The Universe a Vast Electric OrganismWarder, Geo. W. (George Woodward)
Science
The Universe a Vast Electric Organism
Warder, Geo. W. (George Woodward)
Science -- Miscellanea
These pantheistic devotees are even trying to make waves of ether, air
and water intelligible things, and seem to think they are in the nature
of a circulating medium for this world-God, like blood is the
circulating medium of man's body. Even so orthodox a scientist as Prof.
Serviss, in the New York American of May 16th, 1903, goes into
panegyrics over waves and wave motion as follows: "The undulatory theory
of energy is carrying everything before it. It is not saying too much to
aver that wave motion is concerned in nearly all the phenomena of
physical life.... Think for a moment of what is included in the science
of waves. In the air all sounds, all musical harmonies are waves; in the
solid globe, all earthquakes are waves; in the ether light, electricity
and heat are waves. It is waves that make the stars visible, and yet
more mysterious oscillations picture for us on photographic plates
marvelous nebulous objects. Lord Kelvin has been credited with the
statement that the fluttering of a butterfly's wing sets up vibrations
that shake the universe."
This is superficial science, for it explains nothing. Waves are simply
a form of motion, and a form of motion creates nothing. Vibrations of
what? Wave motions of what? Our learned friend does not inform us.
Vibrations and wave motions are like heat sensations, they are not
realities; the force that creates them is the reality, and they are but
the mode or law of operation. The reality--the force creating these
vibrations and wave motions--is electricity. Yet he does not mention
this fact or any cause, but gives all the credit to the motion or manner
of motion, and ignores the cause, which is the most important of all.
Mr. Titus seems to think motion has consciousness, for he states that,
"the consciousness which is wrapped up in motion" becomes more or less
active in matter, and that God sleeps in the atom, and man is a
potential deity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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