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 COSMOS 
 
 AND 
 
 DIACOSMOS 
 
 The Processes of Nature 
 Psychologically Treated 
 
 BY 
 DENTON J. SNIDER 
 
 • * * » 
 
 j - 
 
 ST. LOUIS. MO.. 
 
 SIGMA PUBLISHING CO.. 
 
 210 Pine St. 
 
 (For Sale by A. C. M'Clure A Co., Booksellers, Chicago, 
 
 To whom the trade is referred.)
 
 Copyright by 
 D. J. SNIDER. 1909. 
 
 • . 
 
 
 NIXON-JONES PTG. CO,, 215 PINE ST., ST. LOUIS.
 
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 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 PART FIRST. THE COSMOS 27 
 
 Chapter I. The Elemental Cosmos ... 39 
 
 Motion 45 
 
 (1) Space 50 
 
 (2) Time 59 
 
 (3) Quantity 70 
 
 Matter 85 
 
 *j_ (1) Immanent Character 92 
 
 (2) Qualitative Character 101 
 
 (3) Quantitative Character 106 
 
 Measure 112 
 
 (1) Geometry 119 
 
 (2) Arithmetic 132 
 
 (3) Algebra 156 
 
 Chapter II. The Particularized Cosmos . 170 
 
 The Moving Body 178 
 
 The Impinging Body 188 
 
 The Gravitating Body 215 
 
 (3) 
 
 317123
 
 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Chapter III. The Systemic Cosmos . . . 243 
 
 The Pancosmos 288 
 
 The Stars 303 
 
 The Sun 321 
 
 PART SECOND. THE DIACOSMOS 354 
 
 Chapter I. The Molecular Diacosmos . . 368 
 
 The Liquid 373 
 
 The Gas 393 
 
 The Ether 414 
 
 Chapter II. The Radiant Diacosmos . . . 440 
 
 Heat 450 
 
 Light 476 
 
 Electricity 497 
 
 Chapter III. The Chemical Diacosmos . . 538 
 
 The Elemental Atom 547 
 
 The Electron and Radium 555 
 
 The Systemic Atom 578
 
 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The word Cosmos is sufficiently familiar to the 
 reader in its general sense; but what about that 
 other strange vocable in the above head-line, Dia- 
 cosmosl Not known to the English dictionary , it has 
 belonged hitherto to the Greek lexicon, in which it is 
 ascribed to an ancient philosopher who maintained 
 the atomic theory of the physical universe. More 
 will be said upon this point and its significance 
 later, when the atom in Natural Science comes up 
 for consideration. At present we can merely give 
 a forecast of the place and purport of the word in 
 the following book. The prefix dia in Greek, whose 
 ordinary meaning is through, or asunder, is derived 
 from an old Aryan root, signifying two, and thus 
 reaches back linguistically to the primordial con- 
 
 (5)
 
 6 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 cept of division separation, twoness. In the order- 
 ing of Nature as here unfolded, the Diacosmos is 
 taken to represent the entire second stage of the 
 total process of Nature, that is, the separation 
 stage, in contrast with the Cosmos proper, 
 which is the first stage. To these two parts is 
 added the third, and the three form the total cycle 
 of Nature. The justification of these divisions 
 must appear in the course of their special ex- 
 position. 
 
 I. There are and always have been various 
 ways of looking at Nature and of formulating its 
 activity in human speech. Primarily poetry seizes 
 upon it and makes it the bearer of the soul's storm 
 and sunshine, thus reproducing it as a symbol in 
 one form or other. Different from poetry is the so- 
 called poetic description of Nature. The art of 
 Painting employs it in landscapes, often with a 
 unique sympathy for its color. Nature is con- 
 ceived to have moods and to show them in an ever- 
 changing diversity, which starts corresponding 
 echoes in the heart of man. The artistic use of 
 Nature is properly a chapter in Aesthetics. 
 
 Philosophy also takes its early beginning from 
 Nature. Ever memorable in many ways was the 
 declaration of ancient Thales that water was the 
 ■ principle of all things, or the essence of being. He 
 took a single physical object and conceived it to be 
 the origin of all phenomena. Really he was seek- 
 ing the unity of Nature, and tried to find in one
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 manifestation of it the source or ground of all the 
 rest. The earlier Greek philosophers had the same 
 general tendency, their aim was to philosophize 
 Nature, hence they were called by Aristotle physio- 
 logoi, Nature philosophers. In them Philosophy 
 and Natural Science had not yet been differentiated. 
 In our modern time these two branches of knowl- 
 edge have become not only distinct, but hostile. 
 Significant is it to note that in the beginning the 
 philosopher and the naturalist were one and the 
 same, personally and scientifically. At the present 
 moment it looks as if they were coming together 
 again after their long alienation. Certainly recent 
 physical science shows an emphatically speculative, 
 theoretic trend, and is becoming in its way as ideal- 
 istic as any philosophy. The atom, the ion, the 
 electron, are ideas, supersensible forms, ever receding 
 from the realm of the sensible ; nor can they stop in 
 this recession till they reach a universal principle. 
 As the case stands at present, science is struggling 
 to construct the supersensible out of the sensible* 
 to make the universal out of something particular, * 
 and hence feels its own contradiction in every fibre. 
 It resembles the early Greek philosophers who 
 seized upon a special clement and declared its uni- 
 versality, which was first a sensible material (as 
 water and air), and then a supersensible material 
 (the atom). This last is what modern physical 
 science is unfolding to a supreme degree of refine- 
 ment. Some of its devotees are trying to halt it,
 
 8 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 but plainly it must go on till it completes its 
 present phase of evolution. 
 
 II. Nature is a vast theme, indeed through it 
 rises the very conception of vastness or magnitude ; 
 but vast as it is, we are to see it ultimately as only 
 a part or phase of the great Totality, of the Universe 
 as a whole. Religion, Philosophy, and Psychology 
 also in the supreme sense grapple with this Universe 
 each in its own way, and regard it as embracing the 
 three grand divisions, usually called God, Nature, 
 Man. These three form the process of the All 
 which is psychical, or rather pampsychical, and 
 which deserves a special name — we call it the Para- 
 psychosis, or the psychosis of the All which is thus 
 conceived as Self, having Nature as the second 
 stage of its process. 
 
 Such a Universe cannot be interrogated concern- 
 ing its origin from without, since .that would con- 
 tradict it in its essence. Cause does not apply to 
 it unless it should be conceived as self-caused; if 
 something else beside itself caused it, then it is not 
 the Universe, which as Ego or Self must have its 
 own process. 
 
 Nature, then, takes its fundamental character 
 from the fact that it is the second or separative 
 stage of the Psychosis, here of the All-psychosis. 
 It is the derived, the created, the separated — from 
 what? From the Primordial One as the creative 
 Self, of which, however, we must grasp it as an in- 
 herent essential part. It is not to be conceived as
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 something ejected or externally formed by a trans- 
 cendent creator, of whose perfection it constitutes 
 no integral portion. To be sure, it is the stage of 
 separation in and from the All-Self, and taking 
 this point of view we may deem it the Unself of the 
 Universe, the other side of the same and yet belong- 
 ing to the same. Now this separation, very gener- 
 ally stated, is the most pervasive psychical charac- 
 teristic of Nature, is what distinguishes it from 
 beginning to end and unites all its varied phenom- 
 ena in a common trait. And we are to see that this 
 separation of Nature from the All makes Nature 
 all-separative, cutting it up into ever-diminishing 
 particles, atomizing it to the last degree of division- 
 To this basic originative conception of Nature 
 we shall often come back to re-think it and to ap- 
 propriate it anew. There is one, and only one, 
 presupposition in the Universe, and that is the Uni- 
 verse itself, but as Self. It has no beyond or out- 
 side, for the beyond and outside lie in it. Still it 
 as universal must be its opposite, its other, which 
 as Plato long ago remarked, is Nature. Or we may 
 penetrate to the thought in this way: the All-Self 
 must unselve itself and through this act be com- 
 plete as object; otherwise indeed its difference is 
 outside of it and not a constitutive part of its pro- 
 cess. Now this act of unselving itself and creating 
 an Unself, gives Nature, the separative stage of 
 the Universe. And furthermore, this separative 
 act of Nature-making goes over into Nature itself,
 
 10 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 which is perpetually self-reproductive in infinite 
 diversity. And what we may call the first mani- 
 festation of Nature, Motion, shows the ever- 
 separating character which is truly Nature's soul. 
 
 At this point another conception enters. Nature 
 trying to get outside of itself in Motion, hints a 
 striving for some end — what is that end? A kind 
 of dissatisfaction it shows with its separation, and 
 seeks to separate from the same, whereby it simply 
 repeats the separative act. Still it keeps up the 
 struggle to reach beyond itself, but cannot so long 
 as it remains Nature. Gravity manifests the striv- 
 ing of an unobstructed stone to get rid of gravity 
 at the center of the earth, or perchance at the cen- 
 ter of the Universe. Nature in every throb reveals 
 an aspiration to return to the All whence it came. 
 But it must not, else that All would not be com- 
 plete, would not have its total process, would not 
 be All. Still Nature will whisper her ideal unity 
 even in her real separation. In this aspect she, 
 though the Unself, is always aspiring to re-selve 
 herself in the fountain of her original existence. 
 
 III. From time immemorial men of thought have 
 asked, What is the first of Nature? What object 
 or appearance has the right to be considered prim- 
 ordial? In the multitude and complexity of nat- 
 ural phenomena, which one must be taken as the 
 start of the physical world? Evidently that which 
 actually starts in itself and is the pure form of all 
 beginning — Motion. There is a remarkable con-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 sensus tfpon this point; two of the deepest thinkers 
 on Nature, Aristotle in antiquity and Descartes in 
 the modern epoch, are agreed that Motion is the 
 first of Nature and is wrought through the same 
 from beginning to end under many shapes. 
 
 If we take a steady glance at Motion, we find it to 
 be ever separating from itself and passing beyond; 
 it is separation pure and simple, we shall call it the 
 Separating in accord with its fundamental trait. 
 It is the opposite of the All-Self, the most complete 
 estrangement from universal selfhood; really the 
 process of self-estranging it bears in its own bosom, 
 so that it is always getting away from itself in order 
 to be itself. Motion is, accordingly, the primal 
 manifestation of Nature's dualism, its very birth- 
 mark stamped at creation. The first antithesis of 
 the All-Self is not Space, nor Matter (as some have 
 thought), but Motion, which is the prototypal form 
 of Nature, its all-separating act; for it is Motion 
 which keeps Nature going, and radiates it out and 
 beyond, toward infinity. Motion is the primal 
 manifestation of the All-Self in its necessary self- 
 opposition, that is, in its unselving itself and be- 
 coming Nature. Motion is accordingly the peren- 
 nial dec-entering of all things and primarily of itself. 
 Still it is a striving for the center, for the universal 
 center, that is the center of the Universe — which 
 remains a striving. 
 
 If Motion be the first, what is the second of Na- 
 ture? Here again is quite a consensus of the best
 
 12 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 judges, who select Matter. Motion and Matter are 
 then the primordial twain of Nature sprung of the 
 All. Sometimes the order is reversed into Matter 
 and Motion, Matter being deemed Nature's first. 
 Such an arrangement, however, obscures their 
 physical genesis, and must be corrected. 
 
 Matter is, in its turn, the counterpart of Motion, 
 being the fixed, the inert, the enemy of change. 
 Still it manifests the full separation of Motion, only 
 it does not move in itself; at least such is its appear- 
 ance, even if modern Science is reading Motion into 
 the molecules of rigid Matter. We have still to 
 make a difference between Motion and Matter, be- 
 tween which exists a sort of perpetual war in Na- 
 ture. How shall we distinguish them? Matter is 
 as external as Motion, but halted in its externality 
 and crystallized on the spot. It is not the separat- 
 ing, but the separated. It is already outside itself, 
 not forever going that way, like Motion, but gone. 
 It is not only external but self-external and thus 
 space-occupying. 
 
 In its basic thought we shall call Matter the Sep- 
 arated of Nature in line with, yet in contrast to 
 Motion as the Separating. With all their differ- 
 ence we shall find that they belong together in a 
 common Psychosis which is hereafter to be devel- 
 oped. Accordingly we shall in the present exposi- 
 tion designate Motion and Matter as the Separating 
 and the Separated, the active and the passive, both 
 being derived from the All-self and opposites of it,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 yet in diverse ways. Hence both are also opposites 
 of each other, though in a single domain of Nature ; 
 they form a process together, in which a third ele- 
 ment, Measure, will appear as their psychical 
 correlative. 
 
 It may be added that Matter as separated from 
 the great Totality will show its origin. Matter has 
 gravity, which strives to carry all separated bodies 
 into unity and thus overcome the separation in- 
 volved in every material particle. Gravity may be 
 deemed the soul of Matter, which longs to return 
 out of its estrangement from the One-and-All. 
 But this end remains ideal, an aspiration of Nature, 
 which cannot be fully realized without break- 
 ing up the order of the Universe. The weight 
 of a little piece of Matter is a voice which, when 
 fully heard, speaks out of the heart of the uni- 
 versal Self. 
 
 IV. Nature is born with the original mighty con- 
 tradiction between Motion and Matter, both of 
 which rise through a series of forms or stages, with 
 the ever-advancing triumph of Motion over Matter 
 or of Force over Body, till Body vanishes and Mo- 
 tion remains as pure self-activity or self-movement 
 in the human consciousness. This is no longer 
 Nature, which must cease when its dualism between 
 Motion and Matter ceases. Life is indeed a phase 
 of self-movement, but is not purely such, being in a 
 body which still gravitates. So the destiny of Mo- 
 tion (and with it of Nature) is to be its own Matter,
 
 14 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 and to become self-moved within itself, in other 
 words, to become the Ego. 
 
 As Nature is dual and indeed contradictory with 
 its incessant play of attraction and repulsion, it 
 was already in old Greece called dialectical. Mat- 
 ter and Motion are not only opposites, but each is 
 internally self-opposed, contradicting itself. The 
 well-known difficulty about Motion usually takes 
 this form: a thing cannot move where it is and can 
 not move where it is not, hence there is no 
 Motion. The self-contradiction in Motion as the 
 Separating goes back to Zeno the Eleatic. If 
 Motion moves it quits itself, negates itself. And 
 yet this self-transcending is just what Motion is. 
 Deeper is the Dialectic of Motion as the separation 
 from All-Self of which it still remains a part. 
 Zeno also pointed out the Dialectic which is in- 
 volved in the conception of Matter the separated; 
 for if Matter be infinitely separated, it must be 
 separated from itself— which is its negation. A 
 similar Dialectic of Matter re-appears in Kant's 
 second antinomy. 
 
 Without going into the details of this abtruse 
 subject, we may mark the historic fact that an old 
 Greek philosopher in the first half of the fifth cent- 
 tury B. C, this Zeno, very distinctly affirmed the 
 inherent dualism and contradiction of Nature, 
 which was called its Dialectic. Particularly he 
 singled out its first two manifestations, Motion and 
 Matter, and showed their dualism, we might say
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 duplicity: There has been some question about 
 the meaning of Zeno: did he intend to deny the 
 sensuous reality of Motion and Matter, and so of 
 all Nature? Hegel thinks that Zeno had no such 
 intention, that he purposed to assert merely the un- 
 truth or the phenomenality of Motion and Matter. 
 At any rate Zeno strikes the fundamental charac- 
 teristic of all Nature as the second or separative 
 stage of the Parapsychosis. He brings to the sur- 
 face its twofoldness, its dualism. He, therefore, 
 occupies a very important place in the history of 
 the Science of Nature. It may be that he did not 
 go so far as to deny the existence of an external 
 world, though he showed its inner self-assailing 
 Dialectic as a necessary element of its being. This 
 external world, too, must be, even in its inner con- 
 tradiction. 
 
 It should be added that the doctrine of Zeno has 
 its application to Mind as well as to Nature. All 
 finitude, be it inner or outer, is inherently dialecti- 
 cal, self-undoing, negative to itself. Zeno did not 
 probably carry out his view so far, but it was much 
 extended by Plato, though its fullest and most sym- 
 pathetic elaboration is to be found running through 
 the entire philosophy of Hegel, often called the 
 last philosopher of Europe. Zeno's greatness is, 
 as we look at it, to have given the first conception 
 of a Science of Nature by showing its innermost 
 character. To be sure his method was not that 
 of the scientist, not experimental. He thought
 
 16 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Nature in its genesis, he re-created it in idea after 
 its creator, and formulated the same for the future. 
 
 The dualism of Nature may be further illustrated 
 by the doubt which it has often excited in specula- 
 tive minds (doubt is itself dual, from duo). Is it 
 an appearance to the senses without substance? 
 Does it at times dart into reality and then flit out 
 of it like a ghost, playing hide-and-seek with its 
 pursuers, though they be scientists? We have 
 already noted the present speculative tendency of 
 Science, its flights to the supersensible. Famous 
 philosophers have questioned the reality of Space 
 and Time, others have reached the point of deny- 
 ing Nature on account of its Dialectic. Fichte 
 questions it, Berkeley more than questions it. But 
 because Nature is dialectical, gives no ground for 
 denying its existence. 
 
 Here we may repeat that Nature, just through 
 its separation and contradiction has its place in the 
 Universe as pampsychical. There would be no 
 Universe, no complete process of it, without Na- 
 ture as its second or separative stage. This sep- 
 arative dialectical character of Nature is, there- 
 fore, fundamental, truly a necessary constituent of 
 the All. It must be recognized at the start; the 
 first duty of Science is such recognition. Philoso- 
 phy and Theology have sometimes damned Nature 
 as the evil one who is somehow to be put out of the 
 Universe. Thus, however, they would completely 
 undo themselves, and the Creator, too.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 V. That Nature taken by itself is dual, has been 
 stated sufficiently; but now we must add that her 
 process, her movement is threefold, being at bot- 
 tom psychical and therein bearing the impression 
 of its origin. Nature we have seen to be a stage, 
 the second, in the process of the universal Self, 
 which process is psychical also. We must, there- 
 fore, put together these two thoughts: Nature is 
 dual, but the process of this dualism is triple, that is, 
 has its three stages. Or we may say that the content 
 of Nature is the threefold process of her twofold- 
 ness. For instance Motion, Matter and Magnitude 
 (Measure) form one of Nature's processes, to be 
 shown later; but all three have in them Nature's 
 primordial dualism, each in its own way. Inertia, 
 Repulsion, Attraction, are three well-known cate- 
 gories of Matter, and make a psychical process to- 
 gether, but each is endowed with the original sep- 
 arative character of Nature. 
 
 All this is an illustration of a fundamental fact in 
 universal Psychology: each stage of a psychical 
 process must have in it that process in order to be 
 a stage of the same. Or each part of a whole must 
 have in it the process of that whole in order to be 
 such a part. So Nature is a stage or part of the 
 great Totality, of the Pampsychosis, whose psychi- 
 cal process must hold of Nature in order to make it 
 a part or stage of the same. From this point of 
 view we have again to observe the double character 
 of Nature: It is on the one hand a single stage yet
 
 18 COSMOS AND DUCOSMOS. 
 
 u- i r^roopss dual in itself, yet 
 also the total psychical process, d I ^ 
 
 triple in its movement, a part w ^ we 
 
 the whole of winch it is a , ait. O 
 are to follow Nature unfolding as 
 vernal science of J*****- and inde cd to feel 
 We have, ««4?*.^ before it and 
 . in Nature a ^»» it came and to 
 . beyond it, something -^ and in ite way 
 which it is going. It rsm bridge between 
 
 mediational; we may deem p a mpsy- 
 
 the absolute Self ^.f^S-to- Nature 
 chosis and the Psychosis Suehm ^ ^ 
 
 has not only for the poet and «^» holo . 
 
 true scientist, and especiahy or the t P y 
 
 gist . Nature's process - tha ^ 
 
 though it, taken by ^,^ it is of itself, 
 
 In theEgo the psychical processs rf 
 
 but not so in Nature, which W« rf ft 
 
 .ration and estrangement = ^ ^ 
 
 and to return. But tms ^^ 
 
 anend(theAristotehantc^h.h ^.^ 
 
 only b y transcei , m N ^ 01 . ganiaes it and gives 
 or ideal end of Nature ^ 
 
 to it unity in its muiucu Cosmos 
 
 tion, for instance, f * ^ f t * e stri ving for the 
 to its f^est -*-mf « t reato of ufe 
 
 unification of all Matter. for the 
 
 intion -eals the grand^tnvm ^ ^ 
 
 highest organ, fo - N ^ & poet by 
 in exuberance; a greai pu
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 any means, could call her "a Bacchic god" in a 
 mighty carousal of shapes, as if the Absolute were 
 breaking loose through her into a fit of universal 
 revelry. But deeper than her maddest delights is 
 her soul's sigh for restoration out of her estrange- 
 ment in the Universe. Such is the perennial un- 
 dertone of Nature's aspiration, not to be neglected 
 by the scientist. Schelling called Nature "a petri- 
 fied intelligence," but the expression does not re- 
 cognize her soulful striving underneath all her 
 riotous play of forms. 
 
 The scientist is usually content to investigate 
 Nature as it is in itself, in its dualism. He reduces 
 its seeming license and lawlessness to law— cer- 
 tainly a great service. Thus he becomes the legis- 
 lator of Nature, which cannot be allowed to run at 
 will through the Universe. But the laws them- 
 selves become manifold and even contradictory; 
 they too must be brought into an order which goes 
 back to their source and puts them into an organic 
 totality or law of laws. That brings us again to 
 the psychical fountain-head of Nature itself, as well 
 as of its laws, which will be found to be some part 
 of its process. 
 
 Accordingly all the laws of Nature, so far as dis- 
 covered, must ultimately find their place in some 
 stage of the psychical process which runs through 
 and co-ordinates the physical universe. Nature as 
 a whole we conceive to be the absolutely separated 
 from the All, and hence separated from itself, for it
 
 20 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 belongs to the All. Here we may note again the 
 flash of its Dialectic. Its character is, therefore, 
 self-dividing, atomic to infinity, yet the atom, if 
 material, is still divisible. Motion we may regard 
 as the active atomizing of Nature, its Separating 
 from itself, while Matter is the atomized, the Sep- 
 arated, the divisibility of Nature. 
 
 VI. And now we have to summon before us the 
 total domain of Nature, and behold its full sweep 
 from beginning to end. This would embrace the 
 cycle of the Natural Sciences, each of which has its 
 own special field, and is specially cultivated in our 
 age of specialization. The attempt here is to see 
 them not so much in their isolation as in their 
 continuity and in their order, which is their 
 process. Three grand divisions or stages consti- 
 tute the totality of Nature from the foregoing point 
 of view: 
 
 (I.) The first division we shall call the Cosmos, 
 which term has been also used to designate the or- 
 dered Whole of Nature. The Cosmos as here re- 
 garded is the getting and the unifying of the physi- 
 cal universe, in its immediate separation from the 
 All-Self, and it includes the first Motion and Matter, 
 as well as their final organization into a system. 
 But the pivotal characteristic of the Cosmos is 
 Gravitation; all the separated bodies, terrestrial 
 and celestial, draw one another in the smallest 
 particle as well as in the largest mass, and so have 
 the tendency to become one and form a unity.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 (II.)' Our second division is called the Diacosmos, 
 of which word the general meaning has been already 
 given. It is in its sphere the opposite of the Cosmos ; 
 instead of gravitating, it has the tendency to de- 
 gravitate, to separate from body and to ray out in 
 opposition to Gravitation. Light may be taken as 
 an instance. Evidently this is the second or separ- 
 ative stage of Nature, which is itself the primordial 
 separation from the All-Self in Motion and Matter, 
 both of which are at work in the Diacosmos, as well 
 as in the Cosmos, though in different ways. 
 
 In the nomenclature of the science of today, the 
 Diacosmos embraces chiefly Physics, including 
 Chemistry at the end and something of Mechanics 
 at the beginning. On the other hand the chief con- 
 tent of the Cosmos is the mechanical aspect of Na- 
 ture and includes astronomy. 
 
 (III.) To the third division of Natural Science 
 we shall give the name Biocosmos, or the Science of 
 Life (Bios) in its widest aspect. The living Body 
 does not simply turn outwards in action (as if radi- 
 ating itself like the Diacosmos), but it also turns 
 back to itself as center (as if gravitating to Body 
 like the Cosmos). It is thus Body as self-moving 
 or self-active, going out and coining back within 
 itself, self-repellent and self-attracting in one — a 
 conjunction in its way of the two previous spheres 
 of Nature. Science, however, has not yet bridged 
 by actual experiment the chasm between the Dia- 
 cosmos in its final form of Chemism and the Biocos-
 
 22 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 mos in the earliest beginnings of life. The best 
 scientific heads are in agreement that no chemical 
 process has yet produced vital action. So we have 
 to pass over this scientific chasm at present on the 
 wings of thought (which wings the scientist often 
 does not possess, and so is inclined to scoff at). Far 
 more easy experimentally is the transition from 
 the Cosmos to the Diacosmos; indeed they, though 
 vast counterparts of Nature, often move along side 
 of each other even in their opposition. For this 
 and other reasons these first two divisions of total 
 Nature bear to each other an intimate relation 
 which they do not bear to the third. So they may 
 well be put together in one book as a treatise on 
 inanimate nature. 
 
 But animate Nature or the Biocosmos (literally 
 the order of Life) is really not the second stage but 
 the third, having the psychical principle of return 
 out of separation. Moreover it is as yet limited 
 experimentally to our planet, though some scientific 
 inventor may bring to light a true bioscope which 
 will reveal the life on distant spheres, as the spec- 
 troscope shows to our eyes the chemical elements of 
 the sun and stars. And we may suppose that the 
 existent break in the evolution of Nature as a whole, 
 which seems at present to be narrowed down to the 
 chemical on one side and the vital on. the other, 
 will be overcome through the thousands of patient 
 investigators, and demonstrated by sensuous proof, 
 which is the grand function of physical science.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 So we put together the three Orders of Nature — 
 the three Cosms we might call them in allusion to 
 their common terminal word — Cosmos, Diacosmos, 
 and Biocosmos. This is the psychical process which 
 organizes Nature ultimately and shows its origin. 
 It is not to be conceived as an accidental co-ordina- 
 tion of unrelated divisions, but as the very impress 
 and movement of the universal Self (or Parapsy- 
 chosis) in its supreme self-separating act. Thus 
 while Nature is dualietic and separative, the or- 
 ganization of it is threefold, and this doubleness 
 between its original character and its organizing 
 principle will remain to the end, and make it truly 
 Nature's Science, a Science on the one hand but on 
 the other the Science of Nature. 
 
 A favorite expression of Liebig is said to have 
 been: I think in phenomena. That is well as far 
 as it goes, especially for the experimental, scientist; 
 but he would have been a completer man if he had 
 thought also through and out of phenomena. Tyn- 
 dall in response to some demand for his general 
 theory of Nature replied : I have not even a theory 
 of magnetism. The answer may have a touch of 
 scientific bravado directed against the prying in- 
 quirer, for Tyndall in other passages shows a decided 
 striving for the unity of Nature, and can even declare 
 that it must ultimately reach up to a spiritual origin, 
 though of this he has nothing further to say. 
 
 In his investigation of the fall of bodies Galileo 
 pushed beyond Aristotle, but Newton pushed be-
 
 24 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 yond Galileo with the law of universal gravitation, 
 while modern science is seeking to push beyond 
 Newton by discovering the cause of the mysterious 
 actio in distans. For Gravitation is not separated 
 by Space and Time, the primordial separators of the 
 physical universe; it is not obstructed by Matter 
 intervening, nor by any force crossing its path; 
 verily it seems to share in the creative, universal 
 Motion. With its net-work of connecting lines be- 
 tween the smallest particles, and the largest masses 
 throughout the remotest spaces it has the appear- 
 ance of holding together the Cosmos and of keeping 
 its original separation from becoming a forthright 
 plunge into chaos. 
 
 It may be here observed that the three supreme 
 Orders of Nature — Cosmos, Diacosmos, and Bio- 
 cosmos — have three dominating names of scientists 
 attached to them in three successive centuries. 
 Newton's peculiar field was the Cosmos, which he 
 scientifically unfolded and to which he gave its 
 ruling category — Gravitation. If Newton belongs 
 specially to the mechanical 17th century, Dalton 
 is of the chemical 18th century, with his prevailing 
 atomic theory, even if he too (like Newton) reaches 
 beyond his century in years. Darwin makes the 
 19th century the great biological era of science with 
 his doctrine of evolution. The fact is significant 
 that Dalton is no such towering figure as Newton or 
 Darwin; he is of himself somewhat atomic in com- 
 parison and shares his honors with many other
 
 INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 atoms vvho arc quite his equals. Still it is Dalton 
 who has pre-eminently given to modern chemistry 
 and physics the fundamental category of atomism, 
 though suggested in Greek antiquity by Democritus 
 and others. Looking into these three terms — 
 Gravitation, Atomism, Evolution — all of them ex- 
 pressive of theoretic views of Nature, we may sec a 
 common element in them, indeed a process which 
 unites them all in an underlying bond which deeply 
 conjoins three centuries of science. 
 
 The question cannot fail at this point: What is 
 the coming century to give us in the scientific field? 
 Is it also to concentrate itself in a single lofty peak 
 rising above all the other mountains though these 
 be high too? Are we again to have some new 
 dominant theory in some department of Nature 
 which speculatively takes hold of the age like Dar- 
 winism? Prophecy is perilous especially in science, 
 and indeed is considered unscientific. But we may 
 at least note the call, somewhat loud, for the corre- 
 lation and synthesis of what has been piled up in 
 such vast detail. The scientist of course is pri- 
 marily to do this, when one great enough appears. 
 Still we may be permitted to note the time's eager 
 search for the unifying process of the three leading 
 stages of Nature, which can be designated as its 
 three Orders or Kingdoms, or perchance Cosms. 
 The principle of unity must be found in each of 
 them separately and in all of them together, other- 
 wise there is no true unity.
 
 26 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS 
 
 In its psychological aspect Nature is conceived 
 as an act of Will ; hence the study of Nature "has 
 a tendency to emphasize volition as the funda- 
 mental principle of the Universe. So it comes that 
 not a little of the philosophy of to-day calls itself 
 voluntarism, or pragmatism. But we are not to 
 forget that Nature is not the whole Universe and 
 that the Will is not the whole Self, either as uni- 
 versal or particular. Motion as the primal separa- 
 tive act may be conceived as the outer Will ever 
 going forth out of itself and determining the physi- 
 cal world. 
 
 Our first task is then, to try to run some lines of 
 order through the Cosmos in the sense here em- 
 ployed — to organize its divisions and subdivisions 
 according to a universal principle which, in our 
 view, must be psychical. Any explanation of Na- 
 ture, which seeks to be fundamental, cannot help 
 going back to its original source in the universal 
 Self from which it once separated and still keeps 
 separating, and whose impress it bears in all its 
 processes, even the smallest.
 
 $art Jfirsit. 
 
 THE COSMOS. 
 
 From the very dawn of the human mind it has 
 been asking after the origin of the world. The 
 humblest savage in his folk-lore has his theorem of 
 creation; so has the profoundest theologian, philoso- 
 pher, scientist. Of course some of the latter give 
 up the problem as insoluble, unknowable, fantas- 
 tic, and hence useless to be considered. Such a 
 view, however, must be deemed a kind of intellect- 
 tual despair begotten of negative culture. The 
 normal mind will grapple with the great Whole of 
 which it is a part; as such a part it must feel within 
 itself, and perchance may get to see in its own pro- 
 cess, the process of the All. A cosmogony each 
 man must have, original or inherited, as sure as he 
 
 is an integral member of the Cosmos. Among his 
 
 (27)
 
 28 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 other distinctive attributes man may be deemed by 
 nature cosmogenetic. 
 
 Accordingly, a science of Nature, if it seeks any 
 degree of completeness, will take a look back at its 
 own beginnings. Religion has its cosmogony and 
 usually introduces the creator in the act of creating 
 the world. A Will is thus the starting-point of the 
 All, a person who evokes the universe by fiat. The 
 Hebrew account in the Old Testament is the best 
 known to us of these religious cosmogonies. It is 
 significant that an old Greek poet, Hesiod, has given 
 a kind of evolution of the Universe through a line of 
 shapes of Nature which are also regarded as deities. 
 The book is called a Theogony, and in it runs the 
 idea that the Gods too must evolve from lower to 
 higher. That certainly is a stride ahead of Dar- 
 win, thouglyeaching far back into hoary antiquity. 
 
 Of course the philosopher likewise must have his 
 cosmogony. In fact early philosophy, notably that 
 of Hellas, deals with hardly anything else. Socra- 
 tes expressly reacted against it and turned more to 
 mind. His prejudice was evidently shared by his 
 pupil Plato, who, however, felt at last the necessity 
 of making a small cosmogony in the Timceus. Aris- 
 totle, on the contrary, devoted a large part of his 
 works to the philosophy of Nature, which was re- 
 vived in recent times by Schelling and Oken, with 
 its culmination in Hegel. After the latter followed 
 a rapid decline of philosophic cosmogony, which was 
 supplanted by the experimental science of Nature.
 
 PART FIRST— THE COSMOS. 29 
 
 But the latter in its turn has been unable to keep 
 aloof from cosmogenetic speculation, often wilder 
 than the theologic or philosophic. 
 
 The eighteenth century gave rise to what is 
 known as the nebular hypothesis of the evolution 
 of the physical universe. Its currency was largely 
 due to Laplace, the eminent French astronomer 
 and mathematician, who, however, was not its 
 first proposer. Laplace thinks that it was the at- 
 mosphere of the sun which cooled down gradually 
 and threw off the planetary bodies. In his System 
 of the World he says: "The consideration of the 
 movements of the planets leads us to think that on 
 account of an excessive heat the atmosphere of the 
 sun at first extended beyond the orbs of all the 
 planets, and that it was gradually confined to its 
 present limits." We have here the thought of the 
 sun with its atmosphere embracing the whole solar 
 system (and no more seemingly), and then con- 
 tracting and successively throwing off the planets. 
 This solar atmosphere is deemed the primordial 
 nebula from which the heavenly bodies of our 
 system evolved one after the other. Such is the 
 basic conception of the nebular hypothesis which 
 has so deeply influenced modern cosmical science. 
 We may call it the conception of the Heliosphere 
 which also revolved, even if slowly, upon its axis, 
 already as a nebula. 
 
 Now it is a curious fact that in an obscure corner 
 of Europe, at Koenigsberg, Germany, the philoso-
 
 30 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 pher Kant had published a similar but much 
 broader hypothesis, in 1755, forty-one years before 
 the appearance of Laplace's System of the World 
 (1796). The philosopher on the border of civiliza- 
 tion (we may say) was far more daring than the 
 scientist at the Parisian center (in the dawn of the 
 Napoleonic era). Laplace's words are exceedingly 
 circumspect, he puts his theory off into a kind of ap- 
 pendix as a possibility with which the scientific 
 reader may amuse himself. For it lacks these two 
 requirements of strict science: visible demonstra- 
 tion and mathematical proof. And yet this little 
 thought in a corner has immortalized Laplace far 
 more than his great Mecanique Celeste. It has 
 been fertile, it has shown an inherent power of evo- 
 lution, till it dominates the scientific cosmogony 
 to-day, though of course with some protests. 
 
 We should note, however, that Kant's form of 
 the nebular hypothesis is decidedly more universal 
 than that of Laplace, who seems somewhat timid 
 in comparison. For instance Kant did not confine 
 his theory to the solar system, but boldly extended 
 it to the entire physical universe. The philosopher, 
 therefore, reaches out beyond the Heliosphere, and 
 seeks to embrace the many suns and their systems, 
 in fine, the whole Cosmosphere, as it may be called. 
 But this is not all. He has the conception of a 
 single fundamental element {elementarischen Grund- 
 stoff) which fills all space, and out of which all the 
 heavenly bodies have been formed, and in which
 
 PART FIRST— THE COSMOS. 31 
 
 they still ,revolve. Such is Kant's primeval matter 
 or protoplasmic stuff, the original element of plan- 
 ets, comets, and worlds. In connection with it, 
 one cannot help thinking of ether, which from its 
 previous dark background seems to be coming into 
 the forefront of recent science. 
 
 Two other scientists of great name belonging to 
 the eighteenth century, Buffon and Herschel, are 
 often regarded as suggesters of this nebular hy- 
 pothesis, and are mentioned in company with La- 
 place and Kant. Sir William Herschel, by means 
 of his large telescope, first studied in detail the neb- 
 ulous masses of the Heavens and made them an 
 important part of astronomy. He too saw in them 
 the primeval form of the origin of worlds. Thus 
 the new cosmogony, springing up at very different 
 points in Europe, seems to be an utterance of the 
 age, a characteristic note of the eighteenth century, 
 which was a time of revolution, not only in states, 
 but in ideas. The old origin of the Cosmos, theo- 
 logical and philosophical, can no longer be accepted; 
 it must be made scientific in accord with the in- 
 coming era. A shred of matter of the extremest 
 tenuity is taken as the starting point of cosmical 
 evolution, which thus antedates organic evolution, 
 the work of Darwin. But besides and even before 
 Matter, something else has to be assumed: Mo- 
 tion in some form. For the separating power must 
 exist in advance of the separated result, which is 
 that slender gossamer of a nebula with which the
 
 32 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Cosmos is conceived to begin,' and to start 
 moving. 
 
 The nebular hypothesis, accordingly, assumes 
 the two primordial cosmical elements, Motion and 
 Matter. But whence do they come? Certainly 
 such a question is not to be suppressed. Moreover, 
 the assumed motion of the evolving Heliosphere is 
 circular, ever returning into itself on its own axis. 
 In other words, that Motion from which all other 
 kinds of Motion are generated is the rounding one, 
 yea the self-rounding one, which is the original 
 creative form, parent of all other forms of Motion. 
 But how did it get to be? Rectilineal Motion is 
 derived, finite, not universal and primordial. It is 
 true that Matter is conceived to attract in straight 
 lines from the center, but such Matter is divided, 
 limited, made up of separate bodies, between which 
 is limited or special Motion. This comes later than 
 the original circular Motion of the Universe, from 
 which all other Motions are taken. 
 
 Such we may consider the first Motion, whose 
 counterpart is the first Matter already indicated, 
 which has been sometimes declared to be a million 
 times rarer than hydrogen, the lightest of the chem- 
 ical elements and the basis for the comparative 
 weight of gases. This most etherial of substances 
 as a nebulous mass is observed to take a spiral form, 
 it seems k> whirl primordially, as if that circular 
 Motion were its first impress from the universal 
 Ego which is also self-returning or a circle within
 
 PART FIRST — THE COSMOS. 33 
 
 itself. Such then, we deem the primordial source 
 and indeed form of Motion: it is the process of the 
 All-Self externalized, thrown out into the world, 
 opposite to itself, yet retaining in such opposition 
 its own movement. Very significant is it that the 
 first Motion of Nature is circular, and also that the 
 first of Nature is Motion, the earliest eject or utter- 
 ance of the Parapsychosis. 
 
 And here we may summon up an image which, 
 even if inadequate, has its uses. More or less dis- 
 tinctly is the physical Universe conceived by the 
 Nebular Hypothesis as a vast wheel (or rotary 
 sphere) which as prototype reproduces itself in 
 lesser wheels of the same general pattern (suns, 
 planets, moons), all of which make a colossal sys- 
 tem characteristic of the Cosmos. This we shall 
 study later as the Systemic Cosmos. At present, 
 however, our attention is directed to the first Mo- 
 tion as circular, from which all other Motions, 
 curved and straight, are derived — a fact which we 
 shall find repeated in every kind of finite machin- 
 ery, notably in the steam engine, whose aim is pri- 
 marily to produce 1 a circular movement, which is 
 the generative source of its variously directed 
 powers. Thus it may be said to partake of uni- 
 versal Motion, or the Motion of the Universe. 
 Moreover, in this illustration we are led to see the 
 mechanical element in the Cosmos, which properly 
 embraces the science of Mechanics, celestial as well 
 as terrestrial, both being forms of the one original 
 
 3
 
 34 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 cosmical machine. Sir William Herschel, study- 
 ing and co-ordinating the facts of the Milky Way, 
 compared it to a grindstone, which had indeed a 
 cleft in the middle, but which to him represented 
 the wheel of the Universe apparently revolving 
 with primal Motion. Before him Wright had sug- 
 gested the same idea, and it occurred also to Kant's 
 speculative mind. The wheel is indeed a great 
 thing in all our terrestrial machinery, but it becomes 
 far greater if there be a cosmical wheel as the grand 
 mechanical prototype, or the wheel of the Cosmos. 
 In such a case the huge Ferris Wheel of the two 
 greatest World's Fairs becomes an ideal pattern or 
 artistic type not only of Earth's but of Heaven's 
 mechanism, possibly also a colossal symbol of our 
 oft-defamed mechanical age. 
 
 Undoubtedly Herschel's universal grindstone 
 calls up difficulties, both scientific and philosophic, 
 and we learn that the author himself receded from 
 such a view in his later years. Still it has its per- 
 sistent significance, and continually recurs under 
 one form or other in astronomical theories, yea in 
 nearly all attempts to figure the physical universe. 
 
 But, dropping this speculation for the present 
 (we must recollect, however, that all Natural Sci- 
 ence is getting speculative in these days) , we come 
 to a more exacting question concerning the treat- 
 ment of the Cosmos in the sense here used : What 
 are its right divisions? These must be so conceived 
 and formulated that they reveal its essential process.
 
 PART FIRST— THE COSMOS. 35 
 
 In grasping the Cosmos we have to start with the sep- 
 arated Universe, which, however, is striving to over- 
 come its separation and to return to unity through 
 gravitation. So it comes that gravitation, the at- 
 traction of separated Bodies for one another, and 
 their strain to get together, may be regarded as the 
 fundamental pervasive phenomenon of the Cosmos. 
 To be sure we shall find that separation in the form 
 of resistance and repulsion will assert itself against 
 the unifying power of gravitation. Thus the Cos- 
 mos becomes the arena of struggle between antag- 
 onistic forces. But in the end gravitation will be 
 able to systemize the colliding bodies and to bring 
 them into an harmonious order, such as we behold 
 for instance, in the Solar System. 
 
 The exposition of the Cosmos from the foregoing 
 point of view, will comprise the following chapters. 
 
 (I) The Cosmos as elemental, in which Nature's 
 primordial elements — Motion, Matter, Magnitude 
 (or Measure) — are taken as immediate or as they 
 are in themselves, that is as pure Motion, Matter, 
 Magnitude (Measure). These may also be deemed 
 the ideal or universal elements of the Cosmos since 
 they underlie all its manifestations, which indeed 
 are next to be looked at. 
 
 (II) The Cosmos, as particularized, real, finite 
 and hence colliding, in which the clash of the ele- 
 ments take place. For instance when a body im- 
 pinges on another body or falls to the earth, there 
 is, in general, a collision between Motion and Mat-
 
 36 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tor, a cosmical fight in which one or the other side 
 is overcome in some kind of rest or agreement of 
 peace. Our earth especially with its finitude is 
 such a field of elemental combat, in which, on the 
 whole, Matter triumphs over Motion and brings it 
 to a stop, at least for a time and in a limited way. 
 The Motion of a stone lying at rest on the surface 
 of the earth, is indeed overcome by its Matter; still 
 the material stone is carried by the earth around 
 the sun in a Motion never-ending, as far as we 
 know. So Motion in this new system triumphs 
 over Matter. This introduces the next stage. 
 
 (Ill) The Systemic Cosmos, or the Cosmos as a 
 system in which the collisions of the particularized 
 Cosmos for the most part are harmonized. In the 
 Systemic Cosmos there are still finite moving bodies, 
 but the earth does not collide with the sun or with 
 the other planets. Yet they all are endowed with 
 Motion and Matter, which elements showed so much 
 antagonism in the previous (second) stage of the 
 Cosmos. Still it is not said that there are no col- 
 lisions in the celestial spaces. Our earth for in- 
 stance dashes now and then into a comet, and is 
 rained upon by the meteoric showers; even stars 
 are supposed by astronomers to blaze up in some 
 cosmical crash (like Nova Persei). Still the great 
 fact of the present stage is the harmonious system 
 of Motion and Matter, along with their Magnitudes, 
 which are now realized in millions of bodies scat- 
 tered through spatial infinity. Yet these bodies
 
 PART FIRST— THE COSMOS. 37 
 
 representing all the diversity and separation of the 
 incorporate Cosmos reveal an order and follow a 
 law, in fact one fundamental law, that of gravita- 
 tion. 
 
 We are not to forget that the Cosmos presup- 
 poses the primordial separation of Nature, with 
 which the start has to be made in grasping the to- 
 tality of physical science. Nature, separated from 
 the All, shows first the striving to get out of her 
 separated state, shows her aspiration (we may con- 
 ceive) to return to unity. This is the original of 
 Nature's Motion. The universal striving of the 
 Cosmos as incorporate has been repeatedly noted 
 as gravitation, which is Motion embodied and car- 
 rying or perchance pulling all bodies together. The 
 outcome is that Motion and Matter arc united into 
 a system. 
 
 Such are the three stages of the Cosmos: the ele- 
 mental (universal), the particularized (real as collid- 
 ing), the systemic (real but harmonized). These 
 stages, though distinct, consti tute a process together, 
 yea a psychical process in form. The Cosmos opens 
 with Motion as elemental, which is circular in its 
 primal conception; it concludes (as systemic) with 
 Motion as real which is likewise circular, being such 
 both as axial and as orbital in the heavenly bodies. 
 Thus the development of the Cosmos goes back to 
 its beginning and makes a circle in its conception, 
 showing a deep correspondence with its Motion, 
 which as system is also circular, realizing therein 
 
 317123
 
 38 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 its primal form as elemental or ideal. So we con- 
 ceive the Cosmos as here unfolded, rounding itself 
 out into its complete process, which, however, is 
 but the first stage in the great totality of Nature. 
 These distinctions, which appear quite abtruse 
 in their naked statement, will be better understood 
 in their concrete application to natural phenom- 
 ena, which, however, reveal in their details the 
 piocess of the whole. Some of these more import- 
 ant details are what must be looked at next.
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS. 39 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS. 
 
 Descartes said that he could construct the physical 
 world out of the two elements, Motion and Matter. 
 These he evidently regarded as wholly diverse, as 
 the original dualism of Nature herself. They are 
 not interchangeable, one cannot take the place of 
 the other. To be sure Motion can be imparted to 
 Matter from the outside, and then can leave it; 
 their relation is a purely mechanical one. Des- 
 cartes likewise ascribes to Motion all change in 
 Matter, all diversity of its forms. Motion is the 
 movens, Matter is the motum. This is largely the 
 present view of scientists; so it comes that Des- 
 cartes is often declared the father of modern Nat- 
 ural Science, which for the most part bases itself 
 upon these two elements and their mechanical and 
 physical relations. 
 
 Such is the vast generalization used by a great 
 philosopher at the beginning of a new epoch in the 
 study of the physical universe. Plain enough are 
 Matter and Motion as they appear in thousands of 
 instances before us; but that all the Cosmos to 
 the remotest star is composed of those two ulti- 
 mates, is not so manifest. That is, we have here 
 again theoretical or speculative principles underly- 
 ing our conception of the reality. We may indeed
 
 40 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 call this elemental dualism of Nature the scien- 
 tific consciousness of our time. It is deemed the 
 spirit or reason indwelling all the manifold phe- 
 nomena which meet our senses. It is the Logos 
 of Nature which the student is at last to find and 
 to commune with; in a sense Nature may be said 
 to think, and he is to think her thought after her, 
 or perchance with her in all her subtle metamor- 
 phoses. The scientist becomes natured (natu- 
 ratus) in his mind, and that is one of his powers. 
 
 It may be added that some writers have sought 
 to get rid of the foregoing dualism by a reduction 
 of the two elements to one, which can be brought 
 about in two ways: by reducing all Matter to 
 Motion, or even by reducing all Motion to Matter. 
 But the scientific trend is to maintain the irreduc- 
 ible dualism of these twin elements of Nature. 
 
 Motion and Matter are undoubtedly to be re- 
 garded as elemental; cosmical elements we may 
 call them. Of Nature in herself they are ultimates, 
 irreducible; but that does not hinder us from ask- 
 ing whence comes Nature with these primordial 
 twins of hers? Already we have named them the 
 Separating and the Separated, with a suggestion 
 of their psychical origin from the universal Self, 
 which produces them or separates them out of 
 itself as a necessary part or stage of its complete 
 process. Nature as the separation from the All 
 must still be of it and in it; she is different from 
 it, yet this difference must be its difference. Nat-
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS. 41 
 
 lire thus -may be deemed negative to her source, to 
 the universal Self or Parapsychosis; hence she is 
 the Negative as existent, as real ; this aspect of her 
 has been emphasized much by Theology. On the 
 other hand Nature is an integral part of the uni- 
 verse as Self, and must show herself such ; hence if 
 she is negative, she is likewise self-negative, self- 
 overcoming, and is ever on the return to her origin. 
 This we have already tried to state as the deepest 
 fact of Nature : as the opposite of the All-Self she 
 is inherently self-opposed ; dialectical we may des- 
 ignate her, as some of the old Greek philosophers 
 did not fail to observe. Consequently, too, Nat- 
 ure is dualistic, divided primarily into Motion and 
 Matter, which we may well regard as scientific 
 ultimates., but not as psychical ultimates. These 
 twins, named the Separating and the Sepa- 
 rated, are not only divided from the Uni- 
 versal Self, but from each other; they are the 
 two first-born protagonists on the arena of the 
 Cosmos. In a manner the whole panorama of Nat- 
 ure is their contest, or rather the contest of their 
 multitudinous ever-varying shapes, till the last one 
 vanishes from the scene in a new order. 
 
 Motion and Matter are, therefore, naturally 
 ultimates, opposites, yea mutual contestants for 
 supremacy; Motion may be said to triumph when 
 the material Earth cannot stop it, but is borne by 
 it without cessation in a victorious orbital sweep 
 around the Sun; Matter may be said to triumph
 
 42 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 when the same material Earth halts the moving 
 body on its surface and compels it to be at rest. 
 Still each of them, Motion and Matter, remains 
 invariable, without increase or decrease in the 
 physical universe; whatever be their local varia- 
 tions, the sum total of each is the same. The turn 
 of my hand shows that I am able to tap the whole 
 reservoir of this universal Motion and use a little 
 jet of it for a moment, but that little jet is not 
 lost when I stop using it, for it still belongs to the 
 grand totality. And this hand of mine as a ma- 
 terial object has been wrenched off or sliced off 
 temporarily from the never-varying cosmical mass 
 of Matter of which, however, it still remains a 
 little fragment. It is evident that with Matter 
 and Motion goes the measured Magnitude, or their 
 Measure; both are quantitative as well as qualita- 
 tive; every separated portion of each bears in it 
 a more or less; it cannot help being so much Mo- 
 tion or so much Matter measured off from the 
 whole. There is a quantitative relation of each 
 part to the entirety; the earth has been weighed, 
 the planets have been weighed, the Sun himself 
 has been weighed ; but we have not yet put into 
 the balance the totality of Matter, though it too 
 must be heavy as against Motion. The astron- 
 omer, when he gets the Cosmos weighed, will find 
 its quantity, yea its absolute quantity, the final' 
 How-muchness of it. But we can already say that 
 it has magnitude and hence measurability.
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS. 43 
 
 Accordingly the present book is going to add to 
 the two preceding a third cosmical element which 
 it will call Measure or Magnitude measured. This 
 agrees well with the scientific mind whose first 
 impulse is to measure any fresh appearance of 
 Motion or Matter. Indeed science has often de- 
 clared through its authoritative mouthpieces that 
 such Measure formulated mathematically is the 
 only real knowledge of Nature which we possess. 
 If Motion and Matter be the Separating and the 
 Separated, then we have to ask in both cases, 
 How great is the separation? Impossible to say ; 
 at least at present; still the quantum exists in the 
 thing as well as in the thought. 
 
 Accordingly we shall consider the elemental 
 Cosmos to possess a triplicity of elements as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 I. Motion. 
 II. Matter. 
 
 III. Measure. 
 
 At the same time we must not regard these 
 three elements as wholly disparate and apart. 
 Matter and Motion for instance are often made 
 too incompatible. Yet what is more common 
 than to sec the Motion of Matter, or the mov- 
 ing of bodies? The fact is they belong together, 
 even as oppositcs, they are mutually related 
 through their opposition, wherein they arc alike. 
 Still further, magnitude with its Measure is a nec- 
 essary third, a mediating element which brings
 
 44 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Motion and Matter under order and law. Most 
 significant of all the laws of Nature is the law of 
 Gravitation; it has as its three components Mo- 
 tion, Matter, and Measure. That is, the attraction 
 (Motion) of bodies (Matter) varies inversely as the 
 square of their distances (Measure). All move- 
 ments of material bodies are, therefore, measured 
 by themselves, or we can say by Nature herself, 
 for this only expresses her act in the given case. 
 In like manner, though under different conditions, 
 the law of falling bodies gives the Measure of the 
 Motion of Matter— the velocity (Motion) of a fall- 
 ing body (Matter) is proportional to the duration 
 of its fall (Measure) . In Kepler's third law the 
 same three cosmical elements are seen in a process 
 together which is ultimately the Motion of Matter 
 measured in their magnitudes — in the present case 
 the law pertains to the planetary system. Mani- 
 festly Nature legislates order into Motion and 
 Matter through Measure, somewhat as we, by a 
 curious analogy of speech, hear of legal measures 
 in human legislation. 
 
 Such are the elements of the Cosmos, or in gen- 
 eral the elemental Cosmos, its universal ideal prin- 
 ciples which are indeed to be realized, and in such 
 realization to be ever-present in Nature. They are 
 the foreground, or if you prefer, the background of 
 all physical science as well as of all schemes of 
 construing the physical totality. Not only in the 
 Cosmos but also in the Diacosmos we shall meet
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS —MOTION. 45 
 
 these elements but under a different form (say as 
 radio-aetive) ; nor will they fail us in the Biocos- 
 mos or the vital world (say as eyclo-active in the 
 individual body). At present however, these 
 three elements — Motion, Matter, and Measure — 
 we shall unfold as purely cosmical, setting them 
 down where they belong at Nature's start. 
 
 Motion. 
 
 Motion, then, we have to grapple with as the 
 first element of the Cosmos, the earliest appear- 
 ance of Nature, the primal externalized form of 
 the universal Self as internally self-separating 
 and making itself its own opposite. Motion is 
 grasped psychically as the inner self-separation of 
 the All manifested outwardly in Nature ; for Mo- 
 tion, if we inspect it closely, we find to be ever 
 separating from itself and going on and on, thus 
 showing a divisive and dualistic character within 
 itself.- So we have named it the Separating, 
 always active, in contrast with the Separated, 
 which is Matter passive yet necessarily resist- 
 ing the action of its opposite in order to be 
 passive. 
 
 Still we are to observe that Motion, though ever 
 separating and going onward out of itself, is also 
 striving to come back to its start, to its primal 
 source. Thus, while it is self-dividing it has like-
 
 46 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 wise a self -returning bent, seen in its tendency 
 when free to move in circles, which., however, can 
 be only an external return, not an internal, for 
 Motion as Motion can never get back to its origin, 
 to its separation, and thus become self-originating, 
 though it strives eternally for just that. Then it 
 would be Ego, Consciousness. Still we are never 
 to leave out of mind this aspiration of Nat- 
 ure so often emphasized already and manifested 
 primordially in Motion. The primal nebula, now 
 so much studied, as the earliest form of the visible 
 universe doubtless moves, turning on itself — how 
 else can it move? But this is a theme belonging 
 far ahead; at present we have enough to do in 
 wrestling with the thought of pure Motion. 
 
 One of the hardest problems which we meet in 
 the thought of the Universe is this primordial sep- 
 aration of it, which makes it another to itself, 
 that it be completely itself. This requires an uni- 
 versal otherness which is a part or stage of the 
 Universe, inside of it not outside else it would not 
 be the Universe. The All disrupts itself in twain 
 and ejects its opposite which is its own, yea is itself, 
 being a necessary part of its total process. This 
 conception of an universal otherness is just the 
 conception of Nature as a stage of the triple process 
 of the Universe, usually formulated as God, Nature, 
 Man. Nature we may deem the Unself, yet with 
 the All-Self immanent in it, which Spinoza named 
 Deus sive Natura, and also Substantia.
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MOTION. 47 
 
 The original of Motion, in its psychical aspect, is 
 the Ego as Will, also the separative stage in its 
 sphere. Our consciousness has Motion within it; 
 we watch it separating itself from itself and mak- 
 ing this separation its object. Now it is with this 
 act of our own Self that we can recognize the act 
 of the All-Self as creative of Nature and of Motion. 
 We have to re-create the primal creation of the 
 world, if we are to think it. This mental act is 
 often called the seeing God in Nature; He moves, 
 separates, determines not by special intervention, 
 for He is just the separation of Nature and all her 
 movements in Himself; in the divine totality Nat- 
 ure is not outside but inside, a stage of the uni- 
 versal process. 
 
 Motion, then, we may consider as the primal 
 element of the Cosmos, as the original push of it 
 into being, which push is forever going on. Mo- 
 tion as universal cannot stop of course, cannot 
 even be increased or diminished in total amount. 
 Now, it is a curious fact that an old Greek philoso- 
 pher, Zeno the Elcatic (already alluded to) , denied 
 the existence of Motion. Nature could not start, 
 and so in reality could not be at all. Zeno saw 
 and showed the inherent self-opposition in Motion; 
 his reasoning was that since it was self-contradic- 
 tory or self -negative, it could have no existence. 
 His supposed purpose was to get rid of all separa- 
 tion, all multiplicity, all appearance, in fine to get 
 rid of the external world and to restore the unsep-
 
 48 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 arated One of the Eleatic philosophy. This infer- 
 ence of Zeno we need not accept, but we have to 
 accept the contradiction which he uncovered in 
 Motion, and which is the deepest fact of it, yea of 
 all Nature, which we have already called dialect- 
 ical. Both the name and the thing are derived 
 from ancient Zeno, who has the merit of uttering 
 this primordial insight into Nature, and starts 
 natural philosophy. To be sure he made a mistake 
 in his negative conclusion, if he really inferred 
 (which has been doubted) from the inner contra- 
 diction in Motion that it had no reality, whereas 
 just that is its reality It may be added that a 
 modern German philosopher of note, Herbart the 
 pedagogical thinker, has also denied Motion on ac- 
 count of its innate impossibility. 
 
 But what lurks in this first element of the Cos- 
 mos? What can be unfolded out of it? Space 
 and Time are often declared to be the primordial 
 forms of Nature, the earliest shadows cast from 
 her creation. There is no doubt of their very 
 primitive character physically; indeed of such ex- 
 treme tenuity is their reality that it has often been 
 denied. Still they remain as it were in the dim 
 background of the Cosmos, very persistent even if 
 very elusive. Space has been humorously termed a 
 kind of fog spread over the universe, reaching from 
 the infiinitely large to the infinitely small ; quanti- 
 tative it seems, yet hardly measurable as a whole 
 in itself. Time too has the infinite outstretch
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MOTION. 49 
 
 from the present to the past and to the future; 
 who can tell its anons? Both are possessed of a 
 sort of indefinite quantity, which persists in its 
 very indefiniteness. The scientist has not yet, we 
 believe, asserted that there is an invariable 
 amount of Space and of Time in the Universe, as 
 he affirms of Motion and Matter. Quantity is, in- 
 deed, a phase or stage of Motion along with Space 
 and Time. 
 
 So it come that we find in Motion as the primal 
 element of the Cosmos a triple order which ar- 
 ranges itself as follows: Space, Time, Quantity. 
 All of these must be treated here in their universal 
 aspect. 
 
 By way of illustrating pure Motion, Newton's 
 Principia may be cited, whose theme is, accord- 
 ing to the caption, the Motion of Bodies (De Motu 
 Corporum). Moreover it is this Motion of Bodies 
 which he proceeds to measure mathematically, so 
 that his great work is constituted of the three 
 basic elements of the Cosmos, being in general the 
 Measure of the Motion of Matter. Here, how- 
 ever, we are seeking to grasp Motion in itself, as 
 primordial and elemental in Nature; this Motion 
 Newton takes for granted in his epoch-making 
 book, which indeed anchors in law the Cosmos. 
 Newton also assumes the Body or Matter, and 
 likewise its Magnitude as capable of being meas- 
 ured. This measuring of the Cosmos is what his 
 genius specially seized upon, being cognate with it;
 
 50 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 in particular his measurement of the cosmical 
 push of Matter toward unity has been most sig- 
 nificant and far-reaching. But it is necessary to 
 get back to his pre-suppositions, and to set them 
 forth as they are in themselves, if this be possi- 
 ble. Such an exposition cannot be quantitative 
 or mathematical, but psychological at bottom; its 
 function is not to measure, but to give the founda- 
 tion of Measure and show its place in the cosmical 
 process. Newton in his book barely touches upon 
 abstract Space and Time, not manifesting a strong 
 grasp therein, we have to think; that was not his 
 true field. Still they have to be considered (along 
 with Quantity) if we would penetrate to the pro- 
 cess of Motion. 
 
 I. Space. Many predicates rush in upon us 
 when we try to tell about Space; in fact it might 
 be called the predicable as such, existent, every- 
 where at hand ready for use. The physical universe 
 is spatial and all things in it; Spac? is verily 
 the primordial predicate or category of Nature; 
 hence we put it first in the long evolution of her 
 forms, all of which, however remain spatial to 
 the last. 
 
 The primal thought of Space is its potentiality. 
 Whatever takes place or exists is conditioned by 
 it; the Cosmos is conditioned by it at the start, and 
 becomes through it possible. Without Space 
 neither Motion nor Matter could be ; it is their po- 
 tentiality, and of all Nature, whose shapes rise out
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— SPACE. 51 
 
 of it yet remain in it as their earliest prototypal 
 shape, of which they never get rid. The highest 
 living body is still spatial. Space, however, can 
 hardly be called a shape but the absolutely shape- 
 able, wherewith the vast multiplicity of Nature's 
 shapes has to begin. So it is the grand potenti- 
 ality which is to be real, and yet we must think 
 it too as a reality. Space is not a subjective 
 phantom of my own ; I have indeed to re-make it 
 in order to know it, still it is already made and 
 exists in own right. The Cosmos could not start 
 without Space, nor my individual Ego could not 
 evolve without it. I too am spatial internally, 
 and for that reason I can know it or rather 
 recognize it as my own, seemingly after the 
 long estrangement. Space is accordingly a part 
 really, the first step of the lengthy evolution of 
 Nature. 
 
 In the thought of Space we have then to hold 
 together the opposites: it is the potential as real, 
 it is the total possibility of Nature and also an 
 actual existent object. Very difficult is it to 
 grasp this contradiction in the unity of thought; 
 so it comes that many minds have denied and still 
 deny the reality of Space, considering it to be 
 subjective. That would of course destroy its 
 place in Nature and seriously breach her evolu- 
 tionary line. Most famous of these denials has 
 been the Kantian, which still has its followers, in- 
 dulging, however, in many variations.
 
 52 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 If Space is the all-embracing potentiality of 
 total Nature, its most direct specific potential re- 
 lation is to Motion, as the primal cosmical element. 
 Hence we put it under Motion as the first stage of 
 the latter. It is the infinitely, divisible, the abso- 
 lutely penetrable ; thus Motion as the ever-separat- 
 ing finds no resistance in Space. Not only no re- 
 sistance: Space is already Motion implicit, not yet 
 moving indeed but the infinite capability thereof. 
 From this point of view Motion is Space made ex- 
 plicit, actual. Space is latent Motion, a mode of 
 Motion, existent long before those other modes of 
 it, Heat, Light, Electricity. Using a recent term 
 of Science, we might call Space the primordial 
 potential energy of the Cosmos. 
 
 Other predicates we may apply to Space, which, 
 however, amount to quite the same thing. It is 
 pure externality, not only outside, but self-outside; 
 it is pure extension, it must be beyond itself to be 
 itself; it is the void, empty of all except its own 
 emptiness ; it is simple continuity, permitting any 
 limit which, however, is no limit, for it is always 
 beyond. We speak of the infinity of Space, which 
 has in it the spatial contradiction; we seek to limit 
 that which is indifferent to limit, whose boundary 
 is always over the boundary. It may be deemed 
 the original Chaos, in which no lines of order are 
 drawn, without being at once obliterated. In the 
 old Greek cosmogony, Chaos was held to be the 
 primordial mother of the Cosmos.
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— SPACE. 53 
 
 There is no doubt that the foregoing attributes 
 of Space are contradictory and strikingly exhibit 
 the dualism of Nature in its first appearance. 
 They may be pretty well summed up in the state- 
 ment that Space is Motion inactive — conceived but 
 not born. Space has been termed Nature's quan- 
 tity, but it is not yet quantity though quantifiable, 
 the possibility of quantity — which is to be dis- 
 cussed later. It is indeed indifferent to quality, 
 even to a qualified quantity, which by the way is 
 just its quality. If we ask, how far does Space 
 extend, this how far is a qualified quantity that 
 cannot properly be applied to pure Space, which 
 is not to be enclosed without enclosing the enclos- 
 ure. Hence Space cannot be imaged, as it also is 
 outside the limits of the imagination. 
 
 And now in this primeval Chaos can there be 
 any order, or at least the possibility thereof? As- 
 suredly, if the Cosmos is to unfold out of it. We 
 hear of the three dimensions of Space — a sugges- 
 1ion of order. Some kind of organization is hinted 
 in Point, Line, and Surface, all of which are purely 
 spatial. And then a science of Space has been 
 pointed out in Geometry, which, however, belongs 
 to a more concrete stage of the Cosmos, to Meas- 
 ure, as we look at the subject. Still there are lines 
 of order in pure Space, which we shall try to draw. 
 
 1. The Spatial Process. Have we the right to 
 put a process into what is said to be a mere pro- 
 cessless continuity? Undoubtedly the contradic-
 
 54 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tion again rears its head. Still inactive Motion 
 as spatial must show the possibility of itself, of its 
 process even as potential. Let us see if something 
 of the sort cannot be glimpsed in the following. 
 
 (a) Space as the extended, or pure continuity. 
 Already this has been sufficiently set forth in pred- 
 icates. Here we need only say, Space as pure out- 
 sidness is negative to itself, is really the opposite 
 to itself. This brings us to the next. 
 
 (6) Space as the unextended, or the Point. The 
 usual conception of a Point is that it has position, 
 but no extension, no dimensions. It is posited by 
 Space, yet in Space; it is the negative of Space but 
 still is spatial. Space as outside itself calls forth its 
 opposite, the Point. The definition of a Point has 
 always given difficulty since it is the spatial con- 
 tradiction of all Space. That is indeed what 
 makes it a Point, verily a turning-point. For the 
 negation of Space, the Point, is still spatial and 
 hence continues. 
 
 (c) Space the unextended as continuity. This 
 is involved in the statement that the non-extended 
 Point is spatial and hence continuous, that is 
 linear, though not yet a line. Or the Point hav- 
 ing negated extension goes back to it and gets ex- 
 tended. But this is no longer pure continuity (the 
 first stage) but the Point as continuous (the third 
 stage) , wherein the Point may be said potentially 
 to vibrate between two extremes of itself, as it will 
 do really in Time.
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— SPACE. 55 
 
 Such is the primal process of Space, still kept 
 spatial. Nevertheless the fact is to be noted that 
 it shows the Psychosis, though more remote from 
 the Ego than any other process in the universe. 
 There is the pure potentiality of Space, the sepa- 
 tion, and the return. And the source of this psy- 
 chical process even in Space should be seen. 
 The universal Self or the Pampsychosis unfolds 
 the opposite of itself in Nature and so in Space; 
 but this opposite of itself is a part of its own su- 
 preme process and bears the creative impress 
 thereof, which must also be spatial. 
 
 2. The Spatial Dimensions. We have just seen 
 the Point as continuous, returning as it were to 
 the continuity of Space, and completing its germi- 
 nal process. But the Point is also negative to 
 continuity and ends it, ends it in a Point, causing 
 it to lie between two Points and thus producing 
 the Line. The latter being thus measured, becomes 
 itself a spatial measurer, a dimension of Space 
 which has three of them. 
 
 (a) From Point to Line. Such is the first di- 
 mension of Space ; a Point can hardly be called a 
 dimension. We may conceive it seeking to get rid 
 of its contradiction as spatial and non-spatial, and 
 producing the Line, which, however, returns to the 
 Point, and thus is the potential measurer. 
 
 (6) From Line to Surface. The Line is also 
 non-spatial through its origin from the Point. 
 But it has also continuity, and its whole continu-
 
 56 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. ■ 
 
 ity must be continuous, and so it produces the 
 Surface, which, however returns to the Line. A 
 Line running a plane through Space is measuring 
 it with a new dimension, the second. 
 
 (c) From Surface to the spatial Solid. The 
 Surface also is non-spatial, but it is continuous 
 too,, and its entire continuity shows itself continu- 
 ous., thus producing a spatial whole which, how- 
 ever, returns to the Surface with its lines, and is 
 thereby limited. This, too, is properly a dimen- 
 sion of Space as completed extension, we may call 
 it a spatial (non-material) solid 
 
 It will be observed that the spatial dimensions 
 spring from and go back to the line as their basic 
 measuring principle. The line must be regarded 
 as the primal measurer, drawing the first limit in 
 and upon Space, itself the first element of Nature. 
 A great mathematician has said that "any magni- 
 tude whatever can be represented by a line." It 
 is the primal potential magnitude, from which all 
 others are evolved. It is the first dimension of the 
 physical universe and starts the measurement of 
 the same. Still the spatial line is not yet Meas- 
 ure, though its possibility. The line itself must be 
 measured ere it can be really a measurer, and so 
 measure itself. The surveyor's chain is a meas- 
 ured line whose function is to measure spatial 
 lines as yet only possible. Measure proper is a 
 later development than Space, later than even 
 Matter. Still we are to note the Line running
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— SPACE. 57 
 
 from Point to Point in Space as the primal dimen- 
 sion of Nature. 
 
 3. The Spatial Totality. Space in the solid has 
 indeed returned to continuity which extends in all 
 directions, but this is not the pure continuity with 
 which we started. Space has again asserted itself, 
 we may say, but is limited in all directions by 
 Line, Surface., and spatial Solid. But now we see 
 the three dimensions, which hitherto have been 
 separate and different in character from one 
 another, becoming united and alike in character; 
 they are even interchangeable, yet arc separate, 
 being always three distinct dimensions. These are 
 now called (a) Length, one linear dimension; (h) 
 Breadth, another linear dimension; (r) Height, 
 the third linear dimension. We note here that the 
 line has become the one basic dimension, the com- 
 mon measurer of Space. 
 
 Each of these lines can take the place of the 
 other, but one cannot absorb or displace the other; 
 the exchange must somehow be mutual. It is 
 spatially indifferent which direction or dimension 
 I consider Length, Breadth, or Height; still I must 
 have all three in the spatial Totality. The three 
 form a whole, we might say, a process together, in 
 which each is indispensable, though all arc quali- 
 tatively alike. We have to think that Space or its 
 material embodiment must have three dimensions, 
 no more, no less; it is the spatial trinity and in its 
 xternal way bears the creative impress. It is the
 
 58 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 quantitative Psychosis of which each stage is what 
 the others are, though all have to be. The legs of 
 the tripod are identical, but the entire vessel would 
 topple down if one were missing. In like manner 
 it requires three straight lines at least to enclose 
 Space, to make the line return into itself and form 
 the triangle. 
 
 Space has thus in its way revealed an order. 
 The spatial Totality goes back to continuity, which 
 is now organized through the spatial dimensions. 
 These put limits upon Space, which, however, at 
 once show themselves to be in no limits, and Space 
 is again the unlimited, yea the illimitable. And 
 yet it most passively endures every limit without 
 resistance. What is the result? Space cannot be 
 quantified, but is purely the quantifiable; it is the 
 unmeasured which is yet measurable; the possi- 
 bility of all Motion, it does not move. 
 
 Yet as the negative of itself, the Point, it has to 
 move and to get out of itself, whereby it is no 
 longer Space but Time. 
 
 To the immediate vision, Space is partly occu- 
 pied with bodies, between which seems to lie 
 empty extension. The question has often come 
 up and will come up again, Is Space filled with 
 something — perchance with Matter of the greatest 
 tenuity, that ether which seems to be the present 
 pivotal problem of Science? Or can it oe said 
 that Space itself is material, perchance the primor- 
 dial protoplasmic body of ah bodies? Then is
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— TIME. 59 
 
 Space limited? or is it merely the potentiality of 
 all limits, hence not yet to be thought as either 
 limited or unlimited? It certainly appears to 
 elude both of these predicates. The dialectical 
 play of Nature begins with Space when grasped 
 either as finite or infinite. And since the mind 
 must also be deemed spatial (otherwise it could 
 never conceive Space), the same dialectical play 
 becomes mental and shares in the dualism of Nat- 
 ure from beginning to end. 
 
 Some of these questions will again arise, partic- 
 ularly that of ether, which, however, in its fullness 
 belongs to the Diacosmos. Here we are to see 
 Space as the first of Motion, its possibility, not yet 
 its reality. At such a statement, however, that 
 dialectical sport springs forth anew, lurking in the 
 query, Is Space then real or unreal? Or is neither 
 predicate applicable? Already we have noted that 
 eminent philosophers have denied the objective ' 
 reality of Space, and with it of the external world. 
 
 But the true movement of Space is Time, in 
 which the primal indifference of Nature passes into 
 difference ; hence the vast diversity of the Cosmos 
 makes a start in Time, which is thus the second 
 stage in the process of Motion. 
 
 II. Time. The intimate connection between 
 Space and Time has long been recognized. The 
 Point is passively continuous in Space which lies 
 between Point and Point, but continuity gets 
 pointed in Time, which is an active never-ending
 
 60 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 line of separated Points; thus we may conceive 
 Extension passing into Succession. The Point is 
 subordinate in Space which has to subsume its own 
 negative, but the Point is triumphant in Time, 
 which is the ever punctuating Now. Accordingly 
 Time is the always Separating and so is the first 
 reality of Motion, Space being its potentiality. 
 Motion, taken in its complete process, must over- 
 come the unseparatcd or the purely continuous as 
 Space, else there could be no real separation of the 
 universal Self and hence no Nature. 
 
 What we called the Totality of Space with its 
 three dimensions exhausted the Point as spatial 
 or continuous. There arose an order in Space, but 
 this order being purely spatial, had no real limit, 
 and so fell back into chaos. The Point, the negative 
 of Space, must get reality, which it does in Time, 
 and must build a new order, which has to over- 
 come the blank passive continuity of Space. The 
 Point is the turning-point of the transition of Space 
 into Time. We saw it also as the pivot of the 
 germinal process of Space, which showed the three 
 stages: Continuity, Point, return to Continuity in 
 the linear. But Time has a different germinal 
 process as we shall see later. 
 
 Space seems to hover between the sensible and 
 the supersensible, even between the real and un- 
 real; we come to see it as limited, but this 
 limit vanishes easily into the unlimited, where 
 fleet imagination cannot catch it . Time as the nc-
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — TIME. 61 
 
 gation of the extended is hardly visible, yet is 
 present, yea, is an eternal presence. Time must 
 be deemed more subjective than Space; objectivity 
 has been refused to both by some minds. Time 
 through its self-separation resembles the Ego, but 
 it has no complete self-return, being continuous just 
 in its separation. Thus the Ego includes Time, 
 but Time does include the Ego, which, though 
 temporal, is also the restoration out of the tem- 
 poral. The Point in Time is self-repellent, it can 
 no longer stay quietly with itself, as in Space. 
 
 Time has likewise the dual, contradictory char- 
 acter, which is in Motion, and indeed in Nature. 
 It is the most fleeting of all creation, yet the most 
 persistent. When I look, it is gone, and yet when 
 gone it is back again. Which is it, Being or non- 
 Being? While it is, it is not, and while it is not, it 
 is; the contradiction between the Vanishing and 
 the Permanent is Time's very existence. It is the 
 form of the Cosmos as perishable, yet also as 
 eternal; Nature, Man, the Universe, are ever dying 
 in Time, yet ever being born again in Time, we 
 say; rather they are temporal, finite, evanescent, 
 but likewise enduring, negating their negative 
 Time, which is in them rather than they in it. The 
 so-called stream of Time courses through them, 
 quite as much as they through it. 
 
 The Point is the negation of continuity, yet is 
 continuous in its negation, and so rays out into a 
 line of ever-recurring Points. From this aspect of
 
 62 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 it Time has duration endless, or is always ending 
 yet always beginning again. It is the image of 
 complete self-alienation, yet forever in pursuit of 
 itself and never overtaking itself. Time manifests 
 the mighty striving of Nature to overcome her 
 separation from the universal Self, and in this 
 character will accompany Nature to her close. 
 Space shows not yet such a striving, it is rela- 
 tively stagnation, quiescent, unborn; it is the po- 
 tential, the latent, which, however, must become 
 real; it is the Cosmos simply lying alongside of 
 itself and waiting to be a mere empty along- 
 sideness or co-existence ; while Time is the Cosmos 
 pushing after itself in all speed, and never catch- 
 ing up, a very active if void afterness . Time is 
 ever moving out of Space, step by step, that is 
 moment by moment; these steps are indeed infi- 
 nitely short, but the universe steps with them, and 
 is therein divided through and through by 
 Time, which may be hence said puncture (punc- 
 tum, point) the same every moment. A figure 
 of Time represents it as radiant from its cen- 
 tral sun, the Now, radiating its separation to infinity 
 both rearward and forward, to past and future. 
 
 Here the question thrusts itself upon us, Can 
 this so deeply contradictory Time be put into any 
 order? It seems to be perpetually undoing itself 
 after positing itself, it is the pure act of change, of 
 self-undoing in Nature. Can it be brought into 
 any lines which show that it too has a process,
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — TIME, 63 
 
 yea a psychical process, though far off from its 
 creator? Like Space its essence seems to be recal- 
 citrant to any shape, being the dissolver of all 
 shapes. Notwithstanding its breaching power, 
 Time cannot break outside of the All ; it is an ele- 
 ment, yes, a necessary element of the Cosmos, and 
 hence we must see it in its place and also in its 
 own inner order. 
 
 1. The Temporal Process. The task is to find 
 and to formulate the immediate germinal process 
 of Time as it appears before us. Doubtless we 
 have subjectively to think it, or rather re-think it, 
 for it is already a thought existent in the Cosmos. 
 
 (a) Time is primarily the non-extended, the 
 active negation of continuity — the Point as 
 Moment. Already we have dwelt upon the pivotal 
 transition of the spatial Point into the temporal. 
 This lies in the self-contradiction of Space, which 
 is thus driven over to its opposite. 
 
 (6) Time as the Moment is the negation of con- 
 tinuity, but of necessity must continue its nega- 
 tion — the Moment as continuous, or the knotted 
 line of Time. Or we may say that the Point as 
 non-spatial must still be spatial or contain Space 
 in order to negate the same, and thus to become 
 itself. Here rises the fact of discreteness of Time, 
 or Time separated continuously. All the extension of 
 Space is compressed into a Moment, yet that Mo- 
 ment in its turn is extended beyond and beyond — a 
 linked chain of Moments.
 
 64 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 (c) Time is the Moment ever coming back to 
 itself and starting again — it is oscillatory. The 
 Moment is always separating from itself yet always 
 coming back to itself. Hence Time is not simply 
 continuous but oscillatory in its smallest division. 
 Thus Time begins already to create shapes and 
 to round them off; it is the pure unfilled form 
 of Evolution, which likewise unfolds from form to 
 form. In Time all has birth and decay and re- 
 birth, these are in Time, we say, but more 
 truly is Time in them, a necessary element 
 of their being. Through Time all Nature becomes 
 oscillatory, and begins to get organized, starting 
 its processes, which are temporal rounds at first 
 hand. The Moment of Time in which you now are 
 is the primordial oscillation of Nature, yet is also 
 yours and contains all your processes. Science 
 seems to be getting more and more oscillatory, or 
 vibratory, or undulatory, or however else it may 
 be designated. Very suggestive is the oscillation 
 of the pendulum as the measure of Time, being 
 the outer visible image of every Moment as well of 
 great periods. Every particle of Time however 
 minute, is oscillatory, and suggests the cycle. 
 Time as continuous we may conceive as a chain 
 composed of links, going out and coming back, 
 oscillating in endless multiplicity. 
 
 2. The temporal elements (dimensions). Such is 
 the new division of Time into what we may call its 
 elements, or possibly its dimensions, since they
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — TIME. 65 
 
 have in tliem the idea of measurement. They are 
 likewise three, indissolubly connected, yet not 
 interchangeable like those of Space which are of 
 indifferent extension, and not of differentiated 
 succession. That is, the three dimensions of Time 
 — Present, Past, and Future— are all different 
 from one another qualitatively, but they form to- 
 gether one process. In Space itself difference could 
 hardly be posited, except from the outside, Space 
 being the indifference of Nature; but in Time dif- 
 ference is 'posited from the inside, is its reality 
 (hence Time is the second stage) . 
 
 (a) In the knotted line of Time the succession 
 of Moments as real we call the Present. It fleets 
 from this Now to another Now, which, however, 
 is just the same, and so is ever present, indeed the 
 Present. Always going, yet coming back, it trem- 
 bles between Being and non-Being; it strangely 
 arises into vanishing and vanishes into arising, thus 
 balancing perpetually between birth and death. 
 In this oscillatory Moment called the Present we 
 persist, always- living and always dying; that is, 
 always oscillating with it, for we are of it as well 
 as it is of us. In this whirl of the Present I exist, 
 for there is no stopping it, and it exists in me, for 
 I too am of Nature and share in this her primor- 
 dial oscillation. 
 
 (b) The second dimension of Time measured 
 from the Present is the Past out of which the Pres- 
 ent has evolved, bit which the Present also 
 
 5
 
 66 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 evolves. For the Present is on one side the prod- 
 uct and on the other the producer of the Past, 
 which it flings backward out of itself. History, 
 Evolution, Knowledge lie imbedded in the Past, 
 and we have to go back and dig them up in order 
 to find out what we are and how we got to be. 
 Evolution is the great watchword of this century; 
 the Present has as its chief task to go back and 
 evolve itself, the Present, out of the Past. Such is, 
 then, Time's cycle here : the Past is always evolv- 
 ing the Present, which in its turn is always evolv- 
 ing the Past. To be sure I make the Past evolve 
 the Present, for that is in me too as well as in 
 itself. Thus the Past also is oscillatory. 
 
 (c) The third dimension of Time measured from 
 the Present is the Future, the unevolved which is 
 to be evolved, the hereafter projected as an ideal 
 counterpart of the heretofore. Both Past and 
 Future are alike in being non-existent, contrasting 
 with the sole existent Present though in very dif- 
 ferent ways. The Present mediates them, it has 
 been the one and will be the other. Still on the 
 other hand the Present never has been and never 
 will be, it simply is; the three dimensions of Time 
 must persist in their separation and in their pro- 
 cess together. When the Present gets to be 
 Future, there is still another Future; when the 
 Present gets to be Past, there is still another Pres- 
 ent. On the one side the Future is always going 
 forward, on the other side it is always going back-
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — TIME. 67 
 
 ward and becoming the Past through the Present. 
 Thus the Future is also oscillatory in its complete 
 conception and shares in this ultimate essence of 
 Time. 
 
 Each of these three dimensions of Time — Pres- 
 ent, Past, and Future — has an oscillation as its 
 soul, and now the final fact of them is to be noted: 
 they all together form one vast oscillation, of which 
 the progressive movement is from Past through 
 Present to Future, and ol which the regressive 
 movement is from Future through Present to 
 Past. 
 
 3. The temporal Totality. Corresponding to 
 the spatial Totality unfolds the temporal Totality 
 embracing all the dimensions of Time — Present, 
 Past, and Future. That which was oscillatory in 
 the Moment of Time, is now oscillatory in the Uni- 
 verse of Time, so that the least and the largest are 
 united in one common process. The huge and 
 ever lengthening chain of duration is composed 
 persistently of three links which interlink — not 
 their number but their size may increase. The 
 whole Cosmos oscillates in Time, and that is prop- 
 erly its first Motion, which is ever separating, yet 
 ever seeking to return to its source. 
 
 In this temporal Totality or Universe of Time, 
 we may catch certain far-off flashes of an order. 
 
 (a) The temporal Totality is primarily Eternity 
 or eternal duration, without beginning or end. 
 Thus Time strives to reach backwards and for-
 
 68 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 wards beyond itself, to its source which is not 
 Time but its creator. Time is thus the pure form 
 of aspiration in Nature , to be sure without inner con- 
 tent. What it aspires for is the All-Self from 
 which it has separated, and is eternally separating. 
 Given the universe, Time has no beginning and no 
 end, being an element or stage of the universal 
 process. With eternity is connected the idea of 
 immortality which affirms the human soul to have 
 within itself the temporal Totality. 
 
 (b) The temporal Totality as eternity divides 
 in twain and becomes two eternities — an eternal 
 Past and an eternal Future. These are different 
 from the dimensions of Time already considered — 
 the adjective makes the difference. Moreover each 
 has through this adjective become contradictory: 
 the Past is bounded by the Present and cannot be 
 eternal; so too the Future is bounded by the Pres- 
 ent. The result is that immortality is cleft in the 
 middle as it were, and calls up the dual doctrines 
 prc-existence and post-existence, which have 
 caused no little discussion both in the heathen and 
 Christian worlds. Then both Past and Future are 
 non-existent and from this point of view are very 
 hard to eternize. So the intermediate link of 
 Time's chain again appears, but with new power. 
 
 (c) The temporal Totality is conceived as eter- 
 nity in the' Now, or as the eternal Now. This is 
 the sole reality of Time, embracing in its sweep or 
 oscillation the other two ideal elements, without
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — TIME. 69 
 
 which indeed the Now could not be eternal. The 
 Now as mere moment is the most tremulous, un- 
 stable, evanescent of existences, a flutter of the 
 vanishing. But it persists ever present, and be- 
 comes eternal if filled with its own ideal elements, 
 the Past and the Future. You are to do this 
 indeed,, but it already lies in the nature of the Now 
 to become eternal. The Now, as we have seen it 
 in the complete process of Time, eternizes itself; 
 and the question with you is, Will you eternize 
 yourself along with it, or live in the moment, in 
 the ephemeral Now. Dante calls up the thought 
 in a passage which tells of Brunetto teaching him 
 how man makes himself eternal: Come Vuomo 
 s'eterna. 
 
 Still the eternal Now as purely temporal is for- 
 ever going beyond itself, shows itself unfinished 
 and unfinishable, having always a new limit to 
 transcend. Time like Space refuses to be a total- 
 ity at last, so that its totality turns out no total- 
 ity. Here 1 again we again observe that peculiar 
 dialectical play of Nature in one of her forms, tha't 
 of Time, which is on the one side the most unsta- 
 ble, and on the other the most persistent of cos- 
 mical entities. Indeed Time may be called the 
 pure dialectic of Nature, her separation active and 
 real in itself, in its simple isolation. 
 
 Fit m a psychical point of view Time is a veiy 
 suggestive and deep-reaching manifestation. Of 
 the Psychosis in its second or separative stage, Time
 
 70 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 may be taken as the universal symbol or outer 
 adumbration in Nature. We put it under Motion 
 of which it is the first and purest realization. One 
 may indeed ask, which is prior, Time or Motion? 
 As we conceive and formulate it, Motion is the 
 first derivation of Nature from the Pampsychosis, 
 and Time is a stage in its process, the second or 
 separative. Time is, therefore, not the whole of 
 Motion, but rather its divider, its quantifier sepa- 
 rating it into bits which are yet to be ordered in 
 Quantity. But this is a new stage which must 
 next become explicit. 
 
 III. Quantity. We are seeking to put into its 
 place in Nature pure Quantity, not some particular 
 amount or quantity of something, which comes 
 later. Quantity is on the one hand a mental con- 
 cept, yet it is also existent as well as Space and 
 Time. The Cosmos is quantitative as well as spa- 
 tial and temporal; indeed both Space and Time 
 are quantitative, each in its own way; Quantity 
 may be deemed an evolution out of them, becom- 
 ing explicit and existent in its own right. These 
 three primordial elements of Nature we put 
 together in this order: Space, Time, Quantity, 
 which form a process that bears a psychical im- 
 press. Doubtless this third clement seems unusual 
 in such company; Space and Time are the Sia- 
 mese twins of philosophy and science, intergrown 
 seemingly and quite inseparable; while the third 
 member of the group, Quantity, appears at first
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— QUANTITY. 71 
 
 sight an 'alien. But he will soon get naturalized if 
 treated with some degree of regard and sympathy. 
 
 The next point to be noted is that this Quantity 
 is subsumed under Motion, the Separating in the 
 Cosmos; that is, Quantity is a form or stage of 
 Motion. Such a view may seem a little strange at 
 first; but we have become used to the expression 
 that Heat, Light, and Electricity are modes of Mo- 
 tion, which is coming to be regarded as an ulti- 
 mate, irreducible element of Nature. We may say 
 that Quantity is one mode or manifestation of Mo- 
 tion, among many others indeed. Certainly Mo- 
 tion is quantitative, measurable; Quantity seems 
 to lurk in it as its very essence; in fact many 
 scientists declare that the only real knowledge we 
 can have of Motion or even of Nature is its Quan- 
 tity expressed mathematically. That is probably 
 going too far, for surely there are qualitative 
 phases of Nature which we can also know, and 
 which are not given by a mathematical formula. 
 Still Quantity is an elemental constituent or stage 
 of Motion and must be put into the order. 
 
 Can we see how it comes about that Quantity 
 lies primordially in Motion? We must recall that 
 Motion is Separation, or more exactly the Separat- 
 ing in the Cosmos. How great is the separation, 
 how much? Quantity (Flow-muchness literally) 
 cannot be divorced from any kind of external Sep- 
 eration. Motion, going on and on, is inherently 
 quantitative. So is all Nature, which is the Sepa-
 
 72 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 ration from the universal Self to which the con- 
 ception of Quantity goes back. Underlying every 
 quantitative procedure is found ultimately the 
 problem: How great is this Separation here and 
 now from the All-Ego which is its source? To 
 be sure there is no unit of measure in this 
 primordial Quantity ; we cannot tell in miles or de- 
 grees the amount of Nature's Separation from her 
 creative fountain ; still such a Separation has in it 
 Quantity, verily, the original Quantity, which 
 becomes manifest in Motion as the ever-separat- 
 ing. 
 
 There rises another thought in the present con- 
 nection: if Motion possesses inherently Quantity, 
 this must also show itself in the other two forms 
 or stages, Space and Time. It has been already 
 remarked that each of these in its own way is 
 quantitative, and now we see that this must be true 
 of them as elements of Motion. And there is a 
 distinction between all these forms of Motion from 
 the present point of view. Motion as quantifyable 
 (as the potentiality of Quantity) is Space; Motion 
 as quantifying (as the active process per se) is 
 Time; Motion as quantified (as the process finished) 
 is Quantity itself. That is, the completed quanti- 
 fication of Motion is pure or abstract Quantity 
 which, we repeat, belongs to Nature as an object- 
 ive fact, and is not merely a product of mind 
 applied somehow externally to Nature. The quan- 
 titative interdependence of the three elemental
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— QUANTITY. 73 
 
 stages of Motion may be summarized in the state- 
 ment: Motion quantifyable, quantifying, quan- 
 tified — Space, Time, Quantity. 
 
 That these elements lie dee}) in Mind and Nat- 
 ure may be seen in a small example : How long did 
 it lastf In this simple question are interwrought 
 Space (long) and Time (last) and Quantity (how 
 much) ; and they together are conceived as a pro- 
 cess or cycle of Motion with beginning and end 
 rounding it out. Neither Space nor Time can 
 completely quantify or measure Motion; that re- 
 quires the presence of Quantity itself, elusive as it 
 may be. Quantity is measured Motion (not meas- 
 ured Matter, whereof later). Pure Motion quan- 
 tified is nothing but pure Quantity, as it is in itself ' 
 (How-muchness). Quantity returns to Space, 
 which is only the quantifyable primarily, and 
 quantifies it, for instance in a triangle, and in 
 other spatial figures, which show a how-much of 
 Space, a Quantum thereof. 
 
 Quantity in its present aspect may be deemed 
 the getting of the Quantum; that is, it makes the 
 indefinite elements of Motion (Space and Time) 
 definite, or at least starts that way, by imposing 
 upon them the I low-much.- It throws a noose 
 around those two wild nags absolutely running at 
 large, quite without restraint. Quantity, there- 
 tore, holds up Motion, making it turn back upon 
 itself and thus producing the first standard of 
 measuring, which is to have a great future.
 
 74 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 We have already often spoken of measurements 
 and dimensions in connection with Space and 
 Time, and also of Quantity as measured Motion. 
 In order to avoid possible confusion we may say in 
 advance that Measure proper as the third stage of 
 the elemental Cosmos (along with Motion and 
 Matter), is quite different from Quantity, which is 
 not yet strictly mathematical. We may illustrate : 
 a triangle is Space quantified, being so much of 
 Space; it is indeed a pure Quantity, a stage of 
 Motion quantified. But when we say of this tri- 
 angle that the sum of its three angles is equal to 
 two right angles, we are measuring Space already 
 quantified simply, we are really quantifying Quan- 
 tity, and have entered the mathematical science of 
 Geometry, which lies in the sphere of Measure and 
 presupposes Quantity. Measure is, therefore, rather 
 the Quantity of Quantity, or Quantity made to 
 return upon itself and to quantify itself anew. 
 This calls forth Mathematics, as we shall here- 
 after see. Moreover Matter lies between Motion 
 and Measure, and helps produce Measure which 
 then measures it. Motion and Matter are the 
 antecedents of Measure, in the elemental Cosmos, 
 while Space and Time are the antecedents of 
 Quantity, in the process of Motion. 
 
 Let us present this subject from another point of 
 view. Mathematics is usually called the science of 
 Quantity; evidently then Quantity must have 
 already an existence in order to be scientifically
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— QUANTITY. 75 
 
 treated. In like manner Nature must exist before 
 any science of it is possible. Now this primordial 
 Quantity is what we wish here to grasp in itself 
 and to co-ordinate in its place as a part of the uni- 
 verse. It is presupposed in all systems of Meas- 
 ure, being their condition or original source; Math- 
 ematics starts with Quantity as something given or 
 primordially existent, and unfolds its forms, com- 
 binations, laws. What we here wish to do is to 
 evolve it into its true place in Nature, to which it 
 belongs ; then in due order will follow its developed 
 science which is likewise a part of Nature's science, 
 though by no means all of it. Quantity in this 
 sense is a very abstract, elusive entity; indeed we 
 have to reach back to it out of its embodiment in 
 Matter and then in Mathematics (Measure) . 
 
 Has this very subtle intangible Quantity, exist- 
 ent before Matter and before Measure proper, any 
 discernible lines of order running through it? We 
 think that it has and must have, and that these 
 lines will be outlines of the psychical process of 
 their creative source. They may be faint and 
 fleeting as they have to cast the shadowy image of 
 Separation itself ever-separating, and to stake off 
 its primal measurements. So we must brace to 
 the ctherial task of fencing off into its divisions 
 pure Quantity. Some help we may get at the 
 start by observing that its organization is and 
 must be quite parallel to that of its two kindred 
 elements, Space and Time.
 
 76 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 1. The Quantitative Process. Quantity holds in 
 itself implicitly Space and Time, which it is to 
 render explicit by quantifying them, by the quan- 
 titative Process. We may conceive Quantity re- 
 turning to the continuity of Space and dividing it up 
 through the divisions of Time which become so 
 many units of measurement. Quantity rounds out 
 Space in Time and through Time. From my eye 
 to yonder house I see Space, so much of it, quan- 
 tified; there is a kind of oscillation between me 
 and it, forwards and backwards, which is in Time 
 and through Time. So also I look back to an 
 event of my life in the past, and round it out be- 
 tween now and then, that is, quantify it. These 
 stages, separately stated, are as follows: 
 
 (a) Quantity is continuous, and so is spatial — 
 the return to and unity with Space. It has no 
 limit within itself, is unbroken, has no multiplicity 
 or separation ; it is through and through one and 
 the same within itself. Yet Quantity is not pure 
 Space, but Space quantified, bounded on the out- 
 side; it is so much and no more — a limited contin- 
 uity, or so much potentiality of Motion. So 
 Quantity as continuous comes to an end, in fact it 
 goes over to its opposite and is discontinuous or 
 divisive within itself. That is. being bounded on 
 the outside it is likewise bounded on the inside, 
 seeing that Space or continuity is beyond the 
 limit also, and goes on. Tims separation enters 
 Quantity and it thereby bcco.ncs divisible and
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— QUANTITY. 77 
 
 discrete— a continuity not of one, but of many 
 ones. 
 
 (b) Quantity is discrete and so is temporal — 
 the return to and unity with Time in its separa- 
 tiveness. Quantity is now not the unbroken One, 
 but the broken ones which are still the same, each 
 with the other. Continuity has its limit not 
 merely outside but inside; it is the continuity of 
 discreteness, the line of Time with its ever-suc- 
 ceeding moments. Yet Quantity as discrete is not 
 pure Time, but Time quantified — limited yet 
 always transcending the limit; it is discreteness 
 yet always breaking ever into continuity and thus 
 becoming its opposite. Now this opposite is no 
 longer merely Quantity as continuous, for this has be- 
 come 'discrete, but discrete Quantity as continuous, 
 or a continuous Quantity limited inside and outside. 
 
 (c) Quantity has therein become the Quantum 
 (literally translated, abstract How-muchness has 
 evolved into the special How-much). It is the unit 
 of measure, still as general; Quantity has pro- 
 duced what quantifies, or the universal quantifier. 
 Limited continuity (spatial) made successive (tem- 
 poral) gives the standard by which measurement 
 takes place — the Quantum. In Time Nature has 
 begun to measure herself, but cannot, as she has 
 yet no Quantum, no measuring rod, no survey- 
 or's chain, ever repeating its measurements or 
 Quanta. Indeed the surveyor's chain may be 
 taken as the typical Quantum with its limited con-
 
 78 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tinuity (Space) composed of many separate links 
 (Time), the whole measuring an amount. Or 
 more technically stated., the Quantum quantifies 
 Quantity, and completes what we have called the 
 quantitative Process, which is properly Motion 
 quantified, meted out by its unit of measure. The 
 Quantum in its complete sweep should be con- 
 ceived as an oscillation or cycle, a starting forth 
 and a coming back to start forth again in the 
 measurement. 
 
 We must, however, recollect that in this abstract 
 primal stage the material Quantum as unit of 
 Measure has not yet been reached. We are still 
 in pure Motion, Matter is to come with its concrete 
 How-much. The surveyor's chain is but an illus- 
 tration taken from the sensible material world. It 
 may be noticed here that the atom which plays 
 such an important part in modern science rests 
 originally upon the conception of the Quantum, 
 since its purpose is to be a unit of measure for the 
 physical universe. Also the ion, the electron, and 
 perchance the etherion, though they put their 
 stress upon other elements, go back to the primor- 
 dial quantitative idea of the How-much in order to 
 measure and then put together their temple of 
 Nature. Even the Ego may be construed as a 
 Quantum, but of a peculiar kind which turns back 
 and quantifies itself and all other Quanta from this 
 earliest most abstract one to the last most con- 
 crete one, namely itself.
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— QUANTITY. 79 
 
 A very famous statement of the inherent contra- 
 diction of Quantity is found in Kant's first anti- 
 nomy, which affirms on the one hand the quanti- 
 tative discreteness of the world (Matter and also 
 Motion) and then the quantitative continuity of 
 the same. Kant's conclusion is negative', denying 
 to Reason, which to him seems to assert equally 
 two contradictory opposites, the power of knowing 
 truth. The fatality in Kant's proof is that he 
 takes the World in two senses. (See our Modern 
 European Philosophy, p. 559.) Still Kant has 
 done the service of suggesting two stages of the 
 quantitative process, continuity and discreteness, 
 but he leaves out the third, the Quantum, which 
 may be conceived as the unity and reconciliation 
 of his antinomy. 
 
 Every particle we are taught by science to grasp 
 both as millions and millionths, infinitely contin- 
 uous and infinitely discrete — that is practically the 
 Kantian antinomy supposed to be unthinkable 
 by virtue of its contradiction. Still we do think 
 it and employ both its opposite sides constantly. 
 But they should be united in the Quantum, the 
 original ideal unit for measuring the universe. 
 This is the basic principle underlying all mensura- 
 tion, of which we may note certain applications, 
 made as it were by Nature herself, in the following 
 item on Quantitative Dimensions. The one ideal 
 of measure or the universal Quantum is thus seen 
 in some of its real forms.
 
 80 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 2. Quantitative Dimensions. These may be 
 taken as quantifiers of Motion, and they are mani- 
 fold. They are not so definite or inherently nec- 
 essary as are the dimensions of Space or of Time, 
 which are just three and no more. All moving 
 bodies may be deemed quantifiers of Motion, 
 marking off so much Motion through so much 
 Space in so much Time. 
 
 (a) The heavenly bodies, Earth, Moon, Stars, 
 are the most immediate quantifiers of Motion, and 
 thereby measurers of Time. They make their 
 cycles and thus round out a period — day, month, 
 year. Nature in this way gives the first real 
 Quantum, or Motion quantified. 
 
 (b) To these dimensions given by Nature, Man 
 adds his own, dividing them arbitrarily for his 
 special purposes. For instance the natural cycle 
 of a day he separates into hours, minutes, seconds, 
 which are artificial repetitions of what is suggested 
 by Nature. Man learns from Nature to quantify 
 Motion, making a Quantum of his own. which 
 always involves the cycle — so much Motion meas- 
 ured or cycled. 
 
 (c) Nature and Man co-operate to produce what 
 may be regarded as the universal quantifier of Mo- 
 tion — the Pendulum. By it the oscillation be- 
 comes visible and the measurer of Time, Space, 
 anil Motion, the universal Dimension, in so far as 
 this has yet been realized. 
 
 It must be again emphasized that the foregoing
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— QUANTITY. 81 
 
 Quantitative Dimensions or measuring units are 
 manifestations in the real world of the original 
 ideal Quantum or primal measure of the All. Each 
 of these cited instances will again come up in their 
 proper places; especially the Pendulum will ap- 
 pear in its own right when we reach the forms of 
 the realized Cosmos. 
 
 Out of this multiplicity of Quanta, this varied 
 manifestation of measuring units, we have to 
 inarch forward to the unity of these units through 
 their inner necessity, to the Quantum of all 
 Quanta. This is a new conception of total Quan- 
 tity, mediated through its manifold particulars, 
 which must be next designated. 
 
 3. The Quantitative Totality. Motion is not only 
 Quantity limited or measured but is also Quantity 
 as universal, rising above finite measurements; as 
 such it is pure magnitude. Science declares that 
 the Quantity of the universe is the same, not to be 
 increased or diminished. This implies some kind 
 of measurement ; but who measured the sum total 
 of Motion? Certainly not the scientist with all his 
 cunning instruments. It is another speculation or 
 hypothesis, but it asserts the totality of Motion to 
 be a quantified something. It rises from the spe- 
 cific Quanta into the universal Quantum, really 
 the source of the former. But this Quantitative 
 Totality which we have now reached, is not the 
 simple quantitative process (as continuity, dis- 
 creteness and quantum) which we have already set
 
 82 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 forth. It has that process, but something more. 
 It contains many Quanta, which, however, are 
 unified by thought into one totality. The uni- 
 verse is conceived as having the same unalterable 
 Quantity of Motion, though the forms of the same 
 are infinitely diversified, for instance as heat, light, 
 electricity. All these are deemed modes or forms 
 of the one Quantity of Motion. Lying back of 
 the Natural Science of to-day we can often observe 
 this conception of the Quantitative Totality of 
 force, energy and other forms of Motion, and even 
 of Matter. Of this fact we shall briefly note the 
 phases which may be put together in a process. 
 
 (a) The Quantity of Motion as one and the 
 same, unchangeable in amount implies its Conser- 
 vation. This idea is better known under the name 
 of the Conservation of Energy. 
 
 (b) Still there must be difference in this totality 
 of Motion; it is particularized, takes many forms, 
 and this is the Transformation of Motion (or 
 of Energy.) - Still amid all these variations 
 Motion remains so much and no more. Not only 
 do we conceive it to be conserved indestructible, 
 but it becomes a Quantum, a limited Quantity. 
 
 (c) The Quantitative Totality is thus a Quan- 
 tum, and returns to its first Process which 
 evolved a Quantum; yet the latter is no longer 
 particular but universal. From a unit of meas- 
 ure the Quantum becomes the absolute unit 
 of Motion. Quantity as Dure unfolded the special
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— QUANTITY. 83 
 
 Quantum which measured it ; but this Quantum in 
 turn has become the Totality, not simply as pure 
 Quantity again but quantified, that is, Quantity 
 fixed, limited. So much Quantity in the universe 
 is the universal Quantum, containing all separate 
 Quanta, yet itself a Quantum. This may be con- 
 ceived to be the original quantitative One. source 
 of all other ones, which Measure, especially Arith- 
 metic, will hereafter take up as given and organize 
 into a mathematical science. Yet this One is like- 
 wise All or universal ; sometimes it is designated as 
 the One-and-All. But the very expression con- 
 tains the inherent contradiction of this entire 
 sphere between the Quantum as limited and as un- 
 limited or universal. Still we cannot help employ- 
 ing the thought: when we say that there is so 
 much force or so much heat in the Universe, the 
 statement rests upon the underlying conception 
 of the universal Quantum, or the limited One as 
 unlimited. Here again peers forth that dialectic 
 of all Nature, wh'ch has been repeatedly noted. 
 
 Accordingly Motion, having unfolded into and 
 through Quantity, becomes contradictory and self- 
 negative. Motion is halted, indeed halts itself, 
 can no longer move, is no longer Motion. It turns 
 to its opposite, it becomes fixed, yea the fixed. 
 What is the result? Motion, having run its 
 course, has stopped moving, as it has come upon 
 its limit. For it is now so much and no more, it 
 has gone so far but can go no farther. The quan-
 
 84 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 titative totality of Motion has turned out a quan- 
 tum of Motion. Motion the ever-separating is 
 crystalized in its separation, and thus becomes the 
 separated — Matter. Motion stopped, limited, fixed, 
 can only be the opposite of itself. The Quantum 
 of Motion even as universal, bounds it, ends it — 
 in what? Not in pure nothing, but in its other, 
 which is the Separated. We do not say that there 
 is a physical transmutation of Motion into Matter, 
 though many physicists are now claiming the re- 
 verse — the transmutation of Matter into Motion. 
 And some say that Matter itself may be deemed a 
 mode or form of Motion, in accord with a common 
 scientific formula. Le Bon, the Belgian physicist, 
 has supposed that ether is transformed into rigid 
 Matter by very rapid rotary Motion. Experiment 
 has hardly reached this point yet ; but the psy- 
 chical transition from Motion to Matter is neces- 
 sary. If we conceive Motion as the Separating, it 
 must of its own inherent nature separate from 
 itself, and negate itself, becoming its opposite, the 
 Separated, which is the basic predicate of Matter. 
 The limitation of the totality of Motion in the 
 Quantum is not a mere external boundary, as if 
 Motion were inside the Quantum, and Matter out- 
 side. On the contrary the limit of the Quantum 
 reaches through and through the totality of Mo- 
 tion, and stops it at every point, materializing it 
 to the last atom. 
 
 The science of to-day has much to do with
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER 85 
 
 Quantity; in fact it is bent on quantifying all 
 Nature. Such a tendency is certainly legitimate. 
 Still we are to remember that Quantity is not to 
 be clapped upon Nature from the outside, being 
 an inner development of it, an integral part of its 
 process. > The Cosmos is inherently mathematical, 
 Nature quantifies primordially, and its total 
 science should take up and untold the science of 
 Quantity, which we shall hereafter find in Meas- 
 ure. It may be repeated that the present exposi- 
 tion has sought to evolve Quantity and to co-ordi- 
 nate it in the process of Motion, the most elemental 
 of all Nature's processes. It will come up again, 
 but under new forms and in new relations. 
 
 II. 
 
 Matter. 
 
 The most difficult problem of Nature would 
 seem to be just this of Matter. Whence comes it? 
 What is it? How does it get to be? All are rid- 
 dles often declared inexplicable. For instance 
 "we do not know and are probably incapable of 
 discovering what Matter is" (Tait.) Lurking in 
 this and similar statements one cannot help per- 
 ceiving that fatal Kantian category of Thing-in- 
 itself (Ding an sich), though Professor Tait hotly 
 disclaims metaphysics. Again we read that "Mat- 
 ter is that which moves," simply the substrate of 
 all Motion, quite unknown and unknowable. A
 
 86 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 further reduction is found in the proposition that 
 Matter is "non-Matter in Motion." This quite 
 sounds as if Matter has been etherialized into 
 Motion, though probably that is not the intended 
 meaning. On the other hand Matter has been 
 completely electrified in the pronouncement that 
 it is "only electricity and nothing but electricity." 
 So we have the electronic theory of Matter, seem- 
 ingly the favorite of Science just now. This view 
 seems to have taken its start from Prof. J. J. 
 Thomson's artide (1881) which sought to show 
 that the basic property of Matter, its inertia, has 
 its origin in electricity. It would follow as a result 
 that gravity is also electrical. The difficulty is 
 that electricity is but one form or manifestation of 
 energy, while Matter includes or contains all such 
 forms. Hence there is felt the necessity of rising 
 to a more universal principle than the electron, 
 perchance to the etherion. Such a discussion, 
 however, belongs to Physics rather than to Me- 
 chanics, not to the Cosmos but to the Diacosmos, 
 where this subject must again come up, under elec- 
 tricity, or perchance under a new branch of science, 
 which for the nonce may be named ethericity. 
 As Matter seems to be the sensible fixed entity 
 which moves, why not put it first, before Motion? 
 The activity psychologically and logically is ante- 
 cedent to the result, the doing is before the done, 
 the moving before the moved, and Motion before 
 Matter. So we may reconcile this fact to our or-
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. 87 
 
 dinary experience. Or in the phraseology here 
 employed, the separating Motion of the physical 
 universe precedes, in the elemental process of the 
 Cosmos, the Separated (Matter), which cannot 
 come into being without the previous act of sepa- 
 ration. The same conception underlies the work 
 of so many scientists who are seeking to resolve 
 all material manifestations into modes of energy, 
 or ultimately of Motion. For all energy or force 
 goes back to separation, which may be conceived 
 as the cosmical Will. 
 
 Of our Elemental Cosmos, accordingly, we put 
 Matter into the second place, after Motion, of 
 which it is the opposite. Yet both belong to the 
 realm of Nature, of which they are said by many 
 scientists to be the two primordial, but inconvertible 
 elements; beyond them science, it is further de- 
 clared, has not been able to penetrate. Already 
 we have named Matter in our way the Separated 
 of the physical Universe, while Motion is the Sep- 
 arating, or the ever-dividing principle which has 
 no stoppage within itself. Such designations of 
 them are intended to suggest their origin from the 
 universal Self, whereof all Nature is but one form, 
 or manifestation, or more strictly the manifesta- 
 tion. 
 
 Nothing would seem to be more difficult than to 
 define Matter; nothing is easier than to point it 
 out. It is everywhere around us, inviting, yea as- 
 sailing all our senses; obnoxious to our eyesight, it
 
 88 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 is elusive to our mind. Those who have most to 
 do with investigating its secrets are usually the 
 first to proclaim that they do not know what it is. 
 Matter as a category has been known since the 
 beginning of thought, especially since the old Greeks ; 
 still it is deemed quite indefinable, if not unknow- 
 able. This fact again brings up that peculiar sub- 
 tlety , or even duplicity of Nature : what of hers seems 
 most open is most recondite ; her most obtrusive re- 
 ality, which is doubtless Matter, turns out as having 
 something in it impalpably ideal and speculative. 
 One result is that several of the greatest philoso- 
 phers have denied the reality of the material 
 world. The existence of Matter has been ques- 
 tioned, as has the existence of Motion, both being 
 so dualistic and contradictory. But Nature just 
 through her deepest separation drives the mind 
 back to the One-and-All whence she sprang, bear- 
 ing as her first-born those characteristic twins, 
 Motion and Matter. 
 
 We have, therefore, to grasp Matter in its primal 
 conception as a stage of the elemental Cosmos. 
 This does not mean that Matter is merely subject- 
 ive, merely in my mind. Rather is it the Cosmos 
 which is now thinking, if we may dare the analogy 
 — thinking purely its original speculative forms of 
 which Matter is one, not now its finite phe- 
 nomenal forms, which we shall see emerge later. 
 To be sure Nature is not a Self, rather is it 
 the Unself of the universal Ego, whose opposite it
 
 TEE ELEMENTAL COSMOS— MATTER. 89 
 
 is, even if a necessary part of the total process 
 thereof. Nature cannot perform the self-conscious 
 act, though she puts her impress everywhere upon 
 the shapes which she evolves in her long march 
 from her origin to her goal. Again we may repeat, 
 in our technical speech, that Nature unfolds be- 
 tween the Parapsychosis and the Psychosis, be- 
 tween the universal Ego and the human Ego, and 
 builds herself psychically, in accord with her cre- 
 ative source. 
 
 Undoubtedly the thinker has to re-think the 
 Cosmos thinking, to reconstruct Nature construct- 
 ing, to make anew for himself psychically, 
 what has been made pampsychically. If I can, 
 I am in the present case to penetrate to the 
 generative cosmical Soul of Matter, and formulate 
 its process in this its speculative sphere, which will 
 be seen running through and shaping all the order, 
 which follows. In this elemental Cosmos we catch 
 the first cosmical principles; we are to see the 
 Cosmos thinking itself in its own primal categories, 
 which we are to think after it and to formulate in 
 our own linguistic way. Properly we are re-think- 
 ing Nature's thought and expressing it in impene- 
 trability, gravity, inertia; these are really her 
 utterances of herself, not simply mine; I am only 
 trying to re-stale in my dialect what she has told 
 me in her dialect. 
 
 The opposition bet ween Motion and Matter is 
 the thread on which are strung all the forms of
 
 90 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Nature's evolution. Motion, the separating, tries 
 to get fully inside of Matter, the separated, and to 
 make it self-separating and self-returning, which 
 would be the Ego. In the revolution of the Earth 
 around the Sun we reach the supreme cosmical 
 fact : Motion has gotten control of a material body 
 from the outside, and is continually bringing it 
 back to its starting-point while driving it forward. 
 Thus Motion shows its deepest character to be 
 cyclical and whirls matter along in its circuit 
 never-ending. This control Matter in its way 
 resists, though it too strives to get back to its 
 source, as we see in gravity. For Matter is heavy 
 and pushes for something beyond itself, appetent 
 for aught which it is not. It tries to move of itself, 
 though resisting Motion from the outside. Matter, 
 therefore, manifests the original separation from the 
 All-Ego, and even strives to return to the creative, 
 primordial fountain of its being. Matter as heavy 
 reveals its supreme estrangement, and is cease- 
 lessly craving, is hungry for restoration. We 
 often say of this piece of Matter before us that it 
 seeks the center of the Earth ; but if it really got 
 there as material, it would still plunge with the 
 Earth toward the new center in the Sun, which is 
 itself seemingly on the way toward the center of 
 the total Cosmos. And even the Cosmos is striv- 
 ing somehow to return like this lump of mud. Re- 
 turn to what? We may note here that physical 
 Science does not attempt to answer this question,
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. 91 
 
 deeming the same outside of its sphere. And yet 
 this is ultimately the main point at issue. 
 
 It can be stated that Matter will stay through 
 the whole domain of Nature with its appetency 
 unappeased; it can never get back to its source 
 except through Motion Egoized — the pure act of 
 separation overcoming itself in an inner self-return. 
 But that is a distant outlook, beyond Matter and 
 beyond Nature. 
 
 And now we shall try to find the order in this 
 abstract speculative Matter — elemental we call it, 
 and it belongs to the Intellect (Nous) of the Cos- 
 mos, rather than to the sensuous manifestation 
 thereof. The main point might be put in the 
 question: What is the thought of Matter? Not 
 merely what do I think it to be, but also what 
 does it think itself to be. Of course Matter does 
 not think self-consciously, and speak as I do, still 
 it thinks and speaks in its own way, which I am 
 to interpret if I can. Accordingly Matter reveals 
 itself in a movement which can be expressed as 
 follows. 
 
 (I). Its immanent character. 
 (II). Its qualitative character. 
 
 (III). Its quantitative character. 
 
 We have already designated Matter as the Sepa- 
 rated in Nature, not indeed as moving and active, 
 but as the fixed and passive. We can grasp the 
 thought genetically in this way : Matter separated 
 from the All is separated from itself, for it be-
 
 92 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 longs to the All. The universe must have separa- 
 tion as material within it or as a part of it, else it 
 would not be the universe. Matter is, therefore, 
 always extended beyond itself, is separated from 
 itself, having no self-return. Still it never fails to 
 reveal its source and craves to get back; it strains 
 to become one with its origin, and even with itself 
 as Matter. These traits we are now to precipitate 
 into the categories of Natural Science. 
 
 These categories of Matter, or at least some of 
 them, have been questioned in recent science. It 
 is claimed that Matter not only changes its form, 
 but disintegrates and actually grows old and dies. 
 We read of the dematerialization of Matter. Still 
 the old conceptions hold their place in the Cosmos, 
 though they arc being shaken up in the Diacos- 
 mos. That is, while allowed in one sphere of Sci- 
 ence, their place is challenged in another different 
 sphere. But of this more is to come. 
 
 I. The Immanent Character of Matter. 
 Under this head we seek to give the primary funda- 
 mental characteristics of cosmical Matter. There 
 arc other characteristics, but they are not so com- 
 pelling and innate, though they belong. I would 
 set down that Matter is heavy as the essential prop- 
 erty of it, its very soul manifesting its inborn charac- 
 ter. Still this one characteristic stands not by itself, 
 but suggest a process, which makes it explicit. This 
 first process of Matter we can indicate in terms which 
 have been already employed by physical science.
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. 93 
 
 1. Gravity. Matter has Gravity, which is its 
 ultimate determining principle. Hence we put 
 this down first, as the all-inclusive, though as yet 
 undeveloped characteristic of this Matter, not 
 simply a property but the property of it, that 
 which makes it what it is. In it lies the potenti- 
 ality of material forces, their reservoir which is 
 soon to be tapped. I throw a ball up into the 
 air, it falls of itself by Gravity, it is so much 
 Gravity primordially as matter, whatever other 
 qualities it may have. If we ask why it descends 
 to the Earth, the answer is, through Gravity. 
 But whence and what is Gravity? Surely it can- 
 not be an isolated thing in the Universe. 
 
 It is to be observed in the first place that Mat- 
 ter craves to unite with the Earth, with the Sun, with 
 all Matter, that is with itself, from which it is 
 separated. This stress for unity finds its expres- 
 sion in Gravity. Nature is the heavy Universe, 
 subject to Gravity, which means that every mate- 
 rial body, yea every material particle seeks to get 
 to the center and thereby to become self-centered. 
 In this sense Gravity is said to cause Motion, 
 though in the deeper primitive sense Motion 
 causes it. Moreover the presupposition of Grav- 
 ity is the antecedent separation of Matter, its 
 estrangement from the self-centered Universe with 
 which it eternally craves to be again united. 
 
 It is next to be observed that every cohesive 
 body and every separated particle of Matter has
 
 94 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 its own center known as center of Gravity, being 
 endowed itself with the self-centering impulse. 
 Moreover this center is a point, is merely posited 
 as ideal or non-material, in strong contrast to its 
 real extended Matter, whose dualism is thus man- 
 ifested — its real outwardness spatially and its 
 ideal inwardness in a center. Significant is the 
 fact that if we divide Matter, each particle posits 
 its own ideal center as if working after the pat- 
 tern of the whole material Universe. Center of 
 Gravity is this and belongs to every material 
 body however minute, as well as to the great 
 totality of Matter. Hence every piece of Matter 
 has two extreme centers of Gravity, its own and 
 that of the Cosmos, both of them unextended 
 points of extension. Then it may have other 
 intermediate centers. 
 
 Finally it may be remarked that if Matter man- 
 ifests its desire for unity in Gravity, this desire 
 remains without fulfillment. If it were fulfilled, 
 that would be the end of Matter, for it would lose 
 its soul which is Gravity. Separation of Matter 
 has gone before Gravity and conditions it; there 
 could be no craving for unity without the previous 
 division. Unless Matter were repellent, and in- 
 deed repellent of itself, there could be no ground 
 of its assertion of unity through Gravity. So we 
 reach a new characteristic immanent in Matter — 
 Repulsion. We can conceive the physical uni- 
 verse with its one center of Gravity divided in
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. 95 
 
 innumerable centers of Gravity, down to the atom, 
 each of which asserts itself, and so repels all 
 the rest. 
 
 2. Repulsion. Matter has Repulsion which has 
 been already indicated as the presupposition of 
 Gravity. A body would not be heavy unless it 
 were separated or repelled from the Earth. But 
 the Earth also is Matter which is thus the self- 
 repelled ere it can seek its unity by Gravity. Re- 
 pulsion is immanent in Matter as extended. 
 
 On the other hand Repulsion follows Gravity 
 as a result. Each particle of Matter has its own 
 separate" center of Gravity, its own individuality 
 we may call it, which it must assert in order to be. 
 From this point of view Matter is seen to be infi- 
 nitely self-repellent; the whole Cosmos becomes 
 the arena of material Repulsion. The ball indeed 
 descends to the Earth, but is met at the limit and 
 is repelled; neither can penetrate the other, or 
 reach the other's center. So material objects, 
 after seeking their unity through Gravity, and 
 perchance flying toward each other in a common 
 desire, reject one another with a kind of aversion. 
 It was probably this aspect of things which induced 
 the old Greek philosopher Empedocles to say that 
 the Cosmos was the scene of an eternal war be- 
 tween Love and Hate. In the Solar System the 
 planet seeks the center of the central body, being 
 turned to it when farthest from it, and repelled 
 when nearest to it. In the Heavens where Matter
 
 96 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 moves free, without being stopped, it shows most 
 plainly its dual character as center-seeking or self- 
 seeking, and center-fleeing or self-repellent. 
 
 In the Cosmos as such, Repulsion works directly 
 upon the cohesive body as entire, even if small, 
 and moves it from the outside. But in the Dia- 
 cosmos, or second grand sphere of Nature, Repul- 
 sion gets inside the body and tears its molecules 
 asunder, especially through Heat, transforming the 
 body and changing its character. And in Elec- 
 tricity will be found a more striking manifes- 
 tation of the same fact. 
 
 All Nature has been called dialectical and 
 naively self-contradictory; it cannot help denying 
 itself, or repelling itself, we may say in this con- 
 nection. Matter as separative thrusts itself from 
 itself and therein is Repulsion. It is negative to 
 itself as unity, and thus manifests a phase of self- 
 negation, which indeed runs through all Nature as 
 separated from the universal Self. The Ego too 
 we may consider self-repellent, but it returns to 
 itself out of Repulsion. If it had to stay there, it 
 would be Matter. 
 
 Material bodies, excluding and repelling one 
 another, manifest again a common principle, have 
 indeed in their mutual exclusion found a new unity. 
 In their very Repulsion they are held together by 
 a universal law, and form a system of repellent 
 bodies. The whole Cosmos becomes such a sys- 
 tem. Repulsion as universal would destroy itself
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. 97 
 
 by completely repelling itself and so getting rid of 
 itself. Matter, therefore, through Repulsion un- 
 folds into Attraction, a new sort of Gravity with 
 a new desire for unity. 
 
 3. Attraction, (Gravitation). The law of the At- 
 traction of Matter is usually deemed the greatest 
 triumph of the Science of Nature. It is em- 
 phatically universal, holding true of the tiny 
 particle before us as well of the remotest 
 star. Already in Gravity Matter manifested At- 
 traction, but this was not known to be universal, 
 nor was it reduced to law except in portions. So 
 anew word is added: Gravitation. The Attrac- 
 tion of Matter through Gravity pertains to the 
 first implicit stage before-mentioned; the Attrac- 
 tion of Matter through Gravitation is this third 
 explicit, legalized, universalized stage. The first 
 has long been known and variously employed ; the 
 third is quite a recent acquisition of knowledge, 
 and is coupled with the name of Sir Isaac Newton. 
 This law of Gravitation may be put together as 
 follows : 
 
 All material bodies are mutually attracted, and so 
 tend to move toward one another. They vary directly 
 according to their masses, but inversely according to 
 the square of their distances from one another. 
 
 The law which reigns over and organizes the 
 system of cosmical Matter is now formulated. 
 Through it the Cosmos is getting ordered more 
 and more with the years. The schoolboy learns it
 
 98 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 and applies it too; it has become a part of the con- 
 sciousness of civilization. Thus stolid Matter, the 
 repellent and self-repellent, has an obedience, and 
 is drawn to the unity of Attraction even through 
 Repulsion. It furnishes the most impressive and 
 enduring object-lesson in the universality of law. 
 
 It may be here stated that there were two his- 
 toric antecedents which unfolded into Newton's 
 law of Gravitation. Galileo had already formu- 
 lated the law of falling bodies on the Earth's sur- 
 face, or the law of terrestrial Gravitation. Soon 
 the question came up: does this law apply to 
 celestial bodies also? The other historic antecedent 
 of the law of Gravitation was the third law of 
 Kepler (the square of the period of each planet 
 is proportional to the cube of its mean distance 
 from the Sun) which suggested to Newton and to 
 other contemporary scientists, that the attraction 
 between the earth and other planets might vary 
 inversely as the square of their distances. But 
 Newton first proved mathematically the truth of 
 this supposition. 
 
 But before the law of Gravitation could be 
 proved Newton had to establish another very im- 
 portant principle. This was that the Earth's at- 
 traction is not on its surface or distributed through 
 its parts equally, but is concentrated in the center. 
 So there is a center of Gravitation as well as a 
 center of Gravity; the cosmical bodies, however 
 large, have their attraction unified in a central
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. 99 
 
 point. It is this ideal point of unity which draws 
 all Matter and is drawn by it, in the physical uni- 
 verse. And this physical universe seemingly has 
 its ideal center, attracting possibly our whole solar 
 system centered in the Sun, which is declared to 
 be sweeping with its planetary retinue toward the 
 star Vega in the constellation of the Lyre. 
 
 Attraction and Repulsion are often called forces 
 which determine Matter; but Matter really deter- 
 mines them. Nor are they to be regarded as inde- 
 pendent forces dropping down from the outside, 
 but they must be joined in a process together. 
 Kant is said to have construed Matter out of At- 
 traction and Repulsion : the better way is to con- 
 strue Attraction and Repulsion out of Matter, 
 which is their antecedent and is derived from a 
 higher source. With Gravitation is also connected 
 the troublesome problem of actio in distans, or, as 
 it is usually stated, of a material body acting 
 where it is not. Such action evidently runs 
 counter to the mechanical view of the Cosmos. 
 
 Looking back at the immanent process of Mat- 
 ter with its three categories, we can observe that 
 the Cosmos is through Gravity a scheme of At- 
 traction, all parts for each; yd it is also a scheme 
 of Repulsion, or the mutual aversion of these 
 parts, each against all: then finally it is a system of 
 Gravitation, in which Repulsion is overcome into 
 Attraction. In their way these three categories 
 reflect the three divisions of the Cosmos as con-
 
 100 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 ceived in this book — that of elemental unity, that 
 of particularized separation, and that of the sys- 
 temic return to unity (seen in the Solar System). 
 The dialectical thought of the present process is 
 manifested especially in Repulsion, which, to be 
 true to itself, must repel itself and thus undo itself, 
 threby returning to unity in Attraction. 
 
 We should here add that weight or ponderability 
 has not been considered by many thinkers and scien- 
 tists a necessary and essential property of all Matter. 
 Newton writes in the second edition of his Optics: 
 'To prove that I have not considered weight as a 
 universal property of bodies, I have" etc. — this 
 would seem to mean that he questions the imma- 
 nency of Gravity in material bodies. It was the 
 actio in distans which troubled him, and which also 
 drove Descartes to conjecture his subtle mediating 
 fluid throughout the Cosmos. StiU, Gravitation 
 remains in all its force with its law, however its 
 action may be accounted for. 
 
 Another claim of a recent scientist should be 
 noticed: the separation between the ponderable 
 and the imponderable has been made to disappear 
 through the dematerialization of Matter, which 
 can be visibly transformed into energy, or, as we 
 conceive the fact, can be brought to exchange its 
 cosmical for a diacosmical force — exchange Gravity 
 for Electricity, to give an instance. The negative 
 trend of to-day's physical science is thus character- 
 ized by one of its eminent devotees: "A certain
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS— MATTER. 101 
 
 anarchy reigns in the domain of the natural sci- 
 ences, no law appears rigidly necessary," not even 
 the law of Gravitation. "The very principles of 
 Mechanics are contested and recent facts shake our 
 faith in the laws hitherto considered fundamental" 
 (L. Poincare). So along with the political, the 
 scientific anarchist has arisen, and breaks with the 
 established laws of Nature. And we hear the ex- 
 ultation: "Nothing is more favorable to progress 
 than this anarchy" (Le Bon). These protests are 
 at least to be recorded, as they indicate, even if 
 negatively, the birth of a new sphere of Natural 
 Science, of which a full account is to be taken 
 later. The breach with Mechanics, or with the 
 cosmical laws of Matter, is indeed significant, 
 though such an assault cannot well succeed. Fail- 
 ure is pretty certain to bring the assailants out of 
 their negative attitude into their positive field, 
 which awaits them. In other words the true place 
 for their world is not the Cosmos but the Diacos- 
 mos, whereof the exposition conies later. At pres- 
 ent, then, we shall pass to considering another set 
 of the transmitted categories of Matter. 
 
 II. The Qualitative Character of Matter. 
 We seek to make a distinction between the imma- 
 nent character of Matter and its qualitative char- 
 acter. Both are manifested in the so-called prop- 
 erties of Matter, which are usually recounted in 
 the text-books one after the other with little or no 
 connection or order. Attraction, Repulsion, and
 
 102 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Gravity are called properties of Matter, but they 
 are immanent, and constitute Matter itself. On 
 the other hand. Matter has certain derivative 
 properties, which belong more to its manifestation, 
 as density and elasticity, or that which we infer 
 from its essence through reflection, as divisibility. 
 Such properties must be deemed secondary and 
 relative in comparison with the primary ones 
 already given. Even the indestructibility of Mat- 
 ter can hardly be an immanent property of it im- 
 mediately present to our senses like gravity ; rather 
 is it an inference of our reflection. 
 
 There are many properties of matter; these con- 
 stitute indeed the sphere of its multiplicity. There 
 is an indefinite play of them out of Matter, which 
 the Mind names — ductility, malleability, liquidity ,- 
 density, etc. All these we shall not attempt to 
 list and order at the start, but take them as they 
 arise in the course of the exposition. But there 
 are three central ones which belong together in a 
 process, and which may be deemed the core of the 
 others. 
 
 1. Impenetrability. That Matter as such can 
 not be penetrated has long been an axiom of Me- 
 chanics. It offers resistance, it asserts itself, it 
 affirms its being against intruders and assailants. 
 Or one piece of Matter excludes any other; the two 
 cannot occupy the same space at the same time. 
 
 Still the nail penetrates the piece of wood by a dis- 
 placement of particles; the sunbeam penetrates the
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. 103 
 
 transparent window-pane, the X-ray penetrates 
 the untransparent human body. So there is a 
 kind of penetrability of Matter. But in the last 
 resort the atom alone is said to be impenetrable, 
 and again there is the refuge in an idea which is 
 not ideal but material. On the other hand Matter 
 as a stage of the universal self cannot be pene- 
 trated or assailed with success, being verily an 
 integral part of the process of the All. 
 
 Logically penetrability contradicts the nature of 
 Matter as external. Matter cannot penetrate 
 Matter and be inside of it, for it is just the outside 
 of itself as space-occupying or extended. If the 
 outside becomes inside, it contradicts itself, since 
 Matter thus is non-material. Properly then if 
 Matter penetrates Matter, it still remains outside 
 of itself in such penetration, it can only push itself 
 aside or outside. Its separation cannot be reached ; 
 that is, Matter must remain the Separated, if it 
 remains itself. So Matter is impenetrable by Mat- 
 ter in the sense of undoing its separation, but in 
 the sense of separating it simply Matter is su- 
 premely penetrable, or divisible, by Matter. This 
 is also asserted as a quality of Matter in the fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 2. Divisibility. This may be deemed a property 
 opposite to the foregoing impenetrability, since to 
 penetrate Matter means to divide it. Thus Mat- 
 ter, true to its dualistic character, is endowed with 
 two contradictory qualities. The grain of musk,
 
 104 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 scenting a room for years without apparent dim- 
 inution, shows an enormous divisibility of a small 
 bit of Matter, as a thing of sensuous experience. 
 That musk is not only divisible, but seems self- 
 divisible and indeed self-repellent, to one of the 
 senses. 
 
 And yet divisibility is supposed to run upon its 
 limit in the atom, which is usually, though not 
 always, declared to be indivisible. An idea, or 
 something beyond the senses, yet material, is 
 once more the landing-place of Matter, now as di- 
 visible, which, however, has negated itself, has 
 divided itself to indivisibility, and persists in being 
 dual and self-opposed. 
 
 3. Indestructibility. If Matter were absolutely 
 divisible, unable to resist division at the last stand, 
 it might well be deemed destructible. The atom 
 in some shape offers the final resistance to the 
 negative might of separation. So we have another 
 quality of Matter, indestructibility, which as a 
 word, suggests the negation of destruction. Mat- 
 ter, then, has the power of overcoming its own de- 
 stroying energy. Something of the same sort was 
 hinted in impenetrability. 
 
 Matter changes form in numberless ways, but 
 underneath all these changes it persists, both in 
 quantity and quality. If it be indestructible, it 
 cannot be increased or diminished in the Universe. 
 The Solar System may be losing Matter, as it is 
 said to be losing Motion and Energy. But the loss
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS— MATTER. 105 
 
 in one place of the Cosmos is the gain in another. 
 The amount of Matter is conceived to remain the 
 same ; sometimes it is said to have been created by 
 fiat all at once and once for all. But really it is a 
 stage of the universal Ego itself, not a demiurgic 
 creation thereof from the outside. Matter with 
 Motion is a necessary part of the process of the 
 All-Self, which could not be without it. Hence it 
 is the same whether regarded quantitatively or 
 qualitatively. As a whole it must be of the same 
 amount and of the same character. It is the Sep- 
 arated in Nature which is still the second act or 
 stage in the process of the Parapsychosis. Hence 
 we may say that Matter as well as Motion is inde- 
 structible', is as persistent and as necessary to the 
 Universe as is Nature herself. For the All cannot 
 be destroyed, else it were not the All. 
 
 Matter, therefore, is not destructible, it never 
 has been and never will be destroyed. No particle 
 of it has perished since the beginning, any more 
 than God has perished. The amount is the same, 
 though probably variable in spots; it may become 
 more or less in different parts of the Cosmos. 
 Hence the conception of its quantity rises to the 
 surface, as distinct from its quality. Next this 
 phase of its character is to be considered — the 
 quantitative. 
 
 We should add that these qualitative categories 
 of Matter have not escaped criticism in recent 
 science, which is making many an assault upon the
 
 106 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS 
 
 older scientific structure. Their inner dualism 
 has been set forth, often with a negative conclu- 
 sion which does not necessarily follow. Especially 
 the indestructibility of Matter has been questioned 
 with no little intensity. Again we may repeat 
 that this opposition springs from the Diacosmos 
 and its scientific training, and must be considered 
 in that sphere. 
 
 III. The Quantitative Character of Mat- 
 ter. The conception of Quantity as pure or ab- 
 stract has been already unfolded from Motion. In 
 fact all the elements of Motion — Space, Time, as 
 well as Quantity proper — show a quantitative 
 character. They are not only measurable in them- 
 selves, but the primal condition of all measure- 
 ment. Bodies are, first and foremost, in Space 
 and Time, which must be conceived as existent 
 before being filled with bodies. 
 
 Matter has, accordingly, a quantitative char- 
 acter; it is the Separated, and so it brings up the 
 question, How much is it separated (Quantitas, 
 How-muchness) . 
 
 Evidently in the present stage of Matter — the 
 quantitative — we are turned back upon Motion 
 with its three elemental forms, Space, Time, Quan- 
 tity. These are now realized {res, a thing), or we 
 may say, materialized, being in pure Motion im- 
 material. On the other hand Matter as the Sepa- 
 rated shares in these same forms and thus shares 
 in Motion, as every law of moving Matter indi-
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. 107 
 
 cates. Accordingly in the quantitative character 
 of Matter we shall find the three stages, Matter as 
 spatial, as temporal, and as the Quantum. Con- 
 cerning these stages a word or two may be 
 added. 
 
 1. Matter quantifiable (spatial). It has been 
 already stated that Space is quantifiable, so also 
 must Matter be, according to its genesis. Matter 
 occupies Space, and gets a spatial character; it 
 has extension with the potentiality of division. 
 Matter, however, as the Separated has the fixed 
 drawn limit in Space, which limit Space itself has 
 not, being always outside of itself so that its limit 
 is no limit. Thus Space offers no limit to Motion, 
 while Matter does. 
 
 The quantitative character of Matter in its spa- 
 tial aspect is, then, its quantifiability, its capacity 
 of being quantified and measured. Motion is 
 quantifiable through pure Space; Matter, through 
 occupying Space, becomes quantifiable, being not 
 yet active or quantifying, but at rest, unmoved, 
 with the possibility of Motion which now begins. 
 
 2. Matter quantifying (temporal). In the pro- 
 cess of Motion Time showed itself as the primal 
 quantifying principle, dividing all continuity into 
 moments of succession. Likewise Mattel', sharing 
 in Motion, is made temporal and quantifies. That 
 is, moving Matter is always quantifying in Time, 
 is getting fully measurable, for Time is an element 
 in its measurement.
 
 108 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Moreover Matter, being in Time, is aiways 
 changing, always arising and vanishing. The tem- 
 porality of Matter is indicated by its perpetual 
 metamorphosis, which, as is usually said, takes 
 place in Time. Matter as spatial is the fixed and 
 bounded, but this bound becomes fluid in Time, so 
 that Motion at once starts to determine Matter. 
 
 So we are to see that Matter, in the ceaseless 
 change of Time, is quantifying itself, is not merely 
 quantifiable as in Space. The process of quanti- 
 fication is at work, is really in the middle stage, 
 but not yet complete. 
 
 3. Matter quantified {the material Quantum). It 
 is to be observed that we have already had the 
 universal or elemental Quantum as a phase of pure 
 Quantity, which unfolds also its unit of Measure in 
 the most general sense of the term. But now we 
 are to see the unit of Measure made specific, real, 
 embodied. The child, spanning with its little 
 hand, is using an embodied unit of Measure or 
 Quantum, which, however, implies an instinctive 
 idea of pure Quantity. 
 
 Matter as limited is always a Quantum. A 
 piece of coal can be the unit of measure for a coal- 
 mine, and the coal-mine itself is a unit of measure. 
 All Matter is composed of Quanta. Man, through 
 convenience or instinct, selects one of these as his 
 material unit of Measure. But this he could not 
 do unless the quantitative idea were in him, harmo- 
 nious with that of Nature.
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. 109 
 
 Matter, accordingly, as the Separated, gets this 
 its final quantitative character (the material 
 Quantum) when it is quantified after being quan- 
 tifiable in Space and quantifying in Time. Thus 
 Matter becomes measurable, which it is not simply 
 as spatial or as temporal, not as Space-occupying 
 here and there, or as Time-occupying in this mo- 
 ment and that. Matter when quantified means 
 that its standard of measure has unfolded. This 
 material Body occupies not only Space but so 
 much Space (so many cubic inches, say), and occu- 
 pies not only Time, but so much Time in changing 
 from here to there (say so many minutes). The 
 Quantum has appeared for measuring the Quan- 
 tity, which is thus itself quantified, Great is the 
 Quantum, it is the standard or unit of measure 
 which specifies and realizes abstract Quantity. 
 
 Space may be deemed purely continuous Quan- 
 tity, Time purely discrete Quantity; neither can 
 be measured til] the Quantum (the modulus, or 
 determinate How-much) becomes the quantifier of 
 these unquantified Quantities (quite as we must 
 have the good deed to measure abstract goodness) . 
 And so the point has been reached that Matter has 
 become quantified through its Quantum, meas- 
 urable though itself as measurer. 
 
 We have now attained the conclusion o'f Mat- 
 ter as here set forth in its three leading phases — 
 immanent, qualitative and quantitative. If we 
 regard the immanent phase in the form of gravity
 
 110 COSMOS AND D1ACOSMOS. 
 
 or repulsion or attraction, we find that they all 
 must become quantitative, that they call for meas- 
 urement. The Quantum thus goes back to them 
 and quantifies them — which rounds out the pres- 
 ent process of Matter. Newton measuring Grav- 
 itation with his Quantum suggests this whole pro- 
 cess of Matter. 
 
 To be sure these categories of Matter seem not 
 very material, yea perhaps not very intelligible in 
 their subtle implications. We have indeed to 
 think Matter, or rather to make it think itself in 
 its own categories. These the scientist on the 
 whole accepts as they are; often he is averse to 
 dealing with them purely ; he does not care to exam- 
 ine his mental tools, but his experimental appa- 
 ratus cannot be neglected. Still the science of 
 Nature must get back to all its pre-suppositions, if 
 possible; especially of these categories it must seek 
 the order, and must probe down to their ultimate 
 psychical import. We can think in phenomena 
 like Liebig, but we cannot stop there; we have at 
 last to look after our thought thinking in phe- 
 nomena. If we can find its basic process, we are 
 getting hold of the last control of phenomenal 
 Nature. 
 
 The quantitative character of Matter has com- 
 pleted its expression in the material Quantum, 
 which is employed as the measurer of Matter. Evi- 
 dently both the measured and the measurer are 
 material. The next step is that both drop their
 
 THE ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MATTER. Ill 
 
 Matter and become immaterial; the measurer 
 measures the measured purely in its own forms; or 
 the Quantum in itself quantifies Quantity in itself, 
 both being expressed in their own symbols which 
 are now called mathematical. Thus we see Quan- 
 tity getting a new body of its own, adequate and 
 transparent in its processes. The Quantum now 
 separates from its previous material embodiment, 
 and turning back upon itself becomes self-measur- 
 ing, and thus universal, for it can now measure 
 itself and everything else. 
 
 This sphere we call Measure. Quantity, hitherto 
 implicit in Matter and the incorporate soul thereof, 
 gets explicit in its own right and unfolds into its 
 own forms with its own process. To the eye of 
 thought Matter dematerializes itself through its 
 own necessity and brings forth immaterial Meas- 
 ure. We might also say that the inner principle 
 of Matter throws off its outer encumbrance and 
 evolves its own world of shapes, which, however, 
 will show themselves as still controlling the mate- 
 rial world. Matter we have seen to be inherently 
 self-undoing, for instance through gravity; it craves 
 somehow to get rid of itself, to separate from itself, 
 being just the separated by its primal birthright. 
 But when Matter has succeeded in separating from 
 itself, it is no longer Matter, it has gotten out of 
 itself and has become non-material, a disembodied 
 ghost of itself. These dematerialized shapes of 
 Matter, the souls thereof we may conceive them,
 
 112 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 with all their subtle processes are organized in the 
 science of Mathematics, which from this point of 
 view can be seen having absolute rule over Matter, 
 as soul over body. This function may be summed 
 up as universal Measure, which term we shall 
 employ as best for our purpose. 
 
 III. 
 
 Measure. 
 
 Some difficulty has been felt in getting a good 
 title for this third stage of the elemental Cosmos, 
 which stage, as here conceived, is correlative with 
 Motion and Matter. We have before us Magni- 
 tude, but it is Magnitude not as real or material, 
 which would properly belong to Matter. It is 
 Magnitude measured, or rather made to measure 
 itself, in its own forms or symbols, which are 
 mathematical, as we see when numbers are applied 
 to themselves, for instance in multiplication. Five 
 times four is one pure Magnitude measuring off 
 another. The algebraic formula a + b is the unity 
 of any two Magnitudes measured and expressed, 
 yet is itself a Magnitude.. Now this Magnitude, 
 measuring itself or at least measured by itself in 
 its own pure forms, we shall call Measure. 
 
 The standard or unit of Measure as real we have 
 already noticed under Matter. The hand or foot 
 is such a real unit of Measure which is applied to 
 a real object. But measurement as universal
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MEASURE. 113 
 
 must at last be brought to measure itself. If it 
 measures all things it must not fail to include 
 itself in the universal measurement. What we call 
 Measure in the present case has just this peculi- 
 arity: it becomes self-measuring, it is forever 
 turning back upon itself with its measurements. 
 When I say: one half of four is two, I am meas- 
 uring one measurement by another and stating the 
 resultant measurement (there are four halves in 
 two wholes). As we shall see later, this is speci- 
 ally the field of pure Mathematics, which is Meas- 
 ure, or Magnitude measuring itself in its own 
 terms. 
 
 It is true that the word Quantity is often used for 
 the preceding word Measure. In that case we would 
 have to say that Quantity now quantifies itself, 
 makes itself its own content — which it does in the 
 mathematical disciplines. Quantity as two num- 
 bers being given, they are still quantified by being 
 added, subtracted, multiplied, divided. That is, 
 Quantity is always turning back upon itself and 
 quantifying itself anew, such is just its process. 
 But we have already used the word Quantity in a 
 different and more fundamental relation: as the 
 third constituent fact of Motion along with Space 
 and Time. 
 
 Perhaps it will avoid confusion if we set down 
 in order the three quantitative phases which have 
 already appeared in the present exposition. (1) 
 Motion, we may recall, is the Separating of Nature,
 
 114 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 and involves the conception of pure Quantity. 
 That is, there arises with Motion the thought of 
 the How-much, or of the extent of this separation. 
 Such is the primordial idea of Quantity, which 
 must exist before there can be any measurement. 
 Nature must indeed be measurable, must have in 
 it Quantity ere it is measured. (2) In Matter (as 
 well as Motion) we find Quantity, but with certain 
 new properties. Here we come upon a real or 
 material unit of Measure as Quantum, which is 
 applied to other material objects. An illustration 
 is a yardstick measuring a piece of cloth. (3) But 
 now this yardstick must be taken free of its ma- 
 terial substrate and made universal; such is the 
 pure unit of Measure, or rather Measure itself in 
 the sense here used, which through its arithmet- 
 ical numbers, algebraic symbols, and geometric 
 figures has in it the principle of self-measurement. 
 Again we may use an illustration from Geom- 
 etry. When I enclose a triangle in Space, I limit 
 the same, quantify it, reduce it to a Quantum. 
 But I do not yet measure it. When, however, 
 I find the sum of the three angles to be two right 
 angles, then I have measured it, I have quantified 
 its original simple Quantity. It is no longer a 
 mere Quantum embracing so much Space. Still 
 further, this measured triangle is not merely 
 measured and equated, but becomes itself a meas- 
 urer, or a principle of measurement, measuring 
 even the area of the circle.
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MEASURE. 115 
 
 Accordingly we consider Measure to be the third 
 stage -of the elemental Cosmos, of which it is an 
 inherent necessary constituent. The Cosmos is 
 always measuring. When it is said that light 
 moves through 193,000 miles in a second, over so 
 much Space in so much Time, this is a cosmical act 
 of measurement, which remains the same. There is 
 no change in the rate when the ray has traveled 
 from a distant star; its stop is just so long and no 
 longer, measured to the unit of Time. Man un- 
 doubtedly has to re-measure the Cosmos and form- 
 ulate such measurement in his own terms; still the 
 cosmical Measure has always gone in advance of 
 him and given him the cue. The mathematician 
 comes to Nature with his Measure, which is his 
 science, having the certainty that it is her own 
 also. The unembodied forms of Measure, which are 
 mathematical, become incorporate in the Cosmos, 
 and rule its Motion and Matter. Gravitation is a 
 cosmical Measure (directly as to mass, inversely as 
 to distance) which existed in bodies long before 
 Newton formulated, even before man existed. 
 Indeed this was peculiarly the gift of Newton, the 
 cosmical gift of Measure, which seemed to be 
 stamped upon his soul as upon the soul of the 
 Cosmos. 
 
 Motion and Matter must, accordingly, have their 
 third, which is Measure, in order to form the pro- 
 cess of the elemental Cosmos. This process under- 
 lies many of the simplest expressions of our daily
 
 116 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 life. When I say: the train moves forty miles an 
 hour, the conception rests upon Motion, Matter, 
 Measure; or a piece of moving Matter is meas- 
 ured — measured indeed in the science of Measure. 
 But the train must first run at a certain speed, 
 must measure itself in Motion actually, in the spe- 
 cial case. Now it is this Measure, inherent in all 
 Nature, which we seek to grasp not merely in the 
 special case, but universally, as it is in itself. It 
 thus becomes the pure form of itself, expressed in 
 its own categories, and measuring itself first of all 
 and not something else. 
 
 It is true that when this ideal Measure has un- 
 folded itself in its own pure forms — in numbers, 
 figures, symbols, which represent only its own pro- 
 cesses — it is re-applied to the world outside of it; 
 we can say it goes back and organizes Motion and 
 Matter, making their original implicit Measure (or 
 Quantity) explicit, and giving expression to their 
 native but hitherto unuttered, or at least unor- 
 dered, harmonics. Mathematics, which we may 
 call the science of universal Measure, is easily cos-, 
 mical, finding its most open field in the Cosmos. 
 Certainly the Diacosmos is far less mathematical, 
 though it too must have its measurements. 
 
 We shall find, then, that Measure is at first in- 
 stinctive, as when the savage holds up the fingers 
 of both hands in order to count ten days or ten 
 moons. But that which he measures is already 
 measured— the day or the moon — by the Cosmos
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — MEASURE. 117 
 
 itself, and he is but expressing in his way that pri- 
 mal 'cosmical measurement. Plainly the savage 
 has in him the instinct of Measure, but undevel- 
 oped and tied to material reality. With the ages, 
 however, as he liberates himself, he will likewise 
 liberate his enslaved sense of Measure, making it 
 truly free, determined by itself through its own 
 forms, not through those of external Matter. Then 
 these pure forms of Measure will return to the real 
 forms of Matter, out of which they have evolved, 
 and utter anew its measured essence or its innate 
 quantitative character. Such is the movement: 
 Measure, first manifested in immediate unity with 
 the material world, must separate itself therefrom, 
 and make its own world (the mathematical), 
 whence it will go back to Motion and Matter, 
 expressing their essence anew, and even re-consti- 
 tuting them after its ideal pattern. Measure is 
 not only to re-state but to re-create the Cosmos; 
 at least that is the start it is making here on our 
 terrestrial sphere, which is relatively small enough. 
 It will be seen from the foregoing that the ele- 
 mental Cosmos is a psychical process; its elements — 
 Motion, Matter, Measure — as here conceived, form 
 a Psychosis. Therein it bears the impress of its 
 creative source, and is brought into unity with the 
 universe. We call the All-Self great, it not only 
 has magnitude but is magnitude, yea the first mag- 
 nitude, fountain of all the rest. The Parapsychosis, 
 begetting Nature as one of its stages, imuarts to
 
 118 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 its child its own process, which is its spirit, and 
 which is re-enacted in all of Nature's processes, 
 though deeply separated from their origin. 
 
 And now we are to observe that this Measure, 
 though the third part in a greater movement, has 
 nevertheless a complete movement within itself, 
 still psychical and imaging the All. It has been 
 already said that Measure is mathematical, and 
 consequently it divides into the three basic disci- 
 plines of Mathematics: (I) Geometry, (II) Arith- 
 metic, and (III) Algebra. Of course these do not 
 exhaust the total science of Mathematics. They 
 constitute, however, its germinal process, and as 
 such have a very important place in pedagogy. 
 Their psychical order should be specially consid- 
 ered, since it is often neglected or perverted in 
 the school. The science of Quantity is usually 
 given as the definition of Mathematics; note again 
 that Quantity has to exist before there can be any 
 science of it. And we may repeat that Mathe- 
 matical science must be finally conceived as a part 
 of Nature's science, as a stage of her scientific evo- 
 lution. It is not something isolated, though in its 
 sphere it is self-occupied, self-developing, self- 
 measuring. Measure we have seen to return upon 
 itself and to measure itself; still just that quality 
 of it gives to it its place in the elemental Cosmos. 
 The implicit Quantity of Motion and still more of 
 Matter becomes explicit, no longer involved in 
 something else but evolved in itself, having its own
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— GEOMETRY. 119 
 
 self-evolution where the total evolution of Nature 
 puts it. The three basic sciences of Measure we 
 shall seek to give in their psychical order, to de- 
 velop in themselves,, and at the same time to trace 
 certain lines of their interconnection. 
 
 I. Geometry. This we shall place first in the 
 order of the mathematical sciences, since it deals 
 with the first elemental form of Nature — Space. 
 Geometry cannot be the science of pure Space, an 
 outline of which has been already given; nor is its 
 object to investigate the properties of Space, as is 
 sometimes said. The word itself has in it the cate- 
 gory of Measure (metron) which is not to be left 
 out. Geometry has to do with Space limited, de- 
 termined, measured, dimensioned; not only is ex- 
 tension taken for granted, but also its dimensions 
 — point, line, surface. Some geometricians begin 
 their science with the conception of a solid "as a 
 limited portion of Space" from which the foregoing 
 three dimensions are to be abstracted. Says Le- 
 gendre (perhaps getting a little antiquated) : Ge- 
 ometry "has for its object the measurement of 
 extension." So Measure turns back to Space already 
 given, and measures it as limited or quantified. 
 This again involves Quantity as something already 
 given. Geometry, therefore, as the science of 
 spatial Measure, must have in advance pure Space 
 and pure Quantity, both of which we have seen to 
 be elements of original Motion. The starting-point 
 of Geometry is usually the form of limited or en-
 
 120 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 closed Space called the angle, which is already 
 Space quantified in the meeting of the two straight 
 lines. Now it is this primal spatial Quantity 
 which Geometry measures in the equation that 
 "the two adjacent angles are equal to two right 
 angles." This is properly the reduction of a great 
 diversity of angles to a unit of Measure, the right 
 angle, which is always the same. But this right 
 angle is itself a Quantity (a How-much) , which 
 measures a Quantity (here of Space limited, but 
 not yet measured) . Again we observe that Meas- 
 ure is Quantity quantified, or turned back upon 
 itself and quantifying itself. 
 
 It is evident that Quantity by itself cannot 
 measure Motion or Matter, this can be done only by 
 Quantity quantified. Motion unfolds Quantity at 
 first as a stage of itself and so determines it; but 
 Measure returns to Motion and determines it anew 
 as measured. That is, Quantity must have quan- 
 tified itself (as Measure) before it can quantify 
 anything else. Geometry we have seen starting 
 with this typical act of spatial self-quantification, 
 which indeed makes it mathematical. 
 
 There is a decided evolutionary character in Ge- 
 ometry as a science. Given what it demands for 
 a beginning, it has or can be made to have a very 
 subtle yet ever-progressive development. Its 
 propositions and even its figures evolve out of one 
 another in a sort of creative order. It was prob- 
 ably Euclid who first introduced this evolution of
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— GEOMETRY. 121 
 
 successive forms into the science, and thereby gave 
 to it an extraordinary permanence. In its way it 
 is a kind of mathematical anticipation and proph- 
 ecy of Darwin. In the two men we may put 
 together the evolution of space-forms as the first 
 and most abstract stage of Nature, and the evolu- 
 tion of life-forms as the latest and most concrete 
 stage of Nature. On this evolutionary side, even 
 in the way of exposition, Geometry still awaits 
 important triumphs. 
 
 We are to see distinctly what Geometry assumes 
 in order to get a start. Three kinds of pre-suppo- 
 sitions it makes. First of all, it takes for granted 
 Space and the spatial dimensions; secondly, it 
 quite unconsciously assumes pure Quantity ; thirdly , 
 it more or less consciously acknowledges antece- 
 dent axioms, definitions, postulates. Of course the 
 inquiring mind will ask, whence come all these 
 assumptions? It is not the place of Geometry to 
 tell, a science more universal must do that, per- 
 chance a complete science of Nature. And yet 
 Nature also is something given, which can hardly 
 tell its own origin. In like manner biological evo- 
 lution is compelled to assume life and to unfold 
 that from its faintest germ. It is generally agreed 
 by scientists that no animate thing has been de- 
 rived chemically or otherwise from an inanimate 
 object. Thus Nature as scientific is as yet evolu- 
 tionary only in fragments. The geometric fragment 
 is one, seemingly the first one having a considerable
 
 122 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 continuity. The biological fragment is another, 
 the most recent and truly epoch-making, as it has 
 made evolution the conscious end of total Nature. 
 
 The divisions of Geometry can be made from 
 various points of view. As the Space-limiting line 
 is fundamental in this science — it usually starts 
 with two given lines — its divisions may be taken 
 from the three kinds of lines — straight, curved, 
 circular. The transition from the rectilineal figure 
 to the curvilineal has always been one of the piv- 
 otal turns in Geometry. Indeed one cannot ex- 
 actly pass into the other without a dividing chasm 
 which may indeed be made very small, but which 
 always remains. The straight diameter refuses to 
 measure its own circle exactly — they insist upon 
 staying separate, though the computation has been 
 carried up to 707 places by William Shanks (in 
 1873). Of course such a long row of figures is 
 totally intractable and indeed unreadable. Still 
 the gap remains at the end, and is impassable. 
 In like manner the quadrature of the circle shows 
 the same impassable gap. The transition from the 
 inscribed polygon to the circumference has always 
 to take a last leap from straight to round after 
 even "infinite subdivision" (significantly called 
 "the process of exhaustion" by the old Greek 
 sophist Antiphon, who is said to have introduced 
 it into Geometry, where it still is found). 
 
 If the straight line has to be endowed with infi- 
 nite divisibility in order to bend it into the curve,
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — GEOMETRY. 123 
 
 what becomes of it when infinitely protended? 
 Again the straight line is made to contradict itself, 
 for it is by nature finite, limited, a geometric 
 quantum. When divided to infinity or when pro- 
 duced to infinity, it seems to recoil and to make 
 great geometric trouble. So it comes that Euclid's 
 definition of parallel straight lines as those "which 
 never meet, however far produced in both direc- 
 tions," has been the center of much discussion. 
 For the question comes up: What if they be infi- 
 nitely produced, extended with Space itself? And 
 what if Space is also curved, is spheroidal as well 
 as homaloidal or flat, as Euclid tacitly assumes it? 
 At this point the socalled new Geometry rises to 
 view, evoking for science a new Space, or at least 
 a new conception of Space, which is no longer to 
 be of the one homogeneous invariable kind hitherto 
 accepted, but is of several kinds. Such is the 
 modern struggle to burst the old spatial bounds of 
 Geometry fixed so firmly by Greek Euclid (say 
 about 300 B. C). Even if it be merely an anarchic 
 protest against the ancient order (as some declare) , 
 it is of great interest as intimating the sphericity 
 of Space, which we have seen to be the primal 
 elemental potentiality ol cosmical Motion (p. 52). 
 So Geometry has not only an inner evolution, 
 which is to be shown in the explication of it as a 
 science, but also a corresponding outer historical 
 evolution in time, of which we may note the lead- 
 ing steps.
 
 124 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 1. Oriental Geometry. This, in general, elung to 
 the sensuous object. The name of the science as 
 land-measure doubtless came from the Orient to 
 the Greeks, from whom we have received it, and 
 who ascribed its origin to old Egypt. The annual 
 overflow of the Nile caused changes which re- 
 quired fresh surveys. The Ahmes papyrus (Egyp- 
 tian) which is supposed to reach back at least to 
 2000 B. C. treats already of the quadrature of the 
 circle, has a pretty correct proportion between di- 
 ameter and circumference, and would seem to 
 have known something of the Pythagorean theo- 
 rem (that pertaining to the sides of the right- 
 angled triangle). Probably not as an abstract 
 universal proposition was the latter known, but 
 the first and simplest concrete case of it, when the 
 sides have the proportion of 5 (hypothenuse) , 4 
 and 3. This special case must have been exempli- 
 fied at an early time by laying square blocks of 
 the same size, as children do at present. 
 
 Later Oriental Geometry went to the Orient 
 from the Greeks, yet often left out the reasoned 
 demonstration. Very suggestive in this regard is 
 the proof given by the Hindoo Bhaskara of the 
 Pythagorean theorem. He takes the square of 
 the hypothenuse given by a figure, and in this 
 square he draws four right-angled triangles, be- 
 tween which appears a small square which, united 
 with the square made up of the four triangles, fills 
 the aforesaid square of the hypothenuse (see the
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— GEOMETRY. 125 
 
 figure in Cajori, Hist. El. Math,, p. 123). Purely 
 sensuoufe proof is this, one might call it a kinder- 
 garten demonstration. There was quite a devel- 
 opment of Arabian Geometry in the Middle Ages, 
 but this also was hardly more than an adaptation 
 of Greek works whose science, however, the Ara- 
 bians principally have the merit of having pre- 
 served and transmitted. 
 
 2. Greek Geometry. In passing from the Orient 
 to Hellas, Geometry becomes truly a science. It 
 unfolds out of its immediate sensuous embodiment 
 into its abstract conception, rising from the par- 
 ticular case to the universal principle. If the an- 
 cient Egyptian knew one special example of the 
 Pythagorean theorem, and the later Hindoo could 
 prove it only to the sense of sight, the Greek rises 
 to thinking it universally, and formulating it thus 
 in his speech. He separates Geometry from its 
 entanglement in material particulars, and makes 
 it the pure explication and measurement of 
 itself. It is no longer some empirical rule or set 
 of rules to mete out some external thing, but it is 
 a science meting out itself. We thus see it to be a 
 stage of Measure which turns upon itself and meas- 
 ures itself. Let us again illustrate by that pivotal 
 theorem still named after Greek Pythagoras : the 
 square 1 of the hypothenuse of aright-angled triangle 
 is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two 
 sides. In this equation we see one geometric form 
 or concept measuring another geometric form or
 
 126 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 concept, performing an addition also, we may say. 
 Measure can here be observed measuring itself. 
 Or Quantity is again seen quantifying itself — now 
 a geometric Quantity, namely a square, which is 
 the unit of Measure. This is an example of just 
 what the Greek did : he seized the geometric sci- 
 ence of Measure, freed it from its material clog, 
 and turned it back upon itself, making it meas- 
 ure itself. Then Geometry became scientific, being 
 divested of its Oriental submergence in the forms 
 of the particular. 
 
 It may be briefly premised that there was a sim- 
 ilar movement from the Orient to Greece along the 
 whole line of science. Philosophy goes the same 
 way, seeking for the first time to grasp and form- 
 ulate "the essence of being" in its own pure 
 thought and categories. Now it is a striking and 
 very significant fact that the first noted Greek ge- 
 ometer was also the first Greek philosopher, 
 Thales of Miletus. He is reported to have gone to 
 Egypt for study and soon to have surpassed his 
 Oriental masters, Greek that he was, and also an 
 undoubted genius. Plutarch recounts how he as- 
 tonished the Egyptian king, Amasis, by calculating 
 the heights of the pyramids from their shadows, these 
 being proportional to the shadow of his walking- 
 stick, which could easily be measured. Quite a 
 number of geometric theorems are ascribed to Thales 
 by an ancient historian of Geometry, Eudemus, a 
 pupil of Aristotle. From an earlier authority, the
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — GEOMETRY. 127 
 
 historian Herodotus, we learn that Thales knew of 
 the nature of eclipses. His geometric work seems 
 to have dealt chiefly with lines and angles; thus 
 it recalls the first propositions of our present Ge- 
 ometry. Such must have been indeed the start 
 of the science. 
 
 Pythagoras, also a philosopner, is another great 
 name in early Greek Geometry. He too visited 
 Egypt, and possibly Babylon, making in person 
 the transition out of the Orient to Greece. His 
 greatest and most lasting deed is that he founded 
 a school and made Geometry (and Mathematics 
 generally) an educational discipline, which it re- 
 mains to this day. Pythagoras seems to have 
 been the first actual schoolmaster, and the curric- 
 ulum of his school has been unfolded but not 
 superseded. Various geometric propositions are 
 ascribed to him and to his pupils, from whom the 
 master cannot be separated even by the lapse of 
 centuries. Already Aristotle speaks of the Pytha- 
 goreans, rarely of Pythagoras. And the most 
 unique, if not the most important proposition in 
 Geometry, still bears his name. It has exercised 
 a marvelous fascination in all ages upon the geo- 
 metric mind, and the charm is not yet over if wJ 
 may judge by the title of the following book: 
 "Six and forty proofs of the Pythagorean theorem," 
 (translated from Russian into German, 1880). 
 Pythagoras is said to have sacrificed a hecatomb 
 to the Gods in his joy over the discovery. What
 
 128 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 method of proof he used is unknown, but probably 
 the Greek as distinct from the Egyptian, which he 
 must have learned in the land of the Nile. Some 
 recent writers conjecture that his demonstration 
 was similar to that of the Hindoo Bhaskara al- 
 ready cited. If so, then he had not fully made 
 the transition from the Oriental to the Greek geo- 
 metric consciousness. But such a view is very 
 improbable, as it throws Pythagoras out of his 
 place in the line of scientific evolution. And it is 
 not pretended that there is any fact to support 
 such an opinion. 
 
 Interesting is Hegel's view of the Pythagorean 
 theorem, which he extols as the greatest of geo- 
 metric theorems, being "an image of the Idea. It 
 is a true totality, which has divided itself within 
 itself, as every form in Philosophy is divided within 
 itself as Conception and Reality " (Phil, der Na- 
 tur s. 61). The side of Reality in the foregoing 
 theorem is plain enough, but the side of Conception 
 (Begriff) is what gives trouble. This Hegelian Con- 
 ception is, in general, the process of universality, 
 particularity and individuality, as set forth in the 
 philosopher's Logic. But it is not obvious how the 
 Pythagorean theorem manifests those three cate- 
 gories of Conception (in the Hegelian sense) and 
 Hegel does not explain the difficulty . We may well 
 think, however, that there is a triune psychical 
 process lying at the basis of this theorem (and in- 
 deed of Mathematics generally). It starts with
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — GEOMETRY. 129 
 
 the one (square), unfolds into the two (squares), 
 which return and unite in equality with the first 
 one (square). In such a statement we may note 
 the process both arithmetically and geometrically. 
 In this connection it may be added that Hegel 
 makes Quantity a category of pure Logic (the 
 second stage of Being), and not of Nature. 
 Kant on the other hand places Quantity first on 
 his list of the four general categories of the Under- 
 standing. Thus the great philosophers differ about 
 the ordering of Quantity as about many other 
 things. Hegel in his Logic has the merit of seeing 
 the importance of Measure, which, however, he 
 correlates directly with Quantity and Quality, 
 designating it as quantitive Quality. As we re- 
 gard it, Quantity evolves in and through Nature, 
 and is to be co-ordinated in that sphere. To be 
 sure, Quantity is psychical, or we may say, pam- 
 psychical ; but so is Nature, one of whose stages it 
 is in the cosmical order. But let us return to our 
 geometrical sketch. 
 
 Plato's love of Geometry is well known; on ac- 
 count of its abstraction from the material world it 
 appealed powerfully to the Greek idealist. Over 
 the door of his Academy stood the famous inscrip- 
 tion: "Let no one unacquainted with Geometry 
 enter here." Seemingly it was his propedeutic for 
 philosophy and also for ethics, the preparatory 
 training to a vision of the supersensible Idea which 
 was the Platonic principle.
 
 130 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 But the greatest name in Greek Geometry, 
 indeed in all Geometry, is that of Euclid of Alex- 
 andria (about 300 B.C.)- Not much is known con- 
 cerning his life, but he has left a text-book called 
 the Elements, which still holds its place in geomet- 
 rical instruction, though not without opposition. 
 Some have thought that Geometry sprang ready- 
 made from the brain of Euclid, but such was not 
 the case. It was an evolution, even in Greece. 
 Still Euclid did the greatest geometric act in all 
 time. What was it? He organized the science 
 previously disconnected; he established the geo- 
 metric method of proof, though he probably did 
 not discover it; he impressed upon Geometry that 
 evolutionary character so significant of the future. 
 He ordered the disjointed fragments into a grand 
 totality, he was the Homer of Geometry, and for 
 this reason his work has lasted like Homer's. In 
 the medieval time he became an authority on his 
 science, which was not to be called into question. 
 At last a reaction began to appear, the human 
 spirit felt itself fettered by Euclid's limitations, by 
 his method, by his pre-suppositions. Various at- 
 tempts arose to transcend him, and even to sup- 
 plant him. 
 
 3. Modern Geometry. Such is the name which 
 the new geometric movement or protest usually 
 gives to itself. We also hear of the non-Euclidean 
 Geometry in contrast with the Euclidean, which 
 has been subjected in recent years to sharp crit-
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — GEOMETRY. 131 
 
 icism. Pangeometry is likewise one of its designa- 
 tions. , First of all the old conception of Space is 
 challenged, as already stated. The Euclidean 
 postulate of parallel lines is especially assailed. 
 Even a new dimension of Space, the fourth, is 
 affirmed by some disciples. On the whole the 
 movement takes a strikingly revolutionary aspect. 
 It seems to turn against the transmitted con- 
 ception of Geometry with a vengeful, destructive 
 spirit. Euclid, the ancient architect of the science, 
 is disparaged in various ways, even is condemned 
 as a bad reasoner. Some educators would banish 
 his time-honored text-book from the schools, while 
 others would restore its partially lost supremacy. 
 It is a curious fact that the chief opponent of 
 the traditional Geometry hails from Russia. Nich- 
 olas Lobatchewsky's book, called "Geometrical 
 Investigations/' is declared by his fervent disciples 
 to be the dawn of a new era in Geometry. "What 
 Copernicus was to Ptolemy, that was Lobatch- 
 ewsky to Euclid," says Professor Clifford. One 
 cannot help thinking that here again is a Slavic 
 voice of protest against the established European 
 order in science, and perchance in civilization. 
 The same voice can be heard in Russian music, 
 literature, politics. To be sure other peoples show 
 a similar tendency; the geometric nihilist is pretty 
 much everywhere during these days, battering at 
 the ancient structure of Euclid, which, however, 
 does not lack stout defenders.
 
 132 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 It should be noted that this modern Geometry 
 turns back to the pre-suppositions of Euclid, test- 
 ing and often denying the truth of what he took 
 for granted. As yet the result seems to be largely 
 negative. What will be the positive outcome? 
 When the new Euclid appears and re-organizes the 
 whole science, then we may be able to tell. 
 
 But now we must pass from the Measure of ele- 
 mental Space or pure extension (which gives Ge- 
 ometry) , to the Measure of elemental Time or pure 
 succession (which gives Number) whose science is 
 the following: 
 
 II. Arithmetic. The definition of Arithmetic, 
 as generally given, is the science of number or of 
 numbers — this plural is significant, since it sug- 
 gests separation, multiplicity, the second place of 
 the present process. In this definition two terms 
 or concepts are explicitly assumed: science and 
 numbers. Whence do they come? Arithmetic is 
 one of the mathematical sciences, belonging to 
 Measure, in which Quantity turns back and quan- 
 tifies itself. So we have just seen it doing with 
 Space and producing the science of Geometry. 
 But at present Quantity manifests itself in a new 
 form or in a new Quantum, namely in the abstract 
 unit, or the one, the ground of arithmetical Meas- 
 ure. Now this quantitative limited one, just by 
 virtue of its limit must have another one outside 
 of it, indeed many ones or multiplicity. Thus 
 dialectically we enter the realm of number and of
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ARITHMETIC. 133 
 
 numbers, which must come primarily from Quan- 
 tity. ' 
 
 It is usual to put Arithmetic before Geometry, 
 and in the order of study the tyro begins com- 
 monly his mathematical drill with the properties of 
 numbers rather than with the properties of spatial 
 figures. Still this old way is being changed in the 
 new education. The kindergarten places first in 
 the hand of child geometric forms which he is to 
 get acquainted with through play. This is the ear- 
 liest human mastery of the external world organ- 
 ized in itself and made a part of the school. Thus 
 the child grapples with the primal element of Nat- 
 ure, Space — here not pure Space, but Space lim- 
 ited, formed, measured, which it is to re-measure 
 and indeed to re-form. That is the order of the 
 Cosmos, and also the order of education. A great 
 step in the deepening of pedagogical science it 
 must be regarded when the geometrical act is 
 made to precede the arithmetical in the training 
 of the child-mind, when the concrete spatial form 
 is presented to the young brain just beginning its 
 cosmical conquest, before the abstract numerical 
 unit, which properly comes afterwards, both in 
 Nature and in Thought. 
 
 Arithmetic must, accordingly, be put second in 
 the process of Measure, or in the basic mathemat- 
 ical Psychosis. Fundamentally it is separative, 
 akin to the ever-separating Time, in contrast with 
 the unseparative, indifferent, purely homogeneous
 
 134 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Space. Arithmetic takes at the start the unit as 
 quantum, or the quantified one, which, however, 
 must as limited repeat itself and become many 
 ones, or numbers. Time likewise keeps forever 
 dividing itself into a succession of moments, each 
 of which is a separated unit when quantified. 
 We have already seen how Quantity as such 
 follows Time and quantifies the same (as it also 
 quantifies Space) getting the unit generically 
 which is the ultimate measurer of all things. Num- 
 bers, of which Arithmetic is called the science, 
 are primarily discrete, successive, temporal we 
 may say, keeping up the relation to Time. This 
 arithmetical science, however, is numbers sys- 
 temed, ordered, put into their own inner process. 
 But whence comes this their process originally, 
 and what puts them into the same? The ques- 
 tion carries us back to that psychical impress 
 which we have seen stamped upon Nature every- 
 where, ordering it and making it in all its details 
 an integral part of the universe of science. 
 
 Thinkers have repeatedly connected Arithmetic, 
 the second stage of the psychosis of Measure, with 
 Time, which is also a second stage, namely of ele- 
 mental Motion. Kant seems to hold that Time 
 is the source of the concept of Measure. Time is 
 a perennial creation of units in the form of tem- 
 poral moments; these units when quantified and 
 made purely abstract are relieved of their quality 
 of Time. Thus they become pure quanta or nu-
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ARITHMETIC. 135 
 
 merical ones, and are ready for Measure, or spe- 
 cially for Arithmetic, which takes numbers for 
 granted, without deriving them. Its function is 
 to apply numbers to numbers, in general to turn 
 Number back upon itself and to make it meas- 
 ure itself in its own numerical terms. Simple ad- 
 dition is already such an act of Measure, if we 
 scrutinize it carefully. We can hardly call Arith- 
 metic the science of Time, though a great math- 
 ematician, Sir W. R. Hamilton, designated Al- 
 gebra or universal Arithmetic "as the science of 
 pure Time." But we might say that Arithmetic 
 is based upon Time quantified — the temporal suc- 
 cession of moments being transformed by Quan- 
 tity into abstract quanta or units. This discrete- 
 ness of Time is likewise the primal source of all 
 atomism. In like manner Geometry cannot be 
 called the science of pure Space, but of Space 
 limited, quantified, made into spatial quanta, 
 conceived as geometrical figures. To be sure in 
 Space the quantitative unit is suggested by the 
 point, but there it is as yet only potential. To 
 use terms already employed in this same connec- 
 tion, the spatial point is the unit as merely quan- 
 tifiable, the temporal point with its succession is 
 the unit quantifying, which becomes quantified or 
 the quantitative one through Quantity itself. 
 Such is the abstract quantum or numerical unit 
 which is taken up by Arithmetic as a fundamental 
 assumption.
 
 136 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Here it is to be noted that the first Arithmetic, 
 like the first Geometry , inhered in sensuous things, 
 from which it had to be separated and puri- 
 fied, being thereby transformed into a true mathe- 
 matical science. The primitive man counts by 
 concrete objects, not by abstract numbers; still 
 less is he able to make these numbers measure 
 themselves. But the pure number lies implicitly 
 in his sensuous numeration by his fingers. Now 
 this pure number is what he has to separate from 
 its material embodiment, and to make it work in 
 and through itself. Arithmetic as a science is 
 the ideal number-world organized into a system 
 which likewise has its own inner processes. 
 
 The total view of Arithmetic will embrace three 
 great systemic phases of Number, which we may 
 designate in advance as follows: First is to be 
 considered the Germinal System of Number, its 
 primal psychical conception. From this unfold, 
 secondly, the Special Systems of Number, the 
 manifold Number-Systems of the world (or nu- 
 meraries). Finally we are to attain the Scientific 
 System of Number, the organized science of 
 Arithmetic, such as we know to-day, and such as 
 civilized man has known and developed into its 
 present stage. 
 
 1. The Germinal System of Number. In this 
 caption we seek to indicate the first inner ideal 
 form of the numerical System. Such a primordial 
 form is made up of three and is triune ; oneness
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ARITHMETIC. 137 
 
 unfolds through duality to threeness which returns 
 to oneness, constituting one process which is, 
 however, threefold, else it could be no process. 
 All other numbers are products, in fact repeti- 
 tions of one or ones which are separated and 
 thrown off by this germinal act of number-mak- 
 ing. Already in Time we found even in the mo- 
 ment a thrill, a kind of oscillation which at least 
 hinted from afar a return upon itself that made it 
 one moment. The oscillating pendulum will bring 
 to a striking manifestation outwardly this innate 
 tendency of Time. But at present our task is to 
 grasp the place and the import of this genetic 
 process of Number which is verily its creative cell 
 or the germ of its system. 
 
 Here, however, the thought may be expressed 
 that such a genetic system of number is itself 
 numbered, and at the same time numbers all 
 genesis of every kind in the world. The Pampsy- 
 chosis utters itself in number, yea in just the cre- 
 ative triune process of number. The Universe is 
 arithmetical, but also Arithmetic is universal, its 
 impress is on every process of Nature, which her 
 science has to separate and to express in its own 
 terms. To be sure the All is something else be- 
 sides number, but it is number likewise, and has 
 always to be numbered, especially in its pro- 
 cesses, else a link is left out, yea just the inter- 
 linking of the great Totality is left out. Such a 
 glimpse we may here take in advance ' but now
 
 138 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 we must turn back to our genetic trinity of num- 
 ber and see it generating its special science which 
 is Arithmetic. 
 
 (a) The primal quantitative one or numerical 
 unit we have to pick up again at this point, hav- 
 ing previously found it in Quantity, which quanti- 
 fied it directly from Time or more remotely from 
 Space. Now the first peculiarity of this numerical 
 one is that it cannot stay with itself, but must be- 
 come another in order to be distinctively itself. 
 We cannot conceive of one without two, it is said; 
 the mind cannot grasp unity without the contrast 
 of separation. But the far deeper fact is that the 
 mind is unity in itself along with separation ; so is 
 Nature, so is the Universe. Thus our quantitative 
 one, in order to be this distinct primal unit, must 
 have two, yea must beget two, or another one 
 which is separate from itself. We do this subject- 
 ively; but number does this also, objectively, 
 that is the one cannot be the first one as limited 
 without the two which limits it numerically. 
 
 (6) This two is the primordial form and expres- 
 sion of all dualism, separation and division in the 
 Universe. Undoubtedly we have often had already 
 the psychical process and marked its stages numer- 
 ically, but now its numbers, hitherto quite im- 
 plicit, have become explicit and are realized in 
 their own forms. The numerical twain is verily a 
 far-reaching symbol, suggesting all separation, 
 alienation, sin, being typically the very Deuce or
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— ARITHMETIC. 139 
 
 the Devil perchance. Still it belongs to man and 
 Nature, to the Universe, yea to God Himself in 
 any complete conception. And now we are to 
 grasp it by itself as a pure number, which is the 
 second act or stage of the simple numerical Psy- 
 chosis. It is the one divided into the two ones, in 
 order that the one may be. Without two one 
 cannot be; but that is not the end of the process. 
 The two goes back and unites with the one, form- 
 ing a new number, three, which is also one and the 
 result of uniting the two with the one. So we 
 reach the numerical trinity. 
 
 (c) The number three has been celebrated by 
 peoples of all times and of all stages of culture in 
 proverb, in folk-lore, as well as in Religion and 
 Philosophy. It probably has the best right to 
 be called the sacred number of mankind, as that 
 number which most helps humanity to conceive 
 itself and its God. Numerically it reconciles the 
 self-opposition of the two, and the outer opposi- 
 tion between the two and the one. The symbol- 
 ism of numbers can be and often has been carried 
 too far; but to say that they have no symbolism 
 at all is an error in the opposite direction, an 
 error which isolates them in the universe. They 
 have their place in the great Totality, and partic- 
 ipate in its movement; they too bear the impress 
 and superscription of the Parapsychosis. The 
 number three has a mediational effect even as ex- 
 ternal number; it rounds out the numerical pro-
 
 140 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 cess and harmonizes the dualism of the same, 
 making the return which unifies and completes 
 what was before disunited and undeveloped. 
 
 The scientist is apt to ignore and even to scorn 
 the far-reaching psychical import of number, 
 branding such a view of it as vague rhapsody. 
 With him, then, we shall go back and consider 
 the purely arithmetical power of this first numer- 
 ical process which has shown itself triune. The 
 salient fact here is that the primal genetic prin- 
 ciple of number is just this trinity. It is the 
 source from which all other numbers arise and to 
 which they are joined, being brought thereby 
 into the one great numerical order. Four, for in- 
 stance, would not have been without the ante- 
 cedent three, which made it first a one and then a 
 four, putting it into its place in the order. The 
 same germinal process it is which creates and con- 
 joins with itself all the succeeding numbers, from 
 five to infinity. And it should be added that 
 the aforesaid creative trinity of number becomes 
 the numerical form of every process whatever, 
 that of my Self as well as of the All-Self. 
 
 Let it be understood, however, that number 
 does not create the psychical process, though it 
 always numbers the same in the three siages 
 thereof; on the contrary it is the psychical pro- 
 cess which creates number, as we have seen in the 
 preceding development. The Parapsychosis is 
 itself threefold ; it numbers itself in its creative
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ARITHMETIC. 141 
 
 act and therein primordially creates number; 
 indeed every psychical process in accord with its 
 supreme origin must number itself. For this 
 reason the recurrence of the triune stamp upon 
 every process, large and small, is what marks its 
 connection with the universal Self, and at least 
 hints its origin from the same ultimate source. 
 
 Such we deem the germinal Process of Number, 
 the original source of numerical genesis, the primal 
 arithmetical trinity. But now we are to see 
 how this realizes itself in the external sensuous 
 world. 
 
 2. The Realized Systems of Number. There are 
 divers numerical Systems derived from the objects 
 of sense. The one trinal System, being germinal, 
 unfolds into many outer shapes. But in clothing 
 itself with phenomenality, the orig'nal threefold 
 process of number assumes external forms which 
 obscure it and often seem to contradict it. There 
 are, for instance, the decimal, duodecimal and vi- 
 gesimal Systems, which are outwardly taken from 
 the sense-world, though their inner creative power 
 is the numerical trinity. The result is a separation 
 which has been variously designated as the dual- 
 ism between essence and appearance, the one and 
 the many, the ideal and the real. Human experi- 
 ence shapes a numerical System, but there must 
 be something already shaping the act of experi- 
 ence. Man counts at first by external objects, but 
 he must already have the psychic capacity to
 
 142 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 count. And in this sphere also we shall observe 
 the process. 
 
 The process has as its center the number-system, 
 which ought to have a special name (it might be 
 called the numerary, analogous to syllabary or 
 even dictionary). It is the numerical round or 
 cycle which always returns upon itself and repeats 
 itself in order to go forward with its increments. 
 Such a numerary is the decimal system — the nu- 
 merical self-reduplicating machine of civilized man 
 It is to be noted, however, that this numerary 
 always has in it the trinal germinal process of 
 number — it starts with the simple one, unfolds 
 into multiplicity, and then returns to the one 
 which embraces all, i onstituting thus the system. 
 
 Now this numerary (or System of Number) has 
 its stages of expression which likewise show an 
 historic as well as a psychical evolution. These 
 are, first, the sensuous, acted numerary primarily 
 expressed by action of human body; secondly, the 
 spoken numerary, introducing the abstract words 
 for number — numeration or counting; thirdly, the 
 written numerary, often called notation, the system 
 of symbols (symbolary) . These important points 
 we shall elaborate a little. 
 
 (a) The sensuous number-systems among primi- 
 tive peoples have been manifold. The first is 
 probably the quinal, taken from the five fingers 
 of one hand. Then comes the system of both 
 hands with their ten fingers which produce the
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— ARITHMETIC 143 
 
 decimal system. The ten toes of the bare-footed 
 savage, may be joined with the ten fingers to pro- 
 duce the vigesimal system, of which many frag- 
 ments exist in civilized tongues (score in English, 
 quatre-vingts in French). Also a duodecimal sys- 
 tem has left a fragment behind in the word dozen, 
 and has been recently urged for adoption on sev- 
 eral grounds. But the most surprising of all 
 those systems is the sexagesimal, supposed to have 
 been used by the ancient Babylonians who were 
 great astronomers, and who are conjectured to 
 have transmitted to us our time-divisions of the 
 hour and minute into sixty parts each, and the 
 six times sixty degrees of the circle. It is not 
 hard to see that of these multitudinous number- 
 systems the decimal is the ever-present and most 
 practical counting-machine. Also this system is 
 most suggestive of the inner germinal Process of 
 Number, employing in its movement a one and 
 then a two (in the two hands) and finally the 
 unity of both when placed together — which we 
 may consider the visible triune round of the dec- 
 imal System. This systemic unity becomes vis- 
 ible also in the quinal System by means of the 
 transverse thumb embracing the four extended 
 fingers or the four ones. A hint of such a quinal 
 symbolary has come down from old Egypt. 
 
 Other sensuous numeraries have been observed ; 
 indeed they embrace many gradations, from the 
 little bundle of sticks of the savage to the com-
 
 144 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 plicated counting-machine of civilized man. But 
 the human mind as numerical must reach out to 
 grasping and expressing number purely, as it is 
 in itself — which brings us to the spoken nu- 
 merary. 
 
 (&) The next psychical act is to separate the 
 numerical concept from the sensuous embodiment 
 and to voice it, to put it into the spoken word 
 divested of its material form. Man counts with 
 his two fingers long before he counts two by itself. 
 It is mental progress when he can transform his 
 concrete numbers into abstract numerals. The 
 child should be trained to make this transition in 
 the school. The numerical object-lesson is often 
 kept up too long, and the pupil is stunted by not 
 making the change when ready for it. The ab- 
 stract counting of a hundred is the delight of chil- 
 dren because it shows a new mastery, a step for- 
 ward. Now they begin to control number, which 
 previously eluded them, being hidden in its mate- 
 rial mask. Some advanced peoples never fully 
 reach abstract numeration. The Chinese count 
 on their fingers up to 100,000, it is said. The 
 classic Greeks and Romans never could dispense 
 with their abacus in their more complex reckon- 
 ings. To make number speak out in its own 
 form is still quite an act of education, which some 
 persons very imperfectly attain. Abstract numer- 
 als have their first system in the nine digits (to 
 which zero ought to be added). By the way the
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ARITHMETIC. 145 
 
 word digit comes from the Latin for finger, and 
 thus suggests the original method of counting by- 
 objects. So we have seized upon a sensuous term 
 in a foreign tongue and have made it abstract in 
 our own tongue. 
 
 Suggestive is the fact that these digital names 
 are radically alike in the Aryan tongues, and thus 
 carry us back before the period of the dispersion 
 of our Asiatic ancestry. The proto-Aryans evi- 
 dently made the abstraction of the digits from 
 their concrete embodiment, and gave to them their 
 names, which still exist rooted literally in the 
 speech of their descendants, forming our first spoken 
 numerary. 
 
 (c) The spoken word or symbol for number is 
 not enough, man must have the written sign also 
 or symbol. Speech is indeed a social act, doubt- 
 less the first and greatest means of association 
 and impartation. But it is limited spatially and 
 temporally, being confined to the particular place 
 and moment of the speaker. Such a limit must 
 be transcended by limit-transcending man; the 
 written symbol is to be borne over Space and 
 down Time. In Arithmetic this is called Notation 
 which deals generally with the system of number- 
 signs. 
 
 In the present field also there are hints of a 
 
 long evolution, following and indeed reflecting the 
 
 movement of civilization. From ancient Egypt 
 
 traces of a system of number-signs seem to have 
 
 10
 
 146 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 come down in the form of short lines; for in- 
 stance one, two and three are represented each by 
 a corresponding number of vertical lines; then 
 with four the line changes to horizontal (seem- 
 ingly following a picture of the four fingers with 
 the transverse thumb). Thus the first dimension 
 of Space, the line, is taken as the first numerical 
 form, and the curious fact is- that this form still 
 remains in our written sign for the number one. 
 Here we again are reminded of a famous mathe- 
 matical statement that any magnitude whatever 
 can be represented by a line, which would thus be 
 the primal quantitative sign, and historically was 
 the basis of the earliest system of number-signs. 
 
 Next came a peculiar transition. The Egyp- 
 tian, as is well known, employed picture-signs for 
 writing, not alphabetic letters or sound-signs. We 
 have to suppose that the first number-sign, the 
 line, was a picture, probably, of an extended 
 finger. But with time the alphabetic letter repre- 
 senting a vocal sound, not a material object, arose 
 out of the picture-sign or hieroglyphic. This sig- 
 nificant change began already in Egypt, but 
 seems to have been completed in Phenicia, from 
 which country it was transmitted to Greece and 
 Rome. From these we have received our alphabet, 
 or the system of sound-signs. But what concerns 
 us now is that the old Greeks and Romans took 
 these letters or sound-signs for number-signs also, 
 and we likewise still have among us the Roman
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ARITHMETIC. 147 
 
 numerals, employing them in certain relations. It 
 is said that the Greeks had an older system of 
 number-signs, (called the Attic or Herodianic) but 
 changed (about 500 B. C.) to letters for numbers. 
 This was a strange step backward in numerical 
 evolution, and was probably the result of inter- 
 course with Oriental peoples who employed such a 
 system. 
 
 This Greco-Roman notation lasted into the 
 Middle Ages, though it stood in the way of all 
 numerical progress. It was probably what crushed 
 the Greek in Arithmetic, for which he did so 
 little, and diverted his mathematical genius into 
 Geometry, for which he did so much. In the 
 12th century the new notation, called the Arabic, 
 though it was Hindoo in origin, began to be em- 
 ployed in Europe. Thus number possesses again 
 its distinctive signs, different from letters: Arith- 
 metic has its own symbolic language and begins a 
 new career. The Arabic (or Hindoo) numerals 
 arc endowed with a local value in a line of num- 
 bers; the letter has no such value, V is five 
 wherever placed, but that is not the case with 5. 
 The cipher also comes from India, being necessary 
 in such a scheme of notation. The so-called 
 Devanagari numerals (Hindoo) are nearly those 
 which we use to-day under the name of Arabic. 
 The medieval Arabians in the bloom of their 
 civilization brought them from the East to the 
 West.
 
 148 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S 
 
 Thus we observe a significant evolution of arith- 
 metical notation, from the early picture-signs of 
 numbers (Egyptian), through the letter-signs of 
 numbers, (Greek and Roman), to the pure num- 
 ber-signs, as we know them at present. In one 
 way the last goes back to the first which was not 
 a letter-sign, but a special token for a number, 
 though probably intended for a picture. With 
 this new instrumentality the science of Arithmetic 
 unfolds into its present state. 
 
 The development of numerical notation may be 
 hinted in the following written number-forms: 
 five, V, 5. The first is still spoken as well as writ- 
 ten; but the other two are written only, are sym- 
 bols. But the last (5) is the pure numerical sym- 
 bol, having gotten rid of its double meaning as 
 (V) ; now the free science of number can start. It 
 is set down that the first text-book of Arithmetic 
 proper known in the Greco-Roman world was by 
 Nicomachus, of Gerasa, probably an Arabian with 
 Greek and Hindoo culture (about 100 A. D.). His 
 work was the arithmetical authority in Europe for 
 a thousand years, indeed till the Arabic or Hindoo 
 numerary supplanted it. The first printed Arith- 
 metic of the Renaissance was Wagner's (Bamberg, 
 1482). Simon Stevin, of Bruges, (1548-1620) is 
 famed as the introducer of decimals, in which the 
 numerary is employed as a whole. 
 
 In general the numerary, like man himself, has 
 to liberate itself from its various external shackles,
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ARITHMETIC. 149 
 
 and to become a free system of number, which 
 deals with itself purely, unfolds its own forms, and 
 thus rises into a true mathematical science, which 
 we may now look at specially. 
 
 3. The Scientific System of Number. This is 
 the science of Arithmetic as we know it to-day, 
 the latest phase of the evolution of number proper. 
 It is a form of Measure, or of Quantity turning 
 upon itself and measuring itself. Number is now 
 seen working with itself and evolving itself, com- 
 bining and dividing itself milliardfold. We may 
 say it is measuring itself, applying its own forms 
 to itself. 
 
 The basic numerical process which Arithmetic 
 employs is the numerary, the self-returning round 
 of digits or of elemental numbers. These with 
 zero are ten, hence they are usually put together 
 as the decimal system. This numerary is the cre- 
 ative process of number always going back to the 
 beginning and moving through its stages, and 
 then throwing out a new round of itself, that is, 
 of ten. Note here again the underlying psychical 
 process of unity, of separation or multiplicity, and 
 then the return to unity in and through the total 
 cycle of digits. That germinal Process as the im- 
 age of the Psyche is fundamentally triune ; but its 
 second stage, being derived directly from external 
 Nature with her multiplicity, is itself multiplex, 
 not purely dual, and still images the many fingers 
 of its sensuous origin. Evidently this second stage
 
 150 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 of the arithmetical numerary in its divisive char- 
 acter corresponds deeply with all Nature, which is 
 likewise a second stage, and infinitely divided, and 
 divisible. Hence it can be and must be num- 
 bered, or measured by number. Here we may 
 glimpse the fact that the Cosmos is arithmetical, 
 and Arithmetic is cosmical. The numbering of the 
 Universe is going on everywhere in science, be- 
 cause number is inherent in Nature, and must be 
 gotten out of the same and expressed in its own 
 numerical terms. 
 
 Arithmetic has had its historic evolution, start- 
 ing far back in the Orient, passing through an- 
 tiquity and coming down to the modern age. All 
 these periods have left their impress upon the 
 science of number as they have upon its notation. 
 For example: It is a curious fact that the old 
 classic world was not so arithmetical as the Orient, 
 especially as the Hindoos, or as the moderns. 
 This deficiency has been ascribed to the lack of an 
 independent system of number-signs (like our 
 Arabic numerals) ; the Greeks and Romans used 
 letter-signs for numbers which were therefore 
 always clogged with a foreign body in their free 
 movement. The reason holds good; still the 
 question comes up, Why did they not relieve their 
 numerical system of its fetters? Ultimately we 
 have to think that it lay not in their spirit to 
 evolve in that way. The Greek was fundamentally 
 an artist and was inclined to deal with concrete
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— ARITHMETIC. 151 
 
 shapes rather than with the abstraction of num- 
 ber. It was, however, a Greek, Pythagoras, who 
 conceived number to be divine, making it the 
 basic principle of the universe and specially culti- 
 vating it in his school. The Roman was too 
 busily engaged in conquering and ruling the world 
 to develop much on any scientific line. The class- 
 ical scholar is well aware that the numbers, ex- 
 pressed of course by letters, in the Greek and Latin 
 manuscripts, are very uncertain and very ambig- 
 uous. Significant is the fact that Geometry, deal- 
 ing with spatial forms, was the mathematical 
 favorite of the Greeks, whose instinctive form- 
 sense was deeply gratified by it, but was much 
 less attracted by the blank abstraction of number. 
 And yet the Greek in philosophy and ethics showed 
 a grandly creative power of abstraction, which, 
 however, he always sought to embody anew in a 
 form of its own. 
 
 The organized science of Arithmetic has a chief 
 place in the school for its practical value; it also 
 must be regarded as the child's first training to 
 abstraction — an educative act of the highest im- 
 portance, through which the individual repeats in 
 his own development a pivotal step in the race's 
 progress. Moreover Arithmetic has its profound 
 psychical significance which can be brought home 
 to the pupil by sympathetic instruction. Here we 
 can give only a meager outline of the science. 
 
 (a) The fundamental process of Arithmetic lies
 
 152 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 in the three earliest forms of it — addition, sub- 
 traction, and multiplication. In these we see 
 the simple unification of numbers, their integral 
 separation, and then their repeated unifica- 
 tion (often designated as the performing of many 
 additions) . Multiplication is plainly to be taken as 
 the third or self-returning stage of the first arith- 
 metical process. By it number turns upon itself 
 and multiplies itself and also goes back to addition. 
 (6) The basic divisive or separative process of 
 Arithmetic is brought together in division, frac- 
 tions, and decimals. Division is the separation of 
 a number into parts of a given size. It is the re- 
 verse of multiplication but something more. To 
 perforin it requires both multiplication and sub- 
 traction, and sometimes a form of addition. The 
 fraction proper makes division explicit by a method 
 of notation which is digital, and with such broken or 
 divided numbers all the elementary operations are 
 performed. But the fraction becomes systemic in 
 the decimal, which has ten (the decimal system as 
 a whole) for its dividing principle, or some mul- 
 tiple of ten. The decimal system, accordingly, 
 sweeps back and embraces in its process the dig- 
 ital principle of simple and fractional division, 
 since its denominator employs ten multiplied by 
 one or more tens. Thus the second or separative 
 stage of elementary Arithmetic shows three forms 
 of division, the simple or integral, the fractional 
 and the systemic or decimal. Moreover, it mani-
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— ARITHMETIC. 153 
 
 fests a process within itself which is psychical in 
 form, though wholly numerical in contents. The 
 text-books of Arithmetic usually show these parts 
 by distinct heading and treatment, but indicate 
 little or no interconnection. 
 
 (c) The third and supreme process of Arith- 
 metic is that in which the individual number keeps 
 turning back upon itself, reduplicating itself by 
 means of powers (in involution) ,-deduplicating it- 
 self by extraction of roots (evolution) , an 1 finally be- 
 coming the power itself, the essence or logos of 
 number ((logarithm). Multiplication has already 
 shown us any number multiplied by any other 
 number; but involution insists upon the same 
 number self-involved or multiplied into itself a 
 number of times, and "this number of times" be- 
 comes a new sort of number, telling how many 
 involutions. Evolution in Arithmetic is the re- 
 versal of the preceding involution; the procedure 
 undoes the power and goes back to the original 
 number, the starting-point. Evidently involution 
 and evolution are two separated halves of a cycle 
 of the power of numbers; now this power is to 
 be seized upon and unfolded in the logarithm, 
 which is manifestly the third stage of the present 
 arithmetical process, and indeed the culmination 
 of Arithmetic, if it be not already a plunge into 
 Algebra. We take the following statement from 
 an honored mathematician: "All numbers are con- 
 sidered as the powers of some single given number/'
 
 154 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 which thus becomes the base of a logarithmic 
 sytem. Moreover, the logarithm of any given 
 number is the exponent of that power of the base 
 which is equal to the given number. It is man- 
 ifest that we see here a return to involution; any 
 number by its own self-involution can become any 
 other number. The quantity representing the de- 
 gree or amount of such self-involution is its loga- 
 rithm. This may well be deemed a common bond 
 interrelating all numbers, and associating them in 
 a new cognate tie. The question, however, arises 
 soon about the true base of the logarithm : What 
 number is it? Very naturally ten was promptly 
 hit upon, but not by Napier, the discoverer of loga- 
 rithms (first published by him in a book of 1614). 
 Not a single digit nor several digits, but the whole 
 system itself, the total numerary, must be taken 
 as the one best logarithmic base, this being the 
 genetic principle of all other numbers, as already 
 set forth. The systemic base for logarithms was 
 due to Briggs, a contemporary of Napier, and com- 
 pleted the discovery. 
 
 It is evident that the logarithm seizes upon the in- 
 volution or the self-return of number as its essence 
 or deepest principle. This also brings to light its 
 psychical ground, as well as its true place in the 
 total arithmetical process. The logarithm goes 
 back to the first elements of the science and makes 
 a new addition and subtraction, as well as a new 
 multiplication and division. These are all repro-
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— ARITHMETIC. 155 
 
 duced in their essence and enormously shortened 
 by the logarithm. Laplace said that by means of 
 it the astronomer doubled his days. Through the 
 self-returning character inherent in it the loga- 
 rithm seems to revolve, to image arithmetically 
 the primordial motion of the Universe. The so- 
 called logarithmic spiral is very suggestive not only 
 mathematically but also cosmically. One cannot 
 help thinking of the nebular spirals of the First 
 Matter in the genesis of Solar Systems. In this 
 final process of number we had the involution 
 of number (the power) , the evolution of number 
 (the root), and now we may add the revolution of 
 number (the logarithm). So Arithmetic may be 
 supposed to wind up with showing us that Nature 
 thinks in numbers also. 
 
 The logarithm very decidedly calls for Algebra 
 which has been named (by Newton) universal 
 Arithmetic, or Arithmetic universalized. Indeed 
 the logarithm quite pushes number to its limit, 
 making it in its whole system (by the Briggsian 
 method) return upon itself and measure itself 
 completely as number. Arithmetical Measure as 
 a mathematical science (the second in our order- 
 ing) has now measured itself fully and thus 
 rounded itself out. The logarithm has driven the 
 particular number in all its processes to universal- 
 ize itself, as far as this was possible with numer- 
 ical notation. Moreover, the logarithm cannot 
 be adequately accounted for except through alge-
 
 156 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 braic methods. It is proved naturally by algebra, 
 and thus has its sources in the next higher math- 
 ematical science, at which we must now cast a 
 hasty glance. 
 
 III. Algebra. The word comes from the Ara- 
 bic, and the curious fact about it is that it means 
 literally, according to the etymologists, bone-set- 
 ting, a putting together of broken and disjointed 
 parts. Metaphorically it came to signify "a sci- 
 ence of redintegration and equation." This is, 
 then, the original meaning of Algebra: a restora- 
 tion from a divided and broken-up condition, a 
 return out of separation, which certainly suggests 
 the place of Algebra in the elementary mathe- 
 matical process. It follows Arithmetic and in- 
 deed evolves out of the same, making it universal 
 (in Newtonian phrase) from its previous numer- 
 ical particularity. For Arithmetic compared to 
 Algebra is a special or particular Measure with its 
 corresponding number, which the algebraic symbol 
 elevates into the representative of all number. 
 
 Far better is this conception of the science than 
 that conveyed by the term analysis, which is often 
 employed in European tongues, especially by pro- 
 fessional mathematicians, to denote algebraic sci- 
 ence. This has, undoubtedly, an analytic element, 
 but its deepest character is to be a synthesis, as 
 the original Arabic word suggests. De Morgan, 
 the famous English mathematician, calls it "the 
 calculus of succession, " carrying it back to Time
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ALGEBRA. 157 
 
 as its elemental content. Such a conception is in 
 line with ' Hamilton's designation of Algebra as 
 "the science of pure Time." This puts chief stress 
 upon its separative, analytic element, and would 
 make it, in a psychical ordering, the second stage 
 of the present mathematical process. With such 
 a view, notwithstanding its high authority, the 
 present book cannot fraternize; we believe it, 
 moreover, to be contrary to Newton's brief but 
 very pregnant definition of this science as "uni- 
 versal Arithmetic." As the third part or stage of 
 Measure, accordingly, Algebra shows pure Quan- 
 tity quantified anew, but not particularly as in 
 Arithmetic, but universally. 
 
 It is a very suggestive fact that these three ele- 
 mentary mathematical sciences begin and develop 
 together. Historically they seem to start in ancient 
 Egypt, which had much use for Measure. An 
 Egyptian papyrus in the Rhind collection of the 
 British Museum, is considered the oldest known 
 treatise on Mathematics. It is written in Hier- 
 atic, and its composition is placed somewhere 
 about 2000 B. C. But it claims to be a compila- 
 tion from older documents, which may reach back 
 to 3000 B. C. Thus in accord with the Egyptian 
 mind, it has already the authority of age. The name 
 of the writer is also handed down — Ahmes, seemingly 
 the first maker of a mathematical text-book, whose 
 intellectual progeny has certainly not become ex- 
 tinct in the passing milleniums. Now the most
 
 158 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 striking fact of this Ahmes papyrus is that it 
 contains all three sciences of Measure — Geometry, 
 Arithmetic, and Algebra — in their primal united 
 state, just beginning to get a little differentiated 
 apparently. It has the triangle, square, trapezoid 
 circle, with attempts at their measurement, which 
 introduces Arithmetic. Then in arithmetical form 
 appears a problem with an unknown quantity, 
 which has its symbol or representative called hau, 
 similar to our x. Other symbols are introduced 
 corresponding to plus and minus, along with the 
 sign of equality. Surely here is the germinal act 
 of Algebra tackling its basic problem of finding 
 the quantitatively unknown from the known. 
 
 It has been supposed that there is some Algebra 
 lurking in the Elements of Euclid (Book X). If 
 this be so the illustrious Greek geometer has in 
 his work all three mathematical disciplines — Ge- 
 ometry, Arithmetic, and Algebra. But not till 
 Diophantus of Alexandria (died about 330 A. D.) 
 is there any pronounced Greek algebraist. He put 
 special stress upon the fact that minus multiplied 
 by minus gives plus. In the realm of Algebra he 
 beholds the negative negating itself, the thought 
 of which had already been known in Greek philos- 
 ophy. Still he by no means draws all the conse- 
 quences involved in the negative sign, and his no- 
 tation is very inadequate. 
 
 The Hindoos did much for Algebra, they recog- 
 nized negative and also irrational quantities.
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ALGEBRA. 159 
 
 They were also aware of the double answer for 
 quadratic equations. Some Occidental writers 
 claim that "the learned Brahmins of Hindostan 
 were the real inventors of Algebra" in its wide 
 modern sense. The Arabians lay between Greece 
 and Hindostan, and often fluctuated from one side 
 to the other in their mathematical science as in 
 other matters. Really they were mediators be- 
 tween these two extreme branches of the Aryan 
 stock, the Greek and Hindoo, thus performing 
 what seems to be a chief Semitic function in his- 
 tory. An Arabian mathematician of the ninth 
 century by the name of Alchwarizmi has trans- 
 mitted to us the word Algebra, and was a main 
 channel through which the Hindoo knowledge of 
 this science percolated into Medieval Europe. 
 The development, however, was slow. The sym- 
 bols had, as it were, to grow into completeness; 
 the Arabians used none, but they described the 
 processes, while the Hindoos and Greeks used a 
 few. A pivotal man in the symbolization of Al- 
 gebra was the Frenchman Vieta (1540-1603). He 
 made the symbolic use of alphabetic letters a per- 
 manent possession of the science, though others 
 before him had employed them occasionally by 
 way of illustration. It was Descartes, however, 
 who introduced the capital distinction between 
 the first and last letters of the alphabet, making 
 the former represent the known and the latter the 
 unknown quantities (in his otherwise epoch-making
 
 160 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 work on Geometry, 1637). To Descartes we owe 
 the extraordinary prominence of- x as the symbol 
 of an unknown quantity, which, however, seems 
 to be reaching far beyond its algebraic limits, and 
 to be taken to represent the Great Unknown and 
 indeed the Unknowable of certain philosophers. 
 
 It is of interest to observe that every important 
 algebraic symbol shows an evolution through the 
 ages, and gives often some little reflection of the 
 movement of civilization itself. The process of 
 the great and greatest lurks in the small and 
 smallest, if it can only be discerned. Even the 
 algebraic exponent has its considerable history 
 and is still engaged in a struggle. The evolution 
 of printed text-books of algebra probably begins 
 with that of Rudolff in German (1525), and is 
 going on at a lively rate to-day. But these mat- 
 ters we must drop here and give a brief outline 
 of the general content of Algebra. 
 
 1. The Algebraic Symbol. The first fact about 
 Algebra is that it demands and develops a new 
 notation, different from its arithmetical source. 
 First of all, what we mentally do in Arithmetic, 
 such as adding and subtracting, we throw out of 
 us in Algebra into a symbol, such as plus and 
 minus. Thus what is implicit becomes explicit, or 
 the inside is turned outside. Such is a primal 
 psychical transition from Arithmetic to Algebra. 
 The subjective process is realized, manifested, ob- 
 jectified. To be sure there exist various kinds of
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— ALGEBRA. 161 
 
 symbols, but the present kind is not the artistic 
 symbol; not the image in which the outer directly 
 bespeaks the inner. Rather is it the sign whose 
 form says naught of its meaning, which, therefore, 
 has to be specially learned and fixed in the mem- 
 ory. The significance of the algebraic symbol is 
 what must be first grasped in this new mathemat- 
 ical science. (On symbols generally see author's 
 Psychology and Psychosis under the head of the 
 Rational Symbol). 
 
 Moreover, it employs a system of symbols which 
 we might call the symbolary of Algebra, analo- 
 gous to the numerary of Arithmetic and the fig- 
 urary of Geometry. Each of these sciences has 
 its own system of signs (say a signary) by means 
 of which its procedure takes place. The alge- 
 braic symbolary is composed of (a) alphabetic 
 letters as the universal signs of particular quanti- 
 ties. This may be deemed a return to the letter 
 used for quantity, not as particular but as uni- 
 versal; for instance the letter X does not now 
 mean ten but any number. To the letters must be 
 added a second set of symbols (b) which indicate 
 arithmetical processes by outer signs, such as 
 plus and minus. The culmination is (c) the sign 
 of the equation, which takes two different alge- 
 braic quantities and declares their equality, the 
 chief purpose being to find the unknown from the 
 known quantity. The equation gives the entire 
 
 algebraic process, starting with its symbolized 
 
 11
 
 162 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 quantities which separate into two opposite kinds, 
 unknown and known, constituting the stage of 
 separation. The algebraic act, however, reduces 
 this two to one, it finds the value of x, it makes 
 the unknown a known, so that the original sepa- 
 ration between known and unknown no longer 
 exists. All Algebra turns on the equation as its 
 pivotal process; in fact it becomes in itself as a 
 whole a symbol of science, whose chief function is 
 to unfold the known out of the unknown. The 
 equation gets explicit in Algebra, we may say, 
 although it lies in the very first proposition of 
 Geometry; but it is there not universally symbol- 
 ized. The arithmetical process also is for the 
 most part an equation not yet fully equated. 
 From this point of view we can see that the alge- 
 braic equation expresses universally in its symbols 
 the mathematical process in all its forms— geo- 
 metrical, arithmetical, as well as algebraic. But 
 in order to do this completely, the symbol must 
 conjoin with itself the number. 
 
 2. The Algebraic Symbol Numbered. As the 
 symbols of Algebra become many or numerous, 
 they cannot exclude number from their process 
 as universal; if they did it would not be universal. 
 So Algebra takes up Arithmetic into itself, the 
 symbolary unites with itself the numerary, and 
 there results a kind of dual mathematical science. 
 The conjunction of the symbol and number may 
 be (a) immediate, composed of both equally, as
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ALGEBRA. 163 
 
 we see in 2x for instance. But the deeper fact is 
 that Algebra takes up into itself and employs in 
 all their potency the several arithmetical processes 
 (b), such as the additive, the divisive, and the frac- 
 tional. But when it comes to the extraction of 
 roots (c), the arithmetical process stops, and can 
 only be symbolized algebraically (for instance the 
 square root of minus four). Evidently now the 
 symbol wholly determines the number, while in 
 the previous stage each retained its own dis- 
 
 ' tinct validity. Arithmetic, therefore, in its pecu- 
 liar field, that of number, runs upon its limit in 
 getting the root of certain quantities, that is, in 
 returning to its numerical source. In order to ac- 
 complish such return, Arithmetic has to appeal to 
 Algebra, which, as universal can overcome the 
 
 ( arithmetical limit by its symbol. And in the 
 logarithm, Arithmetic is hardly able to prove its 
 own process, but looks to Algebra for its complete 
 justification. 
 
 Likewise in Geometry arithmetical proof is 
 single, special, not universal, and so has to reach 
 out to algebraic proof for final anchorage. For 
 
 -instance the Pythagorean geometrical theorem is 
 easily provable by arithmetic, if the sides of the 
 triangle are respectively 3, 4, and 5; in fact this 
 
 •proof was probably known to the old Egyptians 
 (see preceding p. 124); but such proof is of course 
 particular, not universal. Now when the alge- 
 braic symbols with their explicit equation are in-
 
 164 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 troduced to express this theorem (for instance, a 
 square plus b square equals c square) we behold 
 not only the arithmetical statement, but Geom- 
 etry itself, unversalized in Algebra. This brings 
 us into a new phase of algebraic development — 
 the geometric. In this connection may be cited 
 the statement of a distinguished mathematician: 
 "All possible triangles, plane and spherical, and 
 all their properties are expressed in the single 
 equation r = pg" — which statement shows the 
 geometric turned algebraic. The triangle with its 
 three self-returning lines may be deemed the pri- 
 mal complete quantification of space, hence of 
 all Nature, though it presupposes the single 
 line as quantum. The first whole figure of Geom- 
 etry, in the foregoing equation, goes over into 
 an algebraic formula, which indicates a new 
 sphere. 
 
 3. The Algebra of Geometry. In the present 
 stage we find Algebra going back to Geometry, 
 taking up the same into itself and symbolizing 
 it anew. Thus this whole sphere might be called 
 geometric Algebra, as the preceding one was dom- 
 inantly an arithmetical Algebra. Plainly our 
 mathematical science in and through Algebra re- 
 turns upon itself, taking up its first form which 
 was Geometry, and therein completing its mathe- 
 matical (and also its psychical) round. This return 
 of Algebra to Geometry is, in general, the finish- 
 ing act of the process of elementary Mathematics
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS — ALGEBRA. 165 
 
 (Geometry, Arithmetic, Algebra), the Psychosis of 
 these -three sciences. 
 
 This resumption of Geometry into Algebra takes 
 place in different ways, of which we may note the 
 following: 
 
 (a) There is the immediate transformation of a 
 geometric theorem into an algebraic equation, an 
 example of which has been already given in the 
 Pythagorean theorem. (6) Far deeper and com- 
 pleter is the algebraizing of Geometry in what is 
 known as Analytical Geometry, chiefly through 
 the so-called co-ordinate, which, starting as a line, 
 becomes a kind of bridge over from geometrical to 
 algebraic processes. This was one of the greatest 
 as well as most lasting mathematical deeds of 
 Descartes (first published in his Geometry of 
 1637). Here can be repeated the statement that 
 the line as the first limitation of Space may be re- 
 garded as the first mathematical quantity, and as 
 the primordial source not only of Geometry, but 
 of all the sciences of Measure or of Mathemat- 
 ics. So Algebra universalizes Geometry, as it does 
 Arithmetic also. But the curious fact springs up 
 before the psychical student that it has gotten 
 back to itself, and we observe Algebra in a manner 
 trying to universalize itself, already supposed to be 
 the great universalizer of finite quantities or forms 
 of Measure (c). The Calculus we may, in general, 
 call this highest sphere of Algebra and indeed of 
 all Mathematics. From good authority we learn
 
 166 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 that the Calculus as a whole treats of a "great va- 
 riety of problems by means of some system of 
 algebraic notation." There are many kinds of 
 Calculus, yea, many kinds of algebraic sym- 
 bolization. The start was made by Leibniz in 
 his differential Calculus, very similar to New- 
 ton's Fluxions; indeed both these great math- 
 ematicians evolved the same science about the 
 same time, and their friends have disputed over 
 the question of priority ever since. From this 
 beginning the Calculus has unfolded into many 
 other forms, and its present condition seems to be 
 that of variety, separation, almost disorganization — 
 the whole of it lying around rather loosely in discon- 
 nected parts. It would appear that the mathemat- 
 ical genius has not yet arisen who can bring together 
 into an organic totality its manifold disjointed 
 portions. Psychically significant is the so-called 
 Calculus of Operations, which is "the general 
 method of treating quantities by operating alge- 
 braically upon the symbols of operation." Very 
 suggestive is such a statement ; it seems to indi- 
 cate that the Calculus may yet develop its own 
 symbolary, or the symbolary of all symbolaries, 
 including doubtless the algebraic. At any rate 
 Algebra on this side leads up into the sphere 
 known as the Higher Mathematics, which must be 
 deemed to be still in a state of active evolution. 
 
 We may, then, catch a glimpse of a universal 
 science of Mathematics, to which Algebra, as uni-
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— ALGEBRA. 167 
 
 versal Arithmetic and Geometry, is leading. At 
 the same time the Calculus as the science of Meas- 
 ure pushed to the highest, is driven to grapple 
 with the Infinite, which it, if it be truly uni- 
 versal, must also measure. The struggle between 
 the limited and the unlimited in Quantity is 
 strongly shown by the so-called infinite series, 
 which is not infinite, but rather an infinite strain- 
 ing for the same. Can the unlimited be measured 
 by the limited? It must, but cannot. So is laid 
 bare the contradiction inherent in Measure or 
 Mathematics, in all Quantity, yea in all Nature — a 
 striving to be what it cannot, and if it could, it 
 would not beat all. Mathematics as the science 
 of Measure or the return of Quantity upon itself 
 breaks down in the series, which will no longer 
 allow such return, and so will not suffer Measure. 
 This is only saying that Quantity is not the com- 
 pletely self-returning Ego or Consciousness, but is 
 pushing for the same as its supreme end. More- 
 over the infinitely small is said to be negligible in 
 Mathematics, but in thought it cannot be jumped 
 over, being infinite. And this is not the sole diffi- 
 culty here ; the infinitely small cannot be smaller, 
 and thus is a magnitude which cannot be diminished, 
 and which therein denies its own definition as 
 "that which can- be increased or diminished." The 
 same contradiction rises in the conception of a 
 magnitude which is infinitely large. Evidently 
 Magnitude, Measure, Quantity, have now reached
 
 168 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the point at which they show their inner dialec- 
 tical character in a final self-undoing. Therein 
 the elemental Cosmos has evidently reached its 
 limit; it has attempted to measure the infinite 
 and cannot, the incommensurable is just what it 
 has found and of course recoils from. Measure 
 can only measure the Cosmos as finite or partic- 
 ularized, and proceeds at once to do that — which 
 statement suggests the content of our coming 
 Chapter. 
 
 We are to see, therefore, that Motion, Matter, 
 and Measure as cosmical run upon a breach be- 
 tween the limited and the unlimited, which breach 
 lies in the Cosmos itself, is indeed the ground of 
 what we have so often called its Dialectic. The 
 inherent dualism of Motion was long since de- 
 clared by ancient Zeno, as already stated. Matter 
 cannot help reaching down to the atom with its 
 dual character of division and indivisibility, bring- 
 ing to the surface also the contradiction between 
 the material and immaterial, or between the sensi- 
 sible and the supersensible. And now we have 
 seen Measure advancing to the chasm between the 
 measured and the immeasurable — at which point 
 it of necessity turns back and measures what it 
 can — the limited realm of Motion and Matter, or 
 the particularized Cosmos. 
 
 So the world, or what we usually call such, is 
 now to be investigated, tested, quantified, giving 
 birth to a very important part of the science of
 
 ELEMENTAL COSMOS— ALGEBRA. 169 
 
 Mechanics. We may look back to its be- 
 ginning in Space, which contains the primal 
 quantity, a simple line, and this line can be un- 
 folded into the primal geometric quantity, a tri- 
 angle, \vhich is the first linear self-return. Thus 
 Nature commences to be measured, in which work 
 Science is still deeply engaged. Over and over 
 again we have enforced the thought that Nature 
 herself is quantitative, that Quantity is a part or 
 stage of the Cosmos, that Measure is what may be 
 called a Natural Science in the wide sense of the 
 term. It is true that philosophers have disputed 
 about the place of Mathematics in a System of the 
 Universe. We can see, however, that there can 
 be no Measure till the Separated (Nature) has ap- 
 peared, bringing with it inherently the problem of 
 the How-much (Quantitas), out of which Mathe- 
 matics develop. 
 
 Repeatedly in the preceding exposition allusion 
 has been made to the particular sense-world, from 
 which indeed Measure is evolved and abstracted, 
 thus becoming the science of pure Mathematics. 
 Into the foreground is now to be drawn this realm 
 of Nature, particular, corporeal, full of conflicts, 
 with the search for its law and its origin.
 
 170 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 THE PARTICULARIZED COSMOS. 
 
 We are entering the distinctive realm of New- 
 ton, and so we may imagine ourselves lying under 
 his famous apple-tree and seeing the apple fall 
 again. We note specially the two bodies, the 
 earth and the apple, though there are many other " 
 bodies around us. Newton accepted the two as 
 given, he seemed not to ask how they became two, 
 or whence arose the vast diversity of bodies. He 
 took the immediate phenomenon before him, but in 
 it he glimpsed a universal act of Nature, extend- 
 ing it to the moon and sun and planets. All sep- 
 arate bodies are drawing one another into a com- 
 mon center, striving to overcome their separation ; 
 but whence this original separation? The question 
 undoubtedly occurred to Newton, but he dismissed it 
 and its like curtly with a wave of the hand: Non 
 flngo hypotheses. He had enough to do in dealing 
 with the given phenomenal world and discovering 
 its laws, or the universal ways in which it acts. 
 That is, the corporeal particularized Cosmos was 
 his particular field, in deepest rapport with his 
 genius. Newton's soul we may think, was one 
 with Nature's soul just in her present stage, not 
 so much in her previous elemental stage. To be 
 sure, he distinguished absolute Time, Space, and
 
 THE PARTICULARIZED COSMOS. 171 
 
 Motion, from relative Time, Space, and Motion 
 (see first scholium of the Principia) ; but really he 
 turned from the hoary primeval shapes of the ele- 
 mental Cosmos, to the more tractable finite forms 
 of what we here call the Particularized Cosmos. 
 
 We have now to take a new large step in the Sci- 
 ence of Nature, constituting a very significant 
 transition — the Cosmos incorporating itself in ma- 
 terial bodies. Scattered throughout the physical 
 universe we observe these bodies, from the smallest 
 particle to the vast suns and the vaster nebulae of 
 the cosmical spaces — how did they get to be? 
 First in order let us note that they are separated — 
 trebly separated — from one another, in themselves 
 atomically, and from the All of which they are in- 
 deed parts, but disjoined parts, each having its 
 own distinct individuality, so to speak. We should 
 mark with strong mental emphasis this primal 
 separation, as if the one original totality of the 
 Cosmos had been split up or exploded by a uni- 
 versal convulsion into fragments which are still 
 seen in the least and in the largest floating through 
 the celestial regions. At present it is these frag- 
 ments of the primeval separation which are to be 
 considered, and which, taken together, we call the 
 Particularized Cosmos, that is, the Cosmos reduced 
 to parts and particles, divided into bodies — other- 
 wise the Cosmos incorporate. 
 
 In the previous Chapter, which dealt with the 
 Elemental Cosmos, these bodies were not yet born,
 
 172 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the convulsion had not yet taken place, if we may 
 so conceive it. There we dealt with Motion, Mat- 
 ter, and Measure as not yet incorporate, but rather 
 as ideal and speculative, though their existence 
 was not denied. The elements of the Cosmos are 
 universal and underlie all Nature ; they constitute 
 her original creative thought which the explorer 
 of her depths has to re-think, and, as it were, re- 
 create in his own mind. Motion, Matter and 
 Measure have a decided supersensible strain in 
 them, which is now to become sensible in the cor- 
 poreal or particularized Cosmos. Here is the point 
 at which the scientist ordinarily begins; he starts 
 with the sensible object upon which he makes his 
 experiments, leaving Space, Time, Motion, Matter, 
 and Quantity, as original and elemental, to the 
 metaphysician. But certainly the two sides or 
 rather the two stages of Nature cannot be torn 
 asunder without injury to both. Now we are to 
 see the universal ideal element of Nature becom- 
 ing particularized, real, embodied, accessible di- 
 rectly to the senses, at least in its finite relations. 
 Indeed the finite world of Motion and Matter with 
 their special measurements appears, revealing itself 
 in phenomena with which physical science first 
 grapples. 
 
 A necessary consequence of such a world of par- 
 ticular bodies moving and at rest (relatively) is 
 their collision. They are in a mighty struggle and 
 cannot help jostling one another. They belong
 
 THE PARTICULARIZED COSMOS. 173 
 
 together and are striving to be one, for in- 
 stance by attraction; still they are separated and 
 must remain so in order to be. Hence their push 
 for unity is always whelming them into conflict; 
 the attraction is met with repulsion. A stone 
 tossed from the hand seeks oneness with the 
 earth, but collides with the same at their corpo- 
 real limits. Here is their original line of separa- 
 tion which they cannot directly overcome. Both 
 stone and earth we may conceive to be fragments 
 of that primeval, age-long, ever-continuing ex- 
 plosion of the AH, which begot them as distinct 
 individual bodies. They show themselves still to 
 be parts of the one universe by gravitating to- 
 wards each other without cessation, and yet they 
 cannot get rid of that explosion which separated 
 them, making them particular bodies. Thus we 
 behold a colliding Cosmos in sharp contrast with 
 the elemental Cosmos from which it has issued. 
 Motion and Matter are changed from their abso- 
 lute aspect and finitized in special forms, which, 
 being measured in their finite relations, are 
 brought into the fold of science . 
 
 The observation of the particularized Cosmos as 
 colliding is largely confined to the earth. We may 
 well suppose that there must be attraction and 
 repulsion with the impact of bodies on the other 
 planets. Thus each of them becomes a center of 
 the clashing of Matter similar to what we see be- 
 fore us. How heavy a terrestrial body of a cer-
 
 174 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tain weight would be on small Venus and on large 
 Jupiter has been often calculated. But it cannot 
 be weighed directly by us except upon our own 
 planetary surface. So the Cosmos now turns 
 earthward and becomes a scene of conflict ; bodies 
 push, collide, fall together in a crash. We shall 
 see later (in the Systemic Cosmos) that bodies of 
 the Solar System with their circular movement 
 have the tendency to avoid collision; they do not 
 impinge upon their central sun, nor upon one 
 another; the terrestrial conflicts seem to be har- 
 monized in the celestial order. Aerolites are de- 
 clared to fall into the sum and a planet may now 
 and then have to plow through the tail of a comet; 
 still on the whole the arena of the heavenly bodies 
 is not one of strife but of harmony — the ancient 
 much-sung harmony of the spheres. On the other 
 hand the terrestrial or perchance the planetary 
 Cosmos is the scene of infinite collisions between 
 material forms, which drive against one another 
 more or less directly; their motion is generally 
 interfered with and is not rounded out into the 
 self-returning circle, as we observe everywhere in 
 the free intermundane spaces. Such a colliding 
 character belongs to the present stage of the Cos- 
 mos as particularized into a vast hurly-burly of 
 struggling bodies, each striving to get to the 
 center, and elbowing its neighbors out of the way. 
 We are, however, to emphasize the fact that the 
 Cosmos as such has now gotten body or rather
 
 THE PARTICULARIZED COSMOS. 175 
 
 many bodies — the grand manifestation of its sepa- 
 rative stage. The elemental Cosmos is not yet 
 incorporate, at least not to the human senses; if 
 there is a material ether filling all Space, it is not 
 directly apparent to us. This getting of body will 
 persist through the entire development of Nature 
 to the end. We shall have to deal with body not 
 only in the rest of the Cosmos, but in the Dia- 
 cosmos having its radiant body, and in the Biocos- 
 mos which has as its center the living, self-moving 
 body. Great is this incorporation of the Cosmos 
 truly sprung of the All, which therein gets mani- 
 fested and has reality. To be sure these bodies 
 are born in a struggle and reveal a vast conflict of 
 forces which man is to master and to direct to his 
 purpose when he finds their law. 
 
 And now we are to search for the order, yea the 
 process in this realm of manifold collisions- be- 
 tween moving bodies. On the outside it looks 
 rather chaotic, as if it might be governed by ac- 
 cident ; but we shall find that it has its laws, under 
 whose power it has to act. From this point of 
 view the particularized Cosmos with its struggling 
 fragments fixed in the clamps of law seems the 
 sphere of iron necessity; and such it is when taken 
 simply by itself. But when the present stage of the 
 Cosmos is regarded as a part of the greater totality 
 of Nature, which in its turn is a stage of the All- 
 Self, we begin to catch a gleam of the physical 
 world in all its manifestations as part of the pro-
 
 176 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 cess of the free Universe. For the Universe is the 
 absolutely free entity, which can have nothing 
 outside of itself to determine itself. Its free pro- 
 cess is psychical, that of the Parapsychosis, as we 
 have often called it, and is the inner process order- 
 ing all the parts of the Universe, since each part 
 must have the process of the whole. So now in 
 this particularized Cosmos we ask for the process 
 which orders it inherently and at the same time 
 integrates it harmoniously with the All. 
 
 We shall observe in this stage of the Cosmos 
 many laws formulated and verified from the phe- 
 nomena. There is the law of falling bodies, of the 
 oscillating pendulum, and the so-called laws of 
 Motion. All of these are to be taken into account, 
 but the chief difficulty with them is that they, 
 too, lie scattered over the field without any inner 
 bond of union. They become almost as discon- 
 nected as the phenomena. So the multiplicity of 
 laws is to be put into order along with the sensu- 
 ous facts which they correlate. And we may re- 
 peat that this order must be psychical, suggesting 
 its origin, and showing in its process the impress 
 of the supernal source. Accordingly the Particu- 
 larized Cosmos or Nature incorporate is to be seen 
 fundamentally in a threefold process whose stages 
 we may set down in advance as follows: 
 
 (I) The Moving Body— which suggests the im- 
 mediate coalescence of Motion and Matter in one 
 phenomenon. The primal stage.
 
 THE PARTICULARIZED COSMOS. 177 
 
 (II) The Impinging Body — which shows the 
 moving Body in conflict with its like. The stage 
 of separation and strife. 
 
 (III) The Gravitating Body — which manifests 
 the striving of the moving Body to return to unity 
 with the earth and all Matter, the seeking to 
 overcome the separation, without success, how- 
 ever. For the Gravitating Body, pushing for the 
 terrestrial center, impinges on the earth's surface 
 and so drops back into impact. 
 
 The Moving Body is, therefore, the starting- 
 point of the present sphere; it is taken for granted, 
 is something already created and is manifesting 
 itself in the Particularized Cosmos, though its 
 primal origin may be traced in the previous (ele- 
 mental) Cosmos. But we shall now see it evolv- 
 ing until it gets to rotating and throwing off 
 forms of itself, that is, new individualized bodies 
 in Motion. Thus we may say that it comes back 
 to its own beginning and starts to reproducing 
 itself — which completes its cycle. 
 
 In the three foregoing stages the attentive reader 
 will be able to trace what we call a psychosis — 
 especially the psychosis of the Particularized Cos- 
 mos, which we are now to unfold more fully and 
 to set forth in its concrete content. The theme of 
 this Chapter might be called Matter moving, or 
 Motion materialized; the two cosmical elements, 
 Motion and Matter, are joined together in a kind 
 of struggle for supremacy till Motion gets control 
 
 12
 
 178 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 of Matter and whirls it in a circular orbit — where- 
 with the present stage passes over into the next. 
 
 The Moving Body. 
 
 What is more common than to see a body in 
 motion, and to feel it and also to hear it? A very- 
 trite phenomenon for our senses is such an object; 
 still it is the combination and co-operation of the 
 two primordial and elemental principles of Nature 
 — Motion and Matter. These we have already 
 seen as stages in the same cosmical process, and 
 yet opposites also. Hitherto they have been held 
 apart and looked at in themselves with their vari- 
 ous characteristics. But now they are conjoined 
 in one phenomenon, though still dual and even 
 antagonistic. The moving Body is of course not 
 pure Motion nor pure Matter; it is Motion limited 
 and particularized in Matter, and Matter limited 
 and particularized in Motion; each puts a bound 
 upon the other and compels it to be real, finite, 
 even sensuous. The Moving Body we call it, 
 though we shall also take it at rest. 
 
 Now this Moving Body in its dual character ex- 
 ercised a wonderful fascination over Sir Isaac 
 Newton, with whose soul it had some strange com- 
 pelling affinity. His great work (the Principia) is 
 properly a treatise on the Moving Body ; or as he 
 designates it, On the Motion of Bodies. His stress,
 
 THE MOVING BODY. 179 
 
 however, is directed to measurement, or to the 
 mathematics of the moving Body. The Measure 
 of the Motion of Matter is what evokes his genius. 
 Let the reader note in this statement the three 
 elemental principles of the Cosmos united. 
 
 Says Newton: "Geometry is founded in mechan- 
 ical practice, and is nothing but that part of uni- 
 versal mechanics which accurately proposes and 
 demonstrates the art of measuring" (Pref. ad 
 Prin.). Geometry is, therefore, the first branch oi 
 Mathematics, or of Measure. Another passage runs: 
 ''All the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist 
 in this — from the phenomena of Motions to inves- 
 tigate the forces of Nature, and then from these 
 forces to demonstrate the other phenomena." 
 Newton evidently means here by philosophy a 
 science of Nature, which with him is almost wholly 
 mechanical and cosmical. It is plain, too, that 
 Motion, or rather the Motion of Matter, was the 
 central phenomenon from which he was to extract 
 his philosophy. This he did chiefly by means of 
 geometric construction which is seen everywhere 
 in the Principles 
 
 On the subject of the Moving Body Newton 
 starts out with three axioms, which he calls the 
 laws of Motion. The first word (axiom) is the best 
 for designating them, as they are immediate in- 
 sights into the fundamental character of the thing, 
 and not the result of proof. Moreover these 
 "Laws of Motion" pertain to the Moving Body, as
 
 180 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 is seen in the two words (omne corpus) which 
 begin the first law. It may be said that these 
 three laws of Motion have dominated the present 
 field of physical science since their enunciation (in 
 the Principia) . They are very simple in form, quite 
 self-evident, though they are subtle and pervasive, 
 and seem to grow in significance as the physicist 
 grows in knowledge. 
 
 The leading interest perhaps is to see the first 
 phenomenon of Nature — the Moving Body, or the 
 Motion of Matter — grappled with and reduced to 
 order. Moreover the phenomena of Motion are 
 very diverse; but here they arc simplified and uni- 
 fied in what we see to be a single process, though 
 this was a phase of the subject seemingly not rec- 
 ognized by Newton. For they are not merely 
 three isolated truths or axioms about Motion, but 
 they belong together and form one process, as we 
 shall see. 
 
 It is well at this point to recall elemental Motion, 
 the Separating of the Cosmos, which has now be- 
 come embodied, and which in this stage is organ- 
 ized with all its outer diversity into inner law, or 
 rather into the process of three laws. These are 
 to be seen next in their application to concrete ob- 
 jects and to special cases. But they also reach 
 backward to deeper-lying categories, and processes, 
 such as Space, Time, Quantity. One may well 
 ask of Newton, Whence comes that pivotal word 
 of his (corpus) or its concept? He picks it up as
 
 THE MOVING BODY 181 
 
 it were, and starts to find its law when moving, 
 and also to measure this Motion of Matter. But 
 the questions: What is this Motion and Whence — 
 What is this Matter and Whence — What is this 
 Measure and Whence — did not take hold of him 
 strongly, though he glances at them now and then. 
 Nor did it lie in the consciousness of his time to 
 work back into such speculative or elemental pre- 
 suppositions of Nature. Newton's century in sci- 
 ence was essentially mechanical, not chemical, 
 not biological. Of this scientific spirit he was 
 doubtless the culmination, which is seen specially 
 in his power over Measure, or in his genius for 
 Mathematics, the mathematical being Nature's 
 ideal machine, or the machine of all machines, 
 which seems always to be running of itself in the 
 Newtonian brain. The physical determinations of 
 Nature were but a transparent shell through 
 which he saw the universal mechanism working, 
 and uttering itself to him in mathematical forms, 
 especially geometric, for he was somewhat averse 
 to the rising algebraic or analytic method intro- 
 duced by Descartes. 
 
 We are, accordingly, to grapple with the three 
 laws of Motion, or of the Moving Body, as the first 
 stage of the Particularized Cosmos, or better, as 
 the first process of it. 
 
 I. First Law of Motion. This is, in general, 
 the law of the inert Body which is to become the 
 moving Body:
 
 1«2 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 "Every Body perseveres in its state of rest or of 
 moving uniformly forward in a straight line (in di- 
 rectum), unless it is compelled by forces impressed 
 upon it (a viribus impressis) to change its state." 
 
 Given the material Body at rest or in motion, 
 what breaks into it and causes it to alter and di- 
 versify its condition? Some external force is the 
 Newtonian conception. We may bring out the 
 main points: 
 
 (1) The primal condition of Body is here given 
 as rest, which implies its relation to the earth's 
 center. For in the large outlook no Body is at 
 rest in the universe; even the inert Body is always 
 moving with the earth around the sun. So the 
 scene is terrestrial, the Body is located on the sur- 
 face of the planet. Such is the primordial rest 
 with which the incorporate or particularized Cos- 
 mos starts. To be sure the starting-point is itself 
 a result, indeed a result of Motion, as we shall see 
 later. 
 
 (2) The second condition mentioned in the law 
 is the motion of the Body in a right line when its 
 rest may be supposed to be broken into. The 
 earth's gravity is assailed, and the moving Body 
 goes its own way, with its own center. We should 
 note also the Body's rectilineal Motion, not circu- 
 lar, or self-returning. This second condition is a 
 breaking away from the immediate influence of 
 the earth, and a kind of self-assertion on the part 
 of the Body, in which we may see an act of sepa-
 
 THE MOVING BODY. 183 
 
 ration from first unity between it and its terres- 
 trial counterpart. 
 
 (3) Upon both these states of rest and motion, 
 a new power may impinge and produce a change. 
 This force (vis impressa) may bring the Body from 
 rest to motion, or from motion to rest, or from one 
 motion to another. There is a world of such forces 
 outside of the Body at rest or in motion, which 
 are always determining it anew and producing 
 changes of state. Moreover, the moving Body is 
 exposed to collision in an incessant whirl of other 
 Bodies. The first law of Motion, accordingly, un- 
 folds the conflict of the Particularized Cosmos 
 sprung of its ever-colliding forces. The Body 
 from its immediate condition is whelmed into a 
 seething reservoir of conflict, at least as far as the 
 earth is concerned. 
 
 The first law of Motion is often called the law of 
 the inertia of the Body. This means its persist- 
 ence in its given condition; if it be at rest it stays 
 so, if it be in motion it continues to move. It has 
 no inner power of determination ; any change in 
 its state must come from without. The corporeal 
 world is a world externally determined; the first 
 Body is devoid of self-movement. This is the op- 
 posite of the universal Self, which must be wholly 
 moved from within, and has all difference inside 
 itself. But the first Body possesses only stolid, 
 persistent self-identity, all change in it must come 
 from the outside.
 
 184 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 II. Second Law of Motion. We have reached 
 an ever-changing world ot moving Bodies, or the 
 first manifestation of the Particularized Cosmos. 
 Next we are to see if this changeful appearance 
 has not some principle which may flash a gleam of 
 order through its seemingly chaotic diversity- 
 Here is the second law in the present domain. 
 
 'Change of Motion is proportional to the motive 
 force (yi motrici), and is produced along a right 
 line on which that force is impressed." 
 
 Here Body is not directly mentioned, but Mo- 
 tion is the emphatic word. Still the Motion of 
 Body it is which underlies the conception of the 
 present law. The theme is corporeal Motion with 
 the degree of the change and its kind, as well as 
 its direction. 
 
 (1) The first concept here is that of the collision 
 of Bodies, to which we are now specially intro- 
 duced. A moving Body is impinged upon by 
 another moving Body or motive force, and the 
 result is a change of its motion. 
 
 (2) This change is proportional to the imping- 
 ing power. Thus the world of conflicting Bodies 
 has its proportion and is measurable. The greater 
 the impact the greater the change; the one deter- 
 mines the other. We note here the division of 
 the corporeal world into two parts: the moving 
 and the moved. Yet each Body may be one or 
 the other. 
 
 (3) The rectilinear direction of impact or of
 
 THE MOVING BODY. 185 
 
 these changes of Motion is specially emphasized. 
 This right line is simply a continuation of the line 
 of motive force, which thus determines the char- 
 acter, the direction and the quantity of the change 
 of Motion. Matter as Body is now seen to be the 
 transmitter of Motion as Force. The incorporate 
 Cosmos before us is in a state of conveying in- 
 creasingly Motion from particle to particle. And 
 that Motion being limited has the tendency to be 
 rectilineal. 
 
 The first law of Motion regarded the Body as 
 such, in its immediate condition, whether at rest 
 or in motion — in which condition it persisted unless 
 compelled to change by an outside power. But 
 the second law of Motion regards this outside 
 power or colliding force, and makes it the measure 
 of the change of Motion produced in the Body 
 upon which it impinges. So we pass from one 
 Body mainly to two Bodies with their conflict. 
 
 III. Third Law of Motion. The two imping- 
 ing Bodies, one of which has just been shown deter- 
 mining the other, are now brought into a kind of 
 mutuality of influence, in which they both are 
 alike. 
 
 ''To action reaction is always equal and oppo- 
 site; or the actions of two Bodies toward each 
 other mutually are always equal, and are directed 
 against opposite parts." 
 
 The reciprocal relation of incorporate Motion is 
 here formulated as action and reaction; it is well
 
 186 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 to note the introduction of the two correlative 
 words instead of force or motion. The two forces 
 are opposite, yet equal, indeed alike in character; 
 truly they arc one in their very opposition, and 
 form a process together. Upon this fact a few 
 words may be added. 
 
 (1) The new point is that of counteractive Mo- 
 tion against the motive force which had the em- 
 phasis in the preceding law. The body assailed 
 now seems to wake up and to respond by an equal 
 assault, though it may be overwhelmed by a 
 greater amount of force or motion. 
 
 (2) Two Bodies are now mentioned (corporum 
 duorum), rather than implied, as they were not 
 directly named in the preceding law. Moreover 
 they are put on terms of equality and interrelation; 
 there is still the collision, but it now is made mu- 
 tual. The blow is given but each hits the part op- 
 posed to it— wherein again they are alike. 
 
 (3) Action and reaction in their very opposi- 
 tion are one in character and form together a 
 round of Motions — action calling forth reaction, 
 which is a return upon action with its own. The 
 third law thus winds up not in circular Motion, 
 but in a cycle of two Motions of two Bodies 
 which make a totality of conception, and form a 
 very suggestive conclusion of these three laws of 
 Motion. 
 
 It may be further conceived that when the two 
 colliding Bodies have spent their action and reac-
 
 THE MOVING BODY. 187 
 
 tion, they will return to their state of rest as inert 
 Bodies; or to the state taken for granted by the 
 first law. From such a point of view the third 
 law has gone back to the beginning, and has 
 rounded out the process of the moving Body in 
 the present stage of the particularized Cosmos. 
 
 In other words, these three laws constitute a 
 psychical process, that which we call psychosis. 
 They are to be taken singly, but still more pro- 
 foundly they are to be taken together. They 
 formulate the elemental unity of all Moving 
 Bodies, in fact of the whole Particularized Cosmos, 
 of which they stand first as a kind of ideal proto- 
 type. It is this process which has given them 
 their enduring place in the science. They deserve 
 all the laudation of Professor Tait, but for a 
 deeper reason than he presents. Singly they were 
 known before Newton; the first must have long 
 been the common property of every observer, the 
 second had been employed by Galileo, the third is 
 found in the works of Huygens and others. But 
 it was Newton who put them together in their 
 threefold succession and thus suggested their 
 unity. Still he does not speak of their process or 
 of their unitary character. That probably lay 
 outside of his consciousness. At any rate he sets 
 them down on the same page in the introduction 
 to his Principia, to whose geometric demonstra- 
 tions he evidently regards them as the axiomatic 
 foundation which docs not need proof.
 
 188 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 These Newtonian Laws of Motion have not es- 
 caped criticism. Especially the first has been re- 
 garded as a special instance of the second and 
 hence superfluous. But a little study ought to 
 make plain that they are quite different, and that 
 the only way to unify them is to see them as two 
 separate stages of the one fundamental process of 
 the Moving Body, to which process the third law 
 also belongs. 
 
 Another distinction may be noted at this point : 
 as we have had the elements of the total Cosmos 
 (Motion, Matter, Measure) in our first chapter, so 
 now we have the elements of the particular Cos- 
 mos in these three Laws of Motion. They may 
 be deemed the general forms into which the real 
 world of moving Bodies is to be cast. This real 
 world is what comes next. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Impinging Body. 
 
 Conceive all finite Matter around us here on the 
 terrestrial ball — what is its condition? It is press- 
 ing, pushing, colliding — in a word impinging. 
 Even if we say it to be at rest, it is exerting a 
 pressure, it shows impact. Already this idea came 
 before us in the laws of Motion, all of which intro- 
 duce a motive force which in one way or other 
 assails and changes the state of the Body, moving 
 or at rest.
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 189 
 
 As already indicated, the laws of Motion were 
 vast generalizations, fundamental axioms laid 
 down in advance of the manifold details of the 
 real world of moving Bodies which now appears. 
 The particularized Cosmos is here to be mani- 
 fested in all its sensuous reality, which takes the 
 form of impact in the present section. 
 
 It must again be observed that this world of 
 moving Bodies, each asserting itself against the 
 rest and yet each drawn earthward by gravity, 
 means mutual collision, or a world of impinging 
 Bodies. So we pass from a rather abstract or 
 general sphere to a decidedly concrete one, which 
 also has its place in the science of Nature. 
 
 What is to be done with this writhing, strug- 
 gling multiplicity of impinging Bodies which every- 
 where meets our gaze over our terrestrial habita- 
 tion? Certainly it is to be put into some kind of 
 order which turns it from seeming chaos into cos- 
 mos, or into a phase thereof. And the law is again 
 to be found, the law derived from its phenomena. 
 But we are to observe that this second kind of 
 laws are different from those of Motion already 
 given, as they are not axiomatic in their character 
 but are unfolded directly out of the sensuous facts, 
 and usually express or imply some kind of meas- 
 urement. 
 
 The question of impact has been a center of dis- 
 cussion in physical science ever since the so-called 
 discovery of Gravitation, which controls all ma-
 
 190 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 terial bodies through the most remote distances of 
 the Cosmos. The sun attracts the earth. What 
 reaches out from the former and pulls the latter? 
 Is there a medium between the sun and earth 
 which enables each to influence the other by direct 
 impact? Or does one body move another at a 
 distance without any intervening medium? 
 
 The problem, accordingly, turns on impact as 
 the source of all motion of Bodies. This is what 
 is familiar to us through our senses on the surface 
 of the earth; but is this view, which holds here, to 
 be made universal, to be applied throughout the 
 entire physical universe? Mars is supposed to 
 attract Sirius in accordance with the principle of 
 universal Gravitation, which affirms that all bodies 
 whatever attract one another with a force propor- 
 tional directly to their masses and inversely to the 
 squares of their distances. Now this action of 
 Mars upon Sirius — is it immediate, the so-called 
 actio in distans, or is it mediated through another 
 body, perchance through the ether? 
 
 Newton, the formulator of the theory of Gravi- 
 tation, kept aloof from any decisive answer either 
 way, especially in his Principia, though he speaks 
 more positively elsewhere. The question may be 
 put in this form : Is Gravitation the result of im- 
 pact, or an inherent property of Matter acting 
 everywhere at a distance? The first alternative is 
 unproved and the second is inconceivable, except 
 as an occult cause. A universal mechanical view
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 191 
 
 of the world cries out for impact; and this seems 
 to be the present trend of scientific opinion, which 
 insists upon the aphorism : A thing cannot act 
 where it is not. The wave-theory which has so 
 successfully united Heat, Light, and Electricity has 
 been invoked in the case of Gravitation also. The 
 difficulty is that Gravitation seems instantaneous, 
 and so is not measurable in time. 
 
 The problem, then, is still unsettled — the prob- 
 lem whether Gravitation is the result of impact, or 
 is an innate, essential property of Matter. But 
 whatever be our view on this speculative theme, 
 we all have to say and think that Matter is heavy, 
 and that weight is an immanent characteristic of 
 it. Gravitation is measurable and is reduced to a 
 quantitative law; nobody has been able to get 
 behind it and to see what causes it, to find what 
 other impinging body pushes or pulls two widely 
 separated bodies. As far as experience goes, Grav- 
 itation is inherent in Matter, and works without 
 direct impact, though such a view runs counter 
 to making the Cosmos a universal machine. 
 
 And now it falls to our lot to attempt the organ- 
 ization of this vast realm of impinging Bodies, in 
 the midst of which we live and act every moment. 
 Our breath, our sight, all our senses strike against 
 something, are in a state of perpetual impact. 
 Each one of us, being embodied, is a center of in- 
 finite collisions with the world incorporate. And 
 this world incorporate is in a continual fight with
 
 192 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 itself; its Bodies are impinging or are ready to im- 
 pinge upon one another. Nature is often said to 
 be in an eternal condition of war; that is one state- 
 ment of her inherent dualism. Yet in all this 
 strife there is a striving for order and harmony. 
 The domain of the impinging Body is making a 
 tremendous effort to get out of itself; impact 
 struggles to overcome impact; in other words it 
 too is dialectical like total Nature, of which it is a 
 part or stage. 
 
 So we shall attempt to run some lines of order 
 through this realm of seeming disorder. In the 
 first place there is the impact which is direct or 
 immediate, as when bodies press one another 
 simply through their own gravity — wherein is 
 manifested the phenomenon of weight. In the 
 second place, bodies impinge with added force or 
 momentum, which is transferred from one body to 
 the other — impact as translatory, which produces 
 ever-flowing currents in the ocean of force. In the 
 third place, an implement or machine is employed 
 by man to seize upon and to direct these natural 
 currents of force — impact as mechanical or medi- 
 ated by a machine. These points will be consid- 
 ered in a little detail. 
 
 I. Impact as Immediate. Or we may call it 
 impact by pressure, in which the impinging Body 
 is inert, but is exerting the force of its inertia 
 upon another Body, while this in turn gives back 
 an equal counter-pressure. Both Bodies are striv-
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 193 
 
 ing to become one through mutual attraction, 
 really they are striving to undo themselves as cor- 
 poreal. And yet as Body each asserts itself 
 against the other and maintains its separate exist- 
 ence by struggle, by what we may call resistance. 
 Here we see the fierce dualism of the present do- 
 main, we may deem it the war always waged in 
 the Particularized Cosmos. Each Body has its 
 separate particular gift, which keeps it together, 
 causing it to cohere as one against the others and 
 even against the earth. This cohesive Body as a 
 particularized piece of Matter will stay with us to 
 the conclusion of Nature, being found still in the 
 living organic world. But Cohesion specially will 
 be attacked in the Diacosmos, and turned to the 
 opposite of itself, as we shall see later. 
 
 At present, however, we are in the midst of the 
 terrestrial conflict of the impinging Body as im- 
 mediate, which also has its stages. 
 
 (1) The center of gravity is conceived as the 
 point in the Body where the whole action of grav- 
 ity is concentrated. It is a significant fact that 
 every particle of matter, large or small, does not 
 remain extended and scattered in its chief force, 
 which is that of gravity, but shows a certain 
 power' of self-unification at a common inner point. 
 Let the Body be broken to fragments, each frag- 
 ment at once collects itself specially into a new 
 unit of might and is ready for the struggle, having 
 become an impinging Body in itself. The center of 
 
 13
 
 194 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 gravity is accordingly a striking manifestation of 
 the Cosmos particularizing itself into fresh forms 
 ever prepared for impact. 
 
 (2) Two centers of gravity appear in this realm 
 of impinging Body; the one is terrestrial, the other 
 is found in every piece of incorporate Matter. The 
 one is universal, or relatively so, that of the earth; 
 the other is particular and is characteristic of the 
 particularized Cosmos. Now these two centers of 
 gravity belong together, and are always connected 
 by an ideal line. When this line falls within the 
 impinging Body, this is said to be in equilibrium, 
 but when it falls outside the same — as we may see 
 in the tipping of a chair — the Body loses its first 
 equilibrium and seeks another, which will maintain 
 the ideal line between its center and that of the 
 earth. Thus every particular Body can be centered 
 in itself only through the universal center; it can- 
 not exist merely with its own center of gravity; if 
 once decentered from the earth, it starts to restore 
 the equilibrium, the line of connection. But the 
 fact is that this connecting line between the gen- 
 eral terrestrial center and the infinitely multitud- 
 inous special centers is always being severed and 
 restored; bodies, impinging on one another, assail 
 it and break it, producing the conflicts of the in- 
 corporate Cosmos. 
 
 The disturbance or loss of equilibrium is largely 
 what produces Motion in Bodies inanimate. But 
 living Bodies preserve their center of gravity while
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 195 
 
 moving. The four-footed animals have in this re- 
 spect an easier task than man, who has gradually 
 to learn to keep his equilibrium on two feet and to 
 walk at the same time. In sleep, however, he re- 
 turns to the position of the piece of inert Matter, 
 yielding himself completely to Mother Earth, as 
 one of her clods, and receiving in return her re- 
 newal and restoration. 
 
 (3) The relation between the two centers of 
 gravity, the general and special, is measurable, 
 and gives rise to what is known as the weight of 
 bodies. To what extent will the earth's center pull 
 toward itself the center of this given piece of Mat- 
 ter? A machine is constructed to tell the 
 fact which is important to be known on many 
 accounts. It is observed that bodies of the 
 same bulk have very different weights; the 
 matter in them is massed diversely, wherewith 
 enters the conception of mass as a significant 
 element of the particular body. Around their 
 centers of gravity all bodies manifest different de- 
 grees of solidification through density and rarity. 
 These various masses have the common character- 
 istic of being weighable, and hence comparable 
 with oncanothor. A great orderer of the world of 
 diversely impinging bodies is the spring balance 
 and the pair of scales, since they reduce to one 
 measure the vast variety of the incorporate 
 Cosmos. 
 
 But before anytning can be rightly weighed,
 
 196 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 there must be the third mediating body: the 
 standard of weight, which is also impinging or 
 has pressure. Find to what degree the center of 
 this lump of coal is drawn to the center of the 
 earth; next find to what degree the center of this 
 stick of wood is drawn to the center of the earth ; 
 then we can compare the masses of two combust- 
 ible materials. But we must have the third body 
 (say the pound-weight) as the basis of comparing 
 the gravities of the two impinging objects. 
 
 It belongs to the science of Metrology to ascer- 
 tain the best standard of measurement. Each 
 people persists in having its own ; yet among scien- 
 tific men of all nations the French standard has 
 been adopted. But the interesting fact here is 
 that amid the enormous diversity of impinging 
 bodies, one is chosen as universal mediator. So 
 we have in this field a mediation of multitudinous 
 corporeal collisions; they are reduced to unity and 
 order by the simple act of weighing. 
 
 We may now put together the process of the 
 immediately impinging Body, which presses di- 
 rectly upon the earth. First is the one center of 
 gravity; secondly we behold two centers of grav- 
 ity, general and special; third is the mediating 
 principle as above set forth. 
 
 II. Impact as Transferred. This implies 
 double impact or the collision of at least two par- 
 ticular bodies, each having its own mass. In the 
 previous stage of the impinging Body, impact as
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 197 
 
 mere pressure was the main consideration; strictly 
 there was no collision, no impact of diversely 
 moving bodies with their concentrated gravities 
 smiting together. Impact here becomes explicit, 
 active, an open war of the Particularized Cosmos 
 — a war which was quiescent or merely potential 
 where there was only pressure. 
 
 According to Newton's third law of Motion, 
 action and reaction are always equal; the imping- 
 ing Body gets back what it gives. That is, im- 
 pact is imparted both ways ; it is transferred from 
 one to the other. The degree of impact is propor- 
 tional to the velocity multiplied by the mass, and 
 is called in physics the momentum of a body. 
 
 Mass has a somewhat different meaning from 
 weight, which is rather the measure of mass. Some 
 scientists, we note, trouble themselves a good deal 
 about the exact significance of mass, but one can 
 get along by considering it simply as the quantity 
 of Matter in a body. In general, Matter may be 
 conceived as differentiating itself into all the 
 diverse masses of .the Particularized Cosmos, each 
 of which has its own separate massive character. 
 Moreover the weight of the special mass is deter- 
 mined by the general center of gravity, and hence 
 differs on the surface of every planet. It is esti- 
 mated that a body weighing one pound on the 
 earth would weigh two and a half pounds on the 
 larger Jupiter, but only two ounces on the smaller 
 Moon, while it would rise to more than twenty-
 
 198 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 seven pounds on the Sun. Thus the weight of a 
 body which is a chief element of its impinging 
 power varies according to the planetary mass on 
 whose surface it may be found. 
 
 The impinging Body with its concentrated might 
 of terrestrial gravity, we are to see transferring its 
 impact in various ways, of which we shall note 
 the following: 
 
 (1) The well-known parallelogram of two forces 
 with its diagonal gives a striking geometric image 
 of the transference of impact from two bodies to a 
 third. The diagonal is called the resultant, while 
 the two adjacent sides representing the double im- 
 pact are conceived as the components of the one 
 resultant. That is, if two bodies moving from 
 different directions impinge upon a common object 
 equally movable with themselves, the result is a 
 common motion compounded of the two impacts. 
 On the other hand a single motion can be decom- 
 posed (or resolved) into two motions coming from 
 a double impact. Thus the motion of a body is 
 conceived as a compound capable of decomposi- 
 tion and recomposition similar to a chemical com- 
 pound. 
 
 Again, the two impacts of two impinging bodies 
 upon each other or upon a third may be mutually 
 balanced or neutralized, so that the resultant is 
 no motion, or is an equilibrium of impacts. A 
 man cannot pull himself up-stairs by his boot- 
 straps . A boy in his skiff finds that he cannot
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 199 
 
 push it with his oar against the stern. Arnott 
 tells of a person who put a bellows into his boat 
 and puffed a blast against the sail to impel his 
 craft. 
 
 Thus impact in its transference may be united 
 (compounded), may be divided (resolved), or may 
 , be equilibrated (neutralized). In these cases impact 
 shows action on the one hand and reaction on the 
 other, which are variously transferred. But now 
 we are to see that impact both in its action and 
 reaction can be imparted to and through other 
 bodies. 
 
 (2) A row of billiard balls in contact may be 
 taken for illustration. If a ball impinges on one 
 end, the impact is communicated through the 
 whole row to the last ball which flies off in re- 
 sponse to the stroke, while the other balls remain 
 as if at rest. Each ball transfers the original 
 impact to its neighbor which does the same till 
 the end ball is reached. Each ball reacts against 
 the blow, and then converts this reaction to 
 action against the contiguous ball. Thus in each 
 of them action and reaction are equal, and the 
 intermediate body, both impinging and impinged 
 upon, stands still in an equilibrium of two oppo- 
 site forces. The last ball receives the impact, but 
 has no counter-impact from another ball, and so 
 must yield. In the ease of billiard balls, elastic- 
 ity has a part in this play of action and reaction. 
 But the main point is to see impact transferred
 
 200 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 through a line of bodies, each of which mediates 
 the two extremes. All the members of the series 
 are equilibrated except the first and last which 
 which are thus brought together, though at a con- 
 siderable distance from each other. 
 
 This fact has a far-reaching significance. Im- 
 pact, then, can be transmitted through Space by 
 the mediation of intervening bodies. Not only 
 solids, but liquids and gases will show the same 
 property. Sound doubtless is propagated in a 
 similar way through the air- waves. Heat, Light and 
 Electricity stimulate a medium, which bears their 
 impact far through space. The universally medi- 
 ating ether, which is now getting so much atten- 
 tion, is supposed to have the power of an unlim- 
 ited transference of the slightest impact through- 
 out the physical universe. 
 
 (3) Impact as transferred can be measured and 
 has its mathematical formula under the name of 
 linear momentum. This is the force of the im- 
 pinging Body, which is made up of two elements: 
 the mass (quantity of Matter) and the rate of 
 Motion, or velocity. The momentum of impact 
 is found by multiplying together mass and velocity 
 (expressed in the formula m v) . Newton calls this 
 momentum the quantity of Motion (Def. II. Prin- 
 cipia), saying that "the quantity of Motion is the 
 measure of the same, and arises from the velocity 
 and quantity of Matter conjointly." The world of 
 impact as translatory is thus quantified, reduced
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY 201 
 
 to order through measure, and made tractable, 
 yea useful. Mass is measured practically by 
 weight, and velocity by motion in time; hence 
 momentum is the union of two measures, which is 
 preserved in the formula m v. 
 
 Impact as transferred or translatory we have 
 seen in its three leading stages: first, as trans- 
 ferred immediately to the third body moving 
 along the diagonal of a parallelogram; secondly, as 
 transferred mediately through a number of inter- 
 vening bodies; thirdly, as transferred universally 
 according to a common measure or quantitative 
 law, under which all the diverse impacts of the 
 Cosmos are to be subsumed. 
 
 In this second stage of impact the translatory 
 force was left to itself, the mediating body simply 
 performed its natural function of translation. But 
 now man will seize upon this mediating body 
 with its translatory force, and transform its nat- 
 ural into an artificial function of translation. 
 This new mediating body with its impact is called 
 the Machine. 
 
 III. Impact as Mechanical. This still deals 
 with impact as transferred, but this transference 
 takes place in an entirely new way, namely by a 
 mechanical contrivance. The mediating body 
 still appears, but as transformed by man and filled 
 with his purpose. The two extremes which the 
 machine mediates are usually known as Power 
 and Weight : the active Power is to be applied to
 
 202 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the Machine by impact of some kind, and the 
 passive Weight is to be overcome in its resist- 
 ance. 
 
 It is to be observed, first of all, that the Ma- 
 chine does not generate Power, but is to transfer 
 it, distribute it, apply it. In fact the Machine 
 always must cause some loss of the original Power 
 applied to it, through friction and resistance of 
 the air. Its peculiar character is directive, medi- 
 ative, translatory; it is the great middle term be- 
 tween the world of impact with its working en- 
 ergy, and the inertia of Matter with its opposition 
 to all change of state. The attempt has often 
 been made to invent a machine which would gen- 
 erate its power inside itself, whereby there would 
 be perpetual Motion. Of course such a conception 
 contradicts the very nature of a machine, which is 
 to receive its power from the outside and to dis- 
 tribute it in various ways. Such a self-moving 
 machine could only be a living body. There is, 
 however, a machine which in a sense may be 
 called self-propelling — the locomotive which carries 
 the generating force to drive the wheels from 
 without. The machinery does not supply its 
 own force but takes it along. Thus it is a syn- 
 thesis of several co-operating machines which are 
 ultimately driven by external impact. Still, the lo- 
 comotive is the most impressive and significant copy 
 of a living thing; we may indeed call it the free 
 machine, which could only be invented and ap-
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 203 
 
 plied by a people animated with the conception of 
 freedom. 
 
 The Machine has another trait of much signifi- 
 cance: it can transform speed and distance into 
 power. A man exerting a certain force in hoisting 
 a weight of 100 pounds can with the same force 
 hoist ten times as much by a system of pulleys, 
 but it will take him ten times as long. Archi- 
 medes declared he could move the world by his 
 machine, if he had a place to stand on. But his 
 body would have to sweep through an enormous 
 distance and at an enormous speed, in order to 
 raise the earth a millionth of an inch in a million 
 years. So it is often said that what a machine 
 gains in power is lost in time, or it may be in dis- 
 tance. The impinging force can be increased a 
 hundred fold by a mechanical contrivance, but it 
 has to pay for it in Space or Time, or both. The 
 machine is, therefore, a kind of controller of those 
 two obstructive, though primordial elements of the 
 Cosmos, Space and Time, exchanging them for in- 
 creased power. In this respect a great destiny 
 lies before machinery, as minimizing the hindrance 
 or the separation caused by those two huge cos- 
 mical barriers, Space and Time, which have to be 
 overcome by man in winning a higher freedom. 
 
 Herein the Machine puts its stamp upon an age 
 or a civilization. The vast forces of Nature, run- 
 ning to waste, can be picked up and utilized by 
 machinery which takes the place of the far weaker
 
 204 OSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 muscular effort, and relieves the human being of a 
 great part of his burden. In general the machine 
 makes for freedom, though it may get to control- 
 ling the man instead of being controlled by him. 
 So the machine can and does in individual cases 
 produce servitude instead of enfranchisement. 
 Ours is called a mechanical age, usually by way of 
 disparagement. Its chief function is undoubtedly 
 to harness the huge monstrous colliding powers of 
 Nature to machinery and set them to work for 
 ends useful to man, especially for his one ultimate 
 end, freedom. It is noticeable that the freest peo- 
 ples are the most mechanical, are the most suc- 
 cessful and ingenious in the employment of the 
 Machine. 
 
 The science of to-day has unquestionably a de- 
 cided mechanical tendency; it grapples with and 
 seeks to know the mighty impinging forces of the 
 natural world and to fetter them in a mathemat- 
 ical formula, since mathematics may be deemed 
 the universal or ideal machine controlling and me- 
 diating all Nature. Still further, the universe is 
 often set forth as a kind of mechanism, and the 
 world-view becomes mechanical, resting wholly 
 upon external determination which is a denial of 
 freedom. The All is declared unfree — which state- 
 ment is a contradiction in terms, though many a 
 philosophy is based upon it. The Machine, there- 
 fore, gets sometimes to be a spiritual mediator, 
 which is not exactly its function.
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY, 205 
 
 We come back to the original purpose of ma- 
 chinery which is, in general, to mediate impact, or 
 the force of an impinging body. It directs, dis- 
 tributes, and even concentrates external energy 
 upon some resisting object; but it cannot increase 
 the amount of such energy. Moreover the Ma- 
 chine as such, or the creative idea of it, splits up 
 into a vast number of machines, or specialized 
 applications of the one fundamental mechanism. 
 But this prodigious mechanical multiplicity has 
 been reduced to a few simple typical machines, 
 well known as the mechanical Powers, which, 
 however, can be brought into a single process. 
 These points we may elaborate a little. 
 
 (1) We have first to grasp the Machine in itself, 
 as it is in its universal genetic thought. This has 
 been repeatedly stated : the Machine is the trans- 
 ferer of impact, or of energy, as this is often called 
 at present; it is an intermediary between some im- 
 pinging body and the body impinged upon. More- 
 over it is an artificial thing, usually man-made, 
 and carries his purpose; through the Machine man 
 deftly turns nature against nature. The kinds of 
 bodies producing impact may be noticed. The 
 primal machine-mover was the human organism 
 which can generate motion. But the main devel- 
 opment of machinery has been to relieve man more 
 and more of his immediate burden. It is next put 
 upon the stronger domesticated animals as the 
 horse and ox. But the great present driver of
 
 206 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 machinery is the forces of Nature, steam, heat, 
 and especially electricity. The Cosmos is a huge 
 reservoir of impinging power, which the Machine is 
 invoked to seize and to utilize. The puny agent, 
 man, has still to touch the button in order to set in 
 motion the mechanism which is to perforin for 
 him gigantL feats of work. 
 
 (2) We may summon before us the one original 
 primordial Machine and watch it differentiating 
 and specializing itself in all the tools, weapons, 
 implements and engines — in fine all the machines 
 which man has made to hitch up the stray forces 
 of Nature, setting them to do his work. Thus the 
 conception of the Machine realizes itself and keeps 
 realizing itself million fold down the ages in huger 
 and huger shapes. New ones are always forthcom- 
 ing in answer to the call of the time, which as be- 
 fore said, is mechanically minded, and old ones are 
 thrown aside, being transcended. The evolution 
 of the Machine in its agricultural, military, naval, 
 and industrial forms would be a good mirror of 
 man's social development. 
 
 (3) The indefinite and ever-increasing diversity 
 of mechanical appliances must be somehow brought 
 back to unity. Such is not only our psychical 
 need, but also the inner movement of mechanism 
 itself. Accordingly science has sought to reduce 
 all mechanical multiplicity to six different ma- 
 chines, the supposed prototypes of all others, the 
 so-called Mechanical Powers.
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 207 
 
 These six being accepted as fundamental, the 
 question at once comes up in regard to their order, 
 which has been variously given by different scient- 
 ists. It has also been felt that these six are too many 
 and need a further unification. The Lever and the 
 Inclined Plane 1 have been sometimes regarded as 
 the principal Powers of the six. This view would 
 seem to underestimate the Wheel and Axle as the 
 circular Machine. But without discussing further 
 these divergences of opinion, we shall put the entire 
 six into what we deem their true process, which is 
 of three main forms, or stages. 
 
 (a) The Lever is rightly placed first, as the 
 simplest in form, the most primitive, and indeed 
 the potential one of the Mechanical Powers; im- 
 plicitly it has within itself all the rest, and may be 
 said to contain the germ of total machinery. It is 
 a bar or rod quite inflexible in which three points 
 are specially to be taken into account: the end 
 where the impinging force is applied, usually 
 called the Power (P), the intermediate point at 
 which the transference of this Power takes place, 
 the Fulcrum (F), and the object which receives the 
 transferred Power known familiarly as the Weight 
 (W). The elements of the Lever (P F W) are, 
 therefore, three — the active impact in one direc- 
 tion (say downward), the changed impact (say 
 upward), the received impact on the resisting 
 body — which last impact is a return to the first, 
 though changed in direction through the media-
 
 208 COSMOS AND D1ACOSMOS. 
 
 tion of the second. In all this we see that the 
 Lever is the simplest sort of a contrivance to direct 
 the force of an impinging body from one line of 
 movement to another. We may also see that it 
 performs by its action a process: the given force 
 from the outside, the change of that force from its 
 path, the return and re-assertion of the same force 
 as changed. 
 
 But there is not alone a transfer of force through 
 the Lever, there can be also an increase of it. The 
 Power, for instance, is doubled in effect, if it be 
 twice as far from the Fulcrum as is the Weight . 
 Still it has to pay for such increase by moving 
 through a proportionately greater distance, as al- 
 ready noted of the Machine generally. Or we may 
 say that Space (or Time) is exchanged for Power — 
 which is the peculiar characteristic of all mech- 
 anism . 
 
 In the ever the Fulcrum, the pivot of change, 
 is fixed, and in one way or other rests on the 
 earth whose inertia or resistance it utilizes for de- 
 flecting the original Power (say from downward to 
 upward). The earth, then, is the ultimate medi- 
 ator. Yet in this act the earth is turned against 
 itself, against its own gravity represented by the 
 Weight. So in the final thought the Lever turns 
 one terrestrial property or force against another. 
 We may also regard this as the germinal function 
 of the Machine. 
 
 There are, of course, many kinds of Levers;
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 209 
 
 one division of them comes from the different po- 
 sitions of its three elements (P F W) . Then there 
 is the combined or compound Lever. But these 
 various forms we shall pass over. 
 
 (6) What comes next in the order or process? 
 The second Mechanical Power is, as we arrange 
 this subject, the Inclined Plane, in which the Ful- 
 crum is movable as the Weight is rolled up the 
 incline. The simplest form of this mechanical 
 contrivance is seen in a plank slanting from the 
 end of a wagon, up which plank a barrel is rolled 
 into the vehicle. The Power which moves the 
 Weight is twofold : that of impact and that of the 
 Inclined Plane, which partly supports the Weight, 
 but whose upbearing force is ultimately that of 
 the earth. It is to be noted then, in the present 
 case, that the Power is divided and that the Ful- 
 crum is continually separated from its place 
 in its movement up the incline. For the Fulcrum, 
 we must recollect, is the point at whi^h the Power 
 has its thrust changed and is directed upon the 
 Weight. In the Wedge the whole Inclined Plane 
 moves against the resisting body which it may 
 raise in opposition to gravity and split open against 
 cohesion. The impact may be a blow or a steady 
 push, whose force is changed in direction at the 
 point where the impinging Wedge meets the ob- 
 struction. Thus the Fulcrum here too is movable. 
 The Wedge is often a double Inclined Plane for 
 increased effect. The Wedge has a wide applica- 
 
 14
 
 210 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tion and is of many sorts. Knives, pins, needles, 
 nails, scissors, all cutting and pointed implements 
 are wedges. The Wedge is a movable Inclined 
 Plane but in a right line on the whole ; but now we 
 come to an Inclined Plane which is curvilineal and 
 moves in a continuous spiral, the Screw. The Ful- 
 crum is not only movable from point to point but 
 is at every point in the thread of the Screw, it 
 works- along the entire spiral, thus it has become 
 general in this sphere of the Inclined Plane, occu- 
 pying it everywhere. Moreover the Screw is really 
 a double Inclined Plane with thread and groove. 
 
 Thus we observe that among the Mechanical 
 Powers the Inclined Plane takes three forms which 
 have the incline in common, but which are distin- 
 guished by the Fulcrum moving on the incline 
 from point to point in succession, and then being 
 moved by the incline from point to point in suc- 
 cession, and finally moving on the incline at every 
 point and at the same time. Thus the Inclined 
 Plane passes from the rectilinear to the curvi- 
 linear form, and with its spiral is evidently seek- 
 ing the circle, which now appears in a new Mechan- 
 ical Power. 
 
 (c) In what we call the process of the Mechan- 
 ical Powers we have come to the third main stage 
 or form, that of the Wheel with its rotatory or 
 completely circular movement. The Pulley is 
 simply a Wheel turning on a pivot (or Fulcrum) 
 which changes the direction of the Power exerted
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 211 
 
 usually in hoisting the Weight. The Pulley is 
 combined diversely into a system of Pulleys. 
 
 The Wheel and Axle is properly two wheels of 
 different diameters'. -The large one receives the 
 Power and may be regarded as a kind of circular 
 or universal Lever whose impact is continuous. 
 The small wheel or the axle is the circular Fulcrum 
 moving with the large wheel, but reversing the di- 
 rection by means of the reversed rope, which usu- 
 ally lifts the Weight from below. The greater the 
 difference between the diameters of the two wheels, 
 the greater the Power but the slower its move- 
 ment. The considerable diversity of forms of the 
 Wheel and Axle is seen in the windlass, the caps- 
 tan, the hundreds of hoisting machines with com- 
 plicated wheel-work. The wheeled vehicle with its 
 two or four wheels turning on fixed axes by means 
 of the applied Power, but changed in direction by 
 the resistance of the earth might be called a third 
 form of these circular Mechanical Powers. 
 
 It should be noted that the Wheel and Axle is 
 the Lever made complete or universal, the latter's 
 partial movement through an arc becomes a full 
 circle and continuous; moreover the force can be 
 drawn off in any direction by a system of wheels 
 large and small. Also the radius of the Wheel and 
 the radius of the Axle arc comparable to the long 
 and short arms of the Lever both in character and 
 efficiency. But the one is a particular and the 
 other is a universal Lever, which thus has run its
 
 212 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 course, and therewith has brought to a conclusion 
 the process of the Mechanical Powers. 
 
 In this process we should emphasize that the 
 pivotal point is the Fulcrum, truly the pivot of the 
 mechanical system. The chief object of the Ma- 
 chine is to change the direction of Power or of the 
 force of impact. This change takes place at and 
 through the Fulcrum, whose ultimate mission is to 
 direct one terrestrial energy against another, to 
 turn Nature against Nature. Now in the Lever 
 this Fulcrum is in one position, essentially fixed; 
 but in the Inclined Plane it becomes movable 
 though variously movable throughout the three 
 different Inclined Planes ; finally in the Wheel and 
 Axle it is fixed in its movable round or circle 
 (different from the spiral of the Screw) . Thus the 
 Fulcrum passes from its simple fixity to one point 
 in the Lever, through its movability on a contin- 
 uous line in the Inclined Plane, to its final fixity 
 in one self-returning circular movement in the 
 Wheel and Axle, which movement is now not 
 merely continuous for a given distance, as in the 
 spiral, but perpetual as far as the Machine is con- 
 cerned, which has no end in itself (though it is 
 limited externally by the work to be done), while 
 the rounded Screw with its spiral comes to an end 
 in itself. Thus the ideal circle of the Mechanical 
 Powers has completed itself in the real circle and 
 has manifested itself to the senses — which is the 
 way of Nature.
 
 THE IMPINGING BODY. 213 
 
 The movement of the Mechanical Powers is the 
 movement of the Lever from its first limited par- 
 ticular stage to its universal form in its circu- 
 larity. The name of the old Greek, Archimedes, 
 is peculiarly connected with the Lever, which may 
 be deemed the germ or cell of the Mechanical 
 Powers . As the first and simplest machine, it can be 
 taken as man's starting-point in the conquest of 
 Nature. Man, too, has a body impinging and im- 
 pinged upon, so he is involved in the great battle 
 of Impact, in which he has not only to defend 
 himself but to conquer. The impinging Body 
 thus plays a great part in human life. It is indeed 
 dialectical or self-undoing, for, universally consid- 
 ered, it is in a perpetual assault upon itself, seek- 
 ing really to overcome itself. Now it is this 
 property of body's self-undoing that man takes ad- 
 vantage of through a cunning contrivance called a 
 machine, which seizes upon and controls impact, 
 that is controls body destroying or transforming 
 body. All agriculture, all manufacturing, all en- 
 gineering, primarily set one body to impinging 
 upon others, make them fight as it were. Herein 
 we may also glimpse the fact that the function of 
 man in the present sphere is to get control of this 
 dialectic of Nature, and to direct it toward fulfill- 
 ing his ends. He did not originally beget her du- 
 alism, from which springs all her energy — that 
 came, according to our view, from the Pampsy-
 
 214 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 chosis — but he must master it or be pushed by it 
 to the wall. 
 
 The final act of the impinging body as machine 
 was to go back to the body pressing immediately 
 upon the earth and to hoist it, or to separate it 
 from its unity with the earth. But the machine 
 as well as the pressing body rests upon the earth; 
 thus it has to undo in another what it itself 
 is doing. The machine counteracts gravity in 
 the body while obeying gravity in its own case. 
 Such is the inner contradiction in all machinery, 
 which is next to be solved ; both the machine and 
 its burden have a common principle in terrestrial 
 gravity. Truly the whole realm of impinging Bod- 
 ies, which we have just passed through, has in all 
 its opposition an underlying obedience to the 
 earth's attraction. In fact we shall find that just 
 through this common attraction shown in their 
 weight, do bodies get their force of impact, or their 
 power of collision. Thus the separation of this 
 second stage of the Particularized Cosmos — that 
 of the Impinging Body — is overcome, and moves 
 of itself into a new unitary stage, that of the Grav- 
 itating Body. For all colliding terrestrial Bodies 
 gravitate in common, even while colliding, toward 
 the center of the Earth, and thus show their one 
 basic principle, to which they will return.
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY, 215 
 
 III. 
 
 The Gravitating Body. 
 
 It is in order now to go back to the Moving Body 
 (which was considered in the first section of the 
 Particularized Cosmos), and to note that it is a 
 Gravitating Body. That is,* the motion of Body 
 has its ground in Gravitation, that force or power 
 by which every material particle in the physical 
 universe is drawn toward every other particle, ac- 
 cording to the well-known law of Newton. What- 
 ever original or elemental Motion may be regarded, 
 a Body moves through the attraction of some other 
 Body or Bodies. To be sure, it can be relatively 
 brought to rest by the same force. But that which 
 we have called the Particularized Cosmos is a vast 
 complex of intergravitating Bodies, great and small, 
 of which the earth, with its environing field of at- 
 traction, is but a minute speck. Still it is that 
 which we are now mainly to consider. So we re- 
 turn, as it were, to the Moving Body and seek to 
 find the ground of movement in this mutual Gravi- 
 tation of the incorporate universe. We may here 
 add that even this ground is not ultimate, for in 
 Gravitation we pre-suppose both Motion and Mat- 
 ter. to be primordial and elemental, as already set 
 forth; still, these original twins of Nature must 
 likewise be derived, must be shown in their par- 
 entage.
 
 216 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 At present, however, we are to consider Gravita- 
 tion as the universal interconnecting power of the 
 Cosmos particularized in an endless diversity of 
 Bodies. It is universal; it cannot be deflected or 
 influenced from without, like Heat, Light and Elec- 
 tricity, for instance. It is eternal, it cannot be 
 generated or destroyed, does not arise or decline 
 anywhere in the Pancosmos, except according to 
 its law. It goes through all Bodies in its path, 
 without increase or diminution, quite as if nothing 
 were there. It is instantaneous, defying attempts 
 to measure it hitherto; Laplace has a calculation 
 that it must move at least 50 millions times faster 
 than light. It is not reflected, refracted, or dif- 
 fracted; as universal it is inexhaustible and never 
 fails to act and to act completely. Its action is, 
 therefore, not intermittent or capricious, but is 
 subject to unvarying Law — it works upon all Bodies 
 directly as their masses and inversely as the squares 
 of their distances. Space interjected between ma- 
 terial objects has thus a power of lessening their 
 Gravitation; it separates and clogs the great uniter 
 of the physical universe. Space is, accordingly, 
 more elemental than Gravitation, which is really 
 the struggle to overcome the spatial separation of 
 the Cosmos. 
 
 This thought brings us to consider that the Grav- 
 itating Body, which is now our special topic, is a 
 return out of separation, particularly separation 
 from the earth. Moreover, such a return is rela-
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 217 
 
 tively free, that is, the Body goes of itself toward 
 the center of the earth, the obstacle being removed. 
 On the other hand, to separate it from the earth 
 requires the special exertion of a separative force, 
 such as a machine can produce, for instance. Im- 
 pact we have seen to be the world of colliding 
 Bodies whose forces are directed one against the 
 other. The Impinging Body is in conflict, ulti- 
 mately in conflict with the unity of Gravitation. 
 The Gravitating Body, accordingly, is the over- 
 coming of the conflicts of the Impinging Body. 
 Underneath all pressures, collisions, impacts, we 
 have always Gravitation lurking, as it were, and 
 secretly active. But now it is to become explicit 
 and to show itself controlling Bodies in their own 
 right. 
 
 The Gravitating Body will, therefore, return to 
 its source, to mother Earth, whence it originally 
 came. To be sure it will be stopped before it 
 reaches the terrestrial center, which, if it once could 
 attain, it would cease to be corporeal. The Earth, 
 too, is a Body and asserts itself as such. Hence the 
 attempt of the Gravitating Body to drop down to 
 its source does not succeed fully ; the separation of 
 the two still remains, even if quiescent and poten- 
 tial. But it shows the striving, the mighty striv- 
 ing of the universe to become one, even through 
 separation. It is, therefore, remanded to its place 
 in Nature, which is the second, or separat've stage 
 of the All-Self, as has been frequently stated before.
 
 218 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Gravitation, accordingly, presupposes the uni- 
 versal separation into the Particularized Cosmos, 
 which it aspires somehow to re-unite. We shall 
 hence esteem it supremely the cosmical force di- 
 rected against the world's original diremption, 
 manifesting Nature's negation of her own negative. 
 On the other hand, we shall meet later with many 
 a protest against the unity of Gravitation. What 
 else is light raying out in opposition to attraction? 
 For this reason, among others, there will arise in 
 opposition to the Cosmos with its Gravitation the 
 Diacosmos, which, however, lies quite a distance 
 ahead of us. 
 
 At present, then, we shall confine our look to the 
 Gravitating Body, which will bring to the surface 
 a succession of movements which, closely scanned, 
 will be seen to form a process in itself with three 
 stages. The Body under the influence of Gravita- 
 tion will first fall simply toward the center, of course 
 without getting there ; next we shall see it under 
 given conditions falling and then partially rising 
 in an arc (the pendulum); finally this arc will be 
 extended by returning into itself and thus becom- 
 ing circular — wherein the fall of the Body may be 
 seen to have rounded itself out into its complete- 
 ness. From this point of view the Body no longer 
 falls into collision, but rather out of it, and the 
 Particularized Cosmos, the realm of conflict incor- 
 porate, is brought to a close. 
 
 More briefly we may designate these divisions of
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 219 
 
 the Gravitating Body as follows: (I) the Falling 
 Body, (H) the Oscillating Body, (III) the Rotating 
 Body. These heads we shall expand in a little de- 
 tail, trying to see them not merely as separate but 
 as inter-related in a process. 
 
 We may again emphasize that this whole sphere 
 of the Particularized Cosmos is brought to rest or 
 to harmony in the Gravitating Cosmos after the 
 many collisions of the Impinging Cosmos, which 
 has just been set forth. So we behold here a move- 
 ment from the primal identity of Body through its 
 separation and struggle to its final unity through 
 Gravitation. Such is the process, and we shall see 
 it repeating itself in the various stages of the Grav- 
 itating Body, which are now to be given. 
 
 I. The Falling Body. We conceive the Earth 
 with its controlling sphere of influence to have the 
 power of drawing toward its center all smaller bod- 
 ies. They fall to the terrestrial surface from a 
 given point at which they may be regarded as in a 
 state of rest. The fall of the Body is looked at 
 from one side, which, however, calls for its counter- 
 part, its rise — the latter being against Gravitation. 
 The bullet of a gun shot directly upward stops and 
 descends, manifesting in its free movement the 
 law of the Falling Body. Strong force had to be 
 used to send the bullet up, that is, to produce the 
 separation from the Earth. But this force is over- 
 come gradually, and the same force in the same 
 gradation is given to the bullet in its descent by
 
 220 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Gravitation, which thus offers a line on which it 
 can be measured. 
 
 And now we are to see this simple fall of a Body 
 passing through three essential stages which form 
 a process, or a psychosis. 
 
 1. Identity of Fall. The first fact of Falling 
 Bodies is that each and all descend equally to the 
 earth. That is, all Bodies gravitate identically with 
 the same power of attraction ; whatever be their 
 size, shape, composition, they fall through equal 
 spaces in equal times, if left purely to them- 
 selves, and unhampered by no outside opposition — 
 which is experimentally shown in the vacuum. 
 Thus every separate Body is the same in its sepa- 
 ration, and manifests this sameness. Such we may 
 deem the primal identity of the corporeal Fall 
 throughout the physical universe. Yet this Fall 
 has its expression in law. 
 
 The velocity of a Body falling to the earth is 
 identical whatever its mass. If one Body is of 
 a certain mass, and another Body is of one- 
 fourth of the same mass, both will have the same 
 velocity of descent. This was shown by Galileo in 
 his famous experiment of dropping two balls of 
 unequal masses from the top of the tower of Pisa. 
 The so-called light bodies are obstructed in their 
 fall by the resistance of the air; but in a vacuum 
 the feather and a nickel will descend in the same 
 time. So we come to the conclusion that neither 
 weight nor density can make any real difference
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 221 
 
 in the velocity of Falling Bodies. The greater the 
 mass of the Body, the greater is the Earth's pull 
 on it; gravitation appears to adjust itself to what is 
 required of it, exerting itself more or less accord- 
 ing to the quantity of Matter. On the other hand 
 all Bodies make a push equally for the earth irre- 
 spective of their properties — be they dense or rare, 
 heavy or light. In this regard they are all alike, 
 being ultimately of the one common Matter, 
 which strives to overcome its separation. In this 
 striving the largest and the least, the thinnest and 
 the thickest, are one, and show such oneness in 
 their common and indeed equal rush for home. Ac- 
 cordingly every Falling Body has one and the same 
 speed earthward. Such is the universal character 
 manifesting itself amid all their other diversities. 
 The quantity or quality of their Matter makes no 
 difference in their Gravitation. And yet there is a 
 difference in their sphere, which is now to appear. 
 2. Difference of Fall. When Time enters, es- 
 pecially when it enters Space, division and differ- 
 ence go along with it (as we have already seen in 
 discussing Space and Time, see preceding p. 59, 
 etc) . The fall of Body is spatially the same, but 
 gets different with each successive moment, be- 
 coming more rapid. Thus into the identity of the 
 fall difference is introduced, which, however, does 
 not thereby escape law. All corporeal falls are 
 alike, but each fall is different within itself. Still 
 this difference has its own norm of being.
 
 222 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 As the velocity of Falling Bodies is universal, 
 the mind seeks an expression of that universality 
 in a law . As they all fly to the earth at the same 
 rate, what is this rate? Or what is the Space 
 fallen through measured in units of Time? For 
 these two cosmical elements (Space and Time) are 
 now to obtain measurement, that is, they are to 
 receive the third element of Motion, Quantity (see 
 p. 70, etc.), thus becoming definite and capable of 
 being handled. Over How-much of Space in How- 
 much of Time is the demand which brings Quan- 
 tity (How-muchness) into the fall of the Body, or 
 into its special Motion. 
 
 This law may be stated thus: "The Space passed 
 through by a Falling Body in a given unit of Time 
 (say a second) is proportional to the square of 
 that Time." 
 
 Our first reflection upon this law is that in it 
 we find the three primordial cosmical elements: 
 Motion (the fall), Matter (the body), and Measure. 
 Still further, as it is Motion specially which is 
 measured in the fall of the Body, we observe in the 
 formulation of the law the process of the three 
 original stages of Motion — Space (the quantifiable) 
 Time (the quantifying) and Quantity (the quanti- 
 fied) . We see that the Space and Time of Motion 
 are incomplete and indeed chaotic till reduced to 
 the order of Quantity. 
 
 The Space traversed by a Falling Body in a sec- 
 ond of Time is a little more than 16 feet, (stated
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 223 
 
 exactly 16.09) ; in two seconds it will be four times 
 as much', and in three seconds nine times as much. 
 Let 1, 2, 3, 4 represent the times,, then 1, 4, 9, 16 
 will represent the spaces. It is to be noted that 
 both Space and Time have already their own spe- 
 cial measurements in feet and minutes, which are 
 presupposed in the Measure of the Motion of Mat- 
 ter, here the velocity of a Falling Body. Also to 
 be noted is the fact that the point or unit of Time 
 (succession) is correlated or proportioned in the 
 squared Space (extension). 
 
 3. Unity of Fall. The preceding variations or 
 differences in the one fall will be found to have 
 their common principle or their unity, which is 
 also expressed by a law. This is seen in the fact 
 that the fall of the Body, while always accelerat- 
 ing and thus varying, shows the same amount of 
 acceleration at the end of every second of the fall. 
 Thus under all the changes of the falling Body 
 runs a unity; we may say that through its differ- 
 ence and separation moves a return to identity, 
 which, however, is not the first immediate identity 
 (the simple sameness of the fall of all Bodies), but 
 a new identity mediated through their difference. 
 This we may illustrate by some details. 
 
 In the regular treatises we find the law of 
 the increase of velocity of a Falling Body. This 
 may be stated as follows: "The velocity gained 
 by a Falling Body is proportional to the duration 
 of its fall." Now the velocity gained at the end of
 
 224 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 one second is 32 feet, at the end of two seconds is 
 64 feet, at the end of three seconds is 96 feet, at 
 the end of four seconds is 128 feet. In these cases 
 we observe that the duration of the fall in seconds 
 is multiplied by 32 feet, which amount gives the 
 velocity gained. 
 
 Thus the acceleration by gravity produced upon 
 a Body freely falling to the earth is a constant 
 quantity (32 feet) during any number of seconds, 
 but the velocity itself varies with that number. 
 The Body gravitates toward the earth with the 
 increment of Motion every moment, never losing 
 what speed it has before gained. Thus the velocity 
 increases regularly through all the differences of 
 time. 
 
 If we put together the foregoing three state- 
 ments about Falling Bodies, we observe in the 
 first case the identity of Gravitation — all Bodies 
 fall equally, moving through equal spaces in equal 
 times ; in the second case they fall through unequal 
 successive spaces in equal successive times (wherein 
 Space and Time are both divided) ; in the third 
 case the identity of Gravitation is again asserted, 
 but in regard to its increment of velocity — its ac- 
 celeration is the same, though successive velocities 
 increase in successive times. Or more briefly: 
 (1) all Bodies gravitate alike; (2) each Body grav- 
 itates differently at each different moment; (3) 
 each Body gravitates with the same increment of 
 velocity earthward. All Gravitating Bodies are,
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 225 
 
 therefore, one in their gravitation, separative in 
 velocities, but one again in their acceleration or in- 
 crement of speed. 
 
 It is evident that the laws of the Falling Body 
 imply, though they do not explicitly formulate, 
 universal Gravitation. Galileo (1564-1643) was 
 the first man to prove experimentally the laws of 
 the Falling Body. He very dexterously employed 
 an inclined plane in making his discoveries. All 
 three of the foregoing propositions belong to him, 
 but he confined the Falling Body to the earth. It 
 was left to Newton to prove that the fall of the 
 Body was universal, that it was true of moon, sun, 
 and planets. Thus he rose from gravity to gravi- 
 tation, from the Earth to the Cosmos. 
 
 What next? The fall is evidently the first 
 and simplest action of the Gravitating Body, 
 which therein moves directly toward the one center, 
 the terrestrial. But now a new center is brought 
 to light, the so-called center of suspension, which 
 also determines the fall of the Body, though in an 
 opposite way. Thus the Gravitating Body is no 
 longer single-centered and simple in its fall, but 
 double-centered and dual ; it moves down and up, 
 to and from each center in succession. In other 
 words it oscillates, manifesting in reality what we 
 have already seen ideally in the movement of ele- 
 mental Time (see p. 64). The primordial oscilla- 
 tion of Nature is just now, in fact is just the Now, 
 which is always going on and coming back to 
 
 15
 
 226 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 itself. This is what we are next to see embodied 
 in our Particularized Cosmos. 
 II. The Oscillating Body. This is, in general, 
 the pendulum, which takes a great many forms. 
 But the typical form of it has three elements : the 
 center of suspension, the separating line of suspen- 
 sion (thread, wire, etc.), the object suspended (the 
 bob of the pendulum) which moves freely about the 
 center of suspension. The pendulum may be 
 said, therefore, in its motion to describe the arc of 
 a circle with a given radius from a central point. 
 When it is at rest the three centers are in line — 
 the center of gravity of the earth and that of the 
 bob with the center of suspension. 
 
 This line of gravitation, or of equilibrium, is 
 broken when the bob is lifted up and allowed to 
 drop of itself toward the earth. But the result 
 will be the curvilinear oscillation, not the recti- 
 linear fall. Terrestrial gravity will pull the 
 bob down to the line of equilibrium, then its own 
 inertia will carry it upward against gravity till the 
 latter overcomes it when it descends on the. same 
 path but in an opposite direction. Again it will 
 sweep upward beyond the vertical line of the three 
 determining centers and then return, but always 
 with diminished energy, till gravity at last over- 
 comes it and settles it in the line of equilibrium. 
 These arcuate motions of the pendulum are called 
 its oscillations (generally the word oscillation 
 means the complete sweep going and return-
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 227 
 
 ing, but in French writers it means the movement 
 in one direction only, and the total is called a 
 double oscillation) ■ 
 
 Thus the Falling Body becomes the Oscillating 
 Body when it is determined from two opposing 
 centers, that of suspension and that of the earth; 
 the one keeps pulling it down and the other keeps 
 pulling it back. Such is the primal dualism of os- 
 cillation, which is a kind of compromise between 
 the antagonistic forces. Then the third force plays 
 into the motion : the inertia of the bob which at 
 first unites with gravity and then turns against it 
 toward the center of suspension. The oscillation 
 is the very sign of doubt, of fluctuating from side 
 to side between two motive energies. The Falling 
 Body shows no such dubitation, no such twofold- 
 ness in its action; it goes straight for the terres- 
 trial center without turning back upon itself. 
 
 At this point another variation shows itself. On 
 the equator, which is bulged, a pendulum is farther 
 from the earth's center than at the poles, which 
 are flattened; the result is that it beats more rap- 
 idly in the latter case. It was Richer, a French 
 astronomer, who first made this important obser- 
 vation in 1671, when he journeyed from Paris to 
 Cayenne; in the latter place, which is near the 
 equator, he found that his accurate Parisian clock 
 was losing two minutes and a half daily. Huy- 
 gens, and after him more fully, Newton, showed 
 the right cause of this phenomenon. Thus the
 
 228 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 pendulum can be used to determine the form of 
 the earth. A good clock carried from the equator 
 to the poles will indicate by the increased rapidity 
 of its oscillations a continual alteration of the 
 sphericity of the globe. 
 
 Now, this oscillation of Body will likewise have 
 its process quite similar to the fall of Body, and 
 will be expressed in the same general categories — 
 simple identity, difference, concrete unity By 
 the older physicists the pendulum is called the funi- 
 pendulous Body, as if it were suspended by a rope 
 and swinging. Its three main phases we shall 
 briefly note. 
 
 1. Identity of Oscillation. Every material Body 
 is oscillatory; it is not only in Time but is Time — 
 Time incorporate and phenomenal. Herein all 
 Bodies are identical, different as they may other- 
 wise be in substance, form, mass. 
 
 The time of the oscillation does not depend on 
 the substance of which the pendulum is made. 
 Lighter wood or heavier metal will produce equal 
 beats. In a vacuum all matter will oscillate alike. 
 This is similar to the first proposition concerning a 
 Falling Body ; neither weight nor density can make 
 any difference in the time of the fall. Both facts 
 are results of the same principle of Gravitation: 
 its action is the same upon every particle of Mat- 
 ter in the universe. 
 
 And yet difference will enter into the oscillatory 
 movement of each and every pendulum, though 
 all are alike in being oscillatory.
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 229 
 
 2. Difference of Oscillation. At what point does 
 this separation come in? Each individual pendu- 
 lum changes within itself, according as it is made 
 longer or shorter. Its beat, we say, is faster or 
 slower; the difference again lies in Time ever di- 
 viding into moments, to which the pendulum 
 shows a peculiar adjustment, and of which indeed 
 it is a unique, visible manifestation. Here, too, 
 there is the law expressed in Measure or mathe- 
 matically. 
 
 When pendulums are of different lengths, their 
 times of oscillation are proportional to the square- 
 roots of their lengths. For instance, a pendulum 
 beating seconds is about 39 inches long; in order 
 to beat half seconds it would be one-fourth as 
 long; in order to beat quarter seconds it would 
 have to be one-sixteenth as long (about 2.44 
 inches). 
 
 Thus the units of increase in the oscillation re- 
 quire the corresponding units of increase in the 
 lengths of the pendulum to be squared. It has 
 been estimated that a pendulum of an hour's os- 
 cillation would have to be some 8,000 miles long, 
 equal to the earth's diameter about. If we com- 
 pare this law with the second law of Falling Bod- 
 ies, we find again that the increment of Time de- 
 mands the square of corresponding increment of 
 Space; the times of the oscillation being 1, 2, 3, 4, 
 the lengths of the pendulum will be 1, 4, 9, 16. 
 
 But with all this variation and difference in the
 
 230 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 oscillations of the one pendulum, they have their 
 underlying common principle, they show a unity 
 which is best conceived as a return out of the 
 foregoing stage of separation into a new identity, 
 or a concrete unity which contains difference. 
 
 3. Unity of Oscillation. Every oscillation of 
 the same pendulum is made in the same time ; if 
 it beats seconds, every beat is a second. Thus a 
 uniformity penetrates and orders all the diversity 
 of oscillation, which may diminish in amplitude 
 but keeps up the same duration. This is known 
 in Physics as the principle of isochronism, which is 
 usually put first without regard to its stage in the 
 process of the oscillatory Body. 
 
 The above Unity of Oscillation finds expression 
 in a law which may be stated : The times of oscil- 
 lation are equal in the same pendulum ; that is, its 
 oscillations are isochronous. These may diminish 
 in amplitude, say from four degrees to a fraction 
 of a degree before equilibrium; but their times will 
 remain constant. In other words, the period of a 
 pendulum does not depend upon its amplitude. 
 In this quality the value of the pendulum as a 
 time-keeper consists: it is the essence of a clock, 
 whose other machinery is to keep it going, and to 
 mark its oscillations upon the dial. These are on 
 the whole very uniform in the same place, though 
 a change of terrestrial gravity in passing from 
 equator to poles we have seen causing a change in 
 their times. That is, the periods which on the
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 231 
 
 spot clo not grow less with the loss of amplitude, 
 do groW less (the time-piece gets slower) in pass- 
 ing southward to the equator. 
 
 Galileo was the discoverer of isochronism, which, 
 according to the story, he observed by watching 
 the swing of a lamp in the cathedral of Pisa (seem- 
 ingly his mind was not upon his prayers) . Huy- 
 gens first gave a true insight into the theory of the 
 pendulum in a famous book, (De Horologio Oscil- 
 latorio, Paris, 1673). Newton continued the work 
 in his Principia (see Section 6th, Book II, where 
 he treats of "funipendulous bodies"). Here oc- 
 curs his important distinction between quantity 
 of Matter (or mass) and weight. Says he: "the 
 weights of the same body in different places" on 
 the surface of the earth are variable, in accord 
 with "the variation of its gravity." But he always 
 found "the quantity of Matter in bodies to be 
 proportional to their weight" — a fact which he 
 tested "by experiments made with the greatest ac- 
 curacy," doubtless at different pomts. This gives 
 a little glimpse of Newton, the careful experi- 
 menter. 
 
 The dominating fact of the pendulum in our 
 modern world is the application of it as a time- 
 measurer. The idea of such a mechanical contriv- 
 ance is said to go back to Galileo, but the inven- 
 tion of the first pendulum clock is usually ascribed 
 to Huygcns. Besides these famous physicists, 
 other less known claimants have had their advo-
 
 232 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 cates. This was probably like so many other in- 
 ventions: several people came upon it independ- 
 ently about the same time. (A strong claim has 
 been made for Joost Biirgi, of Switzerland, the 
 natural home of clocks and watches. Other na- 
 tions have contestants. See Cajori, Hist Phys., 
 p. 36). 
 
 With isochronism the oscillating Body has run 
 its course, having unified within itself and reduced 
 to law all its variations, we may say all its strug- 
 gles. In a sense it has rounded itself out as a pro- 
 cess, but it has not yet advanced into its own full 
 circle, from which it always drops back ere attain- 
 ing. Such is its visible manifestation of its weak- 
 ness, its insufficiency, its finitude. We can behold 
 its inherent dialectic (so we name this act of Nat- 
 ure generally) in its very motion, which keeps 
 forever undoing what it has done, progressing 
 then taking the back track, trying boldly and then 
 giving up. Really it cannot overcome its own 
 inner separation, its innate dualism, against which 
 it is always reacting, yet to which it is always 
 yielding. It remains a part though under perpetual 
 protest; yea it remains two parts, but it cannot 
 reach and be its own whole and thereby complete 
 itself. Yet this whole is just what actually is in 
 the universe, and the oscillation must universalize 
 itself and pass over into the following stage. Or 
 let the bob of the pendulum whirl through its total 
 arc; then this vanishes into the next.
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 233 
 
 III. The Rotating Body. The circular move- 
 ment of a Body naturally succeeds the oscillatory; 
 the segment of the circle may be conceived as call- 
 ing for completion. The part strives to be the 
 whole of which it is part . The pendulum furnishes 
 the center, the radius, and the suggested circum- 
 ference of a circle in which a Body is to move. In 
 the oscillation we notice the twofoldness, the arc 
 forward and then backward ; then each arc is di- 
 vided into a fall and a rise, from and toward the 
 center of suspension; gravity also is separated, 
 being at first followed and then opposed by the 
 movement of pendulum. Oscillation strives but 
 cannot reach: it drops back and retreats on its 
 own path. The two centers, that of suspension and 
 that of gravity, show their struggle in the oscilla- 
 tory movement of the intermediate bob, alter- 
 nately winning and losing, till the two contesting 
 forces bring the pendulum to a rest between them 
 in the line of equilibrium. 
 
 The completion and fulfilment of the oscillation 
 is the rotation of the Body, which does not now 
 retreat to its starting-point but advances to the 
 same. The partial motion rounds itself out, re- 
 turning into itself through its totality and forming 
 the circle, which has its own center as well as the 
 earth. Gravity is overcome being unable to break 
 up the circumference into segments. The motion 
 of the Body is no longer divided into two opposite 
 oscillations and then into two opposite semi-oscilla-
 
 234 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tions. This inner separation and dualism is harmo- 
 nized and unified in the one circular movement. 
 The Body, first gravitating toward the earth's cen- 
 ter in a straight line, then oscillating between the 
 two centers in a curved line, has now gotten its 
 own center of movement. 
 
 In the Rotating Body we can find the same gen- 
 eral process that was observed, in the fall and in 
 the oscillation of the bodies. The same terms may 
 be employed in designating its stages; thus the 
 common movement which pervades this entire 
 field of the Gravitating Body will be brought out 
 more plainly. 
 
 1. Identity of Rotation. It seems trite to say 
 that all bodies are capable of being rotated ; but 
 not so familiar is the conception that the first mo- 
 tion of the universe, the primordial act of matter, 
 was doubtless rotary. From this original creative 
 Rotation all other forms of motion may be con- 
 ceived to be derived. 
 
 The most common kind of the Rotating Body 
 is the Wheel which we have already considered in 
 treating of the Mechanical Powers. In general 
 the simplest form of rotation is the rigid Body 
 moving around a fixed axis. Such a Body shows 
 a certain independence, having its own center and 
 its own motion about its center. To a degree it 
 has become self-centered, actively so through its 
 rotation. From this point of view we may deem 
 it a little image of the earth. Rotating, it is de-
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 235 
 
 termined from within, partially at least. A higher 
 individuality and self-assertion it manifests through 
 its rotation than through it fall or its oscillation. 
 Indeed it defies and transcends both after its man- 
 ner. Still the rotation of a Body has its limits; 
 urged beyond a certain speed it undoes itself — the 
 wheel flies to pieces, and the round darts into the 
 rectilineal. 
 
 2. Difference of Rotation. That is, the Rotating 
 Body differentiates itself through its own act of 
 Rotation. At a certain point of velocity its cohe_ 
 sion is overcome, it flies into multiplicity, it be- 
 came reproductive, or using a biological analogy, 
 it shows itself fissiparous. Thus the Rotating 
 Body reveals the tendency to divide within itself, 
 to rush from the one center into many centers, to 
 incorporate itself anew in separate forms of matter. 
 
 The tendency of the particle of a Rotating Body 
 to rush from the center may be seen in the mud 
 flying from the rapid wheels of a carriage, or in the 
 bucket of water whirled overhead by the hand. 
 It is to be noted that these separated particles fly 
 off at a tangent to the circular path of the body, 
 which thus projects its pieces in a right line. This 
 is often called the centrifugal force produced by 
 Rotation. The stone of a sling when the string is 
 loosed, is an example. The strong fly-wheel if ro- 
 tated too rapidly will break to fragments, which 
 may be hurled in all directions on tangential lines. 
 But the most interesting example is the rotatory
 
 236 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 motion of the earth, which probably produced the 
 moon, and was itself produced originally by the 
 rotating sun of which it was a part. So it is con- 
 ceived that the whole planetary system was gener- 
 ated by Rotation, which thus manifests itself as 
 the creative principle of the separate cosmical 
 bodies. In fact each piece of matter can be made 
 to yield up its cohesive individuality, to surrender 
 its own self as it were, and to beget others like 
 unto itself, through the rotary act. 
 
 But now follows a fact of deepest significance: 
 the separated or generated body is also a Rotary 
 Body like its source. Thus all these different cor- 
 poreal forms become one in a common principle. 
 
 3. Unity of Rotation. We may repeat that this 
 unity is not that simple identity with which the 
 present sphere started, but the concrete unity 
 which springs from, embraces and unifies the fore- 
 going difference. 
 
 The fragments separated and flung off by the 
 Rotating Body themselves rotate; thus the rota- 
 tion in a manner reproduces itself. The stone 
 speeding on its tangential path from a sling will 
 spin; its outer particles have been moving with 
 greater velocity than the inner, being farther from 
 the center of rotation. Thus they are forced to 
 whirl about their own center, and the Rotating 
 Body throws off another Rotating Body through 
 its centrifugal energy, which new Rotating Body 
 may repeat the process.
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 237 
 
 Thus we have reached the point at which the 
 Rotating Body becomes self-generative, that is, it 
 produces through rotation another of its kind, 
 which in its turn may reproduce itself. The mov- 
 ing Body has now engendered a motion which no 
 longer pulls it to the center, but throws it off 
 from the center; gravitation has turned into a 
 kind of degravitation. This is, therefore, the con- 
 clusion of the Gravitating Body with whose simple 
 fall earthward in a straight line we began, and 
 which next showed its fluctuation between the 
 two opposing forces in the oscillation. The latter, 
 however, completes itse'f in the Rotating Body, 
 which still clings to the one center under ordinary 
 circumstances. But if the rotation be increased 
 up to a certain point, the Rotating Body divides 
 within itself and becomes two or many Rotating 
 Bodies which form or may form a system. 
 
 Still each of these Rotating Bodies, revolving on 
 its own axis as a self-contained whole, is subject 
 to gravitation, which is not destroyed by the new 
 axial motion of the separated Body. To be sure 
 the moving Body no longer merely falls, or oscil- 
 lates, or rotates, in and by itself; it gravitates 
 still, but also it keeps flying tangentially, preserv- 
 ing likewise its axial motion. Thus it moves in a 
 circle or orbit around its central, or originative 
 Body. 
 
 But with this system of axial and orbital motions 
 of Bodies, we have quite transcended our terres-
 
 238 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 trial limits and have really entered the field of 
 celestial mechanics. The Particularized Cosmos 
 with its manifold collisions has passed into a new 
 cosmical order. The Moving Body with which the 
 Particularized Cosmos started as something given, 
 has unfolded to the Rotating Body which now 
 generates the Moving Body culminating in itself, 
 that is, in the Rotating Body. Thus the process 
 of this second stage of the Cosmos which we call 
 particularized, has rounded itself out to comple- 
 tion. The Cosmos as incorporate now reproduces 
 itself as Body without collision. 
 
 A physicist of authority has made the calcula- 
 tion that if the earth were to revolve seventeen 
 times faster than it docs, a Body at the equator 
 ■ would not weigh anything, would not fall, but 
 would remain in the balance as it were between 
 the so-called centrifugal and and centripetal forces. 
 Terrestrial Gravitation would be just counteracted 
 by terrestrial Rotation. According to this reck- 
 oning, if the earth's revolution were made greater 
 than seventeen times its present velocity, objects 
 on the surface of the earth, perchance people, you 
 and I, would begin to rise unwinged and to fly off 
 into space. Moreover we would spin, each turn- 
 ing on his own axis. We would be transformed 
 into little planets, or rather satellites, which might 
 circle about mother earth in an orbit with axial 
 rotation like the moon. We might re-enact the 
 original world-making of the solar system, which,
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 239 
 
 as we shall observe later, is supposed to have 
 been thrown off by the primeval sun unfolding out 
 of its nebulous condition. But without passing 
 through this dubious if not dangerous process, we 
 can at our ease behold a little miniature of globe- 
 producing in its evolution and revolution by look- 
 ing at a stone as it whirls from the rotary motion 
 of a sling. 
 
 Already physicists have taken pains to observe 
 and to measure the different velocities of the fall 
 of a Body in differents parts of our earth as an 
 oblate spheroid. At the equator it is 32.09 feet a 
 second; at New York 32.16; at Spitzbergen, nearer 
 the pole, it is 32.25 (Ganot). Thus the Body di- 
 minishes in weight as it gets more d'.stant from 
 the earth's center. If it were borne outward in 
 space toward the moon, at what point would the 
 terrestrial and lunar attractions for it equal each 
 other — and what would then happen? The prob- 
 lem may be pushed further, even to the boundary 
 line of the Solar System, on which line we may 
 conceive a wandering body to be balancing, hesi- 
 tating whether to go out or to stay in. Alpha 
 Centauri is said to be the nearest star, and is 
 larger than our sun, and so is endowed with greater 
 power of Gravitation. A fence between the pos- 
 sessions of these two somewhat grasping neigh- 
 bors must run somewhere through the cosmical 
 spaces, and there are stray bodies or tramps of the 
 skies which climb over it from one celestial farm
 
 240 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 into another. Seemingly some comets do so, and 
 doubtless vast hordes of invisible, yea microscopic 
 migrants cross the limits of systemic Gravitation, 
 and interconnect the stellar provinces of the 
 Cosmos. 
 
 We have seen that the Rotating Body when 
 brought to rotate at a certain velocity becomes re- 
 productive and begets itself. Motion has the 
 power of dividing Matter at a given Measure, re- 
 producing bodies, or in general the Particularized 
 Cosmos. The interest here is to note that the three 
 primary cosmical elements — Motion, Matter. Meas- 
 ure — are perpetually bringing forth through their 
 own process the vast variety of the corporeal world. 
 Undoubtedly the turn at which the velocity of 
 Rotation becomes productive must vary a good deal 
 on the planets and throughout the physical uni- 
 verse. We have a'ready noted the point at which the 
 earth's rotation might start to generating new 
 earths even if small. In this connection we may 
 observe another fact for the future: the spin of the 
 stone is in the same plane as the whirl of the sling; 
 the rotation of the generated body in the main 
 parallels the rotation of its source. This fact holds 
 of the planets and the satellites (with a few curious 
 exceptions) , and will some day probably be shown 
 to hold of the Sun himself, which may have been 
 once, with the other stars, thrown off from the ro- 
 tating Cosmosphere. 
 
 Rotation has a radial energy, striving to ray out
 
 THE GRAVITATING BODY. 241 
 
 in opposition to Gravitation, to the very limits of 
 the universe, according to the velocity. It would 
 seem therein to suggest already in Mechanics the 
 radio-active principle generally, such as Light and 
 Heat (not to speak of radium itself) . The thought 
 will rise that the limited Rotating Body urged to 
 the top of its speed, will expand toward the unlim- 
 ited, will seek to universalize itself, will radiate 
 from its center as if striving for luminosity. Such 
 is called its centrifugal force and hints already in 
 the Cosmos the counter energy of the Diacosmos. 
 Rapid Rotation tears even the cohesive fly-wheel 
 to pieces and rays them out like light-balls, pro- 
 phetic of the coming phase of Nature. 
 
 We may go back again and take another look at 
 the fall of the body to Earth which stops it in- 
 deed, yet carries it on in a circle of motion, which 
 really completes its partial rectilineal descent. 
 Using the word freedom in this connection, we 
 may say that the fall of the Body to the earth is 
 but half-free, while by its sweep with the Earth it 
 shares in a fully free self-returning round of motion. 
 And still further might the thought be carried till 
 the falling Body participates in the All. 
 
 The oscillating Body should also be glanced at 
 in a retrospect before leaving the present sphere. 
 It images the oscillation of the moment, of the day 
 of the year, of the period, yea of Time itself. But 
 the oscillation is partial, is only a stage, and when 
 it becomes total it must supply its other part and 
 
 16
 
 242 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 become rotation, which in its wholeness reaches 
 back to the beginning and forward to the end. 
 
 We may return once more to the Rotating Body, 
 seemingly the first form of the physical universe. 
 But on the earth this rotatory movement is still 
 under the control of terrestrial gravity which will 
 finally stop it, and also will pull down the gener- 
 ated Body also rotating. Still, when the rotation 
 is adequate to throw off the new Body to a suffi- 
 cient distance and to impart to the same enough 
 rotation to keep it spinning, then it obtains a new 
 motion which is orbital, and to its own rotation is 
 added its revolution around its original central 
 Body. Such we may take as the first glimpse of 
 the System which is next to unfold in the Cosmos, 
 and to give to the same a new and more complete 
 manifestation.
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 243 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 
 
 We have now reached the Cosmos as systemic, 
 or as the cosmical system of Nature incorporate. 
 Motion and Matter are brought into an harmonious 
 order, or at least relatively so; the collisions 
 which we have just witnessed in the Particularized 
 Cosmos, are mediated in the interest of an uni- 
 versal order whose stress is to avoid the conflict 
 of Bodies through a system. The force of gravi- 
 tation still holds and pulls the Body in a straight 
 line : but the force of rotation enters and compels 
 a circular movement around the material center, 
 thus shunning the clash of worlds. To be sure the 
 cosmical collision may not be wholly avoided, but 
 it is now pushed into the background, being usually 
 relegated by the scientific theorist into the remote 
 past or remote future, when the Sun himself shall 
 die. 
 
 The fall of a Body, if it be conceived as uni- 
 versal, comes back to the beginning; it falls into 
 itself, so to speak, and keeps on falling thus. The 
 Body through Motion is continually brought afresh 
 to its start and persists in going its round ; Motion 
 incorporate has become cyclical, it is no longer 
 stopped and dragged down by Matter, but picks 
 up and carries its Matter along in its circle. This
 
 244 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 we may regard as the triumph of Motion over Mat- 
 ter, while in the Particularized Cosmos the triumph 
 was the other way. We may deem it the inherent 
 necessity of Motion, as sprung of the All directly, 
 to complete itself, to make itself a whole, that is, 
 a whole in itself. So it evolves through its stage 
 of finite and particular Motions, and at last gets 
 around to the point of its own beginning, whereby 
 it becomes endless. As a rule the Systemic Cos- 
 mos is a vast and intricate complex of rings of 
 Motion which sweep about the central Body in 
 many shapes, more or less elliptical. The typical 
 form is the Solar System of which we are a part, 
 but probably each self-luminous star is the center 
 of another such a system. The celestial world, 
 even in its wildest cometary and nebulous appear- 
 ances, is a world of system whose law, if not yet 
 found, is always sought for with the certainty of 
 its existence; astronomy means literally the science 
 of the laws of the stars. Moreover these laws are 
 laws of the harmonious movements of Bodies 
 rather than of their collisions. Again we recall 
 the old conception of the harmony of the spheres, 
 going back it is said, to ancient Pythagoras. 
 
 The Cosmos emerging from the chaos of terres- 
 trial conflict which we have just seen, rises into 
 the realm of celestial order, and systemizes itself; 
 this is now its essential fact and hence it can well be 
 called the Systemic Cosmos. If we consider in 
 thought the falling Body, it must have been forced
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 245 
 
 into its condition of separation, which it seeks 
 freely of itself to overcome, thus returning to its 
 origin. It tries to circle back to its beginning, but 
 this the interposing earth prevents, though the 
 striving remains. But let the earth be conceived 
 as taken away ; or rather let ' the earth itself be 
 conceived as the falling Body, which must perpet- 
 ually fall towards its source whence it has always 
 to begin over again, being as Body separated 
 therefrom primordially. The earth falls freely 
 toward the sun which was probably its material 
 source; but as Body separated it is turned away, 
 the original separation being continually re-enacted 
 once every year. That is, the earth-child hastens 
 back into the warm embrace of its sun-mother for 
 a rejuvenescence or new birth; but being re-born, 
 we may think, from its primeval womb, it is 
 ejected again into space on its annual round till 
 its striving wheels it about once more, after its 
 winter of alienation. This renewal of our planet's 
 birth by the sun is ever repeated, and constitutes 
 its chief period, called the year, verily the type 
 and indeed the ground of all other periods. More- 
 over we behold in it an outer cosmical image of 
 the inner process of the self, separating from and 
 returning to its germinal source. To be sure the 
 sun-mother herself we shall likewise find to be a 
 Body separated from a far larger totality, to be a 
 child of the greater Cosmos, having probably its 
 round also, and circling through untold icons. Still
 
 246 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 even the Pancosmos, if so we may call it, is a sep- 
 aration, indeed it is just the Separated originally 
 from the All-Self. 
 
 In such fashion we seek to glimpse and to ex- 
 press the inner psychical movement of the visible 
 Systemic Cosmos. But there is another expression 
 very different, the mechanical, which was and is 
 still found in the science of Astronomy. Laplace, 
 echoing his time, calls his great book Celestial Me- 
 chanics, and declares in the preface to it that "As- 
 tronomy, in its most general form, is a great prob- 
 lem in Mechanics," whose given elements are the 
 movements of the heavenly bodies. Yet Laplace, 
 as already noted, gave a start to the genetic or ev- 
 olutionary theory of the Systemic Cosmos, Kant's 
 similar view being quite unheeded though prior. 
 But it was Sir William Herschel, the contemporary 
 of Laplace, who in his observations on the nebulae 
 of the Heavens laid the material foundation for 
 the new Astronomy, which deals so largely with 
 the origin and development of the stellar world. 
 In accord with the spirit of the Nineteenth Century 
 the science of the stars has become decidedly evo- 
 lutionary, of course without giving up its previous 
 mechanical acquisitions. 
 
 Already we have given a brief account of the neb- 
 ular hypothesis as unfolded by Kant and Laplace 
 (see preceding pp. 29-31). It is an interesting fact 
 that this hypothesis, which started as mere fanciful 
 conjecture or idea, has been clothing itself with re-
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 247 
 
 ality more and more till at present it is the domi- 
 nant' theme of astronomy. Again we see the 
 thought going in advance of the thing and forming 
 a center of correlation for the phenomena of the 
 new science. Physical and astronomical discov- 
 eries have indeed much expanded and developed 
 the orignal nebular hypothesis, but it still remains 
 the core around which fresh facts gather them- 
 selves and get ordered. 
 
 The old Astronomy was largely mechanical or 
 cosmical; Motion and Matter it indeed ordered but 
 chiefly through Measure, and thus it showed the 
 triumph of Mathematics. The new Astronomy is 
 rather physical or diacosmical, though it does not 
 dispense with Measure by any means. Still the 
 nebula has in most respects eluded measurement 
 hitherto, though its turn will probably come. 
 
 I. The nebula, then, is the central phenomenon 
 of astronomy at the present time. It brings up 
 the question of the origin and the development of 
 the entire physical universe. It may be here said 
 that the naked eye is of little help in finding the 
 nebulous shapes of the skies. A powerful telescope 
 is required to bring them out of the spatial depths 
 in which they arc hidden. Sir William Herschel 
 with his huge instrument of remote vision was re- 
 ally the first who caught sight of a large number 
 of nebulae and began their systematic observation. 
 He also spoke the pivotal word about them ; he 
 declared them to be various stages in the evolution
 
 248 C v\ S AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 of the Cosmos. In the far-off Heavens men began 
 
 to see the genesis of the Sun and its system, yea 
 of all cosmical systems. It was soon observed 
 that the nebule had many sizes, forms, gradations: 
 each became a leaf in the long history of world- 
 making. A search started for the intervening 
 steps between the thinnest distant nebula and our 
 own solid earth. 
 
 But the human eye looking through a powerful 
 telescope was discovered to be inadequate. Upon 
 a new kind of retina, far more delicate and penetrat- 
 ing than the ocular, celestial objects were to impr ss 
 their images. The photographic plate was this ;. 
 organ of sight which, with its greater sensitiven — 
 to light, began to reveal the mysteries of the skies 
 hitherto unseen. In this work the Lick Observa- 
 tory on Mount Hamilton, in California, has been 
 specially successful by means of its large telescope 
 of three feet aperature, known as the Crossley Re- 
 flector. The late Pre — . Keeler. who devoted 
 himself to photographing nebula\ advanced our 
 knowledge of them enormously He continued to 
 discover then till he estimated their number at 
 120.000 within reach of his telescope and his pho- 
 tography. Here is an incident which he records 
 in his experience. He adjusted his instrument to 
 take a copy of an important nebula in the constel- 
 lation of Andromeda; behold, when he looked at 
 the photographic plate, he found not only what he 
 sought for but thirty-one other forms of nebub?.
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSM - 249 
 
 Nor is this all. Upon the plate he noticed numer- 
 ous small light-points the nature of which even the 
 ssley Reflector could not unravel, but which he 
 conjectured to be nebulae still more remote. Thus 
 these nebulous shapes stream out into regions be- 
 yond:":, stars, perchance beyond the entire galactic 
 system, which we see circling our Heavens. They 
 suggest other cosmical systems. Moreover, they 
 . I form a common connecting body or ele- 
 ment interlinking the total physical universe. 
 There is getting to be at least a conjecture that 
 the nebula is not tar removed from the first ele- 
 mental Matter of the Creation, possibly being next 
 after the primal ether, of which we are hearing so 
 much in these days. 
 
 In this connection may be noted the triumph 
 over another difficulty pertaining to the nebula. 
 Cases repeatedly occur in which large telescopes 
 resolve into individual stars what appears a neb- 
 ular mass when looked at through smaller instru- 
 ments. Accordingly the inference stands near and 
 has been made that all nebulae are ultimately star 
 g 'lips closely clustered, and are destined to be re- 
 solved when the telescope grows more perfect. 
 Still there remained many of these bluish : g- 
 banks of the skies which the best instrument might 
 magnify but could not turn int stars. Finally 
 the spectroscope came and was lied to these 
 
 nebulous masses. The result was that the spec- 
 trum oi a true nebula, though varying in itself,
 
 250 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 was found to be distinct from the spectrum of 
 a star. Such is the decisive test which even the 
 photographic plate through the telescope could not 
 give. It is acknowledged that the true nebula is 
 composed of a gas heated to incandescence, while 
 the star is a body more or less solidified, likewise 
 incandescent. Now if the light of an incandescent 
 solid be examined its spectrum is continuous, 
 showing all the colors of the rainbow in their suc- 
 cession. But the spectrum of an incandescent gas 
 is called discontinuous, showing bright lines upon a 
 dark background. So with the aid of the great tele- 
 scope, of photography and of the spectroscope, we 
 have reached back to a primordial gaseous Matter, 
 quite formless as yet and incohesive, but starting 
 to show itself, that is, to be self-luminous. 
 
 It is to be noted that the three mentioned instru- 
 ments — telescope, photographic plate, spectroscope 
 — depend upon a single physical medium, light. 
 They are the human eye indefinitely extended and 
 intensified, within whose natural range they bring 
 the sheen of far-off and otherwise invisible worlds. 
 Through this light all matter begins to become 
 self-revealing, it starts to tell on itself with a still 
 small voice reaching through immeasurable dis- 
 tances. At a certain point of heat usually, body 
 commences to show itself, it is endowed with a 
 kind of impartation. Light we may deem the cos- 
 mical language in which each visible member of 
 the universe talks a few words to all the rest.
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 251 
 
 What cjoes the nebula say by means of its faint 
 though varying illumination? It gives some flash- 
 ing hints of its position in the heavens, of its size, 
 of its density, of its subtle tints. Light, accord- 
 ingly, bears a message, we may say a revelation 
 from its nebulous source. It communicates knowl- 
 edge, which will probably be much increased when 
 we understand the language better. Light is a 
 sort of intercommunication between the individ- 
 uals of the Cosmos, and brings them into a kind 
 of association, making them at last a single com- 
 munity. 
 
 But the chief thing which light has revealed as 
 yet concerning the nebula) is their form which is of 
 great diversity and of many gradations. It is the 
 study of these peculiar nebulous shapes with their 
 co-ordination which suggests the evolution of the 
 Cosmos. 
 
 II. It is worth while, therefore, to look briefly 
 at certain special nebula) in this vast multitude, 
 for the fact is that they often show a distinct indi- 
 viduality in shape, in size, in density, and even in 
 shades of color. There seems to be a pretty gen- 
 eral consensus of investigators that the Great Neb- 
 ula in Orion, as it is called, gives a characteristic 
 starting-point in the evolution of the Cosmos. 
 First of all we may regard its shape as revealed in 
 the photograph of the Lick Observatory. Irregu- 
 lar, raveling out around the edges into thinnest 
 gossamer shreds, with a heavy bulge or wart on its
 
 252 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 back, it seems to be struggling toward a form 
 more circular. As to size it frays out indefinitely 
 into space; each new power of the lens brings into 
 view slight filaments previously invisible. On the 
 whole it appears to be pulling itself together out 
 of the unseen elemental Matter, and to be slowly 
 getting self-luminous through an increase of heat. 
 By the way this heat, so common about us, is a 
 very significant factor in world-making, a kind of 
 formative energy throughout the Cosmos. The 
 extent of the Great Nebula in Orion is, therefore, 
 immeasurable, and evidently not visible. But the 
 image of so much of it as can be thrown on the 
 photographic plate can be vaguely sized. An 
 English astronomer, Prof. Ball, has estimated that 
 its area would easily enclose a million of our Solar 
 Systems, as bounded by the orbit of Neptune — 
 that is, the area of it so far as this is reproduced 
 in the Lick photograph. 
 
 At the view of such a huge object one gets con- 
 templative, and begins to inquire: What is here in 
 the making? Not a planet, not a sun, not even a 
 Solar System probably ; all that seems too small 
 for the outlay. The imagination stretches itself 
 to its limit and conceives of a new stellar world 
 in the process of formation; another encircling 
 Milky Way (or Galactosphere) we glimpse in its 
 earliest visible genesis. For our sun is only a star, 
 and a rather small one comparatively, of that 
 rounded Galaxy which we behold in the sky bend-
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 253 
 
 ing over us; millions upon millions of starry mem- 
 bers it has in its colossal circle which on its part 
 may be also revolving about its center as yet 
 totally unknown. So this Great Nebula of Orion, 
 not yet rounded, but seemingly rounding itself 
 and raying out beyond the ever-extending clutch 
 of the largest telescope, may be taken as a kind of 
 prelude to the new cosmogony, -the evolutionary 
 as distinct from the old ones, in which the world 
 was directly made by the fiat of an Almighty Will. 
 We may state, however, that this act of Will can- 
 not be put out of universe. 
 
 It need hardly be said that the most slender film 
 of gauze belonging to the Great Nebula of Orion is 
 something derived, it has an antecedent from 
 which it sprang. Even if its antecedent be, at 
 one or more removes, that primeval omnipresent, 
 but elusive ether, which no man has yet seen, felt, 
 or pinched with an instrument, still this ether must 
 also go back to a creative source. At present, 
 however, we are studying what seems to be the 
 first sensible appearance of the visible universe, a 
 primordial fire-mist with its faint light. 
 
 Moreover, we have to think that these nebulous 
 masses are in motion; in general these shapes sug- 
 gest that they are undergoing some sort of trans- 
 formation, though of course we cannot see them 
 moving. And we can have little doubt that their 
 movements, are more or less circular, they are 
 turning on an axis in some way. Motion we
 
 254 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 have seen to be the first-born of the Cos- 
 mos, before even Space and Time, or rather 
 along with them; the earliest Matter will be 
 endowed with Motion and doubtless with round 
 Motion. In the real nebulie we may premise that 
 we have begun to see the primal visible Matter, 
 though the Motion of it has not yet been detected. 
 Note it is this Motion which is to become decidedly 
 explicit in the course of cosmical development. 
 Our Solar System was once a nebulous shred, doubt- 
 less revolving; its Motions have become the prom- 
 inent thing in its present appearance. Not merely 
 an evolution of the Matter, but an evolution of 
 Motion astronomical science is to reveal. In Cos- 
 mology we have to work backwards from our 
 present Solar System to or towards the beginning 
 which is literally nebulous. The planets and their 
 satellites are conceived to be products of a rotat- 
 ing Heliosphere, which throws them off while im- 
 parting to them its own rotation. 
 
 In the process of world-making we trace by the 
 variation of these vast fog-shapes the cosmical 
 development. If the Great Nebula in Orion has 
 the appearance of trying to pull itself together, 
 there are other nebulous masses which show no 
 such striving for unity, but which seem scattered 
 about wholly decentered. It cannot as yet be 
 told whether they are going out or coming in, 
 worlds vanishing or arising, though Mr. Lockyer 
 thinks that he has found a partial test for ascer-
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 255 
 
 taining this fact, whereof mention will be later 
 made. ' Some shapes seem strongly centered but 
 irregular, as the Crab Nebula; not a few are ring- 
 shaped like the felloes of a wheel (in Lyra) ; others 
 divide from the center like the spokes of a wheel 
 (the Trifid in Sagittarius). Nebulae show a ten- 
 dency to assume round shapes, though these too 
 are very diverse. Still there are rectilineal neb- 
 ulae or those which seem such, for this fact cannot 
 always be verified; at so great a distance the 
 round edge may appear a straight line. 
 
 Some nebulae are therefore, unformed if not form- 
 less; others seem to be forming, or in some stage 
 of formation. It would appear that they have in 
 general a formative type toward which as an end 
 they are moving and which they are seeking to 
 unfold to fullness. Now what can we consider to 
 be that final form of itself which the nebula is 
 striving to reach, and toward which the paths 
 are so diverse? Taking the criterion of form as 
 marking the stages of its evolution, it can be said 
 to show a final form, a last phase ere it passes out 
 of its nebulous state. This ultimate form of 
 the nebula, even if it has many gradations within 
 itself, is the spiral, which on account of its place 
 and importance should receive some special 
 mention. 
 
 The great pivotal fact, accordingly, in the un- 
 folding of the nebula is that it beomes a spiral, 
 which may be deemed a cosmical stage quite ad-
 
 256 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 vanced, but by no means as advanced as our Solar 
 System. In comparison with it, however, the 
 Great Nebula of Orion just considered seems quite 
 primeval and chaotic, though it too shows a ten- 
 dency apparently to draw itself together into a 
 round form. Other nebulae look like hazy balls, 
 but they are all probably flattened like the earth 
 at the poles. That would follow from their cir- 
 cular movement. But as they are of gas and not 
 even a liquid, this flattening must be much greater 
 than that of the earth. The spiral nebulae are 
 naturally flattened, which condition is the fore- 
 runner of this spirality, or of their separation into 
 the whirls like those of the ramshorn. 
 
 It so happens that the spiral nebula has its most 
 striking representative in the photographs of the 
 Lick Observatory. The object is found in the con- 
 stellation known as Canes Venatici, not far from 
 the first star in the handle of the Big Dipper. The 
 photographic image of this nebula makes it ap- 
 pear similar to a very agitated maelstrom whirling 
 off a huge planet or perchance a total system from 
 the end of its outer spiral, while the rest of the 
 same spiral is breaking up into separate pieces. In 
 fact the whole coil is dividing within itself as if 
 getting ready to fling its fragments outward into 
 space as independent bodies. Moreover the center 
 of the spiral has become more condensed and more 
 luminous than the other parts, though these differ 
 from one another in density and luminosity. The
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 257 
 
 whole ,pict urc compels the idea of a central sun in 
 the making, perhaps several of them, with their 
 planetary systems. The size of this great spiral 
 nebula is not ascertained, but it has been supposed 
 to be thousands, possibly millions of times larger 
 than our sun and planets. Still it requires a tele- 
 scope to find it, and the best sort of an instrument 
 to show its details. Lord Rossc first detected and 
 described its spirality, but the correctness of his 
 observation at first met with a good deal of incre- 
 dulity even from astronomers. 
 
 Recently the fact has come to light that fully one 
 half the 120,000 nebula? now supposed to be within 
 the telescopic field are spiral. This is the estimate 
 of Professor Keeler. If such be the case we be- 
 hold so many systems throughout the Heavens in 
 process of evolution. Moreover the spectroscope 
 has been invoked to give its evidence concerning 
 these spiral nebulae. Judged by their spectra 
 they are no longer gaseous ; they have developed 
 out of the vapor of the Great Nebula in Orion and 
 its kindred. Spirality may, therefore, be taken to 
 represent a very pronounced condition of cosmical 
 development; the nebula has advanced to the 
 point at which it begins to show its separation into 
 the members of a system, like that of our sun with 
 its planets and their satellites. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that spiralism takes 
 many shapes; the 60,000 of thorn, more or less, 
 numbering as many as all the other cruder forms 
 
 17
 
 258 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 combined, cannot be yet classified. Indeed astron- 
 omers are coming to believe that there are more 
 spirals than anything else in the celestial strata. 
 It is probable that the spiral period of a nebula 
 lasts millions of years. The order of evolution 
 through these primeval ammonites of the skies is 
 not yet ascertained ; but that they unfold in a suc- 
 cession of aeons is scarcely to be doubted. There 
 is still to be the uranology above corresponding to 
 the geology below. The form-test, which has been 
 given here, is hardly sufficient by itself; the density, 
 the degree of luminosity, the color, the spectrum 
 of the nebula, are all bringing a message which has 
 not yet been deciphered, still less has it been or- 
 ganized. 
 
 Moreover different spirals seem to be evolving 
 very different kinds of systems. The smallest and 
 nearest may be turning out little suns such as ours 
 with their petty planetary followers. But the 
 gigantic spirals like that in Orion or in Canes 
 Venatici are surely not engaged in such an insig- 
 nificant piece of business. They are evolving 
 whole constellations, systems of systems, per- 
 chance an entire Milky Way. As far as our vision 
 can reach, we have but the one Galaxy, though 
 there may be many in starry bloom, while others 
 may be arising out of the vast nebulous masses, 
 and still others vanishing through a colossal fog- 
 world. The life of a system, the life of a star, 
 even the life of a planet cannot of course be deter-
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 259 
 
 mined, still the beginning has been made when 
 they are conceived to have lives or to be passing 
 through a cycle of evolution. 
 
 III. We are now ready to consider the applica- 
 tion of this nebular evolution to our Solar System, 
 which, we must first observe, has developed far 
 beyond the spiral nebula. Yet we conjecture that 
 our sun and its planets had once the shape of the 
 spiral, like that seen in Canes Venatici, and like 
 thousands of others scattered through the heav- 
 ens. The primeval fire-vapor began to throw off 
 its heat into the circumjacent space, and thereby 
 to contract. Moreover the vast mass broke up 
 into smaller masses, each with its own center, as 
 the contraction went on. The middle portion of 
 the nebulae, however, still remained and would 
 start to revolve more rapidly than the portions on 
 the rim, which gradually obtained their own sepa- 
 rate motion. Thus the spiral produces the planet 
 and imparts to it a rotation which becomes its 
 own. The center is a kind of whirlpool with an 
 ever-increasing velocity, as it grows less in size, 
 through the dissipation of its heat. In this way 
 our sun is conceived to have been slowly trans- 
 formed to its present condition, which is still that 
 of an intensely heating body with the correspond- 
 ing radiation. The planet, being much smaller will 
 cool more rapidly, and pass from a molten liquid 
 to a solid, at least on its surface. Such is the 
 present state of our earth, whose interior is still
 
 260 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 supposed to be in its original igneous condition. 
 In like manner the other planets have been whirled 
 off from that primeval spiral whose age reaches 
 back many millions of years. The process of 
 cooling is still going on, both in the sun and the 
 planets, and the question is much discussed 
 whether their heat will fall below its life-giving 
 power. 
 
 It should be further observed that the planet 
 also became the center of evolution, and unfolded 
 its own system of revolving bodies called moons. 
 Thus the systemic order repeats itself; the whole 
 is reflected in each of its parts. Or we may say 
 that each part, in order to be a part of a whole, 
 must have within itself the process of that whole. 
 So the planetary part, in order to remain a part 
 of a system, must repeat the process of such sys- 
 tem. And yet further we have to push the 
 thought. The Solar System is a part, and only a 
 very small part of the total Cosmos, yet it reflects 
 the universal order. Astronomers quite generally 
 take lor granted that the stars are suns, each of 
 which has its family of planets. So a system runs 
 through the entire physical universe, a common 
 ordering principle, of which our little system is a 
 reflection, a particular manifestation. And still 
 further we may glimpse the working of the All, 
 and forecast that this same physical universe as a 
 whole, and not simply in its parts, will be found 
 to be the original model or creative prototype of
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 261 
 
 our System and of all others, in fine of what we 
 here call the Systemic Cosmos. 
 
 It is generally considered that our moon was 
 once a part of the earth, but a rift occurred while 
 both were in a fluid condition, when they were 
 forced further apart by the action of the tides into 
 their present Orbits. The mass of the moon com- 
 pared to that of the earth is about one-eightieth, 
 making it altogether the largest satellite relatively, 
 either lunar or planetary. The mass of the sun 
 for instance is 800 times more than that of all the 
 planets together, and the largest satellite of Jupiter 
 is more than 10,000 times loss in mass than the 
 planet itself. Our moon seems to have united 
 into one huge body comparatively what elsewhere 
 separated into many small bodies in the evolution 
 of planets from the sun as well as of satellites 
 from the planets. In this regard our moon is a 
 striking exception in the Solar System. 
 
 We may consider the evolution of the sun, plan- 
 ets and their moons from their primeval nebula as 
 the evolution of the Heliosphere. This is sup- 
 posed to be at present in its bloom, if not verging 
 toward its decline. Some scientists suppose that 
 quite one-half of the sun's thermal energy has been 
 already dissipated into the space outside of the 
 system. What, then, lies before us? This topic 
 will recur in another connection. 
 
 IV. We can now see the genesis of those two 
 forces — centrifugal and centripetal — with which
 
 262 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Newton sought to explain the orbital movement 
 of the Earth around the Sun. At present they are 
 rather discredited; really they do not explain, but 
 introduce a new difficulty .for they are in themselves 
 contradictory at the pivotal point. Each has to 
 turn into the other just when it ought to go the 
 opposite way. Moreover, the fact is that the so- 
 called centrifugal force is properly tangential, but 
 is deflected at every point into a curve by Gravi- 
 tation. We may conceive, therefore, that the cir- 
 cular movement of the earth in its orbit is the 
 resultant of Rotation and Gravitation continuously 
 working and combining along with momentum to 
 one effect. 
 
 Orbital circularity is, accordingly, an ever-pres- 
 ent process between Matter gravitative, and Mo- 
 tion rotative. The earth as eject of the whirling 
 sun, also whirls and moves away by itself; but as 
 material it is still drawn by its powerful ejector. 
 The outcome is the terrestrial round, always re- 
 turning into itself at every point. The strain for 
 unity and the strain for separation results in a 
 movement which keeps forever separating, yet 
 coming back. 
 
 It is said in the books that the greater the ve- 
 locity of rotation, the greater the centrifugal force, 
 which is declared to be "proportional to the square 
 of the velocity and inversely as the radius of the 
 circle described." Rotation in general has the 
 tendency to tear asunder the body and to fling from
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 263 
 
 the center its fragments, which also rotate. In 
 this sense rotation may be conceived as the imme- 
 diate genetic act of Matter, in which a body is com- 
 pelled to beget other similar bodies through Mo- 
 tion — the creative, or here the separative principle, 
 being itself just the Separating of the primordial 
 Cosmos. Undoubtedly cohesion varies the point 
 at which this material fissipation takes place; but 
 the most cohesive body will at last yield to rota- 
 tory speed and fly apart into new bodies, which 
 may become a system. 
 
 The Earth was thrown off by rotation from the 
 revolving Heliosphcre as nebula, and was endowed 
 with a rotatory movement of its own. The phys- 
 ical cause is that the outermost rim or layer 
 moves faster than the one next to it and so on till 
 the center. This difference of speed in the adjoin- 
 ing parts must force them asunder if the speed be 
 sufficiently great. The one part or particle goes 
 faster than the other and must leave it if the rota- 
 tion be increased. Of course the line of cleavage 
 of a mass will be found at some stratum of weaker 
 cohesion. Moreover, the separated body being 
 still material and extended, will have different mo- 
 menta on the outside and on the inside; the out- 
 side layer moving more rapidly will pitch down- 
 ward and start the whirl. So we have already seen 
 the stone spin from a sling on the earth's surface. 
 
 Rotation is, therefore, the differencing principle 
 of the Systemic Cosmos; it separates and then in-
 
 264 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 dividualizes cosmical bodies, endowing them with 
 itself, namely, Rotation. The primeval revolving 
 Heliosphere of nebula has evolved and organized 
 itself through this principle into the present Solar 
 System. And there is little doubt that the sepa- 
 rated nebulous Heliosphere goes back to its unsep- 
 arated period in some far greater mass, probably 
 like the spiral of Canes Venatici. On the other 
 hand Gravitation remains the unifying principle 
 and works in counteraction of Rotation. Such is 
 the dualism which has been uncovered in the Sys- 
 temic Cosmos, this being at bottom the .process of 
 these two opposite energies always forming a third 
 and thus reconciling their dualism. Indeed we 
 may trace back the foregoing opposites, Rotation, 
 and Gravitation, to the primal elemental dualism 
 of the Cosmos, Motion and Matter, out of which 
 Descartes would construct the physical universe 
 (see preceding p. 39). Of course the Systemic 
 Cosmos shows these elemental forms more highly 
 evolved, in fact realized. 
 
 The original forces which threw off the planets 
 are still at work ; the sun continues both his Grav- 
 itation and Rotation. No planetary body falls 
 back into the central luminary, which attracts and 
 then repels its children. When they come into its 
 sphere of Rotation, they are ejected anew (in peri- 
 helion) ; but as they recede, the influence of solar 
 Rotation grows less, and Gravitation relatively 
 increases, till repulsion changes into attraction (in
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 265 
 
 aphelipn). The Rotation of the sun exerts a per- 
 ennial power as well as its Gravitation ; the planet 
 does not have to be conjoined to it in order to 
 experience the centrifugal influence of its Rota- 
 tion. Thus the planet with its momentum is 
 under the sway of two opposite solar forces. The 
 rotating planet preserves its separation, or its in- 
 dividuality, through the rotating sun, which is 
 always begetting it anew. 
 
 Unfailingly the question springs up concerning 
 this Rotation, which seems to be something pri- 
 mordially given, or coming in from the outside. 
 The rotating Heliosphere has to impart its gift to 
 its planetary offspring, who in turn transmit the 
 same to their satcllitic children. Even the little 
 terrestrial pebble may share in it for a brief mo- 
 ment under right conditions. But whence does 
 the Heliosphere get it? Seemingly from a still 
 vaster rotating body which on its part must have 
 received it from a yet more primordial source, 
 possibly from what we may conceive as the Cos- 
 mosphere. And still the search for the source is 
 not quieted. Original Motion must have been 
 Rotation, the primal utterance of the All-Self in 
 Nature, of that which we have repeatedly named 
 the Parapsychosis, which is within itself this entire 
 process, now appearing external and visible in the 
 Systemic Cosmos. Rotation has thus a marvelous 
 pedigree, coming down from the First Motion 
 through the entire physical universe and clothing
 
 266 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 itself in manifestation from the largest nebula to 
 the smallest speck of dust. 
 
 V. The enormous projective power of rotating 
 spheres in the period of world-making has been 
 shown in the calculations of Mr. G. H. Darwin, 
 (son of the great founder of evolution) who states 
 that some 54 millions of years ago the Earth- 
 made a complete revolution on its axis in three 
 hours. It was then in a liquid state, and from its 
 equator threw off the moon, which also revolved 
 in the same time. Such was the Earth's pri- 
 mal creative act of Rotation; it begat another 
 Earth rotating on an axis. But Gravitation 
 did not fail; the mighty tangential outpush was 
 deflected into an orbital motion, and moreover 
 each body being liquid produced tides in the 
 other, which acted as a brake upon its rapid Ro- 
 tation. The moon is still exerting that brake in 
 the terrestrial ocean, causing the earth to revolve 
 slower and consequently making the days longer. 
 The same author estimates that our day must con- 
 tinue to lengthen until it is 70 times what it is 
 now, until there are about five and one-fourth 
 days in the year. But for this consummation 150 
 millions of years will be required. 
 
 Can a tangential force on the surface of the 
 Earth be artificially produced, which will equal 
 gravitation and unite with the same in an orbit? 
 A mathematical calculation has been made that a 
 ball fired horizontally from the top of a mountain
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 267 
 
 at the rate of five miles a second would pass 
 round the globe, the resistance of the air not being 
 counted. This is seventeen times faster than the 
 rotation of the earth at the equator. Such an ob- 
 ject would be in effect another moon, and prompts 
 the question whether man is yet to become the 
 maker of his own satellites. It is also calculated 
 that a projectile hurled upward at the rate of 
 seven miles a second would overcome terrestrial 
 gravitation completely and fly off into space with- 
 out return. Evidently the Moon was detached 
 when the Earth was just at the right velocity to 
 throw it off by Rotation yet to keep it also by 
 Gravitation. The three elements of the genesis of 
 its completed motion — rotatory, tangential, and 
 gravitational — were all united and reconciled in 
 its system. 
 
 As the Moon and Earth are both independent 
 bodies, each has its field of gravitation, between 
 which a boundary must be conceived. This also 
 has been drawn in exact measurement. The mean 
 distance between the two is 238,500 miles; the line 
 of separation runs 22,800 miles from the Moon, and 
 215,700 from the Earth. A projectile shot toward 
 the Earth from the Moon at the rate of a little 
 more than a mile and a half per second would cross 
 the line, while in the opposite direction more than 
 four times as much speed would be required. If 
 Terra and Luna ever get to bombarding each other 
 we on our side shall have to burn more powder.
 
 268 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 The problem of running boundary lines between 
 systems is one which astronomy has hardly yet 
 grappled with seriously. Gravitation is supposed 
 to cross these lines, and yet with a certain limita- 
 tion of its power at the frontier. Light certainly 
 is not stopped by them, probably not Heat. If 
 Rotation be an influence which extends beyond 
 the body rotating, is it the force which is halted at 
 the border and turned back upon its own system, 
 thus delimiting the same? The original nebula of 
 our Solar System is supposed to have extended far 
 beyond the orbit of Neptune, as yet our farthest 
 planet, and it may have reached to the aforesaid 
 boundary line. This vast nebula must have re- 
 volved as a whole and thus have marked out its 
 primordial limits through rotating on an axis. 
 This Rotation is still practically kept up by the 
 rotating uniformity of the sun and planets in the 
 position of their planes, in the direction of their 
 motions, and in the inclination of their orbits. 
 There rises the further question, Is not the whole 
 system still rotating in its flight through the skies? 
 
 Our Sun is a star of the Milky Way; we call it 
 a body of the Galactosphere, and hence of the 
 Cosmosphere. The nearest star to it is Alpha of 
 the Centaur, whose distance from the sun has been 
 calculated to be more than 9.000 times the radius 
 of the orbit of Neptune, the outermost known 
 planet of the Solar System. This vast tract would 
 seem to indicate the manner in which the stellar
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 269 
 
 systems are separated and are given their own 
 field of operations. The great distance lessens 
 though it does not destroy the force of gravitation 
 between the two central suns, each of which can 
 thus control its planetary sphere without much in- 
 terference. A peculiar fact about this next neigh- 
 bor is that it is a double sun, each solar member 
 revolving about the other at a distance which is 
 estimated to be a little greater than that of the 
 planet Uranus from our sun. The mass of Alpha 
 of the Centaur is considerably greater than that of 
 our sun, and hence has a greater power of attrac- 
 tion; still the two systems are relatively independ- 
 ent. In a direction toward opposite is the second 
 nearest neighbor, 61 of the Swan, also a double 
 star, whose distance from us is set down at 43 bil- 
 lions of miles. On this side, then, lies a still 
 broader belt of separation. Our system and that 
 of Alpha of the Centaur have thus a proximity, 
 which probably has its past history reaching back 
 to a common primal nebula, and which may have 
 a future history when both have dissipated their 
 heat and light and have become floating corpses 
 ready for a new transformation. 
 
 The sun with its retinue of planets is also mov- 
 ing through space, doubtless in an enormous orbit, 
 whose curvature is so slight that it has not yet 
 been detected. But upon this subject the ob- 
 servations are very recent. The solar system is 
 said to be sweeping toward Vega of the Lyre at
 
 270 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the rate of 400 to 500 millions of miles a year. 
 Different astronomers give different stars as "the 
 apex of the sun's motion," or the point toward 
 which it is making; but the present scientific con- 
 sensus seems to be fixing upon Vega. So the broad 
 tracts ot celestial separation are traversed by sys- 
 tems surging in every direction, probably in orbits, 
 but some observers say in right lines. Will these 
 bodies ever collide? That, indeed, has been and 
 will continue to be a puzzling astronomical prob- 
 lem, in spite of the assuring calculations of La- 
 grange and Laplace. 
 
 If our sun is moving in an orbit around a center 
 and the other stars are doing likewise, the question 
 rises concerning the character of this center. Some 
 have supposed that it is not luminous, but is an 
 invisible dead mass of matter of enormous propor- 
 tion keeping the universe in order by gravitation. 
 A recent astronomer, taking as center a point near 
 the orbit of the double star 65 of the Fishes, has 
 calculated the time of a complete revolution of the 
 solar system, which he makes twenty millions of 
 years. Every star in our universe (seemingly in 
 our Galactosphere) is regarded as moving about 
 the same center, forming one stellar or rather ga- 
 lactic system — the unification of all solar systems, 
 estimated at a hundred millions. 
 
 Coming back to the systemic boundary line, we 
 may note that astronomers have drawn it between 
 our system and that of Alpha of the Centaur at
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 271 
 
 114,000 astronomical units distant from our sun 
 which once had on that line its primal nebulous 
 border. Adjoining it and probably one with it was 
 the nebula of Alpha of the Centaur, which has now 
 solidified into a binary sun at a distance of 161,000 
 astronomical units (this unit is the average dis- 
 tance of the earth from the sun used as a unit of 
 measure for very great distances). If this meas- 
 urement be correct, on the side toward the nearest 
 stellar neighbor our known planets do not extend 
 their orbits to hardly more than one four-thou- 
 sandth of the distance to the boundary line, Nep- 
 tune being only 30 astronomical units from the sun 
 (out of the 114,000). One speculates about what 
 is playing in that vast space. Is it empty, a 
 mere deserted borderland between two systems, 
 which are thus kept asunder lest they might lock 
 horns. Many comets doubtless lurk there till 
 they return to the sun. Unseen planets have been 
 and still are supposed to be circling around our 
 central luminary in vast orbits through that seem- 
 ingly unoccupied domain, though it is under solar 
 control. Indeed three extra-Neptunian planets 
 have been heralded at different times, but they 
 have not yet been seen. One of these was placed 
 at a distance of three hundred astronomical units 
 from the sun, ten times further than the orbit of 
 Neptune. 
 
 The next stellar neighbor on the other side of 
 our system (61 of the Swan) is toward twice as
 
 272 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 far away as Alpha of the Centaur, and furnishes a 
 harder problem for those who would try to run its 
 boundary line. We may see, however, that the 
 sun with its known planets takes up but a small 
 area of its total spheral influence, constituting a 
 little circular disc, as it were, in the heart of a 
 huge surrounding globe of space. Indeed the en- 
 tire Heliosphere may be regarded as a molecule of 
 the Pancosmos, a petty globular pellet which is or- 
 ganized with its own whirling* atomic system at 
 its center. This conception of the cosmical mole- 
 cule we shall find reproducing itself under various 
 forms in the recent view of matter, whose atomic 
 constituents, though invisible, are held to be, each 
 of them, a system of corpuscles or electrons, 
 which are rotating in their own space within the 
 limits of the atom. Thus the Solar System be- 
 comes a kind of center for illuminating not only 
 the infinitely large in the stellar world, but also 
 the infinitely small in the atomic world. The or- 
 ganization of the Cosmos is in this way being 
 transferred to the organization of the Diacosmos. 
 VI. The nebular theory in its latest phases may 
 be supposed to account for the evolution of a sun 
 and its planetary system out of the primeval fire- 
 mist. But evidently this is only one segment of 
 a great cycle of evolution; so we cannot help ask- 
 ing after the complementary segments. This self- 
 luminous nebula with which we have to start, since 
 it strikes for us the first light — whence does it come?
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 273 
 
 Then, after we have seen the sun (or star) with its 
 system evolve, what is its evolution through the 
 millions of years? For it evidently does not stop 
 unfolding. It would seem to have its birth, its 
 culmination, its decline and death. Can the 
 stages of such a stellar life be observed and the 
 various stars be classified as young, middle-aged, 
 old? Thus the firmament will be filled by an aeon- 
 lived population analogous to our year-lived hu- 
 manity. 
 
 The first fact was one which has long been ob- 
 served: the difference in color among the stars. 
 Some are red, some are yellow, some are white with 
 many intervening gradations, embracing all varie- 
 ties of the spectrum. If an iron bar or poker is heated 
 to incandescence, it is at first red, then yellow, 
 till it reaches white. Evidently these colors de- 
 pend upon the degree of temperature. As the 
 stars have metals in their composition, and are 
 probably the original smithy in which metals are 
 not merely forged but actually created, the anal- 
 ogy of hot iron has been transferred to them. The 
 stars show different degrees of temperature and in 
 accord therewith different stages of life. They are 
 increasing, culminating, declining in heat or en- 
 ergy, and so represent the various stellar life- 
 periods. 
 
 It is plain that a difficulty appears at this point. 
 Is the given star, observed just now as having a 
 certain color, rising or falling in heat — is it on the 
 
 18
 
 274 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 ascent or on the decline? Arcturus, for instance, 
 has a yellowish intermediate light — is it moving up 
 or down the scale? For the body, getting hotter 
 goes through the same gradation of colors that it 
 docs in getting cooler. Sir William Huggins, the 
 pioneer in this field, says that the primal stage of 
 a star is bluish-white, then passing to white, 
 yellow, red. The classification of stellar spectra 
 into types was first made by Secchi, but his work 
 was modified by others, especially by Vogel whose 
 three types are now commonly accepted. These 
 are as follows: 
 
 (1) The hottest stars: gaseous, longest spec- 
 trum— ^hydrogen and helium, intense bluish and 
 white light. 
 
 (2) Less hot: metallic lines appear, intermedi- 
 ate spectrum, yellow-white light. In this group 
 our own sun probably belongs with Capella, Arc- 
 turus, etc. 
 
 (3) The least hot: carbon appears in spectra 
 with its flirtings; many chemical elements and even 
 chemical compounds, shades of red. 
 
 In this tabular statement there is indicated an 
 evolution of the various chemical elements from 
 one or two which exist only in the hottest stars. 
 Hydrogen would seem to be the primary element, 
 the lightest of them all. The low heat of the red 
 stars permits or perchance aids the formation of 
 chemical compounds, and thus begins to fore- 
 shadow our terrestrial substances. All this is de-
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 275 
 
 clared to indicate a cooling down of the stars, and 
 a slow decline of stellar life. The result is, from 
 this point of view, that the physical universe ap- 
 pears to be doomed to extinction. The original 
 endowment of heat or energy is being dissipated, 
 gradually squandered through space, like our sun- 
 light. The star-life, which is the sun-life, is ebbing, 
 and with it must go all other life. 
 
 Noteworthy is the fact that the foregoing three 
 stages or types are gradations of a decline in tem- 
 perature, and hence show a movement toward 
 cessation of stellar heat and light. The result is 
 that recent science at this point strikes a melan- 
 choly note of the final evanishment not only of 
 life, but of the sun and even of the stars. But is 
 there no return out of this dark negative phase of 
 the Cosmos? The first type represents the hottest 
 stars, the maximum of heat: then how did this 
 get to be? The stellar evolution must be upward 
 to the maximum as well as downward to darkness 
 and coolness. The nebula may develop into a 
 sun and its system, but such a sun has not yet 
 attained its culmination ; it is not yet at its hottest. 
 The possibility is therefore suggested that the rise 
 must be directly connected with the fall; and that 
 the fall must somehow be brought around through 
 darkness and linked into the rise. 
 
 There is a distinguished scientist who drops the 
 elegiac strain of universal dissolution, and gives 
 relief by showing an evolutionary circle of stellar
 
 276 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 development. On the whole astronomers are in- 
 clined to question his view, and undoubtedly it is 
 weak in proof at various points. Still as a theo- 
 retical forecast of what is coming, it seems to us 
 very significant, indeed prophetic. 
 
 The allusion is to the conception of this subject 
 unfolded in Sir Norman Lockyer's work on The 
 Meteoritic Hypothesis. Such a table, however, 
 hardly gives the full sweep of its thought which 
 deals with the whole cycle of stellar evolution — 
 from cold to hot, from hot to cold, and back again 
 to the start. We may divide this cycle into three 
 segments at least (possibly a fourth might be in- 
 serted). Lockyer's chief distinction between stars 
 pertains to those of a rising and those of a falling 
 temperature. Through his spectroscope he formed 
 a considerable number of groups of stars which 
 showed an equal temperature, having the same 
 elements and the same length of spectrum. But 
 in a stellar group of the same temperature he ob- 
 served a new difference: some had thick hydro- 
 gen lines and thin metallic lines, others quite the 
 reverse. Now comes Lockyer's pivotal inference: 
 the thicker hydrogen lines with the thinner me- 
 tallic lines indicate a body getting cooler, while 
 the reverse indicate the body getting hotter. With 
 this test Lockyer constructs a table of stars of in- 
 creasing and decreasing temperatures. Moreover, 
 he gives no less than ten different grades of each 
 kind of stars. According to him the hottest stars
 
 THE SYSTEMIC DOSMOS. 277 
 
 are two in the constellation Argo ; the least hot are 
 two in Pisces, almost ready to lapse into darkness; 
 between these extremes are eight other gradations 
 of descent, two of which are represented by the 
 very brilliant stars, Sirius and Arcturus. The 
 coolest rising star is Antares, followed by eight 
 others in an ascending line (among them the prom- 
 inent stars Aldebaran, Polaris, and Rigel,) up to 
 the apex of the two hottest stars in Argo. So 
 much for Lockyer's double table of rise and fall. 
 But this is not the end. The star passing into 
 darkness and coldness becomes a meteorite, and 
 possibly through explosion or collision, or both, is 
 broken up into many meteorites of which the cos- 
 mical spaces are full. By means of attraction 
 they gather in vast swarms, and through mutual 
 friction they begin to generate heat and then light. 
 The nebula, advancing again to starhood, is com- 
 posed of this original meteoric stuff, which contin- 
 ues to rise in heat and luminosity through its own 
 inner bombardment of particles. Somehow in 
 this manner a dead star passes through its grave 
 and enters upon its resurrection. There is no 
 doubt that here the proof is notable for its ab- 
 sence. We find no tell-tale light, not even that of 
 a hazy nebula, to whisper even the existence of 
 such an underworld. It would seem that the star, 
 after a bright, radiant existence in the Heavens 
 above, must pass through a dark Purgatorial 
 journey to its regeneration. So there is a stellar 
 palingenesis as well as a human.
 
 278 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Such is the third segment, the invisible one, of 
 the total evolutionary cycle of the star, the other 
 two segments being visible. In a general way we 
 have to construe from their arcs the complete 
 circle, though the line certainly runs in the dark. 
 This segment begins with the star vanishing, 
 taking a plunge into night, and then e merges with 
 first faint dawn of nebulous twilight, like that seen 
 seen in many nebulae. From that point we have 
 observed the celestial fire-mist evolving into a star 
 which rises to its maximum of heat and then be- 
 gins to drop toward evanishment. 
 
 It must be repeated that all this is but a theoret- 
 ical outlook over a field concerning which science is 
 still to furnish its proof. So much, however, can 
 be pre-affirmed : the burnt-out suns of the Cosmos, 
 like the corresponding human corpse, is in some 
 way reduced to its original elements, not merely 
 to cosmic dust, but doubtless to the primordial 
 ether, of which it must be re-made, and with which 
 it must begin over again. All the stars having 
 run their course of illumination, are to be sent 
 back to their first fountain of existence, taking a 
 fresh dip in their original protoplasm of Matter 
 itself, during a sleep in the millennial night of their 
 cycle. A similar round man goes through every 
 twenty-four hours, the earth every year; nations 
 also, rising and falling, seem to require such a regen- 
 erative baptism after a period of a few centuries; 
 the sun himself must take such a dip, say once in
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 279 
 
 a million of centuries, though time in such a case 
 cannot be counted or conceived. 
 
 Such, then, are the three segments of what has 
 been called the cycle of the stellar evolution. One 
 of them embraces a world-subsidence moving to- 
 ward a world-emergence, through a sunless pas- 
 sage. We behold a rise, a fall, a return to the 
 beginning — a construction, a destruction, a re-con- 
 struction. We may well think that this world- 
 evolving round of the universe is the colossal outer 
 image of the inner process of the Parapsychosis, 
 more nearly its visible external counterpart than 
 any other shape of Nature, being quite all-embrac- 
 ing. 
 
 VII. There is thus brought before us the con- 
 ception that each individual star (including our 
 own sun) is passing through a cycle of existence 
 which has its analogy to a human life. The star 
 as individual is born, rises to its greatest intensity, 
 which is manifested chiefly by its Heat, and also 
 its Light, then gradually declines toward extinction, 
 which is marked by what has been termed its 
 Heat-death (Wiirmetod). This is practically its 
 dissolution into its original particles or atoms, 
 which in one way or other arc sent flying through 
 the celestial spaces till the reconstitution of a to- 
 tally new individual star begins. Such is supposed 
 to be the round of the star-stuff in the physical 
 universe. 
 
 The next thought is that the many millions of
 
 280 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 stellar individuals which we behold in the sky, are 
 just now in some stage of this round more or less 
 advanced. A chief object of astronomical science 
 is getting to be the discovery and description oi 
 the present stage of each particular star, begin- 
 ning with the most important ones. We must 
 here on earth find out what the stars are doing, 
 with the assurance that they are engaged in some 
 important work of the universe. They are associ- 
 ated in some great end, each is performing its 
 part in the vast social totality of the Pancosmos; 
 what this part is must yet be precisely determined. 
 It seems to be generally conceded that one of their 
 functions is the making of the chemical elements; 
 hydrogen or proto-hydrogen appears in the hottest 
 stars, later comes our life-giving oxygen, and 
 finally carbon. It would seem as if in this stellar 
 evolution'thc conditions of life, as we know it ter- 
 restrially, were in the process of elaboration. Mr. 
 Lockyer makes much of the fact that sodium is 
 found in the hottest stars and also in our sea 
 water, whose salt contains so much sodium. Ani- 
 mal life is supposed to have started in the sea. 
 Man still uses salt in his food, employing appar- 
 ently an element which was elaborated for him 
 millions of years ago when our sun was at its hot- 
 test and before the earth was detached from the 
 Heliospherc. Vegetables feed on liquids and gases 
 whose elements had to be generated in the grand 
 cosmical laboratory which we have seen at work.
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 281 
 
 Animals take chiefly vegetables and other animals 
 for sustenance, yet they too require the gas and 
 the liquid. The elemental conditions of life seem 
 to go back to a stellar evolution. 
 
 The tendency is at present to reduce all chem- 
 ical elements to one original matter out of which 
 they arose. All the elemental diversity which we 
 behold is thus unified. Chemistry did a great 
 work in decomposing the myriads of our terrestrial 
 compounds into the seventy or eighty elements 
 which it declared to be ultimate and indecompos- 
 able. But now spectroscopic analysis of the stars 
 is affirming that these elements are themselves 
 compounds which are found decompounded in the 
 enormous heat of the stellar laboratory. For in- 
 stance the assertion is made that "iron is a com- 
 pound into the ultimate formation of which hydro- 
 gen may enter" or other gases (Lockyer, Inorganic 
 Evolution, p. 82). 
 
 The position of Heat in this far-reaching cosmical 
 development is very striking. It is taken to be 
 the unifier or simplifier of all elemental difference. 
 Our chemical appliances can produce no such Heat 
 as that of the hottest stars. The most powerful 
 battery gives a spark barely equal in intensity to 
 the coolest star (that in Pisces) . Our sun is hotter 
 (say 8.000 degrees Centigrade), but the most in- 
 tensely heated stars, those in Argo, are supposed 
 to reach 20,000 degrees and even 30,000. Of course 
 these figures are conjectural and are simply in-
 
 282 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tended to hint the gradations of stellar develop- 
 ment. Heat seems intimately connected with the 
 earliest form of hydrogen, which itself may be a 
 compound of some more primordial element, as 
 certain physicists have suggested. It is a curious 
 fact of the history of chemistry that Prout, in 
 1815, long before the discovery of spectral analy- 
 sis, held that hydrogen was really the first element 
 on account of its slight atomic weight, and that the 
 other heavier elements were made or evolved (we 
 may say) out of it. Of course Prout could not prove 
 his view by direct experiment, and so it lapsed for 
 more than half a century, till recently the stars in 
 their courses appear to be coining to its proof. As 
 Heat is the great agent of expansion, it is best 
 manifested by hydrogen, the most expansible of 
 all the elements; the two may be thought therein 
 to have a certain primal kinship, hydrogen being 
 nearest and most responsive to Heat. In fact 
 the surmise has dawned that Heat itself may be 
 the primal element which differentiates itself into 
 all the rest, being a mode of Motion (as the state- 
 ment runs) and consequently a mode of Matter, 
 since Matter also is now getting to be considered 
 a form or mode of Motion by some physicists. 
 Thus we are being carried up by the new science 
 to the first elements with which the Cosmos starts 
 — Motion and Matter. At present, however, the 
 earliest manifested or realized elementalization of 
 the universe would seem to be this proto-hydro-
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 283 
 
 gen which is apparently produced by Heat out of 
 the nebulous fire-mist. 
 
 In such fashion we behold the struggle of. science 
 to reach back to the very forge of the particular- 
 ized Cosmos in all its material diversity. How 
 did this vast multiplicity of bodies and their con- 
 stituent elements arise? Heat is the cosmical 
 power of unifying such diversity, and of reducing 
 it back to its one elemental origin, whatever that 
 may be. The earth with all its variety, and the 
 sun and all the planets are now marching toward 
 their starry fire-bath, into which they have to be 
 dipped periodically for regeneration, say once in a 
 thousand million of years. Then are supposed to 
 be begotten a new sun and a new earth, which, 
 however, again enter the round. Heat we may 
 call the dialectic of the diversified, particularized 
 universe of Matter, which through its own collis- 
 ions generates the Heat undoing it. The nebu- 
 lous fire-mist is supposed to be a mutual bombard- 
 ment of particles till they become self-luminous, 
 and finally glow in a stellar furnace which fuses 
 them with a Heat far greater than that of our sun. 
 Thence they are moulded or transformed in some 
 unknown way, and cool down into an ever-increas- 
 ing diversity. 
 
 One of the stages which this descent of cosmical 
 Heat reaches is that of terrestrial life. It is an 
 astonishing fact that animal and vegetable vital- 
 ity is confined to so few degrees of the thermal
 
 284 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 scale of the Cosmos; relatively it seems to be 
 hardly more than a point at which organic evolu- 
 tion interlinks with inorganic. No life, as we 
 know it, is there in stellar or solar development, 
 and it is contained merely in a fraction of the 
 earth's history. Man has arisen and existed only 
 in a fraction of this fraction; he lives in a limited 
 measure of Heat, of which too much or too little 
 is equally fatal. Is the end of this colossal inor- 
 ganic evolution to produce a living organism on a 
 planet? This is a question that properly comes up 
 in the treatment of the Order of Life, or the Bio- 
 cosmos, which is the third main stage of total Nat- 
 ure in the present work (see preceding p. 21). 
 
 From time immemorial the sudden appearance 
 of a new star has caused speculation as to its ori- 
 gin. The most probable ground for such a phe- 
 nomenon is some kind of collision. Lockyer 
 thinks that it comes from the clash between a 
 nebula and a meteoric stream. Such a case might 
 be regarded as the birth of a star, which thus be- 
 gins its period of brightness, and starts in its cycle 
 of rise, culmination, decline, and death. Here, 
 however, enters another problem: the sudden dis- 
 appearance of certain stars. In fact both the sud- 
 den appearance and the equally sudden disappear- 
 ance of a star have been strangely united in a 
 phenomenon which took place some years ago 
 (February, 1901). This star is known as Nova 
 Persei, which blazed up unexpectedly and in a
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 285 
 
 few days attained the brightness of Capella; then 
 it began to wane, and with little fluctuations of 
 luminosity dwindled to a barely visible point of 
 light. This cycle of birth, culmination, and de- 
 cline was passed through not in a milliard of years 
 but in a few weeks. The conflagration of aeons 
 seems to have occurred all at once from causes 
 unknown. If our sun had taken fire and burnt up 
 in a month at its start instead of doling out its 
 heat as it has done and is still doing, it might have 
 furnished a parallel to Nova Persei, and startled 
 the wondering denizens of some distant planet. 
 Of course we terrestrials would never have been 
 as we are; possibly all of our constituent ele- 
 ments might have gone into some other solar 
 system. 
 
 Temporary stars have been often observed in 
 the past, and it is highly probable that they in 
 some way belong to the total stellar system. Be- 
 sides the theory of collision already given, some 
 scientists hold to the theory of internal explosion 
 — the corpse seemingly being blown asunder by 
 its own gases and set on fire by its own friction. 
 The variable star appears different though also a 
 marvel of the skies. The best known is Mira Ceti, 
 which rises at times to the second magnitude, 
 then declines to invisibility for five months, after 
 which it gradually emerges to its supreme bril- 
 liancy. Its total round takes up not quite one of 
 our years — 331 days. Another famous periodic
 
 286 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 star is Algol (Beta Persei) which in less than three 
 days runs through its cycle of variation, which is 
 not fully two magnitudes. These are very rapid 
 changes, but there can be little doubt that all 
 stars are undergoing similar changes, which are 
 probably phases of internal evolution. The com- 
 parison is usually made with our sun, which has 
 its periodic return of solar spots every eleven 
 years. There is also a problem of varying scintil- 
 lation of the stars, which has attracted the atten- 
 tion of astronomers. 
 
 It may be reasonably affirmed that all the stars 
 of the firmament are going through their cycle of 
 individual change, lasting from a few hours (like 
 Algol) to hundreds or thousands of years. They 
 are all evolving, we may say, and the further note- 
 worthy fact is that they evolve cyclically, ever re- 
 turning upon themselves in order to go forward. 
 The Cosmos seems to take a strange delight in 
 rounding both the Matter and Motion of the celes- 
 tial order; the stars change internally in cycles 
 as far as we can discern their behavior; their ex- 
 ternal movement, both axial and orbital, runs into 
 circularity. It is conjectured that the First Mo- 
 tion, parent of all others, must have been circular. 
 Still further, this cosmical character is consonant 
 with the Self, universal and individual, which 
 moves and evolves quite in the same way, and 
 ultimately must have come from the same cre- 
 ative source. So we behold the one psychical
 
 THE SYSTEMIC COSMOS. 287 
 
 process pervading and ordering the universe, both 
 inner and outer. 
 
 VIII. We must now bring to a close this some- 
 what discursive introduction, necessary on account 
 of the present state of the science (as it seems to 
 us) whose general trend and character we have 
 sought to indicate under the title of the Systemic 
 Cosmos. But the distinctive word here employed 
 demands the system; astronomy also calls for the 
 law of the stellar world. A sense of order is 
 everywhere felt in the Cosmos and drives to some 
 organic expression of its phenomena, though this be 
 but tentative. 
 
 In what way can we put together the total Sys- 
 temic Cosmos as we have seen it unfolding? Evi- 
 dently it embraces much diversity, and seems on 
 the surface to be recalcitrant to any order. The 
 so-called new astronomy with its dominant phys- 
 ical turn appears in a somewhat reactionary mood 
 against the previous mathematical astronomy, 
 which was itself the child of an even greater 
 reaction. 
 
 There are certain general outlooks which we 
 may take in advance upon this subject. First of 
 all we must sooner or later seek to bring the phys- 
 ical universe as a whole under our ken and try to 
 find some lines of order running through it in its 
 entirety. But this whole must be divided, par- 
 ticularized, made visible in all its separation— 
 which fact we behold in the stars of the cosmical
 
 288 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 totality. But we are not to be left in such a 
 stellar distraction; the single star is to have its 
 own order or system, which in its way reflects and 
 indeed realizes the whole Cosmos in which and by 
 which the star was evolved. 
 
 Putting these items down in a more formal 
 statement, we have (I) The Systemic Cosmos in its 
 immediate totality, which we shall name specially 
 the Pancosmos; (II) The Systemic Cosmos in its 
 visible, truly luminous, yea self-luminous separa- 
 tion — the Stars; (III) The Systemic Cosmos in 
 its organized individual, which is the basic unit of 
 it as system, and from which it has to start in 
 order to make the Whole (or the Pancosmos) into 
 a system — the Sun. Thus we may behold the last 
 stage returning to the first through the second — 
 each star being supposedly a sun with its system. 
 
 The human mind cannot and must not repose 
 in a scattered presentation of facts; it should and 
 will seek ultimately its own deepest process in 
 Nature, which in that way only can become trans- 
 parent to thought and so a science. Still it is not 
 said that the above process as formulated is final 
 and cannot be improved; subject to evolution is 
 this ordering of facts, as is everything else. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Pancosmos. 
 
 In the Systemic Cosmos we are forced to reach 
 
 back to its beginning, which is the cosmical All, 
 
 10
 
 THE PANCOSMOS. 289 
 
 or what we have here sought to emphasize by 
 naming it the Pancosmos. We must in some way 
 grasp the whole at the start and see it evolving its 
 various stages. To be sure we may go the other 
 way, commencing with the part and rising to the 
 totality. Already the attempt has been made to 
 bring into the conception of the reader the grand 
 spheres of the physical universe — the Heliosphcre ; 
 the Galactosphere. and the Cosmosphere — though 
 this last one be as yet barely suggested in the far- 
 off nebulous masses revealed by the largest tele- 
 scopes. At present,, however, the process is differ- 
 ent; we wish to see as far as possible the evolution 
 of the Whole as cosmical, and this must be our 
 starting-point. 
 
 The Pancosmos is, accordingly, the physical 
 universe taken as immediate, unclifferenced, as yet 
 undeveloped. Still in this stage we must suppose 
 that everything which is to come hereafter is 
 seething; not only gravitation is present, but light 
 has faintly dawned and shows itself in the filmy 
 nebula. Very impalpable is such a theme, but we 
 must note a few organic points, which in a sense 
 are later developments. At present some univer- 
 sal lines of order we would fain trace in this vague 
 and far-off world, yet very real. 
 
 I. Postulated. If we start with the Pancos- 
 mos in itself, or empty, we must at once put some- 
 thing into it; we must determine the undetermined 
 universe. We have previously found Motion, for
 
 290 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 instance, to be an universal element, or an ele- 
 ment of the universe as physical. Here we return 
 to it and pick it up simply as a postulate without 
 further derivation. These postulates are, there- 
 fore, immediate or so employed for the purpose of 
 giving content to our primal conception of the 
 Pan cosmos. 
 
 1 . The Elements. The word here is intended to 
 bring back the primal forms of the elemental Cos- 
 mos which have been already set forth quite 
 fully — Motion, Matter, Measure. These we merely 
 recall at present, since there has been a return to 
 the beginning of Nature. The Systemic Cosmos is 
 peculiarly the arena of all these in their largest 
 manifestation ; they are no longer abstract or ideal 
 simply, nor are they confined to one small planet 
 (as in the Particularized Cosmos) : the moving Body 
 is now to be measured in all its grandeur. Motior 
 is indeed incorporate, but as a kind of soul con- 
 trolling the material spheres. The Pancosmos is 
 thus full of Motion, full of Matter, all measured 
 and in order, which Mathematics is to re-measure 
 and to formulate in its own terms. 
 
 2. The Radiants. When we behold a nebulous 
 shred in the most remote skies, it is emitting light, 
 which has evidently come to our eye across the 
 enormous spatial chasm. Such is the visible Ra- 
 diant, and with its generation is connected doubt- 
 less heat, and probably electrical action. These 
 three Radiants — Light, Heat, and Electricity — be-
 
 THE PANCOSMOS. 291 
 
 long to the Diacosmos in their special treatment; 
 but here we have to consider Light as that which 
 manifests the Pancosmos, or at least certain frag- 
 ments of it. For the unseen probably remains 
 more than the seen in spite of the ever-increasing 
 conquests of powerful telescopes. This radiating 
 Light which is borne to us so far, has to traverse 
 or to stir sympathetically some kind of a medium, 
 which must be everywhere, invisible indeed, but 
 the bearer of all visibility. 
 
 3. The Medium. Is the Pancosmos completely 
 realized? or we may say materialized? The ques- 
 tion asks after a common medium, which in a way 
 can be supposed to fill the spatial emptiness of the 
 physical universe. Science is inclined to accept a 
 universal presence of matter of extreme tenuity 
 throughout what we here call the Pancosmos. If 
 Matter be the separated, this ether is the first form 
 of it, perchance the protoplasmic stuff out of 
 which all diversity of bodies proceeds. Ether 
 would seem to be in itself a kind of repulsion, as 
 the first Matter or the Separated; but on the other 
 hand it must also be the conveyer of attraction 
 throughout the Pancosmos. In the mechanical 
 view of the world gravitation is supposed to work 
 upon the total ether and thus to reach every piece 
 of Matter in the universe. 
 
 These three things or sets of things are what 
 we postulate for the Pancosmos, in which they 
 have been put, after being picked up from the
 
 292 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 outside, for the purpose of filling the empty All, 
 or of defining the indefinite Whole. Postulated 
 are the Elements (already given), the Radiants 
 (hereafter to be given), and the Ether, which will 
 likewise have a history. Having gotten some 
 tools (or categories) with which to work, we may 
 take the next step which is to determine the Pan- 
 cosmos not from the outside, but from the inside, 
 if this be possible. 
 
 II. Sphered. The attentive reader must have 
 already noticed our tendency to sphere the uni- 
 verse, to divide it internally into a succession of 
 spheres, from least to largest. Such a tendency 
 can be found in many astronomical works, even if 
 unconscious; indeed it lies in the very nature of 
 the subject. We may conceive the Pancosmos 
 dividing itself primordially into the three spheres 
 — those of the Sun, of the Galaxy, and of the Cos- 
 mos — and thus revealing the first phase of its 
 system. 
 
 If we look up at night we seem to be living in a 
 sphere whose radius is not known, though we take 
 ourselves to be the center; or perchance the earth 
 on which we stand we conceive as central. Thus 
 naively do we sphere our little world, showing an 
 inborn conformity of mind with the outer universe. 
 Still this primal geocentric act of ours has to be 
 given up, and we have to place ourselves in con- 
 ception upon the sun, thus becoming heliocentric, 
 and thinking or rather re-thinking and re-creating
 
 THE PANCOSMOS. 293 
 
 by thought the Heliosphere in its organization and 
 evolution. Then we behold a vast multiplicity of 
 Heliospheres in the stars, which also show to the 
 eye a bent toward a common sphericity in the 
 Galaxy or Galactosphere. But this too seems to 
 be revealing a multitude of forms through the in- 
 vestigation of the nebula, and is evoking a new 
 sphere, all-embracing yet spatially limited, the Cos- 
 mosphere, which as yet lies beyond immediate 
 vision. Indeed the beginning, the Heliosphere, is 
 not directly visible even if we see the sun. We 
 have to construct it, or rather reconstruct it in our 
 own mental might, re-thinking the divinely creative 
 thought of it, putting ourselves upon the stand- 
 point of the Creator, or we may say, of the Parapsy- 
 chosis. 
 
 In the evolution of the nebula we have seen its 
 outcome in a Solar System like ours. Now there 
 are many such Solar Systems scattered through 
 the Heavens; in fact every star is supposed to be 
 the luminous center of a planetary order. But we 
 observe that the stars are gathered into groups or 
 constellations which, however, do not indicate any 
 inner connection. A star in the Pleiades is pos- 
 sibly as far removed from one of the same group 
 as is our sun, which may appear from the other 
 side to some distant inhabitant of a planet as one 
 of the Pleiades. Still there is a single vast gath- 
 ering of the stars in the firmament which im- 
 presses the mind as possessing a common char-
 
 294 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 acter, as having some internal bond of relation- 
 ship. This is the striking stellar zone of the skies 
 known as the Galaxy or Milky Way, of which our 
 sun is a tiny star, and our system a minute part. 
 Thus the latter belongs to a far larger celestial 
 order, which is still visible, though bordering out- 
 wards upon the invisible. 
 
 It will help our conception of this mind-stretch- 
 ing theme to put together in gradation the three 
 stages of the present world-system, as they have 
 been already hinted. We must recollect that the 
 nebula has unfolded into this explicit cosmical sys- 
 tem, which, however, shows these various forms 
 when developed, differing especially in magnitude. 
 As they all are probably round or tend that way, 
 and are also rotating, we shall designate them as 
 spheres. 
 
 1. The Heliosphere may be conceived to be any 
 stage of a solar totality from its primal nebulous 
 condition to its fully developed system. As man 
 dwells at present in a certain epoch of a given 
 Heliosphere, it is that- part of the total Cosmos 
 which he can best study and understand. It is in- 
 deed the systemic type of the cosmical universe, 
 through which chiefly we have to reach out to the 
 remotest stars. There is little doubt that the 
 Heliosphere in its primordial evolution as nebula 
 breaks away from a larger mass of which an ex- 
 ample may possibly be seen in that vast Nebula 
 of Canes Venatici. This seems in its present
 
 THE PANCOSMOS. 295 
 
 state to be whirling off Heliospheres, which will in 
 time evolve Solar Systems like our own. 
 
 2. The Galactosphere we may call analogously 
 the round of the Galaxy or Milky Way, which is 
 the stellar girdle making the circuit of the whole 
 sky, though we see only the half of it above the 
 horizon. In this girdle the stars are largely gath- 
 ered, in striking contrast with the celestial regions 
 lying outside of it. Often it appears to contain 
 nebulas, but these are usually resolvable into indi- 
 vidual luminous points by a good telescope. The 
 true nebuhe mostly lie outside of the Galactic 
 belt — a fact which may imply two different 
 stages of cosmical evolution in two different por- 
 tions of the Heavens. The Galactosphere holds 
 chiefly the developed systems with their aims, 
 each of which announces itself by its Hght. Our 
 own sun with its system is a member of the untold 
 myriads of the Galactosphere whose stars revealed 
 by the best instruments have been computed at 
 a hundred millions. Sir William Herschel on.ce 
 counted in a small area of it covered by his tel- 
 escope 331,000 stars. 
 
 Strictly the Galactosphere must have its poles 
 (known as the Galactic poles) . The Galaxy proper 
 is its equatorial belt, upon which so many constel- 
 lations appear massed in a vast celestial circle. 
 What has brought thorn together? We naturally 
 think of motion, indeed a whirling motion, which 
 like that of the earth draws its material toward
 
 296 COSMOS AXD DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the equator away from the poles. This seems to 
 have been what suggested Herschel's famous com- 
 parison of the Milky Way to a grindstone, whose 
 diameter according to him is about five times its 
 width. Such a view has its difficulties unques- 
 tionably, but the general conception of the Galac- 
 tosphere as a kind of system of multitudinous 
 solar systems, doubtless millions of them, cannot 
 be dispensed with in co-ordinating the Systemic 
 Cosmos. 
 
 3. To the idea of the Cosmosphere, though very 
 faint and indefinite, we have to advance out of the 
 Galactosphere, whose general lines are in a meas- 
 ure visible. Still they run out beyond and beyond 
 till we begin to think of a multiplicity of not merely 
 Solar but of Galactic systems. Already the large 
 nebulae have suggested that in them was forming 
 something far greater than the greatest Heliosphere, 
 perchance a new Galactosphere. The recent rev- 
 elation of starry depths has compelled the thought 
 of not only other suns but of other Galaxies. Av- 
 erage eyesight can see six stars in the group of 
 the Pleiads; better vision can detect the seventh, 
 and still better the eighth; the supreme ocular 
 test is said to be a glimpse of the thirteenth Pleiad. 
 No wonder there is the legend of the lost Pleiad; 
 several are lost or found according to the seer. But 
 the best vision is that of the photographic plate 
 which brings out more than 2,000 members of this 
 group, according to a picture of it taken at the
 
 THE PANCOjSMOS. 297 
 
 Paris, Observatory. Such a fact suggests another 
 group of Pleiads far beyond our visible group, in 
 another Galactosphere. or perchance many such 
 groups, each in its own Galactic system. 
 
 So we cannot permanently halt in our Galacto- 
 sphere with its millions of Heliospheres, and among 
 them our own; we have to attain the one Cosmo- 
 sphere embracing all the possible Galactospheres 
 with their HcHospheres. To such a conception of 
 the physical universe (or the Pancosmos) we have 
 to reach out, however vast and elusive. But the 
 question rises, Is it, too, in motion, revolving like- 
 wise on its axis? And is that the original univer- 
 sal Motion of the Universe itself, creative of all 
 other forms of Motion, rectilineal as well as curvi- 
 lineal? We have to conceive, then, the Primal 
 Motion to be spherical ; yea cosmospherical, that 
 of the physical All itself. From this universe of 
 Motion (really the moving Universe) all finite par- 
 ticular movements are thrown off, or we may say 
 generated. The autumn leaf whirling from a tree 
 participates in the all-moving All of which it is a 
 fleeting manifestation. In the fall of the apple 
 Newton saw the universal gravitation of Matter to 
 Matter, but did he also see universal Motion? To 
 him seemingly Matter, being impelled by the force 
 of attraction, picks up its needful Motion, as it 
 were from the outside; but we have to ask, 
 Whence comes this Motion which appears to be 
 lying around everywhere through the celestial
 
 298 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 spaces? Or we may put the question in this way: 
 Which is prior, Matter or Motion? The answer 
 carries us back again to the starting-point of the 
 elemental Cosmos, where we saw Motion the first- 
 born of Nature. 
 
 But if the total physical Universe turns on itself 
 (as the word Universe might seem to imply) it 
 must be finite as distinct from the All-Ego, though 
 taken in itself as spatial it is boundless. The Cos- 
 mosphere as derived is, accordingly, limited against 
 its source, the universal Self whence it sprang and 
 separated, receiving therefrom its separative char- 
 acter. Hence comes that deep pervasive contra- 
 diction of Nature which we have already noted 
 and called its dialectic. This is indicated in the. 
 statement that it is in one way boundless, in the 
 other way bounded — spatially infinite, genetically 
 finite. The Cosmosphere is conceived to be in the 
 spatial Pancosmos which is still beyond it, and 
 hence brings up again the dualism inherent in the 
 physical universe, that between the finite and in- 
 finite, between the sphered and the unsphered. 
 between the self-returning and the onward-going 
 — the dualism which we have already come upon 
 and observed under a variety of forms. Nature 
 is twofold and cannot help herself ; she has the re- 
 turn, the rotation, which is limited, yet is always 
 sweeping out of it into the unlimited. 
 
 Now this break-up of the ever-repeating round 
 means evolution, means the creation of new forms.
 
 THE PANCOSMOS. 299 
 
 Each part evolves of itself, or we may say it 
 revolves in its own right like the body from which 
 it sprang. This fact we shall look at once more 
 in its present connection. 
 
 III. Evolved. We have already given (see pp. 
 251-61) a general outline of the evolution of the 
 stellar and planetary worlds, as it has been pre- 
 sented in recent science. At this point we may 
 again call up briefly the aforesaid evolution, put- 
 ting it into its place in the Pancosmos, which is 
 now to be seen in its unfolding. The three spheres 
 just described in their separation have to evolve; 
 indeed we may add that they have to revolve, in 
 order to evolve; the cycle revolving at a certain 
 speed leaps out of its own skin as it were, and be- 
 comes another which also revolves. We may sum- 
 marize the essentials previously given: 
 
 1. The first nebula. As the visible starting 
 point may be taken an exceedingly tenuous, but 
 self-luminous piece of matter which doubtless ro- 
 tates and flattens gradually through its rotation. 
 There are evidently various subordinate phases of 
 this first stage of a nebula, but the many thousands 
 of nebulous masses (probably extending to millions) 
 have yet to be organized. Still we may note the 
 second pivotal fact concerning them. 
 
 2. The Spiral. Nebulae in the course of their 
 development, range around a center like the whorls 
 of an ammonite, with lines i f cleavage across these 
 whorls, indicating the future planets and perchance
 
 300 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 satellites. The center is the mass of the coming 
 sun, though this too may break in twain. There 
 is little doubt that the rotation also divides; the 
 inner whorl gets to moving faster than the outer, 
 which motion precipitates the break, and throws 
 off the first planet of the system, to be followed by 
 others. This stage is one of great agitation and 
 division; the spiral is what tears the nebula to 
 pieces, scattering its parts at a distance from the 
 main center, yet holding them still in the bounds 
 of a system by gravitation. 
 
 3. The System. This reveals, accordingly, a 
 unity in spite of, or rather through, its separated 
 bodies, each of which revolves about a central sun, 
 and at the same time turns on its own axis. We 
 have already seen how a ball thrown off from a 
 whirling sling has a spinning movement as it flies 
 through the air. When the planet is separating 
 from the spiral, the outer side as farthest from the 
 center must be going faster than the inner; hence 
 it will tumble over and around itself when free. 
 Its axial motion is, therefore, an indication and a 
 consequence of its liberation, showing its new dis- 
 tinct individuality, which of course, it could not 
 possess while held fast to the original body. 
 
 So the system unfolds out of the nebulous spiral 
 which shows a genetic energy in producing separate 
 cosmical individuals. Yet their original rotatory 
 motion around the center is preserved, but it now 
 becomes axial. That is, it has been appropriated
 
 THE PANCOSMOS. 301 
 
 and internalized by the new-born planet or the 
 moon-, which in this way has received from the 
 whole (as revolving nebula) its characteristic mo- 
 tion, namely its revolution on its axis. We see 
 that in this most external manifestation of Nature 
 the part of the given totality must have the process 
 of that totality in order to be such a part. The 
 thin nebula, the slightest visible matter that moves, 
 gives its own essential motion (the rotatory) to 
 the particle which separates from it, endowing the 
 same with its fundamental rotation. So the orig- 
 inal spiral begets children — suns, planets and satel- 
 lites — all of them individualized with its primeval 
 motion, which becomes theirs through a soil of 
 parental impartation. At this view we penetrate 
 to the basic principle of cosmical organization, to 
 the primordial visible union of Motion and Matter, 
 the first-born of the Cosmos, with which we started. 
 In other words, the germinal process of the total 
 Cosmos has now unfolded and become explicit in 
 a system, and hence we call it the Systemic Cosmos 
 or the Cosmos systemized, which has gone back 
 and shown us the ideal elemental Cosmos realized 
 in the primal moving Matter, and therein appear- 
 ing for the first time to the senses of man. 
 
 Now this systemic motion of worlds, starting 
 doubtless with the first physical All, and extending 
 to the separate individualized parts of the same as 
 systems, has its deep correspondence to the inner 
 world, that of the Ego. This also shows each part,
 
 302 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 or better, each activity of itself to be endowed with 
 its own total process. The separate faculty (as it is 
 often called) has the same essential motion which 
 characterizes the entire Ego. Each has the psychi- 
 cal movement as its essence, which we have named 
 the Psychosis, and which is the connecting link of 
 all particulars with all universals, or the very pro- 
 cess of the universe revealing itself in each part of 
 itself. We have often heard of the Microcosm, or 
 the little inner world of the self and its correspon- 
 dance to the Macrocosm, or the great outer world, 
 the physical totality. The node in which the 
 twain are conjoined through and through with all 
 their divisions, is that psychical process, the Psy- 
 chosis, whose reality in the vast spatial externality 
 of Nature, is the Systemic Cosmos. 
 
 We may repeat, for the fact is pivotal, that the 
 primal generative nebula is the potential un- 
 differentiated mass of revolving Matter, big with 
 worlds; then comes its stage of parturition, or its 
 separation, not only into Bodies but also into Mo- 
 tions, the axial and the orbital — this being the 
 very act of the birth of worlds ; finally these gener- 
 ated Bodies in their own individual revolution also 
 revolve about their central Body (the Sun) which 
 has its own axial revolution, and likewise an or- 
 bital movement which connects it with another 
 far greater system, indeed connects it with all cos- 
 mical systems, or with just the cosmical system of 
 the All.
 
 THE STARS. 303 
 
 If we look back at what we here have named the 
 Panco'smos, we observe that the physical universe 
 is grasped in its most immediate phase, as it is in 
 idea before it has fully unfolded into reality, 
 though in the nebula it be on the way. But now 
 we are to be introduced into the presence of the 
 Pancosmos particularized, shaped out of its ideal or 
 nebulous universality into single limited forms, 
 which manifest themselves in their own sheen. 
 The stars now rise on this book and (we hope) on 
 our reader's mind. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Stars. 
 
 It is something of a problem to find the basic di- 
 vision of the Pancosmos, inasmuch as it can be 
 split up in many ways. But the most striking ex- 
 ample of the separation of the physical universe we 
 behold when we look at the Heavens in the night. 
 The All of Nature is there cut to pieces, scattered 
 through the spaces and is illuminating its own vast 
 primal diversity. Day is a kind of unifier with 
 its common light; the sun conjoins and as it were 
 associates the multiplicity of things seen, wiping 
 out for a time the separated stellar worlds above. 
 Night on the contrary may be called'the separator, 
 darkness gives the foreground and also the back- 
 ground of the grand astral manifestation of the 
 Cosmos. Starlight may be taken as the opposite, 
 separative counterpart to the unity of sunlight.
 
 304 COSMOS AXD DIACOSMOS 
 
 Blank space shoots into its points which become 
 self-luminous, and draw on the skies many geo- 
 metric figures. From time immemorial the stars 
 have suggested geometry which is properly the first 
 mathematical science. Imagination has filled 
 these skeleton lines with human forms and thus 
 produced the constellations ; the plastic sense of the 
 Greeks saw in them the departed Gods and Heroes 
 who were thus translated into their new home higher 
 than Olympus where they are still found in name. 
 
 We may see, therefore, the Pancosmos partic- 
 ularizing itself in the stars millionfold, which are 
 thus its first true reality. It now becomes visible, 
 being hitherto rather a thought or itlea, though ab- 
 solutely necessary. This is, accordingly, a signifi- 
 cant step in the total cosmical system, that of astro- 
 genesis. We have already considered stellar evo- 
 lution, as it has passed through the various stages 
 of the nebula. And yet that very first original 
 nebula out of which the primordial star was 
 evolved — whence? We have to go back and con- 
 ceive the creative act producing Matter or Nature, 
 even if we cannot verify it directly by experiment. 
 That may be outside the realm of Natural Science, 
 but it is not outside the realm of universal Science. 
 We have also -considered the cycle of the star as 
 unfolded by Lockyer and others — its rise, bloom, 
 decay and death, till its regeneration. But this 
 seems a closed cycle, which had somehow to be- 
 come — how, whence did it start? The question
 
 THE STARS. 305 
 
 again throws us back to the creative idea which 
 underlies the whole physical universe as derived. 
 But we need not repeat here our view of its origin 
 and evolution from what we call the Pampsychosis. 
 Nature, when interrogated persistently and pro- 
 foundly, will always whisper to us that she is not 
 finally self-organized, and will conduct us back to 
 her source. She is but a stage, a part of the total 
 process of the All-Self, to which she will always in 
 her last text refer the desperate seeker. 
 
 The stars, then, we contemplate as the mighty 
 visible manifestation of separated Nature, which 
 is itself the primordial separation of the Universe 
 as a whole. Such is the emotion which they excite, 
 for they necessarily carry the human spirit to the 
 unseparated antecedent stage out of which they 
 •sprang. What produces such separation? We 
 can apply our usual categories — cause, force, en- 
 ergy, law; but all of these likewise point back to 
 something more fundamental, to that Totality 
 which separates itself and therein is and remains 
 itself. A natural symbolism the stars have always 
 called up even in the savage mind, suggesting the 
 unseen by the seen, and weaving a bright strand of 
 poetry through the folk-lore of peoples. 
 
 The stellar world, accordingly, we conceive as 
 the primal separation of the Pancosmos into its 
 ultimate visible units, even if these may be still 
 further separated and analyzed by means of in- 
 struments. We might say that the universe is 
 
 20
 
 306 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 primarily atomized in the stars, between which 
 lies the unstarred void. Or taking Space as the 
 first cosmical element, we see the stars as points in 
 it, yet belonging to it; we see Space again becoming 
 punctate and showing it at the same time. In this 
 view the starry depths are the great spatial mani- 
 festation; ideal Space they make real both as ex- 
 tension to the infinitely large and intension to the 
 infinitely small. Moreover, the stars all differ 
 among themselves, each has not only its own lo- 
 cality, but its own individuality. They are diverse 
 in size, which fact the astronomers have signified 
 in the stellar magnitudes. Astral colors have 
 shown great variety and beauty, but they have 
 also become significant of stages of cosmical evo- 
 lution (see preceding p. 275). 
 
 In this brief survey of the stars, we shall con- 
 sider, first, their Distribution, or their external 
 order in the skies; secondly, their Diversity, or their 
 outer and inner differences from one another; 
 thirdly, their Measurements, or the attempts to find 
 their distances and sizes. 
 
 I. Stellar Distribution. The very unequal 
 distribution of the stars over the Heavens has 
 always provoked some attempt to find the order 
 or ground of such distribution. Some regions 
 are quite starless, other localities seem afflicted 
 with a starry plethora. What shall we say to 
 such a conglomeration as that seen in Hercules 
 (13 Messier)? It can hardly be called a cluster,
 
 THE STARS. 307 
 
 but a pile of stars somehow heaped up there 
 in space. On the other hand there are portions 
 of the sky, particularly outside of the Milky Way, 
 which are star-poor. Is there any principle to be 
 found in this very unequal stellar distribution? 
 Usually some form of rotation is what causes a 
 flight and a gathering of the particles of the body 
 rotated. Is there any such vast rotation in the 
 Heavens, for instance that of the Galactosphere? 
 If there is, it remains a future task of astronomy to 
 identify it and to trace its effects. 
 
 1. Rich and Poor Regions. In general we may, 
 from the present point of view, take as the first dis- 
 tinction of the celestial vault that into star-rich and 
 star-poor. Of course there is an unsettled prob- 
 lem here also : are there still millions of stars which 
 are now invisible, but which are to become visible 
 through new appliances or more powerful tele- 
 scopes? It is estimated that the naked eye, if 
 possessed of unusually excellent vision, can see 
 8000 stars; ordinary sight, however, can discern 
 about G000. A good opera-glass will double the 
 number, from which there is an ascending increase 
 till the very best telescope is said to possess the 
 power of revealing one hundred millions of stars 
 which embrace sixteen stellar magnitudes. That 
 is, for one star seen by common eyesight, there are 
 more than sixteen thousand unseen, but discernible 
 through a lens. Still further the sensitive photo- 
 graphic plate catches and holds fast starry light-
 
 308 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 points which the eye is unable to receive directly 
 through the telescope. 
 
 The above estimates relate to the total Heaven, 
 of which hardly a half is visible at one time from 
 any point on the earth. So an average pair of eyes 
 will behold on a clear night three to four thousand 
 stars. They are not therefore, innumerable; you 
 may easily know more people in your town than 
 you can see stars in the sky above. The old shep- 
 herds, watching in the night, easily made the ac- 
 quaintance of all these starry denizens, and began 
 astronomy. 
 
 There has been much speculation concerning the 
 present stellar arrangement which we witness above 
 us in the Heavens. What is the principle of the 
 construction of the visible universe with its pecul- 
 iar distribution of the stars? It probably turns on 
 some primordial motion not yet detected in the 
 very short time during which it has been scientifi- 
 cally observed. And this motion may be deter- 
 mined from sources not as yet visible. 
 
 2. Seen and Unseen. Very deep is the division 
 between the Void and the Full; even deeper and 
 more important is the division in the stellar world 
 between its seen and unseen portions. We nat- 
 urally consider a star or indeed any heavenly body 
 as luminous; it has to appear before much can be 
 said about it. Light is the herald of the skies, but 
 this fair babbler may not always be present to 
 speak through the heavenly spaces. Still a sudden
 
 THE STARS. 309 
 
 blaze may start in the far-off regions where pre- 
 viously was the unoccupied void as far as vision 
 told us. What happened? Certainly an unseen 
 body has become all at once visible, and we begin to 
 reflect upon the lightless, seemingly defunct worlds 
 which are floating everywhere through the Pancos- 
 mos. Moreover, the mind tries to fathom their 
 purpose, their place in the cosmical order. Al- 
 ready we have given Mr. Lockyer's remarkable 
 theory of the life, death, and resurrection of the 
 star-worlds — the most satisfactory view yet pro- 
 mulgated in our opinion, even if not fully verified.- 
 Quite a number of new stars are recorded, as Nova 
 Auriga?, Nova Persei, etc. They are set down as 
 twenty-five by Flammarion; other authorities say 
 more, still others less. 
 
 The quantity of unlit matter in the universe 
 cannot of course be told, but it is doubtless greater 
 than what is lit and luminous. The unseen thus 
 is declared to be more in amount than the seen. 
 Certain perturbations have been supposed to come 
 from the vast mass or perchance the dead carcass 
 of a solar system or of an extinct Galaxy. Gravi- 
 tation which works in the dark as well as in the 
 light, may be yet made to tell the story of this non- 
 luminous Cosmos. As our sun with its planets 
 seems to be moving about some center which does 
 not shine, the question rises, What is that center? 
 If the whole Galactosphere has not only a rotary 
 but also an orbital movement, we have to ask
 
 310 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 after what compels it thus to gravitate. In the 
 limits of our human experience and reason the 
 mind has to posit a controlling mass seemingly 
 not illuminated, from which springs the axial and 
 the orbital revolutions of the Milky Way. In any 
 case the unseen material bodies of the Pancosmos 
 must be greater than the seen. 
 
 3. Possibilities. In this connection it may be 
 permitted to mention that science has hardly been 
 able to tackle the foregoing unseen portion of the 
 physical universe, which appears to be of such 
 enormous proportions and to possess so much se- 
 cret power over the seen order. The chief means 
 of communication, Light, being cut off, there re- 
 mains that eyeless worker, Gravitation, whose ef- 
 fects we may well discern in a number of colossal 
 phenomena. But there is a third medium, not yet 
 fully caught and harnessed, whose possibilities do 
 indeed seem the greatest. This is ether, as yet 
 quite impalpable and invisible, which, however, is 
 employed as a medium by Light, and possibly by 
 Gravitation also. But the great coming scientific 
 problem is to catch this ether in its own activity 
 and to set it to work. Electricity would seem to 
 have a certain elemental power over it, as we see in 
 the phenomena of wireless telegraphy. Can this 
 medium in itself ever be gotten hold of perchance 
 by some mechanical contrivance, and tamed from 
 its present wild state, in which it roams with free- 
 dom the cosmical spaces? If so, then we may be
 
 THE STARS. 311 
 
 able to find out somewhat about the other side, 
 the unsunned and the unseen side of the Pan- 
 cosmos. 
 
 Stellar Distribution, accordingly, runs against 
 limits on all sides; the seen location of the stars 
 puzzles us, but the greater part of them we cannot 
 even locate in their unseen world. So we may 
 study them individually a little, as they appear. 
 
 II. Stellar Diversity. The more the stars 
 are studied, the more they are found to differ among 
 themselves. Their separation is not merely ex- 
 ternal, they are not merely so many bits of bright 
 matter strewn over the heavenly acres, like grains 
 over a wheat field. To be sure, they all shine, but 
 their sheen is of many kinds, their luminosity is 
 diverse. It is obvious at the first glance that they 
 are of different sizes, not so obvious is it that they 
 have different qualities or individual traits. 
 
 Here is an enormous outlook upon the coming 
 astronomy. Who can not only map and count 
 the stars, and calculate their distances, but who 
 can also portray their characters? The world- 
 drama of Shakespeare with its Galaxy of humanity 
 is indeed great ; what then about a drama of worlds 
 with its Galaxy of stellar characters acting on the 
 stage of the sky, of which dramatic action we pos- 
 sibly catch a glimpse in that external galactic 
 round yonder? All such knowledge is certainly 
 far away in the future ; at present we can only take 
 note of a few outer differences.
 
 312 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. ' 
 
 1. Magnitude. Stars of sixteen different magni- 
 tudes we find set down in the books, also the photo- 
 metric calculations upon which these magnitudes 
 are based. The rule runs: if one star is two and a 
 half times brighter than another, the first is a magni- 
 tude higher than the second. However, there is 
 one supremely brightest star in the Heavens, 
 Sirius, (the Dog Star), which is not only the first 
 star of the first magnitude but equals in luminosity, 
 six average stars of the first magnitude (such as 
 Aldebaran). Next to Sirius is Canopus, which is 
 followed by Alpha of the Centaur, our nearest star ; 
 Arcturus is fourth in the order. Nineteen stars are 
 tabulated as belonging to the first magnitude in a 
 decreasing line of brightness, all being different in 
 this respect. At the sixth magnitude the star be- 
 gins to vanish out of human vision and at the six- 
 teenth magnitude it begins to vanish out of the 
 present telescopic range. 
 
 The magnitudes of the stars are not absolute, but 
 relative to us. A very large star will appear very 
 small at a very great distance. Still the magni- 
 tudes have in them also the suggestion of size. Arc- 
 turus and Alpha of the Centaur are about of the 
 same brightness, but the former is supposed to be 
 eight times farther from the earth than the latter 
 (204 billions of miles to 25 billions). According 
 to the law of light we are forced to conclude that 
 Arcturus in itself is a much larger star than Alpha 
 of the Centaur.
 
 THE STARS 313 
 
 2. The Divided Star. The striking fact of the 
 inner separation of the star into two or more parts 
 first became known through the telescope. But 
 stellar division does not stop with one cut. There 
 are triple and quadruple stars. The relation of 
 these constituents to one another is by no means 
 ascertained. Their motions become very compli- 
 cated and indeed doubtful , the working of the law 
 of gravitation is often quite inconceivable. The 
 most seem to move in orbits, some of whose periods 
 have been calculated, others are declared to sweep 
 forward in right lines under unknown sidereal in- 
 fluences. Of these divided solar systems (for such 
 they appear to be) double, triple, multiple, some 819 
 have been uncovered according to a recent count. 
 That unique star Sirius is a double, of which one 
 •component is much smaller than the other and far 
 less luminous, so that it was not discerned till 18G2 
 (by Alvan Clark.) Indeed some suppose it to be a 
 planet or satellite, but the difficulty is that it is 
 self-luminous. Yet many doubles are quite equally 
 divided as to mass and intensity of light, though 
 the latter may be of different colors. 
 
 The double star must have its two parts related 
 in motion. Not all stars which are seen in close 
 proximity make necessarily a system together. In 
 the true double star the counterparts usually re- 
 volve about each other; but sometimes they seem 
 twinned in a common race for some unknown goal 
 and move on a rectilineal path apparently. If the
 
 314 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS 
 
 doubleness be optical merely, the two stars have no 
 systemic connection, and may be very far apart. 
 Some astronomers make a great deal of the distinc- 
 tion between a double and a binary star, the latter 
 being the true double. In this sense some stars are 
 both binary and double, for instance Mizar in the 
 tail of the Great Bear, which is both an optical 
 double and a systemic double. 
 
 Of course our own star is single and very simple 
 in its system comparatively; perchance when we 
 understand it well, we shall be trained to grasp the 
 far more complicated systems of doubles, trebles, 
 quadruples, etc. 
 
 3. Color. There are 130 double suns of which 
 each part has a separate tint; in most of them the 
 contrast of color is pronounced. The light from 
 two such luminaries would be perpetual (it has 
 been supposed), there could be no night; or the 
 difference between day and night would be a dif- 
 ference of colored sunshine ; say half a day blue and 
 half a day red. 
 
 The import of the different colors of stars has 
 been set forth already in considering stellar evolu- 
 tion. It would seem that in the same double sun 
 there may be a very old, dying part and a young 
 growing part. Does this imply that the star, when 
 it begins to be weak with age, can slough off its 
 decrepit half for regeneration? There are bright 
 stars which have totally dark counterparts. The 
 periodic variability of certain stars is conjectured
 
 THE STARS. 315 
 
 to arise from a dead companion eclipsing them for 
 a while. 
 
 Light alone announces the existence and the lo- 
 cality of the star, and possibly something of its 
 size and stage of development. But color must 
 reflect inner character. It might seem that the 
 two fine arts, Sculpture (white) and Painting 
 (tinted) have their correspondence in the stars. 
 Says Flammarion : "In the Southern Cross we ad- 
 mire with unspeakable wonder a brilliant cluster of 
 110 stars of the 7th magnitude and fainter, of which 
 the most luminous shine with all colors — ruby-red, 
 emerald-green, sapphire-blue; it is like a casket of 
 glittering gems." 
 
 So in this stellar diversity we consider first the 
 magnitude or external size of the star, then its sep- 
 aration into two or more stars (or suns), then its 
 color, which is some manifestation of its individu- 
 ality or inner character. Of course stars have 
 other points of diversity, but the foregoing seem 
 the main ones, though science has barely begun the 
 exploration of this remote field of research. 
 
 III. Stellar Measurement. The application 
 of Mathematics to the stellar world is yet in its in- 
 fancy. To early man came the question: What 
 is the distance from me to yonder star? The quan- 
 titative instinct was active, but found no realiza- 
 tion till recently. In 1840, as the record runs, the 
 German astronomer Bessel first measured the dis- 
 tance to a star (61 Cygni). Other kinds of stellar
 
 316 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS 
 
 measurements are given in the books, such as the 
 proper motions of the stars, the orbits of double 
 stars, etc. Especially the motion of our own star, 
 the sun, has been reduced to figures. A few items 
 on this subject must suffice. 
 
 1. Parallax. The little child on the train say- 
 ing that the cars made the trees run, gave an in- 
 stance of one kind of parallax. Now the distance 
 of a star is calculated by first ascertaining its paral- 
 lax, which is in general the observer's displacement 
 (real) projected into the displacement of the object 
 observed (apparent). The radius of the earth's 
 orbit is taken for the real displacement (93 millions 
 of miles) or one side of the triangle whose apex is 
 the star. This star has as its parallax the angle at 
 which the radius of the earth's orbit is seen from 
 the star. With these data the distance to the star 
 can be readily measured. 
 
 The great difficulty lies in determining the paral- 
 lactic angle. The distances of hardly more than 
 twenty stars are accepted generally by astronomers. 
 The curious fact is that some of the brightest 
 stars have as yet no ascertainable parallax. To 
 reach the nearest (Alpha Centauri) light would 
 have to travel four and a third years, going .at its 
 rate of 180,400 miles a second. To reach Sirius it 
 would require nearly nine years. It has been in- 
 ferred that we are still seeing the light which comes 
 from stars long extinct. And on the other hand 
 some remote planet may be just now witnessing
 
 THE STARS. 317 
 
 the battle of Marathon. All this of course rests on 
 the supposition that light moves everywhere at the 
 same invariable speed with which it comes to us 
 from the sun. That is, however, an assumption 
 which can be questioned, and doubtless will be at 
 some time questioned. Parallax depends primarily 
 upon light. Still some of the brightest stars, like 
 Canopus and Rigel, and others of the First Magni- 
 tude, show no perceptible parallax. On the other 
 hand some quite small stars, like 1830 Groom- 
 bridge, rather easily give up their parallactic secret. 
 The magnitude of this star is set down at six and 
 a half, thus it is quite invisible to average eyesight. 
 Its parallax is about the least (0,045) and its dis- 
 tance is so great that it would take light seventy- 
 two years and a half to cross over from it to us (ac- 
 cording to Flammarion's table). This is also re- 
 garded as the swiftest star of the skies; possibly its 
 enormous velocity has some connection with the 
 preceding facts. More about this unique star 
 under another head. 
 
 2. The Unfixed Stars. Through our own eyes 
 as well as through all Literature (one thinks of 
 Dante specially) we have seen the stars fastened in 
 a sphere which revolves. The truth is, however, 
 that the stars do move, each in its own peculiar 
 way, which constitutes, we must think, a mani- 
 festation of character. They are thus individual- 
 ized, having their own real motion, which is known 
 as their proper motion in the books. The old con-
 
 318 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 ception of fixed stars is no longer tenable. Each 
 star possesses in its own right an individual move- 
 ment, and its own rate of speed; the stellar world 
 is a world of continuous change and variation 
 among its individuals. 
 
 There is one set of stars which are moving toward 
 us (our Solar System) ; another set of them are re- 
 ceding from us. Moreover, their rates of approach 
 and recession have been measured. The bright 
 Arcturus is reported as sweeping hitherward with 
 a velocity of forty-one miles a second. The arch 
 star Sirius is said to be fleeing from us at the rate 
 of twenty-two miles a second. The supposed 
 twins of the skies, Castor and Pollux, do not har- 
 monize in their actions toward us; one is leaving, 
 the other coming. Doubtless all stars are thus 
 moving in relation to us, and also in relation to 
 one another. "We learn that Alpha Cygni is rush- 
 ing in a straight line toward us at the rate of forty 
 miles a second, and will reach us in about 200,000 
 years, bringing a 'new sun, which may take the 
 place of our old one when it is extinct. Possibly 
 this is the solution of the problem of our slowly ex- 
 piring sunshine, which has been worrying scientists 
 and others in recent years. Thus the sky seems 
 cut up everywhere with stellar roads — leading 
 whither? 
 
 3. The ' Fixed. The stars, instead of being 
 fixed, are just the unfixed, the ever-changing mani- 
 festation of the Pancosmos. Out of such separation
 
 THE STARS. 319 
 
 the mind seeks to bring them into some sort of 
 unity, preserving of course all their diversity of 
 movements. In the preceding vast complex of 
 the motions of a hundred million suns, is there any 
 common motion? Are they as a whole circling 
 about some center? Astronomers have generally 
 held that there is such a center, though dissenting 
 voices are heard. Among scientists is a notable 
 effort toward finding this center of the sidereal sys- 
 tem as a whole. To such precedence no star can 
 lay claim; but some have imagined an enormous 
 unseen central mass which exercises control over 
 the totality through gravitation. But it is con- 
 fessed that measurement has not yet been able to 
 determine any such object, which remains a con- 
 jecture. Still a general movement of the stars all 
 together has been designated. 
 
 Much more decisively is our sun with its planets 
 asserted to be moving about a center, and its orbit 
 in this vaster revolution has been calculated (see p. 
 270) , though great doubt still hangs over the whole 
 subject. The sun is going toward Vega of the Lyre, 
 and Vega is also coming toward the sun; the two 
 arc said to be rushing together at the rate of forty- 
 four miles a second. But each is probably moving 
 in its own stellar orbit with its planetary retinue. 
 To ascertain these stellar orbits, is reserved for the 
 astronomy of the future. 
 
 The star whose proper motion has excited the 
 greatest astonishment among astronomers is known
 
 320 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 as 1830 Groombridge (number and name taken 
 from a catalogue of stars). It is hardly visible to 
 the naked eye, but its velocity has been measured 
 and found to be greater than that of any other star, 
 and quite out of proportion to the average stellar 
 speed. It has been called the runaway star, and 
 regarded as an alien to our whole sidereal system; 
 some think that it never could have been evolved 
 under our astral conditions. It has been supposed 
 to be simply crossing our Galactosphere into an- 
 other, perchance like a traveler in great haste trying 
 to get back home. The idea at least suggests that 
 we may have visitors in our worlds, who will some 
 day be able to tell us of their most remote and 
 possibly invisible regions. Also links of intercon- 
 nection between other systems and our own may 
 yet be found, and made to tell their secrets. It 
 should be added that recently a couple of stars 
 have been endowed with a velocity greater than 
 even that of 1830 Groombridge, but the correctness 
 of their parallaxes has been doubted. At any rate, 
 if the above theory holds good, there are stars 
 possessing sufficient motion to dash across the 
 interstellar boundaries, which seem so permanent 
 and impassible for our Solar System and those 
 adjoining. Naturally the question rises, how is 
 such an extraordinary velocity gotten at the start? 
 and whence? Possibly some other visitor will tell 
 something more if he can be detected. 
 
 Here we must withdraw our short glance at the
 
 77/ A' SUN. 321 
 
 distinctively stellar world, the separated Pancosmos 
 as we name it in the total sweep of the Systemic 
 Cosmos. We are now to advance out of this vast 
 separation, which cut up the physical universe into 
 what may be deemed its primal visible units, 
 whose evolution we have watched in the nebula. 
 Next we are to take one of these evolved units and 
 to behold it in its organic details, making it the 
 standard of comparison and the measure of all the 
 other stellar units of the Pancosmos. Thus we get 
 to know the one typical individual of the skies, and 
 through him specially we seek to know the rest. 
 The Sim with his system unfolded as we behold it, 
 becomes in this way the measurer, the organizer, 
 the systemizer of the Systemic Cosmos, of which it 
 is the final •development. That is, the universal 
 but unordered Pancosmus has unfolded its ordering 
 individual in the Solar System, of which fact we 
 may hear an echo in the common statement that 
 each star is a sun with its planets. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Sun. 
 
 The work of Copernicus in transferring the cen- 
 ter of our planetary system from the Earth to the 
 Sun has been long regarded as the supreme deed of 
 astronomical science. But its significance reaches 
 much farther: it compels the human mind to con- 
 struct anew the universe, not after the senses but 
 
 21
 
 322 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 after thought. For through its training our spirit 
 becomes heliocentric, being no longer merely geo- 
 centric. We must perform the great act of es- 
 trangement from our immediate Earth and take our 
 standpoint in the Sun, viewing the Cosmos not so 
 much physically as ideally, not so much by means 
 of light as from the very source of light. It unfolds 
 in us new eyes, it forces us to look with a second 
 sight in order to see truly our own world. Along 
 with the Copernican theory arose a desperate re- 
 ligious encounter about which much has been said. 
 As science has certainly won in that fight with the 
 church, it is time to have a little peace on the sub- 
 ject, and so we shall here pass it over. But the 
 psychologic act of rising from this particular ter- 
 restrial sensuous sight to a universal mental vision 
 of the physical All cannot be too highly apprecia- 
 ted. That act we teach our children in the Public 
 School to perform, and thus make it an integral 
 element of human consciousness. 
 
 Modern science has begun to carry the idea of 
 Copernicus far beyond its original limits. The Sun 
 is found actually to move, yea to be revolving 
 around a center in its turn; not the seeming ter- 
 restrial one, but the far-off galactic or even cosmi- 
 cal one, of which some account has already been 
 given. But it should be noted that our immediate 
 sensuous view of a revolving Sun bears the impress 
 of the ultimate fact of the Solar System ; our great 
 luminary is whirling through the skies in a circle.
 
 THE SUN. 323 
 
 So in a manner through Copernicanism wo are 
 coming back to our first naive look at the Heavens, 
 which first look, however, has been widened to a 
 vision of the universe. 
 
 Accordingly we have reached the Sun with its 
 System as the final outcome of the Systemic Cos- 
 mos, the last stage thereof, the typical cosmical 
 individual which has been generated as its final pro- 
 duct. Not only is there a solar system, but also a 
 solar organism of which science has recently un- 
 unfolded many a surprising secret. Indeed we are 
 just now getting acquainted with his majesty the 
 Sun himself. So the great luminary has his own 
 corporeal system besides the planetary, the latter 
 being properly his offspring and constituting his 
 family. 
 
 The Sun we are to take, then, as the central gen- 
 etic unit, the unit from which all its individual 
 followers have sprung, and it still shows many signs 
 of this its originative function. Children and grand- 
 children, planets and their satellites it has, and 
 perhaps more remote descendants; and it is still in 
 vigorous activity. As to the life of the Sun, scien- 
 tists generally seem to believe that it is about half 
 sped, though some say more than half and some 
 say less. One thing seems pretty certain: it is no 
 longer productive, that is, planet-begetting; in this 
 sense its creative time appears to be past. It looks 
 as if the Solar System as such is finished, being at 
 high noon, possibly a little before or a little after.
 
 324 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 But the Sun's own System is still mightily alive, and 
 is still the source of life and action to all its sup- 
 posed offspring, who depend upon the parent like 
 members of one body. Through gravitation it 
 holds them to themselves and to itself; through 
 heat, light and electricity it furnishes the basic 
 forces underlying all their individual energies. 
 Indeed the Sun acts now as a kind of power-house 
 to the entire planetary system to keep it going; if it 
 no longer generates planets, it generates the energy 
 largely by which they move and live. It furnishes 
 as it were from its heat the blood which circulates 
 not only through its own body (often with tremen- 
 dous violence), but also through the whole plane- 
 tary system, making the same a single organic 
 whole or systemic unit. 
 
 The Sun's diameter is 866,500 miles, which is 
 about 110 times as great as that of the Earth. The 
 force of gravity on the surface of the Sun is nearly 
 28 times as great as that on the surface of the Earth. 
 It is supposed that an ordinary man weighing 150 
 pounds, transported thither, would be crushed by his 
 weight and sink down with broken bones, if nothing 
 else happened to him. This overwhelming gravity 
 of the Sun increasing toward the center by super- 
 incumbent pressure, is a very important item in the 
 process of the solar body as we shall see. 
 
 The mass of the Sun is 324,000 times as great as 
 that of the Earth, but its volume is not in propor- 
 tion, since the density of the Earth is estimated to
 
 THE SUN. 325 
 
 be about four times as great as that of the Sun. 
 The Earth being so much smaller has cooled off far 
 more rapidly since the time of its original separa- 
 tion from the Sun, whose volume is calculated to be 
 more than 1,250,000 times as great as that of the 
 Earth. Thus the Sun is much nearer its original 
 nebular condition — for instance, its condition when 
 it was a spiral ejecting planets— than the Earth. 
 The difference between their respective masses and 
 volumes has this meaning. We may suppose that 
 when the Earth was thrown off, its density and 
 temperature were pretty nearly the same as those of 
 the ejecting body, though not quite. Another im- 
 portant comparative fact in this connection is that 
 the Sun is computed to be nearly 800 times as great, 
 that is, as massive, as all the planets combined. 
 Since gravitation depends upon mass, we set' how 
 much strength the Sun has kept for himself — far 
 more than that of all his children together, if they 
 should ever try to pull against him — which indeed 
 they would do if lured by a mightier outside 
 power. Ready to revolt they must be to the 
 stronger Sun. We, therefore, imagine a rim of the 
 Solar System where it joins the domain of its next 
 neighbor. The firmanent must be full of these 
 imaginary limits which each particular Solar Sys- 
 tem (or star) draws around its possessions — the 
 fcnccd-off farms of the skies. Our Sun is also a 
 monocrat in character, we may think: at least he 
 never divided himself and became two Suns —
 
 326 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 which seems to have been the case with his nearest 
 solar companion, Alpha Centauri, whose system is 
 apparently a kind of dyarchy — -two central lumi- 
 naries revolving around each other. 
 
 The average distance of the Earth from the Sun 
 is now put down at 92 to 93 millions of millions of 
 miles. This measurement is derived from obser- 
 vations taken at the transit of Venus across the 
 solar disc. Several other ways have been devised 
 by astronomers. The distance of the Earth from 
 the Sun becomes important, since it is employed as 
 a unit of measure for marking off (with a kind of 
 surveyor's chain) the enormous spaces of the Cos- 
 mos (the so-called astronomical unit). Neptune, 
 the outermost planet yet discovered, is distant 
 from the central luminary 30 such units, and Alpha 
 Centauri, the nearest star, 275,000, that is, so 
 many times 92 millions of miles. This unit of 
 measure of the physical universe should be ascer- 
 tained with the greatest possible precision and it is 
 still being overhauled by astronomers. Some 
 years ago it stood in the text books 95 millions of 
 miles, but that figure has been shown to be too 
 large. It may be said of all these huge measure- 
 ments that they are given with slight variations by 
 different authors. Still there is substantial agree- 
 ment except in one case, that pertaining to the 
 degree of the Sun's heat on its surface. Pouillet 
 says 1600 degrees Centigrade, Rossetti 10,000, 
 Secchi 10,000,000 (as reported by Flammarion).
 
 THE SUNi 327 
 
 The general belief among scientists, as far as we 
 have been able to trace it, places the Sun's heat at 
 about 8 to 10,000 degrees Centigrade, though it 
 must differ a good deal in different localities. The 
 heat of the sun is the original driving power of the 
 Solar System, but it has not yet been caught and 
 utilized by machinery. The solar engine is yet in 
 its infancy. A distinguished scientist declares that 
 the noontide heat of a summer Sun beating down 
 upon the area of Manhattan Island, would "drive 
 all the steam engines of the world." The Sun is 
 truly the vast reservoir of systemic power which 
 will be one day directly tapped by the children of 
 Earth. 
 
 The velocity of light is pretty well settled to be 
 186,000 miles per second. The credit of its first 
 ascertainment belongs to a young Dane, Olaus 
 Roemer. At the Paris Observatory (about 1675) 
 he made the pivotal observation that the eclipses 
 of Jupiter's moons are seen later where the Earth 
 is farthest from Jupiter, than when the Earth is 
 nearest. He inferred correctly that this difference 
 arose from the time required by light for traversing 
 the Earth's orbit, whose total circuit measures 
 584 millions of miles. As this orbit is an ellipse 
 the distance across its area varies. The Earth is 
 a 1 tout three millions of miles nearer the sun when 
 in perihelion than when in aphelion. Now this 
 measurement of the speed of the Sun's light was a 
 great achievement in science. The inference was
 
 328 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 at once made that not only sunlight, but starlight, 
 nebular light, in fine all light moves at the same rate. 
 As far as known this inference has never been gain- 
 said. The result is that cosmical light, traversing 
 enormous distances is not instantaneous, as it is 
 practically on the Earth. We look at the satellite 
 of Jupiter, we see it as it was half an hour since, 
 not as it is now. The light of a near-by star may 
 be only five years old, that of a far-off star may be 
 five thousand years old. 
 
 If our instruments ever become so perfect that 
 we can see what is taking place on a distant star, 
 the event may be already centuries old. In like 
 manner from our planet, light flashing through 
 space for twenty-four hundred years may be just 
 bringing to some remote eyesight a view of the 
 battle of Marathon. Certainly light bears to me 
 through space and in time the impress of yonder 
 mountain or of yonder man chopping down a tree. 
 Why should it not be carrying the whole picture of 
 universal History in its radiance through the Cos- 
 mosphere? Of course that is yet to be proved. 
 Possibly it may yet be made, by some device, to 
 deliver up the entire panorama of the past which 
 it has seen (humanly speaking), and which appears 
 to be somehow contained in it. Moreover, light 
 coming from opposite directions and all directions, 
 does not seem to collide with itself, but always 
 slips through its own counter undulations at the 
 same rate of speed. The luminous waves from
 
 THE SUN. 329 
 
 millions of stars must cross but do not interfere 
 apparently with one another at meeting. Such are 
 some of the problems or at least imaginings which 
 the measurement of the velocity of light suggests. 
 
 The Sun is slowly contracting through its loss 
 of heat by radiation. The vast amount of this 
 radiation is indicated by the fact that the Earth 
 receives of solar heat only one part in two thou- 
 sand millions. The calculation was made by two 
 scientists, Pouillet and Sir John Herschel, who 
 practically agreed- in their results, though each 
 worked independently of the other — the one being 
 in Paris and the other in South Africa. But how 
 is this enormous quantity of heat generated, seem- 
 ingly for millions of years, with no sensible dimi- 
 nution of its power as far as yet observed? The 
 generally accepted theory is that of Helmholtz, 
 which ascribes to the contraction of the Sun its 
 ever-renewed heat. Indeed, the assertion is made 
 that the Sun is actually getting hotter in spite of 
 its thermal loss, that contraction overbalances at 
 present the dissipation. Gravity with its pres- 
 sure is thus converted into a radiant energy. 
 
 It is at this point that we may catch the main 
 process of the Sun, its double action inwards and 
 outwards, a kind of systole and diastole of the 
 heart of our world. We have already noted the 
 pressure on the surface of the Sun to be twenty- 
 eight times greater than that on our Earth. The 
 internal material of tin- Sun is supposed to be
 
 330 COSMOS AXD DIACOSMOS. 
 
 gaseous in form, though by the enormous condens- 
 ation reduced to the consistency of tar or honey. 
 But the expansive energy of the gas through heat 
 is not destroyed, rather is it vastly intensified and 
 breaks through the superincumbent weight. Here 
 then we find the two conflicting forces whose des- 
 perate battle may be witnessed in the colossal 
 agitations so often observed in the Sun — the whirl- 
 ing and changing spots and faculse, the volcanic 
 upheavals and protuberances, the jets of gas flar- 
 ing up from the surface many thousands, perchance 
 millions of miles. Gravitation on the one hand, 
 with its pressure toward the center, radiation on 
 the other hand with its propulsion outwards from 
 the center — these are the mighty agencies embat- 
 tled in the Sun and struggling against each other. 
 It is the primordial dualism of the Cosmos and 
 Diacosmos concentrated in the central body of 
 our Solar System. The grand opposite or enemy 
 of the cosmical principle has appeared and has 
 grappled with its antagonist at the source. Soon 
 we shall have to consider this antagonist, the Dia- 
 cosmos, in his own right. At present, however, 
 we must put into its main outlines the total System 
 of the Sun; we might call it the Systemic Sun, em- 
 bracing the solar organism, the planetary and the 
 interplanetary bodies. 
 
 It is evident that a much larger quantity of as- 
 trenomical material lies in this field than in any 
 other portion of the science. How should it be
 
 THE SUN. 331 
 
 ordered? Can we make the basic process shine 
 through the mass? First we may regard the Sun 
 in its cosmical aspect, as endowed with the elements 
 of the Cosmos; secondly, the Sun unfolds the plan- 
 ets out of itself, certainly its act of separation; 
 thirdly, the Sun must be considered in its diacos- 
 mical aspect, asserting itself outwards by a repel- 
 lent or radiant energy, as well inwards by attrac- 
 tion. 
 
 I. Cosmical. Assuredly our great central lum- 
 inary is a member of the Cosmos as a whole, and 
 partakes of the cosmical character. If a glance is 
 cast back to the beginning of this book, we find its 
 earliest portion to pertain to the elements o*f the 
 Cosmos. These are three — Motion, Matter, Meas- 
 ure — those universal ideal principles which always 
 seem to rise up in advance of their real forms of 
 manifestation. The Solar System must then be 
 first considered in this its original elemental aspect. 
 
 1. Motion. The sun still rotates on its axis, 
 such being doubtless its primordial motion as 
 Heliosphere, yea, the primordial Motion of the 
 physical universe. It performs this axial rotation 
 in about 25 days; that is, to one solar revolution 
 the earth makes twenty-five revolutions. But the 
 sun's diameter is more than a hundred times that of 
 the earth; the result must be that the solar surface 
 whirls much more rapidly than the terrestrial sur- 
 face. But now co;n:'< the very suggestive fact: 
 the surface' of the sun does not rotate in one piece
 
 332 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 (like the earth), but varies in each latitude, with 
 velocity decreasing from the equator to the poles. 
 We are to remember that the density of the sun is 
 four times less than that of the earth, one fourth 
 more than water. Then the solar rotary velocity 
 is much greater than the terrestrial. Thus we have 
 one source of the great agitation always witnessed 
 on the solar surface. The mighty struggle between 
 Gravitation and Rotation never ceases, though it 
 varies. This must produce collisions of matter 
 which generates heat and intensifies expansion. 
 On the other hand there must be some cooling pro- 
 cess in the sun itself; possibly it lies in that slower 
 movement of the solar material toward the poles. 
 The sun-spots are more numerous near the sun's 
 equator, on each side of which they move in two 
 nearly parallel zones. These spots show fusion of 
 what appears a darker and cooler mass, which is in 
 the process of being again melted. Colossal are 
 these solar convulsions, and their details as well as 
 their causes are not well known; but in general we 
 have to conceive them as the ever-active throes of 
 the sun in planet-making. The sun-spots suggest 
 little planetoids which are always being produced, 
 but always falling back into their source. The 
 prominences, the eruptions, the jets of flame reach- 
 ing 142,000 miles from the solar body, indicate the 
 terrific effort of the sun still to bear worlds. But 
 it would seem that the period of her procreative 
 energy is past, We shall probably not witness the
 
 THE SUN. 333 
 
 birth of another planet, yet there can be little doubt 
 that many phenomena of planetogenesis can be ob- 
 served in the solar activities. Thus some of the 
 early events of our terrestrial evolution are taking 
 place today on their original stage. 
 
 Accordingly the sun has a common axial motion 
 which splits up into many motions on its surface. 
 But the sun has also an orbital motion which is 
 carrying it through the celestial spaces. This fact 
 has been already noted. 
 
 '2. Matter. This is the second cosmical ele- 
 ment. The Matter of the solar organism manifests 
 attraction through gravitation, whose limit doubt- 
 less extends to the b< undary lines of its adjoining 
 stellar neighbors. Of these the nearest is Alpha 
 of the. Centaur (see preceding p. 268), On the 
 other hand the sun has a repellent power which 
 springs from its axial rotation, and which consti- 
 tutes its separative or creative activity (see pre- 
 ceding p. 263). Motion as rotatory shows itself 
 the Separating in regard to Matter which through it 
 becomes the Separated (for this distinction sec pre- 
 ceding p. 12, 40). We may well deem this rotatory 
 ejection of Matter as the first form of radiation, 
 which is to attain such prominence later in the 
 Diacosmos. Matter is indeed to become self lumi- 
 nous, ever separating from itself and raying forth 
 afar through the celestial spaces. 
 
 3. Measure. It has been set forth that Motion 
 and Matter are inherently quantitative, and so can
 
 334 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS 
 
 be and indeed must be measured. The first great 
 act of cosmical measurement is found in Newton's 
 law of gravitation. Though it was enounced after 
 Kepler's three laws and was probably derived from 
 one of them, it is more simple and more universal 
 than they are; we, therefore, place it at the start of 
 the present stage. Kepler should come next with 
 his famous three laws, of which the first declares 
 the orbits of planets to be elliptical, the second af- 
 firms the proportion between the areas and times of 
 the radius vector, the third connects all planetary 
 orbits in stating that the squares of the periodic 
 times of planets are to each other as the cubes of 
 their distances from the sun. A chief interest of 
 these three Keplerian laws is that they constitute 
 together a totality in which we may see a process. 
 The first grasps the one outer basic form of all orbits, 
 unifying their diversity; the second deals with the 
 inner differences of the same orbital round of the 
 planet, finding their common measure by means of 
 the radius vector; the third embraces all orbits 
 (herein it is like the first law) and formulates 
 their common measure which indicates their one 
 basic principle (herein it is like the second). Such 
 is their process moving from outer form to inner 
 character, and putting under the unity of law the 
 varied and confusing orbital phenomena. Kepler 
 has quantified the solar system, running geometric 
 lines through it and formulating arithmetically its 
 proportions. To the Motion of planetary Matter
 
 THE SUN. 335 
 
 he has given Measure, and thus revealed the full 
 round of the elemental Cosmos in his particular 
 field. Immortal fame he deserves for putting 
 order into our sun-world, and probably he has fur- 
 nished the basic conception for ordering other 
 solar systems, even the binary and ternary. 
 
 There is a third law or principle belonging to the 
 present subject, upon .which recent astronomers 
 have placed much stress: it is named usually the 
 conservation of the moment of momentum (not the 
 conservation of energy). The momentum of a 
 body is its mass multiplied by its velocity (mv); 
 if it be moving in a plane about a center, the pro- 
 duct of the radius or perpendicular into the momen- 
 tum is invariable. This principle has come into 
 prominence in order to find the unity in the vast 
 changes produced by shrinkage of the sun and 
 planets and worlds. The moment of momentum 
 remains the same whatever be the alterations of the 
 radius and the momentum: they are variable but 
 their product is invariable. Here then we have the 
 common principle in all the mutations of cosmical 
 evolution. 
 
 The law of gravitation implies the tendency of all 
 bodies toward unification and measures the same; 
 the Keplerian laws imply rotation combined with 
 gravitation in the diverse planetary orbits and 
 measure these orbits ; the conservation of the mo- 
 ment of momentum assumes not the sameness and 
 permanence of bodies and their motion (as do
 
 .336 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Newton and Kepler), but the vast evolutionary 
 changes of world-formation, and expresses the con- 
 stant principle which pervades and unifies all 
 these changes. 
 
 The mathematical details of these measurements 
 must be here omitted. But in a general way we 
 can see that the Measure of the Motion of Matter 
 has been manifested specially in the Solar System, 
 that the three elemental principles of the Cosmos 
 have been shown in a particular process, which is 
 probably typical of all other worlds of the cosmical 
 system. 
 
 II. Planetary. It is pretty generally agreed 
 that the planets have been separated from the Sun, 
 or from the primordial Hcliosphere, and thus they 
 represent the deepest separative act or stage of the 
 Solar System. It may be said that the Sun has 
 particularized himself in the Planets, in accord 
 with the analogous case of the total Cosmos already 
 set forth (see Particularized Cosmos). Another 
 analogy is the genetic: the planets may be deemed 
 the children of the sun, showing many char- 
 acteristics derived from the parent, and they still 
 belong emphatically to his family, being held in 
 unity by a kind of affection called gravitation. 
 Their evolution from the Hcliosphere has been al- 
 ready given, through which come to them certain 
 endowments from higher sources. Says Prof. 
 Ball: The Solar System "commences with a cer- 
 tain endowment of energy, with a certain endow-
 
 THE SUN. 337 
 
 ment of the moment of momentum, and with a 
 certain' principal plane to which that moment of 
 momentum is related" (The Earth's Beginning, 
 p. 229). Such are the three transmitted gifts ac- 
 cording to the famous astronomer. The whole 
 planetary retinue moves in the same general plane 
 with the sun (not counting two or three small 
 lunar exceptions), and in the same direction, just 
 as whirled off originally from the Heliosphere. 
 But whence did the latter get its rotatory motion 
 and its degree of energy? That has been already 
 sufficiently discussed; at present we shall seek the 
 order of the planets which move in a succession of 
 orbits or rings around the Sun, suggesting the con- 
 centric layers of the original spiral nebula. 
 
 There are, however, many unsettled anomalies 
 in the Planetary System, which render a perfectly 
 transparent ordering of it as yet impossible. Then 
 our knowledge of it is deficient in certain important 
 matters. The outermost planets seem the least 
 developed, yet they must have been mechanically 
 the first thrown off in the nebular genesis of our 
 system. It would seem, then, that evolution has 
 been far more rapid in the case of some planets than 
 in others; indeed the last born appear to be the first 
 matured and perchance the first dead. But this 
 whole subject is still uncertain. We shall, however 
 begin with the interior group of Planets (Mercury 
 and Venus) ; then glance at the middle group 
 (Earth, Mars, Planetoids and Jupiter the huge
 
 338 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 transitional Planet) ; finally consider their exterior 
 group (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune)- 
 This seems the best way to grasp the planetary 
 order as it exists before us at present, though the 
 line of its evolution in time may have been the 
 reverse. 
 
 Having made the three groups aforesaid, we are 
 next to seek the deepest ground for distinguishing 
 them. Such a ground lies to our mind, in the 
 original world-creating act itself through which 
 planets and also their satellites came into being. 
 The Sun begets the Planet and the Planet begets 
 the Moon; all these children and grandchildren will 
 show their common descent, yet likewise different 
 degrees of variation which will furnish criteria for 
 grouping them. 
 
 1. The Interior Group. Mercury is the planet 
 nearest to the Sun: the time of its axial revolution 
 is about 88 days, which is also the time of its orbital 
 revolution. Thus it moves about the Sun as the 
 Moon move's about the Earth. After Mercury 
 comes Venus, whose axial and orbital revolutions 
 occur in the same time, nearlv 225 days. Herein 
 it is similar to Mercury. 
 
 This seems to be the basic fact which distin- 
 guishes these two planets from all others of the Solar 
 Svstem. It has been named the isochronism of 
 their two circular movements, axial and orbital. 
 Thus they are relatively the two satellites of the Sun, 
 and they have no satellites of their. own — wherein
 
 THE SUN . 339 
 
 they are unique among the planets. Such is the 
 general character which groups them by themselves. 
 From this point of view they are the least differ- 
 entiated from their solar parent, the least individu- 
 alized of the planetary members, always turning 
 the same face toward him and the least removed 
 spatially from him. Also, there is no separation 
 strictly between the day and the year (just as our 
 moon's day is the month); they have no day of 
 their own, produced by their own distinctive revo- 
 lution, though of course they turn on their axes and 
 in their own time, both their periods being differ- 
 ent from that of the Sun, which is 25 of our days. 
 Thus they are separated in their axial motions 
 which however remain the same in time with their 
 orbital motions. Each of them has a very hot 
 front, a face in perpetual sunshine, and each a very 
 cold hinder face in eternal night. Just as we see 
 only one side of the Moon, so the Sun sees only one 
 side of Venus and Mercury. The inference lies 
 near that they can not be inhabited, at least by 
 any beings like ourselves. At the same time they 
 are marked by strong individual differences which 
 need not be recounted here. 
 
 And now let it be announced that the foregoing 
 statements are by no means accepted by all astron- 
 omers. It was the Italian Schiaparelli who first 
 discovered and formulated the principle of plan- 
 etary isochronism, starting with his observations 
 on Mercury in 1882 and concluding with those on
 
 340 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Venus in 1895. Before his time we had always 
 read in the books that the length of the day of 
 Venus was about the same as ours, but now we are 
 told that it lasts more than 224 of our days. The 
 crystallized scientists were shocked by the new 
 idea, veritably revolutionary, which, however, has 
 not failed to advance steadily toward supremacy. 
 An American astronomer, Prof. Percival Lowell, 
 from his observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, has 
 confirmed the chief results of Schiaparelli. 
 
 Another point should be noted in this connection : 
 the existence of one or more planets between Mer- 
 cury and the Sun. Especially that unborn, but 
 baptized and named Vulcan has a curious little 
 history. Leverrier calculated the existence and 
 even the position of the outermost planet Neptune 
 from the perturbations of other known planets, 
 and was famously rewarded by its discovery. From 
 that time (1848) to this the mathematicians especi- 
 ally have not failed to trumpet their triumph: our 
 science is the true prophet of Nature. But now 
 for the counter stroke. Leverrier, from the per- 
 turbations of Mercury, concluded that there was 
 an innermost planet (as well as outermost) and 
 started to find it through calculation. At last he 
 announced that "Vulcan would cross the solar 
 disc March 22, 1877." But it was not then or 
 afterwards seen. About this fact there has been 
 no exultant blare of trumpets, though it be a curi- 
 ous and seemingly necessary counterpart of Nep-
 
 THE SUN. 341 
 
 tune s discovery. We have found the story only 
 in Fla'mmarion, who, though a great astronomer 
 and mathematician, did not like Leverrier, his fel- 
 low-laborer and fellow-countryman (on account of 
 some snub, as we gather it). 
 
 2. The Middle Group. With the Earth a dis- 
 tinct Group of Planets begin, which have evolved 
 out of isochronism, or out of the lunar condition in 
 relation to the Sun. A more independent plane- 
 tary individuality comes to view, a greater separa- 
 tion from the solar parent. The axial and orbital 
 motions of the Earth are now differenced in time, 
 the one taking a little less than 24 hours, the other 
 a little more than 365 days. Not only does the 
 Earth refuse to be a moon to the Sun, but it has 
 evolved its own moon ; that is, it has itself become 
 genetically a kind of Sun, begetting its satellite. 
 Thus the first group (as sun and planet) has repro- 
 duced itself in the second planet (as earth and 
 moon). Such is the deeply characteristic change 
 which now takes place. 
 
 The next planet is Mars, which also has dropped 
 or doubtless transcended the principle of isochron- 
 ism. Its time of axial revolution is 24 hours plus, 
 its orbital year is 686 days plus. Herein it is like 
 the Earth as to character. Also it has produced 
 moons, not one, but two (Deimos and Phobos). 
 These were discovered by Professor Asaph Hall at 
 the Observatory of Washington in 1877 and pro- 
 duced another ferment among the staid astrono-
 
 342 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 mers who had settled down to the time-honored 
 dogma that "Mars has no satellites." It is a curi- 
 ous fact, however, that Dean Swift in his "Gulli- 
 ver's Travels," assigned two moons to the planet, 
 Mars, more than 150 years before they were dis- 
 covered. Voltaire repeated the same fancy in his 
 satirical romance, "Micromegas," some 30 years 
 after Swift. Thus poetic imagination had seen the 
 two Martian satellites long before the telescope had 
 brought them into the range of the outer eye. (The 
 two passages from Swift and Voltaire are cited in 
 Flammarion's Popular Astronomy, translated by 
 Gore, p. 395-6.) 
 
 But we are not yet done with the two moons of 
 Mars, which are instances of the pivotal genetic 
 principle of systemic evolution. They are very 
 small, probably less than ten miles in diameter; 
 their orbits are nearly circular and they revolve 
 around Mars nearly in the plane of his equator, 
 which corresponds to that of the total Solar System 
 (with a few exceptions) . The outer satellite makes 
 its revolution in a little more than thirty hours, 
 while the planet rotates on its own axis in 24 plus 
 hours — which constitutes a striking difference from 
 our Moon-Earth system. But far more striking is 
 the fact that the second satellite (Phobos) makes 
 its revolution around Mars in a little more than 
 seven and a half hours; that is, in less than one- 
 third of the time of the axial revolution of the 
 planet itself. Imagine a little moon whirling
 
 THE SUN. 343 
 
 round our Earth three times a day at a distance of 
 less than 4000 miles (the distance of the outer planet 
 from the surface of Mars is set down at 12,600 miles). 
 Such is the marvelous diversity from the Earth's 
 satellitic system! But there is lacking apparently 
 the keystone of knowledge in the present case : that 
 pertaining to the isochronism of these two moons. 
 Nobody, as far as our search has extended, has yet 
 been able to detect their axial motions, doubtless 
 on account of their extreme smallness. Therefore 
 it is not known whether their orbital round is syn- 
 chronous with their axial. But little Phobos (Ter- 
 ror) has struck terror into the whole nebular hypo- 
 thesis by its excessive and unaccountable velocity 
 around its primary source. 
 
 In recent years the planet Mars has attracted 
 much attention, more than any other planetary 
 member of the system. It has changes of color 
 and different tints on its surface; it has peculiar 
 markings conjectured to be canals and seas and 
 oases, some of which are supposed to be artificial ; 
 it has some good claims to be inhabited. This 
 special interest in Mars was started by Schiaparelli, 
 but has been kept up and furthered by the work of 
 Prof. Pcrcival Lowell. But of these matters we 
 can here take no account. 
 
 After Mars follow the so-called Asteroids (or 
 Planetoids), the first of which was discovered by 
 Piazzi at Palermo on January 1st, ISO I, (he first 
 day of the new century whose very suggestive sym-
 
 344 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 bol these Planetoids may be regarded. The system 
 seems here to break into a vast separation and 
 multiplicity; the number of them discovered can 
 not be far from 500 at present (perhaps more) , and 
 gives promise of running out toward infinity. Very 
 early the conjecture was started (by Olbers) that 
 they were the fragments of an exploded planet ; but 
 they were doubtless thrown off by the evolving and 
 revolving Heliosphere (like drops from a rapidly 
 whirling wheel) and were never allowed to coalesce 
 into a planet by the mighty attractive power of 
 Jupiter, which is still acting like a tidal energy, 
 and keeping them separate. According to Bode's 
 law there should be a planet between Mars and 
 Jupiter whose size even has been calculated by 
 astronomers. There is a large vacant space be- 
 tween the Planetoids and Jupiter, who in times 
 past may have swallowed many of these tiny fishes 
 of the solar sea. At any rate the Sun must have 
 whirled them off and set them to spinning, while 
 huge Jupiter prevented them from consolidating. 
 It is evident that Jupiter in this case works like a 
 second sun, which he is sometimes called. 
 
 It is a question whether Jupiter belongs to the 
 middle or outer group of planets. On the whole 
 its system of satellites seems to correspond to those 
 of Earth and Mars, though there is a considerable 
 increase of number. The peculiarity of Jupiter is 
 his enormous mass, which is more than twice as 
 much as all the rest of the planets put together.
 
 THE SUN. 345 
 
 In this and other respects he has been compared 
 to the Sun. He rotates on his axis in less than ten 
 hours, which means a prodigious velocity at the 
 equator. The density of Jupiter is a little greater 
 than that of water, and nearly the same as, that of 
 the Sun. The result is that different latitudes 
 rotate differently — a phenomenon which is also 
 solar. There is no doubt that Jupiter is in a less 
 advanced stage of development than the smaller 
 planets; in fact he has thrown off satellites which 
 arc supposed to be in a more matured condition 
 than he is, and possibly to be inhabited — which is 
 not his case. Thus Jupiter must have been much 
 the largest mass of nebula that ever separated from 
 the Heliosphere in the formation of the system. 
 This planet is still cooling, though still quite liquid ; 
 seemingly it is not self-luminous. It has doubtless 
 passed its period of moon-making, its reproductive 
 time is gone, in spite of the struggles noticeable on 
 its surface. A similar fact was observed concern- 
 ing the Sun. It has begotten nearly as many satel- 
 lites as the Sun has begotten planets; moreover, 
 there is a largest satellite of its lunar family com- 
 parable to itself both as to size and position in the 
 planetary family. Thus the Sun has most com- 
 pletely reproduced himself in Jupiter, who is now 
 declared to have seven moons, two of them photo- 
 graphic. 
 
 3. The Exterior Group. The line of Planets 
 might be divided at or even through Jupiter, whose
 
 346 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 very magnitude can be taken as a boundary be- 
 tween those before and those after. He is a second 
 center of the system, exercising a secondary control 
 over a vast number of comets, of planetoids, and 
 doubtless of other kinds of unseen interplanetary 
 matter. But when we regard his satcllitic system, 
 it seems definitely finished like that of the Earth 
 and Mars, to which Jupiter is in this fact allied. On 
 the other hand, when we turn to the next planet, 
 Saturn, the evidence is that his satellitic system is 
 not completed, but is still in the process. The 
 rings differentiate Saturn very strikingly from all 
 the preceding planets, and compel a new group. It 
 has an annular system as well as a lunar. These 
 rings are composed of small particles revolving to- 
 gether around their planetary center, though the 
 revolution is faster on the inside than on the outside 
 of the rings. The particles are essentially small 
 moons, each with its own orbital and probably axial 
 motion, though the latter of course cannot be ob- 
 served. In addition to the rings Saturn has ten 
 satellites, two of them photographic. Others will 
 probably be found. Saturn, therefore, is in a cer- 
 tain stage of moon-maki.ng, and reveals probably 
 what other planets have gone through. It has 
 rings, satellites and seemingly satelloids. 
 
 In regard to the body of Saturn, it has much less 
 density than Jupiter, being one-eighth of that of 
 the Earth. It is, therefore, nearer to the original 
 nebular mass of the Heliosphere from which it once
 
 THE SUN. 347 
 
 separated. Its distance from the Sun is 86(3 mil- 
 lions ofmiiles, and it receives a proportionally small 
 amount of solar heat; but its own heat makes it 
 "thermally self-supporting." Its axial rotation is 
 very rapid, taking place in ten and a quarter hours; 
 while its' orbital revolution is slow as compared to 
 the preceding planets. On the whole Saturn mani- 
 fests a very early stage of planetary evolution. 
 
 After Saturn comes Uranus, discovered by Her- 
 schel in 1781. It is very hot, not from the Sun, but 
 from itself ; too hot to allow water to be formed on 
 its surface. It must accordingly be in a gaseous 
 condition ; hydrogen and oxygen are probably pres- 
 ent, but cannot combine. Still the striking fact 
 about it lies in the peculiar motion of its four moons, 
 they together revolve in the same plane and in the 
 same direction, but almost at right angles to the 
 plane of the ecliptic (at 83 degrees) and retrograde 
 to the whole previous movement of the solar sys- 
 tem — sun, planets and satellites. This deviation, 
 or rather defiance of what seems established sys- 
 temic law, has produced much wondering and con- 
 jecture, and has given comfort to the revolutionists. 
 Not one exceptional moon but four of them turn 
 here according to some regulation of their own, 
 which they obey in common while they disobey 
 not only their own planetary parent but the ad- 
 justment of the whole solar family. It is declared, 
 however, that the single moon of the outermost 
 planet, Neptune, is guilty of the same violation.
 
 348 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 The exterior group of planets shows an alto- 
 gether new stage of their genetic act in the pro- 
 duction of satellites. The first bodies thrown off 
 by the Heliosphere — Uranus and Neptune, as far 
 as we know — had their own lunar development. 
 It is possible that these refractory moons are the 
 primordial ejects of a neighboring system, but have 
 been picked up by our border planets and united 
 to our system, though retaining their original mo- 
 tion as satellitic. Thus we may for the nonce keep 
 the nebular hypothesis, which has been badly 
 shaken up and some think, shattered, by those far- 
 off moons of Uranus and Neptune. That frontier 
 line can probably be crossed under conditions 
 which have indeed yet to be investigated. 
 
 Between the orbit of our extreme Planet Nep- 
 tune and the boundary of the Solar System toward 
 the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) lies an enormous 
 stretch of space, more than 4,000 times the dis- 
 tance of the Sun to Neptune. This is the vast 
 field of extra-Neptunian Planets, still undiscovered 
 but supposed to exist. The example of Leverrier's 
 success has been a powerful stimulus to astron- 
 omers (see preceding p. 271). Symmetrically 
 there is an intra-Mercurial domain to be explored. 
 
 In his deservedly popular book, The Earth's Be- 
 ginning, says Prof. Ball: "The movements of the 
 satellites of Uranus and Neptune do not disprove 
 the nebular hypothesis. They rather illustrate the 
 fact that the great evolution which has wrought
 
 THE SUN. 349 
 
 the solar system into form has not yet finished its 
 work. '. . . When that work shall have been 
 completed, the satellites of Uranus and Neptune 
 will no longer be dissociated from the general con- 
 cord" (p. 347). There may be well some question 
 about this remote result; but the real difficulty can 
 be stated in the interrogation: How did these 
 strange exceptions get to be out there on the fron- 
 tier of our world? The genetic problem is the one 
 which faces us now and with which we are deal- 
 ing. We have to think that if the moons of 
 Uranus and Neptune had been thrown off by our 
 Heliosphere, they would have conformed to the 
 general motion and angular inclination of the 
 System. But their exceptional position and move- 
 ment could only have sprung of an adjoining 
 Heliosphere from which they have been deflected 
 by Gravitation, though preserving their original 
 endowment of motion. 
 
 Apart from these anomalies on the border, our 
 solar System shows a remarkable symmetry 
 throughout. The orbits are ellipses, though vary- 
 ing, and lie in nearly the same plane; sun, plan- 
 ets and satellites revolve in the same direction 
 (with the exceptions already noted) ; their planes 
 of rotation (axial) nearly coincide with their or- 
 bital planes, and so with one another; they all ro- 
 tate in the same direction (as far as can be seen) . 
 This essential sameness of revolution, rotation and 
 direction implies sameness of origin; the difference
 
 350 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 in these regards on the border can only imply a 
 difference of origin. 
 
 It would seem, then, that in the system-making 
 of our Heliosphere, we have come upon bodies 
 which the latter did not evolve. With this phe- 
 nomenon rises that of the comets which are often 
 supposed to have a foreign origin, even if natural- 
 ized in our Solar System. In general, however, 
 our Heliosphere has begotten its children and 
 grandchildren, and kept them within the family. 
 Or, in other phrase, we have seen the triple process 
 at work: (1) original axial rotation; (2) radial en- 
 ergy ejecting bodies which then fly off tangentially 
 (the whole is often called centrifugal force) ;(3) or- 
 bital revolution of these ejected bodies, caused by 
 gravitation (centripetal). Evidently planetary ev- 
 olution has been a colossal struggle between Rota- 
 tion and Gravitation, with a kind of compromise 
 which has kept the separated bodies revolving in 
 the one system. Thus the separation is preserved 
 yet is also counteracted; Gravitation turns back 
 to the central body the rotating planet from its 
 radial sweep outwards, and ends the planetary 
 process. 
 
 III. Diacosmical. Not a new Sun, but a new 
 act of him now appears, different from the gravi- 
 tational, which has hitherto dominated the Cosmos. 
 We have just seen how he controls with his mass 
 the planets which he has ejected in smaller masses. 
 But now the Sun begins to show himself as degrav-
 
 THE SUN. 351 
 
 itational, undoing gravitation in himself, and man- 
 ifesting self-luminosity, which is a persistent radia- 
 tion of himself in opposition to attraction. In this 
 stage he may be said to be ejecting not planets but 
 himself; he is supremely radiative, self-repellent, 
 self-separative; he is no longer cosmical but dia- 
 cosmical. That is, through our central luminary 
 we are passing out of the Cosmos into the Diacos- 
 mos, from a world essentially centripetal to a 
 world essentially centrifugal, from the unitary to 
 the separative stage of total Nature. The planets 
 are not self-luminous or self-ejective, or only so to 
 a small degree ; they largely receive from the out- 
 side their heat and light, though they were born of 
 the Sun and may once have been more radiant 
 than now. Through the Sun, or perchance through 
 the.Suns, Nature becomes diacosmical and is to be 
 investigated on this side, namely on the side of 
 her radiant energy. That is, however, her next 
 great stage of development which we are soon to 
 take up. 
 
 In reference to the Diacosmical Sun, we may in 
 the first p!ace regard it as the systemic reservoir 
 of the mighty outpushing energy of our physical 
 world — the energy which separates, atomizes, de- 
 gravitates, and which we find in us and around us 
 everywhere, having received it in some way from 
 its fountain-head. In the second place this Sun is 
 radiant, yea self-radiant and self-repellent quite to 
 infinity, as we now may recognize by the photo-
 
 352 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 graphic plate revealing an invisible stellar uni- 
 verse. In the third place it has recently been dis- 
 covered that this Sun (or Suns) must be taken as 
 the original laboratory from which proceed all the 
 diverse chemical elements, which are also, it would 
 seem, to be put into a line of evolution. 
 
 Our Diacosmical Sun, however, in its present 
 stage, is not the earliest forge of elemental matter, 
 if there be found in it thirty-six different chemical 
 elements, as has been stated. 
 
 It is evident that our systemic Cosmos nas now 
 been brought to a conclusion, since its ultimate 
 principle has been reversed in a new order. Still 
 further, the Cosmos as such, as has here been con- 
 ceived, is distinctly transcended. It has unfolded 
 hitherto its unity, and is held together by the at- 
 traction of its separate bodies, which shows the 
 overcoming of all separation in a final unitary sys- 
 tem, the solar. The outcome of the Cosmos is the 
 systemic plan of the physical universe ; this plan 
 we have seen unfolding in Sun, Planets, and Satel- 
 lites, to which may be added other lesser systemic 
 forms. The three stages, called here the Elemental, 
 Particularized and Systemic Cosmos, have run their 
 course, each being a part of the greater movement 
 of the Cosmos, yet each having its own special 
 movement within itself. 
 
 We have reached the point at which we behold 
 the Diacosmical Sun ejecting himself in a vast di- 
 versity, dividing himself to an indefinite smallness,
 
 THE SUN. 353 
 
 and thus uttering (or outering) himself in a new 
 way. The unity of Body in his case starts to fly 
 asunder, his cohesive individuality begins to dis- 
 solve itself and therewith to dissolve all corporeal 
 existence, (for instance in his heat). Now this 
 world of activity we intend to look at as it is in 
 itself, distinct from its source. So we pass to .the 
 Diacosmos from the Diacosmical Sun, which, as we 
 regard it, is the final manifestation and transition 
 of the Cosmos. 
 
 23
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 THE DIACOSMOS. 
 
 The strangeness of this word Diacosmos was 
 briefly remarked in the opening sentences of this 
 book. A few observations in regard to it may now 
 be added to what was there said. It is a linguistic 
 need for ordering properly the total realm of Nat- 
 ural Science, as we see the subject. So we are 
 driven to dig up and resuscitate a term of the old 
 Greek philosopher, Democritus, endowing it with 
 new though cognate significance, and making it stand 
 for one of the three grand divisions of total Nat- 
 ure. Diacosmos, by its etymology, suggests the 
 separative stage of the cosmical order, separating 
 from the Cosmos, and separating within itself also. 
 This characteristic we shall find running through it 
 from beginning to end. The term Physics is com- 
 (354)
 
 THE DIACOSMOS. 355 
 
 monly employed for designating this department of 
 science, 'leaving out Chemistry and adding some- 
 what of Mechanics; but there are serious objec- 
 tions to the word, though in some instances it will 
 have to be employed. The title in our school-days 
 for this branch, Natural Philosophy, seems to have 
 lapsed from usage, though it has the sanction of New- 
 ton's great work (Principia Philosophies Naturalis). 
 It is stated by Diogenes Laertius (Vit. Phil., Book 
 VI) that Democritus was the author of a treatise 
 called the Little Diacosmos, in which his doctrine is 
 set forth. That doctrine pertained to the atom, which 
 has likewise been revived and newly applied dur- 
 ing the last hundred years, especially in chemistry. 
 Democritus was verily a searcher for the ultimate 
 element of things in Nature, which was for him the 
 atom. His spirit, accordingly, was in marvelous 
 consonance with the spirit of to-day's physical 
 science, an ancient prophecy of which was forecast 
 in his philosophic conceptions. Possibly the credit 
 of priority may be due to his teacher, Lcucippus, 
 often declared the originator of atomism. It 
 should be added that another work called the Great 
 Diacosmos was attributed to Democritus, but its 
 authenticity was questioned already in antiquity. 
 Having the thing, we shall use the word, for the 
 atom both ancient and modern is truly diacos- 
 mical. 
 
 Undoubtedly we shall have to make the Diacos- 
 mos include far more than the atom, by way of
 
 356 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 contrast with and reaction against the Cosmos. 
 For instance water no longer holds together with 
 any degree of cohesion, its molecules separate 
 easily, are quite indifferent to one another; we may 
 deem it Matter loosened up within and ready to 
 go asunder; in this aspect water is diacosmical, 
 indeed the first and basic liquid of the Diacosmos. 
 Heat radiates from a center outward in opposition 
 to gravitation; it is, therefore, diacosmical as well 
 as Light. If a glass rod be rubbed by a piece of 
 catskin, it will attract a pithball, or other light 
 object held near it; that is, a new attraction over- 
 comes the earth's attraction and controls the same 
 for a time; so we have to think that a diacosmical 
 power, Electricity, grapples with and triumphs 
 over a previous cosmical power. Then the move- 
 ment of Chemism from the compound to the ele- 
 ment, from the element to the atom, from the 
 atom to the ion, corpuscle, electron, is profoundly 
 separative and diacosmical. Such is a hint of the 
 vast sweep of the Diacosmos, as well as of its gen- 
 eral character, all of whose phenomena we shall 
 seek to organize in one great totality with its duly 
 ordered divisions, reaching from the simply unco- 
 hesive molecules of the fluid at the start to the 
 complete disintegration of the physical universe 
 through Chemism into its diacosmical dust, whose 
 last and finest particle is called the electron or 
 perchance the etherion (on which there will be 
 more to say hereafter)..
 
 THE DIACOSMOS. 357 
 
 We arc therefore, to emphasize in our thought 
 of the Diacosmos, that it is the active opposite of 
 the Cosmos, the negation of the same in a certain 
 degree, the pronounced reaction against cosmical 
 properties and forces. For example gravitation is 
 regarded as the dominant universal energy of the 
 physical universe extending to its remotest nebu- 
 la?. Yet gravitation is contradicted by the gas, 
 by heat, by magnetism, in fine by the whole realm 
 of radiation. Still further, the cohesion of the 
 solid as cosmical is broken up by the complete 
 separability of the. liquid as diacosmical. Cohe- 
 sion holds the body together and keeps it from dis- 
 solution; it is the preserver of cosmical individu- 
 ality. Upon this colic-ion is the first assault of the 
 Diacosmos, seeking to break the chains by which 
 it holds so tightly together the molecules of the 
 solid, resisting their separation into liquifaction. 
 Besides cohesion, the inertia of body or its resist- 
 ance to Motion is assailed by the diacosmical en- 
 ergy in a number of ways. The inert body resists 
 its own return to a state of rest when once in 
 movement; it persists in being what it is, staving 
 or going. In radium, an otherwise inert element 
 seems to possess an indefinite power of self-radia- 
 tion, of throwing itself away without losing any 
 of itself, or very little; it shows a marvelous mo- 
 tion while remaining at rest. 
 
 If gravitation be taken as the pervasive, univer- 
 sal character of the Cosmos, we naturally seek for
 
 358 COSMOS AND DIACGSMOS. 
 
 the similar universal fact of the Diacosmos. Or we 
 may put the query in this way: What is the sal- 
 ient all-ordering category of the whole realm of th" 
 Diacosmos? Or is there any? Certainly no uni- 
 tary word or its corresponding thought has become 
 prevalent in it like that of gravitation; its varied 
 phenomena --light, heat, electricity, chemism, 
 liquids, gases, ethers — seem to lie around in its 
 field quite disconnected, recalcitrant to any com- 
 mon ordering principle. It is true that the Dia- 
 cosmos is the stage of separation in the movement 
 of total Nature, still this separation has its law, 
 its organization, yea its unity. This is what we 
 are now specially seeking. For the Diacosmos 
 with all its disintegrating tendencies is not chaos 
 even if some think that it is rapidly striding thith- 
 erward. Now we are going to apply to this whole 
 sphere a category which has lately been formu- 
 lated and applied to a portion of it only. This 
 category is known as radio-activity, which starting 
 as the unique property of a newly discovered ele- 
 ment, radium, has extended its domain till we at 
 present sometimes hear, rather indefinitely, that 
 all Matter is radio-active or ray-emitting. It is to 
 be observed that such a tendency of Matter to 
 pulse forth energy is quite opposite to that of 
 gravitation, the ruling power of the Cosmos, which 
 Newton so completely enthroned almost at a single 
 stroke of genius. A similar supreme lord over the 
 scattered provinces of the Diacosmos has long been
 
 THE DIACOSMOS. 359 
 
 needed and likewise sought for urgently, even if un- 
 consciously for the most part. We say, then, that 
 the dominating principle of the Diacosmos is radio- 
 activity, as the dominating principle of the Cos- 
 mos is gravitation. 
 
 It is true that this radiating power has long been 
 known,, particularly in the case of Heat and Light. 
 and more recently of Electricity. These are, ac- 
 cordingly, the radiants proper, and are to be put 
 into a group by themselves — a diacosmical group. 
 But that all the chemical elements — now set down 
 at eighty in number in the most recent scientific 
 book under my eye — originate in radio-activity, 
 and are seemingly derived from one primordial 
 radio-active element is a glimpse which the latest 
 scientific discovery is giving us at this moment, 
 rather uncertain and partially cloud-hidden still, 
 but nevertheless very promising. At the other 
 extreme of the diacosmical territory we shall find 
 the fluids (as we classify them) in a state of incip- 
 ient or potential radio-activity. So we may repeat 
 that throughout the entire sweep of the Diacosmos 
 radio-activity is the common principle which inter- 
 relates its diversified parts and expresses its deep- 
 est character. 
 
 It has been already indicated that radio-activity 
 physically considered, must be the second or sepa- 
 rative stage of Nature's total process. It is a form 
 of Motion, the common diacosmical form, of which 
 Heat, Light, and the rest are onlv varieties. Mo-
 
 360 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tion as primordial we have called the Separating, 
 ever-dividing within and going beyond. Motion 
 is now (diacosmically) radiation, yea self-radiation, 
 a raying out and over; it has gotten inside of Mat- 
 ter, being no longer outside of it as in the Cosmos, 
 which shows bodies moving by the external force 
 of attraction, for instance. Radium with its radio- 
 activity seems to be a particle of Matter trans- 
 forming itself into Motion, which has thus quite 
 appropriated and metamorphosed its old foe or 
 primal counterpart. Nature as a whole is the sec- 
 ond stage of the Parapsychosis grasped in its triune 
 totality as God, Nature, Man. But Nature as de- 
 rived must show the creative process of its source, 
 namely the All-Self (Parapsychosis), for it cannot 
 in the last instance give any account of its own 
 cause or origin. So the Diacosmos we have to 
 conceive as a new separation of the primordially 
 separated Nature, and it gives a new manifestation 
 of Motion, which we saw to be the first created 
 fact of Nature, in its struggle with Matter, the sec- 
 ond twin of Nature's earliest progeny, namely Mo- 
 tion and Matter. Diacosmical Motion, therefore, 
 is revealed in radio-activity, the second grand ac- 
 tivity of Nature. 
 
 If the Diacosmos is a member or a stage of the 
 total organization of Nature, which is in turn but 
 a stage of the still vaster All, we next come to ask 
 about the organization of the Diacosmos itself, its 
 own distinct process, This also must show itself
 
 THE DIACOSMOS. 361 
 
 to bo at bottom psychical in accord with the soul 
 of its originator. The following scheme we shall 
 set down as a kind of sign-post pointing out the 
 future lines of the more detailed exposition. 
 
 First : the molecular or fluid Diacosmos, with its 
 three leading forms — Liquids, Gases, Ether. 
 
 Second: the radiant Diacosmos, with radiation 
 explicit in its three forms which we may name ra- 
 diants — Heat, Light, Electricity. 
 
 Third: the elemental Diacosmos or Chemism, in 
 which the physical universe is reduced to its ulti- 
 mate elements (chemical) . The element, however, 
 will be still further analyzed into the atom, the 
 ion, the electron. 
 
 Such is the end, at least the present end, of the 
 Diacosmos, which, we may for the nonce suppose, 
 starts with the common, ever-moving sensuous 
 fluid called water, the typical liquid. Streaming 
 through all these diverse diacosmical stages we are 
 to sec the fundamental principle of radio-activity 
 under different shapes with its power of interlink- 
 ing the many separate domains. But we are like- 
 wise to observe the inner self-returning movement 
 in these three stages of the Diacosmos. Here we 
 may specially note the act of Chemism, the third 
 stage, as peculiarly significant: it goes back to the 
 given material world and seeks to reduce it to its 
 elements through and through; its historic start- 
 in- ' deemed its first analysis of that 
 typical liquid, water, which we have taken as the 
 material beginning of the diacosmical cycle.
 
 362 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. , 
 
 It may be said that science to-day is domi- 
 nailtly diacosmical, rather than cosmical or bio- 
 logical. Two hundred years ago it grappled with 
 the mechanical side of the Cosmos' in a mighty 
 outburst of originality, whose greatest representa- 
 tive was doubtless Newton. Fifty years ago sci- 
 ence became for a time overwhelmingly biological 
 through the work of Darwin. But the crest of the 
 scientific wave seems now to be rising and surging 
 through the Diacosmos, whose most secret and re- 
 mote nooks feel its pulsations. The infinitely 
 small is pursued with a passion which only the 
 spirit of the age could beget in the individual. 
 The scientific mind of the present seems to be 
 driving forward to its diacosmical fulfilment ere it 
 start possibly on a new cycle of its development. 
 
 The scientist takes Nature as the given, with 
 which to experiment, making it speak out its 
 thought, yea its category. He accepts it at first 
 hand, as the ultimate substance in which he works 
 but which also works in him, transforming his very 
 consciousness. Nature is the primordial separa- 
 tive stage of the universe, and imparts its character 
 to the soul occupied with it sympathetically and 
 continuously. Moreover we have found the Dia- 
 cosmos to be the separative stage of this first sep- 
 aration — a fact which likewise stamps itself upon 
 the spirit of the investigator of the present realm. 
 So we have to think that the physicist himself 
 gets to be diacosmical, he views all and the All
 
 THE DIACOSMOS. 363 
 
 from his special sphere of life and labor. Hence 
 it comes that he refuses to penetrate to the psy- 
 chical source of his own world; that is the un- 
 known and unknowable, the domain of mystery, 
 beyond Nature, which is his spiritual home. Still 
 further, he seems just now to be turning against 
 the Cosmos with no little energy, and assailing its 
 unitary principle of attraction which at least 
 strives toward unifying all Matter through gravi- 
 tation. But the diacosmical spirit is separative, 
 analytic, radiative, seeking the atom and then di- 
 viding it again and again, as if in hot pursuit of 
 zero. The eminent physicist, Le Bon, calls his 
 own science anarchic, and, if we catch his spirit, 
 rather glories in this character of it and seemingly 
 of himself as scientist. Undoubtedly the time has 
 a furious diacosmical strain which science must re- 
 flect, and which history must work out. Nations 
 differ in this regard; politically Europe, with its 
 system of separate states (Polyarchy) has a dia- 
 cosmical similitude to the present science, more so, 
 one may think, than the United States. Educa- 
 tion shows a good deal of the same trend; the Eu- 
 ropean University, which has been bodily trans- 
 ported to America, is in character as well as in 
 science emphatically diacosmical, with its ever- 
 deepening tendency toward specialization, and its 
 weakness in universalizing and in the universal 
 disciplines, though it still calls itself the univer- 
 sity, the home of training to the universal. The
 
 364 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 physicist (or the diacosmist), therefore, more 
 than any other sort of man, is giving the spiritual 
 time-beat to the present epoch; let him make hay 
 while the sun shines, for his day will doubtless 
 pass on like the rest, leaving a very considerable 
 body of good science to the future. 
 
 We have already observed that the cosmical 
 center of our planetary system is the sun as merely 
 blind and heavy; the same body is the diacosmical 
 center also, but as the luminous eye, or as radio- 
 active. The solar character is indeed double: as a 
 source of gravitation it attracts all to itself, then 
 it turns about and repels all, even itself, radiating 
 its own illumination far into the starry depths of 
 the Cosmosphere, certainly beyond its own imme- 
 diate system. The Sun, accordingly, acts both a 
 cosmical and diacosmical part in one colossal mani- 
 festation; it is the synthesis of these two sides or 
 stages of total Nature. It reveals the unity as 
 well as the separation of the entire Heliospherc of 
 which it is not only the spatial center but the pro- 
 ducing cause. As far as it goes, it may be deemed 
 the active Ego of its system, though it lacks as 
 yet the completed self-return, of which it is the ra- 
 diant prophecy. So we can hardly think the Sun 
 as self-conscious, though on Nature's road thereto, 
 flashing thitherward as if in a mighty aspiration. 
 Nor can we conceive the sun be alive though the 
 fostering nurse of all life on our planet. 
 
 It is evident that the Diacosmos taken by itself,
 
 THE DIACOSMOS. 365 
 
 moans universal dissolution, and that it has im- 
 parted to the scientific mind of to-day its own 
 character. The cosmical attraction of Matter is 
 reversed, its dissociation and disintegration are ra- 
 diated back from our system into the Cosmosphere 
 whence this energy originally came, but with an 
 opposite tendency which was to coalesce in cohe- 
 sion and to join in a systemic order. Whether the 
 Cosmosphere itself is undergoing the same dissolu- 
 tion, cannot yet be told; we know not yet its con- 
 ditions or limits against other Cosmospheres if 
 there be such. Hut the likelihood is that it pos- 
 sesses certain powers of recuperation of which we 
 have noticed a possible instance in the regenera- 
 tive round of a stellar system (see preceding pp. 
 275-9). Indeed the All cannot be thought as per- 
 ishing or perishable; if it be doing its undoing, it 
 must also be undoing its doing, or negating its 
 own negation. 
 
 It would seem, however, that total Nature, the 
 all-inclusive, must show a limit, indicating that it 
 (Nature) is not self-dependent, not self-generating, 
 not completely self-determined, but has to go out- 
 side of itself for its final determination. Nature, 
 then, reveals itself to be not the Totality, but a 
 stage or a part of the one psychical, or rather 
 the pampsychical, All. This limitation of itself 
 it must show both in its entirety and in its parts; 
 or, to repeat what has been already said, Nat- 
 ure manifests itself as dialectical, both as a whole
 
 366 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 and in its particulars. Scientists say that the 
 Planets start with a given motion from the Helio- 
 sphere; but the latter is also affirmed to have 
 had an original push from the Cosmosphere, which 
 in turn required a send-off, perchance the primor- 
 dial one of total Nature. Now this Nature shows 
 through and through, from largest to smallest, 
 the original ejection or separation of itself from 
 the universal Self (Parapsychosis) ; ultimately it 
 comes not from itself but from another; it is not 
 self-determined but outwardly determined. Such 
 is the limit which Nature always manifests, ex- 
 ternally and internally. Still just in this character 
 we have to consider it as an inherent member or 
 necessary stage of the universal Self. 
 
 The earliest elemental forms of Nature, Space 
 and Time, the holders of the Cosmos so to speak, 
 show, through the impossibility of limiting them 
 within themselves, that they have their limit in 
 their opposite, in that which limits itself within 
 itself, namely Ego, Self. That is, the limit of 
 Space and Time cannot be spatial, or temporal, 
 they are always transcending it if once posited; in 
 this sense they are often said to be infinite (limit- 
 transcending) . Certain is it also that they, as de- 
 rived, are limited by their source externally, and 
 subject internally to all sorts of limits. So Space 
 and Time primordially reveal Nature's dualism, be- 
 ing both infinite and finite, either of which can be 
 easily pointed out in them. The Diacosmos will 
 
 I
 
 THE DIACOSMOS. 367 
 
 show this same character of Nature in a new and 
 more intense way; as second stage of the physical 
 totality it is divisive, and keeps dividing to infinity 
 even Nature itself, so that the atom in one shape 
 or other becomes fundamental in the diacosmical 
 world. 
 
 The Diacosmos, in the present organization of 
 Nature, lies between the mechanical or gravita- 
 tional order (Cosmos) and the self-active, self- 
 moving order of life (Biocosmos). We, may con- 
 ceive it as the great unloosening of the fixed phys- 
 ical world — it turns Cohesion into Dishesion, Grav- 
 itation into Degravitation, Composition (chemical) 
 into Decomposition. It has its own distinctive 
 process, which has been already indicated, but 
 which we may here briefly repeat : 
 
 (I) The Diacosmos as molecular. 
 (II) The Diacosmos as radiant. 
 
 (Ill) The Diacosmos as elemental chemically 
 or atomic. 
 
 The great diversity of the subject covers up 
 with details the lines of its order; indeed the dia- 
 cosmical act in itself is inclined to be repellent of 
 any fixed organization, being such an unloosener 
 of things. Still here, too, the process can be seen 
 and unfolded.
 
 368 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 THE MOLECULAR DIACOSMOS. 
 
 The conception of the molecule becomes now im- 
 portant. We have already had it in the cohesive 
 Body, which is often said to be composed of mole- 
 cules. But these are not yet really distinct or 
 separated; they still cohere. This form of the 
 molecule is cosmic rather than diacosmic. When, 
 however, a force such as heat gets inside the co- 
 hesive Body and begins to drive it asunder, the 
 molecules are separating, and become more and 
 more individualized. At this point, accordingly, 
 the Diacosmos distinctively starts in its first stage 
 which may be called the molecular. 
 
 It is to be noted that the aforesaid separative 
 force still remains outside the molecule though in- 
 side the body. From this point of view it acts 
 mechanically and can be measured. But later we 
 shall observe in Chemism the force getting inside 
 the molecule, which is separated in its turn and is 
 shown to be composed of atoms. Some distin- 
 guished chemists have held that the atom, too is 
 divided by a new chemical energy; but that view 
 must not detain us now. The best way is to dis- 
 tinguish the three different ways wherein Force, 
 which is a form of Motion, works upon three dif- 
 ferent forms of Matter. (1) A particle of Matter is
 
 THE MOLECULAR DIACOSMOS. 369 
 
 a fragment of a body which has been broken ; its 
 separation is external and quantitative, and it 
 maintains cohesion. (2) A molecule is an inner 
 qualitative division which assails cohesion, and 
 separates a body into its constituents (not into its 
 elements). (3) An atom is an elemental division, 
 and implies the separation of the molecule into its 
 chemical elements. 
 
 So we distinguish the particle, the molecule 
 and the atom; force drives the first one from the 
 outside, but drives the two latter from the inside, 
 and so these belong properly to the Diacosmos. 
 The atom indeed goes back and atomizes both the 
 particle and the molecule, for they also have their 
 chemical character, which is indeed elemental. 
 
 In the cosmical realm we saw the body in a free 
 unobstructed motion round the central Sun; or we 
 may say . that Motion controlled Matter in the 
 sweep of the planets. But each molecule of the 
 planetary body was subjected to the might of co- 
 hesion. Now in the diacosmical realm the tyran- 
 nous power of cohesion is broken, and the molecule 
 is liberated from what may be deemed its servi- 
 tude by a stronger counteractive energy. Its 
 forceful liberator breaks its chains and gives to it 
 a new individuality which is soon seen asserting 
 itself, and transcending its limits. Particularly 
 the molecules of a gas show an aggressive individ- 
 uality by their expansion. A kind of liberation we 
 may well see in this molecular society, as it opens 
 
 24
 
 370 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 its career in the Diacosmos, which thus becomes 
 relatively a world of free molecules, getting more 
 and more emancipated from the cosmical servitude 
 of cohesion. 
 
 The result is a decided transformation of mate- 
 rial body, both externally and internally. This 
 metamorphosis is usually deemed threefold — solid, 
 liquid, gaseous. Nature has furnished instances in 
 the so-called elements — earth, water, air. More- 
 over one of these elements, the liquid, manifests 
 all three forms through molecular changes, becom- 
 ing ice, water, steam. This is the work of heat, 
 through which water as having a neutral character 
 by nature, is easily influenced. Water with its easy- 
 going molecules, quite indifferent to one another, 
 and uncohesive at ordinary temperatures, is the 
 least refractory of forms of Matter. Air, on the 
 contrary, by strong pressure can be brought to be 
 a liquid, perchance a solid. A metamorphic power 
 thus lies in the molecule, it is the Proteus of the 
 Diacosmos. 
 
 Motion, the Separating with which Nature starts 
 in the Cosmos, at first works upon corporeal Mat- 
 ter externally without assailing its cohesive indi- 
 viduality. But now Motion is seen at work within 
 the material body and drives it asunder internally, 
 constitutionally we may say, transforming it and 
 endowing it with new characteristics. Ice and 
 steam are the same substance but show very differ- 
 ent forms and different traits.
 
 THE MOLECULAR DIACOSMOS. 371 
 
 But what drives these fluids asunder? What 
 gets between their molecules pushing them apart 
 and raying them out in opposition to inertia, cohe- 
 sion and gravitation? It has been called simply 
 force or energy. Still, we ask, what kind of 
 force? A form of that radio-activity which must 
 be considered as the fundamental property of 
 the Diacosmos. We learn that all Matter is 
 radio-active and has the tendency to emanate. 
 The new element radium has introduced this 
 idea of the material world. Motion, the Sepa- 
 rating, has gotten inside of body and is rending it 
 and exploding it, even dematerializing it, as the 
 claim is now sometimes made. 
 
 We have called this sphere the Molecular Diacos- 
 mos, looking at it under one aspect. From another 
 point of view we may regard it as the fluid world, 
 its category being now fluidity. Such a property 
 naturally springs from the foregoing separated or 
 uncohesivc molecules, which even when massed 
 are quite outside of one another and move easily 
 asunder. It should be here noted that we make a 
 distinction between fluid and liquid, though ordi- 
 narily they have quite the same meaning. Fluid 
 we shall employ as the general term for the entire 
 sphere, while liquid is a particular form or stage 
 of it. Fluidity, accordingly, means hardly more 
 than the simple direct dishesion of matter, which 
 is supposed to have its limit at the molecule. 
 There is no attempt in the present sphere to get
 
 372 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 back of this molecular separation, and to find 
 what produced it; we take it as it is immediately 
 before us, or as it is supposed to be in the case of 
 ether. Later (in the radiants) we shall delve into 
 the grounds of such a state of Matter. 
 
 Here, then, we are to forecast in brief outline the 
 movement of the molecular or fluid Diacosmos, 
 which will show the following three stages: 
 
 (I) The Fluid in its molecular indifference, or 
 the Liquid, whose common example is water. 
 
 (II) The Fluid in its molecular separation, or 
 the expansion of the Gas, whose common example 
 is the air, with its limited expansibility. 
 
 (III) The Fluid as universal, or conjecturally so 
 — the Ether, with its supposed absolute expansi- 
 bility. 
 
 The three sections in which the Fluid as a whole 
 is treated will be named simply the Liquid, the 
 Gas, the Ether. It is to be noticed that they show 
 a process together: the unseparated (indifferent), 
 then the separated or self-expansive as limited and 
 particular, finally the self-expansive made uni- 
 versal (in theory) and hence self-undoing, wherein 
 lies the conception of a return to the Liquid, 
 which is not self-expansive. Such is, in abstract 
 outline, the movement of the Fluid, which the fol- 
 lowing details will serve to illustrate more con- 
 cretely.
 
 THE LIQUID, 373 
 
 The Liquid. 
 
 As already indicated, the Liquid is but one kind 
 of Fluid, under which general term we place also 
 the Gas and the Ether. All Fluids have the com- 
 mon characteristic of molecular mobility, consequent 
 upon a loosening of cohesion. The fluid mole- 
 cules, however, persist in the present stage of the 
 Diacosmos; not till we come to Chemism are they 
 assailed and dissolved into their atomic elements. 
 In the solid body there is what may be called a 
 cohesive individuality, which can indeed be sepa- 
 rated from the outside as when a bar of iron is 
 broken in two. But a Fluid cannot be broken in 
 that way; its molecules are already separated in 
 themselves and so can be put together again just 
 as they were by mere contact. In the structure 
 of the Fluid, therefore, the molecules are more or 
 less indifferent to one another; each has gotten 
 outside of the other and stays there ; consequently 
 the individuality of the molecule is emphasized 
 rather than that of the total body; the molecule 
 now resists cohesion and asserts itself. This shows 
 distinctly its separative, diacosmical character. 
 Dishcsion we may designate this tendency in con- 
 trast with cohesion, which is a might over the in- 
 dividual molecules forcing them tightly together; 
 a tyrant perchance we may call this cohesion, sup-
 
 374 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 pressing molecular independence which at present 
 seems the aspiration of Matter as of Man. 
 
 That which differentiates the special Liquid from 
 the next Fluid is its non-elasticity, its unexpansi- 
 bility. Compared to the Gas, for instance, the 
 liquid molecule cannot be lessened or increased, 
 compressed or expanded. It asserts stolidly its 
 own individuality in both directions. It persists 
 stoutly in remaining just what it is against all ex- 
 ternal power. Moreover the liquid molecule, 
 though always in contact, is not very soeiable 
 with its neighbors, who are, however, just like it. 
 In fact liquidity and likewise all fluidity is a kind 
 of dissociation of Matter, a loosening of its bonds. 
 From this point of view the Liquid as a whole is 
 very penetrable; its molecules are so indifferent 
 that they let anything come between them me- 
 chanically. But individually they are altogether 
 impenetrable. A splinter of wood thrust into a 
 cup of water never gets inside an aqueous mole- 
 cule but it very easily passes outside, for this mole- 
 cule cares nothing for its next neighbor. Very 
 different is the furious resistance offered to the in- 
 truder by the associated (or cohesive) molecules of 
 a piece of iron. At the same time if the solid be 
 broken, the structure itself is destroyed along the 
 line of cleavage, and will not unite again; the very 
 molecules seem broken in their power of associa- 
 tion. But the Liquid has no such power, its mole- 
 cules are inclined to stand alone, they are indi- 
 viduated.
 
 THE LIQUID. 375 
 
 To be sure Liquids differ much in their molecu- 
 lar mobility, as well as in their inter- molecular 
 character. Some Liquids through their viscosity 
 approach a solid; a jelly, for instance, will retain 
 its corporeal form. But in general the molecular 
 indifference of the Liquid is such that it requires a 
 vessel or some holder to keep it together; other- 
 wise the molecules will run away from one another, 
 each seeking the .nearest point in line with the 
 center of the earth. Each molecule thus asserts 
 itself a complete body by itself, with its own par- 
 ticular gravity. We may deem it a kind of ulti- 
 mate element in this fluid stage of the Diacosmos, 
 not a chemical element, of course. It is nearly 
 irreducible by pressure, though not quite, as may 
 be seen in Oersted's table of liquid compressibility; 
 alcoholic ether,, for instance, is twice as compres- 
 sible as water, while the liquid metal mercury is 
 but one-thirteenth. Each Liquid has, therefore, 
 its own degree of resistance to external pressure ; 
 but it at once resumes its former volume when the 
 pressure is removed. The Liquid can be made to 
 yield just a little, but it returns to itself as soon 
 as it can, re-asserting itself we may say. 
 
 Water we may take as the typical Liquid, whose 
 character is deserving of our best study. Chem- 
 ically it is known to be composed of two gases, 
 hydrogen and oxygen; but nobody could tell any- 
 thing of its form or nature from its composition. 
 It is the most universal of Liquids and may be
 
 376 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 deemed the base of nearly all of them, though it is 
 not a chemically elemental Liquid like mercury. 
 Still it has been long called an element, one of 
 Nature's own, being endowed with a unique indi- 
 viduality. In antiquity it inspired the earliest 
 philosopher, Milesian Thales, who regarded it as 
 the principle of all things, or as the essence of 
 being. Through its very indifference it can and 
 does become many things, especially entering into 
 life. It is the unformed which is to be formed; it 
 takes shape or body from the outside, through its 
 holder; still it seeks form and clings to the same, 
 for instance in capillarity. That water wets 
 an object has a meaning: it clings to something 
 which it has not but strives for, and the drop falls 
 down only when it has another drop for its sup- 
 port. Thus water shows itself indifferent to itself, 
 being just the medium of indifference, which takes 
 everything's part but its own. Neutral in itself 
 and to itself it can be without bias, and enter into 
 the special works of Nature impartially, we might 
 almost say sympathetically. Strictly it has no 
 taste, no smell, no color, no shape, no cohesion, no 
 resistance if taken aright; yet it easily becomes a 
 medium for all these properties. As the first sub- 
 stance of the Diacosmos, it is the implicit poten- 
 tial stage, the possibility of future shapes, bearing 
 in its bosom the seeds of things; it is passive till 
 its molecule is reached, when there is strong self- 
 assertion. If a board strikes on its flat side the
 
 THE LIQUID. 377 
 
 surface of water, it assails many molecules at once 
 and mee'ts a common resistance ; but a little push 
 will easily separate the same molecules, as they are 
 not really combined. 
 
 Undoubtedly water is negative to cohesion, and 
 will dissolve many bodies, holding them in solu- 
 tion, but not disturbing them chemically, though 
 it often gives the chemical process a good chance 
 to act. Enormous is the quantity of this Liquid on 
 our planet, being its chief medium of exchange; 
 water is also a mediator between earth and sky, as 
 well as between lands. To our terrestrial temper- 
 ature water is peculiarly adjusted, to heat and cold; 
 above the limit it loses its liquidity and becomes 
 vapor, below the limit it shows the same loss but 
 becomes solid as ice. Water probably originated 
 when the earth had cooled off to its present very 
 limited range of temperature, and helped to bring 
 forth its life. But the most striking adjustment 
 is that water contracts from the boiling point tilj 
 39 degrees Fahrenheit, then with the increasing 
 cold it expands till it becomes ice, which is lighter 
 than its own liquid. Thus from a certain point of 
 temperature it expands both through heat and 
 through cold ; water shows a peculiar control over 
 heat and cold, making both of them contradict 
 themselves; it causes heat to contract and then to 
 expand its molecules (from below upward), or it 
 causes cold to do the same thing (from above 
 downward). This peculiar exception to an other-
 
 378 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 wise general law of Nature is often cited as an in- 
 stance of providential design, since ice, being 
 lighter than water, protects it in winter and pre- 
 vents lakes and streams from freezing to the bot- 
 tom and thus becoming a solid mass of ice. At 
 any rate it shows the strong endowment of the 
 aqueous molecule that it contracts or expands with 
 heat according to its own law, and not according 
 to the general law of heat. A few other substan- 
 ces show the same exception, notably the metal 
 bismuth. What we have called self-assertion of 
 the molecule of water with its defiance of the old 
 law, may be regarded as the overture of the Dia- 
 cosmos, which we have already seen running coun- 
 ter to the previous mechanical principles of- inertia, 
 of cohesion, of gravitation. Still under these seem- 
 ing violations we are to find the new order which 
 also has its law. 
 
 Accordingly we have first to investigate the dia- 
 cosmical process of the Liquid, properly the first 
 manifestation of the present sphere. Here we shall 
 find three significant stages which we may formu- 
 late as follows: 
 
 (I) Molecular Attraction of the Liquid — differ- 
 ent from, and in some respects opposite to, the 
 previous cosmical attraction. . 
 
 (II) Molecular Resistance (Repulsion) of the 
 Liquid — which has also its peculiar ways of mani- 
 festation. 
 
 (III) Molecular Gravitation of the Liquid —
 
 THE LIQUID. 379 
 
 wherein it is seen in its terrestrial relation. This 
 last stage overcomes the separation of the second 
 stage (Resistance) and goes back to the first (At- 
 traction) which it underlies. That is, all molecular 
 diremption is finally dominated and ordered by the 
 earth's power. 
 
 The reader will note that these three categories 
 of the liquid Diacosmos show a decided similitude 
 to those given generally to Matter (see preceding 
 pp. 92-101), of which we are now to consider a 
 new particular manifestation. 
 
 I. Molecular Attraction of the Liquid. 
 The primal fact of the Liquid is its tendency to 
 separate into molecules, each of which has a cer- 
 tain degree of independence. Each may be con- 
 ceived as a kind of pellet, exceedingly small, with 
 its own center and its own individuality. It holds 
 itself together mightily, but turns away from all 
 the rest of its kind; this gives its divisive charac- 
 ter — molecular separation, and also molecular mo- 
 bilility, for each pellet seems to roll upon and 
 around the contiguous pellets without entering 
 them. But as there is this outer separation and 
 even repulsion of one from the other, so on the 
 other hand each molecule is bound into unity by 
 an inner attraction which makes it almost imper- 
 vious to any external impress from one of its kind. 
 We might say that the outer mter-molecular cohe- 
 sion of the solid ha-; been transferred to the inner 
 i^ra-molecular cohesion of the Liquid, and that we
 
 380 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 have passed over the bridge from the Cosmos to 
 the Diacosmos. Thus we begin to think that the 
 molecule taken by itself is a system of attraction — 
 a thought which will have a future. Now this at- 
 traction of the liquid molecule within itself is the 
 immediate fact which is first to be considered. 
 Such an attraction seems to show a kind of volun- 
 tary molecular activity; the molecule spheres 
 itself,, it diffuses itself freely, it raises itself up 
 along a solid of its own inner bent. It is to be 
 noted again that these three phases of molecular 
 attraction are in opposition to gravitation, and 
 thus diacosmical. 
 
 1. Spherular Attraction. By this is meant the 
 tendency of a free Liquid like water to take the 
 form of a spherule in a small mass. The rain drop 
 and the dewclrop ball themselves of their own 
 force; they are much larger than a molecule of 
 water, but they reveal its existence and its power, 
 as well as a certain limit placed upon it. The me- 
 tallic liquid., mercury, shows the same trait more 
 decisively with its divisibility into smaller and 
 smaller spherules. Molten lead poured through a 
 seive from the top of a tower can be made to take 
 various spherical sizes while falling to the ground. 
 Free motion imparts individuality, and the round 
 world gives of its rotundity. The planets circling 
 freely through space take the same form. The 
 molecule is, accordingly, conceived generally to 
 be spherical, having its own center of attraction.
 
 THE LIQUID. 381 
 
 2. Diffusion of Liquids. This is twofold and 
 starts with separation, but shows it overcome. 
 Two different liquids — for instance a solution of 
 copper sulphate and water — will at first assume two 
 different layers in a vessel one being heavier than 
 the other. But they at once begin to intermingle 
 and will soon form a uniform Liquid in opposition 
 to gravitation, the heavier one rising and the 
 lighter one falling. This is essentially the same as 
 diosmose in animal and vegetable life. Water as 
 the molecular medium performs its function of me- 
 diating the side which has something, with the 
 other which has not. This is owing to the free 
 movement of the individual molecules. There are, 
 however, liquids which do not mingle, whose mole- 
 cules draw a line of permanent division between 
 the two hostile sides, as do oil and water. In this 
 case the separation remains. But both the antag- 
 onists will show a common trait in the following. 
 
 3. Capillary Attraction. When a Liquid is placed 
 in contact with a solid, the molecules of the liquid 
 rise up the side of the solid and adhere to it for a 
 perceptible distance above the surface of the liquid. 
 If a tube be used with a very small bore, the rise 
 in it is still greater. We behold here again a kind 
 of cohesion between solid and liquid in opposition 
 to gravity. But when the liquid has to adhere to 
 itself, it drops back into obedience to gravity; we 
 behold the molecules of the liquid seeking the 
 molecules of the solid, but indifferent to its own
 
 382 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 molecules. It strives to separate the cohesion of 
 the solid and to mediate it with something else, 
 the liquid and especially water being the great 
 "go-betweens of Nature. Capillarity shows that 
 the liquid molecules have a greater attraction for 
 the solid than for one another. Still they have 
 also in themselves as individuals a decided resist- 
 ance to the solid. 
 
 II. Molecular Resistance of Liquids. We 
 have noted the molecular attraction of the Liquid 
 for the solid; similar attraction was inside the 
 molecule. Equally emphatic is the resistance of 
 liquid molecules under certain conditions. The 
 tendency to sphericity may be interpreted as an 
 inner gathering of force for any emergency. The 
 formation of the globule hints a process of individ- 
 uation; it thus forms itself, makes a body, which 
 the solid cannot do. The impact upon the Liquid 
 as a mass reveals its power of resistance, its strong 
 self-assertion. It seems to have the ability to 
 unite all its separate molecules against a sudden 
 assault, as when a flat surface smites the water. 
 Here again rises a phase of the impact of bodies 
 which has its place also in the Cosmos (see preced- 
 ing pp. 188-215). And again we shall observe es- 
 sentially the same movement: Impact by pres- 
 sure, Impact transmitted, Impact as mechanical 
 or multiplied by mechanical devices. All this now 
 pertains to Liquids. 
 
 1. Pressure. When a Liquid such as water is
 
 THE LIQUID. 383 
 
 subjected to pressure in a strong vessel, it is found 
 to be quite unyielding. Water was thought to be 
 incompressible till Oersted, in 1823, found that the 
 weight of one atmosphere would reduce its volume 
 one part in twenty thousand. The pressure being 
 removed, each molecule would resume its former 
 size, and was as indifferent to the rest as before. 
 The pressure, however, made them all resist in 
 common, though it did not unite them in a perma- 
 nent bond, which would indeed destroy their 
 liquidity. We have, therefore, to conceive each 
 molecule fighting for itself against the common foe 
 without much mutuality. Being restrained from 
 the outside, it will associate with its kind a little, 
 just enough to produce resistance of the Liquid 
 under pressure, which can be measured. Such is 
 the first or immediate phase of molecular resist- 
 ance of the Liquid. 
 
 2. Transmission of Pressure. Though the mole- 
 cules of tin 1 Liquid are nearly incompressible, they 
 have a remarkable power of conveying pressure, of 
 passing it on to the next till the end of the line. 
 Bere is the field of Pascal's law, whose statement 
 is that pressure upon a Liquid is transmitted in all 
 directions, and acts at right angles to the surface 
 of the containing vessel— up, down, right, left. 
 Thus the molecules form lines of transmission of 
 pressure running through the Liquid every way to 
 the surfaces exposed to this Liquid. Lateral pres- 
 sure is shown by the interesting contrivance called
 
 384 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Barker's Mill. If the pressure of the Liquid is re- 
 lieved on the one side by an aperture, it pushes 
 in the opposite direction and will drive a wheel, 
 whirligig, etc. This principle of pressure is inde- 
 pendent of the shape of the containing vessel; the 
 molecule will always receive and transmit the im- 
 pact to what lies next. It follows from the pre- 
 ceding law that upward pressure works in the 
 same way as downward pressure. From every 
 molecule springs an all-sided resistance to any re- 
 straint of its free liquidity. 
 
 3. Presmre Mechanically Multiplied. Pressure 
 cannot only be transmitted along every line of 
 molecules in every direction, but it can be indefi- 
 nitely multiplied. It has been noticed that a 
 small column of water balances a large one when 
 the two are connected, as in the spout and body 
 of a coffee-pot. If pressure be exerted upon a 
 small column, this will exert a force upon the large 
 column great in proportion to its size. A line of 
 molecules will thus impart and repeat its own 
 force to many lines of molecules, each of which 
 gets not merely its share but the entire pressure. 
 It gives its all to each. Hence the surprising 
 power exerted by a small column of water, say 30 
 feet high (as in Pascal's famous experiment) which 
 will burst a stout cask into which it is poured. 
 
 Thus molecular resistance to pressure may be 
 made to come back to itself by transmitting it 
 through other molecules, with a vast increase of
 
 THE LIQUID. 385 
 
 power. A resistance to a pressure of ten pounds 
 can be converted into a resistance to a pressure of 
 ten thousand pounds by a hydraulic machine. 
 Thus the pressure of ten pounds will equilibrate 
 itself a thousand fold through a mechanical device 
 which is analogous to the lever. There is the 
 downward pressure (P) which is directed through 
 a small column of water into a large column which 
 is pushed upward against the resisting body or 
 weight (W) which is to be moved (see preceding 
 pp. 201-9) . Each molecule may be < leemcd a kind of 
 fulcrum (F) which turns the first pressure (P) 
 against the second pressure (W), or we may say 
 which converts the first resistance into the second 
 with a great multiplication of force. This multi- 
 plication is the peculiarity of the hydraulic ma- 
 chine; the simple lever can change time and space 
 into power; but a molecule directly imparts its 
 received power as a whole to the adjoining mole- 
 cules; one unit of energy in thus converted into 
 ten or a thousand through molecular pressure. 
 
 Such, then, is molecular resistance received, 
 transmitted, and multiplied by a machine. The 
 free individual molecule of the Diacosmos in this 
 way shows itself to possess a" different character 
 from the unfree cohesive molecule of the Cosmos, 
 which has seemingly no such power of self-asser- 
 tion and self-impartation. But underneath this 
 somewhat independent molecular action lies a 
 deeper might which determines it, namely, that of 
 
 25
 
 386 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the earth, for the molecules also must at last 
 gravitate to the common center. 
 
 III. Molecular Gravitation of Liquids. The 
 Molecules of the Liquid have weight and obey the 
 law of gravitation; they arrange themselves in a 
 vertical line toward the middle of the earth. The 
 solid with its cohesive molecules has its weight 
 concentrated in one point called its center of grav- 
 ity. But the liquid molecules through their lack 
 of cohesion, unless confined somehow, cannot be 
 said to have such a common central point as has 
 the solid, but each molecule has its own center and 
 obeys the law of gravitation for itself, rolling to- 
 ward the same by the shortest way. And in a 
 vertical line of liquid molecules the lowest one has 
 to bear the weight of all above it, as we have ob- 
 served in their molecular pressure. But in the 
 solid the molecules do not independently transmit 
 pressure, but rather as one body which conveys its 
 power as a whole, and receives resistance as a 
 whole till broken. 
 
 The Liquid then manifests molecular gravita- 
 tion, which assumes first its immediate form of 
 equilibrium; then this equilibrium is assailed and 
 undulation of the Liquid takes place with return 
 to equilibrium through gravitation; finally this 
 molecular gravitation of the Liquid (usually water) 
 is made the unit of measure by which the gravi- 
 tative character (weight) of all substances is meas- 
 ured and compared.
 
 THE LIQUID. 387 
 
 1. Equilibrium of Liquids. .In a liquid mass 
 the lines of molecules assume a vertical direction 
 toward the earth's center, while the surface of the 
 same mass at rest is horizontal to these molecular 
 lines, one being at right angles to the other. If 
 the surface is disturbed it seeks to regain its equi- 
 distance from the earth's center, which is called its 
 level or equilibrium, and is the result of gravita- 
 tion. That is, when the surface of a Liquid makes 
 a right angle with the earth's radius, it is equili- 
 brated by gravitation. This holds, however, only 
 for relatively small distances, large bodies of water 
 show a curved surface drawn by the earth's radius, 
 in accord with gravitation; the terrestrial center 
 may in a sense be said to radiate the equilibrium of 
 Liquids on the terrestrial surface. 
 
 2. Undulation of Liquids. We must next see 
 the equilibrium of the Liquid broken up by some 
 outside blow, whereby it enters upon its separa- 
 tive phase which shows it in a new character. The 
 assault upon the Liquid calls forth a response from 
 it which makes explicit certain traits quite impli- 
 cit in its previous quiescent state of equilibrium — 
 traits which gather about one main fact, that of 
 undulation, which is a kind of separation ever re- 
 peating itself in the mobile molecules of the fluid. 
 
 The conception of the wave has come to play a 
 great part in the Diacosmos, as we shall often see 
 later. Its starting-point may be deemed the un- 
 dulation of the liquid, especially of the typical
 
 388 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 liquid, water. The wave is a disturbance of the 
 equilibrium of its molecules ; particularly the sur- 
 face is broken up from its level which results from 
 its settled adjustment through gravitation. The 
 result is a peculiar balancing or tetering of these 
 liquid molecules, which have the capacity to con- 
 vey energy, though they do not convey themselves 
 unless propelled by an outside power. If in the 
 middle of a quiet pool a pebble be cast, we ob- 
 serve a series of concentric wavelets moving out- 
 ward to the shore. Furthermore, each wavelet has 
 in itself an up-and-down movement, or oscillation, 
 which continues after the first crest has passed, 
 but grows less and less till it gradually settles back 
 into equilibrium. This undulating oscillation be- 
 comes a kind of vibratory molecule in large, 
 which communicates the motion which it has 
 received without moving -forward itself. If we 
 scatter bits of wood over the surface of the pool, 
 we shall see them bobbing up and down mainly in 
 the same spot, and not being borne on the crest to 
 the shore. 
 
 The liquid wave, therefore, moves within itself 
 in a kind of rotation upon its own axis, this is 
 called strictly its vibration. At the same time it 
 reproduces itself, its own form and movement in 
 the adjacent liquid molecules; this is its communica- 
 tion of motion and of force, which passes on out- 
 ward to the edge of the pool. The third fact is 
 that this line of motion radiating from the center
 
 THE LIQUID. 389 
 
 of disturbance in every direction cuts these vi- 
 brating waves across at right angles, that is trans- 
 versely; the transmitted motion is transverse to 
 the wave in its tetering or oscillation. There 
 are two motions here which must not be con- 
 fused: the rotatory and the imparted; the im- 
 parted motions are ordinarily called transverse vi- 
 brations and are separated spatially and tempo- 
 rally. 
 
 This fact becomes important since the same 
 kind of Motion is supposed to be that of the Ether, 
 which herein resembles the Liquid. Heat, Light, 
 and Electricity are or perchance- produce trans- 
 verse vibrations in the Ether; that is, a transitional 
 motion or force radiates outward though generating 
 etheric undulations. The air-wave is different. The 
 wave-length is measured from crest to crest or 
 from trough to trough (really wave-breadth), and 
 may be rapid or slow according to the radial 
 force. 
 
 It is evident that in the undulation we see the 
 Liquid repeating what has already been observed 
 in the solid. At a number of points the up-and- 
 down of the wave suggests the- oscillating Body 
 (sec preceding p. 226), it is a fluid pendulum vi- 
 brating in a fluid and reproducing itself vibrating. 
 But the oscillation of the free mobile material is sup- 
 plemented by rotation, even by the spherical form 
 which rotates and easily throws off other liquid 
 spheres which also undulate. Such a movement
 
 390 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 of the sea-wave is said to have been first set forth by 
 Gerstner, who propounded that "its particles move 
 in circular orbits" (at the beginning of the last 
 century). This fruitful idea must be carried out 
 to the conception of self-propagation through ro- 
 tation, many instances of which we have seen in 
 the motions of the Cosmos (see account of the Ro- 
 tating Body as solid on preceding pp. 233-42). It 
 would seem, then, that in the undulating process 
 of the Liquid we behold again rotation, radiation, 
 reproduction of rotating bodies with some sort of 
 orbital movement. If this be so (for the subject 
 has by no means yet been developed by physicists) 
 the action of the wave of the pond is a limited sort 
 of world-making, as this has been already unfolded 
 in the Systemic Cosmos. Each molecule may be 
 deemed a little planet in its liquid state throwing 
 off satellites. Later we shall see that the physical 
 science of today is inclined to regard the atom as a 
 small Solar System with its revolving orbs. In gen- 
 eral the struggle between Gravitation and Rotation 
 takes a new form in the undulation of the Liquid. 
 Undulation has the tendency to return to equi- 
 librium, to the level surface under the influence of 
 gravitation. Besides there is the so-called surface 
 tension of the Liquid which has its strain upon the 
 agitated waves. But the molecules of a Liquid 
 are not elastic and transmit motion directly in 
 wave-lines. Every undulation strives to regain 
 the line of gravity with the earth's center. The
 
 THE LIQUID. 391 
 
 wave-movement proceeds transversely, though 
 always being pulled downward by the earth's at- 
 traction. Undulation, accordingly, starts with a 
 disturbance of the equilibrium of a Liquid, pro- 
 ceeds to impart this disturbance in wave-forms, 
 and ends in a return to equilibrium through gravi- 
 tation. Liquid molecules, arc, therefore, heavy, 
 as are all molecules; how can they be weighed? 
 Too small for a pair of scales they must somehow 
 be measured. 
 
 3. Specific Gravity. The definition of a famous 
 physicist may be first set down. "The specific 
 gravity of a body is the ratio of its density to that 
 of some standard substance, generally water" 
 (Clerk-Maxwell on Heat) . According to this con- 
 ception it is the measure of the densities of mate- 
 rial bodies; one of these bodies as standard meas- 
 ures all the rest. This standard usually is dis- 
 tilled water at its densest (heaviest) temperature 
 (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit or 4 degrees Centigrade). 
 Or Specific Gravity tells the comparative weights 
 of the same volume (say a cubic inch) of different 
 substances. The weight of a cubic inch of water 
 being taken as the measurer (our liquid yard- 
 stick), platinum weighs 22 h times as much, lead 
 11.35 times as much (platinum compared to lead 
 is nearly twice as heavy), amber 1.07 (barely sink- 
 ing in water); mercury, which is liquid, weighs 
 13.6 times as much as water, the stain lard liquid. 
 Thus bodies filling the same space are found to
 
 392 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 have a scale of very different weights or degrees of 
 gravity. 
 
 Specific Gravity is essentially a measurement of 
 molecular attraction, the molecules being deemed 
 of the same volume. A molecule of platinum 
 gravitates earthward with much greater force than 
 a molecule of lead ; the measurer water is to give 
 the exact quantum of this force (twice as great ac- 
 cording to the ordinary tables of Specific Gravi- 
 ties). A metal weighed in water displaces just its 
 own bulk, and is found to weigh exactly so much 
 the less. A metal weighed in air may be directly 
 compared in weight with another metal so weighed. 
 But there can be in this way no measurement of 
 their relative molecular weights, which require the 
 third as basis of comparison. Immediate weight 
 of bulk as bulk is cosmical, specific weight is dia- 
 cosmical, since the molecule is weighed and com- 
 pared. 
 
 The Specific Gravity of gold is 19+ that of silver 
 10+ an alloy of equal parts of the two would be 
 nearly 15 (times the same volume of water). It is 
 evident that Specific Gravity can be made the test 
 of the purity of metal. This was the principle dis- 
 covered by Archimedes, who was required (accord- 
 ing to the story) by the king of Syracuse to find 
 out whether the royal crown of gold had been al- 
 loyed by the goldsmith who made it. 
 
 Here we conclude the third stage of the Liquid, 
 which we call its Molecular Gravitation, whose
 
 THE GAS. 393 
 
 main phases we have seen to be Equilibrium, Un- 
 dulation, and Specific Gravity. Moreover, the 
 first part of the Molecular or Fluid Diacosmos has 
 come to an end. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Gas. 
 
 We are compelled to use the word gas in its gen- 
 eral sense, including vapor and air as well as its 
 own special form. It is a fluid of which probably 
 the most characteristic property is its elasticity or 
 expansibility. On the whole a Gas may be called 
 an elastic Fluid. It differs primarily from the 
 Liquid through its molecular dilatation ; it is sepa- 
 rative in its molccularity which the Liquid is not, 
 or is but slightly ; water when it becomes really ex- 
 panded and expansible turns into a gas or vapor; 
 in its ordinary state its molecules resist both com- 
 pression and expansion, while the Gas herein is 
 quite the reverse. The latter seeks to get beyond 
 itself, pushing out its bounds more and more till 
 the last degree of tenuity, as in the case of atmos- 
 pheric air. 
 
 So it comes that the Gas shows the second or 
 separative stage in the total process of fluidity as 
 here conceived. It is not indifferent to itself like 
 water, but is by nature self-repellent ; it thus must 
 be regarded as in a state of perpetual separation 
 from itself. Still it is heavy and at last yields to 
 gravitation, or is properly yielding all the time;
 
 394 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 hence it belongs to the first or fluid stage of the 
 Diacosmos. Through its expansibility the Gas 
 manifests its opposition to the cosmical attraction 
 of the earth, which, however, finally overcomes it 
 after many a rebound extending in the case of the 
 atmosphere far upward into space. The Gas, ac- 
 cordingly, shows in its native activity the unceas- 
 ing fight between Diacosmos and Cosmos. 
 
 The Gas has properly no surface since this is 
 perpetually being broken up through the ever- 
 struggling gaseous expansibility. The surface of 
 the Liquid comes to equilibrium and rest through 
 obedience to gravitation; the Gas is not so submis- 
 sive, but repels such attraction as long as it can, 
 to the last moment, we may say. Volume the 
 Gas cannot be said in strictness to have, as its in- 
 herent tendency is to break across the fixed limit 
 put upon it in any way; though rarified more and 
 more it strives to spread out more and more. This 
 is made visible by the expansion of a bladder filled 
 with Gas and placed under the receiver of an air- 
 pump; the completer the vacuum, the greater the 
 distension. Still the other side must not be left 
 out: the Gas, though essentially without fixed sur- 
 face or volume, and always aspiring heavenward, 
 has notwithstanding weight, is continually being 
 drawn the other way, namely earthward. Such is 
 its inner diacosmical dualism manifested in the 
 salient quality of the Gas. 
 
 It should also be noted that the Gas has no
 
 THE GAS. 395 
 
 shape of its own like the solid, and does not take 
 the shape of the containing vessel like the liquid; 
 it can be only brought to shape by a complete en- 
 closure which produces pressure against its ever- 
 expanding molecules. Like the liquid it may be 
 called formless, but it is something more; it ac- 
 tively resists form (which the true liquid does not), 
 it resents limitation and will burst its restraincr if 
 it can. The Gas shows itself as imprisoned when 
 condemned to be put into a form, and aspires for 
 liberation. This is again the result of that deepest 
 trait of Gas, expansibility. 
 
 There is some question about the ground or 
 source of gaseous expansibility. We may deem 
 the primal tension to be molecular as well as inter- 
 molecular; it seems to reside in the molecules as 
 well as between the molecules. And here we must 
 note a difficultv in construing for thought this en- 
 tire realm of Gases: can the idea of the molecule 
 be properly applied to them? They form so many 
 and such extended mixtures that their character 
 seems to be miscible rather than chemically com- 
 posible and decomposible, nor do they seem much 
 inclined to hold foreign matters in solution, as do 
 liquids, and- especially water. Gases mix externally 
 rather than unite internally by affinity: this lies 
 also, we have to think, in their rebounding, recal- 
 citrant character already described. But the unit 
 or particle of such a mixture — can it be rightly 
 called a molecule which is usually deemed a chem-
 
 396 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 ically united compound of different atoms, as in 
 the case of water? If so, its common meaning 
 must be widened. 
 
 The number of Gases recounted in chemistry is 
 somewhat formidable. There is a group of ele- 
 mental Gases well known: oxygen, hydrogen, 
 nitrogen, chlorine. A much obscurer group has 
 been quite recently discovered: argon, neon, 
 xenon, crypton, and the gaseous emanation he- 
 lium. These new gases seem to be the extreme ex- 
 amples of the gaseous character; they only mix 
 and persistently refuse to form a chemical union 
 with any other Gas or substance whatsoever. In 
 the language of the chemist, they are inert of com- 
 bination, and as far.as yet tested, they cannot be 
 made to reveal, by heat, electricity or other phys- 
 ical compulsion, any lurking affinity for the rest 
 of the elements or their compounds. The isola- 
 tion of these Gases is thus unique and manifests in 
 its last potence the resilient, refractory trait of the 
 gaseous character. 
 
 As there is a typical Liquid, water, so there is a 
 typical Gas or elastic fluid,, namely atmospheric 
 air. Anciently this was likewise deemed an ele- 
 ment, one of the famous four, and was made a 
 principle of philosophy apparently by the old 
 Greek philosopher, Anaximander. Though we 
 shall find it to be a mixture of elements and some- 
 times of compounds in the gaseous form, it has its 
 own distinct individuality, as well as its separate,
 
 THE GAS. 397 
 
 very important place in Nature. So significant of 
 the wh'ole domain is it that the Gas is often named 
 an aeriform fluid. So we shall give some brief con- 
 siderations to air by itself, as the one gaseous 
 character after which the rest more or less closely 
 are patterned. It represents the Gas not only by 
 its expansive nature, but it is also internally dual, 
 being itself a Gas made up of two Gases (and 
 sometimes more) not combined, but separate, as 
 we shall see later. Thus it emphatically shows the 
 separation of the Gas as the second stage of the 
 total sphere of the fluid Diacosmos. 
 
 Air, then, is not a chemical compound but a 
 mixture of two Gases, chiefly oxygen and nitro- 
 gen — by weight 23 parts of the first to 77 of the 
 second, by volume nearly in the relation of one- 
 fifth oxygen to four-fifths nitrogen. The general 
 relation of these two elemental gases is that oxy- 
 gen is a very active principle, an assailant of all 
 bodies, a consumer, a destroyer; but that nitro- 
 gen is more a passive principle, a restrainer, a 
 damper upon the furious energy of its ever-present 
 associate, though antagonist. Foes to each other 
 they may be regarded, yet twinned together in the 
 smallest particle of air; significant it is that man 
 and all animate Nature must inhale with every 
 breath such a war of two opposing elements that 
 he may live. In pure oxygen he would burn up 
 inwardly. In the air are often found other assail- 
 ing gases, also other inert elements besides nitro-
 
 398 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 gen, as argon; so our air in its very constitution, is 
 the seat of a continuous elemental struggle, which 
 we take up in the breath of life. Man, therefore, 
 breathes conflict and lives by it literally. 
 
 It is evident that air, compared to water is sep- 
 arative, dual, self-divided and even self-assailing. 
 Water is a chemical compound with strong affinity 
 between its constituents; no such elemental antag- 
 onism like that of air does it manifest, rather the 
 opposite. Both water and air may be taken as 
 pairs, which are in their ways sexed, yea are mar- 
 ried; but the two of water are happily united in 
 love, while the two of air are indeed interlocked in 
 a kind of wedlock, yet in an everlasting quarrel. 
 Water is unquestionably hostile to cohesion of 
 body, and dissolves the same if it can; still it 
 holds the dissolved particles hospitably, or me- 
 chanically we say, in solution, quite unchanged. 
 Air is more vicious in its assault upon body, seek- 
 ing to decompose it, even to burn it up. Air is a 
 slow fire, it not only feeds combustion but is com- 
 bustion, and can be made to show its fiery temper. 
 Well known is the experiment of condensing air 
 till it becomes a spark which sets on fire a piece of 
 punk. The act of compressing air concentrates its 
 expansive, naturally dilated nature into a point 
 which becomes suddenly luminous in a flash; the 
 inner character of air reveals itself for a moment 
 in that scintilla. Light and Heat lurk in its bosom, 
 as well as the source of fire, that Promethean spark
 
 THE GAS. 399 
 
 which was fabled to have been stolen from heaven . 
 Air may become fire, and fire returns to air with 
 the products of its combustion ; so we note here a 
 small cycle of elemental energies. 
 
 Oxygen is common to both water and air; it 
 may be deemed their interlinking Gas, though it 
 has such a different character in the two fluids. 
 Chemically united with hydrogen, its negative 
 might becomes quite neutralized and forms what we 
 may call the neutral liquid, water, whose every 
 molecule is so happy in its home or so complete 
 in itself that it cares little or nothing for its mole- 
 cular neighbor who, however, is just like it. Very 
 different is the conduct of oxygen when tied me- 
 chanically to nitrogen, whose inert passive char- 
 acter it detests but cannot get rid of. No divorce, 
 however, is allowed in that aerial domain; the 
 couple have to dwell together in the smallest tene- 
 ment, namely in the molecule or particle of which 
 the whole circumambient atmosphere is built many 
 miles high. 
 
 Air we may designate as heterogeneous both in 
 composition and character, while water is homo- 
 geneous. Air like water is a medium and a fluid; 
 it has properly no taste, no smell (though the 
 bearer of all smells), no visible body, even if it be 
 heavy. Its mediating power is subtler than that 
 of water and harder to get hold of; the marine 
 ship has long been, but the aerial ship has not yet 
 arrived, though it seems to be coming in sight just
 
 400 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 now. Air also has its waves which convey sound 
 and which have a special sense in man and animal 
 for their right reception; air waves probably 
 evolved the ear in the course of the aeons. 
 
 It is also noteworthy that these two typical 
 Fluids, water and air, hint a kind of universality 
 in their terrestrial relations; both of them form 
 vast circumambient oceans (even if limited) which 
 embrace our earth and feed all life. It has been 
 supposed that man arose in and from the water, 
 and passed thence to his finer habitation in the 
 air, from which he is to remove to his yet more 
 etherial future home. In such a case the human 
 being is still going through his fluid evolution, liv- 
 ing now mainly in its second stage, the air, having 
 risen out of his aqueous abode, but not having yet 
 attained his etherial dwelling-place. 
 
 Dropping these remote speculations we come to 
 the problem of organizing this present sphere, that 
 of the Gas, which has been developed by special- 
 ists in no little detail, whereof only small notice 
 can here be taken. In general outline, however, 
 the process of the Gas will be quite similar to that of 
 the Liquid; both Fluids have a common move- 
 ment and character in the molecule, though this 
 takes a different form in each. The Gas, accord- 
 ingly, shows first its immediate molecular char- 
 acter; then its molecular resistance, inner and 
 outer, or its stage of separation ; finally its mole- 
 cular gravitation, or its return out of resistance
 
 THE GAS. 401 
 
 and expansion to a unity with the earth's attrac- 
 tion. 
 
 I. Molecular Character of Gases. The mole- 
 cule of the Gas through its expansibility has no 
 fixed limit, such as we have seen in the molecule 
 of water, but is endowed with a kind of radiation 
 (a phase of the diacosmical radio-activity). It 
 drives outward toward infinity, not only formless 
 but form-destroying both in itself and in other 
 bodies. The air for instance is a corroder, assail- 
 ing the bound of solids, and gnawing at it slowly 
 and secretly but effectively with the years ; air may 
 be deemed the tooth of Time, which tears to pieces 
 the finite world. It is the bitter if hidden foe of 
 material finitude. Water dissolves and retains, 
 air dissolves and carries off — in which act we can 
 often detect it by one of our senses, that of smell. 
 Here may be mentioned that recent science has 
 located a part of this destructive power of air (and 
 seemingly of other Gases) in living things, micro- 
 organisms, which for instance assail an open 
 wound and arc destroyed by the so-called anti- 
 septic treatment. In general, however, we have 
 to consider the Gas in this aspect as the double 
 separator, separating perpetually from itself (ex- 
 pansible) and separating corporeal existence. Such 
 is its diacosmical character; it countervails inertia, 
 cohesion, gravitation. On the other hand we 
 should not fail to note that just this negative 
 power is its power of purification; it assails the de- 
 
 26
 
 402 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 structive agencies ever working in the physical 
 world, it is also the purifier of Nature's finitude, or 
 at least of a part of it ; in fine it is a negation of a 
 negative. Nor should the significant trait be for- 
 gotten that air has the gift of self-purification; cur- 
 ative of others it must be able to cure itself; it, too, 
 is material, finite, often inoculated with disease, 
 which it has to heal. What does it do with its va- 
 ried contents? That secret has yet to be largely 
 told ; but it shows itself able to get rid of its for- 
 eign ingredients gradually and to return to its na- 
 tive composite of oxygen and hydrogen. Such is 
 the round which it is forever making. 
 
 1. Spherules. Though the periphery of the gas- 
 eous molecule is always changing, still it must be 
 conceived as an ever-enlarging spherule. Herein 
 is its basic difference from the liquid molecule 
 which holds so rigidly to its limits in space, being 
 nearly incompressible and inexpansible. From 
 this point of view the gaseous molecule is decen- 
 tral or radial; it has a tension or motion outwards. 
 Here lies the chief ground for the so-called kinetic 
 theory of Gases which has often been assailed and 
 often defended on inadequate grounds. The sim- 
 plest (and seemingly most gratuitous) statement of 
 this theory is that of Tait: "the particles dart 
 about in all directions," while Clerk-Maxwell seems 
 to invoke demons to account for such molecular 
 capers (if he is not joking). At any rate we have 
 already seen rotatory spheres throwing off a radial
 
 THE GAS. 403 
 
 energy in the Cosmos, and the spherule might do 
 the same, with a result if not the same, yet not 
 dissimilar. 
 
 2. Diffusion of Gases. We have already noticed 
 the diffusion of Liquids within certain limits ; still 
 more general and emphatic is the diffusion of 
 Gases. These, through their expansibility, come 
 together and mingle in all parts of the containing 
 vessel. This was shown in the experiment of Ber- 
 thollet with two hollow globes, the upper of which 
 was rilled with the lightest Gas, hydrogen, and the 
 lower with carbonic acid Gas, 22 times heavier. 
 Through stop-cocks the Gases were allowed to 
 mingle, and after a time the two globes were found 
 to have the same mixture of both Gases. The dif- 
 fusion will take place also through a porous dia- 
 phragm. Thus two Gases, separated in mass, if 
 brought together, will of themselves make their 
 massive separation molecular; their unit is the 
 molecule which is endowed with a force or 
 sort of will to seek its own kind. Still the two 
 molecules remain two, not combining chemically; 
 their molecular dualism is what is asserted by 
 diffusion. 
 
 3. Absorption. Many Liquids have the power of 
 absorbing certain Gases in varying degrees. Water, 
 for instance, will absorb one-fortieth its volume of 
 nitrogen, but 729 times its volume of ammonia. 
 This absorption is proportional to pressure and 
 temperature; also the same Liquid has the power
 
 404 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 of absorbing its share of several Gases and of re- 
 taining them together in itself. Thus the liquid 
 molecule seems to be able to hold in its own fixity 
 the unfixed molecules of Gases, so that they do not 
 expand, or expand very little. The one appears 
 to attract and keep the other ; in this phenomenon 
 there seems to be something analogous to capillary 
 attraction, by which the solid draws and retains 
 the liquid. In such a test the different Gases show 
 a great difference of characters; it takes for in- 
 stance 20 molecules of water to absorb one of oxy- 
 gen, but these 20 molecules of water will absorb 
 9,000 molecules of hydrochloric acid, and toward 
 double as much ammonia. 
 
 The absorption of the Gas by the Liquid may be 
 conceived as a return to and adoption of the gas- 
 eous molecule (as spherule) by the liquid molecule, 
 so that the latter dominates the former, stopping 
 the expansibility of the one in the fixity of the 
 other. Thus Gas when absorbed by the Liquid 
 largely loses its salient trait, and assumes that of 
 its absorbent in this regard. Evidently the liquid 
 molecule by a kind of attraction has the power of 
 curbing the expansion of the gaseous molecule. 
 This same power over the air (Gas) the earth will 
 show in the attraction of gravitation — a subject to 
 be considered a little later. In the present stage 
 we took the molecule as a whole ; next we are to 
 get inside of it and see its inner separation and 
 workings.
 
 THE GAS. 405 
 
 II. Molecular Resistance of Gases. The 
 counterpart to the expansibility of Gases is their 
 compressibility. The gaseous molecule is a bound- 
 pusher from within; but naturally becomes weaker 
 and more compressible from without. The Gas, 
 notably the air is easily penetrable, yet is very 
 penetrating; its own passive separation becomes 
 also very active, and tears liquid as well as solid 
 asunder. It has weight yet resists (so to speak) 
 its own weight, with a rebound which sends it afar 
 outward in all directions. Air is implicit fire 
 which appears in it when compressed to a point; 
 that is, it manifests its negative consuming en- 
 ergy, which must be deemed its ultimate act of 
 self-defense or resistance. It changes to liquid and 
 to solid, which may also be taken as other forms 
 of molecular resistance, which the air assumes 
 under external assault or pressure. In these cases 
 we see the inner dualism of the Gas; it yields and 
 then resists, or perchance doing both together: 
 this doubleness undoubtedly lies in the gaseous 
 molecule itself. 
 
 1. Pressure. The greater the pressure, the less 
 the volume of the Gas, other things being the 
 same (temperature and quantity) . Such is Boyle's 
 famous law, discovered in 1662, and fourteen years 
 later re-discovered by Mariotte, under whose 1 name 
 it still goes in France. This law has some peculiar 
 variations which render it not quite true, even if 
 sufficiently exact. It declares that the density of
 
 406 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 a Gas is proportional to the pressure, indicating the 
 difference between the gaseous character and that 
 of the Liquid, which is almost non-elastic and re- 
 sists compression. Boyle's law must be conceived 
 to apply to the molecule whose expansion is 
 counteracted and turned to its opposite by ex- 
 ternal pressure, yet always with an internal re- 
 sistance which asserts itself when the pressure 
 is removed. So it comes that through the med- 
 ium of the gaseous molecule pressure can be con- 
 veyed. 
 
 2. Transmission of the Pressure of Gases. The 
 external pressure upon a Gas determines its . in- 
 ternal pressure outward, which is readily transmis- 
 sible. The molecular resistance pushes in all di- 
 rections for an outlet ; the gaseous molecule seeks 
 space for its suppressed expansion, while the liquid 
 molecule almost unexpanded conveys its resistance. 
 Thus the gaseous molecule becomes within itself 
 the seat of struggle between the inner and outer 
 forces, between compression and expansion. This 
 inner division with its fight is hardly found in the 
 liquid molecule. Air thus shows a deeper diremp- 
 tion within itself than water, which has no such 
 inner self-separation and self-recovery, as it trans- 
 mits its pressure immediately. But the molecule 
 of air accepts the outer pressure and transforms it 
 into an inner pressure, which then pushes outward 
 in the form of resistance, and this can become a 
 great power utilizable by man.
 
 THE GAS. 407 
 
 3. Gaseous Pressure Directed and Multiplied. 
 The expansive power of the Gas, or its pressure 
 outward must be confined in a closed vessel which 
 can be tapped and emit the molecular energy. 
 The most common example is the steam boiler, 
 which can be heated. Thus the machine is again 
 employed as in the Liquid, and indeed as in the 
 Mechanical Powers, to transfer, to distribute, and 
 to apply force generated outside of it. In the case 
 of steam, heat is used to expand the molecules, 
 the boiler to restrain this expansion which is drawn 
 off by a pipe and directed to driving the engine. 
 Thus the gas machine 'transfers one resistance 
 to overcoming another of a very different sort, 
 being in this regard comparable to the hydraulic 
 press. But the gas molecule with its systole and 
 diastole is capable of a far wider application 
 than the rigid liquid molecule, which has no such 
 inner contraction and dilatation (like a little 
 heart). 
 
 Molecular resistance may be supposed to have 
 spent itself when the Gas rushes out of its closed 
 chamber into freedom, and takes its original place 
 in the terrestrial adjustment. The throbbing 
 molecule (for so we may imagine it in the present 
 sphere) with its inner contraction and dilatation 
 has escaped from its immediate prison whose con- 
 finement caused all the pulsations of its little heart, 
 and finds itself in a state of liberation. But even 
 thus it is not free to roam through the universe, it
 
 408 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 discovers a new restraint upon itself whose char- 
 acter must next be considered. 
 
 III. Molecular Gravitation of Gases. It has 
 been already stated that the Gas is heavy, and thus 
 has finally to come under the influence of gravita- 
 tion, in spite of its expansibility, whose strength we 
 have just seen and measured. But this molecular 
 resistance yields at last to its antagonist and the 
 Gas gravitates earthward like other bodies — in 
 which act it reveals new phases of its character. 
 The weight of 100 cubic inches of dry air at an 
 atmospheric pressure of 30 inches, and at the tem- 
 perature of 16 degrees ' Centigrade, is 31 grains; 
 carbonic acid gas weighs half as much more, and 
 hydrogen one-fifteenth as much. Thus we may 
 suppose that a molecule of each different Gas is 
 drawn differently to the earth, and therein reveals 
 a phase of its individuality, which, recalcitrant 
 though it be, it has had in the end to submit to 
 the terrestrial master. That the air is heavy or 
 gravitates is strikingly shown by the air-pump. 
 
 1. Equilibrium. The great scientific act in the 
 determination of atmosphere, or of the molecular 
 gravitation of the Gas is the experiment of Tor- 
 ricelli, pupil of Galileo, which was first made in 
 1643. This was to equilibrate a column of air 
 with a column of mercury in a glass tube closed at 
 one end and inverted in a trough of mercury. It 
 was found that 30 inches of mercury would bal- 
 ance the entire height of the air. The weight of
 
 THE GAS. 409 
 
 a square inch of mercury 30 inches high is about 15 
 pounds/ which is taken as the unit of measure in 
 this realm and is called an atmosphere. Pascal 
 repeated Torricelli's experiment with water in- 
 stead of mercury and found that it rose to 34 feet, 
 or thirteen and a half times higher than mercury 
 and hence that it was so much lighter — a fact 
 which could be tested by the direct weighing of 
 the two substances. The typical Gas is now meas- 
 ured and with it we can measure other Gases. The 
 well-known barometer is based upon the Torri- 
 cellian experiment. 
 
 2. Undulation. The equilibrium of the Gas 
 can be disturbed, and there arises the undulation 
 as in the Liquid. But since the Gas has not only 
 the mobility of the Liquid but also its own restless 
 ever-stretching expansibility, its undulating char- 
 acter is far more decided and active than that of 
 the Liquid. Indeed the air is always in motion, has 
 to be on account of its innate self-extension. The 
 winds of the earth never stop and have a life of their 
 own, which is set forth in meteorology. But the 
 chief disturbance of the air produces what is 
 called Sound, which is sensed by a special organ, 
 that of hearing. The undulation of the stretched 
 string calls up by analogy the oscillatory move- 
 ment of the pendulum, and also of the Liquid. 
 They show the same struggle between gravitation 
 and radiation which causes the whirl of the sound- 
 waves. These, however, arc propagated not trans-
 
 410 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 versely, like water-waves, but longitudinally, along 
 the radial line from the center of disturbance, by 
 means of condensation and rarifaction ; the mole- 
 cule propagates its contraction and expansion or 
 its own inner process. This separation within (a 
 kind of self-activity) of the air has been already 
 noted in connection with the transmission of aerial 
 pressure, which, then silent, has now gotten a 
 voice, and utters its own internal movement. 
 When this internal movement is regular and peri- 
 odic, we enter the realm of the distinctively mu- 
 sical sound, which has the power of stimulating in 
 the mind (or Ego) its own fundamental process 
 (or Psychosis) . Thus the outer and inner (mental) 
 movements agree, and the sound is called accord- 
 ingly agreeable. Says Helmholtz : "The sensation 
 of a musical tone is due to rapid periodic motion 
 of a sonorous body" (Sensations of Tone p. 8). Mere 
 noise on the contrary is not periodic. 
 
 Moreover sound is capable of reflection, refrac- 
 tion, reduplication in echo and resonance. Thus 
 the sound-waves will show their analogy to the 
 light-waves. The periodic or self-returning tone 
 can be organized into the science of music with its 
 melody and harmony. This, however, we shall 
 have to pass over, as well as other striking details 
 of acoustics. The disturbance of the air which 
 causes undulation has a tendency to gravitate 
 toward an equilibrium, even if this be imperfectly 
 attained. In this average atmospheric condition,
 
 THE GAS. 411 
 
 the air is heavy and the body in it is heavy, both 
 being attracted by the earth ; is there any compar- 
 ative weighing of them, such as we observed in 
 the case of Specific Gravity? 
 
 3. Relative Weight. There is an instrument 
 called the baroscope, whose object to show to the 
 vision the comparative gravities of air and a solid. 
 A thin hollow sphere is balanced by a small iron 
 weight; both are put under the receiver of an air 
 pump, when the sphere descends, showing an in- 
 crease of gravitation in comparison with the ex- 
 haustion of the air. This increase can be meas- 
 ured, whereby it is shown to be equal to the 
 weight of the displaced air, which weight the small 
 solid loses. Thus the principles of Archimedes, who 
 discovered the Specific Gravity of the solid in 
 water, holds true of the solid in air; that is, 
 a body immersed in a Liquid or Gas loses weight 
 in proportion to the weight of the displaced fluid. 
 If therefore, a body be so constructed that it dis- 
 places its own weight of air, it begins to float; if it 
 displaces less than its own weight of air it will rise 
 upward. 
 
 Upon this principle air navigation depends, as 
 well as water navigation. To utilize the aerial as 
 well as the aqueous ocean for human inter-commu- 
 nication is felt to be a pressing problem of the 
 present time (1009). Possibly it has been already 
 solved, but we art 1 all eagerly waiting for the final 
 evidence. The start was made in 1783 at Anno-
 
 412 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 nay, France, by the brothers Montgolficr, with their 
 balloon filled with hot air, for which the physicist 
 Charles substituted hydrogen, lightest of Gases, 
 the same year and made an ascent. Since then 
 many forms of the balloon have been invented, the 
 chief aim being the adequately dirigible balloon. 
 But the aeroplane with its driving machinery will 
 probably be the air-ship of the future. 
 
 So we have made the essential round of the Gas 
 with its expansible molecule, which still gravitates 
 in spite of its own strong resistance to gravitation. 
 The second Fluid thus shows its inner doubleness, 
 its rise and fall, its expansion and compression, its 
 degravitation and its gravitation. We may say 
 that the diacosmical principle has herein mani- 
 fested itself intensely, but at last has had to yield 
 to the cosmical principle. The question rises: Is 
 there a Fluid whose expansion is not finally over- 
 come, whose gravitation is somehow counterpoised 
 by degravitation? Is there a third Fluid, next in 
 order, whose molecular equilibrium is not of the 
 Earth but of the physical All — the balance be- 
 tween Cosmos and Diacosmos? Science has felt 
 itself necessitated to adopt such a Fluid, though as 
 yet speculative. 
 
 This Fluid is the Ether. If we consider a column 
 of air, it becomes more and more tenuous as it 
 ascends from the earth, still it is heavy and grav- 
 itates. Each molecule may be regarded as the 
 arena of a continuous struggle between attraction
 
 THE GAS. 413 
 
 and the expanding resistance to it, or between 
 gravitation and degravitation, with the victory of 
 the former. Thinner and thinner becomes the air, 
 and weaker its molecules, but the conflict goes on 
 till we may conceive the last molecule, surely more 
 than a hundred miles high, in its ultimate rarifica- 
 tion. This molecule still is heavy and gravitates, 
 overcoming all its expansion and degravitation. 
 But the next step is to the conception of a fluid 
 molecule which indeed gravitates but also degrav- 
 itates equally, which thus cuts loose from the 
 earth and from all particular bodies, and has its 
 own independent process of gravitation and de- 
 gravitation throughout all space. Such a molecule 
 may well be deemed the universal molecule, pre- 
 senting to all special forms of matter one or the 
 other side of itself. For instance the Sun, attract- 
 ing by gravitation, can reach the attracted body 
 through the gravitating side of the etheric mole- 
 cule ; on the other hand solar degravitation, such 
 as Heat and Light, can find its corresponding me- 
 dium in the degravitating Ether. 
 
 The Newtonian universal gravitation is not 
 strictly universal, but particular, and takes place 
 between particular bodies. Consider the stellar 
 world ; it is a vast reservoir of special attractions 
 going out from every star in every direction. 
 Gravitation to be truly universal, must be of the 
 universal body, or rather of the universal Matter, 
 not merely of the particular body. This uni-
 
 414 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 versal principle in its varied aspects we shall 
 next take up. 
 
 III. 
 The Ether. 
 
 We have now come to a hypothetical Fluid, a 
 purely speculative entity, but getting to be, if it is 
 not already, the central subject of investigation in 
 physical science. It has never been isolated as a 
 real thing, it is simply an inference or an idea; still 
 physicists are saying with a good deal of unanim- 
 ity that they believe in it as fully as in their own 
 existence. It is not or has not been amenable to 
 direct experiment, and thus brings the scientific 
 mind to challenge one of its fundamental canons. 
 Ether is the supersensible springing from and cap- 
 ping the sensible. Certainly a curious sight it is 
 to behold the vast army of scientists cutting loose 
 from the world palpable and taking flight to a 
 realm impalpable, which cannot be seen, heard, 
 tasted, smelt, which seems to be invoking a new 
 sense for its examination. Such is the most strik- 
 ing psychical fact in the Natural Science of the 
 time; it is getting more and more supernatural in 
 its way, while violently condemning the old super- 
 naturalism ; Physics is galloping toward Metaphys- 
 ics, though not failing to hurl curses at its old 
 foe into whose domain it is rushing. 
 
 Ether, then, is the problem of the Diacosmos; 
 its existence at present is seldom doubted, but
 
 THE ETHER. 415 
 
 its character is under the fire of fierce discus- 
 sion. It has become the arena of every diversity 
 of opinion, which has free play for exploitation, 
 since no statement of this realm can be caught 
 and held to the test of direct experiment. And 
 still one cannot help feeling that this confusion is 
 evolving toward order, as ancient Chaos did in the 
 poem of Hesiod. In fact Ether, both word and 
 thing, seems to hover over the whole history of 
 science from the beginning down to the present, 
 in a sort of etherial pillar of cloud, very elu- 
 sive, but very persistent. The old Greek phi- 
 losopher, Anaximander, of Miletus, appears to 
 have first thrown out the thought, as well as 
 the vocable, in his search for the ultimate prin- 
 ple of the Universe, which he held to be aither 
 (often called air). Interesting is it to see Sir 
 Isaac Newton tampering with the subtle Fluid 
 which he names Ether. The law of gravitation 
 he found and formulated as all the world knows; 
 but he was well aware of a something lying back 
 of gravitation, a medium in which and through 
 which it acts. Says he in his famous letter to 
 Boyle: "I will suppose Ether to consist of parts 
 differing from one another in subtlety by infinite 
 degrees"; the letter runs on constructing a theory 
 of this Ether, by which he might be able to ex- 
 plain "the cause of gravity." But Newton never 
 succeeded in putting together any experimental 
 contrivance with which he might grip and exam-
 
 416 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 ine a speck of this infinitely subtle substance. And 
 that wonder-working mathematical machine of his 
 brain could never quite be adjusted so as to meas- 
 ure this Ether. Indeed Newton, as all now see, 
 was precluded by his corpuscular theory of light, 
 from taking the first step in finding the constitu- 
 tion of the Ether, which began to hint a little 
 about itself in Young's experiments showing the 
 undulation of light, during the first years of the 
 nineteenth century. Evidently an "all-pervading 
 Ether" hovered before Newton's mind during his 
 whole scientific life, as a kind of background of 
 the phenomenal world which he was unable to enter. 
 In fact his greatest piece of work, the theory of 
 universal gravitation, necessarily calls up such a 
 medium as its originative source. For Newton did 
 not cling to the belief of an actio in distans, though 
 we have all been taught so in our school-days ; he 
 may have fluctuated at times. Here is a strong 
 statement in one of his moods (third letter to 
 Bentley): "That one body may act upon another 
 at a distance, though a vacuum, without the me- 
 diation of anything else . . . . is to me so 
 great an absurdity that I believe no man" of 
 competent judgment ever fell into it. This was 
 probably Newton's dominating view, though in 
 other passages he is not so emphatic. In general, 
 however, he declares: "I do not take gravity for 
 an essential property of bodies." It may be added 
 that the science of to-day is still engaged in a
 
 THE ETHER. 417 
 
 mighty wrestle with Newton's unsolved problem 
 of action at a distance through the mediation of 
 an omnipresent Ether, which is supposed to be be- 
 hind and somehow to determine universal gravita- 
 tion, possibly by mechanical impact. 
 
 Accordingly Ether, in the mind of the scientist, 
 is a postulates I universal Fluid, co-equal with all 
 space and filling the same, inter-planetary and also 
 inter-stellar, embracing the Heliosphere as well as 
 the Cosmosphere, between which it forms some 
 kind of unity or connecting tissue. The Fluid 
 universal it is called, and like the universal it can 
 only be the product of the thinking All-Self, whose 
 thought we have to re-think or re-create. Ether 
 is not merely subjective, it is existent, it is already 
 made though we, each Ego of us, have to re-make 
 it for ourselves. It is a medium, actively so, or 
 that which mediates, having thus mediational 
 power which in its way inter-correlates the whole 
 physical universe. The attraction of gravitation 
 is declared universal, extending its reach to the 
 remotest spaces of the Pancosmos, and binding all 
 Matter and Motion together, probably through the 
 mediation of Ether. This transmits force which 
 is a mode of Motion, in the form of radiative waves 
 or vibrations: in this sense it is radio-active, as 
 well as in itself probably, for we now hear that 
 everything is radio-active, especially in the realm 
 of the Diacosmos. Etheric molecules radiate grav- 
 itational lines from every cosmieal body to all the
 
 418 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS . 
 
 rest, and need but its material presence to stimu- 
 late the radiative act of gravitation through the 
 spatial immensities. 
 
 Ether may be regarded as the primordial proto- 
 plasm of the physical universe, the earliest sub- 
 stance of Nature, from which all her different 
 forms have evolved. Planets, suns, nebulae were 
 in the beginning the one single protoplasmic mate- 
 rial, the potentiality of all the others which have 
 since evolved. This thought carries us back to 
 the two elements with which we saw the Cosmos 
 starting: Motion and Matter. We conceive the 
 Ether to be these twain still in their primal unity, 
 before they had become separated from each other. 
 If all things of Nature are sprung of those ele- 
 mental twins, Motion and Matter, there was a 
 time and a condition in which they were not born, 
 but sleeping united in the same womb of the All. 
 In this view Ether was the first separation of Nat- 
 ure from the universal Self, the earliest form of 
 the Pancosmos, in which all evolution lies implicit. 
 We might call it the pancosmical egg out of which 
 were to hatch all the stars and what they contain. 
 
 Next this primordial protoplasm is to divide 
 within itself, as it is the product of division and so 
 is inherently divisive. Such division of it is ex- 
 plicitly Motion and Matter, with the involved 
 quantitative clement (as all division involves 
 quantity or how-much). Ether, then, is origi- 
 nally composed of Motion and Matter as yet un-
 
 THE ETHER. 4 19 
 
 differentiated, the universal substance filling all 
 space, and the first created or separated thing of 
 Nature. Thus we are whirled back to the begin- 
 ning of the Cosmos, whose two first elements we 
 find to be one in Ether. 
 
 But we must reach out to a third conception in 
 this domain, namely, the constitution of the proto- 
 plasmic Ether, which is composed of particles or 
 molecules smallest of the small. Each molecule 
 of it we have to think as made up of the primal 
 elemental constituents, Motion and Matter. Very 
 different is this from a molecule of water or of air, 
 which have two chemical elements conjoined; but 
 these two, Motion and Matter, are far more pri- 
 mary than any chemical elements, indeed they are 
 the elements of all elements. Such is the unique 
 particle or molecule of Ether, which thus must be 
 conceived as the primal constituent of all succeed- 
 ing Nature, not only on earth but to the farthest 
 regions of the Pancosmos. The electron, which 
 now dominates physical science, is usually defined 
 to be a simple charge of electricity, pure force 
 without material substrate.' Such a view is one- 
 sided, indeed inconceivable. Motion (or energy) 
 without Matter, or Matter without Motion exists 
 not in Nature. In this electrical age the electron 
 unduly enthrones electricity, which is in realitv 
 only one of the radiants, only one manifestation of 
 the Ether as universal medium. It is, therefore, 
 a mistake to say, as is so often said just now that
 
 420 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Matter is nothing but electricity, or one form of 
 energy or Motion. Hence the electron calls for and 
 indeed is pushing out beyond itself toward a truly 
 universal principle or element which must lie in 
 the universal protoplasm of Nature, and which can 
 be made the constitutive principle of all forms of 
 the Diacosmos, as well as of the Cosmos. 
 
 Such an elemental idea we may name the 
 etherion. We say idea, for such an object, though 
 conceived as real, remains supersensible and ideal. 
 But the speculative side of physical science, as al- 
 ready observed, has now become uppermost and 
 must work itself out in this ideal domain to scien- 
 tific completeness, at least during its present epoch 
 of efflorescence. Hereafter a new trend may set 
 in. Coming back to the etherion, we may note 
 the rapid evolution toward it during the past 
 century, in the atom of Dalton, in the ion of Far- 
 aday, finally in the electron of the present time, 
 whose very limitation must evolve the etherion of 
 to-morrow. Only in the universality of the Ether 
 can the universal element or constituent find its 
 realization. 
 
 According to the foregoing conception, the Ether 
 is a Fluid, the third Fluid in the first stage of the 
 Diacosmos. Some have denied its fluidity; Lord 
 Kelvin calls it a jelly. But all assign to it a wave- 
 power, an undulatory character when stimulated. 
 We conceive it likewise to be molecular in constitu- 
 tion like the other Fluids. Still its molecule is
 
 THE ETHER. 421 
 
 very differently constituted from that of water and 
 air for instance. The first (water) is a compound 
 of chemical elements, the second (air) is a mixture 
 of chemical elements, the third (ether) is an im- 
 mediate union, not of chemical but of the original 
 elements of the world's protoplasm. Such a mole- 
 cule we have dared call an etherion, a term con- 
 structed after the analogy of the ion and the 
 electron, its precursors in the chase for the ultimate 
 physical principle. All three molecules of fluidity, 
 the aqueous, the aerial and the etheric, have a 
 common elemental constitution in the conjunction 
 of two elements, yet with the differences already 
 mentioned. Thus they form the cycle of Fluids in 
 the Diacosmos; the Ether (the third stage) may 
 be conceived as sharing with water (the first stage) 
 the latter's chief mediational characteristic, namely 
 the transverse wave-movement, which vibrates the 
 radiants transversely through all distance. 
 
 And now for a difficulty which naturally comes 
 up in the mind. If these etheric molecules be spher- 
 ical, they do not fully fit together, there must be a 
 void between them, very small indeed but still real. 
 Thus arises an inter-etheric problem, which seems to 
 indicate that the Ether is not the universal Fluid, 
 but is at last limited by empty space between its 
 molecules. On the other hand if these molecules 
 be absolutely expansible, they must occupy any 
 such void. 
 
 In this connection the Ether can be imagined as
 
 422 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the ocean of the universe embracing all extension, 
 if it be not just that which extends spatially. In 
 this universal ocean are swimming all the celestial 
 bodies like islands, multitudinous certainly, but 
 the largest of them are very small in comparison 
 with the magnitude of their environing Fluid . It 
 has no surface on which its more solid substances 
 may float; or rather its surface is everywhere, is a 
 potentiality like point, line, and surface in space. 
 Each star or planet has to geometrize it with mo- 
 tion, for it is also the possibility of all measure. 
 The Ether as a totality may be conceived as the 
 one single all-embracing, yea jdl-engendering ocean 
 of the Pancosmos, out of which everything else in 
 Nature is to follow, and to which it is to return. 
 The old Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, with his 
 universal flux seems to have glimpsed the Ether. 
 
 It may be added that each of the other two 
 Fluids has its ocean likewise, not universal but 
 special and limited, indeed only terrestrial. Water 
 forms our great mundane ocean, covering accord- 
 ing to the common estimate three-fourths of the 
 globe's surface, and seeking a steady equilibrium 
 in molecular lines of gravity toward the common 
 center of the earth, to which it seems tied by radi- 
 ating ropes of force. Air forms the second fluid 
 ocean completely surrounding the globe and cov- 
 ering it many miles deep (put now at a hundred) 
 with its ever-expanding particles or molecules. 
 Still the air is heavy and in spite of rebound is
 
 THE ETHER. 423 
 
 brought at last to assume also molecular lines o.f 
 gravity toward the terrestrial center in a kind of ra- 
 diation. The atmosphere has a very indefinite 
 upper surface to its ocean, but the lower surfaec or 
 bottom is sharply marked by the limit of land and 
 water, both of which it embosoms. But the third 
 fluid ocean, the etheric, is the unlimited one,, infinite- 
 ly expansible and expanded in space, not only em- 
 bracing the other two oceans but penetrating them 
 to every molecule, which can offer no resistance to 
 its subtle insinuation, being of it originally. Such 
 are the three circumambient oceans in which our 
 globe reposes, though this is no boundary against the 
 third. Note the three degrees of approach toward 
 universality in them: the aqueous ocean is but 
 partial on the earth, having to share its dominion 
 with the solid land ; the aerial ocean is universally 
 environing as far as the globe is concerned, but 
 limited to it; finally the etheric ocean is not bound 
 by the terrestrial tie exclusively, as are the other 
 two Fluids, but sweeps on and on to spatial uni- 
 versality, evidently in defiance of all gravitation. 
 Here we are brought face to face with a prob- 
 lem as yet unsolved : Has the Ether any weight, 
 however slight? And in general, what is the rela- 
 tion of it to gravitation? The most expansible 
 Gas on earth is at last overcome by attraction; but 
 in the Ether the expansibility of matter has quite 
 reached the point of equaling or equilibrating the 
 power of gravitation. Moreover the Ether as uni-
 
 424 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 vcrsal Fluid lies in many fields of gravitation, yea 
 in all of them absolutely; one field cannot help 
 counter-poising the field of another, and so there 
 rises in the Ether a kind of universal interaction 
 of one gravitating force or perchance wave with 
 another. In fact universal gravitation as applied 
 to the universal Ether undoes itself; the sum of 
 all attractions in every direction must be equal at 
 each point in the Ether. The attractive force of 
 single bodies for one another is mutual, and varies 
 directly according to the mass and inversely ac- 
 cording to the square of the distance. But these 
 conditions do not hold in the Ether, which is all 
 mass and which is everywhere or is all distance. 
 Gravitation pertains to bodies individualized and 
 separate, not to the unseparated universal body, 
 or just the body of the universe as physical. Grav- 
 itation is really particular in spite of its ordinary 
 predicate; if universalized it becomes self-contra- 
 dictory. Attraction is of bodies outside of one 
 another; but what can be outside of the Ether to 
 attract it, being itself ubiquitous and universal? 
 Can a universe, even if of Matter, be heavy? 
 Only if there be two or more universes for mutual 
 gravitation — which is of course a contradiction in 
 terms. Gravitation is thus an externality which 
 must become internal and so vanish as externa] 
 in the universal body, the Ether. 
 
 What is this internal gravitation which we con 
 ceive to be inherent in the body universal, the
 
 THE ETHER. 425 
 
 Ether? It is always moving in and toward its 
 own, itself, not outwardly toward something else. 
 We now must come back to the conception of the 
 etheric molecule or the etherion as the primal 
 oneness of Motion and Matter, or as Matter mov- 
 ing and Motion mattering (if we dare coin such a 
 word). It may be here added than in one sense 
 gravitation can be and is called universal. It holds 
 of all particular bodies, which as separated gravi- 
 tate toward one another. But this presupposes 
 that the universal Matter has been specialized into 
 distinct bodies, which then mutually attract, but 
 before such attraction of particular matters, there 
 is the original Ether whence they came. Gravita- 
 tion is accordingly a special, particular act between 
 particulars, even if it holds of all of them. 
 
 We have now come to the two extremes of the 
 physical universe — they are often called infinites 
 by way of emphasis — the infinitely large or ex- 
 tended, the Ether, and the infinitely small or di- 
 vided, the Etherion. Both belong together in one 
 substance, which is the primordial protoplasm of 
 total Nature. We may look at them in another 
 aspect: the Ether is the extreme of the Cosmos, 
 while the Etherion is the extreme of the Diacos- 
 mos. In their unity we may see the original unity 
 out of which these two chief stages of Nature have 
 unfolded into difference. The common molecular 
 structure of the Pancosmos we find in this primal 
 mother-element of Nature.
 
 426 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Another characteristic must be emphasized: 
 there is everywhere and always Motion in the 
 Ether — universal Motion in the universal sub- 
 stance. In this way it is supremely the medium 
 of Motion; it is the bearer of all special forms of 
 Motion; we may deem it the vast reservoir which 
 has to be tapped before anything can be moved. 
 In the sweep of my hand I have to draw upon the 
 store of universal Motion and make it particular 
 in my case. That store is around me and every- 
 where else in the physical universe. The Ether 
 is, then, the reservoir of all force and energy, 
 which are but phases of Motion. The problem 
 with man is, how can he get hold of it and direct 
 it to his end in greater and greater volumes. For 
 he does not make it at all, it exists primordially 
 as universal, but it has to be specialized. All move- 
 ments from the flight of a piece of dust to the 
 whirl of the planets is a specialization of Motion, a 
 more or less extensive draught from its well-head. 
 At the same time we are not to forget that this 
 Motion has its material counterpart or envelope of 
 Matter; the Ether is their primal protoplasmic 
 oneness in its smallest particle or molecule, which 
 we call the Etherion. Physical Science which 
 once gave all to Matter, is now inclined to give all 
 to Motion, in some of its forms, as force, energy, 
 electricity. Each is a one-sided stage in the con- 
 ception of total Nature, which cannot do or even be 
 without both in the greatest as well as in the least.
 
 THE ETHER. 427 
 
 The Ether as fountain of Motion has many ways 
 of being tapped or perchance stirred to activity. 
 It is the ever-moving medium, mediating all special 
 Motions yet keeping its own universal Motion. We 
 might call the Ether pure Motion, as some have 
 done; but it is just as well pure Matter. Now 
 there are various degrees of exciting this univer- 
 sal medium and of sharing in its first nature, 
 which is universality. The walk of a man has rel- 
 atively little participation in this medium, still a 
 little; the rotation of the earth has considerably 
 more, and light very much more; but most of all 
 gravitation comes nearest to sharing in pure Mo- 
 tion, and hence is often called universal. Attrac- 
 tion of body for body seems to act instantaneously 
 and goes right through all obstacles so far as we 
 are yet able to discriminate. The Radiants — 
 Heat, Light, Electricity — are supposed to start 
 waves in the Ether which largely correspond to its 
 original elemental Motion — hence their velocity. 
 But they do not coincide; the electron is not as 
 universal as the Etherion. Wireless telegraphy 
 has found a way of participating deeply in the 
 etheric medium with its universal Motion, and of 
 making it carry a message instantaneously (as far 
 as we can tell) many hundreds of miles. It stim- 
 ulates Motion and Matter almost (though not 
 (mite) at their creative source, and gives an im- 
 press there which may yet be borne to the stars. 
 For Ether is the mediational ocean between all
 
 428 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 particularity in the universe. We may call it the 
 All-Ether, first natural product or separation of 
 the All-Self in its complete process as Parapsy- 
 chosis. A curious fact of the time is that some 
 scientists regard the Ether as the original soul- 
 stuff of humanity, out of which consciousness and 
 mind have gradually evolved. One asks in vain, 
 Whence this soul-stuff? It is interesting and sig- 
 nificant that so many naturalists are inclined to 
 project into Motion and Matter an elemental soul- 
 form, and trace its evolution upward. The diffi- 
 culty of origin, however, still remains. Undoubt- 
 edly all Nature has a psychical strain and must be 
 psychically ordered as a part or phase of the uni- 
 versal Psychosis, or of the psychical process of the 
 universe (Parapsychosis). From this indeed Nat- 
 ure sprang, and .she always bears the stamp of 
 her origin. 
 
 At this point one may well ask : Will man ever 
 be able to tap the Ether immediately at its source, 
 which is verily the source of universal energy, that 
 is, of the energy of the universe? Will he yet 
 make a machine which will directly employ or 
 utilize Motion in itself, that is, Motion of Matter in 
 its original purity? That will certainly be the 
 machine of all machines, for the machinery hitherto 
 constructed merely catches some little drops of 
 power from this unlimited ocean of universal en- 
 ergy, and that in an indirect way, through some 
 intermediate material. The simple Mechanical
 
 THE ETHER. 429 
 
 Powers we have seen using primarily animal force; 
 the hydraulic press seizes and multiplies the might 
 of the liquid, water; the steam engine concen- 
 trates and directs the energy of a gas or vapor; 
 air likewise is compressed and thus made a me- 
 dium of power in many ways by various mechan- 
 ical contrivances. But all these materials — solid, 
 liquid, gas — are intermediate and derived, so are 
 also their various energies; they get themselves as 
 well their powers from the one original material 
 Power, the Ether. Now the cry, the aspiration is 
 for the universal Machine which will function the 
 universal energy, the primordial Motion of Matter 
 itself. Associated machines we are already get- 
 ting; electrical energy is segregated and stored by 
 machinery in vast reservoirs which can be tapped 
 and turned to thousandfold other mechanical 
 purposes. Likewise liquid energy is gathered from 
 a thousand streams and united in a huge dam (a 
 kind of elemental association) whose power is 
 drawn off by a thousand conduits and made to turn 
 mill-wheels or to generate other forms of energy (a 
 good instance is Niagara, to which can now be 
 added the artificial reservoirs constructed in the 
 Rockies and in the Alleghenies) . Truly an image 
 of man's own Social Whole is this, of his Eco- 
 nomic Order specially, which gathers up all the 
 little streams of production into great centers of 
 aggregation from which these products are distrib- 
 uted to the millions. But the primary original ag-
 
 430 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 gregation of total energy, the etheric ocean, has 
 hardly }^et been drawn upon directly by the me- 
 chanical contrivance, though in wireless telegraphy 
 we seem to be getting a little pinch on it through 
 an electrical device. 
 
 The nebular hypothesis of Kant and Laplace 
 starts the universe with nebulse, the original 
 Matter in a state of extreme tenuity which pro- 
 ceeds to greater and greater condensation. In 
 this theory Matter dominates, though Motion and 
 Energy are not left out. Given that nebulous fire- 
 mist, then the universe follows or rather evolves. 
 This view has had a great vogue in our evolution- 
 ary century and is still largely held, though not 
 without sharp attack. Of course we must in time 
 peer behind the fire-mist and originate the origin, 
 or evolve the evolution. Thus we are borne back 
 to the Ether or something like it. 
 
 On account of its diverse forms or, better, its 
 manifold specialization, conjecture has sometimes 
 set up many different Ethers, each with its partic- 
 ular character. But we are to see that the univer- 
 sal Ether particularizes itself into these diverse 
 forms of itself in adjustment to its excitant, or, as 
 this is often called, its disturbance. One Ether 
 there is, then, not typical as water is the typical 
 liquid, or air the typical gas; the Ether we must 
 regard as the universal Fluid, including all its 
 forms and indeed creative of them. It has the 
 universal molecule which is verily the molecule of 
 the Universe as physical.
 
 THE ETHER. 431 
 
 The Ether is usually designated as imponderable; 
 in a sense this is so and in a sense not. It has its 
 material constituent, and would thus need to be 
 heavy. Its gravitation must be conceived as pan- 
 cosmical, not terrestrial specially nor solar; it 
 gravitates not earthward or sunward but all ward. 
 It is truly universal and thus is the medium of all 
 particular gravitation. It gravitates everywhither 
 and so must also be degravitating. 
 
 The Ether propagates specially by waves, by an 
 oscillatory movement in its substance from the 
 source of its excitation. These waves move in every 
 direction from the center and thus in form at least 
 show radio-activity which belongs to the Ether in- 
 herently. Moreover they are transverse, having an 
 up-and-down movement similar to water, not a 
 to-and-fro movement like air. 
 
 Ether, the most attenuated and elastic of sub- 
 stances, is said by Lord Kelvin to be more rigid 
 than steel ; its enormous velocity gives to it such 
 rigidity. This fact may be compared with the 
 effect of velocity upon another fluid, water, which 
 falling five hundred meters through a tube could 
 not be penetrated by a saber stroke (Le Bon) . 
 The radiant excitation of the Ether must come 
 into rapport with the velocity in order to be borne 
 by it. For it is a constant quantity; Heat, Light 
 and Electricity have all been found to have a 
 speed of 186,000 miles per second; the inference is 
 that their common medium, the Ether, has their
 
 432 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 speed or has it for the Radiants, which, however, 
 may not be able to adjust themselves to the full 
 etheric rapidity. 
 
 It was a great triumph for science when the 
 three Radiants — Heat, Light and Electricity- 
 were co-ordinated by their common velocity in the 
 etheric medium. The first necessary step may be 
 deemed the work of the Danish astronomer, 
 Roemer, in calculating the speed of light. The 
 next great step was taken when Young showed 
 the movement of Light was undulatory, not cor- 
 puscular. Hertz's discovery that Electricity moved 
 with the speed of Light, put the three Radiants 
 into a common class, the second of the Diacosmos, 
 though each has its own special characteristics. 
 Still this constant velocity of the Radiants has 
 been recently assailed, as have so many other 
 transmitted dogmas. For instance it is claimed 
 that experiment has shown Light to vary slightly 
 in speed according to its varying intensity. 
 
 The Ether seems to show the character of water 
 in a number of points. Its wave-motion is trans- 
 verse like that of water and unlike that of air. In 
 its rigidity through velocity it resembles water. 
 In water begins the visible special undulation of 
 the Fluid which in Ether becomes invisible and 
 universal The Ether has also not a few charac- 
 teristics in common with the air. All three are 
 radiative of Motion, and therein show their native 
 radio-activity, after the general form in which we
 
 THE ETHER. 433 
 
 conceive this term. The statement is frequently 
 made that the air cannot transmit Light or any 
 of the Radiants since the air-wave does not move 
 transversely (that is, in harmony with the etheric 
 Fluid), but longitudinally. In this respect Ether 
 is like water. Moreover its molecules are supposed 
 to be rotational, and probably on this side recep- 
 tive of the excitation of the Radiant, which is also 
 rotatory. The rotatory movement of the etheric 
 molecule has been declared to be so great that it 
 projects light, like that of the Sun, far beyond the 
 Solar System into the Cosmosphere. 
 
 The conception of the etheric molecule as ma- 
 terial on the one hand, yet as imponderable on the 
 other, is the grand dualism in this sphere ; to over- 
 come which scientists are wrestling. Here we may 
 note the solution of the distinguished Russian chem- 
 ist, Medelejeff. He declares it to be a chemical ele- 
 ment, whose atomic weight is a millionth of that 
 of hydrogen, hitherto deemed the lightest element. 
 He puts Ether into his zero group along with 
 helium and argon, labeling it the x element (gas- 
 eous) of the chemical totality, which he has so 
 wonderfully organized in his Periodic System (to 
 be mentioned later under Chemism) . Such a theory 
 regards the Ether as material and heavy. Of 
 course it at once runs upon a difficulty : if the 
 etheric molecule has weight, what is attracting it? 
 Or, as universal, how can it have any particular 
 attraction which finally determines it? The fore- 
 
 28
 
 434 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 going theory leaves out the real difficulty : that of 
 degravitation, which must be equal to gravitation 
 in the Ether. Yet Mendelejeff's idea has its sig- 
 nificance; it at least suggests the original element, 
 the universal chemical element, from which all the 
 others have been evolved and to which they may 
 be reduced. Thus the Ether chemically consid- 
 ered may be taken as the primordial unit of the 
 eighty (more or less) elements of chemistry. 
 
 When we come to Gravitation, we are met by a 
 wholly new potence of the Ether as medium, which 
 now seems to manifest itself in a new power, quite 
 as absolute Motion. Heat, Light, Electricity, have 
 no effect upon the function of Gravitation, which 
 acts as if independent of these diacosmical energies. 
 It is not obstructed by intervening bodies, physi- 
 cists say. It is constant, unchangeable, inex- 
 haustible; it is not diminishing as are the forces of 
 the Diacosmos. According to Laplace its velocfty 
 has to be at least fifty million times greater than 
 that of Light. Naturally the mind speculates 
 about the connection between Gravitation and the 
 Ether. Bodies gravitating toward each other man- 
 ifest their unity as Matter, but this same x manifes- 
 tation as attraction is quite one with the universal 
 Motion of the Ether itself. Gravitation partakes 
 of two Motions: the universal and the special; as 
 universal it is instantaneous, ideal, purely etheric; 
 but as special it is retarded, real, measurable: that 
 the Sun attracts the Earth is the universal instan-
 
 THE ETHER. 435 
 
 taneous Motion ; that the Earth moves toward the 
 Sun is the particular finite Motion. The first was 
 deemed once the sudden actio in distans, but is 
 now regarded as etheric action, the second is the 
 existent terrestrial movement in its orbit. The 
 diacosmical Radiants also show this universal side 
 of Motion. We may repeat that the universe as a 
 totality cannot be gravitative without contradict- 
 ing itself, that is, without negating itself as uni- 
 verse. Only as particularized can it come under 
 the law of Gravitation. In this state of particu- 
 larity Newton grasped it and formulated the afore- 
 said law. 
 
 To a limited degree we may conceive a body as 
 radiating Gravitation in every direction. The Sun 
 is the center of attraction for all bodies of the solar 
 system, as it is the center of emission of light. In 
 both ways it stimulates the Motion of the Ether, 
 but very differently; performing in the one case its 
 cosmical,in the other its diacosmical part, or that of 
 unification there and of separation here. It strives 
 on the one hand to bring all its Matter to itself, 
 then on the other it strives to eject its own very 
 self as energy into the circumjacent space. 
 
 This vast pancosmical reservoir of Ether with its 
 ever-moving molecules — what is the direction of 
 its Motion? It would seem to be the connecting 
 element between all portions of the Solar System; 
 then it must sweep out into the Cosmosphere with 
 which it connects the Heliospherc; it is the Ocean
 
 436 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOG. 
 
 which washes every nook and whirls into and out 
 of every bay of the Pancosmos. The universal 
 Fluid of the physical universe we conceive it and 
 imagine it to be swirling through our relatively 
 little corner of the Sun's dominion, and then re- 
 turning in its round of inter-stellar spaces. 
 
 To give any detailed organization of this third 
 Fluid, would be even more hypothetical than the 
 hypothetical Ether itself. It is only possible to 
 present some intimations derived from the two 
 other Fluids, the Liquid and the Gas, which we 
 have seen showing a common underlying order, 
 which order we may conjecture to have some 
 analogies in the. Ether. 
 
 1. If we take the etheric molecule as spherical, 
 we must add to it a complete expansibility or the 
 possibility of assuming all shapes. Hence the 
 molecularity of the Ether is not to be conceived 
 as discontinuous (Lord Kelvin and many other 
 physicists) or as granulated. Such a view implies 
 the rigidity of the etheric molecule, which does 
 not comport with its absolutely expansible nature. 
 Moreover such a view calls up an inter-ether as 
 limit to the Ether, thus denying the latter's uni- 
 versality. In such a case, too, the series of atom, 
 ion, electron, would not stop with the etherion, 
 but would go on ad infinitum. That is, between 
 the etheric molecules there would have to be con- 
 ceived pure space or some new different Ether 
 with its molecule. But this conception denies the
 
 THE ETHER. 437 
 
 very nature of the etherion, which is the ultimate 
 germ or blastule of the Pancosmos. 
 
 2. The transmissive character of the Ether must 
 be deemed its chief property which takes the form 
 of undulation like the other Fluids. Yet it is also 
 very different from other sorts of undulation, being 
 the universal one, or that of the universe as phys- 
 ical. It is a continuous equilibration of Motion 
 and Matter, which is the original source of all en- 
 ergy; it is the primordial oscillation between Cos- 
 mos and Diacosmos, gravitating and degravitating. 
 Attraction, being of all directions, keeps forever 
 acting yet also counteracting itself: thus arises and 
 continues the undulatory process of the Ether, 
 weighting yet unweighting itself, oscillating not so 
 much in Time as with Time itself (see preceding p. 
 64). It may be added that such an etheric undula- 
 tion is a quantum and hence measurable, though as 
 yet mathematical measurement has been able to 
 seize it only in some of very limited manifestations. 
 
 3. What we have called the molecular gravita- 
 tion of Fluids, in the case of air and water for in- 
 stance, is determined finally by the pull of the 
 earth. But now in the etheric molecule this par- 
 ticular terrestrial attraction is countervailed by 
 what we may name universal attraction; we con- 
 ceive the Etherion gravitating specially, but also 
 overcoming such gravitation, that is, degravitat- 
 ing. This we cannot conceive as a dead piece of 
 matter (like Lord Kelvin's jelly), but as a perpet-
 
 438 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 ual process in itself, which fact makes it the uni- 
 versal medium of all gravitation (Cosmos) as well 
 as of all degravitation (Diacosmos), 
 
 Yet with a difference which must be here noted. 
 It is evident that there is an inner movement, we 
 may indeed say, an inner conflict in every Etherion 
 as well as in the grand totality of the Ether; its 
 material unity (expressed in gravitation) is first 
 and cosmical, then comes its strongly separative 
 and diacosmical act of assailing and undoing this 
 gravitative unity, whereby it degravitates and 
 forms the basic undulating process of itself as uni- 
 versal medium. The result is that the etheric 
 molecule, when stimulated by a Radiant, such as 
 Light, is already occupied at home by its own task 
 of degravitation, and so is in a manner preoccu- 
 pied, using a part of its energy for its own activ- 
 ity. In response to this excitation from the out- 
 side by a Radiant it can give only a share of its 
 energy which is thereby limited, partial, and ac- 
 cordingly measurable in space and time. On the 
 other hand this same etheric molecule, when stim- 
 ulated by gravitation has no such inner self-opposi- 
 tion to overcome as in the case of degravitation, 
 and hence is practically endowed with unlimited 
 motion. Such is our solution of that problem 
 which has so deeply troubled the physicist, and 
 which may be stated in a special case as follows : 
 Why does light travel with a limited measurable 
 velocity, while gravitation is seemingly instanta-
 
 THE ETHER. ■ 439 
 
 neous and immeasurable? The etheric molecule 
 has to unbalance its own gravitation before taking 
 up and transmitting light; thus it has double duty 
 in the case of the Radiants — which it has not in 
 the case of simple attraction. At present we can 
 put the contrast in this way: the Ether in response 
 to gravitation, universally gravitates; while it, in 
 response to degravitation can but partially and 
 specially degravitate. 
 
 - Here we must bring to an end our little treatise 
 on the coming science of Ethericity with its two 
 chief elements, the Ether and the Etherion. It is 
 as yet wholly speculative, but altogether neces- 
 sary, even in the opinion of the hardest-headed 
 experimentalists. It is getting to be acknowl- 
 edged that Electricity, which is having such a 
 vogue in physical science through its practical 
 side, goes back to and rests upon Ethericity. 
 
 But it is time to pass to the power which rouses, 
 excites, stimulates this etheric medium in its own 
 diacosmical fashion. We call this stage the radi- 
 ant Diacosmos, being the second stage, which 
 shows its basic separation in the two princi- 
 ples, the stimulating and the mediating, both of 
 which are next to be taken up.
 
 440 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 THE RADIANT DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Not the molecular principle now but the fact of 
 radiation rises to view and becomes the funda- 
 mental characteristic of Nature. We pass from 
 the Fluids resisting gravitation indeed, but tend- 
 ing to drop back- under its control, to a new group 
 of appearances in the Diacosmos, to which we 
 shall give a special name, the Radiants. These are 
 Heat, Light and Electricity, which have the com- 
 mon trait of radiating from a center of excitation. 
 Thus they manifest attraction reversed and turn 
 to work the other way from that which we have 
 seen in the Cosmos. Instead of bodies being drawn 
 together by gravitation, they now seem to be sep- 
 arated and repelled throughout the physical uni- 
 verse. Cohesion is not only negated but is turned 
 to its opposite; a force which it held fast and 
 made to work in harness, has broken loose and 
 dashes out mightily in every direction toward the 
 extremities of the Cosmosphere. The light of the 
 sun and stars gives evidence of such a release of 
 energy in the remotest regions of Space. They 
 all show Radiation, which can only mean a libera- 
 tion of imprisoned energy which reverses gravita- 
 tation and destroys cohesion. 
 
 Of course one cannot help asking what or who
 
 THE RADIANT DIACOSMOS. 441 
 
 has broken open the prison of the Cosmos and 
 sent its freed inmates streaming forth toward in- 
 finity? It may be viewed as Nature's grand work 
 of deliverance, her mighty diacosmical act, or 
 more properly a stage of it, the second. The first 
 stage of the Diacosmos we have already traced in 
 the Fluids; the next stage is the present one, the 
 Radiants, as we shall name them together. Ulti- 
 mately we have to see this movement as psychical 
 or rather as pampsychical, Nature being but a 
 phase or form of the universal Self. Motion (the 
 Separating) and Matter (the Separated) are now 
 revealing one of their special manifestations in the 
 course of the total evolution of Nature ; we may 
 call them for the sake of analogy, the Radiat- 
 ing (the Radiants) and the Radiated (the Fluids, 
 especially the Ether). Thus we are to discrimi- 
 nate the two-fold character of the present stage: 
 the radiating energy, or the side of Motion, and 
 the radiated medium of it, the side of Matter. 
 A new kind of impact we shall witness here, a 
 kind of colliding Diacosmos, homologous with the 
 colliding Cosmos already set forth (see p. 172). 
 
 If we compare the Radiants of the present stage 
 (Light, Heat, Electricity) with the Fluids of the 
 preceding stage (Liquid, Gas, Ether), we observe 
 that the latter are reacting against their material 
 attraction, and also they are seeking to sepa- 
 rate from their cohesive unity. But they have to 
 submit to gravitation though resisting it; they
 
 442 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 are still material though in a protest against Mat- 
 ter. The mobility of water undoes cohesion but 
 yields to gravitation; the expansibility of air 
 assails gravitation but has at last to submit, being 
 heavy ; Ether is conceived as far more mobile than 
 water and far more expansible than air, quite to 
 the point of equilibrating Motion with Matter; 
 still it is held to be molecular and material, it is 
 Matter degravitated, quite deprived of ponderability 
 and so infinitely yielding to radiation. But, when 
 all is told, the Fluids are not completely separated 
 from gravitation, they are always returning to 
 equilibrium with it after disturbance, they cannot 
 overcome it fully in spite of their resiliences and 
 reactions from its compelling power. So much for 
 the Fluids. 
 
 But the Radiants have properly no such rebound 
 to gravitation; in accord with their name, they 
 ray forth without returning to their gravitating 
 source, their separation or dissociation is com- 
 plete. Thus the Diacosmos has realized itself in 
 its division from the Cosmos. 
 
 Radiation may be taken as a kind of actio in 
 distans, but the reverse of that of gravitation. The 
 ray of light streams out into the distance against 
 attraction; it is repellent, yea self-repellent to the 
 last ; it is in an unceasing flight from its origin and 
 from itself. It is separation per se, while attrac- 
 tion strives lor unity, and works from afar. Truly 
 the unitary Cosmos has been transformed into the
 
 THE RADIANT DIACOSMOS. 443 
 
 separative Diacosmos. Nature seems to have 
 wheeled about in Heat, Light and Electricity, 
 and to be rushing outward as if to get away from 
 herself, though we may see in the end that she 
 is by this route really coming back to herself, as a 
 whole. Certainly the center of gravity in the uni- 
 verse seems to be uncentered, literally exploding 
 in every direction. Radiation inverts the former 
 cosmical movement, it is reversible gravitation. 
 
 In the extremely responsive, we may say sensi- 
 tivized Ether, the Radiants chiefly manifest them- 
 selves in successive waves. Already all the mole- 
 cular Fluids have shown an undulatory character, 
 even Space, Time, Matter, were not without their 
 oscillations, as we have seen. But these were 
 struggles which sooner or later lapsed into equili- 
 brium; they all gravitated at last to their cosmical 
 center. But the Radiants thrill eternally toward 
 the circumference of the universe; they speed for 
 liberation upon wave after wave, through the un- 
 obstructed but not unfilled Space. 
 
 But next we ask about the source of this radia- 
 tion? The striking fact comes to the front that 
 such source is for us found in the Sun, which we 
 have already seen to be the center of gravitation 
 for the planetary system. So we have a diacos- 
 mical Sun as well as a cosmical, yet both are one; 
 the great luminary is endowed with two op- 
 posite yet fundamental qualities. If it is the uni- 
 fying body of the Cosmos or of one part of the
 
 444 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 same, it is likewise the separative body of the Dia- 
 cosmos; if it attracts all, it divides all. In its im- 
 mediate vicinity it seems to allow no compounds; 
 it tears them asunder, a drop of water falling on it 
 would not become merely steam, but hydrogen and 
 oxygen. It seemingly permits no solids or liquids 
 near it, but turns them into separating gases ever 
 repellent. It will have nothing but elements, 
 the irreducible ones of Nature; thirty-six chemical 
 elements have been distinguished in the spectrum 
 of the Sun with others in doubt; possibly they are 
 all there in their original elemental form. Calcium 
 in enormous quantities furnishes the intense lime- 
 light illuminating the planets and piercing the 
 starry depths of the Cosmosphere. Much carbon 
 is radiating thence, particularly from the solar 
 clouds ; but strangely no gold has yet been found in 
 the golden Sun. Other metals or elements it ap- 
 pears to have which are unknown to our earth. 
 Helium was first noticed in the Sun by Lockyer, 
 in 1868, but was found in a terrestrial mineral 
 (clevite) by Ramsay, in 1895. The Sun is our con- 
 centrated Diacosmos, yet decentering itself. From 
 it speed the three Radiants which are now to be 
 considered. At the same time we must not forget 
 that the Sun, if radiating, is also gravific; it is 
 actively centripetal as well as centrifugal in itself, 
 it causes all within its sphere of influence — the 
 Heliosphere — to seek it and to fly from it. 
 The earth attracts its own separated bodies, but
 
 THE RADIANT DIACOSMOS. 445 
 
 hardly repels them, though it stops them on its 
 surface and keeps them from its center. Now the 
 Sun repels itself as material, radiates itself, being 
 inherently self-separating down to its smallest 
 particle. For this reason it is supposed to be 
 slowly dissolving, consuming, and exhausting itself 
 in its very radiances. Emphatic is the scientific 
 view at present that the Sun never gets back fully 
 what it gives out, and so is burning up. Heat, 
 for instance, is its very self-dissolution, which it 
 rays out from itself through its system and be- 
 yond, warming our earth on the way with its 
 slowly ebbing life-blood. From this aspect of the 
 case the Radiants are forever carrying off and dis- 
 sipating the Sun's bank-account of energy. They 
 are really negative forces which are certain in 
 time to negate themselves. The laughing face of 
 the sunrise is but a dying smile of ancient Helius. 
 Possibly some millions of years hence the terres- 
 trial problem will be, How can we save the Sun? 
 With a little shudder for posterity, we may pass on. 
 Psychically considered, the Sun has the unitary 
 stage in gravitation, and also the separative stage 
 in radiation. But science affirms that there is no 
 return for it out of self-separation, that it has in 
 itself no recovery from its diacosmical dissipation 
 or universal debauch. Like Hans Breitman, the 
 Sun is declared to be solving the problem of 
 the universe "by one eternal spree". Undoubt- 
 edly the Diacosmos is the separative stage of the
 
 446 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 total process of Nature, and this separation per- 
 meates it, is its fundamental characteristic. The 
 Fluids, the Radiants, the Chemical Elements have 
 all this trait in common. The Diacosmos seems 
 superficially the anarchy of Nature ; still it belongs 
 to her complete harmony, if this can only be 
 grasped aright. Hence it comes that the proper 
 ordering of this diacosmical phase is for us the re- 
 demption from chaos, the grand rescue of the soul 
 from Nature's dissolution, and indeed the rescue 
 of Nature herself from her own negative stage of 
 self-undoing. 
 
 At present, accordingly, the task is to put 
 into order the second part of the Diacosmos, 
 — the radiant Diacosmos — in whose domain we 
 place the three Radiants, which are Heat, Light, 
 Electricity. They are sometimes called radi- 
 ant Energy, or radiant Motion, as if Motion 
 had now become explicit, taking its own form 
 against Matter, and manifesting itself in its own 
 right and in its own medium (Ether). Hith- 
 erto Motion as particular has been more or less 
 material, even in the fluids; but now it breaks 
 loose and" defies gravity of every kind, radiating 
 under conditions from bodies small and great. It 
 shows itself reacting against Matter, flying away 
 from the same as its oppressor and asserting its 
 freedom. In all this what is Motion trying to do? 
 Evidently to undo Matter and get back to its 
 source. What is this source? Ultimately the All-
 
 THE RADIANT DIACOSMOS. 447 
 
 Self, from which Nature primordially separated as 
 Motion and as Matter. This striving or aspiration 
 we have always found in Nature and her children; 
 Motion as her earliest child, is here seen strug- 
 gling to get rid of the grand separation, overcom- 
 ing Matter as the starting-point and raying forth 
 in every direction toward the All. Radiation may 
 be deemed, therefore, the real appearance of Mo- 
 tion, its veritable phenomenality. What h Motion 
 succeeded in its striving? It would undo itself, 
 having attained its end, which is in its last comple- 
 tion self-hood. Motion strives to be Self, and so 
 seeks to undo its own primal unselving, which 
 gives Nature, the Unself. Thus Motion in its 
 pushing ever beyond and beyond itself shows a 
 sort of aspiration, which in the radiance of light 
 becomes luminous, yea self-luminous, shining forth 
 out of its previous darkness. 
 
 Repeatedly we have said that the radiant Dia- 
 cosmos has as its content the process of the three 
 Radiants, which are to be unfolded in their proper 
 order. These are as follows : 
 
 I. Heat — the immediate Radiant, essentially 
 molecular in action, radiating itself through the 
 Ether in undulations which are non-luminous. 
 
 II. Light — the luminous Radiant, dividing within 
 itself and radiating itself as divided, having self- 
 expansion rather than molecular expansion. 
 
 III. Electricity — the circuit Radiant, self-return- 
 ing in circuits which are then radiated through the 
 Ether.
 
 448 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Such is a brief preliminary statement of the sec- 
 ond stage of the Diacosmos with its three Radi- 
 ants. Yet all three can be conceived as united in 
 one primordial Radiant, or as the universal dia- 
 cosmical ray which separates not only into these 
 three forms, but also into an infinite number of 
 rays included in them. Indeed scientists have 
 conceived a kind of scale or key-board of Radi- 
 ants like that of a piano, with its octaves and sep- 
 arate notes. Heat rays, light rays, electric rays, 
 and also chemical rays, are arranged in one scheme 
 on a scale of 27 octaves, more or less, of which 
 the light-rays form only one octave or one twenty- 
 seventh part. Such is the small range of visible 
 undulations of the Ether in the sum total pro- 
 duced by the Radiants. Such a key- board may 
 be extended to embrace also the vibrations of 
 sound. According to Savart, the limits of audi- 
 bility lie between 16 vibrations in a second 
 (lowest) , and 48,000 vibrations in a second (high- 
 est) . But the limits of visibility lie between 400 
 millions millions of vibrations in a second (dull red 
 of the spectrum) to 800 millions millions (the violet 
 of the spectrum) . Beyond the violet the invisible 
 (ultra-violet) rays have been discovered, especially 
 through the photographic plate which is far more 
 sensitive than the human eye. A scientist de- 
 clares that these invisible rays have been detected 
 up to 3,000 millions millions of vibrations. So there 
 is conceived a scale from this number to the lowest
 
 THE RADIANT DIACOSMOS. 449 
 
 sound of 16 vibrations. What lies between? Much 
 of it is unknown; here indeed is declared to be 
 the enormously large undiscovered country for the 
 coming explorer. Says Lord Kelvin generally of 
 this sphere: 'This is an unknown province of sci- 
 ence ;the investigation of vibrations between those 
 two limits is, perhaps, one of the most promising 
 provinces of science for the future investigator." 
 
 Such is pretty nearly the radio-active scale of 
 the whole Diacosmos. The fact is, however, that 
 it can be extended into the Cosmos, in which we 
 have noticed the radial movement produced by 
 the rotation of bodies largest and least, which 
 radiates revolving suns and planets as well as 
 whirling globules of water. The undulation of the 
 diacosmical Radiants may well be deemed to have 
 an analogous character, indeed to be in a line of ev- 
 olution from their cosmical parallels. Still there 
 is a difference; the one we may call radiant Mo- 
 tion, that of the Radiants proper (diacosmical), 
 the other is radial Motion, the ejecting power of 
 a revolving sphere (cosmical). 
 
 Many years ago John Tyndall gave to the public 
 a book entitled Heat, a Mode of Motion. The con- 
 tents were much read, but the title was its best 
 part, veritably a stroke of genius. This title, 
 easily intelligible, was adopted by the public, and 
 became a part of the general consciousness of the 
 time. Heat was defined and correlated for the 
 ordinary man, and rose at once into popularity. 
 
 29
 
 450 COSMOS A ,ND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Heat. 
 
 So it comes that an axiom of modern Natural 
 Science runs: Heat is a mode of Motion. This 
 expression carries Heat back to the primal start of 
 Nature herself, whose first manifestation was Mo- 
 tion, the Separating. The implication is that there 
 are many modes or forms of Motion of which Heat 
 is but one, occupying one sphere, showing one 
 stage. As we order it here in the great temple of 
 Nature's appearances, it is the first of the three 
 forms of radiation in the second part of the Dia- 
 cosmos, which we call radiant from the foregoing 
 basic characteristic. Heat is, accordingly a Radi- 
 ant, though not strictly the luminous one, which is 
 Light, 
 
 Heat can be grasped as a form of Motion sepa- 
 rating from one material form (say the sun) , and 
 entering another material form (solid or fluid) whose 
 molecules it separates and endows with itself 
 (makes them hot). Heat moves from body to 
 body and imparts its own separative character in- 
 ternally. It is a form of Motion assailing Matter 
 and rending the same asunder in its molecular 
 structure, whereby of course the mass is also 
 affected. Heat has the peculiarity of reaching the 
 molecules of a body, which it then disintegrates, 
 pushing these minute particles apart into space. 
 From this point of view it has a negative char-
 
 HEAT. 451 
 
 acter, being directed specially against cohesion, or 
 the unity of body. In such a conception we see 
 Heat to be a great diacosmical energy, a furious 
 one indeed, veritably demonic in its disintegration 
 of the Cosmos. 
 
 It is set down in books on Physics that a cubic 
 inch of Matter holds 100,000 trillions of molecules 
 — that being the estimate of Lord Kelvin. A hun- 
 dred thousand is a good many; but add to it 
 eighteen ciphers more 1 , and the arithmetic soars 
 quite outside of mental grasp. In general, how- 
 ever, we can conceive the extreme divisibility of 
 Matter, to whose minute particles Heat is borne or 
 vibrated by the waves of the subtle fluid Ether, 
 in whose ocean they He. At once they begin to 
 expand and to drive from within outward; they 
 also become centers of radiating Heat into the en- 
 vironing world; each molecule we may imagine a 
 little sun throwing out its warmth, and thus get- 
 ting its own again, for originally it was a hot gas- 
 eous mote of the Heliosphere, perchance hundreds 
 of millions of years ago. 
 
 We may say that Heat assails the constitution of 
 the material body, pushing apart its molecular con- 
 stituents. Chemism oa the other hand assails the 
 composition of the material body, decomposing it 
 into its atomic elements, impact assails the posi- 
 tion of the material body; being molar, it does 
 not properly touch the molecular constitution or 
 the atomic composition of Matter. Still they all
 
 452 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS 
 
 are forms of Motion belaboring Matter, seeking in 
 some way to undo it, but not succeeding. Im- 
 pact and cosmical Motion generally produce 
 transposition; but Heat and diacosmical Motion 
 (oftener called Energy) produce transformation, 
 along with change of place. Of course the outer 
 molar collision of bodies can generate Heat which 
 causes their inner molecular separation. 
 
 In another aspect we can regard Heat as some- 
 thing liberated, set free from its bondage to 
 Matter, against which it reacts. The Cosmos may 
 be deemed its prison, the Diacosmos its freedom. 
 Moreover, it shows this side of its character by 
 raying forth into bodies and unchaining the fixed 
 and fettered molecules there ; yea it releases itself 
 bonded in latency to cohesive Matter, and then 
 waves forth from the new center, as already 
 stated. There is a striking analogy between the 
 human mind and the Diacosmos in this tendency 
 to freedom. Periods as well as men become dia- 
 cosmical, breaking loose from the fixed, the es- 
 tablished, the transmitted. The eighteenth Cent- 
 ury was noted for its original work in Chemistry 
 and in Physics; it was truly a diacosmical cent- 
 ury, expressing itself creatively in Natural Sci- 
 ence, which had its counterpart in the political 
 and other revolutions of that time of spiritual 
 upheaval and liberation. Men generally, and spe- 
 cially the scientists, showed a diacosmical con- 
 sciousness, which worked wonders on certain lines,
 
 HEAT. 453 
 
 though 'deeply negative in other ways. And that 
 mental movement has by no means yet ended. 
 
 We think quantitatively of Heat : it is so much 
 and no more. The earth is supposed to have lost 
 much Heat and is still cooling off; one estimate 
 states that terrestrial Heat is lessening at the rate 
 of one degree in a thousand years. The sun, too, 
 is shrinking with the loss of its Heat radiated 
 forth into the interplanetary, yea into the inter- 
 stellar spaces ; its periphery is declared to be con- 
 tracting ten inches a year through the dissipation 
 of its expansive power. The solar reservoir is 
 thus losing its contents. But we may suppose that 
 what is lost in one part of the universe is gained 
 in another part, for how can it run away? How 
 can anything get outside of the universe — outside 
 of that of which there is no outside? We may 
 also think that the All-Self as separating or as 
 Nature-making is ever active, has to be so in order 
 to be itself. Hence its Motion is somewhere in 
 the great Totality, and simply cannot vanish or even 
 grow less. The so-called conservation of Energy, 
 or better, of Motion implies this. The quantity 
 is the same, though everywhere undergoing a 
 state of change (see preceding p. 82). 
 
 Heat, as here specially conceived, has its limits 
 against Light and also against Electricity and 
 Chemism. Still it is to be remembered that all 
 these different stages have Heat behind them and 
 as it were embracing them. Heat is therefore a kind
 
 454 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 of universal Radiant ; we may regard it as the origi- 
 nal diacosmical ray, from which the other Radiants 
 evolve, out of which they divide and spread over 
 the before-mentioned scale or common spectrum of 
 radiation. Besides this universal phase of itself, 
 Heat is also particular, distinguished specially 
 from the other Radiants, having its own sphere 
 and its own distinctive place (or octaves) on the 
 total key-board of radiation. In the Fluids we 
 may deem Heat to be more or less implicit, while 
 as the first Radiant it becomes explicit, being felt 
 and measured in its own right. 
 
 It was Sir Humphrey Davy who conceived the 
 brilliant experiment of liquefying ice by rubbing 
 two pieces of it together in an ice-cold room and 
 thus generating Heat enough to melt them. Pre- 
 viously Heat had been by most scientists regarded 
 as a material element, a subtle imponderable fluid 
 which stimulated the sensation of warmth, and 
 produced the well-known thermal effects. But it 
 could evidently be produced by mechanical friction 
 which set the molecules of the body in motion. 
 This new sort of motion which was evidently ra- 
 diated in vibrations, was indeed "a mode of Mo- 
 tion," or more closely, a form of radiant Motion, 
 truly a diacosmical Radiant, the first the most im- 
 mediate, and the most common one of them all. 
 
 In organizing the subject of Heat, we shall look 
 at it, first, as it is in itself; secondly, in its sepa- 
 rative or expanding effects upon bodies; thirdly,
 
 HE A T. 455 
 
 in its sources or generation, whereby it is seen to 
 return and to produce its starting-point. 
 
 I. Heat, as Such. It is often said that we 
 cannot know what anything is in itself (das Ding 
 an sich) j but only its phenomenal phase. Nature 
 undoubtedly appears, but she cannot help showing 
 what she is in her appearance. If she could say 
 one thing and be another, it were hardly worth 
 while to interrogate her about herself. Experi- 
 ment is Nature's cross-examination, and science 
 takes for granted that she tells the truth where her 
 answer is fully given and fairly understood. It is 
 an easy experiment which shows that Heat is 
 transmitted in continuous lines; a screen inter- 
 posed between you and the fire cuts off the 
 warmth. It passes through a medium which is 
 perchance the air directly before us ; but if we take 
 away the air we find that a vacuum is no obstruc- 
 tion to Heat. Moreover, it rays out from the sun 
 through the cosmical spaces in which there is no 
 air like ours. Still it has its medium, the fluid in 
 which it is propagated, the Ether, which, being 
 without strict cohesion and gravity, is infinitely 
 responsive to the impress of the ever-radiating 
 heat-wave. The hot body, like the sun, sends off 
 Heat which is a form of Motion; accordingly it 
 must send off its own Motion, separating the same 
 from itself; indeed just this power of self-separa- 
 tion is what the sun primarily emits in Ileal. 
 Such is thermal radiation, for this separative char-
 
 456 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 acter is what the central luminary projects i. . 
 Heat. No wonder, then, that Heat is not only 
 expansive in itself, but also expands everything 
 else. 
 
 1. The Thermal Ray. The first conception under 
 radiant Heat is that it moves in rays analo- 
 gous to those of Light. Moreover this ray of Heat 
 is not hot in itself; it can pass through the air 
 without heating it, or without heating it much. If 
 it weie a perfect medium it would not be heated 
 at all, being a pure transmitter of thermal energy. 
 Not till the ray is absorbed by a body and re-radi- 
 ated from the same, is Heat manifested. Appar- 
 ently not till radiant Heat finds the material mole- 
 cules and is set to work, does it show itself. It 
 must be disintegrating Matter in order to reveal its 
 character. The simple transmission of Heat through 
 the Ether does not call it out, for the medium offers 
 no resistance. A body does not need to burn or 
 be incandescent in order to emit Heat, a bottle of 
 hot water radiates Heat without combustion. In 
 like manner a ray of light is not luminous in itself, 
 or rather in its etheric medium. 
 
 (a) The radiation of Heat takes place in all 
 directions from hot bodies. If we could see the 
 rays, they would form a gradually diminishing 
 sphere around their center, as do those of Light. 
 Not alone the sun but every piece of Matter is 
 such a center of heat-radiation and is surrounded 
 by a sphere of heat-rays, pushing outward against
 
 HEAT. 457 
 
 cohesion, against gravity, against Matter itself. 
 This radiation is likewise conceived to be recti- 
 linear, making straight for the circumference of 
 the heat-sphere like so many radii of a circle. 
 
 (b) It is evident that these heat-spheres must 
 intersect, each hot body great and small being the 
 center of one such sphere. Moreover some bodies 
 are hotter than others through various causes ; the 
 result is an ever active exchange of temperatures. 
 Thus there is on our earth a rolling ocean of heat- 
 waves which have a tendency to seek a certain 
 level or equilibrium of temperature. Each cold 
 body strives to get its share from the great totality 
 of Heat, which is made up from the radiation of 
 hot bodies. It has its resemblance to the world of 
 traffic from which each person has to supply his 
 wants, but to which he must also give his part. 
 
 It is to be observed that these fluctuations of 
 heat-waves prescribe the limits on our earth to 
 conditions of life. Between the freezing point and 
 boiling point of water — one hundred degrees Centi- 
 grade — man has his terrestrial existence; not much 
 below or above these two points can he hold out. 
 Such is the limited temperature in which man has 
 so far evolved. Of course heat reaches far above 
 and cold far below these two boundaries; on other 
 worlds there must be a new adjustment, if they 
 support life as we know it. 
 
 (c) Radiant Heat moves through space at a 
 certain rate of diminution: the farther it passes from
 
 458 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 its heated surface, the less strong is the heat-wave. 
 The law is: the intensity of the radiation varies 
 inversely as the square of the distance. At one 
 foot from its source radiant Heat will be four 
 times greater than at two feet. As the periphery 
 of the heat-sphere is extended there is a greater 
 surface to be covered by the heat-ray. This law 
 of radiation calls up the similar law of gravitation, 
 which thus seems to ray out (possibly through the 
 Ether) and draw Matter together. But radiant 
 Heat will expand and separate Matter, and so 
 seems the counterpart of attraction. But their 
 powers are quite the same : each diminishes equally 
 as it recedes from its center. 
 
 2. TJie Thermal Ray impinged. The impact of 
 the thermal Ray upon bodies in its path brings 
 out decisive characteristics of it. The collision 
 with Matter makes it show its true colors, so to 
 speak; as merely radiating unopposed into space, 
 it is brought to no pivotal test. What, then, will 
 the thermal Ray or the rolling heat-wave do when 
 it finds its way barred by a piece of Matter which 
 may be deemed its enemy? One thing is certain: 
 a fight will take place which is indeed but another 
 phase of the millionfold struggle between Motion 
 and Matter running through all Nature. Also the 
 body struck will show its character in response. 
 It may reflect the Ray immediately, flinging the 
 same back: it may absorb the same and then emit 
 the acquired Heat anew in all directions; or it
 
 HEAT. 459 
 
 may transmit the same through its own sub- 
 stance. 
 
 (a) The impinging ray of Heat falling upon a 
 polished surface is largely reflected and the angle 
 of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. In 
 concave mirrors Heat can be focused so as to set 
 fire to gun-cotton. By a concave mirror with 
 an aperture of six feet silver has been melted. 
 Buffon, by an arrangement of 168 mirrors ignited 
 tarred wood at a distance of 210 feet, repeating 
 what Archimedes is said to have done to the Ro- 
 man fleet besieging Syracuse. Different metals at 
 the height of their polish show different powers of 
 reflection. Brass is the best reflector; glass has 
 only one-tenth as much. Radiant Heat glances 
 off almost entire from a bright brazen surface. 
 We have to think that the etheric medium when 
 thermal finds it difficult to enter the molecular 
 structure of brass. 
 
 (b) We put together the absorption and the 
 emission of Heat, for the law is that bodies which 
 absorb Heat best emit it best. Lampblack and 
 water are set down highest in the list of thermal 
 absorbers and emitters; on the other hand they 
 arc the poorest reflectors. When the heat-ray is 
 reflected from a bright metallic surface, it is re- 
 fused admittance to the inner molecules of the 
 substance; but it is taken iato them by absorp- 
 tion, and draws them apart, when it is again ray<'<! 
 forth. Likewise the impinging Ray is absorbed
 
 460 COSMOS AXD DIACOSMOS. 
 
 most completely if it strikes at right angles; the 
 greater the inclination from the perpendicular, 
 the less the power of absorption in the same ma- 
 terial; striking sidewise the heat-ray glides off in 
 part. 
 
 (c) Heat is also transmitted through certain 
 bodies with varying degrees of completeness. Such 
 bodies have received a special name in view of 
 this property: they are called diathermanous. 
 Rock-salt has the name of being the most per- 
 fetly diathermanous substance, not pure glass, 
 which is most transmissive to Light (or transpar- 
 ent) but not to Heat. The opposite quality is 
 called athermanous (seen in metals) and corre- 
 sponds to opacity in the realm of Light. The 
 curious fact also is noteworthy that the same 
 body, such as glass transmits heat differently ac- 
 cording to the different sources of its emission. 
 The heat of the sun, the heat of a burning terres- 
 trial body, and the heat of a water-bottle (or the 
 so-called Leslie's cube) have not a like capacity 
 for transmitting themselves through a substance, 
 even when the degree of Heat is the same. Thus 
 the heat-ray itself seems to shift about into a va- 
 riety of characters, according to its origin. The 
 medium (Ether) bearing the thermal Radiant is 
 diversely determined by the molecular constitution 
 of diverse bodies; likewise the thermal Radiant 
 itself is diversely transmissible. 
 
 Many arc the analogies between Light and Heat.
 
 HEAT. 461 
 
 We are naturally led to ask whether the thermal 
 Ray has anything to correspond to divisions of the 
 spectrum in Light. Melloni has worked in this 
 field and finds different phases or stages of the 
 thermal Ray, seemingly according to their different 
 refrangibility. These he calls colors of Heat by 
 analogy to the spectrum. He employed various 
 sources of Heat, as the sun, hot water, lamp-flame 
 of different substances, heated platinum wire; 
 these diverse rays he passed through various sub- 
 stances variously diat her; nations, as glass, rock- 
 salt, alum. But a heat spectrum like the light- 
 spectrum has hardly yet been constructed, and 
 substances otherwise unknown but emitting Heat, 
 cannot yet be detected by the character of their 
 thermal Rays. Possibly that will com? next, and 
 we shall have a thermoscope for analyzing the 
 heat-rays from the sun and stars. 
 
 The transmission of Heat through a diathermanous 
 body is seen in the lens which focuses Light along 
 with Heat. This is the well-known burning-glass 
 which indicates that Heat undergoes refraction as 
 well as Light. 
 
 Such are the forms of the heat-ray impinged 
 upon bodies: it is reflected, it is absorbed and 
 then emitted, it is transmitted. These may be 
 deemed its varied transformations by the sub- 
 stance, which is next to take it up and to trans- 
 port it as it is in itself. 
 
 3. The Thermal Ray transported (conducted).
 
 462 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 This means that Heat is borne from molecule to 
 molecule of some substance which carries it on. It 
 is different from transmission in which the thermal 
 Ray passes through and out of the molecular 
 structure of a body, leaving the latter quite as it 
 was. The radiation now involves the material and 
 is seemingly conveyed by it. Various bodies are 
 variously gifted with « this power of transporting 
 Heat, or with conduction as it is usually called. 
 Metals are good conductors of Heat; it seems to 
 be carried at once through the cohesive molecules; 
 an iron rod heated at one end is soon hot at the 
 other. Wood is a poor conductor, so are organic 
 substances generally. Nature is made up of a vast 
 and varied conductivity ; bodies show their indi- 
 viduality in this way as well as in reflection or 
 transmission. Rock-salt is not a good transporter 
 though the best transmitter of Heat. Brass if pol- 
 ished is a good reflector, but can be made a good 
 conductor of Heat. The transportation of Heat 
 through bodies is chiefly determined by their mole- 
 cular constitution, that is, according as they are 
 solids, liquids, or gases. 
 
 In diathermanous bodies Heat seems largely 
 inter-molecular in its activity, hardly getting inside 
 the molecules ; while in good conductors it becomes 
 intra-molecular so that the structure of the body 
 is heated and expanded. 
 
 (a) The difference in the Heat-transporting ca- 
 pacity of solids is very great. Glass is as rigid
 
 HEAT. 463 
 
 and cohesive in its way as iron ; yet the one refuses 
 almost absolutely to carry Heat, while the other is 
 quite eager for it. From a window-pane Heat 
 glances off ; and it remains cold in a warm room ; 
 nor will it transport Heat from corner to corner of 
 itself. Cotton and wool arc bad conductors of 
 Heat, and upon this quality depends one of their 
 uses for clothing. A woolen garment is not strictly 
 warm in itself; it simply does not carry off the 
 warmth of the human body. Every material ob- 
 ject has its attitude toward the transportation of 
 Heat through its varied molecular structure; in 
 this way it shows individuality as well as in many 
 other ways. 
 
 (b) Liquids have mobility of particles or of 
 molecules as distinct from the cohesion of solids. 
 As Heat expands bodies through the molecules, a 
 liquid might seem more amenable to it than a 
 solid. But liquids are on the whole bad conduct- 
 ors of Heat, the chief exception being mercury, 
 which, however, is a metal and partakes of metallic 
 conductivity. Water can be boiled in the upper 
 end of a test-tube while a piece of ice remains un- 
 melted at the other end. This means that the 
 Heat is not conducted downwards. But if the 
 water be boiled in the lower end of a test-tube, the 
 heated molecules of the liquid will rise to the top, 
 from which the cold molecules will drop to the 
 bottom, become heated and rise in their turn, 
 making a continual round. This is called convec-
 
 464 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tion; liquids are heated by convection; Heat is 
 conveyed throughout the mass by the foregoing 
 molecular whirl. Of course the first Heat is im- 
 parted to the water through the sides of the vessel 
 by a slight conduction, which then turns to con- 
 vection. In conduction the molecules are con- 
 ceived to be fixed or rigid, but in convection they 
 are mobile and sent upward as carriers, and then 
 come back when cooled and contracted. 
 
 (c) Gases are composed of molecules not only 
 mobile but expansible; thus they are exceedingly 
 responsive to Heat. In this capacity to expand 
 they are notably different from water, for instance. 
 At the same time they are very bad conductors of 
 Heat, though there is a difference in their conduct- 
 ive power, oxygen being nearly twice as good a 
 conductor as hydrogen (according to the Smith- 
 sonian tables). On the whole, substances with 
 greatest convectivity have least conductivity, and 
 vice versa; silver and hydrogen seem to be the ex- 
 tremes on each side. The cohesive and confined 
 molecules of the metal as well as the free and 
 elastic molecules of the gas transport Heat rapidly, 
 each in its own way. The thermal Radiant with 
 its medium seems to move unobstructed through 
 the consecutive molecules of a silver wire, while it 
 is, as it were, picked up and carried by the gaseous 
 molecule. Liquids on the whole share in both 
 conduction and convection. 
 
 We have now looked at Heat as such, in and
 
 HEAT. 465 
 
 by itself, as far as this was possible. We have seen 
 the thermal Ray's first etheric radiation out of its 
 center in all directions; then we have watched it 
 impinging upon bodies, and the consequent devel- 
 opments of it thereby ; finally we have observed 
 its varied transference from place to place by 
 means of bodies. In this treatment the stress so 
 far has been upon the action of the Heat in rela- 
 tion to bodies. But now we shall consider rather 
 the action of bodies as determined by Heat; our 
 eye will be chiefly upon the object affected by 
 Heat. 
 
 II. Heat as the Expander of Matter. Al- 
 ready this quality of Heat has had to be repeatedly 
 noted in various connections ; at present we seek 
 to make it the center of observation. Heat is pri- 
 marily a separator, belonging to the separative 
 stage of the Diacosmos, which is itself Nature in 
 her divisive mood. The expansive power of Heat 
 is a moving outward and over the limit — a molecu- 
 lar separation of bodies. In the transference of the 
 thermal Ray we have just seen Heat transported 
 by Matter; but now we are to witness Matter 
 transported by Heat, borne asunder and trans- 
 formed. Hitherto the thermal Radiant has radi- 
 ated itself mainly upon and through Matter; next 
 it must radiate Matter too in its waves. 
 
 1. Cohesive Molecularity Expanded. So we des- 
 ignate the first effect of Heat under the present 
 head: it assails the solid and drives its molecules 
 
 30
 
 466 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 asunder. This force of expansion in the solid is 
 very great and has many applications in the arts. 
 Also its counterpart, the contraction of a solid 
 after heating, is used in many a mechanical dex- 
 terity. The engineer in his iron structures, such 
 as bridges, railroad tracks and high buildings, has 
 always to reckon with the metallic expansion and 
 contraction through the increase and diminution 
 of Heat. The presence and absence of the sun 
 are marked more or less distinctly on the faces of 
 all substances. 
 
 (a) As most structures of importance involve 
 the line more than the solid, linear expansion has 
 been specially studied and put into tabular form 
 by physicists. The need of knowing the relative 
 expansibility of metals had been long felt, but 
 Lavoisier and Laplace toward the close of the 18th 
 century, seem to have been the first who made 
 careful experiments and constructed what is known 
 as a table of linear co-efficients. A bar of the sub- 
 stance was put into melting ice and then into boil- 
 ing water, its increase of length being carefully 
 measured. Platinum was found to be the least 
 expansible metal, and zinc the most expansible, 
 through the given 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Alloys 
 of metals seem to have the power of counteracting 
 each other's expansibility. A French physicist 
 has discovered a combination of steel and nickel 
 (a little over one-third nickel) which expands less 
 than one part in a million, thus having a linear
 
 HEAT. 467 
 
 co-efficient less than one-eighth of that of platinum, 
 (which is tabulated at l-120000ths) The name 
 of this interesting alloy is invar from its invaria- 
 bility in all temperatures. The gridiron pendulum, 
 composed of steel and brass rods so arranged that 
 the expansibility of the steel downwards is counter- 
 acted by that of the brass upwards, is a contriv- 
 ance to make the clock keep invariable time 
 through heat and cold. India-rubber seems to 
 form a curious exception among solids: a strong 
 tube of this material heated inside with steam, will 
 actually contract and draw up a heavy weight at- 
 tached to the lower end. This is the opposite to 
 what we have observed in metals and other sub- 
 stances, which let out when hot and draw up when 
 cold. Now the fundamental property of rubber is 
 just this expansibility in the form of elasticity. 
 What it docs of itself it resists when done by Heat, 
 which in this case counteracts native expansibility. 
 Or we may say that Heat, separative in character, is 
 brought to assail and overcome separation in one 
 instance at least. This exception among solids re- 
 sembles the- exception among liquids in case of 
 water. 
 
 (6) Heat, the expander, has the power of trans- 
 forming solids. Not only does it cause a linear 
 and also a cubical expansion of bodies, but also it 
 changes their form, and with it their properties to 
 a certain extent. The melting point of metals 
 varies much, and is of greatest importance in
 
 468 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 manufacturing, since they can be shaped according 
 to their fusibility. Mercury is the most fusible of 
 metals, becoming solid at 38 degrees below zero 
 (Fahrenheit), while gold runs up nearly to 2,000 
 degrees (F.). Platinum's point of fusing is more 
 than fifty per cent higher than that of gold, while 
 rhodium is about twice as high and iridium still 
 higher. Molecular cohesion thus shows many 
 stages of resistance to Heat, asserting the forms of 
 things against its assault. Alloys are said to be 
 more fusible than the metals composing them — 
 seemingly a mark of inner uncongeniality. Per 
 contra liquids are solidified by diminution of Heat, 
 whereof examples are seen in the freezing of mer- 
 cury and of water. Finally Heat will not only 
 liquify but vaporize metals and other solids. The 
 surface of the sun supposed to be 14,000 or 15,000 
 degrees Fahrenheit, is the scene of a vast vapor- 
 ization of metals. On the earth Heat has great 
 possibilities before it both through increase and 
 diminution — we have probably not yet artificially 
 produced its highest and lowest point. 
 
 (c) The expansive power of Heat has been put 
 to use, or has been made to work. How can this 
 power be measured and thus apphed? A pound 
 raised a foot requires a certain quantity of energy 
 or Heat — such a unit of measure is called a foot- 
 pound. To lift a pound weight 772 feet high, the 
 Heat consumed would raise a pound of water one 
 degree (say from a temperature of 60 to 61 de-
 
 HEAT. 469 
 
 grees). This is the unit of measure (called the 
 mechanical equivalent of Heat); so nrnch work 
 can be done by so much Heat measured by its ca- 
 pacity of warming so much water (the typical 
 liquid) one degree. The manifold power of Heat 
 required to expand many millions of liquid mole- 
 cules is unified in one power which acts mechan- 
 ically. Molecular energy is equilibrated with me- 
 chanical energy. A foot-pound is constant, is a 
 standard — so much thermal energy cut off as a 
 measure. Two different resistances there are, that 
 of the liquid and that of the solid ; a quantum of 
 one is made to measure the other. 
 
 This discovery is justly regarded as one of the most 
 important in modern science. The credit seems 
 to belong about equally to two men, the German 
 Mayer and the Englishman Joule. The practical 
 value of this mechanical equivalent of Heat is of 
 the greatest in our industrial world. Through it 
 is calculated the amount of Heat (or Energy) 
 which, generated from fuel and mediated by ma- 
 chinery, will do a given quantity of work. 
 
 2. Liquid Molecularity Expanded. Or as it is 
 usually called, the expansion of liquids by Heat. 
 The molecule, separated from but indifferent to its 
 neighbor, is mobile, easily moved about by being 
 heated. This is most commonly seen in the 
 ebullition of water. Less regular than solids is the 
 expansion of liquids, and ; s not linear (unless con- 
 fined, as mercury in a tube) on account of their
 
 470 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 uncohesive nature, but is cubical or by volume. 
 The liquid has to be held in a vessel which also 
 expands. Heat seems to work both between the 
 molecules and also inside of them ; it is both inter- 
 molecular and intra-molecular in its action. 
 
 (a) The Liquid in its immediate form has been 
 already considered quite fully (see preceding p. 
 373 et seq). It may be here stated that liquidity 
 comes originally from Heat. Liquid water is con- 
 verted into a vapor by an increase of Heat; and 
 into a solid by a diminution of Heat. The liquid 
 molecules are such through Heat. 
 
 (b) Heat in general divides at a certain line 
 into hot and cold, determined by human sensation. 
 Still such a distinction is not simply subjective; 
 Heat has its positive and negative sides, both of 
 which affect the expansion of bodies, and espe- 
 cially of Liquids. Ordinary heat and cold are 
 measured by a column of mercury in the ther- 
 mometer; but far higher and lower temperatures 
 have also been measured by various contrivances. 
 
 (c) Two Liquids (or other substances) get hot 
 differently with the same amount of Heat, for in- 
 stance water and mercury. Hence the amount of 
 one Liquid heated one degree can be taken as the 
 unit of measure, and we have what is known as Spe- 
 cific Heat. The quantity of Heat necessary to raise 
 one pound of water through one degree has been 
 taken as the thermal unit of Liquids, and a table 
 of comparative Specific Heats constructed. A
 
 HEAT. 471 
 
 striking peculiarity of water is that it has a high 
 Specific Heat. Its molecules respond more intensely 
 to the expansive power of Heat against gravita- 
 tion than most substances. Water expands doubly 
 through heat and through cold; as already noted 
 it expands on both sides of 39 degrees Fahrenheit 
 (4 degrees Centigrade), at a higher and a lower 
 temperature. 
 
 3. Gaseous Molecular it y Expanded'. Or the ex- 
 pansion of gas, vapor, air. The molecules are 
 now repellent, and Heat makes them more repel- 
 lent. Hence expansibility through Heat becomes 
 a decided property of the gaseous sphere. More- 
 over great force is engendered through expansion 
 of vapor, which, being harnessed to a machine, 
 becomes of enormous service, as the steam engine. 
 
 A fundamental fact about the expansion of Gases 
 is that they all expand equally or nearly so at the 
 same degree of Heat. All Gases then expand for 
 one degree Centigrade, 367 parts in 100,000; or to 
 273 parts one part is added through expansion, 
 caused by a degree of Heat (Ganot). This same- 
 ness is broken when it comes to density, wherein 
 Gases differ much. If air is one, hydrogen is one- 
 fourteenth as dense, while chlorine is nearly two 
 and a half times as dense, or has so much greater 
 specific gravity. So in Gases weight is very differ- 
 ent while expansibility is the same practically. 
 
 (a) Liquids and solids have a tendency to turn 
 to Gases in various degrees by means of Heat,
 
 472 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 which is always present and making itself valid. 
 This is known in general as vaporization, and con- 
 sumes Heat, which makes the indifferent mole- 
 cules of the Liquid self-repellent and in so far drives 
 them counter to gravitation. But the rigid solid, 
 even the metals can be vaporized by a sufficient 
 degree of Heat. In the Sun the spectroscope 
 shows metallic vapors; indeed in the hottest stars 
 there would seem to be a primordial vapor out of 
 which the chemical elements have evolved by a 
 process of cooling. The nebulae are generally sup- 
 posed to be constituted of hot, self-luminous vapor 
 which represents a very early stage of world-mak- 
 ing. If this be so, the tendency to vaporization 
 of substances at ordinary temperatures b a kind of 
 reversion to their beginning; they are still seeking 
 to go back and complete the round. 
 
 (b) The counterpart to vaporization is liquifac- 
 tion, and then solidification. This is accomplished 
 generally by the negative of Heat, named cold, 
 which counteracts expansion by contraction, and 
 seems to drive out the inter-molecular and intra- 
 molecular enemy of itself. Here, then, the mighty 
 struggle between the hot and the cold (of which the 
 ancient philosophers made so much) manifests 
 itself in a great variety of forms. Indeed Rumford 
 claimed that there were cold-rays which could be 
 reflected and focused like heat-rays. But all 
 scientists say that cold is generated in a substance 
 passing from the liquid to the gaseous state while
 
 HEAT. 473 
 
 heat is generated oy tne reverse ; that is, the latter is 
 released and dissipated. In this interplay between 
 cold and heat the physical universe is always mov- 
 ing and as it were wrestling; the molecular struct- 
 ure is the arena of conflict, changing continually in 
 a cycle of gas, liquid and solid, receiving and expell- 
 ing Heat. Especially on our earth does this give 
 rise to the meteorological process. 
 
 (c) The measure of Heat in all its various rela- 
 tions and applications has been diligently wrought 
 out by scientists, doubtless on account of its prac- 
 tical importance. To find the unit by which en- 
 ergy of expansion and contraction may be meas- 
 ured is the object. Torricclli made the start when 
 he balanced the pressure of the atmosphere against 
 so much mercury ; Pascal did the same thing with 
 water. Then we may take Boyle's (Mariotte's) law 
 that the volume a gas is inversely as the pressure; 
 and hence the product of the two (volume and 
 pressure) is a constant (not quite, but near enough 
 for practical purposes). Next comes Gay-Lussac's 
 law that all Gases expand equally with equal in- 
 crements of Heat. Regnault finally (after Dalton, 
 Arago and others) measured the pressure of aqueous 
 vapor at various degrees above and below the boil- 
 ing point and constructed a table of such pres- 
 sures. Thus the expansion of gaseous molecules 
 by Heat has been measured, as well as the expan- 
 sion of solid and liquid molecules; wherewith this 
 part of the subject comes to an end.
 
 474 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 III. Heat Generated. It is pertinent to in- 
 quire after the origin of Heat. Already it has 
 been pronounced to be a mode or form of Motion, 
 which carries it back to the first manifestation of 
 Nature. More intermediately Heat has many 
 sources from which it can be produced. If the 
 molecular structure of the solid be assailed by 
 friction, by pressure or percussion, Heat will arise. 
 We have already noted that two pieces of ice 
 rubbed together in a vacuum below zero have been 
 melted by the friction. Chemical separation of 
 atoms, as in combustion, produces Heat. When 
 the constitution of bodies, be it molecular or 
 atomic, is disturbed, Heat is given off. Still such 
 Heat seems to be already existent, though stored 
 up and latent, so we continue to ask whence came 
 it originally. First, however, we may briefly class- 
 ify its main sources and then measure it. 
 
 1. Primal Sources. These are essentially cos- 
 mical and are relatively persistent. We may here 
 first regard the Earth's Heat, which below the 
 depth of 100 feet is said to have an invariable 
 temperature of 52 degrees. Before that depth is 
 reached, there is a gradual increase from the sur- 
 face. Still after an invariable belt within the Earth, 
 the Heat is supposed to increase till the center is 
 of molten material, somewhat as the whole Earth 
 was when ejected from the Sun. At that time its 
 axial rotation was much faster than at present* 
 The Sun's Heat comes externally and its influence
 
 HEAT. 475 
 
 is supposed to reach some distance below the ter- 
 restrial surface, which lies between two primal (or 
 cosmical) sources of Heat, and obtains thereby its 
 thermal variation. Both these sources of Heat 
 were once united in the Heat of the Heliosphere, 
 which was itself probably derived from a still 
 larger nebula. 
 
 2. Secondary Sources. Any assault upon the 
 molecular structure of a substance in one way or 
 other calls forth Heat. Such an assault can take 
 place from the outside, as friction, percussion, 
 pressure ; this may be called a mechanical source of 
 Heat. But the assault may be from the inside, 
 upon the molecule itself directly; so electricity 
 (and probably light) generates Heat — this may be 
 called a physical source of Heat. Finally there is 
 the chemical source of Heat, manifested in the de- 
 composition of substances, especially in combus- 
 tion. 
 
 It is evident that in all these cases Heat is pro- 
 duced in an intermittent finite manner, arising and 
 vanishing according to the conditions. Thus it 
 goes a certain round in a small way, which round 
 is also seen in the sun and stars which increase and 
 decline in Heat with the seons. 
 
 3. Heat Measured. If Heat be a form of mo- 
 tion radiating through the Ether, it must have 
 its motion measured; it moves through so much 
 space in .so much time. Its constant is its veloc- 
 ity, 186,000 miles per second; this velocity it has
 
 476 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 in common with the other radiants, Light and 
 Electricity. Its radiation becomes visible in the 
 red, which produces about 34,000 waves to the 
 inch; below the red in the universal spectrum lies 
 the region of dark heat-waves (seven octaves) or 
 of Heat proper as distinct from the other Radiants. 
 This is its specific measure or differential, which 
 being multiplied into the constant or velocity per 
 second, gives about 400 million millions of etheric 
 undulations every second to produce the sensation 
 of Heat which is next to the color red. This 
 tells the number of heat-waves at their greatest. 
 
 II. 
 
 Light. 
 
 According to the present way of ordering Nature, 
 Light is one of the three Radiants of the Diacos- 
 mos. Moreover it is the second one and shows the 
 second stage or phase of radiation, of which Heat 
 is the first and Electricity the third. It is impor- 
 tant to note the place of Light, about which 
 physicists have been seemingly indifferent; some- 
 times they put it first in their books and some- 
 times third. But it is properly the second stage, 
 and that not by accident ; it forms with Heat and 
 Electricity, the process of the three diacosmical 
 Radiants, which has its deepest roots not merely 
 in the realm ot Nature, but of Mind, constituting 
 what in this treatise is called a psychosis.
 
 LIGHT. 477 
 
 We are/ then, to think Light as separative, but 
 in its own way, for we have found many separa- 
 tions in Nature, indeed Nature herself is primor- 
 dially a separation. Light we call luminous, yea 
 self-luminous ; it has the peculiar power of mani- 
 festing itself while it manifests other things. It 
 divides within and ejects itself in order to be itself. 
 This inner self-division and self-radiation make 
 the basic character of Light; it is the separative 
 Radiant of the three, self-dividing and self-reflect- 
 ing; not only does it radiate itself outward like 
 Heat, but also radiates itself radiating; it is an 
 undulation indeed, yet likewise it undulates itself 
 undulating. Light reveals, reveals the world, but 
 at the same time it is the self-revealer of the Dia- 
 cosmos. This twofold character of Light is fun- 
 damental ; thus it is truly the Light of Nature, her 
 act of self-revelation. 
 
 The analogy between Light and Mind or Ego 
 has always been felt by man, and has found ex- 
 pression probably in every language. This inner 
 dircmption of Light, though a physical phenom- 
 enon, suggests the inner diremption of the Self in 
 the act of consciousness. For the Ego also divides 
 within and thus manifests itself to itself; it be- 
 comes aware of the world along with its own self- 
 awareness. In fact we may deem Light the cen- 
 tral form in the total evolution of Nature, which 
 is now irradiated by it on all sides. Light is the 
 center of the Radiants of the Diacosmos, of the
 
 478 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 whole physical Order. In it Nature gets a kind 
 of outer self-consciousness which illuminates both 
 her and itself. Metaphorically Light is still called 
 Intelligence, and may have evolved it through the 
 aeons. Light indeed we may deem Nature's pri- 
 mordial Ego, individualized millionfold in the sun 
 and stars. 
 
 But, coming back from these far-off reaches of 
 thought, we have to connect Light directly with 
 its antecedent, Heat, from which it separates 
 first, which separation is always going on. Heat 
 must be present with and in Light that it be sepa- 
 rated from the same. Quantitatively the separa- 
 tion of Light from Heat is marked on the spec- 
 trum, whose red ray is set down as having 400 to 
 450 millions millions of vibrations of the Ether per 
 second. Below the red ray is the heat ray, non- 
 luminous, unmanifested, through not having 
 enough vibrations. The qualitative difference seems 
 very sudden and striking: Heat has no power to 
 radiate itself radiating, though it radiates itself. 
 The change involves the triple capacity of Light 
 for manifestation: (1) it manifests its source; (2) it 
 manifests itself; (3) it manifests its opposite which 
 is non-luminous Matter. 
 
 Light like Heat is a mode or form of Motion, 
 which connects it with the starting-point of all 
 Nature. We may further consider Light to be a 
 form of Motion separating from a form of Matter 
 and showing both forms, namely itself and Matter.
 
 LIGHT. 479 
 
 Also we may deem Light (like Heat) as a libera- 
 tion — liberation of a force or energy which rushes 
 forth outward and spends itself somewhere in the 
 Cosmos. It is a liberated Motion, previously tied 
 to Matter or imprisoned in the same; we may my- 
 thologize it as an Ariel pegged in a cloven pine by 
 some dark agency and then set free by a Prospero. 
 So it is a Radiant which not only radiates itself, 
 but at the same time radiates itself radiating, 
 illuminates itself illuminating, and hence is self- 
 luminous. 
 
 Light stands in most intimate relation to human 
 vision, but it is not merely subjective, as has been 
 thought sometimes. It is objective also, existent 
 in the universe, indeed a necessary part thereof. 
 Light we have deemed a kind of Self in Nature, 
 dividing within itself and revealing itself to itself 
 in the course of its own evolution. The inherent 
 movement and necessity of Nature evolved Light 
 long before there was any eye to see it; the sun 
 shone and the stars sparkled in and of themselves, 
 independent of the sense of sight, unless we regard 
 the sun and stars as the actual eyes of the Cosmos 
 looking at itself. It has been held that Light 
 evolved the eye of animate creatures for its own 
 behoof, in order to see itself so to speak, for it has 
 no complete self-reflection except through that won- 
 derful union of lens and mirror called the eye. 
 The Radiant, Light, though it radiates itself as radi- 
 ating, cannot completely turn about and view
 
 480 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 itself unless by means of the sense of sight. Light 
 may be said, therefore, to find its real fulfilment 
 in the living eye, which radiates it back to its 
 source or to itself. The candle before the mirror 
 can image itself but cannot see itself; it can reflect 
 itself outwardly but cannot reflect its own self- 
 reflection, though we may conceive it to be striv- 
 ing after such a power, as all Nature shows a 
 similar aspiration. Still Light is not yet subject- 
 ive, though traveling thitherward and dimly fore- 
 shadowing the far-off Ego coming on, whose deep- 
 est trait is to be self-seeing. Even the living eye 
 cannot yet see itself without an outer reflector, 
 but it can see Light reflected which cannot yet see, 
 though hurrying to get eyesight with all the speed 
 of its radiation. 
 
 Coming back to Heat, we may again glance at 
 Light rising out of it and illuminating it, for it can- 
 not shine and show itself. We might feel Heat, 
 but we could not know whence it came without 
 Light, which therein reveals also its own source. 
 Heat is, accordingly, immediate to sensation, com- 
 ing in the dark, unless accompanied by Light, 
 which performs again its double task of manifest- 
 ing its other and itself at the same time. Heat 
 assails Cohesion or the molecular oneness of body, 
 and tears it to pieces often with furious energy. 
 In this respect Light is different, it hardly opposes 
 Cohesion, but rebounds from it, turning back upon 
 itself without affecting seriously the material body
 
 LIGHT. 481 
 
 which -it meets. Its energy seems to be chiefly 
 spent in its own self-separating act which, as we 
 have seen, is the source of its luminosity. It rays 
 itself out instead of raying out and expanding the 
 struck body, as does Heat. Light as radiant is 
 indeed the opposite of Cohesion, yet not the vicious 
 destructive foe of it, rending it asunder: rather 
 
 i 
 
 does it quietly manifest and acknowledge the co- 
 hesive body in accord with its enlightening char- 
 acter. On the contrary Heat has an angry, dark, 
 demonic strain in comparison with Light, and car- 
 ries its negation quite to the point of self-negation ; 
 passing a certain line of intensity it passes from 
 darkness to luminosity, from expanding a body to 
 expanding itself, radiating anew its own radiation 
 and so reaching manifestation out of its previous 
 unmanifested and unmanifesting state. Undoubt- 
 edly Heat and Light are usually found together, 
 but there can be Heat without Light, and Light 
 without Heat as in phosphorescence. Both are 
 Radiants, but with different endowments; Heat 
 radiates itself, but must rise to radiate itself radi- 
 ating in order to become Light. When it divides 
 itself within and projects outward this act of self- 
 division, it shows itself; it radiates itself inwardly 
 but at the same time throws out this self-radia- 
 tion. From this point of view Heat may be 
 deemed implicit Light, potential Light not yet 
 shining, not yet born but struggling for birth, for 
 manifestation. Light like Heat is a form of Mo- 
 
 31
 
 482 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 tion; it is Motion revealing itself in its own move- 
 ment; without Light Motion could not show itself, 
 could not be seen. So we may say that in Light 
 Motion reaches the stage of self-illumination, Mo- 
 tion manifests Motion. 
 
 Light, like all the Radiants, rays out in opposi- 
 tion to gravitation, and thus shows that it belongs 
 to the Diacosmos generally. At the same time it 
 cannot be said to assail the unity of bodies; it is 
 not actively negative to the attraction of the Cos- 
 mos, but rather reveals it to itself, not merely to 
 our vision. Without Light the gravitation every- 
 where so dominant in the physical universe would 
 not be manifested, it would remain an occult power 
 which had never come to Light. No law of gravi- 
 tation, even if it dumbly existed, could show itself 
 really, for its Motion would have to stay in the 
 dark. Motion itself must unfold to self-manifesta- 
 tion in Light, which is one of Motion' s forms or 
 stages for showing all its other forms or stages. 
 Whether gravitation is or is not an actio in distans 
 has been much discussed; for instance does the 
 sun exert its power of attraction upon the earth at 
 a distance without the interposition of any medium 
 of impact? At any rate the sun radiates Light 
 into the distance counter to gravitation, doubtless 
 through a luminiferous Ether, and thus illuminates 
 attraction. Does Light fill Space? We may say 
 that it reveals Space, for without it Space would 
 be a chaotic, dark extension to us, and perchance
 
 LIGHT. 483 
 
 to itself. Light manifests what fills Space and the 
 limits thereof; it is a shining omnipresence but 
 without body, indeed bounded by body; it is pure 
 manifestation of Nature, not assailing, not exclud- 
 ing, not resisting, completely penetrable in con- 
 trast to Matter. It is just individual enough to show 
 all individuality, just corporeal enough to manifest 
 all body, just material enough to reveal Matter. 
 It radiates not merely itself but its own self-sepa- 
 ration (or self -radiation) and thus shines, or has 
 the luminous property by which it not only mani- 
 fests itself but also its own self-manifestion. 
 
 So we attempt to seize the immanent or psychic 
 character of Light as distinguished from its phe- 
 nomenal side with which the scientist specially 
 deals. We seek to assign Light to its place in the 
 universe, to see where it belongs in the universal 
 order, and to express its significance in some form- 
 ula or category, which may hint its function in the 
 grand evolution of the All. At the same time 
 Light has its own individual properties and charac- 
 teristics which are to be investigated and ordered. 
 
 Accordingly we shall first consider Light as it is 
 in itself physically ; then we shall look at it as sep- 
 arated in manifold ways; finally we shall touch 
 upon it in its generation. In this brief account 
 many details will have to be omitted, since Light 
 has become a vast theme upon which alone big 
 volumes are written. 
 
 I. Light In Itself. Already we have sought
 
 484 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 to give some idea of Light as a Radiant self-lumin- 
 ous, borne in undulatory vibrations through a me- 
 dium usually called the luminiferous Ether. Light 
 is therefore regarded as a force working upon a 
 subtle fluid, infinitely plastic and responsive to its 
 movement. In the history of optics two theories 
 of Light have held sway. The corpuscular theory 
 maintains that the luminous body emits very small 
 particles which strike the eye and stimulate it to 
 vision. The undulatory theory holds that the 
 luminous body starts vibrations in the Ether, 
 which bears them by undulations in all directions. 
 The great supporter of the former was Newton; 
 the latter was enunciated by Huyghens, advocated 
 by Young, but vindicated and confirmed chiefly 
 by Fresnel. 
 
 1. The Luminous Ray. Light is conceived to 
 be propagated in lines, each of which is called a 
 Ray, or a pencil of Light when several Rays are 
 put into a kind of bundle. This conception is 
 useful for isolating a small line of Light and pass- 
 ing it through an aperture for purposes of inves- 
 tigation. The rest of the Rays being stopped by 
 an opaque body produce the shadow which has an 
 important part in the phenomena of Light, one 
 instance being the eclipse of heavenly bodies. 
 
 (a) Radiation of Light from a luminous body 
 goes out in all directions, and in straight lines. 
 Thus it forms a kind of sphere with brilliancy di- 
 minishing from the center. We must suppose that
 
 LIGHT. 485 
 
 each ray sends off new shoots at every point and 
 so keeps on occupying space, the whole forming a 
 spherical brush of luminosity. Thus Light spreads 
 out and expands itself, but does not expand bodies 
 which it encounters, as does Heat. The luminous 
 ray keeps forking indefinitely as it darts out space- 
 ward. It naturally makes angles, with its two ra- 
 diating sides, to which the third is added forming 
 a triangle. This triangulation of Light is what 
 makes it measurable, and was strikingly employed 
 (first by Roemer) for measuring the velocity of 
 Light. 
 
 (b) Such radiospheres of Light from every 
 uminous center, great and small, necessarily inter- 
 sect and produce in these conjoined parts an in- 
 crease of luminosity. In this case Light does not 
 obstruct Light, but aids its own. Under ordinary 
 circumstances there is no impartation of Light to 
 bodies in its field; they do not get luminous as 
 they get hot ; their molecular structure is not as- 
 sailed and expanded by Light as it is by Heat. 
 
 (c) The radiation of Light grows less strong as 
 it sweeps outward from its center. This diminu- 
 tion proceeds according to the well-known law: 
 the intensity of the radiation varies inversely as 
 the square of the distances. We have found this 
 same Law in Heat and Sound, and also in Gravi- 
 tation. The ground of it seems to be manifested 
 in Light, whose rays we have seen branching at 
 every point as they move outward and thus be-
 
 486 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS 
 
 coming quantitatively lessened. Moreover these 
 branches shoot out not merely in a plane, but in 
 all directions, forming a sphere of dispersed Light, 
 which thus diminishes not simply according to the 
 distance but according to the square of the dis- 
 tance, being spread over so much surface. This 
 reason one thinks of transferring to the previous 
 cases of the same sort — Heat, Sound . and possibly 
 Gravitation. The force of all of them moves 
 outward, not on lines in same plane, but by 
 squares embracing more and more space. This 
 fact becomes luminous in Light, the revealer ; but 
 in the other instances there is no self-manifesta- 
 tion. Light may thus be said to throw its illumi- 
 nation back upon its dark predecessors obeying the 
 same law. 
 
 2. The Luminous Ray Impinged. Light in its 
 radiation strikes upon the surface of bodies. The 
 result is a collision but not very serious ; Light is 
 not a fierce fighter like Heat ; it reveals but hardly 
 assails its opponent. Thus the impact brings out 
 the character of this luminous Radiant in various 
 ways. Here especially do we observe in Light a 
 kind of peaceful, contemplative mood; literally it 
 reflects upon an object, and reveals itself in such 
 reflection ; its function is not to disintegrate the 
 antagonist but to show him as limited, as occupy- 
 ing so much space at a certain point. 
 
 (a) The reflection of Light follows in general 
 the same Law as Heat and Sound. Striking on a
 
 LIGHT. 487 
 
 surface the light-ray is reflected and comes to the 
 eye returning upon itself and thus gets manifested, 
 visible. It is said that the light of the Sun trav- 
 ersing the interplanetary spaces is quite dark, un- 
 revealed, till it strikes the earth's air and is re- 
 flected. Light remains more or less implicit till 
 made explicit by reflection. 
 
 (6) Not all the light-rays are reflected from 
 bodies, some are absorbed. These rays seemingly 
 vanish, we do not hear of latent Light, though it 
 may in a sense exist. The combustion of coal or 
 wood produces Light which was once stored up 
 like Heat. On the other hand certain bodies emit 
 Light without incandescence or combustion, as 
 is seen in phosphorescence and fluorescence. 
 
 (c) Transmitted Light is observed in a class of 
 objects known as transparent and translucent. 
 The property of transparency has a great field in 
 glass with its many uses. The window pane which 
 lets Light into a room, without allowing Heat to es- 
 cape, or the rain enter, has a very important place 
 in human development. Heat which assails and 
 separates the molecular structure discovers the 
 hard glass to be very refractory and is thrown off, 
 but Light which is inclined to leave the molecules 
 alone is congenial to glass, which finds its trans- 
 parent character manifested only through Light. 
 Heat if transmitted through glass tells nothing of 
 its transparency which is its true character. 
 
 3. The Luminous Ray Transferred. Conduc-
 
 488 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tivity of bodies has a weighty part in the treat- 
 ment of the Heat whieh can be transported from 
 molecule to molecule. Of course Light cannot 
 have much to do with such a property, as it hardly 
 affects molecular structure. Light can manifest 
 cohesion in a body, but hardly breaks into it or 
 breaks it up. Solids, liquids, gases, can not strictly 
 be said to carry Light or to conduct it, even 
 if they transmit it or rather allow it to be trans- 
 mitted. Here then is a striking difference between 
 Light and Heat. 
 
 Still there are a few cases of the actual transfer- 
 ence of Light as a radiant. The new element Ra- 
 dium is declared to transfer to bodies its power of 
 radiation of Light and to emanate substances en- 
 dowed with its own radio-active capacity. 
 
 Becquerel made the discovery that uranium 
 would emit rays spontaneously without previous 
 exposure to the sun. It is itself a kind of sun 
 shining by its own radiation, which does not di- 
 minish the luminous substance. It is a new prop- 
 erty of Matter, or Matter with its new property, 
 which has been specially called radio-activity. It 
 is said that any substance placed near radium ac- 
 quires radio-activity for hours and sometimes for 
 days, even after the removal of the radium. This 
 is declared to be the result of the so-called emana- 
 tion or gas of radium which settles on bodies and 
 then leaves them. The x emanation produces 
 helium, which is set down as a new chemical ele-
 
 LIGHT. 489 
 
 ment. So it seems that the luminous ray has its 
 field of transference. 
 
 II. Light Separated. The ray of Light can 
 be separated in various ways. First it can be sud- 
 denly turned from its direction or broken cross- 
 wise, refracted, as the books say. Then it can be 
 separated within, decomposed into colors which 
 are in turn variously refracted, producing the 
 spectrum. 
 
 It will be noticed that this second stage of Light 
 differs in character from the second stage of Heat. 
 The latter shows its character in expanding the 
 constituent molecules of a body; but Light on 
 the whole turns away from an assault inwardly 
 and reveals its own constitution. 
 
 1. Refracted (broken) Light. Every person has 
 observed that a stick thrust into clear water seems 
 broken at the line of its entrance. A ray of light, 
 passing out of a rarer into a denser medium or the 
 reverse, undergoes refraction, be it from air to water 
 or from water to air. The molecular medium of 
 solid, liquid, gas, determines the direction of the im- 
 pinging ray; this finds a new way according to the 
 constitution of the material. The waves of light 
 thus reveal the nature of the medium, which can 
 determine it in various manners. 
 
 (a) Diffraction is seen when the light ray, after 
 passing through a narrow aperture, branches out 
 at every point of the line. Light thus separates 
 within itself at every point and radiates in every
 
 490 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 direction. It not only propagates itself in straight 
 lines, but starts anew lines of propagation. Light 
 shows this inner self-separation, it cannot stay 
 with itself but must thus ray out and manifest 
 itself. 
 
 Diffraction has been specially studied by physi- 
 cists since it shows the phenomenon of interference 
 of Light in which Young and Fresnel saw the 
 first necessity of the undulatory theory. 
 
 (6) Many refractions can be made to take place 
 through variously shaped media.- These are usu- 
 ally of glass and are called lenses, of which a num- 
 ber of kinds appear in the books. They diverge 
 and converge Light, making its rays draw lines 
 which form geometric figures, and show its mathe- 
 matical properties. One lens refracts many rays 
 to a common point called the focus, while another 
 lens can decentralize Light. A great variety of 
 optical instruments have as their principle the 
 lens; the eye itself is such an instrument. The 
 light ray is thus caught and controlled. Its func- 
 tion is some sort of manifestation, it is to reveal 
 what is hidden in the dark. It has become a plia- 
 ble instrument, though it be but an etheric wave 
 which radiates itself radiating. 
 
 (c) A ray of Light can be refracted and then 
 restored to its original direction. When it is 
 passed obliquely between two parallel planes, it de- 
 viates according to the medium, but assumes its 
 first direction when it returns to its first medium.
 
 LIGHT. 491 
 
 If we look through a glass this phenomenon takes 
 place: a given line of Light through air to the 
 glass, then a deflected line through the second me- 
 dium, finally a restored line when the air is again 
 entered. 
 
 2. Prismatic Colors. The separation of a light- 
 ray takes place lengthwise as well as crosswise; or 
 as is said usually, it is decomposed into colors. 
 The prism is used for this purpose, hence they are 
 called prismatic colors. This was the famous ex- 
 periment of Newton dividing the so-called white 
 ray into seven colors of different degrees of refrac- 
 tion. Thus it was shown that the light of the sun 
 which seems so simple is really a compound. 
 
 (a) We find, then, that the ray of ordinary or 
 of white light is decomposable, whatever be the 
 degree of its intensity. It grows less in proportion 
 to the square of the distance from its source; still 
 it can always be separated within or decomposed. 
 After reflection or refraction it is still a compound 
 borne by the Ether. Thus the Radiant radiating 
 itself as radiating is internally divisible, it is made 
 up of elements. Light manifesting its opposite as 
 body manifests itself as luminous; but now this 
 luminosity is made to show its inner character by 
 the separative action of a prism. Are the other 
 Radiants thus decomposable? At any rate Light 
 has a chemical suggestion in it, a kind of labora- 
 tory which analyzes. 
 
 (6) The next fact is that each of the seven
 
 492 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 prismatic colors is indecomposable, each is an ele- 
 mental product, comparable from this point of 
 view to the ultimate element of chemistry. If one 
 of the colors be isolated and passed a second time 
 through the prism it is not decomposed, though it 
 is still deflected, coming out a single ray of the 
 same color. The light from luminous bodies is 
 seldom simple, but a compound. Now comes the 
 fact that different bodies give rays of light differ- 
 ently compounded, and hence they can be identi- 
 fied by their spectrum as far as Light reaches. 
 Thus the new chemistry of spectrum analysis rises. 
 
 (c) The recomposition of Light is effected by 
 uniting its original elements. This, too, was the 
 work of Newton. All bodies have their relations 
 with Light, decomposing it and recomposing it. 
 A green tree is not green but has the power of de- 
 composing Light and reflecting green, or reflecting 
 yellow and blue, which compose green — the other 
 elemental rays being absorbed. Thus Nature sep- 
 arates Light with great diversity. Each body with 
 its separative character shows the same by way 
 it separates and chooses color. Thus something 
 characteristic of the body is seemingly uttered by 
 color. 
 
 3. Light Separated as a Whole. We have seen 
 Light separated crosswise (refraction) then we 
 have seen it separated lengthwise (the prismatic 
 spectrum) ; now we are to regard it as a totality 
 separated from two sets of etheric undulations,
 
 LIGHT. 493 
 
 one less in number and one greater, or one below 
 and one above. In this way there recurs to the 
 mind the conception of the one common Radiant 
 before any differentiation into the three, or of the 
 one universal Ray of the Diacosmos which itself 
 separates into several vast bundles of Rays, such 
 as Heat, Light, Electricity, and possibly more. 
 Such an universal Ray has likewise its spectrum 
 (often called its scale or key-board), which may be 
 deemed the universal spectrum, quite overarching 
 the whole Diacosmos. 
 
 (a) The total solar Ray, therefore, shows itself 
 a very composite thing, composite not only quan- 
 titatively but qualitatively. It is to be conceived 
 as a bundle not merely of luminous homogeneous 
 elements, but also of non-luminous heterogeneous 
 elements. As a whole the solar ray falls upon a 
 body, not only heating it but working upon it 
 chemically and also electrically. The light thrown 
 upon a photographic plate will change its chem- 
 ical character; a ray of light will explode chlorine 
 gas, which seems to have the power of decompos- 
 ing the total solar ray and selecting the chemical 
 element. 
 
 (6) The inner qualitative separability of the 
 solar Ray is, therefore, manifested — manifested 
 doubly. It has a chemical reaction as well as 
 heating power, along with its luminosity. It also 
 possesses the power of transforming itself into 
 color by what seems hardly more than a mechan-
 
 494 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 ical separation. We have to distinguish between 
 the simple light-ray with its special properties, 
 for instance reflection and refraction, and the 
 total solar ray which along with mere light has a 
 thermal, a chemical, and doubtless an electrical 
 ingredient . 
 
 Here another problem rises. The velocities of 
 the thermal, ' luminous and chemical undulations 
 are very different, and are set down as successive 
 in the spectrum or scale of the Radiants. Still 
 they seem to coexist and to act synchronously in 
 spite of their very diverse wave-lengths, which 
 apparently have also a kind of unity in the one 
 solar ray. 
 
 (c) The chief modern act in the separation of 
 Light is what is known as spectrum analysis. The 
 Light passed through the prism, as it comes from 
 different luminous bodies, is found to have differ- 
 ent spectra, so that the spectrum becomes a test 
 of the chemical composition of such a body. So 
 we have learnt what is burning in the most dis- 
 tant stars. The spectrum is found not to be con- 
 tinuous in light or color, but to be crossed by a 
 great number of dark lines more or less narrow. 
 The English physicists cannot get over the fact 
 that the great Newton totally failed to notice 
 these lines. Some observers (for instance Wollas- 
 ton, in 1802), remarked them in a passing way; 
 but it was left to a German optician of Munich, 
 Fraunhofer, to study and describe them in detail.
 
 LIGHT. 495 
 
 These dark limits are chiefly the defining principle 
 of the spectrum; they in the main tell the sub- 
 stance which is sending out the light. So the 
 spectrum through the Fraunhofer lines specializes 
 itself indefinitely. Light, being bounded within 
 itself by its opposite, darkness, gets to have a kind 
 of articulation (like speech) or a chain of vocables 
 which is telling us much in these days from the 
 most distant spheres. 
 
 III. Light Generated. In one sense it is 
 easy enough to see Light generated ; it can be 
 waked up by striking a friction match. But 
 Light in such a contrivance is only stored; what 
 made it originally? It had to evolve in the total 
 movement of Nature of which it is a given stage ; 
 ultimately it has a psychical character which 
 must be expressed in psychical terms, if it be cor- 
 related with the universe. Yet Light has also its 
 phenomenal side which must be described, tested 
 and measured. In this last case it has a number 
 of sources of which a brief note may be taken. 
 
 1. Primal Sources. These are essentially cos- 
 mical ; indeed there is required the physical All to 
 produce one of its parts or stages. The Earth 
 shares directly in the universal illumination which 
 the total Cosmos produces through its own process 
 in order to come to a manifestation of itself. The 
 world is not only seen, but in a sense sees itself, 
 through Light. We have to think that the firma- 
 ment beheld itself long before the existence of any
 
 496 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 eye, which it probably helped to evolve. The 
 Earth is supposed to have within its rind a good 
 deal of this original Light, which bursts out in the 
 volcano. The Sun is still a source of elemental 
 Light whose primordial form can probably be seen 
 in the self-luminous nebula carrying us back to 
 the Cosmosphere with which Earth, Sun and Stars 
 took start in their evolution. Light reveals and 
 in a way associates the separated physical uni- 
 verse, showing it in its separation yet conjoining 
 its parts in a common medium. 
 
 2. Secondary Sources. These are the ordinary 
 modes of producing Light on our earth, more or 
 less transient, in contrast to the relatively con- 
 stant sources of the preceding cosmical illumina- 
 tion. Similar to the case of Heat, Light can be 
 produced mechanically by friction, also physically 
 through electricity, and chemically by combustion. 
 The variety of these sources of Light is very great 
 and need not be here detailed. Phosphorescence is 
 applied to bodies which become capable of emitting 
 light with little or no heat or combustion. The 
 phosphorescent object is endowed with a self- 
 luminous power from manifold sources which are 
 discussed specially by Le Bon in his "Evolution of 
 Forces " 
 
 3. Light Measured. That Light moves at a 
 measurable speed — so many miles (196,000) in so 
 much time (one second) — has been already men- 
 tioned. This measurement of Light was the start-
 
 ELECTRICITY. 497 
 
 ing-point for finding the velocity of other Radi- 
 ants, all of which have the same speed per second 
 through the Ether. But this identity of rate con- 
 tains a great diversity of undulatory forms; Red 
 has 34,000 waves to the inch, Violet at the other 
 end of the visible spectrum has quite double as 
 many. The corresponding numbers of waves for 
 producing the sensation of these two extreme col- 
 ors are set down as 400 millions millions per sec- 
 ond for Red. and 800 millions millions per second 
 for Violet. It should be stated that these meas- 
 urements vary somewhat in different authors; the 
 foregoing figures are Lord Kelvin's. The visible 
 spectrum is but a small part of the total spectrum 
 of all the Radiants; above and below are found 
 what are called invisible rays of Light. 
 
 We have now reached Electricity which is the 
 third Radiant of the present stage of the Dia- 
 cosmos. 
 
 III. Electricity. 
 
 This word we intend to use in its wide sense 
 embracing Magnetism, Electricity proper (f rictional) , 
 and Voltaic Electricity (chemical). In fact these 
 three divisions form the basic process of the entire 
 subject and are ultimately to be seen together in 
 their unity. ¥et each of them has its own pro- 
 cess which is to be looked at by itself. First, 
 however, we may well try to grasp the electrical 
 idea in its entirety. 
 
 32
 
 498 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 The first picture displayed in the books under 
 tnis head is that of the loadstone attracting iron 
 filings. This is indeed a very suggestive phenom- 
 enon, and can be regarded as the prelude of 
 the whole sphere, forecasting what is to come. 
 There is the new center different from the earth's 
 center and attracting by its own power parti- 
 cles of matter in opposition to gravitation. That 
 at least hints its diacosmical character. Then 
 there are the lines of filings which seem to ra- 
 diate in all directions, like rays of light from 
 a luminous body. Here we behold the Radiant 
 not only manifesting itself but actually taking- 
 on a material form and shooting-out iron sun- 
 beams. But this is not all. When the particles 
 are free to arrange themselves according to 
 their inner bent, we behold them forming curves 
 from one end of the magnet to the other; they 
 make circles of themselves, which strive to return 
 into one another, and produce a series of concen- 
 tric rounds about the magnet. Finally the power 
 of radiation gradully diminishes till it quite ceases, 
 forming a magnetic field with its bounds. In 
 all this there is a surprising similarity to Light 
 which now seems to incorporate itself, each mag- 
 net showing itself a little sun with lessening ra- 
 diance from the center. 
 
 Many years ago Faraday observed what he 
 called lines of force which circled about a magnet 
 from its center outwards. This magnetic phe-
 
 ELECTRICITY. 499 
 
 nomenoji is indeed pivotal and differs from the 
 luminous appearance which has just preceded. 
 There is still radiation but the lines of energy strive 
 to bend around into curves whose ends come to- 
 gether. That is, the Radiant is now self-returning 
 and seeks to make a circuit of itself. Such is, 
 indeed, the pervasive characteristic not only of 
 Magnetism proper, but of the whole sphere of Elec- 
 tricity. The radiant Diacosmos has become cyc- 
 lical. 
 
 The Diacosmos is in general that department of 
 Nature to which Electricity belongs as different 
 from and indeed opposite to the movement of the 
 Cosmos. Electricity runs counter to gravitation 
 and radiates in various ways; so we must again 
 see it as a Radiant pulsing its vibrations in an 
 Ether. It is moreover the third stage of the sec- 
 ond or radiating Diacosmos, its two antecedents 
 being Heat and Light, with which it forms a pro- 
 cess, verily the total process of the Radiants. 
 Heat we have seen to be an immediate forthright 
 radiation of a form of Motion, which takes the mole- 
 cules of the material body along with it, thus 
 expanding it and often breaking it to pieces. 
 Electricity will, we may say, return to Heat and 
 generate the same with an enormous energy, 
 which will liquify and even gasify the most refrac- 
 tory substances. At the same time Electricity 
 will be a marvelous generator of Light, presenting 
 the world with a new illumination. Electric Heat
 
 500 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 and Electric Light are getting to be among the 
 most important of these kind of Radiants, with 
 an outlook of the vastest magnitude. Light, how- 
 ever, radiates itself, like Heat, outward and on- 
 ward without return to its origin, unless through 
 the All. But the salient fact about Electricity is 
 that it has the inherent tendency to turn around 
 into itself; if it separates from itself and rays 
 forth (thus being a Radiant) it also wheels back 
 or strives to do so, finding whence it came. Hence 
 we see the basic characteristic of Electricity to be 
 the circuit. 
 
 The fact of the circuit, then, is what permeates 
 and unifies all the diversified phenomena of Elec- 
 tricity. This is also what makes it emphatically 
 the third in the order of the three Radiants, which 
 order, though it shows the process of this whole 
 diacosmical sphere (the second) is too often disre- 
 garded in the books on Physics. Electricity is, 
 therefore, the self-returning Radiant as distinct- 
 ive, not merely the self-radiating (like Heat), not 
 merely the self-radiating and self-manifesting (like 
 Light); it is both of these indeed, but likewise 
 itself, being cyclical in its radiation. The arc-light 
 illuminating your room is an electric circuit giving 
 off both Light and Heat. 
 
 Thus Electricity thus performs a double round : 
 it has its own special circuit, and then it takes up 
 the entire circuit of the three diacosmical Ra- 
 diants. In fact it seems to go back to the Cos-
 
 ELECTRICITY. 501 
 
 mos and to employ the attraction of bodies in a 
 new way, and to combine it with repulsion, thus 
 forming a circuit of attraction and repulsion, 
 as we see in Magnetism. Of course the power of 
 the electric circuit is specially manifested in Vol- 
 taic or dynamic Electricity. Here we see also 
 that Electricity is a liberation of energy (like 
 Heat and Light) from its material enthrallment, 
 but moves in its own way back to its origin and 
 thus completes the purely emissive radiation of 
 Heat and Light, which may be even made to ap- 
 pear as parts of its cycle. 
 
 Electricity is, accordingly, a form of Motion, a 
 radiant form of it, self-separating yet also self- 
 returning. Motion in its primordial form we have 
 called the Separating and Matter the Separated; 
 the two are opposites, the very dualism of Nat- 
 ure, whose process is to unite them, to mediate 
 their conflicts. In the Cosmos we saw Motion re- 
 turning into itself in the orbits of the heavenly 
 bodies, which it bore along from the outside as it 
 were in its circuit. Such was the realm of gravi- 
 tation. But now in the Diacosmos, Motion as 
 electric is separated from dissolving bodies (say 
 zinc and copper with acid) and radiates itself in a 
 circuit; or it vibrates itself through an Ether 
 around into its beginning. Thus Motion as pure 
 and unbodied has revealed itself as cyclical ; that 
 is, it does not now carry its bodies along, as we 
 saw it doing in the Systemic Cosmos, when it bore
 
 502 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the Earth around the Sun, for instance. At 
 present Motion as electrical separates from mate- 
 rial body, (though the latter is still its source and 
 support) and moves of itself always around into 
 itself, showing doubtless in the smallest magnetic 
 circuit a phase of the original elemental form of 
 itself in its first separation from the All-Self. Thus 
 Electricity we call a form of Motion as well as 
 Heat and Light, with which it is correlated in the 
 one process of the Radiants. 
 
 And now must take note of what seems to be 
 an exception in this ordering of the Radiants. 
 Upon their general spectrum (or key-board) Elec- 
 tricity is placed lowest, that is, it has the great- 
 est wave-lengths. Much above it is Heat, and 
 then follows Light (starting with 34,000 waves to 
 the inch). But above the light-ray is placed, not 
 the electric but the actinic or chemical ray. Thus 
 the scale of Radiants seems to be dislocated. Still 
 there are said to be among these short ultra-violet 
 rays some which can be called electric. There is 
 a good deal of doubt about the X-ray, but it ap- 
 pears to belong in the upper spectrum. Even the 
 Hertzian ray, usually set down as very long, is 
 declared by some investigators to have its very 
 short counterparts. Then the actinic ray may 
 well have its electric part, since chemical action 
 produces and is produced by Electricity. Evi- 
 dently there is much uncertainty hanging over 
 this portion of our subject. We may, however,
 
 ELECTRICITY. 503 
 
 consider Electricity to have its special place and 
 manifestation in the total scale of the Radiants, 
 but at the same time to be at work in the back- 
 ground of the whole of it, from top to bottom. 
 We have noticed something of the same sort about 
 Heat; it has its own field, yet is found along 
 with the other Radiants. It would not be sur- 
 prising if Electricity, though bounded specially 
 against Light and Heat, would turn out the uni- 
 versal Radiant even by actual experiment ; in our 
 thought it is so already as the cyclical or self- 
 returning Radiant, completing and embracing all 
 three forms of what we here call the radiant Dia. 
 cosmos. Perchance the electric ray will yet be 
 found to bend around from the last octave to the 
 first of that universal key-board of Heat, Light 
 and Electricity (which the scientists have even 
 pictured), thus making the universal circuit of 
 this entire field. At present, however, we must 
 be satisfied with grasping Electricity as endowed 
 in its own special field fundamentally with the ra- 
 diant circuit, of which it will show numerous forms. 
 We have already forecast the general movement 
 of Electricity in its three stages of magnetic, 
 f rictional (static), and chemical (Voltaic). More- 
 over we are to see that these stages are not only 
 divisions of the subject but forma process together 
 which unifies and orders electrical science. The 
 following may be taken as a brief outline of its 
 movement.
 
 504 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 1. Magnetic Electricity — given by Nature di- 
 rectly in a physical object, and hence immediate; 
 it manifests the electric circuit in the most direct 
 sensuous way. 
 
 2. Frictional Electricity — excited primarily by 
 an assault upon the molecular structure of the 
 body, or rather of two bodies; it shows two kinds 
 of Electricity and two kinds of circuits; it is the 
 dual stage of Electricity. 
 
 3. Chemical Electricity — excited by decompo- 
 sition of the atomic structure of two substances 
 (usually metals) which, however, unite in a new 
 sort of electric circuit, known as Voltaic (or Gal- 
 vanic) ; its power is the greater, as its negative 
 might in assailing the atom is the greater; it also 
 returns to the simple magnetic circuit with mar- 
 velous results. 
 
 These designations spring from the origin of the 
 different stages of Electricity, which can be nat- 
 ural, molecular, or atomic. But they all manifest 
 some form of the electric circuit, which is to be 
 grasped as their common principle. (The word 
 static or Electrostatics, as applied to frictional Elec- 
 tricity, which does not stand still, is misleading, 
 and hence is to be avoided). 
 
 I. Magnetic Electricity. Of ten called simply 
 Magnetism, which has long been known. The 
 magnet (or loadstone) is a product of Nature her- 
 self; the name is said to have come from Magne- 
 sia, in Asia Minor. It is an oxide of iron and is
 
 ELECTRICITY. 505 
 
 found especially in the iron mines of Sweden and 
 Norway. Thus Magnetism is something primarily 
 given, not produced though producible, as we shall 
 see; it is an immediate native presence in Nature, 
 and is almost wholly confined to one material ob- 
 ject, which has been physically endowed with the 
 power of degravitating in a limited way the sup- 
 posed universal gravitation of the Earth. Up to 
 a recent date Magnetism was treated as something 
 by itself alone, as an isolated phenomenon; but at 
 present it is regarded as a stage of total Elec- 
 tricity. 
 
 Magnetism is, therefore, an integrating part of 
 the entire electrical movement as one of the three 
 Radiants. We may deem it an implicit Electric- 
 ity, the first stage thereof, not yet manifested in 
 light or the electric spark which is so character- 
 istic of frictional Electricity. Still there is the 
 electric circuit, which shows not in itself by be- 
 coming luminous, but by its effect seen in external 
 bodies, as in the case of iron filings. The move- 
 ment of Magnetism may be grasped in the three 
 main forms of the magnetic circuit; first is the 
 simple one, that of radiation ; second is the circuit 
 divided into positive and negative poles, or polar- 
 ized; third is the circuit restored and united — 
 which fact we see in the horse-shoe magnet with 
 its armature. 
 
 (The story of Mahomet's steel coffin suspended 
 by loadstone at Mecca, also that of the iron
 
 506 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 statue of Queen Arsinoe hanging from the mag- 
 netite iron of her temple's roof, are magnetic 
 marvels embodied in legend; the iron steed of 
 Bellerophon galloping through the air while up- 
 held by magnets at Rhodes, was one of the fables 
 celebrating the wonder of Rhodian art) , 
 
 1. Circuit Radiated. It has been remarked that 
 Magnetism does not show itself but has to be 
 shown by something else. The ordinary material 
 (we may repeat) is iron filings brought near the 
 ends of an iron magnet. These arrange themselves 
 in radiant lines about each end as center. Thus a 
 magnetic rod has two centers of radiation, both at 
 the ends, while in the middle there is no attraction. 
 This is called the neutral line. Thus Magnetism 
 divides the one object into two opposites centers, 
 each of which has quite equal power. Here we 
 behold the first appearance of the electric circuit, 
 out of which the other forms may be considered 
 to evolve. Noticeable is the fact of very small 
 particles arranged by magnetic force as if they 
 might suggest the molecules in the same activity. 
 
 (a) Attraction is thus the primal category of 
 the magnet, as we saw it to be of cosmical Mat- 
 ter. Every body in the physical universe is said 
 to attract every other and to be attracted by it — 
 the doctrine of universal gravitation. But mag- 
 netic attraction is strangely confined to one ele- 
 ment, namely iron, and this has to be in a certain 
 attractive condition. Thus we behold iron at-
 
 ELECTRICITY. 507 
 
 tracting iron and manifesting such attraction de- 
 cidedly to the senses; we may deem it a kind of 
 concentrated attraction in small objects, which 
 otherwise is dispersed through the entire material 
 world, and is very slight except when manifested 
 in planets, sun and stars. Moreover such attrac- 
 tion spheres itself visibly around a center. 
 
 (6) This magnetic attraction we are next to 
 see dividing into two centers in the magnetized 
 bar, each end of which radiates the power, and 
 draws the small particles of iron. Thus the bar is 
 decentered by Magnetism, as regards . gravity ; the 
 center of gravity in the bar is made indifferent to 
 Magnetism just in the magnetized object, and is 
 sundered into two end-centers. Herein we may 
 see the one attraction, primarily cosmical, to be 
 separated into two diacosmical attractions of Mag- 
 netism. According to the law of gravitation, the 
 iron bar should draw to its center every little bit 
 of iron, which attraction is infinitely small; but 
 according to the law of Magnetism the particles of 
 iron must fly from the one center in the middle to 
 either center at the end. Moreover two spheres 
 appear, each being manifested visibly in the par- 
 ticles around its center. 
 
 (c) Accordingly around each of these end-cent- 
 ers are manifested lines of circular motion, or of 
 magnetic force, as the books say. If a thin card 
 be placed upon a magnetic bar, and iron dust fall 
 upon the card through a seive, the particles will
 
 508 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 arrange themselves in curves around each of the 
 end-centers. This shows the concentric circuits 
 radiating around each of these end-centers. More- 
 over these circuits reach out to a circumference in 
 proportion to the power of the magnet and to the 
 distance of one end-center from the other, the two 
 fields curving around into each other. But the 
 main fact is the central radiation and its circular 
 form. This may be deemed the primal electrical 
 circuit manifested; it is indeed magnetic, but 
 Magnetism is the first stage of total Electricity. 
 The circuit, the basic electrical phenomenon, has 
 now appeared. But this visible radiated circuit 
 dualizes itself. 
 
 2. Circuit Divided (Polarized). We have just 
 seen the magnet divided into two magnets, each 
 of which radiates a sphere of concentric lines of 
 force. These two end-magnets were quite equal 
 and alike in power; but now they show themselves 
 opposed to each other, symmetrical counterparts 
 of the magnetic bar. These are called poles, each 
 of which is placed near the end of the magnetic 
 bar. The latter has now three divisions: the pos- 
 itive, neutral, and negative portions. The two 
 poles are true opposites, each is through the other, 
 neither can do without the other. This is strik- 
 ingly shown by the fact that the positive pole 
 cannot be chopped off from the negative pole and 
 be made to stay with itself alone; the half will 
 still have both poles.
 
 ELECTRICITY. 509 
 
 (a) We have already considered magnetic at- 
 traction which is equal and like as to power in 
 both the end-magnets. At this point, however? 
 enters the fact of polarization, which involves re- 
 pulsion also; the end magnets are opposite poles 
 of the one magnetic bar. For if a second magnetic 
 bar be brought near the first, the like end-magnets 
 will repel each other, and the different will attract 
 each other. Or, as the law is usually given: poles 
 of the same name repel, and of opposite name at- 
 tract. It is evident that the two contradictory 
 poles seek to come together and form one process 
 or circuit. In this way the two magnetic bars are 
 united at both ends, and the round is complete. 
 Thus two magnetic bars may be conjoined in two 
 circuits. 
 
 (6) The Earth is a magnet or rather a kind of 
 magnetic bar with two end-magnets, that is, with 
 two magnetic poles, which are not far from the 
 geographical poles. Consequently all magnets on 
 the earth's surface, if free to move, adjust them- 
 selves to the great terrestrial magnet, magnet of 
 magnets for us. Thus we have two kinds of mag- 
 nets, the universal one (or relatively so) and the 
 many particular ones scattered over the face of 
 the earth, each of which points its one opposite 
 pole to the North-polar magnet, the other South- 
 wards. This fact is utilized in the Mariner's com- 
 pass. Note that its South pole as opposite points 
 Northward, though usage of speech calls it the 
 North pole of the needle.
 
 510 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS 
 
 There are many interesting facts in connection 
 with the vast terrestrial magnet, which has its own 
 movements. It deflects the needle from due 
 North (inclination); it draws the needle down more 
 and more toward the perpendicular, the farther it 
 is carried Northward (dip) ; its horizontal force is 
 greatest on the Equator. These are all manifesta- 
 tions of the universal magnet determining the par- 
 ticular magnets over the whole earth — the needle 
 being only the example in its free movement. 
 Gravitation also draws the needle toward the 
 center of the earth, while magnetic attraction fur- 
 nishes two new centers at the ends of the *Earth. 
 
 But now comes the curious fact that terrestrial 
 Magnetism is not a totality but is determined from 
 the outside. So it is still in the divisive stage. 
 
 (c) What are known as magnetic storms are 
 seemingly caused by the Sun, being sent out from 
 its disturbances, which are supposed to produce 
 strong magnetic circuits upon and around the 
 Earth. These often disturb the telegraph for in- 
 stance. They are connected with the solar spots 
 which seem to be sources of radiated Magnetism 
 that reaches and swathes the Earth. The Sun 
 thus becomes a kind of magnet whose power ex- 
 tends to the planets revolving and wrapping around 
 themselves its currents. The whole planetary sys- 
 tem is a Magnet; the Heliosphere was Oxie with its 
 poles. Thence we advance to the Cosmosphere or 
 total physical universe. These sun-spots with their
 
 ELECTRICITY- 511 
 
 magnetic effects upon the Earth occur periodically, 
 once in eleven years it is estimated . 
 
 So we have perchance all Nature as one great 
 Magnet, divided into lesser magnets, such as sun, 
 planets, as well as our own earth, with its infinity 
 of magnets. For us the sun seems the source of 
 Magnetism, as also of Heat and Light. And yet 
 the sun, too, even in its magnetic power may be 
 able to make the solar system a magnet, and it 
 may have derived its Magnetism originally from 
 the Cosmosphere. This would then be the bearer 
 of the universal magnetic circuit from which all 
 others have been derived. 
 
 3. Circuit Restored. In the preceding sphere 
 we saw the magnetic circuit divided, with the two 
 poles as centers, each of which was the opposite 
 of the other and had its own sphere of influence. 
 The next step is that these two separated and an- 
 tagonistic poles must somehow be brought to- 
 gether and conjoined "n one circuit, which thus re- 
 stores both out of their separation, and makes 
 them stages of one movement deeper and stronger 
 than either. The outcome of Magnetism, there- 
 fore, will be the circuit united within itself and 
 moving through the magnetic body, its circular 
 activity having become internal from its first ex- 
 ternal appearance (in the iron filings). 
 
 (a) First we may consider magnetization. A 
 magnet has the power of imparting its peculiar 
 quality ; magnetism can be transferred from one
 
 512 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 piece of matter to another. Iron or steel is the 
 chosen bearer of magnetism (with nickel and 
 cobalt) , but different specimens of iron and steel 
 show different powers of receiving and retaining 
 the imparted magnetism. The earth will magnet- 
 ize a rod of wrought iron placed in the magnetic 
 meridian, though such a magnet does not last 
 unless hammered or twisted. The Earth has a 
 tendency to magnetize all iron when in the right 
 position for the current. A knife-blade or needle 
 is magnetized by rubbing it with a magnet. Elec- 
 tric currents are the most powerful means of 
 magnetization. 
 
 Indeed Magnetism is a form of magnetic trans- 
 ference from one center through several objects. 
 A pair of shears will pick up a needle and hold it 
 by magnetic attraction; the needle will hold 
 another needle, and that another, and so on, ac- 
 cording to the power of the magnet. In this case 
 Magnetism shows itself radiating from a center and 
 holding in a line different objects. The same prin- 
 ciple is what radiates the iron filings around the 
 pole of a magnet; each particle becomes a magnet 
 drawing and holding its neighbor. Thus through 
 induction Magnetism shows a unifying power over 
 separated objects, assimilating them and conjoin- 
 ing them in a common character and action. 
 
 (b) If we cut a magnetic bar into two equal 
 parts, each part becomes a complete magnet with 
 its two poles. If then these parts be still further
 
 ELECTRICITY. 513 
 
 divided, each division and sub-division is a mag- 
 net. We cannot, therefore, separate one pole 
 from a magnet, making it unipolar; the positive 
 pole cannot exist without the negative, and vice 
 versa. The magnetic body may be divided in the 
 middle just at the neutral line, still the separated 
 pole posits it opposite pole at once. Thus each indi- 
 vidual body becomes a magnet, and the separated 
 ends as opposite poles attract each other. In this 
 way Magnetism is connected with cohesion, which 
 when broken through separates, and we may say 
 individuates Matter, each portion of which can 
 become a new body. 
 
 Nay if we carry out this principle of division to 
 the final unit, the molecule (or even the atom) we 
 may infer that this too will be a magnet. As all 
 matter, however rigid, is supposed to be discontin- 
 uous in its molecular state, we have here the con- 
 ception of body made up of magnetic molecules, 
 trillions to the cubic inch. The theory of magnet- 
 ization lies in the order of these minute particles, 
 each of which has its South pole and its North. 
 When the opposite poles of these particles are to- 
 gether they are in equilibrium, and can constitute 
 no magnet; but when like poles are conjoined and 
 are deflected from the opposite ones, there is a 
 common tension of them which is manifested in 
 their Magnetism. This is, then, not a thing, but 
 a force springing from many infinitely small, mole- 
 cular magnets. 
 
 33
 
 514 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 (c) This force separated and polarized in the 
 ordinary magnet with its positive and negative 
 poles is made into a circuit when these two poles 
 are brought together by a mediating object. This 
 is best seen in the horse-shoe magnet with its arma- 
 ture. The two opposing poles of a rod are bent 
 around toward each other, then they are connected 
 by a piece of soft iron. The power of the mag- 
 netic circuit is indicated by the weight which can 
 be suspended from the armature without breaking 
 its hold. 
 
 We now witness the double and hostile polar 
 circuits of Magnetism reconciled in a common cir- 
 cuit, being mediated by a sympathetic metal of 
 the same kind, which takes up into itself and har- 
 monizes them in and through itself. Thus Mag- 
 netism has run its course, having passed from its 
 outer, purely natural, visible state to its inner in- 
 visible circuit, whose unity is shown in all its 
 power by the way in which it binds to itself its 
 reconciling principle, the armature, which has be- 
 fore it a great destiny. Thus we have unified, and 
 as it were, internalized the first electric circuit, 
 whose outer and separated forms we have already 
 considered. The tension between the two poles of 
 the magnet is overcome by what may be called 
 thediamagnet (armature) whose character is just 
 this mediational act. (The word diamagnetism is, 
 however, employed in a different connection) . But 
 now we are to behold this one electric current be- 
 coming dual in a new phase of electricity.
 
 ELECTRICITY. 515 
 
 II. -Frictional Electricity. As distinct from 
 magnetic or natural (spontaneous) Electricity, 
 this sort is artificial, being produced by fric- 
 tion, percussion, pressure, fracture, and other me- 
 chanical means. There is in it a prevailing two- 
 foldness: two substances are required and must be 
 brought into strong opposition by a mutual as- 
 sault of some sort ; two opposite kinds of Electric- 
 ity are generated, with theirtwo circuits. Electric- 
 ity is thus dual in its nature compared to Magnet- 
 ism, which, however, has its two poles in the one 
 substance, each of which remains self-attractive 
 and does not turn self-repellent. The name is 
 taken from an old Greek word electron, which in 
 the present case means amber; this being rubbed 
 produces a peculiar diacosmical attraction, which 
 is said to have been noticed by ancient Thales, 
 the Milesian philosopher, in the sixth century 
 B. C. The word electricity seems to have been 
 first used by William Gilbert of Colchester, Eng- 
 land (1540-1()03) who also has handed down the 
 needful term electrics for electrified bodies, and who 
 clearly expresses the idea of an electrical force 
 (vis electrica). 
 
 In Electricity, therefore, two substances are 
 made to attack each other's molecular structure by 
 an outside power. Hence Electricity proper must 
 involve a movement ami change of the molecules ; 
 they make two attacking armies in a fight more or 
 less furious. Such is the strength or intensity of
 
 516 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S, 
 
 this molecular motion that it draws light indif- 
 ferent bodies into its whirl, till they in turn be- 
 come charged with combat and fly off in opposi- 
 tion. That is, Electricity must dualize itself, else 
 it would be simple Magnetism, which holds the 
 attracted body as its own. The magnet is one, 
 but two are the electrics. If the one magnet is 
 made two by division, there arc simply two like 
 magnets; if the two electrics are made one (by 
 attraction), this one electric repels itself and per- 
 sists in being two. Such is the basic phenomenon 
 of the second stage of Electricity: the electric both 
 holds and repels its own, itself; thus it reveals its 
 own inner self-opposition as character. Inherently 
 dual we have to regard it ; dialectical we may deem 
 it, manifesting to vision that dialectic of Nature, 
 which has been so often noted already. Still these 
 two sides form circuits, each in itself and then with 
 each other. Also the dielectric will appear in a 
 certain parallelism with diamagnet. 
 
 1. Radiation. This twofold Electricity is a Ra- 
 diant, but its radiation is not only from two centers 
 but is of two opposite kinds. In Magnetism there 
 was radiation from the two polar centers, but of 
 the same unrepellent sort from the same object; 
 but now the radiation is of two different sorts 
 from the two different objects. Two circuits of op- 
 posite natures constitute the electrical interplay, 
 which circuits, however, are at last to be united. 
 
 (a) The primal fact then of dual Electricity is
 
 ELECTRICITY: 517 
 
 its separation into two sorts which are in two dis- 
 tinct bodies. This is clone chiefly by friction, 
 which assails the cohesion of the two bodies; each 
 is made the means of destroying the molecular 
 structure of the other on the surface by the appli- 
 cation of external force. When a glass rod is 
 rubbed by a piece of flannel, each part will draw 
 to itself light bits of silk, wool, gold-leaf, etc., 
 which after a brief contact are repelled. These 
 rubbed substances also become, luminous in the 
 dark and give forth sparks of light. Here at the 
 start is manifested a round of attraction and re- 
 pulsion — a double radiation of force. Moreover 
 the terrestrial attraction of the object is overcome 
 by this new power of a piece of Matter; cosmical 
 gravitation is for a time counteracted by this dia- 
 cosmical energy. 
 
 (6) So we behold electrical attraction and re- 
 pulsion, in which an object is drawn from and 
 drawn back to its line of gravity. Next we are to 
 see that this attraction and repulsion is doubled; 
 the object rubbed and the object rubbing have 
 both this power. Thus the first twofoldness is 
 again made twofold. Here rises the conception 
 of two electricities, opposite yet each determined 
 through the other — positive and negative as they 
 are called ; each has its own round of attraction 
 and repulsion; the law is, likes repel each other 
 while unlikes attract each other Two sets of at- 
 traction and repulsion we observe, opposite yet
 
 518 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 with a similar round of the electric current. The 
 disturbance of corporeal cohesion through friction 
 has generated within a limited sphere a force 
 greater than the earth's attraction. 
 
 (c) The lines of electric force are conceived by 
 Faraday to run from positively charged bodies to 
 negatively charged ones in an electric field where 
 they exist. There is a radiation outwards from a 
 positive center to its opposite, whereby the two 
 electricities are interconnected and form a circuit. 
 In such a field too there is what is called an elec- 
 tric potential which has been compared with the 
 temperature around a heated body. The law runs: 
 between two electrified bodies attraction or repul- 
 sion is universely proportional to the square of 
 their distances. Double the distance, one-fourth 
 the power. This goes back to the law of gravita- 
 tion, which is for the time supplanted by electrical 
 attraction or repulsion. Electricity causes the 
 little body within its field of power to take the 
 place of the earth and to attract (or to repel) 
 another body (not too heavy) according to the law 
 of gravitation. The cohesion of the molecules is 
 disturbed by the friction and asserts itself by 
 strong reaction toward unity (which is assailed), 
 drawing into its movement small light bodies not 
 far off. Finally, however, the Electricity spends 
 itself and equilibrium with the earth is restored. 
 
 This fact comes out: electrical attraction and re 
 pulsion pre-suppose terrestrial attraction as some-
 
 ELECTRICITY. 519 
 
 thing to'be overcome and supplanted. The sus- 
 pended pith-ball which is drawn to an excited 
 glass rod is carried out of its line of gravity with 
 the earth's center toward a new center. This is 
 the diacosmical action of Electricity. The pith- 
 ball or electrifiable body gravitates towards the 
 electric, as it before gravitated earthward. Cos- 
 mical gravitation becomes a diacosmical gravita- 
 tion in Electricity ; so we have seen it also in Mag- 
 netism. 
 
 2. Electricity in Dual Circuit. The twofoldness 
 of Electricity has been set forth, its tendency to 
 divide into two opposite forces, both of which 
 must be deemed Radiants against each other. 
 Sometimes this has been called a decomposition of 
 one original compound force into two elemental 
 forces, as Light was decomposed. Magnetism was 
 polarized into two end-magnets, whose law was 
 like repels like and attracts unlike. This law 
 holds of like electrics, as well as of like magnets. 
 But the magnet does not impart its own self and 
 then repel the iron filings which stick fast and be- 
 come holders or conveyers of Magnetism. The 
 electric, however, attracts its other, then imparts 
 itself to the same, and finally repels it as like. 
 This repulsion shows the movement from Magnet- 
 ism to Electricity: the magnet imparts itself but 
 the electric both imparts itself and repels itself as 
 like. This is the point at which we witness the 
 oneness of Magnetism passing into the doubleness
 
 520 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 of Electricity. Also the materials change; if the 
 magnetic object be chiefly one (iron), electrics are 
 many and of opposite kinds, as glass and gutta 
 percha. Iron falls away and the metals, being 
 conductors; iron the magnetic substance, is not 
 the electrical. 
 
 Still Electricity has the power of imparting itself 
 as dual, as attracting and repelling (positive and 
 negative). Moreover it becomes double-circuited, 
 starting from either side and going either way in 
 its round. So we have the process in this stage: 
 conduction (likeness), induction (difference), unifi- 
 cation of opposites in the circuit, yea double 
 unification. 
 
 (a) The dualism of Electricity primarily divides 
 matter into electrical conductors and non-con- 
 ductors, which form the present division of sub- 
 stances as regards their conveyance of electricity. 
 Only the rubbed side of a glass rod is electrified, 
 the other side not; hence it is strongly non-con- 
 ductive. On the other hand metals at once con- 
 duct the Electricity throughout their substance. 
 Silver is said to be the best conductor, gutta percha 
 the best non-conductor; between these extremes 
 is a great diversity of conductive power in things. 
 The best manifesters of Electricity are, therefore, 
 the non-conductors, and they have it only in the 
 rubbed surface ; the unreached molecules remain a 
 rest 
 
 But the non-conductors are still further divided
 
 ELECTRICITY. 521 
 
 into two classes — negative and positive electrics. 
 The same substance can be both, excepting pos- 
 sibly the extremes which are usually set down as 
 catskin and gutta-percha. 
 
 (6) A deeper phase of this self-divisive Elec- 
 tricity is electrical induction, which occurs when 
 a charged conductor is placed near an uncharged 
 body — separated from it but in its electrical field. 
 The result is Electricity is induced of the opposite 
 kind, and if the uncharged body be a metal bar, 
 each end will also have its charge. Thus the 
 bar resembles a magnet, having its two opposite 
 poles of induced Electricity. Induction is not 
 stopped by any intervening medium, though this 
 be a non-conductor, such as glass, if the object be 
 in the electrical field. Thus Electricity is im- 
 parted both by conduction and induction; still in 
 the former case the imparting body loses a portion 
 of its electricity but not in the latter case. It im- 
 parts its own kind of electricity by conduction, the 
 opposite kind by induction, which fact separates 
 the electrical force again into two phases. 
 
 (c) From the induced separation into opposite 
 electrics there results the recombination which makes 
 the circuit. The attraction and repulsion of the pith- 
 ball came from induction. The decomposition into 
 the positive and negative electricity is followed by 
 this recomposition, which can be made a continuous 
 round by conduction starting with the one or the 
 other,
 
 522 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Thus we have to conceive of two circuits accord- 
 ing to the dual character of Electricity; which, as 
 the character given, is what will be imparted. 
 Two decompositions of electricity and two recom- 
 positions, not, however, back into the original single 
 Radiant, but into two circuits, which also go in 
 opposite directions. Both these circuits can be 
 shown in the Leyden jar, which has the two op- 
 posite electrics with their dielectric (the glass sides 
 of the jar). This dielectric, however, does not 
 mediate (like the diamagnet) but separates and 
 can be broken by the tension of the two electrical 
 foes. 
 
 3. Electricity Generated. We have seen electri- 
 city imparted in various ways, but how did it start 
 or first come into activity? In the opening section 
 we took for granted its origin from friction, or 
 from the primal disturbance of molecules on the 
 surface of certain bodies — non-conductors. 
 
 And this is to be noted; Electricity is superficial, 
 it does not go deeper than the skin of bodies when 
 it manifests itself. But in conductors it is distri- 
 buted through the whole body and conveyed away 
 in a kind of stream, unless insulated and thus 
 stopped. All electricity may be deemed frictional 
 in origin, not only by direct contact but also by 
 impact of electric force borne through space (or the 
 air) to a body in its field. 
 
 Thus the finite world of individual bodies rubbing 
 and rasping against one another becomes one vast
 
 ELECTRICITY. 523 
 
 mass of electrics and electrifiers, producing an in- 
 finite number of electrical circuits. Mechanical 
 impact in the Cosmos generates the Electricity of 
 the Diacosmos, and the force of gravitation is 
 turned from the earth and given its own special 
 centers large and little . So this present diacosmical 
 Radiant fills our world and perchance the uni- 
 verse with electric whirls, which spring from im- 
 pinging or colliding matter. Every individual 
 substance has a kind of soul of its own, which is 
 roused by another substance assailing it ; so they 
 stand in antagonism, but therein are alike and 
 hence can be made to come together. 
 
 (a) Friction brings forth different electricities 
 (positive and negative) in the substance by the use 
 of a different rubber. For instance glass is negatively 
 electrified by rubbing it with flannel, and positively 
 electrified by rubbing it with silk. Per contra, 
 through the double friction flannel becomes positive 
 and silk negative. In like manner resin stroked with 
 india-rubber is negative while the india-rubber is 
 positive; but if the resin be rubbed with sulphur, 
 it becomes positive and the sulphur negative, which 
 however can be turned positive by gutta-percha. 
 Thus all substances can be made into a line of 
 electrics, both positive and negative according to 
 the rubber. All substances can be arranged into a 
 line of electrifiers by friction, exciting both positive 
 and negative electricity according to the substance. 
 Each is an electrifier and an electrified, and each
 
 524 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 is an electri.fier doubly (positive and negative) and 
 each is electrified doubly. Thus Electricity dual- 
 izes, yea doubly dualizes our particularized Cosmos. 
 
 (6) Along with the electric Radiant is usually 
 evolved the two other Radiants : Heat and Light. 
 Friction will likewise generate both. Heat is gen- 
 erated by rubbing the metals, but the Electricity 
 is mostly conveyed away. Light appears when the 
 circuit is broken and a non-conductor inserted, like 
 air, through which the spark leaps luminously to 
 complete the circuit. On a larger scale Nature 
 shows electricity at work during a thunder storm 
 with its flashes of lightning, evidently between 
 two huge electrics of opposite kinds. In the Aurora 
 Borealis, though the phenomenon belongs to both 
 poles, the earth has become a huge electric, prob- 
 ably through friction of the air and tides and 
 currents and solar influence and its own rotary 
 motion. As there was a terrestrial magnet, so too 
 a terrestrial electric is generated by friction and 
 is made luminous by some unusual obstruction. 
 The sun, too, is an electric, and so was doubtless 
 the original Heliosphere. 
 
 Heat, Light and Electricity, the three Radiants 
 of the radiant Diacosmos are all separately generat- 
 ed in the electric circuit and appear in their own 
 form and character. Yet they show themselves 
 also as parts and stages of one process ; they make 
 up the cycle of cliacosmical radiation which is thus 
 actually manifested — not an hypothesis, not a 
 thought merely, but a phenomenal presentation.
 
 ELECTRICITY. 525 
 
 This process is what lay originally and implicitly 
 in the diacosmical separation and reaction from 
 gravitation. Motion as radiation from a center has 
 vibrated through the Ether in Heat (expansive), 
 in Light (manifesting, and self-manifested), and 
 in Electricity (the self-returning undulation). 
 
 It may be added that Heat also generates Electric- 
 ity with its circuit — to which phenomenon we 
 may next pay a little attention. Such a circuit is 
 usually called the thermo-electric. 
 
 (c) To make the circuit appear let two metals 
 be taken, bent and brought together at their ends; 
 if one of these ends is heated when the object is 
 placed in the magnetic meridian, an electric circuit 
 is developed which can be shown by a needle bal- 
 anced on a pivot. This, the discovery of Professor 
 Seebeckof Berlin in 1821, and is the basic phenom- 
 enon of the thermo-electric circuit or of the electric 
 circuit generated by Heat. Thus the first Radiant 
 (Heat) is made to produce the third, or the third 
 is brought to embrace the first in its process. 
 
 It is evident that when the metal is heated, its 
 electrical character is changed. 
 
 Also different metals are differently affected in 
 their electrical condition by the same degree of 
 Heat. These thermo-electric metals are also paired 
 off in counterparts, like zinc and copper in the Vol- 
 taic cup. Bismuth and selenium produce the 
 strongest thermo-electric current ; but for economy 
 antimony is most used. Every metal , however, has
 
 526 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 its thermo-electric potential and can become a 
 positive or a negative pole of a circuit if connected 
 with another metal and heated a little. Evidently 
 such circuits are everywhere arising on the surface 
 of the earth in the sun's rays, though they are in 
 general very slight. 
 
 The power of the thermo-electric circuit is in- 
 creased by the thermo-electric battery, or the so- 
 called thermopile built after the fashion of the 
 Voltaic pile out of the preceding thermo-electric 
 couples. This pile is named after Nobili, the in- 
 ventor, but has never been much employed in the 
 arts. The electromotive force of this circuit is low 
 compared to a Voltaic one; it is chiefly used in de- 
 termining the temperature of things difficult of ac- 
 cess, as objects in a furnace. Melloni employed it in 
 his experiments on radiant Heat already mentioned. 
 
 Probably the most important use to which the 
 thermo-electric circuit has ever been put, was to 
 ascertain Ohm's law of the strength of the electro- 
 motive circuit, which is directly proportional to the 
 electro-motive force, and inversely proportional to 
 the resistance. In this connection it should be 
 noted that the earth is a great thermo-electric 
 battery, being diversely heated and cooled every 
 twenty-four hours. The sun is always warming up 
 one half more than the other — which is the condi- 
 tion of a thermo-electric current embracing the 
 globe . Then we have to conceive the vast number 
 of smaller circuits netting its surface everywhere.
 
 ELECTRICITY. 527 
 
 But far more powerful and important than the 
 thermo-electric circuit is the chemico-electric cir- 
 cuit "which comes next in order. Electricity gen- 
 erated from the attack on the molecules by mere Heat 
 is weak in comparison to the electrical power gen- 
 erated by a dissolution of the atoms through 
 Chemism. The separative might of inner atomic 
 disintegration must be deeper, subtler and more 
 intense than the outer assault upon the molecular 
 structure, which is indeed constituted of atoms. 
 To this fact we must now pay a little attention. 
 
 III. Chemical Electricity (Voltaic). — Here 
 we behold, first of all, the pivotal electric phenom- 
 enon embodied in three substances, the two metals 
 and an acid, whose interaction forms the new elect- 
 ric process or circuit. Electricity, as frictional, 
 had its two substances in opposite activity; Elec- 
 tricity, as magnetic, had practically its one active 
 substance. Thus we grasp the three stages of 
 Electricity as manifested in body : the simple 
 unity, the separation, and the restored unity 
 through the three-in-one circuit. Moreover, the 
 circuit now gets to be the current, one .within as 
 well as one without; also it is atomic (chemical) in 
 origin rather than molecular (mechanical). 
 
 So we see that the circuit is now explicit; the 
 dominating principle of the stages more or less im- 
 plicit in magnetism and dualized in Electricity 
 proper, has become real. Hence the circuit is now 
 said to be continuous and not broken into separate
 
 528 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 discharges, which make a sudden circuit and then 
 stop, as indicated in successive claps of thunder, 
 or in the sparks of an electrical machine. 
 
 Light bodies are no longer specially attracted ; 
 not so much a radiation of power from a center do 
 we behold, but rather in a rounding line. The 
 magnetic needle is readily deflected by the circuit, 
 but not by the separate flash. We pass from an 
 electric circuit, intermittent, ever breaking within 
 and dropping back into its electrics, to a circuit 
 broken only from the outside. For this reason 
 the word current is often used in the present part 
 of electricity, as if it were a fluid, and not a radiant. 
 A spark is a characteristic of an electrical machine 
 hardly of the Voltaic battery. 
 
 Moreover the transmission of power now becomes 
 possible through the permanent circuit. The in- 
 termittent nature of dual or frictional Electricity 
 (even if this might be largely overcome) precludes 
 the application of it as an extensive motor agency. 
 But the present kind of electricity can send power 
 to greater distances than any other force, being 
 conducted by a simple wire, for example in the 
 telegraph. 
 
 The round electricity of the current is thus the 
 overcoming of the frictional, separative Electricity, 
 though here too the circuit must be able to be 
 broken, but it is not to break itself. 
 
 Metals as conductors now play the leading part, 
 while non-conductors, chiefly non-metallic (animal, 
 
 34
 
 ELECTRICITY 529 
 
 vegetable and mineral) drew the attention in the 
 previous stage. Moreover two metals are usually 
 taken as opposites or counterparts; zinc and copper 
 for instance, are the two mutually counteractive 
 metals in the ordinary Voltaic cell for producing 
 the circuit. Frictional Electricity was confined to 
 the surface rubbed, but Voltaic electricity evidently 
 reaches throughout the atomic structure of the 
 metal as a good conductor. So, metallic conduc- 
 tivity, which would thwart frictional Electricity is 
 now seized upon and employed, instead of the pre- 
 vious non-conductivity. But it is through this 
 metallic conductivity that the electric circuit com- 
 pletes itself, attains the end, we may say, for which 
 it has been struggling, through Magnetism and dual 
 Electricity, both of which have circuits, but incom- 
 plete, partial, discontinuous. 
 
 We shall also find that this third or Voltaic 
 Electricity, connects with itself in various ways, 
 and produces most of the modern marvels of Elec- 
 tricity. Employing some form of the magnet, its 
 power is drawn off for many purposes. The con- 
 tinuous circuit with steady energy is tapped in its 
 circular movement, and that energy is directed in- 
 to multitudinous channels. Not only electrical but 
 all radiant motion has become in Voltaism an ever- 
 flowing, self-returning, hidden whirl of pure energy 
 resembling the primal movement of the Cosmos, in 
 whose elemental revolution it may be supposed to 
 participate. The Voltaic current is a kind of spi-
 
 530 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 got or spile inserted in the original reservoir of uni- 
 versal Motion of which it draws off brief cycles for 
 human use. 
 
 This third stage of Electricity we may divide, 
 according to its fundamental principle into the 
 three sorts of electric currents: the chemical, the 
 induced or duplicated, the magnetic. Here again 
 we observe the inner universal process at work 
 which organizes not only this electric current but 
 all nature in all its divisions. 
 
 1. The Chemico-electric current. A pair of frog's 
 legs, prepared for Galvani's dinner by his wife, as 
 as the story goes, was suspended on a copper hook 
 to an iron railing. Whenever one of the frog's legs 
 touched the iron, a violent spasm took place which 
 attracted the attention of Galvani, who, as pro- 
 fessor of anatomy at Bologna, held that the source 
 of the phenomenon lay in the muscles of the ani- 
 mal which contained what he called the vital fluid. 
 This view was contested by Alessandro Volta, pro- 
 fessor of physics atPavia, who, true to his vocation, 
 contended that the chief cause of the phenomenon 
 lay in the metals. A controversy arose which led 
 Volta to construct the first battery (called wrongly 
 Galvanic often) and to give a fair explanation as 
 far as it went, of the extraordinary phenomenon. 
 
 (a) When Volta soldered together a plate of 
 copper and a plate of zinc, he easily found, by 
 simply using his moistened finger, an electric current. 
 This did not come directly from friction, and
 
 ELECTRICITY. 531 
 
 yet Electricity was disengaged. Volta's epoch- 
 making theorem was that when two heterogeneous 
 substances are placed in contact, one of them is 
 positively and the other negatively electrified. In 
 this lurks the idea of the two metals as counter- 
 parts in producing one circuit. Volta proceeded 
 to multiply his electric couples till he made what 
 is known today as the Voltaic pile. Between each 
 metallic pair he placed a piece of cloth moistened 
 with acidulated water. Here the acid enters and 
 with it the idea of chemical action, which has the 
 power of disengaging the electricity from the metals. 
 The latter have been arranged from this point 
 of view into two classes, electro-positive and electro- 
 negative. Zinc and platinum (or possibly the 
 non-metallic substance graphite) stand as extreme 
 counterparts, that is, as the most electro-positive 
 and the most electro-negative substances. Between 
 these is a list of other metals graded by their electro- 
 motive power ; each of the latter might of course 
 be one sort or the other according to its mate. So 
 we have the kingdom of metals revealing their 
 new electric character through the Voltaic pile. 
 (b) The Voltaic circuit has the power of decom- 
 posing chemical compounds into their elements. 
 This is the so-called electrolysis, and the substance 
 so decomposed is an electrolyte in Faraday's nom- 
 enclature. The products of such decomposition 
 he named ions which are two — anion liberated at 
 the positive electrode (anode), and kation, liberated 
 at the negative electrode (kathode).
 
 532 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 Through the Voltaic battery Sir Humphrey 
 Davy decomposed potash and soda obtaining the 
 previously unknown metals potassium and sodium. 
 This was the first great act of electrolysis, which 
 has had many successors. Water, however, had 
 been decomposed by the battery before this (in 
 1800). 
 
 (c) So we have before ourselves the general 
 fact of the Voltaic battery with its harnessed power 
 of untold possibilities. The chemico-electric round 
 is now completed, with its energy ready to be tapped 
 for all dynamic purposes. The chemical disintegra- 
 tion of the metals (the zinc especially is dissolved) 
 has let loose all the force of cohesion which origin- 
 ally held their atoms together, and this force has 
 been gathered and consolidated into a self-return- 
 ing stream of pure motion, which can be drawn off 
 by a tail-race (as it were) to any mill-wheel. But 
 next we are to see this current dividing itself in a 
 peculiar way. 
 
 2. Induced electric current. Induced Electricity 
 as frictional has already been noticed. But now 
 we are to consider the continuous circuit as induc- 
 ed. This department of electrical science was es- 
 pecially cultivated by Michael Faraday, who elabor- 
 ated and categorized its leading phenomena. It 
 is the divisive stage of the electric current, indeed 
 it is self-divisive, with a tendency to separate within 
 itself. One Voltaic current will produce its opposite 
 in a different wire of the same field; then the
 
 ELECTRICITY. 533 
 
 current in the same wire separates into two oppo- 
 site streams. Yea we find two currents attracting 
 and repelling each other. 
 
 (a) The first form in which the present sort of 
 induction appears is that of two metallic conductors, 
 one of which, being in the magnetic field of the 
 other and charged from a battery, will produce a 
 circuit in the other by induction. Two coils of 
 wire of different kinds or sizes, insulated by a coat 
 of silk thread, but close to each other on the same 
 bobbin will show two opposite electric circuits by 
 the galvanometer when one of them is electrified. 
 Circuit accordingly calls forth circuit but of the 
 reverse kind, as its counterpart, in accord with the 
 oft-remarked dual nature of Electricity. One 
 half, though a circuit, seems unable to exist with- 
 out the other half. 
 
 (6) Now comes the curious fact that a circuit 
 divides within itself by induction, and we have the 
 phenomenon known as self-induction. The coil of 
 wire on a bobbin is able to induce in its adjacent 
 coil a new circuit alongside of and in opposition to 
 the regular circuit. This was observed by Faraday 
 and he called it the extra current. Such at least 
 is the explanation given of the peculiar effects in a 
 certain class of electric experiments. Thus instead 
 of two opposite induced circuits we behold the same 
 circuit in two opposite induced streams or currents, 
 as if two rivers might run along side of each other 
 in opposite direction through the same bed.
 
 534 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 (c) Not only the electric circuit induces itself, 
 but also magnetism can induce it. If a magnet is 
 inserted in a coil of wire, the galvanometer indi- 
 cates the presence of an electric circuit, but if the 
 magnet be removed for a short time and then re- 
 inserted in the coil, another circuit but the reverse 
 of the former is induced. This change springs from 
 the principle that like repels like but attracts the 
 unlike. The earth is a magnet as already noted; 
 hence it can by itself develop the electric circuit. 
 Faraday showed that by turning a flat coil of wire 
 in a vertical plane, when this plane lay east and 
 west, the current appeared; when turned north and 
 south, there was the opposite current. No magnet 
 was present but the earth. 
 
 3. The magneto-electric current. The notable 
 fact here is that Voltaism (as we may call this third 
 stage of the total sweep of electricity) returns to 
 the first stage, Magnetism, whose final product we 
 saw to be the magnetic circuit. This was realized 
 in the horse-shoe magnet with its connecting arma- 
 ture. The electro-magnet it is now called, by means 
 of which the original magnetic circuit is seized and 
 employed as a constituent of a larger and mightier 
 circuit, being made, unmade, and remade in a new 
 cycle of electric energy. So we may behold, in 
 this magneto-electric round, a returning circuit 
 from Voltaism to Magnetism, physical, indeed, 
 yet also with its psychical meaning. 
 
 (a) Already it has been noted that Magnetism
 
 ELECTRICITY. 535 
 
 can ev6ke an electric current by induction. On 
 the other hand an electric current can produce 
 Magnetism. Oersted's discovery was an important 
 landmark in this field: it was, that electric currents 
 tend to set the magnetic needle at right angles to 
 their own direction. The next great step was the 
 electro-magnet, or the magnet produced or induced 
 by a Voltaic circuit, which can be successively 
 broken and closed. This is the central principle 
 of the Morse telegraph. The electro-magnet also 
 plays a leading part in the so-called dynamos, 
 which, however, may be driven by steam or water, 
 as well as by the battery. 
 
 (6) So we behold the completed current of the 
 Voltaic battery working through chemical action, 
 upon the metals. Evidently, chemical decomposi- 
 tion is the source of the electrolytic circuit which 
 has such a furious energy in decomposing chemical 
 compounds into their elements. With this work 
 of the chemico-electric current we begin to approach 
 chemistry proper, which chiefly deals with the origi- 
 nal, irreducible elements of the physical universe. 
 The separative character of Electricity, with its final 
 circuit, has reached its outcome in the ultimate 
 separation of material objects, and the radiant 
 Diacosmos, with its circular Radiant, has become 
 the divider of composite things and has led the 
 way into a new science. Also the three Radiants — 
 Heat, Light, and Electricity — have run their course 
 and completed their process. Their common dia-
 
 536 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 cosmical character has been to defy gravitation 
 through radiation. But this opposition is now 
 radiated into all bodies, whose molecular cohesion 
 is not merely assailed by Heat, but whose ultimate 
 or atomic constituents are torn asunder in the 
 separation. 
 
 (c) The various forms of measuring electric 
 energy have been named after distinguished elect- 
 ricians ; for instance, the ohm and coulomb, the 
 ampere and the volt. But this branch of the 
 present subject need not be here unfolded, though 
 of great importance in practical Electricity. 
 
 Here we are brought to the end of Electricity, 
 having completed what may be called its scientific 
 round of three stages — magnetic, frictional and 
 chemical. In them we have watched the evolution 
 of the electric circuit from its first immediate man- 
 ifestation to its last explicit form. Moreover with 
 this conclusion we also wind up the process of the 
 three Radiants — Heat, Light, Electricity — which 
 constitute the second part of the total Diacosmos. 
 In these Radiants we behold the common radio- 
 active principle manifested in their different 
 phases. The last appearance in this sphere has 
 been the chemico-electric circuit, which, though the 
 product of chemical dissolution, produces in turn 
 chemical dissolution. Two metallic counterparts 
 (say zinc and copper) , being decomposed specially 
 produce a circuit which has the general power of 
 decomposition. The particular dissolution of two
 
 ELECTRICITY. 537 
 
 substances becomes through the electric circuit the 
 universal dissolution of all substances. Such a 
 universal separation of Matter into its components, 
 elements, atoms, has brought us into a new stage 
 — the third — of the Diacosmos to which we come 
 next.
 
 538 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 
 
 The first chemical fact is the separation of the 
 physical universe into its material elements. These 
 are now set down at about eighty, though this 
 number in different books is somewhat fluctuating. 
 Already we have noted the vast separation of Mat- 
 ter in the Particularized Cosmos ; the world of 
 things there appears in its various mechanical 
 manifestations. But now this world of things 
 whose number a scientist has dared hint as 250,000, 
 is to be resolved into its chemical constituents, 
 the so-called elements, which have hitherto been 
 deemed the ultimates of Matter and irreducible, 
 though this transmitted tenet of Chemism has been 
 recently assailed, if not in some respects under- 
 mined. Still, the primary chemical idea is that of 
 reducing the whole material universe into its eighty 
 irreducible elements. 
 
 Here, then, we have to note the diacosmical 
 character of Chemism. It is inherently divisive, 
 separating the already externally separated Cosmos 
 into its final constituents. Still further, chemical 
 action assails the cohesion of bodies which we have 
 already observed to be cosmical. Then Chemism, 
 with its disintegration, does not primarily obey the 
 law of gravitation, but rather counteracts the same.
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 539 
 
 We shall indeed see chemical attraction, affinity, 
 re-composition after decomposition ; still such a 
 synthesis is only a part or phase of the total dia- 
 cosmical sweep of Chemism. 
 
 At this place we may observe that the chemical 
 act goes back to the solid, liquid, and gas, which 
 belong to the starting-point of the Diacosmos, and 
 seek to separate them into the elements, if they 
 be not already elemental (for some substances in 
 the form of solids, liquids and gases, at ordinary 
 temperatures, are chemical elements). These ma- 
 terial objects, as immediately given, are seized 
 upon, torn to pieces, and then re-formed, perchance, 
 into new solids, liquids, and gases, in the chemical 
 cycle. This process is continually going on in 
 Nature, but the main fact for us now is that man 
 takes it and employs it for his purpose, yea, organ- 
 izes its varied phases into a science, one of the 
 sciences of Nature, known as Chemistry. (The 
 word is derived from the medieval alchymistry, or 
 alchemy, whose root, chem, has been traced back 
 to Greek, or more remotely, to Egyptian, as its 
 source. E. von Meyer, in his History of Chemistry, 
 affirms strongly the original right of Egypt to the 
 thing and the name.) 
 
 Chemistry is, accordingly, the physical science 
 which has, as its first (but not its only) task to 
 find the primary original units of which all mater- 
 ial existence is composed. This is what our science 
 decomposes into its indecomposable individuals,
 
 540 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 each of which is itself and none other; each ele- 
 ment is simple,, irreducible, asserting its individual- 
 ity as final against all further separating processes. 
 Thus it is as an element though not as matter, the 
 inseparable, the limit to diacosmical separation. 
 From this point a new stage opens ; the chemical 
 synthesis begins to take place, the elements as in- 
 decomposable are united into compounds, so that 
 decomposition, being halted, starts toward recom- 
 position. 
 
 ThusChemism, having gone back to solid, liquid, 
 and gas, which were found already or were taken 
 for granted in the first or immediate stage of the 
 Diacosmos, has elementalizcd them into their orig- 
 inal components, and then has proceeded to recon- 
 stitute these components into new solids, liquids, 
 and gases, which are now of its own make. So 
 we behold in this field a perpetual reconstruction 
 of the material forms already constructed; the 
 made world is always being re-made chemically as 
 well as otherwise, the physical constitution of ex- 
 istence moves in an everlasting cycle of reconsti- 
 tution. Nature, in order to be at all, can never 
 cease turning back upon itself and making itself 
 over; the Diacosmos, which is but a stage of total 
 Nature, keeps rehabilitating itself through Chemism. 
 The universe, ever getting older, is at the same 
 time ever being new-born — a reflection whereof we 
 may witness in the chemical act, both as it is in 
 itself, and as the completion or third stage of the
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 541 
 
 diacosmical circuit. So in Chemism we behold 
 the Diacosmos returning to its starting-point and 
 rounding itself out into its integral process as a 
 whole. 
 
 Here rises the question about the method or 
 means which Chemism employs for its work of 
 decomposition. What does it bring to bear upon 
 composite substances in order to reduce them to 
 their elements ? The general answer is energy, 
 chemical energy, which is thus a kind of obscure 
 power, to be drawn upon by the scientist in case 
 of necessity. Energy is a good word and we use 
 it, but the confession has to be made that all sorts 
 of tricks are played with it in these days ; it is 
 invoked as a kind of occult formula or dark 
 shadow of an explanation which does not explain. 
 At any rate our preference is to say and to see that 
 Chemism employs as its grand instrumentality the 
 three Radiants just set forth — Heat, Light, and 
 Electricity — whose character is so deeply separa- 
 tive, radiative, divisive, even self-divisive. We 
 may call them, if we like, radiant energies. But 
 the fact is, that they accompany all chemical 
 action, seemingly are born of it, and are used by 
 it for its least and its greatest disintegrations. In 
 general the chemical laboratory of the Sun radiates 
 the three Radiants as we have already noticed; in 
 them separation itself is undulated through our 
 planetary system into the interstellar spaces. 
 
 The conception has been already brought for-
 
 542 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 ward that those three Radiants are originally but 
 one from which they are differentiated or radiated. 
 There is the single primordial Radiant, which we 
 may deem the universal diacosmical Ray out of 
 which spring Heat, Light and Electricity. All 
 these produce chemical effects, as is well known. 
 To be sure there is a special ray called the actinic, 
 which works chemically. But the entire scale of 
 rays, which scientists have conceived as a kind of 
 key-board (see preceding p. 448), has seemingly a 
 graded chemical power, which starts with assailing 
 and then destroying cohesion, from which it rises 
 to disintegrating the molecule and even to dis- 
 sociating the atom, as the word now goes. The 
 radiation of the Radiants is the 'deepest act of 
 diacosmical separation, and this is what Chemism 
 employs in decomposing the material universe and 
 sometimes in recomposing it, as we see for in- 
 stance in the case of oxygen and hydrogen. We 
 have already treated of these Radiants in their 
 own right, as phenomena of Nature with their own 
 laws and processes. Their character was observed 
 to be deeply separative both in itself and in its 
 action upon bodies. But now we behold them to 
 be a part of a greater process; their place and 
 purpose are seen to be the reduction of the physi- 
 cal All to its elements which are to have a fresh 
 recombination. Thus the Radiants have their 
 part in the larger plan of rebuilding the world, of 
 transforming it anew, the transformer being
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 543 
 
 Chemisnx, under whose direction or end they do 
 their work. 
 
 Using the terms which we have employed for 
 this purpose, we may say that the chemical Dia- 
 cosmos (third stage) returns to the molecular Dia- 
 cosmos (first stage) in the forms of solid, liquid 
 and gas, disintegrates them into their elements by 
 means of the radiant Diacosmos (second stage) 
 and then redintegrates them into new forms of 
 themselves, which, however, have again to be 
 thrown into the furnace. Such is the diacosmical 
 round perpetually going on in Nature, which in 
 the present stage we observe to be separative, 
 radiative, or radio-active throughout, dividing 
 itself till it reaches the limit of division in the 
 element or the indivisible unit, at which the sep- 
 arative Diacosmos is brought to a halt. More- 
 over the idea of redintegration and restoration 
 after dissolution and destruction implies a new 
 order of Nature different from the diacosmical. 
 Still these new substances, continually thrown up 
 by the chemical process, are at once flung back 
 into the diacosmical melting-pot, and sooner or 
 later are dissolved into their elements again. 
 Thus the elemental unit, unassailable we may con- 
 ceive it for the present, is whelmed anew into the 
 whirling abyss whence it sprang. It cannot con- 
 trol the chemical process but is controlled by the 
 same at last, and is drawn again into the diacos- 
 mical maelstrom. The problem then comes up:
 
 544 COSMOS AND D1AC0SM0S. 
 
 What can control this negative power devouring 
 (like old Saturn) its children, the elements? At 
 present only this outlook can be stated : the master 
 of the foregoing chemical process will appear when 
 we come to Life (or the Biocosmos). At present 
 we need merely note the final self-undoing act of 
 Chemism: it disintegrates what it has integrated, 
 and thus nullifies itself. In this final act also we 
 may glimpse the negative outcome of the whole 
 Diacosmos in its own self-negation. In general as 
 separative it must separate from itself, or per- 
 chance separate from its own separation — in which 
 act peers forth again the function which has been 
 called dialectical, and which lurks and works in all 
 Nature. 
 
 We return to make a fresh grapple with the 80 
 chemical elements (more or less), and to press 
 them with an unfailing interrogation: Have they 
 any unity? In this age of evolution there is a 
 loud demand to develop them from one original 
 element, if possible. Just as the Radiants are 
 deemed to differentiate themselves out of one uni- 
 versal creative Ray, so the chemical elements, 
 irreducible here on our earth by any known process, 
 must be reduced to their original unit by the 
 mightier energies of the stars. Our Sun shows 
 already a multiplicity of metals in the spectro- 
 scope; evidently its present heat is not great 
 enough to fuse the recalcitrant individuals of 
 Chemism back into their primordial source. But
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 545 
 
 there are -stars which show a much greater thermal 
 energy — those in the Constellation Argo, for in- 
 stance, as reported by Lockyer — and which are 
 supposed to manifest now what the heat of our 
 Sun was many millions of years ago, before it had 
 cooled down to its present temperature and pro- 
 duced the existing diversity of elements. Accord- 
 ing to this view, the star is a chemical laboratory 
 which is evolving the elemental individuals, and 
 which seems to be continually increasing the 
 number of them down the scale of their descent 
 through the stellar and planetary orders, till the 
 known terrestrial 80 elements have been reached. 
 It is generally thought that we have with us many 
 others as yet unknown. One might calculate at 
 the present rate of increase how many will be 
 found in the text-books on chemistry of the year 
 2000 A. D. Indeed it is probable that new ele- 
 ments are continually being evolved or emanated, 
 like helium and probably lead from radium. The 
 next leap of thought is that man is on the way to 
 make his own element, not merely to transmute 
 one metal into another — which was the dream of 
 the alchemists long ago, but which has surprisingly 
 started up afresh in the minds of some recent 
 scientists. 
 
 Probably the best claim for the place of the 
 first element can be made for hydrogen, or proto- 
 hydrogen as it is often called from its spectroscopic 
 appearance in the hottest stars. Moreover this is 
 
 35
 
 546 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the lightest of the elements, and evidently stands 
 nearer than any other substance to the imponder- 
 able gravitationless Ether which is doubtless the 
 coming source of the elements including hydrogen. 
 At any rate the electronic theory of Matter as it 
 is called, cannot stop long at its present landing- 
 place, but must push forth into the deeper ulti- 
 mate, yea into the deepest and the universal one, 
 which has been already designated elsewhere as 
 the etherion. 
 
 The problem of the unification of the chemical 
 elements, of tracing them to a common origin still 
 awaits experimental solution. In some respects 
 it may be deemed the scientific goal of chemistry. 
 Ever since Prout gave forth that seed-thought 
 (see preceding p. 282) that hydrogen was the 
 original element from which the other elements 
 were derived, the idea of their evolution has 
 never been lost, though many famous chemists 
 have spurned it, saying among other things that 
 Prout was not a professional chemist but only a 
 physician. Still the egg was laid in that evolu- 
 tionary nineteenth century, and there can be no 
 peace till the chick be hatched. At present the 
 favorite original unit of the physical All is the 
 electron (spelled electrion, we notice, by Lord Kel- 
 vin). It is difficult to see how the separative 
 movement can be halted just at this point, even 
 by the generalissimos of science ; for it is not pre- 
 tended that there is any direct experimental proof
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 547 
 
 of the electron. Indeed this very distinctly calls 
 for another step forward — a step to be taken out 
 of itself — which call seems to have been heard in 
 the distance by the Russian chemist Mendelejeff. 
 
 Hitherto we have regarded chiefly the chemical 
 element; now we may take a glance at the atom 
 which has played and still plays a great part in 
 Chemism. The atom is properly conceived as 
 the indivisible ultimate upon which all division of 
 matter finally strikes; the chemical element is 
 supposed to be made up of atoms. So it seems 
 that this element is not quantitatively the chem- 
 ical unit, but is such qualitatively. We conceive 
 the chemical element to be homogeneous and inde- 
 composable, but divisible, while the atom is homo- 
 geneous but indivisible. On the other hand the 
 molecule as made up of two or more elements, is 
 heterogeneous and decomposable, as well as divis- 
 ible. Thus we may conceive the atomic principle 
 to return to the molecule, the beginning of the 
 Diacosmos, and to separate it (the molecule) into 
 its constituent indecomposable elements, and then 
 to separate the latter into their constituent indi- 
 visible atoms. At this point division is or was 
 supposed to be stopped, and the movement of 
 diacosmical separation brought to a conclusion. 
 But this final atom we shall find stoutly assailed 
 in recent chemistry and impugned both as to its 
 indivisibility and its homogeneity. 
 
 It may well be asked what forced the atom to be
 
 548 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 taken up into chemical science. The simple ele- 
 ments as ultimate had been discovered; was there 
 any reason why the atom should be resurrected 
 and injected into or perchance under them as their 
 deeper principle? The reason lay in another im- 
 portant discovery : this was that the chemical ele- 
 ments were combined in fixed and invariable pro- 
 portions by weight. A constant quantity of an 
 element was taken into the combination; if there 
 was an excess, a residue would be found. Evi- 
 dently Chemism showed the tendency to quantify 
 itself ; one element in uniting with another element 
 would seem to weigh it off, saying just so much 
 for me and no more. The quantum of each of the 
 combining elements now comes decidedly into the 
 foreground ; each measures each for its component 
 and takes its own measure ; then they unite chem- 
 ically, making a new substance often different in 
 property from either component. But at what 
 point does such a combination take place? If the 
 compound be divided mechanically into the 
 smallest particles, each particle will still show the 
 compound. Naturally the conception arose that 
 the combining particle of the chemical element lay 
 beyond division, was just the indivisible, the 
 atom. 
 
 Of course this atom was a speculative entity, 
 made by mind but projected into matter to ex- 
 plain the facts of Chemism. The atomic theoiy 
 affirms that the chemical compound is formed of
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 549 
 
 atoms of which the simple homogeneous element 
 is composed, and which are constant in weight. 
 Thus each of the eighty elements is made up of 
 its own atoms, of which atoms accordingly there 
 are eighty different kinds in Nature. When more 
 elements are discovered there will be more kinds 
 of atoms known to us. The fact of multiple pro- 
 portions of the same two elements, when they 
 form together several compounds should be here 
 noticed ; the different combining quantities of the 
 same element are represented by whole numbers 
 or are multiples of the first. This fact again 
 shows Chemism carefully measuring by weight the 
 constituents of its compounds, and rejecting the 
 too much or too little. Chemism is a goddess 
 holding a pair of scales (but not blinded like 
 Astraea) . 
 
 The chemical element, accordingly, in its decom- 
 position and recomposition calls for accurate meas- 
 urement; it is in its way mathematical, and has 
 in its innermost character Measure, which we have 
 found in all Nature along with Motion and Matter 
 (see preceding page 43, etc.). Moreover, the ulti- 
 mate unit of the element, namely, its atom, is 
 what has to be measured, hence this measurement 
 is often called the atomic weight. Moreover, at 
 this point a further problem comes up: if the atom 
 of every element is to be measured by weight, 
 what is to be taken as the standard or unit of meas- 
 ure? Hydrogen is the lightest element, so it is set
 
 550 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 down as one (or the unit of measure) in the ordi- 
 nary table of atomic weights ; to an atom of hy- 
 drogen all other atoms of the chemical elements 
 are compared in weight. Such is the important 
 fact of chemical Measure in which we see again 
 Nature measuring herself in her way. But man 
 has to re-measure her, and translate such meas- 
 urements into his own mathematical forms. Of 
 course some individual hero of science hears the 
 call to this field, and does the epoch-making work. 
 In the present sphere we have to celebrate the 
 name of Dalton as the founder of the atomic 
 theory of Chemism and so the chief measurer of 
 its phenomena. He was hardly more than an am- 
 ateur chemist, still did the greatest chemical deed 
 in the history of the science. He has no small 
 claim to be called the Newton of chemistry, 
 though he was as little a trained mathematician as 
 a trained chemist. 
 
 John Dalton (1766-1844) was born in England 
 of Quaker parentage, and clung to the simple life 
 and faith of his co-religionists throughout his ca- 
 reer, wearing their costume and employing their 
 dialect (thee and thou) even among the well- 
 groomed, high-toned scientists of the world, whom 
 he sometimes saw at London. He was properly a 
 rural schoolmaster addicted to tireless interroga- 
 tions of Nature in his modest way; among other 
 records, his biographer reports more than 200,000 
 meteorological observations taken by Dalton dur-
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 551 
 
 ing his life, seemingly for his own private satisfac- 
 tion. His range was not large, he had few books, 
 but one of them was Newton, who was evidently 
 his scientific bible. Through Newton he learned 
 of the atom, which, however, Newton could not 
 manage, as it lay outside of the Newtonian (cos- 
 mical) field. Interesting is the citation which 
 Dalton makes from Newton: "God made solid 
 impenetrable particles" as the ultimates of matter 
 — unchangeable, indestructible, indivisible. This 
 was the thought which sank deep into Dalton 
 showing that his mind was essentially diacos- 
 mical, and therein very different from Newton's 
 bent (in spite of the latter's optical and other 
 physical experiments). We get the impression 
 from converse with Dalton's life and works that 
 his very Self was atomic by nature, and that he 
 simply discovered or rather explained himself in 
 explaining the atom. This, by the way, is pretty 
 much the case with all great discoverers: they 
 discover themselves in their discoveries, though 
 the latter be also objective — a stage of Nature, a 
 part of the Universe. John Dalton's soul was a 
 kind of universal atom, self-seeing of course, and 
 hence it saw itself with such clearness in the 
 chemical soul of Nature. Unconsciously his God 
 was atomic, even if he went all his days to Quaker 
 meeting and communed silently with the spirit 
 among drab-suited, humble-hatted Friends. More- 
 over the age was getting atomic and its science
 
 552 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS 
 
 too; already the fact has been noted that the 
 eighteenth century had a chemical trend, in con- 
 trast with the preceding seventeenth, which was 
 mechanical (Newtonian) and also in contrast with 
 the succeeding nineteenth, which was biological 
 and evolutionary (Darwinian). But there is a 
 streak of the world's comedy in the fact that the 
 Spirit of the Age with a sort of ironical scoff, 
 should choose for its supreme scientific expression 
 a rural schoolmaster of Quakerdom instead of the 
 high-placed scientists of London and Paris, and 
 instead of the well-trained professors of chemistry 
 at the University. Dalton was for a while teacher 
 in a small college at Manchester, but gave it up, 
 and then (after 1799) made his living by taking 
 private pupils. 
 
 Historically considered, the atom is a striking 
 return of modern science to old Greece for getting 
 a basic thought. Ancient Democritus must have 
 had the atomic God within him even more strongly 
 and more consciously than Dalton, since with the 
 former atomism was a philosophical principle of 
 the universe, while with the latter it was a con- 
 cept for explaining the phenomena of Chemism. 
 The doctrine of Democritus (or perchance of his 
 teacher Leucippus) sprang from the four elements 
 of the previous Greek philosophers, which, how- 
 ever, were not our modern chemical elements, but 
 those of immediate Nature. Still we may see in 
 ancient as well as in recent atomism the same
 
 THE CHEMICAL D1AC0SM0S. 553 
 
 fundamental object: the search for the unification 
 of the manifold ultimates of the physical world, 
 called in both cases the elements. The indivisible, 
 indecomposable unit is posited, the atom, from 
 which all separation and change are excluded so 
 that it can be the source, in its various combina- 
 tions, of all separation and change. Democritus 
 atomized Nature by thought not by a chemical 
 process ; he represents the idea of the atom rising 
 long in advance of its realization; the old Greek 
 is therefore its prophet who has to wait more than 
 two thousand years for the fulfilment of his oracle. 
 The atom being accepted, the difficulty of it 
 begins. It is declared to be the ultimate unit of 
 the physical All, yet at once it shows itself to be 
 dual. It may be called the composite of thought 
 and matter, being a thought which is posited as 
 material. Science in the atom is not to be sensed, 
 and drops direct experiment as its test. We may 
 designate the atom as ideo-physical, a material 
 immateriality. Thus the atom is a peculiar com- 
 pound, but not in strictness chemically com- 
 pounded; rather is it the one underlying com- 
 pound of all Chemism. Its object is to unify the 
 vast diversity of Nature in a single ultimate indi- 
 vidual, simple, homogeneous, which, however, 
 turns out double and heterogeneous. Thus it con- 
 tains by its very origin an abundance of explosive 
 material. Still in a sense the atom is typical of 
 all Nature, which through and through must be
 
 554 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 regarded as a union of Mind and Matter. The in- 
 herent twofoldness (duplicity) of Nature has al- 
 ready been noticed, with her subtle ever-changeful 
 dialectic. In this respect the atom is truly nat- 
 ural; it may be taken as the type of physical 
 science which down to its very bottom shows the 
 dualism projected into the atom. 
 
 Another difficulty about the atom is more fa- 
 mous, but not so deep. It is declared to be indi- 
 visible, and yet is an extended piece of matter. 
 This contradiction has gotten a great name through 
 Kant, whose second antinomy is based upon it. 
 Here again the previous dualism makes its appear- 
 ance. The thought side of the atom is its indivis- 
 ibility, while its material side is its divisibility. 
 Those two sides, we repeat, belong not merely to 
 the atom but to all Nature. Still the original 
 purpose of the atom was to find the physical unit 
 from which every division should be eliminated 
 and made extra-atomic. But we see it to have 
 the deepest division within it, verily the ultimate 
 division of Nature herself. The indivisible atom 
 is, accordingly, just the absolutely divided, being 
 the very type of universal separation which must 
 be, accordingly, intra-atomic. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that the most recent 
 theoretic chemistry is furiously attacking the 
 atom, yea is tearing it to tatters. The earlier 
 chemical science sought to reduce the world's 
 compounds to their irreducible elements; the next
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 555 
 
 stage of 'Chemism (say the Daltonian) sought to 
 reduce still further these elements to their indivis- 
 ible atoms; but now the third stage has dawned 
 which is proceeding desperately to atomize the 
 atom and thus to serve up to- the same its own in- 
 herent character, by which all matter has been 
 so transcendently and even supersensibly divided. 
 The atom (or its supporters) after making its fine 
 division tried to call a halt to any further work 
 like its own, saying: "I am the indivisible and the 
 grand finality." Thus we may conceive it speak- 
 ing and trying to stop the furious chemical disso- 
 lution of this solid universe. But it has been un- 
 able to put a limit upon Chemism and upon the 
 madly separative energy of the Diacosmos. Con- 
 sequently we now hear with a loud din the atom ex- 
 ploded, disintegrated, dissociated. All this is her- 
 alded not merely as the new chemistry but as the 
 new science; yea, the science of all sciences is an- 
 nounced to have at last made therein its true ap- 
 pearance upon our planet. 
 
 All this sounds pretentious enough, if not a little 
 terrible and anarchic ; surely our ever-separating 
 Diacosmos seems to be going to pieces in this its 
 final act through its own self-undoing dialectic. 
 Hut now comes a new turn just in this field: the 
 atom though divided and disintegrated is put to- 
 gether again into a system. An atom of hydrogen, 
 for instance, is declared to contain a thousand 
 electrons (or electric corpuscles) whirling around
 
 556 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 within its sphere in a certain order. Sir Oliver 
 Lodge for illustration calls up the image of a 
 church in which a thousand grains of sand are re- 
 volving and rotating with an enormous velocity — 
 blasting, bombarding, often colliding. The unit* 
 of Matter is no longer the atom, but the electron, 
 which the scientist now employs to explain solids, 
 liquids, and gases, the first shapes of the Diacos- 
 mos, under the general theorem that Matter is 
 electricity and nothing else. Still further, the 
 chemist introduces the electron to explain the 
 atomic weights of the chemical elements, declaring 
 that the atom of oxygen contains 16,000 electrons, 
 that of mercury 200,000, if the atom of hydrogen 
 has 1,000. By the same means other chemical 
 phenomena are interpreted electrically, such as 
 valency, the periodic law, and chemical action. 
 This is, briefly stated, the electronic theory of 
 Matter, at present culminant, we might almost say 
 raging in science. Really, however, it does away 
 with Matter (or makes the attempt) , as the elec- 
 tron is supposed to have no material substrate, 
 but to be purely an electric discharge — not electri- 
 fied Matter but the original electric monad of the 
 physical universe. Thus the deepest unity of 
 Chemism and also of the Diacosmos is claimed to 
 be reached at last ; but we shall find that the elec- 
 tron too does not escape the dualism which has al- 
 ready rent asunder the element and the atom. 
 Not the least significant phase in the develop-
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 557 
 
 ment of this electronic theory is the fact that the 
 atom becomes systemic, a reflection as it were of 
 the solar system. The electrons are declared to 
 be moving inside the atomic boundary, rotating on 
 their own axes and seemingly also revolving in 
 their orbits like miniature planets, which are not 
 atomic but intra-atomic — thousands of them per- 
 chance moving in the limits of a single atom. And 
 these atoms are already pretty small, if it takes, 
 as the calculation runs, millions of millions to fill 
 a square inch. But the interest is to see the ma- 
 crocosm getting-truly microcosmic in this concep- 
 tion, or as we may state it in our special terms, to 
 see the Cosmos mirroring itself everywhere, even 
 in the smallest conceivable particle of the Diacos- 
 mos, which is now supposed to have not simply an 
 atomic order, but an intra-atomic planetary order 
 of electrons. Another striking fact in this connec- 
 tion is that Mathematics have entered the atom 
 once imagined to be impenetrable, and have cal- 
 culated the motions of these electrons, as the cos- 
 mical motions of the planets and stars have been 
 measured. Prof. J. J. Thomson is the mathemat- 
 ical scientist who has done the main work in this 
 field, though the start is traced back to Clerk- 
 Maxwell. The movement of the 1,000 electrons 
 of the hydrogen atom become somewhat compli- 
 cated; but what about the order of the 225,000 
 declared to be in an atom of radium, whose atomic 
 weight is set down at 225 (in the international
 
 558 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 table)? The stellar motions of the Pancosmos 
 furnish the only parallel. If we can see on a clear 
 night merely 3 to 4,000 stars, we may imagine (if 
 we can) seventy times as many electric light- 
 points to be flashing and whirling around in an 
 atom of radium after some principle of order. 
 
 Undoubtedly all this is speculation, yea specula- 
 tion of speculation, for the atom is already specu- 
 lation, being not amenable to sensuous experi- 
 ment. So the electron speculatively puts a new 
 speculation into what was already speculative. 
 Such is the last act of to-day's Natural Science, in 
 its flight or return to Metaphysics, notwithstand- 
 ing its protests, denials and even execrations. At 
 any rate we behold the atom made systemic by 
 the scientific consciousness of the time, though 
 conservative scientists are still shaking their heads 
 at the unparalleled audacity. The systemic atom 
 of the Diacosmos thus has its counterpart in the 
 systemic Cosmos — the infinitely large reflecting 
 itself physically in the infinitely small. Indeed 
 we hear of systems of systems, which are supposed 
 to lurk and move in the various diacosmical atoms. 
 The high atomic weights of certain elements, like 
 mercury (200) , or lead (206 -f ) , or radium (225) , seem 
 to compel systems within systems of electrons, all 
 of them inside the one invisible atom. Again the 
 comparison with the cosmical order comes up in 
 the mind. We think of the Heliosphere with its 
 planets and their satelites whirling axially and or-
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 559 
 
 bitally through space; yea we arc carried up into 
 the Galactosphere, even into the Cosmosphere 
 with its stellar systems of systems, which the sci- 
 entific mind of the present seems to be transplant- 
 ing and after its manner idealizing in the systemic 
 atom with a manifold arrangement of rotating 
 electrons. Thus does the vast outer organism of 
 the Cosmos interiorize and concentrate itself in the 
 minute electronic organism of the Diacosmos. 
 
 Such is, in general, the electronic theory of Mat- 
 ter, or rather of the physical universe, being em- 
 phatically the storm-center of the scientific thought 
 of the present moment. Inevitably there rises the 
 problem of the validity of such a theory and also 
 of its permanence. Is the electron likely to go 
 the way of the element and of the atom? Has it 
 too that subtle dualism of Nature which in the 
 end will disrupt it and explode it like a charge of 
 dynamite? Such seems to be its character. First 
 of all, the electron, as constituted purely of elec- 
 tricity, participates merely in one of the Radiants, 
 or in one of the many modes of Motion. Heat and 
 Light are also Radiants in their own right, and 
 each of them can furnish the ultimate unit as well 
 as Electricity. There is no reason why we should 
 not have a thermion along with the statement that 
 Matter is Heat and nothing but Heat, as well as 
 an electron. Or perchance a photion might be pre- 
 ferred, a radiation of a light-point, as the basic 
 principle. Also the common ray out of which the
 
 560 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 three Radiants are supposed to proceed might be 
 taken as the true original of our material world. 
 But they all have one defect: they are special 
 modes of Motion, or forms of energy; none of 
 them can lay any claim to be the universal ele- 
 ment or the element of the universe as physical. 
 What then is such? Already such an element has 
 been pointed out in the Ether, whose ultimate 
 component particle we have called the Etherion 
 which is composed of the primal elemental con- 
 stituents of the Cosmos, Motion and Matter (see 
 preceding p. 419). 
 
 Moreover we read that the electrons of the atom 
 — thousands of them whirling in it— -are charged 
 with negative electricity, while the periphery or 
 sphere of the atom which contains them is of posi- 
 tive electricity, of which any further knowledge is 
 specially disclaimed. The assumption seems arbi- 
 trary, but with it has risen the old dualism in a 
 new form. The two electricities, positive and neg- 
 ative, each opposite to the other, have been in- 
 jected into this electronic atom, and are certain to 
 tear it asunder by their antagonistic energies, re- 
 peating doubtless with greater force what we have 
 already seen in their antecedents. This last tragic 
 scene may not yet have taken place, but the out- 
 look for it must be deemed promising. 
 
 Noteworthy is the fact that Chemistry is get- 
 ting out of itself, out of its elements and even out 
 of its atoms, and is going back to the previous
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 561 
 
 stage of the Radiants for its eiementa- unit. It 
 has started with Electricity (electron) and may 
 yet pass back to Light (photion) , and even to Heat 
 (thermion) . These Radiants are its energies, its 
 diacosmical instrumentalities, which it employs 
 for decomposition and recomposition. Heat, Light 
 and Electricity both beget and are begotten by 
 chemical action. Still they are but special forms 
 of a universal power which is the final object of 
 search; they are particular modes of Motion, not 
 Motion itself in its ultimate reality; hence they 
 can be regarded as only temporary landing-places 
 for the scientific spirit in its evolution toward the 
 universal element. In spite of the asserted one- 
 ness of Nature in and through the electron, two- 
 ness has crept into it primarily by means of the 
 two electricities ; but we should also see that Mat- 
 ter, after being cast out, is really hypostasized in 
 the atomic envelope or sphere containing the elec- 
 trons. It is self-delusion to call this envelope 
 positive electricity, and then disclaim all knowl- 
 edge of its character. The fact is that both Mat- 
 ter and Motion, upon a close analysis, will be 
 found underlying the electron, which thus pushes 
 forward out of itself into a higher principle which 
 we may already glimpse as the Etherion. 
 
 Evidently Chemism is forging backward (or for- 
 ward if you prefer) to the universal cosmic proto- 
 plasm which has been named Ether, and which is 
 not Motion nor Matter as separate, but the two in 
 
 36
 
 562 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 their earliest state before separation. Already we 
 have treated Motion and Matter as stages of the 
 elemental Cosmos (see preceding pp. 39-41) ; at 
 present we behold them in their primordial real 
 aspect, in which the chemical element of the Dia- 
 cosmos is at least on the search for its origin 
 Thus again the last goes back and seeks to inter- 
 link with the first. That is, our Diacosmos not 
 only returns upon itself and forms its own round 
 within itself (as already pointed out) but returns 
 to the very start of the Cosmos. The Etherion 
 hints, of course speculatively, of the chemical 
 atom of any one of the separate elements travel- 
 ing backward till it comes to the universal ele- 
 ment from which they all sprang and in which 
 they arc still coming and going, arising and de- 
 parting. 
 
 Here we may speak of another cycle, or rather 
 series of cycles in Chemism which has been re- 
 cently discovered and formulated, especially by 
 the famous Russian chemist Mendelejeff. The 80 
 elements, arranged in the order of their atomic 
 weights (from hydrogen =1, till uranium = 240) are 
 found to move in self-returning cycles of eight ele- 
 ments from the lightest to the heaviest, with re- 
 curring properties. These cycles are known as 
 groups of which twelve (called series) have been 
 set down in a table — vacant spaces being left for 
 elements as yet undiscovered but required for 
 completing the given cycle. It is a suggestive fact
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 563 
 
 that some of these vacant spaces in Menclele Jeff's 
 table have been filled quite recently by new ele- 
 ments whose discovery was prophesied if not di- 
 rectly brought about by this law of the elemental 
 round in Chemism. The names of these three new 
 elements are scandium, gallium, and germanium; 
 they were discovered respectively by a Swedish, a 
 French, and a German chemist, each of whom pat- 
 riotically baptized his child with the name of his 
 fatherland. (Americanium is yet absent from the 
 list.) The whole is usually known as the Periodic 
 Law or System of Chemical Elements ; but it is 
 best conceived from its cyclical character, being a 
 progression of the cycles of the chemical elements, 
 whose properties keep recurring in eights (called 
 octaves by Newlands, the first observer of this 
 phenomenon). Thus the properties of the ele- 
 ments are always returning and rounding them- 
 selves out in rings or perchance spirals which may 
 be counted to the apex of a supposed cone. (The 
 best way to grasp this subject is by means of the 
 tables in the latest text-books of chemistry.} 
 
 It is, therefore, the atomic weight which gives 
 to the special chemical element its place in the to- 
 tality of elements. This means its distinctive 
 property, its character, its individuality. More- 
 over these 80 elemental characters do not evolve 
 on a straight line but keep recurring in the afore- 
 said octaves quite regularly, though there are 
 some hitches. Still further, the atomic weight as
 
 564 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 the salient character in this periodic order, carries 
 us back to gravitation, according to which each 
 element gets its quality and rank. It is not merely 
 heavy like so much cosmical matter, but its rela- 
 tive weight marks, if it does not produce char- 
 acter, individuality. So the element also gravi- 
 tates in its own way, and overcomes its separative 
 cliacosmical nature in the unity of terrestrial at- 
 traction. Very suggestive is this reappearance of 
 the determining power of gravitation, whose quan- 
 tity measures elemental quality, and indeed the 
 whole cyclical movement of the elements. We are 
 reminded of the Fluids, which in spite of their dia- 
 cosmical opposition at last yield to the might of 
 gravitation (if the Ether be excepted) . 
 
 Historically this fact of elemental periodicity 
 has been known in some shape for a good while, 
 and has gone through its own course of evolution. 
 It distinctly appears (by threes) in the triads of 
 Dobereiner. It was suggested far more completely 
 in the elemental octaves of Newlands, in which 
 the analogy to the recurrent octaves of the musical 
 scale is very striking. The German chemist 
 Lothar Meyer wrought out the same general 
 scheme, but its priority as well as its completest 
 form are assigned to Mendelejeff. So we have to 
 conceive a whirl of elemental properties evolving 
 around and forward according to their atomic 
 weights. These periodic cycles of the chemical 
 elements have been tested by experiment and are
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 565 
 
 generally accepted; yea some periods within peri- 
 ods have been indicated, as if here too the cycle 
 was made up of still finer cycles. But the grand 
 speculative outreach of Mendelejeff has been too 
 audacious for the chemical mind : the 80 elements 
 enringned in eight cyclical groups he carries back 
 to a single original element, the Ether, which he 
 thinks has nearly one-millionth of the atomic 
 weight of hydrogen, the lightest of the elements, 
 and the basis of their comparative weights. Ac- 
 cordingly the great Russian chemist puts Ether 
 into his table of chemical elements, placing it first 
 in the so-called zero group (with helium, neon, ar- 
 gon, etc.). But Ether as the universal substance 
 doubtless transcends Chemism, which is particular 
 in action and deals with particulars. Still it is 
 very suggestive that this last science of the Dia- 
 cosmos in all its separation is reaching out for the 
 ultimate unit of chemistry and therein of all Nat- 
 ure. Still it will hardly do to subsume Ether under 
 Chemism, making the same a chemical element, 
 even the original one; it goes back for its compo- 
 sition to a source more ultimate, to Motion and 
 Matter. 
 
 But the most interesting fact of recent chem- 
 istry is that within the last few years a new ele- 
 ment has been brought to light which can lay some 
 claim to chemical universality. That is, a uni- 
 versal element within the sphere of Chemism has 
 been found in radium, according to the view of
 
 566 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 certain scientists. As far as known it seems to be 
 a speck of pure radiation, for it has never been iso- 
 lated from its material compound or envelop, which 
 is usually barium. All attempts to get radium in 
 itself have failed. Still its spectrum and its 
 atomic weight, and hence its cyclical or periodic 
 position, have been determined. As yet, therefore, 
 radium will not give up its composite dualism to 
 any torture of experimentation. Its supreme 
 characteristic is to be radiative, or, as the books 
 say, radio-active; it perpetually separates itself 
 within and sweeps outward in self-luminous man- 
 ifestation. It may pass for a piece of the sun 
 left behind in our earth from the primal planetary 
 separation, a small granular relic of the Helio- 
 sphere. To push the idea beyond and beyond, 
 radium may be identified with primeval starlight, 
 and may yet tell us somewhat of the composition 
 and nature of the stellar universe, as well as of 
 our own solar luminary. Little starry bits, then, 
 have been strewn over our globe possibly from 
 the old aeons of the Cosmosphere, and we are just 
 beginning to pick them up. 
 
 As in case of the sun and stars the problem 
 comes up about the persistence of radium. How 
 long will it last? Does it, too, die? Here also the 
 radiative energy lessens and possibly expires in 
 time. The life of radium is set down at two 
 thousand years, when its enemy, whatever that be, 
 overcomes it and subordinates it to a new control.
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 567 
 
 Oil, the other hand, uranium, likewise a radio- 
 active element, but far less energetic than radium, 
 is computed to last a hundred million of years, 
 when it also must pass through some kind of grave 
 like its stellar counterparts, whose life, death and 
 resurrection have been already forecast (see pre- 
 ceding p. 278, etc.). So the inference is drawn 
 that these radio-active elements arc finite and a 
 part of a greater process than themselves ; mortal, 
 transitory, they confess to a stronger power, and 
 even call for it, which is immortal, omnipresent, 
 endowed with universality, and which physically 
 can only be the Ether, the universal Fluid al- 
 ready described, having its own particle, molecule, 
 atom, (yet different from all these), namely the 
 Etherion. Radiation, it would seem, perishes if 
 kept asunder from its counterpart or antitype 
 which is attraction; or, more generally stated, all 
 forms of degravitation are destined to vanish un- 
 less interlinked and complemented by gravitation. 
 We note again that the radiative, separative Dia- 
 cosmos would inherently separate from itself and 
 go to pieces through its own dialectic unless sup- 
 ported by the unitary Cosmos to which it is al- 
 ways going back for its substrate. Thus the two 
 belong together and constitute stages of that ulti- 
 mate process of Nature upon which we always 
 impinge on coming to the bottom. 
 
 Radium shares its special radio-activity with 
 several other allied elements — uranium, thorium,
 
 568 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 polonium, actinium (to these are sometimes added 
 emanium, radio-tellurium and even lead in a cer- 
 tain condition). Thus we begin to think of an 
 original radi o-active substance of which these may 
 all be derivations or emanations. Indeed several 
 of them have their own peculiar emanations, no- 
 tably radium, as if they might be simply re-enact- 
 ing in a weaker way their own origin. Still further, 
 they have rays of essentially distinct properties, 
 and therein differ from ordinary light, whose re- 
 flection, refraction and polarization they do not 
 possess. Radium has an alpha-ray electrically 
 positive, of considerable velocity, but very slightly 
 penetrating. The beta-ray on the other hand is 
 negatively electrical, very swift, and moderately 
 penetrating, while the gamma-ray is enormously 
 penetrating, since it can pass through solid iron a 
 foot thick with its light and affect a photographic 
 plate. Some scientists identify it with the x-rayof 
 Roentgen, to which it is similar, yet also different. 
 The important point here is to observe a wholly 
 new differentiation of the Radiant, especially of 
 Light (though an invisible ray is also noted) ; there 
 would seem to be a deeper sort of spectrum which 
 divides the universal Ray not merely into colors, or 
 even into visible and invisible portions, but into 
 entirely new forms of radiation possessing strangely 
 unusual powers. As we sought to carry back the 
 three separate Radiants — Heat, Light and Elec- 
 tricity — to one common Radiant, so now we are
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 569 
 
 driven to think of a radiative energy still more 
 universal, which differentiates itself not simply 
 quantitatively (like the ordinary spectrum) but 
 also qualitatively, raying not only the one scale 
 (or key-board) of Radiants, but many diverse 
 scales. 
 
 The relation of radium to the three Radiants of 
 the Diacosmos is certainly very intimate — so inti- 
 mate that it has been sometimes thought to be 
 their source. Its discoverers, Madam and M. Curie, 
 found that its heating power was so great that it 
 raised the temperature around it three degrees (F) 
 nearly ; thus each atom of it is a little white-hot 
 furnace; every hour it throws out Heat enough "to 
 raise its own weight of water from the freezing- 
 point to the boiling-point." Here would seem to 
 lie the great future reservoir of energy when it 
 once gets tapped by an adequate machine. But 
 still more striking is the fact that it does not burn 
 up, having the power to furnish indefinitely its 
 own fuel, seemingly during its life of thousands of 
 years. Power for nothing lies around us, free as 
 water or air, though it has somehow to be put 
 into harness. Naturally the thought comes up 
 that the sun and stars must be chiefly of radium, 
 which thus drives the physical universe. At the 
 same time it furnishes Light, the second Radiant, 
 and also Electricity, the third Radiant. In this 
 case we begin to glimpse the elemental unit which 
 is the source of Radiantism in IL at, Light and Elec-
 
 570 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tricity. Possibly, too, it may be the parent of all 
 the chemical elements, generating them in time, as 
 it does helium and apparently lead. Its chief 
 competitor for the honor of such a line of descend- 
 ents has been hydrogen or proto-hydrogen, which 
 is so often found in close proximity with helium 
 in the spectrum of the hottest stars. The thought 
 lies near that both these seeming twins spring of 
 one parent. 
 
 The discovery that radium, one of the heaviest 
 elements, evolves or emanates helium, one of the 
 lightest, a gas of the argon group with its own 
 spectrum, has given a strong shock to the whole 
 chemical world and turned it back to its origin in 
 alchemy, which sought so desperately the trans- 
 mutation of metals. (See the book by Prof. Dun- 
 can of Kansas, entitled The New Knowledge, for 
 many evidences of this shock, even the style being 
 somewhat earthquaky.) Moreover it is conjectured 
 that radium itself is an evolution from uranium, 
 as well as its allied radio-active group. Our com- 
 mon lead is strongly suspected of being derived 
 from uranium, which is deemed the primordial 
 radio-active element. Another • very suggestive 
 fact about radium is that its emanative activity 
 moves in a cycle ; if it radiates a part of its power 
 and thus loses the same, it will in time regain 
 what it has lost. The radio-active energy which 
 it may throw out in an hour, will be restored in 
 some days. This would seem to indicate that all
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 571 
 
 radio-activity moves in cycles small and great, 
 through brief moments and vast aeons. The cycle 
 of uranium, embracing doubtless its life (a hun- 
 dred million of years), death and resurrection, 
 cannot be calculated at present, but each little 
 emanation seems to have a corresponding round, 
 which we may possibly bring into relation with 
 the electrical circuit. 
 
 The account of the pursuit of radium, which 
 had long been glimpsed, has laid hold of the im- 
 agination of the public, including both sexes, since 
 a female investigator steps into the forefront of 
 scientific discovery, seemingly for the first time in 
 history. The center of interest is Madam Curie 
 a Polish lady married to a French scientist at 
 Paris. It is noteworthy, however, that the im- 
 portant nations of Europe arc represented in the 
 various stages which led up to the culminating 
 deed; English, Dutch, German (Roentgen rays), 
 Russian (Niewenglowski rays) participated in 
 the evolution of radium. But the immediate pre- 
 decessor was a Frenchman, M. Henri Becquerel, 
 who discovered that a uranium salt would emit 
 rays which affected a photographic plate through 
 black paper, and also through thin plates of metal 
 and other substances. Here, then, was the radio- 
 active principle manifested with its special pene- 
 trating power. But the final step was yet to be 
 taken by Madam Sklodowski Curie and her hus- 
 band, M. Pierre Curie. They hit upon the lucky
 
 572 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 idea of going back to pitchblende, the parent 
 mineral of uranium, some specimens of which they 
 found to possess a radio-activity several times 
 greater than that of the metal uranium taken by 
 itself. At once they started in search of this new 
 substance, and found it, which they very happily 
 called radium. Indeed this name must be deemed 
 an inspiration of far-reaching import since it con- 
 nects this last chemical element not only with the 
 diacosmical Radiants, but with all radiation, in- 
 cluding doubtless the original radial motion of 
 the Cosmos. In this thought radium, so far the 
 final result of Chemism, or perchance the univer- 
 sal chemical element, turns us back again to the 
 cosmical beginning. 
 
 The intense popular interest of our time in ra- 
 dium indicates that we see in the same some 
 striking counterpart or fresh revelation of our- 
 selves, perchance the chemical symbol of our 
 consciousness. Its self-separative act, or more 
 specially its self -radiative energy suggests our own 
 conscious activity, which likewise divides within 
 and rays itself out into object, but with that 
 self-return which completes the process of the 
 Ego. Such a self-return belongs not to ra- 
 dium, yet is faintly suggested in the fact already 
 noted that it slowly recovers what it has lost by 
 emanation. Still it never regains wholly its own, 
 for it vanishes after thousands of years (two or 
 three) . Thus our separative Diacosmos has evolved
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 573 
 
 a piece of matter which separates itself and con- 
 tinues doing so, becoming purely radiative almost; 
 having still a shred of gravitative matter to which 
 it clings and from which it seemingly cannot be 
 altogether divorced. Thus radium in itself is as 
 yet an idea which we have by our own mind to 
 abstract out of its material wrappage, somewhat 
 as ancient Plato bids us do with his supersensible 
 ideas. Strange realization of old Greece again I 
 The atom of Democrites we have already seen 
 coming back in Chemism, and now its hostile 
 counterpart in antiquity, the Platonic Idea, flits 
 spectrally before us in this new element. Radio- 
 activity is its specially designated property, but 
 this term we have applied not only to the Radi- 
 ants but to the whole Diacosmos; and now we 
 begin to hear that all Matter is radio-active, more 
 or less. The diacosmical power of radiation after 
 having exerted itself in the Fluids and in the Ra- 
 diants as a secret energy, has evolved into a 
 chemical element, manifesting itself in its own 
 right and in its own form (nearly but not quite). 
 The gift of impartation it has also, making other 
 substances in its field radio-active, and even the 
 experimenter dealing with it (as M. Curie found to 
 his cost) . 
 
 The cause of radio-activity has been referred 
 to the disintegration of the atom, and it is at this 
 point that the electronic theory of matter becomes 
 connected with the present subject. On the other
 
 574 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 hand the cause of the disintegration of the atom 
 has been referred to radio-activity. Thus the 
 reasoning is at least in a circle ; and in spite of the 
 conjectures and even mathematical calculations of 
 eminent scientists, nothing decisive can be re- 
 ported in regard to this portion of the science. 
 The dissolution of the atom into electrons, their 
 movements in it, as well as their co-ordination 
 into a system have been supposed to be largely 
 the work of radio-activity. Here, however, we 
 must wait for the future, with the outlook upon 
 the electron passing into the etherion, which we 
 have already sought to indicate as the universal 
 element of all Nature — not simply a chemical ele- 
 ment, but the element of all elements, which ra- 
 dium presupposes for its evolution. Indeed if ra- 
 dium emanates (evolves) helium, but is evolved in 
 turn by uranium, it lies already midway in ele- 
 mental evolution. Now all are asking, what em- 
 anates uranium? 
 
 Radio-activity, accordingly, in its general sense 
 is the pervasive characteristic of the entire Dia- 
 cosmos, which at last realizes it in a special 
 form, embodying it in a particular chemical ulti- 
 mate, radium. This we may deem for the pres- 
 ent the conclusion of Chemism, whose function is 
 to separate the physical universe into its ele- 
 ments. These it has continued to evolve till it 
 has brought forth the radio-active, that is the 
 self-radiative element, and thus has realized and
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 575 
 
 indeed materialized the regnant idea of the Dia- 
 cosmos. And we may add that our age, which, 
 as already noted, has a strong separative, diacos- 
 mical bent, has been brought to see a very sig- 
 nificant phase of itself in this outcome, a sort of 
 chemical adumtration of its own character. 
 
 Chemistry has become a great and complex sci- 
 ence into whose details we cannot here enter. 
 Only a very meager outline of its organization, as 
 we conceive it, can be attempted. 
 
 I. Elemental Chemism. This would include 
 a treatment of the chemical elements and their 
 various processes, including the laws thereof. The 
 ordinary text-books of chemistry are chiefly occu- 
 pied in giving an account of these elements. (1) 
 The compounds of the latter, with decomposition 
 and recomposition form the most immediate chem- 
 ical process, which is continually going on in the 
 physical world. (2) From this process arc drawn 
 the principles or laws of chemical action, which 
 finally reach the atom as the ultimate, and find 
 expression in atomic weight, volume, valency, 
 atomic linking, and specially periodicity. (3) The 
 evolution of the chemical elements is the deep ne- 
 cessity of the science, which incessantly strives to 
 bring its multiplicity into some sort of unity. The 
 various struggles of the present time in this field 
 have been already briefly noted. 
 
 II. Radiant Chemism. The three Radiants — 
 Heat, Light and Electricity — have very pro-
 
 576 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 nounced chemical relations which have been re- 
 cently much studied. They have their own pecu- 
 liar sphere with its principles, which has been al- 
 ready set forth; also chemistry has its peculiar 
 sphere with its special principles. But now enters 
 the fact that the three Radiants both produce a nd 
 are produced by chemical action; Radiantism is 
 both cause and effect of Chemism, whieh primarily 
 uses it as an instrumentality of decomposition and 
 recomposition, particularly employing Electricity 
 in the Voltaic battery. From this point of view 
 the science is divided into three parts : (1) Thermo- 
 chemistry, dealing with Heat as a chemical agent 
 which, on account of its separative power, dis- 
 unites and then re-unites, overcoming its own sep- 
 aration; (2) Photo-chemistry, which deals with 
 Light as a chemical agent, for instance in the 
 manifold forms of photography, and as the re- 
 vealer of chemical action, for instance in spectro- 
 scopy; (3) Electro-chemistry, which deals with Elec- 
 tricity both as producer and produced of Chemism. 
 Still we .are not to think that electrical action is 
 chemical action, though both be inter-related and 
 mutually generated; each of these processes has its 
 distinctive place in the Diacosmos, which, however, 
 associates them all while preserving their separate 
 individuality. It is a chief difficulty with the 
 electronic theory that it makes all Chemism simply 
 the electric flash of an hypothetical electron. And 
 in general Chemism is not Radiantism, nor mere
 
 THE CHEMICAL DIACOSMOS. 577 
 
 radio-activity, though standing in close relation to 
 these phenomena. It is itself and nothing else, pos- 
 sessing its own individuality, which, however, is 
 to be correlated with the other diacosmical indi- 
 viduals. 
 
 III. Atomic Chemism. We found the atom 
 already in elemental Chemism (first stage) , but to 
 it we now must return with the last trend of 
 chemistry which has picked up the old Daltonian 
 atom (once regarded as ultimate) and is tearing it 
 to pieces, analyzing the previous unit of analysis, 
 dividing the formerly indivisible One, in fine, atom- 
 izing the atom itself and thus paying back to it 
 its own in a kind of Satanic retribution. Yet the 
 modern movement does not stop here, with such 
 a purely negative result: it pushes on toward a 
 " re-constitution of the broken atom, into which it 
 strives to put a system, to be sure not a chemical 
 but an electric (or electronic) system. In this 
 field of Atomic Chemism we may catch the follow- 
 ing outline of a process : (1) the integral, trans- 
 mitted atom, of which the chemical element was 
 ultimately composed, is to be now decomposed or 
 disintegrated; (2) the ions of Faraday doubtless 
 begin the separative stage of the atom, which pro- 
 ceeds to the corpuscles (a somewhat uncertain 
 word in this connection) and then reaches the 
 electrons, thousands of which are moving sep- 
 arately in each elemental atom; (3) but these 
 electrons are put into a system of revolving mo-
 
 578 COSMOS AND DIACOSMOS. 
 
 tions within the atom — which thereby becomes 
 systemic, and is the present outcome of Chemism 
 as a science. 
 
 Moreover this Systemic Atom is for us the con- 
 clusion of the Diacosmos, of which it is taken as 
 the final principle or unit. In a similar manner 
 we found the conclusion of the Cosmos to be a 
 systemic unit, namely the Solar System, which 
 may be conceived as an atom in the total stellar 
 universe. These two atoms can again be called 
 the macrocosmic and the microcosmic, or per- 
 chance better, the cosmical and diacosmical. The 
 one is more associative, uniting through gravita- 
 tion; the other is more dissociative, separating 
 through radiation or radio-activity. At any rate 
 we behold another form of that dualism which has 
 been so often observed of Nature. Ultimately, 
 however, they must be grasped as contained in a 
 deeper unity, or rather as stages of the one total 
 process of Nature, to which a third stage has to 
 be added for completing the cycle of the physical 
 All. That is, the Cosmos and the Diacosmos, as 
 here conceived, call for their fulfilment in the Bio- 
 cosmos, which as already designated (see preced- 
 ing p. 21) is the order or science of Life in its 
 widest aspect. But into that stage of Nature the 
 present book cannot enter.
 
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