Ancient and Modern Physics - Thomas E. Willson
ANCIENT AND MODERN PHYSICS
by Thomas E. Willson
Contents
Preface
I. Physical Basis of Metaphysics
II. The Two Kinds of Perception
III. Matter and Ether
IV. What a Teacher Should Teach
V. The Four Manifested Planes
VI. One Place on Earth
VII. The Four Globes
VIII. The Battle Ground
IX. The Dual Man
X. The Septenary World
XI. Stumbling blocks in Eastern Physics
PREFACE
The Editor of the Theosophical Forum in April, 1901, noted the
death of Mr. Thomas E. Willson in the previous month in an
article which we reproduce for the reason that we believe many
readers who have been following the chapters of "Ancient and
Modern Physics" during the last year will like to know something
of the author. In these paragraphs is said all that need be said
of one of our most devoted and understanding Theosophists.
In March, 1901, The Theosophical Forum lost one of its most
willing and unfailing contributors. Mr. T.E. Willson died
suddenly, and the news of his death reached me when I actually
was in the act of preparing the concluding chapter of his
"Ancient and Modern Physics" for the April number.
Like the swan, who sings his one song, when feeling that death is
near, Mr. Willson gave his brother co-workers in the Theosophical
field all that was best, ripest and most suggestive in his
thought in the series of articles the last of which is to come
out in the same number with this.
The last time I had a long talk with T.E. Willson, he said"
"For twenty years and more I was without a hearing, yet my
interest and my faith in what I had to say never flagged, the
eagerness of my love for my subject never diminished."
This needs no comment. The quiet and sustained resistance to
indifference and lack of appreciation, is truly the steady
ballast which has prevented our Theosophical ship from aimless
and fatal wanderings, though of inclement weather and adverse
winds we had plenty.
For many long years Mr. Willson was the librarian of the New York
"World." In the afternoons he was too busy to see outsiders,
but, beginning with five o'clock in the afternoon until he went
home somewhere in the neighbourhood of midnight, he always was
glad to see his friends. He had a tiny little room of his own,
very near the top of the tremendous building, his one window
looking far above the roofs of the tallest houses in the
district. There he sat at his desk, generally in his shirt
sleeves, if the weather was at all warm, always busy with some
matter already printed, or going to be, a quiet, yet impressive
and dignified figure.
The elevated isolation, both figuratively and literally speaking,
in which T.E. Willson lived and worked, in the midst of the most
crowded thoroughfares of New York, always made me think of
Professor Teufelsdrockh on the attic floor of "the highest
house in the Wahngasse." The two had more than one point of
resemblance. They shared the loftiness of their point of view,
their sympathetic understanding of other folks, their loneliness,
and, above all, their patient, even humorous resignation to the
fact of this loneliness.
Yet in his appearance Mr. Willson was not like the great
Weissnichtwo philosopher. In fact, in the cast of his features
and in his ways, Mr. Willson never looked to me like a white man.
In British India I have known Brahmans of the better type exactly
with the same sallow complexion, same quick and observant brown
eye, same portly figure and same wide-awakeness and agility of
manner.
Last summer I heard, on good authority, that Mr. Willson had
thought himself into a most suggestive way of dealing with the
problems of matter and spirit, a way which, besides being
suggestive, bore a great resemblance to some theories of the same
nature, current in ancient India. Consequently Mr. Willson was
offered, for the first time in his life, a chance of expressing
his views on matter and spirit in as many articles and in as
extensive a shape as he chose. The way he received this tardy
recognition of the fact that he had something to say was highly
instructive. He did not put on airs of unrecognized greatness,
though, I own, the occasion was propitious; he did not say, "I
told you so;" he simply and frankly was glad, in, the most
childlike way.
And now that I have used the word, it occurs to me that
"childlike" is an adjective the best applied to this man, in
spite of his portliness, and his three score and more winters.
Many a pleasant hour I have spent in the small bookroom of the
great "World" building. With Mr. Willson talk never flagged. We
discussed the past and the future of our planetary chain, we
built plans for the true and wholesome relation of sexes, we
tried to find out--and needless to say never did--the exact
limit where matter stopped being matter and became spirit; we
also read the latest comic poems and also, from time to time, we
took a header into the stormy sea of American literature in order
to find out what various wise heads had to say, consciously or
unconsciously, in favour of our beloved Theosophical views. And
all this, being interrupted every three minutes or so by some
weary apparition from some workroom in the "World" with some such
question: "Mr. Willson, how am I to find out the present
whereabouts of this or that Russian man-of-war? Mr. Willson,
what is the melting point of iron? Mr. Willson, when was `H.M.S.
Pinafore' produced for the first time?" etc., etc. And every
time, Mr. Willson got up in the leisurely manner peculiar to him,
reached for some book from the shelves that lined the room, gave
the desired information, and as leisurely returned to the "pranic
atom," or to "come and talk man talk, Willy," or to whatever our
subject chanced to be at the time.
Mr. Willson's gratitude to the Theosophical Forum for its
recognition was disproportionately great. As he wrote to the
Editor: "give me any kind of work, writing for you, reviewing,
manuscript or proof reading, I shall do anything, I shall
undertake any job, even to taking editorial scoldings in all good
nature, only give me work." His devotion to Theosophical thought
and work in all their ramifications was just as great, as was his
freedom from vanity, his perfectly natural and unaffected
modesty.
At the news of his death many a heart was sincerely sad, but none
so sad as the heart of the editor of the Theosophical Forum. For
a friend and co-worker like T.E. Willson, ever ready to give
material help and moral encouragement, is not easily replaced.
For a soul so pure of any kind of selfishness the transition from
the turmoil of life to the bright dreams of death must have been
both easy and enviable.
--------------
Chapter One
The Physical Basis if Metaphysics
The Hindu system of physics, on which the metaphysical thought of
the East is based, does not in its beginnings differ widely from
the latest physics of the West; but it goes so much farther that
our physics is soon lost sight of and forgotten. The Hindu
conception of the material universe, taken from the Upanishads
and some open teaching, will serve for an illustration. They
divide physical matter into four kinds--prakriti, ether, prana,
and manasa--which they call "planes." These differ only in the
rate of vibration, each plane vibrating through one great octave,
with gulfs of "lost" octaves between. The highest rate of
vibration of prakriti is measured by the thousand, the lowest of
the ether by trillions, and the lowest of prana by--never mind;
they have, and we have not, the nomenclature.
The earth, they teach, is a globe of prakriti, floating in an
ocean of ether, which, as it has the sun for its center of
gravity, must necessarily be a globe. This etheric sun-globe has
a diameter of over 300,000,000,000 miles. All the planets
revolve around the sun far within its atmosphere. The etheric
sun-globe revolves on its axis once in about 21,000 years, and
this revolution causes the precession of the equinoxes. This
etheric sun-globe is revolving around Alcyone with other etheric
globes having suns for their centers and solar systems of
prakritic globes within them in a great year of 5,640,000,000 of
our common years. Its orbit has a diameter of
93,000,000,000,000,000 miles.
Beyond the etheric globes, and between them, is a third form of
matter called prana, as much rarer and finer than the ether as
the ether is rarer and finer than prakriti. As this prana has
Alcyone for a center of gravity, it is necessarily a globe; and
there are many of these pranic globes floating in a vast ocean of
manasa--a form of matter as much finer than prana as prana is
finer than ether, or ether than prakriti. With this manasa
(which is a globe) the material, or physical, universe ends; but
there are spiritual globes beyond. The material universe is
created from manasa, downward, but it does not respond to or
chord with the vibration of the globes above, except in a special
instance and in a special way, which does not touch this inquiry.
The physical universe of the ancient (and modern) Hindu physicist
was made up of these four kinds or planes of matter, distributed
in space as "globes within globes."
Professor Lodge in 1884 put forth the theory that prakriti
(physical matter) as we call it, was in its atoms but "whirls" of
ether. Since then speculative science has generally accepted the
idea that the physical atom is made up of many cubic feet of
ether in chemical union, as many quarts of oxygen and hydrogen
unite chemically to make a drop of water. This is an old story
to the Hindu sage. He tells his pupils that the great globe of
manasa once filled all space, and there was nothing else.
Precisely as on this earth we have our elementary substances that
change from liquids into solids and gases, so on this manasic
globe there were elementary substances that took the form of
liquids, solids and gases. Its manasic matter was differentiated
and vibrated through one octave, as the prakritic matter does on
the earth. Its substances combined as that does.
One combination produced prana. The prana collected, and formed
globes. On these pranic globes the process was repeated, with
ether as the result, and the etheric globes formed. Then the
process was repeated on the etheric globes, as the modern
scientists have discovered, and prakriti and prakritic globes
came into being.
The true diameter of the earth, the ancient Hindu books say, is
about 50,000 miles. That is to say, the true surface of the
earth is the line of twenty-four-hour axial rotation; the line
where gravity and apergy exactly balance; where a moon would
have to be placed to revolve once in 86,400 seconds. Within that
is prakriti; without is ether. It is also the line of no
friction, which does exist between matter of different planes.
There is friction between prakriti, between ether, between prana;
but not between ether and prana, or ether and prakriti. Friction
is a phenomenon confined to the matter of each plane separately.
We live at the bottom of this gaseous ocean--on its floor
--21,000 miles from the surface and only 4,000 miles from the
center. Here, in a narrow "skin" limited to a few miles above
and below us, is the realm of phenomena, where solid turns into
liquid and liquid into gas, or vice versa. The lesson impressed
upon the pupil's mind by Hindu physics is that he lives far
within the earth, not on it.
There is a comparatively narrow "skin" of and for phenomena
within the etheric sun-globe, say the Eastern teachers, where the
etheric solids, liquids, and gases meet and mingle and
interchange. Within this "skin" are all the planets--the
"gaseous" atmosphere of the etheric globe stretching millions of
miles beyond the outermost planetary orbit. The earth is in this
skin or belt of etheric phenomena, and its ether is in touch with
the ether "in manifestation" on the etheric globe. The sun and
other etheric globes are within the corresponding "skin" of
phenomena of the pranic globes. The prana, manifesting as solid,
liquid, and gas, or in combination and in forms, is in perfect
touch with that of the etheric globe, and through that with the
prana of the earth. That our prana is in touch with that on the
pranic globe in all its manifestations means much in metaphysics.
The same is true of the manasic globe, and of our manasa.
The great lesson the Eastern physics burns into the pupil is that
we are living not only within the prakritic earth, but within
each of the other globes as well in identically the same way and
subject to the same laws. Our lives are not passed on one globe,
but in four globes. It is as if one said he lived in Buffalo,
Erie county, New York, United States; that he was a citizen of
each and subject to the laws of each.
This question of the four globes, of the four planes of matter,
of the four skins, and of the four conditions or states of all
matter and necessarily of all persons, from the purely material
standpoint, is not only the foundation of Oriental physics, but
the very essence of Oriental metaphysics--its starting-point and
corner-stone. To one who carries with him, consciously or
unconsciously, the concrete knowledge of the physics, the
abstract teaching of the metaphysics presents no difficulty; it
is as clear as crystal. But without the physical teaching the
metaphysical is not translatable.
Our Western physics teaches that physical matter is divided into
two kinds prakriti (commonly called "physical matter") and ether;
that the differences of each of the elementary prakritic
substances (iron, copper, sulphur, oxygen) are in their
molecules, the fundamental atom being the same; that each of
these elementary substances vibrates only through one octave,
though on different keys; that it changes from solid to liquid
and gas as the rate of vibration is increased and from gas to
liquid and solid as its vibration is decreased within its octave;
that the ether obeys identical laws; that it has elementary
substances vibrating through one octave only, and that these are
solids, liquids, or gases on the etheric plane as prakriti is on
this; that these etheric substances change and combine in every
way that prakriti does; and that while all our prakritic
substances vibrate within (say) fifty simply octaves, the lowest
vibration of etheric matter begins over one thousand octaves
beyond our highest, making a gulf to leap. The Eastern physics
presents this with a wealth of detail that dazes the Western
student, and then adds: "But beyond the etheric plane (or
octave) of vibration for matter there is a third plane (or
octave) of vibration called prana and beyond that a fourth called
manasa. What is true of one plane is true of the other three.
One law governs the four. As above so below. There is no real
gulf; there is perfect continuity."
The Western scientist teaches as the foundation of modern physics
that "each and every atom of prakritic matter is the center of an
etheric molecule of many atoms;" that "no two prakritic atoms
touch," although their etheric envelopes or atmospheres do touch;
and that "all physical phenomena are caused by the chording
vibration of the prakritic atom and its envelope of ether," each
"sounding the same note hundreds of octaves apart." The "solid
earth" with its atmosphere represents the atom with its ether.
As all the oxygen and hydrogen do not combine to make the drop of
water, some remaining in mechanical union to give it an
atmosphere, and about one-fourth of its bulk being gas, so the
atom formed of the ether does not use all the ether in its
chemical union, retaining some in mechanical union for its
envelope or atmosphere.
The Hindu physics goes much farther along this road. It says
that, when the pranic globes were formed, each atom of prana had
its manasic envelope--was the center of a manasic molecule.
When the etheric globes formed, each atom of ether was the center
of a pranic molecule, each atom of which was surrounded with
manasa. When the prakriti was formed from the ether, each and
every atom of prakriti had the triple etheric-pranic-manasic
envelope. "Each and every prakritic atom is the center of an
etheric molecule," says our Western science; but that of the
East adds this: "And each atom of that etheric molecule is the
center of a pranic molecule, and each atom of prana in that
pranic molecule is the center of a manasic molecule." The four
great globes of matter in the material universe are represented
and reproduced in each and every atom of prakriti, which is in
touch with each one of the four globes and a part of it. The
same is true of any aggregation of prakriti--of the earth itself
and of all things in it, including man. As there are four
atoms in each one, so there are four earths, four globes,
consubstantial, one for each of the four elements, and in touch
with it. One is formed of prakritic atoms--the globe we know;
another, of the ether forming their envelopes; another, of the
prana envelopes of ether, and a fourth of the manasa around the
pranic atom. They are not "skins"; they are consubstantial.
And what is true of atoms or globes is true of animals. Each has
four "material" bodies, with each body on the corresponding globe
--whether of the earth or of the Universe. This is the physical
basis of the famous "chain of seven globes" that is such a
stumbling-block in Hindu metaphysics. The spirit passes through
four to get in and three to get out--seven in all. The Hindu
understands without explanation. He understands his physics.
The Hindu physics teaches, with ours, that "the ether is the
source of all energy," but, it adds, "as prana is the source of
all life, and manasa of all mind."
"When the prakritic atom is vibrating in chord with its etheric
envelope," say our textbooks, "we have physical phenomena
--light, heat, electricity." "Yes," says the Hindu teacher; "but
when the atom and its ether and its prana are vibrating in chord,
we have life and vital phenomena added to the energy. When the
atom and its ether, prana, and manasa are vibrating in chord, we
have mind and mental phenomena added to the life and energy."
Each atom has energy, life, and mind in posse. In the living
leaf the prakriti, ether, and prana are sounding the threefold
silver chord of life. In the animal, the manasa is sounding the
same note with them, making the fourfold golden chord of mind.
Even in the plant there may be a faint manasic overtone, for
the potentiality of life and mind is in everything. This unity
of the physical universe with the physical atom, and with all
things created--earth, animal, or crystal--is the physical
backbone of Oriental metaphysics. Prakriti, ether, prana, and
manasa are in our vernacular the Earth, Air, Fire, and Water of
the old philosophers--the "Four Elements."
The Oriental physics has been guarded most jealously. For many
thousands of years it has been the real occult and esoteric
teaching, while the Oriental metaphysics has been open and
exoteric. It could not be understood without the key, and the
key was in the physics known only to "the tried and approved
disciple." A little has leaked out--enough to whet the appetite
of the true student and make him ask for more.
Chapter Two
The Two Kinds of Perception
To the savage, matter appears in two forms--solid and liquid.
As he advances a step he learns it has three forms--solid,
liquid and gas. He cannot see the gas, but he knows it is there.
A little further on he learns that matter as he knows it is only
a minute portion of the great universe of matter--the few chords
that can be struck on the five strings of his senses, and limited
to one octave or key.
Whether the particular matter he investigates has a solid, a
liquid, or a gaseous form depends upon its rate of vibration. If
it is a liquid, by raising its rate of vibration one third it
becomes a gas; by reducing it one third it becomes a solid.
Each kind of matter has vibration only through one octave. It is
known to us only by its vibration in that octave. Each kind of
matter has a different octave--is set on a higher or lower key,
so to speak, but all octaves of vibration are between the highest
of hydrogen gas and the lowest of carbon.
In mechanical compounds, such as air or brass, the rate of
vibration of the compound is the least common multiple of the two
or more rates. In chemical compounds, such as water or alcohol,
the rate is that of the highest, the others uniting in harmonic
fractions.
All matter as we know it through our senses--prakriti, as it is
called in the Secret Doctrine to distinguish it from non-sensual
matter--is the vibration of an universal Something, we do not
know what, through these different octaves. The elementary
substances (so-called) are one and the same thing--this
Something--in different keys and chords of vibration; keys that
run into one another, producing all sorts of beautiful harmonies.
Taking any one of these elements, or any of their compounds, all
we know of it is limited strictly to its changes during vibration
through one octave. What happens when the vibration goes above
or below the octave has not yet been treated hypothetically.
While some elements are vibrating on higher and some on lower
keys, we can consider them all as vibrating within one great
octave, that octave of the universal Something which produces
sensual matter, or prakriti.
But matter is not confined, we know, to this great octave,
although our sensual knowledge of it is strictly confined to it.
How do we know it?
Knowledge comes to us in two ways, and there are two kinds of
knowledge.
1. That which comes through our senses, by observation and
experience. This includes reasoning from relation.
2. That which comes through intuition--or, as some writers
inaccurately say, "through the formal laws of thought."
All the observation and experience of the rising and the setting
of the sun for a thousand centuries could only have confirmed the
first natural belief that it revolved daily around the earth;
nor by joining this experience with other experiences could any
deduction have come from our reason that would have opposed it.
Not our reason but our intuition said that the sun stood still
and the earth revolved daily. The oldest books in existence tell
us that this axial revolution of the earth was not only known in
the very dawn of time but that it has been known to every race
(except our own of European savages) from before the time thought
was first transmitted by writing.
Ask the ablest living geographer or physicist to prove to you
that the earth revolves daily and he will reply that it would be
the job of his life. It can be done at great expense and great
labor, but that is because we know the answer and can invent a
way of showing it, not because there are any observations from
which a deduction would naturally follow.
Nearly if not all our great discoveries have come to us through
intuition and not from observation and experience. When we know
the lines on which to work, when intuition has given us the KEY,
then the observation and experience men prize so highly, and the
reason they worship so devoutly, will fill in the details. The
knowledge that flows from observation and the reasoning from the
facts it records, is never more than relatively true, it is
always limited by the facts, and any addition to the facts
requires the whole thing to be restated. We never know all the
facts; seldom even the more important; and reason grasps only
details.
Lamarck's theory of evolution, known to all Asiatic races from
time immemorial, was the intuitional and absolute knowledge that
comes to all men when they reach a certain stage of development.
Reason could never have furnished it from the facts, as Cuvier
proved in the great debate in the French Academy in 1842, when he
knocked Lamarck out, for the time being, because "it did not
conform to the facts, and did not follow from any relation of the
facts."
Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest in the struggle
for existence, as an explanation of the origin of species, was
from observation and experience. It was based on observed facts.
But Darwin was an evolutionist--a disciple of Lamarck. He held
the Key. He used the Key. The value of Darwin's work does not
lie in his discovering that some bugs have been derived from
other bugs and that the intermediate bugs have died off. Its
overwhelming value to mankind was in showing that work on the
theory of evolution was correct work and that the theory was
true. When the intuition of man points out the way the reason of
man can follow the path and macadam the road. It usually does
and claims all the credit for itself as the original discoverer.
This knowledge through intuition is absolute and exact. It is
not relatively true. It is absolutely and invariably true. No
additional facts will ever modify it, or require a restatement.