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“Shall it be seriously objected to the application of the sciences to philosophical problems that its results are not agreeable? That the truth is not always agreeable, nor always consolatory, nor always religious, nor always acceptable, is as well known as the old experience of the almost total absence of reward, either external or internal, provided for its exemplars. What this or that man may understand by a governing reason, an absolute power, a universal soul, a personal God … is his own affair. The theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves; so of the naturalists with their science; they both proceed by different routes.… The same bloody hatred with which science was once persecuted by religious fanaticism would revive now, and with it the Inquisition and Auto-da-fé, and all the horrors with which a refined zealotism has tortured humanity would be resorted to, to satisfy the wishes of the theological cutthroats. A man in advance of his age beholds the struggle of the contending parties from a high point of view, and sees in the eccentricities of this contest merely the natural and necessary expression of the opposing elements which agitate our time. No one can doubt that truth will finally emerge the victor. It certainly will not be long before the battle becomes general. Is the victory doubtful? The struggle is unequal; the opponents cannot stand against the trenchant arm of physical and physiological Materialism, which fights with facts, that everyone can comprehend, while the opponents fight with suppositions and presumptions” (Büchner).
“Science and faith exclude each other” (Virchow).
Fools still cling to faith; wise men find the truth in science.
Note.—Baily’s “History of Astronomy,” Part I, page 31, § 124, and Part II, pp. 33, 39, maintains that India has existed as a nation, as the records show, 4,320,000 years. The Indians divide this time into four principal periods: First period, that of innocence or simplicity, 1,728,000 years; second period, 276,000; the third period, 864,000; and the ages of misfortune about 422,000—Cali-yon-gan period. Similar statements are made by Cicero (“De Divinat,” I, 19), concerning the Chaldeans: “Condemnemus, inquam, hos aut stultitiæ aut vanitatis aut imprudentiæ qui 470 millia annorum ut ipsi dicunt monumentis comprehensa continent.”
The atmosphere is the gaseous envelope encircling the earth; and it constitutes the ocean of air at the bottom of which we live. We become aware of the existence of the air when we move rapidly and experience the resistance offered to the passage of our bodies, and also when the air is set in motion, giving rise to a wind. We notice the pressure of the atmosphere if we withdraw the air from beneath the hand by a powerful air-pump, for we then find that the hand is pressed down with a force equal to 1.033 kilos. on a square centimeter, or nearly 15 lbs. on every square inch. The total atmospheric pressure which the human body has to support hence amounts to several tons. But this pressure is not felt under ordinary circumstances, because the pressure exercised is exerted equally in every direction. The instrument used for measuring the pressure of the air is termed a barometer, and the average pressure at the sea level is equal to that exerted by a column of mercury 760 mm. high. The air being elastic and having weight, it is clear the lower layers of air must be more compressed than those above them, and hence the density of the air must vary at the different hights above the sea level. The density of the air being thus dependent on the pressure to which it is subjected, the higher strata of air become generally rarefied, and it is hence difficult to say whereabouts the air ceases, but it appears that the limit of the atmosphere is about 200 to 300 miles from the level of the sea. If the whole atmosphere were of the same density throughout as it is at the earth’s surface, it would reach only to a height of a little more than five miles above the sea level.
Aqueous vapor is contained in the air in quantities varying in different localities and at different times, and depending mainly on the temperature of the air. Air at a given temperature cannot contain more than a certain quantity of moisture in solution; and when it has taken up its maximum quantity, it is said to be saturated with aqueous moisture. The higher the temperature of the air the more water can it retain as vapor; and when air saturated with moisture is cooled, the water is deposited in liquid form in very small globules, forming a mist, fog, or cloud. This is the cause of the fall of rain, snow, and hail; when warm air heavily laden with moisture from the ocean passes into a higher and colder position, or meets with a stratum of air of lower temperature, it cannot any longer retain so much aqueous vapor, and a large quantity assumes a liquid form, falling as rain when the temperature is above the freezing-point, or crystallizing as snowflakes if the temperature is below that point. Hail is caused by the congelation of raindrops in passing through a stratum of air below the freezing-point. The deposition of dew is caused by the rapid cooling of the earth’s surface by radiation after sunset, and by the consequent cooling of the air near the ground below the temperature at which it begins to deposit moisture. In general the air contains from 50 to 70 per cent. of aqueous vapor of the quantities necessary to saturate it. If the quantity be not within these limits the air is either unpleasantly dry or unpleasantly moist.
The air contains, besides the gases of oxygen and nitrogen, carbonic acid, ammonia, accidental impurities, and volatile organic matter, which latter is the most important, as it probably influences to a great extent the healthfulness of the special situation. We become aware of the existence of such organic putrescent substances when entering a crowded room from the fresh air; and it is probable that the well-known unhealthiness of marshy and other districts is owing to the presence of some organic impurities.
We may have occasion to refer to this when speaking of the deluge, etc.
By the word chemistry we understand the science which investigates the composition of all material substances, taking them apart or separating them, by a chemical process, and discovers the nature and properties of the minutest particle. These small particles have received the name, elements or elementary substances; that term is applied in chemistry to those forms of matter which have hitherto resisted all attempt to decompose them.
“We know that we have earth, air, water, and we have seen in Chapter II that the earth’s crust is made up of many substances, rocks, coral reefs, clay, marl, feldspar, quartz, limestone, granite, etc., etc. These substances are composed of small particles, or elements, and are called minerals or inorganic substances. There is another class of substances, called organic, that are derived from living things or beings. These are also taken apart or separated into their elementary substances. As plants or animals, all such elementary substances have received the name organic substances because plants and animals have organs of reproduction, hence the name.
The taking apart of any substance into its constituent elements is called analysis by chemists.
The same elements can also be put together to produce various substances; that is termed synthesis.
Chemists have adopted a name for each of the elements, and these names are represented by symbols, or letters.
Compound substances may contain two or more elements. When the composition of a substance is determined by splitting the compound into its elementary constituents a chemical analysis of that substance is said to have been made; and if the proportions by weight in which each of the constituents is present be determined, a quantitative analysis of the substance has been made, etc.
By chemical action, we signify that which occurs when two or more substances so act upon one another as to produce a third substance differing altogether from the original ones in properties; or when a substance is brought under such conditions that it forms two or more bodies differing from the original one in properties. Chemistry is called an experimental science. In investigating all the materials within his reach, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, whether contained in the earth, sea, or air; whether belonging to the mineral, animal, or vegetable creation, the chemist finds himself obliged to divide substances into two classes: (1) compound substances—those which he is able to split up into two or more essentially different materials; (2) elements or simple substances—those which he is unable thus to split up, and out of which nothing essentially different from the original substances has been obtained.
Compound bodies are made up of two or more elementary substances chemically combined with each other; thus sulphur, copper, lead, are elementary bodies; out of each of these nothing different from sulphur, copper, lead, can be obtained; whereas when two of these bodies are heated together, a compound is formed from which both of the original elementary constituents can at any time be obtained. Water is a compound body—it can be split up into two elementary gases, hydrogen and oxygen; common salt, again, is a compound of a gas (chlorine) with a metal (sodium); and limestone, clay, sugar, and wax may serve as examples of compound bodies; whilst phosphorus, charcoal, iron, mercury, and gold may be mentioned as belonging to the class of simple substances.
As to physical properties of gases—they have weight, volume, diffusion, density, etc.
Theologians insist that there is a God, a God that was first introduced to us by a man with the name of Abraham, advertised by Moses, and has been palmed off upon the masses as a something exceedingly wonderful. A multitude of men who find it to their interest to advocate his pretended claims, are still doing their utmost to sustain their God. We are trying to discover where he is to be found, whether he is a local or a universal God, what he is composed of, whether he resides on earth permanently or transiently, whether he controls the entire solar system or more systems, whether he occasionally takes a trip to other planets; and if he has created everything we want to find out how he has created it. For that reason we have to search, taking a glimpse among the stars, in the earth, atmosphere, etc. Since geology does not respond favorably, we are trying to discover what this earth is composed of. The elementary bodies at present recognized amount to sixty-four in number. Of these about fifty belong to the class called metals. Several of them are of recent discovery, and as yet very imperfectly known. The distinction between metals and certain non-metallic substances or metalloids, although very convenient for purposes of description, is entirely arbitrary, since the classes graduate into each other in the most indefinite manner. The following is a complete list of the elementary substances
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