ample phraseology adopted: –for instance: – "Each atom tends to every other atom &c. with a force &c.: the general result being a tendency of all, with a similar force, to a general centre."
The reversal of our processes has thus brought us to an identical result; but, while in the one process intuition was the starting-point, in the other it was the goal. In commencing the former journey I could only say that, with an irresistable intuition, I felt Simplicity to have been the characteristic of the original action of God: –in ending the latter I can only declare that, with an irresistible intuition, I perceive Unity to have been the source of the observed phaenomena of the Newtonian gravitation. Thus, according to the schools, I prove nothing. So be it: –I design but to suggest-and to Convince through the suggestion. I am proudly aware that there exist many of the most profound and cautiously discriminative human intellects which cannot help being abundantly content with my –suggestions. To these intellects –as to my own –there is no mathematical demonstration which Could bring the least additional TRue proof of the great TRuth which I have advanced – the truth of Original Unity as the source –as the principle of the Universal Phaenomena. For my part, I am not sure that I speak and see –I am not so sure that my heart beats and that my soul lives: – of the rising of to-morrow's sun –a probability that as yet lies in the Future –I do not pretend to be one thousandth part as sure –as I am of the irretrievably by-gone Fact that All Things and All Thoughts of Things, with all their ineffable Multiplicity of Relation, sprang at once into being from the primordial and irrelative One.
Referring to the Newtonian Gravity, Dr. Nichol, the eloquent author of "The Architecture of the Heavens," says: –"In truth we have no reason to suppose this great Law, as now revealed, to be the ultimate or simplest, and therefore the universal and all-comprehensive, form of a great Ordinance. The mode in which its intensity diminishes with the element of distance, has not the aspect of an ultimate principle; which always assumes the simplicity and self-evidence of those axioms which constitute the basis of Geometry."
Now, it is quite true that "ultimate principles," in the common understanding of the words, always assume the simplicity of geometrical axioms –(as for "self-evidence," there is no such thing) – but these principles are clearly not "ultimate;" in other terms what we are in the habit of calling principles are no principles, properly speaking –since there can be but one principle, the Volition of God. We have no right to assume, then, from what we observe in rules that we choose foolishly to name "principles," anything at all in respect to the characteristics of a principle proper. The "ultimate principles" of which Dr. Nichol speaks as having geometrical simplicity, may and do have this geometrical turn, as being part and parcel of a vast geometrical system, and thus a system of simplicity itself –in which, nevertheless, the TRuly ultimate principle is, as we know, the consummation of the complex –that is to say, of the unintelligible –for is it not the Spiritual Capacity of God?
I quoted Dr. Nichol's remark, however, not so much to question its philosophy, as by way of calling attention to the fact that, while all men have admitted some principle as existing behind the Law of Gravity, no attempt has been yet made to point out what this principle in particular is: –if we except, perhaps, occasional fantastic efforts at referring it to Magnetism, or Mesmerism, or Swedenborgianism, or Transcendentalism, or some other equally delicious ism of the same species, and invariably patronized by one and the same species of people. The great mind of Newton, while boldly grasping the Law itself, shrank from the principle of the Law. The more fluent and comprehensive at least, if not the more patient and profound, sagacity of Laplace, had not the courage to attack it. But hesitation on the part of these two astronomers it is, perhaps, not so very difficult to understand. They, as well as all the first class of mathematicians, were mathematicians solely: – their intellect, at least, had a firmly-pronounced mathematico-physical tone. What lay not distinctly within the domain of Physics, or of Mathematics, seemed to them either Non-Entity or Shadow. Nevertheless, we may well wonder that Leibnitz, who was a marked exception to the general rule in these respects, and whose mental temperament was a singular admixture of the mathematical with the physico-metaphysical, did not at once investigate and establish the point at issue. Either Newton or Laplace, seeking a principle and discovering none physical, would have rested contentedly in the conclusion that there was absolutely none; but it is almost impossible to fancy, of Leibnitz, that, having exhausted in his search the physical dominions, he would not have stepped at once, boldly and hopefully, amid his old familiar haunts in the kingdom of Metaphysics. Here, indeed, it is clear that he must have adventured in search of the treasure: –that he did not find it after all, was, perhaps, because his fairy guide, Imagination, was not sufficiently well-grown, or well-educated, to direct him aright.
I observed, just now, that, in fact, there had been certain vague attempts at referring Gravity to some very uncertain isms. These attempts, however, although considered bold and justly so considered, looked no farther than to the generality –the merest generality –of the Newtonian Law. Its modus operandi has never, to my knowledge, been approached in the way of an effort at explanation. It is, therefore, with no unwarranted fear of being taken for a madman at the outset, and before I can bring my propositions fairly to the eye of those who alone are competent to decide upon them, that I here declare the modus operandi of the Law of Gravity to be an exceedingly simple and perfectly explicable thing –that is to say, when we make our advances towards it in just gradations and in the true direction –when we regard it from the proper point of view.
Whether we reach the idea of absolute Unity as the source of All Things, from a consideration of Simplicity as the most probable characteristic of the original action of God; –whether we arrive at it from an inspection of the universality of relation in the gravitating phaenomena; –or whether we attain it as a result of the mutual corroboration afforded by both processes; –still, the idea itself, if entertained at all, is entertained in inseparable connection with another idea –that of the condition of the Universe of stars as we now perceive it –that is to say, a condition of immeasurable diffusion through space. Now a connection between these two ideas –unity and diffusion –cannot be established unless through the entertainment of a third idea –that of irradiation. Absolute Unity being taken as a centre, then the existing Universe of stars is the result of irradiation from that centre.
Now, the laws of irradiation are known. They are part and parcel of the sphere. They belong to the class of indisputable geometrical properties. We say of them, "they are true –they are evident." To demand why they are true, would be to demand why the axioms are true upon which their demonstration is based. Nothing is demonstrable, strictly speaking; but if anything be, then the properties –the laws in question are demonstrated.
But these laws –what do they declare? Irradiation –how –by what steps does it proceed outwardly from a centre?
From a luminous centre, Light issues by irradiation; and the quantities of light received upon any given plane, supposed to be shifting its position so as to be now nearer the centre and now farther from it, will be diminished in the same proportion as the squares of the distances of the plane from the lumimous body, are increased; and will be increased in the same proportion as these squares are diminished.
The expression of the law may be thus generalized: –the number of light-particles (or, if the phrase be preferred, the number of light-impressions) received upon the shifting plane, will be inversely proportional with the squares of the distances of the plane. Generalizing yet again, we may say that the diffusion –the scattering –the irradiation, in a word –is directly proportional with the squares of the distances.
For example: at the distance B, from the luminous centre A, a certain number of particles are so diffused as to occupy the surface B (see illustration). Then at double the distance –that is to say at C –they will be so much farther diffused as to occupy four such surfaces: –at treble the distance, or at D, they will be so much farther separated as to occupy nine such surfaces: –while, at quadruple the distance, or at E, they will have become so scattered as to spread themselves over sixteen such surfaces –and so on forever.
In saying,
