WHAT IS PROPOSED.
In the following pages I shall endeavor to set forth, in a simple and orderly manner, certain of my own theories of the Great Physical Forces.
In these theories will be comprised the identity of those forces, the intimate and essential nature of sunlight, sun-heat, gravity, sun-spots, winds and sounds, also the intimate nature of the atmosphere.
In treating these subjects my opinions will not be found in accord with those which receive universal assent at the present time, and I may thus unintentionally offend. I shall therefore claim exceeding indulgence.
If I differ from high authority, I have not a thought of detraction. None can venerate the Nestors in science who have enriched its annals, more than I, and though we reverse their judgments, their errors are confessedly our indispensable helps and guides.
The Great Problem.
The problem of the great physical forces has engaged the profoundest attention of mankind from the earliest historic period down to the present time, yet it remains practically unsolved.
Before the Christian era the opinion was entertained that all of the phenomena of nature might be reduced to one principle of explanation; that there was more than a connection between the imponderable agents—more than a relationship even,—that there was an actual identity.
No substantial progress was thereafter made in the direction of verifying this theory until along into the present century, when the development of electrical science presented a tangible basis for successful investigation.
The correlation of nearly all of those forces is now assured, leaving little to be added besides gravity to complete the unity. Yet notwithstanding the satisfactory progress which has been made in solving the grand problem of their correlation, little has been learned of their intimate nature, and the method of their operation. This is due, in the highest degree, to certain theories which were developed, and which made their way, pari passu, with the advancements of electrical and electro-magnetic science. These theories, specious, inconsistent, illogical, yet withal plausible, and even fascinating, served to blind the mental vision so that mankind might not appreciate the truth.[1]
The hypothesis promulgated by Bruno, Kant and Laplace, of the nebular origin of the spheres, and the deductions consequent thereupon, in regard to the progressive stages through which the earth in its developments has passed, was pernicious in its influence in diverting the minds of investigators from other and truer channels. To the blind confidence with which that hypothesis has been universally accepted and perpetuated, and to the fallacious theories thus directly and indirectly engendered, we owe our false position at the present day.
The present theories of the transmission of light and sound; of the production of winds, and sun-spots, and of the method of development and dissemination of heat, are in point of fact, unphilosophical and incomprehensible.
It is quite remarkable that in the present century, excelling as it does any period in the world's history in exact and reliable scientific knowledge, such unsatisfactory opinions should obtain. The failure is still more inexplicable when we reflect that these subjects are in importance the highest which can engage our attention as scientists.
We have at the present time sufficient reliable data whereon to found satisfactory hypotheses. We have but to utilize the means which the true scientists of the century have so wonderfully developed, and with which they have so prodigally surrounded us, in order to complete the consummation of the great and crowning achievement in physical science.