TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER, 28, 1920. THE AGE OF MIRACLES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3589, 28 September 1920, Page 4

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER, 28, 1920. THE AGE OF MIRACLES.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News ”

What man has hitherto called science has been but a very patchy thing; it has as often postulated what wag wrong as what was right; it has built up in the past a list of chemical elements which the increasing light of later days has disclosed to be a list of compounds, some of them of a most com|dex character, and it is now admitted by those we are pleased to honour with the name of scientist that science is yet only taking its first steps to the unravelling of the complexity of'the forces in nature of which an all-powerful architect has constructed it. It is definitely established that an unbiassed study of the universe is fraught, through the generations, with an ever-increasing' prescience; man is seeing deeper into that of which he himself is the present known supreme part, but the very fact that his science is progressive admits the possibility of a perfectly omniscient being, more especially as there is not yet traceable any real hairier to what man is capable of accomjijishing. Great as the achievement is of flying through the atmosphere in aeroplanes, in heavier than air meang of transit, it is likely to be completely overshadowed, rendered mean and commonplace by what that al.ogether too small a band of thinkers, those men who have dubbed themselves scientists are apparently on the eve of discovering to the world. Perhaps,,, the discovery of prior importance is that obsession of the fact that scope for scientific achievement is as unlimited as is man’s power to achieve. Scientists are no longer hampered with the thought that anything is impossible, and the. result is that far greater miracles are being performed in modern times in more rapid succession than ever before in that history of the world that has been saved for the eyes of modern eyes to see_ In consideration of latest discoveries in the transmission of the human voice one becomes ashamed of such rude accessories as the megaphone, notwithstanding that even that rude instrument has its uses. When stated, that a man speaking in ordinary voice from the deck of a battleship, anchored in the Hudson river, to a vast throng of people gathered in Times Square, New York City, across continent and ocean, man’s credibility is naturally strained. Yet it is quite true that Secretary Daniels did deliver an address from a ship in Hudson river of which every word was heard plainly by a great mass of people in New York. The amazing aspect is that his voice was perfectly distinct to every person in that great throng, not transmitted on wires but projected through space by a scientific utilisation of the means nature provides for a man in Britain making known his thoughts to the largest audience that is ordinarily got together in New Zealand. This newly discovered wireless telephony is yet in its veriest infancy, but it is of such a character which renders it difficult indeed to expect too much from it as its relationships with other phenomena are disclosed to its ! inventors, and are brought under subjection to hi s will. It is scarcely believable that Mr Massey, from his residence in Wellington, could deliver an address to a meeting in Taibape, every word of which would be heard much more distinctly than if spoken from the Town Hall balcony, from the Band Rotunda, or from any otFdr point of vantage. This is not a possibility yet to be discovered; the wireless mechanism now in use only needs to be acquired and put in place. As inapplicable to any other known per-

iod, tile present is indeed the scientific age. Mau ls delving into nature and finding therein wonder upon wonder; power to work miracle after miracle, for it is ' coming within the realm of reason to believe that nothing has been achieved in the pa&t Wat will not be accomplished again in the future. Christ did not deceive his disciples in this connection for he assured them that it was possible for them to remove mountains into the s:ea, and that it was also within man’s power to perform still greater works. The mighty forces of nature are coming within the ken of modern scientists. Men in the van of science are positively alarmed with the incalcul-„ able degree of power which they see concealed in matter. Power that could lift the whole German battle fleet, now lying at the bottom of the ocean off the "coast'of Scotland, from where it rests and pile it up on the top of the highest Scottish mountain. That being so it is readily understood the same power would move the mountain into the sea. While one body of scientists are busily exploiting the great forces of nature, o(tiers are at work in seeking means of bringing what has been discovered into harness to make good as far as possible the loss of human senses. The blind arc having a voice given to the printed page of a book or newspaper. With the aid of a little contrivance, the inventors have called an Optophone, blind people are enabled to read any book they choose at the rate of twenty-five words per minute < The wonderful fact is that science has made the dumb lifeless pages of a book to take on an articulate voice, so clear and distinct that a blind person by moving a little handle or lever can have read out to him or her, without error, every printed 'word the page, book or paper contains. While these marvellous discoveries are being made the majority of humankind are at this moment ignominiously hustling and scuffling in a tumult of greed, seeking to dishonestly filch from each other the very essentials to human life.