It is an undisputed fact that “too much has been conceded to science, too little to those sublime laws which make science possible.” But the one law which regulates creation, and to which all other laws are made subservient, keeping in harmony the systems upon systems of worlds throughout space, developing sound and colour, animal and vegetable growth, the crystallization of minerals, is the hidden law, which develops every natural science throughout the universe; and which both Kepler and Newton anticipated would be revealed in our age. “You can even trace the poles in sound,” writes Mrs. F. J. Hughes, in her work upon the “Evolution of Tones and Colours.” The experiments made by Mrs. Watts Hughes, at the annual Reception of the Royal Society, and the [2]Pendulograph writings by Andrew of Belfast, have a bearing upon Keely’s discovery; illustrating the workings of this hidden law of nature.
Of the law of periodicity, Hartmann writes: “Its actions have long ago been known to exist in the vibrations producing light and sound, and it has been recognized in chemistry by experiments tending to prove that all so-called simple elements are only various states of vibration of one primordial element, manifesting itself in seven principal modes of action, each of which may be subdivided into seven again. The difference which exists between so-called single substances appears, therefore, to be no difference of substance or matter, but only a difference of the function of matter in the ratio of its atomic vibration.” It is by changing the vibrations of cosmic ether that Mr. Keely releases this energy, and Dr. Kellner in Austria produces electricity in the same way; while it is said that a chemist in Prague produces magnetism; also Dr. Dupuy, of New York, who has been for years experimenting in this field without meeting with Keely’s progressive successes.
Horace Wemyss Smith, in commenting upon the fact that, at the time of Franklin’s discovery, men in France, in Belgium, in Holland, and in Germany were pursuing the same line of experiment, says that there is something worthy of observation in the progress of science and human genius, inasmuch as in countries far distant from each other men have fallen into the same tracks, and have made similar and corresponding discoveries, at the same period of time, without the least communication with each other.
Laurence Oliphant’s recent works give us the clue to an explanation of this fact; and Lowe, in his “Fragments of Physiology,” condenses the answer in these words: “Man is not the governor and commander of the created world; and were it not for superhuman influence constantly flowing into created forms, the world would perish in a moment.”
There are men in various parts of the world, unknown even by name to each other, who tell us by “the signs of the times” that the season of harvesting is approaching; the season for gathering the fruit, which has been deferred, century after century, because mankind is not yet ready, in the opinion of many, to share the fruit with one another.
It has been said that when Keely’s vibratory force shall have taken the place of steam-engines, the millions of working men who gain with difficulty their daily bread by the work of their hands, will find themselves without occupation. The same prediction was made in regard to steam, but instead we find the city of Boston giving work to thirty thousand men in one manufactory of boots and shoes by steam, in place of the three thousand shoemakers who were all that were occupied in this branch of labour in that city when the work was done by hand.
Dr. Kellner’s colleague, Franz Hartmann, M.D., writing in reference to Keely’s discovery, says: “I have taken great interest in him ever since I first heard of him in 1882. As gaslight has driven away, in part, the smoky petroleum lamp, and is about to be displaced by electricity, which in the course of time may be supplanted by magnetism, and as the power of steam has caused muscular labour to disappear to a certain extent, and will itself give way before the new vibratory force of Keely, likewise the orthodox medical quackery that now prevails will be dethroned by the employment of the finer forces of nature, such as light, electricity, magnetism, etc.”
When the time is ripe, these are of the true scientists who will come to the front “to lead as progress leads,” men who know how to wait upon God, viz., to work while waiting; and to such the end is, sooner or later, victory! “God never hurries.” He counts the centuries as we count the seconds, and the nearer we approach to the least comprehension of His “underlying purpose” the more we become like Tolstoi’s labourer, who knew that the fruit was ripening for him and his fellow-men, trusting implicitly in the superior wisdom of his master.
No man, whose spiritual eyes have been opened to “discern the signs of the times,” can doubt that we are on the eve of revelations which are to usher in the dawn of a brighter day than our race has yet known; and no prophecy of this brighter day, foretold by prophets, apostles, and inspired poets, was ever made in truer strains than in these glorious lines of Elizabeth Barrett Browning:—
Verily many thinkers of this age,