THIS ELECTRIC UNIVERSE IS SELF-SUSTAINING AND ETERNAL
The natural beauty and utility of the world is vast and varied. The
grandeur and strength of the universe is boundless and enduring. Nature
is Deity, thinking in visible thoughts of beauty and power, and speaking
in visible tones of life, motion and harmony.
All things in nature combine beauty with utility and while full of
change are constant and enduring. The same electric laws, force and
substance which gives luminous brilliancy to countless suns, and paints
the aurora and the rainbow the rosy hues of dawn and the crimson glories
of sunset, give color to the ruddy cheeks of youth, and red corpuscle to
the arterial blood that brings health and strength to human forms.
These same electric laws, force and substance hold their sceptre of
power through all the universe. Under electric law atoms and molecules
embrace each other and evolve visible forms of life; and suns glow with
warmth and light, and keep their appointed distances in the circling
mazes of the sky. And by the grasp of electric energy these life-giving
suns carry their family of life-bearing worlds upon their mysterious
voyage through the realms of measureless space.
All nature is a visible expression of Omnipotent Deity, all the
universe is a symbol of creative power and wisdom which is boundless and
enduring, and proclaims that our world, the sun and the universe are
eternal and enduring.
The question of the continued existence of our solar system is a
fascinating subject to most of our astronomers; they seem never to be
weary of looking forward to a time when the light of the sun will expire
with age, or it will be destroyed by some great catastrophe. I have no
such apprehensions. First, because in the six or eight thousand years of
human history on this planet there is no record of any sun or star being
blotted out, or any planet being destroyed. The sun, stars and planets
are substantially the same as they were when Babylon flourished, when
Abraham was a sun worshiper, and when the angels sang on the plains of
Bethlehem. As far as human knowledge and science goes, not a single star
has faded from the glittering hosts of night's jewelled crown.
Second, because the same electric force that started suns and planets on
their grand velocities and fixed their orbits is not only an attracting
force, but also a repelling force of marvelous power. And while suns and
planets attract each other they also repel each other, and make each
keep their respective distance under the law of electro-magnetism by
which opposite poles attract and like poles repel each other. If you
place the opposite poles of a horseshoe magnet together they will
attract each other and cling together until a superior force overcomes
their mutual attraction; but if you reverse them and put their like
poles together, they will not cling together, but will repulse each
other.
In chemistry molecules of opposite polarity unite, and this is called
chemical affinity; molecules of like polarity will not unite, and this
is called chemical repulsion. Magnets attract only when their poles are
reversed, or when they are oppositely electrified, and suns and planets
do the same. The sun as the great central magnet, or electric generator,
has the power both to attract and to repel. The planets are kept in
their orbits by both the sun's attraction and its repulsion. In the
summer, when the earth gets four millions of miles nearer the sun, there
is a repelling force from the sun that sends it off again, or it would
continue to approach the sun until it would fall into his spacious
bosom. No law of gravitation or balancing force of planets could do
this. The centrifugal force of electric repulsion in the sun does for
the earth what all the balancing force of the planets could not do if
they were all swung in the circling orbit of Mars.
The sun, by this electric propelling force, throws off the comets which
approach it. This is proven by scientific records in many instances for
centuries. By this same propelling force the sun holds off the swift
leaden planet Mercury. By this same electric repulsion the planets
prevent their moons from falling back onto their surfaces.
These moons are the same material and electric composition as the worlds
from which they come, and, as like polarity repels, they are thus kept
in their orbits. There are estimated to be eighteen to one hundred
millions of suns in this universe. Can any one believe they are kept in
their places by a mere balancing force?
They are held by electrical repulsion as well as by electrical
attraction. There may also be belts or zones of ether with the proper
electrical vibration or condition in the orbit of each planet and
satellite which hold them with giant grasp in their allotted places.
And every sun system may have its own peculiar electricity, which has a
repulsion for all other systems and holds each in its proper place. All
these things are possible and probable under the theory of electrical
creation. As twenty-eight currents of electricity can pass over the same
wire at the same time, fourteen each way, how many kinds of electric
currents may the universe possess? May not each planet have its own
peculiar current, and its own peculiar attracting power, and the sun
give each a different electricity?
While each sun system, with its revolving planets, is held together by
mutual electric attraction, the eighteen millions of sun systems are
prevented from coming in collision with each other by the law of
electric repulsion. This would prevent any one system from trespassing
upon the domain or territory of another, and permit each and all to move
freely among themselves and change places without danger of trespass or
collision.
In case of too near an approach to each other the law of repulsion would
drive them off. This would avoid the necessity of a central sun, which
probably does not exist or it would be visible. If all these systems
were positively magnetized or all negatively magnetized they would repel
each other. This law of electrical repulsion would increase the nearer
these systems approached each other, and this increasing power would
send them further away, and forever prevent discord and collision. This
is why there is no discord in the fields of heaven and harmony reigns
triumphant.
Electric repulsion is all that prevents these almost infinite sun
systems from coming into conflict with one another, and ending in
aggregate and ruinous collision, and reducing the universe to a
heterogeneous mass of discordant spheres. No law of gravitation could
prevent such a wreck and ruin of the universe. On the contrary, the size
and weight of every sun and star that floats in the broad expanse of
ether would under the law of gravity tend to bring about just such a
universal catastrophe.
If the boasted law of gravitation prevailed to-day, or ever did prevail,
such would be the disastrous results. The law of gravitation tends to
aggregate all bodies into one. If the universe was under the dominion of
gravity there would be but one vast globe in all the universe, and if
there was a man on it there would be but one enormous giant. Newton's
law of gravitation is "large bodies attract small ones." If that is
true, then all small bodies would fly into the arms of the larger ones,
and the process would continue until the largest body had them all, and
there would be no smaller ones to attract. This is a fair analysis of
the law of gravitation.
As to the rule that matter and worlds "attract each other inversely to
the square of the distance," that rule could not exist but for the law
of electric repulsion. That rule is very near the law by which matter
falls towards the sun by electric attraction. But it is not the law of
orbital energy by which planets are kept out of the sun. Neither is it
the law by which satellites are kept from falling into the planets
around which they revolve.
The weight that falls to the earth by attraction may be lifted by
dynamic repulsion. Therefore the law of repulsion is as necessary as the
law of attraction. Gravitation ignores the laws of repulsion. With
gravity only all spheres would fall together in a common ruin; with
repulsion only they would dissolve into ether; and both of these forces,
normally active and balanced, are necessary to preserve the universe.
Therefore, I contend that our earth, the solar system and the universe
is self-sustaining and eternal in duration, because of the ever-active
omnipotent force of electrical repulsion in sun systems, in suns and
planets and their satellites.
Our wise astronomers for two centuries have bestowed upon so-called
gravitation all the divine attributes, and thrown around it the halo of
a worshiped divinity; and ignored its twin brother and dual force,
repulsion. This was excusable before the discovery of electricity and
its marvelous forces as a new causation. But since then it seems the
blind folly of stupid conservativism that would cling to old traditions
and antiquated authority. They recognized the law of repulsion in
matter, in gases, in gunpowder, in volcanoes, in steam, in dynamite, in
perfumery, in everything in the earth, but denied its operation in the
sun and planets, and sidereal space.
This ever-active omnipotent force of electric repulsion keeps all sun
systems from coming together or trespassing upon each other's vast
domains. There is electrical repulsion as a great barrier between them
to hold them apart. Why? Because they have like polarities or become
alike electrified as they approach each other. This without any other
reason is sufficient to forever prevent collisions between the sun
systems of the universe.
Electrical repulsion keeps our earth and the planets from falling into
the sun. Why? Because our earth and the planets, when they approach
within a certain distance of the sun, may become similarly electrified
to the sun, and are thrown back to their proper and balanced orbit.
Electrical repulsion keeps all satellites from falling into their
primary planets. Why? Because they have like polarities, and are
positive or negative like their primaries, and repulse each other. Thus
each and all the suns, planets and satellites continue in their orbits
of balanced forces, and will always continue and are as eternal as the
laws of electro-magnetism that created and upholds the universe.
The same law applies to comets. Why does the comet, when it approaches
just so near to the sun, dart away so quickly? Because it becomes alike
electrified as the sun, and the law of repulsion strikes it like the
blow of a mammoth triphammer and hurls it in the opposite direction.
This is one reason; there may be others, for the laws of repulsion are
as many and various as the laws of attraction.
The scientists in all ages have been fascinated with fearful, grim and
dismal pictures of the end of the world. Like the theologians who
delighted to paint the tortures of the fiery tophet of their
imagination, the scientists have exhausted their wildest fancy in
picturing the sun consumed with fire, the earth melting with fervent
heat and the final "wreck of matter and the crush of worlds."
The latest display of dismal and excessive fancy on this subject is from
the prolific pen of our most eminent and worthy astronomer, Prof. Simon
Newcomb. It is to be found in McClure's Magazine of May, 1903, which I
have just read, entitled "The End of the World." It is a well written,
imaginative story or article, embracing his theory or hypothesis of the
cause and manner of the world's destruction.
I admire his scholarly style, his great learning, and splendid fancy,
and if I believed in the scientific theories and traditions which he
champions with such an able pen, I should say it was a masterly
presentation of what would occur in sun and earth at some indefinite
future time. But as I have discarded the old scientific traditions I
cannot accept his theories or his fancy picture. It is too dismal for my
optimistic conception of what has occurred or what will occur in this
vast and mighty universe.
He is a worthy successor of Newton and La Place, for he has a vigorous
imagination, which easily scans the future and presents what I deem
antiquated theories, sustained by traditional facts.
Each person lives in a different world and sees a different universe,
according to his knowledge and imagination.
The universe Ptolemy saw was different from that of Copernicus, and
Newton's different from both, so my conception of the universe is
different from that of Prof. Newcomb's. Imagination is a creature of
education and converts knowledge into utility, and reasons from the
known to the unknown, and is the telescope of futurity and the
microscope of past centuries.
I am a great believer in imagination or ideality as the highest gift of
Deity, and accept Napoleon's statement that "imagination rules the
world." I believe no man can be a great astronomer without it, and the
tallest and broadest enlightened imagination will naturally have the
best conception of the complicated motion and grandeur of the universe.
Tyndall in an address at Liverpool in 1870, said, "There are tories even
in science who regard imagination as a faculty to be feared and avoided
rather than to be employed. In fact, without this power our knowledge of
nature would be a mere tabulation of coexistence and sequences; the soul
of force would be dislodged from our universe; casual relations would
disappear, and with them that science which binds the facts of nature to
an organic whole."
This is nobly and truly said, for all progress is heralded by
theorization; which is an intelligible explanation of things, and serves
to relate cause and effect. It distinguishes the human being from the
animal, the civilized from the savage, the wise and learned from the
ignorant and foolish. Herbert Spencer said, "In the formation of a
theory we have the highest condition of the human mind." And Holder, in
his life of Darwin, says, "Darwin was greater than others, because he
had the genius of scientific hypothesis." Therefore I am proud of Prof.
Newcomb's hypothesis of the cause and manner of the death of the solar
system, though I do not accept his theory or his conclusions. I am glad
he is not one of those scientists, who said in the New York Journal not
long ago, that the only thing of value to science was the tabulation of
facts. The mere tabulation of facts would be of as little value to the
world without causation, theory and hypothesis, as the Egyptian
hieroglyphics before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.
Let us see what the learned astronomer, Prof. Newcomb, says. He projects
himself into the future and starts out by imagining that from the
central observatory in the Himalayas, "Mars is signalling a dark star."
This, he says, was after "the world had long been dull and stagnant."
Now, I protest that this world will never become dull and stagnant, nor
any part of this electric universe, but all will go on steadily
progressing to more perfect conditions. Here is where our theories clash
on the first sentence.
Then he proceeds to tell the kind of dullness and stagnation that
existed. He says almost every scientific discovery had been made
thousands of years before, and all inventions had been perfected, and
everything went on as by machinery. The peace of the world was settled
and the time when men fought and killed each other in war lay far back
in the mists of antiquity, and the newspapers chronicled little but
births, marriages, deaths and the weather reports. "Only one language
was spoken the world over, and all gentlemen dined in blue coats with
gilt buttons and wore white neckties with red borders."
Now I cannot accept this as a true picture of our earth at any time in
its future, or the hypothesis of human stagnation as possible or
probable. I do not regard the world's peace, and perfected machinery,
and "blue coats with gilt buttons and white neckties with red borders,"
as evidence of dullness and stagnation. And I cannot believe the
newspapers, whose proverbial energy is perennial, will ever get to the
low ebb of stagnation he describes.
But to the more important points. Three thousand years before this time
messages had been successfully interchanged with the inhabitants of
Mars, and now this message of "a dark star" arrives from Mars, which
excites the astronomers, and later the people, until the whole world is
in a frenzy of terror, apprehension and despair, watching this terrible
star, which continued to increase.
The people of Mars are also "in a state of extraordinary excitement,"
and our astronomers are much puzzled about the orbit of this dark star,
many times the size of our earth. Then the Himalaya observatory sends
out the startling announcement that, "the dark star has no orbit; but is
falling toward the sun with great speed."
Then a professor in physics sees the dangerous possibility of its
collision with the sun, and has an immense vault, which had been
previously built for scientific experiments, a hundred feet under
ground, stored with provisions, etc. In this safe retreat he hides
himself and his assistants when the dark star strikes the sun, and the
fearful conflagration of the sun and earth occurs. And when the sun and
earth were burned up by the collision of the dark star with the sun,
they, like Noah and his family, were saved from the general destruction.
The description of the melting of the houses, stones and all combustible
material on the surface of the earth, the anguish and despair of the
thronging multitudes, and the destruction of the great city of Hatten,
built on the ruins of the old city of Neeork, would duplicate the
horrors of Dante's "Inferno." The illustrations are equally horrible and
terrific, and both are calculated to shock the mind of the reader and
retard mental composure and æsthetic culture.
He states, in the words of the professor, his theory, thus: "My theory
is that if one of these dark objects chances to strike a star it bursts
through its outer envelope and sets free the enormous fires pent up
within." These pent-up fires within the sun, he claims, are going to
blaze up more furious and be the cause of this dread catastrophe of ruin
and death to the sun and planets. With all respect to this eminent
astronomer, I insist, first, there are no pent-up fires in the sun.
Second, no dark or light star, planet or globe can ever fall into the
sun, because the law of electric repulsion in the sun will send it off,
as it does the comets, in an opposite direction; besides this same law
of electric repulsion will forbid any such object from coming into the
solar system.
He says this dark star, many times the size of our earth, striking the
sun, would destroy it and our earth and planetary system by fire. All
life and combustible material, including stones and the surface of the
sun and planets, he insists, would be utterly consumed by the heat
engendered by such a collision. Now, I contend, in the first place, that
such an event is virtually impossible; and if it were possible, a star
of many times the size of our earth, coming in collision with the sun,
would make little more impression on it than a dozen hogsheads of
dynamite thrown against the surface of the moon. Both would do great
local damage to the spot and vicinity where they struck, but neither
would produce any great general disturbance and injury to these orbs.
Many times the size of the earth would mean naturally something like a
dozen times the size of the earth.
Let us estimate the general result by comparison. The sun is one million
three hundred thousand times larger than the earth. It is so large that
if we could drop our earth into the center of the sun, our moon, which
is two hundred and forty thousand miles from us, would only be about
half way to the circumference or outer rim of the sun. Now, a star many
times the size of our earth, striking the surface of the sun, would
create great heat by the compact, and great distraction in the locality
where it struck; and would likely imbed itself in the sun, like large
meteors do on the earth, and become a good sized mountain on the sun's
surface. It would not increase the electric currents or radiation, of
the sun sufficient to melt the snow on the mountains of the tropics or
set fire to a haystack on the earth. Its effect on the earth would not
be excessive in temperature, and would be very temporary. For my theory
is that the sun sends only such currents of electricity to the earth as
the earth draws and demands by its opposite polarity.
Only a great sun a thousand or a million times larger than our earth
would make any great impression on the sun in case of a collision; and
then it would not result in its destruction, or that of the earth and
planets. Its size and power would be increased, but that would not
necessarily increase the heat of the planets, if, as I contend, the sun
could only send them the electric currents the planets draw by reason of
their opposite polarity; just as a receiving station of wireless
telegraphy receives only the electric currents intended for it because
of the peculiar attracting power it possesses.
I am aware that the recent flaring out in light, and increase in size of
the star Nova Persei in the constellation of Perseus, has given
plausibility to the conjecture of some astronomers that it was caused by
a collision between two suns. But I think the better opinion is that
this star is a new sun, partly nebulous and in its formative state; and
that it was visited by a great cloud or swarm of meteors, which produced
the great illumination which flared out into space for a few days and
then subsided.
Its former small size, to which it has returned, and its present
nebulous condition, or the nebulæ that surrounds it, seems to fully
justify this conclusion. I do not believe there ever has been or ever
will be a collision among the suns or planets. The wisdom of the
Creator, as manifested in the great universal laws of electro-magnetism,
forbid it. If such a catastrophe was likely ever to occur, it would have
happened many times since the history of the race began, and we would
have had many undoubted demonstrations of the direful uncertainty of the
life of the suns and planets and the varying chances and unstable
condition of the universe.
Let us hear the conclusion of Prof. Newcomb's hypothesis in the last
words of the last man on the earth, in the person of the professor of
physics: "Such is the course of evolution. The sun, which for millions
of years gave light and heat to our system and supported life on the
earth, was about to sink into exhaustion and become a cold and inert
mass. Its energy could not be revived except by such a catastrophe as
has occurred. The sun is restored to what it was before there was any
earth on which it could shed its rays, and will in time be ready to run
its course anew. In order that a race may be renewed, it must die like
an individual. Untold ages must once more elapse while life is
reappearing on earth and developing in higher forms."
This is the present accepted scientific theory. But is it right?
According to my conception, it is not. The sun is not growing old, or
cold, or feeble, nor can it "sink into exhaustion." Nature, on this
earth, under electric law and process, is ever renewing herself. And it
is the same in all suns and planets. Nature's curriculum of eternal
processes is continuous change and evolution. Her processes of renewal
and purification are so perfect here on earth, that our most luscious
fruits and vegetables, and our most beautiful and fragrant flowers come
from the rank manure of the farmer's stable. The fertilizers of our soil
are the decayed excrement of bird and beast and the most loathsome
decaying elements; yet, through nature's evolving and purifying process
they become wheat and corn, plant, vegetable and flower, and our most
wholesome, acceptable and nutritious food; and if we live many years in
the same neighborhood we eat the same food over and over many times, and
the cattle and all living creatures do the same thing.
The atoms that compose our bodies have been used over and over again
many times. They have been in the bodies of millions of men and
animals, plants and vegetables before we used them, and will be in
millions of bodies yet uncreated. They have been tossed by winds, hurled
and threshed about by tornadoes and cyclones, drowned in the sea, and
buried in the earth and often digested by other animals before they came
to rest under balanced electric forces in our bodies.
Every atom in our bodies have been to the sun and back billions of times
and will be again. They have been renewed by the electric currents of
the sun, by the energy of the soil, by the electro-magnetic ether of
space, and are as eternal as law and destiny.
In like manner, the elements of the sun are constantly being renewed and
invigorated, and he has an area of six billions of miles in diameter
from which to draw virgin atoms, and like a great sea of inexhaustible
force, it is the fountain from which he receives his measureless power
and indestructible life and energy. For he is the central dynamo and
electric heart of the solar system, and with his family of planets is
floating in a boundless sea of electro-magnetism that has no limit of
life and energy. The sun may send a different kind of wireless
electricity to each of the planets, and each of the planets may return a
different kind of electricity to the sun. Thus these electric currents
may pass and repass between sun and planets and be re-energized and used
over and over again, just as the atoms of our bodies and all earthly
molecules are used over and over again.
Thus the sun constantly renews and invigorates himself and all the
elements of the solar system, and can never come into "a state of
exhaustion," as so graphically described.
But this vast electric universe is stable, enduring, self-sustaining
and eternal; and no law or act of conflict among its millions of suns
and planets has ever been discovered, or is likely ever to be, the
conjectures and sophisticated prognostications of pessimistic scientists
to the contrary notwithstanding. Can any reasoning, common thinker,
aside from the scientists, after viewing our moon swinging around our
earth, as it has done for thousands of years, only 240,000 miles from
us, without approaching a mile nearer the earth in all that time,
believe there is any danger of a collision between them? The law that
holds them apart thousands and millions of years will continue to do so;
and their collision is virtually a matter of impossibility until the
electric laws of the universe are abrogated. Can any one believe that
the little leaden planet Mercury that has been swinging so close around
our enormous sun--only thirty millions of miles from it--for millions of
years could keep its constant orbit unless there was an irresistible
law, as omnipotent and changeless as Deity, that has and will forever
keep it from falling into the sun.
Look at the planet of Mars with two satellites, of Jupiter with six, and
Saturn with eight, flying swiftly around their primaries, all only a few
thousand miles from their surface, and some of them going in different
directions--could any balancing force, any law of gravitation, keep them
from falling into their primaries? Every one of them is a contradiction
of the law of gravity, and puts the stamp of falsity on all its claims.
But they all show there is a law which defies so-called gravity and is a
correlative force, and that is the law of electric repulsion; and it is
the cosmic force which, with electric attraction, has built the universe
as a vast electric machine, and they will forever preserve its integrity
and existence, and the sun, earth and universe are eternal.
The world moves; knowledge increases, and science is gradually
broadening her conception of the harmony and endurance of the universe.
The theory of dead matter and blind force has been relegated to the
obsolete and discarded past, and been replaced by the recognition of
ever-present life and infinite grades of consciousness.
The vast and varied factors in nature's problems of eternal destiny
point to our sun and earth as a present existing and unending reality.
Nature builds up, tears down, and reproduces her organic forms on the
surface of planetary globes, but she does not destroy her great sun
magnets and world magnets in the same manner, as many of our scientists
think. There is a great difference in the powers and functions of suns
and planets and the creeping things on their surfaces. Suns and planets,
after they have attained their matured and balanced powers, are
immortal, and creating, enduring and perfected organisms; and, like man
in his immortal spirit, they have attained to eternal life, and neither
death nor ruin can ever come near them. Suns and worlds in their
electric energy have the powers of creation, and as the creator is
always superior to the created, they should not be judged alike.
Therefore the changing and transitory nature of many things on the
earth's surface is no proof that such will be the earth's destiny. On
the contrary, every ligament of force and power in this electric
universe is pledged to secure the continued and endless duration of our
sun and solar system, including our earth. And timorous humanity should
no longer shrink in horror at its prospective wreck and ruin.
May the truth prevail and man's mind be freed from the horrors, of an
anticipated destruction of the sun and earth, and the optimistic joy of
imperishable life and love here, and in the all-glorious sun hereafter
brighten the terrestrial existence of humanity. All hail! thou
life-giving sun!
Sweep on and ever while the cycles roll
Thou wandering orb of luminous sod!
Thou blazing banner of the mighty God!
From Creation's center to its farthest pole,
Speed on and on in thy unknown track;
But the hand that send thee can draw thee back,
And teach thee the way when thy footsteps stray,
As He doth the wanderer.
Like a silent thought from Creation wrought,
Thou speakest a language weird and strange
Of the breadth of space and the speed of change,
And the wondrous dream that the ages taught;
That from star to star and from sun to sun
The soul shall pass while the cycles run
Renewed in its youth, gleaning wisdom and truth,
God's wisest wanderer.
The living shall die, and the dead shall live,
And the mystery deepens on every hand,
And the worlds shall stay, and the soul shall stand,
And a lesson of truth shall all things give.
And a mystic touch hath a world to a world
And the banners of God are ever unfurled
In creation's face teaching truth and grace
To the wanderer.