Arguments showing that our vital force consists mostly of little vibrations, that is, Tremulations.

CHAPTER I.

I. IF common sense be consulted and allowed to guide us as we inquire further and further into the real cause of life as to what it is that really makes us living and why generally consists- we must finally come to the conclusion that this cause is motion. for is it not according to common sense that everything that lives also moves, that is, that the living or the being is inseparable front the moving?

Life consists both of certain internal senses and of a number of external ones. No one can deny that the external senses owe their existence to motion, for there must be something in the atmosphere which flows in with certain little impulses and Circlings, moving about the finest fibbers and most minute termini, which by means of tremulation or little vibrations carry forward the notion to a certain sensation, and which thus by a motion distributed over an entire system Contribute or effect together a sylllbolum of life. Thus also with the internal senses: what thought is there, or what living recollection, in which motion does not effect as well the first impression as the last? In a word, if common sense is followed, we will inevitably find that Rest can never have any part in that which is called Life, for rest and life are two contrary things, just as a dead state and a living state. Experience testifies to this: as soon as the motion is obstructed by any obstacle, it is seen that life is at once deprived of a certain spark of its proper nature; but as soon as something more moving is added, it is seen that the liveliness is increased. This may best be seen from insects and other small animals, with whom life resides as it were in the least little drops of fluid: if the sun-ray strikes them, or touches their fibril, membrane, or little vein, then their whole life quickens at once and is as it were kindled, and the senses begin to live; but this motion, or this life, ceases as soon as the cold season arrives, for cold is the very opposite to motion; life with them is therefore mostly a motion. With the greater bodies the cold cannot effect so much, for it has less power to penetrate a great solid, as may be seen from geometry, so that we are not deprived of motion during winter, but still the principle is the same. Cold weather often causes what is most external to become dormant or extinguished; a person is chilled, or is deprived of a certain sensation, so that a loss of spirit, or a dead state is always the result when the motion is stopped by the cold. In a word, life consists in the motion but death in the rest of the particles.

Now in regard to the finer motions which cause that we live, that we have the use of our senses and our thoughts, and that we possess the complete harmony or communication of all these things as one, it should be remembered that these motions are of a more subtle essence than those which have been examined by the learned. The geometry of these motions is closed to us and to our coarser senses, so that we can hardly be said to have come further than to the first step of the knowledge concerning them, many thousand steps still remaining before we will be able to ascend to any perfect knowledge. For all that which makes the being of a sense, is more subtle than the sense itself and what ever is effected by that sense, so that it seems that only a finer sense is able to form a judgment concerning a grosser one, but the latter cannot form any judgment regarding itself. The ear, for instance, cannot possibly know or feel what it is that is vibrating in its organ, or how one thing is moving against another, unless a more subtle organ reveals it. The thought. which mostly is kept in attention to the feelings of the external senses and in their collective center, is not of itself aware of that which constitutes its own motion and life. In any case the conclusion must be this, that those motions in which life resides are the most subtle of all motions, of a nature such as cannot be seen or comprehended by any comparison with the grosser forms of motion.

2. Tremulation is the most subtle form of motion that exists in nature, and it possesses wonderful and distinctive properties, differing from all other motions. Although what is tremulatory presents itself each moment before us, playing round about each of the senses, yet is our mechanism and our reason still so little cultivated, that we have no proper knowledge of tremulation and its most subtle nature, as to wherein it consists, and wherein it differs from other motions. If tremulation is closely examined it will be found that it most closely resembles an axillary motion, as to its subtlety, or a motion within the least of space, that is, such a motion as takes place at the center alone; and that it has hardly anything in common with local motion, which takes place from one place to another. Tremulation, consequently, is not subjected to the laws that govern local motion. In a hard substance tremulation seems to be nothing but something swiftly moving top and down., an effort to recover the balance, like a ball thrown against the floor which makes smaller and smaller reboundings, until finally it returns out of the balance of motion into an equilibrium which is in a state of rest. It is the same with the most minute particles which possess hardly any weight and which of themselves move neither up nor down; if touched by the least motion these will leap and bound and tremble, until, after a period of tremulation, they finally return to their rest. Experience shows also that the lighter and more subtle the particles are, the swifter is the communication of the tremulation. Water trembles so slowly that the tremulation can be followed by our observation. Air moves more swiftly, and ether more swiftly still. Fire, or its radii, moves so swiftly that the tremulation is almost instantly communicated to us from the sun itself. It may be seen from this that the whole nature of tremulation consists in the effort of a thing to recover the balance which it was about to lose.

Tremulatory motion has in itself nothing in common with local motion, for it will be found that the latter requires its own fixed times, corresponding to its distances, adding to this, each movement, an increase in a certain measured ratio; it possesses a certain quality in a heavy substance and another in a light one, it is different in relation to a greater surface from what it is in relation to a smaller one; while on the other hand a tremulatory motion can exist in the same thing that is simultaneously subjected to local motion. A thing can be carried from one place to another, while at the same time it is trembling continuously without the least hindrance from the local motion. A bomb flying through the air, may in its course be subjected to tremulation; nay, one tremulatory motion may be within another one; a greater motion may exist together with a lesser one; within the latter there may be a still smaller one, and finally one most minute. Over an undulation, such as is seen in the water, there may be moving a smaller undulation or oscillation, over the latter a tremulation, over this a contremiscence, and so, finally, a most subtle one, which almost might be called a sensation or a vivum. A human body on board a ship may undulate up and down with the waves, while at the same time the brain possesses its own undulation; over this again there may be the vibration of a tremor, over this a tremulation, and over this a least trembling, such as produces the sense of hearing. The one motion may therefore be within and above the other, each without interfering with the other. The more a body is stretched out or expanded or in a state of quiescence, and the more fixed and heavy it is, the more does the tremulatory motion seem able to exhibit its proper nature; a whole mountain, entire houses and cities, with bells and belfries, tremble and shake from comparatively small causes, whence it may be seen that tremulatory motion has no consideration for what is heavy and great, but the greater and heavier a thing is, the more freedom does this motion possess to penetrate the whole and to bring everything into a sympathetic trembling, as shall be shown better in what follows.

3. As now living force is motion, and as life consists of little motions, and as the most subtle motions in nature are contremiscences, it follows that whatever lives in us consists of contremiscences, that is, most subtle motions; it is therefore our opinion that whatever lives in us is a tremulation in our finest nerves, in the most delicate membranes, in the very bones and in the entire systems of nerves and bones. A sensation of hearing, for instance, is first produced by a motion in the air and then in the membranes of the ear; this is then communicated from one membrane to another, from one nerve to another, from one bone to another; and as all the membranes are connected one with the other, and as the membranes and the nerves join and make a common system, it follows that the least tremulation in a nerve or a membrane is able to distribute itself over the whole connected system of the body. The bones, also, are joined one with the other, and each is surrounded with its own membranes, so that as soon as a tremulation enters into a bone, it flows at once over the whole osseous system, as shall be proved in what follows. Our theory is therefore, that every part of what is rising in the body lives by means of little tremulatory motions which flow into the nerves and the membranes and set the whole system into sympathetic tremulation; and that as soon as a contremiscence is distributed over a whole body, it may be termed a sense or a sensation, and that if all the contremiscences of the senses are taken conjointly, they possess the name of nature, or of life. This, then, is what is to be demonstrated. (Nerve transmission-radar, Osmosis-radio)