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Title: Keely and His Discoveries
Aerial Navigation
Author: Clara Sophia Jessup Bloomfield Moore
Release Date: January 7, 2018 [EBook #56332]
Language: English
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KEELY AND HIS DISCOVERIES
AERIAL NAVIGATION
BY
Mrs. BLOOMFIELD MOORE
The universe is ONE. There is no supernatural: all is related, cause
and sequence. Nothing exists but substance and its modes of motion.
Spinoza.
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., Ltd.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1893
John Stuart Mill, in order to protect science, carried
empiricism to its extreme sceptical consequences, and thereby
cut the ground from under the feet of all science.--Professor
Otto Pfleiderer, D.D.
The word of our God shall stand for ever.--Isa. xl. 8.
Imagination is wholly taken captive by the stupendous
revelation of the God-force which modern conceptions of
the Cosmos furnish. Through the whole universe beats the
one life-force, that is God, controlling every molecule
in the petal of a daisy, in the meteoric ring of Saturn,
in the remotest nebula that outskirts space, as though
that molecule were the universe. In each molecule and atom
God lives and moves and has His being, thereby sustaining
theirs.... Prophet after prophet cries, and psalmist after
psalmist sings, that so indeed he has found it; that therein
is the divine sonship of man, therein the assurance of eternal
life.--Rev. R. A. Armstrong.
The living man with his interior consciousness of self and
individuality is on two planes of nature at once, as a ship
is in two media at once, half in the water and half in the
air. To manage your ship successfully you must take cognizance
of the laws governing each of those media. To deal successfully
with your human being you must understand his physiology
no doubt, but you must equally understand his psychology,
and something of the collateral phenomena of nature in those
regions or planes to which the phenomena of the psychic man
belong.--A. P. Sinnett.
The splendid generalizations of our physicists and our
naturalists, have had for me an enthralling and entrancing
interest. I find as I look out on the world, in the light of
all this new knowledge, a pressure of God upon consciousness
everywhere; and if this physical force which is God, moves
through, sustains, communes, with each smallest physical
atom of the whole, much more must that conscious energy
which is God, move through, sustain, commune with, these
conscious atoms, these several monads, which are you and I,
and our friend, and our brother far away. The even flow of
the divine force through every material atom, which is the
supreme revelation of physical science in our time, itself
leads irresistibly on to the suggestion of the constant flow
of spiritual energy in actual communion with every spiritual
monad that there is. It becomes but a question of opening the
eyes of the soul, unstopping the ears of the inward spirit,
to see and hear the God who in us also surely lives and moves
and has His being, thereby sustaining ours. As the physical
atom is physically touched and held and thrilled by God,
it is what we should expect that the conscious monad, no
less should be consciously touched and held and thrilled by
Him.--Rev. R. A. Armstrong.
"Euroclydon driveth us--where?
On quicksands and shoals of the sea,
On rocks that wait hungry to tear
And devour with tigerish glee.
"But lo! where we land tempest-tost
Is the work that has waited our hand;--
Not one step of that life shall be lost
Whose way an All-seeing hath planned."
We never know through what divine mysteries of compensation
the Great Father of the Universe may be carrying out His
sublime plans.--Miss Murdoch.
Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and Truth accomplishes
no victory without it.--Bulwer Lytton.
Science is bound by the everlasting law of honour to face
every problem fearlessly.--Lord Kelvin.
For my part, I too much value the pursuit of truth and the
discovery of any new fact in nature, to avoid inquiry because
it appears to clash with prevailing opinions.--Wm. Crookes,
F.R.S.
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.--Lord
Beaconsfield.
The simple peasant who observes a fact
And from a fact deduces principles,
Adds social treasure to the public wealth.
Facts are the basis of Philosophy.
Philosophy is the harmony of facts
Seen in their right relations.--Lyrics of a Golden Age.
DEDICATED
TO
JAMES DEWAR, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., M.R.I.
FULLERIAN PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, R.I. JACKSON PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY
OF CAMBRIDGE,
IN ADMIRATION OF HIS DISTINGUISHED SERVICES
FOR SCIENCE,
AND IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS
PROLONGED AND STEADFAST INTEREST
IN KEELY'S WORK OF EVOLUTION.
12, Great Stanhope Street, Mayfair, 16th May, 1893.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface.--By the Rev. John Andrew xi
Introduction xv
CHAPTER I. 1872-1882.
Introductory 1
CHAPTER II. 1882-1886.
Ether the True Protoplasm, An Epitome of Macvicar's
Sketch of a Philosophy 11
CHAPTER III. 1885-1887.
The Nature of Keely's Problems 30
CHAPTER IV. 1887.
Sympathetic Vibratory Force 41
CHAPTER V.
Etheric Vibration.--The Key Force 54
CHAPTER VI.
The Fountain Head of Force 65
CHAPTER VII.
The Key to the Problems.--Keely's Secrets 72
CHAPTER VIII. 1888.
Helpers on the Road, and Hinderers 101
CHAPTER IX. 1889-1890.
Keely supported by Eminent Men of Science.--Aerial
Navigation 113
CHAPTER X. 1881-1891.
The Keely Motor Bubble.--Macvicar's Logical Analysis 129
CHAPTER XI. 1890.
Vibratory Sympathetic and Polar Flows.--Keely's
Contributions to Science 145
CHAPTER XII.
Vibratory Physics.--True Science 167
CHAPTER XIII.
"More Science" 186
CHAPTER XIV.
Vibratory Physics.--The Connecting Link between
Mind and Matter 206
CHAPTER XV.
The Philosophy of History.--Keely the Founder of a
System 229
CHAPTER XVI. 1891.
An Appeal in Behalf of the Continuance of Keely's
Researches 238
CHAPTER XVII. 1891.
More of Keely's Theories.--His Traducers exposed 265
CHAPTER XVIII.
A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm 285
CHAPTER XIX.
Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces.--Electro-Magnetic
Radiation.--Molecular Dissociation.
By John Ernst Worrell Keely 298
CHAPTER XX. 1892.
Progressive Science.--Keely's Present Position.--A
Review of the Situation 319
CHAPTER XXI.
Faith by Science: The Dawn of a New Order of Things 332
CONCLUSION.
Keely's Physical Philosophy.--By Professor D. G.
Brinton, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania 358
Appendix I. 365
Appendix II. 368
Appendix III. 370
Verses 373
PREFACE.
By the Rev. John Andrew, of Belfast.
"Wait on the Lord."
When the Almighty is taking men into His deeper confidence as to His
Creation ways, and how His ways may be taken advantage of for man's
service and benefit, the gifted one through whom such revealing is
being made should not be hurried by the common bustle of the world,
but should be protected in the privacy where the Creator and he
are closeted together in the giving and receiving which is thus
transpiring.
Scientific patience is, in all such cases, imperative. When the gifted
one is bustled by the world, as Mr. Keely has been, his inspiration
is disturbed and his advance hindered. If the first inkling of some
great revealing thus in progress should promise some mighty find for
the material advantage of mankind, there is naturally a quickened
desire to gain possession; but if in such an event impatience should
impel the seer, ere his far-visioned sight has reached the end,
deplorable delay may be the result.
This is the thing which has happened in the case which this little
volume comes forth to relate and explain. It is not intended to unfold
the systematic methods of the gifted genius concerning whom it speaks;
that will come, in his own words, in due time. The aim of this volume
is to show the course of events in relation to his researches; and to
open the mystery of how it came about that he should have been so much
misunderstood and hindered. It tells how he, in the dim dawn of initial
inspiration, first glimpsed and touched The Power which is about to
be given to the possession of mankind for the supply of wants, and
the relief of toil. How he struggled and wrestled like the patriarch
of old who said, "I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me." How
men of the world, seeing the struggle and estimating the power, said,
"Make haste and harness this power to our machinery, and we shall
pay you." How, in his need of means, he was tempted and fell; making
an attempt to harness to machinery a power whose very form and kind
he had not yet been given to discern. And then, when this too hasty
attempt had failed, how the disappointed world laughed and mocked,
and fumed, and called him an impostor.
This volume seeks to explain this Keely Mystery; and to show that
although a mistake was made, it was only a passing mistake. The
mistake has been rectified; and the seer, now in possession of peace
and privacy, has fully sighted the power, and is making progress in
bringing it into subjugation.
He has been interviewed by competent men, men of enlarged scientific
vision; and in the protection of their esteem, and by the liberal
pecuniary aid of one who has made scientific interests an object
of sacred solicitude, Mr. Keely is likely to succeed in opening
to the world another of the stores which the Almighty Creator and
Preserver, ever provident of His children's needs, has prepared in
reserve against the time of their necessity. We may theorize, but God
alone knows the means by which the regeneration of mankind, and the
establishment of the kingdom of righteousness and peace shall come
about. The All-merciful has a purpose and plan of His own. The power
which Mr. Keely is dealing with belongs to the ways and means of the
evolution of civilization and material providence; and it will depend
on how men make use of it how far it may clear or block the way of this
planet's highest weal. The power, however, which Mr. Keely is dealing
with lies so close to the spiritual realm of things, and brings us
so near to the point at which the Almighty is in immediate touch of
His Creation in His unceasing upholding of it, that all Christian men
might be expected to take a deep interest in researches which promise
so much. It may reasonably be hoped that this volume may promote this
interest, and turn the attention to coming events which are casting
more than shadows before. With this hope we commend it to the reading
of the wise. Those who delight in yellow-covered literature may pass
it by; it contains no plot for the excitement of such.
INTRODUCTION.
Ex Vivo Omnia.
We stand before the dawning of a new day in science and
humanity,--a new discovery, surpassing any that has been
hitherto made; which promises to afford us a key to some of
the most recondite secrets of nature, and to open up to our
view a new world.--Dr. Hufeland.
The error of our century in questions of research seems to have been in
the persistent investigation of the phenomena of matter (or material
organization) as the sole province of physics, regarding psychical
research as lying outside. The term physics is derived from a Greek
word signifying "nature." Nature does not limit herself to matter and
mechanism. The phenomena of spirit are as much a part of Nature as are
those of matter. The psychological theories of our physicists display
a decided leaning towards materialism, disregarding the manifestations
of the vital principle,--the vis motrix,--and refusing to investigate
beyond the limits which they have imposed upon themselves, and which,
if accepted by all, would take us back to the belief of the pagans,
as echoed by Voltaire:
Est-ce-là ce rayon de l'Essence Suprême
Que l'on nous peint si lumineux?
Est-ce-là cet Esprit survivant à nous-même?
Il nait avec nos sens, croît, s'affaiblit comme eux:
Hélas! il périra de même.
Sympathetic philosophy teaches that the various phenomena of the human
constitution cannot be properly comprehended and explained without
observing the distinction between the physical and material, and the
moral and spiritual nature of man. It demonstrates incontrovertibly
the separate existence and independent activity of the soul of man,
and that the spirit governs the body instead of being governed by
the body. As Spenser has said,--
For of the soul the body form doth take;
For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Huxley tells us that science prospers exactly in proportion as
it is religious, and that religion flourishes in exact proportion
to the scientific depth and firmness of its basis. "Civilization,
society, and morals," says Figuier, "are like a string of beads,
whose fastening is the belief in the immortality of the soul. Break
the fastening and the beads are scattered."
Now, as Nature nowhere exhibits to our visual perceptions a soul
acting without a body, and as we do not know in what manner the
spiritual faculties are united to the organization, psychology is
compelled to investigate the operations of the intellect as if they
were performed altogether independently of the body; whereas they
are only manifested, in the ordinary state of existence, through the
intermediate agency of the corporeal organs.
The accumulation of psychological facts and speculations
which characterize this age appears to have made little or no
permanent impression upon the minds of our scientists and our
philosophers. Bishop Berkeley asks, "Have not Fatalism and Sadducism
gained ground during the general passion for the corpuscularian and
mechanical philosophy which hath prevailed?" Buffon, in writing
of the sympathy, or relation, which exists throughout the whole
animal economy, said, "Let us, with the ancients, call this singular
correspondence of the different parts of the body a sympathy, or,
with the moderns consider it as an unknown relation in the action
of the nervous system, we cannot too carefully observe its effects,
if we wish to perfect the theory of medicine." Colquhoun, commenting
upon Buffon's statement, says that far too little attention has
been paid to the spiritual nature of man,--to the effects of those
immaterial and invisible influences which, analogous to the chemical
and electrical agents, are the true springs of our organization,
continually producing changes internally which are externally perceived
as the marked effects of unseen causes, and which cannot be explained
upon the principles of any law of mechanism.
These unseen causes are now made clear to us by the truths which
Vibratory Physics and Sympathetic Philosophy demonstrate and
sustain. The prophecy of Dr. Hufeland (made in connection with an
account of certain phenomena arising from the unchangeable laws of
sympathetic association) is soon to be fulfilled, and the door thrown
open to "a new world" of research. Professor Rücker in his papers on
"Molecular Forces," William Crookes in his lecture on "The Genesis
of Elements," Norman Lockyer in his book on "The Chemistry of the
Sun,"--all these scientists have approached so near to this hitherto
bolted, double-barred and locked portal that the wonder is not so
much that they have approached as that, drawing so near, they have
not passed within.
Professor Rücker, in his papers (read before the Royal Institution
of Great Britain) explaining the attractive and repulsive action
of molecules, found himself obliged to apologize to scientists
for suggesting the possibility of an intelligence by which alone
he could explain certain phenomena unaccounted for by science; but
do we not find proof in ourselves that the action of molecules is
an intelligent action? For we must admit the individuality of the
molecules in our organisms, in order to understand how it is that
nourishment maintains life. Try as we may to account for the action
of aliment upon the system, all is resolved into the fact that there
must be some intelligent force at work. Do we ourselves disunite
and intermingle, by myriad channels, in order to rejoin and replace
a molecule which awaits this aid? We must either affirm that it is
so, that we place them where we think they are needed, or that it
is the molecules that find a place of themselves. We know that we
are occupied in other ways which demand all our thoughts. It must,
therefore, be that these molecules find their own place. Admit this,
and we accord life and intelligence to them. If we reason that it
is our nerves which appropriate substances that they need for the
maintenance of their energy and their harmonious action, we then
concede to the nerves what we deny to the molecules. Or, if we think
it more natural to attribute this power to the viscera,--the stomach,
for example,--we only change the thesis.
It will be said that it is pantheism to assert that matter, under
all the forms which it presents, is only groups of aggregates
of sympathetic molecules, of a substance unalterable in its
individualities; a thinking, acting substance. Let us not deny what
we are unable to explain. God is all that is, without everything that
is being individually God. Etheric force has been compared to the
trunk of a tree, the roots of which rest in Infinity. The branches
of the tree correspond to the various modifications of this one
force,--heat, light, electricity, and its close companion force,
magnetism. It is held in suspension in our atmosphere. It exists
throughout the universe. Actual science not admitting a void, then all
things must touch one another. To touch is to be but one by contiguity,
or there would be between one thing and another something which might
be termed space, or nothing. Now, as nothing cannot exist, there must
be something between "the atomic triplets" which are, according to the
Keely theory, found in each molecule. This something in the molecule
he affirms to be "the universal fluid," or molecular ether. One thing
touching another, all must therefore be all in all, and through all,
by the sensitive combination of all the molecules in the universe,
as is demonstrated by electricity, galvanism, the loadstone, etc. If
we account for the intelligent action of molecules by attributing
it to what has been variously called "the universal fluid," "the
electric fluid," "the galvanic fluid," "the nervous fluid," "the
magnetic fluid," it will only be substituting one name for another;
it is still some part or other of the organization which discerns and
joins to itself a portion of one of the fluids referred to, or one of
these fluids which discerns and mingles with the material molecules;
it is still the life of the part, the life of the molecule, life
individualized in all and through all.
Admitting, then, that there is a universal fluid, it must exist in
and through all things. If void does not exist, everything is full;
if all is full, everything is in contact; if everything is in contact,
the whole influences and is influenced because all is life; and life is
movement, because movement is a continual disunion and union of all the
molecules which compose the whole. The ancient philosophers admitted
all this. Under the different names of "macrocosm," "microcosm,"
"corpuscles," "emanations," "attraction," "repulsion," "sympathy," and
"antipathy,"--all names which are only one,--their various propositions
were merely the product of inductions influenced by their modes of
observing, as the deductions of scientists are influenced in our day.
Balzac tells us that everything here below is the product of an
ethereal substance, the common basis of various phenomena, known under
the inappropriate names of electricity, heat, light, galvanic and
magnetic fluid, etc., and that the universality of its transmutations
constitutes what is vulgarly called matter. We cannot take up a book
on physics (written with true scientific knowledge) in which we do not
find evidence that its author acknowledges that there is, correctly
speaking, but one force in nature. Radcliffe tells us that what is
called electricity is only a one-sided aspect of a law which, when
fully revealed, will be found to rule over organic as well as inorganic
nature--a law to which the discoveries of science and the teachings of
philosophy alike bear testimony,--a law which does not entomb life in
matter, but which transfigures matter with a life which, when traced
to its source, will prove only to be the effluence of the Divine life.
Macvicar teaches that the nearer we ascend to the fountain-head of
being and of action, the more magical must everything inevitably
become; for that fountain-head is pure volition. And pure volition,
as a cause is precisely what is meant by magic; for by magic is meant a
mode of producing a phenomenon without mechanical appliances,--that is,
without that seeming continuity of resisting parts and that leverage
which satisfy our muscular sense and our imagination and bring the
phenomenon into the category of what we call "the natural;" that is,
the sphere of the elastic, the gravitating,--the sphere into which
the vis inertiæ is alone admitted.
There is in Professor Crookes's "Genesis of the Elements" an hypothesis
of great interest,--a projectment of philosophical truth which brings
him nearer than any known living scientist to the ground held by
Keely. Davy defines hypothesis as the scaffolding of science, useful
to build up true knowledge, but capable of being put up or taken
down at pleasure, without injuring the edifice of philosophy. When
we find men in different parts of the world constructing the same
kind of scaffolding, we may feel fairly sure that they have an
edifice to build. The scaffolding may prove to be insecure, but it
can be flung away and another constructed. It is the edifice that
is all-important,--the philosophy not the hypotheses. The science
of learning, says Professor Lesley, and the science of knowledge
are not quite identical; and learning has too often, in the case
of individuals, overwhelmed and smothered to death knowledge. It
is a familiar fact that great discoveries come at long intervals,
brought by specially-commissioned and highly-endowed messengers;
while a perpetual procession of humble servants of nature arrive with
gifts of lesser moment, but equally genuine, curious, and interesting
novelties. From what unknown land does all this wealth of information
come? Who are these bearers of it? And who intrusted each with his
particular burden, which he carries aloft as if it deserved exclusive
admiration? Why do those who bring the best things walk so seriously
and modestly along as if they were in the performance of a sacred duty,
for which they scarcely esteem themselves worthy?
The Bishop of Carlisle, in his paper on "The Uniformity of Nature,"
suggests the answer to all who are prepared to approach the abyss
which has hitherto divided physical science from spiritual science,--an
abyss which is soon to be illumined by the sunlight of demonstration
and spanned by the bridge of knowledge. To quote from the paper of
the Bishop of Carlisle, "There are matters of the highest moment
which manifestly do lie outside the domain of physical science. The
possibility of the continuance of human existence in a spiritual form
after the termination of physical life is, beyond contradiction,
one of the grandest and most momentous of possibilities, but in
the nature of things it lies outside physics. Yet there is nothing
absolutely absurd, nothing which contradicts any human instinct,
in the supposition of such possibility; consequently, the student
of physical science, even if he cannot find time or inclination to
look into such matters himself, may well have patience with those who
can. And he may easily afford to be generous: the field of physical
science is grand enough for any ambition, and there is room enough
in the wide world both for physical and for psychical research."
But does psychical research lie outside the domain of physical
science? What is the supernatural but the higher workings of laws
which we call natural, as far as we have been able to investigate
them? Is not the supernatural, then, just as legitimate a subject of
consideration, for the truly scientific mind, as is the natural? If
it explains, satisfactorily, phenomena which cannot be otherwise
explained, there is no good reason why its aid should not be invoked
by men of science. The truth is, that the ordinary course of nature
is one continued miracle, one continued manifestation of the Divine
mind. "Everything which is, is thought," says Amiel, "but not conscious
and individual thought. Everything is a symbol of a symbol; and a
symbol of what?--of mind. We are hemmed round with mystery, and the
greatest mysteries are contained in what we see, and do, every day."
Keely affirms, with other philosophers, that there is only one unique
substance, and that this substance is the Divine spirit, the spirit
of life, and that this spirit of life is God, who fills everything
with His thoughts; disjoining and grouping together these multitudes
of thoughts in different bodies called atmospheres, fluids, matters,
animal, vegetable, and mineral forms.
Herbert Spencer says that amid the mysteries that become the more
mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one
absolute certainty, that we are ever in the presence of an infinite
and an eternal energy, from which all things proceed. Macvicar
foreshadowed the teachings of this new philosophy when he wrote, "All
motion in the universe is rhythmical. This is seen in the forward and
backward movement of the pendulum, the ebb and the flow of the tides,
the succession of day and night, the systolic and diastolic action of
the heart, and in the inspiration and expiration of the lungs. Our
breathing is a double motion of universal æther, an active and a
reactive movement. This androgyne principle, with its dual motion,
is the breath of God in man." The writings of the ancients teem with
these ideas, which have been handed down to us from generation to
generation, and are now flashing their light, like torches in the
darkness, upon mysteries too long regarded as "lying outside the
domains of physical science."
Twenty years ago Macvicar wrote his "Sketch of a Philosophy," in
which he advanced the above views, with other views now maintained and
demonstrated by Keely, who during these twenty years, without knowing
Macvicar's views, or of his existence even, has been engaged in that
"dead-work which cannot be delegated," the result of which is not
learning, but knowledge; for learning, says Lessing, is only our
knowledge of the experience of others; knowledge is our own. This
burden of dead-work, writes Lesley, every great discoverer has had
to carry for years and years, unknown to the world at large, before
the world was electrified by his appearance as its genius. Without
it, there can be no discovery of what is rightly called a scientific
truth. Every advancement in science comes from this "dead-work," and
creates, of its own nature, an improvement in the condition of the
race; putting, as it does, the multitudes of human society on a fairer
and friendlier footing with one another. And during these twenty years
of "dead-work" the discoverer of etheric force has pursued the even
tenor of his way, under circumstances which show him to be a giant
in intellectual greatness, insensible to paltry, hostile criticism,
patient under opposition, dead to all temptations of self-interest,
calmly superior to the misjudgments of the short-sighted and ignoble;
noble means as indispensable to him as noble ends; fame and riches less
important than his honour; his joys arising from the accomplishment of
his work and the love and the sympathy of the few who have comprehended
him! "Only the noble-hearted can understand the noble-hearted." Keely's
chief ambition has been to utilize the force he discovered; not for
his own aggrandizement, but to bless the lives of his fellow-men. He
has scaled the rocks which barricade earth from heaven, and he knows
that the fire which he has brought down with him is divine.
This so-called secret is an open secret, which, after it is known,
may be read everywhere,--in the revolution of the planets as well as
in the crystallization of minerals and in the growth of a flower.
"But why does not Keely share his knowledge with others?" "Why does
he not proclaim his secret to the world?" are questions that are
often asked. Keely has no secret to proclaim to the world. Not until
the aerial ship is in operation will the world be able to comprehend
the nature of Keely's discoveries. When the distinguished physicist,
Professor Dewar, of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, goes
to America this summer, he will be instructed by Mr. Keely in his
dissociation processes. Every man who has passed the mere threshold of
science ought to be aware that it is quite possible to be in possession
of a series of facts long before he is capable of giving a rational
and satisfactory explanation of them--in short, before he is enabled
to discover their causes even. This "dead-work" has occupied many
years of Keely's life; and only within the last five years has he
reached that degree of perfection which warranted the erection of a
scaffolding for the construction of the true edifice of philosophy.
We have only to recall the wonderful discoveries which have been made
in modern times, relative to the properties of heat, of electricity, of
galvanism, etc., in order to acknowledge that had any man ventured to
anticipate the powers and uses of the steam-engine, the voltaic pile,
the electrical battery, or of any other of those mighty instruments
by means of which the mind of man has acquired so vast a dominion
over the world of matter, he would probably have been considered a
visionary; and had he been able to exhibit the effects of any of these
instruments, before the principles which regulate their action had
become generally known to philosophers, they would in all likelihood
have been attributed to fraud or to juggling. Herein lies the secret
of Keely's delay. His work is not yet completed to that point where
he can cease experimenting and publish the results of his "dead-work"
to the world.
"When will he be ready?" is a question often asked; but it is one that
God only can answer, as to the year and day. It now seems as if the
time were near at hand,--within this very year; but not even Keely
himself can fix the date, until he has finished his present course of
experiments, his "graduation" of his twenty-seventh and last group of
depolar disks, for effecting change and interchange with polar force.
"But what are his hypotheses? And what the tenets of his new
philosophy?" His hypotheses are as antithetic to existing hypotheses
in chemistry as the Newtonian system, at its first publication, was
antithetic to the vortices of Descartes. The philosophy is not of his
creation; nor is it a new philosophy. It is as old as the universe. Its
tenets are unpopular, heterodox tenets, but their grandeur, when
compared with prevailing theories, will cause the latter to appear
like the soap-bubbles that Sir William Drummond said the grown-up
children of science amuse themselves with; whilst the honest vulgar
stand gazing in stupid admiration, dignifying these learned vagaries
with the name of science. It is the sole edifice of true philosophy,
the corner-stone of which was laid at Creation, when God said,
"Let there be light; and there was light." The scaffolding which
our modern Prometheus has built is not the airy fabric of delusion,
nor the baser fabric of a fraud, as has been so often asserted. It
has been built plank by plank, upon firm ground, and every plank is
of pure gold, as will be seen in due time.
It has been justly said that we have no ground for assuming that we
have approached a limit in the field of discovery, or for claiming
finality in our interpretations of Nature. We have, as yet, only
lifted one corner of the curtain, enabling us to peep at some of
the machinery by which her operations are effected, while much more
remains concealed; and we know little of the marvels which in course
of time may be made clear to us.
Earnest minds in all ages and in all countries have arrived at the
same inferences which Keely has reached in his researches,--viz.,
that the one intelligent force in nature is not a mere mathematical
dynamism in space and time, but a true Power existing in its type
and fulness,--deity. You may say that such an inference belongs to
religion, not to science, but you cannot divorce the two. No systematic
distinction between philosophical, religious, and scientific ideas can
be maintained. All the three run into one another with the most perfect
legitimacy. Their dissociation can be effected only by art, their
divorce only by violence. Great as is the revolution in mechanics which
is to take place through this discovery, it has an equally important
bearing on all questions connected with psychical research. Once
demonstrated, we shall hear no more of the brain secreting thought,
as the liver secretes bile. The laws of "rhythmical harmony," of
"assimilation," of "sympathetic association," will be found governing
all things, in the glorious heavens above us, down to the least atom
upon our earth. Leibnitz's assertion, that "perceptivity and its
correlative perceptibility are coextensive with the whole sphere of
individualized being," will be accounted for without depriving us
of a Creator. "The music of the spheres" will be proved a reality,
instead of a figure of speech. St. Paul's words, "In Him we live,
and move, and have our being," will be better understood. The power
of mind over matter will be incontrovertibly demonstrated.
"The requirement of every demonstration is that it shall give
sufficient proof of the truth it asserts." This Keely is prepared to
give,--mechanical demonstration; and should he really have discovered
the fundamental creative law, which he long since divined must exist,
proving that the universal ether which permeates all molecules is
the tangible link between God and man, connecting the infinite with
the finite,--that it is the true protoplasm, or mother element of
everything,--we may look for a philosophy which will explain all
unexplained phenomena and reconcile the conflicting opinions of
scientists.
The great law of sympathetic association, once understood, will become
known as it is,--viz., as the governing medium of the universe. Herein
lies the secret, the revelation of which will usher in the spiritual
age foretold by the Prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles
of the New Testament. Inspiration is not confined to prophets and
apostles and poets: the man of science, the writer, all who reach out
after the Infinite, receive their measure of inspiration according
to their capacity. We need a new revelation to turn back "the tidal
wave of materialism" which has rolled in upon the scientific world,
as much as Moses needed one when he sought to penetrate the mysteries
of the Creation; and our revelation is near at hand,--a revelation
which will change the statical "I am" into the dynamical "I will,"--a
revelation which, while teaching us to look from Nature up to Nature's
God, will reveal to us our own powers as "children of God," as "heirs
of immortality."
"Knowledge," said Lord Beaconsfield, "is like the mystic ladder in the
Patriarch's dream. Its base rests on the primeval earth--its crest
is lost in the shadowy splendour of the empyrean; while the great
authors who, for traditionary ages, have held the chain of science
and philosophy, of poesy and erudition, are the angels ascending and
descending the sacred scale, maintaining, as it were, the communication
between man and heaven."
This beautiful imagery holds within it that seed of truth, which
is said to exist in the wildest fable; for, although all great
discoveries, pertaining to the material world, have been made
gradually, with much starting on the wrong track, much false deduction
and much worthless result, spiritual truths can be revealed to man
in no other way than by that spiritual influence which maintains
communication between the terrestrial and the celestial, or the
material and the spiritual. "Truth is attained through immediate
intuition," say the Aryan teachers; but only by those who have educated
their sixth sense; as will be seen in Mr. Sinclair's new work,
"Vera Vita; or, the Philosophy of Sympathy." While the imaginative
scientist is puzzling himself about new natural forces and the
apparent suspension of old and hitherto invariable laws, Sinclair,
in his writings, shows us that it is because we do not recognize the
elements of nature that their influences remain mysterious to us.
Mr. Sinclair is as firm in his belief as is Mr. Keely that this element
is the great connecting link between the Creator and the created,
and that it is capable of rendering more marvellous services to man
than all the discovered uses of electricity.
The coincidences in the theories of these two philosophers are the
more remarkable, inasmuch as Mr. Sinclair's have their origin, as set
forth in his book "A New Creed," in metaphysics; while "Keely's wide
and far-reaching philosophy" (to quote the words of a distinguished
physicist) "has a physical genesis, and has been developed by long
years of patient and persistent research." But it is an undisputed fact
that, in countries far distant from each other, different men have
fallen into the same lines of research; and have made correspondent
discoveries, at the same time, without having had any communication
with each other; and never has there been a time when so many were
testing all things that appear to give proof of the super-sensual
element in man. There is a very general impression all over the world,
says Marie Correlli, that the time is ripe for a clearer revelation
of God and "the hidden things of God" than we have ever had before.
All persons who are interested in Keely's discoveries and the
nature of the unknown element discovered by Keely and Sinclair,
will find in the writings of the latter a more lucid explanation
of sympathetic association than Keely himself has ever been able to
give in writing. The title of this remarkable book would have been
more wisely chosen had its author called it "A New Element and a New
Order of Things." The Rev. Philip Schaff, D.D., says of creeds:--"The
Bible is the word of God to man: the Creed is the answer of man to
God. The Bible is the book to be explained and applied; the Creed is
the Church's understanding and summary of the Bible." It is in this
light that Mr. Sinclair's new creed, human and humane, should be read.
There is no conductivity in the ether lines, writes Sinclair, for
selfish desires and motives; for they are not of the soul, but are only
sounds of the lips (or wishes of the material part of us), so that the
established connecting-rod between the living soul and the source of
life is insulated from desires that are not begotten in sympathy, and
they at once run to earth. Where there is no connection there can be no
communion. Without the natural sympathetic etheric connection between
the source of life and the soul, there can be no communication. "A New
Creed," like the sympathetic etheric philosophy of Keely, reveals the
connecting link between the finite and the Infinite, and teaches us
that the primal law of evolution and of progress is slowly but surely
preparing our race for the time when Christianity will be something
more than a mere profession, and "the brotherhood of humanity" will
no longer be the meaningless phrase that it now is. We are led to see,
by this pure philosophy, that "our solar system is a type of a healthy
social system; that in it each one affects, binds, controls, sustains,
helps, makes free each other; that no star lives for itself alone;"
that man was not made to mourn, and that our sufferings arise from
our ignorance of the laws governing the innate motive power within us.
The times are not degenerate! Men's faith
Mounts higher than of old. No crumbling creed
Can take from the immortal soul its need
Of something greater than itself. The wraith
Of dead belief we cherished in our youth,
Fades but to let us welcome new born truth.
Man may not worship at the ancient shrine,
Prone on his face, in self-accusing scorn.
That night is passed; he hails a fairer morn,
And knows himself a something half divine!
No humble worm whose heritage is sin,
But part of God--he feels the Christ within!
No fierce Jehovah with a frowning mien
He worships. Nay, through love, and not through fear,
He seeks the truth, and finds its source is near!
He feels and owns the power of things unseen,
Where once he scoffed. God's great primeval plan
Is fast unfolding in the soul of man.--Ella W. Wilcox.
KEELY AND HIS DISCOVERIES.
CHAPTER I.
1872 TO 1882.
INTRODUCTORY.
Within the half-century the hypothetical ether has amply
vindicated its novel claim to take its place as a mysterious
entity side by side with matter and energy among the ultimate
components of the objective universe.... Modern science sets
before our eyes the comprehensive and glorious idea of a
cosmos which is one and the same throughout, in sun and star
and world and atom, in light and heat and life and mechanism,
in herb and tree and man and animal, in body, soul, and spirit,
mind and matter.--Grant Allen on Evolution.
The man who can demonstrate the existence of an unsuspected
and unknown force has a right, in the absence of demonstrative
proof to the contrary, to form his own theory of its origin,
and to make it the basis of his own system. Keely is looking
at physical phenomena and their explanations from a point of
view so different from that of the inductive school, that we
hardly know how to combine the two, or show their bearings
upon each other. For myself, I think now, as I thought and
said in my address, that the absolutely exclusive position,
taken up by Huxley, Tyndall, and the so-called Material
School, is ludicrously indefensible; and that we should be
as perfectly open to evidence in any direction, as we were
2000 years ago.--The Rev. H. W. Watson, D.Sc., F.R.S.
So many men of learning are now holding Dr. Watson's views that
the time seems to have arrived, in which the theories of Keely will
receive, from those who are competent to judge of their value, the
attention that they deserve. Before entering upon their merits,
or setting them down for others to judge of their worth, the way
must be prepared by showing the claims which they possess from their
correspondence with some of the most advanced ideas of the present day,
as well as with the teachings of the wisest men in past centuries.
The mode which is the least laborious to accomplish this end, is
by collecting what has been written and printed, which bears upon,
and elucidates this subject.
It is now very generally known that Mr. Keely, while pursuing a line
of experiment in vibrations, "accidentally" as Edison would say,
made his discovery of an energy, the origin of which was unknown
to himself; and six years passed, in experiment, before he was able
to repeat its production at will. In the meantime he had exhausted
his resources and willingly accepted the proposal of men, who, after
witnessing the operation of the energy that he was able to show with
this unknown force, offered to organize a company to furnish him with
the means to construct an engine to use this force as the motive power,
anticipating immediate success.
But discovery is one thing, invention quite another thing, and
the years rolled on without Mr. Keely's being able to fulfil his
promises. In 1882, which was about ten years after the company was
formed, an action at law was brought against him for non-fulfilment
of his contract. The Evening Bulletin of March 30th of that year thus
explains, truthfully, the position.
THE KEELY MOTOR.
A STATEMENT FROM ONE OF THE INVENTOR'S STOCKHOLDERS.
"To the Editor of the Evening Bulletin: In your issue of last Tuesday
appears an article which deserves attention, and also calls for some
explanation upon that very much misunderstood question of the Keely
motor. From some cause not easy to learn, there seems to be a tendency
to keep only one side of that subject before the public.
"Being one of the unfortunates of the Keely motor speculation, interest
has led me to investigate not only the invention and the man who has
everything to do with it, but also the management of the company,
which is equally important to those who put their money into the
enterprise as an investment. Permit me, therefore, to state a few of
the facts which, if known, would very much change some of the popular
views now held.
"There are perhaps a thousand stockholders in the Keely Motor
Company. The mass of these, like myself, are not the prosecutors in
this case against Mr. Keely. We do not believe that Mr. Keely can
be forced to divulge any valuable secrets if he possesses them. We
do not believe that a case in court is calculated to prolong the
inventor's life, or render it more safe from the accidents to which
he is exposed. We do not believe that these proceedings are likely
to increase his good will towards the company. Some of us know that
by purchasing Keely motor stock, we have not thereby put our money
into the invention, nor has Mr. Keely had the benefit of it. We also
know that some, if not all, of the parties to this prosecution,
especially those who are most vehement in its favour under the
pretence of protecting the common stockholders, are selfish to
the last degree, while for themselves they have the least cause
to complain. Their official records show an utter disregard of the
interests of stockholders or the rights of the inventor: while the
success of the invention is to them a secondary consideration. It
is they, and not the inventor, who have drummed up the customers,
and recommended and sold the stock. They, and not he, are answerable
to the purchasers. If Mr. Keely is guilty of deception, they are to
say the least equally so. Look at a few statements:
"When the Keely Motor Company was started, in 1874, its organizers
received their stock without paying for it. About three-fourths of
the whole amount were thus given away by Mr. Keely. He retained about
one-seventh, and was cheated out of a good portion of that before
he had gone far. Only 400 shares out of 20,000 were retained in the
treasury, and that but a short time; for these recipients of the
"dead-head stock" made hasty havoc of the market by a rapid unloading
of their shares and pocketing the proceeds. So the poor little 400
shares of treasury stock brought only the minimum price to afford
temporary relief to a distressed company.
"The bankrupt condition of this incipient corporation threatened it
with a cessation of existence, unless somebody came to the rescue,
for the 'originals,' who had received a harvest by the sale of their
'free stock,' would not now give a dollar to save the concern. They
were all fixed, but what of the innocent stockholders who had purchased
this stock? They should not be allowed to suffer, as they must if the
company went out. So Mr. Keely came to the rescue, and consented to
the following scheme, which was prepared by schemers, as the sequel
proved. He had two inventions besides the motor, and they could be
handled to advantage in this emergency. These Mr. Keely assigned
to the company, and the stock was increased from 20,000 to 100,000
shares. The 80,000 new shares were to be divided equally: 40,000 to
pay for the inventions, and 40,000 went to the company without one
dollar of pay. So, Mr. Keely received no money in this transaction;
and of the 40,000 shares which he should have received, not 5000
ever reached him; fraudulent claims having captured the rest while
in the hands of the 'trustee.' Of the 5000 shares also, much had
been obligated in advance by the inventor to carry forward the work
which otherwise must have been delayed, so that he had less than 1000
shares left when all claims were settled. This grand act is called the
'consolidation,' which took place in 1879, and since which all moneys
raised by the company have come from the sale of shares out of this
40,000, which Mr. Keely then gave to the company. By some mysterious
operations in the 'management' this 'Treasury Stock' has shrunk
away very rapidly, bringing at times only a fraction of the price
which other stocks of the same kind were selling for in the market,
while the little cash which it has brought has only in part been used
by Mr. Keely, and that has been served out to him in a sparing way,
which would be shameful even if he had not furnished it all to begin
with. The company now owe to Mr. Keely fifty thousand dollars loaned
outright in its early history. To this indebtedness considerable
has since been added. The public statements that Mr. Keely has been
supplied with large amounts of money from the company are untrue,
while it is true that of those who are regarded as his dupes a half
dozen or more have made on an average at least $50,000 each from the
'enterprise.' The money with which Mr. Keely capitalized the company,
in the first place, was obtained from the sale of territorial rights
to men who have formed other companies for the purpose.
"If Mr. Keely deserves prosecution by any parties, it is those who
bought these rights, and not the ring who now control the company
with stock which has cost them nothing.
"If anybody deserves to be sued by the stockholders it is these
very persons who recommended and sold them the stock, and have taken
the benefit of it, and who at the same time are responsible for the
miserable management which has caused detention of the work, distress
in the company, depreciation in the stock and dissatisfaction among
stockholders.
"One."
The further history of "The Keely Motor Bubble" will be given later on,
but it is the position in earlier years, that we must first deal with,
to get a clear comprehension of the causes of the delays which again
and again shattered the hopes of the sanguine investors just when
they were the most buoyant, from an apparent increased control of
the mysterious force Keely was handling. Further quotations from the
press will best show the light in which Keely's work was regarded by
those who considered themselves competent to pass judgment upon him
and his efforts. The Daily News in Philadelphia, on May 25th, 1886,
contained a most sensible editorial, with the heading
What has Keely Discovered?
"For a number of years Mr. John W. Keely, of this city, and various
associates have occupied the attention of the public to a greater
or less extent, from time to time. The claim on behalf of Mr. Keely
is that he has discovered a new motive power, so far transcending
all previous achievements in this direction, as to overturn most of
the universally recognized conclusions regarding dynamics. Of course
such a claim was sure to be met with derision, and the derision was
sure of continuance until silenced by the most thorough practical
demonstration.
"Discussion of the matter has not seemed profitable in the absence of
such a demonstration; but now it seems proper to note an apparently
new status of Mr. Keely's affairs, as shown by some experiments
conducted last Saturday in the presence of a number of visitors. Some,
at least, of these visitors were qualified for critical observation,
and the noteworthy fact is that Mr. Keely was able to produce, under
their close inspection, a dynamic result which none of them pretended
to account for by any known law of physics, outside of that which
Mr. Keely claims as the base of his operation. He evolved, almost
instantaneously, according to the united report of those who were
present, a substance having an elastic energy varying from 10,000 to
20,000 pounds per square inch, and instantly discharged or liberated it
into the atmosphere, without the evolution of heat in its production,
or of cold on its sudden liberation. These phenomena alone would
seem to establish that the substance he is dealing with is one not
hitherto known to science.
"It seems rather frivolous to dismiss this matter with the supposition
that trained specialists are to be hoodwinked by concealed springs,
buried pipes for the introduction of compressed air and the
like. Surely such gentlemen ought very easily to determine at once
whether the surroundings and conditions of the experiments were such
as to favour any kind of legerdemain; and if they found them so, it
is strange that they should spend some hours in investigating that
which has been asserted to be 'a transparent humbug.'
"The appearances are that Mr. Keely has at least removed his enterprise
from the domain of ridicule to that of respectful investigation,
and this, after all, is great progress."
On Wednesday, July 28th, 1886, the Public Ledger had a leader headed,
Let us have some actual useful Work.
"With regard to the occasional revivals of the Keely motor, whether
annual, semi-annual, or biennial, as they have come along in the
last ten or a dozen years, the Ledger has paid but little attention
to them for a long time; and possibly this last display last week
might have been allowed to take the same unnoticed course, but that
the "whizz" of the big sphere seems to have been so rapid, and the
racket so stunning, as to more greatly puzzle those present at the
exhibition than on any former occasion. The matter for a long time
has presented itself to us in but two aspects mainly. First, there
was large public interest in the asserted development of physical
force by new and very strange means--very interesting if there really
was a probability of a new device or new means of developing power
that could be harnessed and made to do useful work; and second, so
far as the matter took the form of exploiting a private enterprise
or stimulating a boom for a private speculation, there was but very
limited interest for the public. In this latter aspect it was almost
exclusively an affair between Mr. Keely and the stockholders of his
company, who felt willing to back their faith in the substantiality of
his invention or discovery, by investing their money in the company's
stock. This was no affair for a public journal to meddle in, unless
some imposture was designed that might affect the general public.
"That is the way the Ledger has regarded the matter for several
years; and, as during that period it seemed to be almost exclusively
a private matter of little public interest, we have had little or
no concern with it. Of course the Ledger stood ready all the time,
as it stands now ready, to welcome anything that promises to be
useful or of advantage in any way as an addition to the mechanical
or other working facilities of our day. That Mr. Keely might have a
clue to such an addition we did not dispute on the mere ground that
it was new or strange, or because experts pronounced it impossible;
for many stranger things have happened. Mankind, even those who
are illumined by the highest human knowledge and intelligence,
do not yet know all that is to be known, as we are reminded almost
every day by the strides of scientific and mechanical progress. We
would rather have found Mr. Keely less inclined to be mysterious;
we could have wished him to have been less disposed to talk in terms
that sound very like meaningless jargon to most well-informed persons;
but still we did not think it proper, or fair, or wise, to reject his
claims on these grounds, but have simply let them rest in abeyance,
so far as the Ledger is concerned, because behind all this, and behind
many more such essays, is the possibility that the success of some one
of them may solve the problem of what is to be done when the world's
supply of fuel, whether in form of wood, or coal, or peat, or gas,
is either practically exhausted or to be got at only at a cost that
would largely preclude its use. Mr. Keely, we say, may have a clue
to that, as also may some one of those who are experimenting with
the several manifestations of electric or magnetic force.
"What we would have had Mr. Keely do, and, until he does it, his
operations have but little practical value in the sight of the Ledger,
would have been to harness his motor to do some useful work, to gear
it by cogwheel or by belt and pulley, or by some other mechanical
device, to a main shaft that has driving lathes, or planers, or other
machines--something that was doing actual useful work, day in and
day out, as other machines do. Of machines that will manifest great
pressure on a gauge, of contrivances that have enormous lifting power,
of explosives that demonstrate stupendous force, the appliances of
science and the mechanic arts have large numbers, and they are handier
and more manageable than any Mr. Keely has shown. These are not to
the point--except, perhaps, to persons endowed with large faith. The
machine that will do actual, useful, large work, by a manipulation of
new energy, or by a display of energy by new and manageable means,
this or these are the things the public and the Ledger will be glad
to hail."
At this time Mr. Keely had not reached that stage in his researches
when he could carry out the suggestions made by the able writer of the
Ledger leader; and if our discoverer of an unknown force had not been
known to some persons "endowed with large faith" in his discovery,
it would have been lost to the world. An anonymous writer has said
the idea that living nature is not a collection of dead-heads, never
seems to have struck the non-progressivists. The thing that is has
been, and the thing that is will continue to be; this is the sum and
substance of the doctrine they profess. They commit the mistake of
supposing they live in a finished planet when in reality they exist
on an orb that has relatively just begun to live. The time allowed
us for observation and study of nature and of ourselves, is limited
in a marked degree. Just when we are beginning to know how to read
the book, we are forced to close its pages because the intellectual
eyesight finds itself within the trammels of age. All we can do is to
make a hit here, and a hit there, and to hand on our little bit of
intelligence to those who come after us, in the hope that they also
will keep their eyes and ears open, and, in like manner, hand on a
cumulative store of knowledge to their heirs and successors. During
the brief span of a man's existence, then, it is difficult for him
to prove much progress either in himself or in his surroundings. The
eternal hills seem the same to him when the light of life dies out,
as when first his eyes beheld their outlines. Stern, uncompromising,
apparently immutable, the hills remain to him the type of all that
is fixed, all that is unchangeable around. Yet this is not the story
of science. Tennyson, who is always true to nature, says:--
"The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mists, the solid lands;
Like clouds they shape themselves and go."
In Memoriam, cxxiii., 2nd Stanza.
This is good poetry; better still, it is good science.
The Himalayas, big and grand as they are, must represent mountains
whose rise was a thing of a very "recent" date, geologically
speaking. This is proved, because we see rocks belonging to a
relatively recent age, appearing as part and parcel of their lofty
peaks. Very different is the case with the hills and mountains of,
say, north-western Scotland. There you come upon peaks of an age
well-nigh coëval with the world's earliest settling down to a steady,
solid, and respectable existence. The Scottish hills are the old,
the very old, aristocrats of the cosmical circle; the Himalayas,
Alps, and the rest, are the new race whose origin goes not further
back than a generation, as it were.
Yet, about the oldest of the mountains there is nothing which is
absolutely enduring. Equally with the newer hills, geological progress
and action are written on the face of their history. The hills are
only phases of cosmical arrangement; they are here in the to-day
of the world; they may be gone in the world's to-morrow. Before
Science had learned to lisp this, the prophetic word of men moved
by the Holy Ghost had said: "Of old Thou hast laid the foundations
of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall
perish, but Thou remainest; yea, all of them shall wax old like a
garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be
changed." The world is neither perfect nor finished in a geological
sense, any more than it is perfect in an ethical sense. It is full
of progressive action everywhere, and, to quote from another author,
"our planet and our solar system are but as the small dust of the
balance in the colossal scale of the worlds that are."
Had there been no one to read the future in the light of the past,
among those who witnessed the production of the force discovered
by Keely in 1872, he could not have continued his researches, as
he has done during these intervening years, from lack of the funds
necessary to carry them on. But there were men who knew the worth
of the discovery, and who, sanguine as to almost immediate results,
did something more than stand idly "ready to welcome" them when
produced. They furnished the money with which Keely laboured year after
year, and encouraged him to persevere, when without such aid he might
have been forced to abandon his researches for want of the necessaries
of life. During this period, Keely's discovery was only thought of
in reference to its commercial value, and for a decade he made no
progress: but, after his researches led up to the conviction that he
was on the road to another and infinitely more important discovery,
namely, the source of life and the connecting link between intelligent
will and matter, his progress has been almost uninterrupted. His
ambition is not only to give a costless motive power to the world,
but to make clear to men of science the path he is exploring.
CHAPTER II.
1882 TO 1886.
ETHER THE TRUE PROTOPLASM, AN EPITOME OF MACVICAR'S SKETCH OF A
PHILOSOPHY.
All that has been predicted of atoms, their attractions and
repulsions, according to the primary laws of their being,
only becomes intelligible when we assume the presence of
mind.--Sir John F. W. Herschell (1865).
It is in no small degree reassuring to find that we are
not chained to inert matter, but to the living energies
of its forms.... This leads us to the inference, long
suspected, that all matter, as well as the ethereal medium
itself consists ultimately of one and the same primordial
element.--Col. A. T. Fraser, Darkness and Light in the Land
of Egypt.
For ten years Keely's demonstrations were confined to the liberation,
at will, of the energy he had "stumbled over" while experimenting on
vibrations in 1872; and his efforts were put forth for the construction
of "the perfect engine," which he had promised to The Keely Motor
Company. He made the mistake of pursuing his researches on the line of
invention instead of discovery. All his thoughts were concentrated in
this direction up to the year 1882. Engine after engine was abandoned
and sold as old metal, in his repeated failures to construct one that
would keep up the rotary motion of the ether that was necessary to
hold it in any structure. Explosion after explosion occurred, sometimes
harmless to him, at other times laying him up for weeks at a time.
Two more years were lost in efforts to devise an automatic arrangement,
which should enable the machine, invented by Keely for liberating
the energy, to be handled by any operator, and it was not until 1884
that steady progress was seen, from year to year, as the result of his
enlarged researches. When Keely was asked, at this time, how long he
thought it would be before he would have the engine he was then at work
upon ready to patent, he illustrated his situation by an anecdote:
"A man fell down, one dark night, into a mine; catching a rope in
his descent, he clung to it until morning. With the first glimpse of
daylight, he saw that had he let go his hold of the rope he would have
had but a few inches to fall. I am precisely in the situation of that
man. I do not know how near success may be, nor yet how far off it is."
August 5th, 1885, the New York Home Journal announced that Keely had
imprisoned the ether; and, as was then wrongly supposed, that the
unknown force was the ether itself; not the medium of the force, as it
is now known to be. The late George Perry, who was then editor of that
journal, heralded the announcement with these comments:--"No object
seems to be too high or remote for human endeavour. It is not strange
that some of these attempts should stagger the faith of all but the
boldest imaginations. A notable example of this class is the famous
etheric motor invented by Keely, of Philadelphia, and the subject
of a communication which we print below from a well-known American
lady in Italy. The inventor claims to have found a new force, one
that entirely transcends those that have been hitherto appropriated
for human use. Heat, steam, electricity, magnetism are but crude
antetypes of this new discovery. It is essentially the creator of
these forces. It is scarcely less than the 'primum mobile.'
Indeed in reading the exposition of its potentialities one can hardly
help doubting whether the concrete matter of our earth is not too
weak and volatile to contain, restrain, and direct this vast cosmic
energy except in infinitesimal proportions. How shall iron and steel
stand before the power which builds up and clasps the very atoms of
their mass? Where shall the inventor look for 'safety discs' to stay
his new-found force, when every substance within his reach is but
a residuum of the activity of this identical principle? How shall
strength of materials avail against the power that gives, and indeed
is, strength of materials? This, however, is but a metaphysical doubt,
and as the invention has already demonstrated its practical efficiency
on a small scale, there is a presumption that it may be extended to
the higher degrees. At all events, whether the force can or cannot
be harnessed to do the daily work of the world, the discovery is
one that will mark an epoch in the progress of science and give the
inventor and his patrons a meed of immortality. Granted they are but
poets building a lofty cosmical rhyme, their work shall have not the
less an enduring honour."
The New Force--Etheric Vapour.
The discoverer of a hitherto unknown force in nature which, when
certain inventions are perfected, will create a revolution in science,
as well as in mechanics, has for many years concentrated his mind upon
gaining supreme control over one of nature's greatest and grandest
forces. Or, more correctly speaking, in efforts to control and apply to
mechanics one of the various manifestations of the one force in nature.
"The force which binds the atoms, which controls secreting glands,
Is the same that guides the planets, acting by divine commands."
The hypothetical ether conceived of by scientists, to account for the
transmission of light, is not hypothetical to this discoverer. He
knows its nature and its power. By the operation of an instrument
of his own invention, he can release it at will from the suspension
in which it is always held in our atmosphere. It is so liberated,
by an almost instantaneous process of intense vibratory action, and
passed through a tube the opening of which is no larger than a pin's
head, furnishing sufficient power to run a one hundred horse-power
engine. The importance of this discovery cannot be conceived; its limit
seems boundless; its value cannot be put in figures. Step by step,
with a patient perseverance which one day the world will honour, this
man of genius has made his researches, fighting with and overcoming
difficulties which seemed insurmountable, during years in which no
disinterested hands were extended to aid him, no encouraging words
of appreciation bestowed upon him by the scientists whom he vainly
tried to interest in his experiments; assailed by calumnies, which,
emanating from those who should have been the first to extend aid,
have over and over pierced his noble heart like poisoned arrows.
History will not forget that, in the nineteenth century, the story of
Prometheus found a counterpart, and that the greatest man of the age,
seeking to scale the heavens to bring down blessings for mankind,
met with Prometheus's reward from the vultures of calumny who, up to
the present moment, have not spared their talons upon him.
The dangerous conditions attending the introductory features of the
development of etheric vapour are not yet entirely overcome; but this
throws no shadow of a doubt as to the inventor's eventual success in
the minds of those who know the magnitude of the difficulties he has
already mastered.
O. W. Babcock, in an American journal says of this discovery, "Human
comprehension is inadequate to grasp its possibilities or power, for
prosperity and for peace. It includes all that relates mechanically to
travel, manufacture, mining, engineering and warfare. The discoverer
has entered a new world, and although an unexplored wilderness
of untold wealth lies beyond, he is treading firmly its border,
which daily widens as with ever-increasing interest he pursues his
explorations. He has passed the dreary realm where scientists are
groping. His researches are made in the open field of elemental
force, where gravity, inertia, cohesion, momentum are disturbed in
their haunts and diverted to use; where, from the unity of origin,
emanates infinite energy in its diversified forms," and to this I
would add--where he, the discoverer, is able to look from nature
up to nature's God, understanding and explaining, as no mortal ever
before understood and explained, how simple is the way in which God
"works His wonders to perform."
A compilation of Macvicar's "Sketch of a Philosophy," entitled "Ether
the true Protoplasm," was sent to Mr. Keely; and shortly after,
Mrs. Hughes' book on the evolution of tones and colours. Mr. Keely
will himself, in his theoretical exposé make known the manner in
which he was led, by the writings of Dr. Macvicar and Mrs. Hughes,
into the knowledge which raised the veil that had before hidden from
him the operations of Nature with this "the most powerful and most
general of all her forces;" operations which will explain all that
is now mysterious to us in the workings of gravity.
The question has been asked whether science, having destroyed faith,
has supplied us with anything better. But has science destroyed
faith? Certainly not. There would be no such thing as counterfeit
coin were it not for the existence of sterling gold. True science
has its counterfeit, and it is due to spurious science that the
bulwarks of religious faith have been besieged; but they are not
destroyed. Drummond says that it will be the splendid task of the
future theology to disclose to scepticism the naturalness of the
supernatural.
The pure Philosophy which true science seems about to reveal discloses
not a universe of dead matter, but a universe alive from its core
to its outermost extremity, and animated by mind and means, to which
matter, perfectly organized, is absolutely subservient. It illuminates
mysteries of nature which have only been partially revealed to us,
and lifts the veil which has hitherto shrouded in darkness still
greater mysteries involved in this universal power, which keeps and
sustains all systems of worlds in their relation towards each and
all. More and more clearly shall we be led by true science to see
that the universe "is founded upon a distinct idea," and that the
harmony of this distinct idea is manifested in all of God's works. Sir
Isaac Newton, in his "Fundamental Principles of Natural Philosophy,"
calls the great magnetic agent "the soul of the world," and says,
"all senses are excited by this spirit, and through it the animals
move their limbs; but these things cannot be explained in few words,
and we have not yet sufficient experience to determine fully the laws
by which this universal spirit operates." Centuries may pass before
these laws will be "fully understood"; but Etheric Philosophy casts
a plummet into depths that have never been sounded, and reveals this
"unparticled substance," "the cosmic matter," "the primal stuff,"
"the celestial ocean of universal ether," as the true protoplasm,
and the medium by which mind shapes matter and gives it all its
properties. It teaches us that, through it, we are connected in
sympathy with all other souls and with all the objects of nature, even,
to the stars and all the heavenly bodies. But even though we do not
understand the laws which control its operations, we find therein
a legitimate field of research. It is surely more legitimate for
science to ascribe failures in such researches to our still existing
ignorance of that which we may possibly know in time than to set such
laws down as unknowable. "Thought in its spontaneity has the run of
the universe, and there should be no bar to discovery." Our only hope,
says Macvicar, lies in the universality of the cosmical laws and the
ultimate homogeneity of created substances, or reality.
In stating some of the various hypotheses which have been put forward
by Macvicar, more as a sketch than as a new system of philosophy,
it is not necessary to make any comments. If the scaffolding be good
the edifice will appear in time. If worthless, no edifice can be
constructed. Therefore, it must be remembered that it is only with the
scaffolding that we have to do at present. If it has been left for our
age to demonstrate the truth or the falsity of certain deductions made
in past ages--if we arrive at a partial knowledge, even, of truths
which ancient wisdom saw with dim vision, we must never forget that
our century has had the benefit of the light reflected down the stream
of time. Macvicar's "Sketch of a Philosophy" was published in 1868. He
said that his ideas would not be acceptable, or even intelligible, to
an age when the popular demand is for very light reading; when science
is marvellously content with the attainments which it has already
made; and when, "as to the method of science we are told, with more
and more confidence every day, that all we can do for the discovery of
realities is to go out of doors, leaving 'the inner man' all alone,
and to compare the odour of the present with the smell of the past,
and then, turning our noses towards the future, to follow them wherever
they may lead us." He continues, Sensation, we are taught, is the alone
architect of all trustworthy knowledge; the author both as to form and
substance of all that is belief-worthy. No such thing as intuition,
we are told; reason merely a habit, rising from the long-continued use
of the organism. This looking only to mechanism is as much the plague
and sorrow of our times as it was when Macvicar complained of it as
divorcing science from philosophy. Philosophic wisdom, says Willcox, is
a structure built up of all knowledges--grand and sublime: permanent,
not of the present nor the past. Science holds, in its relation to
philosophy, the same position that theology sustains to religion. "En
dehors de toutes les sciences spéciales et au-dessus d'elles, il y
a lieu à une science plus haute et plus générale, et, c'est ce qu'
on appelle philosophie."--(Paul Janet, Revue des Deux Mondes.)
Of what nature are the ideas which Macvicar was so sure would be
unpopular? In compiling from his writings, such are selected as
seem to be the best, toward elucidating the mysteries which lie
in the operation of the laws governing the universal ether, so far
as his hypotheses carried him. If matter without form preceded the
creation of vitality, "it is only when the principle of life had been
given," says Charpignon, "that the intrinsic properties of atoms
were compelled, by the law of affinities, to form individualities;
which, from that moment, becoming a centre of action, were enabled
to act as modifying causes of the principle of life, and assimilate
themselves to it, according to the ends of their creation." Here is
a conjecture, to start with, that it will be well to remember; for,
as in the hypotheses of Macvicar and the demonstrations of Keely,
the law of assimilation is made the pivot upon which all turns,
"providing at once for the free and the forced, at once for mind
and for matter, and placing them in a scientific relationship to one
another." This law Macvicar calls the "cosmical law," because to it
alone, ever operating under the eye and fulfilling the design of
the great Creator who is always and in all places immanent to His
creation, an appeal is ever made. By this law a far greater number
of the phenomena of nature and the laboratory can be explained than
have been otherwise explained by scores of laws which are frankly
admitted to be empirical. Surely this is no slight claim for this law
to be studied, with a view to its acceptance or rejection. To repeat,
this law is to the effect that every individualized object tends to
assimilate itself to itself, in successive moments of its existence,
and all objects to assimilate one another. The ground of it is, that
the simple and pure substance of creation, has for its special function
to manifest the Creator; and consequently to assimilate itself to His
will and attributes, in so far as the finite can assimilate itself to
the Infinite. Hence it is, in its own nature, wholly plastic or devoid
of fixed innate properties, and wholly assimilative, both with respect
to its own portions or parts and to surrounding objects, as well as
to its position in space, and, in so far as it is capable, to the
mind of the Creator. Thus, there immediately awake, in the material
elements, individuality and the properties of sphericity, elasticity,
and inertia, along with a tendency to be assimilated as to place, or,
as it is commonly called, reciprocal attraction. Hence, in the first
place, the construction in the ether, or realm of light, of groups
of ethereal elements, generating material elements. Hence, secondly,
a tendency in the material elements, when previously distributed
in space, to form into groups, in which their ethereal atmospheres
may become completely confluent; while their material nuclei, being
possessed of a more powerful individuality than ethereal elements,
come into juxtaposition merely, thus constituting molecules. By
legitimate deductions from cosmical law, the forms and structures
of these molecules must always be as symmetrical as the reaction of
their own constituent particles, and that of their surroundings, will
allow. The law of assimilation gives the same results as mathematics
in determining the forms of systems of equal, and similar, elastic
and reciprocally attractive spherical forces, or centres of force,
when they have settled in a state of equilibrium; proving these forms
to be symmetrical in the highest degree. Here, however, Macvicar
and Keely differ, in hypothesis, as to the structure of the ultimate
material element; but this difference does not affect "the scaffolding"
of pure philosophy, in which everything that is cognizable has its
own place, is on a solid basis, is harmonious with its surroundings,
and is explained and justified by them:--raising chemistry to the
level and bringing it within the sphere of mechanics; investing its
objects, at the same time, with all the distinctness of the objects
of other branches of natural science.
Because the chemist in his laboratory cannot succeed in decomposing
certain substances, it has been inferred that they are essentially
undecomposable, simple and untransformable; and on this hypothesis
the whole science of mineralogy proceeds. But when it is considered
that all of these chemical atoms, before they have come into the
chemist's hands, have been securely consolidated and mineralized, so
as to be able to withstand the ordeal of the volcano and the central
heat, compared with which the most powerful analytic agencies of
the laboratory are but a mimicry, is it for a moment to be supposed,
although their internal structure were still molecular, that they would
break down in the chemist's hands? Surely, all his containing vessels,
which are but things of human art, must go to pieces before them.
The present prevailing theory of development contradicts one half
by the other half. It extends the doctrine of development and
transmutation to species which happen to be visible to such eyes as
we have; it denies it to such as happen to be invisible to us. If
all animals and plants have been obtained by the secular synthesis of
transformed monera, and the differentiation of the organs composing
them--thus giving in the last analysis one form and kind of protoplasm
as the root of all; the pursuit of the same line of thought--the
same theory, applied to the atoms of the chemist, with their various
properties and atomic weights, gives, as the common ground of all, a
single material element; each chemical atom being a structure composed
of this material element, but so stable as to be indecomposable in the
laboratory. Let this be granted, as asserted by Macvicar in 1868, and
by Keely now, and the theory of evolution, whatever may be the case as
to its cogency, at least possesses a scientific form. It is no longer
a conception which breaks down midway between its first and its last
terms. But letting science, in this respect, stand for the present as
it is, and supposing the seventy recognized elements of the laboratory
(which do not include the twenty or more new elements recently said to
have been discovered by Krüss and Nilson in certain rare Scandinavian
minerals) or rather, perhaps, some very high multiple of their number
to constitute that cosmic gas from which the solar system has been
evolved, the theory of development shows itself to be as imperfect
on the great scale, and in point of extent, as it is in point of
homogeneity in its intimate material. Macvicar continues--Beyond
that cosmic gas there certainly is the ether, a medium which no
longer can be ignored in any physical theory of nature. What, then,
is the relation of the cosmic gas to the ether? Evolutionists do not
answer this question, but Macvicar seeks to render the whole system
of thought homogeneous, and to show that, just as all organisms are
the synthetic developments of one kind of moneron, and all chemical
atoms and molecules the synthetic development of one kind of material
element, so is the material element a synthetic development of ethereal
elements. These also are Mr. Keely's views; but neither Macvicar nor
Keely rest in the conception of a congeries of particles which are
wholly blind and devoid of feeling and thought, diffused throughout all
space, believing such particles to be the first of things. "Reason,
if it is to enjoy intellectual repose, can have it only in finding,
beyond and above all things else, a unity, a power, intelligence,
personality--in one word, God. This is the only legitimate haven
of a theory of development: sending back the tide of materialism and
pantheism which has swept its mire over our age into the ebb again; as,
after having reached the full, it has so often done already, before
the constitutional instincts or inspirations of humanity, with which
speculative minds may, indeed, dally for a generation but which are
ultimately inexorable." Macvicar maintains with Keely that from God,
as the Author of all, nature may be reached with those very features
which it is seen to possess; that it is essential to every philosophy,
which is or shall be in harmony with intelligence, that it shall be
based upon a unity; that no philosophy possesses all the claims to
intellectual regard which it may possibly have, unless that unity be
an intelligent Being; that to suppose thought and feeling to wake
up for the first time in that which was previously blind and dead
from all eternity, is nothing short of absurd to those who are led
by the evidence of design, to look from nature up to nature's God,
in whom all nature lives and moves and has its being.
While the protoplasm of the biologist is a substance which is more
or less opaque or visible, the protoplasm now conceived of as the
material of the whole creation in its first state, when development
is to begin, must, on the contrary, be altogether homogeneous and
invisible. But none the less is it entitled to the name of protoplasm;
nay, it alone must be justly entitled to that name, for it is the
first of created things, and, being the product of an Almighty Being,
it must be altogether plastic in His hands. It can have no constitution
of its own derived from itself; but must, so far as the finite can,
with respect to the infinite, reflect, represent, embody, show forth
His attributes and being. Still, there is limitation to this. Certain
properties and demands with regard to that which exists, with limited
extension, in space, are inexorable. Macvicar reasons that with such
limitations the primal substance of creation must be fully obedient or
assimilated to the Creator--not in a transient manner, but permanently;
and that in its nature the primal substance, the true protoplasm,
must be an assimilative substance. Granting that this protoplasm be
partitioned into individualities, he makes the deduction that each and
all of these individualized beings and things would, up to the full
measure of their capacity, not only tend to assimilate themselves to
the ever-present Being to whom they owe their own being, but they would
tend also to assimilate themselves each to itself, with respect both
to space and time; as also that they would all tend to assimilate one
another. Taking this as the cosmical mode of action, or law, and on
the strength of this law alone, without invoking the aid of any other
law, he attempts to explain all those phenomena to which the physicist,
the chemist, and the biologist usually address themselves. Illustrating
the manner in which this law applies itself to phenomena, he gives as
the first products of this law the perpetuation of an original mode
of existence, and the establishment of permanence of properties under
certain restrictions; the ground of the remarkable persistency and
permanence of well-constituted species; a general harmony and homology
throughout all creation: proceeding to illustrate its action on the
mental or spiritual world; accounting for perception, remembrance,
reasoning, imagining, judging, and upon all our other modes of mental
activity, as operations of the cosmical law of assimilation.
In the world of physics he gives, as illustrations of this same law
of assimilation, attraction, inertia, elasticity, heredity, reversion,
symmetry culminating in sphericity or symmetrical cellularity, chemical
and electrical action; especially in voltaic action the influence
and the persistence of this law is most remarkably displayed. By the
way of familiar illustration, he takes the original voltaic cell,
and without attempting to explain how one solid, copper or platinum,
comes to be less assimilable to a liquid than another, such as
zinc, he shows that just what we are to expect, from this law of
assimilation, takes place--viz., that at the zinc there tends to form
a stratum of oxygen, and that, at the platinum, there tends to form
a stratum of hydrogen. Pursuing the old view as to the cause of the
state of tension induced in the dilute sulphuric acid, the continuous
decomposition of the water, the solidifying action of the zinc surface,
he confines his attention to the current of force instituted by the
oxygen; advancing the idea that this is not merely force in general,
of which all that is to be considered is its quantity and direction;
but force, of which the form of its elements or their formative power
is also to be considered;--that formative power being representative or
productive of oxygen. To the objection that such a conception is occult
and mysterious, he asks if it is more occult and mysterious than what
is implied and confessed to be hid under the term electricity, or in
the phenomena of heredity, or than anything else which is adduced as
a cause of a particular phenomenon. The cosmical law of assimilation
explains all these phenomena, and, without any special hypothesis,
is precisely what is wanted, in order to render natural knowledge
as a whole accessible to the student: something which puts him in
possession, from the first, of a master-thought, which, if he carry
it along with him, will present all nature as a harmony; explaining
all that stands in need of explanation. Macvicar continues:--
If it be asked how possibly out of one law, and such a one, there could
arise anything like that endless variety which nature displays, the
answer is, that the law operates between two limits, poles, or points
of assimilation, which are entirely dissimilar, and by two processes
simultaneously, analysis and synthesis, which are the opposites of
each other. Hence it comes to pass that actual nature is a web, in
which unity and multiplicity, identity and difference, are everywhere
interwoven, and in such harmony that nature is everywhere beautiful.
It is not necessary here to repeat the illustrations by which Macvicar
seeks to demonstrate that existence is force--self-manifesting,
or spontaneously radiant, so to speak, into that which is idea,
if there be a recipient of ideas, or a percipient of ideas; or,
more generally, a percipient within the sphere of its action. He
does not prescribe any limits, in space, as to the extent of this
self-manifesting power. Thus, it is one of the most certain facts
in physics that every atom of this planet, nay, every atom of
the planet Neptune, whose distance from the sun is thirty times
as great as our distance, manifests itself to every atom of this
planet--not, indeed, as a percept, but as the subject and the object
of attraction or motion. Nay, by the aid of the ether, which is the
grand medium whereby the self-manifesting power of being is enabled
to take effect at a distance when no other being is interposed,
the fixed stars manifest themselves at our planet, though their
distances be inconceivably great. Distant objects acting like all
objects assimilatively, assimilate the intervening ether and the optic
apparatus to themselves, and thus render themselves perceptible. This
they do, indeed, only under great limitation, imposed by the laws of
inertia or motion in space, to which the ether is subject--limitation
which, in man, it requires self-teaching and experience to remove, so
that he may perceive the object in its true forms and dimensions. But
this is only man's peculiarity, in consequence of his organic defects
at birth. The chick, the day it leaves the egg, can run up with equal
precision to a crumb of bread, or to an ant's egg at a distance. And so
with all species whose myo-neuro-cerebral system functions perfectly
from their birth. At his best, the embodied mind in man sees objects
only in perspective. But the nature of this self-manifesting power
need not be dwelt upon, since it is only the existence of this power
that is insisted upon. How far beyond the visible and tangible parts
of the body, the spirit, as a power exerting some kind of action
or other, extends, Macvicar thinks cannot be determined. No doubt,
every force has a centre of action; but as to the full extent in
space of a unit of natural force, as an agent of one kind or another,
no limits can be assigned. Who shall tell us the boundary in the
outward of that power which says "I will," "I feel," "I see"? Its
modes of acting mechanically are, no doubt, limited to the extent of
the investing organism. Nay, in order to their extending even so far,
it is necessary that the unity of the organism be maintained by the
healthy integrity of the nervous system. In that case consciousness
claims all the organism as its domain; and not only when the organism
is entire does it refer any pain that arises to the region that is
hurt, but after a limb has been amputated, and when it exists only as
a phantom, consciousness still feels towards it as if it were still
the old reality. Such is the effect of habit, or present assimilation
to previous practice.
Our cosmical law, the law of assimilation, must determine, if
not the nature, at least the mode of action of this force--this
self-manifesting power--for plainly this action must be
assimilative. And that it is so, when giving rise to perception, is
clearly and distinctly seen; for what is the perceiving of an object,
but the mind, as a percipient, assimilating itself to that object? and
what is the percept or remembrance of the object, which remains in
the mind but the idea--that is, the assimilated symbol of the object,
which, however, in consequence of the intrusion in the perception of
the mind's own activity, and of other previously acquired ideas, as
also the perceptive image is often very defective as a representation
of the reality perceived? We may say that this self-manifesting power,
which is thus the characteristic of all that exists, is the agency
provided whereby the cosmical law of assimilation shall be realized,
though the intimate nature of that agency remains, as now, wholly
inscrutable. Nor can it be said to be physical until it is embodied in
the ether. In that case, it is rhythmical, or undulatory, and formally
representative of the object whence it emanates. But it is enough to
know that the most intimate and ultimate property--the characteristic,
in short, of that which exists--is self-manifesting power. Now, the
existence of a self-manifesting power in an object implies that the
object is itself a power or force, or an aggregate of such. This is
enough for the purposes of philosophy and science, and we only deceive
ourselves when we suppose that we can think of anything that exists
and which is not at the same time a force or power....
Of most things that exist, if not of all, let us say that they are
capable of existing in either of two states--the dynamical or the
statical--and that, when viewed as dynamical, they are forces or
powers; when viewed as statical, they are substances. When we exhaust
or think away the properties of existence, the last which vanishes
is self-manifesting power in the object which exists, this property
being such that when it vanishes so does the object to which existence
was awarded. In the science of the day it is maintained by our most
popular authors and lecturers that the "physical forces"--taken in
the singular number, physical force--is the last word, the ultimate
principle. The physical forces are represented as all that there is
for God, whereas they are but as the fingers of God.
The idea of antecedent design, either in reference to nature as a
whole, or in reference to any object in particular, is dropped as
unscientific, or repudiated as unsound; in short, a reference to the
physical forces, is the last word permitted in any treatise, if that
treatise is to be admitted as possessing a scientific character. Or,
if there be one word more, it is only the "correlation" of those
same physical forces, and their "conservation," or persistence
eternally in the same amount of energy in the universe. In their
own place and within their own sphere, these are physical truths,
which are of the greatest value. The former is a wholesome relapse
into the old philosophy of nature. The latter is also a return to
a view which is more sound than that which was popular before the
doctrine of conservation was resuscitated.
Descartes' opinion, that there was a conservation of motion in the
universe, was demonstrated by Newton to be a mistake. Leibnitz adjusted
the truth between these great men, showing that it was not motion,
but the possibility or means of motion--in one word, energy--that
was conserved in the universe.
The doctrine of the conservation of energy amounts to nothing more
than this, that inasmuch as every ultimate atom of matter is perfectly
elastic, so is the whole universe of atoms perfectly elastic. Hence
it is a doctrine which cannot be legitimately extended beyond the
merely material sphere; except on the assumption that matter is the
only reality, and that there is no such thing as a spiritual world
at all--an assumption which, however often it has been made, serves
only to awaken a prevailing voice to the contrary, and the firm vote
of a large majority to the effect that mind exists as well as matter.
Taking the law of assimilation as the cosmical law, together with
self-manifesting power as the characteristic of being, we reach a
primary classification of created objects, which corresponds with
that which is known as mind and matter--or rather let us say mind
and that which is not mind; for there is ground for the apprehension
that mind and matter do not include all that exists; and that, along
with matter, ether ought to be considered as something intimately
related to matter indeed, but yet not just matter. When the elements
of the ethereal medium are regarded as truly and simply material,
however small and light they may be, the elasticity and pressure
which must be assigned to that medium in order to admit of the
velocity of light, are altogether out of the harmony of things,
and wholly incredible, especially when confronted with the phenomena
and the theory of astronomy. Thus, to justify the velocity of light
on the same principles as those of sound, in various material media,
the ethereal pressure must be 122,400,000,000 times greater than that
of the atmosphere--which is incredible, says Macvicar.
But what as to mind? To find what shall be called mind, let us
suppose an individualized object which is not an isolated object, or
a universe to itself, but a member in a system; then, in obedience to
what has been stated, that object must be at once self-manifesting and
impressed by the other objects around it, and, in being so impressed,
assimilated to them more or less.... Admitting the self-manifesting
power to be sensitive, percipient, or conscious, then quantity or
intensity of substance or power in a monad is the condition requisite
for feeling and thought. And thus, by an immediate co-ordination of our
fundamental ideas of self-manifesting power and assimilative action,
more or less, we reach a distinct conception of mind viewed in relation
with that which is not mind. By this deduction, the primeval created
substance, the true protoplasm is still supposed to be homogeneous,
animated by its assimilation to the everlasting, the Infinite.
This protoplasm is partitioned in varying degrees so that there
are in creation some individualized or separate objects or forces
consisting of so small an amount or such weakness of substance that
they are wholly fixed and merely perceptible, while there are others
consisting of so much more that they are free in their inner life, and
have power to perceive themselves also--not, indeed, in the centres of
their being, and as unimpressed and without ideas, but as members in a
system, impressed or assimilated by other objects, and so having ideas,
with power to look in this direction or that, and to act accordingly.
Such, then, according to Macvicar, is the nature of mind or spirit. It
is a being so constituted as to be at once in possession of ideas, and
so far fixed; and also in possession of undetermined life or activity,
and so far free. These are, as it were, the opposite poles of its
being, and the conditions of its activity. If either is wanting,
the other vanishes. Without something fixed in the mind, some object
of thought or feeling, there can be no thinking or feeling. Without
something unfixed there can be nothing to think or to feel with,
much less can there be any thinking or feeling of self--that is,
self-consciousness. But, grant this condition in the individual,
and add the law of assimilation, operating first from God above, thus
giving reason and conscience, on the higher aspect of our being; and,
secondly, from nature around, thus giving observation and instincts
harmonious with our situation in the system of the universe, and then
human nature emerges.
But human nature plainly belongs to the last day of the work of
creation rather than the first, where we are now. In man, to all
appearance, the organism is the mother and nurse of the spirit. And
though the assimilative action of the mind upon the body becomes
normally, at least, stronger and stronger as life advances, so long as
the organ retains all its perfection, yet at first the assimilative
action of the body upon the mind is almost everything. The infant,
the child, is little else but the victim of sensation--that is, of
assimilations in its mind, effected by the force of external nature,
including the organism itself. But as the mind, through the sustained
action towards the focus of the myo-neuro-cerebral system, which is
in the brain, gains quantity or intensity--in one word, energy--it
becomes more independent and free, and more able to react out of
itself upon the organism in any direction of which it makes choice....
Hitherto, Macvicar has proceeded analytically, or from the one
to the many; now, synthetically, from multiplicity to unity:--he
continues:--As to the matter in hand, we may say, shortly, that
a world of substances becoming multiple and diffuse, and at last
merging into ethereal elements, being now given as the product of
the law of assimilation in reference to the immensity of the Creator,
the same law, when viewed in reference to the unity of the Creator,
leads us to infer a process of quite a contrary character. It leads us
to expect to find the ethereal elements tending to construct unities
of greater energy than themselves. Then, if all cosmical action is
cyclical, matter, when existing free in the ether, must ultimately
tend to dissolve into pure ether again; for, if the law of creation
is as a cycle, in which, after development and as its fruit, the
last term gives the first, then has he grounds for his conjecture
that complication in structure is necessary to the segregation of
nervous matter, and the construction of a "myo-neuro-cerebral system";
and that ether and matter, after developing a molecular economy,
as the mother and nurse of a soul or monad of a higher order than
the merely material element, through or by this organism, complete
the cycle of the economy of the material nature, and eventually
touch upon the spiritual world again and contribute to it. Whether
this inference is correct or not, it presents a noble hypothesis for
consideration, and one which should command attention at a time when
the writings of John Worrell Keely, the discoverer of polar energy,
and the inventor of vibratory machinery for the utilization of this
force in mechanics, are about to be given to the world, supporting as
they do, some of "the unwelcome views" advanced by Macvicar a quarter
of a century ago. Although Macvicar and Keely differ in their theories
of molecular morphology, they agree entirely in calling the cosmical
law of sympathetic association or assimilation the watchword and
the law of creation. This true protoplasm, the ether, which Macvicar
postulated, Keely claims to have proved "a reality": making use of
the ether, which he liberates by vibratory machinery, as the medium
of a motive power, which he calls "sympathetic negative attraction."
CHAPTER III.
THE NATURE OF KEELY'S PROBLEMS.
1885 TO 1887.
Too few the helpers on the road,
Too heavy burdens in the load.
When a movement is willed a current is sent forth from
the brain.
Sir James Crichton Browne.
In November 1884, Mr. Keely obtained a standard for progressive
research in the success of an experiment, which he had tried many times
before, without arriving at the result that his theories had led him
to expect. One of those present, at the time that this test was made,
afterwards wrote to Mr. Keely, to obtain an explanation of the dynamic
force which had been witnessed, causing a small globe to rotate when
two persons had taken hold of the rod together, with a firm grasp;
one of whom was standing on a circular sheet of metal, from which
piano wires stretched toward the globe, near enough to touch one of the
plates of glass which insulated the ball. Mr. Keely replied, "I cannot
describe it other than the receptive concussion of the two forces,
positive and negative, coming together, seeking their coincidents and
thus producing rotation by harmonious waves, not streams. You ask if
sound waves had anything to do with the motion of the globe? Nothing;
the introductory settings are entirely different. The ball ceased
to rotate when I took your left hand in my right hand, while with
our other hands holding the iron rod resting on the metal plate,
because the receptive flows became independent of the circular chord
of resonation as set up mechanically. The power of rotation comes on
the positive; and the power of negation breaks it up."...
Encouraged by this confirmation of his theories, Keely pursued his
researches with renewed vigour. At this time he wrote, "I am straining
every nerve to accomplish certain matters in a given time, working
from twelve to fourteen hours daily. Although in my illness I have had
some peaceful hours in thinking over the fascinating points associated
with the researches to which I am devoting my life, I have also had
some very stormy ones in reviewing the many unjust insinuations and
denouncements that have been heaped upon me by the ignorant and the
base-hearted. My one desire has been the acquisition of knowledge;
and, no matter how great the impediment thrown in my path, I will work
without ceasing to attain my end. After struggling for over seventeen
years, allowing scientists to examine my machinery in the most thorough
manner, and to make the most sensitive tests, denunciations have
multiplied against me. One charge is that I use sodium in my mercury,
in the vacuum test. I have thought that I would never again make any
effort to prove that I am honest; but I am working in a new lead,
and for the satisfaction of the few friends that I have I propose
to show my introductory evolutions, in proof of the negatization
of an etheric substance to produce vacuum. The mercury may be
delivered to me by an expert: I will operate from an open mercury
bath: using the most perfect mercury gauge obtainable, attached to
the same sphere that the column is operated from. Professor Rogers,
the highest authority we have, saw the operation of inducing these
etheric vacuums and pronounced the result wonderful. He said that
the scientific world would go down on its knees, if I produced only
one pound of vacuum under the conditions named. I showed from one to
fourteen lbs. during the evolutions.... As soon as I have been able
to combine all the positive and negative forces of etheric vibration
in the triple vibratory sphere-engine that I am now at work upon,
in short, as soon as I have completed a perfect, patentable machine,
then my labours will cease on the Motor line; and after my patents are
taken out, I will devote the remainder of my life to Aerial Navigation,
for I have the only true system to make it an entire success in the
vibratory lift and the vibratory push-process."
It will be seen that, at this stage, Keely had no idea of giving up
the engine; and was still as confident of ultimate success as in the
beginning. There is no doubt that, had not the time arrived when the
directing power of Providence led him away in quite another direction
from the line that he was then working upon, his system for Aerial
Navigation would have been lost to this century. "The heart of man
deviseth his way, but the Lord directs his steps."
About this time Keely met with an accident. Under date March 22nd,
he wrote, "It has been impossible for me to write, my right hand
and arm were so severely strained, but I have not been idle. I have
had time for reflection, and I have been setting up a key to explain
vibratory rotation. I have also a plan for a device to be attached to
the Liberator as an indicator to show when the neutral centre is free
from its intensification while operating. In this way the dangerous
influences will be avoided which present themselves on the extension
of the vibratory waves that operate the gun. All the introductory
details of the present engine are as perfect as is possible for the
first lead. It is in the form of a sphere, about thirty inches in
diameter and weighs 800 lbs. Yesterday saw the pure, positive action
of my new Liberator. Mr. Collier and his brother George were present,
and witnessed thirty expulsions, made by myself; after which I had
them produce the vapour, by imitating my manipulations; which they were
unable to do with the old generator. They were very much delighted. To
say that the last three weeks have been trying ones, is using
very mild language to express what I have suffered from accidents,
disappointments, etc., etc. I have been frozen in at my workshop;
and all things seemed to go wrong; but my present successes are as
an anchor, which I thank God for, who, in His bountiful goodness,
has carried me into a port of safety over tempestuous seas." Again,
under various dates, Keely wrote:--"Unbounded success has crowned my
new departure. I am now preparing new features that are necessary
as adjuncts to denote the true condition, as regards safety in my
different vibratory operations." "Without the aid sent me from on high
there would have been nothing left of the discovery mechanically; nor
would there now be a single foot-hold on which hope could rest for a
completion of the Keely Motor enterprise."... "I had an accident to
one of my registers this morning. It burst with a tremendous report,
shaking things up in a lively way, but no other damage was done beyond
that to the register."
"The draughts are nearly completed for the compound vibratory engine,
and next week the work will be commenced and pushed forward with all
possible speed. This is the machine for continuous operation. The
Liberator is as perfect as is possible; and, if the outside adjuncts
are in proper sympathy, my struggles will soon be at an end."... "All
things are verging into a condition of perfection through the aid
that I have received, but for which the science of vibratory etheric
force would, as far as my researches are concerned, have been lost
to the world. I feel that the world is waiting for this force; that
this advance in science is necessary to keep the proper equilibrium
in our age of progress."...
"There are moments in which I feel that I can measure the very stars,
which shine like Edens in planetary space; fit abodes for beings who
have made it the study of their lives on earth to create peace and
happiness for all around them. Is nature a mystery? No, God is in
nature. I do not believe in the line, 'God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.' In my estimation, He moves in a very plain
and simple way, if we will open our hearts to the understanding of
His way. To the man who cannot appreciate the workings of nature,
chemically and otherwise, God's ways may appear mysterious; but when
he comes to know nature's works he will find simplicity itself in
its highest order of expression.
"Could I have one wish, as to science, gratified, I would ask to live
long enough to be able to appreciate even but one etheric variation
in planetary evolution. It might take fifty thousand years to attain
this knowledge, but what is that period of time when compared with
the cycles that have passed away since this earth existed? Yes, in one
sense, 'God does move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.'"...
"The whirlpool of science has indeed engulphed me in its fascinating
vortex."...
"May 20th.--Yesterday was a day of trials and disappointments. It
seemed as if nothing would work right. After labouring six hours to
set my safety process, the first operation of the Liberator tore
the caps all to pieces. I replaced them by a set of duplicates,
and set the Liberator down to the low octaves, when everything
worked to a charm. Night was approaching, and I left the workshop
to get something to eat, returning about eight o'clock to re-conduct
experiments, in order to discover if possible the cause of the sudden
and most unexpected intensification. I followed up with great care
the progressive lines until I reached the tenth octave, and then
liberated a score of times, yet no variation on liberator. Next, I
made an attachment to my safety arrangement, and also to my strongest
resonator, to experiment on vibratory rotation with my shell; when,
within two minutes, it attained a frightful velocity: then I suddenly
retracted to the negative, bringing the velocity down from about 1500
per minute to 150. The operation was magnificent, lasting sixty-four
minutes, when a second intensification took place, demolishing two
safety-shells and one vibratory indicator. I was perfectly dumbfounded,
and unable to account for such a phenomenon. It was then near midnight,
but I had made up my mind not to discontinue until I had solved the
mystery. After an hour's reflection, I set up a new position on the
resonating wave plates in the forty resonating circuit on the base of
liberator; and got a result which for purity of uniformity surpassed
all experiments that I have ever made. I believe I have now struck
the root of this difficulty, and that I shall be able to master it;
and obtain continuity of action with perfect rotation."
"June 1st, 1885.--I am in a perfect sea of mental and physical strain,
intensified in anticipation of the near approach of final and complete
success, and bombarded from all points of the compass by demands and
inquiries; yet, in my researches, months pass as minutes. The immense
mental and physical strain of the past few weeks, the struggles and
disappointments have almost broken me up. Until the reaction took
place, which followed my success, I could never have conceived the
possibility of my becoming so reduced in strength as I am now. My
labours in the future will be of a much milder character; but, before
I again commence them, I must have a few days more of recuperation. I
was so absorbed in my researches that I forgot my duty to myself,
as regards the requirements of health, and I am now paying the
penalty. It has been misery to me to have absorbed so much more time
and capital than I anticipated; and without the heaven-sent aid which
I have received the world would have lost sight of me for ever."...
"In view of the unjust comments in certain journals, I intend to
withdraw entirely from all contact with newspaper men, to give no
more exhibitions after the one which closes the series, and to devote
all my time and energies to bringing my models into a patentable
condition. It is said that the New York reporters intended to denounce
me before witnessing my last experiments. Certainly utter ignorance
of my philosophy was displayed in their articles, but they were
like the viper biting on the file, and only hurt themselves: for
men who possess but a moderate degree of scientific knowledge have
denounced them, in turn, as the most ignorant men they had ever come
in contact with. They stated that I started with a power estimated
at over one million pounds pressure to the square inch on the head
of my liberator, a sheer absurdity. The rock I am standing on can
no more be moved by a whirlwind of such attacks than the atmospheric
disturbance of equilibrium emanating from a butterfly's wing in motion
could blow down the rock of Gibraltar. I enclose a newspaper cutting:
it was written by an engineer who has interested himself sufficiently
in my work to be able to thoroughly understand my position."...
"July 15th.--My researches teach me that electricity is but a
certain condensed form of atomic vibration, a form showing only the
introductory features which precede the etheric vibratory condition. It
is a modulated force so conditioned, in its more modest flows, as to
be susceptible of benefit to all organisms. Though destructive to a
great degree in its explosive positions, it is the medium by which the
whole system of organic nature is permeated beneficially; transfusing
certain forms of inert matter with life-giving principles. It is to
a certain degree an effluence of divinity; but only as the branch is
to the tree. We have to go far beyond this condition to reach the
pure etheric one, or the body of the tree. The Vibratory Etheric
tree has many branches, and electricity is but one of them. Though
it is a medium by which the operations of vital forces are performed,
it cannot in my opinion be considered the soul of matter."...
"My safety arrangements (governors and indicators) for liberating are
not working well; but I am labouring to attain perfection on these
devices, and I hope soon to have them all right."...
"I have extraordinary powers, it is true, and I must use them to
the best advantage; for I know they are the gift of the Almighty,
who will, I feel sure, carry me to the end of the work which He has
given me to accomplish."...
"I am positive that this year will terminate my struggles. My work is
all progressing satisfactorily, and I am pushing everything forward
as rapidly as possible."...
August 5th.--Mr. Keely wrote to one of his friends,--"I have met
with an accident to the Liberator. I was experimenting on the third
order of intensification, when the rotation on the circuit was thrown
down in the compound resonating chamber, which, by the instantaneous
multiplication of the volume induced thereby, caused an explosion
bursting the metal casing which enclosed the forty resonators,
completely dismantling the Liberator. The shock took my senses from
me for a few moments, but I was not even scratched this time. A part
of the wall was torn away, and resonators and vibrators were thrown
all over the room. The neighbourhood was quite lively for a time,
but I quieted all fears by telling the frightened ones that I was
only experimenting. I allowed everything to remain until Dr. Woods
and Mr. Collier had seen the effect of the explosion."
The orders of intensification for accelerating dissociation
would not be understood by any explanations that could be made, if
unaccompanied by the demonstrations witnessed by the late Professor
Leidy, Dr. Brinton, and others.
When the ether flows from a tube, its negative centre represents
molecular sub-division, carrying interstitially (or between its
molecules) the lowest order of liberated ozone. This is the first
order of ozone and is wonderfully refreshing and vitalizing to those
who breathe it. The second order, or atomic separation, releases a much
higher grade of ozone; in fact, too pure for inhalation, as it produces
insensibility. The third order, or etheric, is the one that has been
(though attended with much danger to the operator) utilized by Keely
in his carbon register to produce the circuit of high vibration that
breaks up the molecular magnetism which is recognized as cohesion.
The acceleration of these orders is governed by the introductory
impulse on a certain combination of vibratory chords, arranged for
this purpose in the instrument, with which Keely dissociates the
elements of water; and which he calls a liberator.
In molecular dissociation one fork of 620 is used, setting the chords
on the first octave.
In atomic separation, two forks: one of 620 and one of 630 per second;
setting the chords on the second octave.
In the etheric three forks: one of 620, one of 630, and one of 12,000,
setting the chords on the third octave.
Keely's Three Systems.
My first system is the one which requires introductory mediums
of differential gravities, air and water, to induce disturbance
of equilibrium on the liberation of vapour, which only reached
the inter-atomic position and was held there by the submersion of
the molecular and atomic leads in the 'generator' I then used. It
was impossible with these mediums to go beyond the atomic with this
instrument; and I could not dispense with the water until my liberator
was invented, nor reach the maximum of the full line of vibration. My
first system embraces liberator engine and gun.
"My second system of dissociation I consider complete, as far as the
liberation of the ether is concerned, but not sufficiently complete,
as yet, in its devices for indicating and governing the vibratory
etheric circuit, to make it a safe medium.
"My third system embraces aerial and sub-marine navigation. The
experimental sphere intended to test the combination of the positive
and negative rotation is nearly completed.
... "I have done everything that I could do to demonstrate the
integrity of my inventions, and I will never again allow my devices
to be submitted to examinations; not that I am afraid they will be
stolen, but I do not wish to have the construction of my improved
mechanical devices known until my patents are taken out. Nor will I
ever again make a statement, specifying the time when certain work
will be finished. If I thought to-morrow would end all my struggles
on this system, I would not say so. I have been a great sufferer from
my inability to keep my promises, fully believing in my power to keep
them, and now I must and will prove that all is right before I promise.
... "The work on the vibratory engine is progressing rapidly. I spend
an hour or two every day at the shop where my work is being done,
examining every part of it critically as it is being put together. The
safety arrangements which I am having attached to my liberator
will greatly improve it. Its operation will now be conducted with
a gum bulb instead of a violin bow, the pressure of which gives the
introductory chord of impulse that vitalizes the whole machine. The
chords will all be set in progressive sympathy from the first octave
to the fortieth....
"I have been writing out some of my theories as to sound and
odour. These two subjects have intensified me considerably of late,
on account of the peculiar position they occupy in their lines of
sub-division; as also the peculiar laws that govern them in their
dissemination. I see the time approaching when I will be able to write
up my system of the true philosophy of nature's grandest force, and
have at my control the proper apparatus to analyze and demonstrate
all the progressive links of transmittive sympathy from the crude
molecular to the high etheric."...
"December 17th, 1885.--The setting up of the circles for computing
the different lines of etheric chords, in setting the vibratory
conditions for continuity, requires close study. I feel convinced that
a perfect solution of my difficulties will follow when this part of
the work has been completed; and that, before many weeks have passed, a
revelation will be unfolded that will startle the world; a revelation,
so simple in its character, that the physicists will stand aghast,
and perhaps feel humiliated by the nature of their efforts in the past
to solve certain problems.... I find my chief trouble in chording up
the masses of the different parts composing the negative centres. The
negative centre is included in the one-third volume of shell or sphere,
starting from the neutral axis or point of suspension. This point of
suspension only becomes perfect when the rotation is established on the
sphere. One hundred revolutions per minute is all the velocity required
to neutralize the gravity of the central third with the velocity
of the vibratory circuit at one hundred thousand per second. Taking
all matters into consideration associated with the mechanical part
of the enterprise, the month of January ought to find all completed,
ready for sympathetic graduation. But I fear to be too sanguine when
I remember the loss of time and the interferences from exhibitions
to which I have been subjected in the past. I feel more and more the
great importance of devoting all my energies to the great task that
Divine Power has ordained me to perform."...
At the close of the year 1885, everything seemed to promise full
and complete success during the coming year. Mr. Charles Collier,
the patent lawyer, shared Keely's confidence in the near completion
of his "struggles." The stock-holders were enthusiastic, and the
stockbrokers were on the qui vive, anticipating a great rise in the
shares of The Keely Motor Company. Mr. Collier had written in August
to Major Ricarde-Seaver [1]: "The Bank of England is not more solid
than is our enterprise. My belief is that the present year will see
us through, patents and all."
The journals had ceased to ridicule, and some of them were giving
serious attention to the possibilities lying hidden in the discovery of
an unknown force. In 1886, Mr. William Walsh, editor of "Lippincott's
Magazine," accepted a paper on the subject, publishing it in the
September number. It was entitled Keely's Etheric Force.
This was the first article accepted by any Philadelphia editor, setting
forth Keely's claims on the public for the patience and protection
which the discoverer of a force in nature needs, while researching the
unknown laws that govern its operation. Up to this time Keely had been
held responsible for the errors made in the premature organization
of a Keely Motor Company, and the selling of stock before there was
anything to give in return for the money paid in by investors.
CHAPTER IV.
SYMPATHETIC VIBRATORY FORCE, 1887.
The teleological view was opposed to the mechanical, which
regarded the universe as a collocation of mere facts without
any further significance. The mechanical view looked backward
to the antecedents of a phenomenon, and explained things
by reducing them to their lowest terms; the teleological
or philosophical view looked forward to the end or purpose
which was being realized, which was the reason of the whole
development, and in the deepest sense its cause. Mechanical
explanation was an infinite progress, which could ultimately
explain nothing; in the last resort, causæ efficientes pendent
a finalibus. In defining the nature of the end which it thus
asserted, philosophy had to wage unsparing battle against
the naturalistic tendencies of our time.--(From a Review of
Professor Seth's address delivered in Glasgow in 1891.)
In 1887, a series of articles appeared in The British Mercantile
Gazette, then edited by Mr. Arthur Goddard. The June number devoted
more than eight columns to the progress and present position of the
discoverer of Etheric Force.
To the Editor of the British Mercantile Gazette.
Sir,--Dr. Ziermann, a German writer, has said that a great deal of
sound sense and moral courage are required to introduce ideas which
will only be recognised as truth after the lapse of time. He adds,
"Nay, even to recognize their truth will require more understanding
than falls to the share of most men." The day will come, I think,
when your action in giving the pages of your journal to quotations
from Mr. Keely's papers on Etheric Physics and Etheric Philosophy,
will make known your claim to this 'understanding.' In the meantime,
you have, by your appreciation of his labours and your sympathy
in his trials, extended that assistance to the discoverer of this
newly-known force in Nature which is more powerful than any other
agent in inspiring to renewed efforts; after ridicule and calumny,
long continued, have done their worst towards depressing the vital
centres of nerve-force. When Mr. Keely has made known the law of
sympathetic association to the world, the full meaning of the words
"sympathy," "help," "consolation," will be better understood than they
are now. The most important discoveries, the most difficult problems
of research, the most arduous scientific labours have been achieved
by men who have battled with persecution and contempt at every step
of their progress; enduring all, as he has done, with patience; in
the full assurance that the glorious truths entrusted to him to reveal
will, in the end, be proclaimed for the advancement of the race. "The
nobler the soul," writes Ouida, "the more sensitive it is to the blows
of injustice." Cicero tells us that praise stimulates great souls
into greater exertions; and Plutarch said that souls are sensitive
to sympathy, to praise, and to blame, in exact proportions to the
fineness of their fibre. Mr. Keely proves this truth by actual tests,
as will be seen in time, to the satisfaction of all investigators.
Every branch of science, every doctrine of extensive application,
has had its alphabet, its rudiments, its grammar; indeed, at each
fresh step in the path of discovery, the researcher has to work out
by experiments the unknown laws which govern his discovery. Ignorant
himself, he builds up his knowledge upon a foundation which, uncertain
as it must be at first, becomes as secure as that of Gibraltar rocks
when, one by one, he has removed the misshapen stones of error, and
replaced them with the hewn granite blocks of truth. To attempt to
introduce scientists, without any previous preparation, to any new
system, no matter how solid its foundation, would be like giving
a book published in Greek to a man to read who had never before
seen its characters. We do not expect a complicated problem in the
higher mathematical analysis to be solved by one who is ignorant
of the elementary rules of arithmetic. Just as futile would it be
to expect scientists to comprehend the laws of etheric physics and
etheric philosophy at one glance.
'There are some secrets which, who knows not now,
Must, ere he reach them, climb the heapy Alps
Of science, and devote long years to toil.'
Norman Lockyer, in his 'Chemistry of the Sun,' writes of molecules
that 'one feels as if dealing with something that is more like a
mental than a physical attribute--a sort of expression of free will
on the part of the molecules.' Herein lies one of the secrets of
Mr. Keely's so-called 'compound secret.' Again, Mr. Lockyer writes:
'The law which connects radiation with absorption, and at once enables
us to read the riddle set by the sun and stars, is, then, simply
the law of sympathetic vibration.' This is the very corner-stone of
Mr. Keely's philosophy--yes, even of his discovery.
It has been said that all great men who have lived, or who now live,
have been indebted for their knowledge to teachers or to books;
but all progress depends upon the use made of such knowledge when
acquired. In order to bear fruit, knowledge must be increased by
reflection, and by placing the mind in that attitude which brings into
play the powers of intuition; or, rather, placing it in the receptive
state which admits of the in-flowing of what is called inspiration.
Molecular vibration is Keely's legitimate field of research. In this
field his discovery was made, many years since; but it is only now,
within this year, that he has reached any approach to a solution of
the stupendous problems which have arisen barring and baffling all
progress, at times, towards the complete subjugation and control of
the force that he had discovered. Again and again has he invited the
attention of scientists to his discovery, from the commencement of
his researches; but the few scientists who condescended to accept his
invitations were so ignorant of the mysteries which they sought to
investigate--of 'the alphabet and rudiments' of etheric physics--that
they found it easier to accuse him of jugglery and of fraud than to
account for the phenomena that they witnessed. They addressed their
report to a public even more ignorant than themselves, if such a thing
could be possible, with the result of preventing other scientists,
who would have better understood the experiments, from examining into
Keely's claims, as the discoverer of an unknown force. A system of
doctrine can be legitimately refuted only upon its own principles,
viz., by disproving its facts, and invalidating the principles
deduced from them. It is, then, the facts, and not the opinions of
the ignorant or the prejudiced, which are of chief importance here,
as in all other questions of moment.
All those men who have witnessed the production of etheric force
and its application experimentally, during the exhibitions given at
various times, have, if capable of understanding such a marvellous
discovery as Keely has made, agreed to a man in bearing testimony,
at the time, that no known force could have produced such results
under the same conditions.
It is now three years since Keely invited certain English men of
science (experimenting in the same field where his explorations
commenced) to examine his Liberator; which was dismantled for the
purpose, and all its parts assembled for examination before being put
together for the production of etheric force, when these men refused
to visit his workshop, and it has been said that a Professor of the
University of Pennsylvania prevented the investigation by his assertion
that compressed air is the force used by Keely with which to dupe
his audiences. A schoolboy's knowledge of the change of temperature
always accompanying the compression of air would prevent such an
assertion from being made by anyone who had witnessed the operation
of the Liberator in the production and storage of etheric force,
during which there is not the slightest change of temperature. Had
these English scientists, with their knowledge of acoustics, been
present on the occasion referred to, no such groundless assertion
would have possessed any influence with either; and the world of
science would have sooner known and acknowledged the nature and the
worth of this great discovery.
Roget says that if we are to reason at all, we can reason only upon the
principle that for every effect there must exist a corresponding cause;
or, in other words, that there is an established and invariable order
of sequence among the changes which take place in the universe. The
bar to all further reasoning lies in the fact that there are men
who, admitting all the phenomena we behold are the effects of certain
causes, still say that these causes are utterly unknown to us, and that
their discovery is wholly beyond the reach of our faculties. Those who
urge this do not seem to be aware that its general application in every
sense would shake the foundation of every kind of knowledge--even that
which we regard as built upon the most solid basis. Of causation it
is agreed that we know nothing; all that we do know is that one event
succeeds another with undeviating constancy; and what do we know of
magnetism, electricity, galvanism, but such facts as have been elicited
by the labours of experimental enquirers, and the laws which have been
deduced from their generalization? Would it be considered a sufficient
reason for the absolute rejection of any of these facts--or a whole
class of facts--that we are still ignorant of the principle upon which
they depend, and that such knowledge is beyond our reach? Facts are
every day believed, upon observation, or upon testimony, which we
should be exceedingly puzzled to account for, if called upon to do
so. Every man who has passed the mere threshold of science ought to
be aware that it is quite possible to be in possession of a series of
facts, long before he is capable of giving a rational and satisfactory
explanation of them; in short, before he is enabled to discover their
causes. Also that he must classify his facts and construct hypotheses
before he can impart his experimental position to others. Many things
which were, for a long time, treated as fabulous and incredible
have been proved, in our age, to be authentic facts, as soon as
the evidence in support of them was duly subjected to the crucible
of scientific investigation. Take, for example, Professor Dewar's
researches in the cause, or origin, of meteoric stones. Fortunately
for his branches of research and experiment, he is possessed of that
philosophical spirit and energy which enables him to divest himself
of all prejudice, and, in constructing his theories, to welcome the
evidence of truth from whatever quarter it approaches. More than two
thousand years elapsed between the first record of the phenomenon, by
Anaxagoras, and Mr. Howard's observations in 1802, during which time
the fact was disputed most strenuously by many, while, in our time,
Professor Dewar's explanations of the same, upon intelligible and
satisfactory principles, have confirmed the statements made centuries
ago. How few the years, in comparison, since Keely's grand discovery
first broke upon his own mind, which he has devoted to experiment,
to invention, to the classification of facts, and the building up of
hypotheses, before reaching the goal of his desires. Men will marvel
at the shortness of the period when all that he has accomplished is
made known. The delays which have occurred in bringing before the
world the actual discovery of this primal force, from which all the
forces of nature spring, have been in part occasioned by the want
of that sympathy and appreciation which Keely would have received
from his fellow-men, had scientists believed him to be honest in his
claims. He would not then have been left in the merciless hands of
"a ring," which gave or withheld financial aid according as he could
be "thumbscrewed," into giving exhibitions for speculative ends on
the part of "the ring." These costly days of delay are now a thing
of the past. Keely's programme of work for the remainder of the year
embraces such exhibitions of his progress as can be given without
interfering with this programme.
Coleridge says in "Table Talk,"--"I have seen what I am certain I
would not have believed on your telling; and in all reason, therefore,
I can neither expect nor wish that you should believe on mine." It is
of all tasks the most difficult to procure any favourable reception
for doctrines which are objectionable only because they are deemed
to be incompatible with preconceived notions. It does not answer to
disturb the calmness of views now held by our most eminent physicists,
who seem to expect that nature will always accommodate her operations
to their preconceived notions of possibility, and adapt her phenomena
to their arbitrary systems of philosophy. We are all familiar
with the anecdote of the wise Indian potentate who imagined that
his informant was imposing upon his credulity when giving him an
accurate description of the steam-engine. Now what would be thought
of that philosopher who, in attempting to communicate an adequate
idea of the operation of the steam-engine, should content himself
with a mere description of its mechanism--of its wheels and levers,
and cylinders and pistons--keeping entirely out of view the moving
power--the steam; and ridiculing all investigation into the nature,
application, and phenomena of this power. Yet this is exactly what
microscopic observers of the animal economy call "absurd and useless
inquiry." The true springs of our organization are not these muscles,
these arteries, these nerves, which are described and experimented upon
with so much care and exactness. They are hidden springs, the action
of which are as miracles to those who have vainly tried to account
for the motion of the muscles at the command of the will; for the
power of vision, which places the human eye in intimate and immediate
connection with the soul--dependent as they are upon unknown laws,
assigned them by the great, omniscient and omnipotent Being by whom
they were originally created, and Who is the one source of all power.
Although in our present ordinary state of existence we are permitted to
see only "as through a glass darkly," ignorant of many of the powers
and processes of nature, as well as of the causes to which they are
to be ascribed, we are not, therefore, entitled to set limits to
her operations, and to say to her, "Hitherto shalt thou go, and no
further! "We must not presume, says Glanvill, to assign bounds to the
exercise of the power of the Almighty, nor are these operations and
that power to be controlled by the arbitrary theories and capricious
fancies of man. We are surrounded by the incredible--the seemingly
miraculous. Who would not ask for demonstration when told that a
gnat's wing, in its ordinary flight, beats many hundred times in a
second? But what is this, when compared to the astonishing truths
which modern optical inquiries reveal--such as teach us that the
sensation of violet light affects our eyes 707 millions of millions
of times per second in order to effect that sensation?
How strangely must they estimate nature, how highly must they
value their own conceits, who deny the possibility of any cause
of any effect, merely because it is incomprehensible. In fact,
what do men comprehend? What do they know of causes? When Newton
said that gravitation held the world together, he assigned no reason
why the heavenly bodies do not fly off from each other into infinite
space. The discoverer of etheric force is able to give the reasons for,
and the explanations of, the laws involved in all that he asserts; or,
rather, all that he propounds; for, with the true humility of wisdom,
he asserts nothing. Newton at first thought that he had discovered in
electricity the ether which he asserted pervades all nature, until,
by repeated experiments, he became convinced of the insufficiency
of that principle to explain the phenomena. Other philosophers have
speculated upon magnetism in the same way, and upon the similarity
between magnetism and electricity. Mr. Keely's experiments show that
the two are, in part, antagonistic, and that both are but modifications
of the one force in nature. There have been some physiologists who have
maintained that the nerves are merely the conductors of some fluid
from the brain and spinal cord to the different parts of the body,
and that this circulating fluid is capable of an external expansion,
which takes place with such energy as to form an atmosphere, or sphere
of activity, similar to that of electrical bodies. Dr. Roget observes
that the velocity with which the nerves subservient to sensation
transmit the impressions they receive at one extremity, along their
whole course, exceeds all measurement, and can be compared only to
that of electricity passing along a conducting wire. A comparison
with gravity would have been nearer the truth, though no computation
ever has been made, or ever can be made, between the flight of gravity
and of electricity, so infinitely swifter is the former.
Béclard almost completely demonstrated the truth of Roget's hypothesis
concerning the action of "the nervous fluid" by cutting a nerve
of considerable size, adjoining a muscle, which induced paralysis
in this part. Perceiving the contractile action reappear, when he
approached the two ends of the nerve to the distance of three lines,
he became convinced that an imponderable substance, a fluid of some
kind, traversed the interval of separation, in order to restore the
muscular action. By another experiment he demonstrated its striking
analogy to galvanic electricity. The late Professor Keil, of Jena,
also made some very interesting experiments of the same character, one
of which tends to demonstrate the susceptibility of the nervous system
to the magnetic influence, and the efficacy of the magnet in the cure
of certain infirmities. It was communicated by him to a meeting of
the Royal Society of London more than fifty years since. If we are
justified, then, in assuming the existence of this nervous fluid,
writes Colquhoun, in 1836, whether secreted by, or merely conducted
by the nerves, and of its analogy to the other known, active, and
imponderable fluids, and of its capability of external expansion, as
in the case of electricity, it does not appear to be a very violent
or unwarrantable proceeding to extend the hypothesis a little further,
and to infer that it is also capable of being transmitted or directed
outwards, either involuntarily or by the volition of one individual,
with such energy as to produce certain real and perceptible effects
upon the organism of another, in a manner analogous to what is known
to occur in the case of the torpedo the gymnotus-electricus, etc.
Should it be that Mr. Keely's compound secret includes any explanation
of this operation of will-force, showing that it may be cultivated,
in common with the other powers which God has given us, we shall then
recover some of the knowledge lost out of the world, or retained only
in gipsy tribes and among Indian adepts.
The effects of the law of sympathetic association, which Mr. Keely
demonstrates as the governing medium of the universe, find
illustrations in inanimate nature. What else is the influence which
one string of a lute has upon a string of another lute when a stroke
upon it causes a proportionable motion and sound in the sympathizing
consort, which is distant from it, and not perceptibly touched? It
has been found that, in a watchmaker's shop, the timepieces,
or clocks, connected with the same wall or shelf, have such a
sympathetic effect in keeping time, that they stop those which beat
in irregular time; and, if any are at rest, set those going which
beat accurately. Norman Lockyer deals with the law of sympathetic
association as follows:--"While in the giving out of light we are
dealing with molecular vibration taking place so energetically as
to give rise to luminous radiation, absorption phenomena afford no
evidence of this motion of the molecules when their vibrations are
far less violent."... "The molecules are so apt to vibrate each in
its own period that they will take up vibrations from light which
is passing among them, provided always that the light thus passing
among them contains the proper vibrations."... "Let us try to get a
mental image of what goes on. There is an experiment in the world of
sound which will help us."... "Take two large tuning-forks, mounted on
sounding-boxes, and tuned to exact unison. One of the forks is set in
active vibration by means of a fiddle-bow, and then brought near to
the other one, the open mouths presented to each other. After a few
moments, if the fork originally sounded is damped to stop its sound,
it will be found that the other fork has taken up the vibration,
and is sounding distinctly. If the two forks are not in unison,
no amount of bowing of the one will have the slightest effect in
producing sound from the other."
Although physicists know that this extraordinary influence exists
between inanimate objects as a class, they look upon the human organism
as little more than a machine, taking small interest in researches
which evince the dominion of mind over matter. Keely's experimental
research in this province has shown him that it is neither the electric
nor the magnetic flow, but the etheric, which sends its current along
our nerves; that the electric or the magnetic bears an infinitely small
ratio to that of an etheric flow, both as to velocity and tenuity; that
true coincidents can exist between any mediums--cartilage to steel,
steel to wood, wood to stone, and stone to cartilage; that the same
influence (sympathetic association) which governs all the solids holds
the same governing influence over all liquids; and again, from liquid
to solid, embracing the three kingdoms, animal, vegetable and mineral;
that the action of mind over matter thoroughly substantiates these
incontrovertible laws of sympathetic etheric influence; that the only
true medium which exists in nature is the sympathetic flow emanating
from the normal human brain, governing correctly the graduating and
setting-up of the true sympathetic vibratory positions in machinery
necessary to success; that these flows come in on the order of the
fifth and seventh positions of atomic subdivision, compound ether a
resultant of this subdivision; that, if metallic mediums are brought
under the influence of this sympathetic flow they become organisms
which carry the same influence with them that the human brain does
over living physical positions--that the composition of the metallic
and of the physical are one and the same thing, although the molecular
arrangement of the physical may be entirely opposite to the metallic on
their aggregations; that the harmonious chords induced by sympathetic
positive vibration permeate the molecules in each, notwithstanding,
and bring about the perfect equation of any differentiation that
may exist--in one, the same as in the other--and thus they become
one and the same medium [2] for sympathetic transmission; that the
etheric flow is of a tenuity coincident to the condition governing the
seventh subdivision of matter--a condition of subtlety that readily
and instantaneously permeates all forms of aggregated matter, from
air to solid hammered steel--the velocity of the permeation being the
same with the one as with the other; that the tenuity of the etheric
flow is so infinitely fine that any magnifying glass, the power of
which would enlarge the smallest grain of sand to the size of the
sun, brought to bear upon it, would not make it visible to us; that
light, traversing at the speed of 200,000 miles per second a distance
requiring a thousand centuries to reach, would be traversed by the
etheric flow in an indefinite fragment of a second.
These are some of the problems which Mr. Keely has had to solve before
he could adapt his vibratory machinery to the etheric flow. The true
conditions for transmitting it sympathetically through a differential
wire of platinum and silver have now been attained, after eight
years of intense study and elaborate experiment. The introductory
indications began to show themselves about two years ago, but the
intermissions on transmission were so frequent and so great as to
discourage Mr. Keely from further research on this line. Then came
one of those "inspirations" which men call "accident," revealing
to him "the true conditions" necessary to produce a sympathetic
flow, free of differentiation, proving conclusively the truth
of his theory of the law governing the atomic triplets in their
association. Differentiation, by compound negative vibration of their
neutral centres, causes antagonism, and thus the great attractive
power that aggregates them becomes one of dispersion or expansion,
accompanied by immense velocity of rotation, which carries its
influence through the whole volume of air, 230 cubic inches contained
in sphere, within its 33 1/3 chord of its circle of coincidence. By
this wire of platinum and silver the current of force is now passed
to run the vibratory disk, thus altogether upsetting the "compressed
air" theory of Professor Barker, Dr. Hall, and others of less note.
"In setting the conditions of molecular sympathetic transmission
by wire," writes Keely, "the same law calls for the harmonious
adjustment of the thirds, to produce a non-intermittent flow of
sympathy. Intermission means failure here. That differential molecular
volume is required, in two different mediums of molecular density,
to destroy differentiation of sympathetic flow, seems at first sight
to controvert the very law established by the great Creator, which
constitutes harmony--a paradoxical position which has heretofore
misled physicists who have propounded and set forth most erroneous
doctrines, because they have accepted the introductory conditions,
discarding their sympathetic surroundings. The volume of the neutral
centre of the earth is of no more magnitude than the one of a molecule:
the sympathetic condition of one can be reached in the same time as
the other by its coincident chord."
Thus it will be seen what difficulties Keely has encountered in his
persevering efforts to use the etheric flow in vibratory machinery. One
by one he has conquered each, attaining the transmission of the
etheric current in the same manner as the electric current, with
this one notable difference--that, in order to show insulation to the
sceptical, he passes the etheric current through blocks of glass in
running his vibratory devices.
When Keely's system is finished, then, and not until then, all that
is involved in his discovery will be made known to the world.
NOTE.
Five years after this paper on Etheric force was written, Dr. Henry
Wood, of Boston, wrote an article, which appeared in The Arena of
October, 1891, having the title Healing through Mind. Dr. Wood says:
"Truth may be considered as a rounded unit. Truths have various and
unequal values, but each has its peculiar place, and if it be missing
or distorted, the loss is not only local but general. Unity is made up
of variety, and therein is completeness. Any honest search after truth
is profitable, for thereby is made manifest the kingdom of the real....
"We forget that immaterial forces rule not only the invisible but
the visible universe. Matter, whether in the vegetable, animal, or
human organism, is moulded, shaped, and its quality determined by
unseen forces back of and higher than itself. We rely upon the drug,
because we can feel, taste, see, and smell it. We are colour-blind
to invisible potency of a higher order, and practically conclude that
it is non-existent."--Healing through Mind.
CHAPTER V.
ETHERIC VIBRATION. THE KEY FORCE.
Discovery is not invention.--Edison.
Science has been compared to a stately and wide-spreading tree,
stretching outward and upward its ever-growing boughs. 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 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 in 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 yet to be propounded
to the world, reveals the identity of facts which seem dissimilar,
binding together into a system the most unconnected and unlike results
of experience, apparently. John Worrell Keely, the discoverer of an
unknown force and the propounder of a pure 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 ignis fatuus 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?"
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.
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 sympathetic 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 possibilities affecting motive industries, 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.
Attempts to interest scientists in the marvellous mechanism by
which etheric force is evolved from the atmosphere 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, as wrote Galileo to
his friend Kepler. Mankind hate truth, said Lady Mary Montague: she
should have said, mankind hate new truths. 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" [3]
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 compared to the upheaval of rocks
which reveal deeply-hidden strata. Stolid conservatism dislikes and
avoids such facts, because they involve new thinking 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 standpoint than their own, with 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 Keely's inventions, 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 sympathetic
association 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 they are the laws which Kepler predicted
would in this century he revealed to man. The divine element is shown
by these laws to be like the sun behind the clouds,--the source of
all light, though itself unseen.
Already the existence of this unknown 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 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 that the existence of this force is established, I do
not mean that it is established by a favourable 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 was first given, substantiated repeatedly
since, by the testimony of men as incapable of fraud or collusion as
is the discoverer himself.
Newton, in 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 Keely
demonstrates in his vibratory-lift experiments.
But it 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-bit in the mouth.
Keely has lassoed his wild horse; he has harnessed it and bridled it;
and when he has the bit in its place, this force will take its stand
with steam and electricity, asking nothing, and giving more than
science ever before conferred on the human race.
The Home Journal of October 20th, 1886, contained a paper which
possesses some interest as having been written at the time Mr. Keely
was using what he called a "Liberator," which enabled him to dispense
with the use of water; but he was obliged to return to his former
method soon after.
Etheric Vibration.
The late editor of the New York Home Journal, noticing the preceding
paper, which appeared in Lippincott's Magazine, asks:--"But is not
this new force too mighty to be managed by mere earthly instruments,
such as iron, copper, or lead? It is the key force, the one that
presided over the creation of these very metals, and can it reasonably
be expected to be caged and fettered by them? Can the bubble withstand
the onset of the wave, of which it is a mere drift?"
When lightning was first drawn from the clouds by Franklin, did it
occur to any man living to predict that electricity (which Keely
defines as a certain form of atomic vibration) could be stored, to
use at will as a motive power? If atomic vibration can be made to
serve the purposes of mechanics, why not etheric vibration?
But let Keely answer for himself. Some years since he wrote as
follows:--"In analyzing theoretically the mechanical standard necessary
for a solution of the philosophy of 'Etheric Vibration,' and the
systematic mechanism to produce a rotating circle of etheric force,
I must admit that the phenomenon, as presented to myself, by seeming
accident, after almost a lifetime of study, still partially holds
itself to my understanding as paradoxical. After constructing many
mechanical devices in my vain attempts to come more closely to what I
term a radiaphonic vibratory position, with microphonic adjustments,
I have only been able to reach a few true and standard positions,
which I can satisfactorily analyze. There is but one principle
underlying all, and this principle is the key to the problem."
Keely continues with an explanation of the mechanism of his generator,
which he invented and constructed for the multiplication of vibrations,
under the disturbance of equilibrium by mediums of different specific
gravities--air as one, water as the other. He has since abandoned
the generator for a vibratory machine which he calls a "liberator,"
in which no water is used to develop the force: the disturbance of
the equilibrium being effected by a medium thoroughly vibratory in
its character. The vapour which Keely produces from this liberator is
perfectly free from all humidity, thus giving it a tenuity which he
had never been able to reach before, and of a character most desirable
for the perfect and high lines of action. In the various improvements
which Keely has made in his mechanism, feeling his way in the dark as
it were, he sometimes speaks of having "stupidly stumbled over them,"
of "seeming accident," or "seeming chance," where another would call
it "inspiration." "Providence sends chance, and man moulds it to
his own design." The improvement upon the generator was conceived by
Keely during his desperate struggles to effect a simultaneous action
between the molecular and atomic leads--an action that was absolutely
essential for the full line of continuation. This shorter and simpler
way of reaching his desired end was suggested, in part, to him by a
quotation from some one of our scientific writings, made in a letter
that he received. I am not sure about this quotation, but I think it
was: "Nature works with dual force, but at rest she is a unit."
"In the image of God made He man," and in the image of man Keely
has constructed his liberator. Not literally, but, as his vibrophone
(for collecting the waves of sound and making each wave distinct from
the other in tone when the "wave-plate" is struck after the sound
has died away) is constructed after the human ear, so his liberator
corresponds in its parts to the human head.
But to return to the question asked in the Home Journal. "Can this
subtle force reasonably be expected to be caged and fettered by mere
earthly instruments? "This is the answer, as given by Keely himself:
"You ask my opinion regarding my ultimate success in the practical
use of etheric force. My faith is unbounded by doubts. The successful
result is as positive as the revolutions of our globe, and comes
under the great law which governs all nature's highest and grandest
and most sensitive operations."
Since Keely wrote the above lines he has had time to get discouraged,
if he could know discouragement; but he has conquered too many of
the stupendous problems, which barricaded his way in the past, not
to feel equally sanguine now of eventual success in his last problem,
viz. the attaining of continuity of action, which at the present time
seems all but within his grasp.
Some of his views may prove of interest at a time when his achievements
are beginning to be a little better understood. Gravity he defines as
transmittive inter-etheric force under immense etheric vibration. He
continues:--The action of the mind itself is a vibratory etheric
evolution, controlling the physical, its negative power being
depreciatory in its effects, and its positive influence elevating.
The idea of getting a power as tenuous as this under such control as to
make it useful in mechanics is scouted by all physicists. And no wonder
that it is so. But when the character of the velocity of etheric force,
even in a molecule, is understood, the mind that comprehends it must
succumb to its philosophy. To move suddenly a square inch of air, at
the velocity of this vibratory circuit, on full line of graduation,
and at a vibration only of 2,750,000 per second, would require a
force at least of twenty-five times that of gunpowder. Taking the
expansive force of gunpowder at 21,000 lbs. per square inch, it
would be 525,000 lbs. per square inch. This is incomprehensible. The
explosion of nitroglycerine, which has two and a half times less
vibrations per second, when placed on the surface of a solid rock,
will tear up the rock before disturbing the equilibrium of the air
above it. The disturbance takes place after the explosion. To induce
an action on a weight of only twenty grains, the weight of a small
bird-shot, with a range of motion of but one inch, giving it an
action of one million per second, would require the actual force of
two and a half tons per second; or, in other words, ten-horse power
per minute. Etheric vibration would move tons at the same velocity
when submitted to the vibratory circuit. Thus, the finer the substance
the greater the power and the velocity under such vibration.
The vapour from the liberator, registered at 20,000 pounds per square
inch, has a range of atomic motion of 1333 1/3 the diameter of the
atmospheric molecule, with constant rotary vibratory action. At
10,000 pounds, 666 2/3; at 5000, 333 1/3; at 2500, 166 2/3; at 1250,
83 1/3; at 625, 41 2/3. The higher the range of atomic motion the
greater is its tenuity, and the range is according to the registered
pressure. This rule cannot be applied to any other vapour or gas
at present known to scientists. The very evolution on the negative
shows a vacuum of a much higher order than was ever produced before,
thus confounding, to perfect blindness, all theories that have been
brought to bear upon the situation, in its analysis. The highest
vacuum known is 17 999999-1000000 pounds, or not quite 30 inches; but
by this process etheric vacuums have been repeatedly produced of 50
to 57 inches; ranging down to 30 inches, or 15 pounds. All operations
of nature have for their sensitizing centres of introductory action,
triple vacuum evolutions. These evolutions are centred in what I call
atomic triple revolutions, highly radiaphonic in their character,
and thoroughly independent of all outside forces in their spheres of
action. In fact, no conceivable power, however great, can break up
their independent centres. So infinitely minute are they in their
position that, within a circle that would enclose the smallest
grain of sand, hundreds of billions of them perform, with infinite
mathematical precision, their continuous vibratory revolution of
inconceivable velocity.
These triple centres are the very foundation of the universe, and the
great Creator has, in His majestic designs, fixed them indissolubly in
their position. Mathematically considered, the respective and relative
motion of these atomic triplets, gravitating to and revolving around
each other, is about one and one-third of their circumference. The
problem of this action, when reduced to a mathematical analysis
(presupposing taking it as the quadrature of the circle) would baffle
the highest order of mathematical science known to bring it to a
numerical equation.
The requirement of every demonstration is that it shall give sufficient
proof of the truth it asserts. Any demonstration which does less than
this cannot be relied upon, and no demonstration ever made has done
more than this. We ought to know that the possibilities of success are
in proportion as the means applied are adequate or inadequate for the
purpose; and, as different principles exist in various forms of matter,
it is quite impossible to demonstrate every truth by the same means
or the same principles. I look upon it as the prejudice of ignorance
which exacts that every demonstration shall be given by a prescribed
rule of science, as if the science of the present were thoroughly
conversant with every principle that exists in nature. The majority of
physicists exact this, though some of them know that these means are
entirely inadequate. Every revolving body is impressed by nature with
certain laws making it susceptible of the operation of force which,
being applied, impels motion. These laws may all be expressed under
the general term, "Forces," which, though various in their nature,
possess an equalizing power; controlling each other (as in the case
of the atomic triplets) in such a way that neither can predominate
beyond a certain limit. Consequently, these bodies can never approach
nearer each other than a fixed point: nor recede from each other beyond
another certain point. Hence, these forces are, at some mean point,
made perfectly equal, and therefore may be considered as but one force;
therefore as but one element. It matters not that other and disturbing
forces exist outside or inside the space these bodies revolve in,
because if this force must be considered as acting uniformly--applying
itself to each of these bodies in a way to produce a perfect equation
on all, it is as if this outside force were non-existing.
The true study of the Deity by man being in the observation of His
marvellous works, the discovery of a fundamental, creative law of
as wide and comprehensive grasp as would make this etheric vapour
a tangible link between God and man would enable us to realize,
in a measure, the actual existing working qualities of God Himself
(speaking most reverentially) as he would those of a fellow-man. Such
a link would constitute a base or superstructure of recognition,
praise, worship and imitation, such as seems to underlie the whole
Biblical structure as a foundation.--Keely.
Dr. Macvicar, in his theories of the bearing of the cosmical law
of assimilation on molecular action, says: "During this retreat of
matter into ether in single material elements or units of weight,
the molecules and masses from which such vaporization into the common
vapour of matter is going on, may be expected to be phosphorescent."
This surmise Keely has, over and over, demonstrated, as a fact; also
showing how gravitation operates as a lever: etheric wave motion:
concentration under vibratory concussion: and negative vacuous tenuity.
Mrs. F. J. Hughes, writing upon "Tones and Colours," advances theories
of her own, which correspond with those demonstrated by Keely. She
writes, in a private letter: "I firmly believe that exactly the same
laws as those which develop sound keep the heavenly bodies in their
order. You can even trace the poles in sound. My great desire is for
some philosophical mind to take up my views, as entirely gained from
the Scriptures; and I am certain that they will be found to be the
laws developing every natural science throughout the universe."
Thus men and women in various parts of the world who still hold to
their belief in and worship of God, are "standing on ground which is
truly scientific, having nothing to fear from the progress of thought,
in so far as it is entitled to the name of scientific--nay, are in
a position to lead the way in all that can be justly so called."
CHAPTER VI.
THE FOUNTAIN HEAD OF FORCE.
Those who occupy themselves with the mysteries of molecular
vibration bear the victorious wreaths of successful
discovery, and show that every atom teems with wonders not
less incomprehensible than those of the vast and bright
far-off suns.--Reynolds.
The famous Keely motor, which has been hovering on the
horizon of success for a decade, is but an attempt to repeat
in an engine of metal the play of forces which goes on at the
inmost focus of life, the human will, or in the cosmic spaces
occupied only by the ultimate atoms. The engineer with his
mallet shooting the cannon-ball by means of a few light taps on
a receiver of depolarized atoms of water is only re-enacting
the rôle of the will when with subtle blows it sets the nerve
aura in vibration, and this goes on multiplying in force and
sweep of muscle until the ball is thrown from the hand with
a power proportionate to the one-man machinery. The inventor
Keely seeks a more effective machinery; a combination of
thousands of will-forces in a single arm, as it were. But he
keeps the same vibrating principle, and the power in both cases
is psychical. That is, in its last analysis.--George Perry.
One eternal and immutable law embraces all things and all
times.--Cicero.
When the truth is made known, it will unwarp the complications
of man's manufacture; and show everything in nature to be
very simple.--David Sinclair, author of A New Creed.--Digby,
Long & Co.
A gradual change seems to be taking place in the minds of the
well-informed in reference to the discoverer of, and experimenter
with, etheric force--John Worrell Keely--which will in time remove
the burden of accusations from him to those who are responsible for
the load which he has had to carry.
Those who know the most of Mr. Keely's philosophy, and of his
inventions to apply this new force to mechanics, are the most sanguine
as to his ultimate success. They say he is great enough in soul,
wise enough in mind, and sublime enough in courage to overcome all
difficulties, and to stand at last before the world as the greatest
discoverer and inventor in the world:--that the hour demanded his
coming--that he was not born for his great work before his appointed
time. They predict that he will, with the hammer of science, demolish
the idols of science; that the demonstration of the truth of his system
will humble the pride of those scientists who are materialists, by
revealing some of the mysteries which lie behind the world of matter;
proving that physical disintegration affects only the mode, and not
the existence, of individual consciousness.
The discovery of vibratory etheric force, even though never utilized
in mechanics, brings us upon the bridge which divides physical science
from spiritual science, and opens up domains the grandeur and glory of
which eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, nor hath it entered into
the mind of man to conceive. The few who understand the nature and
the extent of Keely's vast researches say that he is about to give
a new philosophy to the world, which will upset all other systems;
they say that he knows what force is; and that he seeks to know
what impels and fixes the neutral centre, which attracts to itself
countless correlations of matter, until it becomes a world; that he
is approaching the origin of life, of memory, and of death; and more,
that he knows how ignorant he still is: possessing the humility of a
little child who knows nothing of science. Such a philosopher deserves
the appreciation and the encouragement of all who hold Truth as the
one thing most worth living for--and dying for, if need be.
What is etheric force? the inquirer asks. It is the soul of nature. It
is the primal force from which all the forces of nature spring.
Fichte writes: "The will is the living principle of the world of
spirit, as motion is of the world of sense. I stand between two
opposite worlds; the one visible, in which the act alone avails; the
other invisible and incomprehensible, acted on only by the will. I
am an effective force in both these worlds."
Newton said that this subtle ether penetrates through all, even the
hardest bodies, and is concealed in their substance. Through the
strength and activity of this spirit, bodies attract each other, and
adhere together when brought into contact. In it, and by it, distance
is annihilated, and all objects touch each other. Through this "life
spirit" light also flows, and is refracted and reflected, and warms
bodies. Through it we are connected in sympathy with all other souls,
and all the objects of nature, even to all the heavenly bodies. The
word ether is from "aithô," to light up or kindle. According
to Pythagoras and all the oldest philosophers, it was viewed as a
divine luminous principle or substance, which permeates all things,
and, at the same time, contains all things. They called it the astral
light. The Germans call it the "Weltgeist," the breath of the Father,
the Holy Ghost, the life-principle.
The sheet-anchor of Keely's philosophy is, in the words of Hooker,
one power, ever present, ever ruling, neglecting not the least, not
quailing before the greatest: the lowest not excluded from its care,
nor the highest exempted from its dominion. A power that presents
itself to us as a force: the one force in nature, thrilling to
its deepest heart, and flowing forth responsive to every call. A
power which does all things, and assumes all forms; which has been
called electricity in the storm, heat in the fire, magnetism in
the iron bar, light in the taper, but ever one grand reality, one
all-embracing law. Cosmical law at the fountain-head, suggesting
that, as the Creator Himself is only one in substance, so also,
primarily, will the creation be, to which He awards existence. The
extreme simplicity of this deduction, made as it is in the face
of all the variety and multiplicity of individualized objects that
there are in the universe, seems to involve many difficulties. But,
as Macvicar writes, different beings, whether classes or individuals,
are known to us, not by any difference in their substance, but only
by differences in their attributes. And since being or substance,
and power or potentiality, differ from each other only in conception,
only as the statical differs from the dynamical, it is reasonable, nay,
in the circumstances it is alone legitimate, to suppose that it is not
in virtue of some absolute difference in substance (for none appears),
but only from differences in the quantity or intensity of substance
or power in the individual, and from the variety of their build,
that different individuals display such different potentialities or
endowments as they do display; and come to be justly classified as
they are into various orders of beings. Inasmuch as the Author of all
is Himself a Spiritual Being, cosmical law leads us to expect that
the type of created being shall be spirit also. Nor can Being in any
object be so attenuated or so far removed from Him who filleth all in
all, but it must surely retain an aura of the spiritual nature. This,
then, is the corner-stone of Keely's philosophy--one power; one law;
order and method reigning throughout creation; spirit controlling
matter; as the divine order and law of creation, that the spiritual
should govern the material,--that the whole realm of matter should
be under the dominion of the world of spirit.
When Keely's discovery has been made known to scientists, a new
field of research will be opened up in the realm of Philosophy, where
all eternal, physical, and metaphysical truths are correlated; for
Philosophy has been well defined by Willcox as the science of that
human thought which contains all human knowledges. He who possesses
the structure of philosophic wisdom built up of all knowledges--grand
and sublime--has a mental abode wherein to dwell which other men have
not. Dr. Macvicar says:--"The nearer we ascend to the fountain-head
of being and of action, the more magical must everything inevitably
become, for that fountain-head is pure volition. And pure volition,
as a cause, is precisely what is meant by magic; for by magic is
merely meant a mode of producing a phenomenon without mechanical
appliances--that is, without that seeming continuity of resisting
parts and that leverage which satisfy our muscular sense and
our imagination, and bring the phenomenon into the category of
what we call 'the natural'--that is, the sphere of the elastic,
the gravitating, the sphere into which the vis inertiæ is alone
admitted." In Keely's philosophy, as in Dr. Macvicar's "Sketch of a
Philosophy," the economy of creation is not regarded as a theory of
development all in one direction, which is the popular supposition,
but as a cycle in which, after development and as its fruit, the last
term gives again the first. Herein is found the link by which the
law of continuity is maintained throughout, and the cycle of things
is made to be complete:--the link which is missing in the popular
science of the day, with this very serious consequence, that, to
keep the break out of sight, the entire doctrine of spirit and the
spiritual world is ignored or denied altogether.
Joseph Cook affirms that, "as science progresses, it draws nearer
in all its forms to the proof of the spiritual origin of force--that
is, of the divine immanence in natural law. God was not transiently
present in nature--that is, in a mere creative moment; nor has He now
left the world in a state of orphanage, bereft of a deific influence
and care, but He is immanent in nature, as the Apostle Paul affirmed:
In Him we live, and are moved, and have our being; as certainly as
the unborn infant's life is that of the mother, so it is divinely
true that somehow God's life includes ours."
The philosophy of Keely sets forth the universal ether (denied by
scientists in the last century to suit their views of the celestial
spaces, which they declared to be a vacuum) as the medium by which our
lives are included in God's life; demonstrating how it is that we live
because He lives, and shall live as long as He exists: how our being
is comprised in His, so that if we could suppose the divine life to
come to an end, ours would terminate with it as surely--to compare
great things with small--as a stream would cease to flow when its
fountain is dried up; teaching that our existence may be distinct,
but never separate from His, and that in the hidden depth of the
soul there is somewhere a point where our individual being comes in
contact with God, and is identified with the infinite life.
"If extreme vicissitudes of belief on the part of men of science are
evidence of uncertainty, it may be affirmed that, of all kinds of
knowledge, none is more uncertain than science." The existence of the
universal ether is now affirmed again, and must be affirmed, as one
of the most elementary facts in physical science. Sir J. F. Herschel
asserts that, supposing the ether to be analogous to other elastic
media, an amount of it equal in quantity of matter to that which is
contained in a cubic inch of air (which weighs about one-third of a
grain), if enclosed in a cube of one inch in the side, would exert
a bursting power of upwards of seventeen billions of pounds on each
side of the cube, while common air exerts only fifteen pounds. It
should not, therefore, be surprising to those who have witnessed the
manifestations of etheric force, as exhibited by Keely in producing
a pressure ranging from 8000 to 30,000 pounds to the square inch,
when modern scientists support Herschel's views, as they do,
unhesitatingly; rather should they be surprised at the marvellous
perseverance which has kept Keely, in the face of every discouragement,
true to his inspired mission; conquering every difficulty, surmounting
every obstacle, and turning his mistakes into stepping-stones which
have helped him to attain the goal he has, from the start, aimed at
reaching--viz. the utilizing in mechanics of the power he discovered
many years ago. Before the grandeur and glory of such an attainment,
all things had to give way. Like a General who sees the fortress
looming up in the distance which he must take to complete his victory,
his horse's hoofs trampling the dead and dying in his path, so has
this discoverer and inventor been unmindful of all that lay between
him and his goal. Taking for the key-note of his experiments, in
applying inter-molecular vapour to the running of an engine, that all
the movements of elastic elements are rhythmical, he has had problems
to solve which needed the full measure of inspiration he has received
before he could attain that degree of success which he has now reached.
Mr. Keely realizes the full extent of the difficulties which he yet
has to contend with in obtaining continuity of action, though, with his
sanguine temperament, anticipating near and complete success. To quote
from his writings:--"The mathematics of vibratory etheric science,
both pure and applied, require long and arduous research. It seems to
me that no man's life is sufficient, with the most intense application,
to cover more than the introductory branch. The theory of elliptic
functions, the calculus of probabilities, are but as pigmies in
comparison to a science which requires the utmost tension of the
human mind to grasp. But let us wait patiently for the light that
will come--that is even now dawning."
All we can dream of loveliness within,
All ever hoped for by a will intense,
This shall one day be palpable to sense,
And earth at last become to heaven akin.
These four lines, from Robert Browning's sonnet on Keely's discoveries,
read like an inspired insight into that "Age of Harmony," which
interpreters of scripture prophecies anticipate the twentieth century
will usher into our world; recalling Shakespeare's seeming knowledge,
before Harvey's discovery even, of the circulation of the blood. "All
truth is inspired."
CHAPTER VII.
THE KEY TO THE PROBLEMS. KEELY'S SECRETS.
Causa latet, vis est notissima.--Proverb.
(The cause is hidden, the power is most apparent.)
Electricity is in principle as material as water; so it
appears, and Mr. Carl Hering has expressed the fact with
much of clearness and force. He says, "It is a well-known
fact that the quantity of electricity measured in coulombs
never is generated, never is consumed, and never does grow
less, excepting leakage. The current flowing out of a lamp is
exactly the same in quantity as that going into it; the same
is true of motors and of generators, showing that electricity
of itself is neither consumed while doing work nor is it
generated. After doing work in a lamp or motor, it comes
out in precisely the same quantity as it entered. A battery
is not able to generate quantity or coulombs of electricity;
all it is able to do is to take the quantity which pours in at
one pole, and sends out at the other pole with an increased
pressure. Electricity, therefore, is not merely force (or
a form of energy), but matter. It is precisely analogous to
water in a water circuit....--The Court Journal.
The theory of Aristotle concerning heat, viz. that it is a condition of
matter, together with the dicta of Locke, Davy, Rumford, and Tyndall,
have been consigned of late by many to the tomb of exploded theories,
and are replaced by those of Lavoisier and Black, which make caloric an
actual substance. The Rev. J. J. Smith, M.A., D.D., tells us that the
only way the great problem of the universe can ever be scientifically
solved is by studying, and arriving at just conclusions with regard
to, the true nature and character of force. He maintains, in his
paper upon "The Unity and Origin of Force," that, as it is the great
organizer of matter, it must not only be superior to it, but also
must have been prior, as it existed before organization commenced,
and immanent always. Newton, who scoffed at Epicurus's idea that
"gravitation is essential and inherent in matter," asserted that
gravity must be caused by an agent acting, constantly, according to
certain laws. Heat, gravity, light, electricity, magnetism, chemical
affinities, are all different phases of the primal force discovered by
Keely, and all these forces, it is said, can be obtained from a single
ray of sunlight. "The evidence of unity or oneness even between the
physical, vital, mental, and spiritual is seen in the light of this law
of correlation," says Smith. "A great portion of our muscles contract
and relax in obedience to our wills, thereby proving that the mental
force can be, and is, in every such instance actually converted into
the muscular or the physical." Keely demonstrates the truth of this
assertion, claiming that "all forces are indestructible, immaterial,
and homogeneous entities, having their origin and unity in one great
intelligent personal will force."
The Duke of Argyll says:--"We know nothing of the ultimate seat of
force. Science, in the modern doctrine of conservation of energy,
and the convertibility of forces, is already getting something
like a firm hold of the idea that all kinds of forces are but
forms or manifestations of some one central force, issuing from
some one fountain-head of power." It is Keely's province to prove to
materialists--to the world--that this one fountain-head is none other
than the Omnipotent and all-pervading Will-Force of the Almighty,
"which upholds, guides, and governs, not only our world, but the
entire universe. This important truth is destined to shiver the
tottering fabric of materialism into fragments at no distant day."
Professor George Bush writes:--"The progress of scientific research, at
the present day, has distinguished itself not less by the wideness of
the field over which its triumphs have spread, than by the soundness
and certainty of the inductions by which it is sustained. It is
equally indisputable that we are approximating the true philosophy
which underlies the enlarged and enlarging spiritual experiences and
phenomena of the current age. That this philosophy, when reached,
will conduct us into the realm of the spiritual as the true region of
causes, and disclose new and unthought-of relations between the world
of matter and of mind, is doubtless a very reasonable anticipation,
and one that even now is widely, though vaguely, entertained."
The Egyptians worshipped Ra, their name for the sun, and Ammon,
the emblem of a mysterious power concealed from human perception. The
Supreme Being is the grand central spiritual sun, the source and centre
of all life, "whose revelation is traced in imperishable figures
of universal harmony on the face of Cosmos." "The outward visible
world is but the clothing of the invisible," wrote Coleridge. "The
whole world process, in its content," says von Hartmann, "is only a
logical process; but in its existence a continued act of will." Lilly
continues, "That is what physical law means. Reason and Will are
inseparably united in the universe, as they are in idea. If we will
anything, it is for some reason. In contemplating the structure of the
universe, we cannot resist the conclusion that the whole is founded
upon a distinct idea."
Keely demonstrates the harmony of this "distinct idea" throughout
creation, and shows us that "the sun is the visible effluence and
agent, earthward, of the Being without whose prior design and decree
there would be no order and no systematic rule on earth," as well
as that in "the universal ether" we find the link between mind and
matter. "There is more of heaven than of earth, in all terrestrial
things; more of spirit than of matter in what are termed material
laws." Lange, with prophetic tongue, says that this age of materialism
may prove to be but the stillness before the storm which bursts from
unknown gulfs to give a new shape to the world. Inch by inch, step by
step, physical science has marched towards its desired goal--the verge
of physical nature, says Alcott. When it was thought that the verge
was reached, that the mysteries which lay beyond were for ever barred
to mortals by the iron gate of death, then the discoveries of Faraday,
Edison, and Crookes pushed further away the chasm which separates the
confessedly knowable from the fancied unknowable, and whole domains
previously undreamt of were suddenly exposed to view. Not long since,
Canon Wilberforce asked Keely what would become of his discovery and
his inventions in case of his death before they became of commercial
value to the public. Keely replied that he had written thousands of
pages, which he hoped would, in such an event, be mastered by some
mind capable of pursuing his researches to practical ends; but in
the opinion of the writer, there is no man living who is fitted for
this work.
Diogenes of Apollonia identified the reason that regulated the world
with the original substance, air. Keely teaches that "the original
substance" is ether, not air; and that the world is regulated through
this ether by its Creator. There are many molecules which contain no
air--not one molecule that does not contain the one true "original
substance," ether.
Up to 1888 Keely was still pursuing the wrong line of research, still
trying to construct an engine which could hold the ether in "a rotating
circle of etheric force;" still ignorant of the impossibility of ever
reaching commercial success on that line. It was the end of the year
before he could be brought to entirely abandon his "perfect engine;"
and to confine himself to researches, which he had been pursuing
in connection with his repeated failures on the commercial line,
to gain more knowledge of the laws which govern the operation of the
force that, like a "Will-o'-the-wisp," seemed to delight in leading
him astray.
Up to this time his researching devices had been principally of his own
construction; but from the time that he devoted himself to the line
of research, marked out for him to follow, he was supplied with the
best instruments that opticians could make for him after the models
or designs which he furnished. If, from 1882 to 1888, he walked with
giant strides along the borders of the domain that he had entered,
from 1888 to the present time he has made the same progress beyond its
borders. From the hour in which he grasped "the key to the problem,"
the "principle underlying all," the dawn of "a new order of things,"
broke upon his vision, and he was no longer left at the mercy of the
genii whom he had aroused.
In July, 1888, the T.P.S. published the succeeding paper, which had
a wide circulation.
KEELY'S SECRETS. 1888.
Part I.
Science is to know things.--Herodotus.
Knowledge is developed by experience from innate ideas.--Plato.
Truth is not attained through reflection, but through immediate
intuition. "We neither originate thought nor its form.--Aryan
Teachings.
It may be said that if all things come from only one cause or
internal source, acting within itself, then motion and matter
must be fundamentally and essentially one and the same, and
we may look upon matter as being latent force and upon force
as being free matter.--Franz Hartmann, M.D.
John Worrell Keely--the discoverer of compound inter-etheric force,
as the result of more than twenty years of persistent effort to apply
this force to the operation of machinery has, at last, been enabled
to produce partial continuity of motion in his engine; but, up to
this time, he has not so mastered this subtle force as to control
reversions. The development of his various discoveries has been one
uninterrupted work of evolution, reaching, within the last year, he
thinks, the sphere of perfect vibratory sympathy, both theoretically
and practically. The proof of this is found in the fact that he now
transmits vibrations along a wire, connected at one end with the
vibratory machine which is the source of power, and at its other end
with the engine or cannon, as the case may be, which is operated by
such vibratory power. Until recently, comparatively speaking, Keely
stored force, as he generated it, in a receiver; and experiments were
made by him in the presence of thousands, at various times, for the
purpose of testing the operations of this force, liberated in the
presence of his audience and stored up in this small receiver. The
editor of the Scientific Arena thus describes what took place at one
of these exhibitions, when he was present:--"The confined vapour was
passed through one of the small flexible tubes to a steel cylinder
on another table, in which a vertical piston was fitted so that its
upper end bore against the underside of a powerful, weighted lever. The
superficial area of this piston was equal to one-half of a square inch,
and it acted as a movable fulcrum placed close to the hinged end of
the short arm of this lever, whose weight alone required a pressure
of 1500 pounds to the square inch against the piston to lift it.
"After testing the pressure by several small weights, added to that
of the lever itself, in order, to determine how much power had already
been accumulated in the receiver, the maximum test was made by placing
an iron weight of 580 pounds, by means of a differential pulley, on the
extreme end of the long arm of the lever. To lift this weight, without
that of the lever supporting it, would require a pressure against the
piston of 18,900 pounds to the square inch, counting the difference
in the length of the two arms and the area of the piston, which we,
as well as several others present, accurately calculated. When all was
ready, and the crowded gathering had formed as well as possible to see
the test, Keely turned the valve-wheel leading from the receiver to
the flexible tube, and through it into the steel cylinder beneath the
piston, and simultaneously with the motion of his hand the weighted
lever shot up against its stop, a distance of several inches, as if
the great mass of iron had been only cork. Then, in order to assure
ourselves of the full 25,000 pounds to the square inch claimed, we
added most of our weight to the arm of the lever without forcing the
piston back again.
"After repeating this experiment till all expressed themselves
satisfied, Keely diverted his etheric gas to the exciting work of
firing a cannon, into which he placed a leaden bullet about an inch
in diameter. He conveyed the force from the receiver by the same
kind of flexible copper tube, attaching one end of it to the breech
of the gun. When all was again in readiness he gave a quick turn to
the inlet valve, and a report like that of a small cannon followed,
the ball passing through an inch board and flattening itself out
to about three inches in diameter, showing the marvellous power and
instantaneous action of this strange vapour."
The difficulty encountered by Keely in his old generator of etheric
force grew out of the fact, in part, that the vaporic power produced
was so humid that he could not, when he attempted to utilize it, obtain
its theoretical value in work. This difficulty has been entirely
overcome by dispensing with the water which he used in liberating
etheric force, by his old generator; and, by this departure, he has
attained a success beyond that which was anticipated by himself,
when he abandoned his original line of experiment. [4]
Ignorant, indeed, of the nature of Keely's work must those men be
who accuse him of "abandoning his base" or "principle," each time
that he discovers his mistakes:--using them as stepping-stones to
approach nearer and still nearer to his goal. Reproaching him, even,
for keeping his own counsel, until certainty of success rendered
it prudent for him to make known that he had changed his field of
experiment from positive attraction to negative attraction.
Equally ignorant are those, who would wrench by force his secrets
from him before the time is ripe for their disclosure. Let us suppose
that Faraday, when he discovered radiant matter in 1816, had formed a
"Faraday Phospho-Genetic Radiant Company," to enable him to experiment:
fully cognizant of all that Crookes has since discovered, and had
taken for his base in experimenting the principle involved in Crookes's
discovery. Not succeeding at first, we will suppose that the Company
became clamorous for returns, and demanded that his secret principle
should be made public. Had he been driven into making it known, who
would have credited what Crookes is now able to prove? The effect
would have been upon the Faraday Company the same as if a balloon were
punctured just as it was soaring heavenward. The same with the Keely
Motor Company, had Keely obeyed the order of the Court in 1882, and
made his marvellous secret public. It would have collapsed. Therefore,
he has maintained his secret in the interests of the stockholders
of the Keely Motor Company with a firmness worthy of a Christian
martyr. The one person to whom alone Keely then disclosed it thought
him under a delusion, until he had demonstrated its soundness.
Charles B. Collier, Keely's patent lawyer, writes as follows,
concerning the difficulties attendant upon "the supposed duty" of
his client's imparting his "secrets," as ordered by the Court to do,
some time since:--
"If to-day, for the first time in your lives, you saw a harp, attuned
and being played upon, and the science of music was unknown to you,
you would hardly expect, without considerable time and study, to be
able to reproduce the harp, attune its strings in proper relation to
each other, and to play upon it so as to produce the harmonies which
you had listened to. Mr. Keely's work is analogous to the illustration
which I have presented, inasmuch as he is dealing with the subject
of sound, or acoustics, but in a much more involved form than as
applied simply for the production of harmonies for the delight of
the ear. Mr. Keely's engine is analogous to the mechanism of the
human ear, in the respect that it is a structure operated upon,
and its motion induced by vibration; and to the end of securing and
attaining, in and by it, uniformity or regularity of motion, there
must be perfect unison, or synchronism, as between it and his structure
which is the prime source of vibration. To attain this perfect unison
or synchronism, has involved unparalleled research and experiment
upon his part--experiments that have varied from day to day. No one,
in my opinion, who had not stood by his side, as his shadow, watching
every experiment, could have kept fully abreast of him. To pursue my
simile, I may say that his harp (engine) is not yet perfectly attuned
("graduated"); when it is so, it will produce nothing but harmony
(regularity of motion), and his work will be finished.
"At such time, I doubt not that he will be able to give to Mr. Boekel,
myself or another, the scale with which to reconstruct and attune
another apparatus so as to produce like results with it; but to go
over the ground that he has gone over, to explore the wilderness in
which he has been the pioneer, in other words, the study, to a full
understanding of them, of his experiments and researches, as recorded
in his writings and illustrated in the beautiful charts which he has
produced, will be a work rather for scientists than for mechanicians
or engineers."
Keely's "Theoretical Exposé" is in preparation for the press; and, when
these volumes are issued, we may look for a change of attitude towards
him in all men who hold themselves "ready to abandon, preconceived
notions, however cherished, if they be found to contradict truths;"
which, Herbert Spencer says, is the first condition of success
in scientific research. The Rev. J. J. Smith, M.A., D.D., tells
us that the only way the great problem of the universe can ever be
scientifically solved is by studying, and arriving at just conclusions
with regard to the true nature and character of force. This has
been Mr. Keely's life study; and he is able to demonstrate all that
he asserts.
Laurence Oliphant writes: "Recent scientific research has proved
conclusively that all force is atomic--that electricity consists
of files of particles, and that the interstellar spaces contain
substances, whether it be called ether or astral fluid (or by any
other name), which is composed of atoms, because it is not possible
to dissever force from its transmitting medium. The whole universe,
therefore, and all that it contains, consists of matter in motion,
and is animated by a vital principle which we call God.
"Science has further discovered that these atoms are severally
encompassed by an ethereal substance which prevents their touching
each other, and to this circumambient, inter-atomic element they have
given the name of dynasphere; but, inasmuch as has further been found,
that in these dynaspheres there resides a tremendous potency, it is
evident that they also must contain atoms, and that these atoms must in
their turn be surrounded by dynaspheres, which again contain atoms, and
so on ad infinitum. Matter thus becomes infinite and indestructible,
and the force which pervades it persistent and everlasting.
"This dynaspheric force, which is also called etheric, is conditioned
as to its nature on the quality of the atoms which form its
transmitting media; and which are infinite both in variety and in
their combinations. They may, however, be broadly divided into two
categories; viz. the sentient and the non-sentient atoms. Dynaspheric
force, composed of non-sentient atoms, is the force that has been
already mechanically applied by Mr. Keely to his motor; and which will
probably ere long supersede the agencies now used for locomotive,
projectile, and other purposes. When the laws which govern it come
to be understood, it will produce materially a great commercial and
industrial revolution....
"The most remarkable illustration of the stupendous energy of
atomic vibratory force is to be found in that singular apparatus in
Philadelphia--which for the last fifteen years has excited in turn the
amazement, the scepticism, the admiration, and the ridicule of those
who have examined it--called 'Keely's Motor'" ... "In the practical
land of its origin, it has popularly been esteemed a fraud. I have
not examined it personally, but I believe it to be based upon a sound
principle of dynamics, and to be probably the first of a series of
discoveries destined to revolutionize all existing mechanical theories,
and many of the principles upon which they are founded." ... "Those
who are sufficiently unprejudiced to connect the bearings of this
discovery, of what must be dynaspheric force, with phenomena which
have hitherto been regarded as supernatural by the ignorant, will
perceive how rapidly we are bridging over the chasm which has divided
the seen from the unseen."...
In 1882 a lady, conversing with Mr. Keely, said, "You have opened the
door into the spirit-world." He answered, "Do you think so? I have
sometimes thought I might be able to discover the origin of life." At
this time Mr. Keely had given no attention whatever to the occult
bearing of his discovery; and it was only after he had pursued his
researches, under the advantages which his small Liberator afforded
him for such experiments, that he realized the truth of this woman's
assertion. It was then, in 1887, that a "bridge of mist" formed itself
before him, connecting the laws which govern physical science with the
laws which govern spiritual science, and year by year this bridge of
mist has solidified, until now he is in a position to stand upon it,
and proclaim that its abutments have a solid foundation--one resting
in the material and visible world, and the other in the spiritual
and unseen world; or, rather, that no bridge is needed to connect
the two worlds, one law governing both in its needed modifications.
"The physical thing," writes a modern scientist, "which energizes
and does work in and upon ordinary matter, is a separate form of
matter, infinitely refined, and infinitely rapid in its vibrations,
and is thus able to penetrate through all ordinary matter, and to make
everywhere a fountain of motion, no less real because unseen. It is
among the atoms of the crystal and the molecules of living matter;
and, whether producing locked effects or free, it is the same cosmic
thing, matter in motion, which we conceive as material energy, and
with difficulty think of as only a peculiar form of matter in motion."
The President of the British Association, Sir Henry Roscoe, in his
address before that body, said: "In nature there is no such thing
as great or small; the structure of the smallest particle, invisible
even to our most searching vision, may be as complicated as that of
any of the heavenly bodies which circle round our sun." As to the
indivisibility of the atom, he asks this question: "Notwithstanding
the properties of these elements have been studied, and are now
known with a degree of precision formerly undreamt of, have the
atoms of our present elements been made to yield?" He continues:
"A negative answer must undoubtedly be given, for even the highest
of terrestrial temperatures, that of the electric spark, has failed
to shake any one of these atoms in two."
This is an error, for it is well known by those who are fully
acquainted with the principle involved in Keely's inventions that
the intense vibratory action which is induced in his "Liberator"
has accomplished what the retort of the chemist has failed to do,
what the electric spark has left intact, and what the inconceivably
fierce temperature of the sun and of volcanic fires has turned over to
us unscathed. The mighty Genii imprisoned within the molecule, thus
released from the chains and fetters which Nature forged, has been
for years the tyrant of the one who rashly intruded, without first
paving the way with the gold which he has since been accused of using
in experiments with reckless and wanton waste! For more than a score
of years has Keely been fighting a hand-to-hand fight with this Genii;
often beaten back by it, paralyzed at times, even, by its monstrous
blows; and only now so approaching its subjugation as to make it safe
to harness it for the work that is calling for a power mightier than
steam, safer and more uniform in operation than electricity; a power
which, by its might and beneficence, will ameliorate the condition
of the masses, and reconcile and solve all that now menaces our race:
as it was never menaced before, as has been said.
The structure of the air molecule, as believed in by Keely, is as
follows:--Broken up, by vibratory action, he finds it to contain what
he calls an atomic triplet. The position of a molecule, on the point
of a fine cambric needle sustains the same relation to the point of
the needle that a grain of sand sustains to a field of ten acres.
Although, as Sir H. Roscoe has said, "In nature there is no such thing
as great or small," the human mind cannot conceive such infinitesimal
minuteness. We will, then, imagine a molecule magnified to the size
of a billiard ball, and the atomic triplet magnified to the size
of three marbles, in the triangular position, within that molecule,
at its centre; unless acted upon by electricity, when the molecule,
the billiard ball, becomes oblate, and the three atoms are ranged
in a line within, unless broken up by the mighty force of vibratory
action. Nature never gives us a vacuum; consequently, the space within
the molecule not occupied by the atomic triplet must e filled with
something. This is where the Genii--"the all-pervading ether"--has
made its secret abode through untold æons, during which our world
has been in course of preparation for its release, to fulfil its
appointed task in advancing the progress of the human race.
Step by step, with a patient perseverance which some day the world
will honour, this man of genius has made his researches, overcoming
the colossal difficulties which have raised up in his path what
seemed to be insurmountable barriers to further progress: but never
before has the world's index finger so pointed to an hour when all
is making ready for the advent of the new form of force that mankind
is waiting for. Nature, always reluctant to yield her secrets, is
listening to the demands made upon her by her master, necessity. The
coal mines of the world cannot long afford the increasing drain made
upon them. Steam has reached its utmost limits of power, and does
not fulfil the requirements of the age. Electricity holds back, with
bated breath, dependent upon the approach of her sister colleague. Air
ships are riding at anchor, as it were, waiting for the force which
is to make aerial navigation something more than a dream. As easily
as men communicate with their offices from their homes by means of
the telephone, so will the inhabitants of separate continents talk
across the ocean. Imagination is palsied when seeking to foresee the
grand results of this marvellous discovery when once it is applied
to art and mechanics. In taking the throne which it will force steam
to abdicate, dynaspheric force will rule the world with a power so
mighty in the interests of civilization, that no finite mind can
conjecture the results.
In 1746, when Franklin's attention was drawn to the phenomena of
electricity, little more was known on the subject than Thales had
announced two thousand years before. Von Kleist in Leyden, Collinson
in London, and others in as widely-separated cities in Europe, were
experimenting in the same field of research. What our last century
has done toward subduing this tyrant which Franklin succeeded in
bringing down to earth, from the clouds, the next century will see
surpassed beyond man's wildest conjectures, should Keely's utilization
of this unknown force of nature bestow upon humanity the costless
motive power, which he anticipates it will. Reynolds predicted that
those who "studied the mysteries of molecular vibration would win the
victorious wreaths of successful discovery." After such discoveries
as Mr. Keely has made in this field of research, it matters not to
him whether he succeeds commercially or not. His work of discovery
commenced when, as a boy of twelve, he held the sea-shells to his
ear as he walked the shore and noted that no two gave forth the
same tone. From the construction of his first crude instrument,
his work of evolution progressed slowly for years; but within the
last five years he has made giant strides towards the "Dark Tower"
which is his last fortress to take. When he is ready, "Dauntless the
slug-horn to his lips" he will set; and the world will hear the blast,
and awaken from its slumber into new life.
Molecular vibration is thus seen to be Keely's legitimate field of
research; but more than once has he had to tear down portions of
the vibratory scaffolding which aided him in the building up of his
edifice of philosophy; therefore, he is ever ready to admit that
some of the present scaffolding may have to be removed. The charge
of "abandoning his base," recently brought against him by one of
the editors of The New York Times, could only have been made by one
who is utterly ignorant of the subject upon which he writes. Under
the heading "A Cool Confession," this editor asserts that Keely has
"given up the Keely Motor as a bad job," and that he admits that he
is a "bogus inventor" and a "fraud." This is not true.
What Keely does admit is that, baffled in applying vibratory force to
mechanics, upon his first and second lines of experimental research,
he was obliged either to confess a commercial failure, or to try a
third departure from his base or principle; seeking success through
another channel of experiment. While experimenting upon this third
line, until his efforts were crowned with success, he kept his secret
from all men; with the approbation of the one who furnished the money
for these experiments. There is a time when silence is golden; and the
charge made by the same editor that Keely had been "receiving money
from the Keely Motor Company on false pretences from the time that
he abandoned his original plans," could only have been made by one
who knows nothing of the facts of the case: for years have passed
away since the Keely Motor Company broke its contract with him,
and since it has furnished him with any money for his experiments.
But let Keely speak for himself in reference to his work:--
"In considering the operation of my engine, the visitor, in order to
have even an approximate conception of its modus operandi, must discard
all thought of engines that are operated upon the principle of pressure
and exhaustion, by the expansion of steam or other analogous gas which
impinges upon an abutment, such as the piston of a steam-engine. My
engine has neither piston nor eccentrics, nor is there one grain of
pressure exerted in the engine, whatever may be the size or capacity
of it.
"My system, in every part and detail, both in the developing of this
power and in every branch of its utilization, is based and founded
on sympathetic vibration. In no other way would it be possible to
awaken or develop this force, and equally impossible would it be to
operate my engine upon any other principle.
"All that remains to be done is to secure a uniform speed under
different velocities and control reversions. That I shall accomplish
this is absolutely certain. Some few years ago, I contemplated using
a wire as a connective link between two sympathetic mediums, to
evolve this power as also to operate my machinery--instead of tubular
connections as heretofore employed--I have only recently succeeded in
accomplishing successfully such change. This, however, is the true
system; and henceforth all my operations will be conducted in this
manner--that is to say, the power will be generated, my engines run,
my cannon operated, through a wire.
"It has been only after years of incessant labour, and the making of
almost innumerable experiments, involving not only the construction
of a great many most peculiar mechanical structures, and the closest
investigation and study of the phenomenal properties of the substance
"ether," per se, produced, that I have been able to dispense with
complicated mechanism, and to obtain, as I claim, mastery over the
subtle and strange force with which I am dealing.
"When my present process of adjustment is completed, the force, the
mechanism, and all that pertains to it, will be fully explained in a
theoretical exposition of the subject, with appropriate diagrams, which
I shall publish to the world; through which medium, and my patents,
when taken out, a knowledge of all that is required for its commercial
employment will be more easily acquired than is the necessary skill
required to enable one to safely operate a steam-engine.
"The power will be adapted to engines of all sizes and capacities,
as well to an engine capable of propelling the largest ship as to one
that will operate a sewing machine. Equally well and certain is it that
it will be adapted as a projectile force for guns and cannons of all
sizes, from the ordinary shoulder-piece to the heaviest artillery."....
When Keely obtained continuity of motion (for a time) in his engine
he thought that his last difficulty had been overcome: but, up to
the present time, he has not succeeded in governing its speed nor in
controlling reversions. He has, however, again reduced in size the
instrument with which he produces the force. From 1882 to 1884 the
"Generator" was a structure six feet long and correspondingly wide and
high; but, failing in his attempt to make an automatic arrangement
upon which its usefulness in mechanics depended, Keely found a
new standard for research in an experiment often made by himself,
but never before successful, which resulted in the production of
a machine in 1885 which he named a "Liberator"--not so large as a
lady's small round work-table. Continuing his labour of evolution
Keely within one year made such astonishing progress, from experiments
with this beautiful piece of vibratory mechanism, as to combine the
production of the power, and the operation of his cannon, his engine
and his disintegrator in a machine no larger than a dinner plate, and
only three or four inches in thickness. This instrument was completed
in 1886, up to which time his experiments had been conducted upon a
principle of sympathetic vibration, for the purpose of liberating a
vapoury or etheric product. His later experiments have been confined
to another modification of vibratory sympathy; and the size of the
instrument used now, '88, for the same purposes is no larger than an
old-fashioned silver watch, such as we see in Museum collections. The
raising of a lever with an apparent uplifting expansive force of
between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds to the square inch, the running of
the engine, the firing of the cannon, are conducted without one ounce
of pressure in any part of the apparatus, and without the production
or presence of what has been known as Keely's ether. The force is now
transmitted along a wire (of platinum and silver), and when the lever
is lowered there is no exhaustion, into the atmosphere of the room,
of any up-lifting vapour, as was always the case when the ether was
used in this experiment; nor is there any vapour impinging upon the
piston under the lever to raise it.
Keely has named this new modification of the one force in nature
"Negative Attraction," which to the uninitiated does not suggest as
much as it would had he called it "Negative Humbug."
The two forms of force which he has been experimenting with, and the
phenomena attending them, are the very antithesis of each other. Keely
does not feel the shadow of a doubt as to his eventual success in
producing engines of varying capacities; small enough, on the one hand,
to operate sewing machines with, and large enough, on the other hand,
to propel the largest ships that plough the seas. Every fact and
feature surrounding the case warrants the belief, notwithstanding the
incredulity of all who have not witnessed the progress of Mr. Keely,
step by step, that his success will be complete, and his work stand
as the most colossal example of the survival of the fittest, in
the process of inventive evolution. Cox says: "Not one of the great
facts which science now accepts as incontrovertible truths but was
vehemently denied by the scientists of its time:--declared to be a
priori impossible, its discoverers and supporters denounced as fools
or charlatans, and even investigation of it refused as being a waste of
time and thought." "History repeats itself," and Amiel's definition of
science gives the key to the incredulity of scientists in reference
to Mr. Keely's discovery; for if, as Amiel has said, "science is
a lucid madness occupied with tabulating its own hallucinations,"
it is not strange that men of science should refuse to investigate
what they consider the hallucinations of others.
It is an undisputed fact that "too much has been conceded to science,
too little to those sublime laws which make science possible." But
the one law which regulates creation, and to which all other laws
are made subservient, keeping in harmony the systems upon systems
of worlds throughout space, developing sound and colour, animal and
vegetable growth, the crystallization of minerals, is the hidden law,
which develops every natural science throughout the universe; and which
both Kepler and Newton anticipated would be revealed in our age. "You
can even trace the poles in sound," writes Mrs. F. J. Hughes, in her
work upon the "Evolution of Tones and Colours." The experiments made
by Mrs. Watts Hughes, at the annual Reception of the Royal Society,
and the [5]Pendulograph writings by Andrew of Belfast, have a bearing
upon Keely's discovery; illustrating the workings of this hidden law
of nature.
Of the law of periodicity, Hartmann writes: "Its actions have long
ago been known to exist in the vibrations producing light and sound,
and it has been recognized in chemistry by experiments tending to
prove that all so-called simple elements are only various states of
vibration of one primordial element, manifesting itself in seven
principal modes of action, each of which may be subdivided into
seven again. The difference which exists between so-called single
substances appears, therefore, to be no difference of substance
or matter, but only a difference of the function of matter in the
ratio of its atomic vibration." It is by changing the vibrations of
cosmic ether that Mr. Keely releases this energy, and Dr. Kellner in
Austria produces electricity in the same way; while it is said that
a chemist in Prague produces magnetism; also Dr. Dupuy, of New York,
who has been for years experimenting in this field without meeting
with Keely's progressive successes.
Horace Wemyss Smith, in commenting upon the fact that, at the time
of Franklin's discovery, men in France, in Belgium, in Holland,
and in Germany were pursuing the same line of experiment, says that
there is something worthy of observation in the progress of science
and human genius, inasmuch as in countries far distant from each
other men have fallen into the same tracks, and have made similar
and corresponding discoveries, at the same period of time, without
the least communication with each other.
Laurence Oliphant's recent works give us the clue to an explanation
of this fact; and Lowe, in his "Fragments of Physiology," condenses
the answer in these words: "Man is not the governor and commander of
the created world; and were it not for superhuman influence constantly
flowing into created forms, the world would perish in a moment."
There are men in various parts of the world, unknown even by name to
each other, who tell us by "the signs of the times" that the season
of harvesting is approaching; the season for gathering the fruit,
which has been deferred, century after century, because mankind is not
yet ready, in the opinion of many, to share the fruit with one another.
It has been said that when Keely's vibratory force shall have taken
the place of steam-engines, the millions of working men who gain with
difficulty their daily bread by the work of their hands, will find
themselves without occupation. The same prediction was made in regard
to steam, but instead we find the city of Boston giving work to thirty
thousand men in one manufactory of boots and shoes by steam, in place
of the three thousand shoemakers who were all that were occupied in
this branch of labour in that city when the work was done by hand.
Dr. Kellner's colleague, Franz Hartmann, M.D., writing in reference
to Keely's discovery, says: "I have taken great interest in him ever
since I first heard of him in 1882. As gaslight has driven away,
in part, the smoky petroleum lamp, and is about to be displaced
by electricity, which in the course of time may be supplanted by
magnetism, and as the power of steam has caused muscular labour to
disappear to a certain extent, and will itself give way before the
new vibratory force of Keely, likewise the orthodox medical quackery
that now prevails will be dethroned by the employment of the finer
forces of nature, such as light, electricity, magnetism, etc."
When the time is ripe, these are of the true scientists who will
come to the front "to lead as progress leads," men who know how to
wait upon God, viz., to work while waiting; and to such the end is,
sooner or later, victory! "God never hurries." He counts the centuries
as we count the seconds, and the nearer we approach to the least
comprehension of His "underlying purpose" the more we become like
Tolstoi's labourer, who knew that the fruit was ripening for him
and his fellow-men, trusting implicitly in the superior wisdom of
his master.
No man, whose spiritual eyes have been opened to "discern the signs
of the times," can doubt that we are on the eve of revelations which
are to usher in the dawn of a brighter day than our race has yet
known; and no prophecy of this brighter day, foretold by prophets,
apostles, and inspired poets, was ever made in truer strains than in
these glorious lines of Elizabeth Barrett Browning:--
Verily many thinkers of this age,
Aye, many Christian teachers, half in heaven,
Are wrong in just my sense who understood
Our natural world too insularly, as if
No spiritual counterpart completed it,
Consummating its meaning, rounding all
To justice and perfection, line by line,
Form by form, nothing single nor alone;
The Great Below clenched by the Great Above.
Part II.
One Phase of Keely's Discovery in its Relations to the Cure or Disease.
I know medicine is called a science. It is nothing like a
science. It is a great humbug! Doctors are mere empirics when
they are not charlatans. We are as ignorant as men can be. Who
knows anything in the world about medicine? Gentlemen, you
have done me the honour to come here to attend my lectures,
and I must tell you now, frankly, in the beginning, that I
know nothing about medicine, nor do I know anyone who does
know anything about it. Nature does a great deal, imagination
does a great deal, doctors do devilish little when they do
not do harm. Sick people always feel they are neglected,
unless they are well drugged, les imbéciles!
Professor Magendie (before the students of his class in
"The Allopathic College of Paris").
In the year 1871, the writer was sent from Paris to Schwalbach, by
Dr. Beylard, and recommended to the care of Dr. Adolph Genth. She said
to the physician, "I wish for your opinion and your advice, if you
can give it to me without giving me any medicine." He replied, "With
all my heart, madam; and I wish to God there were more women like you,
but we should soon lose most of our patients if we did not dose them."
This is a terrible excuse for the use of those agencies which Dr. John
Good says have sent more human beings to their graves than war,
pestilence and famine combined. Keely holds the opinion that Nature
works under the one law of Compensation and Equilibrium--the law of
Harmony; and that when disease indicates the disturbance of this law
Nature at once seeks to banish the disease by restoring equilibrium,
He seeks to render assistance on the same plan; replacing grossly
material agencies by the finer forces of nature; as has been so
successfully done by Dr. Pancoast and Dr. Babbitt in America.
"Nature," says Dr. Pancoast, author of The True Science of Light,
"works by antagonism in all her operations: when one of her forces
overdoes its work, disease, or at least a local disorder, is the
immediate consequence; now, if we attack this force, and overcome it,
the opposite force has a clear field and may re-assert its rights--thus
equilibrium is restored, and Equilibrium is health. The Sympathetic
System, instead of attacking the stronger force, sends recruits to
the weaker one, and enables it to recover its powers; or, if the
disorder be the result of excessive tension of Nerves or Ganglia,
a negative remedy may be employed to reduce the tension. Thus, too,
equilibrium is restored."
Dr. Hartmann writes:--
Mr. Keely is perfectly right in saying that 'all disease is a
disturbance of the equilibrium between positive and negative
forces.' In my opinion, no doctor ever cured any disease. All he
can possibly do is to establish conditions under which the patient
(or nature) may cure himself.
If you enter the field of therapeutics and medicine, we find a
decided fermentation of new ideas; not among the fossil specimens of
antediluvian quackery, but among those who are called "irregulars,"
because they have the courage to depart from the tracks trodden out
by their predecessors. The more intelligent classes of physicians
have long ago realized the fact that drugs and medicines are
perfectly useless, excepting in cases where diseases can be traced
to some mechanical obstruction, in some organ that may be reached
by mechanical action. In all other cases our best physicians have
become agnostics, leaving nature to have her own way, and observing
the expectative method, which, in fact, is no method of cure at all,
but merely consists in doing no harm to the patient. Recently,
however, light, electricity, and magnetism have been employed;
so that even in the medical guild the finer forces of nature are
taking the place of grossly material, and therefore injurious
substances. The time is probably near when these finer forces
will be employed universally. Everybody knows that a note struck
upon an instrument will produce sound in a correspondingly attuned
instrument in its vicinity. If connected with a tuning fork, it will
produce a corresponding sound in the latter; and if connected with
a thousand such tuning forks, it will make all the thousand sound,
and produce a noise far greater than the original sound, without the
latter becoming any weaker for it. Here, then, is an augmentation or
multiplication of power. If we had any means to transform sound again
into mechanical motion, we would have a thousand-fold multiplication
of mechanical motion. It would be presumptuous to say that it will
not be as easy for the scientists of the future to transform sound
into mechanical motion, as it is for the scientist of the present to
transform heat into electricity. Perhaps Mr. Keely has already solved
the problem. There is a fair prospect that in the very near future,
we shall have, in his ethereal force, a power far surpassing that
of steam or electricity. Nor does the idea seem to be Utopian if
we remember that modern science heretofore only knew the law of the
conservation of energy; while to the scientist of the future the law
of the augmentation of energy will be unveiled.... As the age which
has passed away has been the age of steam, the coming era will be
the age of induction. There will be a universal rising up of lower
vibrations into higher ones, in the realm of motion. Mr. Keely will,
perhaps, transform sound into mechanical motion by applying the law
of augmentation and multiplication of force."...
Keely, writing on brain disturbance, says, In considering the mental
forces as associated with the physical, I find, by my past researches,
that the convolutions which exist in the cerebral field are entirely
governed by the sympathetic conditions that surround them.
The question arises, what are these aggregations and what do they
represent, as being linked with physical impulses? They are simply
vibrometric resonators, thoroughly subservient to sympathetic acoustic
impulses given to them by their atomic sympathetic surrounding media,
all the sympathetic impulses that so entirely govern the physical
in their many and perfect impulses (we are now discussing purity
of conditions) are not emanations properly inherent in their own
composition. They are only media--the acoustic media--for transferring
from their vibratory surroundings the conditions necessary to the
pure connective link for vitalizing and bringing into action the
varied impulses of the physical.
All abnormal discordant aggregations in these resonating convolutions
produce differentiation to concordant transmission; and, according
as these differentiations exist in volume, so the transmissions are
discordantly transferred, producing antagonism to pure physical action.
Thus, in Motor Ataxy a differentiation of the minor thirds of the
posterior parietal lobule produces the same condition between the
retractors and extensors of the leg and foot; and thus the control of
the proper movements is lost through this differentiation. The same
truth can be universally applied to any of the cerebral convolutions
that are in a state of differential harmony to the mass of immediate
cerebral surroundings. Taking the cerebral condition of the whole
mass as one, it is subservient to one general head centre, although
as many neutrals are represented as there are convolutions.
The introductory minors are controlled by the molecular; the
next progressive third by the atomic; and the high third by the
Etheric. All these progressive links have their positive, negative,
and neutral position. When we take into consideration the structural
condition of the human brain, we ought not to be bewildered by the
infinite variety of its sympathetic impulses; inasmuch as it unerringly
proves the true philosophy that the mass chords of such structures are
governed by vibratory etheric flows--the very material which composes
them. There is no structure whatever, animal, vegetable, mineral,
that is not built up from the universal cosmic ether. Certain orders
of attractive vibration produce certain orders of structure; thus,
the infinite variety of effects--more especially in the cerebral
organs. The bar of iron or the mass of steel, have, in each, all
the qualifications necessary, under certain vibratory impulses, to
evolve all the conditions that govern that animal organism--the brain:
and it is as possible to differentiate the molecular conditions of
a mass of metal of any shape so as to produce what you may express
as a crazy piece of iron or a crazy piece of steel; or, vice versâ,
an intelligent condition in the same.
I find in my researches, as to the condition of molecules under
vibration, that discordance cannot exist in the molecule proper;
and that it is the highest and most perfect structural condition
that exists; providing that all the progressive orders are the
same. Discordance in any mass is the result of differentiated groups,
induced by antagonistic chords, and the flight or motions of such,
when intensified by sound, are very tortuous and zig-zag; but when free
of this differentiation are in straight lines. Tortuous lines denote
discord, or pain; straight lines denote harmony, or pleasure. Any
differentiated mass can be brought to a condition of harmony, or
equation, by proper chord media, and an equated sympathy produced.
There is good reason for believing that insanity is simply a condition
of differentiation in the mass chords of the cerebral convolutions,
which creates an antagonistic molecular bombardment towards the neutral
or attractive centres of such convolutions; which, in turn, produce a
morbid irritation in the cortical sensory centres in the substance of
ideation; accompanied, as a general thing, by sensory hallucinations,
ushered in by subjective sensations; such as flashes of light and
colour, or confused sounds and disagreeable odours, etc., etc.
There is no condition of the human brain that ought not to be
sympathetically coincident to that order of atomic flow to which its
position, in the cerebral field, is fitted. Any differentiation in
that special organ, or, more plainly, any discordant grouping tends
to produce a discordant bombardment--an antagonistic conflict; which
means the same disturbance transferred to the physical, producing
inharmonious disaster to that portion of the physical field which is
controlled by that especial convolution. This unstable aggregation
may be compared to a knot on a violin string. As long as this knot
remains it is impossible to elicit, from its sympathetic surroundings,
the condition which transfers pure concordance to its resonating
body. Discordant conditions, i.e., differentiation of mass, produce
negatization to coincident action.
The question now arises, What condition is it necessary to bring about
in order to bring back normality, or to produce stable equilibrium
in the sympathetic centres?
The normal brain is like a harp of many strings strung to perfect
harmony. The transmitting conditions being perfect, are ready, at
any impulse, to induce pure sympathetic assimilation. The different
strings represent the different ventricles and convolutions. The
differentiations of any one from its true setting is fatal, to a
certain degree, to the harmony of the whole combination.
If the sympathetic condition of any physical organism carries a
positive flow of 80 per cent. on its whole combination, and a negative
one of 20 per cent., it is the medium of perfect assimilation to one
of the same ratio, if it is distributed under the same conditions to
the mass of the other. If two masses of metal, of any shape whatever,
are brought under perfect assimilation, to one another, their unition,
when brought into contact, will be instant. If we live in a sympathetic
field we become sympathetic, and a tendency from the abnormal to the
normal presents itself by an evolution of a purely sympathetic flow
towards its attractive centres. It is only under these conditions that
differentiation can be broken up, and a pure equation established. The
only condition under which equation can never be established is
when a differential disaster has taken place, of 66 2/3 against the
100 pure, taking the full volume as one. If this 66 2/3 or even 100
exists in one organ alone, and the surrounding ones are normal, then
a condition can be easily brought about to establish the concordant
harmony or equation to that organ. It is as rare to find a negative
condition of 66 2/3 against the volume of the whole cerebral mass, as
it is to find a coincident between differentiation; or, more plainly,
between two individuals under a state of negative influence. Under
this new system, it is as possible to induce negations alike as it
is to induce positives alike.
Pure sympathetic concordants are as antagonistic to negative
discordants as the negative is to the positive; but the vast volume
the sympathetic holds over the non-sympathetic, in ethereal space,
makes it at once the ruling medium and re-adjuster of all opposing
conditions if properly brought to bear upon them.
Until Keely's "Theoretical Exposé" is given to science, there are
few who will fathom the full meaning of these views.
His discoveries embrace the manner or way of obtaining the keynote,
or "chord of mass," of mineral, vegetable, and animal substances;
therefore, the construction of instruments, or machines, by which
this law can be utilized in mechanics, in arts, and in restoration of
equilibrium in disease, is only a question of the full understanding
of the operation of this law.
Keely estimates that, after the introductory impulse is given on the
harmonic thirds, molecular vibration is increased from 20,000 per
second to 100,000,000.
On the enharmonic sixths, that the vibration of the inter-molecule
is increased to 300,000,000.
On the diatonic ninths, that atomic vibration reaches 900,000,000; on
the dominant etheric sixths, 8,100,000,000; and on the inter-etheric
ninths, 24,300,000,000; all of which can be demonstrated by sound
colours.
In such fields of research, Mr. Keely finds little leisure. Those who
accuse him of "dilly-dallying," of idleness, of "always going to do
and never doing," of "visionary plans," etc., etc., know nothing of
the infinite patience, the persistent energy, which for a quarter of
a century has upheld him in his struggle to attain this end. Still
less, if possible, is he understood by those who think he is seeking
self-aggrandizement, fame, fortune, or glory.
The time is approaching when all who have sought to defame this
discoverer and inventor, all who have stabbed him with unmerited
accusations, all who have denounced him as "a bogus inventor,"
"a fraud," "an impostor," "a charlatan," "a modern Cagliostro,"
will be forced to acknowledge that he has done a giant's work for
true science, even though he should not live to attain commercial
success. But history will not forget that, in the nineteenth century,
the story of Prometheus has been repeated, and that the greatest mind
of the age, seeking to scale the heavens to bring down the light of
truth for mankind, met with Prometheus's reward.
Note.--Dr. Hartmann, in a report, or condensed statement, in reference
to Keely's discovery, writes as follows: "He will never invent a
machine by which the equilibrium of the living forces in a disordered
brain can be restored."
As such a statement would lead the reader of the report to fancy
that Keely expected to invent such an instrument, it is better to
correct the error that Dr. Hartmann has fallen into. Keely has never
dreamed of inventing such an instrument. He hopes, however, to perfect
one that he is now at work upon, which will enable the operator to
localize the seat of disturbance in the brain in mental disorders. If
he succeeds, this will greatly simplify the work of "re-adjusting
opposing conditions"; and will also enable the physician to decide
whether the "differential disaster" has taken place which prevents the
possibility of establishing the equation that is necessary to a cure.
According to Keely's theories it is that form of energy known as
magnetism--not electricity--which is to be the curative agent of
the future, thus reviving a mode of treatment handed down from the
time of the earliest records, and made known to the Royal Society
of London more than fifty years since by Professor Keil, of Jena,
who demonstrated the susceptibility of the nervous system to the
influence of the natural magnet, and its efficacy in the cure of
certain infirmities.
As Cheston Morris, M.D., has well said in his paper on "Vital Molecular
Vibrations," "We are entering upon a new field in biology, pathology,
and of course, therapeutics, whose limits are at present far beyond
our ken."
"The adaptability of drugs," says Dr. Henry Wood, "to heal disease
is becoming a matter of doubt, even among many who have not yet
studied deeper causation. Materia Medica lacks the exact elements of
a science. The just preponderance, for good or ill, of any drug upon
the human system is an unsolved problem, and will so remain.... After
centuries of professional research, in order to perfect "the art
of healing," diseases have steadily grown more subtle and more
numerous.... Only when internal, divine forces come to be relied upon,
rather than outside reinforcement, will deterioration cease. Said
Plato, 'You ought not to attempt to cure the body without the soul.'"
CHAPTER VIII.
1888.
HELPERS ON THE ROAD, AND HINDERERS.
Blindfolded and alone we stand,
With unknown thresholds on each hand:
The darkness deepens as we grope,
Afraid to fear, afraid to hope.
Yet this one thing we learn to know
Each day more surely as we go:
That doors are opened, ways are made,
Burdens are lifted, or are laid
By some great law unseen and still
Unfathomed purpose to fulfil.
"Not as I will."
The next "helper on the road" was an Austrian nobleman, the Chevalier
Griez de Ronse, who printed a series of papers on Keely's discoveries
in a journal in Vienna, then owned by him--The Vienna Weekly News. One
of these articles mentions that the attention of Englishmen of science
had been drawn to Keely's claims, in regard to having imprisoned the
ether, by Professor Henri Hertz's experiments in ether vibrations
at the Bonn University. "Keely, like the late Dr. Schuster," says
The Vienna Weekly News, "claims on behalf of science the right to
prosecute its investigations until a mechanical explanation of all
things is attained. The public are still but the children of those
who murdered Socrates, tolerated the persecution of Galileo, and
deserted Columbus. This remark is now illustrated by the imprisonment
with felons last month of Inventor Keely in Moyamensing Prison,
Philadelphia, where Judge Finletter committed him for contempt of
court, without the shadow of an excuse in the opinions of men who
had followed the proceedings against him.
Under the heading, "Keely's Sunday in Jail," says a Philadelphia
journal, Inventor Keely spent a quiet Sunday in Moyamensing Prison. The
outside iron doors of his cell were thrown open, when the religious
services of the morning began. The imprisoned inventor listened with
deep interest. The soft peals of the organ and the melody of the choir,
singing "Nearer, my God, to Thee," floated into the narrow cell. Keely
sat near the grated door while the minister read selections from the
Scriptures and preached his sermon. While the inventor was resting
in his cell, during the afternoon, a number of persons made inquiries
at the "Untried Department." They were all told that no one could be
admitted on Sunday, but a young man with a pallid face lingered. He
told the gate-keeper that he was an inventor himself, and had been
waiting for eight years for a patent from Washington; adding that,
when he read of Keely's commitment, he was reminded of Galileo who
was thrown in a dungeon because he said, "The world moves."
The following day Keely was released by order of the Judges of the
Supreme Court. His imprisonment exalted him, instead of degrading
him as "the unjust judge" hoped to do; drawing the sympathies to him
of all men who know what it is to be "persecuted for righteousness'
sake;" of all men, in all parts of the world, who are truth-loving,
justice-loving men.
The Keely Motor Company should learn a lesson in this
experience. Tyndall said, long since, that the community that severs
itself from great discoveries, that merely runs after the practical
application without reference to the sources of a discovery, would
by-and-by find itself at the end of its tether. This has been verified
in the fate of the Keely Motor Company, which was organized for the
purpose of reaping financial benefit from Keely's grand discovery
of an unknown force before his "work of evolution," in obtaining
mechanical results, had fairly commenced. This company has thrown
upon the discoverer's shoulders the burden of its stock-jobbing
operations, until Keely is looked upon by men of science, as well
as by men ignorant of the A B C of science, as a man working for
personal ends; instead of, as he should be regarded, a Prometheus
seeking to give to his fellow-men a costless motive force; and who,
whether he succeeds financially or not, is entitled to the admiration
of all who believe, with Browning, that "effort, not success, makes
man great." If the Keely Motor Company managers would profit by this
lesson, they will in future seek to find, among scientific men of
world-wide renown, some one man, broad enough in mind to care nothing
for the ridicule of the ignorant, who will investigate the nature of
Keely's discoveries, as demonstrated by his experiments, instead of
inviting reporters to witness the demonstrations, in their efforts
"to boom the stock" of their company, by a reporter's accounts of
the marvels he has witnessed. For years Keely had nothing to show,
beyond the generation of the force, the production of a 30 lb. vacuum
and the discharge of a gun. When once his giant mind had grasped
the knowledge, which again by seeming chance was imparted to him,
he made colossal strides across that unknown tract, the boundaries
of which others are now but beginning to explore. Colonel Le Mat was
no false prophet, Le Figaro was no untrustworthy herald, when the
announcement was made by this French inventor to Monsieur Chevreul,
and by this French journal to the public on the 1st day of September,
1888, that the chain which holds the aerial ship to the earth would
be broken asunder by Keely's discovery. The nineteenth century holds
in its strong arms the pledge, that sooner or later the aerial navy,
so long waited for, will traverse the trackless high roads of space
from Continent to Continent.
It has been supposed by many, Dr. Franz Hartmann among the number,
that it requires Keely himself, or another person constituted like
him, to set his machinery in motion. Therefore, it has been reasoned
that the commercial success of an engine is only possible in case
Keely is himself the engineer; or if another man possessing the same
seemingly abnormal power could be the engineer. For this reason,
says Dr. Hartmann, it is impossible for Keely to instruct any one in
his method, so as to enable that one to do what he does. There has
been ground in the past for such a statement, it is true, but not
now. Keely asserts that when his system is completed, the knowledge
of all that is needed for its commercial employment will be more
easily acquired than is the necessary skill demanded to enable one
to safely operate a steam-engine. When Dr. Hartmann's opinion was
made known to Keely, he replied, "Dr. Hartmann's whole conception,
in regard to other men being unable to control the operations of my
inventions on the sympathetic attractive system, is as incorrect as
would be the same conception in reference to operating an electric
battery by anyone but its inventor."
Let anyone imagine the years on years of research that would have been
necessary before Gilbert (who, after Thales, discovered electricity)
could have perfected a system which would have enabled men to
accomplish all that is accomplished in our age, with electricity as
a motive power. Keely's labours would be better understood by those
who accuse him of "always promising, and never performing," under
such a conception. The inventor must be sanguine of success; he must
day by day think that he is on the eve of perfecting his invention,
in order to keep up his courage to persevere to the end; otherwise,
how could he work, year after year, in the face of obstacle after
obstacle that seems, each one, to be insurmountable? After Keely's
imprisonment when, among the men who knew that he was incapable of
fraud, there was one so incensed by Keely's repeated failures to
perfect his engine that he had said he "hoped to live to see Keely
rotting in a gutter," Mr. R. Harte wrote: "And now that it has been
proved in a hundred ways and before thousands of persons competent to
judge of the merits of Keely's claims, that he has really discovered
previously unknown forces in nature, studied them, mastered some of
their laws, invented and is perfecting researching apparatus that will
make his discoveries of practical application in numerous ways--now
that he has actually done this, how does the world treat him? Does
Congress come forward with a grant to enable him to complete his
marvellous work? Do men of science hail him as a great discoverer,
or hold out the hand of fellowship? Do people do honour to the man
whose sole entreaty to them will be to receive from his hands a
gift a thousand times more precious to them than steam engine or
dynamo? It is a literal fact that if Keely fell exhausted to-day,
in the terrible struggle he has so long maintained, his failure to
establish his claims would be received with a shout of malignant
delight from nearly every lecture-hall, pulpit, counting-house and
newspaper office in the so-called civilized world. The world has hardly
ever recognized its benefactors until it has become time to raise a
statue to their memory, 'in order to beautify the town.' Jealousy,
stupidity, the malignity which is born of conscious inferiority, are
at this moment putting in Keely's road every impediment which law and
injustice can manufacture. Two hundred years ago he would have been
burned, a century since he would have probably been mobbed to death;
but thank God we are too civilized, too humane now to burn or mob
to death those who make great discoveries, who wish to benefit their
fellow-men, or whose ideas are in advance of their age--we only break
their hearts with slander, ridicule, and neglect, and when that fails
to drive them to suicide, we bring to bear upon them the ponderous
pressure of the law, and heap upon them the 'peine forte et dure' of
injunctions, and orders, and suits, to crush them out of a world they
have had the impertinence to try to improve, and the folly to imagine
they could save from suffering, without paying in their own persons
the inevitable penalty. Had it not been for the obligations incurred by
Keely, in accepting the aid of the Keely Motor Company--in other words,
had scientists, instead of speculators, furnished him with the means
necessary to carry on his work of evolution, the secrets which he has
so carefully guarded would now have been public property, so little
does he care personally for financial results. As it is, those who
have witnessed his beautiful experiments in acoustics and sympathetic
vibration were often too ignorant to comprehend their meaning, and,
consequently, even after expressing gratification to him, went away
from his workshop to denounce him as a Cagliostro; while others,
competent to judge, have refused to witness the production of the
ether, as Sir William Thomson and Lord Raleigh refused, when they were
in America a few years since. The company here mentioned has been a
thorn in the inventor's side ever since it was organized. It has been
'bulled and beared' by greedy speculators, in whose varying interests
the American newspapers for years have been worked, the results of
which the inventor has had to bear. For many years the Company has
contributed nothing towards Keely's expenses or support, and in the
opinion of many lawyers it is virtually dead. How far it is entitled
to his gratitude may be gathered from the fact, as stated, that 'when
Mr. Keely abandoned his old generator of etheric force, baffled in
his attempts to wrest from nature one of her most carefully guarded
secrets, harassed by his connection with the Keely Motor Company,
some of the officers and stockholders of which had instituted law
proceedings against him, which threatened him with the indignity
of imprisonment, he destroyed many of his marvellous models, and
determined that, if taken to prison, it should be his dead body and
not himself.
"Those who argue, if Keely had really obtained knowledge which
contributes towards making man master of the material world, that
science would hail the glad tidings with great joy, know but little
of modern science and its votaries. An Anglican bishop never ignored
a dissenting preacher with more dignified grace than the professor
of orthodox science ignores the heterodox genius who has the audacity
to wander beyond the limitations which 'received opinion' has placed
upon the possibilities of nature. The fact is that men of science have
persistently ignored, and know absolutely nothing about, the great
department of nature into which Keely penetrated years ago, and in
which he has now made himself at home. Not long ago a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, Major Ricarde-Seaver, went to Philadelphia
to convince himself as to the nature of Keely's discovery. He returned,
saying that Keely was working with, and had the apparent command over
forces, the nature, or even the very existence, of which was absolutely
unknown to him, and, so far as he is aware, to modern science.
"Beyond disintegration lies dispersion, and Keely can just as easily
disperse the atoms of matter as disintegrate its molecules. Disperse
them into what? Well,--into ether, apparently; into the hypothetical
substratum which modern scientists have postulated, and about whose
nature they know absolutely nothing but what they invent themselves,
but which to Keely is not hypothesis, but a fact as real as his own
shoes; and which ether, indeed, seems to be 'the protoplasm of all
things.' As to the 'law of gravity,' it appears in the light of
Keely's experiments, but one manifestation of a law of very much
wider application--a law which provides for the reversion of the
process of attraction in the shape of a process of repulsion.
"While Major Ricarde-Seaver, F.R.S., [6] was in Philadelphia, Keely, by
means of a belt and certain appliances which he wore upon his person,
moved single-handed, a 500 horse-power vibratory engine from one
part of his shop to another. There was not a scratch on the floor,
and astounded engineers declared that they could not have moved
it without a derrick, the operation of which would have required
the removal of the roof of the shop. Of course it is but a step in
advance of this to construct a machine which, when polarized with a
'negative attraction,' will rise from the earth and move under the
influence of an etheric current at the rate of 500 miles an hour,
in any given direction. This is, in fact, Keely's 'air ship.'
"When the history of his discoveries and inventions come to be written
there will be no more pathetic story in the annals of genius than that
of John Worrell Keely. The world hereafter will find it hard to believe
that in the last quarter of the 19th century a man with an insight
into the secret workings of nature, and a knowledge of her subtler
forces, which, whenever it is utilized, will relieve mankind from
much of the grinding toil that now makes bitter the existence of the
vast majority, that such a man should have been left unaided, because
in all the ranks of science there was not found one man capable of
understanding his colossal work--because in all the ranks of religion
there was not found one man able to realize the enlarged conception of
Deity immanent in Keely's great thoughts--because in all the ranks of
commerce, of speculation, of literature, of art, there was not found
one man large enough, generous enough, unselfish enough, to furnish
money for a purpose that did not promise an immediate dividend."
Again in 1888, more than ever was Keely held up to ridicule by all
those men who possess the instinct of the brute to hound down its
prey, and his supporters came in for their share of abuse. Among
this class, or of it, were men so ignorant of Keely's claims,
and of the object of his researches, that they represented him as
"a seeker of the impossible," a "perpetual motion crank," throwing
upon his character other odium which the speculating managers of
"The Keely Motor Company" were justly responsible for. One of these
communications alone is enough to show the quality of the weapons
used against him. It appeared in The New York Daily Tribune.
THE KEELY MOTOR CRAZE.
A Donkey-Cabbage Race.
HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THE CLEVER JUGGLER BE ABLE TO DELUDE HIS VICTIMS?
To the Editor of "The Tribune."
Sir,--The success with which Keely has deluded his victims by
appealing to their credulity with a mystery, and to their cupidity
with a promise of "all the kingdoms of the earth," which would not be
of greater value than the monopoly of infinite power without cost,
which he dangles before their astonished vision, makes him and his
antics subjects of unusual interest. His last performance appears to be
an issue of 5,000,000 dols. of new stock representing a new discovery
veiled in mystery, which is to far outstrip his former one, on which
5,000,000 dols. of stock was issued and is now held by his dupes. Two
of these new millions are to go to the old holders as a compensation
to them for their disappointment in not realizing perpetual motion
under the old discovery; two more to go to Keely to be sold to the
public; and the remaining one million is in the treasury to be sold
for the benefit of Keely and the others, half and half.
For fifteen years the donkey has been ridden by Keely with the cabbage
on a pole held just in front of his hungry mouth, and now the donkey
is told that the cabbage after all is only sham, but that the new
cabbage is real, and if he will only consent to run fast enough and
far enough he certainly will reach it and grow fat.
It would seem that the donkey ought to pause and consider before he
begins another fifteen-year race after perpetual motion, and it is here
proposed to assist him in his reflections by a few facts. More than
fifteen years ago Keely made himself known to the public by exhibiting
an apparatus in which a great pressure was manifested, which, he said,
resulted from the discovery by him of a new force the nature of which
was his secret. Several people, as usual, were astonished at the show,
and bought and paid for shares in the patent which was promised. To
give colour to the pretence, Keely applied for a patent before 1876,
but did not assign to the purchasers their shares; whereupon some of
them protested against the issue of the patent unless their shares
were recognized in the grant. The Patent Office replied to these
protests that it could not recognize the rights claimed unless there
was a written assignment filed in the office, which the claimants did
not have. The Commissioner, however, called upon Keely to furnish a
"working model" of his invention, which, of course, he could not do,
and his application was rejected. The specification and drawings of
this apparatus show a very silly form of the common perpetual motion
machine, of which there are thousands. It was open to the public for
some years, when, under a new rule of the office, it, along with all
other rejected applications, was withdrawn from inspection; but it is
in the office, together with the protests of those who had paid Keely
for a share in it. I examined it years ago, and informed Mr. Lamson,
and others of Keely's stockholders, of it. Mr. Lamson told me that he
had charged Keely with deception, because he had always said that he
never had applied for a patent, and that Keely explained it by saying
that he had purposely concealed his invention from the Patent Office
in that application to which he had made oath.
Keely, however, finding the perpetual motion trick profitable,
extended his operations and became well known to many influential
people by his exhibitions. In the winter of 1875-76 he produced two
metallic spheres, one about thirty inches in diameter, hung like
an ordinary terrestrial globe, which, he said, would revolve with
a force equal to two horse-power, and would continue to run when
once started as long as the Centennial Exhibition should be open,
and until the thing was worn out by friction. In starting it Keely
used to have a blackboard in the room, on which he would write a few
figures in chalk in the presence of his dupes, and would say that at
a certain time the globe would start--and it did, and would revolve
as long as the lookers-on remained to see it. Keely pretended to
explain this phenomenon by a string of unintelligible jargon; but the
point of it all was that he said the thing ran in consequence of its
internal mechanical arrangement--or, in other words, that by combining
pieces of metal in a certain way power was generated without any other
expense than that required to construct the apparatus. Naturally he
refused to show the interior construction which did the miracle;
but if his statements were true, it existed inside of that globe,
and could be produced indefinitely with the result of producing an
indefinite amount of horse-power without current expense.
The stock about this time rose to a great price--about 600 per
cent.--as it well might if this ball was an "honest ghost." Some of
the stockholders had sense enough to see that if Keely's story were
true, nothing more could be desired, for it must at once supersede
coal and all other means of producing power, and its novelty could
not be doubted. It was in effect, "all the kingdoms of the earth,"
which Satan once offered. But, on the other hand, if Keely's story
were not true, then he was simply an impostor who had been defrauding
the stockholders out of their money; and they demanded of Keely
that he should proceed at once to patent this miraculous machine,
which could create power by a peculiar-shaped hole in a sphere of
iron. Of course Keely refused to comply with this reasonable request,
and many of his stockholders sold out and left him; since which time
the stock has gradually declined down to the present time, when its
value is admitted to be nothing.
In view of these facts the curious question is why the donkey goes
on any further. The revolving ball is a fact known to hundreds of
the stockholders. It is either a real cabbage capable of feeding
the donkey with a perpetual feast, like the widow's cruse of oil,
or it is only a sham such as any good mechanic could construct
and operate as Keely did. Why doesn't the donkey balk and insist on
biting into the cabbage? If it is real the Keely stock is worth untold
millions. It would put an end to steam engines and electric batteries
for ever. One of those balls in the corner of a room would make all
the heat and light which could be used, and have power to sell; and
all that would be needed would be to learn Keely's cabalistic signs
on the blackboard in order to make it start, and to stop it when it
had done enough. But if the ball is only a trick, then, of course,
Keely could be sent to prison, and his victims could close their
accounts and be sure that they would lose no more by him.
Without going any further into the history of this remarkable delusion,
which is full of similar tricks too numerous to mention now, it seems
clear that these facts ought to be used to bring to an end in one
way or the other the Keely craze.
Edward N. Dickerson.
New York, Nov. 30, 1888.
It is difficult to understand how anyone could concoct and put together
such a tissue of fabrications as this, when the sole foundation for
such a tissue lay in the fact that it was at this juncture that Keely
made the announcement that he had proved the uselessness of building
engines to employ the ether as a motive power; which could only be
used as the medium for the power which he had discovered, namely,
a condition of sympathetic vibration, associated both positively and
negatively with the polar stream.
The statement made of the issue of new stock is absolutely untrue. The
revolving globe was never created to be "the source of power," and the
representation of the manner in which the globe was made to revolve,
and that Keely affirmed he could produce with it "an indefinite
amount of horse power without current expense," is denied. The
suggestion that Keely could be sent to prison was welcomed by those
who eventually acted upon it, with the result that Judge Finletter
committed Keely to Moyamensing Prison, for contempt of court, but
not for fraud. Mr. Keely, at that time, wrote of those who called
him a perpetual motion seeker:--"I console myself by thinking that
if they were not ignorant of the grand truths which I am devoting my
life to develop into a system, they could never bring forward such
an absurd charge. Perpetual motion is against nature, and it is only
by following nature's laws that I can ever hope to reach the goal I
am aiming to reach."
The Supreme Court reversed and set aside the order of the court
committing Keely for contempt, and released him from custody, upon
the writ of habeas corpus taken out on his behalf, within three days
of his commitment.
The Chief Justice, in delivering his opinion, made some remarks
which fully vindicated Mr. Keely's character. After alluding to the
proper procedure which ought to have been taken in the court below,
the Judge continued:--
"Instead of so proceeding, a commission of experts was appointed to
examine the defendant's machine, and the order of April 7th was made,
by which the defendant, in advance of any issue, was not only required
to exhibit his machine, but also to operate it and explain the mode
of its construction and operation, although it clearly appeared that
it would require considerable expense to clean the machine, put it
together and operate it. The defendant appears to have been willing
to exhibit it, and in point of fact did so. That he might have been
compelled to do so at a proper stage of the case is conceded. But
to make an order not only to exhibit it, but to operate it, the
practical effect of which was to wring from him his defence in advance
of any issue joined, was an improvident and excessive exercise of
Chancery powers. We are of opinion that the order was improvidently
made. It follows that the learned court had no power to enforce it
by attachment. The relator is discharged."
It was in this year, 1888, that a woman, interested in all branches of
science, who had proved to her own satisfaction the value to humanity,
as well as to science, of Keely's discoveries, was deprived of legal
and maternal rights on account of the delusions that she was very
generally believed to be under. A journalist, wishing to obtain
information concerning Keely's work, called upon this woman, by
appointment, and at the close of the interview said,--
"May I venture to ask you if it is true that you have furnished
Mr. Keely with large sums of money as rumour declares; and that you
have invested largely in the stock?"
"Were I not glad of the opportunity to answer this question in justice
to Mr. Keely, I might have said that this is a subject which is of
no interest to the public; but I have heard the amount estimated as
nearly 100,000l. too often not to be willing to have the truth made
known. What I have given to Mr. Keely has been saved by economies
in my expenses; and, if not given to him, would have been given to
others; as I believe in those who have the most doing all that lies
in their power for those who have less. In regard to investments in
Keely Motor stock, I have bought no stock excepting to give away."
"There is one other question I should like to ask you," said our
representative, "Is Mr. Keely a spiritualist? I use the word in its
ordinary sense. Does he claim that he has bridged the gulf between
the finite and the infinite?"
"When Mr. Keely first commenced his wonderful investigations he would
have scouted the idea of being in any way whatever associated with
so-called spiritualism, but of recent years, and especially during
the last few months, he has made such startling progress that he now
admits--as I told him a long time ago he would come to admit--that
if not in actual experiment, at least in theory he has passed into
the world of spirit."
The interview being ended, our representative took his departure, after
expressing his thanks for the information so willingly given. How far
this lady's anticipations of the inventor's success will be realized,
or how far her confidence in his integrity is justified, we must leave
our readers to judge for themselves. The whole subject is enveloped in
much mystery, but it is full of interest, and if half that is narrated
of Mr. Keely be true, he is indeed a wonderful man!--The Tatler.
CHAPTER IX.
1889-1890.
KEELY SUPPORTED BY DISTINGUISHED MEN OF SCIENCE. AERIAL NAVIGATION.
Is not ether infinitely more rare and more subtle than air,
and exceedingly more elastic and more active? Does it not
easily penetrate all bodies? And is it not by its elastic
force diffused through the universe?--Sir Isaac Newton.
In 1889 a series of short articles were written, which, for the
first time, made known to the public that Keely had theories which
he was able to sustain by mechanical demonstration: and once more
an attempt was made to have men of science acquaint themselves with
the theories, and witness the demonstrations. Capitalists also
were appealed to, to convince themselves of the existence of an
unknown force, and of Mr. Keely's honesty in his efforts to control
it for commercial purposes; money being required to enable him to
complete his researches for science, and to protect him from those
who were harassing him in such a way as to impede his progress at
every step. The appeal to capitalists might as well have been made
to stone walls; but among the men of scientific and philosophical
attainments who were invited, the late Professor Joseph Leidy, M.D.,
of the Pennsylvania University, and James M. Willcox, Ph.D., author
of "Rational Philosophy," and other works, accepted the invitation
and attended a series of Keely's researching experiments. For years
Mr. Keely's experiments were confined to the production of the force;
the raising of a lever; the firing of a cannon; and the showing of a
vacuum greater than had ever been produced. Since 1888 he has pursued
his researches on a line which enabled him to show uninterrupted
progress year after year: so that now he never repeats his experiments;
but, discarding or improving his researching instruments, after he has
gained the results which his theories lead him to expect, he continues
his investigations, thereafter, from the solid basis which he has
attained by those researches. The result of the attention given by
Professor Leidy and Dr. Willcox is best set down in their own words:--
"April 8th, 1890.
"After having had the opportunity of witnessing a series of experiments
made by Mr. John Keely, illustrative of a reputed new motor power,
it has appeared to me that he has fairly demonstrated the discovery
of a force previously unknown to science. I have no theory to account
for the phenomena observed, but I believe Mr. Keely to be honest in
his attempt to explain them. His demonstrations appear to indicate
great mechanical power, which, when applied to appropriate machinery,
must supersede all ordinary appliances.
"Joseph Leidy."
"Philadelphia, April 8th, 1890.
"After having witnessed, on several occasions and under favourable
circumstances, Mr. Keely's experiments in what he terms sympathetic
vibration, I am satisfied that he has made new and important
demonstrations in physical science. He has made manifest the existence
of natural forces that cannot be explained by any known physical laws,
and has shown that he possesses over them a very considerable control.
"James M. Willcox."
Shortly after these announcements were made public, with the consent
of the writers, Anglo-Austria contained two papers on the subject,
from which, principally, the article on Etheric Philosophy is taken.
S. Zolver Preston, in his "Physics of the Ether," says: "A quantity
of matter representing a total mass of only one grain, and possessing
the normal velocity of the ether particles, that of a wave of light,
encloses a state of energy represented by upward of one thousand
millions of foot tons. Or the mass of one single grain contains an
energy not less than that possessed by a mass of 70,000 tons, moving
at the speed of a cannon ball (1200 feet per second); or, otherwise,
a quantity of matter, representing a mass of one grain, endued with the
velocity of the ether particles, encloses an amount of energy which,
if entirely utilized, would be competent to project a weight of 100
tons to a height of one mile and nine-tenths of a mile."
Etheric philosophy has a scientific basis in fact; and in the light
of Keely's progressive demonstrations, his views are no longer
abnormal to the scientific mind which is willing to admit the
possibility of a discovery in which it has had no part. To discover
an unknown power is one thing; to subjugate it is quite another
thing. The one may be stumbled over; the other can only be attained
after laborious investigation. No one who has followed Keely in his
"dead work," during the last ten years, can doubt that he has been,
and still is, dealing with the same force which, as Professor Hertz
has disclosed to us, is already imprisoned, without our knowledge,
in electro-magnetic engines. If thus, unknowingly, it has been made
the servant of man, in machinery not especially constructed for its
use, may it not also have been imprisoned by one who is adapting his
inventions to its special requirements? Keely demonstrates, with
what he calls vibratory machinery, that all corpuscules of matter
may be subdivided by a certain order of vibration, thus showing up
new elements; and having demonstrated what he asserts, by releasing
the various orders of ether from the suspension in which it is always
held in our atmosphere, he has answered the sceptical demand "Give us
some bread." It has been said that as men penetrate deeper and deeper
into a knowledge of the wonderful laws which govern the universe they
may find mysterious forces which remain still undiscovered. Keely's
discoveries promise to burst upon the world of science as the one
mighty and complete revelation of the universe. There are more things
in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the materialistic science
of our age, or in our philosophy. "All we have cognizance of around
us are results, the causes of which are supersensuous. Of the nature
which we behold around us, the cause is supernatural."
The Reverend Albert H. Plumb, of Roxbury, Mass., who has followed
Mr. Keely's efforts, to obtain control of the unknown force which he
discovered more than twenty years ago, up to his present successful
demonstration before scientists, says: "Neither theological science
nor any department of physical science, as it lies in the divine
mind, is exactly expressed in any human system; yet no knowledge is
to be decried nor despised, least of all in the highest realms of
thought. The agnostic makes the mistake of confounding exhaustive
knowledge with positive knowledge in declaring both unattainable. We
can know positively that a thing is, if not how or why it is. As
Gladstone says, 'Our hands can lay hold of truths which our arms
cannot embrace. We can apprehend what we cannot comprehend.' If Keely
should die, I fear no one could understand his writings. Every day we
read of distinguished men dying. The other day a man carried with him
into the grave his secret for the cheap production of aluminium. No
one man entrusted by Providence with high interests has a right
to allow a possibility of their sinking back, perhaps for ages,
into the void of the unknown. Why not confine attention strictly to
making the discovery practically intelligible to others, and thus
securing to mankind the first steps by which the new force is evoked
and controlled, and leave to later leisure the subtler relations of
this power to the divine mind and to life?"
For years Mr. Keely did "confine attention" to efforts to prove his
discovery by practical methods, without making any advance; and it was
not until he was led into the spiritual or philosophical bearings of
his discovery that he himself gained "practically intelligible" ideas
of its nature. To Dr. Macvicar's "Sketch of a Philosophy," from which
Mrs. Moore compiled "Ether the True Protoplasm," and to Mrs. Hughes'
book on the evolution of tones and colours, Mr. Keely is indebted for
the pregnant germs which, falling from their writings upon his mind,
took him from the line of experiment which he was pursuing, into the
only line of research which can lead to scientific and commercial
success. The hour in which he reaches one he reaches both; nor can
one be gained without the other being gained. This should teach us
that, though "the heart of man deviseth his way, the Lord directeth
his steps." God never hurries, and He chooses His own instruments,
employing them after a manner that is inscrutable to us, in our weak
impatience for results. Admitting the truth of all that Dr. Plumb
has said, but understanding fully the impossibility of directing
Mr. Keely's steps, until he himself gains more control of the force
that he has discovered, we must "wait upon the Lord," who is revealing
to him "the deep mysteries of Creation." In the meantime, those in whom
narrowness of mind has not caused stubbornness will hold themselves
in readiness to prove all things and hold fast to the truth. We do
not easily believe what is beyond our own knowledge, but faith in the
claims of Keely as a discoverer, if not as an inventor, is steadily
increasing. The following from a foreign publication about the Keely
Motor will be of interest to all who have watched the progress of
that enterprise. The correspondent writes:--"In the following brief
article I purpose placing the latest aspect of Mr. Keely, perhaps
the best abused man in America, and his investigations before the
readers of Anglo-Austria;" continuing,--
"Under the heading of 'The Keely Motor Again,' Invention, of London,
on October 19th, printed a communication, mentioning the leading
scientist of America, Dr. Leidy, of the University of Pennsylvania,
as supporting Mr. Keely's claims as a discoverer of an unknown force,
as follows:--Dr. Leidy having expressed the wish that Professor
Barker should again visit Mr. Keely and witness the experiments
which had convinced himself that Keely had discovered a new force,
has received the following letter:--
"909, Walnut Street, Philadelphia, October 4, 1889.
"Dr. Leidy. Sir,--Referring to our conversation of a few days since,
and the suggestion of another visit to the workshop of Mr. Keely,
by Professor Barker, I would say that I have presented the matter to
Mr. Keely and he acquiesces in what I stated to you. That is to say, if
Dr. Barker desires to visit Mr. Keely's workshops again, and will make
this known to him in writing or through yourself, for the purpose of
further observation and of having confirmed or removed from his mind,
as the case may be, the conclusions or impressions arrived at by him,
and published in the columns of the Ledger, of this city, in 1878;
and on condition that he will, if his further observations satisfy
him that he did injustice to Mr. Keely, forthwith publish that fact
through the same channel, the Ledger: he being, of course, at full
liberty to confirm by further publication his previous condemnation,
if satisfied with the correctness of that conclusion; then Dr. Barker
will be cordially received by Mr. Keely, and a series of experiments
will be conducted for him at an early day, say, Saturday, 12 inst. And
in the event of the engagement being made, I shall request the pleasure
of your presence, and that of Dr. McCook. I leave the matter in your
hands for such action as you in your wise discretion may think proper
to take. Very truly yours,
"Charles B. Collier."
Nothing could be fairer than Mr. Keely's proposal, and the result of
Professor Barker's visit will be watched for with the keenest interest
by all scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. [7]
"Professor Barker, after due consideration, concluded not to accept
the invitation, and declined it on October 11th, suggesting Professor
Goodspeed, his associate in physics, as one who would probably be
disposed to witness the series of experiments about to be given;
showing the neutralizing or overcoming of gravity and the separation
of metallic plates by vibration. After the date upon which these
latter experiments were to have been made, and which I may mention,
en passant, had been repeatedly made in the laboratory of Mr. Keely,
this cablegram was sent from London to Philadelphia:-- 'Ask Dr. Leidy's
permission to announce here his conviction that Keely has discovered
a new force.'"
The answer was returned as follows:--
"Having had the opportunity of seeing Mr. John Keely's experiments,
it has appeared to me that he has command of some unknown force of
most wonderful mechanical power.
"Joseph Leidy."
Invention, in commenting upon the communication, says: "We wish
to make it quite clear that we do not identify ourselves with any
of the opinions which are expressed in this communication. It is
certainly desirable that the motor should be thoroughly tested, and
particularly that all the secrecy, which has hitherto been practised
in connection with it, should be abandoned. There can be no reason
why this invention, if invention it be, should not be published to the
world as long as it is fully protected by patents. We agree, however,
so far, that Professor Barker's report, if his visit be paid, will
be of considerable interest."
These remarks of our English contemporary are based upon quite
wrong premises. The motor cannot be tested nor patented until it
is completed. Mr. Keely's work is one of experimental research. His
machine for the production and liberation of the power is in daily
operation. He has made many failures in constructing his commercial
engine, but each failure has brought him nearer to perfection.
When he has succeeded in building an engine in which he can regulate
the speed, control reversions and govern its operations, as completely
as the steam engine is now governed, then he will be ready to test
its action publicly, take out patents for the same, and make known
to the world the nature of his discovery. Up to the present time
Mr. Keely's inventions have been principally devices, enabling him
to experiment with the force which he has discovered and to obtain
control over it. For years he was impeded by the frequency of the
explosions which took place, breaking his ribs, paralyzing his left
side for six weeks at one time, and frequently bursting iron tubes
as if they were pipe stems.
Little by little he learned the laws which governed the unknown force,
and now he never has an explosion. Mr. Keely has not preserved any
secrecy with regard to his experiments, but on the contrary he has
lost much time in exhibiting the production of this force to those
who desire to see it. For instance, some years ago he stopped his
work on the graduating of his engine to take his liberator to pieces,
in order to show its interior construction to Sir William Thompson
and Lord Raleigh: these gentlemen, misled by Professor Barker's
assertion, that Keely was deceiving his dupes with compressed air,
refused to witness his experiments. This was in 1884.
There is no "secrecy to be abandoned," therefore. The question to be
settled was not one of secrecy, but whether Mr. Keely should continue
his experimental research, unimpeded by exhibitions, until he should
succeed in perfecting a commercial engine; or whether he should first
convince scientists that he is not a modern Cagliostro as he has been
called, and that he is a discoverer of an unknown force.
The ground taken by those who urged the latter course was that the
interests of the Keely Motor Company would thus be better served;
reasoning that, when scientists have been convinced that Mr. Keely's
researches are in a field comparatively unknown to them, the cries
of execration would be drowned in the applause which would resound
throughout the world as the result of his stupendous labours became
better known.
For this end several scientists were invited to witness the present
stage of experiment, which Mr. Keely had reached in his efforts to
provide his provisional engine with a governor, and Dr. Leidy was
one of the number who, after witnessing the experiments on May 28th,
1889, confessed himself convinced that Keely was dealing with some
unknown force.
When we call to mind Watt's persevering efforts during thirty years,
before he succeeded in his attempt to invent a governor for the steam
engine, we can afford to be more patient with Mr. Keely than we have
been. Taking into consideration the marvellous advance which Mr. Keely
has made in the past five years in perfecting his liberator, we should
not be surprised to hear at any moment that he has also perfected
his commercial engine, the so-called "Keely Motor," thus overcoming
his sole remaining obstacle to financial success. Those who talk of
"testing" the motor, or of patenting it in its present condition,
are not aware of the exertions which have been made by Mr. Keely
to bring the motor to its present stage of development; nor that,
although the motor now seems to be approaching perfection, the work
of evolution will not be completed until it is in a patentable form.
In 1759 James Watt made his first model of a steam carriage. In
1784 he took out a patent. In 1803 the first engine was built, but
it was not until 1824 that the experiment of running a locomotive
from Liverpool to Stockport was made. Until Mr. Keely's commercial
engine is perfected and patented, now that scientists are beginning
to support him as the discoverer of an unknown force, ridicule should
give way to sympathy; for we know that nature never reveals one of
her tyrant forces without at the same time showing how this force is
to be transformed into the slave of man, and that complete success
is only a question of time.--Anglo-Austria, March, 1890.
SOME RECENT EXPERIMENTS. [8]
Copy of a Letter addressed to Professor Dewar of the Royal Institution
of Great Britain.
Dear Professor Dewar,--As I have already informed you, I carried
out your wishes in reference to Professor Rowland of the John
Hopkins University, as far as extending to him an invitation to
witness some of Mr. Keely's experiments in sympathetic vibration
was concerned. Professor Rowland was not able to witness any
demonstration whatever, on account of an accident which happened to the
disintegrator, and he could not fail to have formed an unfavourable
opinion of Mr. Keely from all that transpired on that occasion. I
next renewed the invitation to Professor Barker, which had already
been extended to him by Professor Leidy, both of these gentlemen
being Professors in the Pennsylvania University. Professor Barker
was not able to be present. The series of experiments which have
been given for scientists, mechanical engineers, and others since my
return, closed on the 12th. The steady progress from week to week,
since the accident to the disintegrator was repaired, has given
beautiful evidence of the wisdom of the plan adopted by Mr. Keely
in the winter of 1888-89, which led him to turn his attention to a
class of experiments of quite a different nature from those which,
up to that time, had been made for commercial ends; experiments which
have not failed to convince all who attended the entire series that
Mr. Keely is dealing with an unknown force, the laws governing which
he is still in partial ignorance concerning. He admits now that he
cannot construct a patentable engine to use this force till he has
mastered the principle; and a fund, with the approval of scientists,
has been appropriated for this end, upon the condition that he will
waste no more time upon what is known as the Keely Motor Engine
until he has demonstrated his ability to control reversions and in
all points to govern the revolutions.
His last engine was built to exhibit the practical nature of
his discovery to capitalists, the managers of "The Keely Motor
Company"--which company died a natural death years since--hoping
thereby to raise the price of its stock, and in this way to furnish
Mr. Keely with the funds that he needed. But the exhibition of this
engine was premature and did not succeed. There will be no further
need for such exhibitions in future, for it is, as it always has been,
in the interest of stock-holders that the stock should not rise until
the system is completed, when it will rise to remain raised. From
this time the interests of stock-holders will not be sacrificed to
the interest of stock-jobbers. The experiments conducted on Saturday
last surpassed preceding ones in the purity of the demonstrations,
the instruments being in better condition.
In demonstrating what seems to be the overcoming of gravity for aerial
navigation, Mr. Keely used a model of an air-ship, weighing about eight
pounds, which, when the differentiated wire of silver and platinum
was attached to it, communicating with the sympathetic transmitter,
rose, descended, or remained stationary midway, the motion as gentle
as that of thistledown floating in the air.
The experiment illustrating "chord of mass" sympathy was repeated,
using a glass chamber, forty inches in height, filled with water,
standing on a slab of glass. Three metal spheres, weighing about
six ounces each, rested on the glass floor of the chamber. The
chord of mass of these spheres was B flat first octave, E flat
second octave, and B flat third octave. Upon sounding the note B
flat on the sympathetic transmitter, the sphere having that chord of
mass rose slowly to the top of the chamber; the positive end of the
wire having been attached, which connected the covered jar with the
transmitter. The same result followed the sound of the note in sympathy
with the chord of mass of the other spheres, all of which descended
as gently as they rose, upon changing the positive to the negative.
J. M. Willcox, Ph.D., who was present, remarked,--"This experiment
proves the truth of a fundamental law in scholastic philosophy,
viz., that when one body attracts or seeks another body, it is not
that the effect is the sum of effects produced by parts of one body
upon parts of another, one aggregate of effects, but the result of
the operation of one whole upon another whole."
The experiments on the 12th closed with the disintegration of water,
twelve drops of which we saw dropped, drop by drop, into the small
sphere attached to the disintegrator after exhausting the air
by suction. A pressure of over 20,000 pounds to the square inch
was shown to the satisfaction of all present, and when Mr. Willcox
accepted Mr. Keely's invitation to take a seat on the arm of the lever,
adding his 260 pounds to the weight, applause broke forth. Mr. Keely
showed control of the ether, inter-atomic subdivision, by graduating
the escape of the residue, as he allowed it to discharge itself with
a noise like the rushing of steam to an expulsion as gentle as the
breathings of an infant. The three subdivisions acted simultaneously,
showing instantaneous association and disassociation. The sympathetic
globe was operated upon, 120 revolutions a second, ceasing the instant
that the wire was detached.
I regret to say that Professor Ira Remsen was prevented, I fear
by Professor Rowland, from witnessing any one of this series of
experiments as he intended doing; nor have I been able to get the
opinion of any physicist in whom I felt any confidence; but Mr. Keely
is satisfied to have the support of such men as J. M. Willcox, Ph.D.,
and Professor Leidy, LL.D. Dr. Leidy was awarded the Lyell Medal in
1884, when in London, and the Cuvier Prize in 1888, from the Academy
of Sciences in France. He is known in America not only as possessing
the broadest of minds and the gentlest of natures, but as holding in
his heart that love for, and reverence of, truth and justice which
alone can confer the power of forming a correct and a just judgment.
I would like to have you make known in England that Mr. Keely
is indebted to Macvicar's Sketch of a Philosophy for turning his
attention, in 1884, to researches on the structure of ether, and to
Mrs. F. J. Hughes (not Mrs. Watts Hughes), for the suggestions in her
work on Harmonies of Tones and Colours Developed by Evolution, which
led him into the line of experiment that will enable him to show on
a disc the various colours of sound, each note having its colour, and
to demonstrate in various ways Mrs. Hughes' own words "that the same
laws which develop musical harmonies develop the universe," etc., etc.
On the 10th of June, 1890, the Rev. John Andrew, of Belfast, whose
pendulographs illustrate the ratios which rule in the domain of
atmospheric vibrations, in which audible music has been located by the
great numberer, wrote: "I think that now, at last, Keely's labours
are about to be honourably recognized by the world of science. May
he live to rejoice in his triumphs." Mr. Andrew, who was the friend
of the late Dr. Macvicar, was instrumental in bringing "A Sketch
of a Philosophy" to Mrs. Moore's notice, and has maintained great
interest in Keely's researches since he first heard of them. Miss
Mary Green, a governess in the family of Lord Wimborne, was another
instrument used to make known to Keely the important nature of the
energy he had liberated from the suspension in which it is always
held in our atmosphere. About this time Professor James Dewar, who
had been following Keely's claims as a discoverer since 1884, wrote:
"If Mr. Keely succeeds in making his discovery practically useful, as
it is said that he is demonstrating to scientists his ability to do--if
this information be true, it is strange to contrast the past history of
science with the present. Fancy the discoverer of electricity having
succeeded in inventing the modern dynamo machine! Such a fact would
mean the concentration of hundreds of years of scientific discovery
and invention into the single life of one man. Such a result would
be simply marvellous."
At this time a number of the leading journals in various parts of
the United States announced that, although Keely's methods and his
failures had combined to engender distrust and arouse ridicule,
it could no longer be denied that he had discovered what no other
man has discovered. Still "penny-a-liners" continued to employ those
"weapons of small souls and narrow minds," sneers and ridicule and
calumny, which Lavater's allegorical vignette so well depicts: A hand
holding a lighted torch is stung by a wasp, and the gnats that swarm
around it are consumed in its flame. Underneath are these lines:--
And although it singes the wings of the gnats,
Destroys their heads and all their little brains,
Light is still light;
And although I am stung by the angriest wasp,
I will not yield.
Every defender of the truth, at whom shafts of ridicule are levelled,
should recall these words. Never, for one moment, has Keely turned
aside from his work to answer his assailants.
It is not to be wondered at that the magical nature of his
demonstrations, more inexplicable than any feats of legerdemain, should
have brought upon him the suspicion of fraudulent representation,
concerning the production of the force and its manipulation; but his
persistency alone in seeking to unravel the mysteries of nature, ought
to have brought around him sooner men who, like the revered and great
Leidy, were able to appreciate his researches in sympathetic vibration,
the laws of which govern everything in creation, from the movements of
the planets, down to the movements of atoms. From the time in which it
was made known to Keely that the same principle underlies harmonies
and the motion of heavenly bodies, as announced by Pythagoras, his
grasping intellect conceived the idea that planetary bodies have
a nerve-system, subject to conditions which govern it and keep it
under control, just as our human mechanism is controlled by the law
which governs its operation. In Keely's theories all is mechanical in
nature. A molecule of steel, a molecule of gas, a molecule of brain
matter are all of the one primeval substance--the Ether.
AERIAL NAVIGATION.
The instrument devised by Mr. Keely for bringing the air-ship under
control in its ascent and descent, consists of a row of bars, like
the keys of a piano, representing the enharmonic and the diatonic
conditions. These bars range from 0 to 100. At 50 Mr. Keely thinks
the progress of the vessel ought to be about 500 miles an hour. At
100 gravity resumes its control. If pushed to that speed it would
descend like a rifle-ball to the earth. There is no force known so
safe to use as the polar flow if, as Mr. Keely thinks, that, when
the conditions are once set up, they remain for ever, with perpetual
molecular action as the result, until the machinery wears out. In
the event of meeting a cyclone, the course of the vessel, he teaches,
can be guided so as to ascend above the cyclone by simply dampening
a certain proportion of these vibratory bars.
The instrument for guiding the ship has nothing to do with the
propelling of it, which is a distinct feature of itself, acting by
molecular bombardment; moving the molecules in the same order as in
the suspension process, but transversely. After the molecular mass
of the vessel is sensitized, or made concordant with the celestial
and terrestrial streams, the control of it in all particulars is
easy and simple. In ascending the positive force is used, or the
celestial, as Keely has named it, and in descending the negative
or terrestrial. Passing through a cyclone the air-ship would not be
affected by it.
The breaking up of cyclones will open a field for future research,
if any way can be discovered for obtaining the chord of mass of the
cyclone. To differentiate the chord of its thirds would destroy it; but
to those who know nothing of the underlying principle, on which Keely
has based his system, all such assertions are the merest "rubbish."
For a few months following the announcement of Professor Leidy's
and Dr. Willcox's opinions, Mr. Keely continued his researches
under favourable circumstances; but, in the autumn of 1890, he was
again threatened with suits-at-law and harassed by demands to give
exhibitions in order to raise the price of stock. A subscription
was started to raise funds for the prosecution. These threats made
it necessary to make public the history of Keely's connection with
an organization which was supposed by many to have been formed for
speculative purposes, before the stock of the company possessed any
value other than prospective; but to which company, notwithstanding,
the world is indebted for supplying Mr. Keely with the means to
continue his work, at a time when it was impossible for him to gain
the recognition of science or the aid of capitalists. The discovery
would in all probability have been lost, but for the help which
this organization gave, at a time when Keely needed help; he had
made a discovery, and these shrewd business men, totally ignorant of
physics, knew enough to comprehend its financial importance. Never
doubting that Keely would be able to master the difficulties at once,
in the way of its subjugation, and not realizing the width of the
gulf that lies between discovery and invention, they expected him to
leap it with one bound; and when he failed to do so they threw upon
him all the odium which befell the enterprise. Keely, who had twice
destroyed his researching instruments, when harassed and threatened
by the managers of the company, first in 1882, and again in 1887,
was now placed by their threatened proceedings in a position where
he had to choose between continuing his researches with the end in
view of completing his system; or diverting his course and resuming
his efforts to perfect an engine, to continue exhibitions for the
purpose of raising the stock of the company.
At this juncture an attempt was made to have circulated among the
stock-holders a narrative setting forth facts to show that their
interests would be better served by a continuance of the researches
that had led to the results attained within the last two years; and
which were of so important a character as to justify Keely in saying
that he had learned more of the law, governing the operation of the
force he was dealing with, in that time, than in the many preceding
years during which he had been scarcely doing more than liberating the
ether. The effort to have the narrative circulated failed; and, as a
last resort, the history of the company was made public in a pamphlet,
entitled The Keely Motor Bubble; which contained the Minority Report of
Mr. John Lorimer, made, in 1881, when he was a member of the Board of
Directors of "the now defunct Keely Motor Company;" giving a masterly
analysis of the situation at that time. Mr. Lorimer's faith in,
and loyalty to, Mr. Keely, has never been questioned. He is probably
the best and most disinterested adviser that Mr. Keely has ever had;
among those who are interested solely in the commercial aspect of
the discovery.
CHAPTER X.
1881-1891.
THE KEELY MOTOR BUBBLE. MACVICAR'S LOGICAL ANALYSIS.
For it is well known that bodies act upon one another by
the attraction of gravity, magnetism, and electricity; and
these instances show the tenour and course of Nature and make
it not improbable that there may be more attractive powers
than these. For Nature is very consonant and comfortable to
herself.--Sir Isaac Newton.
The Scotch author, Macvicar, from whose "Sketch of a Philosophy" has
been compiled "Ether the True Protoplasm," published this year in the
New York Home Journal, says in his "Enquiry into Human Nature," written
in 1852, "Modern science is certainly on the way to the discovery that,
so far as is cognizable by us, throughout the whole universe the same
laws are at work and regulate all things. The mécanique céleste of
mind is still waiting its Newton to disclose them to us."
Looking upon the discoverer of etheric force as the Newton, whose
coming was forecast by Macvicar, it is satisfactory to see that Keely,
in his field of research, eventually adopted the methods which his
forerunner advocated nearly forty years ago; but not until after
many years of blind grappling with the mechanical difficulties which
he encountered, in his efforts to control the unknown Genii, which
he himself declares that he stumbled upon in quite another field
of research. Keely was experimenting in 1875 on what he called
a hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacuo engine, when, "accidentally,"
the first evolution of disintegration was made. The focalization of
this quadruple force, acting on one general centre of concentration,
produced partial molecular subdivision, resulting in a pressure of some
three thousand pounds per square inch. Mr. Keely was himself amazed
at this evidence of the energy which he had evoked, and at once turned
his attention to researching its nature, with the result that he came
to the conclusion that he had partially resolved the gaseous element
of water by crude molecular dissociation. This was his first step,
and the necessary introductory one, towards the elimination of ether;
but at that time, to use his own words, he had not the remotest idea of
the etheric element proper. Since then he has constructed innumerable
machines to subdivide or dissociate the molecular; but it was not until
he had instituted certain acoustic vibratory conditions that he began
to realize the magnitude of the element that he is now controlling
with his vibratory disintegrator. Yet, even this instrument was only
the stepping-stone towards polar-sympathetic-negative-attraction.
In 1878 Mr. Keely conceived and constructed an instrument which he
called a "vibratory lift," and, while experimenting on the improvised
multiplication by this medium, he had occasion to put a piece of
marble, weighing twenty-six pounds, on a steel bar to hold it in
place, when then and there his first discovery of the disintegration
of mineral substance took place. From that time progressive research
of the most arduous nature has brought him to his present standard
in vibratory physics. In the winter of 1881-82, when threatened
with imprisonment by the managers of the Keely Motor Company for not
disclosing his secret to them, which then would have been like pricking
a bubble, he destroyed his vibratory lift and other instruments that
he had been years in perfecting. At this time so hopeless was Keely,
that his plans were made to destroy himself, after destroying his
devices. At this critical juncture he received unexpected aid. Again,
in 1888, before he was taken to a felon's cell in Moyamensing Prison
by decree of Judge Finletter for alleged contempt of court, he broke
up his vibratory microscope, his sympathetic transmitter, and some
devices, which have taken much of his time since to reconstruct. It
would seem to be incomprehensible that a man who believes he has been
specially endowed by Providence to convey great truths to the world,
should have destroyed instruments which were the result of the labour
of many years of research; but Schopenhauer tells us that genius
possesses an abnormally developed nervous and cerebral system that
brings with it hyper-sensibility, which in union with intensity of
will-energy, that is also characteristic of genius, occasions quick
changes of mood and extravagant outbursts. Schopenhauer also explains
why it is that men of genius are ignored by the age in which they
appear:--"The genius comes into his age like a comet into the paths
of the planets, to whose well-regulated and comprehensible order its
entirely eccentric course is foreign. Accordingly he cannot go hand
in hand with the existing regular progress to the culture of the
age, but flings his works far out on the way in front (as the dying
Emperor flung his spear among the enemy), which time has first to
overtake. The achievement of the man of genius transcends not only the
power of achievement of others, but also their power of apprehension;
therefore they do not become directly conscious of him. The man of
talent is like the marksman who hits a mark the others cannot hit;
the man of genius is like the marksman who hits a mark that the sight
of others cannot even reach." In one sense this truth applies to all
men, for, says Cicero, no man is understood excepting by his equals
or his superiors.
Admitting all that has been said of the difficulties attendant upon
the comprehension of a genius by the age in which he lives, it does
not require genius to understand the blunders which, perpetrated
by the managers of the prematurely organized Keely Motor Company,
have placed Mr. Keely, as well as themselves, in false positions with
the public; leaving him since the winter of 1880-81 to bear the whole
burden of the infamy brought about by their having offered stock for
investment which could possess no tangible existence in the shape
of property until the laws governing the unknown force that he was
handling had been studied out and applied to mechanics in a patentable
machine. To those informed that this company ceased to hold annual
meetings as far back as 1881 it will be a matter of surprise to hear
that, sitting up in its coffin, seven or eight years after its burial,
it called another annual meeting, and that now its managers are again
applying the thumb-screw, as in past years; pressing their claims and
threatening a suit for obtaining money under false pretences, unless
Mr. Keely renounces his plan of progressive research, and gives his
time to the construction of engines for the Keely Motor Company. This
requirement, as was said in 1881, of a similar effort, is as sensible,
under existing conditions, as it would be to require Keely to devote
his time to growing figs on thorn trees. It is from the "Minority
Report to the Stockholders of the Keely Motor Company from the Board of
Directors" (made by a member of that board in 1881, John H. Lorimer),
that the material is gleaned for disclosing facts which it is due
to Mr. Keely should now, since this last attempt to intimidate him,
be given to the public. The stock of that company is not lessened
in value by the mismanagement of its officers and directors; for
Mr. Keely's moral obligations to its stockholders are as sacred to
him as if the company had not long since forfeited its charter. When
Mr. Keely became financially independent of the company last March,
speculation in the stock of that company received its death blow,
and the "Keely Motor Bubble" burst, leaving to the stockholders all
that ever had any tangible existence in the shape of property in a
more valuable position than it had ever been before. Mr. Lorimer is
a gentleman of Scotch birth, who was elected a director of the Keely
Motor Company in 1881, and who resigned in 1882, because he was "unable
to carry the enterprise," and unwilling to fall in with the policy of
the old directors. Before resigning, he set himself to studying the
position of affairs with a view to forming for the Board a definite
plan of action which ordinary business principles would justify.
This course resulted in a thoroughly business-like letter to Mr. Keely
in which, under nine heads, Mr. Lorimer set down the conclusions he
had reached as to the cause of the difficulties that had culminated
in a threatened law suit, and Mr. Keely was ordered to ask that a
special meeting of the Board should be called at once, to consider any
proposition he should see fit to make towards settling the question
whether he should proceed with the company's work or be permitted
to defer it, as he so much desired, until he had fully developed the
adaptations of his power already known to him or hereafter possible
of discovery by him. Mr. Lorimer added:--"And now, in conclusion,
I may say to you that the above deductions from the history of your
motor are the result of patient and laborious inquiry on my part,
and I am truly at a loss to understand how, or in what manner, other
than that herein suggested, you can honourably vindicate your position;
and as no one I have met connected with the enterprise, or personally
acquainted with you, hesitates for an instant in crediting you with
the most unswerving integrity, I have no hesitation in offering the
above suggestions for your consideration; and I trust you will so
far adopt them as to enable the active portion of your friends to
bring the organization rapidly into harmonious accord with you in
the development of what all seem to think is the greatest wonder of
our civilization, the early completion of which will lift you to the
highest pinnacle of fame as a scientist, and make them co-dispensers
with you of the God-given wealth of which you hold the key." The date
is 10th of February, 1881.
This letter was followed by another dated February 11th, in which
Mr. Lorimer submitted certain conclusions, arrived at after meeting
in New York with several members of the Board of Directors, one of
which reads:--"It seems to be generally understood that without your
hearty co-operation and good will, the company cannot realize value
upon any existing contracts, or any they may hereafter make with you."
At this time Mr. Lorimer states that he had the opportunity presented
of studying, semi-officially, the very peculiar man whose genius held
his friends so spell-bound that they lost their power (if such they
possessed) to adapt business methods to the enterprise. "To meet him
socially in his shop," Mr. Lorimer writes, "after his day's work, was,
I think, invariably to be impressed with his earnestness, honesty of
purpose, and above all, with confidence in his knowledge of the plane
of science he was working in (acoustics), and, at the same time to
be impressed with the folly of basing calculations for the government
of the business details of the organization upon the statements made
by him while contemplating the possible result of his researches."
With the hopeful spirit of an inventor, Mr. Keely always anticipated
almost immediate mechanical success, up to the hour in which he
abandoned the automatic arrangement that was necessary to make his
generator patentable. From that time his line of perspective extended,
and he began to realize that he had been too sanguine in the past. He
had been like a man grappling in the dark with a foe, the form of
which had not even presented itself to his imagination; but when,
in 1884, Macvicar's work on the structure of ether came like a torch
to reveal the face of his antagonist, what wonder that he, with the
enthusiasm of Paracelsus, felt his
... "fluttering pulse give evidence that God
Means good to me, will make my cause His own;"
and, as in 1881, again rashly bound himself anew, by fresh promises,
made to those who had the power to give or to withhold the sinews
needed in the warfare he was waging?
To return to the report. During the negotiations which followed,
facts in the history of the company were developed which convinced
Mr. Lorimer that Mr. Keely was totally unable to measure time, or
define his plans, because of the ever-changing results attained by
him, in researching the laws governing the force he was trying to
harness. At this time the treasurer of the company was proposing to
bring over from New York to Philadelphia a number of capitalists
to witness an exhibition of the production of the force, in order
to dispose of 500 shares at 25.00 dollars a share. To this plan
Mr. Lorimer objected, writing to the treasurer, "I fear that you would
be putting yourself in a false position with the friends you might
induce to take stock at the figures named," and Mr. Keely himself
at first refused to give the exhibition, but upon the application
of the thumb-screw, kept in readiness, it took place. At this time
Mr. Lorimer wrote to the president of the company, "If Keely gives
us the benefit of his discoveries, it will require all our energies
to guide our enterprise; and, on the other hand, if he dies or is
forestalled, it will need all our care and attention to take care
of our reputations.... The fact that the Board has some delicate and
important work to perform, brings us to the question, Are we properly
organized to perform our part? If we are, let us show it by our acts,
and, if not, let us act like men, worthy the important trust before
us. If I am overestimating the character and importance of this
work, you can show it to me; and per contra, if I am correct, you
can and will accept the responsibilities of the position you hold,
no matter how unpleasant, no matter how irksome, if understood by
you and honourably supported by us."
Mr. Lorimer then prepared this summary, or analysis of the situation.
SUMMARY.
26th July, 1881.
"First.--The existence of a discovery or invention which from
evidences of its adaptability (when complete) to the industrial
arts and sciences, may be esteemed the most valuable discovery
of civilization in modern or in ancient times, inasmuch as it
revolutionizes all known methods of generating power.
"Second.--The retention by the discoverer and inventor of all the
secrets whereby these discoveries can be utilized by the public, thus
making their future existence, so far as the Keely Motor Company is
concerned, depend entirely upon his life and goodwill.
"Third.--The existence of a corporated company, organized for the
purpose of furnishing funds for the development and completion of the
discovery, and for the final control of certain specified inventions,
in certain specified localities.
"Fourth.--The contracts under which the above-mentioned control of
certain inventions is vested in the Keely Motor Company, being mere
evidences of intention, have no real value until the inventor has
received his patents and verified the contracts by transfer of the
same to the company.
"Fifth.--If any conflict should arise between the company and the
inventor, in which the latter felt justified in withholding the
transfer, the existing contracts might be a good foundation to build
litigation upon but not good for investment in.
"Sixth.--The uncertainty of the future of the enterprise, as thus
indicated, must of necessity invite speculative management; and while
speculation under some circumstances is legitimate and laudable,
under other conditions it may become illegitimate and reprehensible.
"Seventh.-- The existence of a speculative management in Keely Motor
affairs has, of necessity, developed two interests--one which holds
that the completion of the discovery in all its possible grandeur
should ever be the sole object of its management, and the other,
believing that on account of the human uncertainty of the completion
of the invention, they are in duty bound to make quick recoveries
on their investments, so that they may be safe financially, in the
event of a failure by Keely to perfect his inventions."
It is not necessary to pursue this summary farther, as the manner in
which Mr. Lorimer has set down the facts already given, makes clear the
nature of the conflicting interests that brought about the antagonism
which he attempted to subdue, bringing such a spirit of fairness and
justice into his efforts as must have crowned them with success,
supported as he was by Mr. Keely, had it not been that those who
advocated following a policy which, at best, aimed no farther than
at the recouping of losses to themselves, were in the majority. It
was at this time that Mr. Keely manifested his willingness to assume,
on the one hand, all the responsibility of the proper development of
his discovery; or, on the other hand, all the disgrace accompanying
failure by his offer to purchase a controlling interest in the stock,
fifty-one thousand shares of which, in order to prevent speculation,
he agreed to lock up for five years, and to give the company a bond
restraining him from negotiating or parting with a single share of it
in that time, the stock to be paid for as soon as certain deferred
payments had been made to him. This proposition of Mr. Keely to the
Board of Directors, October 25th, 1881 (and laid upon the table by a
large majority as unworthy of consideration), was made from his earnest
desire to control the presentation of his life's work to the world
in a just and honourable way; having recognized, with Mr. Lorimer,
the utter impossibility of reconciling the numerous interests created
by mistakes of himself and the mismanagement of the Board, unless he
could thus obtain the power to deliver an unencumbered enterprise to
the world. In the opinion of Mr. Lorimer, during the negotiations which
he conducted between the management and Mr. Keely, the latter was the
only one who had manifested any consistency or strength of purpose,
so far as the facts gave evidence, which were brought before him, of
the history of the company. When the validity of the contracts made
with Mr. Keely while he was president, or director of the company, were
disputed, he was called upon to resign, which he did; and yet no steps
were taken to ascertain the value of the existing contracts, which
had all been made with him while he was both president and director,
and which were therefore illegal. Proceedings in equity were commenced
against Mr. Keely, by the Committee of the Board of Directors having
the matter in charge, late in the year 1881, while Mr. Lorimer's report
was still in the hands of the printer. "The spectacle of a Board of
thirteen Directors, composed of business men," writes Mr. Lorimer,
"claiming that they have been foiled in their business calculations
by a man whose mind has been so thoroughly absorbed in researching
the problems presented by his wonderful discoveries that he could
not possibly compare with any of them in business tact, is truly
a phenomenon which is not easy of explanation on any hypothesis,
but the one that their visions of prospective wealth have been so
overpowering as to undo their prudence; and then having in due process
of time discovered their error, it certainly is an edifying spectacle
to see them now trying to throw all the blame on one poor mortal wholly
absorbed in his inventions, and by these efforts disturbing that mental
equilibrium of both the inventor and themselves, which is absolutely
necessary to ultimate success. When boys, in early summer, pick unripe
fruit and eat it, because of their unwillingness to await the ripening
thereof, they sometimes suffer acutely for their haste. Yet no one
ever thinks of punishing the tree because of their sufferings; nor
is it deemed necessary to justice to preserve the fruit of the tree,
when ripe, for the sole use of the impatient ones as a recompense for
their early sufferings! So it has been with the Keely Motor Company;
undue haste to gather the golden fruit that was to come from it, has
led to a great deal of suffering financially among a few impatient
believers. Still it does not seem to me to be wise to curse the
inventor, or his inventions because he has not given us the fruit
when we expected it would be ripe."...
The effort to force Keely to divulge his secrets failed, for at
that time he had nothing of a practical nature to divulge, and though
possessing no business qualifications, he was too shrewd to cut off any
of his resources for supplies, necessary to enable him to persevere
in his efforts to attain some practical result, as he surely would
have done, had he said, "I know very little more than you know of
the laws governing the force I have discovered. I can only control
their operation by experimental research, and the more time that
is wasted in building engines, until I have made myself acquainted
with these laws, the longer will you have to wait for your golden
fruit." Mr. Keely was no more able at that time to give the faintest
idea of the present stage of his researches than Professor Leidy or
Dr. Wilcox could now, after witnessing the experiments in sympathetic
attraction, write out a clear formulation of its governing law, and
an inductive substantiation of it. Even were it possible, no reader
could understand it because the discovery made by Mr. Keely is not
in accordance with any of the facts known to science. Mr. Keely's
experiments in disintegrating water prove that incalculable amounts
of latent force exist in the molecular spaces; but in the opinion
of scientists, molecular aggregation is attended with dissipation
of energy, not with absorption of energy. If the men of science are
right, then there must be an absolute creation of energy, for only by
admitting its absorption in aggregation, could molecular dissociation
supply the force witnessed. Keely, of course, denies any creation
of energy, claiming only that he can produce an indefinite supply by
the expenditure of an infinitesimally small amount of energy. Every
new discovery necessitates a new nomenclature. The vocabulary coined
by Mr. Keely, to meet his requirements in formulating his hypotheses
into theories as he progresses, conveys as little meaning to those
who read his writings, as the word "electricity" conveyed 200 years
ago. Professor Crookes remarked that reading Mr. Keely's writings was
like reading Persian without a dictionary. Another learned professor
said that they seemed to him to be composed in an unknown tongue, so
profoundly unintelligible had he found the extracts sent to him. One
must be familiar with Mr. Keely's instruments and their operation,
in order to comprehend even the nature of his researches.
An author of philosophical works, who was present at some experiments
illustrative of varying chords of mass, and whose theories had
not been in unison with those of Mr. Keely on that subject, sat
for some time after the demonstration with his eyes fixed upon the
floor, wearing as serious an expression of countenance as if he were
looking on the grave of his most cherished views. The first remark
that he made was, "What would Jules Verne say if he were here?" The
rotation of the needle of a compass, the compass placed on a glass
slab and connected with the transmitter by a wire, 120 revolutions in
a second, had the same effect upon the scientists present, one of awe;
so completely were they transfixed and unable to form a conjecture
as to the mysterious influence from any known law of science. There
was only one professor present, a very young man, who ventured the
whispered suggestion of concealed mechanism under the pedestal; and
as Mr. Keely soon after had occasion to wheel the pedestal across the
room, showing that it was not stationary, and could have no concealed
connection within or without, the young professor took up another
line of conjecture. As Macvicar says, it has grown to be the fashion,
to a marvellous extent, to give predominance in education to physical
and mathematical studies over moral and mental. Hence a very general
and growing prepossession in favour of material nature. Astronomy,
natural philosophy, chemistry, natural history, geology, these and
the like are in our day held to be everything. He continues:--
Now, all these branches of study, however various in detail, agree
in this, that they exclude the conception of a true self-directive
power from the field of thought. They offer for consideration nothing
but figures, movements, and laws. And thus they tend to form the
popular mind to the habit of looking for figures, movements, and laws
everywhere, and for rejecting all other conceptions as intruders. But
of all such other conceptions, there is nothing so difficult and so
intractable, under physical modes of investigation, as self-directive
power. It therefore runs a great risk of being rejected, and thus
the mind, from its first training, having been in physics, carrying
out here, as it usually does everywhere, its first love into all its
after thoughts, shuts up the student surreptitiously with materialism
as his philosophy. Thus it is easy to see how materialism should
come to be a current opinion, when the popular education runs all
in favour of physical pursuits. But if philosophy must yield to the
demands of the logical faculty for an extreme simplicity, unity,
identity, at the fountain-head of nature, it were more logical to
regard those phenomena and laws named physical, such as the laws of
motion, elasticity, gravitation, etc., as manifestations, when existing
under certain limiting conditions, of substances or beings which have
also in them, when not so limited, and when existing under certain
conditions, ability to manifest self-directive power. That every body
is compounded, constituted, or made up of molecules, is universally
agreed. Every body is therefore a fit subject for analysis. But when
any body is submitted to analysis in reference to its mere corporeity
or bodily nature, that is, its extension and impenetrability, what do
we ultimately arrive at? Do we not, in reference to the attribute of
extension, arrive at particles, of which the physical limit is that
they have at least ceased to be extended, and are but mere points
in space? And as to the attribute of impenetrability, what do we in
the last analysis arrive at, but the idea of a substance that can
resist the intrusion into its place of other similar substances,
and, therefore, ultimately, a centre of force. And thus, under a
logical analysis, which must be admitted to be legitimate, it may
be maintained that a body or chemical element resolves itself into a
system of centres of force balancing each other at certain distances,
and thus rendering the whole molecule or mass extended, as body is
known to be. The elements of body, therefore, are things of which
these attributes are to be affirmed in the first instance, that
they possess unextended substance and extensive power. But, if so,
do they not touch upon the confines of the spiritual world to say
the least? asks Macvicar; and the Newton whom he anticipated would
give a mécanique céleste to mankind, solves the problem, answers the
question by his discovery of the cerebellic stream or will-flow.
Body and spirit, one at the fountain-head, when rising into
existence, form, as it were, the first breath of creation; for,
as Sir Wm. Thompson says: "Life proceeds from life and from nothing
else." They are the opposite poles of being and constitute the two
principles by the harmonious interweaving of which the beautiful
system of creation is constituted, and its economy worked out. Such a
view, far from being contrary to the canons of science, is even the
necessary complement of science. That unity, which is the last word
of science, must always include two objects, existing in contrast
after all. The law of couples, of opposites, of reciprocal action
between two contrasted yet homogeneous and harmonizing elements, each
of which opens a field for the other, and brings it into action, is
of universal extent. In the organic world, also, no less than in the
purely physical and chemical, all is framed according to the same law
of couples. In the sphere of sensibility, in like manner, everything
turns on the antagonism of pleasure and pain, and in the moral sphere
of good and evil. Nor is the world of pure intellect exempt from this
law, but on the contrary displays its influence everywhere. Hence faith
and sight, identity and difference, finite and infinite, objective and
subjective, space and time, cause and effect, the world of realities
and the world of ideas. In a word, every system of thought and of
things, when complete, present as its basis two co-ordinate elements,
the reciprocals of each other; or one parted into two reciprocally,
and by the harmonious antagonism of both the beautiful web of nature
is woven. If we are to be consistent, mind and matter ought always to
be viewed as distinct, and the opposite poles of being; inertia, or
unvarying submissiveness to the laws of motion being the characteristic
of the one; self-directive power the characteristic of the other.
The universal analogy of science sanctioned Macvicar in the
characteristic he thus arrived at as that of animated nature, for if
inertia, or the obedience to pressures and impulses from without,
be the characteristic of matter, then that which is needed as the
other term to complete the couple is just what has been insisted
on, viz., self-directive power, the power to cause pressures and
impulses. Here is shown the symmetrical relation in which this power,
when viewed as the characteristic of the whole animal kingdom (which
plainly points to man, and culminates in human nature), places the
animal in relation with the vegetable and the mineral kingdoms. Of
minerals or crystals, the characteristic is simply self-imposing
or self-concreting power. They are, so to speak, merely insoluble
seeds without an embryo. To this, self-developing power is added in
plants, and forms their acknowledged characteristic. While of animals
the characteristic, according to the view here advanced (the same
seed-producing, self-developing, powers continuing) is self-directive
power superadded. This relationship between these three kingdoms of
nature is as homogeneous and symmetrical as is necessary to appear
to be legitimate, and is a true expression of the order of nature.
Granting these two principles, the inert and the self-directive, the
necessary and the free, we obtain the materials for a universe, without
disputing the fact of human liberty and bringing into suspicion even
the possibility either of morality or immorality. If man be really
free as well as under law, in this union of body and spirit, then in
human nature heaven and earth truly embrace each other; and no reason
appears why, as the ages roll on, our own free thought may not have
the run of the universe.... What study then can be more replete with
interest, what researches can possess more of fascination, than those
which Mr. Keely's discoveries are preparing the way for?
The discoveries of Mr. Keely (demonstrated--as he is now prepared
to demonstrate them) cannot be disputed, though his system may
be called in question. With the humility of genius, he calls his
theories hypotheses, and his hypotheses conjectures. The solidity
of the principles, as laid down by himself, cannot be decided upon
by others until he has brought to light the whole system that grows
out of them. But it is time the public should know that the odium
thrown upon him by the Keely Motor Company, he does not deserve. It is
time that the Press should cease its sneers, its cry of "Crucify him,
crucify him!" morally speaking, and extend to him that discriminating
appreciation of his work and encouragement which the New York Home
Journal, Truth, Detroit Tribune, Chicago Herald, Toledo Blade,
Atlanta Constitution, The Statesman, and Vienna News have been the
first to do. Let the Press contrast the past history of science with
the present position of Keely, as Professor Dewar has done. Only such
a man who knows from experience the labour, the difficulties, the
uncertainties, attendant upon researching unknown laws of nature is
able to appreciate all that is now being concentrated in the single
life of one man. It is time that capitalists should step from their
ranks to protect Keely from the selfish policy of the managers of
a speculative company, which has long since forfeited all claims
upon him, to continue mechanical work for it, even admitting that it
ever possessed that right; and, more than all else, it is time that
science should send her delegates to confer with the broad-minded
men who have had the courage to give testimony, without which Keely
could not have stood where, this year, he stands for the first time,
fearless of threats, pursuing his researches on his own line, to
acquire that knowledge of the laws governing his discoveries by
which alone he can gain sufficient control of machinery to insure
financial success. Meanwhile, are there no men who are able to feel
an interest (without reference to commercial results) in a discovery
which sweeps away the débris of materialism as chaff is swept before
a whirlwind?--giving indisputable proof that, as St. Paul teaches, "we
are the offspring of God; "or, as Aratus wrote, from whom he quoted:--
"From God we must originate,
Not any time we break the spell
That binds us to the ineffable.
Indeed, we all are evermore
Having to do with God: for we
His very kind and offspring be:
And to His offspring the benign
Fails not to give benignant sign."
From New York Truth, 3rd July, 1890.
"I think it is safe, for even the most conservative and pig-headed of
scientists, to admit that Keely, the contemned, the scoffed at, the
derided, the man whom every picayune peddler called charlatan because
he could not harness the hitherto undiscovered forces of ether in less
time than one might hitch up a mule, is the most original and the most
straightforward of inventors, and that in his own good time he will
give to the world a power that will throw steam and electricity into
disuse, open the realms of air as a public highway for man, and send
great ships careering over ocean with a power developed by sound. His
theory of etheric vibration is now conclusively established, and it is
only a question of time and material that delays its use as a servant
to man. The fact is patent, so that he who runs may read, but the ox
must have the yoke, the horse the collar, the engine the cylinder, and
the dynamo the coil, ere they can work their wonders. While Keely was
hampered by mere tradesmen, who only looked to the immediate recoupment
of their outlay, men more anxious for dividends than discoveries, he
could do little save turn showman, and exhibit his partial control of
the harmonies of nature as springs catch woodcocks, and was forced to
open his crude contrivances to divert the eternal will of the cosmos
to work-a-day uses, that he might coax from the greed and credulity
of mere mammon-worshippers the sorely grudged means to continue his
exploration of the infinite. His genius was prisoned in a test tube,
and only let out to play monkey tricks before muddle-headed merchants,
who could see the effect, but not the means, and so the greatest
discovery of the age was turned into a raree show, and the eternal
music of the spheres was set, figuratively speaking, to play tunes
to attract custom like a barrel organ before a dime museum."
CHAPTER XI.
VIBRATORY SYMPATHETIC POLAR FLOWS.--KEELY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE.
"Evermore brave feet in all the ages
Climb the heights that hide the coming day,--
Evermore they cry, these seers and sages,
From their cloud, 'Our doctrines make no way.'
All too high they stand above the nations,
Shouting forth their trumpet-calls sublime,
Shouting downwards their interpretations
Of the wondrous secrets born of Time."
... Who can say what secrets the now unread 'fairy tales of
science' may have to tell to those who live in this later
age?--The Globe.
The question has often been asked, "How much energy does Keely
expend in the production of the force he is handling?" or again,
"Can Keely show that a foot-pound of vibratory sympathy can be more
easily developed from the resources of nature, than a foot-pound of
good honest work?"
In the economy of nature profit and loss must balance in mechanical
conditions; but Keely is not dealing with mechanical physics. There
is an immense difference between vibratory physics, in which field
Keely is researching, and mechanical physics. The consumption of coal
to expand water for the production of steam power, in the operation of
engines, cannot be compared to a force which is yielded in sympathetic
vibration or by sympathetic flows. In mechanical physics, no matter
what the nature of the force may be, its production must necessarily
be accompanied by a corresponding expenditure of force in some form
or other. The amount of force covered by a human volition cannot be
measured, yet it produces the wonderful effects that are exhibited
on the human frame in its overt actions. Something like this is the
difference between sympathetical and mechanical force. The force of
will cannot be multiplied by mechanical means, making it give pound
for pound. This would annihilate both the mental and the physical,
were it possible.
In his researches, Mr. Keely, who is dealing entirely with VIBRATORY
SYMPATHETIC and POLAR flows, is hopeless in regard to convincing
the scientific world of the value of his discoveries until he has
compelled its attention by commercial success. To the question,
"What does the supply cost in dollars and cents, per horse-power
developed?" he answers, "It costs nothing more after the machinery
is made, than the vibratory concordant impulse which associates it
with the polar stream." The twanging of a taut string, the agitation
of a tuning-fork, as associated with the resonating condition of
the sympathetic transmitter, is all that is necessary to induce the
connective link, and to produce this "costless motive power." As
long as the transmitter is in sympathy with the sympathetic current
of the triune polar stream, the action of the sympathetic instrument
or engine continues.
Again, mechanical conservation of energy is one thing; sympathetic
conservation is another, and we cannot expect Keely will reveal what
he has discovered concerning the forces that he is dealing with
until he has himself acquired that full knowledge of their action
which will protect the rights of those who are interested in the
"dollars and cents" part of "the enterprise."
Macvicar said that "if extreme vicissitudes of belief on the part of
men of science are evidences of uncertainty, it may be affirmed that
of all kinds of knowledge none is more uncertain than science;" but
slow as mankind is in the progress of discoveries bearing upon unknown
laws of nature, men of science are still slower in recognizing truths
after they have been discovered and demonstrated. Two centuries
elapsed between the discoveries of Pythagoras and their revival
by Copernicus. Tycho Brahe opposed the Pythagorean system until
his death; Galileo, adopting it and demonstrating it in all its
purity, suffered for his support of it at the hands of bigots. And so
history now repeats itself. Were it possible to convince scientists
en masse of the grandeur of Keely's work, they would protect him
from the interruptions and law-suits which have so retarded his
progress that now it looks very much as though he would never be
permitted to complete his system. The world is full of inventors,
but there is but one man able to unfold, to this age and generation,
the wonderful mysteries attendant upon vibratory physics, while there
are thousands who, when a mastery of the principle has been gained,
can invent machinery to apply it to commercial uses. Macvicar asks,
"Who that goes so far as to make a question of all, or almost all, the
data of common sense can legitimately refrain from making it a question
whether the laws of phenomena which men of science discover may not
be laws of thinking, merely imposed upon nature as her laws? Nay, who
can refrain from admitting with Kant that they can be nothing more?"
As a suggestion to those interested in psychological researches I
will mention that Keely has copied nature in all his instruments
from the Vibrophone, which is fashioned after the human ear, up
to the Disintegrator, in which the neutral centre represents the
human heart. With the system which Keely is unfolding to us we may
well say, with Buckle, "A vast and splendid career lies before us,
which it will take many ages to complete. As we surpass our fathers,
so will our children surpass us. Waging against the forces of nature
what has too often been a precarious, unsteady, and unskilled warfare,
we have never yet put forth the whole of our strength, and have never
united all our faculties against our common foe. We have, therefore,
been often worsted, and have sustained many and grievous reverses. But,
even so, such is the elasticity of the human mind, such is the energy
of that immortal and godlike principle which lives within us, that we
are baffled without being discouraged, our very defeats quickening our
resources, and we may hope that our descendants, benefiting by our
failures, will profit by our example, and that for them is reserved
that last and decisive stage of the great conflict between man and
nature, in which advancing from success to success, fresh trophies
will be constantly won; every struggle issuing in a conquest, and
every battle ending in a victory."
The force discovered by Keely--no, the force revealed to him--will rule
the earth with an influence mighty in the interests of humanity. The
completion of his system for science and commerce will usher in the
dawning of a new era.
While our leading men of science are everywhere occupying themselves
with the mysteries of electro-magnetic radiation, with the action
of the ether, with the structure of the molecule, the instruments
with which they are researching are, in comparison with those which
Keely has invented, for his researches, like the rudest implements
of the savage, compared to those developed by modern civilization. A
discussion has recently been carried on in one of our Reviews, as to
whether the energy which feeds the magnet comes from the atmosphere,
from gravity, from solar rays, or from earth currents. Nothing is more
simple than Keely's explanation, as proved by his demonstrations. The
energy of the magnet comes from the polar stream; and, though the
introductory impulse is so slight that it cannot be weighed any
more than can the flow of the mind, yet, if kept up for years, it
could not be computed by billions of tons in its effect. The magnet
that lifts pounds to-day, if the load of the armature is gradually
increased day by day, will lift double the amount in time. Whence
comes this energy? Keely teaches that it comes from sympathetic
association with one of the triune currents of the polar stream,
and that its energy will increase as long as sympathetic flows last,
which is through eternity.
The physicist tells you that "you cannot make something out of
nothing;" that "in the economy of nature profit and loss must balance;"
that "no matter what the nature of the force may be, its production
must necessarily be accompanied by a corresponding expenditure of
force in some form or other," etc., etc. But, in the prodigality of
nature, this energy flows, without measure and without price, from the
great storehouse of the Infinite Will. From the sympathetic portion
of the etheric field, all visible aggregations of matter emanate,
and on the same order that molecular masses of all living organisms
are vitalized by the sympathetic flow from the brain.
"Our most learned men," said Buckle, "know not what magnetism is,
nor electricity, nor gravity, nor cohesion, nor force." Keely shows
us, by mechanical means, what magnetism is. By neutralizing or
overcoming gravity, he proves to us that he understands its nature;
electricity he declares to be a certain form of atomic vibration;
and, in the disintegration of quartz, he demonstrates that cohesive
force, like gravity, is an ever-existing force, holding together all
molecular masses by the infinite velocity of its vibrations; which,
were these vibrations to cease for one instant, would fall apart,
molecules and atoms, and return to the ether in which they originated.
KEELY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE. [9]
An infinitely subtle substance, out of which all other
substances are constituted, in varying forms, passes back again
into simplicity. The same principle underlies the harmonies
of music and the motion of heavenly bodies.--Pythagoras.
One of the most arduous problems is that of energies
acting at distances. Are they real? Of all those that appear
incontrollable, one only remains, gravitation. Will it escape
us also? The laws of its action incline us to think so. The
nature of electricity is another problem which recalls us
to the condition of electric and magnetic forces through
space. Behind this question arises the most important problem
of all, that of the nature and properties of the substance
which fills space,--the ether,--its structure, its motion, its
limits, if it possesses any. We find this subject of research,
day by day, predominating over all others. It seems as though
a knowledge of ether should not only reveal to us the nature of
that imponderable substance, but will unveil to us the essence
of matter itself and of its inherent properties, weight and
inertia. Soon the question set by modern physics will be,
"Are not all things due to conditions of ether?" That is
the ultimate end of our science; these are the most exalted
summits to which we can hope to attain. Shall we ever reach
them? Will it be soon? We cannot answer.--Prof. Henri Hertz,
in La Revue Scientifique, October 26, 1888.
In the long delay attendant upon the application to mechanics of the
unknown force which John Ernest Worrell Keely has discovered in the
field of vibration, the question is often heard, "What has Keely
done?" with the remark, "He has never done anything; he is always
promising to do something, but he never keeps his promises."
Let us see what Keely, in his researches, has done for science;
although, as yet, he has done nothing for commerce.
We are quick to forget the experiences of history, which show what
a length of time has invariably elapsed between the discovery of a
new force and its use in mechanics. Watt commenced his experiments
on the elastic force of steam in 1764, obtaining about forty pounds
total pressure per square inch. (It has been stated that it was thirty
years before he succeeded in perfecting his safety-valve, or governor,
which made it possible to use steam without running great risks.) Fifty
years later, in 1814, the first steam locomotive was built; but it was
not until 1825 that the locomotive was used for traffic--travelling
at a speed of from six to eight miles in an hour. Keely commenced his
experiments with ether in the winter of 1872-73, showing a pressure of
two thousand pounds per square inch. It does not look now as though
half a century would elapse before Keely's discovery will supersede
steam in travel and traffic. In experimenting with ether, he has shown,
from time to time, since 1873, a pressure of from twenty thousand to
thirty-two thousand pounds per square inch; but he was occupied many
years in his researches before he obtained sufficient control over
the ether to prevent the explosions which made wrecks of his machines,
bursting iron and steel pipes, twelve inches in circumference, as if
they were straws. He has now arrived at a stage in his experimental
research in which he can, without danger of explosions, exhibit to
scientists such manifestations of an unknown force as to place him
before the world where he would have stood many years ago, had it not
been for the calumnious attacks of those men of science who found it
easier to denounce him than to account for the phenomena which they
witnessed in his workshop.
Professor Ira Remsen, in his "Theoretical Chemistry," writes, "As
regards the cause of the phenomena of the motion of the heavenly
bodies, we have no conception at the present day. It is true we say
that these phenomena are caused by the attraction of gravitation;
but, after all, we do not know what pulls these bodies together."
Let us see what Keely knows on this subject?
1st. After a lifetime of research into the laws governing vibrations,
which develop this force, Keely is able to demonstrate partial control
of the power that he has discovered,--a power which he believes
to be the governing medium of the universe, throughout animate and
inanimate nature, controlling the advance and recession of the solar
and planetary masses, and reigning in the mineral, the vegetable,
and the animal kingdom, according to the laws that rule its action in
each, as undeviatingly as it governs the motions of the earth itself,
and of all the heavenly bodies in space.
Keely calls this power, which he is endeavouring to apply in mechanics
for the benefit of mankind, "sympathetic negative attraction,"--it
being necessary to use the word "attraction," as no other word has
yet been coined to take its place.
2nd. He has determined and written out a system of the vibratory
conditions governing the aggregation of all molecular masses, as to
their relation sympathetically one to the other, stating the conditions
to be brought about in order to induce antagonism or repellent action,
disintegration, etc.; but he has not yet been able to control the
operation of his Disintegrator so as to use it with safety to the
operator, for mining purposes, etc.
3rd. He has proved by demonstration that the subdivision of matter
under different orders of progressive vibration evolves by such
subdivision entirely new and distinct elements, too multiple
to enumerate. He has systematized the proper vibratory chords,
progressively, from the introductory molecular to the inter-etheric,
embracing seven distinct orders of triple subdivision. He has
elaborated a system of inducing sympathetic negative attraction on
metallic masses, with great range of motion, and instant depolarization
of the same, by vibratory change of their neutral centres. Keely
controls the transmission of these sympathetic streams by a medium
of high molecular density, viz., drawn wires of differentiated
metals, gold, silver, platinum, German silver, etc. In some recent
experiments he took apart, for inspection of its interior construction,
the instrument which he has invented for the production of the force,
cutting the wires with which he had operated in sympathetic attraction
and propulsion, and distributing the fragments to those who were
present, among whom was Professor Leidy, to whom the Geological
Society of London has awarded the Lyell Medal, and the Academy of
Sciences of France the Cuvier Prize.
4th. Keely has discovered that all sympathetic streams, cerebellic,
gravital, magnetic, and electric, are composed of triple flows; this
fact governing all the terrestrial and celestial orders of positive
and negative radiation. In gravity it would be more correct to speak
of triple connective links, as there is no flow of gravity.
5th. Keely has discovered and was the first to demonstrate that
electricity has never been handled; that it is in principle as
material as is water; that it is not merely a force or a form of
energy,--that it is matter; and that what we call electricity,
and have diverted for commercial use in electric lighting, is but
one of the triune currents, harmonic, enharmonic, and diatonic,
which are united in pure electricity; that the enharmonic current
seems to be sympathetically and mysteriously associated with the
dominant current; and that the dominant current can no more be brought
under control than can the lightning itself. The diversion of the
dominant current would mean destruction to any mechanical medium
used for that purpose, and death to the operator. The intense heat
evolved by the electric stream Keely attributes to the velocity of
the triple subdivision at the point of dispersion, as each triple
seeks its medium of affinity. Sudden unition induces the same effect;
but demonstration shows that the concentration of this triple force
is as free of percussion as is the breath of an infant against the
atmosphere; for the three currents flow together as in one stream, in
the mildest sympathetic way, while their discharge after concentration
is, in comparison to their accumulation, as the tornado's force to
the waft of the butterfly's wing. The enharmonic current of this
triple stream, Keely thinks, carries with it the power of propulsion
that induces disturbance of negative equilibrium; which disturbance
is essential to the co-ordination of its flow, in completing the,
triune stream of electricity. When this fluid is discharged from
the clouds, each triplet or third seeks its terrestrial concordant,
there to remain until that supreme law which governs disturbance
of equilibrium again induces sympathetic concordant concentration,
continuing to pass through its evolutions, positively and negatively,
until the solar forces are expended.
"My researches have proved to me," writes Keely, "the subtle and
pure conditions of the power of negative attraction and positive
propulsion."
6th. These same researches have enabled Keely to pronounce
definitely as to the nature of what is recognized as gravity, an
ever-existing, eternal force, coexistent with the compound etheric,
or high luminous, entering into all forms of aggregated matter at
their birth. Keely thinks that gravity is the source from which all
visible matter springs, and that the sympathetic or neutral centre of
such aggregation becomes at birth a connective concordant link to all
neutral centres that have preceded it and to all that may succeed it,
and that disturbance of equilibrium, like gravity, is an ever-existing
force. His researches in the vibratory subdivision of matter have
revealed to him some of the mysteries of the hidden sympathetic
world, teaching that "the visible world," as Coleridge wrote, "is
but the clothing of the invisible world;" that "true philosophy,"
as Professor George Bush said, "when reached will conduct us into the
realm of the spiritual as the true region of causes, disclosing new
and unthought-of relations between the world of matter and of mind."
Professor Thurston writes, in the January number of the North American
Review, "We are continually expecting to see a limit reached by the
discoverer, and by the inventor, and are as constantly finding that
we are simply on a frontier which is being steadily pushed further
and further out into the infinite unknown. The border-land is still
ahead of us, constantly enlarging as we move on. The more we gain,
the more is seen to be achievable."
All planetary masses Keely calls terrestrial, showing in his writings
that the beauty of the celestial concordant chords of sympathy
forming the harmonious connective link, in what may be denominated
"the music of the spheres," is seen in the alternate oscillating range
of motion between the planetary systems; for at a certain range of the
greater distance, harmony is established, and the attractive forces
are brought into action, under the command, "Thus far shalt thou go,
and no further." Then in the return towards the neutral centres, when
at the nearest point to each other, the opposite or propulsive force
is brought into play; and "thus near shalt thou come, and no nearer;"
advancing and receding under the celestial law of etheric compensation
and restoration, as originally established by the Great Creator.
7th. Keely has constructed instruments by which he is endeavouring
to determine the nature of the triune action of the polar terrestrial
stream, or envelope, as regards its vibratory philosophy. He is seeking
to demonstrate its sympathetic association with the celestial stream,
or luminiferous track,--the compound etheric field, from which all
planetary masses spring. He considers the electric stream to be one
of the triune sympathetic streams which help to build up, in their
order of triple concentration, the high vitality of the polar stream,
or, more correctly, the magnetic-electric terrestrial envelope,
without which all living organisms would cease to exist. He classes
the cohesive force of molecular masses as the dominant order of the
electric stream, the molecule owing its negative attractive quality
to the magnetic element.
In Keely's beautiful experiments in antagonizing the polar stream,
recently given before men of science, he has copied in his instruments
the conditions which Nature has established in all her terrestrial
ranges,--conditions necessary in order to equate a state of sympathetic
disturbance for the revitalization of what is continually being
displaced by negative dispersion. These mechanical conditions are
principally differential vibratory settings on molecular aggregations
of the metallic masses of gold, silver, and platinum.
8th. He has discovered that the range of molecular motion in all
quiescent masses is equal to one-third of their diameters, and that
all extended range is induced by sound-force, set at chords of the
thirds which are antagonistic to the combined chords of the mass of
the neutral centres that they represent, no two masses being alike,
and that at a certain increased range of molecular motion, induced by
the proper acoustic force, the molecules become repellent, and that
when the sympathetic centres are influenced by a vibration concordant
to the one that exists in themselves, the molecules become attractive;
that the repellent condition seems to take place at a distance of about
ten of the diameters of the molecules, this distance representing the
neutral line of their attractive force, or the dividing line between
the attractive and the repellent. Beyond this line, perfect triple
separation takes place; inside of it, perfect attractive association
is the result.
The force which Mr. Keely uses in running machinery is the sympathetic
attractive,--the force which, according to his theories, draws the
planets together; while in his system of aërial navigation, should
he live to perfect it, he will use a negation of this force,--the
same that regulates the motion of the planets in their recession
from each other. It is the sympathetic attractive force which keeps
the planets subservient to a certain range of motion, between their
oscillations. If this condition were broken up, the rotation of planets
would cease; if destroyed at a given point of recession, all planets
would become wanderers, like the comets; if destroyed at another given
point, assimilation would take place, as two bullets fired through
the air, meeting, would fuse into one mass. Nature has established her
sympathetic concordants from the birth of the neutral centres of the
planets, in a manner known only to the Infinite One. This is gravity.
"The music of the spheres" is a reality. "The finer the power
the greater the force." Thus, the inaudible atomic, etheric, and
inter-etheric sounds, which control and direct the harmony of the
movements of the celestial universe, are the most powerful of all
sounds. If our faculty of hearing were a hundred billions of times
intensified, we might be able to hear the streams of light as plainly
as we now hear the sighings of the wind.
Again, to answer the often-asked question, "What has Keely done?"
9th. He has broken joints of his fingers and thumbs, he has broken
his ribs, he has had his left side paralyzed for weeks, he has lost
the sight of one eye for months, in his hand-to-hand fight with the
genii that he has encountered, and cannot completely subdue until
he has effected the condition of polarization and depolarization
which is necessary for the control of rotation and reversions in his
commercial engine. An illness of nine weeks followed his abandonment
of water in disintegrating; and he was obliged to return to its use,
to avoid the percussion that was induced by the rapid vibration of the
atmospheric air. To illustrate: if a bullet is fired at a man through
a vessel of water a foot thick, the bullet is flattened out without
injuring the man; while if nothing intervenes the man is killed.
The question naturally arises, "Are not the forces with which Keely
is dealing of too subtle a nature to be harnessed to do the daily
work of the world?" Even were it so, the fascination attendant upon
his researches would prevent him from abandoning them; but his faith
in his ability to accomplish all that he has undertaken to do for the
Keely Motor Company and for others is equalled only by the persistent
energy which, in the face of gigantic obstacles, of cruel obloquy, of
baffled endeavours, leads him to persevere to the end. He believes that
the successful result is as positive as are the continued revolutions
of our globe, under the great law which governs all Nature's highest,
grandest, and most sensitive operations. And when has Nature ever
revealed a force save to permit man to subjugate it for the progress
of our race?
Another question often heard is, "Why does not Keely make known his
discoveries?"
10th. He has written three treatises to explain his system, the titles
of which are as follows:--
I. Theoretical Exposé or Philosophical Analysis of Vibro-Molecular,
Vibro-Atomic, and Sympathetic Vibro-Etheric Forces, as applied to
induce Mechanical Rotation by Negative Sympathetic Attraction.
II. Explanatory Analysis of Vibro-Acoustic Mechanism in all its
Different Groupings or Combinations to induce Propulsion and Attraction
(sympathetically) by the Power of Sound-Force; as also the Different
Conditions of Intensity, both Positive and Negative, on the Progressive
Octaves to Ozonic Liberation and Luminosity.
III. The Determining Principle of Matter, or the Connective Link
between the Finite and the Infinite, progressively considered from the
Crude Molecular to the Compound Inter-Etheric; showing the Control of
Spirit over Matter in all the Variations of Mass-Chords and Molecular
Groupings, both Physical and Mechanical.
If these treatises were read from the first page to the last, by men
of science, they would not at present be any better understood than
were Gilbert's writings in his age, author of "De Magnete."
Newton was indebted to Gilbert for his discovery of the so-called law
of gravitation. Keely defines gravity as transmittive inter-etheric
force under immense etheric vibration, and electricity as a certain
form of atomic vibration. When Gilbert, court-physician to Queen
Elizabeth, announced his discovery of electricity, he was asked by
his compeers of what use it was. No one dreamed then of it as a motive
power. He replied, "Of what use is a baby? It may develop into a man
or a woman, and, although we cannot make any use of electricity now,
the world may in time find out uses for it." Just as little understood
would Keely's writings be now on sympathetic negative attraction as
were Gilbert's writings then on electricity and magnetism. Men found
no sense in the words "electric" and "electricity," although derived
from the Greek root for amber. The same fault is found with Keely
for coining new words which no one understands.
"Every branch of science, every doctrine of extensive application,
has had its alphabet, its rudiments, its grammar: at each fresh step in
the path of discovery the researcher has had to work out by experiment
the unknown laws which govern his discovery." To attempt to introduce
"the world"--even scientists--to any new system without previous
preparation would be like giving a Persian book to a man to read who
knew nothing of the language. As has been said, we do not expect a
complicated problem in the higher mathematical analysis to be solved
by one who is ignorant of the elementary rules of arithmetic. Just as
useless would it be to expect every scientist to comprehend the laws
of etheric physics and etheric philosophy after having witnessed
Keely's experiments. The requirement of every demonstration is
that it shall give sufficient proof of the truth that it asserts. A
demonstration which does less than this cannot be relied upon, and no
demonstration ever made has done more. The success of a demonstration
is in proportion as the means applied are adequate or inadequate. As
different principles exist in various forms of matter, it is quite
impossible to demonstrate every truth by the same means or the same
principles. It is only the prejudice of ignorance which exacts that
every demonstration shall be given by a prescribed canon of science;
as if the science of the present were thoroughly conversant with
every principle that exists in nature. Yet physicists exact this,
though they must know its inadequacy.
Mr. Keely does not expect more from scientists than that they should
withhold their defamatory opinions of him until they have witnessed
his demonstrations and acquainted themselves with his theories. Yet,
notwithstanding Professor Crooke's psychical researches and Professor
Rücker's experiments in molecular vibration, demonstrating that
molecules seem to have a "mental attribute, a sort of expression of
free will," physicists still look upon the human organism as little
more than a machine, taking small interest in experiments which evince
the dominion of spirit over matter. Keely's researches in this province
have shown him that it is neither the electric nor the magnetic flow,
but the etheric, which sends its current along our nerves; that the
electric and magnetic flows bear but an infinitely small ratio to the
etheric flow, both as to velocity and tenuity; that true coincidents
can exist between any mediums,--cartilage to steel, steel to wood,
wood to stone, and stone to cartilage; that the same influence,
sympathetic association, which governs all the solids holds the same
control over all liquids, and again from liquid to solid, embracing
the three kingdoms, animal, vegetable, and mineral; that the action of
mind over matter thoroughly substantiates the incontrovertible laws of
sympathetic etheric influence; that the only true medium which exists
in nature is the sympathetic flow emanating from the normal human
brain, governing correctly the graduating and setting-up of the true
sympathetic vibratory positions in machinery, necessary to commercial
success; that these flows come in on the order of the fifth and seventh
positions of atomic subdivision, compound inter-etheric sympathy a
resultant of this subdivision; that if metallic mediums are brought
under the influence of this sympathetic flow they become organisms
which carry the same influence with them that the human brain does
over living physical positions, and that the composition of metallic
and that of physical organisms are one and the same thing, although
the molecular arrangement of the physical may be entirely opposite
to the metallic on their aggregations; that the harmonious chords
induced by sympathetic positive vibration permeate the molecules in
each, notwithstanding, and bring about the perfect equation of any
differentiation that may exist--in one the same as in the other--and
thus they become one and the same medium for sympathetic transmission;
that the etheric, or will-flow, is of a tenuity coincident to the
condition governing the seventh subdivision of matter, a condition
of subtlety that readily and instantaneously permeates all forms of
aggregated matter, from air to solid hammered steel, the velocity
of the permeation being the same with the one as with the other;
that the tenuity of the etheric flow is so infinitely fine that a
magnifying glass, the power of which would enlarge the smallest grain
of sand to the size of the sun, brought to bear upon it would not
make its structure visible to us; and that, light traversing space
at the speed of two hundred thousand miles per second, a distance
requiring light a thousand centuries to reach would be traversed by
the etheric flow in an indefinite fragment of a second.
11th. Keely has given such proof of genius as should bring all
scientists who approach him into that attitude of mind which would
lead them to receive without prejudice the evidence of the truth of
the claims he offers.
Genius has been defined as an extraordinary power of synthetic
creation. Another definition of the man of genius is, the man who
unceasingly cultivates and perfects such great natural aptitudes
and facilities as he has been endowed with at his birth. No man has
ever lived on this earth who, according to these qualifications,
so deserved to be known and acknowledged as a man of genius as John
Worrell Keely. History will determine whether he is a man of genius or
"a charlatan," as some scientists still persist in calling him. It is
easier, as has been said, to accuse a man of fraud than to account
for unknown phenomena. A system of doctrine can be legitimately
refuted only upon its own principles, viz., by disproving its facts
and invalidating the principles deduced from them. Abercrombie said
that the necessary caution which preserves us from credulity should
not be allowed to engender scepticism,--that both of these extremes
are equally unworthy of a mind which devotes itself with candour to
the discovery of truth.
"We must not decide that a thing is impossible," says Lebrun, "because
of the common belief that it cannot exist; for the opinion of man
cannot set limits to the operations of Nature, nor to the power of
the Almighty. He who attempts to hold up to contempt a scientific
subject of which he is profoundly ignorant has but small pretensions
to the character of a philosopher." Galileo said, after pronouncing
his abjuration, "E pur si muove" ("But it does move"). What signified
to him the opinion of men, when Nature confirmed his discovery? Of
what value were their prejudices or their wisdom in opposition to her
immutable laws? Kedzie, speculating upon the nature of force, writes,
"Molecules and masses act precisely as they are acted on; they are
governed by the iron instead of the golden rule. They do unto others as
others have done unto them. Whence comes this energy? Not from atoms,
but from the Creator, in the beginning."
The Duke of Argyll says, "We know nothing of the ultimate seat of
force. Science, in the modern doctrine of the conservation of energy
and the convertibility of forces, is already getting something like
a firm hold of the idea that all kinds of forces are but forms
or manifestations of some one central force, arising from one
fountain-head of power."
12th. Keely's researches have taught him that this one fountain-head
is none other than the omnipotent and all-pervading Will-Force
of the Almighty, which creates, upholds, guides, and governs the
universe. "The whole world-process," says Von Hartmann, "in its
context is only a logical process; but in its existence it is a
continued act of will."
Lilly says, "This is what physical law means. Reason and will are
inseparably united in the universe as they are in idea. If we will
anything, it is for some reason. In contemplating the structure
of the universe, we cannot resist the conclusion that the whole is
founded upon a distinct idea." Keely holds to the harmony of this
"distinct idea" throughout creation, and he demonstrates by vibratory
machinery that all forces are indestructible, immaterial, homogeneous
entities, having their origin and unity in one great intelligent
personal will-force.
Were it not for this will-force eternally flowing into all created
forms, the entire universe would disappear. As the workman employs
his instrument to accomplish his designs, so Omnipotence may be said,
in all reverence, to regulate His systems of worlds through and by
the vibratory ether which He has created to serve His purpose. Well
did Hertz reason when he wrote, "Soon the question set by modern
physics will be, 'Are not all things due to conditions of ether?'" He
had never heard of the toiler on this side of the Atlantic, when,
after his own discovery, in 1888, that ether was imprisoned and
used in every electro-magnetic engine, without this fact having
been even so much as suspected by a single scientist, he wrote, in
the Revue Scientifique, "We have gained a greater height than ever,
and we possess a solid basis which will facilitate the ascent, in the
research of new truths. The road which is open to us is not too steep,
and the next resting-point does not appear inaccessible. Moreover,
the crowds of researchers are full of ardour. We must therefore welcome
with confidence all the efforts that are being made in this direction."
Keely has found no "resting-point" in his researches of a
lifetime; and, instead of being "welcomed with confidence" by his
fellow-researchers in science, he has suffered at their hands more
than will ever be known by his detractors. Keely's discoveries would
have died with him, through the calumnies of these same scientists,
as far as demonstration was concerned, had not a company been formed,
in the early days of his inventions, which for many years furnished
him with the necessary funds, expecting almost immediate financial
success. The sneers of men of science crying "Charlatan," the
ridicule of the public press, and the denunciations of the ignorant
have been mighty factors in debasing the value of the shares of the
company. The courage, faith, and contributing capacity of nearly
all the stockholders have given out; and it is fortunate that now
Mr. Keely's work of evolution has at last reached the point where
he is able to convince those scientists of his integrity whose minds
are broad enough to conform to what Herbert Spencer has said is the
first condition of success in scientific research,--viz. "an honest
receptivity, and willingness to abandon all preconceived notions,
however cherished, if they be found to contradict the truth."
Keely may be said to have spent years of his valuable time in giving
exhibitions whereby to raise the funds needed for his scientific
researches. Again and again has he taken apart his various machines,
to show their interior construction to the sceptical; and what this
means, in the attendant delay, will be better understood when he has
made known how slight a thing, by the laws of sympathetic association,
may retard his progress for days, even for weeks.
Take, for example, his last experience with his preliminary commercial
engine, to which, before he had completed his graduation, he was
induced, in November 1889, to apply a brake, to show what resistance
the vibratory current could bear under powerful friction. A force
sufficient to stop a train of cars, it was estimated, did not interfere
with its running; but under additional strain a "thud" was heard,
and the shaft of the engine was twisted.
The engine should not have been submitted to such a test until
after the differentiation had been equated, and perfect control
in reversions established. And yet, so often has Keely made what
seemed to be disasters an advantage in the end, it is possible that
the interruption and delay may enable him to produce a perfect engine
sooner than he would have done on this model. The world will never know
how many mechanical difficulties Keely has conquered before attaining
his present degree of success, in which he thinks he has mastered all
that pertains to the principle of the force that he is dealing with,
so far as necessary for commercial purposes, the difficulties that he
still has to contend with being merely the minor ones of mechanical
detail. The fact that so much of Mr. Keely's success, in conducting
his experiments when giving exhibitions, depends upon the complete
perfection of his instruments, is one of the strongest arguments that
could be advanced in proof of the genuineness of his claims. Has any
one ever heard of a performer in legerdemain who, after assembling an
audience to witness his tricks, announced that something was wrong
with his conjuring apparatus and that he was unable to exhibit his
dexterity? Feats of legerdemain can be performed, night after night,
year in and year out, without any hitch on the part of the operator;
but all who are conversant with the failures attendant upon a certain
order of experiments, as for instance in the liquefying of oxygen gas,
will be able to appreciate the uncertainty which characterizes the
action of Mr. Keely's instruments at times.
It is only by progressive experimental research that knowledge of
the laws governing Nature's operations can be gained, and a system
evolved to perpetuate such knowledge. The hypothesis of to-day must
be discarded to-morrow, if further research proves its fallacy. Is
it not, then, another strong argument in favour of Keely's integrity
that, confessing ignorance of the laws that govern the force he has
discovered, he has plodded on through all these years, experimenting
upon its nature, with instruments of his own invention, which from
their delicate and imperfect construction are uncertain in their
operations, until he has so improved the defective machine as to make
it a stepping-stone, by which he ascends to perfection? Take the
imperfect comparison of a ladder: no workman can attain the summit
in one effort; he must mount step by step.
To quote from Keely's writings, "The mathematics of vibratory etheric
science, both pure and applied, require long and arduous research. It
seems to me that no man's life is long enough to cover more than the
introductory branch. The theory of elliptic functions, the calculus
of probabilities, are but pygmies in comparison to a science which
requires the utmost tension of the human mind to grasp. But let us wait
patiently for the light that will come, that is even now dawning." [10]
On the 28th of May, 1889, Mr. Keely's workshop was visited by
several men interested to see and judge for themselves of the
nature of his researches. Among them were Professor Leidy, of
the University of Pennsylvania, and James M. Willcox, author of
"Elemental Philosophy." After seeing the experiments in acoustics,
and the production, storage, and discharge of the ether, Mr. Willcox
remarked that no one who had witnessed all that they had seen in
the line of associative vibration, under the same advantages, could
assert any fraud on the part of Keely without convicting himself of
the rankest folly. These gentlemen met Mr. Keely with their minds open
to conviction, though with strong prejudices against the discovery
of any unknown force. They treated him as if he were all that he
is, keeping out of sight whatever doubts they may have had of the
genuineness of his claims as a discoverer; and, in the end, all who
were present expressed their appreciation of his courtesy in answering
the questions asked, and their admiration of what he has accomplished
on his unknown path. In doing this, they were simply doing justice
to him and to themselves,--to that self-respect which leads men to
respect the rights of others, and to do unto others as they would be
done by. Had they questioned Keely's integrity, or betrayed doubts of
his honesty of purpose, he would at once have assumed the defensive,
and would have informed them that he has no wish to conduct experiments
for scientists who are ready to give their opinions of his theories
before having heard them propounded, or of his experiments before
witnessing them. When Keely's system of "sympathetic vibration"
is made known ("sympathetic seeking" Mr. Willcox would call it),
it will be seen how sensitive Mr. Keely's instruments are to the
vibrations caused by street-noises, to vibrations of air from talking
in the operating room, to touch even, as well as why it is that,
although he is willing to take apart and explain the construction
of his instruments in the presence of investigators, he objects to
having them handled by others than himself, after they have been
"harmonized," or "sensitized," or "graduated."
Mr. Keely is his own worst enemy. When suspected of fraud he acts
as if he were a fraud; and in breaking up his vibratory microscope
and other instruments which he had been years in perfecting, at
the time he was committed to prison in 1888, he laid himself open
to the suspicion that his instruments are but devices with which he
cunningly deceives his patrons. Yet these same instruments he has,
since their reconstruction, dissected and explained to those who
approached him in the proper spirit. It is only when he has been
subjected to insulting suspicions by arrogant scientists that he
refuses to explain his theories, and to demonstrate their truth,
as far as it is in his power to do so. "Keely may be on the right
track, after all," remarked an English scientist, after Prof. Hertz
had made known his researches on the structure of ether; "for if we
have imprisoned the ether without knowing it, why may not Keely know
what he has got a hold of?"
Norman Lockyer, in his "Chemistry of the Sun," confirms Keely's
theories when he writes, "The law which connects radiation with
absorption and at once enables us to read the riddle set by the sun
and stars is, then, simply the law of 'sympathetic vibration.'"
"It is remarkable," says Horace W. Smith, "that in countries far
distant from each other, different men have fallen into the same tracks
of science, and have made similar and correspondent discoveries,
at the same period of time, without the least communication with
each other." So has it been in all periods of progress and in all
branches of science, from the discoveries of Euclid and Archimedes
down to those of Galileo and Descartes and Bacon, and, in later days,
of Gilbert and Newton and Leibnitz, then Franklin and Collison and
Von Kliest and Muschenbröck; and now Keely and Hertz and Depuy and
Rücker and Lockyer are examples. Never has a discovery leading to
a new system been begun and perfected by the same individual so far
as Keely is doing; but, as Morley has said, "the representative of
a larger age must excel in genius all predecessors."
The application of his discovery to the service of humanity is the
aim and end of Keely's efforts; his success means "vastly more than
the most sanguine to-day venture to predict," promising "a true
millennial introduction into the unseen universe, and the glorious
life that every man, Christian or sceptic, optimist or pessimist,
would gladly hope for and believe possible." (Thurston.)
Not the least among the ultimate blessings to our race which Keely's
discovery foreshadows is the deeper insight that it will bestow into
the healing power of the finer forces of nature, embracing cures of
brain and nerve disorders that are now classed with incurable diseases.
Only a partial answer has been given to the question, "What has Keely
done for science?" But enough has been said to convey some idea of
the subtle nature of the force he is dealing with, and of the cause
of the delays which have again and again disappointed the inventor,
as well as the too sanguine hopes of immediate commercial success
which have animated the officers and stockholders of "The Keely Motor
Company." Keely has no secret to wrest from him. Instead of "Keely's
Secret," it should be called "Nature's Secret;" for the problem has
still to be worked out, the solution of which will make it "Keely's
Secret;" and until this problem is fully solved to the inventor's
satisfaction for commercial application, Keely has no secret that he
is not willing to disclose, as far as it is in his power to do so.
CHAPTER XII.
1891.
VIBRATORY PHYSICS.--TRUE SCIENCE.
We seem to be approaching a theory as to the construction
of ether. Hertz has produced vibrations, vibrating more
than one hundred million times per second. He made use of
the principle of resonance. You all understand how, by a
succession of well-timed small impulses, a large vibration
may be set up.--Prof. Fitzgerald.
Dr. Schimmel, in his lecture on "The Unity of Nature's Forces,"
says:--"The Greek philosophers, Leucippus, Anaxagoras, Democritus,
and Aristotle, base their philosophies on the existence of an ether
and atoms." According to Spiller's system, "both ether and atoms are
material. The atoms are indivisible. Chemistry, being based on the
correctness of this statement, forces us to accept it." But we are
not forced to accept it if it is proved to be false.
Keely has now reached a stage in his researches at which he is able
to demonstrate the truth of the hypotheses which he is formulating
into a system; and consequently the stage where he can demonstrate
whether theories, that have prevailed concerning the cause of physical
phenomena, are sound or without basis in fact. Until this stage was
reached it would have been as useless to make Mr. Keely's theories
known, as it would be to publish a treatise to prove that two and two
make five. Scientific men reject all theories in physics in which there
is not an equal proportion of science and mathematics, excluding all
questions of pure metaphysics. They are right; for, until the world
had undergone a state of preparation for another revelation of truth,
the man who demonstrated all that Keely is now prepared to demonstrate
would have been burned alive as a wizard. To use the words of Babcock,
one of Keely's staunchest adherents, in 1880:--"This discoverer has
entered a new world, and although an unexplored region of untold wealth
lies beyond, he is treading firmly its border, which daily widens
as with ever-increasing interest he pursues his explorations. He has
passed the dreary realm where scientists are groping. His researches
are made in the open field of elemental force, where gravity, inertia,
cohesion, momentum, are disturbed in their haunts and diverted to use;
where, from unity of origin, emanates infinite energy in diversified
forms," and, to this statement I would add--where he is able to
look from nature up to nature's God, understanding and explaining,
as no man before ever understood and explained, how simple is "the
mysterious way in which God works His wonders to perform."
Mr. Babcock continues:--"Human comprehension is inadequate to grasp the
possibilities of this discovery for power, for increased prosperity,
and for peace. It includes all that relates mechanically to travel,
manufacture, mining, engineering, and warfare." Up to within two
years, Keely, this discoverer of unknown laws of nature, has been left
partially to the mercy of men who were interested only in mechanical
"possibilities." In the autumn of 1888, he was led into a line of
research which made the mechanical question one of secondary interest;
and yet the present results are such as to prove that on this line
alone can he ever hope to attain commercial success. The course then
adopted has also been the means of placing his discoveries before
the world, endorsed in such a manner as to command attention to his
views and theories. It has been said that if extreme vicissitudes of
belief on the part of men of science are evidences of uncertainty,
it may be affirmed that of all kinds of knowledge none is more
uncertain than science. The only hope for science is more science,
says Drummond. Keely now bestows the only hope for science--"more
science." He accounts for the non-recognition by scientists of
his claims, in these words: "The system of arranging introductory
etheric impulses by compound chords set by differential harmonies,
is one that the world of science has never recognized, simply
because the struggles of physicists, combating with the solution of
the conditions governing the fourth order of matter, have been in a
direction thoroughly antagonistic, and opposite to a right one. It is
true that luminosity has been induced by chemical antagonism, and,
in my mind, this ought to have been a stepping-stone towards a more
perfect condition than was accepted by them; but independent of what
might be necessary to its analysis, the bare truth remains that the
conditions were isolated--robbed of their most vital essentials--by
not having the medium of etheric vibration associated with them."
In order to subdivide the atoms in the atomic triplet, the molecular
ether, liberated from the molecule, is absolutely necessary to effect
the rupture of the atoms; and so on, progressively, in each order of
ether, molecular, inter-molecular, atomic, inter-atomic, etheric,
inter-etheric, the ether liberated in each successive division is
essential to the next subdivision.
The keynote of Mr. Keely's researches is that the movements of elastic
elements are rhythmical, and before he had reached his present stage
in producing vibrations, on the principle of resonance, he has had
problems to solve which needed the full measure of inspiration or
apperception that he has received.
Hertz has produced vibrations about one metre long, vibrating more
than one hundred million times a second. Keely has produced, using
an atmospheric medium alone, 519,655,633 vibrations per second; but,
interposing pure hydrogen gas between soap films and using it as a
medium of acceleration, he asserts that on the enharmonic third a rate
of vibration may be induced which could not be set down in figures,
and could only be represented in sound colours. He has invented
instruments which demonstrate in many variations the colours of
sound, registering the number of necessary vibrations to produce each
variation. The transmissive sympathetic chord of B flat, third octave,
when passing into inaudibility, would induce billions of billions
of vibrations, represented by sound colour on a screen illuminated
from a solar ray. But this experiment is one of infinite difficulty,
from the almost utter impossibility of holding the hydrogen between
the two films long enough to conduct the experiment. Keely made over
1200 trials before succeeding once in inducing the intense blue field
necessary, covering a space of six weeks, four hours at a time daily;
and should he ever succeed in his present efforts to produce a film
that will stand, he anticipates being able to register the range of
motion in all metallic mediums. On this subject Keely writes:--The
highest range of vibration I ever induced was in the one experiment
that I made in liberating ozone by molecular percussion, which
induced luminosity, and registered a percussive molecular force of
110,000 lbs. per square inch, as registered on a lever constructed
for the purpose. The vibrations induced by this experiment reached
over 700,000,000 per second, unshipping the apparatus, thus making it
insecure for a repetition of the experiments. The decarbonized steel
compressors of said apparatus moved as if composed of putty. Volume
of sphere, 15 cubic inches; weight of surrounding metal, 316 lbs.
Recently some questions, propounded to Mr. Keely by a scientist,
elicited answers which the man of science admitted were clear and
definite, but no physicist could accept Keely's assertion that
incalculable amounts of latent force exist in the molecular spaces,
for the simple reason that science asserts that molecular aggregation
is attended with dissipation of energy instead of its absorption. The
questions asked were:--
I. "In disintegrating water, how many foot-pounds of energy have you
to expend in order to produce or induce the vibratory energy in your
acoustical apparatus?"
Answer.--"No foot-pounds at all. The force necessary to excite
disintegration when the instrument is sensitized, both in sensitization
and developments, would not be sufficient to wind up a watch."
II. "What is the amount of energy that you get out of that initial
amount of water, say twelve drops, when decomposed into ether?"
Answer.--"From twelve drops of water a force can be developed that
will fill a chamber of seven pint volume no less than six times with
a pressure of ten tons to the square inch."
III. "In other words, if you put so many pounds of energy into
vibratory motion, how many foot-pounds do you get out of this?"
Answer.--"All molecular masses of metal represent in their interstitial
molecular spaces incalculable amounts of latent force, which, if
awakened and brought into intense vibratory action by the medium of
sympathetic liberation, would result in thousands of billions more
power in foot-pounds than that necessary to awaken it. The resultant
development of any and all forces is only accomplished by conditions
that awaken the latent energy they have carried with them during
molecular aggregation. If the latent force that exists in a pound of
water could be sympathetically evolved or liberated up to the seventh
subdivision or compound inter-etheric, and could be stored free of
rotation, it would be in my estimation sufficient to run the power
of the world for a century."
This statement gives another of Keely's discoveries to the world,
viz., that molecular dissociation does not create energy, as men
have asserted Keely has claimed, but supplies it in unlimited
quantities, as the product of the latent energy accumulated in
molecular aggregation. This is to the physicist as if Keely had
asserted that two and two make a billion, but as a man of science,
who is held to be "the scientific equal of any man in the world,"
has come forward to make known that, in his opinion, "Keely has fairly
demonstrated the discovery of a force previously unknown to science,"
the discoverer at lasts feels at liberty to make public the nature of
his discoveries. Until Dr. Joseph Leidy had taken this stand, Mr. Keely
could not, without jeopardizing his interests, and the interests
of the Keely Motor Company, have made known in what particulars his
system conflicts with the systems upheld by the age in which we live.
After the warning given in the history of Huxley's "Bathybius,"
we may feel quite sure that if Keely had failed to demonstrate the
genuineness of his claims by actual experiment, no scientist would
have risked the world-wide reputation of a lifetime by endorsement of
the discovery of an unknown force, as Professor Leidy has done, while
Keely himself was under such a cloud that, to advocate his integrity
and uphold the importance of his discovery, has hitherto been enough
to awaken doubts as to the sanity of his upholders. Among many others
who have written of it from the standpoint of Keely's accountability
for the mistakes of the managers of the Keely Motor Company--men who
made no pretence of caring for anything but dividends--was one who
asserted, in the New York Tribune, that it was a "remarkable delusion,
full of tricks too numerous to mention, the exposure of which ought
to be made to bring the Keely craze to an end." In the same journal
an editorial states that "Mr. Keely appears to have no mechanical
ingenuity, his strong point being his ability as a collector. He has
one of the largest and best arranged collections of other people's
money to be found in the United States. Having, a number of years ago,
during a fit of temporary insanity, constructed a machine which, if any
power on earth could start it, would explode and pierce the startled
dome of heaven with flying fragments of cog-wheels and cranks, he now
sits down calmly, and allows this same mechanical nightmare to make
his living for him. This is genius; this is John W. Keely; he toils
not, neither does he spin, but he has got an hysterical collection
of crooked pipes and lob-sided wheels tied up in his back room that
extract the reluctant dollar from the pocket of avarice without fail."
This is a specimen of the nature of the ridicule which was encountered
by Keely's "upholders," as well as by himself. Until Professor Leidy
and Dr. Willcox came to the front, in March, 1890, Mr. Keely had no
influential supporters, and not one scientist could be found who was
ready to encounter the wasps.
Such is the position of all defenders of the truth in all ages;
but the torch being held aloft, in such hands as have now seized it,
the opportunity is given to see what Keely proclaims as truth.
We know that science denies the divisibility of atoms, but Keely
affirms and demonstrates that all corpuscules of matter may be divided
and subdivided by a certain order of vibration. During all these years
in which he has given exhibitions of the operation of his generators,
liberators, and disintegrators, in turn, each being an improvement,
successively, on the preceding one, no one has attempted to give
to the public any theory, or even so much as a sensible conjecture,
of the origin of the force.
When Mr. Keely was asked, by a woman in 1884, if it were not possible
that he had dissociated hydrogen gas, and that his unknown force
came from that dissociation, he replied that he thought it might be;
but he made no assertion that he had. This conjecture was repeated to
an English scientist, who replied that he was willing to make a bet
of 10,000l. that hydrogen is a simple element. The same scientist
says now that he should answer such a question with more caution,
and say that he had never known hydrogen to be dissociated.
Theory and Formula of Aqueous Disintegration.
The peculiar conditions as associated with the gaseous elements of
which water is composed, as regards the differential volume and gravity
of its gases, make it a ready and fit subject of vibratory research. In
submitting water to the influence of vibratory transmission, even on
simple thirds, the high action induced on the hydrogen as contrasted
with the one on the oxygen (under the same vibratory stream), causes
the antagonism between these elements that induces dissociation. The
differential antagonistic range of motion, so favouring the
antagonistic thirds as to become thoroughly repellent. The gaseous
element thus induced and registered, shows thousands of times much
greater force as regards tenuity and volume than that induced by the
chemical disintegration of heat, on the same medium. In all molecular
dissociation or disintegration of both simple or compound elements,
whether gaseous or solid, a stream of vibratory antagonistic thirds,
sixths, or ninths, on their chord mass will compel progressive
subdivisions. In the disintegration of water the instrument is set
on thirds, sixths, and ninths, to get the best effects. These triple
conditions are focalized on the neutral centre of said instrument
so as to induce perfect harmony or concordance to the chord-note of
the mass-chord of the instrument's full combination; after which the
diatonic and the enharmonic scale located at the top of the instrument,
or ring, is thoroughly harmonized with the scale of ninths which is
placed at the base of the vibratory transmitter with the telephone
head. The next step is to disturb the harmony on the concentrative
thirds, between the transmitter and disintegrator. This is done
by rotating the syren so as to induce a sympathetic communication
along the nodal transmitter, or wire, that associates the two
instruments. When the note of the syren becomes concordant to the
neutral centre of the disintegrator, the highest order of sympathetic
communication is established. It is now necessary to operate the
transferable vibratory negatizer, or negative accelerator, which is
seated in the centre of the diatonic and enharmonic ring, at the top
of disintegrator, and complete disintegration will follow (from the
antagonisms induced on the concordants by said adjunct), in triple
progression, thus:--First, thirds: Molecular dissociation resolving the
water into a gaseous compound of hydrogen and oxygen. Second, sixths:
resolving the hydrogen and oxygen into a new element by second order
of dissociation, producing what I call, low atomic ether. Third,
ninths: The low atomic ether resolved into a new element, which I
denominate high or second atomic harmonic. All these transmissions
being simultaneous on the disturbance of sympathetic equilibrium by
said negative accelerator.
Example:--Taking the chord mass of the disintegrator B flat, or any
chord mass that may be represented by the combined association of
all the mechanical parts of its structure (no two structures being
alike in their chord masses), taking B flat, the resonators of said
structure are set at B flat first octave, B flat third octave, and
B flat ninth octave, by drawing out the caps of resonators until
the harmony of thirds, sixths, and ninths are reached; which a
simple movement of the fingers on the diatonic scale, at the head,
will determine by the tremulous action which is highly sensible to
the touch, on said caps. The caps are then rigidly fixed in their
different positions by set screws. The focalization to the neutral
centre is then established by dampening the steel rods, on the scale
at the back, representing the thirds, sixths, and ninths, drawing a
piece of small gum tube over them, which establishes harmony to the
chord mass of the instrument. Concordance is thus effected between
the disintegrator and the ninths of the scale at base of transmitters
with telephonic head.
This scale has a permanent sympathetic one, set on the ninth of
any mass chord that may be represented, on any and all the multiple
variations of mechanical combinations. In fact, permanently set for
universal accommodation.
The next step is to establish pure harmony between the transmitter
and the disintegrator, which is done by spinning the syren disk,
then waiting until the sympathetic note is reached, as the syren
chord, decreasing in velocity, descends the scale. At this juncture,
the negative accelerator must be immediately and rapidly rotated,
inducing high disturbance of equilibrium between the transmitter
and the disintegrator by triple negative evolution, with the result
that a force of from five to ten, fifteen, twenty, and thirty thousand
pounds to the square inch is evolved by the focalization of this triple
negative stream on the disintegrating cell, or chamber, whether there
be one, two, three, five, or ten drops of water enclosed within it.
Graduation of Machines.
Mr. Keely gives a few introductory words concerning the necessary
graduating of his instruments, for effecting conditions necessary to
ensure perfect sympathetic transmission, which will serve to show how
great are the difficulties that have been attendant upon getting his
machines into a condition to control and equate the differentiation
in molecular masses, requiring greater skill than in researching
the force of a sunbeam. He writes:--The differentiation in molecular
metallic masses, or grouping, is brought about in their manipulations
in manufacturing them for commercial uses; in the forging of a piece
of metal, in the drawing of a length of wire, and in the casting of
a molten mass to any requisite form.
The nearest approach to molecular uniformity in metallic masses is in
the wire drawn for commercial uses, gold and platina being the nearest
to freedom from differentiation. But even these wires, when tested
by a certain condition of the first order of intensified molecular
vibration for a transferring medium between centres of neutrality, I
find to be entirely inadequate for the transfer of concordant unition,
as between one and the other, on account of nodal interferences. We
can appreciate the difficulty of converting such a medium to a uniform
molecular link, by knowing that it can be accomplished only after
removing all nodal interference, by inducing between the nodal waves
a condition in which they become subservient to the inter-sympathetic
vibratory molecular link of such structure or wire.
Therefore, it is necessary to submit the wire to a system of
graduation in order to find what the combined chords of these nodal
interferences represent when focalized to one general centre. Then the
differentiation between these nodal waves and the inter-molecular link
must be equated, by what I call a process of vibratory induction, so
as to induce pure concordance between one and the other. To elaborate
on this system of graduation, for effecting conditions necessary to
ensure perfect and unadulterated transmission, would make up a book
that would take days to read and months to study.
The graduating of a perfectly constructed instrument, to a condition
to transmit sympathetically, is no standard whatever for any other
one that may be built, nor ever will be, because no concordant
conditions of compound molecular aggregation can ever exist in visible
groupings. If it were even possible to make their parts perfectly
accurate one to the other, in regard to atmospheric displacement
and weight, their resonating qualities would still have a high rate
of sympathetic variation in their molecular groupings alone. If one
thousand million of coins, each one representing a certain standard
value, and all struck from the same die, were sympathetically graduated
under a vibratory subdivision of 150,000, the most amazing variation
would present itself, as between each individual coin throughout the
number, in regard to their molecular grouping and resonance....
It will be realized in the future what immense difficulties have been
encountered by Mr. Keely in perfecting his system of graduation, and in
constructing devices for the guidance of artificers and mechanicians,
whereby those who are not as abnormally endowed as he is for his work,
can bring a proper vibratory action into play to induce positive
sympathetic transmission; as will also be realized the stupidity of
the men who still seek to confine his researches to perfecting the
so-called Keely motor, before his system is sufficiently developed
to enable others to follow it up, should his physical strength give
out. His system of graduating research, when completed, will enable
men to take up the work, not from the standard of an already completed
structure that is true in its operation, though a perfect duplicate
as to size and gravity be made, for each successively constructed
machine requires a knowledge of its own conditions of sensitivity,
as regards its mass chords. Keely writes:--
"That tuning forks can be so constructed as to show coincident
or concordant association with each other, is but a very weak
illustration of the fact which governs pure acoustic assimilation. The
best only approach a condition of about a fortieth, as regards pure
attractive and propulsive receptiveness. By differentiating them to
concordant thirds, they induce a condition of molecular bombardment
between themselves, by alternate changes of long and short waves of
sympathy. Bells rung in vacuo liberate the same number of corpuscules,
at the same velocity as those surrounded by a normal atmosphere; and
hence the same acoustic force attending them, but they are inaudible
from the fact that, in vacuo, the molecular volume is reduced. Every
gaseous molecule is a resonator of itself, and is sensitive to any
and all sounds induced, whether accordant or discordant.
Answers to Questions.
The positive vibrations are the radiating or propulsive; the negative
vibrations are the ones that are attracted towards the neutral
centre. The action of the magnetic flow is dual in its evolutions,
both attractive and propulsive. The sound vibrations of themselves
have no power whatever to induce dissociation, even in its lowest
form. Certain differential, dual, triple and quadruple, chords give
introductory impulses which excite an action on molecular masses,
liquid and gaseous, that increase their range of molecular motion and
put them in that receptive state for sympathetic vibratory interchange
which favours molecular disintegration; then, as I have shown, the
diatonic enharmonic is brought into play, which further increases the
molecular range of motion beyond fifty per cent. of their diameters,
when molecular separation takes place, giving the tenuous substance
that is necessary to induce progressive subdivision. This molecular
gaseous substance, during its evolution, assumes a condition of
high rotation in the sphere or tube in which it has been generated,
and becomes itself the medium, with the proper exciters, for further
progressive dissociation. The exciters include an illuminated revolving
prism, condenser, and coloured lenses, with a capped glass tube strong
enough to carry a pressure of at least one thousand pounds per square
inch. To one of these caps a sectional wire of platinum and silver
is attached; the other cap is attached to the tube, so screwed to the
chamber as to allow it to lead to the neutral centre of said chamber.
Mineral Disintegration.
I have been repeatedly urged to repeat my disintegrations of quartz
rock; but it has been utterly out of my power to do so. The mechanical
device with which I conducted those experiments was destroyed at the
time of the proceedings against me. Its graduation occupied over four
years, after which it was operated successfully. It had been originally
constructed as an instrument for overcoming gravity; a perfect,
graduated scale of that device was accurately registered, a copy of
which I kept; I have since built three successive disintegrators
set up from that scale, but they did not operate. This peculiar
feature remained a paradox to me until I had solved the conditions
governing the chords of multiple masses; when this problem ceased
to be paradoxical in its character. As I have said, there are no
two compound aggregated forms of visible matter that are, or ever
can be, so duplicated as to show pure sympathetic concordance one to
the other. Hence the necessity of my system of graduation, and of a
compound device that will enable anyone to correct the variations
that exist in compound molecular structures; or in other words to
graduate such, so as to bring them to a successful operation....
Keely.
Disturbance of Magnetic Needle.
If Keely's theories are correct, science will in time classify all
the important modifications of the one force in nature as sympathetic
streams, each stream composed of triple flows. Mr. Keely maintains
that the static condition which the magnetic needle assumes, when
undisturbed by any extraneous force outside of its own sympathetic
one, proves conclusively that the power of the dominant third, of
the triple combination of the magnetic terrestrial envelope, is the
controlling one of this sympathetic triplet, and the one towards
which all the others co-ordinate. All the dominant conditions of
nature represent the focal centres towards which like surrounding
ones become sympathetically subservient. The rapid rotation of the
magnetic needle of a compass which Mr. Keely shows in his experiments,
rests entirely on the alternating of the dominant alone, which is
effected by a triple condition of vibration that is antagonistic to
its harmonious flow as associated with its other attendants. A rapid
change of polarity is induced, and rapid rotation necessarily follows.
Quoting from Keely's writings,--"The human ear cannot detect the
triple chord of any vibration, or sounding note, but every sound that
is induced of any range, high or low, is governed by the same laws,
as regards triple action of such, that govern every sympathetic flow
in Nature. Were it not for these triple vibratory conditions, change
of polarity could never be effected, and consequently there could be
no rotation. Thus the compounding of the triple triple, to produce the
effect, would give a vibration in multiplication reaching the ninth,
in order to induce subservience, the enumeration of which it would
be folly to undertake, as the result would be a string of figures
nearly a mile in length to denote it.
When the proper impulse is given to induce the rotation with pure
alternating corpuscular action, the conditions of action become
perpetual in their character, lasting long enough from that one impulse
to wear out any machine denoting such action, and on the sympathetic
stream eternally perpetual. The action of the neutral or focalizing
centres represents molecular focalization and redistribution, not
having any magnetism associated with them; but when the radiating arms
of their centres are submitted to the triple compound vibratory force,
representing their mass thirds, they become magnetic and consequently
cease their rotation. Their rotation is induced by submitting them
to three different orders of vibration, simultaneously giving the
majority to the harmonic third.
Theory of the Induction of Sympathetic Chords to excite rotation,
by vibrophonic trajection to and from centres of neutrality, as
induced and shown to Professor Leidy, Dr. Willcox, and others, on
revolving globe.
All hollow spheres, of certain diameters, represent, as per diameters
and their volume of molecular mass, pure, unadulterated, sympathetic
resonation towards the enharmonic and diatonic thirds of any, and
in fact all, concordant sounds. In tubes it is adversely different,
requiring a definite number of them so graduated as to represent a
confliction by thirds, sixths, and ninths, as towards the harmonic
scale. When the conditions are established, the acoustic result of
this combination, when focalized, represents concordant harmony,
as between the chord mass of the instrument to be operated and
chord mass of the tubes of resonation. Therefore the shortest
way towards establishing pure concordance, between any number of
resonating mediums, is by the position that Nature herself assumes
in her multitudinous arrangements of the varied forms and volumes of
matter--the spherical. The great difficulty to overcome, in order to
get a revolution of the said sphere, exists in equating the interior
adjuncts of same. In other words, the differentiation induced must be
so equated as to harmonize and make their conditions purely concordant
to the molecular mass of the sphere. Example: Suppose the chord of the
sphere mass represents B flat, or any other chord, and the internal
adjuncts by displacement of atmospheric volume differentiates the
volume one-twentieth; this displacement in the shell's atmospheric
volume would represent an antagonistic twentieth against the shell's
mass concordance, to equate which it would be necessary to so graduate
the shell's internal adjuncts as to get at the same chord;--an octave
or any number of octaves that comes nearest to the concordance of
the shell's atmospheric volume. No intermediates between the octaves
would ever reach sympathetic union.
We will now take up the mechanical routine as associated with adjuncts
of interference, and follow the system for chording the mechanical
aggregation in its different parts, in order to induce the transmissive
sympathy necessary to perfect evolution, and to produce revolution
of the sphere or shell.
Example.--Suppose that we had just received from the machine shop a
spun shell of twelve inches internal diameter, 1·32 of an inch thick,
which represents an atmospheric volume of 904·77 cubic inches. On
determination by research we find the shell to be on its resonating
volume B flat, and the molecular volume of the metal that the sphere
is composed of, B natural. This or any other antagonistic chord, as
between the chord mass of the shell and its atmospheric volume, would
not interfere but would come under subservience. We now pass a steel
shaft through its centre, 1/2 inch in diameter, which represents its
axial rest. This shaft subjects the atmospheric volume of the shell to
a certain displacement or reduction, to correct which we first register
the chord note of its mass, and find it to be antagonistic to the
chord mass of the shell, a certain portion of an octave. This must be
corrected. The molecular volume of the shaft must be reduced in volume,
either by filing or turning, so as to represent the first B flat chord
that is reached by such reduction. When this is done the first line of
interference is neutralized, and the condition of sympathy is as pure
between the parts as it was when the globe was minus its axis. There is
now introduced on its axis a ring which has seven tubes or graduating
resonators, the ring being two-thirds the diameter of the globe,
the resonators three inches long and 3/4 inch diameter, each one to
be set on the chord of B flat, which is done by sliding the small
diaphragm in the tube to a point that will indicate B flat. This
setting then controls the metallic displacement of the metallic
combination, as also of the arms necessary to hold the ring and
resonators on shaft or axis. Thus the second equation is established,
both on resonation and displacement. We are now ready to introduce
the diatonic scale ring of three octaves which is set at two-thirds
of the scale antagonistic to the chord mass of the globe itself. This
is done by graduating every third pin of its scale to B flat, thirds,
which represent antagonistic thirds to the shell's molecular mass. This
antagonism must be thoroughly sensitive to the chord mass of one of
the hemispheres of which the globe is composed. The axis of the scale
ring must rotate loosely on the globe's shaft without revolving with
the globe itself; which it is prevented from doing by being weighted
on one side of the ring by a small hollow brass ball, holding about
two ounces of lead. The remaining work on the device is finished by
painting the interior of the globe, one hemisphere black and one white,
and attaching a rubber bulb such as is used to spray perfume, to the
hollow end of the shaft. This bulb equates vibratory undulations,
thus preventing an equation of molecular bombardment on its dark side
when sympathetically influenced. It is now in condition to denote
the sympathetic concordance between living physical organisms, or
the receptive transmittive concordance necessary to induce rotation.
Philosophy of Transmission and Rotation of Musical Sphere.
The only two vibratory conditions that can be so associated as to
excite high sympathetic affinity, as between two physical organisms,
are:--Etheric chord of B flat, 3rd octave, and on etheric sympathetic
chords transmission E flat on the scale 3rd, 6ths, and 9ths; octaves
harmonic; having the 3rd dominant, the 6th enharmonic, and the 9th
diatonic.
The chord mass representing the musical sphere, being the sympathetic
etheric chord of B flat third octave, indicated by the focalization of
its interior mechanical combination, as against the neutral sevenths
of its atmospheric volume, makes the shell highly sensitive to the
reception of pure sympathetic concordance, whether it be physical,
mechanical, or a combination of both. Taking the chord mass of
the different mechanical parts of the sphere and its adjuncts, as
previously explained, when associated and focalized to represent
pure concordance, as between its atmospheric volume and sphere mass,
which means the pure unit of concordance, we have the highest position
that can be established in relation to its sympathetic susceptiveness
to negative antagonism. The beauty of the perfection of the laws that
govern the action of Nature's sympathetic flows is here demonstrated in
all the purity of its workings, actually requiring antagonistic chords
to move and accelerate. The dark side of the shell, which represents
fifty per cent. of its full area of pure concordant harmony, is the
receptive area for the influence of the negative transmissive chords
of the thirds, sixths and ninths to bombard upon; which bombardment
disturbs the equilibrium of said sphere, and induces rotation. The
rotation can be accelerated or retarded, according as the antagonistic
chords of the acoustic forces are transmitted in greater or lesser
volume. The action induced by the mouth organ, transmitted at a
distance from the sphere without any connection of wire, demonstrates
the purity of the principle of sympathetic transmission, as negatized
or disturbed by discordants; which, focalizing on the resonating
sevenths of resonators, or tubes attached to ring, the sympathetic
flow is by this means transmitted to the focalizing centre, or centre
of neutrality, to be re-distributed at each revolution of sphere,
keeping intact the sympathetic volume during sensitization, thus
preventing the equation or stoppage of its rotation.
Again, the sphere resting on its journals in the ring, as graduated
to the condition of its interior combinations, represents a pure
sympathetic concordant under perfect equation ready to receive the
sympathetic, or to reject the non-sympathetic. If a pure sympathetic
chord is transmitted coincident to its full combination, the sphere
will remain quiescent; but if a transmission of discordance is brought
to bear upon it, its sympathetic conditions become repellent to this
discordance....
Keely.
Hertz in his conjectures that a knowledge of the structure of ether
should unveil the essence of matter itself, and of its inherent
properties, weight and inertia, is treading the path that leads to this
knowledge. Professor Fitzgerald says:--"Ether must be the means by
which electric and magnetic forces exist, it should explain chemical
actions, and if possible gravity." The law of sympathetic vibration
explains chemical affinities as a sympathetic attractive, but inherent,
force; in short, as gravity. This opens up too wide a territory even
but to peer into in the dawning light of Keely's system of vibratory
physics. The boundary line is crossed, and the crowds of researchers
in electro-magnetism are full of ardour. Hertz constructed a circuit,
whose period of vibration for electric currents was such that he was
able to see sparks, due to the increased vibration, leaping across a
small air-space in this resonant circuit; his experiments have proved
and demonstrated the ethereal theory of electro-magnetism:--that
electro-magnetic actions are due to a medium pervading all known
space; while Keely's experiments have proved that all things are due
to conditions of ether.
Professor Fitzgerald closes one of his lectures on ether in these
words:--"There are metaphysical grounds for reducing matter to motion,
and potential to kinetic energy. Let us for a moment contemplate what
is betokened by this theory that in electro-magnetic engines we are
using as our mechanism the ether, the medium that fills all known
space. It was a great step in human progress when man learnt to make
material machines, when he used the elasticity of his bow, and the
rigidity of his arrow to provide food and defeat his enemies. It was a
great advance when he learnt to use the chemical action of fire; when
he learnt to use water to float his boats, and air to drive them; when,
by artificial selection, he provided himself with food and domestic
animals. For two hundred years he has made heat his slave to drive
his machinery. Fire, water, earth, and air have long been his slaves,
but it is only within the last few years that man has won the battle
lost by the giants of old, has snatched the thunderbolt from Jove
himself, and enslaved the all-pervading ether."
Of the experiments of Hertz, in inducing vibrations "in ether waves,"
Professor Fitzgerald says: "If we consider the possible radiating
power of an atom, we find that it may be millions of millions of
times as great as Professor Wiedermann has found to be the radiating
power of a sodium atom in a Bunsen burner; so if there is reason
to think that any greater oscillation might disintegrate the atom,
we are still a long way from it."
Here we have an admission that the atom may be divisible; but the
professor's conjecture is made upon an incorrect hypothesis. The
"possible theory of ether and matter" which Professor Fitzgerald puts
forward, in his lecture on Electro-Magnetic Radiation, is in harmony
with Keely's theories. This hypothesis explains the differences
in nature as differences in motion, ending: "Can we resist the
conclusion that all motion is thought? Not that contradiction in terms,
'unconscious thought,' but living thought; that all nature is the
language of One in whom we live, and move, and have our being?" This
great truth the Buddhists have taught for ages. There is no such thing
as blind or dead matter, as there is no blind nor unconscious thought.
CHAPTER XIII.
1891.
"MORE SCIENCE."
The only hope for science is more science.--Drummond.
"Philosophy must finally endeavour to be itself
constructive." Here Professor Seth laid stress on the necessity
of a teleological view of the universe, not in the paltry,
mechanical sense sometimes associated with the word teleology,
but as vindicating the existence of an end or organic unity
in the process of the world, constituting it an evolution
and not a series of aimless changes.... As Goethe taught,
in one of his finest poems, we do well to recognize in the
highest attributes of human-kind our nearest glimpse into
the nature of the divine. The part was not greater than the
whole, and we might rest assured that whatever of wisdom and
goodness there was in us had not been born out of nothing,
but had its fount, somewhere and somehow, in a more perfect
Goodness and Truth.--Review of Professor Seth's address.
Believe nothing which is unreasonable, and reject nothing as
unreasonable without proper examination.--Gautama Buddha.
I do not believe that matter is inert, acted upon by an
outside force. To me it seems that every atom is possessed
by a certain amount of primitive intelligence.--Edison.
History tells us that Pythagoras would not allow himself to be called a
sage, as his predecessors had done, but designated himself as a lover
of wisdom; ardent in the pursuit of wisdom, he could not arrogate
to himself the possession of wisdom. Yet, in our time, so unwilling
are the searchers after wisdom to admit that there can be anything
"new under the sun," anything that they do not already know, that we
find the number of men of science to be marvellously small who possess
the first condition of success in scientific research, as set down by
Herbert Spencer, very few who do not arrogate to themselves too much
learning to permit them to admit the possibility of any new revelation
of truth. In every age of our world, to meet the requirements of the
age, in its step-by-step progress from barbarism to civilization and
enlightenment, there have appeared extraordinary men, having knowledge
far in advance of the era in which they lived. Of such, among many,
were Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, Plato, and above these, Gautama the
Buddha. But Moses, with all his knowledge of bacilli and bacteria,
could not have met the requirements of any later age. The "eye for an
eye" and "tooth for a tooth" period passed, and King David, who was
so superior to other Kings of marauding tribes, that he was called "a
man after God's own heart," satisfied his desire for punishment, to be
meted out to his personal enemies, by prayer to God to "put out their
eyes," and to "let them fall from one wickedness to another." This was
a step in advance, for it gave those who had offended him a chance to
escape all such summary proceedings as Moses had authorized. Still,
the time was a long way off before a greater than Moses appeared to
teach the world that such prayers are unavailing, that we can hate sin
without hating the sinner, and that the Alpha and Omega of religion is
to live in love and in the performance of duty. The Jewish prophets
foretold the coming of Jesus of Nazareth; and the interpreters of
Scripture are not alone now in having predicted that we are approaching
a new dispensation, an age of harmony, which the twentieth century
is to usher in, according to Biblical prophets. Renan has said that
he envies those who shall live to see the wonders which the light of
the new dawn that is breaking upon the world of science will unfold;
that those who live in this coming age will know things of which we
have no conception. Morley, in the spirit of prophecy, has said that
in the near future a great intellectual giant will arise to bless
our globe, who will surpass all other men of genius, reasoning that
the representative of a larger age must be greater in genius than any
predecessor. When the system is made known by which Keely dissociates
the molecule and atoms by successive orders of vibration, proving
two laws in physics as fallacious, we shall not hesitate to say that
"the light of the new dawn" has now broken upon the world of science,
and that the discoverer of the divisibility of the atom and of the
absorption of energy in all molecular aggregation is the genius
foretold by Morley. One quality of true genius is humility. "What
a brain you must have!" said a man of science to Keely, not long
since, "to have thought this all out." This man of genius replied,
"I was but the instrument of a Higher Power." We are all instruments
of a Higher Power, but the instruments chosen and set apart for any
special work are always choice instruments which have been fitted or
adapted to that work--the furnace perhaps seven times heated before
the annealing was perfected.
It has been said that man enters upon life as a born idiot; and there
are many who think that, in comparison with the possibilities which the
future promises in the way of the physical evolution of the race, we
are but as idiots still. Having reached our present stage of physical
and mental development, the history of the civilization of our race
cannot but lead reflecting men and women into the opinion that the work
of evolution will become more purely psychical in future. After which,
as a consequence, there can be no doubt that physical development
will again take its turn; for, as Tennyson has said,--
"When reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm,
Then springs the coming race that rules mankind."
Not the least among the many applications of Keely's discoveries will
be that which will prove, by demonstration, whether the chord of mass
in a man and woman is near enough in the octaves to be beneficial,
or so far apart as to be deteriorating.
"There is no truer truth obtainable
By man than comes of music."
The earlier processes of civilization belonged to an age of
spontaneity, of unreflective productivity; an age that expressed
itself in myths, created religious and organized social forms and
habits of life in harmony with these spontaneous creations.
"O, ye delicious fables! where the wave
And woods were peopled and the air with things
So lovely! Why, ah why, has Science grave
Scattered afar your sweet imaginings?"
asks Barry Cornwall. But now that we have entered upon a more advanced
age in thought, as in all things pertaining to discovery and practical
application, or invention, a critical defining intellectual age,
we must henceforth depend upon true science for our progress toward
a higher enlightenment. Science, as will be seen, embraces religion,
and must become, as Keely asserts, the religion of the world, when
it is made known in all its glory and grandeur, sweeping away all
foot-holds for scepticism, and spreading the knowledge of God, as a God
of love, until this knowledge covers the earth as the waters cover the
sea. As has been said, the word science, in its largest signification,
includes intellectual achievement in every direction open to the mind,
and the co-ordination of the results in a progressive philosophy
of life. Philosophy has been defined as the science of causes or
of first principles, and should be limited, almost exclusively, to
the mental sciences. This is the field which Keely is exploring; the
knowledge of the "hidden things" which he is bringing to the light is
pure philosophical knowledge, in the widest acceptation of the term:
the knowledge of effects as dependent on their causes.
"Behold an infinite of floating worlds
Dividing crystal waves of ether pure
In endless voyage without port."
Is it not a marvel of inspiration to have been able to cast line
and plummet in such a sea of knowledge, to be able to demonstrate
the power of that "sympathetic outreach" which, acting from our
satellite upon the waters of our oceans and seas, through the vast
space that separates it from our earth, lifts these waters, once in
every twenty-four hours, from their beds; and, as gently as a mother
would lay her infant on its couch, places them again where they rest?
God hath chosen, as Paul said, the foolish things of the world to
confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world
to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world
and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which
are not to bring to naught things which are; that no flesh should
glory in His presence. Christ said, "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."
Truth never changes; but as new truths are revealed to us, to meet
the necessities of progress (in our development from ignorance
into the wisdom of angels), our point of view is ever changing,
like the landscape which we look out upon from the swiftly gliding
railway-carriage that bears us to our destination. As yet, "Earth
has shown us only the title-page of a book" that we may, if we will,
read its first pages here, and continue reading throughout eternity.
When Bulwer wrote of "a power that can replenish or invigorate life,
heal and preserve, cure disease: enabling the physical organism to
re-establish the due equilibrium of its natural powers, thereby curing
itself," he foreshadowed one of Keely's discoveries. "Once admit the
possibility that the secrets of nature conceal forces yet undeveloped,"
says the author of "Masollam," "which may contain a cure for the evils
by which it is now afflicted, and it is culpable timidity to shrink
from risking all to discover that cure." This author teaches that
humanity at large has a claim higher than the claims of the blood-tie;
that a love based upon no higher sentiment, makes us blind to the
claims of duty; and this is why, when men or women are chosen to do
a great work, for the human family, the ligaments which have bound
them too exclusively to their own families, are cut and torn apart.
No greater work has ever been committed to a man to do than that which
Keely's discoveries are preparing the way for. Science was rocking the
world into the sleep of death--for materialism is death--its votaries
declaring atoms to be eternally active, and the intellect which had
discovered the existence of these atoms to end with the life of the
molecular body. On this subject Simmons has written:--
"Shall impalpable light speed so swiftly and safely through infinite
space--and the mind that measures its speed, and makes it tell its
secrets in the spectroscope, be buried with the body? Shall mere breath
send its pulsations through the wire and, after fifty miles of silence,
sound again in speech or music in a far-off city, or stamp itself in
the phonograph to sound again in far-off centuries--and the soul that
has wrought these wonders pass to eternal silence? Shall physical
force persist for ever--and this love, which is the strongest force
in nature, perish? It would seem wiser to trust that the infinite
law, which is everywhere else so true, will take care of this human
longing which it has made, and fulfil it in eternal safety. We
make no argument, but we cannot ignore all the intimations of
immortality. Cyrus Field tells us of the night when, after his
weary search for that long-lost cable two miles deep in mid-ocean,
the grapnel caught it and, trembling with suspense, they drew it to
the deck, hardly trusting their eyes, but creeping to feel it and make
sure it was there. And when, as they watched, a spark soon came from a
finger in England, showing that the line was sound, strong men wept and
rockets rent the midnight darkness. We and our world float like a ship
on the mysterious sea of being, in whose abysses the grapnel of science
touches no solid line of logic connecting us to another land. But now
and then there come from convictions, stronger than cables, flashes
of light bidding us trust that our dead share in divine immortality,
and are safe in the arms of Infinite Law and Eternal Love."
Keely's demonstrations suggest "the missing link" between matter and
mind, the solid line of logic which may yet be laid in "the widening
dominion of the human mind over the forces of nature." In "Keely's
Secrets," No. 9, Vol. I. of the T.P.S., some of the elements of the
possibilities resulting to the world from Keely's discoveries were
set down. War will become an impossibility; and, as Browning's poem of
"Childe Roland" forecasts, "The Dark Tower" of unbelief will crumble at
the bugle-blast which levels its walls to their foundation, revealing
such a boundless region of research as the mind of man could never
conceive were he not the offspring of the Creator. Not long since,
Mr. Keely was congratulated upon having secured the attention of men of
science, connected with the University of Pennsylvania, to his work of
research. "Now, you will be known as a great discoverer, not as Keely
the motor-man," said one of them present; whom he answered, "I have
discovered so little, in comparison with what remains to be discovered,
that I cannot call myself a discoverer." One of the professors present
took Keely by the hand and said, "You are a great discoverer."
All thoughtful men who have witnessed the latest developments of the
force displayed by Keely, in his researching experiments for aerial
navigation, are made to realize that more through his discoveries,
than by the progressive development of the altruistic element in
humanity (dreamed of by speculative optimists), our race will be
brought into that dispensation of peace and harmony, anticipated by
"seers" and foretold by prophets as the millennial age. It requires
no great measure of foresight to discern, as a natural consequence of
the control and application of this force in art and commerce, that
ameliorated condition of the masses which will end the mighty conflict
now so blindly being waged between capital and labour. [11] And to
the eye of faith, it is not difficult to look beyond the intervening
æons of centuries, to the literal fulfilment of the promise of that
millennial period when men shall live in brotherly love together;
making heaven of earth as even now it is in our power to do if we
live up to Christ's command: "Whatsoever ye would that others should
do unto you, that do ye also unto them." Had some of the dogmatic
scientists of this age followed this command, Keely's discovery
might have been sooner known in all its importance, protecting him,
as their acknowledgment would have done, from the persecutions that
have operated so detrimentally against the completion of researches
which should have been finished before any attempt was made to apply
the discovery to commercial ends. No scientist who witnessed the
production of the force, displayed by Keely, in a proper spirit,
but would have been welcomed by him to further experiments in its
operations, as were Professor Leidy and Dr. Wilcox in 1889. So, in
truth, those who printed their edicts against Keely about ten years
since are, in part, responsible for the loss to the world which
this long delay has occasioned. Still, in view of the acknowledged
fact that not one of the great laws which science now accepts as
incontrovertible truths, but was vehemently denied by the scientists
of its time, declared to be a priori impossible; its discoverers and
supporters denounced as fools or charlatans, and even investigation
refused as being a waste of time and thought; it would be too much to
expect from the thinkers of this age any greater degree of readiness
to investigate claims, that threatened to demolish their cherished
notions, than characterized their predecessors.
But the time was not ripe for the disclosure: "God never hurries." He
counts the centuries as we count the seconds, and the nearer that
we approach to the least comprehension of His "underlying purpose,"
the better fitted are we to do the work He assigns us, while waiting
patiently for our path of duty to be made clear to us; like the
labourer, in Tolstoi's Confession, who completed the work that had
been laid out for him, without understanding what the result would
be, and unable to judge whether his master had planned well. If the
prophecies of Scripture are fulfilled, the twentieth century will
usher in the commencement of that age in which men and women will
become aware of the great powers which they inherit, and of which
Oliphant has said that we are so ignorant that we wholly fail to see
them, though they sweep like mighty seas throughout all human nature.
What is the character of these powers which Oliphant has written so
eloquently concerning? Can we not form an inference from St. Paul's
most precious and deeply scientific context, in which he introduced
the quotation from the Greek poet Aratus, who was well known in Athens,
having studied there?
If we are the offspring of God, how rich must be our inheritance! If
we are the children of God, why do we not trust our Father? But this
is not science! A philosopher has said that if ever a human being
needed divine pity, it is the man of science who believes in nothing
but what he can prove by scientific methods. Scientists will have to
admit, in the light of Keely's discoveries, that the sensibility and
intelligence, which confer upon us our self-directive power, do not
have their origin in our molecular structures. That they take their
first beginning in matter is one of the most inadequate conceptions
that was ever proposed for scientific belief. If it were so, we
could not claim to be the offspring of God, who is the Fountain of
all life, the ever living, from whom, as "His very kind," we inherit
this self-directive power; not the molecular bodies which are our
clothing. God is our Father. The material structure is the mother
and nurse. The hypothesis that there are no beings in the universe
but those which possess molecular bodies, is the conjecture of a mind
that has no conception of the illimitable power of the Almighty. The
link, which connects mind with matter, gives us a higher conception
of the Deity. Keely places it in the mind flow, the result of the
sixth subdivision. When we are done with "the things of Time," and
not before, we are ready to rise out of our molecular bondage into
the freedom we inherit as heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ of
sonship with the Father.
The problem of the origin of life would become a matter of
easy analysis, writes Keely, if the properties governing the
different orders of matter could be understood in their different
evolutions. Disturbance of equilibrium is the prime mover, aggregator
and disperser of all forces that exist in nature. The force of the
mind on matter is a grand illustration of the power of the finer over
the crude, of the etheric over the molecular. If the differential
forces of the brain could become equated, eternal perpetuity would be
the result. Under such a condition the physical would remain free of
disintegration or decomposition. But the law, laid out by the Great
Master, which governs the disturbance of equilibrium, making the crude
forms of matter subservient to the finer or higher forms, forbidding
anything molecular or terrestrial to assimilate with the high etheric,
the law that has fixed the planets in their places, is an unknown
law to the finite mind, comprehended only by the Infinite One....
Some of our men of science once settled the problem of the origin of
life to their own satisfaction, only to learn that "speculation is
not science;" for a substance which, when dissolved, crystallizes as
gypsum, cannot produce vital force; and it is like groping among the
bones of a graveyard to look for spontaneous generation in a shining
heap of jelly on the floor of the sea.
When our learned men are forced to admit that "all motion is thought,"
that "all nature is the language of One in whom we live, and are moved,
and have our being," the attempts to evolve life out of chemical
elements will cease; the Mosaic records will no longer be denied,
which tell us that the Creator's law for living organisms is that
each plant seeds, and each animal bears, after its kind; not that
each seeds and bears after another kind. The doctrine of evolution,
as made known to us in Geology, is a fundamental truth; proving that
"there has been a plan, glorious in its scheme, perfect in system,
progressing through unmeasured ages, and looking ever toward man and
a spiritual end."
The Rev. John Andrew, in his "Thoughts on the Evolution Theory of
Creation," mentions that Haeckel gives the pedigree of man from
primeval moneron in twenty-two stages. Stage twenty is the man-like
ape; stage twenty-one is the ape-like man; stage twenty-two is the man;
but he confesses that the twenty-first stage--the ape-like man--is
entirely wanting in all the records.
There is no missing link in the evolution theory, as laid down in
Keely's pure philosophy. Inasmuch as the Father of all is Himself
a Spiritual Being, cosmical law leads us to expect that the type of
created being, His offspring, shall be spirit also. Nor can Being in
any object be so attenuated, or so far removed from Him who filleth
all in all, but it must surely retain an aura of His spiritual
nature. The corner-stone of this philosophy is one power, one law;
order and method reigning throughout creation; spirit controlling
matter, as the Divine order and law of creation that the spiritual
should govern the material--that the whole realm of matter should
be under the dominion of the world of spirit. Nor is this a new
truth. According to Diogenes Laërtius, Thales taught that souls are
the motive forces of the universe. Empedocles affirms that spiritual
forces move the visible world. Virgil asserted that mind animates
and moves the world; that the spiritual realm is the soul of the
universe. The universe is not a mass of dead matter, says Gilbert (in
his work, "De Magnate"), but is pervaded with this soul, this living
principle, this unseen cause of all visible phenomena, underlying
all movements in the earth beneath and in the heavens above. Joseph
Cook affirms that as science progresses it draws nearer in all its
forms to the proof of the spiritual origin of force--that is of the
Divine immanence in natural law: and that God was not transiently
present in nature--that is in a mere creative moment; nor has He left
the world in a state of orphanage, bereft of a deific influence and
care, but He is immanent in nature, as the Apostle Paul and Aratus
and Spinoza declared. As certainly as the unborn infant's life is
that of the mother, so is it divinely true that somehow God's life
includes ours; and we shall understand the nature of that relationship
when, in due time, we have been "born again" into the life of the
spirit. "The economy of creation is not regarded in this philosophy
as a theory of development all in one direction; but as a cycle in
which, after development, and as its fruit, the last term gives again
the first. Herein is found the link by which the law of continuity
is maintained throughout--the link which is missing in the popular
science of the day; with this very serious consequence that, to keep
the break out of sight, the entire doctrine of spirit and the spiritual
world is ignored or altogether denied." Science admits that nature
works with dual force, though at rest she is a unit. "Nature is one
eternal circle." Keely's discoveries prove that the doctrine of the
Trinity should be set down as an established canon of science--the
Trinity of force. All nature's sympathetic streams--cerebellic,
gravital, electric and magnetic--are made up of triple currents. The
ancients understood this dogma in a far deeper sense than modern
theology has construed it. The great and universal Trinity of cause,
motion and matter--or of will, thought and manifestation--was known
to the Rosicrucians as prima materia. Paracelsus states that each
of these three is also the other two; for, as nothing can possibly
exist without cause, matter and energy--that is, spirit, matter and
soul (the ultimate cause of existence being that it exists), we may
therefore look upon all forms of activity as being the action of
the universal or Divine will operating upon and through the ether,
as the skilled artificer uses his tools to accomplish his designs;
making the comparison in all reverence.
"The existence of an intelligent Creator, a personal God, can to my
mind, almost be proved from chemistry," writes Edison; and George
Parsons Lathrop, in commenting upon Edison's belief, says:--"Surely
it is a circumstance calculated to excite reflection, and to
cause a good deal of satisfaction, that this keen and penetrating
mind, so vigorously representing the practical side of American
intelligence--the mind of a remarkable exponent of applied science, and
of a brilliant and prolific inventor who has spent his life in dealing
with the material part of the world--should so confidently arrive
at belief in God through a study of those media that often obscure
the perception of spiritual things." Edison, it seems, like Keely,
has never been discouraged by the obstacles which he meets with, in
his researches, nor even inclined to be hopeless of ultimate success.
Unlike Keely, Edison through all his years of experimental research has
never once made a discovery. All the work of this great and successful
inventor has been deductive, and the results achieved by him have been
simply those of pure invention. Like Keely he constructs a theory,
and works on its lines until he finds it untenable; then, he at once
discards it and forms another theory. In connection with the electric
light, he evolved or constructed three thousand successive theories;
each one reasonable and apparently likely to be true; yet, only in
two cases was he able to prove by experiment that his theories were
correct. Of such a nature is the "dead-work" which all researchers
on scientific principles must toil through to attain success.
They must keep their minds open to every suggestion or idea, no matter
how fanciful it may seem to others, and they must never let go their
hold of it until it has been tested in all its possibilities. The same
words which Lathrop uses, in describing Edison's characteristics, are
equally applicable to Keely, who, in addition to his native endowment
of a genius for science and mechanics, brings to bear vast patience
in logical deduction, careful calculation, unlimited experiment, a
ceaseless industry, and a persistence which refuses to be discouraged.
Edison has said that he does not philosophize. Like General Grant,
he is a man of action. When asked what theory he held upon a subject
under discussion, General Grant replied, "I never theorize: when
there is anything to be done, I do it." [12] Edison is always doing
something which the public can see and appreciate, but, unlike Keely,
he has no system to work out and transmute into the pure philosophy
which is now revealing to the world "the further link in the chain
of causation," "the cause of the cause," which hitherto has rather
been assumed than demonstrated.
"If we believe," says Professor Sir G. G. Stokes, "that what are
called the natural sciences spring from the same supreme source
as those which are concerned with morals and Natural Theology in
general, we may expect to find broad lines of analogy between the
two; and thus it may conceivably happen that the investigations,
which belong to natural science, may here and there afford us hints
with respect even to the moral sciences, with which at first sight
they might appear to have no connection. And if such are to be found,
perhaps they are more likely to be indicated by one whose studies
have lain mainly in the direction of those natural sciences than by
one whose primary attention has been devoted to moral subjects."
Mr. Keely's first discovery of an unknown force and the releasing
of an unknown energy seemed to be by accident; and most certainly no
one could then have foreseen that his researches in physical science
would lead him on step by step, and very slow steps they have been,
to such important findings. In the pursuit of physical science he
encountered paradoxes and anomalies, the study of which led him on
to fresh discoveries whereby he has been able to extend the boundary
of ascertained truth and separate the wheat of science from the chaff.
The late Dr. Macvicar said when he considered how difficult he
had found it to believe that such insight into nature as his views
imply is possible to be attained, he was not so unreasonable as to
expect that others would, in his time, regard them even as probable,
much less as proved. He expressed himself as content with the private
enjoyment which these views imparted to himself, "especially as that
enjoyment is not merely the gratification of a chemical curiosity,
but attaches to a much larger field of thought." One of the points
to which he refers, as possessing great value to his own mind,
is the place which his investigation assigns to material nature in
the universe of being. He says that it is much the fashion in the
present day to regard matter and force, more shortly matter, as all in
all. But, according to the view of things which has presented itself
to both of these men, "matter comes out rather as a precipitate
in the universal ether, determined by a mathematical necessity;
a grand and beautiful cloud-work in the realm of light, bounded on
both sides by a world of spirits; on the upper and anterior side,
by the great Creator Himself, and the hierarchy of spirits to which
He awarded immediate existence; and on the lower and posterior side,
by that world of spirits of which the material body is the mother
and nurse." Macvicar says the hypothesis that there are no beings
in the universe but those which possess a molecular structure, and
that sensibility and intelligence take their first beginnings in
such structures, is one of the most inadequate conceptions that was
ever proposed for scientific belief. Science is not only very blind,
but glories in her blindness. She gropes among the dead seeking
the origin of life, instead of going to the Fountain of all life,
the Ever Living, as Dr. Macvicar and Keely have done.
In theorizing on the philosophy of planetary suspension Mr. Keely
writes: "As regards planetary volume, we would ask in a scientific
point of view--How can the immense difference of volume in the
planets exist without disorganizing the harmonious action that
has always characterized them? I can only answer this question
properly by entering into a progressive synthesis, starting on the
rotating etheric centres that were fixed by the Creator with their
attractive or accumulative power. If you ask what power it is that
gives to each etheric atom its inconceivable velocity of rotation,
or introductory impulse, I must answer that no finite mind will ever
be able to conceive what it is. The philosophy of accumulation,"
assimilation, Macvicar calls it, "is the only proof that such a power
has been given. The area, if we can so speak of such an atom, presents
to the attractive or magnetic, the elective or propulsive, all the
receptive force and all the antagonistic force that characterizes a
planet of the largest magnitude; consequently, as the accumulation
goes on, the perfect equation remains the same. When this minute
centre has once been fixed, the power to rend it from its position
would necessarily have to be as great as to displace the most immense
planet that exists. When this atomic neutral centre is displaced,
the planet must go with it. The neutral centre carries the full load
of any accumulation from the start, and remains the same, for ever
balanced in the eternal space."
Mr. Keely illustrates his idea of "a neutral centre" in this
way:--We will imagine that, after an accumulation of a planet of any
diameter--say, 20,000 miles more or less, for the size has nothing
to do with the problem--there should be a displacement of all the
material, with the exception of a crust 5000 miles thick, leaving
an intervening void between this crust and a centre of the size of
an ordinary billiard ball, it would then require a force as great
to move this small central mass as it would to move the shell of
5000 miles thickness. Moreover, this small central mass would carry
the load of this crust for ever, keeping it equi-distant; and there
could be no opposing power, however great, that could bring them
together. The imagination staggers in contemplating the immense load
which bears upon this point of centre, where weight ceases. This is
what we understand by a neutral centre.
Again, Mr. Keely, in explanation of the working of his engine,
writes:--In the conception of any machine heretofore constructed, the
medium for inducing a neutral centre has never been found. If it had,
the difficulties of perpetual-motion seekers would have ended, and this
problem would have become an established and operating fact. It would
only require an introductory impulse of a few pounds, on such a device,
to cause it to run for centuries. In the conception of my vibratory
engine, I did not seek to attain perpetual motion; but a circuit is
formed that actually has a neutral centre, which is in a condition
to be vivified by my vibratory ether, and while under operation, by
said substance, is really a machine that is virtually independent of
the mass (or globe), and it is the wonderful velocity of the vibratory
circuit which makes it so. Still, with all its perfection, it requires
to be fed with the vibratory ether to make it an independent motor....
Alluding to his illustration of a neutral centre, Mr. Keely says:--The
man who can, even in a simple way, appreciate this vast problem has
been endowed by the Creator with one of the greatest gifts which He
can bestow upon a mortal. It is well known that all structures require
a foundation in strength according to the weight of the mass they
have to carry, but the foundations of the universe rest on a vacuous
point far more minute than a molecule; in fact, to express this truth
properly, on an inter-etheric point, which requires an infinite mind
to understand. To look down into the depths of an etheric centre is
precisely the same as it would be to search into the broad space of
heaven's ether to find the end; with this difference, that one is
the positive field, while the other is the negative field....
Again, Mr. Keely gives some suggestive thoughts as follows:--In seeking
to solve the great problems which have baffled me, from time to time,
in my progressive researches, I have often been struck by the fact that
I have, to all seeming, accidentally tripped over their solution. The
mind of man is not infinite, and it requires an infinite brain to
evolve infinite positions. My highest power of concentration failed
to attain the results which, at last, seeming accident revealed. God
moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; and if He has
chosen me as the tool to carve out certain positions, what credit
have I? None; and, though it is an exalting thought that He has
singled me out for a specific work, I know that the finest tool is
of no value without a manipulator. It is the artist who handles it
that makes it what it is. Indifference to the marvels which surround
us is a deep reproach. If we have neither leisure nor inclination
to strive to unravel some of the mysteries of nature, which task to
the utmost the highest order of human intelligence, we can at least
exercise and improve our intellectual faculties by making ourselves
acquainted with the operation of agencies already revealed to man;
learning, by the experience of the past, to be tolerant of all truth;
remembering that one of Nature's agencies, known once as of use only
in awakening men's minds to an awful sense of the Creator's power,
has now become a patient slave of man's will, rushing upon his errands
with the speed of light around the inhabited globe....
In comparing the tenuity of the atmosphere with that of the etheric
flows, obtained by Mr. Keely from his invention for dissociating
the molecules of air by vibration, he says, It is as platina to
hydrogen gas. Molecular separation of air brings us to the first
subdivision only; inter-molecular, to the second; atomic, to the third;
inter-atomic, to the fourth; etheric, to the fifth; and inter-etheric,
to the sixth subdivision, or positive association with luminiferous
ether. In my introductory argument I have contended that this is the
vibratory envelope of all atoms. In my definition of atom I do not
confine myself to the sixth subdivision, where this luminiferous ether
is developed in its crude form, as far as my researches prove. I think
this idea will be pronounced, by the physicists of the present day,
a wild freak of the imagination. Possibly, in time, a light may fall
upon this theory that will bring its simplicity forward for scientific
research. At present I can only compare it to some planet in a dark
space, where the light of the sun of science has not yet reached it....
I assume that sound, like odour, is a real substance of unknown
and wonderful tenuity, emanating from a body where it has been
induced by percussion, and throwing out absolute corpuscles of
matter--inter-atomic particles--with a velocity of 1120 feet per
second, in vacuo 20,000. The substance which is thus disseminated is a
part and parcel of the mass agitated, and if kept under this agitation
continuously would, in the course of a certain cycle of time, become
thoroughly absorbed by the atmosphere; or, more truly, would pass
through the atmosphere to an elevated point of tenuity corresponding
to the condition of subdivision that governs its liberation from its
parent body. The sounds from vibratory forks, set so as to produce
etheric chords, while disseminating their compound tones permeate most
thoroughly all substances that come under the range of their atomic
bombardment. The clapping of a bell in vacuo liberates these atoms
with the same velocity and volume as one in the open air; and were
the agitation of the bell kept up continuously for a few millions of
centuries, it would thoroughly return to its primitive element. If
the chamber were hermetically sealed, and strong enough, the vacuous
volume surrounding the bell would be brought to a pressure of many
thousands of pounds to the square inch, by the tenuous substance
evolved. In my estimation, sound truly defined is the disturbance
of atomic equilibrium, rupturing actual atomic corpuscles; and the
substance thus liberated must certainly be a certain order of etheric
flow. Under these conditions is it unreasonable to suppose that, if
this flow were kept up, and the body thus robbed of its element, it
would in time disappear entirely? All bodies are formed primitively
from this high tenuous ether, animal, vegetable and mineral, and
they only return to their high gaseous condition when brought under
a state of differential equilibrium.
As regards odour, continues Mr. Keely, we can only get some definite
idea of its extreme and wondrous tenuity by taking into consideration
that a large area of atmosphere can be impregnated for a long series
of years from a single grain of musk; which, if weighed after that
long interval, will be found to be not appreciably diminished. The
great paradox attending the flow of odorous particles is that they
can be held under confinement in a glass vessel! Here is a substance
of much higher tenuity than the glass that holds it, and yet it
cannot escape. It is as a sieve with its meshes large enough to pass
marbles, and yet holding fine sand which cannot pass through; in fact,
a molecular vessel holding an atomic substance. This is a problem
that would confound those who stop to recognize it. But infinitely
tenuous as odour is, it holds a very crude relation to the substance
of subdivision that governs a magnetic flow (a flow of sympathy, if
you please to call it so). This subdivision comes next to sound, but
is above sound. The action of the flow of a magnet coincides somewhat
to the receiving and distributing portion of the human brain, giving
off at all times a depreciating ratio of the amount received. It is a
grand illustration of the control of mind over matter, which gradually
depreciates the physical till dissolution takes place. The magnet on
the same ratio gradually loses its power and becomes inert. If the
relations that exist between mind and matter could be equated, and so
held, we would live on in our physical state eternally, as there would
be no physical depreciation. But this physical depreciation leads,
at its terminus, to the source of a much higher development--viz.,
the liberation of the pure ether from the crude molecular; which in
my estimation is to be much desired. Thus God moves in a simple way
His wonders to perform...."
When my theoretical exposé is finished and brought out, I shall
be ready for the attacks that will be made upon it, and able to
demonstrate what I assert. One would think that modern physicists,
knowing the lesson taught by the disastrous overthrow of the primitive
system of astronomy, would be somewhat cautious in reference to jeering
at any announcement of scientific research, however preposterous,
without first carefully weighing its claims. It is my belief that there
are many to-day who occupy positions as professors in our colleges and
in universities abroad, who for bigotry and ignorance can discount the
opinion of the religionists of the dark ages; but those to whom has
been given mental force to boldly investigate new truths in science may
congratulate themselves upon the fact that there are investigators of
truth who are not afraid to acknowledge its claims, in whatever garb it
may appear, welcoming whatever new message it may have to deliver....
Professor Rücker, in closing his address read at the meeting of the
British Association in 1891, said:--
"In studies such as these we are passing from the investigation of
the properties of ordinary matter to those of the ether, which may
perhaps be the material of which matter is composed. We may some day
be able to control and use it, as we now control and use steam."
For nearly fifteen years, Keely constructed engines of various models,
with this end in view, before he discovered that it is impossible to
use the ether in any other way than as a medium for the energy that
he is now experimenting with; and which he defines, in its present
operation, as a condition of sympathetic vibration associated with
the polar stream positively and negatively.
Should Keely succeed in controlling and directing this subtle energy,
we shall then be able to "hook our machinery on to the machinery
of nature." A writer in the Nineteenth Century says,--"Whether the
molecules or particles of what we know as matter are independent
matter, or whether they are ether-whirlpools; we know that they keep
up an incessant hammering one on another, and thus on everything
in space. Professor Crookes has shown that the forces contained in
this bombardment are immensely greater than any forces we have yet
handled.... It has also been found that the vibrations keep time in
some unknown way with the vibrations of solid matter."
Thus it is seen that Keely is not the only man of science who is trying
to effect a passage over the untrodden wild lying between acoustics
and music: "that Siberian bog where whole armies of scientific
musicians and musical men of science have sunk, without filling it
up." Helmholtz, it is said, has, by a series of daring strides,
made a passage for himself; while Keely stands alone in seeking
to build a solid causeway; over which all the nations of the earth
may pass in safety, to the "new order of things," that lies in this
"land of promise."
CHAPTER XIV.
VIBRATORY PHYSICS.--THE CONNECTING LINK BETWEEN MIND AND MATTER.
The elements of Nature are made of the will of God.--Hermes
Trismegistus.
Newton and Faraday have indicated how force instead of
leaping over nothing, acting at a distance, is transmitted
consecutively through the ethereal substance.
We must become as little children, not presuming to think of
causes efficient, or causes final; for these are things we
cannot grasp; but reverently and patiently waiting until,
like a revelation, the hidden link between the familiar
and the unfamiliar flashes into our mind, and thus an
additional step is gained in the endless series of successive
generalizations.--The Rev. H. W. Watson, F.R.S., President
of the Birmingham Philosophical Society.
All truth comes by inspiration.--Scripture.
There is but one Deity, the Supreme Spirit: he is of the same
nature as the soul of man.-- Vedic Theology.
As for truth it endureth and is always strong, it liveth and
conquereth for evermore.--Esdras.
Everything happens according to the will of God and has
its appointed time, which can neither be hastened nor
avoided.--Mohammed.
In the paper of the Rev. H. W. Watson, on "The Progress of Science,
its Conditions and Limitations," he tells us that every thinking man
recognizes the subjective Self and the objective non-Self, and that
this non-Self, so far as it manifests its existence through the senses,
is the object of investigation of natural philosophers; but he admits
that their investigations have not bestowed upon modern science any
results to justify the language of causation. Universal gravitation
is declared to be a vast generalization, telling us that there is
no more, but yet just as much, of mystery in the whole sequence of
astronomical phenomena, as in the most humdrum processes of every-day
experiences. The unfamiliar has been explained by the familiar, and
both remain in their original mystery. The mystery, attendant upon
gravitation, Kepler prophesied would be revealed to man in this age:
and the cautious and inductive investigations which Keely has been
pursuing, since 1888, have enabled him to demonstrate that the unknown
force, which for fifteen years had baffled all his skill, is the same
condition of sympathetic vibration which controls nature's highest and
most general operations:--the identical force which Faraday divined
when he wrote, in 1836: "Thus, either present elements are the true
elements, or else there is the probability before us of obtaining
some more high and general power of nature even than electricity,
and which at the same time might reveal to us an entirely new grade
of the elements of matter, now hidden from our view and almost from
our suspicion."
It was good advice given by the late Professor Clifford,--"Before
teaching any doctrine wait until the nature of the evidence can
be understood." But without attempting to teach Keely's system of
vibratory physics, we may look into some of his views, notwithstanding
the fact that, whatever truths there may be in them, they are
approached from such a different standpoint, than that of the platform
of mechanical physics, that it is utterly impossible to bring them
into any definite relations with each other. [13] Dr. Gérard, of Paris,
in his work on "Nervous Force," writes of this founder of a new system
of philosophy: "The force discovered by Keely appears to me to be so
entirely the counterpart of what passes primarily in the brain cells
that we see in him but a plagiarist of cerebral dynamics--that is, he
has had but to copy the delicate human mechanism to make a wonderful
discovery; probably, the greatest the world has ever known. The word
plagiarist has no deprecatory meaning as applied to the great American
inventor, for he must possess an extraordinary power of assimilation
to read so fluently the open book of nature, and to be able wisely
to interpret her admirable laws: it is, therefore, with profound
admiration that I here render homage to this man of science."
Dr. Gérard's work treats of the production of electricity in the nerve
centres, and its accumulation in storage. He says that fifty years
ago it would have been difficult to explain this fact intelligently;
but thanks to the scientific progress of the period, everyone now knows
how electricity is produced, and how applied, to use in lighting our
houses. He continues: "Let us say, then, in few words, how matters
stand, for it will serve to illustrate how it is with our brain, the
mechanism of which is precisely the same--only that our apparatus is
much more perfect and much less costly.
"A dynamo-electric machine is placed at any given spot; its object,
being put in action, is to withdraw from the earth its neutral
electricity, to decompose it into its two conditions and to collect,
upon accumulators, the electricity thus separated. As soon as the
accumulators are charged, the electricity is disposable; that is,
our lamps can be lighted. But what is marvellous in all this is that
the forces of nature can be transformed at will. Should we not wish
for light, we turn a knob and we have sound, heat, motion, chemical
action, magnetism. Little seems wanting to create intelligence,
so entirely do these accumulated forces lend themselves to all the
transformations which their engineer may imagine and desire. But let
us consider how greatly superior is our cerebral mechanism to all
invented mechanism. In order to light a theatre we require a wide
space, a dynamo-electric machine of many horse-power, accumulators
filling many receptacles, a considerable expense in fuel, and clever
mechanicians. In the human organism these engines are in miniature,
one décimêtre cube is all the space occupied by our brain; no wheels,
no pistons, nothing to drive the apparatus, we suffice ourselves. In
this sense, each of us can say, like the philosopher Biaz:--Omnia
mecum porto. Our cerebral organ not only originates motion, heat,
sound, light, chemical actions, magnetism; but it produces psychic
forces, such as will, reasoning, judgment, hatred, love, and the
whole series of intellectual faculties. They are all derived from
the same source, and are always identical to each other, so long as
the cerebral apparatus remains intact. The variations of our health
alone are capable of causing a variation in the intensity and quality
of our productions.
"With a maximum of physical and moral health, we produce a maximum of
physical and moral results. Our manual labour and our intellectual
productions are always exactly proportionate to the integrity of
our mechanism."
Dr. Gérard has, it will be seen, grasped the same truth that Buckle
enunciated in his lecture, The Influence of Women on the Progress of
Knowledge, when he affirmed that not one single discovery that had ever
been made has been connected with the laws of the mind that made it:
declaring that until this connection is ascertained our knowledge has
no sure basis, as "the laws of nature have their sole seat, origin,
and function in the human mind." This is the foundation stone of
vibratory physics, that all force is mind force.
All the forces of nature, writes Keely, proceed from the one governing
force; the source of all life, of all energy. These sympathetic flows,
or streams of force, each consists of three currents, harmonic,
enharmonic, and dominant; this classification governing all orders
of positive and negative radiation. The sympathetic flow called
"Animal Magnetism" is the transmissive link of sympathy in the fourth,
or inter-atomic, subdivision of matter. It is the most intricate of
problems to treat philosophically; isolated as it is from all approach
by any of the prescribed rules in "the orthodox scheme of physics." It
turns upon the interchangeable subdivision of inter-atomic acting
agency, or the force of the mind. The action of this etheric flow,
in substances of all kinds, is according to the character of the
molecular interferences which exist in the volume of their atomic
groupings. These interferences proceed from some description of atomic
chemical nature, which tend to vary the uniformity of structure
in the atomic triplets of each molecule. If these groupings were
absolutely uniform there would be but one substance in nature, and
all beings inhabiting this globe would be simultaneously impressed
with the same feelings and actuated by the same desires; but nature
has produced unlimited variety. Science, as yet, has not made so much
as an introductory attempt to solve this problem of "the mind flow,"
but has left it with the hosts of impostors, who always beset any
field that trenches on the land of marvel.
Professor Olive Lodge, in his address before the British Association,
at Cardiff, said: "Let me try to state what this field is, the
exploration of which is regarded as so dangerous. I might call
it the borderland of physics and psychology. I might call it the
connection between life and energy; or the connection between mind
and matter. It is an intermediate region, bounded on the north by
psychology, on the south by physics, on the east by physiology, and
on the west by pathology and medicine. An occasional psychologist
has groped down into it and become a metaphysician. An occasional
physicist has wandered up into it and lost his base, to the horror of
his quondam brethren. Biologists mostly look at it askance, or deny
its existence. A few medical practitioners, after long maintenance
of a similar attitude, have begun to annex a portion of its western
frontier.... Why not leave it to the metaphysicians? I say it has
been left to them long enough. They have explored it with insufficient
equipment. Their methods are not our methods; they are unsatisfactory
to us, as physicists. We prefer to creep slowly from our base of
physical knowledge; to engineer carefully as we go, establishing
forts, constructing roads, and thoroughly exploring the country,
making a progress very slow but very lasting. The psychologists from
their side may meet us. I hope they will; but one or the other of us
ought to begin...."
In America, we have Buchanan and many others investigating in this
field; and Dr. Bowne, the orthodox Dean of the Boston University,
in his answer to Herbert Spencer, answering the question,
"What is Force?" tells us: "Not gravitation, nor electricity,
nor magnetism, nor chemical affinity, but will, is the typical
idea of force. Self-determination, volition is the essence of the
only causation we know. Will is the sum-total of the dynamic idea:
it either stands for that or nothing. Now science professes itself
unable to interpret nature without this metaphysical idea of power. The
experiments made by Professor Barker and others, which are said to
establish the identity of heat and mental force, really prove only
a correlation between heat and the nervous action which attends
thinking. Nervous action and heat correlate, but the real point is
to prove that nervous action and mental force correlate. This has
never been done."
"The concept of will," says Arthur Schopenhauer, "has hitherto commonly
been subordinated to that of force; but I reverse the matter entirely,
and desire that every force in nature be thought of as will. It
must not be supposed that this is mere verbal quibbling and of no
consequence: rather it is of the greatest significance and importance."
Thus it will be seen that the field which Professor Lodge, with rare
courage, invited his fellow-physicists to enter and bring with them
their appropriate methods of investigation (unless these philosophers
are astray) may prove to be "the immense and untrodden field" which
Buckle said must be conquered before Science can arrogate to herself
any knowledge of nature's laws that is not purely empirical. A
little reflection will enable the average mind to see in the signs
of the times a tendency to movements on a grander scale, such as are
involved in the higher view which Keely is himself now taking since
his researches have extended beyond the order he was pursuing when
he was thinking only of mechanical success.
Man's progress has been so enormous that nothing too extravagant can be
imagined for the future, when once psychical investigation is conducted
as proposed by Professor Lodge; who is trying to unravel the mystery
as to what force is, and by what means exerted. There is something
here not definitely provided for in the orthodox scheme of physics;
but Keely's themes explain this mystery. "Luminiferous ether," he
writes, "or celestial mind force, a compound inter-etheric element,
is the substance of which everything visible is composed. It is the
great sympathetic protoplastic element; life itself. Consequently,
our physical organisms are composed of this element. This focalizing,
or controlling media, of the physical, has its seat in the cerebral
convolutions; from which sympathetic radiation emanates. This
sympathetic outreach is mind flow proper, or will force; sympathetic
polarization to produce action; sympathetic depolarization to
neutralize it. Polar and depolar differentiation, resulting in
motion. The true protoplastic element sympathetically permeates all
forms and conditions of matter; having, for its attendants, gravity,
electricity, and magnetism; the triple conditions born in itself. In
fact, it is the soul of matter; the element from which all forms of
motion receive their introductory impulse."
Not long since, Mr. Keely was congratulated upon having secured
the attention of men of science, connected with the University of
Pennsylvania, to his work of research. Now, you will be known as
a great discoverer, not as Keely the motor-man, said one of the
professors present. Keely answered, I have discovered so little,
in comparison with what remains to be discovered, that I cannot call
myself a discoverer. Another of the professors present took Keely by
the hand and said, You are a great discoverer.
Had the discoverer of this unknown force not been dependent upon a
company, "a ring," for funds to pursue his investigations, scientists
would have better understood the nature of this work at an earlier
stage of his experimental research; but following close upon Keely's
production of the latent force carried in all forms of aggregated
matter, he became entangled in the meshes of an organization that
cared nothing for science, and a great deal for the wealth which,
it was seen by practical business men, must sooner or later accrue
as the result of a costless motive power. In other words, those who
interested themselves in Keely's discoveries were interested solely
in their marketable value; or if there chanced to be one who was
not so interested, that one was not of sufficient influence in the
scientific world to be able to induce capitalists to come forward and
contribute towards saving the discovery to this age, by protecting
the discoverer from the persecution that he was subjected to from
those who had the management of the commercial affairs of the company.
Aratus, the poet of Cilicia, the author of "Phenomena," wrote, "We
are the offspring of God;" and St. Paul, quoting Aratus, continued,
"In Him we live and move and have our being." From that hour,
down the blood-stained path of the age to the present, there have
been men, spiritually endowed, who have taught that He who created,
commands and governs, the universe, sustains it by the power of His
will; and that were it not for the celestial streams of radiation,
this superhuman influence, constantly flowing into all created forms,
the universe would pass out of existence, would perish in a moment. So
well did Macvicar, the great Scotch divine, understand this conception
of Deity, that he wrote, "The nearer we ascend to the fountain-head of
being and of action the more magical must everything inevitably become;
for that fountain-head is pure volition. And pure volition as a cause
is precisely what is meant by magic; for by magic is merely meant a
mode of producing a phenomenon without mechanical appliances--that is,
without that seeming continuity of resisting parts and that leverage
which satisfy our muscular sense and our imagination, and bring the
phenomenon into the category of what we call 'the natural;' that is,
the sphere of the elastic, the gravitating; the sphere into which the
'vis inertiæ' is alone admitted."
We call this the sphere of the natural; but, when we come to
higher workings of natural laws, with which we are not familiar, we
designate them as "supernatural;" and scientists witnessing some of
Keely's experiments, like those of overcoming gravity, of rotation
of the needle of a compass, [14] of the disintegration of water,
etc., and not believing in any workings of laws unknown to them,
followed in the footsteps, still unobliterated, of the narrow-minded,
bigoted persecutors of Galileo; and have denounced Keely as "a
modern Cagliostro." When men of more extended research have been
on the eve of investigating for themselves they have, until 1889,
been deterred from doing so by the representations made to them
that Keely was "using compressed air to humbug his audiences." Until
Professor Leidy and Dr. Willcox gave their attention to Mr. Keely's
claims as the discoverer of a new form of energy, the way was not
open for Mr. Keely to disclose his conjectures, his hypotheses and
his theories. Regrettable as this fact has seemed to be, it is now
seen that any previous revelation of his discovery, other than to
scientists, might have been premature; so little did Keely himself
know, until within two years, of the developments he has at last
reached in his work of evolution. The time was not ripe for the
disclosure.
It is a canon of science that molecular aggregation generally involves
dissipation of energy. On the contrary, for more than fifteen years
Keely has demonstrated that all molecular aggregation is attended
with an absorption of energy; relieving by vibratory power the latent
force held in a few drops of water and showing thereby a pressure of
from ten to fifteen tons per square inch; claiming that resultant
development of any force and of all forces is only accomplished by
conditions that awaken the latent energy carried during molecular
aggregation. It is conceded by those most conversant with the nature
of Keely's discoveries that he must either create force, or liberate
latent energy. As Omnipotence alone creates, it follows that science
must be wrong in two of her most fundamental laws; one relating to the
indivisibility of the atom; the other to the dissipation of energy in
molecular aggregation. This, Keely establishes in the one experiment
of disintegration of water, releasing from three drops the latent
energy carried, during and from the time of molecular aggregation,
and showing a pressure of fifteen tons to the square inch. Therefore,
it is not "a waste of time and thought" to give attention to Keely's
theories, and to investigate from the standpoint of vibratory physics,
instead of setting limits to the operations of Nature and the power
of the Almighty from the narrow platform of mechanical physics.
Keely's Theories.
The action of Nature's sympathetic flows, writes Keely, regulates the
differential oscillatory range of motion of the planetary masses as
regards their approach toward and recession from each other. These
flows may also be compared to the flow of the magnet which permeates
the field, existing between the molecules themselves, sensitizing
the combined neutral centres of the molecules without disturbing,
in the least, the visible molecular mass itself. In the planetary
masses--balanced as it were in the scales of universal space, like
soap-bubbles floating in a field of atmospheric air--the concentration
of these sympathetic streams evolves the universal power which
moves them in their oscillating range of motion to and from each
other. This sympathetic triple stream focalizes and defocalizes
on the neutrals of all such masses; polarizing and depolarizing,
positive and negative action, planetary rotation, etc., etc. It is
thus that all the conditions governing light, heat, life, vegetation,
motion, are all derived from the velocity of the positive and negative
interchange of celestial sympathy with the terrestrial.
Every harmonious condition of Nature's evolutions is governed by one
incontrovertible law; that of concordant assimilative harmony. This
concordant key is the ruling one over all the antagonistic,
negative, discordant ones; the one that diverts the disturbance of
sympathetic equilibrium to one general concentrative centre for
redistribution. Harmony concentrates, harmony distributes. The
focalizing point of concordant sympathetic concentration is the
percussive electric field, where the velocity of its sympathetic
streams rebounds with a power that throws them far out into universal
space; and so far beyond their equative centre of equilibrium as to
bring them in sympathy with the universal attraction of the combined
neutral centres of all planetary masses.
Sympathetic Streams which Control the Action and Reaction of all
Visible Forms of Matter.
What is light and heat, and how are they evolved? and why are they
so intensely perceptible as emanating from the solar world?
Light and heat, considered theoretically, belong to the highest orders
of the phenomenal. They can only be accounted for by the velocity
of sympathetic streams, as interchangeable to and from centres of
negative and attractive focalization. In considering the velocity
of vibration, as associated with the projection of a ray of light,
to be at least one hundred thousand billions per second, it is easy
to account for the origin and demonstration of these two elements by
the action of celestial sympathetic streams.
1st. Light and heat are not evolved until the force of the vibratory
sympathetic stream, from the neutral centre of the sun, comes into
atomic percussive action against the molecular atmosphere or envelope
of our planet. The visibility of the planets can only be accounted
for in this way, some in a great degree, some in less. Innumerable
thousands, it may be, remain invisible to us by not having the
conditions surrounding them, and associated with them, which favour
the atomic and molecular antagonistic friction necessary to make
them visible. The velocity of a steel ball passing through the
atmospheric envelope, at a speed of thousands of billions times
less than an etheric sympathetic stream, would be dissipated into
vapour in an indefinite period of a second of time. Light and heat,
in a certain sense, are one and the same; light giving heat, and heat
giving light. The whole mystery, as associated with their evolution,
is explained by the bombardment of the sympathetic etheric stream
on the dense portion of the molecular, in seeking the sympathetic,
concordant, neutral centre of the planetary mass that surrounds the
point of focalization.
The positive and negative interchange of this true sympathetic stream
keeps intact the magnetic force of the polar envelope of the earth;
making it, as it were, a great magnet of itself. The fact of this
magnetic force being universally present, on and in our planet,
proves the immeasurable speed and power of etheric sympathetic
interchange. Thus it is that, from the velocity of these sympathetic
rays, the earth's standard of heat and light is evolved and kept in
balance. This interchange of sympathetic radiation, between the solar
world and its system of planets, equates the sympathetic volume by
the reception of the full amount expended on sympathetic distribution;
thus showing the never-ending restoration of equilibrium by the same
medium that disturbs it during intermittent sympathetic action. There
are very many facts in vibratory physics which prove that the volume
of heat, supposed by many to emanate from the sun, if concentrated
upon a centre of the volume represented by the sun, would give enough
focal force, if projected upon the system of planets that is under
its control, to vaporize them in one month's time. A ray of heat one
billion times greater than the whole volume of the sun represents
could not pass through the dark vacuous boundaries which lie between
us and the sun without being neutralized and absorbed.
What is Electricity?
Electricity is the result of three differentiated sympathetic
flows, combining the celestial and terrestrial flows by an order of
assimilation negatively attractive in its character. It is one of
Nature's efforts to restore attractive differentiation. In analyzing
this triple union in its vibratory philosophy, I find the highest
order of perfection in this assimilative action of Nature. The
whole condition is atomic, and is the introductory one which has
an affinity for terrestrial centres, uniting magnetically with the
Polar stream; in other words, uniting with the Polar stream by neutral
affinity. The magnetic or electric forces of the earth are thus kept
in stable equilibrium by this triune force, and the chords of this
force may be expressed as 1st, the dominant, 2nd, the harmonic,
and 3rd, the enharmonic. The value of each is, one to the other,
in the rates of figures, true thirds. E flat--transmissive chord or
dominant; A flat--harmonic; A double flat--enharmonic. The unition of
the two prime thirds is so rapid, when the negative and the positive
conditions reach a certain range of vibratory motion, as to be compared
to an explosion. During this action the positive electric stream
is liberated and immediately seeks its neutral terrestrial centre,
or centre of highest attraction.
The power of attractive vibration of the solar forces is the great
coincident towards which the terrestrial-magnetic-sympathetic flow
is diverted. This force is the celestial current that makes up
the prime third of the triple association. It also induces aqueous
disintegration and thermal concentration, the two prime conductors
towards this coincident chord of sympathy with itself. Without this
aqueous disintegration there would be no connective link between the
celestial and terrestrial. There would exist nothing but a condition
of luminous radiation on the order of the aurora--a reaching out for
the concordant without any sympathetic diversion to create unstable
equilibrium of terrestrial magnetism. In fact, under such a condition,
the absence of the sun on one side, or the absence of water on the
other, the magnetic or electric force would remain in a stable state
of equilibrium, or the highest order of the chaotic. Disturbance
of equilibrium and sympathetic equation constitute the dual power
that governs all the varied forms of life and motion which exist
terrestrially, of which the electric or magnetic is the prime mover
and regulator. All electrical action, no matter of what character,
has its sympathetic birth by the intervention of that current
of the triune flow, which I call the dominant, with the Polar
harmonic current; all sympathetic flows being composed of three
currents. They become associative one with the other only near
the junction of terrestrial interference. The great vacuous field
which exists between the planetary ranges holds this portion of
the etheric flow free of all antagonism, molecularly or otherwise,
till the associative point is reached; so wonderfully planned by
the Great Creator, for instant electric evolution and assimilation
with terrestrial centres of attraction. I call this intervention,
atomic-inter-molecular and molecular density. The combination of
the action of the triune sympathetic-celestial stream with the same
intervening medium induces heat and light, as the resultant of these
corpuscular conflictions with sympathetic celestial and terrestrial
focalized centres of neutral radiation. I do not recognize electricity,
nor light, nor heat as coming from the sun. These conditions, according
to my theories, emanate from atomic and inter-atomic interference
on induced molecular vibration, by sympathetic etheric vibration,
the celestial-attractive being the prime mover. In my estimation
this is not at all phenomenal; it is only phenomenal as far as the
knowledge of its action in mechanical physics is concerned. Physicists
have been working in the wrong direction to lead them to associate
themselves with Nature's sympathetic evolutions. [15] The expression
"Electricity attracts at a distance" is as bad as, if not worse than,
the "microbe of the magnet." Clerk Maxwell seems, when theorizing
on sound transmission by an atmospheric medium, not to have taken
into consideration the philosophy attending the phenomena of the
origination of electric streams in celestial space. Light is one of
the prominent evolved mediums in electric action, and is evolved by
corpuscular bombardment induced by sympathetic streams acting between
the neutral centres of planetary masses, all of which are under a
condition of unstable equilibrium. These unstable conditions were
born in them, and were thus designed by the Architect of Creation
in order to perpetuate the connective link between the dispersing
positive and the attractive negative. The action that induces this
link I call sympathetic planetary oscillation.
Attraction, Propulsion, &c.
The action of the magnetic flow is dual in its evolution, both
attractive and propulsive. The inclination of the plane on which the
subtle stream moves, either to the right or to the left, has nothing to
do with positive or negative conditions. The difference in conditions
of what is called, by electricians, positive and negative electricity,
is the difference between receptive and propulsive vibrations. They
can be right or left receptive, or right or left propulsive. The
positive vibrations are the radiating; the negative vibrations are
the ones that are attracted toward the neutral centre.
The negative-sympathetic polar stream is the magnetic flow proper,
and it is in sympathetic coincidence with the second atomic flow; the
electric current is the first and second order of atomic vibration,
a dual force, the flow of which is too tenuous to displace the
molecules. It can no more do so than the flow from a magnet can
displace the molecules of a glass plate when it is passed under it. The
flow from a magnet is too fine to disturb the plate molecules, but
passes as freely between them as a current of air would through a
coarse sieve.
Like poles do not repel each other, simply because there is a perfect
sympathetic equation between them; the same in unlike poles. If a
differentiation of 33 1/3 against 100 is established between them,
whether like or unlike, they become attractive to each other. They
become repellent after differentiating them, 66 2/3 of the one against
100 of the other, by sympathetic vibration.
Taking into consideration even the introductory conditions of the
etheric stage, etheric vibration has proved to me that the higher the
velocity of its rotating stream the greater is its tendency towards the
neutral centre or centre of sympathetic coincidence. Were it otherwise,
how could there ever be any planetary formations or the building up
of visible structures? If a billiard ball were rotated to a certain
velocity, it would separate in pieces, and the pieces would fly off
in a tangent; but if it were a ball of ether, the higher the velocity
of rotation the stronger would be the tendency of its corpuscules to
seek its centre of neutrality, and to hold together.
It is not a magnetic force that is borne on the etheric atom which
gives it its power to draw to it streams of coincidence. The magnet
is only susceptive to certain aggregated forms of matter; iron,
for instance, and its preparations.
All moving bodies of visible matter produce heat as according to
their velocity. The flow of gases only induces thermal reduction from
molecular friction. By this term it must not be understood that the
molecules actually come in contact, and rub against each other. There
is no pressure, however great, that can cause molecular contact. The
area of the volume of the molecule can be reduced by enormous
pressure, and the tension thus brought to bear on their rotating
envelopes induces heat. The heat thus induced is a positive proof of
the wonderful velocity of the etheric envelope. If the molecules were
dead--which is an infinite impossibility--to sympathetic vibration,
and without a rotatory envelope if all the pressure possible to
conceive were brought to bear upon them, it would not induce the
slightest thermal change.
Energy.
Energy is a sympathetic condition inherent in all forms of aggregated
matter, visible and invisible. It is ever present, in its latent
condition, and is aroused by the sympathetic disturbers of its
equilibrium. By this conservation it becomes transferable. The
sympathetic correlation of will-force in the cerebral convolutionary
centres transfers its energy to the physical organism.
Bring a steel rod in contact with a magnet, and the latent energy in
the rod is brought into action without its becoming impregnated by
its magnetic exciter. Energy is an infinite latent force. If it did
not exist it could not be generated. Consequently, there would be no
energy to lose nor to conserve. The volume of latent energy in the
etheric domain never increases nor ever grows less. It will remain
the same, as yesterday to-day and for ever.
Inaudible Vibrations.
Nature has established her sympathetic concordants from the birth of
the neutral centres of the planets. This is gravity; therefore gravity
is fixed, inherent. There is no flight of gravity. The difference in
the condition of the sympathetic nerve centres, and the variations in
the chord aggregation of the masses, as established in the man or woman
at birth, constitutes the molecular condition of the individual. The
molecular state of animals, vegetables, and minerals, depends upon
the aggregation of their chord centres. It is impossible to make two
coins from one die the same in its molecular aggregation. The mere
picking up of a coin and replacing it causes billions of molecules to
be lost. This produces a change in the chord of mass of the coin. As
this fact has only been developed by persistent progressive research,
it is quite easy to comprehend the nature of the difficulties that
lie in the way of perfecting devices for the guidance of artificers
and mechanics, whereby they can bring a proper vibratory action
into play to induce positive sympathetic transmission. In order to
transmit my knowledge by demonstration it will be necessary to have
much more perfect instruments than those crude devices which I first
constructed for my researches. One of my perfected instruments shows
to the eye, in the molecular effects produced by a certain order
of vibration, when the chord of harmony is established between two
neutral centres. Another, when connected with the sympathizer, denotes
accurately, by the colour of a certain sound or combination of sounds
the number of vibrations that are necessary to induce certain effects
of mechanical combinations.
Inaudible vibrations are tested by the magnetic needle and sound
colours. Every gaseous molecule is a resonator of itself and
is sensitive to any and all sounds induced, whether accordant or
discordant. At the normal density of the atmosphere we hear a volume
of sound, focalized by the combined association of every molecule
brought under sound influence. When we reduce the atmospheric volume
of a chamber to 50/100, then the ear is sensitive to the reduction
of the acoustic force evolved on the same ratio, and so on, until
sound becomes inaudible. This inaudibility to our organ of hearing is
no proof whatever of any reduction of the acoustic force evolved on
the introductory impulse given to the bell. It is only a proof that
the number of the molecules left for the acoustic force to act upon
has been so reduced by increasing the vacuum, that the concentration
of sound from the diminished number cannot be heard. The ear is not
susceptible to the acoustic force emanating from one molecule, nor
even from the concentration of one hundred millions of billions of
molecules. The highest vacuum that can be induced, taking but a cubic
inch in volume to act upon, will leave a residual number of molecules
one hundred billion times as great as the above given number, and yet
be perfectly inaudible when all their acoustic forces are focalized.
The audible has been conquered in my instruments to that extent which
brings me into sympathetic contact with the inaudible, the vitalized
conditions of which as regards sympathetic union with the terrestrial
are the pure and only essentials necessary towards establishing the
sensitive link, between the instrument and terrestrial chord-masses,
in order to run sympathetic machinery. But there is still before me a
vast region to be explored before the keystone of this sympathetic arch
is set in position to carry the high order of sympathetic transfer that
I aim at. I have every reason to hope that when I have mastered these
mechanical difficulties I shall be able to control this most subtle of
Nature's forces. When this is done, the commercial engine will soon
follow. There is no truer nor quicker way to reach that end than the
one I am now pursuing. My obligations on this line once fulfilled,
I shall be at liberty to turn my attention to the consideration
of the mental forces associated with the physical, and in fact the
solution of the mechanical problem is one and the same in principle,
as is the physical and mental. When one is solved all is solved. The
convolutions which exist in the cerebral field are entirely governed
by the sympathetic conditions that surround them.
"The force which binds the atoms, which controls secreting glands,
Is the same that guides the planets, acting by divine commands."
All abnormal discordant aggregations in these resonating convolutions
produce differentiation to concordant transmission; and according
as these differentiations exist in volume, so the transmissions
are discordantly transferred, producing antagonism to pure physical
action. Thus, in motor ataxy, a differentiation of the minor thirds of
the posterior parietal lobule produces the same condition between the
retractors and exteriors of the leg and foot, and thus the control of
the proper movements is lost through this differentiation. The same
truth can be universally applied to any of the cerebral convolutions
that are in a state of differential harmony to the mass of immediate
cerebral surroundings. Taking the cerebral condition of the whole mass
as one, it is subservient to one general head centre; although as many
neutrals are represented as there are convolutions. The introductory
minors are controlled by the molecular; the next progressive third by
the atomic; and the high third by the etheric. All these progressive
links have their positive, negative, and neutral position. When we
take into consideration the structural condition of the human brain, we
ought not to be bewildered by the infinite variety of its sympathetic
impulses, inasmuch as it unerringly proves the true philosophy
that the mass-chords of such structures are governed by vibratory
etheric flows. There is no structure whatever--animal, vegetable,
or mineral--that is not built up from the cosmic ether. Certain
orders of attractive vibration produce certain orders of structure;
thus the infinite variety of effects; more especially in the cerebral
organs. Discordance cannot exist in the molecule proper. Discordance in
any mass is the result of differentiated groups induced by antagonistic
chords, and any differentiated mass can be brought to a condition of
harmony or equation by proper chord media, and an equated sympathy
produced whether the mass be metal or brain.
There is good reason for believing that insanity is simply a condition
of differentiation in the mass-chords of the convolutions, which
creates an antagonistic molecular bombardment towards the neutral
or attractive centres of such convolutions. This may be compared
to a knot on a violin string. As long as this knot remains, it is
impossible to elicit, from its sympathetic surroundings, the condition
which transfers pure concordance to its resonating body. Discordant
conditions (i.e., differentiation of mass) produce negatization to
coincident action. Pure sympathetic concordants are as antagonistic to
negative discordants as the negative is to the positive; but the vast
volume the sympathetic holds over the non-sympathetic, in ethereal
space, makes it at once the ruling medium and re-adjuster of all
opposing conditions, when properly brought to bear upon them....
Josiah Royce is right as regards correspondent sympathetic association
between two conditions. If concordance can be established, even of
unlike states, no matter whether it be of the high tenuous forces
of nature, gases with liquids, liquids with solids, solids with
gases, the structural conditions can be perfectly adverse. Their
neutral centres are the focalized seat of sympathetic concordance
for controlling any differentiation that may exist outside, or
in the mass that surrounds them. Certain orders of vibration can
reach these centres and establish a concordant flow of sympathy,
independent of any and all mass antagonism; in other words, certain
orders of sympathetic vibratory transmission can correct and equate
all differentiation that may exist between physical organisms and
their cerebellic flows. Discord is disease. Harmony is health.--Keely.
The Standard calls attention to the fact that Lord Rosebery has pointed
out how fast mental disease of one form or another is growing among
the population of London--so fast that a new asylum, containing 5000
patients, must be built every five years. "This," said his lordship,
"is a penalty of civilization."
When we take into consideration the effect upon the nerves, in
sensitive organizations, of living in the vicinity of railways, more
especially of the elevated railways in cities, the incessant jarring
vibrations which are communicated to houses, even from underground
railways, to say nothing of the piercing shrieks of the steam whistle,
is it to be wondered at that mental disorders and nervous diseases
are on the increase? With this increase of the most terrible form of
affliction, the remedy will follow; for our necessities are known to
One who "with a Father's care and affectionate attention supplies
the wants, as they arise, of the worlds which lie like children in
His bosom." Sympathetic Vibratory Physics will, in due time, make
known the curableness of many disorders now considered incurable.
On this subject Mr. Keely writes:--Every disease that the physical
organism is subject to has its connective link in the cerebral
domain; where it unerringly telegraphs, as it were, its molecular
differentiations, through the spinal dura mater or physical sympathetic
transmitter, and vice versâ back again. The sympathetic communication,
as between the physical and mental forces, shows up truthfully the pure
conditions that govern the celestial and terrestrial link of sympathy,
as between the finite and the Infinite in planetary suspension. The
whole system governing the suspension of the innumerable planetary
masses,--the infinite certainty and harmony of their eccentric and
concentric evolutions and revolutions, in their orbital and oscillating
ranges of motion,--the triune sympathetic streams of Infinity that
permeate their molecular masses--focalizing and defocalizing on
their neutral centres of attraction--are all subservient to that
Great Ruling Power: Mind-Flow. There is not a grain of sand, nor an
invisible corpuscule of floating matter, that does not come under
the same rule that governs the most mighty of planets....
"All's love, yet all's law."
As the offspring of God, only by living in love and harmony can we
fulfil the law and maintain health and happiness, either individually
in family life, or collectively in our intercourse with the world. As
Goethe taught:--
Let the God within thee speak,
Love all things that lovely be,
And God will show His best to thee.
CHAPTER XV.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.--KEELY THE FOUNDER OF A SYSTEM.
"Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals and forts."
As long as men remain "demons of selfishness and ignorance,"
so long will they fight for their turn to tyrannize over
their brother men. Instruction and education can alone prepare
the way for a peaceful solution of the greatest problem that
mankind has ever had to deal with; for, before we can hope
to enter into a 'brotherhood of humanity,' the earth must be
'filled with the knowledge of the Lord.'--H. O. Ward, in the
Nationalization News.
As for myself I hold the firm conviction that unflagging
research will be rewarded by an insight into natural mysteries
such as now can rarely be conceived.--Prof. Wm. Crookes.
Though "it is the spirit that quickeneth, and the flesh
profiteth nothing," the grand reign of the Spirit will not
commence until the material world shall be completely under
man's control.--Renan, Future of Science.
If truth is to obtain a complete victory, if Christianity
is ever really to triumph on the earth, then must the State
become Christian and science become Christian. Such then
is the two-fold problem which our age is called upon to
solve.--Frederich von Schlegel.
I come soon and will renew all things.--Scripture.
Frederich von Schlegel, in his Lecture "On the General Spirit of the
Age," (1846) says, There are in the history of the eighteenth century,
many phenomena which occurred so suddenly, so instantaneously, that
although on deeper consideration we may discover their efficient
causes in the past, in the natural state of things, and in the general
situation of the world, yet are there many circumstances which prove
that there was a deliberate, though secret, preparation of events, as,
indeed, in many instances has been actually demonstrated. In tracing
the origin of this "secret and mysterious branch of illuminism," and
its influence in regard to the true restoration of society founded
on the basis of Christian justice, Schlegel gives it as his opinion
that the order of Templars was the channel by which this esoteric
influence was introduced into the West, handing down the Solomonian
traditions connected with the very foundation of this order, and the
religious masonic symbols which admit of a Christian interpretation:
but, as he says, the idea of an esoteric society for the propagation
of any secret doctrine is not compatible with the very principle of
Christianity itself; for Christianity is a divine mystery which lies
open to all.
Continuing from Schlegel's writings, the Christian faith has the living
God and His revelation for its object, and is itself that revelation;
hence every doctrine taken from this source is something real and
positive, while, in science, the absolute is the idol of vain and
empty systems, of dead and abstract reason. In the absolute spirit
of our age, and in the absolute character of its factions, there
is a deep-rooted intellectual pride, which is not so much personal
or individual as social, for it refers to the historical destiny of
mankind and of this age in particular. Actuated by this pride, a spirit
exalted by moral energy, or invested with external power, fancies it
can give a real existence to that which can only be the work of God;
as from Him alone proceed all those mighty and real regenerations
of the world, among which Christianity--a revolution in the high and
divine sense of the word--occupies the first place. For the last three
hundred years this human pride has been at work; a pride that wishes
to originate events, instead of humbly awaiting them and of resting
contented with the place assigned to it among those events.... It was
indeed but a very small portion of this illuminism of the eighteenth
century that was really derived from the truths of Christianity and
the pure light of Revelation. The rest was the mere work of man,
consequently vain and empty; or at least defective, corrupt in parts,
and on the whole destitute of a solid foundation;--therefore devoid
of all permanent strength and duration. But when once, after the
complete victory of truth, the divine Reformation shall appear,
that human Reformation which till now has existed will sink to the
ground and disappear from the world. Then, by the universal triumph
of Christianity, and the thorough religious regeneration of the age,
of the world, and of governments themselves, will dawn the era of a
true Christian Illuminism. This period is not perhaps so remote from
our own as the natural indolence of the human mind would be disposed
to believe, says Schlegel.
Never was there a period that pointed so strongly, so clearly, so
generally towards the future, as our own. In order to comprehend in
all its magnitude the problem of our age, the birth of Christianity
must be the great point of survey to which we must recur; in order
to examine clearly what has remained incomplete, what has not yet
been attained. For, unquestionably, all that has been neglected,
in the earlier periods and stages of Christian civilization, must be
made good in this true, consummate regeneration of society. If truth
is to obtain a complete victory--if Christianity is really to triumph
on the earth, then must the state become Christian and science become
Christian. Such then is the two-fold problem which our age is called
upon to solve. Whatever man may contribute towards the religious
regeneration of government and science, Schlegel reasons that we must
look for the consummation, in silent awe, to a higher Providence,
to the creative fiat of a last period of dispensation, to "the dawn
of an approaching era of love and harmony," which will emancipate
the human race from the bondage in which it has been held by false
teachings; leading men and nations to consider and estimate time,
and all things temporal, not by the law and feeling of eternity:--but
for temporal interests, or from temporal motives; forgetting the
thoughts and faith of eternity. All progress in the great work of
the religious regeneration of science Schlegel hails as the noblest
triumph of genius; for it is, he says, precisely in the department of
physics that the problem is the most difficult; and all that rich and
boundless treasure of new discoveries in nature, which are ever better
understood when viewed in connection with the high truths of religion,
must be looked upon as the property of Christian science. Our various
systems of philosophic Rationalism, he foretells, will fall to the
ground: and vulgar Rationalism, which is but an emanation of the
higher, will finally disappear. Then science will become thoroughly
Christian. In the progress of mankind now, as in the past, a divine
hand and conducting Providence are clearly discernible. Earthly
and visible power has not alone co-operated in this progress;--that
the struggle has been, in part, carried on under divine, and against
invisible might, has been substantiated by Schlegel on firm and solid
grounds, if not proved to mathematical evidence; which evidence, as he
remarks, is neither appropriate nor applicable to the subject. Schlegel
concludes his work on The Philosophy of History, by a retrospective
view of society, considered in reference to that invisible world and
higher region, from which a pure philosophy teaches us the operations
of this visible world proceed; in which its great destinies have their
root, and which is the ultimate and highest term of all its movements.
Both Schlegel and Keely teach that we shall prize with deeper, more
earnest and more solid affection the great and divine era of man's
redemption and emancipation, by Christianity, the more accurately
we discriminate between what is essentially divine and unchangeably
eternal in this revelation of love, and those elements of destruction
which false teachings have opposed thereto or intermingled therewith;
tracing in the special dispensations of Providence, for the advancement
of Christianity and the progress of civilization and regeneration,
the wonderful concurrence of events towards the single object of divine
love, or the unexpected exercise of divine justice long delayed. (See
Vera Vita, by David Sinclair.)
Sir G. G. Stokes Bart., M.P., reasoning on the difficulties as to
good arising out of evil, says, "In our study of nature we are most
forcibly impressed with the uniformity of her laws. Those uniform
laws are, so far as we can judge, the method by which the ordinary
course of nature is carried on. That is to say, if we recognize the
ordinary course of nature as designed by a Supreme Being, that it is
according to His will that the course of Nature should, as a rule,
be carried on in this regular methodical manner, we should expect,
therefore, to find the operation of regular laws in the moral, no
less than in the physical world, although their existence is less
obvious on account of the freedom of the will....
There is a conflict of opinion and a restlessness of men's minds
at the present day; but we may confidently hope that if men will
in a straightforward manner seek after what is true, and that in a
humble spirit, without arrogating to themselves the monopoly of truth
and contemning others whose opinions may be different, the present
conflict of opinion will in time settle down....
It is in this frame of mind that searchers after truth are now
examining the claims of Keely as a discoverer, and as the founder
of a new and pure philosophy. If the most important subject and the
first problem of philosophy is, as Schlegel declares, the restoration
in man of the lost image of God, so far as this relates to science,
all revolution, as well as all revelation, must tend toward the full
understanding of this restoration in the internal consciousness,
and not until it is really brought about will the object of pure
philosophy be fully attained.
The philosophy of history shows clearly how, in the first ages of
the world, the original word of Divine revelation formed the firm
central point of faith for the future reunion of the dispersed race
of man; how later, amidst the various powers intellectual as well
as political which (in the middle period of the world) all ruling
nations exerted on their times, according to the measure allotted
to them, it was alone the power of eternal love in the Christian
religion which truly emancipated and redeemed mankind; and how the
pure light of this Divine truth, universally diffused through the
world and through all science, will crown in conclusion the progress
of this restoration in the future.
The fulfilment of the term of all Christian hope and Divine promise is
reserved for the last period of consummation--for the new dispensation
which the closing century is ushering in. The esoteric meaning of the
second coming of our Lord is thus intimated to those who are watching
for the triumph of justice and truth. "Behold I come quickly; and my
reward is with me, to give every man according to his work."
Theosophy interprets the often-quoted Scripture passage of "the
seven Spirits which are before His throne" as the cosmical, creative,
sustaining, and world-governing potencies, the principles of which
God avails Himself as His instruments, organs, and media. This is
what the Kabbala implies with its seven "Sephiroth," what Schelling
means by the "potencies," or principles in the inner life of God;
and it is by their emergence, separation, and tension that they become
cosmical potencies. If we stop short at these general considerations,
this is precisely the idea of Theosophy. When it is asked what special
activities are to be ascribed to each of the seven Spirits, striving
to apprehend more closely the uncreated potencies through which the
Deity works in its manifestation, and to which Scripture itself makes
unmistakable allusion, revelation is silent, intimating only by veiled
suggestions. It is here that Theosophy leads the way to the open book
of Nature: the title-page of which we have only begun to turn.
Theosophy, says Bishop Martensen, signifies wisdom in God: "Church
Theology is not wise in assuming a hostile attitude towards Theosophy,
because it hereby deprives itself of a most valuable leavening
influence, a source of renewal and rejuvenescence, which Theology so
greatly needs, exposed as it is to the danger of stagnating in barren
and dreary scholasticism and cold and trivial criticism. In such a
course no real progress can be made in the Christian apprehension
of truth." Jacob Böhme, who was the greatest and most famous of
all Theosophists in the world, [16] said of philosophers and other
disputants who attack not only Theosophy but also theology, and even
Christianity itself, in the name of modern science:--"Every spirit
sees no further than its mother, out of which it has its original,
and wherein it stands; for it is impossible for any spirit, in its
own natural power to look into another principle, and behold it,
except it be regenerated therein." This is what Christ taught: "Ye
must be born again." Only those who are regenerated, by the principle
of which Christ spoke to Nicodemus, can understand the quickening of
the Spirit which comes alone from Him who gives this new birth to all
who seek it, and in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge
are hidden:--"hidden, not in order that they may remain secret,
but in order that they may ever increasingly be made manifest and
appropriated by us."
Jacob Böhme, who was born in 1575, "brought to the birth" an idea
which, three centuries later, is developing into a system of pure
philosophy, that promises to "cover the earth with wisdom and
understanding in the deep mysteries of God."
Böhme gave birth to an idea. Keely is giving birth to a system. Both
are exceedingly imperfect in the expression of their views; yet in
points of detail each possesses a firm dialectical grip. In their
writings both seem overwhelmed by the vast extent of the realm they
are exploring. Both find in harmony the object and the ending of
the world's development. Conflicting with modern science at very
many points, visionary as both appear to be, powerful expression is
given to an idea of life both in the macrocosm and the microcosm,
the validity of which can be questioned only by materialism. The
idea of the one and the system of the other teach that when Nature
is affirmed in God it is in a figurative and symbolical sense:--that
it is, in comparison with what we call nature, something infinitely
more subtle and super-material than matter; that it is the source of
matter; a plenitude of living forces and energies. This system teaches,
as "Waterdale" has expressed it, "the existence of a Great Almighty,
as being in virtue of the perfect organization of the universe, even
as the existence of man is incidental to the organic structure of his
body;" and that the attribute of omniscience is represented by "the
perfect conveyance of signs of atomic movement in vibratory action
through the length and breadth of our universe." We are led by it to
look from nature up to nature's God and to comprehend the attributes
of deity as never before in any other system. It lays hold, with a
giant's grasp, of the heart of the problems which science is wrestling
with. It answers the question asked by Professor Oliver Lodge in his
paper, read at Cardiff, last August, "By what means is force exerted,
and what definitely is force?" It was a bold speculation of Professor
Lodge, who is known as "a very careful and sober physicist," when,
after admitting that there is herein something not provided for in
the orthodox scheme of physics, he suggested that good physicists
should carry their appropriate methods of investigation into the
field of psychology, admitting that a line of possible advance lies
in this direction. Without speculation science could never advance in
any direction; discussion precedes reform, there can be no progress
without it. It required rare courage for a physicist to step from the
serried ranks that have always been ready to point their javelins at
psychologists, and to show, with the torch of science, the hand on the
signpost at the cross roads pointing in the right direction. It is the
great high road of knowledge; but those who would explore it must do
so with cautious tread, until the system of sympathetic association is
completed which Keely is bringing to birth, for the road is bordered
with pitfalls and quicksands and the mists of ignorance envelop it.
Ernest Renan, in "The Future of Science," illustrates the thesis
that, henceforth, the advancement of civilization is to be the work
of science; the word science being used in its largest signification
as covering intellectual achievement in every direction open to the
mind, and the co-ordination of the results in a progressive philosophy
of life. The fundamental distinction which is expressed or implied,
on every page, is that the earlier processes of civilization belong
to an age of spontaneity, of unreflective productivity; an age that
expressed itself in myths, created religions, organized social forms
and habits, in harmony with the spontaneous creations; and that we
have now entered upon the critical, defining, intellectual age; in
short, as Mr. Nisbet has said, that the evolution of the human race
has passed from the physiological into the psychical field; and that
it is in the latter alone, henceforward, that progress may be looked
for toward a higher civilization. [17] Philosophy, that is to say,
rational research, is alone capable of solving the question of the
future of humanity, says Renan. "The really efficacious revolution,
that which will give its shape to the future, will not be a political,
it will be a religious and moral revolution. Politics has exhausted its
resources for solving this problem. The politician is the offscouring
of humanity, not its inspired teacher. The great revolution can only
come from men of thought and sentiment. It does not do to expect too
much from governments. It is not for them to reveal to humanity the
law for which it is in search. What humanity needs is a moral law and
creed; and it is from the depths of human nature that they will emerge,
and not from the well-trodden and sterile pathways of the official
world." In order to know whence will come a better understanding of
the religion which Christ taught, "the religion of the future, we must
always look in the direction of liberty, equality, and fraternity." Not
the French Commune liberty to cut one another's throats (an equality
of misery, and a fraternity of crime), but that liberty to know and to
love the truth of things which constitutes true religion, and which
when it is bestowed without money and without price, as it will be,
"humanity will accomplish the remainder, without asking anyone for
permission." No one can say from what part of the sky will appear
the star of this new redemption. The one thing certain is that the
shepherds and the Magi will be once more the first to perceive it, that
the germ of it is already formed, and that if we were able to see the
present with the eyes of the future, we should be able to distinguish,
in the complication of the hour, the imperceptible fibre which will
bear life for the future. It is amid putrefaction that the germ of
future life is developed, and no one has the right to say, "This is a
rejected stone," for that stone may be the corner-stone of the future
edifice. Human nature is without reproach, continues Renan (L'Avenir
de la Science), and proceeds toward the perfect by means of forms
successively and diversely imperfect. All the ideas which primitive
science had formed of the world appear narrow, trivial, and ridiculous
to us after that which progressive research has proven to be true. The
fact is that science has only destroyed her dreams of the past, to put
in their stead a reality a thousand times superior; but were science
to remain what it is, we should have to submit to it while cursing
it, for it has destroyed and not builded up again; it has awakened
man from a sweet sleep without smoothing the reality to him. What
science gives us is not enough, we are still hungry. True science is
that which belongs neither to the school nor the drawing-room, but
which corresponds exactly to the wants of man. Hence true science
is a religion which will solve for men the eternal problems, the
solution of which his nature imperatively demands. Herein lies the
hope of humanity; for, like a wild beast, the uneducated masses
stand at bay; ready to turn and rend those who are willing to keep
them in their present condition, in order to be able to make them
answer their own purposes.... I am firmly convinced, continues Renan,
for my own part, that unless we make haste and elevate the people,
we are upon the eve of a terrible outbreak of barbarism. For if the
people triumph in their present state, it will be worse than it was
with the Franks and Vandals. They will destroy of their own accord
the instrument which might have served to elevate them; we shall then
have to wait until civilization once more emerges spontaneously from
the profound depths of nature. Morality, like politics, is summed up,
then, in this grand saying: To elevate the people. If I were to see
humanity collapse on its own foundations, mankind again slaughter
one another in some fateful hour, I should still go on proclaiming
that perfection is human nature's final aim, and that the day must
come when reason and perfection shall reign supreme.
Sailing, sailing in the same staunch ship--
We are sailing on together;
We see the rocks and we mark the shoals,
And we watch for cyclone weather.
The perils we run for one alone
Are perils for all together,--
The harbour we make for one alone,
Makes haven for all, through the weather.
Stand by your ship: be brave, brothers mine!
Be brave, for we'll stand together!
We'll yet reach the port for which we sail
In this black and stormy weather.
Sailing, sailing the same stormy sea,
We are sailing all together!
There are rocks ahead and shoals beneath,
And 'round us hurricane weather.
I see in the West a star arise,
That will guide us all together:--
Stand firm by your helm and trust in God
Who pilots us through this weather.
The dawn of morning breaks in the skies
Which will bring mankind together;--
To havens of peace, to havens of bliss,
We'll ride through this cyclone weather.
Clara Jessup Moore.
CHAPTER XVI.
1891.
AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THE CONTINUANCE OF KEELY'S RESEARCHES.
There is a distinct advantage in having one section
of scientific men beginning their work untrammelled by
preconceived notions.--Engineering.
A knowledge of scientific theories seems to kill all knowledge
of scientific facts.--Professor Schuster.
Tizeau found that the speed of light is increased in water
which moves in the same direction as the light. This result
must be due either to the motion of matter through the medium,
or to the fact that moving matter carries the ether with
it. The whole question of matter and motion as a medium is
a vital one, and we shall hardly make any serious advance
before experiment has found a new opening.--Professor Schuster.
How Mr. Keely, in 1891, was Able To Secure the Attention Of Men of
Science To His Researching Experiments.
During the summer of 1890, Mr. Keely was harassed by threats, said to
proceed from disappointed stockholders in the Keely Motor Company,
of suits at law for "obtaining money under false pretences." After
making many unsuccessful attempts with the editors of leading
magazines in London, Boston, and New York, to bring before the
public the claims of Mr. Keely for sympathy in his colossal work,
the proposals of an editor, on the staff of the London Times (who
had the year before introduced himself to Mrs. Bloomfield Moore to
obtain information of Keely) to make known the researches of the
persecuted discoverer and his need of assistance, at that time, were
accepted. The programme, as laid out by this editor, was to use his
extended influence with the leading journals throughout Great Britain,
and to have brief notices of Keely inserted; to be followed up with
a magazine article, for which the material was furnished. Later this
arrangement was modified by the editor, who then proposed to write an
essay for some influential journal, handling the various molecular and
atomic theories; pointing out wherein Keely's views were original,
and showing their revolutionizing tendencies. This work, which was
to have been commenced in November, was delayed until all need was
over. When the editor wrote to Philadelphia in January, 1891, that he
had been unable to commence his work for want of sufficient material
(enclosing questions to be answered by Mr. Keely before he could set
about it), the answer returned was that the threatened troubles were
over, that Mr. Keely had gained the protection of men of science,
and the order for the essay was countermanded. At this very time
a subscription was in circulation to raise money from disaffected
stockholders for the purpose of bringing the threatened action at
law, in case Mr. Keely did not resume work on his engine, instead of
pursuing researches in order to gain more knowledge of the operation
of this unknown polar force in nature.
It was at this juncture that the late Professor Joseph Leidy, that
eminent man of science who had been the first to recognize the
importance of Keely's discovery to the scientific world, arranged
with the Provost of the University of Pennsylvania that an appeal
should be made to the trustees, the faculty and the professors of
that institution, to permit Keely to continue his researches for
science under their protection.
Accordingly, on the 14th of January, 1891, a paper entitled "Keely's
Discoveries" was read at the house of Provost Pepper. The answer sent
by one of the professors, in reply to Dr. Pepper's invitation, probably
expressed the views held by all the distinguished men who assembled
to listen to the appeal, which was to the effect that the professor
would be present to hear the paper read, if the Provost wished it;
but, if he came, he should make it very unpleasant for the reader,
as he had no faith in Keely nor in his discoveries. All those who
were present listened with attention, and among the few who became
interested in the claims of Keely as a discoverer, was the professor
who had made this remark. The preamble to the appeal was read by the
Provost, Dr. Pepper.
Preamble.
Before commencing to read my paper I wish to lay before you the object
of this effort to interest men of science in the researches of a man
who, in the cause of justice alone, is entitled to have his life's
work fairly represented to you. Some of our men of science have,
unwittingly, been the medium by which great injustice has been done
to Mr. Keely; and to others also, by placing me before the world as a
woman whom the Keely Motor Company management has robbed of large sums
of money; whereas, in truth, I have never been in any way involved
by the Keely Motor Company.
In the winter of 1881-82, Mr. Keely, who was dependent upon "The
Keely Motor Company" for the means to continue his researches, as
to the nature of the unknown force he had discovered, was virtually
abandoned by the Company. Himself as ignorant as were its managers
of the source of the mysterious energy he had stumbled over, he
was driven to despair by their action; and, when I was led to his
assistance, I found his wife's roof mortgaged over her head, and that,
his honour assailed, he had resolved to take his life rather than
submit to the indignities threatening him. At this time I had taken
from my private estate ten thousand dollars, to found a small public
library to my father's memory, in the town of Westfield, Hampden Co.,
Massachusetts. After convincing myself that Mr. Keely had made a
great discovery, I felt that if this money could save his discovery,
jeopardized as it was, it was my duty to so appropriate it. At that
time, Mr. Keely thought half of the amount so appropriated would be
all that he should require; but, unfortunately, his efforts were for
years confined to the construction of an engine for the Company that
had abandoned him. Later, he commenced researches which resulted in
the discovery that he had unknowingly imprisoned the ether; greatly
increasing my interest in his work.
The plan to which I shall allude in my paper, as framed by Professor
Leidy for Mr. Keely to follow, and approved by Professor Hertz, of
Bonn, and Professor Fitzgerald, of Trinity College, Dublin, may be
summed up as one that permits Mr. Keely to pursue his researches on
his own line, without further investigation, up to the completion
of his system in a form which will enable him to give to commerce
with one hand his model for aerial navigation, and to science,
with the other, the knowledge that is necessary for extending its
researches in the field of radiant energy--which Mr. Keely has been
exploring for so many years. I ask the prestige of your sympathy,
as well as for your interest in Mr. Keely's work, on this basis;
and if in one year you are not convinced that satisfactory results
have been attained for science, I will promise to leave Mr. Keely in
the hands of the "usurers and Shylocks of commerce," who have already
forced him into renouncing seven-eighths of his interest in what the
Keely Motor Company claims as its property.
At present I do not desire from anyone endorsement of Keely's
discoveries. Until his system is completed he wishes to avoid all
discussion and all public mention of the anticipated value of his
inventions. Mr. Keely's programme of experimental research, as laid
down by himself last March, when I first proposed to furnish him with
all the funds needed to carry it out, comprises its continuance
until he has gained sufficient knowledge of the energy he is
controlling--which is derived from the disintegration of water--to
enable him to impart to others a system that will permit men of
science to produce and to handle the energy, and enable him to
instruct artisans in the work which lies in their province; viz.,
the construction of machines to apply this costless motive power
in mechanics.
The prestige of your interest in Mr. Keely's labours can alone
secure to him freedom to pursue researches on his own road; a
course pronounced by Professor Leidy, Professor Hertz, and Professor
Fitzgerald, to be "the only proper line for him to pursue."
The building of an engine is not in Mr. Keely's province. His
researches completed to that point which is necessary, for perfect
control of the force, practical application will follow. The result of
his experimental work for nine months on this line has been such as to
revive the interest of the speculative management of the Keely Motor
Company, to that extent that Mr. Keely is now offered the support
of its stockholders if he will resume construction of an engine;
and this after more than seven years of failure on the part of the
company to furnish him with one dollar to carry on "the enterprise."
The official Report put forth in January by the Keely Motor Company
managers annulled my contract with Mr. Keely; but he is willing
to abide by it, if I am able to continue to furnish him with the
necessary funds. This position of affairs has forced me to the front,
to ask whether you will place it in my power to renew the contract
with Mr. Keely; or leave him under the control of men who seem to
be oblivious of the interests of the stockholders of the company in
their "clamour" for an engine. When this system is completed, in its
application to mechanics, the present mode of running engines with
shafts and beltings will disappear, creating a revolution in all
branches of industry.
Looking at my request from another point of view, do you not think it
due to extend to Mr. Keely an opportunity to prove all that one of
your number is ready to announce as his conviction in regard to the
claims of Mr. Keely? You all know to whom I refer--Professor Joseph
Leidy. "Oh, Leidy is a biologist," said an English physicist not long
since; "get the opinion of a physicist for us." If I did not wish
for the opinion of physicists, I should not have appealed to you for
help at this most critical juncture. But I also ask that no opinion
be given by any physicist until Mr. Keely's theories are understood
and demonstrated, by experiment. Yes, Dr. Leidy is a biologist, and
what better preparation could a man have than a study of the science
of life to enable him to discern between laws of nature as invented
by physicists, and nature's operations as demonstrated by Keely?
The science of life has not been the only branch to which Dr. Leidy has
given profound attention; it is his extensive and accurate knowledge
of its methods, limits, and tendencies, which prepared the way for
that quick comprehension of possibilities, lying hidden from the sight
of those men of science whose minds have rested (rusted?) in the dead
grooves of mechanical physics. In Dr. Leidy we find entire scientific
and intellectual liberty of thought, with that love of justice and
truth which keeps its possessor from arrogance and intolerance, leading
him with humility to "prove all things and hold fast to truth." To
such men the world owes all that we have of advance since the days
when science taught that the earth is flat, arguing that were it
round the seas and oceans would fall off into space. In Dr. Leidy's
name and in justice to him, I ask your sanction to and approval of
my efforts to preserve Keely's discoveries for science;--discoveries
which explain, not only the causes of the planetary motions but the
source of the one eternal and universal force.
An Appeal in Behalf of Science.
A paper read by Mrs. Bloomfield Moore at the house of Provost Pepper
on the evening of January 14th, 1891, before members of the board of
trustees and professors of the University of Pennsylvania.
Each day he wrought, and better than he planned,
Shape breeding shape beneath his restless hand;
The soul without still helps the soul within,
And its deft magic ends what we begin.
George Eliot.
I hope that I do not seem to be too presumptuous in my effort to
awaken an interest, on your part, in the discoveries of Keely which
have aroused a marked degree of attention among some of the most
learned men in Europe.
I should hardly have ventured to ask the prestige of your support to
be given to Mr. Keely, in his further scientific researches, were it
not that one of your number fully realizes, I think, the important
nature of these researches. You all know to whom I refer--Professor
Joseph Leidy. In his book, "Fresh Water Rhizopods of North America,"
he says, in his concluding remarks: "I may perhaps continue in the same
field of research and give to the reader further results, but I cannot
promise to do so, for though the subject has proved to me an unceasing
source of pleasure I see before me so many wonderful things in other
fields, that a strong impulse disposes me to leap the hedges to examine
them." I have reason to know that, had Dr. Leidy not followed this
impulse, our age might have been robbed of its birthright.
It was not until I appealed to Professor Leidy and Dr. Willcox, to
convince themselves whether I was right or wrong in extending aid to
Mr. Keely, that their decision enabled me to continue to assist him
until he has once more made such advances, in experimental research,
as to cause the managers of the Keely Motor Company to believe that
his engine is near completion, and that they can dispense with outside
assistance hereafter.
But I know as it has been in the past so will it be again, and that,
as the months glide away, if no engine is completed, the company will
once more desert the discoverer; while, if he is allowed to pursue his
researches, up to the completion of his system under your protection,
his discoveries will be guarded for science, and the interests of
the stockholders will not be sacrificed to the greed of speculators,
as has so often been done in the past.
As I have had occasion to say, elsewhere, after the warning given
in the history of Huxley's Bathybius, Professor Leidy would not have
risked his world-wide reputation by the endorsement of Keely's claims,
as the discoverer of hidden energy in inter-molecular and atomic
spaces, had he not tested the demonstrations until fully convinced of
the discovery of a force previously unknown to science, and of the
honesty of Mr. Keely in his explanations. Therefore, following the
advice of Professor G. Fr. Fitzgerald, of Dublin, I do not ask for
further investigations. Until Professor Leidy and Dr. Willcox came to
the front, in May, 1891, Mr. Keely had no influential supporters, and
was under such a cloud, from his connection with speculators, that to
advocate his integrity of purpose and to uphold the importance of his
work, was enough to awaken doubts as to the sanity of his upholders.
We are told by Herodotus that science is to know things truly; yet
past experience shows us that what has been called knowledge at one
period of time is proved to be but folly in another age. Science is
to know things truly, and the laws of nature are the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever. Throughout the universe the same laws are at work
and regulate all things. Men interpret these laws to suit their own
ideas. The system which Keely is unfolding shows us that there is not
one grain of sand, nor one invisible corpuscule of floating matter,
that does not come under the same law that governs the most mighty
planet, and that all forms of matter are aggregated under one law. "The
designs of the Creator as expounded by our latest teachers," writes
Gilman, "have required millions of ages to carry out. They are so vast
and complex that they can only be realized in the sweep of ages. One
design is subordinated by another without ever being lost sight of,
until the time has arrived for its complete fulfilment. These designs
involve an infinitude of effort, ending often in what, to our view,
looks like failure, to be crowned after a series of ages with complete
success at last."
In this long chain of physical causes, says Dr. Willcox, seemingly
endless, but really commencing with that one link that touches the
hand of Him who made all matter, and all potencies that dwell within
matter, this cosmical activity has been ceaseless, these cosmical
effects numerous past conception, by which universal nature has slowly
unfolded and become the universe of to-day.
In this way both Christianity and science unfold their truths
progressively. Truth, like the laws of nature, never changes; yet truth
as an absolute thing, existing in and by itself, is relatively capable
of change; for as the atoms hold in their tenacious grasp undreamed-of
potencies, so truths hold germs potential of all growth. Each new
truth disclosed to the world, when its hour of need comes, unfolds and
reveals undreamed-of means of growth. As the Rev. George Boardman has
said of Christianity, so may it be said of science: Being a perennial
vine, it is ever yielding new wine.
A philosopher has said that if ever a human being needed divine
pity it is the pseudo-scientist who believes in nothing but what he
can prove by his own methods. In the light of Keely's discoveries,
science will have to admit that when she concentrates her attention
upon matter, to the exclusion of mind, she is as the hunter who has
no string in reserve for his bow. When she recognizes that a full
and adequate science of matter is impossible to man, and that the
science of mind is destined ultimately to attain to a much higher
degree of perfection than the science of matter--that it will give
the typical ideas and laws to which all the laws of physics must be
referred--then science will be better supplied with strings than she
now is, to bring her quarry down.
It is Professor Leidy's and Dr. Willcox's second strings, to their
bows, which will enable you to secure to science the richest quarry
that has ever been within its reach. I know that the experience of
Professor Rowland, as related by him, must have had the effect to
prejudice you against Mr. Keely. Professor Fitzgerald writes to me on
this subject: "I am sorry that Mr. Keely did not cut the wire, wherever
Professor Rowland asked to have it cut, because it will undoubtedly be
said that he had some sinister reason for not doing so, whatever his
real reasons were; but, of course, when one cuts a bit off a valuable
string one prefers naturally to cut the bit off the end, as Keely did,
rather than out of the middle." This very wire which Mr. Keely did cut
at one end, twice, for Professor Rowland, one of the pieces falling
into my hand, is now in Professor Fitzgerald's possession. It was
the offensive manner of Professor Rowland when he seized the shears,
telling Keely it was his guilty conscience which made him refuse to cut
the wire, and that it must be cut in the middle, which put Keely on the
defensive, causing him to refuse to allow Professor Rowland to cut it.
It would seem that the professor in the Johns Hopkins University,
from his remarks on that occasion, thought, instead of an experiment
in negative attraction, that Keely was imposing upon the ignorant
by giving a simple experiment in pneumatics, familiar to all
schoolboys. Professor Rowland did not realize how low he was rating the
powers of discernment of a professor in the University of Pennsylvania
who had witnessed Keely's experiments again and again, when his
instruments or devices were in perfect working order. Mr. Keely,
who was ambitious to show Professor Rowland that his disintegrator
had no connection with any concealed apparatus, had suspended it
from the ceiling by a staple. The hook had given way, and the jar
to the instrument in falling to the floor disarranged its interior
construction on that day. To those who have not witnessed any of
Keely's experiments, under favourable conditions, his theories
naturally seem vague speculations; but not one theory has Keely
put forward, as a theory, which he has not demonstrated as having a
solid foundation in fact. Some of our men of science once settled
the problem of the origin of life to their own satisfaction, only
to learn in the end that speculation is not science; but this very
problem is one the solution of which Keely now seems to be approaching.
It would become a matter of easy analysis, writes Keely, if the
properties governing the different orders of matter could be understood
in their different evolutions. The force of the mind on matter is an
illustration of the power of the finer over the crude, but the law
making the crude forms of matter subservient to the finer or higher
forms, is an unknown law to finite minds.
Buckle has asserted that the highest of our so called laws of
nature are as yet purely empirical; and that, until some law is
discovered which is connected with the laws of the mind that made it,
our knowledge has no sure basis. So saturated has Mr. Keely's mind
been with his discovery of this law that he has contented himself
to remain ignorant in physics, as taught by the schools; and also
with simpler matters it would seem; while testing and building up
his hypotheses into a system which no one but himself can complete,
and which without completion must be lost to the world. I should form
a very poor opinion of the mind that would accept an hypothesis as
anything more than the signpost at cross roads, which points to the
direction that may be taken. In physics the very first fact to which
the learner is introduced is already sophisticated by hypotheses. Every
experiment in chemistry is but a member of a series, all based upon
some one or other of many hypotheses; which are as necessary to
the construction of a system as is the scaffolding which is used in
building an edifice. If the scaffolding proves unsound it does not
affect the edifice, as it can be at once replaced with material more
solid. So an hypothesis, which is merely a conjecture or a suggestion,
cannot affect the solidity of a philosophy or a system. It must be
tested and found to support all the facts which bear upon it, and
capable of accounting for them, before it can be accepted as a theory.
It is my wish to have the professors of the University of Pennsylvania
meet at my house the founder of a system which, in my opinion, embraces
a pure philosophy: to listen to his theories, and to elicit from him
such information as to the nature of his researches, in what is called
electro-magnetic radiation, as I trust will convince them that I have
not been pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp during the years that my mind
has been concentrated on the work in which Mr. Keely is engaged. The
bearings of this work are so various that I shall not have time to
touch upon more than the one which interests me beyond any or all of
the others; namely, its connection with the medical art. Appreciating
as I do the life of self-denial which physicians who are devoted to
their profession must lead, and having in their ranks relatives and
many warm friends on both sides of the ocean (one of them, my nephew,
Dr. Jessup, is here to-night) I trust that what I say of the medical
art will not be misconstrued.
The great sorrows of my life have come upon me through the ignorance of
medical men, who, I know, followed their best judgment in the course of
treatment that they pursued in the illnesses of those dear to me. When
my children were in their infancy I had reason to embrace the opinions
of Professor Magendie, as set forth in one of his lectures before the
students of his class in the Allopathic College of Paris. These are
his words: "I know medicine is called a science. It is nothing like a
science. It is a great humbug. Doctors are mere empirics when they are
not charlatans. We are as ignorant as men can be. Who knows anything
about medicine? I do not, nor do I know anyone who does know anything
about it. Nature does a great deal; imagination does a great deal,
doctors do d----h little when they do no harm."
Later in life, in 1871, I was sent, while suffering with neurasthenia,
from Paris to Schwalbach Baths by Dr. Beylard, who recommended me to
the care of Dr. Adolph Genth; to whom, in my first interview, I said:
"I wish for your opinion, and for your advice, if you can give it to
me without prescribing any medicine." He replied: "With all my heart,
Madam, and I wish to God there were more women like you; but we should
soon lose our patients, if we did not dose them." A terrible excuse for
the use of those agencies which Dr. John Good has said have sent more
human beings to their graves than war, pestilence and famine combined.
One of Mr. Keely's discoveries shapes his theory that all nervous and
brain disorders may be cured by equating the differentiation that
exists in the disordered structure. When his system is completed,
medical men will have a new domain opened to them for experiment. Gross
material agencies, such as drugs, will be replaced by the finer forces
of nature: light, as taught by the late Dr. Pancoast of our city, and
magnetism, as experimented with by the late Professor Keil of Jena,
showing the efficacy of the ordinary magnet in the cure of certain
infirmities,--these experiments were communicated by him more than
fifty years since to the Royal Society of London.
Paracelsus taught that man is nourished and sustained by magnetic
power, which he called the universal motor of nature. In Switzerland,
in Italy and in France, the light-treatment is now being tested;
red light used in cases of melancholia; blue light in cases of great
nervous excitement, operating like magic in some instances. Dr. Oscar
Jennings, the electrician at St. Anne's Hospital for the Insane
in Paris, tells me that students, versed in Biblical lore, declare
that the esoteric teachings of the Book of Job enunciate a system
of light-cure. Ostensibly because of my faith in the importance of
Keely's discoveries, as opening up new fields of research to medical
men, an invalid daughter (suffering from puerperal mania after the
birth of her third child) was taken from me, in conformance with
orders of the Swedish guardian of her monied interests in Sweden, and
I was summoned before the Police Direction, in Vienna, and required to
bind myself not to experiment upon my child. It is well known to the
London experts in mental disorders, the most distinguished of whom
I have consulted, that my daughter's treatment, while she was under
my care, had been confined to giving no medicine, forcing no food,
and such changes from time to time in her surroundings as she needed,
with a few electric baths.
The orthodox practice of medicine is nothing more and nothing less than
"a system of blind experiment," as it has been called.
At the opening of a clinical society in London, Sir Thomas Watson said:
"We try this and not succeeding we try that, and baffled again we try
something else." Other eminent medical men have given utterance to
these aphorisms: "The science of medicine is founded on conjecture
and improved by murder;" "Mercury has made more cripples than war;"
"Ninety-nine medical facts are medical lies;" "Every dose of medicine
is a blind experiment;" "The older physicians grow the more sceptical
they become of the virtues of their own medicines." Dr. Ridge said:
"Everything in nature is acknowledged to be governed by law. It is
singular, however, that while science endeavours to reduce this to
actual fact in all other studies, those of health and disease have
not hitherto been arranged under any law whatever."
Keely's system, should he live to complete it, will show that
nature works under one law in everything; that discord is disease,
that harmony is health. He believes that nervous and brain disorders
are curable; but he will never have the leisure to enter this field
of research himself, and it will be left for physicians to pursue
their experiments to that point where they shall be able to decide
whether he is right or wrong. This is why I seek to interest medical
men in Keely's belief; his theories of latent energy he is able to
handle without help, and to demonstrate a solid foundation for them on
facts. "Nothing can lie like a fact," said Velpeau. But nature's laws
are infallible facts, and the facts referred to by Velpeau are of the
order of the fallible ones enunciated by science, such as "The atom is
indivisible." "The atom is infinitely divisible," says Keely, repeating
Schopenhauer's words, whose writings I dare say he has never read.
Professor George Fr. Fitzgerald, of Trinity College, Dublin, in closing
a lecture delivered before the British Association last March, on
"Electro-magnetic Radiation," enunciates a possible theory of ether and
matter. This hypothesis, he says, explains the differences in nature
as differences of motion. If it be true, ether and matter--gold, air,
wood, brains--are but different motions. You will be able to judge of
the marvellous mechanism invented by Keely, for his researches, when I
tell you that by his demonstrations with these instruments, he is able
to place this hypothesis in the rank of theories, boldly announcing
that all motion is thought, and that all force is mind force. With a
clearness that characterizes his great brain he has plunged through the
deep and broad questions surrounding the mechanism of the universe,
and he claims, on behalf of science, as did the late Provost Jellett
of the British Association, "the right to prosecute its investigations
until it attains to a mechanical explanation of all things."
In this lecture Professor Fitzgerald, commenting upon Professor Hertz's
experiments in the vibration of ether waves, says: "If there is reason
to think that any greater oscillation might disintegrate the atom,
we are still a long way from it." Does not this statement border on
an admission that the atom may be divisible? Those who are pursuing
their researches in this field are farther off than they know from the
great central truth which Faraday did not live long enough to reach,
although conjectured by him.
We have not only Faraday's discoveries, but those of Scheele,
the Swedish chemist, as an example of exact observations leading
to erroneous conclusions. The investigations of Scheele led up to
the rich harvest which has since been reaped from a knowledge of
the nature of the compounds of organic chemistry. Scheele was one
of the founders of quantitative analysis, but the phlogistic theory
advanced by him was overthrown--the fate of all theories which are
not based on solid foundations. Faraday admitted that his own ideas on
gravitating force, and of the ether, were but vague impressions of his
mind thrown out as matter for speculation. He left no theory on these
lines, for he had nothing to offer as the result of demonstration,
nor even of sufficient consideration to broach a theory: merely
impressions, which are allowable for a time as guides to thought
and farther research. Yet more than once did these speculations
of his giant intellect touch upon one of nature's hidden laws, the
greatest one yet made known to man. Had Faraday lived long enough
to pursue his researches, from his starting point of conjecture,
he would have been, without doubt, instead of Keely, the discoverer
of the latent or hidden potencies existing in all forms of matter,
visible and invisible. But the physicists of his time looked upon
his speculations as contrary to the received dogmas of science, and
preferred their own errors to his speculations. They saw the signpost,
but took the road directly opposite to the one Faraday had pointed out.
It is admitted that even a false theory, when rightly constructed, has
its uses, and that, instead of hindering, it hastens the advance of
knowledge. Every one, possessing the slightest acquaintance with the
history of astronomy, knows that the doctrines of cycles, epicycles
and ellipses, were begotten naturally and necessarily out of each
other; and that if Kepler had not propounded speculative errors
Newton would not have hit upon speculative truth. It has been said
that when men of science disclaim hypotheses, or speculation, they
are either unfit for their vocation or, like Newton, they are better
than their creed. Hypotheses are at once the effect and the cause of
progress. One might as well attempt to preserve and employ an army
without organization as to preserve and employ phenomena without a
theory to weld them into one. But the theory must be provisionally,
if not positively, true; it must be intelligible and consistent;
it must explain a greater number of facts and reconcile a greater
variety of apparent contradictions than any which has preceded it;
and it must have become developed not by the addition merely, but by
the addition and solution, of subsidiary explanations. I ask of you
an examination of Keely's theories before giving an opinion of them.
Time only can decide whether Keely's hypotheses and theories
will outlive these tests. If not, his system must be overthrown,
as past systems have been, to make room for a better one. All that
I ask is that he may have the opportunity to develop it under your
encouragement. There are scientists in Europe ready to assist him with
pecuniary assistance. They know enough--those who are interested in
his discoveries--to know that they can help him in no other way.
Professor Hertz of Bonn, said to me: "Keely must work out his system
himself to that point where he can instruct physicists to repeat
his experiments." Picking up a photograph of Keely's instruments of
research, grouped together, he added: "No man is likely to be a fraud
who is working on these lines."
Science is alert, on tiptoe as it were, waiting for the one mighty
explanation of the force, "behind the framework of nature," which
has hitherto "eluded its skill;" and which the system of Keely makes
clear to the understanding, demonstrating that one power, one law,
reigns throughout creation; the immaterial controlling the material,
after the divine order and law of creation that the immaterial
should govern the material--that the whole realm of matter is under
the dominion of the immaterial. But "the known always excludes the
unknown" when in opposition to it. As in past generations, so now in
ours, physicists have said: "We will not waste our time in looking
at facts and phenomena which cannot be accepted in opposition to
established principles of science and to known laws of nature; and
which, even if we beheld we should not believe."
The recognition and practical application of new truths are, as has
been said, notoriously slow processes. Harvey's beneficent discovery
excited vehement opposition from his contemporaries. Professor Riolan
combated this discovery with as much obstinacy as violence; even
denying the existence and the functions of lymphatic vessels. Harvey
himself united with Riolan in opposing the discoveries of Aselli and
Pacquet respecting the lymphatic system. Jenner's discovery met with
the same opposition, and more than forty years elapsed before the
suggestion of Sir Humphrey Davy became of practical use. Mr. Wills was
so affected by the ridicule which he encountered in his experiments
with nitrous oxide in destroying physical pain, that he abandoned
them. Nearly half a century later Dr. Morton was assailed by several of
our journals in America for the use of ether in producing anæsthesia;
as also was Sir James Simpson for his use of ether and chloroform.
The scientists excommunicated Dr. Wigan, who had proved by anatomical
examination that each brain-hemisphere is a perfect brain; that
we have, in fact, two brains, as we have two eyes and two ears. His
experiences as a physician were declared to be impostures or delusions;
his deductions fallacious. They could not be true, because they were
inconsistent with the established principles of physiology and mental
science. And with such experiences in the past, we should keep in
mind that the powers of nature are so mysterious and inscrutable
that men must be cautious in limiting them to the ordinary laws of
experience. Proclus wrote of the power of mind or will to set up
certain vibrations--not in the grosser atmospheric particles whose
undulations beget light, sound, heat, electricity--but in the latent
immaterial principle of force, of which modern science knows scarcely
anything.
What is beyond their own power, men cannot comprehend to be in the
power of others. Said Sextus: "If by magic you mean a perpetual
research among all that is most latent and obscure in nature, I
profess that magic, and he who does so comes nearer to the fountain
of all knowledge."
Sir Isaac Newton said: "It is well known that bodies act upon one
another by the attractions of gravity, magnetism and electricity;
and these instances show the tenour and course of nature, and make
it not improbable that there may be more powers of attraction than
these. For nature is very consonant and conformable to herself."
With such intimations of the hidden force that is ever in operation,
"behind the framework of nature," shall we, because it is hidden
from science, refuse to listen to the explanations which Mr. Keely
is now prepared to give? All nature is a compound of conflicting,
and therefore of counter-balancing and equilibrating, forces. Without
this there could be no such thing as stability. In nature nothing
is great and nothing is little, writes Figuier. Sir Henry Roscoe
says: "The structure of the smallest particle, invisible even to
our most searching vision, may be as complicated as that of any of
the heavenly bodies which circle around our sun." If you admit this,
as stated by one of your own orthodox scientists, why refuse to admit
the possibility of the subdivision of all corpuscles of matter, which
Keely declares can be done by certain orders of vibration, thus showing
up new elements? I do not ask endorsement of Keely's theories; but if
physicists did not think it possible to rupture the atom, would they be
calculating the chances of doing so, as Professor Fitzgerald has done?
Why not admit that certain tenets of science may prove to be nothing
more than hypotheses, too hastily adopted as theories, and that
Keely has succeeded, as he claims, to have discovered the order of
vibration, which by increasing the oscillation of the atom, causes it
to rupture itself? This introductory impulse is given at forty-two
thousand eight hundred vibrations, instead of one hundred millions;
which, having been reached by Professor Hertz, failed to tear apart
the atom, and convinced Professor Fitzgerald of the "long way off"
that they still are from rupturing it. But even this conclusion
was arrived at under an erroneous hypothesis; for the atomic charge
does not oscillate across the diameter of the atom, and its possible
radiating power was calculated on this hypothesis.
Again, as to the canons of science, which are proved by Mr. Keely's
researches to be erroneous: take the one which teaches that molecular
aggregation is ever attended with dissipation of energy. From
whence, then, comes the immense force which is liberated from the
constituents of gunpowder by its exciter, fire?--which is a certain
order of vibration. Concussion, another order of vibration, releases
the hidden energy stored in the molecules of dynamite, which tears
the rocks asunder as if they were egg-shells. Still another order
of vibration, which Keely has discovered, dissociates the supposed
elements of water, releasing from its corpuscular embrace almost
immeasurable volumes of force.
The discoverer of this law of nature has long been harassed and made
to feel like a galley-slave chained to a rock, while with Prometheus
aspirations he is seeking to bring down fire and light from heaven
for his fellow-men.
When Professor Leidy followed his impulse to leap the hedge which
divided his special field of research from the domain that Keely
was exploring, his was the first effort made by a man of science
to save to the world "the hidden knowledge" bestowed upon one who,
in my opinion, is alone capable of completing his system in a form to
transmit this knowledge to others. I doubt not that this will seem to
you as the language of fanaticism; but my convictions do not come from
things hoped for. They are the result of the evidence of things seen,
year after year, for nearly a decade of years.
As a school-girl, fifty years ago, I had the privilege of attending
courses of lectures at Yale College, where experiments were given in
natural philosophy and in chemistry; which kept up the interest that
was awakened in earlier years; when, with my mineral hammer and basket,
my father took me in his walks, laying the foundation of that love of
true science which has made the discoveries of Keely of such intense
interest to me.
Superficial as was and still is my knowledge of science, in its various
branches, my interest has never abated; and thus, by my course of
reading, I have kept myself abreast of the most advanced writers of
modern thought, preparing the way for the help that I have been able
to give Mr. Keely by putting books into his hands which, after more
than twelve years of blind struggles to grapple with the force he had
stumbled over, helped him to comprehend its nature, sooner than he
would have done had he been left to work out his conjectures unaided,
he tells me.
Marvellous as is the extent of Keely's knowledge of vibratory physics,
I doubt very much whether he knows enough of mechanical physics
to perform the trickery which Professor Rowland accused him of
attempting. "Of course every one is looking for a trick where Keely
is concerned," writes a Baltimore man; and, so long as speculations
in the stock of the Keely Motor Company are authorized by the managers
of that company, or efforts made to dispose of it before any practical
result is attained, so long will Keely be unjustly suspected of being
in league with them to obtain money under false pretences.
It was after six or seven years of failure on the part of the
stockholders of the company to furnish Keely with one dollar, even,
that I made a contract with him in April, 1890, to supply all that he
needed for the completion of his system; having first received the
assurance of Mr. Keely's lawyer that he would carry out the united
wishes of Mr. Keely and myself. At that time this announcement was
made in the public journals:--
"There has been placed in the hands of Professor Leidy a fund for
the use of inventor John W. Keely. The stipulation attached is that
no use shall be made of the financial assistance for speculative
purposes. This provision, which is made in the interests of the Keely
Motor Company as well as for science, will end with the first attempt
to speculate on the stock by exhibitions given of the operations
of unpatentable engines. Professor Leidy holds the fund at his
disposition, and will pay all bills for instruments constructed for
researching purposes."
The report issued last month by the directors of the Keely Motor
Company annulled this contract; and it now remains for your board
to decide whether I shall, in behalf of science, continue to supply
Mr. Keely with the means of continuing his researches, under the
protecting auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, or leave him
in the hands of those who are so blind to their own interests, as
holders of stock in the Keely Motor Company, they cannot be made to
see that their only hope of commercial success lies in the completion
of the system that Keely is developing; and that the course proposed
by Professor Leidy, and commended by Professor Hertz and Professor
Fitzgerald, for Keely to follow, is the only one that will ever enable
him to complete it.
This system is as much a work of evolution as is any one of the slow
operations of nature. "Truth can afford to wait:" she knows that the
Creator of all things never hurries. In these twenty years of toil
Keely's patient perseverance has been godlike. It is the sharpest
rebuke that could be uttered to those whose impatient "hue and cry"
has been, "Give us a commercial engine and we will immortalize
you;"--grinding from him, meantime, seven-eighths of his interests
in his inventions.
But in his labours Keely finds a recompense that, as yet, "the world
knows not of;" for day by day he sees the once, to him, obscure
domain lit up with ever-increasing glory; a domain the boundaries
of which are the boundaries of the universe: the entrance into which
promises the fulfilment of the hopes of those who look forward to "a
time when we shall no longer go to the blind to lead the blind in our
search to make life worth living; but, instead, be able to promote,
in accordance with scientific method and in harmony with law, the
physical, intellectual and moral evolution of our race."
As of Newton, with the change of one word only, so one day will it
be said of Keely:--
All intellectual eye--our solar round
First gazing through, he by the blended power
Of laws etheric, universal, saw
The whole in silent harmony revolve.
What were his raptures then! How pure! How strong!
And what the triumphs of old Greece and Rome
With his compared? When Nature and her laws
Stood all disclosed to him, and open laid
Their every hidden glory to his view.
On the 23rd of March, following the reading of this address, Professor
Koenig, who had become deeply interested in Mr. Keely's researches,
wrote:--
"With regard to the experiments, which I saw at Mr. Keely's, I
venture upon the following suggestion, as a test of the nature of the
force Mr. Keely is dealing with. The revolution of the compass as
a result of negative polar attraction. It is stated in Mr. Keely's
paper that he finds gold, silver, platinum, to be excellent media
for the transmission of these triple currents. Now it is well known
that these same metals are most diamagnetic, that is, unaffected by
magnetic influences. If, therefore, a needle be made of one of these
metals and suspended in place of the steel needle, in the compass, and
put under the influence of Mr. Keely's force, it ought to revolve the
same as the steel needle will under magnetic and polar and anti-polar
influence. If Mr. Keely could make such a needle revolve, it would
convince me that he is dealing with a force unknown to physicists."
To this requirement Mr. Keely replied: "To run a needle, composed of
non-magnetic material, by polar and depolar action is a matter of as
infinite impossibility as would be the raising of a heavy weight from
the bottom of a well by sucking a vacuum in it, or the inhalation of
water into the lungs instead of air, to sustain life."
However, at Dr. Brinton's suggestion, Mr. Keely took up a line of
research that was new to him, and succeeded in making a needle of
the three metals, gold, silver and platinum, rotate by differential
molecular action; induced by negative attractive outreach, which is
as free of magnetic force as a cork.
Professor Brinton had so mastered Keely's working hypotheses as to say,
early in April, that he was sure he could make them understood by any
intelligent person--writing of them: "All that is needed now is to
show that Keely's experiments sustain the principles that underlie
these hypotheses. As soon as Professor Koenig is prepared to report
on the purely technical and physical character of the experiments,
I shall be ready to go into full details as to their significance
in reference to both matter and mind. It will be enough for me if
Dr. Koenig is enabled simply to say that the force handled by Keely
is not any one of the already well-known forces. Let him say that,
and I will undertake to say what it is."
On the evening of the 13th of April, the Provost of the University of
Pennsylvania, with others who were invited, met at Mrs. Moore's house
to hear the report of the "observation" of Mr. Keely's researching
experiments. The result was not made public; as it was desired,
by all concerned, that nothing should be made known which could in
any way influence the price of the stock of the company, to which
Mr. Keely is under obligations; and which, as far as marketable value
is concerned, is quite worthless until his system is completed to that
point where some one device or machine can be patented. But, after
Professor Koenig had made his report to those assembled, and Professor
Brinton had read his abstract, all that had been asked for Mr. Keely,
in behalf of the interests of science, was conceded to him. Mr. Keely
has been able to continue his researches, up to the present time,
without the delays which actions-at-law would have occasioned.
Professor Brinton, before making public his "Abstract of Keely's
Philosophy," wishes to add two parts, one on the difficulties in the
way of physicists in understanding Keely's theories; the other on
the relations of the conditions of the inter-etheric order to the
laws of mind.
The address of Mrs. Moore, type-copied, was sent to various editors
and men of science in Philadelphia, as well as to leading capitalists;
and, in this crisis of Keely's connection with the stockholders of The
Keely Motor Company, some of these editors rendered substantial aid in
making known his critical position; most notably the Inquirer, owned
by Mr. Elverson, and the Evening Telegraph, owned by Mr. Warburton,
with the result that a decided change in public opinion took place,
after these journals announced, in April, that Professor Koenig
had tested the energy, employed by Keely, with the most sensitive
galvanometer of the university, in the presence of Professor Leidy,
Professor Brinton, Doctor Tuttle (a Baltimore physicist) and others,
finding no trace of electricity; and by other tests no magnetism. The
two professors who thoroughly investigated Keely's theories, and
observed his demonstrations, were chosen because they possessed
the qualities of mind which Herbert Spencer said constitute the
first condition of success in scientific research, viz. "an honest
receptivity and a willingness to abandon all preconceived notions,
however cherished, if they be found to contradict the truth."
Professor Leidy and Dr. Willcox, during their observations of Keely's
progressive experimental researches, had expressed no opinion of
Keely's theories, other than that they did not correspond with
their own ideas; but Professor Koenig boldly said, "I not only
think Mr. Keely's theories possible, but I consider them quite
probable." Professor Brinton, who made a study of Keely's theories, so
mastered them as to be able to suggest to Keely a new line of research,
required by Dr. Koenig in the tests proposed; and the synopsis of
Keely's philosophy, prepared by Doctor Brinton, has made Keely's
hitherto unintelligible language intelligible to men of science.
Notwithstanding this favourable result, a New York journalist, under
a fictitious name, pretended to have discovered that Keely is a fraud,
using well-known forces; which statements were published (with woodcuts
of instruments discarded by Keely two years before) in the New York
Herald and The Press, in Philadelphia. It is amusing to see how
"history repeats itself;" for, in the year 1724, in a letter to the
Royal Society, Hatzfeldt attacked Sir Isaac Newton in much the same
spirit. One would suppose in reading what Hatzfeldt has written of
an invention of his time, that it had been written, word for word, of
this ignorant investigator of Keely's experiments in researching. After
commenting upon the corruption of human nature as shown, in his day,
by want of veracity, and the tendency to vicious misrepresentation,
he says: "If the said machine was contrived according to the weak
sense and understanding of those who pretend it to be moved in other
ways than that declared, it would have been discerned before this.
"And those who pretend it to be moved by water, or air, or magnetism,
one of which (meaning water) even our most famous author did in the
beginning affirm it to be moved by, is so very weak that I don't at
all think it deserving to be considered.
"And what is still worse, to pretend it to be a cheat is a manner
of proceeding which is neither consistent with equity nor common
sense. As long as arts and sciences have the misfortune of depending
on the direction of such like persons, no progress toward truth can
be made, but I shall make it sufficiently appear that there is yet
more truth behind the hill than ever has been brought to light. There
be persons who, when disappointed of gain, turn their shafts against
those who have circumvented them.
"All those who know anything of philosophy know that gravity is
generally (and chiefly by Sir Isaac Newton and his followers) denied
to be essential to matter, which I shall not only prove the contrary
of, but I shall likewise show the properties in matter, on which
the principle depends, to be the most glorious means to prove the
existence of God, and to establish natural religion."
Is it not rather remarkable that, after a sleep of nearly two
centuries, it is again claimed that gravity is inherent in all matter?
It has been very generally supposed that Keely is working at haphazard,
as it were; in other words, that he has no theory to go upon. Professor
Brinton writes of Keely's theories: "Mr. Keely has a coherent and
intelligent theory of things, or philosophy, on which he lays out his
work and proceeds in his experiments." March 6th, the same professor
writes: "Keely's paper on Latent Force in intermolecular spaces is
clear enough and instructive, but the average reader will find the
perusal up-hill work, from lack of preliminary teaching. Naturally,
Mr. Keely, whose mind has been busy with this topic for years, and
who is more familiar with it than with any other, does not appreciate
how blankly ignorant of it is the average reader. Also naturally he
writes above the heads of his audience."
A correspondent in Invention, London, writes December 12, 1891: We
have at various times in these columns alluded to the investigations
of the Philadelphia scientist, J. W. Keely, and this researcher--who
is now stated to be engaged in finding a method whereby the power [18]
which he professes to have discovered can be employed as a motor in
the place of steam--is just now the object of considerable attention
in the press of the United States. To summarize the present state
of the criticism to which this man is subjected, we may mention that
for some time past The New York Herald, among other papers, has been
printing a series of articles that have been recently prepared by an
American inventor named Browne, professing to show how Keely has,
for nearly twenty years, been deceiving expert engineers, shrewd
men of the world, some few university professors and others, by
the use of compressed air, obtaining testimonials of his discovery
of an unknown force in nature. In reading his articles any one who
has seen the photographs--as the writer has done--of the researching
instruments discarded by Keely, in past years, and those that he is
now employing in their place, cannot fail to detect the misstatements
and misrepresentations made.
Mr. Browne (?) even overrides the testimony of the late Professor
Leidy, Dr. Willcox, Dr. Koenig, Dr. Brinton--the Baltimore
physicist--Dr. Tuttle, and the engineers Linville and Le Van, all
of whom have tested the force used by Keely, and admitted that no
electricity, no magnetism, no compressed air is used. Without endorsing
in the slightest anything that Keely has discovered, or claims to have
discovered, we think that, with the English love of fair play, both
sides should always fairly be heard before either is condemned, and as
Mr. Keely has consented to instruct a well-known English physicist in
his method of producing the force handled, there is every chance of
the truth being known, and the correct state of the matter divulged
to the scientific world at large, when, mayhap, this rival inventor
may have to retract his assertions or stand a suit for libel. We do
not say it will be so--we only assert it may be. Professor Brinton,
who has made a study of Keely's methods, writes this month to a
friend in London:--"The exposé of Keely's alleged methods continues
each week. Some of the proposed explanations are plausible, others
are plainly absurd. They only serve to attract renewed attention to
Keely. I have written to the editor to ask him to arrange a meeting
for me with the writer, but I have not yet been able to discover the
Mr. Browne, [19] of Brooklyn, who is the supposititious author."
Mr. Keely has chosen the successor [20] of Professor Tyndall, at the
Royal Institution of Great Britain, as the physicist to whom he will
communicate his method. This will be welcome news indeed to scientists
on both sides of the Atlantic, and the result will be awaited with
anxiety alike by both the friends and foes of Keely. We shall watch
for the result, as will our American confrères.--Wm. Norman Brown.
CHAPTER XVII.
1891.
MORE OF KEELY'S THEORIES.--HIS TRADUCERS EXPOSED.
It was in India that man first recognized the fact that
force is indestructible and eternal. This implies ideas more
or less distinct of that which we now term its correlation
and conservation. The changes which we witness are in its
distribution.--Professor Draper.
"For all things that be not true, be lies."
There is a principle in music which has yet to be
discovered.--Sir John Herschel.
From the Chicago Tribune.
That was a happy inspiration which led the Quintet Club, of
Philadelphia, to pay a visit to the workshop of Keely a few weeks
ago. Its members had been told that the illustrious inventor had
employed the power of music to develop the wonderful forces of nature,
and evolve by a law of sympathetic vibrations a mighty energy through
the disintegration of a few drops of water. Naturally they were
anxious to go. They were familiar with the claim made by Paganini
that he could throw down a building if he knew the chord of the mass
of masonry, and wanted to know if it were possible that the dream of
the great violinist is realized at last.
So nearly as can be made out from the mysterious language of the
man of many promises, there is a harmony of the universe that is
controllable by the strains of music. Each of the molecules composing
a mass of matter is in a state of incessant oscillation, and these
movements can be so much changed by means of musical vibration that
the matter will be disintegrated, its constituent molecules fly
apart, and a propulsive force be generated similar to that which is
evolved by the touching of a match to a single grain of powder stored
in a magazine. He holds that matter is nothing but forces held in
equilibrium, and that if the equilibrium be once destroyed the most
tremendous consequences will ensue.
According to the report, he proved to the satisfaction of more than one
member of the club that he has already discovered the means of calling
out this force, and is able to partially control it. In their presence
he caused a heavy sphere to rotate rapidly or slowly, according to
the notes given by the instrument on which he played. The sphere was
so isolated as to prove that it could not be acted on by electricity
or in any other way than by the sound waves. He disintegrated water
into what he calls "etheric vapour" by means of a tuning fork and
a zither. The disintegration of only four drops of water produced a
pressure of 27,000 pounds to the square inch, and three drops of the
harmless liquid fired off a cannon "with a tremendous roar."
All this is wonderful--if true. And it is strangely parallel to the
most advanced lines of modern thought in a scientific direction, if not
coincident with them. There is the point. Is there a "thin partition"
dividing the wisdom of the schools from the insanity of Keely, or will
he yet prove his right to take rank among the greatest of earth's
inventors? If he can do what is at present claimed for him, doing
it honestly and without any hocus-pocus to beguile the fools, he has
already earned a title higher than that worn by any man of the age. If
he is simply cheating those to whom he exhibits his mechanism, he is
one of the biggest charlatans that ever drew breath, and ought to be
scouted accordingly. And here is the difficulty. The visit alluded to
is claimed to have been made on May 9th, or fully six weeks ago. Surely
if such results were achieved then, as reported by the Philadelphia
Inquirer, many others would ere this have been asked and permitted to
witness a repetition of the experiments, and the scientific world would
now be in a blaze of excited admiration of the man and his methods. But
nothing further is said about it. Keely is still plodding away in his
workshop, and the world is still rolling round in happy ignorance of
what he has done towards revolutionizing existing lines of thought and
modes of action. Surely something is radically wrong. The scientists
owe it to themselves as well as to the inventor to see to it that
this condition is not allowed to continue. They should appoint a
commission to investigate, and find out whether Keely is a genius
worthy of the highest honours and rewards that can be bestowed,
an arrant impostor, whose fittest place would be the penitentiary,
or a crank that ought to be put in a lunatic asylum. It is hard to
resist the conclusion that he is one or the other of these, and in
either case he is not getting his deserts. Let Keely be scientifically
investigated. He has been permitted to remain in obscurity too long
already. He should be reported on, no matter whether the result be
to raise a mortal to the skies or send an alleged angel down to the
depths of infamy as a life-long deceiver of his species."
[The Tribune is informed that the report was correct in every
particular, and that Professor D. G. Brinton, of the University of
Pennsylvania, has prepared a paper on the subject, and will publish it
when Mr. Keely is ready to have his system made known.--Ed. Inquirer.]
The writer of this article in the Chicago Tribune has expressed
the prevailing sentiment of our time, in regard to Keely, as far
as those are concerned who are in ignorance of the fact that Keely
has discovered an unknown energy, and is working out a system which
he must himself first learn, by researches into the laws of nature
governing it, before he can apply it to mechanics, or make it even
so much as understood by others.
The unprincipled journalist before alluded to, after failing in an
attempt to obtain admission to Mr. Keely's workshop, wrote a series
of articles for the press, recounting Keely's researching experiments
in 1889 and 1890, as then shown to Professor Joseph Leidy, Dr. James
Willcox, and others. This journalist, who professed to give woodcuts
of Keely's researching instruments, was entirely ignorant of the fact
that the experiments which he described had never once been repeated,
during the last eighteen months; Keely having taken up researches
on another line, as soon as he had gained sufficient control of the
force he was handling to cause the solid bronze weight weighing six
and three quarters lbs., to rise in the jar, rest midway, or remain
stationary at will. The "Generator," described by this journalist in
the Philadelphia Press of November 1st, 1891, never had any existence
beyond the journalist's brain and the woodcut. It was represented as
a square structure, "big and thick walled enough to hold a donkey
engine," whereas the true disintegrator (or improved generator) is
round, and about the size of the wheel of a baby's perambulator. This
form of generator Mr. Keely has been using for about three years;
suspending it from a staple in the ceiling, or against the wall,
when using it in the dissociation of the so-called elements of
water. Consequently, it was impossible for the force to be "conducted
from a reservoir eight or ten squares distance," as suggested by
this inventing journalist, who says that he "spent sleepless nights"
in devising the way in which the generator was operated by Keely:
asserting that "this extraordinary force was loaded like electricity
through a wire and discharged like steam through a pipe."
In a romance called "The Prince and the Pauper" these lines occur:
"For, look you, an it were not true, it would be a lie. It surely
would be. Think on't. For all things that be not true, be lies,--thou
canst make nought else out of it." Never were truer words written,
and equally true is it that, as another author has written, "If
the boy who cannot speak the truth, lives to be a man, and becomes
a journalist, he will invent lie after lie as long as he can get a
Journal to print them and to pay him for them." There are very few men,
who take up journalism in the spirit of a St. Beuve. Quite as few are
there who are competent to write, in any way, of Keely's discoveries
and all that they involve. Even among men of science, only one man
has been found who is able to comprehend Keely's theories, and to
handle them in a way to make them intelligible to others. S. Laing, in
"Modern Thought," says, "Science traces everything back to primeval
atoms and germs, and there it leaves us. How came these atoms and
energies there, from which this wonderful universe of worlds has
been evolved by inevitable laws? What are they in their essence,
and what do they mean? The only answer is, "It is unknowable. It is
behind the veil. Spirit may be matter, matter may be spirit." Keely's
researches have been of a nature which, grappling with these mysteries,
has brought them to the light. He tells us that spirit is the soul
of matter, and that no matter exists without a soul.
More of Keely's Theories.
The sympathetic conditions that we call mind are no more immaterial in
their character than light or electricity. The substance of the brain
is molecular, while the substance of the mind that permeates the brain
is inter-etheric, and is the element by which the brain is impregnated;
exciting it into action and controlling all the conditions of physical
motion, as long as the sympathetic equatative is in harmony, as between
the first, second, and third orders of transmission; molecular, atomic
and etheric. By this soul-substance is the physical controlled. In
order to trace the successive triple impulses, taking the introductory
one of sympathetic negative outreach, towards the cerebral neutrals,
which awakens the latent element to action, we find that mind may be
considered a specific order of inter-atomic motion sympathetically
influenced by the celestial flow, and that it becomes when thus excited
by this medium a part and parcel of the celestial itself. Only under
these conditions of sympathetic assimilation can it assert its power
over the physical organisms; the finite associated with the infinite.
The brain is not a laboratory. It is as static as the head of the
positive negative attractor, [21] until influenced by certain orders
of vibration, when it reveals the true character of the outreach
so induced. The brain is the high resonating receptacle where the
sympathetic celestial acts, and where molecular and atomic motion
exhibits itself, as according to the intensification brought to bear
upon it by the celestial mind flow.
The cerebral forces, in their control of the physical organism,
reveal to us the infinite power of the finer or spiritual fluid,
though not immaterial, over the crude molecular. The luminous, etheric,
protoplastic element, which is the highest tenuous condition of the
ether, fills the regions of infinite space, and in its radiating
outreach gives birth to the prime neutral centres that carry the
planetary worlds through their ranges of motion.
If the minds of all the most learned sages, of all time, were
concentrated, into one mind, that one would be too feeble, in its
mental outreach, to comprehend the conditions associated with the
fourth order of sympathetic condensation. The controversies of the
past in regard to the condensation of invisible matter prove this. The
chemistry of the infinite and the chemistry of the finite are as wide
apart, in their sympathetic ranges, as is the velocity of light from
the movement of the hour-hand of a clock. Even the analysis of the
visible conditions taxes our highest powers of concentration.
The question naturally arises, Why is this condition of ether always
under a state of luminosity of an especial order? Its characteristics
are such, from its infinite tenuity and the sympathetic activity
with which it is impregnated, that it possesses an order of
vibratory, oscillatory velocity, which causes it to evolve its own
luminosity. This celestial, latent power, that induces luminosity
in this medium, is the same that registers in all aggregated forms
of matter, visible and invisible. It is held in corpuscular embrace
until liberated by a compound vibratory negative medium.
What does this activity represent, by which luminosity is induced in
the high etheric realm? Does not the force following permeation by
the Divine Will show that even this order of ether, this luminiferous
region, is bounded by a greater region still beyond?--that it is but
the shore which borders the realm, from which the radiating forces of
the Infinite emanate: the luminiferous being the intermediate which
transfers the will force of the Almighty towards the neutral centres
of all created things, animate and inanimate, visible and invisible;
even down into the very depths of all molecular masses. The activity
of the corpuscles, in all aggregations, represents the outflow of
this celestial force, from the luminiferous track, towards all these
molecular centres of neutrality, and reveals to us the connecting link
between mind and matter. How plainly are we thus taught that God is
everywhere, and at the same time in every place. It gives us a new
sense of the omniscience and omnipresence of the Creator. In these
researches I am brought so near to the celestial conditions that my
pen is ready to fall from my hand while writing on this subject; so
more and more sensibly do I feel my abject ignorance of its depths....
These conditions of luminosity have no thermal forces associated
with them; although, paradoxically, all thermal conditions emanate
from that source. The tenuity of this element accounts for it. It is
only when these sympathetic streams come in conflict with the cruder
elementary conditions, either the molecular or atomic, that heat is
evolved from its latent state, and a different order of light from
the etheric luminous is originated, which has all the high conditions
of thermal force associated with it: the sun being the intermediate
transmitter. Thus is shown the wonderful velocity of these sympathetic
streams emanating from celestial space.
The sympathetic forces transmitted by our solar planet, to which
our earth is so susceptible, are continuously received from the
luminiferous realm; the sympathetic volume of which, as expended, is
constantly equated by the exhaustless will-force of the Creator. Had
the solar energy been subservient to what physicists ascribe it,
the sun would have been a dead planet thousands of centuries ago,
as also all planets depending upon it as an intermediate.
In fact, all planetary masses are sympathetic-transferring-mediums,
or intermediates, of this prime, luminous, dominant element. In the
vibratory subdivision of matter, as progressive evolution has been
analyzed, it is evident that these transfers of sympathetic force
extend beyond the limits of our orbital range, from system to system,
throughout the realms of space: these progressive systems becoming
themselves, after a certain range of sympathetic motion, sympathetic
intermediates, as included in the whole of one system, exemplified
so beautifully in the cerebral convolutions, with their connective
sympathy for each other; transferring as a whole on the focalizing
centre, from which it radiates to all parts of the physical organism,
controlling in all its intricate variety the sympathetic action,
of our movements.
"What is there that we really know?" asks Buckle. "We talk of the
law of gravitation, and yet we know not what gravitation is; we
talk of the conservation of force and distribution of forces, and we
know not what forces are." "The vibratory principles now discovered
in physics," says Hemstreet, "are so fine and attenuated that they
become an analogy to mental or cerebral vibrations." Let us see what
Keely's system of vibratory physics says of gravity, cohesion, etc.
What is Gravity?--Gravity is an eternal existing condition in etheric
space, from which all visible forms are condensed. Consequently,
it is inherent in all forms of matter, visible and invisible. It is
not subject to time nor space. It is an established connective link
between all forms of matter from their birth, or aggregation. Time is
annihilated by it, as it has already traversed space when the neutral
centres of the molecules were established.
Gravity, then, is nothing more than an attractive, sympathetic
stream, flowing towards the neutral centre of the earth, emanating
from molecular centres of neutrality; concordant with the earth's
centre of neutrality, and seeking its medium of affinity with a power
corresponding to the character of the molecular mass.
What is Cohesion?--Cohesion is sympathetic negative attraction. It
is the negative, vibratory assimilation, or aggregation, of the
molecules, acting according to the density or compactness of the
molecular groupings on their structures. The differing character
of molecular densities, or molecular range of motion, represents
differing powers of attraction. The lower the range of motions on
the molecular vibrations of these structures, the greater is the
attractive force that holds them together; and vice versâ.
What is Heat? Heat may be classed as a vibro-atomic element, not
exceeding 14,000 vibrations per second at its greatest intensity,
latent in all conditions of matter both visible and invisible. The
velocity of the sympathetic flows which emanate from our solar
world, the sun, coming into contact with our atmospheric medium,
liberates this element in all the different degrees of intensity that
give warmth to our earth. Light is another resultant; the different
intensities of which are produced according to the different angles
of this sympathetic projectment.
The light that emanates from a glow-worm is the resultant of the
action of the sympathetic medium of the insect itself on a centre
of phosphorescent matter, which is included in its structure. The
resultant of the two conditions are quite different, but they are
governed by the same laws of sympathetic percussion.
Radiation is the term used to express the reaching out of the thermal
element, after its liberation from its corpuscular imprisonment, to be
re-absorbed or returned again to its sympathetic environment; teaching
us a lesson in the equation of disturbance of sympathetic equilibrium.
Force.
"By what means is force exerted, and what definitely is force? Given
that force can be exerted by an act of will, do we understand the
mechanism by which this is done? And if there is a gap in our knowledge
between the conscious idea of a motion and the liberation of muscular
energy needed to accomplish it, how do we know that a body may not
be moved without ordinary material contact by an act of will?" These
questions were asked by Professor Lodge in his paper on "Time;" and
as Keely contends that all metallic substances after having been
subjected to a certain order of vibration may be so moved, let us
see how he would answer these questions. When Faraday endeavoured
to elaborate some of his "unscientific notions in regard to force
and matter," men of science then said that Faraday's writings were
not translatable into scientific language. The same has been said of
Keely's writings. Pierson says, "The very fact that there is about the
product of another's genius what you and I cannot understand is a proof
of genius, i.e., of a superior order of faculties." Keely, who claims
to have discovered the existence of hidden energy in all aggregations
of matter, imprisoned there by the infinite velocity of molecular
rotation, asserts that "physicists in their mental rambles in the
realm of analytical chemistry, analytical as understood by them, have
failed to discover the key-note which is associated with the flow of
the mental element;" that "they have antagonized or subverted all the
conditions," in this unexplored territory of negative research, which
he has demonstrated as existing in reference to latent energy locked in
corpuscular space. These antagonisms might have been sooner removed had
those physicists who witnessed some of Keely's experiments, while he
was still working blindfold as it were, in past years, not belonged
to that class of scientists "who only see what they want to see,
and who array facts and figures adroitly on the side of preconceived
opinion." Since the last meeting of the British Association, Keely,
in writing of some of the addresses delivered, says: "It delights me
to find that physicists are verging rapidly toward a region which,
when they reach, will enable them to declare to the scientific world
what they now deny; viz., that immense volumes of energy exist in all
conditions of corpuscular spaces. My demonstrations of this truth have
been ignored by them and now they must find it out for themselves. I do
not doubt that they will reach it in their own way. I accept Professor
Stoney's idea that an apsidal motion might be caused by an interaction
between high and low tenuous matter; but such conditions, even of
the highest accelerated motion, are too far down below the etheric
realm to influence it sympathetically, even in the most remote way. I
mean by this that no corpuscular action, nor interaction can disturb
or change the character of etheric vibrations. The conception of the
molecule disturbing the ether, by electrical discharges from its parts,
is not correct; as the highest conditions associated with electricity
come under the fourth descending order of sympathetic condensation,
and consequently its corpuscular realm is too remote to take any
part towards etheric disturbance. Hypothesis is one thing and actual
experimental demonstration is another; one being as remote from the
other as the electrical discharges from the recesses of the molecule
are from the tenuous condition of the universal ether. The conjecture
as regards the motion being a series of harmonic elliptic ones,
accompanied by a slow apsidal one, I believe to be correct.... The
combination of these motions would necessarily produce two circular
motions of different amplitudes whose differing periods might
correspond to two lines of the spectrum, as conjectured, and lead
the experimenter, perhaps, into a position corresponding to an
ocular illusion. Every line of the spectrum, I think, consists not
of two close lines, but of compound triple lines: though not until
an instrument has been constructed, which is as perfect in its parts
as is the sympathetic field that environs matter, can any truthful
conclusion be arrived at from demonstration."
It must be remembered that Keely claims to have demonstrated
the subdivision of matter in seven distinct orders: molecular,
intermolecular, atomic, inter-atomic, etheric, inter-etheric, reaching
the compound inter-etheric in the seventh order. In commenting further
upon the experimental researches of men of science to show whether
ether in contact with moving matter is affected by the motion of
such matter, Keely writes: "The motion of any matter of less tenuity
than the ether cannot affect it any more than atmospheric air could
be held under pressure in a perforated chamber. The tenuous flow of
a magnet cannot be waived aside by a plate of heavy glass, and yet
the magnetic flow is only of an inter-atomic character and far more
crude than the introductory etheric. The etheric element would remain
perfectly static under the travel of the most furious cyclone; it would
pass through the molecular interstices of any moving projectile with
the same facility that atmospheric air would pass though a coarse
sieve. Ether could not be affected by the motion of less tenuous
matter, but if the matter were of the same tenuous condition it would
sympathetically associate itself with it; consequently there would
be no motion any more than motion accompanies gravity.
In the same way that the mind flow induces motion on the physical
organism, sympathetic flows on molecular masses induce motion on
the molecular. The motion of the molecules in all vegetable and
mineral forms in nature are the results of the sympathetic force of
the celestial mind flow, or the etheric luminous, over terrestrial
matter. This celestial flow is the controlling medium of the universe,
and one of its closest associates is gravity.... The molecule is
a world in itself, carrying with it all the ruling sympathetic
conditions which govern the greatest of the planetary masses. It
oscillates within its etheric rotating envelope with an inconceivable
velocity, without percussing its nearest attendant, and is always
held within its sphere of action by the fixed gravital power of its
neutral centre, in the same sympathetic order that exists between
the planetary worlds. The dissociation of aggregated molecules by
intermolecular vibration does not disturb even to an atomic degree
these fixed neutral points. Each molecule contributes its quota to
the latent electrical force, which shows up by explosion after its
gathering in the storm clouds, and then it returns to the molecular
embrace it originally occupied. You may call this return, absorption;
but it gets there first during corpuscular aggregation, and comes from
there, or shows itself, during sympathetic disturbance of equilibrium.
There are three kinds of electricity, the harmonic and enharmonic,
which, with their leader, the dominant, form the first triple. Their
sympathetic associations evolve the energy of matter. The dominant
is electricity luminous, or propulsive positive. The harmonic, or
the magnetic, which is the attractive, with its wonderful sympathetic
outreach, is the negative current of the triune stream. The enharmonic,
or high neutral, acts as the assimilative towards the reinstatement
of sympathetic disturbance. In electric lighting, the velocity of
the dynamos accumulates only the harmonic current--by atomic and
inter-atomic conflict--transferring one two hundred thousandth of the
light that the dominant current would give, if it were possible to
construct a device whereby it could be concentrated and dispersed. But
this supreme portion can never be handled by any finite mode. Each
of these currents has its triple flow, representing the true lines
of the sympathetic forces that are constantly assimilating with
the polar terrestrial envelope. The rotation of the earth is one
of the exciters that disturbs the equilibrium of these sensitive
streams. The alternate light and darkness induced by this motion
helps to keep up the activity of these streams, and the consequent
assimilation and dissimilation. The light zone being ever followed
by the dark zone, holds the sympathetic polar wave constant in its
fluctuations. This fact may be looked upon as the foundation of the
fable that the world rests upon a tortoise. The rotation of the earth
is controlled and continued by the action of the positive and negative
sympathetic celestial streams. Its pure and steady motion, so free
from intermitting impulses, is governed to the most minute mathematical
nicety by the mobility of the aqueous portion of its structure, i.e.,
its oceans and ocean's anastomosis. There is said to be a grain of
truth in the wildest fable, and herein we have the elephant that the
tortoise stands on. The fixed gravital centres of neutrality, the
sympathetic concordants to the celestial outreach, that exist in the
inter-atomic position, are the connective sympathetic links whereby
the terrestrial is held in independent suspension. We cannot say that
this corresponds to what the elephant stands upon, but we can say,
"This is the power whereby the elephant is sympathetically suspended."
The Atom.
Question asked in Clerk Maxwell's memoirs: "Under what form, right,
or light, can an atom be imagined?" Keely replies, It eludes the grasp
of the imagination, for it is the introductory step to a conception
of the eternity of the duration of matter. The magnitude of the
molecule, as compared to the inter-atom, is about on the same ratio
as a billiard ball to a grain of sand; the billiard ball being the
domain wherein the triple inter-molecules rotate, the inter-molecules
again being the field wherein the atomic triplets sympathetically
act, and again progressively, in the inter-atomic field, the first
order of the etheric triplets begins to show its sympathetic inreach
for the centres of neutral focalization. It is impossible for the
imagination to grasp such a position. Inter-atomic subdivision
comes under the order of the fifth dimensional space in etheric
condensation. Atoms and corpuscules can be represented by degrees
of progressive tenuity, as according to progressive subdivision,
but to imagine the ultimate position of the atomic alone would be
like trying to take a measurement of immeasurable space. We often
speak of the borders of the infinite. No matter what the outreach
may be, nor how minute the corpuscular subdivision, we still remain
on the borders, looking over the far beyond, as one on the shore of
a boundless ocean who seeks to cross it with his gaze. Therefore,
philosophically speaking, as the atom belongs to the infinite and the
imagination to the finite, it can never be comprehended in any form
or light, nor by any right; for in the range of the imagination it
is as a bridge of mist which can never be crossed by any condition
that is associated with a visible molecular mass, that is, by mind
as associated with crude matter.
Sympathetic Outreach
is not induction. They are quite foreign to each other in
principle. Sympathetic outreach is the seeking for concordance
to establish an equation on the sympathetic disturbance of
equilibrium. When a magnet is brought into contact with a keeper,
there is no induction of magnetism from the magnet into the keeper. The
static force of the magnet remains unchanged, and the action between
the two may be compared to a sympathetic outreach of a very limited
range of motion. The sympathetic outreach of the moon towards the
earth, has a power strong enough to extend nearly a quarter of a
million of miles to lift the oceans out of their beds. This is not
the power of induction....
The sympathetic envelope of our earth owes its volume and its activity
entirely to celestial radiating forces. Reception and dispersion are
kept up by atomic and inter-atomic conflict, as between the dominant
and enharmonic.
Silver represents the 3rd, gold the 6th, and platina the 9th, in
their links of association, one to the other, in the molecular range
of their motions, when submitted to vibratory impulses.
If an introductory impulse, representing the sympathetic chord
of transmission, say B flat, or any other chord, be given to
a sectional transmitting wire, the molecular triple, that is
carried sympathetically along the path of such transmitter by the
differentiation induced, excites high sympathy with the polar
terrestrial stream. The polar terrestrial, being triune in its
character, requires a triune sympathizer to meet its differential
requirements: silver the harmonic, gold the enharmonic, and platina the
dominant. When this triple metallic condition is properly sensitized,
by any chord on the dominant, combined molecular, differentiated
action is induced; showing a condition approaching magnetism in
its development of related sympathy, without having the conditions
that are truly magnetic, as this term (magnetic) is understood by
all physicists.
Magnetism is not polar negative attraction, any more than polar
negative attraction is magnetism; for polar negative attraction shows
positive sympathetic outreach, of a high order; which is a condition
entirely foreign to magnetism.
Sympathetic negative attraction is not the resultant of electrical
sympathization, but it includes the full triune flow; the dominant
being the leader and associate of the celestial. The sympathetic
outreach, of negative attraction, is the power that holds the planetary
masses in their orbital ranges of oscillatory action. Magnetism has
no outreach, but it pervades all terrestrial masses--all planetary
masses. It is highly electrical in its character, in fact magnetism is
born of electricity; whereas negative attraction is not, but it has a
sympathetic outreach for magnetism. Magnetism is static. Sympathetic
negative attraction reaches from planet to planet; but electricity
does not, nor does magnetism. Sympathetic negative attraction is born
of the celestial, and impregnates every mass that floats in space:
seeking out all magnetic or electric conditions; and all these masses
are subservient to celestial outreach. All the magnets in the world
could not induce rotation, no matter how differentiated, but polar
negative attraction induces rotation.
Hydrogen.
The horizon of matter, which has been thought to rest over attenuated
hydrogen, may extend to infinite reaches beyond, including stuffs
or substances which have never been revealed to the senses. Beings
fashioned of this attenuated substance might walk by our side unseen,
nor cast a shadow in the noon-day sun.--Hudson Tuttle.
This supposition of itself admits that hydrogen is a compound. If
it were indivisible it would assimilate with the high luminous,
from which all substances are formed or aggregated. If hydrogen were
a simple it could not be confined. No molecular structure known to
man can hold the inter-luminous; not even the low order of it that
is chemically liberated. The word "attenuated" admits that hydrogen
is a compound. I contend that hydrogen is composed of three elements,
with a metallic base, and comes under the order of the second atomic,
both in vibration and sympathetic outreach.
Hydrogen exists only where planetary conditions exist: there it
is always present, but never in uninterfered space. There is much
celestial material that has never been revealed to the senses. My
researches lead me to think that hydrogen carries heat in a latent
condition, but I do not believe it will ever be possible to originate
a device that will vibrate hydrogen with a velocity to induce heat.
The word imponderable as applied to a molecule is incorrect. All gases
as well as atmospheric air are molecular in their structures. If
atmospheric air is subdivided, by atomic vibration, it merely
dissociates the hydrogen from the oxygen; neither of which, though
disunited, passes from the inter-molecular state; and not until
hydrogen is sympathetically subdivided in its inter-molecular structure
by inter-atomic vibrations can it assimilate with the introductory
etheric element. There is a wonderful variation of gravital sympathy
between the gaseous elements of compounds, all of which comes under
the head of molecular....
Under date of October 1st, 1891, Mr. Keely writes: I see no possibility
of failure, as I have demonstrated that my theories are correct in
every particular, as far as I have gone; and if I am not handicapped in
any way during the next eight months, and my depolarizer is perfect,
I will then be prepared to demonstrate the truth of all that I assert
in reference to disintegration, cerebral diagnosis, aerial suspension
and dissociation, and to prove the celestial gravital link of sympathy
as existing between the polar terrestrial and equation of mental
disturbance of equilibrium. It is a broad assertion for one man, and
'an ignorant man' at that, to make; but the proof will then be so
overwhelming in its truthful simplicity that the most simple-minded
can understand it. Then I will be prepared to give to science and to
commerce a system that will elevate both to a position far above that
which they now occupy.
Again, November 4th, Mr. Keely says: The proper system for the
treatment of cerebral differentiation is not yet known to the
physician of to-day. The dissimilarities of opinion existing,
with regard to any case, are confounding. When the true system
is recognized, the vast number of physical experimentalists, now
torturing humanity, will die a natural death. Until this climax is
reached, physical suffering must go on multiplying at the same ratio
that experimentalists increase. Molecular differentiation is the fiend
that wrecks the physical world, using the seat of the cerebral forces
as its intermediate transmitter. It is the devastating dragon of the
universe, and will continue to devastate until a St. George arises
to destroy it. The system of equating molecular differentiation is
the St. George that will conquer.
When my system is completed for commerce, it will be ready for science
and art. I have become an extensive night worker, giving not less
than eighteen hours a day, in times of intensification. I have timed
my race for life and I am bound to make it....
New York Truth, 15th May, 1890, in commenting upon Keely's claims to
have "annihilated gravity and turned the mysterious polar current
to a mill-race," continues: "I sincerely hope that Mr. Keely may
prove, AS FROM LATE DEVELOPMENTS HE IS LIKE TO DO, that the hidden
spirit of the Cosmos, which men call Deity, First Cause, Nature,
and other sonorous but indefinite names, has manifested itself to
him; that the music of the spheres is a truth, not an imagination,
and that vibration, which is sight, hearing, taste and smell, is in
serious verity, all else. The fable of Orpheus and Arion may have
a foundation in actual physics, the harmonies that move our souls
to grief or joy as music, may be the same as those that govern and
impel the stars in their courses, cause molecules to crystallize
into symmetry, and from symmetry into life. Who shall say? If the
accounts of Keely's late achievements be true, and they are honestly
vouched for by men of worth and note, then the secret is laid bare,
the core of being is opened out. In this age of dawning reason the
candle cannot always be hidden under a bushel; some enterprising hand
will lift the obstruction and let the light shine before men."
Two years have nearly passed away since this was written, during
which time Mr. Keely has been engaged in perfecting his system for
aerial navigation. He has, one by one, overcome all obstacles, and
so far gained control, of the mysterious polar current, that he has
been able to exhibit on the thirds, or molecular graduation of the
propeller of his air-ship, 120 revolutions in a minute; and on the
sixths, or atomic graduation, 360 revolutions in a minute. He still
has the etheric field to conquer; but those who know how many years he
has been making his mistakes stepping-stones in his upward progress,
surmounting obstacle after obstacle which would have dismayed a less
courageous soul, feel little doubt that he will "make the race," which
he has timed for life, and reach the goal a conqueror, notwithstanding
he is still so often "handicapped."
All those who had the privilege of witnessing Keely's researching
experiments, in the spring of 1890, when he first succeeded in raising
the metal weight, and who were sufficiently acquainted with the
laws of physics to understand the conditions under which the weight
was raised, pronounced the force by which it was affected to be an
unknown force. Had the weight been but a nail or a feather, lifted
under such conditions, physicists know that, after he has gained as
perfect control of it as we now have of steam, air-ships weighing
thousands of tons can be raised to any height in our atmosphere,
and the seemingly untraversable highways of the air opened to commerce.
This force is not, like steam or electricity, fraught with danger
in certain states to those who use it; for, after the molecular
mass of the vessel has been fitted to the conditions required,
its control becomes of such a nature that seemingly a star might as
soon go astray, and be lost to the universe, as for the aerial ship
to meet with an accident, unless its speed was pushed to that point
where gravity resumes its control. In fact, Keely asserts that there
is no known force so safe to use as the polar terrestrial force,
for when the celestial and terrestrial conditions are once set up,
they remain for ever; perpetual molecular action the result.
In using the word celestial, Keely refers to the air, in the same
sense that terrestrial refers to the earth.
Wide through the waste of ether, sun and star
All linked by harmony, which is the chain
That binds to earth the orbs that wheel afar
Through the blue fields of Nature's wide domain.
Percival.
From the New York Home Journal.
THE SONG OF THE CARBONS. [22]
A weird, sweet melody, faint and far,
A humming murmur, a rhythmic ring,
Floats down from the tower where the lenses are:--
Can you hear the song which the carbons sing?
Millions of æons have rolled away
In the grand chorale which the stars rehearse,
Since the note, so sweet in our song to-day,
Was struck in the chord of the universe.
The vast vibration went floating on
Through the diapason of space and time,
Till the impulse swelled to a deeper tone,
And mellowed and thrilled with a finer rhyme.
Backward and forward the atoms go
In the surging tide of that soundless sea,
Whose billows from nowhere to nowhere flow,
As they break on the sands of eternity.
Yet, through all the coasts of the endless All,
In the ages to come, as in ages gone,
We feel but the throb of that mystic thrall
Which binds responsive the whole in one.
We feel but the pulse of that viewless hand
Which ever has been and still shall be,
In the stellar orb and the grain of sand,
Through nature's endless paternity.
The smile which plays in the maiden's glance,
Or stirs in the beat of an insect's wing,
Is of kin with the north light's spectral dance,
Or the dazzling zone of the planet's ring.
From our lonely tower aloft in air,
With the breezes around us, tranquil and free,
When the storm rack pales in the lightning's glare,
Or the starlight sleeps in the sleeping sea,
We send our greeting through breathless space,
To our distant cousins, the nebulæ,
And catch in the comet's misty trace,
But a drifting leaf from the tribal tree.
The song we hum is but one faint sound
In the hymn which echoes from pole to pole,
Which fills the domes of creation's round,
And catches its key from the over-soul.
And when it ceases all life shall fail,
Time's metronome shall arrested stand;
All voice be voiceless, the stars turn pale,
And the great conductor shall drop his wand.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A PIONEER IN AN UNKNOWN REALM.
Thus, either present elements are the true elements, or
there is a probability of eventually obtaining some more
high and general power of Nature, even than electricity;
and which, at the same time, might reveal to us an entirely
new grade of the elements of matter, now hidden from our view
and almost from our suspicion.--The Nature of the Chemical
Elements. Faraday, 1836.
A mysterious force exists in the vibrations of the ether,
called sound, which science and invention have so far
failed to utilize; but which, no doubt in the near future,
will come under man's control, for driving the wheels of
industry.--Thought as Force. E. S. Huntington.
Force and forces--
No end of forces! Have they mind like men?
Browning.
The Spectator, commenting on the jubilee of the Chemical Society,
last year, said it was notable for two remarkable speeches; one by
Lord Salisbury, and the other by Sir Lyon Playfair. Lord Salisbury
reminded his hearers that about one hundred years ago, a very
celebrated tribunal had informed Lavoisier that the French Republic
had no need of chemists; "but," said his Lordship, "Lavoisier,
though a man of very advanced opinions, was behind this age." Lord
Salisbury proceeded to exalt chemistry as an instrument of the higher
educational discipline. Astronomy, he said, was hardly more than a
science of things that probably are; for, at such distance in space,
it was impossible to verify your inferences. Geology he regarded as a
science of things as they probably were; verification being impossible
after such a lapse of time. But chemistry he treated as a science
of things as they actually are at the present time. The Spectator
remarks:--Surely that is questionable. All hypothesis is more or less a
matter of probability. No one has ever verified the existence of atoms.
Sir Lyon Playfair, following Lord Salisbury, said, Boyle has been
called the father of chemistry and the brother of the Earl of Cork;
ironically hinting, perhaps, that Lord Salisbury was reflecting as
much immediate glory on chemistry, by his interest in it, as did the
relationship of the first considerable chemist to the Irish earl. Sir
Lyon, acknowledging the revolutionizing progress of chemistry,
remarked that within the last fifty years it had seen great changes;
then, oxygen was regarded as the universal lover of other elements;
and nitrogen was looked upon as a quiet, confirmed bachelor; but
oxygen had turned out to be a comparatively respectable bigamist, that
only marries two wives at a time; and nitrogen had turned out to be a
polygamist; generally requiring three conjugates, and sometimes five,
at a time. The false teachings of physicists in the past were admitted,
including Sir Lyon's own errors; his old conceptions concerning
carbonic acid and carbonic oxide all having broken down, under the
crushing feet of progress. After all, says the Spectator, it seems
that the French revolutionists should have welcomed chemistry, instead
of snubbing it, for it has been the most revolutionary of sciences.
At the present time, notwithstanding the experiences of the past,
Science stands as calmly on the pedestal, to which she has exalted
herself, as if not even an earthquake could rock its foundations. In
her own opinion, she holds the key to nature's domains. Some few there
are who are ready to admit that it is possible Nature still holds the
key herself; and who are not unwilling to encounter another revolution,
if they can extend their knowledge of Nature's laws; even though it
may leave only ruins, where now all is supposed to be so solid as to
defy earthquakes and other revolutionizing forces.
In reviewing the history of the onward march of chemistry in the
past, we find that Robert Boyle, who lived from 1627 to 1691, was
the first chemist who grasped the idea of the distinctions between
an elementary and a compound body. He has been called the first
scientific chemist, and he certainly did much to advance chemical
science, particularly in the borderland of chemistry and physics,
but he did this more by his overthrow of false theories, than in any
other way. It was left for Scheele (born 1742), an obscure Swedish
chemist whose discoveries extended over the whole range of chemical
science, and his French contemporary, Lavoisier (born 1743), to
bring about a complete revolution in chemistry. Thus, step by step,
and period by period, experimental science has prepared the way to
reach that elevation which humanity is destined eventually to attain,
when all errors have been discarded and truth reigns triumphant. The
question has been asked, in view of the past history of discovery,
what may not the science of the future accomplish in the unseen
pathways of the air? That still unconquered field lies before us,
and we know that it is only a question of time when man will hold
dominion there with as firm sway as he now holds it on land and sea.
Physics and chemistry walk hand in hand. Scientists cannot cut the tie
that joins them together in experimental science. Physics treats of
the changes of matter without regard to its internal constitution. The
laws of gravitation and cohesion belong to physical science. They
concern matter without reference to its composition. Chemistry makes
us acquainted with the constituents of the different forms of matter,
their proportions and the changes which they are capable of bringing
about in each other. But notwithstanding the lessons of the past, both
chemistry and physics are blind to what the future has in store for
them. Scientists have erected barriers to progress, building them so
as to appear of solid masonry on the ground of false hypotheses; but,
when the hour is ripe, these will be swept away as if by a cyclone,
leaving not one stone on another. It was Boyle who overthrew the
so-called Aristotelian doctrine, and Paracelsus's teachings of the
three constitutents of matter, disputed first by Van Helmont. Boyle
taught that chemical combination consists of an approximation of the
smallest particles of matter, and that a decomposition takes place when
a third body is present, capable of exerting on the particles of the
one element a greater attraction than is exercised by the particles
of the element with which it is combined. In this conjecture there is
just a hint of the grand potentialities in the unknown realm which is
now being explored by Keely, the discoverer of the order of vibration
that releases the latent force held in the interstitial spaces of the
constituents of water; one order of vibration, being more in sympathy
with one of the elements of water than with the other, possesses a
greater attraction for that element and thereby raptures its atoms,
showing up new elements. Not all men of science are willing to admit
the atomic theory; although it explains satisfactorily all the known
laws of chemical combination. Dalton, accepting the teachings of
the ancients as to the atomic constitution of matter, was the first
to propound a truly chemical atomic theory; a quantitative theory,
declaring that the atoms of the different elements are not of the same
weight, and that the relative atomic weights of the elements are the
proportions, by weight, in which the elements combine. All previous
theories, or suggestions, had been simply qualitative. Berzelius,
the renowned Swedish chemist, advancing Dalton's atomic theory, laid
the foundation stones of chemical science, as it now exists. Since
his day, by the new methods of spectrum analysis, elements unknown
before have been discovered; and researchers in this field are
now boldly questioning whether all the supposed elements are really
undecomposable substances, and are conjecturing that they are not. On
this subject Sir Henry Roscoe says:--
"So far as our chemical knowledge enables us to judge, we may assume,
with a considerable degree of probability, that by the application
of more powerful means than are known at present, chemists will
succeed in obtaining still more simple bodies from the so-called
elements. Indeed, if we examine the history of our science, we find
frequent examples occurring of bodies, that only a short time ago were
considered to be elementary, which have been shown to be compounds,
upon more careful examination."
What the chemist's retort has failed to accomplish has been effected
by the discoverer of latent force existing in all forms of matter,
where it is held locked in the interstitial spaces, until released
by a certain order of vibration. As yet, the order of vibration which
releases this force, has not been discovered in any forms of matter,
excepting in the constituents of gunpowder, dynamite, and water. The
Chinese are supposed to have invented, centuries before the birth of
Christ, the explosive compound gunpowder, which requires that order of
vibration known as heat to bring about a rupture of the molecules of
the nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, of which it is composed. Dynamite
requires another order of vibration--concussion--to release the
latent force held in the molecular embrace of its constituents. The
order of vibration discovered by Keely, which causes the rupture
of the molecular and atomic capsules of the constituents of water,
must remain--though in one point only--a secret with the discoverer,
until he has completed his system for science, and some one patentable
invention. Let physicists be incredulous or cautious, it matters not
to him. He has proved to his own satisfaction the actual existence of
atoms and their divisibility--and, to the satisfaction of thousands
capable of forming an opinion, the existence of an unknown force. Men
of science have not been in any haste to aid him, either with money
or with sympathy, in his researches; and he will take his own time
to bestow upon them the fruit of those researches.
Those who have not clear ideas as to the nature of elementary
bodies--molecules and atoms--may like to know that elements are
defined as simple substances, out of which no other two or more
essentially differing substances have been obtained. Compounds are
bodies out of which two or more essentially differing substances have
been obtained. A molecule is the smallest part of a compound or element
that is capable of existence in a free state. Atoms are set down, by
those who believe in the atomic theory, as the indivisible constituents
of molecules. Thus, an element is a substance made up of atoms of the
same kind; a compound is a substance made up of atoms of unlike kind.
Over seventy elements are now known, out of which, or compounds of
these with each other, our globe is composed, and also the meteoric
stones which have fallen on our earth. The science of chemistry aims at
the experimental examination of the elements and their compounds, and
the investigation of the laws which regulate their combination one with
another. For example, in the year 1805, Gay-Lussac and Von Humboldt
found that one volume of oxygen combines with exactly two volumes of
hydrogen to form water, and that these exact proportions hold good
at whatever temperature the gases are brought into contact. Oxygen
and hydrogen are now classified as elementary bodies.
The existence of atoms, if proved, as claimed by the pioneer of whom
we write, confirms Priestly's idea that all discoveries are made
by chance; for it certainly was by a mere chance, as we view things
with our limited knowledge, that Keely stumbled over the dissociation
of the supposed simple elements of water by vibratory force; [23]
thus making good Roscoe's assumption that, by the application of more
powerful means than were known to him, still more simple bodies would
be shown up. Had Keely subdivided these corpuscles of matter, after a
method known to physicists, he would have been hailed as a discoverer,
when it was announced by Arthur Goddard, in the British Mercantile
Gazette, in 1887, that Keely declared electricity to be a certain
form of atomic vibration of what is called the luminiferous ether.
Had Keely been better understood, science might have been marching
with giant strides across this unknown realm during the many years
in which men of learning have refused to witness the operation of the
dissociation of water, because one of their number decided, in 1876,
that Keely was using compressed air. Fixing bounds to human knowledge,
she still refuses to listen to the suggestion that what she has
declared as truth may be as grossly erroneous as were her teachings
in the days when the rotation of the earth was denied; this denial
being based upon the assertions of all the great authorities of more
than one thousand years, that the earth could not move because it was
flat and stationary. Herodotus ridiculed those who did not believe
this. For two thousand years after the daily rotation of the earth
was first suggested, the idea was disputed and derided. The history
of the past, says General Drayson, who claims to have discovered
a third movement of the earth, teaches us that erroneous theories
were accepted as grand truths by all the scientific authorities of
the whole world during more than five thousand years. [24] Although
the daily rotation of the earth and its annual revolution around
the sun had been received as facts by the few advanced minds, some
five hundred years before Christ, yet the obstructions caused by
ignorance and prejudice prevented these truths from being generally
accepted until about three hundred years ago, when Copernicus first,
and afterwards Galileo, revived the theory of the earth's two principal
movements. Human nature is the same as in the days when Seneca said
that men would rather cling to an error than admit they were in the
wrong; so it is not strange that General Drayson, as the discoverer
of a third movement, has not received the attention that he deserves,
although his mathematical demonstrations seem to be beyond dispute.
With Keely's claim, that latent force exists in all forms of matter,
it is different; for it is susceptible of proof by experiment. In the
days when the sphericity of the earth was denied, for the asserted
reason that the waters of the oceans and seas on its surface would
be thrown off in its revolutions were it so, because water could
not stay on a round ball, the statement could not be disputed; the
theory of the laws of gravitation being then unknown. Copernicus
and Galileo had nothing but theories to offer; consequently it took
long years to overcome the bigotry and the baneful influence of
the great authorities of the time. It is otherwise with Keely, who,
for fifteen years and more, has been demonstrating this discovery to
thousands of men; some of whom, but not all, were competent to form
an opinion as to whether he was "humbugging with compressed air,"
or with a concealed dynamo, or, still more absurd, with tricks in
suction, as I asserted by a learned professor.
Now that some of our men of science have consented to form their
opinions from observation, without interfering with the lines of
progressive experimental research which the discoverer is pursuing,
there seems to be no doubt as to the result; nor of the protection
of the discovery by science. Truth is mighty, and must in the end
prevail over mere authority.
It has been said that we need nothing more than the history of
astronomy to teach us how obstinately the strongholds of error are
clung to by incompetent reasoners; but when a stronghold is demolished,
there is nothing left to cling to. Sir John Lubbock says:--The great
lesson which science teaches is how little we yet know, and how much
we have still to learn. To which it might be added, and how much we
have to unlearn!
All mysteries are said to be either truths concealing deeper truths,
or errors concealing deeper errors; and thus, as the mysteries
unfold, truth or error will show itself in a gradually clearer light,
enabling us to distinguish between the two. It is now left for men
of science to decide as to the nature of the mysteries which Keely
is slowly unfolding, and whether his demonstrations substantiate his
theories. They have been invited to follow him in his experimental
research, step by step; to bestow upon him sympathy and encouragement,
so long withheld, until he reaches that stage where he will no longer
need their protection. Then, if science is satisfied that he has gained
a treasure for her, in his years of dead-work, she must step aside
and wait patiently until he has fulfilled his obligations to those
who organized themselves into a company to aid him, long before she
came forward to interest herself in his behalf. Those men of science
who have refused to countenance this great work, even by witnessing
experiments made to prove the discovery of an unknown force, are
men who attempt no explanation of the miracles of nature by which
we are surrounded, assuming that no explanation can be given; but,
as Bacon has said, he is a bad mariner, who concludes, when all is
sea around him, that there is no land beyond.
If the multitude of so-called laws of nature could be resolved into
one grand universal law, would it not be considered a great step
in the progress of scientific knowledge? This is what our pioneer
claims for his discoveries, one law working throughout nature, in all
things; for, as Macvicar says, the productive and conservative agency
in creation, as it exists and acts, does not consist of two things,
"idea" and "power"; but of a unity embracing both, for which there is
no special name. The relation between the Creator and the Creation,
the First Cause and what he has effected, is altogether inscrutable;
but intelligence acting analytically, as it cannot be kept from doing,
insists on these two elements in the problem, viz. idea and power.
"The law of the universe is a distinct dualism while the creative
energies are at work; and of a compound union when at rest."
The hypothesis that motion can only be effected mechanically,
by pressure or traction or contact of some kind, is an utterly
helpless one to explain even familiar movements. Gravitation itself,
the grandest and most prevailing phenomenon of the material universe,
has set all genius at defiance when attempting to conceive a mechanism
which might account for it. The law of sympathetic association, or
sympathetic assimilation, between two or more atoms, or masses of
atoms, explains this grand phenomenon; but Roscoe, in theorizing on
the atomic theory, says that from purely chemical considerations it
appears unlikely the existence of atoms will ever be proved. It never
could have been proved by mechanical physics nor by chemistry. The law
which locks the atoms together would have remained an unknown law,
had not Keely opened the door leading into one of nature's domains
which was never entered before, unless by the fabled Orpheus, who,
mythology tells us, was killed because he revealed to man what the
gods wished to conceal. Certainly, whether Orpheus ever existed or
not, the principle which Pythagoras promulgated as the teaching of
Orpheus is disclosed in one of Keely's discoveries.
In the great fresco of the school of Athens, by Raphael, Pythagoras
is represented as explaining to his pupils his theory that the same
principle underlies the harmonies of music and the motion of heavenly
bodies. One of these pupils holds in his hand a tablet, shaped like a
zither, on which are inscribed the Greek words, Diapason, Diapente,
Diatessaron. Of the diapason, or concord of all, Spenser writes,
in The Faerie Queen:--
Nine was the circle set in heaven's place,
All which compacted made a goodly diapase.
Here we have a clue to the Thirds, Sixths and Ninths of Keely's
theories, in the operation of his polar negative attractor. The
conception of the Pythagoreans of music, as the principle of the
creation's order, and the mainstay and supporter of the material world,
is strictly in accordance with the marvellous truths which are now
being unfolded to science. Rightly divined Browning when he wrote of
... music's mystery, which mind fails
To fathom; its solution no mere clue;
and Cardinal Newman also, when he discoursed of musical sounds,
"under which great wonders unknown to us seem to have been typified,"
as "the living law of divine government." Since the days of Leucippus,
poets and philosophers have often touched upon the mysteries hidden in
sound, which are now being revealed in the experimental researches of
Keely. These truths make no impression on those who are not gifted
with any comprehension of nature's harmonious workings, and are
regarded as flights of fancy and of rhetoric. Among the utterances of
inspiration--and all truth is inspired--one of the most remarkable,
when taken in connection with these discoveries, is found in these
eloquent words of the Dean of Boston University in his "Review of
Herbert Spencer," printed in 1876:--
"Think of the universal warring of tremendous forces which is for
ever going on, and remember that out of this strife is born, not
chaos void and formless, but a creation of law and harmony. Bear
in mind, too, that this creation is filled with the most marvellous
mechanisms, with the most exquisite contrivances, and with forms of
the rarest beauty. Remember, also, that the existence of these forms
for even a minute depends upon the nicest balance of destructive
forces. Abysses of chaos yawn on every side, and yet creation holds
on its way. Nature's keys need but to be jarred to turn the tune into
unutterable discord, and yet the harmony is preserved. Bring hither
your glasses--and see that, from atomic recess to the farthest depth,
there is naught but 'toil co-operant to an end.' All these atoms move
to music; all march in tune. Listen until you catch the strain, and
then say whether it is credible that a blind force should originate
and maintain all this."
Sir John Herschel said:--There is some principle in the science of
music that has yet to be discovered.
It is this principle which has been discovered by Keely. Let his
theories be disputed as they have been, and as they still may be,
the time has come in which his supporters claim that he is able to
demonstrate what he teaches; is able to show how superficial are
the foundations of the strongholds to which physicists are clinging;
and able to prove purity of conditions in physical science which not
even the philosophers and poets of the past have so much as dreamed
of in their hours of inspiration.
... ways are made,
Burdens are lifted, or are laid,
By some great law unseen and still,
Unfathomed purpose to fulfil.
Our materialistic physicists, our Comtist and agnostic philosophers,
have done their best to destroy our faith.
Of him who will not believe in Soul because his scalpel cannot detect
it, Browning wrote:
To know of, think about--
Is all man's sum of faculty effects,
When exercised on earth's least atom.
What was, what is, what may such atoms be?--
Unthinkable, unknowable to man.
Yet, since to think and know fire through and through
Exceeds man, is the warmth of fire unknown?
Its uses--are they so unthinkable?
Pass from such obvious power to powers unseen,
Undreamed of save in their sure consequence:
Take that we spoke of late, which draws to ground
The staff my hand lets fall; it draws at least--
Thus much man thinks and knows, if nothing more.
These lines were written in reference to Keely's discovery of the
infinite subdivision of the atom; for not until a much later period was
Browning influenced by a New York journalist to look upon Keely as "a
modern Cagliostro." Keely's discovery was the key-note of "Ferishtah's
Fancies," written by Browning before he met this journalist.
Professor Koenig writes:--I have long given up the idea of
understanding the Universe; with a little insight into its microcosm,
I would feel quite satisfied; as every day it becomes more puzzling.
But there are no boundaries set to knowledge in the life of the Soul,
and these discoveries reach out so far towards the Infinite, that
we are led by them to realize how much there is left for science to
explore in the supposed unfathomable depths of the etheric domain,
whence proceeds the influence that connects us with that infinite
and eternal energy from which all things proceed.
The attitude of willingness to receive truths, of whatever
nature, now manifested by men of science in regard to Keely's
experimental research, is shared by all who are not "wise in their
own conceit." They stand ready to welcome, while waiting for proof,
the discovery of Darwin's grand-niece, Mrs. F. J. Hughes, as now
demonstrated by Keely, viz., that the laws which develop and control
harmonies, develop and control the universe; and they will rejoice
to be convinced (as Keely teaches) that all corpuscular aggregation
absorbs energy, holding it latent in its embrace until liberated by a
certain order of vibration; that nature does not aggregate one form
of matter under one law, and another form of matter under another
law. When this has been demonstrated, to their entire satisfaction,
they will acknowledge that Faraday's speculations on the nature
of force and matter pointed the way to Keely's discoveries. Some
broad-minded men have been pursuing lines of research which give
evidence of their desire to solve the problem for themselves as
to the mode of rupturing the atom, which science declares to be
indivisible. Before any great scientific principle receives distinct
enunciation, says Tyndall, it has dwelt more or less clearly in many
minds. The intellectual plateau is already high, and our discoverers
are those who, like peaks above the plateau, rise over the general
level of thought at the time. If, as Browning has said,
'Tis not what man does which exalts him, but what man would do,
surely this discoverer merits the sympathy and the admiration of
all men, whether he succeeds commercially or not, for his persistent
efforts to make his discoveries of use to the world. Keely has always
said that scientists would never be able to understand his discoveries
until he had reached some practical or commercial result. Only now he
sees an interest awakened among men of science, which is as gratifying
to him as it is unexpected. For the first time in his life, he is
working with the appreciation of men competent to comprehend what
he has done in the past, and what remains to be done in the future,
without one aspiration on their part for monetary results.
Foremost among these men was the late Joseph Leidy, Professor of
Biology in the University of Pennsylvania; but physicists were not
satisfied to take the opinion of this great man, because he was a
biologist. What better preparation than the study of the science of
life could a man have to qualify him for discriminating between laws
of nature as conjectured by physicists, and Nature's operations as
demonstrated by Keely?
To such men, possessing entire scientific and intellectual liberty of
thought, with that love of justice and truth which keeps its possessor
from self-conceit, arrogance and intolerance, the world owes all
that we now possess of scientific advance, since the days when men
believed the thunder and lightning to be the artillery of the gods.
Lucifer, September, 1892.
CHAPTER XIX.
LATENT FORCE IN INTERSTITIAL SPACES--ELECTRO-MAGNETIC
RADIATION--MOLECULAR DISSOCIATION.
(By John Ernst Worrell Keely.)
The atom is infinitely divisible.--Arthur Schopenhauer.
For thou well knowest that the imbecility of our understanding,
in not comprehending the more abstruse and retired causes of
things, is not to be ascribed to any defect in their nature,
but in our own hoodwinkt intellect.--P. 6, A Ternary of
Paradoxes.--Van Helmont.
The advance of science, which for a time overshadowed
philosophy, has brought men face to face once more with
ultimate questions, and has revealed the impotence of science
to deal with its own conditions and pre-suppositions. The needs
of science itself call for a critical doctrine of knowledge
as the basis of an ultimate theory of things. Philosophy
must criticize not only the categories of science but also
the metaphysical systems of the past.--Prof. Seth.
Latent Force.
Science, even in its highest progressive conditions, cannot assert
anything definite. The many mistakes that men of science have
made in the past prove the fallacy of asserting. By doing so they
bastardize true philosophy and, as it were, place the wisdom of God
at variance; as in the assertion that latent power does not exist
in corpuscular aggregations of matter, in all its different forms,
visible or invisible.
Take, for example, gunpowder, which is composed of three different
mediums of aggregated matter, saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur,
each representing different orders of molecular density which,
when associated under proper conditions, gives what is called an
explosive compound. In fact it is a mass which is made susceptible
at any moment by its exciter fire, which is an order of vibration,
to evolve a most wonderful energy in volume many thousands of times
greater than the volume it represents in its molecular mass. If it be
not latent force that is thus liberated by its exciter, a mere spark,
what is it? Are not the gases that are evolved in such great volume and
power held latent in the molecular embrace of its aggregated matter,
before being excited into action? If this force is not compressed
there, nor placed there by absorption, how did it get there? And by
what power was it held in its quiescent state? I contend that it was
placed there at the birth of the molecule by the law of sympathetic
etheric focalization towards the negative centres of neutrality with a
velocity as inconceivable in its character as would be the subdivision
of matter to an ultimate end. Again, what is the energy that is held
in the molecular embrace of that small portion of dynamite which by
slight concussion, another order of vibration, evolves volumes of
terrific force, riving the solid rock and hurling massive projectiles
for miles? If it is not latent power that is excited into action, what
is it? Finally, what is held in the interstitial corpuscular embrace
of water, which by its proper exciter another form of vibration,
is liberated showing almost immeasurable volume and power? Is not
this energy latent, quiet, until brought forth by its sympathetic
negative exciter? Could the force thus evolved from these different
substances be confined again, or pressed back and absorbed into the
interstitial spaces occupied before liberation, where the sympathetic
negative power of the Infinite One originally placed it? [25]
If latent force is not accumulated and held in corpuscular aggregations
how is it that progressive orders of disintegration of water induce
progressive conditions of increased volume and of higher power? I
hold that in the evolved gases of all explosive compounds, dynamite
or any other, there exists deeper down in the corpuscular embrace of
the gaseous element, induced by the first explosion, a still greater
degree of latent energy that could be awakened by the proper condition
of vibration; and still further on ad infinitum. [26]
Is it possible to imagine that mere molecular dissociation could show
up such immense volumes of energy, unassociated with the medium of
latent force?
The question arises, How is this sympathetic power held in the
interstitial corpuscular condition?
Answer.--By the incalculable velocity of the molecular and atomic
etheric capsules, [27] which velocity represents billions of
revolutions per second in their rotations. We shall imagine a sphere
of twelve inches in diameter, representing a magnified molecule
surrounded by an atmospheric envelope of one sixteenth of an inch
in depth; the envelope rotating at a velocity of the same increased
ratio of the molecule's magnification. At the very lowest estimate
it would give a velocity of six hundred thousand miles per second,
or twenty-four thousand times the circumference of the earth in
that time. Is it possible to compute what the velocity would be,
on the same ratio, up to the earth's diameter?[#2] It is only under
such illustrations that we can be brought even to faintly imagine the
wonderful sympathetic activity that exists in the molecular realm. An
atmospheric film, rotating on a twelve inch sphere at the same ratio as
the molecular one, would be impenetrable to a steel-pointed projectile
at its greatest velocity; and would hermetically enclose a resisting
pressure of many thousands of pounds per square inch. The latent force
evolved in the disintegration of water proves this fact; for under
etheric evolution, in progressive orders of vibration, these pressures
are evolved, and show their energy on a lever especially constructed
for the purpose, strong enough for measuring a force over three times
that of gunpowder. We shall continue this subject a little farther,
and this little farther will reach out into infinity. The speculations
of the physicists of the present age, in regard to latent energy,
would neutralize the sympathetic conditions that are associated with
the governing force of the cerebral and the muscular organism. The
evolution of a volition, the infinite exciter, arouses the latent
energy of the physical organism to do its work; differential orders
of brain-force acting against each other under dual conditions. If
there were no latent energy to arouse sympathetically, there would
be no action in the physical frame; as all force is will-force.
All the evolutions of latent power in its varied multiplicity of action
induced by its proper exciters, prove the connecting link between
the celestial and the terrestrial, the finite and the infinite. (See
Appendix I.)
There would be no life, and therefore no action in aggregated matter,
had the latent negative force been left out of it.
If a bar of steel or iron is brought into contact with a magnet, the
latent force that the steel or iron is impregnated with is aroused,
and shows its interstitial latent action by still holding another
bar. But this experiment does not give the most remote idea of the
immensity of the force that would show itself on more progressive
exciters. Enough alternate active energy could be evolved, by the
proper sympathetic exciter, in one cubic inch of steel to do the work
of a horse, by its sympathetic association with the polar force in
alternate polarization and depolarization.
This is the power that I am now getting under control (using the
proper exciters as associated with the mechanical media) to do
commercial work. In other words, I am making a sympathetic harness
for the polar terrestrial force: first, by exciting the sympathetic
concordant force that exists in the corpuscular interstitial domain,
which is concordant to it; and secondly, after the concordance is
established, by negatizing the thirds, sixths, and ninths of this
concordance, thereby inducing high velocities with great power by
intermittent negation, as associated with the dominant thirds.
Again: Take away the sympathetic latent force that all matter is
impregnated with, the connective link between the finite and the
infinite would be dissociated, and gravity would be neutralized;
bringing all visible and invisible aggregations back into the great
etheric realm.
Here let me ask, What does the term cohesion mean? What is the
power that holds molecules together, but electro-magnetic negative
attraction? What is the state that is brought about by certain
conditions of sympathetic vibration, causing molecules to repel each
other, but electro-magnetic radiation?
It must not be understood that the character of the action of the
latent force liberated from liquids and gases is the same, in its
evolution, as that of the latent force existing in metals. The former
shows up an elastic energy, which emanates from the breaking up of
their rotating envelopes; increasing, at the same time, the range
of their corpuscular action: thus giving, under confinement, elastic
forces of an almost infinite character. By liberation from the tube
it is confined in, it seeks its medium of concordant tenuity with a
velocity greater than that of light.
In metals, the latent force, as excited by the same sympathizer,
extends its range of neutral sympathetic attraction without corpuscular
rupture, and reaches out as it were to link itself with its harmonic
sympathizer, as long as its exciter is kept in action. When its exciter
is dissociated, its outreach nestles back again into the corpuscular
embrace of the molecular mass that has been acted upon. [28]
This is the polar sympathetic harness, as between metallic mediums
and the polar dominant current,--the leader of the triune stream of
the terrestrial flow. (See Appendix II.)
The velocity of the sympathetic bombarding streams, towards the centres
of neutrality, in the corpuscular atoms, during sympathetic aggregation
of visible molecular masses (in registering the latent force in their
interstitial spaces), is thousands of times greater than that of the
most sensitive explosives. An atmospheric stream of that velocity
would atomize the plate of an ironclad, if brought to bear on it.
If the evolution of the power of a volition be set down as one, what
number would that represent in the power evolved by such volition on
the physical organism? To answer this we must first be able, mentally,
to get down to the neutral central depths of the corpuscular atoms,
where gravity ceases, to get its unit; and in the second place we
must be able to weigh it as against the force physically evolved.
How true, "the finer the force the greater the power!" and the
greater is the velocity, also; and the more mathematically infinite
the computation.
Yet all these conditions of evolution and concentration are
accomplished by the celestial mind force, as associated with
terrestrial brain matter.
The first seal is being broken, in the book of vibratory philosophy:
the first stepping-stone is placed toward reaching the solution of
that infinite problem,--the source of life.
Theory of Vibratory Lift for Air-Ships.
All molecular masses of terrestrial matter are composed of the
ultimate ether,--from which all things originally emanated. They
are sympathetically drawn towards the earth's centre, as according
to the density of their molecular aggregation, minus their force or
sympathetic outreach towards celestial association. In other words,
the celestial flow as controlling terrestrial physical organisms.
The sympathetic outflow from the celestial streams reaches the infinite
depths of all the diversified forms of matter. Thus it is seen that the
celestial flow which permeates, to its atomic depths, the terrestrial
convolutions of all matter, forms the exact sympathetic parallel to
the human brain-flow and the physical organism,--a perfect connective
link of controlling sympathy, or sympathetic control. Under certain
orders of sympathetic vibration, polar and anti-polar, the attractive
sympathies of either stream can be intensified, so as to give the
predominance to the celestial or to the terrestrial.
If the predominance be given to the celestial, to a certain degree,
on a mass of metal, it will ascend from the earth's surface, towards
the etheric field, with a velocity as according to the dominant
concentration that is brought to bear on the negative thirds of its
mass chords, by inducing high radiation from their neutral centres,
in combination with the power of the celestial attractive.
The power of the terrestrial propulsive and celestial attractive to
lift; and these conditions reversed, or the celestial propulsive and
the terrestrial attractive, to descend. Associating these conditions
with the one of corpuscular bombardment, it is evident to me with what
perfection an air-ship of any number of tons weight can, when my system
is completed, be controlled in all the varied movements necessary for
complete commercial use at any desired elevation, and at any desired
speed. It can float off into atmospheric space as gentle in motion
as thistle-down, or with a velocity out-rivalling a cyclone. [29]
Electro-Magnetic Radiation.
If the persistency of our vision could be reversed, so as to have the
power to follow the track of the molecule's oscillations under a high
condition of vibratory acceleration, associated with the assisting
power of the finest instruments known at present in scientific
research, it would not help us to determine the period of time
wherein the sympathetic actions in nature are propagated. Therefore,
we cannot, with any degree of certainty, establish a foundation whereon
observation, so associated, is reliable. (Theoretically explained in
'Soul of Matter.')
As far as my researches have gone, I find that there is but
one condition approaching reliability; and that is in computing
the intermittent periodic disturbances along a nodal vibratory
transmitter--the nodes of gold, silver and platina--a fixed number
placed at such different distances, along its line, as to take up
and equalize (by a certain order of vibratory transmissions) the
chord masses of the nodal interferences between the triple metals
of which the nodes are composed, and also the acoustic introductory
impulse of whatever chord is set. This will determine the rate of
their accelerated molecular oscillation, so induced beyond their
normal standard, and give us some definite figures in the computing
of vibrations, thousands of billions of times more than those of light.
Light is induced by electro-magnetic percussion emanating from the
ether, and in its action represents the plane of magnetism. In fact it
is the plane of magnetism when under polarization. [30] Some scientific
theories of the past have taught us that electricity and magnetism are
one and the same thing. Sympathetic vibratory philosophy teaches that
they are two distinct forces of one of the triune sympathetic family.
I will try to make comprehensible the computation of the number
(even to infinity) of the corpuscular oscillations, induced on
the introductory ninths, over their normal standard. The molecules
of all visible masses, when not influenced by surrounding acoustic
vibratory impulses, move at a rate of 20,000 oscillations per second,
one third of their diameters. We have before us one of these masses;
either a silver dollar, a pound weight, a horse-shoe, or any other
metallic medium, which I associate to one of my nodal transmitters,
the other end of which is attached to the clustered thirds (or third
octave) of my focalizing neutral concentrator. Another transmitter,
of gold, silver and platina sections, is attached to the sixth cluster
of same disk, the other end of which is connected to resonating sphere
on my compound instrument: all of which must be brought to a state
of complete rest. Then, a slight tap, with a vulcanite rubber hammer
on the chladna resonating disk, will accelerate the 20,000 molecular
oscillations to 180,000 per second,--an increase of nine times the
normal number. The nine nodes each touching the extreme end, next
the mass operated upon, in this arrangement; silver, gold, platina,
make up the nine. When I associate the seventh, I start with gold
and end with platina; always on the triplets. Silver represents the
lowest introductory third, gold the next, and platina the highest. If
we start with a gold node, the multiplication on oscillation will
be nine times nine, or 81 times the 20,000; which is 1,620,000 per
second. Each node represents one wave length of a certain number
of vibrations when shifted along the transmitter, over the section
representing its opposite metal. The shifting of the gold one over
the silver extreme section will hold the corpuscular range of the
mass velocity at 1,620,000 per second: the introductory chord being
set at B, third octave. It requires an accelerated oscillation on
the molecules of a soft steel mass, at that chord, of a transmissive
multiplication of the full nine, in order to induce a rotary action on
the neutral centre indicator of focalizing disk; which by computation,
means, per second, 156,057,552,198,220,000 corpuscular intermittent
oscillations to move the disk 110 revolutions per second. This only
represents the multiplication on the first nodal dissociator of
the ninth. The second transition, on same, would mean this number
multiplied by itself, and the residue of each multiplication
by itself 81 times progressively. This throws us infinitely far
beyond computation, leaving us only on the second of the full ninth,
towards reaching the sympathetic corpuscular velocity attending the
high luminiferous. I have induced rotation up to 123 revolutions per
second on a neutral indicator that required billions of vibrations
per second to accomplish; but even this vibration represents only a
minute fraction of the conditions governing the sympathetic vitality
which exists in the far luminous centres.
The interposition of hydrogen gas between soap-film, of the
differential diameters of thirds, illuminated by a solar ray in
whose focus a quiescent prism is set posteriorly--the prism to be
adjusted at the proper distance and angle, to throw the seven colours
through the film enclosing the hydrogen in a way that will give the
bow an arch of three feet--will register deep down, inaudible tones
or sounds, and indicate their different conditions by the dissolving
and re-dissolving of certain of the colours of such arch. To conduct
such experiments properly necessitates, first, a location as nearly
isolated from all extraneous audible sounds as is possible to get;
and second, a pedestal of the lowest vibrating material, the base of
it set deep in the earth, to arrange the instruments upon; and third,
a room of the highest resonating qualities to enclose them. Under
such conditions the inaudible sounds emanating from the operator,
would have to be neutralized by a negative device to get at the proper
conditions while under his manipulation. Thus the hidden inaudible
world of sounds could be shown up, as the microscope shows up to the
eye the hidden invisible forms of nature.
The condition of the mechanical requirements necessary to conduct
successfully the line of research that I am now pursuing, will never
be properly appreciated until the beauty of this system is shown up
under perfect control for commercial use.
I have spoken elsewhere of the almost infinite difficulties of getting
into position, to hold hydrogen gas in suspension between soap-film
a proper period of time, to conduct these experiments. The setting of
the other parts of the apparatus is quite easy in comparison. All wave
propagations, electro-magnetic or otherwise, by being thus reflected
can be measured in regard to the time of their propagation; all of
which are introductorily subservient to the luminiferous ether. The
theory put forward by "men of science," in regard to electro-magnetic
forces shows that they are misled by the imperfection of their
instruments. They are trying to measure the infinite by the finite;
necessitating terms of avoidance, to the instantaneous propagation of
nature's sympathetic evolutions, of the same nature as the one advanced
in the assertion that force does not exist in the interstitial embrace
of all matter.
Maxwell's theory is correct that the plane of polarized light is the
plane of the magnetic force. The sympathetic vibrations associated
with polarized light constitute the pure coincident of the plane
of magnetism. Therefore, they both tend to the same path, for both
are inter-atomic, assimilating sympathetically, in a given time,
to continue the race together; although one precedes the other at
the time of experimental evolution. The time is approaching when
electro-magnetic waves with an outreach of two feet will be produced,
having an energy equal to that now shown up on the magnet when it is
about to kiss its keeper; and showing a radiating force too stupendous
for actual measurement.
I have already shown, to a certain point, the power of this radiation,
by breaking a rope that had a resisting strain of over two tons,
which was attached to the periphery of a steel disk, twelve inches in
diameter, moving at the slow rate of one revolution in two minutes; its
molecular structure vitalized with 42,800 vibrations per second. There
was no retardation while breaking the rope, and no acceleration when
it was broken. This experiment has been repeated scores of times,
before scores of visitors who came to my laboratory for the purpose
of seeing it.
A computation of the conditions, already shown up in part, proves
conclusively that the power of an electro-magnetic wave at an outreach
of ten inches would be, if properly developed, equal to a lifting
force of 36,000 pounds on a disk but three inches in diameter. Ten
of such on the periphery of a vibratory disk, 36 inches in diameter,
would represent 360,000 pounds actual lift at one revolution per
minute. Perfect depolarization at one hundred times per minute would
represent 360,000,000 pounds, lifted twelve times per minute, or 1000
horse power in the same time. An excess of 100 extra revolutions,
under the same conditions, would mean 2000 horse power per minute.
By this new system, to perfect which I am now devoting all my time
and my energies, dynamos will become a thing of the past, eventually;
and electric lighting will be conducted by a polar negative disk,
independent of extraneous power to run it, other than that of
sympathetic polar attraction, as simple in its construction, almost,
as an ordinary type-writing machine.
Answers made in Letters from Mr. Keely, to Questions asked of Him.
Light incident to any body that absorbs or reflects it does not
press upon it. The radiometer of Professor Crookes's invention is not
operated by the pressure of light, but by corpuscular bombardment on
the reflecting side of its vanes.
You have called my attention to the receding movement in the metal
silver, which it assumes when the flow of an alternating current
from an electro-magnet, in front, is thrown upon it. This does not
prove that light presses upon it to induce that movement. It moves
by inter-atomic bombardment of some 800 millions of corpuscular
percussions a second; or, more truly, by inter-sympathetic
vibrations. If a homogeneous disk of gold, silver and platina,
in proper proportions, were made the medium of interference, the
resultant action would be startling in showing up the movement of
molecular antagonistic thirds. The movement would be very erratic and
gyroscopic. If the same disk were used or an intermediate transmitter
to a negative focalizer, or in other words a polar radiator only
one of which is in existence, by a nodal wire of gold, silver and
platina, the effect on the disk at the negative terminus would be
to set into action the latent force held in its molecular embrace,
and would cause it to sympathetically adhere to the focalizer, with
a power that would make it practically inseparable.
Professor Fitzgerald's lecture on electro-magnetic radiation shows
that scientific men are beginning to realize, and that fairly,
the truths appertaining to the new philosophy. The professor admits
that electricity and magnetism are of differential character, and
he is right. The progressive subdivision, induced on molecules by
different orders of sympathetic vibration, and the resultant conditions
evolved on the inter-molecule and inter-atom, by introductory etheric
dispersion, prove that the magnetic flow of itself is a triple one,
as is also the electric. Again, the professor says that electricity
and magnetism would be essentially interchangeable if such a thing
existed as magnetic conduction, adding: 'It is in this difference
that we must look for the difference between electricity and
magnetism.' Thus you see how plain it is that progressive scientists
are approaching true science. The rotation of the magnetic needle,
as produced in my researching experiments, proves conclusively that
the interchange spoken of, in Professor Fitzgerald's lecture, is a
differentiated vibratory one, in which the dominant and enharmonic
forces exchange compliments with each other, in a differential way;
thus inducing rotation, in other words polarization and depolarization.
The transmission of sympathetic atomic vibration, through a triple
nodal transmitter, induces an inter-atomic percussion, that results
in triple atomic subdivision, not oscillating across the diameter
of the atom, but accelerating to an infinite degree the atomic film
that surrounds it and at the same time extending the vibratory range
of the atom far enough to set free the gaseous atomic element.
Molecular Dissociation.
If our sight could reach into the remote depths of the interstitial
spaces which exist between the molecular ranges, and observe their
wonderful action, in their oscillating motion, to and from each other,
as guided by the Infinite in their sphere of vibrating action--could we
comprehend the astonishing velocity of their gaseous capsules, combined
as it is with the accompanying acoustic force, we would be, as it were,
paralyzed with amazement. But we would then only be bordering on the
still more remote depths of the interstitial atomic realm, stretching
far down towards the neutral depths of the inter-atomic; and again,
still farther to the borders of its etheric neutral radiating centre.
If our earth were to be submitted to the force governing the rotative
action of the molecule, in its gaseous envelope, and its oscillatory
range of motion were in the same ratio to the differential magnitude of
each, the force of the vibration induced by its atmospheric surrounding
would, in a short time, disintegrate its full volume, precipitating
it into a ring of impalpable inter-molecular dust, many thousands
of miles in diameter. If brought face to face with such conditions
we could better understand the mighty and sympathetic force which
exists in the far remote domain of the molecular and atomic embrace.
The question arises, how and by what means are we able to measure
the velocity of these capsules and the differential range of
their vibratory action? Also, how can we prove beyond dispute the
facts relating to their sympathetic government? By progressive
disintegration; this is the only way; and it is accomplished by the
proper exciters of vibratory focalization; the introductory acoustic
impulses which negatize their molecular, inter-molecular, atomic and
inter-atomic media of neutral attractions, towards their focalized
centres of sympathetic aggregation.
I hold that the sympathetic neutral flow which exists in this remote
region is the latent power that, under the disintegration of water,
is liberated; showing immense volume and infinite pressure. The
same condition of latent power exists in metallic masses and,
paradoxical as it may seem, exerts its force, under the proper
exciter, only in a negative attractive way, while in water in a
positive one. In minerals under liberation this latent power seeks
its medium of tenuous equilibrium, leaving behind an impalpable dust,
that represents molecular dissociation.
In order to get at the conditions which govern and give introductory
impulses to that peculiar force which acts on the sympathetic medium
that associates matter with matter, inducing magnetic antagonisms,
it will be necessary to explain the triune conditions that govern
sympathetic streams; as also the triune conditions of corpuscular
association.
All forces in nature are mind forces: magnetic, electric,
galvanic, acoustic, solar, are all governed by the triune streams of
celestial infinity; as also the molecular, inter-molecular, atomic,
and inter-atomic. The remote depths of all their acoustic centres
become subservient to the third, sixth, and ninth position of the
diatonic, harmonic and enharmonic chords; which, when resonantly
induced, concentrate concordant harmony, by reducing their range of
corpuscular motion, drawing them as if towards each other's neutral
centre of attractive infinity.
The sympathetic acoustic exciters, or impulses, are: 1st. the
third diatonic; 2nd. the harmonic sixths neutralizing affinity;
3rd. the enharmonic ninths--positive acceleration, which induces
infinite trajective velocity from neutral centres; in other words,
neutral radiation.
Every molecule in nature represents, without variation, the same
chord. Variations that show up in the mass chord of different
visible aggregations, are accounted for by the non-uniformity of
their molecular groupings. If all were molecularly homogeneous,
the chord masses of all structures would be perfectly alike in their
resonant impulses.
When the triple introductory impulse is transmitted towards the
mass to be sensitized, it subserves the molecular concordant thirds
and antagonizes the discordant sixths extending the range of their
oscillating paths; and thus induces the highest order of repellent
antagonism towards the centre of neutral equilibrium.
We will now follow out, in their progressive orders, the conditions
necessary to give to these acoustic introductory impulses the power, as
transmitted through the proper media, to induce molecular dissociation.
First: If I wish to disturb and bring into action the latent force
held in the embrace of any molecular mass, I first find out what the
harmonic chord or note of its mass represents; and as no two masses are
alike, it would seem to necessitate an infinite number of variations
to operate on different masses; but such is not the case. All masses
can be subserved to one general condition by the compound mechanical
devices which I use for that purpose. We will suppose that the mass to
be experimented upon, when chorded, represents B flat. Then, first,
the negative radiating focalizing bar on the disk is liberated from
its dampening rod, and associated with the magnetic defocalizing
one. There are seven ranges of bars in all.
(See symbol representing sympathetic transmissive chord of B flat,
third octave on third diatonic.)
The seven assemblings are in this order:
Electro Harmonic
Dominant Magnetic Diatonic Enharmonic.
Negative
3rd. 6ths. 7ths.
I. II. III. IIII. IIIII. IIIIII. IIIIIII.
Twenty-eight in number.
The second step is to liberate, according to symbolic meaning, second
harmonic bar on sixths, or neutralizing one, and third, enharmonic
ninths, which is the one counting from negative sevenths. Now all is
in readiness for the transmissive nodal wire, one end of which must be
attached to the magnetic dispersing ring, over the negative-sevenths
cluster, and the other end to the high polar negative attractor. Then,
one end of a transmitting wire, of very fine proportions of gold,
silver and platina, is connected to the resonating sphere, and the
other end to the mass to be experimented upon. I then give to the
syren a rotatory impulse of a velocity to indicate the concordant
of the mass attached. If the introductory settings are all right,
the neutral centre indicator will rotate with high velocity: and
a single tap on the chladna wave-plate is all that is necessary to
induce pure evolution.
Either attraction or dispersion can be induced on any mass by setting
the instrument to the proper triple introductory positions, towards
the mass chords it represents, either positive or negative.
This system of evolution might be expressed as disintegration induced
by the intensified oscillations of inter-atomic-electro-magnetic waves.
How plainly this principle of harmonic sympathetic evolution indicates
the structural condition of the atom as one of wonderfully complex
form; as also is the progressive step toward it in the molecular and
inter-molecular field.
During the effect induced by disintegration of molecular mineral
masses, there is no molecular collision when forced asunder from their
radiating centres of neutrality. Their atomic and inter-atomic centres
seek their media of tenuous affinity in the far borders of the etheric
field, leaving all metallic masses, that are associated with them,
behind in their virgin form.
Keynote of electric-magnetic sympathy, transmissive combinations,
3rds, on the subdivision of first octave B flat, diatonic. 6ths,
on same subdivision of 3rds, octave harmonic; and 9ths, on the same
subdivision of 6ths, octave enharmonic.
I find that there is no medium in the range of vibratory philosophic
research, that is as unerringly exact, towards the centre of
sympathetic attraction, as the negative attractive influence of a
certain triple association of the metallic masses of gold, silver
and platina. In fact they are as accurate indicators of the earth's
terrestrial sympathetic envelope, and its triple focalized action
towards the earth's neutral centre, as the magnet is an indicator
of the diversion of the attractive flow of the dominant current of
the electric stream. Although much has been written on the subject,
the conditions attending the continuous flow of the magnet remains
a problem that has never been solved by any other theory. Yet the
solution is very simple when harmonic vibratory influence is brought
to bear upon it.
The harmonic attractive chord, thirds, induces a nodal interference
on that third of the triune combination of the terrestrial envelope,
that is immediately associated with this medium of interference, and
moves towards the negative pole of the magnet, then flows through
it to re-associate with the full triune combination, through the
positive, thus:--
Dominant
Harmonic
Enharmonic
The triune stream; one current of which is diverted from the
Dominant, flowing in at the Negative end of the magnet; and
out to join the triune terrestrial stream at the Positive end.
The continuous flow of the magnet is merely a diversion of that
portion of the terrestrial envelope that electricians have never
controlled. This third current, of this triune stream, has never been
subdivided and only slightly diverted towards the negative pole of
the magnet, flowing unbrokenly back to associate sympathetically
with the full triune combination of the earth's negative neutral
force. [31] Thus the problem is solved of the continuous and
never-ending force of the magnet, in carrying its load without any
diminution of its energy. There is no influence, as yet known, that
can break up its line of sympathetic flow as associated with the
triune combination. Polarization and de-polarization, in its action,
is nodal negative interference, intermittently excited, inducing
differential disturbance of polar sympathetic equilibrium.
The attractive power, evolved by a magnet in sustaining its load,
is no evidence that it is molecularly attractive: for, under the
influence of the dominant current of the electric stream, the range
of its molecular mass is not extended; but by the action induced in
atomic vibration, the latent, or undisturbed power, that is locked
up in its atomic embrace, is put into sympathetic action, and evolves
the force that is recognized as magnetic. When its exciter is removed,
it returns to atomic recesses to remain perfectly latent, until again
brought into action by its proper exciter.
When a steel unmagnetized bar is associated with a magnetized one, the
latent force in the unmagnetized one is sympathetically brought into
action, associating itself to the magnetic one, without depreciating
the power of it one iota. Dissociation and association between the
two bars can go on indefinitely with the same result.
The suspension and propelling of an atmospheric navigator of any
number of tons weight, can be successfully accomplished by thus
exciting the molecular mass of the metal it is constructed of; and
the vibratory neutral negative attraction evolved, will bring it into
perfect control, commercially, by keeping it in sympathy with the
earth's triune polar stream. There is enough of this latent power
locked up in the embrace of the iron ore, that is contained in our
planet, which, if liberated and applied to proper vibratory machinery,
would furnish force enough to run the commercial power of the world:
leaving millions of times more to draw upon, as the needs increase. The
velocity of the vibration governing the flow of the magnetic stream,
comes under the head of the first inter-atomic, and ranges from
300,000 to 780,000 vibrations per second; the first order above odour
permeating the molecules, of the glass plate of the compass (with the
same facility that atmospheric air would go through an ordinary sieve
through which it passes), to arouse sympathetically in the needle
the concordant condition that harmonizes with its own. The course of
this sympathetic flow is governed by the full harmonic chord; and,
consequently, moves in straight lines; thus transmitting its sympathy
free of molecular interferences.
The order of vibration associated with the transmission of odour
acts by sympathetic negative interference; and, consequently, moves
in circles, with a velocity of 220,000 per second, at least.
If in any way the circle of its rotatory diameter could be reduced
to that of its corpuscular structure, then a bottle containing an
odorous substance, though sealed as hermetically as an Edison-light
bulb, could no more confine its corpuscles than an open chimney the
smoke ascending from the fire burning at its base.
The sympathetic influence of the terrestrial envelope gets its
introductory impulse from the infinite depths of the earth's neutral
centre. This impulse radiates in undulating lines far enough into
etheric space to become sympathetically associated with the etheric
(or Infinite) under the same conditions that associate the mental with
the physical organism of man. We can define man's molecular condition
in its physical organism as the earth, and its connective link with the
convolutionary cerebral centres as the Infinite etheric domain. Thus,
we have, represented in the planetary masses moving in etheric space,
the same conditions of governing rule as exists between the mental
and physical forces.
With this medium it is plain to see how simply God works, as well as
mysteriously, His wonders to perform; the mental forces kept vitalized
from the great store-house of the etheric realm; and, in controlling
the physical, the deficit caused thereby renewed and kept balanced
by the power of its sympathetic concordant receptiveness.
Any visible molecular mass of metal can be so impregnated by triple
orders of sympathetic vibration as to give it the same sympathetic
transmissive qualities that exist in the mental forces, which make
such mass subservient to either the attractive or repulsive conditions
of terrestrial sympathy.
Gravity is nothing more than a concordant attractive sympathetic
stream flowing towards the neutral centre of the earth. This force
is inherent in all visible and invisible aggregated forms of matter,
from the very birth of a planet, around whose centre the molecules
cluster by the sympathetic affinity which is thus induced. If these
conditions had always maintained a neutral position in etheric space,
no planet would ever have been evolved. These conditions have been
fixed by the Infinite. These rotating neutral centres, set in celestial
space, have been endowed with the power of rotation to become their
own accumulators. It is through the action of these sympathetic forces
of the Infinite etheric realm that planets are born, and their volume
of matter augmented.
If we pick up an object, we feel a resisting power in it which
physicists call gravity; but they do not explain what gravity is. It
is simply a sympathetic flow, proceeding from the molecular centres
of neutrality; which flow is concordant with the earth's neutral
centre of same, seeking this medium of its affinity with a power
corresponding to the character of its molecular mass. There is no
actual weight in the molecules of the mass of which the earth is
composed. If the sympathetic negative polar stream that flows towards
the neutral centre of the earth were cut off from it, the earth's
molecular mass would become independent, and would float away into
space as would a soap-bubble filled with warm air.
The gravital flow comes, in this system, under the order of the
sympathetic concordant of the 9ths, and belongs to that third of the
triune combination called polar propulsive.
Magnetism is polar attraction.
Gravity is polar propulsion.
Both magnetism and gravity can be accelerated by the proper medium
of sympathetic vibratory influences.
A Conjecture.
If we take into proper consideration the sympathetic affinity that
exists between the centres of the cerebral convolutionary organism,
and the polar terrestrial forces, as linked to the celestial, or
Infinite, the harmonizing effects they have on the normal brain,
and the antagonistic negative bombardment of these streams on
the abnormal one, is it not possible, by the diversion of pure,
sympathetic streams, to antagonize abnormal conditions, by concordant
or magnetic polar sympathetic mechanical exciters, and thus to induce
pure normal equilibrium of its corpuscular mass?--which means perfect
mental restoration.
CHAPTER XX.
1892.
PROGRESSIVE SCIENCE--KEELY's PRESENT POSITION.
(A Review of the Situation.)
This amount of repetition to some will probably appear to be
tedious, but only by varied iteration can alien conceptions
be forced on reluctant minds.--Herbert Spencer.
The researches of Lodge in England and of Hertz in Germany give
us an almost infinite range of ethereal vibrations.... Here
is unfolded to us a new and astonishing world,--one which
it is hard to conceive should contain no possibilities of
transmitting and receiving intelligence.... Here also is
revealed to us the bewildering possibility of telegraphy
without wires, posts, cables, or any of our present costly
appliances.... As for myself, I hold the firm conviction that
unflagging research will be rewarded by an insight into natural
mysteries, such as now can rarely be conceived.--Professor
Wm. Crookes, M.R.A., F.R.S., &c.
Vibratory Philosophy teaches that "in the great workshop of
Nature there are no lines of demarcation to be drawn between
the most exalted speculation and common-place practice, and
that all knowledge must lead up to one great result; that of
an intelligent recognition of the Creator through His works."
"Facts are the body of science; speculation is its soul."
It has been said that there is nothing more sublime in the history
of mind than the lonely struggles which generate and precede
success. After the admission made by Professor Rücker, M.A., at the
last meeting of the British Association, that the ether may be "the
material of which all matter is composed," and that "we may, perhaps,
be able to use and control the ether as we now use and control steam,"
there would seem to be grounds for hoping that Keely's "lonely and
prolonged struggles" to utilize in mechanics the ether product which
he obtains from his method of dissociating the elements of water,
will be more universally recognized and appreciated than they have yet
been. Discovery may be unsought and instantaneous, but the inventions
for utilizing discoveries may be, and generally are, the work of years.
Keely first imprisoned the ether in 1872, when its existence was
denied; or, if admitted by a few, it was called "the hypothetical
ether." In 1888, Professor Henri Hertz discovered and announced,
in the Revue des Deux Mondes, that the ether is held in a state of
bondage in all electro-magnetic engines. Not until this fact had been
made known, were there any scientific men, with one notable exception,
who were willing to admit it was possible that Keely might also have
"stumbled over" the manner of effecting its imprisonment.
The nature of Keely's researches, and the length of time in which he
has been absorbed by the necessary dead-work, attendant upon research
before a discovery can be utilized, may be gathered from a letter
recently written by Mr. C. G. Till, of Brooklyn, New York:--
"In Keely's early struggles, somewhere about twenty years ago, I
became acquainted with him, and helped him then to the best of my
ability. Indeed I may say that I was god-father to his discovery;
for I was with him when the idea first entered his head that he
could combine steam and water to run an engine. At that time he made
a crude machine, which he actually ran for some time; and this was
the original model of the Pneumatic-Pulsating-Vacuo-Engine, in the
operation of which he discovered his present force. From that day to
this he has been in pursuit of some method as a medium to use what
he calls his etheric force with. That he has actually discovered a
new force there is not a shadow of doubt. In those days I have known
him to sell and pawn everything of value in his house to obtain means
to continue his investigations with the money thus acquired; and I am
sure that he will eventually give to the world the greatest boon that
has been received by it since the advent of Christianity," etc., etc.
It has been very generally thought that Keely is pursuing the ignis
fatuus of perpetual motion. No greater mistake could have been
made. The genuineness of his claims as a discoverer rests upon
a correct answer to the question, "Is hydrogen gas an element or
a compound?"
Science, as Herodotus said, is to know things truly: but science
tells us that hydrogen is a simple, that the atom is not divisible,
and that latent energy is not locked in the interstitial spaces of
all forms of matter from their birth or aggregation. Keely's system
of Vibratory Physics refutes these canons of science. How absurd
must seem the idea to many that the schools can be wrong, and that
Keely, who has been branded by some of these schools as an impostor,
should be right: but time will show whether Keely's discoveries have
"come to stay." The history of the past shows us that science has
never been infallible; that like Christianity she unfolds her truths
progressively. Keely teaches that an unknown potency is held in the
atom's tenacious grasp, until released by an introductory impulse
given by a certain order of vibration, depending upon the mass-chord
of the aggregation; which impulse so increases the oscillation of
the atoms as to rupture their etheric capsules. All great truths hold
germs potential of ever-increasing growth. It took half a century for
the "Principia" of Newton to overcome the contempt that was showered
upon it; and now progressive science is overshadowing Newton's vast
attainments. In his giant mind was born the hypothesis that the ether
is the cause of light and gravity. Keely has been teaching for years,
that ether is the medium of all force. For every effect science
requires an efficient cause. Hence, when Faraday found no definite
knowledge in exact sciences to satisfy him on certain points he was
led into speculative science, or the preliminary reaching after truths
which we feel must exist by reason of certain effects that come under
our observation, analogous to already known laws:--"reduced facts
lie behind us; speculative ones lie before us;" and without these
latter science could make no progress. Faraday was only speculating
when he said: "Thus either present elements are the true elements;
or else there is the probability before us of obtaining some more
high and general power of nature even than electricity; and which,
at the same time, might reveal to us an entirely new grade of elements
of matter, now hidden from our view and almost from our suspicion."
Faraday's keen perception and acute practical judgment, were never
better exemplified than in Keely's discovery of Negative Attraction;
the laws governing which he is still researching; theorizing that it
is the energy which controls the planetary masses in their advance
toward each other, and in their recession from each other,--the
energy which lifts the seas and the oceans out of their beds, and
replaces them once in twenty-four hours; in other words, explaining
the mystery of the action of gravity.
Had Faraday lived longer he might have anticipated Keely in one of
his discoveries; for he certainly was on the road to it, in the views
of force and matter which he held that were not in accordance with
the accepted views of his time; and which were then set aside as
"wild speculations," by the physicists who complained of his "want
of mathematical accuracy," of his "entertaining notions altogether
distinct from the views generally held by men of science," who
continued their experimental researches on their own lines.
In 1885, before Keely's scientific explorations had taught him that
no engine can ever be constructed by which the ether can be used and
controlled, as we now use and control steam, he wrote, in a letter to a
friend, "I shall not forestall an unproved conclusion, but fight step
by step the dark paths I am exploring, knowing that, should I succeed
in proving one single fact in science heretofore unknown, I shall in
so doing be rewarded in the highest degree. In whatever direction the
human mind travels it comes quickly to a boundary line which it cannot
pass. There is a knowable field of research, bordered by an unknown
tract. My experience teaches me how narrow is the strip of territory
which belongs to the knowable, how very small the portion that has
been traversed and taken possession of. The further we traverse this
unknown territory, the stronger will become our faith in the immovable
order of the world; for, at each advancing step, we find fresh fruits
of the immutable laws that reign over all things,--from the falling
apple, up to the thoughts, the words, the deeds, the will of man:
and we find these laws irreversible and eternal, order and method
reigning throughout the universe. Some details of this universal method
have been worked up, and we know them by the names of 'gravitation,'
'chemical affinity,' 'nerve-power,' &c. These material certainties are
as sacred as moral certainties.... The nearest approach to a certainty
is made through harmony with nature's laws. The surest media are
those which nature has laid out in her wonderful workings. The man
who deviates from these paths will suffer the penalty of a defeat,
as is seen in the record of 'perpetual motion' seekers. I have been
classed with such dreamers; but I find consolation in the thought
that it is only by those men who are utterly ignorant of the great
and marvellous truths which I have devoted my life to demonstrate
and to bring within reach of all. I believe the time is near at
hand when the principles of etheric evolution will be established,
and when the world will be eager to recognize and accept a system
that will certainly create a revolution for the highest benefits
of mankind, inaugurating an era undreamed of by those who are now
ignorant of the existence of this etheric force." These views which
have guided Keely in all his researches cannot be made known to any
just, discerning mind without an accompanying perception of the gross
way in which he has been misrepresented by his defamers; as well as
some appreciation of the scientifically cautious manner in which he
has pursued his investigations, since he abandoned his efforts to
construct an engine that would hold the ether in rotation.
At the present time Keely is concentrating his efforts on the
perfecting of his mechanical conditions to that point where, according
to his theories, he will be able to establish, on the ninths, a
sympathetic affinity with pure, polar, negative attraction, minus
magnetism. In his own opinion he has so nearly gained the summit,
or completion of his "graduation," as to feel that he holds the key
to the control of the infinitely tenuous conditions which lie before
him to be conquered, before he gains mastery of the group of depolar
disks that he is now working upon. Twenty-six groups are completed,
and when the twenty-seventh and last group is under equal control,
Keely expects to establish a circuit of vibratory force, for running
machinery: both for aerial navigation and for terrestrial use. If
this result be obtained, Keely will then be in a position to give his
system to science; and to demonstrate the ever-operative immanence of
the Infinite builder of all things of whom our Lord said, "My Father
worketh hitherto, and I work."
In commercial use Keely expects that when the motion has been once
set up, in any of his machines, it will continue until the material
is worn out. It is this claim which has caused Keely to be classed
with perpetual-motion seekers.
For years Keely has been trying to utilize his discoveries for
the material and moral advantage of humanity: and yet he feels,
as Buckle has said of the present acquirements of science, that the
ground only is broken, that the crust only is touched. The loftiest
pinnacle which has been reached by the men who are foremost in their
constructions of the method by which the one source of all energy works
in the material world, is too insignificant a position to obtain
even an outlook towards the vast realm that Keely figuratively
describes as the infinite brain; or the source from which all
"sympathetic-leads" emanate, that connect mind with matter. Realizing
that all conditions of matter are but as vain illusions, he never
falters in his determination to reach after the hidden things of God,
if haply he may find them. Even the goal which he seeks to attain
lies, in his own estimation, on the outermost border of this crust;
and well he knows that it never can be reached in any other way than
by principles of exact science and by pursuing a path that is at all
times lighted by reason.
Believing that "the horizon of the world of matter, which has been
thought to rest over hydrogen, extends to infinite reaches, including
substances which have never been revealed to the senses," he knows how
unfathomable is the ocean that lies beyond, and like Newton compares
himself to one who is gathering pebbles on its shore.
Science, which has ever been interested both in the infinitely small
and infinitely great, has in our age dropped the only clue that can
guide through the obscure labyrinth which leads into depths of nature
lying beyond the knowledge of our unaided senses.
The evolution of the human race, says Nesbit, has passed from the
physiological into the psychological field; and it is in the latter
alone that progress may be looked for.
This is the realm into which Keely's efforts, to give to the world
a costless motive power, have slowly conducted him through the black
darkness of the region in which he has been fighting his way, for a
score of years, in behalf of true science and humanity.
Lord Derby has said that modern science, on its popular side, is
really a great factory of popular fallacies; that its expounders in
one decade are kept busy refuting the errors to which the preceding
decade has given currency. There is hardly a branch of science, he
says, susceptible of general and wide-reaching conclusions, which
might not be revolutionized by some discovery to-morrow.
If Keely is able to establish his theories, physical science will have
to abandon the positions to which she clings, and forced to admit that
there exists a purity of conditions in Vibratory Physics unknown in
mechanical physics, undreamed of even in philosophy; for he will then
be in a position to demonstrate the outflow of the Infinite mind as
sympathetically associated with matter visible and invisible.
Of this philosophy Professor Daniel G. Brinton has said, "It is
so simple, beautiful and comprehensive in its vibratory theory
that I hope it will be found experimentally to be true. To me all
commercial and practical results, motors, air-ships, engines, are of no
importance by the side of the theoretical truth of the demonstrations
of this cosmic force. As soon as Dr. Koenig is prepared to report
on the purely technical and physical character of the experiments,
I shall be, in fact I am, ready to go into full details as to their
significance in reference to both matter and mind. It will be enough
for me if Dr. Koenig is able to say that the force handled by Keely
is not gravity, electricity, magnetism, compressed air, nor other
of the well-known forces. Let him say that, and I will undertake
to say what the force is." Tests were made last year by Dr. Koenig
and Dr. Tuttle, a Baltimore physicist, in the presence of other men
of science with the most sensitive galvanometer belonging to the
University of Pennsylvania, all of whom were satisfied that no known
force had been detected.
The abstract of Keely's philosophy, written by Dr. Brinton, has made
Keely's theories intelligible for the first time. Each new discovery
necessitates a new vocabulary; and Keely's writings are obscure
because of his new nomenclature. When Faraday's ideas differed from
those held by the authorities of his time, they were pronounced to
be "untranslatable into scientific language;" and as was then said
of Faraday, so can it now be said of Keely, with equal truth, that,
working at the very boundaries of our knowledge, his mind habitually
dwells "in the boundless contiguity of shade" by which that knowledge
is surrounded.
The brain of an Aristotle was needed to discern and grasp Keely's
meaning, to interpret and define it. Dr. Brinton never touches a
subject without throwing light upon it, and his penetrating mind
perceived the ideas to be defined in all their relations. His keen
logical acumen separated and classified them in their order, in a true,
sound, and scientific manner. In the words of Sir James Crichton
Browne, who heard Professor Brinton read this abstract in London,
"Professor Brinton's synopsis is an able, lucid and logical paper."
Now that such distinguished men are interesting themselves in
Keely's discoveries, there is no longer any danger of their being
lost to science; nor to commerce, if his life is spared. The action
of Dr. Pepper (Provost of the University of Pennsylvania) in January,
1891, gave Keely all the protection that he then needed in order to
continue his researches up to the completion of his system.
Professor Dewar of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, whose
Cambridge duties prevented him from keeping the engagement made for
him to visit Mr. Keely's workshop in December, 1891, is now compelled
to wait, until notified that Keely is in a position to demonstrate
his theories, as it is desirable that he should not be interrupted
in the critical work that is at present engrossing him, at times
eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. But although Keely has not
instructed anyone in his method of disintegrating water, to obtain
the ether, which he uses as the medium of the polar force, he does
not withhold the principle by which he obtains it. Sir John Herschell
said, "There is a principle in the science of music that has yet to be
discovered." Pythagoras taught that the principle which underlies the
harmonies of music, underlies the motion of the heavenly bodies. It is
this principle which Keely has discovered; but until he has utilized
it in mechanics, he has nothing more to sell than Sir Isaac Newton
had when he discovered gravity, as Professor Fitzgerald has said.
Discovery and invention are walking side by side in our age, the
glorious scientific age of the world. Never before have they so
linked themselves together, working for humanity; and it is but
natural that those savants who have seen no demonstrations of the
force Keely is handling should regard with apathy claims, which,
if established, would sweep away like chaff before a whirlwind,
some of the canons of their schools. In fact, this apathy is a
great improvement upon the active persecution of the learned men
who hurried Copernicus and Galileo to prison, and established the
Inquisition to deal with heretics in science as well as heretics in
religion. Commerce rushed Keely into a dungeon; science looking on
in approval; notwithstanding that conjectures of the most celebrated
modern member of its school supported Keely's teachings. Galileo
was brought before the Inquisition; the tribunal pronounced him a
deluded teacher and a lying heretic. They intended to subject him to
the severest torture and death. Galileo was old, and felt that he
could not endure such a terrible death. He knelt on the crucifix,
with one hand on the Bible, and renounced all. When he arose,
however, it is reported that he whispered to one of the attendants,
"The earth does move for all that." Sir Isaac Newton has written of
the possibility of discovering unknown forms of energy, in Nature,
in these strong words: "For it is well known that bodies act upon one
another by the attractions of gravity, magnetism and electricity,
and these instances show the tenor and course of nature and make
it not improbable that there may be more powers of attraction than
these. For Nature is very consonant and conformable to herself."
All progress of whatever kind would be put back, if it were in the
power of bigots to arrest its triumphal march, as they have done in
the past, but the evolution of the human race remains in the hands
of the Infinite One, who never fails to open up new paths when the
farther development of humanity requires it. All systems may be said
to have descended from previous ones. "The ideas of one generation
are the mysterious progenitors of those in the next. Each age is the
dawn of its successor; and in the eternal advance of truth,
'There always is a rising sun,
The day is ever but begun.'"
Religious and scientific reformation have always gone hand in hand,
says Dr. Lowber. In fact, religious science is superior to any
other science. As Christianity is the pure religion which contains
the truth of all the rest, so it is the highest of the sciences,
for it represents the development of the highest faculty of the
human nature. Religion develops manhood as nothing else will, and
Christianity represents the highest culture to which it is possible
for man to attain....
The system, now being evolved and worked out to demonstration by Keely,
restores, by religious science, the faith of which materialistic
science has been robbing the world, thus confirming Dr. Lowber's
assertions that materialists will never be able to reduce all natural
and spiritual forces to mere vibratory action of matter; and that
the reformatory movement in philosophy, which characterizes our age,
will continue until all the sciences point to God and immortality.
A writer in Galignani's Messenger, March 2, 1892, says: "When the
nineteenth century closes, the most marvellous period ever known to
man will be stored away in Time's granary. Can the twentieth century
by any possibility be more productive, more fertile, more prolific of
wonders than its predecessor? The face of the world has been changed;
space has been annihilated; science puts 'a girdle round about the
earth in forty minutes.' We may be almost excused if we are tempted
to believe that the serpent's promise is fulfilled in our persons, and
we are as gods. Alas for human complacency! Perhaps our descendants a
thousand years hence will look upon us as pigmies. Be that as it may,
the past and the present are ours, with their achievement, and we
believe we shall hand down to posterity a goodly heritage."
The New York Home Journal, of the week before Christmas, 1892,
points out, in its leader, the road on which this advance in the
cause of humanity may be made. The writer, Mr. Howard Hinton, says:
"The spirit of the salutation, 'A Merry Christmas,' lies in the desire
that peace and goodwill shall reign among men, nor, if we may trust
the intimations of the latest science, will this universality of good
wishing be without avail in effecting its own accomplishment. For, as
we are told by the wise men of science, every thought, every mental
impulse of ours, sets in motion, in that realm of ether which it
is said interfuses all coarser forms of matter, certain vibrations,
corresponding in force to their cause, which have power to communicate
themselves to other minds favourably conditioned to receive them,
and so excite in them like thoughts and impulses.
"And are not common observation and individual experience in accord
with this suggestion of science? Do we not say at times that a
certain thought is in the air, revealing itself contemporaneously
to many widely separated minds without any recognizable means of
communication? And do we not sometimes find a noble, or it may be an
ignoble, impulse breaking out in a community with a suddenness and
universality that would seem to transcend all the ordinary forms of
the contact of mind with mind? Perhaps, too, this theory of vibratory
communication through an ethereal medium may explain, in part at least,
that 'Welt-Geist,' that 'Spirit of the Age,' of which the philosophers
discourse so bravely.
"Again, there are times--if the experiences and observations of
sensitive minds have any worth--when a general spirit of expectancy
seems to be awakened, as if the world were on the eve of some new
and epoch-making revelation of science, or some new enthusiasm of
regenerative impulse. Are we not now, at this hour, in this mood
of silent expectancy, thrilled with an indefinable awe of what the
brooding life of the world is maturing for the sons of men?--sensitive,
perhaps, to ethereal vibrations that have not yet accumulated force
for expression in conscious thought or for the definite determination
of our hearts' desires?
"This may be fanciful. It may be simply that we are beginning to
perceive that physical science has reached a stage of development
when some new and more central truth, some profounder generalization,
is needed to give further impulse to its essential progress. It may
be that we are becoming aware that the conditions of society are
such that some new unifying motive, some new enthusiasm of humanity
is needed for its salvation; and that therefore we wait in expectancy
for what--knowing that there can be no let nor hindrance in the onward
movement of life--we feel in our hearts must come.
"And yet does not this sense of expectancy seem to communicate itself
from mind to mind by some other means than that of oral or written
expression, and to touch with more or less force even minds that are
free from these intellectual anticipations? Are there not certain
intellects at the fore-front of the world's progress, and certain
hearts filled above the ordinary measure with the love of mankind,
who are thus centres of power, from whom spread ever widening
circles of vibratory emanations that gradually involve all minds in
a common thought and all hearts in a common purpose? 'Many men of
many minds.' Yes, truly; but there is the one mind of humanity that
thinks and thinks, and alone has the power to externalize its thought
as part of the world's history, while all purely individual thought
is blown finally into the abyss of the Absolute Nothing.
"But it is not only the great souls that thus move and shape the
world. We are all, in various degrees, centres and distributors
of the ethereal force, so far as we are in touch with its waves of
vibration. We can all make our thoughts, if they are one with the
thought of humanity, and our desires, if they are one with the heart
of humanity, felt by our fellows in extending circles of effluence
till finally the very clods of human kind know the stirrings of a
new life and wake to the higher reality as from a dream.
"And if individually we can thus set in movement this ethereal medium,
how must not this movement be quickened and extended when collectively
we give utterance to some great thought and heart's desire, announcing
it in song and prayer and merry-making. Hence the use and potency of
the great festivals, the best and sweetest of which is the Christmas
festival that we are now about to celebrate--the Evening Star of the
year that is passing, the Morning Star of the new."
CHAPTER XXI.
FAITH BY SCIENCE: THE DAWN OF A NEW ORDER OF THINGS.
"All for each and each for all."
God will take account of the selfishness of wealth, and His
quarrel has yet to be fought out.--Rev. F. Robertson.
All the great things of time have been done by single men, from
Judas Maccabeus down to Cromwell. We hear the age spoken of as
degenerative because of the vast accumulations of wealth. But
wealth may be a power for beneficence, as great brains may be,
and we have no more reason for regretting large fortunes than
large heads. No doubt to secure a perfect equality of all
people we need small heads, and small heads or empty heads
go with empty purses. By no other means can you level us. So
also by wealth the world has been moved, and will continue
to be moved. Can we consecrate money power to humanity, as
we do mind power? We do not see why not. And in our judgment
anyone who does not feel the change that is going on must
be blind. It is not legislation that will produce a moral
revolution, but a new enthusiasm. The future holds for us
a grand enthusiasm of this sort--a moralization of property
and possession.--Social Science in Science Siftings.
A wave of unrest seems to be passing over the world. Uneasiness
prevails on every side. We walk gingerly as though on the
edge of a precipice. Discontent is spreading everywhere. The
struggle between capital and labour threatens to reach
unheard-of proportions.... What is the meaning of the general
restlessness? What are its causes? Is the world growing old
and effete? Is the human race worn out? Is this generation
incapable of the great achievements of the past? Does its
materialism clog its powers and prevent its progress? Is
the world going wrong for want of an ideal? A people which
does not believe in its lofty mission will never accomplish
it. Science has made gigantic strides in our days; but have
its discoveries added much to the sum of human happiness? It
has contributed to our material comfort in various ways, but
it has not done much for the federation of the world. The
great growth of luxury is not a good, but an evil, if it
rob us of our belief in our great destiny and if it weaken
our endeavour. If "the time is out of joint," is it not
possible that worship of wealth is responsible for it? "He
who makes haste to be rich shall not be innocent." Ours is
emphatically the age in which men "make haste to be rich,"
without much regard to the means. Capital has profited unduly
at the expense of labour; employers have attained to fortune
too quickly for the welfare of the employed. Commerce has
forsaken the path of safety to indulge in rash and reckless
speculation. Businesses have been converted into companies
more for the benefit of vendors and financial houses than for
the public. Company promotion has been carried to reckless
lengths, and schemes for getting rich rapidly--schemes of
the South Sea bubble order--have multiplied in every part
of the civilized world. The Nemesis has come in the shape
of restlessness, discontent, paralysis of trade, strikes,
disorganization of finance, demoralization of Bourses, and
general insecurity. It is a fact proved countless times in
history that whenever a national need is felt, a man is raised
up to supply the want.--Galignani's Messenger.
The first seal is being broken in the book of vibratory
philosophy; the first stepping-stone is placed toward
reaching the solution of that infinite problem, the origin
of life.--John Ernst Worrell Keely, 1890.
The seals are opened, as it were, under the sign Leo--as
believing that such an age is coming on in which prophecy may
be fulfilled that the earth be filled with the knowledge of
the Lord, which shall cover it with wisdom and understanding
in the deep mysteries of God.--Jane Lead, 1699.
Evils bear in themselves the causes of their own
extirpation. Providence is bringing the old order of things
to a close in order to provide place for something better
and higher.--Julian Hawthorne.
Professor Rowland, in his paper on the "Spectra of Metals," which
he read at Leeds, says that the object of his research is primarily
to find out what sort of things molecules are, and in what way they
vibrate. The primary object of Mr. Keely's researches has been to find
out all that he could about the laws that control vibrations, and on
this line of research he made his discoveries, as to "what sort of
things molecules and atoms are, and in what way they vibrate." One of
the editors of the Times, in London, in January, 1891, wrote out this
question for Keely to answer:--"What impulse led you primarily into the
research of acoustic physics?" Keely replied, "An impulse associated
sympathetically with my mental organism from birth, seemingly, as
I was acutely sensible of it in my childhood. Before I had reached
my tenth year, researching in the realm of acoustic physics had a
perfect fascination for me; my whole organism seemed attuned as if
it were a harp of a thousand strings; set for the reception of all
the conditions associated with sound force as a controlling medium,
positive and negative; and with an intensity of enjoyment not to be
described. From that time to the present, I have been absorbed in this
research, and it has opened up to me the laws that govern the higher
workings of nature's sympathetic, hidden forces; leading me gradually
on to the solution of the problem relating to the conditions that
exist between the celestial and terrestrial outreaches, viz., polar
negative attraction." Another question asked by the same editor:
"What is the main difficulty to be overcome before completing the
system for commercial benefit?" Answer: "The principal difficulty
rests in equating the thirds of the thirds of the transmitters (i.e.,
the gold, silver, and platina sections, of which the transmitting
wires are composed) to free them of molecular differentiation. The
full control of this force can never be accomplished, until pure
molecular equation is established between the nodal interferences
(that result in their manufacture) and the chord mass of their
sectional parts. When this has been done, the chasm between the
alternation of the polar forces, which now exists, preventing the
inducing of polar and depolar conditions, will be bridged over and
commercial benefits at once established as the result. The devices
for inducing these conditions, primarily, are perfect: but the pure,
connective link on transmission has to be equated, before continued
mechanical rotation and reversion can be attained."
As has already been said, Keely's researches have all been on the
line of vibrations; and it was while pursuing them that he "stumbled
over," to use his own words, the inter-atomic subdivision of the
molecule, which released the Geni that for years thereafter was his
master. Keely's attention not having been turned to molecules and
atoms, he was not able, in the earliest years of his discovery of
the existence of a "force of nature more powerful and more general
even than electricity," to form any opinion as to the origin of the
force. He was as one who, in the thick darkness of an underground
labyrinth, found himself face to face with a giant, whose form even he
could not see to lay hold of in a death grapple; but when a germ of
the knowledge that he needed fell on his mind, he was quick to seize
it, and the acorn grew into an oak. Here again, to use his own words:
"I was as a boulder resting on the summit of a mountain, until an
introductory impulse was given to start it on its course; then rushing
onwards and carrying all before it, when the goal is reached its
concussion will produce the crash that will awaken a sleeping world."
Priestley proclaimed it as his belief that all discoveries are made by
chance; but Providence sends chance, and the man of genius is he who is
able to improve all opportunities and mould them to his own ends. In a
discovery, says Edison, there must be an element of the accidental,
and an important one too; discovery is an inspiration, while an
invention is purely deductive. The story of the apple dropping from
the tree, and Newton starting with a species of "Eureka," he rejects
absolutely. Maintaining that an abstract idea or a natural law may,
in one sense, be invented, he gives it as his opinion that Newton did
not discover the theory of gravitation, but invented it; and that he
might have been at work on the problem for years, inventing theory
after theory, to which he found it impossible to fit his facts. That
Keely claims to have discovered an unknown source of energy has not
seemed to disturb the equilibriums of some of the men of science who
have witnessed the demonstrations of the force, as much as that he
should have invented theories in regard to the operation of the laws
that control it. For a man who had lived more than half a century
without troubling himself as to the existence of molecules and atoms
to suddenly awaken to the knowledge of their existence, and to invent
theories as to "what sort of things they are and how they vibrate,"
was sufficient proof, in their eyes, that he invented his discovery;
but men who are, in thought, reaching out into unknown realms, are
the very men who are most likely to lay hold of a discovery;--as did
Bell, who, speculating upon the nature of sound, filed an invention
for his telephone before he discovered that articulate speech could be
conveyed along a wire. It was in the same way that Keely, speculating
upon the nature of vibration, was led into the field of invention; and
while experimenting with one of his inventions, he suddenly stepped
into that great unknown territory which lies beyond the horizon of
ordinary matter. It took him nearly a score of years to find out where
he was. Years of experiment followed before he was able to summon
the Geni at will; for when his lever first registered a pressure
of 2000 lbs., while subjecting water to the action of multiplied
vibrations, he had no idea how to proceed, as far as the number of
vibrations were concerned, to repeat the operation. Commencing at
a certain point, he increased the vibrations day by day until, six
years later, he was able to effect the dissociation at will. But at
that time Mr. Keely had too much mechanical work to do to give any
of his time to theorizing. He was in the clutches of a speculating
Keely Motor Company, whose cry was, "Give us an engine!" and day
and night this toiler fought his way in the underground labyrinth,
thinking only of a commercial engine. It was not until Macvicar's
"Sketch of a Philosophy" fell into Mr. Keely's hands that he realized
he had imprisoned the ether. This was in 1884, and, four years later,
in 1888, Professor Hertz of Bonn announced that we were using the
ether, without knowing it, in all electro-magnetic engines. By this
time Keely's researches in vibratory physics had led him well on
his way in the construction of hypotheses as to "what sort of things
molecules are, and in what way they vibrate." An hypothesis treats
a supposed thing as an existing thing, for the purpose of proving,
by experimental demonstration, whether the supposition is correct
or not. At a critical juncture, Mrs. J. F. Hughes (a grand-niece of
Charles Darwin), hearing of Keely's researches, became interested in
his work; and her book on "The Evolution of Tones and Colours" was
sent to Mr. Keely. An expression used by Mrs. Hughes in that work,
brought a suggestion to Mr. Keely. The veil of darkness was rent
asunder which had enveloped him in what he called "Egyptian blackness,"
and from that time he worked no longer in the dark.
Pythagoras taught that the same law which underlies harmonies underlies
the motion of the heavenly bodies, or, as Mrs. Hughes has expressed it,
"The law which develops and controls harmony, develops and controls
the universe." Mr. Keely, nothing daunted by the vast extent, the
stupendous "outreach" of the domain, the boundary line of which he
had thus crossed, concentrated all his energies upon "the situation;"
thinking thereafter, not alone of the interests of commerce as before,
but of the developing of a system, which he could give to science in
the same hour that he should hand over, to those whose thoughts were
only on financial gain, the inventions that our age is demanding,
in the interests of humanity, with the stern voice of the master
necessity; a voice that never fails to make itself heard in "the voice
of the people." Experiment after experiment justified his hypotheses,
and converted them into theories. To keep pace with the wants of
humanity, invention must now walk side by side with philosophy. It took
half a century for the "Principia" of Newton to tread down the contempt
and opposition that its publication met with; and now progressive
knowledge is overshadowing Newton's vast attainments. Faraday, after
discovering electro-magnetic conditions, as related to latent or
hidden energy, did not pursue his researches far enough to establish
a theory as to the mode of transference of magnetic force, though, in
some of his speculations on the line of force, he hit upon truths now
advanced in Keely's theories. The physicists of Faraday's time could
not reach up to him. They complained of his "obscurity of language,"
of his "want of mathematical precision," of his "entertaining notions
regarding matter and force altogether distinct from the views generally
held by men of science." It is not then to be wondered at that modern
physicists took up lines of research more in accordance with their
own views. The experiences of one age are repeated in another age;
and the same charges that were brought against Faraday are now brought
against Keely; coupled with shameful attempts to prove him to be "a
fraud;" a man "living upon the credulity of his victims;" "a modern
Cagliostro;" "an artful pretender." The question is often asked, "Is
he not an ignorant man?" Yes, so ignorant, that he knows how ignorant
he is; so ignorant, that he asserts with Anaxagoras, that intelligent
will is the disposer and cause of everything; and not satisfied with
asserting this great truth, he has devoted the remnant of his days
to finding out and demonstrating how this cause operates throughout
nature. But ignorant as Keely has always confessed himself to be, he
knows more of the mysterious laws of nature which hold the planets
in their courses and exert their dynamic effect upon the tides,
more of the "shock effect" which, brought to bear upon molecules,
causes their disruption and supplies the fine fluid thus liberated,
that extends the "shock effect," as Frederick Major has conjectured, to
the atoms that compose them. Ignorant as Keely is, he knows that "out
of the strife of tremendous forces which is ever going on in nature,
is born a creation of law and harmony;" that from atomic recesses to
the farthest depth there is naught but "toil co-operant to an end,"
that "all these atoms march in time, and that it is no blind cause
which originates and maintains all." Admitting his ignorance, Keely
claims with Dr. Watson that "the many who are compelled to walk should
not scoff at those who try to fly." All who agree in believing that
"the advance of the modern school of natural philosophy affords no
justification for the intolerant and exclusive position taken by
certain physicists," will be ready to examine Keely's theories,
in the light of his demonstrations, even although they have been
stigmatized as fallacies. Science owes large obligations to many
fallacious theories.
Canon Moseley has said that the perfecting of the theory of epicycles
is due to the astrologers of the middle ages; and that but for them the
system of Copernicus would have remained a bare speculation, as did
that of Pythagoras for more than two thousand years. In the same way
that astrology nurtured astronomy, chemistry was cradled by alchemy.
Keely welcomes criticism of his theories, and is able to answer all
who come to him with criticisms in a proper spirit. To quote one of
his own expressions, "as far as a physical truth is concerned I never
throw up the sponge for any one." Of Professor Crookes, Keely wrote
quite recently: "Your friend is wrong in saying that I dabble in
chemical heresies. There must be some misunderstanding on his part,
for I have never asserted that nitrogen is a necessary constituent
of water. I only said that, after a thousand experiments had been
conducted, there was a residual deposit, in one of my tubes, of a
resinous substance that showed nitrogenous elements, which I could
not account for. I consider Professor Crookes one of the greatest of
discoverers, and, when he understands my system, he will be one of
the first to endorse it."
A philosophical journalist says of the force discovered by Keely,
that "it is harder to believe in than either steam or electricity,
because it has no visible manifestation in nature. It does not rise
in white clouds from every boiling kettle, or flash with vivid light
in every thunderstorm. It does not show itself in the fall of every
loosened body to the earth, like gravitation, nor can it be discovered,
like oxygen, by chemical investigation. If it exists at all, it is
in a form entirely passive, giving no hint of its presence until it
is brought out by the patient investigator, as the sculptor's chisel
brings out the beautiful statue from the shapeless mass of marble.
"Working thus entirely in the dark, with an intangible, imponderable,
invisible something whose nature and attributes are all unknown,
and whose characteristics differ essentially from those of any
other known force, what wonder if the inventor's progress is slow
and his disappointments many? Mr. Keely may be deceived, or he may
have discovered an actual force which he is unable to harness; but
the fact that he is very slow in perfecting whatever discovery he
may have made is no proof that he has not made a very great one.
"Far be it from us to say in this age of scientific marvels, that
any proposition whatever is impossible of accomplishment; but while
we wait for Mr. Keely to make his alleged discovery public, before
we become enthusiastic over it, we would not set it down as a fraud
and the reputed discovery as a humbug. It is the nature of inventors
to be enthusiastic and to think that they are on the eve of success
when, in fact, a great deal remains to be done.
"Especially is this the case in the development of a hitherto unknown
force. James Watt had a comparatively straight road to travel from his
mother's tea-kettle to his first steam-engine, but it took him many
years to traverse it. More than a lifetime elapsed after Franklin drew
electricity from a cloud before Morse sent it over a telegraph wire,
and Morse himself worked for years to make it available for business
purposes; while men are still constantly finding new adaptations of the
mysterious force of which that was the first practical application."
But, as Frederick Major has said, "Science at present is too full of
its own erroneous theories to accept or even notice theories outside of
science, until practically proved, and probably not even then unless
they can foist them upon the public as partially their own." These
words are not applicable to all men of science. There are some,
among those most eminent, who, in the spirit of true science, are
quite prepared for other roads to knowledge than those of our three
hundred years old induction school. The late Professor W. K. Clifford,
F.R.S., was one of those men who, in their earnest desire for "truth
at any cost," was ready to advance in every direction open to him. No
"fear of a false step" held him back. He did not belong to the category
of philosophical sceptics whom Dr. Stoney has so well classified as
damping all advance, unless it can be carried on, from the beginning,
under such conditions of perfection as are impossible in the early
stages of every discovery and of almost every inquiry. Professor Stoney
has well described Keely's method of work in these remarks: "In the
scientific method of investigating the validity of our beliefs, we take
our existing beliefs as our starting point, or a careful selection of
those which are fitted to enable us to advance. After the legitimate
consequences of these have been worked out, the inquirer finds himself
in a better position to return and test the validity of the bases on
which he proceeded. After these revisions, and such corrections as
he finds possible, he makes a step of a like kind farther forward:
after which another revision and another advance. Thus real progress
is accomplished. Probabilities acquire strength and accumulate; and
in the end a state of mind is attained replete with knowledge of the
realities within and around us. The sea of knowledge on which man
makes his brief voyage is for the most part unfathomable. He cannot
hope, except near shore, to measure the whole depth, and thus attain
philosophical certainty. But the scientific student may diligently use
such a sounding line as he possesses--that of probability--and with it
explore wide expanses under which there are no rocks nor shoals within
the utmost depth that he can plumb, and over which he may securely
sail. Compare this with the situation of the philosophical sceptic,
groping among rocks along the shore, and not venturing beyond the
shallow margin which he can probe with his little pole."
Professor Clifford struck out boldly in this unfathomable ocean of
knowledge, when he admitted the infinite divisibility of the atom,
which is one of the bases of Keely's theories. And how exquisitely
did his penetrating vision pierce the mists of materialism when he
wrote:--"Every time that analysis strips from nature the gilding that
we prized, she is forging thereat a new picture more glorious than
before, to be suddenly revealed by the advent of a new sense whereby
we see it--a new creation, at sight of which the sons of God shall
have cause to shout for joy. What now shall I say of this new-grown
perception of Law, which finds the infinite in a speck of dust,
and the act of eternity in every second of time? Shall I say that
it kills our sense of the beautiful, and takes all the romance out
of nature? And, moreover, that it is nothing more than a combining
and reorganizing of our old experiences; that it never can give us
anything really new; that we must progress in the same monotonous way
for ever. But wait a moment. What if this combining and organizing
is to become first habitual, then organic and unconscious, so that
the sense of law becomes a direct perception? Shall we not then be
really seeing something new? Shall there not be a new revelation of
a great and more perfect cosmos, a universe fresh-born, a new heaven
and a new earth? Mors janua vitæ, by death to this world we enter
upon a new life in the next. Doubtless there shall by-and-by be
laws as far transcending those we now know as they do the simplest
observation. The new incarnation may need a second passion; but,
evermore, beyond it is the Easter glory."
In these words there is the true ring of divinely inspired prophecy
to those who know of the pure philosophy which Keely's system
unfolds; teaching the "wondrous ways of Him who is perfect in
knowledge." Professor Clifford was one of those whom Ernest Renan has
classified as scouts in the great army, who divine beforehand that
which becomes ere long patent to all. In their rapid and venturesome
advance they catch sight before the others of the smiling plains
and lofty peaks. The student of nature has been compared to a hound,
wildly running after, and here and there chancing on game, universal
exploration, a beating up of the game on all sides, that and that
only is the sole possible method. And this is the spirit of those who
pursue their researches in a scientific frame of mind: while those
who enter the field in a sceptical mood, are indisposed to step out
of the beaten track where they feel sure of their footing.
They have no ambitions to meet the fate of the trilobites in Professor
Clifford's amusing apologue. "Once upon a time--much longer than six
thousand years ago--the Trilobites were the only people that had eyes;
and they were only just beginning to have them. Some of the Trilobites,
even, had as yet no signs of coming sight. So that the utmost they
could know was that they were living in darkness, and that perhaps
there was such a thing as light. But at last one of them got so far
advanced that when he happened to come to the top of the water in
the daytime he saw the sun. So he went down and told the others that
in general the world was light, but there was one great light which
caused it all. Then they killed him for disturbing the commonwealth;
but they considered it impious to doubt that in general the world was
light, and that there was one great light which caused it all. And
they had great disputes about the manner in which they had come to
know this. Afterwards, another of them got so far advanced that when
he happened to come to the top of the water, in the night-time, he
saw the stars. So he went down and told the others that in general
the world was dark, but that, nevertheless, there were a great number
of little lights in it. Then they killed him for maintaining false
doctrines; but from that time there was a division amongst them,
and all the Trilobites were split in two parties, some maintaining
one thing and some the other, until such time as so many of them had
learned to see that there could be no doubt about the matter that
both of the savant Trilobites were right."
Bacon has compared the mind of man to a prisoner in a cave with his
back to the light, who sees only shadows of the events passing outside.
Dr. Stoney, in his paper on "Natural Science and Ontology," frames a
working hypothesis, which leads up to Keely's theory, that "the laws
of the universe are the laws of thought." "This is a very different
thing," says Dr. Stoney, "from saying that they are the laws of
human thought. The laws of human thought bear to them the same small
proportion which the laws of the action of the wheels of a watch upon
one another bear to the entire science of dynamics.... Natural science
is thus, as it were, the study of an ever-changing shadow cast in a
special and very indirect way by the mighty march of actual events."
"The history of philosophy," writes Ernest Renan, "should be the
history of the thoughts of mankind. Hence we must look upon philology,
or the study of ancient literatures, as a science having a distinct
object, viz., the knowledge of the human intellect."
The philologist and the chemist, because of the results of the
researches of the one, and of the nature of the researches of the
other, are the students who are best able to comprehend the discoveries
of Keely. "It is the characteristic and the pride of modern science to
attain its most lofty results only through the most scrupulous methods
of experiment, and to arrive at the knowledge of the highest laws of
nature, its hands resting on its apparatus. If the highest truths can,
as it were, emanate from the alembic and the crucible, why should they
not equally be the result of the study of the remains of the past,
covered with the dust of ages? Shall the philologist who toils on
words and syllables be less honoured than the student of chemistry
labouring in his laboratory? It is impossible to guess beforehand what
may result from philological researches, any more than one can know,
in digging a mine, the wealth it may contain. We may be on our way to
the discovery of a new world. Science always presents itself to man as
an unknown country. The most important discoveries have been brought
about in a roundabout way. Very few problems have been deliberately
grappled with at the outset, 'taken at the core.' There is nothing
more difficult to foretell than the importance with which posterity
will invest this or that order of facts; the researches that will be
abandoned, the researches that will be continued. In looking for one
thing one may stumble upon another; in the pursuit of a mere vision,
one may hit upon a magnificent reality."
When a result has been attained, it is difficult to realize the trouble
its attainment has cost, says Ernest Renan in "The Future of Science."
Of this nature have been the researches of the present distinguished
Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution; leading him into a
discovery, the great importance of which the future alone can unfold.
Professor Dewar's brilliant success in producing liquid oxygen will be
remembered by all who had the privilege of witnessing it last year, on
the occasion of the celebration of Faraday's Centenary. Its production
is attended with the greatest difficulties; so great that Professor
Dewar even felt doubts as to his being successful in his attempt at
that time, which made his complete success all the more gratifying
to him. When produced, it is difficult to hold and difficult to
manipulate; but nothing daunted by these difficulties, Professor Dewar
continued his researches, subjecting it to tests which no mind less
penetrating than his own would ever have thought of, with the result
that, most unexpectedly to himself, he has "hit upon a magnificent
reality." The ordeal to which, with consummate skill, he subjected
this unstable fluid, disclosed its marvellous affinity for the magnet;
and iron is now no longer able to claim the distinction which it has
hitherto enjoyed, of monopolizing the affections of the magnet. Sir
Robert Ball, LL.D., F.R.S., in commenting upon this important and most
interesting addition to our knowledge of the properties of oxygen,
says:--"Seeing that water, which is so largely composed of oxygen,
is not attracted by a magnet, it might certainly have seemed unlikely
that a liquid which was nothing but pure oxygen should be affected
to any noteworthy degree. I suspect, however, that Professor Dewar
must have had some sagacious reason for anticipating that the magnet
would treat liquid oxygen with much more attention than it bestowed
on water. At all events, whether he expected it or not, the result as
described was of the most extraordinary character. The liquid oxygen
was vehemently attracted by the great magnet; it seems to have leaped
from the vessel, to have clung round the poles, and continued to adhere
to them until it had all evaporated and resumed the form of gas. The
appreciation of this discovery will be shared not alone by chemists,
but by all who are interested in the great truths of nature."
When Mr. Keely fell upon his discovery of an unknown force, he had not
the faintest conception of the infinite extent, nor of the nature, of
the territory he had invaded. Step by step he has been led on through
years of patient and persistent research, yet even now feeling that
he has but lifted one corner of the veil of the goddess of nature,
and that a lifetime is too short to do more than this. The physicists
whom Keely, in the earlier years of his discovery, invited to confer
with him as to the origin of the force which was generated by the
disintegration of water, preferred rather to pronounce him an impostor,
after witnessing his demonstrations, than to admit that such results
should have escaped the penetration of their all-powerful methods. "It
indicates," says Dr. Watson, "a mistaken apprehension of the basis of
our own so highly valued system of inquiry, that we should arrogate to
it absolute exclusiveness, and deride, as though they were searchers
after proved impossibilities, all those who choose to make the trial
whether truth may be sought by any method besides our own."
History repeats itself, but on new planes. It is not those who are
mighty in their own eyes whom Providence chooses as instruments to
reveal new truths to the world when the needs of humanity require
"a new order of things." The evolution of the human race is slow but
sure. If in one century some backward steps are taken, in the next with
giant strides all is regained that seemed to have been lost. Each age
answers the need of its own time. "The condition of mankind, during
the last quarter of the fifteenth century, bore some curious analogies
to its state at present," writes Julian Hawthorne, under the heading,
"The New Columbus." "A certain stage or epoch of human life seemed to
have run its course and come to a stop. The impulses which had started
it were exhausted. Once more, it seems, we have reached the limits of
a dispensation, and are halted by a blank wall. There is no visible
way over it, nor around it. We cannot stand still; still less can we
turn back. What is to happen? What happens when an irresistible force
encounters an impenetrable barrier? That was the question asked in
Columbus' day, and he found an answer to it. Are we to expect the
appearance of a new Columbus to answer it again? What Columbus can
help us out of our dangers now? The time has come when the spirit
of Columbus shall avouch itself, vindicating the patient purpose of
Him who brings the flower from the seed. Great discoveries come when
they are needed; never too early nor too late. When nothing else will
serve the turn, then, and not till then, the rock opens and the spring
gushes forth. Who that has considered the philosophy of the infinitely
great and of the infinitely minute can doubt the inexhaustibleness of
nature? And what is nature but the characteristic echo of the spirit of
man? A prophet has arisen, during these latter days, in Philadelphia,
who is commonly regarded as a charlatan; but men, cognizant of the
latest advances of science, admit themselves unable to explain upon
any known principles the effects he produces."
"What we are to expect is an awakening of the soul; the rediscovery
and rehabilitation of the genuine and indestructible religious
instinct. Such a religious revival will be something very different
from what we have known under that name. It will be a spontaneous
and joyful realization by the soul of its vital relations with its
Creator. Nature will be recognized as a language whereby God converses
with man. The interpretation of this language, based as it is upon an
eternal and living symbolism, containing infinite depths beyond depths
of meaning, will be a sufficient study and employment for mankind for
ever. Science will become, in truth, the handmaid of religion, in that
it will be devoted to reporting the physical analogies of spiritual
truths, and following them out in their subtler details. Hitherto
the progress of science has been slow, and subject to constant error
and revision. But as soon as physical research begins to go hand in
hand with moral or psychical research it will advance with a rapidity
hitherto unimagined, each assisting and classifying the other.
"The attitude of men towards one another will undergo a corresponding
change. It is already become evident that selfishness is a colossal
failure.... Recent social theorists propose a universal co-operation,
to save the waste of personal competition. But competition is a
wholesome and vital law; it is only the direction of it that requires
alteration. When the cessation of working for one's livelihood takes
place, human energy and love of production will not cease with it,
but will persist and must find their channels. But competition to
outdo each in the service of all is free from collisions, and its
range is limitless. Not to support life, but to make life more lovely,
will be the effort; and not to make it more lovely for one's self
alone but for one's neighbour. Nor is this all.
"The love of the neighbour will be a true act of divine worship,
since it will then be acknowledged that mankind, though multiplied
to human sense, is in essence one; and that in this universal one,
which can have no self-consciousness, God is incarnate.
"The divine humanity is the only real and possible object of mortal
adoration, and no genuine sentiment of human brotherhood is conceivable
apart from its recognition. But, with it, the stature of our common
manhood will grow toward the celestial. Obviously, with thoughts and
pursuits of this calibre to engage our attention, we shall be very
far from regretting those which harass and enslave us to-day. Leaving
out of account the extension of psychical faculties, which will
enable the antipodes to commune together at will, and even give us
the means of communicating with the inhabitants of other planets,
and which will so simplify and deepen language that audible speech,
other than the musical sounds indicative of emotion, will be regarded
as a comic and clumsy archaism,--apart from all this, the fathomless
riches of wisdom to be gathered from the commonest daily objects and
outwardly most trivial occurrences, will put an end to all craving
for merely physical change of place and excitement. Gradually the
human race will become stationary, each family occupying its own
place, and living in patriarchal simplicity, though endowed with
power and wisdom that we should now consider god-like.... We have
only attempted to indicate what regions await the genius of the new
Columbus; nor does the conjecture seem too bold that perhaps they
are not so distant from us in time as they appear to be in quality."
If we turn, from this seemingly Utopian forecast, to the matter-of-fact
utterances of Ernest Renan, we will find that he anticipates
nothing less as the destiny of humanity, than the perfecting of it
as a unity. Asserting that the nineteenth century is preparing the
way for the enfranchisement of the mind, he proceeds logically to
show how this evolution is to be brought about, strong in the faith
that Providence will not fail in its design to secure the ultimate
happiness of the human race. To quote, at length, from Renan:--"It
is the law of science, as of every human undertaking, to draw its
plans on a large scale, and with a great deal that is superfluous
around them. Mankind finally assimilates only a small number of the
elements of food. But the portions that have been eliminated played
their part in the act of nutrition. So the countless generations that
have appeared and disappeared like a dream, have served to build the
great Babel of humanity which uprises toward the sky, each layer of
which means a people. In God's vast bosom all that lived will live
again, and then it will be true to the very letter that not a glass
of water, not a word that has furthered the divine work of progress
will be lost. That is the law of humanity; an enormous and lavish
expenditure of the individual; for God only sets Himself the large,
general plan; and each created being finds subsequently in himself
the instincts which make his lot as mild as possible. All help to
accelerate the day when the knowledge of the world shall equal the
world, when the subject and the object having become identified, God
will be complete. Philosophy up till now has scarcely been anything
but fancy, a priori, and science has only been an insignificant
display of learning. As for us, we have shifted the field of the
science of man. We want to know what his life is, and life means
both the body and the soul; not placed facing one another like clocks
that tick in time, not soldered together like two different metals,
but united into one two-fronted phenomenon which cannot be divided,
without destroying it. It is time to proclaim the fact that one sole
Cause has wrought everything in the domain of intellect, operating
according to identical laws, but among different surroundings.
"The lofty serenity of science becomes possible only when it
handles its imperturbable instrument with the inflexibility of
the geometrician, without anger and without pity. True science, the
complete and felt science, will be for the future, if civilization is
not once again arrested in its march by blind superstition and the
invasion of barbarism, in one form or another. But it is contended
that the inferiority of the philosophy of science consists in its
being accessible to the small minority. This is, on the contrary,
its chief title to glory, showing us that we should labour to hasten
the advent of the blessed day in which all men will have their place
in the sunshine of intelligence, and will live in the true light of
the children of God. It is the property of hope to hope against hope,
and there is nothing which the past does not justify us in hoping
from the future of humanity. Perfect happiness, as I understand it,
is that all men should be perfect. I cannot understand how the opulent
man can fully enjoy his happiness while he is obliged to veil his face
in presence of the misery of a portion of his fellow-creatures. There
can only be perfect happiness when all are equal, but there will
only be equality when all are perfect. Thus we see that it is
not a question of being happy; it is a question of being perfect;
a question of true religion, the only thing which is serious and
sacred. Inequality is legitimate whenever inequality is necessary for
the good of humanity. Rights create themselves like other things. The
French Revolution is not legitimate because it has taken place, but
it took place because it was legitimate; the freeing of the negroes
was neither achieved nor deserved by the negroes, but by the progress
in civilization of their masters. Right is the progress of humanity;
there is no right in opposition to this progress, and, vice versâ,
progress legitimizes everything. Never, since the origin of things, has
human intelligence set itself so terrible a problem as the one which
now menaces our age. Upon the one hand, it is necessary to preserve
the conquests already secured for civilization; while upon the other,
all must have their share in the blessings of this civilization. It
took centuries to conceive the possibility of a society without
slavery. The traveller who looks only at the horizon of the plain,
risks not seeing the precipice or the quagmire at his feet. In the
same way, humanity when looking only to the distant object is tempted
to make a jump for it, without regard to the intermediate objects
against which it may not improbably dash itself to pieces. Socialism
is, therefore, right to the extent of discerning the problem,
but solves it badly; or rather socialism is not yet possible of
solution. Reforms never triumph directly; they triumph by compelling
their adversaries to partially adopt them in order to overcome them. It
might be said of reforms as of the crusades: 'Not one succeeded: all
succeeded.' As one sees the tide bringing the ever-collapsing waves
upon the shore, the feeling aroused is one of powerlessness. The wave
arrived so proudly, and yet it is dashed to pieces against the sand,
and it expires in a feeble career against the shore which it seemed
about to devour. But, upon reflection, one finds that this process
is not as idle as it seems; for each wave, as it dies away, has its
effect; and all the waves combined make the rising tide against which
heaven and hell would be powerless. Humanity, when it is fatigued,
is willing to pause; but to pause is not to rest. The calm is but
an armistice and a breathing space. It is impossible for society to
find calm in a state when it is suffering from an open wound such as
that of to-day. The age is oppressed by this inevitable and seemingly
insoluble problem. We barricade ourselves in one party, in order not
to see the reasons of the other side. The conservatives are wrong,
for the state of things which they uphold, and which they do right
to uphold, is intolerable. The revolutionists are wrong; for it is
absurd to destroy when you have nothing to put in place of what you
destroy. At these epochs, doubt and indecision are the truth; the man
who is not in doubt is either a simpleton or a charlatan. Revolutions
must be made for well-ascertained principles, and not for tendencies
which have not yet been formulated in a practical manner. They are
the upheavals of the everlasting Enceladus turning over when Etna
weighs too heavily upon him. It is horrible that one man should be
sacrificed to the enjoyment of another. If it were merely a question
of self-indulgence, it would be better that all should have Spartan
fare, than that some should have luxuries and others go hungry; but,
as long as material ease is to a certain extent the indispensable
condition of intellectual perfection, the sacrifice is not effected
for the enjoyment of another individual, of the luxuries of life,
but it is made upon behalf of society as a whole. A society is
entitled to what is necessary for its existence, however great may
be the apparent injustice resulting for the individual. It is the
idea of the ancient sacrifice--the man for the nation. If the object
of life were but self-indulgence, it would not be unreasonable that
each one should claim his share, and from this point of view any
enjoyment which one might procure at the expense of others would be in
reality an injustice and a robbery: but the object of life, the aim
of society, should be the greatest possible perfecting of all. The
State is neither an institution of police, as Smith would have it,
nor a charity bureau and a hospital as the Socialists would have
it. It is a machine for making progress. In the state of things which
I should like to see, manual labour would be the recreation of mental
labour. The immense majority of humanity is still at school: to let
them out too soon would be to encourage them in idleness. Necessity,
says Herder, is the weight of the clock which causes all the wheels
to turn. Without the idea of progress, all the ideas of humanity are
incomprehensible. We must keep our machines in order, if we would bring
down paradise upon earth; and paradise will be here below when all have
their share in light, perfection, beauty, and therefore in happiness.
"It matters little whether the law grants or refuses liberty to
new ideas, for they make their way all the same; they come into
existence without the law, and they are all the better for this than
if they had grown in full legality. When a river which has overflown
its banks pours onward, you may erect dykes to arrest its progress,
but the flood continues to rise; you may work with eager energy and
employ skilful labourers to make good all the fissures, but the flood
will continue to rise until the torrent has surmounted the obstacle,
or until, by making a circuit of the dyke, it comes back by some other
way to inundate the land which you have attempted to protect from it."
These are the advanced views of Ernest Renan, who still sees nothing
before us but a fresh cataclysm, a general upheaval and chaos, terrible
disturbances when human intelligence will be checkmated, thrown off
the rails so to speak, by events as yet unparalleled. We have not yet
suffered sufficiently, he says, to see the kingdom of heaven. When a
few millions of men have died of hunger, when thousands have devoured
one another, when the brains of the others, carried off their balance
by these darksome scenes, have plunged into extravagancies of one
kind and another, then life will begin anew. Suffering has been for
man the mistress and the revealer of great things. Order is an end,
not a beginning; but out of respect for the rights of bears and lions
are we to open the bars of a menagerie? Are these beasts to be let
loose upon men? No, for humanity and civilization must be saved at
any cost. But these problems, which make up the capital question of
the nineteenth century, are, in a speculative sense, insoluble; they
will be solved by brute force, says Renan. The crowd behind is ever
pressing forward; those in the foremost ranks are toppled over into
the yawning gulf, and when their bodies have filled up the abyss,
the last comers pass over on the level.
But let us suppose that what pseudo-science has wrested from us,
true science is ready to restore; ready to offer all that Renan
himself tells us is necessary to open the way for the elevation of
the people, by giving all men a share in the delights of education;
thus widening the basis of the brotherhood of humanity, and making
room for all at the banqueting-table of knowledge, enabling men to be
"perfect in their measure," for "absolute equality is as impossible
in humanity as it would be in the animal reign. Each part is perfect
in the hierarchy of the parts when it is all that it can be, and does
well all that it ought to do."
Let us suppose that true science offers confirmation of all that
revelation has taught of the attributes of the Creator of all things,
reiterating the promise of a time when this knowledge shall be spread
over the face of the whole earth and made known to all men. Let
us imagine that, in addition to the opening of these floodgates of
knowledge, the time is drawing near when machinery, unknown now, will
be employed to help the workman in his task, and abridge his hours of
labour, leaving leisure for the cultivation of his mind. Aristotle
has told us what would be the result, "if every instrument could
work of its own accord, if the spindles worked of themselves, if the
bow played the violin without being held, the contractors could do
without workmen and the masters without slaves." Man would so master
nature that material requirements would no longer be the supreme
motive, and human activity would be directed towards the things of
the mind. In such a state of existence men of intelligence would
"conquer the infinite."
We are living in a period of wondrous revelations of the power of God,
and the crowning discovery of this epoch promises the fulfilment of
Scripture prophecy in a dispensation of harmony and peace, that will
restore to mankind that measure of faith in God and immortality, which
can alone give strength "to endure the evil days without feeling the
weight of them" that lie between the present time and the realization
of our hopes for the perfection of humanity. With the knowledge
that lies in this new revelation of the power of the All-Mighty, no
hopes seem chimerical or Utopian. We shall all be as gods, when the
fulness of the love of God and the power of God is made known to, and
understood by, all men. Tossing as we are in a seething whirlpool of
scepticism, threatened as are the nations with dangers on all sides,
if we were bereft of our God, as the leading lights of science would
have us believe, there would be no hope for humanity. But though
the anchor of ancient faiths has been swept away by materialism,
the sheet-anchor of faith by science has been let down from heaven,
as it were in our hour of peril, for the saving of the peoples:
teaching as often before that the world lies in the bosom of God,
like a child in its mother's arms, who with watchful solicitude
ministers to its wants as they arise.
Religion as revealed to us by our Holy Master, Jesus Christ, is to
know and to love the truth of things. When this religion is understood
and practised, then, and not before, will the earth be full of the
knowledge that it is God who is, and that all the rest only appears to
be. If anarchy and disorder would but wait for this time to arrive,
no devastating cataclysms, no destroying whirlwinds, will come as
forerunners to prepare the way, as in the past, for progress. The
light now dawning will usher in "the new order of things," and we
may expect that an era of material prosperity will soon set in,
such as the world has never dreamed of; arresting the outbreak of
barbarism which seems near at hand. There are some who contend that
this revelation of an unknown force will, in the hands of anarchists,
put back the progress of civilization and enlightenment for centuries;
there are others who proclaim that it will take the bread from the
mouths of the hungry and swell the sums amassed by capitalists. But
history shows that discovery heralds progress, and walks with it hand
in hand. With the costless and unlimited power which will be made
available, in every direction where power is required, all works
of improvement will be carried out on a far grander scale than has
ever been anticipated. The great polar stream, with its exhaustless
supply of energy, places at our disposal a force as harmless as the
current that draws its keeper to the magnet. We have but to "hook
our machinery on to the machinery of nature," and we have a safe
and harmless propelling and controlling force, the conditions of
which when once set up remain for ever, perpetual molecular action
the result. Another step made toward the conquering of the material
world which must precede the advent of the reign of the spirit.
Schlegel foresaw that the only hope for a brotherhood of humanity lay
in the thorough religious regeneration of the State and of science, and
that through these combined powers the underlying purpose of Eternal
Mind is to be made known, covering the earth with the knowledge of
God as the waters cover the beds of the seas, obtaining a complete
triumph for Christianity.
It would fill with despair the hearts of those who are working
to bring about this end (so slow, so retrograde at times does the
evolution seem to be) did they not know that they have an Invincible
Power working with them.
History has again repeated itself, and truth has once more had its
birth in a stable. A star has arisen in the West which heralds to all
races what the Star of Bethlehem heralded in Judea, viz. the coming
of the time when the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of
the Lord. There are both Magi and shepherds now, as of old, who have
watched for the rising of this star, and who were the first to behold
the gold and crimson light of the approaching dawn; in which Faith,
which modern science has crucified and laid away in its sepulchre,
will have its resurrection and dwell on earth for evermore--the
tabernacle of God with men.
THE DAWN.
Dante called his lifetime, "The time of my debt."
I.
Have I not paid my debt, O God,
What have I left to give?
Yet blest my life in rendering all
To help the nations live
In harmony, in peace, in love,
As nations all will be,
When knowledge true shall cover earth
As waters cover sea.
II.
Nailed to the cross are all my hopes--
Thou hast not spared me aught:
But raised thereby above the world
Its treasures count as naught:
Empty its titles and its show,
Its honours and its fame;
Better the love of God to know
Than riches, rank, or name.
III.
Two avenues there are, 'tis said,
From paltry passions vile,
From all calamities of earth,
From artifice and wile.
Science and Art their votaries lead
From quicksands and from shoal;
Their guiding torches held aloft
Will light us to our goal.
IV.
When ended this--my "time of debt"--
'Tis only Thou canst know;
But when the longed-for quittance comes
I stay not here below.
Till then give me the torch of Art
To light my pathway drear,
Let Science lift my thoughts to Thee,
My lonely hours to cheer.
V.
And when my life-long debt is paid--
My soul from body free--
No bondage can enslave me more,
For I shall go to Thee.
Hasten the hour when summons comes,
To take me to my home;
Here have I lived an exile's life,
An exile forced to roam.
VI.
The face of love was turned from me
When most I felt its need,
And in the wilds my feet were set
To plough and sow the seed.
Ashes and tears to me were given;
I sat not by the way,
With folded hands to make lament,
But laboured day by day.
VII.
Thou hast not dealt one useless blow,
What time I worked in field:
Each tear of blood, each hour of toil,
Increased the harvest yield;
And now the furrows all are ploughed,
If I have paid my debt,
By waters still, in paths of peace,
Thou wilt my footsteps set.
VIII.
Æons may pass before my hopes
For earth are all fulfilled;
But let "the dawn" approach, I pray,
Before my lips are stilled!
And let true knowledge cover earth
As waters cover sea--
Knowledge of truth, knowledge of love,
Knowledge, dear God, of Thee!
IX.
I wait the music of the spheres,
The rhythmic pulse of earth,
Which, when Death's angelus doth ring,
Announce immortal birth:
In that blest home beyond the veil
No discord rends the air
The law of harmony prevails
And love reigns everywhere.
CONCLUSION.
KEELY'S PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Mr. Keely begins with sounds whose vibrations can be known
and registered. I presume that the laws of ratio, position,
duality, and continuity, all the laws which go to mould the
plastic air by elastic bodies into the sweetness of music,
will also be found ruling and determining all in the high
silence of interior vibrations, which hold together or shake
asunder the combinations that we call atoms and ultimate
elements.--The Science of Music. D. C. Ramsay. Edited by the
Rev. John Andrew. Marcus Ward & Co.
What Keely has discovered in physics, I am in some measure
credited with discovering in metaphysics: this is nothing
strange, according to this philosophy, which shows that many
people may divine the same original truth at the same time
by means of the etheric element which connects the Deity, the
source of all truth, with all His creatures.--Preface to Vera
Vita; or, the Philosophy of Sympathy. David Sinclair. Author
of A New Creed. Digby, Long & Co., London.
Abstract of Keely's Physical Philosophy in its main features up to
the point of practical application; by Professor Daniel G. Brinton,
of the Pennsylvania University; subject to modifications and additions
when Keely has made public his system.
The fundamental conception of the Universe is force manifesting itself
in rhythmical relations.
This definition is exhaustive, including both thought and extension,
matter and mind. The law for the one is the law for the other. The
distinction between them is simply relative, i.e. quantitative,
not qualitative.
The rhythmic relations in which force acts are everywhere, under all
conditions, and at all times, the same. They are found experimentally
to be universally expressible by the mathematical relations of thirds.
These threefold relations may be expressed with regard to their
results as,--
I. Assimilative.
II. Individualizing.
III. Dominant or Resultant.
From these three actions are derived the three fundamental
LAWS OF BEING.
I. Law of Assimilation: every individualized object assimilates itself
to all other objects.
II. Law of Individualization: every such object tends to assimilate
all other objects to itself.
III. Law of the Dominant: every such object is such by virtue of the
higher or dominant force which controls these two tendencies.
Applying these fundamental laws to an explanation of the universe,
as it is brought to human cognition, all manifestations of force may
be treated as modes of vibrations.
The essential differences give rise to three modes of vibration:--
I. The Radiating: called also the "Dispersing," the "Propulsive,"
the "Positive," and the "Enharmonic."
II. The Focalizing: called also the "Negative," the "Negative
Attractive," the "Polarizing," and the "Harmonic."
III. The Dominant: called also the "Etheric," or the "Celestial."
These, it will be noted, correspond to the three laws of being. It is
not to be understood that any one of these three modes of vibration
can exist independently. Each by itself is called a "current," and
all three must be present in every "stream" or "flow" of force. The
relations of the currents in every flow are expressible in thirds,
and it is experimentally demonstrable that the relation of the three
are in the order named: as 33 1/3 : 66 2/3 : 100.
The evolution of what is called "matter" from the different modes
of vibration is through the action of the second law, that of
focalization, or "negative attraction," or "negative affinity."
Where the vibrations under this mode meet, and are maintained in a
state of mutual affinity or equilibrium, there is established what
is called a "neutral centre," or, as otherwise expressed, "a centre
of sympathetic coincidence."
The terms "neutral attraction," "neutral affinity," "negative
attraction," or "polar negative attraction," are employed to express
the property of a mode of vibration to direct its components towards
such centre.
As no current or flow of force can be composed of one mode of
vibration only, but must always be composed of three modes uniting in
varying thirds, we have 1 × 2 × 3 = 6 as the total possible forms of
sympathetic coincidence, or, to speak in ordinary terms, there can
be six; and six only, possible forms of individualized being. These
are what Keely calls the six orders of atomic subdivision, or orders
of vibratory motion, and he names them as follows:
I. Molecular.
II. Inter-molecular.
III. Atomic.
IV. Inter-atomic.
V. Etheric.
VI. Inter-etheric.
In this list the forms of matter are arranged in the mathematical
sequence of the rapidity of the oscillations of their constituent
members; the proportion being proved by experiment to be as follows:
for the molecular orders:
1 : 3 : 9 : 27 : 81 : 243.
This arithmetical progression changes in the atomic orders to a
geometrical progression as follows:
3 : 9 : 81 : 6561 : 43046721, etc.
This same method of progression is believed to hold in all the orders
of vibrations above the molecular, and soon passes into mathematical
infinity.
Actually, however, all matter of which we are capable of cognition
through the medium of our senses is in one of three forms of
aggregation:
I. Molecular.
II. Atomic.
III. Etheric.
in each of which the controlling mode of vibration is respectively,
I. The Enharmonic.
II. The Harmonic.
III. The Dominant.
But it must be understood that each of these modes is a positive and
real constituent of every atom and molecule.
It will be seen that as every form of material aggregation is to be
considered as a "neutral centre of attraction," where the vibratory
force of all three orders are held in "sympathetic coincidence," that
is, in balanced activity or harmonized motion, and not by any means
cancelled or mutually destroyed, there is no diminution of force,
but only temporary suspension of its radiating or propulsive activity
or expression.
This is the foundation of Keely's doctrine of "latent force," and
of the indefinite power which can be obtained by breaking up the
harmonious balance or equation of forces of every mode, which exists
in every "neutral centre," that is to say in every mass of matter.
Insomuch as every mass of matter consists thus, in fact, of vibrations
in harmonic equilibrium, related by simple proportions of thirds,
it follows that every mass of every description stands in harmonic
relation to every other mass. This is, in part, what is meant by
the sympathy of all forms of matter and of motion; and it is through
the study of the methods of increasing or diminishing this sympathy
that we reach practical results in this field of research. At present
this is best accomplished by resonance; that is, through the harmonic
vibrations created by musical instruments, bringing out the acoustic
world as the microscope reveals the hidden visual world.
Every visible or tangible mass of matter must be regarded as an
aggregation of molecules; the molecules being the true centres of
the equated forces of "neutralized attraction."
These molecules have been experimentally proved by Keely to be
formed of all three modes of vibration; the proof being that they
respond to all three modes when subjected to the tests of compound
concordant impulses.
When in that state of neutral aggregation which we know as matter,
each molecule is in perpetual oscillation, the range of the oscillation
being one-third of the molecule, and its rapidity 20,000 oscillations
in a second.
It is through the disturbance of this oscillatory equilibrium, by
means of resonant impulses, that Keely alters the relations of the
vibratory impulses which constitute matter. This he does by striking
the same chord in three octaves, representing the third, sixth,
and ninth of the scale.
Of these, the sixth reduces the range of molecular vibrations or
oscillations; and, by thus bringing nearer to each other the neutral
centres, increases solidification.
The ninth extends the range of molecular oscillation, and thus tends
to give greater tenuity to the mass. It induces "trajectile velocity"
from neutral centres, or "neutral radiation." Experiment shows
that molecular dissociation does not take place until the molecule
attains an oscillation approaching, if not fully reaching two-thirds
of its diameter. This can be effected by means of the action of the
"enharmonic" or "radiating" current applied to the mass, after its
molecules have once been disturbed by an "introductory impulse;"
that is, by the musical note above mentioned.
The third represents the "dominant," and when brought under control
of a harmonic resonant impulse induces a complete rearrangement of
the modes of vibration and oscillation; in other words, will transform
the mass either into its component initial forces, or into some other
form of matter.
It is the study of the dominant to which Keely has devoted his recent
researches. He aims to control the power he evolves by altering the
dominant or etheric mode of vibration in the triplicate flows of force.
As all molecules and masses are mere centres of harmonized vibrations,
temporarily held in suspension by simple laws identical with those of
resonance, it follows that these centres can be broken up or divided
by certain orders of vibration impinging upon and disturbing them.
It is a familiar fact that a cord in vibration tends to produce a
similar vibration in a cord placed near it. This property belongs
to all vibrations, whether resonant or not, and they exert it in
proportion to the "order" to which they belong. The distance in space
to which this power extends, or can be extended, is what is called
"the sympathetic outreach" of the current or flow.
In this manner we have "sympathetic negative attraction," and
"sympathetic positive propulsion," with reference to the "outreach"
of the third or dominant current of the stream, which is allied to
the order of etheric vibrations.
Each molecule of a given mass of matter represents the same harmonic
chord or note in its oscillatory motion. The "chord of the mass" is,
therefore, the chord of every molecule of the mass.
But as the condition of absolutely stable equilibrium is theoretical
only, and does not exist in nature, the chord of the mass is constantly
changing. Yet we must learn to control this "chord of the mass" by
resonant induction, if we would gain command of the molecular forces.
Keely believes he has solved this problem, by the invention of a
mechanical device which brings the chords of all masses within the
conditions of a few simple acoustic tests.
The range of molecular oscillation is affected differently in different
substances when submitted to the same vibratory impulse, and these
ranges can be measured.
In the three metals, silver, gold, and platina, we obtain the
proportions----3 : 6 : 9 :--As this is the primary relation of the
modes of vibration, a wire made of these three metals is peculiarly
adapted to transmit concordant impulses; and nodes made of these
substances placed upon a wire, transmitting resonant vibrations,
indicate, by the different orders of vibration induced in them,
the rate of oscillations of the atomic constituents.
The phenomenon of rotation arises from the harmonic interaction of
the dominant and enharmonic elements of the flow: in other words,
the first and third, the third and ninth, etc.; those whose vibrations
bear the proportions to each other 33 1/3 : 100.
A practical example of rotation is a wheel in revolution on its
axis. This is force in its commercial or economic aspect. To accomplish
this result by molecular vibratory action, we must gain control of
the "negative attractive" or "enharmonic" current of the triple flow,
and the problem is then solved up to any limit of power.
APPENDIX I.
More than four centuries B.C., Leucippus and his disciple
Democritus--who expounded the atomic theory of his master--introduced
the doctrine of indivisible atoms, possessing within themselves a
principle of energy. Democritus, it is said, travelling in search of
wisdom, visited the Gymnosophists of India (who, by leading ascetic
lives, thought they could effect a reunion of the spiritual nature
of man, with the divine essence of Deity), and in so doing incurred
the risk of being deprived of the rites of sepulture by his "waste
of patrimony," there being a law in Abdera to that effect.
Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles and other philosophers, had taught
that matter was indefinitely divisible, but Leucippus and Democritus
were the first to assert that these particles or atoms were originally
destitute of all qualities except form and energy; and they are,
therefore, called the originators of the atomic philosophy; which is
the basis of Keely's system of sympathetic physics.
Sympathetic physics teaches that light is an etheric evolution,
propagated by sympathetic conflict between celestial and terrestrial
outflows: solar tensions as against terrestrial condensation. True
luminosity cannot be induced in any other way. The high order of triple
vibration, that induces (progressively) molecular and intermolecular
separation, shows luminous results which, when thus mechanically
produced, are virtually on a small scale, a facsimile of nature's
operations. "All such experiments that I have made," writes Keely,
"resulted in vortex motion invariably, both sympathetically and
otherwise. Vortex motion follows nature in all corpuscular action.
"The undulatory theory, regarding light, I have not been able to
reconcile myself to, as anything but hypothetical. The conditions
which govern electro-magnetic radiation, disprove the theory in many
particulars. The vortex action induced in space, by the differential
conflict between the low and high tenuous, shows up results that
harmonize with the conditions accompanying the dissociation of
hydrogen and oxygen, in disintegrating water: viz., vortex action of
the highest order, but peripheral only. If it were not so, the ether
could not be held in suspension, neither in the molecular nor atomic
envelopes. Undulatory effects are produced by certain conditions of
sound; and by other conditions quite opposite effects. In organ pipes,
of a certain calibre, very sensitive waves occur at intervals; as
according to the character of the sound evolved; but on a combination
of resonators composed of brass tubes of more than nine in number, a
wave of sound, induced by certain chords passing over them, produces
high vortex action of the air enclosed in them. The vibration of
tuning forks induces alternate conditions of the air that surrounds
them, if in open atmosphere; but quite a different action presents
itself when the forks are exercised in resonating tubes, set to
thirds of the mass chord they represent. Then high vortex action is
the instant result. Vibrators cannot be set promiscuously in tubes,
and get such results, any more than a musician can render a musical
composition on the violin before tuning it. The conditions under which
light is evolved negatize whatever is associated with undulation, as
this word is understood by physicists. Aqueous undulations there are,
but not etheric undulations.
"The mighty forces latent in corpuscular matter, by which we
are surrounded, are all held in oscillating vortex action by the
Infinite Designer of workings hidden from us, until the time is ripe
for their disclosure. This latent, registered power interchanges
sympathetically with the celestial radiating streams, whereby light,
heat, electricity, magnetism and galvanic action are propagated in
their different orders, vitalizing all nature with their life-giving
principles. When this great scientific and religious truth has been
made known, and established by demonstration, all controversy as to
the source of energy will be for ever silenced. If I am the chosen
instrument to develop this knowledge, and to make known the conditions
which surround this pure truth, it is only that I may hand the key
to those who will use it to enter the doorway that opens into the
inaudible, and thus gain an insight into the now invisible region
of the operation of Nature's most powerful governing forces, in the
control, over terrestrial mind by celestial matter."
APPENDIX II.
The flow of electricity, as set down in Keely's system, is governed
by triple conditions: 1st. the dominant or high vibratory; 2nd. the
sub-dominant or low vibratory; 3rd. the harmonic or undulatory; in
combination one flow. Keely writes:--"When electrical experts can
construct a mechanical device whereby the low vibratory conditions
of the sub-dominant can be assimilated to the harmonic undulatory, by
thirds, they will be able to run their dynamos without any extraneous
appliances. An introductory impulse, on a certain order of vibration,
being all that would be required to give the sub-dominant a concordant
relation to the dominant; which would more effectually operate
the dynamo than any number of steam-engines; allowing the harmonic
stream to be the governor. This concordance, as towards the dominant,
would only excite its sympathetic action in a way that would divert
the ruling conditions of the two, without being submitted to the
destructive effects of the dominant current. I think many lives will be
lost before such a position is attained. Tesla has reached out almost
to the crest of the harmonic wave, leaving all electrical explorers
far behind him. It is only when such a condition is reached that the
true value of electrical lighting will be understood, and extraneous
power dispensed with; but, in my opinion, the present conditions for
transferring power will remain unaltered, in the use of electricity,
for generations.
"There is but one position to arrive at, that will redeem the many
failures of the past decade, in attempts to find an economizing medium
for commercial benefit in regard to power; and that position will be
attained when the polar sympathetic harness is completed, which will
give to the world the control of the polar forces."
In reply to the question, "What do you include in the polar
forces?" Keely answers, "Magnetism, electricity, and gravital sympathy;
each stream composed of three currents, or triune streams, which
make up the governing conditions of the controlling medium of the
universe: the infinite ninths that I am now endeavouring to graduate
to a sympathetic mechanical combination, will, if I succeed, close
my researches in sympathetic physics, and complete my system. These
sympathetic streams from celestial space, percussing on the dense
atmospheric environment of our earth, by their infinite velocities,
wrest from their atomic confinement the latent energies which we call
heat and light."
Question.--And where do these sympathetic conditions or streams of
force have their origin?
Answer.--'So God created man in His own image, in the image of God
created He him: male and female created He them,' Genesis i. 27. All
sympathetic conditions, or streams of force, are derived (if we dare
to make use of such a term in speaking of Deity) from the cerebral
convolutions of the Infinite: from the centre of the vast realm of
the compound luminous. From the celestial intermediate, the brain
of Deity, proceed the sympathetic flows that vitalize the polar
terrestrial forces."--Keely.
APPENDIX III.
Some faint idea of the infinite patience which the nature of Keely's
work requires may be gained by a knowledge of his process of converting
straight tubes into resonating rings. The tubes, in sections long
enough to form a semicircle, are passed between triple rollers,
which are set to give them a slight bend. They are then fastened to
a bed-plate, and a steel ball, the exact diameter of the interior of
the tube, is passed into it and forced through it. It is then passed
between the rollers again; which are set so as to slightly increase
the curvature, and again the interior of the tube is corrected by
the steel ball. This process is intermittently continued until the
semicircle is reached. Each process of bending and correcting requires
over two hours. Eighty bends are sometimes necessary for the completion
of the full circle. When the two semicircles, which form the circle,
are finished, they are placed in a steel mould and kept under hydraulic
pressure for two or three days, to correct any lateral deflection which
has taken place in bending them. They are then taken out of the moulds
and screwed rigidly to a face-plate, and joined together by a solder
of refined brass and silver. Next they are placed in a hot sand bath
of sufficient volume to require seventy-two hours to cool down. This
corrects the differentiation in their molecular groupings. They are
then submitted to a vibratory flow from the sympathetic negative
transmitter, until their intonation, by percussion, represents a pure
unmixed chord. The indicator, attached to the rings, denotes when
this condition is attained. They are then centred on a steel shaft
and rotated at the rate of 2000 revolutions per minute, surrounded
by the triple circuit ring. If the indicator, on the circuit ring,
should vary five degrees on a subdivision of 8000, the process
for correcting has to be repeated until the variations are reduced
to three; which is near enough to be considered perfect, inasmuch
as the circular resonator will then hold the neutral focalization
intact during the graduation of the full ninths, or triple triplets,
for sympathetic association to polar negative attraction.
Professor Dewar's recent brilliant achievements, in his line of
experimental research, not only have an important bearing upon one
of the greatest problems of modern science, but upon the science of
the future, as forecast by Keely.
Thermal radiation (and its negative, cold), the field of Professor
Dewar's researches, in Keely's system comes below the first atomic;
while celestial sympathetic radiation comes as the fountain head;
the compound inter-etheric, from which all aggregated matter springs,
the governing force of all aggregations. If there were no sympathetic
radiation from the great celestial centre, space would be void of
suspended, or floating, earthy and gaseous matter; consequently,
planetary worlds would never have had their birth and growth.
The suggestion of Professor Dewar, that an increase in low temperatures
might lead to the liquefying of hydrogen, is an admission that
hydrogen may be a compound; for no simple can ever be condensed into
a visible form. Keely's experimental researches have proved, to his
own satisfaction, that all known gases are compounds, inasmuch as,
when the intensity which accompanies sympathetic vibration, in his
process, is brought to bear upon any gas, it submits to dissociation.
The low temperatures with which Professor Dewar is dealing cause
molecular motion to cease; but the matter thus experimented upon is
not "dead matter" after this cessation of motion. Nothing can rob
matter of the latent energy which it contains; water is not robbed
of it by being frozen. The oxygen and hydrogen still occupy their
relative positions and conditions, without depreciation of their
vitality. Were water dead matter when frozen, its molecular activity
could not be restored by elevating its temperature. Matter can never
be robbed of its soul by any conditions of intensity of heat nor of
cold that could be brought to bear upon it.
When Professor Dewar uses the term "dead," in regard to matter,
it is purely in reference to the present orthodox theory of heat
energy. Take the analogy of a tuning fork or a bell; both are dead,
so far as sound is concerned, if they are not in vibration;--they
can be examined at rest or in motion, but science has not yet been
able to do the same thing with those general motions of a molecular
nature called heat. This is what Professor Dewar means by the term
"dead," knowing well that the molecular activity can return alike to
the fork or the molecule; only the energy must be supplied from some
other source. Such are the conditions with which orthodox science is
dealing, without acknowledging Deity as the fountain head of all force.
Not until Professor Dewar has witnessed the dissociation of hydrogen
will he be able to judge of the truth of the claim, that for nearly
twenty years Keely has been researching the nature of the product
of this dissociation: leading him to define and classify force and
energy very much as Grant Allen has done in his heretical work,
on this subject, published by Longmans & Co., in 1887.
James B. Alexander, in his book on "The Dynamic Theory," [32] makes
this distinction between Force and Energy:
"Energy is simply the motion of material bodies, large or small. Force
is the measure of energy, its degree or quantity.... The ether is
the universal agent of Energy, and the medium in all motion and
phenomena. It may with propriety be called the Soul of Things."
TO JOHN ERNST WORRELL KEELY.
"Palmam qui meruit ferat."
Prized secret of aerial space
Is thine! Not firmly caught
Without long years of patient toil--
Of more than giant thought.
Unfaltering thy steadfast faith,
In all its wise control,
'Mid insults, taunts and sneers, enough
To crush the bravest soul.
Such the ordeal on the paths
Of Stephenson, Daguerre,
Of Fulton, Goodyear, Morse, to which
They gave no heed nor care.
Like them still fearless thou hast toiled
With heart and will intense,
Until discovery now brings
Its grandest recompense.
Displaced all powers known, before
This force of latest birth;
So great no mind can comprehend--
No being born of earth.
We hail thee, revolutionist
From every point of view;
For from the marvels thou hast wrought
Science must start anew.
Longed-for-attainment now is grasped,
Thy cherished hopes to bless;
And near at hand stands thy reward
In laurel crowned success!
Anonymous, in Cincinnati Illustrated News.
NOTES
[1] This electrician took the first box of stored electricity from
Paris to Sir William Thomson (now Lord Kelvin) in Edinburgh; and as
early as in 1884 he had convinced himself that Keely had grounds for
his claims as a discoverer of an unknown force in nature.
[2] The stretching of a catgut chord over a resonator set to the
chord of B flat is precisely the same in its resultant issue as the
steel wire set over the same resonator.
[3] In Latin "circulator" means "quack."
[4] Keely was obliged to return to his former method soon after,
for in overcoming one difficulty he found a more obstinate one to
contend with.
[5] A system of Pendulums tuned to swing the various ratios of the
musical scale, form a "Silent Harp" of extraordinary interest. This
"Silent Harp," D. C. Ramsay, of Glasgow, has shown to his students of
harmony for many a year. A pen, placed by means of a universal-jointed
arrangement between any two pendulums of this "Silent Harp," so
as to be moved by a blend of their various motions, writes, with
all the precision of gravitation, a portrait of the chord which two
corresponding strings of a sounding harp would utter to the ear. This
spiral writing is a Pendulograph; exquisite forms such as no human
hand could trace.
[6] By his advocacy of Keely's claims, as a discoverer, Major
Ricarde-Seaver had reason to fear that he would lose his election to
membership of the Athenæum Club in London; as he was notified by Sir
William Thomson (who had proposed him for membership in or about the
year 1873) that such would probably be the case. The members however,
rallied in force and, led by one of the Major's oldest friends Prince
Lucien Buonaparte, he was elected by an overwhelming majority.
[7] The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 30, 1890, copied this article
from Anglo-Austria, headed "The Keely Motor: some observations on
the invention from a foreign publication."
[8] From the Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, April 13th, 1890: headed
"Professor Leidy's Adherence to the New Force."
[9] From Lippincott's Magazine, July, 1890. Edited by J. M. Stoddart.
[10] Quotation from one of Keely's letters in 1885.
[11] The steam engines of the world now represent the work of
1,000,000,000 men, or more than double the working population
of the earth, whose total population is about 1,500,000,000
inhabitants. Steam has accordingly trebled man's working power,
enabling him to economize his physical strength while attending to
his intellectual development. Our race, which seems to have reached
its limit of physical development, is ready to enter upon the foretold
stage of psychical evolution.
[12] Carried out in the taking of the forts one after another during
our civil war, which other generals had been unable to do.
[13] The paper which Mr. J. F. Nisbet was commissioned to write,
in behalf of this discoverer's claims on the world for patience,
while pursuing his researches (and paid in advance for writing),
illustrates the truth of this assertion. Mr. Nisbet's essay, entitled
"The Present Aspect of the Molecular Theory, or Mr. Keely's Relations
to Modern Science," closes with these lines:--"If science looks askance
at Mr. Keely's professions, therefore, it has its reasons for doing
so. These reasons, as I have shown, are not mere prejudices. In more
than one line of inquiry they have, what seems to be, a substantial
basis of fact, which must be explained away before Mr. Keely's theory
of 'etheric force' can commend itself to the mind of the impartial
observer."
Fortunately, for the interests of science and of humanity, the
threatened prosecution of Mr. Keely (for obtaining money under false
pretences) was checkmated by Provost Pepper's action, early in January,
before Mr. Nisbet wrote to America that he could not commence his paper
until he had received more information; sending a series of questions
to be answered by Mr. Keely. The superficial character of the essay
will be seen, when printed, as well as that Mr. Nisbet promised more
than he was able to perform when he accepted the cheque in order to
enable him to devote time to the writing of a paper, for an influential
quarter, which it was hoped would enlist public sympathy in Keely's
behalf. But that power which is mightier than the sword, in putting
down error and injustice, has hitherto turned its weapons against Keely
(with some rare exceptions) as Mr. Nisbet did in his essay.--C.J.M.
[14] This is effected by polarization and depolarization, and the
rotation of a non-magnetic needle by molecular differentiation:
both needles revolving about 120 times in a second.
[15] Electricians are now admitting that, in electric currents the
energy does not flow through, or along the wire, itself; but is
actually transmitted by the ether vibrations outside of the wire,
just as in Keely's experiments, running his musical sphere with a
fine "thread" of silk, the energy is not transmitted through the
sewing-silk, which acts only as the medium that makes the transfer
of energy in this way possible; though not itself transferring it.
[16] See "Jacob Böhme, his Life and Teaching; or, Studies in
Theosophy," by Dr. Hans Lassen Martensen.
[17] The apparent comprehension of Keely's discovery by Mr. Nisbet,
was what led the compiler of this work to apply to him for help, in
making known the nature of the researches which Keely is pursuing,
at the time that Keely was threatened with imprisonment, in 1890,
for obtaining money under false pretences.
[18] Mr. Keely explains the energy he is handling to be a condition of
sympathetic vibration, associated with the Polar stream of our planet,
positively and negatively.
[19] Mr. B. (not Browne) was afterwards discovered to be an inventing
journalist, who had been "disappointed of gain," and whose statements
concerning Dr. Leidy had to be corrected.
[20] Professor Dewar's visit to Keely's workshop has been delayed
until he goes to America as Royal Commissioner this year.
[21] One of Keely's researching instruments.
[22] The universal physical law of molecular vibration is finely
illustrated in the carbon pencils of the electric arc light used
in some of the largest lighthouses. The molecular stir set up in
the armatures of the dynamo machines by rapid magnetization and
demagnetization is transmitted to the carbon points of the lantern,
and reappears as a distinct musical tone.
[23] It will be a matter of interest to those who have given attention
to the laws of heredity to know that John Ernst Worrell Keely is a
grandson of a German composer, Ernst, who led the Baden-Baden orchestra
in his day; and that Keely's experiments in vibration had their origin
in his knowledge of music, and were commenced in his childhood.
[24] See "Untrodden Ground in Astronomy and Geology."
[25] There are some paradoxical conditions shown up in the
disintegration of water which require further research to get at the
solution. In disintegrating, say five drops of water in a steel bulb
of two cubic inches volume of atmospheric air, the force generated
by the triple order of vibration, when weighed on a lever, shows ten
tons pressure per square inch. In using the same number of drops in
the same bulb, and associating it with a tube of two hundred cubic
inches, the result is the same in the force developed per square inch
as is shown on the volume of the one of two cubic inches. The solution
of this problem seems to rest in the fact that the gaseous element
thereby induced even in minute quantities, must possess the property
of exciting atmospheric air to that extent as to force it to give up,
to quite an extended degree, the latent energy that is held in its
corpuscular depths. This introductory medium seems to act on the air in
the same manner that a spark of fire acts on a magazine of gunpowder.
[26] The ether is the capsule to the molecules and atoms all the way
up to the perfect stream of structural ether.
[27] A volume of pure ether equivalent to the atmospheric displacement
caused by our Earth, could be compressed and absorbed in a volume of
one cubic inch, by the velocity and sympathetic power of the etheric
triple flows, focalizing toward the neutral centre, at the birth of
the molecule.
[28] This is what Keely terms "sympathetic outreach."
[29] A facetious journalist commenting on this paper reprints its
last paragraphs as "the only part that is perfectly lucid to the
lay mind," continuing:--"We trust Keely will continue to bombard
his corpuscles until he accomplishes it. And when he does, all other
scientific men of this or any other age will sink by comparison into
insignificance. Let no man say he cannot do it. Mr. Keely, the world
is still waiting for you."
[30] Platina wires the thickness of a fine hair associated with each
of the nine nodal beads, and concentrated towards a general centre
of localization, attaching the other end of the wires to the focal
centre, will determine, by the magnetic conduction, the number of
corpuscular oscillations per second induced by a thought, either
positive or negative, in the central centres. These are the only
conditions--those of magnetic conduction--whereby the evolution of
a thought can be computed in regard to its force under propagation,
as against the amount of latent energy set free to act as induced by
such thought on the physical organism.
[31] It is always interesting to trace the germ of a scientific idea,
hypothesis, or established truth. A writer in La Lumière Electrique,
vol. xlv., has drawn attention to the fact that Descartes gave a
theory of magnetism, in 1656, which resembles the modern conception
of lines of stress in the ether. He considers that all magnets
are traversed by a subtle fluid which flows out at the North Pole,
and curving round, in the ether, re-enters at the South Pole, thus
completing the circuit. Some of the greatest doctrines of science
have recurred again and again, like the motif of a piece of music,
until they finally assume a definite shape and become a working part
of human progress; as will be seen when Keely's system is recognized.
[32] "The Dynamic Theory of Life and Mind." The Housekeeper Press,
Minneapolis, Minn.
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