ALL LIGHT, HEAT AND LIFE IS EVOLVED ONLY IN THE ATMOSPHERE OF SUNS AND
PLANETS
I contend there is no light, heat or physical life except in the
magnetic atmosphere of suns and planets. That only in this marvelous
electric belt which surrounds the earth, sun and planets is light, heat
and life evolved, for there alone is it needed for animal and vegetable
life.
There is neither light, heat nor physical life in space. Physical life
cannot exist in the cold, dark ether of space, and without life, light
and heat would be not only useless, but as both are sensations of
physical organisms they could have no existence whatever. They only
exist as sensations caused by electric currents passing either to or
through organic bodies. Where those organic bodies do not exist light
and heat do not exist, for nature does no useless, nugatory things.
No physical life can be evolved or exist, except in the electric
atmosphere of suns and planets where the life-giving electric currents
meet and exert their power, and then only by drawing that life as an
electric current from the sun constantly into the lungs every minute. In
this way only is life and growth generated and all physical organisms
created and continued in existence.
Thus all life is preserved and renewed by drawing the wireless
electricity from the air just as the electric wire takes it from the
dynamo. The vital portion of the air we draw into the electric reservoir
of our lungs is simply our daily life drawn each day from the
life-giving sun. This life and all that exist on earth or planets could
not come from a burning globe or a molten sun. It is a superlative
absurdity to think so.
Light, heat and life are the products of electric energy, which is only
called into existence by the contact of positive and negative
electricity in nature's chosen medium--the atmospheric environment of
suns, planets and their satellites. This is nature's chosen theatre for
animal and vegetable life. There is no reason or necessity for light,
heat or animal and vegetable life elsewhere in the universe.
Here upon the surface of suns and planets are the mighty and varied
currents of electric power and magnetic force, weaving forms and
substance from invisible atoms and molecules, under the laws of electric
attraction and organic affinity. In the economy of nature there are no
wasted energies, or useless activities. Light, heat and physical life in
space or transparent ether would be useless and nugatory; therefore
nature ignores such folly in all her fruitful processes.
There may be reflected light, or a fluorescent glow, as in the tail of a
comet or in the nebula of frigid space, but nothing we can truly call
either heat or light can be evolved outside of the atmospheric sheet
surrounding and penetrating the surface of suns, planets and satellites.
We walk on the surface of a revolving magnet and dynamo more perfect in
measureless power and efficiency than any man has ever invented or
dreamed of, and it generates the power which makes light, heat and life
in its own electric environment, where all things "live, move and have
their being." It does not get light and heat from the sun; it gets
electric currents with which it manufactures light and heat.
Prof. Richard Proctor says: "Profs. Bond and Zollner calculated that
Jupiter sends forth more light than he receives from the sun," and he
concludes that, "if this be true, Jupiter must be partially
self-luminous and shines in part by his own light."
This sustains my position that there is no such thing as "borrowed light
from the sun," any more than borrowed heat from the sun. There are
currents of electricity from the sun which burst into light and heat on
the earth and planets when they come in contact with their opposite
electricity.
But each globe in space evolves its own light and heat in its own
environing atmosphere. If Jupiter shines by its own light, then the
earth and planets all shine by their own light, the sun furnishing the
electric power to enable them to do so. I think our moon is no
exception. It evolves the mild silvery light it displays in our midnight
skies from its own attenuated atmosphere, but displays it, like the
planets, only on the side exposed to the direct rays of the sun. The
greater and denser parts of the moon's atmosphere is in the deep and
numerous cavities of its torn and rugged volcanic surface. All planets
and satellites shine by the light evolved in their own atmosphere.
I contend that no reliance can be placed in the spectroscopic evidence
of heat in the sun, or any distant globe. This ought to be apparent when
all light and heat rays can only be translated into photography as a
picture evolved in our own atmosphere. What we see are the electric
colors in the atmosphere of a distant sun or planet.
The spectroscope simply photographs the colors of the elements in
solution composing the atmosphere, just as we photograph the rich colors
of a glowing sunset or a gorgeous rainbow. The evidence of the
spectroscope as to heat has been greatly exaggerated and overestimated
by the scientists, for it can give no evidence of heat. An astronomer
standing on the moon and examining our gorgeous, glowing, crimson
sunsets or aurora through a spectroscope would declare our earth was a
blazing ball of fire. It would seem so to him, and he would have just as
strong evidence as our astronomers have that the sun is hot or a ball of
fire. Our astronomers look at the brilliant colors of the sun's aurora
and make the same mistake.
All the astronomers admit the truth of Prof. Proctor's statement--that
"the heat-giving power of a star is not proportional to the amount of
light it emits." I ask why? And the answer is very plain: Because the
stars and suns have no excessive heat and never had. Recent facts prove
the sun is not hot. Prof. C. G. Abbott of the Smithsonian Institute, in
his observations on the sun's eclipse on May 28th, 1900, says in his
report: "My experiments showed the corona of the sun was actually cooler
than the gray card which had been used at the room temperature."
What our astronomers have taken for fire and evidences of heat is the
rich and glowing rainbow colors of the outer atmosphere of the sun,
produced by infinitesimal atoms of the different metals and substances
of the sun floating in solution in its brilliant aurora, just as the
elements of the earth float in solution in our gorgeous sunsets. The sun
having a larger surplus of electricity than the earth is thereby enabled
to extend its vast aurora from the equator to the poles, and this gives
continuous, varied and beautiful light, with no darkness to its
celestial inhabitants. But the earth, lacking a sufficient surplus of
electricity to extend its aurora from the equator to the poles, must
content itself by displaying its brilliant light and beauty near its
poles, only occasionally extending it half way to the equator. The fact
that the earth creates its own aurora shows it manufactures its own
light. Every flash of lightning in our midnight sky, every blazing
meteor in our atmosphere, prove the earth and planets evolve their own
light and heat.
I agree with Prof. Proctor, when he says: "I adopt the principle of Sir
William Herschell that analogy is the chief and the best guide for the
student of astronomy. General resemblance of structure indicates a
general resemblance in the purpose which the celestial bodies are
intended to subserve." And I contend that all or nearly all suns and
planets are alike in structure and in substance, and are vast inhabited
worlds, governed by the same laws, controlled by the same electric
energy, and possessing varied types of vegetable, animal and
intellectual creations similar to our earth.
It is a universal law of nature that wherever great electric power is
conferred there are creations and results commensurate with that power.
Prof. Garrett P. Serviss, in the New York Journal, July 24th, 1901,
predicted we would have four years of excessive heat on account of the
dark spots on the sun, and many other scientists agreed with him. He
said: "The earth is a satellite of a variable star. The source of
terrible heat is directly in the sun and due to an extraordinary
increase in its effective radiation. The periodic sunspot has thrown
open the furnace door and sent forth the destroying blast which will
continue for four years."
I undertook to answer him and contended that the sun is not variable in
its heating power, and furnishes no more heating power to the earth at
one time than another. That there is no increase in its effective
radiation. That the sun does not furnish heat to the earth at all, and
is not a thermal or heating engine as claimed by the scientists, but is
an electric generator like the earth and does not need to be hot. That
the sun furnishes the electric power and the earth heats itself. In
other words, the sun furnishes powerful currents of electricity which
come in contact with the earth's opposite electricity and the resistance
of its atmosphere, and which are converted into light, heat and vital
force down near the earth's surface.
The electric power furnished by the sun does not vary, but is measured
by the attracting power of the earth as a vast magnet. Therefore all
excess of heat is due to local causes and the uneven distribution of the
sun's electric current on the earth's surface. This unequal distribution
of sun currents, causing excessive heat in the west, was produced by
light rainfall during the previous year, and the harvesting of large
areas in Kansas, Missouri and adjacent territories, thus exposing a dry
soil and preventing the accumulation of moisture necessary to form
clouds. The succeeding summers justified my position and refuted the
predictions of the learned professor and other scientists.
In mentioning these things I mean no disparagement to Prof. Serviss,
whom I hold in high esteem, and only find fault with the old traditions
which he upholds.
I am a friend to all scientists and regard them as earnest workers
seeking the truth. But they follow accepted and antiquated authority too
closely, and thus "the blind lead the blind." They are too often
one-sided and impracticable. Men who study apes and beetles or atoms and
gases all their lives are no judges of angel's faces or of the scope and
design of the universe. Prof. Proctor's testimony that "nine-tenths of
the astronomers employ their powers in making observations at great
pains and labor which are not worth the paper on which they are
recorded," is a plain statement of their tendency to be cranky and
impracticable.
Some are so one-sided they think mathematics is everything. Mathematics
in its place, like the miser, is good to count gains after they are
acquired; but had man relied on mathematics he would have remained as
ignorant of the fundamental truths of the universe as the Blackfoot
Indians. Newton owed none of his discoveries to mathematics. When his
constructive imagination formulated a theory he tried to bolster it up
with mathematics. But it generally proved as delusive as did his
calculation that the sun was 1,669,300 degrees hot.
The great boast of the mathematicians is that Le Verrier calculated
where Neptune was before it was discovered by Galle at Berlin, but the
fact is he missed it eight astronomical units or over seven hundred
millions of miles, and said Neptune was not the planet he was looking
for.
These are two average tests of mathematical calculations, and they are
on a par with the mis-calculations of how much the sun must burn up
annually under the so-called laws of gravity to supply the necessary
heat to the earth and planets.
Imagination--constructive ideality--is the highest gift of Deity to man,
and the only faculty that can reason from the known to the unknown and
comprehend the wonders and grandeur of the universe.
I am not a practical chemist seeking the mysteries of nature in the
laboratory, nor a professional scientist exploring the fields of
original research; but, like La Place, Comte, Herbert Spencer and
others, I formulate my theories and scientific hypotheses from the
latest and best established facts of science as I see it. Science is
only unified or systematic knowledge. Every fact is a scientific fact,
and every truth is a scientific truth whether it pertains to so-called
science or to religion or philosophy. Nature has no subdivisions of
science, religion or philosophy, nor astronomy, chemistry or geology;
but all things are a unity, constituting one harmonious universe; and he
who separates science from religion or either from philosophy goes
contrary to nature and divides the universe into fractions. As I am not
a member of any scientific or religious association, I have no
prejudices to overcome and seek the truth only, without fear, favor or
undue predilections. Old traditions, fossilized theories and antiquated
authority have little weight in my mind by the side of recent facts. But
I am not an iconoclast, for I am more anxious to build up than to tear
down.
The professional scientists may deem such students of nature as myself
who trespass upon their chosen domain as amateurs. If so, it is a proud
distinction. Amateurs have accomplished nearly all the great things in
the world's history. Cromwell was a farmer, Hastings and Clive were
clerks, Bismarck twice failed in his examination to become a lawyer,
Washington was a surveyor and Franklin a printer, Herschell was a
musician, Faraday a bookbinder, Scott a lawyer's clerk, Arkwright, the
inventor of the spinning machine, was a barber; Spinoza a glass-blower,
Herbert Spencer an engineer, Edison a newsboy, and Stephenson, the
inventor of the locomotive, an ordinary workman; Lincoln was a
railsplitter, Grant a tanner, Andrew Johnson a tailor, Andrew Jackson a
saddler, Vanderbilt a ferryman, Rothschild a peddler, Krupp a
blacksmith, Paul a tent-maker, and Christ a carpenter. The names of
distinguished amateurs could be continued indefinitely, but space
forbids.
As I have discussed this question elsewhere and touched on it in other
chapters, extended discussion might cause repetition. Besides, this
volume is not intended for detail or abtruse minutiæ, but for the
statement of leading facts for the masses of intelligent people, who
abhor technical terms and dry details. Many people find scientific books
so dry and unpalatable, that, like the weary listener to the dry, dull
sermon of the missionary, who said:
"If I were a cannibal from Timbuctoo,
I would eat that missionary and his hymnbook too."
Doubtless he thought the hymnbook would be excellent dessert after such
a dry meal; and some readers of scientific works find most any kind of
dessert refreshing after partaking of the mental pabulum of dry
statistics and technical terms to be found in many scientific works.
Our American Indian is never dull or unpoetic in his conception of the
Universe. He sees God in the lightning, hears Him in the thunder; and
according to him the "Milky Way" is the "Path of souls" leading to the
villages in the sun. Along this pathway travel the spirits of the dead,
and the brighter stars are "the campfires for the solitary journey to
the land of the hereafter."
The Japanese term the Milky Way "the silver river of heaven." And the
ancient Greeks considered the blue dome of the sky a crystal globe where
dwelt the Olympian gods.
No science should be dry, and above all astronomy should lift us to
empyrean heights where we may tread among the stars.