THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

:.

THE

MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM;

OE, TUX

UNIVERSE WITHOUT AND THE UNIVERSE WITHIN:

BEING

AN UNFOLDING OF THE PLAN OF CREATION AND THE CORRESPOND-
ENCE OF TRUTHS, BOTH IN

THE WORLD OF SENSE AND THE WORLD OF SOUL.
En

BY WILLIAM FISHBOUGH.
0

PAR T I .

THE MACROCOSM; OR, THE UNIVERSE WITHOUT.

Nature is a harp of »BTEN TIMSS BEVEK strings,
On which, by God's own hand, is gently played
The ever-varied music of the spheres.

NEW YORK:
FOWLERS AND WELLS, PUBLISHERS,

CLINTON HALL, 181 NASSAU STREET.

Boston 142 Washington-st] 1852 F London, No. 142j3trand.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

WILLIAM FISHBOUGH,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District
of New York.

T. STEREOTYPE ASSOCIATION,

201 William Street, N. Y.

PREFACE.

IN submitting the accompanying Treatise to the public, it may be
proper to precede it by a few facts 'and remarks relative to its origin,
plan, and purpose. In the summer of 1849, on retiring from the edi-
torial charge of a Philosophical Journal, the writer announced his
intention to prepare and publish, as soon as convenient, a work on
Psychology — a subject then, as now, exciting much interest among a
class of readers with whom he had been holding weekly communion.
A manuscript of such a work was, during the few ensuing months,
nearly finished ; but various circumstances and considerations arose to
prevent its publication, among the chief of which were, first, that with
the materials of psychological science then unfolded, I found it impos-
sible to bring the work to a desired state of perfection ; and, secondly,
that facts and principles such I was then able, only, to set forth, were
already rapidly forcing themselves into general notice in another way.
I concluded, therefore, to await the unfolding of further light upon a
subject of which, at that time, no one could claim more than a very
superficial knowledge, and to postpone the publication of the results
of my investigations until they were further matured, and until the
state of the public mind, upon questions to which they related, gave a
fair indication that some particular use, not accomplished by other de-
velopments, might be possibly subserved in submitting them to general
perusal. These statements involve an explanation and apology to a
large portion of my former readers, who, as I learn, felt disappointed
at the non-appearance of the announced publication at the time it was
expected, and whose letters of inquiry respecting it I have, in some
instances, been reluctantly compelled to leave unanswered.

As investigations have been continued upon the great subject of
Psychology, together with its cognate and still higher themes, it has,
of course, greatly expanded ; until, in the aspect which the ques-
tion finally assumed, it was perceived to be impossible to give any ade-
quate exposition of the great realm of being within man, without the

IV PREFACE.

aid of some more enlarged, systematic, and interior exposition than any
which was yet generally extant, of the great realm of being without,
which serves to the former as a natural counterpart and exponent.

Feeling, therefore, an embarrassment at the thought of writing upon
the interior constitution, laws, and susceptibilities of man, without the
comprehensive basis of a general material philosophy so universally
harmonized and compacted, as to bring nature without into the ob-
vious analogy of a single human being, and thus into an aspect in
which it might be constantly drawn upon for comparisons and illustra-
tions, I accordingly determined to precede my proposed anthropological
Treatise by a general disquisition upon the realm of exterior being,
which I have called the " MACROCOSM," in contradistinction to the
human physical and psychical constitution, which I have called the
" MICROCOSM." Both Treatises were, at first, designed to be submitted
in one volume ; but as it was perceived that each would embrace a sub-
ject which is complete in itself, though intimately connected with the
other, it was finally determined to issue them separately.

In speaking briefly of the further objects and general plan of the pres-
ent work, I will premise that the whole realm of created being, natural,
psychological, and even spiritual, forms (at least in the general sense)
one perfectly united System, consistent and harmonious in all its parts
and interactivities. To this proposition the reason and intuition of every
well-constituted human mind responds an instant assent. But a reli-
able conception of the universal ptan of this complex unity of created
being, has hitherto undeniably been a grand desideratum of philos-
ophy ; and, reasoning superficially only from the objects which come
within the scope of the five exterior senses, and without the aid of any
grand fundamental and interior Principle to connect and harmonize all
things, in serial and graduated orders, from the common primary cause
to ultimate effects — men have cherished theories ever conflicting, ever
varying, and necessarily ever disfigured, more or less, with essential
errors and imperfections. I have ventured to hope that this defect in
the mode of philosophizing might prove to be in some good degree sup-
plied by a discovery, the fundamental principles of which came into
my mind some four years ago, in a manner quite extraordinary, but of
which I need not now speak particularly. This discovery, which I have
called "the law of the seven-fold correspond 'ential series," or "the
harmonial scale of creation," is, to some extent, unfolded and

PliEFACE. V

applied in the present volume, though but a small portion of the evi-
dences of its truth, and the instances of its applicability, are herein
exhibited.

The main idea embraced in the discovery referred to is, that each
complete system, or sub-system of creation, however great or small, is
resolvable into seven serial parts or elemental degrees, corresponding
to the seven notes of the diatonic scale ; that, as composed of such parts,
the systems are arranged side by side, or one above another, as so
many octaves, corresponding to the octaves in music ; and that, like
them, each one serves as a general exponent of all the others, whether
on a higher or lower scale. This idea, with its natural adjuncts, of
which I can not here speak particularly, by harmonizing and unitizing
all natural series and degrees of creation, also clearly illustrates the
fact that all truths are involved in, and evolved from, one grand cen-
tral Truth ; that they are, indeed, but parts and degrees of that one
fundamental truth, which are ultimated in the various forms of em-
bodiment which compose the sum total of created existence. By pur-
suing the method of reasoning which this idea unfolds, I have endeav-
ored to make one portion of the system of nature expose the secrets of
another, and caused visible facts and invisible principles to mutually
cast their light upon each other.

That this method might be pursued in the most reliable manner, ob-
servations are commenced upon the surface of the system of things,
composed of those objects which are appreciable to the outer senses,
and thence, by facts known particularly to geological and astronomi-
cal science, I have endeavored to rationally trace the system of outer
being to its origin, to the primal condition of its materials, and to its
Divine Cause. Assuming, thus, a position at the center of the uni-
versal field of thought, where all principles converge to a common
focus, I have endeavored to survey, so far as possible, the vistas of
creative development which thence diverge in all directions, and to
observe truth in its progressive, serial, and orderly unfoldings, from
center to superfices, from generals to particulars, from causes to effects,
from origins to ultimates. Finding at this central position, the princi-
ples and germs of general unity and systematic order, which must of
necessity be perpetual throughout all subsequent unfoldings, I have
attempted, through a unitary and systematic order of combined analysis
and synthesis, to show how the system of creation must have been

VI PREFACE.

gradually unfolded into its present form, and to illustrate the harmo-
nious principles, forms, movements, laws, and interactivities which
now characterize it as a whole and in all its parts.

It has thus been the object to draw the bold outlines of a comprehen-
sive primordial philosophy, and to contribute, so far as possible, to the
establishment of a system of thought, in which all truths maj be viewed
in their serial, orderly, and mutually explanatory relations, from gen-
erals to particulars — a system whose internal, vitalizing principle will
constantly tend to the absorption of all truths, and the elimination of
all errors, in the same way in which the principles of music constantly
tend to the appropriation of harmonies, and the elimination of discords.
If I have succeeded even to the extent of unfolding, with general cor-
rectness, the most general principles of such a philosophy, the sure
guide-boards and indices to something vastly more perfect of the same
kind may be considered as established ; and the key to all conceivable
truth, whether relating to nature without, the soul within, the spirit
world above, or to the Divine Author and Governor of all things, may,
in some sense, be considered as in our possession ; for no one can essen-
tially err in regard to either of these subjects, so long as he stands in
the light of a systeia which makes all truths the clear and certain ex-
ponents of each other.

I would invite particular attention to that feature of the present
volume, by which the fundamentals of an elevated theology are pre-
served and established upon the very basis of those facts in science
which have been thought to be rather pantheistic in their intimations.

Following, as it does, in some respects, a comparatively unbeaten
path, this Treatise can not, of course, reasonably claim entire exemp-
tion from errors and imperfections. Such as it is, however, it is re-
spectfully submitted to a candid and discerning public, with the hope
that any criticism it may excite may not be exclusively destructive, but
in some degree also constructive — that it may not only expose errors
and imperfections (which should be faithfully done), but suggest im-
provements—so that by the combined intelligence of many, some
closer approximations to the truth may be made than I dare presume
to have yet attained, notwithstanding the degree of confidence I may
have in the general correctness of the method which has been pur-
sued, and the results to which it has conduced. W. F.

WIJLLIAMSBURGH, September 7th, 1852.

CONTENTS.

PEEK ACE Page 3

CHAPTER I.

THE COGNIZABLE AND THE COGNIZING.

Interior Faculties— Exterior Objects— At Equipoise— Correspondence of Outer and
Inner — Course to be Pursued . 11

• CHAPTER II.

DESCENDING SCALE OF TERRESTRIAL FORMS.

The Three Kingdoms— Geological Formations— Descent through the Strata— AUivcial,
Diluvial, Tertiary, Secondary, and Transition Formations— Thickness of Strata
—Simplicity of Older Fossils— Primary Eocks— Original Fluidity from Heat— Pres-
ent State of the Earth's Center— Primitive State of the Earth's Materials 14

CHAPTER III.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF TPIE SOLAR SYSTEM ANALOGICALLY
RETRACED.

Connection of Geology and Astronomy— Common Source of the Planets— Nebular
Theory— its Conception by Herschel— Nebulous Stars— Further Proofs of the Theory
— Oblately Spheroidal Forms and their Signification— Gradation of Densities— Ee-
sidual Nebulous Matter—" Zodiacal Light"— Comets— Compte's Calculations— Kirk-
wood's Law— The Conclusion 22

CHAPTER IV.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SIDEREAL UNIVERSE ANALOGI-
CALLY RETRACED.

Stars are Suns— Clusters— The Milky Way— The Heavens Sounded— Clusters beyond
Clusters— Their Shapes and Densities— Gravitation indicated— Proof of other Laws
— Variable Stars — Eevolving Double Stars — Immense Periods of some of them —
Universality of Eevolutionary Motion — Motion of the whole Solar System — Maedler's
Central Sun— Still higher Systems— " Magellan's Clouds"— The System of all Sys-
tems— The Infinite and the Infinitesimal — Nebular Theory universally Applied — •
Primeval Universal Chaos 81

CHAPTER V.

MATERIAL BEGINNINGS AS POINTING TO A SUPER-MATERIAL CAUSE.

Matter, ~s Physical Substance, not Eternal — Logical Evidences of a Spiritual Cause —
That this Spiritual Cause was Uncaused, Personal, and DIVINE — Matter Formed from
Spiritual Substance— Motion not Inherent in Matter— Must have its Origin in Spirit
—IN GOD... .. 44

Vlll CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI.

PRINCIPLES OF UNIVERSAL SYNTHESIS.

Practicability of a Synthesis— Effects contained in Causes— Material Germs and their
Developments — Universal Materiality and Infinite Spirit — Reclamation of Science
from Pantheistic Tendencies — Divine Thoughts as Archetypes — Theory of Creation
thence deducible — What Man may know concerning God — The " Seven Spirits of
God"— Creations hence Seven-fold— Universal Correspondences— The ffarmonial
Scale of Creation, and great Musical Organ— The Timbers and the Temple 51

CHAPTER VII.

THE SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL LAWS, AND THEIR INTIMATIONS RE-
SPECTING THE ORIGIN AND STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE.

Primordial Matter— Origin of Motion— Its Seven Laws— Divine Love, Heat, and EX-
PANSION— Divine Wisdom, Light, and ATTBACTION — Origin of Central Sun — Origin
of Rotary Motion— Emanation— Law of CIRCULATION— Law of AGGREGATION— Con-
centric Nebulous Rings— Their Existing Analogues— Law of SEGREGATION— Segre-
gated Masses — Stellar Clusters formed from these — Confirmatory Celestial Appear-
ances— Immensity of Creation — Analogy of Asteroids — General Formation of Suns
— Formation of Planets — Summary of Evidences 65

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SEVEN DYNAMIC AGENTS, OR POTENTIAL MEDIA OF NATURE.

Hoat, Light, and Electricity— A Corresponding Trinity Inferred— Proved by Reichen-
bach's Experiments — Flames from Magnets, Crystals, etc. — Seven Colors of their
Light — Explains the Aurora Sorealis — Heat Inferred — Ethereal Emanations, and
their Singular Effects— " Odic" Heat, and its Offices— "Odic" Light, and its Offices—
"Odic" Aura, and its Offices— The Latter a Universal Sympathetic Medium— Its
Identity with " Animal Magnetism"— Medium of Divine Action— Divine Embodi-
ment—Distinction between Nature and God 91

CHAPTER IX.

DEFECTS OF PREVAILING COSMOLOGICAL THEORIES.

Newton's Idea of a Primary Impulse— Of Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces— Diffi-
culties in respect to the Stability of the System— Their Solution— Lifelesaness of New-
ton's System— It is a Dangerous Machine 118

CHAPTER X.

GROUNDS OF STABILITY AND GENERAL ECONOMY OF THE COSMI-
CAL STRUCTURE.

New Theory Propounded— Illustrations— Life of the System— No Vacuity in Space-
Equilibrium— Recuperative Force, etc. 119

CONTENTS. IX

CHAPTER XI.

PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE GENESIS AND

MODUS OPERANDI OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM.
The Solar and the Universal Systems— Origin of Comets— The Zodiacal Light. ... 128

CHAPTER XII.

SYNTHETICAL VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF THE EARTH, AND ITS
GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.

Seven Stages of Progress — The CHAOTIC STAGE — Nucleation of Earth and Moon-
Polar Opposition — Analogy of Binary Stellar Systems — Common Ethereal Envelope
— Effects on Somnambulists, etc. — Common Center — Modified Theory of Tides — SEC-
OND STAGE — THIBD STAGE — FOURTH STAGK — Atmospheric Conditions — Early Scenery
Described — FIFTH STAGE — New Red Sandstone — Frost-marks, Bird-tracks, etc. —
Diversity of Seasons— Marsupials— SIXTH STAGE— Inorganic and Organic Progress—
SEVENTH STAGE, and Completion 131

CHAPTER XIII.

THE GEOLOGICAL AND THE MOSAIC REVELATIONS.
Antiquity of our Globe — Alarm of Theologians — Truths must Harmonize — Theology
and Science— Principles of Interpretation— Meaning of " Day"— Work of First Day
—Second Day— Third Day— Fourth Day— Fifth Day— Sixth Day— Sabbatic Period-
Coincidences— Correspondential Classification 148

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MINERAL KINGDOM, OR THE KINGDOM OF CHEMICAL FORMS.
Its Seven Divisions 169

CHAPTER XV.

THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.
Its Seven Divisions 172

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
Its Seven Divisions ITS

CHAPTER XVII.

THE WHOLE AND ITS PARTS.

Generals and Particulars— Comprehensive Classification— Illustration by Prismatic
Colors— The Temple Erected 177

CHAPTER XVIII.

DUALISM OF PRODUCTIVE FORCES, OR THE DIASTOLE AND SYSTOLE
OF NATURE.

The Two Fundamental Forces— Examples in the Cosmical, Mineral, Vegetable, and
Animal Creations— Facts in Embryology— Progress of Organization— The Principle
Generalized— The Diastole and Systole— Ulterior Laws 185

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XIX.

CIRCLES.

The Principle of the Circle applicable to all Thing*— Wheels within Wheels— The
Machine not Self-propelling 194

CHAPTER XX.

THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES.

Swedenborg's Philosophy — Degrees "Continuous" and "Discreet" — Improvement
suggested— Facilitates Investigation 200

CHAPTER XXI.

THE DOCTRINE OF CORRESPONDENCES.
Foundation and Laws of Correspondences— Importance of the Doctrine 208

CHAPTER XXII.

THE DOCTRINE OF PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.

A pending Controversy — Theory of the " VESTIGES OF CREATION" — Arguments for Law.
Creations— The Nebular Hypothesis— Chemistry— Geology— Fossilology— Plant-like
Crystallizations — Arbor Diance — Spontaneous Germination — Transmutation of Vege-
table Species— Entozoa— Animals Developed by Electricity— Rudimentary and Inci-
dental Organs— Analogy of Human Fcetal and Zoological Developments— Theory
Deduced— Opposition Excited— Its Grounds— Aspects of the Question 211

CHAPTER XXIII.

FURTHER VIEW OF THE SYSTEM OF LIVING FORMS, AS SUGGEST-
ING ITS MODE OF DEVELOPMENT.

The Light of our Philosophy— Progression and Eetrogression— Embryonic Forms—
Their Progress and Significance— The Great Tree— Genesis of Animal Kingdom 224

CHAPTER XXIV.

LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY.

Law Defined— Its Universality— It is not Force— Archetypes and their Clothing— Hu-
man and Divine Builder — Divine Dwelling-places — Creation did not Develop itself
— Diagramatio Illustration— Overthrow of Pantheistic Speculations 284

CHAPTER XXV.

PROVIDENCES.

Providences are Law-governed— Media determine Modes of Divine Action— Eecep-
tacles modify Influence— The "Light of the World"— New Beginning Principle—-
Miracles—Truths Sacred wherever found 249

CONCLUSION OF THB VOLUMK 258

THE MACROCOSM;

OR,

THE UNIVERSE WITHOUT.
CHAPTEE I.

THE COGNIZABLE AND THE COGNIZING.

THE starting point of all thought and investigation with
every human being, i£ his own interior consciousness. This,
to every one, is the most absolutely fixed of all facts — the
most positively certain of all certainties ; and it is hence the
position from which all other certainties and uncertainties,
probabilities and improbabilities, possibilities and impossibili-
ties, are estimated. But as from our individual centers of
consciousness and intellection, we open our eyes and look
without us, we find ourselves surrounded by appearances of
various forms and conditions, near and remote, which act
upon our physical, intellectual, and moral natures, and are re-
acted upon by us ; and these active and re-active influences
are, in some sense, at a constant equipoise. There is thus
a universe without, and a universe within us — a universe of
cognizable forms, principles, and conditions, and a universe

12 THE COGNIZABLE AND THE COGNIZING.

of cognizing faculties, the one being related to, and corre-
sponding with, the other. It is a legitimate object and privi-
lege of every inquiring mind to understand, in some degree,
both of these universes ; and in order to do this to the fullest
extent, one must investigate each with a constant regard to
its analogies with, and relations to, the other. For the pur-
pose of mapping out, if possible, certain great outlines of
the one united and harmonious system of truth as embracing
both of these departments, an investigation of this kind is
now proposed.

The forms of the outer universe are included in a few sim-
ple and comprehensive classifications, as they are arranged
above or beneath each other in the scale of creation. Those
beneath man, and which at present form the special subject
of investigation, are embraced in the comprehensive divisions
of animal, vegetable, mineral, geological, and astronomical or
cosmical forms. Of these, singularly and in united groups,
together with their more superficial properties, the interior
soul gains a perception through some one or more of the
sensational channels, known as Touch, Taste, Sight, Hearing,
and Smell. Proceeding upon the basis of the impressions
received through these avenues of sense, the ratiocinative
faculty becomes the medium of some knowledge of the pur-
poses and mutual relations of these, and of the laws by which
they are governed ; and, availing itself of the contributions of
both Sense and Reason, at the same time that it draws, from
its own interior and independent resources, the faculty of
Intuition decides upon their causes, their life forces, and their
more interior significations.

Conforming, therefore, to what, in this work, will be recog-
nized as the true method of reasoning, it shall be our first

COUKSE TO BE PURSUED. 13

endeavor, by the aid of Sense, Reason, and Intuition, to trace
analytically the descending scale of creation, from exteriors to
interiors, from effects to causes, from ultimates to origins. If
we can succeed by this process in establishing any reliable
conclusions relative to the first, the elemental, and hence
germinal form and condition whence sprang this universal
system of things, we may then, in the light of these con-
clusions, proceed to retrace our steps synthetically upward
through the successive series and degrees of natural unfolding,
and in a general way discover, how the system of creation, in
its present completed form, came to exist, and also what are
the prominent principles of its constitution and government.
It is obvious that these combined processes of Analysis and
Synthesis, if correctly pursued, will be far more efficient in
unfolding the principles and laws harmoniously pervading and
governing all parts of the united system of things, and in.
exhibiting the vital relations and sympathies subsisting be-
tween all forms and kingdoms of nature, than either one of
these processes pursued singly, and without reference to the
other.

In pursuing this process of inquiry, strict attention, of
course, shall be paid to facts and principles already firmly
fixed upon a true scientific basis: but so long as these are
made the basis of further reasoning, and the line of investi-
gation is pursued in strict obedience to the established laws
of induction and the intuitions of the interior mind, I shall
not consider myself restricted from exhibiting, and, in some
instances, perhaps, even insisting upon, the conclusions to
which this process may conduct, even though these may, in
many cases, be unknown to the prevailing philosophy.

2

CHAPTEE II.

DESCENDING SCALE OF TEEBESTEIAL FOEMS.

AMONG the systems of forms which surround man in the
outer world, that most immediately related to him, and next
below him in the scale of creation, is the Animal Kingdom.
Immediately beneath this, serving as a substratum on which
it rests, and the source from which it derives its subsistence, is
the Vegetable Kingdom. This, again, rests upon the Mineral
Kingdom, from which, as the next degree . below it in the
scale of existence, it derives 'its nourishment and physical
support.

Then, beneath all these kingdoms, as an anterior condition
on which their physical developments, as complete systems,
necessarily depend, is the system of Geological Formations.
These consist of various gradations, or of lower and higher
stratifications, which were developed by degrees, and in suc-
cessive periods of time. Each geological formation above the
primary, contains petrifactions of plants and animals of a de-
gree of organization corresponding to the degree of progression
in the earth's crust marked by the particular stratification in
which they are found, the lowest organizations being associated
with the most ancient fossiliferous rocks, and the highest with
the most recent, showing a coincident progress in the inorganic
and organic developments. Let us now trace downward the
various geological stratifications, from highest to lowest, in
order that our minds may, by successive steps, be conducted

DESCENDING VIEW. 15

to the terrestrial conditions which preceded them all, and
served as the material Germ of their unfolding.

If we could find a section of the earth's crust in which all
the geological stratifications existed in their completeness, and
were arranged on horizontal planes, in their natural order of
superposition, and if we should then proceed to dig vertically
downward through the strata, we would first pass -through
layers of loam, fine sand, and gravel, of no very great or very
definite thickness. We might find in this deposit the re-
mains of plants and animals of existing species, together with
the remains of man and of his works. This is the most recent,
or what is called the Alluvial Formation. Next we would
penetrate an irregular deposit of clay, sand, gravel, and small
and large stones, more or less rounded by friction, and which
is called the Diluvial Formation. We would next pass
through layers of clay, sand, gravel, marl, etc., in greater or
less degrees of consolidation, portions of which abound with
the remains of animals and plants of species now mostly ex-
tinct. These deposits have been roughly estimated as having
the aggregate thickness of about thirteen hundred feet, and
constitute what is called the Tertiary Formation. Next we
would penetrate through deposits of chalk, and strata of marl-
stone, ironstone, red sandstone, etc., to the depth of not less
than five thousand feet, exhuming, as we proceeded, the
remains of huge saurians and other animals of a comparatively
low organization, and which became entirely extinct before
the next superior formation commenced. These strata, with
their distinctive fossils, are comprised in what is called the
Secondary Formation. We would then descend through a
system of deposites of not less than three thousand feet in
thickness, consisting of strata of limestone, slate, ironstone,
and mineral coal, constituting what is called the Coal For-

16 GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.

mation. We would after this descend, in succession, through
strata of limestone, called the mountain or carboniferous
limestone ; through what is called the Old Red Sandstone, and
thence through what is known as the Silurian and Cambrian
systems of deposits. These stratifications, taken together,
have been estimated by Dr. John Pye Smith, as measuring a
thickness of not less than one hundred and thirty thousand
feet. They abound with fossils which, with perhaps slight
exceptions, and these confined to their higher portions, are
exclusively marine ; and the character and magnitude of some
of these, and their invariableness of size and constitution as
they occur in all latitudes, show that a high and unvarying
temperature prevailed on all parts of our globe during the
period when they flourished, which could not have depended,
in any great degree, upon the solar rays, but is generally sup-
posed to have been caused by radiations from subterranean
fire, then more intense than at subsequent periods. This
whole series of stratifications has been called the Transition
Formation, comprising, in the period of its production, those
changes in the physical conditions of the earth's surface, which
were necessary to qualify it for the production of terrestrial
vegetation and the healthy sustenance of air-breathing animals.
This completes the enumeration of the fossiliferous stratifi-
cations, which, according to some estimates, are of an aggre-
gate thickness exceeding twenty miles ! These all, including
the remains of the plants and animals which subsisted during
their respective epochs, were quietly deposited at the bottoms
of oceans, estuaries, and lakes, and subsequently consolidated
and petrified, and thus, as faithful records of the natural his-
tory of our planet, they have been preserved through the
untold ages which have elapsed from the period of their living
existence until present time !

DISTURBANCES OF THE STRATA. 17

As we have thus proceeded through the descending scale of
geological and palseontological creations, we have seen tha-t
animal and vegetable organisms, whose remains are entombed
in the rocks, become more and more simple. In the lowest
of the fossiliferous rocks, the principal animal remains are of
the class called the Radiata, which somewhat resemble plants,
and form the connecting link with the Vegetable Kingdom ;
while the plants are mainly of a simple species of sea-weed,
called fucoides. It is, however, presumable that more minute,
and still more simple species preceded these, but of which, in
consequence of the delicacy of their texture, all traces have
become obliterated.

Immediately beneath the fossiliferous rocks, we came to
thick strata of clay slate, hornblende slate, mica slate, gneiss,
etc., which contain no organic remains, and are called the
Primary Stratified Hocks. Immediately beneath these lost
strata, lies the Granite, which is unstratified, and appears to
be the original and parent rock, from the comminuted and
pulverized materials of which, combined with materials
descending from the atmosphere, and evolved from the central
mass of the earth, all the stratified rocks were subsequently
formed.

Some of my readers, who have not made geology a par-
ticular subject of study, may be disposed to inquire whether
any one has thus actually digged into the earth to the depth
of over twenty miles, and ascertained the character and order
of geological formations to be as I have described them ? I
answer, no ; nor would such a mode of exploration have been
necessary. Owing to the immense and frequent disturbances
to which the earth's crust has been subjected, in different
ages, from the explosive forces of internal fires, all the older
strata have, in various places, been broken, and their upheaved

18 GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.

edges have thus been exposed at the surface of the earth, and
may be measured with little difficulty. And, although in
most, if not all, places, some of the strata are wanting, yet,
by observing a number of the associated links in the chain of
development in one place, and connecting and matching them
with corresponding sections of the chain found in other places,
and which extend higher or lower, the whole series may be,
and has been, re-constructed with approximate accuracy and
certainty. And by comparing the lithological characters of
rocks, and especially the fossils which they contain, it is
found that the order of development is invariably such as
I have described, and is the same in all parts of the
world.

It was said that the Granite, which seems to be the oldest
of the rocks, underlying, as it does, all the stratified series, is
itself unstratified. This is true, also, of its various modifica-
tions in the Porphyry, Basalt, and Greenstone. These rocks,
therefore, could not have been formed, as other rocks were,
by sedimentary deposits at the bottom of oceans and lakes.
On the contrary, they bear unmistakable evidences of having
been originally in a molten state from the action of intense
heat. That no links may be wanting in the chain of our
further inductions, some of these evidences require to be
briefly stated, as follows :

It appears that, in many instances, after thick beds of
stratified rooks, including some of the older members of the
foseiliferous series, were formed immediately over the granitic
rocks, the latter have flown upward, not only in hemispherical
and conical, but sometimes in sharply angular forms, displac-
ing the superincumbent strata, and producing mountain eleva-
tions. In the upheaving effort it has, apparently by injection,
filled up the smallest crevices of the contiguous rocks, fre-

FUSION BY HEAT. 19

quently bursting through them in various directions, forming
" dykes " and veins with numerous branches, from an inch to
hundreds of feet in diameter ; and, coming up frequently
through the entire thickness of the strata, it has flown over
the top, where it has, often in large masses, subsequently con-
solidated. These dykes are often found to contain imbedded
fragments of the identical rocks through which they appear
to have forced their passage in their upward movement. The
manner in which these fragments are imbedded, proves to a
demonstration, that the mass by which they are surrounded
was once in a fluid state, and that it subsequently became
solid, as we now find it.

That the original fluidity of these injected rocks was pro-
duced by heat, is evident from the following, among other
considerations: 1. The crystaline character of some of these
rocks is such as could have been produced only by heat. 2.
The chemical effects produced upon the stratified rocks by
contact of the unstratified ones, are similar to those produced
by dykes of recent lava. 3. The different unstratified rocks
insensibly pass into each other, and indeed into modern lavas.
Besides, the mineral composition of the rocks, as well as the
form and position of the dykee, shows that their original
fluidity could not have been the result of water, which is the
only known natural element besides fire, to which their solu-
tion could possibly be attributed in any case.

But as the rocks of wrhich we have spoken are primary
rocks, and serve as the basis of all stratified rocks in all places,
and as they must, therefore, have universally prevailed ove*
the surface of the earth before any other rocks were formed,
if their original state was that of igneous fluidity, it may be
assumed that such was the condition of the whole globe —
that it was one vast ball of molten lava ! This is now gener-

20 GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.

ally the opinion of geologists, and is confirmed by the follow-
ing, among other considerations :

1. The earth is not a perfect globe, but an oblate spheroid,
flattened at the poles — the polar diameter being about twenty-
six miles shorter than the equatorial. This is the form which
it would necessarily have assumed from the centrifugal force
caused by diumal revolution, supposing it to have been orig-
inally in a fluid state.

2. There is good evidence that our planet is still a vast ball
of liquid fire, surrounded by a thin crust, which, in thickness,
bears no greater proportion to the general mass of the earth,
than the egg-shell bears to the general mass of the egg. From
careful observations which have been made during many
years, upon the temperature of deep mines and the waters of
artesian wells, in various parts of the 'world, it is found that,
after descending beyond the reach of solar influence, the tem-
perature invariably increases, in all places, at the average rate
of about one degree Fahrenheit for every forty-five or fifty
feet of descent. And this rule uniformly holds good to the
greatest depths to which the earth has been penetrated.

Now, assuming fifty degrees as the average temperature at
the surface of the earth, and taking the mean ratio of increase
at one degree for every fifty feet of descent, we should, at this
rate, at a depth of a little more than sixty-five miles, reach a
temperature of seven thousand degrees, which would be suffi-
cient to melt all known rocks. Supposing this state of igneous
fusion to extend from the comparatively thin crust of the earth
on all sides, to the center, we have still a mass of molten lava
of more than seven thousand miles in diameter. If we suppose
this mass to become sometimes agitated in its higher portions
by internal gasses, or by the percolation of water through
fissures in the superincumbent strata, we have a sufficient ex-

THE PRIMITIVE STATE. 21

planation of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and of the im-
mense mountain upheavels which have occurred at different
epochs during the geological formations; while, aside from
the hypothesis of internal fusion, the solution of these latter
phenomena would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Thus have geologists reasoned, from substantial data, con-
cerning the early state of our planet. But, though at this point
the data of retrospective reasonings become less certain than
those which have hitherto guided us, we may presume, as
highly probable, not to say absolutely certain, that not even
this was strictly the primitive state of our planet — that the
matter which composes it was in conditions anterior and ger-
minal even to this ; and if we extend backward our chain of
analogical inductions in a direct line^ it will lead us to a con-
dition of still more intense heat — heat that would be compat-
ible only with the existence of matter in the form of vapor.
It is. then, to say the least, an hypothesis certainly not unrea-
sonable, that the matter of our earth was once in the state of
igneous gas, from the cooling and condensation of which it
assumed successively the fluid, and then its present superfici-
ally solid state. But for the present we offer this only as an
hypothesis to which analogies thus far developed, directly
point. Such further and more conclusive evidences of its
truth, as scientific data now afford, will be incidentally brought
into view as we proceed.

CHAPTEK III.

THE NATUEAL HISTOEY OF THE SOLAE SYSTEM ANA-
LOGICALLY EETEACED.

ADMITTING that the foregoing hypothesis as to the original
condition of the earth's materials has any foundation in truth,
we find in it the link which connects geology with astronomy.
It must be borne in mind that the earth is only one member
of the great family of planets belonging to the solar system ;
and it is fair to presume that the brothers and sisters of the
same planetary family have the same, or a similar, origin —
especially as they have the same oblately spheroidal form,
and observe the same laws of diurnal and orbitual revolution.
If the earth, then, was originally in a state of igneous gas, so
(we may suppose) were fkey ; and before the incipient pro-
cesses of spheroidation commenced, the materials of all of
them may have commingled, and probably did commingle,
together in one undistinguishable mass.

Though this hypothesis of an original gaseous state of the
earth and planets rests upon a foundation of its own (being a
portion of the chain of analogous developments prolonged
directly backward from the links of substantial geological
facts), it is precisely in accordance with the nebular theory of
the origin of worlds and systems, which theory also rests upon
independent grounds of reasoning. As a conviction of the
general truthfulness of this theory is important as a basis of
ulterior ideas to be presented in this treatise, the patient

RESOLUTION OF NEBULJ2. 23

attention of the reader is solicited while we briefly explain
its nature, and unfold a summary of the evidences on which
it is founded.

The idea that nebulae, or loose masses of fiery vapor, which
seemed to be floating in the depths of immensity, might form
the materials out of which nature elaborated suns and planets,
was originally propounded as a conjecture, by Sir William
Herschel ; but it was subsequently brought into more definite
and tangible form by Laplace, Comte, Nichol, and others.
The theory supposes that loose masses of nebulous vapor, at
first without definite form or movement, gradually assumed,
by virtue of gravitation, a regular spheroidal and rotating form,
lightest at the circumference, and gradually increasing in den-
sity toward the center, at which point the greatest density is
attained. It supposes that such forms were the original forms
of suns — that the substance of these, in this diffused state,
originally extended from their present condensed, solar spheres,
to the outermost limits of the planetary systems which now
revolve about them ; and that by the combined processes of
rotation and further condensation, successive and concentric
rings were formed on the outer limits of the nebulous disks,
of which we have a faint illustration in the rings of Saturn.
These rings, it is thought, subsequently became broken up,
when the matter composing them naturally agglomerated into
spheres, which, by an analogous process of condensation and
evolution of rings, produced planets and their satellites.

It is but just to remark that many of the supposed nebula,
which Herschel thought might form the materials of future
suns and systems, have subsequently, by the application of
powerful telescopes, and especially that of Lord Ross, been
resolved into stars, apparently so close together as to cause
the general hazy appearance which they present when viewed

24: THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS.

with the naked eye, or through a telescope of low power.
It is reasonably suspected that many of the still unresolved
nebulae might yield to a still higher telescopic power, were
such available to science and art ; and acting upon this sup-
position, some few astronomers have abandoned the nebular
theory, in which they previously believed, and attempted to
prove its impossibility. But in reference to this change of
astronomical faith from such a cause, Professor Michell
forcibly remarks, that " Herschel only adopted the [nebular]
theory after he had resolved many hundred of the nebulae into
stars ; and, if there ever existed a reason for accepting the
truth of this remarkable speculation, that reason has been
scarcely affected in any degree, by recent discoveries."

The phenomenon of nebulous stars, especially, still remains
in its unimpaired force, as an argument for the probable truth
of the theory in question. These stars are spherical bodies,
bright in the center, from which there is a gradual shading
off into undistinguishable dimness as the circumference is ap-
proached. They exist in all degrees of apparent concentration,
from a diffused blur with a no very distinct nucleus, to a well
defined star surrounded by a haze. What can these bodies be
but masses of primeval matter, in various degrees of pro-
gression between their original, or most chaotic state, and that
of fully developed suns and planets? But these are pre-
cisely the various conditions which the nebular theory sup-
poses to take place during the different and progressive
stages of the process by which suns and planets are ultimately
formed.

A brief summary of the further proofs of the nebular theory
may be presented as follows :

1. It has already been remarked that the earth is an oblate
spheroid, flattened at the poles and bulged at the equator.

FORM OF PLANETS. 25

This same fact is also observed in relation to other planets,
the outer ones, owing to the greater rapidity of their rotatory
motions, being much more bulged and flattened than the inner
ones. To the writer it is not a little surprising that this form
of planetary bodies has not, of itself, established among
astronomers the universal conviction that these bodies were
formed by a contraction of their materials from a previously
diffused state. Such, it appears, must necessarily have been
the case, if their superior equatorial diameter had, in its origin,
any connection with the centrifugal force produced by rotatory
motion. For if the materials of the planet, while in an
originally globular form, had commenced being thrown outward
at the equator, by the centrifugal force generated by revo-
lution, no known counter-force could have prevented them
from being all, or nearly all, thrown outward, and continually
farther and farther from the center, until the planet would
have lost its identity. Especially would this have been the
result, if the original velocity of revolution had continued un-
diminished. For it is evident that the farther a particle, or
collection of particles, is thrown from an axis around which
they, in a given period, may revolve, the greater is the centri-
fugal force generated by the rotation, and hence the greater
is its tendency to fly off still farther; while, on the other
hand, the farther a particle is thrown from a center of
attraction, the less becomes the attractive or centripetal force
to retain it from flying off still farther.

The forces which produced the bulged form of planets at
the equator are undoubtedly the same as those which pro-
duced the rings of Saturn. Now, the rings of Saturn com-
plete a revolution in 10 hours 32 minutes and 15 seconds;
while the primary itself revolves in 10 hours 16 minutes and
1 second, or in a period of only 16 minutes and 14 seconds

3

26 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS.

less. If, therefore, there was originally generated, by rotatory
motion, at Saturn's equator, an amount of centrifugal force
sufficient to throw off particles to the present position of the
rings of that body, certainly the immensely increased centrifu-
gal force generated by the revolution of those rings in about
the same period, would have thrown the same particles still
farther, and would probably have dissipated them into chaos —
especially as the attractive force of the primary, at that dis-
tance, must have exerted considerably less influence upon
them.

The same reasoning applies with equal force to that ring, or
circle of attached matter, which rises above the line of sphe-
ricity at Saturn's equator, and also at the equators of other
planets, and of the earth. The acting forces are of the same
nature, and bear similar relations to each other in both places,
the only difference being a difference in the degrees of in-
tensity with which they act in the different positions.

These considerations show that in all stages of the process
by which planetary bodies were formed, the attractive, con-
tractive, or centripetal force, had decided predominance over the
centrifugal. Supposing the two forces to have always acted
together after both became established, the centrifugal force,
it is true, must have always restrained and modified the
intensity of the centripetal, in the direction of the plane of
rotation, but could never throw farther into space a particle
which the centripetal or attractive, had succeeded, in defiance
of the opposing, force, in bringing from a greater to a less
distance from the center.

The bulged form of the earth and other planets, therefore,
could not have been produced by a throwing out of particles
at the equator, but rather by a drawing in of particles from
the poles, where the attractive force was comparatively unre-

GRADATION OF DENSITIES. 27

strained by the centrifugal ; while this latter force, attaining
its maximum at the equator, meets and wards off the gravi-
tating particles in their rush toward the center, and thus the
two forces finally settle into an exact equipoise, of which the
oblately spheroidal form of the planet is an equally exact
expression.

These considerations seam to sufficiently prove that the
earth (before shown to haye been originally in a state of
igneous, if not gaseous fluid) was formed by the predominat-
ing force of attraction, and hence contraction, acting upon
materials in a rarer state, and reducing them to their present
dense form. The attractive and contractive operation must,
of course, have proceeded through a progressive series of
analogous stages, which somewhere must have had a begin-
ning ; and we can not conceive of any possible beginning short
of the greatest possible diffusion — a state of diffusion which,
originally applying to the materials of all planets, must have
brought them all into' the form of one common vapory
mass.

Though this argument, in proof of the nebular theory,
seems hitherto to have generally escaped the notice of
astronomical writers, it is one which, nevertheless, deserves to
be pondered and borne in mind.

2. Another argument for the same theory, is derived from
the regular gradations of densities of planets, from innermost
to outermost. Thus it is stated, on the basis of mathematical
calculations, that Mercury must be about the weight of so
much lead ; Venus is nearly six times the weight of so much
water ; the Earth, as a whole, is four and a half times the
weight of water ; Mars is a little over three times the weight
of water ; Jupiter is a small fraction over the weight of so
much water ; Saturn is less than half that specific weight, or

28 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS.

about the weight of so much cork ; and Herschel manifests a
corresponding decrease of density. This regular gradation in
the specific densities of the planets, in the order of their
occurrence, from innermost to outermost, is precisely what it
should be, supposing that they were all formed by the oper-
ations of a common law, from an original sphere of fluid
matter, which must have been most dense near the center,
and most rare on its outer extremities.

There is a similar relation between the distances of the
different planets ; for, proceeding outward from Mercury, each
successive planet (including the asteroids as equivalent to one
planet) is about double the distance of the previous planet
from the sun. This curious relation of distances seems, in
like manner, to argue their production by a common cause,
and by the operations of a common law, of which the only
explanation yet found seems to be given in the nebular
theory.

3. If the theory in question is admitted as the true one, it
inight accordingly be supposed, that after the evolution of
Mercury, which is the planet nearest the sun, there would still
be a residuum of nebulous or planetary matter in an unformed
state, surrounding the more dense mass of the sun. Accord-
ingly there actually appears to be an extensive mass of attenu-
ated matter surrounding the sun, and is sometimes visible
immediately after sunset, or before sunrise, as a conic, lumin-
ous streak, projected from the horizon in the direction of the
path of the sun, and which is called the " Zodiacal light."

4. There are still many planets, or wandering celestial
bodies, in a nebulous state, in which state they are called
"comets." These appear to have been formed from a re-
siduum of attenuated matter, after the agglomeration of the
denser materials took place.

5. M. Comte, of Paris, has proved, according to principles
by which periods of rotation maintain a relation to the mass
of the given rotating body, that the sidereal year of each planet
actually corresponds to the period in which the sun must have
rotated on his axis, supposing his mass to have extended to
the orbits of such planets ; and he also ascertained that the
periods of rotation of the primary planets with their mass, in
a state of vapor, extending to the orbits of their satellites,
must, in like manner, have corresponded with the present or-
bitual periods of those satellites.

6. A new planetary law has recently been discovered by
Mr. Kirkwood, which seems to have an important bearing on
the question at issue. This law, as I understand it, is, that
the square of the number of rotations of any given planet in its
year, is to the square of the number of rotations of any other
planet in its year, as the cube of the diameter of the sphere
of attraction of the first planet, is to the cube of the diameter
of the sphere of attraction of the second planet.* Thus, for
instance, the number of rotations of the earth in its year, bears
a definite relation to the quantity of matter (or the amount of
attractive force) in the Earth, in Mars, and in Venus.

Here, then, is an indication of another relation existing be-
tween the forces and movements of the different planets, so
definite as to preclude every reasonable supposition that it
came by chance, and a relation which, in common with facts
before noticed, seems to refer all the planets to a common
parentage, and common law of production, which is accounted
for only by the nebular theory. Certainly so many remark-

* The sphere of attraction of a planet, is a circle whose radius is determined by the
point between two contiguous planets in conjunction, where an object would be at-
tracted to neither of them, but would be exactly poised between the two contending
forces. For an account of Kirkwood's discovery, see Silliman's American Journal of
Science, Vol. ix., Second Series, p. 395.

30 THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS.

ably concurrent facts, pointing to the same conclusion as to
the origin of our planetary system, can not reasonably be set
down as so many mere fortuitous coincidences.

Finally, the theory in question is the only one which does
not either involve inexplicable and inconceivable mysteries, or
suppositions totally unfounded in any of the known laws of
causation. This theory, on the other hand, commends itself
to human reason and intuition, without being encumbered with
any serious difficulties ; and, as it is confessedly unphilosophi-
cal to look for an explanation of a phenomenon without the
sphere of known natural laws, when a full explanation may
be found within the sphere of those laws, the nebular theory
may be considered as established, at least until it is invalidated
by further discoveries.

CHAFTEK IY.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SIDEREAL UNIVERSE
ANALOGICALLY RETRACED.

FROM contemplations of our own solar system, let us now
extend our observations and reflections into the immeasurable
realms of the stellar universe beyond, and see what gleams of
light we can obtain in reference to the natural history of that
grand System of systems, of which our own congeries of
worlds forms, as it were, but an atom. Facts and analogies
which need not here be particularized, have established the
universal belief among astronomers that the so-called " fixed"
stars are but so many remote suns shining to other systems.
These are not distributed equally through the celestial spaces,
as though they had been scattered at random from an Omnip-
otent hand ; but they are arranged in distinct clusters^ or firma-
ments, so called, which have little or no apparent connection
with each other. Telescopic observations have proved that
the bright girdle called the " Milky Way," which surrounds
our heavens, is only a grand congeries of stars, so remote, and
owing to their remoteness from us, apparently so near to each
other, that their intermingling rays reach us only in the ap-
pearance of a confused whitish light. Of this vast zone of
shining orbs, all the less remote stars, including our own sun,
are members, their varying directions being, in a measure, the
result of differences in their distances from the point of observa-
tion, and hence, of the different angles at which they are viewed.

32 THE SIDE HEAL UNIVERSE.

Not only have the relative distances of various portions of
this grand cluster been proximately determined, but the spaces
beyond have been sounded. The process by which these re-
sults have been accomplished, may be easily brought within
the reader's comprehension by the following illustrations:
Suppose any given object is removed from a point of observa-
tion to a distance at which it is barely discernible by the
naked eye. Now, a telescope which has the power of pene-
trating space to ten times the distance that can be reached
with the naked eye, would show that same object, with the
same degree of distinctness, ten times as far off. Take, then,
a telescope of twenty degrees of space-penetrating power, and
remove the object twenty times its first distance, and it will
still be seen with equal distinctness and apparent nearness.
And so also of still larger telescopes and correspondingly
farther distances.

Now, when we gaze into the heavens on a clear night, with
the naked eye, we observe, in any given portion of the Milky
Way a distinct number of stars, the faintest of which are
barely discernible. If the astronomer, then, takes a telescope
of ten powers, as compared with the unassisted eye, and sur-
veys the same field, all the stars before observed will appear
with increased brilliancy, besides which many more will be
visible, the remotest and faintest of which may be presumed
to be ten times as far off as the farthest ones which previously
appeared. He then takes a still larger telescope, and still
more objects appear, the remotest of which may, in like man-
ner, be presumed to be situated in a relative depth of space
proportioned to the increased degree of telescopic power. So
correspondingly of a larger, and still larger, instrument, until
one is obtained which reveals no more stars, but only shows
those in the same field of view, in increased brightness. The

THE HEAVENS SOUNDED. 33

space-penetrating power is again augmented, and still no more
stars are brought into view. The observer, therefore, legiti
mately concludes that he has reached the outer limits of the
great cluster to which we belong, and is now traversing the
blank void beyond.

But is he to conclude that he has sounded the system of
stellar creations to its remotest depths, and that beyond these
boundaries, there are no more vestiges of the Creator's
energy 7 Let him augment the optical power but one degree
more, and perhaps in the dim and awful distance he will be-
hold a faint and scarcely discernible speck or streak of whitish
light. In the excitement of irrepressible curiosity, he hastens
to direct to the spot the largest telescope the observatory
affords, and that same whitish spot glows into myriads of beau-
tiful stars — another galaxy or Milky Way — another firma-
ment, perchance, displaying its glories to its own unnumbered
worlds, and pealing its own notes of silent harmony, respon-
sive to the movements of all kindred systems !

As by the indefatigable exertions of the two Herschels, the
heavens have been swept by the telescope in all directions,
more than two thousand five hundred of these isolated stellar
systems have been brought to light, some smaller and some
larger than the grand cluster in the midst of which our own
sun and system are situated.

Let us now look at some of the phenomena which these vast
starry congregations present, and from which inference may
be drawn as to whether, in regard to their internal structure
and laws, and hence their modes of origin, they have any thing
in common with our own solar system, and whether the anal-
ogies of one may be applied in unfolding the mysteries of the
other.

And the first thing that naturally attracts attention in such

34 THE SIDEEEAL UNIVERSE.

an investigation, is the shapes and apparent relative densities
of these starry clusters. By telescopic measurements of rela-
tive distances in relative directions, accomplished in the man-
ner before illustrated, Sir William Herschel decided that the
great cluster, of which our own sun is a member, and of which
the greater portion of stars, owing to their immense distances,
seem to rest on one general plain, and surround us in the
great zone called the " Milky Way," is of an irregular form,
approaching that of a circle, but thick in the middle, and thin
toward the edges, in one of which there is a horizontal split
or opening. Other clusters are of all conceivable forms, but
of these forms the round, or oblately spheroidal, most pre-
vails. Even in elongated, curved, angular, and branching
clusters, there are often apparently several centers of incipi-
ent rotundity. Generally these centers are well denned, and
toward them the stars, though with an inappreciable motion,
are apparently flowing from all directions, becoming thicker
and more compressed as they approach, and being thinner,
and gradually shading ^>ff into invisibility, at more distant
removes.

The general uniformity in the appearances of these spherical
aggregations, and especially of their comparative denseness in
the center, which thence gradually and regularly diminishes,
in all directions, toward the circumference, shows that their
aggregation is governed by some grand law ; and what can
this be but the familiar law of Gravitation — that identical law
which, in the same form of action, is so potent in our own
system, giving sphericity to every collection of fluid particles,
from those which compose the planet, to those which form the
dew-drop 1 It is gratifying to find in those remote creations
such distinct indications of a property which is possessed in
common with our own system, and which binds the nearest

VARIABLE STARS. 35

and remotest forms in the celestial spaces, in one common
bond of sympathy and brotherhood.

But the discovery of the law of gravitation, as applicable to
these distant worlds as well as to the orbs of our own planetary
system, naturally engenders the presumption that the whole
series of laws and general operations with which gravitation is
here necessarily connected, applies to them also, with little or
no modification. And a further inquiry will disclose celestial
phenomena which tend greatly to strengthen this presumption,
if not to convert it into a positive conviction.

Contemplating our own solar system, we are struck with
the fact that revolutionary motion every where prevails. The
planets are constantly whirling upon their axes, and perform-
ing their grand orbitual circuits in the heavens. The sun him-
self rotates upon his own center, once in about twenty-seven
days. -This revolution has been ascertained by the periodical
variation of the position of spots on his disk.

But several of the stars of our firmament exhibit a phe-
nomenon similar to this, from which our sun's rotatory motion
has been inferred. That is, they alternately, and in regular
periods, give forth a greater and a less degree of light, as
though they had a brightest side and a side of a less degree of
brightness, which were alternately, and at regular intervals,
presented to us by a revolution upon their axes. This is one
of the facts which have confirmed astronomers in the otherwise
very natural presumption, that the stars are suns like our own,
and whose apparent diminutiveness is only owing to their
immense distances.

There are also many instances in which the varying relative
positions of t\YO or more stars are such as to indicate a revo-
lution aroinid each other, and around a common center. Some
of these stars have vast periods, as, for instance, the double

36 THE SIDEKEAL UNIVERSE.

star Castor, whose constituents revolve around each other in
215 years; Gamma, in the constellation of the Virgin, whose
constituents revolve in 628 years ; Gamma of the Lion, whose
constituents revolve in 1200 years ; and Mizar and Alcor, in
the tail of the Great Bear, which, according to Professor
Nichol, would probably consume not much less than the in-
conceivable period of 190,000 years in completing a single
revolution around each other ! Others accomplish their revo-
lutions in much less than 100 years.

By establishing the fact that rotatory and orbitual motions
are experienced by many of the stars, the extreme probability
is at the same time established on analogical grounds, that
similar motions are experienced, with, perhaps, some modifi-
cations, by all stars. We are, at least, not without strong,
not to say demonstrative evidence, that motions of this kind
are going on in the celestial spaces, on a much grander scale
than any we have yet described. By comparing the positions
of the stars in the modem heavens with their positions as rep-
resented in ancient catalogues, Sir William Herschel found
that in one quarter of the firmament, they were apparently
drawing nigher together, while in the opposite, quarter they
were apparently receding from each other. To account for
these changing appearances, Herschel conjectured that our own
sun, with all his retinue of planets, was moving in some grand
path toward a point in the constellation Hercules. After
much doubt and many critical examinations, subsequent
investigators have succeeded in establishing this opinion on
an indubitable basis.

But in the hands of Argelander, Struve, Peters, and especi-
ally of Maedler, the theory of this solar motion was made to
assume still more definite form. Inferring, with others, from
analogy, that the path described by our luminary must be the

3T

curve of an orbit around some remote center, the latter of
these astronomers betook himself to the examination of
ancient catalogues of stars, with a view to ascertain if there
was any discoverable district in the heavens where all the ap-
parent motions of the stars were such as to comply with the
conditions which must necessarily characterize a central region.
Such a district was found; and the star ALCYONE, in the
cluster Pleiades, was decided to be its center. Around this
point, therefore, our own sun, and the whole firmamental
cluster to which it belongs, were supposed to be revolving
with immense velocity, in orbits coincident with the general
plane of the Milky Way, and requiring no less than eighteen
millions of years to accomplish a single revolution !

Whatever diversity of opinion there may exist relative to
the legitimacy of the conclusion of Maedler, which locates the
center of alleged orbitual motion at the point occupied by the
star Alcyone, I believe it is now generally, if not universally
admitted by astronomers, that such orbitual motion does exist
around some center, not very remote from that region.

The evidence upon this point greatly strengthens the
analogy which, of itself, points to the conclusion that those
isolated globular and other clusters of stars, situated in the re-
moter realms of space, and which appear to have been aggre-
gated by internal power of gravitation, are also scenes of per-
petual rotatory and orbitual motion. Did not these motions,
with their resultant centrifugal forces, exist to countervail, in
some degree, the force of internal gravity, those firmamental
clusters would doubtless exist in much more dense masses
than those in which they now appear.

But if this conclusion thus approximates to a certainty,
there are facts which point to a still more extended appli-
cation of its principles. In the southern heavens, and quite

4

-

38 THE SIDEEEAL UNIVERSE.

detached from the Milky Way, are two bright spots which
southern navigators have designated by the name of " Magel-
lan's Clouds" During his astronomical residence at the Cape
of Good Hope some years ago, Sir John Herschel, by the aid
of his twenty feet telescope, succeeded in analyzing these ob-
jects, and found that each of them, and especially the larger
one, was a system of firmaments, combining many extensive
clusters into one! Of these, as systems, analogy would
authorize us -to predicate internal gravity and general and par-
ticular rotatory and orbitual motions. But the magnitude of
this complex unity, however inconceivably great, may, after
all, be but an atom in the immensity of ulterior creations to
which it belongs ; and, on the bases of its analogies, we may
rise to the ideal of a still higher system — a system which may
be supposed to embrace in its structure all the firmamental
clusters, nebulae, and systems of systems heretofore known to
telescopic observers, and countless more besides.

Nor is the idea of such an all-comprehensive system of sys-
tems without the support of facts, as well as of analogies. It is
said that although nebulae, resolvable and irresolvable, appear
in every quarter of the heavens, they appear in greatest
abundance in a comparatively narrow zone which encircles
the heavens, cutting the plane of the Milky Way at right
angles. This arrangement goes far to establish the idea of a
Frimament of firmaments, a Galaxy of galaxies, in which all
sidereal creations which have come within the reach of the
most powerful telescopes, are bound together in one common
structure, brought within the sphere of the same common laws,
and made to observe throughout, similar rotatory and orbitual
motions with those which prevail in our own solar sys-
tem, which latter may be considered as an epitome
representative of the whole !

THE GEE AT CENTER. 39

We have thus seen that wherever the wonders of the
celestial spaces have been distinctly unfolded, the revolution
of satellites around planets, of planets around suns, of suns
around still greater suns, of systems around still greater
systems, of clusters around still greater clusters, is revealed
as an omniprevalent law. And seeing the complete unity of
plan and harmony of operations so far as we have gone — see-
ing the affectionate co-relations which are exhibited between
molecules, and worlds, and systems, and all stellar congre-
gations, with all their included parts — may we not prolong
the chain of analogy one link farther, and conclude that they
all, together with the myriads of similar creations which dwell
in depths of space which no optical power can ever penetrate,
owe the bond of unity wrhich connects them, and the har-
monial influence which wields them in their mighty courses,
to one grand Source of central power, whose attractions they
all implicitly obey, and from whose genial radiations all
receive their life 1 If the links of the analogical chain have
been found to closely adhere through all the labyrinths of
every realm of being whose existence may be verified by
other processes, who shall begin to distrust that chain for the
first time, after it has conducted us safely thus far 1

Though the hypothesis of a common Pivot and Center of
gravity of the whole universe may not, in the nature of
things, be susceptible of an ocular or complete mathematical
demonstration, yet there is interior evidence — I had almost
said even the evidence of intuition — that it is true in some
form ; and I believe this idea is now extensively received as
an article of astronomical faith.

Let no one suppose that amid these inconceivable dis-
tances and magnitudes, the fixed principles of reasoning lose
their validity and become untrustworthy. It is true that in

40 THE SIDEREAL UNIVERSE.

these giddy flights, the imagination and conceptive powers
become lost and bewildered ; but so they do, in a great de-
gree, before we have traveled beyond the immediate neigh-
borhood of our own mundane sphere. The distance from the
earth to our own sun is measured by millions of miles ; and
even this, as one of the shortest of astronomical distances, the
imagination can but faintly conceive. The distance from the
sun to the stars is measured by millions of diameters of the
earth's orbit ; the distance from firmament to firmament is
measured by millions of interstellar spaces; the distance
even of the most interior firmament from the great Center of
all centers, may, in the efforts of the imagination, be measured
by millions, or even billions of inter-firmamental spaces ; and
the circumference of the whole Grand Structure, may even
transcend all human conceptions of infinitude; yet form,
locality, relative position, center, circumference, and hence
limits, must exist as absolutely as they exist in the smallest
spherule of matter visible to the human eye ; and to the view
of an absolutely infinite Being, the whole Universe of uni-
verses may be of comparative dimensions not greater than a
single grain of sand ! And if Ehrenberg could, by the aid of
the microscope, descry a whole animal kingdom in a single
drop of water, each individual of the myriads of whose ani-
mated forms must have had eyes, teeth, stomach, intestines,
and all the appurtenances of a complete anatomical structure,
governed by unvarying physiological laws; and if by the
same means he could demonstrate that a particular geological
deposit, fourteen feet thick and miles in extent, was made up
almost exclusively of the skeletons of animals, forty-one bil-
lions of which could exist in a single cubic inch, then we may
rest assured that the principles of nature exist in no greater
completeness, and in no higher or more inconceivable compli-

A GENERALIZATION. 4:1

cations, 'm infinites than they do in infinitesimals. We may,
then, without crowding out any natural principle, or doing
violence to any just method of reasoning, reduce the scale of
the universe, in our imagination, to dimensions convenient to
be contemplated on all sides, and follow out our reasonings
with ease and comparative certainty respecting its properties,
forces, laws, internal arrangements, and progressive processes
of formation, from beginnings to ultimates.

Considering, then, all general natural principles as applying
equally to greatest and to smallest analogous cosmical forms,
and to the whole universal structure as well as to its indi-
vidual parts, we proceed to another branch of the chain of
analogical reasoning, which will speedily conduct us to the
primal condition of the substance from which the material uni-
verse and all it contains, was organized.

The nebular theory of planetary and solar formations, as
applying to our solar system, has been shown to rest on so
many probabilities as seemingly to justify the undoubting
conviction of its truth. But if this theory is admitted as ap-
plicable to our own solar system, its applicability to forma-
tions in the sidereal realms will, after the foregoing system of
universal analogies has been traced out, scarcely be disputed,
especially as it was in the sidereal realms that the first facts
were observed which seemed to intimate its truth. And if all
planetary and solar agglomerations originated from previously
diffused nebulous masses, then, in view of the unbroken chain
which, we have seen, binds all systems together as one system,
the following statement is its own sufficient proof:

As the satellites were formed from the same original nebu-
lous mass from which the planets originated, so a prior state
of that mass was a state of unity and interdiffusion with the
mass which composed the sun. The materials of that mass,

42 THE SIDEREAL UNIVERSE.

in like manner, were previously connected and inte'rdiffused
with the mass which formed the more interior sun around
which it revolves, and out of which were formed all such other
ultimate suns as, in common with our own, now revolve around
the same center. The substance of all suns and systems com-
posing our firmament, may be supposed also to have been
previously interdiffused in one amorphous, undistinguishable
mass. So the substance of the suns and systems of all other
firmaments, together with the substance of the great central
sphere of universal attraction which binds and subordinates
them all, was, in like manner, in an original nebulous and
formless state ; and the whole universal substance was then
but one substance, so highly attenuated and expanded as to be
without definite forms, divisions, or compartments — an in-
definable, universal MONAD ! In short, as our own solar sys-
tem is a child of the great Universal System, and is formed in
the image of its parent, the primal condition of the materials
of one, must have been precisely analogous to that of the
other; and if the solar system germinated from an original
nebulae, so did the system of the whole universe.

But in thus unraveling the complexity of all material for-
mations, and tracing them all to an original, unitary, and
chaotic state, we at the same time unravel the complexity of
motion, and not only arrive at its original and simplest form,
but at a state in which it must necessarily have had no form-r-
a state in which its principles were as chaotic as original mat-
ter itself, or, what is the same thing, at a state in which no
established motion existed.

We have thus arrived by an easy, and, admitting our pre-
mises, an apparently certain, process, at the very root of the
Tree of universal material creations — at the great unitary
Germ of all firmaments, suns, systems, and worlds, with the

ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS. 43

mineral, Vegetable, animal, and human forms which dwell
upon their surfaces. If there has been any error in the fore-
going reasonings, it has probably been an error in. the form
rather than in the principles of our conclusions, and the error
therefore does not essentially effect the main object contem-
plated in this disquisition. But of the truth of the position to
which we have arrived by this analytical process, from ulti-
mates to origins, or from effects to causes, additional evidences
will hereafter incidentally occur as we proceed, by an opposite
and synthetical process, from causes to effects. The two pro-
cesses will serve as mutual correctives of each other ; and by
the aid of both united, we hope to somewhat enlarge our
truthful conceptions in relation to those principles, laws, and
operations of the universe without, which naturally lie beyond
the province of mathematics and ocular demonstration, but
which, nevertheless, have their counterparts, representatives,
and exponents in the universe within.

CHAPTER Y.

MATEEIAL BEGINNINGS AS POINTING TO A
SUPEK-MATEEIAL CAUSE.

HAVING thus traced the system of material creation through
a series of anterior conditions, comprehending periods which,
perhaps, no assemblage of arithmetical figures could express,
to a state in which the materials of all worlds, systems, and
firmaments, were in a condition of diffused attenuated vapor,
with no definite or established motions, the inquiry next
arises, Was even this the absolutely primitive state of material
things? Did matter ever exist in any form or forms previous
to this state of chaos 1 or, if not, was it, in this state, eternal 1
or, if not absolutely eternal either in the state of forms or of
chaos, whence and how did it originate 1

The idea that matter ever existed in any mundane forms
previous to this, and became subsequently dissolved, not only
has no analogy to support it, but seems to be contradicted by
an established law of nature. I refer to that law by which
amorphous or chaotic matter in motion has the general and
predominant tendency to assume and multiply forms. It is
not denied that motion of particles tends also to the dissolu-
tion of material forms, but that dissolution is always subser-
vient to immediate and higher recombinations. The kingdom
of motion and forms, therefore, have ever been, and still are
(and we may confidently believe ever will be), making farther
and farther encroachments upon the realms of chaos and

SUPEK-MATERIAL CAUSE. 45

inertia ; and whatever is conquered by the former can never
be fully reconquered by the latter. And this is because the
former power is positive, and the latter is negative.

If matter, therefore, was ever in a state of mundane or or-
ganized forms previous to the chaotic state now under contem-
plation, it must have for ever continued in that same general
state, and even to progressively unfold the tendencies by which
its forms were assumed; and no natural power could have
brought it back again to the formless state. The chaotic or
nebulous state in which we have seen it must necessarily have
existed at the beginning of the cosmical creation, may, there-
fore, be inferred to be its primitive state.

But that matter, even in this indefinite state, was absolutely
eternal, is an idea which analogy, so far as it speaks upon the
subject, distinctly contradicts.* The material of each form
and kingdom in nature may be traced backward from highest
to lowest developments, immediately beyond which latter it
loses itself in a more rudimental creation, which serves as its
groundwork. Thus the animal kingdom, traced downward to
its lowest and simplest forms, finally loses its character as
animal, and merges into the vegetable ; the vegetable, in like
manner, finally loses itself in the mineral ; the mineral or
crystalline forms pass downward into the general amorphous
mass of planetary matter ; planetary matter may be traced
downward through more rudimental geological conditions, and
through igneous liquid, and aeriform fluid, until its distinction
is lost in planetary nebula; this, in imagination, may be
traced, in like manner, until it is lost in the general gaseous
mass of the uncondensed sun ; and so we may proceed, in re-
trograde steps, until we find the materials of all forms and

* Let it be remarked, once for all, that by " matter," I mean physical substance in
contradistinction to spiritual substance.

46 MATERIAL BEGINNINGS AND

kingdoms are lost in the great common mass of original cha-
otic matter.

But in thus tracing back all forms and kingdoms to their
respective and immediate predecessors, we at the same time
trace backward the one and analogous kingdom of Universal
Matter as such (which includes all the other kingdoms), from
its highest to its lowest forms ; and as there is a point beneath
which all kingdoms lose their identity, and their essences are
merged in an anterior kingdom, so analogy would seem to in-
dicate that there is a prior point of attenuation and refinement
at which the great kingdom of Matter also loses its character
as matter or physical substance, and thus that it originated as
matter, from a prior source, as did all its included sub-king-
doms. This idea would appear in greater clearness and force
of probability, if contemplated in the light of the doctrine of
Series, Degrees, and Correspondences, hereafter to be brought
into view ; and it will receive incidental confirmation as we
proceed to consider the origin of Motion.

If (contrary to an extreme probability, not to say absolute
certainty, established in previous remarks) the hypothesis is
still insisted upon, that the chaotic matter of which this uni-
verse is composed, consists of the dissolved elements of a pre-
vious material universe, the question will still arise, Whence
originated the matter composing that universe 1 And so we
may extend our inquiries back through a thousand imagined
pre-existent universes ; but the mind must come to a resting-
place somewhere. It is logically just as certain that there was
a first universe (if we are mistaken in supposing that this is
the first), as it is that there was a first vegetable form or class
of forms, which latter proposition is positively demonstrated
by facts in geology. And after we have gone back in imagi-
nation, to an absolutely first universe, the question will still

SUPEB-MATEEIAL CAUSE. 47

return unanswered, Whence originated the physical substance
composing that universe 1

As the line of progression traced backward necessarily leads
to a beginning of the system of developments to which it
applies, so the line of causation, inversely traced, necessarily
leads to a .Mr^ Cause, which is itself uncaused, though contain-
ing in itself the elements of all causes, and hence all exist-
ences. And as the whole Animal Kingdom, for example,
necessarily rests upon the basis of a prior and immediately
corelated and correspondent Kingdom — the Kingdom of Veg-
etation— so the whole Kingdom of universal materiality, so to
speak, as necessarily rests upon the basis of a prior and imme-
diately corelated and correspondent Kingdom. This King-
dom, then, must be ^ra-physical, in the same way as the
Vegetable Kingdom is ultra-animal ; and it must differ in na-
ture and constitution from the whole Kingdom of physical
substance, at least as much as the Vegetable Kingdom differs
from the Animal, or as the impelling and moving essence of
the human mind differs from the impelled and moved essence
of the human body.

Now, unless we suppose this ultra-physical (and hence un-
physical) Kingdom to be a Kingdom of Spirituality, there is
no conceptive power corresponding to it in the human mind,
and hence it is to the human mind a nothing, and can not even
be an object of thought, much less of faith.

But it may be asked, " Whence originated this Kingdom of
Spirituality, which it is here alleged must have served as the
basis of physical creation 1" If we should answer that it
originated in a higher and ulterior spirituality, and that that
originated in a still higher, and that in a still higher ; and if
we could thus prolong our thoughts to an absolute eternity
and in search of the Origin of origins, we would still have only

48 MATERIAL BEGINNINGS AND

spirituality — an INFINITE REALM of Spirituality, beyond the
idea of which our thoughts could not possibly go. We may
set it down, then, as a conclusion which all analogy affirms,
and which there is no conceivable reason to doubt, that this
whole realm of Materiality, originated in this prior and cor-
respondent Realm of SPIRITUALITY.

Now, spirituality, in its interior nature, possesses the prop-
erties of affection, thought, and volition, and these, again, are
the attributes of personality. This ultimate, and hence infinite,
Realm of Spirituality, therefore, involves the idea which we
mean to convey by the term GOD : and the infinite series of
degrees of spirituality of which the mind has just conceived in
its search after the Origin of origins, may be supposed to cor-
respond to the infinite series of degrees of the harmonious
faculties of the one Infinite God, as these may be supposed to
be represented in their ascending scale, from the most exterior
portion of the Divine nature which connects with Materiality,
to the most interior portions of the Divine Soul, which pro-
jects, generates, and vitalizes all things.

In saying, therefore, that the whole Kingdom of Physical
Substance as such, originated in a prior and corresponding
Kingdom of Spirituality, we, in effect, say that it originated
In a Source possessing affection, intelligence, volition, and hence
personality — in a Being, who, without any restraint or constraint
from outer and physical influences (which did not then exist),
could freely create, or abstain from creating, according to the
internal promptings of his own Infinite Mind.

But let me not be understood as arguing that the matter of
this universe was created by God out of nothing. The mind
can not conceive of any such thing as nothing, or of something
coming out of nothing ; and therefore the idea may be at once
dismissed from the mind as being itself a mental nothing. But

SUPER- MATERIAL CAUSE. 49

if we suppose that spirit is an essence, and that matter, as such,
was created out of this essence, there will at least in this
be no violation of the laws of thought; and the reasons on
which such suppositions may be grounded will incidentally and
more distinctly appear as we proceed.

There is a philosophy extant which insists that matter has
of itself an inherent 'power of motion, and that matter (or phys-
ical substance) is eternal. But that this assumption is unten-
able, is obvious from the following considerations : Motion in
matter, as shown before, necessarily tends to bring matter
into forms ; and if motion was from eternity in eternal matter,
then matter must from eternity have been brought into forms
— nay, into the ultimate and highest forms which that motion
is qualified to engender. But as it is sensibly certain that
these highest forms did not exist for.ever, and rationally cer-
tain that they must have ultimately sprung from a state of
primeval chaos, it follows, of necessity, that motion in matter
could not have been from eternity.

Moreover, if motion is an inherent property of matter, that
motion must be the result of a force adequate to produce it ;
and that force must be either mechanical or chemical. But
that matter contains of itself, and in itself, no mechanical force,
is self-evident. Conceive of any body of matter, whether an
atom or a world, being in a state of perfect rest : it is evident
that that body has within itself no mechanical force adequate
to move itself, much less to act upon kindred bodies. It is
clear, therefore, that matter has within itself, and originally of
itself, no mechanical force adequate to produce motion in
any case ; and, therefore, if a body at rest is not acted upon
by an extraneous moving force, it will necessarily remain, for
aught mechanical forces can do, in precisely the same place,
and will possess precisely the same bulk and constituents, to

5

50 MATERIAL BEGINNINGS.

all eternity. This self-evident and generally recognized prop-
erty of matter is called its inertia.

It is not denied that a chemical power — a power of expan-
sion and condensation, or of altering the internal arrangements
of particles — may be lodged in bodies of matter; but this
power is only the striving of particles for an equilibrium. But
unless there is a constantly active influence received from a
foreign source, the equilibrium must necessarily be finally at-
tained, and all action would then cease, never to be renewed
by any inherent force, simply because such force is exhausted.

If we then consider the whole universal mass of physical
substance, as the mass of particles supposed to be subject to
this internal chemical action, that action, and its producing
force, could not be eternal and unoriginated, because in that
case it would manifestly, from eternity, have attained to an
internal equilibrium, and all action would have ceased. These
considerations show that even chemical action, and therefore
chemical force, must have had a beginning, and therefore a
cause, in some power or contriving agent beyond themselves,
and outside of the matter in which they inhere.* But as there
was no other realm of physical matter from which they could
be supplied, we are driven to the only other alternative of sup-
posing that they were supplied from a Spiritual Source — from
the personal Realm of affection, intelligence, and volition, which
we have before proved to be unoriginated, and hence infinite.

If this reasoning is correct, then the conclusion is obvious,
that all motion of whatever kind, as well as the physical sub-
stance acted upon by it, must have had «in ultimate origin in
Spirit — IN GOD !

* It may be added, that chemical forces, as inherent properties of original, amor-
phous, nebulous matter, must have been exceedingly weak, if in such matter such in-
herent forces could have existed at all, which is extremely doubtful.

CHAPTEE VI.

PEINCIPLES OF UNIVEESAL SYNTHESIS.

WE have now completed our descending view of the realm
of Being without us, and traced the material creation to its
super-material — hence spiritual — hence Divine, Cause. The
completion of this general analysis unfolds to us the true basis
of all synthesis ; and, keeping in view the Spirituality, Self-
existence, and Divinity of the Original Cause, we may now
proceed to inquire, what may be known, or legitimately
believed, in relation to the origin, modus operandi, and govern-
ment of Matter and Motion, and of all the subsequently
established creations, systems, and kingdoms now comprised
in the general fabric of outer Being?

I am aware, however, that many will be likely to consider
questions of this nature as too far above the sphere of the hu-
man intellect, to justify an attempt even at the most general
solution. But let us not be discouraged. It was intimated in
the outset of the present treatise, that nothing exists in the
realm of being WITHOUT man, which has not an antitype and
correspondent in the realm of being WITHIN him, and that all
which exists without, and all which exists within, possess
toward each other the relations of cognizable objects and
principles, and cognizing faculties. Besides, we have already
found reason to believe that Law is unvarying; and if so, it
may be traced in its operations, not only inversely from ulti-
mates to origins of creation's unfoldings, but also directly

52 PRINCIPLES OF SYNTHESIS.

from origins to ultimates. And as the wonderful powers
of analogy have conducted us with apparent safety through
the immense labyrinths of the stellar creations, in our efforts
to trace them downward to their common source, we should
not despair of deriving some substantial aid from the same
mode of reasoning, when applied to the solution of those more
profound and important questions which are embraced in a
synthetical investigation of the system of Being.

As forming the basis of the process of investigation now to
be pursued, we here lay it down, as a self-evident proposition,
that each and every effect is germinally contained in its cause,
and hence, when developed, necessarily corresponds to its cause.
Were this not the case, neither cause nor effect could properly
be called such, and there could be no conceivable sequential
relation between the two.

For example, in the order of tangible developments by
which man is surrounded, the Vegetable Kingdom precedes,
and serves as the material so.urce, of the Animal Kingdom. It
therefore forms the material element of the cause of the
Animal Kingdom, though a more essential element of the
cause of this and all other creations, is of a spiritual character,
supplied from a source that is above the particular creation to
which it applies, as will be further illustrated hereafter. But
the two kingdoms, sustaining toward each other, as they do,
the relations of the material element of a cause, and the
material element of an effect, stand, thus far, as mutual cor-
respondents and exponents of each other. In like manner, the
Vegetable Kingdom stands as a material correspondent and
exponent of the Mineral Kingdom, which is its material source
and cause, and contains the fundamental principles of its com-
position and physical properties, though in a lower degree. So
the Mineral Kingdom, in like manner, has its physical corre-

PRINCIPLES OF SYNTHESIS. 53

spondent in the mass of amorphous planetary matter which
served as its source ; and so, by like gradations, the chain of
analogy carries our minds backward through planetary nebulas,
solar nebulae, etc., until we come to the one great, universal,
undivided mass of chaotic matter, which must necessarily
have contained within itself, undeveloped, the material ele-
ments of stellar systems, solar systems, planets, minerals,
vegetables, animals, and even the physical elements of the
human constitution. Though indefinite in the extreme, this,
in its occult properties and adaptations, .must, as a universal
material Germ, have involved the physical correspondences of
all the creations which subsequently sprang from it, in the
same way as the acorn involves the physical correspondences
of the future oak ; and by an intelligence capable of perceiv-
ing its interior properties and adaptations, it might have been
predicted, in a general way, what kind of creations were des-
tined to spring from it.

But as the Animal Kingdom, physically speaking, was
previously contained in the Vegetable, and the Vegetable
Kingdom was contained in the Mineral, and so on throughout
the descending scale, so the great original, universal Kingdom
of unformed matter, and whose undeveloped properties and
principles were typical of all subsequent and subordinate
Kingdoms, was itself as one Kingdom, previously involved
in the infinite, eternal, and unoriginated Kingdom of Spirit-
uality, which, as before shown, constitutes the DIVINE PER-
SONALITY. This Kingdom of Spirituality — in other words,
the Divine Personal Being — comprises, therefore, not only the
material (or substantial), but the spiritual and volitional, and
hence the entire elements of the Cause of all things in universal
creation ; and hence the Creator and the created must stand as
mutual exponents of each other.

54: PRINCIPLES OF SYNTHESIS.

That the great Kingdom of universal matter, and what, for
the sake of perspicuity, we have called the great Kingdom of
universal Spirit, stand in relations to each other similar to
(though more comprehensive and perfect than) the relations
subsisting between any two conjoined subordinate kingdoms
in nature, is an idea which it is desired the reader should dis-
tinctly comprehend, as it lies at the foundation of all true,
material, and spiritual philosophy, and will, as it is believed,
tend to entirely reclaim science from the general ten-
dency which it has long apparently had, to Pantheism and
Atheism.

Considering that matter, as such, originated in the creative
efforts of Spirit, and hence Mind, there is another point of
view, from which it will appear that matter, both in its
primeval state, and in all its subsequent states of mundane
forms, must necessarily have been in exact correspondence
with its Source and producing Cause. We know something
of the nature and operations of Mind, by experience and con-
sciousness. We know that the mind of the architect, for
instance, constructs an edifice within itself, or within its own
conceptions and thoughts — constructs it as an invisible and
spiritual edifice — before proceeding to give it a physical
form in the outer world. After the building is physically
erected, therefore, it stands as a precise image and corre-
spondent of its archetype or conception which first existed in
the mind.

Applying these principles to the subject under present in-
vestigation, we may consider the Divine Thought as the Archi-
tect, and the universe, or any of its systematically organized
stages of development, as the Edifice. Not only, then, must
the archetype of the universe in its maturity, with all its har-
monious worlds and systems, but even the archetypes of

PRINCIPLES OF SYNTHESIS. OO

those atomic and infinitesimal forms constituting original
chaotic matter, have distinctly pre-existed in the Divine,
spiritual, and mental constitution.*

The Deity and the universe — the realm of Spirit and the
realm of Matter — therefore, stand to each other in the relation
of Archetype and Antitype — of Cause and Effect — and there-
fore the two, as before remarked, stand as mutual exponents
of each other. In order, therefore, to arrive at some general
conclusions in reference to the constitution and principles of
creation as a whole, and also in respect to the constitution and
principles of its included and correspondent sub-systems, let
us first briefly interrogate Reason and Intuition in reference to
some such general facts as we can comprehend, respecting the
constitution of the Divine Being.

The only way in which we can obtain any definite and pro-
per conception of the Divine Being, is by first conceiving of
a true and undegenerated human being — such being the culmi-
nating point of all Divine creations, and hence the embodied
representative of all the Divine affections. Although it is not
the intention to base the propositions of this work on the au-
thority of inspired writings (whatever confirmations of such
writings may be incidentally developed in the course of our
philosophical investigations), we can not, in this place, avoid
noticing the biblical declaration that " God created man in his
own image," as impliedly sanctioning an endeavor on our part
to understand all that we may comprehend of God, by a com-
parison of the knowledge we have of man. Spirit, indeed, is
essentially of the same nature wherever found, whether exist-
ing in a finite or an infinite degree, though it is acknowledged

* The idea of Archetypes, as here presented, was originally conceived by Plato,
and formed a prominent feature of .his philosophy; though the author here derives it
from sources independent of Plato's teachings.

56 PRINCIPLES OF SYNTHESIS.

that it may exist in different shades of moral character as
resulting from different combinations, developments, and direc-
tions of the faculties. Conceive, then, of a perfectly consti-
tuted man — a man whose physical, intellectual, and moral
natures are in harmonious development, and then conceive
this man to be expanded to infinitude, and you have the truest
and highest conception of God of which the human mind is
capable.

But it would be diverting the reader too far from the object
of this portion of our treatise, to enter at present into an
elaborate discussion of the question, What is man? This
question shall be discussed at length in the second part of this
work. But for the present we must confine ourselves to a few
propositions which, to intelligent minds, will appear more or
less self-evident, and of the truth of which, as well as of the
ulterior positions which they will serve to illustrate, confirma-
tion will accumulate as we proceed, until any reasonable
doubts with which some minds may at first regard them, will,
it is believed, be either greatly diminished or entirely dissi-
pated.

Let it be apprehended, then, that the most general constitu-
ents of human personality, are three; viz., 1. Soul, or interior
vitality, which is the seat of the affections ; 2. Spirit, or the
organized, pervading nerve-element, which, in its lower de-
grees, is the vehicle of sensation, and in its higher degrees, is
the seat of the understanding ; and 3. Body, or vehicle of
outer manifestation and action.

Precisely corresponding to these are the three most compre-
hensive constituents of the Divine Being ; viz., 1. Interior
Soul, Life, or Love ; 2. Spirit or Wisdom ; 3. Outer sphere
or vehicle of operative Energy, the latter corresponding to the
body in man.

THE SEVEN-FOLD SERIES. 57

But the constituents, both of the human and Divine person-
ality, considered in more detailed reference to elements, forms,
and outer objectivities, are also, in each case, susceptible of a
seven-fold division, which may be briefly stated as follows: 1.
Subjective Love, or Love as an abstract quality of the personal
essence ; 2. Subjective Wisdom, or Wisdom as an abstract
quality of the personal essence ; 3. Subjective volition, or
volition as an abstract power of the two previous elements com-
bined, and a procedure from them both; 4. The essences
having the properties of Love, Wisdom, and Volition, em-
bodied in personal organism ; 5. Objective Love, or Love as
related to outer forms ; 6. Objective Wisdom, or Wisdom as
related to outer forms ; 7. Habitation, or a complete system
of outer objects and conditions related to the whole personal
nature and desires, and in which such nature and desires be-
come embodied and represented.

In man the elements of this seven-fold classification con-
tain within themselves many corresponding sub-divisions,
some of which are much more obvious than the foregoing
general divisions, as will be seen when, in the course of our
inquiries respecting the MICROCOSM or the universe within, it
comes in order to discuss them. In God the elements of this
seven-fold division may be presumed to contain an infinite
number of sub-divisions, all of which are, in like manner, sus-
ceptible of corresponding seven-fold classifications ; and their
co-relations and inter-communications may be supposed to
constitute the infinite harmonies and beatitudes of the Divine
soul ! Our object at this stage of our treatise, however, is
little more than to unfold the idea of these classifications as a
basis on which the great plan-work of creation may be con-
ceived, leaving such evidences of their truthfulness as exist in
the nature of things to be incidentally developed as we proceed.

58 PRINCIPLES OF SYN-THESIS.

I

This seven-fold classification of the principles of the Divine
constitution, is probably what the inspired seer St. John had
reference to when he spoke of the " seven Spirits of God which
go out into all the earth." And it was undoubtedly the out-
goings and efficient operations of these which produced the
various seven-fold Divine antitypes which were shown to the
same inspired seer under the forms of the seven churches of
Asia Minor ; the Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes ; the
book with seven seals, and their successive openings at seven
different epochs ; the seven angels with seven trumpets ; the
seven thunders ; the seven last plagues, etc.*

If it be true, then, that there are these seven natural
divisions in the constituents of the one Divine Being, it is
obvious that any system of creation or operation which
presents a complete reflex of what is contained in the
Divine Source from which it sprang, must contain a re-
presentation and outer expression of each one of these Di-
vine constituents, and must therefore, as a whole, be also
seven-fold.

But we have seen that Nature, as a Whole, is divided into
many Systems, Kingdoms, or more properly speaking, Dis-
creet Degrees, rising one above another. Each one of these
Kingdoms or Degrees (as will gradually be illustrated in what
follows) contains within itself the seven-fold series of parts,
as the natural evolution, and reproduction, on a higher scale,

* The number seven appears to have been anciently recognized as a general number
of completeness, and as such it appears to have been habitually employed by the
sacred writers. Thus, in their classifications, there were seven days (or periods) of
creation ; seven days of the week ; seven years from one sabbatic year to another ; seven
tunes seven years from one jubilee to another, etc., (see by the aid of the concordance,
the numerous instances in which the number seven occurs in the Old and New Testa-
ments). Some of the ancient heathen nations, also, adopted the seven-fold classifica-
tion as of extensive application, especially- to spiritual and Divine things ; and it waa
introduced by Pythagoras from India into Greece.

HARMONIAL SCALE OF CREATION. 59

of the seven-fold series of the Degree or Kingdom im-
mediately below it in the order of development ; and all of
these, separately and collectively, are evolutions from, and
correspondents of, the Divine seven-fold Constitution, which
is the Originator and Cause of all. Each one of these seven-
fold series, moreover, corresponds to the diatonic scale in
music, and which, with its seven constituent notes, is therefore
its natural oral interpreter and exponent, Thus the various
Degrees or Kingdoms of natural developments, may be con-
sidered as octaves, rising one above another, the same as the
octaves in music. Each octave exactly corresponds to, and
harmonizes, note by note, with all other octaves, whether they
be on a higher or lower scale ; so that if we fully understand
any octave, Degree, or Kingdom of natural development, we
have in it a measure and exponent of all others. Thus the
system of nature, as a Whole, may be considered as one
grand Musical Organ, compassing all these octaves, and which,
in the hands of the Great Organist, the Divine Being, in
whose infinite series of octaves of Love and Wisdom, exists
the very soul and origin of all harmony, is capable of
sending forth every where those silent notes of harmony
and music which have been perceived and deeply felt,
by every truly elevated and interiorly developed human
soul !

The idea of the " music of the spheres," therefore, is not
merely a poetic fancy, but a sublime reality, whose basis and
origin are exhibited in the foregoing simple principles.

That this harmonial scale of creation, as corresponding to
the harmonial scale of degrees of Love and Wisdom of the
Divine Mind, is not a mere fanciful conception, will become
more and more obvious as we proceed, It will be shown,
that not only does each one of these degrees or octaves of

60 PRINCIPLES OF SYNTHESIS.

creation, by its correspondence with all others, serve as their
natural exponent, but that each octave, if its constituents
are correctly classified, rests upon internal evidence of its
own. And if this serial order of graduated progression is
duly recognized, and its laws are properly understood, we
may use any seven-fold classification, known to be correct, in
correcting the errors of others, just as the musician would
correct the discords of one octave by the harmonies of
another.

But before proceeding further, we must speak briefly of
the laws which, as we proceed, will be seen to govern the
septinary classifications, and by which it may be generally
known whether any classification is correct. In each correct
classification, the members, in their numerical order, may, in
general terms, be distinguished as follows :

Number ONE is the number of simple unity.

Two is the number of productive unity, and in general
terms comprises positive and negative, active and passive, or
male and female, principles.

THREE is the number of self-sustaining unity.

FOUR is the number of Organization.

FIVE is the number of exterior completeness. There being
five exterior properties to outer things, man, hence, has five
exterior senses, whose object is to give information of them to
the interior soul. As the five exterior properties also exist,
with express reference to two interior and higher properties,
the number five is also a number of aspiration, as will be
better understood hereafter.

Six is the number of subordinal association, and of
harmonial, peripheral revolution, as around a governing
center.

SEVEN is the number of final completeness, embracing both

NUMERICAL CLASSIFICATION. 61

exteriors and interiors. Hence it is the pivotal and governing
number of the series.*

This septinary classification may also be embodied in the
triad. Thus the first, second, and third members of any
seven-fold series, form one trinity, and therefore may count as
a unit ; the fourth, fifth, and sixth members form a second
trinity, and count another unit; while the seventh member,
which is always equal, or rather superior, to all the rest put
together, forms a third unit, and completes a general trinity.
As a guide to correctness in any septinary classification, it is
important to observe that the first and second trinities in the
series, should bear a certain general and particular correspond-
ence with each other.

Whatever obscurities may at first exist in the foregoing
statement, will be abundantly clarified by the illustrative
examples which will incidentally occur as we proceed. It is here
given mainly as a hint to the reader, that the classifications in
which we shall have to deal, are not arbitrary, but founded
in the nature of things. Considering, therefore, that each
natural seven-fold series corresponds to, and illustrates every
other, and that this septinary arrangement runs through every
complete creation, system, and Kingdom in nature, the degree
of reliance which may be placed on the legitimate results of
the method of investigation now propose^, as well as the
character and extent of those results, as compared with what
may be obtained by other processes, may be illustrated as
follows: Suppose there are a large number of timbers,
hewn, squared, morticed, etc., and piled confusedly together.

* The ancient inspired records also deal largely in the number twelve and its
multiples, as an interiorly significant number. It may be remarked that the number
twelve is evolved from the seven-fold series, and is simply the number of six pro-
ductive unities, or positive and negative, active and passive, or male and female,
principles. It is therefore, also, a number of subordinal association.

6

62 PRINCIPLES OF SYNTHESIS.

The superficial observer, uninstructed in the synthetical
principles of architecture, may take most accurate measure-
ments of each of those timbers, and may give most correct
descriptions of their shapes, abstract qualities, etc., ju-st as
science, as ordinarily pursued, gives accurate descriptions of
abstract facts which constitute the timbers of the great temple
of Nature. Such an observer, however, may not be able to
discover any intended connection between many of those
timbers ; may be able to form little or no idea of the form,
proportions, or correlative parts of the building which they
would constitute, if all put together, and may even doubt that
they were ever all intended to go together in any definite
form ; and that science which merely analyzes, but does not
synthesyze, experiences much the same difficulty in viewing
the timbers of the temple of Nature. But suppose, now, that
a skillful architect comes on the ground : he views those ap-
parently heterogeneous timbers, not only analytically (or in
isolated detail), but also synthetically, or in their relations to
each other ; and, by the observance of simple rules, he pro-
ceeds— without any paring or forcing — perhaps without even
the "noise of the hammer" — to erect a magnificent and
glorious temple, in which there is a place for every timber,
from greatest to smallest, and a timber for every place which
requires one. Then even the previous superficial and merely
analytical observer of the timbers will know, if he surveys
the edifice, that those timbers were intended to go together
precisely in the relations in which he now finds them ; and
that the rule or theory by which they are brought together,
is true.

Suppose the observer noticed, however, that in the erection
of the building, some of the timbers were a little pared,
or forced, or warped, in order to make them join with

THE TEMPLE AND ITS PAETS. 63

others : still, if the building, when erected, exhibits unmis-
takable indications' of order, and symmetry, and harmony
of its numerous parts, it stands as evidence of general truth-
fulness of the architectural rules by which it was erected ;
and, if it is then known that the hewer of those timbers was
absolutely perfect in his artr the inference would be legitimate,
that the paring and distortion used in putting them together,
were owing to the ignorance or unskillfulness on the part
of the builder, by which a joist or a post was occasionally
inverted, or made to take the intended place of another of
somewhat similar form.

Now, all natural facts (which, it must be confessed,
the science and philosophy of the day view in an aspect
somewhat heterogeneous) are timbers of the great temple of
Nature. A system of classification and reasoning, therefore,
by which these various facts, as timbers, may be, without
any warping or forcing, brought into the form of one
grand system, among the myriads of the complicated parts
of which there may be observed a mutual dependence and
harmony so perfect, that the loss of a single part would
sensibly mar the symmetry of the whole ; then we may be
assured that this system is the true one, and that the
structure erected by it is a structure of truth. Now, a
system of classification of this kind must exist somewhere in
nature, if it be admitted that nature is not, after all, a more or
less heterogeneous and disconnected mass. If the reader can
not believe, with me, that the doctrine of the seven-fold series
and its natural adjuncts, as herein briefly unfolded, constitutes
that system, it is confidently believed that he will at least find it
immensely suggestive, compelling nature, in many instances,
to tell her own story, and to give up secrets which science
and philosophy have hitherto been inadequate to wrest from

64 PRINCIPLES OF SYNTHESIS.

her grasp. For the several years which have elapsed since I
was so fortunate as to be led to the discovery of this method
of correspondential reasoning, I have pursued it with results
which, to my own mind, at least, have been intensely satis-
factory ; and, I confess, that without its aid I could not have
had any conceptions which might have been regarded even as
an approximation to a solution of many of the questions
discussed in this work.

CHAPTEK VII.

THE SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL LAWS, AND THEIE INTIMATIONS EE-
SPECTING THE ORIGIN AND STEUCTUKE OF THE UNIVEESE.

DEEMING the foregoing a sufficient exposition of the prin-
ciples which shall guide us in our further inquiries, we now
proceed to our proposed synthetical investigation of the system
of being without us. Pursuing the natural order of pro-
gression, from fundamentals and generals to ultimates and
particulars, we will first institute some comprehensive in-
quiries respecting the origin, structure, government, etc., of
the physical universe as a whole; and afterward, similar
inquiries shall be pursued in relation to the Solar System, the
planet on which we dwell, and the various systems of inani-
mate and animate creation which exist upon its surface, of
which the ultimate and highest is the human organization.

And, in view of the new method of reasoning which we
have unfolded, let it be borne in mind that if the origin, con-
stitution, laws, functional operations, etc., of any one of the
systematic creations proposed for investigation, can be eluci-
dated directly and more clearly than any other, it will serve
as a correspondential guide to the further elucidation of all the
others. Thus, with a proper classification of the correspond-
ing series and degrees of nature's unfoldings and operations,
the known will 'cast the whole light of its analogies upon the
unknown — just as each timber of a temple hints the shape and
nature of the timbers with which it is to be conjoined, and

66 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

thus serves as a guide to the erection of the edifice ; or, as a
single fossil bone of an extinct and previously unknown
animal, enables the comparative anatomist to describe with
accuracy, the animal as it lived and moved upon the earth in
its organic completeness. Our method, if successfully pur-
sued, will, moreover, develop the unity of principle pervading,
in different degrees, all creations, from lowest to highest — the
unity and harmony, therefore, of the one and only system of
universal truth; and, as we pursue the revelations of the
physical universe, from its rudiments to its higher unfoldings,
our thoughts, from the accumulating analogies, will gain such
an upward impetus as may hereafter carry them directly
through the line of those higher and corresponding truths,
which relate to man physiologically, psychologically, spiritu-
ally— socially, politically, and religiously.

With respect to the origin, structure, laws, etc., of the uni-
versal cosmical system, we commence our reasonings with a
postulate which, whether strictly true or not, can not lead us
into important error in our subsequent deductions, since we
have so many correctives of inharmony, as involved in the
general series of corresponding and harmonious octaves of
developments through which the path of our investigations
will lead us. The postulate is, That God, from the prompt
ings of his own interior soul, which is Love, under the
direction of his Wisdom, which gave order and form to the
operations of Love, formed from the most exterior, or, if the
expression may be allowed, the least Divine and most nearly
physical, portion of his own personal emanations, as many de-
grees, varieties, or perhaps classes of atomic particles, as cor-
responded to the general seven-fold harmonies of his own
Infinite nature. The supposition that the varieties of these
primitive atoms are, in number, just seven, or a multiple of

PRIMORDIAL MATTER. 67

seven, is admitted to be purely a priori, but is a legitimate
deduction from principles before established : it is here
offered as an introduction to propositions more certain, and
from which it, in its turn, will receive confirmation ; though,
if it could be proved to be untrue, it would not essentially
affect our main argument. These varieties of atoms, then
(whatever their number may have been), may be supposed to
have constituted Matter in its primitive state, which probably
was characterized by none of the distinctive properties of oxy-
gen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, potassium, or any others of
the so-called "elements" known to chemistry. In being
evolved, in particleized form, from the emanated personal
Essence of the Divine Being, the substance thus particleized
ceased to constitute any necessary portion of the Divine
Person, and formed a Realm or degree of Being by itself, but
still a Realm of Being corresponding to, immediately connected
with, and capable of receiving direct influx of vital energy from,
the great Personal Realm of Spirit from which it proceeded.
This vital influx, however, may be supposed to have been
altogether optional on the part of the great Generative Spirit,
even as was the evolution and particleization of essence
itself; and, without the direct communication to it, of an im-
pelling energy from the Divine source of all energy, matter,
thus constituted, would, as before shown, have forever re-
mained inert.

We are next, therefore to inquire into the origin and laws
of MOTION in this primeval chaotic mass.

Admitting, what was before proved, that inertia is an
inseparable property of matter left solely to itself, it is self-
evident that Motion could have been the product only of a
Force adequate to overcome the tendency of matter to remain
fixed. Though force is essentially of the same general nature

68 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

in whatsoever direction it may act, there are several modifica-
tions of the dynamic agents in which force originates. These,
requiring, as they do, a separate chapter for their proper eluci-
dation, shall only receive such allusions in this place as will
be necessary to the explication of the laws by which force
acts in producing motion, aggregation, segregation, reciprocal
transference, and structural stability.

It has before been repeatedly remarked, that the universe
without corresponds to the universe within man, and that
therefore all principles and developments of the outer universe
may be conceived of by the fully unfolded human faculties.
This is because man is, physically and spiritually, an epitome
of all previous Divine unfoldings, and therefore is a microcosm
or little universe of himself. Though it is proposed to con-
sider the discreet degrees of creation in their natural order of
unfolding, tracing each octave fts it passes upward and merges
into a higher and corresponding one, until the whole merge
(loosely" speaking) into man ; yet, for the purpose of illustrat-
ing the forces and laws of the physical universe by the same
forces and laws which, in an ultimately sublimated degree, ap-
ply to man, we will here so far anticipate the appropriate
subject of the second part of this work, as to exhibit the fol-
lowing self-evident truths respecting the human economy.

In man (the microcosm or little universe) there is, 1. Pas-
sion or Love, which corresponds to Heat ; 2. Intelligence or
Wisdom, which corresponds to light ; 3. Nerve-essence, which
corresponds to electricity (these three forming a trinity) ; 4.
The agent which attracts circulating particles, and deposits
them in the solid portions of the organism ; 5. The agent
which removes particles from lower tissues, and deposits them
in higher ; 6. The agent which acts and re-acts sympathetically
between one organ and another (these three forming a second

DYNAMIC AGENTS AND LAWS. 69

and corresponding trinity of dynamic agents) ; and, 7. The
interior, unitizing, and vital agent, which pervades and governs
all the preceding.

Accompanying, and precisely answering to, these seven
dynamic agents in man, are seven laws, or modes, by which the
former operate. These are, 1. Expansion, governing all dias-
tolic movements ; 2. Contraction, governing all systolic move-
ments ; 3. Circulation, governing all rudimentally reciprocat-
ing movements (first trinity) ; 4. Aggregation, governing all
depositing and organizing operations ; 5. Segregation, governing
all ascending movements ; 6. The law governing all sympa-
thetic movements (second trinity) ; 7. The law of all vital,
unitizing, and governing operations, the vital and spiritual
constitution as a whole being here the mover.

Now, in the macracosm, or great universe, we have, 1.
Heat, which corresponds to Passion or Love ; 2. Light, which
corresponds to Intelligence or Wisdom ; and 3. Electricity,
which corresponds to nerve-essence, in the little universe —
these forming a fundamental trinity of dynamic agents as
operative in outer nature. There is also a second and corre-
sponding trinity of dynamic agents in nature, and also a seventh
and vitalizing agent, as corresponding to the same in man ;
but these important agents shall be illustrated hereafter.
Assuming their existence for the present, however, we may
remark, that, corresponding to these seven dynamic agents,
there are also seven laws which govern the outer universe, a-nd
all its correspondent sub-creations, whether in the animate or
inanimate departments of being. These laws, indeed, are the
same throughout with those which we have seen to apply to
man, though in lower creations they exist in lower degrees of
development. They may be exhibited, with their ternary re-
lations, in the following table :

70 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

PRIMARY TRINITY.

1. Expansion.

2. Contraction or Attraction.

3. Circulation.

SECONDARY TRINITY.

4. Aggregation.

5. Segregation.

6. Sympathetic reciprocation.

7. Vital complex unity.

Here, it will be perceived, is a regularly graduated progres-
sion in the order o*" elements, ascending from first to last, as
it were, through the different stratifications of one complete
system. They maintain relations to each other similar to the
relations of the different parts of a tree ; viz., the first is the
root of the series ; the second is the trunk ; the third is the
branches ; the fourth the leaves, and the completion of the
organic form of the tree (wherefore, No 4. in any seven-fold
series always corresponds to aggregation, organization, or as-
sociation) ; No. 5 commences the segregative or reproductive
process, and corresponds to the flower buds ; No. 6 corre-
sponds to the flowers, and No. 7 always corresponds to the
fruit, embodying in itself the sublimated elements of the whole
tree, together with the seed or germ of a future and corre-
sponding creation.

The first trinity in the series approximately corresponds to
the second, but the correspondence is rather by way of coun-
terpart, or antithesis, than in any other way which may be
easily defined ; and in the general trinity, comprehending the
whole septinity, may be observed a general correspondence
with the sub-trinities.*

These, let it be borne in mind, are claimed simply as the
fundamental and all-comprehensive laws of natural and moral

* These g&neral principles of classification, not only in respect to dynamic agents
and laws, but their corresponding forms and developments, are applicable to all natural
series or octaves, and by duly comprehending and observing them, with the peculiar
and relative characteristics of their parts, we may be able always to distinguish true
*rom false classifications.

PRIMEVAL OPERATIONS. 71

existence, saying nothing of those numerous sub-modes of ope-
ration, commonly called laws, which grow out of them. The
essential principles of these general laws, in their simple and
combined states, and in their various degrees of sublimation
and ascension, as applicable to the different degrees of creation,
will, we apprehend, be found to involve a sufficient explanation
of every mode in which original Divine Force operates in the
production of the various phenomena of creation.

Considering, then, that the primeval chaotic materials, out
of which the universe was formed, did not originally, and of
themselves, possess any force or motion, we proceed, in the
light of the foregoing principles, to inquire more particularly
Whence, and how, originated the forces, laws, and motions
from whose diversified operations has resulted the stupendous
system of being by which we are surrounded, and of which
we are a part 1 — and what was the order of progressive devel-
opment, and what is the general structural form of the cosmi-
cal universe, which must have legitimately resulted from these
causes ? And, as it has been before shown that all the prin-
ciples that are involved in the infinite, may be epitomized in
the infinitesimal, we may, for the sake of convenience, and
without injury to the argument, reduce the subject of our con-
templations to an imaginary scale of magnitude which may
easily be conceived by the human mind, and which will allow
of all progressive operations being surveyed as from a single
stand-point.

The influence which may most naturally be conceived to
have first acted upon primordial matter to impel it to ascending
developments, was Divine Love. Now, Divine Love corre-
sponds to Heat — is, indeed, spiritual heat itself, and thus is the
first expansive impulse of mind. It is so in man, as well as in

72 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

the Deity ; and its correspondence with physical heat is instinct-
ively recognized by the human mind, and is implied in the
phraseology with which men naturally speak of it. Thus we
speak of one in whom the love or passional principle predom-
inates, as a "warm-hearted man," as an "ardent enthusiast,"
or as a man of "fiery disposition." On the principle, there-
fore, that all bodies are developments from an interior soul,
and all natural phenomena have an ultimate spiritual origin, we
may conceive that while the great Kingdom of Matter was in
such immediate relation and juxtaposition to the great King-
dom of Spirit, its Cause, Divine Love (or Divine Spiritual Heat)
flowed directly into the Realm of Matter, and especially into
its seventh or highest and proximately vital degree as being
most in affinity with the Divine Spirit itself, and that the
effect of this influx was an immediate generation of a corre-
sponding natural heat.* This heat must necessarily have been
attended by an immediate expansion of the recipient particle
or collection of particles, and by the evolution of a magnetic
or magnetoid atmosphere partaking of the nature of the parti-
cle's interior vitality. Divine Wisdom (or spiritual light)
entering writh, and acting through, the Love, pervades this
atmosphere, and brings it into the nature of physical light, to
which wisdom corresponds.f

The expansion resulting from the heat must necessarily have

* That natural heat may be produced by what we have here termed spiritual heat,
is shewn by the fact, that when passion flows from the interior soul into the nervous
tissues of the human body, it raises the general temperature of the body, quickens the
circulations, produces a flush of the countenance, and a burning of the cheeks, and, in
general, greatly increases the physical powers. It may be remarked, that the general
principles of this portion of our theory were taught by the celebrated Swedenborg, though
we have arrived at them by an independent process of induction.

t It is well known that natural light consists of seven prismatic rays ; and this fact
hints at the corresponding seven-fold nature of Divine Wisdom, and hence, also, of
Divine Love, its inseparable associate.

O BIG IN OF CENTRAL SUN. 73

produced a comparative vacuum — that is, a vacuum in respect
to those essences which were subjected to the expansion, and
therefore produced a tendency to an absorption or rushing in
of corresponding essences composing neighboring particles,
and which had not yet, in the same degree, been acted upon
by the expansive force. Moreover, the active light-sphere (or
Wisdom-principle) which is an orderly procedure from Heat,
(or Love), or accompaniment of, and the administration to, its
wants, formed a recognizing and sympathetic connection be-
tween the particle first acted upon and the particle immedi-
ately conterminous ; and by an envelopment of the relatively
passive particle in the light-sphere of the relatively active one,
the former would become assimilated to the latter, and, float-
ing to it through the circulating currents of the enveloping
light-sphere, in the same way that the particle of iron "floats
to the magnet through currents of the magnetic essence, it
would become incorporated with it as a part of the same
body. Thus, as each particle is made the recipient of the
essence of Divine Love, it lovingly opens its heart, and ex-
tends its ethereal arms to receive and embrace its brother, and
the two thus become one. And being thus united, and be-
coming recipients for a further influx of heat, the same opera-
tion that before took place, is now repeated on a little larger
scale, and more particles are attracted. And so the process
continues to be repeated, until the minute nucleus of a CEN-
TRAL SUN is fully established, which, by a continuation of the
same process of unfolding, goes on to complete development,
forming the whole universal mass of physical substance into
one coherent and undivided Body, dense in the center, and
gradually shading off into extreme levity toward the circum-
ference.

If^ instead of supposing this operation to commence in in-

7 *

74: LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

finitesimal particles, \ve suppose it to commence in a few
cubic feet, or in hundreds, or thousands, or millions of cubic
miles of central matter, or if we suppose (what is probably
more nearly the truth) that all particles in the universal mass
were simultaneously vitalized, but in different degrees, by the
influx of Divine spiritual heat, and that each commenced
forthwith, a tendency toward particles more vitalized than
themselves, and all a tendency toward the particle most vital-
ized, the principle involved will be the same, and the ultimate
result of the operation will be the same.

If the foregoing theory of the initial steps of the creative pro-
cess is true, it not only affords us an example of the incipient
operations, but an illustration of the very cause of gravitation,
of which latter I believe no adequate explanation has yet been
afforded by any of the common philosophies of the day.
There are, however, in subsequent stages of the creative un-
folding, higher elements and forces which enter into, modify,
and render more definite, the phenomenon of gravitation, as
will be seen.

The manner in which two streams of particles flowing from
opposite directions toward a common center, tend to produce
a rotatory motion in any collection of central particles, has been
explained by those who have written on the nebular theory of
the origin of worlds and their motions.* The idea may be
apprehended from the following illustration : Suppose that
two balls of equal weight, are rolled with equal velocity, over
the floor from opposite sides of a room, and that they at the
same instant impinge upon a third ball lying at rest in the
center of the floor. If the two strike the ball at rest in a line
exactly cutting its center, no motion will be generated in the

* See particularly Nichol's " Architecture of the Heavens."

ORIGIN OF KOTAEY MOTION. 75

latter ball. But there are a great many chances against both
balls striking in such a line, and if we suppose a constant stream
of balls (corresponding to particles) flowing inward toward the
central ball, the probability of the latter being soon struck a
little out of the line of its center, would amount to an almost
absolute certainty. In case this should happen, a rotary mo-
tion of the central body would necessarily take place as a re-
sult of the momentum of the body or bodies impinging upon
it, especially if the latter bodies, as a result of magnetic or
other attraction, attach themselves permanently to the surface
of the former while still under the influence of this mo-
mentum.

Suppose, then, there is a constant stream of bodies flowing
inward from all directions toward the central body, as is sup-
posed to be the case with particles of nebulous matter flowing
inward toward a common center ; the rotation of the central
mass itself when once established, will, by the friction of its
revolving atmosphere, if from no other cause, be sufficient to
throw the approaching end of every radial line of gravitating
particles out in the same direction from its center, and thus the
momentum of every impinging particle will add to the ten-
dency to central rotation. As the particles gradually estab-
lish relations with each other, through their various degrees
of attenuation from center to circumference, rotation will
gradually be established throughout the whole mass, the mo-
tion being relatively swift at the center, and gradually grow-
ing slower at every remove toward the circumference, where
it is the slowest.

The idea has been illustrated by a reference to the effect
produced by different currents of water flowing toward a com-
mon center, which effect is well known to be that of a whirl,
rapid at the point of meeting, and growing more tardy at

Y6 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

every remove from said point, until it dies upon the shore, or
is lost in the general motion of the stream.

If we have in these principles, as we appear to have, a su£
ficient account for the origin of all rotatory motion in the
celestial spaces, it were certainly unphilosophical to look for
its origin in any foreign or arbitrary impulse.

All the phenomena we have thus far considered, therefore,
may be traced to the operations of two Jaws, viz., Expansion
and Attraction — the first being based upon Heat, and the
second upon Heat and Light combined — which elements, again,
owe their origin to the corresponding principles of Divine
Love and Wisdom, or spiritual Heat and Light. We come
now to consider the operations and results of a third law — the
law of Circulation.

While men of science have minutely traced the operations
and phenomena of gravitation, they have taken comparatively
little cognizance of any reactive force from the attracting
body. Yet, without the aid of a reactive or emanative force,
to counterbalance, in some measure, the gravitative power, it
would be impossible to conceive, on rational principles, of the
formation of any other body than the first and universal Body,
which would selfishly absorb all materials, and give forth none.
But it would only be in accordance with universal analogy, to
suppose that while this constant secretion was going on, there
was also as constantly kept up a countervailing process of ex-
cretion. Particles absorbed into the central mass (or, what is
the same thing, the denser portion of the whole united mass),
would, by the action of its superior vitality, undergo a quasi
process of digestion, and portions of their essence would be-
come refined and sublimated, and would be sent off again into
space, to the opposite materials of which they would in their
turn be attracted^ in the same way as positive and negative

LAW OF CIRCULATION.

electricities are mutually attracted. As all gravitating parti-
cles can not go absolutely to the center (some being crowded
out by others), and all emanated particles can not, for a similar
reason, recede to the circumference, so each finds an equilib-
rium, and takes a position, between center and circumference,
according to its specific density or levity. And now, a similar
process of digestion necessarily go3s on among gravitating
and emanating particles which find their common equilibrium
at any given distance from the center, and by their mutual
action and reaction, another change and excretion takes place,
and the rejected particles, being in a state exactly opposite to
that of the particles thrown off from the great Center, now
gravitate again toward that Center, there to experience and
produce still further changes. Thus there is a constant action
and reaction, flux and reflux, between center and circumfer-
ence, and between all intermediate parts of the great mass ;
and the law governing this reciprocating movement is what we
mean by the law of Circulation. It corresponds to circulation,
or to the flux and reflux of venous and arterial blood to and
from the heart in the little universe, or the human system,
even as the laws of Expansion and Attraction (or contraction),
before considered, correspond respectively to the diastolic and
systolic motions of the heart, Jungs, and perhaps the minute
vesicles, or " corcula," of the brain. Being the third law of
the universe, it corresponds to the third element of the Divine
essential Constitution, which is the Divine Sphere of operative
Energy, which, again, corresponds to the nerve-essence in man,
and which latter corresponds to Electricity in the universe
— this being actually the agent mainly concerned in the pro-
duction of the phenomenon now under special consideration.

The laws of Expansion, Contraction, and Circulation, there-
fore, form a trinity, as dependent upon the triune elements

78 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

of Heat, Light, and Electricity ; and which latter are related
to the corresponding three-fold Divine spiritual elements of
Love, Wisdom, and Vehicle of operative Energy.

The Fourth law, is a law of Organization, and brings the
elements and motives previously developed, into a state of
systematic and serial Aggregation.

Before rotatory motion is fully established in the mass of
matter, the gravitating and emanating particles would proceed
toward, and from, the center, in nearly straight lines. But
after said motion is fully established, and becomes general
throughout the mass, both kinds of particles would proceed in
aberrent or curved lines, the curves corresponding to the direc-
tion of motion in the revolving matter — in the same manner
in which a person attempting to row a boat in the direction of
a radius of a circle or vortex of water flowing round a center,
would, if he kept the side of his boat always square to the stream,
be carried out of a direct line a distance proportioned to the
rapidity of the current, and would thus describe a curved path.

But it is evident, for reasons already intimated, that neither
can all the gravitating particles take, at any one time, a
position entirely at the center, nor can all the emanating
particles take a simultaneous position entirely at the circum-
ference, but that each will assu'me a position with reference to
the two extremes, where it finds an equilibrium, and will keep
this position until a change fits it for another. Suppose, then,
that a gravitating and emanating particle are in exactly op-
posite states to each other in respect to their degrees of
positiveness or negativeness : it is evident that both particles
would find a common equilibrium only at the same distance
and position between the center and circumference. They
would there meet, and by virtue of their elective affinities,
form a union as male and female particles, and would assume

CONCENTRIC RINGS. 79

a circular or orlitual motion, coincident with the rotating
motion of the general mass, which MOTION the united mo-
menta of their previously gravitative and emanative movements
would tend to sustain.

Now, supposing that there were originally just seven kinds
or classes of atomic particles (no matter into how many more
kinds or classes these were susceptible of being subdivided),
it is easy to perceive that the foregoing principles would
probably involve something like the following results: one class
of atoms, rejecting the immediate companfcmship of all others,
would cluster around a central point, and form a sun. Each
of the other six classes of atoms, in like manner, rejecting the
immediate companionship of other atoms, while obeying the
impulses of its internal and strongest affinities, would assume
a general distance from the center determined by its specific
point of equilibrium, and there, contracting upon itself,
would form a mass of its own, in the general shape of a ring,
surrounding the interior solar mass. Here we have a law of
deposition and aggregation, corresponding to the law by which
particles, circulating in the human blood, are deposited and
aggregated in the form of muscle, cellular tissues, etc.

The universal system, as thus definitely organized, would,
therefore, supposing that there are seven general varieties of
matter, present the form of six concentric rings of nebulous
matter, surrounding the seventh formation, which is the central
sun. But if there were a greater or less number of kinds of
matter, there would be a correspondingly greater or less num-
ber of rings, but all constructed on the same principle. Of
this annular structure we have a general analogue, though on
a small scale, in the rings of the planet Saturn, and also on a
larger scale, in the annular nebulae, of which there are a few
examples in the heavens.

80 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

It should be added, however, that the idea of this concentric
annular form of structure can only hold when associated with
the supposition, that the primitive point of general gravitation
was at, or near, the center of the chaotic mass. If the gravi-
tative point was far out of the center, then the evolved
masses, instead of assuming the forms of circles, would assume
the form of ellipses, having a preponderance of their materials
on one side of the sun, where, indeed, the whole might be sub-
sequently drawn by the superior gravitating force of their
major quantity, and form a separate revolving mass. In
either case, however, the fundamental principles involved
would be the same. But of the general prevalence of the
annular, or, at least, elliptical form of structure, in the sidereal
realms, there is a sufficiency of ocular proof, as incidentally
exhibited in a previous chapter.

The FIFTH law, governing a corresponding fifth develop-
ment, is the law of SEGREGATION, by which the materials of
the previous annular formations, obeying higher and more
specific elective affinities, separate into different masses, of
higher and lower degrees of refinement.

The nature and modus operandi of this law, may be under-
stood by the following considerations : The completion of the
last or circular formation, brings the materials of the universe
to a triune degree above their primeval or chaotic state. Of
course, therefore, not only the essences, but the activities and
inter-activities of the \vhole structure, are more refined,
diversified, and systematic. Each nebulous ring is now itself
a comparatively independent theater of molecular force and
motion, and all of them act upon each other by their gravi-
tative and emanative forces, while the central sun, as the
great heart of the system, continues to send forth his vivify-
ing and generative influence to all.

SEGEEGATED MASSES. SI

It is easy to conceive that the annular masses, being not
only internally active, but penetrated in various directions by
the refracted emanations from the central sun, would be
liable to be rarefied at particular points and condensed at
others, and- thus to be shrunken and cleft apart, at particular
lines and angles, and that by inherent action of the particles
of the rings themselves, contraction would take place from
these lines of cleavage, and that the materials previously
united, would thus be segregated into separate masses. These
masses would, on the same principle, be liable to be sub-
divided into inferior masses of greater or less number, in
proportion to their respective original magnitudes. This
whole process of segregation or fragmentation, is faintly
illustrated by the breaking up of the clouds after a storm, and
their resolution into separate masses.

According to principles before explained, each general
mass, owing to its particles gravitating to a common center
within itself, would assume a general rotatory motion which,
for reasons which mathematicians will readily conceive, would
necessarily conform in its direction to the revolution of the
great ring of mundane materials to which it belonged, and
each sub-mass would have a particular rotating motion of its
own, which would conform to the motion of the general mass
to which it belonged, i. e., supposing that there were not in
either case any particular or incidental causes of disturbance.
Thus general masses and their included ^6-masses, with their
general and particular centers of gravitation and revolution,
would, by further progression, form general stellar systems,
and their included sub-systems, and finally, also, systems of
planets and satellites, all of which latter would be evolved by
the progressive unfoldings of the same principles heretofore ex-
plained as governing the formation of the universal structure.

82 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

In this way, therefore, as may be rationally supposed,
originated all the nebulae, clusters, stellar systems, or firma
ments, which the telescope has revealed, together with untold
millions of others of like nature, which lie forever concealed
from mortal vision ! In other words, each one of these
originated from a fragment of the periphery of a great wheel
or circle of nebulous materials, surrounding the great Center
of all centers.

This hypothesis, relative to the origin of the stellar clusters,
is not without strong confirmatory evidence in celestial ap-
pearances. I have suggested that the vivifying emanations
from the central sun, acting upon the angular masses of
nebulous matter, would produce planes 'of rarefaction and
cleavage in various directions, from which planes each result-
ant insulated mass, as also each of its subordinate and in-
cluded masses, would contract upon its own center. It is
evident, therefore, that each general mass, with its included
sub-masses, would first be of an angular form — on the same
principle on which any cooling and contracting substance
tends to separate into angular masses, and as is sometimes
exemplified in the cleavages of igneous rocks. But, by the
force of internal gravity, and the rotatory motion which,
according to principles before explained, would naturally
result therefrom, these nebulous masses would all tend, as
they progressed, to assume the elliptical or spherical form.
Now, this is precisely what is observed in relation to the
nebulous and stellar masses of space. Some are of exceed-
ingly irregular form, having long and sharp projections from
their sides, and are of irregularly alternating degrees of density
in their centers, as though they had, by variously intersecting
forces, been subdivided into numerous inferior compartments.
Commencing at these extreme irregularities, there are all

PROGRESSION OF FORMS. 83

intermediate degrees of symmetry in shape, down to the per-
fectly globular shape, to which the prevailing forms of these
stellar masses manifest more or less approximation. Judging
from appearances, therefore, one would say that these masses
are evidently in all degrees of progression, between rudi-
mental and ultimate forms, and that, in general, those of the
most angular forms are the least, while those of the globular
form are the most, progressed.* This is all manifestly in
exact harmony with the hypothesis of nebular and angular
segregation, and subsequent firmamental, solar, and planetary
conglobation, which we have proposed.

Moreover, these nebular or stellar masses, although they
appear in all directions in the heavens, are said to appear, as
already intimated, in greatest abundance in the direction of a
particular plane, which cuts the plane of our Milky Way at
right angles. In the direction, perpendicular to this plane,
they grow comparatively thin (as do the stars in the direction

* In illustration of the progression from angularity and ellipticity to sphericity in
these bodies, I may quote the following from the splendid work of Sir John Herschel,
embodying the results of his observations at the Cape of Good Hope. With reference
to the engraved figures of two particular nebulae existing in the southern heavens, ho
says: "These figures exhibit elliptical nebulae, normal in their character — that is to
say, in which, as the condensation increases toward the middle, the ellipticity of the
strata diminishes, or in which the interior and denser portions are obviously more
nearly spherical than the exterior and rarer. A great number of such nebulae, of every
variety of ellipticity and central condensation, are figured in my northern catalogue.
Kegarding the spherical as only a particular case of the elliptic form, and a stellar
nucleus as only the extreme stage of condensation, at least nine-tenths of the whole
nebulous contents of the heavens will be found to belong to this class ; so that, as
regards a law and a structure, the induction which refers them, as a class, to the
operation of similar causes, and assumes the prevalence within them, of similar
dynamical conditions, is most full and satisfactory. To abstain altogether from specu-
lation as to what may be the nature of those causes and conditions, and to refuse all
attempts to reconcile the phenomena of so large and so definite a class of cosmical
existences, with mechanical laws, taken in their most general acceptation, would be to
err on the side of excessive caution and philosophical timidity." — HEBSCHEL'S Results
(tt tiM Cape of Good Hope, p. 22.

LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way), suggesting the
idea of a very remote approximation to the horizontal
boundary of the stratum. Though it is a thought bordering
on the confines of the human concept! ve powers, and thus
penetrating somewhat into the realms of uncertainty and doubt,
it may still be propounded as a query — Whether the plane of
this grand stratum of sub-universes, may not indicate the
direction of the plane of the great Ring of original nebulous
materials, from which these nebulae and stellar systems be-
come segregated and resolved into their present forms, and
whether all firmamental creations, revealed by the telescope,
may not thus be included within a comparatively small
fraction of a segment of one of the great cosmical rings which
surround the Center of all centers ? Though a question so
profound can probably never be finally decided by the human
intellect, the indication of this grand plane of cosmical for-
mations, tends, so far as it bears upon the subject, to confirm
our hypothesis, that all visible neb""1^ ^nd stellar systems,
are segregations from one general mass of nebulous matter,
originally existing on one general plane ; and the analogies of
all known definite motions and formations in the stellar
spaces, point to the idea of a circular or elliptical form as
characterizing this grand plane of creations.

While this theory gives definite form and order to the sub-
ject of our contemplations, it opens the mind to the most
sublime conceptions of magnitudes and distances. Herschel
estimated that his great telescope would reveal the existence
of a star so far removed into space that light, traveling at
the rate of twelve millions of miles in a minute, would require
three thousand five hundred and forty-one years to pass from
that star to our earth. Such, therefore, may be supposed to
be the approximate distance of the remotest of those luminous

IMMENSITY OF CREATION. 85

masses which were resolvable into stars by his telescope.
He, however, computed that his large telescope would follow
one of those large clusters, as a general mass, if plunged so
deep into space that its light would require three hundred
and fifty thousand years to reach us ; and, it is thought that
the great telescope of Lord Ross would pursue the same
object to ten times that distance, or _a distance which light,
with its inconceivable velocity of motion, would consume
more than three millions of years in traversing!* This,
therefore, may be assumed as the proximate distance of the
remotest nebulae rendered- visible by Lord Ross's instrument.
If, as is probable, all stellar creations, included in a sphere
bounded on all sides by this enormous distance, constitute
only a small fraction of a segment of one such circle of
creations as we have supposed to surround the great common.
Center of attraction, it would not be advisable for the reader
to attempt to conceive of the dimensions even of one of those
whole circles, much less of the whole universe ; which latter,
however, if created, must be inferior to the Creator, and thus
finite.

But, applying the same general laws to the creation of the
solar, and the creation of the universal, system, it may be
asked, " Why is it that either the unitary agglomeration repre-
sented by single planets, or the multiplied segregated division
which we have supposed to be represented by nebulas and
stellar clusters, did not take place uniformly in both systems
as the formation from the materials of the nebulous rings ?"
The answer, I apprehend, may be found in the different condi-
tions of the rings in the two systems, as involved in their
different magnitudes. In the great system of systems, the dis-

* See Mitchell's "Planetary and Stellar World," p. 23&-T.

8

86 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

tance of particles at any two extremes, must have been so
great as to prevent them from having any appreciable attrac-
tion for each other. Some tendency to draw together and form
a single permanent mass, indeed there must have been ; but
this tendency at the more distant points in the mass, must
have been so small, and the activity of particular districts, es-
pecially after incipient nucleation, must have been so great,
and so rapidly increasing, as to give rise to subsequent and
numerous mundane forms and systems — the very thing pro-
posed in our theory of segregation, and confirmed by appear-
ances in the heavens.

But in the solar system, the distance from one extreme of
the annular formation to the other, was comparatively small ;
and besides this, we may suppose that the varieties of matter
in so small a mass, were less extreme, and that their affinities
were more intimate, than in the universal mass previously
spoken of. There was, therefore, not only a possibility, but a
high degree of probability, that the materials of each of the
rings of nebulous matter formed around our sun, would assume
the form of one mass, which would subsequently move in an
orbit whose plane and distance would be coincident with the
previous ring.

But, admitting the nebular hypothesis, the multipled segre-
gative process actually does seem to have taken place in one
instance even in our solar system, and given rise to several
planetary bodies as the products of one ring. It i-s scarcely
necessary to say that we refer to those strange bodies called
the asteroids, which revolve at almost equal distances from
the sun, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and of which
there is now known to be fifteen or sixteen in number. That
these bodies must have originated from one primitive mass of
planetary matter, there can be but little doubt, as such an

ASTEROIDS. SOLAKIZATION. 87

hypothesis is necessary to preserve the uniformity of the sys-
tem, and to supply the vacuity that would otherwise have
existed between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

If, therefore, instead of being without progeny, and revolv-
ing in solitude (which can only be owing to their diminutive-
ness), each asteroid were attended by a numerous family of
children and grand-children (or satellites and sub-satellites),
and revolved around one of their number, while performing
their general circuit around a superior center, they would ex-
actly illustrate, on a small scale, our idea of the segregated
stellar clusters of the universe — each of which latter may be
supposed to revolve, as one general body, like the asteroids, in
an orbit generally coinciding as to plane, and distance from the
great and common Center, with the plane and distance of the
great ring of nebulous materials in which it had its parentage.

But it should be understood, that the fifth stage in the pro-
cess of creation, considered merely as a process of segregation,
is complete with the formation simply of separate angular
masses and sub-masses, from the general materials of the neb-
ulous rings.

The sixth process in the creative procedure, is a process of
solarization, or one by which these previously segregated and
indefinitely formed masses and their sub-divisions, become
established suns. This process is accomplished by gravita-
tions to, and emanations from, central points in the segregated
masses, on principles essentially the same with those previ-
ously explained as applying to the formation of the first great
central Body ; but in this higher process, the operations may
be supposed to be more refined and regular in proportion to
the superior refinement of the elements and dynamic agents
which are involved. These suns assume specific distances and
orbits determined by the laws of equilibrium, and com-

00 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

mence their harmonious actions and reactions upon each other,
developing a sixth law — the law of universal cosmical sympa-
thy and reciprocation — corresponding to the nervous sympathy
and reciprocal action existing between the different organs of
the human body, the little universe.

The seventh and last law and process in this series of uni-
versal creations, is that by which planetary masses — bodies
destined to become ultimately habitable — were evolved from
the previous solar masses. Of course it is to be supposed
that these bodies were produced from the solar masses by evo-
lutions of nebulous rings, and by agglomeration of the materials
of these, according to principles before explained. This de-
velopment completes the fundamental structure of the material
universe as suck, and serves as the Basis and material Germ
of all subsequent and more refined unfoldings.

The different stages through which the universal mass of
materials have passed, from germinal to ultimate forms, may
therefore be summarily represented in the following formula :

PRIMARY TRINITY.

1. Heat-pervaded chaos.

2. Luminous attractive nucleus.

3. Electro-interactive spheroid.

SECONDARY TRINITY.

4. Concentric nebulous rings.

5. Segregated masses(from rings).

6. Suns and clusters of suns.

ULTIMATE
..-.,*_ , 7. Habitable worlds.

It is true that we can have no final and absolutely sensuous
demonstration that such is the structure of the. universe, be-
cause the telescope, with all its magic powers, has probably
revealed, as it were, but an infinitesimal fragment of the great
united System. Yet, considering that the telescope has expli-
citly revealed that the same laws of gravitation and revolution-
ary motion which apply to our own planetary worlds, apply

SUMMARY OF EVIDENCES. 89

also to the most distant clusters of stars, thus binding all sys-
tems and firmaments together in one family relation, and re-
ferring them to a common parentage — considering, therefore,
that our own solar system is of itself a little universe, exem-
plifying all the principles involved in the- great universe, of
\vhich it is a child and antitype — and considering, as we may
now well do, that the nebular hypothesis of creation is the
correct one, and that laws are uniform throughout the whole
realm of being — the preponderance of analogical evidence
must, we think, be admitted to be in favor of the general
truthfulness of the theory here propounded. For, in the first
place (admitting the nebular hypothesis), our own sun, en-
throned in the midst of our system, affords an ocular proof
that matter in a primitively diffused state, and obeying the im-
pulses breathed into it from the Divine spiritual source, will
assume a central, gravitating, and rotating Nucleus ; and this
hints &t the great Nucleus, which, on the same principles, seem-
ingly must have necessarily been formed in the midst of the
originally chaotic materials of the whole universe. Moreover,
the rings of Saturn show the forms naturally first assumed by
the attracted and emanated materials of a central body, which
forms will be of varying distances "from the central body, ac-
cording to their specific degrees of density or levity. Some
such forms seemingly must have necessarily been elaborated,
not only by our own central sun, but by all other suns of suf-
ficient magnitude and activity, and especially by the great Sun
of all suns. But such annular forms, of course, can be pre-
served through subsequent condensation, only in case of the
nicest equilibrium in their materials and motions, such as is
characteristic of Saturn's rings. If there is 'any considerable
inequality in either of these particulars the annular mass, in
contracting, will inevitably resolve itself into the form of one

90 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS.

or more bodies, whose orbit of revolution will be such as was
described by the position of the previous ring.

This consideration not only explains the origin of the planets
satellites, and asteroids, of our own solar system, from the
materials of previous nebulous rings, but suggests that anal-
ogous singular and multiple conglobations must, seemingly of
necessity, have, in like manner, been formed in the sidereal
spaces, from the materials of nebulous rings surrounding their
Respective centers, these all being subordinate to a final and
common Center, as all created things proceed from a final and
common Cause.

We may, therefore, say, that there are many avenues open
toward the hypothesis we have propounded respecting the
origin and structure of the universe, and many guide-boards
(or facts and principles), pointing along these avenues, all in the
same direction ; while, if the mind attempts to travel in a dif-
ferent direction, and in quest of other conclusions, it not only
finds no such guide-boards to direct it, and no such avenues
open for its passage, but it is constantly obstructed by barriers
of philosophical difficulty, and each of the steps of its progress
is planted only on the miry and treacherous ground of assum-p-
cion. While, therefore, the mind is ever held open to the re-
eption of new light, and a willingness is preserved to abandon,
any present errors for the sake of subsequently unfolded
truths, it would seem that we might, without subjecting our-
selves to any just charge of philosophical rashness, settle, in
the present conviction, that the foregoing hypothesis, at least,
as to its general and most essential princioles, can not vary
much from the truth.

CHAPTEK VIII.

THE SEVEN DYNAMIC AGENTS OR POTENTIAL MEDIA
OF NATUEE.

*

To facilitate a clear conception of the relations of the Deity
to, and his mode of acting upon, the universe, as well for
other important uses, we will now endeavor to attain to
some further conceptions of the dynamic agents immediately
connected with the seven general laws, and their correspond-
ing seven-fold developments, considered in the foregoing
chapter.

It was before intimated, on grounds which appear even to
transcend mere probability, that the agents immediately con-
cerned in generating in the universal chaotic mass, the first
three phenomena of Expansion, Contraction, and Circulation,
were Heat, Light, and Electricity. By the agency of these
three principles, we have supposed that the mass was suc-
cessively developed from a chaotic, to a nucleated, and
spheroidal form. Another and corresponding trinity of agents
was hinted at, which will now form the subject of special con-
sideration and illustration.

In unfolding the doctrine of the seven-fold series, it was
shown that the fourth, fifth, and sixth members of such a
series, composing a Secondary Trinity, bear a certain corre-
spondence, respectively, to the first, second, and third mem-
bers, which compose a Primary Trinity. Thus, as the Pri-
mary Trinity of conditions in the universal material mass,

92 DYNAMIC AGENTS.

consisted of the chaotic, the nucleated, and the spheroidal, so
the Secondary Trinity (comprising nebulous rings, segregated
and contracting fragments, and developed solar forms) may
be characterized as secondary chaos, secondary nucleation, and
secondary spheroidation. This being so, and the dynamic
elements of the first Trinity being Heat, Light, and Elec-
.tricity (each probably in a gross degree of development), a
carrying out of identical principles will lead to the supposition
Jthat the dynamic agents peculiar to the Secondary Trinity,
are such as would correspond to Heat, Light, and Electricity,
in a secondary degree of development, so to speak, without,
however, supposing that they are absolutely identical with
Heat, Light, and Electricity, as these terms would ordinarily
be understood. This, however, is a mere deduction from
principles and correspondences ; let us now see if there are
any substantial facts to support it.

Such facts are involved in a series of interesting and most
important discoveries, made by BARON VON REICHENBACH, a
few years ago, and of which we will now speak briefly. The
course of experiments which led this ingenious philosopher to
the discoveries in question, was commenced by testing the
properties of magnets. By the assistance of a number of
delicately organized persons, mainly cataleptic patients, in
whom the senses, especially sight and feeling, were in an un-
common degree of exaltation, he ascertained that from either
pole of an open magnet, there was constantly given forth a
luminous, flame-like appearance, visible in a dark room, but
only to such as possessed this uncommon acuteness of vision.
The flames sent forth from the poles of a large horse-shoe
magnet, capable of supporting ninety pounds, were described
as about eight inches in mean length, mingled with irridescent
colors, and gently nickering and waving, shortening and

EXPERIMENTS. 93

elongating, and yielding when blown upon, and when the
hand or any other solid body was passed through them.
The whole appearance was described as being exceedingly
beautiful.

This experiment was repeated with many different observ-
ers, from all of whom the same general description was ob-
tained— the accuracy of which was further tested by varying
the experiments without the knowledge of the observers, and
noting the corresponding and uniform variations of the ap-.
pearances described.

But, in order to obtain still further assurance that those
luminous appearances described by others were real, though
invisible to himself, the experimenter, by the aid of another
scientific gentleman, instituted the following additional test :
A very sensitive daguerreotype plate was prepared and placed
opposite to a large open magnet, in a closed box, enveloped
in thick bed-clothes, so that not a particle of ordinary light
could enter it. After the lapse of sixty-four hours, the plate,
when exposed to mercurial vapor, was found to be distinctly
affected, as by light. Another plate had been, at the same
time, similarly prepared, and inclosed in a dark box, without
a magnet, and after a similar length of time this was found to
be entirely unaffected.

The light was also subjected to the test of the convex lens,
and was found to be converged and thrown upon the wall in
the same way as any other light, but at a considerably greater
focal distance, wThich fact of itself proves that the luminous sub-
stance was different from ordinary light.

By tests similar to those w^hich were employed with the
magnet, it wras subsequently ascertained, with equal certainty,
that similar lights were also emitted from crystals. The flames
issuing from the points of large crystals were described by

94: DYNAMIC AGENTS.

those who could see them, as being somewhat in the shape of
a tulip, and singularly beautiful. One young lady used, when
ill, to lie awake nights enjoying the sight of the beautiful flame
emitted from a large rock crystal which had been left in her
room. But bodies confusedly crystalline exhibited but little of
this phenomenon, and bodies entirely amorphous exhibited
none, but nevertheless gave forth, in common with crystals,
magnets, and other things, a still more subtle influence, which
will hereafter be described.

Our experimenter subsequently introduced other tests with
the view of ascertaining to what extent this newly-discovered
force prevailed in nature. He extended the end of a wire
through the keyhole of the door of a perfectly darkened room,
in which he placed a person whose senses were sufficiently
acute to detect any luminous or other phenomena which might
present itself as the result of any experiment. The other
end of the wire he attached to a metallic plate, which, without
letting the observer placed in the room know what he was
doing, he would push out into the rays of the sun, or of the
moon, or of the planets, or fixed stars ; or would place an
animal, a plant, or his own hands, upon its surface ; or would
subject it to chemical action, or the action of heat, cold, or
electricity. He found the results of all these experiments
nearly uniform in one particular, viz., in respect to the emis-
sion of a narrow tuft of light several inches in length, from
the end of the wire, which would begin to be visible soon
after the agent experimented upon was brought to bear upon
the plate. Indeed, whatever possessed in itself the least mo-
lecular force or action, was found to be capable of evolving a
greater or less degree of this luminosity.

Other processes gave an analysis of these lights, and showed
remarkable relations in their constituents, to different points

S E V E N - F O L D LUMINOSITY. 95

in the terrestrial and celestial spheres. It was found, for example,
that the flames from the poles of a large electro-magnet (which
were much larger and brighter than those emitted from the
permanent steel magnet) would, after the galvanic circuit was
completed, slowly and gradually resolve themselves into dis-
tinct stratifications of color, presenting, in fact, the seven-fold
luminosity of the rainbow, with the red below and the violet
above. These colors, again, were found to vary with the
varying distances at which they were viewed — the whole of
the appearances, when taken together, showing that each one
of the differently colored radiations terminated, for the most
part, at a certain distance from the common center of lumin-
osity. This distance, though Reichenbach did not remark it,
was probably nearly the same all around; the differently
colored rays thus forming a system of concentric spheres of
light.

Guarding against errors which might arise from variations
in these colors as resulting from the varying distances at which
they were viewed, our philosopher was now prepared for
another interesting step. Having previously found that a mag-
netic bar, with poles in the direction of the dip, always emitted
different colors from those it gave in the meridian, he pro-
ceeded to ascertain what effect other positions of Jhe pole
would have upon the character of the luminosity. For this
purpose he caused a magnetic bar to revolve lengthwise, first
in a vertical circle in the direction of the magnetic meridian,
then in a vertical circle in a direction east and west, and lastly,
in a horizontal circle. He found that in each case different
colors were evolved according as the magnet was pointed in
different directions, and that as it passed, in each case, through
a complete circle, it evolved, in regular succession, all the colors
of the rainbow !

96 DYNAMIC AGENTS.

By subsequent electro-magnetic experiments with an arti-
ficial globe called the terrelle, Reichenbach succeeded in pre-
cisely reproducing the appearances of the aurora borealis, and
may be considered as having probably afforded a complete
solution of that interesting phenomenon.

We find in these remarkable facts a complete verification of
our previous hypothesis, so far as it relates to an essence
which may be called secondary light. While this light is, in
some particulars, similar to ordinary light, it differs from it
totally in others, as the foregoing description renders obvious ;
and it therefore may be judged to belong to a somewhat differ-
ent degree of natural developments. Considering this, there-
fore, as one of the members of our supposed Secondary Trinity
of imponderables, we shall now see that our hypothesis, so far
as it relates to the other two members, is not without the sup-
port of similar facts.

When a horseshoe magnet was closed by an armature, all
appearances of a luminous flame would immediately cease,
but would be instantly reproduced on the removal of the
armature. This establishes the probability that the same force
which in the open magnet generates the luminosity, is, by the
application of the armature, simply rendered latent, so far as its
flame-generating power is concerned, but that it nevertheless
still exists in the closed magnet, and acts as an internal prin-
ciple, or as a principle corresponding to fire or heat. This
view is further confirmed by the fact that one of Rsichenbach's
subjects saw even closed magnets, and, indeed, metals of all
kinds, luminous in the dark, as though they had been heated
to incandesence — without, however, giving forth any flame-like
scintillations. Such, then, are the evidences of a Secondary
Heat.

But still more conclusive indications were obtained of an

EFFECTS OF MAGNETS. 97

electroid, or electricity-like agent, as connected with the identi-
cal sources of these other phenomena. It was found that
magnets, crystals, or whatever afforded the phenomena of this
attenuated light, together with many things which did not,
also emitted an influence or aura which was capable of acting
decidedly upon the nerves of a certain proportion of persons.
This aura was described as warm or cold, according as it was
received from either pole of the magnet or crystal, or accord-
ing to the positive or negative quality of any other source
from which it was obtained. It was found capable of acting
at a distance, and of being transmitted through conducting
media, and of sometimes acting so powerfully upon the sensi-
tive as to produce catalepsy and dangerous spasms. Thus, at
one time, during the illness of one of Reichenbach's employees^
he held a large magnet, capable of supporting ninety pounds,
at the distance of six paces from her feet, as she lay on her
bed, with her physician by her side. While the armature
was attached to the magnet she felt no peculiar sensation, but
the instant it Avas removed she fell into tetanic spasms and
complete unconsciousness from its action. The armature
being again attached, the girl slowly recovered her senses,
and her physician advised that the experiment should not be
repeated. Another lady, subject to attacks of catalepsy,
could instantly detect the approach of an open magnet,
though the latter was brought, without her knowledge of the
intention, near the head of her bed, on the opposite side of
the wall.

Magnets, crystals, etc., were also found to powerfully at-
tract the hands of cataleptic patients, even during the un-
consciousness of their fits.

It was also ascertained that amorphous bodies, in common
with others, sent forth this ethereal influence, though, as before

9

98 DYNAMIC AGENTS.

shown, they gave forth no light. And here it was more fully
ascertained, that the ethereal emanations from different sub-
stances^ were specifically different as to their effects upon the
human nerve, thus affording indications of the distinctive
characters of the emanating sources. One peculiarity of
amorphous (that is to say, uncrystallized and unorganized)
bodies was, that their exhalations gave a nauseous, accompa-
nied by either a cold or warm, and sometimes also a prickly,
sensation, to persons whose nerves were in a sufficiently
sensitive state to test them ; and some bodies imparted these
sensations in a greater degree than others. In the investi-
gation of this point, Reichenbach took the trouble to try more
than six hundred bodies with reference to their nauseating
force. The young lady through whose aid the tests were
made, could easily give to every substance its proper place in
the scale of force, and this she could repeat, without failure,
after intervals of several days. " It soon appeared," says our
philosopher, " that these bodies arranged themselves accord-
ing to their electro-chemical value, and, indeed, in suchwise
that the highly electric stood at the top, and the indifferently
so at the bottom of the scale, without regard to their polar
opposition."

When the same substances 'were tried on this same young
lady while in a state of catalepsy, "the results were the same
in kind, but in degree much stronger. The substances at the
top of the scale, laid in her hand, caused violent spasms,
whereby they were thrown at a distance, and her hand then,
as usual in catalepsy, retained the new position. . . It was
soon observed that many substances began to act before they
touched the hand, and it was enough to place them near it."

These experiments were repeated, not only with other
nervous patients, but with several gentlemen in a state of per-

EMANATIONS FKOM MEDICINES. 99

feet health, with results differing from the abova no more
than what might easily be accounted for by the different de-
grees of susceptibility in the experimenters. The different
substances tried are enumerated by Reichenbach according to
their specific effects, but it will here be sufficient to say that
sulphur was found to be the general representative of those
which, without contact, gave the sensation of cold, and gold
of those which gave warmth ; and almost every one whose
hand was made to pass over small plates, coated respectively
with these substances, felt, in some degree, these correspond-
ing sensations, and some felt them quite vividly.

Without any knowledge of Eeichenbach's investigations,
Dr. G. R. Buchanan, of Cincinnati, was engaged, about the
same time, in a similar course of experiments with amorphous
bodies, and developed results similar in-character, but in some
respects even still more decisive. Without here entering into
the details of his experiments or inquiries, it will be sufficient
to state that they resulted in establishing the fact, that
medicines, holden in the hand of the patient, even when
wrapped up in paper and concealed from view so as to guard
against the effects of imagination, will, in a large proportion of
cases, have all the effects that the same medicines will have,
taken internally. Out of about one hundred and thirty
medical students belonging to a class which attended the
lectures of Dr. Buchanan, forty-three declared themselves
fully affected by this experiment, to which they had been sub-
jected during the delivery of one lecture.*

Similar phenomena have been observed as the results of
similar experiments in other instances, but we have no room
for further details on this branch of our subject. In all such

* See "Buchanan's Journal of Man" for February, 1819, Art 1.

100 DYNAMIC AGENTS.

cases the action of the medicines is doubtless due to an ab- t
sorption of their subtle and characteristic emanations, through
the pores of the skin, whence they are diffused through the
nervous medium of the system, acting upon the vital forces
which control all the functions of the physical organism.

By experiments which placed deception out of the question,
it was found that these ethereal influences of different sub-
stances, could be conducted through wires to a distance of
from three to one hundred and thirty-two feet, so as to be dis-
tinctly perceived by the more sensitive of Reichenbach's ex-
perimenters.

But a fact still more important in its bearings was, that differ-
ent bodies placed in contact with, or in close proximity to, each
other, would mutually impart their influences to each other, so
as to modify or totally change the effects which they would
otherwise produce upon sensitive patients. In other words,
and to use a figure of speech that will be perfectly understood,
they would mutually magnetize, or mesmerize, each other —
would enter into a sort of rapport or reciprocal sympathy, by
an interdiffusion of their spheres or ethereal emanations. Thus
it was found that sulphur, which of itself would impart a cold
and prickling sensation to impressible persons, even at a dis-
tance of several feet, and without a conducting wire, would, by
contact or close proximity to other substances, empower
them, for a time, to give forth a similar influence, even though
their own proper influences might be of an opposite, though
less powerful, character ; and so of other substances, and their
modifying influences upon others.* - j^-----

The general reliability of the foregoing and other alleged

* For further details of these interesting experiments and their results, the reader is
referred to Reichenbach's " Physico-Physiological Researches on the Dynamics of Mag-
netism," etc., New York. J. S. Redfleld.

COMPLEXITY OF THE FORCE. 101

results as obtained by Reichenbach, will not be disputed by
those who know the character of the experimenter, or wrho,
from a careful perusal of his report, have noted his exceedingly
cautious mode of proceeding. Reichenbach is known through
out Europe as a chemist second only to Liebig himself, and,
speaking of this same course of investigation, Professor
Gregory declares that " it was not possible for any experi-
ments or discoveries to be presented to the scientific world by
one more entitled to confidence in every point of view." Be-
sides this, his more important experiments have been repeated
by others, and their results verified, in many instances, both
in this country and in Europe.

Availing himself of the plasticity of the German language,
Reichenbach designates the new force (rather forces) which he
discovered, by the German suffix "00?," and indicates the
sources whence this force is obtained, by their names prefixed
to that syllable, as "magnetod," " crystalled," " thermod,"
" photod," etc., as respectively indicating a connection of the
force with magnets, crystals, heat, light, etc. In the English
language, therefore, this new imponderable has been rather
clumsily designated as the " odic force," or " odylic force."

But the various phenomena exhibited by this so-called force,
show that it is not simple but complex, or rather that it in-
volves a number of distinct forces. Its rudimental existence
in the closed magnet, as also in various unmagnetic bodies,
was not only intimated by the luminous and incandescent ap-
pearance of the bodies of metals, before spoken of, but is also
implied as an antecedent of the luminous, flame-like appear-
ance which it engenders at a further stage of development —
just as the existence of common caloric is implied as an ante-
cedent of common flame. The light itself is a second devel-
opment ; and the ethereal aura which, without any luminous

102 DYNAMIC AGENTS.

phenomena, acts upon the human nerve, is a third. The three,
therefore, may be variously characterized as " odic heat,"
" odic light," and " odic electricity," or " odic ether ;" and here
we have our previously conjectured Secondary Trinity of
dynamic agents, corresponding to the Primary Trinity, which
consists of Heat, Light, and Electricity, as these terms are
ordinarily understood.

In the same way in which the Primary Trinity of dynamic
agents is* concerned in the Primary Trinity of each system of
physical developments, the Secondary and corres2^onding Trin-
ity (in connection with the Primary, which is still and always
in force) is concerned in each secondary and corresponding
Trinity of developments, with their peculiarities.*

Thus the principle which we have called " Odic Heat," may
be considered as the internal love-principle by which particles
associate in organic forms, and therefore is the fundamental
dynamic principle connected with the fourth law — the law of
Aggregation or Organization, whether relating to the universe
as a whole, or to any of its definitely constituted parts.

The " odic light" appears to be expressive of the ethereally
aspirative operations of the organic structure from "which it
proceeds. It was before mentioned that this light consisted
of the seven different colors of the iris, which seemed to sur-
round the center of luminosity as so many concentric spheres
of light ; and that when Reichenbach caused a magnetic bar
to revolve lengthwise on horizontal and vertical planes, the
light exhibited successively all the different colors of the rain-
bow, as the magnet was pointed in the different directions in
respect to the earth and heavens, which lay in the plane of the

* It is not claimed that these dynamic principles apply identically to each and
every seven-fold system of developments, as to some systems they apply only by their
natural representatives, analogues, or correspondents.

POLARITY, AFFINITIES, ETC. 103

circle. I can not but regard these results as exceedingly inter-
esting and important, as showing the relative degrees and
states of polarity of particular points and directions of the
earth's surface, and of the surrounding and celestial spaces —
thus, as suggesting the different qualities or states of the ma-
terials of which the earth and all correlative creations are
composed — thus, as suggesting the correlative affinities and
forces by which these materials became associated in their
present structural form — and finally, as suggesting something
of the perpetually repeated round of changing influences and
ethereal forces through which (in analogy to the revolving
magnet) the earth and all celestial bodies pass in performing
their rotary and orbitual revolutions. If there is any validity
in these suggestions, then these degrees of polarity, states and
affinities of matter, changing ethereal forces, etc., all exemplify
the seven-fold series as corresponding to the seven colors of the
iris, which, in the experiment referred to, were successively
given forth by the revolving magnet. And, applying these
remarks (as analogy would justify us in doing) to all mundane
organizations — to the solar system, the sidereal systems, and
to the whole universe as one Body — as well as to the earth,
we have in the " odic light" a universal dynamic correlative
of the fifth law — the law of segregation, or the law by which
unity is divided into parts of different and connected grada-
tions.

Concerning the third member of this trinity of agents — the
" odic," electroid, or ethereal emanation which was found to
produce such marked and singular effects on the sensitive hu-
man nerve, the following remarks may be submitted :

1. All things subjected to careful experiment, whether in
the animal, vegetable, or mineral Kingdoms, or in the
celestial spaces, were found to send forth this subtile eman-

104: DYNAMIC AGENTS.

ation, which in each case may be called the sphere, or
•ethereal atmosphere, of the substance or form from which it
proceeds. It may . therefore be presumed, on analogical
grounds, that things also not available for experiment, and
that, indeed, absolutely all things, from atoms to worlds and
systems, and even the whole universe, considered as a tlnit,
are in like manner characterized by a surrounding and per-
vading ethereal sphere.*

2. The emanating spheres of smaller bodies associated with
larger ones, must necessarily be included in the emanating
spheres of the larger bodies on which they rest or depend.
The sphere of a single particle of mineral matter, for example,
is comprehended and encircled in the general sphere of the
whole crystal of which it forms a part; and the same remark
applies to particles and organisms in other kingdoms in
nature. The spheres of all minerals, vegetables, animals,
etc., separately and collectively, are involved and compre-
hended in the general sphere of the earth ; the sphere of the
earth, together with the spheres of all other planets, with
the satellites and comets, is involved and comprehended in
the general sphere of the whole solar system ; that sphere is
comprehended in the general sphere of the great stellar vortex
in which, accompanied by myriads of like systems, it moves ;
and that sphere is comprehended in the general sphere of the
whole Universe ; and that sphere is, in like manner, enveloped
in, and pervaded by, the great sphere of the infinite Divine
Being, which is the Essence of all essences, the Force of all
forces, and the Vitalizer of all vitalities ! Here, then, is a

* This doctrine of " spheres " was taught by Swedenborg, and by others since his
day. It may almost be said that it has a sufficient foundation in the developed intu-
itions of the human mind, and it would stand even independent of Keichenbach'a
most conclusive scientific verifications.

DOCTRINE OF SPHERES. 105

progressive gradation from the smallest to the greatest, from
the infinitesimal to the Infinite, from the atom of matter to
the incomprehensible fullness of a Divine Spiritual Being.

3. The spheres of all bodies in the universe, from smallest
to greatest, while they are generically similar, are specifically
different, and the sphere of each body corresponds to that
body's internal character. This is a conclusion which, as re-
garded merely by the reasoning powers, is necessitated, by the
obvious differences in the intrinsic nature of things, and it is
confirmed by the differences in the effects produced by the
ethereal emanations of medicines and other substances, and
even by the heavenly bodies, and by different districts of the
celestial hemisphere which were subjected to tests.

4. As it was proved that the spheres of sulphur, gold,
medicines, etc., acted and reacted upon, and mutually modi-
fied, each other, and this, too, when the solid bodies were a
distance apart ; so, carrying out this principle, it may be pre-
sumed that the spheres of all bodies, terrestrial and celestial,
from smallest to greatest, from atoms to worlds, stellar sys-
tems, and the whole universe, in like manner, act and react
upon, and modify each other, according to their relative degrees
of magnitude and power. And this mutual interdiffusion of
spheres, and their harmonious and reciprocal action and re-
action upon each other, while each particular form and system
preserves its own identity, constitute an important part of the
physiological and functional operations of the great Anatomical
Structure of Creation, and which, as before intimated, corre-
sponds, in principle, to a single human body. The great
ethereal Sphere of all spheres may be considered as the
sympathetic nerve-essence of this Anatomical Structure, viewed
as a whole, while the sphere of each sun, world, and atom,
may be considered as its own particular nerve-essence ; and it^

106 DYNAMIC AGENTS.

is through these nerve-essences that each part of the whole
Body sympathises with all other parts, and that the equili-
brium and harmonious functional operations of the whole sys-
tem are preserved.

This subtile and variously qualified electroid or magnetoid
element, therefore, being the sixth in the seven-fold series of
dynamic agents, is intimately allied to the sixth general law,
which we have seen is a law of hannonial and sympathetic
reciprocation.

It is true that the discoverer of these previously unknown
subtile agencies did not exhibit, and perhaps did not, to
any extent, perceive their cosmological bearings, especially
as these are attempted to be set forth in the foregoing re-
marks. His main object appears to have been to develop
facts, leaving the more comprehensive conclusions to which
these might naturally conduce, to be unfolded by subsequent
investigations, and by others as well as by himself; and as
his facts, by their publication, and their verification by the
parallel experiments of others, have become the property of
the world, any one may elaborate and synthetize them who
has the inclination and mental qualifications to do so.

In respect to this " odic," or magnetoid element, which per-
vades and emanates from greatest and smallest things, the
following additional and important remarks" may be sub-
mitted: As this influence, proceeding from various bodies,
near and remote, was found to have such remarkable effects
upon the sensitive human nerve, it may be considered as
being closely allied, in its general nature, to the nervous in-
fluence pervading the human body, and emanating from it as
an " odic " sphere. Indeed, Reichenbach actually proved its
identity, in the general sense, with the medium through which
*• one human being produces those effects upon another, com-

MODE OF DIVINE ACTION. 107

monly known as " magnetic " or " mesmeric ;" and the world
is indebted to that philosopher for physical demonstrations in
this department, which place the fundamental doctrines of
Animal Magnetism beyond all possible doubt.

Now, operations called "magnetic" as performed by one
human being upon another, are known to depend greatly, for
their character and efficiency, upon the exercise of the will.
If, therefore, the medium through which such magnetic oper-
ations are performed, is generically the same with the " odic"
spheres given forth by all bodies in nature, do we not find in
this " odic " element the general connecting link between mind
and matter? If, upon the basis of this certainly plausible
idea, we should suggest that this everywhere present " odic "
element, as associated with the different bodies in nature, and
with nature as a Whole, may hereafter prove to be a medium
through which mind can, in certain conditions, and to a certain
extent, act upon and move outer tangible matter, without the
contact of the physical organs, the suggestion would doubtless
be met with general incredulity, especially by those who are
not familiar with certain strange phenomena of our day. It
could not be esteemed more incredible, however, than would
have been an assertion made fifty years ago, that by a
peculiar mechanical contrivance, a certain subtile agent in
nature might be efficiently employed in the accurate and
instantaneous transmission of thought to the distance of a
thousand miles! But not to press these thoughts for the
present, if our foregoing generalizations are correct, then we
hazard little in saying, that as the all-pervading "odic"
sphere of the universe, as a whole, in its ultimate degree, con-
nects with the sphere of the Deity, so the Deity, through this
medium, acts upon the universe, in the same way as any two.
juxtaposed substances or forms in nature act upon each other

108 DYNAMIC AGENTS.

through their " odic " spheres, and as was illustrated by ex-
periments before related. And as the Deity, moreover, is a
personal and intelligent Being, he may through this medium
act, not only spontaneously, but volitionally and directly, upon
the universe, or upon either of its corresponding sub-creations,
and control it to any extent which may comport with the
integrity of his general plan.

But we come now to another point : As each previous stage
of creation, with its peculiar law of developments, from the
first to the sixth, was thus accompanied with, or related to, a
corresponding dynamic agent, the same fact may be supposed
to hold with reference to the seventh stage, which, in the cos-
mical creation, as before shown, consisted in the development
of habitable worlcls. And as this is the final development of
the seven-fold cosmical series— and brings the physical struc-
ture of the universe as such, to a completeness — so we may
suppose that the dynamic principle related to this develop-
ment, is also the ultimate and completion of its series. And
being the last of a series in which there is observed a progres-
sive refinement from the first, at least to the sixth, it may be
supposed to unite in itself the principles of all the others in a
still superior degree of refinement.

But we have seen that the series of universal cosmical de-
velopments included in what we have called the great King-
dom of Materiality, must have been based upon, and have
sprung from, an antecedent, unoriginated, and infinite Kingdom
of Spirituality, which we call GOD. If this same Principle,
like the vital elements of the germ of a tree, lies at the basis,
and is reproduced at the completion, of the unfolding, then
this seventh dynamic principle, concerning which we are now
inquiring, can be nothing less than a degree of the seven-fold
elements of the originally generative Divine Spirit, now em-

DIVINE EMBODIMENT. 109

bodied in cosmical investiture. Viewed in this light, this
seventh dynamic principle may be called Soul or Vitality — the
Soul or vital Principle of the cosmical universe, or the Princi-
ple by which it, as a universe, lives and performs all its normal
movements !

Let me not, however, be understood as intimating that the
all of God was thus embodied in the universal cosmical struc-
ture. Neither the imiverse of material worlds, nor of heavens,
nor the heaven of heavens, can contain HIM who is absolutely
INFINITE, and it must have been, comparatively speaking, an
exceedingly small ray from his interior and ineffable effulgence
that sufficed to give birth to, and move and regulate, the ma-
terial structure which we have been contemplating, however
sublime and inconceivable to human intellect 'this maybe.
Nor was the Divine embodiment of which we speak, neces-
sarily an embodiment which, in its immediate exterior mani-
festation, would take the form of what is generally understood
by intelligence; though intelligence, as an attribute of a much
higher and more interior degree of the Divine Spiritual Con-
stitution, was the projecting, planning, and (acting through the
ultimately refined " odic" spheres, or quasi nerve-essences of
his creations, before spoken of) is the constantly supervising
and all regulating Principle. The Divine qualities as intelli-
gence were subsequently and, at a much higher degree of
creative progression, finitely expressed in the human micro-
cosm, which is expressly declared to be an "image of God."

It is, however, here submitted as a truth which, it is be-
lieved, will become more evident in proportion as its founda-
tion and bearings are better understood — that the .identical
principles of what we know as intelligence, are embodied
(though not as intelligence) in each kingdom or system of
creation below man, and finally in the universal kingdom of

10

110 DYNAMIC AGENTS.

cosmical forms ; these various descending embodiments bear-
ing to each other the relations of descending octaves. Thus
what is called intelligence in man, is called instinct in animals.
But plants also-, have a kind of instinct ; and so in lower degrees,
have minerals, worlds — the whole universal System of worlds
— each embodying and representing a lower degree of what
may receive the general designation of Love, Wisdom, and
Volition; or Expansion, Attraction, and Circulation ; the lowest
triune degree of which is embraced in the functions of Heat,
Light, and Electricity.

The seventh dynamic principle of the universe, therefore,
which pervades and governs all other principles, is only an
embodiment of that degree or octave of the principles of the
Divine soul which is in immediate relation with, and serves
to control the functional operations of, the universal cosmical
Body ; while the higher degrees of the seven- fold Divine har-
monies, flowing downward from the infinite sources of Divin-
ity, are left to be embodied and represented in subsequent and
more refined creations, or remain at infinite removes above
the sphere of all terrestrial and celestial forms.

Of the doctrine intended to be conveyed in these remarks,
a more distinct and enlarged understanding will be obtained
as we proceed.

But, presuming that the reader already sufficiently compre-
hends the fundamental principles herein set forth, he is desired
to bear constantly in mind, that the dynamic principles of the
cosmical creation, were not developed by the creation itself,
but developed it ; and the same may be said of the vitalizing
and moving elements of all degrees of material unfolding.
The dynamic principles (constituting, indeed, what may, in the
aggregate, be called the general Soul) are thus the immediate
Cause of the outer development (or Body), which is the Effect.

LAWS. NATURE. GOD. Ill

And here it may be remarked, that if there is any relation be-
tween Cause and Effect, it must not only be a relation of
generals, but of particulars ; and thus the Cause must be a
precise archetype of which the Effect is an antitype or em-
bodied representative ; and hence the two must, throughout,
precisely correspond to each other. Every degree of creation,
therefore, may be considered as a precise outer expression of
the corresponding degree of Divine Love, Wisdom, and
Energy which vitalizes and governs it, and in which it was
previously contained as an archetype.

Moreover, these interior Divine dynamic principles, together
with their prescribed modes of action, constitute the operative
laws of nature. According to this view, while there is a law
for every class of natural and even spiritual phenomena, and
all things may be explained without a resort to corafra-natural
or contra-legal agencies, laws, on the other hand, are not those
lifeless, unintellectual fatalities which they are represented to
be in prevalent philosophies of the day, but they are the ex-
press modes of perpetual Divine volition. In looking, there-
fore, upon this universe, with all it contains, as faw-governed,
we may, at the same time, look upon it as 6W-governed. But
on this point, more in its proper place.

If this view is correct, then there is, in reality, no necessary
antagonism between materiality and spirituality, nature and
heaven, reason and revelation, science and theology, but each
may be regarded, when correctly understood, as the exponent
of the other. Quite distinct, however, is this view from that
gross speculation which makes of God nothing more than the
ultimately sublimated and self-moving essences of the natural
universe — a kind of universal hyper-galvanic battery which,
by its perpetual and self-generating action, produces solar and
planetary revolution, terrestrial changes, and those movements

112 DYNAMIC AGENTS.

in the refined essences of the human brain which constitute
Thoughts. In our philosophy, God is God, and nature is na-
ture— the two being eternally distinct, though intimately con-
nected and co-related with each other.

CHAPTEE IX.

DEFECTS OF PREVAILING COSMOLOGICAL THEORIES.

IF the foregoing theory of the origin, structure, dynamic
agents, and laws, of the universe, has any foundation in truth,
it can scarcely fail to throw important light upon some still
ulterior questions relating to the prescribed distances, motions,
reciprocal attractions, etc., of planetary and sidereal creations.
It may even show that some time-honored theories upon these
subjects, however sanctioned by the authority of great names,
are, in certain particulars, radically defective ; and this it will
do, if at all, by transcending them in the ease, naturalness,
and completeness with which it accounts for certain existing
phenomena.

It was supposed by Sir Isaac Newton, that all rotatory and
orbitual motion of the heavenly bodies, originated from a pri-
mary and external impulse received from the hand of the Crea-
tor, as they were launched into space. To this was added the
philosophical axiom, that any body put in motion in a vacuum,
will continue forever to move in a straight line, unless de-
flected from its course by some other force. This deflecting
force, as applied to the motions of the planets, Newton found
in the law of gravitation, which was by him proved to apply
to all planetary bodies. By the precisely counterbalancing
action of these two forces, called the centrifugal and centripetal
forces, the motions of the planets were supposed to be regu-
lated in circular or elliptical orbits round the sun, the specific

114 DEFECTS OF PREVAILING

distances of these being greater or less according to the near-
ness or remoteness of the point where these two forces were
exactly balanced against each other.

But Newton soon found this theory, seemingly perfect in
other respects, encumbered with difficulties in respect to the
stability of the system. He found that the different planets
were not only attracted by the sun, but mutually attracted by
each other. These different attractions, varying in intensity in
the inverse ratio of the squares of distances, according to a
law discovered by Kepler, were accompanied by perturbations,
producing irregularities in orbitual motions which were sub-
ject to secular increase. The system, thus, left to its own in-
ternal provisions, seemed to prophesy its own progressive
derangement, and its ultimate entire disorganization ; and
Newton felt impelled to call upon God to avert such a catas-
trophe, by supplying a force from without, which he supposed
did not exist within, the system.

The calculations of subsequent mathematicians, however,
served, in a good degree, to dispel these gloomy forebodings,
and led to the conclusion that the irregularities and apparent
incipient derangements in the motions of the system, would
finally reach their maximum, after which there would be a
gradual return to the condition of primeval equilibrium ; that
thence there would be a progressive tendency to irregularity
in the opposite direction, to be succeeded by another reaction;
and that the perpetual vibrations of these irregularities, like
the oscillations of a mighty pendulum, would serve to mark
the hours and moments of eternity !

This conception of the laws, internal arrangements, and
movements, of the system, together with the apparent mathe-
matical evidences which have been arrayed in its support,
can not otherwise than be regarded as one of the greatest

COSMOLOGICAL THEORIES. 115

triumphs of human genius. Yet, even while overwhelmed
with a sense of its sublimity, one can not well suppress a sense
of sadness as he contemplates its cold, mechanical lifelessness
— I had almost said Godlessness ! Contemplated in this light,
the universe appears somewhat analogous to an ingeniously
constructed machine, which is wound up, and left to go of
itself, while its maker withholds all further exercise of power
from it, and forever withdraws all immediate personal care
over it, as being unnecessary. With this philosophy impressed
upon our minds, we look up into the heavens, and, though we
behold incessant motion and activity in every direction, we
see no necessary evidence of immanent life or spirit — nothing
with which our souls can sympathize as the present pervading
Animus and constantly impelling Cause of the phenomena we
behold ; and it is only by an almost painful stretch of the
powers of inductive reasoning, that we can attain to any sub-
stantial conviction of a spiritual or voluntative Cause, as having
been connected with the system even at its origin !

It may be added, that thousands of persons, on arriving at
a full comprehension and conviction of the truth of the Newto-
nian theory of a merely mechanical universe, and of vacuity
in the interplanetary and interstellar spaces, have anxiously
inquired, " Where and what, then, is that spiritual world to
which our interior natures aspire, and for which Revelation
encourages us to hope]" and nature, viewed in this aspect,
has not only refused to respond in language which appeals to
the conceptive and reasoning powers, but has interposed a
cloud of darkness and doubt between the inquirer and the sub-
ject which he seeks to comprehend ! In its efforts to satisfy
the irrepressible yearnings of the spirit within, Fancy has
erected a formless, unextended, unsubstantial — even unaerial
— figment, that bears no relation to space or the material uni-

116 DEFECTS OF PREVAILING

verse, or to any of the rational faculties of the soul ; and in
this mankind have been told to have faith, as the place or state
of future human destination ! But a rational faith in such an
utter inconceivability is out of the question, and an extra-
rational and mere dogmatic faith, in such an idea, can not
generally, if ever, be kept free from superstition, and hence,
from a greater or less degree of mental degradation and
slavery. Hence, in case of full adoption of the Newtonian
system of cosmogony, a determination to follow only the con-
victions of reason will necessarily tend to skepticism with
reference to spiritual, and to s.rme extent even with reference
to Divine things ; and there is no latent force in the theory
which, by any development can ever correct this mental ab-
erration. In the spirit and tendency of this merely me-
chanical mode of philosophizing upon the universe, may, I
apprehend, be found the main cause of the growing materialism
and skepticism of these modern days, especially among minds
called scientific.

Subjected to the test of rationality, however, the Newtonian
system, in *at least one of its features, seems to be almost as
bad off as the only spiritual and theological theories that can
be rationally associated with it. It predicates mutual gravita-
tion of any two distant bodies, while it fails to recognize, if it
does not, by implication, entirely preclude the idea of, any
intervening gravitating agent. But that any two bodies can
in any way act upon each other, either without immediate
contact, or . the intervention of some substantial medium by
which they can touch each other, is utterly inconceivable, and
can no more bo supposed than any effect can be supposed to be
disconnected with an adequate cause. We do not, however,
charge the theory with absolutely and necessarily precluding
such a medium ; but by manifesting, at its very starting point,

COSMOLOGICAL THEORIES. 117

such a strong inclination to the idea of absolute vacuity in the
interplanetary spaces, it not only fails to provide such a me-
dium, but, in effect, discountenances the idea that such exists.
In the theory which we have maintained in the preceding
pages, however, the medium in question, is abundantly pro-
vided.

Moreover, the system as conceived by Newton can not, after
all, be contemplated without some degree of apprehension in
regard to its safety. For, notwithstanding the figurings of sub-
sequent mathematicians respecting the reaction which tends to
restore lost equilibrium, if we do away with the immediate
immanence of Divine Vitality — in other words, with the im-
mediate presence and agency of that degree of the Divine Es-
sence and Power of which the universe forms a suitable
habitation, and which is necessary to the life and functional
operations of the latter as of one Body — then there are many
chances against the existence of an absolute equilibrium in the
different parts and forces of the great Whole : and if there is
ever a disturbance of the equilibrium to an extent which can
not be entirely restored by a counter oscillation, even though
this be only the fraction of the weight of a planet, or even the
amount of a single pound, the disturbance will progressively
aggravate, and a universal catastrophe will be the final and
inevitable result !

If, therefore, the stability of the universe depends merely
upon the nice counterpoise of the centrifugal and centripetal
forces, as independent of this constant Divine Force, and of
any elastic, active, and reactive medium to keep the various
celestial bodies within prescribed boundaries, then human rea-
son can not withhold the suspicion of danger as it contem-
plates the stupendous Machine, or suppress the apprehension
that it may one day fly to pieces, and involve us all in the

118 NO VACUITY IN SPACE.

common wreck ! This apprehension greatly increases, when
it is considered that Newton's hypothesis of absolute vacuity
in the spaces through which the celestial bodies move — an
hypothesis upon which, according to him, the equilibrium
between the centrifugal and centripetal forces necessarily
depends — has proved unfounded, and that the phenomena of
retardation of comets in their orbits, has proved that the in-
terplanetary spaces are pervaded by an attenuated fluid or
ether, capable of exerting some resistance to their progress.

It is here submitted, with all due deference to the superior
intelligence of many who have never entertained a doubt of
the entire truthfulness of Newton's theory, that that theory,
at least without essential modifications, would probably never
have been propounded by Newton, or adopted by others, had
the theory of the nebular origin of the universe, with its accom-
panying evidences, and natural corollaries, been previously-
subjected to familiar contemplation.

We now proceed to briefly unfold a theory respecting the
foregoing subjects, which, whatever may be its imperfections,
seems to the writer, at least, much less encumbered with diffi-
culties than the merely mechanical theory of Newton, while
it is certainly more compatible with the idea of an immediate
and universal Divine superintendence.

CHAPTEE X.

GKOUNDS OF STABILITY AND GENEKAL ECONOMY OP
THE COSMICAL STKUCTUEE.

As a preliminary step toward a due comprehension and
appreciation of the theory now to be offered respecting the in-
ternal forces, movements, grounds of stability, and general
economy of the universe, the reader is requested to bear dis-
tinctly in mind that principles operate indifferently upon a
large and a small scale — that the magnitudes and distances of
the objects to which they apply, are absolutely of no conse-
quence as affecting the essential nature of their operations.

Now, in the light of this truism, let us suppose some simple
vegetable form — say an apple — to be placed under a micro-
scope so exceedingly powerful as to magnify it to the apparent
size of that immense spheroid of stellar orbs with their planets,
which is known to us as the Milky Way, and in the midst of
which our world is situated. We will suppose that the pores
of the apple would, in that case, appear of a magnitude equally
great with the interplanetary and interstellar spaces, and that
the molecules would be magnified to the apparent size of
worlds. Moreover, the internal motions of the molecules, ob-
serving the natural order of vegetative circulation and pro-
gression, would bear a certain resemblance to the rotatory and
orbitual motions of suns and planets, and all, obeying the law
by which the distinct stratifications and compartments of the
apple are formed, would give an appearance somewhat similar

120 GENERAL ECONOMY OF

to distinct systems, and systems of systems of suns and
plan%ts, as these are successively brought ' into the field of a
telescope. Suppose, that after this optical arrangement is
completed, some learned Newtonian astronomer, who is en-
tirely ignorant of its nature, is invited, on some clear even-
ing, to look through the instrument, which is represented to
him as a newly invented telescope, instead of a microscope.
The astronomer gazes with wonder and astonishment, and
thinks he has obtained a new and favorable view of some
stellar and planetary creation which has not before appeared
to him exactly in the same aspect.

" Well, Mr. Astronomer," demands an inquirer, " what is
your opinion respecting the origin of the motions, the laws of
operation, and the soured of stability, of the system which you
are now surveying "?"

" Why, undoubtedly," replies the astronomer, " the same
principles are applicable here that apply to all planetary and
stellar creations;" and if he added no more, he would thus
far be correct. But he continues, " Undoubtedly each one of
those bodies received a certain mechanical impulse as it was
launched into space from -ihe hand of the Creator. Each one
moves in a vacuum, and would have continued its primitive
motion in a direct line forever, had it not been deflected from
its course by an equal and perpetually operative force of grav-
itation, whence its present motion is in a circular or elliptical
orbit. If either one of those revolving bodies," continues
the sage astronomer, " were arrested in its orbit, and the cen-
trifugal force were thus destroyed, gravitation would immedi-
ately draw it to the central sun, and this would probably so
derange the equilibrium of the system as to ultimately pro-
duce a universal catastrophe !"

If the astronomer is now shown a direct view of the real

THE COSMICAL STRUCTURE. 121

subject of these speculations — is shown that it is merely an
apple — he will consider this as of itself a sufficient refutation
of his speculations, so far as that object was concerned ; be-
cause he considers the internal molecular motions of the apple
as being governed by a principle of life, and this he regards
as of itself amply sufficient to keep up the equilibrium of its
particular parts.

But each cluster, or firmament, of suns, with its planets, is,
in principle, but an apple on a large scale. Some of the more
distant, and less easily resolvable, nebulae, indeed, appear to a
telescope of small power, almost in the identical form and
sitfe of an apple ; and, viewed apart from all other considera-
tions than those suggested by their own proper aspects, as the
white, milky spots, which they present to telescopes incapable
of resolving them, one might have easily conceived that they
were agitated by internal motions ; but the conception that
these internal motions were referable to external and mechan-
ical impulses, and that the moving bodies (which the distance
of view reduces to molecules) were sustained in equilibrio by
counter impulses, according to the Newtonian theory of plan-
etary motion, would have been as unnatural and far-fetched,
as would be precisely the same theory applied to the internal
molecular motions of an apple.

Indeed, it is conceivable that one might be miraculously
elevated above the whole plane of sidereal creations to a
distance so great that, as he looked down upon the whole uni-
verse of firmaments, the whole might present one unresolved
mass apparently, from that distance, no larger than the size
of an apple. Now, when we remember that in the workings
of principles there is absolutely no distinction made between
great and small bodies, how naturally may it be supposed that
the whole universe, with all its included sub-universes is per

II

122 GENERAL ECONOMY OF

vaded, like the apple, by an internal principle of Life, and
that this is the cause of all its internal motions, and the sus-
tainer of equilibrium among all its constituent orbs, which, to
it, are in reality no more than what the molecules are to the
apple !

But let us endeavor to obtain a more distinct view of some
of the constituent elements embraced in this general theory :
Our theory, before propounded, of constantly emanative, as
well as constantly gravitafive, forces as connected with planets,
suns, systems, and firmaments, seems, if correct, to necessi-
tate the conclusion that universal space is constantly filled
with substance. This substance is in the solid, fluid, aeriform,
and ethereal states. In its densest state, it may be supposed
to be indefinitely more dense than the heaviest substances
known upon earth, and in its rarest state, it may be supposed
to be indefinitely more rare than electricity, and between these
two extremes, there are probably all intermediates. The uni-
verse may thus be regarded as only one vast ethereal Body,
having in its general mass innumerable points of condensation,
which are suns, planets, etc.

Now, the force which originally induced nebulous circles,
firmaments, suns, planets, satellites, etc., to assume their re-
spective orbits at specific distances from their primaries, and
which perpetually operates (with some modifications, accord-
ing to different stages of progression) to keep these bodies in
those general orbits after they are assumed, may, in a degree,
be conceived by the following illustration : The ponderable
atmosphere of the earth at a level with the sea, is relatively
dense, while at the tops of the highest mountains it is rela-
tively rare ; and at an altitude of forty-five or fifty miles, ac-
cording to received estimates, its existence ceases to be appre-
ciable. Hydrogen gas is much lighter than the ponderable

THE COS MIC A L STKUCTUKE. 123

terrestrial atmosphere at a level with the sea'; and when con-
fined in a balloon, it ascends, with its envelope, to an altitude
determined by the degree of buoyancy of gas and balloon
united, and there it floats until dissipated. Now, each solar
and planetary body in jspace, is surrounded by a calorific,
luminous, electric, and ethereal atmosphere, which, in like man-
ner, varies in density and power with the distance from the
center of condensation ; and, by virtue of the respective
•super-aerial atmospheres of any two bodies sustaining to each
other the relations of primary and secondary, the secondary
body assumes an orbitual distance from the primary, which,
as in the case of the balloon, is. governed by the law of equi-
librium— which distance, however, is somewhat modified by
centrifugal force.

This illustration of the balloon, however, is very imper-fcct,
and only serves to enable the reader to approximate to a con-
ception of the true idea ; for we are not to eonsider any planet
or other celestial body, as having the same degree of affinity
for its primary as the balloon has for the earth, or as being
attracted to it in exactly the same way, or as it would be, if
there were no greater dissimilarity between its matter and the
matter of the primary, than there is between the matter of
the balloon and that of the earth. But each celestial body is
composed of materials, and possesses calorific, electric, odic,
and other forces and properties, and hence affinities, peculiar
to itself, and which, in general, differ from those of any other
given body in proportion to the distance of its natural situ-
ation. Moreover, each planet, sun, etc., as before intimated,
is only the condensed center of a general ethereal body of no
particularly defined circumference, but whose refined emana-
tions, growing more rare with each remove from their centers,
extend indefinitely into space, In this way, each body inter-

124 GENERAL ECONOMY OF

communicates with, and acts upon, all kindred bodies, and is
acted upon by them in return ; the action consisting in an in-
terblending of the forces and properties of the different
bodies. When this interblending is harmonious, the action is
attractive ; when it is conflicting, it is repulsive. Beyond cer-
tain limits of distance, the interblending actions of any two
bodies, however dissimilar in constitution, is always harmoni-
ous— and hence attractive ; within those limits of distance,
the action is crowding and conflicting, and hence repellant.

Suppose, then, that by some controlling arm, or some acci-
dental impediment, a planet were suddenly arrested in its
orbit, and were thus relieved from the influence of centrifugal
force: it would immediately be drawn toward its primary
with a force which would uniformly increase as the square of
the distance decreased, provided no counteracting force were
developed by the approach to the central body. In falling in-
ward, however, although the attractive force would, for a time,
be increased (that is, until the previous centrifugal displace-
ment was overcome), its elastic atmosphere wroulcT begin to
crowd more and more upon the elastic atmosphere of the sun,
and even its own solidified particles, by the increased calorific,
photic, electric, odic, and vital action due to the proximity of
the two bodies as centers of such action, would, in themselves,
develop an emanative or repellent force in respect to the pri-
mary ; and, owing to these causes, the secondary body could
not approach within a certain distance of its primary, within
which distance the repellent force would be superior to the
attractive.

The same idea is involved in the theory (before propounded)
of the process by which secondary bodies were formed from
primaries — and which supposes that the secondaries are com-
posed of an equal quantity of attracted and emanated particles.

' THE COSMICAL STRUCTURE. 125

As each individual of these, acted upon by centrifugal force,
finds its equilibrium at the particular point where, by the union
of all, the secondary body is formed, sO the united mass of par-
ticles in the body thus formed, has no more tendency to draw
nearer to the primary than it has to emanate further from it.

Suppose, then, any particular secondary body should be
violently arrested in its orbit : it would evidently sink into
the ethereal atmosphere of its^ primary a distance measured
by its previous centrifugal displacement, which, in most cases,
would be considerable ; but at some point between its former
orbit and the primary, it would attain to an exact equilibrium
between the attractive and emanative or repellent influences,
and there its inward motion would stop. If held there by
violence, and prevented from partaking of the general vortical
motion of the system, it would be to the cosmical system what
a mass of displaced particles, or a splinter of foreign matter,
would be to the human system ; and the effect would be, an
inflammation, suppuration, and dissolution, of the part. For,
it is evident that in such a case the body would accumulate
heat and other repellent elements from the primary, more
rapidly than it could relieve itself of them, and sooner or later
these accumulations would be beyond its powers of endurance.
The particles in that case would separate in detail, and would
either be digested and assimilated with the general mass of
the primary and its atmosphere, or, assuming the general revo-
lutionary motion of the system, would be again thrown out-
ward by the resultant centrifugal force, and would reaggregate
themselves at their original distance, and the planet would be
formed anew.

For an explanation of the principles on which all rotatory
and orbitual motion may originate, the reader is referred to an
earlier stage of this treatise, in which we spoke of the first

126 GENERAL ECONOMY OF

assumption of rotatory motion in the universal mass : and, by-
considering the universe still as one general Body, interiorly
gravitating and emanating as in the beginning, he may conceive
how these motions, not only of the great general Body, but
of all its included and correspondent sw&-bodies, is perpetually
sustained by a constant supply of the same forces which ope-
rated in the beginning, and which constantly inflow from the
inexhaustible sources of Divine Spiritual Heat and Light,
which mean Love and Wisdom, and which constituted the
Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the
ending of this grand creative operation ! What can be a more
natural thought than that the universe is constructed, and that
all its functional operations are carried on, according to the
foregoing principles! and what hypothesis relating to this
grand subject is so free from difficulties !

If the universe is actually constructed on these principles,
it manifestly possesses (under the operations of its pervading
Divine Life) a self-regulating power which must necessarily
give it the utmost conceivable stability — the stability of an
almost infinite living Organism, exempted from all external
causes of death ! Let planets be crowded out of their orbits,
if such a thing were possible (which it is not), and they will
either spontaneously return again, or new arrangements will be
assumed among their associate bodies, which will be according
to the law of equilibrium, and equally harmonious with the
previous condition. Let planets, or even whole systems, by
any imaginable means, be stricken out of existence: there
would be an immediate supplying of the vacuum — a healing
up of the part — and scarcely a cicatrice would remain. In short,
let the system, by some imagined foreign force, be wounded
and deranged in almost any conceivable way : it would still
contain an internal power of recuperation. But as a Divinely

THE COSMICAL STRUCTURE. 127

constituted Fabric, destined to unspeakably noble and glori-
ous ends, it is entirely free from all causes of material dis-
turbance, and will live on until its highest purposes are fully
attained, when, as one Grand Man, it will change its whole
mode of being for one which is more spiritual, more Divine,
and inconceivably more glorious !

CHAPTEK XI.

PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE GENESIS AND
MODUS OPERANDI OP THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

LITTLE more needs to be said, by way of applying the fore-
going principles to the genesis and modus operandi of our own
Solar System. It has been before intimated that the identical
principles are involved here that were concerned in the origin
and government of the universe, as a whole, with some
modifications in the form of their results, as owing to differ-
ences of conditions, and that the seven-fold series is observed
in the laws, operations, and successive stages of unfolding, in
both instances. In both instances there are the successive and
ascending degrees of Chaos, Nucleation, Spheroidation, Circu-
lar Agregation, Segregation, Secondary Spheroidation, and the
complete and ultimate cosmical unfolding. In both cases the
dynamic agents of Heat, Light, and Electricity, with their
corresponding triad of odic elements are involved, to which,
in both cases, is superadded the all-pervading and controlling
Divine Life Principle.

The chief differences in the specific forms of developments
in the two cases, lies between their fourth, fifth, sixth, and
seventh degrees. In the series of developments through which
we have supposed the universe, as one whole Body, to have
passed, we have supposed the fourth development to be that
of nebulous rings, surrounding the primary spheroid — or, at
least, segments of rings so large, and of such various parts, as

THE SOLAK SYSTEM. 129

to preclude the possibility of an aggregation of the materials
of either ring or segment, into one spheroidal body ; while, in
the Solar System, the size and other conditions of each of these
cycloidal nebulae were, with apparently one exception, such as
to admit of an aggregation into one spheroidal body. The
exception here referred to relates to the mass of materials
from which originated the asteroids. The fifth or segregative
process in the universal development, consists, according to
our hypothesis, of the division of each nebulous ring or seg-
ment, into a multitude of angular and indefinitely formed
masses ; whereas the fifth and corresponding development in
the Solar System, consisted (in every case except that of the
asteroids, as before mentioned) simply of the breaking up of
the nebulous ring, and the assemblage of its parts into one
body. The processes of the sixth development, both of the
Universe and of the Solar System, were perfectly identical,
except that in the former case solar spheres, and in the latter,
the gaseous and incandescent spheres of nascent planets, were
the result. The seventh development of the universe con-
sisted of the unfolding of the identical forms which were the
product of the sixth development of the solar system, viz.,
the forms of nascent planets, as aforesaid ; whereas the seventh
development of the solar system, consisted of the superficial
solidification of those bodies, and such other changes in them
as prepared them for the introduction of the first and lowest
of the organic forms, by which they were subsequently
tenanted.

But although the Universal System and the Solar System
thus each consists of a complete octave of developments, each
octave has its own particular key-note, which differs from that
of the other. That is to say, they do not begin at the same
place iu the staff, nor does one begin where the other ends.

130 . ORIGIN OF COMETS.

This, however, does not in any respect destroy the corre-
spondence of the principles which both involve.

After the sun and planets were thus formed by agglomer-
ations and condensations of the originally diffused mass of
chaotic materials, there would naturally still remain in dif-
fusion through the general sphere of the system, a quantity
of mundane matter, so great as to be liable, under the further
action of the law of condensation, to ultimately assume forms
more or less distinctly visible. This consideration hints at
the origin and character of those erratic, and in some cases
apparently almost lawless bodies, called comets. These are
mere excrescences upon, the system — incidents of previous
developments ; and their anomalas of constitution and motions
are probably the results of their borderings upon the extreme
confines of the forces and laws provided for the government
of the system. Aside from some illustrations of cosmical
laws which they afford, they probably subserve no purpose
which is much more important than that of the amusement
of astronomers.

This idea of residual nebular matter also accounts for that
singular nebulous and oblately spheroidal envelope of the sun,
which is called the " Zodiacal Light." Probably neither the for-
mation of this nor of the comets, was specifically contemplated
in the original plan of the Creator, but the development of
each was incidental to the uniform operations of established
laws.

As originated our own solar system, so we may suppose
originated all other solar systems in space, with differences in
the forms of the operations and results of identical principles,
according to differences in material conditions and local
circumstances.

CHAPTEK XII.

SYNTHETICAL VIEW OP THE OBIGIN OF THE EARTH,
AND ITS GEOLOGICAL FOEMATIONS.

THE last developed forms of the universal cosmical struc-
ture, viz., the distinctly segregated masses of planetary matter
before described, may be viewed in the light of Seed of the
great Tree of previous Being, and Germs of a future and cor-
responding creation. By means of a generative influence
constantly descending from the Divine Spirit, as the Source
of all subordinate existences, a corresponding octave of unfold-
ings now ensue, which may be called the geognostic unfold-
ings. The successive stages of these, which, like other systems
of creation, form a seven-fold scries, seem, both in the light of
principles and facts, to observe the following order and
relations :

PRIMARY TRINITY.
1. Chaotic or unformed fiery
vapor.

2. Spheroidal nucleus (liquid
and gaseous).

3. Granito-aqueous, or, super-
ficially solidified and oceanic.

SECONDARY TRINITY.

4. The "Transition Period ."cha-

racterized mainly by aerial
developments and changes.

5. The " Secondary Period," cha-

racterized by distinctions of
climates and seasons, and
their corresponding sediment-
ary deposits.

6. The. "Tertiary," or, the vol-

canic, lacustrine, fluvatile,
and abrasive Period.

ULTIMATE.
7. Recent or Alluvial Period.

132 ORIGIN OF THE EARTH

In our descending or analytical view of creation, we spoke
briefly of some of the more superficial characteristics of these
terrestrial developments ; but we will now glance at the as-
pects in which they will appear in the light of the a priori and
a posteriori processes of reasoning combined.

1. THE CHAOTIC STAGE. — In our analytical and analogical
view of the terrestrial system, we found abundant reason to
believe that our earth was formed from a mass of primeval
fiery vapor, as expressing material conditions antecedent to the
fiery liquid mass, of which, facts prove that our globe once
consisted. Following the further and obvious teachings of
analogy, as well as the intimations of certain celestial phe-
nomena, we were led to the conclusion that this mass must
have been a result of a previous aggregation and segregation
of the materials of the solar atmosphere, of which an explana-
tion is involved in the now apparently well-established theory
of the formation of the nebulous rings, and their subsequent
changes.

It seems to be a well-founded opinion of believers in the
nebular theory, that the gaseous cycloid, whose condensation
resulted in the formation of the earth, must have originally
been nearly of the same shape and circumference with the
present orbit of the earth. Now, the earth's orbit is not an
exact circle, but an ellipse, with the sun in one of its foci.
Consequently, at the separation of the materials of this ring
or cycloid at one part of its rim, and their aggregation at the
opposite part, whether this occurred at the perihelion or
aphelion point — the common mass thus formed must have
taken the elongated or ellipsoidal shape, and preserved super-
ficially all the general geometrical properties of the previous
circumsolar zone, on a reduced scale.

The first distinct form assumed by the materials of our

AND MOON. 133

nascent planet, therefore, must have been that of an ellipsoid,
or, perhaps, more properly speaking, that of an egg somewhat
flattened in the direction of its shorter diameter. The two
ends of this ellipsoidal body, preserving, respectively, the
general qualities of what were its aphelion and perihelion
points when, during its previous and higher state of diffusion,
it encircled the sun, must now sustain toward each other the
relations of positive and negative.* The atoms having the
strongest affinity for the positive influence, therefore, would
naturally flow toward the positive end ; and those having the
strongest affinity for the negative influence would flow toward
the negative end. There would, therefore, be a tendency of
the particles to agglomerate and condense in the form of a
separate nucleus near either end of the general body, or, more
accurately speaking, probably in either focus of the ellipse. If
the particles are sufficiently diverse from each other as to their
extreme degrees of positiveness or negativeness, and other
circumstances are favorable, the tendencies to agglomeration
and condensation at these two points, may result in the forma-
tion of a primary planet and a satellite; or, if there are
several degrees of matter widely distinguished by their rela-
tively positive and negative qualities, a correspondingly com-
plicated operation of the same principles and forces, may re-
sult in the formation of several satellites.

The idea of a tendency to, and condensation in, the foci of
the egg-shaped nebulous mass, thus forming a primary and a
satellite, and that this tendency indicates a laiv, is in precise

* In employing the terms " positive" and " negative," as above, it is not intended to
restrict the idea of the polar relations which they express, to a connection with elec-
tricity or magnetism. These relations may be supposed, in some sense, to subsist be-
tween the two extremes in the development of each of the imponderables. Keichen-
bach, as we have seen, found unmistakable indications of these polar relations existing
in the " odio" element, with its different varieties, by him discovered.

12

134: OEIGIN OF THE EARTH.

accordance with, and explains, the fact, universal in the solar
system, and doubtless in other departments of the cosmical
creation, that when bodies (whether planets or satellites) re-
volve in elliptical orbits,, their primaries, or centers of gravity,
are invariably situated in one of the foci of the ellipse, pre-
cisely where, according to our theory, such bodies must, in all
probability, have been originally formed. It may be added
that, of the fact of this focality in the situation of primaries
with reference to the elliptic orbits of their secondaries, no
other hypothesis than the general one now under consideration
affords the slightest explanation.

Considering the earth and the moon as having, in this way,
been formed respectively by condensations in the foci of the
same original nebulous mass, their origin and relations may
be considered as hinting at, if not exactly representing, the
origin and relations of the two bodies of what are called
double stars, or binary systems. The diversity of colors gene-
rally observed as characterizing the two constituents of such
systems — the larger body being, in most cases, relatively red,
and the smaller relatively blue, as though they had divided
the prismatic colors between them — strongly intimates, of it-
self, something like a polar opposition in the materials of which
they are respectively -composed, and gives additional weight
to the hypothesis of their original and nebulous connection.

The hypothesis of an original union in one nebulous body
of the materials of the earth and moon, seems, indeed, to bo
necessary, if there is admitted to be any truth in the nebular
theory. But, if this hypothesis is true, it suggests a connec-
tion of a nature heretofore little suspected, as even now sub-
sisting between the earth and moon. Taken in connection
with our doctrine of constant emanation, as well as constant
gravitation, of particles governed by the laws of assimilation,

ETHEREAL ENVELOPE. 135

elimination, and polarization, it encourages, if possible, even
more than a suspicion, that the earth and moon are but con-
densed and oppositely polarized points in one common mass
of ethereal, magnetoid, or " odic" substance. Such an ethereal
mass, considered ,as the common calorific, photic, electric, odic,
nervoid, and vital sphere or atmosphere of the earth and moon,
would seem to be a necessary existence, according to princi-
ples involved in the discoveries of Reichenbach ; while, on the
other hand, and in a still more emphatic sense, the earth and
moon in their present state, may be supposed to consist of
precipitated particles originally held in solution in their now
enveloping ethereal and imponderable menstruum.*

This field or realm of segregated ether supporting these
now condensed points, may, in its present state, be considered
as an ultimate refinement of the primeval nebulous mass from
which our world and its satellite had their common origin.
Though its ultimate attenuations, intercommingling with those
of kindred bodies (yet still preserving their identity) may be
supposed to extend indefinitely into space, the relatively dense,

* It is well known that particular positions of the moon in respect to the earth, are
accompanied with marked effects upon somnambulists, cataleptics, and persons dis-
posed to insanity ; and it has from time immemorial been 'bdieced that certain lunar
positions have also a decided influence upon the vegetable and animal kingdoms.
During eclipses of the sun, when the moon has been directly between that luminary
and the earth, hungry animals have been observed to suddenly cease eating, and become
apparently sad and dejected ; and when eclipses have been total, birds have sometimes
been known to fall dead from their perches. Now, neither of these effects can be sup-
posed to result from any modification of the force of gravitation as owing to the rela-
tive positions in such cases, of the earth, moon, and sun. But if we suppose, as is sup-
posed above, that the earth and moon are enveloped in a common " odic" sphere of a
nervoid and semi-vital character, and that this changes in its polar relations and con-
sequent qualities of influence upon living organisms, with every change of relative
position of the earth, moon, and sun, we have an easy solution of the phenomena in
question. The supposition of such a change of influence would seem to be counte-
nanced by the results of Reichenbach's experiment with the revolving magnet, before
Bpoken of.

136 OKI GIN OF THE EAETII.

or the rationally more obvious, portion of the body, still re-
tains, in all probability, the general shape and size of the
original nebula. If we suppose this spheroid of imponderable
matter to be rotating on its own proper axis once in twenty-
seven days, seven hours, and forty-three minutes, carrying the
earth and moon with it as its condensed foci, we have, in such
supposition, an explanation of the motion of the moon round
the earth as it appears to us, and of the motion of the earth
around the moon as it would be mathematically evident to an
inhabitant of the latter body. If this supposition is correct,
then neither body ought to move round the other as an abso-
lutely fixed point in the system, but both ought to revolve
around a common center — the axis of their common ethereal
and enveloping mass. But, considering the superior attractive
force of the earth over the moon, together with the superior
density of that whole end of the ethereal mass in which the
earth is situated, to that of the end in which the moon is
situated, this center of common revolution can probably vary
at most but a few hundred miles from the center of the earth,
and may be very nearly coincident with it.

I believe that astronomers are now pretty generally con-
vinced that in binary stellar systems, one body not only
revolves around the other, but that the two bodies revolve
round a common center, situated somewhere between the
centers of the two, and nearest to the center of the larger one ;
and to these motions, those of the binary system of the earth
and moon would, according to the foregoing hypothesis, pre-
sent an exact analogy.

The earth, being the major or positive focal condensation of
the general ethereal and enveloping spheroid, has asumed
sufficient independence to admit of a diurnal revolution on its
own proper axes ; but the moon, being the minor and nega-

HINT CONCERNING TIDES. 137

tive focus, still continues in subjection t6 the force of the
general ethereal mass which is positive over it ; and therefore,
keeping the same side always to the earth, it rotates only with
the rotation of the general mass.

If our hypothesis is correct, then not only ought the sides
of the moon turned to and from the earth, to be in opposite
polar relations, but there should be a slight elongation of the
moon in the same direction, presenting, in fact, the dwindled
and miniature form of the original nebulous or present
ethereal spheroid. On the same principle there must, have
been a tendency to elongation in the form of the earth, while
the particles which compose it were in process of aggregation.
This tendency, however, so far as the solid, or less mobile ma-
terials of the earth are concerned, was corrected by its ro-
tation on its axis, by the perpetual action of which, during
the period in which the earth passed from a fluid to a super-
ficially solid state, the surface of the earth was rolled into
general rotundity. But the mobility of the watery portions
of the earth's surface, was such as to preserve, in a degree,
their freedom to observe the original tendency to ellipticity,
which tendency is now manifested in the form of tides. For
tides are only elongations of the mobile portions of the earth's
substance, in what we have supposed to be the direction of
the longer axis of the ethereal spheroid, which axis would
necessarily be in the direction of the earth and moon, admit-
ting these bodies, as points of condensation in the general
body, to occupy generally the two foci of the latter. There
are, doubtless, for the same reasons, atmospheric tides which
are greater than the oceanic tides in proportion to the greater
mobility of the atmospheric particles ; and had not the earth
assumed a rotatory motion (from causes identical with those
which produced a similar motion in other bodies, and which

138 ORIGIN OF THE EARTH

have been before explained), it would doubtless have con-
densed (as we have supposed the moon to have done), in a
permanently oval form, whose opposite ends would, if the
expression may be allowed, have represented solidified
tides.*

With the evolutions and condensations above supposed, or,
at least, with something not essentially differing from them,
the materials of which our earth is composed, may be sup-
posed to have passed out of their first or chaotic state.

2. The SECOND stage of the earth's developments, as ob-
viously the next orderly stage of progression from the first,
was that of a spheroidal igneous nucleus. This stage, indeed,
commenced the moment the nucleus began to appear; for
then the general body, by the distinction developed in its
parts, began to pass out of the state of absolute chaos. It
may be considered that this development closed when the
outer limits of this igneous nucleus became distinctly defined,
and when its merely molten and fluid substance became fully
distinguished from its gaseous envelope.f

3. The THIRD stage may be denominated the granite-aqueous,
it being the stage characterized by the formation of the first
granite crust, and by the development of the oceans by which
the latter was generally covered. This, completing as it did
the first Trinity of terrestrial developments, brought the earth
from a previously elastic and yielding, to a solid and perma-

* These suggestions, tending, as they do, to an essential modification of the New-
tonian theory of tides, might be greatly fortified by additional considerations ; but to
present these in their proper force, discussions would be required which would be too
occult for a popular treatise.

t The foregoing considerations in respect to the first and second stages of the earth's
formation, are admitted to be mainly a priori, but to those who can perceive effects
as involved in their causes, they will not be without weight In respect to the remain-
ing stages of development, we will not only have the evidence of copses, but of their
fjfects, as still observable in the earth's crust.

EAKLY ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS. 139

•

nent state, and thus completed its constitution merely as a
planetary body.

4. The FOURTH stage was characterized mainly by aerial de-
velopments and changes. It embraces that vast period during
which the rocks of the Cambrian, Silurian, Old Red Sandstone,
and Carboniferous systems were formed. At the commence-
ment of this period, the atmosphere must of necessity have
been in an exceedingly crude and impure state. Besides other
gross and noxious elements, it must have borne in its bosom
all, or nearly all, of the carbonic acid gas which subsequently
became condensed in the mountain limestone and various
other limestone deposits, and the carbon of which, parting with
its oxygen, became embodied in the immense beds of mineral
coal, found, more or less, in almost every quarter of the earth.
An atmosphere thus surcharged with this noxious vapor, must
have been incompatible with the existence of any forms of
organic life, except those of a low order; and accordingly we
find that the plants and animals of this vast period were, as
shown by their fossil remains, exclusively such as inhabited
the ocean and the marshy and frequently submerged places in
its vicinity — situations intermediate between the properly
marine and the properly terrestrial.

It was, doubtless, owing mainly, if not wholly, to atmos-
pheric causes that the solar rays during this period had but
little influence upon the surface of the earth, and that a nearly
uniform temperature prevailed at all latitudes and at all sea-
sons. Geologists have usually attempted to account for the
high degree and general uniformity of this temperature, as
indicated by the universally tropical nature of the plants and
animals of this period, by referring it to a radiation of the
internal heat of the earth, which it is supposed must, at that
early period, have been much more intense than in subsequent

14:0 ORIGIN OF THE EARTH.

times. But the mystery seems to be quite as well, if not bet-
ter, accounted for in the consideration that while the atmos-
phere was so excessively dense as it must have been while
loaded with so much carbon and carbonic acid, its pressure
must have been correspondingly great ; and it is well known
that every increase of atmospheric pressure is attended with an
increase of heat. It is not improbable, however, that both
of these causes had something to do in the production of the
superior heat of these times.

The scene which would have been presented to a human
spectator, could such an one have been placed upon the sur-
face of the earth at this time, would have been gloomy and
cheerless in the extreme. He would probably at no time have
beheld either clouds or decided sunshine, but a dim and unde-
fined luminescence, caused by the sunbeams in passing athwart
the thick and stagnant atmosphere. No star-beam could have
penetrated the dense aerial envelope to relieve the gloom of
night ; and, for the same reason, the range of horizontal vision,
even at noonday, must have been confined within narrow
limits. All diversity of landscape must, in the earlier part
of this period, have been merged in one wide waste of waters.
This, however, was, in later times, partially relieved by exten-
sive districts of low, marshy land, on which the soft and suc-
culent vegetation grew with the rankest luxuriance. No bird
yet winged the air, or gladdened the forest with its song ; no
beast prowled through the thick jungles of fern and sigillaria,
and no herds lowed upon the fields of moss and equiseta; and,
except the rolling of the ocean waves, the plashing of the finny
tribe, and the occasional rumblings of subterranean fires, the
most profound and gloomy silence reigned over the face of the
globe !

If, therefore, in the first stage of the first Trinity of devel-

NEW KED SANDSTONE.

opments, the whole mass of terrestrial materials was in a state
that may be designated as chaotic, we find here, in the first
stage of the second Trinity, a corresponding condition as re-
lating to the whole mass of atmospheric materials, and of its
accompanying developments as the initial steps of terrestrial
organic creation. Taken as a whole, however, the changes of
this period brought conditions on the earth's surface into
something like a systematic, or what may be called rudiment-
ally organized, form.

5. The FIFTH development was characterized by distinction
of climates as prevailing in different latitudes, and by warm
and cold seasons, as owing to the revolution of our planet
around the sun ; hence, also, by new kinds of geological de-
posits, and higher degrees of organic life. This development
was comprised in the period commencing with the New Red
Sandstone, and ending with the close of the Chalk formation.

The records of the general conditions of this period are very
distinctly preserved upon the leaves of the rocky book. On
the lamina) of the New Red Sandstone rocks in various
localities (and especially in the valley of the Connecticut
River), are found the distinct footprints of birds of various
species. These appear to have been impressed upon the sandy
and clayey margin of an ocean at low tide, and to have been
covered up by successive thin layers of sand and clay drifted
in by the swelling tide. On the same rocks occur marks whose
angles and other characteristics clearly prove them to have
been made by frost. They are in form exactly identical with
those which are now produced by frost in the mud upon the
borders of a stream. These appear to have been covered over
and preserved, in like manner with the tracks, by the detritus
swept in by the returning tide. But it is noteworthy that,
although these tracks and frost marks occur in abundance

14:2 ORIGIX OF THE E A II Til .

above and below each other in the same system of rocks, the
two are never found upon the same laminar— as though the
birds, during the frosty season, were entirely absent, having
migrated to a warmer climate, to return again with the return
of summer.

On the same strata are also sometimes found impressions
which could only have been made by the pattering of rain-
drops during the passage of a small shower-cloud ; and the
forms of these sometimes even infallibly indicate the course
in which the wind was blowing at the time !

Here, then, is the earliest distinct indication of the preva-
lence of atmospheric conditions somewhat similar ito tliose
which now obtain upon the earth's surface. We find, here,
unmistakable evidences of summer and winter, warm and cold
latitudes, rain, winds, clouds, and sunshine — conditions which
clearly could not have existed to any great extent, during any
previous period.

Concerning the relics of the olden time, from which these
atmospheric and terrestrial conditions are inferred, Professor
Hitchcock (to whom the scientific world is much indebted for
bringing them to light) remarks : " It is a most interesting
thought, that while millions of men, who have striven hard to
transmit some trace of their existence to future generations,
have sunk into utter oblivion, the simple footsteps of animals
that existed thousands, nay, tens of thousands, of years ago,
should remain as fresh and distinct as if yesterday impressed,
even though nearly every other vestige of their existence has
vanished. Nay, still more strange is it, that even the patter-
ing of a shower at that distant period, should have left marks
equally distinct, and registered with infallible certainty the
direction of the wind."*

* Hitchcock's Geology, p. 155.

FIEST MAMMALIA. 143

The terrestrial animals of this period were almost exclu-
sively oviparous, partaking largely of the sauroidal, or lizard-
like type, which latter remark- is even applicable to the birds.
Toward the close of the period, however, an animal appeared
which may be regarded as a transition link between the
oviparous and viviparous. It was an animal of the class Mar-
supialia; in other words, an animal with a pouch, like that of
the opossum, or kangaroo, in which it sheltered and nour-
ished its young for a season after their birth, the same
being yet too feeble and imperfectly developed to endure
exposure to the outer elements. It has hence been remarked
that, " though the young of this animal were born alive, they
were only half born, as it were," and needed a kind of sup-
plementary gestation to fit them for- life in the external
world.

Like the fifth development or member of every other seven-
fold series, therefore, this is characterized by the assumption of
distinctness, or partition, in forms and gradations of forms,
from a state of previous and comparative indistinctness. The
principle of segregation is here distinctly observed, the same
as it was in the fifth stage of the universal creation. Each
one of these forms, being yet transitional and incomplete, is,
as it were, a nucleated point in the previously chaotic materials
and their involved principles ; and therefore the whole devel-
opment, being the second of the Secondary Trinity, has a cer-
tain correspondence to the second of the Primary Trinity,
which was characterized by a nucleation of the materials of
the earth as a whole.

6. The SIXTH stage of the earth's formation was comprised
in the whole period commonly termed the Tertiary and Dilu-
vial periods. It commenced immediately after that remark-
able marine, terrestrial, and atmospheric change which must

144 ORIGIN OF THE EAKTH.

necessarily have accompanied the great Chalk formation, and
closed immediately prior to the commencement of the present
or Alluvial period. It was distinguished from the previous
stage of terrestrial developments, mainly by its lacustrine,
volcanic, and fluvatile conditions, and by the erosive, leveling,
and harmonizing operations which, especially near the close of
the period, occurred on the earth's surface. These conditions
were evidently an improvement upon previous ones. The
earth became more extensively diversified by mountains and
valleys, forests, fields, and running streams. The quantity of
upland and fertile soil was greatly increased ; the atmosphere
was freed from previous pestilential vapors ; the climates were
rendered more salubrious, and all things were more compat-
ible with the existence of higher species in the organic king-
doms. Accordingly, even in the lower strata of this formation,
there are found the remains of animals of decidedly mam-
miferous species. These are of the order Pachydermata
(thick-skinned), and of comparatively low organization. But as
conditions advanced and new strata were deposited, higher
species successively made their appearance, organic life all the
while assuming more analogy to existing types, until, toward
the close of the period, there was, in many instances, an actual
shading off into species which now inhabit the earth. This
latter remark is equally applicable to the vegetable, as it is to
the animal, kingdom.

About the close of this period, there appears to have been
a remarkable fall of atmospheric temperature, accompanied
by a submergence of the greater portion of land in the
northern and temperate regions, in seas filled with floating
icebergs. These icebergs, frequently reaching to the bottom
of the ocean, have scraped along over the earth's surface,
clashed violently against its prominences, torn fragments of

DILUVIAL AGENCY. 145

rock from their original beds, pushed them along before them,
the friction rounding off their angles, and reducing many of
them to sand and pebbles. Sometimes large masses of rock
would get wedged in between, or thrown upon the tops of,
blocks or projections of ice, and would be floated to great dis-
tances and scattered over the country. Boulder rocks which
must have been transported in some such way, have been
identified with rocks "in place"' to which they must have orig-
inally belonged, from a few hundred yards to several hundred
miles to the north of where they were found. Sometimes
boulders of great magnitude have been carried over steep and
high mountains, and are not unfrequently found lodged upon
their summits and scattered over their southern declivities ;
and the long-continued passage of rocky fragments and detri-
tus transported in this way, has worn scratches, and sometimes
deep groves in the mountain rock, all of which have the same
general direction, which is nearly north and south — proving
that such was the general direction of the current. By this
operation, which was evidently long-continued, rugged mount-
ain escarpments were reduced; deep hollows were filled up,
and the face of Nature was made to assume fairer proportions.
In short, the terrestrial structure being generally completed,
this final operation (to illustrate a great thing .by a diminutive
comparison) seems to have been the smoothing and sand-
papering process to which it was subjected, before being
applied to its ultimate and principal use as the habitation of
its future tenant, MAN.

This superficial smootning and rounding of the earth, and
its completion as a habitable globe, being the third member of
the Secondary Trinity of terrestrial developments, manifestly
bears a certain correspondence to the third member of the
Primary Trinity, or the granito-aqueous development, which

13

14:6 OKI GIN OF THE EAKTH.

brought the earth to completeness, considered merely as a
planetary sphere.

7. The SEVENTH terrestrial development, which now ensues,
is that which is going on at the present time. It is character-
ized by sedimentary deposits from existing waters, and by
the oceanic, terrestrial, and atmospheric changes which are now
imperceptibly going on ; and its ushering in was accompanied
by the introduction of MAN, together with most of the animals
and plants of existing species. This, therefore, is the grand
culminating point of all terrestrial creations, and brings the
seven-fold progressive series to a completion. It is the grand
point that was aimed at in the beginning of beginnings, and
the great object the accomplishment of which each inter
mediate movement was intended to subserve ; and now that
it is attained, the previous conflicts of elements — the clashings
of an impetuous nature, as if reaching forward and striving
impatiently for the attainment. of its final destiny, are lulled
into repose. The heavings of the earthquake and the spout-
ings of subterranean fire through the broken strata which were
so devastating in previous ages, have now in a great measure
subsided, or occur only in limited districts and at long inter-
vals. Mountain and plain, forest and field, ocean and atmos-
phere now testify their common satisfaction with the end
which has been gloriously achieved; and man, undisturbed,
proceeds to beautify and adorn the earth, and, with no other
interruptions than such, as are due to his own folly, pursues his
rounds of progress toward a destiny still more glorious and
sublime !

Of course the foregoing remarks in reference to the genesis
of the earth, are to be considered only in the light of a
general survey of the subject to which they relate, and as
being intended merely to establish general principles and

OUE METHOD AND CONCLUSIONS. 147

analogies to be used as aids in discovering or confirming ul-
terior and corresponding truths. Such being our main object,
\ve have abstained from descriptions of non-essential minutiae
which may be found in the geological books. We have, how-
ever, recognized all facts which have any essential bearing on
the subject of our speculations, and by the aid of these facts,
and of the general laws of causation and analogy which govern
them, and necessarily connect them with corresponding ante-
cedents and sequences, we have inferred the 'general nature of
those necessary links of the system which are lost to sensuous
perception. Hence we have commenced with descriptions of
conditions far more primitive than those from which geological
writers in general have started, and by the aid of the corre-
spondences existing between one system of developments and
.another, as exhibited in the law of the seven-fold series, ~we
have endeavored to exhibit the roots of the tree of Geology
as growing upon the soil of Astronomy.

If the whole subject, as thus unfolded^ exhibits a self-sup-
porting and self-proving consistency, it in no small degree
tends to establish the correctness and importance of the method
of reasoning from which it receives its support.

CHAPTEE XIII.

THE GEOLOGICAL AND MOSAIC EEVELATIONS.

ONE of the first thoughts which strikes the mind as it con-
templates the foregoing view of the natural history of our
planet is, that the developments spoken of could have been
accomplished only in periods too vast for human conception.
Admitting that the process of unfolding which finally resulted
in bringing our globe to its present habitable and mature
state, commenced when its materials were all in a state of dif-
fused igneous gas, it is utterly beyond the power of man to
conceive the period which must thence have elapsed before
these materials were so far contracted as to admit of the first
superficial granitic incrustation. But after these untold
myriads of ages had quietly rolled into the depths of the past,
sedimentary materials, which, according to statements of Dr.
John Pye Smith, as the results of careful measurements, must
have had an aggregate thickness of not less than twenty miles,
took place, for the most part quietly, at the bottom of the
ocean. These materials, including the remains of plants and
animals of now extinct species, and whole races of which were
successively brought into being and swept away, were after-
ward slowly consolidated into the form of the existing fossillif-
erous rocks.

As to the number of years or centuries which must have
elapsed during this mighty operation, we have the means of

ANTIQUITY OF OUR GLOBE. 149

making, in our calculations, only a remote and indefinite ap-
proximation. During comparatively short periods of violent
physical revolution, conglomerates and other coarse and indis-
tinctly stratified rocks may, in some instances, have been de-
posited with comparative rapidity. Older rocks were prob-
ably disintegrated by the combined agency of heat and water,
and ground to fragments by volcanic and marine agitation ;
and, by violent currents, probably thus generated, they may
have been carried to lower levels, and sometimes formed thick
deposits in comparatively short periods. But these instances
are only exceptions to the general rule, while far the greater
proportion of the stratified rocks present unmistakable evi-
dence of having been deposited in quiet waters. And these
deposits could not, in general, have accumulated much more
rapidly than similar ones which are going on at the present
time. Now, it is said that the lakes of Scotland shoal, by
sedimentary depositions, only at the rate of about six inches
in a century.* Making all reasonable allowance for the su-
perior activity of early disintegrating and depositing forces,
the period which must have been consumed during the depo-
sition of materials which have formed rocks of twenty miles
in perpendicular thickness, can be estimated only by millions
of years, especially when we take into account the long
periods of super-marine elevation and repose which sometimes
must have intervened between the close of one formation and
the commencement of the succeeding one.

Our conception of the immensity of the periods of these de-
posits is augmented when we consider that beds of rocks
of great thickness, and sometimes whole mountains, many
thousand feet high, are made up almost entirely of sea-shells
and other organic matter — these mountains having originally

* Hitchcock's Geology, p. 163.

150 GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

constituted the sea-beds, from which position they were sub
sequently elevated by subterranean forces. The animals and
plants, whose remains are thus preserved, " must have lived
and died " (says Professor Hitchcock) " on or near the spot
where they are found ; while it was cmly now and then that
there was current enough to drift them any considerable
distance, or break them into fragments ; * * * and frequently
all the shells found in a layer of rock, lie in the same position
which similar shells now assume upon the bottom of ponds,
lakes, and the ocean ; that is, with a particular part of the
shell uppermost."*

Nor will we be astonished at these evidences of the high
antiquity of our globe, when we consider the immense periods
which seem to be consumed in its appointed movements in
space. For if there is any dependence to be placed upon the
observations and mathematical reasonings of Maedler and
others, the whole solar system is rapidly moving around a re-
mote center, in an orbit so vast, that a single revolution can
not be accomplished in less than eighteen millions of years !
Considering this period as the annus magnus, or great year of
our planet and the family of orbs to which it belongs, it may
have accomplished several of these grand revolutions since it
assumed an individual existence, and still be only in the first
years of its existence — an existence which may continue
through as many such revolutions as there are days or hours
'in the ordinary life of man! In fact, in the development of
the plans of an infinite God, who has a whole eternity as his
working period, it may emphatically be said, that " a thousand
years are but as one day."

But these wonderful deductions from scientific facts have

* Hitchcock's Geology, p. 88, 90 ; also, Silliman's Appendix to Bakewell's Geology,
p.5i4.

T BUT IIS MUST II A E M O BT I Z E . 151

given alarm to many theologians, who have considered them
as conflicting with the Mosaic account of creation, as recorded
in the first chapter of Genesis. This account has by them
been considered as circumscribing the period of creation to six
literal days, during which it is supposed, that not only the
earth and all it contains, but the sun and planets, if not even
the fixed stars, were brought into being. They have hence
looked upon the statements and speculations of geologists
with disfavor, supposing that their tendency was to under-
mine the authority of the Bible. The present treatise, there-
fore, would be incomplete were I pass over entirely unnoticed
the question pending between geologists and theologians.
This question, however, I can now only consider in brief, ex-
hibiting merely the general aspects of the controversy as they
appear to me.

But before entering directly into the merits of the question,
I would premise that all truths must be consistent with each
other, whether found in the Bible or in Nature. If, therefore,
there is any conflict unmistakably manifest between the teach-
ings of these two authorities, it inevitably follows that one or
the other must be untrue ; and the untruth is most rationally
predicable of that which is most liable to be tinctured by
human invention.

Now, the system of creation, though subjective and phe-
nomenal when considered in relation to God, is positive and
independent when considered in relation to man. The pages
of the rocky book were inscribed by no human amanuensis,
and contain none of the whims and errors of perverted human
thought. When correctly interpreted, therefore, they are to
be relied on as infallible, and no theological teachings which
contradict them can be considered as the teachings of the
same God who wrote those imperishable pages with his own

152 GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

hand. This consideration forces the conclusion, however re-
luctant we may be to admit it, that that system of theology
which can be thrown into a trepidation by the unfolding of a
fact in nature, and which, in any case, treats with hostility, or
even with disrespect, the positive deductions of science, can
not, thus far, have any counterpart in the mind of that Being
who is the Author alike of nature and of heaven, and of the
one harmonious system of truth which, in various and cor-
responding degrees, pervades and constitutes the life and
law of all things.

True theology, therefore, has no more favors to ask of true
science, than the latter has to ask of the former. Neither one
of these, in any case, is alarmed by, but always rejoices in,
any additional development in the other, because the two are
brothers in affectionate unity, and each one contributes to the
other of its own riches and strength, and neither can languish
without weakening the other in a corresponding degree.

Some theologians, desirous of maintaining their preconceiv-
ed interpretations of the first chapter in Genesis, have argued,
that since it is possible for God to do all things, it was
possible for him, with a single stroke of his omnipotent
power, to create the myriads of sea-shells, the impressions of
plants, and the skeletons of the higher animals, in their pro-
gressive order of superposition, in the rocks, just as we now
find them ! This might be admitted, if it could first be con-
ceived as possible for God to have had a previous will and
purpose in the generation of forms which, in such a case,
would have been, to human conceptions, so evidently useless ;
— and so, with the same qualification, it may be admitted
that God might have created Herculaneum under the beds of
lava, and the Egyptian mummies in their tombs, just as we
now find them : — but to consider it in the least degree probable

PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION. 153

that God actually did do either of these things, would be to
set all analogy at defiance, and to take an everlasting leave
of those guides to truth to which the human mind is largely
indebted for all of its substantial progress. If, however, we
abstain from such a violation of the God-established laws of
our rational nature, we must admit in their full force the
manifest indications of fossilology and lithology, in reference
to the immense periods which must have elapsed during the
genesis of our globe, and of the various and successive races
of living organisms by which it" was tenanted prior to the
introduction of man.

Having the utmost confidence in the inherent strength and
invulnerability of true theology, therefore, we affirm, without
any delicacy or evasion, that if the six days of creation,
spoken of by Moses, mean only six times twenty-four hours
of our time, then the chronology of the stages of creation, as
given by him, is manifestly untrue. But with a perfect
willingness to find the account, true or untrue, as the case
may be, let us examine the account fearlessly and without
reserve, and endeavor to discover its real import.

In order to do justice in our interpretation of any writer's
language, we must, of course, have a due regard to the mean-
ing which context, the nature of the subject, the circumstances,
objects, and personal condition, of the writer, and the modes
of speech prevalent among the class of writers to which he
belongs, conspire to fix upon his language. This rule is so
obviously true, that no candid mind will fail to recognize its
propriety at once. Now, the book of Genesis (as is the case
with other books of the Bible) was written in an age and a
country in which symbolical language was much in vogue. It
also claims, like other sacred books, to have been written by
a spiritually illuminated person, and for spiritual purposes ;

154: GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

»

and, admitting these claims, its peculiar forms of thought and
expression must be admitted to have been governed, to some
extent, by spiritual laws ; and according to these same laws,
therefore, they must be interpreted. Now, one way, and, in
some instances, the only feasible way, of conveying in human
language a deep interior idea is, by presenting it in the verbal
imagery of some familiar exterior fact, which embraces within
itself the identical principle which is involved in such interior
idea. That this rule was observed in all the parabolic, and
much of the prophetic and descriptive language of the Bible,
no one who is familiar with the contents of that book can
deny.

Now, let it be observed, that if Moses himself, through
spiritual or Divine impressions, or any other means, had pos-
sessed any adequate idea of the immense periods which Ge
ology proves to have elapsed between the commencement of
the creation of our globe and the introduction of man upon its
surface, it would have been impossible for him to have con-
veyed to the unenlightened minds of the semi-barbarians of his
age and nation any adequate idea of the actual truth of the
case ; and any attempt to do this, would only have been pro-
ductive of misapprehension, and would probably have gene-
rated some of the wildest forms of superstition. The probability
is, however, that Moses himself had no adequate conception
of the immensity of the actual periods of creation ; and con-
sidering him, according to his claims, as a revelator merely
of what was revealed to. him, this admission may be made
without affecting the truthfulness of the representations which
were by him recorded as he himself received them.

These considerations strongly favor the belief, even a priori,
that any truthful record of the natural history of creation
made in those days, and especially for spiritual purposes, and

155

«

by a spiritual teacher, would have been couched in correspon-
dential and spiritual language, by which the. principles and
spirit of the immense truths more interiorly involved, were
brought into a diminished form of embodiment, and thus
adapted to the rudimentary intellects to which they were ad-
dressed. Now, a "day" involves the principle of, and hence
spiritually means, one complete revolution. But as each com-
plete revolution, whether requiring a long or short period, only
involves the same principle or spirit, why may not the grea-t
revolutions or cycles of operation which comprise the different
periods in our earth's physical history be, in spiritual language,
called so many days 1

That the word " day" is, in the first chapter of Genesis, used
in this spiritual sense, without necessarily signifying any thing
but the principle or spirit of a day (or a complete revolution
of indefinite duration), is further evident from the manner in
which the word is used in many other passages, not only by
Moses, but by other sacred writers. Thus we read in Genesis
ii. 4, 5, " These are the generations of the heavens and the
earth when they were created, in THE DAY that the Lord God
made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field,"
etc. Here the six minor revolutions .or days are comprised in
one grand revolution or day, in the same way as several small
circles or periods may be comprehended in one large one.
The occurrence of the word " day" in this enlarged sense here,
effectually precludes the right of every one to circumscribe its
meaning necessarily to a period of twenty-four hours, as it oc-
curs in the previous chapter in reference to the same subject.

Among the numerous other examples of a similar usage of
the term " day," which may be found in other portions of the
sacred writings, let the following suffice for our present pur-
pose : " And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse which

156 GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

P

shall stand as an ensign of the people ; to it shall the Gentiles
seek : and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to
pass in that DAY, that the Lord shall set His hand again a
second time to recover the remnant of His people." (Isa. xl.
10, 11.) "And it shall come to pass in that DAY, that the
mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow
with milk." (Joel iii. 18.) And Jesus says, "Abraham re-
joiced to see my DAY ; and he saw it, and was glad." (John
viii. 56.) In neither of these passages is it possible to restrict
the meaning of the word " day" to the period of the diurnal
revolution of the earth. In candor, therefore, it must be
acknowledged to be at least extremely probable that the word
" day" is used in an equally enlarged and spiritual sense in the
equally spiritual language of the first chapter of Genesis —
especially as there are so many other facts and circumstances
to corroborate such an interpretation.

Considering the six days of creation, then, as expressing six
periods of very long duration, let us inquire whether the inci-
dents and characteristics of these periods as described by Moses,
bear any similarity to the incidents in the physical history of
our globe, as revealed by geological science ; and whether the
Mosaic classification of periods and operations possesses that
evidence of truthfulness which consists in a conformity to the
law of the three-fold and seven-fold correspondential series.

In a previous general survey, ranging from the origin to the
full maturity of our globe, we have seen that there were seven
grand periods or stages in its development, as there are seven
stages in the development and compartments in the constitu-
tion of all perfect systems. These periods, however, are not
throughout exactly coincident with the periods described by
Moses, inasmuch as the two descriptions embrace subjects
somewhat different. In our general geological survey we have

WOKK OF FIRST DAT. 157

endeavored to unfold the history of the developments of the
earth as such, speaking of the vegetable and animal creations
only incidentally ; while the object of Moses appears to have
been to speak of the successive organization of those outer
forms and conditions with which man is immediately, either
sensibly or spiritually, connected. Hence, Moses passes over
the first two stages of creation, or the chaotic-gaseous and the
nucleated stages, mentioned in our generalization, with the
simple and comprehensive remark, that " In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth," and commences his main
description at an epoch when the earth was probably in a
state of imperfect superficial consolidation, and when much of
the water of the ocean was still diffused, as vapor, in the thick
and turbid atmosphere. The earth is hence described as at
that period " without form and void" — that is, without arrange-
ment, and vacant — " and darkness was upon the face of the
deep." This " darkness" may be conceived to have been a
natural consequence of the state of the atmosphere, which was
probably still so thick as not to be easily distinguishable from
the fluid portions of the earth, and from the water which rested
upon its surface, in which condition it would, of course, have
been completely impervious to the solar rays. The first Di-
vine operation naturally required, therefore, was to produce
changes in, and precipitations from, the aqueous portions of
the atmosphere, such as would admit of the descent of some
degree of solar light to the earth's surface. This operation
is described by Moses, in saying, " The Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters : and God said, Let there be light :
and there was light." This, according to the account, consti-
tuted the work of the first day. And here it may be remarked,
once for all, that the phrase, " the evening and the morning,"
which is used as the standing synonym of the different

14

158 GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

" days" in this account, seems to stand simply for the begin-
ning and close of the different periods — a use of language
similar to that employed by us when we speak of the " eve" or
" morn" of a " new era."

It is said, that " God called the light Day, and the darkness
He called Night." In this passage, the words "day" and
"night" are probably (though not necessarily) used in their
ordinary acceptation, and point to a revolution of the earth on
its axis, and a successive illumination of its sides by the sun.
But owing to the thick atmospheric vapors which still con-
tinued to prevail to a great extent, the sun would doubtless
have still been invisible to a spectator, could such have been
placed upon the earth's surface, and the amount of solar light
that could have penetrated to the earth, was probably much
less than is now received, even through the thickest and dark-
est clouds.

The next work seems to have consisted in producing further
changes and regulations in the atmosphere, by which a more
distinct line of demarcation was established between the waters
intended to be suspended in the air, and those designed to
preserve a more condensed form upon the earth's surface.
Moses, being obliged to make the most of the few words which
his primitive and meager language afforded, describes this
work by saying, " And God said, Let there be a firmament in
the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the
waters." Hebraists tell us that the word "firmament" is a
very improper rendering of the original word, which signifies
simply an expanse or space; " Consequently," (says Dr.
Clarke) " that circumbient space or expansion, separating the
clouds, which are in the higher regions of it, from the seas,
etc., which are below it." During the high temperature of
the earth's surface, which Geology proves to have prevailed in

SECOND AND THIRD DAYS. 159

those early times, there was probably every intermediate gra-
dation between the most dense fluid and the most expanded
vapor, the fluid and aeriform substances having no very
marked line of distinction. While such was the case, the " cir-
cumambient space" supposed, could have had no distinct exist-
ence. A physical change which established the water, at-
mosphere, and aqueous vapor and clouds respectively as
such, was of course the next necessary step in creation's pro-
gress ; and this is all that appears to be alluded to in the passage
before us as constituting the work of the second period or
"day-"

It was probably during the period comprised within this
day, that the transition rocks beneath the coal measures were
deposited. These contain the remains of animals and plants
of low types, which are almost exclusively marine. But to
the creation of these, Moses seems to make no allusion, which
fact will not excite particular surprise, when we consider their
comparative unimportance to the grand object which he had in
view, which was simply to describe how the physical structure
and conditions by which man is more obviously surrounded,
came to exist.

The next work consisted in the partition of land and water
(or the elevation of the former), and the development of ter-
restrial vegetation. " And God said, Let the waters under
the heaven be gathered together, and let the dry land ap-
pear : and it was so. ... And God said, Let the earth bring
forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yield-
ing fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth :
and it was so." This was the work of the third great period
or day, and manifests a surprising agreement with the events
of the period of the great Coal Formation. The universal
prevalence of almost exclusively marine, and the almost total

160 GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

absence of terrestrial, fossils in the previously deposited rocks,
proves that the ocean, up to this time, covered nearly the
whole surface of the earth — which is in exact agreement with
the Mosaic record, which implies that the partition of land and
water was not made until that period. But large areas of land
being then slightly elevated above the level of the waters,
these, as another strong corroboration of the record, were
covered by a profuse vegetation, which subsequently became
converted into the immense beds of mineral coal now found
to be so essential to the physical comfort and social progress
of the human race.

The next work is spoken of by the sacred cosmogonist in
the following terms : " And God said, Let there be lights in
the firmament of heaven, to divide the day from the night ;
and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days an<i
years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the
heaven to give light upon the earth : and it was so. And
God made two great lights : the greater light to rule the day,
and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars
also."

To superficial readers, this passage has seemed exceedingly
paradoxical. The supposition that the sun, moon, and stars,
had no existence until the comparative atom which forms this
earth, had attained to the advanced stage of its development,
previously described, is, with any interpretation of the word
" day," so unphilosophical and unreasonable as to utterly
defy intelligent belief. Criticism, however, has shown that
the translation of the passage before us, does injustice to the
original, which does not necessarily mean that the heavenly
bodies were not created until the fourth day. Professor
Hitchcock, who is a learned theologian as well as geologist,
says, upon this point : " If it be objected that, according to

WORK OF FOUETH DAY. 161

Moses, the sun, moon, and stars were not created till the
fourth day, it may be replied, that a more just interpretation
of his language shows his meaning to be, not that the heavenly
bodies were created on the fourth day, but that they were
then first appointed to serve their present offices ; and that
they might have been in existence through countless ages."

Admitting such to be the true meaning of the passage, we
find, again, that the record marvelously coincides with the
indication of geological facts. In our previous survey of the
natural history of the globe, we saw conclusive evidence that
up to the close of the Coal Period, a nearly uniform tempera-
ture prevailed upon the surface of the earth in all latitudes,
and that there could have been no distinction of warm and
cold seasons. This is evident from the fact, that the rocks
of that period, in all latitudes, contain the fossils of plants and
animals analogous only to those which now flourish between
the tropics. It is manifest that such a state of climate could
not have been governed, in any great degree, by the rays of
the sun, which vary so much as to their intensity, in the dif-
ferent latitudes ; and hence, as remarked in our previous
generalization, the sun's rays, during the Coal and previous
periods, could not yet have penetrated the atmosphere, thick
and heavy as it probably was, in such a way as would have
rendered that luminary visible to a human spectator, had such
an one been then placed upon the earth's surface. For the
same reason the moon and stars must also, during those
periods, have been invisible. Up to that period, therefore,
the heavenly bodies could not have ruled the seasons,
either as to their temperature or their distinct periodical
revolutions; and all the light which could have descended
from them to the earth must have been but dim and in-
distinct.

162 GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

But in preceding pages it was shown, from the peculiar man-
ner in which the impressions of frost-marks, the tracks cf
migratory birds, etc., occurred," during the geological formation
immediately succeeding the Carboniferous Period (viz., the
New Red Sandstone formation), that distinctions of seasons
and climates must then clearly have existed, and hence that
the sun must then have exerted his direct power upon the earth,
which then, as now, varied in its intensity with the different
positions assumed by the earth during its orbitual revolution.
An atmospheric condition which could thus have admitted of a
direct descent of the solar rays, must also have rendered the
moon and stars distinctly visible to such of the earth's tenants
as had eyes to perceive them ; and in these facts we have an
abundant verification of the Mosaic record, as to the work of
the fourth day. It consisted simply in those atmospheric
clarifications by which the sun, moon, and stars were appoint-
ed, or allowed to exercise the office of, ruling the seasons, and
dividing time into distinct periods.

The direct rays of the sun being thus admitted to the
earth's surface, the latter consequently became habitable to
higher orders of living creatures. Accordingly, the next stage
of creation's progress is thus described : " And God said, Let
the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that
hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open
firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and
every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought
forth after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind."
Some of the " moving creatures " here spoken of as introduced
into being, were probably wholly aquatic, and others were of
the lower orders of air-breathing animals. It is remarkable
that the remains of classes of animals here spoken of, first
begin to appear in the New Red Sandstone strata, which is

WORK OF FIFTII DAY. 163

the formation next above the carboniferous system, and which
must have been succeeded, and measurably accompanied by
the clarification of the atmosphere, spoken of as the work of
the previous day. For it is in the Red Sandstone stratifi-
cation that we find the footprints of frogs, tortoises, and birds.
The latter were mainly, as Professor Hitchcock intimates, of
the Grallse family, or the family of waders, and were therefore,
with the former, intimately connected with the water, as the
Mosaic account implies. There can be but little doubt, there-
fore, that these birds were the very " fowl " of which Moses
speaks.

The other part of the work of this period, according to the
common translation, consisted in the creation of "great whales"
etc. This, admitting our definition of the word " day," forms
the only apparent discrepancy between geology and the
sacred cosmogony ; for whales do not appear to have existed
before a somewhat advanced stage of the so-called Tertiary
Formation, and a very long period after this time. But
criticism resolves even this apparent discrepancy into a sur-
prising harmony. Dr. Adam Clarke, who wrote before
geology was much cultivated, and hence without the slightest
idea of making out a harmony between its teachings and the
declarations of Moses, remarks upon the expression in the
passage before us : " Though this is generally understood by
the different versions as signifying whales, yet the original
must be understood, rather as a general than a particular*
term, comprising all great aquatic animals." Now the
marine saurians were " great aquatic animals." These, with
amphibious and terrestrial reptiles of enormous size, came in
during the deposition of the New Red Sandstone, and ex-
tensively characterized the whole so-called Secondary For-
mation. Thus the Mosaic account of the work of the fifth

164: GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

day, or grand period, is also admirably verified by geological
facts.

Animals of the classes just described, both according to
Geology and Moses, preceded the more perfect land animals,
the mammalia, upon the stage of existence. The creation of
these latter is said to have constituted |he first part of the
work of the following, being the sixth day, or period, which is
thus spoken of: " And God said, Let the earth bring forth the
living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and
beast of the earth after his kind : and it was so. And God
made the beast of the earth, and the cattle after their kind,"
etc. The proof of the truth of this portion of the account is
found in the remains of the mammalial quadrupeds of the
Tertiary Period, in the more recent portions of which we have
shown that there was an actual shading off of the animated
tribes into the existing species. Moreover, the work of this
day, or period, both according to Geology and Moses, was
completed by the introduction of Man into being, as the
grand ultimatum of all the creative efforts. Thence, so far as
that great series of unfoldings was concerned, ensued a period
of rest, and the present is that sabattic period.

The candid reader who has attentively followed me through
this investigation, will bear witness that I have made no effort
to explain away, or to change the true aspect of properly
understood facts, in order to make out a correspondence
between the teaching of science and those of Moses, but that
I have labored to simply set forth the facts of the two reve-
lations in their true aspect, leaving them to confirm or refute
each other as they might. The coincidence between the two
revelations, therefore, which, from generals to particulars, has
here appeared so striking, is one for which no human collator
is responsible, as it exists independently and unalterably in

DIVINE ENLIGHTENMENT. 165

the absolute facts of the case. All that is required to exhibit
one revelation as a substantial transcript of the other, is an ad-
mission that the word " day " is used by Moses in the sense
of an indefinite period — a sense in which it is used in scores
of instances in the Bible, and a sense in which Moses unques-
tionably used it in Gen. ii. 4, where, in a more summary
allusion to these same works of creation, he speaks of " THE
DAY that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens."

As it is next to an impossibility to suppose that all these
surprising coincidences could have been a mere work of
chance, the conclusion is scarcely avoidable, that the account
in the first chapter of Genesis, by whomsoever written, must
have originated in a source of intelligence in which a general
knowledge of the whole history of the creation was familiarly
embraced.

It is quite certain, however, that Moses Knew nothing, at
least in an exterior way, about Geology ; for of this science
the whole human race has been ignorant until within the last
century. I apprehend that nothing short of an hypothesis of
a spiritual or Divine enlightenment, will be found adequate to
explain the origin of this biblical and wonderfully accurate
account of creation. Concerning the laws of such enlighten-
ment, some explanations may be submitted in a future work.

I have deemed it useful to show, in this summary manner,
the true bearings of geological science upon the initial revela-
tion of the Bible, partly to correct a tendency which, strange
to say, has been manifested in the modern spiritual mode of
philosophizing, to treat lightly this and other revelations of
the Bible, on account of the supposed " unprogressed " state of
their writers ; partly for the purpose of further illustrating the
fact, that all true theology and other species of doctrine,
whether found in the Bible or elsewhere, must conform to the

166

GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

unavoidable deductions of scientific facts ; and partly for the
purpose of further unfolding that remarkable law of the three-
fold and seven-fold correspondential series, which runs through
all complete systems of truth, and of which the Mosaic gene-
ralization, properly understood, affords a conspicuous example.
That the seven-fold series of creative operations here spoken
of by the sacred writer, exactly conforms to the natural and
Divine law of sereal arrangement which we have heretofore
unfolded, is obvious from the correspondences between the
respective members of its Primary and Secondary Trinities,
which will be perceived by an inspection of the following
juxtaposed columns, and from the characteristics of the rela-
tions which each member of the series, from first to last, ex-
hibits toward the others, which will be found to be the same
which the same members in other serieses respectively bear
toward their associates.

PRIMARY TRINITY.
1st Day. Diffused and rudimental
• Light: ("God said, Let there

be light.")

2nd Day. Atmospneric and terres-
trial distinctions, or more defin-
ite line of demarcation between
condensed and vapory water.
(" Firmament.")

3rd Day. Appearance of dry land
terrestrial vegetation.

SECONDARY TRINITY.
4th Day. Definite solar Light (by
the sun becoming visible.)

5th Day. Higher and first impor-
tant forms of oceanic, terres-
trial, and atmospheric life.
(" Great whales" or aquat-
ic monsters — saurians — and
« fowls.")

6th Day. Ultimate Tenants of
dry land. (Mammalial quadru-
peds and Man.)

7th Day. REST, and Divine habitation in the Ultimate of the creative

labor.

Here the correspondence between the works of the first and
fourth days, or periods, is perceptible at a glance, in that they
consisted of different degrees of illumination of the earth's

COKKESrONDENCES. 167

surface. The correspondence between the works of the second
and fifth days is obvious, but becomes still more marked by
the addition of a few facts which Moses, in his brief survey,
left out, but which are supplied by geological science. The
second day, according to Moses, was characterized by the de-
velopment of more marked distinctions between earth, water,
and atmosphere, expressed by the creation of the " firma-
ment," or the super-terrestrial expanse ; while geology shows
that the fifth day was characterized by the development of a
second degree of similar distinctions, whereby alternations of
climates and seasons, cold and heat, rains, winds, etc., super-
vened. Moreover, the fifth day, according to the biblical
account, was characterized by the development of rudimental
land and aerial animals ; while, according to geology, the
second day, after the incipient creation of light, was further oc-
cupied by the creation of the rudimental marine animals, or
the radiata, articulata, mollusca, and fishes of the so-called
Transition Formation. The creation of these, Moses passes
over in silence, the reason of which may be conceived to con-
sist in their comparative non-importance, and in the fact that
in that unintellectual age, they were not, as facts in nature,
sufficiently conspicuous to excite general inquiry as to their
origin.

Further correspondences are also developed, by the aid of
geological science, between the third and sixth days, but Con-
cerning these I need not particularize.

If the reader will now take the trouble to compare the mem-
bers of this series of creations as described by Moses, with the
members of any seven-fold series of creations or operations
which we have heretofore described, or which we may describe
hereafter, he will find that each member is to its series what
the same member of any other natural seven-fold series is to the

168 GEOLOGY AND MOSES.

other members with which it is associated, and that between this
and all other serieses there is the same correspondence as there
is between any two octaves in music. It is, be it remembered,
upon the fact of this correspondence between the serieses,
whether generally or minutely inspected, that we base bur
conclusion as to the unity of plan which runs through nature,
pointing to an origin in the seven-fold and corresponding
harmonies of the one Infinite God, who, from His own Es-
sence, has projected, from His own Life animates, and, from
His own Wisdom, directs, all things. It is in perfect harmony
with this supposition of a Divine originative and controlling
Power, that Moses, in the simple and untechnical language of
his times, refers the work of each of the successive periods of
creation to a Divine agency, and not to any force of develop-
ment inhering in nature as independent of God.

I may add, that if there actually is a perfect conformity,
from generals to particulars, between the principles involved
in this seven-fold series of operations mentioned by Moses,
and those involved in every other seven-fold natural or
spiritual series, whether it be found in science or in the Bible,
this fact must be considered as strongly confirming, not to
say absolutely demonstrating, our conclusion that there is a
mighty law here involved, and must go far to convince
reasonable skeptics of the truth of, at least, those portions of
the. Biblical revelation which are found to clearly recognize
that law. Yet, from a close inspection of the sacred writings,
it will be found that this law is not only expressly recognized
in numerous instances, but that it runs through the whole
Divine plans of operation, in reference to the human race,
of which the Bible gives an historical and prophetic reflex.

CHAPTEE XIV.

THE MINERAL KINGDOM; OE, KINGDOM OF CHEMICAL
FOEMS.

FROM the terrestrial creation, as a whole, we proceed to a
brief consideration of the general sub-creations which it
"involves. The first of these is the MINERAL KINGDOM.

The Mineral Kingdom, in its most enlarged sense, em-
braces all physical or terrestrial substances, with their various
forms and compounds. Being thus general in its range, it is
hence a comparatively indefinite Kingdom ; and it is for this
reason, I suppose, that I have experienced more embarrass-
ment in reducing it to distinct classifications, than I have in
respect to any other system of being or operation ; and, after
all, I can only pretend to a comparatively close approximation
to correctness in my conclusions. Such an approximation,
embracing the most comprehensive serial arrangement of phy-
sical substances, is that exhibited in the following table :

PRIMARY TRINITY.

1. Primeval gaseous or mundane
chaos.

2. Igneous liquid.

3. Solidified amorphous.

SECONDARY TRINITY.

4. Secondary gaseous or terres-
trial atmosphere.

5. Segregated, embracing rudi-
mental crystalline forms, both
solid and atmospheric.

6. Complete material arrange-

ments and ultimate crystal-
line forms.
7. Governing imponderables.
15

170 THE MINERAL KINGDOM; OR,

If the reader will carefully inspect this table, he will here
find the same harmony of parts, the same correspondence be-
tween Primary and Secondary Trinities, the same order of
relations, and the same principles of serial association, which
he will find in all other natural seven-fold serieses heretofore
exhibited, or hereafter to be exhibited.

But a still more specific classification of mineral or physical
substances embraces all the simple elements, with their
natural compound forms, as known to chemistry — as will be
seen by the following table :

PRIMARY TRINITY.

1. Alkalizable and oxidizable
simples (such as Potassium,
sodium, iron, lead, hydrogen,
etc.)

2. Acidizable simples (such as
sulphur, phosphorus, carbon,
etc.)

3. Flagrators, or alkalizers, acid-
ifiers, and oxidizers* (oxygen

SECONDARY TRINITY

4. Lowest combined forms (such
as alkalies, acids, oxides, sul-
phurets, carburets, etc.)

5. Binary compounds (such as
sulphates, carbonates, etc.)

6. Higher and ultimate com-
pounds.

and chlorine).

7. Pervading and enveloping electroid, or etheroid unit, as a homo-
geneous involution and evolution of all forms.

But the Mineral Kingdom, as commonly contemplated, is
circumscribed to the realm of crystallized forms, and the
amorphous substances from which these immediately proceed.
A theory of a septinary arrangement of the Mineral King-
dom, as viewed in this aspect, might be here submitted, but,
from not having made crystalography a particular branch of
study, I have not sufficient confidence in its conformity to
nattire, and will therefore omit it. Enough, however, has
been said to show that the Mineral Kingdom, in its more
general aspect, conforms to the seven-fold serial and corre-

KINGDOM OF CHEMICAL FORMS. 171

spondential law seen to apply in other cases and nothing is
here discovered to mar, but every thing illustrates, the har-
mony and unity of the great plan of creation. With these
remarks, then, we will proceed to consider the Kingdom of
forms immediately succeeding the mineral, in the order of
development.

CHAPTEE XY.

THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.

THE seven-fold constitution of the Vegetable Kingdom as a
whole, is illustrated by the seven progressive developments in
the growth of a single perfect tree, which consist of 1. The
root, or little appendages thrown out from the germ before the
stem appears ; 2. The simple stem ; 3. The branches ; 4. The
leaves ; 5. The flower-buds ; 6. The blossoms ; and 7. The
fruit. The seven corresponding divisions of vegetable forms
may be traced as follows :

The first and lowest of these consists simply of confused
radical fibers, which do not necessarily appear above the sur-
face of the earth. In constitution, this degree of vegetation is
but little superior to the finest forms of crystallization, from
which it differs principally in respect to its soft and succulent
nature, the frequent curvilinear directions of its fibers, and the
circular forms of their transverse sections. Of this lowest
kind of vegetation, we have examples in the slimy accretions
which occur upon the surfaces of rocks, logs, etc., submerged
in water ; and of which the fibrous underground mould which
occurs in warm wet soil, impregnated with rapidly decompos-
ing matter, constitutes the terrestrial representative.

The second division of vegetable forms is represented by
plants that have a simple stem or shoot projecting above the
earth, but no branches nor leaves. Of these, some of the
simplest species of sea- weeds afford examples.

THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 173

The third division consists of the branching forms of sea
plants, of which the fucoides afford an example.

The fourth division consists of terrestrial herbacea, which
are characterized by fully developed leaves. But the lower
forms of this general division also embrace lichens, mosses,
fungi, etc.

The fifth division consists of arborescent cryptogamia, or
of those perennial plants in which the organs of fructification
are concealed.

The sixth division consists of the arborescent monocotyledon-
ous, or of those flowering trees whose seed has but one lobe ; and

The seventh division consists of the arborescent dicotyledo-
nous, or of those flowering trees whose seeds have two lobes,
and which are the most perfect forms of the vegetable king-
dom.

This comprehensive classification, though new, is in accord-
ance with the general order of succession in vegetable crea-
tions as indicated in fossilology, and is therefore natural.
Each one of these divisions, of course, is subject to sub-classi-
fications, which sometimes run parallel with each other ; but
an herbaceous and arborescent plant which possess the same
number of stamins, pistils, or cotyledons, evidently should not
simply on that account, be placed in absolutely the same class
or order.

That it may the more clearly be perceived that this classifi-
cation conforms to the serial and correspondential law hereto-
fore unfolded, we will reduce it to the following form :

PRIMARY TRINITY. SECONDARY TRINITY

( Marine forms.)

1. Radical fiber.

2. Simple stem,

3. Branching.

( Terrestrial forms. )

4. Terrestrial herbacea (leafing.)

5. Arborescent cryptogamia.

6. Flowering monocotyledonous.

7. Flowering dicotyledonous.

174: THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.

Here it is seen that the first member of the Primary Trin-
ity, the radical fiber or the root principle, so to speak, of
vegetation, has its counterpart and sub-correspondent in the
first member of the Secondary Trinity, in the leafing plants —
leaves being merely aerial roots. The second member of the
Primary Trinity, consisting of plants with a simple stem, has
its counterpart and sub-correspondent in the second member
of the Secondary Trinity — the organs of fructification in the
cryptogamous plants being connected with the leaves, and
being mere shoots from them as from a root. Considering
the cryptogamous plants in the Vegetable Kingdom as a whole,
as corresponding to the flower-buds of a single tree, the third
member of the Secondary Trinity, showing the branchings
from the flower-buds, as from a stem, bears a certain corre-
spondence to the third member of the Primary Trinity, em-
bracing merely the branching forms of vegetation, The seventh
member is not only of a more perfect organic structure, but
it embraces all the more perfect fruit-bearing trees which afford
nourishment to higher kingdoms, and therefore it may be con-
sidered as the crown of the whole Vegetable Kingdom. It is
thus seen that the grand and natural divisions of the Vegeta-
ble World, conform to the septenary and ternary serial law ;
and its complete series will be found, on comparison, to corre-
spond generally and particularly with all other complete series.

CHAPTEE XYI.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

THE Animal Kingdom follows as next in the order of pro-
gression, after the Vegetable Kingdom. Its divisions, in their
regular order of ascension from lowest to highest, and also,
generally speaking, in respect to their successive periods of
development as shown by fossilology, are as follows :

PRIMARY TRINITY.

(Marine forms.}

1. RADIATA (coral insects, crinoi-
dians, star-fishes, medusise,
etc.)

2. ARTICULATA (sea-worrns, trilo-
bites, crabs, lobsters, etc.)

3. VEUTEBRATED FISHES.

SECONDARY TRINITY.
(Terrestrial forms.)

4. REPTILES. (The lower forms
of this division embrace also the
terrestrial mollusca and articu-
lata, such as snails, worms, in-
sects, etc.)

5. BIRDS.

6. MAMMALIA.

7. MAN as a terrestrial being.

IN this table are represented three general divisions of ma-
rine forms, and three general divisions of terrestrial forms.
The first division of marine forms is to its sphere of existence
and to the divisions of marine forms which follow it, what the
first division of terrestrial forms is to its sphere of existence,
and to the divisions which follow it ; and so also the one trine
in its sphere corresponds to the other trine in its sphere, both
in the complex and in the successive divisions of each.

It may be objected to the foregoing classification, that it

176 THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

leaves out one important division of the animal kingdom, viz.,
the Mollusca. To this it may be replied, that the Mollusca,
especially in its lower forms, seem, to he but a higher branch
of the Radiata. Some of the lower or univalve shell-fish
grow in clusters, or united compartments, almost as one ani-
mal, and in this essential characteristic are somewhat allied
to the polipiaria, which comprises one class of the Radiata.
This quality of growing in clusters, or connected compart-
ments, is preserved even by some of the bivalves, such as
muscles, oysters, etc. The detached bivalves, having locomo-
tive powers, seem to be an ascension from these ; and the still
higher orders of mollusca, viz., the gastropoda and cephalo-
poda, seem to be but higher representations of the same sys-
tem of creative design, which, as its lowest expression, evolved
the polipiaria and crinoids.

I have personally observed that the whilk, which is among
the higher orders of shell-fish, propagates through the medium
of a zoophitic, or vegetable-like, form, with an attached stem,
and containing leaf-like appendages or pods, in which the
young are brought to foetal maturity. The Radiata and Mol-
lusca, therefore; may be considered as comprehended in one
general division of the Animal Kingdom, which division, how-
ever, should perhaps be designated by some term of more
comprehensive significance.

It is thus seen, that the Animal Kingdom conforms to the
same serial and correspondential law which we have seen run-
ning through all systems of creation previously contemplated,
and which we will hereafter perceive runs equally through still
higher developments. And with this, as the highest system
of material creation, our more specific classifications of the
grand departments of the universe without us, is completed.

CHAPTEE XVII.

THE WHOLE AND ITS PARTS.

WE have thus ascended, through progressive stages of ob-
servation and induction, from the basis to the apex of the
grand pyramid of outer creation. From the commanding
position to which we have attained, therefore, it is proper to
take a general survey of the ground over which we have
passed, and to observe any general or particular facts which
may thence present themselves, as bearing, favorably or other-
wise, upon the conclusions to which we have been led, or as
reflecting light upon still ulterior truths.

And first, a remark in reference to the method and order
of our previous investigations : It will be remembered that
we commenced with the observation of sensible facts, which
lie upon the exteriors of Nature, and proceeded to trace them
analytically to their elements and originative conditions, and
those to theirs, until we arrived at the primeval and com-
mon chaotic Germ from which all things, by different ramifi-
cations, sprang. The nature and propriety of the reverse pro-
cess which we thence pursued, with the naturalness of the
order of successive results to which it led us, may be illustrated
as follows :

The astronomer discerns in the distant heavens a faint whitish
spot, which he calls a nebula. To the naked eye, it appears
dim, indistinct, and undefined. He applies a telescope of
moderate power, and the outlines of the same object are a

178 THE WHOLE AND ITS PAKTS.

little more defined. With a still larger telescope, it appears
still more definite ; and so he goes on increasing his optical
power, until the same object is resolved into myriads of mi-
nute stars, which appear like particles of diamond dust sprinkled
upon the blue concave. By another increase of power, these
stars are made to exhibit appearances of internal systematic
arrangement. This is as far as the most powerful telescopes
will go ; but suppose that he had the ability to augment his
optical power indefinitely ; each of those stars, which at first
appeared only as a shining point, may soon be made to glow
as a resplendent sun, revealing a multitude of planets swim-
ming in the sea of light by which it is surrounded. He now
singles out one of those planetary globes as the special object
of inspection ; and as, by our imagined possibilities, the visual
power is enhanced through other successive degrees, the
forests, the fields, the streams, the trees, the flowers, and even
the insects, which may exist upon the surface of that planet,
or the animalcules which sport in its stagnant waters, would
successively come into view. Now, be it remarked, that all
these successive particularizations, even down to ultimate mi-
nutiae, are involved in that faint luminous spot, which, as a
most comprehensive general, is first seen by the naked eye in
the remote heavens.

Our process of synthetical investigation has been similar to
that just supposed, we having the advantage of the actual
presence and personal inspection of the minutiae included in
the general subject of our thoughts. With a mental telescope
we have penetrated, not into the distance of space, but into
the corresponding distance of time, and beheld the universe in
the aspect of one common nebulous mass. By following the
natural history of this one general mass through its suc-
cessive approximations to our own period, we have seen it

GENERALS INVOLVE PARTICULARS. 179

successively unfolding solar systems, geological developments,
mineral kingdoms, animal kingdoms, and human races, with
all things which they respectively include. It is to be ob-
served that each of these successive particularizations is based
upon, and was included in, the next preceding general, as all
are based upon, and included in, the all-comprehensive General.

Moreover, that the order in which these particularizations,
Kingdoms, or sub-creations have been brought under review,
is not an order arbitrarily adopted for our own convenience,
but clearly one observed by nature herself, is evident from
the fact, that no two systems or Kingdoms, as arranged in our
series of inquiries, can be transposed. This illustration of the
relations of generals and particulars also clearly shows, that
all truths are but involutions and evolutions of one funda-
mental truth — hence that all truths must bear certain relations
and correspondences to each other, from their origins through-
out their successive ramifications, even to their ultimates;
and that no truth can be fully understood, except in the
general and particular light of all others.

Moreover, if the serial order in which the grand divisions
of nature, as a whole, have been brought under review, is ac-
cording to the order of progressive development observed by
nature herself, the same is generally true of the serial order
of the seven sub-divisions which have been applied to each of
these grand divisions. By a particular review of either of
these classified sub-divisions, the reader will find, for example,
that the first member of the series is naturally germinal, and
that the seventh is naturally ultimate, to all the others ; and
that no two members of the series can be transposed without
deranging the harmony of the whole series. And though we,
of course, claim no absolute exemption from particular errors
and imperfections in the classifications which have been sub-

180 THE WHOLE AND ITS PAKTS.

mitted, it is nevertheless claimed that their manifest general
conformity to nature, together with their ternary relations
and correspondences, involved, after identically the same
general method, in each seven-fold series, clearly reveals the
presence of a grand structural or associative LAW which, in a
corresponding manner, and in different degrees of develop-
ment, governs the numbers, relations, and succession of parts,
in every complete system of natural unfolding. Of this law,
as before repeatedly intimated, the diatonic scale in music,
with its seven notes, is the natural and oral exponent.

Having thus subjected the grand divisions of nature to re-
view, and discovered the application of this principle of serial
and correspondential classification to them all, let us now see
whether the connected and successive creations thus brought
under review, will naturally fall into the form of one grand
System, in which our principles of serial arrangement will be
exemplified. This may be best exhibited by the following
table:

PRIMARY TRINITY.
(Structural.)

1. Firmamental and sidereal uni-
verse.

2. Solar systems.

3. Geological developments.

SECONDARY TRINITY.
(Organic.')

4. System of chemical or com-
prehensive mineralogical ar-
rangements.

5. Vegetable kingdoms

6. Animal kingdoms.

ULTIMATE.

(Intellectual.)

7. HUMAN RACES, as to their merely terrestrial constitutions,
affections, and thoughts.

Not only do we observe in this series a natural order of
succession of parts, which will not admit of addition, retrench-
ment, or transposition, but we also observe the same ternary

PRISMATIC COLORS. 181

relations and correspondences which we have seen are in-
volved in all the series previously examined. Thus the first
member of the series, which is rudimental-s^rwcftm*/, corre-
sponds to the fourth member, which is rudimental-organic ;*
the second member is the transition-structural, and corresponds
to the fifth (the Vegetable Kingdom), which is the transitional-
organic; the third member is the (physically) perfect-structural,
and corresponds to the sixth, which is the perfect organic.
And the seventh is ultimate, exhibiting the perfection and
united sublimation of all — in this respect corresponding to the
seventh member of every other series, even as the first mem-
ber in each series corresponds to the first member in all
others ; the second to the second, etc. The same principles
of serial, septenary, and correspondential classification, thus
apply equally to the generals and the particulars of nature, at
least so far as such particulars have been brought under
review.

But while the respective members of each seven-fold series,
whether on a high or low scale, including the great series of
all serieses, correspond to the same members, as numerically
designated in all other serieses, these correspondences are of
different degrees of directness and intimacy, according to
numerical relations more complicated than those which have
yet been brought into view. This, together with the manner
in which general and particular serial correspondences are
involved in one complete system, may be illustrated partially,'
but sufficiently for our present purpose, by a reference to th0
seven prismatic colors and their involved properties. It i%
found that, by causing each of the seven colors of decomposed

* A crystal possesses a 'kind of molecular life, and has different parts, angles, and
poles, which perform different functions, as shown by Keichenbach ; it may therefore
be considered as an wgamsm, though of the lowest kind.

16

182 THE WHOLE AND ITS PAKTS.

light to pass separately through a second prism, they may be
still further decomposed, and form a secondary iris, in which
each of the seven colors will again be visible. Now the first
or general iris represents the great System of systems, con-
sidered as one, while each included iris represents one of the
sub-systems involved in the latter, and which is also seven-
fold. In other words, the grand seven-fold System of nature
is composed of all its included and subordinate seven-fold
systems, in the same way as the grand iris is composed of
all the elements involved in its included irises, there being
in either case a similar interdependence of parts ; and hence
there is the same unity in the System as a whole, that there
is in each one of its analogous and component sub-systems.
The grand System of nature, and each one of its sub-systems,
then, correspond to each other in the same way as the grand
iris, and each of its included sub-irises correspond to each
other, according to their similar numerical designations. But
while this is the case with the iris and its included sub-irises,
it is evident that one of these latter, based, for example, upon
the general red ray, would bear a different degree of corre-
spondence to other seven-fold divisions of color, from one
that is based generally upon the yellow, blue, or any other
ray ; and the same is true of the great System of nature and
its sub-systems.

It was before shown that each seven-fold system of nature
is accompanied, in its development'and functional operations,
by seven corresponding dynamic agents, and also seven
corresponding laws. It may therefore be said that these
dynamic agents and laws are also, either identically or by
their natural representatives in different degrees of ascension,
subject to the same comprehensive and involved classifications
which we have just seen to apply to their corresponding

AGENTS, LAWS, DEVELOPMENTS

183

outer developments, as presented in the universal Fabric of
Being and its parts. It would, indeed, be difficult to get a
set of terms sufficiently comprehensive, and yet sufficiently
definite, to apply equally to all systems and sub-systems in-
volved in a universal classification; but if the reader will
consider the terms we may employ as being themselves
correspondential, and as expressive merely of general prin-
ciples, he may find the general and particular systems of
nature, in their three-fold relations of Dynamic Agents, Laws,
and Developments, represented, with approximate truthful-
ness, in the following table :

DYNAMIC AGENTS.

1. Heat.

2. Light.

3. Electricity.

4. Organic, or odic

heat.
6. Odic light.

6. Odic aura.

7. Vitality.

LAWS.

DEVELOPMENTS.

Expansion.

Chaos.

Attraction.

Nuclei.

Circulation.

Forms.

Aggregation.

Incipient organism

Segregation.'

Ascended organic

forms.

Sympathy.

Universal association.

Life.

Unity of totality.

Applying the fundamental principles of this classification,
in different degrees, to the universal system, and to all its
sub-systems, we have here a representation of the connection
and harmonial relations of the Whole with the parts, and the
parts with the Whole, of the Macrocosm or the universe
without — corresponding to the connections and relations of
the parts and the whole, of the Microcosm, or the universe
within. Here, then, is erected, "without the noise of the
hammer," that universal Temple before spoken of, whose

184. THE WHOLE AND ITS PABTS.

timbers, hewn by God's own hand, consist of all those fads
and principles which lie in the Realm of Being without us,
and which mere analytical science -necessarily views in ever-
lasting isolation and confusion.

CIIAPTEE XYIII.

DUALISM OF PRODUCTIVE FOEOES; OE, THE DIASTOLE
AND SYSTOLE OF NATUEE.

FOLLOWING link by link the descending chain of analogy,
the conclusion was before arrived at, that in the beginning,
the materials of the universe consisted of one diffuse, chaotic,
or gaseous mass, without distinction of parts, or definite inter-
nal motions. Reasons were also submitted for believing that
these material conditions were not eternal, but that they
originated as emanations or projections of the more exterior
essences of the Divine Personal Constitution. It was shown
that, inasmuch as this whole mass of physical substance thus
originated from Divine spiritual substance, so physical Heat
in this substance originated from Divine spiritual Heat, which
is Love, and that physical Light originated from Divine
spiritual Light, which is Wisdom. It was also shown that
Heat is accompanied with a force or law of Expansion ; and
that from Heat and Light combined, originated the force or
law of Attraction or Contraction. As Divine Love and Wis-
dom (forming a Duality, or productive unity, consisting of
positive or negative, or male and female Principles) constitute
the spiritual Alpha and Omega of all generative forces, so it
is apprehended that their physical counterparts, consisting of
the forces of Expansion and Attraction, may be found to main-
tain an equally fundamental relation to all modifications of
force, law, and operation, existing in the realm of created Being.

186 DUALISM OF FORCES.

If we again glance at the systems and sub-systems of ope-
ration which nature presents, we will find abundant exemplifi-
cations of this fact. Thus, as the forces of Expansion and
Contraction proceeded in their operations in the primeval
chaotic mass, the particles which were by nature fitted to re-
main in an aeriform or ethereal state, and those which were
naturally fitted for aggregation into dense forms, were sepa-
rated. The latter class of particles, by a general assemblage,
first formed the universal nucleus, and then, successively the
nebulous rings, segregated masses, and stellar and planetary
systems. The telescope now reveals these masses of conden-
sible materials apparently in all stages of progress in the
heavens, from the indefinitely formed and irresolvable nebula
to the globular cluster of stars. This latter is the form pecu-
liar to the highest possible degree of cosmical perfection, and,
at the same time, the highest natural degree of cosmical conden-
sation ; and it may hence be supposed to be accompanied with
the highest naturally attainable degree of levity and purity in
the circumambient ether. But these states are ultimate
achievements of the joint and constant action of the fundamen-
tal laws of EXPANSION and CONTRACTION.

We will find, on due consideration, that these same princi-
ples apply also to each creation included in the cosmical,
whether it be organic or inorganic. Thus, in the Mineral
World, the metallic ore that is now segregated into distinct
veins, evidently must have originally existed in diffusion in
the surrounding rock. The particles which originally occupied
the present position of the mineral veins, must have been dis-
persed by a force of expansion (virtually or actually) which was
precisely equivalent to the force of mutual attraction which
brought the metalline particles together in their place. The
same tendency of kindred and originally diffused mineral par-

EXPANSION AND ATTRACTION. 187

tides to draw together into the form of dense masses, is, per-
haps, still more forcibly illustrated by the flint nodules found
in beds of chalk, and which are generally of a more or less
rounded form, evidently indicating an original state of solution
in the surrounding mass, from which they have become con-
densed, as they are now found.

The first forms assumed by the vegetable materials that exist
in the world, were also diffuse and chaotic. Such were the
marine accretions of germinal slime, with their radical fibers,
and subsequent efflorescent, simple, and microscopic stems.
Several gradations of plants as they rise above these, are still
of imperfect exterior forms, of a loose and succulent nature,
and of an internal structure entirely cellular — indicating, as
yet, but small progress in the condensive principle. In these,
however, the whole Vegetable Kingdom as one creation, has
its incipient and rudimental development. Further segrega-
tions and condensations of the vegetative elements are decid-
edly manifested in the subsequently formed terrestrial plants
possessing a vascular tissue and ligneous fiber. But as crea-
tion proceeds, still higher forms, possessing more marked and
widely diversified characteristics, are gradually developed,
until the flowering and dicotyledonous plants of the present
era came into being ; and these show the closest possible con-
nection of congenial, and the most perfect elimination of
heterogeneal vegetable elements. Hence, they exhibit the
ultimate degree of the Condensive and Expansive principle
which can be naturally applied to the Vegetable Kingdom.

In the Animal Kingdom, including the human, the same
principles are distinctly operative ; and this, too, both with
reference to the individual organism, and the whole collection
of living beings. Professor Agassiz, who has investigated the
subject of embryology perhaps more thoroughly than any

188 DUALISM OF FORCES.

other man, tells us, that after the fecundation of the ovum of
any animal, and its division into cells and layers, the organ
of circulation proceeds to its incipient development from the
middle layer of the germ. " First," the blood appears by a
simple process of liquefaction of the cells. It can be seen
under the microscope how the particles, or the cells of that
layer, begin to loose at the outer margin, and to move between
themselves, and to run in particular directions, and to combine
into currents, and those currents to assume particular direc-
tions, before there is a heart, and before there are blood-vessels. It
can be seen in every chicken under so low a magnifying power,
that no one should lose the opportunity of seeing this wonder-
ful sight. When blood corpuscules move from the center toward
the margin of the germ [Expansion], the other cells, which be-
come loose in the periphery of the germ, begin to move toward
the center [Contraction]. In the beginning, there being no cur-
rent circulating, the two collections of fluid meet, and finally
become regular currents, by means of channels through which
the blood runs for a regular circulation*

These fundamental, expansive, contractive, and circulatory
motions are subsidiary to the development of a fourth opera-
tion, by which affinitized particles floating in the circulating
menstruum are brought into conjunction, and deposited in the
form of solid tissues. They are at first aggregated on all
sides of the circulating channels, and form the blood-vessels,
the ramifications of which (says Agassiz) are at first constantly

* Agassiz'a Lectures on Comparative Embryology. Here we have, in the words of
one who wrote without any view to the distinctive philosophy of the present treatise, an
illustration of the successive origins of the laws of Expansion, Contraction, and Circu-
lation. Considering these facts and principles as equally applicable, on a large acale,
to the great fecundated germ or ovwn of the cosmical creation, it will illustrate per-
fectly the incipient process by a prolongation of which the universe received its present
mature form.

PROGRESS OF ORGANIZATION. 189

changing. But one portion of the central vessel soon "becomes
enlarged, and assumes the form of a simple elongated sack.
This, centralizing and expressing in itself the previously diffused
expansive and contractile forces, performs a constant succession
of diastolic and systolic motions, and constitutes the rudi-
ment of the future heart.

Other processions from the blood-vessels form, in like
manner, the rudiments of the alimentary canal, the liver, the
lungs, the brain, etc. These, by a constant rejection (through
the expansive or emanative force) of particles foreign to their
respective and appropriate composition, and as constant an
attraction and appropriation of the particles which they need,
finally arrive at the full maturity of their complex structures,
and together, form the complete living organism. The complete
organism, therefore, manifests the perfection of elimination of
unsuitable substances from each particular organ (which sub-
stances, therefore, go to form other organs to which they are
suitable), and the perfection of condensation or aggregation in
each organ of those substances which are suitable to its own
composition.

The same remarks are, in principle, applicable to the whole
animated creation as to one grand Form. Its first and lowest
development, as shown by fossilology, consisted of polypiaria
and other radiated forms. Now, the polypi of a coral reef
may almost be considered as one extended animal, with little
distinction of parts. The substances and functions of heart,
stomach, lungs, brain, etc., seem to be iuterdifiused and con-
founded with each other in such a way that one portion of the
structure is no more vital than another, and therefore, into
however numerous or small fragments this animal substance
may become divided or subdivided, each fragment, still chaot-
ically embodying in itself all the principles of vitality and

190 DUALISM OF FOECES.

organization, continues to live and grow as a distinct animal.
It, therefore, corresponds to the primitive cellular structure of
the impregnated ova of the higher animals. In the higher
forms of the Radiata, the organs, with their functional opera-
tions, are perceptibly more distinct from each other. In the
Articulata, there is still more definite association of the ele-
ments of organs into their distinct and appropriate forms ; but
this association is still so imperfect, that if the lobster or
crab, for example, loses a claw, it eliminates from other por-
tions of its system elements which form another claw — thus
showing that the claw-principle, so to speak, previously ex-
isted undeveloped, in the other parts of the organism, by a
draft upon which the recuperation is now produced. And so
in each succeeding class in the ascending scale of animal crea-
tions, heart becomes more distinctly heart, brain becomes
more distinctly brain, and all the other organs become corre-
spondingly more distinct and highly developed, and more free
from those particles which properly belong to other organs,
until the perfection of living organization is attained in the
perfected human form, which may be considered as the whole
Animal Kingdom in the aggregate, with something more be-
sides.

And so, reducing these specific subjects of contemplation to
one comprehensive view, it may be said, that in the beginning
the material elements of man, animal, vegetable, mineral,
planet, sun, and firmament, existed in common interdiffusion
in the great, universal, and undistinguishable mass of nebu-
lous matter, in such a way that each part was lost in all other
parts. The great mass, then, formed, as it were, one grand
Polypus, or one grand ovum, corresponding to the ovum of an
animal, and from it, after fecundation, and by means of a con-
stant incubative and superior influence, the ultimate develop-

SP II EKES AND SYMPATHY. 191

ment of the complex system in its mature form, was to arise.
Materials in the primitive and lowest degree of refinement,
draw together according to rudimental affinities, at the same
time evolving their uncondensible elements, and thus form
vast and indefinite nebulous aggregation, with their circum-
ambient ether. Further evolutions and condensations, and
consequent refinements, form, successively, firmaments, suns,
planets, mineral aggregations, plants, animals, and finally the
bodies of human beings — all of which, from first to last, have
directly or indirectly collected and selected their materials
from the great mass of all materials, even as the nodules of
flint, before spoken of as embodied in the strata of chalk, have
collected their component silicious particles from the mass of
surrounding materials in which they must have been originally
diffused !

The fact that, in the process of all formations, there is an
expansion and evolution of uncondensible elements from the
centers of their chaotic materials, as well as a clustering
around central nuclei, of those particles capable of constitut-
ing the tangible structure with its various parts, more fully
illustrates the doctrine heretofore advanced, that all forms
and organisms, from stellar assemblages, individual suns, and
planets, to crystals, vegetables, animals, and human beings,
are surrounded by an aromal counterpart or "sphere." It
will be borne in mind, that it is by the inter-action of these
aromal counter parts, or spheres of different forms and organ-
isms (and which are always expressive of the specific interior
qualities of the latter), that these forms and organisms are
brought into what may be called " magnetic sympathy " with
each other ; and it is by the combined aromal spheres of all
organisms, forms, and systems, that the great inter-active
nerve-aura of the universe, as ont Body, is made up.

192 DUALISM OF FORCES.

The expansions and emanations from centers perpetually
prevalent throughout the whole domain of forms and organ-
isms, may b'e considered as one general diastole ; while the
contractions and precipitations upon centers, likewise univer-
sally prevalent, may be considered as one general systole ;
and these motions, in their more progressed and periodically
alternating forms, are expressed in the secular expansions and
contractions of planetary orbits ; in the oscillations of hea-
venly bodies between their aphelion and perihelion points ; in
the ebbing and flowing of tides ; in the inspirations and ex-
pirations of plants ; in the dilations and contractions of the
human heart; and in the breathings and 'pulsations of
microscopic forms of life, which spoit in a single drop of
water.

In attributing thus much to the laws of Expansion and
Contraction (or Attraction), it is not by any means intended
to supersede the septinary divisions of laws, as presented in
preceding pages. Our object has rather been to show that
these two fundamental laws, being, as it were, male and fe-
male in conjugal unity, are the parents and grandparents of
all other laws. Thus it is from a combination of Expansive
and Contractive movements that the law of Circulation im-
mediately ensues in every portion of the creation, even as the
same ensues in the animal and human systems, from the ex-
pansive and contractile motions of the heart : and as particles
are thus made to flow throughout each system, and are placed
in general intercommunication with other particles, there is
occasion given to the operation of the fourth law, by which
mutually affinitized particles, whether in organic or inorganic
creations, unite together and form the tissues of the perma-
nent physical structure. Thence, after performing their ap-
propriate offices, and undergoing specific refinements, they are

DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM. 193

taken up and re-deposited in higher and more complex masses
or tissues, or excreted entirely from the system, according to
the fifth law — the law of segregation — the same being also ap-
plicable, in different degrees, to each creation ; then by mu-
tual impartations of essences and forces between these masses
or tissues, as necessary parts or organs of the system, a sixth
law is developed — the law of universal sympathy and har-
monial reciprocation. Finally, all these laws and operations,
harmoniously combined, give occasion to the normal manifes-
tation of the seventh and highest law — the law governing the
functions of the complex unity, and in which the principles of
Love and Wisdom, Heat and Light, Expansion and Attrac-
tion, with all their modifications and subordinates, are em-
braced in unitary form.

As these Expansive and Attractive operations are de-
pendent upon physical Heat and Light, and these are ulti-
mately dependent for their generation upon spiritual Heat
and Light, which are conditions of Divine Love and Wisdom,
so it follows that Divine Love and Wisdom pervade nature
co-extensively with Expansive and Attractive forces, and are
the fundamental and essential constituents of the life-principle
which inheres in every form of being. Things live, therefore,
only in proportion to the degree in which they are recipients
of the essences and forms of Divine Love and Wisdom ; and
without these, all things would be dead.

17

CHAPTER XIX.

CIECLES.

IT was before shown that the constant Expansive and
Contractive forces, particularly illustrated in the previous
chapter, call into requisition the law of Circulation, which
gives form to the motion of particles impelled by the
previous forces. By circulation is meant a proceeding from
a given point or condition, and finally returning to the same,
whether the line of progression described by the movement
is mathematically that of an exact circle or not ; as is illus-
trated by the flowing of blood from the heart, through various
channels back again to the heart.

But it is here to be particularly observed that the blood, in
passing from the heart, through various parts of the system
back again to the heart, deposits certain portions of its ele-
ments in various fleshy and osseous tissues along its path.
This example, taken from the functional operations of the
Microcosm, or little universe, serves as a sure index of similar
operations which occur in the various departments of the
Macrocosm, or great universe, and leads to the remark,
that all regularly circulating materials, whether in the human,
the animal, the vegetable, the mineral, the geognostic, or the
astronomical department of creation, impart certain of their
elements to the ambient spaces through which they pass. It
is by the aggregation of such imparted elements that all
regularly developed forms in nature have their being ; and as

CIRCLES. 195

f

it was heretofore shown that all natural movements and de-
velopments observe a regular serial order of successive gra-
dations, it follows, from the law of Circulation, that this serial
order, as applicable to each system or degree of nature, must
exemplify the circle. This idea of the universality of the cir-
cular constitution and movements of things, shall now be
more particularly illustrated by facts.

Extending our observations to the heavenly bodies, we
see circular motion everywhere prevailing. Satellites move
around planets, planets around suns, suns around still greater
suns, and an extension of the analogical chain renders it, as
before shown, extremely probable, not to say certain, that
all secondary bodies in universal space, revolve in common,
around one grand primitive Center and Source of attraction.
If this be the case, then, whatever particular movements the
secondary bodies may have assumed from the development
of forms of internal forces peculiar to themselves, these move-
ments are subordinate to the great material Source of move-
ment, and the forces by which they occur are only repro-
ductions or ascensions, in specific and modified forms, of the
forces which primarily appertain to it.

But as the forces producing these primitive rotatory and
orbitual motions in the universe, are the final source of all
those diversified ramifications of circular movement, which
are manifested by subordinate systems, suns, and planets, so
the orbitual and rotatory motions of planets are the more im-
mediate parents and dependencies of still more diversified and
minute systems of circular development. From the orbitual
motion of the earth, for instance (and the fact also applies to
other planets), results a continually repeated circle of thermal
changes, which mark the various seasons of the year. These
give rise to the various annual series of vegetable and other

196

CIRCLE S.

developments. In the genial heat of spring, the seed that has
sunk into the moist vegetable mould, expands and puts forth
successively the stem, the branches, the leaves, the flower-
buds, the flowers, and the fruit containing seed of the same
species of that from which the plant sprang. Then, as the
frosts of winter begin again to prevail, the life of the plant
becomes extinct; its ripened seeds are scattered upon the
ground, to become the progenitors of other plants of the same
kind, and the materials of the plant also sink to the earth to
replenish the vegetable mould from which they sprang. Thus
the same general condition is again brought about with that
from which the first plant sprang; and the germination,
growth, maturity, and decay of the plant, with the scattering
of its seed upon the earth, exemplifies a complete circle. So
with the putting forth of the foliage, the development of the
blossoms and fruit, and the final hibernation of arborescent
vegetation.

Coincident, also, with the changes of the seasons, are the
periodical awakenings of certain animal instincts, and also the
occurrence of certain conditions in the human, physical, and
mental economy. These changes, occurring, as they do, in
regular serial succession, and always returning to the point
from which they started, exemplify, also, the Circle.

And so, from the alternations of day and night, which, with
their successive hours and moments, mark a diurnal circle of
physical changes, still more minute circles of change ensue,
in the economy of organic beings. Such are the circles of
wakefulness and sleep ; of activity and repose ; of organic
waste and recuperation, with all their intermediate and
transitional stages, whether we apply the remark to the
vegetable, the animal, or the human creation. And it may
even be said that every passage, from one degree or stage to

CIRCLES. . 197

another, in the progress of any complete circle of unfoldings,
involves a circle or system of a minuter kind, until we get
down to the physiological functions of the organism of an
ephemeron, to the circuit of blood and organic deposits in
the system of an anamalcule, or to the orbitual and axial
revolutions of an atom.

It may also be said that the progression from the origin to
the dissolution of any system, or to its passage into another
form, involves the circle; and this is equally true of the
universe as a whole, of its included stellar and solar systems
and individual worlds, and of the further ramifications of crea-
tion, constituting the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human
kingdoms, together with their various genera, species, and in-
dividual forms, respectively.

The minutest of these circles of movement and develop-
ment, are included in, and are, in some sense, dependent
upon, the greater, and those are in like manner included in
and dependent upon, still greater (which, therefore, form
circles of circles), and all are included in the great Circle
which comprehends all movements and developments in the
universe, from its periphery to its center, from the whole
unimaginable vortex of being to a single atom of matter,
and from the very origin to the very end of all material
things.

The close of each comprehensive circle of operations marks
an era, not only in its own history, but also in the history of
its included circles, which are, to some extent, dependent upon
its state for their own specific states. For illustration, the
earth, during a single orbitual revolution, makes, to sense,
three hundred and sixty-five revolutions on its own axis, occa-
sioning the same number of repetitions of the phenomena of
day and night. But these days and nights, or circles of diur-

198 CIECLES.

nal change, vary as to their length, temperature, etc., with the
different stages of progress which are attained in the annual
circle of revolution. But, if the reasonings of Maedler and
others are to be relied upon, the whole Solar System, includ-
ing the earth, is sweeping round a grand common center, which
is so distant, that a single orbitual revolution can not proba-
bly be accomplished in a less period than eighteen millions
of years. As such a revolution will constitute the great year
of the solar system, it is extremely probable that the progress
of this revolution will be marked with changes in ethereal
elements which affect climate and the various circles of organic
creation upon our globe, in a manner analogous to the influ-
ence of the orbitual revolution of the earth, upon the length
and other characteristics of the days and nights, and thence,
also, upon the annual developments in the vegetable and ani-
mal kingdoms. This gradual alteration of the position of the
Solar System in the sidereal spaces, and the elemental changes
consequent thereupon, may of itself be sufficient in the course
of time to work an entire change in the character of organic
life upon our globe ; and still mightier changes in still mightier
periods of time, may be wrought in the whole aspect of crea-
tion, physical and moral, by those inconceivably more stu-
pendous revolutions to which all of these are subordinate.* It
is by the combined influences of all other circles of movement
and creation, that each particular circle is precisely what it is;
and whenever there is any change in the functional operations
of any portion of the grand system of Being, or of any of its
sub-systems, physical, mental, or moral, there is, according to

* Professor Nichol has suggested the idea that the marked changes of climate, and
hence of the organic and other productions of the earth, which occurred during tho
geological periods, may not have been entirely disconnected with the movements of
the solar system through the stellar spaces. (See Nichol's " Architecture of the
Heavens.")

CIECLES. 199

the law of sympathy, necessarily some co-related change in all
circles of operation included in this, however inappreciable to
human conceptions that change may be.

Thus do we see that the great system of universal Nature,
from its most comprehensive outlines as a whole, down to its
infinitessimal parts, is one compact system of co-related
" wheels within wheels," which play harmoniously together, as
the various and mutually dependent parts of a most sublime
and magnificent Machine ! It is a machine, however, which,
notwithstanding its perfection as a machine, is neither abso-
lutely self-propelling, nor can it evolve its appropriate fabrics,
and thus fulfill the designs of its Maker, without the constant
and intelligent superintendence of a superior Power — even the
Power from which it received its origin— as has before been
intimated, and will be more particularly illustrated hereafter.

The general and particular numbers of progressive grada-
tions which extend from beginnings to endings, and thus con-
stitute each known circle of developments, or each known
form of a perfect series, that is inwoven with all others in the
texture of nature, have heretofore been maintained to be
THREE and SEVEN. The reasons for considering these as the
numbers of perfection applicable to every complete system of
being, have been extensively illustrated in foregoing pages, and
need not be repeated in this place.

CHAPTEE XX.

THE DOCTEINE OF DEGBEES.

THE exposition of the serial and circular order of nature's
operations and constituent parts, as given in the foregoing
chapter, prepares us for the more full comprehension of another
doctrine, which is of no less importance than the previous one.
I refer to the truth that each complete system of creation and
operation, from greatest to smallest, together with the whole
realm of being as one System, is resolvable into distinct Degrees,
associated with each other according to a certain definite order
— and that each complete System as one comprehensive De-
gree, is connected, after the same general order, with the one
immediately beneath, and that immediately above it, in the
general scale. This doctrine of Degrees has been constantly
intimated in foregoing discussions ; but its importance as a
general guide to truth, demands for it a more direct and par-
ticular illustration, which shall now be given.

The writer's theory of Degrees was formed mainly from a
direct study of nature, and with but little immediate aid from
human suggestions beyond what was contained in the mere
word " Degrees," as applied to nature's unfoldings ; but when
on the point of placing the present work, containing a chapter
on this subject, in the hands of the printers, my attention was
called by a friend to the teachings of EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
on the same subject. So far as I understand what that cele-
brated philosopher has written upon this theme, I am delighted

THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES. 201

in being able to recognize it not only as entirely true, but highly
interesting and important ; at the same time that I find in it a
confirmation of the principles involved in my previous thoughts
upon the same subject. This, however, is said without the
intention to intimate any opinion as to the truthfulness or un-
truthfulness of the general writings of Swedenborg, concerning
which, indeed, I know comparatively little.

The doctrine of Swedenborg concerning Degrees, is essen-
tially similar to that which I had conceived, the main differ-
ence, aside from his peculiar terminology, consisting in his
exclusive use of the ternary division, whereas I, as a general
rule, use the septinary, as involving the ternary. In Sweden-
borg's writings, however^ I find many features and applications
of this doctrine of which I had not before conceived ; while,
in my own previously embodied thoughts upon this subject,
there were ideas which I have not yet found in Swedenborg. I
am, therefore, induced to so far modify the chapter I had
written on this subject, as to give a general reflex of what is
essential and fundamental in both forms of the conception, in
doing which I shall so far change my own previously adopted
terminology, as to avoid a>confounding of ideas essentially
different, as originating with the Swedish philosopher and my-
self.

Swedenborg makes Degrees of two kinds, viz., continuous
Degrees, or Degrees of latitude, and discreet Degrees, or De
grees of altitude. Continuous Degrees, or Degrees of latitude,
are described as being " like degrees from light to shade, from,
heat to cold, from hard to soft, from gross to subtle, etc."
But Discreet Degrees are described as " entirely different"
from these, in that " they are in the relation of prior, posterior,
and postreme, or of end, cause, and effect. They are called
Discreet Degrees," continues the writer, " because the prior is

202 THE DOCTEINE OF DEGREES.

by itself, the posterior by itself, and the postreme by itself;
but still, taken together, they make a one."

Further illustrations of the same subject are given as fol-
lows: "It is well known by ocular experience, that each
muscle in the human body consists of very minute fibers, and
that these fasciculated, constitute those larger ones, called mov-
ing fibers, and that bundles of these produce the compound
which is called a muscle. It is the same with the nerves : very
small nervous fibers are put together into larger ones, which
appear like filaments, and by a collection of such filaments the
nerve is produced. It is also the same in the other compagi-
nations, confasciculations, and collections of which the organs
and viscera consist; for these are compounds of fibers and
vessels, variously fashioned by similar degrees. The case is
the same also with all and every thing of the Vegetable King-
dom, and with all and every thing of the Mineral Kingdom ;
in wood there is a compagination of filaments in three-fold
order ; in metals and stones there is a conglobation of parts
also in three- fold order. These considerations show the nature
of Discreet Degrees, namely, that one is formed from another,
and by means of the second, a third, or composite ; and that
each Degree is discreet from another."

Inasmuch as the second Degree in any trhie, proceeds from
the first, and the third from the second, it was also taught by
Swedenborg, that " the first Degree is all in all in the subse-
quent degrees ;" and that " the ultimate Degree is the complex,
continent, and basis, of the prior Degrees ;" by which latter
phrase I understand to be meant, that in the ultimate Degree,
all the Degrees receive permanent, potential, and utilized em-
bodiment.

This doctrine of Degrees is extended by Swedenborg to
every department of existence, whether in the physical, moral,

THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES. 203

civil, psychological or spiritual worlds, and even to the infinite
Divine Constitution itself, of which they are the outbirths and
correspondences. He, indeed, maintains that all and every
thing in each form of being, from greatest to smallest, of
which triunity may be predicated, contains Degrees both con-
tinuous and discreet. He maintains that the knowledge of
Discreet Degrees is of the greatest philosophical importance,
and that one who adequately possesses it, will thereby be
enabled to see causes without the previous indications of their
effects, and may even form accurate conclusions respecting
things invisible, to which the same doctrine of, degrees must
necessarily apply.*

Such, then, is the doctrine of Degrees as taught by
Swedenborg. But, though it is true, so far as it goes, I am
not aware that it even claims to be perfect in such a sense
as not to admit into its composition some additional con-
siderations. I do not suppose that Swedenborg himself
meant to convey the idea that each one of his Discreet De-
grees was itself an absolutely simple unity ; and it is highly
probable that if he had been questioned directly on the sub-
ject, he would have admitted that each one of these was
itself of a three-fold constitution, especially as he has ap-
parently carried, the doctrine of the trine down even to in-
finitesimals.

Let Swedenborg's first Discreet Degree, then, stand for
what, in the septinary classifications given in the preceding
pages, has been called the " Primary Trinity ;" let his second
Degree stand for our " Secondary Trinity ;" and let his third,
or ultimate Degree, which he says is the " complex, continent,
and basis of the prior degrees," stand for our seventh division,

* See Swedenborg's " Divine Love and Divine Wisdom," from No. 1T9 to 241.

204 THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES.

which we have constantly, though in other terms, represented
as the complex, continent, and basis of all previous divisions
— and this view without the slightest violence to any essential
doctrine of Swedenborg, will bring the theory of Degrees pre-
cisely into the form in which I had conceived it. I believe
that while Swedenborg himself maintained that triunity was
predicable of all completeness, he also distinctly taught that
the number seven was the common number of completeness.
Consistently with this, then, it would seem that he could
not avoid admitting that the septinity in some way in-
volved the trine — of the truth of which idea a very small
portion of the existing evidence is spread through the fore-
going pages.

The doctrine of Degrees of altitude, then, in the light of
principles heretofore established, and which doubtless Sweden-
borg himself would have admitted, may be presented in the
following modified form :

Let each component gradation in the seven-fold series be
called an Elemental Degree.

Let each Trinity of Elemental Degrees (the Primary and
Secondary Trinities, as distinguished in foregoing pages) be
called a Discreet Degree ; and

Let each seven-fold series, as a whole, be called a Complete
Degree. We have thus Elemental Degrees, Discreet De-
grees, and Complete Degrees.

For example, let the Mineral Kingdom be considered as
one Complete Degree, the Vegetable Kingdom as another,
and the Animal Kingdom as another ; while each Trinity of
developments in each of those Kingdoms, as before repre-
sented, is considered as a Discreet Degree, and each member
of each of those Trinities is considered as an Elemental De-
gree; and the whole theory of Degrees of altitude will

THE DOCTKINE OF DEGREES. 205

appear iii a general and particular form of embodiment that
will be intelligible to most minds.

Each Complete Degree, viewed in this light, will appear
connected with the contiguous Complete Degree, in the same
way as each Discreet Degree is connected with its contiguous
Discreet Degree, and as each Elemental Degree is connected
with its contiguous Elemental Degree ; so that Nature, as a
whole, will exhibit the same ascending order of Complete De-
grees (or systems) that is exhibited by the Elemental Degrees
composing any seven-fold series. I can not avoid the thought
that this classification of Degrees, duly understood, would
present a new and important aid to a proper comprehension
of the ensemble, as well as the particulars of nature, with
her forces, modes of operation, and mutual relations of
parts.

In view of the circular constitution and order of procession
of each system of being, as illustrated in the chapter im-
mediately preceding this, we are prepared to further remark,
that Degrees of altitude of each of these kinds, result from a
spiral uprising, so to speak, of the circle of development, by
which the first Elemental Degree ascends to the altitude of the
second, the second to the third, and so on ; or by which the first
Discreet Degree progressively rises to the altitude of the
second, and the second to the third, and by which one whole
circle of "developments, in being completed, thus forming a
Complete Degree, passes out into another and higher circle or
Complete Degree. For example, one octave in music, which
may be considered as a series of Elemental Degrees of sound,
forms one Complete Degree of sound, and each other octave
forms another Complete Degree, superior or inferior to it, ac-
cording as it is above or below it ; and a similar remark is
applicable to the Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal Kingdoms,

18

206 THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES.

before referred to as contiguous and Complete Degrees of
creation, the higher of which arise, in some sense of the term
" progression," out of the lower.

Of these latter Kingdoms it may be said, that they are all
in accord with each other, as different octaves in music having
the same key-note. In other words, each Complete Degree,
Circle, or Kingdom, seems to be, member by member, an ex-
act counterpart of the others, on a higher or lower scale ; and
this may be said of many other Complete Degrees. A Com-
plete Degree, however, may take its rise any where along the
circle of an antecedent Degree, in the same way as any note
in an octave may be taken as the initial note of another and
independent octave. For example, it was shown in pre-
ceding pages, that the seven-fold series of outer terrestrial
developments, as mentioned by Moses, commenced upon the
basis of the third development in the comprehensive geognos-
tic series, which had been before described; and many
more examples of a similar kind might be given were it
necessary. But however the key-notes of different octaves
(or Complete Degrees) of natural developments may differ,
the octaves themselves all contain the same number of parts,
which have similar relations to each other, and occur in the
same order of succession ; and therefore all are governed by
the same serial and gradational law.

The doctrine of Degrees might receive a much more ex-
tended illustration and application than is exhibited above,
but as our object should first be to establish general prin-
ciples, the foregoing must suffice for the present. Owing to
its novelty and somewhat abstruse nature, this doctrine
may, to the ordinary reader, be at first somewhat difficult
of full comprehension; but I can confidently assure him,
that if, by the little perseverance of mental effort that will

THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES. 207

be required, he succeeds in mastering it, he will find that
it will greatly simplify and facilitate investigation in every
other department of thought, whether in physics, psychology,
theology, or as relating to any of their numerous cognate
subjects.

CHAPTEE XXI.

THE DOCTRINE OF CORRESPONDENCES.

As a natural sequence of the doctrines of Serial Circles, and
of Degrees, as presented in the foregoing pages, arises that
doctrine of CORRESPONDENCES which has been the guide to so
many important conclusions set forth in this work. All per-
fect Series, Circles, or complete Degrees involved in the sys-
tem of creation, must, of course, proceed from the same final
Cause ; and as they must thus correspond to the common final
Cause, they must hence, in some way, correspond to each
other. Moreover, every complete Degree in the character of
a Circle, necessarily involves the same principles of constitu-
tion with all other Circles, and therefore must, in the general
sense, correspond to all others, whether they be on a higher or
lower scale. And as each circle consists of the same number
of parts, which occur in the same order of sequence and rela-
tions, so each part of any circle corresponds, in the general
sense, to the similarly disposed parts of all other circles.
Thus it is, that if we acquaint ourselves thoroughly with the
characteristics and interior principles of any complete circle
or Degree in nature, we may, in a general way, make it the
exponent of all other circles or complete Degrees. But in
order to pursue this correspond ential method of investigation
to the best advantage, and with the most accurate results in
the way of eliciting truth, we must, of course, have a due re-
gard to the relative positions in the whole grand scale or

CORRESPONDENCES. 209

Circle of creation, occupied by the two circles which are the
special terms of comparison, and to the peculiarities of quality
and development incident to their respective positions.

The comparison exhibited in foregoing pages, between Pri-
mary and Secondary Trinities, or Discreet Degrees, as they
were subsequently called, shows that there exists also a gene-
ral and particular correspondence between them ; but this cor-
respondence is not so perfect as that which exists, generally
and particularly, between the Complete Degrees or Octaves of
natural unfolding.

It may, moreover, be said that any two creations, forms, or
developments, which involve the same principles of constitu-
tion and operation, correspond to each other, however various
may be the specific departments of existence in which they
may be found. An identity of principles, indeed, is the essen-
tial basis of correspondence between higher and lower, or be-
tween ulterior and prior developments ; and in the light of this
fact, all forms and developments in the material and exterior
world may be seen to correspond even to things of a spiritual
nature ; and things of a spiritual nature may, on the other
hand, be seen to correspond to them. Indeed, if the science
of Correspondences were duly developed, nature would ap-
pear as if invested with ten thousand tongues, which would
continually be vocal with instruction. Every kingdom and
form ; every shrub and tree ; every leaf and flower ; every
insect, beast, and bird ; nay, every point of compass and angle
of direction from any given point, and every curve, circle,
spiral, or other mathematical figure, would speak a distinct
language, and discourse of a separate truth ; and the whole
grand system of Nature as One, would continually discourse
of its Infinite Divine Author, of whose creative Wisdom and
Love it is but an outer expression and correspondent !

210 CORRESPONDENCES.

The doctrines of Series, Circles, Degrees, and correspond-
ences, therefore, if properly developed and understood, would
be the most efficient of all possible aids to the discovery of
that grand system of general truth whose millions of parts are
all harmonious, mutually explanatory, and corroborative, of
each other. Let the leading minds of the age, then, bestow
due attention upon the development of these principles of in-
vestigation ; and in proportion as they are comprehended and
applied in the world, the conflicts of the various parties in
philosophy, theology, and even politics, will be swallowed up
in one grand and harmonious system of thought, the creden-
tials of whose truthfulness will be borne upon its very face, to
be seen and read of all men. With the aid of such a system,
properly unfolded, even the child might set out on its course
of progression, with the unadulterated truth, and even the
whole truth — which, though at first in a diminished form of
representation, and involved in comprehensive generals, would,
as the mind expanded, gradually magnify, and regularly and
harmoniously unfold into particulars, for ever and ever. The
harmony of thoughts thus brought about in the world, wrould,
in proportion to its degree, be necessarily accompanied with a
more intimate and spiritual conjunction with the Divine
Source of all harmony, from the perpetual inflowings of whose
Love and Wisdom, all the movements of human society, in
common with the movements of those planetary and celestial
spheres which now, without reservation, own the Divine sway,
would proceed without a jar, or a single note of discord. This
would be the long-looked fbr, and long-prayed for, reign of
God upon earth !

CHAPTER XXII.

THE DOCTEINE OF PEOGBESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.

ONE important object of this treatise, as doubtless has been
observed, is to exhibit the connection of nature with her in-
terior, producing Cause, and pervading Life-force. The reader
who has attentively followed us in the previous discussions
having a bearing upon this subject, has observed that our
philosophy has uniformly tended to the idea of an intelligent,
voluntative DIVINE AGENCY, as concerned in the origin and
government of the outer system of things. But as our object
should be to discover truth for the sake of truth, irrespective
of its character or consequences, it would be manifestly in-
consistent to ignore any facts or manifest principles of nature
which have been thought by any party in philosophy to
militate against conclusions such as those exhibited in our
previous reasonings. As the next natural step t beyond the
foregoing investigations, therefore, we proceed to briefly
notice the merits of a pending controversy, embracing, sub-
stantially, the questions, whether the system of nature is the
result of the operation of an inherent force or law of progressive
development ? or whether it is the result of a series of special
and independent exertions of Divine Power, with little or nn
regard to law ? Though these questions suggest two opposite
views, neither of which we are able to adopt without some
important qualifications, it is proper that they should here be
exhibited, together with the main features of the discussions

212 PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.

f

they have engendered, in the form in which they have ex-
tensively occupied the minds of philosophers and theo-
logians of late years; and it may be, that in the light
developed by their conflicting affirmative and negative
arguments, a true modi/led theory will be brought into
view.

A few years ago there was published an anonymous work,
entitled, " VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OP CREATION,"
in which the idea that creation is the natural result of the
operation of certain fixed laws, is ingeniously maintained.
Though the author of that work does not reject the idea of a
remote, he rejects that of an immediate, Divine Agency, as
concerned in the generation and government of the outer
forms of nature; and as his positions, viewed in one light,
present, unintentionally, perhaps, on his part, a condensed
synopsis of the whole groundwork of the pantheistic and
materialistic philosophy, it is proper that they should here
be summarily exhibited.

Assuming the correctness of the nebular theory of cosmical
creations (after epitomizing, in a cogent and felicitous manner,
the prominent points of evidence on which this theory is
based), the author urges this theory as exhibiting a succession
of law-governed changes, by which primordial matter was
resolved into stellar systems, solar systems, and planets, with
all their present general and particular movements in space.
The facts in Chemistry and Geology are then considered, as
showing that the present structure and physical arrangements
of our globe (together with all similar globes in space)
originated, probably, from laws governing solid, fluid, and
vaporiform substances.

The progressive and law-determined development, also, of
organic beings, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms,

VESTIGES OF CREATION. 213

with man at their head, is then maintained by arguments,
of the more important of which, the following is a brief
synopsis.

1. "We have seen powerful evidence," says the author,
" that the construction of this globe and its associates, and
inferentially that of all the other globes of space, was the
result, not of any immediate or personal exertion on the part
of the Deity, but of natural laws, which are the expressions
of his will. What is to hinder our supposing that the organic
creation is also the result of natural laws, which are in like
manner an expression of his will 1 More than this, the fact
of cosmical arrangements being the effect of natural law, is a
powerful argument for the organic arrangements being so like-
wise; for how can we suppose that the august Being who
brought all these countless worlds into form by the simple
establishment of a natural principle, flowing from his mind,
was to interfere personally and specially on every occasion
when a new shell-fish or reptile was to be introduced into
existence on one of these worlds'?" The writer further argues
that, " to a reasonable mind, the Divine attributes must ap-
pear, not diminished or reduced in any way, but infinitely
exalted, by supposing a creation by law."

2. The writer submits that the progressive succession of
organic beings, as revealed in fossilology, by which the lower
and moret simple forms, as a general rule, precede the higher
and more complex, is in perfect harmony with the hypothesis
of development by law; whereas, on the supposition of
special Divine exertions, it might be supposed that there
would have been many specialities of Divine creation, as
essentially modifying the existing order of things.

3. Particular facts and analogies, as connected with the or-
ganic kingdoms, seem to hint that forces are lodged in nature

214: PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.

from which the simpler species in the vegetable and animal
world may, under certain circumstances, derive their origin.
Reference is made to the vegetable-like forms of frost on the
window, and to the shrub-like form of crystallization known
to chemistry as the Arbor Diance — also to the vegetable-like
forms of some of the ordinary appearances of the electric
fluid ; and from these phenomena the writer argues the prob-
ability that electricity is largely concerned in the origination
and growth, not only of crystals, but of plants, which assume
forms according to specific generative and other conditions.
Moreover, the growth of certain plants for which no seeds
were sown, and in situations where it is next to impossible
that such seeds could have existed, is thought to add proba-
bility to the theory of a possible spontaneous germination of
vegetable forms without the ordinary seminal mode of origi-
nation— pfovided such changes are suddenly made in the in-
gredients and conditions of a soil as are favorable to the
development of organic from inorganic forms. The author
also mentions the singular facts that oats cropped down so as
to prolong the period of their growth, have been known to
progress, by regular transmutation, into the form of rye ; and
that the cabbage is known to be, in its native state, a trailing
sea-side plant, totally different from the plant in its cultivated
form. These latter facts, with others, are thought to strongly
support the theory of a transmutation of species from lower
to higher forms.

4. The formation of entozoa, *or animals within animals,
where their eggs could not possibly have been deposited, is
thought to argue powerfully for the independent generation of
the lower animal forms, when certain conditions obtain that are
favorable. This argument is thought to be strengthened by
the fact that insects of a low species (the acarus) were repeat-

RUDIMENTARY ORGANS. 215

edly produced in abundance, apparently solely by galvanic
processes instituted by Messrs. Crosse and Weekes ; and in
one instance, a growth of fungi of a beautiful and previously
unknown species, was produced by the last named gentleman,
by the same process.*

5. Particular features of animal organization, which are ap-
parently useless and incidental, are also adduced in support
of the same theory of law-development. Thus female animals
of many species have certain organs which are necessary to
their sex ; while the same organs exist rudimentally in the
males, to whom they are not necessary. " For example," says
the writer, " the mammae of the human female, by whom
these organs are obviously required, also exist in the male,
who has no occasion for them. It might be supposed that in
this case there was a regard to uniformity for mere appear-
ance sake ; but that no such principle is concerned, appears
from a much more remarkable instance connected with the
marsupial animals. The female of that tribe has a process of
bone advancing from the pubes, for the support of her pouch ;
and this also appears in the male marsupial, who has no pouch,
and requires none." Other animals, and especially among
those which form links between lower and higher orders in the
scale of development, have the rudiments of organs, to them
unnecessary, but which were necessary to animals beneath
them in thev scale ; but of facts of this kind I need not give
further details. These abortive and rudimentary organs, ex-

* These alleged results of the experiments of Messrs. Crosse and Weekes, were at first
almost universally scouted as absurd and impossible ; but subsequent repeated experi-
ments, performed during several years, seem to leave no doubt of their reality. I
perceive by a late communication, published in the newspapers, from Mr. F. F. Ogden,
United States Consul at Liverpool, that that gentleman has recently visited the labora-
tory of Mr. Crosse, and became entirely convinced of the truth of the wonderful repre-
sentations concerning this newly produced insect.

216 PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.

isting where they are not necessary, must, it is thought, be
regarded as blemishes and blunders, on the supposition that
the beings who possess them were created independently and
by special exertion ; but they are considered as precisely what
might have been expected on the supposition that creation has
proceeded through her various ramifications and transitional
stages, according to the energizing and directing influence of a
uniform law of development.

In further illustration and support of the theory of progres-
sive development, the writer quotes the following startling
passage from Fletcher's Rudiments of Physiology, in which it
is shown that the general forms, and the order of succession,
of the developments in the animal kingdom, are represented
by the general forms, and the order of succession, of the de-
velopments of the human foetus. "It is a fact" (says Dr.
Fletcher), " of the highest interest and moment that, as the
brain of every tribe of animals appears to pass, during its de-
velopment, in succession through the types of all those below
it, so the brain of man passes through the types of those of
every tribe in the creation. It represents, accordingly, before
the second month of uterogestation, that of an avertebrated
animal ; at the second month, that of an osseous fish ; at the
third, that of a turtle ; at the fourth, that of a bird ; at the
fifth, that of one of the rodentia ; at the sixth, that of one of
the ruminantia ; at the seventh, that of one of the digitagrada ;
at the eighth, that of one of the quadrumana ; till, at length, at
the ninth, it compasses the brain of man. It is hardly neces-
sary to say," continues the writer, " that all this is only an
approximation to the truth ; since neither is the brain of all
osseous fishes, of all turtles, of all birds, nor of all the species
of any of the above order of mammals, by any means precisely
the same ; nor does the brain of the human foetus at any time

THEOKY OF ORGANIC ASCENSION. 217

precisely resemble, perhaps, that of any individual whatever
among the lower animals. Nevertheless, it may be said to
represent, at each of the above-mentioned periods, the aggre-
gate, as it were, of the brains of each of the tribes stated."

Although these facts were stated by Dr. Fletcher without
any view to the support of the development-hypothesis now
under consideration, it is remarkable that the series of animal
forms which he here traces as representing the series of suc-
cessive human fo3tal developments, is the very series which, in
the same order of succession, made their appearance on the
globe during the depositions of the fossiliferous rocks from the
earliest to the latest.

The foregoing are the principal arguments, fortified by many
minor facts and considerations, from which the author of the
" Vestiges" concludes that the whole system of creation, with
all its diversified forms, inanimate and animate, from its first
to its last stage of unfolding, was brought forth under the
operation of one grand law of progressive development, by
which " the simplest and most primitive type gave birth to the
type next above it," by which " this, again, produced the next
higher, and so on to the very highest, the stages of advance
being in all cases very small — namely, from one species only
to another, so that the phenomenon has always been of a
simple and modest character." He considers that after the
production of the first and lowest animal form, the higher
type was, in all cases, produced from the lower, according to
the ordinary process of generation, and that its superiority to
its parent was, in each instance, owing to a prolongation of
the process of utero-gestation, aided by new and favorable
circumstances, by which the form next superior to the parent,
in the pre-ordained animal scale, was attained. A similar
principle of transmutation was applied also to the Vegetable

19

218 PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.

Kingdom, by which it was thought that higher forms ascended
from lower, until the highest were attained.

A theory so novel and startling as the foregoing, did not, of
course, escape the most vigorous opposition from adherents
of prevailing theories in philosophy and theology. This oppo-
sition was specially inspirited by the alarm which was taken
by the dominant theology, which considered the theory in
question as a bold invasion of her assumed prerogative as
a generally unquestionable guide in matters of religious faith.
The main features of this opposition (which, we think, was
partly just and partly unjust) require here to be briefly repre-
sented, together with the essential points of argument in the
rejoinder which the opposition called forth from the author
of the " Vestiges."

The book in question was charged with a " direct tendency
to expel the Almighty from the universe which He has made
— to degrade the god-like race to whom He has intrusted the
development and appreciation of His power, and to render the
revelation of His will an incredible superstition ;" and, prob-
ably with quite as strong a desire to neutralize this alleged
tendency considered in the abstract, as to develop truth
regardless of its consequences, its essential idea was pro-
nounced " an opinion which has not a single fact in its favor —
which stands in direct opposition to all the analogies of nature
— which is repugnant to the best feelings of mankind, and
subversive of all our most cherished convictions — a fraud com-
mitted upon the reason, and an insult cast upon the dignity of
our species."*

The zeal of the prominent opposers of this work, and their

* North British Keview for July, 1845.

NEBULAE THEORY OPPOSED. 219

devotion to the one grand object of putting it down, as indi-
cated in these and similar denunciatory expressions, may, in
some instances, have caused them to unconsciously magnify
the seeming evidences against the theory it propounded, and
as unconsciously to underrate any real evidence which may
exist in its favor. Candor requires, therefore, that we should
look at the merits of this, as well as of all controversies of a
similar nature, aside from all mere denunciation such as novel
theories, true or false, are ever apt to provoke — and in the
light of the plain facts and arguments which bear upon the
case, by whichsoever party these may be urged.

The nebular hypothesis of cosmical creations urged by the
author of the " Vestiges," as the initial portion of the univer-
sal system of creation supposed by him to be unfolded by
law, was objected to mainly on the ground that the Earl of
Rosse's telescope had succeeded in resolving into stars certain
nebula which were before considered irresolvable, and in con-
siderably changing the apparent form and outlines of others,
which had previously appeared such as to countenance the idea
of agglomerating and rotating masses. In view of such
" unequivocal facts," one principal reviewer regards it as a
" most unwarrantable assumption to suppose that there are in
the heavenly spaces any masses of matter different from solid
bodies composing planetary systems." To this our author
replies that the resolution of a great quantity of previously
unresolved nebulae, by Lord Rosse's telescope, " was, of course,
to be expected, and it is a fact, though in itself interesting, of
no consequence to the nebular hypothesis." There are still
many nebula which even the stupendous powers of Lord
Rosse's instrument do not sensibly affect, and which probably
no increase of optical power ever to be attained by human
science or art, would be adequate to resolve. But the present

220 PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.

position of the nebular theory in respect to its philosophical
credibility, is more fully represented in a previous portion of
this work.

The theory of progressive succession in the organic king-
doms, as advocated by the " Vestiges," is disputed mainly on
the following grounds : First, that fishes of a high organization
occur (as it is said) in the oldest of the fossiliferous rocks ;
secondly, that in several instances the passage from a lower to
a higher system of rocks, is accompanied by an abrupt and
entire transition in the organic kingdoms, exhibiting none of
the links of progressive gradation which the theory of the
" Vestiges" supposes to exist ; and thirdly, that in some in-
stances several widely different and previously unknown
species seem to have been introduced at about the same epoch,
with apparently no links of connection between them.

To the allegation that fishes of a high organization occur in
the oldest of the fossiliferous rocks, the author of the " Ves-
tiges," in his sequel to that work, replies by quotations from
geologists, showing a discrepancy in their statements upon this
point, which, however, he shows may be explained by the fact,
that since the statements of some of them were put forth, " the
lower fossiliferous rocks have been divided into several dis-
tinct formations, in the lowest of which it is fully admitted
there are no vertebrata. He, moreover, argues that the
cephalopoda and gasteropoda, mollusks of a high organization,
whose remains are found in the oldest series of fossiliferous
rocks, might, as transmuted species, have come in soon after
the commencement of the formation of those rocks, as owing
to a " rapidity of generation " and " rush of life," which is
sometimes characteristic of certain of the lower orders of
animals.

In answer to the argument which negatives the idea of

OBSERVATIONS GENERALIZED. 221

4

connecting links between lower and higher species, and be-
tween widely dissimilar species existing in the same system
of deposits, he generalizes the field of geological observation,
and finds particular systems, both of rocks and their con-
tained fossils, more fully and particularly represented in some
localities than others. By the facts which he develops in this
branch of the discussion, he succeeds in materially weakening,
though perhaps not entirely disproving, the assumptions of his
opponents, that the character of organic life has been subject
to frequent abrupt and entire changes. He considers it prob-
able, moreover, that " development has not proceeded, as
usually assumed, upon a single line, which would require all
the animals to be placed one after another, but in a plurality
of lines, in which the orders, and even minuter subdivisions
of each class are ranged side by side ;" and he argues that
" the development of these various lines has proceeded inde-
pendently in various regions of the earth, so as to lead to •
forms not everywhere so like as to fall within our ideas
of specific character, but generally, or in some more vague
degree, alike."

Upon the whole,. the author reasserts his main position with
so much force and ingenuity, and brings to it such an accession
of evidence from the testimonies of geologists and naturalists,
as apparently to render the general onslaught of his opponents,
for the most part, a failure; and perhaps it would not be
unfair to consider their subsequent silence as, in some degree,
a tacit admission of this fact.

Though the author of the " Vestiges" acknowledges that
God is, in some sense, ever present with his creation, and
supports and rules it by his Providence, he admits this merely
as the intimation of an internal sense or feeling, for which he
does not pretend to have any philosophy. But in the absence

222 PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT.

of such a philosophy, those who have not this internal feeling
of the presence and overruling Providence of God (as many
have not), very naturally employ the whole force of facts and
arguments, such as^have a very thorough development in the
book referred to, in support of the idea that nature develops
all her forms and phenomena, by an inherent force of her own,
independent of any superior influence, as received from a
Source without herself. Such theories can, of course, be suc-
cessfully met only by the weapons of a cogent and well-
grounded philosophy, as relating to the matters in dispute ;
but as such a philosophy does not yet prevail, to any extent,
in the world, it hence follows, as a fact much to be lamented,
that faith in God and his overruling and universal Providences,
is, to a large extent, at the mercy of pantheistic and material-
istic philosophies. Such philosophies are hence continually
growing more rife and rampant ; and when those who know
for themselves, from intuition, that there is a God ever present
with, and ever ruling, the affairs of creation, find themselves in-
competent to meet the arguments for the opposing views, they
are apt to grow impatient, and to descend to mere ridicule
and denunciation, and sometimes even to misrepresentation —
a mode of treatment which seldom fails to excite the con-
tempt of those toward whom it is aimed, and even to confirm
them in their anti-religious theories.

Common sense should teach every one that it is worse than
useless — nay, perverse and wicked — to close his eyes to plain
facts in nature, whatever may be their apparent theological or
philosophical bearings ; and whoever would do such an act, is
plainly not so much devoted to the furtherance of truth as he
is to the maintenance of his own opinions. Looking fully in
the face, therefore, as in duty bound to do, all the clearly
established facts exhibited by. the "Vestiges of Creation," as

DISCREPANCIES TO BE HARMONIZED. 223

well as every other species of fact, let us see whether the
general philosophy of this work will afford any light by which
outer appearances, reflecting a natural law or force of develop-
ment, and the interior sense of the human soul, respecting the
constant presence of God, and the exertion of his upholding
and directing power, may be rationally harmonized. By way
of attempting the solution of all apparent discrepancies, as
involved in these subjects, we will, in the following pages,
endeavor to unfold the true theory of law agency and Divine
agency, as it appears to us.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FUKTHEK VIEW OP THE SYSTEM OF LIVING FOEMS, AS SUG-
GESTING ITS MODE OF DEVELOPMENT

'HAD the author of the "Vestiges of Creation" and his
opponents both understood the doctrine of Series, Degrees,
and Correspondences, as unfolded in the preceding pages of
this work, and had they duly observed the indications of these
doctrines in regard to the origin, constitution, and laws of
nature, the relations of visible effects to invisible and spiritual
causes, and the relations of the universe and all its sub-serial
and corresponding parts, to the Infinite Divine Spirit, as the
Projector, Originator, and Vitalizer of all, they might, by a
mutual, and in that case obviously required, modification of
their views, have come to a perfect agreement on all essential
points, without compromising any true principle of theological
faith, or disregarding any real fact in science or true principle
in philosophy. The view which, as it appears to me, recon-
ciles all real scientific facts, ancl all true philosophical and
theological principles, I will now proceed to briefly unfold.

I will premise by saying that the idea of progression, as a
general fact connected with the origin and movements of
creation, as a whole, and with the origin and movements of
each of its sub-serial and correspondent parts, seems to be
necessarily involved in the idea of successive movements or
unfoldings, from beginnings toward predetermined ends.
Every successive movement or effort is a closer approximation

PROGRESSION AND RETROGRESSION. 225

to the proposed end of the whole series of movements, and is
therefore a decided progress from a previous and more rudi-
mental state or position. Accordingly all philosophy and all
revelation concur in the acknowledgment that creation, from
its incipient to its present stage of development, has passed
through a regular series of progressive unfoldings ; and this
fact is recognized as applying equally to the cosmical universe,
to the geological formations, and to the various systems of
organic forms, beginning with the lowest and ending with the
highest, whose remains have been successively entombed in
the rocks.

It is true there are occasional and apparent exceptions to
this rule — occasional instances of particular retrogression on
the one hand, and irregular and abnormal advances on the
other ; but these are owing to local circumstances and isolated
influences, and when properly understood, they prove, rather
than disprove, the general rule. The idea may be illustrated
by the following simile : Let a number of vessels, of different
classes, be supposed to sail from the same port, at the same
time, and bound to the same place of destination. Wafted by
the same breezes, and floated by the same tides, they, for a
time, make nearly equal progress, sail in nearly parallel paths,
and generally keep each others company. But owing to
slight diversities in their sailing qualities, and incidental dif-
ferences in their modes of manoeuvring, their courses grad-
ually diverge from each other, and they get into different
currents of ocean and of atmosphere, some of which are pro-
pitious and some the reverse. They are then farther dispersed
by hurricanes; some of them, by violent gales occurring
only in their own localities, may be driven hundreds of miles
out of their course, or in a retrograde direction ; a few of
them may be driven upon rocks or quicksands, and lost out

226 SYSTEM OF LIVING FOKMS.

right ; while others may be driven forward with equal vio-
lence, and reach their destined haven in an apparently irreg-
ularly short period of time. Of course no one would con-
sider the diversities in the fates and successes of these different
vessels, or the fact that some were for a time driven back-
ward, that some were lost outright, and that others were
driven forward with a velocity which seemed to set all idea
of a regularly graduated motion at defiance, as any proof
against a general law of progression, as applied to the sailing
of ships from port to port, but the proof would, upon the
whole, be the reverse.

Allow these ships, then, to represent an equal number of
Divine archetypes, or pre-existing ideal * forms of creation, so
to speak, which set out, at one and the same time, upon
the voyage of progressive development, all being bound to
one haven, viz.. the realization of the clothing of an exterior
form ; the diversities in their movements, presented in the
retardations and temporary retrogressions of some, and the
fi-tful and apparently preternatural accelerations of others, as
owing to the various currents and counter-currents of outer
influences, no more disprove the law of general progression,
with reference to them, than similar diversities of movement
prove the same thing with reference to the ships. When we,
therefore, find a few local examples of vertebral fishes among
some of the strata of the first series of fossiliferous rocks, or
when we find, in one or two instances, the remains t)f a
diminutive air-breathing reptile, in an upper member of the
Old Red Sandstone series, where, as it is stated, such have
recently been found;* or when, in human history, we find
examples of whole nations and races remaining apparently
stationary for thousands of years, while others have, at early
* See Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for April, 1852, pp. 853-4.

EMBRYONIC FOKMS. 227

periods, come to a high state of advancement in art, govern-
ment, and social refinement, which were again succeeded by
universal ignorance and barbarism — we are not to consider
these examples as contradicting the doctrine of progression,
as a general principle, but as only the particular and local ex-
ceptions to the direct development of that piinciple in outer
forms.

Keeping in view, then, the doctrine of general Progression
as an undeniable principle applicable to the universal series
of creation as a whole, and to all its included and correspond-
ing sub- series, we are prepared for further inquiries respecting
the order and method of progression, and the mutual relations
of the different parts or degrees of each series of creation to
which this principle applies. In making these inquiries, our
attention will be confined for the present to the Animal King-
dom, which will serve as a representative of all other serial
creations.

The fact alluded to by the author of the " Vestiges of Crea-
tion," that in the reproduction of the higher animals and of
man, the embryo passes through successive stages of develop-
ment, in which the types of all the lower animals, beginning
with the fish (or, as some say, with the annalid or worm), are
represented in succession, until its own proper type is attained,
is certainly of great significance, as it bears upon the subject
under consideration. But Professor Agassiz has made some
further discoveries in the department of embryology, which
would perhaps go to emphasize the conclusions to which this
fact would seem naturally to point. I would refer now par-
ticularly to the discovery that the embryos of animals of cer-
tain existing families bear, at a certain stage of their foetal
progress, a distinct resemblance to the perfected individuals
of now extinct species of the same families, which existed in

228 SYSTEM OF LIVING FORMS.

early geological periods. From his remark's on this subject,
I submit the following quotations :

" Embryology," says he, " by the metamorphoses which
take place in animals, assigns now a value to external forms,
and not only assigns them a value, but a chronological value,
by which it is possible to consider as lower those animals
which agree with the earlier forms of the germs." . . ... .

" The class of fishes which I have studied more particularly,
has shown me that the first types appeared under forms, and
with an organization, peculiar to embryos of that very class in
the present epoch, proving thereby, with perfect evidence, the
inferiority of the first created types, as well in their peculiar
class as in their department. But though of a lower order,
these types of ancient ages bore in themselves, from the be-
ginning, the impression of the plan that was to be successively
developed in the different epochs which have preceded the
order of things existing at present, and by whose 'realization
have been brought about those numerous families of Fishes,
Eeptiles, Birds, and Mammalia, which now live upon the sur-
face of the earth." Again : " All the information about the
fossils — all the information of former ages, will have to be
compared with those embryonic forms, in order to understand
more fully the analogy which exists between these earlier
types, and the successive changes which those of our day un-
dergo to assume their final form. If I am not mistaken, we
shall obtain from sketches of those embryonic forms, more
correct figures of fossil animals than have been acquired by
actual restoration."*

These extracts from one who is an advocate of the idea of
creations de novo at different geological epochs, certainly argue

* Agassi's " Lectures on Comparative Embryology," delivered before the Lowell In-
stitute. Boston. Lee. xii.

FACTS IN EMBEYOLOGY. 229

much for a connection of some kind between the lower and
higher, or extinct and living, species of animals of the same
families, and pretty clearly show that the higher and existing
species are, in many instances, the result of an extension of the
identical gestative process which, in its lower stages, was exem-
plified in the ancient species. Such being the existing evidence
of a connection between ancient and modern species of the
same families and genera, and that the modern species exist,
at least as a progressed sequence of the principles involved in
the ancient, we will now quote from the same author some
further illustrations of the analogies and connections existing
between the different and successively created divisions of the
Animal Kingdom as a whole, with man at its head :

* The unity of structure in vertebrated animals," says he,
" has been understood, and well understood, long before Em-
bryology had added any thing to show how deep this unity of
plan was impressed on that type. By the investigations of
Comparative Anatomy, it had been ascertained that the external
differences which characterize the class of Fishes, that of Rep-
tiles, that of Birds, and that of Mammalia, were only modifi
cations of one and the same structure — that the head of Fishes,
for example, though apparently so different from that of Man,
was made up of the same bones, arranged in the same man-
ner, only sub-divided into more distinct points of ossifica-
tion, with modified proportions, most of them remaining
movable for life, but, after all, arranged upon the same uniform
plan."

In a previous paragraph, the same author says : " It was in
Physiology, a great discovery, when it was ascertained that
all Vertebrata, that Fishes, as well as Reptiles, as well * as
Birds, as well as Mammalia, arose from eggs, which have one
and the same uniform structure in the beginning, and proceed

20

230 SYSTEM OF LIVING FORMS.

to produce animals as widely different as they are in the full-
grown state, simply by successive, gradual metamorphoses ;
and these metamorphoses upon one and the same plan, accord-
ing to one and the same general progress." Again : " It may
therefore be said, with perfect propriety, that the higher Ver-
tebrates undergo changes, through which, in different periods
of their life, they resemble the lower ones ; that there is a
period when the young bird has not only the form, but the
structure, and even the fins, which characterize the Fish. And
of the young Mammals the same may be said. There is a
period in the structure of the young Rabbit (in which the in-
vestigations have been traced more extensively than in other
species), when the young Rabbit resembles so closely the
Fish, that it even has gills, living in a sac full of water, breath-
ing as Fishes da So that the resemblance is as complete as
it can be, though each of these types grows to a complication
of structure, by which the young Mammal, for instance, leav-
ing behind this low organization of the lower types, rises to a
complication of structure, to higher and higher degrees, and to
that eminence even which characterizes mankind."*

These facts certainly show a unity of plan and a progressive
succession, of, in some sense, mutually dependent forms, in the
system of animated nature, which countenances the idea that
the whole creation of lower animals is, as it were, the foetus
of the whole human creation, and that the latter was thus de-
veloped by a process somewhat resembling that which the
author of the " Vestiges of Creation" supposed to have taken
place, and which he calls " the universal gestation of Nature ;"
yet we shall soon see that, so far from this theory dispensing
with the agency of a God, this universal gestative process
could not have proceeded even through its first stages, without
* Lectures on Comparative Embryology, Lee. xiL

THE GREAT TREE. 231

the constant influx of a vitalizing and energizing Influence
from above all nature, and hence from a source absolutely
Divine.

It may here be remarked that these facts, developed by the
researches of palaeontologists, embryologists, and physiolo-
gists, concerning the relations and order of succession of the
different divisions of the animated tribes, are in perfect agree-
ment with the general mode of philosophizing presented in this
work, by which all general facts in each system of creation,
and all systems of creation as grand facts, are arranged in a
harmonious serial order of progression, in such a way as to
show a thread of unity and correspondence running through all
systems, and through the grand system of systems, from the
very origin to the very ultimates of all things.

This scheme of creation brings the Animal Kingdom, as well
as the Vegetable, and all other complete systems of creation,
together with the grand System of all systems, under the
analogy of a TREE, with its seven serial and progressive parts,
consisting of Roots, Trunk, Branches ; Leaves, Flower-buds,
Blossoms, and FRUIT. It is thus strongly hinted that the
whole universal System of creation, with all its corresponding"
sub-systems, including the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms,
while under the constant vitalizing and voluntative influx of
Divine Love and Wisdom, which are spiritual Heat and Light,
grew up, as it were, from Germ to ultimates, in the same pro-
gressive and sequential order in which the tree grows from
root to fruit, under the constant influx of solar heat and light,
which are the natural correspondents of Divine Love and Wis-
dom.

But if this view is admitted, it will not of itself necessarily
decide the question as to whether each higher creation was in
all cases developed from the parentage of the one immedi-

232 SYSTEM OF LIVING FOBMS.

ately below it in the series to which it belongs. There is, ap-
parently, one exception to this order of parental extraction in
the developed parts of the superiorly organized tree : The
flower-buds, though they are the next superior development
to the leaves, are not an outgrowth from the leaves, but, in
common with these, they are the next superior outgrowth from
the branches ; and 'the leaves, after performing their specific
functions, die and drop off, without giving rise to any succeed-
ing and superior form of developments. The flower-buds are
undoubtedly an ascension of the same essences and principles
which, stopping one step short of them, produce the leaves,
and which, in each case, ascend from all the preceding devel-
opments of the tree as represented in roots, trunk, and
branches.

It should be remarked, however, that in a less perfect class
of vegetable forms — the cryptogamia — the organs of fructifi-
cation, involving, of course, the principles of the bud, are de-
veloped upon the leaves, which, in this instance, shows the
relations of parent and offspring between the two develop-
ments, and preserves the succession between them un-
broken.

Concerning the genesis of the Animal Kingdom, then, as
well as that of all other Series and Degrees of creation, it
may, so far as the known analogies of nature are concerned,
and without in either case affecting our views of the Divine
agency, be consistently believed, either that the higher tribes
in the Animal Kingdom (as well as in the Vegetable and
other Degrees of Creation), at certain periods, and under cer-
tain revolutionary conditions or Divine impulsions hereafter
to be explained — proceeded by orderly descent, from the tribes
next below them, as their natural parents — or that they pro-
ceeded, at the same periods and under the same conditions,

GENESIS OF ANIMAL KINGDOM. 233

from the aggregate of all preceding developments of nature, as
constituting their general material germ, while they had no
special lineal connection with the forms next below them in
the series. Either of these suppositions would sufficiently
comport with the unity of the general plan which we have
before observed to pervade the works of creation. The
probability is, however, that both of these modes of pro-
duction were, to some extent, observed in the origination of
the ensemble of the Animal and other Kingdoms; but in
neither case is it probable that any form or creation was un-
folded, except upon the basis of a suitable preceding develop-
ment, which, in some sense, served as its material germ, or
predisposing condition of development.

Unless we adopt some such theory as here propounded,
many natural facts — facts which the cause of true theology
and religion can never be subserved by denying — will remain
entirely inexplicable.

CHAPTER XXIY.

LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY.

IN the light of the foregoing remarks respecting the order,
successive developments, and relations of the organic tribes,
let us now press to a final and more specific decision, the
question, whether the system of Creation, as it now stands,
came to exist, in any sense, through the operations of Law 1 —
and if so, in what sense, and with what accompanying con-
clusions relative to the doctrine of Providences, or of Divine
interpositions ?

But that we may pursue this inquiry intelligibly, we must
obviously first define precisely what we mean by the term
" Law." Law, as it is jinderstood by the best authorities,
means simply a rule of action, or a definite mode or method
in which force and motion proceed toward the accomplish-
ment of an end. It is not, therefore, of itself, either force or
motion, but only the rule of action which these, in their
operations, are made to observe.

Now it may be safely asserted that there is no force or
motion, either in the universe of matter or the universe of
mind, which, in its operations, does not observe some rule,
some method, and hence some law. If, indeed, there could be
any action or motion without method or law, that action or
motion would necessarily be chaotic, and would tend directly
to the total subversion of all law and order, and thus to reduce
all things to chaos. It is impossible for a man to conceive a

UNIVERSALITY OF LAW. 235

thought, except in accordance with some law of thought.
Nay, it is self-evidently impossible even for the Infinite Mind
to conceive a thought, or put forth an action, except in con-
nection with some definite mode or form, and hence law, of
procedure which that thought or action spontaneously assumes.
In the Infinite Mind, therefore, Law, in its spiritual sense, is
self-existent and eternal. Thence it proceeds, by volition, in
outer creations, and assumes the forms of what are termed the
"laws of nature." These, as modes, or rules of material
motion, commence at the lowest and most chaotic germs of
the physical universe, and (being constantly supplied by
voluntative and higher inflowings from their Infinite Spiritual
Source) proceed in regular order of ascending development,
through all subsequent motions and creations, until, in the
heights of the celestial universe, creation again merges itself
in that Infinite Divine Essence from which it originally
sprang. And as all motions are in accordance with some de-
finite rule, method, or law, hence all forms, creations, and con-
ditions, from lowest material to the highest spiritual and
celestial, which, in regular serial orders, are developed by
means of those motions, are necessarily law-developed and
law-governed. If this were not so, then creation, indeed,
would not exhibit any system or method in its arrangements,
such as is now apparent throughout its whole domains, but
the various forms of which it is composed, would necessarily
be totally disconnected and confused.

It is worthy of remark, that the idea of law as governing
the processes of creation obtains predominance in proportion
to the development of the human mind. Thus the child con-
ceives that the grass is made to grow by an abstract interpo-
sition of the power of God, with which he is unable to connect
any idea of law. But as his mind unfolds, and the field of

236 LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY.

his observation extends, he discovers that grass grows, in all
cases, under certain given conditions, and hence grows accord-
ing to a fixed rule. He still, perhaps, believes that God, by a
direct and isolated fiat of His will, causes the rain to fall, the
thunder to peal, and the lightning to flash ; but a further de-
velopment of his mind corrects this impression, and shows
him that the rains, the thunders, and the lightnings, are de-
pendent upon a more general administration of the Divine
Power through atmospheric and electric media and conditions.
He still, perhaps, imagines that the sun, moon, and planets
are made to pursue their courses in the heavens by the direct
volitionary effort of God concentrated specifically and ab-
stractly upon them ; but when his mind is introduced to the
series of demonstrations presented in the science of Astrono-
my, he perceives that all these phenomena are in accordance
with a general method in which all aggregations of matter in
free space act. He still probably believes (according to a
common, and, as we have before shown, an erroneous inter-
pretation of Sacred Scripture) that the earth on which he
dwells was directly spoken into existence by God, in the space
of six .literal days, about six thousand years ago ; but wThen
he attains a more enlarged understanding of the mechanical
and chemical forces which God has incorporated in the system
of nature, and reads the physical history of our planet as
written upon the .rocks, he perceives that our globe has been
brought from a primeval chaotic, to its present perfected state,
by means of fixed methods of operation of matter, expressed
by the terms, " condensation," " abrasion," " deposition," " se-
gregation," etc. And if the hypothesis (seemingly supported
by all analogy) that vegetable, animal, and even human or-
ganisms, came to exist through the instrumentality of equally
fixed and unvarying laws, is now met by storms of opposi-

LAW AND FOKCE. 237

tion and ridicule, it should be remembered that precisely
similar opposition, based upon precisely the same grounds,
attended a similar announcement when first made, with refer-
ence to the origin and modus operandi of many forms and de-
partments of nature concerning which the announcement is
now fully admitted to have been true; and the final triumphs
of Astronomy and Geology over the dragon of unscriptural,
as well as unphilosophical, opposition, which stood before their
parents to devour them as soon as they were born, should
stand as a warning against a too hasty decision unfavorable to
law-developments, as applied to all other departments, organic
and even spiritual, as well as inorganic and material.

Yet, when it is asserted that all things, as to their creation
and functional operations, are within the governing influences
of law, the sense in which we have defined the term " law,"
should be distinctly borne in mind ; and for the sake of more
explicitness on this point, as well as to show that our position
involves no objectionable theological corrolaries, we will here
submit a few more considerations respecting it.

I have said that Law is not of itself/orce or motion — hence,
that it can create nothing or do nothing of itself; but that it
is simply the mode or rule by which force and motion act.
Hence, when we speak of the " law of Expansion," for instance,
we refer only to a mode of operation among particles or
substances, which is expressed by the term " Expansion ;"
when we speak of the " law of Gravitation," we only refer to
that particular mode of action among materials which the term
" gravitation" defines. And we have a similar meaning when
we speak of any other law. But the Force by which the ac-
tion-, proceeding according to these various laws, is generated,
remains yet to be accounted for ; and this we will now attempt
to do, at the same time that we attempt to illustrate how

238 LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY.

modes or laws of action came to be such as we see them. The
remarks now to be offered will, at the same time, illustrate
the direct agency which God has in the process of creation, and
furnish the foundation of a true understanding of the doctrine
of Providence.

One feature of the present subject has already been pre-
sented, under an illustration which may again be called up, and
carried out into further particulars. A builder, before pro-
ceeding to the outer construction of an edifice, first conceives
the general plan, and ideally perceives the general appearance
of that edifice in his own mind. This conception is the arche-
type or pattern according to which the edifice, as an outer ob-
ject, is to be erected ; and its erection is a mere clothing of the
archetype or pattern, with outer material investiture. But this
clothing of the archetype can not be accomplished except by
the voluntative and energizing influence of the soul, spirit, or
mind of the builder acting among the materials to be wrought
into the physical structure, which action may be either through
the medium of the builder's own muscles, through the minds
and muscles of others, to whom his commands may be given,
or through a suitable machine which he has previously de-
signed and prepared. And when the building is thus erected,
it stands as an exact correspondent and embodiment of that
particular form and degree of intelligence and volition, which
were requisite to the conception of its plan, and the con-
joining of its materials. After the building is finished,
however, the builder withdraws all further action and influ-
ence from it, and it is left as a mass of perfectly dead and
motionless materials ; but could he permanently infix in
it such portions or degrees of his own energizing spiritual
essence as would be requisite to keep it in repair, and to con-
stantly refine and improve it, and to develop its ultimate

CLOTHING OF ARCHETYPES. 239

•

purposes, the building would in that case be a living crea-
tion.

Now it was logically proved, in another part of this work,
that the Universe, or the whole great Kingdom of materiality
which it comprises, is not self-existent and eternal, but that it
as necessarily had a beginning as any human or other physical
organism had — that it is therefore necessarily dependent upon
an antecedent and correspondent existence as its Cause, which
must have been, not inferior, but superior, to itself, even as
the natural sun is superior to the plant which its beams cause
to grow. Being thus superior to, and the cause of, the whole
of material existence, we were forced to conceive of it as a
tf/^ir-material, swper-universal, and hence spiritual Existence,
of which intelligence, personality, and hence Divinity, are
predicable.

This spiritual, intelligent, personal Divinity, whom we call
God, then, being antecedent to, and the Cause of, the univer-
sal system of creation, and sustaining toward it the same re-
lation which an earthly builder sustains toward a house pro-
posed to be erected, must, in like manner, with the latter,
have conceived in his own mind the archetypes or patterns
of the universal structure, with all its included kingdoms,
systems, series, degrees, species, .and essential forms, from
lowest to highest, before proceeding to clothe these with outer
investiture. And as in the mind of the human builder, the
archetypes of the proposed house are, as it were, the spiritual
nuclei around which, by his own volitionary effort, the ma-
terials are made to cluster, and thus finally establish the
structure as an outer creation, so in the mind of the Deity,
the archetypes of the Universal Structure, of Solar Systems,
of Geological Developments, of Mineral Kingdoms, Vegetable
Kingdoms, Animal Kingdoms, and the universal Human

240 LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY.

creation,with all the specific and essential forms which these
respectively include, were the spiritual nuclei, and pre-
existent, interior realities, around which, by the force of con-
stant Divine volition, the requisite particles and essences are
made to cluster, by way of establishing them in outer and
tangible forms.

Now, both with the human builder and his house, and the
Divine Builder a^d the system of the universe, the arche-
types conceived in the mind, constituted the laws or rules by
which outer materials acted in their aggregations into outer
forms ; while, in both cases, the force by which those ma-
terials were impelled to act at all, originated in the volition
of the Builder. Here is the difference between Law and
Force. Law of itself could not create any thing, though all
things were created according to Law. Force of itself could
not create any thing, though all things are created by the
application of Force. It is by means of Force, as an im-
pulsive principle, and Law, as a director of its impulsions, that
all things have sprung into being.

The idea may perhaps be rendered still more clear to some
minds, by considering the whole united system of archetypes
as one grand Mould, fashioned in the wisdom of the Builder,
into which, by the direct voluntative effort of the Builder,
materials are poured, by way of forming the outer structure.
But without the extra proceedings of pouring the materials
into it, the mould might exist for ever without giving rise to
the casting, while, on the other hand, all the efforts imagin-
able could not give rise to the casting, did not the mould
exist to receive it.

We have seen that if the human builder, in clothing his
mental archetypes of a proposed structure, could permanently
infix in that structure that portion or degree of the energizing

HUMAN AND DIVINE BUILDEE.

influence of his own spirit, which would be requisite, by a
spontaneous internal action, to keep the structure in repair,
and at the same time to refine and perfect it, the structure
would be, in some sense, a living creation. But although this
is not the case with the human builder and his work, it is
precisely the case with the Divine Builder and the universal
Edifice which he has established. Not only doe's the system
of creation as a Whole, but each of its included and corre-
sponding sub-systems, contain a power of internal motion and
sustentation, infused by the Creator at its origin, and which is
now perpetually sustained by influx from Him, and is ever
acting in parallelism with the original archetype, which consti-
tutes its law. It was in view of this fact that it was argued,
in another part of this work, in opposition to the received
philosophy, that if the cosmical system could, by any foreign
agency, become deranged or thrown out of equilibrium in any
way. instead of the derangement progressing, and ultimating
in a total wreck of the system, the internal forces of recuper-
ation would be such as to soon restore the wonted equilibrium,
and all things would go on as before. But on the other hand,
were the Creator to withold the influx of, and withdraw, his
vital energy from the universe, as soon as the momenta of ex-
isting forces and motions became exhausted, all things would
necessarily come to an eternal stagnation and death !

I have said that the archetypes or pre-existent ideal patterns
of each creation, are the spiritual nuclei of the outer forms of
which that creation consists, and hence that they constitute
the laws by which Force acts in the aggregation of substances
for the development of their outer forms. Now, as it was
before shown that each creation, both as to its exterior and
its interior and vitalizing constitution, is seven-fold, so each
creation, with its spiritual nuclei, life, and laws, is, in some

21

242 LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCT.

sense, a correspondent and representative of the seven-fold
constitution of the Deity, or the "seven spirits 'of God"
spoken of in Revelation. Each seven-fold creation, therefore,
is the same with all others as to correspondence, but is differ-
ent from all others as to degree ; and each one contains within
itself, as its vitalizing and energizing soul, a, corresponding de-
gree of the seven-fold harmonies of Divine Love and Wisdom.

Let this latter point be distinctly understood ; God exists
in the universal cosmical system as its soul, but does not ex-
ist there as God, but only in the quality and capacity of those
vitalizing and operative forces and principles of form, which
were necessary to the creation, and are now necessary to the
subsistence, internal motions, and constant improvement of
the general creation, as such; in Solar Systems, God exists in
the degree of those vital and motive forces which are necessary
to them, as such; in planets God exis-ts, also, in his seven-
fold harmonies, but only in a degree necessary to constitute
the vitality, and to originate the internal motions and other
functional operations, of planets, as such ; in the Mineral King-
dom God exists as mineral and chemical Life ; in the Veget-
able Kingdom, as the principle of vegetable Life; in the
Animal Kingdom, as the principle of animal, instinctive, and
semi-intellectual Life, but not yet as God ; in the Human
World he exists as the principle of human Life ; but only in
a perfectly integral, pure, innocent, and harmoniously consti-
tuted Man, does He exist in his focalized and quantitatively
diminished, but qualitatively 'perfected Selfhood, as God.
But in a discreet degree above the whole universe of outer
creations, He exists in his August, Infinite, and Ineffable Self-
hood, as the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the
Beginning and End of all things \

Though these investigations have been pursued, and these

DIVINE DWELLING-PLACES. 243

conclusions have been drawn, independently of the revelations
of the Scriptures, I can not abstain from marking their perfect
parallelism with the language of Paul in the following pas-
sages : " One God, who is ABOVE all, and THROUGH all, and
IN YOU all." — Eph. iv. 6. " And he is BEFORE all things, and
by him all things CONSIST." — Col. i. 17. "For OF him, and
THROUGH him, and TO him are ALL THINGS ; to whom be glory
for ever." — Rom. xi. 36. Representing the Divine vitalizing
principle flowing into, and pervading man, as taking the char-
acter of man, the same as when flowing into, and vitalizing
animals, vegetables, minerals, worlds, it always takes the
specific character of its receptacle — David, addressing the
Deity, says, " With the merciful thou wilt show thyself mer-
ciful, and with the upright man thou wilt show thyself up-
right : with the pure thou wilt show thyself m pure, and with
the fro ward thou wilt show thyself fro ward." — Ps. xviii.
25, 26. This can not mean that God, in his true personal
character, is any other than merciful, upright, and pure, but
that his vitalizing and energizing inflowings into man (without
which man would be dead, body and soul) can excite the
qualities of mercy, uprightness, purity, etc., only as these
comport with the character of the receptacle. It is said, more-
over, that God dwells " with him who is of an humble and
contrite spirit ;" that is, dwells, not as a mere generator of
material force and action, as he dwells in the lower creations,
but dwells as God in his interior soul, as in a temple; while
the " fullness of the Godhead" dwelt " bodily" only in that
ever-to-be-admired personage, who was absolutely without sin,
who expressly declared that he was in unity with the Father
— that he was in the Father, and the Father in him, and in
whose celestial purity, disinterested and unbounded love, and
life-long labors and sacrifices for the good of humanity, we

244 LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY.

have the only full and true manifestation of the moral attri-
butes of the Deity.

The foregoing will probably serve to the reader as a suf-
ficient illustration of the various degrees of the Divine Prin-
ciple, as now embodied in the different and corresponding
Series and Degrees of the creations he has formed. The
method of the successive origination of these various Series
arid Degrees of creation, has also been incidentally implied in
what has been said ; but as this is a point which bears upon
important speculations which are rife in these days, some
further illustration upon the subject may be useful.

The point to be illustrated and insisted upon is, that creation
did not deyelop itself, either according to inherent forces of
its own, nor are its development and its present internal oper-
ations, owing simply to the momenta generated by the first
impulses impressed upon matter by the Creator, while the
Creator himself retired for eternity, as one would retire from
a clock that was once wound up and set a-going. In^case of
such retirement of the Deity, after the first impulse had been
given to materials, those materials would have moved only in
the direction of the impulse, and only until the momentum-
generated became exhausted, and creation could not possibly
have passed one Elemental Degree beyond a first develop-
ment. Hence, each superior degree of creation must neces-
sarily have been accomplished by the aid of forces outside of,
superior to, and altogether independent of, itself, which gave
the physical elements, involved in the previous development,
an upward attraction, and a tendency to aggregate in the
form of the next superior series of archetypes conceived in
the Divine Mind. And this is true in respect to the develop-
ment of creation, as one Grand Series, and also in respect to
the development of each of its corresponding sub-series.

LABYKINTII OF CREATION.

245

This whole subject, with other points in our general philosophy,
may be illustrated by the accompanying diagram.

Let the seven-fold triangular figure (one angle being within
another) which descends from the upper part of the diagram,
and whose most exterior angle comes to a point at the center
of the diagram, represent a seven-fold Ray or Glory emanat-
ing from the Divine Being. This we will suppose to represent
the Complete Degree of the Divine Soul, and Spirit, and Per-
son, which was to generate, and to b^e in some sense embodied
in universal creation with Man at its head. Resolved into
three Discreet Degrees, we will .suppose that this Ray or
Glory consisted of Divine Spiritual Heat, which is Love, of
Divine Spiritual Light, which is Wisdom, and of Divine Po-

246 LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY.

tentializing Essence, which is the " complex, continent, and
basis" of the preceding, and hence the medium of volitional
operation. We will suppose, then (what can not be essentially
' erroneous), that from the empyrean heights of infinite perfec-
tion, where God, before creation began, had from eternity
dwelt in inconceivable greatness and perfection, this seven-fold
and three-fold Ray emanating from his own Person, descended
by volition, and at its lowest extremity, resolved its most ex-
terior essences (represented by the outer triangle) into atomic
particles, which, in forms and constitutions, corresponded to
archetypes previously existing in the Divine consciousness,
and which were designed to be wrought into the structure of
this universe and all it contains. Let the central point in the
diagram, then, represent the atomic or lowest stage of creation,
this being the physical Germ from which the great Tree of
universal Being was to grow. From this central point, it will
be observed, proceeds a spiral line, which, while constantly
receding from the center, winds around through six radii, and
completes the circuit of the diagram on the center of the de-
scending Ray, on which it commenced. This spiral line, in
passing around, represents the inception, progress, and comple-
tion, of the first Circle, Series, or Complete Degree of Forms.
From the center of the descending Ray, and the apex of a
second and more interior triangle, the same spiral line thence
continues, and, completing another circuit while perpetually
receding from the center, represents the course of the next
higher and corresponding Circle of creations. And so, com-
mencing every time at the point representing the completion
of the previous Circle (this, at the same time, being the focus
of a more interior Degree of the Divine generative Principle),
it continues its corresponding circuits around the diagram, all
the while expanding from the center, and thus representing the

TKEE OF CREATION. 24:7

course of higher and still higher creations, until the last is at-
tained, which is Man.

Now the descending Divine creative Ray forms the seventh
radius of the circle, which represents the beginning and ending *
of each Series or complete Degree of creations. But the end
of each is represented as higher than its beginning, and as in
, conjunction with, and subject to the operative inflowings of,
the next higher Degree of the Divine generative Principle,
which is represented by the apex of the next more interior
triangle. Each Circle of developments traced directly, or from
beginning to end, may be called a " line of natural ascent :"
each circle traced inversely, or from end to beginning, may be
called a " line of spiritual descent" representing the descent
or operative inflowings of the Divine vitalizing and formative
Energy, by which material elements involved in inferior
forms are refined, energized, and brought by an upward at-
traction into next superior, and thence still superior, and finally
into highest forms, according to the pre-existent archetypes of
said forms, or their Divine spiritual patterns. Thus is the
great Tree of universal creation brought through all its succes-
sive stages of development unto perfection, by constantly de-
scending influences from the Divine Spiritual Sun — in the same
way as the vegetable tree is made to grow from germ to ulti-
mate, by the constantly descending influences of the natural
Sun, which, however, is interiorly vitalized by the Spiritual.
But we think it ought to be entirely obvious to every intelli-
gent mind, that without these descending and vitalizing influ-
ences, neither Tree could proceed a single step in its ascending
development ; and, moreover, if at any time during the course
of their development, this superior and independent influence
should be withholden, the development would necessarily and
immediately cease, and stagnation and decay would ensue.

248 LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY.

If the tree can not grow without the sun, it may be consid-
ered equally certain that nature as a whole, and hence, also, as
to its component parts, from greatest to most minute, has no
'power of development or motion in and of itself. Hence all
power, as well as its directive influence, must be from above
nature, and hence from God ; and hence all stellar systems,
solar systems, worlds, minerals, vegetables, animals, and even
animalcules, were created and are governed, not only by the
remote and indirect, but by the immediate and direct, agency of
God!

These are among the considerations wrhich we think com-
pletely overthrow the pantheistic speculations with which
much of the philosophy of the day is more or less impreg-
nated.

The diagram, also, by presenting a succession of continually
expanding circles, all having one center, and being constituted
after one principle, presents a clear and concise illustration of
the doctrines of Series, Degrees, and Correspondences, and will
serve thus to fix permanently in the mind a true idea of the
complexly-unitary constitution, and harmoniously interblend-
ing movements of the universe, as expressive of the Love,
Wisdom, and infinite internal harmonies of its DIVINE
AUTHOR.

CHAPTEE XXY.

PEOVIDENCE.

- . "• : % '"'.

THOUGH it is shown in the foregoing pages, that creation
must have been developed, and must now be governed in
its operations, according to directive Wisdom existing in
the forms of fixed laws, there is nothing in the theory pre-
sented which contradicts, but every thing which confirms, those
deep intuitions of every well-regulated mind, respecting the con-
stant Providence of God as concerned in the unfolding and gov-
ernment of his creation. If, as we have seen, law of itself has
no creative force, but is simply a mode of action prescribed and
predetermined by the archetypes and intentions conceived in
the Divine Mind ; and if to the realization of each succeeding
stage of creation, however great o*r minute, an additional and
voluntative influx of Divine formative Energy, was absolutely
necessary ; and, moreover, if the same constant influx is ne-
cessary to sustain the life and motions of the system after it
is in being — then it follows that every event, from the birth
of a world to the falling of a sparrow, or the rustling of a leaf
in the summer breeze, is, in some sense, a Providence — that
is, it was provided for in the pre-determined course of Divine
intelligent volition and causation. But to prevent involving
creation in inextricable confusion, and to establish and preserve
an orderly relationship and affectionate interblending of all
forms, and a just and harmonious reciprocation in all their
offices and movements, God orders even his providences accord-

250 PROVIDENCE.

ing to laws, or, it may almost be said, he has made them
synonymous ivith laws.

It may safely be believed that the present order and plan
of creation is the best that could have been devised by the
Divine Mind ; for otherwise, the present plan would not have
been adopted. But if it is the best, then it requires no funda-
mental change, and not even any modifications, except such as
may comport with a constant general progression on the basis
of the original plan. But while all progression in each de-
partment is dependent upon an influx or inhalation (hence
free bestowment by the Divine Being), of additional degrees of
that Divine vitalizing influence which is specifically suitable
to itself, and while all progression is in this sense providential,
God can not, either in causing a progressional or any other
change, and without deranging the established, and hence best
possible order of things, act providentially and directly upon
any department of creation, except through the medium of
that particular kind of force or vitality of which the thing acted
upon is a suitable receptacle.

Thus, considering the universe in its most general aspect as
one grand Whole, God can not act directly upon it, or modify
its existing activities and tendencies, except through the me-
dium of those forces and laws of Expansion, Contraction, Cir-
culation, Aggregation, etc., in the degree in which they apply
to the universe as a whole. He can not act directly upon
solar systems and worlds, except through the medium of the
same laws and forces in their higher degrees of unfolding as
applicable to solar systems and worlds ; God can not act
directly upon MineraFcreations, except through the forces and
laws of chemical affinities ; He can not act directly upon Vege-
table. Kingdoms, except through the forces and laws of vegeta-
ble life ; He can not act directly on the Animal Kingdom, or

PROVIDENCE. 251

any of its forms, except through the forces and laws of animal,
sensational, and semi-intellectual life ; He can act directly on
selfish and sinful human nature, only by those isolated and
disjointed motive forces which are adapted to reach and affect
the disjointed mental and moral constitutions of selfish and
sinful human beings ; while God can act directly and fully as
God, in all his affectional, intellectual, and moral nature, only
upon a perfectly pure and sinless intelligence — a being fitted
for the harmonious influx of all the affectional, intellectual, and
voluntative principles of the Divine Soul — a being, hence,
who stands in the perfect image of God, and who, in principle,
is one with Him. Hence, when such a being acts (and there
never was but one such a being), it may be said that God acts
with him, in him, and through him, and that his every act is in
the fullest and most Divine sense, a providence.

But as the infinite Divine, personal, and volitional Intelli-
gence is above all things, and over -all things, and is the inex-
haustible Source of all streams of vitality and motive force
which flow into the various departments of His creation, it may
be rationally conceived, that by withholding his inflowings
into the universal system as a whole, he could cause univer-
sal stagnation and dissolution to ensue; or that by increasing
those inflowings, he could stimulate all firmamental develop-
ments and solar and planetary motions, to unwonted activity ;
or that by diminishing his influence in one portion of space,
and increasing it in another, He could cause the dissolution of
some worlds, and the absorption of their materials by others ;
or that by modifying his influences upon the electric, aerial,
and subterranean forces of a particular planet (such as our
own), he can cause floods to deluge the earth, or subterranean
fires to overwhelm cities, and destroy such human beings as
must otherwise stand as obstructions to true progress ; or that

252 PKOVIDENCE.

in a similar way, he might cause a rarefaction of the atmo-
sphere in one locality, and a condensation in another, and thus
cause a current of wind sufficiently violent to cleave the waters
of a gulf, and afford a dry passage for a particular people
through whom he designed to affect great purposes.

It will doubtless still be argued that such occurrences, if
they ever do take place, are results simply of the forces and
laws of nature. In a qualified sense, this is granted, as we
have shown before that all action, whether physical or
spiritual, is according to some laws ; but we insist that it is
an exceedingly superficial view of the laws of nature, which
supposes that they are self-generative and self-active, or that
they can exist for a moment as separate from that Divine
vitalizing and spiritual Principle which, in an earlier stage
of this work, we showed was necessarily self-existent and
eternal.

But if this self-existent, and all generative, and vitalizing
Divine Principle may operate upon mundane forces and de-
velopments in the way just described, he may, in a similar
way, control, modify, and direct chemical and mineral, or
vegetable, or animal, or spiritual forces and developments, by
a voluntary graduation of those influences, proceeding from
himself, as adapted to either of these departments of his
creation. And all such operations would be instances of
direct providences.

But while it would be impossible for God, consistently
with the fundamental, which we have presumed to be the
best possible plan of creation, to act directly upon any one
department of being, by forces specifically adapted only to
another (as, for instance, to act directly upon mind, by that
Degree of attractive force known as " gravitation," or to di-
rectly control planets by the motive forces of moral and

PROVIDENCE. 253

rational convictions), it is none the less conceivable that each
department of existence may be indirectly influenced through
the medium of some other department, which is made the
receptacle of direct influence. Thus it may be conceived as
possible for God, by special and designed action upon a par-
ticular planet, to change the orbit of such planet, and thus
mediately change the orbits of all the planets with which it
may be associated, and thus to change their seasons, and thus
their inhabitants, if they have any, and thus even to produce
an endless concatenation of spiritual changes ; or, that by
action upon one particular department of the Mineral, Veget-
able, or Animal Kingdom, He might change other depart-
ments of the same Kingdom, and thus indefinitely change the
relations existing between them all.

Similar remarks are especially applicable to the Divine
government of the Human world. Notwithstanding every
human being, and the whole race, as one grand Man, was
designed to reflect the image of the Creator, human nature,
in its present state, is undeniably more or less depraved,
selfish, and inharmonious, and hence is not receptive of the
Divine influence, in its pure and harmonious state. The
Divine spiritual influence, directly and immediately infused
into the human world, therefore, and without the mediumship
of a perfect human personage to harmoniously reflect, truly
define, and correctly apply, its principles, would necessarily
take a form of manifestation more or less characterized by the
imperfections of degenerate humanity as its receptacle — in the
same way as the Divine operative influence, flowing into
animal or still lower creations, takes a form of manifestation
peculiar to- those creations. On this principle, and this prin-
ciple alone, it is conceived, we may account for the imper-
fection of the impressions which the Divine inspiration gave

22

254 PROVIDENCE.

to Moses, and David, and the prophets, and the imperfections
of the code of ethics, principles of government, and policy in
respect to other nations, which grew out of these impressions ;
for all these were evidently imperfect when judged by a
Christian standard. Still, by means of such inflowings, as
the psychical and mental constitutions of these mediums
rendered possible, God, without immediately obliterating
existing evils, pressed these evils into the service of ultimate
good : and by arraying one nation against another, subjecting
some to utter extermination, humbling others, by long dis-
ciplinary chastisements, etc., so directed the general course of
human events as provide for the influx of more and more
light, and for the final coming of him who was emphatically
" the Light of the world." And now that that Light has
come, a similar course of indirect Divine providences is con-
tinued with reference to nations and individuals, evidently
with the view to the ultimate bringing of all under the full
influence of its life-giving beams, and to the establishment
of that Divine Kingdom in the world which shall "break
to pieces and consume all other kingdoms, and stand for
ever."

But if in this disjointed and degenerate state of the human
faculties, God can discharge the highest functions of his Di-
vine government only by bringing the appropriate forces of
one human faculty, one person, one society, or one nation, to
bear upon another, it is equally true that in the perfect man,
God rules directly, personally and absolutely as God, in all his
harmoniously consociated affectional, moral, and intellectual
attributes — in the same way as he rules as mechanical, chemi-
cal, or vegetative Force, in different departments of nature
without. Nay, in such a being, as the ultimate and harmonious
embodiment of all the principles of his Love and Wisdom,

PJROVIDENOE. 255

God absolutely dwells, in his integral and personal capacity, as
in a temple; and therefore such a being is God in his focalized
capacity as adapted to a direct conjunction with humanity.
All that authentic history informs us of the character, actions,
and teachings of Jesus goes to justify the belief that he was
such a divinely human and humanly divine personage.

It should be observed, that a perfectly pure and sinless in-
telligence, such as is here conceived, must, as viewed in a
human aspect, stand at the very apex of visible creation, or at
that point in a grand seven- fold circle of existence at which
endings merge into beginnings. Hence, the Divine Soul,
focalizing in all its harmoniously combined principles, in such
a being, would maintain the same relations to inferior physi-
cal constitutions, and to all outer physical substances which
lie within his sphere, as the Divine Being in his whole infini-
tude, sustains to the physical universe as a whole. Hence the
Divinity, in this focalized capacity, would maintain toward all
things within his sphere, the relations of a New Beginning
Principle ; and if God in his infinitude, as the Beginning Prin-
ciple of the universe as a whole, could, from his free volition,
make and unmake laws to govern the present system of things,
then God, in the condescended form of his personal Being as
manifested through a suitable human organism at the end of
an old, and the beginning of a new creation, may, in equal
consistency with the rules of Divine order, establish new laws,
or rather en«t immensely higher degrees of old ones, as
relating to such existences within his sphere as need such in-
terference. There is nothing irrational in the supposition,
therefore, that the Divinely human, or humanly Divine Prin-
ciple (which are one and the same), could, by volition through
the outer organism which served as its medium, -concentrate
its vital energies upon the diseased bodies of man, and even

256 PROVIDE NCE.

the inorganic elements of the outer world, and produce such
effects as are commonly designated by the word " miraculous,"
and that, too, simply according to that higher degree of laws
specifically adapted to such operations, and unfolded for such
specific purposes. Such would be instances of the highest
manifestations of indirect providences.

But if God dwells and rules, with a perfect and harmonious
display of all the principles of his nature as God, in a being
such as we have supposed, then it follows that the more any
man is like such a being, the more fully God " works within
him to will and to do according to his own pleasure," the more
he is under the direct operation of the highest order of Divine
Providences, the more he is raised, as it were, above the
sphere of mere material things and their laws, and the more
he becomes a medium through which the Divine Being, in his
affectional, intellectual, and volitional nature as such, acts upon
beings and conditions below him, to bring them up to the true
standard of heal thfuln ess, harmony, and perfection ! And
when all human beings shall be fully united to God — shall
fully "dwell in him, and he in them," then all human beings,
with their outer conditions, and even the whole physical world,
divinely acted upon through their mediation, will undoubtedly
be spiritualized, and elevated one Discreet Degree, and peace
and plenty, and that universal harmony and love, which may
be considered as uncontaminated and unperverted outflowings
from the Divine Fountain of Infinite Harmony and Love,
will take the place of the corroding selfishness, the distracting
animosities, and the physical, as well as moral, diseases and
sufferings which now roll their desolating waves over the
earth.

Let it be .distinctly understood that the foregoing theory of
Divine Providences is presented simply as a rational deduc-

PROVIDENCE. 257

tion of philosophy, aside from the teachings of Scripture.
The few scriptural phrases we have employed in this dis-
quisition, have been employed incidentally, solely in consider-
ation of their appositeness, as expressing certain ideas which
have lain within the course of our reasonings. Being actu-
ated by the sole desire of developing the teachings of phil-
osophy, with reference to these questions of theology, it is not
pretended that we have attained to a full unfolding of truth
upon the subject discussed, or even to so clear a presentation
of that measure of truth which has been found, as might have
been attained if we had freely availed ourselves of scriptural
aids. But while, by the course we have pursued, our con-
clusions have been left unprejudiced in the view of such of
our readers as may be disinclined to admit the authority of
the Bible, we beg such readers, in candor, to observe, that so
far as the teachings of nature and philosophy have, in these
pages, been brought into view, there is not that hostility be-
tween them and the teachings of the Bible, which unbelievers
in the latter have generally supposed to exist. The object
of all investigations should be, not to establish the au-
thority of a Book, or of a philosophical creed, but to dis-
cover Truth; and if some, of the most vitally important of
all truths are recorded in the Bible, it must be acknow-
ledged, even by all candid infidels, that while these are no
more, they are no less sacred, and while they should be
received with no more, they should be received with no
less avidity, than if the same truths were found any where
else.

What has been said respecting Providences, will serve to
give a general idea of a subject which is far from being
exhausted in this discussion. Instances of apparently still
more special providences, as affecting the specific con-

258 CONCLUSION.

ditions of individuals, can be intelligibly illustrated only
in view of certain psychological and spiritual laws, which
will form the themqs of appropriate remark when wewpro
ceed to the consideration of the Microcosm, or the universe
within.

CONCLUSION OF THE VOLUME.

We have thus endeavored to exhibit a general view of the
various Series and Degrees of systematic creation which com-
pose the aggregate of the outer realm of being — both in their
separate and united capacities, together with their relations to
each other and to their common Divine Cause and Governor.
We close this first part of our treatise with the following re-
marks :

1. If our Philosophy, as to its distinctive features, contains
no truth, it can at least do no essential evil, as it must be that
a system of unmitigated error, of so bold and conspicuous a
kind, and put forth in this unguarded manner, would exhibit
so many vulnerable points as to meet with its death wound
the instant it is exposed to the shafts of criticism. If it should
be entirely overthrown, however, there would still necessarily
remain some possible mode of systematizing and harmonizing
Nature and Truth in one general philosophic view, if it so be
that Nature and Truth are intrinsically systematic and har-
monious ; and the discovery of this mode is worthy of the
highest efforts of philosophic minds. I would respectfully sub-
mit, however, that promise of a discovery of this kind, can
only be given by some such process of serial, gradational, and
correspondential reasoning from interiors to exteriors, as has
been pursued in the foregoing pages; and that so long as
men confine themselves to the ordinary processes of reason-
ing merely from effects to causes, so long their conclusions

CONCLUSION. 259

will, of necessity, be more or less divergent, and so long they
will, at most, be able to attain only the body of truth, without
its soul.

2. If our Philosophy contains some truth and some error,
then its truths, bearing as they do upon subjects of the most
striking and important character, may, by exciting minds
capable of elaborating and extending them, yet form the nu-
cleus of a grand system of true thought, which may be pro-
gressively brought to a state as near perfect as may comport
with the finiteness of the human mind.

3. If it contains a large preponderance of truth, and but
little essential error, then considerable progress has already
been made in developing the means of reconciling the jargon
of conflicting thought upon all subjects natural and spiritual,
and in demolishing the partition walls between the Jew of
Theology on the one hand, and the Gentile of Philosophy on
the other, and making of the twain one new man, thus making
peace.

We are next, therefore, in the light of facts, truths, princi-
ples, laws, correspondences, etc., developed in the preceding
pages, to proceed to consider a general theme of perhaps still
more interest, viz., the MICROCOSM, or corresponding universe
within. In the course of our investigations upon this subject,
we shall probably speak of man physically, psychologically,
individually, and socially, with a view of exhibiting his rela-
tions to all other things, his susceptibility to their influence,
and the conditions of his true progress and happiness.

Should not unforeseen influences prevent, this second Trea-
tise, or rather second part of the present one, will be ready' for
publication in the course of a few months.

END OF THE

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