GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

The Changes produced on Physical Phenomena by the Movement of the Solar System considered—Exertion of the Physical Forces through the Celestial Spaces—The Balance of Powers—Varieties of Matter—Extension of Matter—Theory of Nonentity—A Material Creation an indisputable fact—Advantages of the Study of Science—Conclusion.

We have examined terrestrial phenomena under many of the harmonious conditions which, with our limited intelligence, we can reach by the aid of science. From the first exhibition of force, in the cohesion of two atoms, onward to the full development of organic form in the highest order of animals, we have observed strange influences. We have seen the solitary molecule invested with peculiar properties, and regulated by mighty forces; we have learned that the modes of motion given to this beautiful sphere produce curious changes in the operation of these powers; and we may with safety infer that every atom constituting this globe is held in wonderful suspension against every atom of every star, in the celestial spaces, even to that bright orb in the centre of the Pleiades, around which the entire system of created worlds is supposed to roll.

As we move around our own sun—in the limited period of 365 days, and round our own axis in 24 hours—we experience transitions from heat to cold, dependent upon our position in regard to that luminary and the laws which regulate the reception and retention of certain physical forces. May we not therefore conclude, without being charged with making any violent deduction, that in the great revolution of our system around the centre of space, we are undergoing gradual changes which are essential to the great scheme of creation, though at present incomprehensible to us?

In our consideration of the influence of time on the structure of the earth as we find it, we discovered that, in ages long past, the vegetation of the tropics existed upon these northern parts of the globe; and geological research has also proved that over the same lands the cold of an arctic winter must have long prevailed—the immense glaciers of that period having left the marks of their movements upon the face of the existing rocks.[268] We know that during 3,000 years no change of temperature has taken place in the European climate. The children of Israel found the date and the vine flourishing in Canaan; and they exist there still. Arago has shown that a trifling alteration of temperature would have destroyed one or the other of these fruit-bearing trees, since the vine will not ripen where the mean temperature of the year is higher than 84°, or the date flourish where it sinks below that degree.

How immense, then, the duration of time since these changes must have taken place! The 432,000 years of Oriental mythology is a period scarcely commensurable with these effects; yet, to the creature of three-score years, that period appears an eternity. The thirty-three millions of geographical miles which our solar system traverses annually, if multiplied by three thousand years, during which we know no change has taken place, give us 99,000,000,000 as the distance passed over in that period. How wide, then, must have been the journey of the system in space to produce the alteration in the physical powers, by which these changes have been effected!

We have an example, and a striking one, of the variations which may be produced in all the physical conditions of a world, in those disturbances of Uranus which led to the discovery of Neptune. For thirty years or more certain perturbations were observed in this distant planet, the discovery of Sir William Herschel, and calculation pointed to some still more remote mass of matter as the cause, which has been verified by its actual discovery. But now Uranus is at rest;—quietly that star progresses in its appointed orbit,—Neptune can no longer, for the present, cause it to move with greater or less rapidity—they are too remote to produce any sensible influence upon each other. Consequently, for thirty years, it is evident, phenomena must have occurred on the surface of Uranus, which can be no longer repeated until these two planets again arrive at the same positions in their respective paths which they have occupied since 1812. These considerations assist us in our attempts to comprehend infinite time and space; but the human mind fails to advance far in the great sublimity.

Through every inch of space we have evidence of the exercise of such forces as we have been considering. Gravitation chains world to world, and holds them all suspended from the mystic centre. Cohesion binds every mass of matter into a sphere, while motion exerts a constant power, which tends to alter the form of the mass. The earth’s form—a flattened spheroid—the rings of Saturn and of Neptune are the consequences of motion in antagonism to cohesion. Heat, radiating from one planet to another, does its work in all, giving variety to matter. Light seeks out every world—each trembling star tells of the mystery of its presence. Where light and heat are, chemical action, as an associated power, must be present; and electricity must do its wondrous duties amongst them all. Modified by peculiar properties of matter, they may not manifest themselves in phenomena like those of our terrestrial nature; but the evidence of light is a sufficient proof of the presence of its kindred elements; and it is difficult to imagine all these powers in action without producing some form of organization. In the rounded pebble which we gather from the sea-shore, in the medusa floating bright with all the beauty of prismatic colour in the sun-lit sea,—in the animal, mighty in his strength, roaming the labyrinthine forests, or, great in intelligence, looking from this to the mysteries of other worlds,—in all created things around us, we see direct evidence of a beautiful adjustment of the balance of forces, and the harmonious arrangement of properties.

One atom is removed from a mass and its character is changed; one force being rendered more active than another, and the body, under its influence, ceases to be the same in condition. The regulation which disposes the arrangements of matter on this earth, must exist through the celestial spaces, and every planet bears the same relation to every other glittering mass in heaven’s o’erarching canopy, as one atom bears to another in the pebble, the medusa, the lion, or the man. An indissoluble bond unites them all, and the grain of sand which lies buried in the depth of one of our primary formations, holds, chained to it by these all-pervading forces, the uncounted worlds which, like luminous sand, are sprinkled by the hand of the Creator through the universe. Thus we advance to a conception of the oneness of creation.

The vigorous mind of that immortal bard who sang “of man’s first disobedience,” never, in the highest rapture, the holiest trance of poetic conception, dreamed of any natural truths so sublime as those which science has revealed to us.

The dependence of all the systems of worlds upon each other, every dust composing each individual globe being “weighed in a balance,” the adjustment of the powers by which every physical condition is ordered, the disposition of matter in the mass of the earth, and the close relation of the kingdoms of nature,—are all revelations of natural truths, exalting the mind to the divine conception of the universe.

There is a remarkable antagonism displayed in the operation of many of these forces. Gravitation and cohesion act in opposition to the repellent influences of caloric. Light and heat are often associated in a very remarkable manner; but they are certainly in their radiant states in antagonism to chemical action, whether produced by the direct agency of actinic force, or through the intermediate excitement of the electrical current.[269] And in relation to chemical force, as manifested in organic combinations, we have the all-powerful operation of life preventing any exercise of its decomposing power.[270] As world is balanced against world in the universe, so in the human fabric, in the vegetable structure, in the crystallized gem, or in the rude rock, force is weighed against force, and the balance hangs in tranquillity. Let but a slight disturbance occasion a vibration of the beam, and electricity shakes the stoutest heart with terror, at the might of its devastating power.[271] Heat melts the hardest rocks, and the earth trembles with volcanic strugglings; and actinic agency, being freed from its chains, speedily spreads decay over the beautiful, and renders the lovely repulsive.

We know matter in an infinite variety of forms, from the most ponderous metal to the lightest gas; and we have it within our power to render the most solid bodies invisible in the condition of vapour. Is it not easy, then, to understand that matter may exist equally attenuated in relation to hydrogen, as that gas itself is, when compared with the metal platinum? A doubt has been raised against this view, from the difficulty of accounting for the passage of the physical elements through solid masses of matter. If we, however, remember that the known gases have the power of transpiration through matter in a remarkable degree,[272] and that the passage of water through a sieve may be prevented by heat, it will be at once apparent that the permeation of any radiant body through fixed solid matter is entirely a question of conditions.

We can form no idea of the size of the ultimate atom; we cannot comprehend the degree of etherealization to which matter may be extended. Our atmosphere, we have seen, is only another condition of the same elements which compose all the organized forms of matter upon the earth, and, at the height reached by man, it is in a state of extreme attenuation. What must be its condition at the distance of forty miles from the earth? According to known laws, certain phenomena of refraction have led us to set these bounds to the matter constituting our globe: but it may exist in such a state of tenuity, that no philosophical instrument constructed by human hands could measure its refracting power; and who shall declare with certainty that matter itself may not be as far extended as we suppose its influences to be?

“Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all.

“Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?”

A cheerless philosophy, derived from the transcendentalism of the German schools, by an unhappy metaphysical subtlety, and grafted upon what professes to be a positive philosophy, but which is not so, is spreading amongst us, and would teach us to regard all things as the mere exhibition of properties, a manifestation of powers; it believes not in a material creation. The grandeur of the earth, and the beautiful forms adorning it, are not entities. Yonder exquisite specimen of the skill of man, in which mind appears to shine through the marble,—that distant mountain which divides the clouds as they are driven by the winds across it,—those trees, amid whose branches the birds make most melodious music,—this flower, so redolent of perfume, so bright in colour, and so symmetric in form,—and that lovely being who, a model of beauty and grace, walks the earth an impersonation of love and charity blended, making, indeed, “a sunshine in a shady place,” are not realities. Certain forces combine to produce effects, all of which unite to deceive poor man into the belief that he is a material being, and the inhabitant of a material world. There may be ingenuity in the philosophy of this school; its metaphysics may be of a high order; but it evidently advances from the real to the ideal with such rapidity, that every argument is based on an assumption without a proof; every assumption being merely a type of the philosophy itself,—a baseless fabric, a transcendental vision.

A material creation surrounds us. This earth, all that it contains, and the immense hosts of stellar worlds, are absolute entities, surrounded with, and interpenetrated by, certain exhibitions of creative intelligence, which perform, according to fixed laws, the mighty labours upon which depend the infinite and eternal mutations of matter. The origin of a grain of dust is hidden from our finite comprehensions; but its existence should be a source of hope, that those minds which are allowed the privilege of tracing out its marvellous properties,—of examining the empyreal principles upon which its condition, as a grain of dust, depends,—and even of reducing these giant elements to do our human bidding,—may, after a period of probation, be admitted to the enjoyment of that infinite power to which the great secrets of creation will be unveiled.

Every motion which the accurate search of the experimentalist has traced, every principle or power which the physicist has discovered, every combination which the chemist has detected, every form which the naturalist has recorded, involves reflections of an exalting character, which constitute the elements of the highest poetry. The philosophy of physical science is a grand epic, the record of natural science a great didactic poem.

To study science for its useful applications merely, is to limit its advantages to purely sensual ends. To pursue science for the sake of the truths it may reveal, is an endeavour to advance the elements of human happiness through the intelligence of the race. To avail ourselves of facts for the improvement of art and manufactures, is the duty of every nation moving in the advance of civilization. But to draw from the great truths of science intelligible inferences and masterly deductions, and from these to advance to new and beautiful abstractions, is a mental exercise which tends to the refinement and elevation of every human feeling.

The mind thus exercised during the mid-day of life, will find in the twilight of age a divine serenity; and, charmed by the music of nature, which, like a vesper hymn poured forth from pious souls, proclaims in devotion’s purest strain the departure of day, he will sink into the repose of that mysterious night which awaits us all, tranquil in the happy consciousness that the sun of truth will rise in unclouded brilliancy, and place him in the enjoyment of that intellectual light, which has ever been among the holiest aspirations of the human race.

The task of wielding the wand of science,—of standing a scientific evocator within the charmed circle of its powers, is one which leads the mind through nature up to nature’s God.

Experiment and observation instruct us in the discovery of a fact;—that fact connects itself with natural phenomena,—the ultimate cause of which we learn from Divine revelation, and receive in full belief,—but the proximate causes are reserved as trials of man’s intelligence; and every natural truth, discovered by induction, enables the contemplative mind to deduce those perfect laws which are exemplifications of the fresh-springing and all enduring Poetry of Science.