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DR. RICHARDSON'S HERESY. 573
^ . . . that heat is motion, or, as it would, perhaps, be better stated, a specific
force or form of motion.*
But this hypothesis, popular as it is, is not one that ought to be accepted to the
exclusion of the simpler views of the material nature of sun-force, and of its
influence in modifj'iug the conditions of matter. We do not yet knoiv sujfficietit to be
dogmatic.
The hypothesis of Metcalfe respecting sun-force and earth-force is not only verjsimple,
but most fascinating. . . . Here are two elements in the universe, the
one is ponderable matter . . . The second element is the all-pervading ether,
solar fire. It is without weight, substance, form, or colour; it is matter infinitely
divisible, and its particles repel each other; its rarity is such that we have no word,
except ether, J by which to express it. It pervades and fills space, but alone it too
is quiescent—dead.§ We bring together the two elements, the inert matter, the
self- repulsive ether [.'J
and thereupon dead [.] ponderable matter is vivified; [Ponderable
matter may be inert but never dead— this is Occult Law."] .... through
the particles of the ponderable substance the ether [Ether's second principle'] penetrates,
and, so penetrating, it combines with the ponderable particles and holds
them in mass, holds them together in bond of union; they are dissolved in the
ether.
This distribution of solid ponderable matter through ether extends, according to
the theorj' before us, to everything that exists at this moment. The ether is allpervading.
The human body itself is charged with the ether [Astral Light rather];
its minute particles are held together by it; the plant is in the same condition; the
most solid earth, rock, adamant, crystal, metal, all are the same.
But there are differences
in the capacities of different kinds of ponderable matter to receive sun-force,
and upon this depends the various changing conditions of matter ; the solid, the
liquid, the gaseous condition. Solid bodies have attracted caloric in excess over
fluid bodies, and hence their firm cohesion; when a portion of molten zinc is poured
upon a plate of solid zinc, the molten zinc becomes as solid because there is a rush
of caloric from the liquid to the solid, and in the equalization the particles, previously
loose or liquid, are more closely brought together. . . . Metcalfe himself,
dwelling on the above-named phenomena, and accounting for them by the unity of
principle of action, which has already been explained, sums up his argument in
very clear terms, in a comment on the densities of various bodies.
"Hardness and
softness," he says, "solidity and liquidity, are not essential conditions of bodies,
* Or the reverberation, and for Sound repercussion, on our plane of that which is a perpetual
motion of that Substance on higher planes. Our world and senses are ceaselessly victims of Maya.
t An honest admission, this.
J Yet it is not Ether, but only one of the principles of F,ther, the latter being itself one of the
principles of Akasha.
} And so does Prana (Jiva) pervade the whole living body of man; but alone, without having an
atom to act upon, it would be quiescent—dead; /.^., would be in Laya, or, as Mr. Crookes has it,
"locked in Protyle." It is the action of Fohat upon a compound or even upon a simple, body that
produces life. When a body dies, it passes into the same polarity as its male energy, and repels
therefore the active agent, which, losing hold of the whole, fastens on the parts or molecules, this
action being called chemical. Vishnu, the Preserver, transforms himself into Rudra-Shiva, the Destroyer—a
correlation seemingly unknown to Science.