Radio-activity is uninfluenced by external conditions; hence we are thus
far unable to control it. Nothing that is known will effect the
transmutation of one element into another. It is spontaneous and
uncontrollable. May not life be spontaneous in the same sense?
The release of the energy associated with the structure of the atoms is
not available by any of our mechanical appliances. The process of
radio-activity involves the expulsion of atoms of helium with a velocity
three hundred times greater than that ever previously known for any
material mass or particle, and this power we are incompetent to use. The
atoms remain unchanged amid the heat and pressure of the laboratory of
nature. Iron and oxygen and so forth remain the same in the sun as here
on the earth.
Science strips gross matter of its grossness. When it is done with it,
it is no longer the obstructive something we know and handle; it is
reduced to pure energy--the line between it and spirit does not exist.
We have found that bodies are opaque only to certain rays; the X-ray
sees through this too too solid flesh. Bodies are ponderable only to our
dull senses; to a finer hand than this the door or the wall might offer
no obstruction; a finer eye than this might see the emanations from the
living body; a finer ear might hear the clash of electrons in the air.
Who can doubt, in view of what we already know, that forces and
influences from out the heavens above, and from the earth beneath, that
are beyond our ken, play upon us constantly?
The final mystery of life is no doubt involved in conditions and forces
that are quite outside of or beyond our conscious life activities, in
forces that play about us and upon and through us, that we know not of,
because a knowledge of them is not necessary to our well-being. "Our
eye takes in only an octave of the vibrations we call light," because no
more is necessary for our action or our dealing with things. The
invisible rays of the spectrum are potent, but they are beyond the ken
of our senses. There are sounds or sound vibrations that we do not hear;
our sense of touch cannot recognize a gossamer, or the gentler air
movements.
I began with the contemplation of the beauty and terror of the
thunderbolt--"God's autograph," as one of our poets (Joel Benton) said,
"written upon the sky." Let me end with an allusion to another aspect of
the storm that has no terror in it--the bow in the clouds: a sudden
apparition, a cosmic phenomenon no less wonderful and startling than the
lightning's flash. The storm with terror and threatened destruction on
one side of it, and peace and promise on the other! The bow appears like
a miracle, but it is a commonplace of nature; unstable as life, and
beautiful as youth. The raindrops are not changed, the light is not
changed, the laws of the storms are not changed; and yet, behold this
wonder!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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