Chapter XXXVIII: Section VI: An Attack on the Scientific Theory of Force by a Man of

Science.

The wise words of several English men of Science have now to be quoted in our favour. Ostracized for “principle’s sake” by the few, they are tacitly approved of by the many. That one of them preaches almost Occult doctrines—in some things identical with, and often amounting to a public recognition of, our “Fohat and his seven Sons,” the Occult Gandharva of the _Vedas_—will be recognized by every Occultist, and even by some profane readers.

If such readers will open Volume V of the _Popular Science Review_,(892) they will find in it an article on “Sun‐Force and Earth‐Force,” by Dr. E. W. Richardson, F.R.S., which reads as follows:

At this moment, when the theory of mere motion as the origin of
all varieties of force is again becoming the prevailing thought,
it were almost heresy to reöpen a debate, which for a period
appears, by general consent, to be virtually closed; but I accept
the risk, and shall state, therefore, what were the precise views
of the immortal heretic, whose name I have whispered to the
readers, (Samuel Metcalfe,) respecting Sun‐Force. Starting with
the argument on which nearly all physicists are agreed, that there
exist in nature two agencies—matter which is ponderable, visible,
and tangible, and a something which is imponderable, invisible,
and appreciable only by its influence on matter—Metcalfe maintains
that the imponderable and active agency which he calls “caloric”
is _not a mere form of motion_, not a vibration amongst the
particles of ponderable matter, but _itself a material substance
flowing from the sun_ through space,(893) filling the voids
between the particles of solid bodies, and conveying by sensation
the property called heat. The nature of caloric, or Sun‐Force, is
contended for by him on the following grounds:

(i) That it may be added to, and abstracted from other bodies and
measured with mathematical precision.

(ii) That it augments the volume of bodies, which are again
reduced in size by its abstraction.

(iii) That it modifies the forms, properties, and conditions of
all other bodies.

(iv) That _it passes by radiation through the most perfect
vacuum_(894) that can be formed, in which it produces the same
effects on the thermometer as in the atmosphere.

(v) That it exerts mechanical and chemical forces which nothing
can restrain, as in volcanoes, the explosion of gunpowder, and
other fulminating compounds.

(vi) That it operates in a sensible manner on the nervous system,
producing intense pain; and when in excess, disorganization of the
tissues.

As against the vibratory theory, Metcalfe further argues that if
caloric were a _mere property or quality_, it could not augment
the volume of other bodies; for this purpose it must itself have
volume, it must occupy space, and it must, therefore, be a
material agent. If caloric were _only the effect of vibratory
motion_ amongst the particles of ponderable matter, _it could not
radiate from hot bodies_ without the simultaneous transition of
the vibrating particles; but the fact stands out that heat can
radiate from material ponderable substance without loss of weight
of such substance.... With this view as to the material nature of
caloric or sun‐force; with the impression firmly fixed on his mind
that “everything in Nature is composed of two descriptions of
matter, the one essentially active and ethereal, the other passive
and motionless,”(895) Metcalfe based the hypothesis that the sun‐
force, or caloric, is a self‐active principle. For its own
particles, he holds, it has repulsion; for the particles of all
ponderable matter it has affinity; it attracts the particles of
ponderable matter with forces which vary inversely as the squares
of the distance. It thus acts _through_ ponderable matter. If
universal space were filled with caloric, sun‐force, alone
(without ponderable matter), caloric would also be inactive and
would constitute a boundless ocean of powerless or quiescent
ether, because it would then have nothing on which to act, while
ponderable matter, however inactive of itself, has “certain
properties by which it modifies and controls the actions of
caloric, both of which are governed by immutable laws that have
their origin in the mutual relations and specific properties of
each.”

And he lays down a law which he believes is absolute, and which is
thus expressed:

“By the attraction of caloric for ponderable matter, it unites and
holds together all things; by its self‐repulsive energy it
separates and expands all things.”

This, of course, is almost the Occult explanation of cohesion. Dr. Richardson continues:

As I have already said, _the tendency of modern teaching is to
rest upon the hypothesis __ ... that heat is motion_, or, as it
would, perhaps, be better stated, a specific force or form of
motion.(896)

But this hypothesis, popular as it is, is not one that ought to be
accepted to the exclusion of the simpler views of the material
nature of sun‐force, and of its influence in modifying the
conditions of matter. _We do not yet know sufficient to be
dogmatic._(897)

The hypothesis of Metcalfe respecting sun‐force and earth‐force is
not only very simple, but most fascinating.... Here are two
elements in the universe, the one is ponderable matter.... The
second element is the all‐pervading ether, solar fire. It is
_without weight, substance, form, or colour; it is matter
infinitely divisible_, and its particles repel each other; its
rarity is such that we have no word, except ether,(898) by which
to express it. It pervades and fills space, but alone it too is
quiescent—dead.(899) We bring together the two elements, the inert
matter, the self‐repulsive ether [?] and thereupon dead [?]
ponderable matter is vivified; [_Ponderable matter may be inert
but never dead—this is Occult Law._] ... through the particles of
the ponderable substance the ether [_Ether’s second principle_]
penetrates, and, so penetrating, it combines with the ponderable
particles and holds them in mass, holds them together in bond of
union; they are dissolved in the ether.

This distribution of solid ponderable matter through ether
extends, according to the theory before us, to everything that
exists at this moment. The ether is all‐pervading. The human body
itself is charged with the ether [_Astral Light rather_]; its
minute particles are held together by it; the plant is in the same
condition; the most solid earth, rock, adamant, crystal, metal,
all are the same. But there are differences in the capacities of
different kinds of ponderable matter to receive sun‐force, and
upon this depends the various changing conditions of matter; the
solid, the liquid, the gaseous condition. Solid bodies have
attracted caloric in excess over fluid bodies, and hence their
firm _cohesion_; when a portion of molten zinc is poured upon a
plate of solid zinc, the molten zinc becomes as solid because
there is a rush of caloric from the liquid to the solid, and in
the equalization the particles, previously loose or liquid, are
more closely brought together.... Metcalfe himself, dwelling on
the above‐named phenomena, and accounting for them by the unity of
principle of action, which has already been explained, sums up his
argument in very clear terms, in a comment on the densities of
various bodies. “Hardness and softness,” he says, “solidity and
liquidity, are not essential conditions of bodies, but depend on
the relative proportions of ethereal and ponderable matter of
which they are composed. The most elastic gas may be reduced to
the liquid form by the abstraction of caloric, and again converted
into a firm solid, the particles of which would cling together
with a force proportional to their augmented affinity for caloric.
On the other hand, by adding a sufficient quantity of the same
principle to the densest metals, their attraction for it is
diminished when they are expanded into the gaseous state, and
their cohesion is destroyed.”

Having thus quoted at length the heterodox views of the great “heretic”—views that to be correct, need only a little alteration of terms here and there—Dr. Richardson, undeniably an original and liberal thinker, proceeds to sum up these views, and continues:

I shall not dwell at great length on this unity of sun‐force and
earth‐force, which this theory implies. But I may add that out of
it, or out of the hypothesis of mere motion as force, and of
virtue without substance, we may gather, as the nearest possible
approach to the truth on this, the most complex and profound of
all subjects, the following inferences:

(_a_) Space, inter‐stellary, inter‐planetary, inter‐material,
inter‐organic, is not a vacuum, but is filled with a subtle fluid
or gas, which for want of a better term(900) we may still call, as
the ancients did, _Aith‐ur_—Solar Fire—Æther. This fluid,
unchangeable in composition, indestructible, invisible,(901)
pervades everything and all [_ponderable_] matter,(902) the pebble
in the running brook, the tree overhanging, the man looking on, is
charged with the ether in various degrees; the pebble less than
the tree, the tree less than man. All in the planet is in like
manner so charged! A world is built up in ethereal fluid, and
moving through a sea of it.

(_b_) The ether, whatever its nature is, is from the sun and from
the suns:(903) the suns are the generators of it, the store‐houses
of it, the diffusers of it.(904)

(_c_) Without the ether there could be no motion; without it
particles of ponderable matter could not glide over each other;
without it there could be no impulse to excite those particles
into action.

(_d_) Ether determines the constitution of bodies. Were there no
ether there could be no change of constitution in substance;
water, for instance, could only exist as a substance, compact and
insoluble beyond any conception we could form of it. It could
never even be ice, never fluid, never vapour, except for ether.

(_e_) Ether connects sun with planet, planet with planet, man with
planet, man with man. Without ether there could be no
communication in the Universe; no light, no heat, no phenomenon of
motion.

Thus we find that Ether and elastic Atoms are, in the alleged mechanical conception of the Universe, the Spirit and Soul of Kosmos, and that the theory—put it in any way and under any disguise—always leaves a more widely opened issue for men of Science to speculate upon beyond the line of modern Materialism(905) than the majority avails itself of. Atoms, Ether, or both, modern speculation cannot get out of the circle of ancient thought; and the latter was soaked through with archaic Occultism. Undulatory or corpuscular theory—it is all one. It is speculation from the aspects of phenomena, not from the knowledge of the essential nature of the cause and causes. When Modern Science has explained to its audience the late achievements of Bunsen and Kirchoff; when it has shown the seven colours, the primary of a ray which is decomposed in a fixed order on a screen; and has described the respective lengths of luminous waves, what has it proved? It has justified its reputation for exactness in mathematical achievement by measuring even the length of a luminous wave—“varying from about seven hundred and sixty millionths of a millimètre at the red end of the spectrum to about three hundred and ninety‐three millionths of a millimètre at the violet end.” But when the exactness of the calculation with regard to the effect on the light‐wave is thus vindicated, Science is forced to admit that the Force, which is the supposed cause, is _believed_ to produce “inconceivably minute undulations” in some medium—“generally regarded as identical with the ethereal medium”(906)—and that medium itself is still only—a “hypothetical agent”!

Auguste Comte’s pessimism with respect to the possibility of knowing some day the chemical composition of the Sun, has not, as has been averred, been belied thirty years later by Kirchoff. The spectroscope has helped us to see that the elements, with which the modern Chemist is familiar, must in all probability be present in the Sun’s outward “robes”—_not in the Sun itself_; and, taking these “robes,” the solar cosmic veil, for the Sun itself, the Physicists have declared its luminosity to be due to combustion and flame, and mistaking the vital principle of that luminary for a purely material thing, have called it “chromosphere.”(907) We have only hypotheses and theories so far, not law—by any means.