The Forces of Nature - William Atkinson

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The forces of nature. The substance filling the universe is in constant and unceasing motion.

Motion is evidenced in every physical and chemical process and change and manifested in the

constant interchange of position of the particles of substance. There is absolutely no rest in nature.

Everything is constantly changing, moving and vibrating. Building up processes are ever at work

forming larger masses of bodies of the particles and tearing down processes, disintegration and

decomposition of molecules and atoms and corpuscles are constantly at work also. Nature maintains a

constant balance among her forces. If the building up energies and forces were allowed full sway

then all the particles in the universe ultimately would gravitate to a common center.

Thus forming a compact and solid mass, which would thus dwell for eternity unless the creative

power should move upon it and again scatter its particles in all directions. And if the tearing down

and dispersive forces and energies were allowed full sway, the particles would fly apart and would

remain a sunder for eternity unless called together by some new creative fiat. But nature pits one

force against another maintaining an equilibrium. The result is constant play and interplay of forces,

causing distribution and redistribution of particles following the gathering together and

building up processes. There is no lost motion or waste force. One form of force and motion is

converted into another and so on and on. Nothing is lost. All forces conserved as we shall see

as we proceed. In the public mind or rather in the mind of that part of the public which think of

the matter at all, there seems to be an idea that force is something of the nature of an entity,

separate from substance or mind, something that pounces down upon substance and drives it along by

presence from without. The ancient philosophers regarded substance as acted upon from without,

by an entity called force. Substance being regarded as absolutely inert and dead. This idea,

which is still held by the average person, owing, debtless, to the survival of old forms of

expression, was generally held by philosophers until the time of Dakar and Newton. This old idea

was due to the teachings of Aristotle, he of the ether theory, and science and philosophy were

timid about shaking off the Aristotleian dogmas. Others held that light, heat and electricity were

fluids conveyed from body to body. In fact, the general public still entertains this idea regarding

electricity owing to the use of the term the electric fluid. The present teaching of science is

that force is the result of the motion of the particles of substance and, of course,

originates from within rather than from without. It is true that motion may be communicated to a body

by means of another body in motion, imparting the same to it. But that does not alter the case

for the original motion came from the movement and vibration of the particles of substance, although

it may have passed through many stages of transformation, change and transmission in its progress.

The only exception to the rule is gravitation, which is a form of force, the nature of which is

unknown to science, although its laws of operation, etc. are understood. We shall learn some new facts

about gravitation in the forthcoming chapters of this book. It will be well for us to remember this

fact in our consideration of force and motion, that force and motion originate from the inherent

property of motion passed by the particles of substance and come from within, not from without.

This is the best teaching of modern science and also forms an important part of the theory

of dynamic thought, which is advanced in this book. Buckner, the author of force and matter,

vigorously insists upon this conception, saying, among many other similar expressions, force may be

defined as a condition of activity or a motion of matter or of the minutest particles of matter

or a capacity thereof. The term force is generally defined in works on physics as that which causes

changes or terminates motion. The word force is generally used in the sense of in action, while

energy is usually used in the sense of potential force capacity for performing work. The idea being

stored up force or force awaiting use. The term power is used in two senses, the first meaning

a measure of mechanical energy such as a 40-horsepower engine, etc., the second sense being capacity

or ability to act or exercise force. This use being almost identical to the idea of energy

as above described, although possibly a little stronger expression.

The materialistic school holds that force is a property of matter, the latter being regarded as

the real thing of the universe. Others hold that force is the real thing and that what is called

matter or substance is but a center of force, etc., others hold that the two are but aspects of

the same thing, calling the thing by the name matter force or force matter. Hekel calls the

combined thing by the name of substance, claiming that what are called matter and force are but

attributes of it, the third attribute being sensation, which he holds as akin to mind. Hekel's

substance is held to be eternal and self-existent. Its own cause, in fact. In this book the term

substance is not used in this sense but merely as synonymous with what science usually calls

matter. The views advanced in this book differ materially from any of those above mentioned.

It being held by the writer that all forces vital mental force and consequently force as a separate

thing is considered an unreasonable proposition. What is called force being considered merely an

action of mind upon substance, causing motion? The writer does not intend to advance this idea at

this point beyond the mere mentioning of the fact. The theory being brought out and developed as

we proceed and he will proceed to a consideration of the phenomena of force along the lines of

modern science, believing that in this way the subject may be better understood. The term motion

as used in physics is defined as the act, process or state of changing place or position, movement,

webster. So you see motion is the movement of substance changing place or position.

Force is that which causes changes or terminates motion and energy is the capacity for manifesting force

and power the ability to act. In works on physics you will notice the expression potential energy,

meaning energy awaiting action, also kinetic energy, meaning energy in action that is in motion.

We shall not need these terms in this book but it is well to understand them.

Another term frequently met with is conservation of energy which is used to indicate the law of physics,

the operation of which renders energy indestructible. That is, science holds that energy cannot

be destroyed. That it is not lost or created but is merely transformed into other forms of energy,

potential or kinetic. Therefore, after energy is used it either passes into a state of potential

energy or rest, awaiting a future call to activity or else is immediately transformed into another

form of kinetic energy or energy in action. The theory holds that the quantity or amount of energy

in the universe is fixed in its totality, none may be created or destroyed. There can be no

addition to or subtraction from the totality of energy that all energy used has been previously

stored up or else has been immediately transmitted or transformed. It is also held that when energy

manifests as the result of work performed, it is always found that it is at the expense of some

previously manifested form of energy, that the agency by which the work is performed

always parts with its stock of energy and that the thing worked upon always acquires or gains the

amount of energy lost by the aforesaid agent or worker, and yet there is no actual loss or gain

but merely transformation. The above theory is mentioned as of interest in the general subject,

although it does not play a prominent part in the subject of this book, for the writer holds that

all energy resides in mind and emerges therefrom and in the end returns there too. This being believed

it is seen that energy is not to be thought of as a separate thing having a totality but merely

as a quality of mind. The question of its totality or fixed quantity not being inquired into,

although both probably run along the lines of the nature of mind and depend upon the limitations

or lack of limitations of the latter. However, the question does not assume a vital importance

in our consideration of the subject. So far as the question of transmission or transformation of

energy is concerned however the principles of the law of conservation of energy may be accepted

as correct, although it more properly belongs to the principle of what has been called the correlation

of force. The idea of which is that one form of energy may be and as always transformed into another

form and so on and on unto infinity. This idea is followed in this book except that the idea of

from mind originally to mind finally is incorporated within it. This law of the correlation of force

may be illustrated by the following quotation from Tyndall, the great scientist of the last century

who says. A river, in descending from an elevation of 7,720 feet, generates an amount of heat

competent to augment its own temperature 10 degrees Fahrenheit and this amount of heat was

abstracted from the sun in order to lift the matter of the river to the elevation from which it

falls. As long as the river continues on the heights, whether in the solid form or as a glacier

or in the liquid form as a lake, the heat expended by the sun and lifting it has disappeared from

the universe. It has been consumed in the act of lifting, but at the moment that the river starts

upon its downward course and encounters the resistance of its bed, the heat expanded in its

elevation begins to be restored. The mental eye, indeed, can follow the emission from its source

through the ether as vibratory motion to the ocean, where it ceases to be vibration and takes

the potential form among the molecules of aqueous vapor to the mountaintop where the heat absorbed

in vaporization is given out in condensation, while that expended by the sun in lifting the water

to its present elevation is still unrestored. This we find paid back to the last unit by the

friction along the river's bed, at the bottom of the cascade where the plunge of the torrent is

suddenly arrested, and the warmth of the machinery turned by the river, and the spark from the

millstone beneath the crusher of the miner in the alpine sawmill, and the milk churn of the

chalet in the supports of the cradle in which the mountain near by water power rocks his baby to

sleep. All the forms of mechanical motion here indicated are simply the porcelain out of an

amount of calorific motion derived originally from the sun, and at each point at which the

mechanical motion is destroyed or diminished, it is the sun's heat which is restored.

The following quotation also is interesting as illustrating another phase of this law.

The work performed by men and other animals is due to the transformed energy of food. This food

is a vegetable origin and owes its energy to the solar rays. The energy of men and animals

is therefore the transformed energy of the sun. Accepting the energy of the tides, the sun's

rays are the source of all the forms of energy practically available. It has been estimated that

the heat received by the earth from the sun each year would melt a layer of ice over the entire

globe a hundred feet in thickness. This represents energy equal to one horsepower for each 50 square

feet of surface, Anthony and bracket. From the above quotations it will be seen that the principal

and most familiar sources or great storage batteries of energy apparent to dwellers upon this

planet are one the earth manifesting the power of gravitation and two the sun manifesting solar

heat. In Tendell's illustration we see the force of the sun's energy, heat, raising the water

from the ocean by evaporation although aided by the earth's gravitation pulling down the heavier

air allowing the vapor to rise. Then we see the force of gravitation causes the condensed vapor

to fall as rain or snow on the mountain top, then causing the rain to run into little streams

and so on until the river is reached. Then causing the river to start on its downward journey of

over 7,000 feet, then causing it to plunge over the cascade to turn the wheels that operated the

machinery and turned the millstone and the crusher of the miner and the sawmill and the milk turn

and the cradle. And as Tendell might have added had he lived a little later in the running of the

dynamo which running produced electricity that in turn caused lights to burn, other machinery to

run and manufacture things, stoves to cook, flat irons to iron automobiles and engines to run and

many other things along the lines of transmitting energy, force and motion. And in this consideration

let us not forget the important part that gravitation, that most wonderful of all forces plays in the

grand scheme of nature. Not only does this force cause the planets to circle around the sun

and perhaps that sun around another sun and so on and on until the matter becomes unthinkable,

not only this, but it performs a million parts in the affair of earthly matter as we shall see

in a later chapter. The force of gravitation is one of the greatest mysteries confronting science

today, although many believe it a simple question. Gravitation and the universal ether contain

the great secrets of nature that man is striving to unveil. And yet so common is gravitation,

that the race, including almost all the scientists, take it as a matter of course. We shall devote

much attention to the question of gravitation in the forthcoming chapters of this book,

for it plays a very important part in the general theory of dynamic thought upon which this book is

based. We shall have a special chapter devoted to it a little later on and the matter will also

come up for explanation further on in the book. But in the meantime let us consider the other forms

of energy, viz, heat, light, magnetism and electricity, which with gravitation and attraction

of other kinds form the forces of nature.