Paul Severing

“ We hear of the conflict between Science and Religion. There is no conflict, can be none, for all Science must be based on faith,—faith in Him who holds worlds and suns "in the hollow of His hand." All our great scientists have been deeply religious men, acknowledging their own insignificance before Him who fills the universe with His presence.
What is the universe and what place do we hold in it? The mind of man becomes appalled in consideration of the question. The orb we know as the sun is centre of a system of worlds of which our earth is almost the most insignificant ”

“ Even our sun, round which a system of worlds revolve and which appears so mighty and majestic to us, is but an atom, a very small one, in the infinitude of matter and as a cog, would not be missed in the ratchet wheel which fits into the grand machinery of Nature.
If our entire solar system were wiped out of being, there would be left no noticeable void among the countless systems of worlds and suns and stars; in the immensity of space the sun with all his revolving planets is not even as a drop to the ocean or a grain of sand to the composition of the earth. ”

“ And man, so far from being king of the universe, is but as a speck on the fly-wheel that controls the mighty machinery of creation. What we know is infinitesimal to what we do not know. We have delved in the fields of science, but as yet our ploughshares have merely scratched the tiniest portion of the surface,—the furrow that lies in the distance is unending. ”

“ Then came the electric telegraph which not only revolutionized all forms of signalling but almost annihilated distance. Messages and all sorts of communications could be flashed over the wires in a few minutes and when a cable was laid under the ocean, continent could converse with continent as if they were next door neighbors.
The men who first enabled us to talk over a wire certainly deserve our gratitude, all succeeding generations are their debtors. To the man who enabled us to talk to long distances without a wire at all it would seem we owe a still greater debt. ”

“ Secrets will be exhumed undreamt of now, mysteries will be laid bare to the light of day, and perhaps the psychic riddle of life itself may be solved. Then indeed, Mars may come to be looked on as a next-door neighbor, with whose life and actions we are as well acquainted as with our own. The thirty-five million miles that separate him from us may be regarded as a mere step in space and the most distant planets of our system as but a little journey afield. Distant Uranus may be looked upon as no farther away than is, say, Australia from America at the present time. ”

“ From the dawn of creation in the eternal cosmos of matter, light has been travelling from some stars in the infinitude of space at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, but so remote are they from our system that it has not reached us as yet. The contemplation is bewildering; the mind sinks into nothingness in consideration of a magnitude so great and distance so confusing. ”

“ The rushing riotous waters of the Stanislaus wasted for so many centuries have been saved by the steel paddles of gigantic turbine water wheels and converted into electricity which carries with the swiftness of thought thousands of horse power energy to the far away cities and towns to be transformed into light and heat and power to run street cars and trains and set in motion the mechanism of mills and factories and make the looms of industry hum with the bustle and activity of life. ”

“ It is absolutely hopeless to try to span the bridge that lies between us and Mars by any methods known to present day science. Yet men styling themselves scientists say it can be done and will be done. This is a prophecy, however, which must lie in the future.
As has been pointed out, we have as yet but scratched the outer surface in the fields of knowledge. What visions may not be opened to the eyes of men, as they go down deeper and deeper into the soil. ”

“ When the master drops into his favorite chair by the fireplace if he wishes a tune to soothe his jangled nerves, there is an electric attachment to the piano and he can adjust it to get the air of his choice without having to ask any one to play for him. In the drawing-room an electric fountain may be playing, its jets reflecting the prismatic colors of the rainbow as the waters fall in iridescent sparkle among the lights. Such a fountain is composed of a small electric motor and a centrifugal pump, the latter being placed in the interior of a basin and connected directly to the motor shaft. ”

“ Can the chasm of space which lies between the Earth and Mars be bridged—a chasm which, at the shortest, is more than thirty-five million miles across or one hundred and fifty times greater than the distance between the earth and the moon? ”

“ It is vain to pursue farther the unthinkable vastness of the visible Universe; as for the invisible it is equally useless for even imagination to try to grapple with its never-ending immensity, to endeavor to penetrate its awful clouded mystery forever veiled from human view.
In all there are about 3,000 stars visible to the naked eye in each hemisphere. A three-inch pocket telescope brings about one million into view. ”

“ If there are myriads of other worlds, thousands, millions of them in point of magnitude greater than ours, what concern say they has the Creator with our little atom of matter? Are other worlds inhabited besides our own. This is the question that will not down—that is always begging for an answer. The most learned savants of modern time, scholars, sages, philosophers and scientists have given it their attention, but as yet no one has been able to conclusively decide whether a race of intelligent beings exists in any sphere other than our own. ”

“ In a scrawny, impoverished soil, and exhausted atmosphere, lacking the constituents of nurture, the plant will become dwarfed and unproductive, whereas on good ground and in good air, which have the succulent properties to nourish it the best results may be expected. The soil and the air, therefore, from which are derived the constituents of plant life, are indispensably necessary, but they are not the primal principles upon which that life depends for its being. The basis, the foundation, the origin of the life is the seed which germinates in the soil and evolves itself into the plant. ”

“ It is of the utmost importance that the sky-scraper be absolutely fire-proof from bottom to top. These great buzzing hives of industry house at one time several thousand human beings and a panic would entail a fearful calamity, and, moreover, their height places the upper stories beyond reach of a water-tower and the pumping engines of the street. ”

“ It is easy to understand the wonders of wireless telegraphy when we consider that electric waves transverse space in exactly the same manner as light waves. When energy is transmitted with finite velocity we can think of its transference only in two ways: first by the actual transference of matter as when a stone is hurled from one place to another; second, by the propagation of energy from point to point through a medium which fills the space between two bodies. ”

“ There is splendid promenading space on the boat deck where passengers can exercise to their hearts' content and also indulge in games and sports with all the freedom of field life. Many life boats swing on davits and instead of being a hindrance or obstacle, act as shades from the sunshine and as breaks from the wind. ”

“ The men of fifty years hence may laugh at the circumscribed knowledge of the present and shake their wise heads in contemplation of what they will term our crudities, and which we now call progress. Science is ever on the march and what is new to-day will be old to-morrow. ”

“ Radium, "the revealer," is opening the door to possibilities almost beyond human conception. Wireless Telegraphy is crossing thousands of miles of space with invisible feet and making the nations of the earth as one. 'Tis the same with the other subjects,—one and all are of vital, human interest, and are extremely attractive on account of their importance in the civilization of today. Mighty, sublime, wonderful, as have been the achievements of past science, as yet we are but on the verge of the continents of discovery. Where is the wizard who can tell what lies in the womb of time? ”

“ Therefore it would take sixty times the world's stock of gold to pay the fare of one passenger, at a cent a mile from the earth to Alpha Centauri.
The light from numbers, probably countless numbers, of stars is so long in coming to us that they could be blotted out of existence and we would remain unconscious of the fact for years, for hundreds of years, for thousands of years, nay to infinity. ”

“ America is pre-eminently the land of the sky-scraper, but England and France to a degree are following along the same lines, though nothing as yet has been erected on the other side of the water to equal the towering triumphs of architectural art on this side. In no country in the world is space at such a premium as in New York City, therefore, New York per se may be regarded as the true home of the tall building, although Chicago is not very much behind the Metropolis in this respect. ”

“ Those who deny the possibility of other worlds being inhabited, endeavor to show that our position in the universe is unique, that our solar system is quite different from all others, and, to crown the argument, they assert that our little world has just the right amount of water, air, and gravitational force to enable it to be the abode of intelligent life, whereas elsewhere, such conditions do not prevail, and that on no other sphere can such physical habitudes be found as will enable life to originate or to exist. ”

“ Question of questions to which the philosopher and the peasant must give the same answer,—"God is the infinite, the eternal, the source of all things, the alpha and omega of creation, from Him all came, to Him all must return." He is the beginning of Science, the foundation on which our edifice of knowledge rests. ”

“ The atom formerly thought to be indivisible and the smallest particle of matter has been reduced to molecules, corpuscles, ions, and electrons; but the nature, the primal cause of these, the greatest scientists on earth are unable to determine. Learning is as helpless as ignorance when brought up against this stone-wall of mystery. The effect is seen, but the cause remains indeterminable. The scientist, gray-haired in experience and experiment, knows no more in this regard than the prattling child at its mother's knee. ”

“ Yet, though we cannot communicate with it, we know there is a spirit world; the inner consciousness of our being apprises us of that fact, we know our loved ones who have passed on are not dead but gone before, just a little space, and that soon we shall follow them into a higher existence. As Talmage said, the tombstone is not the terminus, but the starting post, the door to the higher life, the entrance to the state of endless labor, grand possibilities, and eternal progression. ”

“ What we have accomplished is but as a mere drop in the ocean, whose waves wash the continents of eternity. No scholar, no scientist can bound those continents, can tell the limits to which they stretch, inasmuch as they are illimitable. ”

“ In face of the contemplation of the vastness of creation, of its boundlessness the question ever obtrudes itself,—What place have we mortals in the universal cosmos? What place have we finite creatures, who inhabit this speck of matter we call the earth, in this mighty scheme of suns and systems and never-ending space. ”

“ Though little more than half the earth's size, Mars has a significance in the public eye which places it first in importance among the planets. It is our nearest neighbor on the outer side of the earth's path around the Sun and, viewed through a telescope of good magnifying power, shows surface markings, suggestive of continents, mountains, valleys, oceans, seas and rivers, and all the varying phenomena which the mind associates with a world like unto our own. ”

“ This is a question which does not admit of an answer, for to no one man alone do we owe wireless telegraphy, though Hertz was the first to discover the waves which make it possible. However, it is to the men whose indefatigable labors and genius made the electric telegraph a reality, that we also owe wireless telegraphy as we have it at present, for the latter may be considered in many respects the resultant of the former, though both are different in medium.
Radio or wireless telegraphy in principle is as old as mankind. ”

“ The scientists and geologists of our day are busy unearthing the remains of the ancient peoples of the Eastern world, who started the waves of civilization both to the Orient and the Occident. Vast stores of knowledge are being accumulated and almost every day sees some ancient treasure trove brought to light. ”

“ Yearly, daily in fact, this wizard of plant life is playing tricks on old Mother Nature, transforming her vegetable children into different shapes and making them no longer recognizable in their original forms. ”

“ To us ordinary mortals the mystery as well as the majesty of the heavens have the same wonderful attraction as they had for the first of our race. Thousands of years ago the black-bearded shepherds of Eastern lands gazed nightly into the vaulted dome and were struck with awe as well as wonder in the contemplation of the glittering specks which appeared no larger than the pebbles beneath their feet. ”

“ The purpose of this little book is to give a general idea of a few of the great achievements of our time. Within such a limited space it was impossible to even mention thousands more of the great inventions and triumphs which mark the rushing progress of the world in the present century; therefore, only those subjects have been treated which appeal with more than passing interest to all. For instance, the flying machine is engaging the attention of the old, the young and the middle-aged, and soon the whole world will be on the wing. ”

“ In Egypt, too, at an early date was a high form of neolithic civilization. Six thousand years before Christ, a white-skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed race dwelt there, built towns, carried on commerce, made woven linen cloth, tanned leather, formed beautiful pottery without the wheel, cut stone with the lathe and designed ornaments from ivory and metals. ”

“ Science has now pressed the invisible wizard of electricity into doing almost every household duty from cleaning the windows to cooking the dinner. There are many houses now so thoroughly equipped with electricity from top to bottom that one servant is able to do what formerly required the service of several, and in some houses servants seem to be needed hardly at all, the mistresses doing their own cooking, ironing, and washing by means of electricity. ”