Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-03-01
THE LIFE OF THE STARS.

|
row streets of our cemeteries. Every atom
of stone or metal vibrates with secret
movement of its own. Water and air and
fire slumber not; the face of the sky
changes forever; the forms of the clouds new
er repeat themselves. Beneath our own
changing flesh, invisible architects cease not
to toll at their coral building Of bone-the
substance of the very brain with which we
think are being perpetually worn out and
replaced; the prOtoplasm of our blood eX-
hausted and renewed. Never does the labor
OffOrm-creatiOn pause for an instant ;-GOdS
Rest is mere anthrOpomOrphic fancy -
"weariness cometh not to Him nor sleep"
Who, asks the Bhagavad-Gita, knoweth the
point at which life begins, or the moment of
its ending ?-we never behold either the be-
ginning or the end only the Middle appears
to us-a passing manifestation. For there
is no beginning, no ending each human
life is not work completed or begun it is
only one vibration of an everlasting force.
The power thus manifested has never COM
menced to act, never will cease to be-even
| when all the suns now blazing in violent in
tensity shall have been burnt out.
There is no rest! What we call fred stars
are moving with rapidity that the human
mind is impOtent to cOnceive-with velOc-
ity compared to which that of the projectile
launched by rifed cannon is absolute iner-
tia. Our own earth must travel nearly 6O0,-
| coo 900 miles year, $4,000 miles day!
Arcturus is rushing through the immensities
at speed of 5,400, 900 miles a day; and we
have already spoken of one strange astral
sphere, star of the seventh magnitude,
(No. 1880, Groombrdge) which shoots
through space at the rate of t'centy-one mil
lions Of mites in neutrality-suspicious.. Natures
calm'' is fiction. The infinite night rOars
with the parturition of nebule pregnant
with solar systems-rages with the agOnies
of dyingsuns and all the while that mon
strous belt of blazing spheres to which our
own system belongs is changing shape like
smoke, is rolling up like a scrOlE is tearing
its seething way through unknown deeps of
darkness with the rapidity of lightnings-
| though we, like the creatures wriggling
within drop of water beneath the micrOs-
cope, may not feel the huge vibrations OF
larger universe, may not be conscious of
sounds too vast for our tiny brains to COM
prehend.
Enormous as this astral motion is,-real
as it is,-in one sense it is only relative.
Let star be launched through infinity in
any direction at a velocity of twenty mil
lion miles day!-after the lapse of twenty
centilliOn years it cannot have changed its
position in relation to the infinite about it.
For the centre of the infinite is everywhere,
the circumference nowhere, TO cite the
words of Rabelais. However swift stars
motion is it can move from nothing-save
other stars also moving it can move toward
nOthing-save other stars also moving.
Terrific as the movement of a hundred mil
lions may be, the mere idea Of the In
finite in which they swim renders that mo-
ton by comparison less than nothing!
Relatively, however, we know what tre-
mendOus energies are being expended in
space; the heavens are mOnstrOus with
thrilling life as the microscopic drop of wa
ter What is the impulse of that awful ac-
tivity? Must we continue to speak of dumb
laws ofattraction and repulsion, of electric
ity, Of "PrimOdial fOrce?" Why not call 1T
Life? Why do suns rush to suns? Why
do planets cling to their central star and
moons to mother planets ? Why should there
be so strange a resemblance between the
movements OfintnsOria and the movements
of the stars? Suns are probably seeking
food, seeking union, seeking to propagate
their species like rOtifera and prOtozOd COM
cts are perhaps the sWarmpores of worlds;
nebulae may be astral sperm cells.
Primitive man in wOrshipping the lights
of heaven as intelligent beings, perhaps
came nearer the truth than the hierachs
who founded the faiths that still live: Yet,
as in drop Of water the innumerable Or
|
by one and the same natural chemistry, so
the countless spheres of heaven live with
one universal life, through each sun over
distinctive life of it's own. All the stars
are to that universal life only what the
protoplasmic cells are to the life-blOOd
of man. What is that awful universal life ::
We know not we can never. .knOW-any
more than the animalcule in Ehrenberg'S
microscope could know Ehrenberg. For
/ DO, ~ Y
wept and wondered and prayed in vain to
know the impossible; and perhaps the
Brahmans of India, the writers of the We
danta, have spoken most wisely of all, when
they declared the creative power Nameless
and incomprehensible- -Self-eXistant,-I
partite, Beyond the range of speech and
thought,-Invisible Intangible, Unrelated,
Colorless, Endless, All-pervading, Unde-
caying,-Substrate Of all all,-AkHlLADHA-
RIA, whose thoughts are Forms, Whose
dreams are WOrlds.-NeU Orleans Times
Democrat.
THE FLOODS OF 1SS3.-A writer advances
the following theory respecting the recent
calamitous floods in Europe and America !:
Such observations of the sun as the thick
weather of the past few days has rendered
possible show a remarkable solar distur-
bance. The sun is covered with groups OF
spots, indicating intense activity. There
are great holes and chasms and burrows up
on its surface, into which the earth might
be dropped as easily as an apple in a flour
barrel. A similar tempest on the surface of
the sun led some months ago to the mag
netic storms and the magnificent aurora
borealis. Whether there is any connection
between these solar phenomena and the
great rain storms that have flooded the
Western rivers is matter that may hereafter
be investigated. The Western floods are
only a part of general series Of treshets
that have swept the valleys Of the Euro
pean rivers. 1t is something more than q
coincidence that there should be treshet in
the Rhine higher than any recorded during
centuries, and at another time in the same
year, a similar flood in the Danube and 9th
er European rivers. Now that the highest
water ever known in the Ohio is recorded,
not excepting the great floods OF 1893, 1873
and 1882, we may be called on to record sim
liar disasters in other American rivers.
The causes of these great rains seem to be
larger than any that meteOrology is accus-
toned to deal with.
WHAT DOCTORS DO.-About once IN
twenty years the doctors relabel all the
old complaints and give them new names.
Thirty years ago pneumonia was lung
fever.n and "sciatia" plain "rheumatiZ."