The Universe a Vast Electric Organism

by Geo. W. Warder

If Creative Wisdom has the power to build worlds, He has also the power to preserve them; and, having that power, to allow them to go to decay or be destroyed would be the perverse folly of a malignant demon, not a beneficent Creator. The same is true of the destruction of a race. To create, build up, enlighten and perfect a human race, and then destroy them and their perfected world, would be a greater crime than it is possible for man or devils to perpetrate. I have a better opinion of Deity, a nobler conception of His justice and goodness than that. I believe in a God who cares, not the modern God of the atheistic majority, as Mr. Walker says, "who does not care." A God who does not care means anarchy and chaos. It means the obliteration of all law, all moral forces, all religious conceptions, all stability and consistency in the government of the universe. Why, the very air we breathe, the sunshine that gives life, the regular and constant return of day and night, of seasons, years and months, proclaim a God who cares. Every smiling human face, every generous impulse and noble thought, every worthy deed, every fragrant flower, waving field, and golden harvest testify to a God who cares.

But what of the "red claw" of the tiger. What of the big fish that eat the little ones, or the destruction of life by flood and storm, or human trials, sickness and death? Are these things consistent with a God who cares? They may be. The tiger devours to appease his hunger, the big fish eat the little ones for the same purpose, and both obey the law of self-preservation and the survival of the fittest. These two laws are necessary to preserve the life of their kind, and perfect their species for the benefit of mankind. It seems a sad spectacle to see the strong destroying the weak, but it is in the earlier stages of existence the only way under the law of evolution to preserve and improve the best of each species, and is a kindness and a blessing in the end.

As to the destruction of life by flood and storms, these are nature's efforts to preserve the equilibrium of her mighty forces, and where a few are injured, millions are benefited and blessed. And as to man's sickness and tribulations, they are one-half imaginary, and a half of the other half are the result of their own folly in the violation of the laws of health, and the remaining one fourth are disciplinary for the purpose of developing character, which is an ample reward and compensation.

As to death, it is as painless as going to sleep; it is the dread of death that hurts. And if it is the transition process, as millions believe, by which souls drop their brief tenement of atoms, and soar on tireless wings to celestial realms, then it is not a curse but a blessing, especially to the aged and decrepid, for whom life has no charms.

Will man never cease slandering the good Deity, and libeling the beneficent Creator of all good? With most people the fault is not with the world or controlling providence and Deity, but in themselves. They make their own world in their own mind and then find fault with it as if it was a reality.

Albert Russell Wallace, in the Fortnightly Review of March, 1903, in a labored article of great length, undertakes to carry the world back a thousand years to the time when man thought the earth was the center of the universe, and the stars were little openings or golden nails in the crystal vault of heaven. He says we are at the center of the universe; that our sun system belongs to a constellation situated near the center of the Milky Way. This may be true, and it is not worth disputing, for if we are at the center now—as our system travels 420,000 miles a day—we were not there a thousand years ago, and in a few decades will be far away from it. As we keep moving all the time, and do not get off at this central station which he makes so much of, I see nothing gained or lost if it is true.

But in order to show that it is central, he must limit the universe and give its circumference, metes and bounds. This is an immense undertaking. If our universe is limited—and Prof. Newcomb thought so a few years ago, and held it was in the shape of a circle or disk, which was about thirty thousand light years in circumference if true, then the light from the distant stars have been traveling thirty thousand years in order to reach us, and they must be millions of miles from where they seem to be. Thus the center of the universe is constantly changing, and it would take omniscient wisdom to tell where the center is, and then it would not remain the center many hours. This would be true whether the universe is limited or unlimited.

Mr. Wallace says, "The supreme end and purpose of this vast universe is the production and development of the living soul in the perishable body of man." If he had said that was the supreme purpose of the earth, I would have agreed with him.

But since he makes man's development the supreme purpose of the universe and says all other worlds are uninhabited, I am forced to disagree with him. He says there are one hundred millions of stars and planets in the universe, yet he depopulates them all for man's benefit, and then fails to show how man can be benefitted, or for what purpose the almost countless orbs were created. In my judgment he proves himself a million of times wrong, and reaches the climax of unreasonable conjecture. I believe no astronomer will agree with him. None has yet appeared, though several of the most eminent have already expressed their dissent and surprise at his position. His reasons, to my mind, do not justify his conclusions, but prove the very opposite hypothesis.

He estimates there are one hundred millions of stars and worlds, and says they "are all composed of the same elements as the planets and solar system. Wherever organized life may have developed, it must be built up out of the same fundamental elements as here on earth." Now, I fully agree with him in that statement, which I contend shows clearly that these worlds are inhabited. For if they possess the same elements and are controlled by the same laws, they must produce the same results of organic life as appear on our earth; and his arguments about temperature, proportion of land and water, etc., do not affect the question. His conclusions brand the Great Architect of the universe as an incompetent and wasteful profligate, and is contrary to all analogy in human reason, to all law of proportion and compensation, and to "the eternal fitness of things."