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Title: Keely and His Discoveries: Aerial Navigation

Author: Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore

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KEELY AND HIS DISCOVERIES

John Stuart Mill, in order to protect science, carried
empiricism to its extreme sceptical consequences, and
thereby cut the ground from under the feet of all science.—
Professor Otto Pfleiderer, D.D.

The word of our God shall stand for ever.—Isa. xl. 8 .

Imagination is wholly taken captive by the stupendous
revelation of the God-force which modern conceptions of
the Cosmos furnish. Through the whole universe beats the
one life-force, that is God, controlling every molecule in the
petal of a daisy, in the meteoric ring of Saturn, in the
remotest nebula that outskirts space, as though that molecule
were the universe. In each molecule and atom God lives and
moves and has His being, thereby sustaining theirs ….
Prophet after prophet cries, and psalmist after psalmist sings,
that so indeed he has found it; that therein is the divine
sonship of man, therein the assurance of eternal life.—Rev.
R. A. Armstrong.

The living man with his interior consciousness of self and
individuality is on two planes of nature at once, as a ship is
in two media at once, half in the water and half in the air. To
manage your ship successfully you must take cognizance of
the laws governing each of those media. To deal successfully
with your human being you must understand his physiology
no doubt, but you must equally understand his psychology,

and something of the collateral phenomena of nature in
those regions or planes to which the phenomena of the
psychic man belong.—A. P. Sinnett.

The splendid generalizations of our physicists and our
naturalists, have had for me an enthralling and entrancing
interest. I find as I look out on the world, in the light of all
this new knowledge, a pressure of God upon consciousness
everywhere; and if this physical force which is God, moves
through, sustains, communes, with each smallest physical
atom of the whole, much more must that conscious energy
which is God, move through, sustain, commune with, these
conscious atoms, these several monads, which are you and I,
and our friend, and our brother far away. The even flow of
the divine force through every material atom, which is the
supreme revelation of physical science in our time, itself
leads irresistibly on to the suggestion of the constant flow of
spiritual energy in actual communion with every spiritual
monad that there is. It becomes but a question of opening the
eyes of the soul, unstopping the ears of the inward spirit, to
see and hear the God who in us also surely lives and moves
and has His being, thereby sustaining ours. As the physical
atom is physically touched and held and thrilled by God, it is
what we should expect that the conscious monad, no less
should be consciously touched and held and thrilled by Him.
—Rev. R. A. Armstrong.

KEELY AND HIS
DISCOVERIES
AERIAL NAVIGATION

BY
Mrs. BLOOMFIELD MOORE

The universe is ONE. There is no supernatural: all is
related, cause and sequence. Nothing exists but
substance and its modes of motion.
Spinoza.
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., Ltd.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS

ROAD
1893

DEDICATED

TO

JAMES DEWAR, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., M.R.I.

FULLERIAN PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, R.I. JACKSON
PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,

IN ADMIRATION OF HIS DISTINGUISHED SERVICES

FOR SCIENCE,

AND IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS

PROLONGED AND STEADFAST INTEREST

IN KEELY’S WORK OF EVOLUTION.

12, Great Stanhope Street, Mayfair,
16th May, 1893.

“Euroclydon driveth us—where?
On quicksands and shoals of the sea,
On rocks that wait hungry to tear
And devour with tigerish glee.

“But lo! where we land tempest-tost
Is the work that has waited our hand;—
Not one step of that life shall be lost
Whose way an All-seeing hath planned.”

We never know through what divine mysteries of
compensation the Great Father of the Universe may be
carrying out His sublime plans.—Miss Murdoch.

Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and Truth
accomplishes no victory without it.—Bulwer Lytton.

Science is bound by the everlasting law of honour to face
every problem fearlessly.—Lord Kelvin.

For my part, I too much value the pursuit of truth and the
discovery of any new fact in nature, to avoid inquiry because
it appears to clash with prevailing opinions.—Wm. Crookes,
F.R.S.

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.—Lord
Beaconsfield.

The simple peasant who observes a fact
And from a fact deduces principles,
Adds social treasure to the public wealth.

Facts are the basis of Philosophy.
Philosophy is the harmony of facts
Seen in their right relations.—Lyrics of a Golden Age.

CONTENTS.
PAGE

Preface.—By the Rev. John Andrew xi

Introduction xv

CHAPTER I. 1872–1882.

Introductory 1

CHAPTER II. 1882–1886.

Ether the True Protoplasm, An Epitome of Macvicar’s Sketch of a
Philosophy 11

CHAPTER III. 1885–1887.

The Nature of Keely’s Problems 30

CHAPTER IV. 1887.

Sympathetic Vibratory Force 41

CHAPTER V.

Etheric Vibration.—The Key Force 54

CHAPTER VI.

The Fountain Head of Force 65

CHAPTER VII.

The Key to the Problems.—Keely’s Secrets 72

CHAPTER VIII. 1888.

Helpers on the Road, and Hinderers 101

CHAPTER IX. 1889–1890.

Keely supported by Eminent Men of Science.—Aerial Navigation 113

CHAPTER X. 1881–1891.

The Keely Motor Bubble.—Macvicar’s Logical Analysis 129

CHAPTER XI. 1890.

Vibratory Sympathetic and Polar Flows.—Keely’s Contributions to
Science 145

CHAPTER XII.

Vibratory Physics.—True Science 167

CHAPTER XIII.

“More Science” 186

CHAPTER XIV.

Vibratory Physics.—The Connecting Link between Mind and Matter
206

CHAPTER XV.

The Philosophy of History.—Keely the Founder of a System 229

CHAPTER XVI. 1891.

An Appeal in Behalf of the Continuance of Keely’s Researches 238

CHAPTER XVII. 1891.

More of Keely’s Theories.—His Traducers exposed 265

CHAPTER XVIII.

A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm 285

CHAPTER XIX.

Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces.—Electro-Magnetic Radiation.—
Molecular Dissociation. By John Ernst Worrell Keely 298

CHAPTER XX. 1892.

Progressive Science.—Keely’s Present Position.—A Review of the
Situation 319

CHAPTER XXI.

Faith by Science: The Dawn of a New Order of Things 332

CONCLUSION.

Keely’s Physical Philosophy.—By Professor D. G. Brinton, M.D., of the
University of Pennsylvania 358

Appendix I. 365

Appendix II. 368

Appendix III. 370

Verses 373

PREFACE.
By the Rev. John Andrew, of Belfast.

“Wait on the Lord.”

When the Almighty is taking men into His deeper confidence as to His
Creation ways, and how His ways may be taken advantage of for man’s
service and benefit, the gifted one through whom such revealing is being
made should not be hurried by the common bustle of the world, but should
be protected in the privacy where the Creator and he are closeted together in
the giving and receiving which is thus transpiring.

Scientific patience is, in all such cases, imperative. When the gifted one is
bustled by the world, as Mr. Keely has been, his inspiration is disturbed and
his advance hindered. If the first inkling of some great revealing thus in
progress should promise some mighty find for the material advantage of
mankind, there is naturally a quickened desire to gain possession; but if in
such an event impatience should impel the seer, ere his far-visioned sight
has reached the end, deplorable delay may be the result.

This is the thing which has happened in the case which this little volume
comes forth to relate and explain. It is not intended to unfold the systematic
methods of the gifted genius concerning whom it speaks; that will come, in
his own words, in due time. The aim of this volume is to show the course of
events in relation to his researches; and to open the mystery of how it came
about that he should have been so much misunderstood and hindered. It
tells how he, in the dim dawn of initial inspiration, first glimpsed and
touched The Power which is about to be given to the possession of mankind
for the supply of wants, and the relief of toil. How he struggled and
wrestled like the patriarch of old who said, “I will not let Thee go, except
Thou bless me.” How men of the world, seeing the struggle and estimating
the power, said, “Make haste and harness this power to our machinery, and

we shall pay you.” How, in his need of means, he was tempted and fell;
making an attempt to harness to machinery a power whose very form and
kind he had not yet been given to discern. And then, when this too hasty
attempt had failed, how the disappointed world laughed and mocked, and
fumed, and called him an impostor.

This volume seeks to explain this Keely Mystery; and to show that
although a mistake was made, it was only a passing mistake. The mistake
has been rectified; and the seer, now in possession of peace and privacy, has
fully sighted the power, and is making progress in bringing it into
subjugation.

He has been interviewed by competent men, men of enlarged scientific
vision; and in the protection of their esteem, and by the liberal pecuniary
aid of one who has made scientific interests an object of sacred solicitude,
Mr. Keely is likely to succeed in opening to the world another of the stores
which the Almighty Creator and Preserver, ever provident of His children’s
needs, has prepared in reserve against the time of their necessity. We may
theorize, but God alone knows the means by which the regeneration of
mankind, and the establishment of the kingdom of righteousness and peace
shall come about. The All-merciful has a purpose and plan of His own. The
power which Mr. Keely is dealing with belongs to the ways and means of
the evolution of civilization and material providence; and it will depend on
how men make use of it how far it may clear or block the way of this
planet’s highest weal. The power, however, which Mr. Keely is dealing with
lies so close to the spiritual realm of things, and brings us so near to the
point at which the Almighty is in immediate touch of His Creation in His
unceasing upholding of it, that all Christian men might be expected to take
a deep interest in researches which promise so much. It may reasonably be
hoped that this volume may promote this interest, and turn the attention to
coming events which are casting more than shadows before. With this hope
we commend it to the reading of the wise. Those who delight in yellow-
covered literature may pass it by; it contains no plot for the excitement of
such.

INTRODUCTION.
Ex Vivo Omnia.

We stand before the dawning of a new day in science and
humanity,—a new discovery, surpassing any that has been
hitherto made; which promises to afford us a key to some of
the most recondite secrets of nature, and to open up to our
view a new world.—Dr. Hufeland.

The error of our century in questions of research seems to have been in the
persistent investigation of the phenomena of matter (or material
organization) as the sole province of physics, regarding psychical research
as lying outside. The term physics is derived from a Greek word signifying
“nature.” Nature does not limit herself to matter and mechanism. The
phenomena of spirit are as much a part of Nature as are those of matter. The
psychological theories of our physicists display a decided leaning towards
materialism, disregarding the manifestations of the vital principle,—the vis
motrix,—and refusing to investigate beyond the limits which they have
imposed upon themselves, and which, if accepted by all, would take us back
to the belief of the pagans, as echoed by Voltaire:

Est-ce-là ce rayon de l’Essence Suprême
Que l’on nous peint si lumineux?
Est-ce-là cet Esprit survivant à nous-même?
Il nait avec nos sens, croît, s’affaiblit comme eux:
Hélas! il périra de même.

Sympathetic philosophy teaches that the various phenomena of the human
constitution cannot be properly comprehended and explained without
observing the distinction between the physical and material, and the moral
and spiritual nature of man. It demonstrates incontrovertibly the separate
existence and independent activity of the soul of man, and that the spirit
governs the body instead of being governed by the body. As Spenser has
said,—

For of the soul the body form doth take;
For soul is form, and doth the body make.

Huxley tells us that science prospers exactly in proportion as it is religious,
and that religion flourishes in exact proportion to the scientific depth and
firmness of its basis. “Civilization, society, and morals,” says Figuier, “are
like a string of beads, whose fastening is the belief in the immortality of the
soul. Break the fastening and the beads are scattered.”

Now, as Nature nowhere exhibits to our visual perceptions a soul acting
without a body, and as we do not know in what manner the spiritual
faculties are united to the organization, psychology is compelled to
investigate the operations of the intellect as if they were performed
altogether independently of the body; whereas they are only manifested, in
the ordinary state of existence, through the intermediate agency of the
corporeal organs.

The accumulation of psychological facts and speculations which
characterize this age appears to have made little or no permanent
impression upon the minds of our scientists and our philosophers. Bishop
Berkeley asks, “Have not Fatalism and Sadducism gained ground during the
general passion for the corpuscularian and mechanical philosophy which
hath prevailed?” Buffon, in writing of the sympathy, or relation, which
exists throughout the whole animal economy, said, “Let us, with the
ancients, call this singular correspondence of the different parts of the body
a sympathy, or, with the moderns consider it as an unknown relation in the
action of the nervous system, we cannot too carefully observe its effects, if
we wish to perfect the theory of medicine.” Colquhoun, commenting upon
Buffon’s statement, says that far too little attention has been paid to the
spiritual nature of man,—to the effects of those immaterial and invisible
influences which, analogous to the chemical and electrical agents, are the
true springs of our organization, continually producing changes internally
which are externally perceived as the marked effects of unseen causes, and
which cannot be explained upon the principles of any law of mechanism.

These unseen causes are now made clear to us by the truths which Vibratory
Physics and Sympathetic Philosophy demonstrate and sustain. The
prophecy of Dr. Hufeland (made in connection with an account of certain
phenomena arising from the unchangeable laws of sympathetic association)
is soon to be fulfilled, and the door thrown open to “a new world” of
research. Professor Rücker in his papers on “Molecular Forces,” William
Crookes in his lecture on “The Genesis of Elements,” Norman Lockyer in
his book on “The Chemistry of the Sun,”—all these scientists have
approached so near to this hitherto bolted, double-barred and locked portal
that the wonder is not so much that they have approached as that, drawing
so near, they have not passed within.

Professor Rücker, in his papers (read before the Royal Institution of Great
Britain) explaining the attractive and repulsive action of molecules, found
himself obliged to apologize to scientists for suggesting the possibility of an
intelligence by which alone he could explain certain phenomena
unaccounted for by science; but do we not find proof in ourselves that the
action of molecules is an intelligent action? For we must admit the
individuality of the molecules in our organisms, in order to understand how
it is that nourishment maintains life. Try as we may to account for the action
of aliment upon the system, all is resolved into the fact that there must be
some intelligent force at work. Do we ourselves disunite and intermingle,
by myriad channels, in order to rejoin and replace a molecule which awaits
this aid? We must either affirm that it is so, that we place them where we
think they are needed, or that it is the molecules that find a place of
themselves. We know that we are occupied in other ways which demand all
our thoughts. It must, therefore, be that these molecules find their own
place. Admit this, and we accord life and intelligence to them. If we reason
that it is our nerves which appropriate substances that they need for the
maintenance of their energy and their harmonious action, we then concede
to the nerves what we deny to the molecules. Or, if we think it more natural
to attribute this power to the viscera,—the stomach, for example,—we only
change the thesis.

It will be said that it is pantheism to assert that matter, under all the forms
which it presents, is only groups of aggregates of sympathetic molecules, of

a substance unalterable in its individualities; a thinking, acting substance.
Let us not deny what we are unable to explain. God is all that is, without
everything that is being individually God. Etheric force has been compared
to the trunk of a tree, the roots of which rest in Infinity. The branches of the
tree correspond to the various modifications of this one force,—heat, light,
electricity, and its close companion force, magnetism. It is held in
suspension in our atmosphere. It exists throughout the universe. Actual
science not admitting a void, then all things must touch one another. To
touch is to be but one by contiguity, or there would be between one thing
and another something which might be termed space, or nothing. Now, as
nothing cannot exist, there must be something between “the atomic triplets”
which are, according to the Keely theory, found in each molecule. This
something in the molecule he affirms to be “the universal fluid,” or
molecular ether. One thing touching another, all must therefore be all in all,
and through all, by the sensitive combination of all the molecules in the
universe, as is demonstrated by electricity, galvanism, the loadstone, etc. If
we account for the intelligent action of molecules by attributing it to what
has been variously called “the universal fluid,” “the electric fluid,” “the
galvanic fluid,” “the nervous fluid,” “the magnetic fluid,” it will only be
substituting one name for another; it is still some part or other of the
organization which discerns and joins to itself a portion of one of the fluids
referred to, or one of these fluids which discerns and mingles with the
material molecules; it is still the life of the part, the life of the molecule, life
individualized in all and through all.

Admitting, then, that there is a universal fluid, it must exist in and through
all things. If void does not exist, everything is full; if all is full, everything
is in contact; if everything is in contact, the whole influences and is
influenced because all is life; and life is movement, because movement is a
continual disunion and union of all the molecules which compose the
whole. The ancient philosophers admitted all this. Under the different
names of “macrocosm,” “microcosm,” “corpuscles,” “emanations,”
“attraction,” “repulsion,” “sympathy,” and “antipathy,”—all names which
are only one,—their various propositions were merely the product of
inductions influenced by their modes of observing, as the deductions of
scientists are influenced in our day.

Balzac tells us that everything here below is the product of an ethereal
substance, the common basis of various phenomena, known under the
inappropriate names of electricity, heat, light, galvanic and magnetic fluid,
etc., and that the universality of its transmutations constitutes what is
vulgarly called matter. We cannot take up a book on physics (written with
true scientific knowledge) in which we do not find evidence that its author
acknowledges that there is, correctly speaking, but one force in nature.
Radcliffe tells us that what is called electricity is only a one-sided aspect of
a law which, when fully revealed, will be found to rule over organic as well
as inorganic nature—a law to which the discoveries of science and the
teachings of philosophy alike bear testimony,—a law which does not
entomb life in matter, but which transfigures matter with a life which, when
traced to its source, will prove only to be the effluence of the Divine life.

Macvicar teaches that the nearer we ascend to the fountain-head of being
and of action, the more magical must everything inevitably become; for that
fountain-head is pure volition. And pure volition, as a cause is precisely
what is meant by magic; for by magic is meant a mode of producing a
phenomenon without mechanical appliances,—that is, without that seeming
continuity of resisting parts and that leverage which satisfy our muscular
sense and our imagination and bring the phenomenon into the category of
what we call “the natural;” that is, the sphere of the elastic, the gravitating,
—the sphere into which the vis inertiæ is alone admitted.

There is in Professor Crookes’s “Genesis of the Elements” an hypothesis of
great interest,—a projectment of philosophical truth which brings him
nearer than any known living scientist to the ground held by Keely. Davy
defines hypothesis as the scaffolding of science, useful to build up true
knowledge, but capable of being put up or taken down at pleasure, without
injuring the edifice of philosophy. When we find men in different parts of
the world constructing the same kind of scaffolding, we may feel fairly sure
that they have an edifice to build. The scaffolding may prove to be insecure,
but it can be flung away and another constructed. It is the edifice that is all-
important,—the philosophy not the hypotheses. The science of learning,
says Professor Lesley, and the science of knowledge are not quite identical;
and learning has too often, in the case of individuals, overwhelmed and

smothered to death knowledge. It is a familiar fact that great discoveries
come at long intervals, brought by specially-commissioned and highly-
endowed messengers; while a perpetual procession of humble servants of
nature arrive with gifts of lesser moment, but equally genuine, curious, and
interesting novelties. From what unknown land does all this wealth of
information come? Who are these bearers of it? And who intrusted each
with his particular burden, which he carries aloft as if it deserved exclusive
admiration? Why do those who bring the best things walk so seriously and
modestly along as if they were in the performance of a sacred duty, for
which they scarcely esteem themselves worthy?

The Bishop of Carlisle, in his paper on “The Uniformity of Nature,”
suggests the answer to all who are prepared to approach the abyss which
has hitherto divided physical science from spiritual science,—an abyss
which is soon to be illumined by the sunlight of demonstration and spanned
by the bridge of knowledge. To quote from the paper of the Bishop of
Carlisle, “There are matters of the highest moment which manifestly do lie
outside the domain of physical science. The possibility of the continuance
of human existence in a spiritual form after the termination of physical life
is, beyond contradiction, one of the grandest and most momentous of
possibilities, but in the nature of things it lies outside physics. Yet there is
nothing absolutely absurd, nothing which contradicts any human instinct, in
the supposition of such possibility; consequently, the student of physical
science, even if he cannot find time or inclination to look into such matters
himself, may well have patience with those who can. And he may easily
afford to be generous: the field of physical science is grand enough for any
ambition, and there is room enough in the wide world both for physical and
for psychical research.”

But does psychical research lie outside the domain of physical science?
What is the supernatural but the higher workings of laws which we call
natural, as far as we have been able to investigate them? Is not the
supernatural, then, just as legitimate a subject of consideration, for the truly
scientific mind, as is the natural? If it explains, satisfactorily, phenomena
which cannot be otherwise explained, there is no good reason why its aid
should not be invoked by men of science. The truth is, that the ordinary

course of nature is one continued miracle, one continued manifestation of
the Divine mind. “Everything which is, is thought,” says Amiel, “but not
conscious and individual thought. Everything is a symbol of a symbol; and
a symbol of what?—of mind. We are hemmed round with mystery, and the
greatest mysteries are contained in what we see, and do, every day.”

Keely affirms, with other philosophers, that there is only one unique
substance, and that this substance is the Divine spirit, the spirit of life, and
that this spirit of life is God, who fills everything with His thoughts;
disjoining and grouping together these multitudes of thoughts in different
bodies called atmospheres, fluids, matters, animal, vegetable, and mineral
forms.

Herbert Spencer says that amid the mysteries that become the more
mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one
absolute certainty, that we are ever in the presence of an infinite and an
eternal energy, from which all things proceed. Macvicar foreshadowed the
teachings of this new philosophy when he wrote, “All motion in the
universe is rhythmical. This is seen in the forward and backward movement
of the pendulum, the ebb and the flow of the tides, the succession of day
and night, the systolic and diastolic action of the heart, and in the
inspiration and expiration of the lungs. Our breathing is a double motion of
universal æther, an active and a reactive movement. This androgyne
principle, with its dual motion, is the breath of God in man.” The writings
of the ancients teem with these ideas, which have been handed down to us
from generation to generation, and are now flashing their light, like torches
in the darkness, upon mysteries too long regarded as “lying outside the
domains of physical science.”

Twenty years ago Macvicar wrote his “Sketch of a Philosophy,” in which he
advanced the above views, with other views now maintained and
demonstrated by Keely, who during these twenty years, without knowing
Macvicar’s views, or of his existence even, has been engaged in that “dead-
work which cannot be delegated,” the result of which is not learning, but
knowledge; for learning, says Lessing, is only our knowledge of the
experience of others; knowledge is our own. This burden of dead-work,

writes Lesley, every great discoverer has had to carry for years and years,
unknown to the world at large, before the world was electrified by his
appearance as its genius. Without it, there can be no discovery of what is
rightly called a scientific truth. Every advancement in science comes from
this “dead-work,” and creates, of its own nature, an improvement in the
condition of the race; putting, as it does, the multitudes of human society on
a fairer and friendlier footing with one another. And during these twenty
years of “dead-work” the discoverer of etheric force has pursued the even
tenor of his way, under circumstances which show him to be a giant in
intellectual greatness, insensible to paltry, hostile criticism, patient under
opposition, dead to all temptations of self-interest, calmly superior to the
misjudgments of the short-sighted and ignoble; noble means as
indispensable to him as noble ends; fame and riches less important than his
honour; his joys arising from the accomplishment of his work and the love
and the sympathy of the few who have comprehended him! “Only the
noble-hearted can understand the noble-hearted.” Keely’s chief ambition
has been to utilize the force he discovered; not for his own aggrandizement,
but to bless the lives of his fellow-men. He has scaled the rocks which
barricade earth from heaven, and he knows that the fire which he has
brought down with him is divine.

This so-called secret is an open secret, which, after it is known, may be read
everywhere,—in the revolution of the planets as well as in the
crystallization of minerals and in the growth of a flower.

“But why does not Keely share his knowledge with others?” “Why does he
not proclaim his secret to the world?” are questions that are often asked.
Keely has no secret to proclaim to the world. Not until the aerial ship is in
operation will the world be able to comprehend the nature of Keely’s
discoveries. When the distinguished physicist, Professor Dewar, of the
Royal Institution of Great Britain, goes to America this summer, he will be
instructed by Mr. Keely in his dissociation processes. Every man who has
passed the mere threshold of science ought to be aware that it is quite
possible to be in possession of a series of facts long before he is capable of
giving a rational and satisfactory explanation of them—in short, before he
is enabled to discover their causes even. This “dead-work” has occupied

many years of Keely’s life; and only within the last five years has he
reached that degree of perfection which warranted the erection of a
scaffolding for the construction of the true edifice of philosophy.

We have only to recall the wonderful discoveries which have been made in
modern times, relative to the properties of heat, of electricity, of galvanism,
etc., in order to acknowledge that had any man ventured to anticipate the
powers and uses of the steam-engine, the voltaic pile, the electrical battery,
or of any other of those mighty instruments by means of which the mind of
man has acquired so vast a dominion over the world of matter, he would
probably have been considered a visionary; and had he been able to exhibit
the effects of any of these instruments, before the principles which regulate
their action had become generally known to philosophers, they would in all
likelihood have been attributed to fraud or to juggling. Herein lies the secret
of Keely’s delay. His work is not yet completed to that point where he can
cease experimenting and publish the results of his “dead-work” to the
world.

“When will he be ready?” is a question often asked; but it is one that God
only can answer, as to the year and day. It now seems as if the time were
near at hand,—within this very year; but not even Keely himself can fix the
date, until he has finished his present course of experiments, his
“graduation” of his twenty-seventh and last group of depolar disks, for
effecting change and interchange with polar force.

“But what are his hypotheses? And what the tenets of his new philosophy?”
His hypotheses are as antithetic to existing hypotheses in chemistry as the
Newtonian system, at its first publication, was antithetic to the vortices of
Descartes. The philosophy is not of his creation; nor is it a new philosophy.
It is as old as the universe. Its tenets are unpopular, heterodox tenets, but
their grandeur, when compared with prevailing theories, will cause the latter
to appear like the soap-bubbles that Sir William Drummond said the grown-
up children of science amuse themselves with; whilst the honest vulgar
stand gazing in stupid admiration, dignifying these learned vagaries with
the name of science. It is the sole edifice of true philosophy, the corner-
stone of which was laid at Creation, when God said, “Let there be light; and

there was light.” The scaffolding which our modern Prometheus has built is
not the airy fabric of delusion, nor the baser fabric of a fraud, as has been so
often asserted. It has been built plank by plank, upon firm ground, and
every plank is of pure gold, as will be seen in due time.

It has been justly said that we have no ground for assuming that we have
approached a limit in the field of discovery, or for claiming finality in our
interpretations of Nature. We have, as yet, only lifted one corner of the
curtain, enabling us to peep at some of the machinery by which her
operations are effected, while much more remains concealed; and we know
little of the marvels which in course of time may be made clear to us.

Earnest minds in all ages and in all countries have arrived at the same
inferences which Keely has reached in his researches,—viz., that the one
intelligent force in nature is not a mere mathematical dynamism in space
and time, but a true Power existing in its type and fulness,—deity. You may
say that such an inference belongs to religion, not to science, but you cannot
divorce the two. 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 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 universe. Herein lies
the secret, the 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.”

“Knowledge,” said Lord Beaconsfield, “is like the mystic ladder in the
Patriarch’s dream. Its base rests on the primeval earth—its crest is lost in
the shadowy splendour of the empyrean; while the great authors who, for
traditionary ages, have held the chain of science and philosophy, of poesy
and erudition, are the angels ascending and descending the sacred scale,
maintaining, as it were, the communication between man and heaven.”

This beautiful imagery holds within it that seed of truth, which is said to
exist in the wildest fable; for, although all great discoveries, pertaining to
the material world, have been made gradually, with much starting on the
wrong track, much false deduction and much worthless result, spiritual
truths can be revealed to man in no other way than by that spiritual
influence which maintains communication between the terrestrial and the

celestial, or the material and the spiritual. “Truth is attained through
immediate intuition,” say the Aryan teachers; but only by those who have
educated their sixth sense; as will be seen in Mr. Sinclair’s new work, “Vera
Vita; or, the Philosophy of Sympathy.” While the imaginative scientist is
puzzling himself about new natural forces and the apparent suspension of
old and hitherto invariable laws, Sinclair, in his writings, shows us that it is
because we do not recognize the elements of nature that their influences
remain mysterious to us.

Mr. Sinclair is as firm in his belief as is Mr. Keely that this element is the
great connecting link between the Creator and the created, and that it is
capable of rendering more marvellous services to man than all the
discovered uses of electricity.

The coincidences in the theories of these two philosophers are the more
remarkable, inasmuch as Mr. Sinclair’s have their origin, as set forth in his
book “A New Creed,” in metaphysics; while “Keely’s wide and far-
reaching philosophy” (to quote the words of a distinguished physicist) “has
a physical genesis, and has been developed by long years of patient and
persistent research.” But it is an undisputed fact that, in countries far distant
from each other, different men have fallen into the same lines of research;
and have made correspondent discoveries, at the same time, without having
had any communication with each other; and never has there been a time
when so many were testing all things that appear to give proof of the super-
sensual element in man. There is a very general impression all over the
world, says Marie Correlli, that the time is ripe for a clearer revelation of
God and “the hidden things of God” than we have ever had before.

All persons who are interested in Keely’s discoveries and the nature of the
unknown element discovered by Keely and Sinclair, will find in the
writings of the latter a more lucid explanation of sympathetic association
than Keely himself has ever been able to give in writing. The title of this
remarkable book would have been more wisely chosen had its author called
it “A New Element and a New Order of Things.” The Rev. Philip Schaff,
D.D., says of creeds:—“The Bible is the word of God to man: the Creed is
the answer of man to God. The Bible is the book to be explained and

applied; the Creed is the Church’s understanding and summary of the
Bible.” It is in this light that Mr. Sinclair’s new creed, human and humane,
should be read.

There is no conductivity in the ether lines, writes Sinclair, for selfish desires
and motives; for they are not of the soul, but are only sounds of the lips (or
wishes of the material part of us), so that the established connecting-rod
between the living soul and the source of life is insulated from desires that
are not begotten in sympathy, and they at once run to earth. Where there is
no connection there can be no communion. Without the natural sympathetic
etheric connection between the source of life and the soul, there can be no
communication. “A New Creed,” like the sympathetic etheric philosophy of
Keely, reveals the connecting link between the finite and the Infinite, and
teaches us that the primal law of evolution and of progress is slowly but
surely preparing our race for the time when Christianity will be something
more than a mere profession, and “the brotherhood of humanity” will no
longer be the meaningless phrase that it now is. We are led to see, by this
pure philosophy, that “our solar system is a type of a healthy social system;
that in it each one affects, binds, controls, sustains, helps, makes free each
other; that no star lives for itself alone;” that man was not made to mourn,
and that our sufferings arise from our ignorance of the laws governing the
innate motive power within us.

The times are not degenerate! Men’s faith
Mounts higher than of old. No crumbling creed
Can take from the immortal soul its need
Of something greater than itself. The wraith
Of dead belief we cherished in our youth,
Fades but to let us welcome new born truth.
Man may not worship at the ancient shrine,
Prone on his face, in self-accusing scorn.
That night is passed; he hails a fairer morn,
And knows himself a something half divine!
No humble worm whose heritage is sin,
But part of God—he feels the Christ within!
No fierce Jehovah with a frowning mien

He worships. Nay, through love, and not through fear,
He seeks the truth, and finds its source is near!
He feels and owns the power of things unseen,
Where once he scoffed. God’s great primeval plan
Is fast unfolding in the soul of man.—Ella W. Wilcox.

KEELY AND HIS DISCOVERIES.

CHAPTER I.

1872 TO 1882.

INTRODUCTORY.
Within the half-century the hypothetical ether has amply
vindicated its novel claim to take its place as a mysterious
entity side by side with matter and energy among the
ultimate components of the objective universe …. Modern
science sets before our eyes the comprehensive and glorious
idea of a cosmos which is one and the same throughout, in
sun and star and world and atom, in light and heat and life
and mechanism, in herb and tree and man and animal, in
body, soul, and spirit, mind and matter.—Grant Allen on
Evolution.

The man who can demonstrate the existence of an
unsuspected and unknown force has a right, in the absence
of demonstrative proof to the contrary, to form his own
theory of its origin, and to make it the basis of his own
system. Keely is looking at physical phenomena and their
explanations from a point of view so different from that of
the inductive school, that we hardly know how to combine
the two, or show their bearings upon each other. For myself,
I think now, as I thought and said in my address, that the
absolutely exclusive position, taken up by Huxley, Tyndall,
and the so-called Material School, is ludicrously
indefensible; and that we should be as perfectly open to
evidence in any direction, as we were 2000 years ago.—The
Rev. H. W. Watson, D.Sc., F.R.S.

So many men of learning are now holding Dr. Watson’s views that the time
seems to have arrived, in which the theories of Keely will receive, from
those who are competent to judge of their value, the attention that they
deserve. Before entering upon their merits, or setting them down for others
to judge of their worth, the way must be prepared by showing the claims
which they possess from their correspondence with some of the most
advanced ideas of the present day, as well as with the teachings of the
wisest men in past centuries.

The mode which is the least laborious to accomplish this end, is by
collecting what has been written and printed, which bears upon, and

elucidates this subject.

It is now very generally known that Mr. Keely, while pursuing a line of
experiment in vibrations, “accidentally” as Edison would say, made his
discovery of an energy, the origin of which was unknown to himself; and
six years passed, in experiment, before he was able to repeat its production
at will. In the meantime he had exhausted his resources and willingly
accepted the proposal of men, who, after witnessing the operation of the
energy that he was able to show with this unknown force, offered to
organize a company to furnish him with the means to construct an engine to
use this force as the motive power, anticipating immediate success.

But discovery is one thing, invention quite another thing, and the years
rolled on without Mr. Keely’s being able to fulfil his promises. In 1882,
which was about ten years after the company was formed, an action at law
was brought against him for non-fulfilment of his contract. The Evening
Bulletin of March 30th of that year thus explains, truthfully, the position.

THE KEELY MOTOR.

A STATEMENT FROM ONE OF THE INVENTOR’S STOCKHOLDERS.

“To the Editor of the Evening Bulletin: In your issue of last Tuesday appears an article
which deserves attention, and also calls for some explanation upon that very much
misunderstood question of the Keely motor. From some cause not easy to learn, there
seems to be a tendency to keep only one side of that subject before the public.

“Being one of the unfortunates of the Keely motor speculation, interest has led me to
investigate not only the invention and the man who has everything to do with it, but also
the management of the company, which is equally important to those who put their money
into the enterprise as an investment. Permit me, therefore, to state a few of the facts which,
if known, would very much change some of the popular views now held.

“There are perhaps a thousand stockholders in the Keely Motor Company. The mass of
these, like myself, are not the prosecutors in this case against Mr. Keely. We do not believe
that Mr. Keely can be forced to divulge any valuable secrets if he possesses them. We do
not believe that a case in court is calculated to prolong the inventor’s life, or render it more
safe from the accidents to which he is exposed. We do not believe that these proceedings
are likely to increase his good will towards the company. Some of us know that by
purchasing Keely motor stock, we have not thereby put our money into the invention, nor
has Mr. Keely had the benefit of it. We also know that some, if not all, of the parties to this
prosecution, especially those who are most vehement in its favour under the pretence of
protecting the common stockholders, are selfish to the last degree, while for themselves

they have the least cause to complain. Their official records show an utter disregard of the
interests of stockholders or the rights of the inventor: while the success of the invention is
to them a secondary consideration. It is they, and not the inventor, who have drummed up
the customers, and recommended and sold the stock. They, and not he, are answerable to
the purchasers. If Mr. Keely is guilty of deception, they are to say the least equally so.
Look at a few statements:

“When the Keely Motor Company was started, in 1874, its organizers received their stock
without paying for it. About three-fourths of the whole amount were thus given away by
Mr. Keely. He retained about one-seventh, and was cheated out of a good portion of that
before he had gone far. Only 400 shares out of 20,000 were retained in the treasury, and
that but a short time; for these recipients of the “dead-head stock” made hasty havoc of the
market by a rapid unloading of their shares and pocketing the proceeds. So the poor little
400 shares of treasury stock brought only the minimum price to afford temporary relief to a
distressed company.

“The bankrupt condition of this incipient corporation threatened it with a cessation of
existence, unless somebody came to the rescue, for the ‘originals,’ who had received a
harvest by the sale of their ‘free stock,’ would not now give a dollar to save the concern.
They were all fixed, but what of the innocent stockholders who had purchased this stock?
They should not be allowed to suffer, as they must if the company went out. So Mr. Keely
came to the rescue, and consented to the following scheme, which was prepared by
schemers, as the sequel proved. He had two inventions besides the motor, and they could
be handled to advantage in this emergency. These Mr. Keely assigned to the company, and
the stock was increased from 20,000 to 100,000 shares. The 80,000 new shares were to be
divided equally: 40,000 to pay for the inventions, and 40,000 went to the company without
one dollar of pay. So, Mr. Keely received no money in this transaction; and of the 40,000
shares which he should have received, not 5000 ever reached him; fraudulent claims
having captured the rest while in the hands of the ‘trustee.’ Of the 5000 shares also, much
had been obligated in advance by the inventor to carry forward the work which otherwise
must have been delayed, so that he had less than 1000 shares left when all claims were
settled. This grand act is called the ‘consolidation,’ which took place in 1879, and since
which all moneys raised by the company have come from the sale of shares out of this
40,000, which Mr. Keely then gave to the company. By some mysterious operations in the
‘management’ this ‘Treasury Stock’ has shrunk away very rapidly, bringing at times only a
fraction of the price which other stocks of the same kind were selling for in the market,
while the little cash which it has brought has only in part been used by Mr. Keely, and that
has been served out to him in a sparing way, which would be shameful even if he had not
furnished it all to begin with. The company now owe to Mr. Keely fifty thousand dollars
loaned outright in its early history. To this indebtedness considerable has since been added.
The public statements that Mr. Keely has been supplied with large amounts of money from
the company are untrue, while it is true that of those who are regarded as his dupes a half
dozen or more have made on an average at least $50,000 each from the ‘enterprise.’ The
money with which Mr. Keely capitalized the company, in the first place, was obtained from
the sale of territorial rights to men who have formed other companies for the purpose.

“If Mr. Keely deserves prosecution by any parties, it is those who bought these rights, and
not the ring who now control the company with stock which has cost them nothing.

“If anybody deserves to be sued by the stockholders it is these very persons who
recommended and sold them the stock, and have taken the benefit of it, and who at the
same time are responsible for the miserable management which has caused detention of the
work, distress in the company, depreciation in the stock and dissatisfaction among
stockholders.

“One.”

The further history of “The Keely Motor Bubble” will be given later on, but
it is the position in earlier years, that we must first deal with, to get a clear
comprehension of the causes of the delays which again and again shattered
the hopes of the sanguine investors just when they were the most buoyant,
from an apparent increased control of the mysterious force Keely was
handling. Further quotations from the press will best show the light in
which Keely’s work was regarded by those who considered themselves
competent to pass judgment upon him and his efforts. The Daily News in
Philadelphia, on May 25th, 1886, contained a most sensible editorial, with
the heading

What has Keely Discovered?

“For a number of years Mr. John W. Keely, of this city, and various associates have
occupied the attention of the public to a greater or less extent, from time to time. The claim
on behalf of Mr. Keely is that he has discovered a new motive power, so far transcending
all previous achievements in this direction, as to overturn most of the universally
recognized conclusions regarding dynamics. Of course such a claim was sure to be met
with derision, and the derision was sure of continuance until silenced by the most thorough
practical demonstration.

“Discussion of the matter has not seemed profitable in the absence of such a
demonstration; but now it seems proper to note an apparently new status of Mr. Keely’s
affairs, as shown by some experiments conducted last Saturday in the presence of a number
of visitors. Some, at least, of these visitors were qualified for critical observation, and the
noteworthy fact is that Mr. Keely was able to produce, under their close inspection, a
dynamic result which none of them pretended to account for by any known law of physics,
outside of that which Mr. Keely claims as the base of his operation. He evolved, almost
instantaneously, according to the united report of those who were present, a substance
having an elastic energy varying from 10,000 to 20,000 pounds per square inch, and
instantly discharged or liberated it into the atmosphere, without the evolution of heat in its
production, or of cold on its sudden liberation. These phenomena alone would seem to
establish that the substance he is dealing with is one not hitherto known to science.

“It seems rather frivolous to dismiss this matter with the supposition that trained specialists
are to be hoodwinked by concealed springs, buried pipes for the introduction of

compressed air and the like. Surely such gentlemen ought very easily to determine at once
whether the surroundings and conditions of the experiments were such as to favour any
kind of legerdemain; and if they found them so, it is strange that they should spend some
hours in investigating that which has been asserted to be ‘a transparent humbug.’

“The appearances are that Mr. Keely has at least removed his enterprise from the domain
of ridicule to that of respectful investigation, and this, after all, is great progress.”

On Wednesday, July 28th, 1886, the Public Ledger had a leader headed,

Let us have some actual useful Work.

“With regard to the occasional revivals of the Keely motor, whether annual, semi-annual,
or biennial, as they have come along in the last ten or a dozen years, the Ledger has paid
but little attention to them for a long time; and possibly this last display last week might
have been allowed to take the same unnoticed course, but that the “whizz” of the big
sphere seems to have been so rapid, and the racket so stunning, as to more greatly puzzle
those present at the exhibition than on any former occasion. The matter for a long time has
presented itself to us in but two aspects mainly. First, there was large public interest in the
asserted development of physical force by new and very strange means—very interesting if
there really was a probability of a new device or new means of developing power that
could be harnessed and made to do useful work; and second, so far as the matter took the
form of exploiting a private enterprise or stimulating a boom for a private speculation,
there was but very limited interest for the public. In this latter aspect it was almost
exclusively an affair between Mr. Keely and the stockholders of his company, who felt
willing to back their faith in the substantiality of his invention or discovery, by investing
their money in the company’s stock. This was no affair for a public journal to meddle in,
unless some imposture was designed that might affect the general public.

“That is the way the Ledger has regarded the matter for several years; and, as during that
period it seemed to be almost exclusively a private matter of little public interest, we have
had little or no concern with it. Of course the Ledger stood ready all the time, as it stands
now ready, to welcome anything that promises to be useful or of advantage in any way as
an addition to the mechanical or other working facilities of our day. That Mr. Keely might
have a clue to such an addition we did not dispute on the mere ground that it was new or
strange, or because experts pronounced it impossible; for many stranger things have
happened. Mankind, even those who are illumined by the highest human knowledge and
intelligence, do not yet know all that is to be known, as we are reminded almost every day
by the strides of scientific and mechanical progress. We would rather have found Mr. Keely
less inclined to be mysterious; we could have wished him to have been less disposed to talk
in terms that sound very like meaningless jargon to most well-informed persons; but still
we did not think it proper, or fair, or wise, to reject his claims on these grounds, but have
simply let them rest in abeyance, so far as the Ledger is concerned, because behind all this,
and behind many more such essays, is the possibility that the success of some one of them
may solve the problem of what is to be done when the world’s supply of fuel, whether in
form of wood, or coal, or peat, or gas, is either practically exhausted or to be got at only at
a cost that would largely preclude its use. Mr. Keely, we say, may have a clue to that, as

also may some one of those who are experimenting with the several manifestations of
electric or magnetic force.

“What we would have had Mr. Keely do, and, until he does it, his operations have but little
practical value in the sight of the Ledger, would have been to harness his motor to do some
useful work, to gear it by cogwheel or by belt and pulley, or by some other mechanical
device, to a main shaft that has driving lathes, or planers, or other machines—something
that was doing actual useful work, day in and day out, as other machines do. Of machines
that will manifest great pressure on a gauge, of contrivances that have enormous lifting
power, of explosives that demonstrate stupendous force, the appliances of science and the
mechanic arts have large numbers, and they are handier and more manageable than any Mr.
Keely has shown. These are not to the point—except, perhaps, to persons endowed with
large faith. The machine that will do actual, useful, large work, by a manipulation of new
energy, or by a display of energy by new and manageable means, this or these are the
things the public and the Ledger will be glad to hail.”

At this time Mr. Keely had not reached that stage in his researches when he
could carry out the suggestions made by the able writer of the Ledger
leader; and if our discoverer of an unknown force had not been known to
some persons “endowed with large faith” in his discovery, it would have
been lost to the world. An anonymous writer has said the idea that living
nature is not a collection of dead-heads, never seems to have struck the non-
progressivists. The thing that is has been, and the thing that is will continue
to be; this is the sum and substance of the doctrine they profess. They
commit the mistake of supposing they live in a finished planet when in
reality they exist on an orb that has relatively just begun to live. The time
allowed us for observation and study of nature and of ourselves, is limited
in a marked degree. Just when we are beginning to know how to read the
book, we are forced to close its pages because the intellectual eyesight finds
itself within the trammels of age. All we can do is to make a hit here, and a
hit there, and to hand on our little bit of intelligence to those who come
after us, in the hope that they also will keep their eyes and ears open, and, in
like manner, hand on a cumulative store of knowledge to their heirs and
successors. During the brief span of a man’s existence, then, it is difficult
for him to prove much progress either in himself or in his surroundings. The
eternal hills seem the same to him when the light of life dies out, as when
first his eyes beheld their outlines. Stern, uncompromising, apparently
immutable, the hills remain to him the type of all that is fixed, all that is

unchangeable around. Yet this is not the story of science. Tennyson, who is
always true to nature, says:—

“The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mists, the solid lands;
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.”

In Memoriam, cxxiii., 2nd Stanza.

This is good poetry; better still, it is good science.

The Himalayas, big and grand as they are, must represent mountains whose
rise was a thing of a very “recent” date, geologically speaking. This is
proved, because we see rocks belonging to a relatively recent age,
appearing as part and parcel of their lofty peaks. Very different is the case
with the hills and mountains of, say, north-western Scotland. There you
come upon peaks of an age well-nigh coëval with the world’s earliest
settling down to a steady, solid, and respectable existence. The Scottish hills
are the old, the very old, aristocrats of the cosmical circle; the Himalayas,
Alps, and the rest, are the new race whose origin goes not further back than
a generation, as it were.

Yet, about the oldest of the mountains there is nothing which is absolutely
enduring. Equally with the newer hills, geological progress and action are
written on the face of their history. The hills are only phases of cosmical
arrangement; they are here in the to-day of the world; they may be gone in
the world’s to-morrow. Before Science had learned to lisp this, the
prophetic word of men moved by the Holy Ghost had said: “Of old Thou
hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy
hands. They shall perish, but Thou remainest; yea, all of them shall wax old
like a garment, and as a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be
changed.” The world is neither perfect nor finished in a geological sense,
any more than it is perfect in an ethical sense. It is full of progressive action
everywhere, and, to quote from another author, “our planet and our solar

system are but as the small dust of the balance in the colossal scale of the
worlds that are.”

Had there been no one to read the future in the light of the past, among
those who witnessed the production of the force discovered by Keely in
1872, he could not have continued his researches, as he has done during
these intervening years, from lack of the funds necessary to carry them on.
But there were men who knew the worth of the discovery, and who,
sanguine as to almost immediate results, did something more than stand
idly “ready to welcome” them when produced. They furnished the money
with which Keely laboured year after year, and encouraged him to
persevere, when without such aid he might have been forced to abandon his
researches for want of the necessaries of life. During this period, Keely’s
discovery was only thought of in reference to its commercial value, and for
a decade he made no progress: but, after his researches led up to the
conviction that he was on the road to another and infinitely more important
discovery, namely, the source of life and the connecting link between
intelligent will and matter, his progress has been almost uninterrupted. His
ambition is not only to give a costless motive power to the world, but to
make clear to men of science the path he is exploring.

CHAPTER II.

1882 TO 1886.

ETHER THE TRUE PROTOPLASM, AN EPITOME
OF MACVICAR’S SKETCH OF A PHILOSOPHY.
All that has been predicted of atoms, their attractions and
repulsions, according to the primary laws of their being,
only becomes intelligible when we assume the presence of
mind.—Sir John F. W. Herschell (1865).

It is in no small degree reassuring to find that we are not
chained to inert matter, but to the living energies of its
forms …. This leads us to the inference, long suspected, that
all matter, as well as the ethereal medium itself consists
ultimately of one and the same primordial element.—Col.
A. T. Fraser, Darkness and Light in the Land of Egypt.

For ten years Keely’s demonstrations were confined to the liberation, at
will, of the energy he had “stumbled over” while experimenting on
vibrations in 1872; and his efforts were put forth for the construction of “the
perfect engine,” which he had promised to The Keely Motor Company. He
made the mistake of pursuing his researches on the line of invention instead
of discovery. All his thoughts were concentrated in this direction up to the
year 1882. Engine after engine was abandoned and sold as old metal, in his
repeated failures to construct one that would keep up the rotary motion of
the ether that was necessary to hold it in any structure. Explosion after
explosion occurred, sometimes harmless to him, at other times laying him
up for weeks at a time.

Two more years were lost in efforts to devise an automatic arrangement,
which should enable the machine, invented by Keely for liberating the
energy, to be handled by any operator, and it was not until 1884 that steady
progress was seen, from year to year, as the result of his enlarged
researches. When Keely was asked, at this time, how long he thought it
would be before he would have the engine he was then at work upon ready
to patent, he illustrated his situation by an anecdote: “A man fell down, one
dark night, into a mine; catching a rope in his descent, he clung to it until

morning. With the first glimpse of daylight, he saw that had he let go his
hold of the rope he would have had but a few inches to fall. I am precisely
in the situation of that man. I do not know how near success may be, nor yet
how far off it is.”

August 5th, 1885, the New York Home Journal announced that Keely had
imprisoned the ether; and, as was then wrongly supposed, that the unknown
force was the ether itself; not the medium of the force, as it is now known to
be. The late George Perry, who was then editor of that journal, heralded the
announcement with these comments:—“No object seems to be too high or
remote for human endeavour. It is not strange that some of these attempts
should stagger the faith of all but the boldest imaginations. A notable
example of this class is the famous etheric motor invented by Keely, of
Philadelphia, and the subject of a communication which we print below
from a well-known American lady in Italy. The inventor claims to have
found a new force, one that entirely transcends those that have been hitherto
appropriated for human use. Heat, steam, electricity, magnetism are but
crude antetypes of this new discovery. It is essentially the creator of these
forces. It is scarcely less than the ‘primum mobile.’

Indeed in reading the exposition of its potentialities one can hardly help
doubting whether the concrete matter of our earth is not too weak and
volatile to contain, restrain, and direct this vast cosmic energy except in
infinitesimal proportions. How shall iron and steel stand before the power
which builds up and clasps the very atoms of their mass? Where shall the
inventor look for ‘safety discs’ to stay his new-found force, when every
substance within his reach is but a residuum of the activity of this identical
principle? How shall strength of materials avail against the power that
gives, and indeed is, strength of materials? This, however, is but a
metaphysical doubt, and as the invention has already demonstrated its
practical efficiency on a small scale, there is a presumption that it may be
extended to the higher degrees. At all events, whether the force can or
cannot be harnessed to do the daily work of the world, the discovery is one
that will mark an epoch in the progress of science and give the inventor and
his patrons a meed of immortality. Granted they are but poets building a

lofty cosmical rhyme, their work shall have not the less an enduring
honour.”

The New Force—Etheric Vapour.

The discoverer of a hitherto unknown force in nature which, when certain inventions are
perfected, will create a revolution in science, as well as in mechanics, has for many years
concentrated his mind upon gaining supreme control over one of nature’s greatest and
grandest forces. Or, more correctly speaking, in efforts to control and apply to mechanics
one of the various manifestations of the one force in nature.

“The force which binds the atoms, which controls secreting glands,
Is the same that guides the planets, acting by divine commands.”

The hypothetical ether conceived of by scientists, to account for the transmission of light,
is not hypothetical to this discoverer. He knows its nature and its power. By the operation
of an instrument of his own invention, he can release it at will from the suspension in
which it is always held in our atmosphere. It is so liberated, by an almost instantaneous
process of intense vibratory action, and passed through a tube the opening of which is no
larger than a pin’s head, furnishing sufficient power to run a one hundred horse-power
engine. The importance of this discovery cannot be conceived; its limit seems boundless;
its value cannot be put in figures. Step by step, with a patient perseverance which one day
the world will honour, this man of genius has made his researches, fighting with and
overcoming difficulties which seemed insurmountable, during years in which no
disinterested hands were extended to aid him, no encouraging words of appreciation
bestowed upon him by the scientists whom he vainly tried to interest in his experiments;
assailed by calumnies, which, emanating from those who should have been the first to
extend aid, have over and over pierced his noble heart like poisoned arrows.

History will not forget that, in the nineteenth century, the story of Prometheus found a
counterpart, and that the greatest man of the age, seeking to scale the heavens to bring
down blessings for mankind, met with Prometheus’s reward from the vultures of calumny
who, up to the present moment, have not spared their talons upon him.

The dangerous conditions attending the introductory features of the development of etheric
vapour are not yet entirely overcome; but this throws no shadow of a doubt as to the
inventor’s eventual success in the minds of those who know the magnitude of the
difficulties he has already mastered.

O. W. Babcock, in an American journal says of this discovery, “Human comprehension is
inadequate to grasp its possibilities or power, for prosperity and for peace. It includes all
that relates mechanically to travel, manufacture, mining, engineering and warfare. The
discoverer has entered a new world, and although an unexplored wilderness of untold
wealth lies beyond, he is treading firmly its border, which daily widens as with ever-
increasing interest he pursues his explorations. He has passed the dreary realm where
scientists are groping. His researches are made in the open field of elemental force, where
gravity, inertia, cohesion, momentum are disturbed in their haunts and diverted to use;
where, from the unity of origin, emanates infinite energy in its diversified forms,” and to

this I would add—where he, the discoverer, is able to look from nature up to nature’s God,
understanding and explaining, as no mortal ever before understood and explained, how
simple is the way in which God “works His wonders to perform.”

A compilation of Macvicar’s “Sketch of a Philosophy,” entitled “Ether the true
Protoplasm,” was sent to Mr. Keely; and shortly after, Mrs. Hughes’ book on the evolution
of tones and colours. Mr. Keely will himself, in his theoretical exposé make known the
manner in which he was led, by the writings of Dr. Macvicar and Mrs. Hughes, into the
knowledge which raised the veil that had before hidden from him the operations of Nature
with this “the most powerful and most general of all her forces;” operations which will
explain all that is now mysterious to us in the workings of gravity.

The question has been asked whether science, having destroyed faith, has supplied us with
anything better. But has science destroyed faith? Certainly not. There would be no such
thing as counterfeit coin were it not for the existence of sterling gold. True science has its
counterfeit, and it is due to spurious science that the bulwarks of religious faith have been
besieged; but they are not destroyed. Drummond says that it will be the splendid task of the
future theology to disclose to scepticism the naturalness of the supernatural.

The pure Philosophy which true science seems about to reveal discloses not a universe of
dead matter, but a universe alive from its core to its outermost extremity, and animated by
mind and means, to which matter, perfectly organized, is absolutely subservient. It
illuminates mysteries of nature which have only been partially revealed to us, and lifts the
veil which has hitherto shrouded in darkness still greater mysteries involved in this
universal power, which keeps and sustains all systems of worlds in their relation towards
each and all. More and more clearly shall we be led by true science to see that the universe
“is founded upon a distinct idea,” and that the harmony of this distinct idea is manifested in
all of God’s works. Sir Isaac Newton, in his “Fundamental Principles of Natural
Philosophy,” calls the great magnetic agent “the soul of the world,” and says, “all senses
are excited by this spirit, and through it the animals move their limbs; but these things
cannot be explained in few words, and we have not yet sufficient experience to determine
fully the laws by which this universal spirit operates.” Centuries may pass before these
laws will be “fully understood”; but Etheric Philosophy casts a plummet into depths that
have never been sounded, and reveals this “unparticled substance,” “the cosmic matter,”
“the primal stuff,” “the celestial ocean of universal ether,” as the true protoplasm, and the
medium by which mind shapes matter and gives it all its properties. It teaches us that,
through it, we are connected in sympathy with all other souls and with all the objects of
nature, even, to the stars and all the heavenly bodies. But even though we do not
understand the laws which control its operations, we find therein a legitimate field of
research. It is surely more legitimate for science to ascribe failures in such researches to
our still existing ignorance of that which we may possibly know in time than to set such
laws down as unknowable. “Thought in its spontaneity has the run of the universe, and
there should be no bar to discovery.” Our only hope, says Macvicar, lies in the universality
of the cosmical laws and the ultimate homogeneity of created substances, or reality.

In stating some of the various hypotheses which have been put forward by Macvicar, more
as a sketch than as a new system of philosophy, it is not necessary to make any comments.
If the scaffolding be good the edifice will appear in time. If worthless, no edifice can be

constructed. Therefore, it must be remembered that it is only with the scaffolding that we
have to do at present. If it has been left for our age to demonstrate the truth or the falsity of
certain deductions made in past ages—if we arrive at a partial knowledge, even, of truths
which ancient wisdom saw with dim vision, we must never forget that our century has had
the benefit of the light reflected down the stream of time. Macvicar’s “Sketch of a
Philosophy” was published in 1868. He said that his ideas would not be acceptable, or even
intelligible, to an age when the popular demand is for very light reading; when science is
marvellously content with the attainments which it has already made; and when, “as to the
method of science we are told, with more and more confidence every day, that all we can
do for the discovery of realities is to go out of doors, leaving ‘the inner man’ all alone, and
to compare the odour of the present with the smell of the past, and then, turning our noses
towards the future, to follow them wherever they may lead us.” He continues, Sensation,
we are taught, is the alone architect of all trustworthy knowledge; the author both as to
form and substance of all that is belief-worthy. No such thing as intuition, we are told;
reason merely a habit, rising from the long-continued use of the organism. This looking
only to mechanism is as much the plague and sorrow of our times as it was when Macvicar
complained of it as divorcing science from philosophy. Philosophic wisdom, says Willcox,
is a structure built up of all knowledges—grand and sublime: permanent, not of the present
nor the past. Science holds, in its relation to philosophy, the same position that theology
sustains to religion. “En dehors de toutes les sciences spéciales et au-dessus d’elles, il y a
lieu à une science plus haute et plus générale, et, c’est ce qu’ on appelle philosophie.”—
(Paul Janet, Revue des Deux Mondes.)

Of what nature are the ideas which Macvicar was so sure would be unpopular? In
compiling from his writings, such are selected as seem to be the best, toward elucidating
the mysteries which lie in the operation of the laws governing the universal ether, so far as
his hypotheses carried him. If matter without form preceded the creation of vitality, “it is
only when the principle of life had been given,” says Charpignon, “that the intrinsic
properties of atoms were compelled, by the law of affinities, to form individualities; which,
from that moment, becoming a centre of action, were enabled to act as modifying causes of
the principle of life, and assimilate themselves to it, according to the ends of their
creation.” Here is a conjecture, to start with, that it will be well to remember; for, as in the
hypotheses of Macvicar and the demonstrations of Keely, the law of assimilation is made
the pivot upon which all turns, “providing at once for the free and the forced, at once for
mind and for matter, and placing them in a scientific relationship to one another.” This law
Macvicar calls the “cosmical law,” because to it alone, ever operating under the eye and
fulfilling the design of the great Creator who is always and in all places immanent to His
creation, an appeal is ever made. By this law a far greater number of the phenomena of
nature and the laboratory can be explained than have been otherwise explained by scores of
laws which are frankly admitted to be empirical. Surely this is no slight claim for this law
to be studied, with a view to its acceptance or rejection. To repeat, this law is to the effect
that every individualized object tends to assimilate itself to itself, in successive moments of
its existence, and all objects to assimilate one another. The ground of it is, that the simple
and pure substance of creation, has for its special function to manifest the Creator; and
consequently to assimilate itself to His will and attributes, in so far as the finite can
assimilate itself to the Infinite. Hence it is, in its own nature, wholly plastic or devoid of
fixed innate properties, and wholly assimilative, both with respect to its own portions or
parts and to surrounding objects, as well as to its position in space, and, in so far as it is

capable, to the mind of the Creator. Thus, there immediately awake, in the material
elements, individuality and the properties of sphericity, elasticity, and inertia, along with a
tendency to be assimilated as to place, or, as it is commonly called, reciprocal attraction.
Hence, in the first place, the construction in the ether, or realm of light, of groups of
ethereal elements, generating material elements. Hence, secondly, a tendency in the
material elements, when previously distributed in space, to form into groups, in which their
ethereal atmospheres may become completely confluent; while their material nuclei, being
possessed of a more powerful individuality than ethereal elements, come into juxtaposition
merely, thus constituting molecules. By legitimate deductions from cosmical law, the forms
and structures of these molecules must always be as symmetrical as the reaction of their
own constituent particles, and that of their surroundings, will allow. The law of
assimilation gives the same results as mathematics in determining the forms of systems of
equal, and similar, elastic and reciprocally attractive spherical forces, or centres of force,
when they have settled in a state of equilibrium; proving these forms to be symmetrical in
the highest degree. Here, however, Macvicar and Keely differ, in hypothesis, as to the
structure of the ultimate material element; but this difference does not affect “the
scaffolding” of pure philosophy, in which everything that is cognizable has its own place,
is on a solid basis, is harmonious with its surroundings, and is explained and justified by
them:—raising chemistry to the level and bringing it within the sphere of mechanics;
investing its objects, at the same time, with all the distinctness of the objects of other
branches of natural science.

Because the chemist in his laboratory cannot succeed in decomposing certain substances, it
has been inferred that they are essentially undecomposable, simple and untransformable;
and on this hypothesis the whole science of mineralogy proceeds. But when it is considered
that all of these chemical atoms, before they have come into the chemist’s hands, have been
securely consolidated and mineralized, so as to be able to withstand the ordeal of the
volcano and the central heat, compared with which the most powerful analytic agencies of
the laboratory are but a mimicry, is it for a moment to be supposed, although their internal
structure were still molecular, that they would break down in the chemist’s hands? Surely,
all his containing vessels, which are but things of human art, must go to pieces before
them.

The present prevailing theory of development contradicts one half by the other half. It
extends the doctrine of development and transmutation to species which happen to be
visible to such eyes as we have; it denies it to such as happen to be invisible to us. If all
animals and plants have been obtained by the secular synthesis of transformed monera, and
the differentiation of the organs composing them—thus giving in the last analysis one form
and kind of protoplasm as the root of all; the pursuit of the same line of thought—the same
theory, applied to the atoms of the chemist, with their various properties and atomic
weights, gives, as the common ground of all, a single material element; each chemical
atom being a structure composed of this material element, but so stable as to be
indecomposable in the laboratory. Let this be granted, as asserted by Macvicar in 1868, and
by Keely now, and the theory of evolution, whatever may be the case as to its cogency, at
least possesses a scientific form. It is no longer a conception which breaks down midway
between its first and its last terms. But letting science, in this respect, stand for the present
as it is, and supposing the seventy recognized elements of the laboratory (which do not
include the twenty or more new elements recently said to have been discovered by Krüss

and Nilson in certain rare Scandinavian minerals) or rather, perhaps, some very high
multiple of their number to constitute that cosmic gas from which the solar system has
been evolved, the theory of development shows itself to be as imperfect on the great scale,
and in point of extent, as it is in point of homogeneity in its intimate material. Macvicar
continues—Beyond that cosmic gas there certainly is the ether, a medium which no longer
can be ignored in any physical theory of nature. What, then, is the relation of the cosmic
gas to the ether? Evolutionists do not answer this question, but Macvicar seeks to render
the whole system of thought homogeneous, and to show that, just as all organisms are the
synthetic developments of one kind of moneron, and all chemical atoms and molecules the
synthetic development of one kind of material element, so is the material element a
synthetic development of ethereal elements. These also are Mr. Keely’s views; but neither
Macvicar nor Keely rest in the conception of a congeries of particles which are wholly
blind and devoid of feeling and thought, diffused throughout all space, believing such
particles to be the first of things. “Reason, if it is to enjoy intellectual repose, can have it
only in finding, beyond and above all things else, a unity, a power, intelligence, personality
—in one word, God. This is the only legitimate haven of a theory of development: sending
back the tide of materialism and pantheism which has swept its mire over our age into the
ebb again; as, after having reached the full, it has so often done already, before the
constitutional instincts or inspirations of humanity, with which speculative minds may,
indeed, dally for a generation but which are ultimately inexorable.” Macvicar maintains
with Keely that from God, as the Author of all, nature may be reached with those very
features which it is seen to possess; that it is essential to every philosophy, which is or shall
be in harmony with intelligence, that it shall be based upon a unity; that no philosophy
possesses all the claims to intellectual regard which it may possibly have, unless that unity
be an intelligent Being; that to suppose thought and feeling to wake up for the first time in
that which was previously blind and dead from all eternity, is nothing short of absurd to
those who are led by the evidence of design, to look from nature up to nature’s God, in
whom all nature lives and moves and has its being.

While the protoplasm of the biologist is a substance which is more or less opaque or
visible, the protoplasm now conceived of as the material of the whole creation in its first
state, when development is to begin, must, on the contrary, be altogether homogeneous and
invisible. But none the less is it entitled to the name of protoplasm; nay, it alone must be
justly entitled to that name, for it is the first of created things, and, being the product of an
Almighty Being, it must be altogether plastic in His hands. It can have no constitution of
its own derived from itself; but must, so far as the finite can, with respect to the infinite,
reflect, represent, embody, show forth His attributes and being. Still, there is limitation to
this. Certain properties and demands with regard to that which exists, with limited
extension, in space, are inexorable. Macvicar reasons that with such limitations the primal
substance of creation must be fully obedient or assimilated to the Creator—not in a
transient manner, but permanently; and that in its nature the primal substance, the true
protoplasm, must be an assimilative substance. Granting that this protoplasm be partitioned
into individualities, he makes the deduction that each and all of these individualized beings
and things would, up to the full measure of their capacity, not only tend to assimilate
themselves to the ever-present Being to whom they owe their own being, but they would
tend also to assimilate themselves each to itself, with respect both to space and time; as
also that they would all tend to assimilate one another. Taking this as the cosmical mode of
action, or law, and on the strength of this law alone, without invoking the aid of any other

law, he attempts to explain all those phenomena to which the physicist, the chemist, and
the biologist usually address themselves. Illustrating the manner in which this law applies
itself to phenomena, he gives as the first products of this law the perpetuation of an original
mode of existence, and the establishment of permanence of properties under certain
restrictions; the ground of the remarkable persistency and permanence of well-constituted
species; a general harmony and homology throughout all creation: proceeding to illustrate
its action on the mental or spiritual world; accounting for perception, remembrance,
reasoning, imagining, judging, and upon all our other modes of mental activity, as
operations of the cosmical law of assimilation.

In the world of physics he gives, as illustrations of this same law of assimilation, attraction,
inertia, elasticity, heredity, reversion, symmetry culminating in sphericity or symmetrical
cellularity, chemical and electrical action; especially in voltaic action the influence and the
persistence of this law is most remarkably displayed. By the way of familiar illustration, he
takes the original voltaic cell, and without attempting to explain how one solid, copper or
platinum, comes to be less assimilable to a liquid than another, such as zinc, he shows that
just what we are to expect, from this law of assimilation, takes place—viz., that at the zinc
there tends to form a stratum of oxygen, and that, at the platinum, there tends to form a
stratum of hydrogen. Pursuing the old view as to the cause of the state of tension induced
in the dilute sulphuric acid, the continuous decomposition of the water, the solidifying
action of the zinc surface, he confines his attention to the current of force instituted by the
oxygen; advancing the idea that this is not merely force in general, of which all that is to be
considered is its quantity and direction; but force, of which the form of its elements or their
formative power is also to be considered;—that formative power being representative or
productive of oxygen. To the objection that such a conception is occult and mysterious, he
asks if it is more occult and mysterious than what is implied and confessed to be hid under
the term electricity, or in the phenomena of heredity, or than anything else which is
adduced as a cause of a particular phenomenon. The cosmical law of assimilation explains
all these phenomena, and, without any special hypothesis, is precisely what is wanted, in
order to render natural knowledge as a whole accessible to the student: something which
puts him in possession, from the first, of a master-thought, which, if he carry it along with
him, will present all nature as a harmony; explaining all that stands in need of explanation.
Macvicar continues:—

If it be asked how possibly out of one law, and such a one, there could arise anything like
that endless variety which nature displays, the answer is, that the law operates between two
limits, poles, or points of assimilation, which are entirely dissimilar, and by two processes
simultaneously, analysis and synthesis, which are the opposites of each other. Hence it
comes to pass that actual nature is a web, in which unity and multiplicity, identity and
difference, are everywhere interwoven, and in such harmony that nature is everywhere
beautiful.

It is not necessary here to repeat the illustrations by which Macvicar seeks to demonstrate
that existence is force—self-manifesting, or spontaneously radiant, so to speak, into that
which is idea, if there be a recipient of ideas, or a percipient of ideas; or, more generally, a
percipient within the sphere of its action. He does not prescribe any limits, in space, as to
the extent of this self-manifesting power. Thus, it is one of the most certain facts in physics
that every atom of this planet, nay, every atom of the planet Neptune, whose distance from

the sun is thirty times as great as our distance, manifests itself to every atom of this planet
—not, indeed, as a percept, but as the subject and the object of attraction or motion. Nay,
by the aid of the ether, which is the grand medium whereby the self-manifesting power of
being is enabled to take effect at a distance when no other being is interposed, the fixed
stars manifest themselves at our planet, though their distances be inconceivably great.
Distant objects acting like all objects assimilatively, assimilate the intervening ether and
the optic apparatus to themselves, and thus render themselves perceptible. This they do,
indeed, only under great limitation, imposed by the laws of inertia or motion in space, to
which the ether is subject—limitation which, in man, it requires self-teaching and
experience to remove, so that he may perceive the object in its true forms and dimensions.
But this is only man’s peculiarity, in consequence of his organic defects at birth. The chick,
the day it leaves the egg, can run up with equal precision to a crumb of bread, or to an ant’s
egg at a distance. And so with all species whose myo-neuro-cerebral system functions
perfectly from their birth. At his best, the embodied mind in man sees objects only in
perspective. But the nature of this self-manifesting power need not be dwelt upon, since it
is only the existence of this power that is insisted upon. How far beyond the visible and
tangible parts of the body, the spirit, as a power exerting some kind of action or other,
extends, Macvicar thinks cannot be determined. No doubt, every force has a centre of
action; but as to the full extent in space of a unit of natural force, as an agent of one kind or
another, no limits can be assigned. Who shall tell us the boundary in the outward of that
power which says “I will,” “I feel,” “I see”? Its modes of acting mechanically are, no
doubt, limited to the extent of the investing organism. Nay, in order to their extending even
so far, it is necessary that the unity of the organism be maintained by the healthy integrity
of the nervous system. In that case consciousness claims all the organism as its domain;
and not only when the organism is entire does it refer any pain that arises to the region that
is hurt, but after a limb has been amputated, and when it exists only as a phantom,
consciousness still feels towards it as if it were still the old reality. Such is the effect of
habit, or present assimilation to previous practice.

Our cosmical law, the law of assimilation, must determine, if not the nature, at least the
mode of action of this force—this self-manifesting power—for plainly this action must be
assimilative. And that it is so, when giving rise to perception, is clearly and distinctly seen;
for what is the perceiving of an object, but the mind, as a percipient, assimilating itself to
that object? and what is the percept or remembrance of the object, which remains in the
mind but the idea—that is, the assimilated symbol of the object, which, however, in
consequence of the intrusion in the perception of the mind’s own activity, and of other
previously acquired ideas, as also the perceptive image is often very defective as a
representation of the reality perceived? We may say that this self-manifesting power, which
is thus the characteristic of all that exists, is the agency provided whereby the cosmical law
of assimilation shall be realized, though the intimate nature of that agency remains, as now,
wholly inscrutable. Nor can it be said to be physical until it is embodied in the ether. In that
case, it is rhythmical, or undulatory, and formally representative of the object whence it
emanates. But it is enough to know that the most intimate and ultimate property—the
characteristic, in short, of that which exists—is self-manifesting power. Now, the existence
of a self-manifesting power in an object implies that the object is itself a power or force, or
an aggregate of such. This is enough for the purposes of philosophy and science, and we
only deceive ourselves when we suppose that we can think of anything that exists and
which is not at the same time a force or power ….

Of most things that exist, if not of all, let us say that they are capable of existing in either
of two states—the dynamical or the statical—and that, when viewed as dynamical, they are
forces or powers; when viewed as statical, they are substances. When we exhaust or think
away the properties of existence, the last which vanishes is self-manifesting power in the
object which exists, this property being such that when it vanishes so does the object to
which existence was awarded. In the science of the day it is maintained by our most
popular authors and lecturers that the “physical forces”—taken in the singular number,
physical force—is the last word, the ultimate principle. The physical forces are represented
as all that there is for God, whereas they are but as the fingers of God.

The idea of antecedent design, either in reference to nature as a whole, or in reference to
any object in particular, is dropped as unscientific, or repudiated as unsound; in short, a
reference to the physical forces, is the last word permitted in any treatise, if that treatise is
to be admitted as possessing a scientific character. Or, if there be one word more, it is only
the “correlation” of those same physical forces, and their “conservation,” or persistence
eternally in the same amount of energy in the universe. In their own place and within their
own sphere, these are physical truths, which are of the greatest value. The former is a
wholesome relapse into the old philosophy of nature. The latter is also a return to a view
which is more sound than that which was popular before the doctrine of conservation was
resuscitated.

Descartes’ opinion, that there was a conservation of motion in the universe, was
demonstrated by Newton to be a mistake. Leibnitz adjusted the truth between these great
men, showing that it was not motion, but the possibility or means of motion—in one word,
energy—that was conserved in the universe.

The doctrine of the conservation of energy amounts to nothing more than this, that
inasmuch as every ultimate atom of matter is perfectly elastic, so is the whole universe of
atoms perfectly elastic. Hence it is a doctrine which cannot be legitimately extended
beyond the merely material sphere; except on the assumption that matter is the only reality,
and that there is no such thing as a spiritual world at all—an assumption which, however
often it has been made, serves only to awaken a prevailing voice to the contrary, and the
firm vote of a large majority to the effect that mind exists as well as matter.

Taking the law of assimilation as the cosmical law, together with self-manifesting power as
the characteristic of being, we reach a primary classification of created objects, which
corresponds with that which is known as mind and matter—or rather let us say mind and
that which is not mind; for there is ground for the apprehension that mind and matter do
not include all that exists; and that, along with matter, ether ought to be considered as
something intimately related to matter indeed, but yet not just matter. When the elements of
the ethereal medium are regarded as truly and simply material, however small and light
they may be, the elasticity and pressure which must be assigned to that medium in order to
admit of the velocity of light, are altogether out of the harmony of things, and wholly
incredible, especially when confronted with the phenomena and the theory of astronomy.
Thus, to justify the velocity of light on the same principles as those of sound, in various
material media, the ethereal pressure must be 122,400,000,000 times greater than that of
the atmosphere—which is incredible, says Macvicar.

But what as to mind? To find what shall be called mind, let us suppose an individualized
object which is not an isolated object, or a universe to itself, but a member in a system;
then, in obedience to what has been stated, that object must be at once self-manifesting and
impressed by the other objects around it, and, in being so impressed, assimilated to them
more or less …. Admitting the self-manifesting power to be sensitive, percipient, or
conscious, then quantity or intensity of substance or power in a monad is the condition
requisite for feeling and thought. And thus, by an immediate co-ordination of our
fundamental ideas of self-manifesting power and assimilative action, more or less, we
reach a distinct conception of mind viewed in relation with that which is not mind. By this
deduction, the primeval created substance, the true protoplasm is still supposed to be
homogeneous, animated by its assimilation to the everlasting, the Infinite.

This protoplasm is partitioned in varying degrees so that there are in creation some
individualized or separate objects or forces consisting of so small an amount or such
weakness of substance that they are wholly fixed and merely perceptible, while there are
others consisting of so much more that they are free in their inner life, and have power to
perceive themselves also—not, indeed, in the centres of their being, and as unimpressed
and without ideas, but as members in a system, impressed or assimilated by other objects,
and so having ideas, with power to look in this direction or that, and to act accordingly.

Such, then, according to Macvicar, is the nature of mind or spirit. It is a being so
constituted as to be at once in possession of ideas, and so far fixed; and also in possession
of undetermined life or activity, and so far free. These are, as it were, the opposite poles of
its being, and the conditions of its activity. If either is wanting, the other vanishes. Without
something fixed in the mind, some object of thought or feeling, there can be no thinking or
feeling. Without something unfixed there can be nothing to think or to feel with, much less
can there be any thinking or feeling of self—that is, self-consciousness. But, grant this
condition in the individual, and add the law of assimilation, operating first from God
above, thus giving reason and conscience, on the higher aspect of our being; and, secondly,
from nature around, thus giving observation and instincts harmonious with our situation in
the system of the universe, and then human nature emerges.

But human nature plainly belongs to the last day of the work of creation rather than the
first, where we are now. In man, to all appearance, the organism is the mother and nurse of
the spirit. And though the assimilative action of the mind upon the body becomes normally,
at least, stronger and stronger as life advances, so long as the organ retains all its
perfection, yet at first the assimilative action of the body upon the mind is almost
everything. The infant, the child, is little else but the victim of sensation—that is, of
assimilations in its mind, effected by the force of external nature, including the organism
itself. But as the mind, through the sustained action towards the focus of the myo-neuro-
cerebral system, which is in the brain, gains quantity or intensity—in one word, energy—it
becomes more independent and free, and more able to react out of itself upon the organism
in any direction of which it makes choice ….

Hitherto, Macvicar has proceeded analytically, or from the one to the many; now,
synthetically, from multiplicity to unity:—he continues:—As to the matter in hand, we may
say, shortly, that a world of substances becoming multiple and diffuse, and at last merging
into ethereal elements, being now given as the product of the law of assimilation in

reference to the immensity of the Creator, the same law, when viewed in reference to the
unity of the Creator, leads us to infer a process of quite a contrary character. It leads us to
expect to find the ethereal elements tending to construct unities of greater energy than
themselves. Then, if all cosmical action is cyclical, matter, when existing free in the ether,
must ultimately tend to dissolve into pure ether again; for, if the law of creation is as a
cycle, in which, after development and as its fruit, the last term gives the first, then has he
grounds for his conjecture that complication in structure is necessary to the segregation of
nervous matter, and the construction of a “myo-neuro-cerebral system”; and that ether and
matter, after developing a molecular economy, as the mother and nurse of a soul or monad
of a higher order than the merely material element, through or by this organism, complete
the cycle of the economy of the material nature, and eventually touch upon the spiritual
world again and contribute to it. Whether this inference is correct or not, it presents a noble
hypothesis for consideration, and one which should command attention at a time when the
writings of John Worrell Keely, the discoverer of polar energy, and the inventor of
vibratory machinery for the utilization of this force in mechanics, are about to be given to
the world, supporting as they do, some of “the unwelcome views” advanced by Macvicar a
quarter of a century ago. Although Macvicar and Keely differ in their theories of molecular
morphology, they agree entirely in calling the cosmical law of sympathetic association or
assimilation the watchword and the law of creation. This true protoplasm, the ether, which
Macvicar postulated, Keely claims to have proved “a reality”: making use of the ether,
which he liberates by vibratory machinery, as the medium of a motive power, which he
calls “sympathetic negative attraction.”

CHAPTER III.

THE NATURE OF KEELY’S PROBLEMS.

1885 TO 1887.
Too few the helpers on the road,
Too heavy burdens in the load.

When a movement is willed a current is sent forth from the
brain.

Sir James Crichton Browne.

In November 1884, Mr. Keely obtained a standard for progressive research
in the success of an experiment, which he had tried many times before,
without arriving at the result that his theories had led him to expect. One of
those present, at the time that this test was made, afterwards wrote to Mr.
Keely, to obtain an explanation of the dynamic force which had been
witnessed, causing a small globe to rotate when two persons had taken hold
of the rod together, with a firm grasp; one of whom was standing on a
circular sheet of metal, from which piano wires stretched toward the globe,
near enough to touch one of the plates of glass which insulated the ball. Mr.
Keely replied, “I cannot describe it other than the receptive concussion of
the two forces, positive and negative, coming together, seeking their
coincidents and thus producing rotation by harmonious waves, not streams.
You ask if sound waves had anything to do with the motion of the globe?
Nothing; the introductory settings are entirely different. The ball ceased to
rotate when I took your left hand in my right hand, while with our other
hands holding the iron rod resting on the metal plate, because the receptive
flows became independent of the circular chord of resonation as set up
mechanically. The power of rotation comes on the positive; and the power
of negation breaks it up.”…

Encouraged by this confirmation of his theories, Keely pursued his
researches with renewed vigour. At this time he wrote, “I am straining every
nerve to accomplish certain matters in a given time, working from twelve to
fourteen hours daily. Although in my illness I have had some peaceful hours
in thinking over the fascinating points associated with the researches to

which I am devoting my life, I have also had some very stormy ones in
reviewing the many unjust insinuations and denouncements that have been
heaped upon me by the ignorant and the base-hearted. My one desire has
been the acquisition of knowledge; and, no matter how great the
impediment thrown in my path, I will work without ceasing to attain my
end. After struggling for over seventeen years, allowing scientists to
examine my machinery in the most thorough manner, and to make the most
sensitive tests, denunciations have multiplied against me. One charge is that
I use sodium in my mercury, in the vacuum test. I have thought that I would
never again make any effort to prove that I am honest; but I am working in
a new lead, and for the satisfaction of the few friends that I have I propose
to show my introductory evolutions, in proof of the negatization of an
etheric substance to produce vacuum. The mercury may be delivered to me
by an expert: I will operate from an open mercury bath: using the most
perfect mercury gauge obtainable, attached to the same sphere that the
column is operated from. Professor Rogers, the highest authority we have,
saw the operation of inducing these etheric vacuums and pronounced the
result wonderful. He said that the scientific world would go down on its
knees, if I produced only one pound of vacuum under the conditions named.
I showed from one to fourteen lbs. during the evolutions …. As soon as I
have been able to combine all the positive and negative forces of etheric
vibration in the triple vibratory sphere-engine that I am now at work upon,
in short, as soon as I have completed a perfect, patentable machine, then my
labours will cease on the Motor line; and after my patents are taken out, I
will devote the remainder of my life to Aerial Navigation, for I have the
only true system to make it an entire success in the vibratory lift and the
vibratory push-process.”

It will be seen that, at this stage, Keely had no idea of giving up the engine;
and was still as confident of ultimate success as in the beginning. There is
no doubt that, had not the time arrived when the directing power of
Providence led him away in quite another direction from the line that he
was then working upon, his system for Aerial Navigation would have been
lost to this century. “The heart of man deviseth his way, but the Lord directs
his steps.”

About this time Keely met with an accident. Under date March 22nd, he
wrote, “It has been impossible for me to write, my right hand and arm were
so severely strained, but I have not been idle. I have had time for reflection,
and I have been setting up a key to explain vibratory rotation. I have also a
plan for a device to be attached to the Liberator as an indicator to show
when the neutral centre is free from its intensification while operating. In
this way the dangerous influences will be avoided which present themselves
on the extension of the vibratory waves that operate the gun. All the
introductory details of the present engine are as perfect as is possible for the
first lead. It is in the form of a sphere, about thirty inches in diameter and
weighs 800 lbs. Yesterday saw the pure, positive action of my new
Liberator. Mr. Collier and his brother George were present, and witnessed
thirty expulsions, made by myself; after which I had them produce the
vapour, by imitating my manipulations; which they were unable to do with
the old generator. They were very much delighted. To say that the last three
weeks have been trying ones, is using very mild language to express what I
have suffered from accidents, disappointments, etc., etc. I have been frozen
in at my workshop; and all things seemed to go wrong; but my present
successes are as an anchor, which I thank God for, who, in His bountiful
goodness, has carried me into a port of safety over tempestuous seas.”
Again, under various dates, Keely wrote:—“Unbounded success has
crowned my new departure. I am now preparing new features that are
necessary as adjuncts to denote the true condition, as regards safety in my
different vibratory operations.” “Without the aid sent me from on high there
would have been nothing left of the discovery mechanically; nor would
there now be a single foot-hold on which hope could rest for a completion
of the Keely Motor enterprise.”… “I had an accident to one of my registers
this morning. It burst with a tremendous report, shaking things up in a lively
way, but no other damage was done beyond that to the register.”

“The draughts are nearly completed for the compound vibratory engine, and
next week the work will be commenced and pushed forward with all
possible speed. This is the machine for continuous operation. The Liberator
is as perfect as is possible; and, if the outside adjuncts are in proper
sympathy, my struggles will soon be at an end.”… “All things are verging
into a condition of perfection through the aid that I have received, but for

which the science of vibratory etheric force would, as far as my researches
are concerned, have been lost to the world. I feel that the world is waiting
for this force; that this advance in science is necessary to keep the proper
equilibrium in our age of progress.”…

“There are moments in which I feel that I can measure the very stars, which
shine like Edens in planetary space; fit abodes for beings who have made it
the study of their lives on earth to create peace and happiness for all around
them. Is nature a mystery? No, God is in nature. I do not believe in the line,
‘God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.’ In my
estimation, He moves in a very plain and simple way, if we will open our
hearts to the understanding of His way. To the man who cannot appreciate
the workings of nature, chemically and otherwise, God’s ways may appear
mysterious; but when he comes to know nature’s works he will find
simplicity itself in its highest order of expression.

“Could I have one wish, as to science, gratified, I would ask to live long
enough to be able to appreciate even but one etheric variation in planetary
evolution. It might take fifty thousand years to attain this knowledge, but
what is that period of time when compared with the cycles that have passed
away since this earth existed? Yes, in one sense, ‘God does move in a
mysterious way His wonders to perform.’ ”…

“The whirlpool of science has indeed engulphed me in its fascinating
vortex.”…

“May 20th.—Yesterday was a day of trials and disappointments. It seemed
as if nothing would work right. After labouring six hours to set my safety
process, the first operation of the Liberator tore the caps all to pieces. I
replaced them by a set of duplicates, and set the Liberator down to the low
octaves, when everything worked to a charm. Night was approaching, and I
left the workshop to get something to eat, returning about eight o’clock to
re-conduct experiments, in order to discover if possible the cause of the
sudden and most unexpected intensification. I followed up with great care
the progressive lines until I reached the tenth octave, and then liberated a
score of times, yet no variation on liberator. Next, I made an attachment to

my safety arrangement, and also to my strongest resonator, to experiment
on vibratory rotation with my shell; when, within two minutes, it attained a
frightful velocity: then I suddenly retracted to the negative, bringing the
velocity down from about 1500 per minute to 150. The operation was
magnificent, lasting sixty-four minutes, when a second intensification took
place, demolishing two safety-shells and one vibratory indicator. I was
perfectly dumbfounded, and unable to account for such a phenomenon. It
was then near midnight, but I had made up my mind not to discontinue until
I had solved the mystery. After an hour’s reflection, I set up a new position
on the resonating wave plates in the forty resonating circuit on the base of
liberator; and got a result which for purity of uniformity surpassed all
experiments that I have ever made. I believe I have now struck the root of
this difficulty, and that I shall be able to master it; and obtain continuity of
action with perfect rotation.”

“June 1st, 1885.—I am in a perfect sea of mental and physical strain,
intensified in anticipation of the near approach of final and complete
success, and bombarded from all points of the compass by demands and
inquiries; yet, in my researches, months pass as minutes. The immense
mental and physical strain of the past few weeks, the struggles and
disappointments have almost broken me up. Until the reaction took place,
which followed my success, I could never have conceived the possibility of
my becoming so reduced in strength as I am now. My labours in the future
will be of a much milder character; but, before I again commence them, I
must have a few days more of recuperation. I was so absorbed in my
researches that I forgot my duty to myself, as regards the requirements of
health, and I am now paying the penalty. It has been misery to me to have
absorbed so much more time and capital than I anticipated; and without the
heaven-sent aid which I have received the world would have lost sight of
me for ever.”…

“In view of the unjust comments in certain journals, I intend to withdraw
entirely from all contact with newspaper men, to give no more exhibitions
after the one which closes the series, and to devote all my time and energies
to bringing my models into a patentable condition. It is said that the New
York reporters intended to denounce me before witnessing my last

experiments. Certainly utter ignorance of my philosophy was displayed in
their articles, but they were like the viper biting on the file, and only hurt
themselves: for men who possess but a moderate degree of scientific
knowledge have denounced them, in turn, as the most ignorant men they
had ever come in contact with. They stated that I started with a power
estimated at over one million pounds pressure to the square inch on the
head of my liberator, a sheer absurdity. The rock I am standing on can no
more be moved by a whirlwind of such attacks than the atmospheric
disturbance of equilibrium emanating from a butterfly’s wing in motion
could blow down the rock of Gibraltar. I enclose a newspaper cutting: it
was written by an engineer who has interested himself sufficiently in my
work to be able to thoroughly understand my position.”…

“July 15th.—My researches teach me that electricity is but a certain
condensed form of atomic vibration, a form showing only the introductory
features which precede the etheric vibratory condition. It is a modulated
force so conditioned, in its more modest flows, as to be susceptible of
benefit to all organisms. Though destructive to a great degree in its
explosive positions, it is the medium by which the whole system of organic
nature is permeated beneficially; transfusing certain forms of inert matter
with life-giving principles. It is to a certain degree an effluence of divinity;
but only as the branch is to the tree. We have to go far beyond this condition
to reach the pure etheric one, or the body of the tree. The Vibratory Etheric
tree has many branches, and electricity is but one of them. Though it is a
medium by which the operations of vital forces are performed, it cannot in
my opinion be considered the soul of matter.”…

“My safety arrangements (governors and indicators) for liberating are not
working well; but I am labouring to attain perfection on these devices, and I
hope soon to have them all right.”…

“I have extraordinary powers, it is true, and I must use them to the best
advantage; for I know they are the gift of the Almighty, who will, I feel
sure, carry me to the end of the work which He has given me to
accomplish.”…

“I am positive that this year will terminate my struggles. My work is all
progressing satisfactorily, and I am pushing everything forward as rapidly
as possible.”…

August 5th.—Mr. Keely wrote to one of his friends,—“I have met with an
accident to the Liberator. I was experimenting on the third order of
intensification, when the rotation on the circuit was thrown down in the
compound resonating chamber, which, by the instantaneous multiplication
of the volume induced thereby, caused an explosion bursting the metal
casing which enclosed the forty resonators, completely dismantling the
Liberator. The shock took my senses from me for a few moments, but I was
not even scratched this time. A part of the wall was torn away, and
resonators and vibrators were thrown all over the room. The neighbourhood
was quite lively for a time, but I quieted all fears by telling the frightened
ones that I was only experimenting. I allowed everything to remain until Dr.
Woods and Mr. Collier had seen the effect of the explosion.”

The orders of intensification for accelerating dissociation would not be
understood by any explanations that could be made, if unaccompanied by
the demonstrations witnessed by the late Professor Leidy, Dr. Brinton, and
others.

When the ether flows from a tube, its negative centre represents molecular
sub-division, carrying interstitially (or between its molecules) the lowest
order of liberated ozone. This is the first order of ozone and is wonderfully
refreshing and vitalizing to those who breathe it. The second order, or
atomic separation, releases a much higher grade of ozone; in fact, too pure
for inhalation, as it produces insensibility. The third order, or etheric, is the
one that has been (though attended with much danger to the operator)
utilized by Keely in his carbon register to produce the circuit of high
vibration that breaks up the molecular magnetism which is recognized as
cohesion.

The acceleration of these orders is governed by the introductory impulse on
a certain combination of vibratory chords, arranged for this purpose in the

instrument, with which Keely dissociates the elements of water; and which
he calls a liberator.

In molecular dissociation one fork of 620 is used, setting the chords on the
first octave.

In atomic separation, two forks: one of 620 and one of 630 per second;
setting the chords on the second octave.

In the etheric three forks: one of 620, one of 630, and one of 12,000, setting
the chords on the third octave.

Keely’s Three Systems.

My first system is the one which requires introductory mediums of
differential gravities, air and water, to induce disturbance of equilibrium on
the liberation of vapour, which only reached the inter-atomic position and
was held there by the submersion of the molecular and atomic leads in the
‘generator’ I then used. It was impossible with these mediums to go beyond
the atomic with this instrument; and I could not dispense with the water
until my liberator was invented, nor reach the maximum of the full line of
vibration. My first system embraces liberator engine and gun.

“My second system of dissociation I consider complete, as far as the
liberation of the ether is concerned, but not sufficiently complete, as yet, in
its devices for indicating and governing the vibratory etheric circuit, to
make it a safe medium.

“My third system embraces aerial and sub-marine navigation. The
experimental sphere intended to test the combination of the positive and
negative rotation is nearly completed.

… “I have done everything that I could do to demonstrate the integrity of
my inventions, and I will never again allow my devices to be submitted to
examinations; not that I am afraid they will be stolen, but I do not wish to
have the construction of my improved mechanical devices known until my
patents are taken out. Nor will I ever again make a statement, specifying the

time when certain work will be finished. If I thought to-morrow would end
all my struggles on this system, I would not say so. I have been a great
sufferer from my inability to keep my promises, fully believing in my
power to keep them, and now I must and will prove that all is right before I
promise.

… “The work on the vibratory engine is progressing rapidly. I spend an
hour or two every day at the shop where my work is being done, examining
every part of it critically as it is being put together. The safety arrangements
which I am having attached to my liberator will greatly improve it. Its
operation will now be conducted with a gum bulb instead of a violin bow,
the pressure of which gives the introductory chord of impulse that vitalizes
the whole machine. The chords will all be set in progressive sympathy from
the first octave to the fortieth ….

“I have been writing out some of my theories as to sound and odour. These
two subjects have intensified me considerably of late, on account of the
peculiar position they occupy in their lines of sub-division; as also the
peculiar laws that govern them in their dissemination. I see the time
approaching when I will be able to write up my system of the true
philosophy of nature’s grandest force, and have at my control the proper
apparatus to analyze and demonstrate all the progressive links of
transmittive sympathy from the crude molecular to the high etheric.”…

“December 17th, 1885.—The setting up of the circles for computing the
different lines of etheric chords, in setting the vibratory conditions for
continuity, requires close study. I feel convinced that a perfect solution of
my difficulties will follow when this part of the work has been completed;
and that, before many weeks have passed, a revelation will be unfolded that
will startle the world; a revelation, so simple in its character, that the
physicists will stand aghast, and perhaps feel humiliated by the nature of
their efforts in the past to solve certain problems …. I find my chief trouble
in chording up the masses of the different parts composing the negative
centres. The negative centre is included in the one-third volume of shell or
sphere, starting from the neutral axis or point of suspension. This point of
suspension only becomes perfect when the rotation is established on the

sphere. One hundred revolutions per minute is all the velocity required to
neutralize the gravity of the central third with the velocity of the vibratory
circuit at one hundred thousand per second. Taking all matters into
consideration associated with the mechanical part of the enterprise, the
month of January ought to find all completed, ready for sympathetic
graduation. But I fear to be too sanguine when I remember the loss of time
and the interferences from exhibitions to which I have been subjected in the
past. I feel more and more the great importance of devoting all my energies
to the great task that Divine Power has ordained me to perform.”…

At the close of the year 1885, everything seemed to promise full and
complete success during the coming year. Mr. Charles Collier, the patent
lawyer, shared Keely’s confidence in the near completion of his “struggles.”
The stock-holders were enthusiastic, and the stockbrokers were on the qui
vive, anticipating a great rise in the shares of The Keely Motor Company.
Mr. Collier had written in August to Major Ricarde-Seaver1: “The Bank of
England is not more solid than is our enterprise. My belief is that the
present year will see us through, patents and all.”

The journals had ceased to ridicule, and some of them were giving serious
attention to the possibilities lying hidden in the discovery of an unknown
force. In 1886, Mr. William Walsh, editor of “Lippincott’s Magazine,”
accepted a paper on the subject, publishing it in the September number. It
was entitled Keely’s Etheric Force.

This was the first article accepted by any Philadelphia editor, setting forth
Keely’s claims on the public for the patience and protection which the
discoverer of a force in nature needs, while researching the unknown laws
that govern its operation. Up to this time Keely had been held responsible
for the errors made in the premature organization of a Keely Motor
Company, and the selling of stock before there was anything to give in
return for the money paid in by investors.

1 This electrician took the first box of stored electricity from Paris to Sir William Thomson (now
Lord Kelvin) in Edinburgh; and as early as in 1884 he had convinced himself that Keely had grounds
for his claims as a discoverer of an unknown force in nature. ↑

CHAPTER IV.

SYMPATHETIC VIBRATORY FORCE, 1887.
The teleological view was opposed to the mechanical, which
regarded the universe as a collocation of mere facts without
any further significance. The mechanical view looked
backward to the antecedents of a phenomenon, and
explained things by reducing them to their lowest terms; the
teleological or philosophical view looked forward to the end
or purpose which was being realized, which was the reason
of the whole development, and in the deepest sense its
cause. Mechanical explanation was an infinite progress,
which could ultimately explain nothing; in the last resort,
causæ efficientes pendent a finalibus. In defining the nature
of the end which it thus asserted, philosophy had to wage
unsparing battle against the naturalistic tendencies of our
time.—(From a Review of Professor Seth’s address delivered
in Glasgow in 1891.)

In 1887, a series of articles appeared in The British Mercantile Gazette, then
edited by Mr. Arthur Goddard. The June number devoted more than eight
columns to the progress and present position of the discoverer of Etheric
Force.

To the Editor of the British Mercantile Gazette.

Sir,—Dr. Ziermann, a German writer, has said that a great deal of sound sense and moral
courage are required to introduce ideas which will only be recognised as truth after the
lapse of time. He adds, “Nay, even to recognize their truth will require more understanding
than falls to the share of most men.” The day will come, I think, when your action in giving
the pages of your journal to quotations from Mr. Keely’s papers on Etheric Physics and
Etheric Philosophy, will make known your claim to this ‘understanding.’ In the meantime,
you have, by your appreciation of his labours and your sympathy in his trials, extended that
assistance to the discoverer of this newly-known force in Nature which is more powerful
than any other agent in inspiring to renewed efforts; after ridicule and calumny, long
continued, have done their worst towards depressing the vital centres of nerve-force. When
Mr. Keely has made known the law of sympathetic association to the world, the full
meaning of the words “sympathy,” “help,” “consolation,” will be better understood than

they are now. The most important discoveries, the most difficult problems of research, the
most arduous scientific labours have been achieved by men who have battled with
persecution and contempt at every step of their progress; enduring all, as he has done, with
patience; in the full assurance that the glorious truths entrusted to him to reveal will, in the
end, be proclaimed for the advancement of the race. “The nobler the soul,” writes Ouida,
“the more sensitive it is to the blows of injustice.” Cicero tells us that praise stimulates
great souls into greater exertions; and Plutarch said that souls are sensitive to sympathy, to
praise, and to blame, in exact proportions to the fineness of their fibre. Mr. Keely proves
this truth by actual tests, as will be seen in time, to the satisfaction of all investigators.

Every branch of science, every doctrine of extensive application, has had its alphabet, its
rudiments, its grammar; indeed, at each fresh step in the path of discovery, the researcher
has to work out by experiments the unknown laws which govern his discovery. Ignorant
himself, he builds up his knowledge upon a foundation which, uncertain as it must be at
first, becomes as secure as that of Gibraltar rocks when, one by one, he has removed the
misshapen stones of error, and replaced them with the hewn granite blocks of truth. To
attempt to introduce scientists, without any previous preparation, to any new system, no
matter how solid its foundation, would be like giving a book published in Greek to a man
to read who had never before seen its characters. We do not expect a complicated problem
in the higher mathematical analysis to be solved by one who is ignorant of the elementary
rules of arithmetic. Just as futile would it be to expect scientists to comprehend the laws of
etheric physics and etheric philosophy at one glance.

‘There are some secrets which, who knows not now,
Must, ere he reach them, climb the heapy Alps
Of science, and devote long years to toil.’

Norman Lockyer, in his ‘Chemistry of the Sun,’ writes of molecules that ‘one feels as if
dealing with something that is more like a mental than a physical attribute—a sort of
expression of free will on the part of the molecules.’ Herein lies one of the secrets of Mr.
Keely’s so-called ‘compound secret.’ Again, Mr. Lockyer writes: ‘The law which connects
radiation with absorption, and at once enables us to read the riddle set by the sun and stars,
is, then, simply the law of sympathetic vibration.’ This is the very corner-stone of Mr.
Keely’s philosophy—yes, even of his discovery.

It has been said that all great men who have lived, or who now live, have been indebted for
their knowledge to teachers or to books; but all progress depends upon the use made of
such knowledge when acquired. In order to bear fruit, knowledge must be increased by
reflection, and by placing the mind in that attitude which brings into play the powers of
intuition; or, rather, placing it in the receptive state which admits of the in-flowing of what
is called inspiration.

Molecular vibration is Keely’s legitimate field of research. In this field his discovery was
made, many years since; but it is only now, within this year, that he has reached any
approach to a solution of the stupendous problems which have arisen barring and baffling
all progress, at times, towards the complete subjugation and control of the force that he had
discovered. Again and again has he invited the attention of scientists to his discovery, from
the commencement of his researches; but the few scientists who condescended to accept

his invitations were so ignorant of the mysteries which they sought to investigate—of ‘the
alphabet and rudiments’ of etheric physics—that they found it easier to accuse him of
jugglery and of fraud than to account for the phenomena that they witnessed. They
addressed their report to a public even more ignorant than themselves, if such a thing could
be possible, with the result of preventing other scientists, who would have better
understood the experiments, from examining into Keely’s claims, as the discoverer of an
unknown force. A system of doctrine can be legitimately refuted only upon its own
principles, viz., by disproving its facts, and invalidating the principles deduced from them.
It is, then, the facts, and not the opinions of the ignorant or the prejudiced, which are of
chief importance here, as in all other questions of moment.

All those men who have witnessed the production of etheric force and its application
experimentally, during the exhibitions given at various times, have, if capable of
understanding such a marvellous discovery as Keely has made, agreed to a man in bearing
testimony, at the time, that no known force could have produced such results under the
same conditions.

It is now three years since Keely invited certain English men of science (experimenting in
the same field where his explorations commenced) to examine his Liberator; which was
dismantled for the purpose, and all its parts assembled for examination before being put
together for the production of etheric force, when these men refused to visit his workshop,
and it has been said that a Professor of the University of Pennsylvania prevented the
investigation by his assertion that compressed air is the force used by Keely with which to
dupe his audiences. A schoolboy’s knowledge of the change of temperature always
accompanying the compression of air would prevent such an assertion from being made by
anyone who had witnessed the operation of the Liberator in the production and storage of
etheric force, during which there is not the slightest change of temperature. Had these
English scientists, with their knowledge of acoustics, been present on the occasion referred
to, no such groundless assertion would have possessed any influence with either; and the
world of science would have sooner known and acknowledged the nature and the worth of
this great discovery.

Roget says that if we are to reason at all, we can reason only upon the principle that for
every effect there must exist a corresponding cause; or, in other words, that there is an
established and invariable order of sequence among the changes which take place in the
universe. The bar to all further reasoning lies in the fact that there are men who, admitting
all the phenomena we behold are the effects of certain causes, still say that these causes are
utterly unknown to us, and that their discovery is wholly beyond the reach of our faculties.
Those who urge this do not seem to be aware that its general application in every sense
would shake the foundation of every kind of knowledge—even that which we regard as
built upon the most solid basis. Of causation it is agreed that we know nothing; all that we
do know is that one event succeeds another with undeviating constancy; and what do we
know of magnetism, electricity, galvanism, but such facts as have been elicited by the
labours of experimental enquirers, and the laws which have been deduced from their
generalization? Would it be considered a sufficient reason for the absolute rejection of any
of these facts—or a whole class of facts—that we are still ignorant of the principle upon
which they depend, and that such knowledge is beyond our reach? Facts are every day
believed, upon observation, or upon testimony, which we should be exceedingly puzzled to

account for, if called upon to do so. Every man who has passed the mere threshold of
science ought to be aware that it is quite possible to be in possession of a series of facts,
long before he is capable of giving a rational and satisfactory explanation of them; in short,
before he is enabled to discover their causes. Also that he must classify his facts and
construct hypotheses before he can impart his experimental position to others. Many things
which were, for a long time, treated as fabulous and incredible have been proved, in our
age, to be authentic facts, as soon as the evidence in support of them was duly subjected to
the crucible of scientific investigation. Take, for example, Professor Dewar’s researches in
the cause, or origin, of meteoric stones. Fortunately for his branches of research and
experiment, he is possessed of that philosophical spirit and energy which enables him to
divest himself of all prejudice, and, in constructing his theories, to welcome the evidence
of truth from whatever quarter it approaches. More than two thousand years elapsed
between the first record of the phenomenon, by Anaxagoras, and Mr. Howard’s
observations in 1802, during which time the fact was disputed most strenuously by many,
while, in our time, Professor Dewar’s explanations of the same, upon intelligible and
satisfactory principles, have confirmed the statements made centuries ago. How few the
years, in comparison, since Keely’s grand discovery first broke upon his own mind, which
he has devoted to experiment, to invention, to the classification of facts, and the building
up of hypotheses, before reaching the goal of his desires. Men will marvel at the shortness
of the period when all that he has accomplished is made known. The delays which have
occurred in bringing before the world the actual discovery of this primal force, from which
all the forces of nature spring, have been in part occasioned by the want of that sympathy
and appreciation which Keely would have received from his fellow-men, had scientists
believed him to be honest in his claims. He would not then have been left in the merciless
hands of “a ring,” which gave or withheld financial aid according as he could be
“thumbscrewed,” into giving exhibitions for speculative ends on the part of “the ring.”
These costly days of delay are now a thing of the past. Keely’s programme of work for the
remainder of the year embraces such exhibitions of his progress as can be given without
interfering with this programme.

Coleridge says in “Table Talk,”—“I have seen what I am certain I would not have believed
on your telling; and in all reason, therefore, I can neither expect nor wish that you should
believe on mine.” It is of all tasks the most difficult to procure any favourable reception for
doctrines which are objectionable only because they are deemed to be incompatible with
preconceived notions. It does not answer to disturb the calmness of views now held by our
most eminent physicists, who seem to expect that nature will always accommodate her
operations to their preconceived notions of possibility, and adapt her phenomena to their
arbitrary systems of philosophy. We are all familiar with the anecdote of the wise Indian
potentate who imagined that his informant was imposing upon his credulity when giving
him an accurate description of the steam-engine. Now what would be thought of that
philosopher who, in attempting to communicate an adequate idea of the operation of the
steam-engine, should content himself with a mere description of its mechanism—of its
wheels and levers, and cylinders and pistons—keeping entirely out of view the moving
power—the steam; and ridiculing all investigation into the nature, application, and
phenomena of this power. Yet this is exactly what microscopic observers of the animal
economy call “absurd and useless inquiry.” The true springs of our organization are not
these muscles, these arteries, these nerves, which are described and experimented upon
with so much care and exactness. They are hidden springs, the action of which are as

miracles to those who have vainly tried to account for the motion of the muscles at the
command of the will; for the power of vision, which places the human eye in intimate and
immediate connection with the soul—dependent as they are upon unknown laws, assigned
them by the great, omniscient and omnipotent Being by whom they were originally
created, and Who is the one source of all power.

Although in our present ordinary state of existence we are permitted to see only “as
through a glass darkly,” ignorant of many of the powers and processes of nature, as well as
of the causes to which they are to be ascribed, we are not, therefore, entitled to set limits to
her operations, and to say to her, “Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further! “We must not
presume, says Glanvill, to assign bounds to the exercise of the power of the Almighty, nor
are these operations and that power to be controlled by the arbitrary theories and capricious
fancies of man. We are surrounded by the incredible—the seemingly miraculous. Who
would not ask for demonstration when told that a gnat’s wing, in its ordinary flight, beats
many hundred times in a second? But what is this, when compared to the astonishing truths
which modern optical inquiries reveal—such as teach us that the sensation of violet light
affects our eyes 707 millions of millions of times per second in order to effect that
sensation?

How strangely must they estimate nature, how highly must they value their own conceits,
who deny the possibility of any cause of any effect, merely because it is incomprehensible.
In fact, what do men comprehend? What do they know of causes? When Newton said that
gravitation held the world together, he assigned no reason why the heavenly bodies do not
fly off from each other into infinite space. The discoverer of etheric force is able to give the
reasons for, and the explanations of, the laws involved in all that he asserts; or, rather, all
that he propounds; for, with the true humility of wisdom, he asserts nothing. Newton at
first thought that he had discovered in electricity the ether which he asserted pervades all
nature, until, by repeated experiments, he became convinced of the insufficiency of that
principle to explain the phenomena. Other philosophers have speculated upon magnetism
in the same way, and upon the similarity between magnetism and electricity. Mr. Keely’s
experiments show that the two are, in part, antagonistic, and that both are but modifications
of the one force in nature. There have been some physiologists who have maintained that
the nerves are merely the conductors of some fluid from the brain and spinal cord to the
different parts of the body, and that this circulating fluid is capable of an external
expansion, which takes place with such energy as to form an atmosphere, or sphere of
activity, similar to that of electrical bodies. Dr. Roget observes that the velocity with which
the nerves subservient to sensation transmit the impressions they receive at one extremity,
along their whole course, exceeds all measurement, and can be compared only to that of
electricity passing along a conducting wire. A comparison with gravity would have been
nearer the truth, though no computation ever has been made, or ever can be made, between
the flight of gravity and of electricity, so infinitely swifter is the former.

Béclard almost completely demonstrated the truth of Roget’s hypothesis concerning the
action of “the nervous fluid” by cutting a nerve of considerable size, adjoining a muscle,
which induced paralysis in this part. Perceiving the contractile action reappear, when he
approached the two ends of the nerve to the distance of three lines, he became convinced
that an imponderable substance, a fluid of some kind, traversed the interval of separation,
in order to restore the muscular action. By another experiment he demonstrated its striking

analogy to galvanic electricity. The late Professor Keil, of Jena, also made some very
interesting experiments of the same character, one of which tends to demonstrate the
susceptibility of the nervous system to the magnetic influence, and the efficacy of the
magnet in the cure of certain infirmities. It was communicated by him to a meeting of the
Royal Society of London more than fifty years since. If we are justified, then, in assuming
the existence of this nervous fluid, writes Colquhoun, in 1836, whether secreted by, or
merely conducted by the nerves, and of its analogy to the other known, active, and
imponderable fluids, and of its capability of external expansion, as in the case of electricity,
it does not appear to be a very violent or unwarrantable proceeding to extend the
hypothesis a little further, and to infer that it is also capable of being transmitted or directed
outwards, either involuntarily or by the volition of one individual, with such energy as to
produce certain real and perceptible effects upon the organism of another, in a manner
analogous to what is known to occur in the case of the torpedo the gymnotus-electricus,
etc.

Should it be that Mr. Keely’s compound secret includes any explanation of this operation
of will-force, showing that it may be cultivated, in common with the other powers which
God has given us, we shall then recover some of the knowledge lost out of the world, or
retained only in gipsy tribes and among Indian adepts.

The effects of the law of sympathetic association, which Mr. Keely demonstrates as the
governing medium of the universe, find illustrations in inanimate nature. What else is the
influence which one string of a lute has upon a string of another lute when a stroke upon it
causes a proportionable motion and sound in the sympathizing consort, which is distant
from it, and not perceptibly touched? It has been found that, in a watchmaker’s shop, the
timepieces, or clocks, connected with the same wall or shelf, have such a sympathetic
effect in keeping time, that they stop those which beat in irregular time; and, if any are at
rest, set those going which beat accurately. Norman Lockyer deals with the law of
sympathetic association as follows:—“While in the giving out of light we are dealing with
molecular vibration taking place so energetically as to give rise to luminous radiation,
absorption phenomena afford no evidence of this motion of the molecules when their
vibrations are far less violent.”… “The molecules are so apt to vibrate each in its own
period that they will take up vibrations from light which is passing among them, provided
always that the light thus passing among them contains the proper vibrations.”… “Let us
try to get a mental image of what goes on. There is an experiment in the world of sound
which will help us.”… “Take two large tuning-forks, mounted on sounding-boxes, and
tuned to exact unison. One of the forks is set in active vibration by means of a fiddle-bow,
and then brought near to the other one, the open mouths presented to each other. After a
few moments, if the fork originally sounded is damped to stop its sound, it will be found
that the other fork has taken up the vibration, and is sounding distinctly. If the two forks are
not in unison, no amount of bowing of the one will have the slightest effect in producing
sound from the other.”

Although physicists know that this extraordinary influence exists between inanimate
objects as a class, they look upon the human organism as little more than a machine, taking
small interest in researches which evince the dominion of mind over matter. Keely’s
experimental research in this province has shown him that it is neither the electric nor the
magnetic flow, but the etheric, which sends its current along our nerves; that the electric or

the magnetic bears an infinitely small ratio to that of an etheric flow, both as to velocity
and tenuity; that true coincidents can exist between any mediums—cartilage to steel, steel
to wood, wood to stone, and stone to cartilage; that the same influence (sympathetic
association) which governs all the solids holds the same governing influence over all
liquids; and again, from liquid to solid, embracing the three kingdoms, animal, vegetable
and mineral; that the action of mind over matter thoroughly substantiates these
incontrovertible laws of sympathetic etheric influence; that the only true medium which
exists in nature is the sympathetic flow emanating from the normal human brain, governing
correctly the graduating and setting-up of the true sympathetic vibratory positions in
machinery necessary to success; that these flows come in on the order of the fifth and
seventh positions of atomic subdivision, compound ether a resultant of this subdivision;
that, if metallic mediums are brought under the influence of this sympathetic flow they
become organisms which carry the same influence with them that the human brain does
over living physical positions—that the composition of the metallic and of the physical are
one and the same thing, although the molecular arrangement of the physical may be
entirely opposite to the metallic on their aggregations; that the harmonious chords induced
by sympathetic positive vibration permeate the molecules in each, notwithstanding, and
bring about the perfect equation of any differentiation that may exist—in one, the same as
in the other—and thus they become one and the same medium1 for sympathetic
transmission; that the etheric flow is of a tenuity coincident to the condition governing the
seventh subdivision of matter—a condition of subtlety that readily and instantaneously
permeates all forms of aggregated matter, from air to solid hammered steel—the velocity
of the permeation being the same with the one as with the other; that the tenuity of the
etheric flow is so infinitely fine that any magnifying glass, the power of which would
enlarge the smallest grain of sand to the size of the sun, brought to bear upon it, would not
make it visible to us; that light, traversing at the speed of 200,000 miles per second a
distance requiring a thousand centuries to reach, would be traversed by the etheric flow in
an indefinite fragment of a second.

These are some of the problems which Mr. Keely has had to solve before he could adapt
his vibratory machinery to the etheric flow. The true conditions for transmitting it
sympathetically through a differential wire of platinum and silver have now been attained,
after eight years of intense study and elaborate experiment. The introductory indications
began to show themselves about two years ago, but the intermissions on transmission were
so frequent and so great as to discourage Mr. Keely from further research on this line. Then
came one of those “inspirations” which men call “accident,” revealing to him “the true
conditions” necessary to produce a sympathetic flow, free of differentiation, proving
conclusively the truth of his theory of the law governing the atomic triplets in their
association. Differentiation, by compound negative vibration of their neutral centres,
causes antagonism, and thus the great attractive power that aggregates them becomes one
of dispersion or expansion, accompanied by immense velocity of rotation, which carries its
influence through the whole volume of air, 230 cubic inches contained in sphere, within its
33⅓ chord of its circle of coincidence. By this wire of platinum and silver the current of
force is now passed to run the vibratory disk, thus altogether upsetting the “compressed
air” theory of Professor Barker, Dr. Hall, and others of less note.

“In setting the conditions of molecular sympathetic transmission by wire,” writes Keely,
“the same law calls for the harmonious adjustment of the thirds, to produce a non-

intermittent flow of sympathy. Intermission means failure here. That differential molecular
volume is required, in two different mediums of molecular density, to destroy
differentiation of sympathetic flow, seems at first sight to controvert the very law
established by the great Creator, which constitutes harmony—a paradoxical position which
has heretofore misled physicists who have propounded and set forth most erroneous
doctrines, because they have accepted the introductory conditions, discarding their
sympathetic surroundings. The volume of the neutral centre of the earth is of no more
magnitude than the one of a molecule: the sympathetic condition of one can be reached in
the same time as the other by its coincident chord.”

Thus it will be seen what difficulties Keely has encountered in his persevering efforts to
use the etheric flow in vibratory machinery. One by one he has conquered each, attaining
the transmission of the etheric current in the same manner as the electric current, with this
one notable difference—that, in order to show insulation to the sceptical, he passes the
etheric current through blocks of glass in running his vibratory devices.

When Keely’s system is finished, then, and not until then, all that is involved in his
discovery will be made known to the world.

Note.

Five years after this paper on Etheric force was written, Dr. Henry Wood, of
Boston, wrote an article, which appeared in The Arena of October, 1891,
having the title Healing through Mind. Dr. Wood says: “Truth may be
considered as a rounded unit. Truths have various and unequal values, but
each has its peculiar place, and if it be missing or distorted, the loss is not
only local but general. Unity is made up of variety, and therein is
completeness. Any honest search after truth is profitable, for thereby is
made manifest the kingdom of the real ….

“We forget that immaterial forces rule not only the invisible but the visible
universe. Matter, whether in the vegetable, animal, or human organism, is
moulded, shaped, and its quality determined by unseen forces back of and
higher than itself. We rely upon the drug, because we can feel, taste, see,
and smell it. We are colour-blind to invisible potency of a higher order, and
practically conclude that it is non-existent.”—Healing through Mind.

1 The stretching of a catgut chord over a resonator set to the chord of B flat is precisely the same
in its resultant issue as the steel wire set over the same resonator. ↑

CHAPTER V.

ETHERIC VIBRATION. THE KEY FORCE.
Discovery is not invention.—Edison.

Science has been compared to a stately and wide-spreading tree, stretching
outward and upward its ever-growing boughs. As yet mankind has reached
only to its lowermost branches, too often satisfied with the dead calyxes
which have fallen from it to the ground, after serving their uses for the
protection of the vital germs of truth. The seed of the next advance in
science can only germinate as the dry husk decays, within which its
potentiality was secretly developed.

For upwards of ten centuries false portions of the philosophy of Aristotle
enslaved the minds of civilized Europe, only, at last, to perish and pass
away like withered leaves.

The most perfect system of philosophy must always be that which can
reconcile and bring together the greatest number of facts that can come
within the sphere of the subject. In this consists the sole glory of Newton,
whose discovery rests upon no higher order of proof. In the words of Dr.
Chalmers, “Authority scowled upon this discovery, taste was disgusted by
it, and fashion was ashamed of it. All the beauteous speculation of former
days was cruelly broken up by this new announcement of the better
philosophy, and scattered like the fragments of an aerial vision, over which
the past generations of the world had been slumbering in profound and
pleasing reverie.”

Thus we see that time is no sure test of a doctrine, nor ages of ignorance
any standard by which to measure a system. Facts can have a value only
when properly represented and demonstrated by proof. Velpeau said nothing
can lie like a fact. Sir Humphry Davy asserted that no one thing had so
much checked the progress of philosophy as the confidence of teachers in
delivering dogmas as facts, which it would be presumptuous to question.

This reveals the spirit which made the crude physics of Aristotle the natural
philosophy of Europe.

The philosophy of vibratory rotation, which is yet to be propounded to the
world, reveals the identity of facts which seem dissimilar, binding together
into a system the most unconnected and unlike results of experience,
apparently. John Worrell Keely, the discoverer of an unknown force and the
propounder of a pure philosophy, learned at an early stage of his researches
not to accept dogmas as truths, finding it safer to trust to that “inner light”
which has guided him than to wander after the ignis fatuus of a false
system. He has been like a traveller exploring an unknown zone in the
shade of night, losing his way at times, but ever keeping before him the
gleam of breaking day which dawned upon him at the start. Scientists have
kept aloof from him, or, after superficial examinations, have branded him as
“a modern Cagliostro,” “a wizard,” “a magician,” and “a fraud.” Calumnies
he never stoops to answer, for he knows that when his last problem is
solved to his own satisfaction his discovery and his inventions will defend
him in trumpet tones around our globe. Buchanan says, “Who would expect
a society of learned men, the special cultivators and guardians of science, as
they claim to be, to know as much of the wonderful philosophy now
developing as those who have no artificial reputation to risk in expressing
an opinion, no false and inflated conceptions of dignity and stability to hold
them back, and who stand ready to march on from truth to truth as fast and
far as experimental demonstration can lead them?”

Johnson tells us that the first care of the builder of a new system is to
demolish the fabrics that are standing. But the cobwebs of age cannot be
disturbed without rousing the bats, to whom daylight is death.

When has Nature ever whispered her secrets but for the advancement of our
race on that royal road which leads to the subjugation of the power she
reveals? But not until the inspiration of thought has done its work in
applying the power to mechanics, can the tyrant thus encountered be
transformed into the slave.

So was it with steam, so has it been with electricity, and so will it be with
vibratory force. All experience shows that the steady progress of the patient
study of what are termed Nature’s laws does not attract public attention
until there are some practical results. Professor Tyndall has said that the
men who go close to the mouth of Nature and listen to her communications
leave the discoveries they make for the benefit of posterity to be developed
by practical men. The invention of vibratory machinery for the liberation
and the operation in mechanics of sympathetic force is an instance where
practical application of the discovery may be made by the discoverer. After
years of experiments with this force, what does the public know of its
nature? Nothing; for as yet no practical results have been obtained. Here is
a power sustaining the same relations to electricity that the trunk of a tree
does to its branches,—the discovery of which heralds to the scientific world
possibilities affecting motive industries, such as should command the
attention of all men; and yet it is known only as a theme for jest and ridicule
and reproach! And why is this? Partly from the mismanagement of a
prematurely-organized Keely Motor Company, and partly because men
competent to judge for themselves have preferred to take the opinion of
others not competent, instead of investigating each for himself.

Attempts to interest scientists in the marvellous mechanism by which
etheric force is evolved from the atmosphere have failed, even as Galileo
failed at Padua to persuade the principal professor of philosophy there to
look at the moon and planets through his glasses. The professor
pertinaciously refused, as wrote Galileo to his friend Kepler. Mankind hate
truth, said Lady Mary Montague: she should have said, mankind hate new
truths. The most simple and rational advances in medical science have been
received with scorn and derision, or with stupid censure. Harvey was
nicknamed “the circulator”1 after his discovery of the circulation of the
blood,—which discovery was ridiculed by his colleagues and compeers.
The same reception awaited Jenner’s introduction of vaccination.

The revelation of new truths is compared to the upheaval of rocks which
reveal deeply-hidden strata. Stolid conservatism dislikes and avoids such
facts, because they involve new thinking and disturb old theories. The
leaden weight of scepticism drags down the minds of many, paralyzing their

power of reasoning upon facts which reveal truth, from another standpoint
than their own, with new simplicity and grandeur in the divine laws of the
universe. Others there are, embracing the majority of mankind, according to
Hazlitt, who stick to an opinion that they have long supported, and that
supports them. But whenever a discovery or invention has made its way so
well by itself as to achieve reputation, most people assert that they always
believed in it from the first; and so will it be with Keely’s inventions, in
time.

In our day so rapidly are anticipations realized and sanguine hopes
converted into existing facts, one wonderful discovery followed by another,
that it is strange to find men possessing any breadth of intellect rejecting
truths from hearsay, instead of examining all things and holding fast to the
truth. The laws of sympathetic association need only to be demonstrated
and understood to carry conviction of their truth with them. They control
our world and everything in it, from matter to spirit. They control all the
systems of worlds in the universe; for they are the laws which Kepler
predicted would in this century he revealed to man. The divine element is
shown by these laws to be like the sun behind the clouds,—the source of all
light, though itself unseen.

Already the existence of this unknown force is as well established as was
the expansive power of steam in the days when the world looked on and
laughed at Rumsey and Fitch and Fulton while they were constructing their
steamboats. Even when they were used for inland navigation, men of
science declared ocean navigation by steam impracticable, up to the very
hour of its consummation. In like manner with electricity, scientists
declared an ocean telegraph impossible, asserting that the current strong
enough to bear messages would melt the wires. Nothing could be more
unpopular than railways were at their start. In England, Stephenson’s were
called “nuisances,” and false prophets arose then (as now with Keely’s
inventions) to foretell their failure. It was predicted that they would soon be
abandoned, and, if not given up, that they would starve the poor, destroy
canal interests, crush thousands in fearful accidents, and cover the land with
horror.

When I say that the existence of this force is established, I do not mean that
it is established by a favourable verdict from public opinion,—which, as
Douglas Jerrold said, is but the average stupidity of mankind, and which is
always steadily and persistently opposed to great and revolutionary
discoveries. Establishment consists in convincing men competent to judge
that the effects produced by etheric force could not be caused by any known
force. And it is now years since such a verdict was first given, substantiated
repeatedly since, by the testimony of men as incapable of fraud or collusion
as is the discoverer himself.

Newton, in discovering the existence of a force which we call gravity, did
not pursue his investigations sufficiently far to proclaim a power which
neutralizes or overcomes gravity, the existence of which Keely
demonstrates in his vibratory-lift experiments.

But it is one thing to discover a force in nature, and quite another thing to
control it. It is one thing to lasso a wild horse, and quite another thing to
subdue the animal, harness it, bridle it, and get the curb-bit in the mouth.

Keely has lassoed his wild horse; he has harnessed it and bridled it; and
when he has the bit in its place, this force will take its stand with steam and
electricity, asking nothing, and giving more than science ever before
conferred on the human race.

The Home Journal of October 20th, 1886, contained a paper which
possesses some interest as having been written at the time Mr. Keely was
using what he called a “Liberator,” which enabled him to dispense with the
use of water; but he was obliged to return to his former method soon after.

Etheric Vibration.

The late editor of the New York Home Journal, noticing the preceding
paper, which appeared in Lippincott’s Magazine, asks:—“But is not this
new force too mighty to be managed by mere earthly instruments, such as
iron, copper, or lead? It is the key force, the one that presided over the
creation of these very metals, and can it reasonably be expected to be caged
and fettered by them? Can the bubble withstand the onset of the wave, of
which it is a mere drift?”

When lightning was first drawn from the clouds by Franklin, did it occur to
any man living to predict that electricity (which Keely defines as a certain
form of atomic vibration) could be stored, to use at will as a motive power?
If atomic vibration can be made to serve the purposes of mechanics, why
not etheric vibration?

But let Keely answer for himself. Some years since he wrote as follows:
—“In analyzing theoretically the mechanical standard necessary for a
solution of the philosophy of ‘Etheric Vibration,’ and the systematic
mechanism to produce a rotating circle of etheric force, I must admit that
the phenomenon, as presented to myself, by seeming accident, after almost
a lifetime of study, still partially holds itself to my understanding as
paradoxical. After constructing many mechanical devices in my vain
attempts to come more closely to what I term a radiaphonic vibratory
position, with microphonic adjustments, I have only been able to reach a
few true and standard positions, which I can satisfactorily analyze. There is
but one principle underlying all, and this principle is the key to the
problem.”

Keely continues with an explanation of the mechanism of his generator,
which he invented and constructed for the multiplication of vibrations,
under the disturbance of equilibrium by mediums of different specific
gravities—air as one, water as the other. He has since abandoned the
generator for a vibratory machine which he calls a “liberator,” in which no
water is used to develop the force: the disturbance of the equilibrium being
effected by a medium thoroughly vibratory in its character. The vapour
which Keely produces from this liberator is perfectly free from all humidity,
thus giving it a tenuity which he had never been able to reach before, and of

a character most desirable for the perfect and high lines of action. In the
various improvements which Keely has made in his mechanism, feeling his
way in the dark as it were, he sometimes speaks of having “stupidly
stumbled over them,” of “seeming accident,” or “seeming chance,” where
another would call it “inspiration.” “Providence sends chance, and man
moulds it to his own design.” The improvement upon the generator was
conceived by Keely during his desperate struggles to effect a simultaneous
action between the molecular and atomic leads—an action that was
absolutely essential for the full line of continuation. This shorter and
simpler way of reaching his desired end was suggested, in part, to him by a
quotation from some one of our scientific writings, made in a letter that he
received. I am not sure about this quotation, but I think it was: “Nature
works with dual force, but at rest she is a unit.”

“In the image of God made He man,” and in the image of man Keely has
constructed his liberator. Not literally, but, as his vibrophone (for collecting
the waves of sound and making each wave distinct from the other in tone
when the “wave-plate” is struck after the sound has died away) is
constructed after the human ear, so his liberator corresponds in its parts to
the human head.

But to return to the question asked in the Home Journal. “Can this subtle
force reasonably be expected to be caged and fettered by mere earthly
instruments? “This is the answer, as given by Keely himself: “You ask my
opinion regarding my ultimate success in the practical use of etheric force.
My faith is unbounded by doubts. The successful result is as positive as the
revolutions of our globe, and comes under the great law which governs all
nature’s highest and grandest and most sensitive operations.”

Since Keely wrote the above lines he has had time to get discouraged, if he
could know discouragement; but he has conquered too many of the
stupendous problems, which barricaded his way in the past, not to feel
equally sanguine now of eventual success in his last problem, viz. the
attaining of continuity of action, which at the present time seems all but
within his grasp.

Some of his views may prove of interest at a time when his achievements
are beginning to be a little better understood. Gravity he defines as
transmittive inter-etheric force under immense etheric vibration. He
continues:—The action of the mind itself is a vibratory etheric evolution,
controlling the physical, its negative power being depreciatory in its effects,
and its positive influence elevating.

The idea of getting a power as tenuous as this under such control as to make
it useful in mechanics is scouted by all physicists. And no wonder that it is
so. But when the character of the velocity of etheric force, even in a
molecule, is understood, the mind that comprehends it must succumb to its
philosophy. To move suddenly a square inch of air, at the velocity of this
vibratory circuit, on full line of graduation, and at a vibration only of
2,750,000 per second, would require a force at least of twenty-five times
that of gunpowder. Taking the expansive force of gunpowder at 21,000 lbs.
per square inch, it would be 525,000 lbs. per square inch. This is
incomprehensible. The explosion of nitroglycerine, which has two and a
half times less vibrations per second, when placed on the surface of a solid
rock, will tear up the rock before disturbing the equilibrium of the air above
it. The disturbance takes place after the explosion. To induce an action on a
weight of only twenty grains, the weight of a small bird-shot, with a range
of motion of but one inch, giving it an action of one million per second,
would require the actual force of two and a half tons per second; or, in other
words, ten-horse power per minute. Etheric vibration would move tons at
the same velocity when submitted to the vibratory circuit. Thus, the finer
the substance the greater the power and the velocity under such vibration.

The vapour from the liberator, registered at 20,000 pounds per square inch,
has a range of atomic motion of 1333⅓ the diameter of the atmospheric
molecule, with constant rotary vibratory action. At 10,000 pounds, 666⅔; at
5000, 333⅓; at 2500, 166⅔; at 1250, 83⅓; at 625, 41⅔. The higher the
range of atomic motion the greater is its tenuity, and the range is according
to the registered pressure. This rule cannot be applied to any other vapour or
gas at present known to scientists. The very evolution on the negative
shows a vacuum of a much higher order than was ever produced before,
thus confounding, to perfect blindness, all theories that have been brought

to bear upon the situation, in its analysis. The highest vacuum known is 17
999999–1000000 pounds, or not quite 30 inches; but by this process etheric
vacuums have been repeatedly produced of 50 to 57 inches; ranging down
to 30 inches, or 15 pounds. All operations of nature have for their
sensitizing centres of introductory action, triple vacuum evolutions. These
evolutions are centred in what I call atomic triple revolutions, highly
radiaphonic in their character, and thoroughly independent of all outside
forces in their spheres of action. In fact, no conceivable power, however
great, can break up their independent centres. So infinitely minute are they
in their position that, within a circle that would enclose the smallest grain of
sand, hundreds of billions of them perform, with infinite mathematical
precision, their continuous vibratory revolution of inconceivable velocity.

These triple centres are the very foundation of the universe, and the great
Creator has, in His majestic designs, fixed them indissolubly in their
position. Mathematically considered, the respective and relative motion of
these atomic triplets, gravitating to and revolving around each other, is
about one and one-third of their circumference. The problem of this action,
when reduced to a mathematical analysis (presupposing taking it as the
quadrature of the circle) would baffle the highest order of mathematical
science known to bring it to a numerical equation.

The requirement of every demonstration is that it shall give sufficient proof
of the truth it asserts. Any demonstration which does less than this cannot
be relied upon, and no demonstration ever made has done more than this.
We ought to know that the possibilities of success are in proportion as the
means applied are adequate or inadequate for the purpose; and, as different
principles exist in various forms of matter, it is quite impossible to
demonstrate every truth by the same means or the same principles. I look
upon it as the prejudice of ignorance which exacts that every demonstration
shall be given by a prescribed rule of science, as if the science of the
present were thoroughly conversant with every principle that exists in
nature. The majority of physicists exact this, though some of them know
that these means are entirely inadequate. Every revolving body is impressed
by nature with certain laws making it susceptible of the operation of force
which, being applied, impels motion. These laws may all be expressed

under the general term, “Forces,” which, though various in their nature,
possess an equalizing power; controlling each other (as in the case of the
atomic triplets) in such a way that neither can predominate beyond a certain
limit. Consequently, these bodies can never approach nearer each other than
a fixed point: nor recede from each other beyond another certain point.
Hence, these forces are, at some mean point, made perfectly equal, and
therefore may be considered as but one force; therefore as but one element.
It matters not that other and disturbing forces exist outside or inside the
space these bodies revolve in, because if this force must be considered as
acting uniformly—applying itself to each of these bodies in a way to
produce a perfect equation on all, it is as if this outside force were non-
existing.

The true study of the Deity by man being in the observation of His
marvellous works, the discovery of a fundamental, creative law of as wide
and comprehensive grasp as would make this etheric vapour a tangible link
between God and man would enable us to realize, in a measure, the actual
existing working qualities of God Himself (speaking most reverentially) as
he would those of a fellow-man. Such a link would constitute a base or
superstructure of recognition, praise, worship and imitation, such as seems
to underlie the whole Biblical structure as a foundation.—Keely.

Dr. Macvicar, in his theories of the bearing of the cosmical law of
assimilation on molecular action, says: “During this retreat of matter into
ether in single material elements or units of weight, the molecules and
masses from which such vaporization into the common vapour of matter is
going on, may be expected to be phosphorescent.”

This surmise Keely has, over and over, demonstrated, as a fact; also
showing how gravitation operates as a lever: etheric wave motion:
concentration under vibratory concussion: and negative vacuous tenuity.

Mrs. F. J. Hughes, writing upon “Tones and Colours,” advances theories of
her own, which correspond with those demonstrated by Keely. She writes,

in a private letter: “I firmly believe that exactly the same laws as those
which develop sound keep the heavenly bodies in their order. You can even
trace the poles in sound. My great desire is for some philosophical mind to
take up my views, as entirely gained from the Scriptures; and I am certain
that they will be found to be the laws developing every natural science
throughout the universe.”

Thus men and women in various parts of the world who still hold to their
belief in and worship of God, are “standing on ground which is truly
scientific, having nothing to fear from the progress of thought, in so far as it
is entitled to the name of scientific—nay, are in a position to lead the way in
all that can be justly so called.”

1 In Latin “circulator” means “quack.” ↑

CHAPTER VI.

THE FOUNTAIN HEAD OF FORCE.
Those who occupy themselves with the mysteries of
molecular vibration bear the victorious wreaths of successful
discovery, and show that every atom teems with wonders not
less incomprehensible than those of the vast and bright far-
off suns.—Reynolds.

The famous Keely motor, which has been hovering on the
horizon of success for a decade, is but an attempt to repeat in
an engine of metal the play of forces which goes on at the
inmost focus of life, the human will, or in the cosmic spaces
occupied only by the ultimate atoms. The engineer with his
mallet shooting the cannon-ball by means of a few light taps
on a receiver of depolarized atoms of water is only re-
enacting the rôle of the will when with subtle blows it sets
the nerve aura in vibration, and this goes on multiplying in
force and sweep of muscle until the ball is thrown from the
hand with a power proportionate to the one-man machinery.
The inventor Keely seeks a more effective machinery; a
combination of thousands of will-forces in a single arm, as it
were. But he keeps the same vibrating principle, and the
power in both cases is psychical. That is, in its last analysis.
—George Perry.

One eternal and immutable law embraces all things and all
times.—Cicero.

When the truth is made known, it will unwarp the
complications of man’s manufacture; and show everything
in nature to be very simple.—David Sinclair, author of A
New Creed.—Digby, Long & Co.

A gradual change seems to be taking place in the minds of the well-
informed in reference to the discoverer of, and experimenter with, etheric
force—John Worrell Keely—which will in time remove the burden of
accusations from him to those who are responsible for the load which he
has had to carry.

Those who know the most of Mr. Keely’s philosophy, and of his inventions
to apply this new force to mechanics, are the most sanguine as to his

ultimate success. They say he is great enough in soul, wise enough in mind,
and sublime enough in courage to overcome all difficulties, and to stand at
last before the world as the greatest discoverer and inventor in the world:—
that the hour demanded his coming—that he was not born for his great
work before his appointed time. They predict that he will, with the hammer
of science, demolish the idols of science; that the demonstration of the truth
of his system will humble the pride of those scientists who are materialists,
by revealing some of the mysteries which lie behind the world of matter;
proving that physical disintegration affects only the mode, and not the
existence, of individual consciousness.

The discovery of vibratory etheric force, even though never utilized in
mechanics, brings us upon the bridge which divides physical science from
spiritual science, and opens up domains the grandeur and glory of which
eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, nor hath it entered into the mind of
man to conceive. The few who understand the nature and the extent of
Keely’s vast researches say that he is about to give a new philosophy to the
world, which will upset all other systems; they say that he knows what
force is; and that he seeks to know what impels and fixes the neutral centre,
which attracts to itself countless correlations of matter, until it becomes a
world; that he is approaching the origin of life, of memory, and of death;
and more, that he knows how ignorant he still is: possessing the humility of
a little child who knows nothing of science. Such a philosopher deserves the
appreciation and the encouragement of all who hold Truth as the one thing
most worth living for—and dying for, if need be.

What is etheric force? the inquirer asks. It is the soul of nature. It is the
primal force from which all the forces of nature spring.

Fichte writes: “The will is the living principle of the world of spirit, as
motion is of the world of sense. I stand between two opposite worlds; the
one visible, in which the act alone avails; the other invisible and
incomprehensible, acted on only by the will. I am an effective force in both
these worlds.”

Newton said that this subtle ether penetrates through all, even the hardest
bodies, and is concealed in their substance. Through the strength and
activity of this spirit, bodies attract each other, and adhere together when
brought into contact. In it, and by it, distance is annihilated, and all objects
touch each other. Through this “life spirit” light also flows, and is refracted
and reflected, and warms bodies. Through it we are connected in sympathy
with all other souls, and all the objects of nature, even to all the heavenly
bodies. The word ether is from “αἴθω,” to light up or kindle. According to
Pythagoras and all the oldest philosophers, it was viewed as a divine
luminous principle or substance, which permeates all things, and, at the
same time, contains all things. They called it the astral light. The Germans
call it the “Weltgeist,” the breath of the Father, the Holy Ghost, the life-
principle.

The sheet-anchor of Keely’s philosophy is, in the words of Hooker, one
power, ever present, ever ruling, neglecting not the least, not quailing before
the greatest: the lowest not excluded from its care, nor the highest exempted
from its dominion. A power that presents itself to us as a force: the one
force in nature, thrilling to its deepest heart, and flowing forth responsive to
every call. A power which does all things, and assumes all forms; which has
been called electricity in the storm, heat in the fire, magnetism in the iron
bar, light in the taper, but ever one grand reality, one all-embracing law.
Cosmical law at the fountain-head, suggesting that, as the Creator Himself
is only one in substance, so also, primarily, will the creation be, to which
He awards existence. The extreme simplicity of this deduction, made as it is
in the face of all the variety and multiplicity of individualized objects that
there are in the universe, seems to involve many difficulties. But, as
Macvicar writes, different beings, whether classes or individuals, are known
to us, not by any difference in their substance, but only by differences in
their attributes. And since being or substance, and power or potentiality,
differ from each other only in conception, only as the statical differs from
the dynamical, it is reasonable, nay, in the circumstances it is alone
legitimate, to suppose that it is not in virtue of some absolute difference in
substance (for none appears), but only from differences in the quantity or
intensity of substance or power in the individual, and from the variety of
their build, that different individuals display such different potentialities or

endowments as they do display; and come to be justly classified as they are
into various orders of beings. Inasmuch as the Author of all is Himself a
Spiritual Being, cosmical law leads us to expect that the type of created
being shall be spirit also. Nor can Being in any object be so attenuated or
so far removed from Him who filleth all in all, but it must surely retain an
aura of the spiritual nature. This, then, is the corner-stone of Keely’s
philosophy—one power; one law; order and method reigning throughout
creation; spirit controlling matter; as the divine order and law of creation,
that the spiritual should govern the material,—that the whole realm of
matter should be under the dominion of the world of spirit.

When Keely’s discovery has been made known to scientists, a new field of
research will be opened up in the realm of Philosophy, where all eternal,
physical, and metaphysical truths are correlated; for Philosophy has been
well defined by Willcox as the science of that human thought which
contains all human knowledges. He who possesses the structure of
philosophic wisdom built up of all knowledges—grand and sublime—has a
mental abode wherein to dwell which other men have not. Dr. Macvicar
says:—“The nearer we ascend to the fountain-head of being and of action,
the more magical must everything inevitably become, for that fountain-head
is pure volition. And pure volition, as a cause, is precisely what is meant by
magic; for by magic is merely meant a mode of producing a phenomenon
without mechanical appliances—that is, without that seeming continuity of
resisting parts and that leverage which satisfy our muscular sense and our
imagination, and bring the phenomenon into the category of what we call
‘the natural’—that is, the sphere of the elastic, the gravitating, the sphere
into which the vis inertiæ is alone admitted.” In Keely’s philosophy, as in
Dr. Macvicar’s “Sketch of a Philosophy,” the economy of creation is not
regarded as a theory of development all in one direction, which is the
popular supposition, but as a cycle in which, after development and as its
fruit, the last term gives again the first. Herein is found the link by which
the law of continuity is maintained throughout, and the cycle of things is
made to be complete:—the link which is missing in the popular science of
the day, with this very serious consequence, that, to keep the break out of
sight, the entire doctrine of spirit and the spiritual world is ignored or
denied altogether.

Joseph Cook affirms that, “as science progresses, it draws nearer in all its
forms to the proof of the spiritual origin of force—that is, of the divine
immanence in natural law. God was not transiently present in nature—that
is, in a mere creative moment; nor has He now left the world in a state of
orphanage, bereft of a deific influence and care, but He is immanent in
nature, as the Apostle Paul affirmed: In Him we live, and are moved, and
have our being; as certainly as the unborn infant’s life is that of the mother,
so it is divinely true that somehow God’s life includes ours.”

The philosophy of Keely sets forth the universal ether (denied by scientists
in the last century to suit their views of the celestial spaces, which they
declared to be a vacuum) as the medium by which our lives are included in
God’s life; demonstrating how it is that we live because He lives, and shall
live as long as He exists: how our being is comprised in His, so that if we
could suppose the divine life to come to an end, ours would terminate with
it as surely—to compare great things with small—as a stream would cease
to flow when its fountain is dried up; teaching that our existence may be
distinct, but never separate from His, and that in the hidden depth of the
soul there is somewhere a point where our individual being comes in
contact with God, and is identified with the infinite life.

“If extreme vicissitudes of belief on the part of men of science are evidence
of uncertainty, it may be affirmed that, of all kinds of knowledge, none is
more uncertain than science.” The existence of the universal ether is now
affirmed again, and must be affirmed, as one of the most elementary facts in
physical science. Sir J. F. Herschel asserts that, supposing the ether to be
analogous to other elastic media, an amount of it equal in quantity of matter
to that which is contained in a cubic inch of air (which weighs about one-
third of a grain), if enclosed in a cube of one inch in the side, would exert a
bursting power of upwards of seventeen billions of pounds on each side of
the cube, while common air exerts only fifteen pounds. It should not,
therefore, be surprising to those who have witnessed the manifestations of
etheric force, as exhibited by Keely in producing a pressure ranging from
8000 to 30,000 pounds to the square inch, when modern scientists support
Herschel’s views, as they do, unhesitatingly; rather should they be surprised
at the marvellous perseverance which has kept Keely, in the face of every

discouragement, true to his inspired mission; conquering every difficulty,
surmounting every obstacle, and turning his mistakes into stepping-stones
which have helped him to attain the goal he has, from the start, aimed at
reaching—viz. the utilizing in mechanics of the power he discovered many
years ago. Before the grandeur and glory of such an attainment, all things
had to give way. Like a General who sees the fortress looming up in the
distance which he must take to complete his victory, his horse’s hoofs
trampling the dead and dying in his path, so has this discoverer and inventor
been unmindful of all that lay between him and his goal. Taking for the key-
note of his experiments, in applying inter-molecular vapour to the running
of an engine, that all the movements of elastic elements are rhythmical, he
has had problems to solve which needed the full measure of inspiration he
has received before he could attain that degree of success which he has now
reached.

Mr. Keely realizes the full extent of the difficulties which he yet has to
contend with in obtaining continuity of action, though, with his sanguine
temperament, anticipating near and complete success. To quote from his
writings:—“The mathematics of vibratory etheric science, both pure and
applied, require long and arduous research. It seems to me that no man’s life
is sufficient, with the most intense application, to cover more than the
introductory branch. The theory of elliptic functions, the calculus of
probabilities, are but as pigmies in comparison to a science which requires
the utmost tension of the human mind to grasp. But let us wait patiently for
the light that will come—that is even now dawning.”

All we can dream of loveliness within,
All ever hoped for by a will intense,
This shall one day be palpable to sense,
And earth at last become to heaven akin.

These four lines, from Robert Browning’s sonnet on Keely’s discoveries,
read like an inspired insight into that “Age of Harmony,” which interpreters
of scripture prophecies anticipate the twentieth century will usher into our
world; recalling Shakespeare’s seeming knowledge, before Harvey’s
discovery even, of the circulation of the blood. “All truth is inspired.”

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.

Part I.

Science is to know things.—Herodotus.

Knowledge is developed by experience from innate ideas.—
Plato.

Truth is not attained through reflection, but through
immediate intuition. “We neither originate thought nor its
form.—Aryan Teachings.

It may be said that if all things come from only one cause or
internal source, acting within itself, then motion and matter
must be fundamentally and essentially one and the same,
and we may look upon matter as being latent force and upon
force as being free matter.—Franz Hartmann, M.D.

John Worrell Keely—the discoverer of compound inter-etheric force, as
the result of more than twenty years of persistent effort to apply this force to
the operation of machinery has, at last, been enabled to produce partial
continuity of motion in his engine; but, up to this time, he has not so
mastered this subtle force as to control reversions. The development of his
various discoveries has been one uninterrupted work of evolution, reaching,
within the last year, he thinks, the sphere of perfect vibratory sympathy,
both theoretically and practically. The proof of this is found in the fact that
he now transmits vibrations along a wire, connected at one end with the
vibratory machine which is the source of power, and at its other end with
the engine or cannon, as the case may be, which is operated by such
vibratory power. Until recently, comparatively speaking, Keely stored force,
as he generated it, in a receiver; and experiments were made by him in the
presence of thousands, at various times, for the purpose of testing the
operations of this force, liberated in the presence of his audience and stored
up in this small receiver. The editor of the Scientific Arena thus describes
what took place at one of these exhibitions, when he was present:—“The

confined vapour was passed through one of the small flexible tubes to a
steel cylinder on another table, in which a vertical piston was fitted so that
its upper end bore against the underside of a powerful, weighted lever. The
superficial area of this piston was equal to one-half of a square inch, and it
acted as a movable fulcrum placed close to the hinged end of the short arm
of this lever, whose weight alone required a pressure of 1500 pounds to the
square inch against the piston to lift it.

“After testing the pressure by several small weights, added to that of the
lever itself, in order, to determine how much power had already been
accumulated in the receiver, the maximum test was made by placing an iron
weight of 580 pounds, by means of a differential pulley, on the extreme end
of the long arm of the lever. To lift this weight, without that of the lever
supporting it, would require a pressure against the piston of 18,900 pounds
to the square inch, counting the difference in the length of the two arms and
the area of the piston, which we, as well as several others present,
accurately calculated. When all was ready, and the crowded gathering had
formed as well as possible to see the test, Keely turned the valve-wheel
leading from the receiver to the flexible tube, and through it into the steel
cylinder beneath the piston, and simultaneously with the motion of his hand
the weighted lever shot up against its stop, a distance of several inches, as if
the great mass of iron had been only cork. Then, in order to assure ourselves
of the full 25,000 pounds to the square inch claimed, we added most of our
weight to the arm of the lever without forcing the piston back again.

“After repeating this experiment till all expressed themselves satisfied,
Keely diverted his etheric gas to the exciting work of firing a cannon, into
which he placed a leaden bullet about an inch in diameter. He conveyed the
force from the receiver by the same kind of flexible copper tube, attaching
one end of it to the breech of the gun. When all was again in readiness he
gave a quick turn to the inlet valve, and a report like that of a small cannon
followed, the ball passing through an inch board and flattening itself out to
about three inches in diameter, showing the marvellous power and
instantaneous action of this strange vapour.”

The difficulty encountered by Keely in his old generator of etheric force
grew out of the fact, in part, that the vaporic power produced was so humid
that he could not, when he attempted to utilize it, obtain its theoretical value
in work. This difficulty has been entirely overcome by dispensing with the
water which he used in liberating etheric force, by his old generator; and, by
this departure, he has attained a success beyond that which was anticipated
by himself, when he abandoned his original line of experiment.1

Ignorant, indeed, of the nature of Keely’s work must those men be who
accuse him of “abandoning his base” or “principle,” each time that he
discovers his mistakes:—using them as stepping-stones to approach nearer
and still nearer to his goal. Reproaching him, even, for keeping his own
counsel, until certainty of success rendered it prudent for him to make
known that he had changed his field of experiment from positive attraction
to negative attraction.

Equally ignorant are those, who would wrench by force his secrets from
him before the time is ripe for their disclosure. Let us suppose that Faraday,
when he discovered radiant matter in 1816, had formed a “Faraday
Phospho-Genetic Radiant Company,” to enable him to experiment: fully
cognizant of all that Crookes has since discovered, and had taken for his
base in experimenting the principle involved in Crookes’s discovery. Not
succeeding at first, we will suppose that the Company became clamorous
for returns, and demanded that his secret principle should be made public.
Had he been driven into making it known, who would have credited what
Crookes is now able to prove? The effect would have been upon the
Faraday Company the same as if a balloon were punctured just as it was
soaring heavenward. The same with the Keely Motor Company, had Keely
obeyed the order of the Court in 1882, and made his marvellous secret
public. It would have collapsed. Therefore, he has maintained his secret in
the interests of the stockholders of the Keely Motor Company with a
firmness worthy of a Christian martyr. The one person to whom alone
Keely then disclosed it thought him under a delusion, until he had
demonstrated its soundness.

Charles B. Collier, Keely’s patent lawyer, writes as follows, concerning the
difficulties attendant upon “the supposed duty” of his client’s imparting his
“secrets,” as ordered by the Court to do, some time since:—

“If to-day, for the first time in your lives, you saw a harp, attuned and being
played upon, and the science of music was unknown to you, you would
hardly expect, without considerable time and study, to be able to reproduce
the harp, attune its strings in proper relation to each other, and to play upon
it so as to produce the harmonies which you had listened to. Mr. Keely’s
work is analogous to the illustration which I have presented, inasmuch as he
is dealing with the subject of sound, or acoustics, but in a much more
involved form than as applied simply for the production of harmonies for
the delight of the ear. Mr. Keely’s engine is analogous to the mechanism of
the human ear, in the respect that it is a structure operated upon, and its
motion induced by vibration; and to the end of securing and attaining, in
and by it, uniformity or regularity of motion, there must be perfect unison,
or synchronism, as between it and his structure which is the prime source of
vibration. To attain this perfect unison or synchronism, has involved
unparalleled research and experiment upon his part—experiments that have
varied from day to day. No one, in my opinion, who had not stood by his
side, as his shadow, watching every experiment, could have kept fully
abreast of him. To pursue my simile, I may say that his harp (engine) is not
yet perfectly attuned (“graduated”); when it is so, it will produce nothing
but harmony (regularity of motion), and his work will be finished.

“At such time, I doubt not that he will be able to give to Mr. Boekel, myself
or another, the scale with which to reconstruct and attune another apparatus
so as to produce like results with it; but to go over the ground that he has
gone over, to explore the wilderness in which he has been the pioneer, in
other words, the study, to a full understanding of them, of his experiments
and researches, as recorded in his writings and illustrated in the beautiful
charts which he has produced, will be a work rather for scientists than for
mechanicians or engineers.”

Keely’s “Theoretical Exposé” is in preparation for the press; and, when
these volumes are issued, we may look for a change of attitude towards him

in all men who hold themselves “ready to abandon, preconceived notions,
however cherished, if they be found to contradict truths;” which, Herbert
Spencer says, is the first condition of success in scientific research. 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. This
has been Mr. Keely’s life study; and he is able to demonstrate all that he
asserts.

Laurence Oliphant writes: “Recent scientific research has proved
conclusively that all force is atomic—that electricity consists of files of
particles, and that the interstellar spaces contain substances, whether it be
called ether or astral fluid (or by any other name), which is composed of
atoms, because it is not possible to dissever force from its transmitting
medium. The whole universe, therefore, and all that it contains, consists of
matter in motion, and is animated by a vital principle which we call God.

“Science has further discovered that these atoms are severally encompassed
by an ethereal substance which prevents their touching each other, and to
this circumambient, inter-atomic element they have given the name of
dynasphere; but, inasmuch as has further been found, that in these
dynaspheres there resides a tremendous potency, it is evident that they also
must contain atoms, and that these atoms must in their turn be surrounded
by dynaspheres, which again contain atoms, and so on ad infinitum. Matter
thus becomes infinite and indestructible, and the force which pervades it
persistent and everlasting.

“This dynaspheric force, which is also called etheric, is conditioned as to its
nature on the quality of the atoms which form its transmitting media; and
which are infinite both in variety and in their combinations. They may,
however, be broadly divided into two categories; viz. the sentient and the
non-sentient atoms. Dynaspheric force, composed of non-sentient atoms, is
the force that has been already mechanically applied by Mr. Keely to his
motor; and which will probably ere long supersede the agencies now used
for locomotive, projectile, and other purposes. When the laws which govern

it come to be understood, it will produce materially a great commercial and
industrial revolution ….

“The most remarkable illustration of the stupendous energy of atomic
vibratory force is to be found in that singular apparatus in Philadelphia—
which for the last fifteen years has excited in turn the amazement, the
scepticism, the admiration, and the ridicule of those who have examined it
—called ‘Keely’s Motor’ ” … “In the practical land of its origin, it has
popularly been esteemed a fraud. I have not examined it personally, but I
believe it to be based upon a sound principle of dynamics, and to be
probably the first of a series of discoveries destined to revolutionize all
existing mechanical theories, and many of the principles upon which they
are founded.” … “Those who are sufficiently unprejudiced to connect the
bearings of this discovery, of what must be dynaspheric force, with
phenomena which have hitherto been regarded as supernatural by the
ignorant, will perceive how rapidly we are bridging over the chasm which
has divided the seen from the unseen.”…

In 1882 a lady, conversing with Mr. Keely, said, “You have opened the door
into the spirit-world.” He answered, “Do you think so? I have sometimes
thought I might be able to discover the origin of life.” At this time Mr.
Keely had given no attention whatever to the occult bearing of his
discovery; and it was only after he had pursued his researches, under the
advantages which his small Liberator afforded him for such experiments,
that he realized the truth of this woman’s assertion. It was then, in 1887,
that a “bridge of mist” formed itself before him, connecting the laws which
govern physical science with the laws which govern spiritual science, and
year by year this bridge of mist has solidified, until now he is in a position
to stand upon it, and proclaim that its abutments have a solid foundation—
one resting in the material and visible world, and the other in the spiritual
and unseen world; or, rather, that no bridge is needed to connect the two
worlds, one law governing both in its needed modifications.

“The physical thing,” writes a modern scientist, “which energizes and does
work in and upon ordinary matter, is a separate form of matter, infinitely
refined, and infinitely rapid in its vibrations, and is thus able to penetrate

through all ordinary matter, and to make everywhere a fountain of motion,
no less real because unseen. It is among the atoms of the crystal and the
molecules of living matter; and, whether producing locked effects or free, it
is the same cosmic thing, matter in motion, which we conceive as material
energy, and with difficulty think of as only a peculiar form of matter in
motion.”

The President of the British Association, Sir Henry Roscoe, in his address
before that body, said: “In nature there is no such thing as great or small;
the structure of the smallest particle, invisible even to our most searching
vision, may be as complicated as that of any of the heavenly bodies which
circle round our sun.” As to the indivisibility of the atom, he asks this
question: “Notwithstanding the properties of these elements have been
studied, and are now known with a degree of precision formerly undreamt
of, have the atoms of our present elements been made to yield?” He
continues: “A negative answer must undoubtedly be given, for even the
highest of terrestrial temperatures, that of the electric spark, has failed to
shake any one of these atoms in two.”

This is an error, for it is well known by those who are fully acquainted with
the principle involved in Keely’s inventions that the intense vibratory action
which is induced in his “Liberator” has accomplished what the retort of the
chemist has failed to do, what the electric spark has left intact, and what the
inconceivably fierce temperature of the sun and of volcanic fires has turned
over to us unscathed. The mighty Genii imprisoned within the molecule,
thus released from the chains and fetters which Nature forged, has been for
years the tyrant of the one who rashly intruded, without first paving the way
with the gold which he has since been accused of using in experiments with
reckless and wanton waste! For more than a score of years has Keely been
fighting a hand-to-hand fight with this Genii; often beaten back by it,
paralyzed at times, even, by its monstrous blows; and only now so
approaching its subjugation as to make it safe to harness it for the work that
is calling for a power mightier than steam, safer and more uniform in
operation than electricity; a power which, by its might and beneficence, will
ameliorate the condition of the masses, and reconcile and solve all that now
menaces our race: as it was never menaced before, as has been said.

The structure of the air molecule, as believed in by Keely, is as follows:—
Broken up, by vibratory action, he finds it to contain what he calls an
atomic triplet. The position of a molecule, on the point of a fine cambric
needle sustains the same relation to the point of the needle that a grain of
sand sustains to a field of ten acres.

Although, as Sir H. Roscoe has said, “In nature there is no such thing as
great or small,” the human mind cannot conceive such infinitesimal
minuteness. We will, then, imagine a molecule magnified to the size of a
billiard ball, and the atomic triplet magnified to the size of three marbles, in
the triangular position, within that molecule, at its centre; unless acted upon
by electricity, when the molecule, the billiard ball, becomes oblate, and the
three atoms are ranged in a line within, unless broken up by the mighty
force of vibratory action. Nature never gives us a vacuum; consequently, the
space within the molecule not occupied by the atomic triplet must e filled
with something. This is where the Genii—“the all-pervading ether”—has
made its secret abode through untold æons, during which our world has
been in course of preparation for its release, to fulfil its appointed task in
advancing the progress of the human race.

Step by step, with a patient perseverance which some day the world will
honour, this man of genius has made his researches, overcoming the
colossal difficulties which have raised up in his path what seemed to be
insurmountable barriers to further progress: but never before has the
world’s index finger so pointed to an hour when all is making ready for the
advent of the new form of force that mankind is waiting for. Nature, always
reluctant to yield her secrets, is listening to the demands made upon her by
her master, necessity. The coal mines of the world cannot long afford the
increasing drain made upon them. Steam has reached its utmost limits of
power, and does not fulfil the requirements of the age. Electricity holds
back, with bated breath, dependent upon the approach of her sister
colleague. Air ships are riding at anchor, as it were, waiting for the force
which is to make aerial navigation something more than a dream. As easily
as men communicate with their offices from their homes by means of the
telephone, so will the inhabitants of separate continents talk across the
ocean. Imagination is palsied when seeking to foresee the grand results of

this marvellous discovery when once it is applied to art and mechanics. In
taking the throne which it will force steam to abdicate, dynaspheric force
will rule the world with a power so mighty in the interests of civilization,
that no finite mind can conjecture the results.

In 1746, when Franklin’s attention was drawn to the phenomena of
electricity, little more was known on the subject than Thales had announced
two thousand years before. Von Kleist in Leyden, Collinson in London, and
others in as widely-separated cities in Europe, were experimenting in the
same field of research. What our last century has done toward subduing this
tyrant which Franklin succeeded in bringing down to earth, from the clouds,
the next century will see surpassed beyond man’s wildest conjectures,
should Keely’s utilization of this unknown force of nature bestow upon
humanity the costless motive power, which he anticipates it will. Reynolds
predicted that those who “studied the mysteries of molecular vibration
would win the victorious wreaths of successful discovery.” After such
discoveries as Mr. Keely has made in this field of research, it matters not to
him whether he succeeds commercially or not. His work of discovery
commenced when, as a boy of twelve, he held the sea-shells to his ear as he
walked the shore and noted that no two gave forth the same tone. From the
construction of his first crude instrument, his work of evolution progressed
slowly for years; but within the last five years he has made giant strides
towards the “Dark Tower” which is his last fortress to take. When he is
ready, “Dauntless the slug-horn to his lips” he will set; and the world will
hear the blast, and awaken from its slumber into new life.

Molecular vibration is thus seen to be Keely’s legitimate field of research;
but more than once has he had to tear down portions of the vibratory
scaffolding which aided him in the building up of his edifice of philosophy;
therefore, he is ever ready to admit that some of the present scaffolding may
have to be removed. The charge of “abandoning his base,” recently brought
against him by one of the editors of The New York Times, could only have
been made by one who is utterly ignorant of the subject upon which he
writes. Under the heading “A Cool Confession,” this editor asserts that
Keely has “given up the Keely Motor as a bad job,” and that he admits that
he is a “bogus inventor” and a “fraud.” This is not true.

What Keely does admit is that, baffled in applying vibratory force to
mechanics, upon his first and second lines of experimental research, he was
obliged either to confess a commercial failure, or to try a third departure
from his base or principle; seeking success through another channel of
experiment. While experimenting upon this third line, until his efforts were
crowned with success, he kept his secret from all men; with the approbation
of the one who furnished the money for these experiments. There is a time
when silence is golden; and the charge made by the same editor that Keely
had been “receiving money from the Keely Motor Company on false
pretences from the time that he abandoned his original plans,” could only
have been made by one who knows nothing of the facts of the case: for
years have passed away since the Keely Motor Company broke its contract
with him, and since it has furnished him with any money for his
experiments.

But let Keely speak for himself in reference to his work:—

“In considering the operation of my engine, the visitor, in order to have
even an approximate conception of its modus operandi, must discard all
thought of engines that are operated upon the principle of pressure and
exhaustion, by the expansion of steam or other analogous gas which
impinges upon an abutment, such as the piston of a steam-engine. My
engine has neither piston nor eccentrics, nor is there one grain of pressure
exerted in the engine, whatever may be the size or capacity of it.

“My system, in every part and detail, both in the developing of this power
and in every branch of its utilization, is based and founded on sympathetic
vibration. In no other way would it be possible to awaken or develop this
force, and equally impossible would it be to operate my engine upon any
other principle.

“All that remains to be done is to secure a uniform speed under different
velocities and control reversions. That I shall accomplish this is absolutely
certain. Some few years ago, I contemplated using a wire as a connective
link between two sympathetic mediums, to evolve this power as also to
operate my machinery—instead of tubular connections as heretofore

employed—I have only recently succeeded in accomplishing successfully
such change. This, however, is the true system; and henceforth all my
operations will be conducted in this manner—that is to say, the power will
be generated, my engines run, my cannon operated, through a wire.

“It has been only after years of incessant labour, and the making of almost
innumerable experiments, involving not only the construction of a great
many most peculiar mechanical structures, and the closest investigation and
study of the phenomenal properties of the substance “ether,” per se,
produced, that I have been able to dispense with complicated mechanism,
and to obtain, as I claim, mastery over the subtle and strange force with
which I am dealing.

“When my present process of adjustment is completed, the force, the
mechanism, and all that pertains to it, will be fully explained in a theoretical
exposition of the subject, with appropriate diagrams, which I shall publish
to the world; through which medium, and my patents, when taken out, a
knowledge of all that is required for its commercial employment will be
more easily acquired than is the necessary skill required to enable one to
safely operate a steam-engine.

“The power will be adapted to engines of all sizes and capacities, as well to
an engine capable of propelling the largest ship as to one that will operate a
sewing machine. Equally well and certain is it that it will be adapted as a
projectile force for guns and cannons of all sizes, from the ordinary
shoulder-piece to the heaviest artillery.”….

When Keely obtained continuity of motion (for a time) in his engine he
thought that his last difficulty had been overcome: but, up to the present
time, he has not succeeded in governing its speed nor in controlling
reversions. He has, however, again reduced in size the instrument with
which he produces the force. From 1882 to 1884 the “Generator” was a
structure six feet long and correspondingly wide and high; but, failing in his
attempt to make an automatic arrangement upon which its usefulness in
mechanics depended, Keely found a new standard for research in an
experiment often made by himself, but never before successful, which

resulted in the production of a machine in 1885 which he named a
“Liberator”—not so large as a lady’s small round work-table. Continuing
his labour of evolution Keely within one year made such astonishing
progress, from experiments with this beautiful piece of vibratory
mechanism, as to combine the production of the power, and the operation of
his cannon, his engine and his disintegrator in a machine no larger than a
dinner plate, and only three or four inches in thickness. This instrument was
completed in 1886, up to which time his experiments had been conducted
upon a principle of sympathetic vibration, for the purpose of liberating a
vapoury or etheric product. His later experiments have been confined to
another modification of vibratory sympathy; and the size of the instrument
used now, ’88, for the same purposes is no larger than an old-fashioned
silver watch, such as we see in Museum collections. The raising of a lever
with an apparent uplifting expansive force of between 20,000 and 30,000
pounds to the square inch, the running of the engine, the firing of the
cannon, are conducted without one ounce of pressure in any part of the
apparatus, and without the production or presence of what has been known
as Keely’s ether. The force is now transmitted along a wire (of platinum and
silver), and when the lever is lowered there is no exhaustion, into the
atmosphere of the room, of any up-lifting vapour, as was always the case
when the ether was used in this experiment; nor is there any vapour
impinging upon the piston under the lever to raise it.

Keely has named this new modification of the one force in nature “Negative
Attraction,” which to the uninitiated does not suggest as much as it would
had he called it “Negative Humbug.”

The two forms of force which he has been experimenting with, and the
phenomena attending them, are the very antithesis of each other. Keely does
not feel the shadow of a doubt as to his eventual success in producing
engines of varying capacities; small enough, on the one hand, to operate
sewing machines with, and large enough, on the other hand, to propel the
largest ships that plough the seas. Every fact and feature surrounding the
case warrants the belief, notwithstanding the incredulity of all who have not
witnessed the progress of Mr. Keely, step by step, that his success will be
complete, and his work stand as the most colossal example of the survival

of the fittest, in the process of inventive evolution. Cox says: “Not one of
the great facts which science now accepts as incontrovertible truths but was
vehemently denied by the scientists of its time:—declared to be a priori
impossible, its discoverers and supporters denounced as fools or charlatans,
and even investigation of it refused as being a waste of time and thought.”
“History repeats itself,” and Amiel’s definition of science gives the key to
the incredulity of scientists in reference to Mr. Keely’s discovery; for if, as
Amiel has said, “science is a lucid madness occupied with tabulating its
own hallucinations,” it is not strange that men of science should refuse to
investigate what they consider the hallucinations of others.

It is an undisputed fact that “too much has been conceded to science, too
little to those sublime laws which make science possible.” But the one law
which regulates creation, and to which all other laws are made subservient,
keeping in harmony the systems upon systems of worlds throughout space,
developing sound and colour, animal and vegetable growth, the
crystallization of minerals, is the hidden law, which develops every natural
science throughout the universe; and which both Kepler and Newton
anticipated would be revealed in our age. “You can even trace the poles in
sound,” writes Mrs. F. J. Hughes, in her work upon the “Evolution of Tones
and Colours.” The experiments made by Mrs. Watts Hughes, at the annual
Reception of the Royal Society, and the 2Pendulograph writings by Andrew
of Belfast, have a bearing upon Keely’s discovery; illustrating the workings
of this hidden law of nature.

Of the law of periodicity, Hartmann writes: “Its actions have long ago been
known to exist in the vibrations producing light and sound, and it has been
recognized in chemistry by experiments tending to prove that all so-called
simple elements are only various states of vibration of one primordial
element, manifesting itself in seven principal modes of action, each of
which may be subdivided into seven again. The difference which exists
between so-called single substances appears, therefore, to be no difference
of substance or matter, but only a difference of the function of matter in the
ratio of its atomic vibration.” It is by changing the vibrations of cosmic
ether that Mr. Keely releases this energy, and Dr. Kellner in Austria
produces electricity in the same way; while it is said that a chemist in

Prague produces magnetism; also Dr. Dupuy, of New York, who has been
for years experimenting in this field without meeting with Keely’s
progressive successes.

Horace Wemyss Smith, in commenting upon the fact that, at the time of
Franklin’s discovery, men in France, in Belgium, in Holland, and in
Germany were pursuing the same line of experiment, says that there is
something worthy of observation in the progress of science and human
genius, inasmuch as in countries far distant from each other men have fallen
into the same tracks, and have made similar and corresponding discoveries,
at the same period of time, without the least communication with each
other.

Laurence Oliphant’s recent works give us the clue to an explanation of this
fact; and Lowe, in his “Fragments of Physiology,” condenses the answer in
these words: “Man is not the governor and commander of the created
world; and were it not for superhuman influence constantly flowing into
created forms, the world would perish in a moment.”

There are men in various parts of the world, unknown even by name to each
other, who tell us by “the signs of the times” that the season of harvesting is
approaching; the season for gathering the fruit, which has been deferred,
century after century, because mankind is not yet ready, in the opinion of
many, to share the fruit with one another.

It has been said that when Keely’s vibratory force shall have taken the place
of steam-engines, the millions of working men who gain with difficulty
their daily bread by the work of their hands, will find themselves without
occupation. The same prediction was made in regard to steam, but instead
we find the city of Boston giving work to thirty thousand men in one
manufactory of boots and shoes by steam, in place of the three thousand
shoemakers who were all that were occupied in this branch of labour in that
city when the work was done by hand.

Dr. Kellner’s colleague, Franz Hartmann, M.D., writing in reference to
Keely’s discovery, says: “I have taken great interest in him ever since I first

heard of him in 1882. As gaslight has driven away, in part, the smoky
petroleum lamp, and is about to be displaced by electricity, which in the
course of time may be supplanted by magnetism, and as the power of steam
has caused muscular labour to disappear to a certain extent, and will itself
give way before the new vibratory force of Keely, likewise the orthodox
medical quackery that now prevails will be dethroned by the employment of
the finer forces of nature, such as light, electricity, magnetism, etc.”

When the time is ripe, these are of the true scientists who will come to the
front “to lead as progress leads,” men who know how to wait upon God,
viz., to work while waiting; and to such the end is, sooner or later, victory!
“God never hurries.” He counts the centuries as we count the seconds, and
the nearer we approach to the least comprehension of His “underlying
purpose” the more we become like Tolstoi’s labourer, who knew that the
fruit was ripening for him and his fellow-men, trusting implicitly in the
superior wisdom of his master.

No man, whose spiritual eyes have been opened to “discern the signs of the
times,” can doubt that we are on the eve of revelations which are to usher in
the dawn of a brighter day than our race has yet known; and no prophecy of
this brighter day, foretold by prophets, apostles, and inspired poets, was
ever made in truer strains than in these glorious lines of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning:—

Verily many thinkers of this age,
Aye, many Christian teachers, half in heaven,
Are wrong in just my sense who understood
Our natural world too insularly, as if
No spiritual counterpart completed it,
Consummating its meaning, rounding all
To justice and perfection, line by line,
Form by form, nothing single nor alone;
The Great Below clenched by the Great Above.

Part II.

One Phase of Keely’s Discovery in its Relations to the Cure or Disease.

I know medicine is called a science. It is nothing like a
science. It is a great humbug! Doctors are mere empirics
when they are not charlatans. We are as ignorant as men can
be. Who knows anything in the world about medicine?
Gentlemen, you have done me the honour to come here to
attend my lectures, and I must tell you now, frankly, in the
beginning, that I know nothing about medicine, nor do I
know anyone who does know anything about it. Nature does
a great deal, imagination does a great deal, doctors do
devilish little when they do not do harm. Sick people always
feel they are neglected, unless they are well drugged, les
imbéciles!

Professor Magendie (before the students of his class in
“The Allopathic College of Paris”).

In the year 1871, the writer was sent from Paris to Schwalbach, by Dr.
Beylard, and recommended to the care of Dr. Adolph Genth. She said to the
physician, “I wish for your opinion and your advice, if you can give it to me
without giving me any medicine.” He replied, “With all my heart, madam;
and I wish to God there were more women like you, but we should soon
lose most of our patients if we did not dose them.”

This is a terrible excuse for the use of those agencies which Dr. John Good
says have sent more human beings to their graves than war, pestilence and
famine combined. Keely holds the opinion that Nature works under the one
law of Compensation and Equilibrium—the law of Harmony; and that when
disease indicates the disturbance of this law Nature at once seeks to banish
the disease by restoring equilibrium, He seeks to render assistance on the
same plan; replacing grossly material agencies by the finer forces of nature;
as has been so successfully done by Dr. Pancoast and Dr. Babbitt in
America.

“Nature,” says Dr. Pancoast, author of The True Science of Light, “works by
antagonism in all her operations: when one of her forces overdoes its work,
disease, or at least a local disorder, is the immediate consequence; now, if
we attack this force, and overcome it, the opposite force has a clear field
and may re-assert its rights—thus equilibrium is restored, and Equilibrium
is health. The Sympathetic System, instead of attacking the stronger force,
sends recruits to the weaker one, and enables it to recover its powers; or, if
the disorder be the result of excessive tension of Nerves or Ganglia, a
negative remedy may be employed to reduce the tension. Thus, too,
equilibrium is restored.”

Dr. Hartmann writes:—

Mr. Keely is perfectly right in saying that ‘all disease is a disturbance of the
equilibrium between positive and negative forces.’ In my opinion, no doctor
ever cured any disease. All he can possibly do is to establish conditions
under which the patient (or nature) may cure himself.

If you enter the field of therapeutics and medicine, we find a decided
fermentation of new ideas; not among the fossil specimens of antediluvian
quackery, but among those who are called “irregulars,” because they have
the courage to depart from the tracks trodden out by their predecessors. The
more intelligent classes of physicians have long ago realized the fact that
drugs and medicines are perfectly useless, excepting in cases where
diseases can be traced to some mechanical obstruction, in some organ that
may be reached by mechanical action. In all other cases our best physicians
have become agnostics, leaving nature to have her own way, and observing
the expectative method, which, in fact, is no method of cure at all, but
merely consists in doing no harm to the patient. Recently, however, light,
electricity, and magnetism have been employed; so that even in the medical
guild the finer forces of nature are taking the place of grossly material, and
therefore injurious substances. The time is probably near when these finer
forces will be employed universally. Everybody knows that a note struck
upon an instrument will produce sound in a correspondingly attuned
instrument in its vicinity. If connected with a tuning fork, it will produce a
corresponding sound in the latter; and if connected with a thousand such

tuning forks, it will make all the thousand sound, and produce a noise far
greater than the original sound, without the latter becoming any weaker for
it. Here, then, is an augmentation or multiplication of power. If we had any
means to transform sound again into mechanical motion, we would have a
thousand-fold multiplication of mechanical motion. It would be
presumptuous to say that it will not be as easy for the scientists of the future
to transform sound into mechanical motion, as it is for the scientist of the
present to transform heat into electricity. Perhaps Mr. Keely has already
solved the problem. There is a fair prospect that in the very near future, we
shall have, in his ethereal force, a power far surpassing that of steam or
electricity. Nor does the idea seem to be Utopian if we remember that
modern science heretofore only knew the law of the conservation of energy;
while to the scientist of the future the law of the augmentation of energy
will be unveiled …. As the age which has passed away has been the age of
steam, the coming era will be the age of induction. There will be a universal
rising up of lower vibrations into higher ones, in the realm of motion. Mr.
Keely will, perhaps, transform sound into mechanical motion by applying
the law of augmentation and multiplication of force.”…

Keely, writing on brain disturbance, says, In considering the mental forces
as associated with the physical, I find, by my past researches, that the
convolutions which exist in the cerebral field are entirely governed by the
sympathetic conditions that surround them.

The question arises, what are these aggregations and what do they
represent, as being linked with physical impulses? They are simply
vibrometric resonators, thoroughly subservient to sympathetic acoustic
impulses given to them by their atomic sympathetic surrounding media, all
the sympathetic impulses that so entirely govern the physical in their many
and perfect impulses (we are now discussing purity of conditions) are not
emanations properly inherent in their own composition. They are only
media—the acoustic media—for transferring from their vibratory
surroundings the conditions necessary to the pure connective link for
vitalizing and bringing into action the varied impulses of the physical.

All abnormal discordant aggregations in these resonating convolutions
produce differentiation to concordant transmission; and, according as these
differentiations exist in volume, so the transmissions are discordantly
transferred, producing antagonism to pure physical action.

Thus, in Motor Ataxy a differentiation of the minor thirds of the posterior
parietal lobule produces the same condition between the retractors and
extensors of the leg and foot; and thus the control of the proper movements
is lost through this differentiation. The same truth can be universally
applied to any of the cerebral convolutions that are in a state of differential
harmony to the mass of immediate cerebral surroundings. Taking the
cerebral condition of the whole mass as one, it is subservient to one general
head centre, although as many neutrals are represented as there are
convolutions.

The introductory minors are controlled by the molecular; the next
progressive third by the atomic; and the high third by the Etheric. All these
progressive links have their positive, negative, and neutral position. When
we take into consideration the structural condition of the human brain, we
ought not to be bewildered by the infinite variety of its sympathetic
impulses; inasmuch as it unerringly proves the true philosophy that the
mass chords of such structures are governed by vibratory etheric flows—the
very material which composes them. There is no structure whatever, animal,
vegetable, mineral, that is not built up from the universal cosmic ether.
Certain orders of attractive vibration produce certain orders of structure;
thus, the infinite variety of effects—more especially in the cerebral organs.
The bar of iron or the mass of steel, have, in each, all the qualifications
necessary, under certain vibratory impulses, to evolve all the conditions that
govern that animal organism—the brain: and it is as possible to differentiate
the molecular conditions of a mass of metal of any shape so as to produce
what you may express as a crazy piece of iron or a crazy piece of steel; or,
vice versâ, an intelligent condition in the same.

I find in my researches, as to the condition of molecules under vibration,
that discordance cannot exist in the molecule proper; and that it is the
highest and most perfect structural condition that exists; providing that all

the progressive orders are the same. Discordance in any mass is the result of
differentiated groups, induced by antagonistic chords, and the flight or
motions of such, when intensified by sound, are very tortuous and zig-zag;
but when free of this differentiation are in straight lines. Tortuous lines
denote discord, or pain; straight lines denote harmony, or pleasure. Any
differentiated mass can be brought to a condition of harmony, or equation,
by proper chord media, and an equated sympathy produced.

There is good reason for believing that insanity is simply a condition of
differentiation in the mass chords of the cerebral convolutions, which
creates an antagonistic molecular bombardment towards the neutral or
attractive centres of such convolutions; which, in turn, produce a morbid
irritation in the cortical sensory centres in the substance of ideation;
accompanied, as a general thing, by sensory hallucinations, ushered in by
subjective sensations; such as flashes of light and colour, or confused
sounds and disagreeable odours, etc., etc.

There is no condition of the human brain that ought not to be
sympathetically coincident to that order of atomic flow to which its
position, in the cerebral field, is fitted. Any differentiation in that special
organ, or, more plainly, any discordant grouping tends to produce a
discordant bombardment—an antagonistic conflict; which means the same
disturbance transferred to the physical, producing inharmonious disaster to
that portion of the physical field which is controlled by that especial
convolution. This unstable aggregation may be compared to a knot on a
violin string. As long as this knot remains it is impossible to elicit, from its
sympathetic surroundings, the condition which transfers pure concordance
to its resonating body. Discordant conditions, i.e., differentiation of mass,
produce negatization to coincident action.

The question now arises, What condition is it necessary to bring about in
order to bring back normality, or to produce stable equilibrium in the
sympathetic centres?

The normal brain is like a harp of many strings strung to perfect harmony.
The transmitting conditions being perfect, are ready, at any impulse, to

induce pure sympathetic assimilation. The different strings represent the
different ventricles and convolutions. The differentiations of any one from
its true setting is fatal, to a certain degree, to the harmony of the whole
combination.

If the sympathetic condition of any physical organism carries a positive
flow of 80 per cent. on its whole combination, and a negative one of 20 per
cent., it is the medium of perfect assimilation to one of the same ratio, if it
is distributed under the same conditions to the mass of the other. If two
masses of metal, of any shape whatever, are brought under perfect
assimilation, to one another, their unition, when brought into contact, will
be instant. If we live in a sympathetic field we become sympathetic, and a
tendency from the abnormal to the normal presents itself by an evolution of
a purely sympathetic flow towards its attractive centres. It is only under
these conditions that differentiation can be broken up, and a pure equation
established. The only condition under which equation can never be
established is when a differential disaster has taken place, of 66⅔ against
the 100 pure, taking the full volume as one. If this 66⅔ or even 100 exists in
one organ alone, and the surrounding ones are normal, then a condition can
be easily brought about to establish the concordant harmony or equation to
that organ. It is as rare to find a negative condition of 66⅔ against the
volume of the whole cerebral mass, as it is to find a coincident between
differentiation; or, more plainly, between two individuals under a state of
negative influence. Under this new system, it is as possible to induce
negations alike as it is to induce positives alike.

Pure sympathetic concordants are as antagonistic to negative discordants as
the negative is to the positive; but the vast volume the sympathetic holds
over the non-sympathetic, in ethereal space, makes it at once the ruling
medium and re-adjuster of all opposing conditions if properly brought to
bear upon them.

Until Keely’s “Theoretical Exposé” is given to science, there are few who
will fathom the full meaning of these views.

His discoveries embrace the manner or way of obtaining the keynote, or
“chord of mass,” of mineral, vegetable, and animal substances; therefore,
the construction of instruments, or machines, by which this law can be
utilized in mechanics, in arts, and in restoration of equilibrium in disease, is
only a question of the full understanding of the operation of this law.

Keely estimates that, after the introductory impulse is given on the
harmonic thirds, molecular vibration is increased from 20,000 per second to
100,000,000.

On the enharmonic sixths, that the vibration of the inter-molecule is
increased to 300,000,000.

On the diatonic ninths, that atomic vibration reaches 900,000,000; on the
dominant etheric sixths, 8,100,000,000; and on the inter-etheric ninths,
24,300,000,000; all of which can be demonstrated by sound colours.

In such fields of research, Mr. Keely finds little leisure. Those who accuse
him of “dilly-dallying,” of idleness, of “always going to do and never
doing,” of “visionary plans,” etc., etc., know nothing of the infinite
patience, the persistent energy, which for a quarter of a century has upheld
him in his struggle to attain this end. Still less, if possible, is he understood
by those who think he is seeking self-aggrandizement, fame, fortune, or
glory.

The time is approaching when all who have sought to defame this
discoverer and inventor, all who have stabbed him with unmerited
accusations, all who have denounced him as “a bogus inventor,” “a fraud,”
“an impostor,” “a charlatan,” “a modern Cagliostro,” will be forced to
acknowledge that he has done a giant’s work for true science, even though
he should not live to attain commercial success. But history will not forget
that, in the nineteenth century, the story of Prometheus has been repeated,
and that the greatest mind of the age, seeking to scale the heavens to bring
down the light of truth for mankind, met with Prometheus’s reward.

Note.—Dr. Hartmann, in a report, or condensed statement, in reference to
Keely’s discovery, writes as follows: “He will never invent a machine by

which the equilibrium of the living forces in a disordered brain can be
restored.”

As such a statement would lead the reader of the report to fancy that Keely
expected to invent such an instrument, it is better to correct the error that
Dr. Hartmann has fallen into. Keely has never dreamed of inventing such an
instrument. He hopes, however, to perfect one that he is now at work upon,
which will enable the operator to localize the seat of disturbance in the
brain in mental disorders. If he succeeds, this will greatly simplify the work
of “re-adjusting opposing conditions”; and will also enable the physician to
decide whether the “differential disaster” has taken place which prevents
the possibility of establishing the equation that is necessary to a cure.

According to Keely’s theories it is that form of energy known as magnetism
—not electricity—which is to be the curative agent of the future, thus
reviving a mode of treatment handed down from the time of the earliest
records, and made known to the Royal Society of London more than fifty
years since by Professor Keil, of Jena, who demonstrated the susceptibility
of the nervous system to the influence of the natural magnet, and its
efficacy in the cure of certain infirmities.

As Cheston Morris, M.D., has well said in his paper on “Vital Molecular
Vibrations,” “We are entering upon a new field in biology, pathology, and of
course, therapeutics, whose limits are at present far beyond our ken.”

“The adaptability of drugs,” says Dr. Henry Wood, “to heal disease is
becoming a matter of doubt, even among many who have not yet studied
deeper causation. Materia Medica lacks the exact elements of a science. The
just preponderance, for good or ill, of any drug upon the human system is
an unsolved problem, and will so remain …. After centuries of professional
research, in order to perfect “the art of healing,” diseases have steadily
grown more subtle and more numerous …. Only when internal, divine
forces come to be relied upon, rather than outside reinforcement, will
deterioration cease. Said Plato, ‘You ought not to attempt to cure the body
without the soul.’ ”

1 Keely was obliged to return to his former method soon after, for in overcoming one difficulty he
found a more obstinate one to contend with. ↑

2 A system of Pendulums tuned to swing the various ratios of the musical scale, form a “Silent
Harp” of extraordinary interest. This “Silent Harp,” D. C. Ramsay, of Glasgow, has shown to his
students of harmony for many a year. A pen, placed by means of a universal-jointed arrangement
between any two pendulums of this “Silent Harp,” so as to be moved by a blend of their various
motions, writes, with all the precision of gravitation, a portrait of the chord which two corresponding
strings of a sounding harp would utter to the ear. This spiral writing is a Pendulograph; exquisite
forms such as no human hand could trace. ↑

CHAPTER VIII.

1888.

HELPERS ON THE ROAD, AND HINDERERS.
Blindfolded and alone we stand,
With unknown thresholds on each hand:
The darkness deepens as we grope,
Afraid to fear, afraid to hope.
Yet this one thing we learn to know
Each day more surely as we go:
That doors are opened, ways are made,
Burdens are lifted, or are laid
By some great law unseen and still
Unfathomed purpose to fulfil.
“Not as I will.”

The next “helper on the road” was an Austrian nobleman, the Chevalier
Griez de Ronse, who printed a series of papers on Keely’s discoveries in a
journal in Vienna, then owned by him—The Vienna Weekly News. One of
these articles mentions that the attention of Englishmen of science had been
drawn to Keely’s claims, in regard to having imprisoned the ether, by
Professor Henri Hertz’s experiments in ether vibrations at the Bonn
University. “Keely, like the late Dr. Schuster,” says The Vienna Weekly
News, “claims on behalf of science the right to prosecute its investigations
until a mechanical explanation of all things is attained. The public are still
but the children of those who murdered Socrates, tolerated the persecution
of Galileo, and deserted Columbus. This remark is now illustrated by the
imprisonment with felons last month of Inventor Keely in Moyamensing
Prison, Philadelphia, where Judge Finletter committed him for contempt of
court, without the shadow of an excuse in the opinions of men who had
followed the proceedings against him.

Under the heading, “Keely’s Sunday in Jail,” says a Philadelphia journal,
Inventor Keely spent a quiet Sunday in Moyamensing Prison. The outside
iron doors of his cell were thrown open, when the religious services of the
morning began. The imprisoned inventor listened with deep interest. The
soft peals of the organ and the melody of the choir, singing “Nearer, my
God, to Thee,” floated into the narrow cell. Keely sat near the grated door

while the minister read selections from the Scriptures and preached his
sermon. While the inventor was resting in his cell, during the afternoon, a
number of persons made inquiries at the “Untried Department.” They were
all told that no one could be admitted on Sunday, but a young man with a
pallid face lingered. He told the gate-keeper that he was an inventor
himself, and had been waiting for eight years for a patent from Washington;
adding that, when he read of Keely’s commitment, he was reminded of
Galileo who was thrown in a dungeon because he said, “The world moves.”

The following day Keely was released by order of the Judges of the
Supreme Court. His imprisonment exalted him, instead of degrading him as
“the unjust judge” hoped to do; drawing the sympathies to him of all men
who know what it is to be “persecuted for righteousness’ sake;” of all men,
in all parts of the world, who are truth-loving, justice-loving men.

The Keely Motor Company should learn a lesson in this experience. Tyndall
said, long since, that the community that severs itself from great
discoveries, that merely runs after the practical application without
reference to the sources of a discovery, would by-and-by find itself at the
end of its tether. This has been verified in the fate of the Keely Motor
Company, which was organized for the purpose of reaping financial benefit
from Keely’s grand discovery of an unknown force before his “work of
evolution,” in obtaining mechanical results, had fairly commenced. This
company has thrown upon the discoverer’s shoulders the burden of its
stock-jobbing operations, until Keely is looked upon by men of science, as
well as by men ignorant of the A B C of science, as a man working for
personal ends; instead of, as he should be regarded, a Prometheus seeking
to give to his fellow-men a costless motive force; and who, whether he
succeeds financially or not, is entitled to the admiration of all who believe,
with Browning, that “effort, not success, makes man great.” If the Keely
Motor Company managers would profit by this lesson, they will in future
seek to find, among scientific men of world-wide renown, some one man,
broad enough in mind to care nothing for the ridicule of the ignorant, who
will investigate the nature of Keely’s discoveries, as demonstrated by his
experiments, instead of inviting reporters to witness the demonstrations, in
their efforts “to boom the stock” of their company, by a reporter’s accounts

of the marvels he has witnessed. For years Keely had nothing to show,
beyond the generation of the force, the production of a 30 lb. vacuum and
the discharge of a gun. When once his giant mind had grasped the
knowledge, which again by seeming chance was imparted to him, he made
colossal strides across that unknown tract, the boundaries of which others
are now but beginning to explore. Colonel Le Mat was no false prophet, Le
Figaro was no untrustworthy herald, when the announcement was made by
this French inventor to Monsieur Chevreul, and by this French journal to
the public on the 1st day of September, 1888, that the chain which holds the
aerial ship to the earth would be broken asunder by Keely’s discovery. The
nineteenth century holds in its strong arms the pledge, that sooner or later
the aerial navy, so long waited for, will traverse the trackless high roads of
space from Continent to Continent.

It has been supposed by many, Dr. Franz Hartmann among the number, that
it requires Keely himself, or another person constituted like him, to set his
machinery in motion. Therefore, it has been reasoned that the commercial
success of an engine is only possible in case Keely is himself the engineer;
or if another man possessing the same seemingly abnormal power could be
the engineer. For this reason, says Dr. Hartmann, it is impossible for Keely
to instruct any one in his method, so as to enable that one to do what he
does. There has been ground in the past for such a statement, it is true, but
not now. Keely asserts that when his system is completed, the knowledge of
all that is needed for its commercial employment will be more easily
acquired than is the necessary skill demanded to enable one to safely
operate a steam-engine. When Dr. Hartmann’s opinion was made known to
Keely, he replied, “Dr. Hartmann’s whole conception, in regard to other
men being unable to control the operations of my inventions on the
sympathetic attractive system, is as incorrect as would be the same
conception in reference to operating an electric battery by anyone but its
inventor.”

Let anyone imagine the years on years of research that would have been
necessary before Gilbert (who, after Thales, discovered electricity) could
have perfected a system which would have enabled men to accomplish all
that is accomplished in our age, with electricity as a motive power. Keely’s

labours would be better understood by those who accuse him of “always
promising, and never performing,” under such a conception. The inventor
must be sanguine of success; he must day by day think that he is on the eve
of perfecting his invention, in order to keep up his courage to persevere to
the end; otherwise, how could he work, year after year, in the face of
obstacle after obstacle that seems, each one, to be insurmountable? After
Keely’s imprisonment when, among the men who knew that he was
incapable of fraud, there was one so incensed by Keely’s repeated failures
to perfect his engine that he had said he “hoped to live to see Keely rotting
in a gutter,” Mr. R. Harte wrote: “And now that it has been proved in a
hundred ways and before thousands of persons competent to judge of the
merits of Keely’s claims, that he has really discovered previously unknown
forces in nature, studied them, mastered some of their laws, invented and is
perfecting researching apparatus that will make his discoveries of practical
application in numerous ways—now that he has actually done this, how
does the world treat him? Does Congress come forward with a grant to
enable him to complete his marvellous work? Do men of science hail him
as a great discoverer, or hold out the hand of fellowship? Do people do
honour to the man whose sole entreaty to them will be to receive from his
hands a gift a thousand times more precious to them than steam engine or
dynamo? It is a literal fact that if Keely fell exhausted to-day, in the terrible
struggle he has so long maintained, his failure to establish his claims would
be received with a shout of malignant delight from nearly every lecture-
hall, pulpit, counting-house and newspaper office in the so-called civilized
world. The world has hardly ever recognized its benefactors until it has
become time to raise a statue to their memory, ‘in order to beautify the
town.’ Jealousy, stupidity, the malignity which is born of conscious
inferiority, are at this moment putting in Keely’s road every impediment
which law and injustice can manufacture. Two hundred years ago he would
have been burned, a century since he would have probably been mobbed to
death; but thank God we are too civilized, too humane now to burn or mob
to death those who make great discoveries, who wish to benefit their
fellow-men, or whose ideas are in advance of their age—we only break
their hearts with slander, ridicule, and neglect, and when that fails to drive
them to suicide, we bring to bear upon them the ponderous pressure of the
law, and heap upon them the ‘peine forte et dure’ of injunctions, and orders,

and suits, to crush them out of a world they have had the impertinence to try
to improve, and the folly to imagine they could save from suffering, without
paying in their own persons the inevitable penalty. Had it not been for the
obligations incurred by Keely, in accepting the aid of the Keely Motor
Company—in other words, had scientists, instead of speculators, furnished
him with the means necessary to carry on his work of evolution, the secrets
which he has so carefully guarded would now have been public property, so
little does he care personally for financial results. As it is, those who have
witnessed his beautiful experiments in acoustics and sympathetic vibration
were often too ignorant to comprehend their meaning, and, consequently,
even after expressing gratification to him, went away from his workshop to
denounce him as a Cagliostro; while others, competent to judge, have
refused to witness the production of the ether, as Sir William Thomson and
Lord Raleigh refused, when they were in America a few years since. The
company here mentioned has been a thorn in the inventor’s side ever since
it was organized. It has been ‘bulled and beared’ by greedy speculators, in
whose varying interests the American newspapers for years have been
worked, the results of which the inventor has had to bear. For many years
the Company has contributed nothing towards Keely’s expenses or support,
and in the opinion of many lawyers it is virtually dead. How far it is entitled
to his gratitude may be gathered from the fact, as stated, that ‘when Mr.
Keely abandoned his old generator of etheric force, baffled in his attempts
to wrest from nature one of her most carefully guarded secrets, harassed by
his connection with the Keely Motor Company, some of the officers and
stockholders of which had instituted law proceedings against him, which
threatened him with the indignity of imprisonment, he destroyed many of
his marvellous models, and determined that, if taken to prison, it should be
his dead body and not himself.

“Those who argue, if Keely had really obtained knowledge which
contributes towards making man master of the material world, that science
would hail the glad tidings with great joy, know but little of modern science
and its votaries. An Anglican bishop never ignored a dissenting preacher
with more dignified grace than the professor of orthodox science ignores
the heterodox genius who has the audacity to wander beyond the limitations
which ‘received opinion’ has placed upon the possibilities of nature. The

fact is that men of science have persistently ignored, and know absolutely
nothing about, the great department of nature into which Keely penetrated
years ago, and in which he has now made himself at home. Not long ago a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Major Ricarde-Seaver, went to
Philadelphia to convince himself as to the nature of Keely’s discovery. He
returned, saying that Keely was working with, and had the apparent
command over forces, the nature, or even the very existence, of which was
absolutely unknown to him, and, so far as he is aware, to modern science.

“Beyond disintegration lies dispersion, and Keely can just as easily disperse
the atoms of matter as disintegrate its molecules. Disperse them into what?
Well,—into ether, apparently; into the hypothetical substratum which
modern scientists have postulated, and about whose nature they know
absolutely nothing but what they invent themselves, but which to Keely is
not hypothesis, but a fact as real as his own shoes; and which ether, indeed,
seems to be ‘the protoplasm of all things.’ As to the ‘law of gravity,’ it
appears in the light of Keely’s experiments, but one manifestation of a law
of very much wider application—a law which provides for the reversion of
the process of attraction in the shape of a process of repulsion.

“While Major Ricarde-Seaver, F.R.S.,1 was in Philadelphia, Keely, by
means of a belt and certain appliances which he wore upon his person,
moved single-handed, a 500 horse-power vibratory engine from one part of
his shop to another. There was not a scratch on the floor, and astounded
engineers declared that they could not have moved it without a derrick, the
operation of which would have required the removal of the roof of the shop.
Of course it is but a step in advance of this to construct a machine which,
when polarized with a ‘negative attraction,’ will rise from the earth and
move under the influence of an etheric current at the rate of 500 miles an
hour, in any given direction. This is, in fact, Keely’s ‘air ship.’

“When the history of his discoveries and inventions come to be written
there will be no more pathetic story in the annals of genius than that of John
Worrell Keely. The world hereafter will find it hard to believe that in the
last quarter of the 19th century a man with an insight into the secret
workings of nature, and a knowledge of her subtler forces, which, whenever

it is utilized, will relieve mankind from much of the grinding toil that now
makes bitter the existence of the vast majority, that such a man should have
been left unaided, because in all the ranks of science there was not found
one man capable of understanding his colossal work—because in all the
ranks of religion there was not found one man able to realize the enlarged
conception of Deity immanent in Keely’s great thoughts—because in all the
ranks of commerce, of speculation, of literature, of art, there was not found
one man large enough, generous enough, unselfish enough, to furnish
money for a purpose that did not promise an immediate dividend.”

Again in 1888, more than ever was Keely held up to ridicule by all those
men who possess the instinct of the brute to hound down its prey, and his
supporters came in for their share of abuse. Among this class, or of it, were
men so ignorant of Keely’s claims, and of the object of his researches, that
they represented him as “a seeker of the impossible,” a “perpetual motion
crank,” throwing upon his character other odium which the speculating
managers of “The Keely Motor Company” were justly responsible for. One
of these communications alone is enough to show the quality of the
weapons used against him. It appeared in The New York Daily Tribune.

THE KEELY MOTOR CRAZE.

A Donkey-Cabbage Race.

HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THE CLEVER JUGGLER BE ABLE TO DELUDE HIS
VICTIMS?

To the Editor of “The Tribune.”

Sir,—The success with which Keely has deluded his victims by appealing to their credulity
with a mystery, and to their cupidity with a promise of “all the kingdoms of the earth,”
which would not be of greater value than the monopoly of infinite power without cost,
which he dangles before their astonished vision, makes him and his antics subjects of
unusual interest. His last performance appears to be an issue of 5,000,000 dols. of new
stock representing a new discovery veiled in mystery, which is to far outstrip his former
one, on which 5,000,000 dols. of stock was issued and is now held by his dupes. Two of
these new millions are to go to the old holders as a compensation to them for their
disappointment in not realizing perpetual motion under the old discovery; two more to go
to Keely to be sold to the public; and the remaining one million is in the treasury to be sold
for the benefit of Keely and the others, half and half.

For fifteen years the donkey has been ridden by Keely with the cabbage on a pole held just
in front of his hungry mouth, and now the donkey is told that the cabbage after all is only
sham, but that the new cabbage is real, and if he will only consent to run fast enough and
far enough he certainly will reach it and grow fat.

It would seem that the donkey ought to pause and consider before he begins another
fifteen-year race after perpetual motion, and it is here proposed to assist him in his
reflections by a few facts. More than fifteen years ago Keely made himself known to the
public by exhibiting an apparatus in which a great pressure was manifested, which, he said,
resulted from the discovery by him of a new force the nature of which was his secret.
Several people, as usual, were astonished at the show, and bought and paid for shares in the
patent which was promised. To give colour to the pretence, Keely applied for a patent
before 1876, but did not assign to the purchasers their shares; whereupon some of them
protested against the issue of the patent unless their shares were recognized in the grant.
The Patent Office replied to these protests that it could not recognize the rights claimed
unless there was a written assignment filed in the office, which the claimants did not have.
The Commissioner, however, called upon Keely to furnish a “working model” of his
invention, which, of course, he could not do, and his application was rejected. The
specification and drawings of this apparatus show a very silly form of the common
perpetual motion machine, of which there are thousands. It was open to the public for some
years, when, under a new rule of the office, it, along with all other rejected applications,
was withdrawn from inspection; but it is in the office, together with the protests of those
who had paid Keely for a share in it. I examined it years ago, and informed Mr. Lamson,
and others of Keely’s stockholders, of it. Mr. Lamson told me that he had charged Keely
with deception, because he had always said that he never had applied for a patent, and that
Keely explained it by saying that he had purposely concealed his invention from the Patent
Office in that application to which he had made oath.

Keely, however, finding the perpetual motion trick profitable, extended his operations and
became well known to many influential people by his exhibitions. In the winter of 1875–76
he produced two metallic spheres, one about thirty inches in diameter, hung like an
ordinary terrestrial globe, which, he said, would revolve with a force equal to two horse-
power, and would continue to run when once started as long as the Centennial Exhibition
should be open, and until the thing was worn out by friction. In starting it Keely used to
have a blackboard in the room, on which he would write a few figures in chalk in the
presence of his dupes, and would say that at a certain time the globe would start—and it
did, and would revolve as long as the lookers-on remained to see it. Keely pretended to
explain this phenomenon by a string of unintelligible jargon; but the point of it all was that
he said the thing ran in consequence of its internal mechanical arrangement—or, in other
words, that by combining pieces of metal in a certain way power was generated without
any other expense than that required to construct the apparatus. Naturally he refused to
show the interior construction which did the miracle; but if his statements were true, it
existed inside of that globe, and could be produced indefinitely with the result of producing
an indefinite amount of horse-power without current expense.

The stock about this time rose to a great price—about 600 per cent.—as it well might if
this ball was an “honest ghost.” Some of the stockholders had sense enough to see that if
Keely’s story were true, nothing more could be desired, for it must at once supersede coal

and all other means of producing power, and its novelty could not be doubted. It was in
effect, “all the kingdoms of the earth,” which Satan once offered. But, on the other hand, if
Keely’s story were not true, then he was simply an impostor who had been defrauding the
stockholders out of their money; and they demanded of Keely that he should proceed at
once to patent this miraculous machine, which could create power by a peculiar-shaped
hole in a sphere of iron. Of course Keely refused to comply with this reasonable request,
and many of his stockholders sold out and left him; since which time the stock has
gradually declined down to the present time, when its value is admitted to be nothing.

In view of these facts the curious question is why the donkey goes on any further. The
revolving ball is a fact known to hundreds of the stockholders. It is either a real cabbage
capable of feeding the donkey with a perpetual feast, like the widow’s cruse of oil, or it is
only a sham such as any good mechanic could construct and operate as Keely did. Why
doesn’t the donkey balk and insist on biting into the cabbage? If it is real the Keely stock is
worth untold millions. It would put an end to steam engines and electric batteries for ever.
One of those balls in the corner of a room would make all the heat and light which could be
used, and have power to sell; and all that would be needed would be to learn Keely’s
cabalistic signs on the blackboard in order to make it start, and to stop it when it had done
enough. But if the ball is only a trick, then, of course, Keely could be sent to prison, and
his victims could close their accounts and be sure that they would lose no more by him.

Without going any further into the history of this remarkable delusion, which is full of
similar tricks too numerous to mention now, it seems clear that these facts ought to be used
to bring to an end in one way or the other the Keely craze.

Edward N. Dickerson.

New York, Nov. 30, 1888.

It is difficult to understand how anyone could concoct and put together such
a tissue of fabrications as this, when the sole foundation for such a tissue
lay in the fact that it was at this juncture that Keely made the announcement
that he had proved the uselessness of building engines to employ the ether
as a motive power; which could only be used as the medium for the power
which he had discovered, namely, a condition of sympathetic vibration,
associated both positively and negatively with the polar stream.

The statement made of the issue of new stock is absolutely untrue. The
revolving globe was never created to be “the source of power,” and the
representation of the manner in which the globe was made to revolve, and
that Keely affirmed he could produce with it “an indefinite amount of horse
power without current expense,” is denied. The suggestion that Keely could

be sent to prison was welcomed by those who eventually acted upon it, with
the result that Judge Finletter committed Keely to Moyamensing Prison, for
contempt of court, but not for fraud. Mr. Keely, at that time, wrote of those
who called him a perpetual motion seeker:—“I console myself by thinking
that if they were not ignorant of the grand truths which I am devoting my
life to develop into a system, they could never bring forward such an absurd
charge. Perpetual motion is against nature, and it is only by following
nature’s laws that I can ever hope to reach the goal I am aiming to reach.”

The Supreme Court reversed and set aside the order of the court committing
Keely for contempt, and released him from custody, upon the writ of
habeas corpus taken out on his behalf, within three days of his
commitment.

The Chief Justice, in delivering his opinion, made some remarks which
fully vindicated Mr. Keely’s character. After alluding to the proper
procedure which ought to have been taken in the court below, the Judge
continued:—

“Instead of so proceeding, a commission of experts was appointed to
examine the defendant’s machine, and the order of April 7th was made, by
which the defendant, in advance of any issue, was not only required to
exhibit his machine, but also to operate it and explain the mode of its
construction and operation, although it clearly appeared that it would
require considerable expense to clean the machine, put it together and
operate it. The defendant appears to have been willing to exhibit it, and in
point of fact did so. That he might have been compelled to do so at a proper
stage of the case is conceded. But to make an order not only to exhibit it,
but to operate it, the practical effect of which was to wring from him his
defence in advance of any issue joined, was an improvident and excessive
exercise of Chancery powers. We are of opinion that the order was
improvidently made. It follows that the learned court had no power to
enforce it by attachment. The relator is discharged.”

It was in this year, 1888, that a woman, interested in all branches of science, who had
proved to her own satisfaction the value to humanity, as well as to science, of Keely’s
discoveries, was deprived of legal and maternal rights on account of the delusions that she

was very generally believed to be under. A journalist, wishing to obtain information
concerning Keely’s work, called upon this woman, by appointment, and at the close of the
interview said,—

“May I venture to ask you if it is true that you have furnished Mr. Keely with large sums of
money as rumour declares; and that you have invested largely in the stock?”

“Were I not glad of the opportunity to answer this question in justice to Mr. Keely, I might
have said that this is a subject which is of no interest to the public; but I have heard the
amount estimated as nearly 100,000l. too often not to be willing to have the truth made
known. What I have given to Mr. Keely has been saved by economies in my expenses; and,
if not given to him, would have been given to others; as I believe in those who have the
most doing all that lies in their power for those who have less. In regard to investments in
Keely Motor stock, I have bought no stock excepting to give away.”

“There is one other question I should like to ask you,” said our representative, “Is Mr.
Keely a spiritualist? I use the word in its ordinary sense. Does he claim that he has bridged
the gulf between the finite and the infinite?”

“When Mr. Keely first commenced his wonderful investigations he would have scouted the
idea of being in any way whatever associated with so-called spiritualism, but of recent
years, and especially during the last few months, he has made such startling progress that
he now admits—as I told him a long time ago he would come to admit—that if not in
actual experiment, at least in theory he has passed into the world of spirit.”

The interview being ended, our representative took his departure, after expressing his
thanks for the information so willingly given. How far this lady’s anticipations of the
inventor’s success will be realized, or how far her confidence in his integrity is justified,
we must leave our readers to judge for themselves. The whole subject is enveloped in much
mystery, but it is full of interest, and if half that is narrated of Mr. Keely be true, he is
indeed a wonderful man!—The Tatler.

1 By his advocacy of Keely’s claims, as a discoverer, Major Ricarde-Seaver had reason to fear
that he would lose his election to membership of the Athenæum Club in London; as he was notified
by Sir William Thomson (who had proposed him for membership in or about the year 1873) that such
would probably be the case. The members however, rallied in force and, led by one of the Major’s
oldest friends Prince Lucien Buonaparte, he was elected by an overwhelming majority. ↑

CHAPTER IX.

1889–1890.

KEELY SUPPORTED BY DISTINGUISHED MEN
OF SCIENCE. AERIAL NAVIGATION.
Is not ether infinitely more rare and more subtle than air, and
exceedingly more elastic and more active? Does it not easily
penetrate all bodies? And is it not by its elastic force
diffused through the universe?—Sir Isaac Newton.

In 1889 a series of short articles were written, which, for the first time,
made known to the public that Keely had theories which he was able to
sustain by mechanical demonstration: and once more an attempt was made
to have men of science acquaint themselves with the theories, and witness
the demonstrations. Capitalists also were appealed to, to convince
themselves of the existence of an unknown force, and of Mr. Keely’s
honesty in his efforts to control it for commercial purposes; money being
required to enable him to complete his researches for science, and to protect
him from those who were harassing him in such a way as to impede his
progress at every step. The appeal to capitalists might as well have been
made to stone walls; but among the men of scientific and philosophical
attainments who were invited, the late Professor Joseph Leidy, M.D., of the
Pennsylvania University, and James M. Willcox, Ph.D., author of “Rational
Philosophy,” and other works, accepted the invitation and attended a series
of Keely’s researching experiments. For years Mr. Keely’s experiments
were confined to the production of the force; the raising of a lever; the
firing of a cannon; and the showing of a vacuum greater than had ever been
produced. Since 1888 he has pursued his researches on a line which enabled
him to show uninterrupted progress year after year: so that now he never
repeats his experiments; but, discarding or improving his researching
instruments, after he has gained the results which his theories lead him to
expect, he continues his investigations, thereafter, from the solid basis
which he has attained by those researches. The result of the attention given
by Professor Leidy and Dr. Willcox is best set down in their own words:—

“April 8th, 1890.

“After having had the opportunity of witnessing a series of experiments made by Mr. John
Keely, illustrative of a reputed new motor power, it has appeared to me that he has fairly
demonstrated the discovery of a force previously unknown to science. I have no theory to
account for the phenomena observed, but I believe Mr. Keely to be honest in his attempt to
explain them. His demonstrations appear to indicate great mechanical power, which, when
applied to appropriate machinery, must supersede all ordinary appliances.

“Joseph Leidy.”

“Philadelphia, April 8th, 1890.

“After having witnessed, on several occasions and under favourable circumstances, Mr.
Keely’s experiments in what he terms sympathetic vibration, I am satisfied that he has
made new and important demonstrations in physical science. He has made manifest the
existence of natural forces that cannot be explained by any known physical laws, and has
shown that he possesses over them a very considerable control.

“James M. Willcox.”

Shortly after these announcements were made public, with the consent of
the writers, Anglo-Austria contained two papers on the subject, from which,
principally, the article on Etheric Philosophy is taken.

S. Zolver Preston, in his “Physics of the Ether,” says: “A quantity of matter
representing a total mass of only one grain, and possessing the normal
velocity of the ether particles, that of a wave of light, encloses a state of
energy represented by upward of one thousand millions of foot tons. Or the
mass of one single grain contains an energy not less than that possessed by
a mass of 70,000 tons, moving at the speed of a cannon ball (1200 feet per
second); or, otherwise, a quantity of matter, representing a mass of one
grain, endued with the velocity of the ether particles, encloses an amount of
energy which, if entirely utilized, would be competent to project a weight of
100 tons to a height of one mile and nine-tenths of a mile.”

Etheric philosophy has a scientific basis in fact; and in the light of Keely’s
progressive demonstrations, his views are no longer abnormal to the
scientific mind which is willing to admit the possibility of a discovery in
which it has had no part. To discover an unknown power is one thing; to

subjugate it is quite another thing. The one may be stumbled over; the other
can only be attained after laborious investigation. No one who has followed
Keely in his “dead work,” during the last ten years, can doubt that he has
been, and still is, dealing with the same force which, as Professor Hertz has
disclosed to us, is already imprisoned, without our knowledge, in electro-
magnetic engines. If thus, unknowingly, it has been made the servant of
man, in machinery not especially constructed for its use, may it not also
have been imprisoned by one who is adapting his inventions to its special
requirements? Keely demonstrates, with what he calls vibratory machinery,
that all corpuscules of matter may be subdivided by a certain order of
vibration, thus showing up new elements; and having demonstrated what he
asserts, by releasing the various orders of ether from the suspension in
which it is always held in our atmosphere, he has answered the sceptical
demand “Give us some bread.” It has been said that as men penetrate
deeper and deeper into a knowledge of the wonderful laws which govern
the universe they may find mysterious forces which remain still
undiscovered. Keely’s discoveries promise to burst upon the world of
science as the one mighty and complete revelation of the universe. There
are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the materialistic
science of our age, or in our philosophy. “All we have cognizance of around
us are results, the causes of which are supersensuous. Of the nature which
we behold around us, the cause is supernatural.”

The Reverend Albert H. Plumb, of Roxbury, Mass., who has followed Mr.
Keely’s efforts, to obtain control of the unknown force which he discovered
more than twenty years ago, up to his present successful demonstration
before scientists, says: “Neither theological science nor any department of
physical science, as it lies in the divine mind, is exactly expressed in any
human system; yet no knowledge is to be decried nor despised, least of all
in the highest realms of thought. The agnostic makes the mistake of
confounding exhaustive knowledge with positive knowledge in declaring
both unattainable. We can know positively that a thing is, if not how or why
it is. As Gladstone says, ‘Our hands can lay hold of truths which our arms
cannot embrace. We can apprehend what we cannot comprehend.’ If Keely
should die, I fear no one could understand his writings. Every day we read
of distinguished men dying. The other day a man carried with him into the

grave his secret for the cheap production of aluminium. No one man
entrusted by Providence with high interests has a right to allow a possibility
of their sinking back, perhaps for ages, into the void of the unknown. Why
not confine attention strictly to making the discovery practically intelligible
to others, and thus securing to mankind the first steps by which the new
force is evoked and controlled, and leave to later leisure the subtler relations
of this power to the divine mind and to life?”

For years Mr. Keely did “confine attention” to efforts to prove his discovery
by practical methods, without making any advance; and it was not until he
was led into the spiritual or philosophical bearings of his discovery that he
himself gained “practically intelligible” ideas of its nature. To Dr.
Macvicar’s “Sketch of a Philosophy,” from which Mrs. Moore compiled
“Ether the True Protoplasm,” and to Mrs. Hughes’ book on the evolution of
tones and colours, Mr. Keely is indebted for the pregnant germs which,
falling from their writings upon his mind, took him from the line of
experiment which he was pursuing, into the only line of research which can
lead to scientific and commercial success. The hour in which he reaches one
he reaches both; nor can one be gained without the other being gained. This
should teach us that, though “the heart of man deviseth his way, the Lord
directeth his steps.” God never hurries, and He chooses His own
instruments, employing them after a manner that is inscrutable to us, in our
weak impatience for results. Admitting the truth of all that Dr. Plumb has
said, but understanding fully the impossibility of directing Mr. Keely’s
steps, until he himself gains more control of the force that he has
discovered, we must “wait upon the Lord,” who is revealing to him “the
deep mysteries of Creation.” In the meantime, those in whom narrowness of
mind has not caused stubbornness will hold themselves in readiness to
prove all things and hold fast to the truth. We do not easily believe what is
beyond our own knowledge, but faith in the claims of Keely as a discoverer,
if not as an inventor, is steadily increasing. The following from a foreign
publication about the Keely Motor will be of interest to all who have
watched the progress of that enterprise. The correspondent writes:—“In the
following brief article I purpose placing the latest aspect of Mr. Keely,
perhaps the best abused man in America, and his investigations before the
readers of Anglo-Austria;” continuing,—

“Under the heading of ‘The Keely Motor Again,’ Invention, of London, on
October 19th, printed a communication, mentioning the leading scientist of
America, Dr. Leidy, of the University of Pennsylvania, as supporting Mr.
Keely’s claims as a discoverer of an unknown force, as follows:—Dr. Leidy
having expressed the wish that Professor Barker should again visit Mr.
Keely and witness the experiments which had convinced himself that Keely
had discovered a new force, has received the following letter:—

“909, Walnut Street, Philadelphia, October 4, 1889.

“Dr. Leidy. Sir,—Referring to our conversation of a few days since, and the suggestion of
another visit to the workshop of Mr. Keely, by Professor Barker, I would say that I have
presented the matter to Mr. Keely and he acquiesces in what I stated to you. That is to say,
if Dr. Barker desires to visit Mr. Keely’s workshops again, and will make this known to
him in writing or through yourself, for the purpose of further observation and of having
confirmed or removed from his mind, as the case may be, the conclusions or impressions
arrived at by him, and published in the columns of the Ledger, of this city, in 1878; and on
condition that he will, if his further observations satisfy him that he did injustice to Mr.
Keely, forthwith publish that fact through the same channel, the Ledger: he being, of
course, at full liberty to confirm by further publication his previous condemnation, if
satisfied with the correctness of that conclusion; then Dr. Barker will be cordially received
by Mr. Keely, and a series of experiments will be conducted for him at an early day, say,
Saturday, 12 inst. And in the event of the engagement being made, I shall request the
pleasure of your presence, and that of Dr. McCook. I leave the matter in your hands for
such action as you in your wise discretion may think proper to take. Very truly yours,

“Charles B. Collier.”

Nothing could be fairer than Mr. Keely’s proposal, and the result of
Professor Barker’s visit will be watched for with the keenest interest by all
scientists on both sides of the Atlantic.1

“Professor Barker, after due consideration, concluded not to accept the invitation, and
declined it on October 11th, suggesting Professor Goodspeed, his associate in physics, as
one who would probably be disposed to witness the series of experiments about to be
given; showing the neutralizing or overcoming of gravity and the separation of metallic
plates by vibration. After the date upon which these latter experiments were to have been
made, and which I may mention, en passant, had been repeatedly made in the laboratory of
Mr. Keely, this cablegram was sent from London to Philadelphia:— ‘Ask Dr. Leidy’s
permission to announce here his conviction that Keely has discovered a new force.’ ”

The answer was returned as follows:—

“Having had the opportunity of seeing Mr. John Keely’s experiments, it has appeared to me
that he has command of some unknown force of most wonderful mechanical power.

“Joseph Leidy.”

Invention, in commenting upon the communication, says: “We wish to
make it quite clear that we do not identify ourselves with any of the
opinions which are expressed in this communication. It is certainly
desirable that the motor should be thoroughly tested, and particularly that
all the secrecy, which has hitherto been practised in connection with it,
should be abandoned. There can be no reason why this invention, if
invention it be, should not be published to the world as long as it is fully
protected by patents. We agree, however, so far, that Professor Barker’s
report, if his visit be paid, will be of considerable interest.”

These remarks of our English contemporary are based upon quite wrong
premises. The motor cannot be tested nor patented until it is completed. Mr.
Keely’s work is one of experimental research. His machine for the
production and liberation of the power is in daily operation. He has made
many failures in constructing his commercial engine, but each failure has
brought him nearer to perfection.

When he has succeeded in building an engine in which he can regulate the
speed, control reversions and govern its operations, as completely as the
steam engine is now governed, then he will be ready to test its action
publicly, take out patents for the same, and make known to the world the
nature of his discovery. Up to the present time Mr. Keely’s inventions have
been principally devices, enabling him to experiment with the force which
he has discovered and to obtain control over it. For years he was impeded
by the frequency of the explosions which took place, breaking his ribs,
paralyzing his left side for six weeks at one time, and frequently bursting
iron tubes as if they were pipe stems.

Little by little he learned the laws which governed the unknown force, and
now he never has an explosion. Mr. Keely has not preserved any secrecy
with regard to his experiments, but on the contrary he has lost much time in
exhibiting the production of this force to those who desire to see it. For

instance, some years ago he stopped his work on the graduating of his
engine to take his liberator to pieces, in order to show its interior
construction to Sir William Thompson and Lord Raleigh: these gentlemen,
misled by Professor Barker’s assertion, that Keely was deceiving his dupes
with compressed air, refused to witness his experiments. This was in 1884.

There is no “secrecy to be abandoned,” therefore. The question to be settled
was not one of secrecy, but whether Mr. Keely should continue his
experimental research, unimpeded by exhibitions, until he should succeed
in perfecting a commercial engine; or whether he should first convince
scientists that he is not a modern Cagliostro as he has been called, and that
he is a discoverer of an unknown force.

The ground taken by those who urged the latter course was that the interests
of the Keely Motor Company would thus be better served; reasoning that,
when scientists have been convinced that Mr. Keely’s researches are in a
field comparatively unknown to them, the cries of execration would be
drowned in the applause which would resound throughout the world as the
result of his stupendous labours became better known.

For this end several scientists were invited to witness the present stage of
experiment, which Mr. Keely had reached in his efforts to provide his
provisional engine with a governor, and Dr. Leidy was one of the number
who, after witnessing the experiments on May 28th, 1889, confessed
himself convinced that Keely was dealing with some unknown force.

When we call to mind Watt’s persevering efforts during thirty years, before
he succeeded in his attempt to invent a governor for the steam engine, we
can afford to be more patient with Mr. Keely than we have been. Taking
into consideration the marvellous advance which Mr. Keely has made in the
past five years in perfecting his liberator, we should not be surprised to hear
at any moment that he has also perfected his commercial engine, the so-
called “Keely Motor,” thus overcoming his sole remaining obstacle to
financial success. Those who talk of “testing” the motor, or of patenting it
in its present condition, are not aware of the exertions which have been
made by Mr. Keely to bring the motor to its present stage of development;

nor that, although the motor now seems to be approaching perfection, the
work of evolution will not be completed until it is in a patentable form.

In 1759 James Watt made his first model of a steam carriage. In 1784 he
took out a patent. In 1803 the first engine was built, but it was not until
1824 that the experiment of running a locomotive from Liverpool to
Stockport was made. Until Mr. Keely’s commercial engine is perfected and
patented, now that scientists are beginning to support him as the discoverer
of an unknown force, ridicule should give way to sympathy; for we know
that nature never reveals one of her tyrant forces without at the same time
showing how this force is to be transformed into the slave of man, and that
complete success is only a question of time.—Anglo-Austria, March, 1890.

SOME RECENT EXPERIMENTS.2

Copy of a Letter addressed to Professor Dewar of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Dear Professor Dewar,—As I have already informed you, I carried out your wishes in
reference to Professor Rowland of the John Hopkins University, as far as extending to him
an invitation to witness some of Mr. Keely’s experiments in sympathetic vibration was
concerned. Professor Rowland was not able to witness any demonstration whatever, on
account of an accident which happened to the disintegrator, and he could not fail to have
formed an unfavourable opinion of Mr. Keely from all that transpired on that occasion. I
next renewed the invitation to Professor Barker, which had already been extended to him
by Professor Leidy, both of these gentlemen being Professors in the Pennsylvania
University. Professor Barker was not able to be present. The series of experiments which
have been given for scientists, mechanical engineers, and others since my return, closed on
the 12th. The steady progress from week to week, since the accident to the disintegrator
was repaired, has given beautiful evidence of the wisdom of the plan adopted by Mr. Keely
in the winter of 1888–89, which led him to turn his attention to a class of experiments of
quite a different nature from those which, up to that time, had been made for commercial
ends; experiments which have not failed to convince all who attended the entire series that
Mr. Keely is dealing with an unknown force, the laws governing which he is still in partial
ignorance concerning. He admits now that he cannot construct a patentable engine to use
this force till he has mastered the principle; and a fund, with the approval of scientists, has
been appropriated for this end, upon the condition that he will waste no more time upon
what is known as the Keely Motor Engine until he has demonstrated his ability to control
reversions and in all points to govern the revolutions.

His last engine was built to exhibit the practical nature of his discovery to capitalists, the
managers of “The Keely Motor Company”—which company died a natural death years
since—hoping thereby to raise the price of its stock, and in this way to furnish Mr. Keely
with the funds that he needed. But the exhibition of this engine was premature and did not
succeed. There will be no further need for such exhibitions in future, for it is, as it always

has been, in the interest of stock-holders that the stock should not rise until the system is
completed, when it will rise to remain raised. From this time the interests of stock-holders
will not be sacrificed to the interest of stock-jobbers. The experiments conducted on
Saturday last surpassed preceding ones in the purity of the demonstrations, the instruments
being in better condition.

In demonstrating what seems to be the overcoming of gravity for aerial navigation, Mr.
Keely used a model of an air-ship, weighing about eight pounds, which, when the
differentiated wire of silver and platinum was attached to it, communicating with the
sympathetic transmitter, rose, descended, or remained stationary midway, the motion as
gentle as that of thistledown floating in the air.

The experiment illustrating “chord of mass” sympathy was repeated, using a glass
chamber, forty inches in height, filled with water, standing on a slab of glass. Three metal
spheres, weighing about six ounces each, rested on the glass floor of the chamber. The
chord of mass of these spheres was B flat first octave, E flat second octave, and B flat third
octave. Upon sounding the note B flat on the sympathetic transmitter, the sphere having
that chord of mass rose slowly to the top of the chamber; the positive end of the wire
having been attached, which connected the covered jar with the transmitter. The same
result followed the sound of the note in sympathy with the chord of mass of the other
spheres, all of which descended as gently as they rose, upon changing the positive to the
negative.

J. M. Willcox, Ph.D., who was present, remarked,—“This experiment proves the truth of a
fundamental law in scholastic philosophy, viz., that when one body attracts or seeks
another body, it is not that the effect is the sum of effects produced by parts of one body
upon parts of another, one aggregate of effects, but the result of the operation of one whole
upon another whole.”

The experiments on the 12th closed with the disintegration of water, twelve drops of which
we saw dropped, drop by drop, into the small sphere attached to the disintegrator after
exhausting the air by suction. A pressure of over 20,000 pounds to the square inch was
shown to the satisfaction of all present, and when Mr. Willcox accepted Mr. Keely’s
invitation to take a seat on the arm of the lever, adding his 260 pounds to the weight,
applause broke forth. Mr. Keely showed control of the ether, inter-atomic subdivision, by
graduating the escape of the residue, as he allowed it to discharge itself with a noise like
the rushing of steam to an expulsion as gentle as the breathings of an infant. The three
subdivisions acted simultaneously, showing instantaneous association and disassociation.
The sympathetic globe was operated upon, 120 revolutions a second, ceasing the instant
that the wire was detached.

I regret to say that Professor Ira Remsen was prevented, I fear by Professor Rowland, from
witnessing any one of this series of experiments as he intended doing; nor have I been able
to get the opinion of any physicist in whom I felt any confidence; but Mr. Keely is satisfied
to have the support of such men as J. M. Willcox, Ph.D., and Professor Leidy, LL.D. Dr.
Leidy was awarded the Lyell Medal in 1884, when in London, and the Cuvier Prize in
1888, from the Academy of Sciences in France. He is known in America not only as
possessing the broadest of minds and the gentlest of natures, but as holding in his heart that

love for, and reverence of, truth and justice which alone can confer the power of forming a
correct and a just judgment.

I would like to have you make known in England that Mr. Keely is indebted to Macvicar’s
Sketch of a Philosophy for turning his attention, in 1884, to researches on the structure of
ether, and to Mrs. F. J. Hughes (not Mrs. Watts Hughes), for the suggestions in her work on
Harmonies of Tones and Colours Developed by Evolution, which led him into the line of
experiment that will enable him to show on a disc the various colours of sound, each note
having its colour, and to demonstrate in various ways Mrs. Hughes’ own words “that the
same laws which develop musical harmonies develop the universe,” etc., etc.

On the 10th of June, 1890, the Rev. John Andrew, of Belfast, whose pendulographs
illustrate the ratios which rule in the domain of atmospheric vibrations, in which audible
music has been located by the great numberer, wrote: “I think that now, at last, Keely’s
labours are about to be honourably recognized by the world of science. May he live to
rejoice in his triumphs.” Mr. Andrew, who was the friend of the late Dr. Macvicar, was
instrumental in bringing “A Sketch of a Philosophy” to Mrs. Moore’s notice, and has
maintained great interest in Keely’s researches since he first heard of them. Miss Mary
Green, a governess in the family of Lord Wimborne, was another instrument used to make
known to Keely the important nature of the energy he had liberated from the suspension in
which it is always held in our atmosphere. About this time Professor James Dewar, who
had been following Keely’s claims as a discoverer since 1884, wrote: “If Mr. Keely
succeeds in making his discovery practically useful, as it is said that he is demonstrating to
scientists his ability to do—if this information be true, it is strange to contrast the past
history of science with the present. Fancy the discoverer of electricity having succeeded in
inventing the modern dynamo machine! Such a fact would mean the concentration of
hundreds of years of scientific discovery and invention into the single life of one man.
Such a result would be simply marvellous.”

At this time a number of the leading journals in various parts of the United
States announced that, although Keely’s methods and his failures had
combined to engender distrust and arouse ridicule, it could no longer be
denied that he had discovered what no other man has discovered. Still
“penny-a-liners” continued to employ those “weapons of small souls and
narrow minds,” sneers and ridicule and calumny, which Lavater’s
allegorical vignette so well depicts: A hand holding a lighted torch is stung
by a wasp, and the gnats that swarm around it are consumed in its flame.
Underneath are these lines:—

And although it singes the wings of the gnats,
Destroys their heads and all their little brains,
Light is still light;
And although I am stung by the angriest wasp,

I will not yield.

Every defender of the truth, at whom shafts of ridicule are levelled, should
recall these words. Never, for one moment, has Keely turned aside from his
work to answer his assailants.

It is not to be wondered at that the magical nature of his demonstrations,
more inexplicable than any feats of legerdemain, should have brought upon
him the suspicion of fraudulent representation, concerning the production of
the force and its manipulation; but his persistency alone in seeking to
unravel the mysteries of nature, ought to have brought around him sooner
men who, like the revered and great Leidy, were able to appreciate his
researches in sympathetic vibration, the laws of which govern everything in
creation, from the movements of the planets, down to the movements of
atoms. From the time in which it was made known to Keely that the same
principle underlies harmonies and the motion of heavenly bodies, as
announced by Pythagoras, his grasping intellect conceived the idea that
planetary bodies have a nerve-system, subject to conditions which govern it
and keep it under control, just as our human mechanism is controlled by the
law which governs its operation. In Keely’s theories all is mechanical in
nature. A molecule of steel, a molecule of gas, a molecule of brain matter
are all of the one primeval substance—the Ether.

AERIAL NAVIGATION.

The instrument devised by Mr. Keely for bringing the air-ship under control
in its ascent and descent, consists of a row of bars, like the keys of a piano,
representing the enharmonic and the diatonic conditions. These bars range
from 0 to 100. At 50 Mr. Keely thinks the progress of the vessel ought to be
about 500 miles an hour. At 100 gravity resumes its control. If pushed to
that speed it would descend like a rifle-ball to the earth. There is no force
known so safe to use as the polar flow if, as Mr. Keely thinks, that, when
the conditions are once set up, they remain for ever, with perpetual
molecular action as the result, until the machinery wears out. In the event of
meeting a cyclone, the course of the vessel, he teaches, can be guided so as

to ascend above the cyclone by simply dampening a certain proportion of
these vibratory bars.

The instrument for guiding the ship has nothing to do with the propelling of
it, which is a distinct feature of itself, acting by molecular bombardment;
moving the molecules in the same order as in the suspension process, but
transversely. After the molecular mass of the vessel is sensitized, or made
concordant with the celestial and terrestrial streams, the control of it in all
particulars is easy and simple. In ascending the positive force is used, or the
celestial, as Keely has named it, and in descending the negative or
terrestrial. Passing through a cyclone the air-ship would not be affected by
it.

The breaking up of cyclones will open a field for future research, if any way
can be discovered for obtaining the chord of mass of the cyclone. To
differentiate the chord of its thirds would destroy it; but to those who know
nothing of the underlying principle, on which Keely has based his system,
all such assertions are the merest “rubbish.”

For a few months following the announcement of Professor Leidy’s and Dr.
Willcox’s opinions, Mr. Keely continued his researches under favourable
circumstances; but, in the autumn of 1890, he was again threatened with
suits-at-law and harassed by demands to give exhibitions in order to raise
the price of stock. A subscription was started to raise funds for the
prosecution. These threats made it necessary to make public the history of
Keely’s connection with an organization which was supposed by many to
have been formed for speculative purposes, before the stock of the company
possessed any value other than prospective; but to which company,
notwithstanding, the world is indebted for supplying Mr. Keely with the
means to continue his work, at a time when it was impossible for him to
gain the recognition of science or the aid of capitalists. The discovery
would in all probability have been lost, but for the help which this
organization gave, at a time when Keely needed help; he had made a
discovery, and these shrewd business men, totally ignorant of physics, knew
enough to comprehend its financial importance. Never doubting that Keely
would be able to master the difficulties at once, in the way of its

subjugation, and not realizing the width of the gulf that lies between
discovery and invention, they expected him to leap it with one bound; and
when he failed to do so they threw upon him all the odium which befell the
enterprise. Keely, who had twice destroyed his researching instruments,
when harassed and threatened by the managers of the company, first in
1882, and again in 1887, was now placed by their threatened proceedings in
a position where he had to choose between continuing his researches with
the end in view of completing his system; or diverting his course and
resuming his efforts to perfect an engine, to continue exhibitions for the
purpose of raising the stock of the company.

At this juncture an attempt was made to have circulated among the stock-
holders a narrative setting forth facts to show that their interests would be
better served by a continuance of the researches that had led to the results
attained within the last two years; and which were of so important a
character as to justify Keely in saying that he had learned more of the law,
governing the operation of the force he was dealing with, in that time, than
in the many preceding years during which he had been scarcely doing more
than liberating the ether. The effort to have the narrative circulated failed;
and, as a last resort, the history of the company was made public in a
pamphlet, entitled The Keely Motor Bubble; which contained the Minority
Report of Mr. John Lorimer, made, in 1881, when he was a member of the
Board of Directors of “the now defunct Keely Motor Company;” giving a
masterly analysis of the situation at that time. Mr. Lorimer’s faith in, and
loyalty to, Mr. Keely, has never been questioned. He is probably the best
and most disinterested adviser that Mr. Keely has ever had; among those
who are interested solely in the commercial aspect of the discovery.

1 The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 30, 1890, copied this article from Anglo-Austria, headed
“The Keely Motor: some observations on the invention from a foreign publication.” ↑
2 From the Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, April 13th, 1890: headed “Professor Leidy’s
Adherence to the New Force.” ↑

CHAPTER X.

1881–1891.

THE KEELY MOTOR BUBBLE. MACVICAR’S
LOGICAL ANALYSIS.
For it is well known that bodies act upon one another by the
attraction of gravity, magnetism, and electricity; and these
instances show the tenour and course of Nature and make it
not improbable that there may be more attractive powers
than these. For Nature is very consonant and comfortable to
herself.—Sir Isaac Newton.

The Scotch author, Macvicar, from whose “Sketch of a Philosophy” has
been compiled “Ether the True Protoplasm,” published this year in the New
York Home Journal, says in his “Enquiry into Human Nature,” written in
1852, “Modern science is certainly on the way to the discovery that, so far
as is cognizable by us, throughout the whole universe the same laws are at
work and regulate all things. The mécanique céleste of mind is still waiting
its Newton to disclose them to us.”

Looking upon the discoverer of etheric force as the Newton, whose coming
was forecast by Macvicar, it is satisfactory to see that Keely, in his field of
research, eventually adopted the methods which his forerunner advocated
nearly forty years ago; but not until after many years of blind grappling
with the mechanical difficulties which he encountered, in his efforts to
control the unknown Genii, which he himself declares that he stumbled
upon in quite another field of research. Keely was experimenting in 1875 on
what he called a hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacuo engine, when,
“accidentally,” the first evolution of disintegration was made. The
focalization of this quadruple force, acting on one general centre of
concentration, produced partial molecular subdivision, resulting in a
pressure of some three thousand pounds per square inch. Mr. Keely was
himself amazed at this evidence of the energy which he had evoked, and at
once turned his attention to researching its nature, with the result that he
came to the conclusion that he had partially resolved the gaseous element of
water by crude molecular dissociation. This was his first step, and the

necessary introductory one, towards the elimination of ether; but at that
time, to use his own words, he had not the remotest idea of the etheric
element proper. Since then he has constructed innumerable machines to
subdivide or dissociate the molecular; but it was not until he had instituted
certain acoustic vibratory conditions that he began to realize the magnitude
of the element that he is now controlling with his vibratory disintegrator.
Yet, even this instrument was only the stepping-stone towards polar-
sympathetic-negative-attraction.

In 1878 Mr. Keely conceived and constructed an instrument which he called
a “vibratory lift,” and, while experimenting on the improvised
multiplication by this medium, he had occasion to put a piece of marble,
weighing twenty-six pounds, on a steel bar to hold it in place, when then
and there his first discovery of the disintegration of mineral substance took
place. From that time progressive research of the most arduous nature has
brought him to his present standard in vibratory physics. In the winter of
1881–82, when threatened with imprisonment by the managers of the Keely
Motor Company for not disclosing his secret to them, which then would
have been like pricking a bubble, he destroyed his vibratory lift and other
instruments that he had been years in perfecting. At this time so hopeless
was Keely, that his plans were made to destroy himself, after destroying his
devices. At this critical juncture he received unexpected aid. Again, in 1888,
before he was taken to a felon’s cell in Moyamensing Prison by decree of
Judge Finletter for alleged contempt of court, he broke up his vibratory
microscope, his sympathetic transmitter, and some devices, which have
taken much of his time since to reconstruct. It would seem to be
incomprehensible that a man who believes he has been specially endowed
by Providence to convey great truths to the world, should have destroyed
instruments which were the result of the labour of many years of research;
but Schopenhauer tells us that genius possesses an abnormally developed
nervous and cerebral system that brings with it hyper-sensibility, which in
union with intensity of will-energy, that is also characteristic of genius,
occasions quick changes of mood and extravagant outbursts. Schopenhauer
also explains why it is that men of genius are ignored by the age in which
they appear:—“The genius comes into his age like a comet into the paths of
the planets, to whose well-regulated and comprehensible order its entirely

eccentric course is foreign. Accordingly he cannot go hand in hand with the
existing regular progress to the culture of the age, but flings his works far
out on the way in front (as the dying Emperor flung his spear among the
enemy), which time has first to overtake. The achievement of the man of
genius transcends not only the power of achievement of others, but also
their power of apprehension; therefore they do not become directly
conscious of him. The man of talent is like the marksman who hits a mark
the others cannot hit; the man of genius is like the marksman who hits a
mark that the sight of others cannot even reach.” In one sense this truth
applies to all men, for, says Cicero, no man is understood excepting by his
equals or his superiors.

Admitting all that has been said of the difficulties attendant upon the
comprehension of a genius by the age in which he lives, it does not require
genius to understand the blunders which, perpetrated by the managers of the
prematurely organized Keely Motor Company, have placed Mr. Keely, as
well as themselves, in false positions with the public; leaving him since the
winter of 1880–81 to bear the whole burden of the infamy brought about by
their having offered stock for investment which could possess no tangible
existence in the shape of property until the laws governing the unknown
force that he was handling had been studied out and applied to mechanics in
a patentable machine. To those informed that this company ceased to hold
annual meetings as far back as 1881 it will be a matter of surprise to hear
that, sitting up in its coffin, seven or eight years after its burial, it called
another annual meeting, and that now its managers are again applying the
thumb-screw, as in past years; pressing their claims and threatening a suit
for obtaining money under false pretences, unless Mr. Keely renounces his
plan of progressive research, and gives his time to the construction of
engines for the Keely Motor Company. This requirement, as was said in
1881, of a similar effort, is as sensible, under existing conditions, as it
would be to require Keely to devote his time to growing figs on thorn trees.
It is from the “Minority Report to the Stockholders of the Keely Motor
Company from the Board of Directors” (made by a member of that board in
1881, John H. Lorimer), that the material is gleaned for disclosing facts
which it is due to Mr. Keely should now, since this last attempt to intimidate
him, be given to the public. The stock of that company is not lessened in

value by the mismanagement of its officers and directors; for Mr. Keely’s
moral obligations to its stockholders are as sacred to him as if the company
had not long since forfeited its charter. When Mr. Keely became financially
independent of the company last March, speculation in the stock of that
company received its death blow, and the “Keely Motor Bubble” burst,
leaving to the stockholders all that ever had any tangible existence in the
shape of property in a more valuable position than it had ever been before.
Mr. Lorimer is a gentleman of Scotch birth, who was elected a director of
the Keely Motor Company in 1881, and who resigned in 1882, because he
was “unable to carry the enterprise,” and unwilling to fall in with the policy
of the old directors. Before resigning, he set himself to studying the position
of affairs with a view to forming for the Board a definite plan of action
which ordinary business principles would justify.

This course resulted in a thoroughly business-like letter to Mr. Keely in
which, under nine heads, Mr. Lorimer set down the conclusions he had
reached as to the cause of the difficulties that had culminated in a
threatened law suit, and Mr. Keely was ordered to ask that a special meeting
of the Board should be called at once, to consider any proposition he should
see fit to make towards settling the question whether he should proceed
with the company’s work or be permitted to defer it, as he so much desired,
until he had fully developed the adaptations of his power already known to
him or hereafter possible of discovery by him. Mr. Lorimer added:—“And
now, in conclusion, I may say to you that the above deductions from the
history of your motor are the result of patient and laborious inquiry on my
part, and I am truly at a loss to understand how, or in what manner, other
than that herein suggested, you can honourably vindicate your position; and
as no one I have met connected with the enterprise, or personally
acquainted with you, hesitates for an instant in crediting you with the most
unswerving integrity, I have no hesitation in offering the above suggestions
for your consideration; and I trust you will so far adopt them as to enable
the active portion of your friends to bring the organization rapidly into
harmonious accord with you in the development of what all seem to think is
the greatest wonder of our civilization, the early completion of which will
lift you to the highest pinnacle of fame as a scientist, and make them co-

dispensers with you of the God-given wealth of which you hold the key.”
The date is 10th of February, 1881.

This letter was followed by another dated February 11th, in which Mr.
Lorimer submitted certain conclusions, arrived at after meeting in New
York with several members of the Board of Directors, one of which reads:
—“It seems to be generally understood that without your hearty co-
operation and good will, the company cannot realize value upon any
existing contracts, or any they may hereafter make with you.”

At this time Mr. Lorimer states that he had the opportunity presented of
studying, semi-officially, the very peculiar man whose genius held his
friends so spell-bound that they lost their power (if such they possessed) to
adapt business methods to the enterprise. “To meet him socially in his
shop,” Mr. Lorimer writes, “after his day’s work, was, I think, invariably to
be impressed with his earnestness, honesty of purpose, and above all, with
confidence in his knowledge of the plane of science he was working in
(acoustics), and, at the same time to be impressed with the folly of basing
calculations for the government of the business details of the organization
upon the statements made by him while contemplating the possible result of
his researches.”

With the hopeful spirit of an inventor, Mr. Keely always anticipated almost
immediate mechanical success, up to the hour in which he abandoned the
automatic arrangement that was necessary to make his generator patentable.
From that time his line of perspective extended, and he began to realize that
he had been too sanguine in the past. He had been like a man grappling in
the dark with a foe, the form of which had not even presented itself to his
imagination; but when, in 1884, Macvicar’s work on the structure of ether
came like a torch to reveal the face of his antagonist, what wonder that he,
with the enthusiasm of Paracelsus, felt his

… “fluttering pulse give evidence that God
Means good to me, will make my cause His own;”

and, as in 1881, again rashly bound himself anew, by fresh promises, made
to those who had the power to give or to withhold the sinews needed in the
warfare he was waging?

To return to the report. During the negotiations which followed, facts in the
history of the company were developed which convinced Mr. Lorimer that
Mr. Keely was totally unable to measure time, or define his plans, because
of the ever-changing results attained by him, in researching the laws
governing the force he was trying to harness. At this time the treasurer of
the company was proposing to bring over from New York to Philadelphia a
number of capitalists to witness an exhibition of the production of the force,
in order to dispose of 500 shares at 25.00 dollars a share. To this plan Mr.
Lorimer objected, writing to the treasurer, “I fear that you would be putting
yourself in a false position with the friends you might induce to take stock
at the figures named,” and Mr. Keely himself at first refused to give the
exhibition, but upon the application of the thumb-screw, kept in readiness, it
took place. At this time Mr. Lorimer wrote to the president of the company,
“If Keely gives us the benefit of his discoveries, it will require all our
energies to guide our enterprise; and, on the other hand, if he dies or is
forestalled, it will need all our care and attention to take care of our
reputations …. The fact that the Board has some delicate and important
work to perform, brings us to the question, Are we properly organized to
perform our part? If we are, let us show it by our acts, and, if not, let us act
like men, worthy the important trust before us. If I am overestimating the
character and importance of this work, you can show it to me; and per
contra, if I am correct, you can and will accept the responsibilities of the
position you hold, no matter how unpleasant, no matter how irksome, if
understood by you and honourably supported by us.”

Mr. Lorimer then prepared this summary, or analysis of the situation.

SUMMARY.

26th July, 1881.

“First.—The existence of a discovery or invention which from evidences of its adaptability
(when complete) to the industrial arts and sciences, may be esteemed the most valuable

discovery of civilization in modern or in ancient times, inasmuch as it revolutionizes all
known methods of generating power.

“Second.—The retention by the discoverer and inventor of all the secrets whereby these
discoveries can be utilized by the public, thus making their future existence, so far as the
Keely Motor Company is concerned, depend entirely upon his life and goodwill.

“Third.—The existence of a corporated company, organized for the purpose of furnishing
funds for the development and completion of the discovery, and for the final control of
certain specified inventions, in certain specified localities.

“Fourth.—The contracts under which the above-mentioned control of certain inventions is
vested in the Keely Motor Company, being mere evidences of intention, have no real value
until the inventor has received his patents and verified the contracts by transfer of the same
to the company.

“Fifth.—If any conflict should arise between the company and the inventor, in which the
latter felt justified in withholding the transfer, the existing contracts might be a good
foundation to build litigation upon but not good for investment in.

“Sixth.—The uncertainty of the future of the enterprise, as thus indicated, must of necessity
invite speculative management; and while speculation under some circumstances is
legitimate and laudable, under other conditions it may become illegitimate and
reprehensible.

“Seventh.— The existence of a speculative management in Keely Motor affairs has, of
necessity, developed two interests—one which holds that the completion of the discovery
in all its possible grandeur should ever be the sole object of its management, and the other,
believing that on account of the human uncertainty of the completion of the invention, they
are in duty bound to make quick recoveries on their investments, so that they may be safe
financially, in the event of a failure by Keely to perfect his inventions.”

It is not necessary to pursue this summary farther, as the manner in which
Mr. Lorimer has set down the facts already given, makes clear the nature of
the conflicting interests that brought about the antagonism which he
attempted to subdue, bringing such a spirit of fairness and justice into his
efforts as must have crowned them with success, supported as he was by
Mr. Keely, had it not been that those who advocated following a policy
which, at best, aimed no farther than at the recouping of losses to
themselves, were in the majority. It was at this time that Mr. Keely
manifested his willingness to assume, on the one hand, all the responsibility
of the proper development of his discovery; or, on the other hand, all the
disgrace accompanying failure by his offer to purchase a controlling interest
in the stock, fifty-one thousand shares of which, in order to prevent

speculation, he agreed to lock up for five years, and to give the company a
bond restraining him from negotiating or parting with a single share of it in
that time, the stock to be paid for as soon as certain deferred payments had
been made to him. This proposition of Mr. Keely to the Board of Directors,
October 25th, 1881 (and laid upon the table by a large majority as unworthy
of consideration), was made from his earnest desire to control the
presentation of his life’s work to the world in a just and honourable way;
having recognized, with Mr. Lorimer, the utter impossibility of reconciling
the numerous interests created by mistakes of himself and the
mismanagement of the Board, unless he could thus obtain the power to
deliver an unencumbered enterprise to the world. In the opinion of Mr.
Lorimer, during the negotiations which he conducted between the
management and Mr. Keely, the latter was the only one who had manifested
any consistency or strength of purpose, so far as the facts gave evidence,
which were brought before him, of the history of the company. When the
validity of the contracts made with Mr. Keely while he was president, or
director of the company, were disputed, he was called upon to resign, which
he did; and yet no steps were taken to ascertain the value of the existing
contracts, which had all been made with him while he was both president
and director, and which were therefore illegal. Proceedings in equity were
commenced against Mr. Keely, by the Committee of the Board of Directors
having the matter in charge, late in the year 1881, while Mr. Lorimer’s
report was still in the hands of the printer. “The spectacle of a Board of
thirteen Directors, composed of business men,” writes Mr. Lorimer,
“claiming that they have been foiled in their business calculations by a man
whose mind has been so thoroughly absorbed in researching the problems
presented by his wonderful discoveries that he could not possibly compare
with any of them in business tact, is truly a phenomenon which is not easy
of explanation on any hypothesis, but the one that their visions of
prospective wealth have been so overpowering as to undo their prudence;
and then having in due process of time discovered their error, it certainly is
an edifying spectacle to see them now trying to throw all the blame on one
poor mortal wholly absorbed in his inventions, and by these efforts
disturbing that mental equilibrium of both the inventor and themselves,
which is absolutely necessary to ultimate success. When boys, in early
summer, pick unripe fruit and eat it, because of their unwillingness to await

the ripening thereof, they sometimes suffer acutely for their haste. Yet no
one ever thinks of punishing the tree because of their sufferings; nor is it
deemed necessary to justice to preserve the fruit of the tree, when ripe, for
the sole use of the impatient ones as a recompense for their early sufferings!
So it has been with the Keely Motor Company; undue haste to gather the
golden fruit that was to come from it, has led to a great deal of suffering
financially among a few impatient believers. Still it does not seem to me to
be wise to curse the inventor, or his inventions because he has not given us
the fruit when we expected it would be ripe.”…

The effort to force Keely to divulge his secrets failed, for at that time he had
nothing of a practical nature to divulge, and though possessing no business
qualifications, he was too shrewd to cut off any of his resources for
supplies, necessary to enable him to persevere in his efforts to attain some
practical result, as he surely would have done, had he said, “I know very
little more than you know of the laws governing the force I have
discovered. I can only control their operation by experimental research, and
the more time that is wasted in building engines, until I have made myself
acquainted with these laws, the longer will you have to wait for your golden
fruit.” Mr. Keely was no more able at that time to give the faintest idea of
the present stage of his researches than Professor Leidy or Dr. Wilcox could
now, after witnessing the experiments in sympathetic attraction, write out a
clear formulation of its governing law, and an inductive substantiation of it.
Even were it possible, no reader could understand it because the discovery
made by Mr. Keely is not in accordance with any of the facts known to
science. Mr. Keely’s experiments in disintegrating water prove that
incalculable amounts of latent force exist in the molecular spaces; but in the
opinion of scientists, molecular aggregation is attended with dissipation of
energy, not with absorption of energy. If the men of science are right, then
there must be an absolute creation of energy, for only by admitting its
absorption in aggregation, could molecular dissociation supply the force
witnessed. Keely, of course, denies any creation of energy, claiming only
that he can produce an indefinite supply by the expenditure of an
infinitesimally small amount of energy. Every new discovery necessitates a
new nomenclature. The vocabulary coined by Mr. Keely, to meet his
requirements in formulating his hypotheses into theories as he progresses,

conveys as little meaning to those who read his writings, as the word
“electricity” conveyed 200 years ago. Professor Crookes remarked that
reading Mr. Keely’s writings was like reading Persian without a dictionary.
Another learned professor said that they seemed to him to be composed in
an unknown tongue, so profoundly unintelligible had he found the extracts
sent to him. One must be familiar with Mr. Keely’s instruments and their
operation, in order to comprehend even the nature of his researches.

An author of philosophical works, who was present at some experiments
illustrative of varying chords of mass, and whose theories had not been in
unison with those of Mr. Keely on that subject, sat for some time after the
demonstration with his eyes fixed upon the floor, wearing as serious an
expression of countenance as if he were looking on the grave of his most
cherished views. The first remark that he made was, “What would Jules
Verne say if he were here?” The rotation of the needle of a compass, the
compass placed on a glass slab and connected with the transmitter by a
wire, 120 revolutions in a second, had the same effect upon the scientists
present, one of awe; so completely were they transfixed and unable to form
a conjecture as to the mysterious influence from any known law of science.
There was only one professor present, a very young man, who ventured the
whispered suggestion of concealed mechanism under the pedestal; and as
Mr. Keely soon after had occasion to wheel the pedestal across the room,
showing that it was not stationary, and could have no concealed connection
within or without, the young professor took up another line of conjecture.
As Macvicar says, it has grown to be the fashion, to a marvellous extent, to
give predominance in education to physical and mathematical studies over
moral and mental. Hence a very general and growing prepossession in
favour of material nature. Astronomy, natural philosophy, chemistry, natural
history, geology, these and the like are in our day held to be everything. He
continues:—

Now, all these branches of study, however various in detail, agree in this,
that they exclude the conception of a true self-directive power from the
field of thought. They offer for consideration nothing but figures,
movements, and laws. And thus they tend to form the popular mind to the
habit of looking for figures, movements, and laws everywhere, and for

rejecting all other conceptions as intruders. But of all such other
conceptions, there is nothing so difficult and so intractable, under physical
modes of investigation, as self-directive power. It therefore runs a great risk
of being rejected, and thus the mind, from its first training, having been in
physics, carrying out here, as it usually does everywhere, its first love into
all its after thoughts, shuts up the student surreptitiously with materialism as
his philosophy. Thus it is easy to see how materialism should come to be a
current opinion, when the popular education runs all in favour of physical
pursuits. But if philosophy must yield to the demands of the logical faculty
for an extreme simplicity, unity, identity, at the fountain-head of nature, it
were more logical to regard those phenomena and laws named physical,
such as the laws of motion, elasticity, gravitation, etc., as manifestations,
when existing under certain limiting conditions, of substances or beings
which have also in them, when not so limited, and when existing under
certain conditions, ability to manifest self-directive power. That every body
is compounded, constituted, or made up of molecules, is universally agreed.
Every body is therefore a fit subject for analysis. But when any body is
submitted to analysis in reference to its mere corporeity or bodily nature,
that is, its extension and impenetrability, what do we ultimately arrive at?
Do we not, in reference to the attribute of extension, arrive at particles, of
which the physical limit is that they have at least ceased to be extended, and
are but mere points in space? And as to the attribute of impenetrability,
what do we in the last analysis arrive at, but the idea of a substance that can
resist the intrusion into its place of other similar substances, and, therefore,
ultimately, a centre of force. And thus, under a logical analysis, which must
be admitted to be legitimate, it may be maintained that a body or chemical
element resolves itself into a system of centres of force balancing each
other at certain distances, and thus rendering the whole molecule or mass
extended, as body is known to be. The elements of body, therefore, are
things of which these attributes are to be affirmed in the first instance, that
they possess unextended substance and extensive power. But, if so, do they
not touch upon the confines of the spiritual world to say the least? asks
Macvicar; and the Newton whom he anticipated would give a mécanique
céleste to mankind, solves the problem, answers the question by his
discovery of the cerebellic stream or will-flow.

Body and spirit, one at the fountain-head, when rising into existence, form,
as it were, the first breath of creation; for, as Sir Wm. Thompson says: “Life
proceeds from life and from nothing else.” They are the opposite poles of
being and constitute the two principles by the harmonious interweaving of
which the beautiful system of creation is constituted, and its economy
worked out. Such a view, far from being contrary to the canons of science,
is even the necessary complement of science. That unity, which is the last
word of science, must always include two objects, existing in contrast after
all. The law of couples, of opposites, of reciprocal action between two
contrasted yet homogeneous and harmonizing elements, each of which
opens a field for the other, and brings it into action, is of universal extent. In
the organic world, also, no less than in the purely physical and chemical, all
is framed according to the same law of couples. In the sphere of sensibility,
in like manner, everything turns on the antagonism of pleasure and pain,
and in the moral sphere of good and evil. Nor is the world of pure intellect
exempt from this law, but on the contrary displays its influence everywhere.
Hence faith and sight, identity and difference, finite and infinite, objective
and subjective, space and time, cause and effect, the world of realities and
the world of ideas. In a word, every system of thought and of things, when
complete, present as its basis two co-ordinate elements, the reciprocals of
each other; or one parted into two reciprocally, and by the harmonious
antagonism of both the beautiful web of nature is woven. If we are to be
consistent, mind and matter ought always to be viewed as distinct, and the
opposite poles of being; inertia, or unvarying submissiveness to the laws of
motion being the characteristic of the one; self-directive power the
characteristic of the other.

The universal analogy of science sanctioned Macvicar in the characteristic
he thus arrived at as that of animated nature, for if inertia, or the obedience
to pressures and impulses from without, be the characteristic of matter, then
that which is needed as the other term to complete the couple is just what
has been insisted on, viz., self-directive power, the power to cause pressures
and impulses. Here is shown the symmetrical relation in which this power,
when viewed as the characteristic of the whole animal kingdom (which
plainly points to man, and culminates in human nature), places the animal
in relation with the vegetable and the mineral kingdoms. Of minerals or

crystals, the characteristic is simply self-imposing or self-concreting power.
They are, so to speak, merely insoluble seeds without an embryo. To this,
self-developing power is added in plants, and forms their acknowledged
characteristic. While of animals the characteristic, according to the view
here advanced (the same seed-producing, self-developing, powers
continuing) is self-directive power superadded. This relationship between
these three kingdoms of nature is as homogeneous and symmetrical as is
necessary to appear to be legitimate, and is a true expression of the order of
nature.

Granting these two principles, the inert and the self-directive, the necessary
and the free, we obtain the materials for a universe, without disputing the
fact of human liberty and bringing into suspicion even the possibility either
of morality or immorality. If man be really free as well as under law, in this
union of body and spirit, then in human nature heaven and earth truly
embrace each other; and no reason appears why, as the ages roll on, our
own free thought may not have the run of the universe …. What study then
can be more replete with interest, what researches can possess more of
fascination, than those which Mr. Keely’s discoveries are preparing the way
for?

The discoveries of Mr. Keely (demonstrated—as he is now prepared to
demonstrate them) cannot be disputed, though his system may be called in
question. With the humility of genius, he calls his theories hypotheses, and
his hypotheses conjectures. The solidity of the principles, as laid down by
himself, cannot be decided upon by others until he has brought to light the
whole system that grows out of them. But it is time the public should know
that the odium thrown upon him by the Keely Motor Company, he does not
deserve. It is time that the Press should cease its sneers, its cry of “Crucify
him, crucify him!” morally speaking, and extend to him that discriminating
appreciation of his work and encouragement which the New York Home
Journal, Truth, Detroit Tribune, Chicago Herald, Toledo Blade, Atlanta
Constitution, The Statesman, and Vienna News have been the first to do. Let
the Press contrast the past history of science with the present position of
Keely, as Professor Dewar has done. Only such a man who knows from
experience the labour, the difficulties, the uncertainties, attendant upon

researching unknown laws of nature is able to appreciate all that is now
being concentrated in the single life of one man. It is time that capitalists
should step from their ranks to protect Keely from the selfish policy of the
managers of a speculative company, which has long since forfeited all
claims upon him, to continue mechanical work for it, even admitting that it
ever possessed that right; and, more than all else, it is time that science
should send her delegates to confer with the broad-minded men who have
had the courage to give testimony, without which Keely could not have
stood where, this year, he stands for the first time, fearless of threats,
pursuing his researches on his own line, to acquire that knowledge of the
laws governing his discoveries by which alone he can gain sufficient
control of machinery to insure financial success. Meanwhile, are there no
men who are able to feel an interest (without reference to commercial
results) in a discovery which sweeps away the débris of materialism as
chaff is swept before a whirlwind?—giving indisputable proof that, as St.
Paul teaches, “we are the offspring of God; “or, as Aratus wrote, from
whom he quoted:—

“From God we must originate,
Not any time we break the spell
That binds us to the ineffable.
Indeed, we all are evermore
Having to do with God: for we
His very kind and offspring be:
And to His offspring the benign
Fails not to give benignant sign.”

From New York Truth, 3rd July, 1890.

“I think it is safe, for even the most conservative and pig-headed of scientists, to admit that
Keely, the contemned, the scoffed at, the derided, the man whom every picayune peddler
called charlatan because he could not harness the hitherto undiscovered forces of ether in
less time than one might hitch up a mule, is the most original and the most straightforward
of inventors, and that in his own good time he will give to the world a power that will
throw steam and electricity into disuse, open the realms of air as a public highway for man,
and send great ships careering over ocean with a power developed by sound. His theory of
etheric vibration is now conclusively established, and it is only a question of time and
material that delays its use as a servant to man. The fact is patent, so that he who runs may
read, but the ox must have the yoke, the horse the collar, the engine the cylinder, and the

dynamo the coil, ere they can work their wonders. While Keely was hampered by mere
tradesmen, who only looked to the immediate recoupment of their outlay, men more
anxious for dividends than discoveries, he could do little save turn showman, and exhibit
his partial control of the harmonies of nature as springs catch woodcocks, and was forced
to open his crude contrivances to divert the eternal will of the cosmos to work-a-day uses,
that he might coax from the greed and credulity of mere mammon-worshippers the sorely
grudged means to continue his exploration of the infinite. His genius was prisoned in a test
tube, and only let out to play monkey tricks before muddle-headed merchants, who could
see the effect, but not the means, and so the greatest discovery of the age was turned into a
raree show, and the eternal music of the spheres was set, figuratively speaking, to play
tunes to attract custom like a barrel organ before a dime museum.”

CHAPTER XI.

VIBRATORY SYMPATHETIC POLAR FLOWS.—
KEELY’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE.
“Evermore brave feet in all the ages
Climb the heights that hide the coming day,—
Evermore they cry, these seers and sages,
From their cloud, ‘Our doctrines make no way.’
All too high they stand above the nations,
Shouting forth their trumpet-calls sublime,
Shouting downwards their interpretations
Of the wondrous secrets born of Time.”

… Who can say what secrets the now unread ‘fairy tales of
science’ may have to tell to those who live in this later age?
—The Globe.

The question has often been asked, “How much energy does Keely expend
in the production of the force he is handling?” or again, “Can Keely show
that a foot-pound of vibratory sympathy can be more easily developed from
the resources of nature, than a foot-pound of good honest work?”

In the economy of nature profit and loss must balance in mechanical
conditions; but Keely is not dealing with mechanical physics. There is an
immense difference between vibratory physics, in which field Keely is
researching, and mechanical physics. The consumption of coal to expand
water for the production of steam power, in the operation of engines, cannot
be compared to a force which is yielded in sympathetic vibration or by
sympathetic flows. In mechanical physics, no matter what the nature of the
force may be, its production must necessarily be accompanied by a
corresponding expenditure of force in some form or other. The amount of
force covered by a human volition cannot be measured, yet it produces the
wonderful effects that are exhibited on the human frame in its overt actions.
Something like this is the difference between sympathetical and mechanical
force. The force of will cannot be multiplied by mechanical means, making

it give pound for pound. This would annihilate both the mental and the
physical, were it possible.

In his researches, Mr. Keely, who is dealing entirely with VIBRATORY
SYMPATHETIC and POLAR flows, is hopeless in regard to convincing the
scientific world of the value of his discoveries until he has compelled its
attention by commercial success. To the question, “What does the supply
cost in dollars and cents, per horse-power developed?” he answers, “It costs
nothing more after the machinery is made, than the vibratory concordant
impulse which associates it with the polar stream.” The twanging of a taut
string, the agitation of a tuning-fork, as associated with the resonating
condition of the sympathetic transmitter, is all that is necessary to induce
the connective link, and to produce this “costless motive power.” As long as
the transmitter is in sympathy with the sympathetic current of the triune
polar stream, the action of the sympathetic instrument or engine continues.

Again, mechanical conservation of energy is one thing; sympathetic
conservation is another, and we cannot expect Keely will reveal what he has
discovered concerning the forces that he is dealing with until he has himself
acquired that full knowledge of their action which will protect the rights of
those who are interested in the “dollars and cents” part of “the enterprise.”

Macvicar said that “if extreme vicissitudes of belief on the part of men of
science are evidences of uncertainty, it may be affirmed that of all kinds of
knowledge none is more uncertain than science;” but slow as mankind is in
the progress of discoveries bearing upon unknown laws of nature, men of
science are still slower in recognizing truths after they have been discovered
and demonstrated. Two centuries elapsed between the discoveries of
Pythagoras and their revival by Copernicus. Tycho Brahe opposed the
Pythagorean system until his death; Galileo, adopting it and demonstrating
it in all its purity, suffered for his support of it at the hands of bigots. And so
history now repeats itself. Were it possible to convince scientists en masse
of the grandeur of Keely’s work, they would protect him from the
interruptions and law-suits which have so retarded his progress that now it
looks very much as though he would never be permitted to complete his
system. The world is full of inventors, but there is but one man able to

unfold, to this age and generation, the wonderful mysteries attendant upon
vibratory physics, while there are thousands who, when a mastery of the
principle has been gained, can invent machinery to apply it to commercial
uses. Macvicar asks, “Who that goes so far as to make a question of all, or
almost all, the data of common sense can legitimately refrain from making
it a question whether the laws of phenomena which men of science discover
may not be laws of thinking, merely imposed upon nature as her laws? Nay,
who can refrain from admitting with Kant that they can be nothing more?”

As a suggestion to those interested in psychological researches I will
mention that Keely has copied nature in all his instruments from the
Vibrophone, which is fashioned after the human ear, up to the Disintegrator,
in which the neutral centre represents the human heart. With the system
which Keely is unfolding to us we may well say, with Buckle, “A vast and
splendid career lies before us, which it will take many ages to complete. As
we surpass our fathers, so will our children surpass us. Waging against the
forces of nature what has too often been a precarious, unsteady, and
unskilled warfare, we have never yet put forth the whole of our strength,
and have never united all our faculties against our common foe. We have,
therefore, been often worsted, and have sustained many and grievous
reverses. But, even so, such is the elasticity of the human mind, such is the
energy of that immortal and godlike principle which lives within us, that we
are baffled without being discouraged, our very defeats quickening our
resources, and we may hope that our descendants, benefiting by our
failures, will profit by our example, and that for them is reserved that last
and decisive stage of the great conflict between man and nature, in which
advancing from success to success, fresh trophies will be constantly won;
every struggle issuing in a conquest, and every battle ending in a victory.”

The force discovered by Keely—no, the force revealed to him—will rule
the earth with an influence mighty in the interests of humanity. The
completion of his system for science and commerce will usher in the
dawning of a new era.

While our leading men of science are everywhere occupying themselves
with the mysteries of electro-magnetic radiation, with the action of the

ether, with the structure of the molecule, the instruments with which they
are researching are, in comparison with those which Keely has invented, for
his researches, like the rudest implements of the savage, compared to those
developed by modern civilization. A discussion has recently been carried on
in one of our Reviews, as to whether the energy which feeds the magnet
comes from the atmosphere, from gravity, from solar rays, or from earth
currents. Nothing is more simple than Keely’s explanation, as proved by his
demonstrations. The energy of the magnet comes from the polar stream;
and, though the introductory impulse is so slight that it cannot be weighed
any more than can the flow of the mind, yet, if kept up for years, it could
not be computed by billions of tons in its effect. The magnet that lifts
pounds to-day, if the load of the armature is gradually increased day by day,
will lift double the amount in time. Whence comes this energy? Keely
teaches that it comes from sympathetic association with one of the triune
currents of the polar stream, and that its energy will increase as long as
sympathetic flows last, which is through eternity.

The physicist tells you that “you cannot make something out of nothing;”
that “in the economy of nature profit and loss must balance;” that “no matter
what the nature of the force may be, its production must necessarily be
accompanied by a corresponding expenditure of force in some form or
other,” etc., etc. But, in the prodigality of nature, this energy flows, without
measure and without price, from the great storehouse of the Infinite Will.
From the sympathetic portion of the etheric field, all visible aggregations of
matter emanate, and on the same order that molecular masses of all living
organisms are vitalized by the sympathetic flow from the brain.

“Our most learned men,” said Buckle, “know not what magnetism is, nor
electricity, nor gravity, nor cohesion, nor force.” Keely shows us, by
mechanical means, what magnetism is. By neutralizing or overcoming
gravity, he proves to us that he understands its nature; electricity he declares
to be a certain form of atomic vibration; and, in the disintegration of quartz,
he demonstrates that cohesive force, like gravity, is an ever-existing force,
holding together all molecular masses by the infinite velocity of its
vibrations; which, were these vibrations to cease for one instant, would fall
apart, molecules and atoms, and return to the ether in which they originated.

KEELY’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE.1
An infinitely subtle substance, out of which all other
substances are constituted, in varying forms, passes back
again into simplicity. The same principle underlies the
harmonies of music and the motion of heavenly bodies.—
Pythagoras.

One of the most arduous problems is that of energies acting
at distances. Are they real? Of all those that appear
incontrollable, one only remains, gravitation. Will it escape
us also? The laws of its action incline us to think so. The
nature of electricity is another problem which recalls us to
the condition of electric and magnetic forces through space.
Behind this question arises the most important problem of
all, that of the nature and properties of the substance which
fills space,—the ether,—its structure, its motion, its limits, if
it possesses any. We find this subject of research, day by
day, predominating over all others. It seems as though a
knowledge of ether should not only reveal to us the nature of
that imponderable substance, but will unveil to us the
essence of matter itself and of its inherent properties, weight
and inertia. Soon the question set by modern physics will be,
“Are not all things due to conditions of ether?” That is the
ultimate end of our science; these are the most exalted
summits to which we can hope to attain. Shall we ever reach
them? Will it be soon? We cannot answer.—Prof. Henri
Hertz, in La Revue Scientifique, October 26, 1888.

In the long delay attendant upon the application to mechanics of the
unknown force which John Ernest Worrell Keely has discovered in the field
of vibration, the question is often heard, “What has Keely done?” with the
remark, “He has never done anything; he is always promising to do
something, but he never keeps his promises.”

Let us see what Keely, in his researches, has done for science; although, as
yet, he has done nothing for commerce.

We are quick to forget the experiences of history, which show what a length
of time has invariably elapsed between the discovery of a new force and its
use in mechanics. Watt commenced his experiments on the elastic force of
steam in 1764, obtaining about forty pounds total pressure per square inch.
(It has been stated that it was thirty years before he succeeded in perfecting
his safety-valve, or governor, which made it possible to use steam without
running great risks.) Fifty years later, in 1814, the first steam locomotive
was built; but it was not until 1825 that the locomotive was used for traffic
—travelling at a speed of from six to eight miles in an hour. Keely
commenced his experiments with ether in the winter of 1872–73, showing a
pressure of two thousand pounds per square inch. It does not look now as
though half a century would elapse before Keely’s discovery will supersede
steam in travel and traffic. In experimenting with ether, he has shown, from
time to time, since 1873, a pressure of from twenty thousand to thirty-two
thousand pounds per square inch; but he was occupied many years in his
researches before he obtained sufficient control over the ether to prevent the
explosions which made wrecks of his machines, bursting iron and steel
pipes, twelve inches in circumference, as if they were straws. He has now
arrived at a stage in his experimental research in which he can, without
danger of explosions, exhibit to scientists such manifestations of an
unknown force as to place him before the world where he would have stood
many years ago, had it not been for the calumnious attacks of those men of
science who found it easier to denounce him than to account for the
phenomena which they witnessed in his workshop.

Professor Ira Remsen, in his “Theoretical Chemistry,” writes, “As regards
the cause of the phenomena of the motion of the heavenly bodies, we have
no conception at the present day. It is true we say that these phenomena are
caused by the attraction of gravitation; but, after all, we do not know what
pulls these bodies together.”

Let us see what Keely knows on this subject?

1st. After a lifetime of research into the laws governing vibrations, which
develop this force, Keely is able to demonstrate partial control of the power
that he has discovered,—a power which he believes to be the governing

medium of the universe, throughout animate and inanimate nature,
controlling the advance and recession of the solar and planetary masses, and
reigning in the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdom, according
to the laws that rule its action in each, as undeviatingly as it governs the
motions of the earth itself, and of all the heavenly bodies in space.

Keely calls this power, which he is endeavouring to apply in mechanics for
the benefit of mankind, “sympathetic negative attraction,”—it being
necessary to use the word “attraction,” as no other word has yet been coined
to take its place.

2nd. He has determined and written out a system of the vibratory conditions
governing the aggregation of all molecular masses, as to their relation
sympathetically one to the other, stating the conditions to be brought about
in order to induce antagonism or repellent action, disintegration, etc.; but he
has not yet been able to control the operation of his Disintegrator so as to
use it with safety to the operator, for mining purposes, etc.

3rd. He has proved by demonstration that the subdivision of matter under
different orders of progressive vibration evolves by such subdivision
entirely new and distinct elements, too multiple to enumerate. He has
systematized the proper vibratory chords, progressively, from the
introductory molecular to the inter-etheric, embracing seven distinct orders
of triple subdivision. He has elaborated a system of inducing sympathetic
negative attraction on metallic masses, with great range of motion, and
instant depolarization of the same, by vibratory change of their neutral
centres. Keely controls the transmission of these sympathetic streams by a
medium of high molecular density, viz., drawn wires of differentiated
metals, gold, silver, platinum, German silver, etc. In some recent
experiments he took apart, for inspection of its interior construction, the
instrument which he has invented for the production of the force, cutting the
wires with which he had operated in sympathetic attraction and propulsion,
and distributing the fragments to those who were present, among whom was
Professor Leidy, to whom the Geological Society of London has awarded
the Lyell Medal, and the Academy of Sciences of France the Cuvier Prize.

4th. Keely has discovered that all sympathetic streams, cerebellic, gravital,
magnetic, and electric, are composed of triple flows; this fact governing all
the terrestrial and celestial orders of positive and negative radiation. In
gravity it would be more correct to speak of triple connective links, as there
is no flow of gravity.

5th. Keely has discovered and was the first to demonstrate that electricity
has never been handled; that it is in principle as material as is water; that it
is not merely a force or a form of energy,—that it is matter; and that what
we call electricity, and have diverted for commercial use in electric lighting,
is but one of the triune currents, harmonic, enharmonic, and diatonic, which
are united in pure electricity; that the enharmonic current seems to be
sympathetically and mysteriously associated with the dominant current; and
that the dominant current can no more be brought under control than can the
lightning itself. The diversion of the dominant current would mean
destruction to any mechanical medium used for that purpose, and death to
the operator. The intense heat evolved by the electric stream Keely
attributes to the velocity of the triple subdivision at the point of dispersion,
as each triple seeks its medium of affinity. Sudden unition induces the same
effect; but demonstration shows that the concentration of this triple force is
as free of percussion as is the breath of an infant against the atmosphere; for
the three currents flow together as in one stream, in the mildest sympathetic
way, while their discharge after concentration is, in comparison to their
accumulation, as the tornado’s force to the waft of the butterfly’s wing. The
enharmonic current of this triple stream, Keely thinks, carries with it the
power of propulsion that induces disturbance of negative equilibrium;
which disturbance is essential to the co-ordination of its flow, in completing
the, triune stream of electricity. When this fluid is discharged from the
clouds, each triplet or third seeks its terrestrial concordant, there to remain
until that supreme law which governs disturbance of equilibrium again
induces sympathetic concordant concentration, continuing to pass through
its evolutions, positively and negatively, until the solar forces are expended.

“My researches have proved to me,” writes Keely, “the subtle and pure
conditions of the power of negative attraction and positive propulsion.”

6th. These same researches have enabled Keely to pronounce definitely as
to the nature of what is recognized as gravity, an ever-existing, eternal
force, coexistent with the compound etheric, or high luminous, entering into
all forms of aggregated matter at their birth. Keely thinks that gravity is the
source from which all visible matter springs, and that the sympathetic or
neutral centre of such aggregation becomes at birth a connective concordant
link to all neutral centres that have preceded it and to all that may succeed
it, and that disturbance of equilibrium, like gravity, is an ever-existing force.
His researches in the vibratory subdivision of matter have revealed to him
some of the mysteries of the hidden sympathetic world, teaching that “the
visible world,” as Coleridge wrote, “is but the clothing of the invisible
world;” that “true philosophy,” as Professor George Bush said, “when
reached will conduct us into the realm of the spiritual as the true region of
causes, disclosing new and unthought-of relations between the world of
matter and of mind.”

Professor Thurston writes, in the January number of the North American
Review, “We are continually expecting to see a limit reached by the
discoverer, and by the inventor, and are as constantly finding that we are
simply on a frontier which is being steadily pushed further and further out
into the infinite unknown. The border-land is still ahead of us, constantly
enlarging as we move on. The more we gain, the more is seen to be
achievable.”

All planetary masses Keely calls terrestrial, showing in his writings that the
beauty of the celestial concordant chords of sympathy forming the
harmonious connective link, in what may be denominated “the music of the
spheres,” is seen in the alternate oscillating range of motion between the
planetary systems; for at a certain range of the greater distance, harmony is
established, and the attractive forces are brought into action, under the
command, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no further.” Then in the return
towards the neutral centres, when at the nearest point to each other, the
opposite or propulsive force is brought into play; and “thus near shalt thou
come, and no nearer;” advancing and receding under the celestial law of
etheric compensation and restoration, as originally established by the Great
Creator.

7th. Keely has constructed instruments by which he is endeavouring to
determine the nature of the triune action of the polar terrestrial stream, or
envelope, as regards its vibratory philosophy. He is seeking to demonstrate
its sympathetic association with the celestial stream, or luminiferous track,
—the compound etheric field, from which all planetary masses spring. He
considers the electric stream to be one of the triune sympathetic streams
which help to build up, in their order of triple concentration, the high
vitality of the polar stream, or, more correctly, the magnetic-electric
terrestrial envelope, without which all living organisms would cease to
exist. He classes the cohesive force of molecular masses as the dominant
order of the electric stream, the molecule owing its negative attractive
quality to the magnetic element.

In Keely’s beautiful experiments in antagonizing the polar stream, recently
given before men of science, he has copied in his instruments the conditions
which Nature has established in all her terrestrial ranges,—conditions
necessary in order to equate a state of sympathetic disturbance for the
revitalization of what is continually being displaced by negative dispersion.
These mechanical conditions are principally differential vibratory settings
on molecular aggregations of the metallic masses of gold, silver, and
platinum.

8th. He has discovered that the range of molecular motion in all quiescent
masses is equal to one-third of their diameters, and that all extended range
is induced by sound-force, set at chords of the thirds which are antagonistic
to the combined chords of the mass of the neutral centres that they
represent, no two masses being alike, and that at a certain increased range
of molecular motion, induced by the proper acoustic force, the molecules
become repellent, and that when the sympathetic centres are influenced by a
vibration concordant to the one that exists in themselves, the molecules
become attractive; that the repellent condition seems to take place at a
distance of about ten of the diameters of the molecules, this distance
representing the neutral line of their attractive force, or the dividing line
between the attractive and the repellent. Beyond this line, perfect triple
separation takes place; inside of it, perfect attractive association is the
result.

The force which Mr. Keely uses in running machinery is the sympathetic
attractive,—the force which, according to his theories, draws the planets
together; while in his system of aërial navigation, should he live to perfect
it, he will use a negation of this force,—the same that regulates the motion
of the planets in their recession from each other. It is the sympathetic
attractive force which keeps the planets subservient to a certain range of
motion, between their oscillations. If this condition were broken up, the
rotation of planets would cease; if destroyed at a given point of recession,
all planets would become wanderers, like the comets; if destroyed at
another given point, assimilation would take place, as two bullets fired
through the air, meeting, would fuse into one mass. Nature has established
her sympathetic concordants from the birth of the neutral centres of the
planets, in a manner known only to the Infinite One. This is gravity.

“The music of the spheres” is a reality. “The finer the power the greater the
force.” Thus, the inaudible atomic, etheric, and inter-etheric sounds, which
control and direct the harmony of the movements of the celestial universe,
are the most powerful of all sounds. If our faculty of hearing were a
hundred billions of times intensified, we might be able to hear the streams
of light as plainly as we now hear the sighings of the wind.

Again, to answer the often-asked question, “What has Keely done?”

9th. He has broken joints of his fingers and thumbs, he has broken his ribs,
he has had his left side paralyzed for weeks, he has lost the sight of one eye
for months, in his hand-to-hand fight with the genii that he has encountered,
and cannot completely subdue until he has effected the condition of
polarization and depolarization which is necessary for the control of
rotation and reversions in his commercial engine. An illness of nine weeks
followed his abandonment of water in disintegrating; and he was obliged to
return to its use, to avoid the percussion that was induced by the rapid
vibration of the atmospheric air. To illustrate: if a bullet is fired at a man
through a vessel of water a foot thick, the bullet is flattened out without
injuring the man; while if nothing intervenes the man is killed.

The question naturally arises, “Are not the forces with which Keely is
dealing of too subtle a nature to be harnessed to do the daily work of the
world?” Even were it so, the fascination attendant upon his researches
would prevent him from abandoning them; but his faith in his ability to
accomplish all that he has undertaken to do for the Keely Motor Company
and for others is equalled only by the persistent energy which, in the face of
gigantic obstacles, of cruel obloquy, of baffled endeavours, leads him to
persevere to the end. He believes that the successful result is as positive as
are the continued revolutions of our globe, under the great law which
governs all Nature’s highest, grandest, and most sensitive operations. And
when has Nature ever revealed a force save to permit man to subjugate it
for the progress of our race?

Another question often heard is, “Why does not Keely make known his
discoveries?”

10th. He has written three treatises to explain his system, the titles of which
are as follows:—

I. Theoretical Exposé or Philosophical Analysis of Vibro-Molecular, Vibro-
Atomic, and Sympathetic Vibro-Etheric Forces, as applied to induce
Mechanical Rotation by Negative Sympathetic Attraction.

II. Explanatory Analysis of Vibro-Acoustic Mechanism in all its Different
Groupings or Combinations to induce Propulsion and Attraction
(sympathetically) by the Power of Sound-Force; as also the Different
Conditions of Intensity, both Positive and Negative, on the Progressive
Octaves to Ozonic Liberation and Luminosity.

III. The Determining Principle of Matter, or the Connective Link between
the Finite and the Infinite, progressively considered from the Crude
Molecular to the Compound Inter-Etheric; showing the Control of Spirit
over Matter in all the Variations of Mass-Chords and Molecular Groupings,
both Physical and Mechanical.

If these treatises were read from the first page to the last, by men of science,
they would not at present be any better understood than were Gilbert’s

writings in his age, author of “De Magnete.”

Newton was indebted to Gilbert for his discovery of the so-called law of
gravitation. Keely defines gravity as transmittive inter-etheric force under
immense etheric vibration, and electricity as a certain form of atomic
vibration. When Gilbert, court-physician to Queen Elizabeth, announced his
discovery of electricity, he was asked by his compeers of what use it was.
No one dreamed then of it as a motive power. He replied, “Of what use is a
baby? It may develop into a man or a woman, and, although we cannot
make any use of electricity now, the world may in time find out uses for it.”
Just as little understood would Keely’s writings be now on sympathetic
negative attraction as were Gilbert’s writings then on electricity and
magnetism. Men found no sense in the words “electric” and “electricity,”
although derived from the Greek root for amber. The same fault is found
with Keely for coining new words which no one understands.

“Every branch of science, every doctrine of extensive application, has had
its alphabet, its rudiments, its grammar: at each fresh step in the path of
discovery the researcher has had to work out by experiment the unknown
laws which govern his discovery.” To attempt to introduce “the world”—
even scientists—to any new system without previous preparation would be
like giving a Persian book to a man to read who knew nothing of the
language. As has been said, we do not expect a complicated problem in the
higher mathematical analysis to be solved by one who is ignorant of the
elementary rules of arithmetic. Just as useless would it be to expect every
scientist to comprehend the laws of etheric physics and etheric philosophy
after having witnessed Keely’s experiments. The requirement of every
demonstration is that it shall give sufficient proof of the truth that it asserts.
A demonstration which does less than this cannot be relied upon, and no
demonstration ever made has done more. The success of a demonstration is
in proportion as the means applied are adequate or inadequate. As different
principles exist in various forms of matter, it is quite impossible to
demonstrate every truth by the same means or the same principles. It is only
the prejudice of ignorance which exacts that every demonstration shall be
given by a prescribed canon of science; as if the science of the present were

thoroughly conversant with every principle that exists in nature. Yet
physicists exact this, though they must know its inadequacy.

Mr. Keely does not expect more from scientists than that they should
withhold their defamatory opinions of him until they have witnessed his
demonstrations and acquainted themselves with his theories. Yet,
notwithstanding Professor Crooke’s psychical researches and Professor
Rücker’s experiments in molecular vibration, demonstrating that molecules
seem to have a “mental attribute, a sort of expression of free will,”
physicists still look upon the human organism as little more than a machine,
taking small interest in experiments which evince the dominion of spirit
over matter. Keely’s researches in this province have shown him that it is
neither the electric nor the magnetic flow, but the etheric, which sends its
current along our nerves; that the electric and magnetic flows bear but an
infinitely small ratio to the etheric flow, both as to velocity and tenuity; that
true coincidents can exist between any mediums,—cartilage to steel, steel to
wood, wood to stone, and stone to cartilage; that the same influence,
sympathetic association, which governs all the solids holds the same control
over all liquids, and again from liquid to solid, embracing the three
kingdoms, animal, vegetable, and mineral; that the action of mind over
matter thoroughly substantiates the incontrovertible laws of sympathetic
etheric influence; that the only true medium which exists in nature is the
sympathetic flow emanating from the normal human brain, governing
correctly the graduating and setting-up of the true sympathetic vibratory
positions in machinery, necessary to commercial success; that these flows
come in on the order of the fifth and seventh positions of atomic
subdivision, compound inter-etheric sympathy a resultant of this
subdivision; that if metallic mediums are brought under the influence of this
sympathetic flow they become organisms which carry the same influence
with them that the human brain does over living physical positions, and that
the composition of metallic and that of physical organisms are one and the
same thing, although the molecular arrangement of the physical may be
entirely opposite to the metallic on their aggregations; that the harmonious
chords induced by sympathetic positive vibration permeate the molecules in
each, notwithstanding, and bring about the perfect equation of any
differentiation that may exist—in one the same as in the other—and thus

they become one and the same medium for sympathetic transmission; that
the etheric, or will-flow, is of a tenuity coincident to the condition
governing the seventh subdivision of matter, a condition of subtlety that
readily and instantaneously permeates all forms of aggregated matter, from
air to solid hammered steel, the velocity of the permeation being the same
with the one as with the other; that the tenuity of the etheric flow is so
infinitely fine that a magnifying glass, the power of which would enlarge
the smallest grain of sand to the size of the sun, brought to bear upon it
would not make its structure visible to us; and that, light traversing space at
the speed of two hundred thousand miles per second, a distance requiring
light a thousand centuries to reach would be traversed by the etheric flow in
an indefinite fragment of a second.

11th. Keely has given such proof of genius as should bring all scientists
who approach him into that attitude of mind which would lead them to
receive without prejudice the evidence of the truth of the claims he offers.

Genius has been defined as an extraordinary power of synthetic creation.
Another definition of the man of genius is, the man who unceasingly
cultivates and perfects such great natural aptitudes and facilities as he has
been endowed with at his birth. No man has ever lived on this earth who,
according to these qualifications, so deserved to be known and
acknowledged as a man of genius as John Worrell Keely. History will
determine whether he is a man of genius or “a charlatan,” as some scientists
still persist in calling him. It is easier, as has been said, to accuse a man of
fraud than to account for unknown phenomena. A system of doctrine can be
legitimately refuted only upon its own principles, viz., by disproving its
facts and invalidating the principles deduced from them. Abercrombie said
that the necessary caution which preserves us from credulity should not be
allowed to engender scepticism,—that both of these extremes are equally
unworthy of a mind which devotes itself with candour to the discovery of
truth.

“We must not decide that a thing is impossible,” says Lebrun, “because of
the common belief that it cannot exist; for the opinion of man cannot set
limits to the operations of Nature, nor to the power of the Almighty. He who

attempts to hold up to contempt a scientific subject of which he is
profoundly ignorant has but small pretensions to the character of a
philosopher.” Galileo said, after pronouncing his abjuration, “E pur si
muove” (“But it does move”). What signified to him the opinion of men,
when Nature confirmed his discovery? Of what value were their prejudices
or their wisdom in opposition to her immutable laws? Kedzie, speculating
upon the nature of force, writes, “Molecules and masses act precisely as
they are acted on; they are governed by the iron instead of the golden rule.
They do unto others as others have done unto them. Whence comes this
energy? Not from atoms, but from the Creator, in the beginning.”

The Duke of Argyll says, “We know nothing of the ultimate seat of force.
Science, in the modern doctrine of the 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, arising from one fountain-head of power.”

12th. Keely’s researches have taught him that this one fountain-head is none
other than the omnipotent and all-pervading Will-Force of the Almighty,
which creates, upholds, guides, and governs the universe. “The whole
world-process,” says Von Hartmann, “in its context is only a logical
process; but in its existence it is a continued act of will.”

Lilly says, “This 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 holds to the harmony of this “distinct idea” throughout creation, and
he demonstrates by vibratory machinery that all forces are indestructible,
immaterial, homogeneous entities, having their origin and unity in one great
intelligent personal will-force.

Were it not for this will-force eternally flowing into all created forms, the
entire universe would disappear. As the workman employs his instrument to
accomplish his designs, so Omnipotence may be said, in all reverence, to
regulate His systems of worlds through and by the vibratory ether which He

has created to serve His purpose. Well did Hertz reason when he wrote,
“Soon the question set by modern physics will be, ‘Are not all things due to
conditions of ether?’ ” He had never heard of the toiler on this side of the
Atlantic, when, after his own discovery, in 1888, that ether was imprisoned
and used in every electro-magnetic engine, without this fact having been
even so much as suspected by a single scientist, he wrote, in the Revue
Scientifique, “We have gained a greater height than ever, and we possess a
solid basis which will facilitate the ascent, in the research of new truths.
The road which is open to us is not too steep, and the next resting-point
does not appear inaccessible. Moreover, the crowds of researchers are full
of ardour. We must therefore welcome with confidence all the efforts that
are being made in this direction.”

Keely has found no “resting-point” in his researches of a lifetime; and,
instead of being “welcomed with confidence” by his fellow-researchers in
science, he has suffered at their hands more than will ever be known by his
detractors. Keely’s discoveries would have died with him, through the
calumnies of these same scientists, as far as demonstration was concerned,
had not a company been formed, in the early days of his inventions, which
for many years furnished him with the necessary funds, expecting almost
immediate financial success. The sneers of men of science crying
“Charlatan,” the ridicule of the public press, and the denunciations of the
ignorant have been mighty factors in debasing the value of the shares of the
company. The courage, faith, and contributing capacity of nearly all the
stockholders have given out; and it is fortunate that now Mr. Keely’s work
of evolution has at last reached the point where he is able to convince those
scientists of his integrity whose minds are broad enough to conform to what
Herbert Spencer has said is the first condition of success in scientific
research,—viz. “an honest receptivity, and willingness to abandon all
preconceived notions, however cherished, if they be found to contradict the
truth.”

Keely may be said to have spent years of his valuable time in giving
exhibitions whereby to raise the funds needed for his scientific researches.
Again and again has he taken apart his various machines, to show their
interior construction to the sceptical; and what this means, in the attendant

delay, will be better understood when he has made known how slight a
thing, by the laws of sympathetic association, may retard his progress for
days, even for weeks.

Take, for example, his last experience with his preliminary commercial
engine, to which, before he had completed his graduation, he was induced,
in November 1889, to apply a brake, to show what resistance the vibratory
current could bear under powerful friction. A force sufficient to stop a train
of cars, it was estimated, did not interfere with its running; but under
additional strain a “thud” was heard, and the shaft of the engine was
twisted.

The engine should not have been submitted to such a test until after the
differentiation had been equated, and perfect control in reversions
established. And yet, so often has Keely made what seemed to be disasters
an advantage in the end, it is possible that the interruption and delay may
enable him to produce a perfect engine sooner than he would have done on
this model. The world will never know how many mechanical difficulties
Keely has conquered before attaining his present degree of success, in
which he thinks he has mastered all that pertains to the principle of the
force that he is dealing with, so far as necessary for commercial purposes,
the difficulties that he still has to contend with being merely the minor ones
of mechanical detail. The fact that so much of Mr. Keely’s success, in
conducting his experiments when giving exhibitions, depends upon the
complete perfection of his instruments, is one of the strongest arguments
that could be advanced in proof of the genuineness of his claims. Has any
one ever heard of a performer in legerdemain who, after assembling an
audience to witness his tricks, announced that something was wrong with
his conjuring apparatus and that he was unable to exhibit his dexterity?
Feats of legerdemain can be performed, night after night, year in and year
out, without any hitch on the part of the operator; but all who are conversant
with the failures attendant upon a certain order of experiments, as for
instance in the liquefying of oxygen gas, will be able to appreciate the
uncertainty which characterizes the action of Mr. Keely’s instruments at
times.

It is only by progressive experimental research that knowledge of the laws
governing Nature’s operations can be gained, and a system evolved to
perpetuate such knowledge. The hypothesis of to-day must be discarded to-
morrow, if further research proves its fallacy. Is it not, then, another strong
argument in favour of Keely’s integrity that, confessing ignorance of the
laws that govern the force he has discovered, he has plodded on through all
these years, experimenting upon its nature, with instruments of his own
invention, which from their delicate and imperfect construction are
uncertain in their operations, until he has so improved the defective
machine as to make it a stepping-stone, by which he ascends to perfection?
Take the imperfect comparison of a ladder: no workman can attain the
summit in one effort; he must mount step by step.

To quote from Keely’s writings, “The mathematics of vibratory etheric
science, both pure and applied, require long and arduous research. It seems
to me that no man’s life is long enough to cover more than the introductory
branch. The theory of elliptic functions, the calculus of probabilities, are but
pygmies in comparison to a science which requires the utmost tension of
the human mind to grasp. But let us wait patiently for the light that will
come, that is even now dawning.”2

On the 28th of May, 1889, Mr. Keely’s workshop was visited by several
men interested to see and judge for themselves of the nature of his
researches. Among them were Professor Leidy, of the University of
Pennsylvania, and James M. Willcox, author of “Elemental Philosophy.”
After seeing the experiments in acoustics, and the production, storage, and
discharge of the ether, Mr. Willcox remarked that no one who had witnessed
all that they had seen in the line of associative vibration, under the same
advantages, could assert any fraud on the part of Keely without convicting
himself of the rankest folly. These gentlemen met Mr. Keely with their
minds open to conviction, though with strong prejudices against the
discovery of any unknown force. They treated him as if he were all that he
is, keeping out of sight whatever doubts they may have had of the
genuineness of his claims as a discoverer; and, in the end, all who were
present expressed their appreciation of his courtesy in answering the
questions asked, and their admiration of what he has accomplished on his

unknown path. In doing this, they were simply doing justice to him and to
themselves,—to that self-respect which leads men to respect the rights of
others, and to do unto others as they would be done by. Had they questioned
Keely’s integrity, or betrayed doubts of his honesty of purpose, he would at
once have assumed the defensive, and would have informed them that he
has no wish to conduct experiments for scientists who are ready to give
their opinions of his theories before having heard them propounded, or of
his experiments before witnessing them. When Keely’s system of
“sympathetic vibration” is made known (“sympathetic seeking” Mr.
Willcox would call it), it will be seen how sensitive Mr. Keely’s instruments
are to the vibrations caused by street-noises, to vibrations of air from
talking in the operating room, to touch even, as well as why it is that,
although he is willing to take apart and explain the construction of his
instruments in the presence of investigators, he objects to having them
handled by others than himself, after they have been “harmonized,” or
“sensitized,” or “graduated.”

Mr. Keely is his own worst enemy. When suspected of fraud he acts as if he
were a fraud; and in breaking up his vibratory microscope and other
instruments which he had been years in perfecting, at the time he was
committed to prison in 1888, he laid himself open to the suspicion that his
instruments are but devices with which he cunningly deceives his patrons.
Yet these same instruments he has, since their reconstruction, dissected and
explained to those who approached him in the proper spirit. It is only when
he has been subjected to insulting suspicions by arrogant scientists that he
refuses to explain his theories, and to demonstrate their truth, as far as it is
in his power to do so. “Keely may be on the right track, after all,” remarked
an English scientist, after Prof. Hertz had made known his researches on the
structure of ether; “for if we have imprisoned the ether without knowing it,
why may not Keely know what he has got a hold of?”

Norman Lockyer, in his “Chemistry of the Sun,” confirms Keely’s theories
when he writes, “The law which connects radiation with absorption and at
once enables us to read the riddle set by the sun and stars is, then, simply
the law of ‘sympathetic vibration.’ ”

“It is remarkable,” says Horace W. Smith, “that in countries far distant from
each other, different men have fallen into the same tracks of science, and
have made similar and correspondent discoveries, at the same period of
time, without the least communication with each other.” So has it been in all
periods of progress and in all branches of science, from the discoveries of
Euclid and Archimedes down to those of Galileo and Descartes and Bacon,
and, in later days, of Gilbert and Newton and Leibnitz, then Franklin and
Collison and Von Kliest and Muschenbröck; and now Keely and Hertz and
Depuy and Rücker and Lockyer are examples. Never has a discovery
leading to a new system been begun and perfected by the same individual
so far as Keely is doing; but, as Morley has said, “the representative of a
larger age must excel in genius all predecessors.”

The application of his discovery to the service of humanity is the aim and
end of Keely’s efforts; his success means “vastly more than the most
sanguine to-day venture to predict,” promising “a true millennial
introduction into the unseen universe, and the glorious life that every man,
Christian or sceptic, optimist or pessimist, would gladly hope for and
believe possible.” (Thurston.)

Not the least among the ultimate blessings to our race which Keely’s
discovery foreshadows is the deeper insight that it will bestow into the
healing power of the finer forces of nature, embracing cures of brain and
nerve disorders that are now classed with incurable diseases.

Only a partial answer has been given to the question, “What has Keely done
for science?” But enough has been said to convey some idea of the subtle
nature of the force he is dealing with, and of the cause of the delays which
have again and again disappointed the inventor, as well as the too sanguine
hopes of immediate commercial success which have animated the officers
and stockholders of “The Keely Motor Company.” Keely has no secret to
wrest from him. Instead of “Keely’s Secret,” it should be called “Nature’s
Secret;” for the problem has still to be worked out, the solution of which
will make it “Keely’s Secret;” and until this problem is fully solved to the
inventor’s satisfaction for commercial application, Keely has no secret that
he is not willing to disclose, as far as it is in his power to do so.

1 From Lippincott’s Magazine, July, 1890. Edited by J. M. Stoddart. ↑
2 Quotation from one of Keely’s letters in 1885. ↑

CHAPTER XII.

1891.

VIBRATORY PHYSICS.—TRUE SCIENCE.
We seem to be approaching a theory as to the construction of
ether. Hertz has produced vibrations, vibrating more than
one hundred million times per second. He made use of the
principle of resonance. You all understand how, by a
succession of well-timed small impulses, a large vibration
may be set up.—Prof. Fitzgerald.

Dr. Schimmel, in his lecture on “The Unity of Nature’s Forces,” says:
—“The Greek philosophers, Leucippus, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and
Aristotle, base their philosophies on the existence of an ether and atoms.”
According to Spiller’s system, “both ether and atoms are material. The
atoms are indivisible. Chemistry, being based on the correctness of this
statement, forces us to accept it.” But we are not forced to accept it if it is
proved to be false.

Keely has now reached a stage in his researches at which he is able to
demonstrate the truth of the hypotheses which he is formulating into a
system; and consequently the stage where he can demonstrate whether
theories, that have prevailed concerning the cause of physical phenomena,
are sound or without basis in fact. Until this stage was reached it would
have been as useless to make Mr. Keely’s theories known, as it would be to
publish a treatise to prove that two and two make five. Scientific men reject
all theories in physics in which there is not an equal proportion of science
and mathematics, excluding all questions of pure metaphysics. They are
right; for, until the world had undergone a state of preparation for another
revelation of truth, the man who demonstrated all that Keely is now
prepared to demonstrate would have been burned alive as a wizard. To use
the words of Babcock, one of Keely’s staunchest adherents, in 1880:
—“This discoverer has entered a new world, and although an unexplored
region of untold wealth lies beyond, he is treading firmly its border, which
daily widens as with ever-increasing interest he pursues his explorations.
He has passed the dreary realm where scientists are groping. His researches

are made in the open field of elemental force, where gravity, inertia,
cohesion, momentum, are disturbed in their haunts and diverted to use;
where, from unity of origin, emanates infinite energy in diversified forms,”
and, to this statement I would add—where he is able to look from nature up
to nature’s God, understanding and explaining, as no man before ever
understood and explained, how simple is “the mysterious way in which God
works His wonders to perform.”

Mr. Babcock continues:—“Human comprehension is inadequate to grasp
the possibilities of this discovery for power, for increased prosperity, and
for peace. It includes all that relates mechanically to travel, manufacture,
mining, engineering, and warfare.” Up to within two years, Keely, this
discoverer of unknown laws of nature, has been left partially to the mercy
of men who were interested only in mechanical “possibilities.” In the
autumn of 1888, he was led into a line of research which made the
mechanical question one of secondary interest; and yet the present results
are such as to prove that on this line alone can he ever hope to attain
commercial success. The course then adopted has also been the means of
placing his discoveries before the world, endorsed in such a manner as to
command attention to his views and theories. It has been said that if
extreme vicissitudes of belief on the part of men of science are evidences of
uncertainty, it may be affirmed that of all kinds of knowledge none is more
uncertain than science. The only hope for science is more science, says
Drummond. Keely now bestows the only hope for science—“more
science.” He accounts for the non-recognition by scientists of his claims, in
these words: “The system of arranging introductory etheric impulses by
compound chords set by differential harmonies, is one that the world of
science has never recognized, simply because the struggles of physicists,
combating with the solution of the conditions governing the fourth order of
matter, have been in a direction thoroughly antagonistic, and opposite to a
right one. It is true that luminosity has been induced by chemical
antagonism, and, in my mind, this ought to have been a stepping-stone
towards a more perfect condition than was accepted by them; but
independent of what might be necessary to its analysis, the bare truth
remains that the conditions were isolated—robbed of their most vital

essentials—by not having the medium of etheric vibration associated with
them.”

In order to subdivide the atoms in the atomic triplet, the molecular ether,
liberated from the molecule, is absolutely necessary to effect the rupture of
the atoms; and so on, progressively, in each order of ether, molecular, inter-
molecular, atomic, inter-atomic, etheric, inter-etheric, the ether liberated in
each successive division is essential to the next subdivision.

The keynote of Mr. Keely’s researches is that the movements of elastic
elements are rhythmical, and before he had reached his present stage in
producing vibrations, on the principle of resonance, he has had problems to
solve which needed the full measure of inspiration or apperception that he
has received.

Hertz has produced vibrations about one metre long, vibrating more than
one hundred million times a second. Keely has produced, using an
atmospheric medium alone, 519,655,633 vibrations per second; but,
interposing pure hydrogen gas between soap films and using it as a medium
of acceleration, he asserts that on the enharmonic third a rate of vibration
may be induced which could not be set down in figures, and could only be
represented in sound colours. He has invented instruments which
demonstrate in many variations the colours of sound, registering the
number of necessary vibrations to produce each variation. The transmissive
sympathetic chord of B flat, third octave, when passing into inaudibility,
would induce billions of billions of vibrations, represented by sound colour
on a screen illuminated from a solar ray. But this experiment is one of
infinite difficulty, from the almost utter impossibility of holding the
hydrogen between the two films long enough to conduct the experiment.
Keely made over 1200 trials before succeeding once in inducing the intense
blue field necessary, covering a space of six weeks, four hours at a time
daily; and should he ever succeed in his present efforts to produce a film
that will stand, he anticipates being able to register the range of motion in
all metallic mediums. On this subject Keely writes:—The highest range of
vibration I ever induced was in the one experiment that I made in liberating
ozone by molecular percussion, which induced luminosity, and registered a

percussive molecular force of 110,000 lbs. per square inch, as registered on
a lever constructed for the purpose. The vibrations induced by this
experiment reached over 700,000,000 per second, unshipping the apparatus,
thus making it insecure for a repetition of the experiments. The
decarbonized steel compressors of said apparatus moved as if composed of
putty. Volume of sphere, 15 cubic inches; weight of surrounding metal, 316
lbs.

Recently some questions, propounded to Mr. Keely by a scientist, elicited
answers which the man of science admitted were clear and definite, but no
physicist could accept Keely’s assertion that incalculable amounts of latent
force exist in the molecular spaces, for the simple reason that science
asserts that molecular aggregation is attended with dissipation of energy
instead of its absorption. The questions asked were:—

I. “In disintegrating water, how many foot-pounds of energy have you to
expend in order to produce or induce the vibratory energy in your acoustical
apparatus?”

Answer.—“No foot-pounds at all. The force necessary to excite
disintegration when the instrument is sensitized, both in sensitization and
developments, would not be sufficient to wind up a watch.”

II. “What is the amount of energy that you get out of that initial amount of
water, say twelve drops, when decomposed into ether?”

Answer.—“From twelve drops of water a force can be developed that will
fill a chamber of seven pint volume no less than six times with a pressure of
ten tons to the square inch.”

III. “In other words, if you put so many pounds of energy into vibratory
motion, how many foot-pounds do you get out of this?”

Answer.—“All molecular masses of metal represent in their interstitial
molecular spaces incalculable amounts of latent force, which, if awakened
and brought into intense vibratory action by the medium of sympathetic
liberation, would result in thousands of billions more power in foot-pounds

than that necessary to awaken it. The resultant development of any and all
forces is only accomplished by conditions that awaken the latent energy
they have carried with them during molecular aggregation. If the latent
force that exists in a pound of water could be sympathetically evolved or
liberated up to the seventh subdivision or compound inter-etheric, and could
be stored free of rotation, it would be in my estimation sufficient to run the
power of the world for a century.”

This statement gives another of Keely’s discoveries to the world, viz., that
molecular dissociation does not create energy, as men have asserted Keely
has claimed, but supplies it in unlimited quantities, as the product of the
latent energy accumulated in molecular aggregation. This is to the physicist
as if Keely had asserted that two and two make a billion, but as a man of
science, who is held to be “the scientific equal of any man in the world,”
has come forward to make known that, in his opinion, “Keely has fairly
demonstrated the discovery of a force previously unknown to science,” the
discoverer at lasts feels at liberty to make public the nature of his
discoveries. Until Dr. Joseph Leidy had taken this stand, Mr. Keely could
not, without jeopardizing his interests, and the interests of the Keely Motor
Company, have made known in what particulars his system conflicts with
the systems upheld by the age in which we live.

After the warning given in the history of Huxley’s “Bathybius,” we may
feel quite sure that if Keely had failed to demonstrate the genuineness of his
claims by actual experiment, no scientist would have risked the world-wide
reputation of a lifetime by endorsement of the discovery of an unknown
force, as Professor Leidy has done, while Keely himself was under such a
cloud that, to advocate his integrity and uphold the importance of his
discovery, has hitherto been enough to awaken doubts as to the sanity of his
upholders. Among many others who have written of it from the standpoint
of Keely’s accountability for the mistakes of the managers of the Keely
Motor Company—men who made no pretence of caring for anything but
dividends—was one who asserted, in the New York Tribune, that it was a
“remarkable delusion, full of tricks too numerous to mention, the exposure
of which ought to be made to bring the Keely craze to an end.” In the same
journal an editorial states that “Mr. Keely appears to have no mechanical

ingenuity, his strong point being his ability as a collector. He has one of the
largest and best arranged collections of other people’s money to be found in
the United States. Having, a number of years ago, during a fit of temporary
insanity, constructed a machine which, if any power on earth could start it,
would explode and pierce the startled dome of heaven with flying fragments
of cog-wheels and cranks, he now sits down calmly, and allows this same
mechanical nightmare to make his living for him. This is genius; this is
John W. Keely; he toils not, neither does he spin, but he has got an
hysterical collection of crooked pipes and lob-sided wheels tied up in his
back room that extract the reluctant dollar from the pocket of avarice
without fail.”

This is a specimen of the nature of the ridicule which was encountered by
Keely’s “upholders,” as well as by himself. Until Professor Leidy and Dr.
Willcox came to the front, in March, 1890, Mr. Keely had no influential
supporters, and not one scientist could be found who was ready to
encounter the wasps.

Such is the position of all defenders of the truth in all ages; but the torch
being held aloft, in such hands as have now seized it, the opportunity is
given to see what Keely proclaims as truth.

We know that science denies the divisibility of atoms, but Keely affirms and
demonstrates that all corpuscules of matter may be divided and subdivided
by a certain order of vibration. During all these years in which he has given
exhibitions of the operation of his generators, liberators, and disintegrators,
in turn, each being an improvement, successively, on the preceding one, no
one has attempted to give to the public any theory, or even so much as a
sensible conjecture, of the origin of the force.

When Mr. Keely was asked, by a woman in 1884, if it were not possible
that he had dissociated hydrogen gas, and that his unknown force came
from that dissociation, he replied that he thought it might be; but he made
no assertion that he had. This conjecture was repeated to an English
scientist, who replied that he was willing to make a bet of 10,000l. that
hydrogen is a simple element. The same scientist says now that he should

answer such a question with more caution, and say that he had never known
hydrogen to be dissociated.

Theory and Formula of Aqueous Disintegration.

The peculiar conditions as associated with the gaseous elements of which
water is composed, as regards the differential volume and gravity of its
gases, make it a ready and fit subject of vibratory research. In submitting
water to the influence of vibratory transmission, even on simple thirds, the
high action induced on the hydrogen as contrasted with the one on the
oxygen (under the same vibratory stream), causes the antagonism between
these elements that induces dissociation. The differential antagonistic range
of motion, so favouring the antagonistic thirds as to become thoroughly
repellent. The gaseous element thus induced and registered, shows
thousands of times much greater force as regards tenuity and volume than
that induced by the chemical disintegration of heat, on the same medium. In
all molecular dissociation or disintegration of both simple or compound
elements, whether gaseous or solid, a stream of vibratory antagonistic
thirds, sixths, or ninths, on their chord mass will compel progressive
subdivisions. In the disintegration of water the instrument is set on thirds,
sixths, and ninths, to get the best effects. These triple conditions are
focalized on the neutral centre of said instrument so as to induce perfect
harmony or concordance to the chord-note of the mass-chord of the
instrument’s full combination; after which the diatonic and the enharmonic
scale located at the top of the instrument, or ring, is thoroughly harmonized
with the scale of ninths which is placed at the base of the vibratory
transmitter with the telephone head. The next step is to disturb the harmony
on the concentrative thirds, between the transmitter and disintegrator. This
is done by rotating the syren so as to induce a sympathetic communication
along the nodal transmitter, or wire, that associates the two instruments.
When the note of the syren becomes concordant to the neutral centre of the
disintegrator, the highest order of sympathetic communication is
established. It is now necessary to operate the transferable vibratory
negatizer, or negative accelerator, which is seated in the centre of the
diatonic and enharmonic ring, at the top of disintegrator, and complete
disintegration will follow (from the antagonisms induced on the

concordants by said adjunct), in triple progression, thus:—First, thirds:
Molecular dissociation resolving the water into a gaseous compound of
hydrogen and oxygen. Second, sixths: resolving the hydrogen and oxygen
into a new element by second order of dissociation, producing what I call,
low atomic ether. Third, ninths: The low atomic ether resolved into a new
element, which I denominate high or second atomic harmonic. All these
transmissions being simultaneous on the disturbance of sympathetic
equilibrium by said negative accelerator.

Example:—Taking the chord mass of the disintegrator B flat, or any chord
mass that may be represented by the combined association of all the
mechanical parts of its structure (no two structures being alike in their
chord masses), taking B flat, the resonators of said structure are set at B flat
first octave, B flat third octave, and B flat ninth octave, by drawing out the
caps of resonators until the harmony of thirds, sixths, and ninths are
reached; which a simple movement of the fingers on the diatonic scale, at
the head, will determine by the tremulous action which is highly sensible to
the touch, on said caps. The caps are then rigidly fixed in their different
positions by set screws. The focalization to the neutral centre is then
established by dampening the steel rods, on the scale at the back,
representing the thirds, sixths, and ninths, drawing a piece of small gum
tube over them, which establishes harmony to the chord mass of the
instrument. Concordance is thus effected between the disintegrator and the
ninths of the scale at base of transmitters with telephonic head.

This scale has a permanent sympathetic one, set on the ninth of any mass
chord that may be represented, on any and all the multiple variations of
mechanical combinations. In fact, permanently set for universal
accommodation.

The next step is to establish pure harmony between the transmitter and the
disintegrator, which is done by spinning the syren disk, then waiting until
the sympathetic note is reached, as the syren chord, decreasing in velocity,
descends the scale. At this juncture, the negative accelerator must be
immediately and rapidly rotated, inducing high disturbance of equilibrium
between the transmitter and the disintegrator by triple negative evolution,

with the result that a force of from five to ten, fifteen, twenty, and thirty
thousand pounds to the square inch is evolved by the focalization of this
triple negative stream on the disintegrating cell, or chamber, whether there
be one, two, three, five, or ten drops of water enclosed within it.

Graduation of Machines.

Mr. Keely gives a few introductory words concerning the necessary
graduating of his instruments, for effecting conditions necessary to ensure
perfect sympathetic transmission, which will serve to show how great are
the difficulties that have been attendant upon getting his machines into a
condition to control and equate the differentiation in molecular masses,
requiring greater skill than in researching the force of a sunbeam. He writes:
—The differentiation in molecular metallic masses, or grouping, is brought
about in their manipulations in manufacturing them for commercial uses; in
the forging of a piece of metal, in the drawing of a length of wire, and in the
casting of a molten mass to any requisite form.

The nearest approach to molecular uniformity in metallic masses is in the
wire drawn for commercial uses, gold and platina being the nearest to
freedom from differentiation. But even these wires, when tested by a certain
condition of the first order of intensified molecular vibration for a
transferring medium between centres of neutrality, I find to be entirely
inadequate for the transfer of concordant unition, as between one and the
other, on account of nodal interferences. We can appreciate the difficulty of
converting such a medium to a uniform molecular link, by knowing that it
can be accomplished only after removing all nodal interference, by inducing
between the nodal waves a condition in which they become subservient to
the inter-sympathetic vibratory molecular link of such structure or wire.

Therefore, it is necessary to submit the wire to a system of graduation in
order to find what the combined chords of these nodal interferences
represent when focalized to one general centre. Then the differentiation
between these nodal waves and the inter-molecular link must be equated, by
what I call a process of vibratory induction, so as to induce pure
concordance between one and the other. To elaborate on this system of

graduation, for effecting conditions necessary to ensure perfect and
unadulterated transmission, would make up a book that would take days to
read and months to study.

The graduating of a perfectly constructed instrument, to a condition to
transmit sympathetically, is no standard whatever for any other one that
may be built, nor ever will be, because no concordant conditions of
compound molecular aggregation can ever exist in visible groupings. If it
were even possible to make their parts perfectly accurate one to the other, in
regard to atmospheric displacement and weight, their resonating qualities
would still have a high rate of sympathetic variation in their molecular
groupings alone. If one thousand million of coins, each one representing a
certain standard value, and all struck from the same die, were
sympathetically graduated under a vibratory subdivision of 150,000, the
most amazing variation would present itself, as between each individual
coin throughout the number, in regard to their molecular grouping and
resonance ….

It will be realized in the future what immense difficulties have been
encountered by Mr. Keely in perfecting his system of graduation, and in
constructing devices for the guidance of artificers and mechanicians,
whereby those who are not as abnormally endowed as he is for his work,
can bring a proper vibratory action into play to induce positive sympathetic
transmission; as will also be realized the stupidity of the men who still seek
to confine his researches to perfecting the so-called Keely motor, before his
system is sufficiently developed to enable others to follow it up, should his
physical strength give out. His system of graduating research, when
completed, will enable men to take up the work, not from the standard of an
already completed structure that is true in its operation, though a perfect
duplicate as to size and gravity be made, for each successively constructed
machine requires a knowledge of its own conditions of sensitivity, as
regards its mass chords. Keely writes:—

“That tuning forks can be so constructed as to show coincident or
concordant association with each other, is but a very weak illustration of the
fact which governs pure acoustic assimilation. The best only approach a

condition of about a fortieth, as regards pure attractive and propulsive
receptiveness. By differentiating them to concordant thirds, they induce a
condition of molecular bombardment between themselves, by alternate
changes of long and short waves of sympathy. Bells rung in vacuo liberate
the same number of corpuscules, at the same velocity as those surrounded
by a normal atmosphere; and hence the same acoustic force attending them,
but they are inaudible from the fact that, in vacuo, the molecular volume is
reduced. Every gaseous molecule is a resonator of itself, and is sensitive to
any and all sounds induced, whether accordant or discordant.

Answers to Questions.

The positive vibrations are the radiating or propulsive; the negative
vibrations are the ones that are attracted towards the neutral centre. The
action of the magnetic flow is dual in its evolutions, both attractive and
propulsive. The sound vibrations of themselves have no power whatever to
induce dissociation, even in its lowest form. Certain differential, dual, triple
and quadruple, chords give introductory impulses which excite an action on
molecular masses, liquid and gaseous, that increase their range of molecular
motion and put them in that receptive state for sympathetic vibratory
interchange which favours molecular disintegration; then, as I have shown,
the diatonic enharmonic is brought into play, which further increases the
molecular range of motion beyond fifty per cent. of their diameters, when
molecular separation takes place, giving the tenuous substance that is
necessary to induce progressive subdivision. This molecular gaseous
substance, during its evolution, assumes a condition of high rotation in the
sphere or tube in which it has been generated, and becomes itself the
medium, with the proper exciters, for further progressive dissociation. The
exciters include an illuminated revolving prism, condenser, and coloured
lenses, with a capped glass tube strong enough to carry a pressure of at least
one thousand pounds per square inch. To one of these caps a sectional wire
of platinum and silver is attached; the other cap is attached to the tube, so
screwed to the chamber as to allow it to lead to the neutral centre of said
chamber.

Mineral Disintegration.

I have been repeatedly urged to repeat my disintegrations of quartz rock;
but it has been utterly out of my power to do so. The mechanical device
with which I conducted those experiments was destroyed at the time of the
proceedings against me. Its graduation occupied over four years, after
which it was operated successfully. It had been originally constructed as an
instrument for overcoming gravity; a perfect, graduated scale of that device
was accurately registered, a copy of which I kept; I have since built three
successive disintegrators set up from that scale, but they did not operate.
This peculiar feature remained a paradox to me until I had solved the
conditions governing the chords of multiple masses; when this problem
ceased to be paradoxical in its character. As I have said, there are no two
compound aggregated forms of visible matter that are, or ever can be, so
duplicated as to show pure sympathetic concordance one to the other.
Hence the necessity of my system of graduation, and of a compound device
that will enable anyone to correct the variations that exist in compound
molecular structures; or in other words to graduate such, so as to bring them
to a successful operation ….

Keely.

Disturbance of Magnetic Needle.

If Keely’s theories are correct, science will in time classify all the important
modifications of the one force in nature as sympathetic streams, each
stream composed of triple flows. Mr. Keely maintains that the static
condition which the magnetic needle assumes, when undisturbed by any
extraneous force outside of its own sympathetic one, proves conclusively
that the power of the dominant third, of the triple combination of the
magnetic terrestrial envelope, is the controlling one of this sympathetic
triplet, and the one towards which all the others co-ordinate. All the
dominant conditions of nature represent the focal centres towards which
like surrounding ones become sympathetically subservient. The rapid
rotation of the magnetic needle of a compass which Mr. Keely shows in his
experiments, rests entirely on the alternating of the dominant alone, which
is effected by a triple condition of vibration that is antagonistic to its

harmonious flow as associated with its other attendants. A rapid change of
polarity is induced, and rapid rotation necessarily follows.

Quoting from Keely’s writings,—“The human ear cannot detect the triple
chord of any vibration, or sounding note, but every sound that is induced of
any range, high or low, is governed by the same laws, as regards triple
action of such, that govern every sympathetic flow in Nature. Were it not
for these triple vibratory conditions, change of polarity could never be
effected, and consequently there could be no rotation. Thus the
compounding of the triple triple, to produce the effect, would give a
vibration in multiplication reaching the ninth, in order to induce
subservience, the enumeration of which it would be folly to undertake, as
the result would be a string of figures nearly a mile in length to denote it.

When the proper impulse is given to induce the rotation with pure
alternating corpuscular action, the conditions of action become perpetual in
their character, lasting long enough from that one impulse to wear out any
machine denoting such action, and on the sympathetic stream eternally
perpetual. The action of the neutral or focalizing centres represents
molecular focalization and redistribution, not having any magnetism
associated with them; but when the radiating arms of their centres are
submitted to the triple compound vibratory force, representing their mass
thirds, they become magnetic and consequently cease their rotation. Their
rotation is induced by submitting them to three different orders of vibration,
simultaneously giving the majority to the harmonic third.

Theory of the Induction of Sympathetic Chords to excite rotation, by
vibrophonic trajection to and from centres of neutrality, as induced and
shown to Professor Leidy, Dr. Willcox, and others, on revolving globe.

All hollow spheres, of certain diameters, represent, as per diameters and
their volume of molecular mass, pure, unadulterated, sympathetic
resonation towards the enharmonic and diatonic thirds of any, and in fact
all, concordant sounds. In tubes it is adversely different, requiring a definite
number of them so graduated as to represent a confliction by thirds, sixths,
and ninths, as towards the harmonic scale. When the conditions are

established, the acoustic result of this combination, when focalized,
represents concordant harmony, as between the chord mass of the
instrument to be operated and chord mass of the tubes of resonation.
Therefore the shortest way towards establishing pure concordance, between
any number of resonating mediums, is by the position that Nature herself
assumes in her multitudinous arrangements of the varied forms and
volumes of matter—the spherical. The great difficulty to overcome, in order
to get a revolution of the said sphere, exists in equating the interior adjuncts
of same. In other words, the differentiation induced must be so equated as
to harmonize and make their conditions purely concordant to the molecular
mass of the sphere. Example: Suppose the chord of the sphere mass
represents B flat, or any other chord, and the internal adjuncts by
displacement of atmospheric volume differentiates the volume one-
twentieth; this displacement in the shell’s atmospheric volume would
represent an antagonistic twentieth against the shell’s mass concordance, to
equate which it would be necessary to so graduate the shell’s internal
adjuncts as to get at the same chord;—an octave or any number of octaves
that comes nearest to the concordance of the shell’s atmospheric volume.
No intermediates between the octaves would ever reach sympathetic union.

We will now take up the mechanical routine as associated with adjuncts of
interference, and follow the system for chording the mechanical
aggregation in its different parts, in order to induce the transmissive
sympathy necessary to perfect evolution, and to produce revolution of the
sphere or shell.

Example.—Suppose that we had just received from the machine shop a
spun shell of twelve inches internal diameter, 1·32 of an inch thick, which
represents an atmospheric volume of 904·77 cubic inches. On
determination by research we find the shell to be on its resonating volume B
flat, and the molecular volume of the metal that the sphere is composed of,
B natural. This or any other antagonistic chord, as between the chord mass
of the shell and its atmospheric volume, would not interfere but would
come under subservience. We now pass a steel shaft through its centre, ½
inch in diameter, which represents its axial rest. This shaft subjects the
atmospheric volume of the shell to a certain displacement or reduction, to

correct which we first register the chord note of its mass, and find it to be
antagonistic to the chord mass of the shell, a certain portion of an octave.
This must be corrected. The molecular volume of the shaft must be reduced
in volume, either by filing or turning, so as to represent the first B flat chord
that is reached by such reduction. When this is done the first line of
interference is neutralized, and the condition of sympathy is as pure
between the parts as it was when the globe was minus its axis. There is now
introduced on its axis a ring which has seven tubes or graduating resonators,
the ring being two-thirds the diameter of the globe, the resonators three
inches long and ¾ inch diameter, each one to be set on the chord of B flat,
which is done by sliding the small diaphragm in the tube to a point that will
indicate B flat. This setting then controls the metallic displacement of the
metallic combination, as also of the arms necessary to hold the ring and
resonators on shaft or axis. Thus the second equation is established, both on
resonation and displacement. We are now ready to introduce the diatonic
scale ring of three octaves which is set at two-thirds of the scale
antagonistic to the chord mass of the globe itself. This is done by graduating
every third pin of its scale to B flat, thirds, which represent antagonistic
thirds to the shell’s molecular mass. This antagonism must be thoroughly
sensitive to the chord mass of one of the hemispheres of which the globe is
composed. The axis of the scale ring must rotate loosely on the globe’s shaft
without revolving with the globe itself; which it is prevented from doing by
being weighted on one side of the ring by a small hollow brass ball, holding
about two ounces of lead. The remaining work on the device is finished by
painting the interior of the globe, one hemisphere black and one white, and
attaching a rubber bulb such as is used to spray perfume, to the hollow end
of the shaft. This bulb equates vibratory undulations, thus preventing an
equation of molecular bombardment on its dark side when sympathetically
influenced. It is now in condition to denote the sympathetic concordance
between living physical organisms, or the receptive transmittive
concordance necessary to induce rotation.

Philosophy of Transmission and Rotation of Musical Sphere.

The only two vibratory conditions that can be so associated as to excite high
sympathetic affinity, as between two physical organisms, are:—Etheric

chord of B flat, 3rd octave, and on etheric sympathetic chords transmission
E flat on the scale 3rd, 6ths, and 9ths; octaves harmonic; having the 3rd
dominant, the 6th enharmonic, and the 9th diatonic.

The chord mass representing the musical sphere, being the sympathetic
etheric chord of B flat third octave, indicated by the focalization of its
interior mechanical combination, as against the neutral sevenths of its
atmospheric volume, makes the shell highly sensitive to the reception of
pure sympathetic concordance, whether it be physical, mechanical, or a
combination of both. Taking the chord mass of the different mechanical
parts of the sphere and its adjuncts, as previously explained, when
associated and focalized to represent pure concordance, as between its
atmospheric volume and sphere mass, which means the pure unit of
concordance, we have the highest position that can be established in
relation to its sympathetic susceptiveness to negative antagonism. The
beauty of the perfection of the laws that govern the action of Nature’s
sympathetic flows is here demonstrated in all the purity of its workings,
actually requiring antagonistic chords to move and accelerate. The dark side
of the shell, which represents fifty per cent. of its full area of pure
concordant harmony, is the receptive area for the influence of the negative
transmissive chords of the thirds, sixths and ninths to bombard upon; which
bombardment disturbs the equilibrium of said sphere, and induces rotation.
The rotation can be accelerated or retarded, according as the antagonistic
chords of the acoustic forces are transmitted in greater or lesser volume.
The action induced by the mouth organ, transmitted at a distance from the
sphere without any connection of wire, demonstrates the purity of the
principle of sympathetic transmission, as negatized or disturbed by
discordants; which, focalizing on the resonating sevenths of resonators, or
tubes attached to ring, the sympathetic flow is by this means transmitted to
the focalizing centre, or centre of neutrality, to be re-distributed at each
revolution of sphere, keeping intact the sympathetic volume during
sensitization, thus preventing the equation or stoppage of its rotation.

Again, the sphere resting on its journals in the ring, as graduated to the
condition of its interior combinations, represents a pure sympathetic
concordant under perfect equation ready to receive the sympathetic, or to

reject the non-sympathetic. If a pure sympathetic chord is transmitted
coincident to its full combination, the sphere will remain quiescent; but if a
transmission of discordance is brought to bear upon it, its sympathetic
conditions become repellent to this discordance ….

Keely.

Hertz in his conjectures that a knowledge of the structure of ether should
unveil the essence of matter itself, and of its inherent properties, weight and
inertia, is treading the path that leads to this knowledge. Professor
Fitzgerald says:—“Ether must be the means by which electric and magnetic
forces exist, it should explain chemical actions, and if possible gravity.” The
law of sympathetic vibration explains chemical affinities as a sympathetic
attractive, but inherent, force; in short, as gravity. This opens up too wide a
territory even but to peer into in the dawning light of Keely’s system of
vibratory physics. The boundary line is crossed, and the crowds of
researchers in electro-magnetism are full of ardour. Hertz constructed a
circuit, whose period of vibration for electric currents was such that he was
able to see sparks, due to the increased vibration, leaping across a small air-
space in this resonant circuit; his experiments have proved and
demonstrated the ethereal theory of electro-magnetism:—that electro-
magnetic actions are due to a medium pervading all known space; while
Keely’s experiments have proved that all things are due to conditions of
ether.

Professor Fitzgerald closes one of his lectures on ether in these words:
—“There are metaphysical grounds for reducing matter to motion, and
potential to kinetic energy. Let us for a moment contemplate what is
betokened by this theory that in electro-magnetic engines we are using as
our mechanism the ether, the medium that fills all known space. It was a
great step in human progress when man learnt to make material machines,
when he used the elasticity of his bow, and the rigidity of his arrow to
provide food and defeat his enemies. It was a great advance when he learnt
to use the chemical action of fire; when he learnt to use water to float his
boats, and air to drive them; when, by artificial selection, he provided
himself with food and domestic animals. For two hundred years he has

made heat his slave to drive his machinery. Fire, water, earth, and air have
long been his slaves, but it is only within the last few years that man has
won the battle lost by the giants of old, has snatched the thunderbolt from
Jove himself, and enslaved the all-pervading ether.”

Of the experiments of Hertz, in inducing vibrations “in ether waves,”
Professor Fitzgerald says: “If we consider the possible radiating power of
an atom, we find that it may be millions of millions of times as great as
Professor Wiedermann has found to be the radiating power of a sodium
atom in a Bunsen burner; so if there is reason to think that any greater
oscillation might disintegrate the atom, we are still a long way from it.”

Here we have an admission that the atom may be divisible; but the
professor’s conjecture is made upon an incorrect hypothesis. The “possible
theory of ether and matter” which Professor Fitzgerald puts forward, in his
lecture on Electro-Magnetic Radiation, is in harmony with Keely’s theories.
This hypothesis explains the differences in nature as differences in motion,
ending: “Can we resist the conclusion that all motion is thought? Not that
contradiction in terms, ‘unconscious thought,’ but living thought; that all
nature is the language of One in whom we live, and move, and have our
being?” This great truth the Buddhists have taught for ages. There is no
such thing as blind or dead matter, as there is no blind nor unconscious
thought.

CHAPTER XIII.

1891.

“MORE SCIENCE.”
The only hope for science is more science.—Drummond.

“Philosophy must finally endeavour to be itself
constructive.” Here Professor Seth laid stress on the
necessity of a teleological view of the universe, not in the
paltry, mechanical sense sometimes associated with the word
teleology, but as vindicating the existence of an end or
organic unity in the process of the world, constituting it an
evolution and not a series of aimless changes …. As Goethe
taught, in one of his finest poems, we do well to recognize in
the highest attributes of human-kind our nearest glimpse into
the nature of the divine. The part was not greater than the
whole, and we might rest assured that whatever of wisdom
and goodness there was in us had not been born out of
nothing, but had its fount, somewhere and somehow, in a
more perfect Goodness and Truth.—Review of Professor
Seth’s address.

Believe nothing which is unreasonable, and reject nothing as
unreasonable without proper examination.—Gautama
Buddha.

I do not believe that matter is inert, acted upon by an outside
force. To me it seems that every atom is possessed by a
certain amount of primitive intelligence.—Edison.

History tells us that Pythagoras would not allow himself to be called a sage,
as his predecessors had done, but designated himself as a lover of wisdom;
ardent in the pursuit of wisdom, he could not arrogate to himself the
possession of wisdom. Yet, in our time, so unwilling are the searchers after
wisdom to admit that there can be anything “new under the sun,” anything
that they do not already know, that we find the number of men of science to
be marvellously small who possess the first condition of success in
scientific research, as set down by Herbert Spencer, very few who do not
arrogate to themselves too much learning to permit them to admit the
possibility of any new revelation of truth. In every age of our world, to meet
the requirements of the age, in its step-by-step progress from barbarism to

civilization and enlightenment, there have appeared extraordinary men,
having knowledge far in advance of the era in which they lived. Of such,
among many, were Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, Plato, and above these,
Gautama the Buddha. But Moses, with all his knowledge of bacilli and
bacteria, could not have met the requirements of any later age. The “eye for
an eye” and “tooth for a tooth” period passed, and King David, who was so
superior to other Kings of marauding tribes, that he was called “a man after
God’s own heart,” satisfied his desire for punishment, to be meted out to his
personal enemies, by prayer to God to “put out their eyes,” and to “let them
fall from one wickedness to another.” This was a step in advance, for it gave
those who had offended him a chance to escape all such summary
proceedings as Moses had authorized. Still, the time was a long way off
before a greater than Moses appeared to teach the world that such prayers
are unavailing, that we can hate sin without hating the sinner, and that the
Alpha and Omega of religion is to live in love and in the performance of
duty. The Jewish prophets foretold the coming of Jesus of Nazareth; and the
interpreters of Scripture are not alone now in having predicted that we are
approaching a new dispensation, an age of harmony, which the twentieth
century is to usher in, according to Biblical prophets. Renan has said that he
envies those who shall live to see the wonders which the light of the new
dawn that is breaking upon the world of science will unfold; that those who
live in this coming age will know things of which we have no conception.
Morley, in the spirit of prophecy, has said that in the near future a great
intellectual giant will arise to bless our globe, who will surpass all other
men of genius, reasoning that the representative of a larger age must be
greater in genius than any predecessor. When the system is made known by
which Keely dissociates the molecule and atoms by successive orders of
vibration, proving two laws in physics as fallacious, we shall not hesitate to
say that “the light of the new dawn” has now broken upon the world of
science, and that the discoverer of the divisibility of the atom and of the
absorption of energy in all molecular aggregation is the genius foretold by
Morley. One quality of true genius is humility. “What a brain you must
have!” said a man of science to Keely, not long since, “to have thought this
all out.” This man of genius replied, “I was but the instrument of a Higher
Power.” We are all instruments of a Higher Power, but the instruments
chosen and set apart for any special work are always choice instruments

which have been fitted or adapted to that work—the furnace perhaps seven
times heated before the annealing was perfected.

It has been said that man enters upon life as a born idiot; and there are many
who think that, in comparison with the possibilities which the future
promises in the way of the physical evolution of the race, we are but as
idiots still. Having reached our present stage of physical and mental
development, the history of the civilization of our race cannot but lead
reflecting men and women into the opinion that the work of evolution will
become more purely psychical in future. After which, as a consequence,
there can be no doubt that physical development will again take its turn; for,
as Tennyson has said,—

“When reign the world’s great bridals, chaste and calm,
Then springs the coming race that rules mankind.”

Not the least among the many applications of Keely’s discoveries will be
that which will prove, by demonstration, whether the chord of mass in a
man and woman is near enough in the octaves to be beneficial, or so far
apart as to be deteriorating.

“There is no truer truth obtainable
By man than comes of music.”

The earlier processes of civilization belonged to an age of spontaneity, of
unreflective productivity; an age that expressed itself in myths, created
religious and organized social forms and habits of life in harmony with
these spontaneous creations.

“O, ye delicious fables! where the wave
And woods were peopled and the air with things
So lovely! Why, ah why, has Science grave
Scattered afar your sweet imaginings?”

asks Barry Cornwall. But now that we have entered upon a more advanced
age in thought, as in all things pertaining to discovery and practical
application, or invention, a critical defining intellectual age, we must

henceforth depend upon true science for our progress toward a higher
enlightenment. Science, as will be seen, embraces religion, and must
become, as Keely asserts, the religion of the world, when it is made known
in all its glory and grandeur, sweeping away all foot-holds for scepticism,
and spreading the knowledge of God, as a God of love, until this knowledge
covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. As has been said, the word
science, in its largest signification, includes intellectual achievement in
every direction open to the mind, and the co-ordination of the results in a
progressive philosophy of life. Philosophy has been defined as the science
of causes or of first principles, and should be limited, almost exclusively, to
the mental sciences. This is the field which Keely is exploring; the
knowledge of the “hidden things” which he is bringing to the light is pure
philosophical knowledge, in the widest acceptation of the term: the
knowledge of effects as dependent on their causes.

“Behold an infinite of floating worlds
Dividing crystal waves of ether pure
In endless voyage without port.”

Is it not a marvel of inspiration to have been able to cast line and plummet
in such a sea of knowledge, to be able to demonstrate the power of that
“sympathetic outreach” which, acting from our satellite upon the waters of
our oceans and seas, through the vast space that separates it from our earth,
lifts these waters, once in every twenty-four hours, from their beds; and, as
gently as a mother would lay her infant on its couch, places them again
where they rest?

God hath chosen, as Paul said, the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the
things which are mighty, and base things of the world and things which are
despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to naught
things which are; that no flesh should glory in His presence. Christ said, “I
thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”

Truth never changes; but as new truths are revealed to us, to meet the
necessities of progress (in our development from ignorance into the wisdom
of angels), our point of view is ever changing, like the landscape which we
look out upon from the swiftly gliding railway-carriage that bears us to our
destination. As yet, “Earth has shown us only the title-page of a book” that
we may, if we will, read its first pages here, and continue reading
throughout eternity.

When Bulwer wrote of “a power that can replenish or invigorate life, heal
and preserve, cure disease: enabling the physical organism to re-establish
the due equilibrium of its natural powers, thereby curing itself,” he
foreshadowed one of Keely’s discoveries. “Once admit the possibility that
the secrets of nature conceal forces yet undeveloped,” says the author of
“Masollam,” “which may contain a cure for the evils by which it is now
afflicted, and it is culpable timidity to shrink from risking all to discover
that cure.” This author teaches that humanity at large has a claim higher
than the claims of the blood-tie; that a love based upon no higher sentiment,
makes us blind to the claims of duty; and this is why, when men or women
are chosen to do a great work, for the human family, the ligaments which
have bound them too exclusively to their own families, are cut and torn
apart.

No greater work has ever been committed to a man to do than that which
Keely’s discoveries are preparing the way for. Science was rocking the
world into the sleep of death—for materialism is death—its votaries
declaring atoms to be eternally active, and the intellect which had
discovered the existence of these atoms to end with the life of the molecular
body. On this subject Simmons has written:—

“Shall impalpable light speed so swiftly and safely through infinite space—
and the mind that measures its speed, and makes it tell its secrets in the
spectroscope, be buried with the body? Shall mere breath send its pulsations
through the wire and, after fifty miles of silence, sound again in speech or
music in a far-off city, or stamp itself in the phonograph to sound again in
far-off centuries—and the soul that has wrought these wonders pass to
eternal silence? Shall physical force persist for ever—and this love, which

is the strongest force in nature, perish? It would seem wiser to trust that the
infinite law, which is everywhere else so true, will take care of this human
longing which it has made, and fulfil it in eternal safety. We make no
argument, but we cannot ignore all the intimations of immortality. Cyrus
Field tells us of the night when, after his weary search for that long-lost
cable two miles deep in mid-ocean, the grapnel caught it and, trembling
with suspense, they drew it to the deck, hardly trusting their eyes, but
creeping to feel it and make sure it was there. And when, as they watched, a
spark soon came from a finger in England, showing that the line was sound,
strong men wept and rockets rent the midnight darkness. We and our world
float like a ship on the mysterious sea of being, in whose abysses the
grapnel of science touches no solid line of logic connecting us to another
land. But now and then there come from convictions, stronger than cables,
flashes of light bidding us trust that our dead share in divine immortality,
and are safe in the arms of Infinite Law and Eternal Love.”

Keely’s demonstrations suggest “the missing link” between matter and
mind, the solid line of logic which may yet be laid in “the widening
dominion of the human mind over the forces of nature.” In “Keely’s
Secrets,” No. 9, Vol. I. of the T.P.S., some of the elements of the
possibilities resulting to the world from Keely’s discoveries were set down.
War will become an impossibility; and, as Browning’s poem of “Childe
Roland” forecasts, “The Dark Tower” of unbelief will crumble at the bugle-
blast which levels its walls to their foundation, revealing such a boundless
region of research as the mind of man could never conceive were he not the
offspring of the Creator. Not long since, Mr. Keely was congratulated upon
having secured the attention of men of science, connected with the
University of Pennsylvania, to his work of research. “Now, you will be
known as a great discoverer, not as Keely the motor-man,” said one of them
present; whom he answered, “I have discovered so little, in comparison
with what remains to be discovered, that I cannot call myself a discoverer.”
One of the professors present took Keely by the hand and said, “You are a
great discoverer.”

All thoughtful men who have witnessed the latest developments of the force
displayed by Keely, in his researching experiments for aerial navigation, are

made to realize that more through his discoveries, than by the progressive
development of the altruistic element in humanity (dreamed of by
speculative optimists), our race will be brought into that dispensation of
peace and harmony, anticipated by “seers” and foretold by prophets as the
millennial age. It requires no great measure of foresight to discern, as a
natural consequence of the control and application of this force in art and
commerce, that ameliorated condition of the masses which will end the
mighty conflict now so blindly being waged between capital and labour.1
And to the eye of faith, it is not difficult to look beyond the intervening
æons of centuries, to the literal fulfilment of the promise of that millennial
period when men shall live in brotherly love together; making heaven of
earth as even now it is in our power to do if we live up to Christ’s
command: “Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, that do ye
also unto them.” Had some of the dogmatic scientists of this age followed
this command, Keely’s discovery might have been sooner known in all its
importance, protecting him, as their acknowledgment would have done,
from the persecutions that have operated so detrimentally against the
completion of researches which should have been finished before any
attempt was made to apply the discovery to commercial ends. No scientist
who witnessed the production of the force, displayed by Keely, in a proper
spirit, but would have been welcomed by him to further experiments in its
operations, as were Professor Leidy and Dr. Wilcox in 1889. So, in truth,
those who printed their edicts against Keely about ten years since are, in
part, responsible for the loss to the world which this long delay has
occasioned. Still, in view of the acknowledged fact that not one of the great
laws which science now accepts as incontrovertible truths, but was
vehemently denied by the scientists of its time, declared to be a priori
impossible; its discoverers and supporters denounced as fools or charlatans,
and even investigation refused as being a waste of time and thought; it
would be too much to expect from the thinkers of this age any greater
degree of readiness to investigate claims, that threatened to demolish their
cherished notions, than characterized their predecessors.

But the time was not ripe for the disclosure: “God never hurries.” He counts
the centuries as we count the seconds, and the nearer that we approach to
the least comprehension of His “underlying purpose,” the better fitted are

we to do the work He assigns us, while waiting patiently for our path of
duty to be made clear to us; like the labourer, in Tolstoi’s Confession, who
completed the work that had been laid out for him, without understanding
what the result would be, and unable to judge whether his master had
planned well. If the prophecies of Scripture are fulfilled, the twentieth
century will usher in the commencement of that age in which men and
women will become aware of the great powers which they inherit, and of
which Oliphant has said that we are so ignorant that we wholly fail to see
them, though they sweep like mighty seas throughout all human nature.

What is the character of these powers which Oliphant has written so
eloquently concerning? Can we not form an inference from St. Paul’s most
precious and deeply scientific context, in which he introduced the quotation
from the Greek poet Aratus, who was well known in Athens, having studied
there?

If we are the offspring of God, how rich must be our inheritance! If we are
the children of God, why do we not trust our Father? But this is not science!
A philosopher has said that if ever a human being needed divine pity, it is
the man of science who believes in nothing but what he can prove by
scientific methods. Scientists will have to admit, in the light of Keely’s
discoveries, that the sensibility and intelligence, which confer upon us our
self-directive power, do not have their origin in our molecular structures.
That they take their first beginning in matter is one of the most inadequate
conceptions that was ever proposed for scientific belief. If it were so, we
could not claim to be the offspring of God, who is the Fountain of all life,
the ever living, from whom, as “His very kind,” we inherit this self-
directive power; not the molecular bodies which are our clothing. God is
our Father. The material structure is the mother and nurse. The hypothesis
that there are no beings in the universe but those which possess molecular
bodies, is the conjecture of a mind that has no conception of the illimitable
power of the Almighty. The link, which connects mind with matter, gives us
a higher conception of the Deity. Keely places it in the mind flow, the result
of the sixth subdivision. When we are done with “the things of Time,” and
not before, we are ready to rise out of our molecular bondage into the

freedom we inherit as heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ of sonship with
the Father.

The problem of the origin of life would become a matter of easy analysis,
writes Keely, if the properties governing the different orders of matter could
be understood in their different evolutions. Disturbance of equilibrium is
the prime mover, aggregator and disperser of all forces that exist in nature.
The force of the mind on matter is a grand illustration of the power of the
finer over the crude, of the etheric over the molecular. If the differential
forces of the brain could become equated, eternal perpetuity would be the
result. Under such a condition the physical would remain free of
disintegration or decomposition. But the law, laid out by the Great Master,
which governs the disturbance of equilibrium, making the crude forms of
matter subservient to the finer or higher forms, forbidding anything
molecular or terrestrial to assimilate with the high etheric, the law that has
fixed the planets in their places, is an unknown law to the finite mind,
comprehended only by the Infinite One ….

Some of our men of science once settled the problem of the origin of life to
their own satisfaction, only to learn that “speculation is not science;” for a
substance which, when dissolved, crystallizes as gypsum, cannot produce
vital force; and it is like groping among the bones of a graveyard to look for
spontaneous generation in a shining heap of jelly on the floor of the sea.

When our learned men are forced to admit that “all motion is thought,” that
“all nature is the language of One in whom we live, and are moved, and
have our being,” the attempts to evolve life out of chemical elements will
cease; the Mosaic records will no longer be denied, which tell us that the
Creator’s law for living organisms is that each plant seeds, and each animal
bears, after its kind; not that each seeds and bears after another kind. The
doctrine of evolution, as made known to us in Geology, is a fundamental
truth; proving that “there has been a plan, glorious in its scheme, perfect in
system, progressing through unmeasured ages, and looking ever toward
man and a spiritual end.”

The Rev. John Andrew, in his “Thoughts on the Evolution Theory of
Creation,” mentions that Haeckel gives the pedigree of man from primeval
moneron in twenty-two stages. Stage twenty is the man-like ape; stage
twenty-one is the ape-like man; stage twenty-two is the man; but he
confesses that the twenty-first stage—the ape-like man—is entirely wanting
in all the records.

There is no missing link in the evolution theory, as laid down in Keely’s
pure philosophy. Inasmuch as the Father of all is Himself a Spiritual Being,
cosmical law leads us to expect that the type of created being, His offspring,
shall be spirit also. Nor can Being in any object be so attenuated, or so far
removed from Him who filleth all in all, but it must surely retain an aura of
His spiritual nature. The corner-stone of this philosophy is one power, one
law; order and method reigning throughout creation; spirit controlling
matter, as the Divine order and law of creation that the spiritual should
govern the material—that the whole realm of matter should be under the
dominion of the world of spirit. Nor is this a new truth. According to
Diogenes Laërtius, Thales taught that souls are the motive forces of the
universe. Empedocles affirms that spiritual forces move the visible world.
Virgil asserted that mind animates and moves the world; that the spiritual
realm is the soul of the universe. The universe is not a mass of dead matter,
says Gilbert (in his work, “De Magnate”), but is pervaded with this soul,
this living principle, this unseen cause of all visible phenomena, underlying
all movements in the earth beneath and in the heavens above. Joseph Cook
affirms that as science progresses it draws nearer in all its forms to the proof
of the spiritual origin of force—that is of the Divine immanence in natural
law: and that God was not transiently present in nature—that is in a mere
creative moment; nor has He left the world in a state of orphanage, bereft of
a deific influence and care, but He is immanent in nature, as the Apostle
Paul and Aratus and Spinoza declared. As certainly as the unborn infant’s
life is that of the mother, so is it divinely true that somehow God’s life
includes ours; and we shall understand the nature of that relationship when,
in due time, we have been “born again” into the life of the spirit. “The
economy of creation is not regarded in this philosophy as a theory of
development all in one direction; but as a cycle in which, after
development, and as its fruit, the last term gives again the first. Herein is

found the link by which the law of continuity is maintained throughout—
the link which is missing in the popular science of the day; with this very
serious consequence that, to keep the break out of sight, the entire doctrine
of spirit and the spiritual world is ignored or altogether denied.” Science
admits that nature works with dual force, though at rest she is a unit.
“Nature is one eternal circle.” Keely’s discoveries prove that the doctrine of
the Trinity should be set down as an established canon of science—the
Trinity of force. All nature’s sympathetic streams—cerebellic, gravital,
electric and magnetic—are made up of triple currents. The ancients
understood this dogma in a far deeper sense than modern theology has
construed it. The great and universal Trinity of cause, motion and matter—
or of will, thought and manifestation—was known to the Rosicrucians as
prima materia. Paracelsus states that each of these three is also the other
two; for, as nothing can possibly exist without cause, matter and energy—
that is, spirit, matter and soul (the ultimate cause of existence being that it
exists), we may therefore look upon all forms of activity as being the action
of the universal or Divine will operating upon and through the ether, as the
skilled artificer uses his tools to accomplish his designs; making the
comparison in all reverence.

“The existence of an intelligent Creator, a personal God, can to my mind,
almost be proved from chemistry,” writes Edison; and George Parsons
Lathrop, in commenting upon Edison’s belief, says:—“Surely it is a
circumstance calculated to excite reflection, and to cause a good deal of
satisfaction, that this keen and penetrating mind, so vigorously representing
the practical side of American intelligence—the mind of a remarkable
exponent of applied science, and of a brilliant and prolific inventor who has
spent his life in dealing with the material part of the world—should so
confidently arrive at belief in God through a study of those media that often
obscure the perception of spiritual things.” Edison, it seems, like Keely, has
never been discouraged by the obstacles which he meets with, in his
researches, nor even inclined to be hopeless of ultimate success.

Unlike Keely, Edison through all his years of experimental research has
never once made a discovery. All the work of this great and successful
inventor has been deductive, and the results achieved by him have been

simply those of pure invention. Like Keely he constructs a theory, and
works on its lines until he finds it untenable; then, he at once discards it and
forms another theory. In connection with the electric light, he evolved or
constructed three thousand successive theories; each one reasonable and
apparently likely to be true; yet, only in two cases was he able to prove by
experiment that his theories were correct. Of such a nature is the “dead-
work” which all researchers on scientific principles must toil through to
attain success.

They must keep their minds open to every suggestion or idea, no matter
how fanciful it may seem to others, and they must never let go their hold of
it until it has been tested in all its possibilities. The same words which
Lathrop uses, in describing Edison’s characteristics, are equally applicable
to Keely, who, in addition to his native endowment of a genius for science
and mechanics, brings to bear vast patience in logical deduction, careful
calculation, unlimited experiment, a ceaseless industry, and a persistence
which refuses to be discouraged.

Edison has said that he does not philosophize. Like General Grant, he is a
man of action. When asked what theory he held upon a subject under
discussion, General Grant replied, “I never theorize: when there is anything
to be done, I do it.”2 Edison is always doing something which the public
can see and appreciate, but, unlike Keely, he has no system to work out and
transmute into the pure philosophy which is now revealing to the world “the
further link in the chain of causation,” “the cause of the cause,” which
hitherto has rather been assumed than demonstrated.

“If we believe,” says Professor Sir G. G. Stokes, “that what are called the
natural sciences spring from the same supreme source as those which are
concerned with morals and Natural Theology in general, we may expect to
find broad lines of analogy between the two; and thus it may conceivably
happen that the investigations, which belong to natural science, may here
and there afford us hints with respect even to the moral sciences, with
which at first sight they might appear to have no connection. And if such
are to be found, perhaps they are more likely to be indicated by one whose

studies have lain mainly in the direction of those natural sciences than by
one whose primary attention has been devoted to moral subjects.”

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 ….”

When my theoretical exposé is finished and brought out, I shall be ready for
the attacks that will be made upon it, and able to demonstrate what I assert.
One would think that modern physicists, knowing the lesson taught by the
disastrous overthrow of the primitive system of astronomy, would be
somewhat cautious in reference to jeering at any announcement of scientific
research, however preposterous, without first carefully weighing its claims.
It is my belief that there are many to-day who occupy positions as
professors in our colleges and in universities abroad, who for bigotry and
ignorance can discount the opinion of the religionists of the dark ages; but
those to whom has been given mental force to boldly investigate new truths
in science may congratulate themselves upon the fact that there are
investigators of truth who are not afraid to acknowledge its claims, in
whatever garb it may appear, welcoming whatever new message it may
have to deliver ….

Professor Rücker, in closing his address read at the meeting of the British
Association in 1891, said:—

“In studies such as these we are passing from the investigation of the
properties of ordinary matter to those of the ether, which may perhaps be
the material of which matter is composed. We may some day be able to
control and use it, as we now control and use steam.”

For nearly fifteen years, Keely constructed engines of various models, with
this end in view, before he discovered that it is impossible to use the ether
in any other way than as a medium for the energy that he is now
experimenting with; and which he defines, in its present operation, as a
condition of sympathetic vibration associated with the polar stream
positively and negatively.

Should Keely succeed in controlling and directing this subtle energy, we
shall then be able to “hook our machinery on to the machinery of nature.” A
writer in the Nineteenth Century says,—“Whether the molecules or
particles of what we know as matter are independent matter, or whether
they are ether-whirlpools; we know that they keep up an incessant
hammering one on another, and thus on everything in space. Professor
Crookes has shown that the forces contained in this bombardment are
immensely greater than any forces we have yet handled …. It has also been
found that the vibrations keep time in some unknown way with the
vibrations of solid matter.”

Thus it is seen that Keely is not the only man of science who is trying to
effect a passage over the untrodden wild lying between acoustics and
music: “that Siberian bog where whole armies of scientific musicians and
musical men of science have sunk, without filling it up.” Helmholtz, it is
said, has, by a series of daring strides, made a passage for himself; while
Keely stands alone in seeking to build a solid causeway; over which all the
nations of the earth may pass in safety, to the “new order of things,” that
lies in this “land of promise.”

1 The steam engines of the world now represent the work of 1,000,000,000 men, or more than
double the working population of the earth, whose total population is about 1,500,000,000
inhabitants. Steam has accordingly trebled man’s working power, enabling him to economize his
physical strength while attending to his intellectual development. Our race, which seems to have
reached its limit of physical development, is ready to enter upon the foretold stage of psychical
evolution. ↑
2 Carried out in the taking of the forts one after another during our civil war, which other generals
had been unable to do. ↑

CHAPTER XIV.

VIBRATORY PHYSICS.—THE CONNECTING
LINK BETWEEN MIND AND MATTER.
The elements of Nature are made of the will of God.—
Hermes Trismegistus.

Newton and Faraday have indicated how force instead of
leaping over nothing, acting at a distance, is transmitted
consecutively through the ethereal substance.

We must become as little children, not presuming to think of
causes efficient, or causes final; for these are things we
cannot grasp; but reverently and patiently waiting until, like
a revelation, the hidden link between the familiar and the
unfamiliar flashes into our mind, and thus an additional step
is gained in the endless series of successive generalizations.
—The Rev. H. W. Watson, F.R.S., President of the
Birmingham Philosophical Society.

All truth comes by inspiration.—Scripture.

There is but one Deity, the Supreme Spirit: he is of the same
nature as the soul of man.— Vedic Theology.

As for truth it endureth and is always strong, it liveth and
conquereth for evermore.—Esdras.

Everything happens according to the will of God and has its
appointed time, which can neither be hastened nor avoided.
—Mohammed.

In the paper of the Rev. H. W. Watson, on “The Progress of Science, its
Conditions and Limitations,” he tells us that every thinking man recognizes
the subjective Self and the objective non-Self, and that this non-Self, so far
as it manifests its existence through the senses, is the object of investigation
of natural philosophers; but he admits that their investigations have not
bestowed upon modern science any results to justify the language of
causation. Universal gravitation is declared to be a vast generalization,
telling us that there is no more, but yet just as much, of mystery in the

whole sequence of astronomical phenomena, as in the most humdrum
processes of every-day experiences. The unfamiliar has been explained by
the familiar, and both remain in their original mystery. The mystery,
attendant upon gravitation, Kepler prophesied would be revealed to man in
this age: and the cautious and inductive investigations which Keely has
been pursuing, since 1888, have enabled him to demonstrate that the
unknown force, which for fifteen years had baffled all his skill, is the same
condition of sympathetic vibration which controls nature’s highest and most
general operations:—the identical force which Faraday divined when he
wrote, in 1836: “Thus, either present elements are the true elements, or else
there is the probability before us of obtaining some more high and general
power of nature even than electricity, and which at the same time might
reveal to us an entirely new grade of the elements of matter, now hidden
from our view and almost from our suspicion.”

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