No systematic distinction between philosophical, religious, and scientific ideas can be maintained. All the three run into one another with the most perfect legitimacy. Their dissociation can be effected only by art, their divorce only by violence. Great as is the revolution in mechanics which is to take place through this discovery, it has an equally important bearing on all questions connected with psychical research. Once demonstrated, we shall hear no more of the brain secreting thought, as the liver secretes bile. The laws of "rhythmical harmony," of "assimilation," of "sympathetic association," will be found governing all things, in the glorious heavens above us, down to the least atom upon our earth. Leibnitz's assertion, that "perceptivity and its correlative perceptibility are coextensive with the whole sphere of individualized being," will be accounted for without depriving us of a Creator. "The music of the spheres" will be proved a reality, instead of a figure of speech. St. Paul's words, "In him we live, and move, and have our being," will be better understood. The power of mind over matter will be incontrovertibly demonstrated.
The requirement of every demonstration is that it shall give sufficient proof of the truth it asserts. This Mr. Keely is prepared to give,—mechanical demonstration; and should he really have discovered the fundamental creative law, which he long since divined must exist, proving that the universal ether which permeates all molecules is the tangible link between God and man, connecting the infinite with the finite,—that it is the true protoplasm, or mother-element of everything,—we may look for a philosophy which will explain all unexplained phenomena and reconcile the conflicting opinions of scientists.
The great law of sympathetic association, once understood, will become known as it is,—viz., as the governing medium of the world. Herein lies one secret of "the compound secret," the full revelation of which will usher in the spiritual age foretold by the Prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New Testament. Inspiration is not confined to prophets and apostles and poets: the man of science, the writer, all who reach out after the Infinite, receive their measure of inspiration according to their capacity. We need a new revelation to turn back "the tidal wave of materialism" which has rolled in upon the scientific world, as much as Moses needed one when he sought to penetrate the mysteries of the Creation; and our revelation is near at hand,—a revelation which will change the statical "I am" into the dynamical "I will,"—a revelation which, while teaching us to look from Nature up to Nature's God, will reveal to us our own powers as "children of God," as "heirs of immortality."
