Eureka--A Prose Poem
by Edgar Allan Poe
1848

WITH VERY PROFOUND RESPECT,
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED
TO
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT


PREFACE

To the few who love me and whom I love -to those who feel rather than to
those who think -to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in
the only realities -I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of
Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting
it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone:-let
us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a
Poem.

What I here propound is true:- therefore it cannot die:-or if by any
means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will "rise again to the
Life Everlasting."

Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged
after I am dead.

E. A. P.


EUREKA:

AN ESSAY ON THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE

IT is with humility really unassumed -it is with a sentiment even of awe
-that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable
subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn -the most
comprehensive -the most difficult -the most august.

What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimity -
sufficiently sublime in their simplicity -for the mere enunciation of my
theme?

I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical - of
the Material and Spiritual Universe:-of its Essence, its Origin, its
Creation, its Present Condition and its Destiny. I shall be so rash,
moreover, as to chAllange the conclusions, and thus, in effect, to
question the sagacity, of many of the greatest and most justly
reverenced of men.

In the beginning, let me as distinctly as possible announce -not the
theorem which I hope to demonstrate -for, whatever the mathematicians
may assert, there is, in this world at least, no such thing as
demonstration -but the ruling idea which, throughout this volume, I
shall be continually endeavoring to suggest.

My general proposition, then, is this: -In the Original Unity of the
First Thing lies the Secondary Cause of All Things, with the Germ of
their Inevitable Annihilation.

In illustration of this idea, I propose to take such a survey of the
Universe that the mind may be able really to receive and to perceive an
individual impression.

He who from the top of AEtna casts his eyes leisurely around, is
affected chiefly by the extent and diversity of the scene. Only by a
rapid whirling on his heel could he hope to comprehend the panorama in
the sublimity of its oneness. But as, on the summit of AEtna, no man has
thought of whirling on his heel, so no man has ever taken into his brain
the full uniqueness of the prospect; and so, again, whatever
considerations lie involved in this uniqueness, have as yet no practical
existence for mankind.

I do not know a treatise in which a survey of the Universe - using the
word in its most comprehensive and only legitimate acceptation -is taken
at all: -and it may be as well here to mention that by the term
"Universe," wherever employed without qualification in this essay, I
mean to designate the utmost conceivable expanse of space, with all
things, spiritual and material, that can he imagined to exist within the
compass of that expanse. In speaking of what is ordinarily implied by
the expression, "Universe," I shall take a phrase of limitation -"the
Universe of stars." Why this distinction is considered necessary, will
be seen in the sequel.

But even of treatises on the really limited, although always assumed as
the un limited, Universe of stars, I know none in which a survey, even
of this limited Universe, is so taken as to warrant deductions from its
individuality. The nearest approach to such a work is made in the
"Cosmos" of Alexander Von Humboldt. He presents the subject, however,
not in its individuality but in its generality. His theme, in its last
result, is the law of each portion of the merely physical Universe, as
this law is related to the laws of every other portion of this merely
physical Universe. His design is simply synoeretical. In a word, he
discusses the universality of material relation, and discloses to the
eye of Philosophy whatever inferences have hitherto lain hidden behind
this universality. But however admirable be the succinctness with which
he has treated each particular point of his topic, the mere multiplicity
of these points occasions, necessarily, an amount of detail, and thus an
involution of idea, which preclude all individuality of impression.

It seems to me that, in aiming at this latter effect, and, through it,
at the consequences -the conclusions -the suggestions -the speculations
-or, if nothing better offer itself, the mere guesses which may result
from it -we require something like a mental gyration on the heel. We
need so rapid a revolution of all things about the central point of
sight that, while the minutiae vanish altogether, even the more
conspicuous objects become blended into one. Among the vanishing
minutiae, in a survey of this kind, would be all exclusively terrestrial
matters. The Earth would be considered in its planetary relations alone.
A man, in this view, becomes mankind; mankind a member of the cosmical
family of Intelligences.

And now, before proceeding to our subject proper, let me beg the
reader's attention to an extract or two from a somewhat remarkable
letter, which appears to have been found corked in a bottle and floating
on the Mare Tenebrarum-an ocean well described by the Nubian geographer,
Ptolemy Hephestion, but little frequented in modern days unless by the
Transcendentalists and some other divers for crotchets. The date of this
letter, I confess, surprises me even more particularly than its
contents; for it seems to have been written in the year Two thousand
eight hundred and forty-eight. As for the passages I am about to
transcribe, they, I fancy, will speak for themselves.

"Do you know, my dear friend," says the writer, addressing, no doubt, a
contemporary -"Do you know that it is scarcely more than eight or nine
hundred years ago since the metaphysicians first consented to relieve
the people of the singular fancy that there exist but two practicable
roads to Truth? Believe it if you can! It appears, however, that long,
long ago, in the night of Time, there lived a Turkish philosopher called
Aries and surnamed Tottle." [Here, possibly, the letter-writer means
Aristotle; the best names are wretchedly corrupted in two or three
thousand years.] "The fame of this great man depended mainly upon his
demonstration that sneezing is a natural provision, by means of which
over-profound thinkers are enabled to expel superfluous ideas through
the nose; but he obtained a scarcely less valuable celebrity as the
founder, or at all events as the principal propagator, of what was
termed the de ductive or a priori philosophy. He started with what he
maintained to be axiom s, or self-evident truths: -and the now
well-understood fact that no truths are self -evident, really does not
make in the slightest degree against his speculations: -it was
sufficient for his purpose that the truths in question were evident at
all. From axioms he proceeded, logically, to results. His most
illustrious disciples were one Tuclid, a geometrician," [meaning Euclid]
"and one Kant, a Dutchman, the originator of that species of
Transcendentalism which, with the change merely of a C for a K, now
bears his peculiar name.

"Well, Aries Tottle flourished supreme, until the advent of one Hog,
surnamed 'the Ettrick shepherd,' who preached an entirely different
system, which he called the a posteriori or in ductive. His plan
referred altogether to sensation. He proceeded by observing, analyzing,
and classifying facts -instantiae Naturae, as they were somewhat
affectedly called -and arranging them into general laws. In a word,
while the mode of Aries rested on noumena, that of Hog depended on
phenomena; and so great was the admiration excited by this latter system
that, at its first introduction, Aries fell into general disrepute.
Finally, however, he recovered ground, and was permitted to divide the
empire of Philosophy with his more modern rival: -the savans contenting
themselves with proscribing all other competitors, past, present, and to
come; putting an end to all controversy on the topic by the promulgation
of a Median law, to the effect that the Aristotelian and Baconian roads
are, and of right ought to be, the sole possible avenues to knowledge:
-'Baconian,' you must know, my dear friend," adds the letter-writer at
this point, "was an adjective invented as equivalent to Hog-ian, and at
the same time more dignified and euphonious.

"Now I do assure you most positively" -proceeds the epistle -"that I
represent these matters fairly; and you can easily understand how
restrictions so absurd on their very face must have operated, in those
days, to retard the progress of true Science, which makes its most
important advances -as all History will show -by seemingly intuitive
leaps. These ancient ideas confined investigation to crawling; and I
need not suggest to you that crawling, among varieties of locomotion, is
a very capital thing of its kind; -but because the tortoise is sure of
foot, for this reason must we clip the wings of the eagles? For many
centuries, so great was the infatuation, about Hog especially, that a
virtual stop was put to all thinking, properly so called. No man dared
utter a truth for which he felt himself indebted to his soul alone. It
mattered not whether the truth was even demonstrably such; for the
dogmatizing philosophers of that epoch regarded only the road by which
it professed to have been attained. The end, with them, was a point of
no moment, whatever: -'the means!' they vociferated -'let us look at the
means!' - and if, on scrutiny of the means, it was found to come neither
under the category Hog, nor under the category Aries (which means ram),
why then the savans went no farther, but, calling the thinker a fool and
branding him a 'theorist,' would never, thenceforward, have any thing to
do either with him or with his truths.

"Now, my dear friend," continues the letter-writer, "it cannot be
maintained that by the crawling system, exclusively adopted, men would
arrive at the maximum amount of truth, even in any long series of ages;
for the repression of imagination was an evil not to be counterbalanced
even by absolute certainty in the snail processes. But their certainty
was very far from absolute. The error of our progenitors was quite
analogous with that of the wiseacre who fancies he must necessarily see
an object the more distinctly, the more closely he holds it to his eyes.
They blinded themselves, too, with the impalpable, titillating Scotch
snuff of detail; and thus the boasted facts of the Hog-ites were by no
means always facts -a point of little importance but for the assumption
that they always were. The vital taint, however, in Baconianism -its
most lamentable fount of error -lay in its tendency to throw power and
consideration into the hands of merely perceptive men -of those
inter-Tritonic minn ows, the microscopical savans -the diggers and
pedlers of minute facts, for the most part in physical science - facts
all of which they retailed at the same price upon the highway; their
value depending, it was supposed, simply upon the fact of their fact,
without reference to their applicability or inapplicability in the
development of those ultimate and only legitimate facts, called Law.

"Than the persons" -the letter goes on to say -"than the persons thus
suddenly elevated by the Hog-ian philosophy into a station for which
they were unfitted -thus transferred from the sculleries into the
parlors of Science -from its pantries into its pulpits -than these
individuals a more intolerant -a more intolerable set of bigots and
tyrants never existed on the face of the earth. Their creed, their text
and their sermon were, alike, the one word 'fact' -but, for the most
part, even of this one word, they knew not even the meaning. On those
who ventured to disturb their facts with the view of putting them in
order and to use, the disciples of Hog had no mercy whatever. All
attempts at generalization were met at once by the words 'theoretical,'
'theory,' 'theorist' -all thought, to be brief, was very properly
resented as a personal affront to themselves. Cultivating the natural
sciences to the exclusion of Metaphysics, the Mathematics, and Logic,
many of these Bacon-engendered philo sophers -one-idead, one-sided and
lame of a leg -were more wretchedly helpless -more miserably ignorant,
in view of all the comprehensible objects of knowledge, than the veriest
unlettered hind who proves that he knows something at least, in
admitting that he knows absolutely nothing.

"Nor had our forefathers any better right to talk about certainty, when
pursuing, in blind confidence, the a priori path of axioms, or of the
Ram. At innumerable points this path was scarcely as straight as a
ram's-horn. The simple truth is, that the Aristotelians erected their
castles upon a basis far less reliable than air; for no such things as
axioms ever existed or can possibly exist at all. This they must have
been very blind, indeed, not to see, or at least to suspect; for, even
in their own day, many of their long-admitted 'axioms' had been
abandoned: -'ex nihilo nihil fit,' for example, and a 'thing cannot act
where it is not,' and 'there cannot be antipodes,' and 'darkness cannot
proceed from light.' These and numerous similar propositions formerly
accepted, without hesitation, as axioms, or undeniable truths, were,
even at the period of which I speak, seen to be altogether untenable:
-how absurd in these people, then, to persist in relying upon a basis,
as immutable, whose m utability had become so repeatedly manifest!

"But, even through evidence afforded by themselves against themselves,
it is easy to convict these a priori reasoners of the grossest unreason
-it is easy to show the futility -the impalpability of their axioms in
general. I have now lying before me" - it will be observed that we still
proceed with the letter -"I have now lying before me a book printed
about a thousand years ago. Pundit assures me that it is decidedly the
cleverest ancient work on its topic, which is 'Logic.' The author, who
was much esteemed in his day, was one Miller or Mill; and we find it
recorded of him, as a point of some importance, that he rode a
mill-horse whom he called Jeremy Bentham: -but let us glance at the
volume itself!

"Ah! -'Ability or inability to conceive,' says Mr. Mill very properly,
'is in no case to be received as a criterion of axiomatic truth.' Now,
that this is a palpable truism no one in his senses will deny. Not to
admit the proposition, is to insinuate a charge of variability in Truth
itself, whose very title is a synonym of the Steadfast. If ability to
conceive be taken as a criterion of Truth, then a truth to David Hume
would very seldom be a truth to Joe; and ninety-nine hundredths of what
is undeniable in Heaven would be demonstrable falsity upon Earth. The
proposition of Mr. Mill, then, is sustained. I will not grant it to be
an axiom; and this merely because I am showing that no axioms exist;
but, with a distinction which could not have been cavilled at even by
Mr. Mill himself, I am ready to grant that, if an axiom there be, then
the proposition of which we speak has the fullest right to be considered
an axiom -that no more absolute axiom is -and, consequently, that any
subsequent proposition which shall conflict with this one primarily
advanced, must be either a falsity in itself -that is to say no axiom
-or, if admitted axiomatic, must at once neutralize both itself and its
predecessor.

"And now, by the logic of their own propounder, let us proceed to test
any one of the axioms propounded. Let us give Mr. Mill the fairest of
play. We will bring the point to no ordinary issue. We will select for
investigation no common-place axiom -no axiom of what, not the less
preposterously because only impliedly, he terms his secondary class -as
if a positive truth by definition could be either more or less
positively a truth: -we will select, I say, no axiom of an
unquestionability so questionable as is to be found in Euclid. We will
not talk, for example, about such propositions as that two straight
lines cannot enclose a space, or that the whole is greater than any one
of its parts. We will afford the logician every advantage. We will come
at once to a proposition which he regards as the acme of the
unquestionable -as the quintessence of axiomatic undeniability. Here it
is: -'Contradictions cannot both be true - that is, cannot coexist in
nature.' Here Mr. Mill means, for instan ce, -and I give the most
forcible instance conceivable -that a tree must be either a tree or not
a tree -that it cannot be at the same time a tree and not a tree: -all
which is quite reasonable of itself and will answer remarkably well as
an axiom, until we bring it into collation with an axiom insisted upon a
few pages before -in other words -words which I have previously employed
-until we test it by the logic of its own propounder. 'A tree,' Mr. Mill
asserts, 'must be either a tree or not a tree.' Very well: -and now let
me ask him, why. To this little query there is but one response: -I defy
any man living to invent a second. The sole answer is this: - 'Because
we find it impossible to conceive that a tree can be anything else than
a tree or not a tree.' This, I repeat, is Mr. Mill's sole answer: -he
will not pretend to suggest another: -and yet, by his own showing, his
answer is clearly no answer at all; for has he not already required us
to admit, as an axiom, that ability or ina bility to conceive is in no
case to be taken as a criterion of axiomatic truth? Thus all -absolutely
his argumentation is at sea without a rudder. Let it not be urged that
an exception from the general rule is to be made, in cases where the
'impossibility to conceive' is so peculiarly great as when we are called
upon to conceive a tree both a tree and not a tree. Let no attempt, I
say, be made at urging this sotticism; for, in the first place, there
are no degrees of 'impossibility,' and thus no one impossible conception
can be more peculiarly impossible than another impossible conception:
-in the second place, Mr. Mill himself, no doubt after thorough
deliberation, has most distinctly, and most rationally, excluded all
opportunity for exception, by the emphasis of his proposition, that, in
no case, is ability or inability to conceive, to be taken as a criterion
of axiomatic truth: -in the third place, even were exceptions admissible
at all, it remains to be shown how any exception is admissible here.
That a tree can be both a tree and not a tree, is an idea which the
angels, or the devils, may entertain, and which no doubt many an earthly
Bedlamite, or Transcendentalist, does.

"Now I do not quarrel with these ancients," continues the letter-writer,
"so much on account of the transparent frivolity of their logic -which,
to be plain, was baseless, worthless and fantastic altogether -as on
account of their pompous and infatuate proscription of all other roads
to Truth than the two narrow and crooked paths -the one of creeping and
the other of crawling -to which, in their ignorant perversity, they have
dared to confine the Soul -the Soul which loves nothing so well as to
soar in those regions of illimitable intuition which are utterly
incognizant of 'path.'

"By the bye, my dear friend, is it not an evidence of the mental slavery
entailed upon those bigoted people by their Hogs and Rams, that in spite
of the eternal prating of their savans about roads to Truth, none of
them fell, even by accident, into what we now so distinctly perceive to
be the broadest, the straightest and most available of all mere roads
-the great thoroughfare -the majestic highway of the Consistent? Is it
not wonderful that they should have failed to deduce from the works of
God the vitally momentous consideration that a perfect consistency can
be nothing but an absolute truth? How plain -how rapid our progress
since the late announcement of this proposition! By its means,
investigation has been taken out of the hands of the ground-moles, and
given as a duty, rather than as a task, to the true -to the only true
thinkers -to the generally-educated men of ardent imagination. These
latter -our Keplers -our Laplaces -'speculate' -'theorize' -these are
the terms - can you not fancy the shout of scorn with which they would
be received by our progenitors, were it possible for them to be looking
over my shoulders as I write? The Keplers, I repeat, speculate -theorize
- and their theories are merely corrected -reduced -sifted -cleared,
little by little, of their chaff of inconsistency -until at length there
stands apparent an unencumbered Consistency -a consistency which the
most stolid admit -because it is a consistency -to be an absolute and
unquestionable TRuth.

"I have often thought, my friend, that it must have puzzled these
dogmaticians of a thousand years ago, to determine, even, by which of
their two boasted roads it is that the cryptographist attains the
solution of the more complicated cyphers -or by which of them
Champollion guided mankind to those important and innumerable truths
which, for so many centuries, have lain entombed amid the phonetical
hieroglyphics of Egypt. In especial, would it not have given these
bigots some trouble to determine by which of their two roads was reached
the most momentous and sublime of their truths -the truth -the fact of
gravitation? Newton deduced it from the laws of Kepler. Kepler admitted
that these laws he guessed -these laws whose investigation disclosed to
the greatest of British astronomers that principle, the basis of all
(existing) physical principle, in going behind which we enter at once
the nebulous kingdom of Metaphysics. Yes! -these vital laws Kepler
guessed -that it is to say, he imagin ed them. Had he been asked to
point out either the de ductive or in ductive route by which he attained
them, his reply might have been -'I know nothing about routes -but I do
know the machinery of the Universe. Here it is. I grasped it with my
soul -I reached it through mere dint of intuition.' Alas, poor ignorant
old man! Could not any metaphysician have told him that what he called
'intuition' was but the conviction resulting from de ductions or in
ductions of which the processes were so shadowy as to have escaped his
consciousness, eluded his reason, or bidden defiance to his capacity of
expression? How great a pity it is that some 'moral philosopher' had not
enlightened him about all this! How it would have comforted him on his
death-bed to know that, instead of having gone intuitively and thus
unbecomingly, he had, in fact, proceeded decorously and legitimately
-that is to say Hog-ishly, or at least Ram-ishly -into the vast halls
where lay gleaming, untended, and hitherto untouche d by mortal hand
-unseen by mortal eye -the imperishable and priceless secrets of the
Universe!

"Yes, Kepler was essentially a theorist; but this title, now of so much
sanctity, was, in those ancient days, a designation of supreme contempt.
It is only now that men begin to appreciate that divine old man -to
sympathize with the prophetical and poetical rhapsody of his
ever-memorable words. For my part," continues the unknown correspondent,
"I glow with a sacred fire when I even think of them, and feel that I
shall never grow weary of their repetition: - in concluding this letter,
let me have the real pleasure of transcribing them once again: -'I care
not whether my work be read now or by posterity. I can afford to wait a
century for readers when God himself has waited six thousand years for
an observer. I triumph. I have stolen the golden secret of the
Egyptians. I will indulge my sacred fury.'"

Here end my quotations from this very unaccountable and, perhaps,
somewhat impertinent epistle; and perhaps it would be folly to comment,
in any respect, upon the chimerical, not to say revolutionary, fancies
of the writer -whoever he is -fancies so radically at war with the
well-considered and well-settled opinions of this age. Let us proceed,
then, to our legitimate thesis, The Universe.

This thesis admits a choice between two modes of discussion: -We may as
cend or des cend. Beginning at our own point of view -at the Earth on
which we stand -we may pass to the other planets of our system -thence
to the Sun -thence to our system considered collectively -and thence,
through other systems, indefinitely outwards; or, commencing on high at
some point as definite as we can make it or conceive it, we may come
down to the habitation of Man. Usually -that is to say, in ordinary
essays on Astronomy -the first of these two modes is, with certain
reservation, adopted: -this for the obvious reason that astronomical
facts, merely, and principles, being the object, that object is best
fulfilled in stepping from the known because proximate, gradually onward
to the point where all certitude becomes lost in the remote. For my
present purpose, however, -that of enabling the mind to take in, as if
from afar and at one glance, a distant conception of the individual
Universe -it is clear t hat a descent to small from great -to the
outskirts from the centre (if we could establish a centre) -to the end
from the beginning (if we could fancy a beginning) would be the
preferable course, but for the difficulty, if not impossibility, of
presenting, in this course, to the unastronomical, a picture at all
comprehensible in regard to such considerations as are involved in
quantity -that is to say, in number, magnitude and distance.

Now, distinctness -intelligibility, at all points, is a primary feature
in my general design. On important topics it is better to be a good deal
prolix than even a very little obscure. But abstruseness is a quality
appertaining to no subject per se. All are alike, in facility of
comprehension, to him who approaches them by properly graduated steps.
It is merely because a stepping-stone, here and there, is heedlessly
left unsupplied in our road to the Differential Calculus, that this
latter is not altogether as simple a thing as a sonnet by Mr. Solomon
Seesaw.

By way of admitting, then, no chance for misapprehension, I think it
advisable to proceed as if even the more obvious facts of Astronomy were
unknown to the reader. In combining the two modes of discussion to which
I have referred, I propose to avail myself of the advantages peculiar to
each -and very especially of the iteration in detail which will be
unavoidable as a consequence of the plan. Commencing with a descent, I
shall reserve for the return upwards those indispensable considerations
of quantity to which allusion has already been made.

Let us begin, then, at once, with that merest of words, "Infinity."
This, like "God," "spirit," and some other expressions of which the
equivalents exist in all languages, is by no means the expression of an
idea -but of an effort at one. It stands for the possible attempt at an
impossible conception. Man needed a term by which to point out the
direction of this effort -the cloud behind which lay, forever invisible,
the object of this attempt. A word, in fine, was demanded, by means of
which one human being might put himself in relation at once with another
human being and with a certain tendency of the human intellect. Out of
this demand arose the word, "Infinity;" which is thus the representative
but of the thought of a thought.

As regards that infinity now considered -the infinity of space -we often
hear it said that "its idea is admitted by the mind -is acquiesced in
-is entertained -on account of the greater difficulty which attends the
conception of a limit." But this is merely one of those phrases by which
even profound thinkers, time out of mind, have occasionally taken
pleasure in deceiving themselves. The quibble lies concealed in the word
"difficulty." "The mind," we are told, "entertains the idea of
limitless, through the greater difficulty which it finds in entertaining
that of limited, space." Now, were the proposition but fairly put, its
absurdity would become transparent at once. Clearly, there is no mere
difficulty in the case. The assertion intended, if presented according
to its intention and without sophistry, would run thus: -"The mind
admits the idea of limitless, through the greater impossibility of
entertaining that of limited, space."

It must be immediately seen that this is not a question of two
statements between whose respective credibilities -or of two arguments
between whose respective validities -the reason is called upon to
decide: -it is a matter of two conceptions, directly conflicting, and
each avowedly impossible, one of which the intellect is supposed to be
capable of entertaining, on account of the greater impossibility of
entertaining the other. The choice is not made between two difficulties;
-it is merely fancied to be made between two impossibilities. Now of the
former, there are degrees, -but of the latter, none: -just as our
impertinent letter-writer has already suggested. A task may be more or
less difficult; but it is either possible or not possible: -there are no
gradations. It might be more difficult to overthrow the Andes than an
ant-hill; but it can be no more impossible to annihilate the matter of
the one than the matter of the other. A man may jump ten feet with less
difficulty than he can jump twenty, but the impossibility of his leaping
to the moon is not a whit less than that of his leaping to the dog-star.

Since all this is undeniable: since the choice of the mind is to be made
between impossibilities of conception: since one impossibility cannot be
greater than another: and since, thus, one cannot be preferred to
another: the philosophers who not only maintain, on the grounds
mentioned, man's idea of infinity but, on account of such supposititious
idea, infinity itself -are plainly engaged in demonstrating one
impossible thing to be possible by showing how it is that some one other
thing -is impossible too. This, it will be said, is nonsense; and
perhaps it is: -indeed I think it very capital nonsense -but forego all
claim to it as nonsense of mine.

The readiest mode, however, of displaying the fallacy of the
philosophical argument on this question, is by simply adverting to a
fact respecting it which has been hitherto quite overlooked -the fact
that the argument alluded to both proves and disproves its own
proposition. "The mind is impelled," say the theologians and others, "to
admit a First Cause, by the superior difficulty it experiences in
conceiving cause beyond cause without end." The quibble, as before, lies
in the word "difficulty" -but here what is it employed to sustain? A
First Cause. And what is a First Cause? An ultimate termination of
causes. And what is an ultimate termination of causes? Finity -the
Finite. Thus the one quibble, in two processes, by God knows how many
philosophers, is made to support now Finity and now Infinity -could it
not be brought to support something besides? As for the quibblers -they,
at least, are insupportable. But -to dismiss them: -what they prove in
the one case is the identical nothing which they demonstrate in the
other.

Of course, no one will suppose that I here contend for the absolute
impossibility of that which we attempt to convey in the word "Infinity."
My purpose is but to show the folly of endeavoring to prove Infinity
itself, or even our conception of it, by any such blundering
ratiocination as that which is ordinarily employed.

Nevertheless, as an individual, I may be permitted to say that I cannot
conceive Infinity, and am convinced that no human being can. A mind not
thoroughly self-conscious -not accustomed to the introspective analysis
of its own operations -will, it is true, often deceive itself by
supposing that it has entertained the conception of which we speak. In
the effort to entertain it, we proceed step beyond step -we fancy point
still beyond point; and so long as we Continue the effort, it may be
said, in fact, that we are tending to the formation of the idea
designed; while the strength of the impression that we actually form or
have formed it, is in the ratio of the period during which we keep up
the mental endeavor. But it is in the act of discontinuing the endeavor
-of fulfilling (as we think) the idea -of putting the finishing stroke
(as we suppose) to the conception -that we overthrow at once the whole
fabric of our fancy by resting upon some one ultimate and therefore
definite point. Thi s fact, however, we fail to perceive, on account of
the absolute coincidence, in time, between the settling down upon the
ultimate point and the act of cessation in thinking. -In attempting, on
the other hand, to frame the idea of a limited space, we merely converse
the processes which involve the impossibility.

We believe in a God. We may or may not believe in finite or in infinite
space; but our belief, in such cases, is more properly designated as
faith, and is a matter quite distinct from that belief proper -from that
intellectual belief -which presupposes the mental conception.

The fact is, that, upon the enunciation of any one of that class of
terms to which "Infinity" belongs -the class representing thoughts of
thought -he who has a right to say that he thinks at all, feels himself
called upon, not to entertain a conception, but simply to direct his
mental vision toward some given point, in the intellectual firmament,
where lies a nebula never to be resolved. To solve it, indeed, he makes
no effort; for with a rapid instinct he comprehends, not only the
impossibility, but, as regards all human purposes, the inessentiality,
of its solution. He perceives that the Deity has not designed it to be
solved. He sees, at once, that it lies out of the brain of man, and even
how, if not exactly why, it lies out of it. There are people, I am
aware, who, busying themselves in attempts at the unattainable, acquire
very easily, by dint of the jargon they emit, among those
thinkers-that-they-think with whom darkness and depth are synonymous, a
kind of cuttle-fish reputatio n for profundity; but the finest quality
of Thought is its self-cognizance; and, with some little equivocation,
it may be said that no fog of the mind can well be greater than that
which, extending to the very boundaries of the mental domain, shuts out
even these boundaries themselves from comprehension.

It will now be understood that, in using the phrase, "Infinity of
Space," I make no call upon the reader to entertain the impossible
conception of an absolute infinity. I refer simply to the "utmost
conceivable expanse" of space -a shadowy and fluctuating domain, now
shrinking, now swelling, in accordance with the vacillating energies of
the imagination.

Hitherto, the Universe of stars has always been considered as coincident
with the Universe proper, as I have defined it in the commencement of
this Discourse. It has been always either directly or indirectly assumed
-at least since the dawn of intelligible Astronomy -that, were it
possible for us to attain any given point in space, we should still
find, on all sides of us, an interminable succession of stars. This was
the untenable idea of Pascal when making perhaps the most successful
attempt ever made, at periphrasing the conception for which we struggle
in the word "Universe." "It is a sphere," he says, "of which the centre
is everywhere, the circumference, nowhere." But although this intended
definition is, in fact, no definition of the Universe of stars, we may
accept it, with some mental reservation, as a definition (rigorous
enough for all practical purposes) of the Universe proper -that is to
say, of the Universe of space. This latter, then, let us regard as "a
sphere of which the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere." In
fact, while we find it impossible to fancy an end to space, we have no
difficulty in picturing to ourselves any one of an infinity of
beginnings.

As our starting point, then, let us adopt the Godhead. Of this Godhead,
in itself, he alone is not imbecile -he alone is not impious who
propounds -nothing. "Nous ne connaissons rien," says the Baron de
Bielfeld -"Nous ne connaissons rien de la nature ou de l'essence de
Dieu: -pour savoir ce qu'il est, il faut etre Dieu meme." -"We know
absolutely nothing of the nature or essence of God: - in order to
comprehend what he is, we should have to be God ourselves."

"We should have to be God ourselves!" -With a phrase so startling as
this yet ringing in my ears, I nevertheless venture to demand if this
our present ignorance of the Deity is an ignorance to which the soul is
everlastingly condemned.

By Him, however -now, at least, the Incomprehensible -by Him - assuming
him as Spirit -that is to say, as not Matter -a distinction which, for
all intelligible purposes, will stand well instead of a definition -by
Him, then, existing as Spirit, let us content ourselves, to-night, with
supposing to have been created, or made out of Nothing, by dint of his
Volition -at some point of Space which we will take as a centre -at some
period into which we do not pretend to inquire, but at all events
immensely remote -by Him, then again, let us suppose to have been
created -what? This is a vitally momentous epoch in our considerations.
What is it that we are justified -that alone we are justified in
supposing to have been, primarily and solely, created?

We have attained a point where only Intuition can aid us: -but now let
me recur to the idea which I have already suggested as that alone which
we can properly entertain of intuition. It is but the conviction arising
from those inductions or deductions of which the processes are so
shadowy as to escape our consciousness, elude our reason, or defy our
capacity of expression. With this understanding, I now assert -that an
intuition altogether irresistible, although inexpressible, forces me to
the conclusion that what God originally created -that that Matter which,
by dint of his Volition, he first made from his Spirit, or from
Nihility, Could have been nothing but Matter in its utmost conceivable
state of - what? -of Simplicity?

This will be found the sole absolute assumption of my Discourse. I use
the word "assumption" in its ordinary sense; yet I maintain that even
this my primary proposition, is very, very far indeed, from being really
a mere assumption. Nothing was ever more certainly -no human conclusion
was ever, in fact, more regularly -more rigorously de duced: -but, alas!
the processes lie out of the human analysis -at all events are beyond
the utterance of the human tongue.

Let us now endeavor to conceive what Matter must be, when, or if, in its
absolute extreme of Simplicity. Here the Reason flies at once to
Imparticularity -to a particle -to one particle -a particle of one kind
-of one character -of one nature -of one size -of one form - a particle,
therefore, "without form and void" -a particle positively a particle at
all points -a particle absolutely unique, individual, undivided, and not
indivisible only because He who created it, by dint of his Will, can by
an infinitely less energetic exercise of the same Will, as a matter of
course, divide it.

Oneness, then, is all that I predicate of the originally created Matter;
but I propose to show that this Oneness is a principle abundantly
sufficient to account for the constitution, the existing phaenomena and
the plainly inevitable annihilation of at least the material Universe.

The willing into being the primordial particle, has completed the act,
or more properly the Conception, of Creation. We now proceed to the
ultimate purpose for which we are to suppose the Particle created - that
is to say, the ultimate purpose so far as our considerations yet enable
us to see it -the constitution of the Universe from it, the Particle.

This constitution has been effected by forcing the originally and
therefore normally One into the abnormal condition of Many. An action of
this character implies reaction. A diffusion from Unity, under the
conditions, involves a tendency to return into Unity -a tendency
ineradicable until satisfied. But on these points I will speak more
fully hereafter.

The assumption of absolute Unity in the primordial Particle includes
that of infinite divisibility. Let us conceive the Particle, then, to be
only not totally exhausted by diffusion into Space. From the one
Particle, as a centre, let us suppose to be irradiated spherically -in
all directions -to immeasurable but still to definite distances in the
previously vacant space -a certain inexpressibly great yet limited
number of unimaginably yet not infinitely minute atoms.

Now, of these atoms, thus diffused, or upon diffusion, what conditions
are we permitted -not to assume, but to infer, from consideration as
well of their source as of the character of the design apparent in their
diffusion? Unity being their source, and difference from Unity the
character of the design manifested in their diffusion, we are warranted
in supposing this character to be at least generally preserved
throughout the design, and to form a portion of the design itself: -that
is to say, we shall be warranted in conceiving continual differences at
all points from the uniquity and simplicity of the origin. But, for
these reasons, shall we be justified in imagining the atoms
heterogeneous, dissimilar, unequal, and inequidistant? More explicitly
-are we to consider no two atoms as, at their diffusion, of the same
nature, or of the same form, or of the same size? -and, after fulfilment
of their diffusion into Space, is absolute inequidistance, each from
each, to be understood of all of them? In such arrangement, under such
conditions, we most easily and immediately comprehend the subsequent
most feasible carrying out to completion of any such design as that
which I have suggested -the design of variety out of unity -diversity
out of sameness - heterogeneity out of homogeneity -complexity out of
simplicity -in a word, the utmost possible multiplicity of relation out
of the emphatically irrelative One. Undoubtedly, therefore, we should be
warranted in assuming all that has been mentioned, but for the
reflection, first, that supererogation is not presumable of any Divine
Act; and, secondly, that the object supposed in view, appears as
feasible when some of the conditions in question are dispensed with, in
the beginning, as when all are understood immediately to exist. I mean
to say that some are involved in the rest, or so instantaneous a
consequence of them as to make the distinction inappreciable. Difference
of size, for example, will at once be brought about throu gh the
tendency of one atom to a second, in preference to a third, on account
of particular inequidistance; which is to be comprehended as particular
inequidistances between centres of quantity, in neighboring atoms of
different form -a matter not at all interfering with the
generally-equable distribution of the atoms. Difference of kind, too, is
easily conceived to be merely a result of differences in size and form,
taken more or less conjointly: -in fact, since the Unity of the Particle
Proper implies absolute homogeneity, we cannot imagine the atoms, at
their diffusion, differing in kind, without imagining, at the same time,
a special exercise of the Divine Will, at the emission of each atom, for
the purpose of effecting, in each, a change of its essential nature: -so
fantastic an idea is the less to be indulged, as the object proposed is
seen to be thoroughly attainable without such minute and elaborate
interposition. We perceive, therefore, upon the whole, that it would be
superer ogatory, and consequently unphilosophical, to predicate of the
atoms, in view of their purposes, any thing more than difference of form
at their dispersion, with particular inequidistance after it -all other
differences arising at once out of these, in the very first processes of
mass-constitution: -We thus establish the Universe on a purely
geometrical basis. Of course, it is by no means necessary to assume
absolute difference, even of form, among the atoms irradiated -any more
than absolute particular inequidistance of each from each. We are
required to conceive merely that no neighboring atoms are of similar
form -no atoms which can ever approximate, until their inevitable
reunition at the end.

Although the immediate and perpetual tendency of the disunited atoms to
return into their normal Unity, is implied, as I have said, in their
abnormal diffusion; still it is clear that this tendency will be without
consequence -a tendency and no more -until the diffusive energy, in
ceasing to be exerted, shall leave it, the tendency, free to seek its
satisfaction. The Divine Act, however, being considered as determinate,
and discontinued on fulfilment of the diffusion, we understand, at once,
a reaction -in other words, a satisfiable tendency of the disunited
atoms to return into One.

But the diffusive energy being withdrawn, and the reaction having
commenced in furtherance of the ultimate design -that of the utmost
possible Relation -this design is now in danger of being frustrated, in
detail, by reason of that very tendency to return which is to effect its
accomplishment in general. Multiplicity is the object; but there is
nothing to prevent proximate atoms, from lapsing at once, through the
now satisfiable tendency -before the fulfilment of any ends proposed in
multiplicity -into absolute oneness among themselves: -there is nothing
to impede the aggregation of various unique masses, at various points of
space: - in other words, nothing to interfere with the accumulation of
various masses, each absolutely One.

For the effectual and thorough completion of the general design, we thus
see the necessity for a repulsion of limited capacity -a separate
something which, on withdrawal of the diffusive Volition, shall at the
same time allow the approach, and forbid the junction, of the atoms;
suffering them infinitely to approximate, while denying them positive
contact; in a word, having the power -up to a certain epoch -of
preventing their Coalition, but no ability to interfere with their
Coalescence in any respect or degree. The repulsion, already considered
as so peculiarly limited in other regards, must be understood, let me
repeat, as having power to prevent absolute coalition, only up to a
certain epoch. Unless we are to conceive that the appetite for Unity
among the atoms is doomed to be satisfied never; -unless we are to
conceive that what had a beginning is to have no end -a conception which
cannot really be entertained, however much we may talk or dream of
entertaining it - we are forced to conclude that the repulsive influence
imagined, will, finally -under pressure of the Uni-tendency collectively
applied, but, never and in no degree until, on fulfilment of the Divine
purposes, such collective application shall be naturally made -yield to
a force which, at that ultimate epoch, shall be the superior force
precisely to the extent required, and thus permit the universal
subsidence into the inevitable, because original and therefore normal,
One. -The conditions here to be reconciled are difficult indeed: -we
cannot even comprehend the possibility of their conciliation;
-nevertheless, the apparent impossibility is brilliantly suggestive.

That the repulsive something actually exists, we see. Man neither
employs, nor knows, a force sufficient to bring two atoms into contact.
This is but the well-established proposition of the impenetrability of
matter. All Experiment proves -all Philosophy admits it. The design of
the repulsion -the necessity for its existence -I have endeavored to
show; but from all attempt at investigating its nature have religiously
abstained; this on account of an intuitive conviction that the principle
at issue is strictly spiritual -lies in a recess impervious to our
present understanding - lies involved in a consideration of what now -in
our human state -is not to be considered -in a consideration of Spirit
in itself. I feel, in a word, that here the God has interposed, and here
only, because here and here only the knot demanded the interposition of
the God.

In fact, while the tendency of the diffused atoms to return into Unity,
will be recognized, at once, as the principle of the Newtonian Gravity,
what I have spoken of as a repulsive influence prescribing limits to the
(immediate) satisfaction of the tendency, will be understood as that
which we have been in the practice of designating now as heat, now as
magnetism, now as electricity; displaying our ignorance of its awful
character in the vacillation of the phraseology with which we endeavor
to circumscribe it.

Calling it, merely for the moment, electricity, we know that all
experimental analysis of electricity has given, as an ultimate result,
the principle, or seeming principle, heterogeneity. Only where things
differ is electricity apparent; and it is presumable that they never
differ where it is not developed at least, if not apparent. Now, this
result is in the fullest keeping with that which I have reached
unempirically. The design of the repulsive influence I have maintained
to be that of preventing immediate Unity among the diffused atoms; and
these atoms are represented as different each from each. Difference is
their character -their essentiality -just as no-difference was the
essentiality of their course. When we say, then, that an attempt to
bring any two of these atoms together would induce an effort, on the
part of the repulsive influence, to prevent the contact we may as well
use the strictly convertible sentence that an attempt to bring together
any two differences will result in a development of electricity. All
existing bodies, of course, are composed of these atoms in proximate
contact, and are therefore to be considered as mere assemblages of more
or fewer differences; and the resistance made by the repulsive spirit,
on bringing together any two such assemblages, would be in the ratio of
the two sums of the differences in each: -an expression which, when
reduced, is equivalent to this: -The amount of electricity developed on
the approximation of two bodies, is proportional to the difference
between the respective sums of the atoms of which the bodies are
composed. That no two bodies are absolutely alike, is a simple corollary
from all that has been here said. Electricity, therefore, existing
always, is developed whenever any bodies, but manifested only when
bodies of appreciable difference, are brought into approximation.

To electricity -so, for the present, continuing to call it -we may not
be wrong in referring the various physical appearances of light, heat
and magnetism; but far less shall we be liable to err in attributing to
this strictly spiritual principle the more important phaenomena of
vitality, consciousness and Thought. On this topic, however, I need
pause here merely to suggest that these phaenomena, whether observed
generally or in detail, seem to proceed at least in the ratio of the
heterogeneous.

Discarding now the two equivocal terms, "gravitation" and "electricity,"
let us adopt the more definite expressions, "attraction" and
"repulsion." The former is the body; the latter the soul: the one is the
material; the other the spiritual, principle of the Universe. No other
principles exist. All phaenomena are referable to one, or to the other,
or to both combined. So rigorously is this the case -so thoroughly
demonstrable is it that attraction and repulsion are the sole properties
through which we perceive the Universe -in other words, by which Matter
is manifested to Mind -that, for all merely argumentative purposes, we
are fully justified in assuming that matter exists only as attraction
and repulsion -that attraction and repulsion are matter: -there being no
conceivable case in which we may not employ the term "matter" and the
terms "attraction" and "repulsion," taken together, as equivalent, and
therefore convertible, expressions in Logic.

I said, just now, that what I have described as the tendency of the
diffused atoms to return into their original unity, would be understood
as the principle of the Newtonian law of gravity: and, in fact, there
can be but little difficulty in such an understanding, if we look at the
Newtonian gravity in a merely general view, as a force impelling matter
to seek matter; that is to say, when we pay no attention to the known
modus operandi of the Newtonian force. The general coincidence satisfies
us; but, upon looking closely, we see, in detail, much that appears in
coincident, and much in regard to which no coincidence, at least, is
established. For example; the Newtonian gravity, when we think of it in
certain moods, does not seem to be a tendency to oneness at all, but
rather a tendency of all bodies in all directions -a phrase apparently
expressive of a tendency to diffusion. Here, then, is an in coincidence.
Again; when we reflect on the mathematical LA0 governing the Newtonian
tenden cy, we see clearly that no coincidence has been made good, in
respect of the modus operandi, at least, between gravitation as known to
exist and that seemingly simple and direct tendency which I have
assumed.

In fact, I have attained a point at which it will be advisable to
strengthen my position by reversing my processes. So far, we have gone
on a priori, from an abstract consideration of Simplicity, as that
quality most likely to have characterized the original action of God.
Let us now see whether the established facts of the Newtonian
Gravitation may not afford us, a posteriori, some legitimate inductions.

What does the Newtonian law declare? -That all bodies attract each other
with forces proportional to their quantities of matter and inversely
proportional to the squares of their distances. Purposely, I have here
given, in the first place, the vulgar version of the law; and I confess
that in this, as in most other vulgar versions of great truths, we find
little of a suggestive character. Let us now adopt a more philosophical
phraseology: -Every atom, of every body, attracts every other atom, both
of its own and of every other body, with a force which varies inversely
as the squares of the distances between the attracting and attracted
atom. -Here, indeed, a flood of suggestion bursts upon the mind.

But let us see distinctly what it was that Newton proved - according to
the grossly irrational definitions of proof prescribed by the
metaphysical schools. He was forced to content himself with showing how
thoroughly the motions of an imaginary Universe, composed of attracting
and attracted atoms obedient to the law he announced, coincide with
those of the actually existing Universe so far as it comes under our
observation. This was the amount of his demonstration -that is to say,
this was the amount of it, according to the conventional cant of the
"philosophies." His successes added proof multiplied by proof -such
proof as a sound intellect admits -but the demonstration of the law
itself, persist the metaphysicians, had not been strengthened in any
degree. "Ocular, physical proof," however, of attraction, here upon
Earth, in accordance with the Newtonian theory, was, at length, much to
the satisfaction of some intellectual grovellers, afforded. This proof
arose collaterally and incide ntally (as nearly all important truths
have arisen) out of an attempt to ascertain the mean density of the
Earth. In the famous Maskelyne, Cavendish and Bailly experiments for
this purpose, the attraction of the mass of a mountain was seen, felt,
measured, and found to be mathematically consistent with the immortal
theory of the British astronomer.

But in spite of this confirmation of that which needed none -in spite of
the so-called corroboration of the "theory" by the so-called "ocular and
physical proof" -in spite of the character of this corroboration -the
ideas which even really philosophical men cannot help imbibing of
gravity -and, especially, the ideas of it which ordinary men get and
contentedly maintain, are seen to have been derived, for the most part,
from a consideration of the principle as they find it developed -merely
in the planet upon which they stand.

Now, to what does so partial a consideration tend -to what species of
error does it give rise? On the Earth we see and feel, only that gravity
impels all bodies towards the centre of the Earth. No man in the common
walks of life could be made to see or feel anything else -could be made
to perceive that anything, anywhere, has a perpetual, gravitating
tendency in any other direction than to the centre of the Earth; yet
(with an exception hereafter to be specified) it is a fact that every
earthly thing (not to speak now of every heavenly thing) has a tendency
not only to the Earth's centre but in every conceivable direction
besides.

Now, although the philosophic cannot be said to err with the vulgar in
this matter, they nevertheless permit themselves to be influenced,
without knowing it, by the sentiment of the vulgar idea. "Although the
Pagan fables are not believed," says Bryant, in his very erudite
"Mythology," "yet we forget ourselves continually and make inferences
from them as from existing realities." I mean to assert that the merely
sensitive perception of gravity as we experience it on Earth, beguiles
mankind into the fancy of Concentralization or especiality respecting it
-has been continually biasing towards this fancy even the mightiest
intellects -perpetually, although imperceptibly, leading them away from
the real characteristics of the principle; thus preventing them, up to
this date, from ever getting a glimpse of that vital truth which lies in
a diametrically opposite direction -behind the principle's essential
characteristics -those, not of concentralization or especiality -but of
universality an d diffusion. This "vital truth" is Unity as the source
of the phaenomenon.

Let me now repeat the definition of gravity: -Every atom, of every body,
attracts every other atom, both of its own and of every other body, with
a force which varies inversely as the squares of the distances of the
attracting and attracted atom.

Here let the reader pause with me, for a moment, in contemplation of the
miraculous -of the ineffable -of the altogether unimaginable complexity
of relation involved in the fact that each atom attracts every other
atom -involved merely in this fact of the attraction, without reference
to the law or mode in which the attraction is manifested -involved
merely in the fact that each atom attracts every other atom at all, in a
wilderness of atoms so numerous that those which go to the composition
of a cannon-ball, exceed, probably, in mere point of number, all the
stars which go to the constitution of the Universe.

Had we discovered, simply, that each atom tended to some one favorite
point -to some especially attractive atom -we should still have fAllan
upon a discovery which, in itself, would have sufficed to overwhelm the
mind: -but what is it that we are actually called upon to comprehend?
That each atom attracts -sympathizes with the most delicate movements of
every other atom, and with each and with all at the same time, and
forever, and according to a determinate law of which the complexity,
even considered by itself solely, is utterly beyond the grasp of the
imagination of man. If I propose to ascertain the influence of one mote
in a sunbeam upon its neighboring mote, I cannot accomplish my purpose
without first counting and weighing all the atoms in the Universe and
defining the precise positions of all at one particular moment. If I
venture to displace, by even the billionth part of an inch, the
microscopical speck of dust which lies now upon the point of my finger,
what is the character of that act upon which I have adventured? I have
done a deed which shakes the Moon in her path, which causes the Sun to
be no longer the Sun, and which alters forever the destiny of the
multitudinous myriads of stars that roll and glow in the majestic
presence of their Creator.

These ideas -conceptions such as these -unthought-like thoughts -
soul-reveries rather than conclusions or even considerations of the
intellect: -ideas, I repeat, such as these, are such as we can alone
hope profitably to entertain in any effort at grasping the great
principle, Attraction.

But now, -with such ideas -with such a vision of the marvellous
complexity of Attraction fairly in his mind -let any person competent of
thought on such topics as these, set himself to the task of imagining a
principle for the phaenomena observed -a condition from which they
sprang.

Does not so evident a brotherhood among the atoms point to a common
parentage? Does not a sympathy so omniprevalent, so ineradicable, and so
thoroughly irrespective, suggest a common paternity as its source? Does
not one extreme impel the reason to the other? Does not the infinitude
of division refer to the utterness of individuality? Does not the
entireness of the complex hint at the perfection of the simple? It is
not that the atoms, as we see them, are divided or that they are complex
in their relations -but that they are inconceivably divided and
unutterably complex: -it is the extremeness of the conditions to which I
now allude, rather than to the conditions themselves. In a word, not
because the atoms were, at some remote epoch of time, even more than
together -is it not because originally, and therefore normally, they
were One -that now, in all circumstances -at all points -in all
directions -by all modes of approach -in all relations and through all
conditions -they struggle ba ck to this absolutely, this irrelatively,
this unconditionally one?

Some person may here demand: -"Why -since it is to the One that the
atoms struggle back -do we not find and define Attraction 'a merely
general tendency to a centre?' -why, in especial, do not your atoms -the
atoms which you describe as having been irradiated from a centre
-proceed at once, rectilinearly, back to the central point of their
origin?"

I reply that they do; as will be distinctly shown; but that the cause of
their so doing is quite irrespective of the centre as such. They all
tend rectilinearly towards a centre, because of the sphereicity with
which they have been irradiated into space. Each atom, forming one of a
generally uniform globe of atoms, finds more atoms in the direction of
the centre, of course, than in any other, and in that direction,
therefore, is impelled -but is not thus impelled because the centre is
the point of its origin. It is not to any point that the atoms are
allied. It is not any locality, either in the concrete or in the
abstract, to which I suppose them bound. Nothing like location was
conceived as their origin. Their source lies in the principle, Unity.
This is their lost parent. This they seek always -immediately -in all
directions -wherever it is even partially to be found; thus appeasing,
in some measure, the ineradicable tendency, while on the way to its
absolute satisfaction in the end . It follows from all this, that any
principle which shall be adequate to account for the LA0 or modus
operandi, of the attractive force in general, will account for this law
in particular: - that is to say, any principle which will show why the
atoms should tend to their general centre of irradiation with forces
inversely proportional to the squares of the distances, will be admitted
as satisfactorily accounting, at the same time, for the tendency,
according to the same law, of these atoms each to each: -for the
tendency to the centre is merely the tendency each to each, and not any
tendency to a centre as such. -Thus it will be seen, also, that the
establishment of my propositions would involve no necessity of
modification in the terms of the Newtonian definition of Gravity, which
declares that each atom attracts each other atom and so forth, and
declares this merely; but (always under the supposition that what I
propose be, in the end, admitted) it seems clear that some error might
occasionally be avoided, in the future processes of Science, were a more
ample phraseology adopted: -for instance: - "Each atom tends to every
other atom &c. with a force &c.: the general result being a tendency of
all, with a similar force, to a general centre."

The reversal of our processes has thus brought us to an identical
result; but, while in the one process intuition was the starting-point,
in the other it was the goal. In commencing the former journey I could
only say that, with an irresistable intuition, I felt Simplicity to have
been the characteristic of the original action of God: -in ending the
latter I can only declare that, with an irresistible intuition, I
perceive Unity to have been the source of the observed phaenomena of the
Newtonian gravitation. Thus, according to the schools, I prove nothing.
So be it: -I design but to suggest-and to Convince through the
suggestion. I am proudly aware that there exist many of the most
profound and cautiously discriminative human intellects which cannot
help being abundantly content with my -suggestions. To these intellects
-as to my own -there is no mathematical demonstration which Could bring
the least additional TRue proof of the great TRuth which I have advanced
- the truth of Original Unity as the source -as the principle of the
Universal Phaenomena. For my part, I am not sure that I speak and see -I
am not so sure that my heart beats and that my soul lives: - of the
rising of to-morrow's sun -a probability that as yet lies in the Future
-I do not pretend to be one thousandth part as sure -as I am of the
irretrievably by-gone Fact that All Things and All Thoughts of Things,
with all their ineffable Multiplicity of Relation, sprang at once into
being from the primordial and irrelative One.

Referring to the Newtonian Gravity, Dr. Nichol, the eloquent author of
"The Architecture of the Heavens," says: -"In truth we have no reason to
suppose this great Law, as now revealed, to be the ultimate or simplest,
and therefore the universal and all-comprehensive, form of a great
Ordinance. The mode in which its intensity diminishes with the element
of distance, has not the aspect of an ultimate principle; which always
assumes the simplicity and self-evidence of those axioms which
constitute the basis of Geometry."

Now, it is quite true that "ultimate principles," in the common
understanding of the words, always assume the simplicity of geometrical
axioms -(as for "self-evidence," there is no such thing) -but these
principles are clearly not "ultimate;" in other terms what we are in the
habit of calling principles are no principles, properly speaking -since
there can be but one principle, the Volition of God. We have no right to
assume, then, from what we observe in rules that we choose foolishly to
name "principles," anything at all in respect to the characteristics of
a principle proper. The "ultimate principles" of which Dr. Nichol speaks
as having geometrical simplicity, may and do have this geometrical turn,
as being part and parcel of a vast geometrical system, and thus a system
of simplicity itself -in which, nevertheless, the TRuly ultimate
principle is, as we know, the consummation of the complex -that is to
say, of the unintelligible -for is it not the Spiritual Capacity of God?

I quoted Dr. Nichol's remark, however, not so much to question its
philosophy, as by way of calling attention to the fact that, while all
men have admitted some principle as existing behind the Law of Gravity,
no attempt has been yet made to point out what this principle in
particular is: -if we except, perhaps, occasional fantastic efforts at
referring it to Magnetism, or Mesmerism, or Swedenborgianism, or
Transcendentalism, or some other equally delicious ism of the same
species, and invariably patronized by one and the same species of
people. The great mind of Newton, while boldly grasping the Law itself,
shrank from the principle of the Law. The more fluent and comprehensive
at least, if not the more patient and profound, sagacity of Laplace, had
not the courage to attack it. But hesitation on the part of these two
astronomers it is, perhaps, not so very difficult to understand. They,
as well as all the first class of mathematicians, were mathematicians
solely: - their intellect, a t least, had a firmly-pronounced
mathematico-physical tone. What lay not distinctly within the domain of
Physics, or of Mathematics, seemed to them either Non-Entity or Shadow.
Nevertheless, we may well wonder that Leibnitz, who was a marked
exception to the general rule in these respects, and whose mental
temperament was a singular admixture of the mathematical with the
physico-metaphysical, did not at once investigate and establish the
point at issue. Either Newton or Laplace, seeking a principle and
discovering none physical, would have rested contentedly in the
conclusion that there was absolutely none; but it is almost impossible
to fancy, of Leibnitz, that, having exhausted in his search the physical
dominions, he would not have stepped at once, boldly and hopefully, amid
his old familiar haunts in the kingdom of Metaphysics. Here, indeed, it
is clear that he must have adventured in search of the treasure: -that
he did not find it after all, was, perhaps, because his fairy guide,
Imagination, was not sufficiently well-grown, or well-educated, to
direct him aright.

I observed, just now, that, in fact, there had been certain vague
attempts at referring Gravity to some very uncertain isms. These
attempts, however, although considered bold and justly so considered,
looked no farther than to the generality -the merest generality -of the
Newtonian Law. Its modus operandi has never, to my knowledge, been
approached in the way of an effort at explanation. It is, therefore,
with no unwarranted fear of being taken for a madman at the outset, and
before I can bring my propositions fairly to the eye of those who alone
are competent to decide upon them, that I here declare the modus
operandi of the Law of Gravity to be an exceedingly simple and perfectly
explicable thing -that is to say, when we make our advances towards it
in just gradations and in the true direction -when we regard it from the
proper point of view.

Whether we reach the idea of absolute Unity as the source of All Things,
from a consideration of Simplicity as the most probable characteristic
of the original action of God; -whether we arrive at it from an
inspection of the universality of relation in the gravitating
phaenomena; -or whether we attain it as a result of the mutual
corroboration afforded by both processes; -still, the idea itself, if
entertained at all, is entertained in inseparable connection with
another idea -that of the condition of the Universe of stars as we now
perceive it -that is to say, a condition of immeasurable diffusion
through space. Now a connection between these two ideas -unity and
diffusion -cannot be established unless through the entertainment of a
third idea -that of irradiation. Absolute Unity being taken as a centre,
then the existing Universe of stars is the result of irradiation from
that centre.

Now, the laws of irradiation are known. They are part and parcel of the
sphere. They belong to the class of indisputable geometrical properties.
We say of them, "they are true -they are evident." To demand why they
are true, would be to demand why the axioms are true upon which their
demonstration is based. Nothing is demonstrable, strictly speaking; but
if anything be, then the properties -the laws in question are
demonstrated.

But these laws -what do they declare? Irradiation -how -by what steps
does it proceed outwardly from a centre?

From a luminous centre, Light issues by irradiation; and the quantities
of light received upon any given plane, supposed to be shifting its
position so as to be now nearer the centre and now farther from it, will
be diminished in the same proportion as the squares of the distances of
the plane from the lumimous body, are increased; and will be increased
in the same proportion as these squares are diminished.

The expression of the law may be thus generalized: -the number of
light-particles (or, if the phrase be preferred, the number of
light-impressions) received upon the shifting plane, will be inversely
proportional with the squares of the distances of the plane.
Generalizing yet again, we may say that the diffusion -the scattering
-the irradiation, in a word -is directly proportional with the squares
of the distances.

For example: at the distance B, from the luminous centre A, a certain
number of particles are so diffused as to occupy the surface B (see
illustration). Then at double the distance -that is to say at C -they
will be so much farther diffused as to occupy four such surfaces: -at
treble the distance, or at D, they will be so much farther separated as
to occupy nine such surfaces: -while, at quadruple the distance, or at
E, they will have become so scattered as to spread themselves over
sixteen such surfaces -and so on forever.

In saying, generally, that the irradiation proceeds in direct proportion
with the squares of the distances, we use the term irradiation to
express the degree of the diffusion as we proceed outwardly from the
centre. Conversing the idea, and employing the word "concentralization"
to express the degree of the drawing together as we come back toward the
centre from an outward position, we may say that concentralization
proceeds inversely as the squares of the distances. In other words, we
have reached the conclusion that, on the hypothesis that matter was
originally irradiated from a centre and is now returning to it, the
concentralization, in the return, proceeds exactly as we know the force
of gravitation to proceed.

Now here, if we could be permitted to assume that concentralization
exactly represented the force of the tendency to the centre -that the
one was exactly proportional to the other, and that the two proceeded
together -we should have shown all that is required. The sole difficulty
existing, then, is to establish a direct proportion between
"concentralization" and the force of concentralization; and this is
done, of course, if we establish such proportion between "irradiation"
and the force of irradiation.

A very slight inspection of the Heavens assures us that the stars have a
certain general uniformity, equability, or equidistance, of distribution
through that region of space in which, collectively, and in a roughly
globular form, they are situated: -this species of very general, rather
than absolute, equability, being in full keeping with my deduction of
inequidistance, within certain limits, among the originally diffused
atoms, as a corollary from the evident design of infinite complexity of
relation out of irrelation. I started, it will be remembered, with the
idea of a generally uniform but particularly un uniform distribution of
the atoms; -an idea, I repeat, which an inspection of the stars, as they
exist, confirms.

But even in the merely general equability of distribution, as regards
the atoms, there appears a difficulty which, no doubt, has already
suggested itself to those among my readers who have borne in mind that I
suppose this equability of distribution effected through irradiation
from a centre. The very first glance at the idea, irradiation, forces us
to the entertainment of the hitherto unseparated and seemingly
inseparable idea of agglomeration about a centre, with dispersion as we
recede from it -the idea, in a word, of in equability of distribution in
respect to the matter irradiated.

Now, I have elsewhere * observed that it is by just such difficulties as
the one now in question -such roughnesses -such peculiarities -such
protuberances above the plane of the ordinary - that Reason feels her
way, if at all, in her search for the True. By the difficulty -the
"peculiarity" -now presented, I leap at once to the secret -a secret
which I might never have attained but for the peculiarity and the
inferences which, in its mere character of peculiarity, it affords me.

* "Murders in the Rue Morgue."

The process of thought, at this point, may be thus roughly sketched: -I
say to myself -"Unity, as I have explained it, is a truth -I feel it.
Diffusion is a truth -I see it. Irradiation, by which alone these two
truths are reconciled, is a consequent truth - I perceive it. Equability
of diffusion, first deduced a priori and then corroborated by the
inspection of phaenomena, is also a truth - I fully admit it. So far all
is clear around me: -there are no clouds behind which the secret -the
great secret of the gravitating modus operandi -can possibly lie hidden;
-but this secret lies hereabouts, most assuredly; and were there but a
cloud in view, I should be driven to suspicion of that cloud." And now,
just as I say this, there actually comes a cloud into view. This cloud
is the seeming impossibility of reconciling my truth, irradiation, with
my truth, equability of diffusion. I say now: -"Behind this seeming
impossibility is to be found what I desire." I do not say "real
impossibility;" for invincible faith in my truths assures me that it is
a mere difficulty after all -but I go on to say, with unflinching
confidence, that, when this difficulty shall be solved, we shall find,
wrapped up in the recess of solution, the key to the secret at which we
aim. Moreover -I feel that we shall discover but one possible solution
of the difficulty; this for the reason that, were there two, one would
be supererogatory -would be fruitless -would be empty -would contain no
key -since no duplicate key can be needed to any secret of Nature.

And now, let us see: -Our usual notions of irradiation -in fact our
distinct notions of it -are caught merely from the process as we see it
exemplified in Light. Here there is a Continuous outpouring of
ray-streams, and with a force which we have at least no right to suppose
varies at all. Now, in any such irradiation as this -continuous and of
unvarying force -the regions nearer the centre must inevitably be always
more crowded with the irradiated matter than the regions more remote.
But I have assumed no such irradiation as this. I assumed no Continuous
irradiation; and for the simple reason that such an assumption would
have involved, first, the necessity of entertaining a conception which I
have shown no man can entertain, and which (as I will more fully explain
hereafter) all observation of the firmament refutes -the conception of
the absolute infinity of the Universe of stars -and would have involved,
secondly, the impossibility of understanding a reaction - that is,
gravitation -as existing now -since, while an act is continued, no
reaction, of course, can take place. My assumption, then, or rather my
inevitable deduction from just premises -was that of a determinate
irradiation -one finally dis continued.

Let me now describe the sole possible mode in which it is conceivable
that matter could have been diffused through space, so as to fulfil the
conditions at once of irradiation and of generally equable distribution.

For convenience of illustration, let us imagine, in the first place, a
hollow sphere of glass, or of anything else, occupying the space
throughout which the universal matter is to be thus equally diffused, by
means of irradiation, from the absolute, irrelative, unconditional
particle, placed in the centre of the sphere.

Now, a certain exertion of the diffusive power (presumed to be the
Divine Volition) -in other words, a certain force -whose measure is the
quantity of matter -that is to say, the number of atoms - emitted;
emits, by irradiation, this certain number of atoms; forcing them in all
directions outwardly from the centre -their proximity to each other
diminishing as they proceed -until, finally, they are distributed,
loosely, over the interior surface of the sphere.

When these atoms have attained this position, or while proceeding to
attain it, a second and inferior exercise of the same force -or a second
and inferior force of the same character -emits, in the same manner
-that is to say, by irradiation as before -a second stratum of atoms
which proceeds to deposit itself upon the first; the number of atoms, in
this case as in the former, being of course the measure of the force
which emitted them; in other words the force being precisely adapted to
the purpose it effects -the force and the number of atoms sent out by
the force, being directly proportional.

When this second stratum has reached its destined position -or while
approaching it -a third still inferior exertion of the force, or a third
inferior force of a similar character -the number of atoms emitted being
in cases the measure of the force -proceeds to deposit a third stratum
upon the second: -and so on, until these concentric strata, growing
gradually less and less, come down at length to the central point; and
the diffusive matter, simultaneously with the diffusive force, is
exhausted.

We have now the sphere filled, through means of irradiation, with atoms
equably diffused. The two necessary conditions -those of irradiation and
of equable diffusion -are satisfied; and by the sole process in which
the possibility of their simultaneous satisfaction is conceivable. For
this reason, I confidently expect to find, lurking in the present
condition of the atoms as distributed throughout the sphere, the secret
of which I am in search -the all-important principle of the modus
operandi of the Newtonian law. Let us examine, then, the actual
condition of the atoms.

They lie in a series of concentric strata. They are equably diffused
throughout the sphere. They have been irradiated into these states.

The atoms being equably distributed, the greater the superficial extent
of any of these concentric strata, or spheres, the more atoms will lie
upon it. In other words, the number of atoms lying upon the surface of
any one of the concentric spheres, is directly proportional with the
extent of that surface.

But, in any series of concentric spheres, the surfaces are directly
proportional with the squares of the distances from the centre. *

* Succinctly -The surfaces of spheres are as the squares of their radii.

Therefore the number of atoms in any stratum is directly proportional
with the square of that stratum's distance from the centre.

But the number of atoms in any stratum is the measure of the force which
emitted that stratum -that is to say, is directly proportional with the
force.

Therefore the force which irradiated any stratum is directly
proportional with the square of that stratum's distance from the centre:
-or, generally,

The force of the irradiation has been directly proportional with the
squares of the distances.

Now, Reaction, as far as we know any thing of it, is Action conversed.
The general principle of Gravity being, in the first place, understood
as the reaction of an act -as the expression of a desire on the part of
Matter, while existing in a state of diffusion, to return into the Unity
whence it was diffused; and, in the second place, the mind being called
upon to determine the character of the desire -the manner in which it
would, naturally, be manifested; in other words, being called upon to
conceive a probable law, or modus operandi, for the return; could not
well help arriving at the conclusion that this law of return would be
precisely the converse of the law of departure. That such would be the
case, any one, at least, would be abundantly justified in taking for
granted, until such time as some person should suggest something like a
plausible reason why it should not be the case -until such a period as a
law of return shall be imagined which the intellect can consider as
preferab le.

Matter, then, irradiated into space with a force varying as the squares
of the distances, might, a priori, be supposed to return towards its
centre of irradiation with a force varying inversely as the squares of
the distances: and I have already shown * that any principle which will
explain why the atoms should tend, according to any law, to the general
centre, must be admitted as satisfactorily explaining, at the same time,
why, according to the same law, they should tend each to each. For, in
fact, the tendency to the general centre is not to a centre as such, but
because of its being a point in tending towards which each atom tends
most directly to its real and essential centre, Unity -the absolute and
final Union of all.

* See previous paragraph, "I reply that they do; as will be
distinctly..."

The consideration here involved presents to my own mind no embarrassment
whatever -but this fact does not blind me to the possibility of its
being obscure to those who may have been less in the habit of dealing
with abstractions: -and, upon the whole, it may be as well to look at
the matter from one or two other points of view.

The absolute, irrelative particle primarily created by the Volition of
God, must have been in a condition of positive normality, or
rightfulness -for wrongfulness implies relation. Right is positive;
wrong is negative -is merely the negation of right; as cold is the
negation of heat -darkness of light. That a thing may be wrong, it is
necessary that there be some other thing in relation to which it is
wrong -some condition which it fails to satisfy; some law which it
violates; some being whom it aggrieves. If there be no such being, law,
or condition, in respect to which the thing is wrong - and, still more
especially, if no beings, laws, or conditions exist at all -then the
thing cannot be wrong and consequently must be right. Any deviation from
normality involves a tendency to return to it. A difference from the
normal -from the right -from the just -can be understood as effected
only by the overcoming a difficulty; and if the force which overcomes
the difficulty be not infinitely co ntinued, the ineradicable tendency
to return will at length be permitted to act for its own satisfaction.
Upon withdrawal of the force, the tendency acts. This is the principle
of reaction as the inevitable consequence of finite action. Employing a
phraseology of which the seeming affectation will be pardoned for its
expressiveness, we may say that Reaction is the return from the
condition of as it is and ought not to be into the condition of as it
was, originally, and therefore ought to be: -and let me add here that
the absolute force of Reaction would no doubt be always found in direct
proportion with the reality -the truth -the absoluteness -of the
originality -if ever it were possible to measure this latter: -and,
consequently, the greatest of all conceivable reactions must be that
produced by the tendency which we now discuss -the tendency to return
into the absolutely original -into the supremely primitive. Gravity,
then, must be the strongest of forces -an idea reached a priori and
abundantly confirmed by induction. What use I make of the idea, will be
seen in the sequel.

The atoms, now, having been diffused from their normal condition of
Unity, seek to return to -what? Not to any particular point, certainly;
for it is clear that if, upon the diffusion, the whole Universe of
matter had been projected, collectively, to a distance from the point of
irradiation, the atomic tendency to the general centre of the sphere
would not have been disturbed in the least: - the atoms would not have
sought the point in absolute space from which they were originally
impelled. It is merely the Condition, and not the point or locality at
which this condition took its rise, that these atoms seek to
re-establish; -it is merely that condition which is their normality,
that they desire. "But they seek a centre," it will be said, "and a
centre is a point." True; but they seek this point not in its character
of point -(for, were the whole sphere moved from its position, they
would seek, equally, the centre; and the centre then would be a new
point) -but because it so happens, o n account of the form in which they
collectively exist -(that of the sphere) -that only through the point in
question -the sphere's centre -they can attain their true object, Unity.
In the direction of the centre each atom perceives more atoms than in
any other direction. Each atom is impelled towards the centre because
along the straight line joining it and the centre and passing on to the
circumference beyond, there lie a greater number of atoms than along any
other straight line -a greater number of objects that seek it, the
individual atom -a greater number of tendencies to Unity -a greater
number of satisfactions for its own tendency to Unity -in a word,
because in the direction of the centre lies the utmost possibility of
satisfaction, generally, for its own individual appetite. To be brief,
the Condition, Unity, is all that is really sought; and if the atoms
seem to seek the centre of the sphere, it is only impliedly, through
implication -because such centre happens to imply, to include, or to
involve, the only essential centre, Unity. But on account of this
implication or involution, there is no possibility of practically
separating the tendency to Unity in the abstract, from the tendency to
the concrete centre. Thus the tendency of the atoms to the general
centre is, to all practical intents and for all logical purposes, the
tendency each to each; and the tendency each to each is the tendency to
the centre; and the one tendency may be assumed as the other; whatever
will apply to the one must be thoroughly applicable to the other; and,
in conclusion, whatever principle will satisfactorily explain the one,
cannot be questioned as an explanation of the other.

In looking carefully around me for rational objection to what I have
advanced, I am able to discover nothing; -but of that class of
objections usually urged by the doubters for Doubt's sake, I very
readily perceive three; and proceed to dispose of them in order.

It may be said, first: "The proof that the force of irradiation (in the
case described) is directly proportional to the squares of the
distances, depends upon an unwarranted assumption -that of the number of
atoms in each stratum being the measure of the force with which they are
emitted."

I reply, not only that I am warranted in such assumption, but that I
should be utterly un warranted in any other. What I assume is, simply,
that an effect is the measure of its cause -that every exercise of the
Divine Will will be proportional to that which demands the exertion
-that the means of Omnipotence, or of Omniscience, will be exactly
adapted to its purposes. Neither can a deficiency nor an excess of cause
bring to pass any effect. Had the force which irradiated any stratum to
its position, been either more or less than was needed for the purpose
-that is to say, not directly proportional to the purpose -then to its
position that stratum could not have been irradiated. Had the force
which, with a view to general equability of distribution, emitted the
proper number of atoms for each stratum, been not directly proportional
to the number, then the number would not have been the number demanded
for the equable distribution.

The second supposable objection is somewhat better entitled to an
answer.

It is an admitted principle in Dynamics that every body, on receiving an
impulse, or disposition to move, will move onward in a straight line, in
the direction imparted by the impelling force, until deflected, or
stopped, by some other force. How then, it may be asked, is my first or
external stratum of atoms to be understood as discontinuing their
movement at the circumference of the imaginary glass sphere, when no
second force, of more than an imaginary character, appears, to account
for the discontinuance?

I reply that the objection, in this case, actually does arise out of "an
unwarranted assumption" -on the part of the objector -the assumption of
a principle, in Dynamics, at an epoch when no "principles," in anything,
exist: -I use the word "principle," of course, in the objector's
understanding of the word.

"In the beginning" we can admit -indeed we can comprehend -but one First
Cause -the truly ultimate Principle -the Volition of God. The primary
act -that of Irradiation from Unity -must have been independent of all
that which the world now calls "principle" -because all that we so
designate is but a consequence of the reaction of that primary act: -I
say "primary" act; for the creation of the absolute material particle is
more properly to be regarded as a Conception than as an "act" in the
ordinary meaning of the term. Thus, we must regard the primary act as an
act for the establishment of what we now call "principles". But this
primary act itself is to be considered as Continuous Volition. The
Thought of God is to be understood as originating the Diffusion -as
proceeding with it -as regulating it -and, finally, as being withdrawn
from it upon its completion. Then commences Reaction, and through
Reaction, "Principle," as we employ the word. It will be advisable,
however, to limit the ap plication of this word to the two immediate
results of the discontinuance of the Divine Volition -that is, to the
two agents, Attraction and Repulsion. Every other Natural agent depends,
either more or less immediately, upon these two, and therefore would be
more conveniently designated as sub -principle.

It may be objected, thirdly, that, in general, the peculiar mode of
distribution which I have suggested for the atoms, is "an hypothesis and
nothing more."

Now, I am aware that the word hypothesis is a ponderous sledge-hammer,
grasped immediately, if not lifted, by all very diminutive thinkers,
upon the first appearance of any proposition wearing, in any particular,
the garb of a theory. But "hypothesis" cannot be wielded here to any
good purpose, even by those who succeed in lifting it -little men or
great.

I maintain, first, that only in the mode described is it conceivable
that Matter could have been diffused so as to fulfil at once the
conditions of irradiation and of generally equable distribution. I
maintain, secondly, that these conditions themselves have been imposed
upon me, as necessities, in a train of ratiocination as rigorously
logical as that which establishes any demonstration in Euclid; and I
maintain, thirdly, that even if the charge of "hypothesis" were as fully
sustained as it is, in fact, unsustained and untenable, still the
validity and indisputability of my result would not, even in the
slightest particular, be disturbed.

To explain: The Newtonian Gravity -a law of Nature -a law whose
existence as such no one out of Bedlam questions -a law whose admission
as such enables us to account for nine-tenths of the Universal
phaenomena -a law which, merely because it does so enable us to account
for these phaenomena, we are perfectly willing, without reference to any
other considerations, to admit, and cannot help admitting, as a law -a
law, nevertheless, of which neither the principle nor the modus operandi
of the principle, has ever yet been traced by the human analysis -a law,
in short, which, neither in its detail nor in its generality, has been
found susceptible of explanation at all -is at length seen to be at
every point thoroughly explicable, provided we only yield our assent to
-what? To an hypothesis? Why if an hypothesis -if the merest hypothesis
-if an hypothesis for whose assumption -as in the case of that pure
hypothesis the Newtonian law itself -no shadow of a priori reason could
be assigned -if an hypothesis, even so absolute as all this implies,
would enable us to perceive a principle for the Newtonian law -would
enable us to understand as satisfied, conditions so miraculously -so
ineffably complex and seemingly irreconcileable as those involved in the
relations of which Gravity tells us, -what rational being Could so
expose his fatuity as to call even this absolute hypothesis an
hypothesis any longer -unless, indeed, he were to persist in so calling
it, with the understanding that he did so, simply for the sake of
consistency in words?

But what is the true state of our present case? What is the fact? Not
only that it is not an hypothesis which we are required to adopt, in
order to admit the principle at issue explained, but that it is a
logical conclusion which we are requested not to adopt if we can avoid
it -which we are simply invited to deny if we can: -a conclusion of so
accurate a logicality that to dispute it would be the effort -to doubt
its validity beyond our power: -a conclusion from which we see no mode
of escape, turn as we will; a result which confronts us either at the
end of an in ductive journey from the phaenomena of the very Law
discussed, or at the close of a de ductive career from the most
rigorously simple of all conceivable assumptions -the assumption, in a
word, of Simplicity itself.

And if here, for the mere sake of cavilling, it be urged, that although
my starting-point is, as I assert, the assumption of absolute
Simplicity, yet Simplicity, considered merely in itself, is no axiom;
and that only deductions from axioms are indisputable -it is thus that I
reply: -

Every other science than Logic is the science of certain concrete
relations. Arithmetic, for example, is the science of the relations of
number -Geometry, of the relations of form -Mathematics in general, of
the relations of quantity in general -of whatever can be increased or
diminished. Logic, however, is the science of Relation in the abstract
-of absolute Relation -of Relation considered solely in itself. An axiom
in any particular science other than Logic is, thus, merely a
proposition announcing certain concrete relations which seem to be too
obvious for dispute -as when we say, for instance, that the whole is
greater than its part: -and, thus again, the principle of the Logical
axiom -in other words, of an axiom in the abstract - is, simply,
obviousness of relation. Now, it is clear, not only that what is obvious
to one mind may not be obvious to another, but that what is obvious to
one mind at one epoch, may be anything but obvious, at another epoch, to
the same mind. It is cle ar, moreover, that what, to-day, is obvious
even to the majority of mankind, or to the majority of the best
intellects of mankind, may to-morrow be, to either majority, more or
less obvious, or in no respect obvious at all. It is seen, then, that
the axiomatic principle itself is susceptible of variation, and of
course that axioms are susceptible of similar change. Being mutable, the
"truths" which grow out of them are necessarily mutable too; or, in
other words, are never to be positively depended upon as truths at all
-since Truth and Immutability are one.

It will now be readily understood that no axiomatic idea -no idea
founded in the fluctuating principle, obviousness of relation -can
possibly be so secure -so reliable a basis for any structure erected by
the Reason, as that idea -(whatever it is, wherever we can find it, or
if it be practicable to find it anywhere) -which is ir relative
altogether -which not only presents to the understanding no obviousness
of relation, either greater or less, to be considered, but subjects the
intellect, not in the slightest degree, to the necessity of even looking
at any relation at all. If such an idea be not what we too heedlessly
term "an axiom," it is at least preferable, as a Logical basis, to any
axiom ever propounded, or to all imaginable axioms combined: -and such,
precisely, is the idea with which my deductive process, so thoroughly
corroborated by induction, commences. My particle proper is but absolute
Irrelation. To sum up what has been advanced: -As a starting point I
have taken it for granted, simply, that the Beginning had nothing behind
it or before it -that it was a Beginning in fact -that it was a
beginning and nothing different from a beginning -in short, that this
Beginning was -that which it was. If this be a "mere assumption" then a
"mere assumption" let it be.

To conclude this branch of the subject: -I am fully warranted in
announcing that the Law which we have been in the habit of calling
Gravity exists on account of Matter's having been irradiated, at its
origin, atomically, into a limited * sphere of Space, from one,
individual, unconditional, irrelative, and absolute Particle Proper, by
the sole process in which it was possible to satisfy, at the same time,
the two conditions, irradiation, and generally-equable distribution
throughout the sphere -that is to say, by a force varying in direct
proportion with the squares of the distances between the irradiated
atoms, respectively, and the Particular centre of Irradiation.

* "Limited sphere" -A sphere is necessarily limited. I prefer tautology
to a chance of misconception.

I have already given my reasons for presuming Matter to have been
diffused by a determinate rather than by a continuous or infinitely
continued force. Supposing a continuous force, we should be unable, in
the first place, to comprehend a reaction at all; and we should be
required, in the second place, to entertain the impossible conception of
an infinite extension of Matter. Not to dwell upon the impossibility of
the conception, the infinite extension of Matter is an idea which, if
not positively disproved, is at least not in any respect warranted by
telescopic observation of the stars -a point to be explained more fully
hereafter; and this empirical reason for believing in the original
finity of Matter is unempirically confirmed. For example: -Admitting,
for the moment, the possibility of understanding Space filled with the
irradiated atoms -that is to say, admitting, as well as we can, for
argument's sake, that the succession of the irradiated atoms had
absolutely no end -then it is abundantly clear that, even when the
Volition of God had been withdrawn from them, and thus the tendency to
return into Unity permitted (abstractly) to be satisfied, this
permission would have been nugatory and invalid -practically valueless
and of no effect whatever. No Reaction could have taken place; no
movement toward Unity could have been made; no Law of Gravity could have
obtained.

To explain: -Grant the abstract tendency of any one atom to any one
other as the inevitable result of diffusion from the normal Unity: -or,
what is the same thing, admit any given atom as proposing to move in any
given direction -it is clear that, since there is an infinity of atoms
on all sides of the atom proposing to move, it never can actually move
toward the satisfaction of its tendency in the direction given, on
account of a precisely equal and counter-balancing tendency in the
direction diametrically opposite. In other words, exactly as many
tendencies to Unity are behind the hesitating atom as before it; for it
is a mere sotticism to say that one infinite line is longer or shorter
than another infinite line, or that one infinite number is greater or
less than another number that is infinite. Thus the atom in question
must remain stationary forever. Under the impossible circumstances which
we have been merely endeavoring to conceive for argument's sake, there
could have been no aggregation of Matter -no stars -no worlds -nothing
but a perpetually atomic and inconsequential Universe. In fact, view it
as we will, the whole idea of unlimited Matter is not only untenable,
but impossible and preposterous.

With the understanding of a sphere of atoms, however, we perceive, at
once, a satisfiable tendency to union. The general result of the
tendency each to each, being a tendency of all to the centre, the
general process of condensation, or approximation, commences
immediately, by a common and simultaneous movement, on withdrawal of the
Divine Volition; the individual approximations, or coalescences-not
coalitions -of atom with atom, being subject to almost infinite
variations of time, degree, and condition, on account of the excessive
multiplicity of relation, arising from the differences of form assumed
as characterizing the atoms at the moment of their quitting the Particle
Proper; as well as from the subsequent particular inequidistance, each
from each.

What I wish to impress upon the reader is the certainty of there
arising, at once, (on withdrawal of the diffusive force, or Divine
Volition,) out of the condition of the atoms as described, at
innumerable points throughout the Universal sphere, innumerable
agglomerations, characterized by innumerable specific differences of
form, size, essential nature, and distance each from each. The
development of Repulsion (Electricity) must have commenced, of course,
with the very earliest particular efforts at Unity, and must have
proceeded constantly in the ratio of Coalescence -that is to say, in
that of Condensation, or, again, of Heterogeneity.

Thus the two Principles Proper, Attraction and Repulsion -the Material
and the Spiritual -accompany each other, in the strictest fellowship,
forever. Thus The Body and The Soul walk hand in hand.

If now, in fancy, we select any one of the agglomerations considered as
in their primary stages throughout the Universal sphere, and suppose
this incipient agglomeration to be taking place at that point where the
centre of our Sun exists -or rather where it did exist originally; for
the Sun is perpetually shifting his position -we shall find ourselves
met, and borne onward for a time at least, by the most magnificent of
theories -by the Nebular Cosmogony of Laplace: - although "Cosmogony" is
far too comprehensive a term for what he really discusses -which is the
constitution of our solar system alone - of one among the myriad of
similar systems which make up the Universe Proper -that Universal sphere
-that all-inclusive and absolute Kosmos which forms the subject of my
present Discourse.

Confining himself to an obviously limited region -that of our solar
system with its comparatively immediate vicinity -and merely assuming
-that is to say, assuming without any basis whatever, either deductive
or inductive -much of what I have been just endeavoring to place upon a
more stable basis than assumption; assuming, for example, matter as
diffused (without pretending to account for the diffusion) throughout,
and somewhat beyond, the space occupied by our system -diffused in a
state of heterogeneous nebulosity and obedient to that omniprevalent law
of Gravity at whose principle he ventured to make no guess; -assuming
all this (which is quite true, although he had no logical right to its
assumption) Laplace has shown, dynamically and mathematically, that the
results in such case necessarily ensuing, are those and those alone
which we find manifested in the actually existing condition of the
system itself.

To explain: -Let us conceive that particular agglomeration of which we
have just spoken -the one at the point designated by our Sun's centre
-to have so far proceeded that a vast quantity of nebulous matter has
here assumed a roughly globular form; its centre being, of course,
coincident with what is now, or rather was originally, the centre of our
Sun; and its periphery extending out beyond the orbit of Neptune, the
most remote of our planets: -in other words, let us suppose the diameter
of this rough sphere to be some 6000 millions of miles. For ages, this
mass of matter has been undergoing condensation, until at length it has
become reduced into the bulk we imagine; having proceeded gradually, of
course, from its atomic and imperceptible state, into what we understand
of visible, palpable, or otherwise appreciable nebulosity.

Now, the condition of this mass implies a rotation about an imaginary
axis -a rotation which, commencing with the absolute incipiency of the
aggregation, has been ever since acquiring velocity. The very first two
atoms which met, approaching each other from points not diametrically
opposite, would, in rushing partially past each other, form a nucleus
for the rotary movement described. How this would increase in velocity,
is readily seen. The two atoms are joined by others: -an aggregation is
formed. The mass continues to rotate while condensing. But any atom at
the circumference has, of course, a more rapid motion than one nearer
the centre. The outer atom, however, with its superior velocity,
approaches the centre; carrying this superior velocity with it as it
goes. Thus every atom, proceeding inwardly, and finally attaching itself
to the condensed centre, adds something to the original velocity of that
centre -that is to say, increases the rotary movement of the mass.

Let us now suppose this mass so far condensed that it occupies precisely
the space circumscribed by the orbit of Neptune, and that the velocity
with which the surface of the mass moves, in the general rotation, is
precisely that velocity with which Neptune now revolves about the Sun.
At this epoch, then, we are to understand that the constantly increasing
centrifugal force, having gotten the better of the non-increasing
centripetal, loosened and separated the exterior and least condensed
stratum, or a few of the exterior and least condensed strata, at the
equator of the sphere, where the tangential velocity predominated; so
that these strata formed about the main body an independent ring
encircling the equatorial regions: -just as the exterior portion thrown
off, by excessive velocity of rotation, from a grindstone, would form a
ring about the grindstone, but for the solidity of the superficial
material: were this caoutchouc, or anything similar in consistency,
precisely the phaenomeno n I describe would be presented.

The ring thus whirled from the nebulous mass, revolved, of course, as a
separate ring, with just that velocity with which, while the surface of
the mass, it rotated. In the meantime, condensation still proceeding,
the interval between the discharged ring and the main body continued to
increase, until the former was left at a vast distance from the latter.

Now, admitting the ring to have possessed, by some seemingly accidental
arrangement of its heterogeneous materials, a constitution nearly
uniform, then this ring, as such, would never have ceased revolving
about its primary; but, as might have been anticipated, there appears to
have been enough irregularity in the disposition of the materials, to
make them cluster about centres of superior solidity; and thus the
annular form was destroyed. * No doubt, the band was soon broken up into
several portions, and one of these portions, predominating in mass,
absorbed the others into itself; the whole settling, spherically, into a
planet. That this latter, as a planet, continued the revolutionary
movement which characterized it while a ring, is sufficiently clear; and
that it took upon itself, also, an additional movement in its new
condition of sphere, is readily explained. The ring being understood as
yet unbroken, we see that its exterior, while the whole revolves about
the parent body, move s more rapidly than its interior. When the rupture
occurred, then, some portion in each fragment must have been moving with
greater velocity than the others. The superior movement prevailing, must
have whirled each fragment round -that is to say, have caused it to
rotate; and the direction of the rotation must, of course, have been the
direction of the revolution whence it arose. the fragments having become
subject to the rotation described, must, in coalescing, have imparted it
to the one planet constituted by their coalescence. -This planet was
Neptune. Its material continuing to undergo condensation, and the
centrifugal force generated in its rotation getting, at length, the
better of the centripetal, as before in the case of the parent orb, a
ring was whirled also from the equatorial surface of this planet: this
ring, having been ununiform in its constitution, was broken up, and its
several fragments, being absorbed by the most massive, were collectively
spherified into a moon. Sub sequently, the operation was repeated, and a
second moon was the result. We thus account for the planet Neptune, with
the two satellites which accompany him.

* Laplace assumed his nebulosity heterogeneous, merely that he might be
thus enabled to account for the breaking up of the rings; for had the
nebulosity been homogeneous, they would not have broken. I reach the
same result -heterogeneity of the secondary masses immediately resulting
from the atoms -purely from an a priori consideration of their general
design -Relation.

In throwing of a ring from its equator, the Sun re-established that
equilibrium between its centripetal and centrifugal forces which had
been disturbed in the process of condensation; but, as this condensation
still proceeded, the equilibrium was again immediately disturbed,
through the increase of rotation. By the time the mass had so far shrunk
that it occupied a spherical space just that circumscribed by the orbit
of Uranus, we are to understand that the centrifugal force had so far
obtained the ascendency that new relief was needed: a second equatorial
band was, consequently, thrown off, which, proving ununiform, was broken
up, as before in the case of Neptune; the fragments settling into the
planet Uranus; the velocity of whose actual revolution about the Sun
indicates, of course, the rotary speed of that Sun's equatorial surface
at the moment of the separation. Uranus, adopting a rotation from the
collective rotations of the fragments composing it, as previously
explained, now th rew off ring after ring; each of which, becoming
broken up, settled into a moon: -three moons, at different epochs,
having been formed, in this manner, by the rupture and general
spherification of as many distinct ununiform rings.

By the time the Sun had shrunk until it occupied a space just that
circumscribed by the orbit of Saturn, the balance, we are to suppose,
between its centripetal and centrifugal forces had again become so far
disturbed, through increase of rotary velocity, the result of
condensation, that a third effort at equilibrium became necessary; and
an annular band was therefore whirled off, as twice before; which, on
rupture through ununiformity, became consolidated into the planet
Saturn. This latter threw off, in the first place, seven uniform bands,
which, on rupture, were spherified respectively into as many moons; but,
subsequently, it appears to have discharged, at three distinct but not
very distant epochs, three rings whose equability of constitution was,
by apparent accident, so considerable as to present no occasion for
their rupture; thus they continue to revolve as rings. I use the phrase
"apparent accident;" for of accident in the ordinary sense there was, of
course, nothing: -the t erm is properly applied only to the result of
indistinguishable or not immediately traceable LA0

Shrinking still farther, until it occupied just the space circumscribed
by the orbit of Jupiter, the Sun now found need of farther effort to
restore the counterbalance of its two forces, continually disarranged in
the still continued increase of rotation. Jupiter, accordingly, was now
thrown off; passing from the annular to the planetary condition; and, on
attaining this latter, threw off in its turn, at four different epochs,
four rings, which finally resolved themselves into so many moons.

Still shrinking, until its sphere occupied just the space defined by the
orbit of the Asteroids, the Sun now discarded a ring which appears to
have had eight centres of superior solidity, and, on breaking up, to
have separated into eight fragments no one of which so far predominated
in mass as to absorb the others. All therefore, as distinct although
comparatively small planets, proceeded to revolve in orbits whose
distances, each from each, may be considered as in some degree the
measure of the force which drove them asunder: -all the orbits,
nevertheless, being so closely coincident as to admit of our calling
them one, in view of the other planetary orbits.

Continuing to shrink, the Sun, on becoming so small as just to fill the
orbit of Mars, now discharged this planet -of course by the process
repeatedly described. Having no moon, however, Mars could have thrown
off no ring. In fact, an epoch had now arrived in the career of the
parent body, the centre of the system. The de crease of its nebulosity,
which is the in crease of its density, and which again is the de crease
of its condensation, out of which latter arose the constant disturbance
of equilibrium -must, by this period, have attained a point at which the
efforts for restoration would have been more and more ineffectual just
in proportion as they were less frequently needed. Thus the processes of
which we have been speaking would everywhere show signs of exhaustion
-in the planets, first, and secondly, in the original mass. We must not
fall into the error of supposing the decrease of interval observed among
the planets as we approach the Sun, to be in any respect indicative of
an increase of frequency in the periods at which they were discarded.
Exactly the converse is to be understood. The longest interval of time
must have occurred between the discharges of the two interior; the
shortest, between those of the two exterior, planets. The decrease of
the interval of space is, nevertheless, the measure of the density, and
thus inversely of the condensation, of the Sun, throughout the processes
detailed.

Having shrunk, however, so far as to fill only the orbit of our Earth,
the parent sphere whirled from itself still one other body -the Earth
-in a condition Hcs 06:51, 21 October 2005 (UTC)so nebulous as to admit
of this body's discarding, in its turn, yet another, which is our Moon;
-but here terminated the lunar formations.

Finally, subsiding to the orbits first of Venus and then of Mercury, the
Sun discarded these two interior planets; neither of which has given
birth to any moon.

Thus from his original bulk -or, to speak more accurately, from the
condition in which we first considered him -from a partially spherified
nebular mass, certainly much more than 5,600 millions of miles in
diameter -the great central orb and origin of our solar-planetary-lunar
system, has gradually descended, by condensation, in obedience to the
law of Gravity, to a globe only 882,000 miles in diameter; but it by no
means follows, either that its condensation is yet complete, or that it
may not still possess the capacity of whirling from itself another
planet.

I have here given -in outline of course, but still with all the detail
necessary for distinctness -a view of the Nebular Theory as its author
himself conceived it. From whatever point we regard it, we shall find it
beautifully true. It is by far too beautiful, indeed, not to possess
Truth as its essentiality -and here I am very profoundly serious in what
I say. In the revolution of the satellites of Uranus, there does appear
something seemingly inconsistent with the assumptions of Laplace; but
that one inconsistency can invalidate a theory constructed from a
million of intricate consistencies, is a fancy fit only for the
fantastic. In prophecying, confidently, that the apparent anomaly to
which I refer, will, sooner or later, be found one of the strongest
possible corroborations of the general hypothesis, I pretend to no
especial spirit of divination. It is a matter which the only difficulty
seems not to foresee. *

* I am prepared to show that the anomalous revolution of the satellites
of Uranus is a simply perspective anomaly arising from the inclination
of the axis of the planet.

The bodies whirled off in the processes described, would exchange, it
has been seen, the superficial rotation of the orbs whence they
originated, for a revolution of equal velocity about these orbs as
distant centres; and the revolution thus engendered must proceed, so
long as the centripetal force, or that with which the discarded body
gravitates toward its parent, is neither greater nor less than that by
which it was discarded; that is, than the centrifugal, or, far more
properly, than the tangential, velocity. From the unity, however, of the
origin of these two forces, we might have expected to find them as they
are found -the one accurately counterbalancing the other. It has been
shown, indeed, that the act of whirling-off is, in every case, merely an
act for the preservation of the counterbalance.

After referring, however, the centripetal force to the omniprevalent law
of Gravity, it has been the fashion with astronomical treatises, to seek
beyond the limits of mere Nature -that is to say, of Secondary Cause -a
solution of the phaenomenon of tangential velocity. This latter they
attribute directly to a First Cause -to God. The force which carries a
stellar body around its primary they assert to have originated in an
impulse given immediately by the finger -this is the childish
phraseology employed -by the finger of Deity itself. In this view, the
planets, fully formed, are conceived to have been hurled from the Divine
hand, to a position in the vicinity of the suns, with an impetus
mathematically adapted to the masses, or attractive capacities, of the
suns themselves. An idea so grossly unphilosophical, although so
supinely adopted, could have arisen only from the difficulty of
otherwise accounting for the absolutely accurate adaptation, each to
each, of two forces so seemingly independent, one of the other, as are
the gravitating and tangential. But it should be remembered that, for a
long time, the coincidence between the moon's rotation and her sidereal
revolution - two matters seemingly far more independent than those now
considered -was looked upon as positively miraculous; and there was a
strong disposition, even among astronomers, to attribute the marvel to
the direct and continual agency of God -who, in this case, it was said,
had found it necessary to interpose, specially, among his general laws,
a set of subsidiary regulations, for the purpose of forever concealing
from mortal eyes the glories, or perhaps the horrors, of the other side
of the Moon -of that mysterious hemisphere which has always avoided, and
must perpetually avoid, the telescopic scrutiny of mankind. The advance
of Science, however, soon demonstrated -what to the philosophical
instinct needed no demonstration -that the one movement is but a portion
-something more, even, than a conse quence -of the other.

For my part, I have no patience with fantasies at once so timorous, so
idle, and so awkward. They belong to the veriest Cowardice of thought.
That Nature and the God of Nature are distinct, no thinking being can
long doubt. By the former we imply merely the laws of the latter. But
with the very idea of God, omnipotent, omniscient, we entertain, also,
the idea of the infallibility of his laws. With Him there being neither
Past nor Future -with Him all being Now -do we not insult him in
supposing his laws so contrived as not to provide for every possible
contingency? -or, rather, what idea can we have of any possible
contingency, except that it is at once a result and a manifestation of
his laws? He who, divesting himself of prejudice, shall have the rare
courage to think absolutely for himself, cannot fail to arrive, in the
end, at the condensation of LA0 into LA0 -cannot fail of reaching the
conclusion that each law of Nature is dependent at all points upon all
other laws, and that all are but consequences of one primary exercise of
the Divine Volition. Such is the principle of the Cosmogony which, with
all necessary deference, I here venture to suggest and to maintain.

In this view, it will be seen that, dismissing as frivolous, and even
impious, the fancy of the tangential force having been imparted to the
planets immediately, by "the finger of God," I consider this force as
originating in the rotation of the stars: -this rotation as brought
about by the in-rushing of the primary atoms, towards their respective
centres of aggregation: -this in-rushing as the consequence of the law
of Gravity: -this law as but the mode in which is necessarily manifested
the tendency of the atoms to return into imparticularity: -this tendency
to return as but the inevitable reaction of the first and most sublime
of Acts -that act by which a God, self-existing and alone existing,
became all things at once, through dint of his volition, while all
things were thus constituted a portion of God.

The radical assumptions of this Discourse suggest to me, and in fact
imply, certain important modifications of the Nebular Theory as given by
Laplace. The efforts of the repulsive power I have considered as made
for the purpose of preventing contact among the atoms, and thus as made
in the ratio of the approach to contact -that is to say, in the ratio of
condensation. * In other words, Electricity, with its involute
phaenomena, heat, light and magnetism, is to be understood as proceeding
as condensation proceeds, and, of course, inversely as density proceeds,
or the cessation to condense. Thus the Sun, in the process of its
aggregation, must soon, in developing repulsion, have become excessively
heated -perhaps incandescent: and we can perceive how the operation of
discarding its rings must have been materially assisted by the slight
incrustation of its surface consequent on cooling. Any common experiment
shows us how readily a crust of the character suggested, is separated,
through he terogeneity, from the interior mass. But, on every successive
rejection of the crust, the new surface would appear incandescent as
before; and the period at which it would again become so far encrusted
as to be readily loosened and discharged, may well be imagined as
exactly coincident with that at which a new effort would be needed, by
the whole mass, to restore the equilibrium of its two forces,
disarranged through condensation. In other words: -by the time the
electric influence (Repulsion) has prepared the surface for rejection,
we are to understand that the gravitating influence (Attraction) is
precisely ready to reject it. Here, then, as everywhere, the Body and
the Soul walk hand in hand.

* See previous paragraph, "With the understanding of a sphere of
atoms..."

These ideas are empirically confirmed at all points. Since condensation
can never, in any body, be considered as absolutely at an end, we are
warranted in anticipating that, whenever we have an opportunity of
testing the matter, we shall find indications of resident luminosity in
the stellar bodies -moons and planets as well as suns. That our Moon is
strongly self-luminous, we see at her every total eclipse, when, if not
so, she would disappear. On the dark part of the satellite, too, during
her phases, we often observe flashes like our own Auroras; and that
these latter, with our various other so-called electrical phaenomena,
without reference to any more steady radiance, must give our Earth a
certain appearance of luminosity to an inhabitant of the Moon, is quite
evident. In fact, we should regard all the phaenomena referred to, as
mere manifestations, in different moods and degrees, of the Earth's
feebly-continued condensation.

If my views are tenable, we should be prepared to find the newer planets
-that is to say, those nearer the Sun -more luminous than those older
and more remote: -and the extreme brilliancy of Venus (on whose dark
portions, during her phases, the Auroras are frequently visible) does
not seem to be altogether accounted for by her mere proximity to the
central orb. She is no doubt vividly self-luminous, although less so
than Mercury: while the luminosity of Neptune may be comparatively
nothing.

Admitting what I have urged, it is clear that, from the moment of the
Sun's discarding a ring, there must be a continuous diminution both of
his heat and light, on account of the continuous encrustation of his
surface; and that a period would arrive -the period immediately previous
to a new discharge -when a very material decrease of both light and
heat, must become apparent. Now, we know that tokens of such changes are
distinctly recognizable. On the Melville islands -to adduce merely one
out of a hundred examples -we find traces of UL0 vegetation -of plants
that never could have flourished without immensely more light and heat
than are at present afforded by our Sun to any portion of the surface of
the Earth. Is such vegetation referable to an epoch immediately
subsequent to the whirling-off of Venus? At this epoch must have
occurred to us our greatest access of solar influence; and, in fact,
this influence must then have attained its maximum: -leaving out of
view, of course, the per iod when the Earth itself was discarded -the
period of its mere organization.

Again: -we know that there exist non-luminous suns -that is to say, suns
whose existence we determine through the movements of others, but whose
luminosity is not sufficient to impress us. Are these suns invisible
merely on account of the length of time elapsed since their discharge of
a planet? And yet again: -may we not -at least in certain cases -account
for the sudden appearances of suns where none had been previously
suspected, by the hypothesis that, having rolled with encrusted surfaces
throughout the few thousand years of our astronomical history, each of
these suns, in whirling off a new secondary, has at length been enabled
to display the glories of its still incandescent interior? -To the
well-ascertained fact of the proportional increase of heat as we descend
into the Earth, I need of course, do nothing more than refer: -it comes
in the strongest possible corroboration of all that I have said on the
topic now at issue.

In speaking, not long ago, of the repulsive or electrical influence, I
remarked that "the important phaenomena of vitality, consciousness, and
thought, whether we observe them generally or in detail, seem to proceed
at least in the ratio of the heterogeneous. " * I mentioned, too, that I
would recur to the suggestion: -and this is the proper point at which to
do so. Looking at the matter, first, in detail, we perceive that not
merely the manifestation of vitality, but its importance, consequences,
and elevation of character, keep pace, very closely, with the
heterogeneity, or complexity, of the animal structure. Looking at the
question, now, in its generality, and referring to the first movements
of the atoms towards mass-constitution, we find that heterogeneousness,
brought about directly through condensation, is proportional with it
forever. We thus reach the proposition that the importance of the
development of the terrestrial vitality proceeds equably with the
terrestrial condensat ion.

* See previous paragraph, "To electricity -so, for the present,
continuing to call it..."

Now this is in precise accordance with what we know of the succession of
animals on the Earth. As it has proceeded in its condensation, superior
and still superior races have appeared. Is it impossible that the
successive geological revolutions which have attended, at least, if not
immediately caused, these successive elevations of vitalic character -is
it improbable that these revolutions have themselves been produced by
the successive planetary discharges from the Sun -in other words, by the
successive variations in the solar influence on the Earth? Were this
idea tenable, we should not be unwarranted in the fancy that the
discharge of yet a new planet, interior to Mercury, may give rise to yet
a new modification of the terrestrial surface -a modification from which
may spring a race both materially and spiritually superior to Man. These
thoughts impress me with all the force of truth -but I throw them out,
of course, merely in their obvious character of suggestion.

The Nebular Theory of Laplace has lately received far more confirmation
than it needed, at the hands of the philosopher, Compte. These two have
thus together shown -not, to be sure, that Matter at any period actually
existed as described, in a state of nebular diffusion, but that,
admitting it so to have existed throughout the space and much beyond the
space now occupied by our solar system, and to have commenced a movement
towards a centre - it must gradually have assumed the various forms and
motions which are now seen, in that system, to obtain. A demonstration
such as this -a dynamical and mathematical demonstration, as far as
demonstration can be -unquestionable and unquestioned -unless, indeed,
by that unprofitable and disreputable tribe, the professional
questioners -the mere madmen who deny the Newtonian law of Gravity on
which the results of the French mathematicians are based -a
demonstration, I say, such as this, would to most intellects be
conclusive -and I confess that it is so to mine -of the validity of the
nebular hypothesis upon which the demonstration depends.

That the demonstration does not prove the hypothesis, according to the
common understanding of the word "proof," I admit, of course. To show
that certain existing results -that certain established facts - may be,
even mathematically, accounted for by the assumption of a certain
hypothesis, is by no means to establish the hypothesis itself. In other
words: -to show that, certain data being given, a certain existing
result might, or even must, have ensued, will fail to prove that this
result did ensue, FR until such time as it shall be also shown that
there are, and can be, no other data from which the result in question
might equally have ensued. But, in the case now discussed, although all
must admit the deficiency of what we are in the habit of terming
"proof," still there are many intellects, and those of the loftiest
order to which no proof could bring one iota of additional Conviction.
Without going into details which might impinge upon the Cloud-Land of
Metaphysics, I may as well here observe that the force of conviction, in
cases such as this, will always, with the right-thinking, be
proportional to the amount of Complexity intervening between the
hypothesis and the result. To be less abstract: -The greatness of the
complexity found existing among cosmical conditions, by rendering great
in the same proportion the difficulty of accounting for all these
conditions at once, strengthens, also in the same proportion, our faith
in that hypothesis which does, in such manner, satisfactorily account
for them: -and as no complexity can well be conceived greater than that
of the astronomical conditions, so no conviction can be stronger -to my
mind at least -than that with which I am impressed by an hypothesis that
not only reconciles these conditions, with mathematical accuracy, and
reduces them into a consistent and intelligible whole, but is, at the
same time, the sole hypothesis by means of which the human intellect has
been ever enabled to account for them at all.

A most unfounded opinion has been latterly current and even in
scientific circles -the opinion that the so-called Nebular Cosmogony has
been overthrown. This fancy has arisen from the report of late
observations made, among what hitherto have been termed the "nebulae,"
through the large telescope of Cincinnati, and the world-renowned
instrument of Lord Rosse. Certain spots in the firmament which
presented, even to the most powerful of the old telescopes, the
appearance of nebulosity, or haze, had been regarded for a long time as
confirming the theory of Laplace. They were looked upon as stars in that
very process of condensation which I have been attempting to describe.
Thus it was supposed that we "had ocular evidence" -an evidence, by the
way, which has always been found very questionable - of the truth of the
hypothesis; and, although certain telescopic improvements, every now and
then, enabled us to perceive that a spot, here and there, which we had
been classing among the nebulae, was, in fact, but a cluster of stars
deriving its nebular character only from its immensity of distance
-still it was thought that no doubt could exist as to the actual
nebulosity of numerous other masses, the strong-holds of the nebulists,
bidding defiance to every effort at segregation. Of these latter the
most interesting was the great "nebulae" in the constellation Orion:
-but this, with innumerable other miscalled "nebulae," when viewed
through the magnificent modern telescopes, has become resolved into a
simple collection of stars. Now this fact has been very generally
understood as conclusive against the Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace; and,
on announcement of the discoveries in question, the most enthusiastic
defender and most eloquent popularizer of the theory, Dr. Nichol, went
so far as to "admit the necessity of abandoning" an idea which had
formed the material of his most praiseworthy book. *

* "Views of the Architecture of the Heavens." A letter, purporting to be
from Dr. Nichol to a friend in America, went the rounds of our
newspapers, about two years ago, I think, admitting "the necessity" to
which I refer. In a subsequent Lecture, however, Dr. N. appears in some
manner to have gotten the better of the necessity, and does not quite
renounce the theory, although he seems to wish that he could sneer at it
as "a purely hypothetical one." What else was the Law of Gravity before
the Maskelyne experiments? and who questioned the Law of Gravity, even
then?

Many of my readers will no doubt be inclined to say that the result of
these new investigations has at least a strong tendency to overthrow the
hypothesis; while some of them, more thoughtful, will suggest that,
although the theory is by no means disproved through the segregation of
the particular "nebulae" alluded to, still a failure to segregate them,
with such telescopes, might well have been understood as a triumphant
Corroboration of the theory: -and this latter class will be surprised,
perhaps, to hear me say that even with them I disagree. If the
propositions of this Discourse have been comprehended, it will be seen
that, in my view, a failure to segregate the "nebulae" would have tended
to the refutation, rather than to the confirmation, of the Nebular
Hypothesis.

Let me explain: -The Newtonian Law of Gravity we may, of course, assume
as demonstrated. This law, it will be remembered, I have referred to the
reaction of the first Divine Act -to the reaction of an exercise of the
Divine Volition temporarily overcoming a difficulty. This difficulty is
that of forcing the normal into the abnormal -of impelling that whose
originality, and therefore whose rightful condition, was One, to take
upon itself the wrongful condition of Many. It is only by conceiving
this difficulty as temporarily overcome, that we can comprehend a
reaction. There could have been no reaction had the act been infinitely
continued. So long as the act LA0 no reaction, of course, could
commence; in other words, no gravitation could take place -for we have
considered the one as but the manifestation of the other. But
gravitation has taken place; therefore the act of Creation has ceased:
and gravitation has long ago taken place; therefore the act of Creation
has long ago ceased. We can no more expect, then, to observe the primary
processes of Creation; and to these primary processes the condition of
nebulosity has already been explained to belong.

Through what we know of the propagation of light, we have direct proof
that the more remote of the stars have existed, under the forms in which
we now see them, for an inconceivable number of years. So far back at
least, then, as the period when these stars underwent condensation, must
have been the epoch at which the mass-constitutive processes began. That
we may conceive these processes, then, as still going on in the case of
certain "nebulae," while in all other cases we find them thoroughly at
an end, we are forced into assumptions for which we have really no basis
whatever -we have to thrust in, again, upon the revolting Reason, the
blasphemous idea of special interposition -we have to suppose that, in
the particular instances of these "nebulae," an unerring God found it
necessary to introduce certain supplementary regulations - certain
improvements of the general law -certain retouchings and emendations, in
a word, which had the effect of deferring the completion of these
individ ual stars for centuries of centuries beyond the aera during
which all the other stellar bodies had time, not only to be fully
constituted, but to grow hoary with an unspeakable old age.

Of course, it will be immediately objected that since the light by which
we recognize the nebulae now, must be merely that which left their
surfaces a vast number of years ago, the processes at present observed,
or supposed to be observed, are, in fact, not processes now actually
going on, but the phantoms of processes completed long in the Past -just
as I maintain all these mass-constitutive processes must have been.

To this I reply that neither is the now-observed condition of the
condensed stars their actual condition, but a condition completed long
in the Past; so that my argument drawn from the relative condition of
the stars and the "nebulae," is in no manner disturbed. Moreover, those
who maintain the existence of nebulae, do not refer the nebulosity to
extreme distance; they declare it a real and not merely a perspective
nebulosity. That we may conceive, indeed, a nebular mass as visible at
all, we must conceive it as very near us in comparison with the
condensed stars brought into view by the modern telescopes. In
maintaining the appearances in question, then, to be really nebulous, we
maintain their comparative vicinity to our point of view. Thus, their
condition, as we see them now, must be referred to an epoch far less
remote than that to which we may refer the now-observed condition of at
least the majority of the stars. - In a word, should Astronomy ever
demonstrate a "nebula," in the sense at present intended, I should
consider the Nebular Cosmogony - not, indeed, as corroborated by the
demonstration -but as thereby irretrievably overthrown.

By way, however, of rendering unto Caesar no more than the things that
are Caesar's, let me here remark that the assumption of the hypothesis
which led him to so glorious a result, seems to have been suggested to
Laplace in great measure by a misconception -by the very misconception
of which we have just been speaking -by the generally prevalent
misunderstanding of the character of the nebulae, so mis-named. These he
supposed to be, in reality, what their designation implies. The fact is,
this great man had, very properly, an inferior faith in his own merely
perceptive powers. In respect, therefore, to the actual existence of
nebulae -an existence so confidently maintained by his telescopic
contemporaries -he depended less upon what he saw than upon what he
heard.

It will be seen that the only valid objections to his theory, are those
made to its hypothesis as such -to what suggested it -not to what it
suggests; to its propositions rather than to its results. His most
unwarranted assumption was that of giving the atoms a movement towards a
centre, in the very face of his evident understanding that these atoms,
in unlimited succession, extended throughout the Universal space. I have
already shown that, under such circumstances, there could have occurred
no movement at all; and Laplace, consequently, assumed one on no more
philosophical ground than that something of the kind was necessary for
the establishment of what he intended to establish.

His original idea seems to have been a compound of the true Epicurean
atoms with the false nebulae of his contemporaries; and thus his theory
presents us with the singular anomaly of absolute truth deduced, as a
mathematical result, from a hybrid datum of ancient imagination
intertangled with modern inacumen. Laplace's real strength lay, in fact,
in an almost miraculous mathematical instinct: -on this he relied; and
in no instance did it fail or deceive him: -in the case of the Nebular
Cosmogony, it led him, blindfolded, through a labyrinth of Error, into
one of the most luminous and stupendous temples of Truth.

Let us now fancy, for the moment, that the ring first thrown off by the
Sun -that is to say, the ring whose breaking-up constituted Neptune -did
not, in fact, break up until the throwing-off of the ring out of which
Uranus arose; that this latter ring, again, remained perfect until the
discharge of that out of which sprang Saturn; that this latter, again,
remained entire until the discharge of that from which originated
Jupiter -and so on. Let us imagine, in a word, that no dissolution
occurred among the rings until the final rejection of that which gave
birth to Mercury. We thus paint to the eye of the mind a series of
coexistent concentric circles; and looking as well at them as at the
processes by which, according to Laplace's hypothesis, they were
constructed, we perceive at once a very singular analogy with the atomic
strata and the process of the original irradiation as I have described
it. Is it impossible that, on measuring the forces, respectively, by
which each successive pla netary circle was thrown off -that is to say,
on measuring the successive excesses of rotation over gravitation which
occasioned the successive discharges -we should find the analogy in
question more decidedly confirmed? Is it improbable that we should
discover these forces to have varied -as in the original radiation
-proportional to the squares of the distances?

Our solar system, consisting, in chief, of one sun, with sixteen planets
certainly, and possibly a few more, revolving about it at various
distances, and attended by seventeen moons assuredly, but very probably
by several others -is now to be considered as an example of the
innumerable agglomerations which proceeded to take place throughout the
Universal Sphere of atoms on withdrawal of the Divine Volition. I mean
to say that our solar system is to be understood as affording a generic
instance of these agglomerations, or, more correctly, of the ulterior
conditions at which they arrived. If we keep our attention fixed on the
idea of the utmost possible Relation as the Omnipotent design, and on
the precautions taken to accomplish it through difference of form, among
the original atoms, and particular inequidistance, we shall find it
impossible to suppose for a moment that even any two of the incipient
agglomerations reached precisely the same result in the end. We shall
rather be incline d to think that no two stellar bodies in the Universe
-whether suns, planets or moons -are particularly, while are generally,
similar. Still less, then, can we imagine any two assemblages of such
bodies -any two "systems" -as having more than a general resemblance. *
Our telescopes, at this point, thoroughly confirm our deductions. Taking
our own solar system, then, as merely a loose or general type of all, we
have so far proceeded in our subject as to survey the Universe under the
aspect of a spherical space, throughout which, dispersed with merely
general equability, exist a number of but generally similar systems.

* It is not impossible that some unlooked-for optical improvement may
disclose to us, among innumerable varieties of systems, a luminous sun,
encircled by luminous and non-luminous rings, within and without and
between which, revolve luminous and non-luminous planets, attended by
moons having moons -and even these latter again having moons.

Let us now, expanding our conceptions, look upon each of these system as
in itself an atom; which in fact it is, when we consider it as but one
of the countless myriads of systems which constitute the Universe.
Regarding all, then, as but colossal atoms, each with the same
ineradicable tendency to Unity which characterizes the actual atoms of
which it consists -we enter at once upon a new order of aggregations.
The smaller systems, in the vicinity of a larger one, would, inevitably,
be drawn into still closer vicinity. A thousand would assemble here; a
million there -perhaps here, again, even a billion -leaving, thus,
immeasurable vacancies in space. And if, now, it be demanded why, in the
case of these systems -of these merely Titanic atoms -I speak, simply,
of an "assemblage," and not, as in the case of the actual atoms, of a
more or less consolidated agglomeration: -if it be asked, for instance,
why I do not carry what I suggest to its legitimate conclusion, and
describe, at once, t hese assemblages of system-atoms as rushing to
consolidation in spheres -as each becoming condensed into one
magnificent sun -my reply is that mellonta tauta -I am but pausing, for
a moment, on the awful threshold of the Future. For the present, calling
these assemblages "clusters," we see them in the incipient stages of
their consolidation. Their absolute consolidation is to come.

We have now reached a point from which we behold the Universe as a
spherical space, interspersed, unequably, with clusters. It will be
noticed that I here prefer the adverb "unequably" to the phrase "with a
merely general equability," employed before. It is evident, in fact,
that the equability of distribution will diminish in the ratio of the
agglomerative processes -that is to say, as the things distributed
diminish in number. Thus the increase of in equability - an increase
which must continue until, sooner or later an epoch will arrive at which
the largest agglomeration will absorb all the others -should be viewed
as, simply, a corroborative indication of the tendency to One.

And here, at length, it seems proper to inquire whether the ascertained
facts of Astronomy confirm the general arrangement which I have thus,
deductively, assigned to the Heavens. Thoroughly, they do. Telescopic
observation, guided by the laws of perspective, enables us to understand
that the perceptible Universe exists as a cluster of clusters,
irregularly disposed.

The "clusters" of which this Universal "cluster of clusters" consists,
are merely what we have been in the practice of designating "nebulae"
-and, of these "nebulae," one is of paramount interest to mankind. I
allude to the Galaxy, or Milky Way. This interests us, first and most
obviously, on account of its great superiority in apparent size, not
only to any one other cluster in the firmament, but to all the other
clusters taken together. The largest of these latter occupies a mere
point, comparatively, and is distinctly seen only with the aid of a
telescope. The Galaxy sweeps throughout the Heaven and is brilliantly
visible to the naked eye. But it interests man chiefly, although less
immediately, on account of its being his home; the home of the Earth on
which he exists; the home of the Sun about which this Earth revolves;
the home of that "system" of orbs of which the Sun is the centre and
primary -the Earth one of sixteen secondaries, or planets -the Moon one
of seventeen tertiarie s, or satellites. The Galaxy, let me repeat, is
but one of the clusters which I have been describing -but one of the
mis-called "nebulae" revealed to us -by the telescope alone, sometimes
-as faint hazy spots in various quarters of the sky. We have no reason
to suppose the Milky Way really more extensive than the least of these
"nebulae". Its vast superiority in size is but an apparent superiority
arising from our position in regard to it -that is to say, from our
position in its midst. However strange the assertion may at first appear
to those unversed in Astronomy, still the astronomer himself has no
hesitation in asserting that we are in the midst of that inconceivable
host of stars -of suns -of systems -which constitute the Galaxy.
Moreover, not only have we -not only has our Sun a right to claim the
Galaxy as its own especial cluster, but, with slight reservation, it may
be said that all the distinctly visible stars of the firmament -all the
stars visible to the naked eye -have eq ually a right to claim it as
their own.

There has been a great deal of misconception in respect to the shape of
the Galaxy; which, in nearly all our astronomical treatises, is said to
resemble that of a capital Y. The cluster in question has, in reality, a
certain general -very general resemblance to the planet Saturn, with its
encompassing triple ring. Instead of the solid orb of that planet,
however, we must picture to ourselves a lenticular star-island, or
collection of stars; our Sun lying excentrically -near the shore of the
island -on that side of it which is nearest the constellation of the
Cross and farthest from that of Cassiopeia. The surrounding ring, where
it approaches our position, has in it a longitudinal gash, which does in
fact, cause the ring, in our vicinity, to assume, loosely, the
appearance of a capital Y.

We must not fall into the error, however, of conceiving the somewhat
indefinite girdle as at all remote, comparatively speaking, from the
also indefinite lenticular cluster which it surrounds; and thus, for
mere purpose of explanation, we may speak of our Sun as actually
situated at that point of the Y where its three component lines unite;
and, conceiving this letter to be of a certain solidity -of a certain
thickness, very trivial in comparison with its length -we may even speak
of our position as in the middle of this thickness. Fancying ourselves
thus placed, we shall no longer find difficulty in accounting for the
phaenomena presented -which are perspective altogether. When we look
upward or downward -that is to say, when we cast our eyes in the
direction of the letter's thickness -we look through fewer stars than
when we cast them in the direction of its length, or either of the three
component lines. Of course, in the former case, the stars appear
scattered -in the latter, crowd ed. -To reverse this explanation: -An
inhabitant of the Earth, when looking, as we commonly express ourselves,
at the Galaxy, is then beholding it in some of the directions of its
length -is looking the lines of the Y -but when, looking out into the
general Heaven, he turns his eyes FR the Galaxy, he is then surveying it
in the direction of the letter's thickness; and on this account the
stars seem to him scattered; while, in fact, they are as close together,
on an average, as in the mass of the cluster. No consideration could be
better adapted to convey an idea of this cluster's stupendous extent.

If, with a telescope of high space-penetrating power, we carefully
inspect the firmament, we shall become aware of a belt of clusters -of
what we have hitherto called "nebulae" -a band, of varying breadth,
stretching from horizon to horizon, at right angles to the general
course of the Milky Way. This band is the ultimate cluster of clusters.
This belt is The Universe. Our Galaxy is but one, and perhaps one of the
most inconsiderable, of the clusters which go to the constitution of
this ultimate, Universal belt or band. The appearance of this cluster of
clusters, to our eyes, as a belt or band, is altogether a perspective
phaenomenon of the same character as that which causes us to behold our
own individual and roughly-spherical cluster, the Galaxy, under guise
also of a belt, traversing the Heavens at right angles to the Universal
one. The shape of the all-inclusive cluster is, of course generally,
that of each individual cluster which it includes. Just as the scattered
stars which, o n looking FR the Galaxy, we see in the general sky, are,
in fact, but a portion of that Galaxy itself, and as closely
intermingled with it as any of the telescopic points in what seems the
densest portion of its mass -so are the scattered "nebulae" which, on
casting our eyes FR the Universal belt, we perceive at all points of the
firmament -so, I say, are these scattered "nebulae" to be understood as
only perspectively scattered, and as part and parcel of the one supreme
and Universal sphere.

No astronomical fallacy is more untenable, and none has been more
pertinaciously adhered to, than that of the absolute illimitation of the
Universe of Stars. The reasons for limitation, as I have already
assigned them, a priori, seem to me unanswerable; but, not to speak of
these, observation assures us that there is, in numerous directions
around us, certainly, if not in all, a positive limit - or, at the very
least, affords us no basis whatever for thinking otherwise. Were the
succession of stars endless, then the background of the sky would
present us an uniform luminosity, like that displayed by the Galaxy
-since there could be absolutely no point, in all that background, at
which would not exist a star. The only mode, therefore, in which, under
such a state of affairs, we could comprehend the voids which our
telescopes find in innumerable directions, would be by supposing the
distance of the invisible background so immense that no ray from it has
yet been able to reach us at all. That this may be so, who shall venture
to deny? I maintain, simply, that we have not even the shadow of a
reason for believing that it is so.

When speaking of the vulgar propensity to regard all bodies on the Earth
as tending merely to the Earth's centre, I observed that, "with certain
exceptions to be specified hereafter, every body on the Earth tended not
only to the Earth's centre, but in every conceivable direction besides."
* The "exceptions" refer to those frequent gaps in the Heavens, where
our utmost scrutiny can detect not only no stellar bodies, but no
indications of their existence: - where yawning chasms, blacker than
Erebus, seem to afford us glimpses, through the boundary walls of the
Universe of Stars, into the illimitable Universe of Vacancy, beyond. Now
as any body, existing on the Earth, chances to pass, either through its
own movement or the Earth's, into a line with any one of these voids, or
cosmical abysses, it clearly is no longer attracted in the direction of
that void, and for the moment, consequently, is "heavier" than at any
period, either after or before. Independently of the consideration of
thes e voids however, and looking only at the generally unequable
distribution of the stars, we see that the absolute tendency of bodies
on the Earth to the Earth's centre, is in a state of perpetual
variation.

* See prevous paragraph, "Now, to what does so partial a consideration
tend..."

We comprehend, then, the insulation of our Universe. We perceive the
isolation of that -of that which we grasp with the senses. We know that
there exists one cluster of clusters -a collection around which, on all
sides, extend the immeasurable wildernesses of a Space to all human
perception untenanted. But because upon the confines of this Universe of
Stars we are compelled to pause, through want of farther evidence from
the senses, is it right to conclude that, in fact, there is no material
point beyond that which we have thus been permitted to attain? Have we,
or have we not, an analogical right to the inference that this
perceptible Universe -that this cluster of clusters -is but one of a
series of clusters of clusters, the rest of which are invisible through
distance -through the diffusion of their light being so excessive, ere
it reaches us, as not to produce upon our retinas a light-impression -or
from there being no such emanation as light at all, in these unspeakably
distant wo rlds -or, lastly, from the mere interval being so vast, that
the electric tidings of their presence in Space, have not yet -through
the lapsing myriads of years -been enabled to traverse that interval?

Have we any right to inferences -have we any ground whatever for visions
such as these? If we have a right to them in any degree, we have a right
to their infinite extension.

The human brain has obviously a leaning to the "Infinite," and fondles
the phantom of the idea. It seems to long with a passionate fervor for
this impossible conception, with the hope of intellectually believing it
when conceived. What is general among the whole race of Man, of course
no individual of that race can be warranted in considering abnormal;
nevertheless, there may be a class of superior intelligences, to whom
the human bias alluded to may wear all the character of monomania.

My question, however, remains unanswered: -Have we any right to infer
-let us say, rather, to imagine -an interminable succession of the
"clusters of clusters," or of "Universes" more or less similar?

I reply that the "right," in a case such as this, depends absolutely
upon the hardihood of that imagination which ventures to claim the
right. Let me declare, only, that, as an individual, I myself feel
impelled to the fancy -without daring to call it more -that there does
exist a limitless succession of Universes, more or less similar to that
of which we have cognizance -to that of which we shall ever have
cognizance -at the very least until the return of our own particular
Universe into Unity. If such clusters of clusters exist, however -and
they do -it is abundantly clear that, having had no part in our origin,
they have no portion in our laws. They neither attract us, nor we them.
Their material -their spirit is not ours -is not that which obtains in
any part of our Universe. They could not impress our senses or our
souls. Among them and us -considering all, for the moment, collectively
-there are no influences in common. Each exists, apart and
independently, in the bosom of its pr oper and particular God.

In the conduct of this Discourse, I am aiming less at physical than at
metaphysical order. The clearness with which even material phaenomena
are presented to the understanding, depends very little, I have long
since learned to perceive, upon a merely natural, and almost altogether
upon a moral, arrangement. If then I seem to step somewhat too
discursively from point to point of my topic, let me suggest that I do
so in the hope of thus the better keeping unbroken that chain of
graduated impression by which alone the intellect of Man can expect to
encompass the grandeurs of which I speak, and, in their majestic
totality, to comprehend them.

So far, our attention has been directed, almost exclusively, to a
general and relative grouping of the stellar bodies in space. Of
specification there has been little and whatever ideas of quantity have
been conveyed -that is to say, of number, magnitude, and distance -have
been conveyed incidentally and by way of preparation for more definitive
conceptions. These latter let us now attempt to entertain.

Our solar system, as has been already mentioned, consists, in chief, of
one sun and sixteen planets certainly, but in all probability a few
others, revolving around it as a centre, and attended by seventeen moons
of which we know, with possibly several more of which as yet we know
nothing. These various bodies are not true spheres, but oblate spheroids
-spheres flattened at the poles of the imaginary axes about which they
rotate: -the flattening being a consequence of the rotation. Neither is
the Sun absolutely the centre of the system; for this Sun itself, with
all the planets, revolves about a perpetually shifting point of space,
which is the system's general centre of gravity. Neither are we to
consider the paths through which these different spheroids move -the
moons about the planets, the planets about the Sun, or the Sun about the
common centre -as circles in an accurate sense. They are, in fact,
ellipses -one of the foci being the point about which the revolution is
made. An ell ipse is a curve, returning into itself, one of whose
diameters is longer than the other. In the longer diameter are two
points, equidistant from the middle of the line, and so situated
otherwise that if, from each of them a straight line be drawn to any one
point of the curve, the two lines, taken together, will, be equal to the
longer diameter itself. Now let us conceive such an ellipse. At one of
the points mentioned, which are the foci, let us fasten an orange. By an
elastic thread let us connect this orange with a pea; and let us place
this latter on the circumference of the ellipse. Let us now move the pea
continuously around the orange -keeping always on the circumference of
the ellipse. The elastic thread, which, of course, varies in length as
we move the pea, will form what in geometry is called a radius vector.
Now, if the orange be understood as the Sun, and the pea as a planet
revolving about it, then the revolution should be made at such a rate
-with a velocity so varying - that the radius vector may pass over equal
areas of space in equal times. The progress of the pea should be -in
other words, the progress of the planet is, of course, -slow in
proportion to its distance from the Sun -swift in proportion to its
proximity. Those planets, moreover, move the more slowly which are the
farther from the Sun; the squares of their periods of revolution having
the same proportion to each other, as have to each other the cubes of
their mean distances from the Sun.

The wonderfully complex laws of revolution here described, however, are
not to be understood as obtaining in our system alone. They everywhere
prevail where Attraction prevails. They control the Universe. Every
shining speck in the firmament is, no doubt, a luminous sun, resembling
our own, at least in its general features, and having in attendance upon
it a greater or less number of planets, greater or less, whose still
lingering luminosity is not sufficient to render them visible to us at
so vast a distance, but which, nevertheless, revolve, moon-attended,
about their starry centres, in obedience to the principles just detailed
-in obedience to the three omniprevalent laws of revolution the three
immortal laws guessed by the imaginative Kepler, and but subsequently
demonstrated and accounted for by the patient and mathematical Newton.
Among a tribe of philosophers who pride themselves excessively upon
matter-of-fact, it is far too fashionable to sneer at all speculation
under the com prehensive sobriquet, "guess-work." The point to be
considered is, who guesses. In guessing with Plato, we spend our time to
better purpose, now and then, than in hearkening to a demonstration by
Alcmaeon.

In many works on Astronomy I find it distinctly stated that the laws of
Kepler are the basis of the great principle, Gravitation. This idea must
have arisen from the fact that the suggestion of these laws by Kepler,
and his proving them a posteriori to have an actual existence, led
Newton to account for them by the hypothesis of Gravitation, and,
finally, to demonstrate them a priori, as necessary consequences of the
hypothetical principle. Thus so far from the laws of Kepler being the
basis of Gravity, Gravity is the basis of these laws -as it is, indeed,
of all the laws of the material Universe which are not referable to
Repulsion alone.

The mean distance of the Earth from the Moon -that is to say, from the
heavenly body in our closest vicinity -is 237,000 miles. Mercury, the
planet nearest the Sun, is distant from him 37 millions of miles. Venus,
the next, revolves at a distance of 68 millions: -the Earth, which comes
next, at a distance of 95 millions: -Mars, then, at a distance of 144
millions. Now come the eight Asteroids (Ceres, Juno, Vesta, Pallas,
Astraea, Flora, Iris, and Hebe) at an average distance of about 250
millions. Then we have Jupiter, distant 490 millions; then Saturn, 900
millions; then Uranus, 19 hundred millions; finally Neptune, lately
discovered, and revolving at a distance, say of 28 hundred millions.
Leaving Neptune out of the account -of which as yet we know little
accurately and which is, possibly, one of a system of Asteroids -it will
be seen that, within certain limits, there exists an order of interval
among the planets. Speaking loosely, we may say that each outer planet
is twice as far f rom the Sun as is the next inner one. May not the
order here mentioned -may not the law of Bode -be deduced from
consideration of the analogy suggested by me as having place between the
solar discharge of rings and the mode of the atomic irradiation?

The numbers hurriedly mentioned in this summary of distance, it is folly
to attempt comprehending, unless in the light of abstract arithmetical
facts. They are not practically tangible ones. They convey no precise
ideas. I have stated that Neptune, the planet farthest from the Sun,
revolves about him at a distance of 28 hundred millions of miles. So far
good: -I have stated a mathematical fact; and, without comprehending it
in the least, we may put it to use -mathematically. But in mentioning,
even, that the Moon revolves about the Earth at the comparatively
trifling distance of 237,000 miles, I entertained no expectation of
giving any one to understand -to know -to feel -how far from the Earth
the Moon actually is. 237,000 miles! There are, perhaps, few of my
readers who have not crossed the Atlantic ocean; yet how many of them
have a distinct idea of even the 3,000 miles intervening between shore
and shore? I doubt, indeed, whether the man lives who can force into his
brain the most remote conception of the interval between one milestone
and its next neighbor upon the turnpike. We are in some measure aided,
however, in our consideration of distance, by combining this
consideration with the kindred one of velocity. Sound passes through
1100 feet of space in a second of time. Now were it possible for an
inhabitant of the Earth to see the flash of a cannon discharged in the
Moon, and to hear the report, he would have to wait, after perceiving
the former, more than 13 entire days and nights before getting any
intimation of the latter.

However feeble be the impression, even thus conveyed, of the Moon's real
distance from the Earth, it will, nevertheless, effect a good object in
enabling us more clearly to see the futility of attempting to grasp such
intervals as that of the 28 hundred millions of miles between our Sun
and Neptune; or even that of the 95 millions between the Sun and the
Earth we inhabit. A cannon-ball, flying at the greatest velocity with
which a ball has ever been known to fly, could not traverse the latter
interval in less than 20 years; while for the former it would require
590.

Our Moon's real diameter is 2160 miles; yet she is comparatively so
trifling an object that it would take nearly 50 such orbs to compose one
as great as the Earth.

The diameter of our own globe is 7912 miles -but from the enunciation of
these numbers what positive idea do we derive?

If we ascend an ordinary mountain and look around us from its summit, we
behold a landscape stretching, say 40 miles, in every direction; forming
a circle 250 miles in circumference; and including an area of 5000
square miles. The extent of such a prospect, on account of the
successiveness with which its portions necessarily present themselves to
view, can be only very feebly and very partially appreciated: -yet the
entire panorama would comprehend no more than one 40,000th part of the
mere surface of our globe. Were this panorama, then, to be succeeded,
after the lapse of an hour, by another of equal extent; this again by a
third, after the lapse of another hour; this again by a fourth after
lapse of another hour - and so on, until the scenery of the whole Earth
were exhausted; and were we to be engaged in examining these various
panoramas for twelve hours of every day; we should nevertheless, be 9
years and 48 days in completing the general survey.

But if the mere surface of the Earth eludes the grasp of the
imagination, what are we to think of its cubical contents? It embraces a
mass of matter equal in weight to at least 2 sextillions, 200
quintillions of tons. Let us suppose it in a state of quiescence; and
now let us endeavor to conceive a mechanical force sufficient to set it
in motion! Not the strength of all the myriads of beings whom we may
conclude to inhabit the planetary worlds of our system -not the combined
physical strength of these beings -even admitting all to be more
powerful than man -would avail to stir the ponderous mass a single inch
from its position.

What are we to understand, then, of the force, which under similar
circumstances, would be required to move the LA0 of our planets,
Jupiter? This is 86,000 miles in diameter, and would include within its
periphery more than a thousand orbs of the magnitude of our own. Yet
this stupendous body is actually flying around the Sun at the rate of
29,000 miles an hour -that is to say, with a velocity 40 times greater
than that of a cannon-ball! The thought of such a phaenomenon cannot
well be said to startle the mind: -it palsies and appals it. Not
unfrequently we task our imagination in picturing the capacities of an
angel. Let us fancy such a being at a distance of some hundred miles
from Jupiter -a close eye-witness of this planet as it speeds on its
annual revolution. Now can we, I demand, fashion for ourselves any
conception so distinct of this ideal being's spiritual exaltation, as
that involved in the supposition that, even by this immeasurable mass of
matter, whirled immediately befor e his eyes, with a velocity so
unutterable, he -an angel -angelic though he be -is not at once struck
into nothingness and overwhelmed?

At this point, however, it seems proper to suggest that, in fact, we
have been speaking of comparative trifles. Our Sun -the central and
controlling orb of the system to which Jupiter belongs, is not only
greater than Jupiter, but greater by far than all the planets of the
system taken together. This fact is an essential condition, indeed, of
the stability of the system itself. The diameter of Jupiter has been
mentioned: -it is 86,000 miles: -that of the Sun is 882,000 miles. An
inhabitant of the latter, traveling 90 miles a day, would be more than
80 years in going round a great circle of its circumference. It occupies
a cubical space of 681 quadrillions, 472 trillions of miles. The Moon,
as has been stated, revolves about the Earth at a distance of 237,000
miles -in an orbit, consequently, of nearly a million and a half. Now,
were the Sun placed upon the Earth, centre over centre, the body of the
former would extend, in every direction, not only to the line of the
Moon's orbit, but b eyond it, a distance of 200,000 miles.

And here, once again, let me suggest that, in fact, we have still been
speaking of comparative trifles. The distance of the planet Neptune from
the Sun has been stated: -it is 28 hundred millions of miles; the
circumference of its orbit, therefore, is about 17 billions. Let this be
borne in mind while we glance at some one of the brightest stars.
Between this and the star of our system, (the Sun,) there is a gulf of
space, to convey any idea of which we should need the tongue of an
archangel. From our system, then, and from our Sun, or star, the star at
which we suppose ourselves glancing is a thing altogether apart: -still,
for the moment, let us imagine it placed upon our Sun, centre over
centre, as we just now imagined this Sun itself placed upon the Earth.
Let us now conceive the particular star we have in mind, extending, in
every direction, beyond the orbit of Mercury -of Venus -of the Earth:
-still on, beyond the orbit of Mars -of Jupiter -of Uranus -until,
finally, we fancy it filling the circle -17 billions of miles in
circumference -which is described by the revolution of Leverrier's
planet. When we have conceived all this, we shall have entertained no
extravagant conception. There is the very best reason for believing that
many of the stars are even far larger than the one we have imagined. I
mean to say that we have the very best empirical basis for such belief:
-and, in looking back at the original, atomic arrangements for
diversity, which have been assumed as a part of the Divine plan in the
constitution of the Universe, we shall be enabled easily to understand,
and to credit, the existence of even far vaster disproportions in
stellar size than any to which I have hitherto alluded. The largest
orbs, of course, we must expect to find rolling through the widest
vacancies of Space.

I remarked, just now, that to convey an idea of the interval between our
Sun and any one of the other stars, we should require the eloquence of
an archangel. In so saying, I should not be accused of exaggeration;
for, in simple truth, these are topics on which it is scarcely possible
to exaggerate. But let us bring the matter more distinctly before the
eye of the mind.

In the first place, we may get a general, relative conception of the
interval referred to, by comparing it with the inter-planetary spaces.
If, for example, we suppose the Earth, which is, in reality, 95 millions
of miles from the Sun, to be only one foot from that luminary; then
Neptune would be 40 feet distant; and the star Alpha Lyrae, at the very
least, 159.

Now I presume that, in the termination of my last sentence, few of my
readers have noticed anything especially objectionable - particularly
wrong. I said that the distance of the Earth from the Sun being taken at
one foot, the distance of Neptune would be 40 feet, and that of Alpha
Lyrae, 159. The proportion between one foot and 159, has appeared,
perhaps, to convey a sufficiently definite impression of the proportion
between the two intervals -that of the Earth from the Sun and that of
Alpha Lyrae from the same luminary. But my account of the matter should,
in reality, have run thus: -The distance of the Earth from the Sun being
taken at one foot, the distance of Neptune would be 40 feet, and that of
Alpha Lyrae, 159 -miles: -that is to say, I had assigned to Alpha Lyrae,
in my first statement of the case, only the 5280th part of that distance
which is the least distance possible at which it can actually lie.

To proceed: However distant a mere PL0,0, is, yet when we look at it
through a telescope, we see it under a certain form -of a certain
appreciable size. Now I have already hinted at the probable bulk of many
of the stars; nevertheless, when we view any one of them, even through
the most powerful telescope, it is found to present us with no form, and
consequently with no magnitude whatever. We see it as a point and
nothing more.

Again; -Let us suppose ourselves walking, at night, on a highway. In a
field on one side of the road, is a line of tall objects, say trees, the
figures of which are distinctly defined against the background of the
sky. This line of objects extends at right angles to the road, and from
the road to the horizon. Now, as we proceed along the road, we see these
objects changing their positions, respectively, in relation to a certain
fixed point in that portion of the firmament which forms the background
of the view. Let us suppose this fixed point -sufficiently fixed for our
purpose -to be the rising moon. We become aware, at once, that while the
tree nearest us so far alters its position in respect to the moon, as to
seem flying behind us, the tree in the extreme distance has scarcely
changed at all its relative position with the satellite. We then go on
to perceive that the farther the objects are from us, the less they
alter their positions; and the converse. Then we begin, unwittingly, to
estimate the distances of individual trees by the degrees in which they
evince the relative alteration. Finally, we come to understand how it
might be possible to ascertain the actual distance of any given tree in
the line, by using the amount of relative alteration as a basis in a
simple geometrical problem. Now this relative alteration is what we call
"parallax;" and by parallax we calculate the distances of the heavenly
bodies. Applying the principle to the trees in question, we should, of
course, be very much at a loss to comprehend the distance of that tree,
which, however far we proceeded along the road, should evince no
parallax at all. This, in the case described, is a thing impossible; but
impossible only because all distances on our Earth are trivial indeed:
-in comparison with the vast cosmical quantities, we may speak of them
as absolutely nothing.

Now, let us suppose the star Alpha Lyrae directly overhead; and let us
imagine that, instead of standing on the Earth, we stand at one end of a
straight road stretching through Space to a distance equalling the
diameter of the Earth's orbit -that is to say, to a distance of 190
millions of miles. Having observed, by means of the most delicate
micrometrical instruments, the exact position of the star, let us now
pass along this inconceivable road, until we reach its other extremity.
Now, once again, let us look at the star. It is precisely where we left
it. Our instruments, however delicate, assure us that its relative
position is absolutely -is identically the same as at the commencement
of our unutterable journey. No parallax - none whatever -has been found.

The fact is, that, in regard to the distance of the fixed stars - of any
one of the myriads of suns glistening on the farther side of that awful
chasm which separates our system from its brothers in the cluster to
which it belongs -astronomical science, until very lately, could speak
only with a negative certainty. Assuming the brightest as the nearest,
we could say, even of them, only that there is a certain
incomprehensible distance on the hither side of which they cannot be:
-how far they are beyond it we had in no case been able to ascertain. We
perceived, for example, that Alpha Lyrae cannot be nearer to us than 19
trillions, 200 billions of miles; but, for all we knew, and indeed for
all we now know, it may be distant from us the square, or the cube, or
any other power of the number mentioned. By dint, however, of
wonderfully minute and cautious observations, continued, with novel
instruments, for many laborious years, Bessel, not long ago deceased,
has lately succeeded in determ ining the distance of six or seven stars;
among others, that of the star numbered 61 in the constellation of the
Swan. The distance in this latter instance ascertained, is 670,000 times
that of the Sun; which last it will be remembered, is 95 millions of
miles. The star 61 Cygni, then, is nearly 64 trillions of miles from us
-or more than three times the distance assigned, as the least possible,
for Alpha Lyrae.

In attempting to appreciate this interval by the aid of any
considerations of velocity, as we did in endeavoring to estimate the
distance of the moon, we must leave out of sight, altogether, such
nothings as the speed of a cannon ball, or of sound. Light, however,
according to the latest calculations of Struve, proceeds at the rate of
167,000 miles in a second. Thought itself cannot pass through this
interval more speedily -if, indeed, thought can traverse it at all. Yet,
in coming from 61 Cygni to us, even at this inconceivable rate, light
occupies more than ten years; and, consequently, were the star this
moment blotted out from the Universe, still, for ten years, would it
continue to sparkle on, undimmed in its paradoxical glory.

Keeping now in mind whatever feeble conception we may have attained of
the interval between our Sun and 61 Cygni, let us remember that this
interval, however unutterably vast, we are permitted to consider as but
the average interval among the countless host of stars composing that
cluster, or "nebula," to which our system, as well as that of 61 Cygni,
belongs. I have, in fact, stated the case with great moderation we have
excellent reason for believing 61 Cygni to be one of the nearest stars,
and thus for concluding, at least for the present, that its distance
from us is less than the average distance between star and star in the
magnificent cluster of the Milky Way.

And here, once again and finally, it seems proper to suggest that even
as yet we have been speaking of trifles. Ceasing to wonder at the space
between star and star in our own or in any particular cluster, let us
rather turn our thoughts to the intervals between cluster and cluster,
in the all comprehensive cluster of the Universe.

I have already said that light proceeds at the rate of 167,000 miles in
a second -that is, about 10 millions of miles in a minute, or about 600
millions of miles in an hour: -yet so far removed from us are some of
the "nebulae" that even light, speeding with this velocity, could not
and does not reach us, from those mysterious regions, in less than 3
millions of years. This calculation, moreover, is made by the elder
Herschel, and in reference merely to those comparatively proximate
clusters within the scope of his own telescope. There are "nebulae,"
however, which, through the magical tube of Lord Rosse, are this instant
whispering in our ears the secrets of a million of ages by-gone. In a
word, the events which we behold now -at this moment -in those worlds
-are the identical events which interested their inhabitants ten hundred
thousand centuries ago. In intervals -in distances such as this
suggestion forces upon the soul -rather than upon the mind -we find, at
length, a fitting cli max to all hitherto frivolous considerations of
quantity.

Our fancies thus occupied with the cosmical distances, let us take the
opportunity of referring to the difficulty which we have so often
experienced, while pursuing the beaten path of astronomical reflection,
in accounting for the immeasurable voids alluded to - in comprehending
why chasms so totally unoccupied and therefore apparently so needless,
have been made to intervene between star and star -between cluster and
cluster -in understanding, to be brief, a sufficient reason for the
Titanic scale, in respect of mere Space, on which the Universe is seen
to be constructed. A rational cause for the phaenomenon, I maintain that
Astronomy has palpably failed to assign: -but the considerations through
which, in this Essay, we have proceeded step by step, enable us clearly
and immediately to perceive that Space and Duration are one. That the
Universe might endure throughout an aera at all commensurate with the
grandeur of its component material portions and with the high majesty of
its spir itual purposes, it was necessary that the original atomic
diffusion be made to so inconceivable an extent as to be only not
infinite. It was required, in a word, that the stars should be gathered
into visibility from invisible nebulosity -proceed from nebulosity to
consolidation -and so grow grey in giving birth and death to unspeakably
numerous and complex variations of vitalic development it was required
that the stars should do all this - should have time thoroughly to
accomplish all these Divine purposes - during the period in which all
things were effecting their return into Unity with a velocity
accumulating in the inverse proportion of the squares of the distances
at which lay the inevitable End.

Throughout all this we have no difficulty in understanding the absolute
accuracy of the Divine adaptation. The density of the stars,
respectively, proceeds, of course, as their condensation diminishes;
condensation and heterogeneity keep pace with each other; through the
latter, which is the index of the former, we estimate the vitalic and
spiritual development. Thus, in the density of the globes, we have the
measure in which their purposes are fulfilled. As density proceeds -as
the divine intentions are accomplished -as less and still less remains
to be accomplished - so -in the same ratio -should we expect to find an
acceleration of the End: -and thus the philosophical mind will easily
comprehend that the Divine designs in constituting the stars, advance
mathematically to their fulfilment: -and more; it will readily give the
advance a mathematical expression; it will decide that this advance is
inversely proportional with the squares of the distances of all created
things from the st arting-point and goal of their creation.

Not only is this Divine adaptation, however, mathematically accurate,
but there is that about it which stamps it as divine, in distinction
from that which is merely the work of human constructiveness. I allude
to the complete mutuality of adaptation. For example; in human
constructions a particular cause has a particular effect; a particular
intention brings to pass a particular object; but this is all; we see no
reciprocity. The effect does not re-act upon the cause; the intention
does not change relations with the object. In Divine constructions the
object is either design or object as we choose to regard it -and we may
take at any time a cause for an effect, or the converse -so that we can
never absolutely decide which is which.

To give an instance: -In polar climates the human frame, to maintain its
animal heat, requires, for combustion in the capillary system, an
abundant supply of highly azotized food, such as train-oil. But again:
-in polar climates nearly the sole food afforded man is the oil of
abundant seals and whales. Now, whether is oil at hand because
imperatively demanded, or the only thing demanded because the only thing
to be obtained? It is impossible to decide. There is an absolute
reciprocity of adaptation.

The pleasure which we derive from any display of human ingenuity is in
the ratio of the approach to this species of reciprocity. In the
construction of plot, for example, in fictitious literature, we should
aim at so arranging the incidents that we shall not be able to
determine, of any one of them, whether it depends from any one other or
upholds it. In this sense, of course, perfection of PL0, is really, or
practically, unattainable -but only because it is a finite intelligence
that constructs. The plots of God are perfect. The Universe is a plot of
God.

And now we have reached a point at which the intellect is forced, again,
to struggle against its propensity for analogical inference - against
its monomaniac grasping at the infinite. Moons have been seen revolving
about planets; planets about stars; and the poetical instinct of
humanity -its instinct of the symmetrical, if the symmetry be but a
symmetry of surface: -this instinct, which the Soul, not only of Man but
of all created beings, took up, in the beginning, from the geometrical
basis of the Universal irradiation -impels us to the fancy of an endless
extension of this system of cycles. Closing our eyes equally to de
duction and in duction, we insist upon imagining a revolution of all the
orbs of the Galaxy about some gigantic globe which we take to be the
central pivot of the whole. Each cluster in the great cluster of
clusters is imagined, of course, to be similarly supplied and
constructed; while, that the "analogy" may be wanting at no point, we go
on to conceive these clust ers themselves, again, as revolving about
some still more august sphere; -this latter, still again, with its
encircling clusters, as but one of a yet more magnificent series of
agglomerations, gyrating about yet another orb central to them -some orb
still more unspeakably sublime -some orb, let us rather say, of infinite
sublimity endlessly multiplied by the infinitely sublime. Such are the
conditions, continued in perpetuity, which the voice of what some people
term "analogy" calls upon the Fancy to depict and the Reason to
contemplate, if possible, without becoming dissatisfied with the
picture. Such, in general, are the interminable gyrations beyond
gyration which we have been instructed by Philosophy to comprehend and
to account for, at least in the best manner we can. Now and then,
however, a philosopher proper - one whose frenzy takes a very
determinate turn -whose genius, to speak more reverentially, has a
strongly-pronounced washer-womanish bias, doing every thing up by the
doz en -enables us to see precisely that point out of sight, at which
the revolutionary processes in question do, and of right ought to, come
to an end.

It is hardly worth while, perhaps, even to sneer at the reveries of
Fourrier -but much has been said, latterly, of the hypothesis of Madler
-that there exists, in the centre of the Galaxy, a stupendous globe
about which all the systems of the cluster revolve. The period of our
own, indeed, has been stated -117 millions of years.

That our Sun has a motion in space, independently of its rotation, and
revolution about the system's centre of gravity, has long been
suspected. This motion, granting it to exist, would be manifested
perspectively. The stars in that firmamental region which we were
leaving behind us, would, in a very long series of years, become
crowded; those in the opposite quarter, scattered. Now, by means of
astronomical History, we ascertain, cloudily, that some such phaenomena
have occurred. On this ground it has been declared that our system is
moving to a point in the heavens diametrically opposite the star Zeta
Herculis: -but this inference is, perhaps, the maximum to which we have
any logical right. Madler, however, has gone so far as to designate a
particular star, Alcyone in the Pleiades, as being at or about the very
spot around which a general revolution is performed.

Now, since by "analogy" we are led, in the first instance, to these
dreams, it is no more than proper that we should abide by analogy, at
least in some measure, during their development; and that analogy which
suggests the revolution, suggests at the same time a central orb about
which it should be performed -so far the astronomer was consistent. This
central orb, however, should, dynamically, be greater than all the orbs,
taken together, which surround it. Of these there are about 100
millions. "Why, then," it was of course demanded, "do we not see this
vast central sun -at least equal in mass to 100 millions of such suns as
ours -why do we not see it -we, especially, who occupy the mid region of
the cluster -the very locality near which, at all events, must be
situated this incomparable star?" The reply was ready -"It must be
non-luminous, as are our planets." Here, then, to suit a purpose,
analogy is suddenly let fall. "Not so," it may be said -"we know that
non-luminous suns actual ly exist." It is true that we have reason at
least for supposing so; but we have certainly no reason whatever for
supposing that the non-luminous suns in question are encircled by
luminous suns, while these again are surrounded by non-luminous planets
and it is precisely all this with which Madler is called upon to find
any thing analogous in the heavens -for it is precisely all this which
he imagines in the case of the Galaxy. Admitting the thing to be so, we
cannot help here picturing to ourselves how sad a puzzle the why is it
so must prove to all a priori philosophers.

But granting, in the very teeth of analogy and of every thing else, the
non-luminosity of the vast central orb, we may still inquire how this
orb, so enormous, could fail of being rendered visible by the flood of
light thrown upon it from the 100 millions of glorious suns glaring in
all directions about it. Upon the urging of this question, the idea of
an actually solid central sun appears, in some measure, to have been
abandoned; and speculation proceeded to assert that the systems of the
cluster perform their revolutions merely about an immaterial centre of
gravity common to all. Here again then, to suit a purpose, analogy is
let fall. The planets of our system revolve, it is true, about a common
centre of gravity; but they do this in connexion with, and in
consequence of, a material sun whose mass more than counterbalances the
rest of the system.

The mathematical circle is a curve composed of an infinity of straight
lines. But this idea of the circle -an idea which in view of all
ordinary geometry, is merely the mathematical, as contradistinguished
from the practical, idea -is, in sober fact, the practical conception
which alone we have any right to entertain in regard to the majestic
circle with which we have to deal, at least in fancy, when we suppose
our system revolving about a point in the centre of the Galaxy. Let the
most vigorous of human imaginations attempt but to take a single step
towards the comprehension of a sweep so ineffable! It would scarcely be
paradoxical to say that a flash of lightning itself, travelling forever
upon the circumference of this unutterable circle, would still, forever,
be travelling in a straight line. That the path of our Sun in such an
orbit would, to any human perception, deviate in the slightest degree
from a straight line, even in a million of years, is a proposition not
to be entertain ed: -yet we are required to believe that a curvature has
become apparent during the brief period of our astronomical history -
during a mere point -during the utter nothingness of two or three
thousand years.

It may be said that Madler has really ascertained a curvature in the
direction of our system's now well-established progress through Space.
Admitting, if necessary, this fact to be in reality such, I maintain
that nothing is thereby shown except the reality of this fact the fact
of a curvature. For its thorough determination, ages will be required;
and, when determined, it will be found indicative of some binary or
other multiple relation between our Sun and some one or more of the
proximate stars. I hazard nothing however, in predicting, that, after
the lapse of many centuries, all efforts at determining the path of our
sun through Space, will be abandoned as fruitless. This is easily
conceivable when we look at the infinity of perturbation it must
experience, from its perpetually-shifting relations with other orbs, in
the common approach of all to the nucleus of the Galaxy.

But in examining other "nebulae" than that of the Milky Way -in
surveying, generally, the clusters which overspread the heavens -do we
or do we not find confirmation of Madler's hypothesis? We do not. The
forms of the clusters are exceedingly diverse when casually viewed; but
on close inspection, through powerful telescopes, we recognize the
sphere, very distinctly, as at least the proximate form of all: -their
constitution, in general, being at variance with the idea of revolution
about a common centre.

"It is difficult," says Sir John Herschel, "to form any conception of
the dynamical state of such systems. On one hand, without a rotary
motion and a centrifugal force, it is hardly possible not to regard them
as in a state of progressive collapse. On the other, granting such a
motion and such a force, we find it no less difficult to reconcile their
forms with the rotation of the whole system [meaning cluster] around any
single axis, without which internal collision would appear to be
inevitable."

Some remarks lately made about the "nebulae" by Dr. Nichol, in taking
quite a different view of the cosmical conditions from any taken in this
Discourse -have a very peculiar applicability to the point now at issue.
He says:

"When our greatest telescopes are brought to bear upon them, we find
that those which were thought to be irregular, are not so; they approach
nearer to a globe. Here is one that looked oval; but Lord Rosse's
telescope brought it into a circle.... Now there occurs a very
remarkable circumstance in reference to these comparatively sweeping
circular masses of nebulae. We find they are not entirely circular, but
the reverse; and that all around them, on every side, there are volumes
of stars, stretching out apparently as if they were rushing towards a
great central mass in consequence of the action of some great power." *

* I must be understood as denying, especially, only the revolutionary
portion of Madler's hypothesis. Of course, if no great central orb
exists now in our cluster, such will exist hereafter. Whenever existing,
it will be merely the nucleus of the consolidation.

Were I to describe, in my own words, what must necessarily be the
existing condition of each nebula on the hypothesis that all matter is,
as I suggest, now returning to its original Unity, I should simply be
going over, nearly verbatim, the language here employed by Dr. Nichol,
without the faintest suspicion of that stupendous truth which is the key
to these nebular phaenomena.

And here let me fortify my position still farther, by the voice of a
greater than Madler -of one, moreover, to whom all the data of Madler
have long been familiar things, carefully and thoroughly considered.
Referring to the elaborate calculations of Argelander -the very
researches which form Madler's basis -Humboldt, whose generalizing
powers have never, perhaps been equalled, has the following observation:

"When we regard the real, proper, or non-perspective motions of the
stars, we find many groups of them moving in opposite directions; and
the data as yet in hand render it not necessary, at least, to conceive
that the systems composing the Milky Way, or the clusters, generally,
composing the Universe, are revolving about any particular centre
unknown, whether luminous or non-luminous. It is but Man's longing for a
fundamental First Cause, that impels both his intellect and fancy to the
adoption of such an hypothesis." *

* Betrachtet man die nicht perspectivischen eigenen Bewegungen der
Sterne, so scheinen viele gruppenweise in ihrer Richtung
entgegengesetzt; und die bisher gesammelten Thatsachen machen es auf's
wenigste nicht nothwendig, anzunehmen, dass alle Theile unserer
Sternenschicht oder gar der gesammten Sterneninseln, welche den Weltraum
fullen, sich um einen grossen, unbekannten, leuchtenden oder dunkeln
Centralkorper bewegen. Das Streben nach den letzten und hochsten
Grundursachen macht freilich die reflectirende Thatigkeit des Menschen,
wie seine Phantasie, zu einer solchen Annahme geneigt.

The phaenomenon here alluded to -that of "many groups moving in opposite
directions" -is quite inexplicable by Madler's idea; but arises, as a
necessary consequence, from that which forms the basis of this
Discourse. While the merely general direction of each atom - of each
moon, planet, star, or cluster -would, on my hypothesis, be, of course,
absolutely rectilinear; while the general path of all bodies would be a
right line leading to the centre of all; it is clear, nevertheless, that
this general rectilinearity would be compounded of what, with scarcely
any exaggeration, we may term an infinity of particular curves -an
infinity of local deviations from rectilinearity -the result of
continuous differences of relative position among the multudinous masses
as each proceeded on its own proper journey to the End.

I quoted, just now, from Sir John Herschel, the following words, used in
reference to the clusters: -"On one hand, without a rotary motion and a
centrifugal force, it is hardly possible not to regard them as in a
state of progressive collapse." The fact is, that, in surveying the
"nebulae" with a telescope of high power, we shall find it quite
impossible, having once conceived this idea of "collapse," not to
gather, at all points, corroboration of the idea. A nucleus is always
apparent, in the direction of which the stars seem to be precipitating
themselves; nor can these nuclei be mistaken for merely perspective
phaenomena: -the clusters are really denser near the centre -sparser in
the regions more remote from it. In a word, we see every thing as we
should see it were a collapse taking place; but, in general, it may be
said of these clusters, that we can fairly entertain, while looking at
them, the idea of orbitual movement about a centre, only by admitting
the possible existence, in the distant domains of space, of dynamical
laws with which we are unacquainted.

On the part of Herschel, however, there is evidently a reluctance to
regard the nebulae as in "a state of progressive collapse." But if facts
-if even appearances justify the supposition of their being in this
state, why, it may well be demanded, is he disinclined to admit it?
Simply on account of a prejudice; -merely because the supposition is at
war with a preconceived and utterly baseless notion -that of the
endlessness -that of the eternal stability of the Universe.

If the propositions of this Discourse are tenable, the "state of
progressive collapse" is precisely that state in which alone we are
warranted in considering All Things; and, with due humility, let me here
confess that, for my part, I am at a loss to conceive how any other
understanding of the existing condition of affairs, could ever have made
its way into the human brain. "The tendency to collapse" and "the
attraction of gravitation" are convertible phrases. In using either, we
speak of the reaction of the First Act. Never was necessity less obvious
than that of supposing Matter imbued with an ineradicable quality
forming part of its material nature -a quality, or instinct, forever
inseparable from it, and by dint of which inalienable principle every
atom is perpetually impelled to seek its fellow-atom. Never was
necessity less obvious than that of entertaining this unphilosophical
idea. Going boldly behind the vulgar thought, we have to conceive,
metaphysically, that the gravitating principle appertains to Matter
temporarily -only while diffused - only while existing as Many instead
of as One -appertains to it by virtue of its state of irradiation alone
-appertains, in a word, altogether to its Condition, and not in the
slightest degree to itself. In this view, when the irradiation shall
have returned into its source -when the reaction shall be completed -the
gravitating principle will no longer exist. And, in fact, astronomers,
without at any time reaching the idea here suggested, seem to have been
approximating it, in the assertion that "if there were but one body in
the Universe, it would be impossible to understand how the principle,
Gravity, could obtain": -that is to say, from a consideration of Matter
as they find it, they reach a conclusion at which I deductively arrive.
That so pregnant a suggestion as the one quoted should have been
permitted to remain so long unfruitful, is, nevertheless, a mystery
which I find it difficult to fathom.

It is, perhaps, in no little degree, however, our propensity for the
continuous -for the analogical -in the present case more particularly
for the symmetrical which has been leading us astray. And, in fact, the
sense of the symmetrical is an instinct which may be depended upon with
an almost blindfold reliance. It is the poetical essence of the Universe
-OF0,0 which, in the supremeness of its symmetry, is but the most
sublime of poems. Now symmetry and consistency are convertible terms:
-thus Poetry and Truth are one. A thing is consistent in the ratio of
its truth -true in the ratio of its consistency. A Perfect consistency,
I repeat, can be nothing but a absolute truth. We may take it for
granted, then, that Man cannot long or widely err, if he suffer himself
to be guided by his poetical, which I have maintained to be his
truthful, in being his symmetrical, instinct. He must have a care,
however, lest, in pursuing too heedlessly the superficial symmetry of
forms and motions, he leave out of sight the really essential symmetry
of the principles which determine and control them.

That the stellar bodies would finally be merged in one -that, at last,
all would be drawn into the substance of one stupendous central orb
already existing -is an idea which, for some time past, seems, vaguely
and indeterminately, to have held possession of the fancy of mankind. It
is an idea, in fact, which belongs to the class of the excessively
obvious. It springs, instantly, from a superficial observation of the
cyclic and seemingly gyrating, or vorticial movements of those
individual portions of the Universe which come most immediately and most
closely under our observation. There is not, perhaps, a human being, of
ordinary education and of average reflective capacity, to whom, at some
period, the fancy inquestion has not occurred, as if spontaneously, or
intuitively, and wearing all the character of a very profound and very
original conception. This conception, however, so commonly entertained,
has never, within my knowledge, arisen out of any abstract
considerations. Being, on t he contrary, always suggested, as I say, by
the vorticial movements about centres, a reason for it, also, -a cause
for the ingathering of all the orbs into one, imagined to be already
existing, was naturally sought in the same direction -among these cyclic
movements themselves.

Thus it happened that, on announcement of the gradual and perfectly
regular decrease observed in the orbit of Enck's comet, at every
successive revolution about our Sun, astronomers were nearly unanimous
in the opinion that the cause in question was found -that a principle
was discovered sufficient to account, physically, for that final,
universal agglomeration which, I repeat, the analogical, symmetrical or
poetical instinct of Man had predetermined to understand as something
more than a simple hypothesis.

This cause -this sufficient reason for the final ingathering -was
declared to exist in an exceedingly rare but still material medium
pervading space; which medium, by retarding, in some degree, the
progress of the comet, perpetually weakened its tangential force; thus
giving a predominance to the centripetal; which, of course, drew the
comet nearer and nearer at each revolution, and would eventually
precipitate it upon the Sun.

All this was strictly logical -admitting the medium or ether; but this
ether was assumed, most illogically, on the ground that no other mode
than the one spoken of could be discovered, of accounting for the
observed decrease in the orbit of the comet: -as if from the fact that
we could discover no other mode of accounting for it, it followed, in
any respect, that no other mode of accounting for it existed. It is
clear that innumerable causes might operate, in combination, to diminish
the orbit, without even a possibility of our ever becoming acquainted
with one of them. In the meantime, it has never been fairly shown,
perhaps, why the retardation occasioned by the skirts of the Sun's
atmosphere, through which the comet passes at perihelion, is not enough
to account for the phaenomenon. That Enck's comet will be absorbed into
the Sun, is probable; that all the comets of the system will be
absorbed, is more than merely possible; but, in such case, the principle
of absorption must be refe rred to eccentricity of orbit -to the close
approximation to the Sun, of the comets at their perihelia; and is a
principle not affecting, in any degree, the ponderous spheres, which are
to be regarded as the true material constituents of the Universe. -
Touching comets, in general, let me here suggest, in passing, that we
cannot be far wrong in looking upon them as the lightning-flashes of the
cosmical Heaven.

The idea of a retarding ether and, through it, of a final agglomeration
of all things, seemed at one time, however, to be confirmed by the
observation of a positive decrease in the orbit of the solid moon. By
reference to eclipses recorded 2500 years ago, it was found that the
velocity of the satellite's revolution then was considerably less than
it is now; that on the hypothesis that its motions in its orbit is
uniformly in accordance with Kepler's law, and was accurately determined
then -2500 years ago -it is now in advance of the position it should
occupy, by nearly 9000 miles. The increase of velocity proved, of
course, a diminution of orbit; and astronomers were fast yielding to a
belief in an ether, as the sole mode of accounting for the phaenomenon,
when Lagrange came to the rescue. He showed that, owing to the
configurations of the spheroids, the shorter axes of their ellipses are
subject to variation in length; the longer axes being permanent; and
that this variation is contin uous and vibratory -so that every orbit is
in a state of transition, either from circle to ellipse, or from ellipse
to circle. In the case of the moon, where the shorter axis is de
creasing, the orbit is passing from circle to ellipse, and,
consequently, is de creasing too; but, after a long series of ages, the
ultimate eccentricity will be attained; then the shorter axis will
proceed to in crease, until the orbit becomes a circle; when the process
of shortening will again take place; -and so on forever. In the case of
the Earth, the orbit is passing from ellipse to circle. The facts thus
demonstrated do away, of course, with all necessity for supposing an
ether, and with all apprehension of the system's instability -on the
ether's account.

It will be remembered that I have myself assumed what we may term an
ether. I have spoken of a subtle influence which we know to be ever in
attendance upon matter, although becoming manifest only through matter's
heterogeneity. To this influence -without daring to touch it at all in
any effort at explaining its awful nature -I have referred the various
phaenomena of electricity, heat, light, magnetism; and more -of
vitality, consciousness, and thought -in a word, of spirituality. It
will be seen, at once, then, that the ether thus conceived is radically
distinct from the ether of the astronomers; inasmuch as theirs is matter
and mine not.

With the idea of material ether, seems, thus, to have departed
altogether the thought of that universal agglomeration so long
predetermined by the poetical fancy of mankind: -an agglomeration in
which a sound Philosophy might have been warranted in putting faith, at
least to a certain extent, if for no other reason than that by this
poetical fancy it had been so predetermined. But so far as Astronomy -so
far as mere Physics have yet spoken, the cycles of the Universe are
perpetual -the Universe has no conceivable end. Had an end been
demonstrated, however, from so purely collateral a cause as an ether,
Man's instinct of the Divine capacity to adapt, would have rebelled
against the demonstration. We should have been forced to regard the
Universe with some such sense of dissatisfaction as we experience in
contemplating an unnecessarily complex work of human art. Creation would
have affected us as an imperfect PL0, in a romance, where the denoument
is awkwardly brought about by interposed incidents external and foreign
to the main subject; instead of springing out of the bosom of the thesis
-out of the heart of the ruling idea -instead of arising as a result of
the primary proposition -as inseparable and inevitable part and parcel
of the fundamental conception of the book.

What I mean by the symmetry of mere surface -will now be more clearly
understood. It is simply by the blandishment of this symmetry that we
have been beguiled into the general idea of which Madler's hypothesis is
but a part -the idea of the vorticial indrawing of the orbs. Dismissing
this nakedly physical conception, the symmetry of principle sees the end
of all things metaphysically involved in the thought of a beginning;
seeks and finds in this origin of all things the rudiment of this end;
and perceives the impiety of supposing this end likely to be brought
about less simply -less directly -less obviously -less artistically
-than through the reaction of the originating Act.

Recurring, then, to a previous suggestion, let us understand the systems
-let us understand each star, with its attendant planets -as but a
Titanic atom existing in space with precisely the same inclination for
Unity which characterized, in the beginning, the actual atoms after
their irradiation throughout the Universal sphere. As these original
atoms rushed towards each other in generally straight lines, so let us
conceive as at least generally rectilinear, the paths of the
system-atoms towards their respective centres of aggregation: -and in
this direct drawing together of the systems into clusters, with a
similar and simultaneous drawing together of the clusters themselves
while undergoing consolidation, we have at length attained the great Now
-the awful Present -the Existing Condition of the Universe.

Of the still more awful Future a not irrational analogy may guide us in
framing an hypothesis. The equilibrium between the centripetal and
centrifugal forces of each system, being necessarily destroyed upon
attainment of a certain proximity to the nucleus of the cluster to which
it belongs, there must occur, at once, a chaotic or seemingly chaotic
precipitation, of the moons upon the planets, of the planets upon the
suns, and of the suns upon the nuclei; and the general result of this
precipitation must be the gathering of the myriad now-existing stars of
the firmament into an almost infinitely less number of almost infinitely
superior spheres. In being immeasurably fewer, the worlds of that day
will be immeasurably greater than our own. Then, indeed, amid
unfathomable abysses, will be glaring unimaginable suns. But all this
will be merely a climacic magnificence foreboding the great End. Of this
End the new genesis described, can be but a very partial postponement.
While undergoing co nsolidation, the clusters themselves, with a speed
prodigiously accumulative, have been rushing towards their own general
centre -and now, with a thousandfold electric velocity, commensurate
only with their material grandeur and with the spiritual passion of
their appetite for oneness, the majestic remnants of the tribe of Stars
flash, at length, into a common embrace. The inevitable catastrophe is
at hand.

But this catastrophe -what is it? We have seen accomplished the
ingathering of the orbs. Henceforward, are we not to understand one
material globe of globes as constituting and comprehending the Universe?
Such a fancy would be altogether at war with every assumption and
consideration of this Discourse.

I have already alluded to that absolute reciprocity of adaptation which
is the idiosyncrasy of the divine Art -stamping it divine. Up to this
point of our reflections, we have been regarding the electrical
influence as a something by dint of whose repulsion alone Matter is
enabled to exist in that state of diffusion demanded for the fulfilment
of its purposes: -so far, in a word, we have been considering the
influence in question as ordained for Matter's sake - to subserve the
objects of matter. With a perfectly legitimate reciprocity, we are now
permitted to look at Matter, as created solely for the sake of this
influence -solely to serve the objects of this spiritual Ether. Through
the aid -by the means -through the agency of Matter, and by dint of its
heterogeneity -is this Ether manifested -is Spirit individualized. It is
merely in the development of this Ether, through heterogeneity, that
particular masses of Matter become animate -sensitive -and in the ratio
of their heterogeneit y; -some reaching a degree of sensitiveness
involving what we call Thought and thus attaining Conscious
Intelligence.

In this view, we are enabled to perceive Matter as a Means -not as an
End. Its purposes are thus seen to have been comprehended in its
diffusion; and with the return into Unity these purposes cease. The
absolutely consolidated globe of globes would be objectless: - therefore
not for a moment could it continue to exist. Matter, created for an end,
would unquestionably, on fulfilment of that end, be Matter no longer.
Let us endeavor to understand that it would disappear, and that God
would remain all in all.

That every work of Divine conception must coexist and coexpire with its
particular design, seems to me especially obvious; and I make no doubt
that, on perceiving the final globe of globes to be objectless, the
majority of my readers will be satisfied with my "therefore it cannot
continue to exist." Nevertheless, as the startling thought of its
instantaneous disappearance is one which the most powerful intellect
cannot be expected readily to entertain on grounds so decidedly
abstract, let us endeavor to look at the idea from some other and more
ordinary point of view: -let us see how thoroughly and beautifully it is
corroborated in an a posteriori consideration of Matter as we actually
find it.

I have before said that "Attraction and Repulsion being undeniably the
sole properties by which Matter is manifested to Mind, we are justified
in assuming that Matter exists only as Attraction and Repulsion -in
other words that Attraction and Repulsion are Matter; there being no
conceivable case in which we may not employ the term Matter and the
terms 'Attraction' and 'Repulsion' taken together, as equivalent, and
therefore convertible, expressions of Logic." *

* See previous paragraph, "Discarding now the two equivocal terms..."

Now the very definition of Attraction implies particularity -the
existence of parts, particles, or atoms; for we define it as the
tendency of "each atom &c. to every other atom," &c. according to a
certain law. Of course where there are no parts -where there is absolute
Unity -where the tendency to oneness is satisfied -there can be no
Attraction: -this has been fully shown, and all Philosophy admits it.
When, on fulfilment of its purposes, then, Matter shall have returned
into its original condition of One -a condition which presupposes the
expulsion of the separative ether, whose province and whose capacity are
limited to keeping the atoms apart until that great day when, this ether
being no longer needed, the overwhelming pressure of the finally
collective Attraction shall at length just sufficiently predominate *
and expel it: -when, I say, Matter, finally, expelling the Ether, shall
have returned into absolute Unity, -it will then (to speak paradoxically
for the moment) be Matter without Attraction and without Repulsion -in
other words, Matter without Matter -in other words, again, Matter no
more. In sinking into Unity, it will sink at once into that Nothingness
which, to all Finite Perception, Unity must be -into that Material
Nihility from which alone we can conceive it to have been evoked -to
have been created by the Volition of God.

* "Gravity, therefore, must be the strongest of forces." See previous
section, "Now, although the philosophic cannot be said to..."

I repeat then -Let us endeavor to comprehend that the final globe of
globes will instantaneously disappear, and that God will remain all in
all.

But are we here to pause? Not so. On the Universal agglomeration and
dissolution, we can readily conceive that a new and perhaps totally
different series of conditions may ensue -another creation and
irradiation, returning into itself -another action and reaction of the
Divine Will. Guiding our imaginations by that omniprevalent law of laws,
the law of periodicity, are we not, indeed, more than justified in
entertaining a belief -let us say, rather, in indulging a hope -that the
processes we have here ventured to contemplate will be renewed forever,
and forever, and forever; a novel Universe swelling into existence, and
then subsiding into nothingness, at every throb of the Heart Divine?

And now -this Heart Divine -what is it? It is our own.

Let not the merely seeming irreverence of this idea frighten our souls
from that cool exercise of consciousness -from that deep tranquillity of
self-inspection -through which alone we can hope to attain the presence
of this, the most sublime of truths, and look it leisurely in the face.

The phaenomena on which our conclusions must at this point depend, are
merely spiritual shadows, but not the less thoroughly substantial.

We walk about, amid the destinies of our world-existence, encompassed by
dim but ever present Memories of a Destiny more vast - very distant in
the bygone time, and infinitely awful.

We live out a Youth peculiarly haunted by such dreams; yet never
mistaking them for dreams. As Memories we know them. During our Youth
the distinction is too clear to deceive us even for a moment.

So long as this Youth endures, the feeling that we exist, is the most
natural of all feelings. We understand it thoroughly. That there was a
period at which we did not exist -or, that it might so have happened
that we never had existed at all -are the considerations, indeed, which
during this youth, we find difficulty in understanding. Why we should
not exist, is, up to the epoch of Manhood, of all queries the most
unanswerable. Existence - self-existence -existence from all Time and to
all Eternity -seems, up to the epoch of Manhood, a normal and
unquestionable condition: - seems, because it is.

But now comes the period at which a conventional World-Reason awakens us
from the truth of our dream. Doubt, Surprise and Incomprehensibility
arrive at the same moment. They say: -"You live and the time was when
you lived not. You have been created. An Intelligence exists greater
than your own; and it is only through this Intelligence you live at
all." These things we struggle to comprehend and cannot: -cannot,
because these things, being untrue, are thus, of necessity,
incomprehensible.

No thinking being lives who, at some luminous point of his life of
thought, has not felt himself lost amid the surges of futile efforts at
understanding, or believing, that anything exists greater than his own
soul. The utter impossibility of any one's soul feeling itself inferior
to another; the intense, overwhelming dissatisfaction and rebellion at
the thought; -these, with the omniprevalent aspirations at perfection,
are but the spiritual, coincident with the material, struggles towards
the original Unity -are, to my mind at least, a species of proof far
surpassing what Man terms demonstration, that no one soul is inferior to
another -that nothing is, or can be, superior to any one soul -that each
soul is, in part, its own God -its own Creator: -in a word, that God
-the material and spiritual God - now exists solely in the diffused
Matter and Spirit of the Universe; and that the regathering of this
diffused Matter and Spirit will be but the re-constitution of the purely
Spiritual an d Individual God.

In this view, and in this view alone, we comprehend the riddles of
Divine Injustice -of Inexorable Fate. In this view alone the existence
of Evil becomes intelligible; but in this view it becomes more -it
becomes endurable. Our souls no longer rebel at a Sorrow which we
ourselves have imposed upon ourselves, in furtherance of our own
purposes -with a view -if even with a futile view -to the extension of
our own Joy.

I have spoken of Memories that haunt us during our youth. They sometimes
pursue us even in our Manhood: -assume gradually less and less
indefinite shapes: -now and then speak to us with low voices, saying:

"There was an epoch in the Night of Time, when a still-existent Being
existed -one of an absolutely infinite number of similar Beings that
people the absolutely infinite domains of the absolutely infinite space.
*

* See previous paragraph, 'I reply that the "right," in a case such as
this...'

It was not and is not in the power of this Being -any more than it is in
your own -to extend, by actual increase, the joy of his Existence; but
just as it is in your power to expand or to concentrate your pleasures
(the absolute amount of happiness remaining always the same) so did and
does a similar capability appertain to this Divine Being, who thus
passes his Eternity in perpetual variation of Concentrated Self and
almost Infinite Self-Diffusion. What you call The Universe is but his
present expansive existence. He now feels his life through an infinity
of imperfect pleasures -the partial and pain-intertangled pleasures of
those inconceivably numerous things which you designate as his
creatures, but which are really but infinite individualizations of
Himself. All these creatures - those which you term animate, as well as
those to whom you deny life for no better reason than that you do not
behold it in operation - these creatures have, in a greater or less
degree, a capacity for ple asure and for pain: -but the general sum of
their sensations is precisely that amount of Happiness which appertains
by right to the Divine Being when concentrated within Himself. These
creatures are all too, more or less conscious Intelligences; conscious,
first, of a proper identity; conscious, secondly and by faint
indeterminate glimpses, of an identity with the Divine Being of whom we
speak -of an identity with God. Of the two classes of consciousness,
fancy that the former will grow weaker, the latter stronger, during the
long succession of ages which must elapse before these myriads of
individual Intelligences become blended -when the bright stars become
blended -into One. Think that the sense of individual identity will be
gradually merged in the general consciousness -that Man, for example,
ceasing imperceptibly to feel himself Man, will at length attain that
awfully triumphant epoch when he shall recognize his existence as that
of Jehovah. In the meantime bear in mind that all is Life -Life -Life
within Life -the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit
Divine.

THE END