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FORCES ARE EMANATIONS. 647
leaves," that those "objects," as Sir William Herschell called them,
are the immediate sources of the solar light and heat. And though
the Esoteric Teaching does not regard these as he did—namely, as
"organisms" partaking of the nature of life, for the Solar "Beings"
will hardly place themselves within telescopic focus — yet it asserts
that the whole Universe is full of such "organisms," conscious and
active according to the proximity or distance of their planes to, or
from, our plane of consciousness; and finally that the great Astronomer
was right while speculating on those supposed "organisms," in saying
that "we do not know that vital action is incompetent to develop at
once heat, light, and electricity." For, at the risk of being laughed at
by the whole world of Physicists, the Occultists maintain that all the
"Forces" of the Scientists have their origin in the Vital Principle, the
One Life collectively of our Solar System—that "Life" being a portion,
or rather one of the aspects, of the One Universal Life.
We may, therefore—as in the article under consideration, wherein,
on the authorit}^ of the Adepts, it was maintained that it is "sufficient
to make a resume of what the solar Physicists do not know"—we may,
we maintain, define our position with regard to the modern Nebular
Theor\^ and its evident incorrectness, by simply pointing out facts
diametrically opposed to it in its present form. And to begin with,
what does it teach
Summarizing the aforesaid hypotheses, it becomes plain that Laplace's
theory—now made quite unrecognizable, moreover—was an
unfortunate one. He postulates in the first place Cosmic Matter,
existing in a state of diffuse nebulosity "so fine that its presence could
hardly have been suspected." No attempt is made by him to penetrate
into the Arcana of Being, except as regards the immediate evolution of
our small Solar System.
Consequently, whether one accepts or rejects his theory- in its
bearing upon the immediate cosmological problems presented for
solution, he can only be said to have thrown back the mystery a little
further. To the eternal query: "Whence Matter itself; whence the
evolutionary- impetus determining its cyclic aggregations and dissolutions;
whence the exquisite symmetry and order into which the
primeval Atoms arrange and group themselves" no answer is attempted
by Laplace. All we are confronted with, is a sketch of the
probable broad principles on which the actual process is assumed to be
based.
Well, and what is this now celebrated note on the said process