Dec. 1, 1885.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



43 



L'trsd. Aud the moon would fall to tlie earth, as also the 

 earth to the sun, but that the energy of their orbital 

 motion overcomes the force. When ;'. loaded waggon is 

 pulled, especially uphill, the muscular power which, in 

 the form of kinetic energy, is expended by the horse, 

 overcomes the attractive power inherent in the earth to 

 draw the waggon towards its centre and keep it there. 

 When the energy of heat which drives asunder the 

 particles of bodies, changing them from the solid to the 

 liquid or gaseous form, is expended, then the particles 

 resume the solid form in virttte of the attractive force of 

 cohesion. 



If Force had unresisted play, all the atoms in the uni- 

 verse would gravitate to a common centre, and ultimately 

 form a perfect sjihere in which no life would exist, and 

 in which no work would be done. If Energy had unre- 

 sisted plp.y, the atoms in the universe woitld be driven 

 asunder aud remain for ever separ;:,ted, with the like 

 result of changeless powerlessness, as in the case of force 

 alone. But with these two Powers in conflict, like the 

 Ahriman and Ormnzd of the old Persian religion, the 

 universe is the theatre of ceaseless re-distributions of its 

 contents, whether in the sweep of the stars and their 

 attendant systems through space, or in the pendttlum- 

 like vibrations of the invisible particles of every body, or 

 in the throbs of the ethereal medium. So rapid are the 

 motions, the rebounds between each molecule in hydrogen 

 giis numbering seventeen thousand millions per second, 

 that even if the molecules were within microscopic range 

 we could not see them ; and yet these collisions themselves 

 are few compared with the oscillations of light waves, 

 which number hundreds of millions of millions in the 

 same time. 



Such action shows that, just as there are sp:'.ces or dis- 

 tances between the stars measureless in their vastness, so 

 there are pores or spaces between the molecules of bodies. 

 and between the atoms which compose the molecules, 

 measureless in their minuteness. And, if added proofs 

 of these inter-molecular spaces were needed, we find them 

 in the contraction and expansion of bodies through the 

 quickened or retarded vibrations due to the separating 

 energy manifest r,s heat ; in the compressibility, although 

 slight, of liquids; in the liquefaction of the so-called perma- 

 nent gases, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen under extreme 

 cold and pressure ; in the partial solidification of hy- 

 drogen, the lightest body known, so that it falls on the 

 floor with the r.ittling noise of hail. 



But more than this. These pores between invisible 

 particles : these spaces between star and star, spaces so 

 vast that the diameter of the earth's orbit, one hundred 

 and eighty-eight millions of miles, seen from the nearest 

 star, is but a pin's jjoint, are not vacant. Speaking of 

 the force of gravitation, Newton said that to conceive 

 of one body acting upon another through a vacuum, is 

 so gre.it an absurdity that no man who had " in philo- 

 sophical matters a competent f,aculty of thinking '' could 

 ever fall into it. 



And the like applies to the transmission of light, heat, 

 and other forms of energy between bodies far and near. 

 For the explanation of these varied, and yet related,' 

 phenomena, it is a necessary assumption that the minutest 

 intervals between a,toms, as well as the awful spaces of 

 the universe, are filled with a highly-rarified, elastic 

 medium called ether, which, ever tremulous with unen- 

 tangled vibrations, is the vehicle of energy, alike from 

 the infinitely great aud the infinitely small. 



That matter should be unseen and unfelt is no new 

 conception to us. Its existence in an ultra-gaseous state, 

 as proven by the action of molecules in tubes where as 



high a vacuum as seems jiossible is obtained ; its invisi- 

 bility in air — the vehicle of sound — in steam, and in sub- 

 stances vaporised by the voltaic arc; its extreme rarefac- 

 tion in such bodies as comets, the stuff of whose tails, 

 spreading across millions of miles, could be compressed into 

 a small vessel, ijrepare us to conceive unseen realities. 

 Thus, where the sensory organs are powerless to report 

 the facts, science, excluding no faculty from wholesome 

 exercise, bids Imagination use her larger insight to make 

 clear the significance of the things which eye hath not 

 seen nor ear heard. 



The vahte of the foregoing exposition, in itself little 

 more than an abstract, of the relations between Matter 

 and Power, will be proved or disproved in the degree in 

 which it squares with the phenomena to be described 

 and accotiuted for in subsequent chapters. Meanwhile, 

 the subjoined tabular summary may set the subject in a 

 clearer light. 

 MATTER. POWER. 



,i 



FORCK. 



KXEKGT. 



I 



Potential, ob Kisetic, oh 



Passive. Active.* 



Masses Attraction he. Separation of Masses ^NLotion of Masses 



tween Masses, {commonly railed Kx. Moon's motion 



or Gravitation Visible Energy of roimd the eartli 



Position) Stone falling 



Ex. Stone on a roof Water falling 



A head of water 

 Molecule*,.. Attraction be- Separation of !>[oIe- Motion of Molecules 



tweeen ilole- cules Ei. Steam condensing 



cules,or Cohe- E.v. Steam into liquid 



sion Heat -vibrating par- 



ticles of a poher 



Atoms Attraction be- Separation of Atoms Motion of Atoms 



tween Atoms, Ex. Atoms in a free Es. Atoms rushing to 



or Chemical state form molecules 



.\tfinity 

 tElectrical Electrical Affi. Separation of Po^i- Motion of Electrical 



I'nits uity tive and Negative Units 



Electrical I'nits Ex. Electric current 



Ev. A thundercloud 

 and the earth 

 Ether (P) ... (No evidence (All Kinetic Energy, 



of aggregating except the small pro- 



power inhering portion intercepted by 



in it.} liodies in space, passes 



from matter to the 

 ethereal medium. This 

 is the doctrine of the 

 Dissipation of Energy) 



* Each kind of Kinetic Energy has separative, combining, and continuous or 

 neutral motion. Example of Separative— a stone thrown upwards; example of 

 Co.ijbining — a stone falling; example of Neutral — a top spinning in the same place. 



+ This concept of electrical units, which may be the equivalent of polarity of the 

 atom, is here added merely as a convenient mode of envisaging a certain order of 

 phenomena. 



THE NEW STAR IN ANDROMEDA, 



Br Richard A. Proctor. 



STAR recently made its appearance in 

 the very heart of the most remarkable 

 star - cloud in the heavens. It ap- 

 peared not far from the spot where some 

 looked for the return (the sixth triennial 

 return as they believed) of the " Star of 

 Bethlehem." I propose here, briefly to 

 consider the import of this strange 

 phenomenon. 



In the days before the telescope, astronomers reckoned 

 among the heavenly bodies five star-clouds, — the Pleiades 

 in the Bull, Prsesepe or the Beehive in the Crab, the 

 cluster in the sword-hand of Perseus, the nebtxlous patch 

 around the sword of Orion, and a faint streak of light 

 just outside the northern edge of the waist of Andromeda. 

 Of these, the two last only are what we should now call 

 nebula^, — but nebulie of two distinct kinds. How with 

 the invention of the telescope the number of nebula? in- 

 creased is related in books of astronomy. Late in the 



