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_The Universe a Vast Electric Organism_
BY GEORGE WOODWARD WARDER
AUTHOR OF
"Invisible Light, or the Electric Theory of
Creation," "The Cities of the Sun," Etc., Etc.
[Illustration]
_The universe is a vast electric machine or organism creating its
own cosmic force, lighting and heating itself from its own latent
electric fires, and bound together by invisible electric bands pulling
and guiding with the swiftness of lightning, and the power and wisdom
of Omnipotence._--From "THE CITIES OF THE SUN."
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
_Publishers_ New York
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY GEORGE WOODWARD WARDER
_Issued February, 1904_
The Universe a Vast Electric Organism
CONTENTS
I. The Universe Is a Vast Electric Organism, 11
II. Electricity Produces All the Phenomena of Nature, 29
III. Electrical Creation, Briefly Stated. It Seems to Solve
the Riddle of the Universe, 49
IV. Electrical Creation More Fully Stated Confirms
Scientific Evolution, 54
V. Man Is a Soul Clad in Air, a Spirit in an Electric
Organism, 76
VI. All Light, Heat and Life Evolved Only in the Atmosphere
of Suns and Planets, 90
VII. Electrical Derangement of the Bodily Organism Produce
Sickness and Death, 102
VIII. Recent Electric Discoveries and Appliances, Wireless
Telegraphy, etc., 112
IX. Present Science Is in a Dubious and Chaotic Condition, 133
X. Electrical Creation Explains Natural Philosophy, 156
XI. Science and Philosophy Sustain the Religious Concept, 173
XII. Human Reason and the Universe Are Books of God,
as Well as the Bible, 194
XIII. Love is the Electric Law of Life: All That Live
Must Come From Loving, 213
XIV. Jacob's Ladder Is the Electric Pathway Between
Suns and Planets, 230
XV. This Electric Universe is Self-sustaining and Eternal, 246
XVI. Are all Suns and Worlds Inhabited? 265
XVII. The Electrical Theory of Creation Will Save Modern
Science from Pantheism, 279
PREFACE
This volume is intended to further elucidate my theories of electrical
creation, to cover some points lightly touched upon in my previous
books; also to bring forward to date the most recent scientific facts
and discoveries tending to show that the universe is a vast electric
machine or organism.
This is the electrical age of the world, the age of magnetic marvels and
electrical wonders. The people of this generation have witnessed the
most astounding development of electrical machinery, appliances and
utilities. In every department of effort human genius has called forth
this invisible, mysterious magician, electricity, to work the miracles
of Omnipotence.
And so rapid and marvelous have been the discoveries that the human mind
stands paralyzed with wonder and amazement and asks, What next? In
discovering electricity man has discovered the working force of Deity,
the right hand of Omnipotence, the word of creative power, and uses it
in all fields of human effort. With electric cables, electric motors,
telephones, phonographs, telectroscopes, wireless telegraphy and mental
telepathy, the world is revolutionized, "the old heavens and the old
earth have passed away, and behold! all things are new."
The new heavens and the new earth as I see it through scientific facts
and analogies is a perfect electrical machine, a vast electro-magnetic
organism of marvelous power and perfection. This "stupendous mass of
matter and force" we call the universe is a complete whole, a perfect
unity, creating its own light, heat and life and bound together by
invisible electric ties of measureless power, as swift as lightning and
as strong as Omnipotence.
Then I took up the study of electricity as a matter of curiosity and
mental stimulus for my leisure hours from the law practice and realty
investments. I had an indefinite idea that this mysterious force and the
laws governing it might help to solve the riddle of the universe. I
studied its application to ordinary machinery and then applied it to the
universe as a vast machine. And behold! the universe as a mighty
electric machine or organism answered every scientific question and
solved every puzzle in the material world as far as I could comprehend
them.
I applied it to suns and planets, man and all animal and vegetable
organisms, and as electric creations and electric generators they
explained a thousand mysteries. I found man the most perfect electric
organism, woven by electric energy from invisible atoms, receiving his
physical life, growth and nutrition, and digesting and assimilating his
food by an electric process, such as Prof. Loeb and Dr. Matthews
discovered in 1902, nearly twenty years after. I soon formulated a
theory of electrical creation, which has recently been accepted by some
of the ablest scientists.
These things I discussed openly and on the platform for many years and
then I published them in my book, The New Cosmogony, in 1898, in
Invisible Light in 1900 and in The Cities of the Sun in 1901.
My attention was first called to this subject about twenty years ago
when Prof. Henry built the first electric street railway ever built in
this country. It was built on East Fifth Street, in Kansas City,
Missouri, the city where I was living, and attracted much attention. It
was used for only a short time because the machinery was not
sufficiently perfected, and there was too great a waste of power, and
the insulation was bad, for it magnetized and stopped the watches in the
pockets of the passengers. While pondering over this electric railway
and its mysterious force, as I sat in the twilight in the parlor of the
old Coates House, a servant came in to light the gas. Instead of using a
match, he turned on the gas, took a few gliding steps over the carpet
and lit the gas by a flash of electricity from his finger, produced by
touching his finger against the tip of the gas jet. I was surprised and
said, "Have you enough fire in your body to light the gas?" He answered,
"Yes, sir." I said, "Can you do that again?" "Yes, sir," and he turned
on another jet took a few gliding steps over the carpet, touched the tip
of the jet with his finger; there was a flash and the gas was lit.
I was amazed, for this was a new electric manifestation to me. He said,
"You can do it, sir." "Well, I'll see if I can," and I took a few
gliding steps over the carpet. He turned on the gas, I touched the jet
with the tip of my finger and a flash of electric fire, an inch long,
lit the gas. This I did many times afterwards and saw a dozen others do
the same thing. In fact the servants seldom used matches in that
parlor, the carpet held such a surplus of electricity most any person
could by a few gliding steps increase the electricity of their body so
they could light the gas by a touch.
Then I began to think--electric fire in man's body, in the clouds, in
coal and wood, on the telegraph line, in flint, in cold steel--in
everything. Electricity must be light, heat, life and creative force,
and will explain the mysteries of nature.
In the hot, dry summer of 1901, when The Cities of the Sun[1] was
issued, my publisher called me to one side and said that his salesman
was going out West. He asked, "If he offers to sell your book, which
says the sun is not hot, to those old Kansas farmers, won't they mob him
and hang him to the first available tree?" I admitted it did look
serious on account of the extreme heat then afflicting the West, but
told him to have his salesman inform them that if they would go up in a
balloon a few thousand feet nearer the sun they would freeze to death,
and that if they had an arm that would reach four thousand feet up into
the atmosphere it would freeze to the elbow in less than thirty minutes,
the hottest day ever known, as every two thousand feet upwards from the
earth there is a loss of over one hundred degrees of heat. I mention
this to show how some of these theories may shock the sensibilities of
some unscientific thinkers.
All scientists declare that the sun is a burning globe and also the
material and electric center of the solar system; but I conceived it to
be a living world like our earth, only more prolific in life and power,
and the intellectual and spiritual center of our system of worlds. I
believe I present the only reasonable scientific hypothesis ever
presented in the history of the human race which shows and explains the
unity, oneness and perfect organism of the universe. It shows that the
universe is self-sustaining, harmonious and eternal, creating its own
cosmic light, heat and life in the magnetic atmosphere of its suns and
planets, and so simple that the law of atoms is the law of suns and
worlds.
With the able assistance of the many scientists, electricians and
specialists who have recently accepted and championed these theories,
and the progress already made, they bid fair to soon revolutionize
scientific thought.
The time will come, and is not far distant, when those who believe the
sun is hot, or a burning globe of fire, will be regarded as the devotees
of an antiquated superstition. The enlightened world will look upon them
as they do now on those who believe in witches, human slavery and that
the earth is flat; and will pity their ignorance, as we do those who
worshipped the gods of Olympus.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Published by G. W. Dillingham Company, N. Y.
CHAPTER I
THE UNIVERSE IS A VAST ELECTRIC ORGANISM
Electricity, next to Deity, is the most remarkable entity in the
universe. Its marvelous and varied powers and utilities create a new
epoch in scientific thought and discovery. Its study is replete with new
and fascinating ideas and scientific theories. It contains the story of
the universe more sublime than an epic, more wonderful than a romance.
It organized the machinery of the worlds, and holds the secrets of
nature and the mysteries of life in its invisible grasp.
Electricity is the right hand of Deity, the tongue of the Spirit, the
Word of Omnipotent power, the protean cosmic force and creative
machinery of the universe. At the divine fiat it seized all atoms and
space, it shook the ether into nebula, the nebula into worlds, the
worlds into constellations, the constellations into a universe. It
shaped planets and rounded suns and hurled them forth to circle in the
chorus of the singing spheres. It gave form and functions to all matter
from the rounded pebble to the stars; from the raindrop to the surging
seas; from the chirping cricket to the sporting leviathan; from the
helpless infant to the giant man.
It is the messenger and executive of Creative Will to all created
things. It is the ambassador of spirit to matter, the autocrat of
communication between all the faculties of mind and all the functions of
physical existence. It is the law of affinity in matter, of selection in
atoms, and whispers to the body the intuitions of the Spirit and guides
insensate worlds to do the will of Creative Omnipotence.
Electricity is the wonderful medium and agent by which mind acts upon
matter and works the miracle of life and growth. This mightiest servant
of God and man, this genii greater than Aladdin's lamp, impresses all
laws upon nature, and makes the universe obedient to the will of Deity,
as man's body is obedient to the dictates of man's mind. This
inscrutable word of power from the source of all power is beginning to
supply the human race with an inexhaustible force that will
revolutionize the earth and link all nations together as one family in a
millennium of peace and good will.
Human life seems to throb, pulsate, gleam and glow in this marvelous
current of existence, which causes illumination, transportation,
telegraphy, photography, surgery, horticulture, agriculture, metallurgy
and manufacture to step forth as master magicians to work miracles for
the comfort and happiness of mankind. Every new discovery, every step in
the progress of electrical science conquers time, destroys distances,
diffuses knowledge, dissipates ignorance, encourages friendship and
draws men and nations closer and closer by physical ties and spiritual
affinities. Where once noisy ponderous mechanism pounded the rocks to
release the metals, electrical science with her unseen but resistless
currents instantly separate the ore and the dross. Where the
soot-begrimed engineer seizes the heavy iron throttle, she cleanly and
softly touches a tiny button and the miracle is wrought--the heavy steed
of steel receives its life not from smoking, hissing, fussing steam, but
from an energy as silent as light and as potent as Omnipotence.
This invisible electrical energy, without brush or color, paints the
gorgeous beauties of the rainbow, and photographs in every ray of light
and on every human eye the moving panorama of every passing scene. It
telegraphs between mind and matter, between soul and body, between suns
and planets, and gives life and energy to all the varied functions of
this electric magnetic universe. This strange, miraculous power has
taken its place as the supreme force of all forces, the ultimate
elemental force from which all other physical forces are derived, and,
without fuel or expense, flies with its burdens swifter than the flight
of eagles.
It is the last and greatest progeny of man genius and discovery, the
seventh daughter of science, who dips her wand in the impossible and
miraculous until miracles become prolific and common. Its power and
expression are universal and its character and process superlatively
grand. Its theatre of action is the universe and it comes to earth as
the voice of Deity and the word of His Omnipotence.
This science of the impossible, this daughter of miracles, is destined
to outstrip all past achievements. The ponderous and noisy mechanisms
will pass away, the barren rocks will change into most precious things,
the sunlight will be converted into reservoirs of power, and every
raindrop and waterfall, ocean tide and wind current, will reveal
exhaustless sources of wealth and energy. Then will the ancient curse,
"by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," be removed, and
agriculture and commerce will be conducted without the drudgery of toil
or the weariness of labor, and the earth shall blossom at the touch of
the silent electric forces which man will harness to his car of progress
and power. Manufacture will then be automatic and the web she will weave
in her silent loom will not be wet with the tears of imprisoned
childhood, or the agonizing sweat of dungeoned manhood.
Omnipotence follows her footsteps and with the blessings of heaven she
comes as a friend to relieve pain and toil and elevate and glorify
humanity. Her power is as boundless as space and as universal as
heaven's love.
For she comes with the Omnipotent power of Deity to relieve the burdens
of toil, lift up the oppressed of the earth, and give man leisure for
mental improvement and social elevation.
Electricity, I contend, is the invisible force which evolves form and
substance and all visible things. Matter is but the outer garment of
these invisible electric forces. It is Spirit which creates psychic
life, and makes life the cause instead of the consequence of organism.
It is electricity which evolved the physical universe and makes it a
vast electric organism bound together by invisible electric ties, where
its invisible forces are the cause instead of the consequence of
physical organism. These are the basic differences between the
materialistic science of the past and the psycho-electric science of the
present. In the past science investigated only visible material effects
and ignored the supreme invisible forces and laws which evolved and
produced them.
This is an age of dominant mind, the development of a cycle of
invisible forces. The past century was the age of matter. It is said
Darwin, Tyndall, Haeckel and Huxley did a work which had to be done. But
their work was limited to chemical and biological demonstration. It was
science, but science of the old school. The discoveries since made in
the domain of electricity and mental transmission make their discoveries
seem trivial in comparison.
Francis Grierson says: "The discoveries and inventions of the past ten
years have made child's play of every previously known system of
philosophy. The simple but amazing facts disclosed during the past five
years render the dreams, speculations and guesswork of the past absurd.
The little we know in a practical way is more than all the philosophers
of the past knew, from Aristotle to Leibnitz."
I contend that the universe is a vast electric organism. That all light,
heat, and vital force is generated by electric energy in the dense
magnetic atmosphere of suns and planets, where alone it is needed for
animal and vegetable life, and in volcanic pockets or circuits in the
outer crust of these bodies caused by electric repulsion. That the
universe began in extreme cold, not heat, that the suns are not hot, but
are self-luminous, perfected worlds, and like our earth, except greater
and more prolific in life and power. I also contend it is as reasonable
to bury an iron ship in the icebergs of the Arctic seas and expect it to
become "red hot," as to expect the sun, planets or any body traveling
through space 460 degrees colder than those icebergs to become "hot, red
hot or molten," as the astronomers say the sun is. All light, heat,
vital force and physical life is created by contact of opposite
electrical polarities in the magnetic cushion surrounding all suns and
planets.
The sun furnishes the positive electricity and the planet or satellite
the negative, and from these two spring all the cosmic and material
forces of the universe. The electric currents of the sun create induced
magnetic currents on the earth, which evolves all visible substance and
life forms.
The earth at its center is a magnet of crystalline rock and varied
metals, placed layer upon layer as a thermopile or voltaic battery,
which constitutes the solid core of the earth magnet, and draws and
holds all matter and substance atoms and atmosphere close to its
magnetic heart, so that nothing can be thrown off of its vast surface,
though it shoots through space fifty times faster than a bullet from a
rifle and whirls round with the speed of a revolving cylinder of a
dynamo. Its swift duplicate motion makes it a working battery or arc
dynamo of marvelous power. It draws all things to its magnetic center as
the magnetic core of a steel magnet draws filings of iron and other
metals to its magnetic surface, and they cluster there in the same
spherical form.
This earth magnet drew countless meteors, swarms of nebulæ and invisible
matter from surrounding space, and grew in size and magnetic power as a
steel magnet may grow by adding other countless magnets with their
increasing power and growing accretions. For my theory is that every
atom is a tiny magnet, and every molecule, meteor and visible form of
matter is a combination and aggregation of magnets.
Aside from the theory of magnets, this is not far from Lockyer and
Proctor's theory of the stellar formation. Norman Lockyer says: "The
stellar constitution may be explained by supposing it to arise from cool
meteoric swarms represented by the nebulæ and the rise of temperature
due to contraction toward a centre." And he adds: "In the stars we have
celestial furnaces the heat of which transcends that of our most
powerful electric sparks." In this heat theory I think he is radically
wrong. The rise of temperature on the sun and earth, I contend, is not
from contraction, which is both insufficient and too irregular to be
considered. But it did arise from the growth in power and size of the
earth as a great magnet, so that as a great arc dynamo it began to throb
with electric energy, and, by drawing to itself powerful currents from
space and from the sun, the central electric heart of its organism, it
began to generate heat and light in its own environment, which in time
became translucent to the sun's rays, and, instead of the sun and earth
losing their light and heating power, they are steadily increasing them.
It is thus apparent that all light, heat, physical organisms and
vegetable and animal life are evolved and exist only in the magnetic
atmosphere of suns and planets.
The light we see does not come from the sun or stars; it is generated in
our own atmosphere. No man ever saw the sun or stars; they see the rays
of light which photograph them in our atmosphere. They see pictures of
them at the end of the ray emanating from them, but some of these rays
have been two hundred years in reaching us.
It takes light over four years to reach us from the star nearest our
earth, so it is plain we do not see these stars.
As to the heat of the sun, there has been a vast difference of opinion
among scientists. Newton held it to be 1,669,300 degrees hot; Erickson,
2,726,000 degrees hot; Sacchi, 2,000,000 to 6,000,000 degrees; Waterson,
9,000,000 to 10,000,000, and Soret, 5,800,000 degrees hot. But since the
discovery of the law of the conservation of energy, which is only about
a hundred years old, the scientists have been hedging and crawfishing
with wonderful dexterity and reducing it, until now 18,000 to 20,000
degrees are accepted as possibly correct.
As Newton was a great mathematician and the scientists accept him on
other scientific questions, they ought to accept him on the sun's heat,
and acknowledge a fact that ought to be apparent to all--that if heat
comes to the earth from the sun, in a column 93,000,000 miles long and
8,000 miles in diameter through frigid ether 460 degrees colder than
ice, the sun must be millions of degrees hot. Then, as nothing in the
known universe can exist a million or even twenty thousand degrees hot,
they should admit the sun is not hot, and no heat comes from the sun to
the earth. Only electric currents come from the sun, which generate heat
and light in our own atmosphere.
Then arises another question. All bodies lose their magnetic power when
heated to less than one thousand degrees hot. Professor Fleming in his
book, "Magnets and Electric Currents" says: "Magnetic bodies become
changed into feeble magnetic ones by heating to a certain temperature.
Iron at its critical temperature, 690 degrees to 870 degrees or a light
red heat, loses all its strong magnetic qualities. In the same way
nickel loses them at 300 degrees." Thus we have the sun at even 1,000
degrees hot deprived of its magnetic power and unable to control the
solar system. Prof. T. C. Mendenhal, in a recent article in Harper's
Magazine, says: "The electrical resistance of pure metals diminishes at
a rate which indicates that at absolute zero it would vanish and these
metals would become perfect conductors of electricity." Thus cold
increases and heat diminishes the electric energy of metals and all
substances.
In my previous book, The Cities of the Sun, I have given over fifty
reasons why the sun is not hot. Among them I may mention, first, because
of the extreme cold that prevails in the upper atmosphere of the earth,
through which the sun's rays must pass, but whose temperature they
cannot alter. Second, because the sun's rays must traverse 93,000,000
miles of space between sun and earth, which is 460 degrees colder than
ice, which would make it impossible _for them to retain any degree of
heat whatever_. If heat comes from the sun it must come in a column
93,000,000 miles long, 865,000 miles in diameter, converging to 8,000
miles at the earth's surface, which would destroy the sun or any known
body in the universe to furnish such heat. Third, because the perpetual
snow upon the mountains even in the tropics show the sun's rays bring no
heat to the earth, or the snow would be melted by the first and greatest
volume of heat from the sun. Fourth, because if heat came from the sun
there could be no clouds in our atmosphere, for the heat of the sun
would strike them first, and greater heat above the cloud level would
prevent their formation and forever banish them from our skies.
Fifth, because heat by the law of its nature is diffusive, and cannot be
shot from one sun or planet to another, or forced through space like a
leaden ball or other substance, but is soon dissipated in the cold ether
of space. Sixth, the sun is not hot because comets have passed three
hundred thousand miles through the sun's corona without visible change
or injury, which would be impossible if the sun is excessively hot, for
the comet, coming from outer space, must be intensely cold, and
excessive heat in the sun would explode and destroy it. This argument
alone should destroy the hoary headed superstition that the sun is hot.
Seventh, heat does not come from the sun, because there is no such thing
as heat. Heat is simply a sensation; it is not a substance or an entity.
It is a sensation caused by the increased activity of the molecules of
which a body is composed, and, is produced by electric currents. I hold
the sun is not a thermal or heating engine, as the astronomers claim,
but an electric generator which is not hot and does not need to be hot.
I repudiate the law of gravity and adopt electricity as the evolving
force of the universe.
As the sun is 745 times larger than all the planets of the solar system
combined, and controls the life and energy of the solar system by all
laws of analogy and distribution in the universe, it should be more
highly endowed with all the elements of growth, living forms and
intellectual organisms than all the planets combined. Therefore, the sun
should be the spiritual and intellectual center as well as the physical
and electric center of our system of worlds, the headquarters of Deity
and the future abode of man. No life could come from a hot or burning
sun or world, yet all animal and vegetable life comes from the all
life-giving energy of the sun. Heat is not life-giving, it is not even a
substance or a force. Heat does not exist except as a sensation created
by the increased activity of the molecules of which the body is
composed. This increased activity is caused by currents or waves of
electricity passing through a body or substance. Cold is the absence of
heat or lack of motion of the molecules of a body or substance, and,
like heat, is not a reality, a substance or a thing, but only a
sensation.
Heat and cold are produced by electricity, and are sensations resulting
from electrical conditions. Heat is not a creator; electricity is the
creator and heat is its servant, and only one of its thousand-fold
expressions. Electricity creates the activity of the molecules which
gives the sensation of heat. A person standing in the sun on a hot day
receives currents of electricity which were not hot when they left the
sun, but only became so when they came in contact with the earth's
opposite electricity near the earth's surface. These currents produce
the sensation of heat. The sun is not a burning globe, or blazing world
of fire; it is an enormous magnet of measureless power, thirteen hundred
thousand times larger than the earth magnet on which we live. It
revolves on its enormous axis at the rate of four thousand miles an hour
and is thus constituted a working magnet or arc dynamo, drawing electric
energy from its vast electric field, embracing the solar system, six
billions of miles in diameter. Of this electricity, it uses for its own
light, heat, and vital force what it needs, and the balance is thrown
off to its luminous corona or photosphere, where it is shot by the law
of electric repulsion in the sun and electric attraction in the planets
to the earth and plants. The brilliancy of the sun is caused by its
surplus electricity creating a luminous aurora which extends from its
poles to its equator.
Newton discovered an imaginary force. Newton had an imagination which
the scientific plodders who came after him lacked. They have dug in the
dirt, while he sailed through azure seas and linked suns and worlds
together by the mere sweep of the imagination, without any explanation
or conceivable cause, and called it gravity. He might just as well have
called it weight or ponderosity, which means the same as gravity. And
the scientists followed him and accepted his theory of gravity, which
means nothing and explains nothing. It was the best they could do, as he
had an imagination and an idea and they had none. Thus the blind led the
blind for two centuries, until electricity and its invisible forces were
discovered, and a new field for thought and causation was opened up.
Let us suppose that space and the invisible atoms or star dust which
permeate it are seized by electric energy, creating a boundless sea of
invisible electro-magnetism, which began to vibrate to the law of action
and reaction, attraction and repulsion. Under this law every atom became
a tiny magnet, and electric centers are formed which are the foundation
stones and nuclei of growing suns and worlds; and invisible atoms,
nebulæ and finally meteors are drawn by electric energy and woven by
magnetic force or induced electric currents into orderly layers of
crystalline rock and varied metals, forming a vast thermopile, galvanic
battery, working magnet, and electric dynamo all combined. By the law of
electric attraction all matter would tend toward a common center, and in
that common center would be found the vast central magnet-sun, sphere
and dynamo many times larger and more powerful than all the others
combined. As each grew in size their electric potentiality would be
increased, their electric and magnetic attractions multiplied, and their
revolution upon their axis and their orbit motion would be accelerated
to a marvelous extent, giving them measureless force and power.
Herbert Spencer affirms that space is eternal and has always existed. We
will suppose the same of matter in its elemental form, known as the
atom, and we will venture also to assert that force is a substance like
matter, but a thousand times more refined and invisible than the atom,
and we will call it the electric ion, or electron.
Thus we have three indestructible, invisible entities--space, matter and
force--which have existed eternally and which constitute the basic
foundation and fallow ground of primeval chaos, which was the beginning
of the universe. Then stars and planets, suns and worlds were
transparent ether, as impalpable as the viewless air, and scattered as
star-dust in the measureless void of space along the forgotten highways
of the eternities. Silence reigned profound in the pulseless regions of
the air where, motionless and dumb, the atoms hung in dark and lifeless
space. There was nothing in all that seemingly chaotic universe; nothing
but cold, darkness and silence. But these are the home of atoms and
ions, the star dust and cosmic force, creative Deity had scattered by
the breath of His power through the highways of space in the beginning
of primeval creation. While these seem as nothing to man, they are the
foundation stones of all creation.
This nothingness of space was the fallow ground of the universe and the
formless shadow of suns and worlds. It was a universe in solution, as
viewless as ether and as intangible as mind. The electric energy of
space was yet unstirred by the divine fiat or shook into vibrating force
by the word of creative power.
Then at the creative behest, "Let There Be Light," the ions of force,
like an electric clothing of light and life, leaped into power,
permeated all atoms, and wrapped as in swaddling clothes a new-born
universe. Then atoms and ions of electric force met in fond and unending
embrace, substance and energy clasped hands, and matter and persistent
force were woven into each other's arms and saturated with electric
life-giving energy.
The sun magnet, being larger and more powerful than all the others
combined, would hold the others we call planets in the magnetic field of
his sovereign power, and become the electric heart and commanding force
of his system of world magnets. He would draw his electric life and
energy from his vast electric magnetic field embracing his solar system,
which with our sun is six billions of miles in diameter.
As these bodies grew in size under the law of electric attraction,
which draws all matter toward a common center, they would become more
and more compressed, dense and stable, until they attained their natural
equilibrium of balanced forces and assumed their permanent form and
solidity. Then they would assume their normal velocity of revolution on
their axis, and their orbital motion along evenly balanced lines of
force, without friction or change, for countless ages. All suns and
planets revolve on their axis under the law of electro-magnetism by
which electric currents of force pass through their centers at their
poles, and magnetic currents of equal force pass one way around them,
creating their diurnal motion.
This law is briefly stated by a standard work on electricity: "A wire or
any conductor having a current of electricity passing through it has
lines of magnetic force passing one way around it, and the number is in
direct ratio to the quantity of current passing through the wire. This
magnetic effect is strongest close to the wire, and decreases inversely
as the square of the distance." This is a marvelous combination of the
dual forces of electricity, which operates as a wonderful mechanical
contrivance to spin the heavenly orbs on their poles, like a top is spun
by a string or band around it or like the cylinder of a dynamo is
revolved by its leather bands or a water wheel turned by the swift
current of a river. By reason of this law, all suns and planets revolve
on their electric centers at their poles. The great electric currents
from the sun eight thousand miles in diameter and ninety-three million
miles in length, like a mighty, inexhaustible river of force and power,
cause the earth to turn over, as a water-wheel is turned by the swift
current of a river. This vast stream or current of invisible power, when
it starts from the photosphere of the sun, is 865,000 miles in diameter
and is narrowed to a focus of 8,000 miles at the earth's surface, thus
increasing its force and power a thousand-fold. The largest river on the
earth is 180 miles wide at its mouth and about 3,000 miles long, but
what an insignificant rivulet it is in contrast with this vast,
invisible, omnipotent stream of electric life-giving power, constantly
passing to and fro from sun to earth and from earth to sun.
Think of its marvelous speed! While the swiftest current of a river or
the speed of a railroad train is scarcely fifty miles an hour, this
mighty electric tide comes with the speed of light 186,000 miles a
second, or almost 12,000,000 of miles an hour; and it turns the earth
over at the rate of a thousand miles an hour by its lines of magnetic
force, just as the swift tide of a river turns the water-wheel of a
mill. And that the earth may turn more surely and steadily, it has vast
mountain ranges running north and south from its poles, such as the
Andes and the Himalayas on opposite sides of its surface, and other
ranges scattered between, to act as extending flanges and paddles, like
those on a water-wheel, to enable this vast electric tide to turn it
more readily, and, like the brushes on an electric dynamo, to generate
and draw electric currents from earth and sky, and moisture from the
clouds, to bless and fertilize the earth and make it the theatre of
man's life and activities.
Beneath these mountain ranges and in the outer crust of its surface are
many cavities or openings we call volcanoes connected by powerful
currents of magnetism constantly circulating from the equator to the
poles; and when there is an influx of water or other substance
sufficient to generate electric resistance and repulsion, a fuse burns
out in the circuit at that point, the volcano sparks, blazes, explodes
with great force, and shoots its molten lava into the clouds, or, like
Mount Pelee, blows its head off.
Another simple illustration of the universe as a vast electric mechanism
is the electric street-car system in our cities. The sun represents the
great central power house where the electric power is generated.
The planets represent the cars, which revolve on their axis and speed
forward by the same force and in almost the same manner as the planets
revolve on their poles and continue in their orbital lines of force. The
trolley wire and current are the cars' electric line of force and they
come and go in their circuit propelled by the electric generator at the
central power house, in very much the same way as the planets revolve
and come and go on their orbital circuits around the sun by the moving
force and electric power of the sun.
The circuit of the electric current on the car line starts from the
dynamo at the power house and returns along the rails or through the
earth back to the dynamo. In like manner, the vast electric currents of
the sun pass to the earth through the ether without wires and do the
lighting, heating and cosmic life-work, and return to the sun completing
their circuit; and the earth sends its electric currents to the sun and
they return to the earth through the ether in the same manner and
complete their circuit. Thus there are vast highways and boulevards of
electric currents passing from suns to planets and from planets to suns
which are pathways to the stars and the great highways of eternity, on
which invisible atoms, and perhaps invisible human souls, may pass from
earth to suns and central suns. In the future, man will turn the
searchlight of investigation upon electricity as the universal operating
cause of all physical phenomena. He will solve the riddle of the
universe by its subtle invisible forces. He will cease to regard
creation as vast constellations of burning spheres whirling through
frigid ether. He will look upon it with wonder and inspiration as a vast
self-controlling, life-evolving, varied but unchanging unity, a perfect
whole--a vast electric organism of omnipotent power and eternal
existence. He will regard electricity as the finger touch of Deity that
makes the world go round, that marks out the orbits of suns and the
pathway of constellations, and guides them in their mysterious courses
to their eternal and inscrutable destiny.