Matter, force, and spirit

Preface

IT is believed that the advance of science has developed fundamental truths which strengthen the hands of faith. To briefly point out some of these is the purpose of this little volume.

The well-informed thinker knows that so far as determined by pure reason, the question of the existence of God is one of probability only. It is only by the accumulation of truth that learning comes to the aid of faith and hope.

In the contemplation of Nature, " Such is the order, fitness, and beauty, whether in the infinity of space, or in its unlimited division, that even with our little knowledge of things, all language loses its vigor, and all numbers their power of reasoning. Our judgment is lost in speechless eloquent astonishment."

By unavoidable convictions of cause, we complete a regression from effect to cause to a Being unconditionally necessary to such a world of life. Yet in this mental process, as in every kind of so-called proof of the existence of God, derived from speculative reason alone, we ascend from definite experience to a highest Cause existing outside of experience ; to a conclusion of necessary existence, from given existence ; and of course all such reasoning is fallacious

iii iv PREFACE.

and indeterminate. God is thereby disassociated from matter and force, and made a prior existence and a Creator ; whereas matter, force, and God are co-existent and co-eternal. The very idea of God as spirit is inseparable from the idea of matter ; and without such association He is no more conceivable than is a God without time, or space.

This concept of co-existence excludes the idea of the creation of matter, or of force, and presents the universe as an eternal reflection of spirit ; matter and force being merely external expressions of Divine Self.

Conceding such Divine existence, we concede His knowledge of all the possibilities of His own laws, and of their culmination in organic life and mental power. In short we concede His prevision of man's existence on earth. And unless we regard man as a Divine plaything, the disport of an hour, a creature given being and then expunged from being, we may reasonably conclude, that his earth-life is a prelude to another life upon which he enters with the product of his earth knowledge and of his virtue.

Chapter I. Page

INTRODUCTORY I

All Knowledge Relative — Ideas of Force and Matter Restricted — Broadening Influence upon Religion of Science — They are in no Sense Antagonistic — The too Aggressive Spirit of Science — The Conservation of Energy— One Law for All Physical Phenomena — Limit of the Inquiry.

Chapter II

Idea of Matter — Divisibility — Figure of Final Units — Difference of Magnitude — Sameness of all Matter — Belongs to all Space — Is Matter of Different Elements Intrinsically Different ? — Nebular Hypothesis — Deductions from It — Evidence of Supreme Spirit.

Chapter III

Conception of Force — Motion the Necessary State of all Matter — Law of Gravitation — Universal — Transmission Independent of a Medium — Primary Force — Its Location and Discussion — Repulsive Action — Multiple Atoms — Elemental Matter — Primary and Innate Force, Definite and Quantitative.

v

VI CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. The Forces Of The Physical Affections Of

Heat and Light Motion — Interchange — Manifestation of Electrical Phenomena — Mode of Motion — Proceeds from One Primary Force — How Produced — Mutual Interchange of all Physical Forces of Matter— Probable Nature of Magnetism and Electricity — How they Differ — Direction of Transfer of their Energies.

Chapter V. Chemical Energy And The Physical Phenomena

OF VITAL FORCE 79

Chemical action a Differential Attraction — No Differences of Inherent Forces of Elements— Apparent Differences Accounted for — Current Electricity — Chemical Action Releases Energy — Vital Force not Possible except under Conditions of great Heterogeneity of Matter — Its Characteristic Phenomena — Chemical Action Renders it Possible — Opposite Action of Life Energy, and Chemical Energy — Theological Conceptions — What we Witness in Life Force — Channels of its Energy — Its Nature.

Chapter VI. Evidence From The World Of Matter And

FORCE OF UNIVERSAL SPIRIT .... 95 Nature's Methods those of Simplicity — Consensus of Opinion — Life Force and its Origin — Of the Laws of Attraction — Of the Conservation of Energy — Variety of Elements — Nature of Attractive Force — Likeness to Spirit Force — Presumptions of Materialism — Cognition, Self-Consciousness, and Reason — Limits of Understanding — Habit, Instinct, Heredity — Substance and Spirit — Life Force and Life Conditions — Advancement.

CONTENTS. vii

Chapter VII. Evidence Of Spirit In Psychical Phenomena . 120

Thought Transference — Somnambulism, Hypnotism, Etc. — Community of Thought and Waves of Thought — Inter-connection of Mind — Spiritual Side of Inbeing Force — Individual Responsibility — Animal Sympathy — Corollaries of the Foregoing — Summary as to Spirit Quality of Life Force.

Chapter VIII

Idea of Supreme Spirit a Duplex Conception — Religious Thought and its Evolution — True Religion and True Science — Results Unite instead of Diverging — Religion Common to all Men — Of the Great Religions of Earth — Evolution of Great Religious Leaders — Spiritual Phenomena Psychic — Duty of Science to Investigate and Develop Truth.

MATTER, FORCE, AND SPIRIT.

Chapter I. Introductory

All Knowledge Relative — Ideas of Force and Matter Restricted — Broadening Influence upon Religion of Science — They are in no Sense Antagonistic — The too Aggressive Spirit of Science — The Conservation of Energy — One Law for All Physical Phenomena — Limit of the Inquiry.

BEFORE we concede to materialism that " the mind of man is potential in the sun," let us be sure that we understand matter and force, —so far, at least, as to exhaust what experience and the analysis of these subjects teach.

Time, space, matter, motion, and force, in their largest sense, are eternal. The contrary is inconceivable. Neither their creation nor destruction are thinkable. If they exist of necessity, they have always existed. And whoever asserts the creation of matter by a Supreme pre-existent Intelligence, asserts that during an eternity of time matter was not ; and that at some moment Supreme Wisdom changed, — which is inconsistent.

Matter is the matrix of man's education. It is the basis of his physical action and conceptions, and his whole mentality is founded therein. From it he derives his ideas of spirit, and a part of his spiritual growth is a process through matter.

Knowledge begins in the unknown and ends in the unknowable. All that man has acquired relates to but a brief interval between limits, from a time past, to a not very distant time future. Before these limits, an eternity ; — beyond them, an eternity, about which he knows nothing.

Though imagination and speculation are untrammelled by boundaries, all positive knowledge is confined within these adamantine walls ; — a relative extent in time, and a relative extent in space. Ail knowledge is relative, and all thought relative. " The highest reach of human science is the scientific recognition of human ignorance." All that we know, are the forms and the laws of phenomena ; and absolutely nothing as to the ultimate nature of things.

Experience, with collective points of resistance, called matter, invests us with the idea that they are possessed of inherent force. Grouped under certain conditions of environment, they move as if under a directing agency, which we call life, and there result animate or inanimate forms, and even intelligence.

But who can assert that, instead of a material universe composed of solid, ponderable, ultimate units of matter, indivisible and imperceptible — this is not a spiritual universe, with what we call matter only a means to an end ? A material manifestation

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of spirit ? — " spirit and matter holding each other in mystic unity and equilibrium." Of course this is not what we accept as most probable, but there is always possibility beyond actuality, or the seeming solid materiality of our surroundings. While true learning destroys the self-assurance of men, it is not credible that, with its extension, the world is more sceptical ; that as the supreme limits of knowledge are approached, there is an increase of atheism. Investigation has dispelled illusion. Experiment has established law. Discovery has destroyed superstition. Science has made the path to God clearer, plainer, and more attractively beautiful, instead of more obscure. The dense undergrowth of former ignorance with its forbidding gloom and mystery has been swept aside, and the lovely sunlight of truth illumines the way everywhere. Instead of many gods, mankind has been led to one God ; instead of spirits of all degrees, they have been shown the one all-pervading Spirit, the Inspirer and Controller of Nature. The advance of science has not favored the material side only, for while it has given more direct and more simple views of natural phenomena, it has as steadily pointed to a universal Spirit.

Religion in its broad sense, has nothing to fear from science ; on the contrary, it should hail with delight every scientific discovery, every truth established, not only as an approach to the unity and simplicity of fundamental law, and to emancipation from the blind assertions of the sceptical as to mysterious possibilities of Nature's forces during aeons of time, but as conducting us to loftier views of the material universe. There are those ready to assert that matter has a manifold variety of physical, inherent powers, quite sufficient to account for the life of plants, of animals, and of men ; that life is potential in the sun ; and that it may be manufactured in the laboratory of the chemist. Because equivalents of energy are traced in the thought action of the brain, and analogies to polarities of force are seen in nerve life, they are quite ready to deliver themselves and their beliefs over to the possibilities of the mysterious forces of nature, which are declared to be all-sufficient though too elusive to comprehend. It was long doctrinally held that each of the physical affections known as light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and chemical affinity, was due to the presence of a peculiar force inherent in the final units of matter, whose characteristic was correspondent with the particular manifestation or mode of motion set up in each form of phenomena. So long as it was maintained that matter was thus endowed with such a multiplicity of properties, so numerous, co-resident, yet distinct, there was tacitly conceded to it a capacity almost unlimited. There is no need of surprise, in the presence of such concessions to the mysterious, that imagination should dominate, or that wonder should replace reason. In these assumptions, there was a surrender of the key position either to unlimited credulity, or to arrogant assertions that matter alone is all-sufficient to form life, and that man need not look beyond it for a God.

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The sooner such assertions are stripped of this mask of the mysterious, the more advantageous to the scientific and religious spirit of the age. The truth then will be the more clearly seen, that though the natural energy of matter suffices for its aggregation into earth forms, and for the preparation of conditions favorable to life, it is utterly impotent to confer life itself; and that matter is only a domino veiling universal life. The true spirit of patient, reverent, and truth-seeking science, is not in sympathy with confident assumption. Discovery has followed discovery, until the very confines of inquiry in some directions have been reached. Light and heat have been rescued from the domain of entities, and are, like sound, regarded as modes of motion. Chemical action is wholly separated from the mystic term " chemical affinity " ; its polar energies have been shown, and that its interchanges are between electro-positive and electro-negative elements. Magnetic and electric forces are no longer thought to be fluids — mysterious forms of matter, eccentric accumulations in space of wondrous powers and capacity ; but merely vibrant conditions of substance, or modes of its motion, belonging to all matter, but more manifest in some than in other elements ; in some, affecting more the surfaces, in others, the entire mass of bodies. Its interchanges are waves of motion, impelled by higher intensities, or by greater volume of the released energies of one portion of the body, or of the surface, over those of the other portion. From time to time, glimpses from scientific standpoints have suggested the existence of a single primary energy underlying all processes of nature ; but the direct view was not attainable until the truth of the conservation of energy, or the persistence of force had been established ; then it followed, that the different phenomena of light, heat, electricity, magnetism, sound, chemical power, etc., are rendered possible by the transference of equivalent force from one of these forms to another. Of course, under this view, all phenomena become merely relations of succession.

There is no truth in nature more fundamental than the principle of the persistence of force ; where force seems to have vanished, it has merely taken some other compensating form. Formerly, the annihilation, or the sudden creation of force, without apparent cause, was considered in thought perfectly natural, and no more singular, than that heavy bodies should fall ; though why they were heavy, it seems never to have occurred to anyone before Newton, to inquire. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of a law referring to a single origin, all physical phenomena. Beyond the approximate scientific unity, there follow homogeneousness of doctrine, and unity of philosophical method. In unity of credence is the beginning of harmony ; therefrom flows the useful, the perfection of equity, and there begins universal benevolence.

Beyond the impetus and accord thus given to truth, are increased facilities for the study of abstract knowledge in its broadest conception. Its pursuit is man's most exalted function. It alone enlightens him in his relations to his race, and to nature, and

IN TROD UCTOR Y. J

best fits him for his position at her head. The inquiry can never be wholly removed from the metaphysical aspect, since positive demonstration is impracticable. Matter is known only through motion, and force only through matter ; and there will always remain a possibility, beyond the real and useful probability. But can Faith, or hope of a future life, claim anything more ? If spirit be not the source and energy of all things, the evolving principle of all life in that which we call matter, then matter, dense, helpless, and inert, and having an equally helpless force, — is the soul and source of all. Life is then a hideous, grinning satire, a burlesque upon effort and knowledge, — objectless and purposeless ; and Nature nothing more than a vast, blind, grinding engine, unbidden and unknowing, working in an aimless and spiritless universe.

It is proposed to examine briefly that knowledge, which comes of experiment and experience, called science ; to see how far, if at all, it antagonizes spirit ; to view there the horizon of the sceptic, and, perchance to get a better spiritual outlook. We may then determine whether such knowledge conducts to a lower or a loftier ideal ; nearer to, or farther from a universal and supreme spirit.

Chapter II. Matter

Idea of Matter — Divisibility — Figure of Final Units — Difference of Magnitude — Sameness of all Matter — Belongs to all Space — Is Matter of Different Elements Intrinsically Different ? — Nebular Hypothesis — Deductions from It — Evidence of Supreme Spirit.

IT is our purpose to treat matter and force from a purely physical or material standpoint, viewing force according to the mechanical understanding of force, as a quantitative energy ; and stripping matter of its mysterious asserted entities, and so far as may be, laying it bare by analysis, that its possibilities, and intrenched life-creative powers may be estimated. We therefore assume matter to be a reality, and not collections of immaterial points of resistance, and if its masses be real, that their combining units are also real. An old and still contested question is of their unlimited divisibility, and it has grown to factitious proportions by the extension to abstract possibility, of the likeness of actual process. It is of no importance that we may abstractedly extend the division of what are the real final units of matter ; there is a vast difference between the conception of successive division, indefinitely prolonged, and the actual limit of divisibility.

The real question is, do the facts of nature indicate a limit to divisibility ? Though this may not be the limit of conception, yet it is the limit of our concern with the inquiry, for it is the limit of the operation of law through any period of duration. This, presumptively, has been eternal, and consequently, so far as we are concerned, any ultimate consequence has already been reached. To say that matter is every thing visible and tangible, is incompletely defining it. To say that it is substance, of which all things are composed, is to say that matter is matter. The only possible standard of thought is the ultimate conception. The instant we admit matter to be real, and distinguished from force, its ultimate measure, we admit its final units to occupy in space the three dimensions, of length, breadth, and thickness, and that they are incompressible ; otherwise they are not final, for whatever is compressible is made up of parts, and compressibility is the capacity of diminishing interstitial spaces. Hence the reality of matter, to which we arrive in conception, as our ultimate thought, is that of final units of substance, of three dimensions without constituent parts, and wholly incompressible and impenetrable, opaque, colorless, and ponderable and having absolute hardness. A homogeneous unity, neither disruptured by shock of impact, nor divided by friction, or other influences. The idea of the composition of matter from indivisible ultimates, is a growth from scientific thought. At first it was a vague metaphysical notion, originating with Leucippus, but under the bold hand of Dalton, it became a brilliant and fertile reality.

IO MATTER, FORCE, AND SPIRIT.

The deductions of chemical.analysis and synthesis evince that the practical divisions of matter are soon reached. The balance of the chemist has also overturned the belief so long entertained, of the destructibility of matter. Now the conception of its diminution or expulsion from existence, is as impossible as that of its increase, or appearance from nothing. And as each of its final units is the matrix of an inherent energy, and as each also represents by its never ending motion, a mechanical force, the idea of the creation, or annihilation of matter, obliterates at once all idea of laws of force. It will therefore be accepted, that the quantity of matter, and therefore of inherent energy in the universe, is always the same.

The figure of the ultimate units of matter, though unchangeable, is not practically determinate, the inquiry, for obvious reasons, being removed from demonstration. The inherent force of each unit tending to uniformity of distribution, and concentrating on itself would — granting mobility — produce a sphere. But absolutely fixed and incompressible as are these units, any resultant shape consequent upon any conceivable force, is unthinkable. This is true of all conjectures whatever upon their shape, as proceeding from a constraining force. And yet the subject is not wholly removed from the domain of reason. The course of nature in all of her manifestations is a procession of uniform simplicity, and all experiences irresistibly shape ideas to the belief in one comprehensive method.

In minute, component forces, before polar interchanges, or other causes, have forced a secondary arrangement of units, we arrive at a sphere as the representative figure. In semi-fluidity, where vibratory action predominates over attraction, there is in small aggregations of matter a spherical resultant. And cosmical masses, under the free action of central forces, are rolled into spheres throughout the heavens. As, therefore, all discernible forms tend to the spherical, in this uniformity there is involuntarily suggested the idea of an ultimate spherical archetype of form, justified further by the very hypothesis of the investiture of matter with inherent force. For as the final units of matter are homogeneous solids, their motions would be prejudiced in particular directions, unless the inherent force of each was so distributed, as to be capable of acting with equal energy from any point of the surface upon environing matter ; and no figure other than the sphere admits of these conditions. It is a figure of equilibrium, in being a figure of equal distribution of its own inherent energy. And since in nature, there is no warrant of predisposed direction of energy, the burden of evidence renders it probable that the figure of the final units of all matter is spherical ; and if this be the case, it necessarily follows, that the natural figure of all multiple atoms, or molecules, whose units are of the same magnitude, are also spherical. Another question is, whether or not there is uniformity of magnitude in the final units of matter.

If the ultimate nature of all matter, in its final units, be the same, this question must be answered in the negative ; for then there is no other way of accounting for the apparent differences of so-called elements, than that there is a difference of magnitude between the final units of different elements. As to whether there can be radical differences of elemental matter, depends upon the nature of the inherent force of the final units of each element. If these forces be, or can be, different, then, of course, each element in its mass presents corresponding properties to these inherent forces. This inquiry will be fully discussed in the chapter on force, but for the present, it will be assumed that matter is identical in its final divisions ; and of course, that each final unit of all forms of matter is invested with precisely the same kind of force. Under this assumption, we shall examine the evidence as to the difference of magnitude of the various forms of elemental matter. All composition and resolution of matter come from the action of forces, — those of mechanical motion, and those inherent in the final units ; the last, the assembling, and the first, the disintegrating ; the two together sift matter. Under the dominion of these forces, matter is in unceasing motion, not only the consentaneous motion of the units of the mass, but the vibratory motion of those units ; for none of the physical affections of matter, known as light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical action, etc., are admissible, without a conceded motion of the ultimate units of matter, with interspaces for that motion. Equal" diffusion of motion throughout any mass is consistent only with uniformity of resistance, and a uniformity of the forces acting in the mass.

It is upon the equal diffusion of motion, through the composing units, and the uniformity of their resistance to motion, that depends the stability of elemental divisions of matter.

If the units are dissimilar, their degrees of displacement are unequal, their motions neither consonant nor reciprocal, and they will consequently be segregated, under the action of a continuous incident force, and reunited into groups of like units, the arrangement being the more stable, as the units are more alike. Further, if the units of all elements be of equal magnitude, the degree of their juxtaposition, or the density of all elements under the same environment should be the same, which is not the case. Proofs and arguments could be readily multiplied to the same end, drawn from the laws of chemistry, — from considerations of heat and other sources, but they would be out of place in a work of this nature. Suffice it to say, that we must either admit differences of magnitude of the final units of the different elemental forms of matter ; or that the final units of these elements are invested with inherent forces in each element, differing from those of any other element. Now as there are in nature about seventy known elements, metallic and nonmetallic, it follows that there must be a corresponding number of different inherent forces, a particular kind for the final units of each element. This is not only absurd, but impossible, as will be shown in the discussion of the subject of force. But supposing all these points settled, are they decided with reference to our earth alone ? If so they are special.

Or are questions of divisibility, indestructibility, form, magnitude, etc., of final units, to be confined to our solar system ? If so they are still special.

Astronomers no longer grope in the heavens to determine problems, or to verify evidence limited in its scope, or peculiar in its application ; they seek generalities and the broadest types. From general laws inquiry extends to more fundamental laws in all channels of knowledge, so impressed is the scientific spirit, that the matter and energy of our system are connate with those of all others, a unity, a oneness, a likeness of universality. This is an increase of conviction through the multiplication of experiences, — experiences, the researches of all men, adopted as individual experiences, and again extended, impossible either to controvert or to avoid. To declare that matter is of a definite limit, thoughcontained in an indefinite extension ; and that particular elemental forms of it are limited to particular parts of space ; — or that matter conformable to one part of space is unconformable to other portions ; — is to oppose a development of thought now become universal. It is to retrograde amidst general progression. It is to turn toward the crude opinions of man's primitive state, when, in his consummate vanity, he regarded himself as the centre of the universe and its final purpose ; the pride of the earth and the admired of heaven ; when he believed that the sun, moon, and all the stars of the celestial sphere made daily obeisance around his little planet. And when in his conceit he complacently believed that angels ministered to him, and

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in his supreme arrogance scorned to think himself subject alike with all things to nature's laws ; when in fine, he surveyed himself as the exclusive and unremitting object of Divine attention. But knowledge has conducted us to wider, nobler views, not less reverent, but more humble.

Space is infinite. The contrary is not conceivable. If then but a part of space contains matter, the infinite part beyond is a useless void, and any definite part, however vast, is simply a finger's span to the infinite part. This idea of space, and the occupancy of a mere crib-work of the whole, is utterly inconsistent with any natural conception of an Omnipotent and Omnipresent Being. For He is all-comprehensive, all-embracing, and His correspondent and parallel can be found only in an infinite universality. Wisdom, space, force, matter, no one of these could be co-equal in completeness if any were limited ; for then since the Infinite is omnipresent, absolute wisdom and power would to no purpose extend to an infinite empty space.

If that infinite space be abandoned of God, of matter, and of force, He is not omnipresent, and there remains an infinite uncontrolled region where He is not. Nor is He infinite, if not omnipresent.

Now let it be supposed for a moment, that there is no infinite co-existent intelligence, whose supreme wisdom directs all things ; that there is merely a self-existence from necessity, which always was, and always will be. There is then of necessity, space ; and of necessity, matter. If then matter fill only a mere patch of space, necessity has only a partial action ; it is neither uniform, nor universal, and this is not necessity.

What necessarily exists, universally exists. Whatever is a necessity to a part of space, is a necessity to all space. Whether then, from intelligent omnipotence, or from necessity, the universe exists, as it exists, matter must be regarded as the universal feature of infinite space.

But to return to actual discovery. Telescopes of increasing range are filled with increasing fields of matter, as dense, as vast, in consolidated or diffused magnitude, as that nearer and better known, and at distances so great, that the mind wanders in their contemplation. And the assumption of unlimited worlds, and world forms in the infinite beyond, is defensible by analogy. But is the matter of this immeasurable space the same as that surrounding us? In the subject of force it will be shown, that as far as is possible to determine, the laws of gravitation govern all matter and stellar systems, — and that there is a consonant parallelism in that portion of the universe within our view.

Physical science persuades us that our sidereal system is but an atomic agglomeration from many others. The central forces of attraction have forced into collision vast worlds of consolidated matter; — the shock of impact has transformed all their progressive motion into the vibratory motion of heat, dispersing and expending this matter to amazing limits ; diffusing it into its final units. Under the influence of this expansive power the matter of our system has passed into other spheres, — and that of

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other spheres undergoing similar experiences, has commingled with our own.

Aerolites of solid matter, identical with terrestrial matter, are shot from stellar regions to our earth ; and wandering comets are driven into our sun, or pass in eccentric orbits forever beyond its influence, to other solar systems. This perpetual intermixture, without beginning or ending, must have produced correspondence, in fact, undistinguishable sameness everywhere. The spectroscope decides the presence in remote worlds, of elements, metallic and nonmetallic, identical with those of ours ; and a fair analogy warrants us in extending the congruence indefinitely ; and in the conclusion, that there is an infinite extent of matter in no respect different from that occupying our solar system.