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596 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
It is that which is
dissolved, or the illusion ary dual aspect of That,
the essence of which is eternally One, that we call Eternal Matter, or
Substance, formless, sexless, inconceivable,
even to our sixth sense or
mind,* in which, therefore, we refuse to see that which Monotheists
call a personal, anthropomorphic God.
How are these two propositions—that "Matter is eternal," and that
"the Atom is periodical, and not eternal"—viewed by exact Modern
Science The materialistic Physicist will criticize and laugh them to
scorn. The liberal and progressive man of Science, however, the true
and earnest scientific searcher after truth, such as the eminent Chemist,
Mr. Crookes, will corroborate the probability of the two statements.
For hardly had the echo of his lecture on the "Genesis of the Elements"
died 'away—the lecture which, delivered by him before the
Chemical Section of the British Association, at the Birmingham meeting
in 1887, so startled every evolutionist who heard or read it—than
there came another in March, 1888. Once more the President of the
Chemical Society brought before the world of Science and the public
the fruits of some new discoveries in the realm of Atoms, and these
discoveries justified the Occult Teachings in every way. They are
more startling even than the statements made by him in the first
lecture, and well deserve the attention of every Occultist, Theosophist,
and Metaphysician. This is what he says in his "Elements and
ilf^/^-Elements," thus justifying Stallo's charges and prevision, with
the fearlessness of a scientific mind which loves Science for truth's
which concerns the fundamental principles of chemistry, a subject which may lead
sake, regardless of any consequences to his own glory and reputation.
We quote his own words:
Permit me, gentlemen, now to draw your attention for a short time to a subject
us to admit the possible existence of bodies which, though neither compounds nor
mixtures, are not elements in the strictest sense of the word—bodies which I venture
to call "meta-elements." To explain my meaning it is necessary for me to
revert to our conception of an element. What is the criterion of an element
Where are we to draw the line between distinct existence and identity No one
doubts that oxygen, sodium, chlorine, sulphur are separate elements; and when we
come to such groups as chlorine, bromine, iodine, etc., we still feel no doubt,
although were degrees of "elementicity" admissible—and to that we may ultimately
have to come—it might be allowed that chlorine approximates much more
closely to bromine than to oxygen, sodium, or sulphur.
Again, nickel and cobalt
are near to each other, very near, though no one questions their claim to rank as
distinct elements. Still I cannot help asking what would have been the prevalent
• Vide in preceding Section VII., '%ife, Force, or Gravity," quotation from AnugUa.