At the same time we feel sure that there are other markings
still smaller, as every increase in the power of the microscope has
always rendered visible some markings still smaller than the last;
and in like manner has every increase in the power of the telescope
developed more worlds and suns far away from our system and beyond our
Milky Way. An approach to the infinite in minuteness and to the infinite
in magnitude and distance is thus furnished to us by one instrument
alone.
There was but one further observation that he would venture to make, and
it is this.
When one looks back upon the goodly list of clever men and benefactors
of the human race, who have lived, say, during the last hundred years,
one is sometimes tempted to wish that more of those scientific men, who
have had the most brilliant ideas, and been our greatest discoverers,
should have striven to carry out their discoveries into practice. For
instance, take Faraday's beautiful discoveries in electricity. It was,
in a manner, left to Sir Francis Ronalds, Professor Daniell, Professor
Wheatstone, Fothergill Cooke, Dr. Siemens, and others, to develop from
those discoveries the "intelligence wires," and "bands," that now
encircle the earth, and unite nations, and do so much to prevent
misunderstandings.
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