To undertake the explanation of that
which at the outset would be rejected as a physical impossibility, the
outcome of hallucination, is unwise and even harmful, because premature.
It is in consequence of such difficulties that the psychic production of
physical phenomena--save in exceptional cases--is strictly forbidden.
And now, "Adepts" are asked to meddle with astronomy--a science which,
of all the branches of human knowledge has yielded the most accurate
information, afforded the most mathematically correct data, and of the
achievements in which the men of science feel the most justly proud! It
is true that on the whole astronomy has achieved triumphs more brilliant
than those of most other sciences. But if it has done much in the
direction of satisfying man's straining and thirsting mind and his
noble aspirations for knowledge, physical as to its most important
particulars, it has ever laughed at man's puny efforts to wrest the
great secrets of Infinitude by the help of only mechanical apparatus.
While the spectroscope has shown the probable similarity of terrestrial
and sidereal substance, the chemical actions peculiar to the variously
progressed orbs of space have not been detected, nor proven to be
identical with those observed on our own planet.
Pages:
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328