The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1901-06-15

existing price. When Hertzian waves
were first spoken of no one dreamed
that they would enable us to transmit
messages through long distances with
out visible means of communication.
The telephone was built up out of
most unlikely materials; and the man
who asserted that he could make an
iron plate talk to an audience by the
aid of three French nails. small bat
terry, and few cylinders, would have
been regarded as lunatic not so very
long ago.
OF late those who have watched the
signs Of the times will have noticed
that a change Is coming over the mode
of thought of the more advanced seek
ers after physical truth. Possibly not
many OF our readers have carefully fol-
lowed DR.. Larmor's address to Section
A Of the British association, which we
have placed on record in our columns.
Possibly fewer of those who have read
1t have understood it. DR.. Larmor has
evidently failed to make the English
language express clearly what he
wanted to say, nor are we surprised.
It Is a hackneyed saying that words
fail us to express our feelings" But
DR.. Larmor has, in all events, sue
ceeded in telling us that much that
was formerly accepted as the very
groundwork of physical science must
be abandoned as untenable. He hints,
indeed, that Newton's laws OF motion
are no longer satisfactory expositions
Of we'll known truths. He seems dis
posed to abandon the idea that force Is
the cause of motion; a statement
which we have often pointed out Is
wholly inconsistent with Newton's
third law. Ions take the place OF
atoms, from which they seem to differ
only in being infinitely more numerous.
Kelyin's theory Of vortices. with dif-
ference is favored, and we have again
a theory Of force centres, which SO
closely resembles that advanced years
ago by the late Walter Browne, to say
nothing of Bishop Berkeley, that to the
superficial observer at all events the
distinction is without difference. But
the most notable feature of the whole
discourse is DR.. Larmor's tendency
to abandon the pursuits OF knowledge
in certain direc,lons. 1t will be bet
ter. he said in effect, to content our
selves with a statement OF the chain OF
events so far as we can see the links,
without attempting to discover the
ends of the chain. We can study the
effects of gravity, but 1t Is forever I'M
possible for the human mind to con-
ceive Of any adequate cause. We MAJ
frame mathematical theories about the
ether. but the human mind Is inca
pable Of forming q concept OF a sub
stance which will comply with the con-
ditions. In whatever direction we
turn, we are stopped by the presence
of the unknown. DR.. Larmor Will have
it. as we understand him, that much OF
the unknown is unknowable. 1t Is pos
sible that we overestimate DR.. Lar
mors pessimism; we trust that we 90.
Among the matters to which he d.
rected attention was attraction. It's
nhenomena are common and obvious,
even apart from gravity, but they ap-
near to be absolutely inexplicable. We
speak of q torque of a motor, or dy-
name. and it is part of the work OF the
electrician and the engineer to calcu-
;ate its amount under stated condi-
tions; but no one on earth has the
smallest notion of why torque exists
at all in the combination of iron, cop
Der, cotton and shellac. The magnet
gives us a puzzle as recondfte as any
in the universe. In old times, when
men did not use very accurate Ian