CRITIQUE 
/ ON 
PROF. TYNDALL’S COURSE OF LECTURES ON LIGHT, 
(DELIVERED IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK.) 
IN THREE ESSAYS. 
LOUIS MACKALL, M. D. 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
m’gill a witherow, printers and stereotypers. 
1873. CRITIQUE 
ON 
PROF. TYNDALL’S COURSE OF LECTURES ON LIGHT 
(DELIVERED IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK.) 
IN THREE ESSAYS. 
LOUIS MACKALL, M. D. 
c. 
M’GILL 4 WITHEROW, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS. 
1873. Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1873, 
By LOUIS MACKALL, M. D., 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. CRITIQUE. 
ESSAY I. 
TWO SYSTEMS OF SCIENCE. 
The European System of Science has recently been pre- 
sented to the consideration of the scientific mind of Amer- 
ica in a very able course of experimental lectures, by the 
celebrated Professor Tyndall, of the Royal Institution of 
Great Britain; and this is deemed a fitting occasion to 
submit to the attention of the public the new and very 
different system of American Science. 
An essential difference between the two systems is 
hinted in the following sentence from one of the lectures 
referred to above: “The quarrel of Science with Sir Da- 
vid,” (Brewster, who objected to the undulatory theory of 
light as being too clumsy a contrivance to be referred to 
the Creator,) “as with many other persons, is that they 
profess to know too much about the mind of the Creator.” 
Whether to profess to know something of the mind of the 
Creator, judging from His Work in the Creation, is less 
pardonable, than to ignore this Mind altogether in scien- 
tific views or theories, with Professor Tyndall and with 
European scientists generally is a question that can be 
answered more intelligently and more satisfactorily when 
we get through with these essays. 4 
AMERICAN VIEWS OF SCIENCE. 
WHAT IS SCIENCE?—HOW IS SCIENCE ACQUIRED? 
Science consists of the generalizations or general prop- 
ositions arrived at by a proper exercise of the compound 
faculty of human reason; or, by a due performance of 
the mental function of reasoning. A plain and succinct 
account or tracing of this exercise or of this performance 
of function will be found of the greatest utility in attain- 
ing scientific propositions or principles, and in judging of 
the truth or admissibility of such as have been or may be 
presented to the mind. 
In the acquisition of science, four of the mental faculties 
are employed consecutively, and in the order now men- 
tioned; namely, the observation, the imagination, the 
judgment, and the common-sense. In using the latter 
term, reference is had to a distinct faculty of the mind, 
by virtue of which it is enabled to acquire “a knowledge 
of good and evil,” as it is quaintly expressed in the Mo- 
saic account of the creation; that is to say, by means 
of this faculty, when unsophisticated, the mind is ren- 
dered capable of deciding as to what is virtuous or vicious, 
right or wrong in conduct, and as to what is true or false 
in knowledge or science. This faculty, being common to 
every sane mind, is here called common-sense. 
THE REASONING PROCESS. 
This is what usually occurs in scientific reasoning : 
1. Some remarkable phenomenon first arrests attention, 5 
and the mind instinctively directs its several means of 
observation through the senses to this phenomenon. 
2. Having in this way noticed the facts or circumstances, 
the imagination is called upon to furnish a proposition or 
a scientific principle to explain or account for sucli facts; 
and having suggested a proposition for this purpose this 
stage of the process is completed, the office of the imagi- 
nation is performed. 
3. The mind then calls into exercise the judgment, to 
decide or to determine.if the proposition found by the 
imagination explains satisfactorily all the facts of the 
phenomenon presented to the observation. If the prop- 
osition is defective or inadequate to this end, it is altered, 
amended, and fitted to this purpose. This latter perform- 
ance of the judgment is what should be understood by the 
term induction; that is, the bringing together before the 
mind all the facts presented to the observation, or that 
can be gathered from experiments, &c., that they may be 
collated and compared with the requirements or terms of 
the general proposition. 
4. The crowning act in the process of scientific reason- 
ing, is the final appeal to the mental faculty, that we have 
designated by the term common-sense, heretofore named 
the moral sense, conscience, consciousness, &c. That the 
decisions of this faculty are reliable, we may be assured, 
by carefully reflecting on or considering the principle on 
which is founded the institution of jury-trial, and on that 
involved in the adage: ‘ ‘voxpopuli est vox dei;’ ’ for juries 
and mankind generally are led to the apprehension of 
truth solely by the dictates of common-sense. 
The above plain formula of the reasoning process was 
traced out by carefully attending to what passed in the 6 
writer’s mind in arriving at a general scientific proposi- 
tion, that will be found, as will be afterwards shown, to 
be of vast importance and of the highest value to man- 
kind. We will now apply this formula to the notable 
instance of reasoning of Sir Isaac Newton, in discovering 
his so-called ‘‘Law of Universal Gravitation.” 
1. As the first step in this course of reasoning, Sir 
Isaac, it is said, while reclining in his orchard, saw an 
apple fall to the ground, that happened to arrest his at- 
tention. Reflecting on the phenomenon thus presented 
to his observation, the question occurred to him, “Why 
should the apple, when detached from the tree, fall or 
move in this particular direction rather than in any 
other ?” 
2. Having been instructed as to the supposed agency 
of the occult properties of matter, attraction and repulsion, 
according to the Greek philospher Epicurus, at that time 
taught in all schools, or, as Professor Tyndall has it, 
taking a hint from the behavior of iron filings in pres- 
ence of a magnet, Newton employed his imagination in 
finding the proposition that the apple was drawn towards 
the ground or to the earth by its inherent occult property of 
attraction. 
3. His judgment was next called into exercise by Sir 
Isaac, as the third stage of reasoning. By means of this 
faculty he compared the falling of the apple with the 
terms of the proposition, and found, as lie thought, the 
phenomenon fully explained: the apple, he imagined, was 
attracted by the earth, and hence its movement or motion 
as observed. He then entered upon his induction: the 
facts or circumstances attending the falling of the apple 
were carefully attended to; a stone was thrown into the 7 
air and observed to fall to the ground, as did the apple; 
then letting fall from a height leaden halls and many 
other ponderable bodies, and observing more accurately 
the direction they took, he amended his proposition so as 
to read: “All ponderable, bodies fall or gravitate towards 
the centre of the earth by virtue of the earth's attraction.” 
The motion of ponderable bodies about the earth’s sur- 
face being thus accounted for, extending the range of in- 
duction, he thought the motion of the moon might be 
explained in the same way: this motion might be effected 
by the attraction of the earth. Again, observing the 
motion of the planets about the sun, that had then been 
demonstrated, varying the centre, be concluded that the 
motion of all the orbs of our solar system is produced by 
the inherent attraction of the sun. Afterwards, conjectur- 
ing from the observed motion of the sun and fixed stars, 
he again imagined that all the bodies of space revolved 
around some centre of the universe, being drawn thither- 
ward by the inherent attraction of this centre. 
Sir Isaac Newton thus arrived at his Law of Universal 
Gravitation, that has, since his time, been made to occupy 
the place in Natural Philosophy that in ancient systems 
was assigned to the crystalline sphere or envelope of the 
world, called “the primum mobile.” All motion of bodies 
in nature, whether celestial or terrestrial, is referred to the 
attraction of gravitation, and the “law,” as it is falsely 
called, or the general proposition resulting from this 
reasoning is thus stated: “Every particle of matter in 
the universe attracts every other particle of matter with a 
force directly proportional to its mass, and decreasing as 
the square of the distance increases.” 
It may be observed that a mere general outline of this 8 
course of reasoning is here given, in order to point out 
its conformity to the formula suggested above; and it 
may he further noticed , that no attention has been paid to 
the mathematical processes on which Sir Isaac mainly re- 
lied as furnishing the proof or confirmation of his theory 
of gravitation. This subject has been pretermitted, be- 
cause the mathematics is nothing more than the science of 
equations, or that department of science that is concerned 
only with the equation among the objects belonging to 
other departments of science. It is something (very ser- 
viceable indeed in its proper place) growing out of the 
physical or material sciences; but should never be used, 
as was done by Newton, as a principal means in the dis- 
covery of the principles of these sciences. 
This generalization of Sir Isaac Newton was so grand, 
so much in accordance with the great instinct of human- 
ity, urging the exercise of the reason, that it seems to have 
carried by storm, as it were, the assent not only of the 
reasoner, hut also that of the scientific mind of the age 
or period. It has maintained its position as an unques- 
tioned principle of science even down to the present time. 
Neither Sir Isaac nor any one since his time, with the 
exception perhaps of the ineffectual attempt of Leibnitz, 
has ever thought of completing this process of reasoning 
by an appeal to common-sense. That, on a fair appeal to 
this mental faculty, the proposition found would have 
been rejected by himself, may we, think, be inferred from 
the following sentence in a letter of his to Dr. Bentley, 
when questioned on the subject of gravity: “That gravity 
should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that 
one body may act upon another at a distance through a 
vacuum, without the mediation of anything else by and 9 
through which their action and force may he conveyed 
from one another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I 
believe no man who has in philosophical matters a compe- 
tent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. 
The above formula of reasoning, when carefully studied 
and fully understood, enables us to detect the errors in 
each of the three modes of reasoning that have heretofore 
been proposed. The syllogism, or the syllogistic method 
of reasoning, referred alone to the third stage of the proc- 
ess stated above, to that in which the judgment is exer- 
cised ; the other parts or stages of the process were over- 
looked by Aristotle, in whom this method originated. 
It was necessary that the proposition should first be found 
and established, and thus a middle term be provided by 
the secret and defective mental process, experience, before 
an act of reasoning could be commenced. The induction 
in this method was very imperfect, and the mind was 
left to vault, as it were, into conclusions. The Baconian, 
called also the inductive and the experimental method or 
mode of reasoning, has reference mainly to the first stage, 
in which the observation is employed; and is made to 
accumulate and heap up facts or instances derived not 
only from natural appearances, but also from any num- 
ber of experiments, serving only, when referred to the 
judgment in its induction, to fatigue and weary the mind, 
and- thus to unfit it for arriving at any definite conclu- 
sion, or for the proper exercise of the common-sense. 
The Baconian method of reasoning, in which the office of 
the imagination is vilified, decried, and explicitly rejected, 
may be said to have destroyed all saliency or natural 
energy of the scientific mind by which it is embraced. In 
the Cartesian method, the proposition, in whatever way 10 
it may have been found, is held in doubt until fully estab 
lished; hut how or by what means it is to be verified, as 
the phrase is, is left to conjecture, or to the natural sagacity 
of the scientific mind, without any specified directions. 
Of the above methods the experimental philosophy, 
which at this time seems to occupy the scientific mind 
exclusively, is especially deserving of attention, and of 
being carefully analyzed. Experiments cannot be relied 
on as furnishing positive proof of the truth of a scientific 
proposition or principle, for the reasons: 1st, that mak- 
ing experiments is doing nothing more than multiplying 
instances to-be submitted to the judgment in making its 
inductions; in attending to the results of experiments, 
other instances more reliable may be neglected; 2d, that 
experiments are scarcely ever made under precisely the 
same circumstances with the instance observed in nature; 
and 3d, that experimenters, as experience teaches, always 
find exactly what they happen to be looking for, and 
have very rarely if ever extended the bounds of science by 
means of their experiments; but have often succeeded 
in fixing and in stamping, as it were, errors upon the 
scientific mind as well as on the unscientific. They start 
out with a certain theory or proposition already framed, 
and the care or end proposed is to establish this proposi- 
tion as a principle in science. The office of the experi- 
menter is the same as that of the advocate, to both of 
whom success in carrying their point is a matter of higher 
consideration than is the triumph of truth or justice. 
This view of-the subject is illustrated and its correctness 
fully confirmed, as will be afterwards shown, by a refer- 
ence to the course of experimental lectures recently deliv- 
ered amongst us by Professor Tyndall. 
Using our own method of reasoping, presented above, 11 
we have arrived at the following propositions, that are 
offered as fundamental principles of the science of matter, 
or of material science: 
1. Matter, in itself, is absolutely inert, powerless, de- 
void of any capability of action, and has never been en- 
dowed with any active property. 
2. All motions and changes of form, that embrace all 
the appearances of action in matter, are effected by influ- 
ences extraneous to matter; that is, by a certain class of 
the laws of nature, fourteen in number, that may he 
designated by the term physical laws. These laws of 
nature, ordained by “the mind of the Creator,” are the 
sole secondary or proximate causes of such motions and 
changes of form. 
3. Force or power is attached to or connected with no 
form of matter; but physical force, or the power in nature, 
is simply a provision for the execution of the aforesaid 
physical laws, and is only exhibited in nature when some 
one or more of these laws are being executed. 
The above principles of. material science are proclaimed 
by, or may he learned from, every part of the economy of 
nature; and when fully considered, must be accepted as 
truths by the common-sense of mankind. 
Sir Isaac Newton knew nothing of these scientific prin- 
ciples, or he never would have constructed his theory of 
Universal Gravitation. Take away from this theory the 
grave error of regarding matter as being endowed with 
the active occult properties of attraction and repulsion, 
and this immense mental fabric totters to its rotten base, 
and tails to the ground. The phenomena referred to this 
principle of gravitation are much more rationally ex- 
plained by means of another theory. 12 
Professor Tyndall, when he determined to cross the 
ocean to lecture, as he evidently thought, before a very 
ignorant and wholly unscientific audience, had no knowl- 
edge of these principles, or he would never have been 
driven to the common resort of the Materialist and of 
the Atheist, that of investing Nature, personified as a 
female Divinity, with the whole work of creation. Any 
allusion to “the mind of the Creator” was offensive to 
him; but he everywhere dwells, seemingly with much 
complacency, on the agency in natural phenomena of this 
feminine Deity. “ If we were permitted,” says he, “to 
inquire into the intention of nature*” . . . “ If what are 
called material purposes were the sole end of nature” . . 
. . “Would it not seem that nature had harbored the 
intention” .... “whatever nature meant” . . . . 
“what she meant.” Again, he says, “In the process of 
crystallization nature first reveals herself as a builder.” 
Where do her operations stop? “Does she continue by 
the play of the same forces to form the vegetable and 
afterwards the animal? ” “ Whatever the answer to these 
questions may be, trust me, that the notions of the com- 
ing generations regarding this mysterious thing, which 
some have called ‘brute matter,’ will be very different 
from those of the generations past. ” It is earnestly to be 
hoped that these notions will be'changed, but not, we 
trust, in the direction clearly indicated by the lecturer. 
Professor Tyndall’s views regarding molecular and 
other forces, and that relating to crystallization, are ex- 
tremely crude and unphilosophical, and are undeserving 
of a place in any scientific mind. The proposed limit to 
this essay will not permit us to point out in detail the 
* The italics are ours. 13 
particular errors involved in these views; but some notion 
of our meaning here may be gathered from that we take 
of what occurs in a game of billiards, to which he refers, 
and to which we now call attention. 
THEORY OF A GAME OF BILLIARDS. 
The motion of the billiard-ball is not derived from the 
matter concerned in this game—it proceeds not from the 
impulse of the cue, or from the elastic property either of 
the sides of the table or of the ivory ball; but the motion 
of which we are speaking is caused solely by certain phys- 
ical laics. The motion of the ball throughout its course 
is due, mainly, to the Law of Muscular Action, one of the 
physical laws that the player brings into operation by 
providing the necessary conditions, that is, by determin- 
ing his nerve-fluid to and from the muscles engaged in the 
blow—by this means contracting some and actively elon- 
gating others of these muscles. In causing this motion, the 
force of the aforesaid law is however assisted, to some ex- 
tent, by that of the physical Law of Elasticity that is also 
brought into play, or into operation, by the forcible com- 
pression of the elastic sides of the table and of the ball. 
The force with which the ball moves, or the force here 
exhibited, is from the two physical laws mentioned, and 
is proportional to the -quantity of matter influenced by 
these laws—that is, to the size of the ball, the strength 
of, or quantity of nerve-fluid determined by, the player, 
and to the extent of the compression and reaction of the 
elastic bodies named. 
The velocity of the ball is inversely as the resistance 
encountered in its course from the force of some other 
physical law or laws, that may be there in operation. 14 
The force of the Law of Cohesion, that might resist the 
motion of the hall, would he less, and the velocity of the 
ball greatest, in a rarefied medium, than in air, in water, 
and so on; the velocity becoming less as the medium be- 
comes denser. 
Pondering and carefully studying the short lesson in 
natural philosophy just given, it will be observed that we 
have separated entirely all action from matter. The ap- 
parent action of the ball consisting in its motion, that of 
the muscles apparently in the tontraction and active 
elongation of their fibres, and that seemingly from elastic 
bodies in the reaction or restoration of their molecules to 
their normal condition, are all taken away from the mat- 
ter—dissociated from it in the mind, and are referred to 
physical laws as their true sources or causes. 
Force, too, is here dissociated entirely from matter, and 
associated with the operation of these physical laws, 
wherein alone it is exhibited in nature. 
Having learned these vastly important truths, the fal- 
lacies, erroneous conclusions, and false philosophy gen- 
erally, contained in Professor Tyndall’s course of lectures 
on Light, will very plainly appear. Matter, or the mole- 
cules of matter, are utterly devoid, as we have said, of 
any capability of action; and when we enter upon the 
investigation of nature, it becomes us first to learn the 
laws that have been decreed by its Author for the govern- 
ment of the economy of nature. 
In our next essay it is proposed to communicate some- 
thing about Light, its nature, generation, propagation, 
and its uses, or the useful purposes to which it is applied 
in nature, that seems never to have been dreamed of in 
Professor Tyndall’s philosophy. ESSAY II. 
MATERIAL SCIENCE. 
TWO PRINCIPAL FORMS OF MATTER. 
Matter, or the forms of matter, are separated in nature 
into two grand divisions—that is, into ponderable and 
imponderable or diffusible bodies or forms: one of these 
divisions being governed by, or • being subject to, the 
physical law of Gravitation, and the other division to 
the law of Diffusion. 
PONDERABLE BODIES. 
Ponderable bodies, by virtue of the law of gravitation, 
are compelled to move towards the centre of the earth, do 
constantly tend to move in this particular direction, and 
do invariably so move, unless the force of the law of 
gravitation is counteracted or overcome by that of some 
other physical law or laws with which it comes into col- 
lision. A leaden ball falls from an elevated position to 
the ground in the direction from that position to the cen- 
tre of the earth; but at the surface of the ground the force 
of the law of Gravitation, by which it was moved, is over- 
come by the superior force of the law of Cohesion, acting 
on the body of the earth, and the motion of the ball is 
suspended. 
IMPONDERABLE BODIES. 
Imponderable forms of matter, by virtue of the physical 
law of Diffusion, are made to move towards other surround- 
15 16 
ing bodies in all directions, that they may be merged or 
enter as constituents into such bodies; and they are so 
diffused, unless confined by the force of cohesion acting' on 
the substances, as glass, &c., by which they are confined 
or enclosed. The imponderable forms of matter are: life, 
light, heat, steam, aqueous vapor, volatile effluvia, elec- 
tricity, sound, odors, and the gases. , 
THE ATMOSPHERE. 
It will be found convenient in material science to regard 
the atmosphere as a third division of matter, occupying a 
neutral position between ponderable and imponderable 
forms; and serving as the arena on which are exhibited 
the motions of the two principal divisions mentioned. 
For, although the air of the atmosphere is confessedly a 
ponderable form of matter, its tendency to gravitate 
towards the earth is so constantly counteracted by means 
of the physical law of Suction, as will afterwards be ex- 
plained, that it may fairly be regarded, in the light named 
above, as being a neutral form of matter. 
WHAT IS LIGHT? 
If the scientific propositions stated above be true, and 
they are the results of legitimate reasoning and are clearly 
in accordance with the dictates of common-sense, then 
light is emphatically a form of matter. The same course 
of reasoning that would make light and heat modes of 
motion, would also show that gold and other metals are 
merely modes of motion; for motion necessarily attends 
their extraction from their native ores, as it accompanies 
the liberation of heat and light by friction from bodies in 
which they had become latent. 17 
PROPAGATION OF LIGHT. 
Light is propagated or diffused by means of the physical 
law of Diffusion as its cause of motion, to which, as we 
have seen, all imponderable bodies or forms in nature are 
subject. Light is not propagated or emitted by luminous 
bodies at all, not even by the sun; for this would be in 
contravention of that which, we have said, is a fundamen- 
tal principle of material science; it would be attributing 
action to inert matter, when this action may plainly be 
referred to a law of nature, that was ordained in the begin- 
ning of the world for this special purpose by the mind of 
the Creator. The propagation of light has for its true 
secondary cause the physical law of Diffusion. 
GENERATION OF LIGHT. 
We come now to the problem of the generation of light, 
and in demonstrating this problem, as mathematicians 
say, it will be necessary, first, to trace out a law of nature, 
a physical law that may be called the law of Decomposi- 
tion, or the law of the Life-current; for it is by means of 
this law that all decompositions of material bodies are 
effected. By virtue or authority of this physical law, 
employed in nature as a secondary cause in effecting 
the changes of form of matter, material bodies or forms 
are decomposed in this way: A current of any material 
being started, and passing by or near to any other com- 
pound body, the life of such body is made to pass along 
with this current; the compound natural body being thus 
deprived of its most essential constituent—its life, its 
other constituents are absolved, set free, thrown into pi, 
as printers have it, and may then appear in their original 18 
forms, as radiant heat, light, &c. Striking instances of 
the operation of this physical law are witnessed in a stroke 
of lightning, in combustion, in tornadoes, in freshets, in 
the use of the compound blow-pipe, and in that of the gal- 
vanic battery. Less striking, and therefore less noticed, 
instances of this operation may be observed in every part 
of the economy of nature, or wherever changes of form of 
matter are effected. 
Light being an imponderable form of matter, and being 
diffused, as we have seen, in order to he merged into, or 
to become constituents of all surrounding bodies, is set 
free in these decompositions, and is exhibited in its origi- 
nal form of radiant light; hence the light exhibited in 
the use of the galvanic battery, and called the electric light. 
Rays of light are currents of light, instituted by means of 
the law of diffusion, and the force accompanying the oper- 
ation of this physical law being, like that of all other 
physical laws, proportional to the quantity of matter in- 
fluenced at the time by the law, the force of the electric 
light may be largely increased. 
The failure in the first Atlantic cable was most proba- 
bly owing to the decomposition of the wires by means of 
the too strong currents of electricity passing through them 
at that time; and it is no wonder that an audience should 
have been constrained to turn away their eyes from this 
electric light, then largely increased by the quantity of 
electricity, and consequent force of the currents there 
generated. The vivid impressions from the direct rays 
from this source were sufficient, if continued, to decompose 
the optic nerves subjected to them. 19 
OF COLORS. 
Colors are the constituents of light, a ray of sunlight 
being divisible into more simple rays of seven different 
colors by means of a prism, that are hence called pris- 
matic colors, such as are seen' in a rainbow. These colors 
are named respectively, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, 
indigo, and violet. When light is diffused, as we have 
seen, to bodies of matter, the rays of some one or of all of 
these colors combine with, or become constituents of, such 
bodies, and communicate to them their particular color; 
and so we have bodies of various colors in nature. Why 
bodies should thus be combined with rays of certain colors, 
and how this result is attained, are questions that are suf- 
ficiently answered in saying, that such is the appointment 
of the Creator. These are to the human mind ultimate 
facts of the same nature with those of the gravitation of 
certain bodies and the diffusion of others. To attempt to 
explain the phenomena by referring to the “sifting” and 
u selection” of rays by the molecules of matter, is merely 
talking at random, and without reasoning; there is no 
capability of sifting and no intelligence for selecting in 
these inert and senseless molecules. The reflected rays 
from a colored body serve not to form the ideas of such 
bodies that are presented and received into the mind. 
These ideas, as will be afterwards shown, are made up 
from the radiant life proceeding from these bodies: the 
colored rays of light being but a small proportion of their 
constituents. The ideas formed in the mind by the aid 
of colors are sometimes very pleasing, and hence we hear 
of “the luxury of colors.” 20 
THE USES OF LIGHT IN NATURE. 
The most useful purposes to which light is applied in 
the economy of nature are not those of its propagation or 
emission, as is said, nor of its reflection and refraction; 
although these are most dwelt on in public lectures, be- 
cause capable of making vivid impressions, and of pro- 
ducing brilliant ideas. Its other uses are vastly supe- 
rior to these, and deserving of a much higher estimate. 
When the Creator said “let there be light,” he placed 
in our solar system a body, the sun, in which light is con- 
stantly being generated, and from which light is diffused 
incessantly to surrounding bodies. At the same time he 
ordained laws to govern or to regulate the acts or conduct 
of all living creatures; these true laws of nature are—the 
instincts. It has long been observed or inferred that the 
growth and perhaps other acts of living creatures are in 
some way influenced by their environment; but how, or 
in what manner, has not been explained. It has, however, 
been recently discovered by plain reasoning, that this en- 
vironment, or the bodies surrounding beings in nature, are 
appointed by divine wisdom to suggest to living creatures 
obedience to their instincts, obedience to the laws made 
to govern their conduct in this state of being. Articles 
of food, with which it may be surrounded, are made to 
suggest to the hungry animal obedience to the instinct 
that prompts it to take its food; the warm moisture, or the 
moist warmth of Spring suggests to vegetables the ger- 
mination of seeds and the further growth of plants. Im- 
pressions so made may be called suggestive impressions. 
Now, the sun, in the divine government of our world, 21 
is made the source of the great suggestive impression in 
nature. Sunlight suggests obedience to a large number 
of instincts, not only of the animal, but also of the veget- 
able kingdom. Many of the effects from this inert form 
of matter, now attributed to the direct agency of the sun, 
are, in truth, but the results of this appointment by an 
all-wise Creator. The sun has in fact no agency in na- 
ture, being in itself, like all other forms of matter, abso- 
lutely inert or devoid of action; but its beams are made 
by divine wisdom suggestive impressions, that serve to 
suggest actions throughout animated nature. We shall 
return to this subject after awhile, in order to show in 
what manner and by what, means these laws of nature— 
the instincts—are executed. 
professor tyndall’s material science. 
We will now go back and see how Professor Tyndall 
views this subject of the science of matter. Our “quar- 
rel” with this celebrated Professor, and with scientists 
generally, is that they have never investigated, searched 
for, the true laws of nature: the laws referred to by them 
being nothing more than the generalizations or the gen- 
eral propositions resulting from the exercise of human 
reason. They are but the principles, such as they are, or 
the rules of science. Scientists have not the slightest con- 
ception of a law of nature as decreed by the Author of 
nature: no more definite idea or notion of such an agency 
in physical phenomena than a person born blind has of 
colors. 
As a natural consequence of this ignorance, they have 
no rational conception of the subject of causality, of caus- 
ation, nor of the actual secondary causes in these phenom- 22 
ena; and consequently are astonished at the wonderful 
force exhibited by atoms and molecules, and are awe- 
struck on witnessing the energetic movement of these 
molecules, as in crystallization. “The Professor himself 
declared he never witnessed this” (crystallization) “with- 
out a feeling of awe at the enormous display of energy on 
the part of atoms which singly must ever remain invisi- 
ble.” Had he been acquainted with the physical law of 
Crystallization, he would have known that these invisible 
atoms had no active agency in the phenomenon, and in 
themselves were possessed of no energy whatever. He 
would then have known that the cause of motion in such 
instances is the physical law referred to, that the force or 
energy exhibited was derived from the operation of this 
law, and was of the same character with, and no more to 
be wondered at than, the falling of a stone from the air 
into which it had been thrown, or of an apple from its tree. 
To Professor Tyndall it must indeed have been a matter 
of great wonderment to see “ molecule close with molecule,” 
and ‘ ‘ throiv themselves in preference on the crystals already 
formed.” But after dwelling on the antics of molecules 
in the phenomenon of crystallization, he goes on to add: 
“Throughout the process you notice one feature which 
is perfectly unalterable, and that is angular magnitude. 
The spiculse branch from the trunk, and from these 
branches others shoot; but the angles enclosed by the 
spiculae are unalterable. In like manner you may find 
alum-crystals, quartz-crystals, and all other crystals dis- 
torted in shape. They are thus far at the mercy of the 
accidents of crystallization; but in one particular they 
assert their superiority over all such accidents—angular 
magnitude is always rigidly preserved.”  23 
Now, it seems strange to us that this very remarkable 
fact or feature, so plainly observed and so attentively 
noticed, did not serve to stagger the learned Professor’s 
Materialism, or the attributing action to matter. This 
remarkable conformation and peculiar arrangement of 
crystals implies not only active agency and great energy, 
but also a high degree of intelligence. To attribute all 
these to dead, senseless, and insensate matter, appears to 
us to be an utter perversion of reason, an overslaugh of 
common-sense by mere authority. 
In our next essay we will briefly refer to the Science of 
Mind, and will then take occasion cursorily to look into 
Professor Tyndall’s Metaphysics. ESSAY III. 
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, OR METAPHYSICS. 
The progress of the scientific mind from facts to princi- 
ples was explained and fully traced out in our first num- 
ber. 
All ponderable bodies about the surface of the earth tend 
to move toivards the centre of the earth, is a scientific prin- 
ciple ; the proximate cause of this motion of 'ponderable 
bodies is the physical law of gravitation, is a higher or 
more valuable principle of science; physical force, or the 
power in nature, is immediately derived from the operation 
of some one or more of the class of physical laws, is a still 
more valuable principle of material science; but the ap- 
prehension of a laiv of nature, when in operation in the 
economy of nature, is the most valuable acquisition of the 
human mind, and its attainment requires the highest 
reach of the intellect. With the knowledge of the laws 
of nature thus obtained, the mind fairly realizes the all- 
important truth, that to the Creator belong the Kingdom, 
that is, the government of the natural world by means of 
His laws; the Power, appointed for the execution of the 
physical laws; and the Glory, or credit, of having formed 
in His will the vast design or plan of the Creation. 
In this wise plan physical force is seen to be a provision 
for the execution of the physical laws that are here made 
to govern the motion and changes of form of matter; and 
in this divine plan enjoyment and suffering are the pro- 
24 25 
vision made for the execution of the laws that are designed 
to govern the acts or conduct of living creatures—the in- 
stincts. These latter require the due performance of all 
the functions of creatures, and the proper exercise of every 
faculty with which they are endowed—the pleasure or en- 
joyment of creatures being commensurate with the exact- 
ness with which these requirements are met, or with the 
fidelity with which the instincts are observed or obeyed. 
The exercise of the reason in arriving at scientific proposi- 
tions is a source of high enjoyment to the scientist. 
professor tyndall’s metaphysics. 
"We pity the Materialist who, in attempting to explain 
physical phenomena or natural appearances, ignores the 
mind of the Creator and his laws—the true laws of nature, 
and looks alone to the inert, senseless molecules of matter 
as the active agencies or causes in these phenomena. 
This is, as it were, a rehearsal of Shakespeare’s play of 
“Hamlet” with the character of Hamlet left out; it is as 
if the grotesque movements of what are called Cartesian 
devils were exhibited before a popular audience, without 
any explanation of the means by which these movements 
are effected. 
Physical theories, which, in the sense commonly used, 
is but another term for materialism, are our utter detest- 
ation ; as they serve to mislead the mind away from the 
contemplation of the all-wise providence of God, displayed 
in his creation. Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of Universal 
Gravitation, according to Professor Tyndall, is a physical 
theory. “ If it were so, it was a grievous fault, and griev- 
ously has Sir Isaac answered it.” An humble and a 
devout Christian as he was, it must to have grieved him 26 
sorely to find Atheists making use of this theory as a 
principal support of their foolish doctrines. 
The physical theory of atmospheric pressure is as false 
as that of universal gravitation, which latter may be sub- 
stituted by the physical law of Interchange of life. We 
beg leave to be allowed to say that atmospheric pressure 
is but a myth, a mere fantasy, that has been seized on by 
the mathematicians, and by means of their equations and 
calculations, made to be a pressure of fifteen pounds to 
every square inch of surface on a level with the sea, or, 
which is the same thing, at the spherical outline of the 
earth. One of the physical laws, which, as we have said, 
are a class or code of the laws of nature, is the law of 
Suction, that may be thus expressed: Let adjacent bodies, 
according to their mobility, move or press towards a vacuum, 
or rarefied space. Instances of the operation of this phy- 
sical law are seen in the barometer, wherein a column of 
mercury of thirty inches is sustained in the tube by means 
of this law, that is, brought into operation by means of the 
Torricellian vacuum at the top of the tube; in the Madge- 
burg cups or hemispheres, a vacuum being established 
within, and their substance or sides thus made to press 
towards this vacuum, &c. Now, there is a rarefied space 
all around the outer circumference of the atmosphere, 
ending in a perfect vacuum in the regions of space, and 
towards this vacuum the air is compelled to press, by vir- 
tue of this physical law of Suction. The atmosphere is 
thus kept suspended between this rarefied space and the 
surface of the earth, as a stage-curtain is kept suspended 
between the ceiling and the floor by means of cords and 
pullies attached to the ceiling. The air is not allowed to 
be lifted from the earth, because of the law of gravita- 27 
tion, the force of which, antagonizing that of the law of 
Suction, the atmosphere is thereby kept in its place. The 
same antagonism between these two physical laws is 
observable in the barometer and in the water-pump. 
There is then no pressure on the surfaces immersed in the 
atmosphere—the phenomena heretofore referred to atmos- 
pheric pressure being much more rationally explained by 
reference to the physical law of Suction. 
The physical theory, called the emission theory of 
light, is utterly false, not because it does not meet the 
requirements of the undulatory theory; but because, in 
this theory, action is attributed to bodies or molecules of 
matter—to luminous bodies, by which it is said to be emit- 
ted, when the motion of light, as that of all imponderable 
forms, is referable to the physical law of Diffusion, as its 
sole proximate cause. And now we come to the consid- 
eration of Professor Tyndall’s pet physical theory, 
TIIE UXDULATORY THEORY OF LIGHT. 
In teaching this theory, the Professor happily alluded 
to its demonstration as an up-hill business. To our mind 
his strength failed him—he gave out, as we say—before 
he had climbed half way up this hill. 
Notwithstanding his earnest desire that his audience 
should “realize with the utmost possible clearness the 
propagation of waves,” he seemed unmindful of the adage: 
“Scire bene, est per causas scirefor he entered not upon 
the consideration of the cause of waves or the cause of 
their motion. In the absence of instruction on these 
points, let us suggest: 
A cause of motion both of air and of water is the pliys- 28 
ical law formerly spoken of—the law of Suction. When a 
limited space in the atmosphere becomes rarefied from 
any cause, an adjacent portion of air is compelled, by 
means of the law of Suction that is now brought into 
operation, to press towards this rarefied space; at the 
point from which the second portion moves, a vacuum is 
momentarily established, and into this second vacuum a 
third portion of atmospheric air is made to press; and so 
on in a long series both of rarefied spaces and of the mo- 
tions of limited bodies of air, constituting waves of air. 
The same thing occurs in the use of a siphon: a portion 
of the liquid in the long arm of the tube is made to move 
forsvard by suction, or otherwise, and into the vacuum 
thus formed another portion is compelled to press, and so 
on until the supply of liquid to be drawn off is exhausted. 
When winds or the motions of the air take place over 
water, as on the surface of the sea or ocean, it will readily 
be understood how both the air and water will be influ- 
enced by this physical law of Suction—the air being more 
mobile, will be most influenced; but the water will also 
be affected by this law. When a vacuum occurs in the 
air at the surface of the water, a portion of water will be 
raised from its level towards this vacuum, to an extent 
proportional to the force of the law of Suction; and when 
this force ceases, that is, when the vacuum is filled either 
by air or water, the latter being a ponderable body, and 
the law of gravitation coming into operation and its force 
preponderating over that of the law of suction, the water 
that was raised towards the vacuum now sinks towards 
the centre of the earth, being carried up and down by 
means of the two antagonizing physical laws of suction 
and of gravitation. We now have a clear conception of 29 
the waves both of air and of water, and are enabled to 
understand the actual motion of both as observed in na- 
ture. The motion of the air will he more extensive and 
more rapid than that of the water; but there is a motion, 
though slower, of the waves of the latter in the direction 
of the former, unless this motion is impeded, suspended, 
or reversed by means of some other force accompanying 
the tides, &c. We return now to the consideration of the 
Undulatory Theory of Light. 
The luminous ether that in the theory is made to fill 
all space, appears to us, as it did to Sir David Brewster, 
‘ ‘ too clumsy a contrivance to be referred to the Creator; ’ ’ 
it is too awkward an arrangement to be admitted as a 
part of the plan of creation; it seems rather a human de- 
vice. We now know how light is transmitted, even 
through space, as we have the physical law of diffusion 
as the efficient proximate cause of this motion, that serves 
to explain all the phenomena, without even the supposi- 
tion of the elasticity of particles of light. The force with 
which light moves is proportional to the quantity of light 
influenced by this physical law at the time of its diffusion ; 
and the velocity of motion is inversely as the resistance 
encountered in its progress from some other physical law 
or laws. The sun is the unfailing source of an immense 
quantify of light, and the force of its emanations is pro- 
portional to this quantity; its beams, being unimpeded in 
their progress through the regions of space, move with 
astonishing velocity. 
The medium of luminous ether, imagined by Dr. Young, 
and so strenuously advocated by Professor Tyndall, is an 
entirely gratuitous supposition, wholly uncalled-for and 
of no conceivable use in the economy of nature. Before 30 
it could be admitted into any rational system of science it 
will be incumbent on Professor Tyndall or its advocates 
to find out a new code of the laws of nature; since the 
medium supposed could not be amenable to any such 
laws that have yet been discovered. 
Before closing this last of our series of very imperfect 
essays, we must do Professor Tyndall the justice to say, 
that in coming among us to deliver his course of lec- 
tures on Light, although abounding, as we have seen, in 
baneful errors, yet we sincerely believe he acted from the 
purest motives, and with the fullest conviction that he 
was thereby promoting the advancement of true science, 
and was furthering the cause of truth. 
It was a fancy of Lord Bacon, to name the errors by 
which the human mind is most apt to be deceived “idols,” 
and he classified these errors as “the idols of the cave,” 
“idols of the forum or market place,” &c. Professor 
Tyndall has, for several years, ensconced himself in the 
Royal Institution of Great Britain in London, and in this 
his cave has made numerous very curious, very ingenious, 
and elegant experiments; with some of which he has re- 
cently astonished and delighted our people. By these, as 
we have before intimated usually happens in making ex- 
periments in natural philosophy, he has rather stamped 
firmly, riveted, as it Avere, on the scientific mind', errors 
that had previously been held in some doubt, than ad- 
vanced any new truth of importance. He has, Avhen so 
occupied in his cave, watched with lynx-eyed keenness of 
vision every phase, down to the evanescent tints of a soap- 
bubble, to see, and listened Avith the exquisite hearing of 
the Chiromys to hear, the Aveak, feeble voice of nature tell- 
ing him of her secret paths—paths that could not be seen, 31 
and a voice that could not be heard by ordinary mortals. 
From this cave, assisted by his imagination, he has pene- 
trated into the innermost recesses of nature, “into the 
subsensible world,” by “visualizing the invisible,” and 
there observed, with the same keenness of perception, 
until he was enabled faithfully to describe the curious 
movements or antics of the atoms or molecules of matter— 
these energetic, pugnacious, smart, and intelligent little 
creatures “which, singly, must ever remain invisible.” 
This world-renowned “ Investigator of Nature,” as the 
Professor is pleased to regard himself, has, however, never 
thought of coming up out of his cave, into the great world 
as it was made by the Creator; has never looked into the 
economy of nature as it was planned by its Author, in order 
to learn what was going on there. APPENDIX. 
In the peroration to his lectures on light, Prof. Tyndall, 
under shelter of the authority of De Tocqueville, has cast 
unmerited reproach on the people of the United States. 
His charge in this censure not only expresses a doubt 
of the ability of our form of government to foster the 
labors of scientific research, but explicitly alleges that 
all our intellectual treasures are derived from our ances- 
tral home—Great Britain. Our great invention of the 
Electric Telegraph, which has been copied and made use 
of in every civilized community on earth, he contends, 
was all first made out in Great Britain, or on the conti- 
nent of Europe; and the people of the United States are 
allowed little or no credit for anything in the way of Sci- 
ence or of Invention that has been accomplished in their 
midst. It is humiliating to notice that this foul aspersion 
has been tamely received and submissively acquiesced in 
even by our Men of Science. 
To this serious and degrading charge, it may be replied: 
the human mind is as well endowed, and the mental fac- 
ulties are as fully developed, in these United States as in 
any part of Europe, or of the World. Among these en- 
dowments of the mind are the two compound faculties of 
Reason and Invention ; by means of the exercise of the 
former, Science is attained, and by that of the latter, 
means are adapted to the attainment of ends, and mechani- 
cal inventions are produced. These two mental faculties 
interact upon each other—the exercises of the reason sug- 
gesting to the mind new inventions, while the operations 
of mechanical inventions often suggest new propositions in 
Science or new exercises'of reason. In the same mind the 
two faculties are seldom or never equally developed; and 
it is with nations in this respect as with individuals: a 
nation may be as remarkable for its inventions as for its 
scientific attainments. The exercise of the reason, per- 
fect or imperfect, is, however, necessary to the success 29 
of either—this exercise constantly occurring throughout 
human existence. The perfect mode of exercise we have 
fully explained, and the imperfect mode that we have said 
may be understood by the term experience, is the same 
process gone through with unconsciously. The results of 
experience serve to influence the actions of those possess- 
ing them, although they are not so clearly defined as to 
admit of being expressed in language; but when the pro- 
cesses of experience can be retraced, so that the results 
may be stated intelligibly, the propositions embracing 
these results become part and parcel of true science. 
The intellectual treasures embraced, in experience, are 
of infinitely greater value to the Inventor, to the Artist, 
and to Professional men generally, as every one will 
admit, than are the results of false reasoning, or the so- 
called treasures of a false system of Science. The Steam- 
engine, the Telegraph, the Photograph, our Signal Ser- 
vice, Lucifer matches, &c., none of which have been prop- 
erly explained, or their operation understood by European 
Scientists, have been invented not only without aid from, 
but in despite of their false system of Science. The at- 
tempt of Prof. Tyndall and other Scientists to deprive the 
inventors of such, of the credit of these great and highly 
useful inventions, and to award this credit to the discover- 
ers of the principles or generalizations of European Sci- 
ence, is simply preposterous. 
In the United States, inventions, founded on experience, 
have taken the lead of Science, and the latter may derive 
the greatest benefit and advancement from a careful study 
and tracing out of the conclusions of experience, when dic- 
tated by good sound common-sense. This is what has 
been attempted, with no little success, in the new system 
of American Science—the study of its laws and principles, 
and the amendment and improvement of which are earn- 
estly commended to scientists of our own and of every 
other civilized community.