Mr. Keely’s first discovery of an unknown force and the releasing of an unknown energy seemed to be by accident; and most certainly no one could then have foreseen that his researches in physical science would lead him on step by step, and very slow steps they have been, to such important findings. In the pursuit of physical science he encountered paradoxes and anomalies, the study of which led him on to fresh discoveries whereby he has been able to extend the boundary of ascertained truth and separate the wheat of science from the chaff.
The late Dr. Macvicar said when he considered how difficult he had found it to believe that such insight into nature as his views imply is possible to be attained, he was not so unreasonable as to expect that others would, in his time, regard them even as probable, much less as proved. He expressed himself as content with the private enjoyment which these views imparted to himself, “especially as that enjoyment is not merely the gratification of a chemical curiosity, but attaches to a much larger field of thought.” One of the points to which he refers, as possessing great value to his own mind, is the place which his investigation assigns to material nature in the universe of being. He says that it is much the fashion in the present day to regard matter and force, more shortly matter, as all in all. But, according to the view of things which has presented itself to both of these men, “matter comes out rather as a precipitate in the universal ether, determined by a mathematical necessity; a grand and beautiful cloud-work in the realm of light, bounded on both sides by a world of spirits; on the upper and anterior side, by the great Creator Himself, and the hierarchy of spirits to which He awarded immediate existence; and on the lower and posterior side, by that world of spirits of which the material body is the mother and nurse.” Macvicar says the hypothesis that there are no beings in the universe but those which possess a molecular structure, and that sensibility and intelligence take their first beginnings in such structures, is one of the most inadequate conceptions that was ever proposed for scientific belief. Science is not only very blind, but glories in her blindness. She gropes among the dead seeking the origin of life, instead of going to the Fountain of all life, the Ever Living, as Dr. Macvicar and Keely have done.
In theorizing on the philosophy of planetary suspension Mr. Keely writes: “As regards planetary volume, we would ask in a scientific point of view—How can the immense difference of volume in the planets exist without disorganizing the harmonious action that has always characterized them? I can only answer this question properly by entering into a progressive synthesis, starting on the rotating etheric centres that were fixed by the Creator with their attractive or accumulative power. If you ask what power it is that gives to each etheric atom its inconceivable velocity of rotation, or introductory impulse, I must answer that no finite mind will ever be able to conceive what it is. The philosophy of accumulation,” assimilation, Macvicar calls it, “is the only proof that such a power has been given. The area, if we can so speak of such an atom, presents to the attractive or magnetic, the elective or propulsive, all the receptive force and all the antagonistic force that characterizes a planet of the largest magnitude; consequently, as the accumulation goes on, the perfect equation remains the same. When this minute centre has once been fixed, the power to rend it from its position would necessarily have to be as great as to displace the most immense planet that exists. When this atomic neutral centre is displaced, the planet must go with it. The neutral centre carries the full load of any accumulation from the start, and remains the same, for ever balanced in the eternal space.”
Mr. Keely illustrates his idea of “a neutral centre” in this way:—We will imagine that, after an accumulation of a planet of any diameter—say, 20,000 miles more or less, for the size has nothing to do with the problem—there should be a displacement of all the material, with the exception of a crust 5000 miles thick, leaving an intervening void between this crust and a centre of the size of an ordinary billiard ball, it would then require a force as great to move this small central mass as it would to move the shell of 5000 miles thickness. Moreover, this small central mass would carry the load of this crust for ever, keeping it equi-distant; and there could be no opposing power, however great, that could bring them together. The imagination staggers in contemplating the immense load which bears upon this point of centre, where weight ceases. This is what we understand by a neutral centre.
Again, Mr. Keely, in explanation of the working of his engine, writes:—In the conception of any machine heretofore constructed, the medium for inducing a neutral centre has never been found. If it had, the difficulties of perpetual-motion seekers would have ended, and this problem would have become an established and operating fact. It would only require an introductory impulse of a few pounds, on such a device, to cause it to run for centuries. In the conception of my vibratory engine, I did not seek to attain perpetual motion; but a circuit is formed that actually has a neutral centre, which is in a condition to be vivified by my vibratory ether, and while under operation, by said substance, is really a machine that is virtually independent of the mass (or globe), and it is the wonderful velocity of the vibratory circuit which makes it so. Still, with all its perfection, it requires to be fed with the vibratory ether to make it an independent motor ….
Alluding to his illustration of a neutral centre, Mr. Keely says:—The man who can, even in a simple way, appreciate this vast problem has been endowed by the Creator with one of the greatest gifts which He can bestow upon a mortal. It is well known that all structures require a foundation in strength according to the weight of the mass they have to carry, but the foundations of the universe rest on a vacuous point far more minute than a molecule; in fact, to express this truth properly, on an inter-etheric point, which requires an infinite mind to understand. To look down into the depths of an etheric centre is precisely the same as it would be to search into the broad space of heaven’s ether to find the end; with this difference, that one is the positive field, while the other is the negative field ….
Again, Mr. Keely gives some suggestive thoughts as follows:—In seeking to solve the great problems which have baffled me, from time to time, in my progressive researches, I have often been struck by the fact that I have, to all seeming, accidentally tripped over their solution. The mind of man is not infinite, and it requires an infinite brain to evolve infinite positions. My highest power of concentration failed to attain the results which, at last, seeming accident revealed. God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; and if He has chosen me as the tool to carve out certain positions, what credit have I? None; and, though it is an exalting thought that He has singled me out for a specific work, I know that the finest tool is of no value without a manipulator. It is the artist who handles it that makes it what it is. Indifference to the marvels which surround us is a deep reproach. If we have neither leisure nor inclination to strive to unravel some of the mysteries of nature, which task to the utmost the highest order of human intelligence, we can at least exercise and improve our intellectual faculties by making ourselves acquainted with the operation of agencies already revealed to man; learning, by the experience of the past, to be tolerant of all truth; remembering that one of Nature’s agencies, known once as of use only in awakening men’s minds to an awful sense of the Creator’s power, has now become a patient slave of man’s will, rushing upon his errands with the speed of light around the inhabited globe ….
In comparing the tenuity of the atmosphere with that of the etheric flows, obtained by Mr. Keely from his invention for dissociating the molecules of air by vibration, he says, It is as platina to hydrogen gas. Molecular separation of air brings us to the first subdivision only; inter-molecular, to the second; atomic, to the third; inter-atomic, to the fourth; etheric, to the fifth; and inter-etheric, to the sixth subdivision, or positive association with luminiferous ether. In my introductory argument I have contended that this is the vibratory envelope of all atoms. In my definition of atom I do not confine myself to the sixth subdivision, where this luminiferous ether is developed in its crude form, as far as my researches prove. I think this idea will be pronounced, by the physicists of the present day, a wild freak of the imagination. Possibly, in time, a light may fall upon this theory that will bring its simplicity forward for scientific research. At present I can only compare it to some planet in a dark space, where the light of the sun of science has not yet reached it ….
I assume that sound, like odour, is a real substance of unknown and wonderful tenuity, emanating from a body where it has been induced by percussion, and throwing out absolute corpuscles of matter—inter-atomic particles—with a velocity of 1120 feet per second, in vacuo 20,000. The substance which is thus disseminated is a part and parcel of the mass agitated, and if kept under this agitation continuously would, in the course of a certain cycle of time, become thoroughly absorbed by the atmosphere; or, more truly, would pass through the atmosphere to an elevated point of tenuity corresponding to the condition of subdivision that governs its liberation from its parent body. The sounds from vibratory forks, set so as to produce etheric chords, while disseminating their compound tones permeate most thoroughly all substances that come under the range of their atomic bombardment. The clapping of a bell in vacuo liberates these atoms with the same velocity and volume as one in the open air; and were the agitation of the bell kept up continuously for a few millions of centuries, it would thoroughly return to its primitive element. If the chamber were hermetically sealed, and strong enough, the vacuous volume surrounding the bell would be brought to a pressure of many thousands of pounds to the square inch, by the tenuous substance evolved. In my estimation, sound truly defined is the disturbance of atomic equilibrium, rupturing actual atomic corpuscles; and the substance thus liberated must certainly be a certain order of etheric flow. Under these conditions is it unreasonable to suppose that, if this flow were kept up, and the body thus robbed of its element, it would in time disappear entirely? All bodies are formed primitively from this high tenuous ether, animal, vegetable and mineral, and they only return to their high gaseous condition when brought under a state of differential equilibrium.
As regards odour, continues Mr. Keely, we can only get some definite idea of its extreme and wondrous tenuity by taking into consideration that a large area of atmosphere can be impregnated for a long series of years from a single grain of musk; which, if weighed after that long interval, will be found to be not appreciably diminished. The great paradox attending the flow of odorous particles is that they can be held under confinement in a glass vessel! Here is a substance of much higher tenuity than the glass that holds it, and yet it cannot escape. It is as a sieve with its meshes large enough to pass marbles, and yet holding fine sand which cannot pass through; in fact, a molecular vessel holding an atomic substance. This is a problem that would confound those who stop to recognize it. But infinitely tenuous as odour is, it holds a very crude relation to the substance of subdivision that governs a magnetic flow (a flow of sympathy, if you please to call it so). This subdivision comes next to sound, but is above sound. The action of the flow of a magnet coincides somewhat to the receiving and distributing portion of the human brain, giving off at all times a depreciating ratio of the amount received. It is a grand illustration of the control of mind over matter, which gradually depreciates the physical till dissolution takes place. The magnet on the same ratio gradually loses its power and becomes inert. If the relations that exist between mind and matter could be equated, and so held, we would live on in our physical state eternally, as there would be no physical depreciation. But this physical depreciation leads, at its terminus, to the source of a much higher development—viz., the liberation of the pure ether from the crude molecular; which in my estimation is to be much desired. Thus God moves in a simple way His wonders to perform ….”