Material universe

“ Little as we have, even yet, learned of the material universe, that little makes for the belief that it is a system of unbroken order and perfect symmetry, of which the form incessantly changes, while the substance and the energy are imperishable. ”

“ We cannot shake off this principle of polarity, and arrive at any knowledge, or even conception, of the absolute truth in regard to the atoms, energies, and natural laws, which make up the universe of matter and of all the ordinary and material functions of life; why should we expect to do so in the higher manifestations of the same life, which have been arrived at in the later stages of one unbroken course of evolution from monad to man? ”

“ It is, in the first place, unwarrantable to pretend that the discoveries of modern Science, brilliant and marvellous as they undoubtedly are, have thrown any light upon the origin of the Material Universe, or of its forces, or of the laws according to which its operations proceed. ”

“ For the purpose, therefore, of rendering it somewhat clearer, I will point out the manner in which it exhibits itself in respect to the Constitution of the External World and elsewise.
The Totality of all material objects and substances is the Positive Material Universe. This is contained in Space, which is the Negative Material Universe. Compoundly the two, Matter and Space, are the whole Material Universe, as to the Parts or Constituent Factors of which it consists. ”

“ In considering the study of physical phenomena, not merely in its bearings on the material wants of life, but in its general influence on the intellectual advancement of mankind, we find its noblest and most important result to be a knowledge of the chain of connection, by which all natural forces are linked together, and made mutually dependent upon each other; and it is the perception of these relations that exalts our views and ennobles our enjoyments. ”

“ They are at least proof of the inalienable part played, in the functioning of our complex vision, by sensation as an organ of research. But they have a further interest. They are an illuminating revelation of the inherent character and personal bias of the individual soul who is philosophizing. I suppose to a great many minds what we call "the universe" presents itself as a colossal circle, without any circumference, filled with an innumerable number of material objects floating in some thin attenuated ether. ”

“ The finite universe of matter would eventually become uniform and deterministic but for the combined presence of mind and spirit. The influence of the cosmic mind constantly injects spontaneity into even the material worlds. ”

“ The world of things entered your infant mind
To populate that crystal cabinet.
Within its walls the strangest partners met,
And things turned thoughts did propagate their kind.
For, once within, corporeal fact could find
A spirit. Fact and you in mutual debt
Built there your little microcosm—which yet
Had hugest tasks to its small self assigned.
Dead men can live there, and converse with stars:
Equator speaks with Pole, and Night with Day:
Spirit dissolves the world’s material bars—
A million isolations burn away.
The Universe can live and work and plan,
At last made God within the mind of man. ”

“ 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 are, indeed, “tongues in trees;” but science alone can interpret their mysterious whispers, and in this consists its poetry.
To rest content with the bare enunciation of a truth, is to perform but one half of a task. As each atom of matter is involved in an atmosphere of properties and powers, which unites it to every mass of the universe, so each truth, however common it may be, is surrounded by impulses which, being awakened, pass from soul to soul like musical undulations, and which will be repeated through the echoes of space, and prolonged for all eternity. ”

“ The purpose of this lesson is to impress upon the minds of our students the fact that, to all intents and purposes, the Universe and its laws, and its phenomena, are just as REAL, so far as Man is concerned, as they would be under the hypotheses of Materialism or Energism. Under any hypothesis the Universe in its outer aspect is changing, ever-flowing, and transitory—and therefore devoid of substantiality and reality. ”

“ Hence men imagined gods, and attributed those mighty phenomena of nature—earthquakes, tempests, lightning and thunder, and dire eclipses of sun and moon, to the vaguely visible powers which they imagined they saw. There was indeed a soul or spirit of the universe, as there was a soul or spirit of every individual thing that constituted it. But this was only a finer system of atoms after all. All else is convention or dream; the only realities are Atoms and Emptiness, Matter and Space. ”

“ But I believe that the intricacy of the structure of the atoms, the law and order that is enthroned in the heavens above from farthest star across the milky way to farthest star are silent but patent witnesses to the fact that a Universal Mind is back of and behind and manifests Himself in the universe. ”

“ But once the substance of things physical is found to consist in units of force, conditioning space—force-forms as we have called them—of diverse characters, the whole universe of matter becomes a wonderful study, radiant with inspiration, for its solution and meaning are enfolded in its every atom, and in the very attributes by which they are manifested to our sense perceptions they hold and declare their message to the Perceiver within. ”

“ Its marvelous and varied powers and utilities create a new epoch in scientific thought and discovery. Its study is replete with new and fascinating ideas and scientific theories. It contains the story of the universe more sublime than an epic, more wonderful than a romance. It organized the machinery of the worlds, and holds the secrets of nature and the mysteries of life in its invisible grasp. ”

“ There is nothing in all this like any material necessity, compelling the world to be as it is and no otherwise. How should the properties of these three great classes of agents, visible objects, air, and light, so harmonize and assist each other, that order and life should be the result. ”

“ Our organised science, as many have pointed out ever since Plato’s first naïve but permanently important observations upon this topic, deals very largely with conceived — with ideal — realities, that transcend actual human observation. Atoms, ether-waves, geological periods, processes of evolution, — these are to-day some of the most important constituents of our conceived phenomenal universe. ”

“ The matter, which is the direct position of God, which fills the whole universe, which is the time in a state of tension and motion, the formed space, the heavy primary essence, I call the Primary matter, the matter of the world, cosmic matter, Æther. The æther is the first realization of God, the eternal position of the same. It is the first matter of creation. ”

“ It has also to deduce the laws of the material world from its first appearances, and, armed with these, it must transport itself from the earth to the true centre of the system, from which its wonderful order and beauty may be contemplated, and revealed to the world. Then these innumerable twinkling points of light, which sparkle in the heavens like so many atoms, become to the eye of reason the stupendous suns and centres of other worlds and systems. ”

“ Now, can we say of the atom and motion combined, behold the universe? Yes, the mechanical universe, perhaps. But the mechanical universe is not self-sufficing; for we can always say, Who has made the atom? who has created motion? And then we have the right to propose another affirmation and to conclude: the notion of causality is the entire world—the physical, intellectual, and moral world. ”

“ Do not the magnificent profusion of radical materials, the gems without number which we everywhere discover, the immense amount of matter susceptible of transformation and assimilation by the living being, the mysteries of generation in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, all indicate to us that there are scattered over the universe an infinite number of vital principles, which exercise their activity in very different ways, and over a scale of astonishing extent? ”

“ Now the wonders of nature and the human mind show—if I must go so far to find an argument for the statement I am making—that into a single point of time or particle of matter may be gathered the relations of a solar system or the experiences of a life; that a universe may be compressed into an atom, or a molecule expanded into a macrocosm ”

“ The Universe is one vast chemical laboratory, in constant operation, by her internal forces. The laws or principles of attraction, cohesion, and re­pulsion, produce in never-ending succession the phenomena of composition, decomposition, and recomposition. ”

“ Let us say: there it is, an objective world of moving matter, subject to certain laws. All the powers are but manifestations or forms of matter in motion. Planets revolve, comets come and go, tides swell and fall, clouds rise and rivers flow to the sea, lightning flashes, volcanoes are active, living beings are born, live, and die, all exemplifying certain universal principles, that are discoverable by experience, that are capable of being used to predict the future, and that are related to one another in such a way as to show us a vast connected whole, the natural universe. ”

“ In these studies of the effects which are continually presenting themselves to the observing eye, and of the phenomena of causes, as far as they are revealed by Science in its search of the physical earth, it will be shown that beneath the beautiful vesture of the external world there exists, like its quickening soul, a pervading power, assuming the most varied aspects, giving to the whole its life and loveliness, and linking every portion of this material mass in a common bond with some great universal principle beyond our knowledge. ”

“ Our appreciation of the principle that greatness of any form is an accumulation of little deeds will be freshened by an outlook upon nature's method. The old science unveiled the universe as a divine thought rushing into instant form, stars and suns being sparks struck out on the anvil of omnipotence. The new science has found that earth's every atom has been slowly polished by an infinite artisan and architect. ”

“ In all this physical world—in all this universe—there is nothing, not even a grain of sand or an atom of hydrogen, that is not as this bar of iron is—the shadow cast on a visible world by the unknown and mysterious work of an invisible world. ”

“ Materialism: "The metaphysical doctrine that matter is the only substance, and that matter and its motions constitute the universe. Philosophical materialism holds that matter and the motions of matter make up the sum total of existence, and that what we know as physical phenomena in man and other animals, are to be interpreted in an ultimate analysis as simply the peculiar aspect which is assumed by certain enormously complicated motions of matter." ”

“ The discoveries of the laws of the indestructibility of force and matter, the unity of nature, the mechanical theory of heat; inorganic and organic evolution and the universality of law, have explained many mysterious phenomena, and forced them out of the darkness of the supernatural to the light of the natural. It has been said that mystery has now been driven from the universe. ”

“ How calmly and genially the mind apprehends one after another the laws of physics! What noble emotions dilate the mortal as he enters into the counsels of the creation, and feels by knowledge the privilege to Be! His insight refines him. The beauty of nature shines in his ​own breast. Man is greater than he can see this, and the universe less, because Time and Space relations vanish as laws are known. ”

“ Can mere atoms question how they feel sensation?
Or dust make suggestion of its own creation?
Yet if man were better than his base conditions,
Could things baser fetter his sublime ambitions?
What unknown conjunction of the pure etherial,
With the form and function of the gross material,
Gives the product mortal? whose immortal yearning
Brings him to the portal of celestial learning.
To the portal gleaming, where the waiting sphinxes,
Humoring his dreaming, give him what he thinks is
Key to the arcana—plausible equation
Of the problems many in his incarnation. ”

“ The abstract properties of the atoms, discussed in the first two books, so far from being arbitrary assumptions, without any relation to actual existence, are thus found to be the conditions which explain the order, life, immensity, individuality, and subtlety manifested in the universe. ”

“ Can you tell what matter really is? Before you cry Materialism, you had better find what matter is. Can you tell of anything without a material basis? Is it possible to imagine the annihilation of a single atom? Is it possible for you to conceive of the creation of a single atom? Can you have a thought that is not suggested to you by what you call matter? Did any man or woman or child ever have a solitary thought, dream or conception, that was not suggested to them by something they had seen in nature?—Ingersoll.
[235]
The Origin of Belief in the Soul. ”

“ It exhibits the universe, as a universe of intelligence and will-power; and by enabling us to rid ourselves of the impossibility of thinking of mind, but as connected with our old notions of matter, [370] opens up infinite possibilities of existence, connected with infinitely varied manifestations of force, totally distinct from, yet as real as, what we term matter. ”