Tyndall“You are a Lucretian, and from the combination and separation of insensate atoms deduce all terrestrial things, including organic forms and their phenomena. Let me tell you, in the first instance, how far I am prepared to go with you. I admit that you can build crystalline forms out of this play of molecular force; that the diamond, amethyst, and snow-star are truly wonderful structures which are thus produced. I will go further and acknowledge that even a tree or flower might in this way be organized. Nay, if you can show me an animal without sensation, I will concede to you that it also might be put together by the suitable play of molecular force.
Thus far our way is clear; but now comes my difficulty. Your atoms are individually without sensation, much more are they without intelligence. May I ask you, then, to try your hand upon this problem? Take your dead hydrogen atoms, your dead oxygen atoms, your dead carbon atoms, your dead nitrogen atoms, your dead phosphorus atoms, and all the other atoms, dead as grains of shot, of which the brain is formed. Imagine them separate and sensationless, observe them running together and forming all imaginable combinations. This, as a purely mechanical process, is seeable by the mind. But can you see, or dream, or in any way imagine, how out of that mechanical act, and from these individually dead atoms, sensation, thought, and emotion are to arise? Are you likely to extract Homer out of the rattling of dice, or the differential calculus out of the clash of billiard balls?”
“Could any vitalist, or Bergsonian idealist have stated his case better?”
“From the time when men began to wonder at the world and ponder its problems they have puzzled over the nature of the universe. Sensing an external world of objects and feeling the vital necessity of dealing with these objects, they have sought for an understanding of the universe which would give them a mastery over it. And in their more contemplative moments they have tried to attain to a more comprehensive view which would not only be serviceable in handling objects but would also give a true presentation of the reality of the universe. Through the whole range of solutions offered one can find an everpresent attempt to conceive the universe in some unitary and comprehensive manner. Some have looked upon it as a chance collection of dead atoms propelled by blind force; others as pure idea or thought. Between these two extremes there have been all sorts of gradations and compromises.”
Mathews“It is perfectly correct, therefore, from this point of view to speak of living and dead hydrogen atoms. We can even go farther with the simile if we wish and say that when the living high reactive form of the atom passes to the dead, unreactive form, the soul of the atom escapes at the moment of death, for a ray of light leaves the dying atom an travels onward in space, until perhaps it encounters and is absorbed by some other dead hydrogen atom, which it again raises to life by thus giving it a soul. What is this soul? It is a minute portion of the luminiferous ether; of time and space; of eternity and infinity.(add discussion)
For us it is oxygen which thus summons the dead from the tomb; which vitalizes the dead molecules and atoms. The energy is stored in certain of the atoms of the molecules of the protoplasm in the form of widened orbits of rotation of the electrons. It is this which gives them the power of reacting and of passing back to the dead. When such electrons fall back to more stable configuration, the atom and molecule reverts to the dead and inert form such as we keep in bottles. It is the oxygen, then, which vitalizes all animals; but it is from the sun that the vital, radiant energy has come. It is in fact the luminiferous ether which has made they thing alive, for the ether is the great storehouse of energy; it is itself nothing else than space and time; energy and time. Energy is but ether divided by time. Quantity of energy is quantity of ether per second. So all goes back to the either; infinity and eternity. From it is derived our energy and life.”
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| American illustrator Linda Hensley’s 2010 illustration of American nuclear physicist Philip Ugorowski’s description of the “nucleus as a jostling swarm of bees, and I happily absorbed his explanation of the orbiting electrons as more bees, or maybe gnats” to illustrate the apparent (or non-apparent) "dead atom" / "living molecule" (bee) divide, dichotomy, or dualism. [1] |
