particles of air in a quiet room, or of a motionless 

 drop of water, are in a state of intense activity, 

 moving with more than cannon-ball speed. Of all 

 of these motions our senses give but the vaguest 

 reports. 



What is true here is true universally. The flash 

 of the earth through the sky is directly known to 

 us only through the change from summer to winter 

 and back again. Had we eyes as delicate as the 

 spectroscope, to the world of color would be added 

 hundreds of tints and shades to which we are now 

 insensible; could they see with microscopic vision, 

 we should be terrified with the teeming populations 

 of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the things 

 we eat. Were the sense of touch as fine as that of 

 some micrometers, the smoothest billiard-ball a 

 razor's edge, even would seem rough and jagged 

 as a flint knife of the Stone Age. Were our ears 

 attuned to all the gradations of sound producible 

 by a siren, we should step into a new world of har- 

 mony ; were they as delicate as the microphone, the 

 utmost stillness of the night would come like the 

 clang and clatter of Broadway. 



In a later chapter the possible bearing of all this 

 on some of the fads of the day, like telepathy and 

 its kindred, will be briefly suggested. Meanwhile, 



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