There is nothing lacking in our manasic earth-village, nothing that is in more abundant measure in our county, state, and nation.  We are of the best.

We of this village may imagine, if we like, that there is nothing beyond the village limits, and nothing in it but that which relates to the village.  We have the right to be silly, if we wish to be.  And it is no sign of wisdom to say that there is a county beyond, but that the county boundaries end all, and only village and county politics may be studied.  The European who believed—­no Asiatic or African or American could have believed —­that the earth rested on an elephant and the elephant on a turtle was wise, in comparison.  Nor is it any sign of intelligence to say that we may learn something of the village and county while we live, but that to learn anything about the state and nation we must wait until we are dead.  There are too many in the village who are familiar with both state and nation, and who have studied their laws, for this to be anything but idiotic.

Chapter Eight

The Battle Ground

Each and every one of our eighty-odd elementary substances owe their condition—­whether solid, liquid, or gas—­to their rate of vibration.  We have reduced all gases to a liquid and nearly all to a solid form.  Conversely, we have raised all solids to a liquid and nearly all to a gaseous condition.  This has been done by reducing or raising the vibration of each within one octave —­each one of the eighty odd having a special octave, a tone or half-tone different from any other.  Normally, the solids, vibrating in the lower notes, gather together under Attraction; while the gases, vibrating in the higher notes, diffuse under Repulsion.  Between them, created by the interchange of these two forces, is our “skin” of phenomena, or kinetics.

Broadly, the attraction of the universe comes from its vibration at certain centres in the three higher notes; the repulsion comes from its vibration everywhere else in the three higher notes.  The central note, D of the scale, represents the battle ground between the field of kinetics.  This in simple illustration is water turning into gas.

This is the great battle ground, the only one worth considering in a general view.  There are minor “critical stages” which the chemist studies, but for us, in this broad sketch of the universe, the important battle-ground is that between solid and liquid on one side representing gravity, and gas on the other, representing apergy.

All the solids and liquids of this earth of ours gather at the centre, in a core, each of the elements (or their combinations) in this core vibrating in their three lower notes, producing the attraction, which is “in proportion to the mass” and which decreases from the surface of the core “as the square of the substance.”

Around this central core gather all the elements vibrating in the three higher notes of their octave as gases, producing repulsion which increases by 1.6 for each doubled time.  It is worth while making this clear.  It has never before appeared in print.