11. It[136] expands when the Breath of Fire[137] is upon it; It contracts when the Breath of the Mother[138] touches it. Then the Sons[139] dissociate and scatter, to return into their Mother's Bosom, at the end of the Great Day, and re-become one with her. When it[140] is cooling, it becomes radiant. Its Sons expand and contract through their own Selves and Hearts; they embrace Infinitude.
The expanding of the Universe, under the “Breath of Fire,” is very suggestive in the light of the fire-mist period, of which Modern Science speaks so much, and knows in reality so little.
Great heat breaks up the compound elements and resolves the [pg 112] heavenly bodies into their Primeval One Element, explains the Commentary.
“Once disintegrated into its primal constituent, by getting within the attraction and reach of a focus, or centre of heat [energy], of which many are carried about to and fro in space, a body, whether alive or dead, will be vapourized, and held in the ‘Bosom of the Mother,’ until Fohat, gathering a few of the clusters of Cosmic Matter [nebulæ], will, by giving it an impulse, set it in motion anew, develop the required heat, and then leave it to follow its own new growth.”
The expanding and contracting of the “Web” i.e., the world-stuff, or atoms—express here the pulsatory movement; for it is the regular contraction and expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean, of that which we may call the noumenon of Matter, emanated by Svabhâvat, which causes the universal vibration of atoms. But it is also suggestive of something else. It shows that the ancients were acquainted with that which is now the puzzle of many Scientists and especially of Astronomers—the cause of the first ignition of matter, or world-stuff, the paradox of the heat produced by refrigerative contraction, and other such cosmic riddles—for it points unmistakably to a knowledge by the ancients of such phenomena. “There is heat internal and heat external in every atom,” say the MSS. Commentaries, to which the writer has had access, “the Breath of the Father [Spirit], and the Breath [or Heat] of the Mother [Matter]”; and they give explanations which show that the modern theory of the extinction of the solar fires, by loss of heat through radiation, is erroneous. The assumption is false even on the Scientists' own admission. For, as Professor Newcomb[141] points out, “by losing heat a gaseous body contracts, and the heat generated by the contraction exceeds that which it had to lose in order to produce the contraction.” This paradox, that a body gets hotter, as the shrinking produced by its getting colder is greater, has led to long disputes. The surplus of heat, it is argued, is lost by radiation, and to assume that the temperature is not lowered pari passu with a decrease of volume under a constant pressure, is to set at naught the law of Charles. Contraction develops heat, it is true; but contraction (from cooling) is incapable of developing the whole amount of heat at any time existing in the mass, or even of maintaining a body at a constant temperature, etc. Professor Winchell tries to reconcile the paradox—only a seeming one in fact, as J. Homer Lane[142] proved—by suggesting “something [pg 113] besides heat.” “May it not be,” he asks, “simply a repulsion among the molecules, which varies according to some law of the distance”?[143] But even this will be found irreconcilable, unless this “something besides heat” is ticketed “Causeless Heat,” the “Breath of Fire,” the all-creative Force plus Absolute Intelligence, which Physical Science is not likely to accept.
However it may be, the reading of this Stanza, notwithstanding its archaic phraseology, shows it to be more scientific than even Modern Science.
12. Then Svabhâvat sends Fohat to harden the Atoms. Each[144]is a part of the Web.[145] Reflecting the “Self-Existent Lord,”[146]like a Mirror, each becomes in turn a World.[147]
Fohat hardens the Atoms; i.e., by infusing energy into them, he scatters the “Atoms,” or Primordial Matter. “He scatters himself while scattering Matter into Atoms.”
It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon Matter. Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be gathered from the appellation “Cosmic Electricity,” sometimes applied to it; but, in this case, to the commonly known properties of electricity, must be added others, including intelligence. It is of interest to note that Modern Science has come to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain-activity are attended by electrical phenomena.