Perfect candor, perfect clearness, the good-nature of a successful man above all petty jealousies, the style of a scholar who has hardly an equal among us in his profession and few equals out of it, the honesty which belongs to science, and the acuteness which is conferred by practice mark this brief essay. It follows in the same course of thought as the admirable "Discourse on Self-limited Diseases," the delivery of which many years ago marked the commencement of a new epoch in the movement of the medical mind among us. An hour's reading given to this new lesson of wisdom will turn many a self-willed, proud-hearted medical skeptic into a humble and consistent patient of the regular profession.
Thoughts on Matter and Force: or Marvels that encompass us: comprising Suggestions illustrative of the Theory of the Universe. By THOMAS EWBANK. New York: D. Appleton & Co. London: Trübner & Co. 1858.
The human longing for the Infinite is as strong now as it was when the first ology, aiming to grasp it, conceived its first myth, and comprehended something so far below what humanity itself now is or knows, that we use it, along with the more recent productions of Mrs. Goose, to amuse children. This persistent trait in human nature is truly noble, however fruitless. But it is not altogether fruitless. Though the intellectual world has really come no nearer the object of its search, it has advanced far beyond its starting-point, and made valuable progress, which a lower motive could never have prompted. The wisest of mean men, as he was the meanest of wise ones, did very well to check the metaphysical modes and tendencies of human study, and advise the previous comprehension of facts within reach. This worldly wisdom has already made us all wonderfully rich in the chariots and horses of thought. The consequence is, we now rush forth into the infinite in various directions, and, from inconceivable distances of time and space, bring home marvels that are truly sublime.
Mr. Ewbank's "Suggestions" are of this sort, though the turn-out with which he has been exploring the boundless is not, perhaps, quite up to the latest improvements in the Baconian carriage-factory, There can be no doubt of the boldness with which his really modest and unpretending little book grapples with the largest of all subjects, whatever we may think of its success. Postulating, for the purpose of his cosmogony, two, and only two, absolute entities, —matter and spirit,—Mr. Ewbank makes force a property or attribute of the former, which the latter can only direct or make use of, not originate. He does not admit that spirit can overcome the inertia of matter. Whatever inertia may be, it is superable or destructible only by the force or motion of matter itself,—matter being incapable of rest. "Instead of matter being innately inert," says Mr. Ewbank, "as many think, motion is its natural condition." How the spiritual direction—or shall we call it bossing?—of motion or force (which only, according to Mr. Ewbank, produces results) applies itself,—what is its point d'appui, its mode of modifying, its why of causing,—he does not attempt to explain to us. He recognizes the universal gravitating or contractile force, from which, as successive sequences, proceed heat and expansion; but he does not suggest that spirit has any more to do with the first than with any succeeding term in the series. It exerts no force, moves nothing; yet spirit produces all the results. "No regular or useful form," says our author, "can be produced by unbridled force. Intelligence must be present." So it is the business of the spirit to bridle force, —or matter's motion,—mount the restless steed, and ride to a purpose! Shall we ever see the bits of that bridle?
On the subject of material form, we find the following passage, which, while, perhaps, the most original in the book, is to us the least instructive:—
"However multiplied interior actions may be, the universe, as a whole, must have a common movement, or none. One division cannot, in relation to the rest, stand still, lag behind, fly off, or diverge from its place, without destroying all unity. The earth is full of motions; but they do not interfere with her general and uniform motion. So it is with the universal orb: its rotation is, we believe, fundamental,—the basis of all other movements, without which there could be none other.
"In everything, there is virtue in FORM; and we surmise that vastly more depends on the configuration and movement of matter as one mass, than has been suspected. As perfect a whole as any of its parts, must not the universe have a definable outline or shape,—one to which nothing amorphous can possibly belong? What is its figure? It can hardly be a cube, cylinder, or prism of any kind; indeed, we might as reasonably suppose it a three-sided figure as one bounded at all by straight lines. No one extending in one direction more than in another could have met the exigencies of creation; and that the universe is a sphere may also be inferred from fluid matter naturally assuming that form,—perhaps because its elements have it. Had atoms been bounded by plane surfaces, so, we may suppose, had worlds, drops of water, and soap-bubbles.
"The universe is spherical, then, because its molecules are: and it moves, because they are incapable of rest."
Does this mean that the totality of matter is finite?—that it can be viewed, spiritually, from the outside,—even from such a distance as to appear infinitely small? If so, can there be infinite power, either material or spiritual? If the universe is spherical because its molecules are, can the molecules compose any other than the spherical form? Do we gain much by reasoning from an assumption below the ken of the microscope to a conclusion above that of the telescope?
Mr. Ewbank, however, does not often indulge in a logical stride so long or on such shaky footing as this. Through more or less cloudiness of expression, he gives us many striking and satisfactory views, looking towards a complete synthesis of the glorious system of things to which we belong, makes out the universe as habitable and cheerful as it is wide, and leaves us admiring its good more than marvelling at its evil. He maintains that all solar and planetary bodies have a central, vital heat, produced and maintained by the same cause,—to wit, the gravitating or condensing force; its intensity being as the mass. In the sun, the mass is so great, that, in spite of its inferior density, more and intenser heat is generated by condensation than in any or all of the planets. If the whole orb is not incandescent, there is such intense heat in its central portion as to generate gases, which, being thrown up through its atmosphere, to a height at least as great as the whole diameter of our globe, condense there again with an ineffably brilliant combustion. The solid crust of the sun, he thinks, may be comparatively cool,—as cool, perhaps, as our tropical climates,—by the favor of cloud-curtains, which operate as screens, and reflect off into space the heat of the combustion overhead. He might have given more reasons than he has for this conclusion. Whether our terrestrial aurora-borealis is caused by the combustion of gases that have been generated by internal heat or not, we know that the combustion of gas in the upper regions of our atmosphere would not warm the surface of the earth much more than it would that of the moon. It is easy enough to make out, from facts which our terrene science has revealed to us, how the sun may be a perpetual fountain of light, heat, and force to its most distant planets, without having itself any superabundance of either of these emanations for its own domestic consumption. The solar population may have no more sunshine than we do, and may have even that mitigated with the luxury of ice-creams, if not with that of arctic explorations and polar bears. Whether they have as good opportunities as we for astronomical observations is a little doubtful; but their thermological studies must flourish abundantly, to say nothing of their advantages in pyrotechnics.