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George Woodward Warder
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Title: The Universe a Vast Electric Organism
Author: George Woodward Warder
Release Date: June 7, 2011 [EBook #36343]
Language: English
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_The Universe a Vast Electric Organism_
BY GEORGE WOODWARD WARDER
AUTHOR OF
"Invisible Light, or the Electric Theory of
Creation," "The Cities of the Sun," Etc., Etc.
[Illustration]
_The universe is a vast electric machine or organism creating its
own cosmic force, lighting and heating itself from its own latent
electric fires, and bound together by invisible electric bands pulling
and guiding with the swiftness of lightning, and the power and wisdom
of Omnipotence._--From "THE CITIES OF THE SUN."
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
_Publishers_ New York
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY GEORGE WOODWARD WARDER
_Issued February, 1904_
The Universe a Vast Electric Organism
CONTENTS
I. The Universe Is a Vast Electric Organism, 11
II. Electricity Produces All the Phenomena of Nature, 29
III. Electrical Creation, Briefly Stated. It Seems to Solve
the Riddle of the Universe, 49
IV. Electrical Creation More Fully Stated Confirms
Scientific Evolution, 54
V. Man Is a Soul Clad in Air, a Spirit in an Electric
Organism, 76
VI. All Light, Heat and Life Evolved Only in the Atmosphere
of Suns and Planets, 90
VII. Electrical Derangement of the Bodily Organism Produce
Sickness and Death, 102
VIII. Recent Electric Discoveries and Appliances, Wireless
Telegraphy, etc., 112
IX. Present Science Is in a Dubious and Chaotic Condition, 133
X. Electrical Creation Explains Natural Philosophy, 156
XI. Science and Philosophy Sustain the Religious Concept, 173
XII. Human Reason and the Universe Are Books of God,
as Well as the Bible, 194
XIII. Love is the Electric Law of Life: All That Live
Must Come From Loving, 213
XIV. Jacob's Ladder Is the Electric Pathway Between
Suns and Planets, 230
XV. This Electric Universe is Self-sustaining and Eternal, 246
XVI. Are all Suns and Worlds Inhabited? 265
XVII. The Electrical Theory of Creation Will Save Modern
Science from Pantheism, 279
PREFACE
This volume is intended to further elucidate my theories of electrical
creation, to cover some points lightly touched upon in my previous
books; also to bring forward to date the most recent scientific facts
and discoveries tending to show that the universe is a vast electric
machine or organism.
This is the electrical age of the world, the age of magnetic marvels and
electrical wonders. The people of this generation have witnessed the
most astounding development of electrical machinery, appliances and
utilities. In every department of effort human genius has called forth
this invisible, mysterious magician, electricity, to work the miracles
of Omnipotence.
And so rapid and marvelous have been the discoveries that the human mind
stands paralyzed with wonder and amazement and asks, What next? In
discovering electricity man has discovered the working force of Deity,
the right hand of Omnipotence, the word of creative power, and uses it
in all fields of human effort. With electric cables, electric motors,
telephones, phonographs, telectroscopes, wireless telegraphy and mental
telepathy, the world is revolutionized, "the old heavens and the old
earth have passed away, and behold! all things are new."
The new heavens and the new earth as I see it through scientific facts
and analogies is a perfect electrical machine, a vast electro-magnetic
organism of marvelous power and perfection. This "stupendous mass of
matter and force" we call the universe is a complete whole, a perfect
unity, creating its own light, heat and life and bound together by
invisible electric ties of measureless power, as swift as lightning and
as strong as Omnipotence.
Then I took up the study of electricity as a matter of curiosity and
mental stimulus for my leisure hours from the law practice and realty
investments. I had an indefinite idea that this mysterious force and the
laws governing it might help to solve the riddle of the universe. I
studied its application to ordinary machinery and then applied it to the
universe as a vast machine. And behold! the universe as a mighty
electric machine or organism answered every scientific question and
solved every puzzle in the material world as far as I could comprehend
them.
I applied it to suns and planets, man and all animal and vegetable
organisms, and as electric creations and electric generators they
explained a thousand mysteries. I found man the most perfect electric
organism, woven by electric energy from invisible atoms, receiving his
physical life, growth and nutrition, and digesting and assimilating his
food by an electric process, such as Prof. Loeb and Dr. Matthews
discovered in 1902, nearly twenty years after. I soon formulated a
theory of electrical creation, which has recently been accepted by some
of the ablest scientists.
These things I discussed openly and on the platform for many years and
then I published them in my book, The New Cosmogony, in 1898, in
Invisible Light in 1900 and in The Cities of the Sun in 1901.
My attention was first called to this subject about twenty years ago
when Prof. Henry built the first electric street railway ever built in
this country. It was built on East Fifth Street, in Kansas City,
Missouri, the city where I was living, and attracted much attention. It
was used for only a short time because the machinery was not
sufficiently perfected, and there was too great a waste of power, and
the insulation was bad, for it magnetized and stopped the watches in the
pockets of the passengers. While pondering over this electric railway
and its mysterious force, as I sat in the twilight in the parlor of the
old Coates House, a servant came in to light the gas. Instead of using a
match, he turned on the gas, took a few gliding steps over the carpet
and lit the gas by a flash of electricity from his finger, produced by
touching his finger against the tip of the gas jet. I was surprised and
said, "Have you enough fire in your body to light the gas?" He answered,
"Yes, sir." I said, "Can you do that again?" "Yes, sir," and he turned
on another jet took a few gliding steps over the carpet, touched the tip
of the jet with his finger; there was a flash and the gas was lit.
I was amazed, for this was a new electric manifestation to me. He said,
"You can do it, sir." "Well, I'll see if I can," and I took a few
gliding steps over the carpet. He turned on the gas, I touched the jet
with the tip of my finger and a flash of electric fire, an inch long,
lit the gas. This I did many times afterwards and saw a dozen others do
the same thing. In fact the servants seldom used matches in that
parlor, the carpet held such a surplus of electricity most any person
could by a few gliding steps increase the electricity of their body so
they could light the gas by a touch.
Then I began to think--electric fire in man's body, in the clouds, in
coal and wood, on the telegraph line, in flint, in cold steel--in
everything. Electricity must be light, heat, life and creative force,
and will explain the mysteries of nature.
In the hot, dry summer of 1901, when The Cities of the Sun[1] was
issued, my publisher called me to one side and said that his salesman
was going out West. He asked, "If he offers to sell your book, which
says the sun is not hot, to those old Kansas farmers, won't they mob him
and hang him to the first available tree?" I admitted it did look
serious on account of the extreme heat then afflicting the West, but
told him to have his salesman inform them that if they would go up in a
balloon a few thousand feet nearer the sun they would freeze to death,
and that if they had an arm that would reach four thousand feet up into
the atmosphere it would freeze to the elbow in less than thirty minutes,
the hottest day ever known, as every two thousand feet upwards from the
earth there is a loss of over one hundred degrees of heat. I mention
this to show how some of these theories may shock the sensibilities of
some unscientific thinkers.
All scientists declare that the sun is a burning globe and also the
material and electric center of the solar system; but I conceived it to
be a living world like our earth, only more prolific in life and power,
and the intellectual and spiritual center of our system of worlds. I
believe I present the only reasonable scientific hypothesis ever
presented in the history of the human race which shows and explains the
unity, oneness and perfect organism of the universe. It shows that the
universe is self-sustaining, harmonious and eternal, creating its own
cosmic light, heat and life in the magnetic atmosphere of its suns and
planets, and so simple that the law of atoms is the law of suns and
worlds.
With the able assistance of the many scientists, electricians and
specialists who have recently accepted and championed these theories,
and the progress already made, they bid fair to soon revolutionize
scientific thought.
The time will come, and is not far distant, when those who believe the
sun is hot, or a burning globe of fire, will be regarded as the devotees
of an antiquated superstition. The enlightened world will look upon them
as they do now on those who believe in witches, human slavery and that
the earth is flat; and will pity their ignorance, as we do those who
worshipped the gods of Olympus.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Published by G. W. Dillingham Company, N. Y.
CHAPTER I
THE UNIVERSE IS A VAST ELECTRIC ORGANISM
Electricity, next to Deity, is the most remarkable entity in the
universe. Its marvelous and varied powers and utilities create a new
epoch in scientific thought and discovery. Its study is replete with new
and fascinating ideas and scientific theories. It contains the story of
the universe more sublime than an epic, more wonderful than a romance.
It organized the machinery of the worlds, and holds the secrets of
nature and the mysteries of life in its invisible grasp.
Electricity is the right hand of Deity, the tongue of the Spirit, the
Word of Omnipotent power, the protean cosmic force and creative
machinery of the universe. At the divine fiat it seized all atoms and
space, it shook the ether into nebula, the nebula into worlds, the
worlds into constellations, the constellations into a universe. It
shaped planets and rounded suns and hurled them forth to circle in the
chorus of the singing spheres. It gave form and functions to all matter
from the rounded pebble to the stars; from the raindrop to the surging
seas; from the chirping cricket to the sporting leviathan; from the
helpless infant to the giant man.
It is the messenger and executive of Creative Will to all created
things. It is the ambassador of spirit to matter, the autocrat of
communication between all the faculties of mind and all the functions of
physical existence. It is the law of affinity in matter, of selection in
atoms, and whispers to the body the intuitions of the Spirit and guides
insensate worlds to do the will of Creative Omnipotence.
Electricity is the wonderful medium and agent by which mind acts upon
matter and works the miracle of life and growth. This mightiest servant
of God and man, this genii greater than Aladdin's lamp, impresses all
laws upon nature, and makes the universe obedient to the will of Deity,
as man's body is obedient to the dictates of man's mind. This
inscrutable word of power from the source of all power is beginning to
supply the human race with an inexhaustible force that will
revolutionize the earth and link all nations together as one family in a
millennium of peace and good will.
Human life seems to throb, pulsate, gleam and glow in this marvelous
current of existence, which causes illumination, transportation,
telegraphy, photography, surgery, horticulture, agriculture, metallurgy
and manufacture to step forth as master magicians to work miracles for
the comfort and happiness of mankind. Every new discovery, every step in
the progress of electrical science conquers time, destroys distances,
diffuses knowledge, dissipates ignorance, encourages friendship and
draws men and nations closer and closer by physical ties and spiritual
affinities. Where once noisy ponderous mechanism pounded the rocks to
release the metals, electrical science with her unseen but resistless
currents instantly separate the ore and the dross. Where the
soot-begrimed engineer seizes the heavy iron throttle, she cleanly and
softly touches a tiny button and the miracle is wrought--the heavy steed
of steel receives its life not from smoking, hissing, fussing steam, but
from an energy as silent as light and as potent as Omnipotence.
This invisible electrical energy, without brush or color, paints the
gorgeous beauties of the rainbow, and photographs in every ray of light
and on every human eye the moving panorama of every passing scene. It
telegraphs between mind and matter, between soul and body, between suns
and planets, and gives life and energy to all the varied functions of
this electric magnetic universe. This strange, miraculous power has
taken its place as the supreme force of all forces, the ultimate
elemental force from which all other physical forces are derived, and,
without fuel or expense, flies with its burdens swifter than the flight
of eagles.
It is the last and greatest progeny of man genius and discovery, the
seventh daughter of science, who dips her wand in the impossible and
miraculous until miracles become prolific and common. Its power and
expression are universal and its character and process superlatively
grand. Its theatre of action is the universe and it comes to earth as
the voice of Deity and the word of His Omnipotence.
This science of the impossible, this daughter of miracles, is destined
to outstrip all past achievements. The ponderous and noisy mechanisms
will pass away, the barren rocks will change into most precious things,
the sunlight will be converted into reservoirs of power, and every
raindrop and waterfall, ocean tide and wind current, will reveal
exhaustless sources of wealth and energy. Then will the ancient curse,
"by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," be removed, and
agriculture and commerce will be conducted without the drudgery of toil
or the weariness of labor, and the earth shall blossom at the touch of
the silent electric forces which man will harness to his car of progress
and power. Manufacture will then be automatic and the web she will weave
in her silent loom will not be wet with the tears of imprisoned
childhood, or the agonizing sweat of dungeoned manhood.
Omnipotence follows her footsteps and with the blessings of heaven she
comes as a friend to relieve pain and toil and elevate and glorify
humanity. Her power is as boundless as space and as universal as
heaven's love.
For she comes with the Omnipotent power of Deity to relieve the burdens
of toil, lift up the oppressed of the earth, and give man leisure for
mental improvement and social elevation.
Electricity, I contend, is the invisible force which evolves form and
substance and all visible things. Matter is but the outer garment of
these invisible electric forces. It is Spirit which creates psychic
life, and makes life the cause instead of the consequence of organism.
It is electricity which evolved the physical universe and makes it a
vast electric organism bound together by invisible electric ties, where
its invisible forces are the cause instead of the consequence of
physical organism. These are the basic differences between the
materialistic science of the past and the psycho-electric science of the
present. In the past science investigated only visible material effects
and ignored the supreme invisible forces and laws which evolved and
produced them.
This is an age of dominant mind, the development of a cycle of
invisible forces. The past century was the age of matter. It is said
Darwin, Tyndall, Haeckel and Huxley did a work which had to be done. But
their work was limited to chemical and biological demonstration. It was
science, but science of the old school. The discoveries since made in
the domain of electricity and mental transmission make their discoveries
seem trivial in comparison.
Francis Grierson says: "The discoveries and inventions of the past ten
years have made child's play of every previously known system of
philosophy. The simple but amazing facts disclosed during the past five
years render the dreams, speculations and guesswork of the past absurd.
The little we know in a practical way is more than all the philosophers
of the past knew, from Aristotle to Leibnitz."
I contend that the universe is a vast electric organism. That all light,
heat, and vital force is generated by electric energy in the dense
magnetic atmosphere of suns and planets, where alone it is needed for
animal and vegetable life, and in volcanic pockets or circuits in the
outer crust of these bodies caused by electric repulsion. That the
universe began in extreme cold, not heat, that the suns are not hot, but
are self-luminous, perfected worlds, and like our earth, except greater
and more prolific in life and power. I also contend it is as reasonable
to bury an iron ship in the icebergs of the Arctic seas and expect it to
become "red hot," as to expect the sun, planets or any body traveling
through space 460 degrees colder than those icebergs to become "hot, red
hot or molten," as the astronomers say the sun is. All light, heat,
vital force and physical life is created by contact of opposite
electrical polarities in the magnetic cushion surrounding all suns and
planets.
The sun furnishes the positive electricity and the planet or satellite
the negative, and from these two spring all the cosmic and material
forces of the universe. The electric currents of the sun create induced
magnetic currents on the earth, which evolves all visible substance and
life forms.
The earth at its center is a magnet of crystalline rock and varied
metals, placed layer upon layer as a thermopile or voltaic battery,
which constitutes the solid core of the earth magnet, and draws and
holds all matter and substance atoms and atmosphere close to its
magnetic heart, so that nothing can be thrown off of its vast surface,
though it shoots through space fifty times faster than a bullet from a
rifle and whirls round with the speed of a revolving cylinder of a
dynamo. Its swift duplicate motion makes it a working battery or arc
dynamo of marvelous power. It draws all things to its magnetic center as
the magnetic core of a steel magnet draws filings of iron and other
metals to its magnetic surface, and they cluster there in the same
spherical form.
This earth magnet drew countless meteors, swarms of nebulæ and invisible
matter from surrounding space, and grew in size and magnetic power as a
steel magnet may grow by adding other countless magnets with their
increasing power and growing accretions. For my theory is that every
atom is a tiny magnet, and every molecule, meteor and visible form of
matter is a combination and aggregation of magnets.
Aside from the theory of magnets, this is not far from Lockyer and
Proctor's theory of the stellar formation. Norman Lockyer says: "The
stellar constitution may be explained by supposing it to arise from cool
meteoric swarms represented by the nebulæ and the rise of temperature
due to contraction toward a centre." And he adds: "In the stars we have
celestial furnaces the heat of which transcends that of our most
powerful electric sparks." In this heat theory I think he is radically
wrong. The rise of temperature on the sun and earth, I contend, is not
from contraction, which is both insufficient and too irregular to be
considered. But it did arise from the growth in power and size of the
earth as a great magnet, so that as a great arc dynamo it began to throb
with electric energy, and, by drawing to itself powerful currents from
space and from the sun, the central electric heart of its organism, it
began to generate heat and light in its own environment, which in time
became translucent to the sun's rays, and, instead of the sun and earth
losing their light and heating power, they are steadily increasing them.
It is thus apparent that all light, heat, physical organisms and
vegetable and animal life are evolved and exist only in the magnetic
atmosphere of suns and planets.
The light we see does not come from the sun or stars; it is generated in
our own atmosphere. No man ever saw the sun or stars; they see the rays
of light which photograph them in our atmosphere. They see pictures of
them at the end of the ray emanating from them, but some of these rays
have been two hundred years in reaching us.
It takes light over four years to reach us from the star nearest our
earth, so it is plain we do not see these stars.
As to the heat of the sun, there has been a vast difference of opinion
among scientists. Newton held it to be 1,669,300 degrees hot; Erickson,
2,726,000 degrees hot; Sacchi, 2,000,000 to 6,000,000 degrees; Waterson,
9,000,000 to 10,000,000, and Soret, 5,800,000 degrees hot. But since the
discovery of the law of the conservation of energy, which is only about
a hundred years old, the scientists have been hedging and crawfishing
with wonderful dexterity and reducing it, until now 18,000 to 20,000
degrees are accepted as possibly correct.
As Newton was a great mathematician and the scientists accept him on
other scientific questions, they ought to accept him on the sun's heat,
and acknowledge a fact that ought to be apparent to all--that if heat
comes to the earth from the sun, in a column 93,000,000 miles long and
8,000 miles in diameter through frigid ether 460 degrees colder than
ice, the sun must be millions of degrees hot. Then, as nothing in the
known universe can exist a million or even twenty thousand degrees hot,
they should admit the sun is not hot, and no heat comes from the sun to
the earth. Only electric currents come from the sun, which generate heat
and light in our own atmosphere.
Then arises another question. All bodies lose their magnetic power when
heated to less than one thousand degrees hot. Professor Fleming in his
book, "Magnets and Electric Currents" says: "Magnetic bodies become
changed into feeble magnetic ones by heating to a certain temperature.
Iron at its critical temperature, 690 degrees to 870 degrees or a light
red heat, loses all its strong magnetic qualities. In the same way
nickel loses them at 300 degrees." Thus we have the sun at even 1,000
degrees hot deprived of its magnetic power and unable to control the
solar system. Prof. T. C. Mendenhal, in a recent article in Harper's
Magazine, says: "The electrical resistance of pure metals diminishes at
a rate which indicates that at absolute zero it would vanish and these
metals would become perfect conductors of electricity." Thus cold
increases and heat diminishes the electric energy of metals and all
substances.
In my previous book, The Cities of the Sun, I have given over fifty
reasons why the sun is not hot. Among them I may mention, first, because
of the extreme cold that prevails in the upper atmosphere of the earth,
through which the sun's rays must pass, but whose temperature they
cannot alter. Second, because the sun's rays must traverse 93,000,000
miles of space between sun and earth, which is 460 degrees colder than
ice, which would make it impossible _for them to retain any degree of
heat whatever_. If heat comes from the sun it must come in a column
93,000,000 miles long, 865,000 miles in diameter, converging to 8,000
miles at the earth's surface, which would destroy the sun or any known
body in the universe to furnish such heat. Third, because the perpetual
snow upon the mountains even in the tropics show the sun's rays bring no
heat to the earth, or the snow would be melted by the first and greatest
volume of heat from the sun. Fourth, because if heat came from the sun
there could be no clouds in our atmosphere, for the heat of the sun
would strike them first, and greater heat above the cloud level would
prevent their formation and forever banish them from our skies.
Fifth, because heat by the law of its nature is diffusive, and cannot be
shot from one sun or planet to another, or forced through space like a
leaden ball or other substance, but is soon dissipated in the cold ether
of space. Sixth, the sun is not hot because comets have passed three
hundred thousand miles through the sun's corona without visible change
or injury, which would be impossible if the sun is excessively hot, for
the comet, coming from outer space, must be intensely cold, and
excessive heat in the sun would explode and destroy it. This argument
alone should destroy the hoary headed superstition that the sun is hot.
Seventh, heat does not come from the sun, because there is no such thing
as heat. Heat is simply a sensation; it is not a substance or an entity.
It is a sensation caused by the increased activity of the molecules of
which a body is composed, and, is produced by electric currents. I hold
the sun is not a thermal or heating engine, as the astronomers claim,
but an electric generator which is not hot and does not need to be hot.
I repudiate the law of gravity and adopt electricity as the evolving
force of the universe.
As the sun is 745 times larger than all the planets of the solar system
combined, and controls the life and energy of the solar system by all
laws of analogy and distribution in the universe, it should be more
highly endowed with all the elements of growth, living forms and
intellectual organisms than all the planets combined. Therefore, the sun
should be the spiritual and intellectual center as well as the physical
and electric center of our system of worlds, the headquarters of Deity
and the future abode of man. No life could come from a hot or burning
sun or world, yet all animal and vegetable life comes from the all
life-giving energy of the sun. Heat is not life-giving, it is not even a
substance or a force. Heat does not exist except as a sensation created
by the increased activity of the molecules of which the body is
composed. This increased activity is caused by currents or waves of
electricity passing through a body or substance. Cold is the absence of
heat or lack of motion of the molecules of a body or substance, and,
like heat, is not a reality, a substance or a thing, but only a
sensation.
Heat and cold are produced by electricity, and are sensations resulting
from electrical conditions. Heat is not a creator; electricity is the
creator and heat is its servant, and only one of its thousand-fold
expressions. Electricity creates the activity of the molecules which
gives the sensation of heat. A person standing in the sun on a hot day
receives currents of electricity which were not hot when they left the
sun, but only became so when they came in contact with the earth's
opposite electricity near the earth's surface. These currents produce
the sensation of heat. The sun is not a burning globe, or blazing world
of fire; it is an enormous magnet of measureless power, thirteen hundred
thousand times larger than the earth magnet on which we live. It
revolves on its enormous axis at the rate of four thousand miles an hour
and is thus constituted a working magnet or arc dynamo, drawing electric
energy from its vast electric field, embracing the solar system, six
billions of miles in diameter. Of this electricity, it uses for its own
light, heat, and vital force what it needs, and the balance is thrown
off to its luminous corona or photosphere, where it is shot by the law
of electric repulsion in the sun and electric attraction in the planets
to the earth and plants. The brilliancy of the sun is caused by its
surplus electricity creating a luminous aurora which extends from its
poles to its equator.
Newton discovered an imaginary force. Newton had an imagination which
the scientific plodders who came after him lacked. They have dug in the
dirt, while he sailed through azure seas and linked suns and worlds
together by the mere sweep of the imagination, without any explanation
or conceivable cause, and called it gravity. He might just as well have
called it weight or ponderosity, which means the same as gravity. And
the scientists followed him and accepted his theory of gravity, which
means nothing and explains nothing. It was the best they could do, as he
had an imagination and an idea and they had none. Thus the blind led the
blind for two centuries, until electricity and its invisible forces were
discovered, and a new field for thought and causation was opened up.
Let us suppose that space and the invisible atoms or star dust which
permeate it are seized by electric energy, creating a boundless sea of
invisible electro-magnetism, which began to vibrate to the law of action
and reaction, attraction and repulsion. Under this law every atom became
a tiny magnet, and electric centers are formed which are the foundation
stones and nuclei of growing suns and worlds; and invisible atoms,
nebulæ and finally meteors are drawn by electric energy and woven by
magnetic force or induced electric currents into orderly layers of
crystalline rock and varied metals, forming a vast thermopile, galvanic
battery, working magnet, and electric dynamo all combined. By the law of
electric attraction all matter would tend toward a common center, and in
that common center would be found the vast central magnet-sun, sphere
and dynamo many times larger and more powerful than all the others
combined. As each grew in size their electric potentiality would be
increased, their electric and magnetic attractions multiplied, and their
revolution upon their axis and their orbit motion would be accelerated
to a marvelous extent, giving them measureless force and power.
Herbert Spencer affirms that space is eternal and has always existed. We
will suppose the same of matter in its elemental form, known as the
atom, and we will venture also to assert that force is a substance like
matter, but a thousand times more refined and invisible than the atom,
and we will call it the electric ion, or electron.
Thus we have three indestructible, invisible entities--space, matter and
force--which have existed eternally and which constitute the basic
foundation and fallow ground of primeval chaos, which was the beginning
of the universe. Then stars and planets, suns and worlds were
transparent ether, as impalpable as the viewless air, and scattered as
star-dust in the measureless void of space along the forgotten highways
of the eternities. Silence reigned profound in the pulseless regions of
the air where, motionless and dumb, the atoms hung in dark and lifeless
space. There was nothing in all that seemingly chaotic universe; nothing
but cold, darkness and silence. But these are the home of atoms and
ions, the star dust and cosmic force, creative Deity had scattered by
the breath of His power through the highways of space in the beginning
of primeval creation. While these seem as nothing to man, they are the
foundation stones of all creation.
This nothingness of space was the fallow ground of the universe and the
formless shadow of suns and worlds. It was a universe in solution, as
viewless as ether and as intangible as mind. The electric energy of
space was yet unstirred by the divine fiat or shook into vibrating force
by the word of creative power.
Then at the creative behest, "Let There Be Light," the ions of force,
like an electric clothing of light and life, leaped into power,
permeated all atoms, and wrapped as in swaddling clothes a new-born
universe. Then atoms and ions of electric force met in fond and unending
embrace, substance and energy clasped hands, and matter and persistent
force were woven into each other's arms and saturated with electric
life-giving energy.
The sun magnet, being larger and more powerful than all the others
combined, would hold the others we call planets in the magnetic field of
his sovereign power, and become the electric heart and commanding force
of his system of world magnets. He would draw his electric life and
energy from his vast electric magnetic field embracing his solar system,
which with our sun is six billions of miles in diameter.
As these bodies grew in size under the law of electric attraction,
which draws all matter toward a common center, they would become more
and more compressed, dense and stable, until they attained their natural
equilibrium of balanced forces and assumed their permanent form and
solidity. Then they would assume their normal velocity of revolution on
their axis, and their orbital motion along evenly balanced lines of
force, without friction or change, for countless ages. All suns and
planets revolve on their axis under the law of electro-magnetism by
which electric currents of force pass through their centers at their
poles, and magnetic currents of equal force pass one way around them,
creating their diurnal motion.
This law is briefly stated by a standard work on electricity: "A wire or
any conductor having a current of electricity passing through it has
lines of magnetic force passing one way around it, and the number is in
direct ratio to the quantity of current passing through the wire. This
magnetic effect is strongest close to the wire, and decreases inversely
as the square of the distance." This is a marvelous combination of the
dual forces of electricity, which operates as a wonderful mechanical
contrivance to spin the heavenly orbs on their poles, like a top is spun
by a string or band around it or like the cylinder of a dynamo is
revolved by its leather bands or a water wheel turned by the swift
current of a river. By reason of this law, all suns and planets revolve
on their electric centers at their poles. The great electric currents
from the sun eight thousand miles in diameter and ninety-three million
miles in length, like a mighty, inexhaustible river of force and power,
cause the earth to turn over, as a water-wheel is turned by the swift
current of a river. This vast stream or current of invisible power, when
it starts from the photosphere of the sun, is 865,000 miles in diameter
and is narrowed to a focus of 8,000 miles at the earth's surface, thus
increasing its force and power a thousand-fold. The largest river on the
earth is 180 miles wide at its mouth and about 3,000 miles long, but
what an insignificant rivulet it is in contrast with this vast,
invisible, omnipotent stream of electric life-giving power, constantly
passing to and fro from sun to earth and from earth to sun.
Think of its marvelous speed! While the swiftest current of a river or
the speed of a railroad train is scarcely fifty miles an hour, this
mighty electric tide comes with the speed of light 186,000 miles a
second, or almost 12,000,000 of miles an hour; and it turns the earth
over at the rate of a thousand miles an hour by its lines of magnetic
force, just as the swift tide of a river turns the water-wheel of a
mill. And that the earth may turn more surely and steadily, it has vast
mountain ranges running north and south from its poles, such as the
Andes and the Himalayas on opposite sides of its surface, and other
ranges scattered between, to act as extending flanges and paddles, like
those on a water-wheel, to enable this vast electric tide to turn it
more readily, and, like the brushes on an electric dynamo, to generate
and draw electric currents from earth and sky, and moisture from the
clouds, to bless and fertilize the earth and make it the theatre of
man's life and activities.
Beneath these mountain ranges and in the outer crust of its surface are
many cavities or openings we call volcanoes connected by powerful
currents of magnetism constantly circulating from the equator to the
poles; and when there is an influx of water or other substance
sufficient to generate electric resistance and repulsion, a fuse burns
out in the circuit at that point, the volcano sparks, blazes, explodes
with great force, and shoots its molten lava into the clouds, or, like
Mount Pelee, blows its head off.
Another simple illustration of the universe as a vast electric mechanism
is the electric street-car system in our cities. The sun represents the
great central power house where the electric power is generated.
The planets represent the cars, which revolve on their axis and speed
forward by the same force and in almost the same manner as the planets
revolve on their poles and continue in their orbital lines of force. The
trolley wire and current are the cars' electric line of force and they
come and go in their circuit propelled by the electric generator at the
central power house, in very much the same way as the planets revolve
and come and go on their orbital circuits around the sun by the moving
force and electric power of the sun.
The circuit of the electric current on the car line starts from the
dynamo at the power house and returns along the rails or through the
earth back to the dynamo. In like manner, the vast electric currents of
the sun pass to the earth through the ether without wires and do the
lighting, heating and cosmic life-work, and return to the sun completing
their circuit; and the earth sends its electric currents to the sun and
they return to the earth through the ether in the same manner and
complete their circuit. Thus there are vast highways and boulevards of
electric currents passing from suns to planets and from planets to suns
which are pathways to the stars and the great highways of eternity, on
which invisible atoms, and perhaps invisible human souls, may pass from
earth to suns and central suns. In the future, man will turn the
searchlight of investigation upon electricity as the universal operating
cause of all physical phenomena. He will solve the riddle of the
universe by its subtle invisible forces. He will cease to regard
creation as vast constellations of burning spheres whirling through
frigid ether. He will look upon it with wonder and inspiration as a vast
self-controlling, life-evolving, varied but unchanging unity, a perfect
whole--a vast electric organism of omnipotent power and eternal
existence. He will regard electricity as the finger touch of Deity that
makes the world go round, that marks out the orbits of suns and the
pathway of constellations, and guides them in their mysterious courses
to their eternal and inscrutable destiny.
CHAPTER II
ELECTRICITY PRODUCES ALL THE PHENOMENA OF NATURE
I contend that electricity produces all the phenomena of nature--that it
is the ever active agent in evolving visible forms and substances whose
results are known as laws. Man is the most perfect enfoldment of
nature's electric laws, and the world and the universe are the universal
expression of electric life and energy.
Man and all the visible forms of creation are woven from invisible ether
by electric forces, and, as man's will and thoughts are the governing
force of his electric organism, so simple and universal are the laws of
nature that the will and thoughts of Deity, by electric energy, are the
controlling law and force of the universe, and the ultimate cause
producing all causes, all creations, and all tangible forms.
The natural world is the product of matter, and force and all matter is
one matter represented by the invisible atom, and all physical force is
one force, being the varied manifestations of electric energy. For the
natural world is the spiritual unfoldment made manifest by electric
power.
Therefore all the varied phenomena of nature, the revolution of the
earth on its axis and in its orbit around the sun, the brilliant light
and governing power of the sun, the circling stars, the blazing comet,
the shooting meteor, the gorgeous rainbow, the luminous aurora, and the
dazzling corona are all expressions of electric power. The lightning in
the cloud, the reverberations of thunder, the ebb and flow of the tides,
the wind currents in the air, the swaying of the forest, the variations
of heat and cold, the falling of snow, the rain drop and the dew are all
electric manifestations.
You cannot raise your arm, lift your foot, or move your body except by
electric energy. You cannot see or hear or feel or taste or smell or
exercise any of the functions of the body without bringing to your aid
the electric force which permeates all forms and substance. Electricity
creates the mystery of physical life and provides the food and
sustenance necessary to its growth and development. Electricity works
the miracle of digestion and assimilation and converts inert matter into
blood and bone, tissue and muscle, and organizes man's body into an
electric machine, and runs it as truly and perfectly by electric energy
as the electric motor or generator is run by electricity. Man draws his
electric life currents from the air into the lungs as a great electric
reservoir, there it purifies and energizes the blood and sends it as an
electric fluid and circulating magnetic current through every part of
the body, causing the heart valves to pulsate with measureless force and
the human machine to throb with intense life and power.
The heart throbs and pulse beats of man's body are but the rythmic whir
and vibrations of the human electric machine. Man makes electrical
machines of wood and glass and metal, but nature makes them of flesh
and blood and of all matter and substance. Nature, the all-wise and
mysterious necromancer, makes nothing but electric machines from the
infinitesimal atom to the self-luminous perfected dynamos--the suns and
stars. All things that exist are electric generators or electric
creations of marvelous construction, power and utility; and all
expressions of form and power, all visible objects, and all the varied
phenomena of nature are produced by electric-magnetic energy.
Franklin and Faraday, Harvey, Morse and Edison, by their discoveries
have taught us that as the potter and the clay must come together to
form the rudest vessels, so creative electric force must touch every
sensitive atom in organic being; and keep the wellsprings of life
constantly flowing through all life forms. There is no unfolding of bud
and blossom, tree and shrub, without the coming and going of electric
life-giving sunlight and earth light. They pervade all bodies of matter,
whether world spheres or seed germs, and hold communion with all atomic
centers of sensation in all living organisms. Atoms seek their electric
affinities, life-forces and life-forms touch each other by the grasp of
magnetic attraction and repulsion, and these give personal sensations
and vital forms of being.
Through the medium of electricity, material and mental forces meet
together upon the plane of human consciousness. This is nature's method
of communication between the material and mental within the human brain,
which has been a puzzling and difficult problem of physical science. The
language of the senses is a universal language that has its foundation
in invisible forces.
There is a unity between the light and the eye that indicates their
origin in the same lines of force that now give sight to the brain life.
In the ear, there is evidence that the electric vibratory currents of
force producing sound had a companionship with the electric life-germ in
which the ear had its beginning. So all organs of sense possess
unmistakable evidence of having proceeded out of those electric forces
that are unseen and imponderable. The knowledge of these is the story of
the Garden of Eden, incorporated into the life of every intellectual
being. All the evidence of the senses comes from electric telegrams from
without or within man's physical organism. Seeing and hearing are
wireless telegrams from the ether without, and feeling, smelling,
tasting, are wired telegrams running along the nerves of man's body and
communicating with the brain--the seat of intelligence--and the
reasoning soul.
Man must have a connecting link between his mind and body and the things
about him; and, as that connecting link and medium in man is
electricity, so plain and simple are the laws of nature that God has no
other medium between him and all material creations. Electricity
therefore is both the creative governing energy of Deity over the
universe, and the governing energy of man over all material things. God
controls the universe as man controls his body--by electricity.
Man has five senses: seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling. These
are all communicated to the soul or spiritual body by electricity. Man
feels by the electric flashes that come from every part of his body,
that tingle on his nerves, and beat upon the brain, and touch the
garments of the living soul. He sees through the medium of the electric
etheric waves of light that come from the vibrations of the air around
him. By these swift electric flashes the infinitesimal rays of electric
light enter the retina of the eye and touch the quick vision of the
soul. He hears by the atmospheric waves of electricity that beat upon
his ear drums. He tastes and smells by the same electric process; and
his five senses are but the inward communication of outer surrounding
conditions and substances to his spiritual perception by means of
electricity. Thus the Creative Deity hears and knows, and by the same
forces directs and sustains all things.
Man as an electric engine is far more efficient than any known engine in
which there is a consumption of fuel. In general the amount of work a
man does bears a certain proportion to the fuel he puts into his boiler.
Plants also constitute forms of electric engines to embalm the sun's
rays and use the products rejected by men and animals.
By the radiant energy of the sun, plants are able to decompose carbonic
acid. They form storage cells in which a current of electricity
decomposes the liquid into oxygen and hydrogen and form materials which
again give electricity, motion and heat. The sun enables the plant
engine to work. It also enables the man engine and animal engine, and
world engine to work by furnishing them all with the electric energy and
working power of the universe, that they may do their part in the ever
living forces of cosmic life. The cells of protoplasm are infinitesimal
magnets or electrical machines, all vegetables are but larger magnets,
all animals still larger, till we get to worlds and suns, the greatest
of them all.
All the radiant garments of creation in their varied colors of light and
beauty that now appear to human vision are woven from the same garments
of immortality that wrap themselves around the initial centres of
magnetic attraction.
As the worlds were created by invisible electric forces under the
guidance of the Omnipotent creative spirit, so the same electric forces
are still carrying forward the work of their unfinished structures, and
perfecting the unity and completing the harmony of creation. What we now
call gravity is electric attraction and accretion that was commenced at
the beginning of nature's work of creation, and which continues to be
the occult force that secures the growth of a blade of grass, the
unfolding of the tiniest seed with its inwrapt life-germ and the
development of a world, and which brings us face to face with the
creative force that was the starting point of "the beginning" and will
be the culminating center of all ultimate perfected creation. This
electric life energy touches each growing seed center as at the
beginning it touched each growing world center and reveals the power and
wisdom of creation in every evolving form of life.
The same electric radiate lines that give the parental image in the
mirror by an instantaneous flash of light, give also the parental image
in the germ-life that evolves a new paternity. While we cannot trace the
lines of electrical union that are mingled in this new life, we are
justified in affirming that electric and radiant matter must have
bridged the chasm between the old lives and the new, between parental
duality and the dual forces of electricity that produced a new germinal
individuality. And the new life cannot be possible without the separate
unfolding of two distinct organisms meeting in generative embrace,
imparting a new seed-life. All germ-life has its beginning where
positive and negative magnetic currents blend into unity.
The germinal life and the food supply of plant and animal fix the
boundaries of its being. There can be no evolution of plant life into
animal life. It is not scientific or rational; vegetable, plant and tree
have no independent existence separate from the soil of the earth except
as latent in seed form.
As all material organisms take on their organic form around electric or
magnetic centers drawing their atoms from electrical currents, so all
life-germs take their growth from the magnetic centers of their growing
forms. Here in the field of electric forces is to be found the
generative forces of organic matter--the mysterious births from all
parental life. And the constantly revolving circle of periodic changes
of growth and decay, of life and death, of seed beginning and seed
producing--like sunshine and shadow, light and darkness--are opposite
points in the circle of electric force and physical life. The growing
and dying life-forms intervene between these two points of rest and
renewal, of attraction and repulsion, of positive organism and negative
diffusion of matter.
They are the results of the great electric system of attracting and
repelling currents of magnetism that are as fixed in their lines of
force and order of work as the rocks at the foundations of the
mountains. In fact, all that is strong and abiding in matter rests upon
these currents of energy, and all of life is dependent upon the
constancy and perpetually pulsating flow of the unseen electrical
potencies of creation. Life is a universal unity, as light, heat,
electricity and polarization, which evolve it, are unities. The order of
ascending life organism is from the simple to the complex; from the
lowest plane of rock formation the series is upward; from the lowest
form of vegetable life it is up to the highest, and in the animal life
upward till the crowning work is reached in the thinking animal we call
man, who is more than a thinking animal.
To each ascending form there is an endowment of self-perpetuation by
parentage and seed fruitage, which involve the electro-magnetic
condition of germ life. Thus by electrical forces plants build within
each other and form others by elementary atoms, with power of
self-propagation, bridging the life-gulf between silent atom and living
organism as if they were the material work of some spiritual builder.
Thus by electrical forces nature builds all human and animal life-forms
and organisms. The primary atoms of matter have their home in the
electro-magnetic forces and are evolved from them into the material
organisms of creation. When the electro-magnetic origin of light, heat,
physical life and so-called gravitation is fully accepted and their
dynamic energy traced to its potential body, we have reached the
strength of primary forces and the unending circle of electrical
potencies.
This brings us to the border land of creative work, to the mysterious
sea of all life-giving forces, and the universal basis of all existing
creations.
Here spirit, matter, and electricity--the three great basic entities of
creation--work together in full accord in evolving and fashioning all
material growth and material structures. In natural growth protoplasm
gives the material conditions of life without which there could be no
food supplies.
They contain grouped elements of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon
out of which living structures are reared. Life is dependent upon food
supplies of matter, which supplies must be raised to radiant conditions
by electric forces to secure its assimilation into living organic forms.
Life, therefore, like light, seeks through magnetic action a radiant
plane of matter where it can reveal its working presence. Upon such a
plane all forms of life come to birth from a common parentage--from
electric force and radiant matter, each form endowed with personality,
and powers of reproduction that make them factors of life and growth
upon the radiant plane of creative potencies.
Prof. G. F. Wright of Oberlin says in a recent article: "Evolution does
not solve the mysteries of the universe. It simply pushes them one step
further back. The mystery of the acorn is greater than the mystery of
the oak, for it has compressed in it all the 'power and potency' of the
oak. It is no explanation of a chick to say it is hatched from an egg.
The wonder and the mystery is simply carried back to that infinitesimal
point in the egg which conceals within itself the power of producing the
feathered biped with all its marvelous instincts and adapted organism."
I hold that the infinitesimal point in the egg and the acorn is its
electric center of life-force, or magnetic core, which, under the law of
organic affinity, develops by nutrition and respiration, which are
electric processes, into the chick and the oak. He says: "So, of all the
processes of nature, man's vision sees only the surface. We do not see
causes but only effects. We plant a seed, and all that we see is that
under certain conditions it springs up and produces the blade, then the
ear, and last the full corn in the ear. No one knows how it comes about
that two seeds which look alike under the same conditions produce
different colored flowers and different qualities of fruit. The
beginning of everything is a mystery. If one affirms that things have no
beginning he but increases the mystery. The difficulty with all theories
of evolution is to get a starting point. The time was when philosophers
could speak of the universe as eternal. The geologists fifty years ago
could do so, but the demonstration of the conservation of energy has put
an end to any such easy-going speculation."
All this is well stated and very true, except that by treating all
things as electro-magnets, drawing positive and negative atoms or ions
from air, food and water, we see how by nutrition and accretion animal
and vegetable organism may be evolved by the law of magnetic attraction
and organic affinity. This is the only rational solution and is in
accord with all the processes of nature and with the conservation of
energy. Elsewhere I have endeavored to explain how, by the constant
renewal of matter and electric energy in the sun and in space, the
universe may be eternal and no waste or deterioration occur and, while
always changing, is virtually changeless.
Newton in his theory of gravitation discovered one phase of electric
energy, and his law of gravitation is in reality simply the law of
electrical attraction. But he never knew the cause of it and never
discovered the other and dual phase of electric energy--the law of
electrical repulsion, he never even suspected it. For he held that the
balancing force of gravitation of the other planets kept each planet
from falling into the sun, which it otherwise would have done under the
law of gravitation, which says large bodies attract smaller ones. This
position was untenable, as I have shown in "The Cities of the Sun."
Newton thought that an apple was attracted to the earth because the
earth was larger, and that any larger body would attract a smaller one.
But I hold that size is not what controls attraction; it is electrical
conditions. An amount of substance from the sun would have more
attracting power than the same amount from the earth, because the sun
has more electrical power. A lodestone has more attracting power than
the same amount of ordinary substance. A pound of iron has no attracting
force until it is magnetized; then it will lift many times its weight.
So size, weight, or gravity is no test of attracting power.
I therefore repudiate the law of gravity and adopt electricity, with its
dual force of action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, as the
supreme cosmic evolving force of the universe, creating all light, heat
and life and producing all the varied and wonderful phenomena of nature.
I hold that by the law of electric energy the sun is not a thermal or
heating engine as the astronomers proclaim, but is an electric generator
and is not hot, and that the sun's rays, neither where they originate or
where they act are hot, but they come to the earth as cool currents of
electricity, which generate heat near the earth's surface by coming in
contact with an opposite electricity and the resistance and friction of
its atmosphere. Proof of this is found in the snow-covered peaks of the
tropics and the glaciers of the torrid zone.
I have waited six years for objections to the electric theory of
creation and have found only one recently stated. This first and only
objection is that electricity is a derivative force.
Prof. G. F. Wright, of Oberlin, in an article in the Chicago Record,
Dec., 1902, says: "Many of the speculations concerning the unlimited use
of electricity overlook the fact of its derivative origin. Electricity
is but transformed force. It is not a producer of force but a consumer
of force. It merely directs the force to its specific end. The
electricity which propels and warms the street cars of Buffalo, and
furnishes power to its small factories and illuminates its streets is
merely force diverted from the Falls of Niagara; in other words, it is
transformed gravitation."
True, but gravitation is simply electric attraction, and the electricity
that propels, lights and warms the cars is electric attraction diverted
from the Falls and used on the cars. It is not derivative force, but the
original and only force--electric force transferred from the Falls to
the cars.
But Prof. Wright himself destroys his own argument when he says: "In
other cases the electricity is derived from the heat of consuming coal,
while the coal is the product of the sun's rays, chemically sealed up in
the coal deposits of the early geological ages. Indeed it is easy to see
that all the available force in the world is the product of the sun's
rays." In this we fully agree, for I say the heat of the coal and the
heat of the sun is electricity. The sun's rays, which he says "is all
the available force in the world," is electricity, and the sun is the
great electric heart of the solar system. Thus we differ only in terms.
While he whips electricity around the stump, and says it is a new thing
every time he turns a corner, I say it is the same electricity, without
any change, and proves the oneness of the universe as a vast electric
organism.
Thus our great scientists befog themselves. Now that Langley says there
is only one radiant matter, and light, heat and chemical changes are all
one entity, perhaps he may change his view. I have tried to convince
these crosseyed reasoners that all force is one force and all matter is
one matter, and the scientists are now coming to that conclusion
steadily.
Prof. Wright says again: "The strength and warmth of all animal bodies
is traceable to carbon, and whenever we move a limb or walk, the power
to do it is obtained by the consumption of carbon." Well, I say carbon
is one form of stored electricity. He says: "The ox feeds upon the grass
which is collected or grows through the influence of sunlight," and I
say sunlight is electric currents from the great electric dynamo, the
sun.
He says: "The nebular theory is faulty," and I agree with him. He says:
"Gravitation is an utter mystery that has baffled all scientific
explanation," and I agree with him, and go a step further and affirm
that there is no such thing as gravitation and never was. Newton
discovered one of the dual forces of electricity, which I call universal
electric attraction, and called it gravitation.
He says: "So far as we can see, gravitation acts instantaneously, and
Newton gave up the problem of defining it, and said he had no
explanation except to say God so made it." This is true, but Newton knew
nothing of electricity or his great intellect would likely have
discovered the truth and named and explained it as electric attraction.
Newton discovered an imaginary force, an idea, a dream, "an occult
force," as Leibnitz called it. Newton had an imagination which the
scientific plodders who have come after him lacked. They have dug in the
dirt, while he sailed through azure seas, and linked suns and worlds
together by a mere sweep of the imagination, without any explanation or
conceivable cause, and called it gravity. He might just as well have
called it ponderosity.
Phillip Akinson, in his work on electricity, 1902, asserts that "energy
manifests itself either in masses of matter or in small particles,
called molecules, and thus we have two kinds--mass energy and molecular
energy." But have we two kinds of energy? Mass energy and molecular
energy is the same.
Mass energy is but the aggregation of molecular energy.
Large bodies attract small ones because they possess more electric
energy. Gravity or weight is but another name for aggregate molecular
electric attraction of the earth for everything upon its surface. The
gravity or weight of a man is the pull or force with which the electric
attraction of the earth holds him to its surface. In other words, the
earth is a vast magnet, and man's body is a smaller magnet, and as the
magnetic core of a steel magnet draws all metals towards its magnetic
center, so does the earth magnet draw all things toward its center.
The same author states that, "the earth is a great thermopile generating
electric currents by the difference of potential between its heated and
cooled parts." In this I agree with him, but he only states one of a
thousand ways to generate electric currents.
He says further: "Heat is believed to be a certain mode of molecular
motion, and electricity to be another mode; but the nature of the motion
of each has never been discovered." And I think never will, as long as
the false notion prevails that heat and electricity are modes of motion.
A mode of motion is nonsense, for motion is an effect produced by a
cause--it is not a cause. And all cause of motion is electricity, and
the mode of operation is the law of electro-magnetism.
There is no difference in the law or the mode of operation of electric
currents in a volcano, in a cloud, in the earth, in the sun or planets,
in an electric light, or in a man's body. The same law exists and the
same natural results follow when one lights the gas with a flash of
electricity from his finger, as when a meteor blazes, a comet flares out
in space, or a sun becomes luminous. The same force that man causes to
run along a telegraph wire, or through a telephone circuit, or which
runs a street car line, or is taken by the brushes from a revolving
dynamo, is the same force and operated under the same law or mode of
force as the electric life-giving currents that come from the sun
constantly in an omnipotent tide of power.
Prof. Thomson says: "The earth is generally found to be negatively
electrified, and is insulated in its atmosphere, being in fact a
conductor touched only by air--a strong insulator."
He says further: "The quality of non-resistance to electric force of the
interplanetary ether being considered, the earth, the atmosphere and the
surrounding medium may be regarded as constituting respectively, the
inner coating, the dielectric and the outer coating of a large Leyden
jar charged negatively."
Prof. S. P. Thomson in "Electricity and Magnetism," says: "Gilbert made
the discovery that the compass points north and south because the earth
is also a great magnet. Faraday said: 'All matter is in a magnetic
condition.' Sir Oliver Lodge says: 'The idea that magnetism is a whirl
of electricity is as old as Ampere. Perceiving that a magnet could be
initiated by an electric whirl, he made the hypothesis that an electric
whirl existed in every magnet.'"
Maxwell announced the proposition that electro-magnetic phenomena and
light phenomena have their origin in the same medium and are identical
in nature. Hertz, by actually producing, detecting and controlling
electric waves, caused the discovery of wireless electricity. And it is
by the wonderful wireless telegraphy of light that man is put in
communication with every considerable body in the universe, including
even the invisible. By it the goings on in Sirius and Algol, Orion and
the Pleiades are reported across enormous stretches of millions of
millions of miles of space. And by the vibratory motion of the invisibly
small, all things are revealed; the infinitely little has enabled us to
conquer the inconceivably big. I hold seeing and hearing are the
simplest examples of wireless telegraphy.
Elihu Thomson, the great electrician, says: "Hertz proved that all
luminous phenomena are in essence electrical. Wireless electricity is
the outcome of Hertz's experiments on electric waves, and electrical
conditions and actions are more fundamental than hitherto regarded."
William Ramsey, the distinguished chemist, says: "It is a primary
assumption that atoms of elements or in certain cases groups of atoms
are themselves electrified, and atoms possess positive and negative
poles, and combinations ensue between such oppositely electrified
bodies."
Mr. Francis Grierson, a prominent scientist of London, in a recent
London periodical, says: "So far as we know electricity is the soul of
visible form. What we call brain waves have an analogy to electric
waves. The discoveries and inventions of the last ten years have made
child's play of every previously known system of philosophy. The simple
but amazing facts disclosed during the past five years, render the
dreams, speculations and guesswork of the past absurd. The little we
know in a practical way is more than all the philosophers of the past
knew from Aristotle to Leibnitz."
Prof. Langley, in his address at the 1902 session of the American
Association of Science, stated that, "up to 1872 it was almost
universally believed that there were three different kinds of
energy--actinic, luminous and thermal--represented in the spectrum;" but
he affirmed: "There is only one radiant energy which appears to us as
actinic, luminous or thermal, according to the way we observe it.
"Heat and light are not things in themselves, but different sensations
in our bodies, or different effects in other bodies. They are merely
effects of this mysterious thing we call radiant energy." He thus
sustains my position and the electric theory of creation, which is, that
there is but one universal and ultimate energy which he calls radiant
and I call electric energy, and which are the same thing.
It is said that an Italian physicist wrote in 1843: "Light is merely a
series of colorific indications, sensible to the organs of light, or
vice versa; the radiations of obscure heat are veritable invisible
radiations of light." This Langley, by his elaborate researches, more
refined and complex than all preceding ones, proved to be true. Since so
orthodox a scientist as Langley has proven there is but one energy, the
other scientists may stumble over it awhile and then accept it, because
he is high authority.
Sir Oliver Lodge, in the "Electrical World," of February 21st, 1903,
sustains the electrical theory strongly. He says: "All matter is
electrical in its nature. The difference between one kind of matter and
another lies in the physical and chemical properties of the atoms; but
the difference between the atoms is merely due to the difference of the
electric grouping of the atoms."
He holds that the Thompson corpuscles are all electric. Thomson's
theory is that negative electricity is matter. Lodge holds that all
matter down to the ultimate corpuscle is electricity or electrical
substance. Thus I am sustained by the highest most recent authority.
Prof. E. L. Larkin, of the California University, said recently: "The
earth has a permanent charge of negative electricity, and the atmosphere
is positive. The surface potential is therefore very near zero. This
permits electro-magnetic waves from the sun to act with unabated
energy." Prof. Lucien I. Blake of the Kansas University said in a recent
lecture: "All atoms of matter are charged with electricity. All vital
actions are always connected with electricity."
I could fill a volume with recent statements of scientists showing that
electricity produces all the phenomena of nature, all of which they have
learned in the last few years, while as a pioneer in this field of
thought I have been trying to propagate these electrical theories for
many years.
Every year new facts are discovered showing that electricity is the
cosmic, evolving, ultimate and only force in nature and the universe is
a vast electric machine or organism moved by electric currents of
measureless force and power. The earth revolves around the sun, the sun
gravitates around some siderial center in motion like itself, and
myriads of suns and planets with their countless population move with
many times the velocity of a cannon ball. Stars that seem tranquil and
motionless in the heavens are projected through space with a velocity of
one hundred to two hundred miles per second. The constituent atoms of
our bodies move relatively with as much velocity as the stars in
heaven. Motion--electric energy--reigns everywhere, forms everything,
controls, handles and evolves all suns and planets, all physical life,
substance and organisms in human experience and universal nature.
The electric rays of light from suns and stars of the most distant
constellations dart their beams across the universe, and centuries
after, the impulse of electric energy enters the human eye, and gives
sense and vision to the soul. Thus the dynamic chains of electric light
binds into living unity the realms of matter and mind, "through
measureless amplitudes of space and time."
These electric currents are not only the source of all natural
phenomena, but the sea of electro-magnetism from which they come is the
reservoir of life, which stands back of all the myriad manifestations of
physical existence, and is the great fountain of vitality from which all
life must come.
What is electricity? Tesla says it is "invisible light," Atkins says it
is "molecular motion," Fleming says it is "a spiral twist of the ether,"
but the best definition is given in the Scriptures where it says all
things were made by the "word of His power." It is the word of creative
power.
CHAPTER III
ELECTRICAL CREATION, BRIEFLY STATED. IT SEEMS TO SOLVE THE RIDDLE OF THE
UNIVERSE
As the nebular hypothesis and gravitation explain nothing and show
neither the primary elements nor the primary energy of the universe, we
should go to the dual forces of electricity which do. As we have learned
little more than a name from either, I think it is time to try another
hypothesis. Walking single file in dead men's shoes for two hundred
years is quite long enough.
I am willing to submit the following hypothesis as my conception of
electrical creation and the true theory of the universe.
First--Creation was wrought out by the agency of electrical forces,
operating on invisible elementary matter, controlled by the intellectual
impulse of an infinite power.
Second--These creative cosmic forces, by condensing the suns and planets
into vast magnets revolving in a sea of electro-magnetic forces, evolved
the marvelous machinery of the universe.
Third--This machinery of the universe became self-propelling and
self-sustaining by reason of the laws of motion, growth and evolution
impressed upon it, or by the joint sovereignty of two equal, correlative
forces: magnetism, a form of electricity maintains the sovereignty of
attraction over matter in body, while electricity, another phase of the
same force, maintains the sovereignty of repulsion over matter in space.
Fourth--For these reasons electricity is a universal power joining
together the two kingdoms of the heavens and the earth--of matter in
body and matter in space. And these forces in their unity of harmonious
work can suffer no disturbance equal "to the dust in the balance."
Fifth--These floods of electricity and magnetism affect the least and
the greatest, "directly as to mass, and inversely to the square of the
distance."
Sixth--The sun and planets are vast magnets because they are held in
charge of electro-magnetic forces in an immense magnetic field. These
forces are not from these bodies originally, but these bodies are from
these forces; and these forces antedate all forms of visible matter.
Seventh--The primary state of matter is the diffused etheric, invisible
state, and the building of matter into body is the work of these forces
when in charge of matter under organic affinities. Magnetic lines of
force fix centres and build around such centres by drawing elemental
matter from the radiant sea of space by magnetic energy, into globular
forms that become growing worlds, drawing their power and increase of
form from the sea of invisible matter in which they are fixed by their
axis and orbit lines of motion and force, constituting them working
electro-magnets.
Eighth--These electro-magnetic forces are the eternal cosmic forces of
perpetual motion, ever working by the law of action and reaction,
attraction and repulsion, and evolving world forms and animal and
vegetable forms.
Ninth--The sun having grown from the sea of invisible etheric and
nebulous matter by reason of these wonderful electro-magnetic forces
into an immense magnet, larger than all the lesser magnets or planets of
the solar system combined, holds them in the magnetic field of his
sovereign power, and is, through the flowing currents of electricity,
the creating, governing force in the solar system.
Tenth--These same electric forces are condensed into smaller magnets and
electric organisms or machines, which form electric centres and build up
all tangible forms of matter--human, animal and vegetable. And all
visible matter is but the outer shell and visible garment of these
invisible forces.
Eleventh--Without the floods of electric substance or power that come to
us in the electric currents of the sun that flow in currents of strength
through our bodies as they propel the inflowing and outflowing floods of
atomic elements of matter, that are laden with incoming supplies of
daily life and outgoing wastes, by attraction and repulsion,
assimilation of food, respiration and perspiration, our bodily forms
would perish or be wholly unfit for the dwelling-place of our spirits.
Twelfth--Our five senses--seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling,
feeling--that connect us with the world of matter are entirely dependent
on electricity and the invisible etheric forms of matter that surround
us everywhere and constitute the connecting ties, the invisible
ligaments, that pervade and bind all forms of life in nature's wondrous
harmony.
Thirteenth--The boundless fountain of infinite energy in atoms in body
and atoms through measureless space are superior to any mere sun form or
world form of visible expression of such energy. The floods of radiant
electric energy that enwrap the sun and planets in orbital lines of
omnipotent strength are to these bodies the everlasting fountains from
which flow their upholding and evolving power and the conservation of
force in their transforming energy.
Fourteenth--As all visible forms of matter are built from invisible
elementary atoms, so the most efficient display of electric power finds
its expression and source in the same elementary atoms. The electric
power working in all atoms of matter gathered in planetary form,
saturates such planetary bodies with electric energy, as the steel of
the magnet is saturated with such forces, and reveals in the sun
currents the source of all terrestrial power and organic life.
Fifteenth--The chemists claim to have discovered about seventy different
elemental substances in matter, but they are not primary elementary
substances; they are secondary, and caused by the marvelous electrical
combinations of the two primary elements--atoms and electricity--and are
what Herschel said they looked to be, "manufactured articles."
Sixteenth--The laws of magnetic attraction teach us that positive and
negative polar forces, flowing oppositely between sun and earth,
establish the bond of union between them, and the transmission of
electric energy must be equal between them, and the flow through space
at the low level of latent energy.
These two oppositely flowing floods of electric energy, under the great
law of electro-magnetic attraction, pass through ninety-three million
miles of radiant matter in eight minutes of time and enter the resisting
atmosphere of sun and earth, their currents thrilling with energy at the
high tension of opposite polarities beneath their atmospheric envelope.
Thus the attraction known as gravitation, but which is
electro-magnetism, pours a constant flood of light and heat upon both
sun and planets, and thus the electric light and heat of the sun and
planets evolved from their resisting atmosphere, and the contact of
their positive and negative electricity, become creative potencies,
deriving their vast power from each other, and from their environing
space of virgin, imponderable matter, and thereby give life, motion and
utility to all visible created things.
Thus we find that light, heat and vital force is created by the contact
of the positive and negative electricity in the magnetic atmosphere of
suns and worlds. That the electric affinities in matter proclaim an
electric origin, and the invisible atom as the material basis of all
material life; and by tracing their source to electrical and magnetic
energy, we have reached the foundation upon which is built the eternal
structures of the universe, and the bounds of all creation.
CHAPTER IV
ELECTRICAL CREATION MORE FULLY STATED CONFIRMS SCIENTIFIC EVOLUTION
I contend that electrical creation confirms scientific evolution. In the
beginning the elements assumed form when they came into such a state of
electrical balance as enabled them to move in uniform order. The more
perfect the order the more perfect the form. The crystal is fine proof
of this, for when the elements composing it are all marshaled into
perfect uniformity of action the crystal becomes a perfect structure
well nigh indestructible. This principle of the crystalline formation of
the elements is the basis of world building.
In a small volume entitled "Planetary Evolution," the learned author,
who is too modest to give his name, says: "Atoms are absolute
potentialities, creative rather than created conditions of the elements,
and have the power of inherent energy or life motion. All tests show the
atom remains the inscrutable source of creative power, and the basis of
all chemical activity, and must be the basic principle of world
building, life motion and life energy.
"In all the operations of chemical transmutations no material is lost
and no power wasted, and, by the law of the conservation and correlation
of force, both energy and material must exist as correlatives. This
places the nature of matter upon the same basis as the origin of power.
The transformation of force into material is impossible. Force follows
the laws of motion, and atoms the law of form obedient to the lines of
motion." This is well stated.
This author says further: "The atom has the power to assume form and
create form, and matter and force cannot be transformed into each
other." Then this power or force must come from electricity, the primary
force in nature; and it has power to assume form and create form by
reason of electric energy controlled by spirit intelligence. In
planetary construction the first thing that meets our vision is the
arrangement of the atoms in crystalline formation, which is the
foundation of all planetary structure. The atoms in space continually
change their relative positions and construct world forms and organic
forms of beauty and power. They settle into globular spheres with all
the precision of a trained army or a disciplined mass of life and
energy, forming the crystalline masses that compose the primitive
foundations of the earth.
Polarity has much to do with the phenomena of crystallization. The same
author says: "Polarity is the result of the transverse lines in which
the atoms move previous to their comparative arrest. The planet as a
globe can have only two poles, but the crystal has as many as the lines
of direction in which the moving atoms cross each other's path."
In interstellar space he affirms the atomic relations of the elements
are undisturbed by any power that would tend to divert the atom from its
movement in a straight line; force is transmitted from atom to atom
without any effect upon its motion or change of equilibrium. The power
of transfer is the basic principle of the electric current, and as long
as the direction of the current lies in one of the lines of atomic
motion the current passes without resistance and is imperceptible; but
if it chances to meet in its pathway a line of force passing from atom
to atom in a different direction, there is instantly a neutralization of
motion and the arrest of each atom at the point of crossing which gives
polarity, and the molecule is the result. In space the electric current
is the first form of creative manifestations the atoms assume.
Electricity belongs to the atomic forces, has intimate relations with
organic life, and gives us a key to unlock its mysteries. Electric
energy plays such an important part in cosmic construction that without
some knowledge of its nature it is impossible to explain the processes
which are the basis of world building.
The crystal rock under microscopic examination shows the same beautiful
figures and marvelous lines of arrangement that in winter the new fallen
snow-flakes exhibit, and indicate that the lines of form are essentially
the same that gave the planetary rock its forms of crystalline beauty
and massive structure. And the beautiful snow that falls so gently upon
the wintry lap of earth is one of the best representatives of creative
power acting in the primitive states of formative forces. This tends to
show that the earth began its formative period in extreme cold and not
heat, for the formative lines of shape and force are the same in the
crystal ice and crystalline snowflake as they are in the crystalline
rocks of earth's primary foundations. And they all indicate the lines
of electric energy and magnetic force in atomic activity and molecular
formations, which are the beginning of all visible material creations.
The shaping of the molecules of the so-called cosmic elements by
electric energy into crystalline form is the second great step in world
building. While magnetism (the dual force of electricity) serves to hold
the form-structure in more or less enduring relations, for the magnet
has the power to radiate atomic force in circles and tends to draw the
elements into form and hold them there. The electric force keeps the
atoms always moving; the magnetic force keeps them or would keep them in
atomic balance, or at rest, but electricity keeps magnetism always on
the alert, and between the action of the two, or attraction and
repulsion, all visible forms are evolved and dissolved.
Thus magnetism is the centripetal force, of planetary construction, and
electricity the centrifugal power of planetary changes, and upon these
two depend all the complex varieties of inorganic and organic forms that
exist. And so long as they exist with their powers of atomic motion so
long will world building and form building continue, and must continue
through the æons of creative force.
The magnetic state of the earth, with the pulsating currents of electric
force in the atomic and radiant form, plays a sovereign part in the
economy of nature and makes the planet itself alive with creative force
and evolving power.
To demonstrate electrical power in world building and the shifting
relations of the elements in the planetary combinations, watch the
electric plating battery at work. There you will see the atoms in the
solution flowing towards the negative pole and depositing themselves in
minute crystals upon the metallic surface, if the negative pole is a
metal, and adhering with great pertinacity; the metallic crystals
penetrate the crystalline surface of the substance to be plated in
minute arms filling up the infinitesimal space, and the atoms in this
process transfer their atomic motion in line with the electric force,
and become arrested as in the primitive state when they formed the
crystalline foundations of primitive earth. It will be found that the
power or electric force required to plate one metal is just the same as
to disintegrate it, and the electric force is a great solvent, while the
magnetic force is a concentrating form-moulding world-building power.
And these two forces evenly balanced perpetuate the universe. The
fluidic condition of matter arises from molecular activity before the
atoms have assumed the crystalline state, and all fluids are easily
vaporized to invisible gases.
The primitive planet, in coming from nebula to crystalline form, had to
pass through the fluidic state, because the electric atomic balance had
not yet been acquired sufficient to produce solidity.
In this stage there could be no organic life; but the earth was
enveloped in dense clouds of vapor, and there was no light for many
ages, because the earth's surface was below the electric and atomic rate
that produced light, and the dense gases and vapors floating around it
and between it and the sun prevented the light penetrating its
atmospheric pall of darkness.
But in that darkness and vapor and cosmic convulsions was going forward
the processes of organic construction essential to fit it for the coming
generations of sentient life. Night and darkness ruled, but chaos had no
part, and never ruled in all the cycles of creative power. The direct
currents of electric force and the circular currents of magnetic power
swept through and through earth's molecular structure, ranging the atoms
in all the lines of crystal perfection and spherical form, and laying
the rock-ribbed foundations in geological stratas in the heart and
center of a growing world.
The lines of electro-magnetic force at this period in the planet, with
their circular spiral motion, would shape the world into a globular
spherical form, and the elements in watery solution would almost come
into crystalline firmness, and then an impulse of electrical power would
throw them into restless agitation; and again they would respond to the
grasp of magnetic strength and return to a state of partial arrest near
the crystal condition, and again sway back to the electric primitive
molecular state. But they could not get free from the lines of magnetic
force which held them with giant grasp until they were incorporated into
the foundation rocks of earth's solidifying sphere. And the centre of
our planet became a vast solid crystalline magnet, and was never a fiery
mist or molten substance.
Finally when the crystalline rocks were settled into a crystalline globe
the life-cell was born as the basis of a new condition of planetary
form. And in the dark waters where no light was, organic life under the
law of creative electric energy began its work upon the planet. The
life-cell is the resultant of electric-magnetic action.
During this period of primeval "darkness upon the face of the earth,"
the resistless electric waves of the sun were beating upon the
cloud-enwrapped surface of the planet, but its light had no power to
penetrate its cimmerian gloom. And the earth was sending back its
pulsating magnetic currents to the sun, and both were evolving
themselves into giant dynamos of marvelous electric power--giving and
receiving electric currents of positive and negative polarity of
wonderful life-giving potency. Gradually the earth solidified into a
vast magnet of crystalline rock and metal and like the magnetic core of
a steel magnet of vast extent and power, it drew millions of meteors
from space.
The internal electric forces in volcanic convulsions were upheaving
islands, continents and mountain ranges, rending the rocks and
crystalline strata in the contracting crust of the earth, amid lightning
flashes and resounding crashes of thunder, like the fabled Titans in
primeval battle. It was a contest of the giant forces in their elemental
power baptizing a world in the fires of creative and creating energy.
The planet was shaken by magnetic force and torn and agitated by
electric storms. Gigantic boulders were dislodged from the surface and
ground into powder against each other, making soil for coming vegetation
and marking out the pathway of the rivers and valleys. It was the
adjustment of elemental forces, the night of ages in whose depths and
womb of viewless power conscious life originated by electric energy
under the evolving law of evolution as the will of Creative Deity. And
the mountain ranges following the lines of axial direction of the two
poles upon opposite sides of the planet began to slowly rise above the
surrounding waters, and lifted their mighty crests above a world
floating in surging waters, and darkness, except as it was lit up by
lightning gleams of electric power. It may be that during this stage of
the planet was laid the foundation of all the distinctive types of
life-force, including the cell forms that lay at the basis of living
structure, the plant forms and the living forms of animalcular life that
float in the ocean below and mists above. All of which had their home
and birth in the dense darkness that covered the face of the deep.
It was the formative period of elementary life, and the descendants and
successors of that mighty host of living beings have to this day to lay
the foundations of their being in similar conditions of darkness.
Creative energy in its first stages of living form operates in dense
darkness, and the first life upon the planet began and perfected itself
in the age when midnight gloom enveloped the globe. "The Supreme Power,"
says the author of "Planetary Evolution," "wrought out its purpose with
no eye to discern its workings and no helpless ignorance to dictate what
was needed to make a world." The deep-sea soundings show that life still
exists there without the aid of sunlight and that there is no limit to
the domain of organic life. And the necessity exists even at this age
for darkness during the formative processes of embryonic life.
All microscopic life embodies the essential characteristics of activity
and form that distinguish many of the distinct types of animal and
vegetable life. The mould that gathers upon decaying bread is a great
forest when sufficiently magnified. The wiggling animalculæ in the
stagnant water is but a prototype of the writhing serpent of the
Brazilian forest. In these two types of minute organic being we see the
first stages of life in planetary formation. And the induced electric
energy on the animalculine organism compelled it to both growth and
activity, and, obedient to that principle, it added cell to cell in any
direction that that electric energy in that form sought relief, thus
producing different types of organic structure. The influence of the
pent-up currents of electric energy was destined to have a moulding
power upon the higher types of organic life, for their influence upon
the living form soon became manifest in the construction of
nerve-tissue, which is the basis of all animal structure, and the
beginning of all embryotic form, and is essentially the same in all
organic life.
All attempts of science to formulate a theory of the source of life end
in an abstraction. To teach that life originates in a germ leads to an
analysis that shows the germ is a compound form itself, and one of the
stages of incipient life. The advocate of the cell as the primitive
source of life soon discovers that the cell is the result of chemical
forces that have not yet arrived at the germ state, and that both the
germ and the cell are but successive stages of life development, and we
must go further back into the realm of the invisible electro-magnetic
forces for the true source of physical life. Here the untrained
intellect is bewildered and is unable to discern any relation of force
beyond the physical senses, and science and reasoning causation must
explore the invisible realities, and realms of force beyond the physical
senses, which requires the highest order of mental training. It is in
the mental realm, the realm of spirit and electricity, that we must seek
the solution of all the higher problems of life and destiny.
In the spermatozoa of the male is the first evolution of the organic
life of the planet. It is the electro-chemical combination of elements
in which the primitive cell was formed, and in nature's corresponding
environment it goes steadily forward through all previous stages until
perfected in form, and becomes a miniature production of its parent
structure. It thus unconsciously followed the forces and elements of the
parent organism whereby that parent organism came into being from its
parent, and so on backward for generations and ages. And in order to
perfect the power of sex to the highest degree and preserve the life of
the race, there was a differentiation in the embryonic state, whereby
one organism, the male, became the power to preserve the energy, while
the other, the female, became the environment to perfect the form.
This was no miracle, but a response of the organism to the waves of
electric power in the planet, which at times and conditions would be
more positive or negative in their electric energy. For all the elements
of life and the universe animate and inanimate are sexual, male or
female, positive or negative, in their natural relations.
The higher types of life are almost wholly dependent upon the
arrangement of the cells on a high electric tension, and the early forms
were almost wholly of nerve-tissue structures, and the primitive
animalculæ followed the law of differentiation and were able to
construct muscular fiber and bone formation, and became the fish and
reptiles that inhabited the ancient seas.
The processes of planetary formation are resultants of electrical action
among the elements that form the planet, and here is the true field of
scientific research for the knowledge of causation as expressed through
world construction. To the chemist and electrician belong the task of
explaining the processes of world building as well as the secrets of
life itself, and they must be found in the laws that control the
electro-magnetic ether that permeates all atoms and space.
In the paleozoic age there were surging tides of electric energy through
the planet itself, producing induced currents in all the forming bodies
upon its surface. And these primitive currents swept the cell-formations
into lines parallel with their lines of force the same as
crystallizations, and as they were floating in circumambient water, the
cells took the form of tissue structure, forming organs that followed
the crystalline law of self preservation, and, in response to changing
electric currents, throwing out new cell-structures.
Nerve tissue is the highest form of atomic balance that is visible, and
the true basis of form structure that has vitality to meet the shifting
electric currents. The tiny cells joined themselves to form new
structures to respond to the electric waves, while the lower magnetic
induction of the planet sent its power over the new tissue to hold it in
form so that the organism could be partially permanent in form in its
new environment. In this manner the organism grew and expanded from the
primitive animalcular nerve type to the consolidated, firm tissue that
enabled it to hold itself from dissolution under adverse conditions and
planetary changes. The action of electric force in building secondary
forms with a magnetism of their own is one of the most wonderful
exhibitions of nature.
And now comes a startling result of this type of energy that has called
living organism into being from the lower grades of atomic life. The
cells that have formed themselves around a central point, as in the
crystalline state, begin to quiver and vibrate with a strong rapidity
that defies all power of restraint. In them is to be seen a new relation
of the elements that grade still higher in the scale of atomic action.
They have risen in the power of sensitiveness above the plane of
receptive response to the swaying currents of the earth, and begin to
send out currents of their own. Those currents penetrate the whole
system with strange energy, and the organism begins to respond with new
expressions of power. It moves with reference to the currents that it
creates itself, and we have the first type of creation with a brain
center governing the whole system.
That brain tissue is the result of the action indirect of the electric
energy that is sweeping the planet in ceaseless lines of force and
power. It sends its induced currents upon all the forming host of
animalcular life floating in the dark waters, and some begin to grow
brains.
The cellular structure ranges itself in line with the positive and
negative polarity that made the crystalline form of the world a globe,
and from that living cell-battery go out the currents that control the
form by the inward force that ever after is to witness to the power of
constructive energy to create living beings with sentient power to
regulate and control their own destiny.
Meanwhile the surging tides of electric energy are forcing the
continents upward, and the fish that swim in the paleozoic seas find the
waters receding and himself part of the time on the land or in the mud
and shallows, and the growing organism, from generation to generation
becomes adapted to each condition of life on land and water. Then comes
to pass the raising of the organism from the fish to the reptile by the
influence of electrical induction and change of environment. Then also
comes the growth of plant life, and the marvelous varieties of
vegetation in the form of tree and shrub and grass. Upon the land, half
submerged, the vegetation that had its rootlets in the former ocean bed
grew from sea weeds into rank grasses and ferns, the types of which are
seen to this day in the dense forests and jungles of the tropics.
In the early period of the paleozoic age the molusks, polyps, and marine
plants were evolved without any reference to light whatever and depended
on the sense of feeling to provide for the necessary food supplies to
maintain their organism.
We have in the night-blooming cereus a flower that belonged in that
epoch of the world's evolution when plants flowered and perfected their
seed bearing in the dark. And in the salamander, beaver and hippopotamus
a type of the amphibious animals of the early ages. We have in the bat a
type of animal that flourished in the darkness of earth's formative
period, and in the embryonic period of animal and man we find the
beginning of the life processes in the darkness of the womb, and all
seed of vegetable and plant must be buried in the darkness of earth
before it can bring forth new life.
Every living structure on the planet takes form by the laws of nature's
creative processes; and the secret unfolding of life structure to-day,
however perfect at maturity, is a complete record of all the previous
stages of formative growth in animal life, from the vertebra of the fish
to the contour of the mammal and the man, condensed as to time during
the period of gestation, but following the original lines of formative
structure, power and principle.
This and all growth and evolution is the result of electrical energy
under divine law and spiritual control. Electrical power is the great
agent in arranging molecular compounds into all forms of animal and
plant life as well as crystalline structures and world forms. The
duplicates of plant life with the secondary crystalline forms are found
in limestone caverns of the earth. There, in the dense stillness of
eternal night, many forms that are seen above ground as plants and
flowers are there wrought out in solid stone, as the crystalline
limestone rock has arranged its molecular structure obedient to the same
lines of form as the electric currents in the upper atmosphere follow in
vegetable life.
Thus in the eternal nature of the atom and electric energy with their
inherent potencies the Creator has abundant resources not only to make
this planet, but also the countless worlds of boundless space. And in
the wonders of electrical potency in this planet alone He is constantly
producing results that excite profound gratitude and reverence. At
length when the clouds of darkness faded away and the atmosphere became
translucent, and the glorious light of the sun--the great electric
heart of our system of worlds--shone upon the earth, there was a new
realm of infinite life and expression to lift the world and all organic
life to a higher state of perfection.
While the world, like an enormous battery, had in itself enough energy
to hold the planet in its spherical form and to stimulate to activity
the secondary forms of life, had not the sun come into more vigorous
activity with its electric life-giving energy the earth could not have
gone above the primitive forms of life. With this greater influx of
power from another sphere of causative energy, the dark age of animality
passed and the monstrous types faded out, and in the place of them the
world began to bear a class of beings that could reflect the power and
principles of light and beauty. And under the pulsations of the sun's
electrical and magnetic energy the earth started on its marvelous career
of organic growth and development.
The sun, as an immense electrical reservoir battery, must radiate in all
directions its electric vibratory power over the surging elements in its
own environment and from thence through electric atomic transfer to
bodies in space. So that whenever a body was in direct line with the
magnetic centers of the sun, the arrest of the electric current and
atomic motion coming from the sun's center by another magnetic center,
as the earth or any other planet, would instantly change the rate of the
environment of the planet magnet to a grade of intensity that would give
light and heat. In this manner light, heat and greater vital force was
born upon the earth, when its dark clouds lifted and its atmosphere
became translucent, so that the sun's electric currents could affect
the earth through electric transfer. Thus the influx of external light
upon planetary life was positive and marvelous, introducing a new power
upon the forming organic life in the vegetable and animal world, and
working great changes in all organic structures. And in response to this
new power the eye began to form and a new and distinct organ of sense
was perfected. It was slowly developed at first, for the light radiated
from the sun penetrated the mists of earth dimly, for it was almost
midnight gloom in some sections and dusky twilight in others.
So far I have said nothing of excessive heat, for the earth began in
excessive cold. But as the earth magnet or dynamo increased its electric
power it increased its heat.
We now come to the dawn of instinct or rationality in the primitive
types of life. There we find a basis for the first principles of
instinct or animal rationality in the balancing of one sense by the
exercise of another, and the combined results of the two. Seeing and
feeling gave a higher type of brain power, and raised that organ to a
higher grade of perception and a newer type of intelligence.
Then another faculty added its powers to the sense of sight and feeling,
for the atmosphere in which the reptilian tribes were living half the
time or more were sending out sound waves which touched the nervous
filaments of the central battery of the brain, and as the eye had formed
to respond to the waves of ether caused by the electric currents of the
sun, so a new organ began its formation in response to the incoming
waves of power the atmosphere brought to the brain-cells, and the ear
began to gather in concentric circles around the brain-center, and a new
sense--that of hearing--was formed. Thus there was an additional
increase of the power of perception or instinct. Thus were evolved all
types of animal form and animal instinct. They were the result of
electric energy, sense perception, and long ages of growth, comparison
and environment.
Then came man, the highest type of animal organism. Man may have passed
the successive changes and transmutations of form that the shifting
vibratory rates of the planet responded to in the long period of world
building. He may have attained to the grade of animal activity as a mind
of the highest order in bodily form before he received the spiritual
powers and intellectual force which he has exhibited all along the ages,
after all animal forms had battled with the elements in the struggles to
keep in equilibrium between the surging tides of electrical dispersion
and magnetic concentration. Certain it is man holds his own by virtue of
his steady rise in mental power which has no limit of evolution in the
present stage of physical life and psychic life. And there are no known
boundaries of his power to penetrate all mysteries and explore all
conditions of existence "wherever being has laid foundations, or law is
working out the problems of infinite destiny." Man came as a spiritual
creation.
Many scientists discard the religious or Mosaic concept of a special
creation of man and a divine revelation, and hold that the revelations
of science are the only revelations of God that the world can regard as
reliable.
I cannot agree with them that man was evolved from the animal creation.
I hold he was a special creation, as Moses says he was; but that special
creation was not his body--that may have been evolved from the lowest
forms of animal life through many ages, and is no part of the real man.
It was woven by electric law and energy as an overcoat of atoms for his
earthly habitation. Man's body is not man, but the house in which he
lives for a time, the earthly temple of the soul. Moses affirms this
when he says "God breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a
living soul." It is the breath of God, the atom of Deity, the living
soul that constitutes man, and that was a special creation. This I have
discussed at length in "Invisible Light." I hold no law of evolution
could bridge the gulf between man and the animal creation. The fixity of
brute instinct, and the boundless expansion of mental and psychic force
in man forbid such a conclusion and confirm Moses, who says he was made
lord over the earth and all animal creations. Man has three bodies--a
spiritual, an electric and a physical body. Animals have only two--an
electric and physical body. And both the electric and physical bodies of
men and animals came from the same source and are governed by the same
laws. Animal instinct is not spirit, is not a part of Deity, it cannot
dream of God or heaven, or comprehend the universe or weigh suns and
worlds.
It knows only the electric impulses of the material senses and reasons
from these alone, and, by balancing one sense by another, attains an
experience which in time becomes an automatic habit or force of nature
under the law of its electric organism. It feels all sensations, like
hunger, passion or fear, as an electric impulse on the sensitive
tissues of the brain and responds from natural habit. It does not think,
reason or soar into the boundless fields of ideality. It cannot feel the
spiritual touch of human souls, or the divine impulse of God and love,
of music, poetry, language, art and religion, as does the human soul.
Man is as much above the animal creation as the animal is above the
vegetable and the vegetable above the mineral.
We have seen that the mineral is created by aggregations of atoms
solidified under the law of magnetic attraction and brought to rest by
balanced forces into crystalline form, and thus incorporated into the
foundation elements of the earth magnet. They are simply electric and
atomic forces and atoms balanced and at rest. They have no organic
existence. Vegetable life, which is next above them, have organisms, and
are sun engines breathing in nitrogen and giving out carbonic acid or
oxygen to sustain animal life. The vegetable organism furnishes food for
all animal life.
There can be no evolution of plant life into animal life. It is not
scientific to search for such an irrational order of development.
Vegetable, plant and tree in their organic life structure, never become
animals. They have no independent existence separate from the sun's rays
and the earth's soil except as latent in seed life. Cut off the sun
currents from their leaves and the electric earth currents from their
roots, and they are at once weakened and destroyed.
Animals are a higher order of life which have an independent existence
in atmosphere and water--electric elements--separate from earth dust,
and which evolve and give forth in their own organism the electric
instinct and impulse which controls their own actions and habits.
They have no psychic or intellectual force, and can never be evolved
into human souls or organisms. Man is as far above the animal creation
as the heavens are above the earth. He is not the descendant of a monkey
or any other animal creature except possibly in his bodily organism. He
is a soul and belongs to the Spiritual Kingdom of God.
The scientists say there are three kingdoms in nature--mineral,
vegetable and animal. I say there are four--mineral, vegetable, animal
and man, or the spiritual Kingdom of God. Man is a soul or spiritual
body which is from God and a part of God. He can think, reason, aspire,
analyze, and soar into the psychic realms of the spiritual world and
commune with angels and Deity, and is a spirit monarch of the universe.
And his longing, heaven-bound nature cries out to Deity: "Thou hast made
us for thyself, and our souls are restless till we rest in thee!"
The vegetable has the elements of the mineral, with a material organism
added; the animal has the elements of the mineral and vegetable with a
material organism and an electric body and instinct added. The animal
may possibly live hereafter in his electric body or secondary form. Man
has the elements of the mineral and vegetable, the material body and the
electric body of the animal, and added to all these he has a psychic or
spiritual body, which links him to Deity, and makes him the epitome of
all creation, the child of God and the universe, and the sovereign of
eternal life, love and destiny.
The recent discovery of a man's skull at Lansing, Kansas, found sixty
feet below the earth's surface, under many stratas of rock formation in
the ooze at the bottom of a sea that existed in the glacial period,
shows a cranial or brain development equal to the average man of the
present day. This skull, estimated by scientists to be from thirty to
forty thousand years old, with such a splendid head formation, shows
conclusively that man was never evolved from the animal creation, but is
a separate and superior being above the animal, and lord over all the
animal creation.
This Lansing skull is one of the greatest discoveries of the age and
confirms man's high lineage and ancient residence on this revolving
planet, and supports Moses and the Bible.
Also the recent discoveries in the ruins of Ninevah, Babylon, Nipur, and
other ancient cities of Asia Minor, and also in Egypt, reveal written
leases and other documents eight thousand years old, which show that man
has possessed superior knowledge and intelligence from the earliest
periods of the world's history, and tend to support the biblical theory
that man was a special creation, and not an evolution in his psychic
nature from the lower animals.
Man and human history, while complicating, does not alter the real force
and nature of evolution. While it is said "the history of the world is
the biography of great men," yet if Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon,
Frederick the Great, William the Conqueror and other great men were
eliminated, it would have had little effect in disturbing the steady
onward course of the world's development.
Great men are the images, symbols and instruments taken at random by
the constant and mighty forces of their age and times which stood behind
them and swept them onward in their great careers. They were the pens of
Fate used in her writing, the weather vanes of destiny which turned the
way the currents and tides of invisible forces were blowing.
Humanity of the past and present is not final but progressive. Man's
marvelous discoveries in science, his aesthetic culture and spiritual
growth makes the future of the race the most persistently fascinating
question of the age.
Man is not a mere animal, but is one with Deity, and a part of that
unseen spiritual power which directs the stars in their infinite
courses, gives electric brilliancy to the all-dazzling sun, paints the
dawn and the aurora, colors the gorgeous wings of the butterfly, and
guides insensate matter to do the will of Omnipotence.
CHAPTER V
MAN IS A SOUL CLAD IN AIR, A SPIRIT IN AN ELECTRIC ORGANISM
My claim that man is an electric organism is confirmed by Professor Loeb
and Dr. Mathews in their recent experiments at the Chicago University.
"Electrical charges in the atoms of the bodily tissue are responsible
for all the active phenomena of life. In other words, electricity is the
basis of life." This is the sweeping conclusion with which Dr. Jacques
Loeb amazed the physiologists gathered in their last annual meeting at
the Chicago University.
Hitherto it has been taken for granted by men of science that the food
we eat nourishes us by furnishing the tissues and muscles of the body
with thermo or heat energy. This, according to Professor Loeb, is
totally wrong. Instead of the food furnishing the muscle with heat
energy, it supplies electrical energy, which, after being converted into
mechanical energy, is responsible for all the muscular contractions and
organic processes of living organisms.
He has arrived at this conclusion after many years of intricate and
difficult experiments along the line of reproduction of animals, of
determining the effect of salt on the heart-beat and its rythmic motion,
and on other muscles, and of the destructive processes at work in the
eggs of simple unicellar animals. They have been the means of
determining the answer to the one great question, "What is life?" and he
regards all his previous discoveries subsidiary to this one. He received
his first hint of this new theory of life through the fact that
electricity is able to affect protoplasm in a more universal and
effective way than any other form of stimulus. And he drew the inference
that if electricity is able to affect protoplasm in the form of
currents, it ought to do so in the form of ions, which is an
electrically charged atom or group of atoms.
In experimenting to determine the toxic and antitoxic of ions on
protoplasm, which is the basic substance of all physical life, he
discovered that any one salt will act as a poison on the eggs of a sea
urchin, but by adding one or more, or certain other salts, he found it
was able to counteract the effects of this toxic effect. From which he
concluded that the toxic and antitoxic effect of the salts were due to
the manner in which its atoms are electrically charged.
He found that when a salt whose atoms are positively charged come in
contact with the eggs of the sea urchin, they interfered with the life
processes, while salts whose atoms were negatively charged stimulate
contraction; and the presence of both positively and negatively charged
atoms were necessary, and the phenomena of life is due to the play
between the different charges of electricity in the molecules. The
energy of foodstuffs and motions of the heart and other muscles of the
body are not due to the production of heat, but to the chemical energy
in electrically charged molecules.
He says: "A part of the chemical energy of foodstuffs is transformed
into electric energy, which gives energy to the body. In one experiment
I put a jelly-fish in contact with a solution of electrically charged
substances, and it immediately responded by muscular contraction. I then
put it in a substance that was a non-conductor and there was no
response. In this way I concluded it was the electric charges which
effected the muscular contraction, that a pure salt always acts as a
poison to the egg, and in order not to have toxic effects it is
necessary that the positive and negative electric charges should easily
balance. A muscle is stimulated by electro-negatively charged particles,
and prevented from contracting by electro-positively charged particles.
"I have experimented with eggs of different low forms of animal life,
with single protoplasmic cells, and with muscles. Professor Mathews has
shown that my results hold true for nerves. I took the eggs of the
fundulus and found that after they were fertilized they will develop in
sea water.
"In a sodium-chloride solution I found they will not develop, but by
adding a trace of calcium as many eggs will develop as in the sea water.
This is due to the electrically charged atoms of the calcium. Artificial
parthenogenesis, or life artificially produced, has been of interest
only as it leads me to learn how the electric charges of ions affect
life phenomena. You can bring about parthenogenesis only by positive
ions. I have come to two conclusions: First, rythmical contraction
occurs only in the presence of electrically charged substances. Second,
the efficiency of the charges depends upon the number of the charges or
the different ions. Professor Mathews has arrived at a third conclusion,
which is, that the negatively charged ions are those which stimulate,
and the positively charged ions are those which hinder contraction."
Dr. Loeb's paper created a sensation among the assembled scientists, as
also did that of Professor A. P. Mathews, on "The Nature of the Nerve
Stimulation and Alteration of Irritability." "Dr. Loeb's discoveries
have revolutionized the basic principles of physiology," declared one of
the scientists. "A greater part of the text-books on this subject will
have to be rewritten to accord with the results of these new views of
life phenomena." And Dr. G. N. Stewart, who presided at the meeting,
eulogized Dr. Loeb and said, "He has given us an insight into the
mechanics of living tissue which we never before have had. He has
brought forward the science of electro-physiology, which has hitherto
been despised, but which will now be accorded a respectable position."
Professor Garrett P. Serviss says: "This discovery of Dr. Loeb and Prof.
Mathews comes closer to the solution of the mystery of life than
physiologists have ever before been able to approach, and is so
fundamental and far reaching as to warrant the hope that we shall soon
know what are the conditions and the limits of man's power to prolong
his own life.
"The whole foundation of physiology and medicine may be reconstructed,
and we may find that we possess a control over the phenomena of life
more masterful than anybody has yet dared to dream. Briefly, it has been
discovered that our nerves consist of what is called a colloidal
solution--that is, matter resembling gelatin held in solution in water
before it is jellied, and these colloidal particles in the nerves carry
charges of positive electricity. When the nerve particles pass from the
colloidal condition into the state of gelation, or become jellied, the
nerve experiences a stimulation or becomes active. This is produced by
the action of atoms or ions bearing charges of negative electricity.
"This explains the action of certain chemical substances when introduced
into the human body, some of which tend to quiet the nerves and others
to excite them. The nerve-quieting ions are those that bear charges of
positive electricity, such as atoms of sodium, potassium, calcium and
hydrogen, and tend to keep the colloidal particles of the nerves in a
state of solution, so that the nerves remain inactive. The
nerve-stimulating ions are atoms of such substances as fluorine and
chlorine, which carry charges of negative electricity and cause the
nerve particles to coalesce or become jellied, in which condition the
nerve is active, the degree of activity depending upon the intensity of
the stimulation. Death appears to be the result of the stagnation of the
nerves, and this discovery may enable us to oppose the process that ends
in death."
This throws a flood of light on other obscure problems, and offers an
explanation of the effect of anaesthetics upon the human body. Anything
that tends to keep the nerve particles in a state of solution quiets the
nerves. Now, nerve particles are largely composed of fat, and
anaesthetics dissolve fat. Hence anaesthetics produce the effect of
positively electrified ions, preventing the nerve particles from
coalescing and thus quiets the nerves. The action of whiskey in
arresting the progress of snake poison is explained. The alcohol
counteracts the coagulating tendency and keeps the nerves in a colloidal
condition. It explains many other familiar facts, as why heat tends to
quiet the nerves, and that chemical stimulation is identical with
electrical stimulation, and solves the long standing puzzle of muscular
contractility.
Dr. H. Preston Pratt, an eminent electro-therapeutic expert, says: "Dr.
Loeb's experiments have demonstrated that _electricity is life_--that
the entire human organism is controlled by electrical forces. The
twentieth century will prove electricity and not salt is the real
life-giving principle.
"If this force is taken away, life ends, and, in the same manner, if
this force is supplied the result is the immediate stimulation of the
organic life.
"The necessary elements of life are taken into the body through the air
and food, and the entrance of the essential elements into the blood sets
the human battery into operation, and it continues to operate as long as
the electrical forces are supplied to the blood. _The human body is of
elements the same as a magnet and is built of smaller magnets or
molecules._" This I have contended for many years. He continued: "To
show the connection between human life and electricity, take an ordinary
battery of chloride of ammonia or salammoniac and study its workings.
You will see that by the introduction of the element zinc the electrical
current is found. The zinc is of positive polarity and so is the
ammonia, while the chloride is electro-negative.
"The electro-positive zinc has greater electric affinity for the
chlorine than the ammonia has, and consequently the ammonia is driven
off and combined with chlorine, forming chloride of zinc. The result is
the difference of an electric pull between the elements.
"All admit that the force of elements forms a part of the anatomic
structure, and there must be electricity. When oxygen is taken into a
body it excites the elements in the same manner as the negative chlorine
attacks the zinc in the battery. The electrical circuit of the body is
the circulating blood, and when the oxygen and the nitrogen are taken in
through the lungs the electro-negative ions go in one direction. Sulphur
and oxygen are electro-negative and the other elements of the blood are
electro-positive; and consequently, when the nitrogen and oxygen of the
air attack the blood through the medium of the air cells, we find that
oxygen and sulphur pass in one direction, while the other elements which
are electro-positive pass in the opposite direction. This action is
electrolytic the same as if we apply a battery to the human body."
All this accords with my theory of electrical creation, and proves, as I
have contended for many years, that man's body as well as the universe
is an electric organism.
In my book "The New Cosmogony," published about five years previous to
these discoveries, I laid down the broad proposition that nature or the
Creator has never made but one pattern or type of a thing that exists,
and that is the electro-magnetic. That suns and worlds, man and all
animal and vegetable organisms, are electro-magnets. That electricity
was physical life, and digestion and assimilation of food were purely
electrical processes; while the five senses--seeing, hearing, tasting,
smelling and feeling--were all electrical manifestations, seeing and
hearing being a form of wireless telegraphy.
That the electric combination of positive and negative atoms weaves the
visible structure that envelops the soul. The electric elements from the
lungs and stomach enter into the blood, and set the human battery in
organic operation and create and continue human life. Thus the beginning
of life is an electric process, and the source of life is augmented and
continued by absorbing electric energy from the air we breath, from the
food we eat and water we drink, and not by the so-called thermal or heat
digestive process, but in the same way as we extract electricity from
coal and wood--by a species of electric transformation or combustion,
like feeding a flame from the oxygen of the atmosphere.
The body is not only an electric machine or organism, but the exercise
of every function is an electric process. And the derangement of any
function, which we call sickness or disease, is an electric derangement.
Prof. Loeb and Dr. Mathews have shown how the body is woven of positive
and negative atoms.
Prof. Lucian I. Blake, of the Kansas University, in his lecture, "Atoms
and Their Electric Charges," shows how medicine affects the human body
and how life could be started in an unfertilized egg by inserting an
electric current. This was done by placing the white of the egg in a
vessel containing salt, calcium and water, and turning an electric
current into it. Life in this way can be raised to the fourth stage, he
says.
Another interesting experiment was a comparison of the effect of
electrical charges on the ferments of human blood, yeast, plant and
platinum. The ferments mixed with water were placed in separate vessels,
when the ions of each began to move about, causing bubbles to go to the
top of the vessels. Ether was placed in the different vessels, and then
a few drops of hydrocyanic acid, a deadly poison, were added. The ether,
by having an opposite electrical effect to that of the acid, neutralized
its effect.
So, in the case of all poisons, if it be known whether the electrical
effect is negative or positive to that of the blood ions, an ion
producing an opposite electrical effect will counteract the poison.
Prof. Blake says: "The reason ether prevents the pain of operations is
because it stops the coagulation of the nerves. All atoms of matter are
charged with electricity. All vital actions are always connected with
electricity. All drug effects are brought about by electrical charges
made with the meetings of the ions in the blood and those in the
medicine."
How strongly does Prof. Blake sustain my theory when he says, "All atoms
of matter are charged with electricity. All vital actions are always
connected with electricity." He also shows how medicines affect the
human body, how antidotes neutralize poison, why stimulants arouse
electrical energy, and how narcotics stupify and deaden it.
Electricity, I contend, is the active, energetic and all-pervading
ultimate force in nature, controlled by the still more refined and
ultimate spiritual force. It is the medium and ever-active agent in
evoking all visible forms and substances; the medium which produces all
affinities and repulsions in matter, gyrating from the lowest to the
highest elements and from globe to globe, and constitutes the invisible
controlling element whose results are known as laws. Electricity is the
guardian and executive of the invisible laws of nature. It is the
suspension bridge spanning the darkness and chaos of space between suns
and worlds.
Man is the product of the perfect unfolding of nature's invisible
electric laws, and aggregate atomic elements; and unites within himself
all the elements and forces of the combined and harmonious universe. He
is an epitome of the universe and an atom of deity. His form, like all
visible forms, is only the temporal combination of material substances
woven by invisible electric force out of invisible ether. The thoughts
of man's mind are the governing force of his organism. The thoughts of
the Great Creative Mind constitute the laws of nature and the
controlling force in the electric organism of the universe. Man is a
Soul clad in air.
The results of these thoughts of deity are the vast expanse of the
universe and varied forms of animate and inanimate nature; just as the
result of man's thoughts are the varied structures, temples and works of
art, constructed by him upon the surface of the earth. All things man
creates are the representatives of his thought, the outward expression
of his soul. He creates nothing but what is a living evidence of his
previous thought or concept. All things tangible are the living evidence
of a soul--the invisible soul or spirit of deity and man. All material
things are the forms of God's thoughts or man's thoughts, which is the
interior cause, producing tangible effects. For the natural world is the
spiritual unfoldment made manifest in matter by electric energy. But I
must not consume space by a repetition of these things. What the world
wants is the truth, and we are discovering it at a very rapid rate. And
if these theories are not the truth they are nearer to it than
nine-tenths of the accepted truths of science.
The ancients knew little about their bodies, or the mysterious
operations of physical life. They looked only at effects and the outside
of things, and knew nothing of the invisible forces of nature. They
regarded all the mysteries they could not understand as supernatural, as
outside of nature, and produced by demons, wizards, necromancers, or
their imaginary gods.
Their knowledge of their bodies was as limited as their knowledge of the
universe, which they regarded as a little span of flat earth and bending
sky; and they relied on incantations and prayers to restore the sick,
and on the flight of birds and the entrails of beasts to reveal the
mysteries of the future. They believed in obsession and deemed all sick,
insane and diseased persons as possessed of demon spirits or devils, and
their restoration to health or their right minds was called "the casting
out of devils."
The ancients also believed every evil propensity was the prompting of
some demon spirit that possessed the human body, and that there was as
many devils as there were evil propensities. Mary Magdalene was
possessed of seven devils, and the man who had more evil propensities
than they could enumerate was said to possess a "legion of devils."
But the world is fast outgrowing the ignorance and superstition of the
past and this is a fortunate and happy age in which to live. This is
pre-eminently the age of electricity--of mind and invisible forces--as
the past century was an age of matter. The whole world is feeling the
electric thrill of a new life. New voices call us, new inspirations are
in the air, new thoughts crowd upon the thinking mind. The reasoning
soul catches whispers from the stars and celestial benedictions from the
radiance of the sun. Man is a heaven-bound spirit in an electric body
woven of dust and air, of infinite ether and eternal atoms, sifted
through boundless space, and tossed from suns to worlds; and he is
climbing to loftier spiritual heights and a diviner atmosphere.
The great men of the past had false ideals. They were the ambitious
conquerors, who despoiled their own race and deluged the world in blood.
Their thrones were built on pyramids of human skulls swimming in a sea
of human blood and tears. Their triumphal march was heralded by the
clanking chains of miserable captives, and the wailing cries of widows
and orphans. For many ages human slavery, grinding poverty and abject
misery were the common heritage of the despoiled masses who lived in
hovels, were made food for cannon, or were sold into bondage for debt,
while a few fortunate rulers reveled in luxury and swayed despotic
power. Up to the recent centuries the chief vocations of men were the
soldier and the priest--the one for slaughter and the other to appease
the gods.
But the evolving ages have changed the ideals of the world, and liberty
and justice are no longer a dream; but "Peace hath her victories no less
renowned than war." The time is near at hand when the ideals of men will
be so exalted and their consciences so alive to the demands of love and
justice that no man of wealth can sleep in his luxurious home or feast
on choice viands and know of any human creature or dumb animal suffering
from cold and want without first ministering to their needs. This is the
law of love written in every enlightened heart, as it is written in the
books of the New Testament.
Men are beginning to learn that the greatest thing in this world is not
wealth, with its pomp and pride, though it may bring a thousand
comforts. It is not religion, with its glorious dreams crowned with the
promised beatitudes of heaven, though martyred saints and prophets have
given their lives to confirm its faith and hopes. It is not literature,
with its gems of thought and flowers of divine fancy, which have charmed
and inspired mankind from the days of Homer to those of Shakespeare and
Tennyson. It is not science, with "learning's ample page," though she
has transformed the earth, and produced a Gallileo and a Newton. It is
not the wonders of mechanical genius, though we stand in awe before
their marvels of grandeur and utility. It is not the beauty of inspiring
art that lifts us to the altitudes of aesthetic joy. These are but the
ideals and manifestations of that which is higher and greater, which is
written in the soul of man as in a book.
Man is the greatest thing in this world--ah! in the universe next to
Deity. He is the offspring of Omnipotence, the Child of the Sun, the
inheritor of the universe. All suns and worlds, all life and space are
the playgrounds of his activities. He shall dwell in the home of Deity,
stroll in the garden of the gods, bask in the radiance of central suns,
recline on the daffodil meadows and wander in the elysian fields of
paradise. He is at home in the measureless expanse of all ether and
space.
Wherever an atom vibrates or an electric current thrills, there he is
the monarch of spiritual power, and can command the electric force that
tosses suns upon their course and plays football with the stars. Man is
no worm of the dust, he is the darling of the skies, the ruler of suns,
the cherubim of celestial destiny clad in terrestrial ether and winged
with the spiritual power of Omnipotence.
Who nobly does must nobly think,
The soul that soars can never sink,
And man's a strange connecting link
Between frail dust and Deity.
CHAPTER VI
ELECTRICAL DERANGEMENT OF THE BODILY ORGANISM PRODUCES SICKNESS AND
DEATH
I contend that man's body is an electric machine or organism, and
electricity is its vital force and governing power, and all sickness is
caused by the electrical derangement of the bodily organism. Electricity
is the force which organized the body machine, which runs the body
machine, and whose loss or deficiency cripples and finally destroys it.
Sickness is the impairment of some of the parts or functions of the body
by reason of its failure to get its necessary and natural supply of
electrical energy. This may be caused by an injury to some of its parts
or by lack of proper air, food and nutrition containing the electric
properties required. For air is an electric element from the life-giving
sun, and vegetable food is the embalmed rays of the sun, and animal food
is vegetable food embalmed in animal organism and brought one step
nearer to electrical digestion, and both air and nutriment are necessary
to supply vital electricity to the living organism. And while man can
live without food forty days, he cannot live without air four minutes.
The great force and power which run the human or animal machine is the
vitalizing air we breathe, the electric atmosphere in which "we live,
move and have our being." It is as much a substance as the water in
which the fish swim, though it is transparent to light, while water is
only partially so.
The lungs are the great electric reservoirs of the body and take the
electric current of the sun from the atmosphere as constantly and
naturally as the electric wire takes the current from the battery or the
dynamo.
Then it imparts electric energy to the blood and sends it as an electric
current and fluid coursing through every part of the body, producing
vitalizing life and growth, causing the heart valves to beat and pump
with marvelous power, the pulse to throb, and the whole machine to
pulsate, thrill and whir with electric life and energy.
Flammarion says three-fourths of a man's life energy and nourishment
comes from the air. And Nicola Tesla says the time may come when man may
learn to live on air alone, as do some kinds of vegetable and animal
organisms. Man in time may learn to so mix the elements of the
atmosphere to supply the needs of the body, that he may, by breathing it
into his lungs, obtain all the essential elements to preserve its life
and organism.
The oxygen of the air keeps alive the fire of physical life, and the
body may be compared to a flame fed unceasingly by electric fire from
the sun and atmosphere, according to the laws of electric combustion.
The want of oxygen or this electric energy from the air extinguishes the
flame of life as it extinguishes the flame of a lamp.
The blood could not course through the veins with such marvelous speed
if it were not for the electric energy imparted to it in the electric
reservoir of the lungs; the heart valves could not throb with such
wonderful force or the pulse keep its steady, unceasing beat but for the
electric power imparted by the wireless electricity of the air.
Besides, the electricity of the air passes through and through the pores
of the body at every point, giving additional life and force, and every
angle of the body draws electricity like the point of a lightning rod,
and the legs, the arms, the toes and the fingers with the space between
them, constitute horseshoe magnets of great efficiency.
A man's strength and endurance is measured by the electric atmosphere he
draws into his lungs and the fuel or food he takes into his stomach or
boiler. A man's stomach bears a similar relation to the body that the
boiler and furnace does to the machine, and should be treated in very
much the same way. It should receive only the fuel necessary to its
usefulness, and the ashes and debris should be cleaned out every morning
before building a fresh fire, as is done with every well kept furnace.
The lungs take in pure electricity from the air, while the stomach takes
in compound electric elements, vegetable and animal, and converts them
by the electric process of digestion and assimilation into blood and
bone, nerves and tissue, and the two functions give vitality and growth
to the whole body.
But the electric and controlling center of the bodily machine is the
electric dynamo of the brain, to which is attached the spinal column
with its nerve branches reaching out to all parts of the body, along
which, as on connecting wires, the brain telegraphs its wish and will
and governs the whole organism. Here the mind or soul dominates the
brain and the brain dynamo dominates and controls the body. Through all
the vicissitudes of life, until the final dissolution of the body, the
telegrams from the brain running along the wires of the nerves control
the muscles, the movements and all the varied utilities of the body. In
other words, the mind controls the electricity of the brain, and the
electricity of the brain controls the body.
If you cut a nerve or obstruct the electric current, you cut off the
electric control of the brain, and there is paralysis in the part of the
body where the electric wires are disconnected. Consumption is a disease
caused by a failure of the lungs to draw sufficient electricity from the
air to supply the normal needs of the body. For lack of this electric
energy the whole system becomes enfeebled and finally dissolved.
Indigestion is a failure of the stomach to supply the necessary electric
energy to assimilate the food. And all sickness, aches and pains are
nature crying for electric energy necessary for her to fulfill her
natural offices and functions.
Dr. Jacques Loeb, of the Chicago University, announced on February 22nd,
1903, that he had discovered that muscular and nervous diseases, such as
St. Vitus' dance, paralysis, agitatus, locomotor ataxia and
sleeplessness, can be cured by administering calcium salts because of
their electrical effects.
He says the presence of calcium salts in the muscles prevents their
twitching; that practically all nervous disease are caused by the
absence of the calcium, and "therefore to restore normal conditions and
effect a cure a dose of calcium salts should be administered for its
_electrical_ effects upon the parts affected."
In recent years many persons have been restored to health and strength
by the direct use of electric currents, and many diseases have been
cured by electric appliances.
The necessity for an ample supply of electricity, both positive and
negative, to sustain and preserve the life of the bodily machine is now
acknowledged by all thinking scientists.
We have seen how different kinds of medicine, by furnishing the positive
or negative molecules needed by the body, restore the natural
equilibrium and preserve life and health, and how the failure to obtain
these needed electrical supplies of life-giving energy, either by food
or medicine, results in disease and death. We have seen how toxic and
varied poisons have their antidotes in opposite electrical elements and
molecules, and how stimulants excite and opiates quiet the electric
energy of the body, and it is unnecessary to dwell longer on this
subject. The fact that all sickness and death is caused by the
electrical derangement of the body I think is now so clearly proven and
so generally accepted, that detail and extended argument is unnecessary.
To show that electricity builds up the body. Even at this late period in
the world's history there are instances of nature returning to her
primitive electric crystalline process even to the extent of converting
man's body into stone. Four recent cases are reported in the medical
records of man's flesh gradually turning to stone. One case is reported
from North Judson, Indiana, where Eli Green is turning to stone. His
muscles, skin and flesh are gradually becoming as hard as the bones of
his framework. To the touch he is dead. Only the feeble action of heart,
lungs and stomach and a fertile and active mind give evidence that there
is any life in him whatever.
The physicians declare he is afflicted with a disease that runs its
course in seven years; not a day more or less. Green has already dragged
out his existence over four of these years; only three of his short span
of life remain.
There is a similar case reported of Miss Stella Ewing, the ossified
woman of Rome, New York, and one from Sydney, Australia, where Jacques
Moritz was afflicted with the same terrible malady. Eight years ago
Moritz was seized with sickness that baffled every effort by the
physicians to relieve it. From the patient's feet a numbness began to
creep upward. That was the first sign of the disease. The numbness
steadily ascended, and seven years from the day the malady first
displayed itself the sickness had eaten its way into the patient's brain
and had hardened it into stone exactly as it had hardened the muscles,
flesh and skin of his body. Then death relieved the sufferer. There are
several recent cases of a similar kind just reported in the newspapers.
This shows how easily nature can go back to her primitive electric
process and in the crystalline formations resume her first step in world
building. And humanity is not entirely free from an occasional freak of
nature in thus returning to her first processes of electric growth.
Electricity teaches there is no death or need of a resurrection. That
which lived never dies.
Electricity demonstrates the resurrection not of the physical body, but
rather the continued existence of the real body, which is the electrical
and spiritual body. Electricity proves there is no death. I believe man
has three bodies--first, the physical body, or organic aggregation of
atoms; second, the invisible electric body, which weaves and organizes
the atomic body, sometimes called the astral body; and third, the real
man, the spiritual body or soul, which controls the atomic body by means
of the electric body. These constitute one perfect organism, and in
normal health and condition it is under the almost perfect control of
the mind or spiritual body, which sends forth its behest through the
electric energy of the brain, which is the seat of power having charge
of the electric and atomic body.
Death is the separation of the physical and spiritual bodies. The
physical body goes into the grave and dissolves back into its natural
elements. It fertilizes the soil and appears again in grass and tree and
shrub, and the cattle eat it, and men eat the cattle, and its molecules
enter again into other bodies.
But there is no resurrection for the physical body; it never comes out
of the grave in organic form. The spiritual and electric bodies never
die, never go into the grave. This is the true resurrection--the life
everlasting. It is the invisible and secondary form which does not die,
cannot die, and when once formed is as eternal as the stars.
The spiritual body and the electric form which surrounds it are
incorruptible and start on their journey of endless existence together,
never to be separated or destroyed.
Matter in its elemental form is invisible and eternal; electricity and
spirit are invisible and eternal. Thus when the real man throws off his
overcoat of atoms and steps out of this "mortal coil," he is free from
the limitations of matter and can command the electric energy to go
where destiny points and draws him, which is to the electric and
spiritual center of our planetary system, the self-luminous and
perfected world, the all-life-giving sun.
The oxygen of the air keeps alive the fire of physical life, and the
body may be compared to a flame being fed unceasingly according to the
laws of combustion. A want of oxygen extinguishes the flame of life as
it extinguishes the flame of a lamp.
It is said a human being dies every second. In ten thousand years, two
hundred thousand millions of human bodies have been formed by means of
respiration and alimentation from the earth and atmosphere, and have
returned to them again. They have enriched the earth and entered again
into atmospheric circulation.
The earth is to-day formed in part of the myriads of brains which have
thought and organisms which have lived. We walk over our ancestors as
those who come after us will walk over us. It would be difficult to take
a step upon the planet without walking over the remains of the dead, or
to eat or drink without reabsorbing what has been eaten and drank a
thousand times before, or to breathe without using the same air already
many times used by the dead.
But this is not all there is of humanity. All the souls that have lived
still exist. Souls are the seed of terrestrial population. We have no
reason to affirm that man is formed solely of material atoms and that
the faculty of thinking is only a property of his organization. This is
the mistake of the one-sided physicist. When we analyze matter we find
everywhere the invisible atom. Matter disappears like smoke in the
atmosphere.
Our bodies at death gradually disappear in the same way. If our eyes had
power to see the reality of things they would look through walls formed
of separate molecules, through seemingly solid bodies, which are atomic
vortices. It is with the eye of the spirit that we must see. We cannot
trust to the sole testimony of our senses. There are as many stars above
our head in the daytime as at night.
Nature knows neither astronomy, physics nor chemistry; these are
subjective methods of study. All things are one--the infinitely great
and the infinitely small. Stars and atoms are as one.
"To speak with exactness," says Flammarion, "solidity does not exist. A
heavy ball of iron is composed of atoms which do not touch each other;
its apparent solidity is pure illusion. In scientific analysis it is a
cloud of gnats like those that hover in the air at twilight. Heat this
ball which seems so solid and it will flow like water; heat it still
more, it will evaporate into invisible space without changing its
nature. It will always continue to be iron. In a house, its walls,
floors, carpets and furniture are composed of molecules which do not
touch each other. And these molecules which constitute all matter
revolve around each other."
It is the same thing with our bodies. They are composed of molecules
perpetually rotating around each other, like a flame, constantly
consuming and constantly renewing itself. It is like a river on whose
banks we sit and fancy we see the same water flowing past, but the
current renews each drop perpetually.
Each globule of our blood is a miniature world, and we have five million
in the fraction of a cubic inch, flowing incessantly through our
arteries, flesh and brain, rushing in a vortex of life, as rapid
relatively as that of the celestial bodies, and continually renewing the
molecules of our heart, brain, eyes, nerves and flesh, and every atom of
our bodily organism. And this so rapidly that in a few months our body
is entirely reconstructed. Electricity, the right hand of Deity, does
all this and sustains the earth, the sun and stars of the universe in
infinite space. That which gives man his organism is not his material
part; it is vital, invisible, electric force, and mental power. The body
disintegrates all at once after death, as it disintegrates slowly,
renewing itself perpetually, during life.
In the future there will be no fearful apprehension that the coal
deposits of the world will be exhausted. The waters that now run to
waste, the ever moving tides of the restless sea, the swift wings of the
unused winds that sweep through the tides of the atmosphere will be
harnessed to the car of human progress, and furnish all the energy
needed to supply the vast activities of the world.
The concentrated heating power, latent in every sunbeam, and the
combustible gases hidden in every drop of water will be supplemental
sources of boundless energy for all ages on this wonderful magnetic
planet. All sickness and ailments of the body are the result of the
derangement of the electricity of the body, for which there is a remedy.
The art of longevity will be restored to the human race by supplying
the electric energy necessary to maintain its growth and vigor, renew
its wasted tissue and preserve its organic power. Then the age of
Methuselah may come again in longevity, and the centenarian be in the
boyhood of his race. Man will eat less, enjoy more, and get a
thousand-fold more pleasure out of life, and be better prepared for his
swift translation to the celestial cities of the sun.
In the future he may not eat eleven hundred meals per annum, but a few
mouthfuls of concentrated food daily and an electric supply attachment
adjusted to his body during sleeping hours may renew and rejuvenate his
electric organism. It may be that in the future every residence will
contain a chamber supplied with air and gases containing all the
elements of the body so adjusted as to give it continual life and vigor
by merely breathing in its life-giving elements a few hours each day.
All these things are possible.
Then there will be light and refreshing work of a few hours daily--no
real toil or labor--for the electric devices and pliable machinery,
subject to the will of man and the electric button, will do the work of
the world. Then the soul will be paramount and soar above the grosser
appetites and passions to gather celestial joys in the spirit realm of
earth's diviner life.
This is pre-eminently the age of mind and invisible forces, as the past
century was the age of matter. Francis Grierson says: "So far as we
know, electricity is the soul of form. What we call brain waves have an
analogy to electric waves. We are being ruled by the seemingly
impossible, and the most successful inventors of the present day would
have passed for madmen twenty years ago. The so-called dreamers are now
the men of action who have proven their power and competence, and
thinking people turn to them for more miracles of discovery and
invention. The day is not far distant when science of the mind will
treat material science as a plaything, and the psychic power of
intellect will kill Mammon like the stroke of an electric bolt, and
brute power will succumb to soul force. The thinkers of to-day are as
far removed from the thinkers of 1870 as electricity is from steam. We
know steam is a crude and clumsy thing compared with electricity, and
to-morrow we shall awake to the fact that mind is just as superior to
the crude electric current."
One of the strong desires of mankind is a long life with a cheerful,
vigorous old age. This may be obtained by supplying the necessary
electrical energy either in proper food, or by a direct supply of
electricity. This will prevent the hardening of the cellular tissues
which produces the decrepitude of old age, and help to bless and
lengthen human life.
With the divine powers of mind and electricity working for man the
millennium of a long life and happiness will soon arrive.
CHAPTER VII
ALL LIGHT, HEAT AND LIFE IS EVOLVED ONLY IN THE ATMOSPHERE OF SUNS AND
PLANETS
I contend there is no light, heat or physical life except in the
magnetic atmosphere of suns and planets. That only in this marvelous
electric belt which surrounds the earth, sun and planets is light, heat
and life evolved, for there alone is it needed for animal and vegetable
life.
There is neither light, heat nor physical life in space. Physical life
cannot exist in the cold, dark ether of space, and without life, light
and heat would be not only useless, but as both are sensations of
physical organisms they could have no existence whatever. They only
exist as sensations caused by electric currents passing either to or
through organic bodies. Where those organic bodies do not exist light
and heat do not exist, for nature does no useless, nugatory things.
No physical life can be evolved or exist, except in the electric
atmosphere of suns and planets where the life-giving electric currents
meet and exert their power, and then only by drawing that life as an
electric current from the sun constantly into the lungs every minute. In
this way only is life and growth generated and all physical organisms
created and continued in existence.
Thus all life is preserved and renewed by drawing the wireless
electricity from the air just as the electric wire takes it from the
dynamo. The vital portion of the air we draw into the electric reservoir
of our lungs is simply our daily life drawn each day from the
life-giving sun. This life and all that exist on earth or planets could
not come from a burning globe or a molten sun. It is a superlative
absurdity to think so.
Light, heat and life are the products of electric energy, which is only
called into existence by the contact of positive and negative
electricity in nature's chosen medium--the atmospheric environment of
suns, planets and their satellites. This is nature's chosen theatre for
animal and vegetable life. There is no reason or necessity for light,
heat or animal and vegetable life elsewhere in the universe.
Here upon the surface of suns and planets are the mighty and varied
currents of electric power and magnetic force, weaving forms and
substance from invisible atoms and molecules, under the laws of electric
attraction and organic affinity. In the economy of nature there are no
wasted energies, or useless activities. Light, heat and physical life in
space or transparent ether would be useless and nugatory; therefore
nature ignores such folly in all her fruitful processes.
There may be reflected light, or a fluorescent glow, as in the tail of a
comet or in the nebula of frigid space, but nothing we can truly call
either heat or light can be evolved outside of the atmospheric sheet
surrounding and penetrating the surface of suns, planets and satellites.
We walk on the surface of a revolving magnet and dynamo more perfect in
measureless power and efficiency than any man has ever invented or
dreamed of, and it generates the power which makes light, heat and life
in its own electric environment, where all things "live, move and have
their being." It does not get light and heat from the sun; it gets
electric currents with which it manufactures light and heat.
Prof. Richard Proctor says: "Profs. Bond and Zollner calculated that
Jupiter sends forth more light than he receives from the sun," and he
concludes that, "if this be true, Jupiter must be partially
self-luminous and shines in part by his own light."
This sustains my position that there is no such thing as "borrowed light
from the sun," any more than borrowed heat from the sun. There are
currents of electricity from the sun which burst into light and heat on
the earth and planets when they come in contact with their opposite
electricity.
But each globe in space evolves its own light and heat in its own
environing atmosphere. If Jupiter shines by its own light, then the
earth and planets all shine by their own light, the sun furnishing the
electric power to enable them to do so. I think our moon is no
exception. It evolves the mild silvery light it displays in our midnight
skies from its own attenuated atmosphere, but displays it, like the
planets, only on the side exposed to the direct rays of the sun. The
greater and denser parts of the moon's atmosphere is in the deep and
numerous cavities of its torn and rugged volcanic surface. All planets
and satellites shine by the light evolved in their own atmosphere.
I contend that no reliance can be placed in the spectroscopic evidence
of heat in the sun, or any distant globe. This ought to be apparent when
all light and heat rays can only be translated into photography as a
picture evolved in our own atmosphere. What we see are the electric
colors in the atmosphere of a distant sun or planet.
The spectroscope simply photographs the colors of the elements in
solution composing the atmosphere, just as we photograph the rich colors
of a glowing sunset or a gorgeous rainbow. The evidence of the
spectroscope as to heat has been greatly exaggerated and overestimated
by the scientists, for it can give no evidence of heat. An astronomer
standing on the moon and examining our gorgeous, glowing, crimson
sunsets or aurora through a spectroscope would declare our earth was a
blazing ball of fire. It would seem so to him, and he would have just as
strong evidence as our astronomers have that the sun is hot or a ball of
fire. Our astronomers look at the brilliant colors of the sun's aurora
and make the same mistake.
All the astronomers admit the truth of Prof. Proctor's statement--that
"the heat-giving power of a star is not proportional to the amount of
light it emits." I ask why? And the answer is very plain: Because the
stars and suns have no excessive heat and never had. Recent facts prove
the sun is not hot. Prof. C. G. Abbott of the Smithsonian Institute, in
his observations on the sun's eclipse on May 28th, 1900, says in his
report: "My experiments showed the corona of the sun was actually cooler
than the gray card which had been used at the room temperature."
What our astronomers have taken for fire and evidences of heat is the
rich and glowing rainbow colors of the outer atmosphere of the sun,
produced by infinitesimal atoms of the different metals and substances
of the sun floating in solution in its brilliant aurora, just as the
elements of the earth float in solution in our gorgeous sunsets. The sun
having a larger surplus of electricity than the earth is thereby enabled
to extend its vast aurora from the equator to the poles, and this gives
continuous, varied and beautiful light, with no darkness to its
celestial inhabitants. But the earth, lacking a sufficient surplus of
electricity to extend its aurora from the equator to the poles, must
content itself by displaying its brilliant light and beauty near its
poles, only occasionally extending it half way to the equator. The fact
that the earth creates its own aurora shows it manufactures its own
light. Every flash of lightning in our midnight sky, every blazing
meteor in our atmosphere, prove the earth and planets evolve their own
light and heat.
I agree with Prof. Proctor, when he says: "I adopt the principle of Sir
William Herschell that analogy is the chief and the best guide for the
student of astronomy. General resemblance of structure indicates a
general resemblance in the purpose which the celestial bodies are
intended to subserve." And I contend that all or nearly all suns and
planets are alike in structure and in substance, and are vast inhabited
worlds, governed by the same laws, controlled by the same electric
energy, and possessing varied types of vegetable, animal and
intellectual creations similar to our earth.
It is a universal law of nature that wherever great electric power is
conferred there are creations and results commensurate with that power.
Prof. Garrett P. Serviss, in the New York Journal, July 24th, 1901,
predicted we would have four years of excessive heat on account of the
dark spots on the sun, and many other scientists agreed with him. He
said: "The earth is a satellite of a variable star. The source of
terrible heat is directly in the sun and due to an extraordinary
increase in its effective radiation. The periodic sunspot has thrown
open the furnace door and sent forth the destroying blast which will
continue for four years."
I undertook to answer him and contended that the sun is not variable in
its heating power, and furnishes no more heating power to the earth at
one time than another. That there is no increase in its effective
radiation. That the sun does not furnish heat to the earth at all, and
is not a thermal or heating engine as claimed by the scientists, but is
an electric generator like the earth and does not need to be hot. That
the sun furnishes the electric power and the earth heats itself. In
other words, the sun furnishes powerful currents of electricity which
come in contact with the earth's opposite electricity and the resistance
of its atmosphere, and which are converted into light, heat and vital
force down near the earth's surface.
The electric power furnished by the sun does not vary, but is measured
by the attracting power of the earth as a vast magnet. Therefore all
excess of heat is due to local causes and the uneven distribution of the
sun's electric current on the earth's surface. This unequal distribution
of sun currents, causing excessive heat in the west, was produced by
light rainfall during the previous year, and the harvesting of large
areas in Kansas, Missouri and adjacent territories, thus exposing a dry
soil and preventing the accumulation of moisture necessary to form
clouds. The succeeding summers justified my position and refuted the
predictions of the learned professor and other scientists.
In mentioning these things I mean no disparagement to Prof. Serviss,
whom I hold in high esteem, and only find fault with the old traditions
which he upholds.
I am a friend to all scientists and regard them as earnest workers
seeking the truth. But they follow accepted and antiquated authority too
closely, and thus "the blind lead the blind." They are too often
one-sided and impracticable. Men who study apes and beetles or atoms and
gases all their lives are no judges of angel's faces or of the scope and
design of the universe. Prof. Proctor's testimony that "nine-tenths of
the astronomers employ their powers in making observations at great
pains and labor which are not worth the paper on which they are
recorded," is a plain statement of their tendency to be cranky and
impracticable.
Some are so one-sided they think mathematics is everything. Mathematics
in its place, like the miser, is good to count gains after they are
acquired; but had man relied on mathematics he would have remained as
ignorant of the fundamental truths of the universe as the Blackfoot
Indians. Newton owed none of his discoveries to mathematics. When his
constructive imagination formulated a theory he tried to bolster it up
with mathematics. But it generally proved as delusive as did his
calculation that the sun was 1,669,300 degrees hot.
The great boast of the mathematicians is that Le Verrier calculated
where Neptune was before it was discovered by Galle at Berlin, but the
fact is he missed it eight astronomical units or over seven hundred
millions of miles, and said Neptune was not the planet he was looking
for.
These are two average tests of mathematical calculations, and they are
on a par with the mis-calculations of how much the sun must burn up
annually under the so-called laws of gravity to supply the necessary
heat to the earth and planets.
Imagination--constructive ideality--is the highest gift of Deity to man,
and the only faculty that can reason from the known to the unknown and
comprehend the wonders and grandeur of the universe.
I am not a practical chemist seeking the mysteries of nature in the
laboratory, nor a professional scientist exploring the fields of
original research; but, like La Place, Comte, Herbert Spencer and
others, I formulate my theories and scientific hypotheses from the
latest and best established facts of science as I see it. Science is
only unified or systematic knowledge. Every fact is a scientific fact,
and every truth is a scientific truth whether it pertains to so-called
science or to religion or philosophy. Nature has no subdivisions of
science, religion or philosophy, nor astronomy, chemistry or geology;
but all things are a unity, constituting one harmonious universe; and he
who separates science from religion or either from philosophy goes
contrary to nature and divides the universe into fractions. As I am not
a member of any scientific or religious association, I have no
prejudices to overcome and seek the truth only, without fear, favor or
undue predilections. Old traditions, fossilized theories and antiquated
authority have little weight in my mind by the side of recent facts. But
I am not an iconoclast, for I am more anxious to build up than to tear
down.
The professional scientists may deem such students of nature as myself
who trespass upon their chosen domain as amateurs. If so, it is a proud
distinction. Amateurs have accomplished nearly all the great things in
the world's history. Cromwell was a farmer, Hastings and Clive were
clerks, Bismarck twice failed in his examination to become a lawyer,
Washington was a surveyor and Franklin a printer, Herschell was a
musician, Faraday a bookbinder, Scott a lawyer's clerk, Arkwright, the
inventor of the spinning machine, was a barber; Spinoza a glass-blower,
Herbert Spencer an engineer, Edison a newsboy, and Stephenson, the
inventor of the locomotive, an ordinary workman; Lincoln was a
railsplitter, Grant a tanner, Andrew Johnson a tailor, Andrew Jackson a
saddler, Vanderbilt a ferryman, Rothschild a peddler, Krupp a
blacksmith, Paul a tent-maker, and Christ a carpenter. The names of
distinguished amateurs could be continued indefinitely, but space
forbids.
As I have discussed this question elsewhere and touched on it in other
chapters, extended discussion might cause repetition. Besides, this
volume is not intended for detail or abtruse minutiæ, but for the
statement of leading facts for the masses of intelligent people, who
abhor technical terms and dry details. Many people find scientific books
so dry and unpalatable, that, like the weary listener to the dry, dull
sermon of the missionary, who said:
"If I were a cannibal from Timbuctoo,
I would eat that missionary and his hymnbook too."
Doubtless he thought the hymnbook would be excellent dessert after such
a dry meal; and some readers of scientific works find most any kind of
dessert refreshing after partaking of the mental pabulum of dry
statistics and technical terms to be found in many scientific works.
Our American Indian is never dull or unpoetic in his conception of the
Universe. He sees God in the lightning, hears Him in the thunder; and
according to him the "Milky Way" is the "Path of souls" leading to the
villages in the sun. Along this pathway travel the spirits of the dead,
and the brighter stars are "the campfires for the solitary journey to
the land of the hereafter."
The Japanese term the Milky Way "the silver river of heaven." And the
ancient Greeks considered the blue dome of the sky a crystal globe where
dwelt the Olympian gods.
No science should be dry, and above all astronomy should lift us to
empyrean heights where we may tread among the stars.
CHAPTER VIII
RECENT ELECTRICAL DISCOVERIES AND APPLIANCES, WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY, ETC.
It is said facts are now being discovered and physical theories
developed the ultimate result of which may be the explanation of the
mysterious phenomena presented by the corona of the sun, the tails of
comets, the aurora, terrestrial magnetism and its variations, nebulae
and the zodiacal light. First, these facts are being established in
connection with the pressure exerted by light which was pointed out by
Maxwell and deduced by him from his electro-magnetic theory of light,
which is, that when a pencil of light impinges perpendicularly on an
opaque object, it produces a pressure on the surface of that object.
This pressure is determined by the condition that if the object were set
in motion with the velocity of light and the force against it kept up,
the power to keep up the pressure would be equal to that carried by the
ray of light.
Second, that particles smaller than atoms, called corpuscles or ions,
are thrown off with high velocity from the intensely heated bodies. The
sun, they claim, being such a body, it follows that such ions must be
shot out from it. On this theory it is held that the explanation of a
comet's tail is simple. The comet evaporates on the side next to the sun
and, there being no pressure to hinder its expansion, it begins in
flying off in all directions. It condenses into very minute particles
which, by reason of the impulsion or pressure of the sun's rays, are
thrown in the opposite direction from the sun.
My explanation has been, without all this detail, that it was the same
law of electric repulsion which drove the comet off and prevented it
falling into the sun, which also drove the comet's tail in an opposite
direction from the sun.
This solution of the comet's tail does not solve the greater one of the
repulsion of the comet itself. The pressure of the electric ions or
corpuscles might force the tail away, but a greater electric force from
the sun drives off the comet.
Prof. J. J. Thomson and Arrhenius, a Swedish physicist, have by
experiments discovered and elaborated the manner and principles on which
the ions or corpuscles operate. Arrhenius discovered that these ions
were conductors of electricity and why, and Prof. Thomson discovered
each corpuscle had the same electric charge as an ion of hydrogen, and
that each must be smaller than a hydrogen atom--in fact only a
thousandth part of it.
And here for the first time in the world's history science tells us
there are bodies smaller than an atom--a thousand times smaller than an
atom. We are told an atom is a thousand times smaller than the particles
of invisible air we breath; now we have an ion a thousand times smaller
than the atom. Surely the scientists have at last reached my theory of
the fourth state of matter which I call the electro-magnetic. In fact
these ions or corpuscles may be electricity itself or the atoms of
electricity which science has at last discovered. And streams of these
infinitesimal ions may constitute the swift and invisible currents of
electricity which produce all natural phenomena. Prof. Blake, of the
Kansas University, says: "Crookes called his cathode streams the fourth
form of matter, but first to-day is such a state proven. Now, we must
recognize at the beginning of this twentieth century a new form of
matter. We have to deal with negatively charged particles so small that
they have free paths of motion even among the atoms of substances."
As electric currents have free paths of motion even among the atoms of
matter, these ions or corpuscles must be one form of electricity and
must be both positive and negative, though the negative ions attract the
most attention. I am glad to find science coming to my conclusions as to
the fourth state of matter. But instead of calling it electric ions,
electrons or Thomson corpuscles, it should be named electro-magnetic
ether. It may be that science has at last discovered what electricity
is, and that it consists of these infinitesimal corpuscles. Prof. Blake
says: "These ions or corpuscles shatter into charged gases the molecules
of gases and ionize the gases and make them conductors of electricity;
they raise gases to incandescence and make them light-giving sources;
they form nuclei about which matter will aggregate and condense; they
seem to explain some of the most stupendous and perplexing problems in
cosmic physics--such as the cause of the sun's corona, the spread of the
comet's tail, the source of the meteors, the fantastic play of the
auroras, whence the electric displays of our atmosphere, the after-glow
of the setting sun, and the why of the zodiacal light."
He says the corpuscles seem to be solving the big problems of the
heavens, and adds: "The corpuscles become luminous when impinged upon by
electric waves; and waves of light, which are electro-magnetic
disturbances, must move them, and light will be produced and be
scattered in all directions as if reflected from minute particles of
ordinary matter. This may account for the glow of the nebulae, and the
zodiacal light. These corpuscles, being admitted into the moist air of
our earth, form nuclei of condensation and drops are formed; and the
growth of the high, fleecy clouds finds its beginning around these
corpuscles. They also strike our equatorial region; there they are
influenced by the earth's magnetic forces and deflected towards the
poles, and near the poles they reach gases dense enough to become
luminous by their impact and show the fantastic colorings of the aurora.
"Our atmosphere lies, then, like a great insulating sheet between
conducting layers--the surface of the ocean and the upper air. In the
ether of this intermediate insulating region electric waves may be set
up to be propagated as signals in straight lines in all directions. When
wireless telegraphy first reached out timidly into space, we all said
its currents would leave the earth's surface within a short distance,
for they went out from the earth's surface in straight lines; but as
they extended farther and farther they seemed to bend around the earth
and to follow its curvature. Hertz, who discovered the electric waves
which Marconi now so successfully uses in wireless telegraphy, showed us
in 1887 that conductors reflected these waves, and the ocean's surface
sent them back when they impinged upon it.
"Now, with upper air layers proven conductors, the electric waves must
be deflected from above as well and bent downward to follow the earth's
curvature."
And thus electric signals, silent but all pervading, will before long
circle our globe by their repeated deflections through this great
speaking tube around the earth. The mysterious negative corpuscles, more
minute than our smallest atoms, thus are themselves the very basis of
the practicability of wireless telegraphy, our latest invention. Nay,
more, may not these ions or corpuscles be atoms of electricity, and,
being a thousand times smaller than atoms of matter, impregnate them
with positive and negative force?
Inventors have been endeavoring to send messages over long distances
without wires ever since the first tests were made in 1896. Only
recently Marconi has succeeded in sending them across the Atlantic, two
thousand miles through the air.
The distance to which messages may be transmitted and received depends
on the amount of electric energy employed, the frequency of oscillation
in the radiating system, the length of the electric waves emitted, the
height of the perpendicular wires from the ground, the medium through
which the waves are propagated, the sensitiveness of the coherer or
receiver, and the precision with which the instruments are adjusted.
Long electric waves are radiated to greater distances than shorter ones,
and much depends on the syntonic system, or tuning of the instrument, so
as to communicate with any selected receiver to the exclusion of all
others.
An electric generator supplies the source of electricity for operating
an induction coil to transform the low pressure into an alternating
current of high pressure. This charges the wire suspended from a mast
and the wire leading to the earth to a sufficient potential to cause the
opposite charges of electricity to rush together, thus forming a spark
or disruptive discharge through a small air gap; as a result high
potential currents surge to and fro through the wires hundreds of
thousands of times per second.
These high potential currents radiate electric waves which are
propagated as light waves and spread out in every direction. It is said
the whole process of transmitting and receiving wireless messages is not
unlike to the emission of light and its reception by the retina of the
eye.
The reception of these waves is by means of a vertical wire similar to
that used in transmitting, the difference being the wires at the
terminals are connected with metal filings inclosed in a small glass
tube called the coherer instead of the spark gap. The electric waves
impinge on the elevated wire and are converted into electric
oscillations, which act on the filings, and an auxiliary circuit
registers the impulses on a ribbon of paper in readable Morse dots and
dashes. The higher the vertical or mast wires and the greater the number
of wires, the greater the wave length and the farther the distance
transmitted.
Marconi in his first Atlantic tests employed kites and balloons to carry
the vertical wire so that long electric waves could be obtained. Since
then he has carried his wires on high masts, as at Poldhu, Glace Bay,
and Wellfleet Station. The Marconi companies have equipped six stations
in the United States, five in Hawaii, twenty in Great Britain, one in
Belgium and one in France. There are eighteen ocean steamers, thirty-two
British-men-of-war and several Italian and American warships which have
Marconi installations. Marconi says: "There are thirty-five land
stations, twenty-one liners and eighty-five warships equipped with
Marconi apparatus. Land stations cost $1,000, and ship equipment, $700.
Trans-Atlantic stations cost $100,000 each."
Wireless telegraphy is the most recent miracle of electricity, and shows
it to be the cosmic energy of the universe. Science stumbled upon it.
And in the same way, Sir Wm. Crookes, in a recent interview, says:
"Science may some day stumble upon the soul. Men of science believe more
than they can express, spiritually as well as physically." He will not
prophesy, but said with ominous import: "If you had come to me a hundred
years ago do you think I should have dreamed of foretelling the
telephone? Why, even now I cannot understand it. I use it every day, but
I don't understand it. Think of that little, stretched disk of iron at
the end of a wire repeating not only sounds, but words, and with the
most delicate and illusive inflections of tone which separate one human
voice from another."
Mr. Peter Cooper Hewitt, says the Electrical Review, has invented a new
apparatus which it is said will make a revolution in the method of
sending wireless telegraph messages. The device consists of a glass
globe about ten inches in diameter, having two tubes containing mercury
sealed in the bottom of the vessel.
This apparatus acts, as a powerful and effective interrupter and takes
the place of the spark gap now used in discharging the condensers for
setting up electrical waves. It enables powerful, rapid and continuous
oscillations to be set up in the antenna, or sending mast, used in
transmitting wireless messages, and not only enables messages to be sent
over very great distances with ease, but permits secrecy to be
maintained, which heretofore has been impossible.
The operation of this device depends upon two new phenomena in physics
which Mr. Hewitt has discovered in the course of his researches. The
first is the resistance of the mercury in the apparatus to a passage of
current until a high potential has been applied; the second is the
disappearance of this resistance after this high voltage has been
reached.
The effect of these two phenomena is to permit a condenser to be charged
to a high potential and then, by the disappearance of the resistance of
the interrupter, to discharge it very rapidly. The result of this action
is to set up violent and rapid current impulses in the circuit
containing the condenser, and thence in the sending wire. The current
impulse, being very powerful, will enable messages to be sent to great
distances, and as the number of oscillations per second can be
controlled, this permits of selective signaling. The number of impulses
can be made very high--above a million a second. The device is
inexpensive and durable. It is considered a great contribution to
wireless telegraphy and establishes it on a commercial basis, and
selective signaling is solved and trans-Atlantic transmission will be
easy.
Radium is a rare metal recently discovered, having remarkable qualities
and very difficult to obtain. It is a constituent of pitchblende, which
is found in many places, but only in a small way. So far all that has
been procured has come from a mine in Cornwall. A ton of pitchblende
carries about 15½ grains of radium and it is very difficult to extract.
A grain is estimated to be worth $200,000 and a kilogram is worth about
$2,000,000. There is only about one pound of radium in the world. It is
estimated to be worth $1,000,000.
Radium was discovered by M. and Mme. Curie, in France, after they had
familiarized themselves with the remarkable properties of uranium and
polonium. Radium has many curious and inexplicable qualities. It
continually emits heat and light without combustion, without chemical
changes of any kind, and without any change in its bulk, appearance or
molecular structure, which remains identical after many months.
It is so powerful in the energy it constantly hurls forth as to entail
many dangers in handling it. Sir Wm. Crookes says in describing it:
"Probably if half a kilogram were in a bottle on that table it would
kill us all. It would most certainly destroy our sight and burn our
skins to such an extent we could not survive. The smallest bit placed on
one's arm would produce a blister it would take months to heal." It also
emits electrons with a velocity so great that Prof. Crookes estimates
"one gram is enough to lift the whole of the British navy to the top of
Ben Nevis, and I am not quite certain that we could not throw in the
French fleet as well."
It has such surprising properties that Lord Kelvin was moved to say of
it that, "it threatens to overthrow the correlation of forces," which is
the rock-ribbed, foundation postulate of science. It seems already to
have unsettled the accepted theory of light, and after the experiments
of the Russian scientists who are now investigating it, Profs.
Mendelief, Yigooff and Borgruan, the result may give us new scientific
theories and a new nomenclature.
Radium tends to confirm my electric theory of creation, it also seems to
aid the Thomson corpuscles hypothesis, and will open the way to new and
important discoveries.
My opinion from very brief thought on the subject is that radium is in
its nature a form of electric energy solidified, and may be a bundle of
Thomson corpuscles or electrons combined and solidified by some process
not yet understood. It is in the nature of an electric dynamo, and draws
its constant supply of electricity from the air. It is plain that it is
an electric substance and manifestation, for, as Prof. Crookes says, "it
emits electrons with a velocity so great one gram would lift the British
navy to the top of a mountain, and he is even willing to throw in the
French fleet." If he were not a great scientist, I should say he was
exaggerating like an amateur. Radium is at present a great scientific
puzzle. It seems to destroy the present theory of light and the
conservation of energy and the so-called attraction of gravitation by
reason of its marvelous energy and wonderful qualities.
But I stand with the scientists on the doctrine of the conservation of
energy and the correlation of forces, and do not believe radium
seriously threatens it, though Lord Kelvin had much reason to say so;
and it is a puzzle yet unsolved as to how it maintains its energy
without diminution of its force and bulk. I see but one explanation, and
that is, that it renews itself constantly by drawing electric energy
from the air, as a battery or dynamo draws it, and thus retains its
marvelous power unimpaired.
I hold that energy, like matter, is a substance and can neither be
created nor destroyed. It is impossible to create a molecule out of
nothing or to reduce a single particle of energy to nothing. Energy,
like matter, can be changed from one form to another or from one place
to another, but all matter is one matter in its elemental form, and all
energy is from one original energy, which I hold to be electricity. All
matter is the aggregate manifestations of the invisible atom, and all
energy is the varied manifestations of the one ultimate and only force
in nature--electricity.
The transformation of energy, such as falling water, expanding steam,
heat, light, vital force, and so-called gravitation, are all from the
same electric elemental force, and this energy is without increase or
decrease and is known as the conservation of energy. The definition
given of electricity by Atkins in his work on electricity, which says,
"it is a molecular mode of motion," is an absurdity, for motion is an
effect produced by a cause, and all motion is caused by electric energy.
And the mode of motion is simply the manner in which the law of
electro-magnetism operates. Thus there may be an electric law yet
undiscovered by which a substance like radium may draw electric energy
from the air and keep its force and bulk unimpaired for many months, or
perpetually.
But radium raises many other questions affecting the nature of light and
heat, such as how such great heat and light can be condensed into so
small a compass and evolved with such wonderful power.
Prospecting for valuable metals by electricity has been recently
introduced in Wales with remarkable success. In the Cwnystwyth mines in
Cornwall new and valuable deposits of ore and blende were located. These
mines have been worked for over fifteen hundred years, and much of this
time the search for additional lodes has been going on; yet this
electrical device accomplished in a few hours what fifteen centuries of
search failed to discover.
By the electric method of prospecting a current of high
potential--30,000 volts or more--is employed to energize a piece of
ground supposed to contain mineral. The current is taken from the
terminals of the generating coil to metal rods or electrodes which are
pushed an inch or two into the earth. From these distributers the lines
of force spread out in both vertical and horizontal planes and may be
made to extend over an area of several miles.
Their presence is detected by means of a delicate telephonic receiver
connected with a second pair of metallic rods, which are stuck into the
earth in any desired position. When the receiver is silent or gives only
faint sounds, it indicates that the lines of force are deflected from
their normal course. This reveals the presence of metallic masses in the
earth, and, by moving the electrodes about, the position and area of an
ore deposit may be determined with considerable accuracy. In new and
unknown ground the operator would place his distributing electrodes
about 200 yards apart, and remove his receiving instrument to a distance
of half a mile or more. If his general knowledge of geological formation
led him to believe that the metallic veins, if there were any, would run
generally north and south, he would place his electrodes east and west,
and if he found the electrical distribution normal he might conclude
that the ground contained no mineral.
This remarkable electrical system for detecting the mineral deposits
beneath the surface of the earth will doubtless be tested and perfected
until man will be able without digging into the earth to ascertain the
mineral deposits at any point beneath its surface. It may not always
determine if they may be profitably worked, but in many mining regions
it will be a blessing, and save much unprofitable work and sad
disappointment.
Electrically heated cooking and laundry apparatus is now used in Germany
and other countries. And there are farms on large German estates which
are run by electricity. The Guednau farm in Eastern Prussia consists of
450 acres, and its dairy handles one thousand gallons of milk daily. It
is lighted by electricity, has an electrical churn and feed-cutting
machine, water-pumping apparatus, incandescent lamps, threshing and
grist mills, saw mill, automatic plough and electrical agricultural
machines, all run by charged batteries and a fifty-horse power
stationery engine moving two dynamos. Thus farming is made attractive
and free from drudgery, and is run like a machine by the electric
current. Electricity is used not only to run some farms, but also to
hasten and increase the growth of farm products by running wires a few
inches beneath the surface to energize the soil.
The Commercial Cable Company announce that their ocean cable connections
will be complete with Manila, in the Philippines, by the 4th of July of
this year, 1903, and that on that day they will telegraph around the
world in forty seconds. What a miracle of wonders! Fifty years ago the
speediest communication from point to point was by swift horsemen making
fifty miles a day. Now the round earth's antipodes is only forty seconds
apart by reason of electric appliances.
So wonderful has been the growth of electrical appliances and utilities
that Prof. H. B. Shaw, of the Missouri University, in a recent lecture,
said: "In twenty years the electric light industry has developed from
nothing to the manufacture of over 100,000 incandescent lamps per day.
Ninety-five per cent. of the street railways in this country are
electrically operated. Yet this industry was cradled in Kansas City,
Mo., only about twenty years ago."
This was when I first had my attention drawn to electricity, for I saw
the building of that line on East Fifth street, in that city. That and
the lighting of the gas by an electric flash from a human body caused
me to investigate electric phenomena and formulate the electric theory
of creation.
Prof. Shaw said: "The latest development in long distance power is in
California, where ten thousand horse power is transmitted two hundred
miles from where it is generated with a loss of only ten per cent. of
power in the line. Ten thousand horse power is sufficient to raise a
million tons two inches per minute."
What a miracle that such power can pass along a wire no larger than a
child's finger, and exert such force two hundred miles from where it is
generated! Nothing but the invisible creative cosmic force of the
universe could accomplish such a seeming miracle.
But some scientists are so irrational as to say this force is merely the
pressure, twist or whirl of the ether, when it is plain that if the
ether were as rigid as steel it could not exert such force and power.
And as to it being a derivative force derived from the coal, wood or
sun, it is plain it is the same force and the original, ultimate,
creating evolving and only force in the physical universe.
There has been much labor and money expended in endeavoring to perfect a
balloon or airship, which would be safe and could be directed through
the air at will in any course desired. Electricity has been used as the
steering power and aluminum, because of its light weight, for the
frame-work. The French especially have given great attention to what
they call the dirigible balloon, but no great amount of success has been
achieved and, in my opinion, never will.
In the very nature of things, no safe airship can ever be built. It was
not intended that man should travel or carry burdens through the upper
regions of the air. First, because the law of the earth's electric
attraction forbids it. Second, because the sudden and powerful wind and
electric currents that pervade the upper regions of the atmosphere are
sure to bring ruin and death, sooner or later, and no human power can
prevent it.
The balloon or airship is only a dangerous toy which can be useful
perhaps in times of war to spy out the enemy, but utterly useless
otherwise, and which means death in a very short time to all who risk
their lives in its treacherous power.
There have been two recent and striking examples of this in the case of
the two distinguished experts in Paris who thought they had built
airships that could overcome the powers of nature, and while proudly
exhibiting them to their family and friends were hurled to a sudden and
fearful death.
The many deaths and narrow escapes from these useless and dangerous toys
make it almost certain that no sane man would risk his life in one of
them, though there were a thousand at his command free of expense.
Of all the useless follies on which inventive genius and money have been
expended, the airship is the worst, because if millions of the most
perfect ones the imagination of man can conceive were built and offered
free, no prudent man would risk his life or his goods in their
treacherous care. The powers of nature, and what the ancients called the
demons of the air, forbid that the airship should ever be anything more
than a dangerous toy for reckless persons, who wish to jeopardize their
lives.
Great efforts have been made, much money expended and many lives lost in
futile attempts to find the North Pole, which when discovered may appear
like any other ice field, mountain glacier, or snowdrift of the Arctic
Circle. But the thirst for knowledge and the love of adventure and
exploration where no financial reward can be expected is creditable to
humanity, and shows that the love of knowledge is sometimes above that
of sordid gain. The struggle for two centuries has been to reach the
North Pole, and it has been approached as near as 700 miles; but recent
reports indicate that conditions are more favorable for reaching the
South Pole; and a French expedition outfitted this year for the North
Pole have changed their destination to the South Pole. One or both poles
are likely to be discovered in a few years.
There have been many scientific expeditions to various parts of our
globe for astronomical observations. One recently sent to Chili from the
Lick Observatory should command especial interest since its object is by
the study of the southern stars to ascertain where the earth and the
solar system is going. We know our sun system is moving swiftly towards
the north, in the direction of the stars Vega or Alpha Lyra, at the rate
of more than forty-three thousand miles an hour. Each year we are more
than three hundred million miles nearer these stars, unless they also
are in motion in the same direction. The southern stars have been
studied much less than the northern stars, and the testimony of both is
desired to determine the direction of the mysterious voyage of the sun
and its family of worlds through the unexplored regions of space.
We have been watching the stars in front of us for many years, and will
now give some attention to the stars in our rear to confirm or disprove
many astronomical hypotheses.
It is like getting back to anti-Copernican times to have Dr. Alfred
Russell Wallace, in his flights of speculative astronomy, say that, "our
solar system is central in the universe and that this earth of ours is
probably the only planet on which humanity has been developed." In a
recent article he undertakes to establish this ancient fallacy. It is
very doubtful whether the universe has a general center, but if it has
it should be plain to our learned astronomer that as our system is
moving through space in a straight line at the rate of 420,000 miles per
day it could not occupy a central position very long. The only means we
have to judge of the inhabitability of other worlds is by analogy, which
is the foundation of all scientific hypotheses. The likeness in form,
substance and electric power of suns and planets to our own world leads
to the natural conclusion that all suns and worlds are inhabitated. In
fact any other assumption is contrary to all cosmological reasoning and
all analogy to be found in universal nature. Nature nowhere bestows vast
substance and power without commensurate results of life and growth, and
it is reversing all the laws of reason, analogy and cosmic experience to
hold to the contrary. We must give up this egotistic assumption that our
little world is the only living world in this vast universe, or that it
is only one of a few living worlds.
There are no dead worlds or planets or burning suns in this electric
universe, and we are not "the only pebble on the boundless beach" of
creative worlds. We have the same electric fire in our bodies that is in
the sun, and it neither burns us nor causes us to shrink up annually, as
the scientists say the sun does. It is not the consumer of life, but the
giver of life, and the continual life energy of the universe.
During a recent eclipse of the moon, Prof. W. H. Pickering, of Harvard
Observatory, ascertained that the bright spot around the crater Linne on
the surface of the moon grows considerably larger when deprived of the
heat of the sun. For many years it has been noticed that the Linne area
has been gradually changing and many theories regarding the causes have
been advanced.
Prof. Pickering is inclined to the belief that it is hoar frost or ice.
This tends to confirm my theory that the moon has an atmosphere and some
moisture which is mostly hidden in its perforated volcanic surface.
Alexander Young, an astronomer of Laport, Ind., announced on February
20th, 1903, that, "from observations made by him, he is confident that
the sun is inhabited; that with his instruments he has seen on the sun's
surface mountain sides with great and precipitous rocks which glow with
prismatic colors, mingled with the greenness of perennial vegetation."
I was not expecting this scientific proof so soon, but I am satisfied
that the inhabitants, the mountains and the perennial vegetation are
there; and if he has succeeded in magnifying the rays of light from the
vast openings in the sun's photosphere sufficiently he can and did see
them.
I am a firm believer in the inhabitability of the sun, and that it is a
perfected, self-luminous world--a world like our world, only vastly
larger and more prolific in life and power. As it is the source of all
life and power to the planets, it must be the creator of all life to its
celestial inhabitants.
Profs. Proctor and Herschell seem to believe that most of the heavenly
bodies are inhabited. Sir Wm. Herschell went so far as to contend for a
time that the sun was inhabited or inhabitable because, he said, the
heat of the sun was in its photosphere, which was far out in space and
many miles from the sun's surface, and that there were cool clouds and
layers of atmosphere, he thought, between the heat and the sun's surface
which made the body of the sun cool enough for animal and vegetable life
and human habitation. He changed his mind, however, in a few years and
held the heat of the sun was too hot to allow anything in nature to keep
such excessive heat from its surface, and besides, the law of the
conservation of forces just coming into scientific prominence then
forbid it.
Prof. Proctor, says: "I adopt the principle of Sir Wm. Herschell that
analogy is the chief and the best guide for the student of astronomy.
That general resemblance of structure indicates a general resemblance in
the purpose which the celestial bodies are intended to subserve is
evident when we compare the stars with our sun or with each other. Some
time or other those worlds have been or will be the abode of intelligent
creatures seems to be a fair conclusion from what we know of their
structure."
Deity does no irrational things, nature is always logical and
consistent, and where there is such vast resources of substance and
power bestowed, as in our sun and the eighteen millions of suns of the
universe, it was not for the purpose of making bonfires and blazing
furnaces of them. But they were created for vaster, more perfect
theatres of intelligent life and activities. Besides, burning them up
could bestow no benefit on the planets; the heat could not reach them,
and if it could it is only a sensation, and sensation cannot produce
vegetable or animal life, or control the earth's motion.
One of the greatest of modern discoveries is that heat is not a
substance but a sensation, produced by electric currents. So that
eighteen millions to one hundred millions of suns do not need to be
burning up to furnish electric currents to their planetary worlds. And
our sun is not burning up thirty quintillions cubic feet of itself
annually, and a hundred millions of suns many a thousand times larger
than ours are not burning up a thousand times more of themselves, as the
astronomers claim, and the whole thing is a great absurdity and
superstition.
CHAPTER IX
AT PRESENT SCIENCE IS IN A DUBIOUS AND CHAOTIC CONDITION
The last few years have been remarkable for the diligence with which
scientists have scrutinized every phenomena of nature, and the abundance
of new facts which have rewarded their researches.
They have also been remarkable for the changes in scientific opinions,
which usually are so gradual as to be imperceptible, but which have
recently taken on the speed of the earth's solar revolution in their
transition from the old to new theories.
The vast body of scientists are seldom a unit in the acceptance of any
theory, even of the most fundamental nature. And where there is such
diversity of belief each student of nature is entitled to form his own
opinions and beliefs.
But the most pitiable and unfortunate of the one-sided scientists are
those who would banish logic from the realms of physics, and who regard
a deduction or a theory as an enemy of science; who heap scorn on
analytic reason--the highest gift of Deity to man--and who deem the
tabulation of dry facts without causes the only purpose of science. Who
want science fenced in with a stone wall and separated from religion and
philosophy, and the earth cut up into sections and labelled astronomy,
chemistry, geology, and so on ad infinitum; as if nature knew anything
about astronomy, chemistry or geology, or ever considered anything but
the unity and harmony of the whole universe, which includes science,
religion and philosophy, one and inseparable, as God and nature are
inseparable.
Mr. Cope Whitehouse, a New York scientist, says of present science: "The
only fact established beyond doubt regarding suns and planets is their
revolution on their axes, and this is all that is needed to generate
light and heat. They are arc dynamos, and each in turn transmits what it
receives to its neighbor on the circuit." This is well stated and shows
that nine-tenths of the accepted facts and theories of science are mere
guesswork, founded upon conjectures of some eminent scientist who was
accepted as authority a hundred years ago. And the standard scientific
works have propagated them as scientific facts.
It is a fact apparent to all well informed students that astronomy,
physics and chemistry at present are in a chaotic condition--that nearly
all the scientific facts and theories established for two hundred years
are now in a state of uncertainty and are virtually overthrown by recent
discoveries.
The recent discovery of radium seems to overturn the rock-ribbed
scientific theory of the conservation of energy, and raises many new
questions in regard to the nature of light and heat.
Lord Kelvin, recognized as the highest authority, says: "It threatens to
overthrow the doctrine of the correlation of forces." If the scientists
would accept the electric theory of creation, its explanation would not
be so difficult, for radium seems to be a bundle of electric ions or
corpuscles which have the power of drawing electricity from the
atmosphere, like a miniature dynamo or a galvanic battery, and thus
continually renewing itself, so that there is no loss of power and no
shrinkage in size or bulk. The scientists may soon be forced by radium
and other natural phenomena to accept the electric theory--that
electricity and not gravity is the one and only fundamental force in
nature.
The recent discovery of the three lines in the spectrum of hydrogen,
discovered by Prof. Pickering, of Harvard, may upset the whole theory of
the seventy-three elements set forth in our books of chemistry and said
to constitute all the elements of the universe. It may prove they are
not elements, or at least not primary elements at all, and finally drive
the scientists to my theory that there are only three primary elements
in the universe, and they are spirit, electricity and matter. That the
so-called seventy-three elements are only different combinations of two
of the original and primary elements--matter and electricity--and are
what Herschell said they looked to be--"manufactured articles."
Prof. Pickering was the first to analyze lightning with the spectroscope
and show that hydrogen is a compound substance made up of lines
belonging to at least three chemical elements. This recent discovery was
a great surprise to scientific men. And it was confirmed and doubly
proven by the spectrum in the new star, in the constellation of Perseus,
known as Nova Persei, which also shows in the hydrogen there the same
lines consisting of at least three chemical elements.
This is new proof by high authority that oxygen, hydrogen and all the
so-called elements are--as I have contended for many years--only
compound substances, and justifies Prof. Serviss' statement in the New
York Journal, that these facts "may revolutionize science and
reconstruct chemistry."
The marvelous increase in brilliancy of the star Nova Persei last year,
and its sudden shrinkage, all within a few days, and the same being
observable almost instantaneously upon the earth, when that star is
3,400 light years distance from the earth according to the accepted
speed of light, which is 186,000 miles a second, unsettles the whole
question as to the speed of light. It tends to prove that light is
instantaneous, as Prof. Wright says gravitation is.
No less an authority than Prof. Simon Newcomb calls the scientific
world's attention to this phenomena, and shows it throws doubt on the
long-accepted theory as to the speed with which light travels. In his
address before the Astronomical Society, December 29th, 1902, he says:
"There is an inadequacy in the speed of light to explain the phenomena.
We are forced to the conclusion that there exists in the universe a
cause susceptible of transmission with a speed many times that of
light."
What cause exceeds the speed of light, which is deemed the swiftest
thing in the universe? We know of none. What was it surprised the
scientists and came to us with many times the supposed speed of light?
It was light, only light. Then this "inadequacy in the speed of light"
came on double-quick time, and proves that light can travel many times
faster than the scientists for two hundred years have declared it
could. And this eminent scientist, with cautious diplomacy, does not
directly attack the accepted speed of light, but says "there exists a
cause" that produces a greater speed than light. But as only light came,
did the "cause" bring it or did it come with its own velocity? If a
"cause" or unknown force brought it, then we have a new force in nature
which the scientists must reckon with. So they must accept the
alternative and either change the speed of light or deal with a new and
unknown force.
In addition to the above complications, Prof. J. J. Thomson, discovered
(1901), the electric ions or corpuscles which is considered a new form
of matter and force.
The discovery of these electric ions or corpuscles a thousand times
smaller than atoms has produced utter confusion in the scientific world,
and outside of the electric theory of creation they can make no possible
explanation of them.
The fact is, the scientists are on an island of doubt, in a sea of
uncertainty, scanning with telescope, microscope and spectroscope the
ocean of foggy knowledge and dubious assumed facts to find a port of
safety.
Their attempts to fix the specific gravity of the sun, and the sun's
burning up and shrinkage as its source of heat, and the heat as the life
of the planets; their treatment of heat as an entity and substance, when
it is merely a sensation; their reliance on the spectroscope to indicate
heat in distant suns, and their accepting gravity without a cause or an
explanation, show the blind for centuries have led the blind in
extravagant guessing.
But since they have seen an electric battery and an arc light, they
should be ashamed to ever declare "the sun is hotter than any
terrestrial furnace," or that it is hot at all. The arc and incandescent
lights are object lessons they ought to study, for they will see almost
an exact representation of how all light, heat and vital force are
created on suns and planets.
They will see two wires, one positive and the other negative, brought
together or so near together that in order to complete their electric
circuit they must pass through a little space of resisting air, which is
a non-conductor, and then they burst into light and moderate heat. In
the same manner the positive and negative currents of electricity of the
sun and earth, without wires, come together in our atmosphere, which is
near the earth's surface a dense resisting non-conductor, and in order
to complete the circuit they burst into light, heat and vital force and
give life and energy to all animal and vegetable organisms. But the heat
must be and is generally moderate, as no vegetable or animal life can
exist in excessive heat. And as excessive heat means ruin and decay,
therefore no burning sun can furnish light or give life and growth to
any planet.
Prof. Simon Newcomb, the learned astronomer, says: "The sun is not a
solid body, but must be liquid or gaseous, at least at its surface." He
gives this singular reason, therefore, that "the sun's rotation at the
equator is completed in less time than at a distance on each side of the
equator."
I question both the fact and the sufficiency of his reasoning on this
point. According to his own statement, the sun revolves at its equator
4,000 miles an hour, or over a mile a second, while it revolves very
slowly near its poles and virtually is not in motion at all at its
poles.
This rapid motion at the equator and slowness of motion near the centre
of the sun is calculated to deceive the eye and make it think it
completes its rotation at its equator in less time than at a distance
from it, looking down along the slope of the sun's vast circumference.
This is no evidence, for we see only the moving clouds of light on the
outer rim of the sun's atmosphere, ten to twenty thousand miles or more
from its surface, and they seem to and do complete their rotation a
short time sooner. This they naturally should do. How frail and
uncertain is the argument based on such doubtful and assumed facts?
Thus these wise astronomers claim from this slim, unreliable evidence
and the assumed excessive heat of the sun, that the sun is not a solid
body at its surface. Yet the same author rejects this same
evidence--that Jupiter is not a solid body--in the following language:
"The difference in the time of Jupiter's rotation at the equator and in
middle latitudes is, so far as we yet know, about five minutes. That is
to say, the equatorial regions rotate in nine hours and fifty minutes
and those in middle latitudes in nine hours and fifty-five minutes, a
difference amounting to 200 miles an hour, a seemingly impossible
difference were the surface liquid. We cannot assume this to be the case
without more observations than are yet recorded, as no well defined law
of rotation in different latitudes has yet been made out." Thus this
learned astronomer will not assume for Jupiter what he assumed for the
sun, and weakens and destroys in Jupiter the very same arguments he used
to prove the sun was not a solid body at its surface.
This same learned astronomer--and I mention him because he is high
authority and has written the most recent work on astronomy--says that,
"under the enormous pressure of the earth, continually increasing to the
center, the matter composing the inner portion of the earth is
compressed to the density of a metal. If the earth were composed of a
fluid or even of a substance which would bend no more than the hardest
steel, such a motion as that of the earth upon its axis would be
impossible."
I accept this as a very reasonable conclusion, and hold the same rule
applies to the sun, and that the sun's "enormous pressure, increasing to
its center," would compress its inner portion to the density of a metal;
and that the sun could not revolve upon its axis and retain its rigidity
as it does unless its inner or central portion was as rigid as steel.
And this necessarily means that its surface is about as solid as that of
our earth.
Therefore the sun cannot be molten or liquid at its surface, as the
scientific guessers have prognosticated. As they have guessed wrong
about nine-tenths of the time, this is one of the nine hundred bad
guesses.
Lord Kelvin, our wisest scientist, a few years ago estimated that our
earth, only fifty miles below its surface, was a molten mass of fiery
metal. Now, Simon Newcomb says it has the density of metal, and is as
hard as steel, and I think Lord Kelvin has changed his opinion and will
agree with him.
Thus the hoary-headed superstition that the center of our earth was a
molten mass is passing away, and it will be the same as to the heat, and
molten condition of the sun--it will be relegated to the plutonian
shades of ignorance and superstition.
Because there were numerous volcanoes, geysers and hot springs scattered
over the crust of the earth and in some deep mines there were hot
sections, the scientists jumped at the conclusion that the inner
portions of the earth were a molten, fiery mass. This was to accord with
their false theory of a red-hot molten sun, and their assertion that the
earth had its inception as a fire mist, and rolling ball of white-heated
gases. But the scientists have changed their theories rapidly in recent
years. They are just beginning to discover that there are zones of heat
and cold beneath the earth's surface just as there are above its
surface. That there are electric currents of heat in volcanic regions
and mineral and mining sections, and none in others, and even in the
same mines there are warm and cold sections.
Take the Cornstalk mines in Nevada. A section 2,300 feet below the
surface is very warm, while another section 1,200 deeper--being 3,500
feet below the surface--is very cool. Surely Lord Kelvin would now laugh
at himself to think he made such a calculation of the heat of the earth
and said it was a molten mass of fire fifty miles below its surface. And
he even said it was so hot seven miles down in the earth that water
could only remain or exist in a state of vapor.
Ye gods! When so great a prophet makes such mistakes, surely the little
prophets that walk in his footsteps ought to "go 'way back and sit
down," and cease talking about the heat of the sun.
They should quit telling us the Beneficent Creator is burning up
18,000,000 of his most magnificent and beautiful worlds to heat his
little, insignificant planets. They estimate our sun burns up thirty
quintillion cubic feet of itself annually, and 18,000,000 of suns are
doing the same, making the equivalent of a world destroyed every year
and a sun every decade.
These statements are so unreasonable and appalling they refute
themselves. I mean no disrespect for these learned but misguided
scientists who have for two hundred years built all their theories on
heat, which Langley now says truthfully is nothing but a sensation. Thus
they built the universe on a sensation, and to sustain the old
traditions they want to keep it there. They said the earth began in
heat, that it was a ball of fire a few miles below its surface, and the
suns were great flaming furnaces burning up with quenchless fire. They
made the Great Creator a fire demon and world destroyer.
If Prof. Parker's testimony is to be relied on, nine-tenths of them
waste their time on useless calculations and data. They have a wonderful
faculty of putting the horse before the cart. For example, Prof. Huston
of Princeton, says. "Electricity is being constantly produced during the
phenomena of every day life. It is produced by chemical action,
differences of temperature, the motion of conductors and magnets and the
various physical and chemical processes that occur during the life and
growth of plants and animals." Now, this is misleading, because it
states facts backward. It is not true that electricity is being
produced in the sense he uses it by these phenomena. These phenomena are
being produced by electricity. They are the manifestations of
electricity. Electricity is the cause; they are the sequence or results,
and he should say electricity is manifested by these things. The same
author says: "The earth is to be considered as one huge magnet." This is
very true, and as a great magnet does not need to be hot to generate
electric life-giving energy, no astronomer ought to look at an electric
light or an electric battery without blushing that he ever called the
sun hot.
Electricity can be generated without burning coal or wood or the use of
a furnace. The turbine wheels that are turned by the waters of Niagara
Falls, without heat or furnace, can generate a hundred thousand horse
power.
The placing of two or three pieces of metal one above another with a
moist substance between them will create a voltaic battery. And mines of
two or three kinds of metals or ores, when clay or any soft substance
between them become moist, will create a battery that will tear up the
earth for miles and produce a geyser or an earthquake.
Prof. Proctor agrees with Langley in rejecting the nebular hypothesis,
when he says: "Under the continual rain of meteoric matter the earth,
sun and planets are growing. And the formation of the solar system
resulted from the aggregations of vast meteoric and cometic systems
rotating through space has greater support from what is now going on,
and is far more satisfactory than the nebular hypothesis of La Place.
The nebular hypothesis affords no explanation of the strange variety of
size in the planetary system, variations of inclination among the
planets, or the retrograde and almost perpendicular motion of the
satellites of Uranus and Neptune. A general explanation of all these
matters is at once suggested by their origin from aggregations of
meteoric systems." This agrees with the electric theory of creation.
All the Newton-La Place theories of gravitation and the nebular
hypothesis are now called in question by our wisest astronomers. And one
of them has pointed out two hundred instances in which gravitation is
set aside and ignored in the motion of the heavenly bodies. Such
instances as the runaway stars, the retrograde motion of satellites, the
repulsion of comets from the sun, and so on ad infinitum. And as to the
outer planets, Uranus, Neptune, Jupiter and Saturn, being older than the
inner planets and being thrown off first from the vast whirling sun
nebula of La Place's imagination, all modern astronomers either call it
in question or reject it, as a fallacy disproved by more recent facts
and discoveries. It is reasonable to suppose that there are zones of
electric energy in space in each solar system which may help to hold and
keep each planet in its orbit, just as there are belts and currents of
electricity in the atmosphere and outer crusts of earth and planets. And
the sun may send a different kind of electricity to each planet and
receive a different kind from each planet.
Abbé Moreau, the noted French astronomer, in supporting Col. du
Ligondes, who opposes the La Place theory of the formation of the solar
system, in a recent article, April, 1902, undertakes to show that Mars
is not older than the earth, as held by the La Place nebular theory,
but on the contrary is much younger. His arguments entirely demolish the
nebular theory that the outer planets were thrown off in successive
rings of nebula from the sun, and therefore the outer planets are the
older. In addition, Flammarion seems to take the same position, for he
says: "In Mars two moons revolve rapidly in the heavens in opposite
directions, which seems to refute the nebular hypothesis." These all
tend to support my electrical theories, and relegate the Newton-La Place
theories to the shades of obsolete fancy and mistaken conjecture.
Flammarion also says: "The earth in its orbit describes a spiral, and
since its creation has never passed twice through the same point in
space." This also supports my electrical theory of globular spheres and
spiral motion in space to accord with the laws of electro-magnetic
energy. This spiral shape of the earth's orbit, I contend, and not the
tilting of its poles, creates the changes of seasons. Its poles seem to
tilt or change because the earth passes above and below the line of the
ecliptic, and in its spiral circuit has the sun above the earth part of
the year, when it is summer in the north temperate zone, and below it
part of the year when it is summer in the south temperate. And the
elliptical shape of the earth's orbit is, I contend, caused by the sun
being in motion, which lengthens the circle of the orbit in the
direction the sun is traveling and causes the earth to be four million
miles nearer it when it turns in front of it, and the same distance
farther from it when it turns in the same direction the sun is
traveling. It seems strange that no astronomers have thought of these
things.
Sir Robert Ball said recently: "The most important advance in astronomy
was Prof. Keeler's discovery of nebulae in such enormous numbers, and
the fact that most of them were in a spiral shape." This spiral shape
accords with the law of electro-magnetism and sustains the theory of
electrical creation of suns and planets. Matter could not be gathered
under any other law.
In addition to the contradictions and complications of science already
mentioned, scarcely a fundamental principle or concept remains. One of
the eternal indisputable postulates of science was that "two bodies
cannot occupy the same space at the same time." But that is exploded,
and we know they do and we have proof of it every day. There are
numerous instances; I will mention only one: Twenty-eight electric
currents can pass over the same wire at the same time, fourteen one way
and fourteen the other, and occupy the same space and do not interfere
with one another.
Scientists used to put great stress on solid matter, and their primary
division of matter was into solid, liquid and gaseous. They have
recently discovered there is no such thing as solid matter. What they
termed solid matter is but the outer and visible shell of invisible
forces. That not a single atom of matter touches another atom of matter;
but there is a space between them, and the atoms revolve around each
other in very much the same way as the earth revolves around the sun,
thus showing that the laws of electro-magnetism are the same in atoms as
in worlds.
The scientists only discovered the non-solidity of matter since the use
of the X-rays, and the Crookes tube, and they have been puzzled ever
since to know what holds the atoms or molecules together in organized
form. They undertake to say it is gravity, but gravity is weight, and
atoms have no weight, and they are forced to look to electricity and
magnetism to solve the question. And the electric theory gives the only
rational explanation, which is, that all things are held together by
magnetic attraction or cohesion under the laws of organic affinity. The
molecules of iron, stone and marble do not touch each other, but their
magnetic attraction is stronger than that of wood or hay; that is why
they have more solidity, strength and endurance. Science said we could
not look through a grindstone or any solid matter, but we can. We can
look through men, grindstones, iron and brick walls, and if we could
turn on sufficient electric power we could look through the earth and
take photographs of Chinamen on the other side of the globe.
Prof. Serviss, in the New York Journal of October 1st, 1902, calls
attention to "the remarkable growth of speculation concerning electric
or electro-magnetic influences exercised over the earth by the sun and
planets," and says: "They have been seized upon by astrological
soothsayers to bolster up their pretended science."
As I have never taken any interest in astrology, but have taken great
interest in the electro-magnetic power of the sun, I am surprised at the
obtuseness that would undertake to blend them together when they have no
scientific relation.
Astrology undertakes to reveal the future by the position and influence
of the stars, and is entirely different from any electrical theory of
the sun or planets.
He says, "The subject of the sun's electric influence is of absorbing
interest, but there is no solid scientific basis for a genuine theory."
From the lack of knowledge he displays of the well-known laws of
electricity I am not surprised at his statement. He says and illustrates
it by a diagram: "If we grant the sun does act as a stupendous source of
electro-magnetic waves, as the planets circle about the sun in nearly a
common plane, and sometimes lie practically in the common plane in a
straight line, in such a contingency there may be a stream of electric
energy linking them all together." He seems to think this would produce
confusion and settle the whole question.
He should know that the simplest law of electro-magnetism teaches that
the electric attraction of every planet is the measure of its power in
drawing the electric currents of the sun. Distance from or nearness to
the sun or planets or their being scattered or all on the same plane or
in a straight line has nothing to do with the supply of electric power
from the sun.
Each receives the positive electricity from the sun, which it draws by
reason of its negative polarity. He should know that twenty-eight
currents of electricity may pass over the same wire at the same time,
fourteen one way and fourteen the other way, and do not interfere with
one another, and each go to their separate destinations. The sun may
send a different electric current or vibration to each planet and
nothing in the universe could prevent it from reaching that planet. It
would pass through or go round any other planet or substance in its
way.
Wireless electricity is founded on the basic principle that an electric
current goes only to the opposite electric polarity and vibration which
draws and attracts it or is attuned to it.
Prof. Serviss says: "If I examined this subject with a show of interest,
it draws upon me sour and suspicious looks from my scientific friends."
He should remember that all great truths have had to struggle with "sour
and suspicious looks," ever since man began to investigate, and that we
must look not to authority for truth, but _to truth for authority_.
He said, in the summer of 1901, the sun was a furnace and the black
spots the open door of the furnace, and we would have four years of
torrid heat on account of those black spots; but he proved himself a
false prophet, like the rest. But he is not to blame; he only followed
the old traditions and scientific authority, and they proved to be a
broken reed on which he leaned. I mention him because he is an able and
recent writer on astronomy.
That science is at present unintelligible and almost chaotic to the
masses of fairly educated people is too true for superfluous argument.
The old farmer's definition of bacilli is a fair sample of the nebulous
condition of many minds on scientific subjects. He said they were
"little critters from the back cellar that floated in the air, called
germs in Germany, parasites in Paris, and microbes in Ireland." Many
intelligent people deplore the prolific use of useless technical terms
and dry statistics of most scientific works, and their use makes them
exclaim with Portia, "My little body is aweary of this great world."
I find a very sensible editorial in the New York American of April 18th,
1903, entitled "Science Needs Another Interpreter." It says: "Science is
moving too fast for the ordinary layman, who would like to keep pace
with its theories and discoveries.... Chemistry and physics needs a man
who will do for them what Huxley did for biology--a man who has not only
a scientific mind but a literary capacity.... Vaguely the layman knows
there have been all sorts of discoveries since the X-rays showed him
there was a way of seeing through a grindstone.
"But he had the idea of X-rays only partially digested when science came
on him with the cathode rays and crowned the confusion by discovering
radium. With a mind dazzled by light rays that are invisible, and
invisible rays that are not light, and bewildered by being told of a
substance that gives off terrific energy without loss of bulk or power,
he lays away the natural philosophy of his college days and reaches
blindly for what the new men have written of these things.
"He is then confronted with what reads like a catalogue of fossil
insects diversified by stepladder algebraic formulas, the mere
parenthesis of which are enough to make a school teacher shudder. The
wretched seeker after knowledge is confronted with measurements of light
waves until sunbeams are powerless to illuminate the day. Similarly he
gathers from the fugitive words he understands among the mass that has
no meaning for him, that Prof. Loeb has been putting salt on eggs and
creating sea-urchins, to the utter distraction of the rules of nature's
game as he has learned them.
"Somewhere there must exist the man whose skill with the pen and whose
appreciation of knowledge are equal to the task of acting as interpreter
between scientists and the world.... The world is hungrier for knowledge
than it is for amusement, and the sales of the books of the man who
succeeds in making science readable will make the returns of even the
most popular novelist small in comparison."
This splendid editorial states facts graphically and truly, and portrays
the real condition of things. It shows a scientific chaos, which
portends a transition state, and a rapid evolution from the old
traditions to a new and more perfect science. Without meaning to be
egotistic or to assume any superior knowledge, or to have any of the
qualities suggested in the editorial, I am impelled to suggest that if
there are persons befogged scientifically, if they will read The Cities
of the Sun, I think their minds will be clarified on many points and
many of the old scientific traditions will fade into the nothingness
from which they came.
I am glad to welcome so able a champion of the electrical theory as Mr.
Cope Whitehouse, who achieved fame by discovering that the depression in
the Egyptian desert could be used for irrigation, and which the English
Government is now utilizing.
This New York scientist says, in an interview in the Kansas City Star of
Dec. 2d, 1902: "The English scientists have partially reduced our solar
system to a machine, and assigned to Deity little less than the duty of
squeezing heat from the sun or stoking it with aerolites. Such theories
are made for sale and not for science. When Newton suggested that
gravity might swing the moon as well as attract an apple to the ground,
he knew nothing of electricity. He might have observed however, that a
comet never enters the sun and therefore could not have been attracted
by it.
"A comet, as it closely approaches its supposed goal, changes its
direction and darts away, tail foremost, in a curved path due to a
resistance too feeble to obstruct its passage. No allowance is made for
the attraction of gravitation in wireless telegraphy, and the most
superficial observations in ozology, or the science of smell, show that
there is a force in odors which ignores gravitation.
"We have reason for supposing that gravitation is a purely local affair,
and heat and light do not emanate from the sun. Heat comes from the
earth, and the light from the atmosphere, precisely as the film in an
incandescent lamp is heated by the resistance it offers to the electric
current, and light is produced by the vibration of the motes in the
air."
"The only fact established beyond doubt regarding the sun and planets is
their revolution on their axes, and this is all that is needed to
generate light and heat. They are arc dynamos and each in turn transmits
what it receives to its neighbors on the circuit." This accords with my
theory published five years previously. He continues: "We do not see the
stars, nor even the sun.
"The astronomer who claims that his eye penetrates space billions,
trillions and decillions of miles stultifies himself in the next breath
by declaring that worlds and solar systems are being formed of cosmic
dust. Was the polestar ever obscured by the interposition of a world in
formation? Yet the film formed by the breath of the observer on the
eyepiece of a telescope would obscure Jupiter. Evidently, therefore, we
no more see a star than we see a distant power house that supplies
electricity to trolley lines. We only see the end of the stellar or
solar ray where it enters the bubble of which the earth is the center.
"It is strange that no astronomer has ever heretofore observed that the
magnifying power of a lens, two inches in diameter could have no
appreciable effect on an object as remote as Saturn. Yet the ring and
the satellites of this planet are thus made visible. In short, there is
a kind of screen which presents the image of stars, as on a sheet
between the observer and the magic lantern at an exhibition. The image
can be magnified but their distance is perhaps scarcely fifty inches."
In regard to the eruptions of Mont Pelée he says: "Within twenty miles
of the earth there is a cold as intense as liquid air. Differences of
temperature can be converted into an electric flash, as electricity can
be converted into heat. The so-called eruption of Mont Pelée was purely
electrical. The sympathetic eruption of La Soufrière was partly due to
an interrupted circuit and partly an induced current. There was no flow
of lava, but can any one imagine the crater discharging what was said to
have issued from it?... When there is an accurate statement of facts it
will be found that neither dust nor gas came from the volcano. Really,
only mud, hot water, smoke and stones were ejected. This material
descended as a thin covering of uniform thickness. And this blanket was
the dust precipitated by the electrical vibration still warm from
crystallization. Had it been otherwise there would have been about one
hundred million tons of frozen mud falling in the neighborhood.
"What Père Mary saw was the cloud of decomposed matter caused by the
electric discharges. It is as absurd to speak of all this coming out of
the volcano as it would be to say that the smoke and stifling gases in a
fire caused by an electric wire came from the power house. As a fuse
burned out in the circuit, Pelée simply sparked.
"It set fire to everything between its summit and the sea, and the
surface of the water itself was made warm. Now you see how mastodons are
found, with hair and flesh intact, imbedded in Siberian ice. If the
uprush of an air current would disturb the cold stratum above a chimney,
what would be the effect of the upheaval of a mountain mass with or
without a volcano? It is unnecessary to suppose that the axis of the
earth has changed.
"The ice crop of the Antarctic is much larger than that of the North
Pole, but the volcanoes of Erebus and Terror are in violent activity.
There are scores of terrestrial and celestial phenomena, from the double
tide to the cold moon, that can be _explained only by the electrical
theory_."
Thus I could fill a book with the recent proofs and statements of
scientists which sustain the electric theory.
The dropping of an icicle into a barrel of unslaked lime once caused a
great disaster in one of our cities. The slaking of the lime caused a
fire. The firemen came and the more water they used the greater was the
heat generated, until an explosion wrecked the neighborhood. In like
manner, water in the fissures of the earth act chemically upon various
minerals and produce similar results. Two or three layers of different
metals in the earth produce a galvanic battery and results in the
disaster of a volcanic explosion or an earthquake.
A silver dollar, a twenty-dollar gold piece, and a piece of copper of
similar size, placed one on top of the other, with pieces of moist paper
blotter between them, will generate sufficient electricity to send a
telegram. Two iron tablespoons tied together with a piece of copper wire
and their ends dipped in water will generate an electric current
sufficient to send a cablegram across the Atlantic Ocean. So says Prof.
Trobridge of Harvard. If this is true, what a fearful volcano or
earthquake may be produced by water moistening the clay or substance
between the thousands of acres of different mines or metals one above
the other in the outer crust of the earth?
These things are marvelous to contemplate and paralyze the imagination.
CHAPTER X
ELECTRICAL CREATION EXPLAINS NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
Herbert Spencer says: "Science is partially unified knowledge;
philosophy is completely unified knowledge," and the first knowledge
obtained by primitive man was that of sense and inference from such
experience. Later there arose a disposition to speculate as to that
which lies beyond sense and known only by its effect on sensible things.
This speculative propensity is worthy of the highest consideration as a
means of knowledge. It has developed all of the numerous systems of
philosophy which have flourished in the history of the human race.
First in the order of development comes the knowledge of things through
the direct experience of physical sense, then comes imagination,
reasoning, theoretic science and speculative philosophy.
The object of all systems of philosophy is to comprehend and teach the
truth about the world around us, especially that part supposed to exist
beyond the range of our senses, and to prescribe what is right and good
in the life of man.
In modern times the attempt to unite all the sciences into a general
system has been made by August Comte in France, and Herbert Spencer in
England. According to Comte, it was time wasted and labor lost to
attempt to explain the cause of gravity, chemical affinity, and electric
and magnetic attraction and repulsion.
The atomic theory of the constitution of matter, the conception of an
interstellar ether, the undulatory theory of light and heat were all
cast aside as useless and unworthy of notice because they were not
directly observable and the senses unaided could not apprehend them.
According to Comte, the only object of science and philosophy is to
observe, record and classify sensible phenomena. What could not be
observed by the senses could not be known and did not exist. It is said
the only open road to the advance of philosophy was thus forbidden by
the man who made the first valuable contribution to its advancement.
Herbert Spencer first undertook the great task of discovering the
unifying principle of nature. He recognized all possible phenomena as
parts of one great whole, and held that all were united by natural law.
He differed from Comte in that he recognized the imperceptible as a
reality, but made no attempt to explain it or to bring it into harmony
with the phenomena of sense, but designated it the unknowable. He
divided his system into two general divisions--the knowable, which
includes all things of sense, experience, and the unknowable, which
includes everything else, or the invisible and imperceptible.
He held the knowable is the proper sphere of man's knowledge or
philosophy, and the unknowable the legitimate domain of God and
religion. And while he held that God and religion were imperceptible
and unknowable, he held they were none the less a truth of the highest
degree of certainty. It is therefore well said that all who fear the
downfall of religion as a result of the encroachments of science or
philosophy may thank Herbert Spencer for placing it where neither
science or philosophy can touch it.
Upon the law of relativity he places the basis of that which can be
known, and that which cannot be known. He says: "We think in relations.
This is truly the form of all thought.... On analyzing the process of
thought we found that cognition of the absolute--the unknowable--was
impossible because it presents neither relations nor its
elements--difference and likeness. Further we found that not only
intelligence but life itself consists in the establishment of internal
relations in correspondence with external relations. And lastly, it was
shown by the relativity of our thought we are eternally debarred from
knowing or conceiving absolute being, yet that this relativity of our
thought necessitates that vague consciousness of Absolute Being which no
mental effort can suppress."
It is apparent that these propositions contradict each other. For, if
from the relativity of thought we are eternally debarred from knowing or
conceiving Absolute Being, how is it that we have a vague consciousness
of this same Absolute Being which cannot be suppressed? Consciousness is
one form of knowledge. Spencer, thus recognizing the reality of the
unknowable, regards that which is or can be known as different
manifestations of the unknowable.
These manifestations he claims, as they appear in consciousness, pass
through a double series. First, a vivid series which includes all sense
experience, and second, a faint series which includes thought, as in
speculation and deliberation. Force, he contends, is the ultimate and
deepest truth of the universe. All forms of consciousness, he says, are
derived as experiences of force. All sense experiences as in the
objective series, all subjective feeling or thought, everything known or
knowable, is a manifestation of the one universal force or energy. This
universal force, I contend, is, first, spirit or mind force; second,
electric force controlled by mind force.
He says: "Contemplating pure force, we are irresistibly compelled by the
relativity of our thought to vaguely conceive some unknown force as the
correlative of the known force." This unknown or imperceptible force I
contend is electricity and the mental force back of it. All our ideas of
matter and motion, he says, are ideas of force. The demonstrated fact of
the indestructibility of matter is but another name for the
indestructibility of force.
The persistency of force means also the persistency of motion. All forms
of physical energy--as light, heat, sound, electricity, magnetism,
chemical action, gravity and sensible motion--he says, are different
manifestations of force. In this I fully agree with him and claim these
are all manifestations of the one fundamental force in
nature--electricity.
He says: "Even after all has been said, many will be alarmed by the
assertion that the forces we designate as mental come within the same
generalization. Yet there is no alternative but to make this assertion.
The facts which justify or rather necessitate it being abundant and
conspicuous. All the phenomena of mind belong to the same class--the
phenomena of force."
In this I agree, and contend that the mental or spiritual forces are the
most potent and supreme forces of the universe and control all other
forces, physical and electric, and are the ultimate of ultimates.
He says: "The various forms of force are all changeable into one
another." This is shown, he says, by the conservation of energy and the
correlation of forces.
This accords with my electrical theory of creation, which holds that
there is but one physical force in the universe--electricity--and all
other forces, such as light, heat, physical life and so-called
gravitation, are manifestations of this one fundamental force, and are
all changeable or convertible into one another, and all controlled by
the dominant force of mind or spirit. In other words, God controls the
universe as man controls his body. Man controls his body by the electric
energy that permeates his body and brain, and God controls the universe
by the electric energy that permeates all matter and space, and which is
subjected to His Omniscient Spirit and Omnipotent Will.
Herbert Spencer says: "An entire history of anything must include its
appearance out of the imperceptible and its disappearance into the
imperceptible. Be it a single object or a whole universe, any account
which begins with it in a concrete form and leaves off with it in a
concrete form is incomplete, since there remains an era of its knowable
existence undescribed and unexplained."
The simplest statement of this fact, according to my theory, is that
all visible things come from the great invisible sea of
electro-magnetism in which all things exist, which he calls the
imperceptible, and are woven by magnetic attraction and the aggregation
of billions of invisible atoms into visible forms. Then, after they have
run their course as visible substances or organic forms, they are again
dissolved back into this invisible sea of electro-magnetism. Just as
water continually changes from solid and liquid to invisible vapor and
back again, so nature continually renews and purifies her ever-changing
molecules but changeless atoms, and builds up organic forms by magnetic
attraction and dissolves them by electric repulsion. I contend that
matter could be gathered into visible form in no other way than by
electric attraction.
The life period of all visible things is while magnetic attraction has
sway and is paramount; the death or dissolution period is when electric
repulsion predominates. The blossoms and fruitage of summer are samples
of magnetic life from the sun currents, while the decay of winter is a
sample of electric repulsion and dissolution.
The law of incessant change, he says, must be the unifying principle
which in its simplest form is "the redistribution of matter and motion."
Again he says: "The progress from the most diffused and insensible state
to that of concentration and definition is called evolution, and is
attended by the dissipation of motion and the integration of matter."
This I call the law of electric attraction. "The progress from the form
of definition to that of diffusion," he says, "is called dissolution and
is attended by an absorption of motion and a disintegration of matter."
This I call the law of electric repulsion.
"This," he says, "is the universal law of evolution and dissolution in
its simplest form." And I say that the law of evolution and dissolution
in its simplest form is the law of electric attraction and repulsion.
Mr. Spencer's definition is complicated, but his process is
substantially correct. Yet he offers no explanation of this natural and
universal process, while my electric theory of creation does, and makes
his universal evolution and dissolution simply universal electric
attraction and repulsion under the well-known laws of electro-magnetism.
This is a great advance, a gigantic step toward the explanation of the
universe. The simplest illustration in physics explains both theories.
For instance, dry steam, he says, will condense to its liquid form,
water by permitting the dissipation of its internal motion in the
process of cooling, and a further dissipation of internal motion of the
water will reduce it to a solid form, called ice. This he calls
evolution, but he does not state what produces it. I say it is produced
by electric attraction.
Then he says the mass of ice thus evolved from impalpable vapor may be
set out in the sun and gradually melt, by the absorption of motion from
the sun, into water, and a further absorption of like motion will
convert it into invisible vapor. This he calls dissolution, but does not
explain it. I say it is the result of the law of electric repulsion.
He speaks of the absorption of motion. I contend there can be no
absorption of motion, but only an absorption of that which produces
motion, which is electric energy, from the sun--the electric heart of
the solar system. Motion, I contend, is not a cause but an effect, and
all physical motion is the result of electric energy. And to say with
Tindall, that light and heat is a mode of motion is to state an
absurdity, for motion is the result of some force operating on matter.
It is not a cause but an effect produced by a cause.
I explain force and "the redistribution of matter and force" as the
product or the result of the universal laws of electric attraction and
repulsion, which control atoms, suns and worlds and all matter in body
and space.
Mr. Spencer offers no explanations and relegates all to the convenient
dumping ground of the unknowable. What he calls "The realm of the
unknowable" I call the electro-magnetic sea of ether in which all things
exist and from which all things are evolved, which is the imperceptible
elements of the universe in solution. This I claim is the fourth form of
matter, the invisible primary essence of all visible creations.
I state his law of the redistribution of matter and motion in this way:
An increase of electric energy produces an accelerated motion of the
molecules of a body or substance, and, if continued, tends to its
dissolution by electric repulsion; while an increase of magnetic
attraction decreases the activity of its molecules and tends to
integration or solidity of form or substance.
There is no such thing as heat in reality; heat is accelerated motion, a
sensation caused by the increased activity of the molecules; while cold
is the absence of motion or heat.
Mr. Spencer has described a general indefinite process as "the
redistribution of matter and motion," but he has revealed no natural
law, or fundamental explanation of natural phenomena. Every important
question leads him to a stone wall which he does not try to scale or
penetrate, but labels the "Unknowable."
A learned philosopher who has spent his life endeavoring to instruct
others should not fall back into the convenient ditch of the
"unknowable."
He says: "What is it that holds together the parts of which this
ultimate atom may be imagined to consist? The only answer is a cohesive
force." But he does not attempt to explain what that cohesive force is,
while I undertake to say it is magnetic cohesion under the law of
electro-magnetism, which holds aggregations of atoms in organic
affinity, producing visible form and substance.
He says: "Force is the ultimate of ultimates. Matter and motion are only
different manifestations of this unknowable force."
This is making force usurp the place of Deity. Force is a servant, not a
master--a tool and not an ultimate cause. Force without intelligence
back of it is anarchy and ruin; it is chaos and not a cosmos. God is a
scientific necessity.
The ultimate of ultimates is mind or spirit--the eternal intelligent
spirit of Deity and man.
I accept the scientific postulate that the conservation of energy and
the correlation of forces affirm, first, that there is but one kind of
energy or force in the physical universe; but I go further and contend
electric energy is that force. Second, that, like matter energy cannot
be created or destroyed. Third, that energy appears in a variety of
forms as motion, heat, light and so-called gravity and chemical action.
Fourth, that these forms of energy are interchangeable--any one form may
change into any other form, and all are transformations of the one
ultimate force I term electricity. Fifth, that there is nothing in
science to show that mind or spirit ever changes into physical energy,
or force into mind or matter, or either into the other. This destroys
the doctrine of monoecism, or all things from one substance. And
Haeckel will have to produce more facts and logic than he has yet set
forth to prove that spirit and matter, force and matter are all one and
the same thing or substance.
The psychic or mental force is the paramount force, and the true realm
of evolution belongs to the mental or spiritual universe and to organic
nature. Physical changes are not evolution in the highest sense except
as they are the result of spiritual power and unfolding intellect. The
highest sphere of evolution is in biology and psychology.
There _is_ matter, mind and force. Materialism is a shallow, one-sided
doctrine; and the opposite extreme, that there is no matter, nothing but
mind, is also shallow and one-sided. These three separate entities
maintain their separate and distinct existence. The electric theory
explains and elucidates all natural philosophy and all material
phenomena, and is as a scientist has well said, "the best exposition
ever offered of the physics and metaphysics of the universe."
In regard to another phase of natural philosophy, Kant proved that in
our experience objects can be known only in relation to a subject, and
matter only in relation to mind. From this it is evident that mind is
at least co-ordinate with matter and cannot be treated as a mere
property of matter. From this doctrine Spencer took refuge in the
strange notion that we possess two consciousnesses, the consciousness of
ideas within us and the consciousness of motions without us. That
neither of these could be resolved into the other, though both were the
phenomena of an unknowable absolute. This self-contradiction of a
dualistic separation between two aspects of our life, which as a matter
of fact can never be divided, proved a citadel of ignorance which could
not withstand the attacks of logical criticism.
Mr. Spencer's agnostic dualism of objective and subjective mind was due
to a fundamental misconception of what is meant by the subjectivity of
knowledge. If we have the consciousness of object and subject only in
relation to each other, it is not necessary to seek the principle of
their unity in any third principle, for his unknowable absolute is "in
our mouths and in our hearts," and found in the inseparable unity of
experience in which the inward and outward are correlative elements.
It seems Mr. Spencer's agnosticism is a sort of spiritual refuge for the
destitutes who renounce their heritage like Esau or waste it like the
prodigal son, and feed on husks. For those who by their abstractions
separate the elements of experience from each other, are forced to go
beyond experience for the unity they have lost, and flounder in the miry
bogs of agnosticism.
The true way is to give up such abstractions as objective and subjective
mind, for the mind is a unity, and learn to "think things together" and
recognize the organic relation of the inner and the outer life and
"explain the parts by the whole, and not the whole by artificially
severed parts." This organic unity of mind in man is illustrated by the
organic unity of the universe, which, under the electric theory of
creation, is a vast electric organism bound together by invisible
electric bands, where every atom has an individuality manifested and
explained in the harmonious unity of an ever-changing but indestructible
universe.
As man is capable of knowing all things, he cannot be identified with
any of them, or if as an individual he is so identified, he has within
him in his spiritual nature that which carries him beyond the limits of
his individuality. In his inner moral life man is revealed to himself as
a free-will agent, a great and self-determining being, conscious of
being subordinated only to the law of duty, which is the law of his own
reason.
That law, in spite of every outer pressure, he knows he _ought_ to obey,
and therefore knows that _he can_ obey it. Thus man is both natural and
spiritual; he is limited to a finite personality, yet possesses a
universal capacity for knowledge and an absolute power of
self-determination. Human reason with one voice seems to depress man to
the level of an animal, and with the other voice proceeds to elevate him
to the theatre of all life and being, as a "spectator of all time and
existence," gifted with absolute freedom of will and conscious
individuality. There is an identity which is below or above all
distinction; and the universe is one through all its multiplicity and
permanent through all its changes. The unity beneath all differences,
the priority of the universal to all particulars, is necessary to the
true conception of the organic unity of the world. All opposition of
thought and things are relative oppositions which find a solution in the
life and movement of the whole. In all the great controversies that have
divided the world the combatants have really been co-operators. They
developed truth and unity.
We do not see anything truly until we comprehend it as a whole, and see
it in all its relations to the universe. Everything so far as it has an
independent, individual existence at all is an organism. While
conceiving the universe as organic, Hegel maintained that it "is not a
natural but a spiritual organism." For the limited scope of a natural
organism and its process cannot be regarded as commensurate with a
universe which comprehends all existence, whether classed as organic or
inorganic. Only the conscious and self-conscious unity of mind can
overreach and overcome such extreme antagonisms and reduce them all to
elements in the realization of its own life.
The natural universe, I contend, is an organism which includes nature,
but manifests its ultimate or highest spiritual force only in the life
of man. The universe as an electric organism obeys the higher supreme
spiritual forces. It is said that "Hegel was only working out in the
sphere of speculative thought what Christianity had already expressed
for the ordinary consciousness." Nearly all great thinkers, I contend,
reason forward or backward to the fundamental truths of the Bible, only
expressed in a little different way, and which is the old familiar
process in human history of "pouring old wine into new bottles." Hegel
sought to show how an idealistic view of the universe and human life
could be maintained consistently with the fullest recognition of
scientific methods and results. This was an attempt at the
reconciliation of science, philosophy and religion proceeding from the
growing prevalence of that harmonizing spirit which seeks to do justice
to the results of scientific investigation and at the same time give
them a new and enlightened interpretation. In this he was right. The
main conflict in philosophy as in religion has ceased to lie between
materialism and idealism or spiritualism, but rather between Herbert
Spencer's "Vague Consciousness of the Absolute," which he bids us
worship, and that faith which enables us to pierce the veil of the
phenomena and grasp the ultimate reality of things. Philosophy,
therefore, is always toiling after the intuitions of faith as "cities of
refuge." All philosophy can safely maintain that "what is rational is
actual, and what is actual is rational." And all accord with man's
highest inspirations of spiritual faith and hope. And the electric
theory of creation is the most rational explanation of an organic
universe evolved and controlled by natural law which is the will of
Deity, whereby spirit intelligence controls by electric energy all the
forces and manifestations of visible creation.
Herbert Spencer has done a great work for science. He has been a great
champion and expounder of evolution, and the laws of the material
universe. And while he has been a great agnostic on religious subjects
it is because he is a spiritual non-conductor.
Man is like a wireless telegraphic receiver; he draws only that which
corresponds to his nature and character.
Different men have different casts of mind and different natural
aptitudes. Some are natural receivers of truths, and others are natural
non-conductors of certain truths.
There are two eminent illustrations of this fact, it is said, in the
immortal Sir Isaac Newton and John Milton, whose names are equally
historic and illustrious for their learning and culture. For it is said
that Newton could not appreciate "Paradise Lost," and Milton could see
nothing in "The Principia." This was not to the discredit of either of
these books, nor was it a reflection upon the technical learning of
either man. Neither was attuned to the message which the other brought
to humanity and it proves that in order to apprehend truth in any
quarter a man must be sympathetically disposed toward it.
Milton had no mind for mathematics, nor Newton for poetry. So the wisest
philosophers like Herbert Spencer may go to religion and find nothing
there but the abstruce and unknowable. Spencer's mind dwells on the
phenomena of matter and material senses only. It is said nearly every
great thinker has some central thought fixed firmly in his mind. The
central thought of Plato is the theory of ideas--the assertion of the
apparitional character of the seemingly real world. The central thought
of Pascal is that of human intelligence confronting the universe and
strangled by its inexorable tragedies. The central thought of
Schopenhauer is the absurdity of life, and the central thought of
Herbert Spencer is the evolution of the material universe.
PART SECOND
Sleep, death and oblivion are things that mock;
Sleep in dreams; death and oblivion in the grave;
And yet we are not mocked. We only walk
Amid realities that bind us like a slave.
Sleep soothes and cheers; death grimly reaps and slays.
It makes earth but a tomb--its house of revelry;
It stalks amid life's dark and brightest ways
And takes its victims. All are 'neath its slavery.
With chilling frosts it nips life's brightest flowers,
And with pale faces and a gasp they go,
And vaguely trust to bloom 'neath other bowers,
Where death's grim hand will never blast them so.
All hearts beat to music and measure,
Like songs of the spheres as they roll,
And from dreamland's far mystical treasure
Come songbirds that sing to the soul;
Where the glint of the gold in fair tresses
Hide a face that we never have seen,
And the infinite hope that caresses
Kisses joys that we never may glean.
For the wealth of the world is ideal;
There is bliss in the beauty of rhyme,
And the thoughts of the soul are the real,
Outlasting the cycles of time.
And the soul is the diamond eternal
Where spirit and power are one,
Brushing dross from its splendor supernal
As dust from the eye of the sun.
All life is a poem of glory;
Neither reason nor senses can grasp,
Till we read every verse in the story,
And the hand of the author we clasp.
Then sing on sweet souls as of olden,
With visions of soul-land that shine,
Till the harp of the earthly is golden
From the hand of the Author Divine.
CHAPTER XI
SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY SUSTAIN THE RELIGIOUS CONCEPT
I contend that science, philosophy and electric evolution sustain the
religious concept.
The infinite and eternal power that animates the universe must be
psychical in its nature, and any attempt to reduce it to mechanical
force must end in absurdity. The only kind of monism which will stand
the test of an ultimate analysis, says John Fiske is monotheism. The
highest development of psychical life is the end for which the world
exists. To the materialist the ultimate power is material power, and
psychical life is nothing but fleeting colocations of natural elements
in the shape of nervous systems. The psychical nature of God and the
immortality of the soul harmonize infinitely better with cosmic
philosophy. Prof. John Fiske says: "Evolution brings before us with
vividness the conception of an ever-present God, not an absentee God who
once manufactured a cosmic machine capable of running itself. It makes
God our constant support and nature His revelation, and when all its
religious implications are set forth it will be seen to be the most
potent ally Christianity ever had in elevating mankind. The progress of
evolution now is to bring out the higher spiritual attributes and to set
the whole doctrine of evolution in harmony with religion. Then, the
assumption that underlies all religion must be true--that what we see of
the present life is not the whole thing; that there is a spiritual as
well as a material side of life; in short, a life eternal.
"In the whole history of evolution," he continues, "when we see an
internal adjustment reach out towards something, it is in order to adapt
itself to something that exists. And if the religious cravings of man
constitute an exception they are the only exception in the whole process
of evolution." This is an argument of stupendous and resistless weight.
This puts evolution in harmony with religious thought, and the great
religious drift of humanity in all ages, and removes the antagonism that
used to appear to exist between religion and science.
The French materialists of the eighteenth century virtually declared:
"We content ourselves with what we can prove by the methods of physical
science and we will reject all else." But think how chaotic nature was
to their minds compared to our present conception, and how different the
universe they saw to what we see to-day. And it is not to be wondered at
that there was antagonism between science and religion. Anaxagoras
maintained that the human race would never have become human if it were
not for the hand, and John Fiske says, "_man never would have attained
his present psychic powers but for religion_."
This is truth well stated, and the fact that man is the only creature
that has a hand, an articulate voice and an aesthetic nature that is
never satisfied, is strong proof that man is infinitely more than a mere
animal, or a transient animate machine. The higher intellectual powers
were dwarfed in the middle ages, when human life was made hideous by
famine, pestilence, perennial warfare and bloody superstitions, fear of
witchcraft and eternal torments, and men endured it because they had no
experience of anything better. But the change wrought in six centuries
is amazing, and shows that human genius and man's possibilities are
beyond our comprehension. The genius of Aristotle proved that the earth
is a globe, that of Copernicus showed that it was one of a system of
planets, and that of Newton undertook to explain the laws and dynamics
of this marvelous sun and world system.
Belief in God, and the immortality of the soul, and the compensations of
a future life tend to maintain social order and moral rectitude, by
enabling men to endure the trials and injustice of this world in the
hope of ample compensation in the hereafter. Man steps forth on this
revolving globe not of his own volition, but is sent here by some
mysterious power on some inscrutable mission to fulfill some divine
purpose. He comes as a spiritual wayfarer under sentence of death. Not
death to the spirit, but to the transient habiliments of earth-dust he
gathers round his invisible spiritual form. When he arrives and gathers
his reasoning powers to scan the narrow horizon of his life, he is beset
by perplexing problems of poverty, disease, sorrow, sin and death. The
"slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" often overwhelm him, and he
discovers at last that the law of life is the law of growth and
development; and all these struggles and trials are intended to evolve
character and purify and ennoble the soul. That this is the seed time
and nursery of existence preparatory to the harvest of eternal life when
he shall drop this overcoat of atoms and be transplanted to the
self-luminous bosom and unfading joys of the perfected and celestial
sun-worlds. Here he sees incompleteness, fragmentary careers, tragedies,
injustice, griefs and farewells, and he hungers for knowledge. His
quenchless spirit seeks to penetrate the mysteries of the universe, and
comprehend time and eternity, and in agony of soul he asks the age-old
question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" Then, if he turn not to
the pages of sacred writ for an answer, he will find written on the
living pages and animated forms of all nature the promise of another
life. He will find it in the returning verdure of spring, in the
unfading light of the eternal stars, in the ever-changing beauty of the
bending skies, in the mysterious impulse of the untaught birds of the
air who start on their vast migrations from the frozen seas of the north
to the summer-lands of the sunny south; in the tropic fish, who seek
their spawning nests in the clear, cool rivers of the north. The bear
and lion, the tiger and elephant, the bees and the insects of a summer
day, all have the longings of their natures satisfied. Why should man be
an exception? If the Creator of all keeps faith with all other
creatures, why not with man?
"As something must have been eternal," says Prof. Wright, "it is easier
to suppose it was an intelligent, designing mind which was uncreated
from the beginning, and which has brought the universe into being with
all its uniformity of laws and complexity of adaptation than to suppose
that the eternal substance was matter out of which has come the orderly
universe as we know it, with its high grades of intelligence in animals
and man.
"The world, as the creation of a supreme intelligence, is partially
comprehensible to finite minds. But to suppose that the thought and
purpose and will of man are products of material forces is not only a
mystery, but an absurdity which cannot long be entertained by any sane
mind. The theory of evolution without a God can lay no claim to
scientific support. A theory of evolution, designed, controlled and
permeated by divine ideas, may be both scientific and in accord with the
highest dictates of religious truth."
As to the life hereafter, which the religious concept has always
proclaimed, it is a fact demonstrated by history that in all ages, among
all people, under all religious forms, the idea of immortality remains
fixed and imperishable in the human mind. Every human being in coming
into this world brings with him under a form more or less vague this
inward belief, desire and hope of immortality. This is God's handwriting
on the human soul. And the history of man, the reasoning conscience of
man, is God's Bible of life written in man's spiritual nature. And
whatever is rational, true and good is of God, and whatever is contrary
to the enlightened conscience of man is contrary to the divine purpose
of God.
Revelation proclaims God is a spirit and man is a spirit, and after
death man in his spiritual being shall live on forever. The latest
modern scientific thought fully and powerfully sustains the Bible. It
says in substance, in dealing with man we must deal with him as a
spiritual being; we must go into a realm that brings us within the
sphere of the electrical and magnetic relations of the elements, but on
a different plane. First, matter in the invisible world has the same
essential basis of formative power so potent in the more tangible
relations. Second, the invisible atoms there obey the same essential
principles that in a lower grade of activity give visible results.
Third, there must be a direct connection between the two conditions of
being--the visible and the spiritual--as to be axiomatic. Fourth, there
must be a secondary form of the invisible elements ere they assume the
visible relation, which is a chemical or electric necessity. In all life
this law is absolute. Fifth, in applying this principle to the process
of the evolution of man's form we have an explanation of how it must be
a natural product of evolutionary life, and that man must follow the
same law as the evolution of all spirit that pertains to planetary life.
Spirit holds visible things in form by its connection with the magnetic
life of the planet. It is the controlling power in shaping the form and
organism to correspond to changed conditions. The material form can only
exist by keeping itself in harmony with the laws of the elements in the
planet, and as long as the planet endures the electric form in man and
the electric or instinct form in animals within the radius of its
magnetic aurora must exist as a secondary satellite, or miniature
concrete expression of the forces in the planet. This principle may give
the electric form immortality, and, by reason of the eternal nature of
the elements composing it, place it beyond the possibility of
dissolution as long as the planetary relation of the elements exists.
But with man it goes even further, for the spirit form, having the basic
principles of eternal existence in its spiritual composition and having
once entered upon organic life, has in itself immortality and the power
of self-sustenance from the elements in space and cannot become
disintegrated, for it has all the necessary material to keep it in
eternal existence as an organism, though the planet should revert to its
original status and vanish as a distinct form. This explanation of the
nature of spirit gives us a logical ground for the rational
consideration of the phenomenon that has been the basis of all the
superstitions embalmed in the sacred and curious literature of past
ages. That man and probably all types of life have a spiritual or
electric counterpart is not a scientific speculation or hypothesis
merely, but a logical sequence of the forms that enter into physical
organization.
Here in the secondary form, says the author of "Planetary Evolution," is
an explanation of the nature of spirit that follows the same principles
that construct the physical body and form the same material
environments. And the questions of a spiritual life, apart from this
principle of a secondary form, cannot be solved by any known formula of
a scientific character. On the other hand, the existence of a form
holding the powers of thought and action upon the plane of radiant
matter gives a satisfactory explanation of the transference of the
mental powers that belong to planetary life. The law of correlation and
conservation of force prevent their annihilation, and they must exist
somewhere. They are a spiritual entity, but should not be regarded as
having a supernatural origin.
"The spirit is an evolution of planetary life and cannot be destroyed,
and it is natural that its mental attachments to the planet should bring
it in contact with the mental development generated there. The spirit
would have the power of thought and consecutive reasoning as much after
its transition from mortal life as before, but it would lack the power
of expression through ordinary channels. It would, however, have the
power of inductive electric transfer of thought, and, coming in contact
with a spirit embodied, this power of induction would excite the
elements in the spirit embodied to equilibrium of mentality, which would
give rise to a similarity of thought in both." And here lies the
foundation of the doctrine of inspiration which is a process of mental
action whereby the mind in the body is raised to a perception and
expression of ideas beyond its own range of thought as generated by the
physical senses. The result is the upbuilding of the brain organ and the
uplifting of the mentality to the purely spiritual plane, and man has
thus, by the aid of the spiritual powers, made another stride forward in
the domain of spiritual evolution. And man is a spiritualized being with
brain organs adapted to the expression of ideas that respond to the
spiritual state of life.
It is sometimes assumed that a man cannot be a Christian and a man of
science; yet there have been many men of science, from Newton to Lord
Kelvin, who were devout Christians. It is also assumed in some quarters
that an educated man cannot believe in miracles, or answers to prayer,
or special providences. But this is not a fair assumption even from a
scientific standpoint. Science affirms the universality of energy and
law; Christian theology accepts this fundamental postulate of science
and says it is the result of universal spirit and will, or Infinite Mind
and volition, which is back of universal energy and law. Energy is
spirit and will at work; law is the mode of work. Energy and law are
derivative, spirit and will is the primary and ultimate force of the
universe.
But says the unbelieving scientist, "I accept energy and law as facts,
but do not see that spirit and will are facts." Christianity replies:
"You mean by 'see,' mental sight; for in the physical sense you can no
more see energy and law than you can see spirit and will, or mind and
volition.
"The fact is, science is a search for the invisible or
supersensible--for that which lies beyond sense and vision. You call it
energy and law, which we say is a result and not a cause, and point to
spirit and will, which is the primitive, ultimate, first cause of
universal energy and law.
"Would you feel it a just description of yourself if you were described
as nothing but a system of energy and law. Energy is action according to
law. But there is psychical energy as well as physical energy, or 'a
double faced' unity--psychical on one side and physical on the other.
Thought, feeling, volition are all species of energy subject to laws of
their own. And, what is most wonderful, while they are invisible and
intangible they control all physical energy in man and all animal
organisms, just as universal spirit and will or volition control all
energy and law in the physical universe. Then, is universal energy and
law psychical or physical? If it is intelligent and works according to
design and purpose with beneficent uniformity it must be psychical, and
all physical energy and law is but a manifestation of spiritual energy
and purpose."
Then says the scientist, "there may be intelligence without physical
organism, and man may be in constant contact with the spiritual world.
But I am an organized being and cannot imagine how unorganized beings
could communicate with me even if they wished to do so. I cannot imagine
it as possible that I could know God, who is a spirit."
But Christianity answers, "suppose you are not matter only, but that you
are a spirit also, and a spiritual atom of that universal spirit which
controls the universe, then could not spirit communicate with spirit?
Thus, you say, all science is founded on energy and law, which
necessitates spiritual intelligence and will for its foundation, and
consciousness for its evidence. Thought, feeling volition are forms of
psychical energy. We are conscious that we think, feel, will; and as
consciousness is a mental or spiritual perception, man must be a
spiritual being. Then we are not far from Theism--for God is a spirit.
Besides energy and law we have consciousness and spirit, and no force
without will. Law is simply the mode in which will works. Law stands for
the regular and steadfast operation of will, as opposed to variable or
capricious action. The uniformity of nature is rooted in the
faithfulness of God, which sustains the steadfast operation of natural
law."
Then says the scientist, "there could be no miracles, or answers to
prayer, or special providences, for these imply interference with law,
which would mean inconsistency on God's part and confusion on ours."
But Christianity answers, "interference with law is of continual
occurrence. You cannot stand up or walk, or so much as raise your hand
without interfering with the law of gravitation or attraction. We can
modify or direct the action of forces without violating their laws.
Violation of God's laws on God's part would mean inconstancy. Direction
of his own energy to any point He wills--as in evolution, for
example--is no violation of law; neither are what are termed miracles,
special providences and answers to prayer violations of law, but
evolutions in accordance with law, as law stands for God's mode of
working in the control of the universe."
Then says the scientist, "I cannot reconcile the two ideas of 'infinity'
and 'personality.' Personality implies limitation; infinity asserts
absence of limitation, a being cannot be at once limited and unlimited."
"But why should we suppose personality to involve limitation?" says
Christian theology. "Even in man the essential idea of personality is
not limitation. Personality in philosophy and theology refers not to the
body but to consciousness and will. What difficulty is there in
believing that the Infinite God is infinitely conscious and volitional
and therefore personal."
There is a mighty force in the material metaphors of the Bible, but
these all stand for spiritual realities, and its fundamental postulate
is "God is a Spirit," and "God is Love." As man is a spiritual atom of
deity. God has spiritual contact and influence with his spiritual
children and they are "moved by the Spirit," and "born of the Spirit,"
as they accept and obey that spiritual influence which leads to
righteousness and truth. Religion cannot exist without spirituality and
the religious concept. God has so constituted the human soul. Without
religion the soul could not dream of heaven nor feel the sweet
whisperings of faith and hope. Neither could the heart thrill with
spiritual joy and truth. Without religion the heaven-bound spirit could
not soar to the altitudes of celestial bliss.
Without religion and ideality there would have been no gems of art or
literature, no beautiful pictures, no living statuary, no lofty temples
or inspiring thoughts. The grandeur of Shakespeare, the sublimity of
Milton, the poetry of Byron, Burns, Tennyson and Longfellow, the
romances of Scott, Dickens and Hawthorne, the noble architecture of
Michael Angelo, the statuary of Phideas, Praxatelles and Canova, and the
pictures of Raphael, Murello, and Reuben had never been known. Ideality
is the father of beauty and the inspiration of all genius, goodness and
nobility and the twin brother of religious hope and faith.
Without religion ideality would be a mockery and a dream, hope would be
a delusion and a snare, inspiration would wither, like Jonas' gourd, in
a night, and the mildew of selfish materialism would convert the verdure
of earth into deserts of despair.
John Fiske well says, "Man never would have attained his present psychic
powers but for religion," and without religion ideality would never
have soared to her lofty heights or brought forth her beautiful
thoughts, her lofty conceptions, her sublime dreams of joy, or her noble
gems of art, poetry, sculpture, architecture and literature. Remove the
twin brothers--religion and ideality--from the earth, and its glory and
worth would shrivel like a withered flower. Its hopes and joys, its
dreams of peace and love, of paradise and heaven, would vanish into the
desolations of a boundless Sahara, heaped with the burning sands of
doubt and scorched by the withering blast of despair. The religious
concept is the pilot of the soul to the fair field of heaven, the
communion with the Father of the spirit, and ideality is its companion
and servant who carries its cloak and staff as they journey along the
pathways of earth and the highways of eternity. Science and philosophy,
ideality, love and hope and all the aspirations of the human soul
sustain the religious concept. It is a scientific postulate imbedded in
the nature of man and in the basic law of the universe. Ideality and
religion are the most powerful forces in uplifting humanity. The
sublimer the ideal the more potent and ennobling its influence on the
human soul. Though millions grasp not its sublimity and truth, those
receptive souls nearest the light will catch its divine illuminations
and reflect it to those below. And gradually those below will grasp its
beauty and truth and step up higher, and each in succession, step by
step, will advance to "a higher plane and a broader view," and this is
growth and progress toward perfection.
The ultimate aim and purpose of creation is ideal perfection. This
purpose is written in the fundamental law of evolution--progress from
the lower to the higher and the survival of the fittest. The higher, the
more sublime, the spiritual truth, though it be ages in advance of the
world's comprehension, yet its brightness and power will penetrate the
darkness, and scintillate from soul to soul, as the sun gleams from atom
to atom, until at last all humanity is illumined and exalted. When we go
down into the darkness and poisoned vapors of a dungeon we seek for a
ray of sunshine as we seek for life and light, and we are cheered by the
smallest sunbeam which enters through a crevice, for in its silvery
thread of light little atoms float like miniature stars, dispelling the
desolation. There at our feet, left to decay and perish, may be the seed
or bulb of an insignificant vine or flower, forgotten by the busy world
of conflicts without, where little men become great and great men become
little, not dreaming of the eternal law of life and hope that thrills in
every throbbing atom and electric germ in this life-evolving magnetic
universe.
But there in the darkness of that dungeon a struggle for life and hope
goes on as important to the life involved as that of building a throne
or destroying an empire. Never did a hero dare or a nation fight more
bravely to attain its aspirations than did that little seed or bulb
lying in the darkness. A slender beam of light gives it a hope of
escape, and, cold and chilled, its prayer for life has slowly evolved a
delicate pale vine which creeps toward the sunbeam.
Each day it has seen that beam of light fade and pass, and darkness and
mildew paralyze it into the stupor of unconsciousness. And again that
sunbeam awoke it to consciousness and life. At last it reached the
crevice whence came the light, and, lifting itself as a prisoner
escaping from death, it springs forth into the sunshine and opens its
blossoms of beauty and perfume to greet and gladden the world of light
and life.
Thus has humanity struggled for light, and toiled for hope and joy and
sunshine through a thousand ages of gloom and chilling mildew of
ignorance and darkness. And wherever a gleam of light and truth has
pierced the shadows of life's struggles and tragedies, like the tiniest
seed or fragile vine, the aspirations of his nature and his longing soul
have reached up toward it.
What the ray of light is to the flower seed in the dungeon, religion is
to man. Wherever man has crept, like the vine, in the darkness, towards
the light it was his religious spiritual nature and aspirations which
led him. Truth, which comes from the bosom of the eternal Good, streams
down into the darkness and lifts man's soul up into the light by the
same law that the flower and the vine seek the sunshine, and all true
science and philosophy sustain the religious concept.
Life seems of little value when men of every nation are armed to the
teeth to slay each other like madmen, as the best way in which they can
show their gratitude to nature for the useless gift of life. But they
are not so anxious for war and bloodshed as their preparations would
indicate. And the World's Peace Conference at The Hague, and recent
arbitration of national questions, mark a new era in the world's
history, and indicate a disarmament of the nations in a few decades. The
fear of death is useless and absurd. As Flammarion has said, there are
only two sides to the question. When we go to sleep at night there is
always the possibility that we may never awaken. Yet this thought does
not prevent us from falling asleep. In one case, suppose death to end
all; it is but an unfinished sleep to last forever. In the other case,
should the soul survive the body, we shall reawaken in another world to
resume the activities of life. In this case the awakening must be rather
delightful, as every form of life and every creature finds its happiness
in the exercise of its natural energies and faculties. The deep study of
this important question and the disgust at the indifference of men to
this great problem of human destiny impelled a great student of science
to attempt suicide. Because he saw everywhere people absorbed in their
material interests, accumulating wealth, consecrating their lives to
Mammon, folly and passion and neglecting their nobler natures, it made
him doubt their fitness for an eternal existence, and he determined to
know the truth at once by plunging into the invisible unknown.
Prof. Albert H. Walker, in a recent lecture--May, 1903--makes a new
distinction in philosophy and religion, when he says: "Two systems of
philosophy will divide the attention and adherence of the people of the
twentieth century. One is the old system of Epicurus which long preceded
the rise of Christianity and which underlies the Declaration of
Independence; and the other is the philosophy of Christian science."
His definition of religion and Atheism is something modern and unique.
He says: "I define religion as belief in a God who cares; and Atheism
as lack of belief in a God who cares. These two definitions, if
correct, divide all men into two classes, and, according to this
classification, most of the men in the United States are Atheists." He
seems to think all men believe in a God, but a majority believe in a God
who does not care, and that is Atheism. An Atheist has always been
defined as one who believes there is no God; now they may believe in a
God who does not care. This is not a very bad distinction and may be the
true one in the future. For modern knowledge and culture forbids any
thinking man from denying the existence of a God, and this may compel
modern Atheism to modify its creed and accept a don't-care God.
He thinks this century may find an answer to the immortality of the
soul, and "it may be in the affirmative through actual communication
with departed souls; or in the negative by scientific demonstration that
the spirit or soul of man is only a name for the electrical and chemical
actions and reactions which occur in the body." He also says: "The
twentieth century may show whether there is a great master hand that
sweeps over the whole of this deep harp of life, or whether men are but
pipes through whom the breath of 'Pan doth blow a momentary music.'"
Religion has nothing to fear from the future; materialism is vanquished
and now Atheism must change its creed.
Canon Farrar says: "Let us think noble thoughts of God and break through
the brain-spun meshes of impotent negations. God is not vortices of
atoms, or streams of tendencies, or earth fermentations. Heaven is not a
vacuous eternity, or a future of ceaseless psalmody."
The Greek had his Elysian Fields, his daffodil meadows where the
Eidola, the shadowy images of the dead, moved in a world of shadows; and
his islands of the blest, where Achilles and Tydides unlaced the helmet
from their flowing hair. The Scandinavian dreamed of his green sylvan
paradise hereafter, amid the barren wastes. The Indian saw God in
lightning, heard him in the thunder's roar, and viewed beyond the
cloud-capped hills his hunters' paradise. And in the perennial hereafter
in the all-life-giving sun there are green fields, daffodil meadows,
golden light, rainbows that never fade, glorified cities, white-robed
innocence, the crown and the palm branch, the throne of serene majesty,
the golden harp and the song of rejoicing, and all-abounding happiness,
innocent, thrilling, intense and unending.
The rare and radiant physical beauties of heaven we cannot describe, but
it is a place where no guilty step enters the gates of pearl, in the
city of God; no polluting presence flings shadows on the golden streets
of the New Jerusalem. It is the dwelling place of angels and just men
made perfect, and spirits of saints in celestial glory. There is no
darkness, envy, hatred or slander, no gold mixed with dross. No bleared
and blighted crowds, degraded out of the semblance of humanity, crawl,
like singed moths, around the flaring house of multiplied temptations.
Where boyhood shall not so live as to make its own manhood miserable;
where manhood shall not so live as to make old age dishonorable and
death ghastly. The apples of Sodom cannot grow on the same soil with the
Tree of Life.
In other stars and countless worlds there may be work for us to do.
What radiant ministrations, what infinite activities, what never-ending
progress, what immeasurable happiness, what living ecstasies of unknown
raptures may surround us in the beauty and loveliness of the land of the
leal, in the life supernal?
Heaven is not a reward but a continuity, not a change but a development.
It means a place of love and goodness where we are one with God and
playfellows with the angels. Present science would change God into a
struggle of careless forces or a complexity of impersonal laws. Let us
reject the Chinese idea; they believe in God, but worship the devil,
because they think the devil's rule predominates.
Let us discard the pagan _deification of annihilation_, and the modern
agnostic's plea for _suicide_, and the Greek poet's pessimistic
postulate: "It were best never to have been born, and next best to
depart as soon as possible." Let us grieve at the dark shadows flung by
theologians athwart God's light upon those who believe that human
reason, conscience, and experience, as well as Scripture, are the books
of God. Phrases which belong to metaphor, to imagery, to poetry, to
emotion should not be formulated into dogmas, or crystallized into
creed.
Discard the tyrannous realism of ambiguous metaphors, the asserted
infallibility of isolated words. Canon Farrar says: "Erase from our
Bible the erroneous disputed renderings of the three words, 'damnation,
hell and everlasting.' Not one of these three expressions ought to stand
any longer in our English Bible."
He says further: "There has never been a human being yet since time
began, however beautiful, gifted, bright with genius, or radiant with
fascination, who has sinned with impunity." Evil and punishment, as
Plato said, walk this world with their heads tied together, and the
rivet that links their iron link is of adamant. It needs no lightning
stroke, or divine interposition, no miraculous message to avenge God's
violated laws. They avenge themselves. The hell fire of the Bible was a
spiritual fire which does not burn the flesh, but purifies the spirit.
Not a material fire, but self-kindled fire, an internal fever--in fact,
remorse for remembered sins--a figurative representation of a moral
process by which restoration shall be effected.
When earthly life vanishes and we see in the visions of the soul an
endless life and being in countless worlds of destiny, death has no
terrors. The thought of the pale, cold body enwrapt in its winding
sheet, coffined and alone in the narrow grave, its last sad dwelling
place, with the grass growing above, where the lonely cricket chirps
through the silent night, does not disturb the calm and reasoning soul.
A few years hence and we shall all cross the dark river to the shadowy
unknown shore and learn the mysteries that lie beyond. But where is that
wondrous shore, and where will all of the now living inhabitants of
earth be a century hence? Not floating in the marvelous belt of
atmosphere which surrounds the earth. Nor on a changeful planet like our
earth. Not floating in the frigid ether of space, but, if my hypothesis
is correct, they will be celestial residents in the self-luminous,
all-life-giving sun.
The only rational scientific theory that satisfies my mind is to regard
the suns as self-luminous, perfected worlds, the visible abode of deity,
and the future home of the soul. This hypothesis accords with every
recently established fact in science, nature and revelation. It fits
man's hopes and aspirations, his aesthetic nature, his psychic powers
and religious concept which have followed him through all the
vicissitudes of his history.
The question often arises: As justice reigns in the moral world, as
equilibrium reigns in the physical world, and the destiny of the soul is
the result of its aptitudes and its aspirations, are only those souls
alone that truly live and unfold their faculties and aspire to knowledge
and truth destined to a conscious immortality? Many souls pass their
lives here in mental sleep, intellectual stupor, and spiritual
paralysis. Will they receive the gift of eternal life? Many great
scientists think they will not. And all who neglect their mental and
moral development seal their own fate and will have no future existence.
This is a distressing view held and championed by some of the able minds
of modern times. But I do not agree with them, for I believe every soul
is a spiritual atom of deity and, however ignorant and depraved, may
become wise and good, and enjoy the beatitudes of an immortal existence.
CHAPTER XII
HUMAN REASON AND THE UNIVERSE ARE BOOKS OF GOD, AS WELL AS THE BIBLE.
It is a mistake to consider the Bible as the only book of God and its
revelations the only revelations of Deity. The natural universe and
human reason are also books of God. They are books He has been writing
all along through the varied history of man and the universe, from the
dawn of creation until now. Man is God's handiwork, His most perfect and
finished product, a machine he has been developing and improving through
all the ages, a book that He has bound and rebound, and stamped upon it
His name and title a million times.
The Bible teaches this when it says, "Ye are His epistles known and read
of all men." He has named this book, this living epistle written by His
own hands, "The Sons of God," "Children of the Most High," "Heirs of
Eternal Life." And man's body, the binding which He has furnished for
this book, He has designated "the temple of the living God--the
tabernacle of flesh." The Bible is not only a book of religious and
ethical teaching, but also a history of the reason, conscience and
experience of men for a thousand generations.
The Bible is the revelation of God's mind and will, and so is man, who
was "made in His image." The Bible is God's book, but so is the
physical universe His book and the revelation of His will. The
Scriptures affirm this truth, also, when they say, "The heavens declare
the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day
uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge." Thus God has
three books instead of one. His first book was the physical universe,
His second book was man and human reason, conscience and experience. And
then He added the third, the oracles of Divine truth, to instruct His
spiritual atom, man, in the essential truths of life, spiritual being
and moral perfection. The theologians should remember this, and the
scientists should read and study all these books.
Man is a second edition of God epitomized, and in his enlighted
spiritual nature he thinks like God, reasons like God, and has the moral
conscience, goodness and love that emanate from God. All these books of
God should bear the same infallible testimony. The Bible should be in
accord with the reason, conscience and experience of man, and both with
the constitution and laws of the physical universe. Wherever they seem
to differ or contradict each other it is because we do not understand
them, for there is perfect unity and harmony in all creation.
Flammarion says: "Science in revealing the plan of the universe will
show that the moral universe is based upon the same plan, that both
worlds form but one world and that spirit governs matter. The same laws
rule everywhere and make the vast universe a unity. All the ages of the
past and future are one with the present, and thinking beings will live
eternally through successive and progressive transformations.
Everything progresses toward supreme perfection. The material world has
but an apparent existence, and the reality underlying it is a force
imponderable, invisible and intangible." Man is apparently an animal,
but he is not; that is the visible side of his nature and is deceptive.
All he beholds is apparent. The reality is something altogether
different. The sun seems to revolve around the earth, and the earth
seems to stand still. The reverse is true. We dwell upon the surface of
a body revolving in space and projected with a velocity seventy-five
times greater than the speed of a cannon ball.
We hear a harmony of sweet sounds which charm our senses. The sound does
not exist; it is an impression made upon our sense of hearing by
vibrations of the atmosphere which themselves emit no sound. Without the
auditory nerve and brain there would be no sound. In reality there is
only motion in the ether.
The rainbow expands its radiant circle, the rose and lily sparkle in the
sunshine; the green fields and golden grain diversify the landscape by
their vivid colors. But there are no colors; there is no light; there
are only undulations in the air that set the optic nerve vibrating. The
sun warms and fertilizes, the fire burns, but there is no heat, only the
sensation of heat. Heat, like light, is only the result of
motion--invisible, all-potent, supreme. Here is a solid iron joist
sustaining tons of enormous weight, yet the joist is composed of
molecules which do not touch each other and are in continual motion.
What constitutes the solidity of this bar of iron? Not the atoms that
compose it; but the cause of its solidity is molecular attraction, the
invisible force of magnetic attraction.
The present scientific theories have only been apprehended by the
brightest intellects within the last half century, and would have been a
conglomeration of absurdities to the wisest men of the world a century
ago. So, written revelation had to use the language and symbols
understood by the ancients. And it seems that scientific evolution is
constantly struggling for new terms to express new ideas and
discoveries.
Some scientists believe it impossible for the terrestrial being to
attain a complete knowledge of the truth because he has only five
senses, and a multitude of the phenomena of nature remains unknown to
his mind because he has no means by which to reach them. Just as if we
should be unable to see if deprived of the optic nerve, or to hear if
deprived of the auditory nerve. Our terrestrial harp may be wanting in
many chords which prevent us from catching the perfect harmony and truth
of the universe. It is said the smallest magnet can more easily than
Newton or Leibnitz discover the magnetic pole, and the swallow has more
knowledge of the varieties of latitude than had Columbus or Magellan.
But whatever our experience, it is a part of the book of God and nature.
Flammarion says: "No one who is aware of the progress made in the exact
sciences of to-day can pretend to be a materialist. The psychic atom,
the principle of the human organism would be immortal, like atoms
everywhere, if scientists were to admit the fundamental axioms of
chemistry. But it would be superior to atoms, and be conscious of its
existence. Can the soul partake of the character of electricity? We
conceive that it exists as force that survives the dissolution of the
body."
I conceive the soul controls electricity, which is the right hand of its
power, and the tongue of the spirit, and survives in conscious power
"the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." "Whither does the soul
go?" asks the same author, and he answers "to other worlds. Yes, living
principles of force can transport them from one world to another." I
agree with him. I believe they go to other worlds, and the other worlds
are perfected sun-worlds. We must not think that the soul belongs to
some supernatural world. There is nothing that is not in nature. Nature
is unceasing progress. It is only a few thousand years since terrestrial
humanity emerged from its chrysalis state of being. Yet certain spirits
have attained transcendent power, and humanity has produced a
Shakespeare, a Goethe, a Hugo, a Newton, and a Milton. We live in
reality among the stars.
We are inhabitants of the skies. Life, light and eternal progress to
perfection is the final end and purpose of the universe. Every thinking
man feels in his moral and psychic nature that he is linked to justice,
truth and Deity.
Maeterlinck, the Danish philosopher, sustains this thought in his latest
work when he says: "Though nature appears unjust and nothing authorizes
us to declare that a superior power rewards or punishes here or
elsewhere, it is none the less certain that an image of that invisible,
incorruptible justice we have vainly sought in the sky or the universe
_reposes in the depths of the moral life of every man_. It will not add
to or take from our wealth, it will bring no immunity from disease or
lightning, it will not prolong one hour the life of the being we
cherish; but if we have learned to reflect and to love, it will
establish in heart and brain a contentment that shall still be
inexhaustible and noble.
"It will confer a dignity of existence, an intelligence, that shall
suffice to sustain our life after the loss of our wealth, after the
stroke of disease or lightning has fallen, after the loved one has
forever quitted our arms."
It is said Jesus was a chosen medium to communicate to the people of the
earth the higher sentiment of love which prevails in the sphere of
spirit life. His mission was to teach the doctrine of love to humanity,
and to afford a striking and never to be forgotten example of its
violation.
This same Jesus taught that God's law is written in the hearts of men,
and to those who listen to His voice--the still, small voice of the
spirit--"He moveth in them to will and to do according to His good
pleasure." This shows, as Maeterlinck says, "That the invisible justice
that reposes in the moral life of every man" comes from God and His
epistle, written on the secret tablets of the human soul.
Goldwin Smith says: "It will be found that Anarchism and Atheism
generally went together. But minds of the finer cast have preserved the
religious spirit while they have thrown off the shackles of creed. Yet
the Positivist feels the need of a religion, and for the worship of God
he substitutes the worship of humanity. Humanity is an abstraction, an
imperfect abstraction. It cannot hear prayer or respond in any way to
adoration. The adherents of Comte's religion, therefore, are few.
Tindall and Huxley would console us for the loss of religion by
substituting the majesty of law. But the idea of law implies an
intelligent, authoritative imponent of some kind. There is no majesty in
a sequence.
"The all-embracing philosophy of Herbert Spencer excludes the
supernatural and Theism in its ordinary form, and looks upon them as the
Unknowable, which he presents as an object of reverence. But
unknowableness in itself excites no reverence, even though it be
supposed infinite and eternal. Nothing excites our reverence but a
person, or at least a moral being." Thus does Goldwin Smith, the great
Freethinker of to-day, demolish the Freethinkers of yesterday, the
Tindalls, Huxleys and Darwins of Materialism, the Comtes and Voltaires
of Atheism, and the Herbert Spencers and Ingersolls of Agnosticism, and
contends for the inexorable necessity of a personal deity with
intelligent moral or spiritual power. He says the present tendency is
"to minimize the supernatural and throw it into the background, bringing
the personal character of Christ and his ethical teachings into the
foreground," and, "the legemen of reason should consider to how great an
extent our civilization has hitherto rested on religion."
Abstract humanitarianism, and scientific naturalism do not constitute a
moral standard, nor can scientific postulates be made a basis for moral
culture. Only when acted upon by man does nature give response to the
increasing purpose of the world, and the supreme test is spiritual.
Religious truths are fundamental truths. First, the existence and
personality of God; second, His creation and government of the universe;
third, man's immortality and freedom of will. These are not contradicted
by the solid facts of science nor shattered by "the great eternal iron
laws of the universe." On the contrary all harmonize with these great
truths.
Emperor William of Germany in his letter to Admiral Holbrun, Feb. 20,
1903, says: "I distinguish between two different kinds of
revelation--progressive and, as it were, historical, the other purely
religious. It does not admit of a doubt that God reveals Himself
continuously in the race of men created by Him. He breathes into man the
breath of His life, and follows with fatherly love and interest the
development of the human race. In order to lead it forward and develop
it, He reveals Himself in this or that great sage, whether priest or
king, whether among the heathen, Jews or Christians. Hammurabi was one,
so was Moses, Abraham, Homer, Charlemagne, Luther, Shakespeare, Goethe,
Kant, and Emperor William the Great. These he sought out and endowed
with his grace to accomplish splendid, imperishable results for their
people in their intellectual and physical provinces according to His
will." Emperor William seems from these statements to be a firm believer
in spiritual revelation and personal inspiration.
"The second form of revelation, the more religious," he said, "is that
which leads to the manifestation of our Lord. It was introduced with
Abraham, slow but forward looking and omniscient, for humanity was lost
without it. Now begins the most astonishing activity of God's
revelation. Abraham's race and the peoples developing from it, regard
faith in one God as their holiest possession, and it follows, hold fast
to it with iron-like consistency. It was the direct intervention of God
that caused the rejuvenation of His people through centuries, till, the
Messiah, heralded by prophets and psalmists, finally appeared, the
greatest revelation of God in the world, for He appeared in the Son
Himself. Christ is God--God in human form. He redeemed us, and inspires
and entices us to follow Him. We feel His fire burning in us. His
sympathy strengthens us. His discontent destroys us. But also His
intercession saves us. Conscious of victory, building solely upon His
word, we go through labor, ridicule sorrow, misery and death, for we
have in Him God's revealed word. That is my view of these matters. It is
to me self-evident that the Old Testament contains many sections which
are of a purely human and historical nature and are not God's revealed
word. These are merely historical descriptions of incidents of all kinds
which happen in the political, religious, moral and intellectual life of
this people."
This letter of Emperor William was in reply to Prof. Delitzsch, who
contended that Moses and the Israelites got their laws and religion from
the Babylonians. The recent discoveries in Asia Minor seem to refute
Delitzsch, especially those at Nippur.
Nippur is situated between the Euphrates and Tigris in Babylonia. It is
one of the oldest towns spoken of in the Scriptures. The famous temple,
library and school for priests cover an area of thirteen acres, and are
pronounced the most far-reaching archeological discoveries of the
century. Only about one-twelfth part of the library has been uncovered,
out of which over twenty thousand cuneiform tablets and fragments have
been obtained belonging to the era three thousand years before Abraham,
or nearly six thousand years before our time.
These show strong evidence of civilization and culture. There have been
found evidences that freehand drawing, clay-modeling and sculpture were
taught. There were found works of reference, scientific treatises, and
various technical volumes on astronomical and religious subjects.
These discoveries show the knowledge and culture that existed in the
days of Abraham, and are a powerful demonstration of the unshaken truth
of Old Testament prophesies.
Prof. Hilprecht, who made these excavations and discoveries, says: "As
the attempt has recently been made to trace the pure Monotheism of
Israel to Babylonian sources, I am bound to declare this an absolute
impossibility, on my basis of fourteen years' researches in Babylonian
cuneiform inscriptions. The faith of God's chosen people is: 'Hear, O
Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord,' and this faith could never
proceed from the Babylonian mountain of gods--that charnel-house full of
corruption and dead men's bones."
The fact is, as far as I am able to judge, every recent discovery of
science tends to sustain the essential truths of the Bible, and confirm
the religious concept.
Those who think that religion is losing its power should remember that
thousands of converts are added to the churches daily, and fifteen
church buildings on an average are erected every day in the United
States alone. And there are besides thousands of persons, like myself,
of a thoughtful, religious nature who are not members of any religious
order.
Scientists should omit from their works all spirit of antagonism to
religious faith. Such antagonism impairs the usefulness of their works,
and is an offence against public morals, public security, and man's
aesthetic nature and psychic advancement. Religion has helped to develop
the spiritual life of the race, and is the anchor of all good society,
good government and exemplary conduct in man.
The religious faith and even superstitions which some scientists rail at
with such vehemence was a necessary phase of human history and
experience to lift the human race to a higher plane of spiritual power.
Science has passed through the same phases of credulity and
superstition.
Whiskey, wines, and intoxicants once had their useful phase in arousing
the sluggish brains of our half-civilized ancestors to higher realms of
thought and perception. So, what now seem the most absurd superstitions
once had their usefulness in deterring men from crime and causing them
to lead better lives. The dread of physical punishment hereafter, and
the fear of a hell and a devil that never existed, had a salutary effect
on countless millions of the past which no moral persuasion or
scientific arguments could have reached. But all intoxicants with their
blighting curse, and all superstitions with their blinding ignorance
have had their day of usefulness and should be relegated to the dark
tomb of oblivion.
The solemn cathedral, the soft-toned organ, the mellow light from
colored windows, the awe and anxious faith, have added soul development
and psychic power to human life.
The mother who bowed in prayer, the father who assembled his children
around the family altar, have added spiritual power to themselves and
their posterity for all generations.
And it is the honest, home-loving, God-fearing and praying mothers and
fathers of the past three centuries that have made the Anglo-Saxon race
and the civilization of to-day what it is.
The Bible says truly, "to be spiritually minded is life," and to be
worldly minded is to lead us back to pagan selfishness, when cruelty was
a pastime, and poisoning and assassination were fine arts.
This book of God we call man is bound in imperishable atoms that
dissolve into-viewless ether, and are tied together with electric bands
as pliable as silk and as invisible as thought, and the spirit they
enwrap is as strong and enduring as omnipotence.
The statement is often made to the prejudice of religion that religion
has been the cause of most of the wars and cruelties that have desolated
the earth since the commencement of human history. This is unjust and
misleading. Until the formation of our government, church and state were
united among all nations and politics and religion were blended, and a
purely religious war was impossible. As to the miracles of the New
Testament, if they were all discredited the immaculate teachings of the
gospel would remain. The peculiar glory of Christianity is the
regeneration it brings to man, putting him under the law of love; and
without miracles we would still have vital, uplifting, heaven-inspiring
Christianity.
As to the infallibility of science, she has nothing to boast of over
religion. Science has been groping her devious way from colossal blunder
to blunder, and championing as many absurdities and superstitions
through all the ages as ever the religious devotee dreamed or the
religious concept propagated. She is still teaching some of the grossest
superstitions and incredible absurdities. Science has received nearly
every fundamental truth from religion, and is at last steadily
developing and proving the true religious concept of the universe, in
showing that all visible things are the product of invisible spirit,
invisible law and invisible force; that the spiritual and invisible
world is the supreme reality; that its Creator and Ruler must be the
Father of Spirits, and virtually re-echoes the words of Christ, "God is
a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth." It teaches universal love, helpfulness and equality, which was
demonstrated by Christ when He called for water and washed the feet of
those who worshiped Him. This was His last object lesson, so little
understood in Christian philosophy. But ethical and psychic science have
lifted it to be the glory of perfected civilization, and endorsed the
exalted truth, "Let him that is greatest among you be the servant of
all."
All knowledge and truth are in a sense inspired revelation from God,
whether written in nature or the human soul. There is scientific
revelation written in physical facts and recognized by the senses; there
is God's revelation written in the secret conscience and reasoning power
of man, and they naturally sustain and supplement each other and the
revealed truths of the Scriptures.
It may be that the first chapter of Genesis was not intended so much as
an infallible record of the divine order in the creation of the world as
to teach the vastly higher spiritual truth that creation is the work of
God, thus leading men to His worship and away from the lower worship of
sun, moon and heathen deities.
The mechanical conception as to the mode of inspiration and revelation
tends to give way before a larger conception of the process--that God
speaks to man through the experience of the events of life. Thus
revelation becomes a living process, and all later history may become a
commentary on sacred history, renewing and confirming the primal
utterance of God to the soul of man.
The reign of law, which was little understood by the ancients, is now
universally accepted and endows the human race with new powers. It also
gives new conceptions of the "intelligibility of nature," which is but a
modern scientific term for religion or the reliance on the will and
wisdom of Creative Deity.
Herbert Spencer's "persistency of matter and force" is but another
expression of the reign of law. And as law is the result of an
intelligent spiritual concept and impulse, the lawmaker of the universe
must be a supreme, intelligent, spiritual personality.
And the reasoning, intelligent soul of man, by discovering the immutable
laws of nature, which are the unchanging decrees of Deity, has learned
the art of controlling the great powers of nature for the use and
convenience of man.
But in the ultimate analysis it is God's spirit and will that control
the universe, and man's spirit and will which evolve the art of
controlling, and masters the great powers of nature.
Therefore, we must look to the powers of the mind to subdue all other
powers. This it does by constructive reason and vitalizing faith. By
constructive reason it builds bridges, tunnels mountains, operates
engines, telegraphs and all the appliances of modern commerce. By
vitalizing faith it renews and strengthens body and soul, and seems to
work the miracles of God.
Prof. Osler says: "Faith is a most precious commodity. Faith is the
great lever of life. Without it man can do nothing, with it all things
are possible. Galen says: 'Confidence and hope do more good than
physic.' Faith in the gods or the saints cures one, faith in little
pills another, hypnotic suggestion a third, and faith in a plain, common
doctor a fourth. In all ages the prayer of faith has healed the sick,
and the mental attitude of the suppliant seems to be of more consequence
than the powers to which the prayer is addressed."
Miracles, says criticism, belong to an age of ignorance. With the dawn
of knowledge they diminish. In its meridian light they disappear.
The Jews were eminently addicted to belief in miracles. With them there
was satanic miracle as well as divine. They believed in persons being
possessed by devils, and all efforts to disentangle them from the
demoniac miracles and to resolve them into cures of lunacy by moral
influence was vain.
Comte totally discards belief in God, but, feeling the need of a
religion, substituted the worship of humanity. Humanity is an
abstraction by itself, but combined with the Christianity and the
monotheism of the New Testament, it is the perfection of ethics and
religion. They who preach the religion of humanity, morality and true
socialism will find it more perfectly taught in the New Testament, with
nobler incentives and higher inspiration and spirituality, than
elsewhere in human history. And it accords more perfectly with the book
of truth, written in the reason and conscience of man.
Prof. C. F. Kent of Yale, says: "There is no conflict between science
and religion. The Bible does not pretend to teach science, but does
speak with authority with regard to questions of morality and religion.
"The pathetic fact is that the fundamental spiritual truths the Bible
narratives seek to teach are lost sight of in the contention for
historical accuracy, which was entirely secondary with the authors. The
prophets used ancient narratives, the same as Jesus used parables, to
illustrate spiritual truths."
Dr. Beet, of Wesleyan College, England, denies that either "the endless
suffering or the extinction of the wicked is taught in the Scriptures,"
and says: "Very few Wesleyans now adhere to Wesley's teachings
concerning it."
The essential truths of the Bible are just as true without miracles as
with them. Christ said a wicked and perverse generation seeketh a sign
or miracle.
Truth is inherently true and needs no miracle to confirm it. And the
tendency of all ancient writers, as well as those of the Bible, to
exaggerate natural phenomena into wonders and miracles cause many to
discard the great truths of revelation. I undertook to show how Joshua
might have mistaken a luminous aurora borealis for the sun standing
still. And I am inclined to think that a mistranslation is responsible
for the story of Jonah and the big fish. Somewhere in ancient history I
got the idea that the pirate boats in ancient times were called, "the
big fish." If so Jonah might have been captured by the pirates after
being thrown overboard, and put in the hole or belly of the boat, and
after three days, seeing no prospect of a ransom, was thrown onto the
land. God may have prepared the pirates and boat for this purpose and a
miracle would be unnecessary. The writers of that day would say Jonah
was swallowed by "the big fish," meaning the pirates captured him, and
centuries afterwards the translators would make a great miracle out of
it. Take many of our modern expressions, as, "the ship and sailors went
to Davy Jones' locker;" if centuries hence our language should become
obsolete, the translators would say, "the ship was in a great storm, and
it and the sailors were all saved by running into David Jones' big
chest." That would be a literal translation, but would not state the
facts. Take another illustration. In the war, "a company was lost in the
woods and was gobbled up by the enemy." A future translation would read,
"a company of soldiers was lost in the woods and a ferocious turkey
gobbled and eat them all up." Either of these would make a greater
miracle than Jonah and the whale.
I mention this to show how easy it is to mistranslate an obsolete
language, especially an Oriental language, always so full of figures of
speech, hyperbole and parables.
There is the wonderful capture of the city of Jericho. When the
Israelites, under Joshua, marched round it seven times, and blew seven
long blasts on their ramshorns, the walls fell. Now, the spies may have
reported to Joshua the weakness of the walls, and, by marching round
them seven times, caused the people of the city to crowd onto the walls,
and the vibrations of the horns caused them to fall.
We know that the vibrations of thunder or cannon or any loud noise has
caused many a house to fall, and would endanger any weak building or
wall. I believe that if every miracle in the Bible was disapproved or
shown to be a natural event it would not destroy or affect a single
important truth it teaches.
While I believe the brave and honest man will refuse happiness at the
expense of truth, I must partly agree with Luckey, the historian, who
says we owe more to our illusions than to our knowledge; that
superstition appeals to our hopes as well as our fears, and often meets
and gratifies the inmost longings of our heart. Imagination, which is
altogether constructive, contributes more to our happiness than reason,
which is mainly critical and destructive. He says: "The rude charm
clasped by the savage, the sacred picture protecting the poor man's
cottage, can bestow a more real consolation in the darkest hour of human
suffering than the grandest theories of philosophy." This was more
distinctly true in the early history of the human race, when ignorance
and superstitious wonder dominated all minds and all important events
were deemed supernatural or miraculous.
Take the superstitious worship of the Virgin Mary; its beneficence to
the human race is beyond all human calculation. It helped to elevate and
spiritualize woman and lift her offspring and the generations of men to
a higher spiritual plane.
Romantic love between the sexes was never known, so history teaches us,
until the worship of the Virgin Mary became universal throughout
Christendom. No such sentiment existed in Greece or Rome or any pagan
country, and none exists now in any pagan or Mohammedan land. There
women are still treated as chattels and denied a soul. We should
remember that for man all religions were instituted, all books written,
all science formulated, all literature ennobled, all progress inspired,
and all art made beautiful.
Human reason, the perfection of the universe and the words of revelation
all teach--
Man's soul is part of Deity, and as immortal as its Creative God.
Death is but a shadow across its path of destiny.
To the soul there is no grave; the tomb cannot grasp its viewless
form;
Earth is but its birthplace--the cradle of its infancy--
Where it drops its cumbrous wrappings for the wings of immortality.
Time, the vestibule of eternity, is where it points its course
and takes its leap
Into the vast unknown toward the Infinite and Eternal, and sweeps
Out upon its endless progression in knowledge and perfection
through immensity of worlds.
CHAPTER XIII
LOVE IS THE ELECTRIC LAW OF LIFE: ALL THAT LIVE MUST COME FROM LOVING
God is love, and love is the law of life and the creative force of the
universe. The love of God in the soul is the substance and life of all
religion. The love of fellow-man in the heart is the foundation of all
human kindness and social ethics. As Dante followed his beloved Beatrice
from world to world until he found her at the gates of Paradise, so we
must follow our loves and ideals through all the tragic incidents of
existence until we find them as guardian angels at the gates of
celestial glory and creative perfection.
A noble character, a worthy and useful life of service to others is the
chief purpose and crowning glory of all earthly existence. Wealth and
fame are mere incidents in the fleeting drama of human experience.
All true greatness is in the beauty and grandeur of the soul. It must
come from within; external manifestations may shadow it forth, but
cannot produce it.
All true gentleness and kindness are a reflex of the inner life of love
and willing service. We live in the atmosphere that our thoughts and
spirits breathe around us, and by opening the windows and doors of our
soul to love we inhale the perfume from other souls, and the breath of
life from Deity Himself.
Thoughts are forces, and through them we have creative power; but they
must be winged with love to manifest divine energy. Every act is
preceded and given birth to by a thought, the act repeated forms the
habit, the habit determines the character, and character determines the
life and destiny.
Everything in the material universe has its origin first in the
spiritual concept or thought, and from this it takes its form. The
spoken word and the mighty deed spring from the potency of living
thought, and life is a tireless swimmer in an ocean of thought. Thought
is the conscious energy of the soul, the subtle, invisible force of the
reasoning, resistless mind, and, to be potent with life, must be winged
with love. Thought is everywhere and surrounds us like the atmosphere we
breathe. When we want a thought we should reach up into the air for it
with the caressing hand of love, and it will come like an invisible
messenger from spirit land. We should seek thought and wisdom in the
intellectual zenith of our own minds, and not from mediums or
clairvoyants, for they have never revealed any great truths.
Thus our great poets, sages and prophets have reached up into the
spiritual altitudes and gathered wisdom and truth as the stars are
gathered and sparkle in the glittering mirror of night's far off and
measureless spaces. They come with the speed of light from all suns and
spheres in the jewelled crown of God's eternal expanse of love and life,
they whisper wonderful things to the listening spirit in the silent
chambers of the dreaming soul, and they come like angel faces in the
visions of night and paint with the flaming finger of anticipated joy
the glorious beatitudes of immortality and love. There is the science of
thought which brings wisdom and success, and the science of love that
brings peace and joy. It is a beautiful thing to live. Life is the fine
art of the soul, the literature of the spirit, where it writes its hopes
and achievements.
It is the theatre of all possibilities here and hereafter, but its
atmosphere must be magnetic with love and faith where the spiritual
forces may battle and exert their powers. We must first love all the
world if we would have the world love us. Only what comes from the heart
can reach the heart of the world, for mankind will care little for us
unless we show we care for mankind. But what man earnestly desires and
persistently wills and strives to accomplish through love will finally
be attained. Love and goodness are all-powerful and will eventually
conquer.
The first cause of all discontent, weariness, bitterness and vanity of
life is selfishness. It is the corrosive element that rusts away all the
pure gold of energy and aspiration. It is as amazing as sad that we
burden ourselves with selfish strivings that are of no consequence, and
miss the gladness and exhilaration of living. For no life is successful
unless it is radiant with love and usefulness. Emerson says: "Life is an
ecstasy and nothing else is really worth living. Happiness is not
determined by a bank account or the flattering incense of praise, but is
a mental and spiritual condition."
Ye who seek liberty know this; it can only be found in the liberty of
your fellow men. Ye who seek happiness know this; ye can only find it
in the happiness of others, and if you desire to be happy you must make
others happy. This is God's eternal law of compensation--of
altruism--love to others; what you do unto others you do unto yourself.
Look upon thy fellow man with wisdom and thou shalt have love. Feel for
thy fellow man with love and thou shalt have wisdom, and, having wisdom
and love, thou hast God and heaven in thy heart. These are the golden
rules of the New Testament, written in the reason, conscience and
experience of men, as God's living book of wisdom and truth.
Every action has its rebound or echo. Others will return your love or
hate as the mountains return an echo, and by the same law. "Whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap." The hate you send forth will
return to you, the love you gave will come back to you, for it is an
immortal part of you and a part of Omnipotent Deity.
If you are sick, love! If you are envied, hated and slandered, love! If
age and death steal upon you, love! For God is love, and heaven is love,
and love is life eternal. This is God's law, this is the law of man's
nature, the law of the New Testament, the law of love and life, the law
of the universe.
Whatever may be man's misfortune, if he has a love of humanity, a love
of literature, art or nature, he has resources of happiness that nothing
can remove. With these the poor man is rich, and the rich man can never
be poor. For each by love has overcome the world. Therefore believe and
love, and hold fast to the conviction that the forces of life are divine
and eternal, and their laws written in the reason and consciences of
men, and that death is only a transition from our world to another of
greater beauty and perfection. The inadequacy of earth-life to satisfy
the soul's capabilities is evidence that its career must continue
hereafter in brighter worlds of celestial love and destiny.
It is said the common epitaph of humanity is, "They mean well, try a
little and fail much." But if love is their guiding star and they obey
the dictates of their reason and conscious duty, their lives cannot be
failures. Most of our troubles and cares, like echoes, do not exist
until we call them forth. But sweet, subdued sorrow, and the tears of
love and sympathy that spring from the generous heart to the soulful
eyes, are like heavenly dews, and promote the growth of the soul. They
should not be classed among the depressing trials. Neither should
friendly rivalry, or laudable ambition to excel, be deemed trying
aggressions, for they are beneficial phases of growth. Humanity should
emancipate itself by hitching its chariot to the star of love, and
switching the current of human energy from the circuit of worry and
anger, and connecting it with the motors of good thoughts and noble
deeds.
All men should realize the fact that anger turns the natural juices of
the body into poison as the vibrations of thunder sour the sweetest
milk. And every fit of anger is an electric trip-hammer that drives a
nail into the coffin of life and shortens human existence. All nature
reveals the law of "natural selection and survival of the fittest," and
demands in man the highest perfection of love, beauty and
self-development.
The culture of the divine essence of the soul, love and ideality will
eventually emancipate, exalt and ennoble human life.
Love is the beginning of life. Love is the creative agency of all human
and animal existence. Even the vegetable world, trees, shrubs and
flowers have their dual, sexual amities, and their male and female
blending in the love of unity and the unity of love, and thereby
propagate and continue their species in the ever changing cycles of
life.
All that live must come from loving. The positive and negative circles
of electric and spiritual forces in man and woman must be broken and
reunited in a combined circle of dual vitalizing growth and power before
God's first command, "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth,"
can be consummated.
God has so organized the universe that love brings life and continues
it, while hatred checks all the sweet gushing juices and joys of hope
and life, and, brings death and darkness. Love commands the electric
creative forces of human life as God commands them in the boundless
heavens. Love is the elemental part of God, and the godly part of man.
And he whose soul is diffused with love is enwrapt in the effulgent
drapery of Divine goodness and joy.
Woman by Divine right and the Supreme decrees of destiny is the
ministering angel of love and life, and is next to God the Creator and
Preserver of the human race.
All that live must come from loving
In the hallowed name of wife,
God has set the bounds of being
And the joy of giving life.
Some very strong writers believe man's body is the product of the
thought and mental force of his progenitors. If so, the mental impulse
of love, and even its lower form of animal passion, is the begetter of
the human race. Mrs. Josephine Barton, in "Mothers of the Living,"
declares, "The history of flesh has its beginning in the male atom, and
exists as an unembodied idea in mental solution. Thinking results in
ideas and ideas crystallize into form. Thoughts are the blocks out of
which children are made. The physical gets its breath of life from the
mental or spiritual. The first avenue of development after its
appearance in form in the male parent is the daily and hourly thinking,
exercised in the mentality of the parent. These atoms, though
microscopic, are the brain and spinal cord of the atom man. The product
of the male element is judgment and will, of the female love and
intuition; so the atom man crystallizes only the seat, brain and nerve
faculties. This structure--temple of the soul--like the acorn, has
inherent within it growth and fruit possibilities."
She arouses useful thought and adds with force and eloquence, "All men
are, by their daily thinking, moulding the brain and spinal cords of
future men.
"O men of earth! what qualities are you weaving in your thread of
thought? Of what substance are you moulding the grand army of the future
race? Are you endowing them with the intellect of true manhood, or
crystallizing into atoms all manner of distorted brains?
"Our bodies are bulletins of our thoughts, and the male atom is the
microscopic beginning of childlife, and when expelled from the loins of
their progenitors, become the 'living souls' that people the cities and
the plains. The human atom thus formed, when imparted into the custody
of the mother, is ready for the breath of life which the mother mind, by
love and intuition will breathe into it. The temple for a human soul is
thus constructed. The nourishment then given is as pliant to thought as
the ocean to a raindrop, and prenatal education is most important. O
splendid fact! Be lifted up, thou expectant mother of the living! You
are at liberty to take the helm of possibility and steer for the sunlit
isles where all sons are gods. The mother should be herself what she
would have her child be. She should affirm and reiterate. 'I am the heir
of all wisdom, the expression of all beauty, the revelation of love and
truth, the life proclamation of the Eternal. I am serene, radiant,
valiant, loving, aspiring, knowing.' Then will all conceptions be
immaculate and all human life glorious and divine."
I maintain that woman is the prototype of the godmother of the universe,
who is the third person of the Trinity, known as the Holy Ghost or
Comforter. The Trinity of the theologians--_three persons in one_--is
contrary to all human reason and logic. It contradicts every type of
being in universal creation, and would be a monstrosity in natural law
and creative experience. It defies all analysis and subverts all law of
animate and inanimate nature. God never thus contradicts himself, his
own laws, and his created universe, or the book of nature and man's
reason; and no such doctrine is taught in the New Testament, when
analyzed by a true construction of language.
To deny the Trinity was a crime punished by death a century or two ago
in England; and ecclesiastical authority there and elsewhere prescribed
what man should believe for centuries, or receive the punishment
prescribed by law or the Inquisition. Until recent times men were not
allowed to think for themselves.
But reason and truth, written in the soul of man by the finger of Deity,
will assert its divine right to correct the blunders of ignorance and
superstition.
And as it was many ages before the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood
of man was discovered and recognized, so it required modern intelligence
and reason to place woman in her true and God-given position; and
recognize in God the Father, God the Son and God the Mother, the same
natural trinity in heaven as exists on earth in father, mother and
child. The book of nature, and the book of man's reason asserts there
can be no father or son without a mother. They would be an anomaly in
nature, unthinkable and impossible, and if there is a Father and Son in
heaven, there is a Divine Mother, who has always been there as the
companion and counselor of Deity, and is also the Divine Comforter of
all human souls. And if there is sex in all nature, it is reasonable to
believe there is sex in the family of Deity. When Christ said, "I and my
Father are one," he meant one in purpose and spirit.
Up to the recent centuries, woman was the chattel slave of man, kept in
ignorance and degradation, and deemed inferior to man, and the past ages
would not recognize her divinity, or her equality with man. But now she
stands on a level with man, heart to heart, and brain to brain, and
every true man offers her the tribute of love and reverence, and
recognizes that in all the realms of earth and stars there is no being
so worthy of love and worship, next to Deity, as the _mothers of men_.
They are the saviors of mankind, whose vicarious suffering has brought
forth and redeemed the generations of men. They are the trees of life in
God's earthly garden, whose branches, ladened with the fruits of love,
have called forth the mysterious blossoms of being to bloom in the
fields of time and people the land of immortal spirits.
The beginning of civilization was when the mother bid the rude men of
the forest and hill to build the needed shelter in grove or cave to
protect her and her helpless offspring. And from that simple shelter or
thatched-roofed hut has sprung the vine-clad cottage, and the marble
palace, and the family roof-tree of every house in every land. It was
the mothers of men who filled up the broken ranks of war, and brought
peace, and wove garments, and refined and civilized man and taught him
the arts and commerce of civilized life. And could the mothers control
the destinies of nations, their loving hearts would banish war, and
peace would be universal.
And the most precious heritage of every nation on the green earth is the
nobility of its mothers, for without noble mothers, it can have no
worthy and manly men.
All nations should recognize this fact, and instead of giving pensions
to those who destroy life, they should give them to those who multiply
and replenish it, and make a nation worthy of existence and fame. And
God will surely bestow on the mothers of men a crown of eternal glory
for every life added to his empire and domain of deathless eternities.
The momentous question arises in this busy age of travel and pleasure,
when so many seek the luxurious ease of opulence and avoid as far as
possible all cares and responsibility, Will the emancipated womanhood of
our land deny the law of love and life, written in the heart and
conscience of all sentient beings, and decline the angelic ministrations
of maternity? Will they refuse to join in the economy of God and nature,
or leave this high and holy vocation to the ignorant and superstitious
of our foreign element? If so, the citizenship of our beloved nation
will degenerate with each succeeding generation.
Will the modern woman seek social pleasures and the flattery of passing
admiration in lieu of home life and maternity, and be satisfied to
flutter as a gaudy butterfly of fashion? Will her womanly heart find the
prattle of a baby voice and the pressure of its chubby hands upon her
smiling face, as it crows in her loving arms, a truer, sweeter pleasure
than the social triumphs of a few fleeting seasons? A joyous child
brings more pleasure to a household than a marble palace with mahogany
furniture and an automobile.
This is the all-important _woman question of the future_--the question
of race suicide. For the entrance of woman into all the vocations of
business life, the tendency to avoid domestic cares, the laxity of the
marriage vows, together with the elimination of homes for boarding
houses, and the prevalence of divorces, makes it a serious question for
the future. Already this pressing vital question causes the wisest men
of France to tremble for the future of their race and nation, for its
shrinking population is forcing it from the rank of a first-class power
to the humiliation of weakness and decay. Will they listen to France's
Macedonian call and the law of love and life written in their womanly
natures?
Humanity of the past and present is not final. It shall not cease at the
present development. Human society was never static. We are at the
beginning of the greatest changes in human history. There will be no
shock, but the transforming, silent touch of universal evolution, whose
voice speaks thus: "We are the creatures of twilight, but out of our
minds and the lineage of our minds will spring minds that will reach
forward fearlessly. A day will come--one day in the unending succession
of days--when the beings now latent in our thoughts, hidden in our
loins, shall stand on this earth as on a footstool, and they shall laugh
and reach out their hands among the stars."
It is said that the flower which opens and smiles upon the brink of an
abyss is like love, which lives also between two eternities. It is the
most human of the passions and at the same time the most divine. It is
the most intimate and the most ethereal; it guides the poet when he
scales the skies and lifts the soul to celestial raptures.
The gifted and the common mind are alike troubled, agitated and exalted
by this divinity who evokes their silent passions and stirs their
slumbering fancy.
Many animals change their form and color in the season of love, and man
is similarly affected in his psychic nature. Every human and divine
element responds to the witchery of the god of love. And new colors in
thought and character appear, and the glowing eye glistens with changing
smile or tear, like dewdrops on the jewelled face of morn. The first
touch of poetry lights up the prosy brain, the first ambitions,
brilliant hopes, struggles, flashes of genius, and heroic resolves
spring forth like living phantoms at the magic power of this matchless
magician of the soul.
Woman, far more than man, is reared in the regions of love, and has more
leisure to reflect on the secret movements of her heart, and to gather
the wisdom and beauty of love and distill it as the rarest perfume of
life. Love is woman's crown of divinity. Love lifts man to his highest
capabilities, noblest enterprises and loftiest ideals, and makes him
monarch of a larger and more beautiful world.
The history of man shows how gross and abject natures are transformed by
love. How dull and stolid minds have been guided by it to paths of honor
and glory. It is said that fame and science should guard themselves from
love as from a dangerous enemy, and that to be a great man one must love
their art alone and be wed only to their great ambitions.
Ah! but for one genius killed by love, a hundred owe to it all their
greatness and inspiration and the moving force of life, and bless it as
superior to fame and sweeter than all the laurels of victory or the
plaudits of success.
All the glory of art and science, of thrones and crowns, is inspired by
the love of woman. This was openly proclaimed in the heroic and
chivalrous ages and should still be held in grateful remembrance.
If love does not always elevate and refine and work the miracles of its
magic, it is because men lower their ideals of women and love. Woman has
a stronger thirst after the ideal, a more refined sensibility, exquisite
fancy and poetic nature and aids man to mount to loftier actions and
ideals. In a beautiful picture, Dante is below, Beatrice above; he looks
at her and is thus inspired, while her eyes, fixed upon him, seem to
say: "Upward, upward; it is thither we must go together!" It is said
nothing is so irresistible as the enthusiasm of woman. Without reason
for believing, without strength for hope, sustained solely by love, she
is always full of faith for the great and beautiful things, and with
sublime imprudence cries, "Forward, forward!" and drags man to the most
difficult summits of success.
A wise man says: "In the great and little things, after having consulted
science and art, experience and imagination, after having read history
and human hearts, also always consult the woman you love, whether it be
a question of a book or a law, or a work of art, or of business,
industry or poetry. She will certainly have something new to tell you."
Ambition often fails to elevate men, they die without having attained
their full measure of power. Only the love of woman could have given
them the energy which ambition and self-love were powerless to bestow.
In the past ages the world prated much about aristocracy. There have
been four kinds of aristocracy in the world's history. There has been
the aristocracy of muscle--the supremacy of brute force. This was
followed by the aristocracy of blood or family pedigree, by which one
claimed by inheritance superiority over others. Then came the
aristocracy of wealth, which prevails in our day, whereby those who
obtain fortunes by birth, accident, parsimony, force or fraud, claim
superiority over others less sordid or less fortunate. But the true and
only aristocracy that ever has or ever will exist in the human race is
the _aristocracy of love and goodness_. There is nothing so kingly as
kindness, nothing so royal as truth, and nothing so godlike as love.
The aristocracy of muscle has brought misery and distress and cursed the
world with cruelty and oppression; the aristocracies of blood and wealth
have often brought sorrow to their possessors, and proved a rope of
sand, a broken reed, a Jonas' gourd that faded in a night. But the
aristocracy of love and goodness is God's aristocracy, and belongs to
the society of heaven. It is a part of the family of Deity, and
possesses the wealth of the universe. It is the pride of celestial
hosts, and the joy and blessing of transient mortality. The humblest of
earth may join this aristocracy of love and goodness and be a prince and
king in his own right, by royal prerogative as eternal and enduring as
the earth and stars.
Thus we find that love is the spiritual and electric law of life, and
the crown-jewel of the universe; that it gives life and inspires it;
that all the creations and forces of nature are dual and sexual, with
love as the supreme sovereign of all life and destiny.
Magnificent are the pyramids of Cheops, but while they and the groves of
gods and pillars at Karnac were being reared for a tyrannous nobility
and priesthood, twenty thousand common men agonized and died in the
quarries. Beautiful was Athens, "The City of the Violet Crown," when the
sunlight flashed from the Parthenon; but Aristides was banished because
he was just, and Socrates was murdered because he taught the oneness of
God. Rome sat on her seven hills and ruled the world; but men were
butchered in the arena to make a Roman holiday, and at night Christians
were burned for torches to light up Nero's golden house. All this was
because love had not exalted the ideals and energized the wills of men.
In the middle ages the sound of the chisels carving the marble dreams of
Michael Angelo was drowned by the shrieks of victims of the Inquisition;
and later in England, villains and serfs, even after Magna Charta, were
hanged for stealing five shillings. In our own land Cotton Mather tells
us men were crushed by heavy stones upon their breast, as punishment for
petty offenses, and witches swung in the breezes of Salem; and less than
fifty years ago human slavery was sanctioned by law. All these horrors
and the cruelty of the world have been because men have not let love
illumine the soul and energize the heart of humanity. To-day all this is
changed. The ægis of the law protects the humblest citizen, and the fate
of nations is decided not by a Hannibal or a Charlemagne, but in
legislative halls and courts of justice. And all men may work and hope,
for fame is waiting with willing laurels for souls aglow with the fires
of love and genius, who are destined to be torch bearers along the
highways of heavenly harmonies.
The heaven of all the heavens above,
The god of all the gods is Love.
Carlisle, that rugged old thinker, declared that man should imitate his
maker and "Create, create, create." This is the chief object of life.
Not alone in the propagation of his race, but to build houses and
temples, erect monuments, write books, fertilize deserts, and cause the
earth to blossom with new flowers of fragrance, and new thoughts of
beauty.
In order to thus glorify life and make it a divine ecstacy, and a
stepping-stone to celestial worlds, love must be the guiding star, and
will the creative-impulse. These two are the sovereign forces of the
universe in man and Deity; and uphold and control all others.
Therefore man should make love and truth his ideals, and will his
sceptre of power, and with each rising sun proclaim:
"These two things should no man forget or lose
Or sacrifice: his will and his ideals.
These two things are the man. In leaving them
Behind him in the dust of broken dreams
He leaves himself His nature is usurped.
The lesson of all greatness is to be
That which we are--out to our farthest bounds.
To lift the high within us higher still--
To delve our depths with a profounder depth--
To push the near horizon of our minds
Out past immediate things to ultimate."
CHAPTER XIV
JACOB'S LADDER IS THE ELECTRIC PATHWAY BETWEEN SUNS AND PLANETS
I contend in my previous books that electricity and not gravity is the
one fundamental form of energy from which all other forms, such as
light, heat, vital force, physical life and so-called gravitation are
derived by transformation. That electric energy is the one evolving
creative force in the physical universe, back of which is the directing,
intelligent, spiritual power of Deity, who has made all visible things
of one matter--the invisible atom, controlled by one invisible power,
electricity, after one unchanging pattern--the electro-magnet.
This necessarily teaches that the sun is not hot, that all heat, light
and vital force is produced by the contact of positive and negative
electricity in the dense atmospheric cushion of suns and planets, where
alone it is needed for vegetable and animal life. All of which is
produced by the positive electric currents of the sun coming in contact
with the negative electricity of the planets, just as two wires
oppositely electrified and brought together produce the arc and
incandescent electric light.
I contend that the suns are the self-luminous, perfected worlds of the
universe; worlds like our world, only larger and more prolific in life
and power than the planetary worlds. That they are the headquarters of
Deity, and the future abode of man. This leads to the reasonable
scientific hypothesis that our all-life-giving sun is where Christ
ascended to, when the Disciples saw "a cloud receive him out of their
sight;" where Elias was translated; where Paul was "snatched up to the
seventh heaven"; where Saint John in the Apochalyptic journey saw "the
new Jerusalem--the City of God." This wonderful city, from scientific
facts and analogy, exists in the sun and could be no where else, and
seems to be so represented in Revelations, and its description is
grander than all the romances of earth. This gives the most reasonable
scientific explanation of Revelations and the eternal beatitudes of the
Christian's life everlasting, while at the same time it recognizes the
law of evolution, and proclaims there is nothing supernatural in the
universe.
I contend that the sun's photosphere is a brilliant, globe-encircling
aurora; that the planets are the hatcheries of human souls, and the suns
the place of their maturity and perfection; that all things are composed
of atoms and electricity, which are as invisible as the soul. That the
soul is an invisible atom of Deity, and, like invisible atoms and
electricity, may pass to and from the sun.
In showing the terraced mountain on which the city in Revelations was
built accorded with the proportions of the sun as compared with the
earth and moon, a simpler illustration would be this: The sun's diameter
is 110 times that of the earth, and as the earth has mountains six miles
high, the sun should have them 110 times higher, which would be about
700 miles in perpendicular height, making about 1,200 miles measuring
the slope from the base to the apex. Or, if the mountains in the sun
are as high in proportion to diameter as those on the moon, the
mountains of the moon being three miles high, and the sun's diameter
being 400 times greater than the moon; the mountains of the sun should
be 1200 miles in perpendicular height.
Up to the last few centuries all standards of measurement were
indefinite. The cubit, fathom, and foot all depended on the size of the
man. A furlong was originally a furrow in an English field, and might be
300 or 800 feet in length. All these measures have been made definite by
law or custom since the Bible was written. But the word translated
_furlong_ was the Greek word _stadium_, which was the length of a Greek
foot race which was 520 feet (except in two instances); while a present
furlong, the eighth of a mile, is 660 feet, making in 12,000 furlongs a
difference of about 320 miles, making John's wonderful city 1,180 miles
square. The ancient furlong was about what I put it--the tenth of a
mile. Critics should inform themselves before displaying their colossal
lack of information.
I contend that over ninety per cent. of the universe is invisible
matter. This invisible matter floats in all space and permeates all
visible matter as water permeates a sponge.
All matter in its primary and elementary form is invisible, and, being
invisible, it partakes of the characteristics in this respect of
invisible force and invisible spirit. These three invisible entities
constitute the universe, its center and circumference, its invisible
realities, its eternal foundation and limitless boundaries. Only one of
these--matter--by a vast aggregation of atoms, is converted from the
invisible to the visible. This universe was made from _nothing_--nothing
visible, nothing tangible, nothing the human eye could see or the human
finger could touch. There was a time when the stars and planets, suns
and worlds were transparent ether, as impalpable as the viewless air,
and scattered as star dust in the measureless void of space along the
forgotten highways of the past eternities. Silence reigned profound in
the pulseless regions of the air, where, motionless and dumb, the atoms
hung in dark and lifeless space. There was nothing in all this
universe--nothing but cold, darkness and silence. But these are the home
of atoms, the star-dust which Deity had scattered by the breath of his
power through the highways of space in the beginning of primeval
creation. While these were nothing to man, they were the foundation
stones of all created things. This nothingness of space was the fallow
ground of the universe and the formless shadow of suns and worlds. It
was a universe in solution as viewless as ether, and as intangible as
mind. The electric energy of space was yet unstirred by the divine fiat
or shook into vibrating force by the word of Creative Power. Other suns
and worlds and a universe of universes shone forth in the realms of
space when the Creative Word was spoken that lit this newer universe
into being.
"Let there be light," and from His lips that spoke no word but love and
truth and power, the lightning of electric life and glory thrilled every
atom with vibrating cosmic energy, and life-evolving force. Then the
electric clothing of light and life leaped into power and enwrapt as in
swaddling clothes a new born universe. And wherever the breath of Deity
was blown there was the glowing nucleus of a sun, or the revolving
center of a world. Then atoms and electricity met in fond and unending
embrace, substance and energy clasped hands, and matter and persistent
force were woven into each other's arms and saturated with electric,
life-giving energy.
The first starting point of the universe was the intellectual volition
of Deity. The second was the law of nature impressed upon matter by
electricity, the right hand of Deity and the tongue and word of His
power. Spirit cannot act directly upon matter; it must have a medium
controlled by spirit at one end and working on matter at the other. This
medium is electricity. Matter is held together by the electric
attraction of the molecules of which it is composed.
The molecules are composed of invisible magnets called atoms. This
electric attraction acts continuously. Were it to stop its action for a
second, solid bodies would instantly crumble to invisible atoms, our
material forms would vanish into thin air, and the universe disappear in
viewless ether.
The electro-magnetic force holds firmly the molecules of solid bodies
and gives them their strength and solidity. It is more feeble in its
cohesive grasp on liquid bodies and is very feeble in gaseous bodies.
Molecules are in a ceaseless state of activity and motion, forever
vibrating to the touch of electric energy.
The ever-restless and varying motions of the invisible molecules
constituting all matter is like a cluster of bees at their hive, or of
ants at their nests, hurrying and scrambling over and around each other
in constant and curious motions. And if our eyes were powerful enough to
see the molecules of which a block of wood or a human body is composed,
they would witness such a scene of activity as the crowded bees and ants
exhibit, only still more curious and constant. When water is changed
into steam it goes into the air as widely separated and invisible
particles which disappear entirely, but every particle is still in
existence and may be converted again into water. When wood is burned, it
changes into ashes, smoke and vapor. Not a single particle is ever
destroyed. It is so with our bodies, they dissolve into their natural
elements, which pass into tree and shrub and air and water and other
bodies; they never return to their organic form. There is no
resurrection of the physical body. What goes down into the grave never
comes forth again. The spirit-body never enters the grave, but soars to
the celestial cities of the sun in a new and endless life. Nature and
Deity would not do so nugatory a thing as to resurrect three or four
bucketsful of water and a handful of bonedust. Fresher and better
material is at hand in abundance all the time.
There are bodies all around us so small that we cannot see them. They
are in the air we breathe and in the water we drink. Some of them are
alive and some are not. Many of them are so small we need the most
powerful microscope to detect their presence. Yet every one is made up
of parts much smaller than itself. The fine dust which clings to our
fingers when we hold a butterfly or a moth, scarce visible to the naked
eye, is found under the microscope to be made up of a thousand or more
still smaller particles.
There are living creatures so small it would take a million of them to
equal the size of a mustard seed. Millions of them float unseen in the
air around us, and swim in the drops of water we drink. Millions more
float through the blood in our veins, which to them are vast, surging
seas of life. They are so very small, a thousand of them might fly side
by side through the eye of a needle. Yet each little creature must be
made of still smaller parts, else they could not move or devour their
food; they are too infinitesimal for the grasp of our imagination.
If we keep on dividing a body into smaller and smaller pieces, we at
last get a piece so very small it cannot be divided again without
changing into some other kind of matter. These smaller pieces are called
molecules, which are particles of matter which cannot be divided without
changing their nature. All bodies are porous and have spaces between
their molecules. This was proven of gold a long time ago at Florence,
where a hollow globe of gold was filled with water and shut up tight,
then put under immense pressure. The water was forced by the pressure
through the pores of the gold as a fine dewy moisture or perspiration.
The same result would have occurred had it been iron, copper or any
other metal, as there is a space between all molecules in all bodies.
All molecules in all bodies revolve around each other without touching.
You can stand a man before the Crookes tube or Roentgen rays and look
through him and take pictures of his bones, and look through his bones
and take pictures of objects on the other side of them, and also look
through four-foot walls. And photographs are now taken through six-inch
brick walls.
All spaces between the molecules of all visible substances, all pores
and cavities in all organic bodies and inorganic matter, including the
earth, and all animal and vegetable life is, I contend, permeated and
occupied by invisible electro-magnetic ether. This ether is the
life-giving and life-preservative force and essence of the universe and
that from which all things have been evolved. All suns and worlds and
all their complex creations and everything that exists floats in this
boundless, vibrating sea of magnetic ether. And there are vast and
mighty currents of electric force and power reaching from every sun and
planet to every other sun and planet in the universe. These are enduring
bands of strength, invisible ligaments of magnetic power that bind the
universe together as one complete, harmonious electric organism. They
constitute the unity and strength of all creation and promulgate and
enforce the laws of nature.
They are vast highways of space, the boulevards of the universe. We
cannot see them, neither can we see elemental matter, or electricity, or
life, but we know they exist, and are the foundations of the universe.
Human spirits, at death, when they drop their visible vesture of atoms,
can step onto this electric tide, this current of swift-speeding light
and power, and in eight minutes or less time enter the heaven of their
dreams in the celestial cities of the sun.
They have but to step on this flowing tide of electric power, as they
step on a moving stairway or platform in our cities here on earth, to be
borne with scarcely a sense of motion to their bright and heavenly
abode. It is a swift and continuous band, an endless chain, a mighty
ligament of light and life and power constantly passing between heaven
and earth, and earth and heaven, between sun and planet and planet and
sun. These are the countless pathways between suns and stars, the mighty
and everlasting highways of eternity which God hath built to span the
silent ether of space between suns and worlds, and bind the universe in
one harmonious whole.
On these mighty currents, as on a moving bridge of golden light, angels
and men and ministering spirits may pass and repass to the gateway of
eternal life.
Moses and Elias, Christ and John, and all the departed saints of earth
have trod this Jacob's ladder on which the angels ascend and descend
between heaven and earth, and all the departed denizens of earth have
trod its golden stairs to their celestial, sun-bright home.
Dr. Minot J. Savage, the eminent New York divine, says he objects to my
putting eight minutes of time between the earth and the spiritual world.
He thinks Christ taught that they were in immediate connection with each
other. And so they are, by the coming and going tides of spirits between
the two worlds. But now that the speed of light seems to be discovered
to be instantaneous, it may be the communication between them is
instantaneous.
When the deathless spirit has dropped its "mortal coil," and visited
with electric wing the luminous, life-giving sun and the mighty cities
on its spacious bosom, and graduated in the universities of heaven, it
will discover that eternity is scarcely long enough to study and enjoy
the marvelous creations of the universe. It will find our world is but a
floating island in the great solar sea of electro-magnetism, and the
solar sea or empire of our sun is but a small province in the boundless
ocean of space, hid in the infinite abyss of starry depths; that
measureless immensity and countless variety reigns in the universe.
Human souls will then be free as air and untrammeled as ether, and may
explore the vast highways of eternity with wonder-seeking minds, and
visit Jupiter with his enormous moons, Saturn with his gigantic rings,
and traverse the out-lying orbs of distant Uranus and Neptune. They may
then pass to other solar realms, and wander over the varied bosom of
Andromeda's triple suns of blue and green and sapphire tints that whirl
like globes of rainbow beauty in the azure sky, and see the double stars
and multiple suns, and fiery comets with their glowing spooms, and
blood-red meteors, all following harmonious orbits through the pulsing
voids of space, vibrating to the rythmic cadence of electric law. All
moving with tranquil majesty in the trackless seas of immensity obedient
to the Omnipotent Will.
Here blooms infinite, varied life and ever-changing beauty to thrill and
bless the wonder-loving soul and make melodious harmony with every
pulsing vibration of their imperishable life. The universe of myriads of
suns is separated by trillions of miles and scattered like lighthouses
along the realms of space, as dynamos of heat and light and life,
shooting with measureless speed and bound together by mutual ties as
delicate and invisible as the ties of love that bind two souls together
at the hymeneal altar. Such is God's universe. She is as a bride to her
lover in every floating atom of space, in every circling world and
glowing sphere, in every human soul and angel spirit.
As light is the great painter of the skies, and photographs all things
that occur in the atmosphere of suns and planets, the aspect of the
earth and the sun and the events that occurred on their surface
thousands of years ago are now winging their flight through space
millions of millions of miles distant. To the eye of Deity or an
observer on some distant orb these events of centuries past would seem
to be actually occurring or in progress. With powers commensurate with
the photographic powers of light, a human soul could stand upon a
distant star and follow this wonderful vision and gaze on a succession
of events from the beginning of time to the present moment, and read the
history of every sun and planet in the rays of light from its own
atmosphere. And with poised wing in limitless space or on some far-off
sun, read the mighty events transpiring on this little earth in the
distant rays of light from its own atmosphere. And in the cities of the
sun, the denizens of heaven may, by some marvelous appliance, so magnify
the picture in each ray of light from earth and sun and planet that they
may view with microscopic eye and telescopic vision all the historic
scenes of every sphere, and learn the life and history of every rolling
orb.
They need not visit them to see and know the panoramic history of their
glowing life. And thus they may view the varied scenes of earth. Could
we transport ourselves to Alpha Lyra, Sirius or some more distant sun
and could see, like them, the photographic pictures in the rays of light
from earth we could view scenes that transpired on the earth thousands
of years ago. Thus human souls may see and thus Deity sees the end from
the beginning at all times in all spheres. And a ray of light, a drop of
dew, a grain of sand or a blade of grass conveys to him a history of the
world of which it is a part.
Thus God preserves in every ray of light a constant picture of the
changing panorama of the universe; and in man's mind, through man's
imperishable memory, He keeps a perfect record of man's thoughts and
deeds, which He can unravel as a written scroll at any moment.
The future is ever present in its germs, precisely as the past is
present in its fruits. And God's knowledge of the past and future is as
much the subject of His consciousness as the present action of His
creatures, or the primary laws He has established. He has assigned to
the universe certain material and spiritual laws, and the whole scheme
of the universe is so perfect it needs no direct intervention. His
perfect control of matter under electric law produces the evolutions of
nature that accord with His divine purpose, and His spiritual impulse
directs the spiritual development of the human soul to the ultimate goal
of truth and perfection to be attained in His self-luminous, perfected
worlds. Thus we perceive that to the Omnipotent Ruler of the universe
the infinite past and the infinite future would at all times be present,
that each atom and event would exhibit to Him at each instant the
limitless past and future, giving him perfect and omnipotent
consciousness and control of his spiritual and electric universe.
And even on this earth, the time may come when we can so magnify the
picture in a ray of light that we may see the cities in the sun, and
read the inscriptions on their walls and temples, and view the gates of
pearl and the sapphire dome and diamond coronet above the Acropolis of
the terraced city of the sun described in Revelations.
The soul is an invisible atom of Deity and, like invisible atoms and
electricity, may pass to and from the sun in eight minutes and perhaps
only a few seconds.
I reason scientifically that if invisible matter and electricity go
everywhere and pass to and from the sun continually and exert their
power and do not lose their natural properties or identity, it is clear
and overwhelming proof that man's soul, when it steps out of the body,
maintains its power and identity, and can fly with the speed of light to
the throne of light and life in the luminous bosom of the
all-life-giving sun.
Is it not right, by the eternal law of cause and sequence and
unanswerable logic, that life should return to the fountain of life?
That life, soul life and material life, which the sun nurtures, builds
and vitalizes here, when its usefulness here is ended that it should
return to the luminous bosom of its great mother--the source of all
life, light and power; and that there it should find the great Spiritual
Father, who planned and constructed this mighty machinery of worlds, or
his immaculate Son and representative.
Then, by all the laws of reason, intelligence, and "the eternal fitness
of things," God, the eternal, creative Spirit, should have his abode and
center of life and light and power at the central abode of all life and
light and power in the physical universe,--the all-sustaining, creative
sun. Such accords with the eternal laws of nature and the one unchanging
mode and pattern of the universe. For by the universal law of all
created things, the center of physical and electric power and life is
also the center of spiritual and intellectual power, and there should be
the home of Deity and the promised heaven of the human soul.
The question may often arise, Does God perfect humanity and then destroy
it? Does He make men of us with all the trouble and care that comes
inside of seventy years, and then throw us away? I do not believe he
does anything so wasteful and unjust. He has prepared a pathway to the
skies and takes us to Himself. This is more rational.
Jacob saw the heavenly ladder and angels ascending and descending
between heaven and earth, and Stephen saw the heavens open and Christ
sitting on the right hand of God. These were not miracles in the
supernatural sense; they were simply a larger vision, an expansion of
electric and spiritual power under the rapid evolution of natural law.
All great seers and prophets have had the same clairvoyant power.
At the birth of our planet, the stars sang together and all the Sons of
God shouted for joy. At the birth of Christ the angels sang for the
shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem, and they visited Abraham and Lot,
and Joseph and Mary, and ministered to Christ when he was weary and
famished in the wilderness. They carried John in the spirit to the great
and high mountain in the sun which was to him a new heaven and a new
earth and showed him the great city of God, and they have borne millions
of bright human spirits along the electric highways of the skies to the
celestial mansions of the blest. So will they wait and guide us through
the dusky borders of mortality, along the shining pathway to the sun,
and welcome us to the delights of its celestial cities. And we shall see
in the hour of dissolution the ladder Jacob saw reaching from earth to
heaven on which the angels ascend and descend, and we shall see the
vision martyred Stephen saw when the heavens opened, and the vision St.
John saw when he gazed on the New Jerusalem.
And this electric stairway between heaven and earth is so real, sure and
strong, that the weakest spirit cannot lose its way or stumble or fall.
It has the lightness of air and the strength of adamant and is as
eternal as the stars. Millions of millions have trod its pathway of
viewless power that no steel or adamant could brake, and none have
failed to reach the heaven that it links to earth.
The creature whose intelligence measures the pulsations of molecules and
unravels the secret of the whirling nebulæ is no creature of a day, but
the child of the universe, the heir of all the ages, in whose making and
perfection is found the consummation of God's creative work.
God is a spirit and man is a spirit, and spirit power is the supreme
sovereignty of the universe. And the soul of man can command electric
energy to bear it with swift wings and tireless feet along the electric
pathway to the luminous bosom of the sun, to the celestial cities of his
future heaven.
And the angels will be our guides and direct our faltering spirits along
the electric pathways to the stars, and light the shining boulevards of
eternity, and lead us to the golden streets and crystal palaces of
heaven. And they will escort us into the diamond banqueting hall of the
King of Kings, and we shall feast on angels' food, and sip nectar and
ambrosia from the table of the God of Gods.
And the angel choir shall take down their celestial harps from their
panels of amethyst, and with deft fingers and entrancing voices sing us
the old, loved melodies of heaven, and put a new song in our mouths, and
we shall join the heavenly jubilee of eternal life and glory.
"When the daylight trembles into shade,
When falls the silence of mortality,
And all is done, we shall not be afraid
But pass from light to light; from what doth seem
Into the heart and heaven of our dream."
CHAPTER XV
THIS ELECTRIC UNIVERSE IS SELF-SUSTAINING AND ETERNAL
The natural beauty and utility of the world is vast and varied. The
grandeur and strength of the universe is boundless and enduring. Nature
is Deity, thinking in visible thoughts of beauty and power, and speaking
in visible tones of life, motion and harmony.
All things in nature combine beauty with utility and while full of
change are constant and enduring. The same electric laws, force and
substance which gives luminous brilliancy to countless suns, and paints
the aurora and the rainbow the rosy hues of dawn and the crimson glories
of sunset, give color to the ruddy cheeks of youth, and red corpuscle to
the arterial blood that brings health and strength to human forms.
These same electric laws, force and substance hold their sceptre of
power through all the universe. Under electric law atoms and molecules
embrace each other and evolve visible forms of life; and suns glow with
warmth and light, and keep their appointed distances in the circling
mazes of the sky. And by the grasp of electric energy these life-giving
suns carry their family of life-bearing worlds upon their mysterious
voyage through the realms of measureless space.
All nature is a visible expression of Omnipotent Deity, all the
universe is a symbol of creative power and wisdom which is boundless and
enduring, and proclaims that our world, the sun and the universe are
eternal and enduring.
The question of the continued existence of our solar system is a
fascinating subject to most of our astronomers; they seem never to be
weary of looking forward to a time when the light of the sun will expire
with age, or it will be destroyed by some great catastrophe. I have no
such apprehensions. First, because in the six or eight thousand years of
human history on this planet there is no record of any sun or star being
blotted out, or any planet being destroyed. The sun, stars and planets
are substantially the same as they were when Babylon flourished, when
Abraham was a sun worshiper, and when the angels sang on the plains of
Bethlehem. As far as human knowledge and science goes, not a single star
has faded from the glittering hosts of night's jewelled crown.
Second, because the same electric force that started suns and planets on
their grand velocities and fixed their orbits is not only an attracting
force, but also a repelling force of marvelous power. And while suns and
planets attract each other they also repel each other, and make each
keep their respective distance under the law of electro-magnetism by
which opposite poles attract and like poles repel each other. If you
place the opposite poles of a horseshoe magnet together they will
attract each other and cling together until a superior force overcomes
their mutual attraction; but if you reverse them and put their like
poles together, they will not cling together, but will repulse each
other.
In chemistry molecules of opposite polarity unite, and this is called
chemical affinity; molecules of like polarity will not unite, and this
is called chemical repulsion. Magnets attract only when their poles are
reversed, or when they are oppositely electrified, and suns and planets
do the same. The sun as the great central magnet, or electric generator,
has the power both to attract and to repel. The planets are kept in
their orbits by both the sun's attraction and its repulsion. In the
summer, when the earth gets four millions of miles nearer the sun, there
is a repelling force from the sun that sends it off again, or it would
continue to approach the sun until it would fall into his spacious
bosom. No law of gravitation or balancing force of planets could do
this. The centrifugal force of electric repulsion in the sun does for
the earth what all the balancing force of the planets could not do if
they were all swung in the circling orbit of Mars.
The sun, by this electric propelling force, throws off the comets which
approach it. This is proven by scientific records in many instances for
centuries. By this same propelling force the sun holds off the swift
leaden planet Mercury. By this same electric repulsion the planets
prevent their moons from falling back onto their surfaces.
These moons are the same material and electric composition as the worlds
from which they come, and, as like polarity repels, they are thus kept
in their orbits. There are estimated to be eighteen to one hundred
millions of suns in this universe. Can any one believe they are kept in
their places by a mere balancing force?
They are held by electrical repulsion as well as by electrical
attraction. There may also be belts or zones of ether with the proper
electrical vibration or condition in the orbit of each planet and
satellite which hold them with giant grasp in their allotted places.
And every sun system may have its own peculiar electricity, which has a
repulsion for all other systems and holds each in its proper place. All
these things are possible and probable under the theory of electrical
creation. As twenty-eight currents of electricity can pass over the same
wire at the same time, fourteen each way, how many kinds of electric
currents may the universe possess? May not each planet have its own
peculiar current, and its own peculiar attracting power, and the sun
give each a different electricity?
While each sun system, with its revolving planets, is held together by
mutual electric attraction, the eighteen millions of sun systems are
prevented from coming in collision with each other by the law of
electric repulsion. This would prevent any one system from trespassing
upon the domain or territory of another, and permit each and all to move
freely among themselves and change places without danger of trespass or
collision.
In case of too near an approach to each other the law of repulsion would
drive them off. This would avoid the necessity of a central sun, which
probably does not exist or it would be visible. If all these systems
were positively magnetized or all negatively magnetized they would repel
each other. This law of electrical repulsion would increase the nearer
these systems approached each other, and this increasing power would
send them further away, and forever prevent discord and collision. This
is why there is no discord in the fields of heaven and harmony reigns
triumphant.
Electric repulsion is all that prevents these almost infinite sun
systems from coming into conflict with one another, and ending in
aggregate and ruinous collision, and reducing the universe to a
heterogeneous mass of discordant spheres. No law of gravitation could
prevent such a wreck and ruin of the universe. On the contrary, the size
and weight of every sun and star that floats in the broad expanse of
ether would under the law of gravity tend to bring about just such a
universal catastrophe.
If the boasted law of gravitation prevailed to-day, or ever did prevail,
such would be the disastrous results. The law of gravitation tends to
aggregate all bodies into one. If the universe was under the dominion of
gravity there would be but one vast globe in all the universe, and if
there was a man on it there would be but one enormous giant. Newton's
law of gravitation is "large bodies attract small ones." If that is
true, then all small bodies would fly into the arms of the larger ones,
and the process would continue until the largest body had them all, and
there would be no smaller ones to attract. This is a fair analysis of
the law of gravitation.
As to the rule that matter and worlds "attract each other inversely to
the square of the distance," that rule could not exist but for the law
of electric repulsion. That rule is very near the law by which matter
falls towards the sun by electric attraction. But it is not the law of
orbital energy by which planets are kept out of the sun. Neither is it
the law by which satellites are kept from falling into the planets
around which they revolve.
The weight that falls to the earth by attraction may be lifted by
dynamic repulsion. Therefore the law of repulsion is as necessary as the
law of attraction. Gravitation ignores the laws of repulsion. With
gravity only all spheres would fall together in a common ruin; with
repulsion only they would dissolve into ether; and both of these forces,
normally active and balanced, are necessary to preserve the universe.
Therefore, I contend that our earth, the solar system and the universe
is self-sustaining and eternal in duration, because of the ever-active
omnipotent force of electrical repulsion in sun systems, in suns and
planets and their satellites.
Our wise astronomers for two centuries have bestowed upon so-called
gravitation all the divine attributes, and thrown around it the halo of
a worshiped divinity; and ignored its twin brother and dual force,
repulsion. This was excusable before the discovery of electricity and
its marvelous forces as a new causation. But since then it seems the
blind folly of stupid conservativism that would cling to old traditions
and antiquated authority. They recognized the law of repulsion in
matter, in gases, in gunpowder, in volcanoes, in steam, in dynamite, in
perfumery, in everything in the earth, but denied its operation in the
sun and planets, and sidereal space.
This ever-active omnipotent force of electric repulsion keeps all sun
systems from coming together or trespassing upon each other's vast
domains. There is electrical repulsion as a great barrier between them
to hold them apart. Why? Because they have like polarities or become
alike electrified as they approach each other. This without any other
reason is sufficient to forever prevent collisions between the sun
systems of the universe.
Electrical repulsion keeps our earth and the planets from falling into
the sun. Why? Because our earth and the planets, when they approach
within a certain distance of the sun, may become similarly electrified
to the sun, and are thrown back to their proper and balanced orbit.
Electrical repulsion keeps all satellites from falling into their
primary planets. Why? Because they have like polarities, and are
positive or negative like their primaries, and repulse each other. Thus
each and all the suns, planets and satellites continue in their orbits
of balanced forces, and will always continue and are as eternal as the
laws of electro-magnetism that created and upholds the universe.
The same law applies to comets. Why does the comet, when it approaches
just so near to the sun, dart away so quickly? Because it becomes alike
electrified as the sun, and the law of repulsion strikes it like the
blow of a mammoth triphammer and hurls it in the opposite direction.
This is one reason; there may be others, for the laws of repulsion are
as many and various as the laws of attraction.
The scientists in all ages have been fascinated with fearful, grim and
dismal pictures of the end of the world. Like the theologians who
delighted to paint the tortures of the fiery tophet of their
imagination, the scientists have exhausted their wildest fancy in
picturing the sun consumed with fire, the earth melting with fervent
heat and the final "wreck of matter and the crush of worlds."
The latest display of dismal and excessive fancy on this subject is from
the prolific pen of our most eminent and worthy astronomer, Prof. Simon
Newcomb. It is to be found in McClure's Magazine of May, 1903, which I
have just read, entitled "The End of the World." It is a well written,
imaginative story or article, embracing his theory or hypothesis of the
cause and manner of the world's destruction.
I admire his scholarly style, his great learning, and splendid fancy,
and if I believed in the scientific theories and traditions which he
champions with such an able pen, I should say it was a masterly
presentation of what would occur in sun and earth at some indefinite
future time. But as I have discarded the old scientific traditions I
cannot accept his theories or his fancy picture. It is too dismal for my
optimistic conception of what has occurred or what will occur in this
vast and mighty universe.
He is a worthy successor of Newton and La Place, for he has a vigorous
imagination, which easily scans the future and presents what I deem
antiquated theories, sustained by traditional facts.
Each person lives in a different world and sees a different universe,
according to his knowledge and imagination.
The universe Ptolemy saw was different from that of Copernicus, and
Newton's different from both, so my conception of the universe is
different from that of Prof. Newcomb's. Imagination is a creature of
education and converts knowledge into utility, and reasons from the
known to the unknown, and is the telescope of futurity and the
microscope of past centuries.
I am a great believer in imagination or ideality as the highest gift of
Deity, and accept Napoleon's statement that "imagination rules the
world." I believe no man can be a great astronomer without it, and the
tallest and broadest enlightened imagination will naturally have the
best conception of the complicated motion and grandeur of the universe.
Tyndall in an address at Liverpool in 1870, said, "There are tories even
in science who regard imagination as a faculty to be feared and avoided
rather than to be employed. In fact, without this power our knowledge of
nature would be a mere tabulation of coexistence and sequences; the soul
of force would be dislodged from our universe; casual relations would
disappear, and with them that science which binds the facts of nature to
an organic whole."
This is nobly and truly said, for all progress is heralded by
theorization; which is an intelligible explanation of things, and serves
to relate cause and effect. It distinguishes the human being from the
animal, the civilized from the savage, the wise and learned from the
ignorant and foolish. Herbert Spencer said, "In the formation of a
theory we have the highest condition of the human mind." And Holder, in
his life of Darwin, says, "Darwin was greater than others, because he
had the genius of scientific hypothesis." Therefore I am proud of Prof.
Newcomb's hypothesis of the cause and manner of the death of the solar
system, though I do not accept his theory or his conclusions. I am glad
he is not one of those scientists, who said in the New York Journal not
long ago, that the only thing of value to science was the tabulation of
facts. The mere tabulation of facts would be of as little value to the
world without causation, theory and hypothesis, as the Egyptian
hieroglyphics before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.
Let us see what the learned astronomer, Prof. Newcomb, says. He projects
himself into the future and starts out by imagining that from the
central observatory in the Himalayas, "Mars is signalling a dark star."
This, he says, was after "the world had long been dull and stagnant."
Now, I protest that this world will never become dull and stagnant, nor
any part of this electric universe, but all will go on steadily
progressing to more perfect conditions. Here is where our theories clash
on the first sentence.
Then he proceeds to tell the kind of dullness and stagnation that
existed. He says almost every scientific discovery had been made
thousands of years before, and all inventions had been perfected, and
everything went on as by machinery. The peace of the world was settled
and the time when men fought and killed each other in war lay far back
in the mists of antiquity, and the newspapers chronicled little but
births, marriages, deaths and the weather reports. "Only one language
was spoken the world over, and all gentlemen dined in blue coats with
gilt buttons and wore white neckties with red borders."
Now I cannot accept this as a true picture of our earth at any time in
its future, or the hypothesis of human stagnation as possible or
probable. I do not regard the world's peace, and perfected machinery,
and "blue coats with gilt buttons and white neckties with red borders,"
as evidence of dullness and stagnation. And I cannot believe the
newspapers, whose proverbial energy is perennial, will ever get to the
low ebb of stagnation he describes.
But to the more important points. Three thousand years before this time
messages had been successfully interchanged with the inhabitants of
Mars, and now this message of "a dark star" arrives from Mars, which
excites the astronomers, and later the people, until the whole world is
in a frenzy of terror, apprehension and despair, watching this terrible
star, which continued to increase.
The people of Mars are also "in a state of extraordinary excitement,"
and our astronomers are much puzzled about the orbit of this dark star,
many times the size of our earth. Then the Himalaya observatory sends
out the startling announcement that, "the dark star has no orbit; but is
falling toward the sun with great speed."
Then a professor in physics sees the dangerous possibility of its
collision with the sun, and has an immense vault, which had been
previously built for scientific experiments, a hundred feet under
ground, stored with provisions, etc. In this safe retreat he hides
himself and his assistants when the dark star strikes the sun, and the
fearful conflagration of the sun and earth occurs. And when the sun and
earth were burned up by the collision of the dark star with the sun,
they, like Noah and his family, were saved from the general destruction.
The description of the melting of the houses, stones and all combustible
material on the surface of the earth, the anguish and despair of the
thronging multitudes, and the destruction of the great city of Hatten,
built on the ruins of the old city of Neeork, would duplicate the
horrors of Dante's "Inferno." The illustrations are equally horrible and
terrific, and both are calculated to shock the mind of the reader and
retard mental composure and æsthetic culture.
He states, in the words of the professor, his theory, thus: "My theory
is that if one of these dark objects chances to strike a star it bursts
through its outer envelope and sets free the enormous fires pent up
within." These pent-up fires within the sun, he claims, are going to
blaze up more furious and be the cause of this dread catastrophe of ruin
and death to the sun and planets. With all respect to this eminent
astronomer, I insist, first, there are no pent-up fires in the sun.
Second, no dark or light star, planet or globe can ever fall into the
sun, because the law of electric repulsion in the sun will send it off,
as it does the comets, in an opposite direction; besides this same law
of electric repulsion will forbid any such object from coming into the
solar system.
He says this dark star, many times the size of our earth, striking the
sun, would destroy it and our earth and planetary system by fire. All
life and combustible material, including stones and the surface of the
sun and planets, he insists, would be utterly consumed by the heat
engendered by such a collision. Now, I contend, in the first place, that
such an event is virtually impossible; and if it were possible, a star
of many times the size of our earth, coming in collision with the sun,
would make little more impression on it than a dozen hogsheads of
dynamite thrown against the surface of the moon. Both would do great
local damage to the spot and vicinity where they struck, but neither
would produce any great general disturbance and injury to these orbs.
Many times the size of the earth would mean naturally something like a
dozen times the size of the earth.
Let us estimate the general result by comparison. The sun is one million
three hundred thousand times larger than the earth. It is so large that
if we could drop our earth into the center of the sun, our moon, which
is two hundred and forty thousand miles from us, would only be about
half way to the circumference or outer rim of the sun. Now, a star many
times the size of our earth, striking the surface of the sun, would
create great heat by the compact, and great distraction in the locality
where it struck; and would likely imbed itself in the sun, like large
meteors do on the earth, and become a good sized mountain on the sun's
surface. It would not increase the electric currents or radiation, of
the sun sufficient to melt the snow on the mountains of the tropics or
set fire to a haystack on the earth. Its effect on the earth would not
be excessive in temperature, and would be very temporary. For my theory
is that the sun sends only such currents of electricity to the earth as
the earth draws and demands by its opposite polarity.
Only a great sun a thousand or a million times larger than our earth
would make any great impression on the sun in case of a collision; and
then it would not result in its destruction, or that of the earth and
planets. Its size and power would be increased, but that would not
necessarily increase the heat of the planets, if, as I contend, the sun
could only send them the electric currents the planets draw by reason of
their opposite polarity; just as a receiving station of wireless
telegraphy receives only the electric currents intended for it because
of the peculiar attracting power it possesses.
I am aware that the recent flaring out in light, and increase in size of
the star Nova Persei in the constellation of Perseus, has given
plausibility to the conjecture of some astronomers that it was caused by
a collision between two suns. But I think the better opinion is that
this star is a new sun, partly nebulous and in its formative state; and
that it was visited by a great cloud or swarm of meteors, which produced
the great illumination which flared out into space for a few days and
then subsided.
Its former small size, to which it has returned, and its present
nebulous condition, or the nebulæ that surrounds it, seems to fully
justify this conclusion. I do not believe there ever has been or ever
will be a collision among the suns or planets. The wisdom of the
Creator, as manifested in the great universal laws of electro-magnetism,
forbid it. If such a catastrophe was likely ever to occur, it would have
happened many times since the history of the race began, and we would
have had many undoubted demonstrations of the direful uncertainty of the
life of the suns and planets and the varying chances and unstable
condition of the universe.
Let us hear the conclusion of Prof. Newcomb's hypothesis in the last
words of the last man on the earth, in the person of the professor of
physics: "Such is the course of evolution. The sun, which for millions
of years gave light and heat to our system and supported life on the
earth, was about to sink into exhaustion and become a cold and inert
mass. Its energy could not be revived except by such a catastrophe as
has occurred. The sun is restored to what it was before there was any
earth on which it could shed its rays, and will in time be ready to run
its course anew. In order that a race may be renewed, it must die like
an individual. Untold ages must once more elapse while life is
reappearing on earth and developing in higher forms."
This is the present accepted scientific theory. But is it right?
According to my conception, it is not. The sun is not growing old, or
cold, or feeble, nor can it "sink into exhaustion." Nature, on this
earth, under electric law and process, is ever renewing herself. And it
is the same in all suns and planets. Nature's curriculum of eternal
processes is continuous change and evolution. Her processes of renewal
and purification are so perfect here on earth, that our most luscious
fruits and vegetables, and our most beautiful and fragrant flowers come
from the rank manure of the farmer's stable. The fertilizers of our soil
are the decayed excrement of bird and beast and the most loathsome
decaying elements; yet, through nature's evolving and purifying process
they become wheat and corn, plant, vegetable and flower, and our most
wholesome, acceptable and nutritious food; and if we live many years in
the same neighborhood we eat the same food over and over many times, and
the cattle and all living creatures do the same thing.
The atoms that compose our bodies have been used over and over again
many times. They have been in the bodies of millions of men and
animals, plants and vegetables before we used them, and will be in
millions of bodies yet uncreated. They have been tossed by winds, hurled
and threshed about by tornadoes and cyclones, drowned in the sea, and
buried in the earth and often digested by other animals before they came
to rest under balanced electric forces in our bodies.
Every atom in our bodies have been to the sun and back billions of times
and will be again. They have been renewed by the electric currents of
the sun, by the energy of the soil, by the electro-magnetic ether of
space, and are as eternal as law and destiny.
In like manner, the elements of the sun are constantly being renewed and
invigorated, and he has an area of six billions of miles in diameter
from which to draw virgin atoms, and like a great sea of inexhaustible
force, it is the fountain from which he receives his measureless power
and indestructible life and energy. For he is the central dynamo and
electric heart of the solar system, and with his family of planets is
floating in a boundless sea of electro-magnetism that has no limit of
life and energy. The sun may send a different kind of wireless
electricity to each of the planets, and each of the planets may return a
different kind of electricity to the sun. Thus these electric currents
may pass and repass between sun and planets and be re-energized and used
over and over again, just as the atoms of our bodies and all earthly
molecules are used over and over again.
Thus the sun constantly renews and invigorates himself and all the
elements of the solar system, and can never come into "a state of
exhaustion," as so graphically described.
But this vast electric universe is stable, enduring, self-sustaining
and eternal; and no law or act of conflict among its millions of suns
and planets has ever been discovered, or is likely ever to be, the
conjectures and sophisticated prognostications of pessimistic scientists
to the contrary notwithstanding. Can any reasoning, common thinker,
aside from the scientists, after viewing our moon swinging around our
earth, as it has done for thousands of years, only 240,000 miles from
us, without approaching a mile nearer the earth in all that time,
believe there is any danger of a collision between them? The law that
holds them apart thousands and millions of years will continue to do so;
and their collision is virtually a matter of impossibility until the
electric laws of the universe are abrogated. Can any one believe that
the little leaden planet Mercury that has been swinging so close around
our enormous sun--only thirty millions of miles from it--for millions of
years could keep its constant orbit unless there was an irresistible
law, as omnipotent and changeless as Deity, that has and will forever
keep it from falling into the sun.
Look at the planet of Mars with two satellites, of Jupiter with six, and
Saturn with eight, flying swiftly around their primaries, all only a few
thousand miles from their surface, and some of them going in different
directions--could any balancing force, any law of gravitation, keep them
from falling into their primaries? Every one of them is a contradiction
of the law of gravity, and puts the stamp of falsity on all its claims.
But they all show there is a law which defies so-called gravity and is a
correlative force, and that is the law of electric repulsion; and it is
the cosmic force which, with electric attraction, has built the universe
as a vast electric machine, and they will forever preserve its integrity
and existence, and the sun, earth and universe are eternal.
The world moves; knowledge increases, and science is gradually
broadening her conception of the harmony and endurance of the universe.
The theory of dead matter and blind force has been relegated to the
obsolete and discarded past, and been replaced by the recognition of
ever-present life and infinite grades of consciousness.
The vast and varied factors in nature's problems of eternal destiny
point to our sun and earth as a present existing and unending reality.
Nature builds up, tears down, and reproduces her organic forms on the
surface of planetary globes, but she does not destroy her great sun
magnets and world magnets in the same manner, as many of our scientists
think. There is a great difference in the powers and functions of suns
and planets and the creeping things on their surfaces. Suns and planets,
after they have attained their matured and balanced powers, are
immortal, and creating, enduring and perfected organisms; and, like man
in his immortal spirit, they have attained to eternal life, and neither
death nor ruin can ever come near them. Suns and worlds in their
electric energy have the powers of creation, and as the creator is
always superior to the created, they should not be judged alike.
Therefore the changing and transitory nature of many things on the
earth's surface is no proof that such will be the earth's destiny. On
the contrary, every ligament of force and power in this electric
universe is pledged to secure the continued and endless duration of our
sun and solar system, including our earth. And timorous humanity should
no longer shrink in horror at its prospective wreck and ruin.
May the truth prevail and man's mind be freed from the horrors, of an
anticipated destruction of the sun and earth, and the optimistic joy of
imperishable life and love here, and in the all-glorious sun hereafter
brighten the terrestrial existence of humanity. All hail! thou
life-giving sun!
Sweep on and ever while the cycles roll
Thou wandering orb of luminous sod!
Thou blazing banner of the mighty God!
From Creation's center to its farthest pole,
Speed on and on in thy unknown track;
But the hand that send thee can draw thee back,
And teach thee the way when thy footsteps stray,
As He doth the wanderer.
Like a silent thought from Creation wrought,
Thou speakest a language weird and strange
Of the breadth of space and the speed of change,
And the wondrous dream that the ages taught;
That from star to star and from sun to sun
The soul shall pass while the cycles run
Renewed in its youth, gleaning wisdom and truth,
God's wisest wanderer.
The living shall die, and the dead shall live,
And the mystery deepens on every hand,
And the worlds shall stay, and the soul shall stand,
And a lesson of truth shall all things give.
And a mystic touch hath a world to a world
And the banners of God are ever unfurled
In creation's face teaching truth and grace
To the wanderer.
CHAPTER XVI
ARE ALL SUNS AND WORLDS INHABITED?
Are all suns and worlds inhabited? This has been a puzzling question to
the astronomers, who have had various opinions on the subject. From the
laws of electric creation, as I understand them, the affirmative answer
seems reasonable and natural. But as we cannot visit these suns and
worlds in the flesh, my answer must be formed from the operations of the
laws of electricity as applied to this planet.
Prof. Newcomb says astronomers have no means of knowing as to the
inhabitability of distant orbs any more than other persons, and that we
can only reason cosmologically on the subject, and, reasoning thus, he
thinks only the earth and possibly Mars are inhabited.
Prof. H. H. Turner, professor of astronomy at Oxford, England, in the
Fortnightly Review of April, 1903, in combating Alfred Russell Wallace's
theory that our earth is in the center of the universe, and the only
inhabited world, says: "Why should not any one of the suns possess
planets as well adapted as we are to develop high forms of organic
life?" He seems to think no valid reason can be given why there are not
many inhabited worlds as favorably situated as ours to produce and
maintain organic life. And I fully agree with him, and go a step
further and say there are many reasons why nearly all suns and worlds
are inhabited. Reasoning from electric law and cosmological facts, our
world, and its laws, forces and creations, should be a fair sample of
the laws, forces, and creations of all worlds and planets. This is in
accord with universal chemistry, which teaches that the same laws and
substances exist throughout all the realms of space.
In reasoning on the formative period of our world, we found the electric
current to be the first form of matter and force, or the first form of
creative manifestations in space. These currents antedate all suns,
worlds and visible objects. We also found that all visible forms of
matter were the aggregation of billions of invisible atoms, and all
visible matter and forms were simply the outer garment and scaffolding
of these invisible electric forces; that force follows the law of
motion, and atoms the law of form obedient to the lines of motion. The
second step in planetary construction was the arrangement of the atoms
into crystalline formation, due to opposite currents of electrical
motion, and to atomic balance. This produced the rock-ribbed foundations
of the earth and solidified it into a vast magnet of marvelous force and
power.
Then when the crystalline rocks and metals were settled into a
crystalline globe throbbing with electric power, vegetation came and the
electric life-cell was formed as the first step towards organic life.
Then came the formation of nerve tissue as the basis of form structure
and the evolution of microscopic life which developed under electric
energy into all forms of animal existence which now inhabit the earth.
These were all formed and perfected through ages of response to the
varying electric currents of life-giving power.
Then the animal form evolved a brain, and acquired the sense of feeling
and sight and hearing by reason of the electric currents that impinged
on the sensitive tissues of the brain, and animal instinct was slowly
and gradually developed and the animal organism raised to the highest
grade of the perfected mammal. All this was done under electric law by
magnetic energy. Then the Creative Deity said, "Let us make man." And it
is likely He took a perfected mammal, enlarged his brain-pan, stood him
erect to front the stars, and breathed into him an atom of his own
spirit, "and man became a living soul." The psychic power of glowing
thought and reasoning mind, inspiring hope and heaven-bound love, and
truth, and language, music, poetry, and dreams of heaven, were implanted
as a celestial fire in his deathless spirit. This is man,--the soul, the
spirit, the divine, eternal spark of Deity himself--not the body; that
is merely the overcoat of atoms for the spirit, the temple for the soul,
the house in which it dwells.
It will be seen from the foregoing that electricity is the creative,
evolving force of the universe, the word of omnipotent power, the
creative machinery of suns and worlds. That it creates suns and worlds
and all animal and vegetable organisms, that it can evolve all forms,
and give animal instinct as the result of balancing the experience of
one sense with another through long ages of experience.
But it cannot create mind, soul or the spirit of Deity. It could not
create man as a psychic being. It could organize his body, but it could
not confer on him a soul. Electricity does not rob God of power; it is
his creative machinery, and the right hand of His power, and, guided by
His omnipotent will as the law of nature, it can and does evolve suns
and worlds and all organic life. But not spirit-life--not man.
Moses and the Bible were inspired or they could never have shown so
clearly the nobler creation of man, and his inherent sovereignty over
the world, and dominion over all the animal creation. I like that
statement, "And God said let us make man." Electricity was the word of
His power, the creative agent of His will, which is the law of nature.
It could create a sun, a world, a universe; it could give sense and
feeling to insensate dust, and evolve and fashion man's body as a house
suited for his earthly habitation, but it could not furnish a tenant or
evolve a soul. The God-father and the God-mother alone could do this,
and make man a spiritual and eternal being.
Now, I argue that if electricity created this earth with all its complex
elements and organic forms, it also created all suns and worlds and all
the machinery of the universe by the same process, and has endowed every
rolling sphere in space of sufficient size and power with vegetation,
and all the varied forms of animal organism. Is not this a rational
conclusion, since it has been demonstrated by universal chemistry and
spectroscopic analysis that all laws, force and substance are the same
in all suns and worlds and throughout the universe? Is it reasonable to
believe that the electric currents and magnetic energy of our earth
could evolve billions of billions of little living creatures which
float in the air thicker than motes in a sunbeam, that swim in the
waters so abundant that there are millions in a raindrop, that penetrate
all vegetable and animal substance and organisms, that course through
the veins of our bodies by the billion, and eat our food for us that we
may digest it better; yet in other suns and worlds produce no such
results? I cannot think so.
The animalculæ are so small that Ehrenburg estimates that five hundred
million of them exist in one drop of water one twelfth of an inch in
diameter; that not only the blood, but the flesh and muscles are also
composed of infinitesimal lives, each cell possessing a distinct life of
its own.
Binet describes man as a colony of protozoans; and according to these
two biologists he is a walking Chinese Empire, when you consider the
microscopic beings in his body. Besides our bodies and those of
vegetable and animal organism that are thus honeycombed and flooded with
animalculine life, there are countless millions floating in the air,
swimming in the water, and buried in the dust of the earth.
So that organic life is everywhere present on the earth, in invisible or
visible form. And the invisible forms of life of the earth everywhere
surpasses the visible forms millions of millions of times. Just as the
invisible matter in the world and the universe surpasses the visible
countless billions of times. Thus the natural, spontaneous production of
life and life forms in myriads everywhere on this earth emphasizes the
reasonable hypothesis that they are evolved on all suns and planets.
This shows the unity of matter and life. Wherever there is matter there
is electric energy and life-force, which evolves infinite grades of
life-forms. Prof. Buchner asserts that "spectrum analysis has brought
about the highly important conviction of the unity of what is to us the
visible universe." And Prof. Shaler of Harvard declares, "the unity of
life is the greatest discovery of the nineteenth century." The infinite
diversity in nature first fixed the attention of investigators; now its
infinite unity is the marvel which excites their wonder and admiration.
Now the unity of matter, force and physical life are accepted by the
ablest thinkers.
This all tends to prove the inhabitability of all suns and worlds. Prof.
Huxley put himself on record as believing in intelligent organic life in
other worlds, in the following vigorous language: "Looking at the matter
from the most rigidly scientific point of view, the assumption that amid
the myriads of worlds scattered through endless space there can be no
intelligence as much greater than man's as his is greater than a black
beetle's, is not merely baseless but impertinent. Without stepping
beyond the analogy of that which is known, it is easy to people the
cosmos with entities in ascending scale, until we reach something
practicably indistinguishable from omnipotence, omnipresence,
omniscience.
"If our intelligence can in some matters surely reproduce the past of
thousands of years ago, and anticipate the future thousands of years
hence, it is clearly within the limit of possibility that some greater
intellect even of the same order may be able to mirror the whole of the
past and future."
This is a masterly statement that demolishes Alfred Russell Wallace's
little arguments like a trip-hammer would an eggshell. Ruskin also saw
much good in the idea of life in other worlds above us, "in creatures as
much nobler than ours as ours is nobler than that of the dust."
When once the unity and universality of force and electric life are made
clear, and spirit and psychic life in their immortal destiny are made
manifest, as thinking creatures we are led upward to a larger
development of life and power, dominated by a supreme intelligence we
call Deity, Infinite Goodness and Spiritual Father. Then we remember
that he has assured us in the sacred oracles, that "we shall be with Him
and shall be like Him," and that there are many mansions in the skies.
Our scientists tell us there are living creatures so small and so
numerous that it would take millions of worlds like ours to support a
human population equal to the number of these creatures that can live
and move in one cubic inch of space. Some of these multiply at the rate
of one hundred and seventy thousand millions in a hundred hours. And I
say every one is a tiny electric machine.
The electric currents that built our world from invisible atoms and
evolved the complex substances of which it is composed, and the myriad
forms of organic life that exist on its surface will fill other worlds
with countless forms of organic life. For in the great electro-magnetic
sea we call ether and space, in which all things float or exist, and
which permeates all form and substance, there is a boundless reservoir
of electric life which will blossom into infinite grades of physical
organisms wherever the surface of suns, planets and satellites have
living environments of soil, light and electric currents. Even the soil
of our earth maintains life because it is living matter itself. And some
forms of life will exist without light or soil. This is the electric
universe in solution, the life-giving sea of all form and substance.
Oh, what a miracle of wonders! From this marvelous reservoir of life,
force and substance each created thing draws the elements of its growth
and existence. And each draws from the same source that which its nature
requires. The oak draws from the same soil and air as the hickory, the
rose, the apple tree and the poison ivy. But the oak converts all the
substance it gathers into the natural fibre of the oak, the hickory into
the natural fibre of the hickory, the apple tree converts it into the
luscious fruit of the apple, the rose into the delightful perfume which
regales our senses, and the poison ivy converts the same air and soil
into deadly poison.
This is the marvel of electric law and energy. How does it do it? It
does it, I contend, by the law of magnetic currents under the control of
organic affinity. The Bible states this law in a little different form
when it says God caused every tree and shrub and created thing to bring
forth seed of its kind. Man, like all nature, also draws from one common
intellectual and moral reservoir. And while some draw inspiration and
goodness, others draw poisonous evil, or, rather, convert the good they
draw into evils. And each brings forth of its kind.
I do not believe with Prof. Newcomb that, "in order that a race may be
renewed it must die like an individual." Or that the Creative Power,
after destroying our earth, "will await with sublime patience the
evolution of a new earth and a new order of animated nature."
The Creative Power has surely as much sense as an ordinary man, and no
man builds and perfects a fine piece of machinery, or a magnificent
mansion to tear it down, that he may "wait in sublime patience" the
building of another to take its place. We should give God credit for
ordinary business sense in the construction and preservation of the
universe, which generally seems to be denied Him by His thinking
creatures.
If Creative Wisdom has the power to build worlds, He has also the power
to preserve them; and, having that power, to allow them to go to decay
or be destroyed would be the perverse folly of a malignant demon, not a
beneficent Creator. The same is true of the destruction of a race. To
create, build up, enlighten and perfect a human race, and then destroy
them and their perfected world, would be a greater crime than it is
possible for man or devils to perpetrate. I have a better opinion of
Deity, a nobler conception of His justice and goodness than that. I
believe in a God who cares, not the modern God of the atheistic
majority, as Mr. Walker says, "who does not care." A God who does not
care means anarchy and chaos. It means the obliteration of all law, all
moral forces, all religious conceptions, all stability and consistency
in the government of the universe. Why, the very air we breathe, the
sunshine that gives life, the regular and constant return of day and
night, of seasons, years and months, proclaim a God who cares. Every
smiling human face, every generous impulse and noble thought, every
worthy deed, every fragrant flower, waving field, and golden harvest
testify to a God who cares.
But what of the "red claw" of the tiger. What of the big fish that eat
the little ones, or the destruction of life by flood and storm, or human
trials, sickness and death? Are these things consistent with a God who
cares? They may be. The tiger devours to appease his hunger, the big
fish eat the little ones for the same purpose, and both obey the law of
self-preservation and the survival of the fittest. These two laws are
necessary to preserve the life of their kind, and perfect their species
for the benefit of mankind. It seems a sad spectacle to see the strong
destroying the weak, but it is in the earlier stages of existence the
only way under the law of evolution to preserve and improve the best of
each species, and is a kindness and a blessing in the end.
As to the destruction of life by flood and storms, these are nature's
efforts to preserve the equilibrium of her mighty forces, and where a
few are injured, millions are benefited and blessed. And as to man's
sickness and tribulations, they are one-half imaginary, and a half of
the other half are the result of their own folly in the violation of the
laws of health, and the remaining one fourth are disciplinary for the
purpose of developing character, which is an ample reward and
compensation.
As to death, it is as painless as going to sleep; it is the dread of
death that hurts. And if it is the transition process, as millions
believe, by which souls drop their brief tenement of atoms, and soar on
tireless wings to celestial realms, then it is not a curse but a
blessing, especially to the aged and decrepid, for whom life has no
charms.
Will man never cease slandering the good Deity, and libeling the
beneficent Creator of all good? With most people the fault is not with
the world or controlling providence and Deity, but in themselves. They
make their own world in their own mind and then find fault with it as if
it was a reality.
Albert Russell Wallace, in the Fortnightly Review of March, 1903, in a
labored article of great length, undertakes to carry the world back a
thousand years to the time when man thought the earth was the center of
the universe, and the stars were little openings or golden nails in the
crystal vault of heaven. He says we are at the center of the universe;
that our sun system belongs to a constellation situated near the center
of the Milky Way. This may be true, and it is not worth disputing, for
if we are at the center now--as our system travels 420,000 miles a
day--we were not there a thousand years ago, and in a few decades will
be far away from it. As we keep moving all the time, and do not get off
at this central station which he makes so much of, I see nothing gained
or lost if it is true.
But in order to show that it is central, he must limit the universe and
give its circumference, metes and bounds. This is an immense
undertaking. If our universe is limited--and Prof. Newcomb thought so a
few years ago, and held it was in the shape of a circle or disk, which
was about thirty thousand light years in circumference if true, then the
light from the distant stars have been traveling thirty thousand years
in order to reach us, and they must be millions of miles from where they
seem to be. Thus the center of the universe is constantly changing, and
it would take omniscient wisdom to tell where the center is, and then it
would not remain the center many hours. This would be true whether the
universe is limited or unlimited.
Mr. Wallace says, "The supreme end and purpose of this vast universe is
the production and development of the living soul in the perishable body
of man." If he had said that was the supreme purpose of the earth, I
would have agreed with him.
But since he makes man's development the supreme purpose of the universe
and says all other worlds are uninhabited, I am forced to disagree with
him. He says there are one hundred millions of stars and planets in the
universe, yet he depopulates them all for man's benefit, and then fails
to show how man can be benefitted, or for what purpose the almost
countless orbs were created. In my judgment he proves himself a million
of times wrong, and reaches the climax of unreasonable conjecture. I
believe no astronomer will agree with him. None has yet appeared, though
several of the most eminent have already expressed their dissent and
surprise at his position. His reasons, to my mind, do not justify his
conclusions, but prove the very opposite hypothesis.
He estimates there are one hundred millions of stars and worlds, and
says they "are all composed of the same elements as the planets and
solar system. Wherever organized life may have developed, it must be
built up out of the same fundamental elements as here on earth." Now, I
fully agree with him in that statement, which I contend shows clearly
that these worlds are inhabited. For if they possess the same elements
and are controlled by the same laws, they must produce the same results
of organic life as appear on our earth; and his arguments about
temperature, proportion of land and water, etc., do not affect the
question. His conclusions brand the Great Architect of the universe as
an incompetent and wasteful profligate, and is contrary to all analogy
in human reason, to all law of proportion and compensation, and to "the
eternal fitness of things."
The fact that our earth has the same laws, forces, and substances as
other worlds and is swarming with its countless myriad forms of organic
life; and that all the manifestations of nature's creative forces are
prolific in the production of sentient beings, is conclusive evidence
that abundant life exists on other spheres, and other worlds are not
dreary wastes of burning plains and sandy deserts. The fact that the
Creative Spirit built up man's body through ages of animal growth and
perfecting bodily development, or modeled it after such perfected animal
forms, and then breathed His own life and spirit into it, and made man a
spiritual, eternal being like Deity Himself, is strong evidence that in
other suns and worlds he has done likewise; and that they are the
theatres of spiritual as well as of vegetable and animal life. God
creates because He is Love and must have spiritual children as the
objects of His affection.
This reason would cause him to people other worlds with the highest
order of intelligent creatures similar to man. And the great planets,
and great suns, like Sirius, Alpha Lyra, Vega and Alcyone, which are a
thousand times larger than our sun, should possess beings of greater
intellectual and spiritual faculties than our earth in proportion to
their superior grandeur and power.
Thus the infinite wisdom and power of Creative Deity, and the laws and
creations He has evolved on this earth, teach us that in other worlds
and suns He has created other and numerous types of intelligent beings;
and that living organic creatures of His bounty in all suns and spheres
honor and adore His infinite goodness, power and love.
His suns and worlds are countless as the stars--
His jeweled finger-prints. Through chequered bars
Of light and shade all life is shadow of His breath--
An uttered thought. And law and change and death
His angel messengers. His spirit truth
Preserves the universe in fadeless youth.
The palpable Infinite! who can know?
Mind from a mustard seed to world, must grow.
The past, the emblems of His power hath wrought
Whose thought created first creating thought,
And veiled in mists above Olympian throne
We know the unknown God is God alone.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ELECTRICAL THEORY OF CREATION WILL SAVE MODERN SCIENCE FROM
PANTHEISM
It is marvelous the number of scientists who question the fact as to
whether there is a personal God, and who look upon the universe and its
laws and operations as the manifestation of a universal intelligence
that has no existence except as it is infused as an invisible force
through all nature. In other words, pantheism, or belief in a world-God,
has been taking the place of the materialism of the past century. And a
vast array of distinguished agnostics, so-called, from Darwin, Spinoza,
Huxley and Haeckel to Ingersoll, were really believers in pantheism.
Haeckel says he adheres to the Monism of Spinoza which, he says, is
"matter, or infinitely extended substance; and spirit or energy, which
is sensitive and thinking substance. These are the two fundamental
attributes or principal properties of the all-embracing, divine essence
of the world--the universal substance." What is this but pantheism of
the rankest old, obsolete, pagan kind? What is "the all-embracing divine
essence of the world--the universal substance," but a substitute for
God,--a God which is simply the substance of the world--a world-God.
According to this, all the elements of the universe are parts of Deity.
The crystalline rocks and metals of the earth, the dust we kick from
our feet, the manure of the stable, and the odor of decaying vegetation
are all a part of the body of God. And this, they claim, is the God of
the universe, and the only God there is.
This is a fair analysis of pantheism, of Haeckelism, Darwin and
Huxleyism, Ingersoll and agnosticism. What a shame on human reason! Yet
these great thinkers, seeing the intelligibility of nature, its
uniformity of laws and operations, without a knowledge of electricity
were forced to this conclusion.
A recent pamphlet by F. E. Titus, a barrister of Toronto, entitled "The
Pantheism of Modern Science," says: "A summary of recent investigations
into life, force and substance and the opinions based by scientists
thereon leads up to the conclusion that there is in nature a universal
mind controlling and permeating nature's manifestations."
In this I agree, but it is the universal mind of Deity as manifested
through the marvelous creative forces of electricity. But this writer
sums up his facts and theories, and concludes that the pantheism of the
universe is the only explanation of all the countless and complicated
forces and organisms of life which are to be found everywhere. And he
contends the modern tendency of science is back to the old discarded
pagan belief of pantheism. Even Flammarion seems imbued with that idea,
and Haeckel championed it in his monistic theories. But as a knowledge
of electricity has killed materialism, so will it defeat and destroy
pantheism. This lawyer-scientist thinks nothing can prevent science from
falling into the arms of pantheism, and he champions it vigorously.
But for the discovery of electricity this would have been an age of
scientific materialism and pantheism. But the marvelous powers of this
invisible force appals the stolid thinkers on "solid matter." They have
found there is no solid matter, and that all matter in its primary form,
and all force is as invisible as spirit, and that the universe swings on
invisible forces as intangible as mind and as potent and inscrutable as
destiny.
The conflict in the future between religion and Atheism will be chiefly
a belief in a God that cares, or a God that does not care; and in
science between an electric universe controlled by spirit and a
pantheistic universe that thinks and feels in all its parts, and is
itself the God of all. This last is virtually the position of Darwin,
Huxley and all the agnostics from them to Ingersoll, and embraces
Haeckel's moneism in its definition.
Let us see from whence they get their facts on which they base their
theories. They say: "The evolution going on in the inorganic world is an
evolution of intelligent life." I say that what they call intelligence
is the result of electric laws and affinity; that the selection of atoms
and their repulsion and the building of matter into substance and form
is the intelligent operation of these electric laws, which originated in
the infinite intelligence and power of the Creator. They say: "The soil
maintains life because it is living matter itself." And I agree with
them, and say all matter is living matter because it is permeated with
electric life and energy and governed by electric law.
They say: "Metals in fact are sensitive things, like living organisms."
I say they are "sensitive" because they are easily electrified, and
respond quickly to magnetic energy. They say, with Dr. Thomas Young,
"There are all gradations of substance stretching all the way from the
solid material to the spiritual, and gradations of consciousness from
the inert mineral to the highest manifesting God." And I agree with them
in a sense, for the consciousness in matter is electric energy, and in
God and man it is spirit.
That these electric laws are intelligent, constant and wonderful we have
abundant proof every day of our existence. Prof. Japp of the British
Association says: "No fortuitous concourse of atoms, even with all
eternity for them to clash and combine in, could compass the feat of the
formation of the first optically organic compound." This is true, for
only the infinite wisdom of creative law and electric energy could do
it. It is not fortuitous or accidental; it is in accord with nature's
perfect laws of electric combinations.
I am willing to admit that "inherent selective and directive force" is
exhibited in organic and inorganic matter. And I explain it by the laws
of electro-magnetism. Agnostic pantheism has no explanation. They say
that nature shows some sense and intelligence; therefore nature, the
world, this great globe, is God.
They quote from their great authority, Huxley, who said that "Life was
present potentially in matter when in the nebulous form and was unfolded
from it by the way of natural development." I am willing to admit it,
and to go one step further, and say it was there before the nebulæ was
formed in the electric currents of life and power, which are the first
manifestations of creative force. The potentiality of all physical life
was there in those electric currents, but not the spirit or soul-life of
man. That came long after, when the animal organism had been evolved and
perfected.
Yes, truly, in a natural sense, as Kingsley says: "Water hates the oil
with which it refuses to mix; and lime loves the acid which it receives
into itself, and like a lover grows warm with the rapture of its
affection." This refusal of water and oil to mix is caused by electric
repulsion, and lime and acid is a simple form of electric attraction.
Then the pantheists dwell on what they call the "soul-life of plants,"
the intelligence of birds and beasts, and the regularity of seasons,
years, and earth and sun revolutions, and all natural phenomena, which
they say proves the world is God. All of which I have endeavored to
explain by electrical law and processes; and they conclude all these
things prove the pantheism of the universe.
Let us notice some of the wonderful workings and transmutations in
nature on which the advocates of pantheism rely. Mr. Titus, as one of
its champions, says: "There is a common bond of unity between the
different kingdoms of nature--the mineral, vegetable and animal. That
there is some primal atomic or common condition, some homogeneous
substance in nature, some elemental essence from the aggregations and
combinations of which all forms are built up." This is undoubtedly true,
and proves that in the atoms and electric laws of nature there are ample
means for the creation of infinite substances and countless organic
beings. This does not prove pantheism. It only proves progressive, wise
electric, natural laws and forces. This "elemental essence from which
all forms are built" I have shown elsewhere to be the ocean of
electro-magnetism permeating all space and all life forms.
He says: "The processes of digestion and assimilation in man furnish
evidence" of these things. That "the vegetable kingdom has power to
assimilate earth and mineral and change it into vegetable, and in turn
is digested and assimilated by the animal, and converted into an
entirely different kingdom of nature." This is true, and I have shown
how this is purely an electric process.
The dream of the alchemist, of the transmutation of metals, is mere
child's-play compared with the processes of nature occurring every day
in the human body. These are all electric transmutations by means of
respiration, by digestion and assimilation of food, whereby a great
variety of substance is converted into blood and bone, tissue and
muscle, and all the functions of life preserved. It is also a correct
statement that "all forms of matter have as their basis one common
element, denominated primordial matter, protoplasm and homogeneous
substance, all intended to designate the first form of matter."
This is true, and we found the first form of matter to be the electric
currents of space, and the second form of matter to be the atom or
molecule, and afterwards came the primordial cell or protoplasm. We also
found that there was and is a common reservoir of life which stands back
of its myriad manifestations upon the physical plane; a great ocean of
vitality, which each organized being absorbs and gives out as we inhale
and exhale the air we breathe. And that reservoir of life is the vast
ocean of electro-magnetism in which all things float and exist as in a
sea of magnetic life-giving power.
The old hypothetical atom and stolid or solid matter was dead, according
to the scientists of a few decades ago. But the electrician, dealing
with a higher grade of matter, found that the old idea of matter as dead
and inert was untrue, and would not accord with the facts. So that a new
definition of an atom had to be formulated, defining it as an electric
center of force and motion. And some physicists deem life to be
co-eternal with matter. Which is not an unreasonable hypothesis as
applied to physical life and substance.
Prof. Tyndall in 1872 said: "Life was present potentially in matter when
in the nebulous form, and was unfolded from it by the way of natural
development." In this I agree with Prof. Tyndall as to all life, except
the spiritual or psychic life of man. And I have elsewhere tried to show
how physical life came from the electric currents which formed the
nebula, and which was afterwards woven into the earth by electric and
atomic assimilation.
Ah! now we come to the gist of all this scientific trouble--pessimistic,
agnostic and pantheistic. It is this: "Modern science is firmly rooted
in the conviction that inherent powers and qualities gradually unfolded
under the operation of natural laws, rather than in a supernatural,
extra-cosmic volition introducing arbitrarily new forces." And modern
science is partly right. She is right in her facts and her conclusions
on this vital and basic point as to all physical creations and natural
forces and powers. But I insist that the creation of the soul or
psychic life and powers of man are an exception, and do not come within
the domain of physical creations. They are on a higher plane and as much
above the realm of material forms and substances as our sun is above the
earth. They belong to the spiritual world, to the realms of Deity, to
the kingdom of God and the hosts of heaven.
They are a part of the great natural forces of the universe. Theologians
call them supernatural forces, but they are the natural creative and
controlling forces that have sovereignty over all the vast and
complicated forms of the visible, material universe.
Therefore on the physical facts of organic creation I agree generally
with the scientists. And if they had been informed in some of the vital
and intelligent processes of electrical creation, they would never have
believed in pantheism, or been pessimistic sceptics or hopeless
agnostics. And in my judgment the only thing that will redeem modern
science from pantheism is the prevalent belief in and acceptance of the
theory of electrical creation.
This will explain the harmony, intelligence, continuity and perfection
of the physical universe, and relieve their minds of all grounds for
scepticism.
There is "an intelligence or selective power" in matter. There is a
great "Chemist-Physicist" superintending nature's operations, sorting
out two parts of hydrogen and one of oxygen to compose the raindrop and
the waters of the ocean. It is no "fortuitous concourse of atoms," which
accomplishes these results and preserves the life of the world. It is
the omniscient wisdom embraced in the laws and forces of electric
energy, which is the right hand of Deity and the word of Creative power.
To show the possibility and ease with which many of the Bible miracles
could have been performed by natural processes at the volition of Divine
power, Dr. Albert G. Geyser of New York City, on May 14, 1903, according
to the New York World, elucidated many of the miracles by the use of
electricity and the X-ray. This he did before the members of the
priesthood of the Holy Name Society of St. Anselm's Church, to whom he
said he felt he would be able to demonstrate that the miracles were in
no way inconsistent with science. After setting up his apparatus, he
said:
"For centuries those who thought deeply on the matter have been puzzled
with grave doubts as to the possibility of God being all-seeing and
all-hearing. What did the telephone reveal thirty years ago? Did it not
reveal forces in nature that would allow men to hear voices at great
distances? And now, thanks to the great Roentgen invention of only nine
years ago, we are able to see through a four-foot wall simply by means
of this puny apparatus."
Then he set the great glass wheels of his battery in action and allowed
his audience to look through pieces of thick timber, and other solid
bodies. He showed how simple it was to produce a halo of electric fire
about his head though he remained a distance of ten feet from the
apparatus. As he raised the two negative and positive poles to his head
the electricity passed through and out of the crown of his head in a
circle of flame. Then he compelled his machine to shoot jagged flashes
of lightning. Then, referring to the Bible account of the descent of the
Holy Ghost in a pillar of fire, he called for volunteers, and Thomas
MacKaye came forward onto the platform. He then placed two steel rods on
each side of him, and started his apparatus, when tiny sparks began to
jet off of Mr. MacKaye's clothing. Soon the sparks grew to curling
flames, and the man's entire body became as a mass of writhing blue and
white flame. Yet afterwards when he stepped from the platform not a
thread of his clothing was singed. Rev. Father Ruppert, at the close,
said: "Nothing I have ever seen has brought me to so fully understand
God's miracles."
These pantheistic devotees are even trying to make waves of ether, air
and water intelligible things, and seem to think they are in the nature
of a circulating medium for this world-God, like blood is the
circulating medium of man's body. Even so orthodox a scientist as Prof.
Serviss, in the New York American of May 16th, 1903, goes into
panegyrics over waves and wave motion as follows: "The undulatory theory
of energy is carrying everything before it. It is not saying too much to
aver that wave motion is concerned in nearly all the phenomena of
physical life.... Think for a moment of what is included in the science
of waves. In the air all sounds, all musical harmonies are waves; in the
solid globe, all earthquakes are waves; in the ether light, electricity
and heat are waves. It is waves that make the stars visible, and yet
more mysterious oscillations picture for us on photographic plates
marvelous nebulous objects. Lord Kelvin has been credited with the
statement that the fluttering of a butterfly's wing sets up vibrations
that shake the universe."
This is superficial science, for it explains nothing. Waves are simply
a form of motion, and a form of motion creates nothing. Vibrations of
what? Wave motions of what? Our learned friend does not inform us.
Vibrations and wave motions are like heat sensations, they are not
realities; the force that creates them is the reality, and they are but
the mode or law of operation. The reality--the force creating these
vibrations and wave motions--is electricity. Yet he does not mention
this fact or any cause, but gives all the credit to the motion or manner
of motion, and ignores the cause, which is the most important of all.
Mr. Titus seems to think motion has consciousness, for he states that,
"the consciousness which is wrapped up in motion" becomes more or less
active in matter, and that God sleeps in the atom, and man is a
potential deity.
These wonderful manifestations of electricity are used by these
pantheists to bolster up their theory of these being manifestations of
intelligence in nature. And so they are, but they should remember that
nature is the art of God, not God himself and God's art is wise and
perfect. We have a new definition of life given us which shows wonderful
intelligence in the various parts of man's body. It is by Prof. Justus
Gaule of Zurich. In the American Journal of Psychology, January, 1903.
He says: "The whole organism resembles a chemical laboratory with as
many apartments as there are organs or glands." As all chemical changes
are electric changes, a chemical laboratory is the same as an electric
laboratory. He continues: "The substances produced in each apartment
are those needed in others either for their construction or for their
work." According to him life consists partly in a continual process of
interchange and reconstruction, at times sufficiently violent to tear
muscles, mutilate nerves and cause stoppage of blood--a process that
goes on "in the interior of the organism without external excitement."
Herbert Spencer defines life as "the continuous adjustment of internal
relations to external relations," but Gaule's definition of life lays
stress on the vital interplay between the parts of the organism, which
makes it a machine transforming external energy. He asserts that the
living organism is more than a machine, because it does not create
energy directly from combustible materials, but only after building up
its own tissues.
He says a machine does work, but it does not create and repair itself
like living organisms. He would therefore modify the prevailing
definition of organic life, and make it not only a machine, but more
than a machine, and emphasize the fact that life is as much an
interaction between various parts of the organism as between the
organism and the world of exterior matter. He says one organ of the body
may lose in bulk, in order that others may increase. This he has studied
experimentally in the frog, and finds that at one time the organs of sex
grow at the expense of the muscles and liver, and at another time the
reverse is true, and he insists that "life is a continuous process of
reconstruction within the vital organism." This is an important addition
to the definition of life and tends to support the electric theory, for
every function of the body is adapted to generate the electric energy
needed for itself and other parts of its organism.
It is true that solid metals, wood and stones are in a constant state of
molecular motion. According to Sir Norman Lockyer, "the stones of which
St. Paul's Cathedral is built consist of millions of millions of small
particles called molecules, and although the structure seems absolutely
at rest, as if it would last forever; yet, when you get down into the
intimate structure of each stone and every part of the fabric, you get
nothing but a multitudinous ocean of motion." Now, Mr. Titus says,
"there is some inner hidden power which marshals and controls the
innumerable host of molecules in all matter and keeps them whirling with
tireless energy." This is true, and I fully agree with him. But he
thinks it is the world-God in the atoms; and I think it is electric
energy--working under the intelligent laws of the world-God, the sun-God
and the God of the universe.
All these pantheistic scientists have never considered the wonderful
powers and utilities of electric currents and electric energy which
permeates all matter, from atoms to worlds. When they do so, they will
see in electricity an intelligent and powerful causality which will
satisfy their minds and lead them away from pantheism and its follies.
They are great believers in evolution, and so am I, and what they
require in evolution is, "the inherent power of the evolving entity to
respond to external influences." This being the requisite, they have all
they ask in the magnetic currents and electric energy pervading all
nature. It is a fact that the human body contains millions of
microscopic organisms working under the dominion of one human life,
and, in other words, man is in his body a vast colony of microbes or
protozoans supposed to be endowed with consciousness and volition.
A battle in germland is described by Dr. Donald Ross in investigating
the microbes of malaria. This was a fight between a malaria microbe, and
three phagocytes which are said to protect the purity of the blood. He
says: "While observing a malaria germ I saw a phagocyte make its way to
the malaria germ with the intent of devouring it. Ordinarily this would
be easy, but the germ, instead of allowing itself to be attacked,
attacked the phagocyte in a battle royal that lasted over fifteen
minutes. Finally the germ drew off, and hurried to where another
phagocyte was wandering aimlessly.
"It hurled itself on the second phagocyte, pushing hard against it with
its arms, while the phagocyte tried to rear up and get around and
envelope the germ, but finally gave up and flattened itself against an
air bubble, while the germ still kept on pummeling it. After fifteen
minutes another phagocyte appeared coming rapidly across the field. The
germ then left its fallen foe and attacked the newcomer. The third
phagocyte got enough of it in about one minute and turned squarely
around, fleeing across the whole field, the germ hanging on like a snake
on a dog. After five minutes the germ let go and the phagocyte slunk
away. The malaria germ had by this time reached the limits of its
endurance in the rapidly weakening blood and finally attached itself to
the glass of the slide and died."
Few people can believe that such scenes as these may take place in the
life-giving blood currents of their own bodies. Yet, if we believe those
who have studied the millions of microscopic life forms which live in
our bodies, such scenes may occur there. According to biologists,
billions of microbes are generated in our bodies too infinitesimal to be
observed by a microscope. And they say their fermentation in countless
numbers produces a poison which creates irritation, the decrepitude of
age and finally death. They say visible microbes show intelligence.
Engleman seems to hold that such facts as these and those connected with
molecular organisms, "point to the presence of some psychic powers in
the protoplasm." But I do not think so. They only show the wonderful and
diversified powers of electric energy under divine law to evolve myriads
of microscopic life that acts under intelligent electric impulses, which
in its matured form we call animal instinct.
Thus we have traced conscious life from the dust out of which man's body
was formed up through all the intervening kingdoms of nature until we
reach man himself, who is the only creature that possesses a spiritual
nature, a psychic soul, and an immortal destiny.
From the grossest materialism man and human science is rising at last to
the truth and conception of a spiritual world of so exalted an order,
and so sublime a reality, that it has been said, "to connect the mind of
man with the Spirit of God."
All nature affirms that there is a Supreme intelligence working through
electric law within the manifest universe, which is its living electric
organism. That all physical law and life are bound together in an
all-embracing whole, whose myriad aspects serve to mark the path of
evolution, and to spur each individual member on to progress and
perfection. That through the whole realm of nature the one electric life
pulsates and stirs the smallest atom and the mightiest star. But above
all is the eternal power of Deity and the deathless spirit of man,
blended in a stronger unity than that of nature, linked in a joyous and
an eternal destiny, sovereigns of worlds, rulers of suns and masters of
the universe.
Because of the perfect unity and harmony of the universe, the wisdom and
regularity of all its movements and functions, and the apparent
intelligence of its lower living organisms, the agnostics embrace monism
and pantheism. But these are not good reasons. They are better explained
by the electrical theory of creation than by any other hypothesis ever
offered in human history. They show how and why this vast universe is a
perfect, harmonious organism, in accordance with natural law. This has
never been attempted before.
Nikola Tesla asserts most truly that "of all the views of nature, the
one which assumes one matter and one force, and a perfect uniformity
throughout, is the most scientific and the most liable to be true."
Electrical creation seems to fully comply with these requirements. And
Prof. Crookes affirms that, "the seventy elements of our text books are
not the pillars of Hercules which we must never hope to pass." While
Langley says there is only one force, and light and heat are merely
sensations. And Sir Wm. Grove refers the causation of all forms of
force to one omnipresent influence. And all agree there is only one
matter, so they all seem to be approaching a universal belief in
electrical creation. And every argument made for pantheism and monism is
an argument made for a stronger and better theory--the electric theory
of creation. And the champion of pantheism as well as the electric
theory affirms: "Since we are all bound together in one common
enterprise in which progress is hastened through the harmony of its
parts, altruism becomes profound wisdom, selfishness a mark of
ignorance, and the highest codes of ethics are the most scientific
expression of nature's laws."
The superior power of this age consists in its superior ability to deal
ingeniously and wisely with the tremendous forces concealed in matter,
and held subject to nature's law.
A knowledge and application of these forces and laws have been the means
of marvelous progress, untold blessings to humanity, and have lifted
life from its narrow bounds to a joyous, ecstatic sense of the glory,
beauty and divineness of this world. As the ancients saw this universe
it was but a small flat island in a large ocean. The vast expanse above
it of space and stars was a crystal vaulted roof, to keep the waters
above from the waters below. When it rained they said "the windows of
heaven were opened." This little, flat earth then rested on the
shoulders of Atlas, or the back of four elephants, who stood on a huge
tortoise. What a vastly different universe the people of modern times
behold! This little, flat earth has expanded into a great globe,
spinning through space fifty times faster than a bullet from a rifle;
and the blue vault of heaven that to them was the end of the universe
and a crystal wall to keep back the waters, has opened out, lifted up,
and broadened to an infinity of space containing countless suns and
worlds. Where their narrow view saw only wonders, miracles, and
innumerable myth-gods of superstition, we see the orderly processes of
nature proceeding under uniform laws, propelled by one fundamental
force--invisible electricity, and formed from one matter or
substance--the invisible atom. And this vast and complex universe is the
unveiling of the eternal thought of one Almighty Deity, and the
manifestations of His creative wisdom and power. Thus our earth becomes
a divine revelation and man a spiritual wonder. Then there is a vast and
mystic meaning in sea and land, in valley and mountain, in man and all
living creatures; and the day uttereth speech and the night showeth
knowledge. And all tell us God is in His heaven and in His earth, and in
man and in all His wonderful works, and is ever present in spirit and
electric power.
That He clothes the valleys with the verdure of prairie and forest, the
hills and mountains with beauty and grandeur, and peoples the land and
the sea with living creatures. He gives fragrance to the flowers, songs
to the birds, gladness to the sunshine and life and joy to all living.
In His infinite goodness He gives man vastly larger life and loftier
powers than all other earthly beings, so that they may not only wonder
and adore; but become co-workers with the Infinite, and understand and
execute His eternal purpose, and Omnipotent Will.
At last all thoughtful men are being brought face to face with that
creative electric energy controlled by Omniscient Spirit, which is felt
in the magnetic sunshine, seen in the falling rain, the dew-drops, the
white-robed lily, the blushing rose, and the joy and gladness of life
itself. But above all things else there is bestowed on humanity the
spiritual power and loving benediction of the Great Spiritual Father,
who spread out the heavens as a curtain, lifted up the mountains and
started suns and worlds on the eternal pathway of their inscrutable
destiny. We of this generation were born into a little narrow world only
six thousand years old, soon to be destroyed by fervent heat; a world
cursed by its maker, where the vast majority of its inhabitants were
doomed to eternal punishment. Where human slavery was practiced and
approved, where the divine right of kings, the degradation of the
masses, wars, dueling, ox teams and slow coaches predominated.
We now live in a world of electrical wonders, marvelous luxuries and
personal freedom, that has millions of years behind it and eternity
before it. Time enough to solve all problems, dispel all ignorance and
discover all truth.
Recent experiments by Prof. Goodspeed of the Pennsylvania University
prove that man is a magnet and electric organism which gives out an
aurora or light from his body so that cats, mice and other animals may
see him in the dark. He has also taken photographs from the electric
light or rays from the human hand. This was also done by French
scientists six years ago and is mentioned in "Invisible Light."
On May 26th, 1903, Prof. Percy Lowell, of Flagstaff Observatory,
Arizona, announced that a brilliant projection has been discovered on
the planet Mars, and was seen for thirty-five minutes. Some think it is
Mars signalling to us; others that it is a snow-capped mountain, or a
luminous cloud; but all agree that it shows Mars to be inhabited.
Prof. J. A. Fleming of the London University, seems to agree with my
conception of electricity. He also considers it as a refined matter and
the electron as the atom of electricity, in the "Popular Science
Monthly" of June, 1903. He asserts that: "The electron isolated presents
itself as electricity of the negative kind; and in combination with
co-electrons and other electrons it forms the atoms of ponderable
matter. At rest the electrons or co-electrons constitute an electric
charge, and when in motion it is an electric current.
"A steady flux or drift of electrons in one direction, and co-electrons
in an opposite direction, is a continuous electric current, while their
mere oscillation about a mean position is an alternating current. The
vibration of an electron, if sufficiently rapid, enables it to establish
electric waves in the ether; this is the cause or foundation of wireless
telegraphy. The electrons or atoms of electricity can, in some cases,
make their way, freely, between the atoms of ponderable matter. Where
this can take place easily, we call the material a good conductor.
Electrons in their free condition constitute electricity, and the
electrons are atoms of electricity."
These electrons and their currents of electricity, I contend, are the
creative cosmic force of the universe, evolving all visible form and
substance, and producing all light, heat, vital force and so called
gravitation.
Radium is one form of electricity or electrons in marvelous combination
and are said to have the power, first, of giving out light perpetually
without any exciting cause; second, to emit rays that penetrate solids
like X-rays; third, the property of acting on sensitized plates; fourth,
of causing air to conduct electricity; and fifth, the emission of heat.
Sir Oliver Lodge, in a May, 1893, London periodical, shows the advance
of science in recognizing the forces of nature and the dominion of mind
and spirit over the material world. He affirms that: "the whole effort
of civilization would be futile if we could not guide the powers of
nature. The powers are there, else we should be helpless; but life and
mind are outside of these powers and can direct them along an organized
course. And this same life or mind, as we know it, is accessible to
petition, to affection, to pity, to a multitude of non-physical
influences; and hence, indirectly the little plot of physical universe
which is now our temporary home has become amenable to truly spiritual
control." This sustains my contention that the spirit life of man is
outside of matter and material powers and can control and direct them.
This is truth, well spoken, and illustrates the electric theory, for the
powers of nature is the electric energy in nature, and this is guided,
and under the control of mind and spirit--the mind or spirit of man and
the omnipotent spirit of Deity. And the future will reveal the wonderful
controlling power of mind over matter through electric energy.
As the sun may send to each planet a different vibration or current of
wireless electricity, and each planet will receive only such current as
it attracts and to which it is attuned; so the message of Deity to the
souls of men will only reach and affect those souls which are attuned to
receive them. This in the vast realms of nature is the law of electric
or mutual attraction, and in the invisible realms of spirit the same
universal law applies. This great principle of mutual attraction,
receptivity and mutual adjustment governs everywhere in the universal
realms of nature and truth.
Rev. David J. Burrell, in his sermon on "Wireless Messages of God," sets
forth some strong scientific reasons why the natural man cannot discern
spiritual things. Under this universal law of mutual adjustment he says:
"If you strike a tuning fork keyed to middle C it will awaken a response
in another fork, provided the latter is keyed to the same pitch, but not
otherwise." And he applies it to men who respond to spiritual influences
and those who are spiritual non-conductors.
This is the basic fact in wireless telegraphy. At Cape Cod there is a
transmitting station consisting of four steel towers with a bunch of
wires suspended from the top and meeting at a common point like an
inverted cone. If the power be applied to the apex of this cone the
wires begin to tremble; and the current, oscillating at a rate say of
nine hundred thousand vibrations per second, creates a series of
corresponding vibrations in the ether, just as a stone cast into a lake
sends out concentric circles. This ether wave or message speeds outward
with incalculable rapidity in search of its receiver; and it will cross
the ocean to find it.
Now, there is such a receiver at Poldhu, in Cornwall, where the wires
are precisely attuned to the transmitter at Cape Cod; that is, their
vibrations are the same, say nine hundred thousand per second; so that
the message sent from Cape Cod meets no response until it finds its
sympathetic station at Poldhu, and this attracts and welcomes it.
Marconi's system of wireless telegraphy is not an invention, but a
discovery of a natural law or process which has been going on
continuously through all the realms of space since time began.
The sun as the great source and center of energy in our solar system is
constantly sending out messages of light and life to his family of
planets. It is a scientific fact clearly proven that a ray of light is
an electric wireless message from the sun to the earth, and it could not
be received unless the earth attracted it, and was attuned to it. For
here the same law prevails between sun and earth that no message can be
received except by some object which is sympathetically attuned to it.
Prof. Pupin suggests that a beam of light representing a certain number
of vibrations per second, intended to convey the color red, is sent
forth from the sun. It speeds through space until it reaches the earth;
where intent upon its eager quest it passes unresting through all the
meadows, since no grass-blade is adjusted to receive it; no daisy or
buttercup, no lily or heliotrope being disposed to welcome it; it passes
over all gardens until it finds a rose; and here it pauses and finds
welcome. Why? Because the rose has a natural affinity for it, and like
two lovers in mutual affection they meet and embrace each other, and are
blended in the harmonious union of nature's electric law of life,
growth and beauty. The same law of mutual attraction and wireless
telegraphy creates the lofty elm, the towering oak, the blade of grass
and the waving fields of golden grain in the Autumnal harvest.
Dr. Burrell makes an apt and beautiful illustration of these truths of
nature in their analogy to spiritual laws. He says: "This process which
has been discovered to be so prevalent in nature has infinite field and
scope of operation in the province of spiritual things. God as the great
transmitter of truth bears to the spiritual world a relation
corresponding to that of the sun in the natural world. Assuming that
there is a God, and that we are created in his image and after his
likeness, it follows as an inevitable conclusion that He will somehow
reveal himself to his children and hold converse with them. But here is
the application of the principal referred to: _The man who would hear
the wireless messages of God must Himself be attuned or adjusted to the
character of God._"
This is superlative truth that all wise men should consider and not have
occasion to lament, like Charles Darwin, at the close of his long life
of physical investigation, that he had starved his spiritual nature. For
our thoughts depend on our receptive natures and our lives are just what
we make them, and our future is according to our character and the
inscrutable laws of life and destiny.
O! the wisdom of the wisest; O! the goodness of the good!
Gleaning through the sweep of ages where Divinity hath stood,
Shining footprints of celestials, through the mystic gleaming bars,
Of the ever past and present speaking in the earth and stars.
How they teach the lofty spirit of the beautiful Beyond,
Of God's uttered truth and goodness, if but yearning souls respond.
* * * * *
WHAT IS SAID OF
CITIES OF THE SUN
By GEORGE WOODWARD WARDER
"You have struck out on original and alluring lines of thought and
investigation in which you stand alone. It must be a thrilling sensation
to blaze a new trail for the coming march of men. The great highways of
present knowledge were once obscure and hidden paths."--_Lord
Salisbury._
"He has the scientific knowledge of Flammarion combined with the fancy
of Jules Verne."--_Nicola Tesla._
"I am reading with much interest your remarkable book. I am deeply
interested and profited by its study. It is grand, cheering,
helpful."--_Rev. Dr. R. S. MacArthur._
"Your book has impressed me very greatly for its learning, research and
intellectual force."--_Gen. John W. Noble_ (_Ex-Secretary of the
Interior._)
"Its arguments are carefully worked up on scientific lines and it is
interesting reading from cover to cover."--_New York Tribune._
"Few writers have ventured such boldly frank opinions. His style is
polished and sometimes brilliant, while his thoughts are presented with
lucid directness."--_N. Y. Evening Telegram._
"It is a fascinating work which goes intelligently and with scientific
plausibility into speculations concerning the destinies of Men and the
Universe."--_The New York World._
"So much has been accomplished by electricity in the last few years that
no person can come forward and say with reason that the electric theory
of Col. Warder is not correct."--_Denver Republican._
"Your books are intensely interesting and instructive. I accept their
theories and believe they will finally prevail and revolutionize
scientific thought. Have read them three times."--_Dr. L. M. Taylor_
(_Scientist, Washington, D. C._).
"I know no greater favor that I can bestow on my friends than to present
them your book, 'The Cities of the Sun.' It will give them new thoughts
and teach them to think. Send me fifty volumes to-morrow."--_Col. Henry
H. Adams, 177 Broadway, New York._
12mo. Cloth Bound, $1.50
WHAT IS SAID OF
INVISIBLE LIGHT
By GEORGE WOODWARD WARDER
"Col. Warder's book has attracted gratifying attention among literary
and scientific people. His theory of electrical creation has been fully
discussed and approved by many scientific men, and his new publication,
'Invisible Light,' will give the critics and scientists something new to
puzzle over."--_The Kansas City World._
"Perhaps no writer on a scientific subject has quite equaled Col. Warder
in boldness of treatment, and characteristic imagery of presentment. He
repudiates the law of gravity, and adopts electricity as the evolving
force in Creation, and proclaims the sun to be inhabited."--_The Kansas
City Journal._
"If he fails to break up the existing scientific theories it will not be
his fault. We have read his work with interest, and whatever the opinion
of scientific critics the fact remains that it contains ample and
original food for thought."--_Atlanta Constitution._
"He claims electricity is the medium and agency of Creative power in the
evolution of the universe. That the sun is inhabitable, and the
spiritual center and promised heaven of the Solar System. The reader
will be forced to admit that he furnishes good proof for all his
assertions."--_The Kansas City Mail._
"He holds there are only three elemental substances in nature, spirit,
electricity and matter. Matter is controlled by electricity and
electricity is controlled by spirit intelligence. That in discovering
electricity man has found the working force of Deity, and uses it in all
fields of human effort. The arguments are convincing, and the book
attractive and entertaining."--_The Kansas City Star._
"He presents the most advanced theories concerning modern science, and
claims they are not antagonistic to the Mosaic Scriptures. Every page
abounds with polished diction and glowing imagery, and his thoughts are
equal to the best of the world's greatest thinkers."--_The Chillicothe
Constitution._
"You have rendered a service to the world by affording so much food for
thought, and directing attention to the important subjects of which you
treat."--_Col. F. F. Hilder_ (_Bureau Ethnology, Washington, D. C._).
"The book is the best exposition of the physics and metaphysics of the
universe I have ever read."--_Wm. C. Boteler, M.D., Editor and Prop.
North American Medical Journal._
12mo, Cloth Bound, $1.50
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George Woodward Warder
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