and Cardinal Newman also, when he discoursed of musical sounds, “under which great wonders unknown to us seem to have been typified,” as “the living law of divine government.” Since the days of Leucippus, poets and philosophers have often touched upon the mysteries hidden in sound, which are now being revealed in the experimental researches of Keely. These truths make no impression on those who are not gifted with any comprehension of nature’s harmonious workings, and are regarded as flights of fancy and of rhetoric. Among the utterances of inspiration—and all truth is inspired—one of the most remarkable, when taken in connection with these discoveries, is found in these eloquent words of the Dean of Boston University in his “Review of Herbert Spencer,” printed in 1876:—
“Think of the universal warring of tremendous forces which is for ever going on, and remember that out of this strife is born, not chaos void and formless, but a creation of law and harmony. Bear in mind, too, that this creation is filled with the most marvellous mechanisms, with the most exquisite contrivances, and with forms of the rarest beauty. Remember, also, that the existence of these forms for even a minute depends upon the nicest balance of destructive forces. Abysses of chaos yawn on every side, and yet creation holds on its way. Nature’s keys need but to be jarred to turn the tune into unutterable discord, and yet the harmony is preserved. Bring hither your glasses—and see that, from atomic recess to the farthest depth, there is naught but ‘toil co-operant to an end.’ All these atoms move to music; all march in tune. Listen until you catch the strain, and then say whether it is credible that a blind force should originate and maintain all this.”
Sir John Herschel said:—There is some principle in the science of music that has yet to be discovered.
It is this principle which has been discovered by Keely. Let his theories be disputed as they have been, and as they still may be, the time has come in which his supporters claim that he is able to demonstrate what he teaches; is able to show how superficial are the foundations of the strongholds to which physicists are clinging; and able to prove purity of conditions in physical science which not even the philosophers and poets of the past have so much as dreamed of in their hours of inspiration.
… ways are made,
Burdens are lifted, or are laid,
By some great law unseen and still,
Unfathomed purpose to fulfil.
Our materialistic physicists, our Comtist and agnostic philosophers, have done their best to destroy our faith.
Of him who will not believe in Soul because his scalpel cannot detect it, Browning wrote: