vangeline I shall not miss
Though we wander the dim starry sheen,
On opposite sides of rivers so vast
That islands of worlds intervene.

But what is there in space? There is the great ceaseless force of
gravitation. Though the weakest of natural forces, yet when displayed
in world-masses its might is measureless by man's arithmetic. Tie an
apple or a stone to one end of a string, and taking the other end whirl
it around your finger, noting its pull. That depends on the weight of
the whirling ball, the length of the string, and the swiftness of the
whirl. The stone let loose from David's finger flies crashing into the
head of Goliath. But suppose the stone is eight thousand miles in
diameter, the string ninety-two million five hundred thousand miles
long, and the swiftness one thousand miles a minute, what needs be the
tensile strength of the string? If we covered the whole side of the
earth next the sun, from pole to pole and from side to side, with steel
wires attaching the earth to the sun, thus representing the tension of
gravitation, the wires would need to be so many that a mouse could not
run around among them.

There swings the moon above us. Its best service is not its light,
though lovers prize that highly. Its gravitative work is its best. It
lifts the sea and pours it into every river and fiord of the coast.
Our universal tug-boat is in the sky. It saves millions of dollars in
towage to London alone every year. And this world would not be
habitable without the moon to wash out every festering swamp and
deposit of sewage along the shore.

Gravitation reaches every place, whether worlds be there or not. This
force is universally present and effective. In the possibilities of a
no-world condition a spirit may be able to so relate itself to matter
that gravitation would impart its incredible swiftness of transference
to a soul thus temporarily relating itself to matter. What gravitation
does in the absence of the kind of matter we know it is difficult to
assert. But as will be seen in our second division there is still
ample room for its exercise when worlds as such have ceased to be.

In space empty of worlds there is light. It flies or runs one hundred
and eighty-six thousand miles a second. There must be somewhat on
which its wing-beat shall fall, stepping stones for its hurrying feet.
We call it ether, not knowing what we mean. But in this space is the
play of intensest force