“It is remarkable,” says Horace W. Smith, “that in countries far distant from each other, different men have fallen into the same tracks of science, and have made similar and correspondent discoveries, at the same period of time, without the least communication with each other.” So has it been in all periods of progress and in all branches of science, from the discoveries of Euclid and Archimedes down to those of Galileo and Descartes and Bacon, and, in later days, of Gilbert and Newton and Leibnitz, then Franklin and Collison and Von Kliest and Muschenbröck; and now Keely and Hertz and Depuy and Rücker and Lockyer are examples. Never has a discovery leading to a new system been begun and perfected by the same individual so far as Keely is doing; but, as Morley has said, “the representative of a larger age must excel in genius all predecessors.”
The application of his discovery to the service of humanity is the aim and end of Keely’s efforts; his success means “vastly more than the most sanguine to-day venture to predict,” promising “a true millennial introduction into the unseen universe, and the glorious life that every man, Christian or sceptic, optimist or pessimist, would gladly hope for and believe possible.” (Thurston.)
Not the least among the ultimate blessings to our race which Keely’s discovery foreshadows is the deeper insight that it will bestow into the healing power of the finer forces of nature, embracing cures of brain and nerve disorders that are now classed with incurable diseases.
Only a partial answer has been given to the question, “What has Keely done for science?” But enough has been said to convey some idea of the subtle nature of the force he is dealing with, and of the cause of the delays which have again and again disappointed the inventor, as well as the too sanguine hopes of immediate commercial success which have animated the officers and stockholders of “The Keely Motor Company.” Keely has no secret to wrest from him. Instead of “Keely’s Secret,” it should be called “Nature’s Secret;” for the problem has still to be worked out, the solution of which will make it “Keely’s Secret;” and until this problem is fully solved to the inventor’s satisfaction for commercial application, Keely has no secret that he is not willing to disclose, as far as it is in his power to do so.
[1] From Lippincott’s Magazine, July, 1890. Edited by J. M. Stoddart. [↑]
[2] Quotation from one of Keely’s letters in 1885. [↑]