Mr. Cope Whitehouse, a New York scientist, says of present science: "The only fact established beyond doubt regarding suns and planets is their revolution on their axes, and this is all that is needed to generate light and heat. They are arc dynamos, and each in turn transmits what it receives to its neighbor on the circuit." This is well stated and shows that nine-tenths of the accepted facts and theories of science are mere guesswork, founded upon conjectures of some eminent scientist who was accepted as authority a hundred years ago. And the standard scientific works have propagated them as scientific facts.
It is a fact apparent to all well informed students that astronomy, physics and chemistry at present are in a chaotic condition—that nearly all the scientific facts and theories established for two hundred years are now in a state of uncertainty and are virtually overthrown by recent discoveries.
The recent discovery of radium seems to overturn the rock-ribbed scientific theory of the conservation of energy, and raises many new questions in regard to the nature of light and heat.
Lord Kelvin, recognized as the highest authority, says: "It threatens to overthrow the doctrine of the correlation of forces." If the scientists would accept the electric theory of creation, its explanation would not be so difficult, for radium seems to be a bundle of electric ions or corpuscles which have the power of drawing electricity from the atmosphere, like a miniature dynamo or a galvanic battery, and thus continually renewing itself, so that there is no loss of power and no shrinkage in size or bulk. The scientists may soon be forced by radium and other natural phenomena to accept the electric theory—that electricity and not gravity is the one and only fundamental force in nature.
The recent discovery of the three lines in the spectrum of hydrogen, discovered by Prof. Pickering, of Harvard, may upset the whole theory of the seventy-three elements set forth in our books of chemistry and said to constitute all the elements of the universe. It may prove they are not elements, or at least not primary elements at all, and finally drive the scientists to my theory that there are only three primary elements in the universe, and they are spirit, electricity and matter. That the so-called seventy-three elements are only different combinations of two of the original and primary elements—matter and electricity—and are what Herschell said they looked to be—"manufactured articles."
Prof. Pickering was the first to analyze lightning with the spectroscope and show that hydrogen is a compound substance made up of lines belonging to at least three chemical elements. This recent discovery was a great surprise to scientific men. And it was confirmed and doubly proven by the spectrum in the new star, in the constellation of Perseus, known as Nova Persei, which also shows in the hydrogen there the same lines consisting of at least three chemical elements.
This is new proof by high authority that oxygen, hydrogen and all the so-called elements are—as I have contended for many years—only compound substances, and justifies Prof. Serviss' statement in the New York Journal, that these facts "may revolutionize science and reconstruct chemistry."
The marvelous increase in brilliancy of the star Nova Persei last year, and its sudden shrinkage, all within a few days, and the same being observable almost instantaneously upon the earth, when that star is 3,400 light years distance from the earth according to the accepted speed of light, which is 186,000 miles a second, unsettles the whole question as to the speed of light. It tends to prove that light is instantaneous, as Prof. Wright says gravitation is.
No less an authority than Prof. Simon Newcomb calls the scientific world's attention to this phenomena, and shows it throws doubt on the long-accepted theory as to the speed with which light travels. In his address before the Astronomical Society, December 29th, 1902, he says: "There is an inadequacy in the speed of light to explain the phenomena. We are forced to the conclusion that there exists in the universe a cause susceptible of transmission with a speed many times that of light."
What cause exceeds the speed of light, which is deemed the swiftest thing in the universe? We know of none. What was it surprised the scientists and came to us with many times the supposed speed of light? It was light, only light. Then this "inadequacy in the speed of light" came on double-quick time, and proves that light can travel many times faster than the scientists for two hundred years have declared it could. And this eminent scientist, with cautious diplomacy, does not directly attack the accepted speed of light, but says "there exists a cause" that produces a greater speed than light. But as only light came, did the "cause" bring it or did it come with its own velocity? If a "cause" or unknown force brought it, then we have a new force in nature which the scientists must reckon with. So they must accept the alternative and either change the speed of light or deal with a new and unknown force.