148 SYDNEY T. KLEIN, F.L.S., F.R.A.S., ON THE 



to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which 

 it met them there would be Ettrnal Existence and Eternal 

 Knowledge " {Principles of Biology, p. 88). If we now follow the 

 same Thought by examining the Inorganic, we again make the 

 extraordinary discovery that this power to influence, based on 

 sympathetic action, is the very mainspring by which physical 

 work can be sustained, and upon it also depends entirely the very 

 action of our physical senses. Our senses are based upon the 

 appreciation of Vibration in the Air and Ether, of greater or 

 less rapidity, according to the presence in our Organs of 

 processes capable of acting in sympathy with those frequencies. 

 The limits within which our senses can thus be affected are 

 very small. The ear can only appreciate thirteen or fourteen 

 octaves in sound and the eye less than one octave in light ; 

 beyond these limits, owing to the absence of processes which 

 can be affected Sympathetically, all is silent and dark to us. 

 This capability for responding to vibration under sympathetic 

 action is not confined to Organic Senses ; the Physical forces, 

 and even inert matter, are also sensitive to its influences, as I 

 will now demonstrate to you. 



In wireless telegraphy it is absolutely necessary that the 

 transmitter of the electro-magnetic waves is brought into 

 perfect sympathy or harmony with the receiver, without that 

 condition it is impossible to communicate at a distance. Again, 

 a heavy pendulum or swing can, by a certain force, be pushed, 

 say an inch from its position of rest, and each successive push 

 will augment the swing, but only on one condition, namely, 

 that the force is applied in sympathy with the pendulum's 

 mode of swing ; if the length of the pendulum is fifty- two feet, 

 the force must be applied only at the end of each eight seconds, 

 as, although the pendulum at first is only moving one inch, it 

 will take four seconds to traverse that one inch, the same as it 

 would take to traverse ten feet or more, and will not be back 

 at the original position till the end of eight seconds ; if the force 

 is applied before that time, the swing of a pendulum w^ould be 

 hindered instead of augmented ; even a steam engine must 

 work under this influence if it is to be effective ; there may 

 be enough force in a boiler to do the work of a thousand 

 horse power, but unless the slide valve is arranged so that 

 the steam enters the cylinders at exactly the right moment, 

 namely in sympathy with the thrust of the piston, no work is 

 possible. 



In order to bring this subject of influence by sympathetic 

 action clearly to your minds, I have arranged the following 



