The nebular hypothesis, involving the theory of the existence of a Primeval Matter, diffused in a nebulous condition, is of no modern date in Astronomy, as everyone knows. Anaximenes, of the Ionian school, had already taught that the sidereal bodies were formed through the progressive condensation of a primordial pregenetic Matter, which had almost a negative weight, and was spread out through Space in an extremely sublimated condition.
Tycho Brahé, who viewed the Milky Way as an ethereal substance, thought the new star that appeared in Cassiopeia, in 1572, had been formed out of that Matter.[1015] Kepler believed that the star of 1606 had likewise been formed out of the ethereal substance that fills the universe.[1016] He attributed to that same Ether the apparition of a luminous ring round the Moon, during the total eclipse of the Sun observed at Naples in 1605.[1017] Still later, in 1714 the existence of a self-luminous Matter was recognized by Halley in the Philosophical Transactions. Finally, the journal of this name published in 1811 the famous hypothesis of the eminent Astronomer, Sir William Herschell, [pg 646] on the transformation of the nebulæ into Stars,[1018] and after this the Nebular Theory was accepted by the Royal Academies.
In Five Years of Theosophy, on p. 245, may be read an article headed, “Do the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory?” The answer there given is:
No; they do not deny its general propositions, nor the approximative truth of the scientific hypotheses. They only deny the completeness of the present, as well as the entire error of the many so-called “exploded” old theories, which, during the last century, have followed each other in such rapid succession.
This was asserted at the time to be “an evasive answer.” Such disrespect to official Science, it was argued, must be justified by the replacement of the orthodox speculation by another theory more complete, and having a firmer ground to stand upon. To this there is but one reply: It is useless to give out isolated theories with regard to things embodied in a complete and consecutive system, for, when separated from the main body of the teaching, they would necessarily lose their vital coherence and would thus do no good when studied independently. To be able to appreciate and accept the Occult views on the Nebular Theory, we must study the whole Esoteric cosmogonical system. And the time has hardly arrived for the Astronomers to be asked to accept Fohat and the Divine Builders. Even the undeniably correct surmises of Sir William Herschell, which had nothing “supernatural” in them, as to the Sun's being called a “globe of fire,” perhaps metaphorically, and his early speculations about the nature of that which is now called the Nasmyth Willow-leaf Theory, only caused that most eminent of all Astronomers to be smiled at by other, far less eminent, colleagues, who saw and now see in his ideas purely “imaginative and fanciful theories.” Before the whole Esoteric System could be given out and appreciated by the Astronomers, the latter would have to return to some of those “antiquated ideas,” not only to those of Herschell, but also to the dreams of the oldest Hindû Astronomers, and thus abandon their own theories, which are none the less “fanciful” because they have appeared nearly eighty years later than the one, and many thousands of years later than the others. Foremost of all they would have to repudiate their ideas of the Sun's solidity and incandescence; the Sun “glowing” most undeniably, but not “burning.” Then the Occultists state, with regard to the “willow-leaves,” [pg 647] that those “objects,” as Sir William Herschell called them, are the immediate sources of the solar light and heat. And though the Esoteric Teaching does not regard these as he did—namely, as “organisms” partaking of the nature of life, for the Solar “Beings” will hardly place themselves within telescopic focus—yet it asserts that the whole Universe is full of such “organisms,” conscious and active according to the proximity or distance of their planes to, or from, our plane of consciousness; and finally that the great Astronomer was right while speculating on those supposed “organisms,” in saying that “we do not know that vital action is incompetent to develop at once heat, light, and electricity.” For, at the risk of being laughed at by the whole world of Physicists, the Occultists maintain that all the “Forces” of the Scientists have their origin in the Vital Principle, the One Life collectively of our Solar System—that “Life” being a portion, or rather one of the aspects, of the One Universal Life.
We may, therefore—as in the article under consideration, wherein, on the authority of the Adepts, it was maintained that it is “sufficient to make a résumé of what the solar Physicists do not know”—we may, we maintain, define our position with regard to the modern Nebular Theory and its evident incorrectness, by simply pointing out facts diametrically opposed to it in its present form. And to begin with, what does it teach?
Summarizing the aforesaid hypotheses, it becomes plain that Laplace's theory—now made quite unrecognizable, moreover—was an unfortunate one. He postulates in the first place Cosmic Matter, existing in a state of diffuse nebulosity “so fine that its presence could hardly have been suspected.” No attempt is made by him to penetrate into the Arcana of Being, except as regards the immediate evolution of our small Solar System.
Consequently, whether one accepts or rejects his theory in its bearing upon the immediate cosmological problems presented for solution, he can only be said to have thrown back the mystery a little further. To the eternal query: “Whence Matter itself; whence the evolutionary impetus determining its cyclic aggregations and dissolutions; whence the exquisite symmetry and order into which the primeval Atoms arrange and group themselves?” no answer is attempted by Laplace. All we are confronted with, is a sketch of the probable broad principles on which the actual process is assumed to be based. Well, and what is this now celebrated note on the said process? [pg 648] What has he given so wonderfully new and original, that its ground-work, at any rate, should have served as a basis for the modern Nebular Theory? The following is what one gathers from various astronomical works.
Laplace thought that, in consequence of the condensation of the atoms of the primeval nebula, according to the “law” of gravity, the now gaseous, or perhaps, partially liquid mass, acquired a rotatory motion. As the velocity of this rotation increased, it assumed the form of a thin disc; finally, the centrifugal force overpowering that of cohesion, huge rings were detached from the edge of the whirling incandescent masses, and these rings contracted necessarily by gravitation (as accepted) into spheroidal bodies, which would necessarily still continue to preserve the orbit previously occupied by the outer zone from which they were separated.[1019] The velocity of the outer edge of each nascent planet, he said, exceeding that of the inner, there results a rotation on its axis. The more dense bodies would be thrown off last; and finally, during the preliminary state of their formation, the newly-segregated orbs in their turn throw off one or more satellites. In formulating the history of the rupture and planetation of rings Laplace says:
Almost always each ring of vapours must have broken up into numerous masses, which, moving with a nearly uniform velocity, must have continued to circulate at the same distance around the sun. These masses must have taken a spheroidal form with a motion of rotation in the same direction as their revolution, since the inner molecules (those nearest the sun) would have less actual velocity than the exterior ones. They must then have formed as many planets in a state of vapour. But, if one of them was sufficiently powerful to unite successively, by its attraction, all the others around its centre, the ring of vapours must have been thus transformed into a single spheroidal mass of vapours circulating around the sun with a rotation in the same direction as its revolution. The latter case has been the more common, but the solar system presents us the first case, in the four small planets which move between Jupiter and Mars.