With the hopeful spirit of an inventor, Mr. Keely always anticipated almost immediate mechanical success, up to the hour in which he abandoned the automatic arrangement that was necessary to make his generator patentable. From that time his line of perspective extended, and he began to realize that he had been too sanguine in the past. He had been like a man grappling in the dark with a foe, the form of which had not even presented itself to his imagination; but when, in 1884, Macvicar’s work on the structure of ether came like a torch to reveal the face of his antagonist, what wonder that he, with the enthusiasm of Paracelsus, felt his
… “fluttering pulse give evidence that God
Means good to me, will make my cause His own;”
and, as in 1881, again rashly bound himself anew, by fresh promises, made to those who had the power to give or to withhold the sinews needed in the warfare he was waging?
To return to the report. During the negotiations which followed, facts in the history of the company were developed which convinced Mr. Lorimer that Mr. Keely was totally unable to measure time, or define his plans, because of the ever-changing results attained by him, in researching the laws governing the force he was trying to harness. At this time the treasurer of the company was proposing to bring over from New York to Philadelphia a number of capitalists to witness an exhibition of the production of the force, in order to dispose of 500 shares at 25.00 dollars a share. To this plan Mr. Lorimer objected, writing to the treasurer, “I fear that you would be putting yourself in a false position with the friends you might induce to take stock at the figures named,” and Mr. Keely himself at first refused to give the exhibition, but upon the application of the thumb-screw, kept in readiness, it took place. At this time Mr. Lorimer wrote to the president of the company, “If Keely gives us the benefit of his discoveries, it will require all our energies to guide our enterprise; and, on the other hand, if he dies or is forestalled, it will need all our care and attention to take care of our reputations …. The fact that the Board has some delicate and important work to perform, brings us to the question, Are we properly organized to perform our part? If we are, let us show it by our acts, and, if not, let us act like men, worthy the important trust before us. If I am overestimating the character and importance of this work, you can show it to me; and per contra, if I am correct, you can and will accept the responsibilities of the position you hold, no matter how unpleasant, no matter how irksome, if understood by you and honourably supported by us.”
Mr. Lorimer then prepared this summary, or analysis of the situation.
SUMMARY.
26th July, 1881.
“First.—The existence of a discovery or invention which from evidences of its adaptability (when complete) to the industrial arts and sciences, may be esteemed the most valuable discovery of civilization in modern or in ancient times, inasmuch as it revolutionizes all known methods of generating power.
“Second.—The retention by the discoverer and inventor of all the secrets whereby these discoveries can be utilized by the public, thus making their future existence, so far as the Keely Motor Company is concerned, depend entirely upon his life and goodwill.
“Third.—The existence of a corporated company, organized for the purpose of furnishing funds for the development and completion of the discovery, and for the final control of certain specified inventions, in certain specified localities.
“Fourth.—The contracts under which the above-mentioned control of certain inventions is vested in the Keely Motor Company, being mere evidences of intention, have no real value until the inventor has received his patents and verified the contracts by transfer of the same to the company.
“Fifth.—If any conflict should arise between the company and the inventor, in which the latter felt justified in withholding the transfer, the existing contracts might be a good foundation to build litigation upon but not good for investment in.
“Sixth.—The uncertainty of the future of the enterprise, as thus indicated, must of necessity invite speculative management; and while speculation under some circumstances is legitimate and laudable, under other conditions it may become illegitimate and reprehensible.
“Seventh.— The existence of a speculative management in Keely Motor affairs has, of necessity, developed two interests—one which holds that the completion of the discovery in all its possible grandeur should ever be the sole object of its management, and the other, believing that on account of the human uncertainty of the completion of the invention, they are in duty bound to make quick recoveries on their investments, so that they may be safe financially, in the event of a failure by Keely to perfect his inventions.”
It is not necessary to pursue this summary farther, as the manner in which Mr. Lorimer has set down the facts already given, makes clear the nature of the conflicting interests that brought about the antagonism which he attempted to subdue, bringing such a spirit of fairness and justice into his efforts as must have crowned them with success, supported as he was by Mr. Keely, had it not been that those who advocated following a policy which, at best, aimed no farther than at the recouping of losses to themselves, were in the majority. It was at this time that Mr. Keely manifested his willingness to assume, on the one hand, all the responsibility of the proper development of his discovery; or, on the other hand, all the disgrace accompanying failure by his offer to purchase a controlling interest in the stock, fifty-one thousand shares of which, in order to prevent speculation, he agreed to lock up for five years, and to give the company a bond restraining him from negotiating or parting with a single share of it in that time, the stock to be paid for as soon as certain deferred payments had been made to him. This proposition of Mr. Keely to the Board of Directors, October 25th, 1881 (and laid upon the table by a large majority as unworthy of consideration), was made from his earnest desire to control the presentation of his life’s work to the world in a just and honourable way; having recognized, with Mr. Lorimer, the utter impossibility of reconciling the numerous interests created by mistakes of himself and the mismanagement of the Board, unless he could thus obtain the power to deliver an unencumbered enterprise to the world. In the opinion of Mr. Lorimer, during the negotiations which he conducted between the management and Mr. Keely, the latter was the only one who had manifested any consistency or strength of purpose, so far as the facts gave evidence, which were brought before him, of the history of the company. When the validity of the contracts made with Mr. Keely while he was president, or director of the company, were disputed, he was called upon to resign, which he did; and yet no steps were taken to ascertain the value of the existing contracts, which had all been made with him while he was both president and director, and which were therefore illegal. Proceedings in equity were commenced against Mr. Keely, by the Committee of the Board of Directors having the matter in charge, late in the year 1881, while Mr. Lorimer’s report was still in the hands of the printer. “The spectacle of a Board of thirteen Directors, composed of business men,” writes Mr. Lorimer, “claiming that they have been foiled in their business calculations by a man whose mind has been so thoroughly absorbed in researching the problems presented by his wonderful discoveries that he could not possibly compare with any of them in business tact, is truly a phenomenon which is not easy of explanation on any hypothesis, but the one that their visions of prospective wealth have been so overpowering as to undo their prudence; and then having in due process of time discovered their error, it certainly is an edifying spectacle to see them now trying to throw all the blame on one poor mortal wholly absorbed in his inventions, and by these efforts disturbing that mental equilibrium of both the inventor and themselves, which is absolutely necessary to ultimate success. When boys, in early summer, pick unripe fruit and eat it, because of their unwillingness to await the ripening thereof, they sometimes suffer acutely for their haste. Yet no one ever thinks of punishing the tree because of their sufferings; nor is it deemed necessary to justice to preserve the fruit of the tree, when ripe, for the sole use of the impatient ones as a recompense for their early sufferings! So it has been with the Keely Motor Company; undue haste to gather the golden fruit that was to come from it, has led to a great deal of suffering financially among a few impatient believers. Still it does not seem to me to be wise to curse the inventor, or his inventions because he has not given us the fruit when we expected it would be ripe.”…
The effort to force Keely to divulge his secrets failed, for at that time he had nothing of a practical nature to divulge, and though possessing no business qualifications, he was too shrewd to cut off any of his resources for supplies, necessary to enable him to persevere in his efforts to attain some practical result, as he surely would have done, had he said, “I know very little more than you know of the laws governing the force I have discovered. I can only control their operation by experimental research, and the more time that is wasted in building engines, until I have made myself acquainted with these laws, the longer will you have to wait for your golden fruit.” Mr. Keely was no more able at that time to give the faintest idea of the present stage of his researches than Professor Leidy or Dr. Wilcox could now, after witnessing the experiments in sympathetic attraction, write out a clear formulation of its governing law, and an inductive substantiation of it. Even were it possible, no reader could understand it because the discovery made by Mr. Keely is not in accordance with any of the facts known to science. Mr. Keely’s experiments in disintegrating water prove that incalculable amounts of latent force exist in the molecular spaces; but in the opinion of scientists, molecular aggregation is attended with dissipation of energy, not with absorption of energy. If the men of science are right, then there must be an absolute creation of energy, for only by admitting its absorption in aggregation, could molecular dissociation supply the force witnessed. Keely, of course, denies any creation of energy, claiming only that he can produce an indefinite supply by the expenditure of an infinitesimally small amount of energy. Every new discovery necessitates a new nomenclature. The vocabulary coined by Mr. Keely, to meet his requirements in formulating his hypotheses into theories as he progresses, conveys as little meaning to those who read his writings, as the word “electricity” conveyed 200 years ago. Professor Crookes remarked that reading Mr. Keely’s writings was like reading Persian without a dictionary. Another learned professor said that they seemed to him to be composed in an unknown tongue, so profoundly unintelligible had he found the extracts sent to him. One must be familiar with Mr. Keely’s instruments and their operation, in order to comprehend even the nature of his researches.
An author of philosophical works, who was present at some experiments illustrative of varying chords of mass, and whose theories had not been in unison with those of Mr. Keely on that subject, sat for some time after the demonstration with his eyes fixed upon the floor, wearing as serious an expression of countenance as if he were looking on the grave of his most cherished views. The first remark that he made was, “What would Jules Verne say if he were here?” The rotation of the needle of a compass, the compass placed on a glass slab and connected with the transmitter by a wire, 120 revolutions in a second, had the same effect upon the scientists present, one of awe; so completely were they transfixed and unable to form a conjecture as to the mysterious influence from any known law of science. There was only one professor present, a very young man, who ventured the whispered suggestion of concealed mechanism under the pedestal; and as Mr. Keely soon after had occasion to wheel the pedestal across the room, showing that it was not stationary, and could have no concealed connection within or without, the young professor took up another line of conjecture. As Macvicar says, it has grown to be the fashion, to a marvellous extent, to give predominance in education to physical and mathematical studies over moral and mental. Hence a very general and growing prepossession in favour of material nature. Astronomy, natural philosophy, chemistry, natural history, geology, these and the like are in our day held to be everything. He continues:—