The ether of science though material is essentially different from the matter composing the elements. So, also, in Mormon theology, is the Holy Spirit different from the grosser elements. In science there is a vast distinction between the world of the elements, and that of the ether; in theology, there is an equally great difference between the spiritual and material worlds. Though the theology of Joseph Smith insists that immaterialism is an absurdity, yet it permits no overlapping of the earthly and the spiritual.
[Sidenote: Joseph Smith stated the existence of a universe-filling substance before science had generally accepted it.]
It must not be overlooked that the broad statement of this doctrine was made by Joseph Smith, at least as early as 1832, at a time when the explanation of light phenomena on the hypothesis of a universal ether was just beginning to find currency among learned men; and many years before the same hypothesis was accepted in explaining the phenomena of heat and electricity.
The idea of an influence pervading the universe is not of itself new. Poets and philosophers of all ages have suggested it in a vague, hesitating manner, without connecting it with the phenomena of nature, but burdening it with the greatest absurdity of religion or philosophy, that of immaterialism. Joseph Smith said the doctrine had been taught him by God, and gave it to the world unhesitatingly and rationally. The men of science, to whom Joseph Smith appears only as an imposter, and who know nothing of his writings, have later discovered the truth for themselves, and incorporated it in their books of learning.
Had Joseph Smith been the clever imposter that some claim he was, he probably would not have dealt in any way with the theories of the material world, at least would not have claimed revelations laying down physical laws; had he been the stupid fool, others tell us he was, his mind would not have worried itself with the fundamental problems of nature.
However that may be, it is certain that Joseph Smith, in the broad and rational statement of the existence of an omnipresent, material though subtle substance, anticipated the workers in science. In view of that fact, it is not improbable that at some future time, when science shall have gained a wider view, the historian of the physical sciences will say that Joseph Smith, the clear-sighted, first stated correctly the fundamental physical doctrine of the universal ether.
Chapter V.
THE REIGN OF LAW.
In the seventh book of the Republic of Plato[A] occurs the following passage:
[Footnote A: Golden Treasury edition, pp. 235, 236.]