VI. The Art of Telautomatics
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No subject to which I have ever devoted myself has called for such tration of mind and straio so dangerous a degree the fi fibers of my brain as the system of which the Magnifying Transmitter is the foundation. I put all the iy and vigor of youth in the development of the rotating field discoveries, but those early labors were of a different character. ?Although strenuous ireme, they did not involve that keen and exhausting disment which had to be exercised in attag the many puzzling problems of the wireless. Despite my rare physical endura that period the abused nerves finally rebelled and I suffered a plete collapse, just as the mation of the long and difficult task was almost in sight.Without doubt I would have paid a greater penalty later, and very likely my career would have beeurely terminated, had not providence equipt me with a safety device, which has seemed to improve with advang years and unfailingly es into play when my forces are at an end. So long as it operates I am safe from danger, due to overwork, which threatens other iors and, ially, I need no vacations which are indispensable to most people. When I am all but used up I simply do as the darkies, who "naturally fall asleep while white folks worry". To veheory out of my sphere, the body probably accumulates little by little a definite quantity of some toxic agent and I sink into a nearly lethargic state which lasts half an hour to the minute. Upon awakening I have the sensation as though the events immediately preg had occurred very long ago, and if I attempt to tihe interrupted train of thought I feel a veritable mental nausea. Involuntarily I then turn to other work and am surprised at the freshness of the mind and ease with which I overe obstacles that had baffled me before. After weeks or months my passion for the temporarily abandoned iiourns and I invariably find ao all the vexing questions with scarcely any effort. In this e I will tell of araordinary experience which may be of io students of psychology.
I had produced a striking phenomenon with my grouransmitter and was endeav to ascertain its true signifi relation to the currents propagated through the earth. It seemed a hopeless uaking, and for more than a year I worked uingly, but in vain. This profound study so entirely absorbed me that I became fetful of everything else, even of my undermined health. At last, as I was at the point of breaking down, nature applied the preservative indug lethal sleep. Regaining my senses I realized with sternation that I was uo visualize ses from my life except those of infancy, the very first ohat had entered my sciousness. Curiously enough, these appeared before my vision with startling distiness and afforded me wele relief. Night after night, wheiring, I would think of them and more and more of my previous existence was revealed. The image of my mother was always the principal figure in the spectacle that slowly unfolded, and a ing desire to see her again gradually took possession of me. This feeling grew s that I resolved to drop all work and satisfy my longing. But I found it too hard to break away from the laboratory, and several months elapsed during which I had succeeded in reviving all the impressions of my past life up to the spring of 1892. In the picture that came out of the mist of oblivion, I saw myself at the Hotel de la Paix in Paris just ing to from one of my peculiar sleeping spells, which had been caused by prolonged exertion of the brain. Imagihe pain and distress I felt when it flashed upon my mind that a dispatch was hao me at that very moment bearing the sad hat my mother was dying. I remembered how I made the long journey home without an hour of rest and how she passed away after weeks of agony! It was especially remarkable that during all this period of partially obliterated memory I was fully alive to everything toug on the subjey research. I could recall the smallest details and the least signifit observations in my experiments and evee pages of text and plex mathematical formulae.
My belief is firm in a law of pensation. The true rewards are ever in proportion to the labor and sacrifices made. This is one of the reasons why I feel certain that of all my iions, the Magnifying Transmitter will prove most important and valuable to future geions. I am prompted to this predi not so much by thoughts of the ercial and industrial revolution which it will surely bring about, but of the humanitarian sequences of the many achievements it makes possible. siderations of mere utility weigh little in the balance against the higher bes of civilization. We are fronted with portentous problems which ot be solved just by providing for our material existence, however abundantly. On the trary, progress in this dire is fraught with hazards and perils not less menag than those born from want and suffering. If we were to release the energy of atoms or discover some other way of developing cheap and unlimited power at any point of the globe this aplishment, instead of being a blessing, might bring disaster to mankind in giving rise to dissension and anarchy which would ultimately result ihro of the hated regime of force. The greatest good will es from teical improvements tending to unification and harmony, and my wireless transmitter is preemily such. By its means the human void likeness will be reproduced everywhere and factories driven thousands of miles from waterfalls furnishing the power; aerial maes will be propelled around the earth without a stop and the sun's energy trolled to create lakes and rivers for motive purposes and transformation of arid deserts into fertile land. Its introdu for telegraphic, telephonid similar uses will automatically cut out the statid all other interferences which at present impose narrow limits to the application of the wireless.
This is a timely topi which a few words might not be amiss. During the past decade a number of people have arrogantly claimed that they had succeeded in doing away with this impediment. I have carefully examined all of the arras described aed most of them long before they were publicly disclosed, but the finding was uniformly ive. A ret official statement from the U.S. Navy may, perhaps, have taught some beguilable news editors how to appraise these annous at their real worth. As a rule the attempts are based on theories so fallacious that whehey e to my notice I ot help thinking in a lighter vein. Quite retly a new discovery was heralded, with a deafening flourish of trumpets, but it proved another case of a mountain bringing forth a mouse.
This reminds me of aing i which took place years ago when I was dug my experiments with currents of high frequency. Steve Brodie had just jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. The feat has been vulgarized since by imitators, but the first report electrified New York. ?I was very impressiohen and frequently spoke of the daring printer. On a hot afternoon I felt the y of refreshing myself and stepped into one of the popular thirty thousand institutions of this great city where a delicious twelve per t beverage was served which ow be had only by making a trip to the poor aated tries of Europe. The attendance was large and not overdistinguished and a matter was discussed which gave me an admirable opening for the careless remark: "This is what I said when I jumped off the bridge." No sooner had I uttered these words than I felt like the panion of Timotheus in the poem of Schiller. In an instant there andemonium and a dozen voices cried: "It is Brodie! " I threw a quarter on the ter and bolted for the door but the crowd was at my heels with yells: "Stop, Steve!" which must have been misuood for many persons tried to hold me up as I ran frantically for my haven e. By darting around ers I fortunately mahrough the medium of a fire-escape-to reach the laboratory where I threw off my coat, camouflaged myself as a hard-w blacksmith, and started the fe. But these precautions proved unnecessary; I had eluded my pursuers. For many years afterward, at night, when imagination turns into spectres the trifling troubles of the day, I often thought, as I tossed on the bed, what my fate would have been had that mob caught me and found out that I was not Steve Brodie!
Now the engineer, who lately gave an at before a teical body of a novel remedy against statics based on a "heretofore unknown law of nature," seems to have been as reckless as myself when he tehat these disturbances propagate up and down, while those of a transmitter proceed along the earth. It would mean that a denser, as this globe, with its gaseous envelope, could be charged and discharged in a manner quite trary to the fual teags propounded in every elemental text-book of physics. Such a supposition would have been ned as erroneous, evebbr>99lｉｂ?</abbr>n in Franklin's time, for the facts bearing on this were then well known and the identity between atmospheric electricity and that developed by maes was fully established. Obviously, natural and artificial disturbances propagate through the earth and the air ily the same way, and both set up eleotive forces in the horizontal, as well as vertical, sense. Interference ot be overe by any such methods as were proposed. The truth is this: in the air the potential increases at the rate of about fifty volts per foot of elevation, owing to which there may be a difference of pressure amounting to twenty, or even forty thousand volts between the upper and lower ends of the antenna. The masses of the charged atmosphere are stantly in motion and give up electricity to the ductor, not tinuously but rather disruptively, this produg a grinding noise in a sensitive telephonic receiver. The higher the terminal and the greater the spapassed by the wires, the more pronounced is the effect, but it must be uood that it is purely local and has little to do with the real trouble.
In 1900, while perfeg my wireless system, one form of apparatus prised four antehese were carefully calibrated to the same frequend ected in multiple with the objeagnifying the a, in receiving from any dire. When I desired to ascertain the in of the transmitted impulses, each diagonally situated pair ut in series with a primary coil energizing the detector circuit. In the former case the sound was loud ielephone; iter it ceased, as expected, the two antennae ralizing each other, but the true statics maed themselves in both instances and I had to devise special preventives embodying different principles.
By employing receivers ected to two points of the ground, as suggested by me long ago, this trouble caused by the charged air, which is very serious iructures as now built, is nullified and besides, the liability of all kinds of interference is reduced to about one-half, because of the direal character of the circuit. This erfectly self-evident, but came as a revelation to some simple-minded wireless folks whose experience was fio forms of apparatus that could have been improved with an axe, and they have been disposing of the bear's skin before killing it. If it were true that strays performed sutics, it would be easy to get rid of them by receiving without aerials. But, as a matter of fact, a wire buried in the ground which, ing to this view, should be absolutely immune, is more susceptible to certairaneous impulses than one placed vertically in the air. To state it fairly, a slight progress has been made, but not by virtue of any particular method or device. It was achieved simply by discarding the enormous structures, which are bad enough for transmission but wholly unsuitable for reception, and adopting a more appropriate type of receiver. As I pointed out in a previous article, to dispose of this difficulty food, a radical ge must be made in the system, and the soohis is dohe better.
It would be calamitous, indeed, if at this time whe is in its infand the vast majority, not excepting even experts, have no ception of its ultimate possibilities, a measure would be rushed through the legislature making it a gover monopoly. This roposed a few weeks ago by Secretary Daniels, and no doubt that distinguished official has made his appeal to the Senate and House of Representatives with sincere vi. But universal evidenmistakably s<s></s>hows that the best results are always obtained ihful ercial petition. There are, however, exceptional reasons why wireless should be given the fullest freedom of development. In the first place it offers prospects immeasurably greater and more vital to betterment of human life than any other iion or discovery in the history of man. Then again, it must be uood that this wonderful art has been, in its ey, evolved here and be called "Ameri" with mht and propriety thaelephohe indest lamp or the aeroplane.
Enterprising press agents and stock jobbers have been so successful in spreading misinformation that even so excellent a periodical as the Stific Ameri accords the chief credit to a fn try. The Germans, of course, gave us the Hertz-waves and the Russian, English, Frend Italian experts were qui using them fnaling purposes. It was an obvious application of the new agent and aplished with the old classical and unimproved indu coil-scarcely anything more than another kind of heliography. The radius of transmission was very limited, the results attained of little value, and the Hertz oscillations, as a means for veying intelligence, could have been advantageously replaced by sound-waves, which I advocated in 1891. Moreover, all of these attempts were made three years after the basic principles of the wireless system, which is universally employed to-day, and its potent instrumentalities had been clearly described and developed in Amerio trace of those Hertzian appliances ahods remains today. roceeded in the very opposite dire and what has been done is the product of the brains and efforts of citizens of this try. The fual patents have expired and the opportunities are open to all. The chief argument of the Secretary is based on interference. Acc to his statement, reported in the New York Herald of July 29th, signals from a powerful station be intercepted in every village of the world . In view of this fact, which was demonstrated in my experiments of 1900, it would be of little use to impose restris in the Uates.
As throwing light on this point, I may mention that only retly an odd lookileman called oh the object of enlisting my services in the stru of world transmitters in some distant land. "We have no money," he said, "but carloads of solid gold and we will give you a liberal amount." I told him that I wao see first what will be doh my iions in America, and this ehe interview. But I am satisfied that some dark forces are at work, and as time goes on the maintenance of tinuous unication will be rendered more difficult. ?The only remedy is a system immune against interruption. It has been perfected, it exists, and all that is necessary is to put it iion.
The terrible flict is still uppermost in the minds and perhaps the greatest importance will be attached to the Magnifying Transmitter as a mae for attad defense, more particularly in e with Telautomatics. This iion is a logical oute of observations begun in my boyhood and tihroughout my life. When the first results were published the Electrical Review stated editorially that it would bee one of the "most potent factors in the advand civilization of mankind". The time is not distant when this predi will be fulfilled. In 1898 and 1900 it was offered to the Gover and might have been adopted were I one of those who would go to Alexander's shepherd when they want a favor from Alexander. At that time I really thought that it would abolish war, because of its unlimited destructiveness and exclusion of the personal element of bat. But while I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have ged since.
War ot be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the pla on which we live. Only thru annihilation of distan every respect, as the veyance of intelligeransport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will ditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer tad better uandiween individuals and unities all over the earth, and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride which is alroo pluhe world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong.
I have expressed myself in this regard fourteen years ago, when a bination of a few leading govers-a sort of Holy Alliance-was advocated by the late Andrew egie, who may be fairly sidered as the father of this idea, having given to it more publicity and impetus than anybody else prior to the efforts of the President. While it ot be dehat such a pact might be of material advao some less fortunate peoples, it ot attain the chief object sought. Peace only e as a natural sequence of universal enlighte and merging of races, and we are still far from this blissful realization.
As I view the world of today, in the light of the gigantic struggle we have witnessed, I am filled with vi that the is of humanity would be best served if the Uates remairue to its traditions a out of "entangling alliances". Situated as it is, geographically, remote from the theaters of impending flicts, without iive to territorial aggra, with inexhaustible resources and immense population thoroly imbued with the spirit of liberty and right, this try is placed in a unique and privileged position. It is thus able to exert, indepely, its colossal strength and moral force to the be of all, more judiciously and effectively, than as member of a league.
I have dwelt on the circumstany early life and told of an affli whipelled me to uing exercise of imagination and self observation. This mental activity, at first involuntary uhe pressure of illness and suffering, gradually became sed nature and led me finally that I was but an automaton devoid of free will in thought and a an<big>..</big>d merely respoo the forces of the enviro. Our bodies are of suplexity of structure, the motions we perform are so numerous and involved, and the external impressions on our sense ans to such a degree delicate and elusive that it is hard for the average person to grasp this fact. A nothing is more ving to the trained iigator than the meistic theory of life which had been, in a measure, uood and propounded by Descartes three hundred years ago. But in his time many important funs of anism were unknown and, especially with respect to the nature of light and the stru and operation of the eye, philosophers were in the dark.
I years the progress of stific resear these fields has been such as to leave no room for a doubt in regard to this view on which many works have been published. One of its ablest and most eloquent expos is, perhaps, Felix Le Danteerly assistant of Pasteur. ?Prof. Jacques Loeb has performed remarkable experiments iropism, clearly establishing the trolling power of light in lower forms anisms, and his latest book, Forced Movements, is revelatory. But while men of sce accept this theory simply as any other that is reized, to me it is a truth which I hourly demonstrate by every ad thought of mihe sciousness of the external impression promptio any kind of exertion, physiental, is ever present in my mind. Only on very rare occasions, when I was in a state of exceptional tration, have I found difficulty in log the inal impulses.
The by far greater number of human beings are never aware of what is passing around and within them, and millions fall victims of disease and die prematurely just on this at. The o every-day occurrences appear to them mysterious and inexplicable. One may feel a sudden wave of sadness and rake his brain for an explanation when he might have noticed that it was caused by a cloud cutting off the rays of the sun. He may see the image of a frieo him under ditions which he strues as very peculiar, when only shortly before he has passed him ireet or seen his photograph somewhere. When he loses a collar button he fusses and swears for an hour, being uo visualize his previous as and locate the object directly. Defit observation is merely a form of ignorand responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing. There is not more tha of every ten persons who does not believe in telepathy and other psychiifestations, spiritualism and union with the dead, and who would refuse to listen to willing or unwilling deceivers.
Just to illustrate how deeply rooted this tendency has bee even among the clearheaded Ameri population, I may mention a ical i. Shortly before the war, when the exhibition of my turbines in this city elicited widespread ent ieical papers, I anticipated that there would be a scramble among manufacturers to get hold of the iion, and I had particular designs on that man from Detroit who has an uny faculty for accumulating millions. So fident was I that he would turn up some day, that I declared this as certain to my secretary and assistants. Sure enough, one fine m a body of engineers from the Ford Motor pany presehemselves with the request of discussing with me ??an important project. "Didn't I tell you?" I remarked triumphantly to my employees, and one of them said, "You are amazing, Mr. Tesla; everything es out exactly as you predict." As soon as these hard-headed men were seated I, of course, immediately began to extol the wonderful features of my turbine, when the spokesmen interrupted me and said, "We know all about this, but we are on a special errand. We have formed a psychological society for the iigation of psychic phenomena and we want you to join us in this uaking." I suppose those engineers never knew how hey came to being fired out of my office.
Ever since I was told by some of the greatest men of the time, leaders in sce whose names are immortal, that I am possessed of an unusual mind, I bent all my thinking faculties on the solution of great problems regardless of sacrifice. For many years I endeavored to solve the enigma of death, and watched eagerly for every kind of spiritual indication. But only on the course of my existence have I had an experience whientarily impressed me as supernatural. It was at the time of my mother's death.
I had bee pletely exhausted by pain and long vigilance, and one night was carried to a building about two blocks from our home. ?As I lay helpless there, I thought that if my mother died while I was away from her bedside she would surely give me a sign. Two or three months before I was in London in pany with my late friend, Sir William Crookes, when spiritualism was discussed, and I was uhe full sway of these thoughts. I might not have paid attention to other men, but was susceptible to his arguments as it was his epochal work on radiant matter, which I had read as a student, that made me embrace the electrical career. I reflected that the ditions for a look into the beyond were most favorable, for my mother was a woman of genius and particularly excelling in the powers of intuition. During the whole night every fiber in my brain was strained in expecy, but nothing happened until early in the m, when I fell in a sleep, or perhaps a swoon, and saw a cloud carrying angelic figures of marvelous beauty, one of whom gazed upon me lovingly and gradually assumed the features of my mother. The appearance slowly floated across the room and vanished, and I was awakened by an indescribably sweet song of many voices. In that instant a certitude, whio words express, came upohat my mother had just died. And that was true. I was uo uand the tremendous weight of the painful knowledge I received in advance, and wrote a letter to Sir William Crookes while still uhe domination of these impressions and in poor bodily health.
When I recovered I sought for a long time the external cause of this strange maion and, to my great relief, I succeeded after many months of fruitless effort. I had seen the painting of a celebrated artist, representing allegorically one of the seasons in the form of a cloud with a group of angels which seemed to actually float in the air, and this had struck me forcefully. It was exactly the same that appeared in my dream, with the exception of my mother's likeness. The music came from the choir in the churearby at the early mass of Easter m, explaining everything satisfactorily in ity with stific facts.
This occurred long ago, and I have never had the fai reason sio ge my views on psychical and spiritual phenomena, for which there is absolutely no foundation. The belief in these is the natural outgrowth of intellectual development. Religious dogmas are no longer accepted in their orthodox meaning, but every individual gs to faith in a supreme power of some kind. We all must have ao govern our dud insure te, but it is immaterial whether it be one of creed, art, sce or anything else, so long as it fulfills the fun of a dematerializing force. It is essential to the peaceful existence of humanity as a whole that one on ception should prevail.
While I have failed to obtain any eviden support of the tentions of psychologists and spiritualists, I have proved to my plete satisfa the automatism of life, not only through tinuous observations of individual as, but even more clusively through certain generalizations. These amount to a discovery which I sider of the greatest moment to human society, and on which I shall briefly dwell. I got the first inkling of this astounding truth when I was still a very young man, but for many years I interpreted what I noted simply as ces. ?Namely, whenever either myself or a person to whom I was attached, or a cause to which I was devoted, was hurt by others in a particular way, which might be best popularly characterized as the most unfair imaginable, I experienced a singular and undefinable pain which, for want of a better term, I have qualified as "id shortly thereafter, and invariably, those who had inflicted it came to grief. After many such cases I fided this to a number of friends, who had the opportunity to vihemselves of the truth of the theory which I have gradually formulated and which may be stated in the following few words:
Our bodies are of similar stru and exposed to the same external influehis results in likeness of response and cordance of the general activities on which all our social and other rules and laws are based. We are automata entirely trolled by the forces of the medium being tossed about like corks on the surface of the water, but mistaking the resultant of the impulses from the outside for free will. The movements and other as we perform are always life preservative and tho seemingly quite indepe from one another, we are ected by invisible links. So long as the anism is in perfect order it responds accurately to the agents that prompt it, but the moment that there is some dera in any individual, his self-preservative power is impaired.
Everybody uands, of course, that if one bees deaf, has his eyesight weakened, or his limbs ihe ces for his tinued existence are lessened. But this is also true, and perhaps more so, of certais in the brain which deprive the automaton, more or less, of that vital quality and cause it to rush into destru. A very sensitive and observant being, with his highly developed meism all intact, and ag with precision in obedieo the ging ditions of the enviro, is endowed with a transding meical sense, enabling him to evade perils too subtle to be directly perceived. ?When he es in tact with others whose trolling ans are radically faulty, that sense asserts itself and he feels the "ic" pain. The truth of this has been bor in hundreds of instances and I am inviting other students of nature to devote attention to this subject, believing that thru bined and systematic effort results of incalculable value to the world will be attained.
The idea of strug an automaton, to bear out my theory, preseself to me early but I did not begin active work until 1893, when I started my wireless iigations. During the succeeding two or three years a number of automatic meisms, to be actuated from a distance, were structed by me and exhibited to visitors in my laboratory. In 1896, however, I designed a plete mae capable of a multitude of operations, but the mation of my labors was delayed until late in 1897. This mae was illustrated and described in my article in the tury Magazine of June, 1900, and other periodicals of that time and, when first shown in the beginning of 1898, it created a sensation such as no other iion of mine has ever produced. In November, 1898, a basic patent on the novel art was grao me, but only after the Examiner-in-Chief had e to New York and withe performance, for what I claimed seemed unbelievable. I remember that when later I called on an official in Washington, with a view of the iion to the Gover, he burst out in laughter upon my telling him what I had aplished. Nobody thought then that there was the fai prospect of perfeg such a device. It is unfortuhat in this patent, following the adviy attorneys, I indicated the trol as being effected thru the medium of a single circuit and a well-known form of detector, for the reason that I had not yet secured prote on my methods and apparatus for individualization. As a matter of fact, my boats were trolled thru the joint a of several circuits and interference of every kind was excluded. Most generally I employed receiving circuits in the form of loops, including densers, because the discharges of my high-tension transmitter iohe air in the hall so that even a very small aerial would draw electricity from the surrounding atmosphere for hours.
Just to give an idea, I found, for instahat a bulb 12" in diameter, highly exhausted, and with one sierminal to which a short wire was attached, would deliver well on to ohousand successive flashes before all charge of the air in the laboratory was ralized. The loop form of receiver was not sensitive to such a disturband it is curious to hat it is being popular at this late date. Iy it collects much less energy than the aerials or a long grounded wire, but it so happens that it does away with a number of defects io the present wireless devices. In demonstrating my iion before audiehe visitors were requested to ask any questions, however involved, and the automaton would ahem by signs. This was sidered magic at that time but was extremely simple, for it was myself who gave the replies by means of the device.
At the same period another larger telautomatics boat was structed a photograph of which is shown in this number of the ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER. It was trolled by loops, having several turns placed in the hull, which was made entirely water-tight and capable of submergehe apparatus was similar to that used in the first with the exception of certain special features I introduced as, for example, indest lamps which afforded a visible evidence of the proper funing of the mae.
This automata, trolled within the range of vision of the operator, were, however, the first and rather crude steps in the evolution of the Art of Telautomatics as I had ceived it. The logical improvement was its application to automatic meisms beyond the limits of vision and at great distance from the ter of trol, and I have ever since advocated their employment as instruments of warfare in prefereo guns. The importance of this now seems to be reized, if I am to judge from casual annous thru the press of achievements which are said to be extraordinary but tain of y, whatever. In an imperfect ma is practicable, with the existing wireless plants, to laun aeroplane, have it follow a certain approximate course, and perform some operation at a distanany hundreds of miles. A mae of this kind also be meically trolled in several ways and I have no doubt that it may prove of some usefulness in war. But there are, to my best knowledge, no instrumentalities ieoday with which su object could be aplished in a precise manner. I have devoted years of study to this matter and have evolved means, making sud greater wonders easily realizable.
As stated on a previous occasion, when I was a student at college I ceived a flying mae quite uhe present ohe underlying principle was sound but could not be carried into practice for want of a prime-mover of suffitly great activity. I years I have successfully solved this problem and am now planning aerial maes devoid of sustaining planes, ailerons, propellers and other external attats, which will be capable of immense speeds and are very likely to furnish powerful arguments for pea the near future. Such a mae, sustained and propelled entirely by rea, is supposed to be trolled either meically or by wireless energy. By installing proper plants it will be practicable to project a missile of this kind into the air and drop it almost on the very spot designated, which may be thousands of miles away.
But we are not going to stop at this. ?Telautomata will be ultimately produced, capable of ag as if possessed of their own intelligence, and their advent will create a revolution. As early as 1898 I proposed to representatives of a large manufacturing the stru and public exhibition of an automobile carriage which, left to itself, would perform a great variety of operations involving something akin to judgment. But my proposal was deemed chimerical at that time and nothing came from it.
At present many of the ablest minds are trying to devise expedients for preventing a repetition of the awful flict which is only theoretically ended and the duration and main issues of which I have correctly predicted in an article printed in the Sun of December 20, 1914. The proposed League is not a remedy but on the trary, in the opinion of a number of petent men, may bring about results just the opposite. It is particularly regrettable that a punitive policy ted in framing the terms of peace, because a few years he will be possible for nations to fight without armies, ships uns, by ons far more terrible, to the destructive a and range of which there is virtually no limit. A city, at any distance whatsoever from the enemy, be destroyed by him and no power oh stop him from doing so. If we want to avert an impending calamity and a state of things which may transform this globe into an inferno, we should push the development of flying maes and wireless transmission of energy without an instant's delay and with all the power and resources of the nation.
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