PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION.
BY REV. JAMES A. STOTHERT.
II.
The advance of science has thrown some light on a subject of extreme difficulty and abstruseness: the relation of the qualities or accidents of matter to its substance. It is a subject of extreme difficulty, into which it seems not permitted to man to penetrate beyond the surface; but in regard to which much ignorance and misapprehension have been dispelled by the observations and deductions of modern philosophers. There are certain external marks or notes by which we recognize certain material things, as their form, their color, their hardness or softness, etc. One thing we call wood, another iron, a third wax, and so on. These external notes or marks by which we distinguish bodies are called their qualities, accidents, or properties. Underneath them there is the substance of the material thing, of which we have no means whatever of knowing anything. What it is that constitutes the difference between wood and iron, in their substance, must remain for ever a secret to our senses. We can perceive that one is harder, heavier, colder, then the other; but these observations go no further than the external qualities of the two bodies; regarding their absolute substance, or internal constitution, we have no possible means of forming a judgment. For all that we know, it may be the same in all bodies, or it may be as various as the simple elements of matter, now limited by chemists to about sixty, or it may be much more various. It is one of the mysteries of matter which will probably never be disclosed to the eye of man in this life.
Not only is the nature of material substance thus unknown to us, except through the external qualities, or accidents, which represent it; but we are informed by science that most of these qualities are the result of circumstances wholly distinct from their subject. A complete revolution in popular ideas has in part been achieved, in regard [{373}] to the permanence and immutability of these qualities of matter. Nothing seems more natural than to say that a red rose must be always red, a violet always blue, or that the size, shape, etc., of material bodies are inseparable from their existence. Yet Proteus himself was not more various in his shapes, than are the violet and the rose in the varieties of color of which they are so susceptible. Color, in fact, has no existence at all in the material object which we look at; it is a condition of the ray of light which enters our eye after reflection from the object, or after passing through it. Some objects absorb one or more parts of the three-fold visible ray of white light, and transmit or reflect to our eye only what remains of its constituent parts; some objects send the whole ray, undecomposed to the eye, and we call them white; others absorb it altogether, and they are said to be black. But all bodies, whatever their original color, that is, whatever part of the white ray they send to the eye, after absorbing the rest, may be made to appear of any color, by viewing them under the influence of variously colored light; which proves that their color exists not in themselves, but in the light which falls upon them, and on which their substance acts in some unknown way.
Sir John Herschel's testimony on this subject is very explicit. "Nothing at first can seem a more rational, obvious, and incontrovertible conclusion, then that the color of an object is an inherent quality, like its weight, hardness, etc.; and to see the object, and to see it of its own color, when nothing intervenes between our eyes and it, are one and the same thing. Yet this is only a prejudice; and that it is so is shown by bringing forward the same sense of vision which led to its adoption, as evidence on the other side; for when the differently colored prismatic rays are thrown, in a dark room, in succession upon any object, whatever be the color we are in the habit of calling its own, it will appear of the particular hue of the light which falls upon it: a yellow paper, for instance, will appear scarlet when illuminated by red rays; yellow, when by yellow; green, by green; and blue, by blue rays; its own (so called) proper color not in the least mixing with what it so exhibits." [Footnote 115] In like manner, other qualities of matter have no absolute existence, independent of circumstances. Twenty solid inches of sea water, if subjected to a pressure equal to that at a distance of twenty miles below the surface, would be reduced in volume to nineteen inches. [Footnote 116] A globe, an inch in diameter, consisting of air of the ordinary density at the earth's surface, if it could be removed into space one radius of the earth, say 4,000 miles, would expand into a sphere exceeding in radius the orbit of Saturn, as Sir Isaac Newton has calculated. Hence the tail of a great comet, such as that observed in 1843, and which extended from its nucleus 200 millions of miles, [Footnote 117] may, for aught we know, consist only of a very few pounds or even ounces of matter, expanded to a degree of tenuity to our minds almost inconceivable. [Footnote 118] The same agent, heat, modifies the extension and form of matter in totally opposite ways; making clay contract and lose in volume, while expanding water, and still more largely air. Extension, or form, therefore, is subject to great modification by change of circumstances; nor is weight less so. A pound weight of matter at the earth's equator weighs heavier at the poles; or, which is the same thing, a pendulum oscillates faster at the poles than at the equator. If removed to the planet Mars or Mercury, a pound of matter would lose half its weight; if to the surface of Jupiter, it would weigh nearly three times heavier.
[Footnote 115: Discourse, etc. §71.]
[Footnote 116: Somerville's Physical Geography, I., chap. xvi. p. 318.]
[Footnote 117: Hind's Comets, p. 22.]
[Footnote 118: Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xi. §559, note.]
If there is one quality more than another characteristic of solid rock, it is the immobility of its parts; as mobility is a distinctive feature of water and vapor. Yet experiments in crystallization have demonstrated the existence of mobility even in solid bodies, in an unimaginable degree. Mrs. Somerville remarks, that "we are led, from the mobility of fluids, to expect great changes in the relative position of their molecules, which must be in perpetual motion, even in the stillest water and the calmest air; but we are not prepared to find motion to such an extent in the interior of solids. That their particles are brought nearer by cold and pressure, or removed further from one another by heat, might be expected; but it could not have been anticipated that their relative positions could be so entirely changed as to alter their mode of aggregation. It follows from the low temperature at which these changes are effected, that there is probably no position of inorganic matter that is not in a state of relative motion." [Footnote 119] And elsewhere, in her Physical Geography, the same high authority assures us that "nothing can be more certain than that the minute particles of matter are constantly in motion, from the action of heat, mutual attraction, and electricity. Prismatic crystals of salts of zinc are changed in a few seconds into crystals of a totally different form by the heat of the sun; casts of shells are found in rocks, from which the animal matter has been removed and its place supplied by mineral; and the excavations made in rocks diminish sensibly in size in a short time if the rock the soft, and in a longer time when it is hard; circumstances which show an intestine motion of the particles, not only in their relative positions, but in space, which there is every reason to believe is owing to electricity; a power which, if not the sole agent, must, at least, have cooperated essentially in the formation and filling of mineral veins." [Footnote 120]
[Footnote 119: Connection of Phys. Sciences, § 14, p. 125.]
[Footnote 120: Phys. Geog. I, ch. xv. pp. 288, 289.]
In the language of the older treatise on science, glass is said to be transparent: gold, coal, etc., opaque, that is, incapable of transmitting light. But there is no substance known to modern discovery which, if sufficiently attenuated, is not capable of being seen through. Opacity, therefore, has no real existence as a quality of matter; it depends only on condition and circumstances. Hardness or softness in like manner, are easily separable from the substance of matter. Clay in its natural state is soft, apply heat to it and it becomes hard; wax is naturally hard, but becomes soft and ductile when warmed. Thus our knowledge of the internal constitution of material substance, through the medium of its external qualities, is in the highest degree uncertain, variable, and often erroneous. For there is not one of those external notes or Marx, which we call qualities, which cannot be changed or modified in such a way as seriously to derange the accuracy of our observations. Enough of accuracy has been secured for the purposes of our daily life; but, like the senses, our knowledge of the relation of quality to substance was never intended to carry us through the boneless field of knowledge, or enable us to pronounce with certainty regarding the nature, the difference, or the identity of substance, merely from the indications given us by its apparent qualities. These are truly accidents; things which do not affect the essence of matter; but connected with it in an evanescent way, liable to sudden change, and totally baffling our attempts to establish any certain criterion of substance by means of our observations on its qualities.
Recent observations in chemistry have still further demonstrated the impossibility of arriving at any knowledge of the internal structure of matter from its appearances. The delicate tests invented by chemists, in order to detect the difference between substances which appear to every human sense the same, though they effect their purpose with marvelous ingenuity, yet fail in indicating the ultimate reason for their efficiency.
Thus syrup extracted from the sugar-cane, or from plants yielding similar sugar, looks in every respect the same as that extracted from the juice of the grape. The refinements of modern chemistry, however, have pointed out several tests to distinguish one from the other. [Footnote 121] And in a beam of polarized light there is provided a test as subtle as any contributed by the aid of chemistry. In the instance of cane sugar, the plane of polarization revolves to the right; in grape sugar, it revolves to the left. Of this subtle agent, Mrs. Somerville remarks, when stating this interesting fact, that '"it surpasses the power even of chemical analysis in giving certain and direct evidence of the similarity or difference existing in the molecular constitution of bodies, as well as of the permanency of that constitution, or of the fluctuations to which it may be liable." [Footnote 122] The same delicate test of polarization enables us to distinguish reflected light, such as the moon's, from the light which issues from a self-luminous body, like Sirius. But in all these instances, the ultimate rationale of its indications still remains veiled in impenetrable darkness; and with it, any knowledge of the internal substance of matter.
[Footnote 121: Brande's Lectures on Organic Chemistry, p. 153.]was it
[Footnote 122: Connexion of Physical Sciences, § xxii, p. 214.]
It is, however, in the mysterious facts to which chemists have given the names of Isomorphism, Isomerism, and Allotropism, that we perceive the most direct and remarkable contribution of modern scientific research to the defence of Catholic revelation. Chemistry enables us to penetrate further than any other science into the secret operations of Nature; and strange insight has been thus obtained into the identity of substance under two or more external appearances; and of the existence of two or more substances of distinct character under identical appearances. A few words will not be idly devoted to a description of these terms, and of the results associated with them.
Isomorphism expresses the phenomenon in crystallization established by Gay Lussac and Mitscherlich, of different compounds assuming the same crystalline form. The generally received law of this process had hitherto been, that the same substances invariably crystallize in forms belonging to one system, different substances, in forms belonging to another. Cases had indeed been observed, before the discovery of Isomorphism, in which the same element had been seen to crystallize in two forms, belonging to different systems, not geometrically connected. Sulphur, for instance, crystallizing from its solution in the bisulphuret of carbon, assumes a geometrically different crystalline form from sulphur when melted by heat, and allowed to consolidate as it cools. But these and a few other similar cases had been explained as depending on a different arrangement of the particles, due most probably to a difference in the temperature during the operation. They were not thought to interfere with the general law of the same substance always assuming the same crystalline form. The two eminent philosophers just mentioned ascertained beyond a doubt that, in many instances, compound substances, in the process of crystallizing, assume the same or a cognate form, though their elements are totally different. Thus chloride of sodium (sea salt), sulphate of alumina and potash (alum), and many other compound substances equally dissimilar, crystallize in the form of the cube and its congeners. Other crystalline forms also are found to be common to many differently constituted compounds. "To these groups of analogous elements," says Professor Gregory, from whose work, On Inorganic Chemistry, we have abridged this account, "the name of Isomorphous groups has been given, as there is every reason to believe that as elements they possess the same form; and the phenomena of identical form in compounds of different but analogous composition, have received the name of Isomorphism. Two elements [{376}] are said to be isomorphous, which either crystallize in the same form, or may be substituted for each other in their compounds, equivalent for equivalent (the other elements remaining unchanged), without affecting the form of the compound. We can hardly doubt that not only the salt, but the acids are really isomorphous, and would be found so if we could obtain them all in crystals; and we have the same reason to conclude that the elements of these acids are also isomorphous; that arsenic and phosphorus, sulphur and selenium, for example, crystallize in the same form." [Footnote 123]
[Footnote 123: Inorganic Chemistry, Ed. 1853; pp. 38 et seq. ]
The converse of this phenomenon is also included among the discoveries of modern science; the same substance is sometimes observed to crystallize in two different forms not geometrically allied; and the occurrence of this new exception to the received law of crystallization is called Dimorphism.
Isomerism is the term employed to represent another exceptional class of facts, observed by later chemists to interfere with the general rule, that analogy or similarity of composition implies analogy in form and external properties. Two or more compounds, formed of the same element, in the same relative proportions, and having, therefore, the same composition in 100 parts, are often found entirely distinct and unlike in all their properties. Such bodies are called Isomeric. "The discovery of Isomerism," says the same eminent chemist, "however unexpected, is entirely consistent with the atomic theory, of which it is merely a special case. Isomerism is of very frequent occurrence among organic compounds, owing, no doubt, to their unusually large atomic weights, since the numerous atoms of the elements afford much scope for isomeric modifications; and, doubtless, this principle plays an important part in the processes of organic life and growth, as well as in decay." [Footnote 124]
[Footnote 124: Ib. p. 43, 44.]
More remarkable than all of these exceptions to hitherto established laws is the discovery of the existence of simple elements under totally dissimilar forms. Thus sulphur exists under three distinct and incompatible forms, or modifications, called Allotropic. Carbon likewise in three; the diamond, which is crystallized in octohedrons, and is limpid and transparent; graphite, which is black, opaque, and crystallized in prisms; and common charcoal, lamp-black, etc., which is black and quite amorphous. Phosphorus has two allotropic forms: one crystallized, white and transparent, and easily set on fire; the other, deep reddish-brown, amorphous, and inflamed with much less ease. Each of these elementary bodies thus assumes appearances as dissimilar as if they were totally different bodies, possessed of a physical character quite unlike each other. Well may Professor Gregory, after this summary of the subject, add: "the occurrence of such marked differences in the properties of elementary bodies is very remarkable, and of great interest in reference to the molecular constitution of matter; but the subject has not yet been fully investigated." [Footnote 125]
[Footnote 125: Inorg. Chemistry, pp. 44, 45.]
The speculations of another very distinguished chemist, Professor Faraday, in this field of recent observation, are worthy of place in this collective testimony of modern science, to the imperfect acquaintance with the ultimate constitution of material substance attainable by any amount of study of its external properties or appearances. "There was a time," says this eminent philosopher, "and that not long ago, when it was held among the fundamental doctrines of chemistry, that the same body always manifested the same chemical qualities; excepting only such variations as might be due to the three conditions of solid, liquid, and gas. This was held to be a canon of chemical philosophy, as distinguished from alchemy; and a belief in the possibility of transmutation was held to be impossible, because at variance [{377}] with this fundamental tenet. But we are now conversant with many examples to the contrary; and, strange to say, no less than four of the non-metallic elements, namely, oxygen, sulphur, phosphoros, and carbon, are subject to this modification. The train of speculation which this contemplation awakens within us is extraordinary. If the condition of allotropism were alone confined to compound bodies, that is to say, to bodies made up of two or more elements, we might easily frame a plausible hypothesis to account for it; we might assume that some variation had taken place in the arrangements of their particles. But when a simple body, such as oxygen, is concerned, this kind of hypothesis is no longer open to us; we have only one kind of particle to deal with; and the theory of altered position is no longer applicable. In short, it does not seem possible to imagine a rational hypothesis to explain the condition of allotropism as regards simple bodies. We can only accept it as a fact, not to be doubted, and add the discovery to that long list of truths which start up in the field of every science, in opposition to our most cherished theories and long received convictions." [Footnote 126]
[Footnote 126: Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, pp. 115, 116.]
Those persons who have resisted the evidence of Catholic revelation on the primâ facie ground that sound philosophy and a knowledge of the physical phenomena of nature are directly opposed to some of its doctrines, must begin, we should think, to feel their position a little less impregnable than it seemed before such sentiments as these were warranted by the actually established facts of modern science. With such evidence of its recent fruits, we may be well satisfied to watch with interest and congratulation the progress of philosophical inquiry conducted in such a spirit; not so much for our own sakes, to whom, indeed, no analogies afforded by any human science could add anything in the way of confirmation to what we have been taught by divine testimony, transmitted through the church of Christ to our remote age; but for the sake of the erring and the doubting among the intellectual minds of our fellow-countrymen; with the hope that their attention might be arrested and turned in the direction plainly enough indicated by such analogies. With one more extract, we must take leave of Professor Faraday's highly interesting volume; only begging as many of our readers as are interested in such pursuits to purchase it, and study it for themselves. After pointing out the difference between common and allotropic phosphorus, he continues: "We can scarcely imagine to ourselves a more complete opposition of qualities than is here presented in these two conditions of phosphorus; an opposition not limited by merely physical manifestations of density or crystallographic form, but recognizable through all the phases of solution, thermal demeanor, and physiological effect The metamorphosis has, in fact, been so complete, that we can only demonstrate the allotropical substance to be phosphorus, by reducing it to its original state, and subjecting it to ordinary tests. If the forces determining its constitution had been so balanced that the power of reduction were denied to us, then the substance we now call allotropic phosphorus must necessarily, according to the strictest propriety of logic, have been admitted to be not phosphorus, but some other body. It is impossible, rationally, to deny that such permanent incontrovertibility may not lie within the power of natural laws to effect. That we are not aware of such an example, cannot be accepted as a proof of its non-existence; and analogy, the guidance to which we refer when direct testimony fails, is in favor of the affirmative." [Footnote 127] From the great powers of analysis at the command of this distinguished physicist, directed as much by the courage as by the wisdom and the candid spirit of true philosophy, it is impossible to say [{378}] what further insight into the constitution of matter may not hereafter be obtained. Such an instance is surely of itself a full justification of our sanguine hopes for the future of science in its relation to what has been revealed by eternal and unchanging truth.
[Footnote 127: Lectures, etc., pp.42, 43.]
Rather by way of indication than of summary of the reflections suggested by these inquiries, we would ask, how is it that the almost illimitable extension of gross material elements should be accepted without hesitation, while the possibility of the spiritual and glorified body of the Lord existing, without division or multiplication of itself, in every Catholic tabernacle, and also in heaven, is regarded as so wildly impossible, and even monstrous a conception, as to be scouted at the bare mention of it? When philosophy expects us to believe that black, crumbling charcoal, and the hard, shining diamond, are one and the same simple substance, why should it be thought in the nature of things so incredible as at once to preclude all further examination of the evidence on which it rests, that the substance of the Child of Bethlehem, of the risen and ascended Lord, and of the most holy eucharist, are one and the same. We are far from saying that the mode of existence is the same in all these instances; we only claim for revelation what is conceded to science; that appearances should not be held, in limine, conclusive of the question, nor be allowed to outweigh or prejudice other evidence; for in every province of the universe of knowledge things are not what they seem. If what exists, or may exist, is to be limited by what human organs of sense can perceive, the boundaries of knowledge shrink into the narrowest compass: the eye and ear of an infant are enthroned as the judges of the constitution of nature; discovery and the progress of science are no more, or would never have been; mankind would yet be sunk in the imbecility of its primitive ignorance.
III.
Next to the fallacious testimony of the human senses, and the hidden nature of material substance, the subtle influences at work in the physical world seem very remarkably to indicate some curious analogies between the constitution of matter in its finer forms, and the nature of spiritual agencies. Recent analysis of the solar beam, for instance, has revealed rays hitherto unknown, because invisible to the acutest vision unaided by the appliances of science, and for long concealed even from its piercing scrutiny, but yielding at last to the refinements of modern investigation. These invisible rays have been proved to exercise most important functions in nature; in the germination and vegetation of plants, and other widely multiplied physical processes. There are few who have not heard much of the magnetic and electric currents which permeate every portion of the surface of the globe and its surrounding atmosphere; but we imagine that not so many are aware of the powerful influence which they possess in the economy of our planet. "There is strong presumptive evidence," says Mrs. Somerville, "of the influence of the electric and magnetic currents on the formation and direction of the mountain masses and mineral veins; but their slow persevering action on the ultimate atoms of matter has been placed beyond a doubt by the formation of rubies, and other gems, as well as various other mineral substances by voltaic electricity." [Footnote 128] And, in another place, in the same instructive work, she remarks, that "it would be difficult to follow the rapid course of discovery through the complicated mazes of magnetism and electricity; the action of the electric current on the polarized sunbeam, one of the most beautiful of modern discoveries, leading to relations hitherto unsuspected between that power and the complex assemblage of visible and invisible influences on solar light, by [{379}] one of which nature has recently been made to paint her own likeness." [Footnote 129] These influences, for all their subtlety, have a real, appreciable existence, and fulfil a definite and beneficent end. A curious example of the subserviency of the invisible magnetic current to the wants of men is mentioned by Humboldt as having occurred to himself, in one of his voyages off the west coast of South-America. Bad weather had prevailed for several days, so as to shut out all view of land, or of the sun and stars. The crew were in expectation of making a particular port on that coast: on consulting his dip-needle, the scientific passenger discovered that the ship had passed the latitude of its destined port; the ship's course was altered, and much delay and, probable, danger avoided. [Footnote 130] Nor are the agencies destructive to human life less subtile or recondite. Various miasmata of a pestilential character defy every refinement of chemical analysis to detect the cause of their mischievous operation, or the difference of their elementary constitution from that of pure and wholesome air. The most universal, and, as far as our knowledge serves, the most important of all physical influences, that of gravitation, is also the subtlest and most occult; traversing the vast regions of space with instantaneous speed, and pervading the remotest fields of the great universe of matter; penetrating without sensible interval of time to distances far beyond the utmost reach of human thought, with a force which maintains the stars of heaven in their courses, and gives stability to every known material system.
[Footnote 128: Physical Geography, II., chap. xxii. pp. 92.]
[Footnote 129: Physical Geography, II., xxxiii. pp. 400, 401.]
[Footnote 130: Cosmos, I. 171; III. 139.]
If these occult agencies in the material world are recognized as fulfilling their mission, for all their secrecy and subtlety, or rather, by means of these very characteristics, why is the possibility of a hidden yet efficient agency in the spiritual world denounced as a heresy against common sense and sound philosophy? The physical system of things has its great laboratory of decomposition and reconstruction kept in operation by these unseen influences; it is indebted to them for the maintenance of its existence. Science rejoices to measure them by their admirable results, to detect their operations in their sensible effects. Why must the sacramental system revealed in the spiritual world be with equal justice refused its claim to an agency hardly more subtle? Philosophers admit the truth of observations in these occult natural agencies, and have no doubt of their real existence; why do they so contemptuously regard the result of our observations in those which are secret and spiritual, when our observations are as numerous, and their evidence as good?
IV.
The whole question of the relation of space and time becomes one of vast interest and importance, in connection with a common objection made to the possibility of our holding communication with the saints and angels in heaven, as Catholics are taught to believe they may. Across a space of such unknown vastness, it is alleged that the idea of transmitting a wish or a prayer is contrary to every principle of philosophy. Now, assuming, what indeed has never been proved, that the heaven of the blessed is as remote from our daily path as some maintain it to be, and without entering here into the abstract question as to whether the idea of space or of time is the older and simpler, some considerations are suggested by the study of modern scientific principles, which may throw light on the objection just staled, and may help us to ascertain its real worth.
It is evident that time and space may be made a measure of each other. The distance from one point in space to another may be expressed in so many units of time, say a minute, an hour, or a day, required to traverse the intervening distance at a given velocity. Hence, if velocity of motion [{380}] from point to point be represented by the simple formula of (Space/Time) we obtain two other formulas representing; time and space, respectively, in terms of each other.
Thus, if Velocity = Space/Time
Then, Time = Space/Velocity
and Space = Time X Velocity.
[Footnote 131]
[Footnote 131: For example, call Velocity 40 miles and hour, and Time 10 hours; then Space = 40 X 10 = 400 miles; or call Space 400 miles, Velocity being the same, then Time = 400/40 = 10 hours.]
There is a little instrument much valued by philosophical observers, but of no great intricacy in itself, which is at once an unerring measure of space and time; we mean a common pendulum oscillating seconds in a given level, say of London, at a given level, say of the sea, other conditions, as of the thermometer, etc., being the same. This instrument, beating seconds, is an invariable measure of length; in the latitude of London, for example, at the level of the sea, with thermometer at 62° Fahr., it is invariably 39.1393 inches long. And, conversely, provide such an instrument of the length just mentioned, and set it a-going; its oscillations will exactly measure out one second of time. Further, as a measure of length, it enables us to ascertain the weight of a cubic inch of water, in parts of a pound troy, whence the imperial standards of weight and capacity are derived. Hence a pendulum is a constant representative of space, in its length; and of time, in its oscillation. At any point on the surface of the globe, a rod of a certain given length will invariably, in similar circumstances, beat seconds; and a rod, beating seconds as it swings, will invariably measure a certain fixed length, according to the latitude. Why it does so, does not enter into our arguments now; it is enough that the fact is ascertained, and is one of the very commonest application to practise. Every good house-clock is evidence of it In the same town, for instance, the seconds' pendulums of all regularly-going clocks are of equal length to the minute fraction of an inch; and all pendulums, of the same length exactly, keep the same time exactly. In other words, space is made a measure of time, and time is a measure of space.
We said, just now, that space may be represented in terms of time, and time in those of space, the rate of Velocity being given. London is said to be ten hours from Edinburgh, when the transit is made at the rate of forty miles an hour. "As long as it would take to go to London," may be given as an expression equivalent to ten hours, at the same rate of motion. But vary that rate, and the terms used instantly represent very variable quantities. Ten hours from London, at the rate of a pedestrian travelling his four miles an hour, represent an insignificant distance of only forty miles; "as long as it would take to go to London" now expresses a period of a hundred hours, or more than four days. But take the wings of light, and instantly the distance supposed, if expressed in terms of time, dwindles to a minute portion of a second; even this is long, if you measure the space by the flash transmitted along the electric wire. Leaving the comparatively insignificant spaces on the surface of the globe for those vaster distances which divide planet from planet and from the sun, the time of 8 minutes 3.3 seconds, which the solar light takes to travel from its source to our globe may be taken as an expression of its distance from that luminary. Nay, there is a rate of velocity surpassing all these, bridging over the vast span of Neptune's orbit, for example, or the vaster diameter of a comet's path, in a unit of time too minute for the subtlest human instruments or calculations to appreciate. We mean the force or influence of gravitation, which, ever since the first moment when the sun and the planets were created, has been passing instantaneously from the centre of the solar system to every part, [{381}] even the most distant, of his wide empire, and back again from its furthest point to his centre.
Now, it is evident that if you undertake to express the distance of sun from planet in terms of the time, at this rate of velocity, it is reduced to nothing. The sun is as effectually present, for instance, in his all-important gravitating influence, at every instant of time, in the planet Neptune, nearly three thousand millions of miles away, as the hand of the schoolboy is present at the end of his sling, while he whirls it round his head, and retains the stone in its place by the string. Cut the string, and the stone flies off; suspend for an instant the influence, or force, or attraction, or whatever you please to call it, which binds Neptune to the sun, and he flies off in a path more eccentric than any comet's.
There are two ways of spanning distance: one by actual, bodily transit; another by the transmission of an impulse or wave, propagated and repeated along the space intervening, in some medium more or less mobile or subtle. The planetary motions are good examples of the actual translation of bodies through space: this earth of ours sweeping along, in its orbit round the sun, at a rate of something like nineteen miles in a second, or 68,000 miles in an hour, besides its rotatory motion on its axis of 24,000 miles every day. The planet Venus exceeds this velocity, travelling at the rate of 80,000 miles an hour; while Mercury, in the same time, accomplishes 109,360 miles. Even this inconceivable velocity is far surpassed by the comet of 1843, which, with a tail two millions of miles long, and a nucleus apparently larger than our globe, swept round the sun, at its perihelion, at the rate of 366 miles, or nearly the distance from Edinburgh to London, in one second. [Footnote 132]
[Footnote 132: Outline of Astronomy, §590, 593.]
Velocities of impulse exceed those of bodily translation; that is, supposing we may class among examples of wave motion the transmission of sound, light, electricity, and perhaps gravitation. Dr. Lardner mentions his having, on one occasion, in company with Leverrier, written a message by electric telegraph, at a distance of more than a thousand miles, and at the rate of 19,500 words in an hour, or of 5.5 words in a second. [Footnote 133] At a similar distance, and indeed at a much greater, a steel bar may be made to vibrate fourteen thousand miles in a second. [Footnote 134] Such a velocity evidently far surpasses the power of human comprehension. Even in regard to the less rapid transmission of light, the eminent astronomer Bessel candidly confesses that "the distance which light traverses in a year is not more appreciable to us, than the distance which it traverses in ten years. Therefore, every endeavor must fail to convey to the mind any idea of a magnitude exceeding what is accessible on the earth." [Footnote 135]
[Footnote 133: Museum of Science and Art, part viii. p. 116.]
[Footnote 134: Ib., Part ix. p. 201.]
[Footnote 135: Quoted, Cosmos, iii. 85.]
Now, even supposing that we are acquainted with all the methods which exist in nature for spanning vast distances, and if, as we have shown, distance may be expressed in terms of the time taken to travel over it, or transmit a communication across it, the thought forcibly occurs. What is distance, if viewed apart from the means at disposal for overpassing it? A friend in the next room is not nearer us than another in the next continent, if in the same interval of time we can communicate with either. To be sure, one of them we might see sooner than the other, but sight is no necessary means of communicating; the blind are forever debarred from it. Man can communicate with man, even materially, without either sight or hearing; and far beyond the range of either.
But who shall be bold enough to say that other and subtler methods of communication may not exist in the material universe? or that the world of spirit has none more vivid than those subtle currents which permeate the world of matter? To a generation or two ago, the means of transmitting intelligence, which are now quite familiar to us, would have seemed fabulous; a little further back in the history of Europe, their discovery might have involved the penalty due to witchcraft. If the passage of a material impulse across the wide orbit of Neptune unites him intimately at every moment with the sun, is there any distance that can be said absolutely to present an impassable gulf to the intercourse of spirit with spirit? Or, can it be said that some such means of communication do not, and cannot exist, because human senses do not perceive them, nor human intelligence comprehend them? Transmission by impulse surpasses in velocity every known instance of actual, bodily translation: why must what we yet know of the former be fixed as the limit of what is possible? Why may there not be some means of communication surpassing in swiftness the flash of the lightning, or the influence of gravitation, as far as it exceeds the sweep of the comet or the slow progress of the pedestrian? Why must it be pronounced an idle dream, that we may hold one end of a chain of impulses vibrating from earth to heaven, lying along the future track of our emancipated and purified spirits?
And pursuing analogy one step further, it is no severe demand on the imagination to conceive that the universal presence of God, which embraces and interpenetrates the immensity of space, may be, to the subtle and vivid impulses from spirit to spirit, what, in another order of things, the elastic ether of the planetary and sidereal spaces is to vibrations of material creation; that it may fulfil for those similar functions of propagation and transmission. In him who is everywhere, at every instant, and forever, intelligence may easily be conceived to pass between the remotest points of space, with a speed not slower than coexistence itself; for any him there is no passage or motion either in time or space; he is the one indivisible Eternal, here and now.
V.
We are forcibly struck, while referring to the discoveries of modern science, with the very slender ground on which the mass even of educated persons accept their most astonishing and improbable results. How many persons of all those who talk, with much fluency and show of knowledge on subjects of physical science, have tested, by their own observation, the truth of one of the phenomena which they converse about? How many persons, for instance, who tell us that light and heat in the same ray have been separated, have actually proved it by personal experiment, or even seen it proved by another? How many persons are there at this moment in England and Scotland who have verified by their own observation and calculation the size and figure of the earth, or its distance from the sun and moon; not to mention other more intricate problems in physics, of which they have no personal knowledge whatever? The mass of mankind are content to receive these things on sufficient testimony of men competent, or whom they deem competent, to inform them on such subjects. Here, at least, in the domain of science, there is no exaltation of private judgment, no rebellion against scientific authority; and it is a wise and a just arrangement that it should be so. There are not many men, in any age, furnished with the intellectual outfit necessary for such verifications; a lifetime would not be sufficient to enable one man to accomplish them all. Sir John Herschel has the following admirable remarks, which are very much to our present purpose. "What mere assertion will make any one believe, that in one second of time, in one beat of a pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels over 192,000 Miles, and would therefore perform the tour [{383}] of the world in about the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in much less than a Swift runner occupies in taking a single stride? What mortal can be made to believe, without demonstration, that the sun is almost a million times larger than the earth? and that, although so remote from us that a cannon ball shot directly toward it would be twenty years in reaching it, yet it affects the earth by its attraction in an appreciable instant of time? But what are these to the astonishing truths which modern optical inquiries have disclosed, which teach us that every point of a medium through which a ray of light passes is affected with a succession of periodical movements, regularly occurring at equal intervals, no less than five hunted millions of millions of times in a single second? That it is by such movements, communicated to the nerves of our eyes, that we see; nay, more, that it is the frequency of their recurrence which affects us with the sense of the diversity of color. That, for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, our eyes are affected four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions of times; of yellowness, five hundred and forty-two millions of millions of times; and of violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions of times in a second. These are nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most certainly arrive, who will only be at the trouble of examining the chain of reasoning by which they have been obtained."
If Theology, or the science of God and his revealed will, is, as might have been expected, not less, but more recondite than any other, as its objects are vaster, more remote from human understanding, than those of any other science; surely, on philosophical principles, it is not unreasonable that authority should have its weight here, also, and equal measure at least to be dealt to all. Yet the modern world is agreed in ridiculing and denouncing the principle of authority in religious matters, as the bane of human society; and in exalting private judgment and opinion, as the Christian's only ultimate appeal in the matter. Apply this principle of independence to any other science, to any subject of human knowledge, or to any object of intelligent inquiry; and a race of sciolists, pedants, and sceptics would inevitably result. The authority of great names in science would lose all its just honor; there would be no system, no progress in observations; thousands of persons, incompetent to do more than deny the conclusions of the learned and the able, would refuse their assent to these, till the impossible time should arrive, when, by actual and personal investigation, they should be pleased to pronounce judgment on the accuracy of these conclusions; life would be consumed in negation; mutual trust and deference to superior knowledge and capacity would be annihilated. Whether in this incompatibility of private judgment with its best interests, and even with its stability, Revelation is very different from Science, we leave to the study of our readers, and to their observation of the fine gradations of independent judgment which conduct from Luther to Strauss; the former of whom began by denying the pope, and the latter ended by impugning the divinity of Jesus Christ.
VI.
The principle of authority and its correlative, subordination and dependence, is represented, in a remarkable manner, in the constitution of physical nature, especially in the province of astronomy. It is a remark of Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise, [Footnote 136] "that the relations among the planets is uniformly, not co-ordinate, but subordinate. Satellites are subject to the influence of their primaries; primaries to that of the central sun; the central sun itself to a higher and more distant centre; in a sublimer material hierarchy, ascending in gradations of [{384}] immense numerical magnitude; and thus while insuring the stability of the whole planetary and stellar systems, ultimately, as every analogy teaches us, making one grand centre of revolution and subordination, at a point of space whose distance we cannot even imagine."
[Footnote 136: Bohn's Edition, p. 175.]
In his remarks on the Third Law of Kepler, namely, that the squares of the times of planetary revolution round the sun are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from that central luminary, Sir J. Herschel has the following pertinent observations, "Of all the laws to which induction from pure observation has ever conducted man, this third law, as it is called, of Kepler, may justly be regarded as the most remarkable, and the most pregnant with important consequences. When we contemplate the constituents of the planetary system, from the point of view which this relation affords us, it is no longer mere analogy which strikes us—no longer a general resemblance among them, as individuals independent of each other, and circulating about the sun, each according to its own peculiar nature, and connected with it by its own peculiar tie. The resemblance is now perceived to be a true family likeness; they are bound up in one chain—interwoven in one web of mutual relation and harmonious agreement—subjected to one pervading influence, which extends from the centre to the furthest limits of that great system; of which all of them, the earth included, must henceforth be regarded as members." [Footnote 137 ]
[Footnote 137: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix §489.]
The remarks of the same great philosopher on the systems of double stars, in a later part of his work on astronomy, bear still more directly on the view we are proposing. "It is not with the revolutions of bodies of a planetary or cometary nature round a solar centre, that we are now concerned; it is with that of sun round sun—each, perhaps, at least in some binary systems, where the individuals are very remote, and their period of revolution very long, accompanied with its train of planets and their satellites, closely shrouded from our view by it the splendor of their respective suns, and crowded into a space bearing hardly a greater proportion to the in enormous interval which separates them, than the distance of the satellites of our planets from their primaries bear to their distances from the sun itself. A less distinctly characterized subordination would be incompatible with the stability of their systems, and with the planetary nature of their orbits. Unless closely nestled under the wing of their immediate superior, the sweep of another sun in its perihelion passage round their own might carry them off, or whirl them into orbits utterly incompatible with the conditions necessary for the existence of their inhabitants. It must be confessed that we have a strangely wide and novel field for speculative excursions, and one which it is not easy to avoid luxuriating in." [Footnote 138]
[Footnote 138: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xvi. § 847.]
VII.
The phenomena of nature or suggest an interesting view all of law in general, which we shall in a few words faintly outline. It is constantly urged as an objection to the doctrine of revelation regarding the Blessed Eucharist, for example, that it is contrary philosophy, inasmuch as it assumes and implies the suspension of a universal law, which connects certain definite accidents or qualities of matter invariably with their corresponding substance; for in the Holy Eucharist the properties, qualities, or accidents of one substance are attached to another.
By a "Law" in physics no more can be understood than a deduction from a sufficiently large series of observed facts, establishing, from long and tearful and extensive observation, a uniformity of result in the same given circumstances. Some laws are said to be "empirical," which though derived from careful noting of invariably [{385}] recurring phenomena, enunciate no principle, or rationale, but merely the numerical result of observation. Thus Kepler's three laws of planetary motion, and Bode's law of planetary distances from the sun, are instances of law simply and confessedly empirical. Newton's law of gravitation is said to furnish the principle which is involved in Kepler's formula of details; because once Newton's law is admitted as governing planetary motion, what Kepler observed of the movements of the planets, can be deduced by calculation. It would be perhaps more philosophical, in the present state of our knowledge, to regard even the most apparently elementary and fundamental law as only empirical, and the ultimate principle as lying deeper than any known law. In this view, a law like that of Newton's demonstrating, would be said to lie only one step nearer the ultimate principle than the earlier and more empirical. Probably there is no ultimate principle nearer than the divine volition.
In fact, the law of gravitation is now regarded by philosophers as something short of the ultimate solution of material attraction and repulsion; they are groping their way, at this moment, to something more universal than that law, as may be gathered from the following observations of Sir J. Herschel: "No matter from what ultimate cause the power which is called gravitation originates—be it a virtue lodged in the sun, as its receptacle, or be it pressure from without, or the resultant of many pressures or solicitations of unknown fluids, magnetic or electric ethers, or impulses—still, when finally brought under our contemplation, and summed up into a single resultant energy, its direction is from many points on all sides toward the sun's centre." [Footnote 139]
[Footnote 139: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix. §490.]
Whence is this uncertainty about the probable nature of this force? Because, universal as it has been thought, it fails in certain circumstances, as in some electrical conditions, and within very small distances; when the relation of material particles to one another is one of repulsion, and not of attraction. Take another law, as it is called, that fluids will always rise as high as their source, and no higher. The phenomena of capillary attraction prove that this law does not hold in all cases. The chemical law of atomic combination is sometimes found signally to fail. Physical laws, therefore, like these, are good only as far as they go; there are limits to their application.
Why may not this be true in regard to the law which is said to militate against the doctrine of the blessed Eucharist? It may hold good for a thousand instances, and may fail in the next, like other physical laws; and that instance may be the very one of this revealed doctrine. Exceptio probat regulam is a sound rule in a certain sense; it tells the other way, however, when the absolute impossibility even of an exception is maintained in regard to any physical law.
But, in fact, we see that this law of relation between quality, or accident, and substance, is very uncertain in its application to many conditions of matter. Modern discovery has much diminished the number of the properties, or qualities, of matter; and has proved that even these are by no means constant in the same substance, nor always variable in different substances; so that one substance often looks to every sense, like another, wholly different; and "behaves," like it, in a variety of ways; while the same substance has sometimes more than one mode of appearance. There is, in fact, no law of uniformity between material substance and its properties; if there is any law on the subject, it is the other way; and the result of discovery seems clearly to demonstrate that we know absolutely nothing of the nature of substance.
VIII.
Closely connected with this view of law is the interesting subject is [{386}] throughout nature, but especially in the motions and temporary disturbances in the heavenly spaces, and which afford, in fact, the best evidence of the stability of the vast system of creation. A variation is observed in the ellipticity of the earth's orbit, for instance, of which one evident proof is the acceleration of the moon's motion round her primary; it might seem as if, at some vastly remote period in future time, the total derangement of our planetary system must ensue; but calculation has assured us that there is a point, far short of that, at which there will occur a change; and in the lapse of ages things will return to their original condition. Thus beyond an exception to law there is still Law existing supreme, regulating the conditions and the term of such exceptional existence. In a similar manner, the law of storms, as it is called, establishes the dominion of definite order even in the confusion and mad fury of the tropical hurricane; so definite, and so completely under the control of observed rule, that navigators are provided with certain instructions for evading the overwhelming force of those terrible visitations. We think of these cycles of apparent exception and departure from established order, in the physical world, when we hear objections made against this or that apparent anomaly in the spiritual and moral government of God; till the principles and laws of one government are proved wholly unlike those of the other, we imagine a secular variation not impossible in the one as it actually exists in the other; and we can endure even a temporary eclipse of the outward glory of his church, the prevalence of her enemies against her, for a longer or a shorter time; the exile of her chief pastor; the triumph of iniquity in her glorious capital; convinced that erratic trains of events like these are subject to law in the permission of him who governs as he made the universe of matter and of mind, by an act of his sovereign and omnipotent will.
IX.
From what has preceded, one or two general reflections occurred to an intelligent mind, somewhat to this effect. It seems that the horizon of science has never been long stationary, and is now opening wider then at any former period. Every science has passed through many strange phases of empiricism, before reaching the philosophical basis on which it now rests. All of them are disclosing facts and analogies undreamed of by our grandfathers. A very few years make a book on chemistry or physiology old and out of date. We are posting on to further knowledge; strange and unimagined relations between matter and matter, and still stranger between matter and mind, are no doubt awaiting the detection of future discoverers; our children, or their children, will know more than we. A single sentence of Professor Faraday's reflections on the subject of Allotropism, is sufficient to open a wide view of the possible career of science. "The philosopher ends," he says, "by asking himself the questions, In what does chemical identity consists? In what will these wonderful developments of allotropism end? Whether the so-called chemical elements may not be, after all, mere allotropic conditions of purer universal essences? Whether, to renew the speculations of the alchemists, the metals may the only so many mutations of each other, by the power of science naturally convertible? There was a time when this fundamental doctrine of the alchemists was opposed to known analogies; it is now no longer opposed to them, but only some stages beyond their present development." [Footnote 140]
[Footnote 140: Faraday's Lectures, pp. 105, 106.]
Is it safe to trust to what are considered to be indications of physical truth in a contest with moral evidence when the limits of physical knowledge are so floating and ill defined? Is it safe to erect barriers of supposed physical laws against the entrance of conviction regarding the truths of [{387}] revelation, when recent discovery has established so much that tells on the side of faith; when it has overturned so many old philosophical objections to it; when future discovery may, and seems likely to push the advantage of revelation still further into the domain of matter; when its indications have so many analogies to the doctrines of revealed truth? We are sure, at least, that future discovery can take from us no advantage which we at present derive from our knowledge of physical laws; it cannot fail widely to extend that advantage, by enlarging our acquaintance with the laws of nature.
X.
The natural termination of our reflections is the consideration of how short a way we yet see into the constitution of Nature; how far we are still from reaching the secrets of her vast operations. "After all, what do we see?" asks Admiral Smyth, in his Cycle of Celestial Objects. "Both that wonderful (stellar and nebular) universe, our own, and all which optical assistance has revealed to us, may be only the outlines of a cluster immensely more numerous. The millions of suns we perceive cannot comprise the Creator's universe. There are no bounds to infinitude; and the boldest views of the elder Herschel only placed us as commanding a ken whose radius is some 35,000 times longer than the distance of Sirius from us. Well might the dying Laplace exclaim, 'That which we know, is little; that which we know not, is immense.'" [Footnote 141] If, on the one hand, the discoveries of man in every department of material knowledge prove him to be in genius and intelligence only "a little lower than the angels," the boundless expanse of undiscovered worlds of investigation in his own and distant systems may well abate his enthusiasm, and make the greatest philosopher acknowledge that we as yet know only in part.
[Footnote 141: Vol. ii. Bedford Catalogue, p. 303.]
If so, partial knowledge of the laws of divine government can never be a safe or a philosophical guide to direct us in accepting or rejecting whatever comes to us claiming to be from the author and sustainer of that government, as revelation does. It can never be safe even as a preliminary guide; as an ultimate rule to test the value of revelation, it is totally disqualified. Till we know all, we can say nothing of what is possible or impossible, probable or the reverse. We can understand a person to whom the claims of revelation on his assent were new and strange, hesitating to accept it at all, till its credentials had been examined, and their evidence ascertained; but once that process is concluded, and a revelation established, we cannot understand a philosophical mind, in the elementary state of human knowledge, proceeding to select from the sum of revealed truth what seems to it intelligible, and accepting that, while rejecting whatever it considers to be the reverse; and maintaining that, because it cannot comprehend the mysterious things of revelation, therefore they cannot be from God. The only course, at once safe and philosophical, is to accept the whole of what is presented to us, without questioning its coincidence, or otherwise, with our previous views of what is likely or befitting; with our present notions of what is intelligible. To our limited knowledge it may seem in its doctrines unintelligible, imperfect, perhaps even contradictory: clouds of doubts may seem to hover over it; storms of conflicting principles and laws and assumptions, subversive, as we think, of the course of nature, may now rage about its path. But ascend the mountain-top, and the clouds are left far beneath; the roaring of the storm cannot be heard so high. Descend a little way into the deep, and the agitation of its surface ceases; silence and order and everlasting rest are established there. So the deeper we penetrate into the knowledge of God, as manifested in his material government, or the higher we ascend in contemplating his modes [{388}] of action in nature, the nearer we shall approach to the vision of that perfect harmony and nice adjustment of every part of his vast creation, the full disclosure of which will recreate our intelligence in the light of his eternal beauty. It cannot be matter for wonder, then, that we rejoice at every new step in science, at every discovery of the secret powers of nature. We welcome the advance of physical science as a pioneer of the ultimately victorious progress of revealed truth, which shall demonstrate its intimate harmony with all that is known of the divine operations in the constitution of nature.
Meanwhile, we can afford to wait "till the day breaks and the shadows flee away." The veil will one day be withdrawn, and we shall see, eye to eye. Influences and agencies which it has not yet been given to man even to imagine, will then be disclosed, around us and within us; as when the eyes of the prophet's servant were opened, and he beheld his master surrounded with chariots of fire and horses of fire. Things will then be seen as they are, in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. We can afford to wait for that day. We feel within us, already, much that we cannot account for, on natural principles; strong presentiments, and instincts of the supernatural and eternal order of things, are ever and ever crossing our path, stirring us with strange and sudden and mysterious power; disposing us for the revelations of the final day. A day of wonder; a day of benediction; but not for those who have refused to believe because they could not see, but for Christ's simple little ones, who were content to believe before, or without seeing; for whom it was enough that the great Creator had spoken to them by his Son, and since by his church; more than enough, that, even here, they could recognize the subservience of philosophy to faith; that they could perceive "in outward and visible things the type and evidence of those within the veil."