The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-01-07

engineers speak confidently of 100
miles an hour rate as q certainty Of the
coming century. on sea the progress
has not been 50 rapid in comparison
with the progress made on land; but
il is still remarkable enough.
The meaning of this is that for the
purpose Of human intercourse he world
is not a quarter as large as ii was at
the beginning Of the century. Time
and space have not been conquered,
but compelled to abate the deSpOtism
which they have exercised without
limit over all preceding generations OF
men. Even in the conveyance Of hunks
of matter in its rudest form, the
thought of men, embodied in the steam
engine and the dynamo. has triumphed
over obstacles which had baff1ed the
ingenuity and the resource Of the hu-
man race since time began.
Annihilation of Distance.
If this has been the case in the do
main of what may be called brute mat
ter. what much more signal triumDhs
have been achieved when thought was
dealing wits its own social domain,
Here, given necessary apparatus, dis
lance has been absolutely annihilated
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.
The telephone was the next great ad-
vance The electric telegraph merely
conveyed thought as expressed in
sounding words. The telephone en-
abled us to mount sound upon the wire.
and in apparent defiance Of the law by
which sound waves Travelled, enable
the citizens Of New York TO carry on
a conversation with a citizen of Chi
cagO as if no thousand miles interviewed
between the two capitals.
II the telephone has 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
10 hear a sound Of the voice that is
still But in dreams alone or III 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 Inherit
ance 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 imperfecly
apprehends.
A materialist. proud of the achieve
meuts and triumphs of the nineteenth
century. points out that If he has con-
Quered matter, il has been by the aid
of matter 1t is by the adaptation of
material Instruments that he has been
abld to overcome material Obstacles
Thought has. indeed, been cOmmunicat-
cd from continent To continent across
'gsupervening oceans. without regard 10
THE obstacles Of mountain rampant ca
des,1iate wilderness. but nothing has
been done without the presence Of the
material instrument.
The first great breach in the citadel
Of this kind of materialism was the
discovery that il was perfectly possible
for mind to communicate with mind
with the aid Of telegraphic instruments,
without any connecting wire. The mar
vel OF wireless telegraphy," q dozen
years ago would have been secuted as
a preposterous fable. Today it is one
Of the recognized agents of civilized in
rercOursc.
The materialist however, exuItantly
remarks that even although the wire Is
abolished. the telegraDhic recorder at
either end is indispensable, and that
matter can not be vanquished without
the aid Of matter. and although we may
alternate the sceptre, we can never
dispense with its use.
Seeing Through Things.
Hardly have we become accustomed
70 the marvel Of wireless biography,
when we are told of a. new and marvel
Gus invention by which visitors 10 the
Paris exposition viii be able 10 see by
the aid OF the telclectrOscOpe scenes
hundreds Of miles. The precise nature
of this invention has not been made
public but from descriptions which
have appeared it is evident that IL IS
to do fer the eye what the telephone
does for the ear.
Combine the long-distance telephone