The Question "How?" :: :: University of Virginia Library

THE QUESTION "HOW?" By WILLIAM HANNA THOMSON, M.D., LL.D. Author of " Brain and Personality," "What is Physical Life?" etc. Physician to the Roosevelt Hospital; Consulting Physician to the New York State Manhattan Hospital for the Insane; formerly Professor of the Practice of Medicine and Diseases of the Nervous System, New York University Medical College; Ex-President of the New York Academy of Medicine, etc.

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THE ETHER ENSLAVED

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THE ETHER ENSLAVED

And what about that mysterious ether? It can neither be seen, heard, felt, handled, smelt, nor tasted. Nevertheless, man has learned so much about its "how" that he is turning it into as menial a servant, obedient to his wishes, as he has made of electricity, the cause of sublime thunder; for man bids the ether carry his stock quotations or any other message of his to the ends of the earth.

These are great doings, but really no greater than his small doings, for the least of these is just as impossible for other earthly creatures as are an Alpine tunnel or a battleship. A large convention of chimpanzees could not combine to make one pin or one sleeve-button, if they tried.

All this is because man is native to the world of relations, which no other earthly beings

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are, because they cannot go beyond the information provided by their bodily senses. Man, on the contrary, gains infinitely more knowledge than his bodily senses can afford. By studying the relations of abstract points to abstract lines, he becomes a mathematician. Following up the many "hows" of chemistry, he talks about molecules, atoms, and ions as fluently as: if he had seen or handled them.