70 THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 



heard of his alleged discovery. But, while he lived and 

 was able to put forward claims based upon some apparent 

 results, he found plenty of fools who accepted the idea that 

 there is nothing impossible to science. 



It is true that the Keeley motor was examined by sev- 

 eral committees and some very respectable gentlemen acted 

 in such a way as to give a seeming endorsement of the 

 scheme, but it must not be supposed for an instant that 

 any well-educated engineers and scientific men were de- 

 ceived by Mr. Keeley's nonsense. The very fact that he 

 refused to allow a complete examination of his machine by 

 intelligent practical men, ought to have been enough to 

 condemn his scheme, for if he had really made the discovery 

 which he claimed there would have been no difficulty in 

 proving it practically and thoroughly, and then he might 

 have formed company after company that would have re- 

 warded him with " wealth beyond the dreams of avarice." 



The Keeley motor was not put forward as a perpetual 

 motion ; in these days none of these schemes is admitted 

 to be a perpetual motion, for that term has now become 

 exceedingly offensive and would condemn any invention ; 

 but the result is the same in the end, and the whole his- 

 tory of perpetual motion is permeated with frauds of this 

 kind, some of them having been so simple that they were 

 obvious to even the most unskilled 1 observer, while others 

 were exceedingly complicated and most ingeniously con- 

 cealed. Many years ago a number of these fraudulent per- 

 petual-motion machines were manufactured in America 

 and sent over to Great Britain for exhibition, and quite a 

 lucrative business was done by showing them in various 

 towns. But the fraud was soon detected and the British 

 police then made it too warm for these swindlers. 



