Ancient and Modern Physics | Page 8

earth itself. Each and every physical atom is the centre of an etheric
molecule made up of many atoms of the ether.
This duality of matter was a wonderful discovery, revolutionizing every department of
science. It placed man in actual touch with the whole visible universe. The ether in a
man's eye (and in his whole body) reaches in one unbroken line--like a telegraph wire
--from him to the sun, or the outermost planet. He is not separate and apart from "space,"
but a part of it. Each physical atom of his physical body is the centre of an etheric
molecule, and he has two bodies, as St. Paul said, a visible physical and an invisible
etheric body; the latter in actual touch with the whole universe.
Faraday went one step further. He demonstrated that all physical phenomena come from
the chording vibration of the physical atom with the surrounding etheric atoms, and that
the latter exercise the impelling force on the former. Step into the sunshine. The line of
ether from the sun is vibrating faster than the ether in the body, but the higher impels the
lower, the greater controls the lesser, and soon both ethers are in unison. The physical
atoms must coincide in vibration with their etheric envelopes, and the "note" is "heat."
Step into the shade, where the ocean of ether is vibrating more slowly, and the ether of
the body reduces its vibration. "The ether is the origin of all force and of all phenomena."
This etheric matter follows identical laws with prakritic matter, or, accurately, the laws of
our matter flow from the etheric matter from which it is made. The ether has two hundred
or more elementary substances, each atom of our eighty or ninety "elements" being the
chemical union of great masses of two or more of the etheric elements or their
combinations. These etheric elementary substances combine and unite; our elementary

substances simply following in their combinations the law which they inherit from their
parents. They take form and shape. They vibrate through one octave, and take solid liquid
or gaseous form in ether, as their types here in our world take it in prakriti, as their
vibrations are increased or diminished. In short, the ether is the prototype of our physical
or prakritic world, out of which it is made and a product of which it is.
As this ether is "physical" matter, the same as prakriti, one harmonic law covering both,
and as this ether fills all space, Modern Science divides physical matter into two kinds,
which, for convenience in differentiation, are here called prakritic and etheric.
Matter is something--science does not know or care to know what --in vibration. A very
low octave of vibration produces prakriti; a very high octave of vibration produces ether.
The vibration of prakriti ends in thousands; that of ether begins in billions. Between them
there is a gulf of vibrations that has not yet been bridged. For that reason science divides
matter into two "planes," or octaves, of vibration--the matter of this visible and tangible
plane being called prakriti and that of the invisible and intangible plane being called
etheric. Across this gulf the two planes respond to each other, note for note, the note in
trillions chording when the note in thousands is struck. Note for note, chord for chord,
they answer one another, and the minutest and the most complex phenomena are alike the
result of this harmonic vibration, that of the ether supplying Force and that of the prakriti
a Medium in which it can manifest.
This knowledge of ether is not guesswork or fancy, and, while it is as impossible of proof
as the axioms of geometry, it is worthy the same credence and honor. We are working on
physical axioms exactly as we work on geometrical axioms.
Modern science represents each and every prakritic atom as a globe like the earth,
floating in space and surrounded by an atmosphere of ether. "The subdivision of prakritic
matter until we reach etheric atoms chemically united to make the physical unit" is the
correct definition of an atom. The prakritic physical atom has length, breadth and
thickness. And it has an atmosphere of ether which not only interpenetrates the atom as
oxygen and hydrogen interpenetrate the drop of water, but furnishes it with an envelope
as the oxygen and hydrogen furnish the drop of water with one.
Each physical atom is the centre of an etheric molecule composed of many etheric atoms
vibrating at a greater or lesser speed and interpenetrating the atom. Each may be
considered a miniature earth, with its aerial envelope, the air, penetrating all parts of it.
The etheric plane of matter not only unites with this prakritic plane through the atom but
it interpenetrates all