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AUTHOR: 
 
 EWBANK, TH 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 CURSORY THOU 
 
 HTS 
 
 RAL... 
 
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 113 
 
 1 Ewl lEwbanlc, Thoiaas 1792-1870] anon 
 
 i GiTTsory thou/3:hts on Gomo natural phenomena 
 bearing chiefly on the priiwary cauce of the succocsion 
 
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 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 OF SOMF 
 
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 a 
 
 NATURAL PHENOMENA; 
 
 BEARING CHIEFLY ON THE PRIMARY CAUSE 
 
 or xriK 
 
 SUCCESSION OF NEW SPECIES, 
 
 AND ON 
 
 THE UNITY OF FORCE 
 
 In contemplation of created thing^s. 
 By Bteps we may ascend to God." 
 
 Milton. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, WITH ADDENDA 
 
 la 
 
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 3r c tD - U r k : 
 
 WIM.IAM EVEHDELL^S SONS. 104 FULTON STREET. 
 
 
 <4? 
 
 
 
 

 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 ON SOME 
 
 J^ATURAL PHEIOIEIA: 
 
 BEAEma CHIEFLY ON THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF 
 
 THE SUCCESSION OF NEW SPECIES, 
 
 AND OW 
 
 THE TOITY OF FORCE, 
 
 In contemplation of created tilings, 
 By 8tep8 we may ascend to God. 
 
 Milton. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBXER, 124 GRAXD* STREET. 
 CH.iRLES B. RICHARDSOX, 264 CANAL STREET. 
 
> 
 
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 ,f I 
 
 > 
 
 I ) 
 
 ybtSi't 
 
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 r 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS, 
 
 iiilO> 
 
 L— On the Movemfinta of the Orbs in the Solar System.— A New Chart 
 proposed. 
 
 II.— The influence of those movements on the Development of Mundane 
 phenomena. Origin of species, &c. 
 
 Ill —Attraction the Parent of all Forces— Repulsion springs from it. 
 
 I- 
 
 As THERE are no absolute duplicates of mental any more 
 than of material organisms, men can no more think alike in 
 every minutia, than look alike. Every individual contem- 
 plates a subject under impressions somewhat peculiar to 
 himself, hence shades of difference abound when general uni- 
 formity prevails. This remarkable trait in the plan of Crea- 
 tion ?s essential to individuality, to social existence, and to 
 progress, for if varieties of intellectual did not equal those of 
 physical conformation much of nature's operations would 
 escape detection ; hence the saying, that every reflecting per- 
 son however humble his parts may contribute some one hint 
 or other to the common stock ; — that, however often reapers 
 may pass over the fields of knowledge, there will always be 
 something for gleaners to pick up ; — that, as with matter, 
 every modification of mind, the lowest as well as the highest, 
 is not made without a purpose. 
 
 342999 
 
4 , CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 Students of nature know, that every form, color, quality 
 and condition of matter is replete with instruction, and that 
 the knowledge of it can never be exhausted. It is the same 
 with motion and every variety of motion. Human ingenu- 
 ity has contrived a multiplicity of mechanical movements, 
 but, as with every discovery in the arts, they have their nat- 
 ural prototypes on the earth or in the heavens. 
 
 The lines described in space by the orbs that compose our 
 system have not, that I am aware of, been portrayed, and 
 yet, it is not too much to say, their varieties, their convolu, 
 tions and circumvolutions, their mathematical accuracy, 
 their harmony and their, beauty, present materials for a 
 chart or a series of charts, as interesting and instructive as any 
 that have employed the hands of engravers, or put in requi- 
 sition eccentric or geometrical lathes. 
 
 The ordinary tame diagrams of the planets, arranged in 
 simple concentric circles, with the sun in the center, might 
 do well enough if they impressed ordinary readers or popular 
 audiences with the actual facts. If the sun were stationary 
 they would do this, but as he is ever advancing through space, 
 they do not show how a planet, the earth, for example, gets 
 out of one circle into another to keep up with him. It is the 
 same with the satellites. Our moon follows the earth to 
 circulate round her, as she follows the sun to circulate 
 round him. 
 
 I would therefore have both orbital and axial movements 
 projected ; not by plane lines but by such as accord with 
 central and surface movements. What these are like, would 
 be seen if every planet had marking styles that left tracings 
 behind them. "We should then behold systems of curves 
 running into figures allied to the engine work on watch-cases 
 and vignettes on bank bills, and surpassing them — the best 
 of them — in symmetry and precision. Though closed to 
 material they are open to mental vision, and afford glimpses, 
 in the grandest of material movements, of the glories of the 
 invisible works of Creation. 
 
 If the earth did not turn on her axis, the lines described 
 by every part of her surface would be similar to that of her 
 axis, but, as she turns round it every twenty-four hours, her 
 equator describes a series of 365 circles in each revolution 
 
 I' 
 
 r 
 
 «' 
 
 <■ 
 
 ON SOISIE NATURAL PHENOMENA. 5 
 
 round the sun ; hence her orbital path is made up of these 
 instead of a single one, and these are multiplied indefinitely 
 by points on the equator — interlocking each other more or 
 less closely, according to the distance between the points. 
 
 Again, marking pencils ranging from her equator to the 
 poles would exhibit the phenomenon of the equatorial circles 
 resolved, through cycloidal or epicycloidal curves, or what- 
 ever their proper names may be, into straight lines and even 
 mto points. The interlocked circles gradually separating, 
 then flattening into cusped figures, next into deep, and then 
 mto shallow undulating lines, which finally approach straight 
 ones, and those ending at each pole in a point. 
 
 With the earth's orbit of circles another set of lines is 
 combined— those described by the moon. The period of her 
 rotation is exactly equal to that of her sidereal sweep round 
 the earth, hence she rolls round us twelve times in the year. 
 She therefore contributes a series of waving lines that cross 
 and recross the circles described by the eartli. The lines fol- 
 lowed by the centers of the earth and her satellite should 
 also be given in the pictorial representation. 
 
 Though mentioned as circles, the orbits of both planets 
 and moons are elliptical. That of our moon has of course 
 the earth in one of its foci, and the ellipse is constantlv chan- 
 ging its form and position on the plane of the earth's orbit. 
 It is obvious that no body can move round another in a cir- 
 cle while the center of that circle keeps going forward. — 
 Hence elliptical orbits would seem proofs of progression of 
 central bodies ; and may not their progression be deduced 
 from the ellipticity of their orbits or of their secondaries. 
 
 As every planet, planetoid, and moon differs more or less 
 from the rest in the character and intersections of its curves, 
 a chart representing the whole, or chief of them, in their order 
 and proportion, with tha cycloidal like lines of ths rota- 
 ting sun in their midst, and the extremes of elliptical lines 
 brought in from various directions by the comets, would be 
 of general, enduring, and increasing interest. To ordinary 
 minds a glance would give pleasure, while to the studious it 
 would be suggestive of sublime contemplations. 
 
 If the lines in a representation of the whole system should 
 be too much involved for an ordinary sized plate, let us have 
 
CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 it in sections, or sub-systems, as those of Jupitef and Saturn, 
 either of which would be an acquisition. 
 
 IL 
 
 Of the utility of such a map let no one doubt, or for a 
 moment imagine its value would consist chiefly in pleasing 
 the eye. As well suppose nothing interesting in flowers but 
 their colors, or in birds but their plumage. To attain just 
 conceptions of mundane marvels it is necessary to refer to 
 transmundane movements : Sublime in the highest degree, 
 and simple as sublime, all others are not only comprised with- 
 in, but have proceeded from and are governed by them. As 
 the whirring mechanisms of a factory stop the instant the 
 propelling power is cut off, so would motion in all terrestrial 
 organisms be arrested by the cessation of celestial move- 
 ments. 
 
 Hence as there is no property of matter here, so there is no 
 motion in this part of the heavens at least, but what has a 
 direct bearing on the progress of our species. For this the 
 power to discover them is given. Astronomical diagrams 
 have made clear to all comprehensions the relationship of 
 this earth to others in its vicinity — that we are occupants of 
 one of a number of adjoining demesnes. And have they not 
 exploded the puerile and petulant notion that we are isolated 
 in an obscure corner of creation ; pushed aside, as it were, 
 like rough children out of good company. Instead of that 
 we perceive our orb moving in the galaxy on a par with oth- 
 ers, for of the all-pervading and sustaining influence of gravi- 
 tation she gives as well as receives, and in proportion equal 
 to any. Thus expanding the scripture doctrine into the 
 heavens, that God is no respecter oi persons, and that his ten- 
 der mercies are over all his worhs. 
 
 Another common impression is, that human life runs from 
 age to age in one unvaried round. It only seems to do so to 
 unobservant minds. Life in the abstract is motion, but actu- 
 al life is motion in fresh channels. There is no provision for 
 either still life or renewing old routines of life. From some 
 cause or other the scene is always shifting and its repetition 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 avoided. The rate at which it shifts, we may be sure, is 
 adapted to our natures and our position in creation ; too slow 
 to be obvious to current observation, because intended to im- 
 part, with the sense of permanence, the advantages of per- 
 manence. Thus society to the Uving may seem stationary, 
 but is not. We know it is not now with us what it was 
 fifty or twenty years ago, and Ave have no reason to infer 
 that it will be in the next century what it has been in this 
 one, or in any one before this. 
 
 If we view life in a series of circles, expanding from those 
 of individual existences, through tribes nations and races, to 
 the orbit of the species, we cannot iind two precisely alike. 
 It is the same with the occupations of life. Each has a cir- 
 cuit of its own, made up of and merging into others of ever 
 varying sweeps, for no art or profession could have any value 
 or even subsist^ if it were not linked to and interlinked with 
 others. Then professions are changing, and science and art 
 keep adding to their numbers. No phase of human life is 
 therefore enduring, because its elements cannot be fixed. 
 Not the circlet of a day in the experience of man, woman, or 
 child is repeated without change. It is the same with all 
 creatures, from the shortest to the longest of livers. There 
 is doubtless variety in the scenes of existence of those that 
 are born, grow old and die in a day. 
 
 Every natural fact arises from an antecedent fact, and this 
 mutation in mundane aflairs is a sequence of the changing 
 condition of the earth herself. From center to surface she is, 
 and always has been in process of change^ as her recording 
 tablets, her rocks and strata proclaim. There must b^- some- 
 thing great intended in this, and something not local here, 
 but common to every sphere ; at least it appears of too radi- 
 cal a character to be peculiar to one orb. To what does it 
 point ? To a feature in creation, than which nothing makes 
 Infinite Wisdom more manifest, or more attractive — to the 
 UNIVERSAL LAW OF VARIETY — the illimitable evolution of new 
 forms and conditions from limited materials. By it, sources 
 of variety are as exhaustless on the smaller as on the lar- 
 gest worlds — another striking proof of equality in the spheres 
 however greatly they may difler in their external relations. 
 
 Had worlds and their products been made incapable of 
 
I I 
 
 8 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 change, life would (judging from our feelings) have been 
 dull and monotonous in the largest, and unendurable in the 
 least. Here, a perpetual recurrence of the same scenes and 
 events would eventually cause all generations to think the 
 same thoughts and act over the same acts. One common ex- 
 ercise of body and soul without a new result or the idea of 
 one— not a single hope in the future, and progress impos- 
 sible. ^ 
 
 How beautifully the law of variety reverses all this ; and 
 while it provides for indefinite changes by giving permanency 
 to none, as respects individual existence it gives the effect 
 of permanency to all. To what antecedent cause is thi«=; 
 great result the sequent ? To one which has been recognised 
 and named, but the nature of which science has not reached 
 and perhaps never may reach. If it be an ultimate attribute 
 ot matter there is, of course, no getting behind it. 
 
 The range of physical causation terminates in the ele- 
 ments of matter— in atoms. In them are the germs of all 
 material developments, as the rudiments of the tree are in its 
 seed, or those of the bird in the egg. From them creation 
 has rjroum and continues to grow, for their reproductive pow- 
 er can neither be exhausted nor impaired. They are not onlv 
 the seeds but the materials of which all bodies are built, and 
 carry with them that which gives variety and vitalitv to 
 tJie universe — whatever it may be. 
 
 But the difTiculty of conceiving how opposite or contrary 
 results can flow from one and the same source has led to tlie 
 doctrine of variety in atoms. To meet two great classes of phe- 
 nomena tvyo kinds have been held necessary —Chemical atoms, 
 txwa Physical ones whose functions are thouo-ht to be only 
 mechanical. In addition to these, to meet another exigence, 
 heat-maknig atoms also have been suirgested. 
 
 Now poverty in the virtue of one° primordial element, is, 
 we think, wholly inadmissible. If; on that account, two be 
 deemed necessary, so may ten or twenty. If one be so poor 
 m resource as to need the aid of another, with equal reason it 
 may be held that the efficiencv of two would be increased by 
 an additional number. Then do not two kinds of atoms im- 
 ply two kinds of matter f The fact is, if unity on this point 
 be once invaded there is no security against farther invasions. 
 
 liic theory of Dualism, we beHeve, will be banished from 
 
 
 <•■ 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 9 
 
 physics, however long it may be retained in ethics. From 
 the limited progress yet made in the knowledge of nature's 
 laws we are apt to multiply them for the solution of difficult 
 points. This is not surprising, nor is it to be regretted. It 
 is a natural if not a necessary step toward the discovery that 
 in them, as in their effects, variety is the oifspring of unity — 
 that one cause springs from another, and gives birth to a fresh 
 one, like the limbs, branches, twigs, leaves and leaflets, etc., 
 of a tree shooting from one bole. Such, we imagine, is the 
 case with the properties of matter, and that attraction is 
 the bole, or the root of the bole, whence they proceed. At all 
 events, if they do not spring from it, they center in it, and as- 
 suredly cannot subsist without it. 
 
 From it the law, or principle, of endless variety will be 
 found to spring. 
 
 The bond of the universe, attraction holds the spheres in 
 their orbits as it holds atoms in theirs ; for it connects them, 
 separately and collectively, as by elastic filaments, which, 
 though stretched through infinity, cannot be broken, or lose 
 their contractile power. Its influence in drawing^ and ever 
 tending to draw bodies together, and resisting their separa- 
 tion, has been a source of perplexity, from its implying an 
 affection, and a yearning in atoms to join one another — char- 
 acteristics of sentient bodies, and with a power to act on one 
 another when apart which sentient bodies do not possess. 
 
 There is certainly nothing metaphorical in this, but, as an 
 ultimate phenomenon it is irrational in the extreme to make 
 our conceptions the standard of what is inconceivable, for 
 how any property resides in matter is utterly incomprehensi- 
 ble. 
 
 Let it not then be imagined that there is no connecting 
 agent between bodies because w^e perceive none. There are 
 many things quite as mysterious, which being familiar to us 
 excite neither surprise nor doubt. Had the elements of mat- 
 ter instead of clinging to one another, been made unconge- 
 nial, opposed, or indifferent to union, there had been, (we 
 may infer,) either no distinct forms and masses, or forms and 
 masses of dust. It is conceded that in no substance are they 
 in actual contact, and that there may be as many degrees ot 
 insensible as of sensible distances, so that the phenomenon is 
 quite as inexplicable in flying a kite and drawing it in with a 
 
10 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 string whose constituent particles do not touch each other, as 
 the earth drawing the moon after her. 
 
 If an ultimate cause, it matters little whether this ineffa- 
 ble influence be the immediate or intermediate work of the 
 Creator. It is enough that it is from Him. 
 
 If attraction be considered as only drawing matter togeth- 
 er, it would not account for diversity of forms and qualities, 
 but viewed as carrying with it all the attributes of atoms, it 
 will go far toward resolving all phenomena, if not all into 
 one. We certainly do not know that any property of matter 
 subsists, or that any action of matter takes place or can take 
 place without it. All that is known points more directly to 
 it, than to anything else, as the principle of action that com- 
 ])risos all other principles, or one whose touch it is that awa- 
 kens them. 
 
 That mutation and variety come from it there is sufficient 
 evidence, and such as seems to exclude the possibility of 
 th(3ir ascription to aught else. As the influence of attraction, 
 here and everywhere, is admitted to be ceaseless, it is only 
 necessary to show that it is ceaselessly (though impercepti- 
 bly) varying. To do this we need but appeal to the fact that 
 its grand sources, the spheres, are every moment varying 
 their relative positions — that neither they nor the earth, sun, 
 planets or moon ever pass over a foot of the same track in space 
 — and consequently their reciprocal action upon one another 
 is every instant varying, and every fraction of every instant. 
 
 Does not this show that the universe is conducted on the 
 principle of ceaseless and endless change — that a rigid dupli- , 
 cation of individual organisms cannot occur — that the law of 
 transfiguration has neither cessation nor limits. Had it been 
 otherwise, exhaustion of the Creator's resources might have 
 been inferred. 
 
 As the interlaced fibres of the human brain are seen to es- 
 tablish a communication throughout the cerebral mass, so the 
 proposed chart would give us a' glimpse of the lines through 
 which the nerves of the universe run from sphere to sphere, 
 and how they inclose tho whole in a network of attraction 
 whose threads no forces can rupture, and through whose 
 meshes not an atom can pass. 
 
 If our system were cut ofT from the influence of others we 
 should have many changes in thu dLUHipuLU'lUu njf i * bodies. 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 11 
 
 > 
 
 * M 
 
 I- 
 
 but they would bs limited to those of the earth's posi- 
 tions with respect to the other planets. If the number of 
 these were less we should have less, and if our globe were 
 the only one, life here would in time become a perfectly mo- 
 notonous round. There could arise no new varieties of plants 
 or animals, and, iiltimately, there would be no difference be- 
 tween individuals, not even in ourselves. We should become 
 fac-similes of one another. But as long as the earth revolves 
 round the sun and is carried by him toward other systems, 
 changes in her products must inevitably continue. This is 
 the t°ue influence of the stars — one of the causes of which few 
 of us think, and still fewer dream that they are not on the 
 earth but in the heavens, and yet are as surely there as that 
 we experience their effects here. 
 
 As everything on the spheres contributes to and is affected 
 by their reciprocal influence, there exists as direct a rela- 
 tionship between their products as between themselves— 
 between their occupants also. However modified, their bodies 
 are formed of identically the same material as ours, and are 
 i^^overned by the same principles; for matter is everywhere 
 essentially the same, and the laws to which it is subject here 
 everywhere prevail. This is no more than what might have 
 been anticipated, for what would an external union amount 
 to without an internal one. That would surely be an imper- 
 fect bond of the universe which embraced the lower forms 
 and conditions of matter, and left out its highest develop- 
 ments. In attraction there is, so to speak, a blood relation- 
 ship between the denizens of the spheres. It runs through 
 the veins of them all. 
 
 Katuralists, in attempting to account for successive genera 
 and species, have not appealed to cosmical influence, but they 
 will, if we are right in supposing the problem cannot be 
 solved without recognising its omnipresence and power. The 
 philosophy of a watch could never be understood by the clo- 
 sest scrutiny of its wheels, separately or combined, as long as 
 the spring is ignored. Investigation could result only in fruit- 
 less conjectures, nor can living mechanisms and changes in 
 them be explained if this the mainspring be left out. Every 
 assigned cause less than this, has itself to be explained, and 
 tlmt° cannot be done without referring ta another, and not 
 
12 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 even then, for it would be but cliasiiig tlie secret fiom wheel 
 to wheel. 
 
 We rarely look beyond the visible and palpable. That 
 which suffices for the business in hand is employed without 
 considering what relations it may have to other matters. A 
 separate cause is sought out for a separate effect. But in na- 
 ture there are no detached causes or effects, while the nearer 
 one approaches the ultimate, the more comprehensive it is in 
 itself and fruitful of others. Thus wind, or steam, propels our 
 ships over the ocean without having anything to do with the 
 freight, while that which moves the spheres— the fleets on 
 which all Creation's treasures are embarked — is the forming 
 and conserving principle of both passengers and goods. 
 
 There is no force in the objection drawn from great inter- 
 vals of time between the appearance of new and disappearance 
 of old species. Nature's developments require for their matu- 
 rity, definite but different degrees of duration. Of these we 
 Know little, except that they constitute an expanding series 
 from hours, perhaps momencs, to such as may require for 
 units of measure, centuries if not decades of centuries. Natu- 
 ral causes are from the beginning. There can be no changes 
 lu, no interferences with, and no additions to them ; hence 
 whatever is mysterious is so simply because knowledge is not 
 sufficiently advanced to explain it. It certainly is not for us, 
 in the very infancy of our schooling, if not of" our species, to 
 limit periods or processes of nature's developments, and when 
 they differ from our juvenile imaginings, rather than expand 
 our views, call in special interposition of the Creator to sanc- 
 tion them. 
 
 To the slow but ceaseless mutations of the earth's strata her 
 products must for ever conform in order to exist. One law 
 of growth governs al], and, according to that law, species 
 of animals, as well as of plaiits, come in their seasons. As 
 well look for matured frogs from tadpoles within the period 
 assigned for their ripening, as for new species within their or- 
 dained periods. But come as they may, they come through 
 second causes, and the cause suggested meets every condition 
 whether they are evolved out of old species or not. 
 
 Attraction being the all comprehending principle in nature, 
 necessarily holds the same relation to science— is its exterior 
 circle within which all others revolve. Successfully to pcne- 
 
 i: ' 
 
 I ^ 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 13 
 
 trate them we must know something of it ; and so it is that 
 onlv since it has begun to be studied has Physics made any 
 real or substantial progress. But how much has yet to be 
 learned ! Its workings in what is called instinct in animals 
 have to be detected, and its operations on mind explained — 
 how it is that mental organizations are varied by or with the 
 material. 
 
 Matter without motion is dead, and mind also. Besides 
 the influence of its mutations and movements around us, its 
 restlessness within us keeps the imagination from rest, both 
 while we sleep and when awake. The sliglitest movement of 
 the head deranges our dreams, and changing the position of 
 the body disperses them ; nor can they be repeated, because 
 the condition of matter within and without has in the 
 the meantime changed. Moreover their character is affected, 
 by the nature, quantity and digestion of our food, while opium 
 and kindred drugs evolve preternatural visions. Thus the 
 restlessness of mind is explained by the restlessness of that 
 which excites it. These, of course, are natural results of a 
 natural law, and science has to find out what attraction has to 
 do with them — and perhaps with mental and moral affinities 
 also. 
 
 The idea that the capricious thoughts of men are subject to 
 law, or belong to any system of order, may appear a wild one, 
 and still be a true one. As in other things, discord in this may 
 be harmony not understood. To superficial observation, our 
 globe consists of miscellaneous substances in utter confusion, 
 and not a few altogether worthless, yet the closer they are ex- 
 amined the more clearly is design in their disposition and es- 
 sential value in them all, made manifest. This theatre of 
 mental activity, we may be assured, is as strictly under law 
 as its metals and minerals, its coals, limestones and granite, 
 though we are not yet able to observe the workings of the 
 law. 
 
 Intellectual progress, like everything else, must have a 
 cause — an exterior and enduring stimulant — and what can it 
 be, if not the one indicated? This is not making mind an 
 emanation of matter, but matter the instrument for exercising 
 ^mind. Extend the principle to all worlds, for if the true one 
 it must be applicable to all, and have we not in attraction a 
 simple, natural and sufficient cause for mental excitation and 
 
14 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 progress on them all — however varied in their masses and 
 volumes, their movements and products, their occupants and 
 conditions— one accordant with the perfect sympathy which 
 subsists between the material and immaterial, and which 
 must subsist so long as the invisible is made discernible in 
 the visible. 
 
 Material forms and motions are embodiments of Divine 
 thoughts, varying infinitely with the thoughts. They are the 
 lessons given us to study. We are to translate things into 
 thoughts, for which purpose they have to be followed through 
 all the multiplicities of their external and internal turnings. It 
 is pleasing to contemplate the universe, as, what we believe it 
 literally is, a school — the spheres its class-rooms and to every 
 class a room. In this school students can never be waiting 
 for fresh tasks since an endless succession of them is estab- 
 lished. Material are, and always will be, vastly in advance of 
 intellectual developments everywhere. There is nothing ques- 
 tionable in this. It is but saying the Teacher is in advance 
 of his pupils. 
 
 A proposition that resolves mental evolution on the spheres 
 into that which governs their material forms and movements, 
 may be unacceptable to some minds, but while creation is a 
 panorama ever moving before an universal audience, and 
 without intermission eliciting and expanding thought through- 
 out that audience, we think there is no impropriety in sup- 
 posing that which moves the spheres and diversifies their 
 scenery, the instrument ordained for exciting intellectual 
 activity upon them. In our theatres the 'scenery is changed, 
 sometimes directly by men, and sometimes indirectly by 
 weights, but the scenic machinery of the universe is invaria- 
 bly moved by gravitation under the direction of its Great 
 Manasrer. 
 
 \ J 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 15 
 
 III. 
 
 Section" I. — The ascription of so large a share of Crea- 
 tion's wonders to attraction may be objected to, and perhaps 
 will be till ALL FORGES are found resolvable into one. A 
 numerous progeny, they appear so dissimilar in their features 
 and habits, that, to coranioii observation, any relationship be- 
 tween them could not be suspected, much less that they could 
 have a common origin. The prevailing opinion is that the 
 phenomena of nature require, at least, a duality of antago- 
 nist forces, one to draw matter together and another to sepa- 
 rate it. It is, indeed, obvious that if it be swelled or pushed 
 out, it must 1)6 got back some w^ay or other, since no force can 
 be indefinitely extended in one direction without exhausting 
 itself, or ceasfno- to producs motion or results ; hence, it is said, 
 if two great forces did not subsist to limit the effects of each 
 other, the universe had been an impenetrable solid or an 
 infinitely dilated fluid. 
 
 Still, unity of force seems as natural and philosophical an 
 inference as unity of light, heat, or of matter itself. It is diffi- 
 cult to imagine the motive power of Creation a compound; to 
 think the perfect harmony of its en<M6Ssly diversified actions 
 and reactions is not due to something essentially single and 
 
 simple of itself. 
 
 ' But there are facts connected with chemical, electric, and 
 magnetic movements which cannot be explained by the the- 
 ory'' of one parent force.' Perhaps not yet. It is not to he 
 expected that the deepest truths arc to be sounded by in- 
 flincy's plummets, and no one imagines science is matured or 
 approaching maturity. There are certainly forces in opera- 
 tion which have not yet been discovered, as well as others not 
 yet understood. But, passing them it is to physical or com- 
 mon force we refer. 
 
 Force is manifested by matter in motion. A cannon ball, a 
 fly wheel, or the sails of a wind-mill have no force when qui- 
 escent. Bodies at rest are moved by bodies in force, that is, 
 in motion. But how does a body at rest become itself a first 
 mover? Invariably, we believe, by expansion or contraction^ 
 
k-OAAA*^ 
 
 16 
 
 CURSORY THOUf^HTS 
 
 and consequently the direction of the force is oat 
 inwards.^ That is to sa}-, all forces arise directly 
 
 ) lit wards or 
 , ,. - -.- ~"J^ -^v.-- c^^.-v. ^i.^v^tly or indi- 
 
 rectly, trom the simple swelling and shrinking of motive 
 masses, and can therefore only be resolvable into one which 
 has the means within itself of producing these opposite effects. 
 It must both contract and expand matter. Is there such a 
 force. 
 
 To accord with universal analogy, if not with an universal 
 law of development, we suppose the eldest or first-born of the 
 forces was the progenitor of the rest. If we knew w^hat the first 
 condition of matter w-as we could tell what the first force was 
 —supposing matter was aeriform or concrete, and it may be 
 assumed to have been one or the other. If the former, the 
 force was a contracting one, there being nothing to expand • 
 if the latter, an expanding one, there being nothing to con- 
 tract, ^ow, the idea is generally accepted by the learned 
 that the universe was originally a subtile fluid; and \vith 
 this, ATTRACTION, the Universal and omnipresent condenser 
 agrees more perfectly as the first mover than any hvpothe- 
 sis based on repulsion acting within a solid nucleus ; for that 
 would imply either that attraction had been previously at work 
 or that the constitution of matter is in mass, not in atoms. 
 In a fluid universe then, repulsion could not have preceded 
 attraction. The latter was the primogenial force, and if the 
 primogenial the <^vrihnUu'g ,one. 
 
 (As we here understand by repulsion not a passive resist- 
 ance, which It is sometimes understood to be, but an active 
 energy, that sends forth matter and consequently force with it 
 we use the terms ' condensation' and ' expansion' with their 
 equivalents, as convenient synonyms for attraction and repul- 
 sion.) -^ 
 
 It will, we suppose, be conceded that repulsion has not the 
 power to draw back what it displaces, besides growing weak- 
 er with the displacements. Driving matter outwards, it would 
 continue to do so, if not checked, till the whole was accumu- 
 lated, so to speak, on the outermost ^^^r^^^ of space. Attraction 
 is tlie converging power that prevents this, and hence, it is in- 
 conceivable that physical power could have been develoi.ed 
 by repulsion alone. ^ 
 
 But if the forces cannot be deduced from repulsion, because 
 ot Its inability to recover matter it throws out, can attraction 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 17 
 
 push out that which it draws in ? If it can — that is, if it can 
 be sliown that repulsion is the offspring of attraction — doubts 
 respecting tlie unity of force would be lessened if not removed. 
 Thnt there are facts which go to prove this, we are constrained 
 to believe until better informed. Before referring to them, 
 let us observe that the necessity of repulsion as a primordial 
 principle of action is not apparent, if force in an opposite di- 
 rection to that oi attraction be the purpose of its introduc- 
 tion. With us there is no force but what is sent in any and 
 every direction, and made to react on itself; why "^ then 
 should nature require that which we do not. Are not our 
 working mechanisms, in every case, based on the making 
 one force perform the functions of two, a pushing and a pull- 
 ing one, and do they not produce almost endless varieties of 
 results ? What more does attraction with repulsion accom- 
 plish ? By depressing a piston or the end of a lever, or pull- 
 ing down a rope, we cause w^ater or solid bodies to rise, 
 and is it thougiit that nature cannot make the descending 
 force of gravitation produce an ascending one, and vice versa f 
 
 In some minds the idea would arise, that if two equal and 
 opposite forces proceeding from separate sources w^ere em- 
 ployed, one might sometimes have to wait for the other — the 
 iuleruni for the lever, or the lever for the fulcrum. But if 
 repulsion emanates from attraction, it cannot be absent 
 when wanted, nor called out till wanted, nor appear except 
 in just measure to the call; that is, if the same relations ex- 
 ist between them as between action and reaction in our ordi- 
 nary machines. And such we think is the fact — that one is 
 primary and jiositive, the other secondary and negative. 
 
 But admitting that attraction which never sleeps awakens 
 repulsion, and that reaction is torpid till quickened by ac- 
 tion, what are nature's fulcra? In the sense we have of 
 such things, she uses nonel While we are obliged to employ 
 intervening media for the transmission of force, she transmits 
 it without them ; but, if an agent is to be recognised between 
 her forces and the resistances they overcome, we should say, 
 on concrete spheres it is heat. It would, however, be more 
 correct to say that heat, instead of being something inter- 
 posed between attraction and repulsion, is repulsion itself 
 
 The ordinary processes by which attraction eUcits repul- 
 
 /^-mruyui fyyULtyfuXmjL^'yh\^ -^yjtviv^cL 
 
18 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 sion are chemical and mechanical decompositions. Of the first 
 It IS unnecessary to speak, as examples are ever before us It 
 IS the second, the least obvious, to which we appeal 
 ^ Let it be premised that heat— all heat as we suppose— is, 
 Jike sound or any other property of matter, an efiect, not a 
 substance; and that it is evolved, and was originally evol- 
 ^II }y /'''^'''''^ or molecules rubbing over molecules; and 
 that friction attends ever?/ kind and degree of pressure, and con- 
 sequently every movement of bodies and within bodies Heat 
 given out by mixing sulphuric acid and water, or water 
 with quicklime, are chemical examples. If the question were 
 asked. When was heat first evolved ? we should say, when 
 matter was first compressed. 
 
 It is assumed that at the beginning matter was an iBriforni 
 tluid or a solid, and occupied the whole of space or a part of 
 It. n solid, it was a mere center of a boundless area, and 
 we should have to admit that heat Mas required to dilate 
 and difluse it, and therefore preceded friction. But if, on the 
 other hand, it was a universal fluid, prelusive to being gath- 
 ered into concrete spheres, the presence of heat would have 
 been directly antagonistic to its condensation ; and they who 
 maintam the fiery hypothesis should account for its appear- 
 ance as well as for its dispersion. 
 
 Although the idea has been derided, we think the fluid 
 universe was essentially cold— cold as the attenuated ether 
 in space is now, and that heat commenced with its conden- 
 sation—that sensible heat is pre-eminently a product of con- 
 crete spheres ; that is, of attraction which made them con- 
 crete. But if heat IS confined to the spheres repulsion is al- 
 so. Indeed, the inference is hardly to be avoided, that if 
 repulsion be inseparable from expansion, it can only be in 
 torce where tbere is matter to expand. 
 
 As we have supposed, contrary to authorities, that the uni- 
 versal nebula was destitute of heat, it may be asked. How did 
 attraction elicit repulsion in it? As in its separated portions, 
 and as in their subdivisions— in that one, for example, of which 
 our solar system is made up, gravitation urging the fluid to a 
 common center, rotation, by a well known law followed ; and 
 the centripetal force thus generated gave birth to a centrifu- 
 gal one that successively threw off' the matter of the planets 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 19 
 
 and broke up the whole. That is, we suppose the parent 
 nebula, under the influence of gravitation, began and w^ent 
 through the same process as its offshoots — that from its rota- 
 tion all other movements have proceeded. It seems hardly 
 philosophical to require a law for the whole different from that 
 which governs the parts; nor do we see how that which is re- 
 cognised in the one can be ignored in the other. From what 
 movement but that of the whole could those of the parts 
 proceed. They must have been in unison \vith it and analo- 
 gous to it. If the theory of Laplace be true, it can no more 
 be limited to separate systems than gravitation itself. 
 
 A centripetal and a centrifugal movement may be consid- 
 ered the original forms of attractive and repulsive forces, and 
 consequently of condensation and expansion. Nor does this 
 conflict "with the position assumed respecting beat, as it was 
 necessarily evolved by condensation. 
 
 We everywhere perceive properties of matter merging into 
 their opposites, as light and dark, heat and cold, hard and 
 soft, etc. Perhops it will be said, these are, in each case, 
 mere degrees of one and the same thing. We admit they are, 
 and we are not sure that repulsion will not finally be resolved 
 into diminished attraction. But let us look for an illustration 
 of a force generating an antagonist one: — Metals are con- 
 densed to a limited extent by tlje hammer, or when pressed 
 between rollers. During the process they become heated, in 
 consequence of the violent displacement or friction of their 
 molecules. Most persons have seen the cold end of a nail rod 
 made red hot by the hammer. Oriental smiths of old occa- 
 sionally worked iron without fire. In the present times we 
 are told that, *in some parts of Hindostan, and on tlie coast 
 of Malabar, they communicate to it by beating the degree of 
 heat requisite for rendering it malleable.' 
 
 Suppose we take a mass of iron and hammer it till it be- 
 comes of a red or white heat, we find it swells and keeps 
 swelling with the heat. Condensation is folloiccd by and 
 actually produces expansion] an internal force is excited which 
 OVERCOMES the exierncd one which excites it — the very thing 
 required in a parent force. • Could a globular mass be thus 
 treated and kept in a globular form, the effect would be more 
 obvious. At first it would be reduced in volume, but as the 
 heat rose it would expand with it into a hundred or a thou- 
 
20 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 sand times its original bulk— into gas if the compressing pow- 
 er were continued. This is an experiment which we cannot 
 carry out, but Nature is continually performing it in the cen- 
 ter of the earth, and with more refractory materials than the 
 metals. 
 
 As with every other principle of action, means are provided 
 for us to diversify its application, to hasten the process and 
 diminish the pressure— friction matches and detonating com- 
 pounds are examples. We have the principle at our'^iinger 
 ends. Rubbing the hands together rapidly evolves heat, aiid 
 our bodies, like the friction of two pieces of wood, might' thus 
 be made to consume themselves. 
 
 Now if, in the iron, condensation, the legitimate represen- 
 tative of attraction, directly evolved repulsion, the latter was 
 not an original but a derivative force. It as certainly could 
 not have appeared without the former, as that it ceased to ap- 
 pear when that ceased to act. And it did precisely what it 
 does in nature— it changed the direction oj the force. Can re- 
 pulsion thus produce attraction? If co-eval and co-equal 
 ought it not to produce it ? We are very sure that expansion 
 however extended, can never directly excite condensation. A 
 watch 13 moved by the expansion of the spring, but further 
 expansion will never wind it up. 
 
 Perhaps it may be said, attraction is excited when steam 
 from heated water returns to the liquid condition. True, in 
 that case it is indirectly excited, but from first to last repulsion 
 depended on it and only existed by it, for attraction formed 
 the hquid and the fuel to dilate it. Rain is a parallel case. 
 Other illustrations might be cited, but we know of none in 
 which attraction does not precede repulsion and give rise to it 
 — directly in the constitution of bodies, indirectly in the 
 movement of bodies. Masses cannot be swelled without heat 
 and as heat is, so is repulsion, the product of attraction. 
 
 In brief: attraction compresses matter, compressure evolves 
 heat, lieat expands the matter compressed and fits it again 
 for attraction to act on it. Such appears to be the pro'cess 
 of the composition and recomposition of all bodies, and of all 
 forces within them and without. 
 
 In the constitution of the earth, the evolution of heat by 
 compressure differs in different substances: an amount of 
 friction that kindles some into flame is scarcely to be felt iu 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 21 
 
 others. The highest natural temperatures are those of living 
 bodies, and for the obvious reason that their consumption of 
 heat is the greatest. It is that which prevents us from being 
 collapsed into statuettes; and if there were not more than just 
 sufficient to prevent that, we should be as incapable of mov- 
 ing from one place to another as stones or trees. We are con- 
 stantly expending heat in exterior force and consequently 
 crave at short intervals fresh supplies of materials from which 
 to obtain it. 
 
 Though the proposition that both forces are manifestations 
 of one principle may be rejected, it must be conceded that 
 their effects are degrees of one and the same thing ; expansion 
 being diminished density, as cold is diminished heat and 
 darkness diminished light. Then how will objectors dispose 
 of the fact of expansion being evolved, by an accumulation, 
 instead of a diminution of condensing power ? We submit 
 that it points to the law of the succession and reproduc- 
 tion of bodies, and shows how it is carried out by a force 
 that comprises all conditions within itself — a law which 
 enacts that attraction (condensation) wdien carried to certain 
 extents, shall break down bodies it builds up and thereby 
 provide for recomposition of their elements — a law by which 
 it repels as well as attracts, bursts asunder what it binds to- 
 gether, and renews what it destroys — a law by which 
 
 'Extremes in nature equal endH produce.' 
 
 Whether repulsion be considered or not, the ofT^ipring of 
 attraction, it is of no secondary importance in the economy 
 of creation. It is the chief aciiny principle in the concrete as 
 attraction was in the fluid universe. Based on her conden- 
 sed materials and their capacity for expansion, the earth's 
 forces, except what we get from tides and falling water, are 
 all, — organic and inorganic — expansive. We can have no 
 force, or next to none, from and during the condensation of 
 substances, because they are already condensed, while in 
 their expansion there are no limits to it. In one case motion 
 can be had only through minute distances, in the other 
 through the greatest practical distances. With one we 
 should be all but helpless, with the other our power is nearly 
 omnipotent. 
 
22 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 In tlie arts we are incessantly applying heat to loosen the 
 bonds of attraction; in slightly or temporarily changing the 
 condition of bodies, as in drying, softening and fusing theS or 
 in their decomposition for mechanical forces, as when we con- 
 vert water into vapor and other substances into gas. The key 
 to unlock them all is heat, and in applying the key we like 
 nature, apply that which attraction provides, to open stores 
 which attraction has laid up. 
 
 On concrete worlds forces must depend upon heat, and from 
 their constitution they, and they onlv, are heat producers 
 It may perhaps be imagined that force might be obtained on 
 gaseous or nebulous orbs from the continuous compiessino- 
 power of gravitation, but motion, from the shrinkage, would 
 be too s ow to be of use and always growing slower. We 
 can hardly conceive a mill-wheel c6uld be turned once round 
 in a twelve month. 
 
 However it may be elsewhere, here the general diffusion of 
 a common agent of expansion was required, and we have it in 
 one to which we owe more than has yet been explained, viz • 
 water. It appears to enter into the composition of all bodies" 
 Plants and animals are chiefly made up of it. A living bein'^c; 
 of a perfectly and substance is an impossible conception • All 
 are moist and all food is wet. With respect to force the 
 earth consists of three great departments--water, the expan- 
 sile agent-fuel to expand it-and bodies, organic and inor- 
 ganic, to be acted on. ' ° 
 
 There is then we apprehend, this difference between at- 
 traction and repulsion: the former produces, the latter expends 
 —giving out quickly what the other slowly stores up. It 
 constitutes the running conduits through which forces are 
 drawn from a. placid reservoir. There are other points of 
 marked sigmlicance: attraction is constant and uniform re- 
 pulsion is neither. It is moreover limited to the spheres and 
 consequently does not send like attraction its influence 
 through the intervening ether. lu natural bodies attraction 
 and repulsion are delicately balanced ; to cohesion we can add 
 nothing or next to nothing in any, but for repulsion we can 
 mcrease and diminish it in all. Again :~in all forces from 
 men, animals, wind, steam, electricity, etc., there is a con- 
 sumption or waste of motive material, which has to be re- 
 placed or motion stops. Whence comes the replenishment ? 
 
 « ' 
 
 r 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 23 
 
 Solely from attraction, which expending no material requires 
 itself no recuperation. 
 
 Another point may be recalled : — The mass of iron was 
 supposed to be resolved into its elements by com pressure, 
 but it might also be volatilized without pressure, i.e., in a 
 furnace sutiiciently heated : in which case the same result is 
 brought out by diminishing pressure as by increasing it. The 
 application of this fact to sustain the parentage of attraction 
 is this : In both cases heat was the dissolving agent. Re- 
 pulsion (expansion) called in fuel from without, but attrac- 
 tion (compressure) made the mass serve as its own fuel. 
 Had it required aught extraneous, like repulsion, it could not 
 be the all generating Force — the G-reat Heat-Froducer. 
 
 Heat has been appropriately named • a radiating force ;' 
 and when it is said expansion abstracts heat, it is say in *^, 
 what we afl[irm, that expansion expends force. Then, as 
 condensation produces heat (and there is no force without 
 it) that which produces condensation is the fountain of the 
 forces. 
 
 Section 2. Illustrations drawn from iron of repulsion be- 
 ing a product of attraction may serve as a type of those to 
 be derived from the arts. Let us now take one from nature, 
 on the largest scale, and see if both do not accord, and under 
 circumstances and conditions as widely diflerent as can well 
 be imagined. 
 
 It is admitted that gravitation would sijueeze our earth 
 and her atmosphere into a small adamantine mass, if it were 
 not checked in some way or other. Now as it has continued 
 to act from the beginning with unabated power, why has 
 condensation abruptly stopped and left her and her associ- 
 ate planets in different and very moderate densities? And 
 how are those densities preserved ? The answer to the first 
 question will be found, we think, conclusive, that repulsion 
 is generated by attraction, and the reply to the second will 
 confirm this by showing how an alternate preponderance is 
 maintained of one force over the. other. 
 
 The closer the constitution of concrete spheres is examined 
 the more evident, we think, it will appear that every one is 
 
24 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 a friction Fire-mill— that it generates in heat a central repul- 
 sive force in proportion to its mass, and consequently one 
 that at length balances the compressive force )vithout. The 
 very existence of a planet is a proof of the presence of this 
 force, and it fully accounts for diversities of densities, and 
 for diversities of materials not combining in one compact 
 body. 
 
 The temperature of the earth is known to increase with the 
 distance from the surface, being as we assume, the etfect of 
 gravity crowding her materials into smaller and smaller 
 areas and consequently heating them more and more as they 
 approach the center, whare the extremest of mundane heat is 
 engendered (by friction) under the concurrent pressure of her 
 entire mass. And there, as with the heated iron, it is expan- 
 sion against condensation— repulsion versus srravity. When 
 repulsion preponderates it displaces matter^and, \is it sub- 
 sides, the other pushes down fresh matter. 
 
 Of those who believe this central heat part of a primordial 
 iiary nebula, some doubt its permanence. The matter ren- 
 dered by it incandescent, liquid and gaseous, must, they 
 think, grow colder by radiation, and hence they infer that 
 the mean temperature of the earth is decreasing. Others 
 suppose it retains its original intensity, and will retain it to 
 the end of time. 
 
 The error of both parties, as we take it, arises from con- 
 templating the material of the earth as at rest, forgetting 
 that a central expanding force is constantly disturbing it^ 
 that a ceaseless exchange of heated matter for cold is going 
 on, and that from this cause, if from no other, the ivhole is, 
 though imperceptible to us, ahvays in motion, some portions 
 towards and some from the center, and consequently that 
 fresh heat is as copiously generated now as it ever was, or 
 perhaps ever can be. 
 
 There is no room to question the reality of this circulation. 
 Of the ascending movement every part of the earth's surface 
 furnishes evidence, in marine formations in the midst of con- 
 tinents and on the summits of mountains. AYhere is there 
 not sand and gravel, and limestone composed of shells and 
 corals? To say nothing of visible discharges of internal 
 matter by volcanoes, we have metals, granite, and other sub- 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PilENOMKxXA. 
 
 25 
 
 stances, raised within our reach. Wide districts of land are 
 known to be now rising^. 
 
 Nor is the descending movement less apparent, either upon 
 or beneath the surface, as the abrasion of mountains by rain 
 and the transference of detritus to lower levels, and throuo-h 
 rivers to the oc3ans. Ancient cities are more or less deeply 
 buried, and some have wholly disappeared. Large areas of 
 lands are settling. But what is more to the point, o-eolo'^-ical 
 strata have gone down with their fossil treasures in the order 
 of their appearance on the surface, the oldest the lowest and 
 the latest immediately beneath us. In all times and coun- 
 tries they have thus followed each other, and at this day, as 
 in preceding times, internal matter is coming up, and external 
 matter going down— perfectly analogous to action and reac- 
 tion in organic structures — secretion .jf fresh motive material 
 and discharge of the waste. 
 
 The dense forests of the carboniferous and succeeding peri- 
 ods, where are they ? Did they wither and perish on the sur- 
 face? Not one of them. They sunk beneath it in the order 
 they appeared upon it, and from vegetable have become min- 
 eral fuel, a substance of vital importance to human pro^rress 
 for all time. That the rate of subsidence of surface strata is 
 subject to some law and one that checks the descent of di- 
 vers matters at divers depths there need be no question. 
 Coal probably settles no lower than suffices to receive the 
 heat and pressure requisite to its perfect conversion, when it 
 commences its slow ascent. It is not wanted to supoort the 
 central fire, since the pressure there fuses materials more en- 
 during. There can be no such lack of system as to permit it 
 to go where it could furnish but a few partial and momen- 
 tary flashes. 
 
 Incoherence or looseness of the materials is essential to 
 these internal movements. It secures, what is also indispen- 
 sable, inequaUtij of resistance to the upheaving force ^ and 
 keeps changing the location and direction of the weakest or 
 yielding parts. Were the matter of the earth uniformly con- 
 solidated, instead of interchanges silent, slow, and continuous 
 there could be nothing but sudden explosions, with general 
 displacements. But as things are arranged, the heteroo-eneous 
 and detached character of the materials can only resist^a com- 
 uaratively moderate expanding force, while the part least able 
 
26 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 at the moment to withstand it, gives way without disturbing 
 the rest. It is only when these insensible movements are 
 checked that sensible earthquakes occur; and that even they 
 perform important functions, besides that of preventing con- 
 solidation, we may well believe. 
 
 Besides being indispensable for a continuous conversion of 
 substances into other substances, it is this circulation of the 
 materials of orbs that arrests condensation and secures perma- 
 nency to planetary and solar volumes — a fundamental and 
 universal principle we believe. But for it, half the matter of 
 our earth would be comparatively of no use. The greater 
 part would serve no other purpose than a foundation for a 
 thin stratum on the surface ; or it would be like surplus raw 
 stock lying useless in a manufacturer's cellar ; an idea repug- 
 nant to every principle of economy that characterises the 
 Creator's designs. 
 
 The hypothesis of our planet being a shell, or crust, con- 
 taining a sea of molten matter, is among the wildest of the 
 wild. Its supporters seem to have no idea that law reigns 
 within it as well as without, and with equally beneficent pur- 
 poses and results; that every movement, the smallest as the 
 greatest, is as necessary to accomplish them, as those within 
 their own bodies are to keep them in health. Human pro- 
 gress, material and mental, is, we suppose, the chief purpose 
 of the earth's creation and of our being put in possession of it. 
 To this end, substances elaborated for the arts at vast depths 
 are prepared and brought up by the system of circulation, 
 and, when worn out or consumed are passed down to undergo 
 fresh elaboration and be ready again when wanted — a sj^stem 
 utterly incompatible with any shell theory, but in perfect har- 
 mony with the renewal of bodies on the surface, if not the 
 foundation on which that renewal is based. 
 
 Were the theory of friction, as the primordial source of 
 heat, considered in connection with this circulation of the 
 earth's materials — much on the same principle as water cir- 
 culates through a heated boiler, infinitely slower but not less 
 certain — the origin and maintenance of heat in the spheres 
 could hardly remain in doubt. A theory sufficient for the 
 earth is sufficient for the universe — for solar as for planetary 
 heat. 
 
 Though the specific gravities of ths larger planets are less 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 27 
 
 • ( 
 
 than those of smaller, their masses are sufficient to generate 
 the upheavmg forces required, even were resistance to fusion 
 greater than in our earth's alembic; but the probabilities are 
 that It IS less. Light and porous bodies are easier ignited by 
 triction than heavy and solid ones. Fire is quickly kindled 
 by rubbing wood on wood, but no one would attempt it with 
 two pieces of rnetal. Internal heat may therefore be more 
 readily generated in the elder planets than in the earth and 
 her immediate neighbors ; and from the same cause (their 
 diminished densities) less amounts or intensities would be re- 
 quired—resistance to the upheaving force would be less It 
 may well be that densities varying with the masses of planets 
 have reference to the generation of central forces— if these 
 are so vitally important as we claim them to be. 
 
 If there are planets or satellites whose surflices have never 
 been broken by internal forces we should consider the flact as 
 strong an indication of the absence of intelligent occupants as 
 anything yet suggested ; so essential to the inauguration and 
 maintenance of vegetable and animal organisms does an inter- 
 change of internal and external matter appear. We believe 
 an early and prolonged series of upheavals necessary to break 
 up the originally homogeneous material and compact charac- 
 ter of every planet, m order to initiate variety of substances 
 and promote their development, by changing the positions, 
 and consequently diversilying the conditions and reci])rocai 
 influences of the separated masses. And such movements we 
 conceive were not less necessary to prepare a planet to be- 
 come a theatre ot life, than they are to keep it one. A f rst 
 earthquake might be like an explosion of powder in the cen- 
 ter ot a sohd rock, but subsequent tremors would diminish in 
 violence with disintegration, till, as we suppose will be the 
 case here, their pulsations with rare exceptions become unfelt. 
 I he rugged and barren aspect of our moon would be ac- 
 counted for if the ante-vegetable period of eruption has not 
 ended on her. She may, however, not have reached the 
 point of compression which establishes a permanent and del- 
 icate balance between her interior dilating and exterior com- 
 pressing force. Her density is little over six tenths that of 
 the earth. She may still be contracting. 
 
 Those who teach that matter was intensely hot previous to 
 the formation of the spheres— sensible that condensation 
 
28 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 could not begin till tlie raging heat was got rid of— admit 
 that "607?ie great change must have taken place in it, since 
 while it continued to act with its full repulsive energy the 
 process of agglomeration by attraction could not have gone 
 on." We hold it safer to infer that the principles evolved at 
 the birth of creation were the same as are now in operation, 
 that not one was evoked for a temporary or special purpose 
 and dismissed when that was accomplished, and hence that 
 the fluid universe could only have been heated as matter is 
 now heated. Heat therefore could not have preceded conden- 
 sation, unless it were in atoms, but as their attributes are as 
 indestructible as themselves, had they been originally of a 
 glowing heat they would be found so in every substance now. 
 
 One of the alleged functions of nebulous heat was to cause 
 diversities of densities in stellar and planetary bodies. For 
 example ; when the matter of our system was at its highest 
 temperature the outermost planet was thrown oflP, the next 
 one when it was somewhat reduced, (though how we are not 
 told) the next when it was farther moderated, and so on to 
 the earth whose matter was incandescent, then to Venus and 
 Mercury. This, it is said, perfectly tallies with the exceeding 
 ditfuscness of the matter of the elder planets ; Saturn not be- 
 ing denser than cork, etc. Now, all this, we think, may be 
 accounted for on common grounds and acknowledged princi- 
 ples without calling for an universal fire attended with no 
 small difficulties of disposing of it. That is, by making at- 
 traction, not repulsion IYlq first acting principle. As a gaseous 
 body, the density of the nebula of oar system, if cold as the 
 climate of Siberia, would, by gravitation, have varied from 
 the center to the circumference, and there would have been 
 the same differences between that of Saturn and the other 
 planets as there are now. For such a parpose an intensely 
 heated fluid was certainly not reqaired. It might retard but 
 could not vary the result. 
 
 Then, by what processes was one portion of the fiery mist 
 got into and locked up in the deepest of planetary prisons, 
 and another gathered roand the sun as a luminous envelope ? 
 — as some teach. We believe no satisfactory solutions of 
 these enigmas have been given, while fresh embarrassments 
 arise at every step. In both cases the difficulty of accounting 
 for the maintenance of the heat is felt. Some philosophers 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 29 
 
 V 
 
 thmk there is no dmimution of it in either, others admit a 
 slow but constant outlay in both. The sun, ihev say, is 
 wastmg away by the emission of liglit and heat, the hypo- 
 thesis IS laden v^^nh difliculties. We j)refer the one proposed 
 in this paper By it a heat generating orb can no more 
 waste away than a non-generating one. The heat given out 
 IS perpetually renewed, and with no more waste of matter 
 tlian motion or sound wastes it. 
 
 '; The existence of this central heat~a residuum of that 
 which kept all mntter in a vaporiform chaos at first-is 
 among the most solid discoveries of modern science, and the 
 support which It gives to Ilerschers explanation of the forma- 
 tion of worlds IS highly important. AV^e shall hereafter see 
 what appear to be traces of this heat upon the surface of the 
 earth m very remote times; an effect however which has 
 long passed entirely away. The central heat has, for ages, 
 reached a fixed point, at which it will probably remain for- 
 ever, as the non-condacting rpiality of the cool crust absolute- 
 ly prevents it from saffering any diminution." 
 
 It IS bordering on presumption to dissent from this— the or- 
 thodox doctrine on the subject -but it is better for independ- 
 ent tnought to be rebuked tlian suppressed. Through what 
 channels did the earth's central heat leak, and how have they 
 become closed? Into what could it have been drained? 
 VV here was there cold matter to receive it ? Bat sapposino- it 
 went off somewhere by radiation, why should it not still\s. 
 cape 111 that way, and more copiously because of the vastly 
 reduced temperature of the matter now enclosinc^ it. If 
 - ancient earthquakes discharged much, modern ones°are con- 
 stantly occurring, besides one or two hundred volcanoes, to 
 give It vent. Its present temperature is deemed so intense 
 that no scales have been projected to measure it, and vet it 
 IS spoken of as miiGh less than that of the nebulous earth Vhen 
 thrown off from the parent ma.ss. Who, then, can conceive 
 the alleged heat of the fluid universe, tell whence it came, or 
 establish the necessity of it. 
 
 That a body of heat generated when all matter was fluid, 
 could be kept alive by itself in the bowels of this, or any 
 other globe, is, to say the least, exceedingly problematical 
 it IS not represented as coming down through a past eternity 
 m other matter, but in a portion of the primordial nebula it- 
 
30 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 self—m a portion of the pure and homogeneous material of 
 creation, ere variety of forms and substances had begun to be 
 evolved out of it. Moreover it is represented under conditions 
 that render it positively incapable of producing effects ascribed 
 to It. Shut up within a non-conducting crust, something like 
 high steam in a non-conducting and perfectly closed boiler, 
 extcnor movements are attribated to it, as if it, any more than 
 the steam, could produce them without coming out of the en- 
 velope. ^ If It impart heat to matter outside, it loses forever 
 what It imparts ; nor can it displace bodies outside without 
 expanding itself to reach them ; and if it expands it exi^ends 
 what It expands, for that which once passes out cannot be 
 drawn back, whether issuing slowly by radiation or instanta- 
 neously by impulse. 
 
 Hence, if it were possible for such a body of heat to have 
 been preserved as alleged, its preservation would be without a 
 purpose, since it could accomplish nothing— no more than a 
 buried steam boiler from which no steam could escape. We 
 prefer to contemplate it in the light of experience, without 
 the danger of offending known laws, or the invocation of un- 
 known onea That is, instead of being an everlasting fire of 
 celestial origin, dating from the beginning of creation, it is a 
 common product of the earth, constantly wearing out and be- 
 ing constantly renewed—that as a force, it differs in no re- 
 spect from other expansive forces in its origin, action and 
 means of support. 
 
 The nature and functions of central fires of planets and sa- 
 tellites have yet to be investigated. Thev are too commonly 
 viewed as simply injurious, and as for our earth's glowing fur- 
 nace, the soone*" it is extinguished the better ! That it was a 
 necessary element in her constitution its existence is sufficient 
 proof, and we venture the assertion that no reasons can be 
 adduced for ics introduction which do not sustain the neces- 
 sity of its continuance. Without it her entire economy would 
 become deranged. Her density and dimensions would vary ; 
 she would become a compact, impenetrable solid ; the subsi- 
 dence of worn out surflxce strata, their replacement by fresh 
 strata, and the interminable variety of results would cease. If 
 even the metamorphose of vegetables into minerals, transmu- 
 tations of the latter, and their ripening at srreat depths were 
 not arrested, they never could be raised within the grasp oi 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 31 
 
 our niiners. In a word, we suppose the successive appearance 
 of mineral, vegetable, and animated bodies depends in no 
 small degree on the earth's central furnace — a fixture in Na- 
 ture's laboratory as indispensable as in the chemist's. 
 
 If it is dyhig out, the inference would be that it had ful- 
 filled its mission, and that things here were about returning to 
 chaos, though the earth as a theatre of life is obviously in 
 comparative infancy, and our location upon it, as it were,' but 
 yesterday. 
 
 As the original homogeneity of matter has been alluded to, 
 the query naturally arises, By what means were divers 
 substances evolved from it? We should say by attraction, 
 through diversities of conditions it introduced. AVhen the 
 nebulous earth turned on its axis it lost the uniform character 
 of its material. Its density varied from surface to center, and 
 kept increasingly varying as condensation progressed and 
 solidification set in. The mass might then be considered as 
 composed of innumerable concentric layers, each differing in 
 texture and in iTioimi from the rest. Two permanent elements 
 of diversity were then initiated, and with them a third one, 
 viz: heat, the effect of condensation. 'Admitting that, the 
 material of individual layers would still be homogeneous.' 
 Yes, but the next step was the evolution of a radiating force 
 to break, and keep breaking through them. Attraction did 
 this, also, by generating the central upheaving force; and by 
 the continuation of that force, it multiplies changes of condi- 
 tion on the principle of permutation, and renders the recur- 
 rence of, or approach to uniformity impossible. Universal 
 gravitation appears thus to have opened the way for cohesion, 
 chemical, electrical, and every special variety of attraction, to 
 enter on the work of converting an uniform mass into the va- 
 riegated orb we inhabit— evolving crystalline forms, vegetable 
 structures, animated bodies, and the circulation of living 
 forces. 
 
 To close the suggestions of this paper, (they are nothing 
 mora) we submit tliat, that which excites repulsion in the 
 earth as a whole, excites it in her parts— that the various densi- 
 ties of her materials are due to the same cause as is her aggre- 
 gate density— that in them cohesion goes on, till molecular 
 friction evolves repulsion in heat and thus establishes the 
 series of natural temperatures, organic and inorganic. 
 
32 
 
 CUESORT THOTJGHTS, ETC. 
 
 (In living organisms, soon as the process ceases, the coldness 
 of death supervenes. Of the constitutional heats of the lower 
 forms of life, aquatic, terrestrial and aerial, little seems to liave 
 been determined. They are presumed to bear a direct, if not 
 a constant relation to muscular power. Fishes in general are 
 but slightly warmer than the waters they live in, but there 
 rnmt be a marked range of temperature between the inert 
 and energetic — between the coral, the oyster, the s^le, with 
 other slow swimmers; and the dolphin and tunny, the shark 
 and the swordtish, and still huger indwollers of the ocean 
 whose expenditure of force is enormous.) 
 
 Without some hypothesis akin to the one proposed, we can- 
 not account for condensation stopping at different stages in 
 different bodies, nor for its stopping at all in any. There are, 
 doubtless, details to l-»e reconciled before it can be accepted ; 
 we can, however, think of none presenting greater difficulties 
 than condensation producing expansion, and thai, if admitted, 
 will go far towards establishing the doctrine that atthactiox 
 is the root from which all forces spring— the weight, as has 
 elsewhere been stated, which moves all the clock-works of 
 the universe, f^nd by its offspring heat is ever winding 
 them up. 
 
 New York, January, 18C2. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 ADDENDA TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 -o- 
 
 In ivhat order did the physical forces appear J or is the dogma 
 tenable that they arose simultaneously ? Clearly not, unless the 
 raw material of the universe was a heterogeneous mass in which 
 every one found at once something to do ; and from such a commo- 
 tion what conceivable result could have followed but chaos made 
 more chaotic ? But neither turbulence nor confusion reigned over 
 the first movements of matter. That is a supposition unworthy of 
 
 the slightest credence. It receives no sanction from philosophy. 
 
 Creation is preeminently a work of law and order, and nothing is 
 more certain than that these pervaded the fluid as thoroughly as 
 they pervade the present universe. As no regular form or motion 
 can be produced by the aubmission, if that were possible, of an 
 amorphous mass to the conjoint action of a thousand different influ- 
 ences, the inference is irresistible, that the forces made their ap- 
 p«arance in a regular sequence, i.fei as the progressive changes in 
 matter called for them. How, indeed, could they appear till the 
 conditions were evolved upon which their evolution depended ? — 
 Could there have been cohesion before gravitation, capillary action 
 before Hquids were formed, or vital energies ere living bodies ap- 
 peared % 
 
 We are assured, then, that the action of a first force was neces- 
 sary to prepare matter to receive the impress of a second, of it for 
 a third, and so on. We have also assumed that the entire system 
 
 [33] 
 
34: 
 
 CURSOKY THOUGHTS 
 
 of creation — its order, harmony, its integrity and stability, arose 
 out of and is sustained by the Leading Force ; and that this force 
 must be essentially different from all others in its origin and attri- 
 butes ; that it exists independently of them, and that they exist 
 only in and through it ; that no changes in the condition of matter 
 can affect it ; that it is continuous in its action and invariable in in- 
 tensity, from everlasting to everlasting. 
 
 What is it ? We have said Attraction. But Attraction has 
 various phases which, developed under certain conditions, could 
 not have preceded those conditions. There is but one answer to 
 the question. As Attraction was the first force, Geavitation was 
 the first form or phase of that force ; and consequently the on© 
 which gave the first motion to matter, and opened the grand work- 
 ing scene of Creation. Derivable from no second cause, other 
 forces proceed more or less directly from it. They are inconstant 
 and variable, but with it there is not a shadow of turning. It acts 
 ceaselessly on the whole material of the universe, they only on 
 parts and interruptedly. We can elicit, modify, oppose and extin- 
 guish other forces, but we can neither touch nor tamper with Gra- 
 vitation. No finite power can do that. We are at no loss to imag- 
 ine how it started the dark, and cold, and dead universe into life, 
 by gathering the material into constellations, systems, and individ- 
 ual spheres ; evolving repulsion in heat by compressing them ; and, 
 by varying their densities and temperatures, giving birth to the 
 minor forces ; and we understand how it holds the materials of our 
 orb (and those of all orbs) together without interfering with the 
 action of minor forces on them — ^how, in short, it governs the whole 
 while they bring out details. 
 
 What intervals occurred in the successive evolutions of inorgan- 
 ic, vegetable and living forces, we can never know, nor is it of 
 importance that we should know. That they extended over periods 
 that would stretch the imagination to comprehend may well be con- 
 ceded, wonderfully bold and soaring as human speculations on the 
 
 ON SOME NATUEAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 35 
 
 ( ^ 
 
 cosmogony have been and are. It would, however, be a substantial 
 gain to know, not only that every change wrought in matter by 'm^ 
 force was taken hold of by another which the change was the means 
 of awakening, but also the position of each in the series. If Grav- 
 itation was the first, what was the second, the third, and so on to 
 the latest. It is certainly with the growth of worlds as with the 
 smallest objects. The forces that develope and mature them follow 
 in as regular an order as those which bring forth a tree laden with 
 fruit, from a seed. And, as we cannot entertain the thought that 
 the universe is ripe, or any fruit-bearing sphe^.^ in , i|,j f^ think 
 the probabilities are that new forces haye yet to appear with 
 changes of matter not yet reached. 
 
 The aggregate amount of Force in the XIniperse is a problem of 
 the highest interest in the economy of worlds. Is it the same now 
 as in the beginning ? Some suppose it is, and will be under all 
 conditions of things. How then is it distributed so as to be no- 
 where deficient or in excess, since without scfnije laws on this point, 
 creatioi^ would run into chaos. The answer is ; the amount of 
 force depends on that of matter — is invariable as that of matter. In 
 other words, the motive power of the universe is derived from Gra- 
 vitation, and can therefore neither be increased nor diminished an 
 iota, here or anywhere else. 
 
 Such is one opinion, but one too hastily made up. That the 
 amount of force is variable of which our planet is the depository is 
 certain. That there are forces in play now which were not de- 
 veloped when the earth was a nebulous body, is unquestionable. 
 And are not the vast and vastly increasing ones artificially excited 
 in steam, gunpowder, and other agents in innumerable processes in 
 the arts, to say nothing of her varying populations, proofs that 
 there is no uniformity here in the consumption ? It is true that 
 man can no more create force than matter, but he can use or neg- 
 
S6 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 lect to nse it ; and herein lies the difference. The opinion quoted 
 recognises no distinction between income and outlay. It seems to 
 be based on the idea that the current supply is the current expen- 
 diture, without any capital laid up to fall back on ; whereas such 
 capital is the only source to draw on. We can obtain no force di- 
 rectly from gravitation. It is only through matter that has received 
 it3 impress that it becomes available. 
 
 There could have been no difference whatever between the pres- 
 ent universe and the fluid one, had there not been an accumulation 
 and conservation of force in the materials condensed. It is by 
 them it has grown to be what it is. It is the force laid up in them 
 *that has rendered it habitable to physical organisms. In the sub- 
 stances from which we obtain force, gravitation has been storing it 
 up from the beginning, and keeps on storing it. The aggregate 
 Amount latent here has therefore never been stationary — perhaps 
 always on the increase. Iti modem times, man has drawn mK)re 
 largely on the fund than heretofore, and the probability is, and the 
 hope too, that he will continue to increase the number and amounts 
 of his drafts, since there is no danger of his exhausting or even 
 diminishing it. Force is here a perennial font that neither settles 
 nor overflows. And as with our planet, doubtless with others, es- 
 sential as it must be to physical intelligences everywhere. The 
 foundation of all progress, mental power has a direct relation to 
 the developments and applications of the physical. 
 
 The leading and all important product of the concrete universe, 
 every sphere is made a storehouse offeree and of materials to be 
 elaborated by it. To what but Gravitation is it, or can it be as- 
 cribed ? To gather matter into worlds and to regulate their move- 
 ments would have amounted to little without this impress of itself 
 within them. The power that did one could alone do the other. 
 Great as Gravitation is, its grandest function is within the spheres, 
 though commonly imagined without. ' 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 V 
 
 Original incandescence of matter : There appears something 
 very forced, and conflicting with every analogy in nature, in mak- 
 ing creation begin with all matter on fire. We know not how to 
 accept an hypothesis that makes heat precede cold, and light dark- 
 ness, and commences the process of development by extinguishing 
 both light and heat ; and that too, to bring them forth again. The 
 oldest cosmoganists made Day the offspring of Night. So with 
 the Mosaic account : " In the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth — and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And 
 God said, let there be lights in the firmament of heaven." This 
 appears natural, and is philosophical. Utter darkness and conse- 
 quently intense cold pervaded the fluid universe ; and the move- 
 ments began by breaking it up into spheres — by studding the 
 firmament with greater and lesser lights — with solar lamps and 
 planetary reflectors. Not that they burst into brilliancy at once, 
 or simultaneously, but that each became gradually lit up as heat 
 wa3 evolved from its material by condensation, and this not as a 
 distinct operation, but one progressing in common with other de- 
 velopments. 
 
 As the laws that govern matter never change, it is safe, in fact 
 the only mode of acquiring positive knowledge, to compare its action 
 in nature with its behavior in art. Now experimental philosophy 
 teaches us that if the material of creation were originally fluid and 
 incandescent, it would, if resolved intb its original form, resume its 
 original temperature. But if the teachings of Physical science can 
 be relied on at all, expansion generates cold. Of this there can be 
 no doubt, and hence the inference iiS'lhAt primordial matter, instead 
 of being densely heated, was destitute of heat. Indeed, it would 
 seem preposterous to suppose, in direct conflict with the funda- 
 mental law by which temperature diminishes with ejtpansion, that 
 the dilation of the spheres' Into a thin flm(icoN3M result itfanght bu{ 
 a gelid one. If so, it was originally gelid. Consonant with this is 
 the fact that in the existing universe heat most abounds where 
 
88 
 
 CUESOET THOUGHTS 
 
 matter is most crowded — most in the spheres, least in the ether. 
 How this can be satisfactorily explained by the igneous theory we 
 do not know. By the cold one it is a natural and philosophical 
 result. That is, gravitation began the work of elaboration by com- 
 pressing the cold primordial nebula into heat-generatino- orbs 
 
 converting an original frigid into a warm and genial universe and 
 
 while it was thus storing up in heat the element of expansion in 
 condensed nebula, it was at the same time inducing expansion in 
 the uncondensed — preparing an atmosphere for the orbs while they 
 were being prepared for it. 
 
 It is worth remarking that this double effect of attraction is as 
 common in the concrete as it was in the fluid universe. It never 
 
 condenses one body here, large or small, without dilating another 
 
 commonly the atmosphere, and therefore not perceptible. That 
 was a true saying of some old philosophers, " Nature abhors a vac- 
 uum." She has made no provision for one. 
 
 The Ether. — It may be thought that the cold theory is attended 
 with as great difficulties as the igneous one. We may be asked to 
 account for the separation from the parent mass of that portion of 
 matter which constitutes the ether, and how it escaped being gath- 
 ered up in the spheres. Is there not here as perplexing an enigma 
 as any attending original incandescence, how the heat was produced, 
 what purpose it accomplished, how the spheres became solidified in 
 spite of it, and what became of it ? No. It is not difficult to find 
 a rational and philosophic solution, or, at all events, one that appears 
 such. If we extract from a close receiver any part of the air with 
 which it is charged, no space is for a moment left vacant because of 
 the dilation of the remaining part. But suppose, instead of with- 
 drawing any portion, we could, and were to compress one-half, two- 
 ^thirds or nine-tenths of it into minute liquid or concrete globules, 
 the remaining fluid would dilate j)ari passu with the condensation 
 and occupy the whole interior. Now something like this we sup- 
 
 •f 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 39 
 
 pose was the process by which the greater part of the fluid that 
 filled the universal receiver — boundless space — was gathered into 
 the spheres, and the remainder dilated into the present ether. 
 
 The nebulous matter of a system or a solitary orb could not be 
 drawn together and leave a vacuum outside. In one respect the 
 nuclei might be likened to sponges : eack drew upon the surround- 
 ing fluid till absorption ceased with saturation. The residue con- 
 stitutes the atmosphere of the universe, and may be as vital to it as 
 our atmosphere is to our earth. Whether the spheres could have 
 been formed under the prevailing laws of matter without its agency 
 we need not inquire. Its existence proves that it was indispensible 
 to their formation and is so to their conservation. Possibly one of 
 its functions might and may be allied to one that our atmosphere 
 performs — that of a recipient and diluent of forces — a medium in 
 which the most violent harmlessly expire. 
 
 We consider, then, the attenuated matter pervading space as not 
 only a definite proportion of the mother fluid reserved as the me- 
 dium for the spheres to move in, but, so far as relates to perceptions 
 like ours, a fair representation of what the fluid univ-erse originally 
 was. Its density is of course less than when the- substance of the 
 spheres was diffused through it, but its character may have been 
 no more affected by that than air rarefied differi fi^pm the same air 
 unrarefied — than a less quantity differs from a greater. It was con- 
 densation that began the changes of condition in matter. If pure, 
 primogenial matter anywhere abounds we know not where to look 
 for it but in the ether : nowhere else is it, or ha^ it been, less snl|* 
 ject to change. It does not appear to coalesce with the alloyed 
 masses, nebular and concrete, moving through it, so that whatever 
 influence it exerts on them it would seem to preserve itself intact. 
 
 There is one point respecting the ether which may be thought to 
 sustain the fiery hypothesis. Its low temperature may properly be 
 ascribed to expansion in consequence of the absorption of so much 
 of matter by the spheres ; but then, by the same law, the incandes- 
 
40 
 
 CURSORY THOUGHTS 
 
 cent material of the latter should have been made still hotter by 
 condensation ; as red-hot bars of metal become of a brighter red by* 
 passing through rollers. And should not the high temperature 
 have continued as well as the low one, since the condensing power 
 has no more ceased to act than the expanding one. Accept the 
 theory of a frigid fluid universe, and all seems clear. 
 
 Unity ofForce.--^Q can hare no idea offeree unless associated 
 with resistance, nor can we perceive how the action of a uniform 
 force on a homogeneous mass can produce diversities of results; 
 hence the theory of attraction and repulsion. But if these are 
 what they have been represented, coeval and in every respect co- 
 equal, so far from nature's varieties being deducible from them, 
 there could have been no motion at all. Two opposing forces, 
 equally powerful, invariable and independent, would neutralise 
 each other — the form and condition of primordial matter could not 
 have been changed by them. Under this and every other aspect 
 of the doctrine of a plurality of original energies, we catinot resist 
 the inference that there must be one controlling power from which 
 others proceed and to whose impulses they respond. In short, that 
 Repulsion is the offspring of Gravitation. 
 
 Another consideration : All phenomena are confined within two 
 Conditions of matter — the aeriform and concrete. Intermediate 
 conditions veer between these, and are, in fact, modifications of 
 them. We do not know that any form or substance can pass out- 
 side of them, or that matter, under the present constitution of the 
 universe, can have any other mode or state of being. But passing 
 that, the fact that the sensible changes to which it is subject are 
 confined within them is significant. While it proclaims the gen- 
 eral movements of matter it makes known the general functions and 
 directions of force — that it is expended on the evolution of the two 
 simple but all-comprehensive conditions named. Now, we have 
 shown, or, if it be thought we have not, we are sure it can be shown, 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 41 
 
 that the generic operations of gravitation * are condensation and 
 expansion— that it is expended in compressing gaseous into solid 
 bodies and dissoking the solid into the gaseous, and that it thus 
 covers all the motions and changes to which matter is subject.* 
 
 Be it also remembered that the conditions aeriform and concrete 
 are a unit, mere degrees of density ; and further, that force itself 
 is simply change op density— arising from internal movements of 
 bodies undergoing such change. Density may therefore be con- 
 sidered the basis of variety in the constitution of bodies and the 
 universal measure of force. But does it not indicate something 
 more ? We think it sanctions the proposition that Unity of Creatiaii 
 implies Unity of Force. 
 
 The dual theory is strikingly akin to those conceptions of Na- 
 ture's phenomena which mark the early history of most people. 
 Almost everything had a double origin, as light and darkness, pain 
 and pleasure, growth and decay, life and death, &c. There were 
 moral attractions and repulsions ; the evil principle warred w^hin 
 man against the good ; and there were, of course, two supreme dei- 
 ties from which the opposing principles proceeded. la leligion 
 polytheism naturally precedes monotheism, and, as it would 
 seem, dualism monism in philosophy. What is this but the 
 growth of wisdom in both. To apply the dual origin of 
 things to Force seems as repugnant to philosophy as its 
 application to religion or to matter. If unity can be inferred in 
 anything it surely must be in that which took hold of matter at the 
 beginning, formed it into worlds and produces every form and mo- 
 tion within them and without ; that invisible, intangible, illimitable 
 energy which directly represents the Power of God, which in fact 
 is that Power. Gravitation has no second cause, or if it has, it is 
 reserved for a higher order of intellects than ours. 
 
 Dualism requires principles of diferent natures, oHgmd and in- 
 capable of being derived one from tlie otlier. By the theory sug- 
 
42 
 
 OURSORT THOUGHTS 
 
 -gested in this paper, there is no property or condition of matter but 
 merges, when carried to certain extents, into an opposite condi- » 
 tion, as exemplified in condensation producing expansion. The 
 continuation of motion in one direction is impossible : sooner or 
 later it, like the track of the circumnavigator, returns upon itself, 
 and the point of turning is antipodal to that of starting. Heat is a 
 form of motion : communicate it to a mass of metal, it enters at the 
 surface and returns from the centre. This is analogous to pushing 
 and pulling in mechanical forces, to attraction and repulsion 
 in chemical forces, to positive and negative electric forces. 
 In fine, we deny, maugre appearances, that there is, or ever 
 was, two conflicting elements in nature. She does not war 
 at^ainst herself. We would as soon admit original repulsion in 
 morals as in matter, for both are in the same category. That 
 which is the life of creation, and more allied to the spiritual than 
 anything else conceivable, we can never contemplate as a com- 
 pound. 
 
 Time and Force : By a series of popular metaphors, poets and 
 writers on morals have showered upon that which is absolutely in- 
 nocuous and quiescent most unseemly designations. It is not Time 
 that crumbles the pyramids and sweeps man and his works away ; 
 the Great Destroyer, what does it destroy ; the Ravager, whom 
 does it injure ; a Thief, what does it steal ; Swift Winged, it hur- 
 ries no one. Time is a passive spectator of the doings of Force, 
 and, instead of a scythe, should be represented with a mirror to re- 
 flect the changes which Force is ceaselessly working out in the 
 vast fabric of Creation. 
 
 -d word more on Friction as the source of heat. — So far as I can 
 perceive there is not an operation in nature from the least 
 to the greatest, that conflicts with it. According to it, heat in- 
 creases with pressure, and therefore with mass ; hence the luminous 
 
 <>|[ SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 ^ 
 
 f' 
 
 sun and non-luminosity of the planets, the mass of the former ex- 
 ceeding that of all the latter combined ; hence the coldness and dark- 
 ness of space whera the means of generating heat and light are not. 
 Then the temperature of our earth increases with pressure, from 
 her surface to her center as already remarked ; but we ought not 
 to have stopped there. Another test was at hand ; the atmosphere 
 diminishes in temperature and density upwards. The lowest 
 stratum is the warmest, and every superincumbent one less warm 
 because of diminished pressure. We may never know how high 
 nature's scale of density rises, but what appears to be the lowest 
 degree, the ether outside of our atmosphere, is almost within our 
 reach. From its tenuity and the absence of pressure, Its estimated 
 temperature, 100^ below zero, may approximate the truth. • 
 
 We have said the earth is a friction fire-mill, and we might have 
 added that if it were not incessantly grinding out heat nothing that 
 has life could exist upon it. * Although the sun is the most obvious 
 and conspicuous source of heat for the earth, it is by no means the 
 sole source of the enormous quantity that streams away in all di- 
 rections from his surface, the earth receives but a small fraction. 
 But it is neither lost nor wasted : he not only warms the earth, but 
 assists to warm the universe. Our globe catches a trifling portion 
 of his rays ; but the rest fly onward to distant regions, where all 
 are finally intercepted by the wandering hosts of orbs with which 
 the heavens are filled. And what the sun does, all the other stars 
 and planets are doing. A mighty system of exchange is established 
 among the bodies in space, by which each radiates heat to all the 
 rest, and receives it in turn from all the rest, according to the 
 measure of its endowments. The whole stellar universe thus con- 
 tributes to our warmth. It is a startling fact, that if the earth were 
 dependent alone upon the sun for heat, it would not get enough to 
 make the existence of animal and vegetable life possible upon its 
 surface.' Youmans. 
 
 To say that heat is a common product of the earth would be say- 
 
u 
 
 CUESOI^Y THOUaHTS 
 
 ing little, because it is the most common and most essential. It , 
 has, at least, three distinct sources from which it is ceaselessly 
 streaming. 1. Gravitation, as already remarked, by compressing 
 the whole of her materials into smaller and small spaces^ kindled 
 and keeps alive her central fire; a feature as essential as the heart 
 is to a living body. 2. Every individual, form and substance is an 
 independent heat producer. It generates by attraction of cohesion 
 the temperature natural to it. The fact is obvious in living bodies, 
 and would be equally so in vegetables and minerals had we organs 
 or instruments fine enough to penetrate them. 3. Every body that 
 moves, or stirs, in or through earth, air, or water, evolves heat. 
 Not an eyelash is raised without adding to the stock. Every 
 earthly ttom is ceaselesdy producing it. However various its 
 other functions are, it never stops fulfilling this one. Why all 
 this provision for the perpetual evolution of heat here ? Because 
 it is the most precious and prolific of mundane products. Without 
 it, we could have no other. 
 
 There is not an earthly object, or substance, of any value or use 
 of itself, that can accomplish anything of itself. So it i% we be- 
 lieve, with the spheres themselves. In the matter of heat how 
 forcibly is this truth impressed upon us. While the quantity gen- 
 erated here greatly surpasses all external supplies, they are abso- 
 lutely indispensible. Suppose our orb isolated from others ; out- 
 casts of creation, we should grovel in outer darkness, and be- 
 numbed with cold, perish with chattering if not with gnashing of 
 teeth. It is our relation to other orbs that prevents this. Con- 
 nected by the most precious of bonds, we receive from them, in so- 
 lar and stellar heat and light, blessings that defy the imagination 
 to conceive greater. However foreign to us some solar products 
 may be, none could be sent us so precious as these. 
 
 We are not prepared to accept an old hypothesis, though re- 
 vived and sanctioned by living authorities, that our gwat luminary is 
 a mass of molten matter, its surface agitated by waves of flame and 
 
 < 
 
 ^ 
 
 * . 
 
 ( . 
 
 ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 45 
 
 it nucleus subjected to violent commotions. A mere flambeau, as 
 it were, to warm and light up our planet and others. If we had to 
 construct lamps a thousand times larger than our apartments there 
 might be some grounds for belief, none otherwise, that we can 
 think of, unless the glowing sphere really is, what a learned cler- 
 gyman of the Church of England makes it,; the :Gjeatral receptable 
 for impenitent sinners of the system-^^an hypothesis not cumbered 
 with the problem most perplexing to modern scientists — wliencethe 
 material by which the combustion is kept up. (See Swinden's En- 
 quiry into the Nature and Place of Hell. London, 1714.) 
 
 The chemical unity of the whole planetary system has long been 
 surmised, and the recent analysis di the sun's atmosphere by MM. 
 Kirchofi" and Bunsen have, it is said, demonstrated the identity 
 of solar and telluric substances. Iron, copper, flickel and zinc are 
 common metals here. They appear to be quite as common, if not 
 more so, in the sun. The discovery will lead to improved views 
 respecting the constitution and temperature of the sun's interior. 
 To say nothing of other materials, it is difficult to conceive how the 
 metals just named can be generated in ' an incandescent liquid 
 globe,' which M. Kirchoff thinks the Sun is. (See Smithsonian Re- 
 port for 1861.) 
 
 Mental culture is the criterion of human progress. To what a 
 limited extent it has yet been carried out is apparent in the fact 
 that in every state of enlightened Europe the great body of the 
 people is represented as the unthinking multitude. Then, how far 
 below even them are the populations of savage and semi-civilized 
 lands. Under the most favorable views the amount of thought in * 
 the world is startlingly small ; and how much of it is, even among 
 peoples the most advanced, inane, puerile, superficial, and mere 
 repetition I Deduct what is not original — the only real additions to 
 the stock — and how minute the balance. Is this indicative of de- 
 generacy in the species, as some would infer? No. This balance 
 is, we believe, larger and of a better quality than has characterised 
 
46 CUKSOEY THOUGHTS ON SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 the Past. The contributions of our age have certainly exceeded 
 the nett products of any previous age. We believe so because we 
 believe our species is in its infancy, and consequently that it is 
 neither remaining stationary nor retrograding, but growing in in- 
 tellectual power and activity. A child has no idea of what he will 
 be in vigorous manhood ; and our race seems equally unconscious 
 of what it is to grow up to. The world has had, now and then, a 
 few precocious students, but probably no better or closer thinkers 
 than the average man of the race will one day be. 
 
 New York, May, 1863. 
 
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