Part 14 (2/2)
”I am well enough versed in what we call science, to have no fear of injuring the cause by telling the truth, and you asked a direct question. If your questions carry you farther in the direction of force studies, accept at once, that, of the intrinsic const.i.tution of force itself, nothing is known. Heat, light, magnetism, electricity, galvanism (until recently known as imponderable bodies) are now considered as modifications of force; but, in my opinion, the time will come when they will be known as disturbances.”
”Disturbances of what?”
”I do not know precisely; but of something that lies behind them all, perhaps creates them all, but yet is in essence unknown to men.”
”Give me a clearer idea of your meaning.”
”It seems impossible,” he replied; ”I can not find words in which to express myself; I do not believe that forces, as we know them (imponderable bodies), are as modern physics defines them. I am tempted to say that, in my opinion, forces are disturbance expressions of a something with which we are not acquainted, and yet in which we are submerged and permeated. Aristotle's ether perhaps. It seems to me, that, behind all material substances, including forces, there is an unknown spirit, which, by certain influences, may be ruffled into the exhibition of an expression, which exhibition of temper we call a force.
From this spirit these force expressions (wavelets or disturbances) arise, and yet they may become again quiescent, and again rest in its absorbing unity. The water from the outlet of a calm lake flows over a gentle decline in ripples, or quiet undulations, over the rapids in musical laughings, over a precipice in thunder tones,--always water, each a different phase, however, to become quiet in another lake (as ripples in this universe may awaken to our perception, to repose again), and still be water.”
He hesitated.
”Go on,” I said.
”So I sometimes have dared to dream that gravitation may be the reservoir that conserves the energy for all mundane forces, and that what we call modifications of force are intermediate conditions, ripples, rapids, or cascades, in gravitation.”
”Continue,” I said, eagerly, as he hesitated.
He shook his head.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SOLILOQUY OF PROF. DANIEL VAUGHN.--”GRAVITATION IS THE BEGINNING AND GRAVITATION IS THE END: ALL EARTHLY BODIES KNEEL TO GRAVITATION.”
”Please continue, I am intensely interested; I wish that I could give you my reasons for the desire; I can not do so, but I beg you to continue.”
”I should add,” continued Vaughn, ignoring my remarks, ”that we have established rules to measure the force of gravitation, and have estimated the decrease of attraction as we leave the surfaces of the planets. We have made comparative estimates of the weight of the earth and planets, and have reason to believe that the force expression of gravitation attains a maximum at about one-sixth the distance toward the center of the earth, then decreases, until at the very center of our planet, matter has no weight. This, together with the rule I repeated a few moments ago, is about all we know, or think we know, of gravitation.
Gravitation is the beginning and gravitation is the end; all earthly bodies kneel to gravitation. I can not imagine a Beyond, and yet gravitation,” mused the rapt philosopher, ”may also be an expression of--” he hesitated again, forgetting me completely, and leaned his s.h.a.ggy head upon his hands. I realized that his mind was lost in conjecture, and that he was absorbed in the mysteries of the scientific immensity.
Would he speak again? I could not think of disturbing his reverie, and minutes pa.s.sed in silence. Then he slowly, softly, reverently murmured: ”Gravitation, Gravitation, thou art seemingly the one permanent, ever present earth-bound expression of Omnipotence. Heat and light come and go, as vapors of water condense into rain and dissolve into vapor to return again to the atmosphere. Electricity and magnetism appear and disappear; like summer storms they move in diversified channels, or even turn and fly from contact with some bodies, seemingly forbidden to appear, but thou, Gravitation, art omnipresent and omnipotent. Thou createst motion, and yet maintainest the equilibrium of all things mundane and celestial. An attempt to imagine a body dest.i.tute of thy potency, would be to bankrupt and deaden the material universe. O!
Gravitation, art thou a voice out of the Beyond, and are other forces but echoes--tremulous reverberations that start into life to vibrate for a spell and die in the s.p.a.ce caverns of the universe while thou continuest supreme?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”SOLILOQUY OF PROF. DANIEL VAUGHN.
'GRAVITATION IS THE BEGINNING, AND GRAVITATION IS THE END; ALL EARTHLY BODIES KNEEL TO GRAVITATION.'”]
His bowed head and rounded shoulders stooped yet lower; he unconsciously brushed his s.h.a.ggy locks with his hand, and seemed to confer with a familiar Being whom others could not see.
”A voice from without,” he repeated; ”from beyond our realm! Shall the subtle ears of future scientists catch yet lighter echoes? Will the brighter thoughts of more gifted men, under such furtherings as the future may bring, perchance commune with beings who people immensity, distance disappearing before thy ever-reaching spirit? For with thee, who holdest the universe together, s.p.a.ce is not s.p.a.ce, and there is no word expressing time. Art thou a voice that carriest the history of the past from the past unto and into the present, and for which there is no future, all conditions of time being as one to thee, thy self covering all and connecting all together? Art thou, Gravitation, a voice? If so, there must be a something farther out in those fathomless caverns, beyond mind imaginings, from which thou comest, for how could nothingness have formulated itself into a voice? The suns and universe of suns about us, may be only vacant points in the depths of an all-pervading ent.i.ty in which even thyself dost exist as a momentary echo, linked to substances ponderous, destined to fade away in the inter-stellar expanse outside, where disturbances disappear, and matter and gravitation together die; where all is pure, quiescent, peaceful and dark. Gravitation, Gravitation, imperishable Gravitation; thou seemingly art the ever-pervading, unalterable, but yet moving spirit of a cosmos of solemn mysteries. Art thou now, in unperceived force expressions, speaking to dumb humanity of other universes; of suns and vortices of suns; bringing tidings from the solar planets, or even infinitely distant star mists, the silent unresolved nebulae, and spreading before earth-bound mortal minds, each instant, fresh tidings from without, that, in ignorance, we can not read? May not beings, perhaps like ourselves but higher in the scale of intelligence, those who people some of the planets about us, even now beckon and try to converse with us through thy subtle, ever-present self? And may not their efforts at communication fail because of our ignorance of a language they can read?
Are not light and heat, electricity and magnetism plodding, vacillating agents compared with thy steady existence, and is it even further possible?--”
His voice had gradually lowered, and now it became inaudible; he was oblivious to my presence, and had gone forth from his own self; he was lost in matters celestial, and abstractedly continued unintelligibly to mutter to himself as, brus.h.i.+ng his hair from his forehead, he picked up his well-worn felt hat, and placed it awkwardly on his s.h.a.ggy head, and then shuffled away without bidding me farewell. The bent form, prematurely shattered by privation; uncouth, unkempt, typical of suffering and neglect, impressed me with the fact that in him man's life essence, the immortal mind, had forgotten the material part of man. The physical half of man, even of his own being, in Daniel Vaughn's estimation, was an enc.u.mbrance unworthy of serious attention, his spirit communed with the pure in nature, and to him science was a study of the great Beyond.[5]
[5] Mr. Drury can not claim to have recorded verbatim Prof.
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