106 THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 



hardly fail to have simmered in the minds 

 of ingenious men since, well nigh a cent- 

 ury ago, experimental proof was given 

 that electric disturbances could be propa- 

 gated through a wire twelve thousand feet 

 long. Various methods of carrying the 

 suggestion into practice had been carried 

 out with some degree of success ; but the 

 system of electric telegraphy, which, at 

 the present time, brings all parts of the 

 civilised world within a few minutes of 

 one another, originated only about the 

 commencement of the epoch under con- 

 sideration. In its influence on the course 

 of human affairs, this invention takes its 

 place beside that of gunpowder, which 

 tended to abolish the physical inequalities 

 of fighting men ; of printing, which tended 

 to destroy the effect of inequalities in 

 wealth among learning men ; of steam 

 transport, which has done the like for 

 travelling men. All these gifts of science 

 are aids in the process of levelling up ; of 



