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Page 1
I have thus endeavoured to bring into clear prominence at the outset the
scientific value of the light the book sheds on the constitution of matter.
The world owes a debt to scientific men of the ordinary type that cannot be
over-estimated, but though they have hitherto preferred to progress
gradually, from point to point, disliking leaps in the dark, the leap now
made is only in the dark for those who will not realise that the progress
to be accomplished by means of instrumental research must sooner or later
be supplemented by subtler methods. Physical science has reached the
conception that the atoms of the bodies hitherto called the chemical
elements are each composed of minor atoms. Instrumental research cannot
determine by how many, in each case. Occult research ascertained the actual
number in some cases by direct observation and then discovered the law
governing the numbers in all cases, and the relation of these numbers to
atomic weights. The law thus unveiled is a demonstration of the accuracy of
the first direct observations, and this principle once established the
credibility of accounts now given as to the arrangement of minor atoms in
the molecules of the numerous elements examined, seems to me advanced to a
degree approximating to proof.
It remains to be seen--not how far, but rather how soon the scientific
world at large will accept the conclusions of this volume as a definite
contribution to science, blending the science of the laboratory with that
variety that has hitherto been called occult.
CONTENTS.
I.--A PRELIMINARY SURVEY
II.--DETAILS OF THE EARLY RESEARCH
THE PLATONIC SOLIDS
III.--THE LATER RESEARCHES
OCCULT CHEMISTRY.
CHAPTER I.
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY.
The deep interest and importance of the research which this book describes
will best be appreciated if introduced by an account of the circumstances
out of which it arose. The first edition, consisting mainly of articles
reprinted from the _Theosophist_, dealt at once with the later phases of
the research in a way which, though intelligible to the occult student,
must have been rather bewildering to the ordinary reader. These later
phases, however, endow the earlier results with a significance that in the
beginning could only be vaguely conjectured. I am the better entitled to
perform the task that has been assigned to me--that of preparing the
present edition--by reason of the fact that it was in my presence and at my
instigation that the first efforts were made to penetrate the mystery
previously enshrouding the ultimate molecule of matter.
I remember the occasion vividly. Mr. Leadbeater was then staying at my
house, and his clairvoyant faculties were frequently exercised for the
benefit of myself, my wife and the theosophical friends around us. I had
discovered that these faculties, exercised in the appropriate direction,
were ultra-microscopic in their power. It occurred to me once to ask Mr.
Leadbeater if he thought he could actually _see_ a molecule of physical
matter. He was quite willing to try, and I suggested a molecule of gold as
one which he might try to observe. He made the appropriate effort, and
emerged from it saying the molecule in question was far too elaborate a
structure to be described. It evidently consisted of an enormous number of
some smaller atoms, quite too many to count; quite too complicated in their
arrangement to be comprehended. It struck me at once that this might be due
to the fact that gold was a heavy metal of high atomic weight, and that
observation might be more successful if directed to a body of low atomic
weight, so I suggested an atom of hydrogen as possibly more manageable. Mr.
Leadbeater accepted the suggestion and tried again. This time he found the
atom of hydrogen to be far simpler than the other, so that the minor atoms
constituting the hydrogen atom were countable. They were arranged on a
definite plan, which will be rendered intelligible by diagrams later on,
and were eighteen in number.
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