Grand Forks daily herald and the evening times., 1914-08-28
FRIDAY. AUGUST 2s, 1914.
SCIENCE AND IMAGINATION,

Whenever there is some noteworthy
achievement in the realm of science,
we are apt to search the literature Of
the past for predictions along that
line, and if We are not inclined to be
too literal, IL earch is always re-
warded. Mother Shipton, Jules Verne.
Darius Green-these, and a host of
others furnish a foundation for the
statement that this or that modern
wonder was foreseen generations or
centuries ago.
The latest wonder is the develop
Naturally we recalled Darius Green
n his disastrous experiment. The
curious feature of his is that as a rule
the writer of that poem was credited
with having foreseen and predicted
the conquest of the air by man, where
as ne did nothing Of the sort. He
INDUCED in good humored ridicule at
the expense Of the untutored lad who
imagined. as all ingenious lads have
done in their time. that he could fly.
T~rowbrdge did not predict, n a.
or h other. He told. in ar entertain
ing way, a remarkable natural human
interest story. If we were to consid-
or the poem as a prediction at all, it
must be accepted as a prediction Of
the failure, and not of the success, Of
mans efforts to fly.
Tennyson drew a picture of a war
in the air which seems. in the light
of actual events. remarkably proph-
etic. Had Tennyson, therefore. some
mysterious knowledge of the scientific
development Of the future, or are we
to credit him with the scientific type
of mind which foresees results even
though it is not a cognizant of the
means by which they are to be achiev-
ed, Nothing of the kind. Probably
no normally imaginative boy ever liv-
cd who did not speculate on the pos
sibility of flying. The hawk soaring In
the upper air, the bee b%uSzing about
the flowers. the humming bird balanc-
ing himself daintily before each blns-
SON., the things which are before the
child's ayes every day force on his
attention the fact Of flight. and the
boy who has not at some time. imagtn-
ed himself flying through the air
would not be a normal person at all.
From Individual fight the thought
moved naturally to what may be ac-
com2lished by it's means, and no
doubt millions of boys nave seen Wis
ions of great battles in the air. Ten
nyson put his thought into verse. tina
Is all.
Jules Verne is often cited as q man
who had almost miraculous insight in
to the scientific development of the
future. Verne had a riotous imagina-
ton. and a clever way of using it.
Doubtless thousands of other men of
his time. and before it, had invented
submarines along very similar lines
to those used by Verne. Verne popu-
larized his speculation by writing an
entertaining story around it. Much Of
Verre's science however. is arrant
nonsense. as much so as the alleged
prophesies Of Mother shipton, His
story OF the journey from the earth
to the moon is entertaining. hut i'm
possible in detail and in principle, now
and for all time. His method Of guild
nowhere else.
Imagination runs free through the
universe. It is not confined to three.
Of any other number of dimensions.
The possible and the impossible are
alike to it. 1t would be strange II,
en- touch actualities. Let us suppose
q ase We are learning something
about electrical energy. We know
thar by means of this agencv force in
various forms can be transmitted
through the air for great distances.
We are today reading rews from the
worlds greatest battlefield which has
been shot across the Atlantic from
shore to shore at one jump. One of
these days some modern Verne will
write of the development Of this en-
ergy to the point where not merely
force. but solid matter, ear be trans
ported in this manner, and we will
be entertained by circumstantia' ac-
counts of the shooting of persons and
things from place to place in the
twinkling of an eye. Then. in the flu
ture, If some such thing should actual
ly be achieved, men will point to that
writer as a prophet Of rare powers,
whereas he will have been merely a
man OF active i~maginating and the
gift of using it in an entertaining man
ner.