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Title: The unseen universe
or, physical speculations on a future state
Author: Balfour Stewart
Peter Guthrie Tait
Release date: January 28, 2025 [eBook #75232]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Macmillan and Co, 1878
Credits: Tim Lindell, John Campbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE ***
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.
A subscript x is denoted by _{x}, for example H_{2}O.
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have
been placed at the end of the book.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE
... μὴ σκοπούντων ἡμῶν τὰ βλεπόμενα, ἀλλὰ τὰ μὴ βλεπόμενα· τὰ
γὰρ βλεπόμενα, πρόσκαιρα· τὰ δὲ μὴ βλεπόμενα, αἰώνια. Πρὸς
Κορινθίους, Βʹ. δʹ.
Animula! vagula, blandula,
Hospes comesque corporis,
Quae nunc abibis in loca,—
Pallidula, rigida, nudula....
HADRIAN.
‘God hath endowed us with different faculties, suitable and
proportional to the different objects that engage them. We
discover sensible things by our senses, rational things by our
reason, things intellectual by understanding; but divine and
celestial things he has reserved for the exercise of our faith,
which is a kind of divine and superior sense in the soul. Our
reason and understanding may at some times snatch a glimpse,
but cannot take a steady and adequate prospect of things so
far above their reach and sphere. Thus, by the help of natural
reason, I may know there is a God, the first cause and original
of all things; but his essence, attributes, and will, are hid
within the veil of inaccessible light, and cannot be discerned
by us but through faith in his divine revelation. He that walks
without this light, walks in darkness, though he may strike out
some faint and glimmering sparkles of his own. And he that, out
of the gross and wooden dictates of his natural reason, carves
out a religion to himself, is but a more refined idolater than
those who worship stocks and stones, hammering an idol out of his
fancy, and adoring the works of his own imagination. For this
reason God is nowhere said to be jealous, but upon the account of
his worship.’—_Pilgrims Progress_, Part III.
‘To die,—to sleep;—
To sleep! perchance to dream;—ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.’—SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_, Act iii. Scene 1.
[Illustration: (decorative icon)]
THE
UNSEEN UNIVERSE
OR
PHYSICAL SPECULATIONS
ON A
FUTURE STATE
BY
B. STEWART AND P. G. TAIT.
——the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are
not seen are eternal.
_SEVENTH EDITION_
(_Revised, and Enlarged._)
London
MACMILLAN AND CO
1878.
[_All Rights reserved._]
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written
for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and
comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast _the
blessed hope of everlasting life_, which thou hast given us in
our Saviour Jesus Christ.—_Amen._
Edinburgh University Press:
T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY.
PREFACE.
[_The following was prefixed to our Sixth Edition. Though many
changes, some of importance, have since been made in the text, we
do not think it necessary to call attention to them here._]
Our readers will find near the end of our work the following
paragraph, which has appeared in every edition:—‘We are in hopes that
when this region of thought comes to be further examined, it may
lead to some common ground on which followers of science on the one
hand, and of revealed religion on the other, may meet together and
recognise each other’s claims without any sacrifice of the spirit
of independence, or any diminution of self-respect. Entertaining
these views, we shall welcome with sincere pleasure any remarks or
criticism on these speculations of ours, whether by the leaders of
scientific thought, or by those of religious inquiry.’
A work like ours, containing a challenge of this sort, has naturally
called forth a great amount of criticism. Bearing in mind the
existence of the ‘_odium theologicum_,’ we are bound to confess
that at first we were disposed to tremble on opening any review of
our work in a theological journal of repute. We were soon however
delightfully perplexed at finding that the leaders of religious
inquiry were disposed to treat us with the utmost courtesy,
agreeing with us in very many points, and stating when necessary
any difference of opinion in a manner calculated alike to preserve
their independence and to conciliate our self-respect. We feel much
gratified and encouraged by this treatment, and we think that if our
fourth edition be compared with our first, it will be found that we
possess some plasticity and have learned to make some use of the
criticism so faithfully and courteously bestowed upon us.
* * * * *
Here we would wish to take an opportunity of stating that the
Principle of Continuity as upheld by us has reference solely to the
intellectual faculties. We are led, for instance, by this principle
to assert that the process of production of the visible universe must
have been of such a nature as to be comprehensible more or less to
the higher intelligences of the universe.
But we are not led to assert the eternity of stuff or matter, for
that would denote an unauthorised application to the invisible
universe of the experimental law of the conservation of matter which
belongs entirely to the present system of things.
Nor are we led to assert that the ether must play some important
part in our future bodies, for our knowledge of things is vastly too
limited to enable us to come to any such conclusion.
* * * * *
Notwithstanding these remarks, if any theologian of repute thinks
that our fourth and subsequent editions savour too much of ideas
of this nature, we will gladly amend our language when a suitable
opportunity occurs. It is probably due to misconception of our
words, possibly to a difficulty, which we have all along felt, of
finding words exactly fitted to express some of the more novel of
the conceptions to which we have been led, that we have been spoken
of, to a certain extent even by some friendly critics, as ‘subtly
materialistic’ or as ‘loose Positivists.’ Unless we were to coin new
terms (which we may yet find it necessary to do), it will probably be
found all but impossible to escape such charges when writing on such
matters.
* * * * *
While the treatment we have experienced from the true leaders of
religious thought has been all that we could wish, and while some of
them have come forward as our champions rather than our critics, we
regret to think that certain of their following have not invariably
imitated the good example thus set them. All are not Bayards, whether
we regard the temper of the blade or that of the individual who
wields it.
Pages of so-called ‘extracts’ from our book have been strung
together, now by some writers of the High Church school, anon by
writers of the very lowest Evangelical type, in each case with
absolute disregard of their original collocation and surroundings,
and the result is of course as utterly unfair a representation of
our meaning as could possibly be given. These ‘extracts,’ which
are always scrupulously enclosed in inverted commas, are not
merely altered in meaning by being arbitrarily detached from the
context—they are often altered by the insertion of terms (_e.g.
luminiferous force!_) which we, as scientific men, could not possibly
have employed.
People who adopt a system like this deserve to have, once for all,
thoroughly brought home to them the bitter rebuke administered to
their analogues long ago by a witty if semi-profane divine, who
proposed to choose his text on their principle, and gave out, to the
astonishment of his audience, _part_ only of a verse, viz., ‘Hang all
the law and the prophets’!
We have placed at the commencement of this Preface the only words of
ours which appear to commit us to controversy, and we trust that a
study of them will convince our readers, as it has convinced us, that
we do not stand committed to the hopeless task of entering the lists
against _this species of controversialist_.
* * * * *
It is with reluctance that we have felt ourselves compelled to allude
to a method of controversy, in our opinion, as deficient in Christian
courtesy as it is powerful to stifle the interests of truth.
* * * * *
The attacks which have been made on our work since the sixth edition
was published, are (all at least that we have seen) completely met by
the _Introduction_. Their basis, when such exists, has usually been
some short passage, arbitrarily detached from its context, and thus
made susceptible of any gloss desired.
_November 1877._
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
Forgetful of the splendid example shown by intellectual giants like
Newton and Faraday, and aghast at the materialistic statements
now-a-days freely made (often professedly in the name of science),
the orthodox in religion are in somewhat evil case.
As a natural consequence of their too hastily reached conclusion,
that modern science is incompatible with Christian doctrine, not a
few of them have raised an outcry against science itself. This result
is doubly to be deplored; for there cannot be a doubt that it is
calculated to do mischief, not merely to science but to religion.
Our object, in the present work, is to endeavour to show that the
presumed incompatibility of Science and Religion does not exist.
This, indeed, ought to be self-evident to all who believe that the
Creator of the Universe is Himself the Author of Revelation. But it
is strangely impressive to note how very little often suffices to
alarm even the firmest of human faith.
Of course we cannot, in this small volume, enter upon the whole of
so vast a subject, and we have therefore contented ourselves with
a brief, though, we hope, sufficiently developed discussion of one
very important—even fundamental—point. We endeavour to show, in
fact, that immortality is strictly in accordance with the principle
of Continuity (rightly viewed); that principle which has been the
guide of all modern scientific advance. As one result of this inquiry
we are led, by strict reasoning on purely scientific grounds, to
the probable conclusion that ‘a life _for_ the unseen, _through_
the unseen, is to be regarded as the only perfect life.’ (See Chap.
VII.) We need not point out here the bearing of this on religion.
Incidentally, the reader will find many remarks and trains of
reasoning which (by the alteration of a word or two) can be made to
apply to other points of almost equal importance.
We may state that the ideas here developed—very imperfectly of
course, as must always be the case in matters of the kind—are not
the result of hasty guessing, but have been pressed on us by the
reflections and discussions of several years.
We have to thank many of our friends, theological as well as
scientific, for ready and valuable assistance. The matter of our work
has certainly gained by this, though it is likely that the manner may
have suffered by the introduction, here and there, of peculiarities
of style which could not easily be removed without damage to the
sense.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
As a preface to our Second Edition, we cannot do better than record
the experience derived from our first. It is indeed gratifying to
find a wonderful want of unanimity among the critics who assail
us, and it is probably owing to this cause that we have been able
to preserve a kind of kinetic stability, just as a man does in
consequence of being equally belaboured on all sides by the myriad
petty impacts of little particles of air.
Some call us infidels, while others represent us as very much too
orthodoxly credulous; some call us pantheists, some materialists,
others spiritualists. As we cannot belong at once to _all_ these
varied categories, the presumption is that we belong to none of them.
This, by the way, is our own opinion.
Venturing to classify our critics, we would divide them into three
groups:—
(1.) There are those who have doubtless faith in revelation;
but more especially, sometimes solely, in _their own_ method of
interpreting it; none, however, in the method according to which
really scientific men with a wonderful unanimity have been led
to interpret the works of nature. These critics call us, some
infidels, some pantheists, some dangerously subtle materialists,
etc.
(2.) There are those who have faith in the methods according
to which men of science interpret the laws of nature, but
none whatever in revelation or theology. These consider us as
orthodoxly credulous and superstitious, or as writers of ‘the
most hardened and impenitent nonsense that ever called itself
original speculation.’
(3.) There are those who have a profound belief that the
true principles of science will be found in accordance with
revelation, and who welcome any work whose object is to endeavour
to reconcile these two fields of thought. Such men believe that
the Author of revelation is likewise the Author of nature, and
that these works of His will ultimately be found to be in perfect
accord. Such of this school as have yet spoken have approved of
our work.
Our readers may judge for themselves which of these three classes of
belief represents most nearly the true Catholic Faith.
Many of our critics seem to fancy that we presume to attempt such
an absurdity as a demonstration of Christian truth from a mere
physical basis! We simply confute those who (in the outraged name of
science) have asserted that science is incompatible with religion.
Surely it is not _we_ who are dogmatists, but those who assert that
the principles and well-ascertained conclusions of science are
antagonistic to Christianity and immortality. If in the course of our
discussion we are to some extent constructors, and find analogies
in nature which seem to us to throw light upon the doctrines of
Christianity, yet in the main our object is rather to break down
unfounded objections than to construct apologetic arguments. These we
leave to the Theologian. The Bishop of Manchester has very clearly
described our position by stating that [_from a purely physical point
of view_, § 204] we ‘contend for the possibility of immortality and
of a personal God.’
To vary the metaphor, we have merely stripped off the hideous mask
with which materialism has covered the face of nature to find
underneath (what every one with faith in anything at all must expect
to find) something of surpassing beauty, but yet of inscrutable
depth. For indeed we are entire believers in the infinite depth of
nature, and hold that just as we must imagine space and duration to
be infinite, so must we imagine the structural complexity of the
universe to be infinite also. To our minds it appears no less false
to pronounce eternal _that aggregation we call the atom_, than it
would be to pronounce eternal _that aggregation we call the Sun_. All
this follows from the principle of Continuity, in virtue of which
we make scientific progress in the knowledge of things, and which
leads us, whatever state of things we contemplate, to look for its
antecedent in some previous state of things also in the Universe.
This principle represents the path from the known to the unknown,
or to speak more precisely, our conviction that there is a path.
Nevertheless it does not authorise us to dogmatise regarding the
properties of the unknown lying beyond or at the boundary of our
little ‘clearing.’ We must go up to it and examine it often, with
long continued labour, under great difficulties, before we can at all
say what its properties are.
Among those who recognise us as orthodox, and for that reason attack
us, there is one of deservedly high authority. Our ‘brother,’
Professor W. K. Clifford, has published a lively attack on our
speculations in a recent number of the _Fortnightly Review_. We are
bound respectfully to consider the arguments of an adversary of his
calibre.
He appears to be unable to conceive the possibility of a spiritual
body which shall not die with the natural body. Or rather, he
conceives that he is in a position to assert, from his knowledge of
the universe, that such a thing cannot be. We join issue with him
at once, for the depth of our ignorance with regard to the unseen
universe forbids us to come to any such conclusion with regard to a
possible spiritual body.
Our critic begins his article by summoning up or constructing a
most grotesque and ludicrous figure, which he calls _our argument_,
and forthwith proceeds to demolish; and he ends by summoning up a
horrible and awful phantom, against which he feelingly warns us.
This phantom has already, it seems, destroyed two civilisations, and
is capable of even worse things, though it is merely the ‘sifted
sediment of a residuum.’ He does not tell us whether he means
Religion in general, or only that particularly objectionable form of
it called Christianity.
Our critic shows that he has not read our work,—has, in fact, merely
glanced into it here and there. This is proved by what he says of
Struve’s notions, on which we lay no stress whatever, while he puts
them forward as the mainstay of our argument. We are also made out to
be the assertors of a peculiar molecular constitution of the unseen
universe, although with reference to this we say in our work, page
217, ‘_for the sake of bringing our ideas in a concrete form before
the reader, and for this purpose only_, we will now adopt a definite
hypothesis.’ Of course it is too much to expect a critic now-a-days
to read every word of a book which he is content to demolish, _but we
did hope he might have noticed the italics_.
Our critic too commits several singular mistakes due to imperfections
of memory. Why speak of the negative as universal, which appears in
such words as _im_mortality, end_less_ existence, etc., when the
most common of all expressions connected with the subject are the
phrases, ‘_eternal_ life,’ ‘_everlasting_ life,’ etc., none of which
involve the negative?
How the sun could go down upon ‘Gideon’ is not obvious. Had it done
so it would certainly have occasioned personal inconvenience (to
say the least) to that hero. But what’s in a name? Our critic was
evidently thinking of Joshua and ‘Gibeon,’ and why should a critic
care about the difference between Amorites and Amalekites? It is a
mere matter of spelling,—a trifle. Similar mistakes in a previous
article are apologised for in a footnote appended to that on the
‘Unseen Universe.’ Probably the author designed the apology to
extend to it also, but forgot to say so; again a trifle. But it is
of straws, some even weaker than these, that the imposing article is
built; so that when we come forth to battle we find nothing to reply
to.
To reduce matters to order, we may confidently assert that the
only reasonable and defensible alternative to our hypothesis (or,
at least, something similar to it) is, the stupendous pair of
assumptions that visible matter is _eternal_, and that IT IS ALIVE.
(See § 240.) If any one can be found to uphold notions like these
(from a scientific point of view), we shall be most happy to enter
the lists with him.
We have made numerous small though sometimes important changes in the
text, but none of them at all modify the general tenor of the work as
it first appeared two months ago.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
We have reason to think that notwithstanding all we have said,
the position we take is not yet clearly understood, and we would
therefore utilise the Preface to our Third Edition to put ourselves
right with the public on this vital point.
To begin with the scientific side of our argument, we must once more
make the statement that it is not we who are the dogmatists, but
rather that school of scientific men who assert the incompatibility
of science with Christianity.
Persistent as they have been in their endeavours to close the door
leading from the seen to the unseen, we as resolutely maintain that
it must be left open.
This class take credit to themselves for having thus barred the
entrance to a throng of superstitious fancies which would inevitably
rush through an open avenue—forgetting that they have by the same act
barred the way to all the higher aspirations of man.
But though we have founded no argument for immortality on the
existence of these higher aspirations, we cannot allow our
adversaries to bar the way upon the plea that it would inevitably be
the resort of unworthy passengers.
If it be the King’s highway it must be left open; if the unseen
universe be a reality, surely we are not to dismiss it from our minds
lest some people might entertain absurd views regarding its relation
to the present visible universe. Such fancies are no new thing in
the progress of knowledge. When two things are known to exist, we
may have ten thousand erroneous hypotheses regarding their mutual
relations, but only one true theory.
In the next place, we would say one word to that religious school
which is more particularly affected by our present inquiry,—we mean
the school who assert the resurrection of our material bodies, and a
grossly material future state.
We have endeavoured to explain to this class of men that their belief
is inconsistent with the integrity of that Principle of Continuity
which underlies not only all scientific inquiry, but all action of
any kind in this world of ours.
Under these circumstances such men have three honest alternatives
before them.
In the first place they may acknowledge the truth of our position
and change their views; or, secondly, they may combat our argument
regarding the alleged incompatibility of their position with the
Principle of Continuity; or, lastly, they may decline to accept this
scientific principle in matters which concern their faith. What we
complain of is, that the members of this school have chosen none of
these alternatives, but have rather attempted to brand us as infidels
and materialists, apparently forgetting (as usual) that such a method
of conducting a discussion is neither Christ-like nor convincing.
But while one class of religious men have tried to brand us with
these names, those of another school consider our theology narrow
and gloomy. We reply to these men that we do not pretend to be
theologians in any sense of the word. Our position in this respect
has been greatly misunderstood. We are, no doubt, endeavouring to
bring about a reconciliation between science and religion. In order
to accomplish this we must first find out what is the fundamental
principle of science, next what is the fundamental creed of the great
majority of Christians, and then endeavour to show that the two are
not incompatible with each other. In carrying out this process we
have been led to regard the Principle of Continuity as the great law
which regulates scientific inquiry, and there cannot be a doubt that
the Old and New Testaments are regarded as authoritative expositions
of religious truth by the great majority of the Church of Christ.
Now we find that the expressions in the Scriptures regarding the
future of man and the constitution of the unseen world, taken
in their obvious, if not absolutely literal meaning, are not
inconsistent with scientific deductions from the Principle of
Continuity.
We know very well that, especially of late years, a multitude of
religious schools have risen up who take many of these expressions in
a non-literal and far from obvious acceptation, and who, perhaps, do
not accord the same authority to the writers as was formerly done.
Into the disputes between these various religious schools we do not
pretend to enter, nor do we see that the Shibboleths of such schools
can be affected by our arguments, inasmuch as their discussions have,
in the great majority of cases, nothing whatever to do with Physical
principles. They are rather founded on historical, or moral, or
metaphysical considerations, all of which are foreign to our argument.
Having no pretensions to a title which we certainly do not covet, we
trust that we shall no longer be regarded as theologians either of a
narrow and gloomy, or a lax and heretical school, or indeed of any
school whatsoever.
_September 1875._
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH AND FIFTH EDITIONS.
In consequence of misapprehensions into which several of our critics
have fallen, we have prefixed to this edition an Introduction wherein
the objects of our work, and the mode in which we seek to attain
them, are fully but compactly explained. We need therefore say
nothing on these matters here. The work has been greatly enlarged,
and in many parts almost rewritten; but we have nowhere found it
necessary to alter or recall any of the statements hitherto made by
us.
As we now give our names, we can at length complain of the conduct of
a London ‘Weekly,’ which, only a few days after the first appearance
of our book, took the (we hope) very unusual course of stating the
authorship as a matter of absolute fact, not of conjecture. It was,
of course, not authorised to do so, either by ourselves or by our
Publisher:—and we regret to find that the exigencies of competition
for public favour can be thought capable of justifying, in the eyes
of any one, such a course of conduct.
As Professors of Natural Philosophy we have one sad remark to make.
The great majority of our critics have exhibited almost absolute
ignorance as to the proper use of the term _Force_, which has had
one, and only one, definite scientific sense since the publication
of the _Principia_. As such men are usually among the exceptionally
well educated, ignorance of this important question must be all but
universal. In addition to what we have said on the subject in the
text (§ 97), we would now only mention that the sole recorded case
of true Persistency or Indestructibility of Force which we recollect
having ever met with, occurs in connection with Baron Munchausen’s
remarkable descent from the moon. It is, no doubt, a very striking
case; but it is apparently unique, and it was not subjected to
scientific scrutiny.
B. STEWART. P. G. TAIT.
_April 1876._
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Page
INTRODUCTION, 1
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY SKETCH.
Article
Object of the Book, 1 22
Two classes of speculators, 2 24
Why doubters of immortality have lately increased, 3 26
_Belief of the Ancient Egyptians_—
Separation between priests and people, 4 26
The abode of the dead, 5 27
Transmigration of souls, 6 28
Embalming of the body, 7 28
_Belief of the Ancient Hebrews_—
Position of Moses, 8-9 28
His task, 10 29
Belief of the Jews in an unseen world, 11 30
Their belief in a future state, 12 31
Their belief in a resurrection, 13 32
_Belief of the Ancient Greeks and Romans_—
Unsubstantial nature of Elysium, 14 33
Transmigration introduced, 15 34
Rise of the Epicurean school, 16 36
Uncertainty of philosophic opinion, 17 37
_Belief of the Eastern Aryans_—
The Rig-Veda, 18 37
It inculcates immortality, 19 39
Double source of corruption, 20 40
Zoroastrian reformation and tenets, 21-22 40
Reformation of Buddha, 23 41
Meaning of Nirvâ_n_a, 24 42
Observations on ancient beliefs, 25-29 43
_Belief of the Disciples of Christ_—
The resurrection of Christ, 30 47
Future state taught by Christ, 31-32 49
Perishable nature of that which is seen, 33 50
The Christian Heaven and Hell, 34 51
General opinion regarding the person of Christ, 35 52
General opinion regarding the position of Christ, 36 53
Spread of the Christian religion, 37 54
Rise of Mohammed, 38 55
Materialistic conceptions of the dark ages, 39 57
Extreme scientific school, 40-41 59
Points of similarity between this school and Christians, 42 60
Varieties of opinions among Christians, 43-44 60
Believers in a new revelation, 45 62
Swedenborg and his doctrines, 46 63
Remarks on Swedenborg, 47 65
Modern spiritualists, 48-49 67
CHAPTER II.
POSITION TAKEN BY THE AUTHORS—PHYSICAL AXIOMS.
Class of readers to whom the Authors appeal, 50-53 69
_Position assumed by the Authors_—
Laws of the universe defined, 54 72
Embodiment of some sort essential, 55 73
Materialistic position described, 55 74
Unjustifiable assumptions of materialists, 56-58 74
Intimacy of connection between mind and matter, 59 77
_Essential requisites for continued existence_—
An organ of memory, 60 78
Possibility of action in the present, 61 78
_Principle of Continuity_—
Illustrated by reference to astronomy, 62-75 79
Breach of the principle illustrated, 76 87
Extension to other faculties of man, 77 88
_Application of this principle to Christian miracles_—
Erroneous position of old divines, 78 89
Such opposed to the genius of Christianity, 79 90
New method of explanation, 80-82 90
_Application of this principle to the doctrines of the
extreme scientific school_—
The visible universe will probably come to an end
in transformable energy, 83-84 92
It must have been developed out of the invisible, 85 94
THE UNIVERSE,— 86 95
Similar errors committed by the extreme schools of
theology and science, 87 96
_Application of this principle to Immortality_—
Three conceivable suppositions, 88 96
These reduced to two, 89 97
Future course of our argument, 90 97
The problem may be profitably discussed, 91 98
CHAPTER III.
THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE.
Definition of the term ‘Physical Universe’, 92 99
It contains something else besides _matter_ or _stuff_, 93 100
Grounds of our belief in an external universe, 94 101
These in accordance with our definition of the laws of
the universe (Art. 54), 95 102
Meaning of conservation, 96 103
[Use and Abuse of the Term _Force_,] 97 104
Conservation of _Momentum_, 97 105
Conservation of _Moment of Momentum_, 97 106
Conservation of _Vis Viva_, 97 107
Definition of _Energy_, 98-99 108
Newton’s second interpretation of his Third Law, 99-100 108
Friction changes work into heat, 101 110
Historical sketch of the theory of energy, 102-103 112
Transformability of energy constitutes its use, 104 115
Case where energy is useless, 105 116
_Historical Sketch of Second Law of Thermodynamics_—
*Carnot’s perfect heat-engine, *106 117
*Sir W. Thomson’s definition of absolute
temperature, *107 118
*Melting point of ice lowered by pressure, *108 120
*Sir W. Thomson’s rectification of Carnot’s
reasoning, *109-*110 120
*Professor J. Clerk-Maxwell’s demons, *111-*113 122
Degradation of energy, 114 126
Future of the physical universe, 114-115 126
Past of the physical universe, 116 128
CHAPTER IV.
MATTER AND ETHER.
Inquiry regarding structure and material of the universe, 117 129
_Various hypotheses regarding matter_—
(1.) Greek notion of the _Atom_, 118 130
Speculations of Lucretius, 119-130 131
(2.) Theory of Boscovich (centres of force), 131 137
(3.) Theory of infinite divisibility, 132 138
(4.) Vortex-atom theory, 133-134 139
Remarks on these theories, 135-136 141
Relative quantity of matter associated with energy, 137-138 142
_Universal gravitation_—
Is a weak force, 139 144
Two ways of accounting for it, 140 145
Le Sage’s hypothesis, 141-142 146
_The Ethereal medium_—
Its principal properties apparently incongruous, 143 148
Analogy of Professor Stokes, 144 149
Distortion and displacement of ether, 145 149
Inferior limit of its density, 146 150
Its supposed imperfect transparency, 147 151
Remarks on ether, 148 153
Remarks on the speculations of this chapter, 149-150 154
Modification of the vortex-ring hypothesis, 151-152 155
Possible disappearance of the visible universe, 153 157
CHAPTER V.
DEVELOPMENT.
Nature of inquiry stated, 154 158
_Chemical development_—
Changes in lists of elementary substances, 155 159
Prout’s speculations, 156 160
Experiments of M. Stas, 156 160
Family groups, 157 161
Mr. Lockyer’s speculations, 158-159 161
_Globe development_—
Hypothesis of Kant and Laplace, 160 163
Tendency to aggregation of mass, 161-162 164
Process cannot have been going on for ever, 163 166
Peculiarity of products developed inorganically, 164 167
_Life development_—
Morphological and physiological species, 165 168
Species regarded physiologically, 166 170
Position of a certain class of theologians, 167 171
Tendency to minor variations, 168 172
Artificial selection, 169 174
Natural selection, 170 175
Unproved point in the Darwinian hypothesis, 171 175
Remarks of Mr. Darwin, 172 177
Development of the Darwinian hypothesis, 173 177
Mr. Wallace’s views, 174 178
Professor Huxley’s remarks, 175 178
Position assumed by the authors, 176 179
CHAPTER VI.
SPECULATIONS AS TO POSSIBILITY OF SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCES
IN THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE.
Position of life in the present physical universe, 177 180
Two kinds of equilibrium, 178 181
Two kinds of machines or material systems, 179 182
Two respects in which a living being resembles a machine, 180 183
A living being resembles a delicately constructed machine, 181 185
The delicacy is due to chemical instability, 182 186
Delicacy of construction derived from the sun’s rays, 183 186
Delicacy of construction in atmospheric changes, 184 187
Worship of powers of nature—mediæval superstitions, 185 189
Theory which attributes a soul to the universe, 186 190
Real point at issue stated, 187 190
Man presents the highest order of the present visible
universe, 188 191
The same idea pervades the Old Testament, 189 192
And it likewise pervades the New Testament, 190-191 193
CHAPTER VII.
THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE.
Decadence of the visible universe, 192-193 195
Its arrangements apparently wasteful, 194 197
Explanation of this, 195 197
Memory of the universe, 196-197 198
Connection between seen and unseen, 197-198 198
Physical explanation of a future state, 199-201 199
Dr. Thomas Young’s conception of the unseen, 202 200
_Objections to the proposed theory of a future state
replied to_—
Religious, 203 202
Theological, 204-207 202
Scientific, 208-212 206
Quasi-scientific, 213 210
_Miracles and the Resurrection of Christ_—
Objections of extreme school stated, 214 211
How these are to be met, 215 212
Development has produced the visible universe, 216 214
Its atoms resemble manufactured articles, 217 215
Development through intelligence, 218-219 215
Idea presented in concrete form, 220 218
Christian theory of the development of the
universe, 221-227 223
Life development—Biogenesis, 228-229 228
Life comes from the Unseen Universe, 230 230
Christian theory of life development, 231 232
Position of life in the universe discussed, 232-238 233
Meteoric hypothesis implies Discontinuity, 239 240
Discussion of the notion that all matter is, in
some simple sense, alive, 240-241 242
Life, as well as matter, comes to us from the
Unseen Universe, 242-243 243
Position reviewed, 244 246
Miracles possible without breach of Continuity, 245 247
Peculiar communication with the unseen in the case of
Christ, 246 248
Apparent breaks are concealed avenues leading to the
unseen, 247 249
Probable nature of present connection between seen and
unseen. Efficacy of Prayer, 248 250
Angelic intelligences, 249 251
Remarks on God’s providential government, 250-252 253
Our argument may be very much detached from all
conceptions of the Divine essence, 253 257
Christian conceptions of Heaven, 254 258
Two ideas in all Christian hymns, 255 259
Possible glimpse into the conditions of the future
life, 256-257 260
Darker side of the future, 258 262
Plato on the markings of the soul, 259 263
Christian Gehenna, 260 264
Mediæval idea of Hell, 261 265
The _process_ in the Gehenna of the New Testament
apparently an enduring one, 262 267
Personality of the Evil One asserted by Scripture, 263 269
Brief statement of the results of this discussion, 264 270
The scientific conclusion is directly against the
opponents of Christianity, 265 271
Criticism invited from leaders of scientific thought
or of religious inquiry, 266 272
INTRODUCTION.
The present age is one of very rapid progress in almost all branches
of knowledge.
Like a wave swelling as it advances shoreward, this progress has
violently transformed whole regions of thought, while it has
repeatedly invaded others not heretofore deemed accessible to such
catastrophes.
Presuming upon a soil of great natural richness, the inhabitants of
these latter regions had for a long series of years given themselves
up to a species of husbandry which was beginning at length to be
detrimental in its effects.
It thus came to pass that while the immediate result of each
inundation was a sudden alarm and consequent confusion, yet
nevertheless a fertilising residuum was always left behind,
together with a very plain intimation that no region of thought
can permanently flourish if it be entirely cut off from any of the
intellectual influences around it.
Suchlike, we take it, have been the results of the recent great
floods of intellectual energy, much of them seemingly subversive,
which have repeatedly invaded the region occupied by the followers
of Christianity. At present there is no book more read than the
Bible, no life more deeply studied and discussed than the life of
Christ. There is probably a greater amount of earnest attention
devoted to these subjects than to any other branch of human inquiry.
Nevertheless there is great confusion, and an almost despairing
outcry from many of the inhabitants of the Christian region. It is
imagined that fences and landmarks have disappeared, and that at
length the rising tide is about to attack, as it has long threatened,
the very lives and holdings of the community.
It will be our endeavour to reassure these somewhat over-timid
people. Being students of physical science, we will try to gauge the
strength of the tide, and more especially of the forces which give
it motion, and endeavour to convince those who are sufficiently calm
to receive conviction, that there neither is nor can be any real
danger to their lives and holdings from the violence of the waters;
but that, on the contrary, they will ultimately receive a blessing
from that which will remain behind after the present confusion has
disappeared.
‘Skin for skin,’ said a certain evil one, ‘yea all that a man
hath will he give for his life,’ and the proverb is true (with
a modification) as regards the life of the soul, no less than
as regards that of the body. Take away all hope of a future
state,—appear to demonstrate, if not with absolute certainty,
yet with an approach to it, that such a condition of things is
antagonistic to well-understood scientific principles, and we feel
certain that the effect upon humanity would be simply disastrous.
At any rate, those who propound an argument of this kind must
reasonably expect determined opposition from the followers of
religion.
Let us here, before proceeding further, take the opportunity of
stating that we discuss only the _physical_ aspects of the argument
regarding a future state. Being neither metaphysicians nor moral
philosophers, we leave to others more competent than we can be the
argument which may be based upon the universal craving among the
intelligent races of mankind for a life beyond the grave.
In the fourth and following editions of our work, while we have not
materially altered our argument, we have recast to some extent the
shape in which it was first put before the reader, and this recasting
has taken a more definite form in our present edition.
The large amount of friendly criticism which our work has called
forth has convinced us that we did not at first sufficiently
separate between certain conclusions which inevitably flowed from
our argument, and certain others which, while deriving their strength
from a totally different quarter, were yet not inconsistent with the
former, but even, it might be, supported by them. The consequence
has been that we have found ourselves credited with attempts
which were very far from our thoughts, such, for instance, as the
endeavour to deduce Christian theological doctrine from mere physical
considerations.
We have therefore thought it desirable to bring in review before the
reader, in this introductory chapter, the fundamental points of our
argument, more especially as in what follows we may not always be
able without an undesirable formality to keep separate the foundation
and the superstructure.
* * * * *
In his justly renowned _Analogy_, Bishop Butler begins with a chapter
on a future life. He says with great truth that if there is an idea
that death will be the destruction of living powers, that idea must
arise either from _the reason of the thing_ or _the analogy of
nature_. ‘But it does not arise (he proceeds to say) from _the reason
of the thing_; for we do not know what death is. Again, we do not
know on what the existence of our living powers depends; for we see
them suspended in sleep, for example, or in a swoon, and still not
extinguished. Neither does it arise from _the analogy of nature_; for
death removes all sensible proof, and precludes us consequently from
tracing out any analogy which would warrant us in inferring their
destruction.’ Now, it is well known that since the days of Bishop
Butler a school has arisen, the members of which assert that they
have at length learned what Death is, and that in virtue of their
knowledge they are in a position to tell us that life is impossible
after death. It is one of the main objects of this volume to
demonstrate the fallacy which underlies the argument brought forward
by this school. We attempt to show that we are absolutely driven
by scientific principles to acknowledge the existence of an Unseen
Universe, and by scientific analogy to conclude that it is full of
life and intelligence—that it is in fact a spiritual universe and not
a dead one.
But while we are fully justified by scientific considerations in
asserting the existence of such an unseen universe, we are not
justified in assuming that we have yet attained, or can easily or
perhaps ever attain, to more than a very slight knowledge of its
nature. Thus we do not believe that we can really ascertain what
death is.
To those, therefore, who assert that there is no spiritual unseen
world, and that death is an end of the existence of the individual,
we reply by simply denying their first statement, and in consequence
of this denial, insisting that none of us know anything whatever
about death. Indeed, it is at once apparent that a scientific denial
of the possibility of life after death must be linked with at least
something like a scientific proof of the non-existence of a spiritual
unseen world. For if scientific analogy be against a spiritual
Unseen, then evidently it is equally against the likelihood of life
after death.
But if, on the other hand, we feel constrained to believe in a
spiritual universe, then though it does not follow that life is
certain after death, inasmuch as we do not know whether any provision
has been made in this unseen world for our reception, yet it does
follow that we cannot deny the possibility of a future life. For to
do so would imply on our part such an exhaustive knowledge of the
Unseen as would justify us in believing that no arrangement had been
made in it for our transference thither. Now, our almost absolute
ignorance with regard to the Unseen must prevent us from coming to
any such conclusion.
* * * * *
We have been accused by some of our critics of being dogmatists.
So far is this from being true that in the first part of our
argument—namely, that which relates to a spiritual unseen:—we
are content to develop from the present recognised condition of
things. We take the world as we find it, and are forced by a purely
scientific process to recognise the existence of an Unseen Universe.
We are likewise led to regard the Unseen as having given birth to the
present universe, a conclusion to which one of our leading critics
has apparently given his assent.
Here, however, we join issue with the materialistic school. They
continue to insist—against all analogy as we take it—that this Unseen
Universe is a dead one, having no life worthy of the name, although
it must have existed for inconceivable ages before the present
Universe arose.
Let our readers remark that in all this we introduce no dogma—we do
not require to assert or even assume the existence of God. We are
content to develop our argument from a position which is common to
our adversaries and to ourselves.
An objection has been raised that our argument tends to the
Swedenborgian doctrine of a spiritual body. Now, the same principles
which guide us from the continuous existence of the outer world
to acknowledge an Unseen, lead us on the assumption of our own
existence after death to acknowledge what we may term a spiritual
body. In other words, our conception of something which retains at
once a hold upon the past and a possibility of future life assumes
the form which we clothe in this or similar language.[1] But why
Swedenborgian? Why not Pauline? Was it not the great Apostle who
first gave utterance to his belief in these very words? If it be said
to us that the way in which we regard the spiritual body is decidedly
Swedenborgian, we would reply by asking our critics to tell us in
what way we regard it.
We certainly hold that if we are to accept scientific principles,
one of the necessary conditions of immortality is a frame surviving
death, but we as resolutely maintain that of the nature of this frame
we are and must probably remain profoundly ignorant.
* * * * *
It has likewise been objected that we do not sufficiently allow for
the possibility that the present universe may be infinite, and that
thus it might last for ever and continue, although spasmodically,
to be the residence of living beings even in spite of the constant
degradation of its energy. Unquestionably we cannot prove that the
present visible universe is not infinite; this we have acknowledged
in our work. But our chief argument is derived rather from the past
than from the future. We maintain that the visible universe—that is
to say the universe of atoms—must have had its origin in time, and
that while THE UNIVERSE is, in its widest sense, alike eternal and
infinite, the universe of atoms certainly cannot have existed from
all eternity.
While we freely confess that we cannot prove the finite magnitude of
the universe of atoms, inasmuch as we cannot be sure that the stars
which we see represent more than a small portion of this universe,
we are unable to perceive any scientific principle which leads us to
conclude that the number of such atoms must necessarily be infinite.
But whether it be finite or infinite, we have very great difficulty
in imagining this universe to be eternal. Regarding the atom as
something that has been developed from a previously existing unseen
universe, we cannot readily believe it capable of lasting for ever.
But if there be any element of decay in the material substance of the
visible universe, the assumption of its present infinity will not
enable us to predicate its future eternity.
Having thus defined our position, we may allow that in our earlier
editions we have possibly given undue prominence to the particular
argument in favour of an Unseen, which is derived from the future
degradation of the energy of the present visible universe.
We come now to the second part of our subject. All that we have yet
endeavoured to show is that the theory of a future life is not in any
way whatever in contradiction to any ascertained facts or principles
of science. But we have not succeeded in finding any proof that
arrangements have been made in the Unseen world for our translation
thither after death.
It has been shown that there is nothing in the whole range of
science to lead us to suppose that life is impossible after death;
but we have yet to inquire what evidence, if any, exists in favour
of a future state. Now it is well known that the followers of
Christianity believe they have received such evidence in virtue of
the resurrection of Christ, and it is equally well known that of late
years a school of scientific men have arisen who reject such an event
as one impossible to be believed.
It is not, however, rejected mainly because it is an uncommon event,
or one unconfirmed by modern experience, for it is sufficiently well
known that uncommon events have a recognised place in the universe.
Thus, for instance, there are certain conjunctions of the planets
which are very uncommon, and have not occurred in modern experience,
but we do not hesitate for a moment to believe in the possibility of
their occurrence. Nay, we are in a position to go further, and to
assert that at particular epochs of time, which we are capable of
defining with greater or less precision, such uncommon conjunctions
took place in the past, and will again take place in the future.
An absolutely new comet, one which (from the fact that its orbit
is hyperbolic) was probably never in the solar system before, and
probably cannot again return to it, is by no means a rarity.
Now we believe that an extension of purely scientific logic drives us
to receive as quite certain the occurrence of two events which are
as incomprehensible as any miracle; these are:—the introduction of
visible matter and its energy, and of visible living things into the
universe. Furthermore, we are led by scientific analogy to regard the
agency in virtue of which these two astounding events were brought
about as an intelligent agency, an agency whose choice of the time
for action is determined by considerations similar in their nature to
those which influence a human being when he chooses the proper moment
for the accomplishment of his purpose.
If this be true, the discussion regarding miracles must be removed
altogether from the domain of science, and this for the very good
reason that scientific logic admits the occurrence of events at least
as astounding. The question is now rather one for the historian and
the moral philosopher to decide. The first of these is clearly bound
to examine the evidence in favour of the life and resurrection of
Christ, while the latter is bound to look around and ask what moral
necessity there was for the interference of this peculiar intelligent
agency, and also whether, as a matter of fact, the interference has
proved beneficial.
But neither of these two ways of regarding the subject is at all
cognate to our inquiry.
We simply show that a reception of the miracles of Christ leads to no
intellectual confusion. Meanwhile, there are some who regard such a
reception as tending to historical confusion, or to moral confusion,
or to both; but with these sources of doubt we have nothing whatever
to do. It may be thought by some of our readers that here our
discussion ought to end; but, as it appears to us, there yet remains
another point vitally connected with our inquiry. There is, perhaps,
hardly a human being who seriously questions the moral beauty of the
character of Christ; there are many who question the truth of the
miracles recorded as having been wrought by Him; while still more, it
may be, question the truth of certain of His sayings, especially such
as have reference to the constitution of the Unseen world.
Entertaining the most profound reverence for Christ Himself, many
of the latter class, rather than believe that Christ enuntiated the
doctrine to which they object, maintain that it may have been a late
human fiction which grew up with and finally incrusted itself around
the true sayings of Christ: some again maintain that the sayings were
really those of Christ, but insist that the common interpretation
of them is erroneous. On this account we conceive that in order
to complete our programme we should extend our inquiry beyond the
miracles of Christ so as to embrace those of His sayings which have
reference to Himself and to the constitution of the Unseen world. We
are thus led to the consideration of another subject, which is, we
venture to think, intimately connected with that which appears on our
title-page; and in this respect the Bishop of Manchester has very
clearly defined our position by stating that (_from a purely physical
point of view_) we contend for the possibility of immortality and of
a personal God.
We must now, however, start from a new basis and assume the existence
of a Deity who is the Creator and Upholder of all things. It is not
our intention to enter into the argument by which the existence of
a Deity may be derived from a consideration of His works. Here,
therefore, we must necessarily part company with our materialistic
friends, for while they may have been content to go along with us
in our first argument to a greater or less length, they will most
assuredly not even set foot upon the second stage of our journey. We
cannot help it.
Assuming therefore the existence of a Deity, who is the Creator
and Upholder of all things, we further look upon the laws of the
universe as those laws according to which the beings in the universe
are conditioned by the Governor thereof, as regards time, place, and
sensation.
Nothing whatever lies, or can be even conceived to lie, outside of
this sovereign and paramount influence. There is no impression made
upon the bodily senses—no thought or other mental operation which
does not take place under conditions imposed by the will of God.
If it be asked how we can imagine any free-will or moral
responsibility to exist consistently with this doctrine, we may
reply that we cannot tell in virtue of what peculiar constitution
of things the sovereignty of God is consistent with our moral
responsibility, nor can we even conceive the possibility of our
obtaining the knowledge requisite to reply to this question. But it
may, we think, be shown that the doctrine of the sovereign power of
God as above defined is not inconsistent with moral responsibility.
For in the statement made three things are spoken of. _In the first
place_, there is God, the source of power; _secondly_, there are the
conditions which He imposes; and _thirdly_, there is the Ego, the
being who is thus conditioned. Now, the laws of thought absolutely
forbid our dismissing this Ego. It may possibly be argued that we
consist of a bundle of sensations bound together, just as a bundle
of threads are, by something which is no less a sensation, namely,
the impression that we have an individual existence and moral
responsibility; to which we would reply that even if this be granted
we must submit to impressions from which there is no escape.
Now, it appears to us that we cannot possibly have any impression
more deeply seated or more impossible to uproot than this:—that
we ourselves exist and are responsible; it is something which we
continually carry about with us, even into the grotesque regions
of thought, where all individuality is denied. It is into these
regions that the materialists invite us to accompany them in order
to perform, or rather to delude ourselves with the idea that we have
performed, this singularly unhappy despatch! But, just as we cannot
conceive of a man swallowing up himself, so neither can we conceive
of his getting rid of his own individuality by any legitimate
process of thought. Can we conceive of consciousness without a
being who is conscious? or of sensation without a being who feels?
We may perhaps take it for granted that the statements we have now
made, acknowledging at once a Sovereign Power and our own moral
responsibility, will commend themselves to a large body of thinkers
who will virtually agree with our conclusions. It is to these we
would now address ourselves, inviting them to accompany us upon the
second stage of our journey.
Let us here, therefore, regarding ourselves as moral and intellectual
beings, bear in mind that there are various avenues through which we
receive instruction. We do not, of course, mean that these avenues
are absolutely separate from each other, inasmuch as they must all
somehow or other merge into the one grand avenue through which we
perceive the Sovereign Power of God. Such avenues are,—the study of
matter and its laws,—communion with our fellows, and—example.
Now why should not all these various avenues be filled with the
knowledge of God, thus effecting the displacement of a vast throng of
mean and loathsome influences which would otherwise run riot there?
Surely that must be a singular process of reasoning by which the
Most High is altogether banished from these avenues into which it
is alleged He cannot possibly condescend to enter. We are confident
there is some misapprehension here; let us therefore try to point out
its probable nature.
We have assumed that a study of creation leads us up to some
conception of God—that we are driven by the faculties which He has
given us to acknowledge the existence of a Paramount Power, and
inasmuch as scientific thought leads us to regard THE UNIVERSE as
both infinite and eternal, so are we driven to regard this Power
which underlies all phenomena as infinite and eternal also.
This at least appears to us to be the conclusion to which we are
driven if we endeavour to reduce mental confusion to a minimum. It
is, however, manifestly absurd to imagine that by means of this
process we can ever comprehend the essential nature of God. We can
no more comprehend His essential nature by this means than we can
the essential nature of matter or of life. But surely we can judge
of His character by the various modes in which He influences us, and
indeed all scientific generalisations—even the simple conclusion
that the sun will rise to-morrow—are in a sense expressions of our
faith in the unchanging character of God. Now if we examine the
process by which we have obtained this conception of God it will be
seen that we start with a single intellectual being who is applying
himself to a scientific study of the works of nature. The idea of our
neighbour does not enter into it, and we agree to regard ourselves
as intellectual rather than as moral or social beings. The result
is that having voluntarily confined our argument to one channel,
we obtain a knowledge of God’s character—that is to say, of His
manifested relations towards us—which is necessarily incomplete. But
are we therefore entitled to say:—Because we obtain a very imperfect
conception of God by this method, we will not believe there is any
other method by which this conception may be rendered more complete?
Sound argument, it appears to us, leads the other way altogether.
For if we assume that the knowledge of God derived from one source
is incomplete, ought we not to try whether it can be supplemented
by knowledge derived from other sources? Undoubtedly if other
sources furnish, or seem to furnish, conceptions of God which are
fundamentally inconsistent with that which we have derived through
the scientific channel, we are entitled to sit in intellectual
judgment upon them until the source of confusion is in some way
removed.
But does this inconsistency as a matter of fact exist? We do not
think it does. The statements in the New Testament scriptures
regarding God are necessarily mysterious, but mystery can be no test
of their truth or falsehood, inasmuch as it must in such regions be
the almost inevitable accompaniment of truth.
The question is not whether they are mysterious, but whether they are
consistent with themselves, and with the knowledge we derive from
other sources. We therefore devote considerable portions of this
volume to a proof that the conception of God which the majority of
Christians derive from the New Testament is in no way inconsistent
with that deduced from scientific principles.
Meanwhile, and in conclusion, we must be allowed to express our
conviction that much evil has been wrought by a certain class of
sincere and well-meaning men in the various churches of Christ. By
dint of contemplating lofty truths from one point of view, and only
one, and by dint of developing excessively, and in one direction
only, those analogies by which the mysterious has been rendered
thinkable, they have produced a result for which they themselves are
mainly to blame. With a strange reversal of the process by which
Satan transforms himself into an Angel of Light, we have the noble,
the beautiful, and the true presented to us by these men in a form
which is fit only to inspire aversion or to create disgust.
It is in such terms that we reply to those of our critics, on the one
hand, who attack us for adopting what they call a narrow and gloomy
theology; and to those, on the other hand, who regard as dangerous
the method of discussion we have pursued. We have tried honestly to
view things with two eyes,—the eye of knowledge and the eye of faith:
first with one, then with the other, finally with both. To what
extent we have succeeded is, after all, a matter of minor importance
if only the lawfulness of this mode of vision be ultimately allowed.
And just as we have a better appretiation of the form and distance of
natural objects when we view them with both our physical eyes, so, we
venture to think, must it prove with the truths of which we now speak.
* * * * *
We have explained that the first part of our argument is altogether
independent of revelation; proceeding as it does solely upon
scientific data, and the conclusions which these seem to render
inevitable. In the second part, however, we feel that we ought not
to deprive ourselves of the overwhelming additional evidence which
we derive from Christian records. Here, therefore, we shall neither
gratify one class of our critics by starting from a point which
ignores what we regard as the fully warranted belief of the great
majority of Christians, nor shall we be overruled by the excessive
timidity of another class who apparently regard a two-eyed man as a
monster in those regions where truths of really vital importance are
concerned.
* * * * *
The horrors and blasphemies of Materialism are at least every first
day of the week so fully treated by many theologians that it is
almost unnecessary for us to say anything on their view of the
subject, especially as we could not compete with the great majority
of them in strength and happy audacity of language. We would
therefore content ourselves with mildly inquiring what sort of regard
for the image of the Divine in humanity is shown by those whose creed
levels us all with ‘the beasts that _perish_.’ Even the antient
Pagans were less disposed to such monstrosities:—
‘. . . . . . . . .
finxit in effigiem moderantum cuncta Deorum.
pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram,
os homini sublime dedit: cœlumque tueri
jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
sic, modo quae fuerat rudis et sine imagine, tellus
induit ignotas hominum conversa figuras.’
It is well for the human race that such sophistical doctrines as
those of Materialism are as yet received by a small minority only.
‘If in this life alone we have hope,’ we should be led by common
sense and prudence to make the best of it, our neighbour’s sufferings
notwithstanding. At least we should listen to him only as did the
judge ‘who neither feared God, nor regarded man,’ when he said, ‘This
widow troubleth me; I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming
she weary me.’
We would conclude by observing that the natural disinclination to
receive as true a religion whose very first effect is ‘to convict
the world of sin,’ is admirably set forth in the striking words of
Peter[2]: ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.’
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY SKETCH.
‘L’immortalité de l’âme est une chose qui nous importe si fort,
et qui nous touche si profondément, qu’il faut avoir perdu tout
sentiment pour être dans l’indifférence de savoir ce qui en
est.’—PASCAL.
‘For he should persevere until he has attained one of two things;
either he should discover or learn the truth about them, or,
if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most
irrefragable of human notions, and let this be the raft upon
which he sails through life—not without risk, as I admit, if he
cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely
carry him.’—PLATO’S _Phædo_; translated by JOWETT.
1. The great majority of mankind have always believed in some fashion
in a life after death; many in the essential immortality of the soul;
but it is certain that we find many disbelievers in such doctrines
who yet retain the nobler attributes of humanity. It may, however, be
questioned whether it be possible even to imagine the great bulk of
our race to have lost their belief in a future state of existence,
and yet to have retained the virtues of civilised and well-ordered
communities.
We have said that the disbelievers in such doctrines form a minority
of the race; but at the same time it must be acknowledged that the
strength of this minority has of late years greatly increased, so
much so that at the present moment it numbers in its ranks not a few
of the most intelligent, the most earnest, and the most virtuous of
men.
It is, however, possible that, could we examine these, we should find
them to be unwilling disbelievers, compelled by the working of their
intellects to abandon the desire of their hearts, only after many
struggles, and with much bitterness of spirit.
Others, again, without absolutely abandoning all hope of a future
existence, are yet full of doubt regarding it, and have settled down
into the belief that we cannot come to any reasonable conclusion
upon the subject. Now, these men can have had nothing to gain, but
rather much to lose, in arriving at this result. It has been reached
by them with reluctance, with misgivings, not without a certain kind
of persecution, nor without the loss of friends and the stirring up
of strife; still they have fearlessly looked things in the face, and
have followed whithersoever they imagined they were led by facts,
even to the brink of an abyss.
It is the object of the present volume to examine the intellectual
process which has brought about such results, and we hope to be able
to show not only that the conclusion at which these men have arrived
is not justified by what we know of the physical universe, but that
on the other hand there are many lines of thought which point very
strongly towards an opposite conclusion.
2. A division as old as Aristotle separates[3] speculators into two
great classes,—those who study the How of the Universe, and those
who study the Why. All men of science are embraced in the former
of these, all men of religion in the latter. The former regard the
Universe as a huge machine, and their object is to study the laws
which regulate its working; the latter again speculate about the
object of the machine, and what sort of work it is intended to
produce. The disciples of How are accused by their adversaries of
being willing to sacrifice the individual to the system; while the
disciples of Why are accused by _their_ adversaries of being willing
to sacrifice the system to the individual.
We may compare the Universe to a great steamer plying between two
well-known ports, and carrying two sets of passengers. The one
set remain on deck and try to make out, as well as they can, the
mind of the Captain regarding the future of their voyage after
they have reached the port to which they know they are all fast
hastening, while the other set remain below and examine the engines.
Occasionally there is much wrangling at the top of the ladder where
the two sets meet, some of those who have examined the engines
and the ship asserting that the passengers will all be inevitably
wrecked at the next port, it being physically impossible that the
good ship can carry them further. To whom those on deck reply,
that they have perfect confidence in the Captain, who has informed
some of those nearest him that the passengers will not be wrecked,
but will be carried in safety past the port to an unknown land of
felicity. And so the altercation goes on; some who have been on deck
being unwilling or unable to examine the engines, and some who have
examined the engines preferring to remain below.
3. Our readers will perceive from what we have said, that
difficulties regarding the possibility of a future state of existence
are most likely to arise amidst the disciples of How or those who
study the machinery of the Universe, and inasmuch as this class has
greatly increased of late, it follows that the disbelievers in or
doubters of the future state have increased likewise. The disciples
of Why have, on the other hand, existed from time immemorial,
and have, in the plenitude of their power, frequently carried
themselves with much violence towards the disciples of How, who are
of comparatively modern origin. It must not, however, be inferred
that this old and venerable family have always been at peace amongst
themselves, for there have been numerous contentions among their
various sections, not the less acrimonious because the contending
members have been to some extent supporters of a common cause,
believing in some fashion in the reality of a world to come. We shall
therefore begin by giving our readers a sketch, necessarily and
purposely a very meagre one, of the various beliefs on these subjects
held by the different branches of this great family.
4. Let us begin with the Egyptians, who are perhaps the most antient
people of whom we have historical records. The manners and customs
of this nation have been very minutely described by Sir Gardner
Wilkinson, to whose work we are chiefly indebted for the following
account. In the first place it appears that we must separate between
what the priests believed and what was held by the great body of the
people. The bulk of the nation were left by the priests to believe in
a multiplicity of deities, and even to reverence animals as divine,
while on the other hand the higher orders of the priesthood, who
were initiated into the greater mysteries of their religion, appear
to have acknowledged the unity of God. These believed in one Eternal
God, from whom all other deities were produced, and whom they did
not permit themselves even to name, far less to represent under any
visible form. The Egyptians likewise believed in the existence of
Dæmons or Genii, who were present unseen amongst mankind.
5. The earliest Egyptian records attest the belief of this nation in
the immortality of the soul:—‘Dissolution, according to them, is only
the cause of reproduction—nothing perishes which has once existed,
and things which appear to be destroyed only change their natures and
pass into another form.’[4]
Anubis held in Egypt an office similar to that of Mercury among
the Greeks, being the usher of souls in their passage to the
future state. Amenti was the region to which the souls of men were
supposed to go after death, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson notices the
resemblance between this name and that of Ement ‘the West’—the west,
where the sun was seen to sink, being looked upon as the end of the
world. The guardian of the lower regions was called Ouom-n-Amenti,
or the Devourer of Amenti. It had frequently the appearance of a
hippopotamus, but was drawn sometimes with the head of a fanciful
creature something between the hippopotamus and the crocodile.
‘The judgment of the soul was conducted by Osiris, aided by forty-two
assessors, supposed to represent the forty-two crimes from which a
virtuous man was expected to be free when judged in a future state,
or rather the accusing spirits, each of whom examined if the deceased
was guilty of the peculiar crime which it was his province to
avenge.’[5]
6. As regards the fate of the soul when once the judgment had been
passed upon it,—the Egyptians considered the souls of men to be
emanations of the Divine soul, and each was supposed to return to
its Divine origin when sufficiently pure to unite with the Deity. On
the other hand, those who had been guilty of sin were doomed to pass
through a series of torments ending in the second death.
7. It is considered probable by some that the Egyptian custom of
embalming the body had relation to this religious doctrine, and
before the mummy was allowed burial it had to be judged and acquitted
by terrestrial authorities. Diodorus gives a detailed account of the
ceremonies which then took place, in which forty-two judges were
summoned to act as assessors and determine the fate of the body. If
it could be proved that the deceased had led an evil life, his body
was deprived of the accustomed burial, and on such occasions the
grief and shame felt by the family were excessive. Diodorus considers
that this was in itself a strong inducement to every one to abstain
from crime, and praises very strongly the authors of so wise an
institution.
8. Let us next consider the antient belief of the Hebrew nation.
Referring to the records of this nation, we find that at an early
period they had been slaves or serfs to the Egyptians, from whom
they were delivered by Moses, who became afterwards their lawgiver.
Moses had by a species of adoption obtained a very prominent position
among the Egyptians, and had probably been initiated into their
sacred mysteries, for we read that he was ‘learned in all the wisdom
of the Egyptians.’ Without discussing the question of inspiration,
we may readily imagine that, himself a believer in the unity of
God, this sagacious leader must have perceived the deficiency of a
religious system in which the truth was confined to a few, while the
many were allowed to remain in the most degrading idolatry.
He was thus in a fit state to recognise the paramount importance of
the whole mind and mass of the nation being pervaded with a belief
in one invisible, ever-present, ever-living God. We do not, however,
mean to assert that Moses got his religious notions from Egypt, but
we think it possible that his mind may have been prepared by the
failure of the Egyptian system to receive a better one.
9. In the Egyptian system there were two peculiarities which were
probably connected together. We have seen (Art. 4) that amongst the
higher orders of the priesthood there was a profound, but at the same
time a superstitious, reverence for the name of God, who was unnamed
and unapproachable, unless under some deified attribute. At the
same time there was, and probably in consequence of the former, an
ignorance of the unity of God amongst the great mass of the people,
and a worship of the various deified attributes of one supreme being
as so many separate divinities.
10. Now the task which Moses believed himself divinely commissioned
to accomplish was the revelation of this one living and ruling God
to the whole body of his countrymen. Thus we find God, in the sacred
writings of the Jews, saying to Moses, ‘I am the LORD (Jehovah),
and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the
name of God Almighty (El Shaddai); but by my name Jehovah was I
not known to them.’[6] We do not however intend to discuss the
precise meaning of the two names of God, which we find in the Hebrew
Scriptures—sufficient for us that Moses endeavoured to impress upon
his people the unity and ever-living presence of the Divine Being.
11. Again, it would appear that the Jews, in addition to their belief
as a nation in the unity of God, believed also in the reality of an
invisible world containing spiritual intelligences, some of whom were
the loyal servants and messengers of God, while others delighted in
the endeavour to thwart His counsels, and were in rebellion against
Him. Apparently both orders of these were supposed to have very
considerable power, not only over the minds and bodies of men, but
also over the operations of nature. Thus two angels were commissioned
by God to destroy Sodom;[7] and again, in the poem of Job, when Satan
received power over the Patriarch, he overwhelmed him by at once
inciting robbers who plundered his substance, killing his children
by a wind from the wilderness, and finally smiting the body of Job
himself with a loathsome disease.
It is perhaps worthy of note that while we read in these records of
various appearances of good spirits in the human form, we have no
certain account of any such manifestation of evil spirits. It may
even be supposed that a good deal of the Demonology of Scripture
belongs to poetic or semi-parabolic representation of spiritual
truths. Thus Coleridge and others have thought that the Satan of Job
is only the dramatic accuser or adversary imagined by the poet.
12. Very little is said about man’s future state in the Scriptures of
the Jews. The Hebrews, like the Assyrians and Chaldeans, believed in
Sheol (Hades), a dark and gloomy abode peopled by the shades of the
dead. But the continued existence of the ‘pithless’ shades (Rephaim)
in this land of powerlessness and forgetfulness was not thought of as
constituting immortality, but rather as the essence of death itself.
The religious hope of immortality which appears in some passages of
the Old Testament takes the form of a victory over or rescue from the
fear of Sheol. But this higher hope was not brought before the mind
of the Hebrew nation in the same way as was the presence and unity
of God. It seems to us that Dean Stanley’s conjecture is probably
correct where he says, with reference to this omission, ‘Not from
want of religion, but (if we might use the expression) from excess
of religion, was this void left in the Jewish mind. The future life
was not denied or contradicted, but it was overlooked, set aside,
overshadowed by the consciousness of the living, actual presence of
God Himself. That truth, at least in the limited conceptions of the
youthful nation, was too vast to admit of any rival truth, however
precious. When David or Hezekiah shrank from the gloomy vacancy of
the grave, it was because they feared lest, when death closed their
eyes in the present world, they should lose their hold on that Divine
friend with whose being and communion the present world had in their
minds been so closely interwoven.’[8]
13. As the nation grew older we find frequent and distinct allusions
indicating a belief in a resurrection of some kind. Thus we find the
angel saying to Daniel, ‘And many of them which sleep in the dust of
the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame
and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the
brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness
as the stars for ever and ever.’[9] And again: ‘Go thy way till the
end be; for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the
days.’[10] Again, in the Apocrypha, we find one of seven brethren who
were put to death by Antiochus, saying to that tyrant,—‘It is good,
being put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to be raised
up again by Him; as for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to
life,’[11] and the other brethren spoke in like manner. Here it is
evident from the whole chapter that the hope expressed was rather the
result of perfect trust in God than derived from any process of their
own reason, or even from any revelation on the subject which they
imagined to have been made.
We have likewise the testimony of Josephus as well as of the
New Testament that the Pharisees believed in a resurrection.
Josephus tells us,—‘They [the Pharisees] say that all souls are
incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only are removed into
other bodies, but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal
punishment.’[12] Again, we learn from the same two authorities that
the Sadducees held sceptical notions on the subject, and Josephus
says—‘They take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul,
and the punishments and rewards in Hades.’
14. If we next turn to the Greek and Roman mythologies we find ideas
of a future state very similar to those entertained by the Egyptians,
from whom probably the Greek notions were originally largely derived.
They called by the name of Elysium the abode appropriated to the
souls of the good, while those of the wicked suffered punishment in
Tartarus. It has been well remarked by Archbishop Whately that these
regions were supposed to be of the most dreamy and unsubstantial
nature:—
‘The poet [remarks Whately] from whom so many were content to derive
their creed [meaning Homer] represents Achilles among the shades as
declaring that the life of the meanest drudge on earth is preferable
to the very highest of the unsubstantial glories of Elysium:—
Βουλοίμην κ’ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ,
Ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ, ᾧ μὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη,
Ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσειν.
It is remarkable too that the same poet seems plainly to regard the
_body_ not the _soul_ as being properly “the man” after death has
separated them. _We_ should be apt to say that such a one’s body is
here, and that _he_, properly the person himself, is departed to the
other world; but Homer uses the very opposite language in speaking of
the heroes slain before Troy: viz., that their souls were despatched
to the shades, and that THEY themselves were left a prey to dogs and
birds:—
Πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ΨΥΧΑΣ Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
Ἡρώων, ΑΥΤΟΥΣ δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν.’[13]
We agree with this writer that the belief in an unsubstantial
region of this description can have had no real influence either in
deterring men from vice, or in encouraging them to virtue. Indeed
its inevitable tendency must have been to foster an undue regard for
the pleasures of this present life to the absolute discouragement
of goodness and virtue. For while we of the present day regard the
future life as in some sense the reward of piety and goodness, the
antients looked upon Hades rather as a penalty which inexorable fate
had reserved for all men, and from which even piety and goodness were
powerless to exempt their possessors.
Cum semel occideris, et de te splendida Minos
Fecerit arbitria;
Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te
Restituet pietas.
Infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum
Liberat Hippolytum;
Nec Lethæa valet Theseus abrumpere caro
Vincula Pirithöo.
15. The active-minded as well as the gross-minded members of
the community could hardly be expected to care much for such an
unsubstantial future, and this consideration may probably have
led to the readier acceptance of the doctrine of some of the Greek
philosophers who introduced a bodily state after death. But these,
in so doing, rather favoured the doctrine of transmigration than
that of a resurrection of the body which was seen to die, and which,
after being devoured by dogs, or destroyed in some other manner,
they could hardly conceive to rise again. It is well known that
Pythagoras taught the doctrine of transmigration, although as none of
his writings have come down to us we are not sure of the exact manner
in which he held it. Plato also alludes to a similar doctrine, in a
passage which refers no doubt to the doctrine of the pre-existence of
souls, and to the view that it is a punishment to become corporeal
at all. He tells us:—‘If any one’s life has been virtuous he shall
obtain a better fate hereafter; if wicked a worse. But no soul will
return to its pristine condition till the expiration of ten thousand
years, since it will not recover the use of its wings until that
period, except it be the soul of one who has philosophised sincerely
or together with philosophy has loved beautiful forms. These indeed
in the third period of a thousand years, if they have thrice chosen
this mode of life in succession, ... shall in the three thousandth
year fly away to their pristine abode, but other souls, being arrived
at the end of their first life, shall be judged. And of those who are
judged, some, proceeding to a subterraneous place of judgment, shall
there sustain the punishments they have deserved; but others, in
consequence of a favourable judgment, being elevated into a certain
celestial place, shall pass their time in a manner becoming the
life they have lived in a human shape. And in the thousandth year
both the kinds of those who have been judged, returning to the lot
and election of a second life, shall each of them receive a life
agreeable to his desire. Here also the human soul shall pass into the
life of a beast, and from that of a beast again into a man if it has
first been the soul of a man. For the soul which has never perceived
the truth cannot pass into the human form.’[14] A certain degree of
choice is here supposed to be left to the soul, and those who cannot
attain to the more ethereal and refined existence, have to choose a
bodily one, returning, after they have become sufficiently purified,
once more into human shape.
16. As a matter of course, a dim belief of this nature gave rise
to a class of philosophers who denied the possibility of a future
state altogether. The advent of this school of thought was probably
hastened by outward events. In the golden age of Greece a vigorous
republic served to concentrate upon itself the energies of the
citizens, and under these circumstances their minds were not likely
to question the truth of the national creed. While the gods smiled
upon them they were content to acknowledge their active existence.
It has been remarked by Schmitz, that the unfavourable political
circumstances of the time may have been concerned in the rise of
the Epicurean school—‘thinking men were led to seek within for that
which they could not find without.’ The gods of Epicurus, this writer
goes on to remark, ‘consisted of atoms, and were in the enjoyment of
perfect happiness, which had not been disturbed by the laborious
business of creating the world, and as the government of the world
would interfere with their happiness, Epicurus conceived them as
exercising no influence whatever upon the world or man.’
It is of such gods the poet speaks when he says:—
‘For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and
fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships and
praying hands.’
The antient Roman poet Lucretius, in his well-known poem ‘De Rerum
Natura,’ has beautifully interpreted the Epicurean philosophy.
Adopting like Epicurus the atomic or corpuscular theory of things, he
tells his readers that the soul of man perishes along with the body,
and that it is the height of folly for man to be afraid of that which
may happen to him after death.
17. It is unnecessary to discuss in detail the tenets of the various
Greek and Roman philosophers. A number of indefinite and sometimes
contradictory expressions sufficiently betrays the uncertainty of
their opinions. Desirous, it may be, themselves to believe—desirous
at least that the body of their countrymen should believe—in a future
state, it is yet not wonderful that they should have felt strongly
the difficulty of believing, or have expressed their doubts in
writings which were not intended to be read by the great mass of the
people.
18. Proceeding now to the extreme east, it is well known that of late
years very great light has been thrown upon the antient religions
of the Brahmans, the Magians, and the Buddhists. In an admirable
collection of essays by Professor Max Müller,[15] we have a good
epitome of what has been accomplished by the laborious investigations
of oriental scholars. We learn from these that the most antient
document is the Rig-Veda, or Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans, in which
we have the religious belief of a large section of the Indo-Germanic
race at a period supposed to be from 1200 to 2000 years before the
Christian era. In these hymns the gods are called Deva, a word which
is conjectured to be the same with the Latin Deus. ‘It would be
easy,’ says Max Müller, ‘to find in the numerous hymns of the Veda
passages in which every important deity is represented as supreme
and absolute. Thus in one hymn, Agni (fire) is called “the ruler of
the universe.”... In another hymn, another god, Indra, is said to be
greater than all. “The gods,” it is said, “do not reach thee, Indra,
nor men,—thou overcomest all creatures in strength.”... Another
god, Soma, is called the king of the world, the king of heaven and
earth, the conqueror of all.... Another poet says of another god,
Varu_n_a, “Thou art lord of all, of heaven and earth; thou art the
king of all, of those who are gods, and of those who are men.”...
This surely,’ remarks Max Müller, ‘is not what is commonly understood
by Polytheism. Yet it would be equally wrong to call it Monotheism.
If we must have a name for it, I should call it Kathenotheism.
The consciousness that all the deities are but different names of
one and the same godhead, breaks forth indeed here and there in
the Veda. But it is far from being general. One poet for instance
says, “They call him Indra, Mitra, Varu_n_a, Agni; then he is the
beautiful-winged heavenly Garutmat—that which is one, the wise call
it, in divers manners; they call it Agni, Yama, Mâtari_s_van.”’
19. We learn from the same author that ‘there is in the Veda no trace
of metempsychosis, or that transmigration of souls from human to
animal bodies, which is generally supposed to be a distinguishing
feature of Indian religion. Instead of this we find what is really
the _sine quâ non_ of all real religion, a belief in immortality and
in personal immortality.... Thus we read, He who gives alms goes to
the highest place in heaven; he goes to the gods.... Again we find
this prayer addressed to Soma:—
‘Where there is eternal light, in the world where the sun is placed,
in that immortal, imperishable world place me, O Soma!
‘Where King Vaivasvata reigns, where the secret place of heaven is,
where these mighty waters are, there make me immortal!
‘Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasure reside,
where the desires of our desire are attained, there make me immortal!’
Max Müller further remarks, that the Rig-Veda contains allusions,
although vague, to a place of punishment for the wicked. ‘The dogs
of Yama, the king of the departed, present some terrible aspects,
and Yama is asked to protect the departed from them. Again, a pit is
mentioned, into which the lawless are said to be hurled down, and
into which Indra casts those who offer no sacrifices.’
20. A religion like this, however pure at its commencement, was
likely soon to become corrupted. It speedily merged into idolatry
and polytheism, as far at least as the main body of the worshippers
were concerned, while at the same time the rule of the Brahmans
or officiating priests became strengthened into an insupportable
social tyranny. Thus a double reformation was to be apprehended,
corresponding on the one hand to the religious, and on the other to
the ceremonial and social, development of the system.
21. The first reformation was that attributed to Zoroaster and his
disciples, whose belief is contained in the Zend-Avesta. In his
confession of faith, the disciple of the Eranian or Zoroastrian
religion declares, ‘I cease to be a worshipper of the daêvas.’
It must however be remembered that in this religion _daeva_ means
_devil_, or evil spirit. Thus the earliest forms of the Zoroastrian
religion need not have excluded, and apparently did not exclude, the
worship of good spirits.
Whilst the Zoroastrian disciples believed in a supreme God who rules
the world, they yet gave a prominent place to a spirit of evil, which
afterwards received the name of Ahriman, and was supposed to exercise
very considerable influence over the order of nature and the minds
of men. Indeed, Ahriman is apparently an independent power so strong
that but for the fact that he acts before he thinks, while Ormuzd
(the good spirit) thinks before he acts, the victory of good would
be doubtful. The whole system hinges on this and on the fact that
everything noxious and evil in creation is the work of Ahriman.
Max Müller is of opinion that ‘the Zoroastrian religion was founded
on a solemn protest against the whole worship of the powers of
nature involved in the Vedas;’ and again the same writer says, ‘The
characteristic change that has taken place between the Veda and
Avesta is, that the battle is no longer a conflict of gods and demons
for cows (alluding to a Vaidik myth), nor of light and darkness for
rain. It is the battle of a pious man against the power of evil.’
22. The disciples of the Zoroastrian religion believed in a future
state; the ill-speaker (the devil), we are told in the Zend-Avesta,
shall not destroy the second life.
The following extracts given by Max Müller from a catechism of the
modern Parsis or disciples of Zoroaster give us a very good idea of
their present creed:—
‘Q. Whom do we of the Zarthosti community believe in?
‘A. We believe in only one God, and we do not believe in any besides
Him.
‘Q. Do we not believe in any other God?
‘A. Whoever believes in any other God but this is an infidel, and
shall suffer the punishment of hell.’
In another extract the disciples are told that in the world to come
they shall receive the return according to their actions.
23. The next reform of the Brahminical system had reference to its
social characteristics, and was occasioned by the insupportable
tyranny of the priesthood. The reformer, a young prince, was born
about 500 years B.C., and from his life and doctrines received the
name of Buddha, or the Enlightened. After having learned from
various famous Brahmans, he came to the conclusion that their
austerities and doctrines could neither free men from the miseries of
this life nor from the fear of death. From this stage Buddha passed
into the belief that all we see is vanity—a delusion, a dream—and
that the highest wisdom consists in perceiving this, and in desiring
to enter into Nirvâ_n_a, or, in other words, to be blown out like a
flame.
It would seem from these words that Buddha himself regarded
annihilation rather than immortality as the _summum bonum_; but no
account of Buddhism would be satisfactory which did not pay special
regard to the notion so widely diffused in heathenism, that matter
is the source of all evil. To be liberated from _matter_ is to be
liberated from _evil_; and this would seem to be the fundamental
thought in the Nirvâ_n_a in all its different senses. But however
this may be, we know that, allied to these extreme metaphysical
opinions, Buddha inculcated a moral code which is one of the purest
the world has ever known. M. Laboulaye says, ‘It is difficult to
comprehend how men not assisted by revelation could have soared so
high;’ and M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire does not hesitate to assert
that ‘with the sole exception of Christ, there is not amongst the
founders of religion a more pure or touching figure than that of
Buddha.’
24. In process of time, among the followers of the Buddhist religion,
the word Nirvâ_n_a came to have a very different meaning from that
which it had at first. Buddha was himself worshipped as a divinity,
and his Nirvâ_n_a came to denote a state in which there was a total
absence of pain, or in other words an Elysium.
In illustration of this we may quote the account given by Max Müller
of the dying words of Hiouen-Thsang, a famous pilgrim from China to
the shrine of Buddha, who died in the year of our era 664:—
‘I desire,’ he said, ‘that whatever merits I may have gained by good
works may fall upon other people. May I be born again with them in
the heaven of the blessed, be admitted to the family of Mi-le, and
serve the Buddha of the future who is full of kindness and affection.
When I descend again upon earth, to pass through other forms of
existence, I desire at every new birth to fulfil my duties towards
Buddha, and arrive at the last at the highest and most perfect
intelligence.’
25. Having thus surveyed, however imperfectly, the belief regarding
a future state held by the greater nations both of the East and West
before the advent of Christianity, let us now make a few observations.
In the first place, there are manifestly two ways in which such a
belief may be held. In one of these it becomes the natural result
of an implicit faith in God and his goodness, which will not suffer
him to disappoint the natural and innate longings of his intelligent
creatures. And such a belief is most likely to arise amongst a nation
which has already vividly realised the living presence and goodness
of God. Now the ancient Jews were such a nation, and the belief that
even death cannot break the fellowship of the believer with God
comes out clearly enough in several of the Psalms. Moreover, the
notion of some sort of future life lies clearly in what is said of
Enoch. All this goes beyond the mere notion of Sheol, which is not
thought of as a happy place. But in the time of the Maccabees this
had grown into a definite belief in the resurrection, and without
insisting on the truthfulness of the Second Book of Maccabees as an
historical document, we may yet be sure that it embodies the feelings
of the Jewish nation at the time when it was written. It is of little
consequence whether a mother and seven brethren were actually put
to death because they would not transgress what they believed to be
the laws of God, or whether in dying they expressed their belief
that they would be continued in a bodily existence by the Creator.
For it is manifest from what we know of the Jews, that not merely
one family but many would under similar circumstances have acted in
the manner described by the historian, dying with the same fortitude
and encouraged by the same hope. We have here a region in which
there is no thought of the How—this troublesome question has not yet
arisen, nor is it likely to arise. No doubt has yet been entertained
regarding the power of God, nor would such a doubt be likely to
receive much encouragement here.
26. But the human mind will not refrain from speculation, and
this brings us to the second method in which a belief regarding a
future state may be held. It may be held after a mode determined by
speculations regarding the possible conditions of a future state.
Such speculations may of course take every variety of form, but yet
there are three well-defined classes into which they naturally group
themselves:—
_In the first place_, we have the doctrine of an ethereal state,
which may or may not be eternal;
_Secondly_, we have the doctrine of a bodily existence, which may or
may not be eternal; and,
_In the third place_, we have the doctrine that a future state is
inconceivable or impossible.
27. The first of these beliefs was probably held by a portion of
the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and by most of the Jews. It was
likewise held by many amongst the eastern nations. It formed indeed
one of the two ways of imagining a future state, but it was of a
very vague and dreary nature; and from the passage of Homer already
quoted (Art. 14), we realise the longing supposed to be felt by the
inhabitants of such a place to escape into a more substantial region.
Unquestionably it was not a place in which practical men like the
Jews, for instance, would wish to dwell, and yet no doubt it had
great attraction for minds of a visionary and ecstatic nature, who
held matter to be the source of evil.
The return of the soul to its divine original, an Egyptian doctrine,
the entrance into Nirvâ_n_a, proclaimed by Buddha, and the absorption
into Buddha himself, proclaimed by some of his followers, are all
proofs that a doctrine of this nature has peculiar fascinations for
a dreamy order of minds. Nor must we analyse too rigidly the exact
meaning and tendency of such doctrines, inasmuch as we cannot easily
enter into the real feelings of those who propounded them, and who
probably entertained conceptions which cannot adequately be expressed
in words.
28. Coming now to the belief in a bodily future existence, it is
remarkable that the doctrine of a transmigration of souls was
extensively prevalent among all the nations we have named, if we
except the Jews. It was believed in, as we have seen, by a large
class of the Egyptians; it was introduced into Greece by Pythagoras
and his followers; it is considered to have been from time immemorial
a common property of the various religions of the extreme East;
and it is recorded by Cæsar that the Druids believed in the same
doctrine, although they confined the transmigration to human bodies.
It will perhaps surprise many of our readers to learn the extensive
prevalence of such a doctrine, wondering as they must how it is
possible to attach certainty to an existence which passes through
the body of various men and animals—something perhaps like a draught
of Lethe being administered at the moment of passage. But the
antients, being unable to rise to a higher conception of a bodily
future, were compelled to admit either this doctrine or one yet more
absurd, namely, that the _very same body_ which was laid in the tomb
will once more be animated by the spirit which formerly possessed
it. It does not therefore surprise us that the antients, with the
exception probably of a portion of the inhabitants of Egypt, and some
of the Jews, should have preferred the doctrine of transmigration;
but we are exceedingly surprised that the alternative doctrine, of
manifestly Egyptian parentage, should have come to be accepted by the
modern nations of Europe under the garb of Christianity. We shall
return again to this subject, but meanwhile let us observe that,
when men first began to ask the How of a future state, the reply was
something extremely vague and unsatisfying. No wonder, then, that a
class of men who had not unlimited confidence in God, and who could
not believe in either of the doctrines of a future state, should
have lapsed into philosophical infidelity and denied altogether the
possibility of a future state.
29. We have thus arrived at a stage of development in which we may
imagine the next step to be one which will throw some light upon this
question of How—that is, which will give, or at any rate profess to
give, some information regarding the conditions of a future life. The
intellect of man had attempted to obtain such knowledge for itself,
but the result was a conspicuous failure; the sword was not sharp
enough, nor the arm which wielded it powerful enough, to hew down the
thick and seemingly impenetrable barrier which closes the avenue to
the world of spirits.
‘We cannot go to them,’ was the unanimous wail of the antient
philosophers; till some of the more hopeful of them suggested as
an alternative that they might come to us. For clearly, if A and B
are separated from each other by a barrier, and there yet remains
good-will between them, two courses are possible, and only two, if
they are to be made acquainted with each other. One or other must
surmount the barrier. If A be so weak as to be unable to do so, and
if at the same time it would be a matter of importance to him to
become better acquainted with B, then B may be expected to surmount
the barrier if it be surmountable, and exhibit himself to A.
30. As a matter of history, it appears that about the time of the
birth of Christ there was an expectation, however vague, that
something of this nature was about to take place. And when Christ
made His appearance, and gathered round Him a little band of
disciples, there can be no doubt that He claimed to be the bearer of
intelligence from the world of spirits. All who accept the gospel
narratives, however much they may differ from one another as to
the light in which they regard His person and doctrine, will yet,
we think, agree in this. The claim made by His disciples for His
gospel was that it ‘had brought life and immortality to light’ (2
Tim. i. 10), and that Christ had by his resurrection ‘abolished
death.’ The grounds of the claim were built upon the belief that He
showed Himself after His resurrection to a body of men who had not
previously believed that the Messiah Himself was to die and rise
again.
His disciples in short took His resurrection for a proof that life is
possible after death. Christ was believed to be the first-fruits of a
system which was destined ultimately to enfold in the same glorious
immortality all those of His disciples who were united to their
Master by a sincere and living faith. Evidently Paul attached the
utmost importance to the fact of Christ’s resurrection, for he says
(1 Cor. xv. 14), ‘If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain,
and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of
God: because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ; whom
he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead
rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised,
your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.’
31. Let us now try to ascertain what sort of future state was taught
by Christ. In the first place, it was a bodily state—a state which
could even adapt itself with some modification to the views of the
Pharisees who believed in the resurrection of the body. But the
modification introduced is sufficiently important. The occasion of
its announcement was a disputation with the Sadducees, who attempted
to perplex Christ by stating to Him the case of a woman who had
been married in this life to seven brethren in succession, and then
asking Him whose wife she should be in the resurrection. We are told
(Matthew xxii. 29) that in reply to this question, ‘Jesus answered
and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the
power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are
given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.’ We may
gather by implication from this narrative, that the question would
have puzzled the Pharisees, who had certainly not arrived at this
idea of the resurrection state.
They must evidently have thought that the resurrection body was to
be similar to the present one, and although they believed in the
existence of angels, and their occasional appearance to human beings,
they cannot have risen to the idea that it was possible for man to
reach a similar state after death.
32. It may perhaps be said that many of Christ’s sayings would seem
to lead towards the doctrine of a resurrection of the very same
material particles which are laid in the grave. To this, however, it
may be replied that Christ undoubtedly wished to impress upon His
hearers, who were for the most part unlearned and ignorant men, the
substantial and bodily reality of the future state, and therefore
spoke in plain language without entering into scientific minutiæ,
which would only have perplexed them, and diminished the impression
which His words were otherwise calculated to produce. Few of His
hearers would trouble themselves about the mode, nor was it until
an objection was started by the learned Sadducees that Christ took
occasion to develop His doctrine. In accordance with this view we
see that a similar difficulty must have occurred more than once in
the life of Paul, who was brought into contact with the philosophy
of Greece and Rome. For in one of his Epistles[16] he asks the
question,—How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they
come? He then replies to the supposed objector in the following noble
and beautiful language:—‘There is one glory of the sun, and another
glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star
differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of
the dead; it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it
is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness,
it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body, it is raised a
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual
body.’
33. In the next place we remark, that this conception of a spiritual
body similar to that of the angels is accompanied in the religious
system of Christ by a conviction that the present visible universe
will assuredly pass away. This is expressed in both divisions of the
writings acknowledged as sacred by the disciples of Christ. Thus it
is said:—‘Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the
heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt
endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment: as a vesture
shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.’[17] Again, Paul
tells us that ‘the things which are seen are temporal, but the things
which are not seen are eternal.’[18] Likewise also Peter says—‘The
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that
are therein, shall be burned up.... Nevertheless we, according to
his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness.’[19] In like manner John tells us that he saw in a
vision ‘a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face
the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for
them.’[20]
From all this we may conclude that the more advanced disciples of
Christ supposed the resurrection body to be angelic in its nature,
and similar to that which they believed Christ had himself assumed;
and further, that they supposed this body would remain when the
present visible universe had passed away.
34. We have already remarked that it was the object of Christ to
bring the future state in a very vivid manner before His disciples,
so that they might realise its substantial existence, and He has
accordingly given them on the one hand exalted descriptions of the
joys of heaven, and on the other awful accounts of the fate of the
lost. Heaven was variously described by Him as a banqueting house,
as a beautiful city, as Abraham’s bosom, and, when speaking to His
immediate disciples, as a place where they shall dwell together
with their Master. On the other hand, it is believed that Christ’s
description of hell was borrowed from the valley of Hinnom, a place
near Jerusalem, which formed the receptacle for every species
of filth, the combustible parts of which were consumed by fire.
Putrefaction, or the worm, was always busy there, and the fire was
always burning, and this may have given rise to the expression:
‘Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.’ There
can be no doubt, we think, that such descriptions were meant to be
allegorical, the intention being by forcible earthly images to convey
an idea of what could not otherwise be conveyed.
35. It is well known that many varieties of opinion have been
entertained regarding the person of Christ even by those who profess
to be His disciples. It is not however here our object to enter
into theological controversies; our treatment of this subject is at
present historical, and we will therefore bring before our readers
only those views regarding the person of Christ and the constitution
of the invisible world, which are held by the large majority of those
who call themselves Christians.
Whilst all the Christian Churches believe in one God, yet by most
of them the Godhead is believed to consist of three persons, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The first of these appears to
be regarded as the Being or Essence in virtue of whom the Universe
exists. Thus in reciting the Apostles’ Creed the Christian disciple
says:—‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and
Earth;’ and the laws of the Universe are regarded by Christian
theologians as being expressions of the will acting in conformity
with the character of this Being. Thus Nature (according to Whately)
is the course in which the Author and Governor of all things proceeds
in His works.
But the majority of Christian Churches virtually assert that
there are two other Divine Persons, who work through and by the
Universe.[21] One great object of the second Person of the Trinity
is held to be the manifestation of God to man, and possibly to other
beings, in a manner and to an extent which could not be accomplished
by finite intelligences. One great object of the third Person is to
enter, as Lord and giver of life, into the souls of men, and possibly
of other beings, and to dwell there in such a manner as to fit them
for the position which they are destined ultimately to occupy in the
universe of God.
36. In Christ it is supposed that we have an incarnation of the
second Person of the Trinity, and the work which He accomplished
is regarded as done not in violation of the order of things as
established by God the Father, but rather in strict obedience to it.
But while this is generally accepted by the Church of Christ, yet the
doctrine of the submission of Christ to law has been held by some as
not inconsistent with a view which regards the miraculous works of
Christ as manifestations of His divine nature, so changing the order
of things as to denote something wrought upon the universe rather
than something wrought through it and by its means. We do not think
that this theory is borne out by the words of Christ himself. He
says: ‘I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who sent
me.’[22] Again, we are told by Paul, that ‘when the fulness of the
time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that they might
receive the adoption of sons.’[23]
Christ also frequently represents His works as wrought by the
Father, as for instance when he says:—‘I do nothing of myself; but
as the Father hath taught me, I speak these things.’[24] In fine,
the whole genius of Christianity would appear to point towards a
total submission of Christ in every respect to all the laws of the
universe: for these, indeed, as we shall soon have occasion to show,
form but another expression for the will of God acting in conformity
with His character. To make our meaning clear, we may say that the
will of man is accomplished in conformity with the laws of the
universe, while on the other hand the will of God, as above defined,
constitutes in itself the laws of the universe. Now it appears to us
from what we find contained in the books of the Christian religion,
that Christ must in this sense be regarded as similar to man; but,
inasmuch as the relation of Christ to the universe is there asserted
to have been different from that of any mere man, so the works of
Christ are to be regarded as different from those which any mere man
can accomplish.
37. The Christian system, of which we have thus briefly described
the peculiarities, was soon called upon to do battle, on the one
hand with the antient philosophies of Greece and Rome, and on the
other with the semi-savage creeds of those less civilised races of
man which were destined ultimately to overpower the Roman Empire.
But it was chiefly when the apostolic pioneers came into contact
with the acute minds of the antient philosophers that we have light
struck regarding what may be termed the philosophical system of
Christianity; thus we have already remarked (Art. 32), that the
nature of the glorified body is most clearly indicated to us by the
Apostle Paul. As respects the more barbarous nations which afterwards
embraced Christianity, _they_ were not likely to puzzle themselves
about the physical possibilities of a future state, nor even to
contest the reality of a place of eternal physical torment. And so
it happened that, when dealing with a lower class of converts, some
prominent Christians in post-apostolic periods appealed more to their
fears than to their hopes, bringing vividly before them awful ideas
of the nature of hell; while on the other hand, the higher class of
converts, if they had not a very clear idea of heaven, were yet drawn
with intense longing to a future which they were to spend in the
company of Christ.
38. In the course of a few hundred years we find the whole Roman
Empire converted to Christianity, while, however, in Arabia and the
East it appears either to have made very little progress, or to have
become corrupted into something very different from that which we
read of in the New Testament. It had not become the national religion
of the Arabs; and we can well imagine that this nation, with their
pretensions to be regarded as the most antient representatives of
the Semitic race, would not look kindly upon a religion which took
its origin in a rival branch of the same family. We can further
imagine that, with such a feeling, they would be very ready to
welcome any skilfully devised religious system which should spring
up amongst themselves. Such an opportunity was afforded them by
Mohammed. Acknowledging in some measure the claims of Moses and
of Christ, Mohammed yet claimed for himself and his religion a
superiority over his rivals, flattering by this means the vanity
of his own countrymen, who considered themselves the elder branch
of the Semitic race. The heaven which was promised by Mohammed was
altogether of a sensuous character, and well calculated to strike
the imagination of his countrymen. He succeeded equally well in
describing hell as a place of physical torture reserved for those
who did not believe in his religion. He further commissioned his
followers to propagate his tenets by the sword, so that men became
converts from dread of earthly punishment, and were retained in his
ranks by the success which attended his arms, and by the promise of
a paradise full of earthly delights, as well as by the threat of a
horrible material hell which was reserved for unbelievers. We could
not possibly have a better or more graphic description of such a
system than that which is given us by Byron:—
‘But him the maids of paradise
Impatient to their halls invite,
And the dark Heaven of Houris’ eyes
On him shall shine for ever bright;
They come—their kerchiefs green they wave,
And welcome with a kiss the brave!
Who falls in battle ’gainst the Giaour
Is worthiest an immortal bower.
But thou, false Infidel! shalt writhe
Beneath avenging Monkir’s scythe;
And from its torment ’scape alone
To wander round lost Eblis’ throne,
And fire unquench’d, unquenchable,
Around, within, thy heart shall dwell;
Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell
The tortures of that inward hell!’
The disciples of Mohammed believed in the unity of God, but it is
evident that they had not a very exalted conception of His character.
Their trust in Him could infuse zeal into their hearts and vigour
into their arms when they went to make proselytes by the sword,
but could not produce that lofty type of character which has so
frequently appeared amongst the followers of Christ.
39. We have now reached in the history of our problem the period
known as the dark ages, during which the spirit of scientific inquiry
was well-nigh extinct. At length, however, there arrived a time when
the human mind, from a variety of causes, suddenly awoke from the
lethargy into which it had sunk.
When scientific thought was once more directed to the subject of
immortality it was easily seen that the doctrine of the resurrection
in its vulgar acceptation could not possibly be true, since a case
might easily be imagined in which there might be a contention between
rival claimants for the same body. We might, for instance, imagine
a Christian missionary to be killed and eaten by a savage, who was
afterwards killed himself. It is indeed both curious and instructive
to note the reluctance with which various sections of the Christian
Church have been driven from their old erroneous conceptions on
this subject; and the expedients, always grotesque, and sometimes
positively loathsome, with which they have attempted to buttress up
the tottering edifice. Some deem it necessary that a single material
germ or organised particle of the body at death should survive until
the resurrection, forgetting that under such a hypothesis it would
be easy to deprive a man of the somewhat doubtful benefits of such a
resurrection, by sealing him up (while yet alive) in a strong iron
coffin, and by appropriate means reducing his whole physical body
into an inorganic mass. Boston, again, in his _Fourfold State_, goes
still further, adopting the idea that a single particle of insensible
perspiration which has escaped from a man during his life, will
be sufficient to serve as a nucleus for the resurrection body. So
that according to the disciples of this school, the resurrection
will be preceded by a gigantic manufacture of shoddy, the effete
and loathsome rags of what was once the body being worked up along
with a large quantity of new material into a glorious and immortal
garment, to form the clothing of a being who is to live for ever!
Unquestionably we have continuity in this hypothesis, but it is
the continuity of the Irishman’s coat in the story, the owner of
which always made a point of retaining as many as possible of the
rags which were present on the last occasion, those only which had
absolutely fallen to pieces being replaced by something new! We have
only to compare this grotesquely hideous conception with the noble
and beautiful language of Paul, to recognise the depth of abasement
into which the Church had sunk through the materialistic conceptions
of the Dark Ages.
40. But it is needless to say that this offer of a certain class of
theologians to surrender everything except a single shred of the
worn-out body, liberal as it may appear, was nevertheless at once
rejected by the school of scientific men. Death, they replied, must
be regarded as a total and complete destruction of the visible body,
so far at least as the individual life is concerned. At the same
time professing themselves unable to conceive such an existence as a
disembodied spirit, they were forced to conclude like Priestley,[25]
that the soul is not in its nature immortal. At this point, however,
the scientific school splits up into two or even three sections, one
believing with Priestley and others that immortality is a fresh and
miraculous gift conferred upon man at the resurrection; another,
unable to conceive the possibility of a miracle in the case of each
individual, denying a future state altogether; while a third section
maintains that there is no use in discussing the subject, because man
after death has passed beyond the sphere of human inquiry.
41. Regarding the existence and nature of the Deity, various opinions
have been entertained by the disciples of what we may term the
extreme school of science. Some have maintained that we have no
evidence of the existence of any such Being, others that we have no
evidence of His personality, while others argue that although we
may become convinced of His great power and wisdom from the works
of creation, there are other attributes of His character which are
not so revealed. We cannot, for instance, say they, maintain the
benevolence of the Deity in the way in which we understand the word
benevolence, nor have we any evidence that He is just in the way in
which we understand the word justice. It is well known that the late
John Stuart Mill would have regarded the claims of Christianity with
more favour had its character been more Manichæan, that is to say,
had the spirit of evil been allowed a position more nearly equal to
that of the spirit of good in the government of the universe.
42. Let us here pause to indicate two points of similarity between
this scientific school and the system of Christianity. Both, we
conceive, maintain in some sense the supremacy of law or the
invariability of the procedure adopted by the Deity in the government
of the universe (Art. 36); both maintain likewise that the outer
works of the visible universe are insufficient to manifest certain
attributes of the Deity. Here, however, the likeness ends; this
scientific school conceive they have no information beyond the
visible universe, while the Christian system asserts the existence of
an invisible order of things, and the fact of communications having
taken place between the two for the double purpose of revealing God
to man, and of raising man towards God.
43. Leaving now the views of those who may be said to constitute
the extreme left, let us shortly consider the various opinions held
regarding a future state by those who, though often differing widely
from one another, yet rank themselves within the pale of Christianity.
Not a few who revere the sacred writings, believe nevertheless that
the descriptions of the unseen world contained therein are purely
allegorical. These do not believe in the existence of evil spirits
exercising an influence over the mind of man. Satan is regarded by
them as a personification of evil (Διαβόλος, the accuser, Devil’s
advocate) rather than as possessing a real objective existence. The
worst half of the unseen world having thus been got rid of, the other
half follows in due course. Such men do not believe in the unseen
presence of angels (ἄγγελος, messenger); in fine they conceive that
there is nothing above man but the Deity, and that He always acts
according to rigid law. It is an immediate step from this to believe
in the futility of prayer, which is looked upon as necessarily
devoid of any objective influence, although the practice of it may
be regarded as possessing a beneficial subjective effect. A future
life is believed to be conceivable, but only under conditions and in
a universe about which we know and can know nothing. At this point,
however, the views of what may be called the left centre come into
contact with those of the extreme left.
44. But there are others quite disposed to believe in the existence
of the unseen world, who yet regard as figurative a large part of the
Biblical descriptions. Some, like the Church of Rome, consider the
separation of the souls of men after death into two categories, and
only two, as insufficient and unsupported by the spirit of Scripture;
while others cannot admit the eternity of misery, but believe that
the most reprobate will ultimately be reclaimed and elevated into the
regions of bliss.
Others again, arguing from some expressions in the Bible, regard
immortality as a boon reserved for the good alone, believing that the
wicked will be annihilated, both soul and body, in hell. No doubt by
an energetic nature such a fate would be regarded as even worse than
endless misery:
Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being?
Those thoughts that wander through eternity
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion.
So speaks Milton, putting the idea into the mouth of Belial, the
fallen spirit, when addressing his peers.
45. Such are a few of the ways in which the statements of Christ and
his Apostles regarding immortality have been interpreted by those
who call themselves Christians. But amid this great diversity there
is yet one principle common to all. It is imagined that something
peculiar in the history of the world took place at the coming of
Christ, which has not since been repeated. Communications were then
made to mankind which are regarded as unique, and the truth of which
it is held will only be verified in the case of each individual when
he has passed into that country from which we receive no travellers’
tales.
Notwithstanding this general belief, not a few have arisen pretending
to have received a new and supplementary revelation. In most of these
cases the scientific historian may at once come to a conclusion
without any violation of his impartiality,—they are so manifestly the
products of delusion if not of imposture. There is however one system
which merits fuller treatment, inasmuch as it has led to a mode of
viewing the spiritual world which has many followers even at the
present day.
46. Emanuel Swedenborg, the apostle of this system, was in many
respects a remarkable man. Living more than a century ago, and during
the time when Science was pausing for the spring she has since made,
he seems to have foreshadowed, if he did not anticipate, many of the
doctrines now current. We are not however now concerned with his
purely physical speculations.
Swedenborg has written at great length regarding the nature and
destiny of man, and the constitution of the unseen world into which
he asserts he had the power of entering.
He assumes the existence of a human or semi-human race before Adam,
of which he remarks that they lived as beasts. ‘Man,’ he tells us,
‘considered in himself, is nothing but a beast.... Man’s peculiarity
over animals—a peculiarity they neither have nor can have—consists
in the presence of the Lord in his will and understanding. It is in
consequence of this conjunction with the Lord that man lives after
death; and although he should exist like a beast, caring for nothing
but himself and his relations, yet the Lord’s mercy is so great,
being Divine and Infinite, that He never leaves him, but continually
breathes into him His own life, whereby he is enabled to recognise
what is good and evil and true and false.’
Regarding man’s mortal nature we are told by Swedenborg that ‘man at
birth puts on the grosser substances of nature, his body consisting
of such. These grosser substances by death he puts off, but retains
the purer substances of nature, which are next to those that are
spiritual. These purer substances serve thereafter as his body, the
continent and expression of his mind.’[26]
‘A man at death,’ he tells us again, ‘escapes from his material body
as from a rent or worn-out vesture, carrying with him every member,
faculty, and function complete, with not one wanting, yet the corpse
is as heavy as when he dwelt therein.’
Regarding the spiritual world, he tells us ‘that the whole natural
world corresponds to the spiritual world collectively and in every
part; for the natural world exists and subsists from the spiritual
world, just as an effect does from its cause.’ He also tells us
‘that if in the spiritual world two desire intensely to see each
other, that desire at once brings about a meeting. When any angel
goes from one place to another, whether it is in his own city, or
in the courts, or the gardens, or to others out of his own city, he
arrives sooner or later, just as he is ardent or indifferent, the
way itself being shortened or lengthened in proportion.... Change of
place being only change of state, it is evident that approximations
in the spiritual world arise from similitudes of mind and removals
from dissimilitudes; and thus spaces are merely signs of inner
differences.... From that cause alone the hells are altogether
separated from the heavens.’
Of God he says: ‘The Divine is incomprehensible even by the angels,
for there is no ratio between the finite and the infinite.
‘No man or angel can ever approach the Father and immediately
worship Him; for He is invisible, and being invisible can neither be
thought of nor loved.’
Of God’s Providence he says: ‘As in the Lord we are and act, His
Providence is over us from birth to death, and even to eternity....
To talk of the Lord’s Providence as universal, and to separate it
from particulars, is like talking of a whole in which there are no
parts, or of something in which there is nothing. Consequently it
is most false, a mere picture of the imagination, and downright
stupidity, to say that the Lord’s Providence is universal, and not at
the same time in the minutest particulars; for to provide and rule in
the universal, and not at the same time in the minutest particulars,
is not to rule at all.’
Swedenborg likewise believed in an intermediate state analogous to
purgatory, although he objected to the name. This was called by him
the world of spirits, after staying in which, for a longer or shorter
time, the souls of the departed were drafted off to heaven on the one
side, and to hell on the other.
47. We have now said enough to give our readers some idea of
Swedenborg’s spiritual system. Unquestionably it is the system of a
profound thinker, and many great men have not hesitated to express
their admiration of Swedenborg and his works. It is one thing however
to admit the beauty, the philosophical completeness, and even the
possible truth of many of his statements, and another thing to
believe that he actually conversed with the inhabitants of another
world in the way in which one man converses with another.
But, after all, suppose that the every-day experience of men is that
only he who lives in the world as not of the world lives a true life,
and this is the Bible teaching,—whose then is the true doctrine?
Swedenborg errs if he claims this as his _exclusive personal_
experience. Paul claimed it as belonging to all men. Surely men of
science should of all men claim this likewise.
Now, when a man unquestionably honest makes an assertion such as
Swedenborg made, there are only two possible conclusions to which we
can come, unless we choose to remain in a state of mental suspense.
We must either believe that he really saw what he professes to have
seen, or that he was the victim of some strange hallucination, in
virtue of which his subjective impressions became transferred into
the realms of objective realities. We know very well that the human
mind is extremely prone to such delusions, and that the nature
of the case is frequently betrayed by some indiscreet admission
which we have external grounds for believing to be incorrect. Had
Swedenborg confined himself to the invisible world it would have been
very difficult to prove him the subject of a delusion, but when he
converses with angels from the planets, and thus comes to describe
their inhabitants, he enters at once upon dangerous ground.
Concerning his description of the various planets it has been
remarked that his information relates only to those, the existence
of which was known when he wrote, Uranus and Neptune being passed
over. This of itself is a suspicious circumstance. Again, he peoples
the planets Jupiter and Saturn with inhabitants as well as our own
Moon; now, scientific analogy is strongly against either of these two
planets being inhabited, while it is next to certain that our moon
is entirely without inhabitants.
In fine, there is no reason to suppose that the speculations of
Swedenborg were anything else than the product of his own mind, in
the same sense as that in which the speculations of this volume may
be regarded as the product of the minds of its authors.
48. Before concluding this historical sketch let us say a few words
about modern spiritualists in so far as their pretensions have
reference to our subject. They assert the presence among them of the
spirits of the departed, assuming sometimes a visible shape, and
they compare these appearances to those which are recorded in the
Sacred writings. But there is this prominent distinction between the
two: the spiritual communications recorded in the Scriptures are
represented as made to those who were unprepared to receive them, and
also for the most part as taking place in open daylight, or, to speak
more properly, having no sort of reference to light or darkness.
Whatever be their explanation they have an open-air look about them.
On the other hand, the manifestations recorded by the spiritualists
take place as a rule in insufficient light, if not in total darkness,
and in presence of those who are in a state of mental excitement.
Now, for our own part, we should not be disposed to credit any
communication from the world of spirits that was not made openly, and
to those unprepared to receive it, and therefore unprejudiced.
The man of science must be perfectly recipient, but he must in the
interests of truth guard himself against the possibility of delusion.
We know the almost infinite power of the mind not only to delude
itself, but to propagate its delusions to other minds, and, as
we have already remarked, the conditions of these manifestations
are specially favourable to the spread of such delusions. We do
not therefore hesitate to choose between the two alternative
explanations, and to regard these pretended manifestations as having
no objective reality.
49. But while we altogether deny the reality of these appearances, we
think it likely that the spiritualists have enlarged our knowledge of
the power which one mind has of influencing another, and this is in
itself a valuable subject of inquiry. We agree too in the position
assumed by Swedenborg, and by the spiritualists, according to which
they look upon the invisible world not as something absolutely
distinct from the visible universe, and absolutely unconnected with
it, as is frequently thought to be the case, but rather as a universe
which has some bond of union with the present.
This line of argument will be developed in the following chapters of
our book.
CHAPTER II.
POSITION TAKEN BY THE AUTHORS—PHYSICAL AXIOMS.
‘Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the
word of God; so that things which are seen were not made of
things which do appear.’—HEBREWS XI. 3.
50. In the preceding chapter we have given a very brief epitome of
the various beliefs regarding immortality and the invisible world
held by the civilised nations of the earth, from the earliest dawn
of history to the present day. Our object has been not so much to
enter even into general details as to present boldly those particular
features of each system of belief which are most closely concerned
with the subject of our work. Thus our account of each separate
system is intentionally incomplete, even as a simple sketch. It is
now time to say something about the object of this book, as well as
to define the position from which we mean to start in pursuance of
that object. We shall therefore commence by dividing those who at all
concern themselves about our theme into three great classes.
First, we have those who are so absolutely certain of the truth of
their views of religion, and of the immortality which they believe
it teaches, that they are not qualified to entertain or even to
perceive any scientific objection. They acknowledge that certain
deductions made by men of science appear to contradict or to be
incompatible with certain truths of their religion. But these they
regard as premature conclusions, averring that when the laws of
nature have been more deeply investigated, there will be found a
perfect concord between science and revelation. Certain scientific
truths they readily assent to, and it is only the altogether human
superstructure of speculation built upon these that they profess
to question. ‘You have built,’ they say, ‘upon the rock of truth a
structure of wood, hay, stubble, and you would persuade us that it is
the very temple of God. We will not enter it, but will patiently wait
in the expectation of seeing it speedily consumed with fire.’
Now, whatever be the merits or demerits of such men, it is not for
them we write. Their merit may consist in having made a perfectly
true charge against certain classes of scientific men—their demerit
probably in having themselves treated religion precisely as they
accuse their adversaries of having treated scientific truth. We
must let them alone—they will not be influenced by anything that we
can say. We may perhaps be praised by them in a certain measure if
it be thought that we have helped to overthrow the superstructure
built by their adversaries; we shall certainly be condemned by them
if it be thought that we have helped to weaken any portion of the
superstructure which they themselves have reared.
51. In the next place, and occupying a middle position, we have those
who see strong grounds for believing in a future life for man and in
the existence of an invisible world, but who at the same time are
forced to acknowledge the strength of the objections urged against
these doctrines by certain men of science. Some of this class attach
much weight to the evidence in favour of these doctrines derived
from the Christian records; others again, unable to believe in these
records, are yet powerfully impressed by the universal longing for
immortality which civilised man has always shown, while others attach
nearly equal importance to both kinds of evidence. Nevertheless, all
of the class of which we now speak have deeply studied the scientific
objections, and do not well see how to surmount them. It is to this
class that we shall especially address ourselves in the following
chapters.
52. The third class of men are those of the extreme materialistic
school. All human history, including the life of Christ and that
which took place in connection with it, all yearnings of man for
immortality, all life, from that of the noblest of human beings to
that of the primordial animated germ, are explained by this class as
the result of the interaction of material atoms guided by certain
measurable physical forces. They consider that they have no reason
to believe that there is anything beyond or beside the visible
universe, and in consequence they decline entering into any argument
upon the subject. Their premiss may be wrong, but their conclusion
follows from it as a matter of course. We have examined (say they)
all the evidence in favour of another universe, and find it utterly
worthless, why then should we discuss the subject?—it is one of those
delusions that are common in man. When a traveller pretends to have
received information about some strange and distant country, our
first step is to inquire whether he is a trustworthy and sane man,
and if we find he is otherwise, it is quite unnecessary for us to
discuss either the information which he brings, or the objections
to that information. You pretend to show the scientific possibility
that this information may be correct, but why should we study your
argument since there is no evidence for supposing that there is any
such place?
53. To these men we would reply that, even assuming their own point
of view, our scheme will, we venture to suggest, be found to give
a more complete and continuous explanation of the visible order of
things than one which proceeds upon the assumption that there is
nothing else. In this respect we may liken it to the hypothesis of
atoms, or that of an ethereal medium, for neither of which have we
the direct evidence of our senses, both of which have nevertheless
been adopted as affording the best explanations of the phenomena of
the visible universe.
54. Our readers being thus classed will now be anxious to learn
our position. Let us begin by stating at once that we assume, as
absolutely self-evident, the existence of a Deity who is the Creator
and Upholder of all things. (Romans i. 19-21.)
We further look upon the laws of the universe as those laws according
to which the beings in the universe are conditioned by the Governor
thereof, as regards time, place, and sensation.
It is for instance on account of these laws that we cannot be present
in different places at the same time; or move over more than a
certain space in a certain time, or think more than a certain number
of thoughts; or feel more than a certain number of sensations in a
certain given time.
And hence while we can very easily imagine an intelligence superior
to ourselves, but yet finite, to be very differently conditioned,
we cannot imagine any finite intelligence to be absolutely without
conditions. At any rate, if finite intelligences unconditioned with
respect to time and space be conceivable existences, they must of
necessity be so absolutely unconnected with the present universe,
which has reference to time and space, that their existence need not
be contemplated so far at least as our argument is concerned.
55. It will thus be seen that we cannot conceive of finite
intelligences existing in the universe without being in some way
conditioned; but we now come to a point which deserves a somewhat
fuller discussion. We can imagine the materialists saying to us:
‘You are right in asserting the inconceivability of such intelligence
as that of man existing without being conditioned, which to our mind
implies some sort of association with matter—that is precisely the
view we ourselves take. But, on the other hand, _we_ can very well
conceive of matter existing without intelligence, as for instance
a block of wood, or a bar of iron.[27] Thus the connection between
these two things, matter and mind, is of such a nature, that mind
cannot exist without matter, while matter can and does exist without
mind. Is there not therefore a reality about matter which there is
not about mind?[28] Can we conceive a single particle of matter to
go out of the universe for six or eight hours and then to return
to it; but do we not every day see our consciousness disappearing
in the case of deep sleep, or in a swoon, and then returning to us
again? Far be it from us to deny that we have something which is
called consciousness, and is utterly distinct from matter and the
properties of matter, as these are regarded in Physics. But may not
the connection between the two be of this nature?—When a certain
number of material particles consisting of phosphorus, carbon,
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and perhaps some other elements, are,
in consequence of the operations of their mutual forces, in certain
positions with respect to each other, and in certain states of
motion, consciousness is the result, but whenever this relative state
is brought to an end, there is also an end of consciousness and
the sense of individual existence, while however the particles of
phosphorus, carbon, etc., remain as truly as ever.’
56. Now this means that matter must be looked upon as mistress of the
house, and individual consciousness as an occasional visitor whom
she permits to partake of her hospitality, turning him out of doors
whenever the larder is empty. It is worth while to investigate the
process of thought which gives rise to this curious conception of the
economy of the universe.
In the first place, it is clear that certain arrangements are made
in the universe, in virtue of which corresponding sensations are
produced simultaneously in different individuals, while in other
arrangements the sensations produced are the peculiar property
of some one individual. The one set have come to be associated
with objective realities, while the other set are concerned with
subjective impressions. I am affected by a pain in my head, and I
am also affected by the sun, but the one affection is the peculiar
product of my brain, and I carry it about with me, while experience
has shown me that I cannot appropriate the other; yet it also becomes
mine so soon as it has reached my brain.
It will further be allowed, that there are certain material particles
which may become vehicles for either or both of these kinds of
sensations, while there are others which have the power of producing
one only. Gold, silver, and platinum are substances which may become
the vehicle of common impressions, but not of peculiar impressions,
since they do not occur in our brains. Phosphorus, on the other hand,
is a substance which may become the vehicle of either kind. When
we burn a piece of phosphorus in a lecture-room it is the vehicle
of a common impression, while the phosphorus in our brain is the
vehicle of a peculiar impression. Now there is a very noteworthy
difference between portions of phosphorus playing these two parts.
When phosphorus is in the common state, we can experiment upon it
and investigate its properties, but this we cannot do when it exists
in the brain in its peculiar state. The assertion, therefore, that
phosphorus and its allied particles, whose motions and positions
are accompanied by individual consciousness, are nevertheless, when
in this state, essentially the same as they are in the ordinary
state, appears to us to be altogether without foundation. We have no
right thus to argue from the one state to the other. For that most
peculiar and interesting condition of phosphorus and other matter in
which it is intimately connected with the production of individual
consciousness, and where some peculiarity of properties or behaviour
due to this connection might most warrantably be expected, is the
very thing which we cannot investigate. To say therefore that the
living brain consists of particles of phosphorus, carbon, etc., _such
as we know them in the common state_, and that when the particles of
the brain have, in consequence of the operation of physical forces, a
certain position and motion, then individual consciousness follows,
is to assign a peculiar relation between the brain-particles and such
consciousness for which we have no scientific warrant.
57. Allied to this assumption there is another in the materialistic
argument as we have stated it. If in the body there be no other
material than the visible particles, and in the brain no other
material than a certain quantity of phosphorus and other things, such
as we know them in the common state, and if individual consciousness
depends upon the structural presence of these substances in the
body and brain, then when this structure falls to pieces there are
of course reasonable grounds for supposing that such consciousness
has entirely ceased. But it is the object of this volume to exhibit
various scientific reasons for believing that there is something
beyond that which we call the visible universe; and that individual
consciousness is in some mysterious manner related to, or dependent
upon, the interaction of the seen and unseen.
58. There remains yet that part of the argument which hints that
individual consciousness is less permanent than matter, inasmuch
as such consciousness frequently departs from the universe for six
or eight hours and then returns to it again. In one sense this
is unquestionably true, while, however, there is a potential or
latent consciousness or possibility of consciousness that remains
behind.[29] It will be seen in the sequel that this fact of latent
consciousness will be used by us to strengthen our argument in favour
of a future state.
59. We may conclude, as the result of this discussion, that the
connection between mind and matter is a very intimate one, although
we are in profound ignorance as to its exact nature.
The intimacy of this connection is a doctrine almost universally held
by modern physiologists. Just as no single action of the body takes
place without the waste of some muscular tissue, so, it is believed,
no thought takes place without some waste of the brain. Nay,
physiologists go even further, and assert that each specific thought
denotes some specific waste of brain matter, so that there is some
mysterious and obscure connection between the nature of the thought
and the nature of the waste which it occasions. In like manner memory
is looked upon as dependent upon traces, left behind in the brain,
of the state in which it was when the sensation remembered took
place. Thus Professor Huxley in his Belfast address (1874) tells
us: ‘It is not to be doubted that those motions which give rise to
sensation leave on the brain changes of its substance which answer
to what Haller called “_vestigia rerum_,” and to what that great
thinker David Hartley termed “Vibratiuncules.” The sensation which
has passed away leaves behind molecules of the brain competent to its
reproduction—“sensigenous molecules,” so to speak—which constitute
the physical foundation of memory.’
60. It will be inferred from what we have said that one of the
essential requisites of continued existence of the individual is
the capability of retaining some sort of hold upon the past: and,
inasmuch as we are unable to contemplate such a thing as a finite
disembodied spirit, or, to speak more precisely, an unconditioned
finite spirit, it is further evident that this hold implies an organ
of some sort. This we conceive to be a perfectly general proposition.
We do not limit ourselves in making it to any particular arrangement
of bodily form, or to any particular rank of finite organised
intelligence. From the archangel to the brute we conceive that
something analogous to an organ of memory must be possessed by each.
This is, in fact, merely a corollary to what has been stated in Art.
54 above, and does not require any further discussion.
61. But if one general requisite of independent and responsible life
be a connection with the past, another is the possibility of action
in the present. A living being must have in his frame the capacity of
varied movement. He must possess an organisation in which there is
the power of calling internal forces into play at irregular intervals
dependent on his will. We cannot imagine life to be associated with a
motionless mass or with a mass which moves in an invariable manner.
The living being need not always be in motion, but he must retain
the capacity of moving. He need not always be thinking, but he must
retain the capacity of thought. He need not always be conscious, but
he must retain the capacity of consciousness.
To sum up—it thus appears that there are two general conditions of
organised life. There must in the first place be an organ connecting
the individual with the past, and in the next place there must be
such a frame and such a universe that he has the power of varied
action in the present. We particularly request our readers to keep
well in mind these two propositions, since it is upon them that our
argument will ultimately in great part be built.
62. We come now to a very important part of our inquiry. It will
be necessary to discuss that which we term the _Principle of
Continuity_, and desirable to begin by defining exactly what is meant
by us when these words are used.[30] Let us introduce our definition
by one or two illustrative examples.
Take a particular problem of astronomy, for instance, and, beginning
at the very commencement, let us suppose an early Egyptian or
Chaldean astronomer to be observing the sun in the middle of summer.
Day after day, for perhaps a week, he has noticed that this luminary
rises over a certain place and sets over a certain other place,
and he conceives that he has now obtained some definite information
regarding the sun. His idea is, that the sun will go on always doing
the same thing, and he therefore predicts to his fellows, who are
less observant than himself, exactly where it will rise and where
it will set. They join him in observing the luminary for a week or
more, and the sagacity of our primeval astronomer is triumphantly
vindicated: the sun is found doing as nearly as possible that which
had been predicted of it.
63. These men have now got hold of the idea that the sun will always
rise and set at the same places, that in fact his daily journey is
always the same, and that he performs it in the same time. But in the
course of six months they suspect they are mistaken. Discredit is
thrown upon the sagacity of our astronomer, and he broods over his
disgrace for six months longer. At the end of this time, on turning
his eyes towards the sun, what is his surprise and delight to find
that luminary doing the very thing that he had all along predicted,
returning once more to his old points of rising and setting,—places,
we may presume, which could be easily remembered on account of some
peculiarity of landscape. He is not yet prepared however for a
higher generalisation, but again calls for his fellows, and while he
suspects a certain amount of irregularity in the sun, yet succeeds in
convincing them that his guess was after all not far from the truth.
Once again he is reinstated in their good opinion.
64. However, six months after, precisely the same thing recurs once
more; the rising and setting points are now considerably different
from those predicted. Our astronomer again loses credit, and regains
it only partially six months afterwards, when the points are once
more right. But he has now learned a lesson. He perceives a method
in all this, and ultimately rises, by means of the difficulty, to a
higher generalisation. He sees that the rising and setting points of
the sun go through the complete series of their changes of position
in about 365 days; and he has thus learned, in a rude way, that the
sun has two motions, one of which he accomplishes in 24 hours, or one
day, while the other has a period of 365 days, or one year.
65. While these things are in progress, a portentous and wholly
unexpected event takes place: the sun for four minutes is totally
extinguished. Our astronomer meditates much on this strange
phenomenon, and is inclined to regard it as a triumph of the powers
of Darkness, in personal conflict with those of Light. Nevertheless
he does not neglect to keep a record of the precise day on which it
took place.
66. Years pass away, and our astronomer has passed away with them—he
and all his generation; but a regular record is now kept of celestial
occurrences, and especially of eclipses. At length it comes to
be perceived that there is a periodicity even in such untoward
phenomena, and an attempt is ultimately made, by means of this
knowledge, to predict when the next eclipse will take place. It is
perfectly successful, and the event loses from thenceforth much of
its portentous significance.
67. Centuries roll on, and the apparent motions of the heavenly
bodies have now been gradually reduced to system. The stars in
particular are found to move, just as if they were attached to
the roof of a great hollow vault which revolves round the earth
once in twenty-four hours. But even amongst them there are five
exceptions—namely, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn—which
perform a sort of wandering or zigzag motion in the midst of their
stationary brethren, and have in consequence received the name of
planets. All, however, are supposed to move round the earth, which
forms the centre of the universe.
68. In process of time, this superiority of the earth over the
heavenly bodies comes to be questioned. There is a rising tendency
to regard our earth as a somewhat insignificant member of a great
system, rather than as something apart by itself. These tendencies
are, however, strongly opposed by the authorities of a large section
of the Christian Church, on the ground that the language employed
in the Jewish Scriptures is against such a method of regarding the
universe. Nevertheless the Copernican system ultimately prevails,
and the planets and the earth are associated together as stars which
travel round the sun; while the diurnal motion of the heavenly bodies
is attributed to a motion of the earth round its axis. And we cannot
help thinking that philosophers of the present day are too much
disposed to undervalue the absolutely enormous stride that was made
when the Copernican system was fully established.
69. But the planets are still supposed to move in perfect circles
round the sun; for besides the fact that this hypothesis agrees
very well with observation, there is a simplicity in the circle
which leads philosophers to believe that nature would adopt it in
preference to any more complicated curve. Has it not been found that
all apparent deviation from simplicity was in reality due to the fact
that our point of view is a movable one, and does not this lead us to
believe that the truth will be found in a circular orbit?
70. While such speculations are indulged in, Tycho Brahe is busy with
his instruments. He is a thoroughly accurate man of science, and
makes most excellent observations of the various planets. These are
ultimately discussed by Kepler, who finds that the planets do not
move round the sun in circles, but in ellipses, having the sun in one
focus. He finds too that any one planet describes areas which are
proportional to the times of description; while the squares of the
periodic times of the various planets are proportional to the cubes
of their mean distances from the sun. These are Kepler’s laws; they
are yet, however, only empirical. We know them to be true, but we
cannot tell why they should be as they are and not otherwise.
71. It was reserved for the genius of Newton to show us why the
planets should obey these laws, and to reduce the planetary system
under the domain of ordinary mechanics. He succeeded in showing that
every mass of matter attracts every other mass with a force which is
directly proportional to the product of the masses, and inversely
proportional to the square of the distance, and that this universal
force accounts, not only for Kepler’s laws of planetary motion but,
for the orbit of the moon, as well as for that of a projectile
discharged near the surface of the earth.
72. If we now pause for a moment, and review the progress of this
investigation, we shall see that it began with a disposition to
regard simplicity of motion as the test of truth, and when the
Copernican system showed that our point of view is a movable one,
it was at first thought that this would explain all departures from
absolute simplicity. But Tycho Brahe and Kepler soon showed that the
planets do not move in circles, and we now know that their motions,
as well as that of the moon, can only be represented by curves of
extreme complexity. Simplicity of motion has disappeared, but it has
been replaced by simplicity of inter-relation between the various
members of the system which are supposed to attract each other
according to a simple and definite law. This law may be supposed
to contain in itself implicitly all the various and complicated
motions of the solar system. If applied to the past it will enable
us to ascertain the exact date of the antient historical eclipses;
if applied to the future it will enable us to foretell all but
catastrophic astronomical occurrences.
73. Let us now turn to another branch of the same subject. When
Galileo first applied his telescope to the sun, he discovered the
existence of sun-spots. Their solar origin was however for some time
disputed, the schoolmen of that day, holding resolutely to the dicta
of Aristotle, being indisposed to believe that there could possibly
be any imperfection in the sun. The telescope alone was in fault.
There was even a sermon preached on Galileo, the text of which was
‘Viri Galilæi, quid statis in coelum spectantes?’
However, as time went on, observation showed that spots were
unmistakably solar phenomena, and these very imperfections are made
use of by modern science to obtain for us information regarding the
chemical and physical structure of our luminary. It also appears that
the position and size of these spots depend upon the positions of
the planets Mercury and Venus, and this as well as other phenomena
indicate the existence of some mysterious bond between the sun and
the various members of his system, possibly other than the law of
gravitation, as we now understand it, can express.[31] In fine,
simplicity of relation threatens to disappear, just as simplicity of
motion disappeared before it.
74. Nevertheless in this triumphal march the progress has always
been from the less to the more perfect, from the glimmering of
early dawn to the clear morning light, if not to the bright beams
of the noon-day sun. Temporary obstacles have appeared only to be
surmounted, and like Augustine’s ladder to constitute a platform
from which a higher and more comprehensive view might be obtained.
Difficulties too, other than physical,—struggles, weariness,
opposition—have been encountered and overcome, nor has there been
anything like a grave defeat, or the production of permanent
confusion. The concluding words of the _Te Deum_ have been abundantly
fulfilled in the experience of the astronomer. He has trusted in God,
and he has never been confounded.
75. Here then we have an instance of what is meant by Continuity.
It does not imply an easy progress, or a smooth level road; it is
consistent with a temporary halt, perhaps not even inconsistent with
a temporary break-down, or with momentary despair. We are met by
difficulties of many kinds—the rock, the tangled growth, the swamp,
the thick darkness, but never by the abyss. Nothing has occurred to
convince us that our path has been absolutely wrong from the very
commencement, and that we must altogether retrace our steps; and
the same thing holds in other problems besides those of astronomy.
Once we have accumulated sufficient trustworthy evidence to show us
that we are in the right way, we are never afterwards irretrievably
defeated.
Before proceeding further, let us here notice a peculiarity which, if
it be clearly exhibited in the progress of astronomy, is yet by no
means confined to that science, but appears to be characteristic of
all physical knowledge.
Things are so arranged and the intellect of man is so constituted
that we are led in the progress of science to recognise certain laws
which appear at first sight to hold exactly, or which, in other
words, have the appearance of absolute truths. As time passes on, and
our instruments become more delicate, while our observations with
them are multiplied, signs begin to show themselves of very slight
deviations from exactitude in these laws.
Meanwhile, these approximate expressions of truth during the long
ages (it may be) through which they have been believed, have taken
such a hold upon the minds of men that all signs of their imperfect
exactitude are at first utterly discredited. Ultimately, however, it
is by means of these slight discrepancies that we are led forward
to higher generalisations. This was well pointed out by Sir J.
Herschel in his _Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy_. In
fine, does not something analogous to the principle of continuity
prevent us from supposing that we can ever arrive at the ultimate
expression of truth on any, however limited, subject? Whenever,
therefore, the language in which any scientific truth is embodied
appears to us to savour too much of the absolute, is it not a proper
and hopeful task to endeavour to break this down? It is on this
account that we welcome all attempts to modify the expression of the
law of gravitation, which, as our knowledge of it stands at present,
seems to present too much of the appearance of an absolute and final
truth.[32]
76. Our readers will now perhaps wish to have an example of what
we should term a breach of Continuity,—this is easily given. Let
us suppose for instance that the sun, moon, and stars were to move
about in strange and fantastic orbits during one day, after which
they returned to their previous courses. Here we should have an
excellent example of a breach of Continuity, for even if things were
so arranged as to prevent physical disaster, it is evident that the
whole intelligent universe would be plunged into irretrievable mental
confusion. Never again could it be said that astronomy is competent
to explain the varied motions of the heavenly bodies. The observers
would lay down their instruments, and the mathematicians their
calculations, and the science would come to an end.
Other examples of a breach of Continuity may be as easily imagined.
Suppose for instance that the gold of the world were to disappear for
six hours and then return to it again,—should we not have all the
social relations of men as well as their conceptions of matter thrown
into irretrievable confusion? This would not, however, be due to the
mere fact that something had disappeared from the visible universe.
Individual consciousness we have seen is seemingly in the habit of
doing so and again reappearing, and we do not trouble ourselves much
about it.
Continuity, in fine, does not preclude the occurrence of strange,
abrupt, unforeseen events in the history of the universe, but only
of such events as must finally and for ever put to confusion the
intelligent beings who regard them.
77. It thus appears that, assuming the existence of a Supreme
Governor of the universe, the principle of Continuity may be said to
be the definite expression in words of our trust that He will not put
us to permanent intellectual confusion, and we can easily conceive
similar expressions of trust with reference to the other faculties
of man. Our subject may therefore be approached from other points
of view, and other arguments may be used founded on the principle
that of two or more alternatives that one is to be selected which
puts our faculties to the least confusion. But it is dangerous to
speculate much further upon such subjects; the path is so easy, like
the ‘pleasant, green lane’ spoken of by Ignorance in the _Pilgrim’s
Progress_, that it cannot but soon lead us into certain hopeless
realms.[33]
78. Let us now endeavour to apply this principle to a preliminary
discussion of the miraculous events which are alleged to have taken
place in connection with the life of Christ. We may certainly begin
by assuming that had these events been ordinary ones no doubt would
have been entertained regarding their actual occurrence; it is not,
however, our province to discuss the historical evidence in favour of
Christianity.
Now, until of late years, the divines who have asserted the actual
occurrence of these events have for the most part attached to this
assertion a hypothesis of their own, representing the events in
question as due to absolute interferences of the Divine Governor with
his usual physical procedure. Each was thus supposed to represent in
its physical aspect something which could not possibly be deduced
from that which went before or that which followed after.
It was not exactly asserted that they were arbitrary events, or that
they were not the results of purpose, but only that the purpose of
which they were the accomplishment could not be carried out without
some physical break. In fine, with the view of removing spiritual
confusion, intellectual confusion was introduced, as being the
lesser evil of the two. Thus, if he submits to be guided by such
interpreters, each intelligent being will for ever continue to be
baffled in any attempt to explain these phenomena, because they are
said to have no physical relation to anything that went before or
that followed after. In fine, they are made to form a universe within
a universe, a portion cut off by an insurmountable barrier from the
domain of scientific inquiry.
79. It is not enough to say that we cannot see any foundation for
this hypothesis introduced by certain theologians regarding these
events. It is certainly necessary to add, as we have already done
(Art. 36), that such a method of regarding them is essentially
opposed to the genius of Christianity. Whatever may be thought of the
person of Christ, it cannot for a moment be said that He was above
law. He speaks of himself, and is spoken of by the apostles, as bound
in all respects by the laws of the universe. Nor will it suffice to
say that He obeyed the moral and spiritual, but broke occasionally
the physical, laws of the universe, or had them broken for Him. In
fine, we conceive that the New Testament plainly asserts that what
Christ accomplished was not in defiance of law, but in fulfilment of
it; and that His ability to do so much was simply due to the fact
that His position with reference to the universe was different from
that of any other man.
80. Of late years, however, a vastly better method of explanation
has been introduced. Charles Babbage, the designer of the well-known
calculating engine, showed (in a very remarkable book which he
called a ninth Bridgewater treatise) that it would be possible to
design and construct a machine which, after having worked for a long
time according to a particular method of procedure, should suddenly
manifest a single breach in its method, and then resume and for ever
afterwards keep to its original law. He argued from this that an
apparent breach in the physical procedure of the universe is quite
consistent with the fundamental idea of law. Jevons also, commenting
upon these speculations of Babbage, remarks thus in his _Principles
of Science_ (vol. ii. p. 438), ‘If such occurrences can be designed
and foreseen by a human artist, it is surely within the capacity
of the Divine artist to provide for similar changes of law in the
mechanism of the atom, or the construction of the heavens.’
81. While we think that this is a very distinct and important advance
upon the old idea, we venture to pronounce it altogether incomplete
without some further explanation and modification.
The power of the Divine Being is surely unlimited, but, nevertheless,
we have perfect trust that God, whom we believe to have given us
intelligence, will work in such a way as not to put us to permanent
intellectual confusion. Yet even on this hypothesis, and with this
trust, a single apparent exception to the usual procedure may be
supposed to occur, if it be allowed that this may be made use of
in order to deduce from it the great general law of working which
includes both the usual course and the apparent exception. But it
appears obvious to us that if the exception be of such a nature that
it must for ever confound all the intelligences of the universe
who regard it, then we gain nothing by the supposition that it was
allowed for in the secret counsels of God.
82. Undoubtedly we cannot permit certain events to be set aside
by merely human authority as questions into which it is deemed
irreligious, unprofitable, or useless for our reason to pry; nay, we
are tempted to advance even further than this, and to assert that
it constitutes our duty as well as our privilege to do our best to
grasp the meaning of all events which come before us. Does not the
material upon which the intellect of man is intended to work include
all occurrences, of whatever nature, upon earth—that earth which man
is commanded to subdue—a command equivalent to victory?
83. We have now indicated with sufficient clearness the fault we have
to find with the theological position as it stood until recently,—let
us next briefly allude to the position of the extreme school of
science. Ignoring all but the visible universe, and applying the
principle of Continuity to its phenomena, the members of this school
were indubitably led to most important generalisations regarding the
method of working of that great system. They even drove back with
much success, and very properly, certain detachments of theologians
who had occupied portions of the field in an unwarrantable manner.
So far the Genius whom they had summoned up appeared to be the very
principle of order. But things wore a different complexion as time
went on. It was fancied that historical Christianity must disappear,
and that the belief in the reality of a future state must follow
after it. They were surrendered. But it was extremely startling when
the Genius invoked, not content with what he had already devoured,
broadly hinted that the whole visible universe would furnish an
acceptable sacrifice,—_then_ even the most extreme partisans of
the school began at length to be alarmed. It was too much to be
borne, that a Genius summoned up in the very name of order should
turn out to be a demon so insatiate as this! Must the whole visible
universe, indeed, arrive at such a state as to be totally unfit for
the habitation of living beings? The individual they were content to
sacrifice, perhaps even the race, but they would spare the universe.
Undoubtedly, if it be possible to pity men who could so easily
dispense with Christianity and immortality, they had at length got
themselves into a deplorable dilemma. For the principle they had
invoked was absolutely without pity, and in the most heartless manner
continued to point towards the sacrifice of the visible universe.
This, they were told, was only a huge fire, and must ultimately
burn itself out. Nothing would be left but the ashes,—the dead and
worthless body of the present system.
84. No wonder, then, that these men should be startled at their
conclusion, and try somehow to evade it. Such an attempt was actually
made, and a gleam of lurid light seemed for a moment to illuminate
the thick darkness conjured up by the hypothesis. It was conjectured
that the visible universe might in reality be infinite, even if
the number of stars be not so, and that such a universe might last
from eternity to eternity, and if it might not be supposed that
such a system could continuously and without interruption afford a
habitation for animated beings, yet it might do so discontinuously
and by fits and starts, its available energy being recruited by
repeated collisions, extending in a series from eternity to eternity.
The life of whole systems, perhaps even of whole galaxies, would
thus disappear, to be replaced after myriads of ages by the feeble
beginnings of an entirely new order of things.
Such a hypothesis no doubt contemplates a ceaseless change, and
satisfies so far the requirements of energy. But while the structures
built are perishable, the stones out of which they are built—the
atoms—are supposed to be eternal. It is this eternity of the atom
which vitiates the hypothesis, for we shall show in the sequel that
this is a doctrine which can only be held by ignoring the fundamental
principles of scientific inquiry. Indeed we can hardly escape from
the conclusion that the visible universe must in matter, as well
as in transformable energy, come to an end. But the principle of
Continuity upon which all such arguments are based still demanding
a continuance of the universe, we are forced to believe that there
is something beyond that which is visible, or that, to use the words
of an old writer (which we have inscribed on our title-page),—‘the
things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen
are eternal.’
85. Looking back instead of forward—to the origin of this visible
universe, rather than to its end, we are brought even more definitely
to a similar conclusion. It is perfectly certain, as we shall
afterwards see, that the visible universe must have had a beginning
in time; but if it be all that exists, then the first abrupt
manifestation of it is as truly a break of continuity as its final
overthrow.
It may sound strange to some of our readers to be told that it is the
duty of the man of science to push back the Great First Cause in time
as far as possible; nevertheless, this accurately represents the part
in the universe which he is called upon to play.
We dig into the crust of the earth and find therein stratified
deposits containing fossil forms, and we may either suppose that
God created these as they are, or that they came into their place
through the operation of natural forces, and represent the relics
of an antient world of life; the latter of these is undoubtedly the
scientific hypothesis. The only other hypothesis is that of certain
writers belonging to the Church of Rome, who asserted that the devil
put the fossils there.
Or, again, we may suppose that God created the sun, placed the earth
and the other planets in their present orbits, and gave them the
requisite velocities, all at once, or that the solar system gradually
condensed into its present state from a chaotic mass of nebulous
material; certainly, again, the latter is the scientific hypothesis.
In like manner, if we can suppose any phenomenon, any conditioned
order of things, antecedent to the appearance of the visible
universe, we have gained a step. In fact, we conceive it to be the
duty of the man of science to treat the original production of
the visible universe just in the same way as he would any other
phenomenon. It is no doubt a very large thing, but we must not be
terrified at mere bigness,—we must mete out the same scientific
measure to all events, whether they be great or small. We therefore
welcome a hypothesis like that of Sir W. Thomson,[34] which regards
the primordial atoms of the visible universe as vortices somehow
produced in a pre-existing perfect fluid, provided that such a
hypothesis is otherwise tenable.
86. Let not any of our readers regard this process as an attempt
to drive the Creator out of the field altogether, for this is most
assuredly not the case. Is it less reverent to regard the universe
as an illimitable avenue which leads up to God, than to look upon
it as a limited area bounded by an impenetrable wall, which, if we
could only pierce it, would admit us at once into the presence of the
Eternal?
In fine, we do not hesitate to assert that the visible universe
cannot comprehend the whole works of God, because it had its
beginning in time, and will also come to an end. Perhaps, indeed, it
forms only an infinitesimal portion of that stupendous whole which is
alone entitled to be called THE UNIVERSE.
87. We thus see that the extreme scientific school, as well as the
old theological school, have erred in their conclusions, because they
have neither of them loyally followed the principle of Continuity.
The theologians, regarding (like the antient philosopher) matter
and its laws with contempt, have without scruple assumed that
frequent invasions of these laws could be consistent with a tenable
hypothesis. On the other hand, the extreme scientific school, when
they were brought by the principle of Continuity into such a position
that their next logical step should have been the realisation of
the unseen, failed to take it, and have suffered grievously in
consequence.
88. It remains now, before concluding this chapter, to sketch briefly
the application of the principle of Continuity to the problem we have
in hand.
There are three conceivable suppositions with reference to individual
existence after death. It may be regarded as the result of a
transference from one grade of being to another in the present
visible universe; or secondly, of a transference from the visible
universe to some other order of things intimately connected with
it; or lastly, we may conceive it to represent the result of a
transference from the present visible universe to an order of things
entirely unconnected with it.
89. This last hypothesis may however be very speedily disposed of if
we are to maintain the principle of Continuity. We have seen that
one of the requisites for conscious individual existence is an organ
connecting the individual with the past. Now, were we to suppose a
transference of living beings from the present visible universe to an
order of things otherwise entirely unconnected with it, this would
be a manifest breach of the law of Continuity. Imagine the utter
confusion into which this present universe would be plunged, if a set
of inhabitants were transferred into it having organs connecting them
with a past existence in an entirely different universe. A confusion
precisely similar would be occasioned by carrying out a transfer
according to the hypothesis in question; so that we are able at once
to reduce our suppositions to two: the first involving a transference
from one grade to another of the visible universe, and the second a
transference from the visible universe to some other order of things
intimately connected with it.
90. In what precedes, we have argued by anticipation that the present
visible universe will become effete; but in the following chapters it
will be necessary to maintain this assertion by a minute examination
of those laws which represent the course of things observed in
the present universe. In other words, we must settle the fitness
or unfitness of the present visible universe before we proceed to
discuss our second hypothesis.
91. But whether the transfer be supposed to take place in the visible
universe, or from it to another intimately connected with it, the
subject in either case is certainly one on which we may legitimately
employ our reasoning faculties. So far indeed is the subject from
being one which it will be utterly and for ever useless to discuss,
that it has become our duty as well as our privilege to make the
attempt, in the perfect trust that time will inevitably bring truth
with it. We think that this fact has been too much overlooked by
those whom we may term the moderate school of scientific thinkers.
Not denying the possibility of a future state, they have yet shrunk
from all attempts to investigate its conditions. We are in hopes that
a perusal of this volume will lead these writers to see that the
subject is one which may be profitably discussed.
CHAPTER III.
THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE.
... οἱ οὐρανοὶ ῥοιζηδὸν παρελεύσονται, στοιχεῖα δὲ καυσούμενα
λυθήσονται, καὶ γῆ καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔργα κατακαήσεται.—Πετρού Βʹ.
γʹ.
‘The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant, faded,
Leave not a rack behind.’—SHAKESPEARE, _Tempest_.
‘All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The sun himself must die
Before this mortal shall assume
His immortality.’—CAMPBELL.
92. Having in the last chapter briefly indicated the nature of the
proposition which we intend to bring forward, we must next study, as
a preliminary to further discussion, what science tells us about the
present physical universe: what are the general laws to which it is
now subject; when and what must have been its beginning; when and
what will be its inevitable end.
We have been driven into becoming accustomed to the phrase, ‘the
material universe,’ which is generally used in a sense absolutely
identical with that which we have chosen as the title of this
chapter. We shall soon see that the term is a very inapt one,
inasmuch as matter is (though it may sound paradoxical to say so) the
less important half of the material of the physical universe.
In the present chapter we shall still further restrict ourselves by
omitting, as far as possible, any reference to life (even in its
lowest aspect), and we likewise defer to a future chapter our account
of the more reasonable speculations which have been advanced with
regard to the intimate structure of matter and ether.
93. It is only within the last thirty or forty years that there has
gradually dawned upon the minds of scientific men the conviction that
there is something besides matter or stuff in the physical universe,
something which has at least as much claim as matter to recognition
as an objective reality, though, of course, far less directly
obvious to our senses as such, and therefore much later in being
detected. So long as men spoke of light, heat, electricity, etc., as
imponderables, they merely avoided or put aside the difficulty.
When they attempted to rank them as matter,—heat, for instance, as
caloric,—they at once fell into errors, from which a closer scrutiny
of experimental results would assuredly have saved them. The idea
of _substance_ or _stuff_ as necessary to objective existence very
naturally arises from ordinary observations on matter; and as there
could be little doubt of the physical reality of heat, light, etc.,
these were in early times at once set down as matter. Fire, in fact
(including, it is to be presumed, everything which involved either
heat or flame, real or apparent), was in early times one of the four
so-called _elements_.
In those days the sun was supposed to be only a great fire; a
lightning-flash, an aurora, or a comet, was merely a flame; in other
words, the essence of all these was the element fire, or, as it
was later called, caloric. The sun, except when he appeared as the
spreader of pestilence, was the beneficent fire, as were also some of
the planets; the lightning, the comet, even the moon and Saturn, were
baleful fires.
This endeavour to assign a substantive existence to every phenomenon
is, of course, perfectly natural; but on that very account
excessively likely to be wrong.
_Humanum est errare_ comes with quite as much heart-felt conviction
of its truth from the lips of the honest Pagan as from those of the
Christian believer; though perhaps its meaning may be considerably
less extended in the former than in the latter case.
94. But, before discussing what is that _something else_ besides
stuff which has an _objective_ though not a _substantive_[35]
existence, let us in the first place inquire into the grounds of our
belief, that matter itself has a real existence external to us; that,
in fact, the so-called evidence of our senses is not a mere delusion.
There is a strong temptation to be metaphysical here, but we will
endeavour to resist it.
Now physical science furnishes us with the following among many other
arguments in proof of the reality of the external universe:—
_Experience of the most varied kind consistently shows us that we
cannot produce or destroy even the smallest quantity of matter._
Exercise our greatest powers of imagination, do with it what
we please, we cannot make our senses indicate to us an increase
or diminution in a given quantity of what we call matter. We
find it so far amenable to our control that we can alter its
arrangement, form, density, state of aggregation, temperature,
etc.; nay, by so approximating it to other matter as to produce a
chemical combination, we may entirely transform its appearance and
properties,—_all but one_: its mass or quantity is completely beyond
our control. Measure it by what process we please, by the ‘muscular
sense,’ by weight, anyhow, there it is, altogether independent of us,
laughing our efforts to scorn! Can this be a mere mental idea which
the mind that conceived it (or, at all events, in some way received
the conception of it) is unable to destroy?
But there is one other argument on this point which must be
mentioned. Not only do our own senses invariably indicate to us the
impossibility of altering the quantity of matter, but the senses of
all men alike point to the same quantity, quality, and collocation
of matter in the earth and external to the earth. Whence this
extraordinary agreement between the evidences of the senses in
different men, when the minds are so different?
Our conviction then of the objective reality of matter (at least
from the point of view of the Natural Philosopher) is based upon the
experimental truth that we can neither increase nor diminish its
quantity, in fact on what we may conveniently for our present purpose
call the _Conservation of Matter_.
95. Here let us pause for a moment to compare together this view of
matter and the definition of the laws of the universe, which we have
already given. The laws of the universe we defined (Art. 54) to be
the laws according to which the beings in the universe are trammelled
by the Governor thereof as regards time, space, and sensation. Now,
it may be asked, is this definition consistent with a belief in the
objective reality of matter? Our reply is, that to our minds the two
are in perfect accordance.
We do not here intend to enter into any metaphysical discussion. It
is enough for us to say that our practical working certainty of the
reality of matter depends upon the facts, _firstly_, that it offers
resistance to our imagination and our will, and, _secondly_, that in
particular it offers _absolute_ resistance to all attempts to change
its quantity. We shall soon see that experiment teaches us that both
properties belong to something else.
96. Returning from this digression let us therefore assume that the
objective reality of the external universe has been proved, and
that this reality is strongly impressed upon us in virtue of that
principle which we have called the conservation of matter.
But as soon as we grant this, we are obliged by our reason, however
little our senses may incline us to it, or rather however much they
may dispose us against it, to allow objective reality to whatever
else may be found to be _in the same sense_ conserved. (We have
here italicised these four words for a reason which will afterwards
appear.) This is a question which deserves and must secure careful
consideration.
97. In abstract dynamics several things are said and mathematically
proved by deductions from experiment to be conserved, but one
only of these in the strict sense in which we have spoken of the
conservation of matter. We will examine them briefly, and our
non-mathematical readers must pardon us if we make use of certain
technical expressions belonging to the domain of mathematical physics.
[It is absolutely essential that the reader should have clear notions
on these points, for there is widespread confusion and error as to
the meaning even of so simple and elementary a term as ‘_force_.’
He will often find it used indifferently in either of two senses
which have no connection whatever with one another; and unless he
completely gets over this abuse of language he need not hope to be
able to follow the present portion of our preliminary argument. Force
proper is a pull, push, weight, pressure, etc., and can be measured,
in the vernacular of engineers, as equivalent to so many pounds
weight; but the unjustifiable use of the word applies it to _work
done by a force_, so many pounds raised so many feet, _i.e. force
overcome through a space_. Two such things are of different kinds,
and cannot possibly be compared together. They differ in fact in
precisely the same way as length or breadth differs from superficial
area, _i.e._ as a linear foot differs from a square foot! And the
modern abuse of the word is more outrageous, alike to science and
to common sense, than would be the attempt to assign the height of
a mountain in acres! For the absurdity does not end even here. We
have, as yet, absolutely no proof whatever that force proper has
objective existence. In all probability there is no such _thing_ as
force (which is suggested to us by the impressions of our _muscular_
sense), any more than there is such a _thing_ as Sound, or Light,
which are mere names for physical impressions produced upon special
nerves by the energy of undulatory motions of certain media. The
term, however, is a very convenient one for the rate of transference
or transformation of energy per unit of length in a given direction.]
(1.) _Conservation of Momentum._—What is understood by this is a
mere direct consequence of Newton’s _first_ interpretation of his
Third Law of Motion, viz., that _Action and Reaction are equal and
opposite_. In this _first_ interpretation Newton tells us to consider
actions and reactions as forces proper, or (their equivalents)
quantities of motion. This is the term employed by Newton; but we
now designate it _momentum_, and measure it by the product of the
mass and the velocity of a body. Stated in its simplest form, this
law asserts that the momentum of a system of bodies, measured in any
direction whatever, is not altered by their mutual action, whether
that action be of the nature of traction, attraction, repulsion, or
impact. And we see at once from this third law of motion that it must
be so, because the change of momentum, in any direction, of any one
part of the system, per unit of time, is the measure of the force
acting on that part in that direction. Whatever momentum in this
particular direction is gained by one member of the system must have
been lost by other members, but not from their whole momentum, merely
from the part of it in this direction. It thus appears that the
(algebraic) sum of the momenta generated by the mutual actions of the
system is zero.
These momenta are in fact _directed magnitudes_ (like the forces of
which they are the measure), and are therefore capable of _cancelling
one another_ when their numerical amounts are equal and their
directions are opposite. In this sense the conservation is of the
same nature as that of the imagined electric or magnetic fluids,
where no portion whatever of one kind can be produced without the
simultaneous appearance of an equal quantity of the other, a quantity
just capable of neutralising it. This is obviously not in any sense
analogous to the Conservation of Matter of which we have just spoken.
As an illustration take a loaded cannon. Before firing, neither
cannon nor ball had momentum. After firing, the ball has a certain
momentum, the cannon (in virtue of its recoil) an _equal_ and
opposite momentum. If we could exactly reverse the motions of the
cannon and ball just as they separate, the impact between them would
just reduce each to rest, and no momentum would be left. Considered
separately after the discharge, each has momentum, but _in the
complete system_ of cannon and ball there is no momentum—there being
equal quantities of positive and negative, in the same line. In fact
momentum cannot be produced or destroyed _in any system as a whole_.
This is the Conservation referred to. It is as if a man always when
he received a sum of money fell to the same amount in debt—the state
of his affairs, as shown by his books, would of course not be altered.
(2.) _Conservation of Moment of Momentum_.—Here we deal with
quantities of the order of the moments of forces about an axis, _i.e.
couples_ in Poinsot’s sense. These also are directed magnitudes
depending for their conservation upon the first interpretation of
Newton’s third law, and therefore the same remarks apply to them as
to the preceding.
(3.) _Conservation of Vis Viva_.—_Vis viva_ is the old name for
energy of motion or the consequent power of doing work. We now deal
with quantities which cannot possess direction, because they are
essentially _products of pairs of quantities similarly directed_,
and are therefore all to be treated as of the same algebraic sign,
or rather (to adopt the language of Sir W. R. Hamilton) as signless
quantities. With such there can of course be no cancelling.
To make our meaning clear, let us consider upon what _vis viva_
depends. It depends upon and is proportional to the product of
the mass into the _square_ of the velocity. Compare, or rather
contrast, this with the definition of momentum given above, and it
will be seen that _vis viva_ is the product of the momentum and the
velocity. Now mass is of course a signless quantity; evidently we
cannot have negative mass. Then with regard to the square of the
velocity, this will be positive whether the velocity be positive
or negative, whether it be in one direction or the opposite. _Vis
viva_, therefore, or energy of motion, is something which is not
affected with the sign of direction, or, as we have already said,
it is a signless quantity. It is found to be convenient to measure
it as _half_ the product of the moving mass into the square of its
velocity. So measured, it is now called (see § 99) _kinetic energy_.
Now to our cannon again. Before firing there is no _vis viva_ of
either cannon or ball. After firing each has _vis viva_, but that
of the ball is greater than that of the cannon in the proportion in
which the cannon’s mass exceeds that of the ball. And the system as
a whole has _vis viva_ though it has no momentum. If, as before, we
could reverse the motions of cannon and ball, then, even when they
impinged, the _vis viva_ would _not_ be lost. As will presently be
seen, it would be employed in heating both the impinging bodies.
98. We have said that the energy which a body contains—its _vis
viva_—its power of doing work, is independent of the direction in
which it is moving; and, further, that while the mass is the same, it
is proportional to the square of the velocity. For instance, we may
measure the energy of a cannon-ball or of an arrow by the distance
it will carry itself up against the force of gravity, represented by
its own weight, when shot vertically upwards, and we find that with
a double velocity it will go four times as high. Or we may point the
cannon horizontally, and measure the energy of the same ball by the
number of planks of oak wood which it can penetrate, and we shall
find that a ball with double the velocity will penetrate nearly four
times as many as one with the single velocity. All such experiments
concur together in convincing us that the energy of the ball is
independent of the direction in which the cannon is pointed, and is
proportional to the square of the velocity, so that a double velocity
will give a fourfold energy.
99. We have just now spoken about a cannon-ball fired into the
air against the force of gravity. Such a ball, as it mounts, will
each moment lose part of its velocity, until it finally comes to
a standstill, after which it will begin to descend. When it is
just turning it is perfectly harmless, and if we were standing on
the top of a cliff to which it had just reached, we might without
danger catch it in our arms and lodge it on the cliff. Its energy
has apparently disappeared. Let us, however, see whether this is
really true or not. It was fired up at us, let us say, by a foe at
the bottom of the cliff, and the thought occurs to us to drop it down
upon him again, which we do with great success, for he is smashed to
pieces by the ball.
In truth, dynamics informs us that such a ball will again strike the
ground with a velocity, and therefore with an energy precisely equal
to that with which it was originally projected upwards. Now, when at
the top of the cliff, if it had not the energy due to actual motion,
it had nevertheless some sort of energy due to its elevated position,
for it had obviously the power of doing work. A pond of still water,
unless it can fall, _i.e._ unless it has what is technically called
a ‘_head_,’ is of no use in driving a water-wheel. The head, or
the power of descending, gives it a store of dormant energy, which
becomes active as the water gradually descends. And the same amount
of work may be obtained (by means of a turbine for instance) from
a small quantity of water, provided it has a great ‘head,’ as can
be obtained (by means of an ordinary overshot or breast wheel) from
water with far less head, provided it be supplied in proportionally
greater quantity. _We thus recognise two forms of energy which change
into one another, the one due to actual motion and the other to
position; the former of these is generally called kinetic, and the
latter potential energy._
All this appears to have been clearly perceived by Newton,
who gave it as a _second_ interpretation of his Third Law of
Motion. His statement is equivalent, in modern language, to
the following:[36]—_Work done on any system of bodies has its
equivalent in the form of work done against friction, molecular
forces, or gravity, if there be no acceleration; but if there be
acceleration, part of the work is expended in overcoming resistance
to acceleration, and the additional kinetic energy developed is
equivalent to the work so spent._
100. Thus Newton expressly tells us (though not in these words) that
we are to include in the same category work done by or against a
force—whether that force be due to gravity, friction, or molecular
action (such as elasticity, for instance), or even to acceleration.
(_a._) When work is done against gravity, as in lifting a mass from
the ground, we have just seen that it is (as it were) stored up
in the raised mass; we can recover it at any time by letting the
mass descend. Thus it is that we furnish a clock with motive power
sufficient to keep it going for a week in spite of friction and other
resistance, by simply winding up its weights.
(_b._) When work is done against molecular forces, we have a similar
storing up, as, for instance, in drawing a bow or in winding up a
watch.
(_c._) When work is done against the inertia of a body, _i.e._
to accelerate its velocity, Newton’s definitions show that the
additional kinetic energy so produced is equal to the work so spent.
(_d._) In abstract dynamics we simply consider as lost the work spent
against friction. In Newton’s time it was not known what became of it.
101. Leaving out, then, for the present, the fourth alternative,
we see that whatever work is spent, we must, according to Newton,
even in abstract dynamics recognise that _it is not lost, but only
transformed_ into an equivalent quantity stored up for future use,
either in a quiescent form (as, for instance, the potential energy of
a raised weight or bent spring), or in an active form (as the kinetic
energy of a moving mass). Here, then, at last, we recognise the
same sort of conservation as that which we found in matter. But the
statement so far is defective, as we have seen, in one particular.
What becomes of work spent in overcoming friction? or what becomes of
the energy of the blacksmith’s hammer after it has struck the anvil?
To this experiment alone can give the answer. Let us see what it has
told us.
Man has been called a reasoning animal, a laughing animal, etc.,
according to the momentary whim or humour of the classifier; but he
is perhaps still more definitely separated from all other animals
when specified as _the_ ‘cooking animal.’ Now, it has always appeared
to us as something little short of marvellous that, even for the high
purpose of cooking his food, or of inflicting exquisite torture on a
vanquished foe, savage man should ever have hit upon the process of
procuring fire by friction. Considering his condition, and comparing
his opportunities and his success with those of even our greatest
modern physicists, we cannot but look upon this as one of the very
greatest and most notable discoveries ever made in physics. All the
more notable, too, from the fact that a man like Newton, though of
course aware of it, absolutely missed its significance even at the
very moment when it alone was wanted to fill a serious _lacuna_ in
one of his grandest and most important practical generalisations.
The missing link was all but supplied by Rumford and Davy at the
very end of last century. Rumford’s boiling of water by the heat
generated in the boring of a cannon, and Davy’s melting of ice by
friction _in vacuo_, were each conclusively demonstrative alike of
the non-materiality of heat and of the ultimate fate of work spent in
friction, which is thus seen to be converted into heat; or at least
these experiments could easily have been made demonstrative by very
slight additions to, or modifications of, their author’s methods or
reasoning. But the exact and formal enuntiation of the equivalence of
heat and work required to fill the _lacuna_ in Newton’s statement was
first given by Davy in 1812.
102. Let us here pause for a moment and contemplate the position to
which the solution of our problem had even then attained. Visible
kinetic energy, such as that of a cannon-ball shot upwards, is
transformed as it rises into visible potential energy. As the ball
descends its energy is retransformed from the potential into the
kinetic variety until, when it is about to strike the earth, it has,
or rather would have if there were no atmosphere, as much kinetic
energy as it had when it was first shot upwards.
When the ball has once struck the earth its kinetic energy of visible
motion is changed by impact into that kinetic energy of invisible
motion of its particles which is called heat; and, generally
speaking, in all cases of friction, percussion, and atmospheric
resistance we have a change of visible energy into heat, as for
instance when a railway train is stopped by the action of the
brake, when a blacksmith strikes the anvil with his hammer, when a
cannon-ball moves through and heats the air, or when a meteorite or
falling-star is rendered incandescent by the resistance it meets with
even in the higher and rarer strata of the atmosphere.
We had thus come to the stage of regarding heat as a species of
molecular energy into which visible energy is often transformed, and
very soon afterwards it came to be perceived that there were other
forms of molecular energy besides heat—some of these being potential
and some kinetic. Thus two substances may possess mutual chemical
affinity when separated from each other, just as a raised stone
tends to fall again to the earth, and we obtain a form of potential
energy in the one case as truly as in the other. When, for instance,
we have carbon or coal in our cellars or our mines, and oxygen in
the air, we are in possession of a store of chemical potential
energy upon which we can draw at any moment and change it during the
process of combustion from the potential to the kinetic form. Again,
in a current of electricity we have no doubt a species of kinetic
energy, although it still puzzles men of science to say what form of
invisible motion such a current implies. From all this, without being
further perplexed with scientific details, our readers will perceive
that there are many different forms, some of them potential, and
others of them kinetic, in which energy may appear.
While we were thus grasping the fact that energy can appear under
various forms, we were also beginning to perceive that it had great
powers of transmutation—going about from one form to another, and Sir
W. R. Grove did good work at this stage of the inquiry in bringing
together the various cases of such transmutations in his work on the
Correlation of the Physical Forces.
In spite of this, it was left for Joule and Colding, who worked
almost simultaneously and by well-devised experimental methods from
about the year 1840, independently to discover, and by degrees to
enuntiate, by means of arguments founded on _the only admissible
basis—experiment_, the grand law of the _Conservation of Energy_. In
its most general form, the statement of the conservation of energy
is merely a completed version of the passage we have already quoted
from Newton; and the experimental discoveries of Rumford and Davy,
extended and completed by Joule and Colding, allow us now to put
Newton’s second or alternative interpretation of his _Third Law of
Motion_ into the modern statement of the _Conservation of Energy_.
_In any system of bodies whatever, to which no energy is communicated
by external bodies, and which parts with no energy to external
bodies, the sum of the various potential and kinetic energies remains
for ever unaltered._
In other words, while the one form of energy becomes changed into
the other,—potential into kinetic and kinetic into potential, or
one species of either into another;—yet each change represents at
once a creation of one kind of energy and a simultaneous and equal
annihilation of another, the total energy present, as we have already
said, remaining for ever unaltered.
103. Taking as our ‘system of bodies’ the whole physical universe,
we now see that, according to the test we have already laid down,
energy has as much claim to be regarded as an objective reality as
matter itself. But the forms of statement are most markedly different
for the two. We before spoke of the quantity of matter without
qualification, but we now speak of _the sum of the two kinds_ of
energy. Let us think for a moment of this, and we see that whereas
(to our present knowledge, at least) matter is always the same,
though it may be masked in various combinations, energy is constantly
changing the form in which it presents itself. The one is like the
eternal, unchangeable Fate or _Necessitas_ of the antients; the other
is Proteus himself in the variety and rapidity of its transformations.
Φύσις, διαδόχαις σχημάτων τρισμυρίοις
ἀλλάσσεται τύπωμα, Πρωτέως δίκην,
πάντων ὅσ’ ἔστι ποικιλώτατον τέρας·
τῆς δ’ αὖτ’ Ἀνάγκης ἐστ’ ἀκίνητον σθένος,
μόνη δ’ ἁπάντων ταὐτὸ διαμένουσ’ ἀεὶ
βροτῶν τε καὶ θεῶν πάντ’ ἀποτρύει γένη.[37]
104. And again, _energy is of use to us solely because it is
constantly being transformed_. When the sluice is shut, or the fire
put out, the machinery stops; when a man cannot digest his food,
he breaks down altogether. Coal in itself, except on account of an
occasional fossil it may contain, or its still somewhat uncertain
mode of formation, or (to take a lower point of view) as a material
for ornament, is a very useless thing indeed: its grand value
consists in its chemical affinity, in virtue of which it possesses
great potential energy as regards the oxygen of the air, which
can very easily be transformed into its equivalent in heat. ‘Keep
your powder dry’ is merely one way of saying ‘preserve the ready
transformability of your energy.’ In fact, if we think for a moment
over what has just been said, to the effect that the only real things
in the physical universe are matter and energy, and that of these
matter is simply passive, it is obvious that all the physical changes
which take place, including those which are inseparably associated
with the thoughts as well as the actions of living beings, are merely
transformations of energy. Thus it is an inquiry of the very utmost
importance as regards the present universe: _Are all forms of energy
equally susceptible of transformation?_ To see the importance of this
question, the reader has only to reflect that if there be any one
form of energy less readily or less completely transformable than the
others, and if transformations constantly go on, more and more of the
whole energy of the universe will inevitably sink into this lower
grade as time advances. Hence the whole possibility of transformation
must steadily grow less and less; in scientific language, though the
_quantity_ of energy remains for ever unchanged, its _availability_
steadily decreases.
105. Now, every one knows a case in which there may be an unlimited
amount of energy present, no part of which is available for
transformation. It is the simple one of heat in a number of bodies,
_when all are at the same temperature_. To obtain work from heat we
must have hotter and colder bodies, to correspond, as it were, with
the boiler and condenser of a heat-engine; and just as we can get no
work from still water if it be all at the same level, _i.e._ if no
part of it can fall, so in like manner we can get no work from heat
unless part of it can fall from a higher to a lower temperature.
This is a remark of the very utmost consequence to our argument,
and must therefore be fully elucidated. Unfortunately it is not as
yet possible to do this without introducing a good many scientific
technicalities which are unsuited to the great majority of readers.
In the next eight sections we endeavour to explain it as simply as we
can. The reader who cannot easily follow us may pass, without break
of continuity in the argument, at once to Art. 114.
* 106. The first step in the investigation of the transformation of
heat into work was taken by Sadi Carnot in 1824: a step which has
recently been found of inestimable value in every branch of modern
physical science. He devised a method of startling originality for
the purpose of attacking this special question of the production of
work from heat. His inferences from its application were not all
correct; this was due however to no fault of the method, but to the
fact that he unfortunately assumed (though with caution, and under
a protest almost amounting to an assertion of the opposite) the
materiality of heat. His method embraces two perfectly new ideas:—
(1.) That, at least with our present knowledge, no inference is
possible as to the relation between heat and work, until the heated
or working substance is brought back, after a complete _Cycle_ of
operations, to its initial physical state.
Obvious as this statement, once made, is, it was altogether ignored
(twenty years after Carnot) by Séguin and Mayer, whom some authors
still persist in setting forth as the founders of the dynamical
theory of heat. Their speculations were entirely vitiated by their
violation of this principle.
(2.) That an engine whose cycle of operations is reversible is a
perfect engine, that is to say, gives the greatest possible amount of
work from a given quantity of heat with any assigned temperatures of
boiler and condenser.
The term reversible is not here used in the popular sense in
which a mere reversal of the direction of motion of each part is
contemplated, _i.e._ what would be more properly termed ‘backing,’
it is used in the higher sense of taking an engine which converts a
certain quantity of the heat spent on it into work, while it lets the
rest down from the boiler to the condenser, and then spending upon
it the same amount of work with the result of taking back the heat
from the condenser, adding thereto the heat-equivalent of the work so
spent, and thus restoring the whole of its original loss in heat to
the boiler; simply in fact reversing all the results of the direct
action.[38]
* 107. Sir W. Thomson, in 1848, was the first to recall attention
to the work of Carnot, after Colding and Joule had published their
experimental discoveries; and he pointed out that the action of
the reversible engine gave what had been up to that time vainly
sought, an absolute definition of temperature—a definition, that is,
altogether independent of the properties of any particular species of
matter. In fact it is obvious that as reversibility in the sense we
have just explained is the stamp of perfection in a heat-engine, all
reversible engines, whatever be the working substance, will, under
the same circumstances, that is to say, _with the same temperatures
of boiler and condenser_, convert the same fraction of the heat spent
on them into work. This, of course, still leaves wide scope for
choice of a definition of temperature: but that finally determined
on by Thomson was chosen (in consequence of a hint from some
experimental results of Joule) so as to make the absolute measurement
agree nearly with that of the long-familiar air-thermometer. It
therefore stands as follows:—
_The heat taken in by a perfect engine is to the heat given out by it
in the same proportion as the absolute temperature of the boiler to
that of the condenser._
Of course it is hardly necessary to state that it is only the excess
of the heat taken in over that given out by any engine that can have
been converted into available work. This follows at once from the
conservation of energy.
Experiments carried on by Joule and Thomson[39] together have shown
that the absolute zero of temperature is nearly 274° below zero of
the centigrade scale; so that on the absolute scale the temperature
of melting ice is 274°, while that of water boiling under the
standard pressure is 374°.
* 108. In 1849 James Thomson made a very remarkable application of
Carnot’s reasoning, the first of a series of such applications which
have since done immense service in the extension of almost every
branch of physics. He showed in fact that, because water expands in
the act of freezing, _the melting point of ice must be lowered by
pressure_. Sir W. Thomson in the same year verified this deduction,
to its numerical details, by direct experiment. Trifling as the
predicted and measured effect appears (one degree centigrade for each
2000 lbs. additional pressure per square inch), there can now be no
doubt that it goes at least very far to explain the varied effects of
the extraordinary plasticity of glacier-ice so beautifully made out
by the direct measurements of Forbes.
* 109. We have said that Carnot unfortunately based his reasoning on
the assumed materiality (and therefore indestructibility) of heat. It
therefore became a question of great importance to find how properly
to adapt his methods to the true theory. James Thomson’s verified
prediction had already given a correct and absolutely new physical
result from Carnot’s principles. How then must we get rid of his
false assumption?
Clausius attempted this in 1850, but his method is based solely upon
the observed fact that in general heat tends from hotter to colder
bodies. This we know is not always the case, for a fine wire may
be made red-hot by the current from a thermo-electric battery (of
a sufficient number of pairs) where ice and boiling water alone are
used to cool and heat the alternate junctions. Here heat certainly
passes from colder bodies to a hotter one. Clausius, no doubt,
several years later, extended his original statement, so as to make
it stand thus:—Heat cannot _of itself_ pass from a colder to a hotter
body. We do not consider even this sufficiently obvious for an axiom,
were it certainly true, but, as will be seen presently, it is not. In
fact the so-called axiom is constantly being violated, though on a
very small scale, in every mass of gas.
* 110. It was Sir W. Thomson[40] who (in 1851) first correctly
adapted Carnot’s magnificently original methods to the true theory
of heat; and it is especially noteworthy to remark how, even at that
early time, he saw the full danger of attempting to lay down anything
too definite on the subject. The following is the axiom he gives:—
‘_It is impossible by means of inanimate material agency to derive
mechanical effect from any portion of matter by cooling it below the
temperature of the coldest of the surrounding objects._’
But he appends the following guarded note:—
‘If this axiom be denied for all temperatures, it would have to be
admitted that a self-acting machine might be set to work and produce
mechanical effect by cooling the sea or earth, with no limit but the
total loss of heat from the earth and sea, or, in reality, from the
whole material world.’
The full importance of this will appear presently.
To those who can accept Thomson’s axiom with the explanation appended
to it, Carnot’s proposition that a reversible engine is perfect (in
the sense of being the best possible) is demonstrated at once, as
follows, _ex absurdo_.
Suppose there could be an engine, M, more perfect than a reversible
engine, N. Set the two to work together as a compound engine, M
letting down heat from boiler to condenser, and doing work; N
spending work in pumping back again the heat to the boiler. If N
be made to restore to the boiler at every stroke exactly what M
takes from it, the compound engine will do external work, for, by
hypothesis, M is more perfect than N. Whence does the work come?
Not from the boiler, for it remains as it was. Hence N must take
more heat from the condenser than M gives it; _i.e._ you get work by
cooling the condenser.
Carry the reasoning a little further, and we see that if the excess
of work given by M were spent upon N, and thus no work on the whole
either spent or given out, the condenser would be still further
cooled, and the boiler heated! This, to most people, would seem to
imply an ample _reductio ad absurdum_. But Clerk-Maxwell has shown
it to be physically possible, and has thus thoroughly justified
Thomson’s caution about his axiom. As this is a point of very great
importance, we offer no excuse for treating it pretty fully.
* 111. Clerk-Maxwell’s reasoning is given as depending upon the
molecular theory of gases, but the only necessity for so restricting
it appears to be that we thereby connect the reasoning more directly
with _Heat_, which, on this theory, is supposed to be the energy
of motion of the molecules of the gas. The illustration, however,
is more general, and at the same time more simple, if we do not
at first refer either to heat or to the molecular hypothesis of
the constitution of gases, but treat the question simply as one
concerning the possible motions of a number of little material
particles.
Assume, then, that a great number of small equal spherical particles
of matter are enclosed in a vessel of any form, and assume further
that (either by collision or by repulsive force) each of these
has the power of rebounding from another or from the wall of the
vessel, as if it were elastic, and had unit _co-efficient of
restitution_,[41] as defined in treatises on natural philosophy.
Then it can be shown, as a matter of direct calculation, that—start
these particles as we please, in all sorts of directions, and with
velocities as varied as we please—after a time, which will be
shorter as the number of particles is greater, a sort of permanent
state will be arrived at in which a certain law of distribution of
velocity prevails among the particles (the same law as that of the
_Probability of Error_, as it is technically called), the greater
number of them having nearly the mean square velocity, and those
which have much less or more than that being fewer and fewer as
the defect or excess is greater. The tendency is to an average
distribution of these varieties of velocity throughout the vessel,
and the impacts on the sides will thus be nearly the same on every
square inch of its surface. After this there is—_always provided
the particles be sufficiently numerous_—no perceptible change in the
statistics of the group, except in so far as concerns _individual_
particles, which may sometimes be moving with great, sometimes with
very small, velocity, but which, in the long-run, will far more
often be moving with the mean square velocity, or at least some
velocity very near it. Hence, in no part of the vessel will the
average energy be sensibly greater than in another, and therefore
(so far as the contents of the vessel alone are concerned) there is
no possibility of getting work from them. But by enlisting in our
service conceivable finite beings (imagined by Clerk-Maxwell, and
called demons by Thomson), it would be possible materially to alter
this state of things, even although these beings should do absolutely
no work.
* 112. For suppose a firm partition, full of little doors (themselves
without mass) to be placed so as to divide the vessel into two,
and set a demon at each door, with instructions to open it for an
instant whenever he sees he can thereby let a quick-moving particle
escape from the first compartment to the second, or a slow-moving
particle from the second into the first. Then, _because the tendency
is not to a uniform distribution of velocity_ among the particles,
but to a distribution which involves quicker and slower in certain
proportions, we may imagine this process to be carried on long enough
to make a considerable difference in the average velocities of the
particles in the two compartments, though the numbers of particles in
each compartment may remain almost unchanged. The consequence will
of course be a greater pressure per square inch on the walls of the
second compartment than of the first; and thus, if the partition wall
were moveable, a certain amount of work might be obtained by allowing
it to move. Thus a group of particles originally incapable, without
external assistance, of doing work, may be rendered capable of doing
work by mere _guidance_ applied by finite intelligence.
* 113. Now let us refer for a moment to the molecular theory of
gases, and we see that what the demons (without any expenditure of
work, each being, so far as he is required, virtually a combination
of two intelligent perfect engines, one working direct, the other
reversed) have guided the gas to do, is to transfer heat from a
colder to a hotter portion of the gas.
The only reason why this does not occur without the assistance of
demons (at least to an extent, or for a length of time, sufficient to
produce a sensible effect) lies in the enormous number of particles
per cubic inch in even the most rarefied gas. Hence, _solely because
of the excessive numbers and minuteness of the particles of matter_,
the one chance of escape from Carnot’s proposition is denied us, and
therefore we must allow that, so far as the physical universe is
concerned, a reversible heat-engine is the best possible.
But if a reversible heat-engine be the best possible, then the
principle which we have italicised in Art. 107 must hold good, and
from this it follows that only a portion of the heat passing through
a perfect engine can be transformed into useful work unless the
condenser of the engine be at the absolute zero of temperature—a
condition which can never be attained.
114. It thus appears that at each transformation of heat-energy into
work a large portion is degraded, while only a small portion is
transformed into work. So that while it is very easy to change all
of our mechanical or useful energy into heat, it is only possible
to transform a portion of this heat-energy back again into work.
After each change too the heat becomes more and more dissipated
or degraded, that is, less and less available for any future
transformation.
In other words, the tendency of heat is towards equalisation; heat is
_par excellence_ the communist of our universe, and it will no doubt
ultimately bring the present system to an end. The visible universe
may with perfect truth be compared to a vast heat-engine, and this is
the reason why we have brought such engines so prominently before our
readers. The sun is the furnace or source of high-temperature heat of
our system, just as the stars are for other systems, and the energy
which is essential to our existence is derived from the heat which
the sun radiates, and represents only an excessively minute portion
of that heat. But while the sun thus supplies us with energy he is
himself getting colder, and must ultimately, by radiation into space,
part with the life-sustaining power which he at present possesses.
Besides the inevitable cooling of the sun we must also suppose that
owing to something analogous to ethereal friction[42] the earth
and the other planets of our system will be drawn spirally nearer
and nearer to the sun, and will at length be engulfed in his mass.
In each case there will be, as the result of the collision, the
conversion of visible energy into heat, and a partial and temporary
restoration of the power of the sun. At length, however, this
process will have come to an end, and he will be extinguished until,
after long but not immeasurable ages, by means of the same ethereal
friction his black mass is brought into contact with that of one or
more of his nearer neighbours.
115. Not much further need we dilate on this. It is absolutely
certain that life, so far as it is physical, depends essentially upon
transformations of energy; it is also absolutely certain that age
after age the possibility of such transformations is becoming less
and less; and, so far as we yet know, the final state of the present
universe must be an aggregation (into one mass) of all the matter it
contains, _i.e._ the potential energy gone, and a practically useless
state of kinetic energy, _i.e._ uniform temperature throughout that
mass.
But the present potential energy of the solar system is so enormous,
approaching in fact possibly to what in our helplessness we call
infinite, that it may supply for absolutely incalculable future ages
what is required for the physical existence of life. Again, the fall
together, from the distance of Sirius let us say, of the sun and an
equal star would at once supply the sun with at least as much energy
for future radiation to possible planets as could possibly have been
acquired by his own materials in their original falling together
from practically infinite diffusion as a cloud of stones or dust, or
a nebula; so that it is certain that, if the present physical laws
remain long enough in operation, there will be (at immense intervals
of time) mighty catastrophes due to the crashing together of
defunct suns—the smashing of the greater part of each into nebulous
dust surrounding the remainder, which will form an intensely heated
nucleus—then, possibly, the formation of a new and larger set of
planets with a proportionately larger and hotter sun, a solar system
on a far grander scale than the present. And so on, growing in
grandeur but diminishing in number till the exhaustion of energy is
complete, and after that eternal rest, so far at least as visible
motion is concerned.[43]
116. The study of the necessary future has prepared us for an inquiry
into the long remote past. Just as the present discrete stellar
systems must finally come together, so the materials which now form
them must have originally been widely separate. Our modern knowledge
enables us to look back with almost certitude to the time when
there was nothing but gravitating matter and its potential energy
throughout the expanse of space—ready, as slight local differences
of distribution predisposed it, to break up into portions, each
converging to one or more nuclei of its own, and thus forming in time
separate solar or stellar systems. We have thus reached the beginning
as well as the end of the present visible universe, and have come to
the conclusion that it began in time and will in time come to an end.
Immortality is therefore impossible in such a universe.
CHAPTER IV.
MATTER AND ETHER.
‘Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
atque metus omnis et inexorabile fatum
subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.’
VERGIL.
‘Who shall tempt with wandering feet
The dark, unbottomed, infinite abyss,
And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way; or spread his airy flight
Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy isle?’—MILTON, _Paradise Lost_.
117. The next portion of the preliminary inquiry necessary to our
concluding argument is that which relates to the intimate nature of
matter; and more especially of that very wonderful form of matter
which is the vehicle of all the energy we receive from the sun, as it
is that of all the information we obtain about the position, motion,
nature, mass, condition, and properties of the almost infinitely more
distant bodies, which are scattered through cosmical space. In other
words, we have hitherto spoken only of the laws of working of the
machine called the physical universe; let us now endeavour to study
the structure of the materials of which it is composed.
118. Various hypotheses have been proposed as to the ultimate nature
of matter. To give even a general account of all the less absurd of
these would require a large volume, so we content ourselves with a
few of the more reasonable or historically more important.
(1.) The foremost place must of course be taken by the old Greek
notion of the _Atom_. The outlines of the atomic theory were laid
down very precisely by Democritus and Leukippus (_circa_ 400 B.C.),
who taught that the whole universe is made up of empty space and
eternal atoms, differing only in form (as =Α= and =Ν=), order (as
=ΑΝ= and =ΝΑ=), and posture (as =Ζ= and =Ν=). The atoms are endued
with a primitive motion in virtue of their weight, and, clashing
together, produce vortices from which the world is formed. The
gradual progress of this whirl of atoms brings similar elements
together, as in the sifting of grain, and so the atoms are sorted
into homogeneous groups.
The great weakness of this theory lay in the very false ideas then
held as to the nature of motion by weight, which was supposed to
be necessarily in parallel lines, and with a velocity greater for
heavy than for light bodies. The difficulty which arose from this
notion led Epicurus to give to the atoms a perfectly arbitrary and
capricious side movement, as well as the rectilineal motion due to
their weight, and thus, in his school, the theory became really a
metaphysical one, reducing the order of the universe to pure chance.
It is such a medley of physical speculations, with metaphysical
notions, that we find in the greatest exponent of the system, the
‘poet philosopher’ Lucretius. With the help of Munro’s splendid
edition of the text of Lucretius, and his very valuable translation
and notes, it is now a comparatively easy matter to give a concise
summary of the principal points of this most remarkable early
physical speculation. In attempting to do so we will endeavour, so
far as we can, to bear in mind the awful but too often disregarded
warning given by the poet himself:—
‘Omnia enim stolidi magis admirantur amantque,
inversis quæ sub verbis latitantia cernunt,
veraque constituunt quæ belle tangere possunt
auris et lepido quæ sunt fucata sonore.’[44]
119. As the purpose of the poem of Lucretius is the establishment
of the very opposite of our present theme, we must consider a good
deal more of his work than the mere properties of atoms. Lucretius
tells us that his object is to dispel the fear of the gods, which he
supposes to arise simply from the fact that there are so many things
which men do not yet understand, and therefore imagine to be effected
by divine power.
Religion, which crushes human life prostrate upon earth, is, he says,
now put under foot; and the great victory achieved by his Greek
instructor over the immeasurable universe (in finding what can and
what cannot come into being) brings us level with heaven.
His followers are not to fancy that there is any sin in this; on the
contrary, religion has perpetually been the cause of sinful deeds.
There is, however, danger of their relapse, for the terror-speaking
seers may once more overcome them. But if men could only be convinced
that the soul is born and perishes with us, then they would be able
to take their ease, and withstand alike religious scruples and
threatenings of the seers. For this purpose we must find out what
mind and soul consist of, and how everything on earth proceeds; and
if we can do this, we may, of course, dispense with the gods.
120. FIRST, then, _nothing comes from nothing_, which seems to be
meant in the sense that there is a physical cause for everything; at
least all the examples which are adduced in proof of the statement
are mere instances of what might be conceived to happen if there were
no fixed determining physical law or cause. But the author is obscure
on this point, for he sometimes makes us inclined to think that he is
virtually only asserting the eternal, unchangeable, existence of the
atom,—the ‘first beginning of things.’
As a corollary to this, of course, _nature does not annihilate
things_, but dissolves them back into their first bodies. The same
negative proof is here attempted. Nothing is lost, but nature can
beget nothing till she is recruited by the death of something else.
Then, to reconcile the reader to the invisibility of these first
bodies, he is shown how nature works by invisible things, as wind
and moisture; how marriage-rings and paving-stones, ploughshares and
statues, are worn away without the loss of any visible particles.
Nature, therefore, works by unseen bodies. Smell, heat, cold, etc.,
must consist of a bodily nature, because they affect the senses; for
nothing but body can touch and be touched.
121. But, SECONDLY, _there is also void in things_, else they would
be jammed together, and unable to move. It is false to say that
things may move in a _plenum_: as, when a fish presses on, it leaves
room behind it, into which the water may stream; for on what side
can the scaly creature move forwards unless the waters have first
made room; and on what side can the waters give place so long as the
fish cannot move? (This of course is metaphysics, and is altogether
absurd. It is the old story of the immovable body receiving the
irresistible blow.) Hence there cannot be motion unless there be void
to allow of a start. Dripping of water in caves, the passage of food
throughout the whole of the body of an animal, the fact that buds
and fruit of trees are nourished from the root, voices heard through
walls, cold penetrating the very bones, all are proofs that there is
void as well as body. Also when one thing is as large as another, but
yet lighter, there must be more void in it.
122. THIRD. _There can be no third thing besides body and void._ For
if it be to the smallest extent tangible, it is body; if not, it is
void.
123. FOURTH. _Bodies are either first beginnings of things_ (atoms),
_or a union of such_. Any thing which can be broken or crushed, or
which can transmit heat or electricity, is partly body and partly
void. Hence body cannot be crushed, and ‘therefore first beginnings
are of solid singleness, and in no other way can they have been
preserved through ages during infinite time past, in order to
reproduce things.’
124. FIFTH. If there be no limit to breakage, nothing could be
reproduced; for reproduction is slower than decay, and therefore the
breaking of infinite past ages would have produced a state of things
incompatible with the reproduction of anything within finite time.
_Hence there exists a least in things._ This cannot be soft, else it
would consist partly of void, and be therefore breakable.
_First beginnings, then, are strong in solid singleness._ Hence the
unreason of those who held fire to be the matter of things, for what
surer test can we have than the senses whereby to note truth and
falsehood!
The doctrine called that of Homœomeria by Anaxagoras is folly,—his
notion, to wit, that everything is made up of little parts the same
as itself—bones of little bones, flesh of little fleshes, etc. For
thus corn and other food, which go to nourish our blood, must be in
part composed of blood, and must therefore bleed when crushed by the
formidable force of the millstone!
125. SIXTH. _Are the atoms infinite in number, and is the void in
which they move unlimited?_ Both questions are answered in the
affirmative, but the proof given is metaphysical and altogether
ridiculous, though it contains a fragmentary passage of real merit,
hinting at Le Sage’s explanation (presently to be given) of the cause
of gravity. One illustration of it must suffice:—‘Nature keeps the
sum of things from setting any limit to itself, since she compels
body to be ended by void, and void in turn by body;’ so that either
by the alternation of the two, or by the infinite extension of one
if the other do not bound it, immeasurable space must be filled. If,
for instance, body were finite, and void infinite, matter would in a
very short time be scattered and borne along in the mighty void; or,
rather, could never have been brought together.
This agrees with an idea which is propounded in the second book, as
to the velocity which the atoms have given them (he does not say how
or whence), and which enables them to cohere for a time and then to
break up again, as everything wanes. Those whose close-tangled shapes
hold them fast together form enduring stone and unyielding iron,
others spring far off and rebound, leaving great spaces between;
‘these furnish us with thin air and bright sunlight.’ Shortly
afterwards, we are told that the velocity of the first beginnings
when passing through empty void must be greater than that of sunlight!
We need not trouble ourselves here with Lucretius’s speculations
as to the formation of tangible bodies from a vertical downpour of
atoms, which, unlike drops of rain, now and then swerve from their
courses so as to clash together, save to mention that he affirms
that, even if he did not know what atoms are, he could be sure, from
its defects, that the world was not made for us by divine power.
126. SEVENTH. This, one of the most important points of the whole
theory, is entirely ignored by some good commentators, and by others
who have more or less closely followed them:—_The first beginnings of
things have different shapes, but the number of shapes is finite_.
127. EIGHTH. _The first beginnings which have a like shape, one with
another, are infinite in number._
That is, there is a finite number of kinds of atoms, but an infinite
number of each kind.
128. NINTH. _Nothing whose nature is apparent to sense consists of
one kind of first beginnings_ (only).
129. We need not trouble ourselves with his notion of the smallness,
smoothness, and roundness of the atoms which make up the mind,
qualities which he arrives at from the rapidity with which the
mind originates and works out a suggestion, contrasting here the
mobility of water with the viscosity of honey. Nor his proof (by the
non-diminution of the weight and dimensions of the body at death),
that the whole mass of the mind must be exceedingly small. But we
may quote, in two of its many forms, his constant reiteration of the
unreasonableness of the fear of death, and his philosophic mode of
overcoming it:—
‘Some wear themselves to death for the sake of statues and a name.
And often to such a degree, through dread of death, does hate of life
and of the sight of daylight seize upon mortals, that they consider
self-murder with a sorrowing heart, quite forgetting that this fear
is the source of their cares (this fear which urges men to every
sin), prompts this one to put all shame to rout, another to burst
asunder the bonds of friendship; and, in fine, to overturn duty from
its very base, since often ere now men have betrayed country and
dear parents in seeking to shun the Acherusian quarters. For, even
as children are flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness,
thus we in the daylight fear at times things not a whit more to be
dreaded than what children shudder at in the dark, and fancy sure to
be. This terror, therefore, and darkness of mind must be dispelled,
not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the
aspect and law of nature.’ Book III. 78.
‘Now no more shall thy house admit thee with glad welcome, nor a
most virtuous wife and sweet children run to be the first to snatch
kisses, and touch thy heart with silent joy. No more mayest thou be
prosperous in thy doings, a safeguard to thine own. One disastrous
day has taken from thee, luckless man, in luckless wise, all the
many prizes of life. This do men say; but add not thereto: “And now
no longer does any craving for these things beset thee withal.” For
if they could rightly perceive this in thought, and follow up the
thought in words, they would release themselves from great distress
and apprehension of mind. Thou, even as now thou art, sunk in the
sleep of death, shalt continue so to be in all time to come, freed
from all distressing pains; but we, with a sorrow that would not be
sated, wept for thee, when close by thou didst turn to an ashen hue
on thy appalling funeral pile, and no length of days shall pluck from
our hearts our ever-enduring grief. This question, therefore, should
be asked of this speaker, what there is in it so passing bitter, if
it come in the end to sleep and rest, that any one should pine in
never-ending sorrow.’ Book III. 894.
130. To conclude, there is a great deal in Lucretius (whether his
own or derived from others does not matter to us) which is of
considerable value, even from a modern scientific point of view,
though, of course, of far greater value from the point of view of the
student of development. But his attempted proofs are for the most
part absurd, based, as they generally are, upon mere metaphysical
speculations and altogether preposterous analogies.
131. (2.) Boscovich and others endeavoured to dispense with the
atom altogether, substituting in its place the conception (which
mathematicians often find useful) of a mere geometrical point, which
is a _centre of force_, as it is called. Here we get rid of the idea
of _substance_ entirely, but we preserve (all but inertia) those
external relations by which alone the atom is capable of making
known its presence. Even so great an experimental philosopher as
Faraday may be quoted as, to some extent at least, agreeing with this
notion. It seems to us, however, that this is the embodiment of an
over-refinement of speculation, surrounded on almost all sides by
the gravest difficulties. It may suffice merely to mention again the
property of mass, or inertia, which Faraday himself seemed to look
upon as the _one_ essential characteristic of matter, and which we
can hardly bring ourselves to associate with the absence of what we
understand by substance.
132. (3.) Another speculation leads us to imagine matter as not
ultimately atomic—as, in fact, infinitely divisible. But, if it
be so, it must (in order that various elementary physical facts
may be capable of explanation) be practically continuous but
intensely heterogeneous. That solid or liquid matter has a grained
structure of not infinitely small dimensions is proved by many
simple and generally known facts; among others by the separation
of white light into its constituent colours when refracted through
a prism, by the phenomena of capillarity, and by those of contact
electricity. If such heterogeneity were only pronounced enough, it
appears that the law of gravitation would be capable of accounting
for at least the greater number of effects at present attributed
to the so-called molecular forces and the force of chemical
affinity. Here, however, we are met by the grand difficulty, that of
accounting for gravitation. And the only attempt at explanation of
gravitation-attraction, which can be called even plausible, can only,
with very great straining, be made compatible with this idea of the
nature of matter.
133. (4.) The fourth and most recent speculation revives the atom (in
the literal sense of the word), but not ‘strong in solid singleness’
like those contemplated by Lucretius,—much rather yielding to the
least external force, and thus escaping from the knife or wriggling
round it, so that it cannot be cut,—not, however, on account of its
hardness, but on account of its mobility, which makes it impossible
for the knife to get at it.
This is the vortex-atom theory of Sir W. Thomson, dimly foreshadowed
in the writings of Hobbes, Malebranche, and others, but only made
distinctly conceivable in very recent times by the hydrokinetic
researches of Helmholtz. Helmholtz, in 1858, first successfully
attacked the equations of motion of an incompressible frictionless
fluid, without introducing the great simplification which had been
adopted by his predecessors, and which consisted in supposing the
motion to be non-rotational. He proved, among other valuable results,
that those portions of the fluid which at any time possess rotation
preserve it for ever, and are thus as it were marked off from the
others; also that these portions must be arranged in filaments
whose direction is at each point the axis of rotation, and that the
filaments are either endless, _i.e._ form closed curves (whether
knotted or not), or terminate in the free surface of the fluid.
Hence Sir William Thomson’s idea that what we call matter may consist
of the rotating portions of a perfect fluid, which continuously fills
space. This definition involves the necessity of a creative act for
the production or destruction of the smallest portion of matter,
because rotation can only be produced or destroyed by us in a fluid
in virtue of its viscosity (or internal friction), and in a perfect
fluid there is nothing of the kind.
134. Of course it may be objected to this theory that it merely
shifts the difficulty one step further back,—after all, explaining
what we call matter by certain motions of something which, as it
must have inertia, it would appear we are bound to call matter
also. We have been careful to mention this (latest) speculation as
to the nature of matter for three reasons: 1st, because we shall
have to make considerable use of it in the course of our argument,
for purposes of illustration; 2d, because it shows one way of at
once thoroughly accounting for the conservation of tangible matter;
3d, because it shows the possibility of forming an idea of a true
atom which shall not require, even for perfect elasticity, the
inconceivable quality of perfect hardness necessary to the atom of
Lucretius. In fact, the few words which we have given above about
Helmholtz’s investigations show that, to cut a vortex-atom, it would
be necessary to give a free surface to the perfect fluid which on
this theory is supposed to fill space, _i.e._ virtually to sever
space itself! This suggestion of Thomson’s promises to be very
valuable from one point of view at least, viz., the extension and
improvement of mathematical methods; for in the treatment of its
very elements it requires the application of the most powerful of
hitherto invented processes, and even with their aid, the mutual
action of two ring-vortices (the simplest possible space-form) has
not yet been investigated except in the special cases of symmetrical
disposition about an axis. Hence we are at present altogether unable
to decide or even to guess whether this idea will or will not pass
with credit some of the most elementary examinations to which a
theory of the ultimate nature of matter must of course be subjected.
135. Take them for what they are worth. The four forms of speculation
we have just sketched represent the most plausible guesses yet
propounded as to the ultimate nature of matter, the second being
probably because the most artificial and the most arbitrary, the most
completely developed. For in it the representation is self-contained
as it were; it does not base itself upon extraneous postulates, as
of ultimate hard particles (of what?), nor upon vortex motion (of
what? again), nor, finally, upon mere intense heterogeneity (of what?
once more), as do the other three. But we naturally object to it as
refining away altogether the idea of _stuff_ or _substance_ which the
mind seems to require as something underlying the notion of anything
which is found to be directly capable of affecting our senses.
136. The reader who has followed us so far, must now see that our
notions of the nature of matter are, at best, but hazy. We know, it
is true, a great many of its properties very exactly, so much so
indeed, as to be able to deduce from them mathematically an immense
variety of consequences which subsequent experiment shows to be
correct, at least within the limits of accuracy of our methods of
observation and measurement. But as to _what it is_ we know no more
than Democritus or Lucretius did, though as to what it may be or may
not be we are perhaps considerably better prepared with an opinion
than they could possibly be.
137. We have seen in the preceding chapter that energy is never found
separate from matter, so that we might, with perfect propriety,
define matter as the seat or vehicle of energy—that which is
essential to the existence of the known forms of energy, without
which, therefore, there could be no transformations of energy, and
therefore no _life_ such as we now know it.
138. The transformability of a given amount of energy, or, at
least, the mode of its transformation, often depends in a very
curious manner upon the relative quantity of matter with which it
is associated. We have already seen this in the case of heat. For,
when a given quantity of heat is associated with a small quantity of
matter, it is at a high temperature, and has great availability, but
its temperature, and therefore its availability, become lower as the
quantity of matter with which it is associated is increased. It is
possible that radiant heat and light owe their high availability to
the very small density of the luminiferous ether.
But it is not of heat alone that this statement is true. The same
thing holds with regard to other forms of energy, even the very
simplest forms of visible kinetic energy for instance. A pillow or
bolster (stuffed with eider-down, let us say) of 30 lbs. weight,
and moving at 10 feet per second—_i.e._ as if it had fallen from a
height of considerably _less than two feet_,—has nearly the same
energy as a pellet of No. 1 shot when it leaves the muzzle of a
fowling-piece. How different the quality of these equal quantities
even of energy of the same kind! For, delivered horizontally, the
one would correspond to a staggering push which few men could resist
if it came unexpectedly; while the other would scarcely affect one’s
equilibrium, though it might easily kill by penetrating a vital
organ. [In the brutal pastimes of the last generation, as we now
in our advanced humanitarianism call them, this was well known as
the difference between the effects of a slow knock-down blow by a
heavy-weight, and a ‘punishing facer’ from a feather-weight. Alas for
the good old times! for our comparison, apt as it is, is too probably
thrown away on the degenerate inhabitants of (once) merry England,
erewhile the home of the ‘Miller,’ with his honest quarterstaff, of
jolly and chivalrous wrestlers, boxers, and bowmen, now the hell of
running-kicks, garrotting, gouging,[45] and stabbing.
Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit
nos nequiores, mox daturos
progeniem vitiosiorem.
The dissipation of energy is a great fact in a moral as well as
in a physical sense. In those good old times _men_ fought with
_men_,—irrepressible energy, rather than any sordid passion or
uncontrolled vice, constantly pulling the trigger! _Now_ creatures
in the likeness of men vent their despicable passions in murderous
assaults upon women and children. But science hints at an effectual
cure. It is probable that before many years have passed, electricity,
which by some mysterious means enables our nerves to call our muscles
into play, will be called upon by an enlightened legislature to solve
this desperate social problem. Imprisonment has been tried in vain,
and, besides, it involves great and needless expense. The ‘cat,’
though thoroughly appropriate, is objected to as tending to brutalise
(!) the patient, and render murder not unlikely. No such objections
can be urged against the use of electricity in any of its many forms.
For it can easily be applied so as to produce for the requisite time,
_and for that only_, and under the direction of skilled physicists
and physiologists, absolutely indescribable torture (unaccompanied by
wound or even bruise), thrilling through every fibre of the frame of
such miscreants.]
139. After inertia, which is not accounted for by any of the
hypotheses as to the ultimate nature of matter which we have just
given, the most general property of matter which we recognise is that
of universal gravitation, in virtue of which portions of matter, if
situated at a distance from one another, are possessed of potential
energy. We are apt to hold exaggerated notions of the immense power
of gravity; but a little consideration will show us that it is in
reality one of the most trivial of the forces to which matter is
directly or indirectly subject.
Think for a moment of the fundamental experiments in electricity and
magnetism, known to men for far more than 2000 years,—the lifting of
light bodies in general by rubbed amber, and of iron filings by a
loadstone. To produce the same effects by gravitation-attraction,—at
least if the attracting body had the moderate dimensions of a
hand-specimen of amber or loadstone,—we should require it to be of so
dense a material as to weigh at the very least 1,000,000,000 lbs.,
instead of (as usual) a mere fraction of a pound. Hence it is at once
obvious that the imposing nature of the force of gravity, as usually
compared with other attractive forces, is due not to its superior
qualitative magnitude, but to the enormous masses of the bodies which
exercise it.
In fact, the excessively delicate Torsion-balance of Michell was
absolutely requisite to demonstrate, much more to measure, the mutual
attraction between a large and a small leaden sphere. And (unless
the third of the hypotheses as to the nature of matter above given
be correct, in which case the _form_ of our statement would require
modification) small or even moderately large pieces of matter are
held together entirely by cohesion, gravitation being absolutely
insensible; though in a huge mass like the earth, the force exerted
by one hemisphere on the other (_i.e._ the force which would be
called into play to prevent its being split in two) depends mainly
upon gravitation, in comparison with whose enormous amount even a
cohesive force of 500 lbs. weight per square inch over a circular
surface of 4000 miles radius sinks into utter insignificance![46]
140. One only of the many hypotheses which have been advanced to
explain the cause of gravitation has succeeded in passing the first
preliminary tests. Of course, the assumption of action at a distance
may be made to account for anything; but it is impossible (as Newton
long ago pointed out in his celebrated letters to Bentley) for
any one ‘who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of
thinking’ for a moment to admit the possibility of such action.
Hence we have but two ways of accounting for gravitation:—either it
is due to differences of pressure in a substance continuously filling
all space, except where matter displaces it (?), or it is due to
impacts, in some respects analogous to those of the particles of a
gas which have been found to be capable of accounting for gaseous
pressure.
Now, all attempts as yet made to connect it with the luminiferous
ether, or the medium required to explain electric and magnetic
distance-action, have completely failed; so that we are apparently
driven to the impact theory as the only tenable one.
141. To this theory Le Sage of Geneva devoted a singularly acute mind
during the whole of his exceptionally long life; but, for all that,
his posthumous tract on the subject is but little in advance of the
results he had arrived at in his eighteenth year.
He assumes the existence of ultra-mundane corpuscles; in infinite
numbers, even compared with those of the particles of matter; of
dimensions excessively small, but flying about in all directions
with velocities enormously great. Portions of gross matter virtually
screen one another to a certain extent from the pressure due to this
perpetual rain of corpuscles; but only on the sides turned towards
one another. Hence a lone body would be equally battered on all
sides; but the introduction of a second mass interferes with this
arrangement, and diminishes the pressure on the side next it. It is
easy to show that the amount of this diminution, for _given small
masses_, is inversely as the square of their relative distance. But
when larger masses are taken account of, this diminution of pressure
will not be (as gravity is) directly as the quantities of matter
present, unless the further assumption is made that matter, whether
by the great distance between its particles, or by the cage-like form
of these particles, is almost perfectly permeable to the corpuscles;
so that, practically, the corpuscles rain upon each of the interior
particles of a mass as freely as if it had been alone in space.
Some of the postulates of this theory are hard to grant, and there is
additional difficulty as to the mode in which the supply of energy
of the corpuscles is to be kept up. To enter into details on this
subject is not in accordance with our plan. We therefore refer the
reader to Sir W. Thomson’s account of Le Sage’s theory (Proc. R.S.E.,
1871), and his suggestions for its improvement, based upon his theory
of vortex-atoms.[47]
142. But we must make one remark. If Le Sage’s theory, or anything
of a similar nature, be at all a representation of the mechanism of
gravitation, a fatal blow is dealt to the notion of the tranquil
form of power we have called _potential_ energy. Not that there will
cease to be a profound difference in kind between it and ordinary
_kinetic_ energy; but that BOTH must come henceforth to be regarded
as kinetic. What we now call kinetic energy is that of visible
motions, also of motions of the smaller parts of bodies, and of the
luminiferous ether, etc., each of these being more refined, as it
were, than the preceding. But if Le Sage’s theory be true, potential
energy of gravitation is a kinetic form still further refined than
any of these. And the conservation of energy may perhaps once
more be completely and accurately expressed as the conservation
of _vis viva_, though the term will of course have then a meaning
incomparably more extensive than its original one.
143. But, in speculations like these, we have soared far beyond that
which may be called the first refinement on ordinary gross matter;
_i.e._ the luminiferous, probably also the electric and magnetic,
medium, provisionally the _Ether_.
To the consideration of its principal properties we now turn our
attention.
These are, at first sight at least, of an apparently incongruous
character; for, from one point of view, the ether appears as a
fluid, from another as an elastic solid. Nothing is more certainly
established in physical astronomy than the excessive minuteness
of the resistance offered by the ether to the planetary motions,
if, indeed, there be such a resistance at all appretiable, even
when the velocity is, as in the case of the earth, somewhere about
100,000 feet per second! On the other hand, we learn from physical
optics that light, transmitted with a velocity of 188,000 miles per
second, depends upon transverse disturbances of some kind or other;
while several optical phenomena indicate that a disturbance of the
nature of compression (if such be possible) would be transmitted
with velocity almost infinitely great, in comparison even with this
enormous velocity.
144. Stokes, however, has given a very ingenious illustration
which enables us to see that such an extraordinary combination of
apparently irreconcilable properties is by no means without analogy,
even in common matter. He takes the case of a solution of glue, or
isinglass, or jelly, in different relative amounts of water. When
the quantity of water is small, we have the elastic solid; when
large, a liquid little different from water. And Stokes shows that
it is excessively improbable that there is any definite intermediate
stage which we could assign as that at which the transition from the
solid to the liquid takes place. Of course, any such analogy must
necessarily be excessively imperfect; but a great deal is gained by
our being able to trace even a very imperfect analogy in a case like
this.
145. The ether, in fact, must be distorted as well as displaced by
matter passing through it; but any distortion of the nature of a
shear, such as would give rise in water to vortex-motion accompanied
by friction (the whole energy being thus ultimately frittered down
into heat), would in the ether be handed on at once, as vibratory
motion, with the velocity of light. Thus vortex-motion of the ether
may be conceived to be impossible, simply in consequence of the
minuteness of its density in comparison with the great tangential
force called into play by a shear; and a body moving in it with a
velocity not so great as that of light would thus not have eddies in
its wake, as in an ordinary fluid, but, on the contrary, would be a
source of radiation, even although there may have been no heating
either of the body or of the medium it is displacing, paradoxical as
this result may appear. In this connection it is hardly possible to
avoid quoting Milton—though there may be a suspicion of something
analogous to a pun:—
‘The grinding sword with discontinuous wound
Passed through him—but the ethereal substance closed
Not long divisible.’
146. Sir William Thomson has endeavoured to obtain at least an
inferior limit to the density of the ether in planetary space. His
method is based upon the measurements by Pouillet and Herschel
of the whole amount of radiant energy received from the sun by a
given amount of terrestrial surface in a given time, and upon an
assumption that the extreme amplitude of distortion of the ether
in any radiation is small compared with the length of a wave. In
this way he finds that, as a cubic mile of the ether near the earth
contains about 12,000 foot-pounds of radiant solar energy, the mass
of the ether in that cubic mile must be at least 1/1,000,000,000 of
a pound.[48] To show that this is not by any means a surprisingly
small quantity he compares it with the mass of a cubic mile of air at
a distance of only a few radii from the earth’s surface (supposing
that the atmosphere extends so far; which, by the way, the recent
calculations of the velocities of the particles of a gas render
exceedingly improbable). This, he finds, will be probably represented
by a fraction of a pound having unit for a numerator and 329 places
of figures in the denominator!!!
147. In a very remarkable paper by Struve,[49] an attempt was made to
settle the question, _Is the ether perfectly transparent?_ or, as we
may now put it, Is any radiant energy absorbed by the ether, whether
to produce other forms of energy, or to be dissipated by radiation
in all directions? Long ago it had been pointed out by Olbers and
others, that if the stars be infinite in number, and be distributed
with anything roughly approximating to an average density through
infinite space, the sky ought, night and day, to be all over of a
brightness of the same order as that of the sun. Is the number of
stars, then, finite; or does the ether absorb their light? Now, it
need not in the least surprise us to find that the number of stars is
_finite_, even though matter be infinite in quantity, and distributed
with something like uniformity through infinite space. For only a
finite portion of it may yet have fallen together so as to produce
incandescent bodies; or, the other extreme, only a finite portion of
it may be left incandescent. Either of these altogether different
hypotheses is perfectly reasonable and scientifically justifiable;
so that, from this point of view, we are not at present likely to
obtain any information. Struve’s reasoning, which, by the way, is
not accepted by Sir J. Herschel, introduces another consideration,
viz., _the number of stars of each visible magnitude_. To apply
this: suppose for a moment we make the assumption (actually measured
values of annual parallax show it is certainly at best a very rough
one) that the brighter stars are the nearer, and that a set of
stars, on the average one-fourth as bright as another set, are on
the average twice as far off, etc. A great deal of what we know to
be certainly false is here assumed as true, but it is possible that
the general accuracy of the results of the reasoning from it may
not be thereby much affected. On the supposition of a sort of rough
uniformity of distribution through space, we can easily calculate
approximately what ought to be the relative numbers of the stars,
classed by astronomers as of the various different magnitudes,
once we have obtained (as it is not difficult to do) an estimate
of the relative brightness of typical stars of these (arbitrary)
magnitudes. From their brightness we calculate at once their relative
distances, and thence (according to our hypothesis of approximately
uniform distribution) what ought to be _the relative numbers of each
magnitude_. When this is done, it appears that there is a great
excess of the calculated over the observed numbers, at least for
telescopic stars, and the greater the smaller the magnitude. This is
the gist of Struve’s method, and he arrives at the result that the
light of stars of the sixth magnitude (the smallest visible to an
ordinary unaided eye, and whose average distance from us is supposed
to be somewhere about ninefold that of stars of the first magnitude)
loses about eight per cent. in its passage to the earth. Thus the
light of stars of the first magnitude does not lose so much as one
per cent.; but, on the other hand, stars of the ninth magnitude are
enfeebled to the extent of about 30 per cent. Struve shows that, if
his result is to be accepted, W. Herschel’s idea that his 40-foot
telescope would show him stars seven times farther off than those
visible with the 10-foot, was erroneous. He would, in fact, have been
able to see little more than _twice_ as far.
It will be obvious now that an enormous increase of the so-called
_space-penetrating_ power of a telescope gives it in reality but
a very feeble additional advantage, in fact, that, if there be
absorption by the ether, we have already instruments capable of
showing us, at the very least, half of the whole number of stars
which any conceivable improvement of telescopes would enable us to
see.
148. It would be out of place here to speculate on what becomes
of the light thus supposed to be absorbed, for we have as yet no
experimental bases on which to reason. We have not the least idea,
for instance, what is the effect of change of temperature in the
luminiferous ether. That it is practically incompressible we know; it
is quite probable that it may not be sensibly compressed (if it be
subject to gravity, of which we have no proof) even by the attraction
of the mass of the whole earth—though, so great is the intensity of
molecular or cohesive attraction, we may easily conceive that in
the interior of bodies the ether may be considerably compressed.
And it is not improbable that the ether, as a whole, may have, in
virtue of its internal forces, a property (akin, as it were, to a
liquid film) such that the gravitation action, which appears to be
between particles of matter, may merely be the visible result of a
tendency to a minimum of some affection of the fluid in which they
are immersed.
Regard the ether as we please, there can be no doubt that its
properties are of a much higher order in the arcana of nature than
those of tangible matter. And as even the high-priests of science
still find the latter far beyond their comprehension, except in
numerous but minute and often isolated particulars, it would not
become us to speculate further. It is sufficient for our purpose to
know from what the ether certainly does that it is capable of vastly
more than any one has yet ventured to guess.
149. If we review the attempts recorded in this chapter we see how
the scientific mind is led from the visible and tangible to the
invisible and intangible.
In the first place, we know that one body, such as the sun, can
part with its radiant energy to another body, such as the earth,
and observation and experiment alike lead us to acknowledge a stage
in which the energy has left the one body and has not yet arrived
at the other. But we have already seen that energy is always found
associated with matter, never by itself. In fact we have spoken of
matter as the ‘vehicle of energy.’ Hence it necessarily follows
that there is something between the sun and earth capable of moving
and transmitting energy, and therefore, from the very conception of
energy, possessing mass—this something we agree to call the ethereal
medium.
Again, we know that different masses of visible matter attract one
another apparently at a distance. Our first attempt to analyse the
nature of this force leads to the question:—Does it proceed from
the surfaces of the attracting bodies, or does it penetrate their
entire mass? This question was answered by Newton, who came to
the conclusion that every particle of matter attracts every other
particle with a force proportional to the product of their masses,
and inversely proportional to the square of their distances.
But this drives the mystery of gravitation only from the mass to the
particle, and here the same sort of questions again occur. A particle
as truly as a mass occupies space, and we wish to know whether
gravitation force proceeds from the surface of the particle or from
its interior.
150. We likewise wish to know how this force is communicated between
one particle and another? Before we can solve these questions we
must have some definite conception of the nature of a particle and
of the constitution of the surrounding medium. Sir W. Thomson, as we
have seen, has attempted to advance towards the nature of an atom or
particle in his supposition that atoms are vortex-rings generated out
of a perfect fluid filling all space. While, however, this conception
accounts for some of the properties of an atom it does not at all
directly account for anything like gravitation, and hence he adopts
in addition the hypothesis of ultra-mundane corpuscles, which he
supposes to be only a finer form of vortices.
151. There is, however, one objection to the precise form of
vortex-ring hypothesis introduced by Thomson which from our point
of view is very strong. The act by which the atom was produced must
surely on this hypothesis have been an act of creation in time
(Art. 133), that is to say, an act impressed upon the universe from
without, and it must therefore have denoted a breach of continuity
(Art. 85); for if the antecedent of the visible universe be nothing
but a perfect fluid, can we imagine it capable of originating such a
development in virtue of its own inherent properties, and without
some external act implying a breach of continuity?—we think most
assuredly not. In the production of the vortex-atom from a perfect
fluid we are driven at once to the unconditioned—to the Great First
Cause; it is, in fine, an act of creation and not of development.
But from our point of view (Art. 86) creation belongs to eternity
and development to time, and we are therefore induced at least to
modify the hypothesis so as to make it consistent with this view. We
cannot, in fact, if we agree to hold at the same time the principle
of unbroken continuity and the vortex-ring theory of formation of
the visible universe, regard the material whose rotating parts are
ordinary matter as an absolutely perfect fluid.
152. This way of regarding this supposed material is strengthened
by the fact that the hypothesis which seems most likely to account
for gravitation presumes the existence of ultra-mundane corpuscles:
and the observations of Struve upon the extinction of starlight
tend (whatever they are worth) towards the same conclusion, since
the absorption of light is more compatible with a corpuscular
constitution than with that of a perfect fluid. Finally, the mere
fact that the velocity of light is finite, tends also in the same
direction. But if the visible universe be developed from a material
which is not a perfect fluid, then the argument deduced by Sir W.
Thomson in favour of the eternity of ordinary matter disappears,
since this eternity depends upon the perfect fluidity of that out of
which it was developed. In fine, if we suppose the material universe
to be composed of a series of vortex-rings developed from something
which is not a perfect fluid, it will be ephemeral, just as the
smoke-ring which we develop from air, or that which we develop from
water, is ephemeral, the only difference being in duration, these
lasting only for a few seconds, and the others it may be for billions
of years.
153. In our last chapter, we came to the conclusion that the
available energy of the visible universe will ultimately be
appropriated by the ether, and we may now perhaps imagine, that as
a separate existence itself the visible universe will ultimately
disappear, so that we shall have no huge useless inert mass existing
in far remote ages to remind the passer-by of a species of matter
which will then have become long since out of date and functionally
effete. Why should not the universe bury its dead out of sight?[50]
CHAPTER V.
DEVELOPMENT.
‘Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;
* * * * *
‘“So careful of the type”? but no,
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, “A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.”’—TENNYSON.
‘_All nature is but art_, unknown to thee;
_All chance, direction_, which thou canst not see,
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.’—POPE.
154. In the two preceding Chapters we have dwelt upon the laws of
energy and the ultimate constitution of matter; in other words,
we have discussed the laws according to which the machine called
the visible universe works, as well as the probable nature of the
material of which it is composed. We have in this process (Arts.
86, 151) come to the conclusion that the visible universe has been
developed out of the invisible. Once developed, it has its own laws
of action which we may discover,—laws which at present appear to
be invariably followed, as far at least as our strictly scientific
experience can inform us.
In fine, the visible universe is that which we are in a position to
observe; gaining an insight into its present method of working, and
trying also to reply to the very interesting question, Has it always
worked in its present manner, or has there ever been any apparent
break?
Let us therefore consider this visible universe immediately after its
production, and endeavour to become acquainted with the course of its
development. What did it do? Was it, or was it not, entirely left to
itself, and to what may be termed the natural laws impressed upon
it when it was produced? Or, if the results of our inquiry seem to
show that it was not entirely left to itself, when, to what extent,
and for what purposes, has there been and is there interference
proceeding from the unseen?
In replying to these questions, let us, for the sake of convenience,
consider development under the three following heads, viz., (α)
Chemical or Stuff Development, (β) Globe Development, (γ) Life
Development.
155. Beginning with chemical or stuff development, we come at once to
a very interesting and important question. Assuming that the atoms
of the present universe were developed from the invisible, were
different kinds of atoms thus developed, or were they all of one kind?
To this question the chemist of last century would have replied, that
undoubtedly there were many kinds of primeval atoms, and then would
follow a formidable list of all these various substances which he
was unable to decompose.
The chemist of thirty or forty years later would still have replied
to the question in the same way, but he would probably have furnished
a different list of primeval elements less formidable in number.
If the chemist of forty years ago had been asked, he would have
furnished a list of perhaps fifty simple substances; but then,
probably, the minimum would have been reached; for ask the chemist of
to-day, and he will furnish a list of sixty-four so-called elements.
156. But while the number of as yet undecomposed bodies is slowly
increasing by fresh discoveries, chemists are beginning to speculate
as to the possibility that these so-called elements may be in reality
nothing more than combinations differing in numbers and in tactical
arrangement, of some one kind of primordial atoms.
This idea was first entertained by Dr. Prout, the well-known
physician and chemist. He pointed out that the atomic weights of the
various so-called elements are very nearly all multiples of the half
of that of hydrogen, so that the various elements may possibly be
looked upon as formed by a grouping together of certain atoms of half
the mass of the hydrogen atom.
M. Stas, the distinguished Belgian chemist, instituted a laborious
series of experiments with the view of testing this doctrine. He came
to the conclusion that the atomic weights of the various elements
were not precisely multiples of the half of that of hydrogen, there
being greater differences than could possibly be accounted for by
errors of experiment. His researches, however, seemed to show that
in many cases there was a very near approach to Prout’s imagined
law. But in no case does the discrepance appear to us greatly to
exceed what may easily be attributed to unavoidable impurities in the
substances operated on; say only those due to the condensation of
gases in the pores of solids, which (in certain cases at least) is
known to amount to a very considerable quantity.
157. From another point of view there appears to be evidence in
favour of the so-called elementary bodies being built up, as more or
less complex arrangements of one, or at most a few, simpler kinds of
matter.
There are certain groups or families amongst these elements of such a
nature that the various members of one family appear to be related to
each other, in the same way as the corresponding members of another
family.
This clearly points to some sort of community of origin, and
thus favours the idea that the elements are in reality composite
structures. But the great difficulty felt by those who have favoured
this idea has been the apparent impossibility of decomposing such
family groups. Thus fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine, while
they appear to be related to one another in some peculiar manner,
have yet apparently resisted all attempts at decomposition, and there
are other similar instances which might easily be named.
158. It has, however, at the same time, come to be recognised, that
heat of high temperature is a very powerful decomposing agent, and
that its office is by no means limited to causing the separation
from one another of the molecules of a substance, as, for instance,
when it separates the molecules of water-substance or H_{2}O from
one another, as in forming water from ice, or steam from water. It
is now understood that high-temperature heat has also the power of
separating the atomic constituents of a single molecule from each
other, so that at an extremely high temperature not only would water
be driven into steam, but steam driven into oxygen and hydrogen. We
are already familiar with many instances of this power possessed by
high-temperature heat; thus we see carbonate of lime decomposed by
the heat of the kiln into lime and carbonic-acid gas. We see also
that at the high temperatures which accompany the electric spark
almost all compounds are momentarily decomposed, if we may judge
by the spectrum of the light which is given out. Carrying on this
line of thought, we are led to imagine that, could we obtain higher
temperatures than those now at our disposal, we might decompose some
of those substances which at present seem to be elements.
159. Lockyer, in his astronomical researches, has recently started
this question. He argues that in the sun and stars, and more
especially in the whiter stars, there are temperatures very much
higher than any which have been here produced. He assumes too
that simplicity of constitution accompanies a simple spectrum, an
hypothesis which is consistent with the fact that compounds as a rule
give spectra much more complicated than those of simple substances.
Now it is a curious circumstance that the atmospheres of some of
the whiter stars, such as Sirius, do not appear to contain anything
but hydrogen; at least we have no indication that they do; other
stars, again, of less whiteness, in addition to hydrogen, have such
substances as iron, sodium, etc., while yellow, orange, and blood-red
stars and variable stars, appear to contain in their atmospheres
substances which are compounds. If then it be true that as a rule the
atmospheres of the whiter stars contain the fewer elements and those
of smallest atomic weight, and that as stars diminish in whiteness
their atmospheres rise in complexity of structure, in fine, if we
have reason to associate together whiteness and simplicity, this
undoubtedly tells in favour of the power of high-temperature heat to
split up the so-called elements.
We conclude the whiter stars to be the hotter stars, from the
fact that their spectra contain a greater proportion of the more
refrangible rays than do those of yellow or red stars.
In fine, a speculation of this nature is not to be summarily
dismissed, but ought to be retained as a working hypothesis which
may in time throw great light on the ultimate constitution of the
chemical elements. Is it fanciful to suppose that the passage
prefixed to Chapter III. may refer to this, since (literally
translated) it stands—‘... the elements, intensely heated, shall be
broken up....’?
160. Let us now turn to globe development. We have alluded to this
already while discussing the energy of the universe. In doing so
we came to the conclusion that the original state of the visible
universe was a diffused or chaotic state, in which the various
particles were widely separated from one another, but exerting on
one another gravitating force, and therefore possessed of potential
energy. As these particles came together, impinged on one another, or
gathered into groups, this potential energy was gradually transformed
into the energy of heat and into that of visible motion. We may
thus imagine the cooling and (except under very strict conditions
of original distribution) _necessarily_ revolving matter in course
of time to have thrown off certain parts of itself which would
thereafter form satellites or planetary attendants, while the central
mass would form the sun. We have here, in fact, the development
hypothesis of Kant and Laplace, and it is greatly in favour of the
truth of this hypothesis that all the planetary motions of the solar
system are nearly in one plane, and also that, looking down on the
system from above that plane, all these motions are seen to be in one
and the same direction.
161. Assuming, therefore, that the solar system and, _pari passu_,
the other sidereal systems have been formed in this way, it is very
easy to see why the central mass should be so much hotter than its
attendants. Two causes would conduce to this. In the first place,
assuming that the heat of a mass is due to the rushing together
of its particles under the force of gravitation, the velocities
would be much greater for the central mass, and hence the amount of
heat (per unit of mass, _i.e._ the temperature) developed would be
greater also. In the next place, the body being a large one would
cool less rapidly than its attendant planets. These two causes thus
combine to render the largest bodies of the universe ever since their
aggregation (and still more now) the hottest, so that the same
body which forms the gravitating centre of the system becomes, when
required, also the dispenser of light and heat.
162. Now, without speculating about the nature or extent of the
ethereal medium, we may be sure of two things. In the first place,
all but an exceedingly small fraction of the light and heat of
the sun and stars goes out into space and does not return to them
again, or in other words, the sun and stars are slowly cooling. To
restore to the sun every instant its losses by radiation, the whole
celestial vault would have to radiate as powerfully as the sun
does—in which case the earth and planets would very soon acquire (at
their surfaces) the sun’s temperature. In the next place, the visible
motion of the large bodies of the universe is gradually being stopped
by something which may be denominated ethereal friction. It follows
from this that our own sun will gradually lose his brilliancy, and
that our earth will gradually lose its orbital energy and approach
the sun in a path of slowly contracting spiral convolutions. At last
it will become entangled with the sun, and the result will be the
conversion of the remaining orbital energy into heat, after which the
two bodies will remain one.
Thus the tendency is that the sun shall ultimately absorb the
various planets of the system, his heat and energy being recruited
by the process. Now, let us imagine that the same processes are
simultaneously going on in one of the nearer fixed stars, say for
instance in Sirius.
After unimaginable ages these two stars, the Sun and Sirius, having
each long since swallowed up his attendants, but being nevertheless
exhausted in heat-energy on account of radiation into space, may be
imagined to be travelling towards one another, slowly at first, but
afterwards with an accelerated motion.
They will at last approach each other with a great velocity, and
finally form one system. Ultimately the two will rush together and
form one mass, the orbital energy of each (or rather that portion of
this energy which remains after ethereal friction) being converted
into heat, and the matter being, in consequence, probably partly
smashed into mere dust, and partly evaporated and transformed into
a gaseous, nebulous condition. Ages pass away, and the large double
mass ultimately shares the same fate that long since overtook the
single masses which composed it; that is to say, it shrinks and
throws off planets, but gives out the greater part of its light
and heat into space and gradually becomes cold and dark, until at
length it comes to form one of the constituents of a still more
stupendous collision, and has its temperature raised once again by
the conversion of visible energy into heat.
163. Our readers will remark how, by a process of this kind, the
primordial potential energy of the visible universe is gradually
converted into light and heat, and how this light and heat are
ultimately dissipated into space. They will also remark that, as the
process goes on, the masses of the universe become larger and larger.
In fine, the dissipation of the energy of the visible universe
proceeds, _pari passu_, with the aggregation of mass.
The very fact, therefore, that the large masses of the visible
universe are of finite size, is sufficient to assure us that the
process cannot have been going on for ever; or, in other words, that
the visible universe must have had its origin in time, and we may
conclude that if the visible universe be finite in mass the process
will ultimately come to an end. All this is what would take place,
provided we allow the indestructibility of ordinary matter; but we
may perhaps suppose (Art. 153) that the very material of the visible
universe will ultimately vanish into the invisible.
164. There is one peculiarity of the process of development just
described, which we beg our readers to note. We have supposed the
visible universe, after its production, to have been left to its
own laws; that is to say, to certain so-called inorganic agencies,
which for want of better knowledge we for the present call forces,
in virtue of which its development took place.[51] At the very first
there may have been only one kind of primordial atom, or, to use
another expression, absolute simplicity of material. As, however, the
various atoms approached each other, in virtue of the forces with
which they were endowed, other and more complicated structures took
the place of the perfectly simple primordial stuff. Various kinds of
molecules were produced at various temperatures, and these ultimately
came together to produce globes or worlds, some of them comparatively
small, others very large. Thus the progress is from the regular to
the irregular. And we find a similar progress when we consider the
inorganic development of our own world. The action of water rounds
pebbles, but it rounds them irregularly; it produces soil, but
the soil is irregular in the size of its grains, and variable in
constitution. Wherever what may be termed the brute forces of nature
are left to themselves, this is always the result: not so, however,
when organisms are concerned in the development. Two living things
of the same family are more like each other than two grains of sand
or than two particles of soil. The eggs of birds of the same family,
the corresponding feathers of similar birds, the ants from the same
ant-hill, all form groups whose members have a very strong likeness
to each other.
We find this likeness still more marked when we regard certain
products of human industry. Let us take, for instance, coins from the
same die, or bullets from the same mould, or impressions from the
same engraved plate, and we at once perceive the striking difference
between products developed through inorganic means and those
developed through an intelligent agent designing uniformity.
165. Let us now proceed to consider life development. Let us imagine
that the primeval atoms have long since come together, various
chemical substances being the result. And let us further imagine
that these various substances have long since gathered themselves
into worlds, of various sizes at first; but that these worlds have
gradually cooled down, until one of them, the Earth, let us say, has
at length reached conditions under which life (such as we know it)
becomes possible. Accordingly life makes its appearance; not the life
that now is, but something much ruder and simpler. But in process of
time we find quite a different order of organised beings; a higher
and more complete type has appeared, and the type continues to rise
until it culminates in the production of man, a being endowed with
intelligence, and capable of reasoning upon the phenomena around him.
Now, if man reviews these organised forms which exist on the earth
side by side with himself, he perceives at once that a number of
individuals possess certain characteristics in common, and he gives
expression to this experience by saying that these individuals are
all of one species. ‘When we call a group of animals or of plants a
species,’ says Professor Huxley,[52] ‘we may imply thereby, either
that all these animals or plants have some common peculiarity of form
or structure; or we may mean that they possess some common functional
character. That part of biological science which deals with form
and structure is called Morphology; that which concerns itself with
function, Physiology. So that we may conveniently speak of these
two senses, or aspects, of “species”—the one as morphological, the
other as physiological.... Thus horses form a species, because the
group of animals to which that name is applied is distinguished
from all others in the world by the following constantly associated
characters:—They have, 1. a vertebral column; 2. mammae; 3. a
placental embryo; 4. four legs; 5. a single well-developed toe in
each foot, provided with a hoof; 6. a bushy tail; and 7. callosities
on the inner sides of both the fore and the hind legs. The asses,
again, form a distinct species, because, with the same characters, as
far as the fifth in the above list, all asses have tufted tails, and
have callosities only on the inner side of the fore legs.’
But very often the morphological peculiarities of a species are
more easily recognised than expressed. No one, for instance, would
fail to rank the horse as one species and the ass as another, even
while ignorant of some of those specific peculiarities which the
naturalist selects as conveying the best scientific account of their
difference.
166. Let us now regard the question of species from its physiological
point of view. Suppose that two individuals, A and B, of different
sexes, breed freely together, producing offspring, and that two
individuals, C and D, do the like.
Now, if the offspring of A and B is capable of breeding freely with
that of C and D, producing offspring, generation after generation,
then A, B, C, and D may be said to belong to the same physiological
species.
To take an illustration borrowed from Professor Huxley: let us
imagine that A is an Arab, and B a dray-horse; also that C is a
dray-horse, and D an Arab. Now the progeny of these two pairs will
all be mongrels, holding a position intermediate between that of the
Arab and the dray-horse; but they will be perfectly fertile amongst
themselves when matched together. We therefore conclude that the
dray-horse and the Arab are not distinct physiological species, but
only varieties of the same species. Again, let A be a horse and B an
ass, also let C be an ass and D a horse. The pairs will still have
offspring, and these will be mules, having a character intermediate
between that of the horse and that of the ass; but, on the other
hand, these mules will not be able to breed together amongst
themselves so as to produce offspring. We are therefore justified
in asserting that a horse and an ass are of different physiological
species.
If we should ever attempt to pair together animals much more unlike
each other than the horse and the ass, we should simply fail. They
will not come together, and we cannot tell whether, if they did, they
would be capable of producing progeny. We may therefore conclude
that, as matter of fact, there are certain well-marked physiological
species that will not breed with each other at all, while there are
other species also physiologically distinct, but not so markedly
separated from each other, that may be brought to breed together,
their offspring being infertile.
167. The most apparent conclusion to be deduced from these
facts would be that of the invariability of species, and of the
impossibility of its transmutation—the infertility of hybrids being
the law which prevents any such transmutation from taking place. And
as the physiological species cannot be made different the apparent
conclusion is that in times past they have been always the same as
they are now. If this be allowed, it follows that inasmuch as they
took their origin in time, they must have originally been produced
very much as they are at the present moment,—a separate act of
production being required for each species, or rather two separate
acts for each species. This position has always been regarded as
a stronghold by a certain class of theological thinkers, and they
have resented the attempts of men of science to obtain any other
explanation of the origin of species.
Men of science have, on the other hand, asserted their right to
discuss this question with the same freedom as any other. Our
point of view is somewhat different from that of either of these
two parties. We think it is not so much the right or privilege as
the bounden duty of the man of science to put back the direct
interference of the Great First Cause—the unconditioned—as far as he
possibly can in time. This is the intellectual or rather theoretical
work which he is called upon to do—the post that has been assigned to
him in the economy of the universe.
If, then, two possible theories of the production of any phenomenon
are presented to the man of science, one of these implying the
immediate operation of the unconditioned, and the other the operation
of some cause existing in the universe, we conceive that he is called
upon by the most profound obligations of his nature and work to
choose the second in preference to the first. But we have already
sufficiently discussed this question in a previous part of this book
(Art. 85).
168. When we examine closely into the phenomena of life we find that
side by side with the general law, that like produces like, there is
a tendency to minor variations.
Thus we have already agreed to consider dray-horses and Arabs as
varieties of the species horse; and in like manner pouters, carriers,
fan-tails, and tumblers are all varieties of the species rock-pigeon.
We are therefore led to ask how such varieties were originally
produced, and how they become perpetuated after their production.
Now it is well known that there occurs occasionally an accountable
variation, so marked in its nature as to be worthy of historical
record. Two very interesting and instructive instances of this are
given by Professor Huxley, and we take the liberty of quoting these
in the Professor’s own words:—
‘The first of them is that of the “Ancon,” or “Otter” sheep,
of which a careful account is given by Colonel David Humphreys,
F.R.S., in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, published in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ for 1813. It appears that one Seth
Wright, the proprietor of a farm on the banks of the Charles
River in Massachusetts, possessed a flock of fifteen ewes and
a ram of the ordinary kind. In the year 1791, one of the ewes
presented her owner with a male lamb differing, for no assignable
reason, from its parents by a proportionally long body and
short bandy legs, whence it was unable to emulate its relatives
in those sportive leaps over the neighbours’ fences, in which
they were in the habit of indulging, much to the good farmer’s
vexation.
* * * * *
‘With the ’cuteness characteristic of their nation, the
neighbours of the Massachusetts farmer imagined it would be
an excellent thing if all his sheep were imbued with the
stay-at-home tendencies enforced by nature upon the newly
arrived ram, and they advised Wright to kill the old patriarch
of his fold, and install the Ancon ram in his place. The result
justified their sagacious anticipations.... The young lambs were
almost always either pure Ancons or pure ordinary sheep. But
when sufficient Ancon sheep were obtained to interbreed with one
another it was found that the offspring was always pure Ancon.’
‘The second case is that detailed by a no less unexceptionable
authority than Réaumur, in his _Art de faire éclore les Poulets_.
A Maltese couple named Kelleia, whose hands and feet were
constructed upon the ordinary human model, had born to them
a son, Gratio, who possessed six perfectly moveable fingers
on each hand, and six toes, not quite so well formed, on each
foot. No cause could be assigned for the appearance of this
unusual variety of the human species. But however they may have
arisen, what especially interests us is to remark that, once in
existence, varieties obey the fundamental law of reproduction,
that like tends to produce like, and their offspring exemplify
it by tending to exhibit the same deviation from the parental
stock as themselves. Indeed, there seems to be in many instances
a prepotent influence about a newly arisen variety which
gives it what we may call an unfair advantage over the normal
descendants from the same stock. This is strikingly exemplified
by the case of Gratio Kelleia, who married a woman with the
ordinary pentadactyle extremities and had by her four children,
Salvator, George, André, and Marie. Of these children Salvator,
the eldest boy, had six fingers and six toes, like his father;
the second and third, also boys, had five fingers and five toes,
like their mother, though the hands and feet of George were
slightly deformed; the last, a girl, had five fingers and five
toes, but the thumbs were slightly deformed. The variety thus
reproduced itself purely in the eldest, while the normal type
reproduced itself purely in the third, and almost purely in the
second and last; so that it would seem, at first, as if the
normal type were more powerful than the variety. But all these
children grew up and intermarried with normal wives and husbands,
and then note what took place—Salvator had four children, three
of whom exhibited the hexadactyle members of their grandfather
and father, while the youngest had the pentadactyle limbs of the
mother and grandmother; so that here, notwithstanding a double
pentadactyle dilution of the blood the hexadactyle variety had
the best of it. The same prepotency of the variety was still more
markedly exemplified in the progeny of two of the other children,
Marie and George. Marie (whose thumbs only were deformed) gave
birth to a boy with six toes, and three other normally formed
children; but George, who was not quite so pure a pentadactyle,
begot, first, two girls, each of whom had six fingers and toes;
then a girl with six fingers on each hand, and six toes on
the right foot, but only five toes on the left; and lastly,
a boy with only five fingers and toes. In these instances,
therefore, the variety, as it were, leaped over one generation to
reproduce itself in full force in the next. Finally, the purely
pentadactyle André was the father of many children, not one of
whom departed from the normal parental type.’
169. The instances now quoted illustrate two things. Both tell us
how varieties arise, we may say spontaneously, or in other words
we cannot tell how; and the former instance, that of the Ancon
breed, shows us moreover that such varieties when they do occur
may be rendered permanent by means of artificial selection. If
the six-fingered descendants of Gratio Kelleia had been forced to
intermarry amongst themselves it is highly probable that we should
have had a permanent hexadactyle variety of the human race. It has
likewise been shown by Charles Darwin that the pouter, the fan-tail,
the carrier, and the tumbler are all varieties of the common
rock-pigeon.
170. It thus appears that permanent varieties may be produced by
artificial selection. Now Darwin and Wallace have brought before us
the very great fact that similar changes can also be produced by
natural selection.
To illustrate this, let us imagine a slight variety to arise
spontaneously, we do not know how. Having arisen there is a
‘prepotent influence’ about it which enables it to secure a
considerable proportion of offspring having its own characteristics.
Now, suppose that the characteristics are such as to adapt the
individuals possessing them more perfectly to the conditions of
nature which surround them. When, by breeding amongst themselves,
the new variety is rendered permanent, the members of this variety
will, therefore, have an advantage over their elder brethren so far
as certain conditions of nature are concerned, will in fact succeed
better in the struggle for existence, and will ultimately displace
the elder branches. Thus the struggle for existence bears to natural
selection the same relation as man bears to artificial selection.
171. We now come to the real point of difficulty, or at least the
unproved point, in the Darwinian hypothesis. We may cross one
race with another, but we do not obtain, so far as we know, those
phenomena of infertility which are exhibited when we cross distinct
species with each other. The Ancon sheep were perfectly fertile when
matched with their elder brethren, and the dray-horse and the Arab,
or the pouter and the tumbler, breed together as easily as if they
were of the same race. But if we cannot produce infertility, how
can we apply the results of artificial selection to account for the
origin of species?
This difficulty is met by Darwin and his followers in this way:—‘It
is not as yet proved,’ says Professor Huxley, ‘that a race ever
exhibits, when crossed with another race of the same species, those
phenomena of hybridisation which are exhibited by many species when
crossed with other species. On the other hand, not only is it not
proved that all species give rise to hybrids infertile _inter se_,
but there is much reason to believe that, in crossing, species
exhibit every gradation from perfect sterility to perfect fertility.’
This appears to carry weight; the old theory went with a leap from
perfect fertility to perfect sterility, and did not contemplate the
possibility of a continuous gradation from the one extreme to the
other; at least its argument was founded upon the neglect of such
a gradation. But if there be a gradation of this kind, it follows
that infertility will merely represent the results of crossing two
species whose functional characteristics are very different from each
other; and, on the other hand, the reason why artificially produced
varieties are not infertile when crossed with one another may only
be that the experiment has not been continued long enough.
Time, in fact, is the essential requisite in all such attempts to
imitate nature.
172. In connection with this subject, Mr. Darwin has remarked that
certain plants are more fertile with the pollen of another species
than with their own; and Professor Huxley tells us that there are
certain _fuci_ whose male element will fertilise the ovule of a
plant of distinct species, while the males of the latter species are
ineffective with the females of the first. So obscure in some of its
branches is the working of the reproductive system.
Again, the following remark by Mr. Darwin is very suggestive:—
‘First crosses between forms known to be varieties, or sufficiently
alike to be considered as varieties, and their mongrel offspring,
are very generally, but not quite universally, fertile. Nor is this
nearly general and perfect fertility surprising, when we remember
how liable we are to argue in a circle with respect to varieties in
a state of nature; and when we remember that the greater number of
varieties have been produced under domestication, by the selection of
mere external differences, and not of differences in the reproductive
system. In all other respects, excluding fertility, there is a close
general resemblance between hybrids and mongrels.’
173. The result of all these speculations is to render it probable
that there may be in nature, give it time enough, a process which
leads to the transmutation of species.
The accumulation of successive differences, each representing some
element of success in the struggle for life, may easily be imagined
to be capable of producing, in the course of ages, a very great
change.
Reasoning out this hypothesis, the more advanced followers of Mr.
Darwin do not hesitate to describe all the varieties of living
things, including man, as the results of development from some
primordial germ taking place throughout the course of immeasurable
ages. And Mr. Darwin himself, in his work on the Descent of Man,
lays great stress on the occurrence of homologous structures in
man and the lower animals, as well as on the development in man
of rudimentary structures, which are either absolutely useless to
their possessor, or of very slight service indeed, but which appear
to serve as an index of the various stages through which the human
species has passed in its progress upwards from lower forms of life.
174. Mr. Wallace, however, sees in the production of man the
intervention of an external will.
He remarks that the lowest types of savages are in possession of a
brain, and of capacities far beyond any use to which they could apply
them in their present condition, and that therefore they could not
have been evolved from the mere necessities of their environments.
175. Finally, Professor Huxley imagines the possibility of the
Darwinian hypothesis requiring modification. Alluding to the assumed
circularity of the planetary orbits which followed the establishment
of the Copernican hypothesis (Art. 69), he remarks:—
‘But the planetary orbits turned out to be not quite circular after
all, and, grand as was the service Copernicus rendered to science,
Kepler and Newton had to come after him. What if the orbit of
Darwinism should be a little too circular? What if species should
offer residual phenomena, here and there, not explicable by natural
selection? Twenty years hence naturalists may be in a position to
say whether this is, or is not, the case; but in either event they
will owe the author of “The Origin of Species” an immense debt of
gratitude.’
176. We will defer to our last chapter some further remarks on Mr.
Darwin’s hypothesis. Meanwhile, before concluding, let us briefly
allude to the original production of living things on our globe.
It may, perhaps, eventually be possible by means of a hypothesis
of evolution, to account for the great variety of living forms on
the supposition of a single primordial germ to begin with; but the
difficulty still remains how to account for this germ.
It is against all true scientific experience that life can appear
without the intervention of a living antecedent. How then are we to
explain the production of the primordial germ?
The difficulty of doing so from our point of view would appear to
be unusually great, for we have come to the conclusion that, as a
matter of scientific principle, we cannot admit any such breach of
continuity as a pure act of creation in time would imply.
If, then, a pure act of creation in time be an inadmissible
hypothesis, and if the hypothesis of Abiogenesis be equally
inadmissible, our readers may well ask how are we to surmount the
difficulty. For our reply to this question, we must once more beg to
refer them to our concluding chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
SPECULATIONS AS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCES TN THE
VISIBLE UNIVERSE.
‘The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.’—SHAKESPEARE, _Macbeth_.
177. Our readers are now aware from what we have said in Chapter
II. that the two great requisites for organised existence are, in
the first place, an organ of memory, giving the individual a hold
upon the past, and secondly, the possibility of varied action in
the present, and that unless these two things are fulfilled life is
simply inconceivable.
Again, in Chapters III., IV., and V. we have sufficiently discussed
the visible universe and its potentialities. We have seen that
although at present it contains the essential requisites for
organised existence, yet, in the remote future, a time will
necessarily arrive when, through a degradation of the Energy of this
universe, or at least of one part of it, that variety of motion which
is essential to life will be unattainable. Immortality is, therefore,
impossible or hardly possible in such a universe; but even allowing
all this to be the case, it is at least conceivable that man may be
at death drafted off into some superior rank of being connected with
the present universe, and thence ultimately removed into a new order
of things when the present universe shall have become effete.
Let us now, therefore, very briefly discuss the question as to the
possibility of intelligences superior to man existing in the present
visible universe. And, in order to commence this inquiry, let us
analyse with some minuteness the physical source of that peculiarity
which the present universe possesses, in virtue of which it affords
living beings the means of a varied existence. Whence is all this
power derived? How comes it about that a living being possesses that
abruptness and spontaneity of action which peculiarly characterise
it? In fine, let us consider the exact position of life in the
present physical universe.
178. Now, in the first place, it is well known that equilibrium may
be of two kinds, stable and unstable, and if we take an egg balanced
on its end at the edge of a table as an example of mechanical
instability, we shall see that it ‘depends upon some external impulse
so infinitesimally small as to elude our observation whether the egg
shall fall upon the floor and give rise to a comparatively large
transmutation of energy, or whether it shall fall upon the table and
give rise to a transmutation comparatively small.’[53]
But, just as there are other forces besides gravity, so there are
other varieties of instability besides that which we treat of in
mechanics.
We may, for instance, have molecular instability, such as
characterises water cooled below the freezing point, or a
supersaturated solution of Glauber’s salt, where the advent of the
smallest possible crystal of ice or of Glauber’s salt is sufficient
to bring about a marked molecular change in the liquid, which
immediately becomes thick with deposited crystals; or again, we may
have chemical instability in which the slightest impulse of any kind
may determine a chemical change, just as in mechanical instability
the slightest possible impulse may determine a mechanical change.
Thus fulminating silver or nitroglycerine are familiar examples of
chemical instability in which the slightest blow or the smallest
spark may be sufficient to bring about an instantaneous and violent
generation of heated gas.
179. Again, all machines—that is to say, all material systems—must
necessarily be of two kinds, one of which makes use of the stable
forces of nature and the other of the unstable. The following
quotation from a work on Energy, by one of the authors of this book,
will sufficiently explain what is meant:[54]—
‘When we speak of a structure, or a machine, or a system, we
simply mean a number of individual particles associated together
in producing some definite result. Thus, the solar system, a
timepiece, a rifle, are examples of inanimate machines; while
an animal, a human being, an army, are examples of animated
structures or machines. Now, such machines or structures are of
two kinds, which differ from one another not only in the object
sought, but also in the means of attaining that object.
‘In the first place, we have structures or machines in which
systematic action is the object aimed at, and in which all
the arrangements are of a conservative nature, the element
of instability being avoided as much as possible. The solar
system, a timepiece, a steam-engine at work, are examples of
such machines, and the characteristic of all such is their
_calculability_. Thus the skilled astronomer can tell, with the
utmost precision, in what place the moon or the planet Venus
will be found this time next year. Or again, the excellence of
a timepiece consists in its various hands pointing accurately in
a certain direction after a certain interval of time. In like
manner we may safely count upon a steamship making so many knots
an hour, at least while the outward conditions remain the same.
In all these cases we make our calculations, and we are not
deceived—the end sought is regularity of action, and the means
employed is a stable arrangement of the forces of nature.
‘Now, the characteristics of the other class of machines are
precisely the reverse.
‘Here the object aimed at is not a regular, but a sudden and
violent, transmutation of energy, while the means employed are
unstable arrangements of natural forces. A rifle at full-cock,
with a delicate hair-trigger, is a very good instance of such a
machine, where the slightest touch from without may bring about
the explosion of the gunpowder, and the propulsion of the ball
with a very great velocity. Now, such machines are eminently
characterised by their _incalculability_.
‘It is thus apparent that, as regards energy, structures are of
two kinds. In one of these, the object sought is regularity of
action, and the means employed, a stable arrangement of natural
forces; while in the other, the end sought is freedom of action,
and a sudden transmutation of energy, the means employed being an
unstable arrangement of natural forces.
‘The one set of machines are characterised by their
calculability—the other by their incalculability. The one set,
when at work, are not easily put wrong, while the other set are
characterised by great delicacy of construction.’
180. Having thus defined the two kinds of machines, let us now see to
what extent a living being may be regarded as a machine, and also to
which of these two categories he belongs.
What our machines enable us to do is merely to transform energy. Our
readers are well aware, by what we have already said (Art. 102), that
it is just as impossible to create energy as it is to create matter.
Thus a clock has to be wound up before it will go; an engine has to
be stoked with coal; a rifle or cannon has to be charged with powder;
and in short, all machines, whether delicately constructed or not,
whether calculable or incalculable, are merely transmuters of energy
and not creators of it.
To this law the living being is no exception. The creatures of
this world (and it is of such we are now speaking) are certainly
not creators of energy; but in respect of the great law of the
conservation of energy, such beings must be regarded in the very same
light as any other machines.
But there is yet another analogy between living beings and inanimate
machines. When we study the working of any machine, we find that each
transformation of energy brought about has a material antecedent; the
effect produced has a cause from which it springs, and this cause is
one which we are probably able to recognise from our knowledge of the
laws of matter. To take an example: in a steam-engine the amount of
work produced depends upon the amount of heat carried from the boiler
to the condenser; and this amount depends in its turn upon the amount
of coal which is burned in the furnace of the engine. In like manner,
the velocity of the bullet which issues from a rifle depends upon the
transformation of the energy of the powder; this in its turn depends
upon the explosion of the percussion cap; this again upon the fall of
the trigger; and lastly this upon the finger of the man who fires the
rifle.
Now, without attempting to define what life is, and leaving all
speculations regarding it to our last chapter, we yet think it may
safely be said that a living being is analogous to a machine in this
particular also.
Let us take the man who fires the rifle. We can trace back the motion
of his forefinger to the contraction of a muscle; and we can go even
further back and connect this contraction with a stimulus sent along
the nerves from the brain, so that a material effect is here seen
to be brought about by a material antecedent, just as truly as in
an inanimate machine. Indeed, we may generalise, and say that, _so
far as we can physically investigate a living being_, we may take
it for granted that a material effect is due to a strictly material
antecedent in his case also.
181. We have thus discussed two respects in which a living being is
analogous to a machine, and the next point is to determine which of
the two classes of machines most resembles the living being. Is he
analogous to the solar system, a steam-engine, or a clock? or is
he rather analogous to some delicately constructed machine, such,
for instance, as a rifle? There can, we think, be no doubt that a
living being most resembles a delicately constructed machine. For
what is the characteristic of such a machine? It is that in it a
comparatively great transformation of energy may be brought about
by a comparatively small physical antecedent. Thus a slight breath
of air may determine the fall of the egg off the table, or a slight
tap the explosion of a large quantity of fulminating silver. So in
the human being, a very small and obscure transmutation of energy
in the mysterious brain-chamber may determine some very violent
motion. ‘Life is not a bully who swaggers out into the open universe,
upsetting the laws of energy in all directions, but rather a
consummate strategist, who, sitting in his secret chamber over his
wires, directs the movements of a great army.’[55]
182. Granting then that a living being is a delicately constructed
machine, the next point is to determine what process of delicacy,
what peculiar arrangement of unstable forces, is employed in his
construction? Now it is very easy to perceive that the delicacy in
this case is brought about by an unstable arrangement of chemical
forces. It is plain that the body of an animal is a chemically
unstable product, and if, as one consequence of this, great freedom
of action and delicacy are possessed during life, it is another
consequence that the extinction of life is very speedily followed by
decay.
The body then owes its delicacy to its chemically unstable nature;
to a peculiar collocation of particles which certainly would not, in
virtue of their own merely physical forces, have united themselves
together as we find them in the body.
183. To what, then, is due this peculiar grouping of particles in the
living body?
We reply that it is, in one sense at least, derived from the food
which is eaten. If animal food is eaten, it is of course derived
from the body of the animal which is consumed. That animal may
possibly have derived it from another animal, but more probably
it has been derived in this case direct from the vegetable world.
Ultimately, therefore, it is to this world that we must look as the
source of that delicately constructed substance which plays such a
wonderful and important part in the animal economy. If we go one
link further back in the chain of causation, we shall be carried from
the vegetable world to the sun as the great and ultimate physical
source of that high-class energy and delicacy of construction which
characterise vegetable products. It is, in truth, owing to the
actinic rays of our luminary that vegetable tissue is manufactured in
the leaves of plants, the carbonic acid of the air being decomposed,
and oxygen given out, while the carbon, united with other substances,
and modified thereby, is retained by the plant to form part of its
substance, or perchance to become the food of animals.
184. We have therefore now arrived at the conclusion that the
delicacy of construction which our frames require is ultimately
derived from the sun, so far at least as the visible universe is
concerned. If then we would reply to the question of this chapter,
whether or not there may be beings superior to man connected with
this present universe, let us look abroad and endeavour to ascertain
whether there be in this universe any other obvious process of
delicacy besides that which characterises the bodies of animals like
ourselves.
Now, it has been pointed out that, in the atmospheric changes of this
world, and more particularly of the sun, we have processes of great
delicacy. It is believed that the positions of the planets Mercury
and Venus affect the behaviour of sun-spots, and thus determine the
conditions of atmospheric changes on the surface of our luminary
that are absolutely overwhelming in their magnitude. We have only to
reflect that a large sun-spot might swallow up fifty planets like our
earth, and that some of the currents connected with it move at the
rate of 100 miles per second, in order to realise the enormous scale
of these solar outbreaks. Again, it is believed that the state of
the solar surface with regard to spots determines the storms of our
earth, so that hurricanes are most numerous in the Indian Ocean as
well as on the coast of America during years of maximum sun-spots.[56]
But if such results are brought about by the relative positions of
the planets of our system, it is evident that the cause is more
analogous to the pulling of the trigger of a cannon ready to go off
than to a downright blow. In fact, a vast transformation of energy
in the sun is brought about by some obscure and ill-understood but
comparatively trivial cause connected with the position of the nearer
planets of our system. We have here a case where the magnitude of the
effect is out of all proportion to that of the antecedent; now this
is, in other words, the definition of delicacy already given (Art.
179).
But, again, if delicacy of construction characterise the
meteorological changes in the various members of our system, it is
entirely absent from the orbital motions of these bodies. These want
that great characteristic of delicacy, _incalculability_; for they
are not only pre-eminently calculable, but are now calculated years
beforehand as part of the regular business of the world. On the
other hand, the meteorological changes of our earth and of the sun
come upon us with all the abruptness characteristic of delicacy, and
are eminently incalculable. The hurricane and the lightning-flash
are processes of Nature which man has in every age been prone
to associate with personal intelligences. He has instinctively
recognised the similarity between these abrupt and startling
phenomena and the actions of an angry and powerful being.
185. It may no doubt be long since there has been anything like an
extensive worship of the powers of nature amongst the civilised
nations of the earth, but there may yet be found, even at the
present day, especially amongst imaginative races, and in wild and
mountainous regions, a lingering belief that personal agents are
concerned in the more startling natural phenomena.
Such a belief was extensively prevalent during the middle ages, and
whole volumes might easily be filled with an account of mediæval
superstitions and legends relating to this subject, sometimes dark
and terrible, and at other times possessing a peculiar and pathetic
beauty which does not belong to anything else. The air, the earth,
and the water have all been peopled with spirits; some of them
friendly to man, some of them his deadly enemies. They are powerful,
and conscious of their power, but at the same time profoundly and
mournfully aware that they are without a soul. Their life depends, it
may be, upon the continuance of some natural object, and hence for
them there is no immortality. Sometimes, however, an elemental spirit
procures a soul by means of a loving union with one of the human
race, and the beautiful romance of Undine is built upon this fancy.
At other times the reverse happens, and the soul of the mortal is
lost who, leaving the haunts of men, associates with these soulless
but often amiable and affectionate beings. ‘The Forsaken Merman,’ by
Matthew Arnold, expresses this fancy in a very beautiful and touching
manner:—
‘Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call once more) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb’d its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.
She sigh’d, she look’d up through the clear green sea;
She said, “I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
’Twill be Easter time in the world—ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.”
I said, “Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayers and come back to the kind sea-caves.”
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?’
186. A conception, in some respects analogous to that now mentioned,
but in other respects very different from it, is that which
attributes a soul to the universe; and it has even been imagined that
the whole visible universe forms, as it were, one gigantic brain.
Others again appear inclined to believe that there may be many
cosmical intelligences, each embracing the whole universe, and
therefore interpenetrating one another, and at the same time taking
part in its government by means of such processes of delicacy as
those we have mentioned.
187. Now, before proceeding further in the discussion of these
speculations, let us here state more definitely than we have yet done
what is the real point in question.
It is not so much the possibility of the delicate processes of nature
being directed by an intelligent agency; this is in reality a
different question, and one which will be discussed in our concluding
chapter. But the question now before us is, whether any such agency
may be said to belong to the present visible universe?
To make our meaning clear: we know that we ourselves belong to the
present visible universe. Again, there are many of us who believe
that angelic intelligences are the ministers of God’s providence.
Now, whether this doctrine be true or not (and we are not now
concerned about its truth), it is evident that such intelligences
cannot be said to belong to the present physical universe. The
organisation which they possess, and without which (Art. 61) we
cannot imagine a finite intelligence to exist, is most assuredly
nothing that can be perceived by our bodily senses, nor can we
imagine that their existence is at all dependent on the fate of the
visible universe; in fine, they do not belong to it.
Our present question, therefore, is whether we can associate the
delicate cosmical processes of the visible universe with the
operations of intelligences residing in this universe and belonging
to it, and to this question we must assuredly give a negative reply.
188. We entertain no doubt that man and beings at least analogous to
man represent the highest order of living things connected with the
present visible universe.
For, in the first place, although there is abundant evidence
of delicacy of construction in the cosmical processes of this
universe, there is no evidence of an organisation such as that which
observation leads us to associate with the presence of life.
In the next place, whatever view we may entertain of the Darwinian
hypothesis and the relation of man to the lower animals, there can
be no doubt that they are all of a similar physical construction.
What physiologists term the matter of life is very much the same in
all, so that the body of any one animal may in general afford food
for any other. Now, is it likely that there are two living systems,
absolutely distinct and as different from one another as we can well
imagine, both connected with the visible universe?
We think this view would imply such a want of unity in the plan of
development as to be absolutely fatal to its reception, even as a
working hypothesis. On these accounts, therefore, we do not hesitate
to dismiss the conception of a superior order of beings connected
with the present physical universe as one which is altogether
untenable.
189. If we now turn from the verdict of science to the sacred
writings of the Jews, we find that one grand idea which pervades
the whole of the Old Testament is man’s absolute superiority and
practical sovereignty over all created beings whom he can perceive
otherwise than with the _mind’s eye_.
He is supreme, or it is part of his work on earth to become supreme,
over all that can be perceived by his senses, _i.e._ all the visible
and tangible world. Thus we read in Gen. i. 28: ‘And God blessed
them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth.’
Again, we read (Psalm viii. 5, 6): ‘For thou hast made him a little
lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou
hast put all things under his feet.’ [It appears that the correct
reading of the first part of this is, ‘Thou hast made him little less
than divine,’ etc.]
190. It is worthy of note that the same idea is still more fully
developed in the New Testament, where it is confessed that, in one
very important respect, this superiority of man is seen to fail.
He has greatly enlarged his powers over nature, and has by these
means much ameliorated the condition of his race; yet death overtakes
him just as remorselessly and as ruthlessly as if he were a savage
of no account. He may meet death fearlessly, conscious that he has
at least done something for the good of his fellows. But what does
it all amount to? Death will ultimately overtake the race just as
remorselessly as the individual. Now it is this fearful enemy, this
terrible exception to the domination of man, which Christ, as the Son
and type of man, is commissioned to destroy. Thus we read (1 Cor. xv.
25): ‘For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all
things under his feet.’ And presently (verse 54) the apostle breaks
forth into the following triumphant and beautiful language:—‘So when
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.’ Again we
read (Heb. ii. 8): ‘For in that he put all in subjection under him,
he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet
all things put under him: but we see Jesus, who was made a little
lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory
and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every
man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all
things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of
their salvation perfect through sufferings.’ [Here again it appears
that instead of the phrase ‘made a little lower than the angels,’ we
should read, ‘made for a little time lower than the angels’—_i.e._
an idea identical in meaning with the phrase ‘made under the law,’
the Old Testament law being viewed as administered by angels. From
this dispensation, in which cosmical powers come between man and God,
Christ frees us, by himself for a little time entering into it, and
even under it meeting death.]
191. From all this we may conclude that both science and religion
tell us the same tale. They inform us that man, and beings similar
to man, are at the head of the visible universe. No doubt religion
informs us, in addition to this, that there are other beings above
man, but these do not live in the visible universe, but in that which
is unseen and eternal.
CHAPTER VII.
THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE.
‘For I reckon, that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in
us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the
manifestation of the sons of God.’—ST. PAUL (Rom. viii. 18, 19).
‘Rabbi Jacob said, “This world is as it were the anteroom of
the world to come. Prepare thyself in the anteroom so that thou
mayest be fit to enter the banquet-room.”’—_Mishna_, _Pirke
Aboth_, chap. iv. par. 16.
‘Eternal process moving on
From state to state the spirit walks,
And these are but the shatter’d stalks,
Or ruin’d chrysalis of one.’—TENNYSON.
192. In the preceding chapters we have examined by the light of
our present knowledge the possibilities contained in the visible
universe. What is it good for in the way of possible immortality? is
the question we have tried to answer. It will have been seen that
the reply is eminently unfavourable. If we take the individual man
to begin with, we find that he lives his short tale of years, and
that then the visible machinery which connects him with the past, as
well as that which enables him to act in the present, falls into ruin
and is brought to an end. If any germ or potentiality remains, it is
certainly not connected with the visible order of things.
If we next consider the human race we find that the state of
advancement to which they have attained is in many respects greatly
due to their physical surroundings. Coal and iron have been as
instrumental in promoting knowledge as Galileo and Newton, but our
whole stock of these materials will come to an end. By economy it
may be possible to lengthen out the period during which they can be
supplied, but is it not manifest that we are year by year exhausting
them as sources of available energy?
Are we not inevitably led to conclude that our present state cannot
last even for a lengthened period, but will be brought to an end long
before the inevitable dissipation of energy shall have rendered our
earth unfit for habitation?
193. But even supposing that man, in some form, is permitted to
remain on the earth for a long series of years, we merely lengthen
out the period, but we cannot escape the final catastrophe. The
earth will gradually lose its energy of rotation, as well as that
of revolution round the sun. The sun himself will wax dim and
become useless as a source of energy, until at last the favourable
conditions of the present solar system will have quite disappeared.
But what happens to our system will happen likewise to the whole
visible universe (Art. 116), which will, if finite, become in time
a lifeless mass, if indeed it be not doomed to utter dissolution.
In fine, it will become old and effete, no less truly than the
individual—it is a glorious garment this visible universe, but not
an immortal one—we must look elsewhere if we are to be clothed with
immortality as with a garment.
194. Now, if we regard the dissipation of energy which is constantly
going on, we are at first sight forcibly struck with the apparently
wasteful character of the arrangements of the visible universe. All
but a very small portion of the sun’s heat goes day by day into what
we call empty space, and it is only this very small remainder which
can be made use of by the various planets for purposes of their
own. Could anything be more perplexing than this seemingly prodigal
expenditure of the very life and essence of our system? That all but
a petty fraction of this vast store of high-class energy should be
doing nothing but travelling outwards in space at the rate of 188,000
miles per second is hardly conceivable, especially when the result of
it is the inevitable destruction of the visible universe, unless we
imagine this to be infinite, and so capable of endless degradation.
195. If, however, we continue to dwell upon this astounding
phenomenon, we begin to perceive that we are not entitled to assert
that this luminous energy does nothing but continue to travel
outwards. It is perhaps too much to say that Struve’s speculations
prove an ethereal absorption, but they must be taken in connection
with other considerations. We have already maintained (Art. 151),
that we cannot regard the ether as a perfect fluid. Now it is not
easy to suppose that in such a substance all vibratory motion should
pass outwards without in the smallest degree becoming absorbed or
changing its type.
We are prepared doubtless to expect a great difference between the
ether and visible matter in this respect, but can hardly imagine that
it is absolutely free from the capacity of altering the type of the
energy which passes through it. Such a hypothesis appears to us to
violate the principle of continuity.
196. But we may go even further than luminiferous vibrations which
take their rise chiefly at the surfaces of bodies, and extend our
speculations into the interior of substances, since the law of
gravitation assures us that any displacement which takes place in
the very heart of the earth will be felt throughout the universe,
and we may even imagine that the same thing will hold true of those
molecular motions (Art. 56) which accompany thought. For every
thought we think is accompanied by a displacement and motion of
the particles of the brain, and we may imagine that somehow these
motions are propagated throughout the universe. Views of this nature
were long ago entertained by Babbage, and they have since commended
themselves to several men of science, and amongst others to Jevons.
‘Mr. Babbage,’ says this author,[57] ‘has pointed out[58] that
if we had power to follow and detect the minutest effects of any
disturbance, each particle of existing matter must be a register of
all that has happened.’
197. But again, we are compelled to imagine (Art. 215) that what we
see has originated in the unseen, and in using this term, we desire
to go back even further than the ether, which, according to one
hypothesis (Art. 152), has given rise to the visible order of things.
And again, we must resort to the unseen not only for the origin of
the molecules of the visible universe, but also for an explanation
of the forces which animate these molecules (Art. 150), and not
only so, but we are always carried back from one order of the unseen
to another (Art. 220). Now if this be the case—if THE UNIVERSE be
constructed with successive orders of this description connected with
one another—it is manifest that no event whatever, whether we regard
its antecedent or its consequent, can possibly be confined to one
order only, but must spread throughout THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.
198. To conclude: we are thus led to believe that there exists now
an invisible order of things intimately connected with the present,
and capable of acting energetically upon it—for, in truth, the energy
of the present system is to be looked upon as originally derived
from the invisible universe, while the forces which give rise to
transmutations of energy probably take their origin in the same
region.
And it appears to us to be more natural to imagine that a universe of
this nature, which we have reason to think exists, and is connected
by bonds of energy with the visible universe, is also capable of
receiving energy from it, and of transforming the energy so received.
In fine, it appears to us less likely that by far the larger portion
of the high-class energy of the present universe is travelling
outwards into space with an immense velocity, than that it is being
gradually transferred into an invisible order of things. This last
conclusion is, however, more of the nature of a speculation, and is
by no means essential to our argument.
199. If we now turn to thought, we find, (Art. 59) that, inasmuch
as it affects the substance of the present visible universe, it
produces a material organ of memory. But the motions which accompany
thought must originate in and also affect the invisible order of
things, because in the first place the forces which cause those
motions are derived from the unseen, and because, secondly, the
motions themselves must act upon the unseen, and thus it follows,
that ‘_Thought conceived to affect the matter of another universe
simultaneously with this may explain a future state_’ (see Anagram,
_Nature_, October 15, 1874).
200. This idea, however, requires further development and
explanation. Let us therefore begin by supposing that we possess a
frame, or the rudiments of a frame, connecting us with the invisible
universe, which we may call the soul.
Now each thought we think is accompanied by certain molecular motions
and displacements in the brain, and parts of these, let us allow, are
in some way stored up in that organ, so as to produce what may be
termed our material or physical memory. Other parts of these motions
are, however, communicated to the invisible body, and are there
stored up, forming a memory which may be made use of when that body
is free to exercise its functions.
201. Again, one of the arguments (Art. 84) which proves the existence
of the invisible universe, demands that it shall be full of energy
when the present universe is defunct. We can therefore very well
imagine that after death, when the soul is free to exercise its
functions, it may be replete with energy, and have eminently the
power of action in the present, retaining also, as we have shown
above, a hold upon the past, inasmuch as the memory of past events
has been stored up in it, and thus preserving the two essential
requisites (Art. 61) of a continuous intelligent existence.
202. The conception of an unseen universe is not a new one, even
among men of science. The deservedly famous Dr. Thomas Young has the
following passage in his lectures on Natural Philosophy:—‘Besides
this porosity, there is still room for the supposition, that even
the ultimate particles of matter may be permeable to the causes
of attractions of various kinds, especially if those causes are
immaterial: nor is there anything in the unprejudiced study of
physical philosophy that can induce us to doubt the existence of
immaterial substances; on the contrary, we see analogies that lead
us almost directly to such an opinion. The electrical fluid is
supposed to be essentially different from common matter; the general
medium of light and heat, according to some, or the principle of
caloric, according to others, is equally distinct from it. We see
forms of matter, differing in subtility and mobility, under the names
of solids, liquids, and gases; above these are the semi-material
existences, which produce the phenomena of electricity and magnetism,
and either caloric or a universal ether. Higher still, perhaps, are
the causes of gravitation, and the immediate agents in attractions
of all kinds, which exhibit some phenomena apparently still more
remote from all that is compatible with material bodies. And of these
different orders of beings, the more refined and immaterial appear
to pervade freely the grosser. It seems therefore natural to believe
that the analogy may be continued still further, until it rises into
existences absolutely immaterial and spiritual. We know not but that
thousands of spiritual worlds may exist unseen for ever by human
eyes; nor have we any reason to suppose that even the presence of
matter, in a given spot, necessarily excludes these existences from
it. Those who maintain that nature always teems with life, wherever
living beings can be placed, may therefore speculate with freedom on
the possibility of independent worlds; some existing in different
parts of space, others pervading each other unseen and unknown,
in the same space, and others again to which space may not be a
necessary mode of existence.’
203. It may now be desirable to reply by anticipation to certain
objections which are likely to be made to the theory we have
proposed. Let us divide these into three categories—religious,
theological, and scientific.
_Objection First (Religious)._—It may be said to us, ‘Who are you who
are wise beyond what is written? Are ye of them to whom it was said
of old, “Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum”? Beware of the
words of the great Apostle of the Gentiles:—Φάσκοντες εἶναι σοφοὶ
ἐμωράνθησαν.’
_Reply._—As we have already said (Art. 50), we do not write for
those who are so assured of the truth of their religion that they
are unable to entertain the smallest objection to it. We write for
honest inquirers—for honest doubters, it may be;—who desire to know
what science, when allowed perfect liberty of thought, and loyally
followed, has to say upon those points which so much concern us all.
We are content in this work to view the universe from the physical
standpoint; you may therefore perchance esteem us of the earth
earthy; nevertheless we think that our strength lies in keeping up a
communication with those verities which we all acknowledge.
204. _Objection Second (Theological)._—Your idea of the spiritual
universe is analogous to that of Swedenborg, and we must therefore
dismiss it as untrue, inasmuch as we cannot recognise the assumption
of the spiritual body until after the resurrection.
_Reply._—All that we have done is to remove the scientific objection
to a future state, supposed to be furnished by the principle of
Continuity. We know nothing about the laws of this state, and
conceive it to be quite possible, if otherwise likely, that the soul
may remain veiled or in abeyance until the resurrection. We maintain
only that we are logically constrained to admit the existence of
some frame or organ which is not of this earth, and which survives
dissolution—if we regard the principle of Continuity and the doctrine
of a future state as both true. Besides, the analogy of Paul, in
which the body of the believer at death is compared to a seed put
into the ground, not only implies some sort of continuity, but also
expresses his belief in a present spiritual body. _There is_, says
the apostle (observe, not _there shall be_), a spiritual body. Again
the same apostle tells us (2 Corinthians v. 1), ‘That if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we _have_ a building of God,
a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’
205. _Objection Third (Theological)._—Your argument will apply to
the brute creation as well as to man; now we cannot recognise the
immortality of the brutes.
_Reply._—As before stated, we know nothing about the laws of the
invisible universe, except that it is related by bonds of some kind,
possibly of energy, to the present. All we have attempted has been
to remove an objection to the doctrine of immortality which has
been wrongly put forth as scientific, or at least as consistent with
scientific knowledge.
206. _Objection Fourth (Theological)._—The reasoning you adopt being
founded on the law of continuity, seems to imply the development of
man’s frame from those of the inferior animals, and therefore by
implication contradicts the scriptural account of the creation and
fall of man.
_Reply._—We cannot perceive that our reasoning is in the least degree
inconsistent with the account of man’s origin given in Scripture.
This account implies no doubt a peculiar operation of the invisible
universe, but our reasoning compels us to look in this direction for
the origin of certain occurrences. Whether the production of man has
been the occasion for a peculiar interposition of the unseen it is
not within our province to discuss. We can only say that we see no
reason from our principles to question the view which asserts that
man was made by a peculiar operation out of a pre-existent universe.
207. _Objection Fifth (Theological)._—The resurrection consistent
with your theory could not be a resurrection of the same particles as
were laid in the grave, and in this respect it would be dissimilar to
that of Christ.
_Reply._—A dissimilarity between the two exists under any theory, for
the body of Christ did not experience corruption, while the bodies of
believers in Christ are manifestly dissolved by death.
[We make the following suggestion with much hesitation.
What we have to say is founded upon an exceedingly able work by
Edward White, entitled _Life in Christ_, which has recently been
published, and from which we extract the following passage (page
263):—
‘But the Saviour was Divine. As man, identified with human
nature, He died, and His death became a sin-offering; as God He
could not die. As man He was made “under the law;” as God He was
above the law laid on creatures.... He arose, therefore, as the
Divine Conqueror of death, “God over all, blessed for evermore,”
and was thus “declared to be the Son of God with power, according
to the Spirit of holiness, by _His resurrection_ from the
dead.”—Rom. i. 4. He rose, not “in the likeness of sinful flesh;”
not “under the law,” but in the character of the “Lord from
heaven,” “our Lord and our God:”—not in the image of the “son of
Adam,” but as the “Son of the Highest,” having delivered us from
wrath by the death of His humanity, to endow us with immortality
through the life of His Divinity. He was no longer “the man of
sorrows,” but The First and The Last and The Living One; no
longer crowned with thorns, and clothed in a peasant’s robe, but
wearing the diadem of the Lord of the Universe, and shining with
the supereminent splendours of the Godhead.’
If then Christ died as man, and was reanimated in virtue of His
divinity, the analogy between Christ, who is the head, and believers,
who are His body, will be complete if we suppose that each believer
dies as a man, but is raised up by virtue of the divinity of Christ,
and inasmuch as the Head is not present here in His glorified bodily
form, so it cannot be supposed that His members should at present
assume that form.
But when Christ appears again upon earth we are told that His members
being raised in what is termed the first resurrection will then
accompany Him.
And judging from S. Matthew (chap. xxvii. verse 52), something of
this kind, but of a partial nature, took place when Christ locally
appeared, after His resurrection, in Jerusalem.
In fine, the true analogy between Christ and the believer should
prevent us from supposing that while Christ is absent in His
glorified body believers should nevertheless assume theirs.
Now this delay implies the corruption of the believer’s body, and
renders us unable to believe that the very same particles will be
raised again as in the case of Christ. But surely no one can suppose,
that if moral and spiritual identity is secured, the mere material
particles can be of any consequence.]
208. _Objection Sixth (Scientific)._—If the general principles on
which all material organisms are constructed are the same throughout
the world, is not this an argument by analogy that all such organisms
have a similar relation to the universe? On what principle then can
immortality be assumed to be possible for men while it is denied to
brutes?
_Reply._—When we speak of the general principles on which all
organisms are constructed being the same, we mean that certain
chemical and physical laws apply both to man and the brute creation.
Gravitation and chemical affinity are the same for both. There must
also be a similarity in tangible substance, inasmuch as both co-exist
in the same visible world. In fine, there must be many points in
which man is very similar in construction to the lower animals.
Thus each possesses nerves—each has what may be termed delicacy of
construction—the frame of each possesses materials which will burn in
the fire. In fine, not only do strong similarities exist between all
animals, but there are also strong similarities between animals and
vegetables. But what are the points of dissimilarity between man and
the lower animals? Is it not that the latter are utterly incapable
of thinking thoughts such as those which form the present subject
of discussion? In fine, the greatest difference between man and the
lower animals is not so much in bodily structure as in style of
thought. But each thought has no doubt (Art. 59) a concomitant in the
brain. Inasmuch therefore as the style of thought is very different
in man and in the lower animals, the physical concomitants of thought
must be very different in the two cases. But this is the very region
into which science has been as yet utterly unable to penetrate. We
have, however, strong reason for supposing that in such a region the
concomitants of thought would prove to be very different in man and
in the brutes. Thus the argument tells quite the other way; and we
are entitled to say, that inasmuch as there are enormous practical
differences in thought and the higher kinds of power between man and
the lower animals, so the scientifically perceivable concomitants of
these differences would (if we were able to examine them) be found
extremely different in the two cases.
209. _Objection Seventh (Scientific)._—If there be, as you say,
this duality in the present human frame, how can the spiritual part
remain latent so long as it does? Even if trammelled by the grosser
substance, we might expect that at least on rare occasions it should
somehow manifest itself.
_Reply._—As a matter of fact we know that ordinary consciousness can
remain latent or inactive for hours, if not for days, and then return
to us again. There would be force in this objection if it were not
true that consciousness is capable of entering into the dormant or
quiescent state.
Again, it is possible that there have been and that there are
occasional manifestations of this spiritual nature.
For, in the Christian records visible manifestations of the spiritual
element, even in this life, are asserted to have taken place on
rare occasions. But if you have dismissed these manifestations as
inconceivable, you cannot now bring their absence forward as an
objection.
210. _Objection Eighth, (Scientific)._—Your doctrine of immortality
does violence to that great principle, the conservation of energy.
For it is manifest that if energy is transferred from the visible
into the invisible universe, its constancy in the present universe
can no longer be maintained.
_Reply._—In reply to this objection we may state that when we
assert the conservation of energy it is as a principle applicable
under special limitations. For instance, it is only by assuming the
continual passage through ether of a large portion of the energy of
the visible universe that the doctrine as at present held can be
maintained. Now the only addition that our theory suggests is the
gradual carriage into the invisible universe of some part at least of
the energy of gross matter which is associated with thought. But is
even this necessary? for this supposes thought to originate through
the matter of the visible universe, and then to affect the invisible.
But the reverse order of occurrences is quite as tenable, especially
if we suppose with Le Sage that the forces which set in motion the
molecules of visible matter are derived from the unseen universe. It
may safely be said that our hypothesis is not upset, and never can be
upset, by any experimental conclusion with regard to energy.
211. _Objection Ninth (Scientific)._—We cannot understand how
individuality is to be preserved in the spiritual world.
_Reply._—This is no new difficulty. We are as much puzzled by what
takes place in our present body as we can be with respect to the
spiritual. Thus, let us allow that impressions are stored up in
our brains, which thus form an order connecting us with the past
of the visible universe. Now thousands, perhaps even millions, of
such impressions pass into the same organ, and yet, by the operation
of our will, we can concentrate our recollection upon a certain
event, and rummage out its details, along with all its collateral
circumstances, to the exclusion of everything else. But if the brain
or something else plays such a wonderful part in the present economy,
is it impossible to imagine that the universe of the future may
have even greater individualising powers? Is it not very hazardous
to assert this or that mode of existence to be impossible in such a
wonderful whole as we feel sure the universe must be?
212. _Objection Tenth (Scientific)._—Even if it be allowed that the
invisible universe receives energy from the present, so that the
conservation of energy holds true as a principle, yet the dissipation
of energy must hold true also, and although the process of decay may
be delayed by the storing up of energy in the invisible universe, it
cannot be permanently arrested. Ultimately we must believe that every
part of the whole universe will be equally supplied with energy, and
in consequence all abrupt living motion will come to an end.
_Reply._—Perhaps the best reply to this objection is to say that the
laws of energy are rather generalisations derived from our experience
than scientific principles, like that which we call the _Principle
of Continuity_. There would be no permanent confusion of thought
introduced if these laws should be found not to hold, or to hold in a
different way, in the unseen universe. Nor can we regard the law of
the Dissipation as equally fundamental with that of the Conservation
of Energy. What is to prove it in the unseen? We have shown
(Art. 112) how Clerk-Maxwell’s demons (though essentially finite
intelligences) could be made to restore energy even in the present
universe without spending work. Much more may of course be expected
in a universe free from gross matter.
213. _Objection Eleventh (Quasi-Scientific.)_—You speak of energy
being transferred to the unseen, so as to store up for each
individual a record of his every thought. You have not shown, as you
were bound to do, how such transferred energy could be definitely
localised in the unseen.
_Reply._—The obligation is entirely the other way. It is you
who are bound to show that such localisation is impossible. You
quasi-scientific men assert that science disproves all such
things. We have shown that Continuity demands an infinite series
of developments. These _may_ be either living or dead. But
scientific analogy shows that they bear all the marks of intelligent
developments. How can there be any doubt or difficulty about our
choice under these circumstances? Obviously we cannot accept dead
and yet intelligent developments. And although our evidence from
analogy may not amount to proof, it is very strong. Yet you objectors
virtually assert that you can show its impossibility. Do so, if you
can. Give us any proof of the impossibility of an organ connecting
us with the unseen universe, or any analogy even apparently against
it, and we shall be glad to receive and consider it. We have no doubt
that you will thus help us to strengthen our case. You forget that it
is you who are the dogmatists—you who assert that these things are
incompatible with scientific knowledge, but who, strangely, do not
bring forward any proofs of the truth of your assertions.
But in the present case, it so happens that, even with ordinary
matter, an infinitely extended medium could be constructed (as
Clerk-Maxwell has shown), such that all rays diverging from any
point of it whatever shall be brought accurately to a focus at
another definite point; every point of space having thus its definite
conjugate.
214. Having replied to these objections, let us now endeavour to
realise our present position. It is briefly as follows:—What we have
done is to show that a future state is possible, and to demolish any
so-called scientific objection that might be raised against it. The
evidence in favour of the doctrine is not derived from us. It comes
to us from two sources: in the first place, from the statements
made concerning Christ; and, in the second place, from that intense
longing for immortality which civilised man has invariably possessed.
The case stands thus: certain evidence from these two sources in
favour of our doctrine has been adduced, but scientific objections
have been raised against the possibility of the doctrine itself,
and these we have attempted to overcome. But while we may suppose
the scientific objections to the doctrine itself surmounted, there
yet remains an equally strong scientific objection to that portion
of the evidence in favour of the doctrine which is derived from
the Christian records. ‘Granting,’ it may be said to us, ‘that
immortality is possible, what reason have we, beyond certain vague
yearnings, for believing it likely? No doubt, if Christ rose from the
dead, the probability in favour of it would be very strong; but we
have an objection to the assumed fact of the resurrection of Christ
no less formidable than that which you have overcome with regard to
the doctrine of immortality itself.’
215. We must now proceed to examine the validity of this objection,
and in so doing we find it convenient to approach the problem of the
universe not from the side of the future but from that of the past.
We have already (Art. 85) defined the principle of Continuity, in
virtue of which we believe ourselves entitled to discuss every event
which occurs in the universe, without one single exception, and to
deduce from it, if we can, the condition of things that preceded the
event—this being also in the universe. We have likewise given reasons
for believing that the visible universe must have had a beginning in
time, and it may be desirable to recapitulate these here. In the
first place, it is generally allowed by men of science that atoms
form the stuff or substance out of which the visible universe is
built. Why, then, it is asked by the materialists, cannot we suppose
these atoms to be infinite in number, in which case, as far as
energy is concerned, we may very well suppose this universe to last
from eternity to eternity; and if in addition we may conceive these
eternally existing atoms to be in some sense alive, have we not here
a hypothesis which will explain the continuous life of the universe
as well as its continuous energy?
Let us in the meantime reply to the first statement in the
hypothesis, reserving that part of it which concerns life for a
future occasion (Art. 240).
Our objection to regarding the visible universe as having endured
from eternity is threefold. In the first place, this hypothesis,
to be tenable, assumes the infinity of the visible universe.
This, however, is a pure assumption. We may not be able to prove
the contrary, but we perceive no reason why the visible universe
should be regarded as infinite. No doubt, if scientific principle
imperatively demanded the eternity of the present visible universe,
we should be compelled to acknowledge its infinity as a consequence;
but we shall see presently that scientific principle leads quite in
the opposite direction. So that the weakness of the hypothesis in
question is, that while it is contrary to scientific principle it
likewise assumes the infinity of the visible universe, which is a
pure assumption.
Our second objection is that, in virtue of the principle of
Continuity, we are compelled to believe in the infinite depth of
nature, and hold that, just as we must imagine space and duration
to be infinite, so must we imagine the structural complexity of the
universe to be infinite also. To our minds it appears no less false
to pronounce eternal _that aggregation we call the atom_, than it
would be to pronounce eternal (Art. 85) _that aggregation we call the
sun_. All this follows from the principle of Continuity, in virtue
of which we make scientific progress in the knowledge of things, and
which leads us, whatever state of things we contemplate, to look for
its antecedent in some previous state of things also in the Universe.
Our third objection is that which we have stated in Art. 163. It
arises from the belief that the dissipation of the energy of the
visible universe proceeds _pari passu_ with the aggregation of mass,
and therefore that since the large masses of the visible universe are
of finite size, we are sure that the process cannot have been going
on for ever, or, in other words, the visible universe must have had
its origin in time.
216. Let us therefore apply to that stupendous event, the production
of the visible universe, not irreverently, but in hopeful trust, the
principle of Continuity, and ask ourselves the question, What state
of things also in the universe, what conceivable antecedent can have
given rise to this unparalleled phenomenon—an antecedent, we need
hardly say, which must have operated from the invisible universe?
It is a great and awful phenomenon, but we must not shrink before
size; we must not be terrified by the magnitude of the event out of
reliance upon our principles of discussion.
Now, if we regard the appearance of the visible universe, and
approach it as we would any other phenomenon, we have only two
alternatives before us. Creation is not one of these, inasmuch as we
are carried by such an act out of the universe altogether. We are,
therefore, driven to look to some kind of development as the cause of
the appearance of the visible universe. This development may either
have been through the living or through the dead; either it was the
result of a natural operation of the invisible universe, or it was
brought about by means of intelligence residing in that universe
and working through its laws. To determine which of these two
alternatives is the more admissible, we must bear in mind the nature
of the production, and argue about it just as we should argue about
anything else.
217. Now, this production was, as far as we can judge, a sporadic
or abrupt act, and the substance produced, that is to say the atoms
which form the material substratum of the present universe, bear (as
Herschel and Clerk-Maxwell have well said) from their uniformity of
constitution all the marks of being manufactured articles.
Whether we regard the various elementary atoms as separate
productions, or (according to Prout and Lockyer) view them as
produced by the coming together of some smaller kind of primordial
atom—in either case, and even specially so in the latter case, we
think that they look like manufactured articles. Indeed, we have
already shown (Art. 164) that development without life, that is
to say dead development, does not tend to produce uniformity of
structure in the products which it gives rise to.
218. Thus the argument is in favour of the production of the visible
universe by means of an intelligent agency residing in the invisible
universe.
But again let us realise the position in which we are placed by the
principle of Continuity—we are led by it not only to regard the
invisible universe as having existed before the present one, but the
same principle drives us to acknowledge its existence in some form as
a universe from all eternity. Now we can readily conceive a universe
containing conditioned intelligent beings to have existed before the
present; nay, to have existed for a time greater than any assignable
time, which is the only way in which our thoughts can approach the
eternal. But is it equally easy to conceive a dead universe to have
existed in the same way during immeasurable ages? Is a dead universe
a fully conditioned universe? For, regarding the laws of the universe
as those laws according to which the intelligences of the universe
are conditioned by the Governor thereof, can we conceive a dead
universe to exist permanently without some being to be conditioned?
Is not this something without meaning, an unreality—a make-believe?
And if it be said that under these circumstances the conception in
any form of immeasurable ages of time is unreal, we may reply by
granting it, and asserting that in such a case we are driven not
merely from the fully conditioned to the partially conditioned,
but even to the unconditioned; in other words, the hypothesis of
a permanently dead universe would hardly appear to satisfy the
principle of Continuity, which prefers to proceed from one form of
the fully conditioned to another. Nor is the difficulty removed by
the hypothesis that the matter of the unseen universe was always in
some simple sense alive, and that the motions of its various elements
were always accompanied with a very simple species of consciousness,
much more simple and rudimentary than any life that we know of here.
For to this it may be replied, how is it possible to conceive that
life has remained in this rudimentary form through a past eternity,
and only developed into intelligence since the production of the
visible universe?
219. For the benefit of our readers we shall now endeavour to review
as clearly as we can the point at which we have arrived, and the
steps which have brought us to it.
It will be remembered that in our definition (Art. 54) we agreed to
look upon the Creator—the Absolute One, as conditioning the universe,
confining the term universe to that which is conditioned. Thus we
conceive a stone to be in the universe, we conceive a man to be in
the universe, and to work in it, but we conceive Absolute Deity to
be above the universe rather than to work in it in any way analogous
to that in which a man works in it. Would there not be a confusion
of thought if we regarded the same Person as conditioning and yet
conditioned? Now, what the principle of Continuity demands is an
endless development of the conditioned. We claim it as the heritage
of intelligence that there shall be an endless vista, reaching from
eternity to eternity, in each link of which we shall be led only from
one form of the conditioned to another, never from the conditioned to
the unconditioned or absolute, which would be to us no better than
an impenetrable intellectual barrier. It has also been seen that in
this endless chain of conditioned existence we cannot be satisfied
with a make-believe universe, or one consisting only of dead matter,
but prefer a living intelligent universe, in other words, one
fully conditioned. Finally, our argument has led us to regard the
production of the visible universe as brought about by an intelligent
agency residing in the unseen.
220. We have arrived at this result from general principles, and
without any definite theory as to the _modus operandi_ of the
intelligent developing agency which resides in the unseen universe.
When we keep to well-ascertained principles we are on solid ground,
but when we speculate on the method by which the development is
accomplished we enter a very different region, where the chances are
greatly against our particular hypothesis representing the truth.
Nevertheless, _for the sake of bringing our ideas in a concrete form
before the reader, and for this purpose only_, we will now adopt a
definite hypothesis.[59] Let us begin by supposing an intelligent
agent in the present visible universe,—that is to say a man—to be
developing vortex-rings—smoke-rings, let us imagine. Now, these
smoke-rings are found to act upon one another, just as if they were
things or existences; nevertheless their existence is ephemeral, they
last only a few seconds. But let us imagine them to constitute the
grossest possible form of material existence. Now, each smoke-ring
has in it a multitude of smaller particles of air and smoke, each of
these particles being the molecules of which the present visible
universe is composed. These molecules are of a vastly more refined
and delicate organisation than the large smoke-ring; they have lasted
many millions of years, and will perhaps last many millions more.
Nevertheless, let us imagine that they had a beginning, and that they
will also come to an end similar to that of the smoke-ring. In fact,
just as the smoke-ring was developed out of ordinary molecules, so
let us imagine ordinary molecules to be developed as vortex-rings
out of something much finer and more subtle than themselves, which
we have agreed to call the invisible universe. But we may pursue the
same train of thought still further back, and imagine the entities
which constitute the invisible universe immediately preceding ours to
be in themselves ephemeral, although not nearly to the same extent as
the atoms of our universe, and to have been formed in their turn as
vortex-rings out of some still subtler and more enduring substance.
In fine, there is no end to such a process, but we are led on from
rank to rank of the order imagined by Dr. Thomas Young, or by
Professor Jevons, when he says that ‘the smallest particle of solid
substance may consist of a vast number of systems united in regular
order, each bounded by the other, communicating with it in some
manner yet wholly incomprehensible.’ Our meaning will be made clear
by the following diagram.
Here (0) denotes the evanescent smoke-ring, (1) the visible universe,
(2) the invisible universe immediately anterior to the present, (3)
that of the next order, and so on.
Again, (0) is developed out of (1); (1) is developed out of (2); (2)
out of (3); (3) out of (4), and so on. Further, (1) both precedes and
follows (0) in point of duration, while (2) bears a similar relation
to (1), (3) to (2), and so on.
[Illustration: (Five concentric rings marked 0 to 4)]
Again, the material substance of (0) is a phenomenon of that of (1),
that of (1) a phenomenon of that of (2), and so on. Go back as far
as we choose, we are only led from one phenomenon to another; so
that, as far as their essential nature is concerned, all are equally
phenomenal, and the mind cannot repose in any order as its ultimate
haven of thought, but is driven inexorably forward to look for
something different.
We see too, that, as far as energy is concerned, that of (1) is
greater than that of (0), inasmuch as (1) develops (0), that of
(2) greater than that of (1), inasmuch as (2) develops (1), and so
on. Therefore, if we go infinitely far back, we shall be led to a
universe possessing infinite energy, and of which the intelligent
developing agency possesses infinite energy.
It will also be seen that, inasmuch as all these various orders exist
together at the present moment, the energy of their sum must be
infinite, and this energy will never come to an end. In other words,
the Great Whole is infinite in energy, and will last from eternity to
eternity.
[If merely to prevent, in future, the possibility of a mistake
which has already been made by some of our critics, including even
Professor Clifford, it may be well to sketch here very briefly
another and quite different concrete illustration of our idea.
Just as points are the terminations of lines, lines the boundaries of
surfaces, and surfaces the boundaries of portions of space of three
dimensions:—so we may suppose our (essentially three-dimensional)
matter to be the mere skin or boundary of an Unseen whose matter
has _four_ dimensions. And, just as there is a peculiar molecular
difference between the surface-film and the rest of a mass of
liquid—wherever such a surface-film exists, even in the smallest
air-bubble—so the matter of our present universe may be regarded as
produced by mere rents or cracks in that of the Unseen. But this may
itself consist of four-dimension boundaries of the five-dimensional
matter of a higher Unseen, and so on. We might even try to explain
by this how it is that so very little of the nature of definite
description of the Unseen is given, even by a learned man like
Paul—for the notion of four dimensions would have been totally
unintelligible to any one eighteen hundred years ago. And just as
he says he heard in the third heaven ‘unspeakable words which it is
not possible for a man to utter,’ so he may have seen things which
language was incompetent to describe. But on this hypothesis, as
on the former, reflection leads us to the ultimate conception of
an infinite series of Universes, each depending on another, and
possessing of course among them an infinite store of energy.]
Before concluding this article we would desire to reply to two
objections which have been made to our book. It has been alleged by
some that we advocate the doctrine of the past eternity of stuff or
material. We therefore take this opportunity of stating that the
Principle of Continuity as upheld by us has reference solely to the
intellectual faculties. We are led, for instance, by this principle
to assert that the process of production of the visible universe must
have been of such a nature as to be comprehensible more or less to
the higher intelligences of the universe.
But we are not led to assert the eternity of stuff or matter, for
that would denote an unauthorised application to the invisible
universe of the experimental law of the conservation of matter, which
belongs entirely to the present system of things. Again, it has been
objected that we advocate an ethereal future state. To this we reply
that our principles do not lead us to assert that the ether must
play some important part in our future bodies, for our knowledge
of things is vastly too limited to enable us to come to any such
conclusion.
221. Let us here pause for a moment and consider the position into
which science has brought us. We are led by scientific logic to an
unseen, and by scientific analogy to the spirituality of this unseen.
In fine, our conclusion is, that the visible universe has been
developed by an intelligence resident in the Unseen.
Of the nature of this intelligent agency we are profoundly ignorant
as far as Science is concerned. So far as Science can inform us, it
may consist of a multitude of beings, as the Gnostics have supposed,
or of one Supreme Intelligence, as is generally believed by the
followers of Christ. As scientific men we are absolutely ignorant of
the subject. Nor can we easily conceive information to be attainable
except by means of some trustworthy communication between the beings
resident in the Unseen and ourselves. It is absolutely and utterly
hopeless to expect any light on this point from mere scientific
reasoning. Can scientific reasoning tell us what kind of life we
shall find in the interior of Africa, or in New Guinea, or at the
North Pole, before explorers have been there, and if this be so, is
it not utterly absurd to imagine that we can know anything regarding
the spiritual inhabitants of the unseen, unless we either go to them
or they come to us?
It is therefore of supreme importance for us to know whether there
has been any such communication. It would be affectation in us not to
say that if there be any such trustworthy communication, we believe
it will be found in the Christian records.
It has been said to us by our critics, ‘What have you to do with
these records?’ To this we reply, Not perhaps so much as a professed
theologian, but still something.
There is a well-known record, which claims to give us the history
of a communication with the spiritual intelligences of the unseen.
If true, it must of course teach us many things which science is
utterly incompetent to reveal. Nevertheless it is the object of
this book to prove that science alone gives us by logic and analogy
combined a certain insight into this most interesting and mysterious
region. Working our way upwards, we have reached by the principle
of Continuity certain regions. Working their way downwards, the
Christian records have reached these same regions of thought. Now
if our scientific logic be correct, and if the Christian records be
trustworthy, we should expect the two accounts of this common region
to be consistent with one another.
Let us here therefore inquire what the Christian records say
regarding this mysterious, infinitely energetic, intelligent
developing agency residing _in_ the universe, and therefore in some
sense conditioned, to which we have been led by scientific analogy.
222. These records, as they are interpreted by the majority of the
disciples of Christ, are believed to lead to a conception of the
Godhead, in which there is a plurality of persons but a unity of
substance. It ought, however, to be remembered that here the word
_person_ does not mean the same thing as it does when applied to
ourselves, but only denotes some distinction which may be regarded as
best expressed by this word. _Our_ idea of person or individual is
derived solely from our experience in the position which we occupy in
the universe.
The first Person in this Trinity, God the Father, is represented as
the unapproachable Creator—the Being in virtue of whom all things
exist.
Thus it is said (John i. 18), ‘No man hath seen God at any time;
the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath
declared him.’
Again, Paul tells us (Rom. xi. 36), ‘For of him and through him and
to him are all things.’ Also (1 Cor. viii. 6), ‘But to us there is
but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we to him (εἰς
αὐτόν); and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by
him.’
Also (Eph. iv. 6), ‘One God and Father of all, who is above all, and
through all, and in all.’ Also (1 Timothy vi. 16), ‘Who only hath
immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto;
whom no man hath seen, nor can see.’
223. Again, of the second Person of the Trinity we are told, in
addition to what we gather from the expressions just quoted (John i.
1), ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things
were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was
made.’
Again (2 Cor. v. 10): ‘For we must all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ.’
Again (Col. i. 15): ‘Who is the image of the invisible God, the
first-born of every creature: for in him were all things created that
are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether
they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers.’
Again (Heb. i. 1): ‘God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners,
spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these
last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of
all things, by whom also he made the worlds.’
224. It is, we believe, a prevalent idea among theologians that
these passages indicate, in the first place, the existence of an
unapproachable Creator—the unconditioned One who is spoken of as God
the Father; and that they also indicate the existence of another
Being of the same substance as the Father, but different in person,
who has agreed to develop the will of the Father, and thus in some
mysterious sense to submit to conditions and to enter into the
universe.[60] The relation of this Being to the Father is expressed
in Hebrews[61] in the words of the Psalmist, ‘Then said I, Lo, I
come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do
thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.’ In fine, such
a Being would represent that conditioned, yet infinitely powerful
developing agent, to which the universe, objectively considered,
appears to lead up. His work is twofold, for, in the first place, he
develops the various universes or orders of being; and secondly, in
some mysterious way He becomes Himself the type and pattern of each
order, the representative of Deity, so far as the beings of that
order can comprehend, especially manifesting such divine qualities as
could not otherwise be intelligibly presented to their minds.
Such a being is therefore, in virtue of His office, the King of
angels and ruler of the invisible universe, and to him the term Lord
in the poem of Job is supposed to apply (Job i. 6): ‘Now there was a
day when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord,
and Satan came also among them.’
225. It would thus appear that what may be termed the Christian
theory of development has a twofold aspect, a descent and an
ascent; the descent of the Son of God through the various grades of
existence, and the consequent ascent of the intelligences of each led
up by him to a higher level,—a stooping on the part of the developing
Being, in order that there may be a mounting up on the part of the
developed. Thus it is said (John iii. 13), ‘And no man hath ascended
up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man
which is in heaven.’ Again (Eph. iv. 9): ‘Now that he ascended, what
is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the
earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above
all heavens, that he might fill all things.’
226. It is naturally in accordance with these views that the Angelic
Host should be represented as taking an intelligent interest, even
if they did not, as the Gnostics thought, take an active part, in
the creation of the visible universe. Thus the Lord is represented
as asking Job (Job xxxviii. 4), ‘Where wast thou when I laid the
foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who
hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations
thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone thereof, when the
morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?’
227. It is also in accordance with these views that the same
hierarchy should take an intelligent interest in the life of Christ.
Thus we read (Luke ii. 13), ‘And suddenly there was with the angel a
multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.’ And again
(1 Timothy iii. 16): ‘And without controversy great is the mystery of
godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit,
seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world,
received up into glory.’
228. It will be remarked that the views which we have now put before
our readers have been developed more especially from the objective
point of view, and that our reasoning has been founded on the
principle of Continuity as applied to the outward universe. In truth
we seem to get a much firmer and more tangible hold on the objective
element of the universe, that is to say, on energy (Art. 103), than
we can on intelligence and life. For if we approach our individual
consciousness it is very manifest that we have no well-founded
principle wherewith to guide our speculations similar to the
principle of Continuity; for this, if we had it, would at once inform
us whether the doctrine of immortality is true or false.
We know very well that the universe will remain after we are laid
in the grave, but some of us are not equally certain whether we
ourselves shall then continue to exist.
Thus there appears to be a difficulty which we see at present no
means of surmounting in dealing with individual consciousness. But
while the continuance of individual life is enveloped in mystery,
it is believed that we have obtained hold of a general principle
regarding the distribution of life not greatly inferior in breadth
and generality to the law of Continuity. We mean the principle
that life proceeds from life, or, to speak more accurately, that a
conditioned living thing proceeds only from a conditioned living
thing. That dead matter cannot produce a living organism is the
universal experience of the most eminent physiologists.[62] In
fact, the law of Biogenesis is justly regarded by Professor Huxley
and others as the great principle underlying all the phenomena of
organised existence.
Professor Roscoe, again, approaching the subject from the chemical
point of view, says, speaking of red blood corpuscles, ‘We have not
been able, and the evidence at present rather goes to show that there
is not much hope of our being able, to construct these granules
artificially; and the question is in this position, that so far as
science has progressed at present we have not been able to obtain
any organism without the intervention of some sort of previously
existing germ.’
229. If we assume the truth of this principle it appears to lead us
directly to infer that life is not merely a species of energy, or
a phenomenon of matter. For we have seen (Art. 103) that the great
characteristic of all energy is its transmutability—its Protean power
of passing from one form to another. We may no doubt produce large
quantities of electricity by means of an electrified nucleus, but we
can do the same without any such nucleus—we can make unlimited steel
magnets by the help of one piece of loadstone, but we can do this
even more effectually by means of a galvanic battery—we may produce
fire from a spark, but we can obtain it without a spark.
Life, however, can be produced from life only, and this law would
seem to give an indication that the solution of the mystery is not
to be found by considering life as merely a species of energy. It is
some time since we gave up the idea that life could generate energy;
it now seems that we must give up the idea that energy can generate
life.
230. In preceding chapters we have given our readers a sketch of the
methods according to which men of science imagine that evolution has
been carried out in the universe of energy and in that of life. In
both worlds the principle of Continuity requires that in endeavouring
to account for the origin of phenomena we shall not resort to the
hypothesis of separate creations, that we shall not pass over from
the conditioned to the unconditioned; and Darwin, Wallace, and
their followers have, as we have shown, endeavoured to prove that
processes still pursued by nature are sufficient in a great measure,
if not entirely, to account for the present development of organised
existence without the necessity of resorting to separate creations.
Darwin especially imagines that all the present organisms, including
man, may have been derived by the process of natural selection from
a single primordial germ. When, however, the backward process has
reached this germ, an insuperable difficulty presents itself. How was
this germ produced? All really scientific experience tells us that
life can be produced from a living antecedent only; what then was the
antecedent of this germ? Hypotheses have no doubt been started, but
we cannot regard them in any other light than as an acknowledgment of
a difficulty which cannot be overcome. We appear to have reached an
impenetrable barrier similar to that which stood in our way when we
contemplated the production of the visible universe. And precisely
as we felt compelled by the logic of scientific process to deal with
this first barrier, so we must likewise assert for ourselves with
becoming reverence a similar freedom of action in dealing with the
second. Therefore, if life be one of the things of the universe,
if the assumption of a creation of life in time be inadmissible,
and if it be contrary to all experience to allow the possibility
of the production of life from antecedents not possessing life,
we are entitled, even in such a case as the present, to make use
of this conclusion derived from experience, and are thus forced
to contemplate an antecedent possessing life and giving life to
this primordial germ,—an antecedent in the universe, not out of
it,—conditioned, not unconditioned. Now, what is the meaning of this
conclusion? In the first place, it does not mean that the antecedent
to the primordial germ must be a like germ, for we know from
experience that while life is always produced from life, like is by
no means always produced from like. In this case more especially the
living antecedent must be in the invisible universe, and therefore
altogether different from the germ.
231. If we now turn once more to the Christian system, we find that
it recognises such an antecedent as an agent in the universe. He is
styled the Lord, and Giver of Life. The third Person of the Trinity
is regarded in this system as working in the universe, and therefore
in some sense as conditioned. One of His functions consists in
distributing and developing this principle of life, which we are
forced to regard as one of the things of the universe; just as the
second Person of the Trinity is regarded as developing the objective
phenomena of the universe. Thus one has entered from everlasting into
the universe, in order to develop it objectively, while the other has
also entered from everlasting into the universe, in order to develop
its subjective elements, life and intelligence.
Thus we read (Gen. i. 2), ‘And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters;’ implying, we may imagine, a
peculiar operation of this Spirit preceding the advent of life into
the world. Again, when in the fulness of time, Christ, the developing
agent, made His appearance here, and submitted to the trammels of
a human nature, this appearance was preceded by an operation of the
same Spirit.
232. It may here be desirable to discuss somewhat fully the position
of life in the universe, as we are constrained to view it in virtue
of the scientifically established principles of biogenesis.
If then the matter of this present visible universe be not capable of
itself, that is to say, in virtue of the forces and qualities with
which it has been endowed, of generating life; but if we must look
to the unseen universe for the origin of life, this would appear to
show that the peculiar collocation of matter which accompanies the
operations of life is not a mere grouping of particles of the visible
universe, but implies likewise some peculiarity in the connection
of these with the unseen universe. May it not denote in fact some
peculiarity of structure extending to the unseen?
In fine, to go a step further, may not life denote a peculiarity
of structure which is handed over not merely from one stage to
another—from the invisible to the visible—but which rises upwards
from the very lowest structural depths of the material of the
universe, this material being regarded as possessed of an infinitely
complex structure such as we have pictured to our readers in a
previous part of this chapter (Art. 220).
If we suppose any such peculiarity to accompany life we cannot fail
at once to see the impossibility of its originating in the visible
universe alone.
233. Again, it is well known to many of our readers that discussions
have frequently arisen regarding the peculiar place and function of
life in the universe. What is its relation to energy? it certainly
does not create energy—what then does it do?
One way of replying to this question is indicated in the following
passage, which we quote at length from an article on ‘The Atomic
Theory of Lucretius,’ in the _North British Review_ for March 1868:—
‘It is a principle of mechanics that a force acting at right
angles to the direction in which a body is moving does no work,
although it may continually and continuously alter the direction
in which the body moves. No power, no energy, is required to
deflect a bullet from its path, provided the deflecting force
acts always at right angles to that path....
‘If you believe in free-will and in atoms, you have two courses
open to you. The first alternative may be put as follows:
Something which is not atoms must be allowed an existence, and
must be supposed capable of acting on the atoms. The atoms may,
as Democritus believed, build up a huge mechanical structure,
each wheel of which drives its neighbour in one long inevitable
sequence of causation; but you may assume that beyond this
ever-grinding wheelwork there exists a power not subject to but
partly master of the machine; you may believe that man possesses
such a power, and if so, no better conception of the manner of
its action could be devised than the idea of its deflecting the
atoms in their onward path to the right or left of that line in
which they would naturally move. The will, if it so acted, would
add nothing sensible to nor take anything sensible from the
energy of the universe. The modern believer in free-will will
probably adopt this view, which is certainly consistent with
observation, although not proved by it. Such a power of moulding
circumstances, of turning the torrent to the right, where it
shall fertilise, or to the left, where it shall overwhelm, but
in nowise of arresting the torrent, adding nothing to it, taking
nothing from it,—such is precisely the apparent action of man’s
will; and though we must allow that possibly the deflecting
action does but result from some smaller subtler stream of
circumstance, yet if we may trust to our direct perception of
free-will, the above theory, involving a power in man beyond that
of atoms, would probably be our choice....
‘We cannot hope that natural science will ever lend the least
assistance towards answering the Free-will and Necessity
question. The doctrines of the indestructibility of matter and
of the conservation of energy seem at first sight to help the
Necessitarians, for they might argue that if free-will acts
it must add something to or take something from the physical
universe, and if experiment shows that nothing of the kind
occurs, away goes free-will; but this argument is worthless,
for if mind or will simply deflects matter as it moves, it may
produce all the consequences claimed by the Wilful school, and
yet it will neither add energy nor matter to the universe.’
234. Now there appears to us to be a very serious objection to
this mode of regarding the position of life, unless it be somewhat
modified. Let us take one of the visible masses of this present
universe, such as a planet. Suppose for a moment that instead of
being attracted to a fixed and visible centre of force such as
the sun, it is bound to an invisible and vagrant centre, the only
condition imposed upon whose irregularities is that it shall always
move in such a manner that there shall be neither creation nor
destruction of energy.
We have only to imagine for a moment such a universe in order to
realise the inextricable confusion into which its intelligent
inhabitants would be plunged by the operation of a viewless and
unaccountable agency of this nature. No doubt the hypothesis
regarding life, which we have quoted above, limits this mode of
action to the molecular motions of matter, but if our line of
argument has been followed throughout, the reader will probably
acknowledge that the superior intelligences of the universe may
have the same appretiation of molecular motions that we have of
those of large masses. Now they would in turn be put to inextricable
confusion by the advent of an unperceivable, and, from the nature of
the case, irresponsible force entitled _will_ operating towards the
deflection of these molecular motions, even although the energy of
the universe should remain the same. We think that Professor Huxley
and some others who have opposed this mode of regarding the position
of life have been somewhat unjustly blamed. They have driven the
operation of the mystery called life or will out of the objective
universe, out of that portion of things which is capable of being
scientifically studied by intelligence, and in so doing they have
most assuredly done right. The mistake made (whether by this party or
by their adversaries) lies in imagining that by such a process they
completely get rid of a thing so driven before them, and that it thus
disappears from the universe altogether. It does no such thing. It
merely disappears from that small circle of light which we may call
the universe of scientific perception.
But the greater the circle of light (to adopt the words of Dr.
Chalmers), the greater the circumference of darkness, and the mystery
which has been driven before us looms in the darkness that surrounds
this circle, growing more mysterious and more tremendous as the
circumference is increased. In fine, we have already remarked that
the position of the scientific man is to clear a space before him
from which all mystery shall be driven away, and in which there shall
be nothing but matter and energy subject to certain definite laws
which he can comprehend. There are however three great mysteries
(a trinity of mysteries) which elude, and will for ever elude, his
grasp, and these will persistently hover around the border of this
cleared and illuminated circle,—they are the mystery of the soul’s
domicile, in other words, of the universe objectively viewed; the
mystery of life and intelligence; and the mystery of God,—and these
three are one.
235. But in this latter statement we have transgressed the limits of
our inquiry, and are content to be driven back. Suffice it to say
that these three gigantic mysteries will persistently hover around
the illuminated circle, or, to speak more properly, the illuminated
sphere of scientific thought, of which duration, extension, and
structural complexity may be regarded as the three independent
co-ordinates in terms of each of which the process of development
goes on simultaneously as the boundary of the sphere is enlarged.
Within this sphere we have only that which can be grasped by Physical
Science, but we are not therefore to infer that matter and the laws
of matter have a reality and a permanence denied to intelligence.
It is rather because they are at the bottom of the list—are in fact
the simplest and lowest of the three—that they are capable of being
most readily grasped by the finite intelligences of the universe.
The following words of Professor Stokes, in his presidential address
to the British Association at Exeter, occur to us as very clearly
embodying this thought:—
‘Admitting to the full as highly probable, though not completely
demonstrated, the applicability to living beings of the laws
which have been ascertained with reference to dead matter, I
feel constrained at the same time to admit the existence of a
mysterious _something_ lying beyond, a something _sui generis_,
which I regard, not as balancing and suspending the ordinary
physical laws, but as working with them and through them to the
attainment of a designed end. What this _something_ which we call
life may be is a profound mystery.... When from the phenomena
of life we pass on to those of mind, we enter a region still
more profoundly mysterious. We can readily imagine that we _may_
here be dealing with phenomena altogether transcending those
of mere life, in some such way as those of life transcend, as
I have endeavoured to infer, those of chemistry and molecular
attractions, or as the laws of chemical affinity in their turn
transcend those of mere mechanics. Science can be expected to do
but little to aid us here, since the instrument of research is
itself the object of investigation. It can but enlighten us as to
the depths of our ignorance, and lead us to look to a higher aid
for that which most nearly concerns our well-being.’
236. In fine, the physical properties of matter form the alphabet
which is put into our hands by God, the study of which will, if
properly conducted, enable us more perfectly to read that Great Book
which we call the Universe.
We have begun to recognise some of the chief letters of this
alphabet, and even to put them two and two together; and, like an
intelligent but somewhat conceited child, we are very proud of our
achievement. Like such a child we have not yet, however, completely
grasped the fact that these letters are only symbols, but look upon
them with intense awe as the great thing in the world, meaning of
course our world. We look with a sort of adoration towards those
pages in which there are words of two syllables, and are ready
to fall down at the feet of that older and wiser child who has
penetrated into the depths of such profound mysteries. Our belief
is that all knowledge is made for the alphabet just as the little
musician believes that all music is made for the piano.
237. Life, then, whatever be its nature, may be supposed to penetrate
into the structural depths of the universe. Its seat is in a region
inaccessible to human inquiry, and equally inaccessible, we may
well suppose, to the inquiries of the higher created intelligences.
Intimations of its presence are no doubt constantly emerging from
this region of thick darkness into the objective universe, but when
they have reached it they obey the ordinary laws of phenomena,
according to which a material effect implies a material antecedent.
Notwithstanding all this, life exists just as surely as the Deity
exists. For we have subjected both these mysteries to the same
process, and have found it as difficult to rid ourselves of the one
as of the other.
We have driven the creative operation of the Great First Cause into
the durational depths of the universe,—into the eternity of the
past,—but for all that we have not got rid of God. In like manner we
have driven the mystery of life into the structural depths of the
universe,—that region of thick darkness which no created eye is able
to pierce,—but we have not got rid of life, nor are we likely to do
so. Before concluding this digression upon the place of life, let us
briefly review the attempts made to account for the origin of life by
those who have yet fallen short of the scientific conception of an
Unseen Universe.
238. Sir W. Thomson has gone further than any one else in such
inquiries. We have already alluded to his attempt to explain the
origin of the material universe by the vortex-ring hypothesis, and
also to his other attempt to explain gravitation by the modification
of the hypothesis of ultra-mundane corpuscles. If we add to these his
attempt to explain the origin of life as consistently as possible
with the principle of Continuity, we think it must be acknowledged
that he is a true pioneer in such inquiries as those of this volume
as well as in the more ordinary branches of Physical Science.
The explanation of the origin of life proposed by Sir W. Thomson
had also occurred independently to Professor Helmholtz. This latter
physicist, in an article on the use and abuse of the deductive method
in Physical Science,[63] tells us very clearly what led himself, and
no doubt Sir W. Thomson likewise, to suggest the meteoric hypothesis
as a possible way of accounting for the origin of terrestrial
life:—‘If failure attends all our efforts to obtain a generation
of organisms from lifeless matter, it seems to me (says Professor
Helmholtz) a thoroughly correct procedure to inquire whether there
has ever been an origination of life, or whether it is not as old as
matter, and whether its germs, borne from one world to another, have
not been developed wherever they have found a favourable soil.’
239. We have already sufficiently pointed out that the man of science
objects to separate creations, and that, in consequence, he tries to
explain the present terrestrial life by means of a single primordial
germ. But the difficulty still remains regarding the original
appearance of this germ.
Now, according to the meteoric hypothesis, this germ may have been
wafted to us from some other world, or its fragments, and thus one
act of creation of life might possibly serve for many worlds. If
therefore this hypothesis were otherwise tenable it would diminish
the difficulty implied by separate creations, but would it entirely
remove it? We doubt this very much.
For, in the first place, as far as we can judge (Art. 163) the
visible universe—the universe of worlds—is not eternal, while however
the invisible universe, or that which we may for illustration at
least associate with the ethereal medium, is necessarily eternal.
The visible universe must have had its origin in time (Art. 116),
no doubt from a nebulous condition. But in this condition it can
hardly have been fit for the reception of life. Life must therefore
have been created afterwards. We have thus at least two separate
creations, both taking place in time—the one of matter and the other
of life. And even if it were possible, which it is not, to get over
one of the difficulties attending this hypothesis, that of creation
in time, by regarding the visible universe as eternal; yet even then
we must regard matter and life as implying two separate creative acts
if we assume the nebulous hypothesis to be true. For if _x_ denote
the date of the advent of life, and _x_ + _a_ that of the advent of
matter, _a_ being a constant quantity, the two operations cannot
be made simultaneous by merely increasing the value of _x_ without
limit. Now this is what we mean by eternity, and therefore we cannot
help thinking that this want of simultaneity implies a defect in this
mode of viewing the origin of things.
240. Yet another hypothesis has been produced, which starts with the
assumption that all matter is in some simple sense alive. Looking
upon the atom as the essential thing in the universe, the various
motions of the atom are by this school supposed to be accompanied
by a species of consciousness inconceivably simple. Under certain
circumstances this eternal and immortal consciousness is supposed to
be consistent with that which we call the life of the individual,
while under other circumstances these two lives are not consistent
with one another. The individual then dies, but nevertheless the
simple immortal lives of the atoms which compose his body remain
attached to them as truly as before.
There is no disappearance of anything from the universe, only the
mode in which the simple immortal life becomes manifested has
undergone a change of expression, just as energy may be supposed to
undergo a change without disappearing. It is thought by the members
of this school that such a hypothesis satisfies the Principle of
Continuity more fully than any other. For, looking at things from
the old point of view, we see that certain atoms are concerned in
the manifestation of consciousness, as for instance the particles of
our brains, while certain other atoms are not so concerned, as for
instance the inorganic matter we see around us.
Here then, it is argued, we have a breach of the Principle
of Continuity, inasmuch as certain things of the universe
(brain-particles) have a function assigned to them in their
association with consciousness, which other things (gold, silver,
etc.) do not possess in any measure, if the distinction between
organic and inorganic be an essential one. To avert this breach, it
is essential that all matter should be considered as in some sense
alive. It is furthermore argued, that by this hypothesis there is no
difficulty in accounting for the introduction of life, inasmuch as
life always accompanies matter, the mode of manifestation of the one
being regulated by the mode of collocation of the other.
241. Now it appears to us that this school of thought is justified
in declining to accept a hypothesis which attributes to certain
substances of the universe a power which is entirely wanting in
others, or that gives to the same substance at one time a fundamental
power or property that is entirely wanting at another. It is not so
much the premiss as the conclusion of this school to which we object.
For let us consider for a moment what is implied in the astounding
inference that the atom is the true abode of immortal life in the
universe, and that its life is of an extremely simple kind.
It implies, in the first place, that the atom is eternal, and to this
we object. It implies, in the next place, that the atom is extremely
simple in its constitution, and to this we object. It implies,
thirdly, that for the antecedents of the motions of the atom it is
unnecessary to resort to anything beyond the atom itself, and to this
we object.
242. We have in other places sufficiently set forth our objection
to regarding the atom either as eternal or as extremely simple in
constitution, let us now state our objection to regarding the motions
of the atom (in this generalisation) apart from the surrounding
universe.
Our objection is, that in order to conceive the nature of the forces
by which atoms act upon each other, we are driven at once, if not to
the very hypothesis of Le Sage, at least to something which implies
the existence and agency of the Unseen Universe.
But when once we have taken this step, we are not permitted to rest,
for another journey is before us, and after that another, and so on.
In fine, there is no end to the process, and no halting-place for the
mind, except in the belief that the universe as a whole participates
in every motion which takes place even in the smallest of atoms.[64]
Undoubtedly as regards certain practical scientific results, it
is allowable to regard the atom as a thing by itself, and to sum
up the _apparent_ actions of the various atoms as if each were
independent of everything else. But when we come to a generalisation
so fundamental as this hypothesis regarding life, we are forced to
ask whether the apparent and visible action of atoms on one another
is really everything which takes place, and then we find, as we have
just shown, that we are driven at once into the Unseen Universe, and
thence into an endless complexity of antecedent.
In fine, we conclude that inasmuch as the universe in its various
orders participates in every conceivable motion, the consciousness
which accompanies this motion cannot logically be confined to the
apparently moving body or atom, but must in some sense extend to the
Unseen Universe in its various orders. But this is only another
way of expressing the conclusions at which we have already arrived,
for (of course) if we imagine a Divine Agency to be resident in the
universe, we cannot but suppose that every motion of any kind is
accompanied with a consciousness of this Divine Agency.
In fine, we maintain that _what we are driven to is not an under-life
resident in the atom, but rather_, to adopt the words of a recent
writer, _a Divine over-life in which we live and move and have our
being_.
243. Here it is desirable to consider what we gain by this
hypothesis. Our gain is simply in the way in which we regard the
functions of matter, and a little reflection will convince us that
neither form of this hypothesis, whether we hold by an under- or an
over-life, will enable us to explain the introduction of life into
the visible universe by natural laws alone, and without resorting to
some peculiar action of the unseen. As a matter of fact we are led by
science to receive the law of Biogenesis as expressing the present
order of the world. But the introduction of life into the world does
not become more consistent with this law by virtue of an hypothesis
which associates a consciousness of some sort with every motion of
the universe.
It still remains a fact as much as ever, that there is a marked
distinction between the living and the dead—the organic and the
inorganic. And it still remains true that, as a matter of universal
scientific experience, a living thing can only be produced from a
living thing, and that the inorganic forces of the visible universe
can by no means generate life.
In fine, our hypothesis, in which the material as well as the life
of the visible universe are regarded as having been developed from
the Unseen, in which they had existed from Eternity, appears to us to
present the only available method of avoiding a break of continuity,
if at the same time we are to accept loyally the indications given by
observation and experiment. It may be said (just as anything else may
be said) that the visible universe is eternal, and that it has the
power of originating life; but both statements are surely opposed to
the results of observation and experiment. Now we must be content in
such matters as these to be guided by probabilities, and it certainly
appears most probable that the visible universe is _not_ eternal, and
that it has _not_ the power of originating life. In fine, life as
well as matter comes to us from the Unseen Universe.
244. Let us here again pause for a moment and review the position
which we have reached. By taking the universe as we find it, and
regarding each occurrence in it, without exception, as something upon
which it was meant that we should exercise our intellects, we are led
at once to the principle of Continuity, which asserts that we shall
never be carried from the conditioned to the unconditioned, but only
from one order of the fully conditioned to another. Two great laws
come before us: the one of which is the Conservation of Mass and of
Energy; that is to say, conservation of the objective element of
the universe; while the other is the law of Biogenesis, in virtue
of which the appearance of a living Being in the universe denotes
the existence of an antecedent possessing life. We are led from
these two great laws, as well as from the principle of Continuity,
to regard, as at least the most probable solution, that there is an
intelligent Agent operating in the universe, one of whose functions
it is to develop the universe objectively considered; and also that
there is an intelligent Agent, one of whose functions it is to
develop intelligence and life. Perhaps we ought rather to say that,
if we are not driven to this very conclusion, it appears at least to
be that which most simply and naturally satisfies the principle of
Continuity.
But this conclusion hardly differs from the Christian doctrine; or,
to speak properly, the conclusion, so far as it goes, appears to
agree with the Christian doctrine.
In fine, we are led to regard it as one of the great merits of
the Christian system, that its doctrine is pre-eminently one of
intellectual liberty, and that while theologians on the one hand,
and men of science on the other, have each erected their barriers to
inquiry, the early Christian records acknowledge no such barrier, but
on the contrary assert the most perfect freedom for all the powers of
man.
245. We have now reached a stage from which we can very easily
dispose of any scientific difficulty regarding miracles. For if the
invisible was able to produce the present visible universe with all
its energy, it could of course, _a fortiori_, very easily produce
such transmutations of energy from the one universe into the other
as would account for the events which took place in Judea. Those
events are therefore no longer to be regarded as absolute breaks of
continuity, a thing which we have agreed to consider impossible,
but only as the result of a peculiar action of the invisible upon
the visible universe. When we dig up an ant-hill, we perform an
operation which, to the inhabitants of the hill, is mysteriously
perplexing, far transcending their experience, but _we_ know very
well that the whole affair happens without any breach of continuity
of the laws of the universe. In like manner, the scientific
difficulty with regard to miracles will, we think, entirely
disappear, if our view of the invisible universe be accepted, or
indeed if any view be accepted which implies the presence in it of
living beings much more powerful than ourselves. It is of course
assumed that the visible and invisible are and have been constantly
in a state of intimate mutual relation.
246. We have as yet only replied to the scientific objection, but
there are other objections which might be raised. Thus, for instance,
it might be said, What occasion was there for the interference
implied in miracles? And again, Is the historical testimony in favour
of their occurrence conclusive? We must leave the last objection to
be replied to by the historian; but with respect to the former, it
appears to us as almost self-evident that Christ, if He came to us
from the invisible world, could hardly (with reverence be it spoken)
have done so without some peculiar sort of communication being
established between the two worlds. No doubt we may well imagine
that the acts of interference in virtue of this communication were
strictly limited; and in proof of this conclusion we may cite the
fact that what did occur was sufficiently startling to have secured
the ear of humanity ever since, but not sufficiently overwhelming to
preclude the exercise of individual faith. The very fact of there
being sincere sceptics proves, we think, the limited extent of
these interferences.[65] And we must remember, on the other hand,
that it is quite possible to accept fully the truth of a statement
without the slightest influence resulting as regards modification of
our course of action. Perhaps the most terrible portion of the New
Testament is the passage (James ii. 19), ‘the demons also believe,
and tremble.’
247. We have now considered miracles, or those apparent breaks of
continuity which have been furnished by history, but our readers are
already well aware that equally formidable breaks are brought before
us by science. There is, to begin with, that formidable phenomenon,
the production in time of the visible universe. Secondly, there is
a break hardly less formidable, the original production of life;
and there is, thirdly, that break recognised by Wallace and his
school of natural history, which seems to have occurred at the first
production of man. Greatly as we are indebted to Darwin, Huxley, and
those who have prominently advocated the possibility of the present
system of things’ having been developed by forces and operations
such as we see before us, it must be regarded by us, and we think it
is regarded by them, as a defect in their system, that these breaks
remain unaccounted for. Our readers will now, however, if we mistake
not, perceive what is the real source of the perplexity felt by the
school of evolutionists. It is that they have been unable to regard
an interference of the invisible universe in any other light than
as an absolute break of continuity; and holding with justice to the
principle of continuity, they have been unable to do more than
acknowledge these difficulties and allow them to remain.
But from our point of view these difficulties are by no means
impenetrable barriers, barring for ever the progress of research. On
the contrary, we assert that, if approached with sufficient boldness,
and examined with sufficient care, they will be found to contain
avenues leading up to the invisible universe, and directing our
inquiries thitherwards. There may be possibly other apparent breaks
or barriers, but these appear to be the best established; and, with
these exceptions, we may suppose that the visible universe, in so
far as we are capable of investigating it, has been left to develop
itself in accordance with those laws of energy which we see in
operation at the present day.
In fine, the visible universe was plainly intended to be something
which we are capable of investigating, and the few apparent breaks
are in reality so many partially concealed avenues leading up to the
unseen.
248. Our readers must not however infer from what we have now said,
that we do not recognise any present points of contact between us and
the invisible. There may possibly be (but even of this we are not
quite sure) no points of _apparent interference_ between the two, so
that the man of science cannot say,—Here is a break;—but nevertheless
there may be _a close and vital union_ between the two universes,
in those regions into which investigation cannot penetrate, and
who shall say that the laws of these regions do not admit of the
objective efficacy of prayer? There may be an action of the invisible
world upon the individual mind, and there is no reason why there
should not also be an action upon the visible universe, by means of
those processes of delicacy which, as we have already seen, obtain
in that quarter (Art. 184). Neither the one action nor the other
would be detected by science, unless we except certain providential
occurrences, which are generally, however, better recognised by
the individuals to whom they refer than by the world at large. And
just as reversibility (Art. 113) is the stamp of perfection in the
inanimate engine, so a similar reversibility may be the stamp of
perfection in the living man. He ought to live for the unseen—to
carry into it something which may not be wholly unacceptable. But, in
order to enable him to do this, the unseen must also work upon him,
and its influences must pervade his spiritual nature. Thus a life
_for_ the unseen _through_ the unseen is to be regarded as the only
perfect life.
249. In fine, the unseen may have a very wide field of influence,
but from its very nature its working is not discernible, or at least
easily discernible, by the eye of sense, and we are therefore led to
consult the Christian records for otherwise unattainable information
regarding the reality of a present influence exercised by the
invisible universe upon ours.
In the first place, we have the following words of Christ himself
(Matt. xiii. 41): ‘The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and
they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them
which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there
shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.’ Again (Matt. xxv. 31): ‘When
the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with
him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him
shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from
another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.’ Again
(Matt. xxvi. 53), speaking to Peter: ‘Thinkest thou that I cannot now
pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve
legions of angels?’ Furthermore, we read (Heb. i. 14): ‘Are they not
all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be
heirs of salvation?’
These passages (and many more might be quoted) would appear to show
that, according to the Scriptures, the angels take a very prominent
part in the administration of the universe under the direction of
the Son of God. They are his ministers, his messengers, who execute
his decrees and perform his errands, whether of mercy or of justice.
Therefore it is said of Christ, ‘Thou art the King of angels;’ and
of himself in his glorified state, speaking to his disciples, Christ
says (Matt. xxviii. 18): ‘All power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo,
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’
Let us close these quotations by one from the Old Testament—2 Kings
vi. 15-17: ‘And when the servant of the man of God was risen early,
and gone forth, behold, an host encompassed the city both with horses
and chariots: and his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how
shall we do? And he answered, Fear not; for they that be with us are
more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord,
I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the
eyes of the young man: and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full
of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.’
Finally, it is the belief of a large portion of the Christian
Church that the Spirit of God dwells in and acts upon the souls of
believers. This action represents the influence which reaches the
soul of man _from_ the unseen, enabling him to live _for_ the unseen.
250. We have in our opening chapter quoted a very remarkable passage
from Swedenborg upon the particular nature of God’s providence.
Let us now hear what the Scriptures say upon the same subject.
Christ tells us (Luke xii. 6): ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two
farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the
very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are
of more value than many sparrows.’ Again, St. Paul tells us (Rom.
viii. 28): ‘And we know that all things work together for good to
them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.’
Also (Rom. viii. 38): ‘For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.’
251. We think it may be concluded from all these passages that the
doctrine of a particular providence is taught in the Scriptures.
Nevertheless it is one of the hardest things to understand how this
doctrine can be made consistent with the working out of general laws
which, so far as we can study them, appear to have no reference
whatever to individuals. This was a difficulty intensely felt by the
late John Stuart Mill. He says, in a work published after his death:—
‘For how stands the fact? That, next to the greatness of these
cosmic forces, the quality which most forcibly strikes every
one who does not avert his eyes from it is their perfect and
absolute recklessness. They go straight to their end without
regarding what or whom they crush on the road. Optimists, in
their attempts to prove that “whatever is, is right,” are obliged
to maintain, not that Nature ever turns one step from her path
to avoid trampling us into destruction, but that it would be
very unreasonable in us to expect that she should. Pope’s “Shall
gravitation cease when you go by?” may be a just rebuke to any
one who should be so silly as to expect common human morality
from Nature. But if the question were between two men, instead
of between a man and a natural phenomenon, that triumphant
apostrophe would be thought a rare piece of impudence. A man who
should persist in hurling stones or firing cannon when another
man “goes by,” and, having killed him, should urge a similar plea
in exculpation, would very deservedly be found guilty of murder.
In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or
imprisoned for doing to one another are Nature’s every-day
performances.’
This objection to belief in the reality of the government of God has
been clothed in very eloquent language in a sermon by the Rev. James
Martineau:—‘The battle of existence’ (he tells us, putting himself
for the moment into the position of Mill and his school) ‘rages
through all time and in every field; and its rule is to give no
quarter—to despatch the maimed, to overtake the halt, to trip up the
blind, and drive the fugitive host over the precipice into the sea.’
In very beautiful language the poet Tennyson, after proposing the
same riddle, replies to it thus:—
‘Are God and Nature then at strife
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;
* * * * *
“So careful of the type”? but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing: all shall go.
* * * * *
O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.’
In another passage of equal beauty the same poet expresses his
conviction
‘That nothing walks with aimless feet:
That not one life shall be destroy’d
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete.
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivel’d in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.’
Professor Jevons, again, in his _Principles of Science_ (vol. ii.
p. 468) alludes in the following terms to this difficulty:—‘The
hypothesis, that there is a Creator, at once all-powerful and
all-benevolent, is surrounded, as it must seem to every candid
investigator, with difficulties verging closely upon logical
contradiction. The existence of the smallest amount of pain and evil
would seem to show that He is either not perfectly benevolent, or
not all-powerful. No one can have lived long without experiencing
sorrowful events of which the significance is inexplicable. But
if we cannot succeed in avoiding contradiction in our notions of
elementary geometry, can we expect that the ultimate purposes of
existence shall present themselves to us with perfect clearness?
I can see nothing to forbid the notion that in a higher state
of intelligence much that is now obscure may become clear. We
perpetually find ourselves in the position of finite minds attempting
infinite problems, and can we be sure that where we see contradiction
an infinite intelligence might not discover perfect logical harmony?’
252. Before we leave this subject there is one consideration which
ought not to be forgotten. It is evident that the development of the
visible universe is of such a nature that we can understand it, and
to a great extent explain it by means of laws and processes with
which we are familiar: nay, the order of the universe is something
which it is our very duty to investigate. But the result of our
inquiry is, and can only be, the appretiation of general laws of
action. The working out of these laws can have, from this point of
view, no possible reference to individual interests. If gravity acted
sometimes, and at other times refrained from acting, we could derive
no certain information from our experience; we could not advance
in art or science, and should infallibly be plunged into speedy
confusion. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that the occurrences
which take place through the action of gravity may, after all, be so
arranged as to have reference to the real welfare of individuals,
although this reference may not be apparent because we are not in
a position to recognise it, and it is not intended that we should
do so, at least in this life. The ability to do so would be a very
dangerous gift, and would go far to upset the present economy.
We know very little about the bearings of events on our own best
interests, and nothing at all about their bearings on those of our
neighbour. We may, however, believe with Jevons, that in a future
state the adaptation between the two may become apparent to us, even
if we do not ourselves become instruments in bringing this adaptation
about.
253. The outcome of all these speculations would thus lead us to
regard the Christian system as affording a full scope for development
in all respects, whether of the universe or of the individual. Its
law is pre-eminently that of liberty, and it has conducted us to the
conclusion that the doctrine of the Trinity, or something analogous
to it, forms, as it were, the avenue through which the universe
itself leads us up to the conception of the infinite and eternal One.
Nevertheless, not a few of our readers may be disinclined to
entertain any precise conception of the Divine nature. Neither
atheists nor theists, they simply dismiss the Deity as being quite
above their comprehension, and all doctrines founded upon definite
conceptions of the Deity, as superstructures without foundation.
Now, the results regarding a future state at which we have arrived
are, as we think, and as we have said in our introduction, capable of
being very nearly, if not altogether, detached from all conceptions
regarding the Divine essence.
We have merely to take the universe as it is, and, adopting the
principle of Continuity, insist upon an endless chain of events, all
fully conditioned, however far we go either backwards or forwards.
This process leads us at once to the conception of an invisible
universe, and to see that immortality is possible without a break of
continuity.
We have, however, no physical proof in favour of it, unless we allow
that Christ rose from the dead. But it will be admitted that, if
Christ rose from the dead, a future state becomes more than possible;
it becomes probable; and we do not see that this conclusion is, in
itself, greatly modified by differences in our mode of regarding the
exact nature of Christ.
Again, the production of the visible universe in time leads us,
by the principle of Continuity, to the conception of a fully
conditioned intelligent universe, existing prior to the production
of the visible. And furthermore, we are induced by our argument
(Art. 218) to regard the production of the visible universe as
the work of an intelligent agency residing in the invisible. If,
then, such an agency could produce the visible universe, it could
certainly accomplish the resurrection of Christ, without any break of
continuity, so far as the whole universe is concerned.
254. The joys of the Christian Heaven are celebrated in Hymns which
are frequently very beautiful, even if they do not mount to the
sublimity of the ancient Hebrew ode. One of the finest of these is
the free translation by Pope of the Latin (not originally Christian)
ode standing at the commencement of this volume. It runs thus:—
‘Vital spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying!
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!
Hark! they whisper—angels say,
“Sister spirit, come away!”
What is this absorbs me quite;
Steals my senses, shuts my sight;
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be—death?
The world recedes! it disappears!
Heaven opens to my eyes!—my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy sting?’
Many specimens might be given if our object were to collect together
the Christian Hymns relating to Heaven. Sometimes, too, we have
beautiful descriptions not in verse, and Bunyan’s account of the
reception of Christian and Hopeful at the Celestial City will at once
occur to the reader as not inferior in the claims of true poetry to
anything that we have in verse.
255. Now, if we analyse such hymns of joy, we find in them two
prominent chords, one or other of which is always struck. The first
expresses the Christian’s sense of relief from sorrow and death, and
the second his joy in the anticipated presence of Christ—his intense
desire to behold the King in his beauty.
These chords are struck together by St. John, when he says (Rev.
xxi. 3, 4), ‘And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold,
the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and
they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be
their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and
there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither
shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’
In other respects the descriptions of the Christian heaven are no
doubt figurative. They are intended for Christians of all ages of the
world, and have hardly any reference to the material conditions of
life in a future state. These could not be apprehended by believers
1800 years ago, inasmuch as we can hardly be said to grasp them now.
Nevertheless there is one direction in which _we do think_ we are
able to obtain a glimpse into the conditions of this future life.
256. One of the most prominent characteristics of even the
well-directed human mind is its insatiable curiosity. How intensely
anxious we all are to realise the conditions of the life of our
forefathers in the ruder and earlier times; how interested in every
scrap of intelligence which reaches us from the dead old world!
How interested too in any light thrown upon the civilisation which
preceded these old times! What would not any man give for half an
hour with Socrates or Plato? what would he not give, be he Christian
or unbeliever, to have pictured out vividly and truly before him some
episode in the life of Christ? In a tedious, toilsome, tantalising,
roundabout way we do indeed get some passing glimpses into these
ancient historical ages.
The earth is not unlike the human brain, in that it contains in
itself certain memories of the past: and, just as we rummage out
and hunt up in our brains old memories, so do the historian and the
antiquary search about in the earth for that memory which it retains
of those distant but glorious ages. But the universe, no less than
the individual, has another memory besides the material one, and we
have endeavoured (Art. 196) to convince our readers that nothing is
really lost, the past being always present in the universe. If this
be the case, it may readily be conceived that this universal memory
may by some process of exaltation and intensification, or as it were
by some relay battery of the universe, be occasionally quickened into
such a life that the individual in the future and glorified state may
be enabled (through the power of the Lord) to realise scenes that
happened in the far distant past. For if so much can be accomplished
with a thing so little plastic as the material memory of the earth,
what may not be done with that infinitely more plastic form of
existence which we term the world to come?
257. Again, if in this present world we have great difficulty in
realising our own past, we have even greater difficulty in realising
what is at this very moment taking place in remote parts of the
present visible universe. Astronomers and Physicists agree that
life is possible in the planet Mars, and it is quite likely that
intelligent beings analogous to ourselves exist at the present moment
on the surface of that planet, but we shall never in this life know
for certain anything about them. There is an insurmountable barrier
to physical inquiry as great as if Mars belonged to the unseen
universe, instead of being, what he is in reality, our next-door
neighbour in the present.
Now, may not this barrier be removed in the future state? This has
been a favourite topic with scientific theologians, and we believe
that all who have speculated on the conditions of a future life have
unanimously agreed that we shall have much greater freedom of motion
in the world to come. There can be no doubt that our relations to
time and space will then be greatly altered and enlarged. Men shall
run to and fro in the universe, and knowledge shall be increased.
258. But yet the picture is not altogether one of intellectual
brightness and beauty. It wears also a moral aspect, and upon this
almost exclusively the Christian records dwell. We are told in these
records that nothing is forgotten. Christ tells us (St. Luke viii.
17), ‘Nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither
anything hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.’ And again St.
John tells us (Rev. xx. 12), ‘I saw the dead, small and great, stand
before God: and the books were opened; and another book was opened,
which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those
things which were written in the books, according to their works.’
This thought has been developed by the Rev. Alexander Macleod, D.D.,
in a work entitled _Our own Lives the Books of Judgment_. This author
points out that in many cases it may not be even necessary to appeal
to the universe for the record which is therein written, for this is
sufficiently stamped upon the body itself, and he then draws a vivid
and lurid picture of the sensual man in whom the mortal body is like
a parchment written within and without—a truly mournful and terrible
record of the deeds done in the body.
But if all this is possible with an organism possessing so little
plasticity as the natural body, and where the wish of the individual
is to preserve a respectable exterior, what must be the case in the
soul[66] of such a man?—‘If they do these things in a green tree,
what shall be done in the dry?’ What a hideous and horrible likeness
must not that foul thing have that issues forth from the ‘grave and
gate of Death’ into the presence of the Unseen and Eternal?
259. It is extremely striking to read in this connection the
following extract from Plato’s _Gorgias_. We quote from Jowett’s
translation. Socrates is the speaker:—
‘This is a tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, and
from which I draw the following inferences: Death, if I am right,
is in the first place the separation from one another of two
things, soul and body;—this, and nothing else. And after they
are separated they retain their several characteristics, which
are much the same as in life; the body has the same nature and
ways and affections, all clearly discernible; for example, he
who by nature or training, or both, was a tall man while he was
alive, will remain as he was after he is dead; and the fat man
will remain fat; and so on: and the dead man, who in life had a
fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he
was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or
of wounds in him while he was alive, you might see the same in
the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen while
he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead.
And, in a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life
would be distinguishable after death, either perfectly or in a
great measure and for a time. And I should infer that this is
equally true of the soul, Callicles; when the man is stripped of
the body all the natural or acquired affections of the soul are
laid open to view. And when they come to the judge, as those from
Asia came to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects
them quite impartially, not knowing whose the soul is: perhaps
he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of some other
king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but his soul is
marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of
perjuries, and of wrongs which have been plastered into him by
each action, and he is all crooked with falsehood and imposture,
because he has lived without truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds,
full of all deformity and disproportion, which is caused by
licence and luxury and insolence and incontinence, and despatches
him ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the
punishment which he deserves.’
260. As, in Eastern monarchies, a veil was sometimes cast over the
face of the guilty;[67] so in the New Testament the veil of darkness
is drawn over the fate of the lost soul who falls into the hands of
the living God. ‘And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw
there a man which had not on a wedding-garment: and he saith unto
him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding-garment?
And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him
hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness;
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’[68]
We greatly question whether any school of theologians have succeeded
in throwing a single ray of real light into this mysterious
region.[69] Our readers are well aware that there are three such
schools. One of these contemplates the eternity of punishment
physical, mental, or both; another the final salvation of all men;
while a third expects the annihilation of the wicked in Gehenna.
Now while it is entirely without our province to enter into these
discussions, we may yet be permitted to point out that, as it appears
to us, the principle of Continuity demands not merely one state, but
rather an eternal and infinite succession of states, in order to
constitute true immortality.
The precise conditions of such an immortality it is not for us
to discuss. Under any school of theological thought a glorious
immortality implies the ultimate union, morally and spiritually,
of the individual with the Divine over-life, while the fate of the
impenitent must surely be something so awful that language fails to
bring it fully before the mind.
261. But this graphic and powerful picture of the fate of the lost
fared as badly as other New Testament conceptions when it fell
into the hands of the materialists of the middle ages. Its meaning
was entirely altered, and the Christian Hell, instead of being the
Gehenna of the Universe, where all its garbage and filth is consumed,
was changed into a region shut in by adamantine walls and full of
impossible physical fires—the Devil being the chief stoker.
The one idea is awful, while the other is simply grotesque. An
antient Jew who had occasion to pass by the valley of Hinnom, and
whose senses were invaded by the sights and smells of that doleful
region, must have entertained a conception of the Hell described
by Christ as different as possible from that which has reached us
from the middle ages, and to which some even of the readers of this
book may have been accustomed in their earlier years. The reader who
desires to know something of the more than fiendish malignity with
which human beings (mainly Christian ministers) have _improved upon_
the solemn but markedly reserved language of Scripture on such points
has only to refer to the _Inferno_. Perhaps the hideous realism of
Doré’s illustrations will of itself be enough for him. If not, a very
few lines of the original cannot fail to suffice.
Perch’ io dissi:—Maestro, esti tormenti
Cresceranno ei dopo la gran sentenza,
O fien minori, o saran si cocenti?
Ed egli a me:—Ritorna a tua scienza,
Che vuol, quanto la cosa è più perfetta,
Più senta ’l bene, e così la doglienza.
Tutto che questa gente maledetta
In vera perfezion giammai non vada,
Di là, più che di qua, essere aspetta.[70]
Since the time of Dante many attempts have been made, unsuccessfully,
by men without his genius, to import additional horror.
To some extent no doubt Christ’s description of the Universal
Gehenna must be regarded as figurative, but yet we do not think that
the sayings of Christ with regard to the unseen world ought to be
looked upon as nothing more than pure figures of speech. We feel
assured that the principle of Continuity cries out against such an
interpretation—may they not rather be descriptions of what takes
place in the unseen universe brought home to our minds by means of
perfectly true comparisons with the processes and things of this
present universe which they most resemble? And just as, in the
visible universe, there is apparently an enormous and inexplicable
_waste_ of germs, seeds, and eggs of all kinds, which die simply
because they are useless—analogy would lead us to conclude that
something similar, and to at least as enormous an extent, happens
in the Unseen with the germs of spiritual frames. The caterpillar
which has not chosen a secure place of refuge in which to assume the
chrysalis form does not live to become a perfect insect. The seeds
that fell by the wayside, though scattered by an intelligent sower,
were devoured by the birds of the air. ‘Let every one of them pass
away, like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the
sun.’ ‘For many are called, but few chosen.’[71]
262. Thus the Christian Gehenna bears to the Unseen Universe
precisely the same relation as the Gehenna of the Jews did to the
city of Jerusalem; and just as the fire was always kept up and the
worm ever active in the one, so are we forced to contemplate an
enduring process in the other.
For we cannot easily agree with those who would limit the existence
of evil to the present world. We know now that the matter of the
whole of the visible universe is of a piece with that which we
recognise here, and the beings of other worlds must apparently be
subject to accidental occurrences from their relation with the outer
universe in the same way as we are. But if there be accident, must
there not be pain and death? Now these are naturally associated in
our minds with the presence of moral evil.
We are thus drawn, if not forced, to surmise that the dark thread
known as evil is one which is very deeply woven into that garment of
God which is called the Universe.
In fine, just as the arguments of this chapter lead us to regard
the whole Universe[72] as eternal, so in like manner are we led
to surmise that evil is eternal, and therefore we cannot easily
imagine the Universe without its Gehenna, where the worm dieth not,
and the fire is not quenched. The _process_ at all events would
seem to us to be most probably an enduring one. [Many passages of
the New Testament, however, seem to point to a continuity of moral
development in the unseen universe, a development whose climax is to
be reached when the last enemy, death, is destroyed in Gehenna.]
263. But it is fruitless to expect that Science should throw any
light upon that greatest of all mysteries—the origin of evil. We
have now come to a region where we must suffer ourselves to be led
solely by the light which is given us in the Christian Records. And
while here we would quote from a very remarkable work on the Lord’s
Prayer[73] by the Rev. Charles Parsons Reichel, B.D., which exhibits
in a singularly clear light the testimony given by Scripture, as well
as the fruitlessness of all attempts to obtain information from any
other quarter. Our first extract relates to the personality of ‘The
Evil One:’—
‘In refutation’ (says the writer) ‘of the objections that have
been urged against the personal existence of the Adversary, this
one observation is quite enough: that of the world of spirits we
cannot possibly know anything save by direct revelation. It is
beyond the domain of the senses; it is beyond the cognisance of
reason. A man born blind might therefore as rationally attempt
to disprove by a process of reasoning the existence of a sense
of which he can know nothing except by testimony, as we attempt
by a process of reasoning to disprove the existence of a spirit
of whose existence we can know nothing save by testimony. The
only point to be ascertained in either case is whether the
testimony be sufficient. If the testimony of Scripture be deemed
sufficient, then I cannot see that it is possible to deny the
Personal existence of Satan any more than that of God. _How_
Satan exists, or _where_ at the present time, or how his power
_avails_, as we are told it does, to contrive and suggest
temptations to the mind of man; and to what extent he is aware of
what is passing in men’s minds, so as to adapt his suggestions
to their weakness, we are not told, and do not therefore know.
But our not being told the manner in which his power is exercised
and brought to bear, is no proof of the unreality of that fearful
Being who is everywhere in the New Testament exhibited as the
adversary of God and goodness, whether in the individual, or in
the development of the human race.’
The next passage is one which all of us may study with much
advantage. It refers to temptation:—
‘Every risk incurred unnecessarily for the sake of exhibiting
our trust in God, every unusual or unnecessary act done merely
or chiefly for the purpose of displaying our privileges or our
conviction, or of attracting attention and admiration, every
stepping out of the plain, unadorned, and _unadmired_ path of
simple duty, is a phase of it.’
* * * * *
‘Why God should permit any of his creatures to be tempted is
a question we can no more answer than we can that question of
which indeed it is but a case, why God should permit evil to
exist at all. But we know that evil does exist; and we know too
that temptation does exist. That evil was first introduced into
the world by a Being who goes under the name of Satan or the
Adversary (2 Cor. xi. 3) we are told: that this Being endeavoured
first to seduce, and afterwards to menace our Saviour into evil;
and that he is constantly engaged in tempting us as he tempted
Christ, we are also told.’
* * * * *
‘And the true rendering of the last clause in Christ’s own prayer
would seem to intimate that the same Being is also busy in
suggesting temptations to every follower of Christ—“Lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.”’
264. But we must now draw to a close; first of all, however, let us
briefly sum up the results of our discussion.
The great scientific principle which we have made use of has been the
Law of Continuity. This simply means that the whole universe is of a
piece; that it is something which an intelligent being is capable of
understanding, not completely nor all at once, but better and better
the more he studies it.
In this great whole which we call the Universe there is no
impenetrable barrier to the intellectual development of the
individual. Death is not such a barrier, whether we contemplate
it in others, or whether we experience it ourselves. And the
same continuity which has been insisted on with reference to our
intellectual conceptions of the universe applies, we have little
doubt, to the other faculties of man, and to other regions of thought.
When we regard the universe from this point of view we are led to
a scientific conception of it which is, we have seen, strikingly
analogous to the system which is presented to us in the Christian
religion. For not only are the nebulous beginning and fiery
termination of the present visible universe indicated in the
Christian records, but a constitution and power are therein assigned
to the Unseen Universe strikingly analogous to those at which we
arrive by a legitimate scientific process.
265. Our readers are now in a position to perceive the result of
questioning science in this manner, and of abandoning ourselves
without mistrust or hesitation to the guidance of legitimate
principles. It is that science so developed, instead of appearing
antagonistic to the claims of Christianity, is in reality its most
efficient supporter; and that the burden of showing how the early
Christians got hold of a constitution of the unseen universe,
altogether different from any other cosmogony, but similar to that
which modern science proclaims, is transferred to the shoulders of
the opponents of Christianity.
266. For the present we would only add that the principle, of the aid
of which we have availed ourselves, is not a mere theological weapon,
but will, we believe, ultimately prove a most powerful scientific
auxiliary. Already we have used it in our endeavour to modify the
most probable hypothesis which has been formed concerning the
ultimate constitution of matter.
The truth is, that science and religion neither are nor can be two
fields of knowledge with no possible communication between them. Such
a hypothesis is simply absurd.
There is undoubtedly an avenue leading from the one to the other, but
this avenue is through the unseen universe, and unfortunately it has
been walled up and ticketed with ‘_No road this way_,’ professedly
alike in the name of science at the one end, and in the name of
religion at the other.
We are in hopes that when this region of thought comes to be further
examined it may lead to some common ground on which followers of
science on the one hand, and of revealed religion on the other, may
meet together and recognise each other’s claims without any sacrifice
of the spirit of independence, or any diminution of self-respect.
Entertaining these views we shall welcome with sincere pleasure any
remarks or criticism on these speculations of ours, whether by the
leaders of scientific thought or by those of religious inquiry.
It must never be forgotten that, whether we take the scientific
or the religious point of view, one great object of our life in
the visible universe is obviously to _learn_; and that (as human
beings are constituted) advance in learning necessarily implies a
high purpose kept steadily before us, and a continuous and arduous
pursuit. For, as we are told in the First Epistle of John, ‘This is
the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.’
Τῷ νικῶντι δώσω αὐτῷ φαγεῖν ἐκ τοῦ
ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς ...
Edinburgh University Press:
THOMAS AND ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It will be seen from our last chapter that we have used by
preference the word _Soul_ to represent that which survives death
both in the righteous and the wicked.
[2] See also Job xxi. 14, 15.
[3] See _Westminster Sermons_, by the Rev. Charles Kingsley.
[4] Wilkinson.
[5] Wilkinson.
[6] Exod. vi. 2.
[7] Gen. xix. 12.
[8] _Lectures on the Jewish Church._
[9] Dan. xii. 2.
[10] Dan. xii. 13.
[11] 2 Macc. vii. 14.
[12] _Wars of the Jews_, II. viii. 14.
[13] _Essays on some of the Peculiarities of the Christian Religion._
[14] _Phædrus_, quoted by Wilkinson.
[15] _Chips from a German Workshop._
[16] 1 Cor. xv. 35.
[17] Ps. cii. 25.
[18] 2 Cor. iv. 18.
[19] 2 Pet. iii. 10.
[20] Rev. xx. 11.
[21] See footnote to Art. 224.
[22] John v. 30.
[23] Gal. iv. 4.
[24] John viii. 28.
[25] See Professor Huxley’s Birmingham Lecture.
[26] _Life and Writings of Swedenborg_ by William White.
[27] We are aware that a certain class of thinkers regard all matter
and combinations of matter as in some unexplained sense alive. We
will discuss this doctrine in another place; meanwhile it must be
understood that we do not here allude to this peculiar life, which
from its very conception must exist as truly in a dead body as
in a living one; what we are discussing at present is individual
consciousness of the ordinary recognised type.
[28] As will be seen in Chap. III., the more important half of the
realities of the physical world are forms of Energy, _which cannot
exist_ except when associated with Matter. We mention this merely in
a footnote now, as we do not wish to diverge too far from our present
line of argument.
[29] A very striking analogy to this will be found in Chapter III.,
where it is shown that energy of visible motion often disappears by
transformation into the dormant or latent energy of position.
[30] See Essay on this subject by the Hon. Sir W. R. Grove, in his
book on _The Correlation of Physical Forces_.
[31] See _Contributions to Solar Physics_, by De la Rue, Stewart, and
Loewy.
[32] In Chap. IV. the reader will see that the only attempt to
explain the mechanism of gravitation, which can be called even
_hopeful_, does not give _rigorously_ the law of the inverse square
of the distance.
[33] ‘I hope all will be well. And, as for the gate you talk of, all
the world knows that it is a great way off our country. I cannot
think that any man in all our parts doth so much as know the way to
it; nor need they matter whether they do or no, since we have, as you
see, a fine, pleasant, green lane, that comes down from our country,
the next way into the way.’
[34] This is discussed in Chapter IV. below.
[35] It is hardly needful to inform our readers that the word
_substance_ is used in this chapter in the ordinary sense.
[36] See Thomson and Tait’s _Natural Philosophy_, § 269; or Tait’s
_Thermodynamics_, § 91.
[37] Thus paraphrased for us:—
Nature, bewildering in diversity,
Of marvels Marvel most inscrutable,
Like Proteus, altereth her shape and mould;
But Fate remaineth ever immovable,
And, changeless in persistency, outwears
The Time of men, the gods’ Eternity.
[38] For a more complete statement of Carnot’s work see Tait, _Recent
Advances in Physical Science_, 1876.
[39] They virtually showed that in a perfect steam-engine with
pressure equal to ‘one atmosphere’ in its boiler, and with its
condenser at the temperature of melting ice, the ratio of the heat
taken in to the heat given out is 1·365 to 1. Hence if the difference
between the numbers is to be 100, these must be 374, 274.—_Phil.
Trans._, 1854.
[40] See Tait, _Phil. Mag._, 1872, I. 338, 516; II. 240.
[41] Thomson and Tait’s _Natural Philosophy_, § 300; or Tait and
Steele’s _Dynamics of a Particle_, 3d ed. § 299.
[42] Stewart and Tait _on the Heating of a Disk by Rotation_ in vacuo
(_Proceedings of the Royal Society_). See also Stewart’s _Elementary
Treatise on Heat_, 3d edition, Art. 387 (Clarendon Press Series).
[43] If the visible universe be imagined to be infinite, we should
have (following out our line of thought) infinitely large masses
separated from each other by infinite distances, appearing for
infinite ages in the liquid and solid states, and thence transformed
by means of infinite collisions into the gaseous condition in which
they will remain for another infinite series of ages. Is there much
gained by this conception?
[44] i. 641. Thus rendered by Munro:—‘For fools admire and like all
things the more which they perceive to be concealed under involved
language, and determine things to be true which can prettily tickle
the ears and are varnished over with finely sounding phrase.’
[45] This has been spoken of as an exaggeration. We hope it may be
so; but when it was written (in the winter of 1874) the newspapers
were full of the sickening details of the gouging of an old man by
a gang of miners, who afterwards filled the sockets with quicklime!
These human fiends are probably already at liberty, having had their
few months of simple imprisonment!
[46] Tait, _Proc. R.S.E._, 1874-5.
[47] See also the extremely interesting article _Atom_, by
Clerk-Maxwell, in the 9th ed. of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_.
[48] Here it is important to observe that the speculations of Sir
W. Thomson with regard to the density of the Ether assign only the
inferior limit of that density. The _real_ density may possibly be
very much greater.
[49] _Études d’Astronomie Stellaire_, 1847.
[50] In Art. 148 we made a suggestion that gravitation might be the
visible result of a tendency to a minimum of some affection of the
fluid in which atoms are immersed. The exertion of gravitating force
might thus be associated with a change in the constitution of visible
things, and might perhaps point to an ultimate dying out, just as the
radiation from the sun, which obeys the same formal law as that of
gravity, points to a dying out of our luminary.
If this be conceivable, the really trivial nature of gravitating
force (Art. 139) might come to be associated with the extraordinary
persistence of the present state of things.
[51] The words ‘left to its own laws’ must not be taken too
literally. We ought perhaps rather to say, the procedure of the
Governor of the visible universe is at present such as to indicate
uniformity of physical laws, while, on the other hand, His procedure
when producing the universe indicated an intelligent agent designing
uniformity of product.
[52] _Lay Sermons, Essays, and Reviews._
[53] Stewart on the _Conservation of Energy_.
[54] Stewart on the _Conservation of Energy_.
[55] Stewart on the _Conservation of Energy_.
[56] See Meldrum on the _Periodicity of Rainfall_.
[57] _Principles of Science_, vol. ii. p. 455.
[58] So-called Ninth Bridgewater Treatise.
[59] It is surely unnecessary to inform our readers that we adopt
this hypothesis, not because we imagine it to have any inherent
probability, but simply as a concrete mode of bringing development
before the understanding.
[60] We are not here opposing the theological doctrine that _the
Universe is in the Son of God_. In fact, when we contemplate any past
phase of the Universe, we are driven to look upon this as having been
previously developed by the Son of God, who doubtless also sustains
it. This therefore represents the theological doctrine, nevertheless
it will at once be acknowledged that we may speak of Christ as being
in the Universe.
[61] Heb. x. 7.
[62] See a specially interesting and exhaustive paper by Lister
(_Trans. R. S. E._, 1874-5). A very clear analysis of it is given by
Crum Brown (_Proc. R. S. E._, 1875).
[63] _Nature_, January 14, 1875.
[64] The Rev. James Martineau has, we perceive, taken up a similar
line of argument. (See Art. on ‘Modern Materialism,’ _Contemporary
Review_, February 1876.)
[65] See Sermon preached at Belfast by Dr. Reichel, August 23, 1874.
[66] [Those who believe that the New Testament asserts the
annihilation of the wicked in _Gehenna_, of course hold that only the
just obtain the spiritual body. But we have no definite term for the
body as it shall be (in the _Hades_ of the New Testament) between
death and the resurrection. It is probable that the want of such a
term is due to the fact that the authors of our recognised version
have unfortunately rendered both Hades and Gehenna indifferently by
the word Hell, itself a term from Scandinavian mythology.]
[67] ‘As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s
face.’—Esther vii. 8.
[68] St. Matthew xxii. 11-13. [See, however, also Luke xiii. 28,
where the true meaning obviously is ‘_while ye are being cast out_.’
There are other obvious mistranslations in our version; such as for
instance that of Mark ix. 43, where for ‘the fire that cannot be
put out’ we have ‘the fire that never shall be quenched.’ It is to
be hoped that the revised version will be such as to give readers
ignorant of Greek a thoroughly correct idea of the meaning of the
original, most especially on points of such awful importance as this.]
[69] The extent of our knowledge, or rather of our ignorance, on this
subject has been happily rendered by the Rev. Dr. Irons, when he
states that all we are authorised to infer is that retribution will
be morally complete.
[70] The sense is as follows:—Master, said I, will these torments
increase after the great judgment, will they be less, or equally
severe? He replied—Go back to your scholastic learning, which tells
you that the more perfect the being the more he feels both pleasure
and pain. And, although these accursed ones can never reach full
perfection, they expect to be more perfect after than before (the
judgment).
[71] [We ought perhaps to inform our readers that what we have here
said refers to that particular state after the present—the dying out
of which, in consequence of voluntary separation from its centre of
life and energy, has been called the second death. Whether this dying
out is equivalent to absolute annihilation is a point which we do not
pretend to discuss.]
[72] Including in it _a state of things_ like the present physical
universe; not, however, _the very things_ that now exist, these being
evanescent in energy at least, if not also in material.
[73] _Cambridge_, Macmillan, 1855.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg 78: ‘tell us’ replaced by ‘tells us’.
Pg 115: ‘τρισμυριόις’ replaced by ‘τρισμυρίοις’.
Pg 118: ‘first to recal’ replaced by ‘first to recall’.
Pg 150: ‘The griding sword’ replaced by ‘The grinding sword’.
Pg 205: ‘in the charracter’ replaced by ‘in the character’.
Pg 213: ‘its continous energy’ replaced by ‘its continuous energy’.
Pg 227: ‘John iii. 16’ replaced by ‘John iii. 13’.
Pg 243: ‘school of thought are’ replaced by ‘school of thought is’.
Footnote 44, Pg 131: ‘tickle the the ears’ replaced by
‘tickle the ears’.
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