Gray matter

“ It offers no perceptible resistance, and the closest-grained substances of ordinary matter are more open to the ether than a coarse sieve is to the finest flour. It fills all space, and, like eternity, it has no limits. Some physicists suppose—and there is much plausibility in the supposition—that the ether is the one substance out of which all forms of matter come. That the atoms of matter are vortices or little whirlpools in the ether; and that rigidity and other qualities of matter all arise in the ether from different degrees or kinds of motion. ”

“ Matter, including water, can exist in the gaseous form, and we only need to assume that there was a core of intense heat, to understand how all the material that we find on the earth and in the earth could have been held in suspension in the gaseous state until the cooling process had reached a stage where the various combinations and recombinations could take place in the great laboratory of nature. ”

“ This much we know—that it is one of many expressions of energy.
Chemistry teaches that heat is directly related to the atoms of matter. Atoms of different substances differ greatly in weight. For instance, the hydrogen atom is the unit of atomic weight, because it is the lightest of all of them. Taking the hydrogen atom as the unit, in round numbers the iron atom weighs as much as 56 atoms of hydrogen, copper a little over 63, silver 108, gold 197. Heat acts upon matter according to the number of atoms in a given space, and not as its weight. ”

“ He is carried back to a far-off time, where he sees the processes and forces at work that have formed this stone and made it what it is, not only in its outward form, but in its constitution, down to its molecules and atoms. (The word "atom" is used in chemistry to mean the smallest particle of an elementary substance that will combine with the atoms of another substance to form new compounds of matter. And molecules are made up of atoms.) ”

“ Knowing the relative weights of the atoms of the different metals named, it would be possible to determine by weight the dimensions of different pieces of metal so that they will contain an equal number of atoms. If we take pieces of iron, copper, silver and gold, each of such weight as that all the pieces will contain the same number of atoms, and subject them to heat till all are raised to the same temperature, it will be found that they have all absorbed practically the same quantity of heat without regard to the different weights of matter. ”

“ No matter how wonderful, how beautiful, how intimately complex and delicate has been the machinery which has worked, perhaps for centuries, perhaps for millions of ages, to bring about some beneficent result, if we can but catch a glimpse of the wheels its divine character disappears. ”

“ All the forces and phenomena of nature are thus seen to be in a state of unrest. And it is to this unrest, which does not stop with visible things, but pervades even the atoms of matter throughout the universe, that we are indebted for the ability to carry on all the activities of life, and for life itself. For universal quiet would mean universal death. The cyclone and tornado that devastate and strike terror to a whole region are only eccentricities of nature when she is setting her house to rights. ”

“ His objects of daily contemplation were the play of forces, the actions of bodies in all their varied manifestations, or, as he preferred to sum up the realm of physics, the observation and discussion of properties of matter. But his eyes were ever open to the bearing of all that he saw or discovered on the improvement of industrial appliances, to the possibility of using it to increase the comfort and safety of men, and so to augment the sum total of human happiness. ”

“ And there is Switzerland always within reach. Happy mortals, who can reach the Alps within forty-eight hours, and with only a narrow, though proverbially nasty, bit of water to cross! But what we hope to gain from this upturning is to see you over here. When Mr. Horner returns (we have heard nothing since they vanished in the West) he will tell you it is no formidable matter even to cross the continent. At least you can come and see us, make us a long visit, and be as quiet here as in a Swiss wayside inn, and sally forth upon an excursion when you like. ”

“ In 1899, at the age of seventy-five, Lord Kelvin resigned the Chair of Natural Philosophy, and retired, not to rest, but to investigate more vigorously than ever the properties of matter. One remarkable fruit of his leisure we have in his great book, the Baltimore Lectures, in which theories of light are discussed with a power which excites the reverence of all engaged in the new researches and which recent discoveries have called into existence. ”

“ A comet is simply one of these wandering collections of meteoric stones having a nucleus or center where the particles are so condensed as to give it a reflecting surface something like the planets or the moon. This enables us to see the outline of the comet to the point where the fragments of matter become so scattered that they are no longer able to reflect sufficient light to reach our eyes. The fringe of a comet, however, may extend thousands or even millions of miles beyond the borders of luminosity. ”

“ It is very certain that magnetism is an inherent property of the molecules of iron and steel, and, to a small degree, other forms of matter. That is to say, the molecules are little natural magnets of themselves. It is as unnecessary to inquire why they are magnets as it is to inquire why the molecules of all ordinary substances possess the attraction of cohesion. The one is as easy to explain as the other. People of all ages have insisted upon making a greater mystery of all electrical and magnetic phenomena than they do of other natural forces. ”

“ The tendency of science in respect to this obviously is not toward the omnipotence of matter, as some suppose, but to ward the omnipotence of spirit.
So the real question we come to is as to the way in which we are to conceive intelligent and efficient cause to be exerted, and upon what exerted. Are we bound to suppose efficient cause in all cases exerted upon nothing to evoke something into existence—and this thousands of times repeated, when a slight change in the details would make all the difference between successive species? ”

“ When the plates are connected by the coil, this state of strain breaks down and motion in the medium ensues, not merely between the plates, but also in the surrounding space—in fact, in the whole field. This motion—which is not to be confused with bodily displacement of finite parts of the medium—is opposed by something akin to inertia of the medium (the property that confers energy on matter when in motion) , so that when the motion is started it persists, until it is finally wiped out by resistance of the nature of friction. ”

“ It not only rendered applications of electricity possible in the arts and industries, but by relieving experimental results from the vagueness of the specifications formerly in use, made the further progress of pure electrical science a matter in which every step forward, taken by an individual worker, facilitated the advance of all. ”

“ Again, leaving this insoluble question, let us ask whether substance has, in reality, anything like that extended solidity which it presents to our consciousness. The portion of space occupied by a piece of metal, seems to eyes and fingers perfectly filled: we perceive a homogeneous, resisting mass, without any breach of continuity. Shall we then say that Matter is as actually solid as it appears? Shall we say that whether it consists of an infinitely divisible element or of ultimate units incapable of further division, its parts are everywhere in actual contact? ”

“ The crystals in the earth, therefore, must have originated at a time when the relation between levity and gravity on the earth was different from what it is, in this sphere, to-day.
The same language is spoken by the property of transparency which is so predominant among crystals. One of the fundamental characteristics of heavy solid matter is to resist light - in other words, to be opaque. Exposed to heat, however, physical substance loses this feature to the extent that at the border of its ponderability all matter becomes pervious to light. ”

“ In this transformation of sulphurous substance from a higher material state, nearer to levity, to that of the solid crystal, we may behold an image of the generation of matter. For every physical substance and, therefore, every chemical element, exists originally as a pure function in the dynamic processes of the universe. Wherever, as a result of the action of gravity, such a function congeals materially, there we meet it in the form of a physical-material substance. ”

“ If gold and carbon, iron and oxygen are at bottom composed of particles that are mere duplicates of each other, as seems to be the case, how can these elements and the six dozen or more others maintain their individuality throughout nature as we know they do, even in the far distant stars, except by the sleepless care of an Intelligence whose Word is as effective in one part of the universe as in another, and to whose Word these particles of matter can show no inertia and no disobedience, because they have no powers or properties except what He has imparted? ”

“ The reader will now begin to understand the sense in which polarity applies to these complex conditions of an advanced evolution.
To return, however, from this digression to the [91] point at which it began, viz. the origin of life, we have to show how the law of polarity prevails in the organic as well as in the inorganic world. In the first place the material to which all life is attached, from the speck of protoplasm to the brain of man, is strictly a chemical product of atoms and molecules bound together by the same polar laws as those of inorganic matter. ”

“ Green is merely their synthesis, the terrestrial, finite totality.
372. The genesis of colours is thus the genesis of the elements, or that of matter. It cannot be otherwise; for the becoming of matter is verily an offuscation of light, a coloration. Colour agrees essentially with the elements, and is itself nothing different from element. Fire is in its essence red, as being the impartient of light and heat; air is in its essence nothing else than the blue æther by virtue of its being gaseous; water is the green æther, earth the yellow. If the æther is tensed, it then becomes red or fire ”

“ Nothing is more simple than to suppose that the arrangement of their particles is such, as to transmit some of the coloured rays of light, and to reflect others, in which case the stone must appear of the colour of the rays which it reflects. But besides, it frequently happens that the colour of a stone is owing to a mixture of some metallic matter. ”

“ However, whether the metalline Particles, to which they owe their Colours, are, in either Quantity or Quality, in Condition to have any effect in the Body, is a Matter worthy of a strict and regular Tryal ”

“ Colour does not depend only upon chemical composition nor solely upon the aggregation of the particles, but upon these and other things besides not yet explained. All matter is in a state of motion. If you heat a substance you communicate an increased activity of motion to the particles of which it consists. When certain coloured rays of light are falling upon a substance, these coloured rays of light have a motion peculiar to themselves. ”

“ Colour is certainly a property regulated by material bodies; or rather, the presence of matter is necessary to the production of colour. Chlorine gas is a pale yellow, and nitrous vapour a yellowish red. These and one or two other vapours, which are near the point of condensation into fluids, are the only coloured gaseous or vaporiform bodies. The sky is blue, because the material particles of the atmosphere reflect back the blue rays. But we have more practical illustrations than this. The flame of hydrogen burning with oxygen gives scarcely any light ”

“ In water it is white, but without lustre. In the primary atoms of both it is perpetual; in their products, not so. In earth it is variable; and seven colours are distinguished: viz. white, yellow, green, red, black, tawny (or orange) and variegated. The varieties of these seven colours are many, unenumerated. The six simple colours occur in the atoms of the earth; and the seven, including variegated, in its double atoms, and more complex forms. The colour of integrant parts is the cause of colour in the integral substance. ”

“ A deep hole looks black because practically no light is reflected up from its depths. When you "see" anything black, you really see the things around it and the parts of it that are not perfectly black. A pair of shoes, for instance, has particles of gray dust on them; or if they are very shiny they reflect part of the light that strikes them as a white high-light. But the really black part of your shoes would be invisible against an equally black background.
A black thing absorbs the light that strikes it and turns it to heat. Here is an experiment that will prove this to you:
Experiment 52. ”

“ When he thought of color he should not be diverted by living tissue, but ought always to consider electricity. The more charges on the nucleus, the more color there ought to be. Since the first twenty-seven elements are comparatively light and abundant, color in real richness ought to begin at number twenty-eight He closed his eyes and dreamed of ascending scales—oxides running soberly in red and brown and black, sulphides fitting in with dusky gold, chlorides almost prismatic. ”

“ The results which have been obtained in the examination of radio-activity, of kathode rays, of spectra at different temperatures, and of phenomena allied to these, bring again into prominence the ancient problem of the structure of what we call matter. Is matter fundamentally homogeneous or heterogeneous? Chemistry studies the relations between the changes of composition and the changes of properties which happen simultaneously in material systems. The burning fire of wood, coal, or gas; the preparation of food to excite and to satisfy the appetite ”