Elements of Physiophilosophy

by Lorenz Oken

196. Matter has become by means of light, is a child of light, is but illuminating æther. Every binary division of matter manifests itself as light.

197. The whole universe is transparent, because everything has issued out of the tension of æther. Everything which is matter is light, and without light there is nothing. Without light the universe is not only dark but it is even not. Light is the universe, and every Finite is only a different position of light. The world is a thoroughly illuminating globe, a rotating globe of light. The solar system must have been created according to the laws of light. The phenomena of the world are only representations of optics, consequently of living geometry. What we see is nothing but optical construction or figuration. (Vid. Oken's 'Essay über das Licht;' Jena. Fromann. 1808.)

c. HEAT, DENSITY. (Third form of the World. Shape.)

198. Light is not simply a motion in itself, a mere continuous excitation of polarity in the æther, but it is also the æther itself set in motion thereby. All polar actions resolve themselves finally into motion of the polarized masses. The end of electricity, galvanism, magnetism, is motion. It will be, however, shown that all these polar functions are only repetitions of the primary polarity; this must therefore produce what the former did, namely, ætherial motion.

199. Every point of the æther becomes polar, every one attracts and repels the other; whereby motion arises in the innermost parts of the æther itself. Not a portion of the æther is moved on, but motion originates in the mass of æther itself. The æther-atoms quit each other.

200. The æther is, however, that which is filling space, is space itself, the Expansissimum of the world, the Formless and therefore that which adopts all forms. The formless æther, when it moves itself, must be connected with a phenomenon, that depends upon its expansion and identification, which is polarized by light. This action of the æther does not therefore depend upon the tension of æther, not upon production from differences in the same, but upon dissolution of the tension, therefore upon extension, upon the indifferent representation of space. This action, which is at the same time universal, can only be heat. Moved æther is Heat.

201. Heat is the contest of the indifferent æther with light; light alone produces heat. Without light the world were not only dark, but also absolutely cold. Cold is untensed and quiescent æther, death, nothing; dark and cold are one. Heat is therefore the result of light, but equally eternal with it; it is space represented really, as that is real time.

202. Heat is not moved indifferent ether, which is = nothing; but moved and tensed or the moved light.

203. Heat penetrates into thickness as an extending function, but does not oscillate between two poles like light. It is only the function of density, and depends upon nothing else, not upon lines or mere surfaces, but upon the living sphere.

204. Heat and light, although characters of one substance, yet stand in an antagonism like thickness and line, or as indifference and difference. Heat is properly the first perfected position of the primary act, while light is only the act of positing; the latter therefore is +, the former-. Or also, gravity is the absolute position, simply = 0; light is the commencing egression of this position out of itself + -, heat the completion + 0-, and therefore the position everywhere; it will everywhere deposit, therefore it is motion, repletion of space, expansion. Light is gravity become real, or 0 become real; 0 however, rendered real, is + -. Heat is as-at the same time + - and 0, or light and gravity, material light, light that is filling. Both will also assert the antagonism of their genesis through all forms of the world. The heat seeks to destroy the line, which the light endeavours to establish; heat seeks to produce homogeneity in the Dissimilar, light to effect the reverse. Heat is slow in its motion; with it the mass of æther must continually move, or move whither it will operate; light, however, acts spiritually and rapidly, without motion of the mass, but only glides continually with the latter. Heat is not created, it is no special matter different from æther. There is no body of heat.