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For with him "his (Boehme's) system, shows us the inside of things, while modern physical science is content with looking at the outside." Then again, "the science of electricity, which was not yet in existence when he (Boehme) wrote, is there anticipated (in his writings); and not only does Boehme describe all the now known phenomena of that force, but he even gives us the origin, generation, and birth of electricity, itself, etc." Thus Newton, whose profound mind read easily between the lines, and fathomed the spiritual thought of the great Seer in its mystic rendering, owes his great discovery to Jacob Boehme, the nursling of the genii (Nirmanakayas) who watched over and guided him, of whom the author of the article in question so truly remarks, that "every new scientific discovery goes to prove his profound and intuitive insight into the most secret workings of nature. " And having discovered gravity, Newton, in order to render possible the action of attraction in space, had, so to speak, to annihilate every physical obstacle capable of impeding its free action; ether among others, though he had more than a presentiment of its existence. Advocating the corpuscular theory, he made an absolute vacuum between the heavenly bodies. . . . Whatever may have been his suspicions and inner convictions about Ether; however many friends he may have unbosomed himself to -- as in the case of his correspondence with Bentley -- his teachings never showed that he had any such belief. If he was "persuaded that the power of attraction could not be exerted by matter across a vacuum,"* how is it that so late as 1860, French astronomers (Le Couturier, for instance), combated "the disastrous results of the theory of vacuum established by the great man?"** Professor Winchell writes, "These passages (letter to Bentley) show what were his views respecting the nature of the interplanetary medium of communication. Though declaring that the heavens ' are void of sensible matter ,' he elsewhere excepted ' perhaps [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * World-Life. Prof. Winchell, LL.D (pp. 49 and 50). ** "Il n'est plus possible aujourd'hui, de soutenir comme Newton , que les corps celestes se mouvent au milieu du VIDE immense des espaces. . . . Parmi les consequences de la theorie du vide etablie par ce grand homme, il ne reste plus debout que le mot ' attraction ,' et nous verrons le jour ou ce dernier mot disparaitra du vocabulaire scientifique." (" Panorama des mondes ," pp. 47 and 53 . ) [[Vol. 1, Page]] 495 NEWTON THEN AND NEWTON NOW. some very thin vapours, streams, and effluvia, arising from the atmospheres of the earth, planets, and comets, and from such an exceedingly rare ethereal medium as we have elsewhere described." ( Newton , Optics , III. , query 28, 1704; quoted in " World-Life. ") This only shows that even such great men as Newton have not always the courage of their opinions. Dr. T. S. Hunt "called attention to some long-neglected passages in Newton's works, from which it appears that a belief in such universal, intercosmical medium gradually took root in his mind." ( Ibid. ) But such attention was never called to the said passages before Nov. 28, 1881, when Dr. Hunt read his " Celestial Chemistry , from the time of Newton. " "Till then the idea was universal, even among the men of Science, that Newton had, while advocating the corpuscular theory, preached a void ," as Le Couturier says. The passages had been "long neglected," no doubt because they contradicted and clashed with the preconceived pet theories of the day, till finally the undulatory theory imperiously required the presence of an "ethereal medium" to explain it. This is the whole secret. Anyhow, it is from that theory of Newton's of a universal void -- taught , if not believed in by himself, -- that dates the immense scorn now shown by modern for ancient physics. The old sages had maintained that "Nature abhorred vacuum," and the greatest mathematicians of the world (read of the Western races) had discovered the antiquated "fallacy" and exposed it. And now modern science vindicates, however ungracefully, archaic knowledge, having, moreover, to vindicate Newton's character and powers of observation at this late hour, after having neglected for one century and a half to pay any attention to such very important passages -- perchance, because it was wiser not to attract any notice to them. Better late than never. And now Father AEther is re-welcomed with open arms; and wedded to gravitation; linked to it for weal or woe, until the day when it, or both, shall be replaced by something else. Three hundred years ago it was plenum everywhere, then it became one dismal vacuity; later still the sidereal ocean-beds, dried up by science, rolled onward once more their ethereal waves. Recede ut procedes must become the motto of exact Science -- "exact," chiefly, in finding itself inexact every leap-year. But we will not quarrel with the great men. They had to go back to the earliest "Gods of Pythagoras and old Kanada" for the very backbone and marrow of their correlations and "newest" discoveries, and this may well afford good hope to the Occultists, for their minor gods. For we believe in Le Couturier's prophecy about gravitation. We know the day is approaching when an absolute reform will be demanded in the present modes of Science by the scientists themselves -- as was done by Sir W. Grove, F.R.S . Till that day there is nothing to be done. For if gravitation [[Vol. 1, Page]] 496 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. were dethroned to-morrow, the day after the Scientists would discover some other new mode of mechanical motion.* Rough and up-hill is the path of true Science, and its days are full of vexation of Spirit. But in the face of its "thousand" contradictory hypotheses to explain physical phenomena, there never was yet a better one than that of "motion" -- however paradoxically interpreted by materialism. As may be found on the first pages of Book I., Occultists have nothing surely against motion ** the GREAT BREATH of Mr. Herbert Spencer's "UNKNOWN." But, believing that everything on Earth is the shadow of something in space -- they believe in smaller "Breaths," which, living, intelligent and independent of all but Law, blow in every direction during Manvantaric periods. These Science will reject. But whatever replaces attraction, alias gravitation, the result will be the same.