Whether science turns its glass out into the immensities of
space, or in toward the equally fathomless abysses of the minute,
there seems no bounds to the possibilities of discovery regarding
the processes of nature. Yet each and every pathway leads at least
to impenetrable mystery.
What use to know of the ultimate molecule and atom, if we are
never to learn what endows it with life. What is life? What is
death? What is pain? What is color? Perfume? What is there in a
minor chord to make one weep? Thousands of hungry eyes are peering
into the dark in search of clues to these encircling mysteries.
But a little rift has appeared in the veil, through which some
think they can see a great and illuminating truth. This truth is
called sympathetic vibration.
A new era dawned, we passed under a new scientific
dispensation when heat and light were pronounced simply modes of
motion, and when the hitherto solid earth was found to be only
seemingly so, while in reality it is a congeries of whirling
atoms. Under this new dispensation the door hiding those two
baffling mysteries, matter and force, begins to yield. The former
has surrendered its secrets down to the ultimate atom, and now we
are told that energy, that inscrutable thing which makes matter
its slave and plaything, is simply a mode of motion in the
atom.
The initial impulse is still as remote as ever. We have not
yet discovered on what our tortoise stands. What imparted the
first movement to the atom, may be an ever receding mystery; but
an enormous advance has been made upon the outlying territory.
'cience has gone one generation farther back in the pedigree of
energy; for the law of sympathetic
vibration must be the Law of Laws.
We are told that what we have known as sound, heat and light
are simply ascending stages of increasing rates of velocity, in
atmospheric or etheric atoms. Between sixteen a second and
thirty-eight thousand a second these vibrations are appreciable by
the human ear, and we call them sound. As the rate of velocity
increases these are lost in silence, and finally reappear to the
sense as heat. Then, after they are further accelerated, the optic
nerve begins to tremble at their approach, and we call them light.
Nor can we suppose this to be a final limit, but must believe
that, accelerated to still higher velocity, they may reach us in
some new form, which to man's perception, at least, is not sound,
nor heat, nor yet light, and which, perhaps, we call
electricity.
But this protean thing, it will be observed, is one and the
same throughout. It is energy, evolved into higher and higher
forms, under the action of the law of
vibration. Nor can we stop here. What right have we to suppose
that the stage bounded by our perception, is final? Much more easy
is it to believe that the process goes on, and forces are
developed as far beyond electricity as electricity is beyond our
starting point, sixteen vibrations a second; and so we are
inevitably led to a conception of potential energies lying all
around us, sufficient to hold the stars in their courses, or to
tear them from their orbits.
Thus far we are standing on solid scientific ground. He who
doubts this ascending ladder of energy, arrays himself against so
high an authority as Prof. Tyndall. But we are going to venture
soon upon a region where the footing is not so secure; and perhaps
may be properly rebuked for the folly of attempting to map out the
highways and byways in cloudland.
There is an unwritten law that science is for the scientific.
This article is a protest against this law. The writer is speaking
for the unlearned, "of whom she is chief," and she maintains that
there can be no exclusive ownership in established scientific
truths; which may, and should, be used as stepping stones by any
one, where they seem to lead to higher inclusive truths.
The average man of science is intent upon his own particular
rung, and his soul is little vexed with wondering where the ladder
leads. Scientific imagination is not always the companion of the
microscope nor of the crucible. But Newton's discovery would have
been a small affair without the genius to see its cosmical
application. So there is a stage in the unfolding of natural truth
when the poet, with his wings, can do more than the deliver with
his pick-axe. He does not discover, he divines. Shakespeare knew
nothing of "vibratory physics," nor of "ultra-musical silence;"
but two hundred and fifty years ago he said:
"There's not the smallest orb, which thou
beholdest,
But in its motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.
Such harmony is in immortal souls.
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it!'
We sometimes wonder at the admirable docility with which the
unlearned accept mystifying explanations. After being told that
things act so and so because they have an "affinity" for each
other, they feel that there is no more to be said. The question is
answered. One mystery has been explained by another. But now we
are on the track of this inscrutable "affinity."
Every atom behaves as it does because of its essential nature.
It is not helplessly drifting in space, waiting for stray streams
of energy to gather it up and determine its fate. It has an
attribute which compels it to find its own place in creation. It
has inherently a certain rate of vibration, and an impulse to join
others constituted with a like rate of velocity or one numerically
allied to it. This tendency, this sympathetic hunger, is
"affinity." Oh, the depth of meaning in those words, "sympathy"
and "affinity!" They are the world-builders, the creative agents
which brought order out of chaos.
For an uncomprehended reason, atoms have arranged themselves
according to their numerical affinities. Those with like
velocities of a certain kind were drawn into close union and
became rocks. Others singing a different rhythm came together in
less stable combination, and are gases. And so down to the
minutest classification of matter, all has been arranged by the
compelling law of sympathetic vibration.
It is a well-known fact that when a musical note is sounded
over a piano, all the strings attuned to the same, or to a
numerically related number of vibrations, will sing in response.
This is "sympathetic vibration."
The reason the string gives audible response is because its
molecular condition has been sympathetically stimulated to
activity. This activity is of course a manifestation of energy,
and according to Mr. Lascelles-Scott (Physicist at the Government
Laboratories, at Forest-Gate near London,) and other competent
observers, this energy is often sufficient to tear the atoms
apart; as illustrated by the breaking of a glass tankard by
singing near it its "response note," which was in this instance
the bass note D flat, which is not far from the lowest audible
form of musical energy.
Now if in some of its lowest appreciable forms energy thus
sympathetically evolved will break a glass tankard, or "fiddle a
bridge down," what must be the force which might be
sympathetically awakened in its higher rates of velocity?
Professor Tyndall says- "With a few vibrations a second sound
is generated. When more numerous, you may have light, heat and
electricity. Again multiplying these by the square of millions,
who can say what might, or might not, be the result?" Now we are
compelled to believe that every step of acceleration from sixteen
vibrations a second to the velocities attained when "multiplied by
the square of millions" (as Professor Tyndall says), that every
step of this steeply ascending increase is capable of being acted
upon sympathetically, if the response note could be found.
Is there any limit to the energies thus slumbering in the
apparent void? Whether Mr. Keely has captured them or not, these
streams of potential energy are a reality, and might be liberated
by just the means he is using.
But of one thing there can be no slightest doubt. As man has
risen to higher stages of development he has appropriated
progressively higher stages of energy. There was a period when
stored sunshine (light) was sufficient for his material uses. Then
heat was harnessed and drove his engines, his wheels and spindles.
Then he reached higher and captured electricity, which was found
to be no less obedient and vastly more effective. Who dare say
this is the end? It was after drawing upon the resources of the
invisible, that such enormous impulse came into the life of
humanity; and the farther we have gone into that supersensible
creation, the swifter has been the advance!
It will be seen that as we pass through these ascending grades
of energy, its manifestations become more subtle. Increase of
power means a corresponding increase of subtlety. The waves of
light and heat must be like the heavy beatings of the surf, and
the motions of electricity gross and sluggish, compared with the
rhythm of those ethereal vibrations which could only be wielded by
Omnipotence! And is it not obvious that the agent which
sympathetically reaches these, must become correspondingly fine?
Is thought such an agent?
If a single tone of the human voice be the initial stage of an
energy so inconceivable, what, on the other hand, does that voice
become when attenuated "by the square of millions?" Does this
measure the distance between an audible human cry and the thought
which produces it? Is "the heart's sincere desire," the note
attuned to those energies whose subtlety, as well as velocity, has
been "multiplied by the square of millions?"
The mind cannot go back or stop on such a journey. It, is
compelled to go on and on until it reaches something with
sufficient potency to tear the stars from their orbits, and yet so
attenuated that it trembles responsively to something as light as
thought. If this be not "spiritual energy," it bears a strange
resemblance to it!
Have we by inevitable steps reached the verge of that kingdom
we have been accustomed to regard as separate and distinct? If so,
matter is lifted from its long abasement. The pulsations in the
heart of granite are the throbbings of the Divine, as truly as
when it makes the soul of man tremble with new life. And what
wonder that music thrills, if it be a manifestation different in
degree, but identical in kind, with the spiritual energy which
nourishes the universe?
If the phenomena of matter and of spirit are controlled by the
same force, only in different degrees of development, then
reasonable cause and effect take the place of magic and of
mystery.
If it be true that spiritual atoms, no less than material
ones, are arranging themselves according to their velocities, then
every relation, human and divine, is comprehensible. If this law
underlies both worlds, then those spiritual atoms numerically and
rhythmically allied have an "affinity" for each other; they rush
together in irresistible embrace; and there is a scientific basis
for human affections, for conduct, and for prayer!
Race affinities exist because of a general rhythmic identity.
Individual temperament is determined by the rate at which the
spiritual atoms of the man move -- making, as it were, a
musical-key to which his being is set. Observe that when you sing
a C note over the piano, not alone the C strings, but E, G and B
vibrate responsively, because harmoniously related. So two beings
who love each other may make a richer harmony for not having
identically the same rhythm in their souls. But on the other hand,
union with one outside this harmonious group is impossible.
Discord is a violation of nature. Two notes inharmoniously related
can never combine. They may be simultaneously sounded; but they do
not blend. Discord is in its essence a destructive force. Unhappy
marriages, in fact one-half the tragedies of human life, find
their solution in the laws which govern music; and the language of
metaphor is profoundly and scientifically true.
The unfolding soul invites to itself vibrations constructive
and destructive, and grows by what it feeds upon toward heaven or
hell; harmonious vibrations making for the one, and discordant
ones for the other. If, as is probable, these velocities have a
tendency to be accelerated in multiples of the same rate, we can
see how the wretched being is sometimes lost in the vortex of a
terrible rhythm, only to be rescued by that one flawless rhythm
left by Christ upon earth.
Does this sound fantastic? Will it be worse than fantastic,
prosaic, to say that every human impulse is in its last analysis a
mathematical fact? That love, hate and all their diverse
manifestations might be expressed by mathematical formula? A
mathematical basis for spiritual phenomena sounds uninteresting.
But to the soul that comprehends it, it is sublime. Mathematical
conceptions are the only ones which do not vanish in the analysis
of an illusive, elusive, creation. The multiplication table would
survive the wreck of worlds and of matter!
The magnitudes of time and space-- what are they? Nothing but
modes of thought depending upon a point of view. They exist only
relatively to your perception. The "solidity" of matter is a
fiction. Were you created on a different scale you might gaze
through the intermolecular spaces of granite, and see its whirling
atoms as constellations in your heaven of ether!
We look out upon the world through a refracting, twisting,
distorting medium, so that nothing is what it seems, and were it
not for mathematical relations, we should be in a universe of
dissolving dreams. But they are everlastingly true. They are the
rock-ribbed realities which hold together the shifting, vanishing
phenomena of existence. Change your point of view as you may, they
are undisturbed.
A truth which has for its mission the upholding of all other
truths, has need to be well buttressed and strengthened; and the
rocks which bear the Andes on their bosom are not more immovable
than the mathematics upon which rests the law of sympathetic
vibration.
If there be such scientific basis for human phenomena, then
metaphysics and psychology, with their intricacies and
complexities expressed in an involved terminology, are
artificially contrived systems, and what wonder that they are
bewildering, and the despair of ordinary minds?
The human mind is perfectly capable of mastering an artificial
system expressed through arbitrary symbols. It has been doing it
for ages. (Alas!) But with what result? A few of the initiated
know the system, and its terminologies; but neither they, nor any
one else, has a vital grip upon the subject. But can a subject be
made comprehensible, when its most essential truth is veiled? And
what wonder there is confusion existing in men's minds regarding
the most vital things? The following definitions of Religion are
quoted in Kidd's "Social Evolution." We select them at random.
Comte, "The worship of humanity." Hegel, "The knowledge acquired
by the finite spirit of, its essence as an absolute spirit."
Huxley, "Reverence and love for the ethical ideal." Matthew
Arnold, "Morality touched by emotion."
These definitions are by men who are masters of thought and of
expression, and offer, presumably. the best the world has to say
on the subject. Are they convincing ?-- satisfying? Would any one
know that any two of them were intended to define the same
thing?
Hear now the definition of religion if sympathetic vibration
be a fundamental law. Religion is an expression of a universal
impulse, which draws the human heart into rhythmic unity with the
Divine heart.
How simple - how true. It is the unconscious utterance of the
unlettered in all ages; and of poets, from King David to Tennyson;
and at the same time a precise scientific statement, which is - to
Omniscience at least - capable of mathematical demonstration.
But how can there be a satisfying definition if the fact
underlying all other facts be not considered ?- i.e., that there
are precise definite atomic changes in spiritual experiences no
less real, for having vanished into a region infinitely subtle,
than if transposed to the lower key of sound, heat and light, or
to the still lower condition of the visible and ponderable.
Men have discovered a great progressive movement in all
organic things which they have called "Evolution." We see it as an
imposing mysterious thing moving with awful sincerity on grand
lines. But if the source of energy lies in the atom, its
beginnings are infinitely small. It is the aggregate of a minute
atomic hunger for unity with the Divine. That is the sublime
consummation toward which all creation moves; and evolution is a
religious impulse! Nature is thinking of the atom - not the mass.
All earthly systems which sacrifice the atom are foredoomed,
because the great mother knows no great and no small, but only a
stern necessity for an adaptation, precise and true, to the
Eternal rhythm, which, in the evolutionary process, means an
infinite progression, while its absence means disintegration and
elimination.
Science might have looked forever in vain through the
telescope. Not till it turned its vision - in toward the invisible
- the supersensible - did any true comprehension come of creative
and cosmic realities. And the deeper it penetrates into this
region, the stronger does it feel the throbbing of the Divine
heart. Its own path is leading it, whether it will or no, where it
must some day find itself face to face with Deity.
Two lines started in certain directions from given points in
the earth's orbit, must meet at a certain point millions of miles
away. You have never been there to see it. But you know it. It is
a necessity of thought to believe it. And so, certain truths
compel the existence of certain other truths. The mind cannot
escape them.
Just such compelling power is in the law of sympathetic
vibration. Once started on its ascending ladder, it is impossible
to stop, until we find ourselves confronted with energies
inconceivably great and inconceivably fine. Surely it is not
venturesome to leap the little chasm of uncertainly and call these
"spiritual energies," nor to believe that they by their
sympathetic action may be the basis of all the phenomena of the
life of the soul.
There is something new and strange in the air. A new element
in the spiritual as well as the material atmosphere. Men are
vaguely conscious of an impending crisis in the life of humanity.
Is this because we have reached the confines of the old, and are
entering, upon anew dispensation of force, one which will enter
into the processes of life in a manner more vital even than
electricity has done?
However this may be, if the trend of progress is to be in the
future the same as it has been in the past, it is man's inevitable
destiny to grasp and appropriate higher and higher conditions of
an energy which at each remove becomes more spiritualized in its
expression. Whether this in fact merges at last into the
"spiritual energy " which is the life of the soul, is a question
this article is intended to ask - not to answer.
[END]
