Czytaj książkę: «The Law and the Word»

SOME FACTS IN NATURE

If I were asked what, in my opinion, distinguishes the thought of the

present day from that of a previous generation, I should feel inclined

to say, it is the fact that people are beginning to realize that Thought

is a power in itself, one of the great forces of the Universe, and

ultimately the greatest of forces, directing all the others. This idea

seems to be, as the French say, "in the air," and this very well

expresses the state of the case--the idea is rapidly spreading through

many countries and through all classes, but it is still very much "in

the air." It is to a great extent as yet only in a gaseous condition,

vague and nebulous, and so not leading to the practical results, both

individual and collective, which might be expected of it, if it were

consolidated into a more workable form. We are like some amateurs who

want to paint finished pictures before they have studied the elements of

Art, and when they see an artist do without difficulty what they vainly

attempt, they look upon him as a being specially favoured by Providence,

instead of putting it down to their own want of knowledge. The idea is

true. Thought _is_ the great power of the Universe. But to make it

practically available we must know something of the principles by which

it works--that it is not a mere vaporous indefinable influence floating

around and subject to no known laws, but that on the contrary, it

follows laws as uncompromising as those of mathematics, while at the

same time allowing unlimited freedom to the individual.

Now the purpose of the following pages, is to suggest to the reader the

lines on which to find his way out of this nebulous sort of thought into

something more solid and reliable. I do not profess, like a certain

Negro preacher, to "unscrew the inscrutable," for we can never reach a

point where we shall not find the inscrutable still ahead of us; but if

I can indicate the use of a screw-driver instead of a hatchet, and that

the screws should be turned from left to right, instead of from right to

left, it may enable us to unscrew some things which would otherwise

remain screwed down tight. We are all beginners, and indeed the

hopefulness of life is in realizing that there are such vistas of

unending possibilities before us, that however far we may advance, we

shall always be on the threshold of something greater. We must be like

Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up--heaven defend me from ever feeling

quite grown up, for then I should come to a standstill; so the reader

must take what I have to say simply as the talk of one boy to another in

the Great School, and not expect too much.

The first question then is, where to begin. Descartes commenced his book

with the words "Cogito, ergo sum." "I think, therefore I am," and we

cannot do better than follow his example. There are two things about

which we cannot have any doubt--our own existence, and that of the world

around us. But what is it in us that is aware of these two things, that

hopes and fears and plans regarding them? Certainly not our flesh and

bones. A man whose leg has been amputated is able to think just the

same. Therefore it is obvious that there is something in us which

receives impressions and forms ideas, that reasons upon facts and

determines upon courses of action and carries them out, which is not the

physical body. This is the real "I Myself." This is the Person we are

really concerned with; and it is the betterment of this "I Myself" that

makes it worth while to enquire what our Thought has to do in the

matter.

Equally true it is on the other hand that the forces of Nature around us

do not think. Steam, electricity, gravitation, and chemical affinity do

not think. They follow certain fixed laws which we have no power to

alter. Therefore we are confronted at the outset by a broad distinction

between two modes of Motion--the Movement of Thought and the Movement of

Cosmic Energy--the one based upon the exercise of Consciousness and

Will, and the other based upon Mathematical Sequence. This is why that

system of instruction known as Free Masonry starts by erecting the two

symbolic pillars Jachin and Boaz--Jachin so called from the root "Yak"

meaning "One," indicating the Mathematical element of Law; and Boaz,

from the root "Awáz" meaning "Voice" indicating Personal element of Free

Will. These names are taken from the description in I Kings vii, 21 and

II Chron. iii, 17 of the building of Solomon's Temple, where these two

pillars stood before the entrance, the meaning being that the Temple of

Truth can only be entered by passing between them, that is, by giving

each of these factors their due relation to the other, and by realizing

that they are the two Pillars of the Universe, and that no real progress

can be made except by finding the true balance between them. Law and

Personality--these are the two great principles with which we have to

deal, and the problem is to square the one with the other.

Let me start, then, by considering some well established facts in the

physical world which show how the known Law acts under certain known

conditions, and this will lead us on in an intelligible manner to see

how the same Law is likely to work under as yet unknown conditions. If

we had to deal with unknown laws as well as unknown conditions we

should, indeed, be up a gum tree. Fancy a mathematician having to solve

an equation, both sides of which were entirely made up of unknown

quantities--where would he be? Happily this is not the case. The Law is

ONE throughout, and the apparent variety of its working results from the

infinite variety of the conditions under which it may work. Let us lay a

foundation, then, by seeing how it works in what we call the common

course of Nature. A few examples will suffice.

Hardly more than a generation ago it was supposed that the analysis of

matter could not be carried further than its reduction to some seventy

primary chemical elements, which in various combinations produced all

material substances; but there was no explanation how all these

different elements came into existence. Each appeared to be an original

creation, and there was no accounting for them. But now-a-days, as the

rustic physician says in Molière's play of the "Médecin Malgré Lui,"

"nous avons changé tout cela." Modern science has shown conclusively

that every kind of chemical atom is composed of particles of one

original substance which appears to pervade all space, and to which the

name of Ether has been given. Some of these particles carry a positive

charge of electricity and some a negative, and the chemical atom is

formed by the grouping of a certain number of negatively charged

particles round a centre composed of positive electricity around which

they revolve; and it is the number of these particles and the rate of

their motion that determines the nature of the atom, whether, for

instance, it will be an atom of iron or an atom of hydrogen, and thus we

are brought back to Plato's old aphorism that the Universe consists of

Number and Motion.

The size of these etheric particles is small beyond anything but

abstract mathematical conception. Sir Oliver Lodge is reported to have

made the following comparison in a lecture delivered at Birmingham. "The

chemical 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 sound.

Perhaps the reader may feel inclined to say with the Irishman that all

this is "as dry as ditch-water," but he will see before long that it has

a good deal to do with ourselves. For the present what I want him to

realize by a few examples is the mathematical accuracy of Law. The value

of these examples lies in their illustration of the fact that the Law

can always be trusted to lead us on to further knowledge. We see it

working under known conditions, and relying on its unchangeableness, we

can then logically infer what it will do under other hypothetical

conditions, and in this way many important discoveries have been made.

For instance it was in this way that Mendeléef, the Russian chemist,

assumed the existence of three then unknown chemical elements, now

called Scandium, Gallium and Germanium. There was a gap in the orderly

sequence of the chemical elements, and relying on the old maxim--"Natura

nihil facit per saltum"--Nature nowhere leaves a gap to jump over--he

argued that if such elements did not exist they ought to, and so he

calculated what these elements ought to be like, giving their atomic

weight, chemical affinities, and the like; and when they were discovered

many years later they were found to answer exactly to his description.

He prophesied, not by guesswork, but by knowledge of the Law; and in

much the same way radium was discovered by Professor and Madame Curie.

In like manner Hertz was led to the discovery of the electro-magnetic

waves. The celebrated mathematician Clerk-Maxwell had calculated all

particulars of these waves twenty-five years before Hertz, on the basis

of these calculations, worked out his discovery. Again, Neptune, the

outermost known planet of our system was discovered by the astronomer

Galle in consequence of calculations made by Leverrier. Certain

variations in the movements of the planets were mathematically

unaccountable except on the hypothesis that some more remote planet

existed. Astronomers had faith in mathematics and the hypothetical

planet was found to be a reality. Instances of this kind might be

multiplied, but as the French say "à quoi bon?" I think these will be

sufficient to convince the reader that the invariable sequence of Law is

a factor to be relied upon, and that by studying its working under known

conditions we may get at least some measure of light on conditions which

are as yet unknown to us.

Let us now pass on to the human subject and consider a few examples of

what is usually called the psychic side of our nature. Walt Whitman was

quite right when he said that we are not all included between our hat

and our boots; we shall find that our modes of consciousness and powers

of action are not entirely restricted to our physical body. The

importance of this line of enquiry lies in the fact that if we do

possess extra-physical powers, these also form part of our personality

and must be included in our estimate of our relation to our environment,

and it is therefore worth our while to consider them.

Some very interesting experiments have been made by De Rochas, an

eminent French scientist, which go to show that under certain magnetic

conditions the sensation of physical touch can be experienced at some

distance from the body. He found that under these conditions the person

experimented on is insensible to the prick of a needle run into his

skin, but if the prick is made about an inch-and-a-half away from the

surface of the skin he feels it. Again at about three inches from this

point he feels the prick of the needle, but is insensible to it in the

space between these two points. Then there comes another interval in

which no sensation is conveyed, but at about three inches still further

away he again feels the sensation, and so on; so that he appears to be

surrounded by successive zones of sensation, the first about an

inch-and-a-half from the body, and the others at intervals of about

three inches each. The number of these zones seems to vary in different

cases, but in some there are as many as six or seven, thus giving a

radius of sensation, extending to more than twenty inches beyond the

body.

Now to explain this we must have recourse to what I have already said

about waves. The heart and the lungs are the two centres of automatic

rhythmic movement in the body, and each projects its own series of

vibrations into the etheric envelope. Those projected by the lungs are

estimated to be three times the length of those projected by the heart,

while those projected by the heart are three times as rapid as those

projected by the lungs. Consequently if the two sets of waves start

together the crest of every third wave of the rapid series of short

waves will coincide with the crest of one of the long waves of the

slower series, while the intermediate short waves will coincide with the

depression of one of the long waves. Now the effect of the crest of one

wave overtaking that of another going in the same direction, is to raise

the two together at that point into a single wave of greater amplitude

or height than the original waves had by themselves; if the reader has

the opportunity of studying the inflowing of waves on the seabeach he

can verify this for himself. Consequently when the more rapid etheric

waves overtake the slower ones they combine to form a larger wave, and

it is at these points that the zones of sensation occur. If the reader

will draw a diagram of two waved lines travelling along the same