Cosmos, the soul, and God; a monistic interpretation of the facts and findings of science

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Contents

Chapter Page

I. Introductory 13

The Interdependence of Science and [Philosophy — Astronomy the Earliest of the Sciences — Results of the Union of Physical Science with Astronomy — Application of Newton's Theory to the Stars — Composition of the Stars demonstrated by Chemistry — The Author's Theory of the Source of the Physical Process — Development of the Science of Geology — The Indestructibility of Matter — Efforts of Chemists to produce Living Protoplasm — Impossibility of explaining Chemical Affinity, Electricity, Matter, and Force — The Cell the Basis of all Organisms — Manifestations of Mind in Micro-organisms — Psychology not a Science.

Chapter I

The Interdependence of Science and Philosophy — Astronomy the Earliest of the Sciences — Results of the Union of Physical Science with Astronomy — Apphcation of Newton's Theory to the Stars — Composition of the Stars demonstrated by Chemistry — The Author's Theory of the Source of the Physical Process — Development of the Science of Geology — The Indestructibility of Matter — Efforts of Chemists to produce Living Protoplasm — Impossibility of explaining Chemical Affinity, Electricity, Matter, and Force — The Cell the Basis of all Organisms — Manifestations of Mind in Micro-organisms — Psychology not a Science.

The great progress in anatomy, physiology, histology, and ontogeny has recently added a wealth of interesting discoveries to our knowledge of the mechanism of the soul. If speculative philosophy assimilated only the most important of these significant results of empirical biology, it would have a very different character from that it now unfortunately presents. — Ernst Haeckel.

Although Science is essentially engaged in explaining, her work is necessarily confined to the sphere of natural causation ; beyond that sphere (i.e., the sensuous) she can explain nothing. In other words, even if she were able to explain the natural causation of everything, she would be still unable to assign the raison d'itre of anything. — G. J. Romanes.

If Science could transcend the conditions of space and time, of phenomenal relativity, and of all human limitations, only then could Science be in a position to touch the supernatural theory of religion. But obviously, if Science could do this, she would cease to be Science. In soaring above the region of phenomena, and entering the tenuous ether of noumena, her wings, which we call her methods, would in such an atmosphere be no longer of any service for movement. Out of time, out of space, out of phenomenal relations. Science could no longer exist as such. — G. J. Romanes.

Such, then, I conceive to be one of the most important consequences of the monistic theory, namely, that, by regarding physical causation as everywhere the objective or phenomenal aspect of an ejective or ontological reality, it furnishes a logical basis for a theory of things which is at the same time natural and spiritual. — G. J. Romanes.

CHAPTER I

Nothing after all is of such permanent worth as a rational interpretation of the Universe. — Professor Peabody.

PHILOSOPHY is an attempt as far as possible to know the universe as a whole. In modern times the so-called natural sciences occupy a vast portion of the ancient domain of philosophy. These special sciences deal with facts from their several special points of view. They severally investigate separate fields of phenomena. Physics, in its narrower significance, treats of matter — its properties ; of mass — molecule and atom ; of the forms of energy — heat, light, electricity, sound ; and of the laws of motion. The student of physics invades the domain of other sciences. He studies the nature of solutions in physical chemistry ; he trespasses within the boundaries of astronomy in his researches in astrophysics ; he investigates earthquakes, volcanoes, etc., in geological physics.

All the sciences are attempts to know certain portions or phases of nature or the physical world. They seek to investigate the facts and phenomena of the material process as these are discovered through the senses, and to classify and unify the discovered facts. The physical sciences claim the right to carry their investigations throughout time and space so far as their methods of observation and experiment will enable them to search. Gross matter, the subtile ether, the heavenly bodies near and remote, all forces and forms of motion, the chemical elements and activities, life in all its manifold manifestations, biology and physiology, are all within the domain of the natural sciences. It would be wearisome to enumerate the ever increasing branches of science in our day. Philosophy attempts to unify all these several classifications of phenomena and to fashion them into one comprehensive and consistent system of things. Philosophy seeks fundamental principles and to interpret the facts gleaned in all the diverse fields of science, consistently. Philosophy may not disregard the findings of science and build castles in the air. The facts discovered by patient investigation, and the theories verified and established by science, must be accepted as the sure foundation

i6 for any enduring system of philosophy. Speculative philosophy must assimilate the most important of the significant results of empirical science in all its departments, if it would offer any comprehensive or intelligible view of the universe.

The oldest of the physical sciences is astronomy, and its early history is more important than that of any other ; indeed, it may be said that the state of scientific culture among the early peoples was little more than the practical observations of astronomy. This science had its beginning among the Chaldeans and the Chinese. These ancient observers of the heavens were able to predict eclipses with considerable accuracy, were acquainted with certain forms of the calendar. Among the Chinese are extant authentic observations of eclipses, comets, etc., extending back for a thousand years before our era. In Egypt, among the Greeks, and among the most ancient races, the observations of the heavens and the study of the stars constituted the scientific culture of the most conspicuous intellects.

In the second century before our era, Ptolemy, from superficial observation of the apparent movements of heavenly bodies, invented the Epicyclic System of the Universe, making the sun and planets revolve in circles whose centres are themselves in motion upon other circles, the earth being the centre of the system. All the observations and speculations under this hypothesis contributed nothing to the development of a science of astronomy, hardly increasing the material out of which such a science could be constructed.

It is with Copernicus that astronomy is born into the family of sciences as the eldest child. For centuries the general notion of the system, which probably originated with Pythagoras, was altogether overlooked, owing to the general acceptance of the Ptolemaic astronomy. The claim of Copernicus to the glory of being the father of the science rests upon the fact that, after centuries had passed, he brought to light this ancient conception, and greatly increased the probability of its truth by his calculations and arguments. Here we meet the fresh beginning of another branch of science, and one that was indispensable to the further development of astronomy. Physical philosophy had its origin, too, in a distant past, and many illustrious names of thoughtful Greeks are associated with its early attempts to solve the riddle of the universe. P3^thagoras is placed at the origin of the Italic school, but history records no

i8 systematic development of his teachings. The Ionic school, however, which is referred back to Thales, one of the ancient wise men of Greece, had a progressive development culminating in the physical treatises of Aristotle. But with this culmination its progress closed and " left the human mind to remain stationary on all such subjects for nearly two thousand years. The physical philosophy of these two schools is especially deserving of our study as exhibiting the character and fortunes of the most memorable attempt at universal knowledge that has ever been made. It is highly instructive to trace the principles of this undertaking, for the course pursued was certainly one of the most natural and tempting that could be imagined ; the essay was made by a nation unequalled in fine mental endowments, at a period of its greatest activity and vigor; and yet it must be allowed . , . to have been unsuccessful."^ So physical science rested until the times of Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler and Newton, when, joining hands with astronomy, an advance was made which has ever since been going on with increasing velocity to the present day. The whole conception of the physical world has been revolutionized in these

1 Whewell, " History of the Inductive Sciences," Vol. I, page 56. 19 modern times. A heliocentric solar system has taken the place of the geocentric. The stars have been resolved into suns like our own, and all the heavenly bodies are seen to be moving in their majestic orbits around remote centres. The laws of motion as discovered by Galileo and Kepler, and the law of gravitation, rule throughout the visible universe, and all the motions of the heavenly bodies are capable of being set forth in mathematical formulae.

After the long period of inactivity in physics and astronomy had come to an end, the human mind was again thoroughly aroused, and discoveries crowded rapidly upon one another. On every side tempting fields of investigation and speculation opened, offering richer promises to laborers. The invention of the telescope made possible new views of the heavens. The moon's surface was scrutinized, the phases of the planet Venus were seen, the discovery was made of the rings of Saturn and the satellites of Jupiter and spots on the sun. Then Napier gave to mathematicians an incalculable aid to their efforts by the invention of logarithms. A twofold progress resulted from these inventions, — a rapid ingathering of a vast harvest of facts, and a widespread and most fruitful mathematical treatment of these facts of observation.

The science of Mechanics became an attractive field of inquiry and investigation, resulting in the discovery and fo-rmulation of the laws of motion. Applying these mechanical principles to the motions of the planets, Galileo and Kepler determined their elliptical orbits, their periods of revolution, etc. Then came Newton's great work, the " Principia," which may be primarily considered a work on Mechanics. Until a science of Dynamics was discovered and formulated, until the laws of earthly motion were divulged, the most profound and keenest intellects groped aimlessly in their pursuit of the laws of heavenly movements. Bacon and Kepler failed because there was wanting in their day a true theory of motion ; because there was not a science of Mechanics.

Bacon himself bears witness to the futility of the efforts of the great minds of his time in constructing a true science of Astronomy. This great father of the inductive method declares that while Astronomy, up to that time, had had for her business to inquire into the principles or rules of the heavenly motions, and Philosophy into their causes, they had both so far worked without due appreciation of their respective tasks. Philosophy ignored facts, while Astronomy claimed assent to her mathematical hypotheses, which ought to be considered as mere steps and symbols of calculation. He goes on to say : " Since, therefore, each science has hitherto been a slight and illconstructed thing, we must assuredly take a firmer stand ; our ground being that these two subjects, which, on account of the narrowness of men's views and the traditions of professors, have been so long dissevered, are, in fact, one and the same thing, and compose one body of science."

The guesses and speculations of that very great and illustrious mathematician, Kepler, to whom we are indeed more greatly indebted than to Copernicus himself for the establishment of the so-called Copernican Theorj^, are stated in formulae and phrases that to-day seem puerile and amusing. Thus he introduces a chapter of his work on the planet Mars : " A physical speculation, in which it is demonstrated that the vehicle of that Virtue which urges the planets, circulates through the spaces of the universe after the manner of a river or whirlpool moving quicker than the planets." He speaks of the " moving force, the niag7ietic 7iatiire, the immaterial virtue"

of the sun, which cannot be said to convey any distinct conception. Kepler's physical theory, as applied to astronomy, was, in fact, the doctrine of vortices around the central bodies, and these vortices constantly whirling around these central bodies carry the moon and planets as the whirlpool carries straws. He further asserts that these vortices are " an immaterial species." All these are mere conjectures, not founded upon ascertained facts, nor attempted to be verified by observation of terrestrial movements.

Some score of years later, Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, himself a master in mathematics, set forth a similar " Theory of Vortices," incorporated in his " Principia Philosophise." He imagines three kinds of matter, the properties of which are equally imaginary. " The first kind of matter makes luminous bodies; the second, the transparent substance of the skies ; the third is the material of the opaque bodies, the earth, planets, and comets." Then he supposes that the motions of these parts take the form of vortices. By this means, the first kind of matter, which produces the luminous bodies like the sun, is collected to the centre of each vortex, while the second and subtile matter surrounds it, and by its centrifugal effort constitutes light, and the planets, composed of the third kind of matter, are carried round the sun by the motion of his vortex.

For a considerable period this was the accepted theory of matter and of celestial mechanics. Many eminent philosophers and mathematicians readily adopted it, doubtless upon the reputation of its illustrious author, who was a man of high claims in every department of speculation and " as a mathematician a genuine inventor of great eminence." Of course this theory did not long survive in the rapid progress of discovery that had already begun. It had no value whatever in the advancement of science, and is here alluded to only as an instance of theorizing without regard to discovered and verified facts, and without following the inductive method of observation and experiment. Leibnitz, though not a follower of Descartes, had said that the Cartesian philosophy was the antechamber of Truth — a compliment scarcely deserved ; for, as Whewell pleasantly remarked, " Those who first came into the presence of the Truth herself were those who had never entered this imagined antechamber, and those who were first in the antechamber were the last in penetrating farther." Playfair extends to Descartes, as a natural scientist, the doubtful credit of having rendered Newton a service " by having exhausted one of the most tempting forms of error."

In England, before the days of Newton, there were many men of preeminent ability in mathematics who discerned the true character of the problem of curvilinear motion. Conspicuous among these was Hooke, of Christ Church, Oxford, " who distinctly stated that the planets would move in straight lines if they were not deflected by central forces; and that the central attractive power increases in approaching the centre in certain degrees dependent on the distance," Here we have an attempt at a solution, of far greater value than all the speculations of all the former philosophers, who disregarded the careful observation of the laws of terrestrial mechanics.

Reaching the work of Sir Isaac Newton, we are in the presence of the greatest scientific discovery ever made. The order and movements of the heavenly bodies stand forth in all their perfection and beauty. The guesses of the past were verified or refuted, the observations were mathematically expressed and justified, and the unity and harmonious order of the universe were made clear as the day. The ancient speculations of astronomers, by

2^ the effectual aid of physics and mathematics, were reduced to one all-embracing cosmic generalization, the science of Astronomy was created, and the whole physical universe was presented in a new and comprehensive aspect.

The known solar system at that time consisted of sun, moon, earth, and five planets visible to the naked eye. Through all the centuries of the past, since the days when the Chaldean shepherds studied the starry heavens, no discoverer had observed another member of the solar system. It was not until a century had passed after the publication of Newton's " Principia " that Herschel's telescope won the first great triumph in the discovery of Uranus. After the general acceptance of the Newtonian theory, the glorious labors of Lagrange, Laplace, and other mathematicians were necessary to remove many remaining difficulties connected with planetary perturbations and the inequalities in the moon's motion. Their illustrious labors bore their full fruitage a half-century later, when the discovery of Neptune by pure mathematical reasoning from the perturbations of Uranus furnished for this theory the most triumphant confirmation and demonstration known in the whole history of science. The sidereal heavens were not studied, at this time, beyond the cataloguing of such stars and nebulae as could be seen with the telescopes then at command. A century and a half had passed after Newton's great generalization before it was sought to bring the stars within it. Until less than one hundred years ago the ascertaining of the distance of a star had not been successfully attempted. So late as 1836 Auguste Comte declared such a feat to be impossible, and that the Newtonian theory could never be proved to extend throughout the stellar regions of the universe. Three years later Bessel measured the distance of 61 Cygni, and the subsequent study of the movements of double and multiple stars soon established the fact that the law of gravitation embraces the whole sidereal heavens.

The development of another science, that of Chemistry, opened the way for marvellous advance in Astronomy. In 1774 Dr. Priestley found that by heating red precipitate an incombustible gas was obtained. This gas, the commonest element in nature, constituting " one-fifth of the atmosphere in volume, eight-ninths of the ocean by weight, and one-half the earth's soHd crust," was oxygen. This was the period of the emergence of Chemistry from the unfruitful alchemy of a distant past. As the science of Chemistry advanced, and the seventyodd chemical elements were discovered, and all the constituent elements of earth and the atmospheric ingredients were ascertained, the mind of man sought to know whether or not all the shining orbs of heaven were alike composed. And here opens before us a chapter in the science of Astronomy which even the boldest speculation of half a century ago would have dismissed as a baseless dream. The invention of the spectroscope and the discovery of spectrum analysis have supplied the data for a celestial chemistry.

" Hydrogen is detected in the far-off Dog Star and the nebula of Orion ; sodium, potassium, calcium, and iron in the sun ; demonstrating the gaseous character of the nebulae, and revealing chemical elements hitherto unknown, such as helium, a mineral first detected in the sun and afterward found in Norway." ^

More wonderful still is the fact that spectrum analysis enables us, through a slight shifting in the wave-lengths of the light it emits, to measure the motion of a star. We can by this means detect the approach or recession of a distant heavenly body. The spectrum of the star Algol tells a most

1 John Fiske, " A Century of Science," p. 7. 28 interesting story. Algol, a sun of the magnitude of our sun, has a dark body revolving about it nearly its own size ; and itself is in revolution round another dark body. The spectrum reveals the presence and gravitative effects of the two invisible stars, and also explains, as due to irregular eclipses, its long observed variations in brilliancy. Thus again is witness borne to the uniformity and unity of the physical world. Not only are the laws of motion on earth identical with those of the whole material universe, but the same chemistry applies to celestial as to terrestrial phenomena.

The questions ever present in the human mind, "Whence came this wonderful world? was it created by divine act? was it always as now? has it come to its present state and condition by gradual development and evolution? " have led to many attempts to construct a cosmogony. Some of these guesses of the ancients we shall hereafter consider. In modern times the Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace was the first fruitful effort to apply scientific facts and methods to the solution of these cosmic problems. The author of this theory, one of the very first mathematicians of all time, did not claim for it the authority of a demonstration, but the most advanced physicists and astronomers of to-day assume its general correctness and accept the same as a valid working hypothesis. By this hypothesis we have the physical world originating in an infinitely diffused nebula possessing a rotary motion. Intense heat is generated by physical or mechanical forces. Portions, cooling, give off their heat and contract, leaving rings behind, which themselves break up into globes rotating on axes and revolving round centres of gravitation. So the innumerable stars that fleck the immensities of space came into their present state, and their several systems were thus developed. Gazing at the heavens through the telescope, and studying the composition and states of development of the celestial bodies by means of the spectroscope, and the sensitive photograph plate applied to the telescope, we see suns and solar systems in every stage of evolution, from the nebula entering upon its cosmic being, to bodies like the moon, passing down to darkness, decay, and death. Though it may be that this hypothesis has not yet obtained the formal credentials of science entitling it to a place among its verities, it seems to withstand successfully all criticism, and to maintain an honorable position among the most probable theories of the evolution of the physical process. It has been stated by its great author in correct mathematical formulse, and observation affords us more and more satisfactory evidence of its truth.

Sir Norman Lockyer has given to the world a cosmogonic theory quite different from the Nebular Hypothesis of Kant and Laplace, which he calls the Meteoritic Hypothesis. It assumes that the stars have been made up by the combining together of masses of meteors, space being supposed to contain numberless swarms of these little bodies. It is altogether probable that these theories taken together give the full account of the development of the sidereal and planetary systems. The meteoritic upbuilding may have been preliminary to the nebulous state. The forcible gathering together of the meteorites may have caused the intense heat by which the mass was vaporized and transformed into the nebulous state. Then begins the wondrous tale of contraction, the throwing off of rings and cooling and contracting into solid spheres supplied with air and water, fitted for the abode of life.

These theories carry us back to a beginning of the physical process. I use the words " a beginning " with intent, for there is now arising a school of scientific philosophers who insist that the whole process is made up of series of evolutions and devolutions ad infinitttm. It is inconceivable, however, that there should be no actual beginning of the entire process, unless we shall accept some such hypothesis as that which this treatise is intended to propose and support, — that THE PHE- NOMENA OF THE PHYSICAL PROCESS ARE ALL THE PRODUCTS OF THE ENERGY OF AN INFI- NITE, ETERNAL, INFINITELY ENERGETIC PSYCHI- CAL UNIVERSE, upon which the material world ' depends for its being and innumerable activities. An evolving world, passing from a universal homogeneity to an infinite heterogeneity, must increasingly manifest the presence of manifold forms of energy, and demands a source of its ever increasing supply of active or kinetic power. If the physical process be only a phase of universal, infinite, and eternal activity; if this material world rests upon, and is interpenetrated by, the immaterial, infinite, and infinitely energetic universe, — then we need not inquire as to its beginnings, for every activity is but an expression of an ever and everywhere present energy. This hypothesis sets aside at least one of those " transcendental and insoluble world-enigmas," which, according to

Ernst Haeckel, Emil du Bois Reymond stated some years since before the Berlin Academy of Sciences, namely, " the origin of motion,"

Thus briefly have we traced the history of the development of the science of Astronomy, which is no less than the history of the physical process, until the organic world is reached. From our long flight out into the immensities of space, from our journey amid the wonderful revelations of Astronomy, we descend to earth, and resume the study of the record of man's pursuit of truth. The development of the science of Astronomy has resulted in a vast enlargement of the mental horizon with reference to space ; but the nineteenth century has witnessed also a notable enlargement with reference to time.

The eighteenth century closed before any fruitful endeavor was made to study inductively the earth's history as written through the centuries in the stony volume of the earth's crust. Indeed, during the early years of the nineteenth century, men of intelligence and education could be found, who with unshaken confidence maintained that fossils had been created dead and petrified and placed by the hands of Omnipotence beneath the rock-ribbed surface of the earth. It was not until 3 33

1830 that the science of Geology won its first and memorable triumph with Sir Charles Lyell. " Geologists before his time had been led to conclude that the general aspect of the earth's surface with which we are familiar is not its primitive and permanent aspect, but there has been a succession of ages in which the relations of land and water, of mountains and plains, have varied to a very considerable extent." In order to account for such changes, geologists were disposed to imagine violent catastrophes brought about by strange agencies, in some vague and unaccountable way, utterly unlike those forces now at work in the visible and familiar order of nature. But Lyell proved that the very same processes now going on all about us are altogether sufficient to account for the changes in the inorganic world which distinguish one period of the earth's development from another. It was then that attention was first drawn to the important element of time. These changes were slowly effected. Through long periods, unobtrusive and apparently inefficient agencies were at work, at length bringing forth by cumulative action marvellous results. Astronomy, as we have seen, steadily advanced toward the proof that in the abysses of space the physical forces are identical with those operating on earth. So Geology, carrying us back through long periods of time, shows us that the forces now at work are the same as those which have brought forth all the geologic changes since the remotest past. The philosophic significance and purport of all this in Geology are the same as proclaimed by the progress of Astronomy. Of course, in the very earliest stages of the development of the earth's crust, the temperature was excessively high, and so phenomena were manifested no longer to be witnessed on the earth's surface ; but in other parts of the solar system, as, io¥ instance, on the great planet Jupiter, the same forces are at work producing the same results as in those far-off ages in the history of the earth..

" Ever since our earth cooled to a point at which its solid crust acquired stability, since the earliest mollusks and vertebrates began to swim in the seas, and worms to crawl in the damp ground, if at almost any time we could have come here on a visit, we should doubtless have found things going on at measured pace very much as at present, — here and there earthquake and avalanche, iire and flood, but generally rain falling, sunshine quickening, ... ah as quiet and peaceful as a daisied field in June, without the slightest visible presage of the continuous series of minute secular changes that were gradually to transform a carboniferous world into what was by and by to be a Jurassic world, and that again into what was after a while to be an Eocene world, — and so on, until the aspect of the world that we know to-day should noiselessly steal upon us." ^

These conclusions of Sir Charles Lyell exerted an enormous influence upon men's habits of thought. The orderly ongoing of nature, the quiet working out of an advancing progress by the familiar forces ever operative, led naturally to a dynamical rather than a statical conception of the physical world.

In the course of our brief review of the history of astronomy allusion has been made to celestial chemistry and the marvellous results attained by spectrum analysis. These achievements would have been impossible without the previous development of the science of Chemistry. This science may be said to have been born and reared in the nineteenth century. It may be positively asserted that the ancients — the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans — never made the smallest contribution to the science of Chemistry. Indeed, what could be expected of an age when its greatest thinker and scientist, Aristotle, did not hesitate to say that a vessel filled with ashes will hold as much water as if empty? When Priestley

1 John Fiske, " A Century of Science," p. 12. 36 discovered oxygen, in 1774, there was no science of Chemistry, and men of that day did not know what took place when a log of wood was burned on the hearth. Stahl, a contemporary of Newton, invented, or rather imagined, the doctrine of phlogiston to account for combustion. This doctrine supposed that all combustible substances contained a common element — a preprinciple — called phlogiston, which escapes in burning. This fire principle was regarded as having no weight, so as to avoid the conclusion following upon the discovery of the fact that there was no loss of weight in the process of combustion. The discovery of oxygen, and the further study of its properties, revealed the fact that whatever may escape during combustion, oxygen is always combined with the burning substance. Then Lavoisier came with his balance and proved that when a thing burns, it unites with oxygen, and that the resulting product is equal in weight to the substance burned plus the oxygen drawn from the atmosphere. It did not take long for the awakened mind of man to step from this discovery to the verification of the truth that in all chemical changes nothing is lost, nothing is gained, and to formulate the fundamental law of the material world, the indestructibility of matter.