1G4 The Evolution of Electric and Magnetic Physics. 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 



ME. GEORGE M. PHELPS : 



Mr. Phelps suggested that the nexus between the purpose of the 

 Ethical Association as implied in its title, and the present course of 

 lectures and discussions upon evolution, as manifested in the physical 

 sciences, might be found in the closing words of Emerson's Cambridge 

 Divinity School Address of 1838. That seer looked for the " new teacher 

 that shall follow so far those shining laws that he shall see them come 

 full circle ; shall see their rounding, complete grace ; shall see the world 

 to be the mirror of the soul ; shall see the identity of the law of gravita- 

 tion with purity of heart ; and shall show that the Ought, that Duty, 

 is one thing with Science, with Beauty, and with Joy." 



Mr. Kennelly had shown, in his comprehensive address, that from 

 the inception of electric science and the useful arts dependent upon it, 

 up to the present development, there had gone forward a course of 

 evolution, analogous to that traced in previous lectures in the domain 

 of nature ; a slight and crude beginning in a remote past, followed, 

 however slowly or rapidly, by successive modifications of theory 

 and practice with advancing knowledge, accompanied by an ever-in- 

 creasing elaboration and complexity, and attended by the elimination, 

 from time to time, of outworn or unsound views and methods, all tend- 

 ing steadily to enhanced use and benefit. 



The expansion of use and benefit during the ten years just passed was 

 a most striking feature of electrical evolution ; an expansion requiring 

 the employment of an amount of electrical energy still more striking 

 as compared with the amount used for all purposes previous to the 

 advent of electric lighting and transmission of power. Every arc-lamp 

 requires nearly a horse-power of electrical energy, and every incan- 

 descent lamp about a tenth as much ; tens of thousands of electric 

 motors add to the enormous consumption. It is doubtless safe to say 

 that an aggregate of not less than a million horse-power of electrical 

 energy is daily expended in the various electrical arts of to-day, of 

 which amount certainly less than one tenth is required for the service 

 of the telegraph, the telephone, and all other uses biit those of light and 

 power. The latter, ten-year-old industries, are therefore utilizing nine 

 or ten times as much electricity as is required for all other purposes. 



In the evolution of sciences and arts, such as form the topics of this 

 season's course, there comes in a factor not found in the evolution of 



