hangover
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This is an amazing work by Madam Blavatsky. It took me three years to read it. I could only read about ten pages at a time before my brain was full. I recommend skipping the first volume, mostly research, and hard to follow. But the second volume is fascinating. A snippet.....
[h=4]II.
MODERN PHYSICISTS ARE PLAYING AT BLIND MAN’S BUFF.[/h] And now Occultism puts to Science the question: “Is light a body, or is it not?” Whatever the answer of the latter, the former is prepared to show that, to this day, the most eminent physicists know neither one way nor the other. To know what is light, and whether it is an actual substance or a mere undulation of the “ethereal medium,” Science has first to learn what are in reality Matter, Atom, Ether, Force. Now, the truth is, that it knows nothing of any of these, and admits it. It has not even agreed what to believe in, as dozens of hypotheses emanating from various and very eminent Scientists on the same subject, are antagonistic to each other and often self-contradictory. Thus their learned speculations may, with a stretch of good-will, be accepted as “working hypotheses” in a secondary sense, as Stallo puts it. But being radically inconsistent with each other, they must finally end by mutually destroying themselves. As declared by the author of “Concepts of Modern Physics”: —
[h=4]II.
MODERN PHYSICISTS ARE PLAYING AT BLIND MAN’S BUFF.[/h] And now Occultism puts to Science the question: “Is light a body, or is it not?” Whatever the answer of the latter, the former is prepared to show that, to this day, the most eminent physicists know neither one way nor the other. To know what is light, and whether it is an actual substance or a mere undulation of the “ethereal medium,” Science has first to learn what are in reality Matter, Atom, Ether, Force. Now, the truth is, that it knows nothing of any of these, and admits it. It has not even agreed what to believe in, as dozens of hypotheses emanating from various and very eminent Scientists on the same subject, are antagonistic to each other and often self-contradictory. Thus their learned speculations may, with a stretch of good-will, be accepted as “working hypotheses” in a secondary sense, as Stallo puts it. But being radically inconsistent with each other, they must finally end by mutually destroying themselves. As declared by the author of “Concepts of Modern Physics”: —
“It must not be forgotten that the several departments of Science are simply arbitrary divisions of labour. In these several departments the same physical object may be considered under different aspects. The physicist may study its molecular relations, while the chemist determines its atomic constitution. But when they both deal with the same element or agent, it cannot have one set of properties in physics, and another set contradictory of them, in chemistry. If the physicist and chemist alike assume the existence of ultimate atoms absolutely invariable in bulk and weight, the atom cannot be a cube or oblate spheroid for physical, and a sphere for chemical purposes. A group of constant atoms cannot be an aggregate of extended and absolutely inert and impenetrable masses in a crucible or retort, and a system of mere centres of force as part of a magnet or of a Clamond battery. The universal Ether cannot be soft and mobile to please the chemist, and rigid-elastic to satisfy the physicist; it cannot be continuous at the command of Sir William Thomson and discontinuous on the suggestion of Cauchy or Fresnel.”*
The eminent physicist, G. A. Hirn, may likewise be quoted saying the same in the 43rd Volume of the Memoires de l’Academie Royale de Belgique, which we translate from the French, as cited: “When one sees the assurance with which are to-day affirmed doctrines which attribute the collectivity, the universality of the phenomena to the motions alone of the atom, one has a right to expect to find likewise unanimity on the qualities described to this unique being, the foundation of all that exists. Now, from the first examination of the particular systems proposed, one feels the strangest deception; one perceives that the atom of the chemist, the atom of the physicist, that of the metaphysician, and that of the mathematician . . . . have absolutely nothing in common but the name! The inevitable result is the existing
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd-hp.htm
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd-hp.htm