Joseph Smith as Scientist: A Contribution to Mormon PhilosophyWidtsoe, John Andreas
Religion
Joseph Smith as Scientist: A Contribution to Mormon Philosophy
Widtsoe, John Andreas
Smith, Joseph, Jr., 1805-1844
The great Latter-day prophet is thus shown to be in harmony with the
second fundamental law of science. It is not a valid objection to this
conclusion to say that Joseph Smith did not use the accepted terms of
science. Words stand only for ideas; the ideas are essential. The
nomenclature of a science is often different in different lands, and
is often changed as knowledge grows.
It is hardly correct to say that he was in harmony with the law; the
law as stated by the world of science was rather in harmony with him.
Let it be observed that Joseph Smith enunciated the principle of the
conservation of the energy, or intelligence as he called it, of the
universe, in May, 1833, ten years before Dr. Joule published his
famous papers on energy relations, and fifteen or twenty years before
the doctrine was clearly understood and generally accepted by the
learned of the world. Let it be also remembered that the unlearned boy
from the backwoods of New York state, taught with the conviction of
absolute certainty that the doctrine was true, for God had revealed it
to him.
If God did not reveal it to him, where did he learn it, and whence
came the courage to teach it as an eternal truth?
Chapter IV.
THE UNIVERSAL ETHER.
[Sidenote: The modern theory of light was established only about the
year 1830.]
The nature of light has been in every age a fascinating subject for
study and reflection. Descartes, the French mathematician and
philosopher, advanced the hypothesis that light consists of small
particles emitted by luminous bodies, and that the sensation of light
is produced by the impact of these particles upon the retina of the
eye. Soon after this emission or corpuscular theory had been proposed,
Hooke, an English investigator of great note, stated publicly that the
phenomena of light, as he had observed them, led him to the belief
that the nature of light could best be explained on the assumption
that light was a kind of undulation or wave in some unknown medium,
and that the sensation of light was. produced when these waves struck
upon the retina of the eye. This new hypothesis, known as the theory
of undulations, after the great Isaac Newton had declared himself in
favor of the corpuscular theory, was finally adjudged by the majority
of students to be erroneous.
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