"I not only do not make common cause with the Davenport brothers, but I ought furthermore to add that I consider them as placed in a very compromising situation. In laying to the account of the supernatural matters in occult natural philosophy which have a tolerable resemblance to feats of prestidigitation, they appear to a curious public to add imposture to insolence. In setting a financial value upon their talents, they seem to the moralist, who is investigating still unexplained phenomena, to place themselves on the level of mountebanks. Whatever way you look at them, they are to blame. Accordingly, I condemn at once both their grave error in assuming to be superior to the forces of which they are only the instruments and the venal profit they draw from powers of which they are not master and which it is no merit of theirs to possess. In my opinion, it is a piece of exaggeration to draw conclusions from these unhappy semblances of truth; and it is to abdicate one's right of private judgment to make one's self but the echo of the vulgar herd who hiss and shout themselves hoarse before the curtain rises. No, I am not the advocate of the two brothers, nor of their personal claims. For me, individual men do not exist. That which I defend is the superiority of nature to us: that which I fight against is the conceited silliness of certain persons.
"You satirical gentlemen will have the frankness, I hope, to confess with me that the different reasons pleaded by you in explanation of these problems are not so solid as they appear to be. Since you have discovered nothing, let us admit, between ourselves, that your explanations explain nothing.
"I do not doubt that, at the point in the discussion which we have actually reached, you would like to change rôles with me, and, stopping me here, constitute yourselves in turn my questioners.
"But I hasten to anticipate your proposal. As for me, gentlemen, I am not sufficiently well informed to explain these mysteries. I pass my life in a retired garden belonging to one of the nine Muses, and my attachment to this fair creature is such that I have scarcely ever quitted the approaches to her temple. It is only at intervals, in moments of relaxation or curiosity, that I have allowed my eyes to wander, from time to time, over the landscapes which surround it. Therefore ask me nothing. I am making a sincere confession. I know nothing of the cause of these phenomena.
"You see how modest I am. All I wanted in undertaking this examination was to have the opportunity of saying this:
"You know nothing about it.
"Neither do I.
"If you acknowledge this, we can shake hands. And, if you are tractable, I will tell you a little secret.
"In the month of June, 1776 (few among us remember it), a young man twenty-five years old, named Jouffroy, was making a trial trip on the river Doubs of a new steamboat forty feet in length and six feet in breadth. For two years he had been calling the attention of scientific authorities to his invention; for two years he had been stoutly asserting that there is a powerful latent energy in steam,—at that time a neglected asset. All ears were deaf to his words. His only reward was to be completely isolated and neglected. When he passed through the streets of Baume-les-Dames, his appearance was the signal for jests innumerable. He was dubbed 'Jouffroy, the Steam Man' ('Jouffroy-la-Pompe'). Ten years later, having built a pyroscaphe [literally, fireboat] which had ascended the Saône from Lyons to the island of Barbe, he presented a petition to Calonne, the comptroller-general of finance, and to the Academy of Sciences. They would not look at his invention!
"On August 9, 1803, Fulton went up the Seine in a new steamboat at the rate of about four miles an hour. The members of the Academy of Sciences as well as government officials were present on the occasion. The next day they had forgotten all about it, and Fulton went to make the fortunes of Americans.