Nerve tissue is the highest form of atomic balance that is visible, and the true basis of form structure that has vitality to meet the shifting electric currents. The tiny cells joined themselves to form new structures to respond to the electric waves, while the lower magnetic induction of the planet sent its power over the new tissue to hold it in form so that the organism could be partially permanent in form in its new environment. In this manner the organism grew and expanded from the primitive animalcular nerve type to the consolidated, firm tissue that enabled it to hold itself from dissolution under adverse conditions and planetary changes. The action of electric force in building secondary forms with a magnetism of their own is one of the most wonderful exhibitions of nature.

And now comes a startling result of this type of energy that has called living organism into being from the lower grades of atomic life. The cells that have formed themselves around a central point, as in the crystalline state, begin to quiver and vibrate with a strong rapidity that defies all power of restraint. In them is to be seen a new relation of the elements that grade still higher in the scale of atomic action.

They have risen in the power of sensitiveness above the plane of receptive response to the swaying currents of the earth, and begin to send out currents of their own. Those currents penetrate the whole system with strange energy, and the organism begins to respond with new expressions of power. It moves with reference to the currents that it creates itself, and we have the first type of creation with a brain center governing the whole system.

That brain tissue is the result of the action indirect of the electric energy that is sweeping the planet in ceaseless lines of force and power. It sends its induced currents upon all the forming host of animalcular life floating in the dark waters, and some begin to grow brains.

The cellular structure ranges itself in line with the positive and negative polarity that made the crystalline form of the world a globe, and from that living cell-battery go out the currents that control the form by the inward force that ever after is to witness to the power of constructive energy to create living beings with sentient power to regulate and control their own destiny.

Meanwhile the surging tides of electric energy are forcing the continents upward, and the fish that swim in the paleozoic seas find the waters receding and himself part of the time on the land or in the mud and shallows, and the growing organism, from generation to generation becomes adapted to each condition of life on land and water. Then comes to pa.s.s the raising of the organism from the fish to the reptile by the influence of electrical induction and change of environment. Then also comes the growth of plant life, and the marvelous varieties of vegetation in the form of tree and shrub and gra.s.s. Upon the land, half submerged, the vegetation that had its rootlets in the former ocean bed grew from sea weeds into rank gra.s.ses and ferns, the types of which are seen to this day in the dense forests and jungles of the tropics.

In the early period of the paleozoic age the molusks, polyps, and marine plants were evolved without any reference to light whatever and depended on the sense of feeling to provide for the necessary food supplies to maintain their organism.

We have in the night-blooming cereus a flower that belonged in that epoch of the world's evolution when plants flowered and perfected their seed bearing in the dark. And in the salamander, beaver and hippopotamus a type of the amphibious animals of the early ages. We have in the bat a type of animal that flourished in the darkness of earth's formative period, and in the embryonic period of animal and man we find the beginning of the life processes in the darkness of the womb, and all seed of vegetable and plant must be buried in the darkness of earth before it can bring forth new life.

Every living structure on the planet takes form by the laws of nature's creative processes; and the secret unfolding of life structure to-day, however perfect at maturity, is a complete record of all the previous stages of formative growth in animal life, from the vertebra of the fish to the contour of the mammal and the man, condensed as to time during the period of gestation, but following the original lines of formative structure, power and principle.

This and all growth and evolution is the result of electrical energy under divine law and spiritual control. Electrical power is the great agent in arranging molecular compounds into all forms of animal and plant life as well as crystalline structures and world forms. The duplicates of plant life with the secondary crystalline forms are found in limestone caverns of the earth. There, in the dense stillness of eternal night, many forms that are seen above ground as plants and flowers are there wrought out in solid stone, as the crystalline limestone rock has arranged its molecular structure obedient to the same lines of form as the electric currents in the upper atmosphere follow in vegetable life.

Thus in the eternal nature of the atom and electric energy with their inherent potencies the Creator has abundant resources not only to make this planet, but also the countless worlds of boundless s.p.a.ce. And in the wonders of electrical potency in this planet alone He is constantly producing results that excite profound grat.i.tude and reverence. At length when the clouds of darkness faded away and the atmosphere became translucent, and the glorious light of the sun--the great electric heart of our system of worlds--shone upon the earth, there was a new realm of infinite life and expression to lift the world and all organic life to a higher state of perfection.

While the world, like an enormous battery, had in itself enough energy to hold the planet in its spherical form and to stimulate to activity the secondary forms of life, had not the sun come into more vigorous activity with its electric life-giving energy the earth could not have gone above the primitive forms of life. With this greater influx of power from another sphere of causative energy, the dark age of animality pa.s.sed and the monstrous types faded out, and in the place of them the world began to bear a cla.s.s of beings that could reflect the power and principles of light and beauty. And under the pulsations of the sun's electrical and magnetic energy the earth started on its marvelous career of organic growth and development.

The sun, as an immense electrical reservoir battery, must radiate in all directions its electric vibratory power over the surging elements in its own environment and from thence through electric atomic transfer to bodies in s.p.a.ce. So that whenever a body was in direct line with the magnetic centers of the sun, the arrest of the electric current and atomic motion coming from the sun's center by another magnetic center, as the earth or any other planet, would instantly change the rate of the environment of the planet magnet to a grade of intensity that would give light and heat. In this manner light, heat and greater vital force was born upon the earth, when its dark clouds lifted and its atmosphere became translucent, so that the sun's electric currents could affect the earth through electric transfer. Thus the influx of external light upon planetary life was positive and marvelous, introducing a new power upon the forming organic life in the vegetable and animal world, and working great changes in all organic structures. And in response to this new power the eye began to form and a new and distinct organ of sense was perfected. It was slowly developed at first, for the light radiated from the sun penetrated the mists of earth dimly, for it was almost midnight gloom in some sections and dusky twilight in others.

So far I have said nothing of excessive heat, for the earth began in excessive cold. But as the earth magnet or dynamo increased its electric power it increased its heat.

We now come to the dawn of instinct or rationality in the primitive types of life. There we find a basis for the first principles of instinct or animal rationality in the balancing of one sense by the exercise of another, and the combined results of the two. Seeing and feeling gave a higher type of brain power, and raised that organ to a higher grade of perception and a newer type of intelligence.

Then another faculty added its powers to the sense of sight and feeling, for the atmosphere in which the reptilian tribes were living half the time or more were sending out sound waves which touched the nervous filaments of the central battery of the brain, and as the eye had formed to respond to the waves of ether caused by the electric currents of the sun, so a new organ began its formation in response to the incoming waves of power the atmosphere brought to the brain-cells, and the ear began to gather in concentric circles around the brain-center, and a new sense--that of hearing--was formed. Thus there was an additional increase of the power of perception or instinct. Thus were evolved all types of animal form and animal instinct. They were the result of electric energy, sense perception, and long ages of growth, comparison and environment.

Then came man, the highest type of animal organism. Man may have pa.s.sed the successive changes and trans.m.u.tations of form that the shifting vibratory rates of the planet responded to in the long period of world building. He may have attained to the grade of animal activity as a mind of the highest order in bodily form before he received the spiritual powers and intellectual force which he has exhibited all along the ages, after all animal forms had battled with the elements in the struggles to keep in equilibrium between the surging tides of electrical dispersion and magnetic concentration. Certain it is man holds his own by virtue of his steady rise in mental power which has no limit of evolution in the present stage of physical life and psychic life. And there are no known boundaries of his power to penetrate all mysteries and explore all conditions of existence "wherever being has laid foundations, or law is working out the problems of infinite destiny." Man came as a spiritual creation.

Many scientists discard the religious or Mosaic concept of a special creation of man and a divine revelation, and hold that the revelations of science are the only revelations of G.o.d that the world can regard as reliable.

I cannot agree with them that man was evolved from the animal creation.

I hold he was a special creation, as Moses says he was; but that special creation was not his body--that may have been evolved from the lowest forms of animal life through many ages, and is no part of the real man.

It was woven by electric law and energy as an overcoat of atoms for his earthly habitation. Man's body is not man, but the house in which he lives for a time, the earthly temple of the soul. Moses affirms this when he says "G.o.d breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul." It is the breath of G.o.d, the atom of Deity, the living soul that const.i.tutes man, and that was a special creation. This I have discussed at length in "Invisible Light." I hold no law of evolution could bridge the gulf between man and the animal creation. The fixity of brute instinct, and the boundless expansion of mental and psychic force in man forbid such a conclusion and confirm Moses, who says he was made lord over the earth and all animal creations. Man has three bodies--a spiritual, an electric and a physical body. Animals have only two--an electric and physical body. And both the electric and physical bodies of men and animals came from the same source and are governed by the same laws. Animal instinct is not spirit, is not a part of Deity, it cannot dream of G.o.d or heaven, or comprehend the universe or weigh suns and worlds.

It knows only the electric impulses of the material senses and reasons from these alone, and, by balancing one sense by another, attains an experience which in time becomes an automatic habit or force of nature under the law of its electric organism. It feels all sensations, like hunger, pa.s.sion or fear, as an electric impulse on the sensitive tissues of the brain and responds from natural habit. It does not think, reason or soar into the boundless fields of ideality. It cannot feel the spiritual touch of human souls, or the divine impulse of G.o.d and love, of music, poetry, language, art and religion, as does the human soul.

Man is as much above the animal creation as the animal is above the vegetable and the vegetable above the mineral.

We have seen that the mineral is created by aggregations of atoms solidified under the law of magnetic attraction and brought to rest by balanced forces into crystalline form, and thus incorporated into the foundation elements of the earth magnet. They are simply electric and atomic forces and atoms balanced and at rest. They have no organic existence. Vegetable life, which is next above them, have organisms, and are sun engines breathing in nitrogen and giving out carbonic acid or oxygen to sustain animal life. The vegetable organism furnishes food for all animal life.

There can be no evolution of plant life into animal life. It is not scientific to search for such an irrational order of development.

Vegetable, plant and tree in their organic life structure, never become animals. They have no independent existence separate from the sun's rays and the earth's soil except as latent in seed life. Cut off the sun currents from their leaves and the electric earth currents from their roots, and they are at once weakened and destroyed.

Animals are a higher order of life which have an independent existence in atmosphere and water--electric elements--separate from earth dust, and which evolve and give forth in their own organism the electric instinct and impulse which controls their own actions and habits.

They have no psychic or intellectual force, and can never be evolved into human souls or organisms. Man is as far above the animal creation as the heavens are above the earth. He is not the descendant of a monkey or any other animal creature except possibly in his bodily organism. He is a soul and belongs to the Spiritual Kingdom of G.o.d.

The scientists say there are three kingdoms in nature--mineral, vegetable and animal. I say there are four--mineral, vegetable, animal and man, or the spiritual Kingdom of G.o.d. Man is a soul or spiritual body which is from G.o.d and a part of G.o.d. He can think, reason, aspire, a.n.a.lyze, and soar into the psychic realms of the spiritual world and commune with angels and Deity, and is a spirit monarch of the universe.

And his longing, heaven-bound nature cries out to Deity: "Thou hast made us for thyself, and our souls are restless till we rest in thee!"

The vegetable has the elements of the mineral, with a material organism added; the animal has the elements of the mineral and vegetable with a material organism and an electric body and instinct added. The animal may possibly live hereafter in his electric body or secondary form. Man has the elements of the mineral and vegetable, the material body and the electric body of the animal, and added to all these he has a psychic or spiritual body, which links him to Deity, and makes him the epitome of all creation, the child of G.o.d and the universe, and the sovereign of eternal life, love and destiny.

The recent discovery of a man's skull at Lansing, Kansas, found sixty feet below the earth's surface, under many stratas of rock formation in the ooze at the bottom of a sea that existed in the glacial period, shows a cranial or brain development equal to the average man of the present day. This skull, estimated by scientists to be from thirty to forty thousand years old, with such a splendid head formation, shows conclusively that man was never evolved from the animal creation, but is a separate and superior being above the animal, and lord over all the animal creation.

This Lansing skull is one of the greatest discoveries of the age and confirms man's high lineage and ancient residence on this revolving planet, and supports Moses and the Bible.

Also the recent discoveries in the ruins of Ninevah, Babylon, Nipur, and other ancient cities of Asia Minor, and also in Egypt, reveal written leases and other doc.u.ments eight thousand years old, which show that man has possessed superior knowledge and intelligence from the earliest periods of the world's history, and tend to support the biblical theory that man was a special creation, and not an evolution in his psychic nature from the lower animals.

Man and human history, while complicating, does not alter the real force and nature of evolution. While it is said "the history of the world is the biography of great men," yet if Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Frederick the Great, William the Conqueror and other great men were eliminated, it would have had little effect in disturbing the steady onward course of the world's development.

Great men are the images, symbols and instruments taken at random by the constant and mighty forces of their age and times which stood behind them and swept them onward in their great careers. They were the pens of Fate used in her writing, the weather vanes of destiny which turned the way the currents and tides of invisible forces were blowing.

Humanity of the past and present is not final but progressive. Man's marvelous discoveries in science, his aesthetic culture and spiritual growth makes the future of the race the most persistently fascinating question of the age.

Man is not a mere animal, but is one with Deity, and a part of that unseen spiritual power which directs the stars in their infinite courses, gives electric brilliancy to the all-dazzling sun, paints the dawn and the aurora, colors the gorgeous wings of the b.u.t.terfly, and guides insensate matter to do the will of Omnipotence.

CHAPTER V

MAN IS A SOUL CLAD IN AIR, A SPIRIT IN AN ELECTRIC ORGANISM

My claim that man is an electric organism is confirmed by Professor Loeb and Dr. Mathews in their recent experiments at the Chicago University.

"Electrical charges in the atoms of the bodily tissue are responsible for all the active phenomena of life. In other words, electricity is the basis of life." This is the sweeping conclusion with which Dr. Jacques Loeb amazed the physiologists gathered in their last annual meeting at the Chicago University.

Hitherto it has been taken for granted by men of science that the food we eat nourishes us by furnishing the tissues and muscles of the body with thermo or heat energy. This, according to Professor Loeb, is totally wrong. Instead of the food furnishing the muscle with heat energy, it supplies electrical energy, which, after being converted into mechanical energy, is responsible for all the muscular contractions and organic processes of living organisms.

He has arrived at this conclusion after many years of intricate and difficult experiments along the line of reproduction of animals, of determining the effect of salt on the heart-beat and its rythmic motion, and on other muscles, and of the destructive processes at work in the eggs of simple unicellar animals. They have been the means of determining the answer to the one great question, "What is life?" and he regards all his previous discoveries subsidiary to this one. He received his first hint of this new theory of life through the fact that electricity is able to affect protoplasm in a more universal and effective way than any other form of stimulus. And he drew the inference that if electricity is able to affect protoplasm in the form of currents, it ought to do so in the form of ions, which is an electrically charged atom or group of atoms.

In experimenting to determine the toxic and ant.i.toxic of ions on protoplasm, which is the basic substance of all physical life, he discovered that any one salt will act as a poison on the eggs of a sea urchin, but by adding one or more, or certain other salts, he found it was able to counteract the effects of this toxic effect. From which he concluded that the toxic and ant.i.toxic effect of the salts were due to the manner in which its atoms are electrically charged.

He found that when a salt whose atoms are positively charged come in contact with the eggs of the sea urchin, they interfered with the life processes, while salts whose atoms were negatively charged stimulate contraction; and the presence of both positively and negatively charged atoms were necessary, and the phenomena of life is due to the play between the different charges of electricity in the molecules. The energy of foodstuffs and motions of the heart and other muscles of the body are not due to the production of heat, but to the chemical energy in electrically charged molecules.

He says: "A part of the chemical energy of foodstuffs is transformed into electric energy, which gives energy to the body. In one experiment I put a jelly-fish in contact with a solution of electrically charged substances, and it immediately responded by muscular contraction. I then put it in a substance that was a non-conductor and there was no response. In this way I concluded it was the electric charges which effected the muscular contraction, that a pure salt always acts as a poison to the egg, and in order not to have toxic effects it is necessary that the positive and negative electric charges should easily balance. A muscle is stimulated by electro-negatively charged particles, and prevented from contracting by electro-positively charged particles.

"I have experimented with eggs of different low forms of animal life, with single protoplasmic cells, and with muscles. Professor Mathews has shown that my results hold true for nerves. I took the eggs of the fundulus and found that after they were fertilized they will develop in sea water.

"In a sodium-chloride solution I found they will not develop, but by adding a trace of calcium as many eggs will develop as in the sea water.

This is due to the electrically charged atoms of the calcium. Artificial parthenogenesis, or life artificially produced, has been of interest only as it leads me to learn how the electric charges of ions affect life phenomena. You can bring about parthenogenesis only by positive ions. I have come to two conclusions: First, rythmical contraction occurs only in the presence of electrically charged substances. Second, the efficiency of the charges depends upon the number of the charges or the different ions. Professor Mathews has arrived at a third conclusion, which is, that the negatively charged ions are those which stimulate, and the positively charged ions are those which hinder contraction."