Oration

“ Chemists tell us that this is a chemical operation; that the light proceeds not from the tallow but from a principle called oxygen—a certain portion of the atmospheric air which we breathe; that that principle has a great tendency to unite with the materials of the candle, and in so doing it gives out its light. But how this light is produced and sustained by a combination of the elements of the candle and the oxygen of the atmosphere we do not know, only we know that it is the power of God, we know that it is the light which is in all things. ”

“ The light is sufficient, indeed, to render these earth-born vapours more visible: it is not sufficient to dispel them. A generation of slow and doubtful progress must pass, before the first ray of sunlight can break through the eastern clouds and the full orb of day itself appear. ”

“ Again, let the nature in question be the Corporeal Substance of the Moon; that is, let us inquire whether it be rare, consisting of flame or air, as most of the old philosophers opined; or dense and solid, as Gilbert and many moderns, with some ancients, maintain. The reasons for the latter opinion rest chiefly on this, that the moon reflects the rays of the sun; nor does light seem to be reflected except by solid bodies. ”

“ Take other cases:—All phenomena recognised by the eyes, through which only are the data of exact science ascertainable, are complicated with optical phenomena; and cannot be exhaustively known until optical principles are known. The burning of a candle cannot be explained without involving chemistry, mechanics, thermology. Every wind that blows is determined by influences partly solar, partly lunar, partly hygrometric; and implies considerations of fluid equilibrium and physical geography. ”

“ If this be a true account of the solar heat, for the support of which I appeal to my experiments, it remains only for us to admit that such of the rays of the sun as have the refrangibility of those which are contained in the prismatic spectrum, by the construction of the organs of sight, are admitted under the appearance of light and colors, and that the rest, being stopped in the coats and humors of the eye, act on them, as they are known to do on all the other parts of our body, by occasioning a sensation of heat. ”

“ Leaving, therefore, his philosophical knowledge out of the question, he certainly spoke as if he had known that the solar influence was the cause of the earth’s rotation, and therefore, with the strictest philosophic propriety, he requested, that that influence might be for a time restrained, that the diurnal motion of the earth might be arrested, through which alone, the sun could be kept above the horizon, and the day be prolonged. ”

“ For if the Clouds, whose Composition we know to be but a thin light Fluid, formed of condensed Vapours only, is capable of remitting so great a Lustre, how much more may we not allow the Moon, which, Length of Time, and many other Circumstances, have long confirmed to be a durable and solid Body. ”

“ The reason for taking the time of the first inspiration, usually accompanied by a cry, as the moment of birth, is that the chemical condition of the atmosphere changes at each moment as the vibrations from the stars change. We note such a change in the atmosphere according to the position of the Sun in the sky at different hours of the day or night. The night air is different from the atmosphere at noon. ”

“ It is always evening, “’twixt the gloamin’ and the mirk.” The moon, still golden, is hung low in the sky; the wind is sharp with a touch of frost, but the glare and the glow of the embers reddens and warms us—at least that part of us we turn to the fire. ”

“ When, from the law of a certain combination of causes, there results a certain order in the effects; as from the combination of a single sun with the rotation of an opaque body round its axis, there results, on the whole surface of that opaque body, an alternation of day and night; then, if we suppose one of the combined causes counteracted, the rotation stopped, the sun extinguished, or a second sun superadded, the truth of that particular law of causation is in no way affected; it is still true that one sun shining on an opaque revolving body will alternately produce day and night ”

“ At any rate, whether by the loss of the vibrations of the red or by the addition of this mysterious force, the light of the moon becomes something entirely different from mere modified sunlight—just as the addition or subtraction of one other chemical in a compound of several makes the product a substance with entirely different energies and potentialities. ”

“ If the old view were correct, the earlier history of a star, from the giant stage of a cool and diaphanous gas to the period of highest temperature, would be run through within eighty thousand years, whereas we have the best of evidence that many thousands of centuries would not suffice. Some other source of energy is imperatively needed. ”

“ Going out yourself, you could let your eyes accommodate. At high noon, the sun was a sharp spark in a dusky heaven, and its light amounted to about one-ninth of one percent of what Earth gets. The great fields of ice and frozen gases reflected enough to help vision, but upthrust crags and cliffs of naked rock were like blackened teeth. ”

“ For the heat, which perpetually passes and emanates from it, being mixed with that which preceded it, multiplies the whole. A fire, for instance, does not warm a room in half an hour as much as the same fire would in an hour. ”

“ Let us understand by the day the period of the earth's rotation on its axis, whatever that may be, and let us understand by the month the period of revolution of the moon around the earth, whatever value it may have; then the condition of maximum or [108] minimum energy is attained when the day and the month have become equal to each other. ”

“ The sun, the moon, and the other stars are gods; for, in them, there is a preponderance of heat, and heat is the cause of life. The moon is illumined by the sun. Gods and men are akin, inasmuch as man partakes of heat; therefore God takes thought for man. ”

“ And it is not surprising that this should come to pass, when we have to do with the cause that ranks lowest among the gods. For consider the fifth substance, which is subject to no change of any sort, in the region of the light of the moon: I mean where our world of continuous generation and decay borders on the fifth substance. We perceive that in the region of her light it seems to undergo certain alterations and to be affected by external influences. ”

“ Handkerchief and Candle.—"Ladies and Gentlemen, the following experiment was suggested to me at the age of twelve while studying chemistry. I then learned that all matter was indestructible. Proof of this, as you are well aware, is afforded with an ordinary candle. You may light the candle at one end and let it burn to the other, but you do not destroy the matter of which it is composed. What really takes place is the formation of new substances, as hydrogen, carbon, water, etc., which any of the text-books on chemistry will explain. ”

“ The terrific scent-energy hurled forth from the seemingly inexhaustible storage battery of an Onion or a Tuberose is more of a mystery to our men of science than is the composition of the crooked light waves from the planet Mars or the height of the flames of the Corona, measured in a solar eclipse. ”

“ But the operation of a less violent heat should be tried and investigated, by which more delicate mixtures and regular conformations may be produced and elicited, according to the example of nature, and in imitation of the effect of the sun, which we have alluded to in the aphorism on the instances of alliance. For the works of nature are carried on in much smaller portions, and in more delicate and varied positions than those of fire, as we now employ it. ”

“ When the first rays of the sun warmed the surface of the earth, the heat, by separating the particles of water, rendered them lighter than the air. This, you know, is the case with steam or vapour. What then ensues?
Caroline. When lighter than the air, it will naturally rise; and now I recollect your telling us in a preceding lesson, that the heat of the sun transformed the particles of water into vapour; in consequence of which, it ascended into the atmosphere, where it formed clouds. ”

“ When calms or light, variable airs occur, the number of hours of each is counted, and the sum entered in its proper place. When a gale—that is, wind of a force of 8 and upward—happens, the number of hours it blew from any of the eight principal points of the compass (supposing it to have varied in direction) , together with the force during each period, are duly tabulated. ”

“ When we come to the question of the age of the sun’s heat, and the length of time during which that orb has illuminated our globe, it becomes a matter of the utmost importance which of the two theories is to be adopted. ”

“ If, as we gaze on the sun shining in the firmament, we see any faint adumbration of the doctrine of the Trinity in the fontal orb, the light ever generated, and the heat proceeding from the sun and its beams—threefold and yet one, the sun, its light, and its [241] heat,—that luminous globe, and the radiance ever flowing from it, are both evident to the eye; but the vital warmth is felt, not seen, and is only manifested in the life it transfuses through creation. ”

“ Here the seeming is the content of the patient’s momentary experience. The real temperature is a fact that either is, or conceivably might be, present to a larger, a more organised and scientific and united experience, such as his physician may come nearer than himself to possessing. The sun seems to rise and set; but in reality the earth turns on its axis. Here the apparent movement of the sun is somewhat indirectly presented to a narrow sort of human experience. ”

“ Fire, then, as moving upward, will be void, earth, as moving downward, plenum; and in air, it will be said, fire preponderates, in water, earth. There will then be a quantity of water containing more fire than a little air, and a large amount of air will contain more earth than a little water: consequently we shall have to say that air in a certain quantity moves downward more quickly than a little water. ”

“ I have a little before demonstrated, that the superiour element of fire, as the Sun, Moon, and the other Starrs, send down their invisible vertues and fiery beams into the earths center, where they are congregated, and cause huge heat, and being not permitted there to rest, leap back again, and are scattered throughout the universal Globe, and impregnate it with various and wonderful Crescentials, which are called Minerals by the Philosophers, cherishing and perfecting them in various forms. ”

“ And I do not believe that this movement can be better explained than by supposing that all those of the luminous bodies which are liquid, such as flames, and apparently the sun and the stars, are composed of particles which float in a much more subtle medium which agitates them with great rapidity, and makes them strike against the particles of the ether which surrounds them, and which are much smaller than they. ”

“ This action of the æther does not therefore depend upon the tension of æther, not upon production from differences in the same, but upon dissolution of the tension, therefore upon extension, upon the indifferent representation of space. This action, which is at the same time universal, can only be heat. Moved æther is Heat.
201. Heat is the contest of the indifferent æther with light; light alone produces heat. Without light the world were not only dark, but also absolutely cold. ”

“ The lightning acts upon the hydrogen and oxygen, which are found In the atmospheric air: they are decomposed, and water or rain is the consequence; which, being heavier than the air falls down in the form of rain. ”

“ That which on earth is called diffusion of light, that luminous matter which the air holds in suspension, which creates the twilight and the daybreak, which produces the umbrae and penumbrae, and all the magic of chiaro-oscuro, does not exist on the moon. ”

“ We believe that not the airiest particle of earth, atmosphere, or water, nor the most minute globule of condensed moisture, nor the most infinitesimal point of meteoric dust, can ever be lost, at least during Time, from the fabric of the universe. My fishes tell me that the oxygen they absorb from the water they again return to it, but in another form. ”

“ If the polarity of light becomes fixed in a certain quantity of the mass of æther, or the oxygen of the air obtains the preponderance, a less changing element originates possessing a more definite character, and the atoms of which adhere more strongly to each other than those of air. ”

“ What would you say of a man who, during the days of the equinox, in which the state of the atmosphere was every minute changing, should try to establish proportions between the quantities of rain which fell in every quarter of an hour, or of one who endeavoured to fix relations between the quantities of fluids which are evaporated in given times, from the surface of a vessel under which the intensity of the heat which warmed the water varied every instant. ”

“ The sun’s vibrations reach our earth in about eight minutes and acting upon its atmosphere, it finds a resistance or polarity out of which is evolved light, heat and moisture.
Every molecule of our body is rotated into form and continues its activities by the radiant energy of the sun. ”

“ You may perceive this effect in a sultry day, if you attentively observe the strata of air near the surface of the earth; they appear in constant agitation, for though it is true the air is itself invisible, yet the sun shining on the vapours floating in it, render them visible, like the amber dust in the water. ”