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594
I'HE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Stance,"* it has to go further. Unless it also admits the possibility of
One Element, or the One I^ife of the Occultists, it will have to hang up
that
"single Substance," especially if limited to only the solar nebulas,
in mid air, like the coffin of Mahomet, though minus the attractive
magnet that sustained that coffin. Fortunately for the speculative
Physicists, if we are unable to state with any degree of precision what
the nebular theory does imply, we have, thanks to Professor Winchell,
and several dissident Astronomers, been able to learn what it does
not imply.
Unfortunately, this is far from clearing even the most simple of the
problems that have vexed, and do still vex, the men of learning in
their search after truth. We have to proceed with our enquiries,
starting with the
discover where and why it sins.
earliest hypotheses of Modern Science, if we would
Perchance it may be found that Stallo
is right, after all, and that the blunders, contradictions and fallacies
made by the most eminent men of learning are simply due to their
abnormal attitude. They are, and want to remain Materialistic quand
meme, and yet "the general principles of the atomo-mechanical theory-
—the basis of modern Physics—are substantially identical with the
cardinal doctrines of ontological Metaphysics." Thus, "the fundamental
errors of ontology become apparent in proportion to the advance
of physical science."! Science is honeycombed with metaphysical
conceptions, but the Scientists will not admit the charge, and fight
desperately to put atomo-mechanical masks on purely incorporeal
and spiritual laws in Nature, on our plane—refusing to admit their
• In his World- Life (page 48), in the appended footnotes, Professor Winchell saj's, "It is generally
admitted that at excessively high temperatures matter exists in a state of dissociation—that is, no
chemical combination can exist "; and, to prove the imity of Matter, would appeal to the spectrum,
which in every case of homogeneity vrill show a bright line, whereas in the case of several molecular
arrangements existing—in the nebulae say, or a star—"the spectrum should consist of two or threv
bright lines"! This would be no proof either way to the Physicist-Occultist, who maintains that
beyond a certain limit of visible Matter, no spectrum, no telescope and no microscope are of any
use. The unity of Matter, of that which is real cosmic Matter to the Alchemist, or "Adam's Earth"
as the Kabalists call it, can hardly be proved or disproved, by either the French savant Dumas, whc
suggests " the composite nature" of the "elements" on "certain relations of atomic weights," or even
by Mr. Crookes' "radiant matter," though his experiments may seem "to be best understood on the
hypothesis of the homogeneity of the elements of matter, and the continuity of the states of matter."
For all this does not go beyond material Matter, so to say, even in what is shovsm by the spectrum,
that modem "eye of Shiva" of physical experiments. It is only of this Matter, that H. St. Claire
Deville could say that "when bodies, deemed to be simple, combine vidth one another, they vanish,
they are individually annihilated" ; simply because he could not follow those bodies in their fiulhei
transformation in the world of spiritual cosmic Matter. Verily Modem Science will never be able
to dig deep enough into the cosmological formations to find the Roots of the World-Stuflf or Matter,
unless she works on the same lines of thought as the medieval Alchemist did.
t Concepts of Modern Physics, p. vi.