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530 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The raediuni in which the vortex-movements arise is, according to Professor
Lodge's own express statement {Nature, vol. xxvii. p. 305), "a perfectly homogeneous,
incompressible, continuous body, incapable of being resolved into simple
elements or atoms; it is, in fact, continuous, not molecular." And after making
this statement Professor Lodge adds "
: There is no other body of which we can say
this, and hence the properties of the cether tnust be somezvhat different from those of
ordinary matter." It appears, then, that the whole vortex-atom theory, which is
offered to us as a substitute for the "metaphysical theory" of actio in distans, rests
upon the hypothesis of the existence of a material medium which is utterly unknown
to experience, and which has properties somewhat different* from those of
ordinary matter. Hence this theory, instead of being, as is claimed, a reduction of
an unfamiliar fact of experience to a familiar fact, is, on the contrary, a reduction
of a fact which is perfectly familiar, to a fact which is not only unfamiliar, but
wholly unknown, unobserved and unobservable.
Furthermore, the alleged vortical
motion of, or rather in, the assumed ethereal medium is . . . impossible, because
"motion in a perfectly homogeneous, incompressible, and therefore continuous
fluid, is not sensible motion." .... It is manifest, therefore .... that,
wherever the vortex-atom theory may land us, it certainly does not land us anywhere
in the region of physics, or in the domain of ver(z causceA And I may add
that, inasmuch as the hypothetical undifferentiated J and undifferentiable medium
is clearly an involuntary reification
of the old ontological concept pure being, the
theory under discussion has all the attributes of an inapprehensible metaphysical
phantom. §
A "phantom," indeed, which can be made apprehensible only by
Occultism. From such scientific Metaphysics to Occultism there is
hardly one step. Those Physicists who hold the view that the atomic
constitution of Matter is consistent with its penetrability, need not go
far out of their way to be able to account for the greatest phenomena of
Occultism, now so derided by Physical Scientists and Materialists.
Cauchy's "material points without extension" are lycibnitz's Monads,
and at the same time are the materials out of which the "Gods" and
other invisible Powers clothe themselves in bodies. The disintegration
and reintegration of "material" particles without extension, as a chief
factor in phenomenal manifestations, ought to suggest themselves very
easily as a clear possibility, at any rate to those few scientific minds
* " Somewhat ^\S€X^rx\.\" exclaims Stallo. "The real import of this 'somewhat' is, that the medium
in question is not, in any intelligible sense, material at ail, having none of the properties of matter."
All the properties of matter depend upon differences and changes, and the "hypothetical" Ether
here defined is not only destitute of differences, but incapable of difference and change—in the physical
sense let us add. This proves that if Ether is "matter," it is so only as something visible,
tangible and existing, for spiritual senses alone; that it is a Being indeed—but not of our plane
Pater ^ther, or Akasha.
f Vera causes for Physical Science are mayavic or illusionary causes for the Occultist, and vice versa,
i Very much "differentiated," on the contrary, since the day it left its laya condition.
5 Op. cit., pp. xxiv-xxvi.