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

that of his leaping to the dog-star. Since all this is undeniable : since the choice of the mind is to be made between impossibilities of conception : since one impossibility cannot be greater than another : and since, thus, one cannot be preferred to another : the philosophers who not only maintain, on the grounds men tioned, man's idea of infinity but, on account of such sup posititious idea, infinity itself — are plainly engaged in demonstrating one impossible thing to be possible by show ing how it is that some one other thing — is impossible too. This, it will be said, is nonsense ; and perhaps it is : — in- THE UNI VERSE. 25 deed I think it very capital nonsense — but forego all claim to it as nonsense of mine. The readiest mode, however, of displaying the fallacy of the philosophical argument on this question, is by simply adverting to a fact respecting it which has been hitherto quite overlooked — the fact that the argument alluded to both proves and disproves its own proposition. " The mind is impelled/' say the theologians and others, " to admit a First Cause, by the superior difficulty it experiences in conceiving cause beyond cause without end." The quib ble, as before, lies in the word " difficulty " — but here what is it employed to sustain ? A First Cause. And what is a First Cause ? An ultimate termination of causes. And what is an ultimate termination of causes ? Finity — the Finite. Thus the one quibble, in two processes, by God knows how many philosophers, is made to support now Finity and now Infinity — could it not be brought to support something besides ? As for the quibblers — they, at least, are insupportable. But — to dismiss them : — what they prove in the one case is the identical nothing which they demonstrate in the other. Of course, no one will suppose that I here contend foi the absolute impossibility of that which we attempt to con vey in the word " Infinity." My purpose is but to show the folly of endeavoring to prove Infinity itself, or even our conception of it, by any such blundermg ratiocination as that which is ordinarily, employed. Nevertheless, as an individual, I may be permitted to say that / cannot conceive Infinity, and am convinced that no human being can. A mind not thoroughly self-conscious 2 26 EUHEKA. — not accustomed to the introspective analysis of its own operations — will, it is true, often deceive itself by supposing that it has entertained the conception of which we speak. In the effort to entertain it, we proceed step beyond step — we fancy point still beyond point ; and so long as we con tinue the effort, it may be said, in fact, that we are tending to the formation of the idea designed ; while the strength of the impression that we actually form or have formed it, is in the ratio of the period during which we keep up the mental endeavor.. But it is in the act of discontinuing the endeavor — of fulfilling (as we think) the idea — of putting the finishing stroke (as we suppose) to the concep tion — that we overthrow at once the whole fabric of our fancy by resting upon some one ultimate and therefore defi nite point. This fact, however, we fail to perceive, on account of the absolute coincidence, in time, between the settling down upon the ultimate point and the act of cessa tion in thinking. — In attempting, on the other hand, to frame the idea of a limited space, we merely converse the processes which involve the impossibility. We believe in a God. We may or may not believe in finite or in infinite space ; but our belief, in such cases, is more properly designated as faith, and is a matter quite distinct from that belief proper — from that intellectual be lief — which presupposes the mental conception. The fact is, tha*t, upon the enunciation of any one of that class of terms to which " Infinity " belongs — the class re presenting thoughts of thought — he who has a right to say that he thinks at all, feels himself called upon, not to enter tain a conception, but simply to direct his mental vision THE UNIVERSE. 27 toward some given point, in the intellectual firmament, where lies a nebula never to be resolved. To solve it, in deed, he makes no effort ; for with a rapid instinct he com prehends, not only the impossibility, but, as regards all human purposes, the inessentiality, of its solution. He per ceives that the Deity has not designed it to be solved. He sees, at once, that it lies out of the brain of man, and even how, if not exactly why, it lies out of it. There are people, I am aware, who, busying themselves in attempts at the unattainable, acquire very easily, by dint of the jargon they emit, among those thinkers-that-they-think with whom darkness and depth are synonymous, a kind of cuttle-fish reputation for profundity ; but the finest quality of Thought is its self-cognizance ; and, with some little equivocation, it may be said that no fog of the mind can well be greater than that which, extending to the very boundaries of the mental domain, shuts out even these boundaries themselves from comprehension. It will now be understood that, in using the phrase, " Infinity of Space/' I make no call upon the reader to entertain the impossible conception of an absolute infinity. I refer simply to the " utmost conceivable expanse" of space — a shadowy and fluctuating domain, now shrinking, now swelling, in accordance with the vacillating energies of the imagination. Hitherto, the Universe of stars has always been consi dered as coincident with the Universe proper, as I have defined it in the commencement of this Discourse. It has been always either directly or indirectly assumed — at least since the dawn of intelligible Astronomy — that, were it 28 EUREKA. possible for us to attain any given point in space, we should still find, on all sides of us, an interminable succession of stars. This was the untenable idea of Pascal when mak ing perhaps the most successful attempt ever made, at peri- phrasing the conception for which we struggle in the word " Universe." " It is a sphere," he says, " of which the centre is everywhere, the circumference, nowhere." But although this intended definition is, in fact, no definition of the Universe of stars, we may accept it, with some mental reservation, as a definition (rigorous enough for all practical purposes) of the Universe proper — that is to say, of the Universe of space. This latter, then, let us regard as " a sphere of which the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere" In fact, while we find it impossible to fancy an end to space, we have no difficulty in picturing to ourselves any one of an infinity of beginnings. As our starting-point, then, let us adopt the Godhead. Of this Godhead, in itself, he alone is not imbecile — he alone is not impious who propounds nothing. " Nous ne connaissons rien" says the Baron de Bielfeld — " Nous ne connaissons rien de la nature ou de I 'essence de Dieu : — pour savoir ce qu'il est, il faut etre Dieu meme." — " We know absolutely nothing of the nature or essence of God : — in order to comprehend what he is, we should have to be God ourselves." " We should have to be God ourselves !" — With a phrase so startling as this yet ringing in my ears, I nevertheless ven ture to demand if this our present ignorance of the Deity is an ignorance to which the soul is everlastingly condemned. By Him, however — now, at least, the Incomprehensible THE UNIVERSE. 29 — by Him — assuming him as Spirit — that is to say, as not Matter — a distinction which, for all intelligible purposes, will stand well instead of a definition — by -Him, then, ex isting as Spirit, let us content ourselves, to-night, with sup posing to have been created, or made out of Nothing, by dint of his Volition — at some point of Space which we will take as a centre — at some period into which we do not pretend to inquire, but at all events immensely remote — by Him, then again, let us suppose to have been created what ? This is a vitally momentous epoch in our consider ations. What is it that we are justified — that alone we are justified in supposing to have been, primarily and solely, created ? We have attained a point where only Intuition can aid us : — but now let me recur to the idea which I have already suggested as that alone which we can properly entertain of intuition. It is but the conviction arising from those induc tions or deductions of which the processes are so shadowy as to escape our consciousness, elude pur reason, or defy our capacity of expression. With this understanding, I now assert — that an intuition altogether irresistible, although inexpressible, forces me to the conclusion that what God originally created — that that Matter which, by dint of his Volition, he first made from his Spirit, or from Nihility, could have been nothing but Matter in its utmost conceiv able state of what ? — of Simplicity ? This will be found the sole absolute assumption of my Discourse. I use the word " assumption " in its ordinary sense ; yet I maintain that even this my primary proposi tion, is very, very far indeed, from being really a mere 30 E U R-E K A . assumption. Nothing was ever more certainly — no human conclusion was ever, in fact, more regularly — more rigor ously deduced : — but, alas ! the processes lie out of the human analysis — at all events are beyond the utterance of the human tongue. Let us now endeavor to conceive what Matter must be, when, or if, in its absolute extreme of Simplicity. Here the Reason flies at once to Imparticularity — to a particle — to one particle — a particle of one kind — of one character — of one nature — of one size — of one form — a particle, there fore, " without form and void " — a particle positively a par ticle at all points — a particle absolutely unique, individual, undivided, and not indivisible only because He who created it, by dint of his Will, can by an infinitely less energetic exercise of the same Will, as a matter of course, divide it. Oneness, then, is all that I predicate of the originally created Matter ; but I propose to show that this Oneness is a principle abundantly sufficient to account for the con stitution, the existing phenomena and the