May 20, 1875] 



NATURE 



43 



change affecting the matter of the brain is all that i 

 needed to set him in motion. May not other beings be 

 capable of touching what we may call the hair-triggers 

 of the universe ? Whatever these agencies are, angels 

 or ministering spirits, they certainly do not belong to 

 the present visible universe. The writers examine the 

 sacred records to confirm their speculations. 



Thus, then, we have a visible and an invisible universe, 

 and we have processes of delicacy in the former which at 

 least suggest the action on it of agencies belonging to 

 the latter. Let us look at the first phenomenon of the 

 visible universe— the expenditure of energy in it. The 

 sun's energy is issuing in what is apparently waste space 

 just as it is issuing in that portion of space which is filled 

 by our earth. What becomes of the energy— probably 

 far more than half of that which proceeds from it— which 

 proceeds apparently nowhere, speeding on with the velo- 

 city of light ? Is it absorbed in the ether, and if so, what 

 does the ether do with it ? The writers suggest that the 

 ether may preserve for intelligent beings the record of 

 the past. But that seems scarcely sufficient use of the 

 energies spent on it ; the more so as the intelligent beings 

 existing in the visible universe will certainly come to an 

 end with it. 



"We were led," say the authors, in a passage in 

 which their whole theory is perhaps summed up, " to 

 conclude that the visible system is not the whole uni- 

 verse, but only, it may be, a very small part of it ; 

 and that there must be an invisible order of things, 

 which will remain and possess energy when the pre- 

 sent system has passed away. Furthermore, we have 

 seen that an argument derived from the beginning rather 

 than the end of things assures us that the invisible uni- 

 verse existed before the visible one. From this we con- 

 clude that the invisible universe exists now, and this 

 conclusion will be strengthened when we come to discuss 

 the nature of the invisible universe, and to see that it 

 cannot possibly have been changed into the present, but 

 must exist independently now. It is, moreover, very 

 closelv connected with the present system, inasmuch as 

 this may be looked upon as having come into being through 

 its means. 



" Thus we are led to believe that there exists now an 

 invisible order of things intimately connected with the 

 present, and capable of acting energetically upon it — for, 

 in truth, the energy of the present system is to be looked 

 upon as originally derived from the invisible universe. 



" Now, is it not natural to imagine that a universe of 

 this nature, which we have reason to think exists, and is 

 connected by bonds of energy with the visible universe, is 

 also capable of receiving energy from it ? Whether is it 

 more likely that by far the larger portion of the high-class 

 energy of the present universe is travelling outwards into 

 space with an immense velocity, or that it is gradually 

 transferred into an invisible order of things ? May we 

 not regard ether or the medium as not merely a bridge 

 between one portion of the visible universe and another, 

 but also as a bridge between one order of things and 

 another, forming as it were a species of cement, in virtue 

 of which the various orders of the universe are welded 

 together and made into one ? In fine, what we generally 

 call ether may be not a mere medium, but a medium //«j 

 the invisible order of things, so that when the motions of 

 the visible universe are transferred into ether, part of 

 them are conveyed as by a bridge into the invisible uni- 

 verse, and are there made use of or stored up. Nay, is it 

 even necessary to retain the conception of a bridge? 

 May we not at once say that when energy is carried from 

 matter into ether it is carried from the visible into the 

 invisible ; and that when it is carried from ether to matter 

 it is carried from the invisible into the visible 



" If we now turn to thought, we find that, inasmuch as 

 it affects the substance of the present visible universe, it 

 produces a material organ of memory. But the motions 

 which accompany thought will also affect the invisible 

 order of things, and thus it follows, that * Thought con- 

 ceived to affect the matter of another universe simultane- 

 ously with this may explain afttture state ' (see Anagram, 

 Nature, Oct. 15, 1874)." 



Our notice has already extended so far that we shall not 

 follow the authors into their examination of the Scrip- 

 tures, and of certain Christian hymns in which the senti- 

 ments and feelings of the Christian world seem to them to 

 be embalmed. We notice only two of the objections to 

 their system, which they themselves state, and seem to 

 us to fail to refute. It is said that " if energy is trans- 

 ferred from the visible into the invisible universe, its 

 constancy in the present universe can no longer be main- 

 tained." The answer is, that this visible universe is not 

 the whole universe, and that the conservation of energy 

 principle is applicable only to the whole universe, visible 

 and invisible together, except under special limitations. 

 The retort is obvious, that in this sense, and except when 

 these special limitations specially and finally remove the 

 difficulty, the principle becomes unintelligible and useless. 

 It is a mere theological dogma to say that what energy 

 perishes in the visible passes into the invisible universe ; 

 and the dogma is worthless as a physical principle on 

 which to build any physical reasoning. The other objec- 

 tion is, that the dissipation of energy must go on even in 

 this invisible universe, and the new assumption only 

 delays the inevitable end of all things. The answer 

 made is, that the universe may be regarded as an infinite 

 whole. We have no objection, but the same may be said 

 of the visible universe, and the moment that it is so 

 regarded the arguments on which its end and its be- 

 ginning are inferred seem to vanish into air. An infinite 

 universe will have an infinite store of energy, and there is 

 no need to suppose that its store is ever exhausted, or 

 that in any finite time it has become practically degraded 

 and unavailable. The whole elaborate machinery of the 

 invisible universe (p. 171), piled one on the top of the 

 other, seems to us to fall like a house of cards, if we can 

 accept the eternal duration of an infinite by- sense-per- 

 ceptible universe. 



The book is written in a simple and persuasive style, with 

 a transparent simplicity and purity of purpose. Once or 

 twice there is an outburst of irrepressible energy, like that 

 on pp. 106 and 107, about wife-beaters, who are to be 

 subjected "by an enlightened Legislature to absolutely 

 indescribable torture, unaccompanied by wound or even 

 bruise, thrilling through every fibre of the frame of such 

 miscreants," But these outbursts are transient, and they 

 relieve the strain on the reader's attention. 



THE TIDES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN 

 Az Arapdly Fiumei Obolben {The Tides in the Roadstead 

 of Fiume). Prize Essay, published by the Royal Philo- 

 sophical Society of Hungary. By E. Stahlberger, Pro- 

 fessor in the Imperial Royal Marine Academy. (Buda- 

 Pesth, 1874, 4to., pp. 109, with plates and copious 

 tables.) 



FEW points in physical geography have had more 

 interest for scientific men than the tides of the 

 Mediterranean. Connected with the Atlantic only by a 



