The White Spark

What if the hardest thing in the universe is not matter, but the empty space inside it? Orville Livingston Leach turns fire, atoms and the point of a pin into evidence for a cosmos shaped by moving spirit.

Writing in the early twentieth century, Leach challenges the familiar solidity of the material world. In his account, atoms are spaces ringed by motion, while the ether and spirit reach beyond what the senses can detect. Drawing on contemporary ideas about electricity and matter, he links this hidden structure to life—and to the natural laws he believes should guide human conduct. To follow his argument is to question not only what the universe is made of, but what keeps us well and what can save us. If matter is only a boundary around emptiness, where does life begin?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.