The plan to which I shall allude in my paper, as framed by Professor Leidy for Mr. Keely to follow, and approved by Professor Hertz, of Bonn, and Professor Fitzgerald, of Trinity College, Dublin, may be summed up as one that permits Mr. Keely to pursue his researches on his own line, without further investigation, up to the completion of his system in a form which will enable him to give to commerce with one hand his model for aerial navigation, and to science, with the other, the knowledge that is necessary for extending its researches in the field of radiant energy—which Mr. Keely has been exploring for so many years. I ask the prestige of your sympathy, as well as for your interest in Mr. Keely’s work, on this basis; and if in one year you are not convinced that satisfactory results have been attained for science, I will promise to leave Mr. Keely in the hands of the “usurers and Shylocks of commerce,” who have already forced him into renouncing seven-eighths of his interest in what the Keely Motor Company claims as its property.
At present I do not desire from anyone endorsement of Keely’s discoveries. Until his system is completed he wishes to avoid all discussion and all public mention of the anticipated value of his inventions. Mr. Keely’s programme of experimental research, as laid down by himself last March, when I first proposed to furnish him with all the funds needed to carry it out, comprises its continuance until he has gained sufficient knowledge of the energy he is controlling—which is derived from the disintegration of water—to enable him to impart to others a system that will permit men of science to produce and to handle the energy, and enable him to instruct artisans in the work which lies in their province; viz., the construction of machines to apply this costless motive power in mechanics.
The prestige of your interest in Mr. Keely’s labours can alone secure to him freedom to pursue researches on his own road; a course pronounced by Professor Leidy, Professor Hertz, and Professor Fitzgerald, to be “the only proper line for him to pursue.”
The building of an engine is not in Mr. Keely’s province. His researches completed to that point which is necessary, for perfect control of the force, practical application will follow. The result of his experimental work for nine months on this line has been such as to revive the interest of the speculative management of the Keely Motor Company, to that extent that Mr. Keely is now offered the support of its stockholders if he will resume construction of an engine; and this after more than seven years of failure on the part of the company to furnish him with one dollar to carry on “the enterprise.”
The official Report put forth in January by the Keely Motor Company managers annulled my contract with Mr. Keely; but he is willing to abide by it, if I am able to continue to furnish him with the necessary funds. This position of affairs has forced me to the front, to ask whether you will place it in my power to renew the contract with Mr. Keely; or leave him under the control of men who seem to be oblivious of the interests of the stockholders of the company in their “clamour” for an engine. When this system is completed, in its application to mechanics, the present mode of running engines with shafts and beltings will disappear, creating a revolution in all branches of industry.
Looking at my request from another point of view, do you not think it due to extend to Mr. Keely an opportunity to prove all that one of your number is ready to announce as his conviction in regard to the claims of Mr. Keely? You all know to whom I refer—Professor Joseph Leidy. “Oh, Leidy is a biologist,” said an English physicist not long since; “get the opinion of a physicist for us.” If I did not wish for the opinion of physicists, I should not have appealed to you for help at this most critical juncture. But I also ask that no opinion be given by any physicist until Mr. Keely’s theories are understood and demonstrated, by experiment. Yes, Dr. Leidy is a biologist, and what better preparation could a man have than a study of the science of life to enable him to discern between laws of nature as invented by physicists, and nature’s operations as demonstrated by Keely?
The science of life has not been the only branch to which Dr. Leidy has given profound attention; it is his extensive and accurate knowledge of its methods, limits, and tendencies, which prepared the way for that quick comprehension of possibilities, lying hidden from the sight of those men of science whose minds have rested (rusted?) in the dead grooves of mechanical physics. In Dr. Leidy we find entire scientific and intellectual liberty of thought, with that love of justice and truth which keeps its possessor from arrogance and intolerance, leading him with humility to “prove all things and hold fast to truth.” To such men the world owes all that we have of advance since the days when science taught that the earth is flat, arguing that were it round the seas and oceans would fall off into space. In Dr. Leidy’s name and in justice to him, I ask your sanction to and approval of my efforts to preserve Keely’s discoveries for science;—discoveries which explain, not only the causes of the planetary motions but the source of the one eternal and universal force.
An Appeal in Behalf of Science.
A paper read by Mrs. Bloomfield Moore at the house of Provost Pepper on the evening of January 14th, 1891, before members of the board of trustees and professors of the University of Pennsylvania.
Each day he wrought, and better than he planned,