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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1 [[Vol. 1, Page]] 588 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. XIII. SCIENTIFIC AND ESOTERIC EVIDENCE FOR, AND OBJECTIONS TO, THE MODERN NEBULAR THEORY. O F 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 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, became 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 nebulae 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 known to physical science; and it is self-luminous. But that is all. The sixty-two "coincidences" enumerated by Professor Stephen Alexander,* 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 Laplace there remains little in the present theory except its general features. Nevertheless, "there is in Laplace's theory," says John Stuart Mill, " nothing hypothetical ; it is an example of legitimate reasoning from present effect to its past cause; it assumes nothing more than that objects which really exist, obey the laws which are known to be obeyed by all terrestrial objects resembling them." ( System of Logic , p. 229). This from such an eminent logician as Mill was, would be valuable, if it could only be proved that "terrestrial objects resembling . . ." celestial objects at such a distance as the nebulae are -- resemble those objects in reality , not alone in appearance. Another of the fallacies from the Occult stand-point, which are 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 [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * " Smithsonian Contributions ," xxi., Art. 1, pp. 79-97. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 589 "SO FAR SHALT THOU GO . . . ." his bone, and flesh of his flesh; whereas, the Sun and planets are only co-uterine brothers, having had the same nebular origin, only in a different mode from that postulated by modern astronomy. The many objections raised against the homogeneity of original diffuse matter, on the ground of the uniformity in the composition of the fixed stars, by some opponents of the modern nebular theory, do not affect the question of that homogeneity at all, but only the said theory. 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 -- i.e. , as it appeared even in its first differentiation from its laya condition* -- 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 into another. A false premise 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 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 W. 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 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 [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Beyond the zero-line of action. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 590 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. 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 Brahe, who viewed the Milky Way as an ethereal substance, thought the new star that appeared in Cassiopoeia, in 1572, had been formed out of that matter. (" Progymnasmata " p. 795.) Kepler believed the star of 1606 had been likewise formed out of the ethereal substance that fills the universe (" De stella nova in pede Serpentarii ," p . 115). He attributed to that same ether the apparition of a luminous ring around the moon, during the total eclipse of the sun observed at Naples in 1605 . (" Hypotheses Cosmogoniques ," C. Wolf. ) Still later, in 1714, -- the existence of a self-luminous matter was recognised by Halley (" Philosophical Transactions ") .