9 



They struggled and endured persecution and hardship, 

 in efforts which were vain, to wrest from nature if only an 

 indication whether their experiments were in the right 

 direction. 



But nature had to them no book of laws, no speech or 

 language these sages could interpret or decipher. It has 

 been left for her devotees in the past century to discover the 

 key of the wonderful book of laws which is now not a sealed 

 volume of mysteries, but a treatise on whose pages are 

 inscribed the fundamental truths which should guide the 

 student in his earnest researches and workings, and to adapt 

 and reduce to practical knowledge the propositions which 

 nature in her realm submits to the seeker after her hidden 

 treasures. By the wrong application of her methods and 

 meanings the ancient scribe has written down the natural 

 laws of the universe inscrutable and past finding out. 



Thales, the philosopher of Miletus, discovered the pro- 

 perty of Amber in attracting to itself light particles by 

 friction. He described the inherent power as the soul or 

 essence which, quickened by the friction, goes forth and 

 attracts to itself the light bodies lying around. Here is the 

 germ of electricity, but his knowledge of nature's laws was 

 too elementary to enable him to avail of this first principle, 

 and follow out the leading thus given him. 



The inspiration that dawned on his mind found no 

 response, no eager desire to follow the train of thought set in 

 motion by the strange phenomena he had discovered, and even 

 he only regarded it as a phenomenon peculiar to the Amber 

 alone. He could impart no knowledge to his disciples 

 concerning the interesting property possessed by the Amber, 

 nor were those who followed him equal to the task of 

 continuing or expanding the studies and experiments of the 

 master. 



Archimedes, whose insight into nature's ways and 

 workings, contributed material knowledge to the schools of 

 learning by his theories of mechanics and hydrostatics. 



The genius these masters possessed of interpreting, 

 casually, natural laws, was not transferable to their followers. 

 Demonstrations, and the solving of problems being, in the 

 ancient academies, without scientific knowledge, more 



