The Poetry of Science; or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of Nature

by Robert Hunt

It cannot but be instructive to contemplate the indications which we have of the dependence of all that is beautiful on earth, on the heat and light radiations which we receive from the sun. Let us endeavour to realise some of the effects which arise from even the temporary deprivation of solar heat.

It is winter, the vegetable world appears chilled to its centre. The trees, except a few of the hardy evergreens, are bare of leaves, and stretching forth their branches into the cold air, they realise the condition of vegetable skeletons. The lowly plants of the hedge-row, and the grasses of the field, show that their vital power is subdued to that minimum degree of action which is but a few slight removes from death. The life of the running stream is suspended, it is cased in the “thick-ribbed ice,” and the waters beneath no longer send forth their joyous music to the genial breeze. Even within the temperate limits of our own land, the aspect of winter convinces the ordinary observer, that the loss of heat has been followed by diminished activity in the powers of life; and the philosopher discovers that the lessened energies of solar light, and the weaker action of the radiant heat, have aided in producing that repose which is a little more than sleep—a little less than death.

It is night, and winter: the earth is parting with its heat,—with the absence of light, there is a still greater loss of vigour, a yet further diminution of the powers of life. Even the animal races, sustained by vital influences of a more exalted kind, sink under the temporary deprivation of the solar rays to a monotonous, a melancholy repose. All animals undergo different degrees of hybernation, and each in his winter retreat supports vitality by preying upon himself. The world is hung in mourning black; there is no play of colours to harmonize the human spirit by sending their ethereal pulsations to the human eye, and it is only the consciousness that when the night is at the darkest, the day is nearest, that even man’s soul is sustained against the depressing influences of the absence of the sun.

The conditions which we must observe at our own doors cannot fail to convey as a conviction to the least imaginative mind, that a slightly prolonged continuance of darkness, with its consequent increase of coldness, would be fatal to the existence of the organic world.

The sun has entered Aries: it is spring. The length of the day and night are equal, the powers of light and darkness are now exactly balanced against each other, and light, like the Archangel, triumphs over the sombre spirit. The organic world awakes. Chemical action commences in the seed, the vital spark is kindled in the embryo, and under the impulsive force of some solar radiations the plant struggles into light and life. The same invigorating force impels the circulation of the sap through the capillary tubes of the forest tree, until the topmost branch trembles with the new flow of life. The buds burst forth into leaf, and a fresh and lively covering spreads over those branches which, in their nakedness, could scarcely be distinguished from the dead.

The animal races are no less sensible of the new influence which is diffused around. The birds float joyously upon the breeze, and give to heaven their trilling songs of praise. The beasts come forth from the clefts of the rocks and the tangled shelters of the forests, and gambol in the full luxury of their renewed vigour. Man, even man, the inhabitant of cities, trained and tempered to an artificial state, awakes of a spring morning with a fuller consciousness of mind, and a deeper and more pleased sense of his intelligence, than when the fogs and gloom of winter hung like the charmed robe upon the limbs of the giant. Now, the dormant poetry of man seeks expression. As the morning sun is said to have awakened the musical undulations of the Memnonian statue, so the sun of the vernal morning produces in the mind of the most earthly, faint pulsations of that heaven-born music, which neither sin nor sorrow can entirely destroy. The psychologist, in studying the peculiar phenomena of the human mind, must associate himself with the natural philosopher, and learn to appreciate the influence of physical causes in determining effects which our elder philosophers and the poets of every age have attributed to spiritual agencies.

Summer, with its increased heat and light, reigns over the land. The work of life is now at its maximum, and every energy is quickened throughout the organic creation. The laws of nature are arranged on the principle of antagonistic forces, the constant struggle to maintain them in equilibrium constituting the sensible phenomena of existence. Heat and light, with chemical power and electricity, have been quickening the unknown principle of life, until it has become exhausted in the production of new parts—in the strange phenomenon of growth—the formation of organized matter from the inorganic stores of creation.

The autumn, with its tempered sunlight, comes, but in the solar radiance we discover new powers, and under the influence of these the flower and the fruit have birth. The store of a new life is centered in the seed, and though the leaf falls, and the flower fades, a new set of organisms are produced, by which the continuance of the species is secured.

Let any man examine himself as the seasons change, and he will soon be convinced that every alternation of light and darkness, of heat and its absence, produces new sets of influences equally on the mind and on the body, showing the entire dependence of the animal and vegetable kingdoms upon those causes which appear to flow from the centre of our planetary system.

The phenomena which connect themselves with the changes of the seasons cannot fail to convince the most superficial thinker that there is an intimate connection between the sun and the earth which deserves our close attention.