STUDY IV.

RUDIMENTS OF THE WORLD.

"The world is not God, as the Pantheists affirm. It did not exist from eternity as the Peripatetics taught. It was not made by Fate and Necessity, as the Stoics said. It did not arise from a fortuitous concourse of atoms, as the Epicureans asserted, nor from the antagonism of two rival powers, as the Persians and Manicheans affirmed, nor was it made by angels, or by emanations of æons, as some of the ancient Gnostics held, nor out of matter co-eternal with God, as Hermogenes said, nor by the spontaneous energy and evolution of self-developing powers, as some have affirmed in later days, but it was created by One, Almighty, Eternal, Wise, and Good Being-God."

WHAT is, or was, the Primeval Matter?

NEWTON'S Principia.

Possibly something out of which all the varieties of matter have been formed. Something simpler than that which is now called elementary matter. The elements, now numbered sixty-four, owe their distinctive properties to the grouping of certain ultimate atoms, possibly not of one kind, but of several kinds; for there are elements which appear to be so related, as to have community of origin. If they were simple homogeneous masses, it is thought that their incandescent vapour would show in the spectrum one single bright line; but there is no substance known the spectrum of which has only one line. The flame of hydrogen, the lowest in the scale, has four spectral lines, made up, it is supposed, of four different sorts of matter; but no conclusion regarding the complexity of hydrogen can be come to by means of the lines. The thickness of the spectral lines depends on their relation to the spectrum, whether toward the violet or the red ends. Some lines depend probably on the normal vibrations of matter, and the other on the harmonic vibration.

No force, known to us, can separate the constitutional

E

atoms of the elements; or effect any change in them; but if what is thought of Sirius and Aldebaran be true, that they are younger and hotter suns than our own, there the various kinds of matter may possibly exist in simpler form. Sirius contains hydrogen, but the proportion of metallic vapours is small in its chromosphere, and the hydrogen lines are enormously distended. The discovery of silicon in a new form, in the meteorites, renders possible the compound nature of that so-called element; and there is evidence of the compound nature of calcium in the Sun.

We are told--"by the different grouping of units, and by the combination of the unlike groups, each with its own kind, and each with other kinds, it is supposed that there have been produced the kinds of matter we call elementary."1 If we accept this statement, it must be against all logic and experience. Units possessing precisely the same properties, or rather no properties; and, by energy acting in a straight line, striking against one another; then going off in another direction; till, again striking, they go off in a third direction, and so on; will forever remain the same units and the same energy-neither creating new matter nor new energy. If, moreover, we bear in mind the all-important principle, that "nothing can be learned as to the physical world save by observation and experiment, or by mathematical deductions from data so obtained," we shall guard against those empirics who, reducing all existence to one element-destitute of all properties, and to one energy-acting only in a straight line, do then, to suit their theory, take in all that they have thrust out, and endue this one supposed form of matter with the mysterious faculties and occult powers of all terrestrial life.

Consider now the nature and constitution of matter.

If with Newton we speak of dense invisible units, those are only symbolic, yet still they seem verified in chemical experiments which manifest particles of specific weight and size. Get rid of the atom, as Boscovich does, substitute mere geometrical points, points without dimensions, as centres of force which attract and repel each other in such wise as to be kept apart and at specific distances; behaving, so far as external

1 "Principles of Psychology," vol i., p. 155: Mr Herbert Spencer.

Structure of Matter.

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bodies are concerned, just as an atom would. Pass on with Sir William Thomson and Helmholtz, to the vortex-atom theory, that matter consists of rotating portions of a something which fills the whole of space, that is vortex-motion of an everywhere present fluid. Add to this, every so-called atom of any one substance, wheresoever we find it, on the earth, in the Sun, or coming to us from cosmical spaces, possesses precisely the same physical properties. Then take a drop of water, and by means of a galvanic battery decompose it into the constituent gases; this shows that the parts may be separated until they are so small, that if again divided, the halves or parts are no longer similar to one another; but one is oxygen, the other is hydrogen. Thus we have arrived at the grained structure of the whole.

How finely grained water is, may be seen from the fact, that were it possible to draw out a film 100,000,000th of an inch in thickness, it would probably still contain a few particles of water in its thickness.1 As to the ultimate particles of the elements, by a rough process, Cauchy obtained the 400,000,000th part of an inch as their diameter. By a calculation upon what is called the electricity of contact of different metals, it is thought to have been ascertained that the grained structure must exceed the 700,000,000th part of an inch. By the molecular motion of gases, a result has been obtained that the 500,000,000th part of an inch is the size of the particles. These points or atoms manifest powers of attraction and repulsion; march under three banners as gases, fluids, solids; but, it is probable that every one is capable of existing in all three forms. The mysterious complexity of their nature may be inferred from gases. The result arrived at by several inquirers as to the molecular motion of gases is, that the average distance between the several particles of a gas at the ordinary temperature and pressure of the air, must be something between the 6,000,000th part of an inch, and the 10,000,000th part of an inch." The number of particles in a cubic inch of air is, approximately, about the number 3 with twenty cyphers after it; and as a large plum is to the whole earth,

1 "Recent Advances in Physical Science," p. 311: P. G. Tait, M.A. ↑ "Recent Advances in Physical Science," p. 315: P. G. Tait, M.A.

so is a particle of water to the whole drop; there being in that drop about 1026, that is, 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The particles of a gas are known to be free, detached from one another, and constantly flying about in all directions. The velocity of particles of hydrogen, according to Foulis' experiments, must be about 6055 feet per second at o C. This is a higher velocity than has ever been attained by a cannon ball. Clerk Maxwell and Boltzman have ascertained that in a mass of hydrogen at ordinary temperature and pressure, every particle, on an average, has 17,700,000,000 collisions per second with other particles; that is to say, in every second its course is changed 17,700,000,000 times; and, yet, the particles are moving at the rate of 70 miles the minute. When rude voices say, "The Lord never passeth by; not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the still small voice;" we cannot but marvel that some cunning creatures are so savage as not to perceive God unless He thunders on them.

If we look at Nature in her working dress, we find that the elements are not apparently of the same relative use and importance. It is a startling fact that the variety of existences which Nature contains, far from exhausting all the forms and combinations of which the elements are capable, only uses a few. The solid globe, whithersoever our search extends, is composed of say-silicon, aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and oxygen. The broad ocean composes its vast masses of fluid principally from two elements-oxygen and hydrogen,-and the salt consists mainly of chlorine, sodium, and oxygen. The animal and vegetable worlds, innumerable in forms and functions of life, are chiefly built of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. It is, indeed, astonishing that the great variety exhibited in the whole world is unfolded out of few materials. The Creator has taken but a handful of elements wherewith to form, in the main, the gorgeous structure of our dwelling. Do we ask why? The answer comes-as yet the world, to us at least, is rudimentary. Eternity and space contain endless surprises and possibilities; we know not what we shall be. There are latent forces of development which, when called forth, will exhibit new and exquisite powers. The elements, now

Life Throb of the Universe.

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little used, may hereafter display magnificent variety and surpassing beauty. The great Master has wrought charming music with few notes; what soul-stirring melodies will awake gladness when all the chords are touched!

Now listen to the life-throb of our universe. By scientific use of our imagination, we may conceive all the mechanical, chemical, and vital operations of the world as resulting from an infinite congeries of invisible atoms or mathematical points of attraction and repulsion. These countless centres are so many starting points of motion, causing atoms to cluster into molecules, and molecules into masses. In other words: "Atoms and molecules are little magnets with mutually attractive and mutually repellent poles. The attracting poles unite, the repelling poles retreat; and vegetable, as well as mineral forms, are the final expression of this complicated molecular action." This life-throb of the whole visible and palpable world is a pulsation going forth every instant from the Eternal Energy, and bringing out from the invisible and intangible that which is visible and tangible.

To develop the visible from the invisible, there must be a passage from the one to the other, or an ethereal medium, a stage in which the energy had passed from one and had not arrived at the other. Further, if we assume that all energies are reducible to One Energy, and that all forms of matter are derived from one primeval substance, it is demonstrably impossible for variety ever to have unfolded itself from this primitive physical unity. The change must have come from without, and even allowing that the change can be mechanically formulated, we must recognise in it the Unknown Energy. The variety called Nature did not evolve itself from unity, neither does Nature of itself guide or maintain the existing variety of continual change. Organic energy does not seem to be interchangeable with mechanical. No physical force that we know of can be converted into that which is called vital energy; least of all can it be counted as the correlative of mental change. Again and again there have been intrusions of new things. If chemical action differs from mechanical; if life is not chemistry, and

1 "Matter and Force," Professor Tyndall.