It is not from any scientific spirit or scientific acumen that this materialistic coterie avoid psychometric and spiritual facts. The newspapers which ignore or sneer at such knowledge are easily gulled in matters of science. A writer in the _Open Court_ upon the possibilities of the future, which he presents as being confined "strictly to legitimate deductions from present knowledge," exhibits an amount and variety of ignorant credulity which ought not to have gained admission to an intelligent journal. He speaks of an unlimited freedom of submarine navigation and navigation of the air which would not have appeared possible to any but the most superficial sciolist. He also speaks of an electroscope that will telegraph rays of light (!) and enable us thereby to see our most distant friends, and of stowing in a small compass electricity enough to exterminate an army. This imaginative ignoramus adds, "Give to our present biped acquaintance the ability to exterminate armies with a lightning flash, added to the power of sailing at will through the air or of passing at will and in safety beneath the ocean waves, and he would depopulate the earth." The writer gives much more of this Munchausen stuff which is not worthy of notice except as an illustration of the feeble scientific intelligence with which many newspapers are edited. The editor of a really scientific journal referred to this article in the _Open Court_ "as a proof of the danger of a little knowledge."[1]
[1] The air is certainly yet to be navigated when a sufficient amount of power can be concentrated in the machine, but at present we can do little more than float with the wind. It is probable that an engine sufficiently strong, built of the best steel, and propelled by the explosive power of gun cotton, or some similar explosive, would overcome the difficulty. If I were to construct such an engine I would substitute for the lifting power of a balloon that of a sail acting as a kite.
BY SAMUEL EADON, M.A., M.D., PH.D., F.S.A., ETC.
I have read very carefully the third edition of the "New Education," and feel impelled, in order to satisfy my conscientiousness, to write a short article relative to the impressions which the reading of the book produced in my mind.