Keely and His Discoveries: Aerial Navigation

by Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore

It was good advice given by the late Professor Clifford,—“Before teaching any doctrine wait until the nature of the evidence can be understood.” But without attempting to teach Keely’s system of vibratory physics, we may look into some of his views, notwithstanding the fact that, whatever truths there may be in them, they are approached from such a different standpoint, than that of the platform of mechanical physics, that it is utterly impossible to bring them into any definite relations with each other.[1] Dr. Gérard, of Paris, in his work on “Nervous Force,” writes of this founder of a new system of philosophy: “The force discovered by Keely appears to me to be so entirely the counterpart of what passes primarily in the brain cells that we see in him but a plagiarist of cerebral dynamics—that is, he has had but to copy the delicate human mechanism to make a wonderful discovery; probably, the greatest the world has ever known. The word plagiarist has no deprecatory meaning as applied to the great American inventor, for he must possess an extraordinary power of assimilation to read so fluently the open book of nature, and to be able wisely to interpret her admirable laws: it is, therefore, with profound admiration that I here render homage to this man of science.”

Dr. Gérard’s work treats of the production of electricity in the nerve centres, and its accumulation in storage. He says that fifty years ago it would have been difficult to explain this fact intelligently; but thanks to the scientific progress of the period, everyone now knows how electricity is produced, and how applied, to use in lighting our houses. He continues: “Let us say, then, in few words, how matters stand, for it will serve to illustrate how it is with our brain, the mechanism of which is precisely the same—only that our apparatus is much more perfect and much less costly.

“A dynamo-electric machine is placed at any given spot; its object, being put in action, is to withdraw from the earth its neutral electricity, to decompose it into its two conditions and to collect, upon accumulators, the electricity thus separated. As soon as the accumulators are charged, the electricity is disposable; that is, our lamps can be lighted. But what is marvellous in all this is that the forces of nature can be transformed at will. Should we not wish for light, we turn a knob and we have sound, heat, motion, chemical action, magnetism. Little seems wanting to create intelligence, so entirely do these accumulated forces lend themselves to all the transformations which their engineer may imagine and desire. But let us consider how greatly superior is our cerebral mechanism to all invented mechanism. In order to light a theatre we require a wide space, a dynamo-electric machine of many horse-power, accumulators filling many receptacles, a considerable expense in fuel, and clever mechanicians. In the human organism these engines are in miniature, one décimêtre cube is all the space occupied by our brain; no wheels, no pistons, nothing to drive the apparatus, we suffice ourselves. In this sense, each of us can say, like the philosopher Biaz:—Omnia mecum porto. Our cerebral organ not only originates motion, heat, sound, light, chemical actions, magnetism; but it produces psychic forces, such as will, reasoning, judgment, hatred, love, and the whole series of intellectual faculties. They are all derived from the same source, and are always identical to each other, so long as the cerebral apparatus remains intact. The variations of our health alone are capable of causing a variation in the intensity and quality of our productions.

“With a maximum of physical and moral health, we produce a maximum of physical and moral results. Our manual labour and our intellectual productions are always exactly proportionate to the integrity of our mechanism.”

Dr. Gérard has, it will be seen, grasped the same truth that Buckle enunciated in his lecture, The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge, when he affirmed that not one single discovery that had ever been made has been connected with the laws of the mind that made it: declaring that until this connection is ascertained our knowledge has no sure basis, as “the laws of nature have their sole seat, origin, and function in the human mind.” This is the foundation stone of vibratory physics, that all force is mind force.

All the forces of nature, writes Keely, proceed from the one governing force; the source of all life, of all energy. These sympathetic flows, or streams of force, each consists of three currents, harmonic, enharmonic, and dominant; this classification governing all orders of positive and negative radiation. The sympathetic flow called “Animal Magnetism” is the transmissive link of sympathy in the fourth, or inter-atomic, subdivision of matter. It is the most intricate of problems to treat philosophically; isolated as it is from all approach by any of the prescribed rules in “the orthodox scheme of physics.” It turns upon the interchangeable subdivision of inter-atomic acting agency, or the force of the mind. The action of this etheric flow, in substances of all kinds, is according to the character of the molecular interferences which exist in the volume of their atomic groupings. These interferences proceed from some description of atomic chemical nature, which tend to vary the uniformity of structure in the atomic triplets of each molecule. If these groupings were absolutely uniform there would be but one substance in nature, and all beings inhabiting this globe would be simultaneously impressed with the same feelings and actuated by the same desires; but nature has produced unlimited variety. Science, as yet, has not made so much as an introductory attempt to solve this problem of “the mind flow,” but has left it with the hosts of impostors, who always beset any field that trenches on the land of marvel.

Professor Olive Lodge, in his address before the British Association, at Cardiff, said: “Let me try to state what this field is, the exploration of which is regarded as so dangerous. I might call it the borderland of physics and psychology. I might call it the connection between life and energy; or the connection between mind and matter. It is an intermediate region, bounded on the north by psychology, on the south by physics, on the east by physiology, and on the west by pathology and medicine. An occasional psychologist has groped down into it and become a metaphysician. An occasional physicist has wandered up into it and lost his base, to the horror of his quondam brethren. Biologists mostly look at it askance, or deny its existence. A few medical practitioners, after long maintenance of a similar attitude, have begun to annex a portion of its western frontier …. Why not leave it to the metaphysicians? I say it has been left to them long enough. They have explored it with insufficient equipment. Their methods are not our methods; they are unsatisfactory to us, as physicists. We prefer to creep slowly from our base of physical knowledge; to engineer carefully as we go, establishing forts, constructing roads, and thoroughly exploring the country, making a progress very slow but very lasting. The psychologists from their side may meet us. I hope they will; but one or the other of us ought to begin ….”

In America, we have Buchanan and many others investigating in this field; and Dr. Bowne, the orthodox Dean of the Boston University, in his answer to Herbert Spencer, answering the question, “What is Force?” tells us: “Not gravitation, nor electricity, nor magnetism, nor chemical affinity, but will, is the typical idea of force. Self-determination, volition is the essence of the only causation we know. Will is the sum-total of the dynamic idea: it either stands for that or nothing. Now science professes itself unable to interpret nature without this metaphysical idea of power. The experiments made by Professor Barker and others, which are said to establish the identity of heat and mental force, really prove only a correlation between heat and the nervous action which attends thinking. Nervous action and heat correlate, but the real point is to prove that nervous action and mental force correlate. This has never been done.”

“The concept of will,” says Arthur Schopenhauer, “has hitherto commonly been subordinated to that of force; but I reverse the matter entirely, and desire that every force in nature be thought of as will. It must not be supposed that this is mere verbal quibbling and of no consequence: rather it is of the greatest significance and importance.”

Thus it will be seen that the field which Professor Lodge, with rare courage, invited his fellow-physicists to enter and bring with them their appropriate methods of investigation (unless these philosophers are astray) may prove to be “the immense and untrodden field” which Buckle said must be conquered before Science can arrogate to herself any knowledge of nature’s laws that is not purely empirical. A little reflection will enable the average mind to see in the signs of the times a tendency to movements on a grander scale, such as are involved in the higher view which Keely is himself now taking since his researches have extended beyond the order he was pursuing when he was thinking only of mechanical success.