CHAPTER IX ATOMIC LIFE
In the mentalogical research for the discovery of the life principle, investigators are going far. Surpassing wonderful is the Carl Zeiss ultra-microscope, which uses only the radiating energy within the portion of the solar spectrum which is beyond the violet. These waves are so rapid they do not affect the retina and are hence invisible, but they do activate silver emulsions on highly sensitive plates. Inconceivable minute life, living atoms, or bodies in motion are photographed on rapidly moving films. The result is beyond imagination. When these long strips of successive radiographs are illuminated by strong electric light, under a powerful projecting lens, uncounted thousands of unknown kinds of living atoms are seen moving with intense activity.
De Vries designates these minute particles concealed in living matter, “pangens,” and says that “they are quite another order than chemical molecules; that each must grow and multiply by self division.” These pangens are probably units containing mind, and if so, his opinion gives a mind cast to the Universe and all that it includes.
I cite these two scientists to show the tendency of the modern investigator, and to illustrate how far beyond the comprehension of man is the life pangen. Those learned investigators living and working beyond the physical plane, having had greater opportunity to carry on research, go far beyond earthly experiences, because they have had a greater opportunity to acquire knowledge of the fundamental principles of Nature, and it is from this source that I have gathered the information that forms the basis of this work.
It is very difficult at the coming of dawn to say just when the night ends and the day begins. It is impossible to say where one color ends and another begins in the rainbow. It is likewise very difficult to draw the line of demarcation between the physical or tangible, and the etheric or the spiritual. The one is tangible and the other intangible; the one is measured by three dimensions and comprehended by the five senses; the other is demonstrated by clairvoyancy and clairaudiency, the sixth and seventh senses.
I deal now with the part the physical atom plays in the economy of Nature, leaving the etheric, no less material but higher in its vibratory action and functions, to the discussion of etheric form.
We now know that what appears to be solid matter, tangible and dense, which we can see and feel is but an aggregation of physical atoms and molecules slow in vibration, and that within and back of all material is a directive force. One cannot conceive a directive force that does not possess intelligence. Within every atom going to make up the tangible mass is that something called inherent energy or force, which science readily admits, because it is possible to feel and to see the expression of that force. We now go one step further and say that force or energy wherever found, or however expressed, is life, so that we cannot, if we would disassociate energy from life, or force from life, or life from force or energy, simply because they are one and the same thing.
Nature abhors stagnation. Life cannot for one moment be absolutely still; its vibration is so high that there is no inactive substance in the world. That is, every substance has more or less movement, which causes continual change of form and expression. The great law that we call Evolution, influences every atom in the physical world. It is the parent of progress; it is that something inherent in everything from which springs the desire to increase, reproduce, and reach a higher state of development, and that influence is as strong in the atoms and molecules making up what we erroneously call the inanimate mass, as in the animate mass or the individual. We have no conception of the maximum or minimum of motion or movement. The higher the development of the mass, the more rapid its vibration. ‘The lower the mass development, the lower its vibration, the more dark the substance as shown by the spectrum.
It is most difficult to treat a subject so beyond our experience. It is very difficult to explain a condition so far beyond our comprehension, but if we had never interested ourselves in these great unknown forces of Nature, we should not have made the wonderful progress already attained.
It is easy to demonstrate that there is this something called force in all substance going to make up the tangible mass. We take coal, liberate the energy and force therein contained, and utilize it in our industries. We go down into the earth and liberate the gas, bring it to the surface, let it come in contact with fire, that is a substance higher in vibration than the gas itself, and through chemical action we have what we know as combustion; we have released the life-force or the energy; we have dissociated the life-force from the tangible garment.
We take water, with heat increase its vibration and convert it into steam, and we have released the energy or life-force contained in the water from its physical garment. And so we could take, were we possessed of greater knowledge, any substance found in the earth, and if we knew how to break down its tangible covering, we would have what science terms “energy,” but what, I term “life.” The life-force, clothed with tangible substance in the process of the alteration that is continually taking place through its affinity for other life-atoms, is constantly changing form, through likes and dislikes, increasing vibratory action to the end that the life- force in the mass may through such continual development and progress reach the highest perfection possible in the physical world, i.e., ultimate physical expression in mankind. In other words, by natural laws, these individual atoms through a process of refinement, through association and dissociation, through likes and dislikes, through chemical combinations and growth, ultimately find expression in the individual.
It has been said that everything in the physical world pays tribute to mankind. It might better be said that everything in Nature, obeying the great universal law of Evolution, when it reaches its highest physical development, finds expression in man.
Every living creature on the face of this globe, was originally an atom, or aggregation of atoms. When it was first clothed, it was so small that no physical eye could discern it, and no magnifying glass could discover it. Its inception was in the dark where the rapid light vibrations could not impede its development. Through the process of growth it was evolved. Vegetables, plants, grains, animals, fish, and many of the birds of the air, through digestive action were utilized to clothe and furnish the physical garment which the individual required in its growth and development. That physical garment is entirely constructed from those tangible substances furnished by the mass, which is necessary for that special purpose, so that we say that the physical form is being constructed out of the mass of matter.
Let us go a step lower, and we find that the physical garment that clothes the vegetable kingdom is taken from the earth substance still lower. All animal life is constantly taking from the mass the substance which will aid its physical growth. It is all one splendid process of change and growth and progression, all tending toward the apex where stands man the most perfect physical being that Nature seeks to produce in this world. Looking in the mirror we see reflected not the individual, but the outer garment of the individual constructed of animal and vegetable matter. In dissolution we simply give back to the fields and to the common earth that which we have temporarily borrowed. The gross material composing our bodies has served its purpose, and it goes back to mother-earth, back into the retort to continue its progression until at some time the substance which covered our etheric form shall reach individuality and then continuity.
Through the labyrinth of creation there is no rest. Vibration is the pulse of Nature. Superficial observation teaches that matter never moves unless acted upon. The sailing ship is propelled by the winds, the engine by steam; there are in Nature endless manifestations of force in moving planets and constellations, in growing vegetation, and in man himself. Motion belongs to the atom. The Universe is but an aggregation of atoms, and its motions are just what those of a single atom placed in its orbit would be. Each atom must be its own motor, and the combined influence of all is the influence of the earth. Mathematical demonstration and deductive reasoning justify this supposition. The agency of an Almighty constantly propelling them, does not meet the demands of reason. Life is born of motion. It is first traceable in the mutual attraction between atoms in solution arranging themselves in definite forms; in affinity and the repulsion of particles. It may appear startling that the forces which create the crystal are living forces; but the data available by known and accepted laws justify the statement.
I would direct attention to the energy contained in the atom. I would impress on the public mind that energy is life, and that all life is material; that is, it is made up of that substance we know as Ether, which is so high in vibration, and so refined that it is not evidential unless clothed with heavier substance which we term physical; moreover, from the life contained in the atom, by evolutionary law, man has evolved. We cannot understand life as expressed in the individual, without knowing at least something of its origin, and the law through which it finds expression in man.