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The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1 [[Vol. 1, Page]] 601 HERMES AND KANT. XIV. FORCES -- MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES? T HIS is, then, the last word of physical science up to the present year, 1888. Mechanical laws will never be able to prove the homogeneity of primeval matter, except inferentially and as a desperate necessity, when there will remain no other issue -- as in the case of Ether. Modern Science is secure only in its own domain and region; within the physical boundaries of our solar system, beyond which everything, every particle of matter, is different from the matter it knows: which matter exists in states of which Science can form no idea. That matter, which is truly homogeneous, is beyond human perceptions, if perception is tied down merely to the five senses. We feel its effects through those INTELLIGENCES which are the results of its primeval differentiation, whom we name Dhyan-Chohans; called in the Hermetic works the "Seven Governors," those to whom Pymander, the "Thought Divine," refers as the Building Powers, and whom Asklepios calls the "Supernal Gods." That matter -- the real primordial substance, the noumenon of all the "matter" we know of, -- even some of the astronomers have been led to believe in, and to despair of the possibility of ever accounting for rotation, gravitation, and the origin of any mechanical physical laws -- unless these Intelligences be admitted by Science. In the above-quoted work upon astronomy, by Wolf,* the author endorses fully the theory of Kant, and the latter, if not in its general aspect, at any rate in some of its features, reminds one strongly of certain esoteric teachings. Here we have the world's system reborn from its ashes , through a nebula; the emanation from the bodies, dead and dissolved in Space -- resultant of the incandescence of the solar centre reanimated by the combustible matter of the planets. In this theory, generated and developed in the brain of a young man hardly twenty-five years of age, who had never left his native place, a small town of Northern Prussia (Konigsberg) one can hardly fail to recognise either an inspiring external power, or the reincarnation which the Occultists see in it. It fills a gap which Newton, with all his genius, failed to bridge. And surely it is our primeval matter, Akasa, that Kant had in view, when proposing to solve Newton's difficulty and his failure to explain, by the natural forces, the primitive impulse imparted to the planets, by the postulation of a universally pervading primordial substance. For, as he remarks in chapter viii., if it is once admitted that the perfect harmony of the stars and planets and [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * " L ES H YPOTHESES C OSMOGONIQUES. Examen des Theories Scientifiques modernes sur l ' Origine des Mondes , suivi de la Traduction de la Theorie du Ciel de Kant. " [[Vol. 1, Page]] 602 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. the coincidence of their orbital planes prove the existence of a natural cause, which would thus be the primal cause, "that cause cannot really be the matter which fills to - day the heavenly spaces. " It must be that which filled space -- was space -- originally, whose motion in differentiated matter was the origin of the actual movements of the sidereal bodies; and which, " in condensing itself in those very bodies , thus abandoned the space that is found void to-day." In other words, it is that same matter of which are now composed the planets, comets, and the Sun himself, which, having in the origin formed itself into those bodies, has preserved its inherent quality of motion; which quality, now centred in their nuclei, directs all motion. A very slight alteration of words is needed, and a few additions, to make of this our Esoteric Doctrine. The latter teaches that it is this original, primordial prima materia , divine and intelligent, the direct emanation of the Universal Mind -- the Daiviprakriti (the divine light emanating from the Logos *) -- which formed the nuclei of all the "self-moving" orbs in Kosmos. It is the informing, ever-present moving-power and life-principle, the vital soul of the suns, moons, planets, and even of our Earth. The former latent: the last one active -- the invisible Ruler and guide of the gross body attached to, and connected with, its Soul, which is the spiritual emanation, after all, of these respective planetary Spirits. Another quite occult doctrine is the theory of Kant, that the matter of which the inhabitants and the animals of other planets are formed is of a lighter and more subtle nature and of a more perfect conformation in proportion to their distance from the Sun. The latter is too full of Vital Electricity, of the physical, life-giving principle. Therefore, the men on Mars are more ethereal than we are, while those of Venus are more gross, though far more intelligent, if less spiritual. The last doctrine is not quite ours -- yet those Kantian theories are as metaphysical, and as transcendental as any occult doctrines; and more than one man of Science would, if he but dared speak his mind, accept them as Wolf does. From this Kantian mind and soul of the Suns and Stars to the M AHAT (mind) and Prakriti of the Puranas, there is but a step. After all, the admission of this by Science would be only the admission of a natural cause, whether it would or would not stretch its belief to such metaphysical heights. But then Mahat , the MIND, is a "God," and physiology admits "mind" only as a temporary function of the material brain, and no more. The Satan of Materialism now laughs at all alike, and denies the visible as well as the invisible. Seeing in light, heat, electricity, and even in the phenomenon of life , only properties inherent in matter, it [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Which "Light" we call Fohat. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 603 THE VITAL PRINCIPLE. laughs whenever life is called V ITAL P RINCIPLE, and derides the idea of its being independent of and distinct from the organism. But here again scientific opinions differ as in everything else, and there are several men of science who accept views very similar to ours. Consider, for instance, what Dr. Richardson, F.R.S . (elsewhere quoted at length) says of that "Vital principle," which he calls "nervous ether" (" Popular Science Review ," Vol.