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646 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
on the transformation of the nebulae into Stars,* and after this the
Nebular Theory was accepted by the Royal Academies.
In Five Years of Theosophy, on p. 245, may be read an article headed,
"Do the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory" The answer there
given is:
No ; they do not deny its general propositions, nor the approximative
truth of the scientific hypotheses. They only defiy the completejiess of the
present, as well as the entire error of the many so-called *' exploded'' old
theories, which, during the last century, have followed each other in such
rapid succession.
This was asserted at the time to be "an evasive answer." Such
disrespect to official Science, it was argued, must be justified by
the replacement of the orthodox speculation by another theory more
complete, and having a firmer ground to stand upon. To this there
is but one reply: It is useless to give out isolated theories with regard
to things embodied in a complete and consecutive system, for, when
separated from the main body of the teaching,
they would necessarily
lose their vital coherence and would thus do no good when studied
independently. To be able to appreciate and accept the Occult views
on the Nebular Theory, we must study the whole Esoteric cosmogonical
system. And the time has hardly arrived for the Astronomers
to be asked to accept Fohat and the Divine Builders. Even the undeniably
correct surmises of Sir William Herschell, which had nothing
"supernatural" in them, as to the Sun's being called a "globe of fire,"
perhaps metaphorically, and his early speculations about the nature of
that which is now called the Nasmyth Willow-leaf Theory, only caused
that most eminent of all Astronomers to be smiled at by other, far
less eminent, colleagues, who saw and now see in his ideas purely
"imaginative and fanciful theories."
Before the whole Esoteric Sj^stem
could be given out and appreciated by the Astronomers, the latter
would have to return to some of those "antiquated ideas," not only to
those of Herschell, but also to the dreams of the oldest Hindu
Astronomers, and thus abandon their own theories, which are none
the less "fanciful" because they have appeared nearly eighty years
later than the one, and many thousands of years later than the others.
Foremost of all they would have to repudiate their ideas of the Sun's
solidity and incandescence; the Sun "glowing" most undeniably, but
not "burning." Then the Occultists state, with regard to the "willow-
* See Philosophical Transactions, p. 269, et seq.