j ; "
" IRISH BONDS
r i "The case of Mars is in point. On class of competent ob
servers assert that the planet is , marked with artificial canals,
and that it isinhabited. ; Another class, equally competent, deny
that Mars is habitable. Judgment will be suspended. There
is not the material which enables a layman to form a certain
opinion. ..-; s- ' , ,
. Just at the moment the wireless systems are disturbed by
outside interference, whfch some think may be interplanetary
communication. There is not sufficient evidence of order
about -the signals to warrant a conclusion, of intelligence be
hind them! The best guess is that the signals are due to stray
disturbances Nevertheless the state of. scientific knowledge
warrants the believe that at sometime interplanetary communi
cation may be established. It is not even impossible that the
ray of light which streams from one planet to another may
becoriie a telegraph, or telephone wire.
J Wireless sie-na Is heinar established for short distances
with .speeds approaching , 186,000 miles a- second, the attain
ment of greater distances is reduced to a mere detail.
To say that a given fact has never been observed is not
proof that it never will be. Modern science is hardly-more
than a hundred years old. It is extremely probable that pres
ent knowledge of the forces of nature, and present control over
the forces, is tiny compared with the knowledge and power
men will have.
For ages there was no railroad, no steamboat, no telegraph,
telephone, automobile, wireless, flying machine, nor rays
which would' permit the vision to penetrate solids.
At any time during countless centuries the sure-without-
evidence'l, thinkers might have proclaimed the impossibility of
those things, on the ground that they had never happened.
