166 The Evolution of Electric and Magnetic Physics. 



walls of isolation and invited to freer social intercourse belonged to 

 the higher influences, " not ourselves," but outside, making for right- 

 eousness and a perfected evolution of man and his world. So, too, 

 electricity, in making all things new, was the latest of the great powers 

 to be controlled by human wit and invention, succeeding others in due 

 season, " lest one good custom should corrupt the world " ; and teach- 

 ing that the finite is the imperfect, of contentment in which we must 

 beware. At the present moment the work of electricity lay chiefly in 

 light and power, and it gave us purer, sweeter, subtler, gentler service 

 than any of its predecessors had afforded. It could not but be that 

 this refinement of service and influence would better and elevate 

 all who enjoyed it, as taking us one remove further from the crude, 

 raw, and barbaric. This messiahship of material things was borne in 

 upon us in witnessing the advances of science, which, after all, meant 

 nothing unless they purified and sanctified life. As one whose work 

 lay in the electrical field, he found pleasure in thinking that such 

 work, perhaps more than any other of its kind, laid hold on the future, 

 with its promise of a nobler state of society than had yet been attained. 



DR. ROBERT G. ECCLES : 



Mr. Kennelly has in a clear and impressive manner carried us along 

 the successive steps of the progress of electric science, and in showing 

 its connection with the doctrine of evolution he has been ably second- 

 ed by the gentleman who opened the discussion. It is not possible for 

 one scarcely an amateur in the subject to attempt any criticism of 

 these experts, and it seems almost in the nature of presumption for 

 me to even suppose myself able to add to the interest of the same. In 

 one hour's talk, however, many things of great importance that might 

 be advantageously dwelt upon to impress them the more firmly on the 

 listener's attention are necessarily dismissed with the briefest notice. 

 As an illustration we have the discovery of Oersted that a magnetic 

 needle is deflected by a current of electricity, and if the current is 

 strong the needle will set itself almost at right angles with the wire 

 carrying it. It is safe to say that this evidence of the connection of 

 magnetism with electricity is the trunk of the tree whose branches 

 now fill the whole earth with telephones, telegraphs, burglar-alarms, 

 electric lights, and all our successful applications of this force. Prom 

 it can be traced the successive steps leading to the latest wonders of 

 this kind and pointing toward many more yet to come. Some of the 

 most recent attempts to chain this giant seem to border on the un- 

 canny regions of fairy-land. To be able to send telegraphic messages 

 from moving trains by induced currents is certainly a triumph to be 

 proud of. Miraculous though it may seem, it is but a phenomenon of 



