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Page 37
And now I shall seek her once more,
On some Mississippi's vast tide
That flows the whole universe through,
Than earth's widest rivers more wide.
Evangeline I shall not miss
Though we wander the dim starry sheen,
On opposite sides of rivers so vast
That islands of worlds intervene.
But what is there in space? There is the great ceaseless force of
gravitation. Though the weakest of natural forces, yet when displayed
in world-masses its might is measureless by man's arithmetic. Tie an
apple or a stone to one end of a string, and taking the other end whirl
it around your finger, noting its pull. That depends on the weight of
the whirling ball, the length of the string, and the swiftness of the
whirl. The stone let loose from David's finger flies crashing into the
head of Goliath. But suppose the stone is eight thousand miles in
diameter, the string ninety-two million five hundred thousand miles
long, and the swiftness one thousand miles a minute, what needs be the
tensile strength of the string? If we covered the whole side of the
earth next the sun, from pole to pole and from side to side, with steel
wires attaching the earth to the sun, thus representing the tension of
gravitation, the wires would need to be so many that a mouse could not
run around among them.
There swings the moon above us. Its best service is not its light,
though lovers prize that highly. Its gravitative work is its best. It
lifts the sea and pours it into every river and fiord of the coast.
Our universal tug-boat is in the sky. It saves millions of dollars in
towage to London alone every year. And this world would not be
habitable without the moon to wash out every festering swamp and
deposit of sewage along the shore.
Gravitation reaches every place, whether worlds be there or not. This
force is universally present and effective. In the possibilities of a
no-world condition a spirit may be able to so relate itself to matter
that gravitation would impart its incredible swiftness of transference
to a soul thus temporarily relating itself to matter. What gravitation
does in the absence of the kind of matter we know it is difficult to
assert. But as will be seen in our second division there is still
ample room for its exercise when worlds as such have ceased to be.
In space empty of worlds there is light. It flies or runs one hundred
and eighty-six thousand miles a second. There must be somewhat on
which its wing-beat shall fall, stepping stones for its hurrying feet.
We call it ether, not knowing what we mean. But in this space is the
play of intensest force and quickest activity. There are hundreds of
millions of millions of wing-beats or footfalls in a second.
Mathematical necessities surpass mental conceptions. In a cubic mile
of space there are demonstrably seventy millions of foot tons of power.
Steam and lightning have nothing comparable to the activity and power
of the celestial ether. Sir William Thompson thinks he has proved that
a cubic mile of celestial ether may have as little as one billionth of
a pound of ponderable matter. It is too fine for our experimentation,
too strong for our measurement. We must get rid of our thumby fingers
first.
What is light doing in space? That has greatly puzzled all
philosophers. Without question there is inexpressible power. It is
seen in velocity. But what is it doing? The law of conservation of
force forbids the thought that it can be wasted. On the earth its
power long ages ago was turned into coal. The power was reservoired in
mountains ready for man. It is so great that a piece of coal that
weighs the same as a silver dollar carries a ton's weight a mile at
sea. But what is the thousand million times more light than ever
struck the earth doing in space? That is among the things we want to
find out when we get there. There will be ample opportunity, space,
time, and light enough.
It is biblically asserted and scientifically demonstrable that space is
full of causes of sound. To anyone capable of turning these causes to
effects this sound is not dull and monotonous, but richly varied into
songful music. Light makes its impression of color by its different
number of vibrations. So music sounds its keys. We know the number of
vibrations necessary for the note C of the soprano scale, and the
number that runs the pitch up to inaudibility. We know the number of
vibrations of light necessary to give us a sensation of red or violet.
These, apprehended by a sufficiently sensitive ear, pour not only light
to one organ, but tuneful harmonies to another. The morning stars do
sing together, and when worlds are gone, and heavy ears of clay laid
down, we may be able to hear them
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