The Universe a Vast Electric OrganismWarder, Geo. W. (George Woodward)
Science
The Universe a Vast Electric Organism
Warder, Geo. W. (George Woodward)
Science -- Miscellanea
Will man never cease slandering the good Deity, and libeling the
beneficent Creator of all good? With most people the fault is not with
the world or controlling providence and Deity, but in themselves. They
make their own world in their own mind and then find fault with it as if
it was a reality.
Albert Russell Wallace, in the Fortnightly Review of March, 1903, in a
labored article of great length, undertakes to carry the world back a
thousand years to the time when man thought the earth was the center of
the universe, and the stars were little openings or golden nails in the
crystal vault of heaven. He says we are at the center of the universe;
that our sun system belongs to a constellation situated near the center
of the Milky Way. This may be true, and it is not worth disputing, for
if we are at the center now--as our system travels 420,000 miles a
day--we were not there a thousand years ago, and in a few decades will
be far away from it. As we keep moving all the time, and do not get off
at this central station which he makes so much of, I see nothing gained
or lost if it is true.
But in order to show that it is central, he must limit the universe and
give its circumference, metes and bounds. This is an immense
undertaking. If our universe is limited--and Prof. Newcomb thought so a
few years ago, and held it was in the shape of a circle or disk, which
was about thirty thousand light years in circumference if true, then the
light from the distant stars have been traveling thirty thousand years
in order to reach us, and they must be millions of miles from where they
seem to be. Thus the center of the universe is constantly changing, and
it would take omniscient wisdom to tell where the center is, and then it
would not remain the center many hours. This would be true whether the
universe is limited or unlimited.
Mr. Wallace says, "The supreme end and purpose of this vast universe is
the production and development of the living soul in the perishable body
of man." If he had said that was the supreme purpose of the earth, I
would have agreed with him.
But since he makes man's development the supreme purpose of the universe
and says all other worlds are uninhabited, I am forced to disagree with
him. He says there are one hundred millions of stars and planets in the
universe, yet he depopulates them all for man's benefit, and then fails
to show how man can be benefitted, or for what purpose the almost
countless orbs were created. In my judgment he proves himself a million
of times wrong, and reaches the climax of unreasonable conjecture. I
believe no astronomer will agree with him. None has yet appeared, though
several of the most eminent have already expressed their dissent and
surprise at his position. His reasons, to my mind, do not justify his
conclusions, but prove the very opposite hypothesis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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