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    "slug": "vol-1-cosmogenesis",
    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
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    "num": 42,
    "slug": "44-xii-ancient-thought-in-modern-dress-579",
    "title": "XII. ANCIENT THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS ... 579",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 5134,
    "text": "## XII. ANCIENT THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS ... 579\n\n\nTHe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 1, bk 3, ch 12\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol.\n1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 579 ANTIQUITY OUR GREAT MASTER.\n\n##### XII.\nANCIENT THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS.\n\n**M**ODERN **S**CIENCE IS ANCIENT THOUGHT\nDISTORTED, and no more. We have seen, however, WHAT INTUITIONAL\nSCIENTISTS THINK, and are busy about; and now the reader may be\ngiven a few more proofs of the fact that more than one F.R.S.\nis unconsciously approaching the derided Secret Sciences.\n\nWith regard to cosmogony and primeval matter, modern speculations\nare undeniably ancient thought, *improved *by contradictory\ntheories of recent origin. But the whole foundation belongs to\nGrecian and Indian Archaic astronomy and physics, in those days\nalways called philosophy. In all the Aryan and Greek speculations,\none meets with the conception of an all-pervading, unorganized,\nand homogeneous matter, or *Chaos*,* *re-named by\nmodern scientists \"Nebular condition of the world-stuff.\"\nWhat Anaxagoras called \"Chaos\" in his *Homoiomeria\n*is now called \"primitive fluid\" by Sir W. Thomson.\nThe Hindu and Greek Atomists -- Kanada, Leucippus, Democritus,\nEpicurus, Lucretius, etc., etc., are now reflected as in a clear\nmirror, in the supporters of the atomic theory of our modern days,\nbeginning with Leibnitz's *Monads*,* *and ending\nwith the \"Vortical Atoms\" of Sir W. Thomson.* True,\nthe corpuscular theory of old is rejected, and the undulatory\ntheory has taken its place. But the question is, *whether the\nlatter is so firmly established as not to be liable to be dethroned\nas was its predecessor? *Light from its metaphysical aspect\nwas fully treated of in \"*Isis Unveiled*\":*\n*--\n\n\"Light is the first begotten, and the first emanation of\nthe Supreme, and Light is Life, says the Evangelist and the Kabalist.\nBoth are electricity -- the life principle, the *anima mundi*,*\n*pervading the universe, the electric vivifier of all things.\nLight is the great Protean magician, and under the divine will\nof the architect,** or rather the *architects*,* *the\n\"Builders\" (called *One* collectively), its multifarious,\nomnipotent waves gave birth to every form as well as to every\nliving being. From its swelling electric bosom, spring *matter\n*and *spirit. *Within its beams lie the beginnings of\nall physical and chemical action, and of all cosmic and spiritual\nphenomena; it vitalizes and disorganizes; it gives life and produces\ndeath, and from its primordial point gradually emerged into existence\nthe myriads of worlds, visible and invisible celestial bodies.\nIt was at the ray of this *First *mother, one in three, that\n\"God,\" according to\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The Elemental Vortices inaugurated by the *Mind *have\nnot been improved by their modern transformation.\n\n** I have been often taken to task for using expressions in *Isis\n*denoting belief in a *personal *and anthropomorphic\nGod. This is *not *my idea. Kabalistically speaking, the\n\"Architect\" is the generic name for the *Sephiroth*,*\n*the Builders of the Universe, as the \"Universal Mind\"\nrepresents the collectivity of the Dhyan Chohanic Minds.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 580 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nPlato, lighted a fire which we now call the sun,\"* and which\nis *not *the cause of either light or heat, but merely the\nfocus, or, as we might say, the lens, by which the rays of the\nprimordial light become materialised, are concentrate upon our\nSolar System, and produce all the correlations of forces.\"\n\nThis is the *Ether*,* *as just explained in the\nviews of Metcalfe, repeated by Dr. Richardson, save the submission\nof the former to some details of the modern undulatory theory.\nWe do not say that we deny the theory, but assert only that it\nneeds completion and re-arrangement. But the Occultists are by\nno means the only *heretics *in this respect; for Mr. Robert\nHunt, F.R.S., remarks, in his *Researches on Light in its Chemical\nRelations*,* *that: --\n\n. . . . \"the undulatory theory does not account for the results\nof his experiments. Sir David Brewster, in his *Treatise on\nOptics*,* *showing 'that the colours of vegetable life\narise . . . . from a specific attraction which the particles of\nthese bodies exercise over the differently-coloured rays of light,'\nand that 'it is by the light of the sun that the coloured juices\nof plants are elaborated, that the colours of bodies are changed,\netc. . . . .' remarks that it is not easy to allow 'that such\neffects can be produced by the mere vibration of an ethereal medium.'\nAnd he is *forced*,* *he says, 'by this class of facts,\nto reason as if light was *material *(?).' Professor Josiah\nP. Cooke, of Harvard University, says that he 'cannot agree .\n. . . with those who regard the wave-theory of light as an established\nprinciple of science.'** Herschell's doctrine, that the intensity\nof light, in effect of each undulation, 'is inversely as the square\nof the distance from the luminous body,' if correct, damages a\ngood deal, if it does not kill the undulatory theory. That he\nis right, was proved repeatedly by experiments with photometers;\nand though it begins to be much doubted, the undulatory theory\nis still alive.\" (\"*Isis Unveiled*.\")\n\nTo this remark of Sir W. Brewster -- \"forced to reason as\nif light was material\" -- there is a good deal to reply.\nLight, in one sense, is certainly as material as electricity itself\nis. And if electricity is *not *material, if it is only\n\"a mode of motion,\" how is it that it can be *stored\nup *in Faure's accumulators? Helmholtz says that electricity\nmust be as atomic as matter; and Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., supported\nthe view in his address to the Chemical Section of the British\nAssociation, of which he was President (at Birmingham, 1886).\nThis is what Helmholtz says (*in his Faraday Lectures*,*\n*1881):* *--\n\n\"If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances\nare composed of atoms, we cannot avoid concluding that electricity\nalso, positive as well as negative, is divided into definite elementary\nportions, which behave like atoms of electricity.\"\n\nHere we have to repeat that which was already said in Section\nIX: there is but one science that can henceforth direct modern\nresearch into the one path which will lead to the discovery of\nthe whole, hitherto\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* \"Timaeus.\"\n\n*** Modern Chemistry.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 581 A CHASE AFTER THE PRIMAL MATTER.\n\noccult, truth, and it is the youngest of all -- *chemistry*,*\n*as it now stands reformed. There is no other, not excluding\nastronomy, that can so unerringly guide scientific intuition,\nas chemistry can. Two proofs of it are to be found in the world\nof Science -- two great chemists, each among the greatest in his\nown country, and these are Mr. Crookes and the late Professor\nButlerof: one, a thorough believer in abnormal phenomena; the\nother, as fervid a Spiritualist as he was great in natural Sciences.\nIt becomes evident that while pondering over the ultimate divisibility\nof matter, and in the hitherto *fruitless *chase after\nthe element of negative atomic weight, the scientifically trained\nmind of the chemist must feel irresistibly drawn towards those\never-shrouded worlds, to the mysterious beyond, whose measureless\ndepths seem to close against the approach of the too materialistic\nhand that would fain draw aside its veil. \"It is the unknown\nand the *ever unknowable*,\"* *warns the Monist-Agnostic.\nNot so; answers the persevering chemist: -- \"We are on the\ntrack and are not daunted, and fain would we enter the mysterious\nregion which *ignorance tickets unknown.*\"*\n\nA few lines at the very close of his lecture on the *Genesis\nof the Elements *--* *two or three sentences -- showed\nthe eminent Scientist to be on the royal road to the greatest\ndiscoveries. He has been overshadowing for some time \"the\noriginal *protyle*,\"* *and came to the conclusion\nthat \"he who grasps the Key will be permitted to unlock some\nof the deepest mysteries of creation.\" The *protyle*,*\n*as that great chemist explains: --\n\n\". . . is a word analogous to protoplasm, to express the\nidea of the original primal matter existing before the evolution\nof the chemical elements. The word I have ventured to use for\nthis purpose is compounded of [[*pro*]]* *(earlier than)\nand [[*hyle*]] (the stuff of which things are made). The\nword is scarcely a new coinage, for 600 years ago Roger Bacon\nwrote in his *Arte Chymiae*,* *\"The* *elements\nare made out of [[*hyle*]] and every element is converted\ninto the nature of another element.\"\n\nThe* Knowledge *of Roger Bacon did not come to this wonderful\nold magician** by inspiration, but because he studied ancient\nworks on\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Mr. Crookes' \"Presidential Address\" at Birmingham.\n\"There is but one unknown -- *the ultimate substratum\nof Spirit *(Space). That which is not the *Absolute *and\nthe One is, in virtue of that very differentiation, however far\nremoved from the physical senses, always accessible to the spiritual\nhuman mind, which is a coruscation of the undifferentiable Integral.\"\n-- (*Practical Lessons on the Occult.*)\n\n** Thus, what the writer of the present work said ten years ago\nin \"*Isis Unveiled*\"* *(*Vol. I.*)*\n*was prophetic, it seems. These are the words: \"Many\nof these mystics, by following what they were taught by some treatises,\nsecretly preserved from one generation to another, *achieved\ndiscoveries which would* *not be despised even in our modern\ndays of exact sciences. *Roger Bacon, the friar, was laughed\nat as a quack, and is now generally numbered among 'pretenders'\nto magic art; but his discoveries were nevertheless accepted,\nand are now used by those who ridicule him the most. Roger Bacon\nbelonged by right, if not by fact, to that Brotherhood which includes\nall those who [[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 582 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nmagic and alchemy, having a key to the real meaning of words.\nBut see what Mr. Crookes says of *protyle*,* *next\nneighbour to the unconscious *Mulaprakriti *of the Occultists:\n--\n\n. . . . . \"Let us start at the moment when the first element\ncame into existence. Before this time, matter, as we know it,\nwas not. It is equally impossible to conceive of matter without\nenergy, as of energy without matter; from one point of view both\nare convertible terms. Before the birth of atoms, all those forms\nof energy, which become evident when matter acts upon matter,\ncould not have existed* -- they were locked up in the *protyle\n*as latent potentialities only. Coincident with the creation\nof atoms, all those attributes and properties, which form the\nmeans of discriminating one chemical element from another, start\ninto existence fully endowed with energy.\" (*Presidential\nAddress*,* *p. 16.)\n\nWith every respect due to the great knowledge of the lecturer,\nthe Occultist would put it otherwise. They would say that no atom\nis ever \"created,\" for the atoms are eternal within\nthe bosom of the *One* *Atom*,* *--* *\"the\natom of atoms\" -- viewed during Manvantara as the *Jagad-Yoni\n*the* material *causative womb of the world. *Pradhana\n*(unmodified matter), that which is the first form of *Prakriti*,*\n*or material visible, as *well as invisible *nature,\nand *Purusha*,* *spirit, are eternally one; and\nthey are *Nirupadhi*,* *(without adventitious qualities\nor attributes) only during *Pralaya*,* *and when\n*beyond *any of the planes of consciousness of existence.\nThe atom, as known to modern science, is inseparable from *Purusha*,*\n*which is spirit, but is now called \"Energy\" in\nScience. The *protyle *atom has not been comminuted or\nsubtilized: it has simply passed into that plane, which is no\nplane, but the eternal state of everything beyond the planes of\nillusion. Both *Purusha *and* Pradhana *are immutable\nand unconsumable, or *Aparinamin *and *Avyaya*,*\n*in eternity; and both during the Mayavic periods may be referred\nto as *Vyaya *and* Parinamin*,* *or that\nwhich can expand, pass away and disappear, and is \"modifiable.\"\nIn this sense *Purusha*,* *must of course, be held\ndistinct in our conceptions from *Parabrahmam*. Nevertheless\nthat, which is called \"energy\" or \"force\"\nin Science and has been explained as a *dual *Force by\nMetcalfe, is never, in fact, and cannot be *energy *alone;\nfor it is the substance of the world, its soul, the *all*-*permeant\n*\"Sarvaga,\" in conjunction with *Kala *\"time.\"\nThe three are the trinity in one, during Manvantara, the all-potential\nUnity, which acts on the plane of illusion (Maya) as three distinct\nthings. In Orphic\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] study the occult sciences.\nLiving in the thirteenth century, almost a contemporary, therefore,\nof Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, his discoveries -- such\nas gunpowder and optical glasses, and his mechanical achievements\n-- were considered by everyone as so many miracles. He was accused\nof having made a compact with the Evil One.\"\n\n* Just so; \"those forms of energy . . . *which become\nevident* . . .\" in the laboratory of the chemist and\nphysicist; but *there are other forms of energy *wedded\nto *other forms *of matter, -- *which are supersensuous*,*\n*yet known to the adepts.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 583 ALL-POTENTIAL UNITY.\n\nphilosophy in Greece they were called *Phanes*,* Chaos*,*\n*and *Chronos *-- the triad of the Occult philosophers\nof that period.\n\nBut see how closely Mr. Crookes brushes by the \"Unknowable,\"\nand what \"potentialities\" there are for the acceptance\nof Occult truths in his discoveries. He continues, speaking of\nthe evolution of atoms: --\n\n\". . . . Let us pause at the end of the first complete vibration\nand examine the result. We have already found the elements of\nwater, ammonia, carbonic acid, the atmosphere, plant and animal\nlife, phosphorus for the brain, salt for the seas, clay for the\nsolid earth . . . phosphates and silicates sufficient for a world\nand inhabitants not so very different from what we enjoy at the\npresent day. True the human inhabitants would have to live in\na state of more than Arcadian simplicity, and the absence of calcic\nphosphate would be awkward as far as the bone is concerned* .\n. . At the lower end of our curve . . . we see a great hiatus\n. . . This oasis, and the blanks which precede and follow it,\nmay be referred with much probability to the particular way in\nwhich our Earth developed into a member of our solar system. If\nthis be so, it may be that on our Earth only these blanks occur,\nand not generally throughout the universe.\"\n\nThis justifies several assertions in the Occult works.\n\n*Firstly*,* *\"that neither stars nor the sun\ncan be said to be constituted of those terrestrial elements with\nwhich the chemist is familiar, though they are all present in\nthe sun's outward robes -- and a host more of elements so far\nunknown to science.\"\n\n*Secondly*,* *that our globe has its own special\nlaboratory on the far-away outskirts of its atmosphere, crossing\nwhich, every atom and molecule change and differentiate from their\nprimordial nature.\n\nAnd *Thirdly*,* *that though no element present\non our earth could ever be possibly found wanting in the sun,\nthere are many others which have either not reached, or not as\nyet been discovered on, our globe. \"Some may be missing in\ncertain stars and heavenly bodies in the process of formation;\nor, though present in them, these elements, on account of their\npresent state, may not respond as yet to the usual scientific\ntests.\"** Mr. Crookes speaks of an element of still lower\natomic weight than hydrogen, an *element purely hypothetical\n*as far as our earth is concerned . . . though existing in\nabundance in the chromosphere of the Sun -- the* helium. *Occult\nScience adds that not one of the *elements *regarded by\nchemistry as such really deserves the name.\n\nAgain we find Mr. Crookes speaking with approbation of \"Dr.\nCarnelly's weighty argument in favour of *the compound nature\nof the so-called elements*,* *from their analogy to\nthe compound radicles! \" Hitherto,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* It is just the existence of such worlds in other planes of consciousness\nthat is claimed by the Occultist. The secret science teaches that\nthe primitive race was *boneless. *(See Book II.); and\nthat there are (to us) invisible worlds, peopled as our own, besides\nthe *populations *of Dhyan Chohans.\n\n*** *\"*Five Years of Theosophy*,\"*\np. *258 *et seq.*\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 584 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nalchemy alone succeeded within the historical periods, and in\nthe so-called civilized countries, in obtaining a real *element*,*\n*or a particle of homogeneous matter, the *Mysterium Magnum\n*of Paracelsus. But then it was before Lord Bacon's day.*\n\n\". . . Let us now turn to the upper portion of the scheme.\nWith hydrogen of atomic weight = 1, there is little room for other\nelements, save, perhaps, for hypothetical *Helium*. But what\nif we get 'through the looking-glass,' and cross the zero line\nin search of new principles -- what shall we find on the other\nside of zero? Dr. Carnelly asks for an element of negative atomic\nweight; here is ample room and verge enough for a shadow series\nof such unsubstantialities. Helmholtz says that electricity is\nprobably as atomic as matter; is electricity one of the negative\nelements, and the luminiferous ether another? Matter, as we now\nknow it, does not here exist; the forms of energy which are apparent\nin the motions of matter are as yet only latent possibilities.\n*A substance of negative weight is not inconceivable.****\n*But can we form a clear conception of a body which combines\nwith other bodies in proportions expressible by negative qualities?\"***\n\n\"A genesis of the elements such as is here sketched out would\nnot be confined to our little solar system, but would probably\nfollow the same general sequence of events in every centre of\nenergy now visible as a star.\"\n\n\"Before the birth of atoms to gravitate towards one another,\nno pressure could be exercised; but at the outskirts of the fire-mist\nsphere, within which all is protyle -- at the shell on which the\ntremendous forces involved in the birth of a chemical element\nexert full sway -- the fierce heat would be accompanied by gravitation\nsufficient to keep the newly-born elements from flying off into\nspace. As temperature increases, expansion and molecular motion\nincrease, molecules tend to fly asunder, and their chemical affinities\nbecome deadened; but the enormous pressure of the gravitation\nof the mass of atomic matter, outside what I may for brevity call\nthe birth-shell, would counteract the action of heat.\"\n\n\"Beyond the birth-shell would be a space in which no chemical\naction could take place, owing to the temperature there being\nabove what is called the dissociation-point for compounds. In\nthis space the lion and the lamb would lie down together; phosphorus\nand oxygen would mix without union; hydrogen and chlorine would\nshow no tendency to closer bonds; and even fluorine, that\n\n[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Says Mr. Crookes in the same address: \"The first riddle\nwhich we encounter in chemistry is: 'What are the elements?' Of\nthe attempts hitherto made to define or explain an element, none\nsatisfy the demands of the human intellect. The text books tell\nus that an element is 'a body which has not been decomposed ''that\nit is 'a something to which we can add, but from which we can\ntake nothing,' or 'a body which increases in weight with every\nchemical change.' Such definitions are doubly unsatisfactory:\nthey are provisional, and may cease to-morrow to be applicable\nin any given case. They take their stand, not on any attribute\nof the things to be defined, but on the limitations of human power:\nthey are confessions of intellectual impotence.\"\n\n** And the lecturer quotes Sir George Airy, who says (*in Faraday*'*s\nLife and Letters Vol. II.*,* p.* 354), \"I can\neasily conceive that there are plenty of bodies about us not subject\nto this intermutual action, and *therefore not subject to the\nlaw of gravitation.*\"\n\n*** The Vedantic philosophy conceives of such; but then it is\nnot physics, but metaphysics, called by Mr. Tyndall \"poetry\"\nand \"fiction.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 585 THE \"SEVENTH\" IN CHEMISTRY.\n\nenergetic gas which chemists have only isolated within the last\nmonth or two, would float about free and uncombined.\"\n\n\"Outside this space of free atomic matter would be another\nshell, in which the formed chemical elements would have cooled\ndown to the combination point, and the sequence of events so graphically\ndescribed by Mr. Mattieu Williams in \"*The Fuel of the\nSun*\"* *would now take place, culminating in the\nsolid earth and the commencement of geological time\" (p.\n19).\n\nThis is, *in a strictly scientific*,* *but beautiful\nlanguage, the description of the evolution of the differentiated\nUniverse in the secret teachings. The learned gentleman closes\nhis address in words, every sentence of which is like a flash\nof light from beyond the dark veil of materiality, hitherto thrown\nupon the exact sciences, and a step forward towards the *Sanctum\nSanctorum *of the Occult. (*Vide *§ *XV.*,*\n*\"*Gods*,* Monads*,* and Atoms.*\")*\n*Thus he says: --\n\n\"We have glanced at the difficulty of defining an element;\nwe have noticed, too, the revolt of many leading physicists and\nchemists against the ordinary acceptation of the term element;\nwe have weighed the improbability of their eternal existence,*\nor *their origination by chance. *As a remaining alternative,\nwe have suggested their origin by a process of evolution like\nthat of the heavenly bodies according to Laplace, and the plants\nand animals of our globe according to Lamarck, Darwin, and Wallace.**\nIn the general array of the elements, as known to us, we have\nseen a striking approximation to that of the organic world.***\nIn lack of direct evidence of the decomposition of any element,\nwe have sought and found indirect evidence . . . . We have next\nglanced at the view of the genesis of the elements; and lastly\nwe have reviewed a scheme of their origin suggested by Professor\nReynold's method of illustrating the periodic classification****\n. . . Summing up all the above considerations we cannot,\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* In the form they are now, we conceive?\n\n** And to Kapila and Manu -- especially and originally.\n\n*** Here is a scientific corroboration of the eternal law of correspondences\nand analogy.\n\n**** This method of illustrating the periodic law in the classification\nof elements is, in the words of Mr. Crookes, proposed by Professor\nEmerson Reynolds, of Dublin University, who . . . . \"points\nout that in each period, the general properties of the elements\nvary from one to another, with approximate regularity until we\nreach the *seventh member*,* *which is in more or\nless striking contrast with the first element of the same period,\nas well as with the first of the next. Thus chlorine, the seventh\nmember of Mendeleef's third period, contrasts sharply with both\nsodium, the first member of the same series, and with potassium,\nthe first member of the next series; whilst on the other hand,\nsodium and potassium are closely analogous. The six elements,\nwhose atomic weights intervene between sodium and potassium, vary\nin properties, step by step, until chlorine, the contrast to sodium,\nis reached. But from chlorine to potassium, the analogue of sodium,\nthere is a change in properties *per saltum*. . . . . If\nwe thus recognise a contrast in properties -- more or less decided\n-- between the first and the last members of each series, we can\nscarcely help admitting the existence of a point of mean variation\nwithin each system. In general the *fourth *element of\neach series possesses the property we might expect a transition-element\nto exhibit. . . . . Thus for the purpose of graphic translation,\nProfessor Reynolds considers that the fourth member of a period\n-- silicon, for example -- may be placed at the apex of a symmetrical\n[[Footnote continued on next page]]\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 586 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nindeed, venture to assert positively *that our so-called elements\nhave been evolved from one primordial matter; but we may contend\nthat the balance of evidence, I think, fairly weighs in favour\nof this speculation*.\"\n\nThus inductive Science, in its Branches of Astronomy, Physics,\nand Chemistry, while advancing timidly towards the conquest of\nNature's secrets in her final effects on our terrestrial plane,\nrecedes to the days of Anaxagoras and the Chaldees in its discoveries\nof (a) the origin of our phenomenal world, and (b) the modes of\nformation of the bodies that compose the universe. And having\nto turn back for their cosmogonical hypotheses to the beliefs\nof the earliest philosophers, and the systems of the latter --\nsystems that were all based on the teachings of a universal secret\ndoctrine with regard to the primeval matter with its properties,\nfunctions, and laws, -- have we not the right to hope that the\nday is not far off when Science will show a better appreciation\nof the wisdom of the ancients than it has hitherto done?\n\nNo doubt Occult philosophy could learn a good deal from exact\nmodern science; but the latter, on the other hand, might profit\nby ancient learning in more than one way, and chiefly in Cosmogony.\nFor\n\n[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n[[Footnote continued from previous page]] curve, which shall represent\nfor that particular period, the direction in which the properties\nof the series of elements vary with rising atomic weights.\n\nNow, the writer humbly confesses complete ignorance of modern\nchemistry and its mysteries. But she is pretty well acquainted\nwith the Occult doctrine with regard to *correspondences of\ntypes and antitypes *in nature, and perfect analogy as a fundamental\nlaw in Occultism. Hence she ventures a remark which will strike\nevery Occultist, however it may be derided by orthodox Science.\nThis method of illustrating the periodic law in the behaviour\nof elements, whether or not still a hypothesis in chemistry, *is\na law* *in Occult Sciences. *Every well-read Occultist\nknows that the *seventh *and* fourth *members --\nwhether in a septenary chain of worlds, the septenary hierarchy\nof angels, or in the constitution of man, animal, plant, or mineral\natom -- that the *seventh *and* fourth *members,\nwe say, in the geometrically and mathematically uniform workings\nof the immutable laws of Nature, always play a distinct and specific\npart in the septenary system. From the stars twinkling high in\nheaven, to the sparks flying asunder from the rude fire built\nby the savage in his forest; from the hierarchies and the essential\nconstitution of the Dhyan Chohans -- organized for diviner apprehensions\nand a loftier range of perception than the greatest Western psychologist\never dreamed of, down to Nature's *classification *of species\namong the humblest insects; finally from worlds to atoms, everything\nin the universe, from great to small, proceeds in its spiritual\nand physical evolution, cyclically and septennially, showing its\nseventh and fourth number (the latter the turning point) behaving\nin the same way as shown in that periodic law of atoms. Nature\nnever proceeds *per saltum. *Therefore, when Mr. Crookes\nremarks to this that he does not \"wish to infer that the\ngaps in Mendeleef's table, and in this graphic representation\nof it (the diagram showing the evolution of atoms) necessarily\nmean that there are elements actually existing to fill up the\ngaps; these gaps may only mean that at the birth of the elements\nthere was an easy potentiality of the formation of an element\nwhich would fit into the place\" -- an Occultist would respectfully\nremark to him that the latter hypothesis can only hold good, if\nthe septenary arrangement of atoms is not interfered with. This\nis *the one law*,* *and an infallible method that\nmust always lead to success, one who follows it.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 587 PURANAS VERSUS ROYAL SOCIETY.\n\ninstance, the mystical signification, alchemical and transcendental,\nof the many* imponderable *substances that fill interplanetary\nspace, and which, interpenetrating each, are the direct cause,\nat the lower end, of the production of natural phenomena manifesting\nthrough *vibration *(so-called). The knowledge of the *real\n*(not the hypothetical) nature of Ether, or rather of the\n*Akasa*,* *and other mysteries, in short, can alone\nlead to the knowledge of Forces. It is that substance against\nwhich the materialistic school of the physicists rebels with such\nfury, especially in France,* and which exact Science has to advocate\nnotwithstanding. They cannot make away with it without incurring\nthe risk, like a modern Samson, of pulling down the pillars of\nthe Temple of Science, and getting buried under its roof.\n\nThe theories built upon the rejection of Force *outside *and\nindependent of* Matter pure and simple*,* *have\nbeen all shown fallacious. They do not, and cannot, cover the\nground, and many of the scientific data are thus proved *unscientific.\n*\"Ether produced Sound\" is said in the Puranas,\nand the statement is laughed at. It is the vibrations in *the\nair*,* *we are corrected. And what is air? Could it\nexist if there were no etheric medium in Space to buoy up its\nmolecules? The case stands simply thus. Materialism cannot admit\nthe existence of anything *outside *matter, because with\nthe acceptance of an imponderable *Force* -- the source\nand head of all the physical Forces -- other *intelligent *Forces\nwould have to be admitted virtually, and that would lead Science\nvery far. For it would have to accept as a sequel the presence\nin Man of a still more spiritual power -- entirely independent,\nfor once, of any kind of matter physicists know anything about.\nHence, apart from an hypothetical ether of Space and gross physical\nbodies, the whole Sidereal and unseen Space is, in the sight of\nthe materialists, one boundless *void* in nature -- blind,\nunintelligent, useless.\n\nAnd now the next question is: What is that Cosmic Substance, and\nhow far can one go to suspect its nature or to wrench from it\nits secrets, and thus feel justified in giving it a NAME? How\nfar, especially, has modern Science gone in the direction of those\nsecrets, and what it is doing to solve them. The latest hobby\nof Science, the \"Nebular Theory,\" may afford us some\nanswer to this question. Let us then examine the credentials of\nthe **N**EBULAR **T**HEORY.\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* A group of electricians has just protested against the new theory\nof Clausius, the famous professor of the University of Bonn. The\ncharacter of the protest is shown in the signature, which has\n\"Jules Bourdin, in the name of the group of Electricians,\nwhich had the honour of being introduced to Professor Clausius\nin 1881, and whose war-cry (cri de ralliement) is *A bas l*'*Ether*\"*\n*-- down with ether, even; they want Universal *Void*,*\n*you see!\n\nNext Section\n\nContents",
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