Physical universe

“ The physical description of the world, considering the universe as an object of the external senses, does undoubtedly require the aid of general physics and of descriptive natural history, but thecontemplation of all created things, which are linked together, and form one 'whole', animated by internal forces, given to the science we are considering a peculiar character. ”

“ The principal impulse by which I was directed was the earnest endeavor to comprehend the phenomena of physical objects in their general connection, and to represent nature as one great whole, moved and animated by internal forces. My intercourse with highly-gifted men early led me to discover that, without an earnest striving to attain to a knowledge of special branches of study, all attempts to give a grand and general view of the universe would be nothing more than a vain illusion. ”

“ All physics is rooted in the notion of law, the belief that we live in an ordered universe that can be understood by the application of rational reasoning. ”

“ But I would ask, where do we get this experience of heavy and light bodies? and how is our knowledge on these subjects extended so far that we can reason with certainty concerning the centre of the whole universe? Is not the only residence and home of all the things which are heavy and light to us, the earth and the air which surrounds it? and what is the earth and the ambient air, with respect to the immensity of the universe? ”

“ 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 ”

“ Thus the exquisitely beautiful and symmetrical phenomena and laws of polarisation, and of crystalline and other effects, may be looked upon as indications of the delicacy and subtlety of the mechanism by which man, through his visual organs, is put in [110] communication with the external world; is made acquainted with the forms and qualities of objects in the most remote regions of space; and is enabled, in some measure, to determine his position and relation in a universe in which he is but an atom. ”

“ If we wished to represent to ourselves, by the mechanical properties of a medium filling the whole of the universe, all luminous, electric, and gravitation phenomena, we should be led to attribute to this medium very strange and almost contradictory characteristics ”

“ Questioned more closely as to his view of the particular forces which count most in the scheme of the universe thus constituted, he would put aside at once chemical affinity and cohesion, or the gravitation which shapes stars and suns, or heat on which organic life depends. ”

“ In Nature, the world spread out before the senses,—to group many specific modes of action about a single generic force,—we see there is the great general law of Attraction, which binds atom to atom in a grain of sand, orb to orb, system to system, gives unity to the world of things, and rounds these worlds of systems to a universe. ”

“ To this spiritual world we may refer the marvellously complex forces which we know as gravitation, cohesion, chemical force, radiant force, and electricity, without which the material universe could not exist for a moment in its present form, and perhaps not at all, since without these forces, and perhaps others which may be termed atomic, it is doubtful whether matter itself could have any existence. ”

“ Is any astronomer likely to inquire seriously to-day into the [Pg 261] purpose of planetary motion, or a mineralogist to seek design in the structure of a crystal? Does the physicist investigate the purpose of electric force, or the chemist that of atomic weight? We may confidently answer in the negative—certainly not, in the sense that God, or a purposive natural force, had at some time created these fundamental laws of the mechanism of the universe with a definite design, and causes them to work daily in accordance with his rational will. ”

“ But it is in the study of the constitution of matter and the evolution of the elements, the deepest and most critical problem of physics and chemistry, that the extremes of pressure and temperature in the heavenly bodies, and the prevalence of other physical conditions not yet successfully imitated on earth, promise the greatest progress. ”

“ The mere fact, however, that there is such an ether, and that it has properties related to other agents, in the way we have suggested, is well calculated to extend our views of the structure of the universe, and of the resources, if we may so speak, of the Power by which it is arranged. The solid and fluid matter of the earth is the most obvious to our senses ”

“ In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature, as when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a Universe. ”

“ He made it plain that all matter is but a form of motion; that atoms themselves are divided into ions and corpuscles, which are merely different forms of electrical motion, and that all this motion seems to tend to one form, which is the spirit of the universe. ”

“ Allow us, without proof, the existence of two universal forces—centrifugal and centripetal, or attraction and repulsion, and we will construct a system which shall explain all the leading mysteries of nature. An apple falling from a tree, or a stone rolling downwards, and a pail of water tied to a string set in rapid motion were assumed to be types of the relations existing among all the bodies in the universe. ”

“ Force, according to their theory, is only another name for motion or its correlates, and, hence, the two terms are interchangeably used by them in predicating their ultimate conclusions respecting matter.
Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, molecular force, and even life itself, are only so many manifestations or expressions, they claim, of one and the same force in the universe--Motion, With the exception of matter, it is the only self-persistent, permanently enduring, ever active and reactive agency. ”

“ We are led to look to a beginning in which the particles of matter were in a diffuse chaotic state, but endowed with the power of gravitation, and we are led to look to an end in which the whole universe will be one equally heated inert mass, and from which everything like life or motion or beauty will have utterly gone away. ”

“ The whole astronomic order resolves itself into attraction and repulsion—a centripetal and a centrifugal force; the chemical order into the antinomy of positive and negative electricity, decomposing substances and recomposing them. The whole visible universe presents the antinomy of light and darkness, movement and repose, force and matter, heat and cold, the one and the multiple. ”

“ Each particle of each substance draws and is drawn by each other particle of every substance. And each body in the Universe, from a grain of sand to a sun, draws and is drawn by each other body, whether far or near. All these drawings are in obedience to that mysterious something—that force, or power, or influence—which has been named Attraction or Gravitation. ”

“ The astronomers said, 'Give us matter and a little motion and we will construct the universe. It is not enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, one shove to launch the mass and generate the harmony of the centrifugal and centripetal forces. ”

“ I believe I present the only reasonable scientific hypothesis ever presented in the history of the human race which shows and explains the unity, oneness and perfect organism of the universe. It shows that the universe is self-sustaining, harmonious and eternal, creating its own cosmic light, heat and life in the magnetic atmosphere of its suns and planets, and so simple that the law of atoms is the law of suns and worlds. ”

“ Here we behold the operations of a Being whose power is illimitable and uncontrollable, and which far transcends the comprehension of the highest created intelligences—a power, displayed not only in the vast extension of material existence, and the countless number of mighty globes which the universe contains—but in the astonishingly rapid motions with which myriads of them are carried along through the immeasurable spaces of creation,—some of those magnificent orbs moving with a velocity of one hundred and seventy thousand miles an hour. ”

“ In the evolution and development of worlds, and in the destruction of those worlds after long periods of time, throughout all the varied manifestations of heat, light, electricity, and magnetism, associated with the development and destruction of each globe, the sum-total of the energy of the universe remains the same. ”

“ In passing from Astronomy to Mechanics we make a transition from the formal to the physical sciences;—from time and space to force and matter;—from phenomena to causes. Hitherto we have been concerned only with the paths and orbits, the periods and cycles, the angles and distances, of the objects to which our sciences applied, namely, the heavenly bodies. How these motions are produced;—by what agencies, impulses, powers, they are determined to be what they are;—of what nature are the objects themselves;—are speculations which we have hitherto not dwelt upon. ”

“ Again, as all planets and satellites, suns and stars, are but agglomerations of elements, we have still the same two classes of things, matter and motion, and so from the most infinitesimal atom in existence, up to the most ponderous star that exists in the universe, we have running through them all the principle of the conservation of motion, which is to matter the source of all its activities, energies, and powers. Motion, therefore, might almost be said to be eternal. ”

“ But science has shown us that the heavenly bodies, however huge or remote, are all parts of one great system, under one perfect law. We know now that, instead of the earth being the center of the universe, round which all the stars, suns, moons, and other bodies revolve, it is itself but a tiny unit in a tremendous system of systems. ”

“ We will take first the world of physics, for, though the other world is given while the physical world is inferred, to us now the world of physics is the more familiar, the world of pure sense having become strange and difficult to rediscover. ”

“ And this is only natural, for the trend of recent research has made clear the fact that one of the three greatest problems of modern astronomy and astrophysics, ranking with the structure of the universe and the evolution of celestial bodies, is the constitution of matter. ”

“ If two particles could exist in the same space, so also might any greater number, and indeed all the matter in the universe, might be collected in a single point.
Incidence. The direction in which a body, or a ray of light, moves in its approach towards any substance, upon which it strikes.
Inclined Plane. One of the six mechanical powers. Any plane surface inclined to the horizon, may be so denominated.
Inertia. One of the inherent properties of matter. Want of power, or of any active principle within itself, by which it can change its own state, whether of motion, or of rest. ”

“ Now if this be the universal method of Nature, there is nothing unnatural in supposing that it must begin its operation at a stage further back than the formation of the material nucleus. As soon as that is called into being it begins to operate by the law of attraction on the material plane; but what is the force which originates the material nucleus? Let a recent work on physical science give us the answer; "In its ultimate essence, energy may be incomprehensible by us except as an exhibition of the direct operation of that which we call Mind or Will." ”

“ In this sense the whole universe coalesces into one immense body, the atoms of which—that is, suns, planets, and satellites—are indivisible and unchangeable!
There are many things in nature which the human mind will never be able to comprehend ”

“ The universe is a vast pool of ether. It is all-pervading. There is no void. It is diffused even among the molecules of which solid bodies are composed. The study of this substance is, perhaps, one of the most fascinating and important duties of the physicist. ”

“ We have also learned that the two are indissolubly united, so that wherever we found matter, whether that matter was in its atomic, molecular, planetary or stellar form, there, as its necessary complement and counterpart, was the ever-present and unceasing motion, in one or other of its many forms. Thus, throughout the entire Universe, we find the same two essentials ever working in unison and harmony. ”

“ Postulate: the Phenomena of Nature bring into play only two Elements, Matter and Energy.—If we try to account for the phenomena of the universe, we must admit with most physicists that they bring into play two elements, and two elements only; namely, matter and energy. All manifestations are exhibited in one or other of these two forms. ”

“ In conservation of matter, energy, what you will, in plenitude, in motion as only relative and so as always under a principle of uniformity and constancy or even immobility, in motion too as inclining to vibration, which suggests poise or tension, or to rotation, in which we see rest as well as motion, and finally, not to extend what might be a long list, in the infinity of space and time or of quantity, the physical sciences have hidden entrances for the silent, usually unnoticed admission of what is psychical. ”

“ You may as well discharge your mind of the many conjectures which ascribe to each planet a quality [Pg 88] of matter and intelligence peculiar to itself. The whole universe is a unit, as your spectroscope, and the bodies from space that fall from time to time upon your surface, must have suggested to you. Variable states of density and temperature modify the forms and organs of animal and vegetable life, but matter is everywhere the same. ”