Part 23 (2/2)
It seems, then, that this photographic influence pervades all nature; nor can we say where it stops. We do not know but it may imprint upon the world around us our features, as they are modified by various pa.s.sions, and thus fill nature with daguerreotype impressions of all our actions that are performed in daylight. It may be, too, that there are tests by which nature, more skilfully than any human photographist, can bring out and fix those portraits, so that acuter senses than ours shall see them, as on a great canvas, spread over the material universe. Perhaps, too, they may never fade from that canvas, but become specimens in the great picture gallery of eternity.
The thought may perhaps cross some mind, that, though those human actions which are performed in sunlight may be imprinted upon the universe, yet no deed of darkness can thus reveal its author, and remain an eternal stigma upon his name. But there is another phase to this subject. What is the evidence that the chemical rays of a sunbeam are rays of light? We know that they are unequally diffused through the spectrum, being most energetic at its violet extremity; but there is no proof that they are visible. They may, like heat, exert their appropriate influence, which seems to be mainly that of deoxidation, and yet not be colorific. If so, we might expect them to operate in the dark; and experiment proves that they do. An engraving on paper, placed between an iodized silver plate and an amalgamated copper plate, was left in the dark for fifteen hours. On exposing the amalgamated plate to the vapor of mercury, ”a very nice impression of the engraving was brought out--it having been effected through the thickness of the paper.”--Mr. Hunt, _”On the Changes which Bodies are capable of undergoing in Darkness,” Phil. Mag._ vol. xxii. p.
277.--Many like experiments prove the existence; among bodies, of a power a.n.a.logous to, if not identical with, that which accompanies light, and is the basis of the photographic process. Some philosophers do not regard them as identical. But this is of little consequence in my present argument. For all agree that there is a power in nature capable of impressing the outlines of some objects upon others in total darkness.
In respect to such cases, there are one or two facts deserving of special notice. And, first. We must not infer, because man has yet been able to bring out to human view but a few examples of this sort, that they are, therefore, few in nature. Rather should the discovery of a few lead to the conclusion that nature may be full of them, and that a more delicate and refined chemistry may yet disclose them. For the few known cases give us a glimpse of a recondite law of nature, which most likely pervades creation.
Some regard these dark rays as neither light, nor heat, nor chemical rays, but a new element; but, whatever its nature, no reason can be given why it should operate only in a few cases, and those of artificial preparation.
More probably, through this influence, all bodies brought into contact, or proximity, impress their images upon one another; and the time may come, when, touched by a more subtile chemistry than man now wields, these images shall take a place among obvious and permanent things in the universe, to the honor and glory of some, but to the amazement and everlasting contempt of more.
Of more, I say; for wickedness has oftener sought the concealment of darkness than modest virtue. The foulest enormities of human conduct have always striven to cover themselves with the shroud of night. The thief, the counterfeiter, the a.s.sa.s.sin, the robber, the murderer, and the seducer, feel comparatively safe in the midnight darkness, because no human eye can scrutinize their actions. But what if it should turn out that sable night, to speak paradoxically, is an unerring photographist!
What if wicked men, as they open their eyes from the sleep of death, in another world, should find the universe hung round with faithful pictures of their earthly enormities, which they had supposed forever lost in the oblivion of night! What scenes for them to gaze at forever! They may now, indeed, smile incredulously at such a suggestion; but the disclosures of chemistry may well make them tremble. a.n.a.logy does make it a scientific probability that every action of man, however deep the darkness in which it was performed, has imprinted its image upon nature, and that there may be tests which shall draw it into daylight, and make it permanent so long as materialism endures.
There is another chemical principle, called _catalysis_, through which human actions may make powerful and permanent impressions on the universe, and that, too, unperceived by man. In some cases, the mere presence of a certain agent, in a small quant.i.ty, will produce extensive changes of const.i.tution in other bodies, while the agent itself remains unaltered.
Thus a strip of platinum will determine the union of oxygen and hydrogen in the platinum lamp; and sulphuric acid, in a solution of starch, will change it first into gum, and then into sugar; while neither the platinum nor the acid experiences any change. These are called _catalytic_ changes.
More often, however, the catalytic agent is itself in the process of change, and it produces an a.n.a.logous change in other bodies. A familiar example is yeast, or ferment. This substance contains a principle called _diastase_, one part of which is capable of converting two thousand parts of starch into sugar; and this is what is done in the familiar process of fermentation, when we always see verified the scriptural declaration, _A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump._
The precise manner in which the diastase operates in these cases we may not be able to explain. The particles of the diastase, being themselves in motion, possess the power of putting in motion the particles of other bodies; and these, again, operate upon others, and so on, often to an astonis.h.i.+ng extent. In the case of the platinum and the acid, however, no change takes place in their molecules, and we can only state it, as an unexplained fact, that they do produce changes in other bodies.
We have other examples of catalytic influences in nature, exhibiting an agency still more subtile and energetic. I refer to contagious and epidemic diseases in animals and plants. An influence goes abroad, and seems to be propagated through the atmosphere, traversing whole continents, and crossing wide oceans, powerful and deadly in its effects, yet inappreciable by the most delicate mechanical or chemical tests. But the phenomena admit of explanation by supposing a movement, either in the particles of the atmosphere, or of the still more subtile and elastic medium that pervades all s.p.a.ce; a movement started at a particular spot, as the cholera in India, and the small-pox or some epidemic from some focus, and communicating an unhealthy movement from atom to atom, till it has encircled the earth and mowed down its hecatombs.
Now, when we look at such facts, who can suppose it improbable that man, who can hardly lift a finger without producing some chemical change, should start some of these movements, that may reach far beyond his imagination? And here, as in the cases that have preceded, we must not estimate the actual change in the const.i.tution of bodies by the apparent; for we know that mult.i.tudes of such changes are pa.s.sing within us and around us, without our cognizance; and yet there may be chemical eyes in the universe quick enough to see them all, and to follow them onward to the final result; for there must be a final resultant of all such forces; nor can we doubt that, some time or other, and to some beings, if not to ourselves, it will be manifest. Here, then, is another mode in which a chemical influence may go forth from us, reaching the utmost limits of matter and of time; nay, perhaps extending into eternity, and revealing our actions to the finer sensibilities of exalted beings.
_I derive my sixth argument in support of the general principle from organic reaction._
Few persons, save the zologist and comparative anatomist, have any idea of the great nicety and delicacy of the relations that exist between all the species of animals and plants, so that what affects one affects all the rest. Perhaps the subject may be ill.u.s.trated by supposing all the species of organic beings to be distributed at different distances through a hollow sphere, while between them all there is a mutual repulsion, and the whole are retained in the form of a sphere by an attracting force directed to the centre. By such an arrangement, if one species be taken out of the sphere, or its repellency become stronger or weaker, the relative position of all the rest would be altered. No matter how many millions of species there are, the movements of one will cause a reaction among all the rest.
Now, this ill.u.s.tration, although an approximation, falls short of representing the actual state of things in nature. It is no exaggeration to say that a relation similar to the supposed one exists throughout the vast dominions of animate beings; so that you cannot obliterate or change one species without affecting all the rest. Often the change is effected so slowly and indirectly that the beings experiencing it are unconscious of it; or they may realize some slight disturbance of the balance in organic nature, and yet be unconscious of the cause. By the ill.u.s.tration above given, when one or more species is removed from the supposed sphere, or its repellent force weakened or strengthened, although an influence will reach all the other species, yet a new equilibrium will soon be established, and no permanently bad effects seem to follow. But not so in nature. There the balance originally fixed between different beings by infinite wisdom is the best possible; and every change, not intended by Providence, must be for the worse. It was intended, for instance, that man should subdue forests and extirpate noxious plants, as well as ferocious and noxious animals; and, therefore, such a change operates to his advantage, but to the injury of the inferior animals. Yet often he pushes this exterminating process so far as to injure himself also. Thus the farmer wages a relentless war against certain birds, because of some slight evils which they occasion. But when they are extirpated, opportunity is given for noxious insects to multiply, and to bring upon the farmer evils much greater than those he thus escapes.
To prevent an excessive multiplication of some species is one of the grand objects of the present balance established among the whole. Such an increase is an inevitable effect of the extinction of a species, and it often occasions great mischief. The carnivorous species, especially, were intended to act as nature's police, to prevent a too great increase of the herbivorous races, which are rendered excessively fruitful to keep the world full. If, then, a carnivorous species become extinct, the species on which it has fed will so multiply as to prove great nuisances, and to produce wide disorder among many species, not only of animals, but of plants. And often has man, in this way, by the extermination of species, in particular districts, unwittingly brought a powerful reaction on himself.
On the Island of New Zealand, within one or two hundred years past, eight or ten species of gigantic birds--the dinornis and palapteryx--have become extinct, probably through the persecution of man. The natives, without doubt, hunted them down for food, until all disappeared: and as no quadruped of much size inhabits the island, we think there is no little plausibility in the suggestion of Professor Owen, that when the birds were all gone, or nearly gone, the natives were tempted to the practice of cannibalism, as the only means of gratifying their pa.s.sion for meat. What a terrible retribution for disturbing the equilibrium of organic nature!
The records of zology and botany afford endless ill.u.s.tration of this subject. But the great truth which they all teach is, that so intimately are we related to other beings, that almost every action of ours reacts upon them for good or evil; for good, upon the whole, when we conform to the laws which G.o.d has established; and for evil, when by their violation we disturb the equilibrium of organized nature, and produce irregular action. In this latter case, we cannot tell where the disturbance, thus introduced, will end; for it is not a periodical oscillation, like the perturbations of the heavenly bodies, nor a mere change of position and intensity by mechanical forces.
But does not this law of mutual influence between organic beings extend to other worlds? Why should it not be transmitted by means of the luminiferous ether to the limits of the universe? Who knows but a blow struck upon a single link of organic beings here may be felt through the whole circle of animate existence in all worlds? That is a narrow view of G.o.d's work, which isolates the organic races on this globe from the rest of the universe. The more philosophical view throws the golden chain of influence around the whole animal creation, whether small or great, near or remote.
Reverting to the reasoning which we employed in tracing out the extent of mechanical reaction, we shall see that organic reaction may extend not only to other worlds, but also into eternity. For if the matter of the universe is to survive the conflagration of the last day, the future economy of life must have some connection with the present, whether this earth or some other part of the universe be the theatre of its development.
I speak here not of moral influences, which we know will pa.s.s over from time into eternity, but of a physical reaction, which may also reach beyond the same gulf. For at least a part of those creatures, who in this world have felt the modifying power of other beings, will survive the world's final catastrophe, and occupy material, though spiritual bodies, whose germ is represented as derived from their bodies on earth. We have reason, then, to suppose some connection and modifying influence between them. And we might show, also, that moral causes, which so affect the physical character here, may exert a like power in eternity. But time will not permit the argument to be followed out.
The conclusion, then, from this argument also, is, that probably every action of ours on earth modifies the condition and destiny of every other created being in this and other worlds through time and eternity. What though human experience, dependent on the bluntness of mortal sensibilities, cannot demonstrate such an influence? Shall the gross perceptions of this disordered world be made the standard of all that exists? Rather let us listen to the suggestions of science, which tell us of the possibility of senses far more acute in other worlds, and in a future state of being--senses that can trace out and feel the vibrations of the delicate web of organic influence that binds together the great and the small, the past, the present, and the future, throughout the universe.
_My seventh argument in support of the general principle depends upon mental reaction._
Mental reaction operates in two ways--indirectly and directly; indirectly through matter, directly by the influence of mind upon mind, without an intervening medium. When describing electric reactions, I have shown how our thoughts and volitions change the electric, chemical, and even mechanical condition of the body, and, through these media, that of all the material universe; and I need not repeat that argument. But to modify the inanimate world through these agencies necessarily affects all other intellects, which are connected with matter; and since man in a future world is to a.s.sume a spiritual body, we may reasonably suppose that all created beings are in some way connected with matter; and, therefore, by means of materialism, through the subtile agencies that have been named, we may be sure that an influence goes out from every thought and volition of ours, and reaches every other intellect in the wide creation. I know not whether, in other worlds, their inhabitants possess sensibilities acute enough to be conscious of this influence; certainly, in this world, it is only to a limited extent that men are conscious of it. Yet we must admit that it exists and acts, or deny the demonstrated verities of science.
But is there not evidence that mind sometimes acts directly upon other minds, without any gross, intervening media? It may, indeed, be doubted whether any created intellect operates, except in connection with some form of matter. Yet there are certain facts in the history of individuals in an abnormal state, which show that one mind acts upon another, independent of the senses, or any other material means or intercommunication discoverable by the senses. Take the details of sleep-waking, or somnambulism; and do not they present us with numerous cases in which impressions are made by one mind upon another, even when separated beyond the sphere of the senses? Take the facts respecting double consciousness, and those where the power was possessed of reading the thoughts, of others, or the facts relating to prevision; and surely they cannot be explained but by the supposition of a direct influence of one mind upon another.
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