"If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity"

Samuel Morse’s reflection on the transmission of intelligence via electricity captures the profound leap in human communication that occurred in the 19th century. He observes the fundamental fact that electricity, though invisible in itself, reveals its existence through effects observable within an electrical circuit. For Morse, this visibility symbolizes not just a technical phenomenon but a gateway: any system in which a mysterious force can be made perceptible at a distance becomes a candidate for transmitting more than just that force, it becomes a medium for conveying information, even thought.

He reasons that if a physical alteration can be instantly detected across a wire, then the same principle can underpin the transfer of messages. This asserts a crucial equivalence between the signaling capabilities of electricity and the abstract concept of intelligence, or information itself. Morse implicitly rejects the belief that barriers of space necessarily impede rapid communication. Where previous centuries were bound by the physical speed of humans or animals to carry messages, the revelation that a spark induced at one end of a wire could prompt a bell, deflection, or mark at the other, unlocks a new realm. Human thought, encoded, systematized, and rendered into symbolic language, can hitch a ride upon the wave of electrical energy, overcoming constraints of distance and time.

Morse’s vision hints at instantaneousness, a radical advance contrasting with the long delays inherent in older methods like letters. His insight is not purely technical but philosophical; it grapples with what it means for intelligence, the substance of mind, to pass at the speed of nature’s most subtle force. In seeing the possibility of harnessing electricity for communication, Morse prefigures the evolution from telegraph to telephone, radio, the internet, and beyond, a vision of a world where knowledge is liberated from geography, and where the unity of humanity becomes not a dream but a mechanism, wired into the fabric of modern life.