The Universe a Vast Electric Organism Part 19

When once the unity and universality of force and electric life are made clear, and spirit and psychic life in their immortal destiny are made manifest, as thinking creatures we are led upward to a larger development of life and power, dominated by a supreme intelligence we call Deity, Infinite Goodness and Spiritual Father. Then we remember that he has a.s.sured us in the sacred oracles, that "we shall be with Him and shall be like Him," and that there are many mansions in the skies.

Our scientists tell us there are living creatures so small and so numerous that it would take millions of worlds like ours to support a human population equal to the number of these creatures that can live and move in one cubic inch of s.p.a.ce. Some of these multiply at the rate of one hundred and seventy thousand millions in a hundred hours. And I say every one is a tiny electric machine.

The electric currents that built our world from invisible atoms and evolved the complex substances of which it is composed, and the myriad forms of organic life that exist on its surface will fill other worlds with countless forms of organic life. For in the great electro-magnetic sea we call ether and s.p.a.ce, in which all things float or exist, and which permeates all form and substance, there is a boundless reservoir of electric life which will blossom into infinite grades of physical organisms wherever the surface of suns, planets and satellites have living environments of soil, light and electric currents. Even the soil of our earth maintains life because it is living matter itself. And some forms of life will exist without light or soil. This is the electric universe in solution, the life-giving sea of all form and substance.

Oh, what a miracle of wonders! From this marvelous reservoir of life, force and substance each created thing draws the elements of its growth and existence. And each draws from the same source that which its nature requires. The oak draws from the same soil and air as the hickory, the rose, the apple tree and the poison ivy. But the oak converts all the substance it gathers into the natural fibre of the oak, the hickory into the natural fibre of the hickory, the apple tree converts it into the luscious fruit of the apple, the rose into the delightful perfume which regales our senses, and the poison ivy converts the same air and soil into deadly poison.

This is the marvel of electric law and energy. How does it do it? It does it, I contend, by the law of magnetic currents under the control of organic affinity. The Bible states this law in a little different form when it says G.o.d caused every tree and shrub and created thing to bring forth seed of its kind. Man, like all nature, also draws from one common intellectual and moral reservoir. And while some draw inspiration and goodness, others draw poisonous evil, or, rather, convert the good they draw into evils. And each brings forth of its kind.

I do not believe with Prof. Newcomb that, "in order that a race may be renewed it must die like an individual." Or that the Creative Power, after destroying our earth, "will await with sublime patience the evolution of a new earth and a new order of animated nature."

The Creative Power has surely as much sense as an ordinary man, and no man builds and perfects a fine piece of machinery, or a magnificent mansion to tear it down, that he may "wait in sublime patience" the building of another to take its place. We should give G.o.d credit for ordinary business sense in the construction and preservation of the universe, which generally seems to be denied Him by His thinking creatures.

If Creative Wisdom has the power to build worlds, He has also the power to preserve them; and, having that power, to allow them to go to decay or be destroyed would be the perverse folly of a malignant demon, not a beneficent Creator. The same is true of the destruction of a race. To create, build up, enlighten and perfect a human race, and then destroy them and their perfected world, would be a greater crime than it is possible for man or devils to perpetrate. I have a better opinion of Deity, a n.o.bler conception of His justice and goodness than that. I believe in a G.o.d who cares, not the modern G.o.d of the atheistic majority, as Mr. Walker says, "who does not care." A G.o.d who does not care means anarchy and chaos. It means the obliteration of all law, all moral forces, all religious conceptions, all stability and consistency in the government of the universe. Why, the very air we breathe, the suns.h.i.+ne that gives life, the regular and constant return of day and night, of seasons, years and months, proclaim a G.o.d who cares. Every smiling human face, every generous impulse and n.o.ble thought, every worthy deed, every fragrant flower, waving field, and golden harvest testify to a G.o.d who cares.

But what of the "red claw" of the tiger. What of the big fish that eat the little ones, or the destruction of life by flood and storm, or human trials, sickness and death? Are these things consistent with a G.o.d who cares? They may be. The tiger devours to appease his hunger, the big fish eat the little ones for the same purpose, and both obey the law of self-preservation and the survival of the fittest. These two laws are necessary to preserve the life of their kind, and perfect their species for the benefit of mankind. It seems a sad spectacle to see the strong destroying the weak, but it is in the earlier stages of existence the only way under the law of evolution to preserve and improve the best of each species, and is a kindness and a blessing in the end.

As to the destruction of life by flood and storms, these are nature's efforts to preserve the equilibrium of her mighty forces, and where a few are injured, millions are benefited and blessed. And as to man's sickness and tribulations, they are one-half imaginary, and a half of the other half are the result of their own folly in the violation of the laws of health, and the remaining one fourth are disciplinary for the purpose of developing character, which is an ample reward and compensation.

As to death, it is as painless as going to sleep; it is the dread of death that hurts. And if it is the transition process, as millions believe, by which souls drop their brief tenement of atoms, and soar on tireless wings to celestial realms, then it is not a curse but a blessing, especially to the aged and decrepid, for whom life has no charms.

Will man never cease slandering the good Deity, and libeling the beneficent Creator of all good? With most people the fault is not with the world or controlling providence and Deity, but in themselves. They make their own world in their own mind and then find fault with it as if it was a reality.

Albert Russell Wallace, in the Fortnightly Review of March, 1903, in a labored article of great length, undertakes to carry the world back a thousand years to the time when man thought the earth was the center of the universe, and the stars were little openings or golden nails in the crystal vault of heaven. He says we are at the center of the universe; that our sun system belongs to a constellation situated near the center of the Milky Way. This may be true, and it is not worth disputing, for if we are at the center now--as our system travels 420,000 miles a day--we were not there a thousand years ago, and in a few decades will be far away from it. As we keep moving all the time, and do not get off at this central station which he makes so much of, I see nothing gained or lost if it is true.

But in order to show that it is central, he must limit the universe and give its circ.u.mference, metes and bounds. This is an immense undertaking. If our universe is limited--and Prof. Newcomb thought so a few years ago, and held it was in the shape of a circle or disk, which was about thirty thousand light years in circ.u.mference if true, then the light from the distant stars have been traveling thirty thousand years in order to reach us, and they must be millions of miles from where they seem to be. Thus the center of the universe is constantly changing, and it would take omniscient wisdom to tell where the center is, and then it would not remain the center many hours. This would be true whether the universe is limited or unlimited.

Mr. Wallace says, "The supreme end and purpose of this vast universe is the production and development of the living soul in the perishable body of man." If he had said that was the supreme purpose of the earth, I would have agreed with him.

But since he makes man's development the supreme purpose of the universe and says all other worlds are uninhabited, I am forced to disagree with him. He says there are one hundred millions of stars and planets in the universe, yet he depopulates them all for man's benefit, and then fails to show how man can be benefitted, or for what purpose the almost countless...o...b.. were created. In my judgment he proves himself a million of times wrong, and reaches the climax of unreasonable conjecture. I believe no astronomer will agree with him. None has yet appeared, though several of the most eminent have already expressed their dissent and surprise at his position. His reasons, to my mind, do not justify his conclusions, but prove the very opposite hypothesis.

He estimates there are one hundred millions of stars and worlds, and says they "are all composed of the same elements as the planets and solar system. Wherever organized life may have developed, it must be built up out of the same fundamental elements as here on earth." Now, I fully agree with him in that statement, which I contend shows clearly that these worlds are inhabited. For if they possess the same elements and are controlled by the same laws, they must produce the same results of organic life as appear on our earth; and his arguments about temperature, proportion of land and water, etc., do not affect the question. His conclusions brand the Great Architect of the universe as an incompetent and wasteful profligate, and is contrary to all a.n.a.logy in human reason, to all law of proportion and compensation, and to "the eternal fitness of things."

The fact that our earth has the same laws, forces, and substances as other worlds and is swarming with its countless myriad forms of organic life; and that all the manifestations of nature's creative forces are prolific in the production of sentient beings, is conclusive evidence that abundant life exists on other spheres, and other worlds are not dreary wastes of burning plains and sandy deserts. The fact that the Creative Spirit built up man's body through ages of animal growth and perfecting bodily development, or modeled it after such perfected animal forms, and then breathed His own life and spirit into it, and made man a spiritual, eternal being like Deity Himself, is strong evidence that in other suns and worlds he has done likewise; and that they are the theatres of spiritual as well as of vegetable and animal life. G.o.d creates because He is Love and must have spiritual children as the objects of His affection.

This reason would cause him to people other worlds with the highest order of intelligent creatures similar to man. And the great planets, and great suns, like Sirius, Alpha Lyra, Vega and Alcyone, which are a thousand times larger than our sun, should possess beings of greater intellectual and spiritual faculties than our earth in proportion to their superior grandeur and power.

Thus the infinite wisdom and power of Creative Deity, and the laws and creations He has evolved on this earth, teach us that in other worlds and suns He has created other and numerous types of intelligent beings; and that living organic creatures of His bounty in all suns and spheres honor and adore His infinite goodness, power and love.

His suns and worlds are countless as the stars-- His jeweled finger-prints. Through chequered bars Of light and shade all life is shadow of His breath-- An uttered thought. And law and change and death His angel messengers. His spirit truth Preserves the universe in fadeless youth.

The palpable Infinite! who can know?

Mind from a mustard seed to world, must grow.

The past, the emblems of His power hath wrought Whose thought created first creating thought, And veiled in mists above Olympian throne We know the unknown G.o.d is G.o.d alone.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ELECTRICAL THEORY OF CREATION WILL SAVE MODERN SCIENCE FROM PANTHEISM

It is marvelous the number of scientists who question the fact as to whether there is a personal G.o.d, and who look upon the universe and its laws and operations as the manifestation of a universal intelligence that has no existence except as it is infused as an invisible force through all nature. In other words, pantheism, or belief in a world-G.o.d, has been taking the place of the materialism of the past century. And a vast array of distinguished agnostics, so-called, from Darwin, Spinoza, Huxley and Haeckel to Ingersoll, were really believers in pantheism.

Haeckel says he adheres to the Monism of Spinoza which, he says, is "matter, or infinitely extended substance; and spirit or energy, which is sensitive and thinking substance. These are the two fundamental attributes or princ.i.p.al properties of the all-embracing, divine essence of the world--the universal substance." What is this but pantheism of the rankest old, obsolete, pagan kind? What is "the all-embracing divine essence of the world--the universal substance," but a subst.i.tute for G.o.d,--a G.o.d which is simply the substance of the world--a world-G.o.d.

According to this, all the elements of the universe are parts of Deity.

The crystalline rocks and metals of the earth, the dust we kick from our feet, the manure of the stable, and the odor of decaying vegetation are all a part of the body of G.o.d. And this, they claim, is the G.o.d of the universe, and the only G.o.d there is.

This is a fair a.n.a.lysis of pantheism, of Haeckelism, Darwin and Huxleyism, Ingersoll and agnosticism. What a shame on human reason! Yet these great thinkers, seeing the intelligibility of nature, its uniformity of laws and operations, without a knowledge of electricity were forced to this conclusion.

A recent pamphlet by F. E. t.i.tus, a barrister of Toronto, ent.i.tled "The Pantheism of Modern Science," says: "A summary of recent investigations into life, force and substance and the opinions based by scientists thereon leads up to the conclusion that there is in nature a universal mind controlling and permeating nature's manifestations."

In this I agree, but it is the universal mind of Deity as manifested through the marvelous creative forces of electricity. But this writer sums up his facts and theories, and concludes that the pantheism of the universe is the only explanation of all the countless and complicated forces and organisms of life which are to be found everywhere. And he contends the modern tendency of science is back to the old discarded pagan belief of pantheism. Even Flammarion seems imbued with that idea, and Haeckel championed it in his monistic theories. But as a knowledge of electricity has killed materialism, so will it defeat and destroy pantheism. This lawyer-scientist thinks nothing can prevent science from falling into the arms of pantheism, and he champions it vigorously.

But for the discovery of electricity this would have been an age of scientific materialism and pantheism. But the marvelous powers of this invisible force appals the stolid thinkers on "solid matter." They have found there is no solid matter, and that all matter in its primary form, and all force is as invisible as spirit, and that the universe swings on invisible forces as intangible as mind and as potent and inscrutable as destiny.

The conflict in the future between religion and Atheism will be chiefly a belief in a G.o.d that cares, or a G.o.d that does not care; and in science between an electric universe controlled by spirit and a pantheistic universe that thinks and feels in all its parts, and is itself the G.o.d of all. This last is virtually the position of Darwin, Huxley and all the agnostics from them to Ingersoll, and embraces Haeckel's moneism in its definition.

Let us see from whence they get their facts on which they base their theories. They say: "The evolution going on in the inorganic world is an evolution of intelligent life." I say that what they call intelligence is the result of electric laws and affinity; that the selection of atoms and their repulsion and the building of matter into substance and form is the intelligent operation of these electric laws, which originated in the infinite intelligence and power of the Creator. They say: "The soil maintains life because it is living matter itself." And I agree with them, and say all matter is living matter because it is permeated with electric life and energy and governed by electric law.

They say: "Metals in fact are sensitive things, like living organisms."

I say they are "sensitive" because they are easily electrified, and respond quickly to magnetic energy. They say, with Dr. Thomas Young, "There are all gradations of substance stretching all the way from the solid material to the spiritual, and gradations of consciousness from the inert mineral to the highest manifesting G.o.d." And I agree with them in a sense, for the consciousness in matter is electric energy, and in G.o.d and man it is spirit.

That these electric laws are intelligent, constant and wonderful we have abundant proof every day of our existence. Prof. j.a.pp of the British a.s.sociation says: "No fortuitous concourse of atoms, even with all eternity for them to clash and combine in, could compa.s.s the feat of the formation of the first optically organic compound." This is true, for only the infinite wisdom of creative law and electric energy could do it. It is not fortuitous or accidental; it is in accord with nature's perfect laws of electric combinations.

I am willing to admit that "inherent selective and directive force" is exhibited in organic and inorganic matter. And I explain it by the laws of electro-magnetism. Agnostic pantheism has no explanation. They say that nature shows some sense and intelligence; therefore nature, the world, this great globe, is G.o.d.

They quote from their great authority, Huxley, who said that "Life was present potentially in matter when in the nebulous form and was unfolded from it by the way of natural development." I am willing to admit it, and to go one step further, and say it was there before the nebulae was formed in the electric currents of life and power, which are the first manifestations of creative force. The potentiality of all physical life was there in those electric currents, but not the spirit or soul-life of man. That came long after, when the animal organism had been evolved and perfected.

Yes, truly, in a natural sense, as Kingsley says: "Water hates the oil with which it refuses to mix; and lime loves the acid which it receives into itself, and like a lover grows warm with the rapture of its affection." This refusal of water and oil to mix is caused by electric repulsion, and lime and acid is a simple form of electric attraction.

Then the pantheists dwell on what they call the "soul-life of plants,"

the intelligence of birds and beasts, and the regularity of seasons, years, and earth and sun revolutions, and all natural phenomena, which they say proves the world is G.o.d. All of which I have endeavored to explain by electrical law and processes; and they conclude all these things prove the pantheism of the universe.

Let us notice some of the wonderful workings and trans.m.u.tations in nature on which the advocates of pantheism rely. Mr. t.i.tus, as one of its champions, says: "There is a common bond of unity between the different kingdoms of nature--the mineral, vegetable and animal. That there is some primal atomic or common condition, some h.o.m.ogeneous substance in nature, some elemental essence from the aggregations and combinations of which all forms are built up." This is undoubtedly true, and proves that in the atoms and electric laws of nature there are ample means for the creation of infinite substances and countless organic beings. This does not prove pantheism. It only proves progressive, wise electric, natural laws and forces. This "elemental essence from which all forms are built" I have shown elsewhere to be the ocean of electro-magnetism permeating all s.p.a.ce and all life forms.

He says: "The processes of digestion and a.s.similation in man furnish evidence" of these things. That "the vegetable kingdom has power to a.s.similate earth and mineral and change it into vegetable, and in turn is digested and a.s.similated by the animal, and converted into an entirely different kingdom of nature." This is true, and I have shown how this is purely an electric process.

The dream of the alchemist, of the trans.m.u.tation of metals, is mere child's-play compared with the processes of nature occurring every day in the human body. These are all electric trans.m.u.tations by means of respiration, by digestion and a.s.similation of food, whereby a great variety of substance is converted into blood and bone, tissue and muscle, and all the functions of life preserved. It is also a correct statement that "all forms of matter have as their basis one common element, denominated primordial matter, protoplasm and h.o.m.ogeneous substance, all intended to designate the first form of matter."

This is true, and we found the first form of matter to be the electric currents of s.p.a.ce, and the second form of matter to be the atom or molecule, and afterwards came the primordial cell or protoplasm. We also found that there was and is a common reservoir of life which stands back of its myriad manifestations upon the physical plane; a great ocean of vitality, which each organized being absorbs and gives out as we inhale and exhale the air we breathe. And that reservoir of life is the vast ocean of electro-magnetism in which all things float and exist as in a sea of magnetic life-giving power.

The old hypothetical atom and stolid or solid matter was dead, according to the scientists of a few decades ago. But the electrician, dealing with a higher grade of matter, found that the old idea of matter as dead and inert was untrue, and would not accord with the facts. So that a new definition of an atom had to be formulated, defining it as an electric center of force and motion. And some physicists deem life to be co-eternal with matter. Which is not an unreasonable hypothesis as applied to physical life and substance.

Prof. Tyndall in 1872 said: "Life was present potentially in matter when in the nebulous form, and was unfolded from it by the way of natural development." In this I agree with Prof. Tyndall as to all life, except the spiritual or psychic life of man. And I have elsewhere tried to show how physical life came from the electric currents which formed the nebula, and which was afterwards woven into the earth by electric and atomic a.s.similation.

Ah! now we come to the gist of all this scientific trouble--pessimistic, agnostic and pantheistic. It is this: "Modern science is firmly rooted in the conviction that inherent powers and qualities gradually unfolded under the operation of natural laws, rather than in a supernatural, extra-cosmic volition introducing arbitrarily new forces." And modern science is partly right. She is right in her facts and her conclusions on this vital and basic point as to all physical creations and natural forces and powers. But I insist that the creation of the soul or psychic life and powers of man are an exception, and do not come within the domain of physical creations. They are on a higher plane and as much above the realm of material forms and substances as our sun is above the earth. They belong to the spiritual world, to the realms of Deity, to the kingdom of G.o.d and the hosts of heaven.