Elements of Physiophilosophy

by Lorenz Oken

177. Every sphere of æther is complete in itself and closed, and therefore rotating around its axis and around the universal axis of the æther.

178. The new rotation in the heavenly bodies condensed in the periphery of the æther, follows as a necessary result, on account of the unequal velocity of its outwardly and inwardly lying points.

179. Every individual sphere has two motions in itself; the one depends upon the representation of the primary act in itself by the special rotation; the other re-attempts to regain the primary centre, through the general rotation around the universal axis.

180. Such a sphere rotating for itself is called a Heavenly body. A heavenly body again is the image or metatype of the Eternal; it is a whole, it is alive; everything, even the highest, can originate out of it; everything develop itself out of the coagulated, individualized æther. The heavenly body has a double life, an individual and an universal, since it is for itself and at the same time in the general centre. Every Individual must have a double life.

181. The heavenly bodies are as old as the æther, consequently they are from the beginning, and endure also without end. As they are only coagulated æther, so are they susceptible of being resolved into the same, such as are probably the comets.

b. LIGHT, LINE. (Second form of the World. Motion.)

182. The æther is from eternity, not merely monas, but also dyas; from eternity it stands in a state of tension with itself, when, as the image of the existing primary act, it has emerged out of itself into two poles. This self-egression or self-manifestation of æther, or of substance simply, is the self-egression of the point into the periphery. As dyas, æther exists under the form of polarity, of central and peripheric effort; the æther in a state of tension is a centroperipheric antagonism.

183. The æther is separated from eternity into a central and peripheric substance, and that indeed through its simple position as a globe. The universe is a duplicity in the form of æther; it is both indifferent and different æther, both central and peripheric. The central mass of æther may be called sun, the peripheric planet. Only one sun can originate in a globe of æther, but many planets.

184. Between the central and peripheral mass of the æther, between the sun and planets, there is tension. Through this solar-planetary tension the æther fluctuating between the two becomes polarized.

185. The tension of the æther proceeds from the centre and thus from the sun. Were the sun to be removed, the polarity of the æther would be annulled; it would be again the indifferent chaotic æther, the null and void matter. For the absolute substance to exist it needed not simply itself, but an identical centre and a dissevered periphery. Is there no peripheric mass, no planet, so also is the tension annulled; centre cannot be without periphery, sun not without planet, nor vice versâ. The tension of æther is thus excited by the sun and conditioned by the planet. The planet is not the principle, but the Redintegrant of the tension of æther by the opposition.