198 Transactions of the American Institute. 



poverty of the device, and would too hastily conclude that only a few 

 of the simplest and rudest ideas could possibly find expression by the 

 aid of a contrivance so clumsy. He would tell you it was conceiva- 

 ble, perhaps, that, by appropriate vibrations, the idea of joy, or rage, 

 or fear, or possibly hunger, might be imperfectly expressed, with a 

 few others of like character, but that to expect more would be vis- 

 ionary. He would urge that all vibrations were necessarily so similar 

 in general character that it would be impossible to communicate to 

 them the stamp of thought or feeling. And yet how wonderfully 

 each one of us employs just such vibrations, and, with a skill which 

 seems truly superhuman, impresses upon and commits to them an 

 infinite variety of thoughts, feelings and ideas, which, at times, we 

 pour forth in torrents that seem inexhaustible. The vastness of the 

 result attained, the poverty of the means, are utterly overwhelming. 

 Think, also, for a moment, of that gift by which we read the stories 

 written on the invisible waves of the air ; how we instantly interpret 

 and disentangle their complexities, as they roll in toward us, thousands 

 in a second, with the velocity of rifle-bullets. The power to hear and 

 to speak are gifts which, from purely physical and mathematical stand- 

 points, are absolutely magnificent. And we, the possessors of such 

 powers, is it conceivable that they have been bestowed on us only to 

 be used as at present ? Are they not the prophecy of a future for our 

 race, when they will be employed in a manner which better accords 

 with their inexpressible richness and grandeur ? 



