Eureka: A Prose Poem — Edgar A. Poe, 1848 — reading text

applicable to the other ; and, in conclusion, whatever principle will satisfac torily explain the one, cannot be questioned as an explana tion of the other. THE UNIVERSE. 61 In looking carefully around me for rational objection to what I have advanced, I am able to discover nothing ; — but of that class of objections usually urged by the doubters for Doubt's sake, I very readily perceive three ; and pro ceed to dispose of them in order. It may be said, first : " The proof that the force of irra diation (in the case described) is directly proportional to the squares of the distances, depends upon an unwarranted assumption — that of the number of atoms in each stratum being the measure of the force with which they are emitted." I reply, not only that I am warranted in such assump tion, but that I should be utterly ^warranted in any other. What I assume is, simply, that an effect is the measure of its cause — that every exercise of the Divine Will will be proportional to that which demands the exertion — that the means of Omnipotence, or of Omniscience, will be exactly adapted to its purposes. Neither can a deficiency nor an excess of cause bring to pass any effect. Had the force which irradiated any stratum to its position, been either more or less than was needed for the purpose — that is to say, not directly proportional to the purpose — then to its position that stratum could not have been irradiated. Had the force which, with a view to general equability of dis tribution, emitted the proper number of atoms for each stra tum, been not directly proportional to the number, then the number would not have been the number demanded for the equable distribution. The second supposable objection is somewhat better entitled to an answer. 62 EUREKA It is an admitted principle in Dynamics that every body, on receiving an impulse, or disposition to move, will move onward in a straight line, in the direction imparted by the impelling force, until deflected, or stopped, by some other force. How then, it may be asked, is my first or external stratum of atoms to be understood as discontinuing their movement at the circumference of the imaginary glass sphere, when no second force, of more than an imaginary character, appears, to account for the discontinuance ? I reply that the objection, in this case, actually does arise out of " an unwarranted assumption " — on the part of the objector — the assumption of a principle, in Dynamics, at an epoch when no " principles," in anyttmig, exist : — I use the word " principle," of course, in the objector's understanding of the word. " In the beginning " we can admit — indeed we can comprehend — but one First Cause — the truly ultimate Principle — the Volition of God. The primary act — that of Irradiation from Unity — must have been independent of all that which the world now calls " principle " — because all that we so designate is but a consequence of the reac tion of that primary act : — I say "primary" act ; for the creation of the absolute material particle is more properly to be regarded as a conception than as an " act " in the ordinary meaning of the term. Thus, we must regard the primary act as an act for the establishment of what we now call " principles." But this primary act itself is to be considered as continuous Volition. The Thought of God is to be understood as originating the Diffusion — as pro ceeding with it — as regulating it — and, finally, as being THE UNIVERSE. 63 withdrawn from it upon its completion. Then commences Reaction, and through Reaction, " Principle," as we em ploy the word. It will be advisable, however, to limit the application of this word to the two immediate results of the discontinuance of the Divine Volition — that is, to the two agents, Attraction and Repulsion. Every other Natural agent depends, either more or less immediately, upon these two, and therefore would be more conveniently designated as sub-principle. It may be objected, thirdly, that, in general, the peculiar mode of distribution which I have suggested for the atoms, is " an hypothesis and nothing more." Now, I am aware that the word hypothesis is a ponder ous sledge-hammer, grasped immediately, if not lifted, by all very diminutive thinkers, upon the first appearance of any proposition wearing, in any particular, the garb of a theory. But " hypothesis " cannot be wielded here to any good purpose, even by those who succeed in lifting it — little men or great. I maintain, first, that only in the mode described is it conceivable that Matter could have been diffused so as to fulfil at once the conditions of irradiation and of generally equable distribution. I maintain, secondly, that these con ditions themselves have been imposed upon me, as necessi ties, in a train of ratiocination as rigorously logical as that which establishes any demonstration in Euclid ; and I maintain, thirdly, that even if the charge of " hypothesis " were as fully sustained as it is, in fact, unsustained and untenable, still the validity and indisputability of my result would not, even in the slightest particular, be disturbed. 64 EUREKA. To explain : — The Newtonian Gravity — a law of Na ture — a law whose existence as such no one out of Bedlam questions — a law whose admission as such enables us to account for nine-tenths of the Universal phaenomena — a law which, merely because it does so enable us to account for these pheenomena, we are perfectly willing, without reference to any other considerations, to admit, and cannot help admitting, as a law — a law, nevertheless, of which neither the principle nor the modus operandi of the princi ple, has ever yet been traced by the human analysis— a law, in short, which, neither in its detail nor in its general ity, has been found susceptible of explanation at all — is at length seen to be at every point thoroughly explicable, provided only we yield our assent to what ? To an hypothesis ? Why if an hypothesis — if the merest hypo thesis — if an hypothesis for whose assumption — as in the case of that pure hypothesis the Newtonian law itself — no shadow of a priori reason could be assigned — if an hypo thesis, even so absolute as all this implies, would enable us to perceive a principle for the Newtonian law — would en able us to understand as satisfied, conditions so miraculously — so ineffably complex and seemingly irreconcileable as those involved in the relations of which Gravity tells us, — what rational being could so expose his fatuity as to call even this absolute hypothesis an hypothesis any longer — unless, indeed, he were to persist in so calling it, with the understanding that he did so, simply for the sake of consist ency in words ? But what is the true state of our present case ? What is the fact? Not only that it is not an hypothesis which THE UNIVERSE. 65 we are required to adopt, in order to admit the principle at issue explained, but that it is a logical conclusion which we are requested not to adopt if we can avoid it — which we are simply invited to deny if we can : — a conclusion of so accurate a logicality that to dispute it would be the effort — to doubt its validity beyond our power : — a conclusion from which we see no mode of escape, turn as we will ; a result which confronts us either at the end of an inductive journey from the phenomena of the very Law discussed, or at the close of a Reductive career from the most rigor ously simple of all conceivable assumptions — the assumption, in a word, of Simplicity itself. And if here, for the mere sake of cavilling, it be urged, that although my starting-point is, as I assert, the assump tion of absolute Simplicity, yet Simplicity, considered mere ly in itself, is no axiom ; and that only deductions from axioms are indisputable — it is thus that I reply : — Every other science than Logic is the science of certain concrete relations. Arithmetic, for example, is the science of the relations of number — Geometry, of the relations of form — Mathematics in general, of the relations of quantity in general — of whatever can be increased or- diminished. Lo gic, however, is the science of Relation in the abstract — of absolute Relation — of Relation considered solely in itself. An axiom in any particular science other than Logic is, thus, merely a proposition announcing certain concrete relations which seem to be too obvious for dispute — as when we say, for instance, that the whole is greater than its part : — and, thus again, the principle of the Logical axiom — in other words, of an axiom in the abstract — is, 66 EUREKA. simply, obviousness of relation. Now, it is clear, not only that what is obvious to one mind may not be obvious to another, but that what is obvious to one mind at one epoch, may be anything but 'obvious, at another epoch, to the same mind. It is clear, moreover, that what, to-day, is obvious even to the majority of mankind, or to the ma jority of the best intellects of mankind, may to-morrow be, to either majority, more or less obvious, or in no respect ob vious at all. It is seen, then, that the axiomatic principle itself is susceptible of variation, and of course that axioms are susceptible of similar change. Being mutable, the " truths " which grow out of them are necessarily mutable too ; or, in other words, are never to be positively depended upon as truths at all — since Truth and Immutability are one. It will now be readily understood that no axiomatic idea — no idea founded in the fluctuating principle, obvious ness of relation — can possibly be so secure — so reliable a basis for any structure erected by the Reason, as that idea — (whatever it is, wherever we can find it, or if it be prac ticable to find it anywhere) — which is zrrelative altogether — which not only presents to the understanding no obvious ness of relation, either greater or less, to be considered, but subjects the intellect, not in the slighest degree, to the ne cessity of even looking at any relation at all. If such an idea be not what we too heedlessly term " an axiom," it is at least preferable, as a Logical basis, to any axiom ever propounded, or to all imaginable axioms combined : — and such, precisely, is the idea with which