The Making of a Man

by James W. Lee

There is also the conserved force of moving winds. By the aid of this ships spread their sails, and pass from continent to continent with the products of the earth. Again all the force the winds possess for the accomplishment of work comes from the sun. The rays of the sun come down with great intensity upon certain parts of the earth and heat the atmosphere. Into these heated places come the winds from colder regions. Thus currents and counter-currents are created. By putting the wheel of the windmill into these currents this force is converted into the ground wheat and the drawn water. Thus all the different forms of force displayed in the growing forests, the waving harvest fields, the flying birds, the lowing herds, the rushing railway train, the whir of the spindle, the ring of the hammer, and the pulsating blood come directly from the sun. The force, too, seen in all these physical, vegetable, animal, commercial realms, is the exact equivalent of what was poured into them from the sun. The earth contains no other force capital than what was paid over to it by the sun. It has issued no currency of its own, not even enough to run a watch, or to send the blood once around the body, or even to transport a piece of bread to a starving man. All the force our earth possesses is borrowed, and if we were to cease to borrow, we would be bankrupt in a single day. We are to remember, too, that by so much force as the sun has parted with to our earth, and to other worlds which look to it for supplies, by so much has its own force been decreased. If we knew how much force the sun had in the beginning, and would subtract from this amount all that it has given away to the present time, we might be able to form some estimate of its assets to-day.

We know not what the sun’s resources are. We know not by what methods it has been replenishing its supplies of light and heat for ages past; whether by chemical combination, meteoric impact, or condensation; we only know by so much as it has in the ages past parted with, by so much less force it has to-day. That it has been able to supply our world and others like it, however, with heat and light and physical life for ages, is not at all strange when we remember what an immense ball of fire the sun is. It has a diameter of a million miles, in round numbers. Storms, which travel across our world at the rate of sixty miles an hour, would move across the surface of the sun at the rate of twenty thousand miles an hour. The flames of a burning forest, which on our world would rise one hundred feet in the air, on the sun would rise to the height of two hundred thousand miles. The sun, too, has enough force on hand to supply our earth and others with heat for untold ages yet to come, but unless its supply is replenished, the time will come when it will be bankrupt and nothing but a burnt out char in the heavens. This is so, because the sun is the center of that great natural realm, the universal law of which is the law of exclusiveness.

In accordance with this law what the sun has in the way of force the other planets do not have, and what other planets obtain from the sun that body has forever lost. This is only another name for the law of the correlation of forces. This law applies not only to the force of the sun, but to all forces on this earth which come from that body. What one tree gathers into itself is at the expense of the general fund of force which goes to make trees. What one bird takes into his body is at the expense of all force which goes to make birds. What one man takes into his physical frame is at the expense of the general fund of force which goes to make human bodies. Whatever amount of force is contained in the cloud, in conserved water to turn the wheel, or in conserved electricity to carry the message, is at the expense of the general fund of force.

According to the doctrine of the correlation of forces, the rising up of force in one place involves the subsidence of force in another place. The amount rising up, too, is the exact equivalent of the amount subsiding. When a rock falls from a church steeple the earth rises as much to meet the rock, in proportion to its mass, as the rock falls to meet the earth, in proportion to its mass. When a man shoots a rifle ball from a gun, as much force goes back against his shoulder as goes out through the muzzle of the gun. What the gun lacks in velocity it makes up in mass, and what the ball lacks in mass it makes up in velocity. When a pine tree is cut down and split into small pieces and put into an engine, just the same amount of heat is gathered from it that was garnered from the sun in the fifty years of its growth. This heat is also converted into an equivalent of steam, and this steam into an equivalent amount of mechanical motion. The sunshine, the pine tree, the heat, the steam, the mechanical motion, are only different forms of the same thing. Scientists of the materialistic school claim that this law holds good not only in the realm of the natural world, but in the mental and moral, as well. Prof. Thomas H. Huxley said, in a celebrated address in this country once, that a speech was only so much transmuted mutton. According to Prof. Alexander Bain, there are five chief powers, or forces in nature: one mechanical or molar, the momentum of moving matter; the others, molecular, are embodied in the molecules, also supposed in motion—these are light, heat, chemical force, electricity. One member of vital energies, the nerve force, allied to electricity, fully deserves to rank in the correlation. According to this same distinguished authority, mind is only a refined and sublimated form of physical force. In this view the great poems, paintings, and literature of the world would be only so much transmuted sunshine—a higher form of the same force we see manifested in the flying railway train. In the one case the solidified sunshine contained in the coal is transmuted through the furnace of the engine into mechanical motion; in the other, the heat contained in food is transmuted through the human brain into literature and art. Perhaps it might not be at wide variance from the truth to assume that the force, mental or otherwise, expended by men who spend their lives under the dominion of the natural law of exclusiveness, may be accounted for in accordance with the doctrine of the correlation of forces. Even mind, when earthly and low, is subject to the bearing of the law of sin and death, which is the scriptural name for the law of exclusiveness.

III.

It might be plausibly contended that the religious movement of the prophet Mohammed could be accounted for in accordance with the doctrine of the correlation of forces. It is to be remembered that the personality of Mohammed is no more the equivalent of the vast movement which has existed and exists to-day under his name, than the acorn is the quantitative equivalent of the immense oak tree which has grown from it. The acorn, plus all the oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other forces of sky and earth which it caught and organized, is the equivalent of the oak tree. The soil and the sky contain oaks in solution. Through acorns these are precipitated into trees.

The mental, political, and social atmosphere of Turkey contained the Mohammedan movement in solution before Mohammed was born. Through him it was precipitated into Koran, mosque, prayer, and worship.

Mohammed relied for success upon the methods with which men ordinarily succeed. He appealed to men’s love of fame, of pleasure, of conquest, of power, of riches. He simply organized the latent aspirations, and hopes, and fears of his countrymen into a great kingdom, essentially secular and sensual.

In accordance with the principle of the correlation of forces, it might be possible to account for the success of Buddha, Confucius, Cæsar, and Bonaparte. What we wish now, is to apply this doctrine, which the materialists claim is capable of measuring everything, from an atom to Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” to the life and work of Christ. Granting, as we must, that all physical force may be estimated by it, and even that the work and thought of men, in so far as they live under the natural law of selfishness or exclusiveness, may be estimated by it.

What we desire to inquire is, if the life and work of Christ form no exception to its operation, as ordinarily regarded. Can we, in accordance with this principle, account for the life and influence of Christ on the assumption that he was only a man? Has no more force issued from the person of Christ than subsided when only a man named Jesus was crucified?