Section XI. Ancient Thought in Modern Dress.

Modern Science is Ancient Thought distorted, and no more. We have seen, however, what intuitional Scientists think, and are busy about; and now the reader shall be given a few more proofs of the fact that more than one F.R.S. is unconsciously approaching the derided Secret Sciences.

With regard to Cosmogony and primeval matter, modern speculations are undeniably ancient thought, “improved” by contradictory theories of recent origin. The whole foundation belongs to Grecian and Indian Archaic Astronomy and Physics, in those days called always Philosophy. In all the Âryan and Greek speculations, we meet with the conception of an all-pervading, unorganized, and homogeneous Matter, or Chaos, re-named by modern Scientists “nebular condition of the world-stuff.” What Anaxagoras called Chaos in his Homoiomeria is now called “primitive fluid” by Sir William Thomson. The Hindû and Greek Atomists—Kanâda, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, etc.—are now reflected, as in a clear mirror, in the supporters of the Atomic Theory of our modern days, beginning with Leibnitz's Monads, and ending with the Vortical Atoms of Sir William Thomson.991 True, the corpuscular theory of old is rejected, and the undulatory theory has taken its place. But the question is, whether the latter is so firmly established as not to be liable to be dethroned like its predecessor? Light, from its metaphysical aspect, has been fully treated in Isis Unveiled:

This is the Ether, as just explained in the views of Metcalfe, repeated by Dr. Richardson, save for the submission of the former to some details of the modern undulatory theory. We do not say that we deny the theory; we assert only that it needs completion and reärrangement. But the Occultists are by no means the only heretics in this respect; for Mr. Robert Hunt, F.R.S. finds that:

To this remark of Sir David Brewster—“forced to reason as if light was material”—there is a good deal to reply. Light, in one sense, is [pg 635] certainly as material as is electricity itself. And if electricity is not material, if it is only a “mode of motion,” how is it that it can be stored up in Faure's accumulators? Helmholtz says that electricity must be as atomic as matter; and Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., supported the view in his address at Birmingham, in 1886, to the Chemical Section of the British Association, of which he was President. This is what Helmholtz says:

Here we have to repeat that which was already said in Section VIII, that there is but one science that can henceforth direct modern research into the one path which will lead to the discovery of the whole, hitherto Occult, truth, and it is the youngest of all—Chemistry, as it now stands reformed. There is no other, not excluding Astronomy, that can so unerringly guide scientific intuition, as can Chemistry. Two proofs of this are to be found in the world of Science—two great Chemists, each among the greatest in his own country, namely, Mr. Crookes and the late Professor Butlerof: the one is a thorough believer in abnormal phenomena; the other was as fervid a Spiritualist, as he was great in the natural sciences. It becomes evident that, while pondering over the ultimate divisibility of Matter, and in the hitherto fruitless chase after the element of negative atomic weight, the scientifically trained mind of the Chemist must feel irresistibly drawn towards those ever-shrouded worlds, to that mysterious Beyond, whose measureless depths seem to close against the approach of the too materialistic hand that would fain draw aside its veil. “It is the unknown and the ever-unknowable,” warns the Monist-Agnostic. “Not so,” answers the persevering Chemist. “We are on the track and we are not daunted, and fain would we enter the mysterious region which ignorance tickets unknown.”

In his Presidential Address at Birmingham Mr. Crookes said:

Two or three sentences, at the very close of his lecture on the Genesis of the Elements, showed the eminent Scientist to be on the royal road [pg 636] to the greatest discoveries. He has been for some time overshadowing “the original protyle,” and he has come to the conclusion that “he who grasps the Key will be permitted to unlock some of the deepest mysteries of creation.” Protyle, as the great Chemist explains:

The knowledge of Roger Bacon did not come to this wonderful old magician999 by inspiration, but because he studied ancient works on Magic and Alchemy, and had a key to the real meaning of their language. But see what Mr. Crookes says of Protyle, next neighbour to the unconscious Mûlaprakriti of the Occultists:

With every respect due to the great knowledge of the lecturer, the Occultist would put it otherwise. He would say that no Atom is ever “created,” for the Atoms are eternal within the bosom of the One Atom—“the Atom of Atoms”—viewed during Manvantara as the Jagad-Yoni, the material causative womb of the World. Pradhâna, unmodified Matter—that which is the first form of Prakriti, or material, visible, [pg 637] as well as invisible Nature—and Purusha, Spirit, are eternally one; and they are Nirupâdhi, without adventitious qualities or attributes, only during Pralaya, and when beyond any of the planes of consciousness of existence. The Atom, as known to modern science, is inseparable from Purusha, which is Spirit, but is now called “energy” in Science. The Protyle Atom has not been comminuted or subtilized: it has simply passed into that plane, which is no plane, but the eternal state of everything beyond the planes of illusion. Both Purusha and Pradhâna are immutable and unconsumable, or Aparinâmin and Avyaya, in eternity; and both may be referred to during the Mâyâvic periods as Vyaya and Parinâmin, or that which can expand, pass away and disappear, and which is “modifiable.” In this sense Purusha, must, of course, be held distinct in our conceptions from Parabrahman. Nevertheless that, which is called “energy” or “force” in Science, and which has been explained as a dual force by Metcalfe, is never, in fact, and cannot be, energy alone; for it is the Substance of the World, its Soul, the All-permeant, Sarvaga, in conjunction with Kâla, Time. The three are the trinity in one, during Manvantara, the all-potential Unity, which acts as three distinct things on Mâyâ, the plane of illusion. In the Orphic philosophy of ancient Greece they were called Phanes, Chaos, and Chronos—the triad of the Occult Philosophers of that period.

But see how closely Mr. Crookes brushes the “Unknowable,” and what potentialities there are for the acceptance of Occult truths in his discoveries. He continues, speaking of the evolution of Atoms:

This justifies several assertions in the Occult works.

Firstly, that neither the stars nor the Sun can be said to be constituted of those terrestrial elements with which the Chemist is familiar, though they are all present in the Sun's outward robes—as well as a host more of elements so far unknown to Science.

Secondly, that our globe has its own special laboratory on the far-away outskirts of its atmosphere, crossing which, every Atom and molecule changes and differentiates from its primordial nature.

And thirdly, that though no element present on our Earth could ever possibly be found wanting in the Sun, there are many others there which have either not reached, or not as yet been discovered on our globe.

Mr. Crookes speaks of helium, an element of still lower atomic weight than hydrogen, an element purely hypothetical as far as our earth is concerned, though existing in abundance in the chromosphere of the Sun. Occult Science adds that not one of the elements regarded as such by Chemistry really deserves the name.

Again we find Mr. Crookes speaking with approbation of

Hitherto, Alchemy alone, within the historical period, and in the so-called civilized countries, has succeeded in obtaining a real element, or a particle of homogeneous Matter, the Mysterium Magnum of Paracelsus. But then that was before Lord Bacon's day.1004

This is, in strictly scientific, but beautiful language, the description of the evolution of the differentiated Universe in the Secret Teachings. The learned gentleman closes his address in words, every sentence of which is like a flash of light from beyond the dark veil of materiality, hitherto thrown upon the exact sciences, and is a step forward towards the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Occult. Thus he says:

Thus inductive Science, in its branches of Astronomy, Physics, and Chemistry, while advancing timidly towards the conquest of Nature's secrets in her final effects on our terrestrial plane, recedes to the days of Anaxagoras and the Chaldees in its discoveries of (a) the origin of our phenomenal world, and (b) the modes of formation of the bodies that compose the Universe. And having, for their cosmogonical hypotheses to turn back to the beliefs of the earliest philosophers, and the systems of the latter—systems that were all based on the teachings of a universal Secret Doctrine with regard to primeval Matter, with its properties, functions, and laws—have we not the right to hope that the day is not far off when Science will show a better appreciation of the Wisdom of the Ancients than it has hitherto done?

No doubt Occult Philosophy could learn a good deal from exact Modern Science; but the latter, on the other hand, might profit by ancient learning in more than one way, and chiefly in Cosmogony. It might learn, for instance, the mystical signification, alchemical and transcendental, of the many imponderable substances that fill interplanetary space, and which, interpenetrating each, are the direct cause, at the lower end, of the production of natural phenomena manifesting through so-called vibration. The knowledge of the real, not the hypothetical, nature of Ether, or rather of the Âkâsha, and other mysteries, in short, can alone lead to the knowledge of Forces. It is that Substance against which the Materialistic school of the Physicists rebels with such fury, especially in France,1011 and which exact Science has to advocate notwithstanding. They cannot make away with it without incurring the risk of pulling down the pillars of the Temple of Science, like a modern Samson, and of getting buried under its roof.

The theories built upon the rejection of Force, outside and independent of Matter pure and simple, have all been shown to be fallacious. They do not, and cannot, cover the ground, and many of the scientific data are thus proved to be unscientific. “Ether produced Sound” is said in the Purânas, and the statement is laughed at. Sound is the result of the vibrations of the air, we are corrected. And what is air? Could it exist if there were no etheric medium in Space to buoy up its molecules? The case stands simply thus. Materialism cannot admit [pg 642] the existence of anything outside Matter, because with the acceptance of an imponderable Force—the source and head of all the physical Forces—other intelligent Forces would have to be virtually admitted, and that would lead Science very far. For it would have to accept as a sequel the presence in Man of a still more spiritual power—entirely independent, for once, of any kind of Matter about which Physicists know anything. Hence, apart from a hypothetical Ether of Space and gross physical bodies, the whole sidereal and unseen Space is, in the sight of Materialists, one boundless void in Nature—blind, unintelligent, useless.

And now the next question is: What is that Cosmic Substance, and how far can one go in suspecting its nature or in wrenching from it its secrets, thus feeling justified in giving it a name? How far, especially, has Modern Science gone in the direction of those secrets, and what is it doing to solve them? The latest hobby of Science, the Nebular Theory, may afford us some answer to this question. Let us then examine the credentials of this Nebular Theory.

Section XII. Scientific and Esoteric Evidence for, and Objections to, the Modern Nebular Theory.

Of late, Esoteric Cosmogony has been frequently opposed by the phantom of this theory and its ensuing hypotheses. “Can this most scientific teaching be denied by your Adepts?” it is asked. “Not entirely,” is the reply, “but the admissions of the men of Science themselves kill it; and there remains nothing for the Adepts to deny.”

To make of Science an integral whole necessitates, indeed, the study of spiritual and psychic, as well as of physical, Nature. Otherwise it will ever be like the anatomy of man, discussed of old by the profane from the point of view of his shell-side, and in ignorance of the interior work. Even Plato, the greatest Philosopher of his country, was guilty, before his Initiation, of such statements as that liquids pass into the stomach through the lungs. Without metaphysics, as Mr. H. J. Slack says, real Science is inadmissible.

The nebulæ exist; yet the Nebular Theory is wrong. A nebula exists in a state of entire elemental dissociation. It is gaseous and—something else besides, which can hardly be connected with gases as these are known to Physical Science; and it is self-luminous. But that is all. The sixty-two “coincidences” enumerated by Professor Stephen Alexander,1012 confirming the Nebular Theory, may all be explained by Esoteric Science; though, as this is not an astronomical work, the refutations are not attempted at present. Laplace and Faye come nearer to the correct theory than any; but of the speculations of [pg 644] Laplace there remains little in the present theory beyond its general features.

Nevertheless, says John Stuart Mill:

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 nebulæ, resemble those objects in reality, and not only in appearance.

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 different mode from that postulated by modern Astronomy.

The many objections raised by some opponents of the modern Nebular Theory against the homogeneity of original diffuse Matter, on the ground of the uniformity in the composition of the fixed Stars, do not affect the question of that homogeneity 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 differentiation from its laya-condition1014—is yet to this day homogeneous, at immense distances, in the depths of infinitude, and likewise at points not far removed from the outskirts of our Solar System.

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 side-issue and inference from the evidence of spectra and lines, as simply [pg 645] provisional for the present, and abandon all matters of detail to Physical Science. The duty of the Occultist lies with the Soul and Spirit of Cosmic Space, not merely with its illusive appearance and behaviour. That of official Physical Science is to analyze and study its shell—the Ultima Thule of the Universe and Man, in the opinion of Materialism.

With the latter, Occultism has nought to do. It is only with the theories of such men of learning as Kepler, Kant, Oersted, and Sir William Herschell, who believed in a Spiritual World, that Occult Cosmogony might treat, and attempt a satisfactory compromise. But the views of those Physicists differed vastly from the latest modern speculations. Kant and Herschell had in their mind's eye speculations upon the origin and the final destiny, as well as upon the present aspect, of the Universe, from a far more philosophical and psychic standpoint; whereas modern Cosmology and Astronomy now repudiate anything like research into the mysteries of Being. The result is what might be expected: complete failure and inextricable contradictions in the thousand and one varieties of so-called Scientific Theories, and in this Theory as in all others.

The nebular hypothesis, involving the theory of the existence of a Primeval Matter, diffused in a nebulous condition, is of no modern date in Astronomy, as everyone knows. Anaximenes, of the Ionian school, had already taught that the sidereal bodies were formed through the progressive condensation of a primordial pregenetic Matter, which had almost a negative weight, and was spread out through Space in an extremely sublimated condition.

Tycho Brahé, who viewed the Milky Way as an ethereal substance, thought the new star that appeared in Cassiopeia, in 1572, had been formed out of that Matter.1015 Kepler believed that the star of 1606 had likewise been formed out of the ethereal substance that fills the universe.1016 He attributed to that same Ether the apparition of a luminous ring round the Moon, during the total eclipse of the Sun observed at Naples in 1605.1017 Still later, in 1714 the existence of a self-luminous Matter was recognized by Halley in the Philosophical Transactions. Finally, the journal of this name published in 1811 the famous hypothesis of the eminent Astronomer, Sir William Herschell, [pg 646] on the transformation of the nebulæ into Stars,1018 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 deny the completeness 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 System 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 Hindû 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-leaves,” [pg 647] 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 authority of the Adepts, it was maintained that it is “sufficient to make a résumé of what the solar Physicists do not know”—we may, we maintain, define our position with regard to the modern Nebular Theory 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? [pg 648] What has he given so wonderfully new and original, that its ground-work, at any rate, should have served as a basis for the modern Nebular Theory? The following is what one gathers from various astronomical works.

Laplace thought that, in consequence of the condensation of the atoms of the primeval nebula, according to the “law” of gravity, the now gaseous, or perhaps, partially liquid mass, acquired a rotatory motion. As the velocity of this rotation increased, it assumed the form of a thin disc; finally, the centrifugal force overpowering that of cohesion, huge rings were detached from the edge of the whirling incandescent masses, and these rings contracted necessarily by gravitation (as accepted) into spheroidal bodies, which would necessarily still continue to preserve the orbit previously occupied by the outer zone from which they were separated.1019 The velocity of the outer edge of each nascent planet, he said, exceeding that of the inner, there results a rotation on its axis. The more dense bodies would be thrown off last; and finally, during the preliminary state of their formation, the newly-segregated orbs in their turn throw off one or more satellites. In formulating the history of the rupture and planetation of rings Laplace says:

While few will be found to deny the “magnificent audacity of this hypothesis,” it is impossible not to recognize the insurmountable difficulties with which it is attended. Why, for instance, do we find that the satellites of Neptune and Uranus display a retrograde motion? [pg 649] Why, in spite of its closer proximity to the Sun, is Venus less dense than the Earth? Why, again, is the more distant Uranus denser than Saturn? How is it that there are so many variations in the inclination of their axes and orbits in the supposed progeny of the central orb; that such startling variations in the size of the Planets are noticeable; that the satellites of Jupiter are more dense by ·288 than their primary; that the phenomena of meteoric and cometary systems still remain unaccounted for? To quote the words of a Master:

They [the Adepts] find that the centrifugal theory of Western birth is unable to cover all the ground. That, unaided, it can neither account for every oblate spheroid, nor explain away such evident difficulties as are presented by the relative density of some planets. How, indeed, can any calculation of centrifugal force explain to us, for instance, why Mercury, whose rotation is, we are told, only “about one-third that of the Earth, and its density only about one-fourth greater than the Earth,” should have a polar compression more than ten times greater than the latter? And again, why Jupiter, whose equatorial rotation is said to be “twenty-seven times greater, and its density only about one-fifth that of the Earth” should have its polar compression seventeen times greater than that of the Earth? Or why Saturn, with an equatorial velocity fifty-five times greater than Mercury for centripetal force to contend with, should have its polar compression only three times greater than Mercury's? To crown the above contradictions, we are asked to believe in the Central Forces, as taught by Modern Science, even when told that the equatorial matter of the Sun, with more than four times the centrifugal velocity of the Earth's equatorial surface, and only about one-fourth part of the gravitation of the equatorial matter, has not manifested any tendency to bulge at the solar equator, nor shown the least flattening at the poles of the solar axis. In other and clearer words, the Sun, with only one-fourth of our Earth's density for the centrifugal force to work upon, has no polar compression at all! We find this objection made by more than one astronomer, yet never explained away satisfactorily, so far as the “Adepts” are aware.

Therefore, do they [the Adepts] say, that the great men of Science of the West, knowing ... next to nothing either about cometary matter, centrifugal and centripetal forces, the nature of the nebulæ, or the physical constitution of the Sun, the Stars, or even the Moon, are imprudent to speak so confidently as they do about the “central mass of the Sun,”whirling out into space planets, comets, and what not.... We maintain that it [the Sun] evolves out only the life-principle, the Soul of these [pg 650]bodies, giving and receiving it back, in our little Solar System, as the “Universal Life-Giver” ... in the Infinitude and Eternity; that the Solar System is as much the Microcosm of the One Macrocosm as man is the former when compared with his own little Solar Cosmos.1020

The essential power of all the cosmic and terrestrial Elements to generate within themselves a regular and harmonious series of results, a concatenation of causes and effects, is an irrefutable proof that they are either animated by an Intelligence, ab extrâ or ab intrâ, or conceal such within or behind the “manifested veil.” Occultism does not deny the certainty of the mechanical origin of the Universe; it only claims the absolute necessity of mechanicians of some sort behind or within those Elements—a dogma with us. It is not the fortuitous assistance of the Atoms of Lucretius, as he himself knew well, that built the Kosmos and all in it. Nature herself contradicts such a theory. Celestial Space, containing Matter so attenuated as Ether, cannot be called on, with or without attraction, to explain the common motion of the sidereal hosts. Although the perfect accord of their inter-revolution indicates clearly the presence of a mechanical cause in Nature, Newton, who of all men had most right to trust to his deductions, was nevertheless forced to abandon the idea of ever explaining the original impulse given to the millions of orbs, by merely the laws of known Nature and its material Forces. He recognized fully the limits that separate the action of natural Forces from that of the Intelligences that set the immutable laws in order and action. And if a Newton had to renounce such hope, which of the modern materialistic pigmies has the right of saying: “I know better?”

A cosmogonical theory, to become complete and comprehensible, has to start with a Primordial Substance diffused throughout boundless Space, of an intellectual and divine nature. That Substance must be the Soul and Spirit, the Synthesis and Seventh Principle of the manifested Kosmos, and, to serve as a spiritual Upâdhi to this, there must be the sixth, its vehicle—Primordial Physical Matter, so to speak, though its nature must escape for ever our limited normal senses. It is easy for an Astronomer, if endowed with an imaginative faculty, to build a theory of the emergence of the Universe out of Chaos, by simply applying to it the principles of mechanics. But such a Universe will always prove a Frankenstein's monster with respect to its scientific human creator; it will lead him into endless perplexities. [pg 651] The application of mechanical laws only can never carry the speculator beyond the objective world; nor will it unveil to men the origin and final destiny of Kosmos. This is whither the Nebular Theory has led Science. In sober fact and truth this Theory is twin sister to that of Ether, and both are the offspring of necessity; one is as indispensable to account for the transmission of light, as is the other to explain the problem of the origin of the Solar Systems. The question with Science is, how the same homogeneous Matter1021 could, obeying the laws of Newton, give birth to bodies—Sun, Planets, and their satellites—subject to conditions of identity of motion, and formed of such heterogeneous elements.

Has the Nebular Theory helped to solve the problem, even if applied solely to bodies considered as inanimate and material? We say: most decidedly not. What progress has it made since 1811, when first Sir William Herschell's paper, with its facts based on observation and showing the existence of nebular matter, made the sons of the Royal Society “shout for joy”? Since then a still greater discovery, through spectrum analysis, has permitted the verification and corroboration of Sir William Herschell's conjecture. Laplace demanded some kind of primitive “world-stuff” to prove the idea of progressive world-evolution and growth. Here it is, as offered two millenniums ago.

The “world-stuff,” now called nebulæ, was known from the highest antiquity. Anaxagoras taught that, upon differentiation, the resulting commixture of heterogeneous substances remained motionless and unorganized, until finally the “Mind”—the collective body of Dhyân Chohans, we say—began to work upon, and communicated to, them motion and order.1022 This theory is now taken up, so far as concerns its first portion; the last, that of any “Mind” interfering, being rejected. Spectrum analysis reveals the existence of nebulæ formed entirely of gases and luminous vapours. Is this the primitive nebular Matter? The spectra reveal, it is said, the physical conditions of the Matter which emits cosmic light. The spectra of the resolvable and the irresolvable nebulæ are shown to be entirely different, the spectra of the [pg 652] latter showing their physical state to be that of glowing gas or vapour. The bright lines of one nebula reveal the existence of hydrogen, and of other material substances known and unknown. The same as to the atmospheres of the Sun and Stars. This leads to the direct inference that a Star is formed by the condensation of a nebula; hence that even the metals themselves are formed on earth by the condensation of hydrogen or of some other primitive matter, some ancestral cousin to helium, perhaps, or some yet unknown stuff. This does not clash with the Occult Teachings. And this is the problem that Chemistry is trying to solve; and it must succeed sooner or later in the task, accepting nolens volens, when it does, the Esoteric Teaching. But when this does happen, it will kill the Nebular Theory as it now stands.

Meanwhile Astronomy cannot accept in any way, if it is to be regarded as an exact Science, the present theory of the filiation of Stars—even if Occultism does so in its own way, seeing that it explains this filiation differently—because Astronomy has not one single physical datum to show for it. Astronomy could anticipate Chemistry in proving the existence of the fact, if it could show a planetary nebula exhibiting a spectrum of three or four bright lines, gradually condensing and transforming into a Star, with a spectrum all covered with a number of dark lines. But

Since its discovery, the magic power of the spectroscope has revealed to its adepts only one single transformation of a Star of this kind; and even that showed directly the reverse of what is needed as proof in favour of the Nebular Theory; for it revealed a Star transforming itself into a planetary nebula. As related in The Observatory,1024 the temporary Star, discovered by J. F. J. Schmidt in the constellation Cygnus, in November, 1876, exhibited a spectrum broken by very brilliant lines. Gradually, the continuous spectrum and most of the lines disappeared, leaving finally one single brilliant line, which appeared to coincide with the green line of the nebula.

Though this metamorphosis is not irreconcileable with the hypothesis of the nebular origin of the Stars, nevertheless this single solitary case rests on no observation whatever, least of all on direct observation. [pg 653] The occurrence may have been due to several other causes. Since Astronomers are inclined to think our Planets are tending toward precipitation into the Sun, why should not that Star have blazed up owing to a collision of such precipitated Planets, or, as many suggest, the appulse of a Comet? Be that as it may, the only known instance of star-transformation since 1811 is not favourable to the Nebular Theory. Moreover, on the question of this Theory, as on all others, Astronomers disagree.

In our own age, and before Laplace ever thought of it, Buffon, being very much struck by the identity of motion in the Planets, was the first to propose the hypothesis that the Planets and their satellites originated in the bosom of the Sun. Forthwith and for this purpose, he invented a special Comet, supposed to have torn out, by a powerful oblique blow, the quantity of matter necessary for their formation. Laplace gave its dues to the “Comet” in his Exposition du Système du Monde.1025 But the idea was seized and even improved upon by a conception of the alternate evolution, from the Sun's central mass, of Planets apparently without weight or influence on the motion of the visible Planets—and as evidently without any more existence than the likeness of Moses in the Moon.

But the modern theory is also a variation on the systems elaborated by Kant and Laplace. The idea of both was that, at the origin of things, all that Matter which now enters into the composition of the planetary bodies was spread over all the space comprized in the Solar System—and even beyond. It was a nebula of extremely small density, and its condensation gradually gave birth, by a mechanism that has hitherto never been explained, to the various bodies of our System. This is the original Nebular Theory, an incomplete yet faithful repetition—a short chapter out of the large volume of universal Esoteric Cosmogony—of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine. And both systems, Kant's and Laplace's, differ greatly from the modern Theory, redundant with conflicting sub-theories and fanciful hypotheses. Say the Teachers:

Mr. Crookes says almost the same in the fragment quoted from his lecture, Elements and Meta-Elements. C. Wolf, Member of the Institute, Astronomer of the Observatory, Paris, observes:

Even if the men of Science—leaving aside the difficulty arising out of such undeniable variety and heterogeneity of matter in the constitution of nebulæ—did admit, with the Ancients, that the origin of all the visible and invisible heavenly bodies must be sought for in one primordial homogeneous world-stuff, in a kind of Pre-Protyle,1029 it is evident that this would not put an end to their perplexities. Unless they admit also that our actual visible Universe is merely the Sthûla Sharîra, the gross body, of the sevenfold Kosmos, they will have to face another problem; especially if they venture to maintain that its now visible bodies are the result of the condensation of that one and single Primordial Matter. For mere observation shows them that the operations which produced the actual Universe are far more complex than could ever be embraced in that theory.

First of all, there are two distinct classes of “irresolvable” nebulæ, as Science itself teaches.

The telescope is unable to distinguish between these two classes, but the spectroscope can do so, and notices an essential difference between their physical constitutions.

Some of these nebulæ, Wolf tells us,

Such is the synopsis of the objections and difficulties in the way of the acceptance of the Nebular Theory, brought forward by the French savant, who concludes this interesting argument by declaring that:

If this is the last word of Science upon the subject, whither then should we turn in order to learn what the Nebular Theory is supposed to teach? What, in fact, is this theory? What it is, no one seems to know for certain. What it is not—we learn from the erudite author of World-Life. He tells us that it:

But this is not all. Even the greatest philosopher of England—Mr. Herbert Spencer—arrayed himself against this fantastic theory by saying that (a) “The problem of existence is not resolved” by it; (b) the nebular hypothesis “throws no light upon the origin of diffused matter”; and (c) that “the nebular hypothesis (as it now stands) implies a First Cause.”1033

The latter, we are afraid, is more than our modern Physicists have bargained for. Thus, it seems that the poor “hypothesis” can hardly expect to find help or corroboration even in the world of the Metaphysicians.

Considering all this, the Occultists believe they have a right to present their Philosophy, however misunderstood and ostracized it may be at present. And they maintain that this failure of the Scientists to discover the truth is entirely due to their Materialism and their contempt for transcendental Sciences. Yet although the scientific minds in our century are as far from the true and correct doctrine of Evolution as ever, there may be still some hope left for the future, for even now we find another Scientist giving us a faint glimmer of it.

In an article in the Popular Science Review on “Recent Researches in Minute Life,” we find Mr. H. J. Slack, F.C.S., Sec. R.M.S., saying:

This is a happy forecast indeed. The day may come, then, when “Natural Selection,” as taught by Mr. Darwin and Mr. Herbert Spencer, will, in its ultimate modification, form only a part of our Eastern doctrine of Evolution, which will be Manu and Kapila Esoterically explained.