: Science and the Infinite; or Through a Window in the Blank Wall by Klein Sydney T Sydney Turner - Religion and science

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I have referred above to the sense of touch; it is, I think, clear that the first impression a child can have of sight must take the form of feeling the image on its retina, as though the object were actually inside the head, and it could have no idea that it was outside until, by touching with the hand, it would gradually learn by experience that the tangible outside object corresponded with the image located in the head; this is fully borne out by the testimony of men who, born blind, have, by an operation, received their sight late in life; in each case their first experience of seeing gave the impression that the object was touching the eye, and they were quite unable to recognise by sight an object such as a cup or plate or a round ball which they had commonly handled and knew perfectly well by touch; in fact, the idea of an object formed by the sense of touch is so absolutely different to that formed by the sense of sight that it would be impossible without past experience to conclude that the two sensations referred to one and the same object. The image formed on the retina has nothing in common with the sense of hardness, coldness, and weight experienced by touch, the only impression on the retina being that of colour or shade, and an outline; it is, however, hardly conceivable that even the outline of form would be recognised by the eye until touch had proved that form comprised also solidity and that the two ideas had certain motions in common both in duration in Time and extension in Space.

Again, our senses of sight and hearing are alike based on the appreciation of frequencies of different rapidity; brightness and colour in light are equivalent to loudness and pitch in sound, but in sound we have no equivalent to perception of form or situation in space; it gives us no knowledge of the existence of objects when situated at great distances, nor can movements be followed even at short distances without having material contact, by means of the air, with the object; sight indeed appears to have to do with Space- and sound with Time-perception. In examining Nature by means of our senses we find we are so hemmed in by what we have always taken for granted and so bound down by modes of reasoning derived from what we have seen, heard, or felt in our daily life, that we are sadly hampered in our search after the truth. It is difficult to sweep the erroneous concepts aside and make a fresh start. In fact the great difficulty in studying the Reality underlying Nature is analogous to our inability to isolate and study the different sounds themselves which fall upon the ear, if our own language is being uttered, without being forced to consider the meaning we have always attached to those sounds.

Let us now go back to the contention that it is not we who are looking out upon Nature but that our senses are being bombarded from without; we are living in a world of continuous and multitudinous changes, and as our senses require change or motion for their excitation, without those changes we could have no cognisance of our surroundings, we should have no consciousness of living; but if we base our thought entirely on sense perception, taking for granted that Time and Space have reality instead of recognising that they are only modes or limits under which those senses act, the Wall will ever remain opaque to us. Let us try and make this clearer. If we analyse the impression we receive from Motion, we find it is made up of the product of our two limitations, it is the time that an object takes to go over a certain space. We must come therefore to the conclusion also that Motion itself has no existence in reality apart from our senses. The result of not being able to appreciate this, is that the finiteness of our sense, caused by its dependence on Motion for excitation, surrounds us with illusions; one of these illusions is what we call solidity or continuity of sensation. If you hold a cannon-ball in your hand, perception by the sense of touch tells you that it is continuous, or what is called solid and hard; but it is not so in reality except as a concept limited by our finite senses. A fair analogy would be to liken it to a swarm of bees, for we know that it is composed of an immense number of independent atoms or molecules which are darting about, and circling round each other at an enormous speed but never touching; they are also pulsating at a definite enormous rate; we can at will increase their motion by heat or reduce by cold; if our touch perception were sensitive enough we should feel those motions and should not have the sensation of a solid. We have a similar case of limitation in our other senses, which we shall grasp better in another View through our Window. We can hear beats only up to fifteen in a second, beyond that number they give the sensation of a musical or continuous sound. In our sense of sight we can see pulsations or intermittent flashes up to only six in a second, beyond that number they give the sensation of a continuous light; a gas jet, if extinguished and relit six times in a second, can be seen to flicker, but beyond that rate is to our sense of sight a steady flame. The effect may also be shown by making the top of a match red-hot; when stationary or moving slowly, it is a point of light, but, moved quickly, it becomes a continuous line of light.

Even apart from our senses we find Motion giving the characteristics of solidity: a wheel with only a few spokes, if rotated quickly enough, becomes quite impermeable to any substance, however small, thrown at it; a thin jet of water only half an inch in diameter, if discharged at great pressure equivalent to a column of water of 500 metres, cannot be cut even with an axe, it resists as though it were made of the hardest steel; a thin cord, hanging from a vertical axis, and being revolved very quickly, becomes rigid, and if struck with a hammer it resists and resounds like a rod of wood; a thin chain and even a loop of string, if revolved at great speed over a vertical pulley, becomes rigid and, if allowed to escape from the pulley, will run along the ground as a hoop.

If, on the other hand, our perception were decreased below six times per second, all motion would be accelerated, until with perception reduced to one unit in twenty-four hours the sun would appear only as a band across the sky, and we could not follow its motion any more than, as we have seen, we could follow the point of a red-hot match. If perception were reduced far enough, plants and trees would grow up visibly before our eyes. But we must leave this subject now, as this and the Time Microscope will be treated in a later View.

If at this moment we and all our surroundings were reduced to half their size and everything were moving twice as quickly, we should absolutely have no cognisance of any change, neither could we possibly note any difference if everything were reduced to a hundredth part of the original size and were going a hundred times quicker; and even when reduced a thousand or a million times, or to such minuteness that the whole of our solar system with its revolving planets became no larger than one of those atoms in the needle point, and the whole of the starry universe therefore reduced to the size of the needle point, its millions of suns coinciding with the millions of planetary systems in that steel particle--our earth would still revolve round the sun, though no larger than one of those minute planetary particles and travelling at the rate of light, but we should still have no knowledge of any change, in fact, our life would go on as usual, though it was difficult a few minutes ago to think it conceivable that so small a globe could be inhabited by sentient beings.

It is from this store of knowledge that our Physical Ego is ever trying to win fresh forms of thought, and, in response to our persistent endeavours, that Inner-self, from time to time, buds out a new thought; the Physical Ego has already prepared the clothing with which that bud must be clad before it can come into conscious thought, because, as Max M?ller has shown us, we have to form words before we can think; so does the Physical Ego clothe that ethereal thought in physical language, and by means of its organ of speech it sends that thought forth into the air in the form of hundreds of thousands of vibrations of different shapes and sizes, some large, some small, some quick, some slow, travelling in all directions and filling the surrounding space; there is nothing in those vibrations but physical movement, but each separate movement is an integral part or thread of that clothing. Another Physical Ego receives these multitudinous vibrations by means of its sense organ, weaves them together into the same physical garment, and actually becomes possessed of that ethereal thought--an unexplained marvel, and probably the most wonderful occurrence in our daily existence, especially as it often enables the second Physical Ego to gain fresh knowledge from its own Real Personality. Now, in connection with this, consider the fact, already emphasized, that it is not we who are looking out upon Nature, but that it is the Reality which is ever trying to make itself known to us by bombarding our sense organs with the particular physical impulses to which those organs can respond, and, if we aspire to gain a knowledge of what is behind the physical, it is clear that all our endeavours must be towards weaving these impulses into garments and then learning from them the sublime Truths which the Reality is ever trying to divulge to us.

VIEW TWO

THE VISION

Let us go back into the far distant past, before the frame and brain of what we now call the genus Homo was fully developed: he was then an animal pure and simple, conscious of living but knowing neither good nor evil; there was nothing in his thoughts more perfect than himself; it was the golden age of innocency; he was a being enjoying himself in a perfect state of nature with absolute freedom from responsibility of action. But, as ages rolled on, under the great law of evolution, his brain was enlarging and gradually being prepared for a great and wonderful event, which was to make an enormous change in his mode of living and his outlook on the future. As seeds may fall continually for thousands of years upon hard rock without being able to germinate, until gradually, by the disintegration of the rock, soil is formed, enabling the seed at last to take root; so for countless ages was the mind of that noble animal being prepared until, in the fulfilment of time, the Spiritual took root and he became a living soul. The change was marvellous; he was now aware of something higher and more perfect than himself, he found that he was able to form ideals above his ability to attain to, resulting in a sense of inferiority, akin to a "Fall"; he was conscious of the difference of Right and Wrong, and felt happy and blessed when he followed the Good, but ashamed and accursed when he chose the Evil; he became upright in stature, and able to communicate his thoughts and wishes to his fellows by means of language; and by feeling his freedom to choose between the Good, Beautiful, and True on one hand, and the Evil, Ugly, and False on the other, he became aware that he was responsible and answerable to a mysterious higher Being for his actions. This at once raised him far above other animals, and he gradually began to feel the presence within him of a wonderful power, the nucleus of that Transcendental Self which had taken root, and which, from that age to this, has urged Man ever forward first to form, and then struggle to attain, higher Ideals of Perfection. As a mountaineer who, with stern persistence, struggles upward from height to height, gaining at each step a clearer and broader view, so do we, as we progress in our struggle upwards, toward the understanding of Perfection, ever see more and more clearly that the Invisible is the Real, that the visible is only its shadow, that our Spiritual Personality is akin to that Great Reality, that we cannot search out and know that Personality; it is not an idea, it cannot be perceived by our senses, any more than we can see a sound by our sense of sight or measure an Infinity by our finite units; all we can so far do is to feel and mark its effect in guiding our Physical Ego to choose the real from the shadow, the plus from the minus, receiving back in some marvellous mode of reflex action the power to draw further nourishment from the Infinite. As that Inner Personality becomes more and more firmly established, higher ideals and knowledge of the Reality bud out, and, as these require the clothing of finite expressions before they can become part of our consciousness, so are they clothed by our Physical Ego and become forms of thought; and, although the Physical Ego is only the shadow or image, projected on the physical screen, of the Real Personality, we are able, by examining these emanations and marking their affinity to the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, to attain at times to more than transient glimpses of the loveliness of that which is behind the veil. As in a river flowing down to the sea, a small eddy, however small, once started with power to increase, may, if it continues in midstream, instead of getting entangled with the weeds and pebbles near the bank, gather to itself so large a volume of water, that, when it reaches the sea, it has become a great independent force; so is each of us endowed, as we come into this life, with a spark of the Great Reality, with potential force to draw from the Infinite in proportion to our conscientious endeavours to keep ourselves free from the deadening effects of mundane frivolities and enticements, turning our faces ever towards the light rather than to the shadow, until our personality becomes a permanent entity, commanding an individual existence when the physical clothing of this life is worn out, and for us all shadows disappear.

If man became a conscious being on some such analogous lines as indicated, it is clear that he is, as it were, the offspring of two distinct natures, and subject to two widely separated influences; the Spiritual ever urging him towards improvement in the direction of the Real or Perfect, and the Physical or Animal instincts inviting him in the opposite direction. These latter instincts are not wrong in themselves, in a purely animal nature, but are made manifest as urging him in the direction of the shadow or Imperfect when they come in contact, and therefore in competition, with the Spiritual. Neither the Spiritual nor the Physical can be said to possess Free-will; they must work in opposite directions, but this competition for influence over our actions provides the basis for the exercise of man's Free-will--the choice between progression and stagnation. The Spiritual influence must conquer in the long run, as every step under that influence is a step towards the Real and can never be lost; the apparent steps in the other direction are only negative or retarding, and can have no real existence, except as a drag on the wheel which is always moving in the direction of Perfection, thus hindering the process of growth of the Personality.

The stages in development of the Physical Ego and its final absorption in the Transcendental may perhaps be stated as follows--

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