The wise words of several English men of Science have now to be quoted in our favour. Ostracized for “principle's sake” by the few, they are tacitly approved of by the many. That one of them preaches almost Occult doctrines—in some things identical with, and often amounting to a public recognition of, our “Fohat and his seven Sons,” the Occult Gandharva of the Vedas—will be recognized by every Occultist, and even by some profane readers.
If such readers will open Volume V of the Popular Science Review,[892] they will find in it an article on “Sun-Force and Earth-Force,” by Dr. E. W. Richardson, F.R.S., which reads as follows:
At this moment, when the theory of mere motion as the origin of all varieties of force is again becoming the prevailing thought, it were almost heresy to reöpen a debate, which for a period appears, by general consent, to be virtually closed; but I accept the risk, and shall state, therefore, what were the precise views of the immortal heretic, whose name I have whispered to the readers, (Samuel Metcalfe,) respecting Sun-Force. Starting with the argument on which nearly all physicists are agreed, that there exist in nature two agencies—matter which is ponderable, visible, and tangible, and a something which is imponderable, invisible, and appreciable only by its influence on matter—Metcalfe maintains that the imponderable and active agency which he calls “caloric” is not a mere form of motion, not a vibration amongst the particles of ponderable matter, but itself a material substance flowing from the sun through space,[893] filling the voids between the particles of solid bodies, and conveying by sensation the property called heat. The nature of caloric, or Sun-Force, is contended for by him on the following grounds:
(i) That it may be added to, and abstracted from other bodies and measured with mathematical precision.
(ii) That it augments the volume of bodies, which are again reduced in size by its abstraction.
(iii) That it modifies the forms, properties, and conditions of all other bodies.
(iv) That it passes by radiation through the most perfect vacuum[894] that can be formed, in which it produces the same effects on the thermometer as in the atmosphere.
(v) That it exerts mechanical and chemical forces which nothing can restrain, as in volcanoes, the explosion of gunpowder, and other fulminating compounds.
(vi) That it operates in a sensible manner on the nervous system, producing intense pain; and when in excess, disorganization of the tissues.
As against the vibratory theory, Metcalfe further argues that if caloric were a mere property or quality, it could not augment the volume of other bodies; for this purpose it must itself have volume, it must occupy space, and it must, therefore, be a material agent. If caloric were only the effect of vibratory motion amongst the particles of ponderable matter, it could not radiate from hot bodies without the simultaneous transition of the vibrating particles; but the fact stands out that heat can radiate from material ponderable substance without loss of weight of such substance.... With this view as to the material nature of caloric or sun-force; with the impression firmly fixed on his mind that “everything in Nature is composed of two descriptions of matter, the one essentially active and ethereal, the other passive and motionless,”[895] Metcalfe based the hypothesis that the sun-force, or caloric, is a self-active principle. For its own particles, he holds, it has repulsion; for the particles of all ponderable matter it has affinity; it attracts the particles of ponderable matter with forces which vary inversely as the squares of the distance. It thus acts through ponderable matter. If universal space were filled with caloric, sun-force, alone (without ponderable matter), caloric would also be inactive and would constitute a boundless ocean of powerless or quiescent ether, because it would then have nothing on which to act, while ponderable matter, however inactive of itself, has “certain properties by which it modifies and controls the actions of caloric, both of which are governed by immutable laws that have their origin in the mutual relations and specific properties of each.”