Extracted text
Editorial transcription, lightly normalized from the scan. Line-break hyphenation and unmistakable OCR errors have been repaired; the claims remain those of The Flaming Sword and The Salvator and Scientist.
Review of Systems.
Some So-Called Scientific Theories Which Will be Overthrown by the Demonstration of the Earth's Concavity. Attempts to Solve the Problem of the Universe.
Nature is the effect of Cause, and is true. The structure of the natural world—the form of the universe, with its various phenomena—unmistakably expresses the hidden impulses which it involves. By no more absolute means can the Almighty write his laws than by the process of creation; and there can be no more enduring evidence of his character, than the physical cosmos which he has put forth and which he perpetuates.
For ages past, man has endeavored to consider and to solve the problem of the universe. From the chaos of the past began the formulation of systems of concept. It is now a matter of history that many of these systems have been discarded as erroneous, newer ones supplanting the old. In the field of astronomy, there have been both progression and retrogression. Science in its perfection has reached its climax, and one more Man has become able to read the laws of Nature from its own form and function, and to express the same in a complete and perfect system—the Cellular Cosmogony. On the other hand, the fruit of the retrogressive elements has become manifest in the absolute of fallacy, the modern astronomical and cosmogonical system. Lying between the two extremes—the absolute of truth and the absolute of fallacy—are a number of concepts embodied in the kinds of systems representing the various degrees of progression and retrogression made by the respective leaders and followers. It will be interesting to our readers to have a brief sketch of these various systems, giving the principal and essential points of difference, and the causes which have led to their formulation.
The Copernican System, the Principal Fallacy.
Copernicus appropriated from the Ptolemaic system the then prevailing ideas of the earth's convexity. He took the earth of Ptolemy as it was, and thus built upon the work and the unproven assumptions of his predecessors. The work of Copernicus was simply that of devising a scheme for accounting for the direct and retrograde movements of the planets, to satisfy an aspiration for personal fame. He attempted to explain the phenomena of the heavens without referring his explanations to a known premise.
The crude and fallacious conception of Copernicus was used as a basis of system building by Galileo, Kepler and Newton, with later improvements during the present century by the scientists of Europe and America. The rapidity with which the world has grown into this fallacy is marvelous, considering that less than one hundred years ago Yale College taught the Ptolemaic system in its scientific department. The fall of the Copernican system will be startling; it will not be a gradual decline, but a wreckage of premise and sudden collapse of the imposing structure! Its fall will be the close of the "present evil world," and the time of the rising of the Sun of the New Day.
The Electric Theory.
This is an electric age, and it is not surprising that some one should undertake to apply some of the modern concepts of electricity to the fallacies of modern astronomy. The massive and prodigious sun forms one pole of the great battery, and the planetary bodies the other, while the moon remains as much of an enigma as in the Copernican system. Though the advocates of this theory have a complete electrical nomenclature, and have discovered (?) the quality of electricity each planet generates in its reciprocal relation to the sun, and calculated the voltage per second, they have failed to consider the utter impracticability of conducting currents of electricity from the equator of the revolving orbs; they have failed to conduct the electric forces from the poles! And this is where the system fails to comply with known electrical principles. It accepts without question, the assumptions of the astronomers of the old school; it introduces just enough novelty to be interesting and entertaining to those who want to enjoy a mental plaything!
Vail's Annular System, or Ring Theory.
Vail's annular theory has for its premise the Copernican idea of revolving worlds. Its distinctive features reside, for the most part, in the attempted solution of world formation, and of the production of the various geological epochs of the world. Every system of astronomy has had connected with it a theory of how the universe was brought into existence, and what has been the cause of its various geological phenomena. So in reality, the annular theory is only an attempt to solve certain geological questions and to reconcile Biblical statements concerning astronomy with the modern theory generally entertained by the scientific world. However, there are astronomical features peculiar to this theory, which make it an astronomical system. The assumption of the convexity of the earth in the annular system is as unfounded as in the popular theory.
The Gillespian System or Geocentric Theory.
Every system of astronomy established upon the assumption that the earth is a convex body is fallacious. The Gillespian theory would not suggest any change in the size or the contour of the earth from what is presented in the usual system; it assumes that it rotates upon its axis in 24 hours, but fixes the earth and the sun in positions from which they are immovable. The stars revolve about the earth only, Venus and Mercury about the sun only, while the other planets embrace both the earth and sun within the circle of their orbits. In many things this theory is unique and apparently consistent with a few facts, and in general harmony with itself; it succeeds in accounting, in a way, for some Scriptural expressions, but it lacks a demonstrated premise. Its author takes for granted that the Copernican system is partly true. He has succeeded in eliminating some errors, and to that extent he has made some scientific advancement and progress; but he has also made the common mistake of building a system upon an assumption, and perhaps he has succeeded in making as many "scientific" mistakes as he has discarded. However, his efforts are not lost; he has succeeded in destroying the confidence of many in the older fallacy, and is thus really assisting in the promotion of the perfect system of Koresh!
The Earth a Cone, by Capt. Wolff.
After all the discussions for the past several years in scientific circles concerning the character of the southern hemisphere, who would have thought that the idea should be entertained that the earth is a cone, the apex constituting the south pole? The shape of the earth according to the Conic system, is somewhat that of a cone, the base being in the north, rounded, instead of being a plane, the cone gradually tapering from about 45° north latitude to a point at the southern extremity. In this system, as in all others, there is a plausible accounting for all the ordinary phenomena. So far as usual phenomena are concerned, any system would answer the purpose for observation and computation; every system but the true one, seizes upon appearances as the basis of conclusion.
The cone rotates on its axis in 24 hours, causing day and night; the seasons are caused by the relation the cone sustains to the sun alternately every six months; while the lunations of the moon are caused by an additional revolution of the earth around the apex or south pole in...
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Source: The Flaming Sword (reprinted in The Salvator and Scientist) · Vol. 11, No. 2 · February 1897 · Physical PDF pp. 17–18
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 11, No. 2 · Feb 1897 · PDF pp. 17-18