THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1241, 11 September 1875, Page 3

THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE.

m A very remarkable book, emanating, it m said, from high quarters in the scientii I^Sr « J" st a PP°ared. It is entitled, The Unseen Universe, or Physical Speculations on a Future State, and aims at reconciling the doctrine of individual immortality with the modem theories of contaiuity and the const r/ation of energy, There is no resemblance between this book and Paley's Evidences, or any of the Bndgewater Treaties. Jt ia- much more transcedental, and its argument is chiefly based on the assumption that there is a waste of energy in spuce which must bo conserved in an invisible world It assumes that the ether, into which energy is continually being poured and apparently absorbed, is in reality a substance which serves as a passage from the visible to *ho invisible universe. Another assumption in support of the argument is that the phosphorus and other substances of which the natural body is built up, are not really identical with those elements in their ordinary condition of inorganic atoms, but are transubstantiated by the co-existence of an invisible, imponderable lmmat^al accompanying essence which^derives living force fromconnection, with the unseen universe • +lio English of, which is thaf nTo nly has a mm » Unng soul, ),nt mry Qon fo mnt/

atom of organised matter has a soul as well. The book is not likely to be well received either by natural philosophers or theologians, although the latter may derive satisfaction from the contradictions of the former, and maintain a dignified neutrality while the new theorists and the Tyndalites are destroying each other. It is understood that the book is the joint production of two eminent physical philosophers, and it certainly bears the stamp of authority. There is nothing unorthodox in their knowledge, however far they may be astray in its application. The apparent dissipation of energy in space is not explained by the expounders of the doctrines of continuity and the conservation of energy. But until some light is thrown on that point, it would be well to refrain from building up new theories thereon. The question whether there is or is not a dissipation of energy in space, should be answered before attempting to capitalise that energy elsewhere. The new theory is also objec tionable because it assumes that the unseen world is as material as that which we see, if it does not even make it subordinate and inferior. Its authors have failed because they attempted an impossibility. — (Edipus in the Melbourne Leader.