Third--This machinery of the universe became self-propelling and self-sustaining by reason of the laws of motion, growth and evolution impressed upon it, or by the joint sovereignty of two equal, correlative forces: magnetism, a form of electricity maintains the sovereignty of attraction over matter in body, while electricity, another phase of the same force, maintains the sovereignty of repulsion over matter in s.p.a.ce.

Fourth--For these reasons electricity is a universal power joining together the two kingdoms of the heavens and the earth--of matter in body and matter in s.p.a.ce. And these forces in their unity of harmonious work can suffer no disturbance equal "to the dust in the balance."

Fifth--These floods of electricity and magnetism affect the least and the greatest, "directly as to ma.s.s, and inversely to the square of the distance."

Sixth--The sun and planets are vast magnets because they are held in charge of electro-magnetic forces in an immense magnetic field. These forces are not from these bodies originally, but these bodies are from these forces; and these forces antedate all forms of visible matter.

Seventh--The primary state of matter is the diffused etheric, invisible state, and the building of matter into body is the work of these forces when in charge of matter under organic affinities. Magnetic lines of force fix centres and build around such centres by drawing elemental matter from the radiant sea of s.p.a.ce by magnetic energy, into globular forms that become growing worlds, drawing their power and increase of form from the sea of invisible matter in which they are fixed by their axis and orbit lines of motion and force, const.i.tuting them working electro-magnets.

Eighth--These electro-magnetic forces are the eternal cosmic forces of perpetual motion, ever working by the law of action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, and evolving world forms and animal and vegetable forms.

Ninth--The sun having grown from the sea of invisible etheric and nebulous matter by reason of these wonderful electro-magnetic forces into an immense magnet, larger than all the lesser magnets or planets of the solar system combined, holds them in the magnetic field of his sovereign power, and is, through the flowing currents of electricity, the creating, governing force in the solar system.

Tenth--These same electric forces are condensed into smaller magnets and electric organisms or machines, which form electric centres and build up all tangible forms of matter--human, animal and vegetable. And all visible matter is but the outer sh.e.l.l and visible garment of these invisible forces.

Eleventh--Without the floods of electric substance or power that come to us in the electric currents of the sun that flow in currents of strength through our bodies as they propel the inflowing and outflowing floods of atomic elements of matter, that are laden with incoming supplies of daily life and outgoing wastes, by attraction and repulsion, a.s.similation of food, respiration and perspiration, our bodily forms would perish or be wholly unfit for the dwelling-place of our spirits.

Twelfth--Our five senses--seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling--that connect us with the world of matter are entirely dependent on electricity and the invisible etheric forms of matter that surround us everywhere and const.i.tute the connecting ties, the invisible ligaments, that pervade and bind all forms of life in nature's wondrous harmony.

Thirteenth--The boundless fountain of infinite energy in atoms in body and atoms through measureless s.p.a.ce are superior to any mere sun form or world form of visible expression of such energy. The floods of radiant electric energy that enwrap the sun and planets in orbital lines of omnipotent strength are to these bodies the everlasting fountains from which flow their upholding and evolving power and the conservation of force in their transforming energy.

Fourteenth--As all visible forms of matter are built from invisible elementary atoms, so the most efficient display of electric power finds its expression and source in the same elementary atoms. The electric power working in all atoms of matter gathered in planetary form, saturates such planetary bodies with electric energy, as the steel of the magnet is saturated with such forces, and reveals in the sun currents the source of all terrestrial power and organic life.

Fifteenth--The chemists claim to have discovered about seventy different elemental substances in matter, but they are not primary elementary substances; they are secondary, and caused by the marvelous electrical combinations of the two primary elements--atoms and electricity--and are what Herschel said they looked to be, "manufactured articles."

Sixteenth--The laws of magnetic attraction teach us that positive and negative polar forces, flowing oppositely between sun and earth, establish the bond of union between them, and the transmission of electric energy must be equal between them, and the flow through s.p.a.ce at the low level of latent energy.

These two oppositely flowing floods of electric energy, under the great law of electro-magnetic attraction, pa.s.s through ninety-three million miles of radiant matter in eight minutes of time and enter the resisting atmosphere of sun and earth, their currents thrilling with energy at the high tension of opposite polarities beneath their atmospheric envelope.

Thus the attraction known as gravitation, but which is electro-magnetism, pours a constant flood of light and heat upon both sun and planets, and thus the electric light and heat of the sun and planets evolved from their resisting atmosphere, and the contact of their positive and negative electricity, become creative potencies, deriving their vast power from each other, and from their environing s.p.a.ce of virgin, imponderable matter, and thereby give life, motion and utility to all visible created things.

Thus we find that light, heat and vital force is created by the contact of the positive and negative electricity in the magnetic atmosphere of suns and worlds. That the electric affinities in matter proclaim an electric origin, and the invisible atom as the material basis of all material life; and by tracing their source to electrical and magnetic energy, we have reached the foundation upon which is built the eternal structures of the universe, and the bounds of all creation.

CHAPTER IV

ELECTRICAL CREATION MORE FULLY STATED CONFIRMS SCIENTIFIC EVOLUTION

I contend that electrical creation confirms scientific evolution. In the beginning the elements a.s.sumed form when they came into such a state of electrical balance as enabled them to move in uniform order. The more perfect the order the more perfect the form. The crystal is fine proof of this, for when the elements composing it are all marshaled into perfect uniformity of action the crystal becomes a perfect structure well nigh indestructible. This principle of the crystalline formation of the elements is the basis of world building.

In a small volume ent.i.tled "Planetary Evolution," the learned author, who is too modest to give his name, says: "Atoms are absolute potentialities, creative rather than created conditions of the elements, and have the power of inherent energy or life motion. All tests show the atom remains the inscrutable source of creative power, and the basis of all chemical activity, and must be the basic principle of world building, life motion and life energy.

"In all the operations of chemical trans.m.u.tations no material is lost and no power wasted, and, by the law of the conservation and correlation of force, both energy and material must exist as correlatives. This places the nature of matter upon the same basis as the origin of power.

The transformation of force into material is impossible. Force follows the laws of motion, and atoms the law of form obedient to the lines of motion." This is well stated.

This author says further: "The atom has the power to a.s.sume form and create form, and matter and force cannot be transformed into each other." Then this power or force must come from electricity, the primary force in nature; and it has power to a.s.sume form and create form by reason of electric energy controlled by spirit intelligence. In planetary construction the first thing that meets our vision is the arrangement of the atoms in crystalline formation, which is the foundation of all planetary structure. The atoms in s.p.a.ce continually change their relative positions and construct world forms and organic forms of beauty and power. They settle into globular spheres with all the precision of a trained army or a disciplined ma.s.s of life and energy, forming the crystalline ma.s.ses that compose the primitive foundations of the earth.

Polarity has much to do with the phenomena of crystallization. The same author says: "Polarity is the result of the transverse lines in which the atoms move previous to their comparative arrest. The planet as a globe can have only two poles, but the crystal has as many as the lines of direction in which the moving atoms cross each other's path."

In interstellar s.p.a.ce he affirms the atomic relations of the elements are undisturbed by any power that would tend to divert the atom from its movement in a straight line; force is transmitted from atom to atom without any effect upon its motion or change of equilibrium. The power of transfer is the basic principle of the electric current, and as long as the direction of the current lies in one of the lines of atomic motion the current pa.s.ses without resistance and is imperceptible; but if it chances to meet in its pathway a line of force pa.s.sing from atom to atom in a different direction, there is instantly a neutralization of motion and the arrest of each atom at the point of crossing which gives polarity, and the molecule is the result. In s.p.a.ce the electric current is the first form of creative manifestations the atoms a.s.sume.

Electricity belongs to the atomic forces, has intimate relations with organic life, and gives us a key to unlock its mysteries. Electric energy plays such an important part in cosmic construction that without some knowledge of its nature it is impossible to explain the processes which are the basis of world building.

The crystal rock under microscopic examination shows the same beautiful figures and marvelous lines of arrangement that in winter the new fallen snow-flakes exhibit, and indicate that the lines of form are essentially the same that gave the planetary rock its forms of crystalline beauty and ma.s.sive structure. And the beautiful snow that falls so gently upon the wintry lap of earth is one of the best representatives of creative power acting in the primitive states of formative forces. This tends to show that the earth began its formative period in extreme cold and not heat, for the formative lines of shape and force are the same in the crystal ice and crystalline snowflake as they are in the crystalline rocks of earth's primary foundations. And they all indicate the lines of electric energy and magnetic force in atomic activity and molecular formations, which are the beginning of all visible material creations.

The shaping of the molecules of the so-called cosmic elements by electric energy into crystalline form is the second great step in world building. While magnetism (the dual force of electricity) serves to hold the form-structure in more or less enduring relations, for the magnet has the power to radiate atomic force in circles and tends to draw the elements into form and hold them there. The electric force keeps the atoms always moving; the magnetic force keeps them or would keep them in atomic balance, or at rest, but electricity keeps magnetism always on the alert, and between the action of the two, or attraction and repulsion, all visible forms are evolved and dissolved.

Thus magnetism is the centripetal force, of planetary construction, and electricity the centrifugal power of planetary changes, and upon these two depend all the complex varieties of inorganic and organic forms that exist. And so long as they exist with their powers of atomic motion so long will world building and form building continue, and must continue through the aeons of creative force.

The magnetic state of the earth, with the pulsating currents of electric force in the atomic and radiant form, plays a sovereign part in the economy of nature and makes the planet itself alive with creative force and evolving power.

To demonstrate electrical power in world building and the shifting relations of the elements in the planetary combinations, watch the electric plating battery at work. There you will see the atoms in the solution flowing towards the negative pole and depositing themselves in minute crystals upon the metallic surface, if the negative pole is a metal, and adhering with great pertinacity; the metallic crystals penetrate the crystalline surface of the substance to be plated in minute arms filling up the infinitesimal s.p.a.ce, and the atoms in this process transfer their atomic motion in line with the electric force, and become arrested as in the primitive state when they formed the crystalline foundations of primitive earth. It will be found that the power or electric force required to plate one metal is just the same as to disintegrate it, and the electric force is a great solvent, while the magnetic force is a concentrating form-moulding world-building power.

And these two forces evenly balanced perpetuate the universe. The fluidic condition of matter arises from molecular activity before the atoms have a.s.sumed the crystalline state, and all fluids are easily vaporized to invisible gases.

The primitive planet, in coming from nebula to crystalline form, had to pa.s.s through the fluidic state, because the electric atomic balance had not yet been acquired sufficient to produce solidity.

In this stage there could be no organic life; but the earth was enveloped in dense clouds of vapor, and there was no light for many ages, because the earth's surface was below the electric and atomic rate that produced light, and the dense gases and vapors floating around it and between it and the sun prevented the light penetrating its atmospheric pall of darkness.

But in that darkness and vapor and cosmic convulsions was going forward the processes of organic construction essential to fit it for the coming generations of sentient life. Night and darkness ruled, but chaos had no part, and never ruled in all the cycles of creative power. The direct currents of electric force and the circular currents of magnetic power swept through and through earth's molecular structure, ranging the atoms in all the lines of crystal perfection and spherical form, and laying the rock-ribbed foundations in geological stratas in the heart and center of a growing world.

The lines of electro-magnetic force at this period in the planet, with their circular spiral motion, would shape the world into a globular spherical form, and the elements in watery solution would almost come into crystalline firmness, and then an impulse of electrical power would throw them into restless agitation; and again they would respond to the grasp of magnetic strength and return to a state of partial arrest near the crystal condition, and again sway back to the electric primitive molecular state. But they could not get free from the lines of magnetic force which held them with giant grasp until they were incorporated into the foundation rocks of earth's solidifying sphere. And the centre of our planet became a vast solid crystalline magnet, and was never a fiery mist or molten substance.

Finally when the crystalline rocks were settled into a crystalline globe the life-cell was born as the basis of a new condition of planetary form. And in the dark waters where no light was, organic life under the law of creative electric energy began its work upon the planet. The life-cell is the resultant of electric-magnetic action.

During this period of primeval "darkness upon the face of the earth,"

the resistless electric waves of the sun were beating upon the cloud-enwrapped surface of the planet, but its light had no power to penetrate its cimmerian gloom. And the earth was sending back its pulsating magnetic currents to the sun, and both were evolving themselves into giant dynamos of marvelous electric power--giving and receiving electric currents of positive and negative polarity of wonderful life-giving potency. Gradually the earth solidified into a vast magnet of crystalline rock and metal and like the magnetic core of a steel magnet of vast extent and power, it drew millions of meteors from s.p.a.ce.

The internal electric forces in volcanic convulsions were upheaving islands, continents and mountain ranges, rending the rocks and crystalline strata in the contracting crust of the earth, amid lightning flashes and resounding crashes of thunder, like the fabled t.i.tans in primeval battle. It was a contest of the giant forces in their elemental power baptizing a world in the fires of creative and creating energy.

The planet was shaken by magnetic force and torn and agitated by electric storms. Gigantic boulders were dislodged from the surface and ground into powder against each other, making soil for coming vegetation and marking out the pathway of the rivers and valleys. It was the adjustment of elemental forces, the night of ages in whose depths and womb of viewless power conscious life originated by electric energy under the evolving law of evolution as the will of Creative Deity. And the mountain ranges following the lines of axial direction of the two poles upon opposite sides of the planet began to slowly rise above the surrounding waters, and lifted their mighty crests above a world floating in surging waters, and darkness, except as it was lit up by lightning gleams of electric power. It may be that during this stage of the planet was laid the foundation of all the distinctive types of life-force, including the cell forms that lay at the basis of living structure, the plant forms and the living forms of animalcular life that float in the ocean below and mists above. All of which had their home and birth in the dense darkness that covered the face of the deep.

It was the formative period of elementary life, and the descendants and successors of that mighty host of living beings have to this day to lay the foundations of their being in similar conditions of darkness.

Creative energy in its first stages of living form operates in dense darkness, and the first life upon the planet began and perfected itself in the age when midnight gloom enveloped the globe. "The Supreme Power,"

says the author of "Planetary Evolution," "wrought out its purpose with no eye to discern its workings and no helpless ignorance to dictate what was needed to make a world." The deep-sea soundings show that life still exists there without the aid of sunlight and that there is no limit to the domain of organic life. And the necessity exists even at this age for darkness during the formative processes of embryonic life.

All microscopic life embodies the essential characteristics of activity and form that distinguish many of the distinct types of animal and vegetable life. The mould that gathers upon decaying bread is a great forest when sufficiently magnified. The wiggling animalculae in the stagnant water is but a prototype of the writhing serpent of the Brazilian forest. In these two types of minute organic being we see the first stages of life in planetary formation. And the induced electric energy on the animalculine organism compelled it to both growth and activity, and, obedient to that principle, it added cell to cell in any direction that that electric energy in that form sought relief, thus producing different types of organic structure. The influence of the pent-up currents of electric energy was destined to have a moulding power upon the higher types of organic life, for their influence upon the living form soon became manifest in the construction of nerve-tissue, which is the basis of all animal structure, and the beginning of all embryotic form, and is essentially the same in all organic life.

All attempts of science to formulate a theory of the source of life end in an abstraction. To teach that life originates in a germ leads to an a.n.a.lysis that shows the germ is a compound form itself, and one of the stages of incipient life. The advocate of the cell as the primitive source of life soon discovers that the cell is the result of chemical forces that have not yet arrived at the germ state, and that both the germ and the cell are but successive stages of life development, and we must go further back into the realm of the invisible electro-magnetic forces for the true source of physical life. Here the untrained intellect is bewildered and is unable to discern any relation of force beyond the physical senses, and science and reasoning causation must explore the invisible realities, and realms of force beyond the physical senses, which requires the highest order of mental training. It is in the mental realm, the realm of spirit and electricity, that we must seek the solution of all the higher problems of life and destiny.

In the spermatozoa of the male is the first evolution of the organic life of the planet. It is the electro-chemical combination of elements in which the primitive cell was formed, and in nature's corresponding environment it goes steadily forward through all previous stages until perfected in form, and becomes a miniature production of its parent structure. It thus unconsciously followed the forces and elements of the parent organism whereby that parent organism came into being from its parent, and so on backward for generations and ages. And in order to perfect the power of s.e.x to the highest degree and preserve the life of the race, there was a differentiation in the embryonic state, whereby one organism, the male, became the power to preserve the energy, while the other, the female, became the environment to perfect the form.

This was no miracle, but a response of the organism to the waves of electric power in the planet, which at times and conditions would be more positive or negative in their electric energy. For all the elements of life and the universe animate and inanimate are s.e.xual, male or female, positive or negative, in their natural relations.

The higher types of life are almost wholly dependent upon the arrangement of the cells on a high electric tension, and the early forms were almost wholly of nerve-tissue structures, and the primitive animalculae followed the law of differentiation and were able to construct muscular fiber and bone formation, and became the fish and reptiles that inhabited the ancient seas.

The processes of planetary formation are resultants of electrical action among the elements that form the planet, and here is the true field of scientific research for the knowledge of causation as expressed through world construction. To the chemist and electrician belong the task of explaining the processes of world building as well as the secrets of life itself, and they must be found in the laws that control the electro-magnetic ether that permeates all atoms and s.p.a.ce.

In the paleozoic age there were surging tides of electric energy through the planet itself, producing induced currents in all the forming bodies upon its surface. And these primitive currents swept the cell-formations into lines parallel with their lines of force the same as crystallizations, and as they were floating in circ.u.mambient water, the cells took the form of tissue structure, forming organs that followed the crystalline law of self preservation, and, in response to changing electric currents, throwing out new cell-structures.