1nCnVqgFI

644
'^^^ SECRET DOCTRINE.
Laplace there remains little in the present theory beyond its general
features.
Nevertheless, says John Stuart Mill:
There is in Laplace's theory nothing hypothetical; it is an example of legitimate
reasoning from present effect to its past cause; it assumes nothing more than that
objects which really exist obey the laws which are known to be obeyed by all
terrestrial objects resembling them.*
From such an eminent logician as was Mill,
this would be valuable,
if it could only be proved that "terrestrial objects resembling" celestial
objects at such a distance as are the nebulae, resemble those objects in
reality, and not only in appeara7ice.
Another of the fallacies, from the Occult standpoint, embodied in the
modern theory as it now stands, is the hypothesis that the Planets
were all detached from the Sun ; that they are bone of his bone, and
flesh of his flesh ; whereas the Sun and the Planets are only co-uterine
brothers, having the same nebular origin, but in a diff"erent mode
from that postulated by modern Astronomy.
The many objections raised by some opponents of the modern
Nebular Theory against the homogeneity of original diff"use Matter,
on the ground of the uniformity in the composition of the fixed Stars,
do not affect the question of that homegeneity at all, but only the
theory itself. Our solar nebula may not be completely homogeneous,
or, rather, it may fail to reveal itself as such to the Astronomers, and
yet be de facto homogeneous. The Stars do differ in their constituent
materials, and even exhibit elements quite unknown on Earth; nevertheless,
this does not affect the point that
Primeval Matter—Matter as
it appeared even in its first diflerentiation from its laya-conditionf—is
yet to this day homogeneous, at immense distances, in the depths of
infinitude, and likewise at
our Solar System.
points not far removed from the outskirts of
Finally, there does not exist one single fact brought forward by the
learned objectors against the Nebular Theory (false as it is, and hence,
illogically enough, fatal to the hypothesis of the homogeneity of
Matter), that can withstand criticism. One error leads to another. A
false premiss will naturally lead to a false conclusion, although an
inadmissible inference does not necessarily affect the validity of the
major proposition of the syllogism. Thus, one may leave every sideissue
and inference from the evidence of spectra and lines, as simply
• System of Logic, p. 229. t Beyond the zero-line of action.