Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/410

406 which makes a family move into it. He is satisfied that houses do gravitationally attract people, but this is not in any way the attraction which produces the observed motion. He finally learns that it is the architectural features and the internal arrangement of the houses, and the landscape features immediately about the houses, which appeal to the minds of the people. Being a philosopher, he straightway forms an explanation which involves the existence of a mental field of force, emanating from these conscious beings, and laying hold of these architectural and other characteristics of the houses. Next he finds that ether waves are involved in the phenomenon. The people must see the houses before the attraction begins. This involves the existence of an all-pervading ether through which waves due to molecular agitation on the sun may pass. These waves, which we call light waves, fall upon these houses. Prom thence they pass into the eyes of the people, where they form images of the houses. The people do not see these images in the same sense that they see the houses, but in some unknown way these images make it possible for them to become conscious of those things, which determine for them the attractiveness of these houses.

It is through this complex train of machinery that the mental action is aroused, which results in this mental attraction. But this is not all. There must be involved in this transaction a transfer of the value equivalent of a certain number of foot-pounds of mechanical work previously done. The value equivalent of this work is produced by the family about to move into the house, and is delivered to the former owner who has moved out. This value equivalent of work is delivered in the form of a definite quantity of some valuable substance, as gold. He next finds that this transfer may also be made, by means of written entries on the books of two banks, through the agency of a check, which passes through the clearing house. By this means a credit to one customer at one bank is transferred to another customer at another bank. This value equivalent of work previously done exists potentially in the form of credit at a bank, and its quantity may be increased or drawn upon, as energy itself may be stored in a pond of water, which may be drawn upon to drive a mill.

The average citizen will tell you that we do not know what electricity is, and that the sending of wireless messages, and the driving of our street-cars, are operations which are full of mystery. But it never occurs to him that there is anything mysterious about the attraction which empty houses have for homeless families. He would think it wonderful that a balloon could be controlled by wireless methods, from a station on the earth, but it would never occur to him that there was anything remarkable about one conscious being influencing the outward action of another conscious being, by talking to him or by looking at him. We are surrounded on every hand by phenomena which we think