20 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Januaky 2, 1899. 



science rests (apart from the many instances of self-sacrifice 

 among its devotees) entirely upon its traditions. This 

 alone were good and sufficient reason for cherishing them ; 

 but we have another, and a better — we can learn from 

 them. 



We have been told by the lay press, told till we are 

 weary, that " Electricity is still in its infancy." Yet we 

 have traditions, which come to us in whispers from a 

 realm of thought that existed six hundred years before the 

 commencement of the Christian era, when Thales of 

 Miletus lived. And we have heard other whispers of " The 

 Secrets of the Gods." But these early traditions, both 

 by accident and design, savour of mysticism. Indeed, the 

 two are inextricably bound up. And we would not have 

 it otherwise. 



Let the sceptic cry " Cxtm grano salis." He may so far 

 forget himself as to ask us to come " up to date." And, 

 as a preliminary step towards his level, we mention 

 incidentally that Theophrastus lived in the year 321 b.c. 

 We may also point out that both Aristotle and Pliny made 

 some shrewd observations concerning the " torpedo " and 

 " the electric eel," while the latter gives a good account of 

 some of the properties of tourmaline. 



So much for the infant which we know existed six 

 hundred years b.c, and made its tiny cry heard in the 

 year 70 a.d. A long, long minority, not ended even yet. 

 But in the interval the child still cried. The wailing was 

 long in reaching the ears of our countrymen, though it 

 made itself plainly heard throughout the European conti- 

 nent. At length, however, it found a home here under 

 the guardianship of Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, about the 

 year 1590. And now the little one began to accomplish 

 articulate speech. We hear of such phrases as " attractive 

 bodies " — remarliable from a child destined to remain an 

 infant for nearly three centuries more, if not for a much 

 longer period, but growing still. 



This little one, at certain epochs of whose career we are 

 compelled to glance, this little one, bom, perhaps, in a 

 piece of amber, grew phenomenally, yet appeared to be 

 retaining a perpetual youth, outliving guardian after 

 guardian. For when Dr. Gilbert's time came to say fare- 

 well (one can believe that it was a sad farewell), Robert 

 Boyle and Otto von Guericke undertook the guardianship 

 simultaneously, yet independently. Robert Boyle brings 

 us up to within thirty years of the commencement of the 

 eighteenth century. But we must revert now to a period 

 when the child passed through a great danger, and was 

 even like to die. 



Somewhere about the year 1545 the Elector Frederick 

 of Saxony dreamed a dream, in which he saw Martin 

 Luther writing on the door of the Royal Chapel, at Witten- 

 berg. As he wrote the pen grew — grew so fast and so 

 far that it reached to Rome, and even struck the Pope's 

 tiara. Concerted effort to break the pen was unavailing, 

 for, as it was struck (according to one report) , others grew 

 from it. The story of this dream was cuxulated widely, 

 and one is bound to own that its political aspect almost 

 stamps it as a fabrication. Yet the dream, if dream it 

 were, brought about one good resixlt. It set people 

 thinking, and turned their thoughts towards the ultimate 

 possibility of communicating rapidly at a distance. But 

 the first result was even more strange than the imme- 

 diate cause. Baptista Porta, in his book "The Wonders 

 of the Magnet " (circa. 1559), wrote : — " I do not fear but 

 that with a far absent friend I can always communicate, 

 by means of two compass needles, circumscribed with an 

 alphabet." Another writer thus stated his conviction : — 

 " Forasmuch as this is so wonderful a secret, I have 

 hitherto hesitated about divulging it, and did so disguise 



my meaning in the first issue of my book as only to be 

 understood by learned physicians and chemists. But now 

 the time is come when I will communicate it for the benefit 

 of lovers of science generally.'' One cannot but admire the 

 apt use of that "generally.' The writer, evidently himself 

 a lover of scientific truth, goes on to describe the 

 " sympathetic needles." It is curious to note that many 

 writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries speak 

 of these needles as though their use was well-established, 

 while others laugh at the growth of the " conceit." One 

 could so easily draw modern parallels. 



It must be remembered that all this was taking place at 

 a time when priests were in the habit of standing in circles 

 around three-legged stools, while one of their number 

 (presumably he who had the greatest command of 

 language) anathematised the stool, till a ring, previously 

 placed upon it, began to roll around it, stopping to indicate 

 certain letters of the circumscribed alphabet, and so 

 interpreting messages from a world otherwise unknown. 



Sir Thomas Browne (in his Pseiulodoxia Epidemica, 

 published in 1G16), amongst others, put the needles to 

 experimental test, and stated that he had found the idea 

 to be absurd. Following shortly on this there was another 

 incident. A certain wealthy man was approached by an 

 impecunious individual who wished to sell the secret, and 

 who explained that if the one were in Persia and the other 

 in England it would still be possible to communicate. 

 The man of wealth, telling the other that he would be 

 most happy to test the matter, and give it due considera- 

 tion, remarked, " But it is not at the moment convenient 

 to me to set out for Persia ; none the less, if you will make 

 the journey with one of the instruments, I wiU gladly 

 remain here with the other, and await the result." 



And alchemists were rife in the land, and phlogiston 

 had a recognized existence ; so electricity, and every other 

 exact science, was well nigh done to death. 



The late Prof. Tyndall, writing of this time, tells us : 

 " Seekers after natural truth had forsaken the direct appeal 

 to Nature, by observation and experiment, and had given 

 themselves up to the re-manipulation of the notions of 

 their predecessors. It was a time when thought had 

 become abject, and the acceptance of mere authority led, 

 as it always must do in science, to intellectual death. 

 Natural events, instead of being traced to physical, were 

 referred to moral causes, while an exercise of the fantasy, 

 almost as degrading as the spiritualism of the present 

 day, took the place of scientific research." 



This is in truth a just appreciation of the state of affairs 

 existing then. But we have no great right to laugh. As 

 heirs to the ages, it remains for us to show that we have 

 done our best. We have heard in our own time of the 

 production of electrical sugar, as also of certain belts ! 

 The blame for these things should be divided about 

 equally, between those who do know and those who do 

 not. It is a painfully mean spirit which prompts a man 

 who has made a life study of a particular subject to laugh 

 at the ignorance of that subject shown by another, who 

 has spent his time in the pursuit of some other knowledge, 

 though the latter is to blame when he turns a deaf ear to 

 the warning given, ever so quietly, by the former. And 

 very many writers of " Science Notes " in the lay press 

 should not be quite so prolific. 



But returning to the subject of tradition. A careful 

 note of that tradition, and mysticism, which has hung 

 about electrical phenomena leads us to assert the inevitable 

 proposition that electrical science owes its present position 

 to the facts, and distortions of facts, propounded by the 

 ancients. 



Democritus said " We know nothing really, for the truth 



