All things do by scale ascend to unity.-BACON.
To nature, eternal nature, must truth ever make her first and last appeal.
One principle binds together all Nature's works. God in his unity pervades them all.
There is no law of nature yet known to us but may may be apparently contravened by the action of more recondite laws or forces. - A. R. Wallace, LLD.
SCIENCE is like a stately and wide-spreading tree, stretching outward and upward its ever-growing boughs, which are laden with glorious food for the healing of the nations. As yet mankind has reached only to its lowermost branches, too often satisfied with the dead calyxes which have fallen from it to the ground, after serving their uses for the protection of the vital germs of truth. The seed germ of the next advance in science can only germinate as the dry husk decays, within which its potentiality was secretly developed.
For upwards of ten centuries false portions of the philosophy of Aristotle enslaved the minds of civilized Europe, only, at last, to perish and pass away like withered leaves.
The most perfect system of philosophy must always be that which can reconcile and bring together the greatest number of facts that can come within the sphere of the subject. In this consists the sole glory of Newton, whose discovery rests upon no higher order of proof. In the words of Dr. Chalmers, "Authority scowled upon this discovery, taste was disgusted by it, and fashion was ashamed of it. All the beauteous speculation of former days was cruelly broken up by this new announcement of the better philosophy, and scattered like the fragments of an aerial vision, over which the past generations of the world had been slumbering their profound and pleasing reverie."
Thus we see that time is no sure test of a doctrine, nor ages of ignorance any standard by which to measure a system. Facts can have a value only when properly represented and demonstrated by proof. Velpeau said nothing can lie like a fact. Sir Humphry Davy asserted that no one thing had so much checked the progress of philosophy as the confidence of teachers in delivering dogmas as facts, which it would be presumptuous to question. This reveals the spirit which made the
crude physics of Aristotle the natural philosophy of Europe.
The philosophy of vibratory rotation, which is to be propounded to the world, reveals the identity of facts which seem dissimilar, binding
[page 1] VoL. XXXVIII.-17
together into a system the most unconnected and unlike results of experience, apparently. John Worrell Keely, the discoverer of etheric force and the propounder of this new philosophy, learned at an early stage of his researches not to accept dogmas as truths, finding it safer to trust to that "inner light" which has guided him than to wander after the ignes-fatui of a false system. He has been like a traveller exploring an unknown zone in the shade of night, losing his way at times, but ever keeping before him the gleam of breaking day which dawned upon him at the start. Scientists have kept aloof from him, or, after superficial examinations, have branded him as "a modern Cagliostro," "a wizard," "a magician," and "a fraud." Calumnies he never stoops to answer, for he knows that when his last problem is solved to his own satisfaction his discovery and his inventions will defend him in trumpet tones around our globe. Buchanan says, "Who would expect a society of learned men, the special cultivators and guardians of science, as they claim to be, to know as much of the wonderful philosophy now developing as those who have no artificial reputation to risk in expressing an opinion, no false and inflated conceptions of dignity and stability to hold them back, and who stand ready to march on from truth to truth as fast and far as experimental demonstration can lead them?"
There are much greater obstacles in overcoming old errors in the physical sciences than in discovering new truths,— the mind in the first case being fettered, in the last perfectly free in its progress. To say that any class of opinions shall not be impugned, that their truth shall not be called in question, is at once to declare that these opinions are infallible and that their authors cannot err. This is egregiously absurd and presumptuous. It is fixing bounds to human knowledge and saying men cannot learn by experience,— that they can never be wiser in future than they are to day. The vanity and folly of this are sufficiently evidenced by the history of various religious beliefs and of philosophy. The great changes which have taken place show that what our ancestors considered indisputable truths their posterity discovered to be gross errors.
Johnson tells us that the first care of the builder of a new system is to demolish the fabrics that are standing. But the cobwebs of age cannot be disturbed without rousing the bats, to whom daylight is death.
Truth, like a torch, tells two tales. Not only does it open up to mankind a path to escape from the evils which surround them, but, breaking upon a long night of ignorance, it betrays to the eyes of the wakened sleeper the false guides who have led him into labyrinths of error.
[page 2]
Kepler, with prophetic vision, predicted that the causes of the planetary motions would not long continue latent: he was persuaded, to quote from the "Encyclopedia Britannica," that the full discovery of their mysteries was reserved for our age, when God would reveal them.
When has Nature ever whispered her secrets but for the advancement of our race on that royal road which leads to the subjugation of the power she reveals? But not until the inspiration of thought has done its work in applying the power to mechanics can the tyrant thus encountered be transformed into the slave.
So was it with steam, so has it been with electricity, and so will it be with vibratory force. All experience shows that the steady progress of the patient study of what are termed Nature's laws does not attract public attention until there are some practical results. Professor Tyndall has said that the men who go close to the mouth of Nature and listen to her communications leave the discoveries they make for the benefit of posterity to be developed by practical men.
The invention of vibratory machinery for the liberation and the operation in mechanics of etheric force is an instance where practical application of the discovery may be made by the discoverer. After years of experiments with this force, what does the public know of its nature? Nothing; for as yet no practical results have been obtained. Here is a power sustaining the same relations to electricity that the trunk of a tree does to its branches,— the discovery of which heralds to the scientific world what the Star of Bethlehem heralded to mankind morally. Its possibilities as affecting motive industries are such as should command the attention of all men; and yet it is known only as a theme for jest and ridicule and reproach! And why is this? Partly from the mismanagement of a prematurely-organized Keely Motor Company, and partly because men competent to judge for themselves have preferred to take the opinion of others not competent, instead of investigating each for himself.
Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty support one another: he who will not examine for himself, who will not look into the future by the light of the torch which the past ever holds aloft, flinging its illuminating rays down the stream of time, is a bigot; he who cannot, is a fool; and he who dares not, is a slave. Attempts to interest scientists in the marvellous mechanism by which etheric force is evolved from the atmosphere (space) have failed, even as Galileo failed at Padua to persuade the principal professor of philosophy there to look at the moon and planets: through his glasses. The professor pertinaciously refused,- so wrote Galileo to his friend Kepler.
Mankind hate truth, said Lady Mary
[page 3]
Montague: she should have said, mankind hate new truths. Her remark gives us the clue which leads to the root of the antagonism evinced by scientists towards the founder of the system of Vibratory Etheric Philosophy. Lord Wharncliffe tells us that Lady Mary regretted her attempt to introduce inoculation for small-pox into England, because of the persecution and obloquy which it brought upon her. The medical faculty all rose in arms to a man, foretelling the most disastrous consequences; yet we now read in medical biography that this discovery was hailed by the principal members of the profession and the method adopted by them instantly. The most simple and rational advances in medical science have been received with scorn and derision, or with stupid censure. Harvey was nicknamed "the circulator"* after his discovery of the circulation of the blood,- which discovery was ridiculed by his colleagues and compeers. The same reception awaited Jenner's introduction of vaccination.
The revelation of new truths is like the upheaval of rocks which reveal deeply-hidden strata. Stolid conservatism dislikes and avoids such facts, because they involve new facts and disturb old theories. The leaden weight of scepticism drags down the minds of many, paralyzing their power of reasoning upon facts which reveal truth from another stand-point than their own, with a new simplicity and grandeur in the divine laws of the universe. Others there are, embracing the majority of mankind, according to Hazlitt, who stick to an opinion that they have long supported, and that supports them. But whenever a discovery or invention has made its way so well by itself as to achieve reputation, most people assert that they always believed in it from the first; and so will it be with etheric force, in time.
In our day so rapidly are anticipations realized and sanguine hopes converted into existing facts, one wonderful discovery followed by another, that it is strange to find men possessing any breadth of intellect rejecting truths from hearsay, instead of examining all things and holding fast to the truth. The laws of etheric force need only to be demonstrated and understood to carry conviction of their truth with them. They control our world and everything in it, from matter to spirit. They control all the systems of worlds in the universe; for it is the force which Kepler predicted would in this century be revealed to man. The divine element is shown by the laws of etheric force to be like the sun behind the clouds,- the source of all light, though itself unseen. It is the latent basis of all human knowledge, as latent caloric and electricity are at the base of all material forms. Intellect is proved
- In Latin the word means "quack."
[page 4]
to be not the sole medium of association; feelings are linked to feelings, and one emotion rouses another without consciousness or consent.
Willcox says of the mysterious union of soul and body that this is one of those arcana of God that physical science cannot unveil. "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther," is a dictum unknown to science. Though research may never as yet have dissolved what are called the simples of chemistry, who can say that it never will make known to us whether these elements are simple or compound radicals of body? True, all is speculation until demonstrated as fact. The speculations of men of science, says Olcott, have carried them to the outermost verge of the physical universe. Behind them lie not only a thousand brilliant triumphs by which a part of Nature's secrets have been wrung from her, but also more thousands of failures to fathom her deep mysteries. We know that whatever has occurred, whatever will occur, must have taken place, or must take place, within the operation of natural law. It is the old, old story of evolution, change, and growth, opening up new truths or higher workings of the same laws, which reveal that there is nothing supernatural, nothing that we may not aspire to know, nothing so "mysterious" that may not be unveiled to us when the mists of ignorance dissolve.
Already the existence of etheric force is as well established as was the expansive power of steam in the days when the world looked on and laughed at Rumsey and Fitch and Fulton while they were constructing their steamboats. Even when they were used for inland navigation, men of science declared ocean navigation by steam impracticable, up to the very hour of its consummation. In like manner with electricity, scientists declared an ocean telegraph impossible, asserting that the current strong enough to bear messages would melt the wires. Nothing could be more unpopular than railways were at their start. In England Stephenson's were called "nuisances," and false prophets arose then (as now with Mr. Keely's inventions) to foretell their failure. It was predicted that they would soon be abandoned, and, if not given up, that they would starve the poor, destroy canal interests, crush thousands in fearful accidents, and cover the land with horror.
When I say etheric force is established, I do not mean that it is established by a favorable verdict from public opinion,- which, as Douglas Jerrold said, is but the average stupidity of mankind, and which is always steadily and persistently opposed to great and revolutionary discoveries. Establishment consists in convincing men competent to judge that the effects produced by etheric force could not be caused by any known force. And it is now years since such a verdict
[page 5]
was first given, substantiated repeatedly, since, by the testimony of men as incapable of fraud or collusion as is the discoverer himself. [see Eye Witness Accounts]
Newton, is discovering the existence of a force which we call gravity, did not pursue his investigations sufficiently far to proclaim a power which neutralizes or overcomes gravity, the existence of which Mr. Keely demonstrates in his vibratory-lift experiments.
But is is one thing to discover a force in nature, and quite another thing to control it. It is one thing to lasso a wild horse, and quite another thing to subdue the animal, harness it, bridle it, and get the curb bits in the mouth.
The discoverer of etheric force has lassoed his wild horse; he has harnessed it and bridled it; and when he has the bits in their place, etheric force will take its stand with steam and electricity, asking nothing, and giving more than was ever before conferred on the human race.
Mrs. Bloomfield Moore.
TWO flying forms, in pathless deeps of night,
Watched the great spheres about them wheel and flame,
And many a planet, where it swept with might
Round many a central sun, they named by name.
They spoke of races whom the gradual spell
Of wisdom won had raised from crime and vice,—
How hate and sin had made this world a hell,
And love had made that world a paradise!
And while they singled, either near or far,
Bright orb from orb in heaven's untold abyss,
At last one pointed to a certain star,
And said, with dubious gesture, "What of this?"
"Earth it is called," his musing mate replied,
"By those dim swarms its continents beget.
"Tis a young star; and they that there abide
Shall not wear wings, like us, for centuries yet!" Edgar Farocett.
[page 6]