"All forces," said he, "are correlated. When you have force in one form,
you may just turn it into this or that, as you like. In one form it is
motive power, in another it is light, in another heat. Now we have
electricity for illumination. We employ it, but not as freely as in the
States, for propelling vehicles. Why should we have horses drawing our
buses? We should use only electric trams. Why do we burn coal to warm
our shins? There is electricity, which throws out no filthy smoke as
does coal. Why should we let the tides waste their energies in the
Thames? in other estuaries? There we have Nature supplying us--free,
gratis, and for nothing--with all the force we want for propelling, for
heating, for lighting. I will tell you something more, my dear sir,"
said Mr. Square. "I have mentioned but three modes of force, and have
instanced but a limited number of uses to which electricity may be
turned. How is it with photography? Is not electric light becoming an
artistic agent? I bet you," said he, "before long it will become a
therapeutic agent as well."
"Oh, yes; I have heard of certain impostors with their life-belts."
Mr. Square did not relish this little dig I gave him. He winced, but
returned to the charge. "We don't know how to direct it aright, that is
all," said he. "I haven't taken the matter up, but others will, I bet;
and we shall have electricity used as freely as now we use powders and
pills. I don't believe in doctors' stuffs myself. I hold that disease
lays hold of a man because he lacks physical force to resist it. Now, is
it not obvious that you are beginning at the wrong end when you attack
the disease? What you want is to supply force, make up for the lack of
physical power, and force is force wherever you find it--here motive,
there illuminating, and so on. I don't see why a physician should not
utilise the tide rushing out under London Bridge for restoring the
feeble vigour of all who are languid and a prey to disorder in the
Metropolis. It will come to that, I bet, and that is not all. Force is
force, everywhere. Political, moral force, physical force, dynamic
force, heat, light, tidal waves, and so on--all are one, all is one. In
time we shall know how to galvanise into aptitude and moral energy all
the limp and crooked consciences and wills that need taking in hand, and
such there always will be in modern civilisation. I don't know how to do
it. I don't know how it will be done, but in the future the priest as
well as the doctor will turn electricity on as his principal, nay, his
only agent. And he can get his force anywhere, out of the running
stream, out of the wind, out of the tidal wave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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