A Speculation As To A Prematerial Universe

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Title:     A Speculation As To A Prematerial Universe
Author: John Joly [More Titles by Joly]

"And therefore...these things likewise had a birth; for things which are of mortal body could not for an infinite time back... have been able to set at naught the puissant strength of immeasurable age."--LUCRETIUS, _De Rerum Natura._

"O fearful meditation! Where, alack! Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?" --SHAKESPEARE.

IN the material universe we find presented to our senses a physical development continually progressing, extending to all, even the most minute, material configurations. Some fundamental distinctions existing between this development as apparent in the organic and the inorganic systems of the present day are referred to elsewhere in this volume.[2] In the present essay, these systems as having a common origin and common ending, are merged in the same consideration as to the nature of the origin of material systems in general. This present essay is occupied by the consideration of the necessity of limiting material interactions in past time. The speculation originated in the difficulties which present themselves when we ascribe to these interactions infinite duration in the past. These difficulties first claim our consideration.

[1] Proc. Royal Dublin Soc., vol. vii., Part V, 1892.

[2] _The Abundance of Life._

Accepting the hypothesis of Kant and Laplace in its widest extension, we are referred to a primitive condition of wide material diffusion, and necessarily too of material instability. The hypothesis is, in fact, based upon this material instability. We may pursue the sequence of events assumed in this hypothesis into the future, and into the past.

In the future we find finality to progress clearly indicated. The hypothesis points to a time when there will be no more progressive change but a mere sequence of unfruitful events, such as the eternal uniform motion of a mass of matter no longer gaining or losing heat in an ether possessed of a uniform distribution of energy in all its parts. Or, again, if the ether absorb the energy of material motion, this vast and dark aggregation eternally poised and at rest within it. The action is transferred to the subtle parts of the ether which suffer none of the energy to degrade. This is, physically, a thinkable future. Our minds suggest no change, and demand none. More than this, change is unthinkable according to our present ideas of energy. Of progress there is an end.

This finality _a parte post_ is instructive. Abstract considerations, based on geometrical or analytical illustrations, question the finiteness of some physical developments. Thus our sun may require eternal time to attain the temperature of the ether around it, the approach to this condition being assumed to be asymptotic in character. But consider the legitimate _reductio ad absurdum_ of an ember raked from a fire 1000 years ago. Is it not yet cooled down to the constant temperature of its surroundings? And we may evidently increase the time a million-fold if we please. It appears as if we must regard eternity as outliving every progressive change, For there is no convergence or enfeeblement of time. The ever-flowing present moves no differently for the occurrence of the mightiest or the most insignificant events. And even if we say that time is only the attendant upon events, yet this attendant waits patiently for the end, however long deferred.

Does the essentially material hypothesis of Kant and Laplace account for an infinite past as thinkably as it accounts for the infinite future? As this hypothesis is based upon material instability the question resolves itself into this:-- Is the assumption of an infinitely prolonged past instability a probable or possible account of the past? There are, it appears to me, great difficulties involved in accepting the hypothesis of infinitely prolonged material instability. I will refer here to three principal objections. The first may be called a metaphysical objection; the second is partly metaphysical and partly physical, the third may be considered a physical objection, as it is involved directly in the phenomena presented by our universe.

The metaphysical objection must have presented itself to every one who has considered the question. It may be put thus:--If present events are merely one stage in an infinite progress, why is not the present stage long ago passed over? We are evidently at liberty to push back any stage of progress to as remote a period as we like by putting back first the one before this and next the stage preceding this, and so on, for, by hypothesis, there is no beginning to the progress.

Thus, the sum of passing events constituting the present universe should long ago have been accomplished and passed away. If we consider alternative hypotheses not involving this difficulty, we are at once struck by the fact that the future of material development is free of the objection. For the eternity of unprogressive events involved in the future on Kant's hypothesis, is not only thinkable, but any change is, as observed, irreconcilable with our ideas of energy. As in the future so in the past we look to a cessation to progress. But as we believe the activity of the present universe must in some form have existed all along, the only refuge in the past is to imagine an active but unprogressive eternity, the unprogressive activity at some period becoming a progressive activity--that progressive activity of which we are spectators. To the unprogressive activity there was no beginning; in fact, beginning is as unthinkable and uncalled for to the unprogressive activity of the past as ending is to the unprogressive activity of the future, when all developmental actions shall have ceased. There is no beginning or ending to the activity of the universe.

There is beginning and ending to present progressive activity. Looking through the realm of nature we seek beginning and ending, but "passing through nature to eternity" we find neither. Both are justified; the questioning of the ancient poet regarding the past, and of the modern regarding the future, quoted at the head of this essay.

The next objection, which is in part metaphysical, is founded on the difficulty of ascribing any ultimate reality or potency to forces diminishing through eternal time. Thus, against the assumption that our universe is the result of material aggregation progressing over eternal time, which involves the primitive infinite separation of the particles, we may ask, what force can have acted between particles sundered by infinite distance? The gravitational force falling off as the square of the distance, must vanish at infinity if we mean what we say when we ascribe infinite separation to them. Their condition is then one of neutral stability, a finite movement of the particles neither increasing nor diminishing interaction. They had then remained eternally in their separated condition, there being no cause to render such condition finite. The difficulty involved here appears to me of the same nature as the difficulty of ascribing any residual heat to the sun after eternal time has elapsed. In both cases we are bound to prolong the time, from our very idea of time, till progress is no more, when in the one case we can imagine no mutual approximation of the particles, in the other no further cooling of the body. However, I will riot dwell further upon this objection, as it does not, I believe, present itself with equal force to every mind. A reason less open to dispute, as being less subjective, against the aggregation of infinitely remote particles as the origin of our universe, is contained in the physical objection.

In this objection we consider that the appearance presented by our universe negatives the hypothesis of infinitely prolonged aggregation. We base this negation upon the appearance of simultaneity ~ presented by the heavens, contending that this simultaneity is contrary to what we would expect to find in the case of particles gathered from infinitely remote distances. Whether these particles were endowed with relative motions or not is unimportant to the consideration. In what respects do the phenomena of our universe present the appearance of simultaneous phenomena? We must remember that the suns in space are as fires which brighten only for a moment and are then extinguished. It is in this sense we must regard the longest burning of the stars. Whether just lit or just expiring counts little in eternity. The light and heat of the star is being absorbed by the ether of space as effectually and rapidly as the ocean swallows the ripple from the wings of an expiring insect. Sir William Herschel says of the galaxy of the milky way:-- "We do not know the rate of progress of this mysterious chronometer, but it is nevertheless certain that it cannot last for ever, and its past duration cannot be infinite." We do not know, indeed, the rate of progress of the chronometer, but if the dial be one divided into eternal durations the consummation of any finite physical change represents such a movement of the hand as is accomplished in a single vibration of the balance wheel.

Hence we must regard the hosts of glittering stars as a conflagration that has been simultaneously lighted up in the heavens. The enormous (to our ideas) thermal energy of the stars resembles the scintillation of iron dust in a jar of oxygen when a pinch of the dust is thrown in. Although some particles be burnt up before others become alight, and some linger yet a little longer than the others, in our day's work the scintillation of the iron dust is the work of a single instant, and so in the long night of eternity the scintillation of the mightiest suns of space is over in a moment. A little longer, indeed, in duration than the life which stirs a moment in response to the diffusion of the energy, but only very little. So must an Eternal Being regard the scintillation of the stars and the periodic vibration of life in our geological time and the most enduring efforts of thought. The latter indeed are no more lasting than

"... the labour of ants In the light of a million million of suns."

But the myriad suns themselves, with their generations, are the momentary gleam of lights for ever after extinguished.

Again, science suggests that the present process of material aggregation is not finished, and possibly will only be when it prevails universally. Hence the very distribution of the stars, as we observe them, as isolated aggregations, indicates a development which in the infinite duration must be regarded as equally advanced in all parts of stellar space and essentially a simultaneous phenomenon. For were we spectators of a system in which any very great difference of age prevailed, this very great difference would be attended by some such appearance as the following:--

The aupearance of but one star, other generations being long extinct or no others yet come into being; or, perhaps, a faint nebulous wreath of aggregating matter somewhere solitary in the heavens; or no sign of matter beyond our system, either because ungathered or long passed away into darkness.[1]

[1]It is interesting to reflect upon the effect which an entire absence of luminaries outside our solar system would have had upon the views of our philosophers and upon our outlook on life.

Some such appearances were to be expected had the aggregation of matter depended solely on chance encounters of particles scattered through infinite space.

For as, by hypothesis, the aggregation occupies an infinite time in consummation it is nearly a certainty that each particle encountered after immeasurable time, and then for the first time endowed with actual gravitational potential energy, would have long expended this energy before another particle was gathered. But the fact that so many fires which we know to be of brief duration are scattered through a region of space, and the fact of a configuration which we believe to be a transitory ore, suggest their simultaneous aggregation here and there. And in the nebulous wreaths situated amidst the stars there is evidence that these actually originated where they now are, for in such no relative motion, I believe, has as yet been detected by the spectroscope. All this, too, is in keeping with the nebular hypothesis of Kant and Laplace so long as this does not assume a primitive infinite dispersion of matter, but the gathering of matter from finite distances first into nebulous patches which aggregating with each other have given rise to our system of stars. But if we extend this hypothesis throughout an infinite past by the supposition of aggregation of infinitely remote particles we replace the simultaneous approach required in order to accotnt for the simultaneous phenomena visible in the heavens, by a succession of aggregative events, by hypothesis at intervals of nearly infinite duration, when the events of the universe had consisted of fitful gleams lighted after eternities of time and extinguished for yet other eternities.

Finally, if we seek to replace the eternal instability involved in Kant's hypothesis when extended over an infinite past, by any hypothesis of material stability, we at once find ourselves in the difficulty that from the known properties of matter such stability must have been permanent if ever existent, which is contrary to fact. Thus the kinetic inertia expressed in Newton's first law of motion might well be supposed to secure equilibrium with material attraction, but if primevally diffused matter had ever thus been held in equilibrium it must have remained so, or it was maintained so imperfectly, which brings us back to endless evolution.

On these grounds I contend that the present gravitational properties of matter cannot be supposed to have acted for all past duration. Universal equilibrium of gravitating particles would have been indestructible by internal causes. Perpetual instability or evolution is alike unthinkable and contrary to the phenomena of the universe of which we are cognisant. We therefore turn from gravitating matter as affording no rational account of the past. We do so of necessity, however much we feel our ignorance of the nature of the unknown actions to which we have recourse.

A prematerial condition of the universe was, we assume, a condition in which uniformity as regards the average distribution of energy in space prevailed, but neterogeneity and instability were possible. The realization of that possibility was the beginning we seek, and we today are witnesses of the train of events involved in the breakdown of an eternal past equilibrium. We are witnesses on this hypothesis, of a catastrophe possibly confined to certain regions of space, but which is, to the motions and configurations concerned, absolutely unique, reversible to its former condition of potential by no process of which we can have any conception.

Our speculation is that we, as spectators of evolution, are witnessing the interaction of forces which have not always been acting. A prematerial state of the universe was one of unfruitful motions, that is, motions unattended by progressing changes, in our region of the ether. How extended we cannot say; the nature of the motions we know not; but the kinetic entities differed from matter in the one important particular of not possessing gravitational attraction. Such kinetic configurations we cannot consider to be matter. It was _possible_ to construct matter by their summation or linkage as the configuration of the crystal is possible in the clear supersaturated liquid.

Duration in an ether filled with such motions would pass in a succession of mere unfruitful events; as duration, we may imagine, even now passes in parts of the ether similar to our own. An endless (it may be) succession of unprogressive, fruitless events. But at one moment in the infinite duration the requisite configuration of the elementary motions is attained; solely by the one chance disposition the stability of all must go, spreading from the fateful point.

Possibly the material segregation was confined to one part of space, the elementary motions condensing upon transformation, and so impoverishing the ether around till the action ceased. Again in the same sense as the stars are simultaneous, so also they may be regarded as uniform in size, for the difference in magnitude might have been anything we please to imagine, if at the same time we ascribe sufficient distance sundering great and small. So, too;, will a dilute solution of acetate of soda build a crystal at one point, and the impoverishment of the medium checking the growth in this region, another centre will begin at the furthest extremities of the first crystal till the liquid is filled with loose feathery aggregations comparable in size with one another. In a similar way the crystallizing out of matter may have given rise, not to a uniform nebula in space, but to detached nebula, approximately of equal mass, from which ultimately were formed the stars.

That an all-knowing Being might have foretold the ultimate event at any preceding period by observing the motions of the parts then occurring, and reasoning as to the train of consequences arising from these nations, is supposable. But considerations arising from this involve no difficulty in ascribing to this prematerial train of events infinite duration. For progress there is none, and we can quite as easily conceive of some part of space where the same Infinite Intelligence, contemplating a similar train of unfruitful motions, finds that at no time in the future will the equilibrium be disturbed. But where evolution is progressing this is no longer conceivable, as being contradictory to the very idea of progressive development. In this case Infinite Intelligence _necessarily_ finds, as the result of his contemplation, the aggregation of matter, and the consequences arising therefrom.

The negation of so primary a material property as gravitation to these primitive motions of (or in) the ether, probably involves the negation of many properties we find associated with matter. Possibly the quality of inertia, equally primary, is involved with that of gravitation, and we may suppose that these two properties so intimately associated in determining the motions of bodies in space were conferred upon the primitive motions as crystallographic attraction and rigidity are first conferred upon the solid growing from the supersaturated liquid. But in some degree less speculative is the supposition that the new order of motions involved the transformation of much energy into the form of heat vibrations; so that the newly generated matter, like the newly formed crystal, began its existence in a medium richly fed with thermal radiant energy. We may consider that the thermal conditions were such as would account for a primitive dissociation of the elements. And, again, we recall how the physicist finds his estimate of the energy involved in mere gravitational aggregation inadequate to afford explanation of past solar heat. It is supposable, on such a hypothesis as we have been dwelling on, that the entire subsequent gravitational condensation and conversion of material potential energy, dating from the first formation of matter to the stage of star formation may be insignificant in amount compared with the conversion of etherial energy attending the crystallizing out of matter from the primitive motions. And thus possibly the conditions then obtaining involved a progressively increasing complexity of material structure the genesis of the elements, from an infra-hydrogen possessing the simplest material configuration, resulting ultimately in such self-luminous nebula as we yet see in the heavens.

The late James Croll, in his _Stellar Evolution_, finds objections to an eternal evolution, one of which is similar to the "metaphysical" objection urged in this paper. His way out of the difficulty is in the speculation that our stellar system originated by the collision of two masses endowed with relative motion, eternal in past duration, their meeting ushering in the dawn of evolution. However, the state of aggregation here assumed, from the known laws of matter and from analogy, calls for explanation as probably the result of prior diffusion, when, of course, the difficulty is only put back, not set at rest. Nor do I think the primitive collision in harmony with the number of relatively stationary nebula visible in space.

The metaphysical objection is, I find, also urged by George Salmon, late Provost of Trinity College, in favour of the creation of the universe.--(_Sermons on Agnosticism_.)

A. Winchell, in _World Life_, says: "We have not the slightest scientific grounds for assuming that matter existed in a certain condition from all eternity. The essential activity of the powers ascribed to it forbids the thought; for all that we know, and, indeed, as the _conclusion_ from all that we know, primal matter began its progressive changes on the morning of its existence."

Finally, in reference to the hypothesis of a unique determination of matter after eternal duration in the past, it may not be out of place to remind the reader of the complexity which modern research ascribes to the structure of the atom.

[The end]
John Joly's Essay: A Speculation As To A Prematerial Universe

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