Omaha daily bee., 1900-01-11
BORDERLAND BEYOND KEN
Editor S.ead Tells Why He Believes in
Thought Transfererce,
MUCH LIKE tLtCTRlC COMMUNICATION
idcns Mny ne Passed from Mind TO
Mind nv One Telephone ~ switched
ON to Another who
Knows Hows

Copyright, 1850, by the Author)
The closing century has enabled man
kind TO urmount many difficulties in the
way Of intercommunication which at the
beginning Of the century had appeared in
surm0untable. In fact, 1t may be said that
the great triumph Of the nineteenth cen
fury has been the subsection Of time and
space by the mind of man.
The introduction OF steam and later Of
electric transit has changed everything. 1t
has been a record breaking century, both
on land and sea. We already think nothing
Of express trains travelling at sixty miles
an hour as their normal speed. Occasion
ally trains are run at eighty miles an hour
and engineers speak confidently OF 100 miles
an hour rate as a certainty OF the coming
century. On sea the progress has not been
SO rapid in comparison with the progress
made on land, but 1t Is still remarkable
enough.
The meaning of this is that, for the pur-
pose of human intercourse, the world is
not a quarter as large as 1t was at the be-
ginning Of the century. Time and space
have been not conquered, but compelled to
abate the despotism which they have ex-
ercised without limit over all preceding gem
e~rations of men. Even In the conveyance
of hunks of matter in it's rudest form
the thoughts of men, embodied in the steam
engine and the dynamo, have triumphed over
obstacles which had baffled the ingenuity
and the resource of the human race since
time began.
AnnihiIntion Of Distance.
II this has been the case in the domain
of what may be called brute matter, what
much more signal triumphs have been
achieved when thought was dealing with
it's own special domain! Here, given neces-
sary apparatus, distance has been abso-
lutely annihilatcd and man can speak with
man without any regard to the old fatal
barrier of distance. The first and almost
familiar triumph OF mind over distance
was the electric telegraph.
Then telephone was the next great ad-
vance. The electric telegraph merely con-
veyed thought as expressed in sounding
words. The telephone enabled us to mount
sound upon the wire, and in apparent de
fance of the law by which sound waves
travelled enable the citizens of New YORK
to carry on a conversation with a citizen
of Chicago as If no thousand miles inter
vened between the two'capitals.
II the telephone had triumphed over
distance, the phonograph may be said to
represent a similar conquest over time,
Countless generations mourning their dead
have cried with vain longing to hear a
sound of the voice that is still. But in
dreams alone or in those rare visions
vouchsafed to finer souls was the prayer
ever granted. The very sound and accent
of the living words of the dead whose bodies
are in the dust have become the common
inheritance Of mankind But these achieve
ments, vast as they are, represent but the
beginning of things, the conquest by man
of a new realm upon the threshold OF which
he is standing and the laws of which he
but Numerically aDDrehendS.
A materialist, proud of the achievements
and triumphs of the nineteenth century,
points out that If he has conquered matter
it has been by the aid of matter. 1t is by the
adaptation of material instruments that he
has been able to overcome material obsta-
cles. Thought has indeed been communi
Gated from continent to continent across
supervening oceans, without regard to the
obstacles of mountain rampart or desolatt
Wilderness; but nothing has been dont
without the presence of the material instru'
ment.
The first great breach in the citadel OF thi
kind of materialism was the discovery tina
1t was perfectly possible for mind to com
municate with mind with the aid of tele
graphic instruments, without any connect
ing wire. The marvel Of "wireless teleg
raphy" a dozen years ago would have beer
secuted as a preposterous fable. Today /
is one or the recognized agents ol clNiilIe'
intercourse.
The materialiet, however, exultingly re
marks that even although the wire is abol
ished, the telegraphic recorder at eithe
end is indispensable, and that matter can
not be vanquished without the aid of mat
ter, and although we may alternate tn
sceptre, we can never dispense with it
use.
Seeing Through Things.
Hardly have we become accustomed t
the marvel OF wireless telegraphy, when W
are told of a new and marvellous %inventio
by which visitors to the Paris expositio
will be able to see by the aid of the telelec
troscope scenes which are occurring at
distance OF hundreds of miles. The precis
nature OF this invention has not been mad
public; but from the descriptions which hav
appeared 1t is evident that it Is to do for tn
eye what the telephone does for the ca
Combine the long distance telephone an