Part 3 (1/2)

I have tried in these Views to use only simple everyday language, and am fully aware how inadequate are the words I have employed; but my readers will have, I hope, recognised how difficult, and in many cases impossible, it is, in treating these metaphysical subjects, to find words to express the exact meaning; we have to describe the Infinite in terms of the finite, and by use of imperfect finite a.n.a.logies to get a glimpse of the otherwise unthinkable, and even then it requires a mystical sense, or what St. Paul called spiritual discernment, to see beyond the physical mists. If the whole of the phenomena of Nature must be looked upon as the manifestation of the Divine Noumenon, it follows that Matter is as divine as the Spiritual, though not as real; it is His shadow, or the outline of His very image, thrown upon the material plane of our sensations; and the principle of sympathetic action, upon which, as we have seen, the whole power to influence depends throughout the Universe, becomes surely the best symbol we can use for understanding the efficacy of prayer and the connection between our Transcendental Self and the All-loving. Realise that the Transcendental Ego is a Spirit, and therefore akin to the Great Spirit, not only in essence, but in ”loving and knowing communion,”

then look at my last experiment, where we saw two material bodies (remember they are shadow manifestations of the Reality) which could influence each other from the fact that they were akin, not only in substance, but in perfect sympathetic communion.

If now we watch the shadows of two human beings thrown upon a wall, and see those shadows shaking hands and embracing each other, are we not justified in concluding that those images give us a true explanation of what is really taking place? and is not that exactly what I have done? have I not shown, as I proposed to do, that it is possible by examining the phenomena of Nature (the shadows of the Reality) to reach that point where we may even feel that we are listening to, or having divulged to us, some of what may be called the very thoughts of the Great Reality?

VIEW FIVE

THE PHYSICAL FILM

We have seen in former Views that the whole Phenomenal Universe, as perceived by our senses, and all intellectual thoughts or concepts based on those perceptions, are, in reality, only mists or shadows; they have no existence apart from our physical senses, and may be likened to a thin film, which at death is p.r.i.c.ked and pa.s.ses away like a scroll, leaving us face to face with the Reality. We thus seemed to grasp that all phenomena, including our Physical Egos, are but the shadows or outline of the Reality, as depicted on our limited plane of consciousness; but these phenomena, having Motion for their basis, are none the less real to us under our present outlook, limited as it is by conditioning in Time and s.p.a.ce, and we have to deal with them as realities in our everyday life. I want to make this distinction clear in the present View.

Those of us who were youngsters in the 'sixties, and were fortunate enough to be taken to that land of wonders for children, the London Polytechnic, will remember seeing what were called Professor Pepper's Ghosts. By means of a large sheet of gla.s.s on the stage, the _reflection_ of a human being (otherwise invisible), which we will call the ”_unreal_,” was, by the audience, seen walking alongside the people on the stage, and it was impossible to say which was the real and which the unreal. When the unreal was made to appear further back on the stage, it was apparently seen through the real figures and they appeared as ghosts, for they were seen to be transparent. If now we fix, perpendicularly on a table, a small pane of gla.s.s, and place, say, an orange in front and another orange behind it, we can arrange so that an observer, looking through the gla.s.s, sees two oranges alongside each other, one being the real and the other the unreal, and, with proper lighting and dark background, it is impossible to determine which is which, as they are both apparently real oranges. We will call the real, A, and the unreal, B; we now also introduce a human hand on both sides of the gla.s.s, and again we have apparently two real hands close to the oranges; if the real hand is now seen to try to touch the B orange, it pa.s.ses through it, but it can take up the A; and the same result is seen when the unreal hand tries to grasp them, except that it can grasp the B but not the A; it is, in fact, only the unreal that can apprehend the unreal, and the real the real.

The above simile may help some of my readers to understand how the phenomena of Nature, though having no real existence apart from our senses, have the appearance of reality to us, because both we and the whole Phenomenal Universe are the unreal of our a.n.a.logy, namely, the reflection or shadow of the Real on the physical plane. If we run against a stone wall, which is also part, with us, of the shadow, we hurt ourselves and acknowledge its existence, but to the Real it would not be an obstruction at all, it is not there. We know that this wall is not really solid, it is made up of Atoms revolving round each other but never touching, but the man in the street would give as the reason why it hurt, that it was dense, or what is called hard; if the wall were made of hay, or cotton wool, or of sunbeams, we should not suffer by running against it; in fact, the denser anything becomes, the more it shows its character of being real to our senses. If we take this as the true explanation for the Physical Universe, we are met with something quite beyond our powers of comprehension, when we try to form a conception of the all-pervading Ether; unless we may look upon it as actually a _presentation_ of the Reality itself. If we wave our hand, we can feel the obstruction of the air, but we cannot feel the Ether. We think our earth very solid, and we know it is rus.h.i.+ng round the sun at the enormous rate of 60,000 miles per hour, but it finds no obstruction in the Ether, there is no r.e.t.a.r.dation of its velocity; and yet the study of Radio-Activity has quite lately shown us that that Ether is not only as dense as iron, or a hundred or a thousand times denser, but millions of times denser than that metal; and yet it permeates all matter like a sieve. In Sir Oliver Lodge's words, ”the Ether is so dense that matter by comparison is like a gossamer or a filmy imperceptible mist.” We can, therefore, by again using our ”Ghost” a.n.a.logy, understand why matter cannot obstruct the Ether, or vice versa; there is no perceivable friction between them, unless, as I shall presently suggest, we may find something akin to obstruction by Matter, not to Ether itself, but to its pressure, in the phenomenon of Gravitation.

The evidence we are gradually winning from Radio-Activity seems to be leading us to the conclusion that all forms of matter are but different motions or strains in the Ether (perhaps, as Lord Kelvin thought, in the form of vortices), that the different atoms of which matter is composed are, as suggested in View Three, _apertures_ of different complexity of outline--namely, those points at which Ether is absent or its density attenuated. Have we not apparently here another example of Positive and Negative, the Invisible the Ether, as the Real, and the Visible, the Material Universe, as its Negative the Unreal, similar to our list of Positives and Negatives in View One?

Ether itself cannot be explained by any of the known dynamical laws, though it is probably the very root and cause of all of them; it is absolutely beyond our plane of perception or conception. We can only perceive certain effects of its presence when it comes into our limited world of consciousness, under the aspects of Time and s.p.a.ce--namely, in its movements, which we cla.s.sify as forms of matter and modes of energy.

It is only lately that we have been able to see clearly that the effects known to us as Light, Heat, Electricity, and Magnetism are caused by pulsations or rills of different rapidity in the Ether (this will be referred to in a later View); it is also probably the cause of what we call Gravitation, and we shall see that the action of Gravitation may, after all, be not in the direction of a pull but must be looked upon as a pus.h.i.+ng force. Gravitation is common to all matter; in common language, every particle attracts every other particle with a force directly proportional to its ma.s.s, and inversely to the square of its distance; it is a very weak force compared with others we know, and difficult to measure except when a large ma.s.s of matter is involved. Perhaps this will be clearer, and not far from the truth, if I say that the force of Gravitation exerted between two ma.s.ses of matter compared with that which we find acting between the const.i.tuents of matter--namely, in chemical affinity, is comparable to the difference existing between the density of matter and the density of Ether.

The latest calculation of the pressure of the Ether is almost inconceivable--namely, about 25,000 tons on the square inch, or 3,600,000 tons on the square foot; it may well therefore be that, in the degree of permeability of matter by the Ether, when we can calculate it, will be found the explanation of what we call Gravitation between two ma.s.ses; they are each s.h.i.+elding the other from Ether pressure, in its own direction, with an obstructive force equal to its ma.s.s. The reason why the earth appears to attract us, is that it is s.h.i.+elding us from a certain amount of pressure in its direction; and we know that we are also apparently attracting every particle of the earth with a force proportionate to our ma.s.s, because we are, however slightly, s.h.i.+elding the earth from pressure in our direction; if this is the true explanation, Gravitation is a phenomenon of the Ether; it will be seen to be a movement of matter in the line of least pressure, and is therefore a push and not a pull.

Let us now come down to what we understand better concerning the subject of this View.

The question, ”What is Truth?” ”What is the Reality?” goes to the very root of the Riddle of the Universe. We are all trying in one direction or another to answer this question. As knowledge increases, old theories become untenable and have to be discarded, and, in their place, fresh ones are formulated to account for new phases of phenomena. There seems a general impression, among even thinking people, that scientists are wedded to, and always trying to find proofs for, their last theories, but this is not the case. The endeavour of the true seeker after truth is not so much to discover fresh facts which coincide with existing theories, as to find phenomena which cannot be explained thereby; there is indeed more joy over one fact which does not agree with preconceived theory, than over ninety-nine facts which are found to fall under that heading. In our everyday life we have become so accustomed to take for granted that what we see, hear, or feel by touch must be real, that it is difficult for the man in the street to realise that our senses woefully deceive us; that perception without knowledge often leads us astray into false concepts, and these false concepts lead us into difficulties which require fresh concepts to be formed, and these again demand further and more exact knowledge to be applied to perceived phenomena. This necessity for overcoming difficulties is the greatest incentive we have for gaining fresh knowledge of our surroundings. Owing to the fact, as already pointed out, that our sense perceptions are based upon the appreciation of change or motion, and must therefore be limited in Time and s.p.a.ce, and that the trueness of our conceptions of the Reality is dependent upon the knowledge which can be brought to bear upon those perceptions, we are forced to postulate two aspects of the Universe; one of these is what may be called the Visible, Finite, or Physical, which indeed carries the appearance of Reality to our limited senses, though it has no real existence for us apart from those senses, and the other is that which transcends our utmost conception, which we call the Invisible, the Infinite, or Spiritual.

At the outset of all investigation, we are forced to recognise that the only way we can approach conception of the Infinite is necessarily in the form of a negative, the negative applying to those things of which we have cognisance; we carry our thought to the utmost limit possible with our present knowledge, and, when we have come to a standstill, we conceive the Infinite to be not that but something further on. As our knowledge increases by small steps, that something further on seems ever to be flying from our grasp by mighty strides, until we are forced to bow our heads and recognise that we are in the presence of, though still not in sight of, the Reality. A divine impulse is ever urging us forward to greater conceptions but shattering our hopes, and giving us a feeling akin to despair, if we arrogate to ourselves a greater power of conception than we have knowledge to sustain; we have to approach the study with, indeed, that feeling of elation which the consciousness of our origin and destiny wakes within us, giving us a feeling of certainty that we are capable, in the hereafter, of attaining to the highest summit of knowledge, but with that humility, in the present, which makes us acknowledge that he who knows most knows most how little he knows. In this frame of mind let us now examine our surroundings.

We are living in a world of continuous and mult.i.tudinous changes; in fact, without change, we could have no cognisance of our surroundings, we should have no consciousness of living. We have become so accustomed to certain sensations that we are apt to take them, as facts, and scoff at the suggestion that they are non-realities. I propose, however, to show that what we perceive are not Realities, and true conception of our surroundings depends upon the knowledge which we can bring to bear to interpret the meaning of these sensations. It is only in response to our conscientious endeavours to form new concepts that knowledge is being daily revealed to us; the more we progress in Knowledge the more we see that Perception alone without Knowledge leads to false concepts, and these in their turn create fatal obstacles and difficulties to our progress towards the true appreciation of the Universe. Let me give a few examples.

In early times the Sun and the Stars were seen to revolve round the Earth once every day, and, without Knowledge of Astronomy, this was taken for granted as an absolute fact, and was looked upon as a reality; later on, however, it was noted that the Stars never changed their relative positions; this necessitated a new concept, namely, that they were fixed on the inner surface of a huge globe, which was also revolving. This false concept brought other difficulties into play, the question arose as to what was beyond the globe, and also the difficulty that, when the Stars as well as the Sun were found to be at such enormous distances from the Earth, their rates of motion were quite inconceivable. Even in the case of the Sun the motion represents over twenty-five million miles per hour, and the apparent motion of the Stars is thousands of times faster than Light travels. These insuperable difficulties were not swept away until, by the advance of Knowledge, the falsity of Conception, based only upon appearance, was made manifest, and it was seen that it was the Earth which revolved and not the Stars. Even then, owing to its supposed antagonism to what was stated in the Bible, the new Conception was opposed with great bitterness, it being long looked upon and denounced as a sacrilegious invention, and anybody daring to promulgate such a doctrine was threatened with death.

Our present Conception, that the Earth turns round on its axis once every day, and rolls in its...o...b..t round the Sun once in every year, may be called a Reality to our finite Senses; but I shall show later on that, except for the finiteness of our senses and the imperfection of our Knowledge, the Concept is not a true one. With perfect Perception and perfect Knowledge we shall see that, apart from the two limitations or modes under which our physical senses act, there can be no such thing as Motion, because the very essence of Motion is but the product of those limitations, namely, Time and s.p.a.ce.

We are so accustomed to take everything for granted, that it may perhaps seem strange to question whether it can even be a.s.serted that we have ever seen matter. Let us turn towards a common object in this room. We catch in our eyes the mult.i.tudinous impulses which are reflected from its surface under circ.u.mstances somewhat similar to those in which a cricketer ”fields” a ball; he puts his hand in the way of the moving ball and catches it, and, knowing the distance of the batsman, he perhaps recognises, by the hard impact of the ball, that the batsman has strong muscles, but he cannot be said to _see_ the batsman by that impact, nor can he gain thereby any idea as to his character. So it is with objective intuition; we direct our eyes towards an object, and catch thereby rays of light reflected from that object at different angles, and, by combining all these directions, we recognise _form_, and come to the conclusion that we are looking at, say, a chair. The eye also tells us that rays are coming in greater quant.i.ty from some parts of it, and we know that those parts are _polished_; the eye again catches rays giving higher or lower frequencies of vibration, and we call that _colour_; our eyes also tell us that it intercepts certain rays reflected from other objects in the room, and we know that it is not _transparent_ to light; and those are our sight perceptions of a wooden chair.

We may go a little further by ”pus.h.i.+ng,” when we know, by the amount of resistance compared with the power exerted, what force of gravity is being exerted by and on that chair, and we declare it heavy or light, but by these means we get no nearer to the knowledge of what matter is. By tests and reagents we can resolve wood into other forms which we call Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, &c., which, because we cannot divide them into any other known substances, we call ”Elements,” but we can only look at these in the same way as we are looking at the chair. Chemists, however, carry us a little further, and show us that the Elementary substances have not only their likes and dislikes, but their pa.s.sionate desires and lukewarmness to others of their ilk, and, when opportunity offers, they break up with great violence any ordinary friends.h.i.+p existing between them and their neighbours, and seize on their coveted prey with a strength of will surpa.s.sing anything experienced in the Organic World; and this new a.s.sociation they maintain, until they, in their turn, are dispossessed, or they encounter another substance of still greater attraction, when they leave their first love and take up new connections.

I shall touch upon the subject of what matter is later on; meanwhile let us consider how, owing to our senses being limited by the considerations of Time and s.p.a.ce, we are surrounded by inconceivables, and yet it is those very inadequate conceptions which force us to acquire Knowledge; the greatest incentive we have to pursue our investigation is, as we have seen, the fact that Perception without sufficient Knowledge leads us into difficulties. Let me give you two instances of these inconceivables. Infinite s.p.a.ce is inconceivable by us, but it is also quite as inconceivable, or perhaps even more so, to think of s.p.a.ce being limited, and yet we are forced to declare that one of these two must be true. Again, Matter is either composed of ultimate bodies, of a certain size which cannot be divided, or is infinitely divisible; both of these are inconceivable, the latter for the same reason as that of the Infinity of s.p.a.ce, and the former because it is inconceivable that the ultimate body could not be divided into two parts by a sharp edge forced between its two sides, or by a stronger force than at present holds it together; it has indeed been suggested as an explanation that, if an atom could be divided, it might cease to be matter, that its parts would have no existence, but it is difficult to conceive how two nothings can form one something.

Another example of Perception leading to a false Concept is our Sense of Pain; we apply a red-hot coal to the tip of one of our fingers and our Perception would have us believe that we feel intense pain at the point of contact, but we know this to be a false Concept, as it can be shown that the pain is only felt at the brain: there are in communication with different parts of our body small microscopical nerve threads, any of which may be severed with a pen-knife close to the base of the skull, with the result that no pain can then be felt, although the fingertip is just as much alive and is seen to be burning away.

Another example is our Sense of Hearing. A musical sound is made up of a certain number of pushes in a second, but each push is silent. It is only, as we have seen, a musical sound to our Sense when the pushes recur at intervals of not more than the sixteenth part of a second.

The p.r.o.ngs of a tuning-fork, vibrating 500 times per second, seem to be travelling very quickly, but are really only moving at the rate of 10 inches per second, or not much over half a mile per hour, when the amplitude is the hundredth part of an inch, which gives quite a loud sound.

Light is also composed of rills in the Ether, but the rill itself is not Light, it is only Light when these rills strike, with a certain enormous frequency, on a special organ adapted for, we might say, counting these frequencies, and if these frequencies fall below that certain number, or above twice that number per second, there is no Sense of Sight.

How few people have ever realised what a wonderful Counting Machine they possess in their organ of Sight! I think the best method I can adopt, to bring this clearly before you, is to take our tuning-fork, vibrating 500 times per second, a rapidity which to some will be even difficult to comprehend, and then ask you to consider how long that fork must continue to vibrate before it has accomplished the full number of frequencies, which must necessarily impinge upon the eye in one second of time, before the phenomenon of sight becomes possible.