CHAPTER VI.
THE FOUNTAIN HEAD OF FORCE.
Those who occupy themselves with the mysteries of molecular vibration bear the victorious wreaths of successful discovery, and show that every atom teems with wonders not less incomprehensible than those of the vast and bright far-off suns.—Reynolds.
The famous Keely motor, which has been hovering on the horizon of success for a decade, is but an attempt to repeat in an engine of metal the play of forces which goes on at the inmost focus of life, the human will, or in the cosmic spaces occupied only by the ultimate atoms. The engineer with his mallet shooting the cannon-ball by means of a few light taps on a receiver of depolarized atoms of water is only re-enacting the rôle of the will when with subtle blows it sets the nerve aura in vibration, and this goes on multiplying in force and sweep of muscle until the ball is thrown from the hand with a power proportionate to the one-man machinery. The inventor Keely seeks a more effective machinery; a combination of thousands of will-forces in a single arm, as it were. But he keeps the same vibrating principle, and the power in both cases is psychical. That is, in its last analysis.—George Perry.
One eternal and immutable law embraces all things and all times.—Cicero.
When the truth is made known, it will unwarp the complications of man’s manufacture; and show everything in nature to be very simple.—David Sinclair, author of A New Creed.—Digby, Long & Co.
A gradual change seems to be taking place in the minds of the well-informed in reference to the discoverer of, and experimenter with, etheric force—John Worrell Keely—which will in time remove the burden of accusations from him to those who are responsible for the load which he has had to carry.
Those who know the most of Mr. Keely’s philosophy, and of his inventions to apply this new force to mechanics, are the most sanguine as to his ultimate success. They say he is great enough in soul, wise enough in mind, and sublime enough in courage to overcome all difficulties, and to stand at last before the world as the greatest discoverer and inventor in the world:—that the hour demanded his coming—that he was not born for his great work before his appointed time. They predict that he will, with the hammer of science, demolish the idols of science; that the demonstration of the truth of his system will humble the pride of those scientists who are materialists, by revealing some of the mysteries which lie behind the world of matter; proving that physical disintegration affects only the mode, and not the existence, of individual consciousness.
The discovery of vibratory etheric force, even though never utilized in mechanics, brings us upon the bridge which divides physical science from spiritual science, and opens up domains the grandeur and glory of which eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, nor hath it entered into the mind of man to conceive. The few who understand the nature and the extent of Keely’s vast researches say that he is about to give a new philosophy to the world, which will upset all other systems; they say that he knows what force is; and that he seeks to know what impels and fixes the neutral centre, which attracts to itself countless correlations of matter, until it becomes a world; that he is approaching the origin of life, of memory, and of death; and more, that he knows how ignorant he still is: possessing the humility of a little child who knows nothing of science. Such a philosopher deserves the appreciation and the encouragement of all who hold Truth as the one thing most worth living for—and dying for, if need be.
What is etheric force? the inquirer asks. It is the soul of nature. It is the primal force from which all the forces of nature spring.