r rjBRARY OF THI-: University of California: C I RV biLA'TlXG ■ RR.IS / Eetiirn in -a^ weely? ; or a week befoio the end of T,i\e terui. _^ THE UNSEEN Universe OE PHYSICAL SPECULATIONS ON A FUTURE STATE — The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal THIRD EDITION. NEW YORK MACMILLAN AND CO. 1875 B~r9of S73 " . . . li^ OKOTTovvTuv Tj^uv TO, pieir6fieva^ d^/ld to, fif/ (32£Tr6/j,eva' to. yap P^'nrd/isva, irpdaKaipa' to, 6e fx^ j3Aeir6fievaj altjvca. Upbg Kopivdlovg, B'. 6'. Animula ! vagula, blandula, Hospes comesque corporis, Quae nunc abibis in loca — Pallidula, rigida, nudula . . ." 3S'S3'p ^^■""^•'- " God hath endowed us with diffei^ent faculties, suitable and proportional to the different objects that engage them. We discover sensible things by our senses, rational things by our reason, things intellectual by understanding ; but divine and celestial things he has reserved for the exercise of our faith, which is a kind of divine and superior sense in the soul. Our reason and understanding may at some times snatch a glimpse, but cannot take a steady and adequate prospect of things so far above their reach and sphere. Thus, by the help of natural reason, I may know there is a God, the first cause and original of all things ; but his essence, attributes, and will, are hid within the veil of inaccessible Ught, and cannot be discerned by us but through faith in his divine revelation. He that walks without this light, walks in darkness, though he may strike out some faint and glimmering sparkles of his own. And he that, out of the gross and Mooden dictates of his natural reason, carves out a religion to himself, is but a more refined idolater than those who worship stocks and stones, hammering an idol out of his fancy, and adoring the works of his own imagination. For this reason God is nowhere said to be jealous, but upon the account of his worship." — Pilgrim's Progress^ Part III. PKEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. As a preface to our Second Edition, we cannot do bet- ter than record the experience derived from our first. It is indeed gratifying to find a wonderful want of unanimity among the critics who assail us, and it is probably owing to this cause that we have been able to preserve a kind of kinetic stability, just as a man does in consequence of being equally belaboured on all sides by the myriad petty impacts of little particles of air. Some call us infidels, while others represent us as very much too orthodoxly credulous ; some cajll us pantheists, some materialists, others spiritualists. As we cannot belong at once to all these varied categories, the presump- tion is that we belong to none of them. This, by the way, is our own opinion. Venturing to classify our critics, we would divide them into three groups : — (1.) There are those who have doubtless faith in revela- tion ; but more especially, sometimes solely, in their own method of interpreting it ; none, how- ever, in the method according to which really scientific men with a wonderful unanimity have been led to interpret the works of nature. These critics call us, some infidels, some pantheists, some dangerously subtle materialists, etc. (2.) There are those who have faith in the methods ac- cording to which men of science interpret the IV PBEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. laws of nature, but none whatever in revelation or theology. These consider us as orthodoxly credulous and superstitious, or as writers of " the most hardened and impenitent nonsense that ever called itself original speculation." (3.) There are those who have a profound belief that the true principles of science will be found in accord- ance with revelation, and who welcome any work whose object is to endeavour to reconcile these two fields of thought. Such men believe that the Author of revelation is likewise the Author of nature, and that these works of His will ulti- mately be found to be in perfect accord. Such of this school as have yet spoken have approved of our work. Our readers may judge for themselves which of these three classes of belief represents most nearly the true Catholic Faith. Many of our critics seem to fancy that we presume to attempt such an absurdity as a demonstration of Christian truth fj-om a mere physical basis ! We simply confute those who (in the outraged name of science) have asserted that science is incompatible with religion. Surely it is not ice who are dogmatists, but those who assert that the principles and well-ascertained conclusions of science are antagonistic to Christianity and immortality. If in the course of our discussion we are to some extent con- structors, and find analogies in nature which seem to us to throw light upon the doctrines of Christianity, yet in the main our object is rather to break down unfounded objec- tions than to construct apologetic arguments. These we leave to the Theologian. The Bishop of Manchester has very clearly described our position by stating that [from PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. V a purely physical point of view, % 204] we " contend for the possibility of immortality and of a personal God." To vary the metaphor, we have merely stripped oif the hideous mask with which materialism has covered the face of nature to find underneath (what every one with faith in anything at all must expect to find) something of surpass- ing beauty, but yet of inscrutable depth. For indeed we are entire believers in the infinite depth of nature, and hold that just as we must imagine space and duration to be infinite, so must we imagine the structural complexity of the universe to be infinite also. To our mind it appears no less false to pronounce eternal that aggregation loe call the atom, than it would be to pronounce eternal that aggre- gation we call the Sun. All this follows from the principle of Continuity, in virtue of which we make scientific pro- gress in the knowledge of things, and which leads us, whatever state of things we contemplate, to look for its antecedent in some previous state of things also in the Universe. This principle represents the path from the known to the unknown, or to speak more precisely, our conviction that there is a path. ITevertheless it does not authorise us to dogmatise regarding the properties of the unknown lying beyond or at the boundary of our little " clearing." We must go up to it and examine it often, with long-continued labour, under great difficulties, before we can at all say what its properties are. Among those who recognise us as orthodox, and for that reason attack us, there is one of deservedly high authority. Our " brother," Professor W. K. Clifford, has published a lively attack on our speculations in a recent number of the Fortnightly Revieio, We are bound respectfully to consider the arguments of an adversary of his calibre. He appears to be unable to conceive the possibility of a VI PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. spiritual body which shall not die with the natural body. Or rather, he conceives that he is in a position to assert, from his knowledge of the universe, that such a thing can- not be. We join issue w^ith him at once, for the depth of our ignorance with regard to the unseen universe forbids us to come to any such conclusion with regard to a possi- ble spiritual body. Our critic begins his article by summoning up or con- structing a most grotesque and ludicrous figure, which he calls our argument^ and forthwith proceeds to demolish ; and he ends by summoning up a horrible and awful phan- tom, against which he feelingly warns us. This phantom has already, it seems, destroyed two civilisations, and is capa- ble of ev^n worse things, though it is merely the *' sifted sediment of a residuum." He does not tell us whether he means Religion in general, or only that particularly objec- tionable form of it called Christianity. Our critic shows that he has not read our work, — has, \n\^ fact, merely glanced into it here and there. This is proved by what he says of Struve's notions, on which we lay no stress whatever, while he puts them forward as the main- stay of our argument. "We are also made out to be the assertorsof a peculiar molecular constitution of the unseen universe, although with reference to this we say in our work, page 170, "/or tlie sake of hr'inging our ideas in a concrete form before the reader ^ and for this purpose onhj^ Ave will now adopt a different hypothesis." Of course it is too much to expect a critic nowadays to read every word of a book which he is content to demolish, hut we did hope he might have noticed the italics. Our critic too commits several singular mistakes due to imperfections of memory. Why speak of the negative as universal, which appears in such words as immortality, end- PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Vll less existence, etc., when the nlost common of all expres- sions connected with the subject are the phrases, *^ eternal life," '^everlasting life," etc., none of which involve the negative ? How the sun could go down upon " Gideon " is not obvious. Had it done so it would certainly have occasioned personal inconvenience (to say the least) to that hero. But Avhat's in a name ? Our critic was evidently thinking of Joshua and " Gibeon," and why should a critic care about the difference between Amorites and Amalekites ? It is a mere matter of spelling, — a trifle. Similar mistakes in a previous article are apologised for in a foot-note appended to that on the " Unseen Universe." Probably the author designed the apology to extend to it also, but forgot to say so ; again a trifle. But it is of straws, some even w^eaker than these, tliat the imposing article is built ; so that when we come forth to battle we And nothing to reply to. To reduce matters to order, we may confidently assert that the only reasonable and defensive alternative to our hypothesis (or, at least, something similar to it) is, the stupendous pair of assumptions that visible matter is eter- nal^ and that it is alive. (See § 235.) If any one can be found to uphold notions like these (from a scientific point of view), we shall be most happy to enter the lists with him. June, 1875. PKEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Forgetful of tlie splendid example shown by intel- lectual giants like Kewton and Faraday, and aghast at the materialistic statements nowadays freely made (often pro- fessedly in the name of science), the orthodox in religion are in somewhat evil case. As a natural consequence of their too hastily-reached conclusion, that modern science is incompatible with Christian doctrine, not a few of them have raised an out" cry against science itself. This result is doubly to be de- plored ; for there cannot be a doubt that it is calculated to do mischief, not merely to science but to religion. Our object, in the present work, is to endeavor to show that the presumed incompatibility of Science and Eeligion does not exist. This, indeed, ought to be self-evident to all who believe that the Creator of the universe is himself the Author of Revelation. But it is strangely impressive to note how very little often suffices to alarm even the firmest of human faith. Of course we cannot, in this small volume, enter upon the whole of so vast a subject, and we have therefore con- tented ourselves with a brief, though, we hope, sufficiently X PREFACE. developed, discussion of one very important — even funda- mental — ^point. We endeavor to show, in fact, that im- mortality is strictly in accordance with the principle of Continuity (rightly viewed) ; that principle which has been the guide of all modern scientific advance. As one result of this inquiry we are led, by strict reasoning on purely scientific grounds, to the probable conclusion that " a life for the unseen, through the unseen, is to be re- garded as the only perfect life." {Bee Chapter YII.) We need not point out here the bearing of this on religion. Incidentally, the reader will find many remarks and trains of reasoning which (by the alteration of a word or two) can be made to apply to other points of almost equal importance. We may state that the ideas here developed — very im- perfectly, of course, as must always be the case in matters of the kind — are not the result of hasty guessing, but have been pressed on us by the reflections and discussions of several years. We have to thank many of our friends, theological as well as scientific, for ready and valuable assistance. The matter of our work has certainly gained by this, though it is likely that the manner may have suff'ered by the intro- duction, here and there, of peculiarities of style which could not easily be removed without damage to the sense. OOIsr TENTS, CHAPTER I. INTEODUOTOET SKETCH. Object of the Book .... Two classes of speculators Why doubters of iramort9,lity have lately increased Belief of the Ancient Egyptians — Separation between priests and people The abode of the dead . Transmigration of souls Embalming of the body Belief of the Ancient Hebrews — Position of Moses His task Belief of the Jews in an unseen world Their belief in a future state Their belief in a resurrection Belief of the Andeiit Greeks and Romans- Unsubstantial nature of Elysium Transmigration introduced Rise of the Epicurean school Uncertainty of philosophic opinion Belief of the Eastern Aryans — TheRig-Yeda . It inculcates immortality Double source of corruption Zoroastrian reformation and tenets Reformation of Buddha Meaning of Nirvawa Observations on ancient beliefs ABTICLE PAGB 1 1 2 2 3 8 4 4 5 5 6 5 n 6 8,9 1 10 8 11 8 12 9 13 10 14 11 15 12 16 13 17 14 18 14 19 15 20 16 21,22 17 23 18 24 18 25-29 19 Xll CONTENTS. Belief of the Disciples of Christ — The resurrection of Christ Future state taught by Christ Perishable nature of that which is seen The Christian Heaven and Hell General opinion regarding the person of Christ General opinion regarding the position of Christ Spread of the Christian religion Rise of Mohammed ..... Materialistic conceptions of the dark ages Extreme scientific school .... Points of similarity between this school and Christians Varieties of opinions among Christians' Believers in a new revelation Swedenborg and his doctrines Remarks on Swedenborg .... Modern spiritualists ..... 30 23 . 31, 32 24 33 25 34 26 35 27 38 28 37 28 38 29 39 31 . 40,41 32 42 33 . 43, 44 34 45 35 46 36 47 38 . 48, 49 39 CHAPTER II. POSITION TAKEN BY THE AUTHOES — PHYSICAL AXIOMS. Class of readers to whom the Authors appeal -\ Position assumed by the Authors — / Laws of the universe defined Embodiment of some sort essential Materialistic position described . . . Unjustifiable assumptions of materialists Intimacy of connection between mind and matter Essential requisites for continued existence — An organ of memory .... Possibility of action in the present Principle of Continuity/ — Illustrated by reference to astronomy , • , Breach of the principle illustrated Extension to other faculties of man Application of this principle to Christian miracles- Erroneous position of old divines Such opposed to the genius of Christianity New method of explanation 50-53 41 64 43 55 44 55 45 . 66-58 45 59 41 60 48 61 49 . 62-75 49 76 55 77 56 78 66 79 57 . 80-82 57 CONTEITTS. Application of this principle to the doctrines of the extreme scientific school — The visible universe must come to an end in trans- formable energy ..... It must have been developed out of the invisible The Universe ...... Similar errors committed by the extreme schools of theology and science .... Application of this principle to Immortality — Three conceivable suppositions These reduced to two .... Future course of our argument The problem may be profitably discussed . , 87 XIU PAGE 84 59 85 60 86 61 62 88 62 89 62 90 63 91 63 CHAPTER III. THE PEESENT PHYSICAL UNIYERSE. Definition of the term " Physical Fniverse " It contains something else besides matter or stuff Grounds of our belief in an external universe These in accordance with our definition of the laws of the universe (Art. 54) .... Meaning of conservation Conservation of Momentum Conservation of Moment of Momentum Conservation of Vis Viva Definition of energy .... Newton's second interpretation of his Third Law Friction changes work into heat Historical sketch of the theory of energy Transformability of energy constitutes its use Case where energy is useless Historical Sketch of Second Law of Thermodynamics — Camot's perfect heat-engine . Sir W. Thomson's definition of absolute temperature Melting-point of ice lowered by pressure Sir W. Thomson's rectification of Carnot's reasoning Prof. J. Clerk-Maxwell's demons Degradation of energy Future of the physical universe Past of the physical universe 93 ut 65 94 66 95 67 96 68 97 68 97 69 97 69 98, 99 70 . 99, 100 71 101 72 . 102, 103 73 104 76 105 76 106 77 } 107 78 108 79 r 109, no 79 . 111-113 81 114 84 . 114, 115 85 116 86 XIV CONTENTS, CHAPTER lY. MATTER AND ETHEE. Inquiry regarding structure and material of the universe, Varioii* hypotheses regarding matter — (1.) Greek notion of the Atom Speculations of Lucretius (2.) Theory of Boscovitch (centres of force) (3.) Theory of infinite divisibility (4.) Vortex-atom theory Remarks on these theories Relative quantity of matter associated with energy Universal gravitation — Is a weak force .... Two ways of accounting for it Le Sage's hypothesis The Ethereal medium — y Its principal properties apparently incongruous Analogy of Prof Stokes Distortion and displacement of ether Inferior limit of its density Its supposed imperfect transparency Remarks on ether Remarks on the speculations of this chapter Modification of the vortex-ring hypothesis Possible disappearance of the visible universe AETICLB PAGB IIV 87 118 87 . 119-180 89 131 94 132 95 . 133, 134 95 . 135, 136 97 . IBY, 138 98 139 99 140 100 . 141, 142 101 143 102 144 103 145 103 146 104 147 105 148 106 . 149, 150 107 . 151, 152 108 153 110 CHAPTER V. DEVELOPMENT, Nature of inquiry stated Chemical development — Changes in lists of elementary substances Prout's speculations . Experiments of M. Staa Family groups Mr. Lockyer's speculations 154 111 155 112 156 112 156 113 157 113 . 158, 159 114 CONTENTS. XV AETICLB PA6B Globe Hypothesis of Kant and Laplace Tendency to aggregation of mass Process cannot have been going on forever Peculiarity of products developed inorganically Life development — Morphological and physiological species Species regarded physiologically Position of a certain class of theologians Tendency to minor variations Artificial selection Natural selection Unproved point in the Darwinian hypothesis Remarks of Mr. Darwin Development of the Darwinian hypothesis Mr. Wallace's views . Prof. Huxley's remarks Position assumed by the authors 160 115 161, 162 116 163 117 164 118 165 119 166 120 167 121 168 122 169 124 170 125 171 125 ' 172 126 173 127 174 127 175 128 176 128 CHAPTER yi. SPECULATIONS AS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF SUPEEIOR INTELLIGENCES IN THE VISIBLE UNIVEESE. Position of life in the present physical universe Two kinds of equilibrium .... Two kinds of machines or material systems Two respects in which a living being resembles a machine A living being resembles a delicately constructed machine The delicacy is due to chemical instability Delicacy of construction derived from the sun's r ays Delicacy of construction in atmospheric changes . Worships of powers of Nature — mediaeval superstitions Theory which attributes a soul to the universe Real point at issue stated .... Man presents the highest order of the present visible uni verse ...... The same idea pervades the Old Testament And it likewise pervades the New Testament 177 130 178 131 179 132 3 180 133 5 181 134 182 135 183 136 184 136 185 138 186 139 187 139 - 188 140 189 141 . 190, 191 141 XVI CONTENTS, CHAPTER VII. THE UNSEEN U N I V E E S Decadence of the visible universe . Its arrangements apparently wasteful Explanation of this Memory of the universe Connection between seen and unseen Physical explanation of a future state • Dr. Thomas Young's conception of the unseen Objections to the proposed theory of a future state Religious .... Theological .... Scientific .... Miracles and the Resurrection of Christ — Objections of extreme school stated . Development has produced the visible universe Its atoms resemble manufactured articles Development through intelHgence Idea clothed in concrete form Christian theory of the development of the universe Life-development — Biogenesis Life comes from the unseen universe Christian theory of life-development . Position of life in the universe discussed Meteoric hypothesis implies Discontinuity Position reviewed , . . . Miracles possible without breach of Continuity Peculiar communication with the unseen in the case of Christ ...... Apparent breaks are concealed avenues leading to the unseen ...... Probable nature of present connection between seen and unseen ...... Angelic intelligences .... Remarks on God's providential government Our argument may be very much detached from all con ceptions of the Divine essence . Christian conceptions of heaven . » • AKTICLB PAGB . 192, 193 143 194 144 195 145 . 196, 19Y 146 . 197,198 147 . 199-201 147 . 202, 203 148 to— 204 150 . 205, 206 150 . 207-210 151 211 153 212 154 213 155 . 214,215 156 216 157 . 217-223 160 . 224, 225 163 226 165 227 166 . 228-233 167 . 234, 235 173 236 175 237 176 I 238 176 le 239 A 177 240 178 241 179 . 243, 244 181 245 184 246 185 CONTENTS, xvii Two ideas in all Christian hymns .... Possible glimpse into the conditions of the future life Darker side of the future ..... Plato on the markings of the soul Christian Gehenna ..... Mediaeval idea of hell ..... The process in the Gehenna of the New Testament appar- ently an enduring one Personality of the Evil One asserted by Scripture . Brief statement of the results of this discussion The scientific conclusion is directly against the opponents of Christianity ...... 257 196 Criticism invited from leaders of scientific thought or of religious inquiry ..... 258 196 AKTIOLB PAGB 247 187 248, 249 188 250 189 251 190 252 191 253 192 254 193 255 194 256 195 THE UNSEEN UNIVEESE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. " L'immortalite de I'^me est une chose qui nous importe si fort, et qui nous louche si profondement, qu'il faut avoir perdu tout sentiment pour etre dans Findifference de savoir ce qui en est." — Pascal. " For he should persevere until he has obtained one of two things ; either he should discover or learn the truth about them, or, if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life — ^not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him." — Plato's " Phsedo ; " translated by Jowett. 1. The great mass of mankind have always believed in some fashion in the immortality of the soul; but it is certain that we may find disbelievers in this doctrine who yet retain the nobler attributes of humanity. It may, however, be questioned if it be possible even to imagine the great bulk of our race to have lost their belief in the soul's immortality, and yet to have retained the virtues of civilized and well-ordered communities. We have said that the disbelievers in this doctrine form a minority of the race ; but at the same time it must be acknowledged that the strength of this minority has of 1 2 TEE UNSEEN UN VERSE, late years greatly increased, uutil at the present moment it numbers in its ranks not a few of the most intelligent, the most earnest, and the most virtuous of men. It is, however, possible that, could we examine these, we should find them to be unwilling disbelievers, compelled by the working of their intellects to abandon the desire of their hearts, only after many struggles, and much bitterness of spirit. Others, again, without absolutely abandoning all hope of the soul's immortality, are yet full of doubt regarding it, and have settled down into the belief that we cannot come to any reasonable conclusion upon the subject. Now, these men can have had nothing to gain, but much to lose, in arriving at this result. It has been reached with reluc- tance, with misgivings, not without a certain kind of perse- cution, nor without the loss of friends and the stirring up of strife ; they have fearlessly looked things in the face, and have followed whithersoever they imagined they were led by facts, even to the brink of an abyss. It is the object of the present volume to examine the intellectual process that has brought ,about these results, and we hope to show that the conclusion at which these men have arrived is not only not justified by what we know of the physical universe, but that on the other hand there are many lines of thought which point very strongly toward an opposite conclusion. 2. A division as old as Aristotle separates ' speculators into two great classes — those who study the How of the universe, and those who study the Why. All men of science are embraced in the former of these, all men of re- ligion in the latter. The former regard the universe as a huge machine, and their object is to study the laws which regulate its working ; the latter again speculate about the object of the machine, and what sort of work it is intended ' See " Westminster Sermons," by the Rev. Charles Kingsley. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 3 to produce. The disciples of How are accused by their adversaries of being willing to sacrifice the individual to the system ; while the disciples of Why are accused by their adversaries of being willing to sacrifice the system to the individual. We may compare the universe to a great ship plying between two well-known ports, and carrying with her two sets of passengers. The one set keep on deck and try to make out, as well as they can, the mind of the steersman regarding the future of their voyage after they have reached that port to which they know they are all fast hastening, while the other set keep down below and ex- amine the engines. Occasionally there is much wrangling at the top of the ladder where the two sets meet, some of those who have examined the engines and the ship assert- ing that the passengers will all be inevitably wrecked at the next port, it being morally impossible that the good ship can carry them farther. To whom those on deck reply that they have perfect confidence in the steersman, who has informed some of those nearest him that the passengers will not be wrecked, but will be carried in safety past the port. And so the altercation goes on ; some who have been on deck being unwilling or unable to examine the engines, and some who have examined the engines preferring to remain below. 3. Our readers will perceive from what we have said, that difficulties regarding the soul's immortality are most likely to arise amid the disciples of How or those who study the machinery of the universe, and inasmuch as this class has greatly increased of late, it follows that the dis- believers in or doabters of the soul's immortality have in- creased likewise. The disciples of Why have, on the other hand, existed from time immemorial, and in the plenitude of their power have frequently carried themselves with much violence toward the disciples of How, who are of 4 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. comparatively modern origin. It must not, however, be inferred that this old and venerable family have always been at peace among themselves, for there have been numerous contentions between their various branches, not the less acrimonious because the contending members have been to some extent supporters of a common cause, be- lieving in some fashion in the immortality of the soul and the reality of the world to come. We shall therefore begin by giving our readers a sketch, necessarily a very meagre one, of the various beliefs on these subjects held by the different branches of this great family. 4. Let us begin with the Egyptians, who are perhaps the most ancient people of whom we have historical records. Tlie manners and customs of this nation have been very minutely described by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, to whose work we are chiefly indebted for the following account. In the first place it appears that we must sepa- rate between what the priests believed and what was held by the great body of the people. The bulk of the nation were left by the priests to believe in a multiplicity of deities, and even to reverence animals as divine, w^hile on the other hand the higher orders of the priesthood, who were initiated into the greater mysteries of their religion, appear to have acknowledged the unity of God. These believed in one Eternal God, from whom all other deities were produced, and whom they did not permit themselves even to name, far less to represent under any visible form. The Egyptians likewise believed in the existence of demons or genii, who were present unseen among man- kind — a belief apparently shared by Plato, who seems to have adopted many of the Egyptian notions, and who supposed that the Deity delegated the creative power to beings inferior to himself, denominated demons. Jt may, however, be questioned whether the demons of Plato are equivalent to the genii of the Egyptians. INTR0DUGT0E7 SKETCH. 5 5. The earliest Egyptian records attest the belief of this nation in the immortality of the soul : " Dissolution, according to them, is only the cause of reproduction — nothing perishes which has once existed, and things which appear to be destroyed only change their natures and pass into another form." ^ Anubis held in Egypt an office similar to that of Mer- cury among the Greeks, being the usher of souls in their passage to the future state. Amenti was the region to which the souls of men were supposed to go after death, and Sir Gardner "Wilkinson notices the resemblance be- tween this name and that of Ement, "the "West" — the west, where the sun was seen to sink, being looked upon as the end of the world. The guardian of the lower regions was called Ouom-n-Amenti, or the Devourer of Amenti. It had frequently the appearance of a hippopotamus, but was drawn sometimes with the head of a fanciful creature something between the hippopotamus and the crocodile. " The judgment of the soul was conducted by Osiris, aided by forty-two assessors, supposed to represent the forty-two crimes from which a virtuous man was expected to be free when judged in a future state, or rather the ac- cusing spirits, each of whom examined if the deceased was guilty of the peculiar crime which it was his province to avenge". ' 6. As regards the fate of the soul when once the judg- ment had been passed upon it — the Egyptians considered the souls of men to be emanations of the divine soul, and each was supposed to return to its divine origin when suf- ficiently pure to unite with the Deity. On the other hand, those who had been guilty of sin were doomed to pass through the bodies of different animals in order that they might at last become sufficiently purified. It was proba- bly imagined that the disgusting nature of sin would be 1 Wilkinson. 2 Ibid. 6 THE UNSEEN UNIVEESE. best realized by a lengthened sojourn in the bodies of un- clean animals like the pig. This doctrine of transmigration appears to have become changed, at least among some of its disciples, into the form described by Herodotus and Plato. The latter, referring no doubt to the doctrine of the preexistence of souls, and to the view that it is a punishment to become coi'poreal at all, tells us : " If any one's life has been virtuous he shall obtain a better fate hereafter ; if wicked, a worse. But no soul will return to its pristine condition till the expira- tion of ten thousand years, since it will not recover the use of its wings until that period, except it be the soul o^ione who has philosophized sincerely or together with philoso- phy has loved beautiful forms. These indeed in the third period of a thousand years, if they have thrice chosen this mode of life in succession, . . . shall in the three thousandth year fly away to their pristine abode, but other souls, being arrived at the end of their first life, shall be judged. And of those who are judged, some, proceeding to a subterrane- ous place of judgment, shall there sustain the punishments they have deserved ; but others, in consequence of a favor- able judgment, being elevated into a certain celestial place, shall pass their time in a manner becoming the life they have lived in a human shape. And in the thousandth year both the kinds of those who have been judged, returning to the lot and election of a second life, shall each of them receive a life agreeable to his desire. H6re also the human soul shall pass into the life of a beast, and from that of a beast again into a man if it has first been the soul of a man. For the soul which has never perceived the truth cannot pass into the human form." ^ 7. It is considered probable that the Egyptian custom of embalming the body had some relation to this religious doctrine, and before the mummy was allowed burial it had 1 " Phaedrus," quoted by Wilkinson. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 7 to be judged and acq^iitted by terrestrial authorities, in imitation of the judgment which was believed to take place in the world of spirits. Diodorus gives a detailed account of the ceremonies which then took place, in which forty- two judges were summoned to act as assessors and deter- mine the fate of the body. If it could be proved that the deceased had led an evil life, his body was deprived of the accustomed burial, and on such occasions the grief and shame felt by the family were excessive. Diodorus con- siders that this was in itself a strong inducement to every one to abstain from crime, and praises very strongly the authors of so wise an institution. With this we must agree, remarking, however, that the inducement to abstain from crime was in all probability derived more from the disgrace brought upon the family, when sepulture was refused, than from the awful sentence in the world of spirits, which this refusal was supposed to foreshadow. 8. Let us next consider the ancient belief of the He- brew nation. Referring to the records of this nation, we find that at an early period they had been slaves or serfs to the Egyp- tians, from whom they were delivered by Moses, who be- came afterward their lawgiver. Moses had by a species of adoption obtained a very prominent position among the Egyptians, and had probably been initiated into their sacred mysteries, for we read that he was " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." Without discussing the question of inspiration, we may readily imagine that, him- self a believer in the unity of Grod, this sagacious leader must have perceived the deficiency of a religious system in which the truth was confined to a few, while the many were allowed to remain in the most degrading idolatry. lie was thus in a fit state to recognize the paramount importance of the whole mind and mass of the nation 8 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. being pervaded witli a belief in one invisible, ever-present, ever-living God. We do not, however, mean to assert that Moses got his religious notions from Egypt, but we think it possible that his mind may have been prepared by the failure of the Egyptian system to receive a better one. 9. In the Egyptian system there were two peculiarities which were probably connected together. We have seen (Art. 4) that among the higher orders of the priesthood there was a profound, but at the same time a superstitious, reverence for the name of God, who was unnamed and unapproachable, unless under some deified attribute. At the same time there was, and probably in consequence of the former, an ignorance of the unity of God among the great mass of the people, and a worship of the various dei- fied attributes of one supreme being as so many separate divinities. 10. l^ow, the task that Moses believed himself divinely commissioned to accomplish was the revelation of this one living and ruling God to the whole body of his country- men. Thus we find God, in the sacred writings of the Jews, saying to Moses : " I am the Lord (Jehovah), and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty (El Shaddai) ; but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." ^ We do not, how- ever, intend to discuss the precise meaning of the two names of God which we find in the Hebrew Scriptures — sufficient for us that Moses endeavored to impress upon his people the unity and ever-living presence of the Divine Being. 11. Again, it would appear that the Jews, in addition to their belief as a nation in the unity of God, believed also in the reality of an invisible world containing spir- itual intelligences, some of whom were the loyal servants and messengers of God ; while others delighted in the 1 Ex. vi. 3. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 9 endeavor to thwart his counsels, and were in rebellion against him. Apparently both orders of these were sup- posed to have very considerable power, not only over the minds and bodies of men, but also over the operations of Nature. Thus two angels were commissioned by God to destroy Sodom ; ^ and again, in the poem of Job, when Satan received power over the patriarch, he overwhelmed him by at once inciting robbers who plundered his sub- stance, killing his children by a wind from the wilderness, and finally smiting the body of Job himself with a loath- some disease. It is perhaps worthy of note that while we read in these records of various appearances of good spirits in the human form, we have no certain account of any such mani- festation of evil spirits. It may even be supposed that a good deal of the demon ology of Scripture belongs to po- etic or semi-parabolic representation of spiritual truths. Thus Coleridge and others have thought that the Satan of Job is only the dramatic accuser or adversary imagined by the poet. 12. Yery little is said about man's future state in the Scriptures of the Jews, and, although there are a few scat- tered passages which favor immortality, yet these are so few that we cannot err if w^e maintain that this doctrine was not brought before the mind of the Hebrew nation in the same way as was the presence and unity of God. It seems to us that Dean Stanley's conjecture is probably cor- rect where he says, with reference to this omission : " J^ot from want of religion, but (if we might use the expres- sion) from excess of religion, was this void left in the Jew- ish mind. The future life was not denied or contradicted, but it was overlooked, .set aside, overshadowed by the con- sciousness of the living, actual presence of God himself. That truth, at least in the liriited conceptions of the youth- * Gen. xix. 12. 10 THE UNSEEN UNIVEESE. ful nation, was too vast to admit of any rival truth, how- ever precious. When David or Ilezekiah slirank from the gloomy vacancy of the grave, it was because they feared lest, when death closed their eyes in the present world, they should lose their hold on that Divine friend with whose being and communion the present world had in their minds been so closely interwoven." ^ It ought, how- ever, to be borne in mind that all along the Jews believed in Hades (Sheol), of which there are numerous proofs throughout the Old Testament. Indeed, a learned Hebra- ist has assured us that the Hebrew word for the abstract notion " life," whenever it refers to a rational being, is a phiralis tantum, " Hayim " while the word for the ab- stract notion " death" is a singular, " maveth," thus estab- lishing by the very character of the language the existence among the people of the belief in more than one condition of life. 13. As the nation grew older we find frequent and dis- tinct allusions indicating a belief in a resurrection of some kind. Thus we find the angel saying to Daniel : " Go thy way till the end be ; for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." ^ Again, in the Apoorypha, we find one of seven brethren who were put to death by An- tiochus, saying to that tyrant : " It is good, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to be raised up again by him ; as for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection to life," ^ and the other brethren spoke in like manner. Here it is evident from the whole chapter that the hope expressed was rather the result of perfect trust in God than derived from any process of their own reason, or even from any revelation on the subject which they imagined to have been made. We have likewise the testimony of Josephus as well as of the ]^ew Testament that the Pharisees believed* in a 1 " Lectures on the Jewish Church." ^ Dan. xii. 13. " 2 Mace. vli. 14. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 11 resTirrection. Josef hus tells us : *' They [tlie Pharisees] say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment."^ Again, we learn from the same two authorities that^ the Sadducees held skeptical notions on the subject, and Jose- phus says, " They take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades." 14. If we next turn to the Greek and Roman mytholo- gies we find ideas of a future state very similar to those entertained by the Egyptians, from whom probably the Greek notions were originally largely derived. They called by the name of Elysium the abode appro- priated to the souls of the good, while those of the wicked suffered punishment in Tartarus. It has been well re- marked by Archbishop "Wliately that these regions were supposed to be of the most dreamy and unsubstantial na- ture : "The poet [remarks Whately] from whom so many were content to derive their creed [meaning Homer] rep- resents Achilles among the shades as declaring that the life of the meanest drudge on earth is preferable to the very highest of the unsubstantial glories of Elysium : BovXoifiT^v /c' hirapovpoi, kuv d^Tevi/j.ev aA/l^, 'Avdpl nap' a/c/l^pcj, w p) ^iorog ttoTivq eItj^ "^H Tzaaiv veKveaat KuraipdifiEvoicFiv avdaaeiv. It is remarkable too that the same poet seems plainly to regard the hody, not the soul, as being properly ' the man' after death has separated them. We should be apt to say that such a one's body is here, and that he, properly the person himself, is departed to the other world ; but Homer uses the very opposite language in speaking of the heroes 1 " Wars of the Jews," 11., viii., 14. 12 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. slain before Troy: viz., that tlieir souls were dispatched to tlie shades, and that they themselves were left a prey to dogs and birds : TLollag 6' Wipifiovg "J'TXAS 'A'iSi Trpotaipev ''H.o6o)Vj ATT0Y2 6e eXupia revxe kvvegglv." * We agree with this writer that the belief in an unsub- stantial region of this description can have had no real in- fluence either in deterring men from vice, or encouraging them to virtue. Indeed, its inevitable tendency was to fos- ter an undue regard for the pleasures of this present life, to the absolute discouragement of goodness and virtue. For while we of the present day regard the future life as in some sense the reward of piety and goodness, the an- cients looked upon Hades rather as a penalty which inex- orable fate had reserved for all men, and from which even piety and goodness were powerless to exempt their pos- sessors : " Cum semel occideris, et de te splendita Minos Fecerit arbitria ; Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te Eestituet pietas. Infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum Liberat Hippolytum ; Nee Lethsea valet Theseus abrumpere caro Vincula Pirithoo." 15. The active-minded as TVell as the gross-minded mem- bers of the community could hardly be expected to care much for such an unsubstantial future, and this considera- tion may probably have led to the readier acceptance of the doctrine of some of the Greek philosophers who introduced a bodily state after death. But these, in so doing, rather favored the doctrine of transmigration than that of a resur- rection of the body which was seen to die, and which, after being devoured by dogs, or destroyed in some other manner, * " Essays on some of the Peculiarities of the Christian Religion." INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 13 the J could hardly conceive to rise again. It is well known that Pythagoras taught the doctrine of transmigration, although as none of his writings have come down to us we are not sure of the exact manner in which he held it. Plato also, in a passage already quoted (Art. 6), alludes to a similar doctrine which he had probably derived from the Egyptians. A certain degree of choice is here supposed to be left to the soul, and those who cannot attain to the more ethereal and refined existence, have to choose a bod- ily one, returning, after they have become sufficiently puri- fied, once more into human shape. 16. As a matter of course, a dim belief of this nature gave rise to a class of philosophers who denied the possi- bility of a future state altogether. The advent of this school of thought was probably hastened by outward events. In the golden age of Greece a vigorous republic served to concentrate upon itself the energies of the citizens, and under these circumstances their minds were not likely to question the truth of the national creed. While the gods smiled upon them they were content to acknowledge their active existence. It has been remarked by Schmitz, that the unfavorable political circumstances of the time may have been concerned in the rise of the Epicurean school — " thinking men were led to seek within for that which they could not find without. . . . The gods of Epicurus," this writer goes on to remark, " consisted of atoms, and were in the enjoyment of perfect happiness, which had not been disturbed by the laborious business of creating the world, and as the government of the world would interfere with their happiness, Epicurus conceived them as exercising no influence whatever upon the world or man." It is of such gods the poet speaks when he says : " For they lie beside their nectar, and the boats are hurled Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world 14 THE UNSEUN Um VERSE. Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands. Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and slaking ships, and praying hands." The ancient Koman poet Lucretius, in his well-known poem -' De Eerum Natura," has beautifully interpreted the Epicurean philosophy. Adopting, like Epicurus, the atomic or corpuscular theory of things, he tells his readers that the soul of man perishes along with the body, and that it is the height of folly for man to be afraid of that which may happen to him after death. 17. It is unnecessary to discuss in detail the tenets of the various Greek and Roman philosophers. A number of indefinite, and sometimes contradictory, expressions sufficiently betray the uncertainty of their opinions. De- sirous, it may be, to believe themselves — desirous at least that the body of their countrymen should believe in a fu- ture state, yet it is not wonderful that they should have felt strongly the difficulty of believing, or have expressed their doubts in writings which were not intended to be read by the great mass of the people. 18. Proceeding now to the extreme East, it is well known that of late years very great light has been thrown upon the ancient religions of the Brahraans, the Magians, and the Buddhists. In an admirable collection of essays by Prof. Max Miiller,^ we have a good epitome of what has been accomplished by the laborious investigations of Ori- ental scholars. We learn from these that the most ancient document is the Rig-Yeda, or sacred hymns of the Brah- mans, in which we have the rgligious belief of a large sec- tion of the Indo-Germanic race at a period supposed to be from 1,200 to 2,000 years before the Christian era. In these hymns the gods are called Deva, a word which is * " Chips from a German Workshop." INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 15 conjectured to be the same with the Latin Dens. " It would be easy," says Max Miiller, " to find in the numer- ous hymns of the Yeda passages in which every important deity is represented as supreme and absolute. Thus in one hymn, Agni (fire) is called Hhe ruler of the universe.' .... In another hymn, another god, Indra, is said to be greater than all. ' The gods,' it is said, ' do not reach thee, Indra, nor men — thou overcomest all creatures in strength.' . . . Another god, Soma, is called the king of the world, the king of heaven and earth, the conquer- or of all. . . . Another poet says of another god, Ya- ru72,a, ' Thou art lord of all, of heaven and earth ; thou art the king of all, of those who are gods, and of those who are men.' . . . This surely," remarks Max Miil- ler, " is not what is commonly understood by Polytheism. Yet, it would be equally wrong to call it Monotheism. If we must have a name for it, I should call it Kathenothe- ism. The consciousness that all the deities are but dif- ferent names of one and the same godhead breaks forth, indeed, here and there in the Yeda. But it is far from being general. One poet, for instance, says : ' They call him Indra, Mitra, Yarmia, Agni ; then he is the beautiful- winged, heavenly Garutmat — that which is one, the wise call it, in divers manners ; they call it Agni, Yama, Ma- tari^van." 19. We learn from the same author that " there is in the Yeda no trace of metempsychosis, or that transmigra- tion of souls from human to animal bodies which is gener- ally supposed to be a distinguishing feature of Indian re- ligion. Instead of this we find what is really the sine qua non of all real religion, a belief in immortality and in per- sonal immortality. . . . Thus we read. He who gives alms goes to the highest place in heaven ; he goes to the gods. . . . Again we find this prayer addressed to Soma : " Where there is eternal light, in the world where the 16 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. sun is placed, in that immortal, imperisliable world, place me, O Soma ! " Where King Vaivasvata reigns, where the secret place of heaven is, where these mighty waters are, there make me immortal ! " Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasure reside, where the desires of our desire are at- tained, there make me immortal ! " Max Miiller further remarks that the Rig-Yeda con- tains allusions, although yague, to a place of punishment for the wicked. " The dogs of Yama, the king of the departed, present some terrible aspects, and Yama is asked to protect the departed from them. Again, a pit is men- tioned, into which the lawless are said to be hurled down, and into which Indra casts those who offer no sacrifices." 20. A religion like this, however pure at its commence- ment, was likely soon to become corrupted. It soon merged into idolatry and polytheism, as far at least as the main body of the worshipers were concerned, while at the same time the rule of the Brahmans or officiating priests became strengthened into an insupportable social tyranny. Thus a double reformation was to be appre- hended, corresponding on the one hand to the religious, and on the other to the ceremonial and social, development of the system. 21. The first reformation was that attributed to Zoro- aster and \is disciples, whose belief is contained in the Zend-Avesta. In his confession of faith, the disciple of the Eranian or Zoroastrian religion declares, " I cease to be a worshiper of the daevas." It must, however, be remembered that in this religion daeva means devil, or evil spirit. Thus the earliest forms of the Zoroastrian religion need not have excluded, and apparently did not exclude, the worship of good spirits. While the Zoroastrian disciples believed in a supreme INTRODUCTORY SKETCH, IT God who rules tlie world, they yet gave a prominent place to a spirit of evil, wliieli afterward received the name of Ahriman, and was supposed to exercise very considerable influence over the order of IS'ature and the minds of men. Indeed, Ahriman is apparently an independent power so strong that but for the fact that he acts before he thinks, while Ormuzd (the good spirit) thinks before he acts, the victory of good would be doubtful. The whole system hinges on this and on the fact that every thing noxious and evil in creation is the work of Ahriman. Max Miiller is of opinion that " the Zoroastrian religion was founded on a solemn protest against the whole worship of the powers of Nature involved in the Yedas ; " and again the same writer says : " The characteristic change that has taken place between the Yeda and A vesta is, that the battle is no longer a conflict of gods and demons for cows " (alluding to a Yaidik myth), " nor of light and darkness for rain. It is the battle of a pious man against the power of evil." 22. The disciples of the Zoroastrian religion believed in a future state ; the ill-speaker (the devil), we are told in the Zend-Avesta, shall not destroy the second life. The following extracts given by Max Miiller from a catechism of the modern Parsis or disciples of Zoroaster give us a very good idea of their present creed : " Q' Whom do we of the Zarthosti community believe in? " A. We believe in only one God, and we do not be- lieve in any besides him. " Q. Do we not believe in any other God? " A. Whoever believes in any other God but this is an infldel, and shall suffer the punishment of hell." ^ In another extract the disciples are told that in the world to come they shall receive the return according to their actions. 18 TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 23. The next reform of tlie Erahminical system had reference to its social characteristics, and was occasioned by the insupportable tyranny of the priesthood. The re- former, a yomig prince, was. born about 500 years b. c, and from his life and doctrines received the name of Buddha, or the Enlightened. After having learned from various famous Brahmans, he came to the conclusion that their austerities and doctrines could neither free men from the miseries of this life nor from the fear of death. From this stage Buddha passed into the belief that all we see is vanity — a delusion, a dream — and that the highest wis- dom consists in perceiving this, and in desiring to enter into Mrva^a, or, in other words, to be blown out like a flame. It would seem from these words that Buddha himself regarded annihilation rather than immortality as the sum- mum honum / but no account of Buddhism would be satisfactory which did not pay special regard to the notion so widely diffused in heathenism, that matter is the source of all evil. To be liberated from matter is to be liberated from evil; and this would seem to be the fundamental thought in the Mrvd/ia in all its different senses. But, however this may be, we know that, allied to tliese extreme metaphysical opinions, Buddha inculcated a moral code which is one of the purest the world has ever known. M. Laboulaye says, " It is difficult to comprehend how men not assisted by revelation could have soared so high ; " and M. Barthelemy-Saint-IIilaire does not hesitate to assert that, " with the sole exception of Christ, there is not among the founders of religion a more pure or touching figure than that of Buddha." 24. In process of time, among the followers of the Buddhist religion, the word ISTirvaTia came to have a very different meaning from that which it had at first. Bmidha was himself worshiped as a divinity, and his NirviWa INTRODUCTORY SK^^TGH, came to denote a state in which there w^j^j^^thts^ibl of pain, or in other words an Elysium. In ilhistration of this we may quote the account given by Max Miiller of the dying words of Hiouen-thsang, a famous pilgrim from China to the shrine of Buddha, who died in tlie year of our era Q^^ : " I desire," he said, " that whatever merits I may have gained by good works may fall upon other people. May I be born again with them in the heaven of the blessed, be admitted to the family of Mi-le, and serve the Buddha of the future who is full of kindness and affection. When I descend again upon earth, to pass through other forms of existence, I desire at every new birth to fulfill my duties toward Buddha, and arrive at the last at the highest and most perfect intelligence." 25. Having thus surveyed, however imperfectly, the belief regarding a future state held by the greater nations both of the East and West before the advent of Christiani- ty, let us now make a few observations. In the first place, there are manifestly two ways in which such a belief may be held. In one of these it be- comes the natural result of an implicit faith in God and his goodness, which will not suffer him to disappoint the . natural and innate longings of his intelligent creatures. And such a belief is more likely to arise among a nation which has already vividly realized the living presence and goodness of God. N^ow the ancient Jews were such a nation, and the belief that even death cannot break the fellowship of the believer with God comes out clearly enough in several Psalms. Moreover, the notion of some sort of future life lies clearly in what is said of Enoch. All this goes beyond the mere notion of Sheol, which is not thought of as a happy place. But in the time of the Maccabees this had grown into a definite belief in the resurrection, and, without insisting on the truthfulness of 20 THE UNSEEN UNIVEBSE. tlie Second Book of Maccabees as an historical document, we may jet be sure that it has embodied the feelings of the Jewish nation. It is of little consequence whether a mother and seven brethren were actually put to death be- cause they would not transgress what they believed to be the laws of God, or whether in dying they expressed their belief that they would be continued in a bodily existence by the Creator. For it is manifest from what we know of the Jews, that not merely one family but many would, under similar circumstances, have acted in the manner de- scribed by the historian, dying with the same fortitude and encouraged by the same hope. We have here a region in which there is no thought of the How — this troublesome question has not yet arisen, nor is it likely to arise. I^o doubt has yet been entertained regarding the power of God, nor would such a doubt be likely to receive much encouragement here. 26.. But the human mind will not refrain from specu- lation, and this brings us to the second method in which a belief regarding a future state may be held. It ' may be held after a mode determined by speculations regarding the possible conditions of a future state. Such specula- tions may of course take every variety of form, but yet there are three well-defined classes into which they natu- rally group themselves : In the first j)lace, we have the doctrine of an ethereal state, which may or may not be eternal ; Secondly, we have the doctrine of a bodily existence, which may or may not be eternal ; and — In the third place, we have the doctrine that a future state is inconceivable or impossible. 2T. The first of these beliefs was probably held by a portion of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and by most of the Jews. It was likewise held by many among the Eastern nations. It formed indeed one of the two INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 21 ways of imagining a future state, but it was of a very vague and dreary nature ; and from the passage of Homer already quoted (Art. 14), we realize the longing supposed to be felt by the inhabitants of such a place to escape into a more substantial region. Unquestionably it was not a place in which practical men like the Jews, for instance, would wish to dwell, and yet no doubt it had great attrac- tion for minds of a visionary and ecstatic nature, who held matter to be the source of evil. The return of the soul to its divine original, an Egyp- tian doctrine, the entrance into Nirvana, proclaimed by Buddha, and the absorption into Buddha himself, pro- claimed by some of his followers, are all proofs that a doctrine of this nature has peculiar fascinations for a dreamy order of minds. Nor must we analyze too rigidly the exact meaning and tendency of such doctrines, inas- much as we cannot easily enter into the real feelings of those who propounded them, and who probably 'enter- tained conceptions which cannot adequately be clothed in words. ^28. Coming now^ to the belief of a bodily existence, it is remarkable that the doctrine of a transmigration of souls was extensively prevalent among all the nations we have named, if we except the Jews. It was believed in, as we have seen, by a large class of the Egyptians ; it was intro- duced into Greece by Pythagoras and his followers ; it is considered to have been from time immemorial a common property of the various religions of the extreme East ; and it is recorded by Csesar that the Druids believed in the same doctrine, although they confined the transmigration to human bodies. It will perhaps surprise many of our readers to learn the extensive prevalence of such a doctrine, wondering as they must how it is possible to attach certainty to an exist- ence which passes through the body of various men and 22 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. animals — something perhaps like a draught of Lethe being administered at the moment of passage. But the ancients, being unable to rise to a higher conception of a bodily future, were compelled either to admit this doctrine or one yet more absurd, namely, that the very same hody which was laid in the tomb will once more be animated by the spirit which formerly possessed it. It does not therefore surprise us that the ancients, with the exception probably of a portion of Egypt, and some of the Jews, should have preferred the doctrine of transmigration; but we are exceedingly surprised that the other alternative doctrine, of manifestly Egyptian parentage, should have come to be accepted by the modern nations of Europe under the garb of Christianity. We shall return again to this subject, but meanwhile let us observe that, when men first began to ask the How of a future state, the reply was something extremely vague and unsatisfying. Ko wonder, then, that a class of men who had not unlimited confidence in God, and who could not believe in either of the doctrines of a future state, should have lapsed into philosophical infi- delity and denied the immortality of the soul altogether. 29. We have thus arrived at a stage of development in which we may imagine the next step to be one which will throw some light upon this same question of How — that will give, or at any rate profess to give, some information regarding the conditions of a future life. The intellect of man had attempted to obtain such knowledge for itself, but the result was a conspicuous failure ; the sword was not sharp enough, nor the arm which wielded it powerful enough, to hew down the thick and seemingly impenetrable barrier which fringes the aveime to the world of spirits. " We cannot go to them," was the unanimous wail of the ancient philosophers, till some of the more hopeful of them suggested as an alternative that they might come to us. For clearly, if A and B are separated from each other INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 23 by a barrier, and there yet remains good-will between them, two courses are possible, and only two, if they are to be made acquainted with each other. If A is so weak as to be unable to overleap the barrier, and if at the same time it would be a matter of importance to him to become better acquainted with B, then B may be expected to sur- mount the barrier if it be surmountable, and exhibit him- self to A. 30. As a matter of history, it appears that about the time of the birth of Christ there was an expectation, how- ever vague, that something of this nature was about to take place. And when Christ made his appearance, and gathered round him a little band of disciples, there can be no doubt that he claimed to be the bearer of intelligence from the world of spirits. Those who differ from one another as to the light in which they regard his person and doctrine will yet, we think, agree in this. The claim made by his disciples for his gospel was that it brought life and immortality to light {see Whately's Essays), and the grounds of the claim were built upon the belief that Christ had risen from the dead, and showed himself after his resurrection to a body of men who had not previously believed that the Messiah himself was to die and rise again. His disciples, in fine, took his resurrection for a proof that life is possible after death. Christ was believed to be the first-fruits of a system that was destined ultimately to embrace in the same glorious immortality all those of his disciples who were united to their Master by a sincere and living faith. Evidently Paul attached much importance to the fact of Christ's resurrection, for he says (1 Cor. xv. 14) : " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false wit- nesses of God : because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ ; whom he raised not up, if so be that 24 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised : and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins." 31. Let us now try to ascertain what sort of future state was taught by Christ. In the first place, it w^as a bodily state — a state which could even adapt itself with some modification to the views of the Pharisees who be- lieved in the resurrection of the body. But the modifica- tion introduced is sufficiently important. The occasion of its announcement was a disputation with the Sadducees, who attempted to perplex Christ by stating to him the case of a w^oman who had been married in this life to seven brethren in succession, and then asking him whose wife she should be in the resurrection. We are told (Matthew xxii. 29) that, in reply to the question, " Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." We may gather by impli- cation from this narrative, that the question would have puzzled the Pharisees, who had certainly not arrived at this idea of the resurrection state. They must evidently have thought that the resuiTec- tion body was to be similar to the present one, and al- though they believed in the existence and occasional ap- pearance of angels, they cannot have risen to the idea that it was possible for man to reach a similar state after death. 32. It may perhaps be said that many of Christ's say- ings would seem to lead toward the doctrine of a resur- rection of the very same particles which are laid in the grave. To this, however, it may be replied that Christ un- doubtedly wished to impress upon his hearers, who were for the most part unlearned and ignorant men, the substan- tial and bodily reality of the future state, and therefore spoke in plain language without entering into scientific INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 25 minutise, which would only have perplexed them, and diminished the impression which his words were other- wise calculated to produce. Few of his hearers would trouble themselves about the mode, nor was it until an ob- jection was started by the learned Sadducees that Christ took occasion to develop his doctrine. In accordance with this view we see that a similar difficulty must have occurred more than once in the life of Paul, who was brought into contact with the philosophy of Greece and Rome. For in one of his Epistles * he asks the question : How are the dead raised up % and with what body do they come % He then replies to the supposed objector in the following noble and beautiful language : ^' There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead ; it is sown in cor- ruption, it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." 33. In the next place we remark that this conception of a spiritual body similar to that of the angels is accom- panied in the religious system of Christ by a conviction that the present visible universe will assuredly pass away. This is expressed in both divisions of the writings acknowl- edged as sacred by the disciples of Christ. Thus it is said : " Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment : as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed." ^ Again, Paul tells us that " the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." ^ Likewise also Peter-- » 1 Cor. XV. 35. 2 Psalm cii. 25. « 2 Cor. iv. 18. 2 26 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. says : " The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat ; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up. . . . ^N^evertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." * In like manner John tells us that he saw in a vision "a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away ; and there was found no place for them." " From all this we may conclude that the more advanced disciples of Christ supposed the resurrection body to be angelic in its nature, and similar to that which they be- lieved Christ had himself assumed ; and further, that they supposed this body would remain when the present visible universe had passed away. 34. We have already remarked that it was the object of Christ to bring the future state in a very vivid manner before his disciples, so that they might realize its substan- tial existence, and he has accordingly given them on the one hand exalted descriptions of the joys of heaven, and on the other awful accounts of the place of torment. Heaven was variously described as a banqueting-house, as a beautiful city, as Abraham's bosom, and, when speaking to his immediate disciples, as a place where they shall dwell together with their Master. On the other hand, it is believed that Christ's description of hell was borrowed from the valley of Hinnom, a place near Jerusalem, which formed the receptacle for every species of fllth, the com- bustible parts of which were consumed by fire. Putrefac- tion, or the worm, was always busy there, and the fire was always burning, and this may have given rise to the ex- pression, "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." There can be no doubt, we think, that ' 2 Peter iii. 10. 2 Rev. xx. 11. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 27 such descriptions were meant to be allegorical, the inten- tion being by forcible earthly images to convey an idea of what could not otherwise be conveyed. 35. It is well known that many varieties of opinion have been entertained regarding the person of Christ even by those who profess to be his disciples. It is not, how- ever, here our object to enter into theological controversies ; our treatment of this subject is at present historical, and we will therefore bring before our readers the views held by the large majority of those who call themselves Chris- tians regarding the person of Christ and the constitution of the invisible world. While all the Christian Churches believe in one God, yet by most of them the Godhead is believed to consist of three persons, the Fatlier, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The hrst of these appears to be regarded as the Being or Essence in virtue of whom the universe exists. Thus in reciting the Apostles' Creed the Christian disciple says : " I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth ; " and the laws of the universe are regarded by Christian theologians as being expressions of the will act- ing in conformity with the character of this being. Thus Nature (according to Whately) is the course in which the Author and Governor of all things proceeds in his works. But, in addition to this, the majority of Christian Churches virtually assert that we have, besides man and an invisible hierarchy of angels, two Divine Persons, who work through and by the universe. One great object of the second Person of the Trinity is held to be the manifes- tation of God to man, and possibly to other beings, in a manner and to an extent which could not be accomplished by finite intelligences. One great object of the third Per- son again is to enter, as Lord and giver of life, into the souls of men, and possibly of other beings, and to dwell there in such a manner as to fit them for the position which 28 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE, they are destined ultimately to occupy in the universe of God. 36. In Christ it is supposed that we have an incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity, and the work which he accomplished is regarded as done not in violation of the order of things as established by God the Father, but rather in strict obedience to it. But while this is generally accepted by the Church of Christ, yet the docti'ine of the submission of Christ to law has been held by some as not inconsistent with a view which regards the miraculous works of Christ as manifestations of his divine nature, so changing the order of things as to denote something wrought upon the universe rather than something wrought through it and by its means. We do not think that this theory is borne out by the words of Christ himself. He says : " I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who sent me." * Again, we are told by Paul, that " when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that they might receive the adop- tion of sons." ' Christ also frequently represents his works as wrought by the Father, as for instance when he says : " I do nothing of myself ; but as the Father hath taught me, 1 speak tliese things." ' In fine, the whole genius of Chris- tianity would point toward a total submission of Christ in every respect toward all the laws of the universe, which, indeed, form but another expression for the will of God acting in conformity with his character. To make our meaning clear, we may say that the will of man is accom- plished in conformity with the laws of the universe, while on the other hand the will of God, as above defined, con- stitutes in itself the laws of the universe. ]S"ow it appears to us from what we find recorded in the records of the * John V. 30. ^ Galatiaiis iv. 4. ^ Jolm viii. 28. INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 29 Christian religion, that Christ must in this sense be regarded as similar to man ; but, inasmuch as the relation of Christ to the universe was different from that of any mere man, so the works of Christ are to be regarded as different from those which any mere man can accomplish. 37. The Christian system, of which we have now briefly described the peculiarities, was soon called upon to do bat- tle, on the one hand with the ancient philosophers of Greece and Eome, and on the other with the less civilized races of man, including those which were destined ultimately to overpower the Roman Empire. But it was chiefly when the apostolic pioneers came into contact with the acute minds of the ancient philosophers that we have light struck regarding what may be termed the philosophical system of Christianity ; thus we have already remarked (Art. 32) that the nature of the glorified body is most clearly given us by the Apostle Paul. As respects the more barbarous nations which afterward embraced Christianity, they were not likely to puzzle themselves about the physical possibilities of a future state, nor even to contest the physical reality of a place of eternal torment. And so it happened that, when dealing with a low^er class of converts, the Christian reli- gion appealed more to their fears than to their hopes, bring- ing vividly before them the awful nature of hell ; while on the other hand, the higher class of converts, if they had not a very clear idea of heaven, were yet drawn with intense longing to a future w^hich they were to spend in the com- pany of Christ. 38. In the course of a few hundred years we find the whole Roman Empire converted to Christianity, while, how- ever, in Arabia and the East it appears either to have made very little progress, or to have become corrupted into some- thing very different from that which we read of in the E'ew Testament. It had not become the national religion of the Arabs; and we can well imagine that this nation, with 30 TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. their pretensions to be regarded as the most ancient repre- sentatives of the Semitic race, would not look kindly upon a religion that took its origin in a rival branch of the same family. We can further imagine that, with such a feeling, they would be very ready to welcome a religious system that should spring up among themselves. Such an oppor- tunity was afforded them by Mohammed. Acknowledging in some measure the claims of Moses and Christ, Moham- med yet claimed for himself and his religion a superiority over his rivals, flattering by this means the vanity of his own countrymen, who considered themselves the elder branch of the Semitic race. The heaven that was prom- ised by Mohammed was altogether of a sensuous character, and well calculated to strike the imagination of his disciples. He succeeded equally well in describing hell as a place of torment reserved for those who did not believe in his reli- gion. He further commissioned his followers to propagate his tenets by the sword, so that men became converts from dread of earthly punishment, and were retained in his ranks by the success which attended his arms, and by the promise of a paradise that was full of earthly delights, as well as by the threat of a hell which was reserved for un- believers. We could not possibly have a better or more graphic description of such a system than that which is given us by Byron : "But him the maids of paradise Impatient to their halls invite, And the dark heaven of houris' eyes On him shall shine forever bright; They come — their kerchiefs green they wave, And welcome with a kiss the brave ! "Who falls in battle 'gainst the Giaour Is worthiest an immortal bower. But thou, false infidel ! shalt writhe Beneath avenging Monkir's scythe ; INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 31 And from its torment 'scape alone To wander round lost Eblis' throne, And fire unquenched, unquenchable, Around, within, thy heart shall dwell ; Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell The tortures of that inward hell! " The disciples of Mohammed believed in the unity of God, but it is evident that they had not a very exalted concep- tion of his character. Their trust in him could infuse zeal into their hearts and vigor into their arms when they went to make proselytes by the sword, but could not produce that lofty type of character which has so frequently ap- peared among the followers of Christ. 39. We have now reached in the history of our prob- lem the period known as the dark ages, during which the spirit of scientific inquiry was wellnigh extinct. At length, however, there arrived a time when the human mind, from a variety of causes, suddenly awoke from the lethargy into which it had sunk. When scientific thought was once more directed to the subject of immortality, it was easily seen that the doctrine of the resurrection in its vulgar acceptation could not pos- sibly be true, since a case might be imagined in which there might even be a contention between rival claimants for the same body. We might, for instance, imagine a Christian missionary to be killed and eaten by a savage, who was afterward killed himself. It is indeed both curi- ous and instructive to note the reluctance with which vari- ous sections of the Christian Church have been driven from their old conceptions, and the expedients, always grotesque, and sometimes positively loathsome, with which they have attempted to buttress up the falling edifice. Some deem it necessary that a single material ^to maintain this assertion by a minute examination of those laws which represent the course of things pursued in the present uni- verse. In other words, we must settle the fitness or unfit- ness of the present visible universe before we proceed to discuss our second hypothesis. 91. But whether the transfer be supposed to take place in the visible universe, or from it to another intimately con- nected with it, the subject in either case is one on which we may legitimately employ our reasoning faculties. So far, indeed, is its subject from being one which it will be utterly and forev^' useless to discuss, that it becomes our duty as well as our privilege to make the attempt, in the perfect trust that time will inevitably bring truth with it. We think that this has been too much overlooked by those whom we may term the moderate school of scientific thinkers. J^ot denying immortality, they have yet shrunk from all attempts to investigate its conditions. We are in hopes that a perusal of this volume will lead these writers to see that the subject is one which may be profitably discussed. CHAPTEK III. THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE. " The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself. Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; And, like this insubstantial pageant, faded, Leave not a rack behind." — Shakespeare, Tempest. " All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The sun himself must die Before this mortal shall assume His immortality." — Campbell. 92. Having in the last chapter briefly indicated the na- ture of the proposition which we intend to bring forward, we must next study, as a preliminary to further discussion, what science tells us about the present physical universe ; what are the general laws to which it is now subject ; when and what must have been its beginning ; when and what will be its inevitable end. We have been driven into becoming accustomed to the phrase, " the material universe," which is generally used in a sense absolutely identical with that which we have chosen as our title. We shall soon see that the term is a very inapt one, inasmuch as matter is (though it may sound paradoxical to say so) the less important half of the mate- rial of the physical universe. In the present chapter we shall still further restrict our- selves by omitting, as far as possible, any reference to life THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, 65 (even in its lowest aspect), and we likewise defer to a future chapter our account of the more reasonable speculations which have been advanced with regard to the intimate structure of matter and ether. 93. It is only within the last thirty or forty years that there has gradually dawned upon the minds of scientific men the conviction that there is something besides matter or stuff in the physical universe, which has at least as much claim as matter to recognition as an objective reality, though, of course, far less directly obvious to our senses as such, and therefore much later in being detected. So long as men spoke of light, heat, electricity, etc., as impondera- bles, they merely avoided or put aside the difficulty. When they attempted to rank them as matter — ^lieat, for instance as caloric — they at once fell into errors, from which a closer scrutiny of experimental results would assuredly have saved them. The idea of substance or styff as necessary to objective existence very naturally arises from ordinary observations on matter ; and as there could be little doubt of the physical reality of heat, light, etc., these were in early times at once set down as matter. Fire, in fact (including, it is to be presumed, every thing which involved either heat or flame, real or apparent), was in early times one of the four so-called elements. In those days the sun was supposed to be only a great fire ; a lightning-flash, an aurora, or a comet, was merely a flame ; in other words, the essence of all these was the element fire, or, as it was later called, caloric. The sun, except when he appeared as the spreader of pestilence, was the beneficent fire, as were also some of the planets ; the lightning, the comet, even the moon and Saturn, were baleful fires, This endeavor to assign a substantive, existence to every phenomenon is, of course, perfectly natural ; but on that very account excessively likely to be wrong. 66 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. Humanum est err are comes with quite as much heart- felt conviction of its truth from the lips of the honest pa- gan as from those of the Christian believer ; though per- haps its meaning maj be considerably less extended in the former than in the latter case. 94. But, before discussing what is that something else besides stuff which has an objective though not a substan- tive existence, let us in the first place inquire into the groimds of our belief, that matter itself has a real existence external to us ; that, in fact, the so-called evidence of our senses is not a mere delusion. Kow, some extreme thinkers write as if they would persuade us that a species of hallu- cination effects with similar impressions every individual mind, so that, for instance, one man may usefully warn another about a pitfall on a dark road, and so save him from a catastrophe which might otherwise be caused by something which exists, if at all, in the mentor's mind only — at all events not as yet in that of his pupil; though, if the warning be unheeded, or not given, there will pres- ently be another mind in which the pitfall will certainly exist with startling vividness. But this is altogether repug- nant to every conviction which experience (our only guide in such matters) enables us to form ; and, in the shape in which we have put it, could hardly be held at all by any reasonable being. [N'ow physical science furnishes us with the following among many other arguments in proof of the reality of the external universe : Exjperience of the most varied Tcind consistently shows us that we coAxnot produce or dest/i^o]) the smallest quantity of matter. Exercise our greatest powers of imagination, do with it w^liat we please, we cannot make our senses indicate to us an increase or diminution in a given quantity of what we call matter. We find it so far amenable to our control that we can alter its arrangement, form, density, state of aggregation, tem- perature, etc. ; nay, by so approximating it to other matter THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE. 67 as to- produce a chemical combination, we may entirely transform its appearance and properties — all hut one : its mass or quantity is completely beyond our control. Meas- ure it by what process we please, by the " muscular sense," by weight, anyhow, there it is, altogether independent of us, laughing our efforts to scorn ! Can this be a mere mental idea which the mind that conceived it (or, at all events, in some way received the conception of it) is unable to destroy. But there is one other argument on this point which must be mentioned. N^ot only do our own senses invariably indicate to us the impossibility of altering the quantity of matter, but the senses of all men alike point to the same quantity, quality, and collocation of matter in the earth and external to the earth. Whence this extraordinary agree- ment between the evidences of the senses in different men, when the minds are so different ? Our conviction then of the objective reality of matter is based upon the experimental truth that we can neither increase nor diminish its quantity, in fact on what we may conveniently for our present purpose call the Conservation of Matter. 95. Here let us pause for a moment to compare together this view of matter and the definition of the laws of the universe, which we have already given. The laws of the universe we defined (Art. 54) to be the laws according to which the beings in the universe are trammeled by the Governor thereof as regards time, space, and sensation. Kow, it may be asked, is this definition consistent with a belief in the objective reality of matter ? We reply that the two are in perfect accordance. We do not here intend to enter into any metaphysical discussion. It is enough for us to say that our practical working certainty of the reality of matter means, firstly, that it offers resistance to our imagination and our will, 68 TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. and, secondly, that in particular it offers absolute resistance to all attempts to change its quantity. We shall soon see that both properties belong to something else. 96. Returning from this digression let us therefore as- sume-that the objective reality of the external universe has been proved, and that this reality is strongly impressed upon us in virtue of that principle which we have called the conservation of matter. But as soon as we grant this, we are obliged by our reason, however little our senses may incline us to it, or rather however much they may dispose us against it, to allow objective reality to whatever is found to be in the same sense conserved. (We have here italicized these four words for a reason which will afterward appear.) This is a question which deseiwes and must get careful consid- eration. 97. In abstract dynamics several things are said and mathematically proved by deductions from experiment to be conserved, but one only of these in the strict sense in which we liave spoken of the conservation of matter. We will examine them briefly, and our non-mathematical readers must pardon us if in this examination we make use of certain technical expressions belonging to the domain of inethematical physics. (1.) Conservation of Momentum. — What is understood by this is a mere direct consequence of Kewton's first interpretation of his third law of motion, viz., that Action and Reaxition are equal and oj)posite. Stated in its sim- plest form it asserts that the momentum of a system of bodies, measured in any direction whatever, is not altered by their mutual action, whether that action be of the na- ture of traction, attraction, repulsion, or impact. And we see at once from this third law of motion that it nmst be so, because the change of momentum, in any direction, of any one part of the system, per unit of time, is the meas- TEE PRESENT PHYSICAL Um VERSE, 69 lire of the force acting on that part in that direction. Whatever momentum in this particular direction is gained by one member of the system must have been lost by other members, but not from their, whole momentum, merely from the part of it in this direction. It thus appears that the (algebraic) sum of the momenta generated by the mu- tual actions of the system is zero. These momenta are in fact directed magniticdes (like th-e forces of which they are the measure), and are there- fore capable of canceling one another. In this sense the conservation is of the same nature as that of the imagined electric or magnetic fluids, where no portion whatever of one kind can be produced without the simultaneous appear- ance of an equal quantity of the other, a quantity just ca- pable of neutralizing it. This is obviously not in any sense analogous to the Conservation of Matter of which we have just spoken. (2.) Conservation of Moment of Momentum. — Here we deal with quantities of the order of the moments of forces about an axis, i. e., Gou])les in Poinsot's sense. These also are directed magnitudes depending for their conservation upon the first interpretation of Newton's third law, and therefore the same remarks apply to them as to the pre- ceding. (3.) Conservation of Vis Viva. — Vis viva is the old name for energy or the power of doing work. We now deal with quantities which cannot possess direction, be- cause they are essentially products of pairs of quantities similai'ly directed, and are therefore all to be treated as of the same algebraic sign, or rather (to adopt the language of Sir W. R. Hamilton) as signless quantities. With such there can, of course, be no canceling. To make our meaning clear, let us consider upon what vis viva depends. It depends upon, and is proportional to, the product of the mass into the square of the velocity. 70 THE UNSEEN UNIYEBSE. Now, mass is, of course, a signless quantity ; evidently we cannot have negative mass. Then, with regard to the square of the velocity, this will be positive whether the velocity be positive or negative, whether it be in one direc- tion or the opposite. Vis viva, therefore, or energy, is something which is not affected with the sign of direction, or, as we have already said, it is a signless quantity. 98. We have said that the energy which a body con- tains — its vis viva — its power of doing work, is indepen- dent of the direction in which it is moving ; and, further, that, while the mass is the same, it is proportional to the square of the velocity. For instance, we may measure the energy of a cannon-ball or of an arrow by the distance it will carry itself up against the force of gravity, represented by its own weight, when shot vertically upward, and we find that, with a double velocity, it will go four times as high. Or we may point the cannon horizontally, and measure the energy of the same ball by the number of planks of oak-wood which it can penetrate, and we shall find that a ball with double the velocity will penetrate nearly four times as many as one with the single velocity. All these experiments concur together in convincing us that the energy of the ball is independent of the direction in which the cannon is pointed, and is proportional to the square of the velocity, so that a double velocity will give a fourfold energy. 99. We have just now spoken about a cannon-ball fired into the air against the force of gravity. Such a ball, as it mounts, will each moment lose part of its velocity, until it finally comes to a stand-still, after which it will begin to descend. When it is just turning it is perfectly harmless, and, if we were standing on the top of a cliff to which it had just reached, we might without danger catch it in our arms and lodge it on the cliff. Its energy has apparently disappeared. Let us, however, see whether this is really TEE PRESENT PHYSICAL UmVERSE. Yl true or not. It was fired up at us, let us say, by a foe at the bottom of the cliff, and the thought occurs to us to drop it down upon him again, which we do with great suc- cess, for he is smashed to pieces by the ball. In truth, dynamics informs us that such a ball will again strike the ground with a velocity, and therefore with an energy, precisely equal to that with which it was origi- nally projected upward. IS'ow, when at the top of the cliff", if it had not the energy due to actual motion, it had nevertheless some sort of energy due to its elevated posi- tion, for it had obviously the power of doing work. We tints recognize two forms of enei^gy which change into one another^ the one due to actual motion^ and the other to po- sition y the former of these is generally called kinetic, and the latter potential energy. All this appears to have been clearly perceived by JSTewton, who gave it as a second in- terpretation of his Third Law of Motion. His statement is in language equivalent to the following : ^ Worh done on any system of hodies has its eguivalent in the form of work done against friction, molecular forces, or gravity, if there he no acceleration j hut, if there he acceleration, jpart of the work is exjpended in overcoming resistance to acceleration, and the additional kinetic energy develoj^ed is equivalent to the vjork so spent. 100. Thus Newton expressly tells us (though not in these words) that we are to include in the same category work done by or against a force — whether that force be due to gravity, friction, or molecular action (such as elas- ticity, for instance), or even to acceleration. {a}) When work is done against gravity, as in lifting a mass from the groimd, we have just seen that it is (as it were) stored up in the raised mass ; we can recover it at any time by letting the mass descend. Thus it is that we ^ See Thomson and Tail's " Natural Philosophy," § 269 ; or Tait's " Ther- modynamics," § 91. Y2 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. furnish a clock with motive power sufficient to keep it going for a week in spite of friction and other resistance, by simply winding up its weights. (5.) When work is done against molecular forces, we have a similar storing up, as, for instance, in drawing a bow, or in winding up a watch. {c.) When work is done against the inertia of a body, i. e., to accelerate its velocity, Newton's definitions show that the kinetic energy so produced is equal to the work so spent. (d^ In abstract dynamics we simply consider as lost the work spent against friction. In Newton's time it was not known what became of it. 101. Leaving out, then, for the present, the fourth al- ternative, we see that, whatever work is spent, we must, according to Newton, even in abstract dynamics, recognize that it is not lost, hut only transformed into an equivalent quantity stored up for future use, either in a quiescent form (as, for instance, a raised weight or bent spring), or in an active form (as vis viva of a moving mass). Here, then, at last, we recognize the same sort of conservation as that which we found in matter. But the statement so far is defective, as we have seen, in one particular. What be- comes of work spent in overcoming friction ? or what be- comes of the energy of the blacksmith's hammer after it has struck the anvil ? To this, experiment alone can give the answer. Let us see what it has told us. Man has been called a reasoning animal, a laughing animal, according to the momentary whim or humor of the classifier ; but he is, perhaps, still more definitely separated from all other animals when specified as the " cooking ani- mal." Now, it has always appeared to us as something little short of marvelous that, even for the high purpose of cooking his food, or of inflicting exquisite torture on a vanquished foe, savage xmji should ever have hit upon the TEE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE. 73 process of procuring fire by friction. Considering his condition, and comparing his opportunities and his success with those of even our greatest modern physicists, we can- not but look upon this as one of the very greatest and most notable discoveries ever made in physics. All the more notable, too, from the fact that a man like Newton, though of course aware of it, absolutely missed its signifi- cance even at the very moment when it alone was wanted to fill a serious lacuna in one of his grandest and most im- portant practical generalizations. The missing link was all but supplied by Kumford and Davy at the very end of last century. Rumford's boiling of water by the heat generated in the boring of a cannon, and Davy's melting of ice by friction in vacuo, were each conclusively demon- strative alike of the non-materiality of heat and of the ul- timate fate of work spent in friction, which is thus seen to be converted into heat ; or at least these experiments could easily have been made demonstrative by very slight addi- tions to, or modifications of, their authors' methods or rea- soning. But the exact and formal enunciation of the equivalence of heat and work required to fill the lacuna in Newton's statement was first given by Davy in 1812. 102. Let us here pause for a moment and contemplate the position to which the problem had now attained. Yisi- ble kinetic energy, such as that of a cannon-ball shot up- ward, is transformed as it rises into visible potential energy. As the ball descends its energy is re transformed from the potential into the kinetic variety until, when it is about to strike the earth, it has, or rather would have if there were no atmosphere, as much kinetic energy as it had when it was first shot upward. When the ball has once struck the earth its kinetic en- ergy is changed into heat, and we have very many reasons for regarding heat as only another species of energy : and, generally speaking, in all cases of friction, percussion, and 4 74 TEE UNSEEN UmVERSE. atmospheric resistance, we have a change of visible energy into heat, as for instance when a railway-train is stopped by the action of the break, when a blacksmith strikes the anvil with his hammer, or when a cannon-ball moves through and heats the air. "We had thus come to the stage of regarding heat as a species of molecular energy into which visible energy is very often transformed, and very soon after it came to be perceived that there were other forms of molecular energy besides heat — some of these being potential and some kinetic. Thus we may have two substances possessing chemical affinity separated from each other just as we may have a stone separated from the earth, and we obtain a form of potential energy in the one case as truly as in the other. When, for instance, we have carbon or coal in our cellars or our mines, and oxygen in the air, we are in pos- session of a store of energy upon which we can draw at any moment and change it during the process of combus- tion from the potential to the kinetic form. Again, in a current of electricity we have no doubt a species of ki netic energy, although it would puzzle men of science tc say what such a current precisely means. From all this, without entering further into scientific details, our readers will perceive that there are a variety of forms, some of them potential and others of them kinetic, in which energy may appear. While we were thus grasping the fact that energy can appear under various forms, we were also beginning to per- ceive that it had great powers of transmutation — going about from one form to another, and Sir W. R. Grove did good work at this stage of the inquiry in bringing together the various cases of such transmutations in his work on the " Correlation of the Physical Forces." In spite of this, it was left for Joule and Colding, who worked almost simultaneously and by well-devised experi- THE PRmENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE. 75 mental methods from about the year 1840, independently to discover, and by degi'ees to enunciate, by means of argu- ments founded on the only admissible basis of experiment, the grand law of the conservation of energy. In its most general form, the statement of the conserv^ation of energy is merely a completed version of the passage we have al- ready quoted from I^ewton ; and the experimental discov- eries of Rumford and Davy, extended and completed by Joule and Colding, allow us to put E^ewton's second or al- ternative interpretation of his third law of motion into the modern statement of the conservation of energy. In any system of hodies whatever^ to which no energy is communicated hy external bodies^ and which parts with no energy to external hodies, the sum of the various poten- tial and Jcinetic energies reinains forever unaltered. In other words, while the one form of energy becomes changed into the other — potential into kinetic, and kinetic into potential — yet each change represents at once a crea- tion of the one kind of energy, and a simultaneous and equal anniliilation of the other, the sum of both, as we have already said, remaining meanwhile unaltered. 103. Taking as our system the whole physical uni- verse, we now see that, according to the test we have already laid down, energy has as much claim to be regarded as an objective reality as matter itself. But the forms of state- ment are most markedly different for the two. We before spoke of the quantity of matter without qualification, but we now speak of the sum of the two hinds of energy. Let us think for a moment of this, and w^e see that whereas (to our present knowledge, at least) matter is always the same, though it may be masked in various combinations, energy is constantly changing the form in which it presents itself. The one is like the eternal, unchangeable Fate or Neces- sitoM of the ancients ; the other is Proteus himself in the variety and rapidity of its transformations. 76 THE UNSEEN- UNIVERSE. 104. And again, energy is of use to us solely hecaitse it is constantly being transformed. When the sluice is shut, or the fire put out, the machinery stops ; when a man can- not digest his food, he breaks down altogether. Coal in itself, except on account of an occasional fossil it may con- tain, or its still somewhat uncertain mode of formation, or (to take a lower point of view) as a material for ornament, is a very useless thing indeed : its grand value consists in its chemical affinity, in virtue of which it possesses great potential energy as regards the oxygen of the air, which can very easily be transformed into its equivalent in heat. " Keep your powder dry," is merely one way of saying, "Preserve the ready transformability of your energy." In fact, if we think for a moment over what has just been said, to the efi'ect that the only real things in the physical imi verse are matter and energy, and that of these matter is simply passive, it is obvious that all the physical changes which take place, including those which are inseparably associated with the thoughts as well as the actions of living beings, are merely transformations of energy. Thus it is an inquiry of the very utmost importance as regards the present universe : Are all forms of energy equally suscep- tible of transformation f To see the importance of this question, the reader has only to reflect that if there be any one form of energy less readily or less completely trans- formable than the others, and if transformations constantly go on, more and more of the whole energy of the uni- verse will inevitably sink into this lower grade as time ad- vances. Hence the whole possibility of transformation must steadily grow less and less ; in scientific language, though the quantity of energy remains forever unchanged, its availability steadily decreases. 105. !N"ow, every one knows a case in which there may be an unlimited amount of energy present, no part of which is available for transformation. It is the simple THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE. 77 one of heat in a number of bodies, when all are at the same temijerature. To obtain work from heat we must have hotter and colder bodies, to correspond, as it were, with the boiler and condenser of a heat-engine ; and just as we get no work from still water if it be all at the same level, i. e., if no part of it can fall, so in like manner we can get no work from heat unless part of it can fall from a higher to a lower temperature. 106. The first step in the investigation of the trans- formation of heat into work was taken by Sadi Camot in 1824 : a step of inestimable value in every branch of mod- ern physical science. He devised a method of startling originality for the purpose of. attacking this special ques- tion of the production of work from heat. His inferences from its application were not all correct; this was due, however, to no fault of the method, but to the fact that he unfortunately assumed (though with caution, and under a protest almost amounting to an assertion of the opposite) the materiality of heat. His method embraces two per- fectly new ideas : (1.) That, at least with our present knowledge, no in- ference is possible as- to the relation between heat and work, until the heated or working substance is brought back, after a complete Cycle of operations, to its initial physical state. Obvious as this statement, once made, is, it was altogeth- er ignored (twenty years after Carnot) by Seguin and Mayer, whom some authors persist in setting forth as the found- ers of the dynamical theory of heat. Their speculations were entirely vitiated by their violation of this principle. (2.) That an engine whose cycle of operations is reversi- ble is a perfect engine, that is to say, gives the greatest possible amount of work from a given quantity of heat with any assigned temperatures of boiler and condenser. The tei-m reversible is not here used in the popular sense in which a mere reversal of the direction of motion 78 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. of each part is contemplated, i. e., what would be more properly termed " backing ; " it is used in the higher sense of taking an engine which converts a certain quantity of the heat spent on it into work, while it lets the rest down from the boiler to the condenser, and then chang- ing or converting it into an engine upon which the same amount of work is spent with the result of taking back the heat from the condenser, adding to it the heat-equivalent of the work so spent, and thus restoring the whole of its original loss in heat to the boiler ; simply in fact reversing all the results of the direct action. 107. Sir W. Thomson, in 1848, was the first to recall attention to the work of Carnot, after Colding and Joule had published their discoveries ; and he pointed out that the action of the reversible engine gave what had been up 'to that time vainly sought, an absolute definition of tem- perature — a definition, that is, altogether independent of the properties of any particular species of matter. In fact, it is obvious that as reversibility in the sense we have just explained is the stamp of perfection in a heat-engine, all reversible engines, whatever be the working substance, will, under the same circumstances, tlmt is to say, with tJie same temi?eratures of holler and condenser, convert the same fraction of the heat spent on them into work. This, of course, still leaves wide scope for a definition of tem- perature, but that ^finally determined on by Thomson was chosen (in consequence of a hint from some experimental results of Joule) so as to make the absolute measurement agree nearly with that of the long-known air- thermometer. It therefore stands as follows : TTie heat talcen in hy a perfect engine is to the heat given out hy it in the same proportion as the absolute temperature of the hoiler to that of the condenser. Of course it is hardly necessary to state that it is only the difference between the heat taken in and that given TEE PRESENT PHYSICAL out by any engine that can have been c) able work. This follows from the consef^ 108. Experiments ' carried on by Joule ana inomson together have shown that the absolute zero of temperature is nearly 274° below zero of the centigrade scale ; so that on the absolute scale the temperature of melting ice is 274°, while that of water boiling under the standard press- ure is 374°. In 1849 James Thomson made a very remarkable ap- plication of Camot's reasoning, the first of a series of such applications which have since done immense service in the extension of almost every branch of physics. He showed in fact that, because water expands in the act of freezing, the melting-^point of ice must 1)6 lowered hy pi^esswe. Sir W. Thomson in the same year verified this deduction, to its numerical details, by direct experiment. Trifling as the predicted and measured effect appears (one degree centigrade for each two thousand pounds additional press- ure per square inch), there can now be no doubt that it goes at least very far to explain the varied effects of the extraordinary plasticity of glacier-ice so beautifully made out by the direct measurements of Forbes. 109. We have said that Carnot unfortunately based his reasoning on the assumed materiality (and therefore inde- structibility) of heat. It therefore became a question of great importance to find how properly to adapt his meth- ods to the true theory. James Thomson's verified predic- tion had already given a correct and absolutely new physi- cal result from his principles. How, then, must we get rid of his false assumption ? Clausius attempted this in 1850, but his method is ^ " They showed that in a perfect steam-engine with pressure equal to * one atmosphere ' in its boiler, and with its condenser at the temperature of melting ice, the ratio of the heat taken in to the heat given out is 1.365 to 1. Hence if the difference between the numbers is to be 100, these must be 374, 274." — Philosophical Trmi-sactions, 1854. 80 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE, based solely upon the observed fact that, in general, heat tends from hotter to colder bodies. This we know is not always the case, for a fine wire may be made red-hot by the current from a thermo-electric battery (of a sufiicient number of pairs) where ice and boiling water alone are used to heat and cool the alternate junctions. Here heat certainly passes from colder bodies to a hotter one. Clau- sius has, no doubt, since extended his original statement, so as to make it stand thus : Heat cannot of itself pass from a colder to a hotter body. We do not consider even this sufficiently obvious for an axiom, were it certainly true, but, as will be seen later, it is not. In fact, it is con- stantly beiug violated, though on a very small scale, in every mass of gas. 110. It was Sir "VY. Thomson * who (in 1851) first cor- rectly adapted Camot's magnificently original methods to the true theory of heat ; and it is especially noteworthy to remark how, even at that early time, he saw the full danger of attempting to lay down any thing too definite on the subject. The following is the axiom he gives : " It is imjpossihle hy means of inammate 7iiaterial agency to derive mechanical effect from any j^ortion of matter hy cooling it helow the temperature of the coldest of the surrounding objects^'' But he appends the following guarded note : " If this axiom be denied for all temperatures, it would have to be admitted that a self-acting machine might be set to work and produce mechanical effect by cooling the sea or earth, with no limit but the total loss of heat from the earth and sea, or, in reality, from the whole material world." The full importance of this will appear presently. To those who can accept Thomson's axiom with the explanation appended to it, Carnot's proposition that a > See Tait, Philosophical Magazine, 1872, I., 338, 516; II., 240. THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UFIVERSE. 81 reversible engine is perfect (in the sense of being the best possible) is demonstrated at once, as follows, ex absurdo : Suppose there^ could be an engine, M, more perfect than a reversible engine, N. Set the two to work together as a compound engine, M letting down heat from boiler to condenser, and doing work ; JST spending work in pump- ing back again the heat to the boiler. If JST be made to restore to the boiler at every stroke exactly what M takes from it, the compound engine will do external work ; for, by hypothesis, M is more perfect than E". Whence does the work come ? Not from the boiler, for it remains as it was. Hence N must take more heat from the condenser than M gives it ; i. e., you get work by cooling the con- denser. Carry the reasoning a little further, and we see that if the excess of work given by M were spent upon IT, and thus no work on the whole either spent or given out, the condenser would be still further cooled, and the boiler heated ! This, to most people, would seem to imply an ample reductio ad absurdum. But Clerk-Maxwell has shown it to be physically possible, and has thus fully justi- fied Thomson's caution about his axiom. As this is a point of very great importanos, we offer no excuse for treating it pretty fully. 111. Maxwell's reasoning is given as depending upon the molecular theory of gases, but the only necessity for so restricting it appears to be, that we thereby connect the reasoning more directly with Ileo.t, which, on this theory, is supposed to be the energy of motion of the molecules of the gas. The illustration, however, is more general, and at the same time more simple, if we do not at first refer either to heat or to the molecular hypothesis of the constitution of gases, but treat the question simply as one concerning the possible motions of a number of little ma- terial particles. 82 TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. Assume, then, that a great number of small, equal spherical particles of matter are inclosed in a vessel of any form, and assume further that (either by collision or by. repulsive force) each of these has the power of rebound- ing from another or from the wall of the vessel, as if it were elastic, and had unit coeffioient of restitution^^ as de- fined in treatises on natural philosophy. Then it can be Bhown, as a matter of direct calculation, that — start these particles as we please, in all sorts of directions, and with velocities as varied as we please — after a time, which will be shorter as the number of particles is greater, a sort of permanent state will be arrived at, in which a certain law of distribution of velocity prevails among the particles (the same law as that of the Prohability of Error, as it is technically called), the greater number of them having nearly the mean square velocity, and those which have much less or more than that being fewer and fewer as the defect or excess is greater. The tendency is to an aver- age distribution of these varieties of velocity throughout the vessel, and the impacts on the sides will thus be near- ly the same on every square inch of its surface. After this there is — always provided the particles he sufficiently numerous — ^no perceptible change in the statistics of the group, except in so far as concerns indimdual particles, which may sometimes be moving with great, sometimes with very small, velocity, but which, in the long-run, will far more often be moving with the mean square velocity, or at least some velocity very near it. Hence, in no part of the vessel will the average energy be sensibly greater than in another, and therefore (so far as the contents of the vessel alone are concerned) there is no possibility of getting work from them. But by enlisting in our ser- vice conceivable finite beings (imagined by Clerk-Maxwell, ^ Thomson and Tait's " Natural Philosophy," § 300 ; or Tait and Steele's " Dynamics of a Particle," third edition, § 299. THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE, 83 and called demons by Thomson), it would be possible ma- terially to alter tliis state of tilings, even although these beings should do absolutely no work. 112. For suppose a firm partition, full of little doors (themselves without mass), to be placed so as to divide the vessel into two, and set a demon at each door, with instruc- tions to open it for an instant whenever he sees he can thereby let a quick-moving particle escape from the first compartment to the second, or a slow-moving particle from the second into the first. Then, tecause the tendency is not to a uniform distribution of velocity among the particles, but to a distribution which involves quicker and slower in certain proportions, we may imagine this process to be car- ried on long enough to make a considerable difference in the average velocities of the particles in the two compart- ments, i. e.j a greater pressure per square inch on the walls of the second compartment than of the first ; and thus, if the partition-wall were movable, a certain amount of work might be obtained by allowing it to move. Thus a group of particles originally incapable, without external assist- ance, of doing work, may be rendered capable of doing work by mere guidance applied by finite intelligence. 113. Now let us refer for a moment to the molecular theory of gases, and we see that what the demons (without any expenditure of work, each being, so far as he is re- quired, virtually a combination of two intelligent perfect engines, one working direct, the other reversed) have guided the gas to do, is to transfer heat from a colder to a hotter portion of the gas. The only reason why this does not occur without the assistance of demons (at least to an extent, or for a length of time, sufficient to produce a sensible effect) lies in the enormous number of particles per cubic inch in even the most rarefied gas. Hence, solely because of the excessive nunibers and Tninuteness of the particles of matter^ the 84 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. one chance of escape from Carnot's proposition is denied us, and therefore we must allow that, so far as the physi- cal universe is concerned, a reversible heat-engine is the best possible. 114. But if a reversible heat-engine be the best pos- sible, then the principle which we have italicized in Art. 107 must hold good, and from this it follows that only a portion of the heat passing through a perfect engine can be transformed into useful work unless the condenser of the engine be at the absolute zero of temperature — a con- dition which can never be attained. It thus appears that at each transformation of heat- energy into work a large portion is degraded, while only a small portion is transformed into work. So that while it is very easy to change all of our mechanical or useful energy into heat, it is only possible to transform a portion of this heat-energy back again into work. After each change too the heat becomes more and more dissipated or degraded, and less and less available, for any future trans- formation. In other words, the tendency of heat is toward equali- zation; heat isj9vords, the Great Whole is infinite in energy, and will last from eternity to eternity. 217. ISTow, what means this mysterious, infinitely ener- getic, intelligent developing agency residing in the universe, and therefore in some sense conditioned ? In endeavoring to reply to this question, we cannot do better than consult the Christian records. These records, as they are interpreted by the majority of the disciples of Christ, are believed to lead to a conception of the Godhead, in which there is a plurality of persons, but a unity of substance. It ought, however, to be remembered that here the word person does not mean the same thing as it does when applied to ourselves, but only denotes some distinction that may be regarded as best expressed by this word. Our idea of person or individual is derived solely from our experience in that position which we occupy in the universe. 218. The first Person in this Trinity, God the Father, is represented as the unapproachable Creator — the Being in virtue of whom all things exist. Thus it is said (John i. 18), " l^o man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." THE UI^SEEN UmVEESE. 161 Again, Paul tells ns (Eom. xi. 36), " For of liim and through him and to him are all things." Also (1 Cor. viii. 6), " But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him, (et? avrov) ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, bj whom are all things, and we by him." Also (Eph. iv. 6), " One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all." Also (1 Timothy vi. 16), "Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath seen, nor can see." 219. Again, of the second Person of the Trinity we are told, in addition to what we gather from the expres- sions just quoted (John i. 1) : " In the beginning was the "Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." Again (2 Cor. v. 10) : " For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ." Again (Col. i. 15 and 16): "Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-bom of every creature : For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers." Again (Heb. i. 1 and 2) : " God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds." 220. It is, we believe, a prevalent idea among theologi- ans that these passages indicate, in the first place, the exist- ence of an unapproachable Creator — the unconditional One who is spoken of as God the Father; and that they also in- dicate the existence of another Being of the same substance as the Father, but different in person, and who has agreed to 162 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. develop the will of the Father, and thus in some mysterious sense to submit to conditions and to enter into the uni- verse. The relation of this Being to the Father is ex- pressed in Hebrews ' in the words of the Psalmist : " Then said I, Lo, I come : in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God ; yea, thy law is within my heart." In fine, such a Being would repre- sent that conditioned yet infinitely powerful developing agent which the universe, objectively considered, appears to lead up to. His work is twofold, for, in the first place, he develops the various universes or orders of being ; and, secondly, in some mysterious way he becomes himself* the type and pattern of each order, the representative of Deity, as far as the beings of that order can comprehend, especially manifesting such divine qualities as could not otherwise be brought to light. Such a being is therefore, in virtue of his office, the King of angels and ruler of the invisible universe, and to him the words in the poem of Job are supposed to apply (Job i. 6) : " Now there was a day when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them." 221. It would thus appear that what may be termed the Christian theory of development has a twofold aspect, a descent and an ascent ; the descent of the Son of God through the various grades of existence, and the consequent ascent of the intelligences of each led up by him to a higher level — a stooping on the part of the developing Being, in order that there may be a mounting up on the part of the developed. Thus it is said (John iii. 16) : ''And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." Again (Eph. iv. 9): "Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower » Heb. X. 7. THE UNSEEN' UNIVERSE. 163 parts of the earth ? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things." 222. It is naturally in accordance with these views that the angelic host should be represented as taking an intel- ligent interest, even if they did not, as the Gnostics thought, take an active part in the creation of the visible universe. Thus the Lord is represented as asking Job (Job xxxviii. 4) : " Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest ? or who hath stretched the line upon it ? Whereupon are the founda- tions thereof fastened ? or who laid the corner-stone there- of, when the morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." 223. It is also in accordance with these views that the same hierarchy should take an intelligent interest in the life of Christ. Thus we read (Luke ii. 13), " And sud- denly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying. Glory to God in the high- est, and on earth peace, good- will toward men." And again (1 Timothy iii. 16) : " And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness : God was manifest in tlie flesh, jus- tified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gen- tiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." ■ 224. It will be remarked that the views which we have now put before our readers have been developed more es- pecially from the objective point of T>iew, and that our reasoning has been founded on the principle of Continuity as applied to the outward universe. In truth, we seem to get a much firmer and more tangible hold on the objective element of the universe, that is to say, on energy (Art. 103), than we can on intelligence and life. For, if we ap- proach our individual consciousness, it is very manifest that we have no well-founded principle wherewith to guide 164: THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. our speculations similar to the principle of Continuity ; for this, if we had it, would at once inform us whether the doctrine of immortality was true or false. We know very well that the universe will remain after we are laid in the grave, but some of us are not equally certain whether we ourselves shall then continue to exist. Thus there appears to be a difficulty which we see at present no means of surmounting in dealing with individ- ual consciousness. But, while the continuance of indi- vidual life is enveloped in mystery, it is believed that we have obtained hold of a general principle regarding the distribution of life not greatly inferior in breadth and gen- erality to the law of Continuity. We mean the principle that life proceeds from life, or, to speak more accurately, that a conditioned living thing proceeds only from a con- ditioned living thing. That dead matter cannot produce a living organism is the universal experience of the most eminent physiologists. In fact, the law of Biogenesis is justly regarded by Prof. Haxley and others as the great principle underlying all the phenomena of organized ex- istence. Prof. Roscoe, again, approaching the subject from the chemical point of view, says, speaking of red bloo'd- corpuscles : " We have not been able, and the evidence at present rather goes to show that there is not much hope of our being able, to construct these granules artificially ; and the question is in this position, that so far as science has progressed at present we have not been able to obtain any organism without the intervention of some sort of previ- ously existing germ." 225. If we assume the truth of this principle, it appears to lead us directly to infer that life is not merely a species of energy, or a phenomenon of matter. For we have seen (Art. 103) that the great characteristic of all energy is its transmutability — its Protean power of passing from TEE UI^SEEF UNIVERSE. 165 one form to another. "We may no doubt produce large quantities of electricity by means of an electric nucleus, but we can do the same without any such nucleus — we may produce fire from a spark, but we can obtain it without a spark. Life, however, can only be produced from life, and this law would seem to be an indication that the solution of the mystery is not to be found by making life merely a species of energy. It is some time since we gave up the idea that life could generate energy ; it now seems that we must give up the idea that energy can generate life. 226. In the preceding chapters we have given our read- ers a sketch of the method according to which men of sci- ence imagine that evolution has been carried out both in the universe of energy and in that of life. In both worlds the principle of Continuity demands that in endeavoring to account for the origin of phenomena we do not resort to the hypothesis of separate creations, that we do not pass over from 'the conditioned to the unconditioned ; and Dar- win, "Wallace, and their followers, have, as we have shown, endeavored to prove that processes at present pursued by ]^ature are sufficient in a great measure, if not entirely, to account for the present development of organized existence without the necessity of resorting to separate creations. Darwin especially imagines that all the present organisms, including man, may have been derived by the process of natural selection from a single primordial germ. "When, however, the backward process has reached this germ, an insuperable difficulty presents itself. How was this germ produced ? All experience tells us that life can only be produced from a living antecedent ; now, what was the antecedent of this germ ? Hypotheses have no doubt been started, but we cannot regard them in any other light than as an acknowledgment of a difiiculty that cannot be over- come. We appear to have reached an impenetrable barrier 166 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE, similar to that whicli stood in our way when we contem- plated the production of the visible universe. And we must likewise assert for ourselves with becoming rever- ence a similar freedom of action in dealing with this sec- ond barrier. Therefore, if life be one of the things of the universe, if a creation of life in time' be inadmissible, and if it be contrary to all experience to suppose the produc- tion of life without an antecedent possessing life, we are entitled to make use of this conclusion derived from ex- perience even in such a case as the present, and contem- plate an antecedent possessing life and giving life to this primordial germ — an antecedent in the universe, not out of it — conditioned, not unconditioned. Now, what is the meaning of this conclusion ? In the first place, it does not mean that the antecedent to the primordial germ must be a like germ, for we know from experience that while life is always produced from life, like is not always produced from like. In this case more especially the living ante- cedent must be in the invisible universe,, and therefore very different from the germ. 227. If we now turn once more to the Christian sys- tem, we shall find that it recognizes such an antecedent as an agent in the universe. He is styled the Lord and Giver of Life. The third Person of the Trinity is regarded in this system as working in the universe, and therefore in some sense as conditioned, and as distributing and develop- ing this principle of life, which we are forced to-regard as one of the things of the universe, in the same manner as the second Person of the Trinity is regarded as developing that other phenomenon, the energy of the univeree. The one has entered from everlasting into the universe, in or- der to develop its objective element, energy ; the other has also entered from everlasting into the universe, in order to develop its subjective element, life. Thus we read (Gen. i. 2) : " And the earth was without TEE UNSEEN UNI form, and void ; and darkness was ii^ deep. And the Spirit of God moved n p nll'^ftrrTnr r" irf'tftr waters;" implying, we may imagine, a peculiar operation of this Spirit preceding the advent of life into the world. Again, when in the fullness of time Christ, the developing agent, made his appearance here, and submitted to the trammels of a human nature,* this appearance was pre- ceded by an operation of the same Spirit. 228. It may here be desirable to discuss somewhat fully the position of life in the universe. If, then, the matter of this present visible universe be not capable of itself, that is to say, in virtue of the forces and qualities with which it has been endowed, of generat- ing life ; but if we must look to the unseen universe for the origin of life, this would appear to imply that the pe- culiar collocation of matter which accompanies the opera- tions of life is not a mere grouping of particles of the visible universe, but implies likewise some peculiarity in the connection of these with the unseen universe. May it not denote, in fact, some peculiarity of structure extend- ing to the unseen ? In fine, to go a step further, may not life denote a peculiarity of structure which is handed over not merely from one stage to another — from the invisible to the visi- ble — but which rises upward from the very lowest struct- ural depths of the material of the universe, looking uj)on this i^aterial as possessed of an infinitely complex struct ure such as we have pictured to our readers in a previous part of this chapter (Art. 216) ? If we suppose any such peculiarity to accompany life, we shall at once see the impossibility of its originating in the visible universe alone. 229. Again, it is well known to many of our readers that discussions have frequently arisen regarding the pe- culiar place and function of life in the universe. What is 168 . THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE, its relation to energy ? it certainly does not create energy — what, then, does it do ? One way of replying to this question is indicated in the following passage, which we have quoted at length from an article upon " The Atomic Theory of Lucretius," in the North Britkh Review for March, 1868 : "It is a principle of mechanics that a force acting at right angles to the direction in which a body is moving does no work, although it may continually and continuously alter the direction in which the body moves. No power, no energy, is required to deflect a bullet from its path, provided the deflecting force acts always at right angles to that path. . . . *' If you believe in free-will and in atoms, you have two courses open to you. The first alternative may be put as follows : Something which is not atoms must be allowed an existence, and must be sup- posed capable of acting on the atoms. The atoms may, as Democritus believed, build up a huge mechanical structure, each wheel of wliich drives its neighbor in one long inevitable sequence of causation ; but you may assume that beyond this ever-grinding wheelwork there exists a power not subject to but partly master of the machine ; you may believe that man possesses such a power, and, if so, no better conception of the manner of its- action could be devised than the idea of its deflecting the atoms in their onward path to the right or left of that line in which they would naturally move. The will, if it so act- cd„would add nothing sensible to nor take any thing sensible from the energy of the universe. The modern believer in free-will will probably adopt this view, which is certainly consistent with observa- tion, although not proved by it. Such a power of moulding circum- stances, of turning the torrent to the right, where it shall fertilize, or to the left, where it shall overwhelm, but in no wise of arresting the torrent, adding nothing to it, taking nothing ffom it — such is pre- cisely the apparent action of man's will; and though we must allow that possibly the deflecting action does but result from some smaller, Bubtiler stream of circumstance, yet if we may trust to our direct per- ception of free-will, the above theory, involving a power in man be- yond that of atoms, would probably be our choice. . . . "We cannot hope that natural science will ever lend the least assistance toward answering the Free-will and Necessity question. The doctrines of the indestructibility of matter and of the conserva- TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 160 tioia of energy seem at first sight to help the Necessitarians, for they might argue that if free-will acts it must add something to or take something from the physical universe, and if experiment shows that nothing of the kind occurs, away goes fr^je-will ; but this argument is worthless, for if mind or will simply deflects matter as it moves, it may produce all the consequences claimed by the Willful school, and yet it will neither add energy nor matter to the universe." 230. ]S"ow there appears to us to be a very serious ol> jection to this method of regarding the position of life, unless it be somewhat modified. Let us take one of the visible masses of this present universe, such as a planet. Instead of being attracted to a fixed and visible centre of force, such as the sun, suppose for a moment that it is bound to an invisible and vagrant centre, of which the only condition imposed upon its irregularities is that it shall always move in such a manner that there shall be no creation nor destruction of energy. We have only to imagine for a moment such a universe in order to realize the inextricable confusion into which its intelligent inhabitants would be plunged by the operation of a viewless and unaccountable agency of this nature. No doubt, the hypothesis regarding life which we have quoted above limits this mode of action to the molecular motions of matter, but if our line of argument has been followed throughout, the reader will probably acknowledge that the superior intelligences of the universe may have the same appreciation of molecular motions that we have of those of large masses. Now they would in turn be put to inex- tricable confusion by the advent of an unperceivable and, from the nature of the case, irresponsible force entitled will operating toward the deflection of these molecular motions, even although the energy of the universe should remain the same. "We think that Prof. Huxley, and those who have opposed this mode of regarding the posi- tion of life, have been somewhat unjustly blamed. They 8 170 THE UNSEEX UFIVERSE, have driven the operation of that mystery called life or will out of the objective universe, or that portion of things which is capable of being scientifically studied by intelli- gence, and in so doing diey have most assuredly done right. The mistake made (whether by this party or their adver- saries) lies in imagining that by this process they complete- ly get rid of a thing so driven before them, and that it disappears from the universe altogether. It does no such thing. It only disappears from that small circle of light which we may call the universe of scientific perception. But the greater the circle of light (to adopt the words of Dr. Chalmers), the greater the circumference of dark- ness, and the mystery which has been driven before us looms in the darkness that surrounds this circle, growing more mysterious and more tremendous as the circumference is increased. In fine, we have already remarked that the position of the scientific man is to clear a space before him from which all mystery shall be driven away, and in which there shall be nothing but matter and certain definite laws which he can comprehend. There are, however, three great mysteries (a trinity of mysteries) which elude, and will forever elude, his grasp, and these will persistently hover around the border of this cleared and illuminated circle: they are the mystery of matter; tlie mystery of life ; and the mystery of God — and these three are one. 231. But in this latter statement we have transgressed the limits of our inquiry, and are content to be driven back. Sufiice it to say that these three gigantic mysteries will persistently hover around the illuminated circle, or, to speak more properly, the illuminated sphere of scientific thought, of which duration, extension, and structural com- plexity may be regarded as the three rectangular axes in each of which the process of development goes on simulta- neously as the boundary of the sphere is enlarged. Within this sphere we have only that which can be TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 1^1 grasped by Physical Science, but we are not tlierefore to infer tbat matter and the laws of matter have a reality and a permanence denied to intelligence. It is rather because they are at the bottom of the list — are, in fact, the simplest and lowest of the three — that they are capable of being the most readily grasped by the finite intelligences of the universe. The following words of Prof. Stokes, in his presidential address to the British Association at Exeter, occur to us as very clearly embody- ing this thought : " Admitting to the full as highly probable, though not completely demonstrated, the applicability to living beings of the laws which have been ascertained with reference to dead matter, I feel con- strained at the same time to admit the existence of a mysterious something lying beyond, a something sui generis^ which I regard, not as balancing and suspending the ordinary physical laws, but as work- ing with them and through them to the attainment of a designed end. What this something which we call life may be is a profound mystery. . . . When from the phenomena of life we pass on to those of mind, we enter a region still more profoundly mysterious. We can readily imagine that we may here be dealing with phenomena altogether transcending those of mere life, in some such way as those of life transcend, as I have endeavored to infer, those of chemistry and molecular attractions, or as the laws of chemical affinity in their turn transcend those of mere mechanics. Science can be expected to do but little to aid us here, since the instrument of research is itself the object of investigation. It can but enlighten us as to the depths of our ignorance, and lead us to look to a higher aid for that which most nearly concerns our well-beiug." 232. In fine, the physical properties of matter form the alphabet which is put into our hands by God, the study of which will, if properly conducted, enable us more per- fectly to read that great book which we call the Universe. We have begun to recognize some of the chief letters of this alphabet, and even to put two and two together ; and, like an intelligent but somewhat conceited child, we are very proud of our achievement. Like such a child we 172 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE, have not yet, however, completely grasped the fact that these letters are only symbols, but look upon them with intense awe as the great thing in the world, meaning, of course, our world. We look with a sort of adoration toward those pages in -wliich there are words of two sylla- bles, and are ready to fall down at the feet of that older and wiser child who has penetrated into the depths of such profound mysteries. Our belief is that all knowledge is made for the alphabet just as the little musician believes that all music is made for the piano. 233. Life, then, whatever be its nature, may be sup- posed to penetrate into the structural depths of the uni- verse. Its seat is in a region inaccessible to human in- quiry, and equally inaccessible, we may well suppose, to the inquiries of the higher created intelligences. Intima- tions of its presence are no doubt constantly emerging from this region of thick darkness into the objective uni- verse, but when they have reached it they obey the ordi- nary laws of phenomena, according to which a material effect implies a material antecedent. ^ Notwithstanding all this, life exists just as surely as the Deity exists. For we have subjected both these mysteries to the same process, and have found it as difficult to rid ourselves of the one as of the other. We have driven the creative operation of the Great First Cause into the durational depths of the universe — into the eternity of the past — but for all that we have not got rid of God. In like manner we have driven the mys- tery of life into the structural depths of the universe — that region of thick darkness wliich no created eye is able to pierce — ^but we have not got rid of life, nor are we likely to do so. Before concluding this digression upon the place of life, let us briefly review the attempts made to account for the origin of life by those who have yet fallen short of the scientific conception of an Unseen Universe. THE UNSEEN UNIVEU8E. 173 234. Sir W. Thomson has gone further than any one else in such inquiries. We have already alluded to his at- tempt to explain the origin of the material universe by the vortex-ring hypothesis, and also to his other attempt to ex- plain gravitation by the modification of the hypothesis of ultra-mundane corpuscles. If we add to these his attempt to explain the origin of life as consistently as possible with the principle of Continuity, we think it must be acknowl- edged that he is a true pioneer in such inquiries as those of this volume as well as in the more ordinary branches of Physical Science. The explanation of the origin of life proposed by Sir W. Thomson had also occurred independently to Prof. Helmholtz. This latter physicist, in an article on the use and abuse of the deductive method in Physical Science,^ tells us very clearly what led himself, and no doubt Sir W". Thomson likewise, to suggest the meteoric hypothesis as a possible way of accounting for the origin of life : " If failure attends all our efforts to obtain a generation of or- ganisms from lifeless matter, it seems to me (says Prof. Helmholtz) a thoroughly correct procedure to inquire whether there has ever been an origination of life, or whether it is not as old as matter, and whether its germs, borne from one world to another, have not been developed wherever they have found a favorable soil." 235. We have already sufficiently pointed out that the man of science objects to separate creations, and that, in consequence, he tries to explain the present terrestrial life by means of a single primordial germ. But the difficulty still remains regarding the original appearance of this germ. ]^ow, according to the meteoric hypothesis this germ may have been wafted to us from some other world, or its fragments, and thus an act of creation of life might possi- bly serve for many worlds. If, therefore, this hypothesis were otherwise tenable, it would diminish the dithculty ' Nature, January 14, ISVo. 174 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. implied bj separate creations, but would it entirely remove it ? We doubt this very mucli. For, in the first place, as far as we can judge (Art. 163) > the visible universe — the universe of worlds — is not eternal ; while, however, the invisible universe, or that which we associate with the ethereal medium, is necessarily eternal. The visible universe must have had its origin in time (Art. 116), no doubt from a nebulous condition. But in this condition it can hardly have been fit for the reception of life. Life must therefore have been created afterward. AV6 have thus at least two separate creations, both taking place in time — the one of matter and the other of life- And even if it were possible, which it is not, to get over one of the difiiculties attending this hypothesis, that of creation in time, by regarding the visible universe as eter- nal, yet even then we must regard matter and life as im- plying two separate creative acts if we assume the nebu- lous hypothesis to be true. For if x denote the date of the advent of life, and x-\-a that of the advent of matter, a being a constant quantity, the two operations cannot be made simultaneous by merely increasing the value of x without limit. Now, this is what we mean by eternity, and therefore we cannot help thinking that this want of simultaneity implies a defect in this mode of viewing the origin of things. In fine, our hypothesis, in which the material as well as the life of the visible universe is regarded as having been developed from the Unseen, in which it had ex- isted from Eternity, appears to us to present the only available method of avoiding a break of continuity, if at the same time we are to accept loyally the indications /^given by observation and experiment. It may be said (just as any thing ^Ise may be said) that the visible uni- verse is eternal, and that it has the power of originating life ; but both statements are surely opposed to the results TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 175 of observation and experiment. E'ow, we must be con- tent in such matters as these to be guided by probabilities, and it certainly appears most probable that the visible uni- verse is not eternal, and that it has not the power of origi- nating life. In fine, life as well as matter comes to us from the Unseen Universe. 236. Let us here again pause for a moment and review the position we have reached. By taking the universe as we find it, and regarding each occurrence in it, without exception, as something upon which it was meant that we should exercise our intellects, we are led at once to the principle of Continuity, which asserts that we shall never be carried from the conditioned to the unconditioned, but only from one order of the fully conditioned to another. Two great laws or principles come before us : the one of which is the Conservation of Energy ; that is to say, con- servation of the objective element of the universe ; while the other is the law of Biogenesis, in virtue of which the appearance of a living Being in the universe denotes the existence of an antecedent possessing life. We are led from these two great principles to regard, as at least the most probable solution, that there is an intelligent Agent operating in the universe, whose function it is to develop energy ; and also that there is a similar Agent whose function it is to develop life. Perhaps we ought rather to say that, if we are not driven to this- very conclusion, it appears at le'ast to be the one which most simply and natu- rally satisfies the principle of Continuity. But this conclusion hardly differs from the Christian doctrine ; or, to speak properly, the conclusion, as far as it goes, appears to agree with the Christian doctrine. In fine, we are led to regard it as one of the great merits of the Christian system, that its doctrine is pre- eminently one of intellectual liberty, and that while theo- logians on the one hand, and men of science on the other, 176 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. have each erected their barriers to inquiry, the early Chris- tian records acknowledge no such barrier, but, on the con- trary, assert tlie most perfect freedom for all the powers of man. 237. We have now reached a stage from which we can very easily dispose of any scientific difficulty regarding miracles. For, if the invisible was able to produce the present visible universe with all its energy, it could, of course, a fortiori^ very easily produce such transmutations of energy from the one universe into the other as would account for the events which took place in Judea. Those events are, therefore, no longer to be regarded as absolute breaks of continuity, a thing which we have agreed to con- sider impossible, but only as the result of a peculiar action of the invisible upon the visible universe. When we dig up an ant-hill, we perform an operation which, to the in- habitants of the hill, is mysteriously perplexing, far tran- scending their experience ; but we know very well that the whole affair happens without any breach of continuity of the laws of the universe. In like manner the scientific difficulty with regard to miracles will, we think, entirely disappear, if our view of the invisible universe be ac- cepted, or, indeed, if any view be accepted that implies the presence in it of living beings much more powerful than ourselves. 238. We have as yet only replied to the scientific ob- jection, but there are other objections which might be raised. Thus, for instance, it -might be said. What occa- sion was there for the interference implied in miracles? And again. Is the historical testimony in favor of their oc- currence conclusive ? We must leave the last objection to be replied to by the historian ; but, with respect to the former, it appears to us as almost self-evident that Christ, if he came to us from the invisible world, could hardly (with. reverence be it spoken) have done so without some TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 1Y7 peculiar sort of communication being established between the two worlds. No doubt we may well imagine that the acts of interference in virtue of this communication were strictly limited ; and, in proof of this conclusion, we may cite the fact that what did occur was sufficiently startling to have secured the ear of humanity ever since, but not sufficiently overwhelming to preclude the exercise of in- dividual faith. The very fact of there being sincere skep- tics proves, we think, the limited extent of these inter- ferences.^ 239. We have now considered miracles, or those ap- parent breaks of continuity which have been furnished by history, but our readers are already well aware that equally formidable breaks are brought before us by science. There is, to begin with, that formidable phenomenon, the pro- duction in time of the visible universe. Secondly, there is that break, hardly less formidable, namely, the original production of life ; and there is, thirdly, that break recog- nized by Wallace and his school of natural history, which seems to have occurred at the first production of man. Greatly as we are indebted to Darwin, Huxley, and those who have prominently advocated the possibility of the present system of things having been developed by forces and operations such as we see before us, it must be regarded by us, and we think it is regarded by them, as a defect in their system, that these breaks remain unaccounted for. Our readers will now, however, if we mistake not, per- ceive what is the real source of the perplexity felt by the school of evolutionists. It is that they have been unable to regard an interference of the invisible universe in any other light than an absolute break of continuity; and, holding with justice to the principle of Continuity, they have been unable to do more than acknowledge these dif- ficulties and allow them to remain. * See sermon preached at Belfast by Dr. Reichel, August 23, 18'74. 178 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE, But from our point of view these difficulties are by no means impenetrable barriers, barring forever the progress of research. On the contrary, we assert that, if approached with sufficient boldness, and examined with sufficient care, they will be found to contain avenues leading up to the in- visible universe, and directing our inquiries thitherward. There may be possibly other apparent breaks or barriers, but these appear to be the best established ; and, with these exceptions, we may suppose that the visible universe, in so far as we are capable of investigating it, has been left to develop itself in accordance with those forces and opera- tions which we see before us at the present day. In fine, the visible universe was plainly intended to be something which we are capable of investigating, and the few apparent breaks are in reality so many partially con- cealed avenues leading up to the unseen. 2-tO. Our readers must not, however, infer from what we have now said, that we do not recognize any present points of contact between us and the invisible. There may possibly be (but even of this we are not quite sure) no points of apparent interference between the two, so that the man of science cannot say, " Here is a break ; " but nevertheless there may be a dose and vital union between the two universes, in those regions into which investiga- tion cannot penetrate. There may be an action of the in- visible world upon the individual mind, and there is no reason why there should not also be an action upon the visible universe, by means of those processes of delicacy which, as we have already seen, obtain in that quarter (Art. 184). Neither the one action nor the other would be de- tected by science, unless we except certain providential oc- currences, which are generally, however, better recognized by the individuals to whom they refer than by the world at large. And just as reversibility (Art. 113) is the stamp of perfection in the inanimate engine, so a similar reversi- TEE UNSEEN- UNIVERSE. 179 bility may be the stamp of perfection in the living man. He ought to live for the nnseen — to carry into it some- thing which may not be wholly unacceptable. But, in order to enable him to do this, the unseen must also work upon him, and its influences must pervade his spiritual na- ture. Thus a WiQfor the unseen through the unseen is to be regarded as the only perfect life. 241. In fine, the unseen may have a very wide field of influence, but it is not discernible, or at least easily dis- cernible, by the eye of sense, and we are therefore led to consult the Christian records regarding the reality of a present influence exercised by the invisible universe upon ours. In the first place, we have the following words of Christ himself (Matt. xiii. 41) : " The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom aU things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Again (Matt. XXV. 31) : " When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory : and before him shall be gathered all nations ; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." Again (Matt. xxvi. 53), speaking to Peter : " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels ? " Further- more, we read (Heb. i. 14) : " Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " These passages (and many more might be quoted) would appear to show that, according to the Scriptures, the angels 4;ake a very prominent part in the administra- tion of the universe under the direction of the Son of God^ 180 TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE, They are his ministers, his messengers, who execute his decrees and perform his errands, whether of mercy or of justice. Therefore it is said of Christ, " Thou art the King of angels;" and of himself in his glorilied state, speaking to his disciples, Christ says (Matt, xxviii. 18): " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you ; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Let us close these quotations by one from the Old Testament (2 Kings vi. 15-1 T) : " And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host encompassed the city both with horses and chariots ; and his servant said unto him, Alas, my master ! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said. Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man : and he saw : and, behold, tlie mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.^' Finally, it is the belief of a large portion of the Chiis- tian Church that the Spirit of God dwells in and acts upon the souls of believers. This action represents the influence which reaches the soul of man from the unseen, enabling him to live for the unseen. 242. We have in our opening chapter quoted a very remarkable passage from Swedenborg upon the particular nature of God's providence. Let us now hear what the Scriptures say upon the same subject. Christ tells us (Luke xii. 6) : " Are not five sparrows sold for two far- things, and not one of them is forgotten before God ? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore : ye are of more value than many sparrows." TEE UI^SEEN UNIVERSE. 181 Again St. Paul tells us (Eom. viii. 28) : " And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." Also (Rom. viii. 38) : " For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 243. We think it may be concluded, from all these passages, that the doctrine of a particular providence is taught in the Scriptures. ITevertheless, it is one of the hardest things to understand how this doctrine can be made consistent with the working out of general laws which, so far as we can study them, appear to have no reference whatever to individuals. This was a difficulty intensely felt by the late John Stuart Mill. He says, in a work published after his death : " For how stands the fact? That, next to the greatness of these cosmic forces, the quality which most forcibly strikes every one who does not avert his eyes from it is their perfect and absolute reckless- ness. They go straight to their end without regarding what or whom they crush on the road. Optimists, in their attempts to prove that ' whatever is, is right,' are obliged to maintain, not that Nature ever turns one step from her path to avoid trampling us into destruction, but that it would be very unreasonable in us to expect that she should. Pope's 'Shall gravitation cease when you go by ? ' may be a just rebuke to any one who should be so silly as to expect common human morality from Nature. But if the question were between two men, instead of between a man and a natural phenomenon, that tri- umphant apostrophe would be thought a rare piece of impudence. A man who should persist in hurling stones or firing cannon when another man 'goes by,' and, having killed him, should iirge a simi- lar plea in exculpation, would very dese'rvedly be found guilty of murder. In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another are Nature's every-day per- formances." 182 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. This objection to belief in the reality of the govern- ment of God has been clothed in very eloquent language in a sermon by the Rev. James Martineau ; " The battle of existence" (he tells us, putting himself for the moment into the position of Mill and his school) " rages through all time and in every field ; and its rule is to give no quarter — to dispatch the maimed, to overtake the halt, to trip up the blind, and drive the fugitive host over the precipice into the sea." In very beautiful language the poet Tennyson, after proposing the same riddle, replies to it thus : " Are God and Nature then at strife That Nature lends such evil dreams ? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life ; ' So careful of the type ? ' but no, From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, a thousand types are gone: I care for nothing : all shall go. O life as futile, then, as frail 1 O for thy voice to soothe and bless ! What hope of answer or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil." In another passage of equal beauty the same poet ex- presses his conviction — " That nothing walks with aimless feet : That not one life shall be destroyed Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. That not a worm is cloven in vain ; That not a moth with vain desire Is shriveled in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another's gain." . TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 183 Prof. Jevons, again, in liis " Principles of Science," (vol. ii., p. 468) alludes in the following terms to this diffi- ctilty : " The hypothesis, that there is a Creator, at once all-powerful and all-benevolent, is surrounded, as it must seem to every candid investigator, with difficulties verging closely upon logical contradiction. The existence of the smallest amount of pain and evil would seem to show that He is either not perfectly benevolent, or not all-powerful. JSTo one can have lived long without experiencing sorrow- ful events of which the significance is inexplicable. But if we cannot succeed in avoiding contradiction in our no- tions of elementary geometry, can we expect that the ulti- mate purposes of existence shall present themselves to us with perfect clearness ? I can see nothing to forbid the notion that in a higher state of intelligence much that is now obscure may become clear. We perpetually find our- selves in the position of finite minds attempting infinite problems, and can we be sure that where we see contradic- tion an infinite intelligence might not discover perfect logical harmony ? " 244. While on this subject, there is one consideration which ought not to be forgotten. It is evident that the development of the visible universe is of such a nature that we can understand it, and to a great extent explain it by means of laws and processes with which we are familiar ; nay, the order of the universe is something which it be- comes our very duty to investigate. But the results of our inquiries are, and can only be, the appreciation of general laws of action. The working out of these laws can have, from this point of view, no possible reference to individual interests. If gravity acted sometimes, and at other times refrained from acting, we could derive no certain informa- tion from our expei'ience ; we could not advance in art or science, and should, in fine, be plunged into speedy con- fusion. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that the occur- 184 TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. rences wliicli take place through the action of gravity may, after all, be so arranged as to have reference to the real welfare of individuals, although this reference is not ap- parent, because we are not in a position to recognize it, and it is not intended that we should do so, at least in this life. The ability to do so would be a very dangerous gift, and would go far to upset the present economy. We know very little about the bearings of events on our own best in- terests, and nothing at all about their bearings on those of our neighbor. We may, however, believe with Jevons, that in a future state the adaptation between the two may become apparent to us, even if we do not ourselves become instruments in bringing this adaptation about. 245. The outcome of all these speculations would thus lead us to regard the Christian system as affording a full scope for development in all respects, whether of the uni- verse or the individual. Its law is preeminently that of liberty, and the doctrine of the Trinity, or something anal- ogous to it, forms, as it were, the avenue through which the universe itself leads us up to the conception of the infinite and eternal One. JSTevertheless, not a few of our readers may be disin- clined to entertain any precise conception of the divine nature. Neither atheists nor theists, they simply dismiss the Deity as being quite above their comprehension, and all doctrines founded upon certain conceptions of the Deity, as superstructures without foundation. IS^ow, the results regarding immortality at which we have arrived are, we think, capable of being very nearly, if not altogether, detached from all conceptions regarding the Divine essence. We have merely to take the universe as it is, and, adopting the principle of Continuity, insist upon an endless chain of events, all fully conditioned, however far we go either backward or forward. This leads us at once to the THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 185 conception of an invisible universe, and to see tliat immor- tality is possible without a break of continuity. We have, however, no pliysical proof in favor of it, unless we allow that Christ rose from the dead. But it will be admitted that, if Christ rose from the dead, immor- tality becomes more than possible ; it becomes probable ; and we do not see that this conclusion is greatly modified by differences in our mode of regarding the exact nature of Christ. Again, the production of the visible universe in time leads us, by the principle of Continuity, to the conception of a fully-conditioned intelligent universe, existing prior to the production of the visible. And furthermore, we are induced by our argument (Art. 214) to regard the pro- duction of the visible universe as brought to pass by an in- telligent agency resident in the invisible. If, then, such an agency could produce the visible universe, it could cer- tainly accomplish the resurrection of Christ, without any break of continuity, as far as the whole universe is con- cerned. 246. The joys of the Christian heaven are celebrated in hymns which are frequently very beautiful, even if they do not mount to the sublimity of the ancient Hebrew ode. One of the finest of these is the free translation by Pope of the Latin (not originally Christian) ode standing at the commencement of this volume. It runs thus : "Vital spark of heavenly flame ! Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame ! Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying ; Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying ! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life ! " Hark ! they whisper — angels say, agister spirit, come away! * 186 TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. "What is this absorbs me quite ; Steals my senses, shuts my sight ; Drowns my spirits, draws ray breath? Tell me, my soul, can this be — death ? *' The world recedes! it disappears I Heaven opens to my eyes — my ears With sounds seraphic ring : Lend, lend your wings-! I mount ! I fly I O Grave 1 where is thy victory ? O Death! where is thy sting? " Again, there are some beautiful hymns on the same subject by James Montgomery, of which the following is a specimen : " Friend after friend departs ; "Who hath not lost a friend ? There is no union here of hearts, That finds not here an end : Were this frail world our only rest, Living or dying, none were blest. " Beyond the flight of time, Beyond the vale of death. There surely is some blessed clime, Where life is not a breath, Nor life's affections transient fire. Whose sparks fly upward and expire. " There is a world above, Where parting is unknown ; A whole eternity of love, Formed for the good alone ; And faith beholds the dying here Translated to that happier sphere." Lastly, we give our readers two verses from a hymn by a more recent \mter (Sir Henry Baker) : " There is a blessed home Beyond this land of woe, Where trials never come, Nor tears of sorrow flow ; THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 187 Where faith is lost in sight, And patient hope is crowned, And everlasting life Its glory throws around. " There is a land of peace. Good angels know it well ; Glad songs that never cease Within its portals swell ; Around its glorious throne Ten thousand saints adore Christ, with the Father one. And Spirit, evermore." Many sucli specimens might be given if our object were to collect together the Christian hymns relating to heaven. Sometimes, too, we have beautiful descriptions not in verse, and Bunyan's account of the reception of Christian and Hopeful at the Celestial City will at once occur to the reader as not inferior in the claims of true poetry to any thing that we have given. 247. Kow, if we analyze these hymns of joy, there are in them two prominent chords, one or other of which is always struck. The first expresses the Christian's sense of relief from sorrow and death, and the second his joy in the anticipated presence of Christ — ^his intense desire to behold the King in his beauty. Both of these are struck together by St. John, when he says (Kev. xxi. 3, 4) : " And I heard a great voice out of heav- en, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed away." In other respects the descriptions of the Christian heaven are no doubt figurative. They are in- 188 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. tended for Christians of all ages of the world, and have hardly any reference to the material conditions of life in a future state. These could not be apprehended by believ- ers eighteen hundred years ago, inasmuch as we can hardly be said to grasp them now. I^evertlieless, there is one direction in which we do ihinh we are able to obtain a glimpse into the conditions of this future life. 248. One of the most prominent characteristics of the human mind is its insatiable curiosity. How intensely anxious we all are to realize the conditions of the life of our forefathers in the ruder and earlier times ; how inter- ested in every scrap of intelligence which reaches us from the old dead world ! How interested too in any light thrown upon the civilization which preceded these old times ! What would not any man give for half an hour with Socrates or Plato; what would he not give, be he Christian or unbeliever, to have pictured out vividly and truly before him some episode in the Kfe of Christ ? In a tedious, toilsome, roundabout way we do indeed get some passing glimpses into these ancient historical ages. The earth is not unlike the human brain, in that it con- tains in itself certain memories of the past, and just as we rummage out and hunt up in our brains old memories, so do the historian and the antiquary search about in the earth for that memory which it retains of those distant but glorious ages. But the universe, no less than the indi- vidual, has another memory besides the material one, and we have endeavored (Art. 196) to convince our readers that nothing is really lost, the past being always present in the universe. If this be the case, it may readily be con- ceived that this universal memory may by some process of exaltation and intensification, or, as it were, by some relay battery of the universe, be occasionally quickened into such a life that the individual in the future and glorified state may be enabled (through the power of the Lord) to realize THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 189 / scenes that happened in the far-distant past. For, if so much can be accomplished with a thing so little plastic as the material memory of the earth, what may be done with that infinitely more plastic form of existence which we term the world to come ? 249. Again, if in this present world we have great diffi- culty in realizing our own past, we have even greater diffi- culty in realizing what is at this very moment taking place in remote parts of the present visible universe. Astrono- mers and physicists agree that life is possible in the planet Mars, and it is quite likely that intelligent beings analogous to ourselves exist at the present moment on the surface of that planet, but we shall never in this life know for certain any thing about them. There is an insurmountable barrier to physical inquiry as great as if Mars belonged to the unseen universe, instead of being, what he is in reality, our next-door neighbor in the present. JSTow, may not this barrier be removed in the future state ? This has been a favorite topic with scientific the- ologians, and we believe that all who have speculated on the conditions of a future life have unanimously agreed that we shall have much greater freedom of motion in the woi'ld to come. In fine, our relations to time and space w^U then be greatly altered and enlarged. Men shall run to and fro in the universe, and knowledge shall be in- creased. 250. But yet the picture is not altogether one of intel- lectual brightness and beauty. It wears also a moral aspect, and upon this almost exclusively the Christian records dwell. We are told in these records that nothing is forgotten. Christ tells us (St. Luke viii. lY) : " Nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest ; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad." And again, St. John tells us (Rev. xx. 12) : " I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God : and the books were opened ; and another 190 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. book was opened, wMch is the book of life : and the dead were judged out- of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." This thought has been developed by the Rev. Alexander Macleod, D. D., in a work entitled " The Book of Judgment." This author points out that in many cases it may not be even necessary to appeal to the universe for the record that is therein written, for this is sufficiently stamped upon the body itself, and he then draws a vivid and lurid picture of the sensual man in whom the mortal body is like a parchment written within and without — a truly mournful and terrible record of the deeds done in the body. But if all this is possible with an organism possessing so little plasticity as the natural body, and where the wish of the individual is to preserve a respectable exterior, what must be the case in the spiiitual body ^ of such a man ? — " If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry ? " "What a hideous and horrible likeness must not that foul thing have that issues forth from the " grave and gate of death " into the presence of the Unseen and Eternal ? 251. It is extremely striking to read in this connection the following extract from Plato's " Gorgias." "We quote from Jowett's translation. Socrates is the speaker : "This is a tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, and from which I draw the following inferences : Death, if I am right, is, in the first place, the separation from one another of two things, soul and body — this, and nothing else. And after they are separated they retain their several characteristics, which are much the same as in ^ [Those who believe that the New Testament asserts the annihilation of tlie wicked in Gehenna, of course hold that only the just obtain the spiritual body. But we have no definite term for the body as it shall be (in the Hades of the New Testament) between death and the resurrection. It is probable that the want of such a term is due to the fact that the authors of our recog- nized version have unfortunately rendered both Hades and Gehenna indiffer- ently by the word hell, itself a term from Scandinavian mythology.] TEE UNSEEN UNIVa life : the body has the same nature and waj discernible : for example, he who by nature^ a tall man while he was alive, will remain as and the fat man will remain fat; and so on: and tEeTlyad' lilSin^who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And- if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in him while he was alive, you might see the same in the dead body ; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen while he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead. And, in a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would be distinguishable after death, either perfectly or in a great measure and for a time. And I should infer that this is equally true of the soul, Callicles ; when the man is stripped of the body all the natural or acquired aftections of the soul are laid open to view. And when they come to the judge, as those from Asia come to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose the soul is ; perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of some other king or potentate, who has no sound- ness in him, but his soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of perjuries, and of wrongs which have been plas- tered into him by each action, and he is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, because he has lived without truth. Him Rhada- manthus beholds, full of all deformity and disproportion, which is caused by license and luxury, and insolence and incontinence, and dispatches him ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which he deserves." 252. As, in Eastern monarcliies, a veil was sometimes cast over the face of the guilty ; ^ so in the New Testament the veil of darkness is drawn over the fate of the lost soul who falls into the hands of the living God. " And when the king came in to see the guests, he* saw there a man which had not on a wedding-garment ; and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding-garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants. Bind him hand and foot, and ^ As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Hainan's face." —(Esther vii. 8.) 192 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." ^ 253. But this gi-aphic and powerful picture of the fate of the lost given us in the ]^ew Testament fared as badly as other conceptions when it fell into the hands of the materialists of the middle ages. Its true meaning was entirely obliterated, and the Christian hell, instead of be- ing the Gehenna of the universe, the place where all its garbage and filth is consumed, was changed into a region shut in by adamantine walls and full of impossible physi- cal fires — the devil being the chief stoker. The one idea is awful, while the other is simply gro- tesque. An ancient Jew who had occasion to pass by the valley of Hinnom, and whose senses were invaded by the sights and smells of that doleful region, must have enter- tained a conception of the hell described by Christ as dif- ferent as possible from that which has reached us from the middle ages, and to which some even of the readers of this book may have been accustomed in their earlier years. To some extent no doubt Christ's description of the universal Gehenna must be regarded as figurative, but yet we do not think that the sayings of Christ with regard to the unseen world ought to be looked upon as nothing more than pure figures of speech. We feel assured that the prin- ciple of Continuity cries out against such an interpretation — may they not rather be descriptions of what takes place in the unseen universe brought home to our minds by means of perfectly true comparisons with the processes * St. Matthew xxii. 11-13. \_See, however, also Luke xiii. 28, where the true meaning obviously is ^^ while ye are being cast out^ There are other obvious mistranslations in our version ; such as, for instance, that of Mark ix. 43, where for "the fire that cannot be put out" we have "the fire that never shall be quenched." It is to be hoped that the revised version will be such as to give readers ignorant of Greek a thoroughly correct idea of the meaning of the original, most especially on points of such awful importance as this.] THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE, 193 and things of this present universe which they most re- semble 1 254. Thus the Christian- Gehenna bears to the Unseen Universe precisely the same relation as the Gehenna of the Jews did to the city of Jerusalem ; and just as the fire was always kept up and the worm ever active in the one, so are we forced to contemplate an enduring process in the other. For we cannot easily agree with those who would limit the existence of evil to the present world. We know now that the matter of the whole of the visible universe is of a piece with that which we recognize here, and the beings of other worlds must be subject to accidental occur- rences from their relation with the outer universe in the same way as we are. But if there be accident, must there not be pain and death ? Now, these are naturally associ- ated in our minds with the presence of moral evil. We are thus drawn, if not absolutely forced, to surmise that the dark thread known as evil is one which is very deeply woven into that garment of God which is called the universe. In fine, just as the arguments of this chapter lead us to regard the whole universe ^ as eternal, so in like manner are we led to regard evil as eternal, and therefore we can- not easily imagine the universe without its Gehenna, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. The process at all events would seem to be most probably an enduring one. [Many passages of the I^ew Testament, however, seem to point to a continuity of moral develop- ment in the unseen universe, a development whose climax is to be reached when the last enemy, death, is. destroyed in Gehenna.] ^ Including in it a state of things like the present physical universe ; not, however, the very things that now exist, these being evanescent in energy at least, if not also in material. 9 194 THE UXSJSEI^ [TNIV.EESE, 255. But it is fruitless to expect that Science should throw any light upon that greatest of all mysteries — the origin of evil. We have now .come to a region where we must suffer ourselves to be led solely by the light which is given us in the Christian records. And while on this subject we would quote from a very remarkable work on the Lord's Prayer ^ .by the Kev. Charles Parsons Reichel, B. D., which exhibits in a singularly clear light the testi- mony given by Scripture, as well as the fruitlessness of all attempts to obtain information from any other quarter. Our first extract relates to the personality of " The Evil One:" " In refatation " (says the writer) " of the objections that have been urged against the personal existence of the Adversary, this one observation is quite enough : that of the world of spirits we can- not possibly know any thing save by direct revelation. It is be- yond the domain of the senses ; it is beyond the cognizance of reason. A man born blind might therefore as rationally attempt to disprove by a process of reasoning the existence of a sense of which he can know nothing except by testimony, as we attempt by a process of reasoning to disprove the existence of a spirit of whose existence we can know nothing save by testimony. The only point to be ascer- tained in either case is whether the testimony bo sufficient. If the testimony of Scripture be deemed sufficient, then I cannot see that it is possible to deny the personal existence of Satan any more than that of God. How Satan exists, or where at the present time, or how his power avails, as we are told it does, to contrive and suggest temptations to the mind of man ; and to what extent he is aware of what is passing in men's minds, so as to adapt his suggestions to their weakness, we are not told, and do not therefore know. But our not being told the manner in which his power is exercised and brought to bear, is no proof of the unreality of that fearful being who is everywhere in the New Testament exhibited as the adversary of God and goodness, whether in the individual, or in the development of the human race. The next passage is one which all of us may study with much advantage. It refers to temptation : * Cambridge, MacmlUan, 1855. THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 195 "Every risk incurred unnecessarily for the sake of exhibiting our trust in God, every unusual or unnecessary act done merely or chiefly for the purpose of displaying our privileges or our conviction, or of attracting attention and admiration, every stepping out of the plain, unadorned, and unadmired path of simple duty is a phase of it. " Why God should permit any of his creatures to be tempted is a question we can no more answer than we can that question of which indeed it is but a case, why God should permit evil to exist at all. But we know that evil does exist ; and we know too that temptation does exist. That evil was first introduced into the world by a being who goes under the name of Satan or the Adversary (2 Cor. xi. 3) we are told : that this being endeavored first to seduce, and after- ward to menace our Saviour into evil ; and that he is constantly en- gaged in tempting us as he tempted Christ, we are also told. " And the true rendering of the last clause in Christ's own prayer would seem to intimate that the same being is also busy in suggest- ing temptations to every follower of Christ — ' Lead us not into temp- tation, but deliver us from the Evil One.' " 256. But we must now draw to a close ; first of all, however, let us briefly sum up tlie results of our discus- sion. The great scientific principle wliich we have made use of has been the Law of Continuity. This simply means that the whole universe is of a piece ; that it is something which an intelligent being is capable of understanding, not completely nor all at once, but better and better the more he studies it. In fine, in this great whole which we call the Universe there is no impenetrable barrier to the intellectual devel- opment of the individual. Death is not such a barrier, whether we contemplate it in others, or whether we expe- rience it ourselves. And the same continuity which has been insisted on with reference to our intellectual concep- tions of the universe applies, we have little doubt, to the other faculties of man, and to other regions of thought. 196 THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. If then we regard the universe from this point of view, we are led to a scientific conception of it which is, we have seen, strikingly analogous to that system with which we are presented in the Christian religion. For not only are the nebulous beginning and fiery termination of the present visible universe indicated in the Christian records, but a constitution and power are assigned to the Unseen Universe strikingly analogous to those at which we may arrive by a legitimate scientific process. 257. Our readers are now in a position to perceive the result of questioning science in this manner, and of aban- doning ourselves without mistrust or hesitation to the guidance of legitimate principles. It is that science so developed, instead of appearing antagonistic to the claims of Christianity, is in reality its most efficient supporter ; and the burden of showing how the early Christians got hold of a constitution of the unseen universe, similar to that which science proclaims, is transferred to the shoulders of the opponents of Christianity. 258. For the present we would only add that the prin- ciple of the aid of which we have availed ourselves is not a mere theological weapon, but will, we believe, ultimately prove a most powerful scientific auxiliary. Already we have used it in our endeavor to modify the most probable hypothesis that has been formed concerning the ultimate constitution of matter. The truth is, that science and religion neither are nor can be two fields of knowledge with no possible commu- nication between them. Such an hypothesis is simply absurd. There is undoubtedly an avenue leading from the one to the other, but this avenue is through the unseen uni- verse, and unfortunately it has been walled up and ticketed with " JS'o road this way^'^ professedly alike in the name TEE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 197 of science at the one end, and in tlie name of religion at tlie other. We are in hopes that when this region of thought comes to be further examined it may lead to some cbm- mon fifround on which followers of science on the one hand, and of revealed religion on the other, may meet together and recognize each other's claims without any sacrifice of the spirit of independence, or any diminution of self-respect. Entertaining these views we shall wel- come with sincere pleasure any remarks or criticism on these speculations of ours, whether by the leaders of scien- tific thought or by those of religious inquiry. It must never be forgotten that, whether we take the scientific or the religious point of view, one great object of our life in the visible universe is obviously to learns and that (as human beings are constituted) advance in learning necessarily implies a high purpose kept steadily before us, and a continuous and arduous pursuit. For, as we are told in the First Epistle of John, " This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith." Tf viKcJvTi 66go) avr^ ^ayelv Ik tov ^v'kov T9}g ^uijg . . . THE END. -/ 6Vn \rv 1 T7^ ^ LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE T^ ALL BOOKS NiAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 6"^nnlll °°"' ^°^ ^ ^^"^^^<^ by colling 642-3405 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW ;jmr&4499l FO.M .O. .0. «,., ,yZ"^S?^^-S^--,BERKELEV ®$ YB 29728 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES CD311ETTfil