1nCnVqgFI

THE SPIRIT AND SOUL OF KOSMOS. 575
exist as a substance, compact and insoluble beyond any conception we could fonn
of it. It could never even be ice, never fluid, never vapour, except for ether.
(() Ether connects sun with planet, planet with planet, man with planet, man
with man. Without ether there could be no communication in the Universe ; no
light, no heat, no phenomenon of motion.
Thus we find that Ether and elastic Atoms are, in the alleged
mechanical conception of the Universe, the Spirit and Soul of Kosmos,
and that the theory — put it in any way and under any disguise—always
leaves a more widel)'- opened issue for men of Science to speculate
upon beyond the line of modern Materialism* than the majority
avails itself of. Atoms, Ether, or both, modern speculation cannot get
out of the circle of ancient thought; and the latter was soaked through
with archaic Occultism. Undulatory or corpuscular theory—it is all
one. It is speculation from the aspects of phenomena, not from the
knowledge of the essential nature of the cause and causes. When
Modern Science has explained to its audience the late achievements of
Bunsen and Kirchoff; when it has shown the seven colours, the primary
of a ray which is decomposed in a fixed order on a screen ; and has
described the respective lengths of luminous waves, what has it proved
It has justified its reputation for exactness in mathematical achievement
by measuring even the length of a luminous wave— "var^'ing
from about seven hundred and sixty millionths of a millimetre at the
red end of the spectrum to about three hundred and ninety-three
millionths of a millimetre at the violet end." But when the exactness
of the calculation with regard to the eifect on the light-wave is thus
vindicated. Science is forced to admit that the Force, which is the supposed
cause, is believed to produce "inconceivably minute undulations"
in some medium— "generally regarded as identical with the ethereal
medium"!—and that medium itself is still only—a "hypothetical
agent"!
Auguste Comte's pessimism with respect to the possibility of
knowing some day the chemical composition of the Sun, has not, as
has been averred, been belied thirty years later by Kirchoff. The
* To be more correct, let us rather call it Agnosticism. Brutal but frank Materialism is more
honest than Janus-faced Agnosticism in our days. Western Monism, so-called, is the Pecksniff of
modern Philosophy, turning: a Pharisaical face to Psychologrj' and Idealism, and its natural face of a
Roman Augur, swelling his check with his tongue, to Materialism. Such Monists are worse than
Materialists; because, while looking at the Universe and at psycho-spiritual man from the same
negative stand-point, the latter put their case far less plausibly than do sceptics of Mr. Tyndairs or
even of Mr. Huxley's stamp. Hcrl>ert Spencer, Baiu and L,ewes arc more dangerous to universal
truths than is liuchncr.
t Geology, by Professor A. Winchell.