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[page 204:]
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If the propositions of this Discourse are tenable,
the “state of progressive collapse” is precisely that state in
which
alone we are warranted in considering All Things; and, with due
humility,
let me here confess that, for my part, I am at a loss to conceive how
any
other understanding of the existing condition of
affairs, could
ever
have made its way into the human brain. “The tendency to collapse” and
“the attraction of gravitation” are convertible phrases. In using
either, we speak of the rëaction of the First Act. Never was
necessity
less obvious than that of supposing Matter imbued with an ineradicable quality
forming part of its material nature — a
quality, or
instinct, forever inseparable from it, and by dint of which
inalienable
principle
every atom is perpetually impelled to seek its fellow-atom.
Never
was necessity less obvious than that of entertaining this
unphilosophical
idea. Going boldly behind the vulgar thought, we have to conceive,
metaphysically,
that the gravitating principle appertains to Matter temporarily
—
only while diffused — only while existing as Many instead of as One —
appertains
to it by virtue of its state of irradiation alone — appertains, in a
word,
altogether to its condition, and not in the slightest degree to
itself. In this view, when the irradiation shall
have
returned
into
its source — when the rëaction shall be completed — the
gravitating
principle
will no longer exist. And, in fact, astronomers, without at any time
reaching
the idea here suggested, seem to have been approximating it, in the
assertion
that “if there were but one body in the universe, it would be
impossible
to understand how the principle, Gravity, could obtain:” that is to
say,
from a consideration of Matter as they find it, they reach a conclusion
at which I deductively arrive. That so pregnant a suggestion as the one
quoted should have been permitted to remain so long unfruitful, is,
nevertheless,
a mystery which I find it difficult to fathom.
It is, perhaps, in no little degree, however, our
propensity for the continuous — for the analogical — in the present
case
more particularly for the symmetrical — which has been leading us
astray.
And, in fact, the sense of the symmetrical is an instinct which may be
depended upon with an almost blindfold reliance. It is the poetical
essence
of the Universe — of the Universe which, in the supremeness of
its
symmetry, is but the most sublime of [page 205:]
poems.
Now, symmetry and consistency are convertible terms: — thus Poetry and
Truth
are one. A thing is consistent in the ratio of its truth — true in the
ratio
of its consistency. A perfect consistency, I repeat, can be nothing
but an absolute truth. We may take it for granted, then, that Man
cannot
long or widely err, if he suffer himself to be guided by his poetical,
which I have maintained to be his truthful, in being his symmetrical,
instinct.
He must have a care, however, lest, in pursuing too heedlessly the
superficial
symmetry of forms and motions, he leave out of sight the really
essential
symmetry of the principles which determine and control them.
That the stellar bodies would finally be merged
in
one — that, at last, all would be drawn into the substance of one
stupendous
central orb already existing — is an idea which, for some time
past,
seems, vaguely and indeterminately, to have held possession of the
fancy
of mankind. It is an idea, in fact, which belongs to the class of the excessively
obvious. It springs, instantly, from a superficial observation of
the
cyclic and seemingly gyrating or vorticial movements of
those
individual portions of the Universe which come most immediately and
most
closely under our observation. There is not, perhaps, a human being, of
ordinary education and of average reflective capacity, to whom, at some
period, the fancy in question has not occurred, as if spontaneously, or
intuitively, and wearing all the character of a very profound and very
original conception. This conception, however, so commonly entertained,
has never, within my knowledge, arisen out of any abstract
considerations.
Being, on the contrary, always suggested, as I say, by the vorticial
movements
about centres, a reason for it, also — a cause for the
ingathering
of all the orbs into one, imagined to be already existing, was
naturally sought in the same direction — among these cyclic movements
themselves.
Thus it happened that, on announcement of the
gradual
and perfectly regular decrease observed in the orbit of Encke’s comet,
at every successive revolution about our Sun, astronomers were nearly
unanimous
in the opinion that the cause in question was found — that a principle
was
discovered sufficient to account, physically, for that final, universal
agglomeration which, I repeat, the analogical, symmetrical, or poetical
instinct of man had pre-determined [page 206:] to
understand
as something more than a simple hypothesis.
This cause — this sufficient reason for the final
ingathering — was declared to exist in an exceedingly rare but still
material
medium pervading space; which medium, by retarding, in some degree, the
progress of the comet, perpetually weakened its tangential force; thus
giving a predominance to the centripetal; which, of course, drew the
comet
nearer and nearer at each revolution, and would eventually precipitate
it upon the Sun.
All this was strictly logical — admitting the
medium
or ether; but this ether was assumed, most illogically, on the ground
that
no other mode than the one spoken of could be discovered, of
accounting
for the observed decrease in the orbit of the comet: — as if from the
fact
that we could discover no other mode of accounting for it, it
followed,
in any respect, that no other mode of accounting for it existed. It is
clear that innumerable causes might operate, in combination, to
diminish
the orbit, without even a possibility of our ever becoming acquainted
with
one of them. In the meantime, it has never been fairly shown, perhaps,
why the retardation occasioned by the skirts of the Sun’s atmosphere,
through
which the comet passes at perihelion, is not enough to account for the
phænomenon. That Encke’s comet will be absorbed into the Sun, is
probable;
that all the comets of the system will be absorbed, is more than merely
possible; but, in such case, the principle of absorption must be
referred
to eccentricity of orbit — to the close approximation to the Sun, of
the
comets at their perihelia; and is a principle not affecting, in any
degree,
the ponderous spheres, which are to be regarded as the
true
material constituents of the Universe. Touching comets in general, let
me here suggest, in passing, that we cannot be far wrong in looking
upon
them as the lightning-flashes of the cosmical Heaven.
The idea of a retarding ether, and, through it, of
a final agglomeration of all things, seemed at one time, however, to be
confirmed by the observation of a positive decrease in the orbit of the
solid Moon. By reference to eclipses recorded 2500 years
ago, it was found that the velocity of the satellite’s revolution then
was considerably less than it is now; that on the hypothesis
that
its motion in its orbit is uniformly in accordance with Kepler’s law,
and [page 207:] was accurately determined then
—
2500 years ago — it is now in advance of the position it should
occupy, by nearly 9000 miles.
The increase
of velocity proved, of course, a diminution of orbit; and astronomers
were
fast yielding to a belief in an ether, as the sole mode of accounting
for
the phænomenon, when Lagrange came to the rescue. He showed that,
owing
to the configurations of the spheroids, the shorter axes of their
ellipses
are subject to variation in length; the longer axes being permanent;
and
that this variation is continuous and vibratory — so that every orbit
is
in a state of transition, either from circle to ellipse, or from
ellipse
to circle. In the case of the moon, where the shorter axis is decreasing,
the orbit is passing from circle to ellipse, and, consequently, is decreasing
too; but, after a long series of ages, the ultimate eccentricity will
be
attained; then the shorter axis will proceed to increase, until
the orbit becomes a circle; when the process of shortening will again
take
place; — and so on forever. In the case of the Earth, the orbit is
passing
from ellipse to circle. The facts thus demonstrated do away, of
course,
with all necessity for supposing an ether, and with all apprehension of
the system’s instability — on the ether’s account.
It will be remembered that I have myself assumed
what we may term an ether. I have spoken of a subtle
influence
which we know to be ever in attendance on matter, although becoming
manifest
only through matter’s heterogeneity. To this influence — without
daring to touch it at all in any effort at explaining its awful nature
— I have referred the various phænomena of electricity, heat,
light,
magnetism;
and more — of vitality, consciousness, and thought — in a word, of
spirituality.
It will be seen, at once, then, that the ether thus conceived is
radically
distinct from the ether of the astronomers; inasmuch as theirs is matter
and mine not.
With the idea of material ether, seems, thus, to
have departed altogether the thought of that universal agglomeration so
long predetermined by the poetical fancy of mankind: — an agglomeration
in
which a sound Philosophy might have been warranted in putting faith, at
least to a certain extent, if for no other reason than that by this
poetical
fancy it had been so predetermined. But so far as Astronomy —
so
far as mere Physics have yet spoken, [page 208:]
the
cycles of the Universe are perpetual — the Universe has no conceivable
end. Had an end been demonstrated, however, from so purely collateral a
cause as an ether, Man’s instinct of the Divine capacity to adapt,
would have rebelled against the demonstration. We should have been
forced
to regard the Universe with some such sense of dissatisfaction as we
experience
in contemplating an unnecessarily complex work of human art. Creation
would
have affected us as an imperfect plot in a romance, where the dènoûment
is awkwardly brought about by interposed incidents external and foreign
to the main subject; instead of springing out of the bosom of the
thesis
— out of the heart of the ruling idea — instead of arising as a result
of the primary proposition — as inseparable and inevitable part and
parcel
of the fundamental conception of the book.
What I mean by the symmetry of mere surface will
now be more clearly understood. It is simply by the blandishment of
this
symmetry that we have been beguiled into the general idea of which
Mädler’s
hypothesis is but a part — the idea of the vorticial indrawing of the
orbs.
Dismissing this nakedly physical conception, the symmetry of principle
sees the end of all things metaphysically involved in
the thought
of
a beginning; seeks and finds in this origin of all things, the
rudiment of this end; and perceives the impiety of supposing
this end likely
to be brought about less simply — less directly — less obviously — less
artistically —
than through the rëaction of the originating Act.
Recurring, then, to a previous suggestion, let us
understand the systems — let us understand each star, with its
attendant
planets — as but a Titanic atom existing in space with precisely the
same
inclination for Unity which characterized, in the beginning, the actual
atoms after their irradiation throughout the Universal sphere. As these
original
atoms rushed towards each other in generally straight lines, so let us
conceive as at least generally rectilinear, the paths of the
system-atoms
towards their respective centres of aggregation: — and in this direct
drawing
together of the systems into clusters, with a similar and simultaneous
drawing together of the clusters themselves while undergoing
consolidation,
we have at length attained the great Now — the awful Present —
the
Existing Condition of the Universe.
Of the still more awful Future a not irrational
analogy
may [page 209:] guide us in framing an hypothesis.
The equilibrium between the centripetal and centrifugal forces of each
system, being necessarily destroyed on attainment of a certain
proximity
to the nucleus of the cluster to which it belongs, there must occur, at
once, a chaotic or seemingly chaotic precipitation, of the moons upon
the
planets, of the planets upon the suns, and of the suns upon the nuclei;
and the general result of this precipitation must be the gathering of
the
myriad now-existing stars of the firmament into an almost infinitely
less
number of almost infinitely superior spheres. In being immeasurably
fewer,
the worlds of that day will be immeasurably greater than our own. Then,
indeed, amid unfathomable abysses, will be glaring unimaginable suns.
But
all this will be merely a climacic magnificence foreboding the great
End.
Of this End the new genesis described, can be but a very partial
postponement.
While undergoing consolidation, the clusters themselves, with a speed
prodigiously
accumulative, have been rushing towards their own general centre — and
now, with a thousand-fold electric velocity, commensurate only with
their
material grandeur and with their spiritual passion for oneness, the
majestic
remnants of the tribe of Stars flash, at length, into a common embrace.
The inevitable catastrophe is at hand.
But this catastrophe — what is it? We have seen
accomplished
the ingathering of the orbs. Henceforward, are we not to understand one
material globe of globes as comprehending and constituting the
Universe?
Such a fancy would be altogether at war with every assumption and
consideration
of this Discourse.
I have already alluded to that absolute reciprocity
of adaptation which is the idiosyncrasy of the Divine Art —
stamping
it divine. Up to this point of our reflections, we have been regarding
the electrical influence as a something by dint of whose repulsion
alone
Matter is enabled to exist in that state of diffusion demanded for the
fulfilment of its purposes: — so far, in a word, we have been
considering
the influence in question as ordained for Matter’s sake — to subserve
the
objects of matter. With a perfectly legitimate reciprocity, we are now
permitted to look at Matter, as created solely for the sake of this
influence — solely to serve the objects of this spiritual Ether.
Through
the aid — by the means — through [page 210:] the
agency,
of Matter, and by dint of its heterogeneity — is this Ether manifested
—
is Spirit individualized. It is merely in the development of
this
Ether, through heterogeneity, that particular masses of Matter become
animate
— sensitive — and in the ratio of their heterogeneity; — some reaching
a
degree of sensitiveness involving what we call Thought, and
thus
attaining Conscious Intelligence.
In this view, we are enabled to perceive Matter
as
a Means — not as an End. Its purposes are thus seen to have been
comprehended
in its diffusion; and with the return into Unity these purposes cease.
The absolutely consolidated globe of globes would be objectless:
— therefore not for a moment could it continue to exist. Matter,
created
for an end, would unquestionably, on fulfilment of that end, be Matter
no longer. Let us endeavor to understand that it would disappear, and
that
God would remain all in all.
That every work of Divine conception must
cöexist
and cöexpire with its particular design, seems to me especially
obvious;
and I make no doubt that, on perceiving the final globe of globes to be
objectless, the majority of my readers will be
satisfied with my
“therefore it cannot continue to exist.” Nevertheless, as the
startling
thought of its instantaneous disappearance is one which the most
powerful
intellect cannot be expected readily to entertain on grounds so
decidedly
abstract, let us endeavor to look at the idea from some other and more
ordinary point of view: — let us see how thoroughly and beautifully it
is
corroborated in an à posteriori consideration of Matter
as we
actually
find it.
I have before said that “Attraction and Repulsion
being undeniably the sole properties by which Matter is manifested to
Mind,
we are justified in assuming that Matter exists only as
Attraction
and Repulsion — in other words that Attraction and Repulsion are
Matter; there being no conceivable case in which we may not employ the
term Matter and the terms ‘Attraction’ and ‘Repulsion’ taken
together,
as equivalent, and therefore convertible, expressions of Logic.”*
Now the very definition of Attraction implies
particularity
— [page 211:] the existence of parts, particles,
or
atoms; for we define it as the tendency of “each atom, &c., to
every
other
atom,” &c., according to a certain law. Of course where there are no
parts — where there is absolute Unity — where the tendency to oneness
is
satisfied — there can be no Attraction: — this has been fully shown,
and
all Philosophy admits it. When, on fulfilment of its purposes, then,
Matter
shall have returned into its original condition of One — a
condition
which presupposes the expulsion of the separative ether, whose province
and whose capacity are limited to keeping the atoms apart until that
great
day when, this ether being no longer needed, the overwhelming pressure
of the finally collective Attraction shall at length just sufficiently
predominate* and expel it: — when, I say,
Matter,
finally, expelling the
Ether, shall have returned into absolute Unity, it will then (to speak
paradoxically for the moment) be Matter without Attraction and without
Repulsion — in other words, Matter without Matter — in other words,
again, Matter no more. In sinking into Unity, it will sink
at once into
that Nothingness which, to all Finite Perception, Unity must be — into
that
Material Nihility from which alone we can conceive it to have been
evoked —
to have been created by the Volition of God.
I repeat, then — Let us endeavor to comprehend
that
the final globe of globes will instantaneously disappear, and that God
will remain all in all.
But are we here to pause? Not so. On the
Universal
agglomeration and dissolution, we can readily conceive that a new and
perhaps
totally different series of conditions may ensue — another creation and
irradiation, returning into itself — another action and rëaction
of the
Divine
Will. Guiding our imaginations by that omniprevalent law of laws, the
law
of periodicity, are we not, indeed, more than justified in entertaining
a belief — let us say, rather, in indulging a hope — that the processes
we have here ventured to contemplate will be renewed forever, and
forever,
and forever; a novel Universe swelling into existence, and then
subsiding
into nothingness, at every throb of the Heart Divine?
And now — this Heart Divine — what is it? It
is
our own. [page 212:]
Let not the merely seeming irreverence of this
idea
frighten our souls from that cool exercise of consciousness — from that
deep tranquillity of self-inspection — through which alone we can hope
to
attain the presence of this, the most sublime of truths, and look it
leisurely
in the face.
The phænomena on which our conclusions
must
at this point depend, are merely spiritual shadows, but not the less
thoroughly
substantial.
We walk about, amid the destinies of our
world-existence,
encompassed by dim but ever present Memories of a Destiny more
vast
— very distant in the by-gone time, and infinitely awful.
We live out a Youth peculiarly haunted by such
dreams;
yet never mistaking them for dreams. As Memories we know them. During
our Youth the distinction is too clear to deceive us even for a
moment.
So long as this Youth endures, the feeling that
we exist, is the most natural of all feelings. We understand it thoroughly.
That there was a period at which we did not exist — or, that it
might so have happened that we never had existed at all — are the
considerations,
indeed, which during this youth, we find difficulty in
understanding.
Why we should not exist, is, up to the epoch of Manhood,
of all queries the most unanswerable. Existence — self-existence —
existence from all
Time
and to all Eternity — seems, up to the epoch of Manhood, a normal and
unquestionable
condition: — seems, because it is.
But now comes the period at which a conventional
World-Reason awakens us from the truth of our dream. Doubt, Surprise
and
Incomprehensibility arrive at the same moment. They say: — “You live,
and
the time was when you lived not. You have been created. An Intelligence
exists greater than your own; and it is only through this Intelligence
you live at all.” These things we struggle to comprehend and cannot: — cannot,
because these things, being untrue, are
thus, of
necessity,
incomprehensible.
No thinking being lives who, at some luminous
point
of his life of thought, has not felt himself lost amid the surges of
futile
efforts at understanding or believing that anything exists greater
than
his own soul. The utter impossibility of any one’s soul feeling [page
213:] itself inferior to another; the intense, overwhelming
dissatisfaction and rebellion at the thought; — these, with the
omniprevalent
aspirations at perfection, are but the spiritual, coincident with the
material,
struggles towards the original Unity — are, to my mind at least, a
species
of proof far surpassing what Man terms demonstration, that no one soul is
inferior to another — that nothing is, or can be,
superior to
any one soul — that each soul is, in part, its own God — its own
Creator:
— in a word, that God — the material and spiritual God — now
exists solely in the diffused Matter and Spirit of the Universe; and
that
the regathering of this diffused Matter and Spirit will be but the
re-constitution
of the purely Spiritual and Individual God.
In this view, and in this view alone, we
comprehend
the riddles of Divine Injustice — of Inexorable Fate. In this view
alone
the existence of Evil becomes intelligible; but in this view it becomes
more — it becomes endurable. Our souls no longer rebel at a Sorrow
which we ourselves have imposed upon ourselves, in furtherance of our
own
purposes — with a view — if even with a futile view — to the extension
of
our own Joy.
I have spoken of Memories that haunt us
during
our youth. They sometimes pursue us even into our Manhood: — assume
gradually
less and less indefinite shapes: — now and then speak to us with low
voices,
saying:
“There was an epoch in the Night of Time, when a
still-existent Being existed — one of an absolutely infinite number of
similar Beings that people the absolutely infinite domains of the
absolutely
infinite space.* It was not and is not in the
power of this Being — any
more than it is in your own — to extend, by actual increase, the joy of
his Existence; but just as it is in your power to expand or to
concentrate
your pleasures (the absolute amount of happiness remaining always the
same)
so did and does a similar capability appertain to this Divine Being,
who
thus passes his Eternity in perpetual variation of Concentrated Self
and
almost Infinite Self-Diffusion. What you call the Universe is but his
present
expansive existence. He now feels his life through an infinity [page
214:] of imperfect pleasures — the partial and
pain-intertangled
pleasures of those inconceivably numerous things which you designate as
his creatures, but which are really but infinite individualizations of
Himself. All these creatures — all — those which you term
animate,
as well as those to which you deny life for no better reason than that
you do not behold it in operation — all these creatures have,
in
a greater or less degree, a capacity for pleasure and for pain: — but
the general sum of their sensations is precisely that amount of
Happiness
which appertains by right to the Divine Being when concentrated within
Himself. These creatures are all, too, more or less conscious
Intelligences;
conscious, first, of a proper identity; conscious, secondly, and by
faint
indeterminate glimpses, of an identity with the Divine Being of whom we
speak — of an identity with God. Of the two classes of consciousness,
fancy
that the former will grow weaker, the latter stronger, during the long
succession of ages which must elapse before these myriads of individual
Intelligences become blended — when the bright stars become blended —
into
One. Think that the sense of individual identity will be gradually
merged
in the general consciousness — that Man, for example, ceasing
imperceptibly
to feel himself Man, will at length attain that awfully triumphant
epoch
when he shall recognise his existence as that of Jehovah. In the
meantime
bear in mind that all is Life — Life — Life within Life — the less
within
the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine.
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