Substantial Christian philosophy

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Chapter I. Defistitio^ Of Terms

1. Attribute is a quality essential to the subject; as extension is an attribute of matter, weight of gold, intelligence of man.

2. Bioplast resembles a microscopic speck of jelly perpetually changing, yet always showing its identity. Not well understood.

3. Chemism, the cohesive force (hitherto known as chemical affinity), that causes the union between appropriate chemical elements.

4. Corporeal, having a material, organic body, and is opposed to spiritual, as the term bodily is opposed to mental.

5. Correlation of physical forces simply means that they sustain such mutual and intimate relations to each other, that under favorable conditions, and within certain limits, they are convertible one into the other, or have ability to exist under another form of force or energy.

6. Ego, the self-conscious subject, the I, the personal self.

7. Entity, something existing, as opposed to nothing; something real, as opposed to shadow. There are three classes of entities in the universe: matter, substance, spirit, to which everything in nature belongs.

8. Evolution in its correct sense is the act or process of unfolding or developing as the flower from the bud, or the adult from the child. But in a perverted sense the false theory that organic life has developed from simpler to more complex forms, as man from the monkey.

9. Homogeneous, of the same kind or nature ; consisting of similar parts or elements of the like nature.

10. Impenetrability, that quality of matter by virtue of which it excludes all other matter from the space it occupies. It does not apply, so far as we have been able to determine, to immaterial substances.

11. Immaterial substance: by an immaterial entity is meant a substance of such a character as will, at least in some of its manifestations, act in defiance of material conditions, as light, heat, magnetism, sound, life, mind, etc.; these do not submit to gravital force; they can occupy the same space as matter at one and the same time, and are without weight, etc.

12. Imponderable, not having sensible weight, as light, heat, electricity, magnetism, sound, odor.

13. Inertia, matter destitute of self-motion, dead. When put in motion by an active substantial force, its motion ceases the instant the force is withdrawn.

14. Intangible, not perceptible to the touch.

15. Material, consisting of matter — corporeal. The physically tangible forms of substances of which there are a variety of grades of density and tenuity, from

DEFINITION OF TERMS. 3

platinum, thb heaviest of known substances, up to odor, which is so nearly intangible that but for the olfactory nerve no scientific test could prove its existence.

16. Molecules are merely imaginary, as is the assumed ether in the undulatory light theory. Good common sense would say particles.

17. Matter, that which occupies space, or is perceptible to the senses. It includes everything of a gross nature which is tangible or acceptable to the five senses. What matter is in its ultimate analysis surpasses the power of the human mind to comprehend.

18. Matter and substance: all matter is substance, but all substance is not matter, no more than all metal is wire. Metal is the genus and wire the species. Magnetism is substantial, but it is not matter. Life is substantial, but it is not matter, for in its organic capacity it manipulates matter, as the potter molds the clay.

19. Motion, in and of itself is nothing — it is merely position in space changing. Force that causes motion is an entity; but motion is the effect or result of force, and always of force, and of force alone. It is no more an entity than a shadow.

20. Momentum, is simply energy in action utilizing stored-up mechanical force. It is the stored-up mechanical energy of the exploded powder that causes the cannon-ball to knock the tree to splinters.

21. Nonentity, non-existence, existing only in appearance ; as a shadow, motion, space.

22. Personality : human personality implies and includes free will, intelligence, a consciousness of moral obligation, and personal identity. Feeling and thought precede volition, which is the direct energy of personality.

23. Property, the existence of a property as a condition or quality, or characteristic of a material body, is always the effect of one or more forms of substantial force, as hardness and softness are caused entirely by the action of the constructive cohesive force.

24. Potential, existing in possibility, not in act ; latent in anything that may be possibly manifested, or made apparent.

25. Sound-pulse, is an emission of sound-force caused by a given stroke or vibration of the sonorous body, and just as often as the vibration takes place, just so often will a pulse of sound-force be sent off.

26. Time is duration in space changing ; and time as persistent and passing is duration.

EXPLANATION OF TERMS.

Chapter II. Explanation" Of Terms

27. Attributes and Properties, and the Mental Process. (1) Specific Attributes : Some attributes are called specific because they are always real qualities, essential and inherent, not only in the nature of the being or subject, but in the substance of the things. We cannot alter the qualities without altering the entire subject of the attributes ; as, for example, extension of matter, weight of gold, magnetism of the magnet, rationality of man. The attributes of wisdom, love, mercy and perfection are essential to the Christian's God ; take these away and he ceases to be the God of Revelation. Unity, identtiy and activity are attributes of the soul ; for we cannot deny them without, at the same time, denying the existence of the soul itself. These are sometimes termed specific or essential attributes because the subjects in which they inhere cannot exist as such without them.

28. (2) Common Attributes : These are essential to the subject, but they belong also to other subjects. Thus it is an attribute of gold to be yellow. If a metal is not yellow, it is not gold. But other things are yellow besides gold. The color yellow is an attribute common to many subjects, and hence are often called properties.

29. (a) There are attributes of inanimate objects, as a tree, Dan. iv. 10-12 ; (b) of animals, as an eagle, Job xxxix. 57-60 ; (c) of a country, as Canaan, Deut. viii. 7-9 ; (d) of persons, as Paul, Acts xxii. 3 ; (e) of moral virtues, as divine wisdom, James iii. 17 ; hatred of sin and love of holiness are essential and distinguishing attributes of a true Christian, Psa. lxvii. 10, Eph. iv. 24; (f) of soul, as thought, unity, identity, immortality, etc.; (g) of spirit, as intelligence, activity, immateriality, indestructibility, etc.

PROPERTIES.

30. What is meant by the term Property, and how does it originate ? This question leads us to one of the most profound and difficult fields of research and investigation in the entire domain of physical science.

31. We say, first, that, while a property of a body is not a force or any form of energy in the true sense of these terms, yet its existence as a condition, quality, or characteristic of a body is always an effect of one or more forms of substantial force.

32. Examples of Properties: Hardness, softness transparency, opacity, brilliancy, roughness, smoothness, compressibility, impenetrability, elasticity, fusibility, porosity, density, weight, extension, inertia, form, color, combustibility, ductility, brittleness, malleability, stiffness, flexibility, etc.

33. Without these properties of matter human consciousness would be totally shut out from all relationship to the external or material world, and every physical law would be wiped out of existence. Yet not one of the properties named can be regarded as a form of natural force, or in a direct sense as a phenomena-producing cause.

PROPERTIES. 7

34. As an illustrative example : Hardness and softness in a material body is caused entirely by the action of the " constructive " cohesive force in the manner in which it has arranged, and now holds, the material substance in contact with itself. This peculiar form of physical force has almost innumerable methods and processes of placing a given material substance together, by which a single substance may possess almost innumerable physical appearances of condition, called Properties.

35. As an illustration : A piece of glass may have form, color, weight, inertia, extension, hardness, brittleness, transparency, porosity, elasticity, fusibility, density, stiffness, flexibility, impenetrability, brilliancy, roughness, smoothness, and all of these be the direct result of the substantial force of cohesion in its multiform methods of arranging the infinitesimal particles of the substance of glass in their various relations to each other.

36. No man can look at a piece of glass with the intellect of a true physical philosopher, without believing in the existence of a Supreme Personal Intelligence, the Author of Nature, any more than he can look at the same piece of glass and intelligently account for the multiform properties named without acknowledging the presence and working of the reigning governing force of cohesion as their immediate cause.

37. Elasticity, the effect of force, is the name of a certain property of bodies which result chiefly from the form of force commonly known as cohesive attraction (better, "constructive force") and by which the particles or smallest conceivable portions of a body are not only held together when united, but by which they were originally placed together under certain laws and arrangements at present unknown to man. Without the original constructive energy of cohesive force in arranging the particles of the elastic body, and the continued static (in equilibrium) persistence of its energy in maintaining them, no such property as that of elasticity could exist in matter, nor could the opposite property of inelasticity exist either. All college text-books commit the radical error of giving elasticity as a force of nature, whereas it is really an effect of force.

38. Elasticity results from the peculiar arrangement of a given material substance by the constructive force of cohesion through which any distorting mechanical force could store itself up in the said body as a substantial but immaterial entity till, by its reaction, the elastic body, on account of this same stored-up energy, was again forced back to its original form. A bent spring does not come back of itself, nor does it come back by the so-called force of elasticity, but it is driven back to its previous shape by means of the substantial mechanical force which originally bent it, simply by this original force taking advantage of the property called elasticity, which property was due entirely to the peculiar manner in which the substantial force of cohesion had arranged and adjusted the substance of the spring in relation to itself.

39. The relation of properties to our sensuous consciousness through the governing life-force :

Sensation-producing causes in the natural realm may be both material and immaterial substances.

What cohesive force is with respect to giving to material bodies an easily perceptible and tangible exist-

PROPERTIES. 9

ence in relation to the senses, so the life-force is with respect to giving to the mental consciousness a knowledge of the nature and qualities of the various substances that come into contact with the different sense organs, as the following examples will clearly show.

40. The difference in the qualities of taste, as a sensation, is due to the peculiar properties of the flavored substance which impresses the gustatory nerve. Thus we have bitter, sweet, sour, acrid, etc. But the contact is the same in every case, since it is manifest that no difference in the character or property of any substance touching the palate would be recognized at all unless life-force should convey such impression to the seat of mental consciousness. Thus, also, odor which simply consists of the infinitesimal material particles of the odorous body, may possess different properties, ranging from the most delicate perfumes emanating from the flower gardens, through a hundred gradations of fragrant quality down to the most disgusting, yet these diversified properties of odoriferous particles are only determined by conscious mentality, from precisely the same contacts of the material particles emanating from the different odorous bodies. These sensations are all due to the different properties of the material particles coming in contact with the appropriate sense organs, which are conveyed to the seat of consciousness in the brain by the life-force and there translated by the mind-force.

41. The same is true of the immaterial force of sound, whose property of pitch in our sensations is determined by the number of precisely similar external contacts per second of the immaterial sonorous force.

So with light ; its property of color is determined by the mind from the number of luminous contacts in a given time, all produced externally in precisely the same way — by the physical impingement of substantial but immaterial light-force.

42. Thus, also, we may touch with oxx* fingers the surface of a material body which may have the property of smoothness, roughness, hardness, or softness, yet the contact or touch of our fingers alone, precisely similar in these four cases, will convey to our consciousness, when carried thither by this life-force messenger, four distinct mental impressions. This is the true solution of the difference between a force and a property of a given substance.

43. The diamond is composed of the same material chemical elements as a piece of soft carbon coal. Why is the one the most transparent as well as the hardest of all known bodies, while the other is soft and opaque ? Because the all-governing force of cohesion so rearranges the particles of soft carbon in their transformation to diamond as to produce this property of the greatest hardness known to science, as well as the property of the most perfect transparency existing in any solid substance.

44. Another illustration of property is that of weight or ponderability in all material bodies, which, though not a force in any sense, is the effect of the action of two forces — gravity and cohesion, and may be affected by others. It is now demonstrated that weight is not at all in proportion to the amount of matter contained in a given body, as taught in all the colleges since the days of the great Newton. For example, a ball of glass contains more matter than a ball of gold of

PROPERTIES 11

the same bulk, simply because the glass is known to be less porous than the gold, though the latter outweighs the former many times.

45. The substantial philosophy first proved that all force is substantial, and that the true cause of the property of weight in bodies is the interaction of the immaterial forces alone, and so of every other property of matter. With the force of gravity acting on the material particles of all bodies by permission of the governing force of cohesion, and according to its arrangement of said particles, it is plain to see how this latter force could construct, arrange and maintain the particles of two bodies of precisely the same quantity of matter in such relationship that gravity or any other form of force would act effectively on one arrangement of particles rather than on the other.

46. Why is it that one form of force will neutralize — weaken or strengthen, as the case may be — the action of another form of force under certain different arrangements of the particles of a body ? For example, cohesive force, as exercised among the particles of platinum, will resist any amount of ordinary heat before yielding sufficiently to permit the metal to fuse. But let us allow heat to co-operate with cohesive force, as it acts among particles of melted lead, by dipping the platinum into such liquid metal, and instantly the cohesive force in the platinum yields up its energy to the heat to the extent of allowing this most refractory metal to become as fusible as lead itself.

47. One more example will suffice to show that properties in bodies are the effect of one or more forms of substantial force.

The force of gravitation or weight is almost neutralized on a piece of silver or copper when placed in an intense field of magnetic force, as between the poles of a powerful electro-magnet, while a piece of any other metal of the same size would show no loss of weight whatever.

BIOPLAST Oil PROTOPLAST. 13

CHAPTEE III.

BIOPLAST OR PROTOPLAST.

48. The bioplast is said to be like a microscopic speck of jelly and to be composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus. But no analysis of living bioplastic matter has or can be made. The living bioplast of the moneron is continually undergoing change — taking in new matter, decomposing it, adding such portions to itself as are necessary for development, and expelling the remainder — in fact, it is perpetually changing, yet always preserving its identity. The monera exist at the bottom of the ocean in enormous numbers, and are supposed to be the simplest and perhaps the most numerous of all living creatures. Bioplasts are visible under a powerful microscope. It is thought that there must be an infinite number of different kinds of bioplasts in the innumerable different plants and animals.

49. Corporeal means having a material, organic body, and is opposed to spiritual, as the term bodily is opposed to mental. The term corporeal is often used for animated substance in an extended sense. The corporeal or physical body is composed of brain, heart, lungs, muscles, bones, ligaments, etc. So the incorporeal organism in man is composed of different parts or essential divisions of that immaterial substance, called the u inner man," Eph. iii. 16, and a " spirit-body " in

I Oor. xv. 44, all going to make up the one incorporeal counterpart of the material organism, life, mind, soul, and spirit — as well as the attributes of each — make up the one immaterial or incorporeal organic entity we call personality.

50. It is doubtless through the incorporeal organic being, which is clothed with a material body of flesh and blood, that inherited characters and qualities are entirely transmitted from parents to offspring. It is a fact that the human offspring as well as the offspring of all species of animals, high and low, partake equally of the peculiar characteristics of both father and mother, while more than one thousand times as much of the physical or material organism of the child is derived from the mother as from the father. Though the incorporeal life-germ, in which inheres personality, constitutes and makes up specific identity, comes equally from both parents. In the case of man the material or corporeal body is that through which the immaterial or incorporeal manifests its functions or activities. Hence the incorporeal — spirit entity — within is the former, builder, repairer, or modifier of the corporeal ; this spirit entity is the anatomical architect of the body, and the life-force is the builder, and within given limits, the modifier of the organism. For it is a fact that the more depraved and abandoned to vice and crime a person becomes, the more does beauty of features, symmetry of form, and geniality of expression pass away. The corporeal images forth the alarming vicious change that has taken place in the soul, which has, by a continued process, conformed through the life-force the material body to the depraved moral state of the resident within. As the mother's prevailing

KtfTITY. 15

state of mind indelibly affects the unborn child, so does the state of the soul often modify the appearance of the house in which it lives. In many cases, a long continued course of vice and crime has so changed the human visage that it actually reminds us of some one or other of the lower brutes. Such is the influence of the incorporeal on the corporeal.

ENTITY.

51. The term entity is from the Latin word ens, entis, being, and is here used to express something existing, a real being, something real in contradistinction to nothing. There are entities, as light, heat sound, wood, iron, etc.; and there are nonentities, as darkness, the opposite of light ; cold, the opposite of heat ; silence, the opposite of sound ; also space and motion.

52. Heat, light, magnetism, electricity, life, mind, soul, and spirit are real objective entities, substantial things, however much our senses may dispose us to doubt the fact.

53. Every natural force or phenomenon-producing cause, by which our consciousness is affected through our senses or our reason addressed, is and must in the nature of things be a substantial entity.

Entities are classified in three divisions on the ascending scale.

54. Matter : This class includes everything which occupies space, or which is ponderable, or which can be discovered by any test of physical or chemical science. Its characteristic or specific property by which it is distinguished from immaterial substance is impenetrability. Examples of material entities : Platinum, diamond, gold, silver, copper, iron, rock, wood, water, flesh, air, gas and odor.

55. Substance : This class comprises everything of which the mind can form a positive concept, or by which the senses of men or animals can be addressed or affected and is substantial in its nature. The term substance thus necessarily includes the forces of nature, such as sound, heat, gravitation, electricity, magnetism, light, cohesion, chemism, etc., which, although not matter in any sense, are nevertheless real substantial entities.

56. Spirit : This class embraces those entities that possess vitality, instinct, mind, intellect, soul, spirit, etc., the most refined and exalted substantial entity in the universe being the Spirit-essence of the Infinite Intelligence, from which all things, directly or indirectly, have proceeded and must still proceed. Though He is an entitative " Spirit," he does not exist essentially in the gross state of matter, but in the spiritstate of substance, and consequently must have an inconceivably glorious organic form, adapted to and worthy of the Infinite Personal Creator.

57. As an entity, the soul of man must be composed of some grade of substance, however refined, and must have shape, size, intelligence and personality, and all that is implied in personality. Could the immaterial, substantial, and immortal soul of man be freed from its present surroundings with the visible, ponderable, changing, and material world, and take a flight on the wings of pure vitality and mentality through the invisible, imponderable, unchanging spirit-world, what scenes would lie before it ! It could spend untold ages in viewing new scenes of beauty and grandeur*

ENTITY. I?

Scenes forbidden to mortal eyes would then hold them in admiring and enraptured gaze. Sounds and music unheard by mortal ears would charm the soul, and sciences incomprehensible by mortal minds here would be the themes of study, investigation and conversation, ever increasing the spirit's knowledge and intensifying its aspirations to approach nearer and nearer in intelligent holy personality to the image of God himself. In contemplating these things one can almost wish to leave the earth and take a view of the substantial, invisible and celestial parts of creation with its inhabitants. When we view death from this scriptural scientific standpoint, in a direct line with the Son of God expiring on the cross, we appreciate the force of the inspired language : " Oh death ! where is thy sting ? Oh grave ! where is thy victory ?"

58. May the time speedily come when mankind may become convinced that the invisible is the real of existence, and that the material world is only the smaller and less important part of creation — the mere outer court of the holy place in which the divine glory is manifested. Beyond the material lies the immaterial, the imponderable, and the immortal realm — those invisible things of God — those things which are eternal, Kom. i. 20 j John xiv. 2 ; Heb. ix. 23; xi. 3; Col. i. 15.

Chapter IV. Immaterial

59. The late Dr. Chalmers relates an anecdote of a Highland minister, who preached three sermons to prove the immateriality of the human soul; and for this, he was cited before the presbytery on the charge of having tried to prove that it was immaterial whether we had souls or not. These plain, sincere people thought that if the soul was immaterial it was nothing! How many so-called educated people live and act as if they really believe such to be the case. Those poor people were jealous not only for Jehovah 's honor but for the dignity and destiny of their own natures made in the divine image.

60. The essential attributes of matter have been considered as gravity, inertia and impenetrability. Weight is simply the measure of the pull of gravity ; inertia means matter destitute of self-motion^ dead ; impenetrability means that two masses of matter cannot occupy the same place at one and the same time. Indestructibility may be regarded as an essential attribute of matter, for all agree that it will never cease to be, however often it may change its form. The same may be said of all the immaterial substances.

61. Impenetrability does not apply alike to material and immaterial substances, as the following examples

IMMATERIAL 19

will show. Weigh a cannon-ball very carefully, then heat it to a white heat and weigh it again. It is found to have gained nothing by the large amount of heat which it contains ; but why ? Because heat is an immaterial substance and not subject to the laws and conditions of matter. Gravity has no power over it, therefore it has no weight; it is not inert, for it is always active, seeking an equilibrium : and it penetrates all known material things. Now weigh a man. He weighs exactly one hundred and seventy-five pounds. Kill him with a spark of electricity and weigh him again. Lo ! he weighs just one hundred and seventy-five pounds as before ; but why ? Because the soul is immaterial, therefore independent of gra vital force, and consequently without weight. Anything material possesses gravity, inertia and impenetrability ; but heai, magnetism, soul and spirit possess none of these ana therefore cannot be matter. Heat pervades the cannon-ball, magnetism the loadstone, brute spirit the material organism, and the human soul the body ; these immaterial substances are not subject to the conditions of matter. There is a secondary sense in which heat, magnetism and gravity are self-acting; but this is truly so with respect to the spirit of the brute, the soul of man, and the Divine Spirit; they are not only self-moving and self-acting, but have power to move other bodies external to themselves.

62. " Everything that exists and sustains attributes, must be a substance ; and on this ground it is claimed that the spirit of the brute, the soul of man, and even the Infinite Creative Spirit, is an immaterial substance, each sustaining its appropriate attributes" (Prize Essay by Dr. Crawford in Microcosm).

63. Heat is an immaterial substantial force, and occupies the same space as the cannon-ball at one and the same time. Sound is an immaterial substantial force, and - occupies the same space as the iron bar through which it passes, at one and the same time. The soul of man is immaterial and substantia], and yet pervades the body in which it resides at one and the same time. These examples are sufficient to show the wide difference and the distinction between the material and the immaterial substances. I will simply add that material substances are no obstacle to the movements of immaterial substances. Hence magnetism will act as freely through glass on its responsive object as if it were not there. Sound moves through still air at the rate of one thousand one hundred and twenty feet per second, but through solid steel wire at the rate of fifteen thousand four hundred and seventy feet per second ! In both cases the substantial agents are invisible to human sight.

64. Hence the soul leaves the body at death unobserved by human eye ; and thus the Saviour could unobserved enter and leave a securely closed room, John xx. 19, 26. Our material organs of vision are adapted only to a material world, and only to a very limited part of it. There is a vast world beyond our unaided vision, requiring only the telescope to reveal it ; and there is another of indescribably numerous, varied and beautiful animated beings around us, but we need a microscope to reveal them. Here, with our material visual organs we see only in part, a very small part at best, and that very imperfectly.

65. Material substances are not absolutely impenetrable, as taught in the current theories of natural

IMMATERIAL, 21

philosophy. Gold is really as porous as sponge. Under sufficient pressure water may be forced through a body or plate of gold. Substantial force elements of nature do not penetrate matter by virtue of its porosity. Some of the forces of nature pass through platinum and glass more freely than they would through a sponge or sieve, and yet platinum and glass are considered impervious to, and impenetrable by, matter.

Chapter V. Matter

66. The three essential attributes or properties of matter are inertia, impenetrability and indestructibility. Inertia expresses utter helplessness of matter ; it can do nothing ; it has no intelligence and no activity. It is dead ; and therefore neither life, nor intelligence, nor active force can emanate from it. Hence physical evolution must be set down as an impossibility.

67. "Just, then, as we find a graduated ascending scale in the material world, from osmium, the heaviest of all metals, through acetyline, the lightest of all liquids, through vapor and through hydrogen, the lightest of all gases, and, finally, through odor, the most highly attenuated condition of all material substances — which in many instances we can only know of its existence by the application of our higher faculties of reason, as when the hound scents the trail of the fox two hours after he has passed — so we have a graduated ascending scale in immaterial substances, commencing where the material left off, and ascending from cohesive force substance through the force of chemism, adhesion, heat, light, sound, electricity, magnetism, life, mind, soul and spirit" (Dr. Mott.)