The Poetry of Science; or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of Nature — Background and Themes

ENERAL CONDITIONS OF MATTER.

Its varied Characters, and constant change of external Form--The Grain of Dust, its Properties and Powers--Combinations in inorganic Masses and in organized Creations--Our knowledge of Matter--Theory of Ultimate Atoms--The Physical Forces acting on the Composition of Masses--The certainty of the exercise of subtile principles, which are beyond the reach of experimental Science 1

Are the Physical Forces modes of Motion?--Motion defined--Philosophical Views of Motion, and the Principles to which it has been referred--Motions of the Earth and of the Solar System--Visible Proofs of the Earth’s Motion on its Axis--Influence of the proper Motions of the Earth on the Conditions of Matter--Theory of the Conversion of Motion into Heat, &c.--The Physical Forces regarded as principles independent of Motion, although the Cause and often apparently the Effects of it 7

The Forms of Matter--Shape of the Earth--Probability of the Mass forming this Planet having existed in a Nebulous State--Zodiacal Lights--Comets--Volatilization of Solid Matter by Artificial means--The principle of Gravitation--Its Influence through Space and within the smallest Limits--Gravitating powers of the Planets--Density of the Earth--Certainty of Newton’s Law of the Inverse Square--Discovery of Neptune--State of a Body relieved from Gravitation--Experiment explaining Saturn’s Ring, &c.--General inference 21

Conditions of Matter--Variety of organized Forms--Inorganic Forms--All matter reducible to the most simple conditions--Transmutation, a natural operation--Chemical Elementary Principles--Divisibility of Matter--Atom--Molecules--Particles--Molecular Force includes several Agencies--Instanced in the Action of Heat on Bodies--All Bodies porous--Solution--Mixture--Combination--Centres of Force--Different States of Matter (Allotropic Conditions)--Theories of Franklin, Æpinus, and Coulomb--Electrical and Magnetic Agencies--Ancient Notions--Cohesive Attraction, &c. 35

CRYSTALLOGENIC FORCES.

Crystallisation and Molecular Force distinguished--Experimental Proof--Polarity of Particles forming a Crystal--Difference between Organic and Inorganic Forms--Decomposition of Crystals in Nature--Substitution of Particles in Crystals--Pseudomorphism--Crystalline Form not dependent on Chemical Nature--Isomorphism--Dimorphism--Theories of Crystallogenic Attraction--Influence of Electricity and Magnetism--Phenomena during Crystallisation--Can a change of Form take place in Primitive Atoms?--Illustrative Example of Crystallisation 50

HEAT--SOLAR AND TERRESTRIAL.

Solar and Terrestrial Heat--Position of the Earth in the Solar System--Heat and Light associated in the Sunbeam--Transparency of Bodies to Heat--Heating Powers of the Coloured Rays of the Spectrum--Undulatory Theory--Conducting Property of the Earth’s Crust--Convection--Radiation--Action of the Atmosphere on Heat Rays--Peculiar Heat Rays--Absorption and Radiation of Heat by dissimilar Bodies--Changes in the Constitution of Solar Beam--Differences between Transmitted and Reflected Solar Heat--Phenomena of Dew--Action of Solar Heat of the Ocean--Circulation of Heat by the Atmosphere and the Ocean--Heat of the Earth--Mean Temperature--Central Heat--Constant Radiation of Heat Rays from all Bodies--Thermography--Action of Heat on Molecular Arrangements--Sources of Terrestrial Heat--Latent Heat of Bodies--Animal Heat--Eremacausis--Spheroidal State Cold--Condensation--Freezing--Theories of Heat--Natural Phenomena--and Philosophical Conclusion 62

Theories of the Nature of Light--Hypotheses of Newton and Huygens--Sources of Light--The Sun--Velocity of Light--Transparency--Dark Lines of the Spectrum--Absorption of Light--Colour--Prismatic Analysis--Rays of the Spectrum--Rainbow--Diffraction--Interference--Goethe’s Theory--Polarisation--Magnetisation of Light--Vision--The Eye--Analogy--Sound and Light--Influence of Light on Animals and Vegetables--Phosphorescence arising from several Causes--Artificial Light--Its Colour dependent on Matter 118

ACTINISM--CHEMICAL RADIATIONS.

The Sun-ray and its Powers--Darkening of Horn Silver--Niepce’s Discovery--Prismatic Spectrum--Refrangibility of Light, Heat, and Actinism--Daguerre’s Discovery--Photography--Chemical Effects produced by Solar Radiations--Absorption of Actinism--Phenomena of the Daguerreotype--Chemical Change produced upon all Bodies--Power of Matter to restore its Condition--Light protects from Chemical Change--Photographs taken in Darkness--Chemical Effects of Light on organized Forms--Chemical Effects of Solar Heat--Influence of Actinism on Electricity--Radiations in Darkness--Moser’s Discoveries, &c. 166

Discovery of Electrical Force--Diffused through all Matter--What is Electricity?--Theories--Frictional Electricity--Conducting Power of Bodies--Hypothesis of two Fluids--Electrical Images--Galvanic Electricity--Effects on Animals--Chemistry of Galvanic Battery--Electricity of a Drop of Water--Electro-chemical Action--Electrical Currents--Thermo-Electricity--Animal Electricity--Gymnotus--Torpedo--Atmospheric Electricity--Lightning Conductors--Earth’s Magnetism due to Electrical Currents--Influence on Vitality--Animal and Vegetable Development--Terrestrial Currents--Electricity of Mineral Veins--Electrotype--Influence of Heat, Light, and Actinism on Electrical Phenomena 193

Magnetic Iron--Knowledge of, by the Ancients--Artificial Magnets--Electro-Magnets--Electro-Magnetism--Magneto- Electricity--Theories of Magnetism--The Magnetic Power of soft Iron and Steel--Influence of Heat on Magnetism--Terrestrial Magnetism--Declination of the Compass-needle--Variation of the Earth’s Magnetism--Magnetic Poles--Hansteen’s Speculations--Monthly and Diurnal Variation--Dip and Intensity--Thermo-Magnetism--Aurora Borealis--Magnetic Storms--Magnetic conditions of Matter--Diamagnetism, &c. 235

Nature’s Chemistry--Changes produced by Chemical Combination--Atomic Constitution of Bodies--Laws of Combination--Combining Equivalents--Elective Affinity--Chemical Decomposition--Compound Character of Chemical Phenomena--Catalysis or action of Presence--Transformation of Organic Bodies--Organic Chemistry--Constancy of Combining Proportions--The Law of Volumes, the Law of Substitutions, Isomeric States, &c. 270

Water--Its Constituents--Oxygen--Hydrogen--Peroxide of Hydrogen--Physical Property of Water--Ice--Sea Water--Chlorine--Muriatic Acid--Iodine--Bromine--Compounds of Hydrogen with Carbon--Combustion--Flame--Safety Lamp--Respiration--Animal Heat--The Atmosphere--Carbonic Acid--Influence of Plants on the Air--Chemical Phenomena of Vegetation--Compounds of Nitrogen--Mineral Kingdom, &c. &c. 295

TIME.--GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENA.

Time, an element in Nature’s Operations--Geological Science--Its Facts and Inferences--Nebular Hypothesis applied--Primary Formations--Plutonic and Metamorphic Rocks--Transition Series--Palæozoic Rocks--Commencement of Organic Arrangements--Existence of Phosphoric Acid in Plutonic Rocks--Fossil Remains--Coal Formation--Sandstones--Tertiary Formations--Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene Formations--Progressive changes now apparent--General Conclusions--Physics applied in explanation 332

PHENOMENA OF VEGETABLE LIFE.

Psychology of Flowers--Progress of Matter towards Organization--Vital Force--Spontaneous Generation--The Vegetable Cell--Simplest Development of Organization--The Crystal and the Cell--Primitive Germ--Progress of Vegetation--Influence of Light--Morphology--Germination--Production of Woody Fibre--Leaves--Chlorophylle--Decomposition of Carbonic Acid--Influence of Light, Heat, and Actinism on the Phenomena of Vegetable Life--Flowers and Fruits--Etiolation--Changes in the Sun’s Rays with the Seasons--Distribution of Plants--Electrical and Combined Physical Powers 357

PHENOMENA OF ANIMAL LIFE.

Distinction between the Kingdoms of Nature--Progress of Animal Life--Sponges--Polypes--Infusoria--Animalcula--Phosphorescent Animals--Annelidans--Myriapoda--Animal Metamorphoses--Fishes--Birds--Mammalia--Nervous System--Animal Electricity--Chemical Influences--Influence of Light on Animal Life--Animal Heat--Mechanical Action--Nervous Excitement--Man and the Animal Races, &c. 383

The Changes produced on Physical Phenomena by the Movement of the Solar System considered--Exertion of the Physical Forces through the Celestial Spaces--The Balance of Powers--Varieties of Matter--Extension of Matter--Theory of Nonentity--A Material Creation an indisputable fact--Advantages of the Study of Science--Conclusion 403

The True is the Beautiful. Whenever this becomes evident to our senses, its influences are of a soul-elevating character. The beautiful, whether it is perceived in the external forms of matter, associated in the harmonies of light and colour, appreciated in the modulations of sweet sounds, or mingled with those influences which are, as the inner life of creation, ever appealing to the soul through the vesture which covers all things, is the natural theme of the poet, and the chosen study of the philosopher.

But, it will be asked, where is the relation between the stern labours of science and the ethereal system which constitutes poetry? The fumes of the laboratory, its alkalies and acids, the mechanical appliances of the observatory, its specula and its lenses, do not appear fitted for a place in the painted bowers of the Muses. But, from the labours of the chemist in his cell,--from the multitudinous observations of the astronomer on his tower,--spring truths which the philosopher employs to interpret nature’s mysteries, and which give to the soul of the poet those realities to which he aspires in his high imaginings.

Science solicits from the material world, by the persuasion of inductive search, a development of its elementary principles, and of the laws which these obey. Philosophy strives to apply the discovered facts to the great phenomena of being,--to deduce large generalities from the fragmentary discoveries of severe induction,--and thus to ascend from matter and its properties up to those impulses which stir the whole, floating, as it were, on the confines of sense, and indicating, though dimly, those superior powers which, more nearly related to infinity, mysteriously manifest themselves in the phenomena of mind. Poetry seizes the facts of the one and the theories of the other; unites them by a pleasing thought, which appeals for truth to the most unthinking soul, and leads the reflective intellect to higher and higher exercises; it connects common phenomena with exalted ideas; and, applying its holiest powers, it invests the human mind with the sovereign strength of the True.

Truth is the soul of the poet’s thought;--truth is the reward of the philosopher’s toil; and their works, bearing this stamp, live among men through all time. Science at present rejoices in her ministry to the requirements of advancing civilization, and is content to receive the reward given to applications which increase the comforts of life, or add to its luxuries. Every improvement in the arts or manufactures, beyond encreasing utilities for society, has a tendency to elevate the race. Science is ever useful in the working days of our week, but it is not to be neglected on our Sabbath,--when, resting from our labours, it becomes agreeable to contemplate the few truths permitted to our knowledge, and thus enter into communion as closely as is allowed to finite beings, with those influences which involve and interpenetrate the earth, giving to all things Life, Beauty, and Divinity.

The human mind naturally delights in the discovery of truth; and even when perverted by the constant operations of prevailing errors, a glimpse of the Real comes upon it like the smile of daylight to the sorrowing captive of some dark prison. The Psychean labours to try man’s soul, and exalt it, are the search for truth beneath the mysteries which surround creation,--to gather amaranths, shining with the hues of heaven, from plains upon which hang, dark and heavy, the mists of earth. The poet may pay the debt of nature,--the philosopher may return to the bosom of our common mother,--even their names fade in the passage of time, like planets blotted out of heaven but the truths they have revealed to man burn on for ever with unextinguishable brightness. Truth cannot die; it passes from mind to mind, imparting light in its progress, and constantly renewing its own brightness during its diffusion. The True is the Beautiful; and the truths revealed to the mind render us capable of perceiving new beauties on the earth. The gladness of truth is like the ringing voice of a joyous child, and the most remote recesses echo with the cheerful sound. To be for ever true is the Science of Poetry,--the revelation of truth is the Poetry of Science.

Man, a creation endued with mighty faculties, but a mystery to himself, stands in the midst of a wonderful world, and an infinite variety of phenomena arise around him in strange form and magical disposition, like the phantasma of a restless night.

The solid rock obeys a power which brings its congeries of atoms into a thousand shapes, each one geometrically perfect. Its vegetable covering, in obedience to some external excitation, developes itself in a curious diversity of forms, from the exquisitely graceful to the singularly grotesque, and exhibits properties still more varied and opposed. The animal organism quickened by higher impulses,--powers working within, and modifying the influence of the external forces,--presents, from the Monad to the Mammoth, and through every phase of being up to Man, a yet more wonderful series of combinations, and features still more strangely contrasted.

Lifting our searching gaze into the measureless space beyond our earth, we find planet bound to planet, and system chained to system, all impelled by a universal force to roll in regularity and order around a common centre. The pendulations of the remotest star are communicated through the unseen bond; and our rocking world obeys the mysterious impulse throughout all those forces which regulate the inorganic combinations of this earth, and unto which its organic creation is irresistibly compelled to bow.

The glorious sun by day, and the moon and stars in the silence and the mystery of night, are felt to influence all material nature, holding the great Earth bound in a many-stranded cord which cannot be broken. The tidal flow of the vast ocean, with its variety of animal and vegetable life, the atmosphere, bright with light, obscured by the storm-cloud, spanned by the rainbow, or rent with the explosions of electric fire,--attest to the might of these elementary bonds.

These are but a few of the great phenomena which play their part around this globe of ours, exciting men to wonder, or shaking them with terror.

The mind of man, in its progress towards its higher destiny, is tasked with the physical earth as a problem, which, within the limits of a life, it must struggle to solve. The intellectual spirit is capable of embracing all finite things. Man is gifted with powers for studying the entire circle of visible creation; and he is equal, under proper training, to the task of examining much of the secret machinery which stirs the whole.

In dim outshadowing, earth’s first poets, from the loveliness of external nature, evoked beautiful spiritualizations. To them the shady forests teemed with aërial beings,--the gushing springs rejoiced in fantastic sprites,--the leaping cataracts gleamed with translucent shades,--the cavernous hills were the abodes of genii,--and the earth-girdling ocean was guarded by mysterious forms. Such were the creations of the far-searching mind in its early consciousness of the existence of unseen powers. The philosopher picked out his way through the dark and labyrinthine path, between effects and causes, and slowly approaching towards the light, he gathered semblances of the great Reality, like a mirage, beautiful and truthful, although still but a cloud-reflection of the vast Unseen.

It is thus that the human mind advances from the Ideal to the Real, and that the poet becomes the philosopher, and the philosopher rises into the poet; but at the same time as we progress from fable to fact, much of the soul-sentiment which made the romantic holy, and gave a noble tone to every aspiration, is too frequently merged in a cheerless philosophy which clings to the earth, and reduces the mind to a mechanical condition, delighting in the accumulation of facts, regardless of the great laws by which these are regulated, and the harmony of all Telluric combinations secured. In science we find the elements of the most exalted poetry; and in the mysterious workings of the physical forces we discover connections with the illimitable world of thought,--in which mighty minds delight to try their powers,--as strangely complicated, and as marvellously ordered, as in the psychological phenomena which have, almost exclusively, been the objects of their studies.

In the aspect of visible nature, with its wonderful diversity of form and its charm of colour, we find the Beautiful; and in the operations of these principles, which are ever active in producing and maintaining the existing conditions of matter, we discover the Sublime.

The form and colour of a flower may excite our admiration; but when we come to examine all the phenomena which combine to produce that piece of symmetry and that lovely hue,--to learn the physiological arrangement of its structural parts,--the chemical actions by which its woody fibre and its juices are produced,--and to investigate those laws by which is regulated the power to throw back the white sunbeam from its surface in coloured rays,--our admiration passes to the higher feeling of deep astonishment at the perfection of the processes, and of reverence for their great Designer. There are, indeed, “tongues in trees;” but science alone can interpret their mysterious whispers, and in this consists its poetry.

To rest content with the bare enunciation of a truth, is to perform but one half of a task. As each atom of matter is involved in an atmosphere of properties and powers, which unites it to every mass of the universe, so each truth, however common it may be, is surrounded by impulses which, being awakened, pass from soul to soul like musical undulations, and which will be repeated through the echoes of space, and prolonged for all eternity.

The poetry which springs from the contemplation of the agencies which are actively employed in producing the transformation of matter, and which is founded upon the truths developed by the aids of science, should be in no respect inferior to that which has been inspired by the beauty of the individual forms of matter, and the pleasing character of their combinations.

The imaginative view of man and his world--the creations of the romantic mind--have been, and ever will be, dwelt on with a soul-absorbing passion. The mystery of our being, and the mystery of our ceasing to be, acting upon intelligences which are for ever striving to comprehend the enigma of themselves, leads by a natural process to a love for the Ideal. The discovery of those truths which advance the human mind towards that point of knowledge to which all its secret longings tend, should excite a higher feeling than any mere creation of the fancy, how beautiful soever it may be. The phenomena of Reality are more startling than the phantoms of the Ideal. Truth is stranger than fiction. Surely many of the discoveries of science which relate to the combinations of matter, and exhibit results which we could not by any previous efforts of reasoning dare to reckon on, results which show the admirable balance of the forces of nature, and the might of their uncontrolled power, exhibit to our senses subjects for contemplation truly poetic in their character.

We tremble when the thunder-cloud bursts in fury above our heads. The poet seizes on the terrors of the storm to add to the interest of his verse. Fancy paints a storm-king, and the genius of romance clothes his demons in lightnings, and they are heralded by thunders. These wild imaginings have been the delight of mankind; there is subject for wonder in them: but is there anything less wonderful in the well-authenticated fact, the dew-drop which glistens on the flower, that the tear which trembles on the eye-lid, holds locked in its transparent cells an amount of electric fire equal to that which is discharged during a storm from a thunder-cloud?

In these studies of the effects which are continually presenting themselves to the observing eye, and of the phenomena of causes, as far as they are revealed by Science in its search of the physical earth, it will be shown that beneath the beautiful vesture of the external world there exists, like its quickening soul, a pervading power, assuming the most varied aspects, giving to the whole its life and loveliness, and linking every portion of this material mass in a common bond with some great universal principle beyond our knowledge. Whether by the improvement of the powers of the human mind, man will ever be enabled to embrace within his knowledge the laws which regulate these remote principles, we are not sufficiently advanced in intelligence to determine. But if admitted even to a clear perception of the theoretical Power which we regard as regulating the known forces, we must still see an unknown agency beyond us, which can only be referred to the Creator’s will.

THE POETRY OF SCIENCE.

GENERAL CONDITIONS OF MATTER.

Its varied Characters, and constant change of external Form--The Grain of Dust, its Properties and Powers--Combinations in inorganic Masses and in organized Creations--Our knowledge of Matter--Theory of Ultimate Atoms--The Physical Forces acting on the Composition of Masses--The certainty of the exercise of subtile principles, which are beyond the reach of experimental Science.

The Physical Earth presents to us, in every form of organic and inorganic matter, an infinite variety of phenomena. If we select specimens of rocks, either crystalline or stratified,--of metals in any of their various combinations with oxygen, sulphur, and other bodies,--of gems glistening with light and glowing with colour,--if we examine the varied forms and hues of the vegetable world, or the more mysterious animal creations, we must inevitably come to the conclusion, long since proclaimed, and admit that dust they are, and to dust must they return. Whatever permanency may be given to matter, it is certain that its form is ever in a state of change. The surface of the “Eternal Hills” is worn away by the soft rains which fall to fertilize, and from their wrecks, borne by the waters to the ocean, new continents are forming. The mutations of the old earth may be read upon her rocks and mountains, and these records of former changes tell us the infallible truth, that as the present passes into the future, so will the form of Earth undergo an important alteration. The same forces which lifted the Andes and the Himalayas are still at work, and from the particles of matter carried from the present lands by the rivers into the sea, where they subside in stratified masses, there will, in the great future, be raised new worlds, upon which the work of life will go forward, and over which will be spread a vast Intelligence.

If we regard the conditions of the beautiful and varied organic covering of the Earth, the certainty, the constancy, of change is ever before us. Vegetable life passes into the animal form, and both perish to feed the future plant. Man, moving to-day the monarch of a mighty people, in a few years passes back to his primitive clod, and that combination of elementary atoms, which is dignified with the circle of sovereignty and the robe of purple, after a period may be sought for in the herbage of the fields, or in the humble flowers of the valley.