The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1878-05-02

ception of the order ofhuman progress
and the conditions of human hap
piness. The hope of the future rests
not on Arcadian simplicity AN i'm
possible civilization IF bare-backed
and empty handed philosophers--but
on the continued conquest of the
materials and forces of nature, and
the widening of all mems wants. until
every possibility Of art and nature
shall be made tributary to everyday
life.
Emerson in his latest utterance.
"The Future of our Republic" takes
this standpoint, and hints of the pre-
dominant part to be played by in
ventors in the great drama Of the
future. In the effort to meet one
want thousand others may be created
and satisfied; and any one of these
may mark an enormous advance in
in the progress of civilization and the
elevation of human existence.
"Our modern needs, says Emerson,
''stand on few staples. In our war
one Of these was exaggerated in i'm
portance--cotton. And what is cot
ton! One plant out of some two
hundred thousand known to botanists.
vastly the largest part of which are
reckoned weeds! A plant whose
virtues have not yet been discovered.
Yet every one of the two hundred
thousand plants probably is yet to be
J of utility in the arts, as Bacchus of
! the vine. Ceres of the wheat. AS
Arkwright and Whitney were the
demigods of cotton. so in time there
will yet be an invention to every
plant. There is not property in
nature but mind is born to seek and
find it. There is not q plant in the
whole magazine of material nature
that cannot be made a power in the
hands of thinking men; and every new
application is equivalent to new
material
There isno danger that the inventor
| will ever lack material or opportunity.
or that the profession will ever be
overcrOwded. And we believe that,
in the long run. the common wisdom
of civilized men will never suffer
these, the highest benefactors of
| their kind. to be robbed of the fruits
of their labors. or unfairly weighted
in their struggle for material recon-
pense.
HOW FAST CAN YOU THINK?
"Quick as thought" and 'quick as
lightning are commonly used as sy-
nonymous expressions. But their
difference is really grert. An cleo
trio impulse traverses wire IA a
wave of notion; a nervous impulse
proceeds by development of chemi-
cal channe in the nerve. 1t runs
along the nerve somewhrt as cOmbus-
ton followsa train of gunpOwder, and
not much if any more rapidly. In
deed Helmholtz has clearly determin-
ed the rate of nervous propagation to
| be less than hundred feet second,
or about q mile a minute. TO use a
rude illustration, if railway could
feel, the sense report Of a train start
ing in New York would reach Albany
but little in advance of the fastest
trainss that have been run upon the
Hudson River Road. Even along
courses as short as the nerves of the
human body an appreciabla time is
required for the passage Of nervous
impulses.
With a simple apparatus. Hirsch
found that touch upon the face
could be recognized and responded to
|'by Il predetermined signal operated
bp the hand, in one seventh of "A Sec
ond. With a sound test, acting, of
course, upon the ear, the answering
signal was made in one sixth of a sec
Ond; when the eye was addressed, the
response came in one fifth of sec.
ond. Since the distances travelled by
the nervous impulses were very near.
ly the same in all these experiments,
it is evident that the greater part Of
the difference of time noted must be
charged to the grealer or smaller rap
idity of the act of recognition; the en-
tire process in each case being the
transmission Of a sensation (touch,
hearing or sight to the brain, it's rec
ignition, the willing of the signal
agreed upon, the transmissi0 Of the
order to the muscles of the hand, and
the movement Of those muscles
Thus it would appear that less time is
| required for recognizing a touch than
a sound, less time to hear than to see
But what part OF the fifth. sixth, or
seventh of second, as the case might
be, was consumed in the act of recog-
| milton
Donders was successful in answer
ing this question by the use of several
forms of apparatus, involving entirely
different methods. yet yielding the
same results. He found. for instance,
with the ''noematachograph' that
the double act of recognizing sound
and willing the response required
seventy-tive thousandths Of a second.
OF this time, forty thousandths of "A
second were required for simple rec
ignition. thus leaving thirty-five
thousandths for vol:tion. With the
''noematachometer" he found That
the same time. forty thousandths Tor
one twenty-ffth) OF a second, was re-
qnired 10 judge which was first Of
two iTrltants acting on the same
sense. A slightly longer time was re-
OuIred tn iudOe the TrIority of sivpalc