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GEOMETRY  OF  VITAL FORCES.
F. VANDERBURU, M.D.
SfEW-Y'ORK
CHARLES T. HURLBUT, 437 BROOME STREET.
   DETROIT: Dr. E. A. LODGE, 166 WOODARD AV.
         BOSTON: OTIS CLAP P.
              1865. 

   Entered, iiccording to Act of Congress, in the year 1865,
              By F. VANDERBURG, M. D.,
In tbe Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United State
           for the Southern District of New York. 
P K E F  A C  E.
    There  are but four primary forces in nature:
Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, and they
unite with each other in three  binary forms, which
constitute the motive power of the universe.
    Their  combining   proportions   stand  thus:
OH  ON  OC
"VS tt? "V6"-  ^ these three binary forces  the first
only  is elaborated in this essay, that the reader,
freed from its complex relations, might gain a com-
prehensive view  of the share which the  primary
force holds in the motive  power that  moves  all
                                  ON
bodies in nature.   The central force |£ is  the stan-
dard  force of organic life  wliich generates and
maintains its heat at 98° Fah. in every variation of
climate, whether it be above or below its own stan- 
iv                  PKEFACE.
                           oc
dard, and in the third force ^ is found the decom-
posing or wasting force of organic life.   The ela-
boration of these two latter forces will  be more
clearly defined in a subsequent essay.
        OH
   But Jr6- is the primary force and starting point
of every form of matter in the visible world, whe-
ther it be organic or inorganic.  It gives  the form
of every cell—the homologies of the vegetable and
animal  cells are identical—the nucleus of the ani-
mal  cell is  the homologue  of the utricle  of the
plant,  and the primary cell of both is spheroidal,
taking its primary form from the drop of water, and
every succeeding modification in the shape of cells
either in animal or vegetable life is simply a depar-
ture from this primitive type, and each new form
in their infinite variations are guided and governed
by the same rule, which makes  no two snow-flakes
alike.
   Some, perhaps most of the readers of this essay,
may be shocked  at the rudeness of the first sentence.
I wish to forestall this prejudice by a word or two
of explanation.  Forty years in the progress of my
professional  life  has been barred by Sir Isaac New-
ton's theory of attraction, wherein my sympathies 
PEEFACE.
V
for  patients have  been perpetually  mingled with
the conviction of an error that  no one could solve
in regard to motion, and now  at the close  of  my
pilgrimage with the materials always before me, to
discover that any school-boy could have done, what
the energies of a whole life had failed to do, put me
off my guard.
    It was no part of ray work to speak exhaustively
on  any topic; much less was it my purpose to  put
Sir Isaac Newton in his  proper relation to modern
science.  In the heat of writing, with  a definite
point in view, I designed to say only so much as
would enforce the point.  I wish to explain that
any remark which seems to cast reproach upon the
•Treat Newton, must be understood  rather of  the
science which has made his  theory the limit of
theorizing,  the  Ultima  Thule  of discovery.   We
speak of the man, meaning his place in  science—
but less  the place he would and should have, than
that  other  men  compel  him  to take.  Who  was
Newton ?  He was the greatest mathematician of
his age, possessed  of a powerfully systematizing in-
tellect.   What did he do? He conceived  a great
problem—supposed certain forces, and with a com 
vi
PKEFACE.
plete mathematics (which himself completed for the
occasion) adjusted the laws and forces—to an accu-
racy astonishing and admirable to the last degree.
A prime projectile  force, and  that  of attraction,
made his system complete and wanting nothing—a
triumph  of mathematics—a theory but merely of
the machinery of moving worlds.
   The most  of students after him have been con-
tent to repeat his words, or to solve  new problems
by his rules.  Some have broken away a little, and
have accomplished much of far more  worth than
any piece of mathematics.
   It  is  an injustice to the great Newton that his
theory which relates only to astronomic  svstems,
should be made to embrace the condition of atoms
and thus limit the achievements of science.
   Nothing was farther from his thought  than at-
tempting in this manner the problems of heat and
motion—he would have thrown up his instrument
if he had tried it.  Modern science, despite the pro-
position that  attraction  is the only force needed to
explain  the  stability  of the universe,  is findim*
strange things among the atoms : perpetual motion
—gigantic heavings of heat—tremendous erashings 
PREFACK.
Vll
of elemental (chemical) affinities—magnetic forces,
mighty and  active in the atom, but silent in the
mass.
   And these are the deep questions of the  day:
right study of which, will, not  long  hence, in the
atom-motions grasp the systemic and universal.
   Newton's  theory of  attraction was a grand
achievement.  It was a quantity which satisfied the
conditions of the problem.  Many will  think his
theory the noblest work of his  time.  Its place in
science is perhaps greater than that of the Epicy-
cles.  The latter essayed the phenomena of stations
and  retrogradations, and held them for Copernicus
to unfold.
   Newton's attempted the phenomena of motion
and  stability among the planets,  and  held  them
questioned  and  answered, till ere long the deeper
analysis of heat  and motion shall verify the proposi-
tions.   An  atom is  a world; all  force is one;  all
motion is upon eccentric centres; and the questions
of heat and motion involve the questions of physical
life and the celestial revolutions.  Life is the great-
est phenomenon.  In human life meet all forces of
the  universe. Man repeats or duplicates creation. 
viii
PREFACE.
Science must study life, and not worlds.  Meantime
my great wish is, that medical practice shall hence-
forth govern  itself by  these  deeper truths; and
cease not to be governed by these principles, till the
living  body be as well understood as the  far diffe-
rent thing—a  dead  body under  the dissecting
knife. 
PHYSIOLOGY OF  VITAL  FOECE8.
  TO THE MEMBERS OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

   Gents :—The knowledge  of vital forces has
been concealed from us for 150 years, by the great
confidence reposed in Sir Isaac Newton's theory of
the " attraction of gravitation."
   On a close inspection of his  theory, it does not
stand the test of geometrical proofs.   The primary
forces  which make  matter  impart  to matter  its
specific  gravity, and this specific gravity is lost in
the rate of motion with which the moving body is
charged.  All bodies which move by their own mo-
mentum carry no iveight, if their specific gravity is
lost in their rate of motion.
   The central sun, with  all its satellites moving 
2
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
in space around  it,  carry no weight.   Man, at  his
standard of health,  is unconscious of his  weight.
If he weighs 150 lbs., he can readily raise 150 lbs.
to his shoulder and carry  it with  ease ;  his  body
and his limbs are the mere instruments of his  force.
   The specific gravity of organic life  is proved to
be y4^-, its direct force is y^, an(i its inverse  force
y2^.  The specific gravity of inorganic matter is y2^-,
its direct force is 77Ty-o,  and its inverse  force  as
the " square of the distance " is but r|T.
   The resistance to the force of 77TVg- in inorganic
matter, being y-L, is two thirds less than that  of
organic life, which  is y2^, and this difference of
resisting  force in the two  problems equalizes  the
direct force in  both, and we find but one force in
nature, and but  one law for its  government.   The
relative forces in the two problems must be demon-
strated to find the  great dynamic force in nature ;
the one cannot be known without the other.   The
force in both problems is as their specific gravities.
If the specific gravity in organic life  is T4¥8^, its  direct
force is T\47.   If the specific gravity  of inorganic
matter be y2^, the rotary force of the atoms in  the
interior constitution of the globe, which drives it on
its axis and on its plane, is 77r2TV of force  above its
specific gravity. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
3
   Everything is veiled  in  this world, and we see
nothing as it is in  the  form  of matter—the matter
is the mask  of its forces.   If we pick up an atom of
sand  on the sea-shore, it looks like a unit ; if we
contemplate its relations, we are in the presence of
God—they are Infinite.  If we make, with the turn
of our pencil, the graceful curves in the number 2,
it appears like a unit in itself; if we contemplate its
relations to 1 and 3, it represents not itself, but the
invisible relations out of which it  comes.   It has no
mathematical point,  no  beginning, no middle, no
end, and its relations are infinite.   Everything that
is made is stamped with infinity in its invisible re-
lations, and made visible to us in its singleness of
form.
   When our Saviour was in this world, the " world
knew him not," and yet everything that  was made
by Him represents Infinity.   The stamp of Infinity
is on the seal of creation, and no part of that  seal
is defaced but the segment  of man, and he is  con-
fused in the midst of phenomena.  In contemplat-
ing  phenomena, we feel  that  we  are in  pursuit of
science ;  the variety is endless and Infinite in new-
ness of form, but of their law or causation we know
nothing.
    We call it science, but  the  science is  His  who 
4
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
arranged their relations.   In science, we have thus
far come through the world sounding for anchorage,
enlarging the circle of phenomena, and  calling the
last one science.   The aim of this essay is to dem-
onstrate the force which makes phenomena, and this
may  raise the  veil  which  discloses  Infinity  be-
hind it.
    Every proposition which I shall offer you, is at
variance with the science of the day, and by leading
your minds out of the current of your daily thoughts,
it cannot be expected  that you will follow me un-
derstandingly,  on  a  subject  altogether  new, and
hitherto un traversed by the human mind.  What-
ever may be our obligations to Sir Isaac Newton for
his  various discoveries, the legacy which  he has  be-
queathed  to us in his " attraction of gravitation"
has arrested  the progress of science, and cast its
shadow forward over the  present generation.   Be-
fore his time, there was confusion of mind.   Since
his  time, there is confusion in science.   In giving
weight to all  bodies by the "attraction of gravita-
tion," his  error is magnified by obscuring the  cause
of motion, and retarding  the  knowledge of  heat.
The force which makes matter endows it with mo-
tion,  and this  force averages nearly T\\ of  force
above its specific gravity. 
                PROBLEM OF LIFK.                5

   This high rotary force within the atoms of matter
lightens them in the ratio of the velocity, till their
specific gravity  is lost in the rate of motion.    In
man, at his standard of health, the velocity of his
interior circulation  renders him unconscious of his
weight, but when the force of his circulation alters
by disease, or otherwise, the weight of his body is a
burden to himself.   It would  be so with the earth
if its rate  of  motion failed.  While  it revolves on
its  axis at the  rate of 25,000 miles an hour, its
gravity is lost in its rate of motion ;  but if the  rev-
olutions be reduced to 24,900 miles an hour, its
gravity would sink it from its orbit, and bring with
it the  solar  system  with all its satellites,  blot-
ting them instantly and  at once from the world's
history.
    The general  plan of  creation comprises within
its range three  problems for solution.  The first is
geometrical ;  the second  is purely  mathematical,
including  the formation of atoms, and their  aggre-
gation  into quantities and magnitudes; while the
changing relations  with equivalents is an arithmet-
ical calculation.   Geometry excels mathematics in
the art of discovering unknown truths, but  it cannot
advance a proposition and demonstrate it, by truths
which  are not  already known.  A   thorough  un- 
6
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
derstanding of these three problems will make first
class  physicians of every member  of  our medical
societies.   If one half of our zeal in pursuit of the
special  properties of drugs, were  devoted to the
study of our vital forces, we should  soon elevate our
platform above  that  of our brethren, who, by the
potentiality of their numbers, exclude us from our
share in the public hospitals, and exile us from the
army, where a large portion of the patrons  of our
science  have sacrificed  their lives under  a system
of practice which  they  would  have  rejected at
home.
   These old-school brethren maintain their stand-
ing in public  opinion  chiefly by  their diagnosis,
based on physiological  discoveries,  while we main-
tain  ours by symptomatology, and the experimental
discoveries of the specific property  of drugs.   They
are dealing in matter, we are dealing in the primary
forces which make matter.  If they are brought  to
see and  perceive the demonstration of the forces
which make matter,  and  that we are practising on
these forces, while they are practising on  the  mat-
ter which the  forces  make,  they must change  their
relations or abandon the pursuit.
    In their labor to maintain matter,  regardless of
its forces, they must soon become  disgusted with a 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.               7
profession which has hitherto so mysteriously misled
them ; while on  the other hand, if they embrace the
knowledge which the forces give, they may  direct
the power which governs  matter.  The practice of
medicine is one of the cardinal interests of humanity,
springing out of the deepest necessities of our na-
ture, and the science of medicine that is predicated
upon either or both of these plans, can be nothing
more than an enlightened empiricism while  the
science of life remains undisclosed.   It is now the
most enlightened empiricism  which distinguishes
the  best  physicians from the quack, and barring
our experiments with drug  action, there is no abso-
lute rule  to guide us in the cure  of disease.   Some
are biased by their chemjcal or  metaphysical par-
tialities,  derived from  the  schools in  which they
were taught.  If an independent  thinker happens to
spring up, he originates his own  theories from  his
personal  experience and  observation, and by inter-
preting  symptoms  and devising  remedies in devia-
tion from the schools in  which  he was taught, he
may add  something to the stock  of medical knowl-
edge, but still  its  end  and aim is  nothing more
than an enlightened empiricism.
    It  is  not  exactly so  with  us ; we have made
gigantic strides in the cure  of diseases,  by having  a 
8
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
rule in the choice of drugs, through the medium of
similia similibus, discovered by the grasping  and
elaborating  mind of  the great Hahnemann ;  but
thought ripens slowly ;  like the  agricultural  pro-
ductions of a country, it has to be raised from  the
seed.   His life was  too short for the magnitude of
his discoveries, and  now his platform is too narrow
for the broad field of our own.
   We must all acknowledge that  our  similia si-
milibus has an  unknown basis in organic life,  and
there is no department of our science lying in deeper
darkness than our vital forces, and we must estab-
lish some other point  than the dead-house, and the
remains on the dissecting table, to find this motive
force.
   The adjustment of this force is the  primary aim
of every good physician;  and if the most distin-
guished be asked what he knows of it, his safest reply
would be that he knew as much of it as  those who
taught him.
   Man is a geometrical problem.   It seems to be a
far-reaching conception to suppose that a being so
transitive, fleeting,  and versatile as he is could have
any geometrical proportions within him.  Yet  it is
a  conceded  conception,  to a being  of undeviating
progress, between infinity  and nothingness, where 
PB0BLEM OF LIFE.
9
the balancing  forces are maintained in equilibrium
by primary elements which know no repose, and are
resistlessly decomposing and  reforming every sub-
stance in nature with new and fresh atoms.
    Our general proposition  embraces  the  whole
ground of the three problems already stated.
    Sit atomus, sit  homo,  sit  orbis, sit sys- \
tema  solare, omnia materialia in  natura mo-
ventur  vi  eadem  ^quabili   moli  movend.e.
" All bodies in nature are moved by the same force
proportioned to the mass to be moved, ivhether it be
an atom,  a man, a globe, or a solar system."
    It  may be well here to define two terms which
are used on almost every page: Power and Force.
    Power is  used as  force at rest, and  force as
power in action.
    The motive power of the Universe  will be found
within the four invisible combining forces of Oxy-
gen, Hydrogen, Carbon, and  Nitrogen.  These are
all permanently elastic forces, none of which can
ever be brought to  a point  of rest ;  where these
forces  are found wanting  there  reigns  eternal
death.
    Separately they are more or less inert, but when
condensed by  the law of their combining propor-
tions into three binary forms, they at once become 
10              PROBLEM OF LIFE.
 a power  emanating  directly from the hand of the
 Creator to intelligent beings,  to work out the prob-
 lem of existence, a study which is the  highest pre-
 rogative of man, and one of the appointed means of
 cultivating his intellect and exalting his condition.

             Problem of Organic Life.
      Ox. to Hyd.    Ox. to Nit.    Ox. to Carbon.
          16           ^6             16
           1            Ti            ~6~
       10x14x6      16x1x6      16 x 1 x 14
        1 x 14 x 6      1 xl4x6       1x14x6
         1344           96            220
         ~84~           84            ~84
    It is seen in the solution  of  this problem  that
 j\yof oxygen  to r\\ of nitrogen  determines  the
 standard of heat in organic life to be 98° Fahren-
 heit instead of 96° Fahrenheit.   The difference of
 two degrees in  the demonstration from that found
 by experiment, is owing to the rare  achievement in
 almost any constitution to maintain  the  highest
 standard of  health.   Nitrogen, the  ally of oxygen
in this demonstration, unlike its attendant gases, is
limited in its sphere of action.  It is not found in
the solid crust of the earth.   The great theatre of
its  presiding force is in the atmosphere, where it
overrides the fiery element of oxygen in the propor- 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
11
tion of | to i of  the latter, sharing  with that ele-
ment in the tempest and  the  storms, and by the
instability of its nature generates those ever-chang-
ing relations in the thermal condition of the globe.
But in organic life the relations are changed, where
it becomes  subordinate  to oxygen in all warm-
blooded animals.   Albumen, casein, and fibrine, are
nitrogenized compounds, which are also  found in
vegetable life.  With these nutritive elements for
the generation  of heat, it  unfolds the elements  of
motion in common with its attendant gases.  It is
a permanently elastic gas at its lowest temperature,
and  its specific gravity is as T\\ to r|„ of the gases
of hydrogen and carbon combined.  It is both com-
bustible and explosive, and  its great specific gravity
adds a duplicate energy  to its forces.   Holding
these highly vitalizing  forces in  solution  with  the
instability of their combining  proportions  at  the
standard of heat, it  is readily seen that if it were
either in  excess  or wanting it would be instantly
fallowed  by a variation  of heat  from the standard,
which would develop  grades of fever in the ratio  of
its variations.  If it  should fall one, two, or three
degrees below the standard, inanition or innutrition
must follow, and we should have  typhoid or typhus
fevers measured  by the  degrees of deviation from
the standard. 
12
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
   I  may  say here, by way of parenthesis, that I
have sustained many patients in typhoid and typhus
fevers, within the last four years, with an oxy-nitro-
genous  drink, made of the juice  of half a good
orange in a  common-sized  tumbler  of  water.   If
oxygen is beneath the standard, a tumbler of water
will elevate it, and if it combines with the nitrogen
of the orange, it becomes the  staff  of life  in fever.
Black tea,  when  homceopathically  indicated, is a
sovereign remedy and a sustaining force.
    Returning from this digression and having gain-
ed the first point in the solution  of the problem in
the generation of heat, and the variations from its
standard in fever, we are left on the threshold  of
darkness in regard to its development on motion.

                     Motion.
    There  is  no  less mystery in  the undeviating
order of its  curvilinear lines,  than  obscurity in the
cause of motion.   If the rule of its action in centres
of circumference be first understood, the  cause  of
motion in  all bodies will be  more readily compre-
hended.  There  are no bodies  in  space known to
move in straight  lines, they  are  all more  or  less
curvilinear in proportion  to their magnitudes.  This
globe, on which  we are revolving at the rate of
25,000 miles an  hour, ever true to  its orbit, has not 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
13
an inch  of  straight line in its  circuit around its
centre, or in its annual circuit around the sun, and
what is true of the earth is true of all bodies which
move in  space, and is equally true of the forces in
organic life, as well of those of inorganic matter. It
was this discovery of curvilinear lines in  all bodies
that led Sir Isaac Newton to conceive attraction to
be  the  presiding force  which maintains them in
their orbits around each other.  It was  on this con-
viction  that he founded  his world-renowned  prob-
lem 150  years  ago, that all bodies were attracted
directly as  the mass, and inversely as  the  squares
of  the distance.  If this  proposition were true, all
bodies in motion would  instantly stop, and  all mo-
tion in matter would cease.   The heart would stop
its  pulsations, and  the pall  of death would  rest
upon creation.   If he had not awed  public opinion
into submission by the  magnitude of his other dis-
coveries, the validity of his proposition would long
since have been questioned.   But a  genius so ex-
alted above all others as to demonstrate motion on
a problem  of rest, could  easily cast  the veil  of in-
ertia over the  minds of nations.   If  we reverse the
proposition and state it thus : all bodies are repel-
led directly as the mass, and are inversely attracted
as the squares of the distance, we start with creation
on a motive power,  and with this, when we reach 
14
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
it, we can demonstrate the circulation of the blood.
But there is a mystery  to be first expunged  from
both these problems of motion.  That of Sir Isaac
Newton and the one now given you, when analyzed,
are  equal absurdities on the face of them, as the
motion in all bodies is neither guided nor governed
by  the  force of  attraction.   His centripetal  force
assumes  a primary force from the circumference to
the  centre of bodies.   It is  obvious to the  most
casual observer, that a  force thus constituted  from
the circumference to the centre of bodies, with  no
provisionary outlet  for  the force, would instantly
explode ;  and it  is  equally true that a centrifugal
force must also explode every substance in nature,
if it were not restrained by an  attractive force  of
equal magnitude.  But it is a well-known princi-
ple in physics, that two forces exactly equal repel
each other, and  that two forces that  are unequal
mutually attract  each other, so that both problems
fail to make curvilinear lines of motion.
    The problem of motion in organic life shows the
disproportion of these forces to each other to be so
great, that the  force of attraction,  or any  other
force, is  entirely excluded from all  share in the
formation of curvilinear lines of motion.
    The  true problem  states  that the  centrifugal
force directly as  the mass is ,-Vo> and the inverse, 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
15
or attractive force, as  the square of the distance, is
TVo ? and that these forces apparently so dispropor-
tionate to each other, are reduced to an equation
by the physical construction of  the  matter they
move, and not  by the  nature of  the force that
moves them.  Matter is so  constructed that every
atom in  the physical world, whether it be solid,
fluid, or gaseous, moves on an axis  eccentric to its
centre, like the globe we occupy, thus compelling the
forces, if  they move  at all,  to move  centripetally
without the aid of attraction.
    A globule of blood is a spheroid similar to that
of the earth, with a  similar eccentric centre,  and
both  revolve alike  centripetally  on their axes.  I
may remark, in passing, that the  revolving force in
the blood globule is Tlo a^ove the driving  force in
the heart and arteries* and this T|o of force is ex-
pended in the venous circulation.  Hence the blood
atom revolving  remotely from its centre  accumu-
lates  a force from  its own impulse.   If the vital
force  in  the blood globule was passive or  reduced
below the level of the  driving forces of the heart
and arteries, the friction  would retard its  velocity
and exhaust the pulsations  of organic life.   Force
is not massed  (as it is supposed to  be) against the
   * This inverse force as the square of the distance is collected
from hyd. 1, nit. 14, carb. 6=-/^.
            3 
16
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
resistance of bodies in  magnitude, but impels the
mass  by  rotating the  atoms which compose the
mass ; the motion of the whole being the sum of
all its parts.   We have an example  of  this rotary
force in the watch we carry, and in that larger clock
of time  which beats  the seconds in our daily pil-
grimage of life.   But organic life, unlike inorganic
forces, is a process of accumulation to its  refinement
in the dynamic force of the nervous system disclosed
by electro agency.  There is a series of experiments
in electro-magnetism  which  proves  positive elec-
tricity to  possess a  greater repelling  force than
negative electricity at  the same  tension, and that
the positive pole  holds the dynamic force, while the
megnetic action returns  to  the point of departure
at the same  instant  of time, leaving  everything
behind it adjusted as before.   This process explains
the inconceivable velocity of the  dynamic force  in
its alternate motions, but gives no clue to its rel-
ative  proportions.
   Here we have the first glimpse of our dynamic
force, and the question, How is it  made  ?  urges it-
self upon our attention.  It is not by subdivision of
its atoms, as we  strengthen our  drugs  by dilution
and trituration, but by a series of condensing forces,
beginning with the  four quarternary  compounds of
0.,  H.,  C.  and N., condensed by their combining 
•
                PROBLEM OF LIFE.              17

proportions  into  tertiary forms, each  assuming  a
binary  form,  the starting-point of dual  relations
in matter, -V-, T|, -V-.  In the  next step, we see
them all  condensed  together into one dual  force
by electro agency, and working on a scale of  anti-
thetic relations (like  heat and cold) as one and the
same force of differing intensities in different direc-
tions.
    If we could subdivide a second of time into a
million of parts, and  one of these into a billion, and
one of these  again  into a  trillion,  and use  them
as  we  now use  numbers, we  could not  calculate
the velocity of the dynamic force  in matter ; and
yet its  products show it to be nothing more nor
less than the  refining forces of the four primary ele-
ments  condensed into  a  dual force  of  antithetic
relations.   It is seen from the above, that the phys-
ical  force in the general circulation is  constantly
 condensing a dynamic  force  into the  nervous sys-
 tem through  the medium of the medulla spinalis,
 the electro-magnet  of human life with its positive
 and negative  poles.
     The position and importance  of this eccentric
 centre  in the nervous system, has been sleeping for
 centuries, until its reflex action was discovered, but
 giving  no hint as to  its negative pole.  The  nega-
 tive pole gives  to  the brain but TW of dynamic 
•
18              PROBLEM OF  LIFE.

force, while  the  positive pole  gives to  the  spinal
marrow TW.  The negative pole gives to the brain
the slow calculations  of logic ; the positive pole,
the rapid combinations of the emotions and pas-
sions.   There is a rule of action in organic life that
in every mental process  there must be an attendant
organic process ; that the vivid senses must have
their  vivid  centre,  in  the solar circle  where the
organic transitions are in exact correspondence with
the rate of motion in the affections and passions,
while the brain must have  a table on which  to
write out the slow records of  its evidence.

                     Velocity.
    All bodies in nature  lighten in the ratio of their
velocity, until the specific gravity is lost  in the rate
of motion ;  and it is the rotary force  in our inte-
rior constitution at the highest standard of health,
which renders us alike  unconscious of the weight
of our bodies.  This is  obvious in  the rotary force
of  the  nervous system, the  simplest  function  of
which is to  excite the  contraction of a muscle with-
out producing sensation.   The impression is sent to
a ganglion,  whose eccentric axis  sends the impulse
to the muscle and it contracts.   The standard force
of the muscular system is  T8/oj which is Tf ¥ above
the  average  standard of the  solids  of  the body. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
19
This head of water in the muscular tissues is  the
reservoir by which the electro-agency of the nervous
system maintains the velocity of its action and re-
action with  the  muscular  tissues.  Every muscle
terminates at each  end in a tendon, and these ten-
dons at each end are inserted  into bones, and  the
central  part is the spring ; when the centre  con-
tracts there is a strain  upon the  whole, and  a di-
rect force is exerted  to  tear the tendons  from the
bones.
    There are, therefore, two strains upon  the  ten-
don at each end of the muscle, the centre part only
being the spring, and when the action and  reaction
of the fibres begin to fail by overwork, the water in
these tissues is reduced in proportion to the loss of
strength by exercise,  and they grow stiff and lame,
and the spring is gone, and their weight is felt.
    When repose restores the  adequate supply of
water at the standard of TW, the spring returns
and the sense of weight  is gone.   Lassaine says
that the percentage of water is greatest in infancy,
less in  childhood, adjusted in  manhood, and dried
ud in age.  This accounts for the perpetual motion
and elastic spring  of childhood, the  steadiness of
adult age, and the  cane of the  bent old man.  If we
apply the proposition  to the rotary  force among
the heavenly bodies,  we get a clear conception of 
20
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
the whole  phenomena  of  motion.   All bodies in
space lighten in the ratio of their  velocity until
their specific gravity is lost in their rates of motion.
Then as each planet must  revolve on its own cen-
tre, its orbit in space is defined by its own magni-
tude.  This is exactly the  rule of action among the
atoms of matter in the invisible  forces of human
life.

                     Oxygen.
   We have been dealing hitherto in forces.   Oxy-
gen is a power delegated from on  high, and holds
in solution the secrets of creation.   It is the centre
of all radiation,  the source  of  all combustion, itself
incombustible, for ever  giving without  loss, always
supplying  without exhaustion.  It  generates  that
standard of heat in which we all " live and move
and have our being ; " it presides  unseen in  the
winter's storm,  and its  presence  in the sunbeam
restores life and animation to the  vegetable  world.
The  ships  of commerce float  in it, and the navies
of the world ride on it, unconscious of its power.
The steamship with artificial  heat expands it into
steam, the steam into vapor, and then it is condensed
into water, and  returns again to its  labor.   In its
pure state  it is a colorless and transparent  gas, and
no force or variation of  temperature can change its 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
21
permanently aeriform condition.  It not only guides
and governs the thermal condition of the globe, but
it enters largely into the composition of the crust of
the earth, forming one-third of its  substance.  Its
highest condensing force is found  in water, eight-
ninths of which is  oxygen.  It constitutes three-
fourths of our bodies, four-fifths of every plant, and
one-half of the solid rocks of the globe.
    Cleave the rock of quartz, or granite, or marble,
and the law  of inertia of Sir Isaac Newton is trans-
formed into  a hail-storm  of  motion  on their  sur-
faces.   Inorganic  histology is  as fruitful of motion
as is that of organic  life, and it is through the
medium of the atom that  the mystery of  motion is
unveiled.  Inorganic, like organic bodies, take their
forms  from  their  cells, and this cell of  inorganic
matter bears the same relation to the granular mat-
ter of material bodies, that the cells of organic life
bear to the  tissues which spring from their walls.
    There is a remarkable parallelism in  the iden-
tity of cell material in all organized beings, and it is
worthy of notice that the  cell  forming the simplest
plants  increases by subdivision according to a fixed
rule of numbers—2, 4, 8, 16,  &c, so that the rule
of geometric progression  regulates the subdivision
of the  primordial cells in all forms  of organic  as
well as  those of  inorganic matter.   The simplest 
22              PROBLEM OF LIFE.

organism  of  vegetable  life points  by its structure
up to man, and the organs of his body were sketched
out in the inferior animals, in anticipation of his com-
ing.   It starts from the  crystal to the plant, from
the plant to the  animal,  and  from the  animal to
man.   The vitalized cells that begin the structure of
organic life have no nerves traceable in their organ-
ization, and hence their power is passive, it is force
at rest.  Such, too, is the relation which the cells
of inorganic bodies hold to the granular matter of
their  organization.  The  cell  is known  to be  the
germinating nucleus of all material bodies in nature,
and if we now place the microscope which magnifies
4,000,000 of times on the face of these cleft rocks
every atom on its  surface will be  seen to be rotating
around its cell, as a necessary condition of its rela-
tion  to its centre.  In this rotary process  of the
atoms around  their cells it is always found  to be
preceded by axial  deflection among  the atoms of
matter in the  return  of  these  polarized atoms to
their  normal state.  This deflection  from a perfect
circle results from the  eccentric axes in every  rotary
atom ;  and in the successive alternations of these
polarized relations  the rotary transmission is  main-
tained with such inconceivable velocity that the eye
beholds only a moving panorama in the  dissolving
views of motion. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
23
   It was the experiments of Berzelius that led him
first to conceive that two opposite poles are given to
every atom of matter, but it  was M.  De  Lareive,
following  in  his footsteps, who  first observed  that
every rotary atom was armed  with a directive axis,
around  which  the motion was  performed, but he
made no examination of the axes, and the discovery
rested in pace when it was made.   It has since been
shown by experiments as well as by the  axial and
equatorial arrangement of the molecules of matter
by Prof. Faraday that the earth is physically ar-
ranged to move both on its axis and on its  plane by
a motive power, but  he had  absorbed so much of
Sir Isaac Newton's law of attraction that the atom
was beneath his notice.
   Having shown the presiding  force of oxygen in
inorganic  matter, the  next  step is  to learn the
means and method of its rotary forces.  By intro-
ducing it into soap bubbles it is  found  to be mag-
netic, a property  which belongs  to  no other  gas.
And in its highly concentrated  state of chemical
force it develops its alternate, ozone, giving the  pos-
itive and negative force of electro agency.   Here we
rest the proof of the atomic or rotary force in nature,
which is a dual force of repulsion and attraction,
constituting the motive power of creation.
   In the next  place, we inquire, how does  this
force maintain itself in its mighty work ? 
24              PROBLEM OF LIFE.
    In the active state of these alternate forces they
develop electricity,  and  electricity,  in its turn  of
changing  relations with  equivalents,  disaggregates
the molecules of these gases, and in the process in-
sulates their constituent atoms with all their polar-
ities set free, by which  they acquire a concentrated
tendency  to combine their  relations with all other
bodies in  nature,  towards which  they manifest no
affinity in their normal state.  Hence the universal
and unlimited command of these forces over all the
material bodies in nature.  In the dual relations of
the first elements of matter we see the working prin-
ciple and  sustaining power of its forces, viz., electro
magnetism, in  disaggregating the molecules  of ox-
ygen gas,  reproduces itself in the process of disinte-
gration, thus fully setting before us the phenomena
of perpetual motion among the atoms of matter in
the physical world.
    Having  shown  oxygen to be  a rotary force, its
specific gravity  will unfold the  immensity of its
power.  Before other substances were made its rela-
tive proportion to its attendant gases was to hydro-
gen V, to  nitrogen  }f, to carbon V6, showing its
proportion to be greater  than that of all other sub-
stances in nature, and its specific  gravity to exceed
that of all other bodies in the proportion of 48 : 21.
As these  gases are  the constituent  elements or 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
25
bases of  matter, they constitute the specific gravity
of all substances which  are made  by their  atomic
combination, and  hence they are the measure and
sum of the specific gravity of all bodies in the uni-
verse. For example, when oxygen and hydrogen com-
bine to form water, the specific gravity of the water,
which is the standard of all adjustments, is the sum
of the specific gravity of these gases condensed into
its volume, and hence  the specific gravity in the
weight of the globe must stand as  48 : 21.

         Its Elasticity or Mechanical Force.
    With  its density and  its abounding weight it
has the  property of permanent elasticity—elasticity
and  permanent elasticity is the difference between
oxygen  and caoutchouc, the one is a finite force, the
other an infinite power, the alternate forces of  one
are given in straight lines, the alternate forces  of
oxygen  united to hydrogen unfold a spheroid, with
 its eccentric  centre  and rotary force, the starting-
 point of curvilinear  lines in mechanico-vital atoms.
 The rule  of motion  in all  elastic  bodies is exactly
 equal in  opposite directions, and they retain  the
 motion  which they receive from their elastic power.
 This affirmation is  in direct accordance  with  the
 proposition of Sir Isaac  Newton,  that the quantity 
26              PROBLEM OF  LIFE.

of motion which is collected by taking the sum of
the motions directed towards the same parts, and "the
difference of those directed  towards the  contrary
parts,  suffers no change from the action of bodies
among themselves.  Force  thus constructed  and
thus adjusted acts in direct unison with  the  alter-
nate motions among the molecules of matter, as dis-
closed  by the microscope, and by proportioning its
force to the matter it moves, it rotates an atom or
commands a world.   This property of permanent
elasticity, and its acknowledged vital element, con-
nects it with matter and makes it that mechanico-
vital force, which fits it for creation, and yet so del-
icately equipoises the forces of human life.

              Its Attractive Force.

    The component parts of all matter are the gasea
of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, of which
oxygen forms so distinguished a part.  In order to
explain the power of its attraction we must measure
the force of its mutual relations with its attendant
gases, and this will show which of  them holds the
sovereign power over matter.   Oxygen to hydrogen,
-V6-, to nitrogen }£, to carbon y, that is, oxygen is
fifteen  times  heavier  than hydrogen,  and nearly
three times heavier than carbon, and as  16 :14 is 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
27
heavier than nitrogen, oxygen being the heaviest of
the gases.   To measure  the power of their mutual
attraction we must measure the velocity with which
they approach each other.   The velocity with which
all bodies  approach  each  other  by mutual attrac-
tion is inversely as the masses of matter.   Thus the
velocity with which the lighter body moves toward
the  heavier is greater than that  with which the
heavier body moves toward the lighter.  In the mu-
tual  attraction of the  gases, then, oxygen stands
as the greatest attracting  force, and its alternate
relation,  ozone,  since  discovered,  as its greatest
repelling power.
    Secondly :  no natural force, electrical or other-
wise, can take  place or  be  maintained without  the
agency of water.   There are six cubic feet of oxygen
gas in every tumble/ of water, the basis of  the
 mechanico-vital force of organic life.  The action
 of the dry Voltaic  pile is due to the presence of
 water  in the  paper used  for its  construction, and
 frictional  machines at  a moderate rate  of motion
 generate ozone by taking  the water  from the  sur-
 rounding air.
     The Voltaic  piles  and batteries used for tele-
 graphic purposes derive their forces from the  dis-
 integration and  recomposition  of the water within
 the  cells  of the  battery by electro  agency.   It is 
28
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
known  that a  very small  amount of  chemical
change sets free a very large electrical force.
   Both  Becquerel  and Professor  Faraday  have
shown that larvate  electricity (ozone), chemically
set free by the  decomposition of a grain of water
will charge a thunder cloud  covering an  area  of
thirty-five acres with a  lightning flash of terrific
intensity.   But insular forces  generated by the
decomposition of  water are  shown on  a  broader
scale in earthquakes.  Months before the paroxys-
mal explosions of Vesuvius begin, the low murmur-
ings of its ordinary discontent are heard rising from
the ingathering forces generated  by the  conversion
of water into ozone at  the bottom  of the crater.
As the deep sounds like distant thunder multiply,
the wells  in the vicinity dry up, and  the  water
around the base  of the mountain  disappears.  The
inhabitants in nearest proximity to  the mountain
confer with  each other, and measure their  danger
by the area of  country  over which the waste  of
water extends.   Pompeii is  three  miles from the
base  of the mountain, and streams and wells five
miles  outside of it are known to have  been dried up,
thus making a  circumference of 48 miles within
which the waters are taken up and converted into
ozone in  gradual preparation for  the  explosion
which is to follow. 
                PROBLEM OF LIFE.              29

   It is the scarcity of water that  gives to  voltaic
mountains situated  on dry land long intervals of
repose.   Stromboli, three thousand feet high, is sur-
rounded by the waters of the Mediterranean, thirty
miles from the shore, and its  supply of water be-
ing constant, it is seen puffing  night and  day with
undeviating uniformity.  But it is shown by Pro-
fessor  Faraday  that  electricity in  a  continuous
current, when set free  by the  decomposition  of  a
grain of water, will maintain a platinum wire red
hot  3^  minutes.   Here we have the condensed
force in a grain of water maintaining a rotary force
at  a red  heat  3^ minutes.    Compare this  force
with the  decomposition of the TVo of water by its
own agency in the electric  current of  organic life,
and it  will give us some faint conception  of the
electric current generated by the water of the globe,
giving uniformity of impulse to the motive power
of the universe by which it is  enabled  to work up
to its time with undeviating certainty.


                     Resume.

    In this condensed  view of our vital  forces we
have given you generalities instead of elaborating
specialities, bearing on the  science and practice of 
30
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
medicine.    A brief resume of the prominent points
may bring out some practical hints of importance.
    It has been demonstrated in the  problem of
heat that TVo of oxygen to  TW of nitrogen estab-
lished a central standard  of health, and the devia-
tion from  this standard of health measures the fluc-
tuating conditions  of  life.   It  is  obvious  that
oxygen is  the presiding and steadying  force of the
instability of nitrogen, at the standard of health, but
when by our indulgences, which are of  daily recur-
rence, nitrogen is in excess, its instability will gene-
rate abnormal sensations, in proportion to the excess,
and thus by impairing or  destroying the appetite for
nitrogenized  substances, sooner or later it  must be
reduced below its standard, and fevers  of differing
types may ensue until it is restored to its position.

  Lastly: it is   shown  that  the  crude  organic
force in the general circulation averaging but TVV is
not  the dynamic  force  recognized  by the  great
founder of our science as a correlative  force to his
highest  infinitesimal dilutions.  The dynamic force
which he clearly saw was undefined by him, and did
not embrace the antecedent stage of its  refining pro-
cess in the nervous system and the brain, where the
coexisting relations of the physico-mental processes
develop the  consensual and instinctive action of the
mental process, with voluntary motion. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
31
   It was briefly stated how this force was genera-
ted, and that it was maintained by T£o of force in
the muscular tissues above the average standard of
the body,  and that its velocity surpassed our calcu-
lation.  It was  not stated,  but left to  inference,
that here  was a wide range for the strength of our
drugs ;  that in the crude circulation where the mo-
tive force was Ty„, low dilutions  were admissible,
but  in  the  inconceivable  velocity of the  dynamic
force in the nervous system, they were inadmissible.
    The proximate cause of motion was omitted for
the reason that its length  might interfere  with tbe
object of this meeting.   We were limited to the dis-
cussion of its rule of action among  the  atoms of
matter, as being  introductory to its  production of
curvilinear lines in motion.
    These lines  were  demonstrated  by  Sir  Isaac
Newton one  hundred and fifty  years ago,  to be de-
termined  in their  deviations from straight lines by
the force of attraction, and this demonstration is ac-
cepted by science  at the present day.   It is the mis-
fortune of great  men, in  the propagation of great
truths, to perpetuate  great errors, and meeting in
science on such unequal terms with an author who has
awed public  opinion into submission for a century
and a half, I am led to invoke  the aid of this Soci-
ety to bear me out in this unequal contest.  It was
           4 
32
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
well known to Sir Isaac Newton in his day that the
earth revolved on an axis eccentric to its centre, and
by whatever force it was moved, its  physical struc-
ture, and not the nature of the force, compelled it to
move around its centre, and in doing so it must de-
fine its own orbit by its own magnitude.
    If this general  proposition be true in regard  to
masses in magnitude, and they are made up of atoms
which  compose  the  mass and rotated by atoms
which  impel the mass,  the motion of the whole
being the sum of all its parts, then we can put the
microscope into  our vital forces and  the mirror will
reflect the real truths which  the  visions of the im-
agination have hitherto considered to be inaccessible
to human thought.
                 Finis the Address.
                    I_6 jljl  i_c
                     1  14   6 '
    Seeing and not  perceiving received  its condem-
nation in centuries  gone by.  Sight is common to
all, but the art of  seeing is a perception given to
but fewr.   As we  contemplate these six numbers,
condensed into  three binary forms, and resting  on
this slip of  paper, we see nothing to interest or in-
struct us ; but when we perceive these numbers  to
include forces which represent the  invisible  forms
of  the visible world, giving  to  the planets  their
motive power, which revolves them  on their axes 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
33
and drives them on their planes,  defining their or-
bits, and giving them their homes  in space, and after
furnishing the heavens with its gorgeous scenery, it is
said, " Let us make man," and these  tertiary forces
are condensed into  the  binary  forms  of  organic
life,  and  man comes forth in  the  image  of his
Maker, holding immediate relations to that  tertiary
power which represents the being of a God.
   There have been many volumes written  on  the
evidence of design in the  beneficence of creation,
but  here  seems  to  be the demonstration  of  the
problem which unfolds a  planetarium  of the  uni-
verse in the crystal deposits of his healthy urine.
In this little diagram,  the shape  of the largest
comet  resembles the form of the sun, and another
has  a striking  resemblance to  one of its  wings,
while the central sun with all its satellites and three
significant  crystals of the cross are riding in space on
their eccentric axes. 
34
PROBLEM OF  LIFE.
CONFUSION IN SCIENCE.
        Dalton's Definite Proportions.
   If we are right in our judgment of the confusion
in science, the proof is to be given in the statement
of its  errors,  and this  will contribute largely to
the elaboration of the forces we have  been condens-
ing.  We are under as  great obligations to Dalton
for his  definite proportions, as  we are to  Sir  Isaac
Newton for his problem  of motion, barring the idea
of magnitude  in  the one, and the invisible atoms
in the other, they are equal, each having had their
share in the advancement of science.  But  Dalton's
atoms were not rotary forces, and Sir Isaac  New-
ton had no atoms  to rotate, and they are thus re-
duced  to a companionship on  the ascending scale
of science.
   If either or both of their hypotheses were true,
the clock of time would run  down, and  darkness
would  again be on the face of the  deep—but when
the dawn of  the  morning  discloses a  centrifugal
force with its  rotary atoms in endless duration, the
mind expands as it  pierces the darkness and dispels 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
35
the gloom which hangs over the brightness of crea-
tion.   In every forward step in true science our souls
are drawn  nearer  and nearer to that  Being who
knows all things, and yet knows no  end.
    Definite proportions are born of chemistry, and
imply proportions that are fixed, and fixed propor-
tions are defined by limitation of their atoms.
    If this theory of definite  proportions were true
we should  have exact sciences, and find  squares,
with  all their  angles equally adjusted,  and  circles
with  all their radii exactly equal.   But the equali-
ty of all the radii of a circle is true of all circles, so
far as it is true of any one,  but it is  not exactly
true of any circle—it is only so nearly true that we
correct  our conclusions by combining with them a
fresh set of propositions relating to the  aberration.
The definite proportions of Dalton  are analytic dis-
tinctions which  are  lost  in the coexisting relations
of matter, and if these  coexisting relations  are
substituted for his  definite proportions, the endless
chain of relations looses  no link in its combining
proportions, and perpetual motion, in its  changing
 relations with equivalents, springs into being.
    While  chemistry is  adding to the perplexity of
 simple  bodies by multiplying instead of abridging
 their numbers ;  electricity, the most  powerful, as
 well as the most delicate, instrument of analysis, is 
36
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
gradually approaching the solution of the question
—that there are no  simple bodies in nature—but
it  seems idle for science to await the solution of a
question so obviously untrue, as there are no simple
forces in nature out  of which a simple body can be
made.   A  simple substance, of whatever form, iso-
lated from all affinities, can enter into no combina-
tions with  other bodies, and with no germinating
force it must ever remain an unacknowledged found-
ling, exiled from its  share in the mechanism of the
universe.
    But electricity in its binary form acts upon all
bodies,  whatever they may be, whether  solid, fluid
or gaseous, and its primary current, which has been
supposed to be simple, is found to be dual by devel-
oping two secondary currents, and  each secondary
current  develops two tertiary currents,  and each
tertiary current determines two quaternary currents.
It is obvious that  the  secondary current assumes
a primary form as it develops  the tertiary current,
and the tertiary current  in its turn takes on a
primary form as it determines the quaternary cur-
rent.  These are all alike dual forces, which rotate
the  atoms of matter in the physicial world by co-
existing relations instead of definite  proportions. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
37
  Confusion in science follows Sir Isaac Newton's
               problem of motion.

   The magnitude of this error has cast its shadow
forward over the present generation, and  involved
all the great names which have lavished their pow-
ers  in vain to carry forward the  solution of this
problem of motion.  I  quote from that great logi-
cian J. Stuart Mill, the brief sketch of  these la-
borers : "  Simple as the law of gravity appears to be,
and beautifully in accordance with the observations
of the  past  and  present times, what an immense
amount of intellectual  labor has  it cost.   Coper-
nicus, Galileo, Kepler, Lagrange, Laplace, all the
great names  which have exalted the character of
man, by carrying out trains of reasoning unparalleled
in every other science, each  of whom might have
been the Newton of another field, have all labored
in vain to  work out the consequences which resulted
from  the  single  discovery which  he  made.   The
brightest  in genius,  and the most persevering in
application  have lavished  their powers on the de-
tails of the Law of Gravity.  If such be the view we
must  take of the law of inanimate matter,  of which
the law of gravity discloses less than is yet concealed
from us—laws into whose consequences it  has cost 
38              PROBLEM OF LIFE.

so much intellectual labor to  penetrate, what  lan-
guage  shall we hold when we consider that  there
are  other and  higher laws—laws which connect life
with matter—that the law of gravity throws no light
upon,—that we are  now in ignorance of the smallest
link in that chain which holds life in its mysterious
relations with  matter, or that still more miraculous
one which connects  mind with both."
    If gravity be lost in its rate of motion the ques-
tion is no  longer  debatable, but  that a mind so
clear, so comprehensive and with such mathemati-
cal  precision,  should demonstrate  his problem  on
one  half of its force, and that too on its inverse
force, which led him farther and farther from causa-
tion, and the farther he went the farther from  the
truth, and yet achieve such gigantic discoveries, is the
deepest, darkest paradox of all ; and that  Kepler,
Lagrange,  together with  all that bright  galaxy
of brilliant minds, should be so long searching with
their fathom lines a bottomless abyss adds its testi-
mony to the mystery.   They have all gained what
they have given us by drawing their deductions
from the phenomena of motion with its curvilinear
lines, in ignorance  of their causation. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.              39
          The Confusion of their Laws.

   If there is but one force in nature there is but
one law given for its government.
   If what these great men have given us  are de-
ductions from phenomena, all their discoveries will
not reach the dignity of a law.   They were all geo-
metricians with  the highest order of intellect, and
many minds as good go through life unpolished, but
geometry being  illustrative, and not investigating,
led them to perceive the semblance of truth in the
propagation of error.
    Law is born of science, and its rule of action is
the birth of its phenomena.   The limited range of
our observation leads  us to confound law with its
rule of action, and thus laws are multiplied without
end.   What are called the laws of nature are only
isolated  facts discovered  by Copernicus, Galileo,
Newton, Kepler, Lagrange and Laplace.  The dis-
coveries  which  they made were so far beyond the
comprehension of the mass and so boundlees  in their
own minds, that they  did  not   perceive  they knew
less than what was concealed from them, and they
were  thus led  to the delusion that they had dis-
covered laws.
    A brief recapitulation of their discoveries will 
40
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
show them to be rules of action springing out of one
general law.  Galileo's  law,—the less force equals
the  greater, by moving through  more  space in a
given time :  it was on  this rule that Newton based
his great problem of attraction.
    Then there  follow  in  succession  the  experi-
ments and discoveries of Archimedes, Galileo  and
Newton: first, that in a mass of liquid each par-
ticle presses equally in all directions.
    Kepler,—the orbits  of  the  planets are ellipses
with  the sun in one of their foci.  The  planets
move over equal areas in equal times : the squares
of the times of revolution of any two planets are to
each other in the  same  proportion  as the cubes of
their mean distances from the sun.   This was per-
haps the most  gigantic  effort of the human mind,
but it is  seen that all these  discoveries are isolated
facts, and show  no coexisting  relations in combina-
tion of forces, resulting from one general law.
   Law  is a  principle, holding  in its  element  a
scheme of government, and its  rule of action pro-
ceeds from within itself by an  inherent necessity.
The special acts springing out of the necessity of  a
general law are in the direct ratio of the  breadth
and depth of its principle.  If the law is to govern
a kingdom its special acts will include  every devia-
tion from justice.  If it is to  govern a universe, its 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
41
special acts may be multiplied by the elements of
the law, and this will comprehend all acts not at
variance with  its general principle.
    The rule of action in the law of nature is a sys-
tem of changing relations with equivalents, and the
rule works up to its principle with undeviating cer-
tainty.

          Confusion of Municipal Laws.

    Sir Wm.  Blackstone, the highest authority for
English law, defines law to be a rule of action, and
thus by confounding a principle with its rule of ac-
tion he has obscured the science of law as thoroughly
as Sir Isaac Newton obscured the science of motion,
and so many  laws  have sprung from this  undefined
definition that a lawyer's library is like  the frag-
ments of a war-like nation, with no instrument fit for
use, and the consequence follows that law runs out
before it comes to equity, and  chancery is set up to
correct its aberrations, and  like the rope of a wind-
lass it  never ends, yet the hope of every client is
on the next turn of the wheel, confirming  the com-
mon saying—" Nothing like   the  uncertainty of
law." 
42
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
     Confusion of mind in two forms of belief.

    This inquest may  throw some  light  on that
higher law  spoken of by J. Stuart  Mill when he
says, " We  are  now  in  ignorance of the  smallest
link in that chain which holds  life in its relation
with  matter,  or that  still  more  miraculous one
which connects mind with both."  The mind  has
two methods of coming  to a conclusion, the one by
contingency, where the materials  are gathered from
the feelings  and passions, and where truth may be
found by accident, the other by analysis, where be-
lief is established by that process  of  reasoning upon
facts which  form the judgment.   The feelings and
passions where truth may be found by accident in-
clude sensation, association, memory,  imagination,
belief, and will.
    These are the mental faculties which are held
in common with the higher order of the animal cre-
ation.  They are the vivid senses of  man, and  the
vivid senses  of the animal.   These vivid senses ob-
tain belief by the association of sensations in agree-
ment.
    If the first inference fails  to make a conclusion,
it makes a  bias, if the second inference corresponds,
the bias  is  increased, if the  third inference is in
agreement,  it establishes a belief, and a conclusion 
PROBLEM  OF  LIFE.
43
follows which is mistaken for a judgment.  No in-
ference nor any given number of inferences, how-
ever they may coincide,  can of themselves form a
 judgment, as the  decision  by inference is come to
before the judgment is reached.
    Every human mind is more or less disturbed by
 two forms of belief,  the animal and the intellec-
 tual.  The  animal is the solicitor,  the  intellectual
 the judge, and he who falls beneath them both, is
 sadly corrupted, or has had his mind  perverted in
 childhood when the intellect was forming.
    Here is a critical point  in every  man's character
 with two forms of belief; how important to know
 the axis on which it  may turn ; how important to
 see the  danger, and  feel our responsibility.   " The
 wild deer  and wolf to their coverts may flee," but
 we have no covert or  refuge from danger, except it
 be in Him who gave  us our bodies to  gain wisdom
 by experience, and accepts our souls on the easy
 condition of confiding them to His care and keeping.
     Here the physician stands as  medical  adviser
 between his patient and his God.   They, in the in-
 stincts of their  nature, flee from  themselves, and
 confidingly commit their lives to our care and keep-
 ing, and why should  not we in the  instincts of our
 nature fly to Him who  has no theories  to  perplex
 Him? 
44
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
   We are here bound by a duplicate obligation
the one to our  patients and the other to our God,
and  this vivid responsibility should be  nursed and
maintained in our daily intercourse with both.
   The animal, with its  small  and  passive brain,
and its large solar circle,  with  its vivid senses, has
but one form  of belief—the animal, like the infant
(till its brain becomes hardened),  acts on belief.
The animal's belief has degrees of deviation from its
standard, but unlike that of  the infant  it never
amounts to unbelief—unbelief, when traversing be-
lief argues thought above instinct. The animal, un-
like the infant, has but four perceptions to  connect*
its vivid senses with the outward world,  sight, hear-
ing,  smell and taste.   These are all vivid percep-
tions, which  gain and  give  up their sensations to
the passing moment.
    The wild deer of the forest, that emblem of in-
nocence  and love, which  sheds  the tear of sorrow
over the capture of its young, has no organs ofcom-
bativeness, and  it acts on the. belief that its safety
is in flight.  WTith  a telescopic vision wliich the
sagacity of man  can only avoid  by concealment, an
ear which vibrates on the turning  of a leaf in the
summer's sun, and a nose which scents its foe be-
* Touch in the animal is a sensation, and not a perception. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
45
yond  the reach of a Minie  rifle, it is happy and
contented in its belief.
   But the infant, with the fifth perception in the
sense of touch, needs no  such guardianship in its
vivid senses—it  is born  in  the lap of care,  sur-
rounded by sympathy, watched by intelligence, and
reared prospectively in slow development for time
and eternity.
    The domesticated dog, the highest in the scale
of animal being, has a conscience.  His belief stands
before his will, and his  conscience  comes up after
the act is committed.  He steals from his home in
the darkness of night, and kills a distant neighbor's
sheep, and hides himself in glens and forests  con-
cealed from observation, till the vivid impression of
his crime fades into another trial of his  skill, and
then he returns to his home with a sneaking smile
and wags his  tail about  his master, as if nothing
worth mentioning had happened,  and when confi-
dence is fairly restored, he steals away again and re-
peats the history of his crimes.   It may shock some
pious minds to hear that a dog has a conscience.
The  conscience is a sensational, and not an intellec-
tual  faculty,  and its contingent development  de-
pends upon the commission of crime.
    The sensation of a conscience  could never be
felt and could never have been known  to  man but 
46
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
 for a prior transgression ; the conscience is not the
 guiding, but the adjusting faculty of the mind, and
 stands after the will has been impelled by the ima-
 gination to insult it.
    But man's belief rests on a broader basis:  with
 the addition of the perception of the sense of touch,
 and a large brain and a corresponding solar centre
 for the exercise of his vivid senses, he has  an ad-
 justing conscience, over which the  reason and the
 judgment, with their analytic distinctions, may de-
 cide what the vivid senses may have misconceived,
 by drawing inferences from associations in agree-
 ment.  Here  the two forms of belief may be con-
 densed into one if the mind could  be impressed with
 a  clear conception of the errors  introduced by the
 imagination into the vivid senses.    It is this indis-
 criminating faculty  which introduces all sorts of
 material that deceives him.
    Being the constructive as well as the furnishing
 faculty of  the  mind, and subject to  sensations, it
 has  no choice but those which  sensations suggest.
 If the object it introduces is false,  the accompanying
 sensation is as real as if the  object itself  were  true,
 and  the  pleasurable emotion, if it  be one, is  sent
 forward among the  social feelings, and entertained
by them all.   The delusion here arises from the re-
ality of the emotion being  produced by a false ob- 
PROBLEM  OF LIFE,
47
ject, so that the mind, instead  of being capable of analyzing
the object, is deceived by the sensation  which  the  object
itself produces.  Here lies one  of tbe roots of insanity.
   Memory and imagination are duplicate forces, and  con-
stitute the radiating centre of the mind.    The  one  brings
the past up to the present moment, and the otber meets it
with the future, and they exchange centres that radiate  both
ways; sensation, association, and memory on the one hand,
and imagination, belief, and will on  the other, constitute the
sensational mind, while the brain looks on to  correct their
errors.
   The imagination is the only sleepless faculty of the mind,
and we are apt to appeal  to its seductive  pictures to decide
our trials, while the will passively listening, and  feeling the
sensations which  the  imagination  introduces, sets  up the
pretensions of its prerogative  right to execute a final judg-
ment, before the consent of the judgment has been granted.
In traversing the  main channel  of thought we have  been
passively arranging the logic table of its issues, that the-
imagination may rest safely beneath its mantle.


                           Will.

    It is true of the will  in its executive  capacity, that it  is
always  in  command ; but  this trust is  a power  directly
derived from the imagination itself, and both are subject to
sensation, so that  the antecedent circumstances determine its
action,  and the succeeding circumstances are but  the con-
tinuation of the preceding circumstances which  determined
it.  Hence the will, when acting in obedience to the imagi-
nation,  is acting  in its  executive  capacity, and  not of its
 choice.
              5 
48
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
   In the vivid period of childhood, before the brain
has laid its floor for the analytic distinctions of logic,
the imagination  runs riot  over the feelings and pas-
sions.   When the future is introduced by the  im-
agination to the child, with its prehensile visions, it
persuades the memory to take them up, and  the as-
sociations to weave them in, and, if  the weft corre-
sponds with the vision, it believes it, and sets up the
will to wear it as the government of the mind.
   Before the imagination has been soiled by con-
tagious associations, it is a furnishing agent, with
its beautiful  imagery, in  outlines of innocence  and
love  ; but, when fallen, it is a scavenger, introduc-
ing all sorts of material, and deceiving the mind by
the  sensations which follow in  the footsteps of its
indiscriminate and distorted selections.
   In this state, and without the controlling power
of the intellect, belief and unbelief, ability  and in-
ability, depend upon the  degrees of deviation in the
imagination from  its  standard  of adjustment with
the  sensational  relations.  If these degrees of de-
viation are restrained  within its ordinary limits, the
mind  is  swayed more or less by its delusions ; but
when the estrangement of the imagination from the
memory of its past sensations takes place, it is cut
off from  its anchorage in the natural feelings and
emotions, and insanity is its home. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
49
                      Mind.

   The mind perceives the error first.
   Here is a  dark point  in  our mental processes
that must ever attend our pilgrimage below.  In
the new-born infant the eye sees all bodies reversed,
or wrong  end up, and it corrects the error  by the
sense of touch, as we correct our reasonings through
the medium of errors.
    The panoply of truth  is  a myth to the finite
mind, as it cannot  reach  it directly.  But  to Him
who made all things it is a blaze of  light.   In us it
is induco, to be searched for, and drawn out through
the  medium  of  errors ; and it  is  the error which
cheers us onward, with its semblance of truth, in
the never-failing  hope of reaching it directly.
    But  directly has two  meanings,  the   one in
straight lines and the other immediately ; and thus
we always feel to be  on the threshold of truth, un-
conscious that we must reach it through the medium
of errors.
    In the arrangement of the primary forces of or-
ganic  life, oxygen unites with its inverse relations
         OH  ON  OC                             . .
directly -\-6-, }f, JSS and thereafter all their polarities
are set free to combine their relations with all other
bodies  in  nature, toward which  they manifest no 
50              PROBLEM OF LIFE.
relation in their normal state, and inverse relations
are then  established  and  are  permanently  main-
tained with  the primary forces.
    In this process they are  thrown off of their pri-
mary bases  into the  broad  field of changing rela-
tions  with equivalents, and still the inverse  forces
are subject to the primary power of oxygen.
    Here that invisible force of  nitrogen, so distin-
guished for its energy and instability, is among these
inverse forces.  In the refining process of its  nutri-
tion it is the supporting and sustaining force  of our
mental processes, and, as it  unites with all other
forces  inversely, the  relation of truth  to  error is
reversed, and we perceive the  error first.
    How far this state of mind  may be modified by
phosphoric combinations is left for future investiga-
tions  to determine.  Nitrogen is not an element of
inorganic matter, but holds  its  prerogative right in
the heavens, where its greater  specific gravity and
motive force, energizes  the winds, storms, and tem-
pests, and commands their repose. Here it shares its
force  in the proportion of  f  to \ of oxygen, (un-
combined,) both in the winter's storm and summer's
sun.   Its most remarkable office, however, is  shown
in organic life, by leasing its  energy  and instability
to the  transient, versatile,  and fleeting pilgrimage
of human life, and  withholding its presence from 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
51
our future state,  as  no nutrition is needed there.
Here we have found what we were not in search of
—a well defined distinction between  life  and  soul.
It  seems  evident that the  nitrogen  in vegetable
life  gives  energy, activity  and instability to  the
physical  forces  of  organic  life, and when  the
mind  leaves its nitrogenized body it leaves with it
its nitrogenized force, and  the mind, released from
its inverse relations, sees  things directly in their
 rectified position.
                  Nervous System.

    Every scientific  work  which  treats of human
 life demonstrates  the nervous system centripetally,
 and every work thus written must be read backward
 to be understood by the reader.
     The nervous, medullary, and cerebral systems are
 three  differing  systems of relation, and the physi-
 ologist identifies them all into one relation, and tes-
  tifies the brain  to be their common centre.
     The order of  succession in the development of
  organic life ignores  this statement, by reversing the
  problem.  It is  a well-known fact that tbe nerves
  themselves are fully developed and  are  performing
  their functions  before the spinal column appears on
  the theatre  of its action, and that the spinal column
  is organized and performing its functions before the 
52
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
floor of the skull is laid for the construction of the
brain.   Tbe vertebral column and base of the skull
are the first parts of bone that are developed in em-
bryo.  These vertebrae form  centres  of circumfe-
rence whose centres are in each other, and they unite
in the form of a ring in their circumference, to form
a channel  in their centres for  the  passage  of the
spinal marrow, and each of the vertebrae is  formed
from three primary centres of ossification.
    The medulla spinalis, the  electro-magnet of
human life, is laid at the top of the column, at its
junction with  the  brain, and the  prolongation of
its crura is sent forward into  the two hemispheres
of the brain to complete their relations.
    The starting point  of this  force in  the  solar
centre  is centrifugal, radiating  from  this  nervous
centre through  the  spinal  marrow  to the medulla,
from which it is reflected backward centrifugally to
its starting point, where its alternate forces, by their
action and reaction, maintain this nucleated sphere
of  organic life till the negative pole of the medulla
sends forward its negative force for  the construction
of  the brain.   The starting point of the nervous
system is found in the cceliac axes,  in the centre of
the solar plexus, with its two  semilunar ganglions,
one on each side of it, both of which are the largest
ganglia of the body, and give birth to the greater 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.                53
and lesser splanchnic nerves.  If the greater splanch-
nic nerve  be  traced centrifugally through  the me-
dium  of  the great sympathetic,  and  the  lesser
through  the  medium  of the great pneumogastric
nerve, they will represent a  physico-mental nerve,
one branch of which  produces sensation, and the
other motion.   One makes the mind, and the other
matter.   These branches, rising from one base, are
 joined to each other on the inner  side by branches
from the solar plexus itself, the lesser, the  mental,
 joining the cceliac axis  at  its root.   Thus  armed,
 these nerves, with eccentric axes in their ganglia on
which  all bodies move,  become the  matrix of the
 nervous  system, with its action  and  reflex action,
 from its centre in the solar plexus  to the circumfe-
 rence of its relations in  organic life.*
    * If my anatomy is at fault I  may be pardoned for its errors, as its
 study was abandoned fifty-six years ago, under the tuition of the late
 John Augustin Smith, M.D., who was  then a young Virginian of
 twenty-four years old, and just returned from Europe, and made Pro-
 fessor of Anatomy and Surgery in the College of Physicians and
 Surgeons of the city of New  York.  It was my privilege to en-
 joy two full courses of his lectures, for two years in succession.  We
 called him concrete.  His mind was a condensing engine, and fitted
 in all respects to  demonstrate Sir Isaac Newton's problem of motion
 centripetally.  He carried us with him in all his clear and lucid ana-
 lytic distinctions  to the terminus of his extreme doctrines; but when
 I reduced them  to practice on my patients I at once found that my
 emetico-cathartic disclosed an eccentric axis in the stomach, and was 
54
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
    Having reversed the problem in the nervous sys-
tem by demonstrating it centrifugally, we may next
state the functions of its ganglionic  system.
    In  the distribution of the nerves,  with their  ra-
diating branches, from the centre of the solar circle
to the  circumference of their relations to the spinal
marrow and the brain are found ganglionic centres,
with eccentric axes, and no two axes alike.
    In  the ascending scale of organic life it is found
to maintain  the general rule  of inorganic matter,
where  every snow-flake has an eccentric  axis, and
every  two  are  similar  and  no  two  alike,  and
every drop of water in a rain  storm, from  which
snow-flakes are made, has eccentric axes, and every
two are similar, and no two alike,  and they all  fall
rotating on each other's track to the ground.  These
rotary  forces in the  ganglia of the nervous  system
may give us a lamp to light our pathway into that
dark centre from which our passions and emotions
spring, and it may light us into that darker  cham-
ber where the calm thought of reason and judgment
presides in its seclusion over the disturbing feelings
of the soul.
    The digital nerve, that constitutes the sense of

decidedly centrifugal,  ignoring all my teachings, and gradually re-
versing the problems of the school into centrifugal forces operating
both ways. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
55
touch, which distinguishes the properties in bodies,
ascends from the fingers, is lost in the median, and
from  thence pursues  its direct course to the bra-
chial plexus, where it is rotated into the four ante-
rior branches of the lower cervical and first dorsal
nerves, which unite to form the fifth pair, where the
great ganglion  of Gasser is traced deep between the
tranverse fibres of  the  pons-varioli into the lateral
track  of  the medulla spinalis, where the sense  of
touch was found by Muller's experiments, and from
which the  medulla., the  great  central ganglion of
organic life, rotates from  its negative pole the  in-
gathering forces of the sense of touch which form
the layers of logic in  the  centre of the brain.  The
ganglion  of the eye rotates the vision and retains the
memory of sight ;  the ganglion of the nose rotates
the  sense of smell and retains the  memory of odors ;
the  ganglion of the tongue rotates the sense of taste,
and  retains the memory of  its many flavors ; the
ganglion of the ear rotates the waves of  sound, and
retains the memory of every tone, whatever may be
its velocity ; and the ganglion of the solar centre ro-
 tates, the passions and emotions, retaining the mem-
 ory   of  their  sensations in  the ratio of the vivid-
 ness of their impressions.  It is not to be forgotten
 that all these  senses  are duplicate forces, and that
 the  ganglia of the  two  eyes  are  similar and  not 
56
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
alike.   If they were exactly alike, one eye would be
equal to two, but the difference  in the two axes in
these ganglia gives a dual sight to perceive dual re-
lations in their contrasts and resemblances for  the
mind to contemplate.
    As the atoms make the mass, and  rotate,  the
mass, the body itself, is a dual  relation—one side
may be palsied and the other not.  The tongue  has
two halves, with their unequal  tastes, to bring un-
equal flavors to a standard of adjustment.
    Objects of vision have differing relations, which
the two eyes  adjust  to a  standard of observation.
Odors and sounds are governed by the same  rule, as
well as the expression of the face—the two sides of
which being unequal gives the  high standard  of
expression  by its symmetry, and the nearer from
symmetry they approximate to  equality the less
striking the face ; as the degrees  of deviation lessen
and lessen, the  nearer it approaches to vacuity.

                Sight and Touch.

   Touch distinguishes man from all other  beings.
In animals it is a sensation, in man  a  perception,
and its importance is only known when measured by
the perception of sight.   Of the five senses, only
two. touch  and sight, spread their sensations over 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
57
extension, and  the most constant relation  subsists
between the two, and  their relation is so  uniform
that whatever the one feels the other knows.   The
vast field over which the faculty of vision presides,
with  the precision  and permanence of its percep-
tions, leads us to believe that, notwithstanding the
wrong adjustment of the eye, nothing  material can
escape it.   But the presumption that  the  eye  sees
whatever is material fails  on testing it.  If a sub-
stance be placed at  a given distance from  the  eye,
and it should bear no analogy or resemblance to any
substance which has hitherto been embraced  by its
focal powers, what impression could the eye gain of
its material properties?  Clearly little  or nothing.
 Apart from its color and contour, nothing.  Submit
 it to the  sense  of  touch, with closed  eyes, and all
 its essential properties are  at once known and ap-
 preciated.  We forget, from habit, that our vision
 is corrected by the  sense of touch, and that our de-.
 sire to feel what we see is the impulse of a  detecting
 power to learn what a weaker power cannot give.
     The sense of touch  is designed for deliberate
 action.   The  fact  it examines, and the evidence it
 bears, is deliberately taken, weighing  its testimony
 in arithmetical progression, and in equal quantities,
 and when its proportions  are taken to  the two hemi-
 spheres of the  brain,  they form the basis  of the
 calculations of logic. 
5S
PROBLEM  OF LIFE.
INSANITY.
A SENSATIONAL, AND NOT  AN INTELLECTUAL DELU-
                     SION.

   Dr. Parigott says, under the head of insanity
in America, " it is a curious fact in human economy
that the weakest person, even among women, may
raise the moral and  muscular powers to such a de-
gree as to produce  incredible strength and effort ;
and it  is nothing but an indomitable will in  the
mind of the insane which  appears  to give  them
superhuman strength ;" and he  adds, " that it is
nothing but an indomitable will roused to its  high-
est tenacity, that prevents our  soldiers from know-
ing or  believing they can be  beaten."
    To comprehend  the condensed nervous power in
human life, we are not to measure it by the will of
the soldier in the full development of his muscular
force and in the spring resulting from victory, but
it must be measured in that unfortunate  class of
our patients who are  deranged, and whose muscles 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
59
are attenuated to threads by their sensational  de-
lusions.  Here the will of the insane,  unlike  the
will of the  soldier, presides  over  physical  emacia-
tion, and yet  unlike  the soldier, without physical
exhaustion.  It is  apparent in all mental aberra-
tions ;  if their mental agonies were  not delusions
they would soon die.   No natural sensations could
bear their  anxieties  and  sorrows for twenty-four
hours without physical exhaustion ; and  yet we  find
the tension of their nervous system capable at any
time and at any moment of condensing its force into
wasted muscles, giving  them  more power  to resist
all  control  by physical  means than they ever en-
joyed at the full standard of health, and the tense-
ness of their nervous  systems  may last  unimpaired
through weary days and sleepless nights, for months
and years without exhaustion.
     Tbe experience of our most distinguished phy-
 sicians at tbe head  of  the  charitable institutions,
 are led to regard this physical endurance of the in-
 sane mind  under their  protracted sufferings, to be
 the result of an " indomitable will."
     Here arises  a  grave question for medical prac-
 tice.  If the  antecedent circumstances determine
 the will, instead of the will  determining the circum-
 stances, the  practice must differ.   If  the  will de-
 termines the  circumstances it is a subject of mental 
60              PROBLEM OF LIFE.
discipline ; if the circumstances determine the will
it resolves itself into a question of medical skill.
    If  the  wrong sensations produced by  physical
disease be  righted, the will falls passively  into  its
own channel.
    The will is often mistaken for a motive power,
when it should be  regarded  only as the  rudder of
the ship of life.
    Every mind has its own method of analysis, the
analytic distinctions of  the insane are  as precise
and clear  when  reasoning from false premises, as
they were before, when reasoning upon sound ones ;
their sensations  are  all  wrong  ; when we lose our
points of compass we are for ever travelling in a
circle ; it is so with them, they are always travers-
ing one idea.
    When the  intellect loses the guiding power of
the will, it is incapable of analyzing the delusion,
the sensation produced  by a false object  being as
real to them as if the object itself were true.   But
when  the  executive force of the will is guided by
antecedent  sensations in  the  vigor of health, the
inferences drawn from the associations of sensations
in agreement are true.   On the contrary, when the
executive force of the will is guided by antecedent
sensations which are false, the intellect maybe liken-
ed to a ship in a storm with no  rudder to guide it. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
61
    There is a passive as well as an active insanity,
both  of  which depend on the conditions  of  the
organs in the variation  of  their morbid sensibilities
from the standard of health.   The reasoning power
of the insane loses none of its analytical distinctions
when reasoning from false  premises.
    The  stock which the memory of touch has  laid
by is  there, but its present faculty finds no  proper-
ties in bodies to correct  its  aberrations.  If the
present sensations of the  moment are forgotten in
the memory of sensations  that are  passed,  the in-
tellect has the guiding power of the will, and the
mind for the  time  being is adjusted to its normal
standard, and  the history of past  events  are often
related with the  precision  and clearness  of the writ-
ten record of a daily journal, but when absorbed in
these diseased sensations despair renders them stolid-
ly indifferent to every sympathy. The eye sees in the
tender emotions  of  a  mother,  the expression of de-
sign  ; best friends are regarded as enemies ; poverty
stalks abroad in  the footsteps of wealth  and plenty ;
and ruin casts its dark mantle upon every possession.
The  rich  carpet looks like  a  soiled blanket, and
every footstep on it is the approach of a bandit.
The  morning air  smells of sulphur,  the  spring
breezes  are poisonous, the  new-laid egg tastes of
decay, the sweetest butter rancid, the tender steak 
62
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
foul, best  bread disgusting, and the richest cream
putrid.  Estranged from the Creator, and  life  pro-
longed for the purpose  of perpetuating  suffering
and  avenging crimes which a diseased  imagination
has engendered.

        The Constructing power of Atoms.

   The invisible  augles within a drop of water be-
come visible intheir constructing forces when thrown
on a plate of glass at zero, where they first crystal-
lize in the form of a little  star.   This stellar figure
first  throws out  rays of crystals  from its  centre,
and  branches of rays, all making  angles of 60 with
each other,  and as one, two or three separate  crys-
tals start up within the sphere of the stellar centre,
in the act of crystallizing, they are  free  to move,
and  the outer poles are seen to be attracted  inward
(inverse force)  toward the  sphere of the stellar cen-
tre of  repulsion, and all  will then be  found in the
same plane  at the angular points of  an equilateral
triangle, since  each must  be at the  same distance
from each of the others.   As  a fourth crystal ap-
proaches in the same manner, it will arrange itself
at an equal distance from each of the other three, at
the apex of  a triangular pyramid of equal  and exact
forces.  In  this order of crystallization geometrical 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
63
forms are the necessary results of the electro-mag-
netic force acting on a drop of water, and its invisi-
ble angles are rendered visible by simply altering its
temperature in the process of refrigeration.
    As water changes from its fluid  state into crys-
tals, by  congelation,  the forms are determined by
angles of 60, but as  no two spheroids  of water,
like two leaves on  the  same tree, are exactly alike,
every  spheroid crystalizes into  new forms, until
every  variety of known forms pass into the  un-
known.
    This  rule of action in tbe formation of snow
flakes  by congelation and of crystals in differing
temperatures, is the guiding rule of action for the
formation of every atom of matter in the physical
world, whether it be  organic or  inorganic, as they
                                             O H
are both organized by the same binary power, -1/.

    In this pre-arranged form of the invisible angles
of oxygen, it comes to be the archetype  of matter
and the moulding element of life  and motion in all
things ; and while it remains itself an  unchanging
pov/er by uniting with the disaggregating forces of
carbon and  the recombining forces of hydrogen, it
imparts changing  relations to these  positive forces
in organic  life, and  in regulating the  velocity of
revolutions  in the rotary atoms of inorganic mat-
             6 
64
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
 ter tbey maintain the  motions in every planet at
 that point of equilibrium where the specific gravity
 in each and every one is lost in their  several rates
 of motion.


   Atoms unite with Atoms by changing centres.

    Having established  the  compound  nature  of
 forces and the binary forms in matter, we are in-
 troduced to the interchange of  relations among the
 atoms of matter in themselves, or in other words, we
 are reduced to  the question,  by what means  do
 atoms  unite with atoms ?   If  Sir Isaac Newton's
 theory  of attraction  was  true, all atoms would
 be reduced to simple bodies ; the force being in the
 wrong  direction  for  its affinities,  no  reproduction
 could ensue. If the force in all  atoms be centrifugal
 and unite by mutual affinities,  it does not  explain
 the process of the interchange of relations ; if we say
 by an exchange of equivalents, it does not  disclose
 the method of adjustment.   But as the combining
proportions in all atoms  of matter which unite with
each other are represented  by numbers, the follow-
ing diagram may explain the process by showing the
binary combination of numbers in their own rela-
tions ? 
PROBLEM OF  LIFE.
65
2 is a binary compound of 1 and 3, and 2 is the
centre of the circumference of its relations ; 3 is a
binary compound of 2 and 4, and 3 is the centre of
the circumference of its relations ; 4  is  a binary
compound  of  3  and 5, and 4 is  the centre of the
circumference  of its  relations,  and so onward to in-
finity.  Every figure, whatever may be its number,
is a binary compound of two  other numbers, and
the central number is always the centre of the cir-
cumference of its changing relations.
    Any number may represent an atom of matter
which is always a compound  of two  other atoms,
and this atom is the  centre of  the circumference of
its relations.   The atom thus complete in itself is
linked into the relations with  the next atom to the
limit  of its combinations by an undeviating rule,
while its centre is always changing with its change
of relations, and hence  it cannot  stop to make a
duplicate  by reason  of the constant change in its
centre, and every new centre is a new base for new
combinations  in matter.  The velocity of thought
has to be measured by this process ; two thoughts
unite with each other by changing centres, and the 
66
PROBLEM  OF LIFE.
imagination, on the fleetest  steed known in nature,
is pouring in thoughts  as fast as the memory can
record them for future use.
    Thus  numbers  stand  in the same relation to
each other as the combining proportions and equiva-
lents  of the  substances they represent, and  the
problem of any one number ;  take for example the
number 2 ; simple as it first appears to  be, presents
combinations so general as to be co-extensive with
all nature.  At first it is difficult to  conceive  the
illimitable range of any single number, or that parts
of the number 2 form  the aggregate of the remotest
calculations  in algebra, just  as  the  first atom of
creation forms  a part of the pen with which I am
writing.
   Whatever is made up of  parts is made  up of
parts of those parts.  In tracing the relations  of tbe
number 2  with 1 and 3,  they obey the same rule as
is observed in the combining proportions in matter ;
no  beginning,  no  middle, no end, has ever been
known in atoms or numbers ; mark the numbers 1,
2, and 3 in their order of relations, and the number
2 is the centre of the circumference of its relations,
and proves to be a radiate of 1 and 3,  decreasing in
its deviations toward No. 1, and increasing  in its
degrees toward No. 2, so that its radiating range is
illimitable in both directions, as  the subdivision of 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
67
No. 1 cannot be reached, and the accumulations of
No. 3 never exhausted.


                    Radiates.

    It has been shown in organic life that the direct
force is T8/¥ to TVT, and the primary force is centri-
fugal.   This foundation being established, it follows
by an inherent necessity that every atom of matter
in the physical world  is a radiate.
    Pythagoras was  right when he held that num-
bers were the essences of things.  As they represent
the combinations  in the atoms of matter, they are
all radiates.   2 is a  radiate of 1 and  3, and 3 is  a
radiate of 2 and  4, and 4  is a  radiate  of 3 and 5,
and 5 is a radiate of 4 and 6, and so onward to in-
finity.   There is a distinguished Professor lecturing
in this country on natural science, whose alphabet
on radiates is a short lesson limited to the first four
primary developments of infusorial life ; from this
terminus the  order of  radiates is reversed, and each
classification terminates with itself, and  new series
are introduced until  his telescopic vision foresees
the different origins of the human race, and he then
sows the germinating  seed broadcast over tbe land.
When  he  learns  that every atom of matter in the
physical world works on a centrifugal centre, he will 
68
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
perceive that every atom is a radiate ;  and as the
atoms multiply and combine into living  structures,
limited only in the initial elements of their organi-
zations to orders and classes, he will find them all
radiates from the polyp up to man.
   It is the primary  proportions of the forces  in
matter which define  the orders, genera, and species,
and classify all the relations of organic life and those
of inorganic matter.  His four orders and four classes
transcend the primary  limits of adjustment in crea-
tion.  There are but  four  elements  out of which
matter is made, and they combine into three orders
and unite with each other in binary forms.   The
moment we  lose sight  of these geometrical propor-
tions, the mind  loses its anchorage, and the imagi-
nation, when left to itself, turns scavenger and in-
troduces  all sorts of material, unassorted, into the
mind, deceiving it by the sensations they produce.
Man, the monarch of matter, is the monarch of radi-
ates on the ascending scale of being : the propor-
tions of the primary elements in his initial structure
are only peculiar  to his race.   No  man lectures
more learnedly than  this Professor.   With his en-
thusiasm, clearness  of thought, and precision  of
style, he throws a halo of truth over his errors which
excites the same emotions in his  audience that it
does in himself.  His denial of spontaneous repro- 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
69
duction in infusorial life is obviously taken to rid
himself of the introduction of the human race on
the theatre of life by a single pair.
    He shies all development  and lends his ear to
metamorphosis, and his imagination, fired by this
casuist, sees in every new order of being, from the
polyp up to man, the special intervention of the
Creator to start a new career  of existence in every
new division of animal life.
    As the Professor's mind is  now adjusted, he can-
not alter  the direction given to human thought  by
previous inquirers—so true is it that the greatest
minds cannot  escape from the  atmosphere in which
they live.
    The faith of mankind has been led doubtingly,
yet believingly, for centuries  through the medium
of the imagination.
    It was the imagination which  shook the creeds
of primeval date ;  and, when philosophy arose,  it
was the legitimate function of the imagination to
explore the secrets of the human mind and lay the
foundation of Psychology.
    In all the  physical theories of the ancient phi-
losophers, imagination exceeded its first limits and
took the place of rigid observation.
    Plato  embellished  his philosophical  system  by
the popular creations  of his  imagination, and the 
70
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
Professor has  been reaping the harvest of his delu-
sions.
    If his imagination was restrained within the just
limits  of rigid investigation, the unruffled dignity
and repose of such a  mind, when  adjusted to its
logical relations, would command  the  respect and
homage of his hearers on the one hand, and enable
him to sow the  seeds of his  science broadcast over
the face  of society, which he now only delights.
    His imagination has painted on his mind four
classes of radiates, beginning with  the lowest, and
naming them on the ascending scale of their organi-
zations into polyps, acaleps, echinoderms, and sea-
urchins.   In the polyps the plan is executed in the
simplest  manner by a sac (cell), the sides of which
are folded inward, at regular intervals, from top to
bottom, so as to divide it by vertical radiating par-
titions converging  from the periphery toward the
centre.   " What faculty of the mind, except it be
the imagination, could conceive a radiate, the sides
of which are folded inward at regular intervals, and
all converging from the periphery  toward the cen-
tre ? "   This polyp must have been an unacknowl-
edged  foundling, to radiate in the  wrong direction
from its circumference to its centre.
    A radiate, to maintain its character as a radiate,
should have its starting-point from its centre, with 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
71
radiating partitions from a central cell, the sides of
which are folded  inward, and then converging from
the periphery toward its  centre, and  the  atomic
forces would then be repelled directly  as  the mass,
and inversely attracted as the square of the distance,
and it would make  a regular polyp  under the guid-
ance of law.
    " In adding infusoria to radiates,"  the Professor
says, " Cuvier was false  to his own  principle of
founding  all  classification on  plan."   While the
Professor's plan is merely a hypothetical conception
founded in his imagination, that of Cuvier is founded
on a judgment ripened by experience  and common
sense.   He says that Cuvier was influenced in join-
ing infusoria to  radiates by the  seeming simplicity
of structure, and to  place them in the lowest di-
vision of the animal kingdom on that account.
    What else had  Cuvier, or what else has the Pro-
fessor, to guide him than simplicity of structure ?
    What new revelations of the atomic constitution
of the material world have since been made, on which
the Professor can found a plan  that was anything
but  gratuitous ?   He says even the simplicity was
only apparent, and at  certain  seasons of the  year
myriads of these animalculse may be seen in every
brook and roadside  pool.  They are like transparent
little globes without any special organization appar- 
72
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
ently, and were it  not that they are in constant
rotation, thus exhibiting a motion of their own, one
would  hardly expect that they were endowed with
life.  To the superficial observer they all look alike,
and  it is not strange that, before  they have been
more carefully investigated,  they should  have  been
associated together as the lowest division of the ani-
mal  kingdom, representing, as it were, a border-land
between animal and vegetable life.  But since the
modern improvements in the microscope, Ehren-
bergh,  the great  master in microscopic investiga-
tion, has shown that many of these globules have an
extraordinary complication  of structure.   Subse-
quent investigations have proved that they include
a great variety of beings, some of them belonging
to the  type of mollusks, others to the type of articu-
lates, while  many others are the  locomotive germs
of plants, and, so far from forming a class by them-
selves  as a distinct  group of the  animal kingdom,
they seem to comprise representatives of all types
except vertebrates,  and  to  belong  in part to the
vegetable kingdom.
    This quotation proves too much for the  Pro-
fessor's plan of distinct groups in the animal king-
dom from the polyp up to man.
    Acknowledging the unity of  elements, and  af-
firming that they represent all types except verte- 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
73
brates, while some of them belong in part to the
vegetable kingdom, proves Cuvier to have been right
when he placed  them in tbe lowest order of animal
life.   All physical  organizations born of  the  same
elements exhibit these differences in the ratio of
their primary proportions, and  are distinguishable
from each  other by the fractional shares of  these
elements which enter into their initial structures.
Granting the elements  to be one in  essence,  every
degree of divergence in organic life makes a differ-
ence in the form, and is measured by every degree
of deviation in  the  relative proportions of the ele-
ments that enter into the masses.
    Whatever of debasement or  degradation may
take place  in these changing relations with equiva-
lents, it is  to be remembered that equivalents  are
similar,  but not  alike, and if the likeness is not pre-
served, it may appear as a deformity when its spe-
cific value is the same.
    Taylor says, " If among the races of the human
family we were  to take the most  extreme cases of
intellectual and moral dissimilarity, such as that of
the  modern European and the  Papuan or the Bos-
 jesman, it  would not be necessary to travel a mile
from our firesides to find individual  contrasts fully
as great.  Nay, is it not so that, sitting around the
same table, the types intellectual and moral of  the 
74
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
Greek and of the Barbarian,  of the  Scythian and
of the African may be pointed to ?  Certainly it is
so in any place wherein are assembled as many as a
hundred persons who are cousins  and townsmen."
Whether we take our examples from  continents or
from  cities, or from near neighborhoods, we shall
find it difficult, or we may find  it  impracticable to
substitute any hypothesis of classification ; that is to
say, we shall not be able to circumscribe any number
of individuals with constant lines, so as to distribute
them  into  any classes or species whatever.   Every
such conjectural classification will  be always break-
ing down under our hands and melting away, until
every aggregate has resolved  itself into the indi-
viduals which compose it.
    Hence there  is no  rule of reproduction and no
law to guide it without a special intervention.   The
primary elements of aquatic life are chiefly derived
from water, where oxygen, whose primary element is
life itself, plays its most conspicuous part in rotating
myriads of spheroids around their  common centres,
both within and without a drop of  water.  In shar-
ing its  bounty with  one sixteenth of  hydrogen, it
embraces  all cold-blooded  animals,  that abide in
waters, each and all of which are radiates. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
75
  A  SANE  MIND WORKING ON  ITS OWN CENTRE.

   In summing up the forces of organic life, the
end proves its beginning.
   It  started with these three vital forces, -1/-, ^f,
-t^-, and they were  condensed by means of electro-
agency into one current, rotating  organic forces  on
eccentric centres, until they finally reproduced three
focal centres in human life : the reproductive organs,
the  stomach,  and the brain,  each of which  has
different rates of motion.
   If the vital forces of the  reproductive organs be
elevated to their standard relations with the stomach
and the brain, we have in these three focal centres
the animus of the whole system.
   The stomach, with its  eccentric  axis and cen-
trifugal force in both directions, is a radiating cen-
tre to these two vital organs, receiving their  reflex
actions in  return, and  at  the  point  of equilibrium
the primary force  is  receiving as  many sensations
from its own satellites  as  it sends off from its own
centre, and thus these three focal centres of organic
life adjust  each other's relations,  when guarded by
the influence of abstemious  and  temperate  habits.
But here is the grand crisis in every one's character.
   In these three  relations there are two suggestive
organs, the one for the appetite  and the other for 
76
PROBLEM  OF LIFE.
the passions,* over which the logic of the brain must
preside, or debauching forces will ensue.  The central
force, \\, by habitual indulgence, renders the  cen-
tral organ  a slave to the appetite, and, by directly
disturbing  the  passions,  throws the  mind  off its
centre.  In this country more  than  in any other,
nitrogenized forces prevail.   Energy and  instability
are  the most  remarkable  traits  in  the  American
character,  and  in  the  superabundance  of  animal
food we are the most  nitrogenized  nation  on the
face of the earth.  The nitrogen  condensed in four
ounces of  animal food,  would charge  twelve ounces
of vegetable food above its  standard.
    It is the difference  of the juice of  the grape to
the wine it makes.   The poorest man who earns his

   * We have purposely refrained  from  introducing  secondary re-
lations until the primary forces were all  clearly  established, but
this ultimate development, if  unexplained, would be  received as a
foundling without parentage.
   It is well known to chemists  that phosphorus is a powerful
stimulant, and exists alone both in  the brain and ganglionic system,
in the form of an oleo-phosphoric acid, in a free state ; that it ex-
alts the power of the brain and the forces of the ganglionic centres,
and that the reproductive organs  in man are highly exalted by the
condensation of two per cent,  of this phosphuretted oil in the com-
position of his semen.
   When the phosphoric  acid is separated from its  compound  in
the general system, the ganglionic  centres,  having lost their normal
stimulus, rotate feebly. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
77
bread by daily labor, may have  his three meals of
animal  food three  times  a day  in  its most con-
densed form ;  and the crumbs of it which fall from
the  rich man's table,  energizes  the rebellion in
the kitchen below ;  and when this picture, painted
with his coarse materials, is reflected into his din-
ing-room above, where  are  turtle soup and tender
sirloins, with  mutton chops and veal cutlets with
gravies,  exhaling odors which  excite an appetite
already surfeited, be may see how the sensations in
the muscles of the pugilist,  by living exclusively on
animal food, trains his  passions for blood, and that
these same sensations may become disturbing forces
within his own domestic circle, generating, with his
own means, passions which he himself may be striv-
ing to subdue.  If the  refining  process of so much
condensed nitrogenized  food disturbs  the mind, how
is he to control the moral sense ?
    The higher the wages of his cook, the more he
demoralizes his family, and  the  evil  extends to his
dogs and horses.   An  excess of nitrogenized food
makes the one surly and bite, and the  other dan-
gerous beneath the saddle or in  harness.
    Nitrogen, when in excess, remains uncombined,
and is followed by physical, moral, and  mental in-
stability, and throws the mind off its centre.
    Unseen in its dark  channel, it differs from rum 
78
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
in its permanent work, the one commits crime by
impulse, the other deliberately.
    The Southern rebellion was nurtured on hog and
hominy, pork  and bacon, the most condensed form
of animal food.  To maintain physical,  moral, and
mental health, nitrogen must be graduated  to the
scale of physical exercise, then the stomach will be
light, the head clear and the passions  cool.   Stu-
dents and  men  of business, with active states of
brain, use up  their nitrogen as regularly as it is re-
duced by manual labor, while an active  brain with
anxiety reduces  the nitrogen more  rapidly by  an
active state of kidneys, with fre'quent  nicturition.
No  matter how  hard the  brain  works, if unat-
tended with anxiety it never kills.  If all the teach-
ings of all  the  divines in the country were con-
densed into one  sermon, and the proof sheets given
to every individual in  it, it would be casting pearls
before swine, if  it cannot be made  to be the inter-
est of every individual to take care  of  their  daily
habits of indulgence.   The task properly belongs to
the medical profession to take it up and with clear
heads and determined hearts become missionaries to
every family they prescribe for.
    It seems to me to be impossible for this Repub-
lic to remain so, with its present resources, without
the establishment  of abstemious habits. 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
79
   No monarchy  in Europe could withstand  the
nitrogenized forces generated by the wealth of the
United States.   Small centres  of circumference
will begin to resist municipal laws, and these small
centres will amalgamate, and the centre of the cir-
cumference be enlarged until it begets another re-
bellion.
    A kind Providence has given us  an  enormous
national debt to restrain our passions for the time
being, and in this  interim, if  the medical profes-
sion will  take it up and  enlighten the minds of
this nation  by showing them  the dangers of in-
dulgence, and teach every family they prescribe for
the value of abstemious habits for the regular main-
tenance  of their physical enjoyments, the  task of
self-government would be comparatively easy.
    But we must clear out our  own Augean stables
first, before  we can invite our  guests within them,
and then begin by showing them how  their  diseases
are  generated, and how they can be avoided ;  how
their minds are disturbed by physical sensations,
growing out of their physical indulgences, and how
fleeting, transitive, and unstable  are all their enjoy-
ments, when compared with one day of happiness
resulting from self-denial.  Teach them to eschew
tobacco, which  first lessens the action of the heart
 and prepares the way for rum, and rum for habitual 
80
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
indulgence.   But  the waste  of life, great and de-
moralizing as it is by indulgence in  these poisons,
do not compare with the unseen ravages by the ex-
cess of nitrogen uncombined in our  daily food.  It
only  combines when  its standard  relation is as
16 is  to 14.
   If my voice was not  feeble on tbe " Grampian
hills," I would shout its perturbations to the centre
of the earth. 
PROBLEM 6F LIFE.              81
PROBLEM OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM.
               INORGANIC FORCES,

Or rather insensate forces, are measured by 77-^y
of direct force to T^-g- of inverse relations.
    In surveying our position, it is obvious that we
have  been demonstrating forces backward, and in
our retrograde pilgrimage have reached that grand
crisis in the world's history where the  central force
in man was first  introduced, and the antecedent
problem of creation stood in the binary forms of
O. H.   O. C.
l 6 fft 16
-y- XO -^ .
    The  problem  of  organic life  embraced  three
               O. H.  O. N. O. C.
primary forces, *£-, f£, V-> and tne specific  gravity
was  TVo to TVo;  and tne  direct  force tW-   Tne
problem  of inorganic forces embraces but  two bi-
           0. H. O. C.
nary forms \% -\% and the specific gravity is T3^ to
yfir.  If the specific gravity of oxygen be T%\ to -fifo
in organic life, and gives  for oxygen a force of TVfc
when the specific gravity of oxygen  in  inorganic 
82
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
matter gives -££$ to -y^-, what  will be the force of
oxygen here ?
    In organic life the specific gravity of T4^ to y2^-,
is  j-2^- direct weight in inorganic forces, -^ to -y^
gives direct weight of y^, hence the proportions as
toV : tA :•' t¥o 77-T2oV.   The  specific  gravity TVo
gives direct force yW specific gravity, y2^ gives  di-
rect force TI-ywq.
    The fraction  y5^ may give the disturbing force
discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, which he called per-
turbations,  a  deduction which he  drew  from the
supposed attraction  of gravitation among  the re-
mote bodies in space ; but this term would be in-
applicable to the variations of a 'centrifugal  force in
the interior constitution of the globe, where  oscilla-
tions  may accrue by  the  agency of an additional
force  of yW of centrifugal power not otherwise ac-
counted for.
    In organic life the resistance to the direct force
was yW  ; in inorganic matter  the resistance to the
direct force is only y^ :  the  resisting force being
just two-thirds less than that in organic life, brings
the direct force in both problems to an equal and
exact adjustment, and the great dynamic  force in
nature stands forth in all its magnitude and power.
    The more  oxygen is studied the more it appears
to be a  self-sustaining  power delegated  from on 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
83
high to  teach  the geometry of physical forces to
man.   If it  was translated into its generic  term,
oxygon, which  is a triangle with three acute angles,
and  three concentric  centres, it would enlarge the
dimensions of oxygen  gas from the narrow field of
its  operation,  where  it  is now only  generating
oxides and  acids,  into  the dominions of  science,
where  it controls the changing relations of  the uni-
verse by the  steadiness of its power.
    It  is the  great mechanico-vital  power in nature,
whose  permanent elasticity gives a force which  is
exactly equal in opposite directions with its positive
and negative force included within its own invisible
relations.
    The  source of all combustion, and yet incom-
bustible, with three affinities, it supplies the whole
physical, moral, and mental world with combustion,
enabling them to maintain changing  relations with
equivalents  in  perpetual  motion,  accommodating
itself  to  every change of relations, sometimes put-
ting  itself beneath its  affinities,  yet always con-
trolling   their  forces  without diminution or ex-
haustion.   In  the beginning  it  made hydrogen
its  lineal   descendant,  bestowing   upon   it  the
"waters  of  life freely," of which  it gave to man
 r8oP_. for  his organic  enterprises,  and,  by uniting
with  hydrogen  equal in  bulk to its own specific 
84
PROBLEM  OF LIFE.
gravity,  has  made  hydrogen  a positive  force in
matter.
    Thus, by degrees, the weakest power in nature
has grown from small dimensions which are sub-
lime in  their vastness, and  now it  controls in its
own right  four-fifths of  the  physical power of the
globe.
    In  their  duplicate relations  they  made water
a spheroid, the mould and starting  point  of every
form of  matter known  to  man, and the  direct
cause of  curvilinear lines in motion ; oxygen makes
the angles, and with hydrogen the curvilinear lines,
and within these  invisible relations  lie concealed
electricity, the  refractor  and  reflector of light, and
the base  and balancing  power of all the forces in
nature.  Here  we have  the primary force which
reflects the light in darkness.
    Thus it is seen that the spheroid, which is made
by the  union of oxygen and hydrogen, is the arche-
type of every form of matter, from  the crystal to
the plant, from the  plant  to the animal, from the
animal to man.  Every atom in his  composition is
spheroid, and it is this which gives him the art of
making  spheroids in  every  variety  and  form  of
arches  and crescents, and  every deviation  from
straight lines with his fingers ;  but it is beyond his
skill to make a perfect circle without an instrument 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
85
to guide it; there is no such form within him, and
he cannot give what he  does not possess,  without
the aid of art.
    When he loses his  points of compass his sphe-
roidal form defines his own orbit by his own magni-
tude, like that of a planet, and he traverses his
spheroid until some fixed  point  changes his centre
and guides him  into  a  straight line.   The same
dynamic force  which made him a spheroid, made
the globe spheroidal before him, and the matter in
both is geometrically arranged in similar spheroidal
forms.  Water was the first binary compound which
announced the beginning of the world, when " dark-
ness  was  on  the face  of the  deep," and all the
waters  of the  globe are found,  by analysis, to hold
in solution some or all of the mineral bodies which
constitute the  structure of the globe.   Dalton found
one part of common salt in rain-water, at Manches-
ter, in  England, and Brand found  in rain-water,  in
the interior of Germany, common  salt, salt of am-
monia, chlorate  of  potash,  sulphate of magnesia,
carbonate of magnesia,  sulphate of lime,  oxide of
iron ; the chief of these  being the constituent ele-
ments of sea-water, brings incredulity to a stand on
the subject of the formation of  the globe.  The sea
is  a laboratory, with its electro-magnetic  engine
 disaggregating the molecules of sea-water and ren- 
86
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
dering their tributary elements to the formation of
dry land.   The  first process was the  formation of
crystals in  the  form of rock-salt  and  amorphous
crystals for sea-shells, and shell-fish, and calcareous
deposits, that the dry land may appear.  All bodies
passing from a fluid to a solid  state tend toward a
regular geometrical arrangement of their atoms into
crystals by a given rule.  If the fluid be at rest, the
axis of the  crystal will be at right angles to the
surface of condensation,  forming radii with their
bases in the  circumference, and thus the deposit
and growth of matter in the centre of the earth is a
solid  masonry of  rocks and crystals  geometrically
arranged,  both axially and equatorially, in the form
of brace-work  for  the  construction of the  globe.
The physical discoveries of Professor Faraday led him
to distribute all material  substances in  nature  into
two great classes, one of which  is  repelled by the
poles of the magnet,  so  that they are placed by
this force equatorially in  the line of the poles, while
the remaining class, being attracted by the poles of
the  magnet, arrange themselves axially or centri-
fugally in the line of the poles.
    From this physical arrangement of the electro-
magnetic force,  the one axial  and  the other equa-
torial, the earth is driven  by one  and  the same
force  on  its eccentric  axis  in a twofold  (rifle) 
PROBLEM OF LIFE
87
motion, and the direct  force of 77^^ impels  the
mass  by rotating  the atoms within  the  mass, the
motion of the whole being the sum of all its parts.
    The  reader  has not  traversed the massing of
matter thus  far   without   gathering  impressions
hinted at by all things  and assumed by none, that
the construction of matter from a primary spheroid
is in centres of  circumference, with angles of defi-
nite relations in the forms of brace-work.
    The little star of hoar-frost on a pane of glass,
which hastens  to cover up its  footsteps with a
polished glade of  ice, stands in  the angles of defi-
nite relations as the prototype of the brace-work of
creation.   The  axial and  equatorial arrangements
in the interior  constitution of this globe, is a  sys-
tem of brace-work in this type of hoar-frost.
    It is the rule of formation in  every atom of in-
organic matter, that the  centre of its circumference
is in  angles  of definite  relations in the form of
brace-work, and  this rule  of action is carried for-
ward  in  the ascending scale of being up to man.
Every angle, in whatever form it may be drawn, is
 a brace ; every deviation from a straight line must
be met with a corresponding deviation in the shape
 of a brace  ; and every angle in science is exhausted
 in (cos-micros)  the little world of human life.
    All forces are invisible till  they unite  to  form 
88
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
matter, and the invisible  angles of these forces are
the moulds  of the visible  forms of matter of which
the globe is made.  The dry land now on the sur-
face of the continents, was once  submerged within
the ocean, and  the mountains now visible  are ex-
amples of the brace-work of the globe within it.
    The ocean, at its birth, was not the ocean it is
now ; its dimensions were less, from  its compactness
of form.  As the lower and interior strata of earth
and rocks  and  crystals were  laying axially and
equatorially the foundation brace-work of the globe,
the spaces among the atoms of matter were cor-
respondingly enlarged  till  they came to where we
are now searching for the geological periods of its
ancient history.   The ocean and  the  earth  have
since grown up  together,  burying the stone effigies
of their dead march as they came along, until they
have reached their present form and magnitude by
feeding on the air.
    The air is the earth's foster-mother, from which
it derives its chief support.
    Its rich  clothing of vegetable life, and  the ma-
terial  substances  of  all  decomposing  trees  and
forests, with- the exception of the  ashes which
remain after they are burned, are derived from the
atmosphere, and all these changing relations in the
growth of matter are derived  from the seas and 
PROBLEM  OF LIFE.
89
oceans,  whose dimensions lessen as the dry  land
appears, and the spaces among the coarser mate-
rials than  those  of water, with the elevation  of
mountain lines, may make the difference in  the
diameter of the globe without  altering  its specific
gravity.  In exchange for this wealth of vegetable
life, the payment is made in the elements of death.
The carbonic acid which is exhaled, is taken up by
the air, and wings its  way  east and  west, north
and  south, making the tour  of the globe.   The
date trees which  grow round the  fountains of the
Nile drink  it in by their leaves ; the cedars of Le-
banon take it up  to add to their stature ; the cocoa-
nuts of Tahiti  ripen  upon it, and  the  palms and
bananas of  Japan change it  into flowers;  and
these perpetually dying and  decomposing bodies
add their annual deposit to the growth of the earth ;
and when countless ages have  been given to the
lease of its activity, gathering  to itself new circles
of matter from year to year, centuries multiplied by
centuries will be the sum of its growth.

                   Its Motion.
    The  force which  made  the earth  endowed it
with motion, and defining its own orbit  by its own
magnitude, it was instantly on its track with every
other satellite  which  formed the circumference of 
90
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
the sun's centre at the same instant of time.  All
things, both in  and on it, are in process of change,
except its motion.
    The  electro-magnetic force  generates  no more
matter than it can maintain in motion, and the
changes in the masses  of matter by growth cannot
accelerate or retard the rate of motion.  The atoms
on  the surface  increase  in  velocity in  the ratio of
the increased diameter of the mass, while the revo-
lution on its axis is the same  as it was in the be-
ginning.

            Spontaneous Generation

Is the rule of  action under the general law  of
changing relations  with  equivalents, where  atoms
unite with  atoms by changing  centres.   Inorganic
forces  have  no  organs  of  reproduction, yet  by
changing relations with equivalents, they gain new
centres, and reproduce  new  forms of matter, mak-
ing no two  things alike.
   In the process of congelation electro-magnetism
changes the angles of the  molecules of water into
snow-flakes and crystals, with  new centres, and
turning out  no two forms  alike,  it  is  nothing
more than the spontaneous generation of new forms
of matter, with no organs of reproduction. 
                PROBLEM OF LIFE.               91

   Nitrogen, so nearly allied  to  oxygen in specific
gravity, stands next to it in vital  economy, in the
physical construction of organic  life of the highest
order.  Where is the link in the chain of relations
missing, which disables these  two vital forces from
generating the lowest forms of infusorial life with-
out organs of reproduction ?  The first two forces of
oxygen and hydrogen complete their record of repro-
duction under the rule of inorganic matter, and the
other fulfils the law under the rule of organic life.
If the law holds good with oxygen  and hydrogen in
the development of snow-flakes and crystals, where
no organs of reproduction are  needed, none can be
required with  oxygen and nitrogen in the develop-
ment  of  infusorial  life,  as  the primary  force in
organic life  lies back of reproduction,  in like man-
ner  as vegetable life lies back  of the  reproduction
of its seed.


          Summary of Inorganic Forces.

    In this significant little globe of ours are found
                               O. H.     O. C.
the elements of all the forces in i£ and ^ tnat are
needed to make up the matter of the  solar system.
This little planet shares with every other  satellite
the  privilege  of its  own  orbit, and in  it  is found 
92
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
the motive  force which  makes and maintains  its
curvilinear lines of motion, and the rule by which
atoms unite with atoms by changing centres—prop-
erties which are  common to  all the satellites  of
the solar system, and the  sun itself could hold no
binding relation to its  satellites unless its affinities
were common to them all.
    How many  series  of  centuries the  sun was
shedding its rays  upon  the silent faces of its own
satellites before the disturbing forces of  man were
introduced, with the element of nitrogen added to
his primitive  relations,  their  own  geological his-
tories must determine.
    If the bounties shed  upon our planet are com-
mon to all, the assumption may be indulged  in,
that nitrogen was  a  component element  in the
atmosphere  of every planet at the beginning, and
that a  like organic  intelligence was enjoying the
fruits of it, at a subsequent  period, on  a scale of
magnitude proportioned to the  larger  sphere  of
their orbits.
  * In this essay I have aimed more at condensa-
tion than continuity of thought, as I have had but
eight  weeks  to devote  to  it.  In demonstrating 
PROBLEM OF LIFE.
93
forces backward, it is impossible  to group them in
the order of their relations ;  and a summary of the
mass, by  reversing  the  demonstrations, beginning
with one law and one force, which makes eccentric
atoms, under the rule of changing centres,  and so
onward, will simplify the whole and make it intel-
ligible. 
 
*. 
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