APPENDIX.
THE ÆTHER OF SPACE.
Much discussion has taken place, especially between physicists and chemists, over the nature of the substances with which all space must, according to scientific hypothesis, be filled. One side contends that it is infinitely thinner than the thinnest gas, absolutely frictionless and without weight; the other asserts that it is denser than the densest solid. In this substance the ultimate atoms of matter are thought to float, like motes in a sunbeam, and light, heat and electricity are supposed to be its vibrations.
Theosophical investigators, using methods not at the disposal of physical science, have found that this hypothesis includes under one head two entirely different and widely separated sets of phenomena. They have been able to deal with states of matter higher than the gaseous and have observed that it is by means of vibrations of this finer matter that light, heat and electricity manifest themselves to us. Seeing that matter in these higher states thus performs the functions attributed to the ether of science, they have (perhaps unadvisedly) called these states etheric, and have thus left themselves without a convenient name for that substance which fulfils the other part of the scientific requirements.
Let us for the moment name this substance koilon, since it fills what we are in the habit of calling empty space. What mûlaprakrti, or "mother-matter," is to the inconceivable totality of universes, koilon is to our particular universe—not to our solar system merely but to the vast unit which includes all visible suns. Between koilon and mûlaprakrti there must be various stages, but we have at present no direct means of estimating their number or of knowing anything whatever about them.
In an ancient occult treatise, however, we read of a "colorless spiritual fluid" "which exists everywhere and forms the first foundation on which our solar system is built. Outside the latter, it is found in its pristine purity only between the stars [suns] of the universe.... As its substance is of a different kind from that known on earth, the inhabitants of the latter, seeing through it, believe, in their illusion and ignorance, that it is empty space. There is not one finger's breadth of void space in the whole boundless universe."[[21]] "The mother-substance" is said, in this treatise, to produce this æther of space as its seventh grade of density, and all objective suns are said to have this for their "substance."
To any power of sight which we can bring to bear upon it, this koilon appears to be homogeneous, though it is probably nothing of the kind, since homogeneity can belong to the mother-substance alone. It is out of all proportion denser than any other substance known to us, infinitely denser—if we may be pardoned the expression; so much denser that it seems to belong to another type, or order, of density. But now comes the startling part of the investigation: we might expect matter to be a densification of this koilon; it is nothing of the kind. Matter is not koilon, but the absence of koilon, and at first sight, matter and space appear to have changed places, and emptiness has become solidity, solidity has become emptiness.
To help us to understand this clearly let us examine the ultimate atom of the physical plane (see [pp. 21]-23). It is composed of ten rings or wires, which lie side by side, but never touch one another. If one of these wires be taken away from the atom, and be, as it were, untwisted from its peculiar spiral shape and laid out on a flat surface, it will be seen that it is a complete circle—a tightly twisted endless coil. This coil is itself a spiral containing 1680 turns; it can be unwound, and it will then make a much larger circle. This process of unwinding may be again performed, and a still bigger circle obtained, and this can be repeated till the seven sets of spirillæ are all unwound, and we have a huge circle of the tiniest imaginable dots, like pearls threaded on an invisible string. These dots are so inconceivably small that many millions of them are needed to make one ultimate physical atom, and while the exact number is not readily ascertainable, several different lines of calculation agree in indicating it as closely approximate to the almost inconceivable total of fourteen thousand millions. Where figures are so huge, direct counting is obviously impossible, but fortunately the different parts of the atom are sufficiently alike to enable us to make an estimate in which the margin of error is not likely to be very great. The atom consists of ten wires, which divide themselves naturally into two groups—the three which are thicker and more prominent, and the seven thinner ones which correspond to the colors and planets. These latter appear to be identical in constitution though the forces flowing through them must differ, since each responds most readily to its own special set of vibrations. By actual counting it has been discovered that the numbers of coils or spirillæ of the first order in each wire is 1680; and the proportion of the different orders of spirillæ to one another is equal in all cases that have been examined, and correspond with the number of dots in the ultimate spirillæ of the lowest order. The ordinary sevenfold rule works quite accurately with the thinner coils, but there is a very curious variation with regard to the set of three. As may be seen from the drawings, these are obviously thicker and more prominent, and this increase of size is produced by an augmentation (so slight as to be barely perceptible) in the proportion to one another of the different orders of spirillæ and in the number of dots in the lowest. This augmentation, amounting at present to not more than .00571428 of the whole of each case, suggests the unexpected possibility that this portion of the atom may be somehow actually undergoing a change—may in fact be in process of growth, as there is reason to suppose that these three thicker spirals originally resembled the others.
Since observation shows us that each physical atom is represented by forty-nine astral atoms, each astral atom by forty-nine mental atoms, and each mental atom by forty-nine of those on the buddhic plane, we have here evidently several terms of a regular progressive series, and the natural presumption is that the series continues where we are no longer able to observe it. Further probability is lent to this assumption by the remarkable fact that—if we assume one dot to be what corresponds to an atom on the seventh or highest of our planes (as is suggested in The Ancient Wisdom, p. 42) and then suppose the law of multiplication to begin its operation, so that 49 dots shall form the atom of the next or sixth plane, 2401 that of the fifth, and so on—we find that the number indicated for the physical atom (496) corresponds almost exactly with the calculation based upon the actual counting of the coils. Indeed, it seems probable that but for the slight growth of the three thicker wires of the atom the correspondence would have been perfect.
It must be noted that a physical atom cannot be directly broken up into astral atoms. If the unit of force which whirls those millions of dots into the complicated shape of a physical atom be pressed back by an effort of will over the threshold of the astral plane, the atom disappears instantly, for the dots are released. But the same unit of force, working now upon a higher level, expresses itself not through one astral atom, but through a group of 49. If the process of pressing back the unit of force is repeated, so that it energises upon the mental plane, we find the group there enlarged to the number of 2401 of those higher atoms. Upon the buddhic plane the number of atoms formed by the same amount of force is very much greater still—probably the cube of 49 instead of the square, though they have not been actually counted. Therefore one physical atom is not composed of forty-nine astral or 2401 mental atoms, but corresponds to them, in the sense that the force which manifests through it would show itself on those higher planes by energising respectively those numbers of atoms.
The dots, or beads, seem to be the constituents of all matter of which we, at present, know anything; astral, mental and buddhic atoms are built of them, so we may fairly regard them as fundamental units, the basis of matter.
These units are all alike, spherical and absolutely simple in construction. Though they are the basis of all matter, they are not themselves matter; they are not blocks but bubbles. They do not resemble bubbles floating in the air, which consist of a thin film of water separating the air within them from the air outside, so that the film has both an outer and an inner surface. Their analogy is rather with the bubbles that we see rising in water, before they reach the surface, bubbles which may be said to have only one surface—that of the water which is pushed back by the contained air. Just as such bubbles are not water, but are precisely the spots from which water is absent, so these units are not koilon, but the absence of koilon—the only spots where it is not—specks of nothingness floating in it, so to speak, for the interior of these space-bubbles is an absolute void to the highest power of vision that we can turn upon them.
That is the startling, well-nigh incredible, fact. Matter is nothingness, the space obtained by pressing back an infinitely dense substance; Fohat "digs holes in space" of a verity, and the holes are the airy nothingnesses, the bubbles, of which "solid" universes are built.
What are they, then, these bubbles, or rather, what is their content, the force which can blow bubbles in a substance of infinite density? The ancients called that force "the Breath," a graphic symbol, which seems to imply that they who used it had seen the kosmic process, had seen the Logos when He breathed into the "waters of space," and made the bubbles which build universes. Scientists may call this "Force" by what names they will—names are nothing; to us, Theosophists, it is the Breath of the Logos, we know not whether of the Logos of this solar system or of a yet mightier Being; the latter would seem the more likely, since in the above-quoted occult treatise all visible suns are said to have this as their substance.
The Breath of the Logos, then, is the force which fills these spaces; His the force which holds them open against the tremendous pressure of the koilon; they are full of His Life, of Himself, and everything we call matter, on however high or low a plane, is instinct with divinity; these units of force, of life, the bricks with which He builds His universe, are His very life scattered through space; truly is it written: "I established this universe with a portion of myself." And when He draws in His breath, the waters of space will close in again, and the universe will have disappeared. It is only a breath.
The outbreathing which makes these bubbles is quite distinct from, and long antecedent to, the three outpourings, or Life-Waves, so familiar to the theosophical student. The first Life-Wave catches up these bubbles, and whirls them into the various arrangements which we call the atoms of the several planes, and aggregates them into the molecules, and on the physical plane into the chemical elements. The worlds are built out of these voids, these emptinesses, which seem to us "nothing" but are divine force. It is matter made from the privation of matter. How true were H.P.B.'s statements in "The Secret Doctrine": "Matter is nothing but an aggregation of atomic forces" (iii, 398); "Buddha taught that the primitive substance is eternal and unchangeable. Its vehicle is the pure luminous æther, the boundless infinite space, not a void, resulting from the absence of all forms, but on the contrary, the foundation of all forms" (iii, 402).
How vividly, how unmistakably this knowledge brings home to us the great doctrine of Mâyâ, the transitoriness and unreality of earthly things, the utterly deceptive nature of appearances! When the candidate for initiation sees (not merely believes, remember, but actually sees) that what has always before seemed to him empty space is in reality a solid mass of inconceivable density, and that the matter which has appeared to be the one tangible and certain basis of things is not only by comparison tenuous as gossamer (the "web" spun by "Father-Mother"), but is actually composed of emptiness and nothingness—is itself the very negation of matter—then for the first time he thoroughly appreciates the valuelessness of the physical senses as guides to the truth. Yet even more clearly still stands out the glorious certainty of the immanence of the Divine; not only is everything ensouled by the Logos, but even its visible manifestation is literally part of Him, is built of His very substance, so that Matter as well as Spirit becomes sacred to the student who really understands.
The koilon in which all these bubbles are formed undoubtedly represents a part, and perhaps the principal part, of what science describes as the luminiferous æther. Whether it is actually the bearer of the vibrations of light and heat through interplanetary space is as yet undetermined. It is certain that these vibrations impinge upon and are perceptible to our bodily senses only through the etheric matter of the physical plane. But this by no means proves that they are conveyed through space in the same manner, for we know very little of the extent to which the physical etheric matter exists in interplanetary and interstellar space, though the examination of meteoric matter and kosmic dust shows that at least some of it is scattered there.
The scientific theory is that the æther has some quality which enables it to transmit at a certain definite velocity transverse waves of all lengths and intensities—that velocity being what is commonly called the speed of light, 190,000 miles per second. Quite probably this may be true of koilon, and if so it must also be capable of communicating those waves to bubbles or aggregations of bubbles, and before the light can reach our eyes there must be a downward transference from plane to plane similar to that taking place when a thought awakens emotion or causes action.
In a recent pamphlet on "The Density of Æther," Sir Oliver Lodge remarks:—
"Just as the ratio of mass to volume is small in the case of a solar system or a nebula or a cobweb, I have been driven to think that the observed mechanical density of matter is probably an excessively small fraction of the total density of the substance or æther contained in the space which it thus partially occupies—the substance of which it may hypothetically be held to be composed.
"Thus, for instance, consider a mass of platinum, and assume that its atoms are composed of electrons, or of some structures not wholly dissimilar: the space which these bodies actually fill, as compared with the whole space which in a sense they 'occupy,' is comparable to one ten-millionth of the whole, even inside each atom; and the fraction is still smaller if it refers to the visible mass. So that a kind of minimum estimate of ætherial density, on this basis, would be something like ten thousand million times that of platinum."
And further on he adds that this density may well turn out to be fifty thousand million times that of platinum. "The densest matter known," he says, "is trivial and gossamer-like compared with the unmodified æther in the same space."
Incredible as this seems to our ordinary ideas, it is undoubtedly an understatement rather than an exaggeration of the true proportion as observed in the case of koilon. We shall understand how this can be so if we remember that koilon seems absolutely homogeneous and solid even when examined by a power of magnification which makes physical atoms appear in size and arrangement like cottages scattered over a lonely moor, and when we further add to this the recollection that the bubbles of which these atoms in turn are composed are themselves what may be not inaptly called fragments of nothingness.
In the same pamphlet Sir Oliver Lodge makes a very striking estimate of the intrinsic energy of the æther. He says: "The total output of a million-kilowatt power station for thirty million years exists permanently, and at present inaccessibly in every cubic millimetre of space." Here again he is probably underestimating the stupendous truth.
It may naturally be asked how, if all this be so, it is possible that we can move about freely in a solid ten thousand million times denser, as Sir Oliver Lodge says, than platinum. The obvious answer is that, where densities differ sufficiently, they can move through each other with perfect freedom; water or air can pass through cloth; air can pass through water; an astral form passes unconsciously through a physical wall, or through an ordinary human body; many of us have seen an astral form walk through a physical, neither being conscious of the passage; it does not matter whether we say that a ghost has passed through a wall, or a wall has passed through a ghost. A gnome passes freely through a rock, and walks about within the earth, as comfortably as we walk about in the air. A deeper answer is that consciousness can recognize only consciousness, that since we are of the nature of the Logos we can sense only those things which are also of His nature. These bubbles are His essence, His life, and, therefore, we, who also are part of Him, can see the matter which is built of his substance, for all forms are but manifestations of Him. The koilon is to us non-manifestation, because we have not unfolded powers which enable us to cognise it, and it may be the manifestation of a loftier order of Logoi, utterly beyond our ken.
As none of our investigators can raise his consciousness to the highest plane of our universe, the âdi-tattva plane, it may be of interest to explain how it is possible for them to see what may very probably be the atom of that plane. That this may be understood it is essential to remember that the power of magnification by means of which these experiments are conducted is quite apart from the faculty of functioning upon one or other of the planes. The latter is the result of a slow and gradual unfoldment of the Self, while the former is merely a special development of one of the many powers latent in man. All the planes are round us here, just as much as any other point in space, and if a man sharpens his sight until he can see their tiniest atoms he can make a study of them, even though he may as yet be far from the level necessary to enable him to understand and function upon the higher planes as a whole, or to come into touch with the glorious Intelligences who gather those atoms into vehicles for Themselves.
A partial analogy may be found in the position of the astronomer with regard to the stellar universe, or let us say the Milky Way. He can observe its constituent parts and learn a good deal about them along various lines, but it is absolutely impossible for him to see it as a whole from outside, or to form any certain conception of its true shape, and to know what it really is. Suppose that the universe is, as many of the ancients thought, some inconceivably vast Being, it is utterly impossible for us, here in the midst of it, to know what that Being is or is doing, for that would mean raising ourselves to a height comparable with His; but we may make extensive and detailed examination of such particles of His body as happen to be within our reach, for that means only the patient use of powers and machinery already at our command.
Let it not be supposed that, in thus unfolding a little more of the wonders of Divine Truth by pushing our investigations to the very farthest point at present possible to us, we in any way alter or modify all that has been written in theosophical books of the shape and constitution of the physical atom, and of the wonderful and orderly arrangements by which it is grouped into the various chemical molecules; all this remains entirely unaffected.
Nor is any change introduced as regards the three outpourings from the Logos, and the marvellous facility with which the matter of the various planes is by them moulded into forms for the service of the evolving life. But if we wish to have a right view of the realities underlying manifestation in this universe, we must to a considerable extent reverse the ordinary conception as to what this matter essentially is. Instead of thinking of its ultimate constituents as solid specks floating in a void, we must realise that it is the apparent void itself which is solid, and that the specks are but bubbles on it. That fact once grasped, all the rest remains as before. The relative position of what we have hitherto called matter and force is still for us the same as ever; it is only that, on closer examination, both of these conceptions prove to be variants of force, the one ensouling combinations of the other, and the real "matter," koilon, is seen to be something which has hitherto been altogether outside our scheme of thought.
In view of this marvellous distribution of Himself in "space," the familiar concept of the "sacrifice of the Logos" takes on a new depth and splendour; this is His "dying in matter," His "perpetual sacrifice," and it may be the very glory of the Logos that He can sacrifice Himself to the uttermost by thus permeating and making Himself one with that portion of koilon which He chooses as the field of His universe.
What koilon is, what its origin, whether it is itself changed by the Divine Breath which is poured into it—does "Dark Space" thus become "Bright Space" at the beginning of a manifestation?—these are questions to which we cannot at present even indicate answers. Perchance an intelligent study of the great Scriptures of the world may yield replies.