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The sexuality of nature: an essay
by Leopold Hartley Grindon
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Excerpt:
Heat.
10. Oxygen, the most abundant and active element of nature; invisible, enamoured oxygen, adjoins itself to almost every element in turn; and wherever it clings in its love, there heat is disengaged. If the union be rapid, the heat is palpable and burning; if slow, as in the Oxidation or rusting of a piece of iron, it passes off unperceived. This is the marriage to which all the natural warmth of our bodies is owing. The oxygen which we imbibe from the atmosphere in breathing, attaches itself to atoms of the carbon it finds awaiting it, being carried throughout the system by the circulation of the blood, and the immediate result is the disengagement of heat. Eveti in its origin, the heat of the body thus forms a beautiful emblem of the warmth or fervour of the spirit, excited by the sweet presence of one at once loving and beloved. It is no mystic's dream that heat and love are counterparts, Without an inborn heat, promoted from without, the body has no life; without an inborn love, nourished by another's, the soul is torpid. Both come of full, earnest, animated sympathies deep in the inmost sanctuaries of our being. Maintaining their beautiful agreement with animal life, even plants give out heat, wherever, under the influence of oxygen, the vital processes are going on with activity. Ordinarily, the heat so set free does not exceed a single degree of the thermometric scale, and is consequently neutralized immediately. But while in bloom, the
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sweet era of its loves, the plant consumes oxygen so largely, especially through its floral organs, that the mercury rises fast. This is particularly observable in flowers which grow crowded together, as those of the genus Arum.
11. Heat of all other kiuds is similarly the result of an imitative generation, either purely chemical, or partly mechanical. The warmth which proceeds from the fire, and from a candle, comes of the union of the oxygen of the atmosphere with the carbon of the fuel, the flume which attends, being caused by its intensely rapid evolution. Not that heat in any case consists of the combined oxygen and carbon; because this flies off as carbonic acid gas; but that simultaneously with the chemical action which takes place during combustion, the potent element in question is disengaged and made sensible. Even the sun-beams, fervent as we think tliem, do not warm us of themselves. It is only when their heat is received by some material substance, that by radition, it becomes felt. The sun. in a word, is the father, the earth is the mother, of all external heat. Without both agents, the one actiug. the other re-acting, everything would be frozen to death. The higher strata of the atmosphere are cold as the arctic seas, (familiarly demonstrated by summer hail-storms); and the lower ones in which we live, together with all animals, plants and birds, would be no less wintry, were it not for their nearness to the earth's surface. ^Eronauts report that the higher they ascend in their balloons the colder the air becomes, though there is nothing to intercept the full and direct shining of the sun-beams. The snow lies for ever on the lofty peaks of great mountains, because at such heights there is insufficient absorbing and radiating surface to raise the temperature above freezing point. Burning glasses, though the sun-beams pass completely through them, and though in the focus there is hottest fire, are in themselves unaffected by the heat which they collect. So too with metal reflectors.
Light.
(The subjects of the two next sections [ Light and Colour] are not dwelt upon at length, because of the uncertainty which surrounds many questions relating to tliem. They also require more extended knowledge on the part of the author, to be treated In a way that would prove satisfactory.)
12. Light, which to appearance, comes from the sun as its sole origin and donor, needs before it can illuminate, like the solar heat before it can warm, a recipient or respondent. For the sun is not Light itself, but only the father of light, as of heat. All seeing, or what is the same thing, all consciousness of light, comes of marriage between the light that falls on them, and the objects which reflecting it, thereby become illuminated. Not only is our knowledge of terrestrial objects due therefore to this process, but that of the moon and planets, which shine upon us because they :ire reflectors of the same solar beams which li^ht us before they in their turn, come into view. This is not the only illu-.tr.Liion of nature's marriages connected with the history of light. Whatever the exact nature of light may be, there is good reason to believe that the beautiful thing we so denominate, is brought into visible existence, as an occupant of the sky, by the animating action of the solar orb on a latent luciparous element diffused throughout space, and which in the absenco of such stimulus, is still and dark. The sun weds it, and every surface turned that way, is made bright by the result. The researches of Nasmyth tend to shew that this lur.iparous element is unequally diffused. If this be true, not only will the primary derivation of all the light which sustains and gladdens life be seen to accord with the origin of every other gift of God; but a variety of remarkable phenomena connected with the history of the heavenly bodies will be more completely accounted for. Such for instance, as the variable brightness of certain stars; the total disappearance of certain other stars, (of which there are several well-known records); and the dimness of the sun which is said to have occasionally occurred.* In all such cases it is supposed that the changes have been induced by the particular spheres being then in portions of their orbits less or more abounding in the luciparous element, and thus either debarred from generating their accustomed plenitude of light, or happy in unusual progeny. This explanation is not inconsistent with Herschel's, but an enlargement of it. As with the past, so with the future. Our sun may yet have to pass through regions in which the luciparous element may either abound or be deficient, and thus shine with increased or diminished splendour to the eyes of future generations, the light of the moon being of course augmented or reduced in proportion. 'The sun,' it is prophesied, * shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine." But after this a glorious season is to come, when 'the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven-fold, as the light of seven days.' (Isaiuh xiii. 10, xxx. 20 ) The primary significance of these prophecies is of course,
