4. Dream Life

It is the same with the spreading out of light. As it spreads out from a given source, it becomes always weaker and weaker. This is recognised by scientists today. But they fail to recognise something else—that when they establish laws of nature in a laboratory, and then clothe them in ideas, the truth and content of these laws diminish as distance from the earth increases. When, therefore, a law is established on Earth for the combining of elements—oxygen, hydrogen or any others—and if a law of gravity is set up for the earth, then, as one goes out into cosmic space, the efficacy of this law will also decrease. If here in my laboratory I set up a law of nature and then apply it to a spiral nebula in far-off cosmic space, I am doing just the same as if I were to light a candle and then believe that if I could project its rays through cosmic space on to the spiral nebula, the candle would give the same amount of light out there. I am making precisely the same mistake if I believe that a finding I establish in my laboratory is valid in the far reaches of the Cosmos. So arises the widely prevalent mistaken idea that what is discovered quite rightly to be a natural law in a laboratory down here on earth can be applied also throughout the vast spaces of the heavens.