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V., pp. 329-34. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 509 THE FIXING OF LIGHT. sensitive paper in a dark place, and at the end of 24 hours it will have left an impression of itself on the sensitive paper, the whites coming out as blacks. . . . There seems to be no limit for the reproduction of engravings, etc., etc. . . . ." What is it that remains fixed, nailed, so to say, on the paper? It is a Force certainly, that fixed the thing, but what is that thing , the residue of which remains on the paper? Our learned men will get out of this through some scientific technicality; but what is it that is intercepted, so as to imprison a certain quantity of it on glass, paper, or wood? Is it "Motion" or is it "Force"? Or shall we be told that what remains behind is the effect only of the force or Motion? Then what is this Force? Force or energy is a quality; but every quality must belong to a something, or a somebody. In Physics, Force is defined as "that which changes or tends to change any physical relation between bodies, whether mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, magnetic, etc." But it is not that "Force" or that "Motion" which remains behind on the paper, when the Force or Motion has ceased to act; and yet something, which our physical senses cannot perceive, has been left there to become a cause in its turn and produce effects. What is it? It is not matter, as defined by Science -- i.e. , matter in any of its known states. An Alchemist would say it was a spiritual secretion -- and would be laughed at. But yet, when the physicist said that Electricity, stored up, was a fluid, or that light fixed on paper is still Sunlight -- this is Science.* In the opinion of an experienced Occultist, one who has verified the whole series of Nidanas , of causes and effects that finally project their last effect on to this our plane of manifestations; one who has traced matter back to its noumenon, the explanation of the physicist is like calling anger, or its effects -- the exclamation provoked by it -- a secretion or a fluid, and man, the cause of it -- its material conductor. But, as Grove prophetically remarked, that day is fast approaching when it will be confessed that the "forces" we know of are but the phenomenal manifestations of realities we know nothing about, -- but which were known to the ancients and -- by them worshipped. He made one still more suggestive remark, however, which ought to have become the motto of Science, but has not. Sir W. Grove said that " S CIENCE SHOULD HAVE NEITHER DESIRES NOR PREJUDICES. T RUTH SHOULD BE HER SOLE AIM." Meanwhile, in our days, Scientists are more self-opinionated and bigoted than even the clergy. For they minister to, if they do not actually worship, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The newest Authorities have rejected these explanations as "exploded theories," and have now deified "Motion" as their sole Idol. But, surely, they and their idol will one day share the fate of their predecessors. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 510 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. "Force-Matter," which is their Unknown God. And how unknown it is may be inferred from the many confessions of the most eminent physicists and biologists, with Faraday at their head. Not only, he said, could he never presume to pronounce whether Force was a property or function of Matter, but he actually did not know what was meant by the word matter. There was a time, he added, when he believed he knew something of matter. But the more he lived, and the more carefully he studied it, the more he became convinced of his utter ignorance of the nature of matter.* (See Buckwell's "Electric Science.") The Occultists are often misunderstood because, for lack of better terms, they apply to the essence of Force under certain aspects the descriptive epithet of substance. Now the names for the varieties of "substance" on different planes of perception and being are legion. Eastern Occultism has a special appellation for each kind; but Science -- like England, in the recollection of a witty Frenchman, blessed with thirty-six religions and only one fish-sauce -- has but one name for all, namely, "Substance." Moreover, neither the orthodox physicists nor their critics seem to be very certain of their premises, and are as apt to confuse the effects as they do the causes. It is incorrect, for instance, to say, as Stallo does, that "matter can no more be realized or conceived as mere spacial presence than as a concretion of forces," or that "force is nothing without mass, and mass is nothing without force" -- for one is the noumenon and the other the phenomenon. Again; Schelling, when saying that "It is a mere delusion of the phantasy that something, we know not what, remains after we have denuded an object of all the predicates belonging to it"** -- could never have applied the remark to the realm of transcendental metaphysics. It is true that pure force is nothing in the world of physics; it is ALL in the domain of Spirit. Says Stallo: "If we reduce the mass upon which a given force, however small, acts to its limit zero -- or, mathematically expressed, until it becomes infinitely small -- the consequence is that the velocity of the resulting motion is infinitely great, and that the 'thing' . . . is at any given moment neither here nor there, but everywhere -- that there is no [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * This ominous confession was made, we believe, at a Scientific Congress at Swansea. Faraday held a similar opinion, however, as stated by Tyndall: "What do we know of the atom apart from its force? You imagine a nucleus which may be called a and surround it by forces which may be called m ; to my mind the a or nucleus vanishes and the substance consists of the powers m . And, indeed, what notion can we form of the nucleus independent of its powers? What thought remains on which to hang the imagination of an a independent of the acknowledged forces?" ** Schelling, "Ideen," etc., p. 18. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 511 WHAT IS FORCE? real presence; it is impossible, therefore, to construct matter by a synthesis of forces" (p. 161). This may be true in the phenomenal world, inasmuch as the illusive reflection of the one reality of the supersensual world may appear true to the dwarfed conceptions of a materialist. It is absolutely incorrect when the argument is applied to things, in what the Kabalists call the supermundane spheres. Inertia, so called, "is force" according to Newton ( Princ. Def. iii. ), and for the student of Esoteric Sciences the greatest of the occult forces.