Not Enemies

Times, or rather men, have changed greatly since the days of Galileo. Scientists were then looked upon as enemies of religion, and the church felt that it had not done its duty until it had put them to death, or else had made them retract their pernicious and diabolical teachings, such as that of the revolution of the earth. It is now recognized by all advanced thinkers that religion in the future is to owe as much to science as to the Bible. As a rule, there are no firmer believers in a Divine Creator of the universe and an overruling intelligence than those scientists who have probed the farthest into the mysteries of nature. Edison is said to be so firmly convinced of the existence of this supreme intelligence that he hopes to be able sometime to demonstrate its reality by natural phenomena and the operation of natural laws with the certainty of a demonstration in mathematics.

Tesla, whose original researches in electricity have been scarcely less wonderful than those of the great wizard, recognizes the same truth. He has not, perhaps, used the same words as Edison, but the conclusion to be drawn from what he has written and said is scarcely less definite. "So the atom, the ulterior element of the universal structure," says the famous electrician, "is tossed about in space externally, the toy of external influences, like a float in a troubled sea. Were it to stop its motion it would die. Matter at rest, if such a thing could exist, would be matter dead. * * * There is no death of matter, for through- out the infinite universe all has to move, to vibrate; that is, to live." "The whole visible universe," he said in a recent lecture, "is a world of matter and forces governed by law — a world the contemplation of which fills us with feelings of wonder, and irresistibly urges us to ceaseless thought and inquiry." — Manufacturer's Gazette.