CHAPTER VII.

THE KEY TO THE PROBLEMS. KEELY'S SECRETS.

Causa latet, vis est notissima.--Proverb.

(The cause is hidden, the power is most apparent.) Electricity is in principle as material as water; so it appears, and Mr. Carl Hering has expressed the fact with much of clearness and force. He says, "It is a well-known fact that the quantity of electricity measured in coulombs never is generated, never is consumed, and never does grow less, excepting leakage. The current flowing out of a lamp is exactly the same in quantity as that going into it; the same is true of motors and of generators, showing that electricity of itself is neither consumed while doing work nor is it generated. After doing work in a lamp or motor, it comes out in precisely the same quantity as it entered. A battery is not able to generate quantity or coulombs of electricity; all it is able to do is to take the quantity which pours in at one pole, and sends out at the other pole with an increased pressure. Electricity, therefore, is not merely force (or a form of energy), but matter. It is precisely analogous to water in a water circuit....--The Court Journal.

The theory of Aristotle concerning heat, viz. that it is a condition of matter, together with the dicta of Locke, Davy, Rumford, and Tyndall, have been consigned of late by many to the tomb of exploded theories, and are replaced by those of Lavoisier and Black, which make caloric an actual substance. The Rev. J. J. Smith, M.A., D.D., tells us that the only way the great problem of the universe can ever be scientifically solved is by studying, and arriving at just conclusions with regard to, the true nature and character of force. He maintains, in his paper upon "The Unity and Origin of Force," that, as it is the great organizer of matter, it must not only be superior to it, but also must have been prior, as it existed before organization commenced, and immanent always. Newton, who scoffed at Epicurus's idea that "gravitation is essential and inherent in matter," asserted that gravity must be caused by an agent acting, constantly, according to certain laws. Heat, gravity, light, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinities, are all different phases of the primal force discovered by Keely, and all these forces, it is said, can be obtained from a single ray of sunlight. "The evidence of unity or oneness even between the physical, vital, mental, and spiritual is seen in the light of this law of correlation," says Smith. "A great portion of our muscles contract and relax in obedience to our wills, thereby proving that the mental force can be, and is, in every such instance actually converted into the muscular or the physical." Keely demonstrates the truth of this assertion, claiming that "all forces are indestructible, immaterial, and homogeneous entities, having their origin and unity in one great intelligent personal will force."

The Duke of Argyll says:--"We know nothing of the ultimate seat of force. Science, in the modern doctrine of conservation of energy, and the convertibility of forces, is already getting something like a firm hold of the idea that all kinds of forces are but forms or manifestations of some one central force, issuing from some one fountain-head of power." It is Keely's province to prove to materialists--to the world--that this one fountain-head is none other than the Omnipotent and all-pervading Will-Force of the Almighty, "which upholds, guides, and governs, not only our world, but the entire universe. This important truth is destined to shiver the tottering fabric of materialism into fragments at no distant day."

Professor George Bush writes:--"The progress of scientific research, at the present day, has distinguished itself not less by the wideness of the field over which its triumphs have spread, than by the soundness and certainty of the inductions by which it is sustained. It is equally indisputable that we are approximating the true philosophy which underlies the enlarged and enlarging spiritual experiences and phenomena of the current age. That this philosophy, when reached, will conduct us into the realm of the spiritual as the true region of causes, and disclose new and unthought-of relations between the world of matter and of mind, is doubtless a very reasonable anticipation, and one that even now is widely, though vaguely, entertained."

The Egyptians worshipped Ra, their name for the sun, and Ammon, the emblem of a mysterious power concealed from human perception. The Supreme Being is the grand central spiritual sun, the source and centre of all life, "whose revelation is traced in imperishable figures of universal harmony on the face of Cosmos." "The outward visible world is but the clothing of the invisible," wrote Coleridge. "The whole world process, in its content," says von Hartmann, "is only a logical process; but in its existence a continued act of will." Lilly continues, "That is what physical law means. Reason and Will are inseparably united in the universe, as they are in idea. If we will anything, it is for some reason. In contemplating the structure of the universe, we cannot resist the conclusion that the whole is founded upon a distinct idea."

Keely demonstrates the harmony of this "distinct idea" throughout creation, and shows us that "the sun is the visible effluence and agent, earthward, of the Being without whose prior design and decree there would be no order and no systematic rule on earth," as well as that in "the universal ether" we find the link between mind and matter. "There is more of heaven than of earth, in all terrestrial things; more of spirit than of matter in what are termed material laws." Lange, with prophetic tongue, says that this age of materialism may prove to be but the stillness before the storm which bursts from unknown gulfs to give a new shape to the world. Inch by inch, step by step, physical science has marched towards its desired goal--the verge of physical nature, says Alcott. When it was thought that the verge was reached, that the mysteries which lay beyond were for ever barred to mortals by the iron gate of death, then the discoveries of Faraday, Edison, and Crookes pushed further away the chasm which separates the confessedly knowable from the fancied unknowable, and whole domains previously undreamt of were suddenly exposed to view. Not long since, Canon Wilberforce asked Keely what would become of his discovery and his inventions in case of his death before they became of commercial value to the public. Keely replied that he had written thousands of pages, which he hoped would, in such an event, be mastered by some mind capable of pursuing his researches to practical ends; but in the opinion of the writer, there is no man living who is fitted for this work.

Diogenes of Apollonia identified the reason that regulated the world with the original substance, air. Keely teaches that "the original substance" is ether, not air; and that the world is regulated through this ether by its Creator. There are many molecules which contain no air--not one molecule that does not contain the one true "original substance," ether.

Up to 1888 Keely was still pursuing the wrong line of research, still trying to construct an engine which could hold the ether in "a rotating circle of etheric force;" still ignorant of the impossibility of ever reaching commercial success on that line. It was the end of the year before he could be brought to entirely abandon his "perfect engine;" and to confine himself to researches, which he had been pursuing in connection with his repeated failures on the commercial line, to gain more knowledge of the laws which govern the operation of the force that, like a "Will-o'-the-wisp," seemed to delight in leading him astray.

Up to this time his researching devices had been principally of his own construction; but from the time that he devoted himself to the line of research, marked out for him to follow, he was supplied with the best instruments that opticians could make for him after the models or designs which he furnished. If, from 1882 to 1888, he walked with giant strides along the borders of the domain that he had entered, from 1888 to the present time he has made the same progress beyond its borders. From the hour in which he grasped "the key to the problem," the "principle underlying all," the dawn of "a new order of things," broke upon his vision, and he was no longer left at the mercy of the genii whom he had aroused.

In July, 1888, the T.P.S. published the succeeding paper, which had a wide circulation.

KEELY'S SECRETS. 1888.