Physical world

“ Natural science—or, more definitely, knowledge of the physical world with the aid of and in the sense of theoretical natural science—means the reduction of all change in the physical world to movements of atoms produced independently of time by their central forces; or, in other words, natural science is the resolution of natural processes into the mechanics of atoms. ”

“ Experience—that is to say, the self cum environment—comprises more than can be embraced in the physical world, restricted as it is to a complex of metrical symbols. The physical world is, we have seen, the answer to one definite and urgent problem arising in a survey of experience ”

“ 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. ”

“ The world consists of colors, sounds, temperatures, pressures, spaces, times, and so forth, which now we shall not call sensations, nor phenomena, because in either term an arbitrary, one-sided theory is embodied, but simply elements. The fixing of the flux of these elements, whether mediately or immediately, is the real object of physical research. As long as, neglecting our own body, we employ ourselves with the interdependence of those groups of elements which, including men and animals, make up foreign bodies, we are physicists. ”

“ We must answer in the negative. The objects of the natural sciences of the physical world arc of a material and spatial nature. A physical body has weight, occupies a certain portion of space, so has the molecule, the atom. ”

“ Now the state, including the shape or form, of a portion of matter, is the resultant of a number of forces, which represent or symbolise the manifestations of various kinds of energy; and it is obvious, accordingly, that a great part of physical science must be understood or taken for granted as the necessary preliminary to the discussion on which we are engaged. ”

“ We believe in the Conservation of the physical forces, in the Law of Evolution as it is at present and for a limited past time found to express the facts of nature, and in the fact of the Dissipation of Energy. All this we believe as the scientifically probable view, and we do so on the authority of certain students of physical science, who, having examined the facts, seem to agree upon so much as capable of popular exposition. ”

“ We are compelled to reserve our limited space for those branches of science which we are enabled to connect with the great natural operations constantly going on around us. Many of these more abstruse results will, however, receive some incidental notice when we come to examine the operation of the combined physical forces on matter. ”

“ According to the Pythagoreans and Platonists, there is a life infused throughout all things ... an intellectual and artificial fire—an inward principle, animal spirit, or natural life, producing or forming within, as art doth without—regulating, moderating, and reconciling the various motions, qualities, and parts of the mundane system. By virtue of this life, the great masses are held together in their ordinary courses, as well as the minutest particles governed in their natural motions, according to the several laws of attraction, gravity, electricity, magnetism, and the rest. ”

“ If by this superhuman concentration one succeeded in converting or resolving the two cosmoses with all their complexities into sheer ideas, he would then reach the causal world and stand on the borderline of fusion between mind and matter. There one perceives all created things- solids, liquids, gases, electricity, energy, all beings, gods, men, animals, plants, bacteria-as forms of consciousness, just as a man can close his eyes and realize that he exists, even though his body is invisible to his physical eyes and is present only as an idea. ”

“ The position which I seek to establish in this essay is, that the various imponderable agencies, or the affections of matter which constitute the main objects of experimental physics, viz., heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, and motion, are all correlative, or have a reciprocal dependence;—that neither, taken abstractedly, can be said to be the essential or proximate cause of the others ”

“ 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. ”

“ Heat, electricity, chemical power—whatever that may be—and the forces of cohesion, are known to be involved in the production of the forms we see; but contemplation soon leads to the conviction that these powers are subordinate to others which we know not of. We know only the things belonging to the surface of our planet, and these but superficially. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And beyond his form no physical progress seems possible, for he fulfills what we conceive to be Nature's design, viz., to husband force by the fullest avoidance of gravity and friction, to decrease weight to the lowest available point consistent with the size and strength necessary to best adapt him to surrounding conditions, and to produce the utmost susceptibility to impression of natural force—to attain a form, in fact, having the greatest excess of available energy, and best adapted to gain experiences of the conditions of nature. ”

“ Many of the most eminent thinkers of the present time are disposed to regard all the active principles of nature as “modes of motion,”—to look upon light, heat, electricity, and even vital force, as phenomena resulting from “change of place” among the particles of matter; this change, disturbance, or motion, being dependent upon some undefined mover. ”

“ Thus did the mind of man advance the first step toward the maturity of physical science, by attaining to a more comprehensive survey of the mundane system, and a more accurate knowledge of his own habitation, of this earthly planet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the region of natural philosophy progress is no less pronounced and no less striking. It suffices here, however, by way of anticipation, simply to name the greatest generalization of the century in physical science—the doctrine of the conservation of energy. ”

“ The second class of powers embraces those which we can account for by the universally-known laws of physics. Among these I reckon the mechanism of motion, and the chemistry of the human body, the source of vegetable life. Vegetation, then, and animal mechanism, thoroughly mingled, form the proper physical life of the human body. ”

“ All the phenomena of life,—of the vis vitæ or vitality, are beyond human search. All the physical forces, or elements, we may examine by the test of experiment: but the principle on which sensation depends, the principle even upon which vegetable life depends, cannot be tested. Life is infinitely superior to every physical force ”

“ To us, Science has laid open our own spiritual being, and thereby, in a great measure, subjected to our will the outward physical forces of the universe. Mechanical science has multiplied, almost to infinity, the feeble powers of man, and continues to multiply them. ”

“ The heavens afford the most sublime subject of study which can be derived from science. The magnitude and splendour of the objects, the inconceivable rapidity with which they move, and the enormous distances between them, impress the mind with some notion of the energy that maintains them in their motions, with a durability to which we can see no limit. ”

“ The matter that surrounds us is divided into two great classes, living and dead; the latter is governed by physical laws, such as attraction, gravitation, chemical affinity; and it exhibits physical properties, such as cohesion, elasticity, divisibility, &c. Living matter also exhibits these properties, and is subject, in great measure, to physical laws. ”

“ The influences of human thought on the physical forces which regulate the great phenomena of the universe,—and the operation of the powers of mind, on the material constituents of the planet, which is man's abiding place, form subjects for studies which have a most exalting tendency. ”

“ Limiting, as much as possible, the view which opens upon the mind as we contemplate the adjustments by which this great machine, our system, is preserved in all its order and beauty, let us forget the great movement of the whole through space, and endeavour to consider the effect of those motions which are directly related to the earth, as a member of one small group of worlds. ”

“ Conservation of energy.
Everyday observation shows that, of the bodies which compose the material world, some are in motion and some are, or appear to be, at rest. Of the bodies in motion, some, like the sun and stars, exhibit a constant movement, regular in amount and direction, for which no external cause appears. Others, as stones and smoke, seem also to move of themselves when external impediments are taken away. ”

“ Fourthly, the investigation of the phenomena of life in general, on the assumption that the physical and chemical processes which take place in the living body are of the same order as those which take place out of it; and that whatever energy is exerted in producing such phenomena is derived from the common stock of energy in the universe. ”

“ He has learned to ride over land and sea and even to skim along the currents of the air. He has been able to discover the chemical elements that permeate matter and the nature and laws of physical forces. ”

“ But it is certain that man has reacted upon organized and inorganic nature, and thereby modified, if not determined, the material structure of his earthly home. The measure of that reaction manifestly constitutes a very important element in the appreciation of the relations between mind and matter, as well as in the discussion of many purely physical problems. ”

“ In this imperfect sketch of the increased resources, and the present attitude of the physical sciences, I have not aimed to speak as an advocate, much less to sit as a judge. The great problem of the day is, how to subject all physical phenomena to dynamical laws. ”

“ The conception which most fully expresses the character of nature is that of each event as modified by the ingression of each electron into nature. The ether is the expression of this systematic modification of events throughout space and throughout time. The best expression of the character of this modification is for physicists to find out. My theory has nothing to do with that and is ready to accept any outcome of physical research.
The connexion of objects with space requires elucidation. Objects are situated in events. ”

“ Nature - by which we mean physical nature - has in fact two borders, one touching the realm of the intramaterial energies which are liberated by disrupting the structure of atomic nuclei, the other leading over into creative Chaos, the fountain-head of all that appears in nature as intelligent design. ”

“ It will therefore be necessary to enter into some details both as to the physical and chemical essentials for a continuous development of organic life, and also into the combination of mechanical and physical conditions which are required on any planet to render such life possible. ”

“ The organic combinations, and the physical powers by which these unions of matter are effected and retained, have a direct action over that ethereality which is life, and the powers of life again control these more material forces. ”

“ We cannot, by any comparison with the labours of the most skilful human artisan, convey an idea of the [Pg 15] exquisite perfection of planetary mechanics, even so far as they have been discovered by the labours of science ”

“ One of the urgent needs of modern physical science is a thorough investigation of the nature, methods, and aids of scientific cognition, and thus of the nature of its real limits, chiefly in the light of the teachings of comparative philology and comparative psychology. ”

“ Every condition of organised forms is due to the external excitation of light and heat, and in the chemical changes which take place, an equivalent of these principles, or powers—it signifies but little according to which view we may regard them—is absorbed, and retained as essential to the condition of the matter formed. ”

“ That notable doctrine known as the correlation of physical forces, or the convertibility into one another of heat, light, electricity, chemical affinity, etc., each being a mode of manifestation of an unknown energy which “lives through all life, extends through all extent,” has its counterpart in the correlation of spiritual forces. ”

“ Just so far as we can recognize the ordinary modes of operation of the common forces of nature,—gravity, cohesion, elasticity, transudation, chemical action, and the rest,—we see the so-called vital acts in the light of a larger range of known facts and familiar analogies. ”