ELECTRICAL CREATION EXPLAINS NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
Herbert Spencer says: "Science is partially unified knowledge;
philosophy is completely unified knowledge," and the first knowledge
obtained by primitive man was that of sense and inference from such
experience. Later there arose a disposition to speculate as to that
which lies beyond sense and known only by its effect on sensible things.
This speculative propensity is worthy of the highest consideration as a
means of knowledge. It has developed all of the numerous systems of
philosophy which have flourished in the history of the human race.
First in the order of development comes the knowledge of things through
the direct experience of physical sense, then comes imagination,
reasoning, theoretic science and speculative philosophy.
The object of all systems of philosophy is to comprehend and teach the
truth about the world around us, especially that part supposed to exist
beyond the range of our senses, and to prescribe what is right and good
in the life of man.
In modern times the attempt to unite all the sciences into a general
system has been made by August Comte in France, and Herbert Spencer in
England. According to Comte, it was time wasted and labor lost to
attempt to explain the cause of gravity, chemical affinity, and electric
and magnetic attraction and repulsion.
The atomic theory of the constitution of matter, the conception of an
interstellar ether, the undulatory theory of light and heat were all
cast aside as useless and unworthy of notice because they were not
directly observable and the senses unaided could not apprehend them.
According to Comte, the only object of science and philosophy is to
observe, record and classify sensible phenomena. What could not be
observed by the senses could not be known and did not exist. It is said
the only open road to the advance of philosophy was thus forbidden by
the man who made the first valuable contribution to its advancement.
Herbert Spencer first undertook the great task of discovering the
unifying principle of nature. He recognized all possible phenomena as
parts of one great whole, and held that all were united by natural law.
He differed from Comte in that he recognized the imperceptible as a
reality, but made no attempt to explain it or to bring it into harmony
with the phenomena of sense, but designated it the unknowable. He
divided his system into two general divisions--the knowable, which
includes all things of sense, experience, and the unknowable, which
includes everything else, or the invisible and imperceptible.
He held the knowable is the proper sphere of man's knowledge or
philosophy, and the unknowable the legitimate domain of God and
religion. And while he held that God and religion were imperceptible
and unknowable, he held they were none the less a truth of the highest
degree of certainty. It is therefore well said that all who fear the
downfall of religion as a result of the encroachments of science or
philosophy may thank Herbert Spencer for placing it where neither
science or philosophy can touch it.
Upon the law of relativity he places the basis of that which can be
known, and that which cannot be known. He says: "We think in relations.
This is truly the form of all thought.... On analyzing the process of
thought we found that cognition of the absolute--the unknowable--was
impossible because it presents neither relations nor its
elements--difference and likeness. Further we found that not only
intelligence but life itself consists in the establishment of internal
relations in correspondence with external relations. And lastly, it was
shown by the relativity of our thought we are eternally debarred from
knowing or conceiving absolute being, yet that this relativity of our
thought necessitates that vague consciousness of Absolute Being which no
mental effort can suppress."
It is apparent that these propositions contradict each other. For, if
from the relativity of thought we are eternally debarred from knowing or
conceiving Absolute Being, how is it that we have a vague consciousness
of this same Absolute Being which cannot be suppressed? Consciousness is
one form of knowledge. Spencer, thus recognizing the reality of the
unknowable, regards that which is or can be known as different
manifestations of the unknowable.
These manifestations he claims, as they appear in consciousness, pass
through a double series. First, a vivid series which includes all sense
experience, and second, a faint series which includes thought, as in
speculation and deliberation. Force, he contends, is the ultimate and
deepest truth of the universe. All forms of consciousness, he says, are
derived as experiences of force. All sense experiences as in the
objective series, all subjective feeling or thought, everything known or
knowable, is a manifestation of the one universal force or energy. This
universal force, I contend, is, first, spirit or mind force; second,
electric force controlled by mind force.
He says: "Contemplating pure force, we are irresistibly compelled by the
relativity of our thought to vaguely conceive some unknown force as the
correlative of the known force." This unknown or imperceptible force I
contend is electricity and the mental force back of it. All our ideas of
matter and motion, he says, are ideas of force. The demonstrated fact of
the indestructibility of matter is but another name for the
indestructibility of force.
The persistency of force means also the persistency of motion. All forms
of physical energy--as light, heat, sound, electricity, magnetism,
chemical action, gravity and sensible motion--he says, are different
manifestations of force. In this I fully agree with him and claim these
are all manifestations of the one fundamental force in
nature--electricity.
He says: "Even after all has been said, many will be alarmed by the
assertion that the forces we designate as mental come within the same
generalization. Yet there is no alternative but to make this assertion.
The facts which justify or rather necessitate it being abundant and
conspicuous. All the phenomena of mind belong to the same class--the
phenomena of force."
In this I agree, and contend that the mental or spiritual forces are the
most potent and supreme forces of the universe and control all other
forces, physical and electric, and are the ultimate of ultimates.
He says: "The various forms of force are all changeable into one
another." This is shown, he says, by the conservation of energy and the
correlation of forces.
This accords with my electrical theory of creation, which holds that
there is but one physical force in the universe--electricity--and all
other forces, such as light, heat, physical life and so-called
gravitation, are manifestations of this one fundamental force, and are
all changeable or convertible into one another, and all controlled by
the dominant force of mind or spirit. In other words, God controls the
universe as man controls his body. Man controls his body by the electric
energy that permeates his body and brain, and God controls the universe
by the electric energy that permeates all matter and space, and which is
subjected to His Omniscient Spirit and Omnipotent Will.
Herbert Spencer says: "An entire history of anything must include its
appearance out of the imperceptible and its disappearance into the
imperceptible. Be it a single object or a whole universe, any account
which begins with it in a concrete form and leaves off with it in a
concrete form is incomplete, since there remains an era of its knowable
existence undescribed and unexplained."
The simplest statement of this fact, according to my theory, is that
all visible things come from the great invisible sea of
electro-magnetism in which all things exist, which he calls the
imperceptible, and are woven by magnetic attraction and the aggregation
of billions of invisible atoms into visible forms. Then, after they have
run their course as visible substances or organic forms, they are again
dissolved back into this invisible sea of electro-magnetism. Just as
water continually changes from solid and liquid to invisible vapor and
back again, so nature continually renews and purifies her ever-changing
molecules but changeless atoms, and builds up organic forms by magnetic
attraction and dissolves them by electric repulsion. I contend that
matter could be gathered into visible form in no other way than by
electric attraction.
The life period of all visible things is while magnetic attraction has
sway and is paramount; the death or dissolution period is when electric
repulsion predominates. The blossoms and fruitage of summer are samples
of magnetic life from the sun currents, while the decay of winter is a
sample of electric repulsion and dissolution.
The law of incessant change, he says, must be the unifying principle
which in its simplest form is "the redistribution of matter and motion."
Again he says: "The progress from the most diffused and insensible state
to that of concentration and definition is called evolution, and is
attended by the dissipation of motion and the integration of matter."
This I call the law of electric attraction. "The progress from the form
of definition to that of diffusion," he says, "is called dissolution and
is attended by an absorption of motion and a disintegration of matter."
This I call the law of electric repulsion.
"This," he says, "is the universal law of evolution and dissolution in
its simplest form." And I say that the law of evolution and dissolution
in its simplest form is the law of electric attraction and repulsion.
Mr. Spencer's definition is complicated, but his process is
substantially correct. Yet he offers no explanation of this natural and
universal process, while my electric theory of creation does, and makes
his universal evolution and dissolution simply universal electric
attraction and repulsion under the well-known laws of electro-magnetism.
This is a great advance, a gigantic step toward the explanation of the
universe. The simplest illustration in physics explains both theories.
For instance, dry steam, he says, will condense to its liquid form,
water by permitting the dissipation of its internal motion in the
process of cooling, and a further dissipation of internal motion of the
water will reduce it to a solid form, called ice. This he calls
evolution, but he does not state what produces it. I say it is produced
by electric attraction.
Then he says the mass of ice thus evolved from impalpable vapor may be
set out in the sun and gradually melt, by the absorption of motion from
the sun, into water, and a further absorption of like motion will
convert it into invisible vapor. This he calls dissolution, but does not
explain it. I say it is the result of the law of electric repulsion.
He speaks of the absorption of motion. I contend there can be no
absorption of motion, but only an absorption of that which produces
motion, which is electric energy, from the sun--the electric heart of
the solar system. Motion, I contend, is not a cause but an effect, and
all physical motion is the result of electric energy. And to say with
Tindall, that light and heat is a mode of motion is to state an
absurdity, for motion is the result of some force operating on matter.
It is not a cause but an effect produced by a cause.
I explain force and "the redistribution of matter and force" as the
product or the result of the universal laws of electric attraction and
repulsion, which control atoms, suns and worlds and all matter in body
and space.
Mr. Spencer offers no explanations and relegates all to the convenient
dumping ground of the unknowable. What he calls "The realm of the
unknowable" I call the electro-magnetic sea of ether in which all things
exist and from which all things are evolved, which is the imperceptible
elements of the universe in solution. This I claim is the fourth form of
matter, the invisible primary essence of all visible creations.
I state his law of the redistribution of matter and motion in this way:
An increase of electric energy produces an accelerated motion of the
molecules of a body or substance, and, if continued, tends to its
dissolution by electric repulsion; while an increase of magnetic
attraction decreases the activity of its molecules and tends to
integration or solidity of form or substance.
There is no such thing as heat in reality; heat is accelerated motion, a
sensation caused by the increased activity of the molecules; while cold
is the absence of motion or heat.
Mr. Spencer has described a general indefinite process as "the
redistribution of matter and motion," but he has revealed no natural
law, or fundamental explanation of natural phenomena. Every important
question leads him to a stone wall which he does not try to scale or
penetrate, but labels the "Unknowable."
A learned philosopher who has spent his life endeavoring to instruct
others should not fall back into the convenient ditch of the
"unknowable."
He says: "What is it that holds together the parts of which this
ultimate atom may be imagined to consist? The only answer is a cohesive
force." But he does not attempt to explain what that cohesive force is,
while I undertake to say it is magnetic cohesion under the law of
electro-magnetism, which holds aggregations of atoms in organic
affinity, producing visible form and substance.
He says: "Force is the ultimate of ultimates. Matter and motion are only
different manifestations of this unknowable force."
This is making force usurp the place of Deity. Force is a servant, not a
master--a tool and not an ultimate cause. Force without intelligence
back of it is anarchy and ruin; it is chaos and not a cosmos. God is a
scientific necessity.
The ultimate of ultimates is mind or spirit--the eternal intelligent
spirit of Deity and man.
I accept the scientific postulate that the conservation of energy and
the correlation of forces affirm, first, that there is but one kind of
energy or force in the physical universe; but I go further and contend
electric energy is that force. Second, that, like matter energy cannot
be created or destroyed. Third, that energy appears in a variety of
forms as motion, heat, light and so-called gravity and chemical action.
Fourth, that these forms of energy are interchangeable--any one form may
change into any other form, and all are transformations of the one
ultimate force I term electricity. Fifth, that there is nothing in
science to show that mind or spirit ever changes into physical energy,
or force into mind or matter, or either into the other. This destroys
the doctrine of monoecism, or all things from one substance. And
Haeckel will have to produce more facts and logic than he has yet set
forth to prove that spirit and matter, force and matter are all one and
the same thing or substance.
The psychic or mental force is the paramount force, and the true realm
of evolution belongs to the mental or spiritual universe and to organic
nature. Physical changes are not evolution in the highest sense except
as they are the result of spiritual power and unfolding intellect. The
highest sphere of evolution is in biology and psychology.
There _is_ matter, mind and force. Materialism is a shallow, one-sided
doctrine; and the opposite extreme, that there is no matter, nothing but
mind, is also shallow and one-sided. These three separate entities
maintain their separate and distinct existence. The electric theory
explains and elucidates all natural philosophy and all material
phenomena, and is as a scientist has well said, "the best exposition
ever offered of the physics and metaphysics of the universe."
In regard to another phase of natural philosophy, Kant proved that in
our experience objects can be known only in relation to a subject, and
matter only in relation to mind. From this it is evident that mind is
at least co-ordinate with matter and cannot be treated as a mere
property of matter. From this doctrine Spencer took refuge in the
strange notion that we possess two consciousnesses, the consciousness of
ideas within us and the consciousness of motions without us. That
neither of these could be resolved into the other, though both were the
phenomena of an unknowable absolute. This self-contradiction of a
dualistic separation between two aspects of our life, which as a matter
of fact can never be divided, proved a citadel of ignorance which could
not withstand the attacks of logical criticism.
Mr. Spencer's agnostic dualism of objective and subjective mind was due
to a fundamental misconception of what is meant by the subjectivity of
knowledge. If we have the consciousness of object and subject only in
relation to each other, it is not necessary to seek the principle of
their unity in any third principle, for his unknowable absolute is "in
our mouths and in our hearts," and found in the inseparable unity of
experience in which the inward and outward are correlative elements.
It seems Mr. Spencer's agnosticism is a sort of spiritual refuge for the
destitutes who renounce their heritage like Esau or waste it like the
prodigal son, and feed on husks. For those who by their abstractions
separate the elements of experience from each other, are forced to go
beyond experience for the unity they have lost, and flounder in the miry
bogs of agnosticism.
The true way is to give up such abstractions as objective and subjective
mind, for the mind is a unity, and learn to "think things together" and
recognize the organic relation of the inner and the outer life and
"explain the parts by the whole, and not the whole by artificially
severed parts." This organic unity of mind in man is illustrated by the
organic unity of the universe, which, under the electric theory of
creation, is a vast electric organism bound together by invisible
electric bands, where every atom has an individuality manifested and
explained in the harmonious unity of an ever-changing but indestructible
universe.
As man is capable of knowing all things, he cannot be identified with
any of them, or if as an individual he is so identified, he has within
him in his spiritual nature that which carries him beyond the limits of
his individuality. In his inner moral life man is revealed to himself as
a free-will agent, a great and self-determining being, conscious of
being subordinated only to the law of duty, which is the law of his own
reason.
That law, in spite of every outer pressure, he knows he _ought_ to obey,
and therefore knows that _he can_ obey it. Thus man is both natural and
spiritual; he is limited to a finite personality, yet possesses a
universal capacity for knowledge and an absolute power of
self-determination. Human reason with one voice seems to depress man to
the level of an animal, and with the other voice proceeds to elevate him
to the theatre of all life and being, as a "spectator of all time and
existence," gifted with absolute freedom of will and conscious
individuality. There is an identity which is below or above all
distinction; and the universe is one through all its multiplicity and
permanent through all its changes. The unity beneath all differences,
the priority of the universal to all particulars, is necessary to the
true conception of the organic unity of the world. All opposition of
thought and things are relative oppositions which find a solution in the
life and movement of the whole. In all the great controversies that have
divided the world the combatants have really been co-operators. They
developed truth and unity.
We do not see anything truly until we comprehend it as a whole, and see
it in all its relations to the universe. Everything so far as it has an
independent, individual existence at all is an organism. While
conceiving the universe as organic, Hegel maintained that it "is not a
natural but a spiritual organism." For the limited scope of a natural
organism and its process cannot be regarded as commensurate with a
universe which comprehends all existence, whether classed as organic or
inorganic. Only the conscious and self-conscious unity of mind can
overreach and overcome such extreme antagonisms and reduce them all to
elements in the realization of its own life.
The natural universe, I contend, is an organism which includes nature,
but manifests its ultimate or highest spiritual force only in the life
of man. The universe as an electric organism obeys the higher supreme
spiritual forces. It is said that "Hegel was only working out in the
sphere of speculative thought what Christianity had already expressed
for the ordinary consciousness." Nearly all great thinkers, I contend,
reason forward or backward to the fundamental truths of the Bible, only
expressed in a little different way, and which is the old familiar
process in human history of "pouring old wine into new bottles." Hegel
sought to show how an idealistic view of the universe and human life
could be maintained consistently with the fullest recognition of
scientific methods and results. This was an attempt at the
reconciliation of science, philosophy and religion proceeding from the
growing prevalence of that harmonizing spirit which seeks to do justice
to the results of scientific investigation and at the same time give
them a new and enlightened interpretation. In this he was right. The
main conflict in philosophy as in religion has ceased to lie between
materialism and idealism or spiritualism, but rather between Herbert
Spencer's "Vague Consciousness of the Absolute," which he bids us
worship, and that faith which enables us to pierce the veil of the
phenomena and grasp the ultimate reality of things. Philosophy,
therefore, is always toiling after the intuitions of faith as "cities of
refuge." All philosophy can safely maintain that "what is rational is
actual, and what is actual is rational." And all accord with man's
highest inspirations of spiritual faith and hope. And the electric
theory of creation is the most rational explanation of an organic
universe evolved and controlled by natural law which is the will of
Deity, whereby spirit intelligence controls by electric energy all the
forces and manifestations of visible creation.
Herbert Spencer has done a great work for science. He has been a great
champion and expounder of evolution, and the laws of the material
universe. And while he has been a great agnostic on religious subjects
it is because he is a spiritual non-conductor.
Man is like a wireless telegraphic receiver; he draws only that which
corresponds to his nature and character.
Different men have different casts of mind and different natural
aptitudes. Some are natural receivers of truths, and others are natural
non-conductors of certain truths.
There are two eminent illustrations of this fact, it is said, in the
immortal Sir Isaac Newton and John Milton, whose names are equally
historic and illustrious for their learning and culture. For it is said
that Newton could not appreciate "Paradise Lost," and Milton could see
nothing in "The Principia." This was not to the discredit of either of
these books, nor was it a reflection upon the technical learning of
either man. Neither was attuned to the message which the other brought
to humanity and it proves that in order to apprehend truth in any
quarter a man must be sympathetically disposed toward it.
Milton had no mind for mathematics, nor Newton for poetry. So the wisest
philosophers like Herbert Spencer may go to religion and find nothing
there but the abstruce and unknowable. Spencer's mind dwells on the
phenomena of matter and material senses only. It is said nearly every
great thinker has some central thought fixed firmly in his mind. The
central thought of Plato is the theory of ideas--the assertion of the
apparitional character of the seemingly real world. The central thought
of Pascal is that of human intelligence confronting the universe and
strangled by its inexorable tragedies. The central thought of
Schopenhauer is the absurdity of life, and the central thought of
Herbert Spencer is the evolution of the material universe.
PART SECOND
Sleep, death and oblivion are things that mock;
Sleep in dreams; death and oblivion in the grave;
And yet we are not mocked. We only walk
Amid realities that bind us like a slave.
Sleep soothes and cheers; death grimly reaps and slays.
It makes earth but a tomb--its house of revelry;
It stalks amid life's dark and brightest ways
And takes its victims. All are 'neath its slavery.
With chilling frosts it nips life's brightest flowers,
And with pale faces and a gasp they go,
And vaguely trust to bloom 'neath other bowers,
Where death's grim hand will never blast them so.
All hearts beat to music and measure,
Like songs of the spheres as they roll,
And from dreamland's far mystical treasure
Come songbirds that sing to the soul;
Where the glint of the gold in fair tresses
Hide a face that we never have seen,
And the infinite hope that caresses
Kisses joys that we never may glean.
For the wealth of the world is ideal;
There is bliss in the beauty of rhyme,
And the thoughts of the soul are the real,
Outlasting the cycles of time.
And the soul is the diamond eternal
Where spirit and power are one,
Brushing dross from its splendor supernal
As dust from the eye of the sun.
All life is a poem of glory;
Neither reason nor senses can grasp,
Till we read every verse in the story,
And the hand of the author we clasp.
Then sing on sweet souls as of olden,
With visions of soul-land that shine,
Till the harp of the earthly is golden
From the hand of the Author Divine.