LITMIR.BIZ

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is not the case. The Law is

      ONE throughout, and the apparent variety of its working results from the

      infinite variety of the conditions under which it may work. Let us lay a

      foundation, then, by seeing how it works in what we call the common

      course of Nature. A few examples will suffice.

      Hardly more than a generation ago it was supposed that the analysis of

      matter could not be carried further than its reduction to some seventy

      primary chemical elements, which in various combinations produced all

      material substances; but there was no explanation how all these

      different elements came into existence. Each appeared to be an original

      creation, and there was no accounting for them. But now-a-days, as the

      rustic physician says in Molière's play of the "Médecin Malgré Lui,"

      "nous avons changé tout cela." Modern science has shown conclusively

      that every kind of chemical atom is composed of particles of one

      original substance which appears to pervade all space, and to which the

      name of Ether has been given. Some of these particles carry a positive

      charge of electricity and some a negative, and the chemical atom is

      formed by the grouping of a certain number of negatively charged

      particles round a centre composed of positive electricity around which

      they revolve; and it is the number of these particles and the rate of

      their motion that determines the nature of the atom, whether, for

      instance, it will be an atom of iron or an atom of hydrogen, and thus we

      are brought back to Plato's old aphorism that the Universe consists of

      Number and Motion.

      The size of these etheric particles is small beyond anything but

      abstract mathematical conception. Sir Oliver Lodge is reported to have

      made the following comparison in a lecture delivered at Birmingham. "The

      chemical atom," he said, "is as small in comparison to a drop of water

      as a cricket-ball is compared to the globe of the earth; and yet this

      atom is as large in comparison to one of its constituent particles as

      Birmingham town-hall is to a pin's head." Again, it has been said that

      in proportion to the size of the particles the distance at which they

      revolve round the centre of the atom is as great as the distance from

      the earth to the sun. I must leave the realization of such infinite

      minuteness to the reader's imagination--it is beyond mine.

      Modern science thus shows us all material substance, whether that of

      inanimate matter or that of our own bodies, as proceeding out of one

      primary etheric substance occupying all space and homogeneous, that is

      being of a uniform substance--and having no qualities to distinguish one

      part from another. Now this conclusion of science is important because

      it is precisely the fact that out of this homogeneous substance

      particles are produced which differ from the original substance in that

      they possess positive and negative energy and of these particles the

      atom is built up. So then comes the question: What started this

      differentiation?

      The electronic theory which I have just mentioned takes us as far as a

      universal homogeneous ether as the source from which all matter is

      evolved, but it does not account for how motion originated in it; but

      perhaps another closely allied scientific theory will help us. Let us,

      then, turn to the question of Vibrations or Waves in Ether. In

      scientific language the length of a wave is the distance from the crest

      of one wave to that of the wave immediately following it. Now modern

      science recognizes a long series of waves in ether, commencing with the

      smallest yet known measuring 0.1 micron, or about 1/254,000 of an inch,

      in length, measured by Professor Schumann in 1893, and extending to

      waves of many miles in length used in wireless telegraphy--for instance

      those employed between Clifden in Galway and Glace Bay in Nova Scotia

      are estimated to have a length of nearly four miles. These

      infinitesimally small ultra-violet or actinic waves, as they are called,

      are the principal agents in photography, and the great waves of wireless

      telegraphy are able to carry a force across the Atlantic which can

      sensibly affect the apparatus on the other side; therefore we see that

      the ether of space affords a medium through which energy can be

      transmitted by means of vibrations.

      But what starts the vibrations? Hertz announced his discovery of the

      electro-magnetic waves, now known by his name, in 1888; but, following

      up the labours of various other investigators, Lodge, Marconi and others

      finally developed their practical application after Hertz's death which

      occurred in 1894. To Hertz, however, belongs the honour of discovering

      how to generate these waves by means of sudden, sharply defined,

      electrical discharges. The principle may be illustrated by dropping a

      stone in smooth water. The sudden impact sets up a series of ripples all

      round the centre of disturbance, and the electrical impulse acts

      similarly in the ether. Indeed the fact that the waves flow in all

      directions from the central impulse is one of the difficulties of

      wireless telegraphy, because the message may be picked up in any

      direction by a receiver tuned to the same rate of vibration, and the

      interest for us consists in the hypothesis that thought-waves act in an

      analogous manner.

      That vibrations are excited by sound is beautifully exemplified by the

      eidophone, an instrument invented, I believe, by Mrs. Watts-Hughes, and

      with which I have seen that lady experiment. Dry sand is scattered on a

      diaphragm on which the eidophone concentrates the vibrations from music

      played near it. The sand, as it were, dances in time to the music, and

      when the music stops is found to settle into definite forms, sometimes

      like a tree or a flower, or else some geometrical figure, but never a

      confused jumble. Perhaps in this we may find the origin of the legends

      regarding the creative power of Orpheus' lyre, and also the sacred

      dances

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