The Unseen Universe: Physical Speculations on a Future State

Balfour Stewart

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511694967

In 1875, the geophysicist Balfour Stewart and the mathematician P. G. Tait published the second edition of The Unseen Universe. The book's aim had been 'to overthrow materialism by a purely scientific argument', and its initial success, and the controversy it aroused, prompted this revised edition. The treatise suggests that science and religion could be reconciled, and that by using science, it could be proved that the soul survives after death. The book begins with a historical account of the beliefs about the afterlife of ancient Egypt, the Greeks, Buddhism and Christianity. The authors then refine a Ptolemaic vision of the universe in which the material universe is surrounded by concentric, invisible universes. The Unseen Universe discusses the nature of matter and ether, Newton's laws, and the idea that, through electromagnetism, the soul upon death transfers molecularly from the visible to the invisible universe.

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The Unseen Universe

Physical Speculations on a Future State

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
pp v-x

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
pp xi-xii

Contents
pp xiii-xx

CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTORY SKETCH
pp 1-43

CHAPTER II - POSITION TAKEN BY THE AUTHORS—PHYSICAL AXIOMS
pp 44-68

CHAPTER III - THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE
pp 69-93

CHAPTER IV - MATTER AND ETHER
pp 94-119

CHAPTER V - DEVELOPMENT
pp 120-139

CHAPTER VI - SPECULATIONS AS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCES IN THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE
pp 140-153

CHAPTER VII - THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE
pp 154-211

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Physical Speculations on a Future State

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