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CHAPTER XVII
THE ELECTRICAL THEORY OF CREATION WILL SAVE MODERN SCIENCE FROM PANTHEISM
It is marvelous the number of scientists who question the fact as to whether there is a personal God, and who look upon the universe and its laws and operations as the manifestation of a universal intelligence that has no existence except as it is infused as an invisible force through all nature. In other words, pantheism, or belief in a world-God, has been taking the place of the materialism of the past century. And a vast array of distinguished agnostics, so-called, from Darwin, Spinoza, Huxley and Haeckel to Ingersoll, were really believers in pantheism.
Haeckel says he adheres to the Monism of Spinoza which, he says, is "matter, or infinitely extended substance; and spirit or energy, which is sensitive and thinking substance. These are the two fundamental attributes or principal properties of the all-embracing, divine essence of the world—the universal substance." What is this but pantheism of the rankest old, obsolete, pagan kind? What is "the all-embracing divine essence of the world—the universal substance," but a substitute for God,—a God which is simply the substance of the world—a world-God. According to this, all the elements of the universe are parts of Deity. The crystalline rocks and metals of the earth, the dust we kick from our feet, the manure of the stable, and the odor of decaying vegetation are all a part of the body of God. And this, they claim, is the God of the universe, and the only God there is.
This is a fair analysis of pantheism, of Haeckelism, Darwin and Huxleyism, Ingersoll and agnosticism. What a shame on human reason! Yet these great thinkers, seeing the intelligibility of nature, its uniformity of laws and operations, without a knowledge of electricity were forced to this conclusion.
A recent pamphlet by F. E. Titus, a barrister of Toronto, entitled "The Pantheism of Modern Science," says: "A summary of recent investigations into life, force and substance and the opinions based by scientists thereon leads up to the conclusion that there is in nature a universal mind controlling and permeating nature's manifestations."
In this I agree, but it is the universal mind of Deity as manifested through the marvelous creative forces of electricity. But this writer sums up his facts and theories, and concludes that the pantheism of the universe is the only explanation of all the countless and complicated forces and organisms of life which are to be found everywhere. And he contends the modern tendency of science is back to the old discarded pagan belief of pantheism. Even Flammarion seems imbued with that idea, and Haeckel championed it in his monistic theories. But as a knowledge of electricity has killed materialism, so will it defeat and destroy pantheism. This lawyer-scientist thinks nothing can prevent science from falling into the arms of pantheism, and he champions it vigorously.
But for the discovery of electricity this would have been an age of scientific materialism and pantheism. But the marvelous powers of this invisible force appals the stolid thinkers on "solid matter." They have found there is no solid matter, and that all matter in its primary form, and all force is as invisible as spirit, and that the universe swings on invisible forces as intangible as mind and as potent and inscrutable as destiny.
The conflict in the future between religion and Atheism will be chiefly a belief in a God that cares, or a God that does not care; and in science between an electric universe controlled by spirit and a pantheistic universe that thinks and feels in all its parts, and is itself the God of all. This last is virtually the position of Darwin, Huxley and all the agnostics from them to Ingersoll, and embraces Haeckel's moneism in its definition.
Let us see from whence they get their facts on which they base their theories. They say: "The evolution going on in the inorganic world is an evolution of intelligent life." I say that what they call intelligence is the result of electric laws and affinity; that the selection of atoms and their repulsion and the building of matter into substance and form is the intelligent operation of these electric laws, which originated in the infinite intelligence and power of the Creator. They say: "The soil maintains life because it is living matter itself." And I agree with them, and say all matter is living matter because it is permeated with electric life and energy and governed by electric law.
They say: "Metals in fact are sensitive things, like living organisms." I say they are "sensitive" because they are easily electrified, and respond quickly to magnetic energy. They say, with Dr. Thomas Young, "There are all gradations of substance stretching all the way from the solid material to the spiritual, and gradations of consciousness from the inert mineral to the highest manifesting God." And I agree with them in a sense, for the consciousness in matter is electric energy, and in God and man it is spirit.
That these electric laws are intelligent, constant and wonderful we have abundant proof every day of our existence. Prof. Japp of the British Association says: "No fortuitous concourse of atoms, even with all eternity for them to clash and combine in, could compass the feat of the formation of the first optically organic compound." This is true, for only the infinite wisdom of creative law and electric energy could do it. It is not fortuitous or accidental; it is in accord with nature's perfect laws of electric combinations.
I am willing to admit that "inherent selective and directive force" is exhibited in organic and inorganic matter. And I explain it by the laws of electro-magnetism. Agnostic pantheism has no explanation. They say that nature shows some sense and intelligence; therefore nature, the world, this great globe, is God.
They quote from their great authority, Huxley, who said that "Life was present potentially in matter when in the nebulous form and was unfolded from it by the way of natural development." I am willing to admit it, and to go one step further, and say it was there before the nebulæ was formed in the electric currents of life and power, which are the first manifestations of creative force. The potentiality of all physical life was there in those electric currents, but not the spirit or soul-life of man. That came long after, when the animal organism had been evolved and perfected.
Yes, truly, in a natural sense, as Kingsley says: "Water hates the oil with which it refuses to mix; and lime loves the acid which it receives into itself, and like a lover grows warm with the rapture of its affection." This refusal of water and oil to mix is caused by electric repulsion, and lime and acid is a simple form of electric attraction. Then the pantheists dwell on what they call the "soul-life of plants," the intelligence of birds and beasts, and the regularity of seasons, years, and earth and sun revolutions, and all natural phenomena, which they say proves the world is God. All of which I have endeavored to explain by electrical law and processes; and they conclude all these things prove the pantheism of the universe.
Let us notice some of the wonderful workings and transmutations in nature on which the advocates of pantheism rely. Mr. Titus, as one of its champions, says: "There is a common bond of unity between the different kingdoms of nature—the mineral, vegetable and animal. That there is some primal atomic or common condition, some homogeneous substance in nature, some elemental essence from the aggregations and combinations of which all forms are built up." This is undoubtedly true, and proves that in the atoms and electric laws of nature there are ample means for the creation of infinite substances and countless organic beings. This does not prove pantheism. It only proves progressive, wise electric, natural laws and forces. This "elemental essence from which all forms are built" I have shown elsewhere to be the ocean of electro-magnetism permeating all space and all life forms.
He says: "The processes of digestion and assimilation in man furnish evidence" of these things. That "the vegetable kingdom has power to assimilate earth and mineral and change it into vegetable, and in turn is digested and assimilated by the animal, and converted into an entirely different kingdom of nature." This is true, and I have shown how this is purely an electric process.
The dream of the alchemist, of the transmutation of metals, is mere child's-play compared with the processes of nature occurring every day in the human body. These are all electric transmutations by means of respiration, by digestion and assimilation of food, whereby a great variety of substance is converted into blood and bone, tissue and muscle, and all the functions of life preserved. It is also a correct statement that "all forms of matter have as their basis one common element, denominated primordial matter, protoplasm and homogeneous substance, all intended to designate the first form of matter."
This is true, and we found the first form of matter to be the electric currents of space, and the second form of matter to be the atom or molecule, and afterwards came the primordial cell or protoplasm. We also found that there was and is a common reservoir of life which stands back of its myriad manifestations upon the physical plane; a great ocean of vitality, which each organized being absorbs and gives out as we inhale and exhale the air we breathe. And that reservoir of life is the vast ocean of electro-magnetism in which all things float and exist as in a sea of magnetic life-giving power.
The old hypothetical atom and stolid or solid matter was dead, according to the scientists of a few decades ago. But the electrician, dealing with a higher grade of matter, found that the old idea of matter as dead and inert was untrue, and would not accord with the facts. So that a new definition of an atom had to be formulated, defining it as an electric center of force and motion. And some physicists deem life to be co-eternal with matter. Which is not an unreasonable hypothesis as applied to physical life and substance.
Prof. Tyndall in 1872 said: "Life was present potentially in matter when in the nebulous form, and was unfolded from it by the way of natural development." In this I agree with Prof. Tyndall as to all life, except the spiritual or psychic life of man. And I have elsewhere tried to show how physical life came from the electric currents which formed the nebula, and which was afterwards woven into the earth by electric and atomic assimilation.
Ah! now we come to the gist of all this scientific trouble—pessimistic, agnostic and pantheistic. It is this: "Modern science is firmly rooted in the conviction that inherent powers and qualities gradually unfolded under the operation of natural laws, rather than in a supernatural, extra-cosmic volition introducing arbitrarily new forces." And modern science is partly right. She is right in her facts and her conclusions on this vital and basic point as to all physical creations and natural forces and powers. But I insist that the creation of the soul or psychic life and powers of man are an exception, and do not come within the domain of physical creations. They are on a higher plane and as much above the realm of material forms and substances as our sun is above the earth. They belong to the spiritual world, to the realms of Deity, to the kingdom of God and the hosts of heaven.
They are a part of the great natural forces of the universe. Theologians call them supernatural forces, but they are the natural creative and controlling forces that have sovereignty over all the vast and complicated forms of the visible, material universe.
Therefore on the physical facts of organic creation I agree generally with the scientists. And if they had been informed in some of the vital and intelligent processes of electrical creation, they would never have believed in pantheism, or been pessimistic sceptics or hopeless agnostics. And in my judgment the only thing that will redeem modern science from pantheism is the prevalent belief in and acceptance of the theory of electrical creation.
This will explain the harmony, intelligence, continuity and perfection of the physical universe, and relieve their minds of all grounds for scepticism.
There is "an intelligence or selective power" in matter. There is a great "Chemist-Physicist" superintending nature's operations, sorting out two parts of hydrogen and one of oxygen to compose the raindrop and the waters of the ocean. It is no "fortuitous concourse of atoms," which accomplishes these results and preserves the life of the world. It is the omniscient wisdom embraced in the laws and forces of electric energy, which is the right hand of Deity and the word of Creative power.
To show the possibility and ease with which many of the Bible miracles could have been performed by natural processes at the volition of Divine power, Dr. Albert G. Geyser of New York City, on May 14, 1903, according to the New York World, elucidated many of the miracles by the use of electricity and the X-ray. This he did before the members of the priesthood of the Holy Name Society of St. Anselm's Church, to whom he said he felt he would be able to demonstrate that the miracles were in no way inconsistent with science. After setting up his apparatus, he said:
"For centuries those who thought deeply on the matter have been puzzled with grave doubts as to the possibility of God being all-seeing and all-hearing. What did the telephone reveal thirty years ago? Did it not reveal forces in nature that would allow men to hear voices at great distances? And now, thanks to the great Roentgen invention of only nine years ago, we are able to see through a four-foot wall simply by means of this puny apparatus."
Then he set the great glass wheels of his battery in action and allowed his audience to look through pieces of thick timber, and other solid bodies. He showed how simple it was to produce a halo of electric fire about his head though he remained a distance of ten feet from the apparatus. As he raised the two negative and positive poles to his head the electricity passed through and out of the crown of his head in a circle of flame. Then he compelled his machine to shoot jagged flashes of lightning. Then, referring to the Bible account of the descent of the Holy Ghost in a pillar of fire, he called for volunteers, and Thomas MacKaye came forward onto the platform. He then placed two steel rods on each side of him, and started his apparatus, when tiny sparks began to jet off of Mr. MacKaye's clothing. Soon the sparks grew to curling flames, and the man's entire body became as a mass of writhing blue and white flame. Yet afterwards when he stepped from the platform not a thread of his clothing was singed. Rev. Father Ruppert, at the close, said: "Nothing I have ever seen has brought me to so fully understand God's miracles."
These pantheistic devotees are even trying to make waves of ether, air and water intelligible things, and seem to think they are in the nature of a circulating medium for this world-God, like blood is the circulating medium of man's body. Even so orthodox a scientist as Prof. Serviss, in the New York American of May 16th, 1903, goes into panegyrics over waves and wave motion as follows: "The undulatory theory of energy is carrying everything before it. It is not saying too much to aver that wave motion is concerned in nearly all the phenomena of physical life.... Think for a moment of what is included in the science of waves. In the air all sounds, all musical harmonies are waves; in the solid globe, all earthquakes are waves; in the ether light, electricity and heat are waves. It is waves that make the stars visible, and yet more mysterious oscillations picture for us on photographic plates marvelous nebulous objects. Lord Kelvin has been credited with the statement that the fluttering of a butterfly's wing sets up vibrations that shake the universe."
This is superficial science, for it explains nothing. Waves are simply a form of motion, and a form of motion creates nothing. Vibrations of what? Wave motions of what? Our learned friend does not inform us. Vibrations and wave motions are like heat sensations, they are not realities; the force that creates them is the reality, and they are but the mode or law of operation. The reality—the force creating these vibrations and wave motions—is electricity. Yet he does not mention this fact or any cause, but gives all the credit to the motion or manner of motion, and ignores the cause, which is the most important of all. Mr. Titus seems to think motion has consciousness, for he states that, "the consciousness which is wrapped up in motion" becomes more or less active in matter, and that God sleeps in the atom, and man is a potential deity.
These wonderful manifestations of electricity are used by these pantheists to bolster up their theory of these being manifestations of intelligence in nature. And so they are, but they should remember that nature is the art of God, not God himself and God's art is wise and perfect. We have a new definition of life given us which shows wonderful intelligence in the various parts of man's body. It is by Prof. Justus Gaule of Zurich. In the American Journal of Psychology, January, 1903. He says: "The whole organism resembles a chemical laboratory with as many apartments as there are organs or glands." As all chemical changes are electric changes, a chemical laboratory is the same as an electric laboratory. He continues: "The substances produced in each apartment are those needed in others either for their construction or for their work." According to him life consists partly in a continual process of interchange and reconstruction, at times sufficiently violent to tear muscles, mutilate nerves and cause stoppage of blood—a process that goes on "in the interior of the organism without external excitement." Herbert Spencer defines life as "the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations," but Gaule's definition of life lays stress on the vital interplay between the parts of the organism, which makes it a machine transforming external energy. He asserts that the living organism is more than a machine, because it does not create energy directly from combustible materials, but only after building up its own tissues.
He says a machine does work, but it does not create and repair itself like living organisms. He would therefore modify the prevailing definition of organic life, and make it not only a machine, but more than a machine, and emphasize the fact that life is as much an interaction between various parts of the organism as between the organism and the world of exterior matter. He says one organ of the body may lose in bulk, in order that others may increase. This he has studied experimentally in the frog, and finds that at one time the organs of sex grow at the expense of the muscles and liver, and at another time the reverse is true, and he insists that "life is a continuous process of reconstruction within the vital organism." This is an important addition to the definition of life and tends to support the electric theory, for every function of the body is adapted to generate the electric energy needed for itself and other parts of its organism.
It is true that solid metals, wood and stones are in a constant state of molecular motion. According to Sir Norman Lockyer, "the stones of which St. Paul's Cathedral is built consist of millions of millions of small particles called molecules, and although the structure seems absolutely at rest, as if it would last forever; yet, when you get down into the intimate structure of each stone and every part of the fabric, you get nothing but a multitudinous ocean of motion." Now, Mr. Titus says, "there is some inner hidden power which marshals and controls the innumerable host of molecules in all matter and keeps them whirling with tireless energy." This is true, and I fully agree with him. But he thinks it is the world-God in the atoms; and I think it is electric energy—working under the intelligent laws of the world-God, the sun-God and the God of the universe.
All these pantheistic scientists have never considered the wonderful powers and utilities of electric currents and electric energy which permeates all matter, from atoms to worlds. When they do so, they will see in electricity an intelligent and powerful causality which will satisfy their minds and lead them away from pantheism and its follies.
They are great believers in evolution, and so am I, and what they require in evolution is, "the inherent power of the evolving entity to respond to external influences." This being the requisite, they have all they ask in the magnetic currents and electric energy pervading all nature. It is a fact that the human body contains millions of microscopic organisms working under the dominion of one human life, and, in other words, man is in his body a vast colony of microbes or protozoans supposed to be endowed with consciousness and volition.
A battle in germland is described by Dr. Donald Ross in investigating the microbes of malaria. This was a fight between a malaria microbe, and three phagocytes which are said to protect the purity of the blood. He says: "While observing a malaria germ I saw a phagocyte make its way to the malaria germ with the intent of devouring it. Ordinarily this would be easy, but the germ, instead of allowing itself to be attacked, attacked the phagocyte in a battle royal that lasted over fifteen minutes. Finally the germ drew off, and hurried to where another phagocyte was wandering aimlessly.
"It hurled itself on the second phagocyte, pushing hard against it with its arms, while the phagocyte tried to rear up and get around and envelope the germ, but finally gave up and flattened itself against an air bubble, while the germ still kept on pummeling it. After fifteen minutes another phagocyte appeared coming rapidly across the field. The germ then left its fallen foe and attacked the newcomer. The third phagocyte got enough of it in about one minute and turned squarely around, fleeing across the whole field, the germ hanging on like a snake on a dog. After five minutes the germ let go and the phagocyte slunk away. The malaria germ had by this time reached the limits of its endurance in the rapidly weakening blood and finally attached itself to the glass of the slide and died."
Few people can believe that such scenes as these may take place in the life-giving blood currents of their own bodies. Yet, if we believe those who have studied the millions of microscopic life forms which live in our bodies, such scenes may occur there. According to biologists, billions of microbes are generated in our bodies too infinitesimal to be observed by a microscope. And they say their fermentation in countless numbers produces a poison which creates irritation, the decrepitude of age and finally death. They say visible microbes show intelligence.
Engleman seems to hold that such facts as these and those connected with molecular organisms, "point to the presence of some psychic powers in the protoplasm." But I do not think so. They only show the wonderful and diversified powers of electric energy under divine law to evolve myriads of microscopic life that acts under intelligent electric impulses, which in its matured form we call animal instinct.
Thus we have traced conscious life from the dust out of which man's body was formed up through all the intervening kingdoms of nature until we reach man himself, who is the only creature that possesses a spiritual nature, a psychic soul, and an immortal destiny.
From the grossest materialism man and human science is rising at last to the truth and conception of a spiritual world of so exalted an order, and so sublime a reality, that it has been said, "to connect the mind of man with the Spirit of God."
All nature affirms that there is a Supreme intelligence working through electric law within the manifest universe, which is its living electric organism. That all physical law and life are bound together in an all-embracing whole, whose myriad aspects serve to mark the path of evolution, and to spur each individual member on to progress and perfection. That through the whole realm of nature the one electric life pulsates and stirs the smallest atom and the mightiest star. But above all is the eternal power of Deity and the deathless spirit of man, blended in a stronger unity than that of nature, linked in a joyous and an eternal destiny, sovereigns of worlds, rulers of suns and masters of the universe.
Because of the perfect unity and harmony of the universe, the wisdom and regularity of all its movements and functions, and the apparent intelligence of its lower living organisms, the agnostics embrace monism and pantheism. But these are not good reasons. They are better explained by the electrical theory of creation than by any other hypothesis ever offered in human history. They show how and why this vast universe is a perfect, harmonious organism, in accordance with natural law. This has never been attempted before.
Nikola Tesla asserts most truly that "of all the views of nature, the one which assumes one matter and one force, and a perfect uniformity throughout, is the most scientific and the most liable to be true." Electrical creation seems to fully comply with these requirements. And Prof. Crookes affirms that, "the seventy elements of our text books are not the pillars of Hercules which we must never hope to pass." While Langley says there is only one force, and light and heat are merely sensations. And Sir Wm. Grove refers the causation of all forms of force to one omnipresent influence. And all agree there is only one matter, so they all seem to be approaching a universal belief in electrical creation. And every argument made for pantheism and monism is an argument made for a stronger and better theory—the electric theory of creation. And the champion of pantheism as well as the electric theory affirms: "Since we are all bound together in one common enterprise in which progress is hastened through the harmony of its parts, altruism becomes profound wisdom, selfishness a mark of ignorance, and the highest codes of ethics are the most scientific expression of nature's laws."
The superior power of this age consists in its superior ability to deal ingeniously and wisely with the tremendous forces concealed in matter, and held subject to nature's law.
A knowledge and application of these forces and laws have been the means of marvelous progress, untold blessings to humanity, and have lifted life from its narrow bounds to a joyous, ecstatic sense of the glory, beauty and divineness of this world. As the ancients saw this universe it was but a small flat island in a large ocean. The vast expanse above it of space and stars was a crystal vaulted roof, to keep the waters above from the waters below. When it rained they said "the windows of heaven were opened." This little, flat earth then rested on the shoulders of Atlas, or the back of four elephants, who stood on a huge tortoise. What a vastly different universe the people of modern times behold! This little, flat earth has expanded into a great globe, spinning through space fifty times faster than a bullet from a rifle; and the blue vault of heaven that to them was the end of the universe and a crystal wall to keep back the waters, has opened out, lifted up, and broadened to an infinity of space containing countless suns and worlds. Where their narrow view saw only wonders, miracles, and innumerable myth-gods of superstition, we see the orderly processes of nature proceeding under uniform laws, propelled by one fundamental force—invisible electricity, and formed from one matter or substance—the invisible atom. And this vast and complex universe is the unveiling of the eternal thought of one Almighty Deity, and the manifestations of His creative wisdom and power. Thus our earth becomes a divine revelation and man a spiritual wonder. Then there is a vast and mystic meaning in sea and land, in valley and mountain, in man and all living creatures; and the day uttereth speech and the night showeth knowledge. And all tell us God is in His heaven and in His earth, and in man and in all His wonderful works, and is ever present in spirit and electric power.
That He clothes the valleys with the verdure of prairie and forest, the hills and mountains with beauty and grandeur, and peoples the land and the sea with living creatures. He gives fragrance to the flowers, songs to the birds, gladness to the sunshine and life and joy to all living.
In His infinite goodness He gives man vastly larger life and loftier powers than all other earthly beings, so that they may not only wonder and adore; but become co-workers with the Infinite, and understand and execute His eternal purpose, and Omnipotent Will.
At last all thoughtful men are being brought face to face with that creative electric energy controlled by Omniscient Spirit, which is felt in the magnetic sunshine, seen in the falling rain, the dew-drops, the white-robed lily, the blushing rose, and the joy and gladness of life itself. But above all things else there is bestowed on humanity the spiritual power and loving benediction of the Great Spiritual Father, who spread out the heavens as a curtain, lifted up the mountains and started suns and worlds on the eternal pathway of their inscrutable destiny. We of this generation were born into a little narrow world only six thousand years old, soon to be destroyed by fervent heat; a world cursed by its maker, where the vast majority of its inhabitants were doomed to eternal punishment. Where human slavery was practiced and approved, where the divine right of kings, the degradation of the masses, wars, dueling, ox teams and slow coaches predominated.
