Page 36 (part 2)

Thus neither Laplace's perceptions of a solar atmospheric fluid, which would extend beyond the orbits of the planets, nor Le Couturier's electricity, nor Foucault's heat ( Panorama des Mondes , p. 55), nor this, nor the other, can ever help any of the numerous hypotheses about the origin and permanency of rotation to escape from this squirrel's wheel, any more than the theory of gravity itself. This mystery is the Procrustean bed of physical Science. If matter is, as now taught, passive, the simplest movement cannot be said to be an essential property of matter -- if the latter is simply an inert mass. How, then, can such a complicated movement, compound and multiple, harmonious and equilibrated, lasting in the eternities for millions and millions of years, be attributed simply to its own inherent Force, unless the latter is an intelligence? A physical will is something new -- a conception that the ancients would have never entertained, indeed!* "We talk of the weight of the heavenly bodies," says an astronomer; "but since it is recognised that weight decreases in proportion to the distance from the centre, it becomes evident that, at a certain distance, that weight must be forcibly reduced to Zero? Were there any attraction there would be equilibrium . . . . And since the modern school recognizes neither a beneath nor an above in universal space, it is not clear what should cause the Earth to fall, were there even no gravitation, nor attraction." ( Cosmographie. ) Methinks the Count de Maistre was right in solving the question in his own theological way. He cuts the Gordian knot by saying: -- "The [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * For over a century all distinction between body and force is made away with. "Force is but the property of a body in motion," say the physicists; and " life -- the property of our animal organs -- is but the result of their molecular arrangement," answer the physiologists. "In the bosom of that aggregate which is named planet," teaches Littre, "are developed all the forces immanent to matter . . . i.e. , that matter possesses in itself and through itself the forces that are proper to it . . . and which are primary , not secondary. Such forces are the property of weight, the property of electricity, of terrestrial magnetism, the property of life. . . . Every planet can develop life . . . as earth, for instance, which had not always mankind on it, and now bears ( produit ) men" . . . ( Revue des Deux Mondes , July 15, 1860.) [[Vol. 1, Page]] 503 SCIENTIFIC ABERRATIONS. planets rotate because they are made to rotate . . . . . and the modern physical system of the universe is a physical impossibility. " ( Soirees. ) For did not Herschell say the same thing when he remarked that there is a will needed to impart a circular motion, and another will to restrain it? ( Discours , 165.) This shows and explains how a retarded planet is cunning enough to calculate so well its time as to hit off its arrival at the fixed minute. For, if Science sometimes succeeds with its great ingenuity in explaining some of such stoppages, retrograde motions, angles outside the orbits, &c., &c., by appearances resulting from the inequality of their progress and ours in the course of our mutual and respective orbits, we still know that there are others, and "very real and considerable deviations," according to Herschell, "which cannot be explained except by the mutual and irregular action of those planets and by the perturbing influence of the Sun." We understand, however, that there are, besides those little and accidental perturbations, continuous perturbations called "secular" -- because of the extreme slowness with which the irregularity increases and affects the relations of the elliptic movement -- and that these perturbations can be corrected. From Newton, who found that this world needed repairing very often, down to Reynaud, all say the same. In his Ciel et Terre ( p. 28), the latter speaks of -- ". . . . . The orbits described by the planets as being very far from immutable; on the contrary, subject to a perpetual mutation in their position and form," -- all prove gravitation and the peripatetic laws to be as negligent as they are quick to repair their mistakes. The charge as it stands seems to be that "they (the orbits) are alternately widening and narrowing, their great axis lengthens and diminishes, or oscillates at the same time from right to left around the Sun, the plane itself, in which they are situated, raising and lowering itself periodically while pivoting around itself with a kind of tremor. . . ." To this, De Mirville, who believes in intelligent "workmen" ruling invisibly the solar system -- as we do -- observes very wittily* . . . . . " Voila certes , a voyage which has little in it of mechanical rigour; at the utmost, one could compare it to a steamer, pulled to and fro and tossed on the waves, retarded or accelerated, all and each of which impediments might put off its arrival indefinitely, were there not the intelligences of a pilot and engineers to catch up the time lost, and to repair the damages. . . . ." The law of gravity, however, seems to be becoming an obsolete law in starry heaven. At any rate those long-haired sidereal radicals , called comets, appear to be very poor respecters of the majesty of that law, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Deuxieme memoire , " Manifestations Historiques ," p. 272. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 504 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. and to beard it quite impudently. Nevertheless, and though presenting in nearly every respect "phenomena not yet fully understood ," comets and meteors are credited by the believers in modern Science with obeying the same laws and consisting of the same matter , "as the Suns, stars and nebulae," and even "the earth and its inhabitants." ( Laing ' s " Modern Science and Modern Thought. ") This is what one might call taking things on trust, aye, even to blind faith. But exact Science is not to be questioned, and he who rejects the hypotheses imagined by her students -- gravitation, for instance -- would be regarded as an ignorant fool for it; yet we are told by the just cited author a queer legend from the scientific annals. "The comet of 1811 had a tail 120 millions of miles in length and 25 millions of miles in diameter at the widest part, while the diameter of the nucleus was about 127,000 miles, more than ten times that of the earth." He tells us, "in order that bodies of this magnitude, passing near the earth, should not affect its motion or change the length of the year by even a single second, their actual substance must be inconceivably rare. . . ." It must be so indeed, yet: -- ". . . . .