LAW OF COUPLES, RECIPROCITY, Bloomfield-Moore
Text: "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 of all. The law of couples, of opposites, of reciprocal action between two contracted 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 pressure 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 mineral or crystals, the characteristic is simply self-imposing or self-manifesting 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 other 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 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 debris 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 pigheaded of scientists, to admit that Keely, the condemned, 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-worshipers 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 rare show, and the eternal music of the spheres was set, figuratively speaking, to play tunes to attract customers like a barrel organ before a dime museum." Keely and His Discoveries Chapter X, Part II - 1881 to 1891, Summary
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