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F ALL the generations which have peopled this earth, the present one is the wisest, in that it is the only one to know the extent of its own ignorance. The things we know are our pride. We are fond of imagining the surprise of our ancestors if they could come back to earth for a time and see the progress we have made since their day. Our railroads and steamships, our telephones, phonographs, kinetoscopes, cathode rays, wireless telegraphy, and the like, fill the humblest of us with pride in his generation. But the greatest discovery we have made is the extent of our ignorance. That is the real beginning of knowledge.

That what we don't know would fill a book is a commonplace that has been directed at the wisest of us at some period of our lives; but the size of the volume has been generously ignored. Now modern science has looked us over with that eye which picks out the sex of the microscopic diatom, or with equal facility penetrates the dark caverns of the sky, finding them strewn with worlds, and lo! our ignorance is found to be so colossal that a tape-line millions of miles long is required for its measurement. And this enormous tape-line, be it understood, is no mere figure of speech; it is an appalling truth, capable of as easy demonstration as the simplest problem in Euclid.

The

All our knowledge comes to us through the senses-barring certain rudimentary conceptions derived from ancestral experiences, and called "inheritance." things we know are learnt by sight, by hearing, by touch, by taste, by smell; generally speaking, by the first three. These senses have often been called “the windows of the soul"; and the metaphor is passably just if we conceive outside impressions as passing through them to the soul within. For touch, sight, and hearing are the media through which outside. bodies transmit a knowledge of their properties to us inside. And they do this VOL. XXXIV-22

by vibrations. Sound, for instance, is an ethereal vibration, ranging from 32 a second to 32,000 a second. Light is a similar vibration, ranging from some 395,000,000 a second to nearly double that inconceivable rate. When we hear the lowest note which we are capable of recognizing as a note, something near is vibrating at the rate of 16 a second, and setting up corresponding vibrations in the air, and through the air they reach our ear. As the vibrations increase the pitch rises, until at 32,000 vibrations a second, we get an earpiercing whistle which causes pain. If the vibrations are now slightly accelerated the sound ceases. What takes place then we have no means of knowing-at least, not until the increasing rapidity of the vibrations reaches the million millions, and then we get the sensation of color. The first sensation we get is that of red; as the vibrations increase we get orange, then yellow, then green, then blue, indigo and violet, and then-nothing.

If we take our tape-line now and let the first two feet represent the vibrations from 32 to 32,000 we shall have to run it up into the sky nearly four millions of miles before we can figure on it the vibrations which give the next sensationthat of red light. In other words, there is a stretch of four million miles on that tape-line which is an absolute blank to us, except for a couple of feet at the lower end. That statement conveys a vague hint of the extent of our ignorance. Nothing but a vague hint, indeed, is possible. But even in its vagueness, the thought is overwhelming. We thought

we knew something; and here we see that we know no more, comparatively, than an earthworm knows of astronomy.

Literally awful as is the immensity of our ignorance, and depressing though it be to contemplate it, the lesson to be learnt is full of value. Let us consider what is contained for us in this lowest two feet of the scale that we do know-or think that we know. Everything we have ever

heard comes within that two feet; and that implies the most of what we know. Language itself, the medium of all intelligent communication, is included; so is music. Our lessons in mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, the useful arts, medicine, engineering, commerce, manufactures, fine arts, architecture, reach us through these lower vibrations; and everything we communicate from the mass of this knowledge is similarly transmitted. Even our amusements are dependent on that marvelous twentyfour inches of the scale of vibrations. if life can be made so rich with twenty-four inches, what might it not be if the range were extended?

A suggestion of what the vast stretch of unknown vibrations contains is given us by the experience of a young girl, now being educated in New York, who was deprived in infancy of sight and hearing. By some mysterious law of compensation, this girl has become sensitive to vibrations of which the rest of us are unconscious. For instance, she enjoys music, although she cannot hear it; and she is capable of distinguishing good music from bad. This implies that sound-waves are accompanied by other vibrations, which probably run up into the higher reaches of the imaginary scale. It also implies the develop ment in this young girl, of a sixth sense, which is capable of perceiving these higher vibrations. Again, she has some mysterious faculty which informs her of the presence of other persons. As she is blind and deaf, this knowledge cannot reach her by any undulations known to us; which implies that matter, in a passive state, reflects other vibrations than those of light, and that under special conditions, the human organism becomes sensitive to them.

A second example is furnished by a woman who for thirty years has lived the life of a bed-ridden invalid in Brooklyn.

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She is blind; yet she can distinguish colors, and will pick out delicate shades of green from a basket of assorted worsteds more readily than the average person in full possession of his sight. Without as sistance she makes wax flowers which correspond in the minutest details of color and shape with nature's own blossoms And when asked how she can thus copy things without sight, she replies that they are visible to her through some other sense. She knows nothing of the undulatory theory of light, and probably could not understand it if it were explained to her. She believes that red flower is really red, and would think she were listening to mere foolishness if she were told that it looked red simply because it reflected only a few of the light vibrations falling upon it, and absorbed the rest; and that if it reflected them all, it would have no color at all. And perhaps we would be equally incredulous if she could give us the true explanation of her wonderful power.

When Newton, with his giant intellect. compared himself to a child gathering shells on the shores of a great sea whose unexplored waters rolled in inconceivable vastness before him, he hardly thought that every fresh extension of human knowledge would but further dwarf the child and make more vast the unexplored sea. Our ignorance is so colossal that no sea or ocean known to us could represent more than a fraction of it. We know something about a space of some twentyfour inches on a tape measure which would reach nine times to the moon and back again! And when, after this appalling interval, we begin to know something more, there is still a mysterious Beyond-still Newton's vast sea, unexplored and perhaps unexplorable, across which the fluttering streamers of a mystic Aurora wave in mute beckonings to humanity.

L. Worthington Green.

OLIVAR JOHNSON sat on the

Bedge of his bed, his spine danger

ously curved, as he tugged at the straps of one of his best boots. When he had bought them for his wedding, fifteen years before, they had not seemed tight, but as his notions of comfort had changed materially, and as he wore them only twice a year or so, they seemed to exercise greater resistance against muscular effort every time he attacked them. Finally,

with a mighty tug, the last one was on, and Mr. Johnson wiped the perspiration from his flushed face, stood up, and worked himself into a coat that was coeval with the boots.

For this was one of the greatest days of Bolivar's life. He lived thirty-five miles from the nearest railroad town, and while the country store in the neighborhood would barter the plainest necessities of life for butter and eggs, other needs demanded a semi-yearly trip to town,-for adjustments to machinery, patent medicines, and other luxuries, that only the town could furnish.

Miranda was holding the horses when Bolivar emerged from the house, stepping stiffly and painfully. An anxious look was in her eyes. For Bolivar, while he could be trusted with wealth, and was a deacon in the country church and class-leader as well, had one failing. He could not resist the beguilements of the beverage sold in prohibition Kansas under such names as Stomach Bitters,' ," "Buttermilk," "Herb Beer," "Cherry Brandy," etc., the effect of which is exceedingly deadly.

"Now, Bolivar," she began decisively, "I want ye tuh keep erway frum them joints. The las' time ye went erlone ye got drunk, an' I said then ye sh'd never go ergin. An' ye should n't, 'cept fer thet quiltin' bee at Tannerses, where I'll hear all erbout Pet Tylers's 'lopement. P'omise me ye won't go into no joint, Bolivar." "No, I won't p'omise nothin' uv the kin'," snapped Bolivar. "Ye talk 's if I wuz a youngster, er some one ye could n't trust. I'm uv age, an' they ain't no womin goin' tuh boss me. Git up, Rowdy!

He slapped the reins sharply over the

horses and drove out of the yard, his head held defiantly erect.

"H'mph!" ejaculated Miranda, gazing after him. "Pride go'th b'fore deestruction, an' a horty speerit b'fore a fall, an' ef ye don't come back teetotally flattened, Bolivar Johnson, I miss my guess. I'm glad they ain't no open s'loons in M❜tropolis, an' yer only salvation 's th' chance thet ye may miss findin' th' joints."

"It's all right, Miss Mirandy,"

chuckled Bolivar to himself. "I hain't been off the place 'ithout ye fer two year, an' I guess I kin have my little fling now, ef I wanter."

Late that afternoon Bolivar reached Metropolis. A few years ago, any issue of any of the several daily papers would have told you more of the glories of Metropolis than I can. Then it had forty thousand inhabitants, and proudly called itself the "Peerless Princess of the Prairie," looking forward with confidence to the day when it should prove a second Chicago. Now it may have fifteen thousand people, and it may not; corn grows on what were once boulevards, and on suburban lots that sold for fabulous prices; and factories whose walls have never echoed to the whir of machinery rise from stretches of sunflowers. Still there is a business-like air about the place, and it all seemed very fascinating to the vision of Bolivar.

Being like a certain lady of poetic fame, "of a frugal mind," it was his custom to carry in his wagon provender for his horses, and to drive to a shady vacant lot near the park of the Metropolis Water Works Company, in whose vicinity he was reasonably sure of police patrol during the night, and there tie his team to the wagon for the term of his stay, while he sought shelter in a huge barn-like hotel near at hand.

The buildings of the Water Works Company had been put up during the wonderful boom, and now, with a draping of shining ivy over the brick walls and smoke-stacks, were pointed to with pride. by the citizens, who also felt the pride of possession in the fire alarm,-a whistle that boasted of being the largest in the

State, and could be heard for miles. It made the hair stand erect on youthful heads, and caused goose-flesh to rise on the surface of all the small fry of Metropolis, who, when its shriek rose in the silent night, always hid under the bed-covers and indulged in acute convulsions.

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Miranda's hope that Bolivar would miss finding a joint" was vain, for one swallowed him up early in the evening, and kept him concealed until late. When he emerged from its recesses his frame of mind was rather uncertain, and matched his gait. Turning in what he thought was the direction of the hotel, he found himself standing beside a lot with only a yawning cellar. The hotel had evidently left its accustomed corner. He gazed with stern perplexity into the hole at his feet.

"Shtrange-hic-'svery shtrange-hic -where th' blame thing's gone. 'Spose it's been sold-hic-at Sheriff's salehic-sence I tied th' horses. Guess they ain't anythin'-hic-fer me tuh do but

hic-sleep in th' wagin, 'nless th blame-hic-sheriff's took it too."

The wagon was only a block away, but Bolivar walked many times that distance before he reached it. Fixing his eye firmly on the tall smoke-stacks of the Water Works Company, he would start in that direction, and end by trying to scale a brick wall at one side, or some equally hazardous experiment. Finally the park was before him, and as no wall intervened, he reached the wagon, after several encounters with trees, laboriously climbed its side, and falling in on the hay that the horses were munching, was lost in slumber.

Far in the night Bolivar was awakened, with a choking, oppressive sensation of horror. The air about him was vibrant with a terrible sound. Space seemed to be full of it; yet whence it came was a mystery. Apprehending that the sky was falling upon him, and expecting a brimstone pit to open beneath him, he rolled on his face and convulsively clawed at the hay. Higher and higher rose the seething wail, until seemingly having reached the highest point of human or superhuman endurance, there was a second of silence. Bolivar began to draw a breath of relief, which was cut short by another wail,

longer and higher than the first. Sensitive dogs began to howl, the horses plunged and snorted in fear, and Bolivar, all his bibulous sins marching in procession before his mental eyes, groveled and shook with fear at this terrible, enraged, intangible spirit that was evidently pursuing him. His hair stood erect and a cold sweat broke from every pore. Again and yet again came the wail that filled earth and sky, and, finally, reaching its climax, it lashed itself up and down and in and out in the air directly over Bolivar's head with a threat so personal that the penitent sinner put his hands over his ears and howled with fear.

Then came intensest silence, broken by the slamming of doors and windows in the vicinity, the far-away roll of wheels, men running here and there. Evidently the whole city was alarmed, and preparing to flee from the wrath to come.

Bolivar was now fully awake and sober. His one thought was flight, and as hurriedly as his pinched and numbed feet would allow, he fastened his horses to the wagon and drove out of town at the top of his speed, glancing shiveringly over his shoulder at every jolt of the wheels. Thoughts of Sodom and Gomorrah ran through his head. He must make haste out of the accursed city.

"I don't know whut M'randy'll say 'bout not gittin' a patent churn, an' them Purple Pills fer Pallid People, but 'twon`t do tuh stop, fer they ain't goin' to be one stone left on 'nother pritty soon. I'll tell ye, I don't want no sich warnin' agin.”

Two or three miles out, in the wilds of the "suburbs," he jumped to his feet, for the avenging voice again shrieked out, in one long-drawn wail; but to his relief the sound no longer came from over his head, but vibrated above the doomed city.

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Git ap, Rowdy! I'll bet I'm the only one of them blamed boozers in thet joint las' night tuh erscape punishment. I tell ye, Bolivar Johnson, take this ez a warnin' an' shun th' flowin' bowl, thankful tuli hev been plucked, a bran' from the burnin'."

And as the wagon rolled out into the starlit loneliness of the prairie, the citizens of Metropolis, whom the fire siren had awakened to witness only the burning of a hayshed, crept back to their beds to finish the night.