Here "God himself" visible
and invisible, relates to their lapis philosophorum--Nature's seventh
principle.
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And if the statement is objected to on the grounds that were the
luminosity of the sun due to any other cause than combustion and flame,
no physical law of which Western science has any knowledge could account
for the existence of such intensely high temperature of the sun without
combustion; that such a temperature, besides burning with its light and
flame every visible thing in our universe, would show its luminosity of
a homogeneous and uniform intensity throughout, which it does not; that
undulations and disturbances in the photosphere, the growing of the
"protuberances," and a fierce raging of elements in combustion have been
observed in the sun, with their tongues of fire and spots exhibiting
every appearance of cyclonic motion, and "solar storms," &c. &c.; to
this the only answer that can be given is the following: the
appearances are all there, yet it is not combustion. Undoubtedly were
the "robes," the dazzling drapery which now envelopes the whole of the
sun's globe, withdrawn, or even "the shining atmosphere which permits us
to see the sun" (as Sir William Herschel thought) removed so as to allow
one trifling rent, our whole universe would be reduced to ashes.
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