Ignorant, indeed, of the nature of Keely’s work must those men be who accuse him of “abandoning his base” or “principle,” each time that he discovers his mistakes:—using them as stepping-stones to approach nearer and still nearer to his goal. Reproaching him, even, for keeping his own counsel, until certainty of success rendered it prudent for him to make known that he had changed his field of experiment from positive attraction to negative attraction.
Equally ignorant are those, who would wrench by force his secrets from him before the time is ripe for their disclosure. Let us suppose that Faraday, when he discovered radiant matter in 1816, had formed a “Faraday Phospho-Genetic Radiant Company,” to enable him to experiment: fully cognizant of all that Crookes has since discovered, and had taken for his base in experimenting the principle involved in Crookes’s discovery. Not succeeding at first, we will suppose that the Company became clamorous for returns, and demanded that his secret principle should be made public. Had he been driven into making it known, who would have credited what Crookes is now able to prove? The effect would have been upon the Faraday Company the same as if a balloon were punctured just as it was soaring heavenward. The same with the Keely Motor Company, had Keely obeyed the order of the Court in 1882, and made his marvellous secret public. It would have collapsed. Therefore, he has maintained his secret in the interests of the stockholders of the Keely Motor Company with a firmness worthy of a Christian martyr. The one person to whom alone Keely then disclosed it thought him under a delusion, until he had demonstrated its soundness.
Charles B. Collier, Keely’s patent lawyer, writes as follows, concerning the difficulties attendant upon “the supposed duty” of his client’s imparting his “secrets,” as ordered by the Court to do, some time since:—
“If to-day, for the first time in your lives, you saw a harp, attuned and being played upon, and the science of music was unknown to you, you would hardly expect, without considerable time and study, to be able to reproduce the harp, attune its strings in proper relation to each other, and to play upon it so as to produce the harmonies which you had listened to. Mr. Keely’s work is analogous to the illustration which I have presented, inasmuch as he is dealing with the subject of sound, or acoustics, but in a much more involved form than as applied simply for the production of harmonies for the delight of the ear. Mr. Keely’s engine is analogous to the mechanism of the human ear, in the respect that it is a structure operated upon, and its motion induced by vibration; and to the end of securing and attaining, in and by it, uniformity or regularity of motion, there must be perfect unison, or synchronism, as between it and his structure which is the prime source of vibration. To attain this perfect unison or synchronism, has involved unparalleled research and experiment upon his part—experiments that have varied from day to day. No one, in my opinion, who had not stood by his side, as his shadow, watching every experiment, could have kept fully abreast of him. To pursue my simile, I may say that his harp (engine) is not yet perfectly attuned (“graduated”); when it is so, it will produce nothing but harmony (regularity of motion), and his work will be finished.
“At such time, I doubt not that he will be able to give to Mr. Boekel, myself or another, the scale with which to reconstruct and attune another apparatus so as to produce like results with it; but to go over the ground that he has gone over, to explore the wilderness in which he has been the pioneer, in other words, the study, to a full understanding of them, of his experiments and researches, as recorded in his writings and illustrated in the beautiful charts which he has produced, will be a work rather for scientists than for mechanicians or engineers.”
Keely’s “Theoretical Exposé” is in preparation for the press; and, when these volumes are issued, we may look for a change of attitude towards him in all men who hold themselves “ready to abandon, preconceived notions, however cherished, if they be found to contradict truths;” which, Herbert Spencer says, is the first condition of success in scientific research. The Rev. J. J. Smith, M.A., D.D., tells us that the only way the great problem of the universe can ever be scientifically solved is by studying, and arriving at just conclusions with regard to the true nature and character of force. This has been Mr. Keely’s life study; and he is able to demonstrate all that he asserts.
Laurence Oliphant writes: “Recent scientific research has proved conclusively that all force is atomic—that electricity consists of files of particles, and that the interstellar spaces contain substances, whether it be called ether or astral fluid (or by any other name), which is composed of atoms, because it is not possible to dissever force from its transmitting medium. The whole universe, therefore, and all that it contains, consists of matter in motion, and is animated by a vital principle which we call God.
“Science has further discovered that these atoms are severally encompassed by an ethereal substance which prevents their touching each other, and to this circumambient, inter-atomic element they have given the name of dynasphere; but, inasmuch as has further been found, that in these dynaspheres there resides a tremendous potency, it is evident that they also must contain atoms, and that these atoms must in their turn be surrounded by dynaspheres, which again contain atoms, and so on ad infinitum. Matter thus becomes infinite and indestructible, and the force which pervades it persistent and everlasting.
“This dynaspheric force, which is also called etheric, is conditioned as to its nature on the quality of the atoms which form its transmitting media; and which are infinite both in variety and in their combinations. They may, however, be broadly divided into two categories; viz. the sentient and the non-sentient atoms. Dynaspheric force, composed of non-sentient atoms, is the force that has been already mechanically applied by Mr. Keely to his motor; and which will probably ere long supersede the agencies now used for locomotive, projectile, and other purposes. When the laws which govern it come to be understood, it will produce materially a great commercial and industrial revolution ….
“The most remarkable illustration of the stupendous energy of atomic vibratory force is to be found in that singular apparatus in Philadelphia—which for the last fifteen years has excited in turn the amazement, the scepticism, the admiration, and the ridicule of those who have examined it—called ‘Keely’s Motor’ ” … “In the practical land of its origin, it has popularly been esteemed a fraud. I have not examined it personally, but I believe it to be based upon a sound principle of dynamics, and to be probably the first of a series of discoveries destined to revolutionize all existing mechanical theories, and many of the principles upon which they are founded.” … “Those who are sufficiently unprejudiced to connect the bearings of this discovery, of what must be dynaspheric force, with phenomena which have hitherto been regarded as supernatural by the ignorant, will perceive how rapidly we are bridging over the chasm which has divided the seen from the unseen.”…