VI.

THE BEGINNING OF MOTION.

ORIGIN OF MOTION--AN EXPOSITION OF FORCE AND MOTION FOUNDED ON THE THEORY OF SPACE BEING OCCUPIED BY A FLUID CONSCIOUS SUBSTANCE--HAS MOTION EVER A BEGINNING?--WILL AND WILL-PRESSURE ON MOTION--WILL OF GOD THE ONE COMPELLING POWER

To understand force and motion, we must go back to a supposititious creation. Conceive, first, of space as being occupied by completely conscious substance in a perfectly fluid state; conscious throughout, alike throughout, and without motion. Now, can you conceive of motion as beginning in any part of this substance without an act of will? Can you think of your conscious self as beginning to act, and as continuing to act in an orderly and consecutive series of motions without an effort of will? If, as we have seen, original substance is completely conscious, then its every motion must be a conscious motion; and we cannot think of conscious motion without will. You are aware that you can consciously originate motion yourself; but you cannot do it without will. You are conscious substance; you can be nothing else as we have seen, and you can move or cease to move by an exertion of your will, and in moving or ceasing to move you cause the body you inhabit to move or cease to move. We see motion beginning and ceasing all around us; and we conclude that every motion had a beginning; and that the beginning of the series of creative motions which have resulted in the present universe of forms could only have been in an action of the will of Original Conscious Substance.

In the beginning, then, by an act of will, parts of substance were made to press against each other; and this pressure must pack the substance together, making it more dense, more rigid, and less fluid. This pressure, also, must originate the motions we know as light, heat, electricity and magnetism; and this will-pressure, drawing substance together and holding it in coherent masses, is what we call gravity. It is this will-pressure which brings an apple to the earth, and which holds the earth itself in its orbit; which tends to bring all the heavenly bodies together, and which yet holds them apart forever, keeping each in its own place. There is no accounting for “attraction” on other grounds than that it is the Creative Will of Original Substance, pressing itself together into forms. Every phenomenon of force or motion, from the circling sweep of a planet to the vibration of an atom, has its origin in the will of the great Intelligent Substance to which, or to whom, men have given the name of God. The earth is held together solely by the pressure of the will which permeates it; were that will relaxed, the earth would return instantly to its original fluid condition. Try to think of substance as being held together by something else than will; try to think of substance, originally fluid, as being pressed into solid shapes and held in solid shapes, and going on in orderly and consecutive motions without will; and you will find it unthinkable. The earth is a part of Conscious Being, holding itself in form by the exercise of the will which is in all substance; gravity is the will exerted by substance in pressing itself into form; so also is chemical affinity, or the directivity of atoms. All motion originates in will-pressure. Trace back the motion of the wheels to the engine and thence to the coal; and you say that the latent heat-energy of the coal is causing motion. But what lodged the heat-energy in the coal? Was it the will-pressure of gravity, in the distant ages? There is only one force, and that is the will of the Great Intelligence; the eternal creative pressure, moving substance into the various forms in which it appears to us.

In the beginning was God, Spirit, Conscious Substance, occupying the calm deeps of space. An act of will, and there was sufficient pressure to produce the particles of the luminiferous ether, whose vibrations produce light; and there was light. A further act of will, increasing pressing of substance together, and nebulous clouds appear; and by the Great Will these were pressed into spheres with all the accompanying phenomena of the motions of heat and electricity; and so the creation of forms went, on until the visible universe appeared as it is; formed of one substance, by the Will of God, and maintained and held together by the continued exercise of that Great Will.

The question of motive comes in just here. We cannot conceive of continuous, orderly and systematic action without a motive; and the question must come to our minds, what is the motive of the Great One in His work? With a little reflection, the answer must present itself. He is seeking happiness. We cannot conceive of a conscious being as continuously seeking pain, inharmony or misery. Conscious action can have but one motive, and that motive is ultimate harmony or happiness. The purpose of God in the creation can be nothing else than His own happiness, and since he is All and in All. His happiness can only be attained in the happiness of all. Remember that the purpose of the creation is the happiness of all, including yourself, and that to be unhappy is to oppose the will of the Great Intelligence.

Look now upon the immensity of the visible universe, and contemplate the power of the Creator; see that in all and through all, from the rolling on a planetary system to the rising of the sap in a blade of grass, the one impelling power is the Will of God. And this Great Intelligence is seeking pleasure and happiness in us, and through us. Shall we doubt, then, that He can and will heal our diseases, give us every good thing that we need, and guide us into all truth? In the next chapter, we shall consider man’s relation to this Great Intelligence.