Then again:
The science of electricity, which was not yet in existence when he [Bœhme] wrote, is there anticipated [in his writings]; and not only does Bœhme describe all the now known phenomena of that force, but he even gives us the origin, generation, and birth of electricity, itself.
Thus Newton, whose profound mind easily read between the lines, and fathomed the spiritual thought of the great Seer, in its mystic rendering, owes his great discovery to Jacob Bœhme, the nursling of the Genii, Nirmânakâyas who watched over and guided him, of whom the author of the article in question so truly remarks:
Every new scientific discovery goes to prove his profound and intuitive insight into the most secret workings of Nature.
And having discovered gravity, Newton, in order to render possible the action of attraction in space, had, so to speak, to annihilate every physical obstacle capable of impeding its free action; Ether among others, though he had more than a presentiment of its existence. Advocating the corpuscular theory, he made an absolute vacuum between the heavenly bodies. Whatever may have been his suspicions and [pg 537] inner convictions about Ether; however many friends he may have unbosomed himself to—as in the case of his correspondence with Bentley—his teachings never showed that he had any such belief. If he was “persuaded that the power of attraction could not be exerted by matter across a vacuum,”[818] how is it that so late as 1860, French astronomers, Le Couturier, for instance, combated “the disastrous results of the theory of vacuum established by the great man”? Le Couturier says:
Il n'est plus possible aujourd'hui, de soutenir comme Newton, que les corps célestes se mouvent au milieu du vide immense des espaces.... Parmi les conséquences de la théorie du vide établie par Newton, il ne reste plus debout que le mot “attraction.”... Nous voyous venir le jour ou le mot attraction disparaîtra du vocabulaire scientifique.[819]
Professor Winchell writes:
These passages [Letter to Bentley] show what were his views respecting the nature of the interplanetary medium of communication. Though declaring that the heavens “are void of sensible matter,” he elsewhere excepted “perhaps some very thin vapours, steams, and effluvia, arising from the atmospheres of the earth, planets, and comets, and from such an exceedingly rare ethereal medium as we have elsewhere described.”[820]
This only shows that even such great men as Newton have not always the courage of their opinions. Dr. T. S. Hunt
Called attention to some long-neglected passages in Newton's works, from which it appears that a belief in such universal, intercosmical medium gradually took root in his mind.[821]