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    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 34,
    "slug": "36-iv-is-gravitation-a-law-490",
    "title": "IV. IS GRAVITATION A LAW? ... 490",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 5237,
    "text": "## IV. IS GRAVITATION A LAW? ... 490\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 1, bk 3, ch 4\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 490 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n##### IV.\nIS GRAVITATION A LAW?\n\n**T**HE corpuscular theory has been unceremoniously\nput aside; but gravitation -- the principle that all bodies attract\neach other with a force proportional directly to their masses,\nand inversely to the squares of the distances between them --\nsurvives to this day and reigns, supreme as ever, in the alleged\nethereal waves of Space. As a hypothesis, it had been threatened\nwith death for its inadequacy to embrace all the facts presented\nto it; as a *physical law*,* *it is the King of\nthe late and once all-potent \"Imponderables.\" \"It\nis little short of blasphemy . . . . an insult to Newton's grand\nmemory to doubt it, . . . .\" is the exclamation of an American\nreviewer of \"*Isis Unveiled.*\" Well; what is\nfinally that *invisible and intangible *God in whom we\nshould believe on blind faith? Astronomers who see in gravitation\nan easy-going solution for many things, and an *universal *force\nwhich allows them to calculate thereby planetary motions, care\nlittle about the Cause of Attraction. They call Gravity a law,\na *cause *in itself. We call the forces acting under that\nname *effects*,* *and very secondary effects, too.\nOne day it will be found that the scientific hypothesis does not\nanswer after all; and then it will follow the corpuscular theory\nof light and be consigned to rest for many scientific *aeons\n*in the archives of all exploded speculations. Has not Newton\nhimself expressed grave doubts about the Nature of Force and the\ncorporeality of the \"Agents,\" as they were then called?\nSo has Cuvier, another scientific light shining in the night of\nresearch. He warns his readers, in the *Revolution du Globe*,*\n*about the doubtful nature of the so-called Forces, saying\nthat \"it is not so sure whether those agents were not *Spiritual\nPowers *after all (*des agents spirituels*)*. At\n*the outset of his \"Principia,\" Sir Isaac Newton\ntook the greatest care to impress upon his school that he did\nnot use the word \"attraction\" with regard to the mutual\naction of bodies in a physical sense. To him it was, he said,\na purely mathematical conception involving no consideration of\nreal and primary physical causes. In one of the passages of his\n\"Principia\" (*Defin*. 8,* B. I. Prop. *69,*\n*\"*Scholium*\"),* *he tells us plainly\nthat, physically considered, attractions are rather *impulses.\n*In section XI. (*Introduction*)* *he expresses\nthe opinion that \"there *is some subtle spirit by the\nforce and action of which *all movements of matter are determined\"\n(see* Mod. Mater.*,* by Rev. W. F. Wilkinson*)*;\n*and in his third Letter to Bentley he says: \"It is inconceivable\nthat inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something\nelse *which is not material*,* *operate upon and\naffect other matter, without mutual contact, as it must do if\ngravi-\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 491 GRAVITY OR WHAT?\n\ntation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in\nit. . . . That gravity should be innate, inherent and essential\nto matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance,\nthrough a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else by and\nthrough which their action may be conveyed from one to another,\nis to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has\nin philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can\never fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly\naccording to certain laws; but *whether this agent *be\n*material or immaterial *I have left to the consideration\nof my readers.\"\n\nAt this, even Newton's contemporaries got frightened -- at the\napparent return of *occult *causes into the domain of physics.\nLeibnitz called his principle of attraction \"an incorporeal\nand inexplicable power.\" The supposition of an attractive\nfaculty and a perfect *void *was characterized by Bernoulli\nas \"revolting,\" the principle of *actio in distans\n*finding thus no more favour then than it does now. Euler,\non the other hand, thought the action of gravity was due to either\na *Spirit *or some subtle medium. And yet Newton knew of,\nif he did not accept, the Ether of the Ancients. He regarded the\nintermediate space between the sidereal bodies as *vacuum.\n*Therefore he believed in \"subtle spirit\" and *Spirits\n*as we do, guiding the so-called attraction. The above-quoted\nwords of the great man have produced poor results. The \"absurdity\"\nhas now become a dogma in the case of pure materialism, which\nrepeats, \"No matter without force, no force without matter;\nmatter and force are inseparable, eternal and indestructible (true);\nthere can be no independent force, since all force is *an inherent\nand necessary property of matter *(*false*)*; *consequently,\n*there is no immaterial *creative power.\" Oh, poor\nSir Isaac!\n\nIf, leaving aside all the other eminent men of Science who shared\nin the same opinion as Euler and Leibnitz, the Occultists claim\nas their authorities and supporters only Sir Isaac Newton and\nCuvier, as above cited, they need fear little from modern Science,\nand may loudly and proudly proclaim their beliefs. But, the hesitation\nand doubts of the two before cited authorities, and of many others,\ntoo, whom we could name, did not in the least prevent scientific\nspeculation from wool-gathering on the fields of brute matter\njust as before. First it was matter and an imponderable fluid\ndistinct from it; then came the *imponderable *fluid so\nmuch criticised by Grove; and AEther, which was at first* discontinuous\n*and then became continuous; after which came the \"mechanical\"\nForces. These have now settled in life as \"modes of motion\"\nand the aether has become more mysterious and problematical than\never. More than one man of Science objects to such crude materialistic\nviews. But then since the days of Plato, who repeatedly asks his\nreaders not to confuse *incorporeal *Elements with\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 492 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\ntheir **P**RINCIPLES -- transcendental or spiritual\nElements; from those of the great Alchemists, who, like Paracelsus,\nmade a great difference between phenomenon and its cause, or the\nNoumenon; and Grove, who, though he sees \"no reason to divest\nuniversally diffused matter of the *functions *common to\nall matter,\" yet uses the term *Forces *where his\ncritics, \"who do not attach to the word any idea of a *specific\naction*,\"* *say Force -- from those days to this\nnothing has proved competent to stem the tide of brutal materialism.\nGravitation *is the sole cause*,* *the acting God,\nand matter is its prophet, said the men of science only a few\nyears ago.\n\nThey have changed their views several times since then. But do\nthe men of Science understand the innermost thought of Newton,\none of the most spiritual-minded and religious men of his day,\nany better now than they did then? It is certainly to be doubted.\nNewton is credited with having given the death-blow to the Elemental\nVortices of Descartes (the idea of Anaxagoras, resurrected, by-the-bye),\nthough the last modern \"vortical atoms\" of Sir W. Thomson\ndo not, in truth, differ much from the former. Nevertheless, when\nhis disciple Forbes wrote in the *Preface *to the chief\nwork of his Master a sentence declaring that \"attraction\nwas the *cause *of the System,\" Newton was the first\nto solemnly protest. That which in the mind of the great mathematician\nassumed the shadowy, but firmly rooted image of God, as the *noumenon\n*of all,* was called more philosophically by the ancient (and\nmodern) philosophers and Occultists -- \"Gods,\" or the\n*creative *fashioning Powers. The modes of expression may\nhave been different, and the ideas more or less philosophically\nenunciated by all sacred and profane Antiquity; but the fundamental\nthought was the same.** For Pythagoras the Forces were Spiritual\nEntities, Gods inde-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"*Attraction*,\"* *Le Couturier, a materialist,\nwrites, \"has now become for the public that which it was\nfor Newton himself -- a simple word, an *idea*\"*\n*(*Panorama des Mondes*),* *since its cause\nis unknown. Herschell virtually says the same, when remarking,\nthat whenever studying the motion of the heavenly bodies, and\nthe phenomena of attraction, he feels penetrated at every moment\nwith the idea of \"the *existence of causes *that act\nfor us under a veil, disguising *their direct *action*.*\"*\n*(*Musee des Sciences*,* *August, 1856.)\n\n** If we are taken to task for believing in operating \"Gods\"\nand \"Spirits\" while rejecting a *personal God*,*\n*we answer to the Theists and Monotheists: \"Admit that\nyour Jehovah is *one of the Elohim*,* *and we are\nready to recognise him. Make of him, as you do, the Infinite,\nthe ONE and the *Eternal *God, and we will never accept\nhim in this character.\" Of *tribal *Gods there were\nmany; the One Universal Deity is a principle, an abstract Root-Idea\nwhich has nought to do with the unclean work of finite Form. We\ndo not worship the Gods, we only honour Them, as beings superior\nto ourselves. In this we obey the Mosaic injunction, while Christians\n*disobey *their Bible -- Missionaries foremost of all.\n\"*Thou shalt not revile the gods*,\"* *says\none of them -- (Jehovah) -- in *Exodus xxii.* 28); but\nat the same time in verse 20 it is commanded, \"He that sacrificeth\nto any God, save unto the Lord, he shall be utterly destroyed.\"\nNow in the [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 493 THE TRIPLE SIDEREAL FORCE.\n\npendent of planets and Matter as we see and know them on Earth,\nwho are the rulers of the Sidereal Heaven. Plato represented the\nplanets as moved by an *intrinsic *Rector, one with his\ndwelling, like \"A boatman in his boat.\" As for Aristotle,\nhe called those rulers \"*immaterial *substances;\"*\nthough as one who had never been initiated, he rejected the gods\nas *Entities *(*See Vossius*,* Vol. II.*,*\np. *528). But this did not prevent him from recognising the\nfact that the stars and planets \"were not inanimate masses\nbut *acting and **living *bodies indeed. . . . . .\n.\" As if \"*sidereal spirits were the divine *portion\nof their phenomena, [[*ta theoitera pon phaneron*]]\"\n(*De Caelo. I. *9).\n\nIf we look for corroboration in more modern and Scientific times,\nwe find Tycho Brahe recognising in the stars a triple force, *divine*,*\nspiritual and vital. *Kepler, putting together the Pythagorean\nsentence, \"The Sun, guardian of Jupiter,\" and the verses\nof David, \"He placed his throne in the Sun,\" and \"The\nLord is the Sun,\" etc., said that he understood perfectly\nhow the Pythagoreans could believe that all the globes disseminated\nthrough Space were rational Intelligences, *facultates ratiocinativae*,*\n*circulating around the Sun, \"in which resides *a\npure Spirit of fire; *the source of the general harmony\"\n(*De Motibus planetarum harmonicis*,* p. *248).\n\nWhen an Occultist speaks of Fohat -- the energising and guiding\nintelligence in the Universal Electric or *Vital *Fluid,\n-- he is laughed at. Withal, as now shown, neither the nature\nof electricity, nor of Life nor even of Light, are to this day\nunderstood. The Occultist sees in the manifestation of every force\nin Nature, the action of the quality, or the special characteristic\nof its noumenon; which *noumenon *is a distinct and intelligent\nIndividuality *on the other side of the manifested mechanical\nUniverse. *Now the Occultist does not deny -- on the contrary\nhe will support the claim -- that light, heat, electricity and\nso on are *affections *(not properties or qualities) of\nmatter. To put it more clearly: matter is the condition -- the\nnecessary basis or vehicle, a *sine qua non* --* *for\nthe manifestation of these forces, or agents, on this plane.\n\nBut in order to gain the point the Occultists have to examine\nthe credentials of the law of gravity, first of all, of \"Gravitation,\nthe King\n\n[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] *original texts *it\nis not \"god\" but *Elohim*, --* *and we\nchallenge contradiction -- and Jehovah is one of the Elohim, as\nproved by his own words in *Genesis iii.* 22, when \"the\nLord God said: Behold the Man has become *as one of us*,\"*\n*etc. Hence both those who worship and sacrifice to the *Elohim*,*\n*the angels, and to Jehovah, those who *revile the gods\n*of their fellow-men, are far greater transgressors than the\nOccultists or any Theosophist. Meanwhile many of the latter prefer\nbelieving in some one \"Lord\" or other, and are quite\nwelcome to do as they like.\n\n* To liken the \"immateriate species to *wooden iron*,\"*\n*and laugh at Spiller referring to them as \"incorporeal\nmatter\" does not solve the mystery (See \"Concepts of\nModern Physics,\" p. 165 *et infra*)*.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 494 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nand Ruler of Matter,\" under every form. To do so effectually,\nthe hypothesis in its earliest appearance has to be recalled to\nmind. To begin with, is it Newton who was the first to discover\nit? The *Athenaeum *of Jan. 26, 1867, has some curious\ninformation upon this subject. It says that \"positive evidence\ncan be adduced that Newton derived all his knowledge of gravitation\nand its laws from Boehme, *with whom gravitation or *ATTRACTION\nis the first property of Nature.\" . . . For with him \"his\n(Boehme's) system, shows us the *inside *of things, while\nmodern physical science is content with looking at the outside.\"\nThen again, \"the science of electricity, which was not yet\nin existence when he (Boehme) wrote, is there anticipated (in\nhis writings); and not only does Boehme describe all the now known\nphenomena of that force, but he even gives us the origin, generation,\nand birth of electricity, itself, etc.\"\n\nThus Newton, whose profound mind read easily between the lines,\nand fathomed the spiritual thought of the great Seer in its mystic\nrendering, owes his great discovery to Jacob Boehme, the nursling\nof the genii (Nirmanakayas) who watched over and guided him, of\nwhom the author of the article in question so truly remarks, that\n\"every new scientific discovery goes to prove *his profound\nand intuitive insight into the most secret workings of nature.*\"\nAnd having *discovered *gravity, Newton, in order to render\npossible the action of attraction in space, had, so to speak,\nto *annihilate *every physical obstacle capable of impeding\nits free action; ether among others, though he had more than a\npresentiment of its existence. Advocating the corpuscular theory,\nhe made an *absolute vacuum *between the heavenly bodies.\n. . . Whatever may have been his suspicions and *inner *convictions\nabout Ether; however many friends he may have unbosomed himself\nto -- as in the case of his correspondence with Bentley -- his\nteachings never showed that he had any such belief. If he *was\n*\"persuaded that the power of attraction could not be\nexerted by matter across a vacuum,\"* how is it that so late\nas 1860, French astronomers (Le Couturier, for instance), combated\n\"the *disastrous *results of the theory of vacuum\nestablished by the great man?\"** Professor Winchell writes,\n\"These passages (letter to Bentley) show what were his views\nrespecting the nature of the interplanetary medium of communication.\nThough declaring that the heavens '*are void of sensible matter*,'*\n*he elsewhere excepted '*perhaps*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* World-Life. Prof. Winchell, **LL.D** (pp. 49 and 50).\n\n** \"Il n'est plus possible aujourd'hui, *de soutenir comme\nNewton*,* *que les corps celestes se mouvent au milieu\ndu VIDE immense des espaces. . . . Parmi les consequences de la\n*theorie du vide etablie *par ce grand homme, il ne reste\nplus debout *que le mot *'*attraction*,'* *et\nnous verrons le jour ou ce dernier mot disparaitra du vocabulaire\nscientifique.\" (\"*Panorama des mondes*,\"*\n*pp. 47 *and *53*.*)\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 495 NEWTON THEN AND NEWTON NOW.\n\nsome very thin vapours, streams, and effluvia, arising from the\natmospheres of the earth, planets, and comets, and from such an\nexceedingly rare ethereal medium as we have elsewhere described.\"\n(*Newton*,* Optics*,* III.*,* query *28,\n1704; *quoted in *\"*World-Life.*\")\n\nThis only shows that even such great men as Newton have not always\nthe courage of their opinions. Dr. T. S. Hunt \"called attention\nto some long-neglected passages in Newton's works, from which\nit appears that a belief in such universal, intercosmical medium\ngradually took root in his mind.\" (*Ibid.*)* *But\nsuch attention was never called to the said passages before Nov.\n28, 1881, when Dr. Hunt read his \"*Celestial Chemistry*,*\nfrom the time of Newton.*\"* *\"Till then the\nidea was universal, even among the men of Science, that Newton\nhad, while advocating the corpuscular theory, preached *a void*,\"*\n*as Le Couturier says. The passages had been \"long neglected,\"\nno doubt because they contradicted and clashed with the preconceived\npet theories of the day, till finally the undulatory theory imperiously\nrequired the presence of an \"ethereal medium\" to explain\nit. This is the whole secret.\n\nAnyhow, it is from that theory of Newton's of a universal void\n-- *taught*,* *if not believed in by himself, --\nthat dates the immense scorn now shown by modern for ancient physics.\nThe old sages had maintained that \"Nature abhorred vacuum,\"\nand the greatest mathematicians of the world (read of the Western\nraces) had discovered the antiquated \"fallacy\" and exposed\nit. And now modern science vindicates, however ungracefully, archaic\nknowledge, having, moreover, to vindicate Newton's character and\npowers of observation at this late hour, after having neglected\nfor one century and a half to pay any attention to such very important\npassages -- perchance, because it was wiser not to attract any\nnotice to them. Better late than never.\n\nAnd now Father AEther is *re-welcomed *with open arms;\nand wedded to gravitation; linked to it for weal or woe, until\nthe day when it, or both, shall be replaced by something else.\nThree hundred years ago it was* plenum *everywhere, then\nit became one dismal *vacuity; *later still the sidereal\nocean-beds, dried up by science, rolled onward once more their\nethereal waves. *Recede ut procedes *must become the motto\nof exact Science -- \"exact,\" chiefly, in finding itself\ninexact every leap-year.\n\nBut we will not quarrel with the great men. They had to go back\nto the earliest \"Gods of Pythagoras and old Kanada\"\nfor the very backbone and marrow of their correlations and \"newest\"\ndiscoveries, and this may well afford good hope to the Occultists,\nfor their minor gods. For we believe in Le Couturier's prophecy\nabout gravitation. We know the day is approaching when an *absolute\nreform *will be demanded in the present modes of Science by\nthe scientists themselves -- as was done by Sir W. Grove, **F.R.S**.\nTill that day there is nothing to be done. For if gravitation\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 496 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nwere dethroned to-morrow, the day after the Scientists would discover\nsome other new mode of mechanical motion.* Rough and up-hill is\nthe path of true Science, and its days are full of vexation of\nSpirit. But in the face of its \"thousand\" contradictory\nhypotheses to explain physical phenomena, there never was yet\na better one than that of \"motion\" -- however paradoxically\ninterpreted by materialism. As may be found on the first pages\nof Book I., Occultists have nothing surely against *motion***\nthe GREAT BREATH of Mr. Herbert Spencer's \"UNKNOWN.\"\nBut, believing that everything on Earth is the *shadow *of\nsomething in *space* --* *they believe *in smaller\n*\"Breaths,\" which, living, intelligent and independent\nof all but Law, blow in every direction during Manvantaric periods.\nThese Science will reject. But whatever replaces attraction, *alias*\ngravitation, the result will be the same. Science will be as far\nfrom the solution of its difficulties as it is now, unless it\ncomes to some compromise with Occultism and even with Alchemy\n-- which supposition will be regarded as an impertinence, but\nremains a fact, nevertheless. As Faye says: \"*Il manque\nquelque chose aux geologues pour faire la geologie de la Lune*,*\nc*'*est d*'*etre astronomes. A la verite il manque\naussi quelquechose aux astronomes pour aborder avec fruit cette\netude*,* c*'*est d*'*etre geologues.*\"*\n*But he might have added, with still more pointedness, \"*Ce\nqui manque a tous les deux*,* c*'*est l*'*intuition\ndu mystique.*\"\n\nLet us remember Sir William Grove's wise \"concluding remarks,\"\non the ultimate structure of matter, or the minutiae of molecular\nactions, which, he thought, man will never know.\n\n\"Much harm has already been done by attempting hypothetically\nto dissect matter and to discuss the shapes, sizes, and numbers\nof atoms, and their atmospheres of heat, ether, or electricity.\n. . . . Whether the regarding electricity, light, magnetism, etc.,\nas simply motions of ordinary matter, be or be not admissible,\ncertain it is that all past theories have resolved, and all existing\ntheories do resolve, the action of these forces into motion. Whether\nit be that, on account of our familiarity with motion, we refer\nother affections to it, as to a language which is most easily\nconstrued, and most capable of\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* When read in a fair and unprejudiced spirit, Sir Isaac Newton's\nworks are an ever ready witness to show how he must have hesitated\nbetween gravitation and attraction, impulse and some other *unknown\ncause *to explain the regular course of the planetary motion.\nBut see *Treatise on Colour *(Vol. III., question 31.)\nWe are told by Herschell that Newton left with his successors\nthe duty of drawing all the scientific conclusions from his discovery.\nHow modern Science abused the privilege of building its newest\ntheories upon the law of gravitation, may be realised when one\nremembers how profoundly religious was that great man.\n\n** The materialistic notion that because, in physics real or sensible\nmotion is impossible in pure space or *vacuum*, therefore,\nthe eternal MOTION of and in Cosmos (regarded as infinite Space)\nis a *fiction *-- only shows once more that such words\nas \"pure space,\" \"pure Being,\" \"the Absolute,\"\netc., of Eastern metaphysics have never been understood in the\nWest.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 497 NEW BOTTLES FOR OLD WINE.\n\nexplaining them, or whether it be that it is in reality the only\nmode in which *our minds *as* contra-distinguished from\nour senses*,* *are able *to conceive material agencies*,*\n*certain it is that since the period at which the mystic notions\nof spiritual or preternatural powers were applied to account for\nphysical phenomena, all hypotheses framed to explain them have\nresolved them into MOTION.\"\n\nAnd then the learned gentleman states a purely occult tenet: --\n\n\"The term perpetual motion, which I have not infrequently\nused in these pages, is itself equivocal. If the doctrines here\nadvanced be well founded, *all* *motion is*,* in one\nsense*,* perpetual. *In masses, whose motion is stopped\nby mutual concussion, heat or motion of the particles is generated;\nand thus the motion continues, so that if we could venture to\nextend such thoughts to the universe, we should assume the same\namount of motion affecting the same amount of matter for ever.\"*\n\nThus, supposing attraction or gravitation should be given up in\nfavour of the Sun being a *huge magnet *-- which is a theory\nalready accepted by some physicists -- a magnet that acts on the\nplanets as attraction is now supposed to do, whereto, or how much\nfarther would it lead the astronomers from where they are now?\nNot an inch farther. Kepler came to this \"curious hypothesis\"\nnearly 300 years ago. He had not discovered the theory of attraction\nand repulsion in Kosmos, for it was known from the days of Empedocles,\nthe two opposite forces being called by him \"hate\" and\n\"love\" -- which comes to the same thing. But Kepler\ngave a pretty fair description of cosmic magnetism. That such\nmagnetism exists in nature, is as certain as that gravitation\ndoes not; not at any rate, in the way in which it is taught by\nScience, which never took into consideration the different modes\nin which the dual Force -- that Occultism calls attraction and\nrepulsion -- may act within our solar system, the earth's atmosphere,\nand *beyond *in the Kosmos.** This was proven by Newton\nhimself; for there are many phenomena in our\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"*Correl. Phys. Forces*,\"* *p. 173.\nThis is precisely what Occultism maintains, and on the same principle\nthat \"where force is made to oppose force, and produce static\nequilibrium, the balance of pre-existing equilibrium is affected,\nand *fresh motion is started *equivalent to that which\nis withdrawn into a state of abeyance.\" This process finds\nintervals in the pralaya, but is eternal and ceaseless as *the\n*\"Breath,\" even when the manifested Kosmos rests.\n\n** \"Trans-solar space,\" writes the great Humboldt, \"does\nnot hitherto show any phenomenon analogous to our solar system.\nIt is a peculiarity of *our* System, that matter should\nhave condensed within it in nebulous rings, the nuclei of which\ncondense into earths and moons. I say again, heretofore, *nothing\nof the kind has* *ever been observed beyond our planetary\nsystem.*\"* *(*See Revue Germanique of the*\n*31st Dec. 1860**,** art. *\"*Lettres\net conversations d*'*Alexandre Humboldt.*\")*\n*True, that since 1860 the nebular theory has sprung up, and\nbeing better known, a few identical phenomena were *supposed\n*to be observed beyond the solar system. Yet the great man\nis quite right; and no *earths *or* moons *can be\nfound -- *except in appearance* --* *beyond, or\nof the same order of matter as found in our system. Such is the\nOccult teaching.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 498 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nSolar system, which he confessed his inability to explain by the\nlaw of gravitation. \"Such were the uniformity in the directions\nof planetary movements, the nearly circular forms of the orbits,\nand their remarkable conformity to one plane\" (*Prof.\nWinchell*)*. *And if there is one single exception,\nthen the law of gravitation has no right to be referred to as\nan *universal law. *\"These adjustments,\" we are\ntold, \"Newton, in his general Scholium, pronounces to be\n'the work of an intelligent and all-powerful Being.' \" Intelligent\nthat \"Being\" may be; as to \"all-powerful\"\nthere would be every reason to doubt the claim. A poor \"God\"\nhe, who would work upon minor details and leave the most important\nto secondary forces! The poverty of the argument and logic in\nthis case, is surpassed only by that of Laplace, who, seeking\nvery correctly to substitute motion for Newton's \"all-powerful\nBeing,\" and ignorant of the true nature of that eternal motion,\nsaw in it a blind physical law. \"Might not those arrangements\nbe an effect of the laws of motion?\" he asks, forgetting,\nas all our modern Scientists do, that this* law *and this\nmotion are a vicious circle, so long as the *nature of both\n*remains unexplained. His famous answer to Napoleon: \"*Dieu\nest devenu une hypothese inutile*,\"* *would be\ncorrectly stated only by one who adhered to the philosophy of\nthe Vedantins. It becomes a pure fallacy, if we exclude the interference\nof operating, intelligent, powerful (never \"*all-powerful*\")*\n*Beings, who are called \"gods.\"\n\nBut we would ask the critics of the mediaeval astronomers why\nshould Kepler be denounced as *most unscientific*,*\n*for offering just the same solution as Newton did -- only\nshowing himself more sincere, more consistent and even more logical.\nWhere may be the difference between Newton's \"all-powerful\nBeing\" and Kepler's *Rectores*,* *his sidereal\nand Cosmic Forces, or Angels? Kepler is again criticised for his\n\"curious hypothesis which made use of a vortical movement\nwithin the solar system;\" for his theories in general, for\nhis favouring Empedocles' idea of attraction and repulsion, and\n\"Solar magnetism\" in particular. Yet several modern\nmen of Science, as will be shown -- Hunt (if Metcalfe is to be\nexcluded), Dr. Richardson, etc. -- favour the idea very seriously.\nHe is half excused, however, on the plea that \"to the time\nof Kepler no interaction between masses of matter had been distinctly\nrecognized which was *generically *different from magnetism\"\n(*World-Life*)*.* Is it* distinctly* recognised\nnow? Does Prof. Winchell claim for Science any serious knowledge\nwhatever of the natures of either electricity or magnetism --\nexcept that *both seem to be the effects of some result arising\nfrom an undetermined cause.*\n\nThe ideas of Kepler, weeded from their theological tendencies,\nare purely occult. He saw that:\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 499 CHRONIC NEGATION.\n\n(I.) The Sun is a great Magnet.* This is what some eminent modern\nscientists and also the Occultists believe in.\n\n(II.) The Solar substance is immaterial.** (*See* \"*Isis\nUnveiled*,\"* Vol. I.* *pp. *270* to\n*271.)\n\n(III.) He provided, for the constant motion and restoration of\nthe Sun's energy and planetary motion, the perpetual care of a\nspirit, or spirits. The whole of Antiquity believed in this idea.\nThe Occultists do not use the word Spirit, but say *Creative\n*Forces, which they *endow with intelligence. *But\nwe may call them spirits also.\n\nThis theory is tabooed a great deal more on account of the \"Spirit\"\nthat is given room in it, than of anything else. Herschell, the\nelder, believed in it likewise, and so do several modern scientists\nalso. Nevertheless Professor Winchell declares that \"a hypothesis\nmore fanciful, and less in accord with the requirements of physical\nprinciples, has not been offered in ancient or modern times.\"\n(*World-Life*,* p. *554.)\n\nThe same was said, once upon a time, of the universal Ether, and\nnow it is not only accepted perforce but advocated *as the\nonly possible theory *to explain away certain mysteries.\n\nGrove's ideas, when he first enunciated them in London about 1840,\nwere called as *unscientific *as the above; nevertheless,\n*his* views on the correlation of forces are now universally\naccepted. It would, very likely, require one more conversant with\nscience than is the writer, to combat with any success some of\nthe now prevailing ideas about gravitation and other similar \"solutions\"\nof Cosmic Mysteries. But, let us recall a few objections that\ncame from recognized men of Science; from astronomers and physicists\nof eminence, who rejected the theory of rotation, as well as that\nof gravitation. Thus one reads in the *French Encyclopaedia\n*that* *\"Science agrees, in the face of all its\nrepresentatives, that it is *impossible *to explain the\n*physical *origin of the rotatory motion of the solar system.\"\n\nIf the question is asked, \"what causes rotation?\" we\nare answered: \"It is the centrifugal Force.\" \"And\nthis force, what is it that produces it?\" \"The force\nof rotation,\" is the grave answer. (*Godefroy*,*\nCosmogonie de la Revelation.****)* *It will be well,\nperhaps, to examine both these theories as being directly or indirectly\nconnected.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* But see *Astronomie du Moyen Age*,* *by Delambre.\n\n** In the sense, of course, of matter existing in states unknown\nto Science.\n\n*** We shall be taken to task for contradiction. It will be said\nthat while we deny *God*,* *we admit Souls and *operative\nSpirits*,* *and quote from Roman Catholic bigoted writers\nin support of our argument. To this we reply: \"We deny the\n*anthropomorphic *god of the Monotheists, but never the\nDivine Principle in nature. We combat Protestants and Roman Catholics\non a number of dogmatic theological beliefs of human and sectarian\norigin. We agree with them in their belief in Spirits and *intelligent*\noperative powers, though we do not worship \"Angels\"\nas the Roman Latinists do.\"\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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