Theosophy - The Substantial Nature of Magnetism by H.P.Blavatsky
Adyar
Pamphlet No 121
The Substantial Nature of
Magnetism
by
H. P. Blavatsky
Reprinted
from Lucifer, Vol IX
- January 1921
Theosophical Publishing House Adyar, Chennai (Madras) India
MATERIALISTS
who arraign the Occultists and Theosophists for believing that every Force (so
called) in Nature has at its origin a substantial noumenon,an Entity,
conscious and intelligent, whether it be a Planetary (Dhyân Chohan) or
an Elemental, are advised to fix their attention, first of all, on a far more
dangerous body than the one called the Theosophical Society. We mean the Society
in the U.S. of America whose members call themselves the Substantialists. We
call it dangerous for this reason, that this body, combining in itself
dogmatic Church Christianity - i.e., the anthropomorphic element of the
Bible - with sterling Science, makes, nevertheless, the latter subservient in
all to the former. This is equivalent to saying that the new organization will,
in its fanatical dogmatism - if it wins the day - lead on the forthcoming generations
to anthropomorphism past redemption. It will achieve this the more easily in
our age of Science-worship, since a show of undeniable learning must help to
impart additional strength to belief in a gigantic human god, as their hypotheses,
like those of modern materialistic science, may be easily built to answer their
particular aim. The educated and thoughtful classes of Society, once set free
from ecclesiastical thraldom, could laugh at a St Augustine’s or a “venerable”
Bede’s scientific data, which led them to maintain, on the authority and
dead letter of what they regarded as Revelation, that our Earth, instead of
being a sphere, was flat, hanging under a crystalline canopy studded with shining
brass nails and a sun no larger that it appears. But the same classes will be
always forced by public opinion into respecting the hypotheses of modern Science
- in whatever direction the nature of scientific speculation may lead them.
They have been so led for the last century - into crass Materialism; they may
be so led again in an opposite direction. The cycle has closed, and if Science
ever falls into the hands of the Opposition - the learned “Reverends”
and bigoted Churchmen - the world may find itself gradually approaching the
ditch on the opposite side and be landed at no distant future in crass anthropomorphism.
Once more the masses will have rejected true philosophy - impartial and unsectarian
- and will thus be caught again in new meshes of their own weaving, the fruitage
and results of the reaction created by an all-denying age. The solemn ideal
of a universal, infinite, all-pervading Noumenon of Spirit, of an impersonal
and absolute Deity, will fade out of the human mind once more, and will
make room for the MONSTER-GOD
of sectarian nightmares.
Now,
modern official science is composed - as at present - of 5 per cent of undeniable
axiomatic truths and facts, and of 95 percent of mere speculation. Furthermore,
it has laid itself open to endless attacks, owing to its numerous mutually contradictory
hypotheses, each one as scientific, in appearance as the other. On the other
hand, the Substantialists, who rank, as they boast, among their numbers some
of the most eminent men of Science in the United States, have, undeniably, discovered
and accumulated a vast store of facts calculated to upset the modern theories
on Force and Matter. And once that their data are shown correct, in this conflict
between (materialistic) Science and (a still more materialistic) Religion -
the outcome of the forthcoming battle is not difficult to foresee: modern Science
will be floored. The Substantiality of certain Forces of Nature cannot be denied
- for it is a fact in Kosmos. No Energy or Force without Matter, no Matter without
Force, Energy of Life - however latent. But this ultimate matter
is - Substance or the Noumenon of matter. Thus, the head of the golden
Idol of Scientific truth will fall, because it stands on feet of clay. Such
a result would not be anything to be regretted, except for its immediate consequences:
the golden head will remain the same, only its pedestal will be replaced by
one as weak and as much of clay as ever. Instead of resting on Materialism,
science will rest on anthropomorphic superstition - if the Substantialists ever
gain the day. For, instead of holding to philosophy alone, pursued in a spirit
of absolute impartiality, both materialists and adherents of what is so pompously
called the “Philosophy of Substantialism” work on lines traced by
preconception and with a prejudged object; and both stretch their facts on the
Procrustean beds of their respective hobbies. It is facts that have to
fit their theories, even at the risk of mutilating the immaculate nature of
Truth.
Before
presenting the reader with extracts from the work of a Substantialist - those
extracts showing better than would any critical review, the true nature of the
claims of “The Substantial Philosophy” - we mean to go no further,
as we are really very little concerned with them, and intend to waste no words
over their flaws and pretensions. Nevertheless, as their ideas on the nature
of physical Forces and phenomena are curiously - in some respects only
- like the occult doctrines, our intention is to utilize their arguments on
Magnetism, to begin with. These are unanswerable, and we may thus defeat
exact science by its own methods of observation and weapons. So far, we are
only acquainted with the theories of the Substantialists by their writings.
It is possible that, save the wide divergence between our views on the nature
of the “phenomena-producing causes”- as they queerly call physical
forces- there is but little difference in our opinions with regard to the substantial
nature of Light, Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, etc., etc., perhaps only one
in the form and terms used. No Theosophist, however, would agree to such expressions
as are used in the New Doctrine, e.g.,: “If its principle be true,
then every force or form of Energy known to science must be a substantial
Entity.” For although Dr Hall’s proofs with regard to magnetic
fluid being something more than “a mode of motion” are irrefutable,
still there are other “forces” which are of quite a different nature.
As this paper, however, is devoted to proving the substantiality of magnetism-
whether animal or physical- we will now quote from the Scientific Arena
(July 1886) the best arguments that have ever appeared against the materialistic
theory of modern Science.
To
admit for one moment that a single force of nature, such as sound, light,
or heat, is but the vibratory motion of matter, whether that material
body be highly attenuated as in the case of the supposed ether, less
attenuated as in the case of air, or solid as in the case of a heated bar of
iron, is to give away to the rank claims of materialism the entire analogy of
nature and science in favour of a future life for humanity. And well do the
materialistic scientists of this country and Europe know it. And to the same
extent do they fear the spread and general acceptance of the Substantial Philosophy,
knowing full well that the moment the forces of nature shall be recognized and
taught by the schools as real substantial entities, and as soon as the mode-of-motion
doctrines of sound, light, heat, etc., shall be abandoned, that soon will their
materialistic occupation have gone for ever . . .
Hence, it is the aim of this present paper, after thus reiterating and enforcing the general
scope of the argument as presented last month, to demonstrate force, per se, to be an
immaterial substance and in no sense a motion of material particles. In this way we
propose to show the absolute necessity for Christian Scientists everywhere adopting the
broad principles of the Substantial Philosophy, and doing it at once, if they hope to break
down materialistic atheism in this land or logically to defend religion by scientific analogy,
and thus prove the substantial existence of God as well as the probable substantial
existence of the human soul after death. This they now have the privilege of doing
successfully, and of thus triumphantly re-enforcing their scriptural arguments by the
concurrent testimony of nature herself.
We
could select any one of several of the physical forms of force as the crucial
test of the new philosophy, or as the touchstone of Substantialism. But to save
circumlocution and detail of unnecessary explanation as much as possible, in
this leading and paramount demonstration, we select what no scientist on earth
will question as a representative natural force or so-called form of energy
- namely, magnetism. This force, from the very simple and direct manifestation
of its phenomena in displacing ponderable bodies at a distance from the magnet,
and without having any tangible substance connecting the magnet therewith, is
selected for our purpose, since it has well proved the champion physical puzzle
to modern mode-of-motion philosophers, both in this country and in Europe.
Even to the greatest living physicists, such as Helmholtz, Tyndall, Sir William Thompson,
and others, the mysterious action of magnetism, under any light which modern science can
shed upon it, admittedly affords a problem which has proved to be completely bewildering
to their intellects, simply because they have, unfortunately, never caught a glimpse of the
basic principles of the Substantial Philosophy which so clearly unravels the mystery. In the
light of these principles such a thinker as Sir William Thompson, instead of teaching, as
he did in his opening address on the five senses before the Midland Institute, at
Birmingham, England, that magnetism was but the molecular motion, or as he expressed
it, but the “quality of matter” or the “rotation of the molecules” of the magnet, would have
seen at a glance the utter want of any relation, as cause to effect, between such moving
molecules in the magnet (provided they do move) and the lifting of the mass of iron at a
distance.
It is passing strange that men so intelligent as Sir William Thompson and Professor Tyndall
had not long ago reached the conclusion that magnetism must of necessity be a
substantial thing, however invisible or intangible, when it thus stretches out its mechanical
but invisible fingers to a distance from the magnet and pulls or pushes an inert piece of
metal! That they have not seen the absolute necessity for such a conclusion, as the only
conceivable explanation of the mechanical effects produced, and the manifest
inconsistency of any other supposition, is one of the astounding results of the confusing
and blinding influence of the present false theories of science upon otherwise logical and
profound intellects. And that such men could be satisfied in supposing that the minute and
local vibrations of the molecules and atoms of the magnet (necessarily limited to the
dimensions of the steel itself) could by any possibility reach out to a distance beyond it and
thus pull or push a bar of metal, overcoming its inertia, tempts one to lose all respect for
the sagacity and profundity of the intellects of these great names in science. At all events,
such manifest want of perspicacity in modern physicists appeals in a warning voice of
thunder tones to rising young men of this country and Europe to think for themselves in
matters pertaining to science and philosophy, and to accept nothing on trust simply
because it happens to be set forth or approved by some great name.
Another most remarkable anomaly in the case of the physicists to whom we have here
referred is this: while failing to see the unavoidable necessity of an actual substance of
some kind going forth from the poles of the magnet and connecting with the piece of iron
by which to lift it, and thus accomplish a physical result that could have been effected in
no other way they are quick to accept the agency of an all-pervading ether (a substance
not needed at all in nature) by which to produce light on this earth as mere motion, and
thus make it conform to the supposed sound waves in the air! In this way, by the sheer
invention of a not-needed material substance, they have sought to convert not only light,
heat and magnetism, but all the other forces of nature, into modes of motion, and for no
reason except that sound had been mistaken as a mode of motion by previous scientists.
And strange to state, notwithstanding this supposed ether is as intangible to any of our
senses, and just as unrecognized by any process known to chemistry or mechanics as is
the substance which of necessity must pass out from the poles of the magnet to seize and
lift the bar of iron, yet physicists cheerfully accept the former, for which no scientific
necessity on earth or in heaven exists, while they stolidly refuse to recognize the latter,
though absolutely needed to accomplish the results observed! Was ever such
inconsistency before witnessed in a scientific theory?
Let
us scrutinize this matter a little further before leaving it. If the mere “rotation
of molecules” in the steel magnet can produce a mechanical effect on a
piece of iron at a distance, even though a vacuum, as Sir William Thompson asserts,
why may not the rotation of the molecules of the sun cause light at a distance
without the intervening space being filled up with a jelly-like material substance,
of “enormous rigidity,” to be thrown into waves? It must strike
every mind capable of thinking scientifically that the original invention of
an all-pervading “material,” “rigid” and “inert”
ether, as the essential cause of light at a distance from a luminous body, was
one of the most useless expenditures of mechanical ingenuity which the human
brain ever perpetuated - that is, if there is the slightest truth in the teaching
of Sir William Thompson that the mere “rotation” of “molecules”
in the magnet will lift a distant bar of iron. Why cannot the rotation of the
sun’s molecules just as easily produce light at a distance?
Should it be assumed in sheer desperation by the mode-of-motion philosophers that it is
the ether filling the space between the magnet and the piece of iron, which is thrown into
vibration by the rotating molecules of the steel, and which thus lifts the distant iron, it would
only be to make bad worse. If material vibration in the steel magnet, which is wholly
unobservable, is communicated to the distant bar through a material substance and its
vibratory motions, which are equally unobservable, is it not plain that their effects on the
distant bar should be of the same mechanical character, namely, unobservable? Instead
of this the iron is lifted bodily and seen plainly, and that without any observed tremor, as
if done by a vibrating “jelly” such as ether is claimed to be! Besides such bodily lifting of a
ponderable mass is utterly incongruous with mere tremor, however powerful and
observable such tremor or vibration might be, according to every principle known to
mechanics. Common sense ought to assure any man that mere vibration or tremor,
however powerful and sensible, can pull or push nothing. It is impossible to conceive of the
accomplishment of such a result except by some substantial agent reaching out from the
magnet seizing the iron, and forcibly pulling and thus displacing it. As well talk of pulling
a boat to the shore without some rope or other substantial thing connecting you with the
boat. Even Sir William Thompson would not claim that the boat could be pulled by getting
a molecular vibration of the shore, or even by producing a visible tremor in the water, as
Dr Hamlin so logically showed in his recent masterly paper on Force (See The Microcosm,
Vol V, p 98).
It
is well known that a magnet will lift a piece of iron at the same distance precisely
through sheets of glass as if no glass intervened. The confirmed atheist, Mr
Smith, of Cincinnati,Ohio, to whom we referred in our papers on substantialism
in The Microcosm (Vol III pages 278, 311), was utterly confounded by
this exhibition of the substantial force of magnetism acting at a distance through
impervious plates of glass. When we placed a quantity of needles and tacks on
the plate and passed the poles of the magnet beneath it, causing them to move
with the magnet, he saw for the first time in his life the operation of a real
substance, exerting a mechanical effect in displacing ponderable bodies of metal
in defiance of all material conditions, and with no possible material connection
or free passage between the source and termination of such substantial agency.
And he asked in exclamation: If this be so, may there not be substantial, intelligent,
and immaterial God, and may I not have a substantial but immaterial soul which
can live separately from my body after it is dead?
He then raised the query, asking if we were certain that it was not the invisible pores of the
glass plate through which the magnetic force found its way, and therefore whether this
force might not be a refined form of matter after all? He then assisted us in filling the plate
with boiled water, on which to float a card with needles placed thereon, thus to interpose
between them and the magnet the most imporous of all known bodies. But it made not the
slightest difference, the card with its cargo of needles moving hither and thither as the
magnet was moved beneath both plates and water. This was sufficient even for that most
critical but candid materialist, and he confessed that there were substantial, but immaterial,
entities in his atheistic philosophy.
Here,
then, is the conclusive argument by which we demonstrate that magnetism, one
of the forces of nature, and a fair representative of all the natural forces,
is not only a real, substantial entity, but an absolutely immaterial
substance: * [This is a very wrong word to use. See text, - H.P.B.] thus justifying
our original classification of the entities of the universe into material and
immaterial substance.
1.
If magnetism were not a real substance, it could not lift a piece of
metal bodily at a distance from the magnet, any more than our hand could lift
a weight from the floor without some substantial connection between the two.
It is a self-evident truism as an axiom in mechanics, that no body can move
or displace another body at a distance without a real, substantial medium connecting
the two through which the result is accomplished, otherwise it would be a mechanical
effect without a cause - a self-evident absurdity in philosophy. Hence, the
force of magnetism is a real, substantial entity.
2. If magnetism were not an immaterial substance, then any practically imporous body
intervening between the magnet and the attracted object would, to some extent at least,
impede the passage of the magnetic current, which it does not do. If magnetism were a
very refined or attenuated form of matter, and if it thus depended for its passage through
other material bodies upon their imperceptible pores, then, manifestly, some difference in
the freedom of its passage, in the consequent attractive force of the distant magnet, should
result by the great difference in the porosity of the different bodies tested, as would be the
case, for example, in forcing wind through wire-netting having larger or smaller interstices,
and consequently offering greater or less resistance. Whereas in the case of this magnetic
substance, no difference whatever results in the energy of its mechanical pull on a distant
piece of iron, however many or few of the practically imporous sheets of glass, rubber, or
whatever other material body be made to intervene, or if no substance whatever but the
air is interposed, or if the test be made in a perfect vacuum. The pull is always with
precisely the same force, and will move the suspended piece of iron at the same distance
away from it in each and every case, however refined and delicate may be the instruments
by which the tests are measured.
The
above-quoted passages are positively unanswerable. As far as magnetic force,
or fluid, is concerned, the Substantialists have most undeniably made out their
case; and their triumph will be hailed with joy by every Occultist. It is impossible
to see, indeed, how the phenomena of magnetism - whether terrestrial or animal
- can be explained otherwise than by admitting a material or substantial magnetic
field. This, even some of the scientists do not deny - Helmholtz believing that
electricity must be as atomic as matter which it is (Helmholtz,
Faraday Lecture). And, unless Science is prepared to divorce force from
matter, we do not see how it can support its position much longer.
But
we are not at all so sure about certain other Forces - so far as their effects
are concerned - and esoteric philosophy would find an easy objection to every
assumption of the Substantialists - e.g., with regard to sound. As
the day is dawning when the new theory is sure to array itself against Occultism,
it is as well, perhaps, to anticipate the objections and dispose of them at
once.
The
expression “immaterial substance,” used above in connection with
magnetism, is a very strange one, and moreover, it is self-contradictory.
If, instead of saying that “magnetism . . . is not only a real substantial
entity but an absolutely immaterial substance,” the writer
should have applied this definition to light, sound, or any other force in its
effects, we would have nothing to say, except to remark that the adjective “supersensuous”
would have been more applicable to any force than the word “immaterial”.
[The use of the terms “matter, or substance existing in supersensuous
conditions,” or “supersensuous states of matter.’ would avoid
an outburst of fierce, but just, criticism not only from men of science, but
from any ordinary well educated man who knows the value of terms.] But to say
this of the magnetic fluid is wrong, as it is an essence which is quite perceptible
to any clairvoyant, whether in darkness - as in the case of odic
emanations - or in light - when animal magnetism is practiced. Being, then,
a fluid in a supersensuous state, still matter, it cannot be “immaterial,”
and the expression becomes at once as illogical as it is sophistical. With regard
to the other forces, if by “immaterial” is meant only that
which is objective, but beyond the range of our present normal perceptions
of senses, well and good; but then whatever Substantialists may mean by it,
we Occultists and Theosophists demur to the form in which they put it. Substance,
we are told in philosophical dictionaries and encyclopedias, is that which underlies
outward phenomena; substratum; the permanent subject or cause of phenomena,
whether material or spiritual; that in which properties inhere; that which is
real in distinction from that which is only apparent - especially in
this world of Mâyâ. It is, in short - real, and the
one real Essence. But the Occult sciences, while calling Substance the noumenon
of every material form, explain that noumenon as being still matter
- only on another plane. That which is noumenon to our human perceptions
is matter to those of a Dhyân Chohan. As explained by our learned Vedântin
Brother, T Subba Row, Mûlaprakriti, the first universal aspect
of Parabrahma, its Kosmic Veil, and whose essence, to us, is unthinkable, is
to the LOGOS
“as material as any object is material to us” (Notes
on Bhagavad-gîtâ). Hence no Occultist would describe Substance as “immaterial”
in esse.
Substance
is a confusing term, in any case. We may call our body, or an ape, or a stone,
as well as any kind of fabric - “substantial”. Therefore, we call
“Essence” rather the material of the bodies of those Entities -
the supersensuous Beings, in whom we believe, and who do exist, but whom Science
and its admirers regard as superstitious nonsense, calling fictions alike
a “personal” god and the angels of the Christians, as they would
our Dhyân Chohans, or the Devas, “Planetary Men,” Genii, etc.,
etc., of the Kabâlists and Occultists. But the latter would never dream
of calling the phenomena of Light, Sound, Heat, Cohesion, etc., “Entities,”
as the Substantialists do. They would define those Forces as purely immaterial
perceptive effects - without, of substantial and essential CAUSES
- within: at the ultimate end of which, or at the origin, stands an ENTITY,
the essence of the latter changing with that of the Element [Useless to remind
again the reader, that by Elements it is not the compound’ air,
water and earth, that exists present to our terrestrial and sensuous perceptions
that are meant - but the noumenal Elements of the ancients.] it belongs
to. (See “Monads, Gods and Atoms” of Volume I, The Secret Doctrine,
Book II.) Nor can the soul be confused with FORCES,
which are on quite another plane of perception. It shocks, therefore, a Theosophist
to find the Substantialists so unphilosophically including Soul among
the Forces.
Having
- as he tells his readers - “laid the foundation of our argument in the
clearly defined analogies of Nature,” the editor of the Scientific
Arena, in an article called “ The Scientific Evidence of a Future
Life,” proceeds as follows:
If
the principles of Substantialism be true, then, as there shown, every force
or form of energy known to science must be a substantial entity. We further
endeavoured to show that if one form of force were conclusively demonstrated
to a substantial or objective existence, it would be a clear departure from
reason and consistency not to assume all the forces or phenomena-producing
causes in nature also to be substantial entities. But if one form of physical
force, or one single phenomenon-producing cause, such as heat, light, or sound,
could be clearly shown to be the mere motion of material particles,
and not a substantial entity or thing, then by rational analogy and the harmonious
uniformity of nature’s laws, all the other forces or phenomena-producing
causes, whether physical, vital, mental or spiritual, must come within the
same category as non-entitative modes of motion of material particles.
Hence it would follow in such case, that the soul, life, mind, or spirit,
so far from being a substantial entity which can form the basis of a hope
for an immortal existence beyond the present life, must, according to materialism,
and as the mere motion of brain and nerve particles, cease to exist
whenever such physical particles shall cease to move at death.
SPIRIT
- a “substantial Entity”!! Surely Substantialism cannot pretend
very seriously to the title of philosophy - in such case. But let us
read the arguments to the end. Here we find a just and righteous attack on Materialism
wound up with the same unphilosophical assertion! . . .
From the foregoing statement of the salient positions of materialistic science, as they bear
against the existence of the soul after death, we drew the logical conclusion that no
Christian philosopher who accepts the current doctrines of sound, light and heat as but
modes of molecular motion, can ever answer the analogical reasoning of the materialist
against the immortality of man. No possible view, as we have so often insisted, can make
the least headway against such materialistic reasoning or frame any reply to this great
argument of Haeckel and Huxley against the soul as an entity and its possible existence
separate from the body, save the teaching of Substantialism, which so consistently
maintains that the soul, life, mind and spirit are necessarily substantial forces or entities
from the analogies of physical science, namely, the substantial nature of all the physical
forces, including gravity, electricity, magnetism, cohesion, sound, light, heat, etc.
This
impregnable position of the Substantialist from logical analogy, based on the
harmonious uniformity of nature’s laws and forces, forms, the bulwark
of the Substantial Philosophy, and must, in the nature of things, for ever constitute
the strong tower of that system of teaching. If the edifice of Substantialism,
thus founded and fortified, can be taken and sacked by the forces of Materialism,
then our labours for so many years have manifestly come to naught. Say, if you
please, that the armies of Substantialism are thus burning the bridges behind
them. So be it. We prefer death to either surrender or retreat; for if this
fundamental position cannot be maintained against the combined forces of the
enemy, then all is lost, Materialism has gained the day, and death is the eternal
annihilation of the human race. Within this central citadel of principles, therefore,
we have entrenched ourselves to survive or perish, and here, encircled by this
wall of adamant, we have stored all our treasures and munitions of war, and
if the agnostic hordes of materialistic science wish to possess them, let them
train upon it their heaviest artillery . . . .
How strange, then, when materialists themselves recognize the desperateness of their
situation, and so readily grasp the true bearing of this analogical argument based on the
substantial nature of the physical forces, that we should be obliged to reason with
professed Substantialists, giving them argument upon argument in order to prove to them
that they are no Substantialists at all, in the true sense of that term, so long as they leave
one single force of Nature or one single phenomenon-producing cause in Nature, out of
the category of substantial entities!
One
minister of our acquaintance speaks glowingly of the ultimate success of the
Substantial Philosophy, and proudly calls himself a Substantialist, but refuses
to include sound among the substantial forces and entities, thus virtually accepting
the wave-theory! In the name of all logical consistency, what could that minister
say in reply to another “Substantialist” who would insist upon the
beauty and truth of Substantialism, but who could not include light?
And then another who could not include heat, or, electricity,
or magnetism, or gravity? Yet all of them good “Substantialists”
on the very same principle as is the one who leaves sound out of the
substantial category, while still claiming to be an orthodox Substantialist!
Why should they not leave life-force and spirit -force out of the list of entities,
thus making them, like sound-force (as materialists insist), but the vibration
of material particles, and still claim the right to call themselves good Substantialists?
Haeckel and Huxley would then be duly qualified candidates for baptism into
the church of Substantialism.
The truth is, the minister who can admit for one moment that sound consists of but the
motion of air-particles, and thus, that it is not a substantial entity, is a materialist at bottom,
though he may not be conscious of the logical maelstrom that is whirling him to scientific
destruction. We have all herd of the play of “Hamlet,” with the Prince of Denmark left out.
Such would be the scientific play of Substantialism with the sound question ignored, and
the theory of acoustics handed over to Materialism. (See our editorial on “The Meaning of
the Sound Discussion,” The Microcosm, Vol V, p 197)
We
sympathize with the “Minister” who refuses to include Sound
among “Substantial Entities”. We believe in FOHAT,
but would hardly refer to his Voice and Emanations as “Entities,”
though they are produced by an electric shock of atoms and repercussions producing
both Sound and Light. Science would accept no more our Fohat than the
Sound or Light - Entities of the “Substantial Philosophy”
(?) But we have this satisfaction, at any rate, that, once thoroughly explained,
Fohat will prove more philosophical than either the materialistic or substantial
theories of the forces of nature.
How
can anyone with pretensions to both a scientific and psychological
mind, speaking of Soul and especially of Spirit, place them on the same
level as the physical phenomena of nature, and this, in a language one can apply
only to physical facts! Even Professor Bain, ‘a monistic ANNIHILATIONIST,”
as he is called, confesses that “mental and bodily states are utterly
contrasted”. [The Substantialists call, moreover, Spirit that which
we call mind - (Manas), and thus it is Soul which takes with them the
place of Âtmâ; in short they confuse the vehicle with the
Driver inside.]
Thus,
the direct conclusion the Occultists and the Theosophists can come to, at any
rate on the prima facie evidence furnished them by writings which no philosophy
can now rebut, is that Substantial Philosophy, which was brought forth into this
world to fight materialistic science and to slay it, surpasses it immeasurably
in Materialism. No Bain, no Huxley, nor even Haeckel, has ever confused to this
degree mental and physical phenomena. At the same time the “apostles of
Materialism” are on a higher plane of philosophy than their opponents. For,
the charge preferred against them of teaching that Soul is “the mere motion
of brain and nerve particles” is untrue, for they never did so teach. But,
even supposing such would be their theory, it would only be in accordance with
Substantialism, since the latter assures us that Soul and Spirit, as much
as all “the phenomena-producing causes” (?) whether physical,
mental, or spiritual - if not regarded as SUBSTANTIAL
ENTITIES - “must come within the same category as non-entitative
(?) Modes of motion of material particles”.
All
this is not only painfully vague, but is almost meaningless. The inference that
the acceptance of the received scientific theories on light, sound and heat,
etc., would be equivalent to accepting the soul motion of molecules - is
certainly hardly worth discussion. It is quite true that some thirty or forty
years ago Büchner and Moleschott attempted to prove that sensation and
thought are a movement of matter. But this has been pronounced by a well known
English Annihilationist “unworthy of the name of ‘philosophy’”.
Not one man of real scientific reputation, or of any eminence, not Tyndall,
Huxley, Maudsley, Clifford, Bain, Spencer nor Lewis, in England, nor Virchow,
nor Haeckel in Germany, has ever gone so far as to say: “Thought is a
motion of molecules.” Their only quarrel with the believers in a soul
was and is, that while the latter maintain that soul is the cause of
thought, they (the scientists) assert that thought is the concomitant
of certain physical processes in the brain. Nor have they ever said (the real
scientists and philosophers, however materialistic) that thought and nervous
motion are the same, but that they are “the subjective and objective
sides of the same thing”.
John
Stuart Mill is a good authority and an example to quote, and thus deny the charge.
For, speaking of the rough and rude method of attempting to resolve sensation
into nervous motion (taking as his example the case of the nerve-vibrations
to the brain which are the physical side of the light perception),
“at the end of all these motions, there is something which is not motion
- there is a feeling or sensation of colour”. . . he says.
Hence, it is quite true to say that “the subjective feeling here
spoken of by Mill will outlive even the acceptance of the undulatory theory
of light, or heat, as a mode of motion”. For the latter is based on a
physical speculation and the former is built on everlasting philosophy
- however imperfect, because so tainted with Materialism.
Our
quarrel with the Materialists is not so much for their soulless Forces,
as for their denying the existence of any “Force-bearer,” the noumenon
of light, electricity, etc. To accuse them of not making a difference between
mental and physical phenomena is equal to proclaiming oneself ignorant of their
theories. The most famous Negationists are today the first to admit that
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
and MOTION
are at the opposite poles of existence”. That which remains to be settled
between us and the materialistic IDEALISTS
- a living paradox by the way, now personified by the most eminent writers on
Idealistic philosophy in England - is the question whether that consciousness
is only experienced in connection with organic molecules of the brain or not.
We say it is the thought or mind which sets the molecules of the physical brain
in motion; they deny any existence to mind, independent of the brain. But even
they do not call the seat of the mind “a molecular fabric,”
but only that it is “the mind-principle” - the seat or the
organic basis of the manifesting mind. That such is the real attitude of materialistic
science may be demonstrated by reminding the reader of Mr Tyndall’s confessions
in his Fragments of Science, for since the days of his discussions with
Dr Martineau, the attitude of the Materialists has not changed. This attitude
remains unaltered, unless, indeed, we place the Hylo-Idealists on the
same level as Mr Tyndall - which would be absurd. Treating of the phenomenon
of Consciousness, the great physicist quotes this question from Mr Martineau:
“A man can say ‘I feel, I think, I love’; but how does consciousness
infuse itself into the problem?” And he thus answers:
The
passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness
is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a molecular action in
the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ,
nor apparently any rudiments of the organ, which would enable us to pass by
a process of reasoning from one to the other. They appear together, but we
do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened and
illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain;
were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings,
all their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted
with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far
as ever from the solution of the problem: “How are these physical processes
connected with the facts of consciousness?” The chasm between the two
classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable.
Thus,
there appears to be far less disagreement between the Occultists and modern
science than between the former and the Substantialists. The latter confuse
most hopelessly the subjective with the objective phases of all phenomena, and
the Scientists do not, notwithstanding that they limit the subjective
to the earthly or terrestrial phenomena only. In this they have chosen the Cartesian
method with regard to atoms and molecules; we hold to the ancient and primitive
philosophical beliefs, so intuitively perceived by Leibnitz. One system can
thus be called, as his was - “Spiritualistic and Atomistic”.
Substantialists
speak with great scorn of the vibratory theory of science. But, until able to
prove that their views would explain the phenomena as well, filling moreover,
the actual gaps and flaws in the modern hypotheses, they have hardly the right
to use such a tone. As all such theories and speculations are only provisional
we may well leave them alone. Science has made wonderful discoveries on the
objective side of all the physical phenomena. Where it is really wrong is, when
it perceives in matter alone - i.e., in that matter which is known
to it - the alpha and the omega of all phenomena. To reject the
scientific theory, however, of vibrations in light and sound, is to court as
much ridicule as the scientists do in rejecting physical and objective
spiritualistic phenomena by attributing them all to fraud. Science has ascertained
and proved the exact rapidity with which the sound-waves travel, and
it has artificially imitated - on the data of transmission of sound by those
waves - the human voice and other acoustic phenomena. The sensation of
sound - the response of the sensory tract to an objective stimulus (atmospheric
vibrations) is an affair of consciousness: and to call sound an “Entity”
on this plane, is to objectivate most ridiculously a subjective
phenomenon which is but an effect after all - the lower end of a concatenation
of causes. If Materialism locates all in objective matter and fails to see the
origin and primary causes of the Forces - so much the worse for the materialists;
for it only shows the limitations of their own capacities of hearing and seeing
- limitations which Huxley, for one, recognizes, for he is unable on his own
confession to define the boundaries of our senses, and still asserts his materialistic
tendency by locating sounds only in cells of matter, and on our sensuous plane.
Behold, the great Biologist dwarfing our senses and curtailing the powers of
man and Nature in his usual ultra-poetical language. Hear him (as quoted by
Sterling Concerning Protoplasm) speak of “the wonderful noonday
silence of a tropical forest,” which “is after all due only to
the dullness of our hearing, and could our ears only catch the murmurs of
these tiny maelstroms as they whirl in the innumerable myriads of living cells
which constitute each tree, we should be stunned as with the roar of a great
city”.
The
telephone and the phonograph, moreover, are there to upset any theory except
the vibratory one - however materialistically expressed. Hence, the attempt
of the Substantialists “to show the fallacy of the wave-theory of sound
as universally taught, and to outline the substantial theory of acoustics,”
cannot be successful. If they show that sound is not a mode of motion in
its origin and that the forces are not merely the qualities and property
of matter induced or generated in, by and through matter,
under certain conditions - they will have achieved a great triumph. But, whether
as substance, matter or effect, sound and light can never be divorced from their
modes of manifesting through vibrations - as the whole subjective or
occult nature is one everlasting perpetual motion of VORTICAL
vibrations.
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