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 of the ancients--who knows!
Perhaps some critical reader may object that sound travels by means of
atmospheric and not etheric waves; but is he prepared to say that it
cannot produce etheric waves also. The very recent discovery of
transatlantic telephoning tends to show that etheric waves can be
generated by sound, for on the 20th of October, 1915, words spoken in
New York were immediately heard in Paris, and could therefore only have
been transmitted through the ether, for sound travels through the
atmosphere only at the rate of about 750 miles an hour, while the speed
of impulses through ether can only be compared to that of light or
186,000 miles in a second. It is therefore a fair inference that etheric
vibrations can be inaugurated by
