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EUREKA: A PROSE POEM.

EDGAR A. POE.

NEW-YORK: GEO. P. PUTNAM, OF LATE FIRM OF "WILEY & PUTNAM," 155 BROADWAY.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, BY EDGAR A. POE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.

LEAVITT, TROW & CO Prs., 33 Ann-street.

WITH VERY PROFOUND RESPECT, This Work is Dedicated TO ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.

PREFACE

To the few who love me and whom I love--to those who feel rather than to those who think--to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities--I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone:--let us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a Poem.

Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.

E. A. P.

EUREKA:

AN ESSAY ON THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE.

It is with humility really unassumed--it is with a sentiment even of awe--that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn--the most comprehensive--the most difficult--the most august.

What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimity--sufficiently sublime in their simplicity--for the mere enunciation of my theme?

In illustration of this idea, I propose to take such a survey of the Universe that the mind may be able really to receive and to perceive an individual impression.

It seems to me that, in aiming at this latter effect, and, through it, at the consequences--the conclusions--the suggestions--the speculations--or, if nothing better offer itself the mere guesses which may result from it--we require something like a mental gyration on the heel. We need so rapid a revolution of all things about the central point of sight that, while the minutiae vanish altogether, even the more conspicuous objects become blended into one. Among the vanishing minutiae, in a survey of this kind, would be all exclusively terrestrial matters. The Earth would be considered in its planetary relations alone. A man, in this view, becomes mankind; mankind a member of the cosmical family of Intelligences.

The assumption of absolute Unity in the primordial Particle includes that of infinite divisibility. Let us conceive the Particle, then, to be only not totally exhausted by diffusion into Space. From the one Particle, as a centre, let us suppose to be irradiated spherically--in all directions--to immeasurable but still to definite distances in the previously vacant space--a certain inexpressibly great yet limited number of unimaginably yet not infinitely minute atoms.

Had we discovered, simply, that each atom tended to some one favorite point--to some especially attractive atom--we should still have fallen upon a discovery which, in itself, would have sufficed to overwhelm the mind:--but what is it that we are actually called upon to comprehend? That each atom attracts--sympathizes with the most delicate movements of every other atom, and with each and with all at the same time, and forever, and according to a determinate law of which the complexity, even considered by itself solely, is utterly beyond the grasp of the imagination of man. If I propose to ascertain the influence of one mote in a sunbeam upon its neighboring mote, I cannot accomplish my purpose without first counting and weighing all the atoms in the Universe and defining the precise positions of all at one particular moment. If I venture to displace, by even the billionth part of an inch, the microscopical speck of dust which lies now upon the point of my finger, what is the character of that act upon which I have adventured? I have done a deed which shakes the Moon in her path, which causes the Sun to be no longer the Sun, and which alters forever the destiny of the multitudinous myriads of stars that roll and glow in the majestic presence of their Creator.

But these laws--what do they declare? Irradiation--how--by what steps does it proceed outwardly from a centre?

For example: at the distance B, from the luminous centre A, a certain number of particles are so diffused as to occupy the surface B. Then at double the distance--that is to say at C--they will be so much farther diffused as to occupy four such surfaces:--at treble the distance, or at D, they will be so much farther separated as to occupy nine such surfaces:--while, at quadruple the distance, or at E, they will have become so scattered as to spread themselves over sixteen such surfaces--and so on forever.

Let me now describe the sole possible mode in which it is conceivable that matter could have been diffused through space, so as to fulfil the conditions at once of irradiation and of generally equable distribution.

For convenience of illustration, let us imagine, in the first place, a hollow sphere of glass, or of anything else, occupying the space throughout which the universal matter is to be thus equally diffused, by means of irradiation, from the absolute, irrelative, unconditional particle, placed in the centre of the sphere.

They lie in a series of concentric strata. They are equably diffused throughout the sphere. They have been irradiated into these states.

Succinctly--The surfaces of spheres are as the squares of their radii.

Therefore the number of atoms in any stratum is directly proportional with the square of that stratum's distance from the centre.

Therefore the force which irradiated any stratum is directly proportional with the square of that stratum's distance from the centre:--or, generally,

Page 44.

The consideration here involved presents to my own mind no embarrassment whatever--but this fact does not blind me to the possibility of its being obscure to those who may have been less in the habit of dealing with abstractions:--and, upon the whole, it may be as well to look at the matter from one or two other points of view.

It may be said, first: "The proof that the force of irradiation is directly proportional to the squares of the distances, depends upon an unwarranted assumption--that of the number of atoms in each stratum being the measure of the force with which they are emitted."

The second supposable objection is somewhat better entitled to an answer.

It is an admitted principle in Dynamics that every body, on receiving an impulse, or disposition to move, will move onward in a straight line, in the direction imparted by the impelling force, until deflected, or stopped, by some other force. How then, it may be asked, is my first or external stratum of atoms to be understood as discontinuing their movement at the circumference of the imaginary glass sphere, when no second force, of more than an imaginary character, appears, to account for the discontinuance?

It may be objected, thirdly, that, in general, the peculiar mode of distribution which I have suggested for the atoms, is "an hypothesis and nothing more."

And if here, for the mere sake of cavilling, it be urged, that although my starting-point is, as I assert, the assumption of absolute Simplicity, yet Simplicity, considered merely in itself, is no axiom; and that only deductions from axioms are indisputable--it is thus that I reply:--

Now, the condition of this mass implies a rotation about an imaginary axis--a rotation which, commencing with the absolute incipiency of the aggregation, has been ever since acquiring velocity. The very first two atoms which met, approaching each other from points not diametrically opposite, would, in rushing partially past each other, form a nucleus for the rotary movement described. How this would increase in velocity, is readily seen. The two atoms are joined by others:--an aggregation is formed. The mass continues to rotate while condensing. But any atom at the circumference has, of course, a more rapid motion than one nearer the centre. The outer atom, however, with its superior velocity, approaches the centre; carrying this superior velocity with it as it goes. Thus every atom, proceeding inwardly, and finally attaching itself to the condensed centre, adds something to the original velocity of that centre--that is to say, increases the rotary movement of the mass.

Shrinking still farther, until it occupied just the space circumscribed by the orbit of Jupiter, the Sun now found need of farther effort to restore the counterbalance of its two forces, continually disarranged in the still continued increase of rotation. Jupiter, accordingly, was now thrown off; passing from the annular to the planetary condition; and, on attaining this latter, threw off in its turn, at four different epochs, four rings, which finally resolved themselves into so many moons.

Having shrunk, however, so far as to fill only the orbit of our Earth, the parent sphere whirled from itself still one other body--the Earth--in a condition so nebulous as to admit of this body's discarding, in its turn, yet another, which is our Moon;--but here terminated the lunar formations.

Finally, subsiding to the orbits first of Venus and then of Mercury, the Sun discarded these two interior planets; neither of which has given birth to any moon.

I am prepared to show that the anomalous revolution of the satellites of Uranus is a simply perspective anomaly arising from the inclination of the axis of the planet.

In this view, it will be seen that, dismissing as frivolous, and even impious, the fancy of the tangential force having been imparted to the planets immediately by "the finger of God," I consider this force as originating in the rotation of the stars:--this rotation as brought about by the in-rushing of the primary atoms, towards their respective centres of aggregation:--this in-rushing as the consequence of the law of Gravity:--this law as but the mode in which is necessarily manifested the tendency of the atoms to return into imparticularity:--this tendency to return as but the inevitable r?action of the first and most sublime of Acts--that act by which a God, self-existing and alone existing, became all things at once, through dint of his volition, while all things were thus constituted a portion of God.

See page 70.

If my views are tenable, we should be prepared to find the newer planets--that is to say, those nearer the Sun--more luminous than those older and more remote:--and the extreme brilliancy of Venus does not seem to be altogether accounted for by her mere proximity to the central orb. She is no doubt vividly self-luminous, although less so than Mercury: while the luminosity of Neptune may be comparatively nothing.

Page 36.

Now this is in precise accordance with what we know of the succession of animals on the Earth. As it has proceeded in its condensation, superior and still superior races have appeared. Is it impossible that the successive geological revolutions which have attended, at least, if not immediately caused, these successive elevations of vitalic character--is it improbable that these revolutions have themselves been produced by the successive planetary discharges from the Sun--in other words, by the successive variations in the solar influence on the Earth? Were this idea tenable, we should not be unwarranted in the fancy that the discharge of yet a new planet, interior to Mercury, may give rise to yet a new modification of the terrestrial surface--a modification from which may spring a race both materially and spiritually superior to Man. These thoughts impress me with all the force of truth--but I throw them out, of course, merely in their obvious character of suggestion.

A most unfounded opinion has become latterly current in gossiping and even in scientific circles--the opinion that the so-called Nebular Cosmogony has been overthrown. This fancy has arisen from the report of late observations made, among what hitherto have been termed the "nebulae," through the large telescope of Cincinnati, and the world-renowned instrument of Lord Rosse. Certain spots in the firmament which presented, even to the most powerful of the old telescopes, the appearance of nebulosity, or haze, had been regarded for a long time as confirming the theory of Laplace. They were looked upon as stars in that very process of condensation which I have been attempting to describe. Thus it was supposed that we "had ocular evidence"--an evidence, by the way, which has always been found very questionable--of the truth of the hypothesis; and, although certain telescopic improvements, every now and then, enabled us to perceive that a spot, here and there, which we had been classing among the nebulae, was, in fact, but a cluster of stars deriving its nebular character only from its immensity of distance--still it was thought that no doubt could exist as to the actual nebulosity of numerous other masses, the strong-holds of the nebulists, bidding defiance to every effort at segregation. Of these latter the most interesting was the great "nebulae" in the constellation Orion:--but this, with innumerable other mis-called "nebulae," when viewed through the magnificent modern telescopes, has become resolved into a simple collection of stars. Now this fact has been very generally understood as conclusive against the Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace; and, on announcement of the discoveries in question, the most enthusiastic defender and most eloquent popularizer of the theory, Dr. Nichol, went so far as to "admit the necessity of abandoning" an idea which had formed the material of his most praiseworthy book.

His original idea seems to have been a compound of the true Epicurean atoms with the false nebulae of his contemporaries; and thus his theory presents us with the singular anomaly of absolute truth deduced, as a mathematical result, from a hybrid datum of ancient imagination intertangled with modern inacumen. Laplace's real strength lay, in fact, in an almost miraculous mathematical instinct:--on this he relied; and in no instance did it fail or deceive him:--in the case of the Nebular Cosmogony, it led him, blindfolded, through a labyrinth of Error, into one of the most luminous and stupendous temples of Truth.

Page 62.

My question, however, remains unanswered:--Have we any right to infer--let us say, rather, to imagine--an interminable succession of the "clusters of clusters," or of "Universes" more or less similar?

However feeble be the impression, even thus conveyed, of the Moon's real distance from the Earth, it will, nevertheless, effect a good object in enabling us more clearly to see the futility of attempting to grasp such intervals as that of the 28 hundred millions of miles between our Sun and Neptune; or even that of the 95 millions between the Sun and the Earth we inhabit. A cannon-ball, flying at the greatest velocity with which such a ball has ever been known to fly, could not traverse the latter interval in less than 20 years; while for the former it would require 590.

Our Moon's real diameter is 2160 miles; yet she is comparatively so trifling an object that it would take nearly 50 such orbs to compose one as great as the Earth.

The diameter of our own globe is 7912 miles--but from the enunciation of these numbers what positive idea do we derive?

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