And yet it is impossible to retain this supposition unless a clear mechanical explanation can be given of how a real image of itself can be called up by the twist which we suppose electricity to be.
We can by intelligent agency produce a twist which is the real image of a given twist. But it would be absurd to suppose amongst the molecules an agency which, acting with prescribed aim, gave in that domain those real simulacra, those evident images, those phantoms with which we in our larger world of masses are for ever mocked.
And yet it would be curious if such an hypothesis were to claim a recognized position in our mental apparatus with which we think about nature.
For in that molecular world, if we imagine it to ourselves, there would be a curious state.
If we consider a twist and its image, they are but the simplest and most rudimentary type of an organism. What holds good of a twist and its image twist would hold good of a more complicated arrangement also. If a bit of structure apparently very unlike a twist, and with manifold parts and differences in it—if such a structure were to meet its image structure, each of them would instantly unwind the other, and what was before a complex and compound whole, opposite to an image of itself, would at once be resolved into a string of formless particles. A flash, a blaze, and all would be over.
To realize what this would mean we must conceive that in our world there were to be for each man somewhere a counter-man, a presentment of himself, a real counterfeit, outwardly fashioned like himself, but with his right hand opposite his original’s right hand. Exactly like the image of the man in a mirror.
And then when the man and his counterfeit met, a sudden whirl, a blaze, a little steam, and the two human beings, having mutually unwound each other, leave nothing but a residuum of formless particles.
CHAPTER II.
What physical explanation is possible of this production of a real image?
First of all we may note that the production of a real image of any disturbance is one of the commonest phenomena.