Page 49 (part 2)

The grain of sand, gentlemen, has been studied four thousand years by science, she has turned and returned it; she divides it and subdivides it; she torments it with her experiments; she vexes it with her questions to snatch from it the final word as to its secret constitution; she asks it, with an insatiable curiosity: 'Shall I divide thee infinitesimally?' Then suspended over this abyss, science hesitates, she stumbles, she feels dazzled, she becomes dizzy, and in despair says: I DO NOT KNOW . " "But if you are so fatally ignorant of the genesis and hidden nature of a grain of sand, how should you have an intuition as to the generation of a single living being? Whence in the living being does life come? Where does it commence? What is the life principle?"* Do the men of science deny all these charges? Not at all, for here is a confession of Tyndall, which shows how powerless is science, even over the world of matter. "The first marshalling of the atoms, on which all subsequent action depends, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * "Le Mystere et la Science," Conferences, Pere Felix de Notre Dame ; des Mousseaux: " Hauts Phen. Magiques. " [[Vol. 1, Page]] 671 NO VOID POSSIBLE. baffles a keener power than that of the microscope." "Through pure excess of complexity, and long before observation can have any voice in the matter, the most highly trained intellect, the most refined and disciplined imagination, retires in bewilderment from the contemplation of the problem. We are struck dumb by an astonishment which no microscope can relieve, doubting not only the power of our instrument, but even whether we ourselves possess the intellectual elements which will ever enable us to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of nature." How little is known of the material universe, indeed, has now been suspected for years, on the very admissions of these men of science themselves. And now there are some materialists who would even make away with Ether -- or whatever Science calls the infinite Substance, the noumenon of which the Buddhists call Swabhavat -- as well as with atoms, too dangerous both on account of their ancient philosophical and their present Christian and theological associations. From the earliest philosophers whose records passed to posterity, down to our present age, which, if it denies "invisible Beings" in Space, can never be so insane as to deny a plenum of some sort -- the fulness of the universe was an accepted belief. And what it was said to contain, one learns from Hermes Trismegistus (in Mrs. Kingsford's able rendering) -- who is made to say: -- "Concerning the void . . . my judgment is that it does not exist, that it never existed, and that it never will exist, for all the various parts of the universe are filled, as the earth also is complete and full of bodies, differing in quality and in form, having their species and their magnitude, one larger, one smaller, one solid, one tenuous. The larger . . . are easily perceived; the smaller . . . are difficult to apprehend, or altogether invisible. We know only of their existence by the sensation of feeling, wherefore many persons deny such entities to be bodies , and regard them as simply spaces ,* but it is impossible there should be such spaces. For if indeed there should be anything outside the universe . . . then it would be a space occupied by intelligent beings analogous to its (the universe's) divinity . . . . . . I speak of the genii, for I hold they dwell with us, and of the heroes who dwell above us, between the earth and the highest airs; wherein are neither clouds nor any tempest" (p. 84). And we "hold" it too. Only, as already remarked, no Eastern Initiate would speak of spheres " above us, between the earth and the [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Behold the work of Cycles and their periodical return! Those who denied such "Entities" (Forces) to be bodies, and called them "Spaces," were the prototypes of our modern "Science-struck" public, and their official teachers, who speak of the Forces of nature as the imponderable energy of matter and modes of motion, and yet bold electricity (for one) as being as atomic as matter itself -- (Helmholtz). Inconsistency and contradiction reign as much in official as in heterodox Science. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 672 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. airs," even the highest, as there is no such division or measurement in occult speech, no " above " as no " below ," but an eternal "within," within two other withins , or the planes of subjectivity merging gradually into that of terrestrial objectivity -- this being for man the last one, his own plane. This necessary explanation may be closed here by giving, in the words of Hermes, the belief on this particular point of the whole world of mystics: -- "There are many orders of the gods; and in all there is an intelligent part. It is not to be supposed they do not come within the range of our senses; on the contrary, we perceive them, better even than those which are called visible. . . There are then gods, superior to all appearances; after them come the gods whose principle is spiritual; these gods being sensible, in conformity with their double origin, manifest all things by a sensible nature, each of them illuminating his works one by another.* The Supreme Being of Heaven, or of all that is comprehended under this name, is Zeus, for it is by Heaven that Zeus gives life to all things. The Supreme Being of the Sun is Light , for it is by the disk of the Sun that we receive the benefit of the light. The thirty-six horoscopes of the fixed stars have for supreme Being or Prince, him whose name is Pantomorphos , or having all forms, because he gives divine forms to divers types. The seven planets, or wandering spheres, have for Supreme Spirits Fortune and Destiny, who uphold the eternal stability of the laws of nature throughout incessant transformation and perpetual agitation. The ether is the instrument or medium by which all is produced." This is quite philosophical and in accordance with the spirit of Eastern esotericism: for all the Forces, such as Light, Heat, Electricity, etc., etc., are called the "Gods" -- esoterically. It must be so, since the esoteric teachings in Egypt and India were identical. And, therefore, the personification of Fohat synthesizing all the manifesting forces in nature is a legitimate result. Moreover, as will be shown in the division that follows this one, the real and Occult forces in nature only now begin to be known -- and even in this case, by heterodox, not orthodox, Science ( See also § X., T HE C OMING F ORCE), though their existence, in one instance at any rate, is corroborated, and certified to by an immense number of educated people and even by some official men of science.