The Fourth State of Matter
When William Crookes chose as one of the titles of his paper on the
newly discovered properties of electricity, 'The Fourth State of
Matter', it was to express his belief that he had found a state of
matter, additional to the three known ones, which represented 'the
borderland where matter and force seem to merge into one another, the
shadowy realm between known and unknown' for which his soul had been
longing ever since the death of his beloved brother.1 All that has
followed from his discovery, down to the transformation of matter
itself into freely working energy, shows that he was right in thinking
he had reached some borderland of nature. But the character of the
forces which are thus liberated makes it equally clear that this is not
the borderland he was looking for. Nature - by which we mean physical
nature - has in fact two borders, one touching the realm of the
intramaterial energies which are liberated by disrupting the structure
of atomic nuclei, the other leading over into creative Chaos, the
fountain-head of all that appears in nature as intelligent design.
It was Crookes's fate to open the road which has brought man to
nature's lower border and even across it, although he himself was in
search of her upper border. What he was denied, we are in a position to
achieve to-day, provided we do not expect to succeed by methods similar
to those of atomic physics, and do not look for similar results.
To show that there is a fourth state of matter, rightly so called,
which represents in actual fact the upper border of nature, and to
point the way that leads to it and across it, is the purpose of this
chapter.
*
From our previous comparison of the older conception of the four
elementary conditions of nature with that now held of the three states
of ponderable matter, we may expect that the fourth state will have
something in common with heat. Heat is indeed the energy which
transforms matter by carrying it from the solid to the liquid and
gaseous states. Not so obvious is the fact that heat, apart from being
an agent working at matter in this way, is the very essence underlying
all material existence, out of which matter in its three ponderable
states comes into being and into which it is capable of returning
again. Such a conception of matter was naturally absent from the age of
the Contra-Levitatem orientation of the human mind. To create this
conception, a new Pro-Levitate orientation is required.
Apart from producing liquefaction and vaporization, heat has also the
property of acting on physical matter so that its volume increases.
Both facts are linked together by science through the thermodynamic
conception of heat. As this conception firmly blocks the road to the
recognition of the role of heat as the fourth state of matter, our
first task will be to determine our own standpoint with regard to it.
Further obstacles on our way are the so-called Laws of Conservation,
which state that no matter and no energy - which for present-day
science have become one and the same thing - can ever disappear into
'nothing' or come into being out of 'nothing'. This idea, also, will
therefore require our early attention.2
*
In the light of our previous studies we shall not find it difficult to
test the reality-value of the thermodynamic conception of heat.
As we know of mass through a definite sense-perception, so we know of
heat. In the latter case we rely on the sense of warmth. In Chapter
VIII we took the opportunity to test the objectivity of the information
received through this sense. Still, one-eyed, colour-blind observation
is naturally unable to take account of these sense-messages. To this
kind of observation nothing is accessible, we know, except spatial
displacements of single point-like entities. Hence we find Bacon and
Hooke already attributing the sensation of warmth to minute fast-moving
particles of matter impinging on the skin. Some time later we find
Locke taking up the same picture. We see from this how little the
mechanical theory of heat owes to empirical facts. For even in Locke's
time the connexion between heat and mechanical action, as recognized
to-day, was completely unknown.
With this idea firmly rooted in his mind, modern man had no difficulty
in using it to explain both thermal expansion and the effect of heat on
the different states of matter, and so, finally, these states
themselves. Thermal expansion was thus attributed to an increase in the
average distance between the assumed minute particles, caused by an
increase in their rate of movement; the liquid state was held to differ
from the solid, and similarly the gaseous from the liquid, by the
interspaces between the particles becoming relatively so great that the
gravitational pull between them became too weak to hold them together.
Tested from a view-point outside the onlooker-consciousness, this whole
picture of the interaction between matter and heat appears to run
counter to the cosmic order of things in a way typical of other
spectator-theories. Ancient man, if confronted with this picture, would
have said that it means explaining the element Fire by the quality
Cold. For each of those minute particles, in its solidity and state of
spatial separation from the others, represents an effigy of the earth
and thereby the element Earth itself. He would be unable to understand
why phenomena of the 'warm' element Fire should be explained by its
very opposite. Moreover, Fire forms part of the ever 'youthful' realm
of the world, whereas anything which exists as a spatially discernible
entity, capable of being moved about mechanically, must have grown
cosmically 'old'.
That Ruskin was as much on the alert in regard to this theory as he was
in regard to Newton's theory of gravitation, is shown by the following
utterance from his The Queen of the Air. Obviously stirred by Tyndall's
newly published treatise, Heat as a Mode of Motion, Ruskin felt the
need to criticize the endeavour of contemporary science 'to simplify
the various forms of energy more and more into modes of one force, or
finally into mere motion, communicable in various states, but not
destructible', by declaring that he would himself 'like better in order
of thought3 to consider motion as a mode of heat than heat as a mode of
motion'.
These words of Ruskin touch also on the law of conservation of energy,
of which we said that it also called for a preliminary examination.
What we now have to find out is the factual basis on which this law
rests.
*
The conception of the law of conservation of energy arose from the
discovery of the constant numerical relation between heat and
mechanical work, known as the mechanical equivalent of heat. This
discovery was made at about the same time by Joule in England and J. R.
Mayer in Germany, although by entirely different routes. Joule, a
brewer, was a man of practical bent. Trained by Dalton, the founder of
the atomic theory, in experimental research, he continued Rumford's and
Davy's researches which they had undertaken to prove that heat is not,
as it was for a time believed to be, a ponderable substance, but an
imponderable agent. As a starting-point he took the heating effect of
electric currents. The fact that these could be generated by turning a
machine, that is, by the expenditure of mechanical energy, gave him the
idea of determining the amount of work done by the machine and then
comparing this with the amount of heat generated by the current. A
number of ingenious experiments enabled him to determine with
increasing exactitude the numerical relation between work and heat, as
well as to establish the absolute constancy of the relation.
This he regarded as proof of the mechanical theory of heat, which he
had taken from Rumford and Davy. What simpler explanation could there
be for the constant numerical relation between work and heat than the
conception that transformation of one form of energy into another was
simply a transmission of motion from one object to another? From the
quantitative equality of expended and generated energy was it not
natural to argue the qualitative similarity of the two forms of energy,
which only externally seemed different?
It was by quite a different path that the Heilbronn doctor, Mayer,
arrived at his results. To escape from the narrowness of his South
German home town, he went, while still a youth, as doctor to a Dutch
ship sailing to Java. When in the tropics he treated a number of
sailors by blood-letting, he observed that the venous blood was much
nearer in colour to the paler arterial blood than was usual at home.
This change in the colour he attributed to the diminished intensity of
bodily combustion, due, he believed, to the higher temperature of the
tropics.
Scarcely had this thought passed through his mind than it induced
another - that of a universal interrelationship between all possible
forms of energy. This last idea so took possession of him that during
the return voyage, as he himself related, he could scarcely think of
anything but how to prove the correctness of his idea and what the
consequences would be for the general view of nature. From the moment
of his return he devoted his life to practical research into the
connexion between the various manifestations of energy. It was in this
way that he was led to the determination of the so-called mechanical
equivalent of heat, shortly before the same discovery was made in a
quite different manner by Joule.
If one considers how slender a connexion there was between Mayer's
observation on the sailors in Java and the idea of the quantitative
equilibrium of all physical nature-forces, and if one contrasts this
with the fanaticism he showed during the rest of his life in proving
against all obstacles the correctness of his idea, one must feel that
the origin of the thought in Mayer's mind lay elsewhere than in mere
physical observations and logical deductions. Confirmation of this may
be found in what Mayer himself declared to be his view concerning the
actual grounds for the existence of a constant numerical association
between the various manifestations of natural energy.
So far as science allowed Mayer any credit for his work, this was based
on the opinion that through his discovery he had provided the final
vindication of the mechanical theory of heat. This judgment, however,
was only piling one wrong upon another. Mayer's destiny was truly
tragic. When he began to publicize his conviction of the numerical
equilibrium between spent and created energy, he met with so much
scepticism, even derision, that from sheer despair his mind at times
became clouded. When at last toward the end of his life he received the
recognition his discovery deserved (not before being dragged through a
painful priority dispute which Joule forced upon him and lost), the
scientists had begun to use his idea for bolstering up a hypothesis
directly counter to the idea which had led him to his discovery, and
for the sake of which he had accepted so much suffering.
Mayer's spiritual kin are not to be found among the heat-theorists of
his time, such as Helmholtz and others, but among thinkers of the stamp
of Goethe, Howard and Ruskin. His basic idea of the inner connexion
between all forms of energy in nature corresponds entirely with
Goethe's idea of metamorphosis. Just as Goethe saw in the ur-plant the
Idea common to all plant-forms or, in the various plant-organs, the
metamorphosis of one and the same ur-organ, so was Mayer convinced of
the existence of an ur-force which expressed itself in varying guises
in the separate energy-forms of nature. In the picture of the physical
universe which hovered before him, the transformation of one form of
energy into another - such as mechanical energy into electrical, this
into chemical and so on - was somewhat similar to Goethe's picture of
the organic life of the earth, in which the metamorphosis of one living
form into another constantly occurred. 'There is in nature', said
Mayer, 'a specific dimension of immaterial constitution which preserves
its value in all changes taking place among the objects observed,
whereas its form of appearance alters in the most manifold ways.'
For the physicist, accustomed to a purely quantitative observation of
nature, it is difficult to comprehend that Mayer could have arrived at
the thought of a constant quantitative relation between the various
manifestations of natural energy, without deriving from it the
conviction of their qualitative indentity - i.e., without concluding
from the existence of the mechanical heat - equivalent that heat is
itself nothing else than a certain form of spatial movement. Mayer
actually had a picture directly contrary to the mechanistic conception.
For him, the arising of heat represented a disappearance of mechanical
energy.
If this, then, was Mayer's belief, what was it that convinced him of
the existence of a numerical balance between appearing and vanishing
energy, even before he had any experimental proof?
Later in this book there will be occasion to introduce a concept of
number in tune with our qualitative world-outlook. What led Mayer to
look upon number as an expression of existing spiritual associations in
nature will then become clear. Let this much be said here, that number
in the universe has quite different functions from that of serving
merely as an expression for a total of calculable items, or as a means
of comparing spatial distances. It is in the nature of the
onlooker-consciousness that it is unable to interpret numerical
equality between natural phenomena save as indicating the presence of
an equal number of calculable objects or of spatial movements of equal
magnitude. It was therefore consistent for such a consciousness to
regard the discovery by Mayer of the mechanical heat-equivalent as a
confirmation of the existing mechanical conception of heat.
For Mayer such an interpretation was not necessary. His conviction of
the existence of an ur-force, manifesting through metamorphosis in all
natural forces, led him to expect a constant numerical relation amongst
these, without requiring him to deny the objective existence of
qualitative differences, as these displayed themselves in the field of
phenomena. He was spiritually akin to Goethe, also, in that he guarded
himself strictly against substituting for the contents of our
perception conveyed by nature purely hypothetical entities which, while
fashioned after the world of the senses, are, in principle,
imperceptible. Mayer sought after a truly empirically founded concept
of force, and his method was that of reading from all the various
manifestations of force which were open to sense observation. One such
manifestation, capable of empirical determination, was the balance
between appearing and disappearing energy.
Science treated Mayer in the same way as it treated Howard. It took
from him what it wanted for its purpose without concerning itself with
the epistemological principle which had led him to his discovery. Thus
it was that Mayer's discovery led to most important consequences for
the development of modern technical devices, whereas it was the fate of
his guiding idea to be first derided, then misunderstood and finally
forgotten. The consequence was that the knowledge of the numerical
equilibrium between created and expended energy in the economy of
nature has widened more and more the abyss separating spirit and matter
in human life, instead of leading, as indeed it might have done, to a
bridging of the abyss. The thought, therefore, regarding the appearing
and disappearing of measurable cosmic substance, to which we are led
when following Goethe's method of observing nature, stands in no sort
of contradiction to what Mayer himself conceived as the relation of the
various forms of energy to one another, and the maintenance of the
numerical balance between them.
*
Having thus determined our standpoint with regard to the thermodynamic
theory of heat and the law of conservation, we may proceed to the
study, first of the phenomenon of thermal expansion, and then of the
effect of heat on the various states of physical matter, by applying to
them, unimpeded by any preconceived mechanistic idea, what we have
learnt through our previous studies. We must start by developing a
proper picture of the dynamic condition of matter in the solid state.
In a solid body the material substance is centred on an inner point,
the so-called centre of gravity - a characteristic which such a body
shares with the earth as a whole. Likewise, two such bodies exert on
one another the same influence that the earth exerts on each of them:
they try to assume the shortest possible distance from each other.
Since the days of Faraday science has been accustomed to ascribe these
phenomena to the existence of certain fields of force, connected with
each body and working on one another through the intermediary space. It
is to this concept of the field of force that we must now give special
attention. For the field-concept, in the form introduced by Faraday
into scientific thinking, is one of the few scientific concepts which
have been obtained by being 'read' from the corresponding phenomena
themselves, and which therefore retain their validity in a science
which is based on the method of reading.
According to the field-concept, terrestrial manifestations of gravity
are due to the earth's being the bearer of a gravitational field
centred within the globe, and extending thence in all directions
through space, across and beyond the earth's body. Every point in
space, both inside and outside the earth, is characterized by a
definite intensity of this field, the so-called gravitational
potential. This is subject to variations due to the presence of other
physical masses, which carry their own fields of gravity. What happens
between such masses and that of the earth, as well as mutually between
such masses themselves, is brought about by the particular conditions
in space resulting from the interpenetration of the various fields.
It is essential to realize that all fields dealt with by physical
science, the gravitational, electric, magnetic - however much they
differ otherwise - have this one characteristic in common, that they
have a centre where the field is at its highest intensity, diminishing
as the distance from the centre increases. Motion in such a field
naturally takes place from regions of lower to those of higher
intensity - in other words, it follows the rising potential of the
field. This accounts for the tendency of physical masses to arrive at
the shortest possible distance between them.
It was natural for the modern mind to picture a dynamic condition of
the kind just described, that is, one in which the centre and source,
as it were, is a point round which the dynamic condition spreads with
steadily diminishing strength as the distance from the point grows. For
such is the condition of man's head-bound consciousness. The locus from
which modern man watches the world is a point within the field of this
consciousness, and the intensity with which the world acts on it
diminishes with increasing spatial distance from this point. This is
the reason why levity was banished from scientific inquiry, and why,
when the field-concept was created by the genius of Faraday, it did not
occur to anyone that with it the way was opened to comprehend
field-types other than the centric one characteristic of gravity and
kindred forces. To make use of the field-concept in this other way is
one of the tasks we have to undertake if we are to overcome the impasse
in which present-day scientific cognition finds itself.
To develop a picture of the type of field represented by levity, let us
recall certain results from the observations of the last chapter.
There the volcanic phenomenon, when taken in its wider implications,
made us realize that the upward movement of physical masses, in itself
part of the total phenomenon, is due to a dynamic cause which we had to
describe, in contrast to centripetally working pressure, as
peripherally working suction. Of this concept of suction we must now
observe that we may apply it with justification only if we realize that
suction can be caused in two different ways. In the sense in which we
are wont to use the term, suction is the result of a difference of
pressure in adjacent parts of space, the action taking place in the
direction of the minor pressure. Apart from this, however, suction can
occur also as a result of the outward-bound increase of the strength of
a levity-field.
It is in this sense that we may speak of the seismic movements of the
earth as being caused by suction acting from without. In the same sense
we may say that the upward movement of the saps in the plant (to which
Ruskin pointed as being responsible for the apple appearing at the top
of the tree) and with it the entire growth-phenomenon in the plant
world, is due to peripheral suction.
Considerations of this kind lead one to a picture in which the earth is
seen to be surrounded and penetrated by a field of force which is in
every respect the polar opposite of the earth's gravitational field. As
the latter has its greatest intensity at its centre, which is identical
with the centre of the earth's globe, so has the levitational field its
greatest intensity at its circumference which is somewhere in the width
of the universe. (Later considerations will enable us to locate its
position more precisely.)
As the gravity-field decreases in strength with increasing distance
from the centre of the field, that is, in the outward direction, so
does the levity-field decrease in strength with increasing distance
from its periphery, or in the inward direction. In both fields the
direction of movement is from regions of lower to those of higher
intensity. This is why things 'fall' under the influence of gravity and
'rise' under the influence of levity.4
*
How does thermal expansion read as a letter in nature's script when
seen in the light of the two contrasting field-concepts?
Let us, for simplicity's sake, imagine a spherically shaped metallic
body, say, a ball of copper, which we expose to the influence of heat.
As we have seen, it is the centrically orientated gravity-field which
gives the ball its permanency of shape. Consequently, the dynamic
orientation of the material constituting its body is directed towards
the interior of the body itself.
Now, the moment we bring heat to bear on the body we find its surface
moving in the outward direction. The whole mass is clearly under the
influence of some suction which is directed on to the body from
outside. Just as the plants grow in the anti-gravitational direction as
a result of the suctional effect of levity (other factors which account
for its growing into a particular shape, etc., being left out of
consideration), so our copper ball grows in volume by being sucked away
from its centre of gravity. It is the action of heat which has changed
the ratio between gravity and levity at this spot in such a way as to
allow levity to produce this effect.5
What we have thus found to be the true nature of the event perceived as
a body's growth in volume under the influence of heat has a definite
effect on our conception of spatially extended matter as such. For a
physical body is always in some thermal state which may be regarded as
higher than another, and it may therefore be regarded as being at all
times thermally expanded to some extent. Hence, it is all the time
under the sway of both gravitational pressure and anti-gravitational
suction. In fact, we may say ideally that, if there were no field
working inwards from the cosmic periphery, the entire material content
of the earthly realm would be reduced by gravitation to a spaceless
point; just as under the sole influence of the peripheral field of
levity it would dissipate into the universe.
To ordinary scientific thinking this may sound paradoxical, but in
reality it is not. Observation of the nature of solid matter has led
atomistic thought to regard a physical body as a heap of molecules so
far apart that by far the greater part of the volume occupied by the
body is just 'empty' space. In the scientific picture of molecules
constituting a physical body, of atoms constituting the molecules, of
electrons, protons, etc., constituting the atoms, all separated by
spaces far exceeding the size of the elementary particles themselves,
we find reflected, in a form comprehensible to the
onlooker-consciousness, the fact that matter, even in the solid state,
is kept in spatial extension by a field of force relating it to the
cosmic periphery.
*
With this picture of solid matter as being held in spatial extension by
its subjection to gravity and levity alike, we proceed to a study of
the liquid and gaseous states of matter, while taking into account the
role of heat in bringing these states about.
Following out our method of seeking to gain knowledge of a phenomenon
by regarding it as part of a greater whole, let us ask what sort of
change a portion of physical substance undergoes in its relation to the
earth as a whole when, for instance, through the influence of heat, it
passes from a solid to a liquid state. Here we must keep in mind that
it is part of the nature of a liquid to have no form of its own. The
only natural boundary of a liquid substance is its upper surface. Since
this surface always lies parallel with the surface of the earth it
forms part of a sphere, the centre point of which is identical with
that of the gravitational centre of the earth. The passage of a portion
of matter from solid to liquid thus signifies that it ceases to possess
a centre of gravity of its own and is now merely obedient to the
general gravity-field of the earth. We can thus speak of a transition
of matter from the individual to the planetary condition. This is what
heat brings about when a solid body melts.
A large part of the heat used in melting is known to be absorbed by the
substance during the process of melting. This is indicated by the
thermometer remaining at the temperature of the melting-point once this
has been reached, until the whole of the melting substance has
liquefied. Physics here speaks of 'free' heat becoming 'latent'. From
the Goethean point of view we see heat passing through a metamorphosis.
Whereas, previously, heat was perceptible to our sense of warmth, it
now manifests as a gravity-denying property of matter.
In order to obtain an idea of the liquid state of matter corresponding
to reality, we must take into account yet another of its
characteristics. When the heat becomes latent, it goes even further in
contradicting gravity than by robbing matter of its own point of
gravity and relating it to the earth's centre of gravity. This effect
is shown in the well-known urge of all liquids to evaporate. Hence we
must say that even where matter in a liquid state preserves its own
surface, this does not by any means represent an absolute boundary.
Above the surface there proceeds a continuous transition of substance
into the next higher condition through evaporation. We see here the
activity of heat going beyond the mere denial of gravity to a positive
affirmation of levity.
With the help of this conception of the integration of the liquid state
within the polarity of gravity and levity, we are now able to draw a
picture of the earth which, once obtained, answers many a question left
unanswered by current scientific notions, among them the question why
the earth's volcanic activity is confined to maritime regions.
Regarding the distribution of land and water on the earth's surface, we
may say that to an observer in cosmic space the earth would not look at
all like a solid body. Rather would it appear as a gigantic 'drop' of
water, its surface interspersed with solid formations, the continents
and other land masses. Moreover, the evidence assembled ever since
Professor A. Wegener's first researches suggests that the continents
are clod-like formations which 'float' on an underlying viscous
substance and are able to move (very slowly) in both the vertical and
horizontal directions. The oceanic waters are in fact separated from
the viscous substratum by no more than a thin layer of solid earth, a
mere skin in comparison with the size of the planet. Further, this
'drop' of liquid which represents the earth is in constant
communication with its environment through the perpetual evaporation
from the ocean, as well as from every other body of water.
This picture of the earth shows it lying under the twofold influence of
the compressive force of gravity and the sucking force of levity.
Wherever land meets sea, there levity tends to prevail over gravity. It
is in maritime regions, accordingly, that the inner strata of the earth
succumb most readily to those sudden changes in the gravity-levity
tension wherein we have recognized the origin of seismic occurrences.
*
Turning to the gaseous condition, we realize that although even here
matter retains traces of a connexion with terrestrial gravity, levity
is now the dominant factor. There are three characteristics of the
gaseous condition which bring this out. One is the extreme readiness of
gases to expand when heated; we see here how much easier than with
solid substances it is for heat to overcome the influence of gravity.
The second characteristic is the property of gases, peculiar to them,
of expanding spontaneously, even when not heated. Here we find gaseous
matter displaying a dynamic behaviour which at lower stages occurs only
under the stimulus of heat. The third characteristic is shown by the
fact that all gases, unlike solids or liquids, respond with the same
increase of volume to a given rise of temperature, however diverse
their other qualities may be. Once gases are mixed, therefore, they
cannot be separated merely by raising or lowering the temperature. Here
we find the unifying effect of the cosmic periphery prevailing over the
differentiating effect of terrestrial gravity.
At this point we may recall Goethe's reply to the botanist, Wolff, who
had ascribed the metamorphosis of plant-organs from root to blossom to
a gradual stunting or atrophy of their vegetative force, whereas it was
clear to Goethe that simultaneously with a physical retrogression,
there is a spiritual progress in the development of the plant. The fact
that all Wolff's efforts to see clearly did not save him from 'seeing
past the thing' seemed to Goethe an inevitable result of Wolff's
failure to associate with the eyes of the body those of the spirit.
Exactly the same thing holds good for the sequence of physical states
of matter which we are considering here. Observation of this sequence
with the bodily eyes alone will show nothing but a reduction of the
specific gravity of the material concerned. He who is at pains to
observe also with the eye of the spirit, however, is aware of a
positive increase of lightness going hand in hand with a decrease of
heaviness. Regarded thus, the three ponderable conditions form what
Goethe would have called a 'spiritual ladder'. As 'rungs' of such a
ladder they clearly point to a fourth rung - that is, a fourth state in
which levity so far prevails over gravity that the substance no longer
has any weight at all. This picture of the fourfold transformation of
matter calls for an inquiry into the transition between the third and
fourth states, corresponding to the well-known transitions between the
three ponderable states.
*
Our observations have led us to a concept of heat essentially different
from that held by modern science. Science looks on heat simply as a
condition of ponderable matter. We, on the contrary, are led to
recognize in heat a fourth condition into which matter may pass on
leaving the three ponderable conditions, and out of which it may emerge
on the way to ponderability.
Before showing that such transitions are actually known in nature, it
may be well to discuss here an objection which the customary way of
thinking might plausibly advance against our whole method. It could be
said that to assume a continuation of the sequence of the three
ponderable conditions in the manner suggested is justified only if, as
solids can be turned into liquids and these into gases, so gases could
be transformed into a fourth condition and, conversely, be produced
from the latter.
In reply it can be said that the fact of our not being able at present
to change gases artificially into pure heat does not justify the
conclusion that this is in principle impossible. We know from previous
considerations that the earth has reached an evolutionary stage at
which all elements, including fire, have in certain degree grown 'old'.
This applies in quite a special degree to the manipulations to which
man, led by his death-bound consciousness, has learnt to submit matter
in his laboratories. To decide what is possible or not possible in
nature, therefore, can by no means be left to the judgment of
laboratory research. As is shown by the following instance, taken from
the realm of vegetable life, a case of the creation of matter 'out of
nothing' is already known to biology - though biology, bound in its
concepts to the Law of Conservation, shows some natural reluctance to
recognize the true significance of the phenomenon.
The plant which performs this strange feat is the Tillandsia usneoides,
indigenous to tropical America, and generally known as 'Spanish Moss'.
Its peculiarity is that it grows and flourishes without taking from its
support any material whatsoever for the building up of its substance.
Its natural habitat is the dry bark of virgin forest trees. Since
civilization invaded its home it has acquired the habit of growing even
on telegraph wires, which has given it the popular name of 'telegraph
tresses'. Chemical analysis of this plant shows the presence of an
average of 17 per cent iron, 36 per cent silicic acid and 1·65 per cent
phosphoric acid. This applies to samples taken from districts where the
rainwater - the only source from which the plant could extract these
substances in physical form - contains at most 1·65 per cent iron, 0·01 per
cent silicic acid and no phosphoric acid at all.
The Tillandsia phenomenon is to a certain extent reminiscent of another
well-known plant activity. This is the process of assimilation of
carbon from the carbon dioxide of the air. If we leave aside the change
in the chemical combination which the carbon undergoes, there remains
the picture of the plant drawing this matter to itself from its
environment and at the same time subjecting it to a spatial
condensation. A similar but even more far-reaching process is exhibited
by the Tillandsia as regards the three substances referred to above.
From the conditions given, it follows that the plant cannot possibly
get these substances elsewhere than out of the surrounding atmosphere,
and that in drawing upon them it submits them to a high degree of
condensation. A special role, however, is played by the phosphorus,
which shows that the assimilative power of the plant is sufficient to
transform phosphorus from a physically not traceable state into one of
spatially bounded materiality. Following Goethe in his coining of the
concept of 'spiritual anastomosis' for the pollinating process of
plants, we can here speak of 'spiritual assimilation'.
In this respect Tillandsia provides an instance 'worth a thousand,
bearing all within itself. For what nature here unmistakably
demonstrates serves as an eye-opener to a universal fact of the plant
kingdom and of nature in general. The problem of the so-called
trace-elements may serve as an illustration of this.
Modern agricultural chemistry has found of a number of chemical
elements that their presence in the soil in scarcely traceable amounts
is necessary in order to enable the plant to unfold healthily its
latent characteristics. All sorts of deficiencies in cultivated plants
have led to a recognition that the soil is impoverished of certain
elements by intensive modern cultivation, and that it is to the lack of
these elements that the deficiencies are due. Much work has meanwhile
been done in classifying the various deficiencies and in devising ways
of giving the soil chemical substitutes for what is lacking.
A large part of the work here involved could be saved were it only to
be acknowledged that the soil owes the natural occurrence of the proper
elements to a process which the plants themselves bring about in the
soil, if men refrain from hindering them by cleverly thought-out
methods of cultivation which fail to reckon with the nature of a living
organism.
Let us be clear what it is that occurs when a plant exhibits any of the
observed abnormalities. Expressed in a Goethean manner, these are the
consequence of an insufficient direction of the organic processes in
the plant body by the spiritual plant-type underlying it. That which
Ruskin called the 'spirit' of the plant, and to which he drew attention
in his aphorism 'Stand by Form against Force' (by 'form' all the
peculiar qualities of the plant are to be understood), is unable to
express itself in full measure. Now we know that, in order to unfold
its activities on the physical plane, spirit requires 'young' matter -
that is, matter which is either in, or has just emerged from, a purely
dynamic state. Normally a definite spiritual type co-ordinates the
dynamic functions present in the superphysical sphere of nature in the
manner required to give the plant-organism its appropriate form. As,
through the action of the type, these functions are brought down from
the sphere of levity into that of gravity, they condense to the
corresponding material elements and thus reach the soil in material
form via the physical organism of the plant.
The pattern as usually seen is now reversed; the presence of the
various elements in the soil no longer appears as the origin of one or
another function in the building up of the plant-body, but quite the
reverse. The functions appear now as the cause, and the soil-elements
as the effect. We may thus recognize the value of the latter as
symptoms from which we can read the existence of a healthy connexion
between the plant and the corresponding form-creating functions working
on it from its surroundings.
With this reversal of the relationship between cause and effect it is
not, however, intended to represent the commonly accepted order of
things as entirely incorrect. In the realm of life, cause and effect
are not so onesidedly fixed as in the realm of mechanical forces. We
may therefore admit that a reverse effect of the soil-elements upon the
plant does take place. This is plainly demonstrable in the case of
phosphorus which, however, by reason of its appearance in the soil in
proportions hardly to be called a mere 'trace', represents a borderline
case. What may apply within limits to phosphorus is wholly valid for
the trace-elements - namely, that they are playing their essential role
while they are themselves about to assume ponderable form.
It thus becomes clear how mistaken it is to attempt to cure
deficiencies in plants by adding to the soil chemical substitutes for
the trace-elements. In the condition in which this material is offered
to the plant, it is truly 'old' material. In order to be able to use it
functionally, the plant has first to convert it into the 'young'
condition. This indeed happens whilst the material is rising in the
plant combined with the juices drawn by the plant from the soil under
the influence of levity-force. Only when this has occurred are the
chemical elements able to serve the plant functionally. Thus, by trying
to give help to the plant in this way, we injure it at the same time.
For by forcing it to perform the operation described, its general
life-forces are diminished. A seeming success brought about in this
manner, therefore, will not last long.6
There is, nevertheless, a way of helping the plant by adding to the
soil certain material substances, provided these are first brought into
a purely dynamic condition. That this can be done is a fact long since
known, even if not recognized in its true significance. So far then, as
serves the purpose of this book, we shall deal with it here.
*
The method in question is associated with the school of medicine known
as Homoeopathy, founded by the German doctor, Hahnemann. The word
'homoeopathy' means 'healing through like'; the basic principle is to
treat disease symptoms with highly diluted substances which produce
similar symptoms if ingested in normal quantity. Experience has in fact
shown that the physiological effect of a substance taken from external
nature is reversed when the substance is highly diluted.
The method of diluting, or 'potentizing', is as follows: A given volume
of the material to be diluted is dissolved in nine times its volume of
distilled water. The degree of dilution thus arrived at is 1:10,
usually symbolized as Ix. A tenth part of this solution is again mixed
with nine times its bulk of water. The degree of dilution is now 1:100,
or 2x. This process is continued as far as is found necessary for a
given purpose. Insoluble substances can be dealt with in the same
manner by first grinding them together with corresponding quantities of
a neutral powder, generally sugar of milk. After a certain number of
stages the powder can be dissolved in water; the solution may then be
diluted further in the manner described. Here we have to do with
transfer of the quality of a substance, itself insoluble, to the
dissolving medium, and then with the further treatment of the latter as
if it were the original bearer of the quality concerned.
This fact alone shows that potentization leads into a realm of material
effects at variance with the ordinary scientific conception of matter.
Moreover, we can carry the dilutions as far as we please without
destroying the capacity of the substance to produce physiological
reactions. On the contrary, as soon as its original capacity is reduced
to a minimum by dilution, further dilution gives it the power to cause
actually stronger reactions, of a different and usually opposite kind.
This second capacity rises through stages to a variable maximum as
dilution proceeds.
A simple calculation shows - if we accept the ordinary scientific view
as to the size of a molecule - that not a single molecule of the
original substance will remain in the solution after a certain degree
of dilution has been reached. Yet the biological and other reactions
continue long after this, and are even enhanced.
What this potentizing process shows is that, by repeated expansions in
space, a substance can be carried beyond the ponderable conditions of
matter into the realm of pure functional effect. The potentizing of
physical substances thus gains a significance far wider than that of
its medical use.7 There opens up, for example, the possibility of
stimulating deficient functions in the plant by giving it the
corresponding elements in homoeopathic doses. By this means the plant
is brought into direct connexion with the relevant spiritual energy,
and then left to carry out for itself the necessary process of
materialization, instead of being forced by mere chemical additions to
the soil first to potentize the substance itself.8
The same principle holds good for man and beast. They also need 'young
material' for their nourishment, so that the type active in them -
which in animals is the group-soul of the species and in man is the
single individual - can express its true form and character. (We saw
earlier that the will requires 'young' material in order to penetrate
into the material layers of the muscles, as happens when the limbs are
set in motion). In this respect, the difference between ensouled
creatures and plants is that, what is harmful to plants is natural for
men and animals: when taking nourishment the latter are able to bring
about quickly and purposefully a transformation of matter into the
purely dynamic state. Their metabolic system is designed to enable them
to take alien material from outer nature and to transform it through
the forces of the various digestive enzymes; in the course of this
process the material passes through a condition of complete 'chaos'.
*
Having in this way established the existence of certain processes of
materialization and dematerialization in single organisms within the
earth's vegetable and other kingdoms, we shall now turn to the earth as
a whole to find out where - organic being that she herself is - she
manipulates corresponding processes on a macrotelluric scale.
In an age following van Helmont's discovery of the gaseous state of
matter and the statement of the Contra Levitatem maxim, men were bound
to think that the circulation of atmospheric moisture was limited to
the three stages of liquid, vaporous (peculiar to the clouds, etc.) and
the invisible aeriform condition. Yet the role played by clouds in the
myths of early peoples shows that they were once given a quite
different status, between the 'created' and 'uncreated' worlds. Our
observations lead to a corresponding conception, but along the path of
knowledge, guided by sense-perception, as befits our own age.
In discussing Howard's discovery of the stages of cloud-formation we
found something lacking, for it was clear that the three stages of
cloud proper - stratus, cumulus and cirrus - have a symmetry which is
disturbed by the addition of a fourth stage, represented by the nimbus.
This showed that there was need for a fifth stage, at the top of the
series, to establish a balanced polarity. We can now clear up this
question of a fifth stage, as follows.
In the three actual cloud-forms, gravity and levity are more or less in
equilibrium, but in the nimbus gravity predominates, and the
atmospheric vapour condenses accordingly into separate liquid bodies,
the drops of rain. The polar opposite of this process must therefore be
one in which cloud-vapour, under the dominating influence of levity,
passes up through a transitional condition into a state of pure heat.
Such a conception by no means contradicts the findings of external
research. For meteorology has come to know of a heat-mantle surrounding
the earth's atmosphere for which various hypothetical explanations have
been advanced. Naturally, none of them envisages the possibility of
atmospheric substance changing into the heat-condition and back again.
But if we learn to look on the chain of cloud-forms as a 'spiritual
ladder', then we must expect the chain to conclude with a stage of pure
heat, lying above the cirrus-sphere.9
The line of consideration pursued in the last part of this chapter has
led us from certain observations in the plant kingdom, concerning the
coming into being of ponderable matter from 'nothing', to a
corresponding picture of the earth's meteorological sphere. When
discussing the plant in this respect we found as an instance 'worth a
thousand, bearing all within itself the case of Tillandsia and more
particularly the surprising appearance of phosphorus in it. Now, in the
meteorological realm it is once more phosphorus which gives us an
instance of this kind. For there is the well-known fact of the presence
of phosphorus in conspicuous quantities in snow without a source being
traceable in the atmosphere whence this substance can have originated
in ponderable condition. The phosphorus appearing in snow, therefore,
brings before our very eyes the fact that the heights of the atmosphere
are a realm of procreation of matter. (In our next chapter we shall
learn what it is in phosphorus that makes it play this particular role
in both fields of nature. What interests us in the present context is
the fact itself.)
*
The knowledge we have now gained concerning the disappearance and
appearance of physical water in the heights of the atmosphere will
enable us to shake off one of the most characteristic errors to which
the onlooker-consciousness has succumbed in its estimation of nature.
This is the interpretation of thunderstorms, and particularly of
lightning, which has held sway since the days of Benjamin Franklin.
Before developing our own picture of a thunderstorm let us recognize
that science has found it necessary to reverse the explanation so long
in Vogue. Whereas it was formerly taken for granted - and the
assumption was supposed to rest upon experimental proof - that the
condensing of atmospheric vapour which accompanied lightning was the
consequence of a release of electrical tension by the lightning, the
view now held is that the electrical tension responsible for the
occurrence of lightning is itself the effect of a sudden condensing
process of atmospheric moisture.
The reason for this uncertainty is that the physical conditions in the
sphere where lightning occurs, according to other experiences of
electric phenomena, actually exclude the formation of such high
tensions as are necessary for the occurrence of discharges on the scale
of lightning. If we look at this fact without scientific bias we are
once again reminded of the Hans Andersen child. We cannot help
wondering how this child would behave in a physics class if the
teacher, after vainly trying to produce a lightning-flash in miniature
with the help of an electrical machine, explained that the moisture
prevalent in the air was responsible for the failure of the experiment,
and that he would have to postpone it to a day when the air was drier.
It would scarcely escape the Hans Andersen child that the conditions
announced by the teacher as unfavourable to the production of an
electric spark by the machine, prevail in a much higher degree exactly
where lightning, as a supposed electric spark, actually does occur.
To conclude from the presence of electric tensions in the earth's
atmosphere as an accompaniment of lightning, in the way first observed
by Franklin, that lightning itself is an electrical process, is to be
under the same kind of illusion that led men to attribute electrical
characteristics to the human soul because its activity in the body was
found to be accompanied by electrical processes in the latter. The
identification of lightning with the electric spark is a case of a
confusion between the upper and lower boundaries of nature,
characteristic of the onlooker-consciousness. As such, it has stood in
the way of a real understanding both of non-electrical natural
phenomena and of electricity itself.
What we observe in lightning is really an instantaneous execution of a
process which runs its course continually in the atmosphere, quietly
and unnoticed. It is the process by which water reverts from the
imponderable to the ponderable condition, after having been converted
to the former through levity set in action by the sun (as usually
happens in a high degree just before a thunderstorm). We form a true
picture of the course of a storm if we say that nature enables us to
witness a sublime display of the sudden bringing to birth of matter in
earthbound form. What falls to the ground as rain (or hail) is
substantially identical with what was perceptible to the eye, a moment
before, as a majestic light-phenomenon. The accompanying electrical
occurrence is the appropriate counter-event at nature's lower boundary.
Since the two form part of a larger whole they necessarily occur
together; but the electrical occurrence must not be identified with the
event in the heavens. The reason for their conjunction will become
clear later, when we shall show how electrical polarity arises from the
polarity between gravity and levity.
If one learns to view a thunderstorm in this way, its spiritual
connexion with the earth's volcanic processes becomes manifest; there
is in fact a polar relationship between them. For just as in volcanic
activity heavy matter is suddenly and swiftly driven heavenwards under
the influence of levity, so in a storm does light matter stream
earthwards under the influence of gravity.
It is this combination of kinship and polar opposition which led people
of old to regard both lightning in the heights and seismic disturbances
in the depths as signs of direct intervention by higher powers in the
affairs of men. A trace of this old feeling lingers in the Greek word θειον (theion),
divine, which was used to denote both lightning and sulphur. Influenced
by the same conception, the Romans regarded as holy a spot where
lightning had struck the earth; they even fenced it off to protect it
from human contact. Note in this respect also the biblical report of
the event on Mount Sinai, mentioned before, telling of an interplay of
volcanic and meteorological phenomena as a sign of the direct
intervention of the Godhead.
1 See Chapter IV. The other title of the paper, 'Radiant Matter', will
gain significance for us in a later context.
2 Since the above was written, certain conclusions drawn from modern
subatomic research have led some astro-physicists to the idea that
hydrogen is continuously created in the cosmos 'out of nothing'. This
does not affect the considerations of the present chapter.
3 Note the expression!
4 For a vivid description of the interplay of both types of force in
nature, see E. Carpenter's account of his experience of a tree in his
Pagan and Christian Creeds.
5 Note how this picture of thermal expansion fits in with the one
obtained for the Solfatara phenomenon when we took into account all
that is implicit in the latter,
6 This throws light also on the problem of the use of chemicals as
artificial fertilizers.
7 See L. Kolisko: Wirksamkeit kleinster Entitäten ('Effects of Smallest
Entities'), Stuttgart, 1922, an account of a series of experiments
undertaken by the author at the Biological Institute of the Goetheanum
following suggestions by Rudolf Steiner. Her aim was to examine the
behaviour of matter on the way to and beyond the boundary of its
ponderable existence.
8 Instead of using the trace-elements in mineral form, it is still
better to use parts of certain plants with a strong 'functional
tendency', specially prepared. This is done in the so-called
Bio-Dynamic method of farming and gardening, according to Rudolf
Steiner's indications.
9 Note, in this respect, the close of Goethe's poem dedicated to the
cirrus-formation and the poem inspired by his sight of a waterfall in
the Bernese Alps as indications of the fact that he was himself aware
of the water-rejuvenating process in the higher reaches of the
atmosphere.