Crown 8vo. Price 5s. net
With Portrait of Dr. Stoney, and 35 Diagrams in the Text.

THE ELECTRON THEORY

A POPULAR INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW THEORY
OF ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM

BY E. E. FOURNIER D'ALBE, B.Sc. (LoND.), A.R.C.Sc.

WITH A PREFACE BY

G. JOHNSTONE STONEY, M.A., D.So., F.R.S.

"It is called a work of popularisation. But let there be no mistake : the
author haa here done truly scientific work." — Journal de Physique.

" The best possible introduction to modern views of electricity."— Medical
Electrology.

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" A lucid popular account of the main outlines of the electron theory as it
exists at the present day."— Spectator.

"Mr. Fournier meets a distinct want In supplying a little volume which
explains the electron theory of magnetism and electricity in a simple yet
scientific manner."— Pall Mall Gazette.

"Mr. Fournier d'Albe haa been more than successful in presenting his
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the investigator."— Nature.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA

TWO NEW WORLDS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE ELECTRON THEORY

A POPULAR INTRODUCTION TO THE

NEW THEORY OF ELECTRICITY

AND MAGNETISM

With a Preface by
G. JOHNS-TONE STONKY, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S.

With Frontispiece Portrait of Dr. Stoney,
and 35 Diagrams in the Text

Crown 8vo, 5«. net

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA

TWO NEW WORLDS

I. THE INFRA- WORLD
II. THE SUPRA-WORLD

BY

E. E. FOURNIER D^ALBE, B.Sc.

AUTHOR OF "THK ELECTRON THEORY"

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1907

All right*

PREFACE

THE following pages contain an attempt to penetrate
the mystery of space and time with the help of the
most modern resources of scientific research. The
treatment extends to the Infinite on one side and
the Infinitesimal on the other, and seeks to annex
a "first order" of each to the vast realm already
surveyed and partly controlled by the human in-
tellect. The mam thesis of this work is that a
universe constructed on a pattern not widely dif-
ferent from ours is encountered on a definite and
measurable scale of smallness, and another on a
correspondingly larger scale. To these universes
I give the names Infra- World and Supra-World
respectively.

In studying the characteristics of these two new
worlds — "new" in the sense of being now for the
first time discovered and described — I have taken
for my basis that last and greatest generalisation
of science known as the "electron theory," which
has during the last ten years of triumphant progress
accounted for all known phenomena of electricity and
magnetism, and thus placed the whole of physical
science on a new and firm foundation. The now

V1 PREFACE

point of view introduced into this theory for the
purposes of the present research is confined to the
stipulation that matter and electricity are quantities
of an essentially different nature, and that whatever
they may be, one of them cannot be interpreted in
terms of the other. There is, in fact, no "electric
theory of matter," and a further simplification of
natural laws must proceed on non-material lines.

For the philosophical doctrines guiding these
researches I am very greatly indebted to my revered
master and friend, Dr. Johnstone Stoney, F.R.S.,
whose ontological speculations have profoundly in-
fluenced and enlightened me. Ontology is a subject
left uncultivated by most modern men of science,
and that may account for the somewhat materialistic
tendency of most of their writings when touching
on philosophical subjects. The science of the mind
is as yet in its infancy, largely on account of the
lack of a comprehensive theory of mental pheno-
mena. Mental pathology and psychical research
will enter on a career of useful achievement as soon
as they can agree upon a " point of view." At present
all is chaos and guesswork. The Kepler and Newton
of the soul are still awaited.

A work like the present necessarily appeals to the
intellect in the first instance. But the proof of the
existence of two worlds whose possibility was barely
suspected hitherto, and whose connection with our-
selves, with our own past and future, may be very

PREFACE Vll

intimate, must also stir the heart and fire the im-
agination. I have carefully avoided entering the
field of theological controversy, but I hope that
those who believe that this world of ours is in
good hands, that it is not governed by blind chance
or inflexible destiny, that it offers infinite possibilities
of faith and hope and love, will derive some addi-
tional comfort and encouragement from the following
pages, even though these proceed from a dry analysis
of known facts. May this, together with the circum-
stances of this book being written in Ireland and
largely inspired by Irish thoughts and thinkers, go
to justify its Irish motto: "For the Glory of God
and the Honour of Ireland."

E. E. FOURNIER D'ALBE.

CHAPKLIZOD, June 1907.

CONTENTS

/. THE INFRA-WORLD

CHAP. PAOB

I. A NEW MICROCOSM 3

II. THE FORCES OF THE INFRA-WORLD . . 15

III. LIFE IN THE INFRA- WORLD . . . .23

IV. INFRA- WORLD MECHANICS AND PHYSICS . 34
V. INFRA-ASTRONOMY ...... 44

VI. OPTICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY OF THE

INFRA- WORLD ...... 57

VII. MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN , 71

II. THE SUPRA-WORLD

I. BEYOND THE STARS 89

II. INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE .... 98

III. PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OP A SUPRA- WORLD 105

IV. SUPRA-STARS AND LIVING GALAXIES . . 120
V. LIFE IN THE SUPRA- WORLD . . . .132

VI. THE CONQUEST OP THE SUPRA- WORLD . . 141
VII. THE CHAIN OP UNIVERSES . . . .147

APPENDIX . . 156

o Cum
on6nA n-A

I

THE INFRA-WORLD

TWO NEW WORLDS

CHAPTER I

A NEW MICROCOSM

1. To throw the image of a drop of stagnant water
on a screen under a high magnifying power, and to
reveal the intense and manifold life which pervades
that aqueous microcosm, is a favourite proceeding
of the popular science lecturer. It never fails to
fascinate the audience, and often terrifies it. There
is something uncanny in the thought that a dew-
drop may contain thousands of small animals
which eat, and fight, and love, and die, and whose
span of life, to judge from their intense activity,
is probably filled with as many events as our own.
But some consolation may be derived from the
reflection that, when the water is boiled, all that
life disappears, and nothing remains but dead
matter — organic, maybe, but no longer organ
or furnished with a complete set of emotions,
sensations, and purposes.

But what guarantee have we that an instrument
of much higher power than the microscope — an

3

4 TWO NEW WORLDS

instrument as far superior to the microscope as the
microscope is superior to the naked eye — may not
reveal further worlds of hitherto unsuspected life,
which may possibly be more difficult to destroy
than the minute organisms of the pond?

The smallest object which can be distinctly
perceived by the normal human eye at a distance
of 10 in. is trrv m- m diameter; or, more strictly
speaking, when two black objects are separated
by a bright interval ^ in. wide, they are perceived
as separate objects.

Now a good microscope magnifies about two
hundred times, so that the limit of resolving power
is brought down to TOSTO m- This is sufficient for
practically all purposes for which the microscope
is usually intended. A human blood corpuscle is
rejnj- in. in diameter, and is therefore a very large
object for a powerful microscope. Of yeast-cells
there are 3000 to the inch, and the amoeba is of
the same size. The spores of some fungi are as
many as 6000 or even 8000 to the inch, whereas
the spores of the anthrax bacillus are not more
than sT^ou- in. in diameter. The markings of
diatoms are considered somewhat exacting test-
objects for good microscopes, and 30,000 of them
have been counted to the inch, and the same size
must be assigned to the bacilli of tuberculosis.

Small as these objects are, they do not represent
the extreme limits of microscopic vision.

A NEW MICROCOSM 5

Abbe has calculated that the utmost attainable
limit of resolving power can never exceed TTTTOTF in->
on account of diffraction. This means that when
objects are any smaller than that, and are viewed
by light transmitted along the axis of the micro-
scope, the light bends round the object, and enters
the eye just as if the object did not exist. Hence
the object is invisible. This difficulty could be
overcome if photographs could be obtained by
extreme ultra-violet light, which, on account of
the shortness of its constituent waves, is less bent
aside from its rectilinear course.

But diffraction is not an unmixed curse of optics.
It may be utilised for ultra-microscopic vision. Of
this there are two familiar examples. The fixed
stars show no measurable diameter, even with
the highest magnifying power. They would be
quite invisible but for the fact that a parallel
beam of light, incident upon the eye or upon any
other achromatic instrument, is not brought to a
focus in a geometrical point, but in a small «
produced by diffraction, a disc sufficiently large
to come within the perceptive power of the
Oft,

The motes floating in a sunbeam, again, would

be quite invisible but for diffracti«n. They are

less than unnnnr i°- in diameter, as can be proved

by their rate of settling down in still air. Their

v smollnesa enables them to scatter the light

6 TWO NEW WORLDS

in a lateral direction. A microscope has been
constructed on this principle of lateral illumination
by Siedentopf and Szigmondy,1 and by its means
objects only a millionth of an inch in diameter
have been perceived. We cannot say that these
objects have been "seen." But their presence has
been indicated by what might be called diffractive
symbols, appearances ser^ig to indicate their
presence in the field of vision, just as distant
smoke indicates a fire. Thus, when in the "ultra-
microscope" we perceive an object surrounded by
rings, we know that we have to do with a very
minute body. We can count such bodies, and
observe their motions and changes of size and
arrangement. The inventors of the ultra-microscope
used their instrument for determining the weight
of the particles of gold contained in a colloid
solution of that substance.

The world revealed by the ultra-microscope is
not a living world. No organisms can fall short
of a certain size and live. Life appears to require
a certain minimum of molecules to support it. The
physical processes of life are so manifold that a
single molecule, or even a million molecules, are
unable to compass them.

No man has yet seen a molecule; but countless
experiments and indirect measurements have given
us a fair idea of their size and weight, and we

1 Annalen der Physik, No. 1, 1903.

A NEW MICROCOSM 7

can determine with a very considerable degree of
accuracy the number of molecules which go to
make up a living organism.

One of the smallest infusoria known is the Monas
Dallingeri, which is only ^ibm in. in diameter. At
a certain stage of the life-history of this organism,
two individuals combine and fuse into one, and
after six hours' incubation give rise to a large
number of spores whose size is not accurately
known, but which cannot be more than ^Jro in-
Each of these spores is an independent living
individual.

It is not at all difficult to arrive at an estimate
of the number of molecules which go to make up
spore, but before doing so, it will be worth
while to translate our dimensions into the metric
system. The unit adopted in measuring objects
of the size of a wave-length of light is the micro-
inilliinutre, or millionth of a millimetre, denoted
by the symbol /*/*. In ordinary microscopic work
the micron, /i, or thousandth of a millimetre, is
now more generally adopted. It is useful to
remember that 25-4 millimetres, or 25,400,000
micromillimetres, or 25,400 microns, go to the
inch, so that one of the spores under discussion
is about half a micron in diameter, or 423 /iyu.
Now the average diaim t< r of the nj^truK-s con-
aing the substance of the spore has been
estimated at 0*3 **, so that we see that a chain

TWO NEW WORLDS

of some 1200 such molecules would reach from
one end of it to the other. But we also know
that the molecules do not all touch each other.
The specific gravity of the spore is nearly equal to
that of water, and in water the molecules are
sufficiently widely apart to allow of their free
motion about each other. No doubt the various
parts of the cytoplasm, nucleus, and cell-wall of
the spore consist of various intricate groupings
and aggregations of molecules ; but, on the average,
we may estimate that the molecules are half a pp,
apart, so that a cubic space of J cubic pp goes to
each molecule. Since the radius is about 200 /^
the volume of the spore is -JrV, or 33,500,000
cubic pp. Multiplying this by eight, we get 268
million as the number of molecules constituting the
spore.

This number, roughly approximate as it is,
enables us to draw the important conclusion that
no living organism contains less tJian a hundred
million molecules.

When, therefore, we penetrate further into the
realms of ultra-microscopy, we leave life behind,
and have to do with none but unorganised matter.
We can perceive the presence of objects down to
about 20 fjifji in diameter, which cannot contain
more than about 50,000 molecules. Beyond that
limit, even the most recent optical devices fail us,
and we must fall back upon the visualising powers

A NEW MICROCOSM 9

of the scientific imagination, trusting that optical
progress will some day enable us to verify our
imaginings by ocular demonstration.

2. As our resolving powers increase, the world
of small things becomes more and more unfamiliar.
If the ordinary microscope reveals beings whose
existence on a large scale would be impossible,
how shall we find our way in a world whose
objects are of molecular dimensions?- But since
we have started on that venturesome journey, let
us go straight ahead, and endeavour to find some
link between the new kingdom of Lilliput and our
own universe.

When we arrive within sight of the molecule,
the microcosm becomes invisible by ordinary means,
as already stated. But, as we shall see, there is
no reason why it should be invisible to eyes
properly adapted to its scale of magnitude.

Fortunately for us, that scale of magnitude is
known with sufficient accuracy to prevent our
making any very grave blunders in finding our
way in the infra-world. We know that the atojQis.
are about J)-G pp in diameter, and that they are
surrounded by electrons in some such way as our
sun is surrounded In planets. These electrons have
a <li.iinct.jr of a millionth of a micro-millimetre,
or 10-18 cm. Now, the diamoUT of the earth is
12 x 10 cm. Hence the ratio of the size of
earth to the size of tho electron is 1-2 x 1022, or

.

10 TWO NEW WORLDS

approximately 10,000 trillions to 1. This ratio
appears to be of fundamental importance. It is
nothing less than the ratio of the scales of successive
universes.

Since in the minute world we are now exploring
atoms correspond to suns, and electrons to planets,
we may boldly equate our earth to an electron,
and find how far the analogy holds good.

Time and space are, after all, purely relative. If,
at midnight to-night, all things, including ourselves
and our measuring instruments, were reduced in
size 1000 times, we should be left quite unaware
of any such change. There would be nothing to
prove that it had taken place. Also, if all events
and all timepieces were accelerated in the same
ratio, we should be equally ignorant of the event.
We measure size by our own bodies or by the size
of the earth. We measure time by the rotation of
the earth or by its revolution round the sun.

Now, if we were small enough to live on an
electron as we now do on the earth, we should
measure all things by comparing them with our-
selves or with our electron, and we should measure
time by the rotation of our electron or its revolution
round the central atom. Now, the period of the
earth's revolution about the sun is 3 x 107 seconds
(= one year), whereas the period of revolution of
the average electron round its atom is 2xlO~15
seconds. The ratio of these two periods is 1-5 x 1022,

A NEW MICROCOSM II

or substantially the same as the ratio of the dia-
meters. Hence in the infra-world space and time are
reduced in the same proportion.

It is this curious circumstance which justifies the
expression " infra- world." It shows that the world
in which an electron is equivalent to the earth is
a real microcosm, a " visible universe" on an almost
inconceivably small scale, but still a universe where
conditions do greatly resemble our own.

Our visible universe consists of stars strewn ir-
regularly through space. As we descend in the
scale of dimensions, we first enter the region of
micro-organisms, then the region of molecular
aggregates, and, lastly, the region of atoms and
electrons, and it is only at the last stage that we find
any conditions comparable with those of our world.

When, with our own progressive diminution, the

11 things appear larger and larger, when finally

the electron comes to resemble the earth, and we

take our stand on it as "infra-men" 1022 times

smaller than our present size, we enter this mys-

>us infra-world, and begin to appreciate its real

oture. Our electron turns out to be a hard

sphere, but sufficiently varied in its surface (most

likely) to present what wo used to call landscape

eftects. This means but a slight irregularity of the

surface, so slight as to be impossible to trace by

terrestrial measurements.

We may have entered the infra-world in the full

12 TWO NEW WORLDS

expectation of finding everything in a wild whirl
and turmoil, and here we find ourselves entirely
mistaken. Our electron rolls through space as
leisurely and majestically as the earth appeared to
do. When one revolution is completed, another is
begun; and so it goes on for a thousand million
"years" perhaps — years measured by the revolu-
tions of the electron. This vast period covers but
a millionth of one terrestrial second, it is true, but
how could we know that? We no longer measure
time by the terrestrial scale. We measure it on the
same principle, but our scale is reduced 1022 times ;
and if we could measure the earthly year, it would
appear to us to be an immense period stretching
over 10,000 trillion infra-years.

We could still talk about a speed of 1 cm. per
second, but since the centimetre would be derived
from the electron instead of the earth, it wpuld be
10~22 of a terrestrial centimetre. It should, there-
fore, be called an "infra-centimetre." The new
second should also be called an "infra-second."
But velocities so measured would be really equal
if measured in the same figures. Thus, a velocity
of 1 infra-cm, per infra-second is exactly equal to a
velocity of 1 cm. per second. And another of the
curious coincidences brought out by this specula-
tion is that the velocities prevalent in both worlds
are substantially tlie same, both relatively and
absolutely.

A NEW MICROCOSM 13

We talk of " planetary " and "cosmic" velocities,
and find that most stars have a speed of 3 J million
cm. per second. Now, this is just about equal to
the speed of the average electron in its orbit. We
need not, therefore, do any violence to our notions
of possible speeds in descending into the infra-world.
It is generally thought that no matter can move
with a speed exceeding the velocity of light — viz.,
3 x 1010 cm. per second. It is therefore reassuring
to find that the speeds of the infra-world are well
below that limit.

3. Infra-Light. — It is evident that whatever may
be the constitution of any infra-organisms which
may people our infra-world, that world cannot be
to them what ours is to us without the existence
of light. That light cannot, of course, be what we
understand by the term. It cannot be earthly light,
for a single vibration of earthly light takes a whole
" year " to accomplish itself in the infra-world. But
the infra-world, if it is like ours, must consist of
particles — atoms and electrons, maybe — of a still
smaller order of magnitude, another 1022 times
smaller than the infra-planets ; and the motion of
these infra - electrons lights up the infra-world.
e all speeds remain the same, the speed of
propagation of infra-light will be 3 x 1010 cm. per
second, like our terrestrial light. But any Rcemer
or Foucault or Fizeau among the infra-nit 11 would
actually obtain the same figure for the velocity of

14 TWO NEW WORLDS

infra-light by the observation of some infra-Jupiter's
satellites, or the twirling of some infra-mirror. The
luminiferous ether, therefore, may be taken to
remain the same in both worlds. Mysterious as
ever, it is the one substance which is always with
us, and ever the same.

CHAPTER II

THE FORCES OP THE INFRA-WORLD

1 . WE have seen that in the infra-world, the world
where atoms and electrons stand for suns and planets,
the absolute velocities are of the same order as those
in our world, but that all lengths and times are re-
duced in the same proportion — viz. 1022 to 1.

From these data we can, without further trouble,
deduce that all surfaces are reduced in the ratio
of 1044 to 1, and all volumes in the ratio 1066 to 1.

But there are a large number of other quanti-

apart from these geometrical and kinematic al

quantities, and it will be of interest to consider in

what proportion they are reduced or increased in

descending to the infra-world.

The most important of these is mass, or the
quantity of inertia opposed by a body to a given
moving force. If densities were of the same order
in both worlds, masses would be reduced to the
same extent as volumes — viz., in the ratio of 1006 to
1 . This, however, is not the rule in the solar system,
where Jupiter has only about one-fourth of tin-
density of the earth. :m<l the sun is specifically
tor even than that. Thus we may expect bodies

1 6 TWO NEW WORLDS

to be denser in the infra- world than in our world.
Now, the mass of the earth is approximately 1028
grammes, whereas that of an electron is about 10~27
grammes. The ratio is 1055, so that in this case the
mass is only reduced by that ratio, while the volume
is reduced 1086 times. This means that the density
is increased nearly a billion times.

This is nothing to be surprised at, and becomes
inevitable when we consider that our densities
are determined by measurements and estimates
made in the case of solid " bodies," consisting, as
every one now admits, of discrete particles separated
by more or less wide intervals. These intervals
are usually imperceptibly small. Solid copper
consists of atoms and atomic aggregates tightly
packed as close as they will go at a given tem-
perature. But this does not mean that the atoms
are always in contact. It only implies that when
the atoms are pressed together still more tightly
forces are brought into play — internal kinetic
forces most likely — which resist any further dimi-
nution of volume. An atom may, for all that, re-
semble a swarm of bees, which cannot be compressed
with impunity.

Still, the atom has a certain mass, and this must
be inherent in its constituents — that is to say, the
electrons or other particles of which it is composed.
If these are, as we have found, a billion times
more dense than ordinary matter, it follows that

THE FORCES OF THE INFRA-WORLD 1 7

only one part in a billion of the " volume " of an
atom need be filled up by them.

In view of the fact that the volumes of the sun
and all the planets put together fill up just about
one-billionth of the solar system within the orbit
of Neptune, the analogy between an atom and a
solar system becomes more strikingly evident. But
this part of the analogy is really implied in the
hypothesis that all lengths are reduced in the
same proportion.

2. The superior density of the " celestial bodies "
of the infra-world implies that when they are set
in motion they have a billion times more kinetic
energy, volume for volume, than the planets of our
If, therefore, we were suddenly trans-
ported into the infra-world, we should know by
without any other indication, that circumstances
had changed. But we should soon find out other
and more fundamental ditVerences. The cosmic
velocities are, as we have seen, practically the same
in both worlds, both absolutely and as measured l>y
the standards of each world iinlei Mini* m ly. This is
due to the fact that a velocity is the ratio of a ap
to a time, or LT~!. If both L and T arc changed in
the same ratio, the result remains the same, and it
remains the same, too, when the unit is changed
to the same extent in both L and T. Hut an
acceleration is a length «ii\ i.i.-d by the square of

me, and if the units of both space ami time are

B

1 8 TWO NEW WORLDS

1022 times smaller, the same absolute acceleration,
measured first in our world and then in the infra-
world, will appear 1022 smaller in the second case
than in the first.

To give an illustration : — A body acquires on earth
a velocity of 981 cm. per second in one second under
the action of the earth's gravitational force. The
acceleration is, therefore, 981 units. Now measure
the same acceleration in the infra-world. One
centimetre becomes 1022 cm., one second becomes
1022 seconds, and a velocity of 1022 cm. per 1022
seconds is unit velocity, as on earth. But this unit
velocity is acquired in one earthly second, which in
the infra- world is drawn out to 1022 infra-seconds,
or about 100 billion infra-years, and our normal
acceleration will therefore appear to be so slight
as to be imperceptible. It will be something com-
parable with the acceleration of a building gradually
subsiding into the earth, and being buried in the
course of untold ages.

It follows that if the inhabitants of the infra-
world define acceleration by our methods, their
unit acceleration must be prodigious in our eyes,
amounting, as it does, to 1022 of our units.

The time-keepers of the infra- world are the stars
of the infra-heavens, or what we call the atoms.
The infra-planets, alias electrons, revolve round the
infra-suns, alias atoms, as much more frequently as
they are smaller than our planets and suns respec-

THE FORCES OF THE INFRA-WORLD 1 9

v. This is a purely kinematical theorem; but
in order to account for it dynamically, we must con-
sider the forces at work in the infra-world.

Now, centrifugal force is proportional to the square
of the velocity of the revolving body, and inversely
proportional to its distance from the centre of
attraction. In symbols, F=^g- where ra is the
mass, V the velocity, and R the radius of the orbit.
Now, in descending into the infra-world, V remains
substantially the same, m is reduced 1055 times, and
R is reduced 10M times. Hence the centrifugal force
is reduced to 10"33 times the force, say, between the
earth and the sun.

How is this force balanced ? The distance between
two bodies in the infra-world is 1022 times less than
between two bodies in this world, and hence the
gravitational force must be multiplied by 1044. But,
on the other hand, the gravitational force is pro-
portional to the product of the masses, which are
both reduced 1065 times. Hence the gravitational
attraction is in the infra- world ] } Rpr—i or on^y
10~* times what it is with us. This is 1088 times too
small to balance even the reduced centrifugal force
of 10~M dynes found above. Still, if our dynamical
•:s hold good — and everything we know
points in that direction — wo may be sure that that
attractive force of 10~M dynes is somehow provi

s that all central forces -in the infra-

20 TWO NEW WOKLDS

world are increased 1033 times, in order to account
dynamically for the motions we actually observe.

We may therefore tabulate the various units in
the two worlds as follows : —

In the infra- world the unit of

Length is reduced .... 1022 times.

Time is reduced 102' „

Velocity is unchanged .

Mass is reduced 1055

Area is reduced 1044

Volume is reduced . . . . 1066

Acceleration is increased . . . 1012

Mechanical force is reduced . . 103S

Density is increased .... 1011 „

The above calculations may appear somewhat
abstruse, and the immense quantities denoted by
the exponential figures may appal some readers who
are not used to deal with figures on that scale.
But it should be remembered not only that such
figures enter into the daily calculations of as-
tronomers, who practise what is acknowledged to
be the most exact of all sciences, but that their
manipulation, once acquired, is extremely easy and
peculiarly elegant. We are dealing with quantities
on a very small, instead of a very large, scale, and
the exponential notation enables us to " think in
millions" (or in millionths) with the same ease
and certainty as we experience in dealing with the
simple multiplication table. As a rule, indeed, our
operations are confined to addition and subtraction.

THE FORCES OF THE INFRA -WORLD 21

3. We have now laid a solid foundation for our
knowledge of this newly-discovered world. We see
that, while the appearances remain the same, the
central forces must necessarily be different, and
must, indeed, vastly exceed the mechanical forces
we are familiar with. If we take the visible universe
as it is, and reduce all its dimensions in the same
ratio, and accelerate the rates of revolution of the
various celestial bodies in the same ratio, so as to
keep their absolute velocities the same as before,
we find that this cannot be done with the simple
gravitational attraction as we know it. We must
have a more powerful centripetal force.

We can give a simple illustration in the case of
the earth and the moon. Let all their dimensions
be halved, and let their velocities and densities re-
main the same as before, Then, since the volume
of each body will be one-eighth of what it was, its
mass also will be one-eighth, and the gravitational
• ction, being proportional to the product of the
masses, will be ^Vth of the present attraction. On
the other hand, their distance will also be halved,
and this will increase the gravitational attraction
four times. So that on the whole we have a centri-
petal force one-sixteenth of the present force.

As regards the centrifugal force, this is propor-
tional to m^ , and depends only upon the revolving
body. Now V is the same as before, m is reduced

22 TWO NEW WORLt>S

eight times, and R is halved. Hence, on the whole,
the centrifugal force will be one-fourth of the present
force which keeps the moon in its orbit. But it will
be four times too large for the very feeble gravita-
tional attraction, and so the moon will fly off into
space.

The fact that, though such a proportional reduc-
tion is made in the world of atoms and electrons,
yet the electrons revolve about their atoms in orbits
whose existence is demonstrated by every ray of
light, shows that the central forces must greatly
exceed the Newtonian attraction.

We know what this new central force is. It is the
force of electrostatic attraction. We might almost
say that it is specially designed to make possible the
existence of an infra-world on the pattern of our own
universe, but on a very minute scale. Incidentally,
the electric force produces a variety of interesting
terrestrial phenomena. But, essentially, it may fitly
be described as the " gravitation of the infra-world."

CHAPTER III

LIFE IN THE INFRA-WORLD

1. WE have seen that if orbital motions resembling
the earth's motion round the sun are to be pre-
served on a molecular scale — the scale of the infra-
world — and if the absolute orbital velocities arc
to be of the same order in each case, centripetal
forces must be at work which greatly exceed the
gravitational force we are accustomed to. Such
a centripetal force, enormous in comparison with
gravitational force, we are already familiar with
in the case of electrostatic attraction. When one
electron is placed at a distance of 1 cm. from another,
it repels it with a force of about 10~19 dynes. By
virtue of their ponderable masses, the two electrons
at the same time attract each other with a force
of about 10"62 dynes. In this case, therefore, the
electric force exceeds the gravitational force 1043
times. This enormous difference shows at once that
as soon as electric forces come into play we are
amply provided with machinery for producing the
necessary speed of revolution. But it has been
objected that such prodigious forces as these would
break up any structure with which we are acquain

24 TWO NEW WORLDS

and that our imagination recoils helplessly from any
attempt to picture an electron as it really is. That
this attitude is quite mistaken I hope to show in
what follows.

2. We have found that the electric forces " make
the world go round " in the infra-world. But before
we can prove the complete analogy between an atom
with its electrons and our solar system, several
objections remain to be dealt with. These are —

(1) An electron, having such a prodigious charge
in comparison with its mass and size, could not be
held together by any known force.

(2) If there are several electrons revolving about
an atom, they would seriously perturb each other by
their mutual repulsions.

As regards the h'rst objection, it is best answered
by a comparison with the earth. Who would
suspect that the earth is negatively charged to a
potential of a billion volts ? Yet so it is, as can be
easily proved from the data of atmospheric elec-
tricity. The earth's charge is certainly not less than
1018 electrostatic units. It surface density of elec-
trification is just about one electrostatic unit per
square centimetre, meaning that 2930 million free
electrons are distributed over every square centi-
metre of its surface. And yet we find no electric
phenomena in ordinary objects around us. The
charges are there all the same. But they pass into
the atmosphere and back into the earth, and all we

LIFE IN THE INFRA-WORLD 2$

know of them as a rule is confined to thunderstorms
and auroras.

In the case of the electron, with its charge of
3-4 x 10~10 units and its radius of about 10~13 cm.,
the potential is only a million volts. But the surface
density is much greater, being about 1016 units per
square centimetre. Hence the electric field just
- e the surface is 101G times the field above the
surface of the earth. No cohesive force known to
us could withstand that strain. But then it must
be remembered that the density of an electron is
1011 times the density of the earth. Therefore
cohesive force is 1022 times stronger than on earth,
and this is amply able to protect the electron from
disintegration by its own electric forces.

These considerations have the effect of making
the electron more and more familiar. Wo have
indeed here, for the first time, a rational view of an
electron, based upon conceptions familiar in our own
world, and introducing no new and unknown forces.
The forces are much greater than ours, but then we
have already for some time been acquainted with
the greatness of molecular forces, and tluso mole-
cular forces are the forces at play in what we call
the infra-world. \Vo only apply common sense and
elementary science to these minute \ Articles, whose
existence is revealed to us by all the phenomena of
physics and chemistry.

So far, then, we are on solid ground. The olec-

26 TWO NEW WORLDS

tron turns out to be something like our own earth,
only that electric force takes the place of gravita-
tional force in orbital motions. Our " molecular "
forces, such as cohesion and rigidity, have their
analogue in the cohesive forces of the " infra-mole-
cules," those particles of an order 1022 times smaller
than our molecules, which account for the mole-
cular phenomena of the infra-world, and explain the
resistance of the electron to electric disruption.

As regards objection (2), it should be borne in
mind that there is no essential difference between
perturbation by repulsion and perturbation by at-
traction, such as is the rule in our own solar system.
That such perturbations actually take place is shown
by the complicated character of the spectra of
most elements. These spectra would consist of a
few single lines, as in the hydrogen spectrum, if
the electrons revolved round the atoms quite inde-
pendently of each other. But the permanence of
the lines shows also that the perturbations are com-
pensated, as in the solar system, and do not produce
a permanent disturbance of the orbits. It must also
be remembered that at high velocities the mutual
repulsion between two electrons is largely balanced
by electro-dynamic attraction. When two similarly
charged bodies move side by side through the ether,
their electrostatic repulsion is balanced to some ex-
tent by their electro- magnetic attraction — the extent
depends upon the speed. The electro -magnetic

LIFE IN THE INFRA- WORLD 27

attraction is the same fraction of the electrostatic
repulsion as the speed of the bodies is of the speed
of light. Now the speed of electrons, although of
the same order of magnitude as the speed of the
earth, is, as a rule, about a hundred times greater,
and has been known to attain a value one-third the
velocity of light. This would reduce the repulsion
of two electrons moving abreast to two-thirds of their
repulsion when standing still.

3. An interesting question arises as to what con-
;ies the charge of an electron, and what condi-
tions determine its size. We know that the facts of
electricity are fully accounted for by the existence
of electrons of constant mass and charge. The ex-
planation of the esoteric nature of electric charges is
thus pushed a stage further back. It is not really
accomplished, any more than mass is explained by
the atomic theory. This hi no way detracts from
the usefulness of both theories ; but I am convinced
that the human mind will not rest satisfied by the
adjournment of a fundamental question of
this kind.

The present work does not profess to account t'<>r
the essential nature of electric charges. On the
contrary, it shows that no explanation need be
looked for on a scale of infinite smallnoss. When
we get down to the electrons, we are confronted with
precisely the same problem, just as the atom con-
fronts us again with the problem of mi

28 TWO NEW WORLDS

It follows that whatever advance is possible must
be looked for in our own universe. Our universe is
the complete epitome of sentient possibilities. It
commands a distant view of the universes next
below and next above in the universal scale of
magnitude. Next bolow us we have the "infra-
world," which to us appears in the shape of mole-
cular phenomena. Next above us we have what
may be called the " supra- world," which appears to
us as a stellar universe, just as we appear to the
inhabitants of the infra-world, if such there be.

The whole gamut of possible experiences is thus
within our reach. Our physical organisation attaches
us to the surface of a rolling globe, and if we ascend
or descend in the scale of magnitudes we find no
similar possibility of existence until the ratio becomes
1022 to 1. Life as we know it is confined to surfaces
of planets. If there are other types of life (which is
quite conceivable) they are as inaccessible to us as
the inner life of a tree or a flower.

No life remotely resembling our own is possible
on any scale intermediate between us and the infra-
world. But if the main thesis of this essay is true,
and the infra-world is a habitable universe not
essentially different from our own, then there is no
valid argument, either in physiology or psychology,
to show the impossibility of our having been inhabi-
tants of the infra-world previous to our birth into
this world. A life of " seventy years " in the infra-

LIFE IN THE INFRA-WORLD 29

world might be crowded with events, and yet it
would add but an altogether inappreciable fraction
to our earthly span of life. The facts of embryology
are far from being accounted for, and the phenomena
of ontogenetic development are so obscure that a
reasonable hypothesis like the above can only tend
towards their elucidation. It certainly removes the
difficulty experienced in conceiving the boundless
possibilities of life as being contained in an in visibly
small germ.

Considerations such as these lend a human in-
terest to an inquiry undertaken in the first instance
for a purely physical purpose.

4. Conditions of Life. — How much can be done in
the way of calculating conditions of existence from
simple mechanical data is shown by Prof. Lowell's
well-known calculation of the probable size and
strength of the inhabitants of Mars. In doing the
same for the infra- world, we can point to no such
convincing evidence of life as the canals of Mars.
Nor is that necessary for our purpose. We cannot
prove that life in our sense exists in the infra- world ;
but we can point to its possibility, and infer its
probability.

have already seen that we can postulate an
atomic structure of the " infra-world " on the plan
of our own without sensibly interfering with tin-
practical indivisibility <>f the atoms constituting our
own world. Cohesion is 10" times stronger than

30 TWO NEW WORLDS

with us, but the ratio of available forces to masses
is also increased 1022 times, so that the balance is
preserved. For forces are reduced only 1033 times,
while masses are reduced 1055 times.

Handling and moving " objects" in the infra- world
will be much the same as with us. The work per
volume will be much greater, the play of energy
more intense ; but this is just what we should expect
at such a very high rate of existence. Life in the
infra-world is strenuous to an extent we little dream
of. And yet, since the means available are commen-
surate to the ends, there is no essential difference.

The span of life is proportional to the scale of time
and space. Even on our own earth there is a rough
proportionality between the length of the body of an
animal and the length of its normal span of life.
For this there is a physiological reason. Life is
essentially a succession of nerve pulses, of actions
and reactions, between the sentient self and the
external world through the medium of the physical
organism. Each such interaction consists of an
impulse travelling inwards from without, and an
answering impulse travelling outwards from within.
These impulses are transmitted by the nerves at a
certain rate depending upon certain physical pro-
perties of the transmitting substance. The rate of
transmission is comparatively slow. It is about 3000
cm. per second. Therefore, an interval of about a
tenth of a second must elapse between two succes-

LIFE IN THE INFRA-WORLD 31

sive impulses through the feet to the brain if they
are to be adequately and suitably dealt with. It is
just like a mercantile office in which the staff can
only do business at a definite rate. This interesting
physiological fact is illustrated by the coalescence of
separate air-pulses into one continuous note if they
exceed 40 pulses per second, and the similar coales-
cence of flickering images. The " central exchange "
of the human machine is only constructed for some
40 exchanges per second, and it is easy to calculate
that the normal span of human life contains about
1011 such impulses. This figure, recurring as it does
again and again in our calculations, seems to be
of a significance hitherto little realised. Its close
proximity to the figure expressing the velocity of
light in centimetres per second (3 x 1010) is mis-
leading, since that figure changes with the units
of length and time. But another significance may
attach to it independent of the units. It certainly
is the ratio of the speed of light to the average
speed of animal locomotion.

If this figure of 1011 (a hundred thousand million)
he allotted number of nerve-impulses for all
sentient beings, it follows at once that longevity
must be proportional to length. And if this is
true in the infra- world, tho normal span of lite
will be reduced 1022 times—/' in the same ratio
as space and time. Seventy infra-years will there-
fore be tho normal span of life of the infra man.

32 TWO NEW WORLDS

Now an infra- year is what we call a thousand
billionth of a second. Hence the lives of countless
generations of beings would have time to accom-
plish themselves in a small fraction of our second
of time.

5. The solar system is calculated to be 1000
million years old, meaning that the planets have
existed in approximately their present state and
distribution for that length of time. It is esti-
mated that they will last as long again. But
even this vast span, transferred to the time scale
of the infra-world, only brings us up to about a
millionth of a second, or the smallest interval we
can measure with our present instruments. When,
therefore, we deal with molecular orbits and atomic
systems, we must remember not only that we are
dealing with average instantaneous values, but with
average time values as well. In the shortest time
taken in observing, say, the Zeeman magneto-optic
effect, countless atomic systems, symbols of our
own solar system, are made and unmade. Could
we confine observations to a millionth of a second
by a species of ultra-instantaneous photography,
we might hope to observe the effect as exhibited
by atomic systems as stable as our own solar
system.

The stability of our own solar system is greatly
increased by its distance from other fixed stars,
which is over a thousand times the distance of

LIFE IN THE INFRA- WORLD 33

the outermost planet. This condition is realised in
the Zeeinan phenomenon as observed in a sodium
flame; but in solids and liquids, as R. A. Kennedy
has pointed out, the conditions are essentially dif-
ferent. To find anything resembling them in our
own universe we shall have to go to our close
clusters; but as long as the electrons we con-
sider are in a rarefied gas, we may take it that
the conditions are practically the same as in our
own terrestrial world.

CHAPTER IV

INFRA-WORLD MECHANICS AND PHYSICS

1. THE physical aspect of the universe is governed
by four quantities, four " elements " of a much more
fundamental character than earth, air, fire, and
water. These four quantities are length, time,
mass, and electricity. None of these can be com-
pletely expressed by any combination of the other
three.

The conceptions of extension, space, length, area,
volume are abstractions of our own mind, which
express and embody the fundamental fact of plurality
or coexistence. There would be no need for " space "
if I were the only sentient being, and had only one
sensation at a time. I should then be quite in-
capable of arriving at the conception of space.
There would be nothing to suggest it. But the
simultaneous existence of beings and objects which
are independent of my will leads me to form in-
stinctively the idea of space.

As space implies coexistence, so time implies
change. The measurement of time implies two
simultaneous changes, one of which occurs at
regular intervals — i.e., intervals which are accom-

34

IXFRA-WORLD MECHANICS AND PHYSICS 35

panied by the same quantity of change in many
other objects.

It is well known in psychology that the eye and
the touch are both at work to give the infant the
sense of space. The notion of time is acquired
through the eye, the ear, and the touch.

The notion of mass is more complex. It is
primarily based upon the muscular sense. It in-
volves a notion of volume and a notion of density
or intensity. The observation that mere bulk does
not determine the relative importance of moving
objects, that two objects filling the same amount
of space, and moving with the same speed, may
have very different effects upon the motion of other
bodies, leads to the abstraction of density, and
indirectly to the idea of mass. But the idea of
mass is not at all a generally familiar one. It is
illy measured by weight — i.e., the force exerted
by the earth upon the mass. This force is pro-
portional to the mass ; but mass or inertia is quite
independent of the earth and of gravitation.

Electricity is an abstraction still less familiar to
untrained minds. But it is quite as fundamental
as matter; indeed more so, perhaps. It involves
the notion of a different kind of intensity, which
is independent, within certc'iin limits, of the quan-
tity of matter present.

Heat is another physical quantity often mcasu
on an independent scale. But. unlik< H.-IL- r

36 TWO NEW WORLDS

electricity, it can be generated and destroyed.
Moreover, its amount can be expressed in terms
of the other fundamental quantities. Therefore
there is no necessity of regarding it as a funda-
mental quantity.

All the quantities measured in mechanics and
physics are made up of measurements of one or
more of the four fundamental quantities : length L,
time T, mass M, and electricity E. Or if more
complex quantities are measured by direct reading,
as by a speed indicator or a thermometer, the result
is reducible to the four fundamental quantities.

If, therefore, we wish to arrive at the mechanical
and physical constitution of any imaginable uni-
verse, we have only to ascertain how its fundamental
quantities compare with ours.

Thus we might postulate a world in which all
masses and lengths are the same as in ours, but
in which everything happens ten times as fast.
Then it is easy to show that areas, volumes, angles,
densities, and moments of inertia are the same as
before. Acceleration, force, energy, and pressure are
multiplied a hundredfold, and power a thousand-
fold. Velocity and angular velocity are increased
ten times. But we shall be quite ignorant of any
change. For our times are measured by the earth's
rotation about its axis, or its revolution about the
sun, and the scale of measurement increases with
the quantity to be measured.

INFRA- WORLD MECHANICS AND PHYSICS 37

This argument applies so long as the forces in-
volved are all purely mechanical. But it breaks
down as soon as gravitational, molecular, or electric
forces are brought into play. A mere increase of
velocity does not increase gravitation. If the
velocity of the earth increases ten times, the centri-
fugal force increases a hundred times, and unless
gravitational force increases to the same extent,
the earth will fly off into space.

We do not know what constitutes gravitational
force. We only have an imperfect equation for it,

\rxci

viz., F = -pj r where F is the attraction, MM1 are the

masses, and D the distance.

Gravitation is not the only force in want of a
mechanical interpretation. All " actions at a dis-
tance" are in the same predicament. Coulomb's
laws of electric and magnetic attraction are im-
perfect in their dimensions, and elasticity, cohesion,
capillarity, and molecular forces generally depend
upon actions which wo are as yet to a great extent
miliar with.

If the pace of the world is accelerated, and the
world is still to go on as before, all forces, mechanical,
gravitational, electric, and molecular, must be in-
creased in the same proportion — viz., as the square
.

Matters are a little more complicated when not
only one, but all, quantities are altered simultane-

38 TWO NEW WORLDS

ously; but the dimensional calculus again gives us
a rapid method of arriving at the new quantities.

We have seen that the units of length and time
are reduced 1022 times, thus leaving the velocities
unchanged. Volumes are reduced 1066 times, but
masses only 1065 times, thus implying a density 1011
times greater than before. Electric charges are
diminished as the square root of the mass, i.e., 1027*6
times. The increase or diminution of any other
physical quantity is deducible from these four, and
a complete set of the physical constants of the infra-
world is thus obtained by multiplying the new units
in accordance with the dimensional formulae. I
append a table below. The first column gives the
physical quantities, the second their dimensions,
and the third the extent to which they are increased
(positive index) or reduced (negative index) in the
infra-world. The electrical formula} are taken from
my ''Electron Theory" (p. 296).

Time T 10'22

Length L 10~22

Area L» 10-"

Volume L3 ICT66

Angle A = LL-! 1

Angular velocity AT-1 1022

Velocity LT'1 1

Acceleration LT~2 1022

Mass M 10-"

Force MLT~2 10~33

Moment ML2T-2 10~M

Work . ML2T~2 1(T55

INFRA-WORLD MECHANICS AND PHYSICS 39

Power ML2T~3 1Q-33

Density MLr3 1011

Pressure ML^T-2 1011

Moment of inertia ML2 10~M

Elasticity Mir1!*-2 1011

Gravitation M2L~* 10""

Electricity E 10-*7-6

Surface density EL~2 101'-6

Current ET"1 10~6-5

Electric repulsion E2L~a 10~n

Electric field E-^MLT-1 10~6'5

Potential E^ML'T-2 10~27t5

Capacity E2M-1L-*T2 1

Resistance E^MLT-1 10"12

.stivity E-fML8T-1 10'*4

luctnnce E'M^L^'T 1022

Conductivity E2M-JL-8T 1044

E.M.F E^ML'T-* IQ-27'6

Magnetic moment EL2!"-1 10-49<6

Magnetic pole ELT"1 lO"27-6

of magnetibation . . EL~*T~l 10~16'5

:ncability E2M~1L-1 10-2

Inductance E~2ML2 10 44

E2Lr2 10~11

lectric conataut

Magnetic field

Magnetic induction ELr1!1-1 1016-6

From this list it would be possible to compile a
"Textbook of Physics for the Infra- World." The
world, so constituted, has over other imaginable
worlds the great advantage that it actually exists
before our eyes, though on an exc . minute

scale. If, therefore, we come upon any impossi-
bilities or inconsistencies, we cannot conclude that

40 TWO NEW WORLDS

the world cannot exist, but that there is something
wrong with our deductions.

That all forces are reduced in the same proportion
is evident from the fact that they balance each
other. Thus, the fact that an electron can maintain
its orbit for even a fraction of a second shows that
for that fraction — covering millions of revolutions —
its centrifugal force has been balanced by an equal
and opposite attraction. If gravitation does not
account for that, there must be some other force
which does. That is the inevitable conclusion.
Fortunately, we are acquainted with such a force hi
the shape of electrostatic attraction ; but if we were
not, we should none the less be driven to conclude
that some such force existed.

Again, we see that all pressures are increased 1011
times, and that elasticity is increased in the same
proportion. Now, elasticity is the pressure or tension
required to produce a certain percentage reduction
or increase in length. Pressure is force per unit
area. Force is reduced 1033 times, but area 1044
times; hence pressure is increased 1011 times. The
compression per unit length would therefore be 1011
times what it is with us, were it not for the fact that
the density and elasticity are increased by the same
amount, leaving things just as they were.

Again, a seconds pendulum in the infra-world will
be 1022 times shorter than one in our world, and will
beat infra-seconds. For its period is proportional to

INFRA- WORLD MECHANICS AND PHYSICS 41

-i where I is a length and g an acceleration. The

length is reduced 10 22 times, and the acceleration,
however produced, is increased 1022 times. Hence
the quotient is reduced 1044 times and the periodic
time 1022 times, thus giving infra-seconds instead of
seconds.

Kinetic energy is proportional to mass, but it is
more concentrated as regards volume. Infra-world
bullets are much smaller than ours in proportion to
their energy. Their bulk is a billion times smaller,
but since all substances are correspondingly harder,
they are not more penetrative than before. A
remarkable reduction is that of moments of inertia,
clue to the simultaneous reduction of mass and
length. The reduction is necessary in order to pro-
duce the proper amount of energy by rotation in a
very small orbit.

In the electrical quantities, what strikes one aro
the comparatively enormous electric surface den-
sity and intensity of magnetisation. The latter, in-
creased nearly a trillion times, would be the envy of
our electrical engineers. Electric currents aro also
extremely powerful, being nearly a trillion times
stronger than we could pass through the corre-
sponding thickness of wire. But the heating effect
is much less marked, as conductivity is increased 1044
times. Inductance is as mii'-h reduced as conduc-
tivity is increased, so that telephony ought to have

42 TWO NEW WORLDS.

made great strides in the infra-world. Both the
permeability and the dielectric constant are in-
creased 10 22 times, i.e., as much as the lengths are
reduced. In the case of the latter (the "specific
inductive capacity "), the increase may be interpreted
as an increase in the density and mobility of the
infra-electrons.

It is seen then, so far, that we can describe the
physical constitution of the infra-world with con-
siderable confidence. An attempt can also be made
to arrive at some idea of the astronomical,
chemical, and biological conditions prevailing
there, and such an attempt shall be made in what
follows.

NOTE.

Kaufmann's experiments have made it extremely
probable that the whole of the mass of an elec-
tron is " electromagnetic," i.e., due to the electric
charge it carries. J. J. Thomson has calculated the
" apparent mass " of an electron from its charge, e,
and its radius, r, and finds it to be proportional

to -• If m denotes the mass, we have e2=mr, a

numerical coefficient being understood.

Now, if all masses were due to free electric charges,
we should expect every ponderable body to be
charged, and the magnitude of the charge would be
expressed by e— Vrar.

One charged body might revolve about another of
opposite sign, the attraction being, by Coulomb's law,

INFRA-WORLD MECHANICS AND PHYSICS 43
proportional to ^ or, substituting the values for c

\fmr- V??i,r,

and ^ -- ^- J .

Now, it is easily seen (and proved by the calculus
of dimensions) that if the masses ??i and mx are
altered in any ratio, and the lengths n\ and R are
altered in any other ratio, the result will always bear

the same ratio to the simple fraction -R! •

Now, if 7/ij revolves about in, the centrifugal force
is --> where V is its orbital velocity. It follows

immediately that if the velocity is kept constant,
and the masses and distances altered in any ratio we
please, the orbital motion will be maintained. For
the electrostatic attraction will always change in the
same ratio as the centrifugal force, and will always
just balance the latter.

If the equation e= »Jmr held throughout nature,
with a suitable differentiation of signs, all orbital
motions could be accounted for electrically. But a
more probable equation is e = D <Jmr, where D is the
average " world density."

CHAPTER V
INFRA-ASTRONOMY

1. IT has been shown, so far, that the world of atoms
and electrons is a world which is physically and
mechanically not essentially different from ours, its
chief distinctions being the substitution of electrical
for gravitational attraction, and the much greater
densities, pressures, and elasticities prevailing in the
infra-world.

Our attention must be now directed to what may
be called the astronomy of the infra-world. And
since astronomy is a large-scale science, we shall
find many links between the infra-world and our
own world. These links are due to the remarkable
circumstance that (always supposing the infra-world
to be inhabited by beings like ourselves), the largest
object visible in the infra-world is one of the smallest
visible objects of our own world. In other words,
the "starry heavens" of the infra-world appear to
us as a minute microscopic speck.

But the minute specks visible to us have very
diverse constitutions, densities, and chemical, physical,
and biological properties, and the chances are that
none of them correspond in structure to our visible

INFRA-ASTRONOMY 45

universe. As a matter of fact, our visible universe
resembles a rarefied gas rather than a liquid or
solid. For the average distance between the mole-
cules of atmospheric air is 1000 times their diameter,
whereas the distance of the nearest fixed star is 3000
times the diameter of the solar system, and the
other stars are much further off. Other parts of
our universe are, of course, much denser, and approach
more closely to what we may call the liquid state.
But the starry universe immediately surrounding us
corresponds to a gas, with solar systems for mole-
cules.

For a solid like a copper wire we have no analogy
on our own world scale. For the atoms of copper
are so densely packed as to be in actual contact,
or even compressed. If we brought the stars of the
Milky Way into actual contact, there would inevitably
be a great conflagration, in the course of which their
individuality would be hopelessly lost. There is less
chance of that in the infra- world, since the hardness
of the bodies is much greater, while the velocities
remain the same. But there is another circumstance
•h enables the atoms — the solar system of the
infra-world — to approach each other as far as the
orbits of their outermost electrons and yet remain
separate systems. It is the electrostatic repul
between the electrons thus brought close t<>ur> th< r.
Most atoms have a large number of elect
volving round them, estimated in some cases at

46 TWO NEW WORLDS

several hundred or even thousand, though only two
or three of these are ever detached from them. They
revolve in all kinds of orbits with various planes, and
not in the same direction, except in the case of the
magnetic substances. Their charges are neutralised
by the positive charge of the central atom, so that
at considerable distances they exert no electrostatic
action. They may still, however, exert a magnetic
action. For if the electrons revolve in the same
sense, they constitute a molecular magnet, which
attracts or repels similar systems, and may strengthen
or oppose the gravitational attraction between them.
But when two such systems come close together,
the electrons, being outermost, act upon each other
with the well-known electrostatic repulsion. All
molecular phenomena point clearly to an attraction
between atoms which gives way to a repulsion at
close quarters, and an explanation of this rule,
although beset with many difficulties, must be
looked for in some such line of reasoning.

The atoms will take up positions of equilibrium
dictated by their gravitational and magnetic attrac-
tion and electrostatic repulsion. The systems of
equilibrium will obviously depend upon the number
of electrons and their orbits, and will vary from one
species of atoms to another. The para-magnetic
atoms, or those whose electrons revolve in an ecliptic
plane like our planets, will form lines or closed
chains in obedience to their magnetic attraction.

INFRA- ASTRONOMY 47

These chains will make the structure of the magnetic
elements more complex than that of non-inagnetic
elements.

When two atoms come into contact without being
crowded by others, as, for instance, in a gas, it may
well happen that one of the electrons gets detached
from one atom and describes an orbit round the
other. It is just as if a Centauri, for instance, were
close enough to our solar system to capture Neptune.
With a suitable speed, the two solar systems would
combine and revolve about each other, and our
system would become a double star like most of
the other visible stars.

2. Now, imagine two neutral atoms in the infra-
world. To the infra-man they appear as stars or
suns, not necessarily single spheres, like our sun, but
possibly larger aggregations of such spheres, like
heaps of cannon-balls, prevented from coalescing by
their strong cohesion and great hardness. Each of
these suns, whether simple or composite, is surrounded
by electrons revolving in all directions as irregular
as the satellites of Uranus or the new satellite of
Saturn. The total charge of the electrons is neutra-
lised by the positive charge of the central body, so
that any single electron, removed some distance from
the system, is subjected to an attraction equal to the
repulsion between two electrons at the same distance.
The system from which the electron is removed
becomes what is called a " positive atom." If, on

48 TWO NEW WORLDS

the other hand, a new electron (or " infra-planet " )
is added to the system, the latter becomes a " negative
atom." It is obvious that only those electrons will
be liable to loss which have either very large or very
eccentric orbits, and as a rule the same atom cannot
lose more than two or three at the most.

Two such atomic systems, then, approach each other
so closely that one electron is transferred from one
system to another. This transfer immediately sets up
an electrostatic attraction between the two systems,
equal to the attraction between a single electron and
a single positive atom. The future behaviour of the
two systems will depend upon their original speed.
If that is excessive, they will fly apart again — no
longer as neutral atoms, but one of them a positive
atom and the other a negative atom. But if the
speed is moderate, they will revolve round each
other and form a binary. Needless to say, the
revolutions will be much slower than the revolution
of electrons in their orbits, both on account of the
greater distance apart and the greater mass of the
revolving bodies. Unlike our astronomy, the infra-
astronomy is obliged to acknowledge a dependence
of the rate of revolution upon the mass of the re-
volving body, since the force is mainly electrical, and
is not proportional to the masses, but to the charges.

After the transfer, the probabilities are that the
captured electron becomes an " inferior planet " in
the capturing system, so that it runs no risk of

INFRA- ASTRONOMY 49

being recaptured. The infra-man therefore has the
gorgeous spectacle of two suns majestically revolving
round each other, each attended with its planets, one
of them being transferred from one system to another
as a pledge of union.

The above process is what happens in the forma-
tion of, say, a hydrogen molecule. The molecule is
really a binary star consisting of two atoms linked
by electrostatic force. If the speed of encounter is
excessive the result is two free-flying atoms, one
with a positive and the other with a negative ele-
mentary charge. Needless to say, when two such
atoms meet again their union is considerably faci-
litated by their electrostatic attraction.

When from any cause the molecule is split up,
each atom will take its own electrons away with it,
and the atoms will constitute what is called " nascent
hydrogen." It is easily seen that the latter must
possess more pronounced combining properties than
neutral hydrogen. The splitting-up of molecules
into charged atomic systems is called ionisation.
Such ionisation may be brought about not only by
collision, but by a number of other agencies, such
as Rontgen rays, or ultra-violet light. There are
probably also cases of what may be called spontaneous
ionisation, brought about as follows: —

The superior or outer electrons of each system
revolve inM. r the attraction of the central positive
body. They undergo perturbations by the other

5O TWO NEW WORLDS

electrons, which periodically subject them to a
greater repulsion as they approach them in what
we call " conjunction," As a general rule, these
perturbations, like those in the solar system, are
not serious, being outweighed by the much greater
attraction of the central body, and also, to some
extent, by the electrodynamic ("magnetic") attrac-
tion between the moving electrons. But every now
and then it will happen that a larger number of
electrons are in conjunction together, and then the
outermost ones will stand in danger of being expelled
from their orbits and set roaming at large. The
likelihood of such a contingency happening depends,
of course, upon a variety of circumstances, such as
the structure and size of the central body, the dis-
tribution and number of the electrons, &c. It may
well happen that as the central body increases in
mass the likelihood of expulsion oscillates between
a number of maxima and minima. At the minima
the system would have the greatest ability to take up
an extra electron ; but this process would be much
rarer than the loss of electrons, owing to the repul-
sion of the other electrons which would have to
be overcome. In short, it is much easier for a
neutral system to lose an electron than to acquire
an extra one.

Here we have, then, something like an explanation
of the Periodic Law in its electro-chemical aspect.
As we proceed from lower to higher atomic weights,

INFRA-ASTRONOMY 5 1

the elements become alternately electro-positive
(liable to lose one or more electrons) and electro-
negative (able to take up an additional electron).
The former are more numerous than the latter.

Both kinds of atoms are, of course, liable to both
loss and gain of electrons. Thus chlorine, which
gams an electron easily, is just as well able to form
molecules as hydrogen, which loses them easily.
But when chlorine molecules and hydrogen mole-
cules meet, the positive hydrogen atom quickly joins
the negative chlorine atom, while the negative
hydrogen atom as quickly passes its superfluous
electron over to the positive chlorine atom, and then
loses another electron to it. The union between the
two hydrogen and the two chlorine atoms is thus
dissolved, and two molecules of hydrochloric acid
are formed instead of the original molecules. This
change, which liberates a considerable potential
energy, gives rise to a great speed of translation
or rotation of the combining bodies, which to us
appears as heat.

To give a more graphic picture of these occurrences

than can be obtained by a technical description, we

miiy put them into the form of a chronicle of an

.i- world observatory situated, say, on an electron

whiqji we will call Talav,1 revolving round a hydrogen

:i named Grean,1 contained in a gas containing

_rcn and chlorine atoms. Talav is an

1 These names are the Irish equivalents of " earth " and " sun."

52 TWO NEW WORLDS

inner planet of Grean. The outer planets are called
Prima, Secunda, and Tertia, in order of distance,
The other stars are called Alpha, Beta, &c.

3. From the Records of the Talav Observatory.

Year 5280, July 1. — This year's conjunction of
Prima, Secunda, and Tertia is looked forward to
with considerable interest. Tertia will certainly be
lost to our system if she undergoes any additional
outward perturbation.

Oct. 5. — Last night's observations show that the
conjunction has not expelled Tertia. She is there-
fore safe for another 72 years, unless something
extraordinary happens.

Year 5283, Feb. 5. — An unknown comet has been
sighted in the orbital plane of Secunda. Approaching
with a speed of 108 cm. per second, and will pass Grean
at half Talav's distance. Will probably join our system.

March 1. — Now comet turns out to be a planet of
the size and mass of Talav, and same charge. Has
joined our system, and will have an orbit of great
eccentricity, extending considerably beyond that of
Tertia.

Year 5285, March 15. — New planet is approach-
ing apo-Grean, but is showing decided perturbations,
which are shared by all other planets. These are
cosmic and periodic. Period estimated at three
months.

INFRA- ASTRONOMY 5 3

April 4. — New planet's orbit has become parabolic
under influence of cosmic perturbations, and the
planet will be lost to our system.

(Terrestrial Note. — The above entries represent a
case of ionisation by ultra-violet light.)

Year 5352, June 16. — The approaching conjunc-
tion is expected to pass off without unusual develop-
ments, in spite of the cosmic perturbations, which
are too feeble to affect Tertia's orbit.

Nov. 5. — A pulse of unusual strength travelled
through our system to-day. It was first detected at
9.15 A.M., when Tertia began to show a considerable
acceleration. At noon a similar acceleration was
observed in Secunda, and Prima, now in opposition,
showed a retardation, first discovered at 4 P.M. The
pulse lasted for about half-an-hour.

Nov. 6. — Two more pulses travelled through our
system to-day, one beginning at 2 A.M. and the other
at 4.30 A.M.

Nov. 7. — Four more pulses to-day, one in the
morning and three in the afternoon. The pulses are
now ascribed to collisions of the New Planet of 5285
with the system of Gamma, which is approaching.

Nov. 10. — Tertia appears to be definitely lost.
The pulses at conjunction sufficed to make her orbit
hyperbolic.

Year 5362, July 15.— Tertia has dwindled to a
star of 12th magnitude. Gamma is approaching at
a speed of about 104 cm. per second.

54 TWO NEW WORLDS

(Terrestrial Note. — The above entries represent a
case of ionisation by Rontgen rays.)

Year 5365, March 3. — Much interest has been
aroused by the observation that the motion of Gamma
shows a perceptible acceleration, directed towards our
system. A corresponding acceleration of the motion
of Grean has been proved to exist by numerous fixed-
star observations.

June 12. — The acceleration of the proper motions
of Grean and Gamma greatly exceeds that attri-
butable to gravitation. It is now supposed that
Gamma has acquired an extra planet, thus giving
it a negative charge sufficient to account for the
force.

Year 5366, Aug. 1. — Gamma is now seen to
show a perceptible disc. Its distance is estimated
at 1018 cm.

Sept. 15. — Gamma is now seen as a large star
with at least two outer planets. The innermost of
these is retrograde, with considerable eccentricity.
It has been provisionally identified with the new
planet of 5285.

Year 5367, April 30. — There is every likelihood
of our being converted into a binary. The elements
of Gamma indicate an elliptic orbit round our
common centre of gravity.

Aiig. 25. — Gamma is now fully visible with the
naked eye as a sun one-tenth the diameter of Grean.
The two are now in opposition, and there is per-

INFRA-ASTRONOMY 5 5

petual day. The period of our common revolution
is estimated at 1135 years.

(Terrestrial Note. — The above entries represent
the formation of a hydrogen molecule from a
positive atom — Grean, and a negative atom —
Gamma.)

V'-ar 5830, Jan. 10. — A large number of new
stars appeared last night near the pole of the
Ecliptic. Before dawn 86 were counted. Spectro-
scopic observations indicate a speed of 1010 cm.
per second.

Jan. 11, 3 P.M. — One of the new stars just passed
Talav within ten diameters, producing considerable
tidal action. The velocity of the body was enormous,
the passage from horizon to horizon occupying only
a quarter of an hour.

4 P.M. — Gamma has been struck by two of the
shooting stars. The system of Gamma shows con-
siderable perturbation.

Jan. 12, midnight. — Twelve more bodies have
passed. It is impossible to calculate their probable
effect at present. The bodies are planets of mass,
diameter, and charge same as Talav.

Ma irk 15. — The phenomenal invasion of planets
of January last has had the eftect of dissolving our
binary. Gamma is moving away with speed suffi-
cient to remove it from Grean's influence. Our
system is still short by one planet, thus giving it
an elementary positive charge.

56 TWO NEW WORLDS

(Terrestrial Note. — The above entries represent a
case of ionisation by cathode rays.)

4. This sketch represents, as closely as we know it,
the actual appearances which would be presented to
an observer reduced to a size comparable with an
electron instead of the earth, who measured his
times by the revolutions of his electrons instead of
the revolutions of the earth. The events which to
us are crowded into a billionth of a second would
then appear to occupy several hours, and the tre-
mendous and far-reaching chemical and physical
changes would be spread over very long intervals
of time, making them practically of as little
influence to the daily life of the infra-men as the
proper motions of the stars are to us.

CHAPTER VI

OPTICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY
OF THE INFRA-WORLD

1. IN order to arrive at some idea of the chemical
structure of the planets of the infra-world on the
basis of the general considerations advanced in
Chapter IV., we must carry the fundamental
analogies to their logical conclusion. We have
seen that in both our world and the infra-world
velocities are of the same order of magnitude,
while lengths are reduced in the ratio of 1022 : 1.
We have also taken it for granted that the infra-
world has an atomic constitution — an assumption
which must hold the field until some other con-
stitution will have been proved to be thinkable.
Given this atomic constitution, there will be an
infra-chemistry as well as an infra-astronomy. But
chemistry not only requires atoms, but electrons as
well. In fact, the familiar machinery of chemistry
(now practically resolved into electricity and thermo-
dynamics) must be there in all its essential features.
ether being unchanged, the motions of the
us will produce other-waves — other-
wise light — and, to complete the analogy, the

57

58 TWO NEW WORLDS

wave-length of this light must on the average be
1022 times smaller than the light visible to our
own eyes. The velocity of propagation being the
same as that of our light, the number of revolu-
tions per second for the infra-electrons must be
1022 times that of the electrons, and 1014 times that
of our earth. What mechanism will be necessary
for such a rate of revolution ?

The dimensional calculus will again enable us to
solve this problem at a glance. Suppose that the
fundamental quantities M, L, T, and E are changed
over again in the same ratio as before. They will
now become lO"110, 10~44, 10-", and 1Q-55 times
what they are in our world. But the table on p. 39
shows that electrostatic attraction and centrifugal
force will no longer balance each other, since the
latter is again reduced to 10~33 and the former only
to 10~11. In other words, the electric attraction
between an infra-atom and its attendant infra-
electron will be 1022 times too great to balance
the centrifugal force. Hence there will be no
separation between atoms and electrons, and no
light or chemical action.

Now we have a choice between two alternatives.
Either we assume that the infra-infra-world bears
the same relation to the infra-world as the latter
does to our world, in which case, as we have seen,
no infra-light is possible, and the infra-world is
dark; or we assume that electric charges are not

OPTICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY 59

influenced by the average density of the bodies
beyond a certain density. To understand the
significance of the latter assumption we must
return to p. 43, where the electric charge of a
body is expressed by e = D ^mr, and D is the
average density of the universe in question, m is
the mass, and r the radius of a planetary body in
it. The D was introduced in order to bring the
electric charge of an electron up to a point sufficient
to replace gravitational attraction. But Maxwell's
original equation for the relation between mass and

charge is m =-^-, or e = Jmr. If this equation
holds good for the infra-electron, its charge will be
10~38*5 that of an electron instead of lO*27-5, and the
electrostatic attraction will be reduced 1033 times —
i.e., in the same proportion as the centrifugal force.
Therefore the electric force will balance the centri-
fugal force, as in the infra-world, and luminous
vibrations and chemical action are possible.

The light of the infra-world, like any other
transverse ether disturbance, will have a velocity
of 3 x 1010 cm. per second. It will, therefore, pass
out of the atomic system in something like a
trillionth of a second. But since the scale of time
is also reduced, the same passage will take 10,000
infra-seconds, or something under three infra-hours,
velocity of light will, therefore, play the same
part in the infra-world as it does in our world.

60 TWO NEW WORLDS

An interesting question now arises as to what
part the light of the infra-world plays in our world :
Can we see it, or tell its existence in any way ? The
answer is, that infra-light is extreme ultra-violet
light, and quite beyond our means of measurement.
We possess no instrument capable of directly indi-
cating infra-light, even if it exists. But its indirect
effects are not beyond hope of discovery. Light is
known to exert a perceptible effect upon comets'
tails. If infra-light exerts an effect upon the
motion of electrons, it may, at some future time,
become possible to trace such effect. The most
likely substances to show such an effect are the
radio-active bodies, and it will be remembered
that Professor and Madame Curie assumed the
existence of some such radiation to account for
the energy of radium.

Although infra-light is extremely feeble, it must
be remembered that if it is emitted by infra-electrons
it must be emitted by the whole visible universe.
For the visible universe is co-extensive with the
infra-world. The latter is a world within a world.
To explore the infra-world instead of this world
is something like drawing the plan of a house
instead of a map of the terrestrial globe.

Sunlight may contain infra-light as one of its
constituents. But since light is only absorbed by
electrons having a period akin to its own, infra-
light is only absorbed by infra-electrons, and its

OPTICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY 6 1

effect on the whole electron is likely to remain
undiscoverable.

Here, then, we have a remarkable result. The
world may be blazing with a powerful light quite
inaccessible to our present senses, and quite un-
discoverable to our instruments, and yet it may
(unlike extreme ultra-violet light as hitherto known)
have a whole world of responsive substances to act
upon. This light will make up a considerable
portion of the energy passing through the ether,
and we may never be able to detect it. Yet it
is absorbed by matter (by infra-electrons, in fact);
but the effects of such absorption are internal,
and are embodied in small-scale phenomena in
the infra-world, just as sunlight is absorbed by
the earth without perceptibly affecting its annual
period of revolution.

2. Infra-Chemistry. — It is a mistake to suppose
that the enormous density of the objects of the
infra-world — 1011 times that of water — precludes the
happening of the ordinary physical and chemical
events known to us. Liquid and gaseous states are
quite as possible there as they are in our world.
A solid state implies that the atoms are so closely
packed as to admit no displacement among each
other. In a liquid state this structure is loosened
to such an extent that the atoms are rarely out of
each other's range of gravitational attraction, but
still are free to change their grouping. A gaseous

62 TWO NEW WORLDS

state implies a lack of density such that atoms
are most of the time beyond gravitational range —
i.e., that their motions are not sensibly affected by
gravitational attraction.

The existence of these states depends in the
main upon " temperature," or mean kinetic energy.
Now, a greatly-increased density, such as we have
in the infra-world, means a greatly-increased co-
hesion. It does not mean that a larger proportion
of the space occupied by a body is occupied by its
material substance, and a smaller proportion by
the ether. We have, indeed, supposed all along
that the proportion is the same as in our world
(reckoning atoms and electrons as " solid " ). It
simply means that the particles constituting the
atom or electron are 1011 times denser than the
atoms or electrons themselves, just as these, again,
are denser than the earth or sun.

The increased cohesion, while giving the elec-
tron the necessary power of resisting disintegration
by electric forces, is incapable of maintaining the
material of the electron in a permanently solid
state. For the same density that brings about the
increased cohesion also brings about an increase of
mean kinetic energy, otherwise temperature. Hence,
the "seas" on the surface of the electron can be
liquid although of extreme specific gravity.

Most chemical actions we know of occur in the
liquid state. Given the three states of aggrega-

OPTICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY 63

tion, a suitable temperature, and powerful electric
forces, we only require differences of elementary
substance in order to have what we call chemical
action.

Differences of substance imply, as we know, differ-
ences of atomic weight. Taking the atomic weight
as the sole criterion of elementary substance, we
find less than a hundred elementary substances in
our world. There is at present no evidence that the
stars are graduated in a definite series of increasing
weights. If they were, and we could determine
their weights, we might, putting stars for atoms,
make out how many "substances" constitute the
supra-world. If there is an infinite gradation of
weights, and no corresponding planetary or elec-
trical difference between the various stars, we
must conclude that there is no " supra-chemistry."
In our present ignorance on this point, wo cannot
judge by analogy as to the substances, consisting of
infra-atoms, which constitute the infra-world. But
if there is a much greater specialisation of matter
in our world than in the supra-world, we may take
it that the chemical substances of the infra-world
are better defined than ours, and fewer in number,
with larger gaps between successive atomic weights.
would give the infra-atoms that greater stability
h would be necessary to resist tho further in-
crease of electric disintegrating force and the greater
energy of chemical reaction.

64 TWO NEW WORLDS

This greater energy is on a par with the greater
electric actions, and with the pace of events gene-
rally in the infra- world. Relatively, however, there
is no essential difference between infra-chemical
phenomena and the chemical phenomena of this
world.

3. Infra-Biology. — Given a requisite amount and
kind of mechanical, electrical, thermal, and chemical
action, an infra-physiological activity looms into the
realm of the possible. The fewness of the chemical
elements is no bar to infra-biology, since the elements
essential to life are comparatively few — five or six
out of nearly a hundred.

Our actual evidence of material life is limited to
a thin and precarious crust of a single planet, or two
planets, Earth and Mars, at the most. There is, of
course, nothing to prove that "dead matter" may
not be endowed with some kind of rudimentary
consciousness. We can certainly distinguish both
a rudimentary fatigue and a rudimentary forma-
tion of habit in inorganic substances, both pheno-
mena which indicate something of the nature of
memory. Dr. Bose goes so far as to trace what he
calls a response to stimulus in metals. But physi-
ological life, properly so called, involves a set of
changes and adaptations which are clearly marked
off from the changes occurring in dead matter, and
which are invariably accompanied — if not conditioned
— by the presence of certain carbon and nitrogen

OPTICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY 65

compounds of remarkable instability. When, in any
aggregation of solid and liquid matter, these com-
pounds are continually formed and destroyed, and
when the energy thus liberated is directed towards
increasing this metabolism and making it more per-
manent, we diagnose the presence of organic life.

Perhaps the nearest physical counterpart to an
organism is a flame. In a flame there is a definite
chemical change going on whose effect is directed
towards its own stability, and is derived from the
energy liberated in the change. There is also a
constant change of the matter constituting the
flame, and even a differentiation of parts, combus-
tible matter being taken in and mixed with oxygen
below, and products of combustion being eliminated
above. There is also growth to a maximum de-
pending on the conditions of " nutrition." There is
death when the nutrition falls below a certain mini-
mum. Flames are capable both of union and fission,
and the latter is indeed the common method of
propagation. As regards the supply of energy and
the final products of its transformation, the flame
resembles the animal rather than the vegetable
kingdom. But the analogy can be carried much
further, though in doing so it tends to become more
and more superficial. Thus, in lighting a candle we
strike a match. The head of the match is the germ
which at a certain temperature bursts into life, and
that life feeds for some time on the stick. On 1

B

66 TWO NEW WORLDS

transferred to the wick, the flarne descends in its
search for food, and develops to its full size when
it has secured an adequate supply. It can be
"killed" by destroying its most vital organ — the
part where the solid food is converted into gas.
Many flames are " sensitive " to particular sounds.
Some even develop a " protective covering," as in a
smouldering fire.

The analogy is so far-reaching that we might
describe a flame as a gaseous non-centralised
animal were it not for the total absence of any-
thing resembling habit or memory. Thus a sensi-
tive flame will respond to the same stimulus in
the same manner, no matter how often it is applied.
It might be urged that the life of a flame is so
"strenuous" that the intervals between successive
stimuli would have to be excessively short; but
this is refuted by the stroboscopic study of re-
sponsive flames, which shows a practically instan-
taneous and uniform response.

The flame has no cellular structure, and there-
fore no organisation. Even if it is regarded as
consisting of a single cell, it differs from the
amoeba in possessing no nucleus. Since the fission
or fusion of nuclei is the essential feature of all
animal reproduction and propagation, we are bound
to regard the nucleus as the repository of the
animal's "experience," ready to hand it on to
posterity. The simultaneous absence of memory

OPTICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY 67

and of a nucleus in a flame then becomes in-
telligible.

The above considerations will help us to solve
the question of life in the infra-world. We have
already seen that there is no reason to postulate
the absence of any of the three states of aggrega-
tion of matter known to us. There is plenty of
light and heat in all probability. The conditions
of organic life are all present, and as regards geo-
logical time, the infra- world has much more of that
than we have, since what is a second in our world
is a thousand billion years in the infra- world.
There is, therefore, plenty of time for organic
evolution, and, indeed, for an evolution which trans-
cends all our present conceptions of its possibilities.
Yet a simple consideration will show that the evo-
lution of the infra-world has well-defined limits.
As far as we can judge, the infra- world is always
the same in its physical properties. Whatever
evolution is in progress there does not affect those
properties of the infra-world which we are able to
gauge, such as the constancy of the elementary
atoms and electrons. Our historical records go
back some 8000 years, which is 80 quadrillion
in Ira-years, and in all that immense time the
" evolution " of the infra-world has not sufficed to
change its apparent properties. Transferring this
analogy to our own world, it would mean that for
an almost inconceivable span of future time organic

68 TWO NEW WORLDS

life in our world, however highly developed, will
not be able to produce new results on an astrono-
mical scale, or to affect the motion of heavenly
bodies.

The same analogy gives us a new conception of
the permanence of our own universe. During the
last century we have been, unknown to ourselves,
surveying and examining the properties of the
infra-world over a period of a quadrillion infra-
years. They show no sign of variation, although
the chances of such variation are as great as the
chances our world would get in a quadrillion of
our years. But this argument can be logically
extended into infinity. For an inhabitant of the
infra-world can, in a period of 100 infra-years,
make the same statement concerning the next
lower world (which we might call the infra2-world),
any essential change of which would react upon
the superior world it constitutes. The constancy
of natural laws is, tJierefore, an objective proof of
the infinite duration and stability of our universe.

4. It is a curious — though somewhat idle — calcu-
lation to determine the number of electrons con-
tained in the adult human body. It is about 1031.
Now, the earth contains at least 1,000,000,000 (109)
human beings, not to mention other living beings.
Therefore, the number of infra-men which we can
accommodate in our own bodies figures out at
about 1040. And yet the total activity of all these

OPTICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY 69

beings, for untold infra-geological eras, is without
the slightest net effect on our own consciousness.

This calculation, though doubtful in a quanti-
tative sense, brings home to us the fact that our
consciousness is mercifully protected from the
teeming life of matter, just as it is largely un-
aware of the multiform organic processes which
go on in the life of each constituent cell of the
human body. Our mind resembles the Registrar-
General in a census. The census officers penetrate
into every remote hamlet, and every house, and
before the figures reach the Registrar-General they
have been summed up and boiled down by a
large staff of intermediate officials. The Registrar-
General gets the net result. He may do the same
amount of work as his subordinates — I shall chari-
tably suppose that he does — but he surveys the
country as a whole, and* a unit more or less is
indifferent to him. In the same way, our con-
sciousness, or at least our normal consciousness, is
not lost in detail, however complex "that may be.
There is a summarising and integrating power
within us which is constantly at work, and which
adjusts external events to a scale within our pur-
view. Hence the revelation of the infinite com-
plexity of matter need not overwhelm us with a
hopeless sense of tanglo and complication. This
world is an intelligible world to an almost infinite
extent. We are understanding it more and more

70 TWO NEW WORLDS

fully. The advance of science leads to simpler and
fewer formulae, just as the advance of civilisation
simplifies the satisfaction of our elementary needs.
Every new natural law discovered registers a vast
array of facts automatically in order. The out-
standing puzzles largely concern the infinite and
the infinitesimal. It has often been supposed that
these two regions are beyond the grasp of the
human intellect. But that has been shown to be
fallacious ever since the discovery of the infinitesi-
mal calculus.

The infra-world is not an infinitesimal world,
except in a relative sense. It can be dealt with
on a finite scale, just as a differential coefficient
can, and a succession of infinitesimals and infini-
tudes of several orders can be dealt with according
to recognised algebraic principles. This indicates
the possibility of bringing the whole chain of
universes within the purview of our present-day
science.

CHAPTER VII

MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN

1. OUR investigations up to this have given many
reasons for believing, and none for disbelieving, that
a world resembling the universe known to us exists
around us on a very much smaller, but not infinitely
smaller, scale. We have seen, in fact, that it is
possible for two similar universes, differing only in
the size of its discrete particles, to occupy the same
space at the same time. Also, that to leave one
universe and enter another, it is only necessary
that our size be reduced or increased 1022 times,
or the ratio of the sizes of the starry heavens and
the smallest visible speck of dust. Events happen in
the small-scale universe, the infra-world, as much
more rapidly as its sizes are smaller.

There is an ancient Irish legend about a land
called Tir nan-Ogue, the Land of the Young. Those
who, like Ossian, spent what they thought were
o years there, found on their return to Ireland
that three centuries had passed by during their
absence in the Field of Bliss. This is the converse
of a visit to the infra-world. Such a visit would re-
semble more closely our usual experience in dreams,

72 TWO NEW WORLDS

where a long and complicated course of events is
crowded into a fraction of a second.

An Inner View of Matter. — In the chapter on
Infra-Astronomy, I sketched out the actual ap-
pearance of the infra- world as seen within a rarefied
gas, and illustrated the various phenomena of " ioni-
sation" by astronomical analogies. There is every
reason for believing that the atoms and molecules
of a rarefied gas appear to inhabitants of the infra-
world very much like what the starry heavens appear
to us. But when we consider the aspect of the
infra-world as presented with a solid or liquid
instead of a rarefied gas, we come to aspects with
which we cannot trace any analogy in our own
world. What would be, for instance, the internal
appearance of a copper wire, or a crystal of calcspar,
or a piece of ice ? In endeavouring to get at the
solution of this difficult question, we must first of
all obtain some insight into the constitution of the
" positive atom." We find by chemical experiment
that all known substances may be arranged in a series
of weights marking their atoms and determining
most of their properties. The series begins with
hydrogen, whose atomic weight is arbitrarily called
unity, and ends with uranium, with an atomic weight
of 240 units. It is found that the physical, chemical,
and electrical properties of the elements change
in regular periods as the atomic weight increases.
Elements of the same general properties are found

MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN 73

by adding 16, 32, or 48 units to the atomic weight
of any given body.

Now this is a state of things for which we can
trace no parallel in our world. That may possibly
be because we cannot deal with our stars on a scale
of sufficient magnitude to survey them as we survey
atoms. But so far as we can survey the starry
universe, there is no definite and step-by-step gra-
dation of stars according to their masses. That
such a gradation does exist in the infra-world we
must put down to the greater power of the electric
forces at work there.

Why more matter should be associated with
positive electricity than with negative is one of
those ultimate questions for which we have as yet
no solution whatever. Why is the smallest " positive
atom " — that of hydrogen — more than a thousand
times heavier than the electron? Why are there
no positive electrons ? It has been suggested that
electrons are permanent sources of ether, and positive
atoms permanent sinks of ether, the ether welling
out of transcendental space in the one case, and
being drained back into the same space in the other.
Such an " explanation " would account for the dis-
similarity observed ; but I prefer not to have recourse
to " transcendental " conceptions, which may, or may
not, have a meaning. Once wo admit that in any
universe, however minute its scale, positive electricity
is associated with more matter than negative, it is

74 TWO NEW WORLDS

comparatively easy to account for a like distribu-
tion in any higher universe. Take the example of
the sun. Why has the sun a positive charge, and
the earth a negative charge ? Simply because the
sun emits a more powerful radiation, which has a
repulsive action on finely divided matter, such as
the droplets condensed about electrons. The sun,
therefore, is constantly expelling negative electricity
until its own charge suffices to maintain the equili-
brium between emission and absorption.

We need only postulate that as we descend to
the infra-world, the radiation of the positive central
bodies decreases more slowly than the mass in order
to account for the much greater intensity of the
electric charges. In fact, we must suppose that the
" infra-light " emitted by the atoms is much more
powerful in comparison with their size, than the
light emitted by the sun. Tentatively, we might
suppose that the radiation varies, not as the mass,
but as the square root of the mass.

This would give us, then, our positively-charged
atom or infra-star. Now there are reasons for
assuming that the hydrogen-atom is not only the
arbitrary unit of atomic weight, but a real and
ultimate physical unit of the same importance as
the electron. This is Prout's hypothesis, which has
not been strictly verified, but which may yet receive
a new interpretation when the mass of the electrons
bound up with the atoms is allowed for. In any

MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN 75

case, the phenomena of radio-activity have made
it very probable that the heavier atoms — such as
those of uranium and radium — break up by expelling
helium atoms. These may or may not have been
in a state of chemical " combination " with them. In
these matters we must avoid using such a word
pedantically. It is enough that the helium atom
escapes somehow. . Now the atomic weight of helium
is 4. It most likely consists of four hydrogen atoms.
How can these be so combined ?

If, as we have assumed, the positive atoms have
a charge equal to that of one or more electrons,
surely they will fly asunder ! But here we may
\vell have a converse case from that of neutral
atoms in contact. Positive atoms are heavier than
electrons. Their gravitational attraction is greater
in comparison with their charge. Therefore, al-
though electrons may be mutually repulsive to
such an enormous extent that they never come
into actual contact, this may not be so with
positive atoms. And if they do happen to touch,
it is possible that their adhesion may suffice to
overcome their mutual electric repulsion, just as
in a former case the gravitational attraction of
two neutral atoms with their attendant swarms of
electrons was balanced by the repulsion of the
or.

Now it is easy to show that the simplest struct in (
of perfect stability that can thus be built up out

?6 TWO NEW WORLDS

of hydrogen atoms contains four atoms, forming
a tetrahedron or equilateral pyramid. Such a
structure we may identify with the helium
atom.

Larger atoms are built up out of larger aggre-
gates of hydrogen atoms, and the manner of their
architecture is one of the most fascinating problems
awaiting the coming electric theory of crystals.
But we may well suppose that the helium atom
never loses its stability and predominance. It is
interesting to note that similar elements in the
periodic series are made up by adding 16, 32, or 48
hydrogen units to the atomic weight; in other
words, by adding four, eight, or twelve helium
atoms. These are probably disposed symmetrically,
on the principle of the tetrahedron, the octahedron,
and the dodecahedron. When the atom breaks up
these projecting helium atoms are the first to be
thrown off, as is done when radium and polonium
atoms break up.

2. It would be an interesting task to endeavour
to follow up the influence of the configuration of
the compound atoms and their attendant electrons
on the building up of a crystalline or amorphous
solid. It will, no doubt, be a long time before a
complete mathematical theory is formulated which
accounts for the delicate balancing of the hydrogen
atoms within the positive atom and the molecules
within the crystal. The researches already made

MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN 77

into the structure of compounds by the methods
of stereo-chemistry offer a solid foundation for
work along this line. But imagine a molecule of,
say, quinine, consisting of twenty atoms of carbon,
twenty-four of hydrogen, two of nitrogen, and two
of oxygen, arranged in groups and sub-groups, the
whole molecule a veritable phalanx of stars, the
suns swaying in gentle oscillations or slow orbits,
the planets darting round as if to preserve the
integrity of the empire of their central luminary,
the whole system ablaze with light and astir with
motion, a piece of stellar architecture besides
which Orion is without form and void; and this
molecule built into a gorgeous system of a trillion
units of like structure, all of which go to make up
a single grain of the crystalline powder we know to
be the invaluable antidote to the fevers of the
tropical forest.

A somewhat less imposing spectacle would be
presented to an infra-man who takes his stand on
an electron inside a copper wire, and waits till the
current was turned on. The sky would not only
be ablaze with stars, he would be surrounded on
all sides with suns, and his electron would be at
a loss to know to which sun it owned allegiance.
It would revolve for a thousand infra-years, perhaps,
round one particular copper atom ; then it would
spend two or three months running free, and would
eventually be drawn into the power of another of

78 TWO NEW WORLDS

those "mighty atoms," to pass another thousand
years in thraldom. When the switch is turned
in our world, a new cycle of evolution begins
among the atoms of the wire. The infra-man
finds a new force and purpose at work among
the roving infra- planets. Whenever they are free,
they all tend to move towards one particular part
of the sky, being driven by the push of other infra-
planets intruded into the system from behind.
While the infra-suns (atoms) keep fairly well
within their allotted spaces, the electrons find
their way down the slope of potential, thread ing
their way among the atoms by fits and starts, and
making up what we call the electron current or
negative current.

3. Life from Within. — We have no reason to
believe that organic matter, such as protoplasm,
has a structure essentially different from inorganic
matter. There is no doubt less stability, less
definiteness of structure, a more rapid transforma-
tion of molecules, a continual binding and unbind-
ing of electrons. There is, in short, more chaos
than cosmos. It is just as if chemical transforma-
tions in organised matter were too multifarious and
rapid to allow any part of it to settle down to
a definite chemical composition. Those portions
which are most alive show the greatest chemical
instability, the greatest lack of definite chemical
properties. Carbon and nitrogen, two elements

MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN 7Q

distinguished for their variety of linkages, play
the most essential part in organised matter.
The albuminous colloids, whose composition has
hitherto defied definition, consist of some 53 parts
of carbon, 16 parts of nitrogen, 20 of oxygen, 7 of
hydrogen, and 1 of sulphur. A single molecule
of any definite substance made up out of these
would be lost in the welter of nebulous and dis-
aggregated matter, and could not be detected by
our analyses. A living cell from within would
therefore appear like an utterly unsystematic con-
geries of atoms, molecules, and ruins of molecules
more or less complex. The atoms, or infra-suns,
would be of six or seven different types, and none
of them exceptionally large. A human brain cell
would perhaps be the most chaotic of all, the
atoms undergoing a rapid series of groupings and
rearrangements, every such grouping being the
physical symbol and counterpart of a conscious or
subconscious thought.

This brings us to some problems of existence
which have long been very obscure, but which
appear less so when regarded in the light of t lu-
lu tra- world. We have, in all our investigations,
found no point at which a final continuity and
unity can be demonstrated. Everything is divi-
sible, infinitely divisible, and, li»wtj\<T deeply we
descend in the scale of magnitude, the whirl of
atoms and the drift of suns remains tho same.

80 TWO NEW WORLDS

Where, then, is that " unifying principle " upon
which we have relied to preserve our minds from
the intolerable complexity of the universe ?

That such a question should be asked at all
shows how a mechanical view of natural pheno-
mena has obscured our appreciation of the reali-
ties underlying all human understanding. Atoms,
electrons, material objects generally are not realities.
They are our conceptions of realities which affect
our sensorium, constructed in our minds from
material supplied by our past experiences. Our
experiences are the only realities of which we
have definite evidence, and these are finally re-
solvable into sensations and memories of sensations.
By an act of faith we extend our own sphere of
sensation to include spheres which we perceive
to be similar, and we thus are enabled to see
with other persons' eyes and remember with other
persons' memories. By another act of faith we
postulate an " object" behind a bundle of permanent
or recurring sensations. These sensations are the
symbol of that object, the signs by which it reveals
its presence to us. No doubt the object contains
some ultimate reality, but what that ultimate reality
may be, what the rest of its properties are, we
can only faintly guess. We have only one key. In
ourselves we can observe both the inner reality of
a thing and its external and visible symbol. A
delicate galvanometer may show the current im-

MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN 8 1

pulse travelling along a nerve which we perceive
as a spasm of pain. The pain is a reality, the
current is the symbol of that reality, which may
thus become evident to senses other than our own.
But the sensations involved in reading a galvan-
ometer are quite different from the sensation of pain.
Both sensations are realities, but of quite a different
kind. So different may be the reality underlying
any "material" phenomenon from the effects pre-
sented to our senses.

Dr. Johnstone Stoney,1 who has, perhaps, done
more than any living physicist to elucidate the
connection between mental realities (" auta ")
and the physical universe, puts the matter as
follows : —

" The only part of the stupendous autic universe
(universe of realities) which a human being can
adequately examine is that excessively small group
of auta which are the thoughts of his own mind,
with the similarly small groups that are the minds
of his fellow man and of some other animals; he
cannot even make any adequate study of the events
that go on within the synergos [subconscious self]
which is so closely associated with his mind, and
can only collect mere scraps of information as to
what the real events are throughout the rest of
the vast machine. As to that tiny group of auta
that are one human being's thoughts, it I"

1 Proceeding* of the American Philoiophical Society, April 3, 1903.

P

82 TWO NEW WORLDS

somewhat the same relation to the mighty whole
of the autic universe as ... some of the more
slowly changing events within the cortex of the
brain bears to the enormous totality of motions
that are going on objectively throughout the whole
of nature. This makes it evident that the part of
the autic universe that man can adequately examine
is but one drop of an immeasurable ocean, and
although that little drop is an actual specimen of
the kind of things that auta are, it is very plain
that we are not justified in assuming that it is a
fair average specimen of them."

The only path open to us if we want to get at the
reality underlying physical appearances is to care-
fully note our own thoughts and their physical
accompaniments. Once we know the mental pheno-
mena which accompany any given physical process
in our brain, we may hope to interpret other physi-
cal phenomena in terms of mental realities, and
thus arrive at their real significance.

"Working under these disadvantages," proceeds
Dr. Stoney, " man (and the same is true of the more
intelligent of the lower animals) has constructed the
Physical Hypothesis whereby to enable him to form
a correct forecast of the changes which will occur in
nature. The physical hypothesis is the supposition
that the objects of nature can act on one another,
either directly (action at a distance) or through in-
tervening media (which by many is supposed to be

MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN 83

an essentially different kind of action). Now the
objects of nature are syntheta of perceptions and
ultra - perceptions ; and syntheta of perceptions
cannot be what really act. Nevertheless, it is emi-
nently useful to carry on our investigation under the
physical hypothesis that it is they which act, and to
confine our efforts to tracing out what effects this
action must be supposed capable of producing, and
under what laws it must operate, in order that it
may account for what occurs in nature."

This distinction should be carefully borne in mind
when we approach ultimate natural processes. There
has been a great deal of superficial and dogmatic
utterance concerning ultimate realities. We need
only cite the declaration that action at a distance
is impossible and unthinkable, or that conscious-
ness and mental action generally consist of motions
of particles, which is much like saying that a wind
consists of weathercocks. A human crowd may, for
police purposes, often be regarded as a viscous stream
of particles of uniform size, subjected to a certain
pressure, and obeying certain laws of flow. But that
does not exhaust the whole nature of a crowd. In
the same way, our physical theories may work with
inert atoms and electrons without troubling about
the ultimate reality at the back of them. If there
is such a reality behind them, it will, to judge from
all natural analogy, be something in the nature of
thought or will. A jug, a road, a house, a lathe are

84 TWO NEW WORLDS

embodiments of some human will. Why should
not other objects, equally " substantial," be the
embodiments of some will different from our own ?
Our next step in the exploration of the universe
must be to get at its inner soul and meaning. So
far we have only examined, so to speak, its size and
shape, its clothing, its gait. We must now get to
a bowing acquaintance, and by-and-by we must get
into conversation.

The exploration of the infra-world has given us a
vivid realisation of the relativity of time and space,
and has, I maintain, definitely delivered us from the
apparent necessity of providing a given time for a
given spell of existence. Life is thus to a great
extent delivered from the trammels of time, while
at the same time absolved from the confinement of
space. Life is superior both to space and time.
This has been instinctively felt by advanced minds
in all ages ; but here, perhaps, we have for the first
time a physical justification for such belief.

It will, perhaps, be useful here to resume the main
conclusions of this essay : —

(1) The visible universe is only one in a chain of
similar universes contained one within the other,
and differing only in the size of then: elementary
constituent particles.

(2) The atoms of one universe are the suns of
the next finer universe ; the electrons are its
planets.

MATTER AND LIFE FROM WITHIN 85

(3) The unit of time is reduced in the same pro-
portion as the unit of length, leaving the velocities
as usual.

(4) Space and time are relative, but velocity is
absolute.

(5) The next universe below ours in the scale of
sizes may be called the infra-world.

II

THE SUPRA-WORLD

CHAPTER I

BEYOND THE STARS

IN the preceding description of the infra-world I
followed a line of reasoning which led to the con-
clusion that by descending in order of magnitude
far below the smallest microscopic object until we
reach the world of atoms, we discover a world which
in all probability, is not essentially different from
the world we live in, and may possibly be almost
identical in most of its astronomical, physical, and
chemical conditions with our own visible universe.
I endeavoured, by reasoning from the known laws of
electricity and chemistry, to ascertain the forces at
play in that " infra-world." The most curious and
important result so obtained was that events happen

;uuch faster in the infra- world as the sizes are
smaller. The ratio for both is 1022:!. Since the
velocities of atoms turn out to be of the same order
as our " planetary " velocities (about 20 miles per
second), there was good reason to assume that all
velocities remain about the same, and since the

> lance of the ether to velocities greater than
186,000 miles per second is infinite, it was natural

QO TWO NEW WORLDS

to assume that in both worlds there is the same
limit of speed, and hence also the same ether.

I now propose to proceed in the opposite direction
along the scale of magnitude, and to investigate the
conditions met with when, instead of dividing all
sizes by 10,000 trillion, we enlarge them in that
proportion. I shall endeavour to show that we then
arrive at another world comparable with our own,
which I propose to call the supra-world.

A dried currant has a roughly elliptical shape, its
dimensions varying from 0'3 cm. to 1 cm. Now en-
large this by the " world-ratio " 1022. It will then
become a body filling up the whole visible universe
out to the uttermost star visible in the most power-
ful telescope, or recorded by the longest photographic
exposure. Its 20,000 trillion atoms, if shining with
" infra-light," will, seen from within, become a
splendid starry vault, emitting the blaze of a bright
noonday, the stars being much more densely crowded
than those of the Milky Way.

What changes will this starry world undergo in
a second of time? Obviously, the revolutions of
the stars which were once atoms will be much slower
than heretofore, and, however fast the motions of the
atoms or stars may be, they will be less effective
in producing a given change of configuration in
the proportion familiar to us from the infra-world —
viz., 1022. Whatever changes a currant undergoes
in a second of our time will now be spread over a

BEYOND THE STARS 9 1

period of 1022 seconds, or a thousand billion years.
Now the currant evinces no perceptible change to us
in one second, and if our starry heavens did actu-
ally constitute some piece of organic matter such
as a currant, we need not expect any very marked
changes in it for a period of time far exceeding
the longest geological epoch ever postulated.

To complete the analogy between a small material
body like a lentil or a currant and the visible uni-
verse, one essential element is wanting. The density
of a currant is slightly greater than that of water.
The density of the whole visible universe is much
less than that. We have already seen that in
descending to the infra-world the densities increase
1011 times. In ascending to the supra-world they
decrease in at least the same proportion. If they
did not do so, the velocities would not remain
of the same order as those we are familiar with,
but would all tend to approach the velocity of
light.

Now let us go through the converse process, and
reduce the visible universe by the world-ratio, or,
what comes to the same thing, increase our own
size in the same ratio, taking care to alter the
scale of time correspondingly. What should we
find <

We should find a small ring, much too small to go
on our finger, but showing very intricate and what
some people might be disposed to call "artistic"

92 TWO NEW WORLDS

workmanship, floating in space, or falling through it.
We cannot even remotely guess what is becoming of
the ring, since its fate for a single supra-second takes
a thousand billion of our years to evolve itself. But
we can see it on every starlight night. The ring is
known as the Milky Way. Its density is much
greater than that of the rest of the starry heavens.
Indeed, it probably is the only object we should
perceive at all, the rest of the stars being as
negligible as the air contained within a ring lying
on a table.

What else should we see ? What would the rest
of the supra-world be like ?

According to Newcomb and Wallace, there is
nothing else to see, or, if there is, it is quite invisible
from our earth. It seems presumptuous for any
mere mortal to assert that our universe is limited
by the ring of the Milky Way, but the argument
is convincing enough. Miss A. M. Clerke, in her
"Systems of the Stars," puts it as follows: "The
sidereal world presents us, to all appearance, with
a finite system. . . . The probability amounts almost
to certainty that star-strewn space is of measurable
dimensions. For from innumerable stars a limitless
sum total of radiation should be derived, by which
darkness would be banished from our skies ; and the
' intense inane/ glowing with the mingled beams of
suns individually indistinguishable, would bewilder
our feeble senses with its monotonous splendour. . . .

BEYOND THE STARS 93

Unless, that is to say, light suffers some degree
of enfeeblement in space. . . . But there is not a
particle of evidence that any such toll is exacted ;
contrary indications are strong ; and the assertion
that its payment is inevitable depends upon ana-
logies which may be wholly visionary. We are
then, for the present, entitled to disregard the
problematical effect of a more than dubious
cause."

Wallace1 advances three other arguments in
support of the finality of our stellar universe : —

" (1) In various parts of the heavens there are areas
of considerable extent, besides rifts, lanes, or circular
patches, where stars are either quite absent or very
faint and few in number. We look, in fact, through
these ' holes in the heavens ' into the starless depths
of space beyond.

" (2) There is a steady increase in the number of
stars down to the ninth or tenth magnitudes. Then
it suddenly changes, and the number of stars of
magnitudes down to the seventeenth is only about
one-tenth of what it would have been had the same
ratio of increase continued. The conclusion is
that the fainter stars are more thinly scattered in
space.

" (3) The total amount of light given by all stars
of a given magnitude is twice as much as that of
all stars two magnitudes higher in the scale. If
1 Sir A. R. Wallace, F.R.8., " Man's Place in the Universe."

94 TWO NEW WORLDS

this increase were maintained down to the seven-
teenth magnitude, the light of all stars combined
should be seven times as great as moonlight, whereas,
in reality, it is only one-twentieth."

All these arguments are, of course, purely optical.
They fall to the ground as soon as we admit the
possibility of further stellar universes consisting of
dark stars. Our own stellar system contains vast
numbers of such bodies, and there is no reason
why a stellar system should not be free from light
of that particular wave-length which impresses our
eyes or our photographic plates. For aught we
know, the luminosity of our stellar system may bo
a very temporary affair. Lord Kelvin estimates
the life of our sun as 50 to 100 million years
a period which, on the supra-world scale, would
amount to about a ten-millionth of a second.

There is, of course another possibility. If the
world was ere* ted 100,000 years ago, then no light
from bodies nore than 100,000 light-years away
from us conic7 possibly have reached us up to the
present ; but light from stars further and further
away would be continually arriving at the earth's
surface, and thus our vision into space, confined at
present by the Milky Way, would be expanding
at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. That
possibility would become a probability if at any
time a great cluster of stars were to become
visible, and remain visible, without showing any

BEYOND THE STARS 95

evidence of collision, like the ordinary " new
star."

The root-hypothesis of this work is, however, that
this world of ours is a good average sample of the
universe, as it always has existed, and always will
continue to exist, and that, however high we ascend,
or however low we descend, in the scale of magni-
tude, we may hope to find conditions not alarmingly
different from those which we have here and now
learnt to know and to adapt ourselves to. I am
disposed to believe that this place in which I am,
and this moment in which I write, are as significant,
as sacred, and as important as any I have ever had,
or am ever likely to get. There may be variety,
improvement, progress, or decay, but the essential
elements of all these I believe to be permanent, and
not confined to the Here and Now.

Let us not be afraid of extending the scope of
scientific inquiry, and of applying known laws to
wider ranges until new limits confront us. Newton
made the law of gravitation include the solar
system. Spectroscopy has applied our terrestrial
chemistry to the sun and stars. Meteorites bring
us samples of interplanetary matter, and we find
nothing but materials well known on earth. Why
should moro magnitude appal us? Size is only
relative. The Arabic, numerals and the exponential
notation enable us to state the largest magnitudes
rins than those of an ordinary balance-

96 TWO NEW WORLDS

sheet. Why should we draw the line before Nature
draws it for us ?

For an average span of some thirty to fifty years
we are landed on this particular planet, and pro-
vided with the necessary organs to carry on a
certain average set of activities. When we are
withdrawn from this world we may have other
senses, organs, and activities. The change will be
great and far-reaching, and may, for aught we know,
cut off all communication between us and the
visible universe. We may be landed in some other
link of the chain of worlds, or in an entirely different
kind of world. That reflection should prevent our
having any hesitation to postulate the unity and
sameness of the universe accessible to our present
set of senses. There is quite enough liberty in
store for us without looking to the distant stars and
the high heavens for it. In assuming, therefore,
the essential sameness of the visible universe
throughout all possible magnitudes, and, as a corol-
lary, its eternity and infinite stability, we are not
renouncing all higher states of existence, nor con-
fining our future life to an endless repetition of
accustomed detail and drudgery. All we postulate
is that the present world is uniform in space and
time. Of all possible worlds in which we might
(and may yet) be placed, it is for us here and now
the most worthy of investigation. Our sense of
unity demands that it should have an absolute and

BEYOND THE STARS 97

permanent value in the total system of the universe,
and this will be greatly enhanced if it can be shown
that its laws are not subject to revision, and that
the universal writ runs to the furthest boundaries
which the imagination can conceive.

CHAPTER II

INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE

IN 1786 William Herschel remarked that he had
discovered fifteen hundred universes. He referred,
of course, to as many nebulae, which he believed to
be galaxies external to our own. But, in any case, it
is risky to use the word universe in the plural
number without some special definition. If by
" universe " we mean the totality of things, there
can, of course, be only one totality. But if we
mean by "universe" the sum total of things
accessible to our senses, or, in other words, the
aggregate of those things of which we can now or
at any time have cognisance, then that very human
" universe" may be imagined to exist side by side
or interwoven with other universes, accessible to
different sets of senses, whether of beings lower or
higher than ourselves. In that sense, the infra-
world is a distinct universe interpenetrating our
own, just as our human or " visible" universe, the
world we live in, interpenetrates the supra- world.
As already pointed out, our faculties are in touch
with the confines of both the other worlds. The
smallest perceptible length and the greatest measur-

INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE 99

able distance measure corresponding quantities.
The smallest cluster of atoms visible and measur-
able in the microscope is at one end of the scale,
and our stellar system, itself a cluster of stellar
" atoms," is at the other. But if we want to extend
our investigations into the supra-world itself we
must transcend the stellar system, just as, in our
exploration of the infra-world, we had to descend
far below the smallest microscopic object. Our
guides into the unknown were the known laws of
electricity and chemistry, which enabled us to draw
conclusions concerning objects individually concealed
from our senses. These same physical laws shall be
our guides into the supra-world.

In dealing with ultra-stellar distances, I do not
propose to interlard my remarks with wondering
contemplations of the awfulness of spatial vastnesses.
It is not because I am less reverent than other
people, but because I find other objects of reverence
than mere size. To worship mere size is a relic of
barbarism. There is nothing inherently appalling
in the infinite or the infinitesimal. Size is purely
relative. We must resolutely refuse to be over-
wl I- In i'd by figures. To me a figure ceases to be
overwhelming as soon as it is expressible in con-
cise notation, exponential or otherwise. And oven
infinity itself is a mathematical quantity which
algebra has deprived of most of its terrors.

We start with the assumption that our stellar

IOO TWO NEW WORLDS

system, limited by the Milky Way, is a very small
portion of the next higher universe, the " supra-
world." Our first task is then to inquire what is
outside it.

It has been shown with mathematical certainty
that if infinite space were strewn with stars, as is
our stellar system, and if these stars shone like our
stars, and if they had existed for all eternity, then
the appearance of the sky would be one blaze
of sunlight throughout. To this I may add the
equally certain conclusion that every part of space,
including the earth and ourselves, would be at a
white heat and gaseous; for radiant heat would be
propagated in the same way as light. And, further,
that the circumstance of space being cold can be
used as a conclusive proof of the absence of any
sensible loss of radiation through absorption in
space ; for the absorbing medium would be heated
by the process of absorption, and would then itself
radiate the heat inwards upon our devoted heads.
The only things that could effectually shield us
from the intolerable blaze of infinity would be
either (1) a gap in the ether all round our stellar
system, or (2) a perfectly reflecting surface surround-
ing it, a kind of Ptolemaic " firmament " in a new
sense, and for a novel purpose.

Both of these contrivances would work both ways,
and would preserve the light and heat of our own
stellar system from dissipation. But this at once

INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE IOI

suggests a fairly conclusive argument against either
possibility. Whenever energy is radiated by wave-
motion, and the waves arrive at the limit of the
medium capable of transmitting the motion, they
are totally reflected. And whether we have an
etherless envelope round our system or a perfect
reflector, we must expect to receive from it a uni-
form famt luminosity and a uniform slight heat.
Whatever may be said about the real source of the
so-called stellar heat, there is no doubt that the
faint luminosity is entirely wanting in many parts
of the heavens. Vega gives us about the same
quantity of heat as a candle ten miles away, and
Arcturus double that quantity. In the starless
portions of the sky no radiant heat is discoverable.
If it exists, it is below the limits of our measuring
instruments. This suggests, therefore, that if there
is a supra-world, it is a cold and dark world, or,
at least, that it would appear cold and dark to us.
Not so, as we shall see, to its own inhabitants.

Our measuring instruments of light and heat fail,
so far, to establish the existence of anything outside
our stellar system. On the other hand, they do
not disprove the existence of a whole surrounding
universe <>t' ML liar systems which arc comparatively
dark and cold. But our theoretical resources are
not yet exhausted. Wherever we have a force or
form of energy whose action across interstellar space
is known, we may employ that agency for testing

102 TWO NEW WORLDS

the existence of remote worlds. Besides radiation,
we have gravitation, electrostatic force, electro-
dynamic ("magnetic") force, and magnetic induc-
tion. All these may yet be used to explore the
supra-world; but in these infantile days of cosmic
electricity, we must perforce be content with reason-
ing based upon Newton's law of gravitation.

Lord Kelvin 1 has made an interesting essay in
this direction. Assuming the farthest star to have
a parallax of 0*001 of a second, which would imply
a distance of 3 x 1021 cm., and that a sphere of that
radius surrounding our stellar system contains 100
million stars of about the same average mass as
the sun, he shows that the mean force of gravita-
tional attraction over the surface of that sphere
is l'37xlO~n times that of gravity at the earth's
surface. It follows that a body falling into this
sphere from infinite outer space would have a
speed of some 11 km. (seven miles) per second
—just about double the planetary velocity of
Neptune.

Meteoric speeds go up to 40 km. per second;
but their speed is acquired under the attraction
and in the proximity of the sun. The solar system
is, according to Campbell, moving with a velocity
of 19*89 km. per second towards a point in R.A.
277° 30' and Dec. 19° 58' N. The proper motions
of stars show an average velocity of 21 miles per

1 Philosophical Magazine, August 1901.

INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE 103

second, though 1830 Groombridge is credited with
the extraordinary speed of 59 miles per second,
and the spectroscopic binary Lacaille 3105 with a
relative velocity of 380 miles a second. All these
speeds fall far short of the speed of light, which
we now believe to be the unattainable limit of
speed of all material things.

An important conclusion may be drawn at once
from the observation that no stellar velocities
exceed ^th of the velocity of light. It is that
the mass comprised within a world-sphere increases
as its radius, and not as its volume, or in other
words, that the density within a world-sphere
varies inversely as the surface of the sphere. By
"world-sphere" I mean a sphere enclosing a
"visible universe" of any order.

To make this clearer, we will assume that space
is strewn with other stellar systems comparable
to our own, and that some 100 million of these
systems make up a galaxy of their own. Instead
of a sphere of 3 x 1021 cm., we might have a sphere
3 x 1081 cm. in radius. We can hardly assume this
sphere to have the same average density as our
own stellar system, since all appearances are against
it. If it had, however, we should have a mass
1030 times as large as before, and the energy of a
body falling to its surface from infinity would bo
10*° times what it is at the limit of our stellar
system. Its theoretical speed would bo 1010 times

104 TWO NEW WORLDS

seven miles per second. This speed, of course, it
could never attain, nor a 100,000th part of it, on
account of the resistance of the ether ; but it would
have a speed very closely approaching that of light,
and the vast majority of bodies in our stellar
system would be found to possess some such
velocity. If, on the other hand, the density varied
inversely as the surface, and the mass embraced
simply as the radius, then the gravitational poten-
tial at the surface would be always the same, being
proportional to the mass and inversely proportional
to the distance. And, as a consequence, stellar
velocities approaching the velocity of light would
not prevail in any part of the universe.

Now, the actual average density of the stellar
system by the above figures is 3 x 10~22, as com-
pared with water. But we know that the mass
of the stellar system is largely concentrated in the
Milky Way, and the density of the latter is probably
not much smaller than a billionth of that of water.
And since the Milky Way must be taken as repre-
senting one of the "objects" of the supra-world,
it is interesting to note that its density is less than
terrestrial densities in about the same proportion
as the densities of the " infra- world " are greater.

CHAPTER III

PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF A SUPRA-WORLD

BEFORE endeavouring to interpret the structure and
history of our present stellar system, it will be
necessary to dispose of certain questions with regard
to its limits, which have been much debated of late.
Alfred R. Wallace has dealt very fully with the
question of the unity or plurality of worlds in his
well-known work on " Man's Place in the Universe."
With the balance of probabilities in favour of organic
life in other planets than ours we are here not con-
cerned. Our scale of life — life in the supra- world —
will transcend a quadrillionfold the scale of human
life. But before we can describe life hi the supra-
world in terms more or less borrowed from our own,
we must make sure that our supra-world exists — or,
at the least, that its existence is not out of harmony
with known laws of nature.

But what are these laws ? There's the rub. For
when it comes to travelling beyond the confines of
the galaxy, travelling a billion times as far as its
outer edge, in order to arrive at last on the surface
of a "supra-star," we cannot pin our faith exclu-
sively to any one of the great world-laws so far dis-

103

106 TWO NEW WORLDS

covered. Transmission of light? Who knows but
that the interstellar luminiferous ether may thin out
and finally forsake us ! The law of gravitation ?
Men like Wallace and Whittaker are willing to
abandon it before they have got as far as the
galaxy ! Yet it seems as if these two agencies must
be our chief, perhaps our only, guides in exploring
ultra-galactic space. We must, therefore, deal with
them at some further length.

Transmission of Light. — One of the most powerful
arguments against the existence of ultra-galactic
universes is based upon the laws of the transmission
of light. This argument, already referred to, dis-
proves the existence of luminous stars throughout
infinite space, by pointing out that the sky would
then have a uniform brightness equal to that of the
sun in every part. The value of this argument
depends upon the truth of the following assump-
tions : —

1. That the luminiferous ether pervades all space.

2. That the number of dark bodies is compara-
tively small.

3. That the stars are irregularly distributed.

4. That luminous stars have an eternal existence.

The first assumption certainly appeals to our ima-
gination, and no valid argument has been brought
up against it. The third assumption is sometimes
overlooked. It is obvious that an infinite line of
stars might exist behind every star in the heavens

PROOF OF EXISTENCE OF A SUPRA- WORLD 1 07

without our becoming aware of it. But the extreme
improbability of such an arrangement may encourage
us to take trie irregularity of distribution for granted.
The fourth assumption is one that does not commend
itself to any one who looks for a definite epoch at
which the visible universe was created. But to any
one familiar with the line of reasoning derived from
atomic conditions, the eternity of stars must appear
extremely probable, whatever may be said of their
luminosity or their individual fate.

The second assumption is, I think, the most im-
portant, as it bears upon the validity of the law of
gravitation.

Suppose that the number of dark stars in the
Milky Way exceeded the bright ones by 1000 : 1,
and that there was a greater preponderance else-
where, sufficient to bring the density of our stellar
system up to about 10~n, water being unity. In
other words, out of every 100,000 million cubic
miles of stellar space, one cubic mile would be occu-
pied by the material of a star, a planet, or a dark
sun of the average density of water. The assump-
tion contains nothing very improbable: the number
of dark bodies is suspected to be very large in any
and even a great preponderance would not
materially increase the occultations and variabilities
usually observed.

Now it is obvious that if all space were uniformly
strewn with bright stars, many of these would at any

108 TWO NEW WORLDS

given moment be obscured by dark ones. If we
assume that the dark stars have the same average
sectional area as the sun, it is easy to calculate how
far we can see into space before our vision is com-
pletely obscured by the dark bodies. The distance
comes out, according to the distribution of the dark
bodies, as between 100 and 10,000 light-years, or just
about the distance of the inner and outer edges of
the galaxy.1

This system would account completely for the
apparent limitation of the universe. The fact of
many of the brightest stars, like Canopus, being so
far away as to have no appreciable parallax would
be accounted for by the accident of their light
not being intercepted by dark bodies. The laws
of distribution of light by magnitudes would be
explained, or, at least, not contradicted. "Rifts"
and "holes in the heavens" would be interpreted
as accumulations of dark bodies, and the most
powerful telescopes, instead of piercing through
the star- veil into empty space, would penetrate so
far as the black wall which cuts us off from the
ultra-galactic worlds.

But how will this system fare against the argu-
ments of infinity ? The optical argument advanced
by Newcomb no longer affects it, since the light
from outer galaxies is completely intercepted. But
the thermal objection might still hold good, and
1 See Note A at end of this chapter.

PROOF OF EXISTENCE OF A SUPRA-WORLD 1 09

does hold good against an infinite universe of hot
stars, which would keep us at a white heat, in spite
of our protecting wall. But if a hot star is some-
thing altogether exceptional — a freak happening
once in a billion times — then the average tempera-
ture of an infinite universe will be quite comfortable,
and, indeed, extremely stable and permanent.

The laws of radiation, therefore, furnish no argu-
ment against the existence of an infinite series of
galaxies outside our own, so long as we regard the
dark star as the prevailing type. But the case may
be further investigated by means of the argument
from gravitation.

The Law of Gravitation. — Newton's law of gravi-
tation asserts that every heavenly body attracts
every other heavenly body with a force propor-
tional to the product of their masses, and inversely
proportional to the square of their distance apart.
This law has, so far, been confirmed for distances
ranging from 1 cm. to about 1019 cm. — truly a vast

jo. At distances less than 1 cm. it appears to
bo replaced, or, at least, complicated, by the very
much more powerful electric forces brought into
play, and, as regards distances beyond ten light-

rs, we have as yet no evidence of its validity.
At distances of the order of 10~" cm., a force 1033
times more powerful takes the place of gravitation,
and rules the orbits of the infra-world. What
happens at distances of 1022 cm. and beyond?

110 TWO NEW WORLDS

Can it be that gravitation becomes 1033 times
feebler than it is in more accessible places ? Upon
an answer to this question depends any real progress
we may make in our demonstration of a supra-
world. At present we can only indicate two or
three alternative probabilities, one or the other of
which is more probable than the rest.

The argument from gravitation is so ingenious
and comparatively new, that it will, perhaps, be
useful to state it in full and in simple language.

Let there be only two bodies in space, one about
the size of the sun, and having a mass of 1033
grammes, and the other a mass of 1 gramme,
situated at a practically infinite distance, so far
away that the attraction between them is im-
measurably small. Now let the gramme fall
towards the sun. Its velocity, at first excessively
slow, will gradually increase, and its acceleration
will also increase as it approaches the sun and
the force between them increases. To calculate
the actual speed of the gramme at any given
distance from the sun may appear a task of for-
midable difficulty, and requiring high mathematical
training. But it is made really very simple by the
theory of potential, which plays such an important
and useful part in the science of electricity.1

Take the limit of 10,000 light-years or 1022 cm.,
and suppose, with Lord Kelvin, that a sphere of
1 See Note B at end of this chapter.

PROOF OF EXISTENCE OF A SUPRA-WORLD 1 1 1

this radius contains no masses but the visible stars,
about 100 million in number, and possessing an aggre-
gate mass of 1042 grammes. A strange body falling
from infinite space into the outskirts of this system
will acquire a velocity of

2 x 6-66 x 1Q-8 x 10ia

centimetres per second, or 36 '5 x 105 cm. per second,
or 3G*5 km. or 22£ miles per second — about the
speed of the earth, and quite a reasonable and
usual speed. If space is universally filled with
stars to the same extent as our stellar system,
there will be no free fall from infinite space, and
no speed to be got from the attraction of our par-
ticular galaxy. Yet speeds of the same order will
be generated under the force of attraction of the
various suns, and nothing will be altered by
adding galaxies upon galaxies, so long as it is
done consistently and uniformly throughout infinite
space. But supposing that we stop at a distance of
1026 cm., increasing the radius 10,000 times, then
we increase the mass a billion times, the potential
at the limit 100 million times, and the resulting
speed 10,000 times. Thus the speed will be 225,000
miles per second. This speed is some 40,000 miles
per second above that of light, and therefore, by
all accounts, quite impossible. The result will bo
that all foreign bodies will enter our system with

112 TWO NEW WORLDS

a velocity closely approaching that of light, and
even within the system such velocities must be
very prevalent. That this is not the case tells
heavily against the possibility of a stellar aggrega-
tion isolated in space, and much larger than the
visible universe.

The same argument is strengthened a million-
fold when we deal with a galactic system of the
density 10"11 instead of 10~22. This would give a
mass of 1053 grammes to our galactic system, and
a velocity of over seven million miles per second, and
very much more in a larger system of equal density.

These considerations effectively dispose of our
dark and comparatively dense supra-world, unless
that world is uniform and unlimited throughout
space. But as regards uniformity, one look at the
starry heavens will banish all hope of it. If any-
thing is certain, it is the infinite variety of the
universe. If uniformity had existed at any time,
the chances are overwhelming in favour of its
having rapidly disappeared. And this brings us to
a third line of argument.

Stability. — Those philosophers who start from
" creation," and date it a few hundred million
years ago — a mere flash in the stellar scale of
tune — have the great advantage of starting from
some point of uniformity, and ending in a final
cataclysm. But the purpose of these chapters is to
transcend, as far as possible, the barriers of space

PROOF OF EXISTENCE OF A SUPRA-WORLD I I 3

and time, to emphasise their relativity, and to in-
crease our outlook to several orders of infinity.
Whatever system we ultimately adopt as our
theory of the universe must, therefore, not only be
in accord with present-day laws and agencies, but
must be the logical outcome of those same agencies
working for all eternity.

On this point, Alfred R. Wallace, in his great
work referred to above, says : —

" One of the greatest difficulties with regard to
the vast system of stars around us is the question
of its permanence and stability, if not absolutely
and indefinitely, yet for periods sufficiently long
to allow for the many millions of years that have
certainly been required for our terrestrial life-
development. This period, in the case of the
earth, as I have sufficiently shown, has been char-
acterised throughout by extreme uniformity, while
a continuance of that uniformity for a few million
years hi the future is almost equally certain.

But our mathematical astronomers can find no
indications of such stability of the stellar universe
as a whole, if subject to the law of gravitation alone.
In reply to some questions on this point, my friend,
Professor George Darwin, writes as follows : " A
symmetrical annular system of bodies might re-
volve in a circle with or without a central body.
h a system would be unstable. If tho bodies

are of urn-quiil masses and not symmetrically dis-

ii

114 TWO NEW WORLDS

posed, the break-up of the system would probably
be more rapid than in the ideal case of sym-
metry. . . ."

This would imply that the great annular system
of the Milky Way is unstable. But if so, its exist-
ence at all is a greater mystery than ever. . . .
Mr. E. T. Whittaker (secretary to the Royal
Astronomical Society), to whom Professor G.
Darwin sent my questions, writes : " I doubt
whether the principal phenomena of the stellar
universe are consequences of the law of gravita-
tion at all. ... In fact, it may be questioned
whether, for bodies of such tremendous extent
as the Milky Way or Nebulae, the effect which we
call gravitation is given by Newton's law ; just
as the ordinary formulae of electrostatic attraction
break down when we consider charges moving
with very great velocities."

In spite of these doubts, it behoves us to cling
as long as possible to Newton's great generalisa-
tion, and only to abandon it when by doing so we
attain a greater.

When, instead of a few million years, we draw
upon all eternity for our resources in time, we
actually meet with some simplifications rather
than the reverse. The first of these is that the
present moment does not differ from any previous
moment hi the universe as a whole. Whatever
has been, is, and will be. Our galactic system

PROOF OF EXISTENCE OF A SUPRA-WORLD I I 5

cannot be the only system of luminous stars in
the infinite universe ever evolved. That would
distinguish our present epoch above any other.
Special cases must oscillate about the average,
both in space and time. There is no unique
epoch in the universe. If there were, the whole
system would be unstable, and subject to sudden
and overwhelming changes. The constancy of the
laws governing the infra - world through vast
stretches of atomic time is a lesson for us, teach-
ing to look for no catastrophes or specially-favoured
times in our own world.

This consideration is fatal to the "single-world"
theory. The galactic system is unstable. It can-
not last. It must change into something entirely
different — perhaps, according to some, into a single
sun 1000 times as large as our sun, radiating off its
heat into empty space, and hanging, at the end of a
billion years, alone in a vast void, itself a gigantic
kind of moon, scarred and crumbling, the last in-
habitant, rayless and forlorn, of a dark and empty
nothingness.

If this can happen, why should it happen just
then? Why did it not happen a billion years
ago ? Because it was not then created ? And why
not? Why should this vast universe, with its
millionfold life, be crowded into one short moment
—a moment of infinitesimal duration for any one
<1 with time-perception on the stellar scale?

Il6 TWO NEW WORLDS

It is unthinkable. The mind stands more aghast
at such a possibility than it does at the contem-
plation of many infinities. No ; there must be a
supra-world — a world of a higher scale, inhabited
by beings for whom a trillion years are as a day,
and the sun's life-period the shortest measurable
interval of time. Already there are at least two
schemes of such a world in sight. It remains for
us to choose the most plausible one, and, if possible,
the reality.

NOTE A.

Since the "dark-star" argument has been the
centre of considerable controversy, I may as well
give the figures here.

Ten thousand light-years are approximately 1022
cm. A sphere of that radius contains 4'2 x 1C66
cubic cm. The density being 10~n, the mass
contained within this sphere is 4'2 x 1035 grammes.
This is about 1022 times the mass of our sun, so
that if the sun represents a fair average, there
will be 1022 heavenly bodies within that sphere —
a number very largely in excess of the luminous
stars. Now, the sectional area of the sun is 6 x
1022 sq. cm., and the sectional area of all the 1022
bodies added up is 6 x 1044 sq. cm. The surface of
a sphere of 1022 cm. radius is 12'6 x 1044 sq. cm. So
that if all the dark bodies were evenly distributed
over this surface, they would cover half of it. But
that would be their least effective position, and
many of them, being nearer to us, would cover

PROOF OF EXISTENCE OF A SUPRA-WORLD 1 1 7

more of the heavenly vault. A body brought within
5000 light-years would be four times as effective as
before. So we may safely say that, given a dis-
tribution of stars as supposed, both luminous and
dark, our vision would be absolutely blocked at the
actual limit of the galaxy.

NOTE B.

The energy possessed by a body of m grammes
flying with a velocity of v cm. per second is
equal to $mv2 ergs. If we, therefore, measure
the velocity of the gramme falling towards the
sun at any particular instant, we know its
energy of motion — in other words, the amount of
energy it has acquired under the sun's attraction
since it started from infinite space. The amount
of this energy is, of course, quite definite and
measurable for any point in space, and is called
the "gravitational potential" due to the sun at
that point. The gravitational potential due to
a body at any point is inversely proportional to
the distance of that point.1 In figures, it is

OM

expressed by -^-, where M is the mass of the

attracting body, D the distance of the point in
space, and G the "gravitational constant" which
fixes the numerical value of the potential for
the particular units adopted. When the mass is
expressed in grammes, und the distance in centi-
metres, G is 6-66 x 10~B. Thus, at the distance of

1 An elementary proof of this useful theorem Is given in Chapter
III. of my " Electron Theory," p. 45.

1 1 8 TWO NEW WORLDS

1013 cm. (about the distance of the earth from the
sun) the potential is —

6-66 x 10-8 x 1033

10*3

= 6-66 x 10ia.

The work done by the sun in accelerating any body
from infinity may thus be measured by multiplying
this number by the mass of the body in grammes.
And this work will be embodied in the energy of
motion thus acquired. For a mass of m grammes
we have therefore —

m x 6'66 x 1011
or — v2 = 2 x 6-66 x 1011

Extracting the square root on both sides, we get
v = 3-64 x 106, or 36'4 km. per second, or 22J miles
per second. This, as might have been expected, is
not far from the earth's speed in its orbit. For
the speed may be that of motion in any direction,
so long as it is the same for a given distance from
the sun. To put the whole relation into one formula,
we have —

2QM

/

V

from which we may at once derive a few important
rules : —

1. The speed at any given distance is proportional
to the square root of the central mass.

2. It is proportional to the square root of the
gravitational constant.

3. It is inversely proportional to the square root of
the distance. The actual force of attraction between
two masses M and m at distance D is equal to

t The force is in dynes, the masses in

PROOF OF EXISTENCE OF A SUPRA-WORLD I 1 9

grammes, and the distance in centimetres. To
convert to pounds and inches, G must be made
047 x 10-*

Here, then, we have a basis for extending our
gravitational arguments into the uttermost vast-
nesses of space.

CHAPTER IV

SUPRA-STARS AND LIVING GALAXIES

WE have now to proceed in making our final choice
between the various solutions presented by the
problem of the Infinite Universe. We shall
assume : —

1. That the material universe is infinite in three-
dimensional space, and eternal both in the past
and the future.

2. That the law of gravitation holds good through-
out infinite time and space.

3. That the luminiferous ether has the same
properties throughout space.

These assumptions have already been shown to
be well founded. Gravitation and the propagation
of light are the same for all parts of the stellar
system hitherto explored, and even in spectro-
scopic binaries we have enough material to show
that their orbits are conic sections. We know
that the only laws of central force under which a
body will have such an orbit for all initial conditions
are: (1) Newton's law of gravitation, and (2) the
law according to which the force is directly pro-

SUPRA-STARS AND LIVING GALAXIES 121

pmtional to the distance, and this latter alternative
is sufficiently excluded.

The infinity and eternity of the universe implies
the absence of special " points of singularity," such
as general catastrophes or absolute uniformity.
Whatever variety exists in space and time is
equalised if we take the space large enough or
the time long enough. The world of the present
moment is instinct with life and energy, with
change and progress and decay, bewildering and
overwhelming to the finite mind. But the infinite
universe is unchanging. It is the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever. There is no loss and no
gain ; there is only redistribution and circulation.
There is a fundamental and abiding constancy, and
yet the variety is infinite. The All is immutable,
but the detail is for ever new. The equilibrium is
eternal ; but the event, the incident, the individuality
is unique, unprecedented, irrecoverable.

I have proved that there are two solutions which
are in accordance with the above assumptions.
The first of these postulates a comparatively dense
universe of a consistency somewhat greater than
that of the Milky Way, but containing dark stars
in large excess. The other (p. 103) implies that hi
proceeding out into space the matter included in
successive world-spheres must vary, not as the
volume but as the radius ; in other words, that
in the universes of successively higher orders the

122 TWO NEW WORLDS

densities must be less. In the absence of evidence
for a vast preponderance of dark stars within our
own galactic system, I prefer to adopt this latter
alternative. It gives scope for greater variety, it is
more probable from the point of view of stability,
and it is in harmony with that general prevalence of
separate objects which we discern throughout nature,
whether in atoms, living beings, stars, or galaxies.

We have throughout this work equated stars
(or rather solar systems) with chemical atoms, an
identification which is well supported by electrical
and chemical data. The average diameter of an
atom is 10~8 cm. The diameter of the solar system
is about 1014 cm. The ratio of these two quantities
is 1022. This is the " world ratio " which I have
hitherto applied to all phenomena in successive
universes. Using this as a guide, it is not very
difficult to construct our " supra-world."

There is our galactic system, our " visible universe,"
measuring 1021 or 1022 cm. across, a distance corre-
sponding on our human scale to 1 mm. or 1 cm., or,
say, J in. To a " supra-man," therefore, our galaxy
will be a small object of about that size. It contains
about 1000 million stars, or about as many stars as
the lowliest organism known to us contains atoms.
For aught we know it may be an organism — a fasci-
nating question with which I shall deal further on.

Outside the galaxy is empty space for some
distance, and then other galaxies or somewhat dif-

SUPRA-STARS AND LIVING GALAXIES 123

ferent structures. These again must form a larger
aggregate, something we might call a " supra-star."
The diameters of the heavenly bodies known to
us average about 1010 cm. Hence, by the "world-
ratio," we must expect the diameter of the supra-
star to be somewhere about 1032 cm., or a hundred
billion light-years.

The mass of our galactic system is nearly 1042
grammes. By our argument from the law of
gravitation, the mass within the supra-star must
be as much greater as its diameter is greater.
This makes the mass of the supra-star 1058 grammes
and its density 10~44. The velocity acquired by a
body in falling from infinity to the surface of the
supra-star would be some 60 miles per second, and
might rise to 120 miles in penetrating to its interior.
This is not excessive in comparison with observed
" proper motions."

The mass of the supra-star being 1053 grammes, it
contains 1011 times the mass of our galaxy. We
might say it contains 100,000 million galaxies. The
density of the galaxy being 1022 times that of the
supra-star, each galaxy will have 1022 times its
own volume to move about in without collision.
The average distance of the nearest galaxy will be
about ten million times the diameter of our galaxy,
or, say 10,000 million light-years, so that, if the
nearest galaxy happened to have consisted of
luminous stars for several thousand million years,

124 TWO NEW WORLDS

but no longer, it would still be quite invisible to us.
And when we consider that it would, in all proba-
bility, take a billion years for two galaxies to
approach each other and meet, we can understand
that such an event must be a rare occurrence. Rare
as it is, Prof. Kapteyn and Mr. Eddington have
found some evidence to show that it is taking
place in our own system.

Our galactic system consists, in fact, of two
independent systems which are gradually travelling
through each other, the faster system travelling
directly away from Hercules with a velocity seven-
teen times greater than the slower system, which
is making for a point near i Ursa3 Majoris.

Such an observation pleads eloquently for the
view developed here — viz., that there are external
galactic systems at a considerable distance from
our own. For, if the systems had not been inde-
pendent formerly, they could never have acquired
the independent directions and velocities they
actually exhibit.

We may take it, then, that our present visible
universe is in process of transformation by the
intrusion into it of an independent " galaxy " (as
we may for short term a stellar system containing
some 100 or 1000 million stars). There is, in fact,
a " collision " of two galaxies — an event for which
the chances at any time are less than 1 in 10 billion.

The existence of 100,000 million galaxies within

SUPRA-STARS AND LIVING GALAXIES 125

the supra-star to which we belong does not neces-
sarily make any perceptible difference to our starry
heavens. Mr. R. A. Kennedy has shown1 that an
infinite series of luminous universes of progressively
decreasing density would not perceptibly add to
the light we receive from the starry heavens.

It may here be objected that the vast times
required for the light of other bright galaxies to
reach us would in any case preclude our ever seeing
them. J. Ellard Gore, in his " Stellar Universe,"
p. 113, says: "We may further consider all the
systems of the second order as together forming a
system of the third order, and so on to the fourth
and higher orders. But we need not go further
than the third order, for if, as I have shown else-
where, light would probably take millions of years
to reach us from an external universe of the second
order, surely the altogether inconceivable distance
of systems of the third order would sufficiently
account for their light not having yet reached us,
although travelling towards our earth for possibly
billions of years ! "

I cannot accept the implied assumption that the
universe is finite in time. If light requires all that
time to reach us, what is there to prevent it ? Time
is infinite, and its length is purely relative. Wo
si i nil. it is true, never see outlying galaxies as they
arc, but as they wore so many million or billion

Afectuiuic, No. 21'JJ, April 22, 1907.

126 TWO NEW WORLDS

years ago. But so long as the probability of a
galaxy being bright is the same throughout space
and time, it does not matter at what particular
epoch any given galaxy shines out. The average
will hold good, and our argument will remain valid.

The Life of our G-cdaxy. — The question of a possible
" life " of the galactic system as an organism may at
first sight appear strange or even absurd ; but can
we logically deny it, or even make it improbable ?
The monist or materialist who analyses life into
matter and motion must find within our galaxy
sufficient of both to satisfy his most exacting con-
ditions. Reduce sizes and times by the " world-
ratio," and what do we find ? Some 1000 million
atoms in rapid motion, mostly forming binary
"molecules," but also clusters, chains, and solar
systems, with an inner " nucleus " and outer rim or
cell-wall sufficiently cohesive to exhibit individuality,
yet sufficiently open to admit material from outside
and even whole invading systems; a continuous
evolution of energy within, and a continuous ex-
change of energy with the outside world, showing
evidences just at present of a surplus of " imports "
over " exports."

Nothing is essentially altered by restoring this
" cell " to its original dimensions. What we lack at
present to complete the analogy is some evidence
of adaptation such as Herbert Spencer postulates
for all organic life. Such adaptation would, of

SUPRA-STARS AND LIVING GALAXIES 127

course, be so slow as to be practically unobserv-
able. For one second of our time becomes 1022
seconds, or some 300 billion years in the time-
scale of the higher world, and even the vast time
required for the completion of the "invasion" now
proceeding (say 20 billion years) is but a small
fraction of a second in supra-time. In order to
judge whether any of the motions actually observed
among the stars can be equated with motions of
atoms in a cell, we shall require some further
information both concerning the actual configura-
tion of atoms in a cell and concerning the con-
ditions of life in the supra- world. Both these
quests lie on the extreme borders of the territory
surveyed by our present faculties ; but that circum-
stance, while increasing the difficulty of such inquiry,
also enhances its interest and importance.

Personally, I do not share the Haeckelian,
monistic, or materialistic view. I prefer to look
upon material phenomena as symbols of mental
phenomena. Where there is motion there is
thought. Where there is matter there is exist-
ence, conscious or sub-conscious. If at any time
we succeed in accurately determining the con-
figuration and motion of atoms in the huma.i brain,
shall have an opportunity of interpreting the
aspect of the heavens in terms of thought, of read-
ing the thoughts of the world-soul, so to speak.
But the human brain is, after all, only a very small

128 TWO NEW WORLDS

portion of the thinking universe. Whole realms of
potential or sub-conscious mental activity are stored
away in more or less permanent configurations.
Our conscious life is a very small part of our total
life. We carry on vast activities which, having
become automatic, no longer emerge above the level
of consciousness. Our " life " comprehends the whole
array of changes in the atomic structure of our
physical organism, together with the sub-conscious
mental activity represented by these changes, and
the little gleam or "flicker" of conscious life at
the top. If that is the case in ourselves, in what
is to us the most familiar (or, indeed, the only
familiar) part of the sentient universe, how can
we expect to enter into the soul-life of the lower
organisms, not to speak of so-called inorganic or
"dead" matter? We should be chary of denying
every species of life to an aggregation of matter
simply because it is very bulky, and because its
evolution is difficult to observe.

Supra-Light. — The supra-star is the largest body
in the supra-world which we have as yet sub-
jected to calculation. We have made its mass
1053 grammes and its diameter 1032 cm. But we
can say a good deal more with a high degree of
probability. Its temperature is enormous. By
temperature we do not mean the kinetic energy
of what we call atoms, but the kinetic energy of
the " atoms " of the supra- world, these being what

SUPRA-STARS AND LIVING GALAXIES 129

we call stars. The temperature of a body is the
kinetic energy of its particles. Two particles may
have very different masses but yet the same tem-
peratures if their kinetic energies are the same
., if the product of the mass into the square
of the velocity is the same for both particles.
Now the average velocity of a hydrogen molecule
at normal temperature and pressure is 169,400 cm.
per second, and its mass is 11 x 10~24 gramme.
The mass of the sun is 1034 grammes, or 1058 times
that of a hydrogen molecule. Therefore its tem-
perature as a " particle " would be the same if
the square of its velocity were 10~58 times that ot
the hydrogen molecule, or if the velocity were
10~29 times that of the molecule. Instead of that,
it is actually higher, being T99 x 106 cm. per second.
Therefore we find that if stars are substituted for
atoms in the supra-thermometer, the temperatures
in the supra-world are altogether beyond what we
observe hi our world.

But the supra-stars are not necessarily luminous
for all that. There is no necessary and unfailing
connection between light and heat. Light consists
of ether waves of a peculiar wave-length. Radiation
in general consists of the vibrations of ether pro-
voked by vibrations of electric charges. Without
electrons or other elementary charges there can be
neither light nor radiant heat. In the supra-world,
the electrons are represented by planets. Now it

130 TWO NEW WORLDS

has been alleged that our solar system is rather
an exception in our stellar universe, and that most
stars are binaries, and probably unattended by
planets. But the earth must be a radiator of
supra-light. This is a matter admitting of no
doubt whatever.

The earth carries round the sun annually a
quantity of negative electricity, which makes its
revolution equivalent to a current of 1 ampere.
If the other planets also carry charges, the " supra-
light" of the solar system will have a well-defined
line spectrum. The wave-length of the supra-light
emitted by the earth is 1018 cm.

On the whole the chances are just as much in
favour of a starry vault in the supra- world as
they are with us, since there is no essential change
in the geometrical arrangement.

We cannot very well understand the conditions
prevailing in our supra-star, except with reference
to the sun. There also we have a gaseous body
of very high temperature. If planets are rare
accidents, then we may also look for planets in
the supra-world ; but a chance visit would not
reveal them unless the circumstances were excep-
tionally favourable.

Our galactic system as a whole is most prob-
ably non-magnetic, though our solar system is
undoubtedly a " molecular magnet." But the mag-
netic and other electric forces are very feeble on

SUPRA-STARS AND LIVING GALAXIES 131

the astronomical scale, with the exception of radia-
tion, which plays a part in astronomy of very
sensible importance.

Both central and mechanical forces remain the
same in the supra-world as in our galaxy. The
dimensions are M2L~2 and MLT~2 respectively, and
since M, L, and T all change in the same ratio,
the quantities are undisturbed.

So far, then, we can locate our supra-beings on
supra-stars surrounded by a starry vault. What
these supra-stars lack hi density they more than
compensate by their temperature — a process with
which we are familiar in explosives.

CHAPTER V

LIFE IN THE SUPRA-WORLD

OUR speculations up to this have indicated, as the
most probable structure of the universe beyond the
stars, a collection of some 100,000 million galaxies,
making up a "supra-star," and this supra-star
forming the unit of a higher stellar universe, greatly
resembling our own in outward appearance.

The ordinary common-sense difficulty which
arises at once may be put in the form of the
question: "Where are those 100,000 million
galaxies? Why can we not see them?" The
answer is, They are too far away. A simple calcu-
lation shows that our galaxy, when placed at the
distance of the nearest outer galaxy (1028 cm.),
would appear as a star of the 27th magnitude, and
when placed at a distance equal to the radius of the
supra-star it would appear as a star of the olst
magnitude — both magnitudes which are quite be-
yond our most powerful instruments. Indeed, all
the stars and galaxies which constitute the supra-
star, if lumped together and placed at the limit of
our galaxy, would not be brighter than the moon ;

and if placed at the surface of the supra-star with

132

LIFE IN THE SUPRA-WORLD 133

ourselves in the centre, would dwindle to a body of
the 21st magnitude, and the supra-star itself, seen
from the next supra-star, would rank as a body of
the 75th magnitude. That being the magnitude of
the supra-star nearest our own, it is small wonder
we do not see it. A supra-being would not, of course,
see the supra-stars by our light, but by " supra-light,"
which may be powerful enough to reveal the existence
of supra-stars to suitably-constructed sense organs.

Could we, by some superhuman power, condense
our galactic system and seal it up in a tin can, we
should, on looking round us, see nothing but utter
darkness (barring the rare chance of some other
galaxy being near). We should see nothing but a
black void, though surrounded by 100,000 million
shining galaxies constituting a supra-star, and by
a trillion supra-stars constituting a body of the
next higher order. The light to which, through
countless ages, our eyes have learnt to respond,
would utterly forsake us, and unless we were
endowed with new retinas capable of responding
to supra-light of wave-length 1018 cm., we should
be practically blind. Such retinas would be im-
possible in our present bodies, with their rapid
changes and short life-period. A single light-pulse
would take a whole year to pass. We should, in
fact, require supra-bodies, bodies in which the vital
changes take place nearly a quadrillion times
more slowly than they do in ours.

134 TWO NEW WORLDS

A body capable of life on the vast scale of a
higher universe of this order must itself be com-
mensurable with the supra- world. It must be a
supra-organism.

Our galactic system is, in all probability, a
supra-organism. — Let us picture to ourselves the
conditions under which its life is carried on, in a
world of a physical constitution such as our investi-
gations have led us to assign to the supra-world.

Whatever is changed in passing from our world
to the supra-world, the corresponding velocities
remain the same. Atoms and stars, electrons and
planets, cells and galaxies move with the same
average absolute velocity in the same ether. This
fact is mysterious, and, no doubt, significant. It
provides us with a far-reaching uniformity of the
first importance, a "pole at rest in the whirl of
phenomena."

Distances being exaggerated 1 022 times, it follows
that times must be exaggerated in the same ratio,
or the velocities would not be constant. But the
measurement of space and time is purely relative.
Time is measured by events, and any event which
in our world requires one second, will, in the supra-
world, require 1022 seconds for its accomplishment.
But this vast period — over a hundred billion years-
will, in the supra-world, only appear to be one
second. It will contain the same number of corre-
sponding events as does our second. Similarly,

LIFE IN THE SUPRA-WORLD 135

1022 miles will contain the same number of corre-
sponding objects as our single mile. We may,
therefore, speak of a supra-second as an interval
which plays the same part in the supra-world as
one second does with us, so long as we remember
that its actual length is 1022 of our seconds.
Similarly, we may speak of supra-years, supra-miles,
and supra-centimetres. Further, in order to make
things more amenable to our imagination, we may
mentally reduce the supra-world to our own
dimensions simply by calling its supra-miles " miles."
In this case we shall, so to speak, adopt the language
of the supra-world itself. Then we should obtain
the following description: —

"The galaxies have an average diameter of 1
millimetre, and are 10 kilometres (6*2 miles)
apart. They move about with a speed of from
1 to 1000 metres per second. About every minute,
or at least every hour, each galaxy approaches
another galaxy, but rarely getting very near, and
never colliding. Nearly a billion galaxies are con-
fined within a sphere of the size of Saturn. This
sphere may be called a 'supra-star.' The nearest
similar sphere is one light-year away. The galaxies
are loosely bound together by their gravitational
attraction, which is compensated by a rotation of the
supra-star accomplished in twenty-eight hours. In-
dividual galaxies often fly out from the surface for
some distance, but rarely far enough to be lost to

136 TWO NEW WORLDS

the suprarstar. The galaxies darting about within
the sphere of the supra-star resemble a swarm
of gnats dancing in the sun."

Now, it has often been a subject of some curiosity
to know what these swarming gnats were doing.
Zoologists no doubt have their theories ; but what-
ever they be, we can imagine that the gnats in their
sport are leading a very intense and presumably
joyous kind of life — a life in which considerations
of food play a very subordinate part. Each gnat
consists of about a trillion atoms, arranged in cells
and groups fulfilling various functions, the chief
items of expenditure being connected with loco-
motive activities. A small speck of protoplasm 0*1
micron in diameter contains as many atoms as
the Milky Way contains stars. An amoeba lives
in water, which shields it from the dire effects
of gravitational acceleration, and which, by its
dissociating power, furnishes it with certain ions
or chemical substances made appetising, so to speak,
by the relish of an electric charge. Its own sub-
stance consists largely of water, which in its turn
consists of molecules, ternary stars, so to speak,
revolving almost in contact — two hydrogen satellites
about an oxygen sun. When the amoeba is hungry
it fuses its own body round about a desirable victim,
and absorbs a number of — star-clusters, shall we
say? — which, after a short sojourn among the
counter-attractions of the amoeba's other star-

LIFE IN THE SUPRA-WORLD 137

clusters, become less complex in structure, and are
finally rejected, together with what remains of the
victim after its useful clusters have been annexed.

Enlarge the amoeba to the size of our galactic
system, and you will have a starry vault more
brilliant than ours, with stars more numerous and
less far apart, but with the same stupendous majesty
of motion and development, the same age-long
evolution as ours. Its life will be as inscrutable,
no more and no less, than the " life " of our own
galaxy. We shall be just as unable to discern
voluntary motion or trace the traffic of energy
through the system. Possibly our galaxy has no
voluntary motion. Its life may be more vegetative
than animal. It may be concerned in building up
elaborate structures rather than in undoing them.
In any case, its life is bound to be what we call
intense or strenuous. Life is measured intensively
by the number and variety of experiences crowded
into a given time. This number and variety, as
our calculations have tended to show, is very great
in the supra-world. A roving galaxy has, so to
speak, a lively time of it. Taking the word " life "
in its very widest sense, as a registering and utilisa-
of experiences, and including among the latter
conscious, sub-conscious, and " material " effects, there
cry justification for applying the term " life "
to the existence and development of our own or
any other galaxy. The only reasonable doubt applies

138 TWO NEW WORLDS

to the degree of consciousness with which that
life is endowed.

It is not for us, who spend a third of our lives
in a state of unconscious, or at most, subconscious,
activity, to determine the limit of consciousness in
other beings. We do not know, and cannot say,
from our standpoint outside, how far the life of an
amoeba or a protococcus may be governed by judg-
ment and choice, or how far it may differ from
ours in our rare moments of full self-consciousness.
The area and scope of our own consciousness is
constantly shifting. Our consciousness is merged in
a sea of conscious existence, just as our body is im-
mersed in a material universe. Every man with a
philosophic, as distinguished from a mechanically
scientific, training knows that the two parallel uni-
verses— those of consciousness and of matter — are
coextensive and interpenetrating ; are, in fact, two
aspects of the same reality. No portion of matter is
entirely independent of other matter. No so-called
"individual" consciousness is entirely independent
of other mental existences. In ourselves, but in
nothing else, we are in touch with both aspects, both
universes. When we perceive other material exist-
ences, we ascribe consciousness to them to the extent
to which their material structure and activity re-
sembles ours, but no further. That is our prejudice.
It is a very natural prejudice, and only becomes mis-
chievous when elevated into a dogma, and used in

LIFE IN THE SUPRA- WORLD 139

order to deny consciousness where we have no real
evidence against it.

If our galaxy is not conscious yet, it may
be in the process of acquiring consciousness. The
curious evolution discovered by Kapteyn and
Eddington is very suggestive of some crisis. The
mingling of two galactic systems may be the equiva-
lent of the process by 'which the amoeba acquires
star-clusters of superior vital value. Or it may be
an act of a great Birth — a mingling of two germ-
cells to form a more self-determining being. The
interpenetration may be estimated to occupy a
thousand million years — a very small fraction of a
supra-second. In that time the two galaxies will
have brought their accumulated individual experi-
ence to bear upon each other, and will be prepared
to face life with a superior endowment and a better
prospect of self-determination. Such a prospect
is surely quite as conceivable as the simplest process
of generation such as we can see accomplish itself
under the microscope in a few minutes.

But what about ourselves in this gigantic birth ?
What part have we to play in the next thousand
million years? Will our accumulated experience
be a part of the dowry of that great being which
is now being born in the heavens?

This brings mo to what will most likely be con-
sidered the wildest and most fanciful part of the
suggested by the present lino of reason-

140 TWO NEW WORLDS

ing. Where nothing is certain we may as well
discard all prudent reservations. It will save time
if I state a vague possibility in language of posi-
tive conviction. All the usual reservations may
therefore, in what follows in the next chapter, be
" taken as read."

CHAPTER VI

THE CONQUEST OF THE SUPRA-WORLD

THE human race has evolved on a small planet in
the solar system in the course of several million
years of organic life. Its destiny is to combine
with other sentient beings to govern the solar
system, the solar cluster, and finally the new galaxy
now being evolved.

In the course of his triumphant career, man has
succeeded in extending his personality far beyond
the limits of his body. If by " personality " in the
wider sense we understand all material things con-
trolled by the individual, then we must include
his clothes, his property, and his whole sphere of
influence under that term. Individuals vary enor-
mously in the extent of this wider "personality,"
much more widely than they do hi their physical
organisation. But every community has its " per-
sonality " also.

It controls the " personalities " of its individuals
to the same extent as it controls their minds — at
least on the average, and in the long run. The
community is an individual of a higher order,
with a consciousness distributed over the aggre-

142 TWO NEW WORLDS

gate consciousness, and a "personality" of power
and possession gathered from the aggregate of its
members.

A nation is an individual of a still higher order,
controlling not only the mental and physical life
of a vast number of human beings, but a corre-
spondingly large portion of land. Nations, like
crowds, have their psychology. They are born,
and live, and die. They have passions and greeds
and diseases, and sometimes generous impulses.
The human personality is coextensive with the
visible universe in one sense already. It is destined
to become so in a much more practical sense. Man
governs the earth. It is changing its face for
him. Other beings are flourishing or disappearing
at his pleasure. Soon he will govern the more
powerful elements, the sea and the wind, and the
heat of the sun.

By-and-by, also, the earth will show signs of be-
coming uninhabitable. He will readjust it, and
bring it nearer to the sun or further away. More
likely, perhaps, he will discover that Jupiter offers
superior inducements to colonists, or he will come
to some understanding with the inhabitants of
Jupiter, if such there be, with regard to future
co-operation. It is pretty certain that nothing
will bar the conquering march of human intelli-
gence, except a similar intelligence. Either man
will come upon a civilisation resembling his own

THE CONQUEST OF THE SUPRA- WORLD 143

or he will not. In the former case he will, after a
trial of strength, perhaps, ally himself with that
other race. In the latter alternative he will mould
all matter to his will. He will control the sun
with a switch like an electric lamp. His physical
acts will require a minimum expenditure of energy ;
but they will let loose or guide all the huge forces
of the universe. In proceeding to greater con-
quests, man simply draws upon the almighty power
within him. He is not alone in either world,
material or mental. He has infinite reserves in
both. His physical organism is specially adapted
to the conquest of the earth. When he proceeds
to greater spheres it may change; but the change,
we may anticipate, will not be as great as his
change of power. Man's powers have been
extended within the last centuries in enormous
disproportion to any changes in his body. In pro-
ceeding to control the solar system, man may
develop, or rather resume, powers now found only
in a rudimentary form. In taking control of
nature, man has lost many spiritual gifts once
possessed by his ancestors. Clairvoyance and tele-
pathy were once almost universal. They have
been deliberately atrophied in order to fit man for
the conquest of nature. The human mind not
only requires delicate senses and perceptions; it
also requires certain blindnesses and insensibilities.
:ie sensibilities have been crusted over. Man

144 TWO NEW WORLDS

has become a crustacean as regards some of his
faculties. These have become "occult." When
they are once more required they will again
come forth. They are beginning to come forth
now.

When activities have to be spread over geological
periods instead of lifetimes, man will, in order to
cope with them, either have to prolong his life, or
find a new way of permanently recording his experi-
ences. Both ends may possibly be accomplished by
a thinning of the veil which divides embodied man
from the accumulated intelligence of his ancestors,
who poured forth by the million every year into that
unknown realm of existence with which the human
race, for good reasons of its own, has severed almost
all conscious connection.

The result will be, in any case, that the solar
system will become conscious. It will control its
own destiny, and choose among the energies in the
universe those best adapted to preserve its con-
tinuity of evolution.

Can anything more be accomplished in the time
at our disposal, in a thousand million years ? It
would not be too much to assume that the scale of
operations will extend as the basis expands. When
the planets move "like one man," when the solar
system is instinct with life, it will develop new
powers. Born into the solar cluster, it will endea-
vour to adapt itself to its surroundings, and then

THE CONQUEST OF THE SUPRA-WORLD 145

to adapt its surroundings to itself. An outside
spectator might look as fruitlessly for the seat of
the solar "soul" as he does for the human soul in
the cells of the brain. He would note certain acti-
vities and adaptations, and if they resembled his
own he would postulate life or even consciousness.
He might notice a growth of the single system into
a cluster of systems, or the break-up of several
systems to form another system on a higher scale.
Our imagination almost forsakes us at this point,
until we arrive at the borders of the galaxy, and
behold ! we have again a living thing, like the
amoeba under the cover-glass, which is as wonder-
ful as a living galaxy, and fraught with infinitely
greater possibilities than a dead galaxy. But in
this vast process just sketched, which has taken a
thousand million years to accomplish itself, a living
><j has been born into the supra-world, there to
live a life akin to that of our earthly organisms,
but extending over practically infinite time, and
counting its seconds by the parade of galaxies. Its
long evolution, the " Conquest of the Supra- world,"
will count as an insignificant fraction of a second —
:i mere nothing. It will, in its own estimation, have
been born afresh at a definite and sharply defined
epoch, with no assignable pro-existence. It will
enter upon its vivid life in the supra-world, con-
scious of the all-absorbing Present, and oblivious
<>f the ages during which it was slowly and labori-

146 TWO NEW WORLDS

ously evolved into a higher life out of the strenuous
life of the human race.

And the supra-man, studying the little captured
galaxy in his microscope, will wonder if the little
thing has any intelligence or consciousness, or if it
is only " matter and motion," with hard round atoms
knocking up against each other and occasionally
phosphorescing into " thought."

CHAPTER VII

THE CHAIN OF UNIVERSES

A GENERAL survey of the ground covered by these
investigations shows that they necessitate a revision
of hitherto-accepted views in those departments of
science and philosophy which deal with the infinite
and the infinitesimal, and, generally speaking, with
space and time in the abstract. The relativity of
space and time itself, always accepted as an axiom,
is here for the first time carried to its logical conclu-
sion, and given a physical interpretation. It would
have been easy, and also somewhat fashionable, to
extend the limits of space by breaking down its
three-dimensional character. Greater freedom of
hypothesis, and greater security from criticism,
might also have been obtained by abrogating other
fundamental laws of nature. But the experience of
mankind is opposed to any such proceeding. When
Newton first extended the earth's attraction as far
as the moon his hypothesis appeared far-fetched and
presumptuous. But we have gone much further
since, and have learned more and more that the
strange and the wonderful must not be looked for
beyond the stars. The abysses of space are no more

148 TWO NEW WORLDS

strange and formidable than a river-bed or a snow-
drift. There is no problem on an infinite scale
which is not equally presented to us on an infini-
tesimal scale. If we can unravel the secrets of
matter down to the molecule and up to the star-
cluster, we shall know the secrets of all matter to
the uttermost ends of space and time. Our facul-
ties will have grasped the material universe. This
prospect is magnificent and encouraging. It holds
out a vast promise, and indicates a speedy fulfilment
of it. The results achieved will be utterly inde-
pendent of space and time. The laws of the material
universe as disclosed to us by our faculties will rule
for ever. Could we by any chance catch a glimpse
of our starry heavens as they will appear in a trillion
years, or as they appeared a trillion years ago, we
might fail to recognise its constellations ; but the
stars would be shining as they shine upon us now,
with their different spectra and magnitudes, their
orbits, and their proper motions. The laws of chem-
istry and of physics would still hold good, and those
of geology and biology would be the same wherever
the local circumstances were similar to those of our
earth. This eternity of the material universe gives
a new dignity to it and to our work in solving its
riddles. We find that the structure of the material
universe is consistent with its general stability.
True, we cannot yet trace the circulation of energy
in all its course. We do not yet know how the

THE CHAIN OF UNIVERSES 149

radiation of light and heat is kept up indefinitely.
But if energy is indestructible, as we believe it is, it
is clear that even in an infinite universe there must
be some circulation of it. The energy whose dissi-
pation we observe is, after all, the energy, not of our
world, but of the infra- world, which alone provides
us with light and radiant heat ; and that same world,
as we know from the phenomena of radio-activity,
has reserves of energy which are but rarely tapped,
and which may possibly in future be traced to the
radiant energy dissipated into space.

The realisation of the infra- world and the supra-
world amounts to a vast extension of the scope of
the laws of nature. But, on the other hand, it
opposes a decided barrier to their indefinite simpli-
fication. It has been a favourite idea with biologists
that all vital phenomena can ultimately be reduced
to the configuration and motion of atoms. With
an almost pathetic faith, grotesquely out of keeping
with their boasted scepticism, they have for several
generations past been clinging to this dogma. The
chemist, that most practical of men of science, has
preferred to deal with phenomena as they appeared
to his senses and became amenable to his balance,
liiirotte, and thermometer. The physicist, working
on the very borderland of science, always in touch
with ul tin int. foundations, and surrounded by the
incomprehensible, has almost developed into a
mystic. He has shattered the atom, and is now

150 TWO NEW WORLDS

endeavouring to reduce matter to some unintel-
ligible turbulence in an inconceivable ether. He
is on a fool's errand. "That way madness lies."
It is sheer waste of time to look for an ultimate
particle, or for a continuous fluid of certain density
or elasticity. We can never arrive at anything
ultimate by making our unit small. There will
always be something a million times smaller, in-
finitely smaller. Why not, then, take the bull by
the horns and recognise that dimensions are only
relative, that our faculties have a limited range,
and that, however far we extend that range on a
larger or smaller scale, the same problems are
presented to us ? Let us not bury these problems
out of sight in the Infinitesimal. No material inter-
pretation of the universe will ever explain anything.
The elementary particle, the elementary position or
motion, will be the greatest of all puzzles. Real pro-
gress must be sought for in quite another direction.

Let us by all means reduce the number of laws
to the minimum. Let us, if we can, explain gravi-
tation by ether motion; but if we fail, if we have
to admit universal gravitation as an ultimate and
irreducible reality, where is the loss ? We must
have some fundamental assumptions, incapable of
further explanation, and none are likely to be much
simpler than Newton's law. The ether might also
be taken for granted, and without any further
speculations as to its constitution, we may assume

THE CHAIN OF UNIVERSES I 5 I

that the velocity of light is a definite and most
important constant, more important than ever since
our discovery that it is both relatively and ab-
solutely the same in the three worlds.

A few such fundamental principles may enable
us by-and-by to marshal all phenomena in due
order, and to survey them in proper perspective.
But when it comes to the explanation, or, rather,
the interpretation, of these fundamental principles,
material conceptions are no longer useful. The
fundamental principles are necessarily functions of
the five senses with which we happen to be en-
dowed. They are the symbols which connect our
physical organism with the realities outside us.
Any further reduction must be accompanied by
an analysis of our own senses and faculties. Not
microscopy, but psychology, will solve the "Riddle
of the Universe."

Even in dealing with ordinary sensation we are
constantly coming upon sources of error, such as
malobservation, illusion, and hallucination. The
senses require constant correction and supervision
by the intellect. Not by a single intellect either,
for no fact, observed and recorded by even the
most famous and best trained observer, is ever
accepted on his unsupported testimony alone, but
by the combined intellect of those supposed to be
best qualified to judge. Witness Blondlot's " N-
rays" and Secchi's Martian canals.

152 TWO NEW WORLDS

In searching for ultimate truth, we have to bring
our higher intellectual faculties into play. We
have to investigate those " laws of cognition " which
govern the acquisition of knowledge in general.
We have to concentrate ourselves in our own
higher selves, and watch our ordinary faculties at
work, just as those faculties watch our sensations,
and our senses in their turn watch the world. And
in doing so, we are gradually and inevitably drawn
to the conclusion that mind is everything, and
matter but an expression of the universal mind.
A table, a house, a machine is the embodiment of
some human mind. A stone is the embodiment
of some mind at present inaccessible to us, of
some will at present inscrutable. Matter signifies
existence — life independent of ourselves, but subject
to our will under certain conditions, just as men
are to some extent. Motion means change or ex-
perience. Inertia means habit. The ether means,
perhaps, the all-embracing, all-connecting over-
soul of the universe. Radiation means, perchance,
the intercommunication of smaller minds.

Here we enter upon that virgin field where, I
believe, the science of the future will blossom forth.
In entering upon it, a new perspective opens out,
a perspective infinitely more glorious than the
starry host visible to our human eyes. We breathe
a higher and purer air — an air of freedom, of infinite
life and power and greatness, unfettered by the

THE CHAIN OF UNIVERSES 153

shackles of our earthly existence. Many of the
sons of men, in all ages, have caught glimpses of
such a higher existence. It is open to all of us
and, I believe, destined for all. But its possibility
and prospect need not draw us away from the
present phase prematurely. Like devotees of chess
or football, we descend into the arena and consent
to be bound for a time by more or less absurd
restrictions. We "play the game." And that
game has always been played, and will always be
played. It is a necessary discipline and liberal
education.

We are for a time placed at some point in the
chain of material universes, an infinite series of
which, strange to say, can, as we have seen, occupy
the same space at the same time. We are planted
on the crust of a planet. It is a curious form of
' once ; but we know of no other. Our faculties
can dimly perceive a corresponding existence on
the next lower order of planetary or stellar units,
on electrons or atoms. But no corresponding
possibility is reached on a larger scale until we
reach the supra-star, the stellar unit of the supra-
world. Our faculties can, with the utmost effort,
perceive three links of the chain, and only one
with fair completeness. But that is enough. It
gives a complete "cross-section" of the material
universe. Having exhausted the lessons of this
cross-section, we can proceed to other typos of

154 TWO NEW WOBLDS

universes, at present (to us) non-material, and more
or less immaterial.

Of one thing, however, we may be certain: No
universe exists which is entirely unconnected with
this of ours. We know that the fruit of our
slightest act goes thundering down the ages, that
nothing is ever effaced, that everything is of infinite
and eternal consequence. And if it leaves a per-
manent mark on the material universe, it will
affect, also, all invisible universes. This reflection
may give a new zest to our present form of existence.
To pierce into the innermost recesses of nature,
to mould natural forces to our will, to make life
happy and glorious for ourselves and our kind,
to assert our supremacy over disease and death,
to conquer and rule the universe in virtue of the
infinite power within us — such is our task here
and now.

It is being more and more consciously taken in
hand by the human race — a race which, since its
earliest origins, has numbered about a billion indi-
viduals. The aggregate lives of these individuals
cover a vast variety of experiences and circumstances,
and the record of those experiences is embodied in
our own physical organisms and other records more
or less permanent. The human race has hurled
itself against the fastnesses of nature and captured
them one by one. The war has been a record of
blood and tears. But in the new generation the

THE CHAIN OF UNIVERSES 155

wounds are healed and the tears are dried, and
the battle is renewed. Man emerges from each
successive conflict stronger, saner, and better, more
assured of ultimate victory, fitter to reap the fruits
of it. The individual suffers, and dies a million
deaths, but his misery is but a drop in the ocean
of his happiness. His pain is never infinite. Like
all bodily sensations, it has its maximum, beyond
which no power can intensify it. Death itself is
peaceful, painless, free from all fear. The fear
passes away when it is no longer useful as a stimulus
to activity. The barriers of the human world fall
away. The " game " is played to the last. Once
more the individual is withdrawn towards that
centre of sentient life where all souls are one with
the great Over-soul. What his future fate may be
we need not now inquire. Should it ever become
necessary to enter upon and pursue such inquiry,
we may be sure that a full acquaintance with the
laws of our present visible universe will form the
best preparation for it. And these laws we shall
apply with the greater confidence when we know
that they suffice to interpret not only our own
univtT.se. hut tin- two other worlds just discernible
on the horizon of our present faculties.

SYSTEM OF MEASUREMENT A
\ CATION

\- is usual in scientific works, the metric system
has boon adopted here. The measures of length
and weight may he assumed to he familiar. The
"dyne" is the unit of farce* and is the 961st part
of a gramme, The "erg** is the unit of work, and
is the work invoked in proceeding against a force of
1 dyne through the distance of 1 em. Thus, 981
ergs are expended in lifting 1 gramme through 1

The exponential notation k the only
suitahle for the work in this hook. The
"exponent** indicates how many times we must
multiply i he number hy itself. When the number
is 10. it indicates the number of ciphers in the result,
Thus 10»« 100; 10*- 1,000,000. Two such- powers"
of 10 are multiplied hy simply adding their indices ;

The negative index implies a reciprocal value,
Thus 10^- or 001. In this case, the index

vrrK\, |

tho number ot" ciphers pnvodmj: tho di.cil in
the decimal fraction

Th« space saved by exponential not an. ^n may be
realised by rer i\g that 10*» wouUl l>o a

Mttr figures v notation, and

-.id not tit i:

.:. .;.
•A •»»

*«* *«'

*• »•

•:* *;* *J*

DIAGRAM OP A MULTI-UNIVBBSE

IN the accompanying diagram a multi-universe is shown,
constructed upon a cruciform or octahedral principle. Though
this is not the plan of the infra-world or the supra-world, the
diagram is useful in showing that an infinite series of similar
successive universes may exist without producing a "blazing
sky." If the smallest visible crosses represent atoms of the
infra-world, the figure enclosed by the circle a represents a
star of the infra-world or an atom of our world. A would then
correspond to a star of our world, and the whole diagram would
represent a " supra-star." The "world-ratio " in this case is 7,
instead of 1022, as in reality. Successive world-spheres, like
a, A, &c., enclose 7 times as much matter as the sphere next
below. The matter in each world-sphere is proportional to its
radius, and its density is inversely proportional to its surface.
This is the condition required for fulfilling the laws of gra-
vitation and radiation. In the direction CD the sky will
appear quite black, although there is an infinite succession of
universes.

Printed by BALLANTTNE, HANSON <5»* Co.
Edinburgh &> London

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