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KEELY AND HIS DISCOVERIES 



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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.— 
Pbopsssob Otto Ptlsidsbbb, D.D. . 

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

Imagination is wholly taken captive by the stupendous rerelation of the God-force 
which modem 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 outsldrts space, as though that 
molecule were the universe. In each molecule and atom Gk>d lives and moves and has His 
being, thereby sustaining theirs. . . . Prophist 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. B. A. Armstroito. 

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 c<^nizance 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. Sihnktt. 

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 knoVledge, a pressure of God upon consciousness everywhere ; and if this 
physical force which is Gk>d, 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.— Bxv. B. A. Armstbono. 



fnnsporUtioa 
Library 



DEDICATED 



TO 



JAMES DEWAR, M.A., LL.D., P.R.S., M.R.L 

rULLIBIUr PBORBBOS OV OKSMXSTST, B.I. 
JACKSOir PBOrS880B, VirXVIBSITY OV OAXIBIDOS, 



IN ADKIBATION OF HIS DISTINGUISHED SERVICES 

FOR SCIENCE, 

AND IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS 

PROLONGED AND STEADFAST INTEREST 

IN KEELT's work of EVOLUTION. 



12, Gbiat Stanhope Stbiet, Mayfaib, 
16e^ May, 1893. 



** Enrooljdon drireth ns — where P 

On qnioksands and bIiobIb of the sea, 
On rooks that wait hnngprj to tear 
And deronr with tigerish glee. 

*< Bnt lo ! where we land tempest-tost 

Is the work that has waited onr 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 Uniyerse may be carrying ont His sublime plans. — 
Miss Murdoch. 

Bnthnsiasm is the genius of sincerity, and Tmth accomplishes no yiotory 
without it. — BuLWER Lttton. 

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.B.S. 

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

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 Oolden Age, 



CONTENTS. 



PBBrAcz. — By the Eer. John Andrew xi 

Introduction ^ . . xv 

CHAPTER L 

1872—1882. 

Inteoductoby 1 

CHAPTER II. 

1882-1886. 

Ethes the True Pbotoplasm, An Epitome of Macyicar's Sketch 

or A Philosophy 11 

CHAPTER III. 

1885—1887. 

The Nature op Keely's Problems . . .' . . .30 

CHAPTER IV. 

1887. 

Sympathetic Vibratory Force 41 

CHAPTER V. 
Etheric Vibration. — The Key Force 64» 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Fountain Head op Force 65 

CHAPTER VII. 
The E[ey to the Problems. — Keely's Secrets .... 72 

CHAPTER Vni. 

1888. 

Helpers on the Road, and Hinderers 101 



viii Contents. 

CHAPTER IX 
1889—1890. 

Keely suppoeted by Eminent Men of Science. — ^Aerial Nayi- 

OATION 113 

CHAPTEB X. 

1881—1891. 

The Keely Motob Bubble.— Macvicar's Logical Analysis . 129 

CHAPTER XI. 

1890. 

Vibratory Sympathetic and Polar Flows. — Kebly's Contribu- 
tions TO SCIBNCE 146 

CHAPTER XU. 
Vibratory Physics. — ^True Science 167 

CHAPTER XIIE. 
"More Science" 186 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Vibratory Physics. — The Connecting Link between Mind and 

Matter 206 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Philosophy op History. — ^Keely the Founder op a System 229 

CHAPTER XVI. 

1891. 

An Appeal in Behalf of the Continuance of Kebly's Re- 
searches 238 

CHAPTER XVII. 

1891. 
More of Keely's Theories. — His Traducers exposed . . 265 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm 286 

CHAPTER XIX. 

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



Contents. ix 

CHAPTER XX. 
1892. 

PAOS 
PK06BB8SIYE SciENCB. — KeELY's PRESENT POSITION. — A ReVIEW OP 

THE Situation 319 

CHAPTER XXr. 
Faith by Science : The Dawn op a New Obdbb op Things . 332 

CONCLUSION. 

Keely's Physical Philosophy. — By Professor D. G. Brinton, 

M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania 358 

« 
Appendix 1 365 

Appendix II 368 

Appendix III 370 

Vebses 373 




PEEFACE. 



By the Eev. 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 sach revealing is being made should not be 
harried 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 tran- 
spiring. 

Scientific patience is, in all such cases, imperative. Wlien 
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 



J 



xii Preface. 

mankind for the supply of wants, and the relief of toil. How 
he straggled 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 straggle 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 Kjselt 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 subjuga- 
tion. 

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 righteoasness 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 
uncoiling 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 



Preface. xiii 

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. 



INTBODUCTION. 



Ex Vivo Omnia, 

We stand'before the dawning of a new day in science and hnmanitj, 
^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 
nainre, and to open up to our view a new world. — Db. Hufelind. 

The error of our century in questions of research seems to 
Iiave been in the persistent investigation of the phenomena of 
matter (or materi^orgwization) as the sole province bt physics, 
regarding^^ljJncM/redearch 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 leaniug towards materialism, disregarding the mani- 
festations of the vital principle,— the vis mofr/>,— 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-1^ ce rayon de TEssence Supreme 
Que Ton nous peint si Inminenx P 
Est-ce-l^ cet Esprit snrvivant k nous-mdme P 
II nait avec nos sens, croit, s'affaiblit comme enx : 
H^as ! il p^rira de mdme. 

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 



XVI Introdtution. 

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 soal is form, and doth the body make. 

Haxley tells us that science prospers exactly in proportion 
as it is religions, and that religion flourishes in exact propor- 
tion to the scientific depth and firmness of its basis. *' Civili- 
zation, society, and morals," says Fignier, '^ are like a string 
of beads, whose fastening is the belief in the immortality of 
the sonl. Break the fastening and the beads are scat- 
tered." 

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 cor- 
poreal 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?'' Bufibn, in writing of the sympathy, or relation, 
which exists thi^oughout 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 
modems 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, ana- 
logout 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 



Introduction. xvii 

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 demon- 
strate 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 Kiicker in his papers on "Molecular 
Forces," William Orookes 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 Rucker, in his papers (read before the Royal In- 
stitution 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 unac- 
counted 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 jour 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 them- 
selves. 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. 



xviii Introduction. 

It will be said that it is pantheism to assert that matter, 
tinder all the forms which it presents^ is only groups of aggre- 
gates 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 i^, 
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 mole- 
cule 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 mole- 
cules in the universe, as is demonstrated by electricity, gal- 
vanism, 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 gal- 
vanic 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 in- 
dividualized 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, every- 
thing is full ; if all is full, everything is in contact ; if every- 
thing is in contact, the whole influences and is influenced 
because all ia 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 



Introduction. xix 

this. Under the different names of "macrocosm/* "micro- 
cosm/' "corpuscles/' ''emanations/* "attraction," "repul- 
sion/' " 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 univer- 
sality of its transmutations constitutes what is vulgarly called 
matter. We cannot take up a book on physics (written with 
ime scientific knowledge) in which we do not find evidence 
that its author acknowledges that there is, correctly speaking, 
but one force in nature. Badcliffe 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 inertiw is alone admitted. 

There is in Professor Crookes's " Genesis of the Elements " 
an hypothesis of great interest, — a projectment of philoso- 
phical 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 

a 2 






XX Introduction. 

at pleasure, without injnriDg the edifice of philosophy. When 
we find men in different parts of the world constructing the 
same kind of scaffoldings 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 learnings says Professor Lesley, and the science 
of knowledge ate not quite identical ; and learning has too 
ofteD, in the case of individuals^ overwhelmed and smothered 
to death knowledge. It is a familiar fact that great dis- 
coveries come at long intervals^ broaght by specially-commis- 
sioned 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 contra- 
diction, one of the grandestand most momentous of possibilities, 
but in the nature of things it lies outside physics. Yet there 
is nothing absolutely absard, nothing which contradicts any 
human instinct, in the supposition of such possibility ; conse- 
quently, 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 enoagh 



Introduction. xxi 

for any ambition^ and there is room enoagh in the wide world 
both for physical and for psychical research." 

Bat does psychical research lie outside the domaia 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 explain^ satisfactorily, pheno- 
mena 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 ordinai*y 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 groupiug 
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, ''AH 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 and disastolic 
action of the heart, and in the inspiration and expiration of 
the lungs. Our breathing is a double motion of universal 
aether, 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 



xii Introduction. 

are now flashing their light, like torches in the darkness^ upon 
mysteries too long regarded as " lying outside the don^ains of 
physical science/* 

Twenty years ago Macvicar wrote his " Sketch of a Philo- 
sophy," in which he advanced the above views, with other 
views now maintained and demonstrated by £eely, who 
daring 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, bat 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 dis- 
covery of what is rightly called a scientific truth. Every ad- 
vancement 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. 



Introduction. xxiii 

"Bat why does not Keely share his knowledge with 
others ? " •* Why does he not proclaim his secret to tho 
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 dis- 
cover 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 experi- 
menting and publish the results of his " dead work " to the 
world. 

" When will he be reiidy ? " 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 ^'gradu* 



4 



xxiv Introduction. 

ation '' of his twenty-seyenth and last group of depolar disks, 
for effecting change and interchange with polar force. 

'^ Bnt 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^ hetero- 
dox 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 comer-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 comer 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 re- 
searches, — viz., that the one intelligent force in nature is not 
a mere mathematical dynamism in space and time, bnt 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 be-* 
tween 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 



Introduction. xxv 

by art, their divorce only by violence. Great as is the revo- 
lution in mechanics which is to take place through this dis- 
covery, 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 *' rythmical harmony," of " assimi- 
lation," of ** sympathetic association," will be found governing 
all things, in the glorious heavens above us, down to the least 
atom upon our ear.th. 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 suflBcient 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 pene- 
trate the mysteries of the Creation ; and our revelation is near 
at hand,— a revelation which will change the statical ''I am ^' 

b 



xxvi Introduction. 

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 ascendiDg 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 edu- 
cated 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 hither- 
to 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 render- 
ing more marvellous services to man than all the discovered 
uses of electricity. 

The coincidences in the theories of these two philoso- 
phers 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 philo- 
sophy" (to quote the words of a distinguished physicist) 



Introduction. xxvii 



<r 



has a physical genesis, and has been developed by long 
years of patient and persistent research." Bnt it is an nndis- 
pnted 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, with- 
out 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 him- 
self 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 SchafE, 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 Churches 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 con- 
nection 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 



xxviii Introduction. 

something more than a mere profession, and " the brotherhood 
of hamanity " will no longer be the meaningless phrase that it 
now is. We are led to see, by this pure philosophy, that 
^' onr 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 onr 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 sonl its need 

Of something greater than itself. The wraith 
Ot dead Delief we cherished in onr youth, 
Fades but to let us welcome new born trath. 

Man may not worship at the ancient shrine, 
Prone on his face, in self-accusing scorn. 
That niffht is passed ; he hails a fairer mom. 

And knows nimself a something half divine ! 
No humble worm whose heritage is sin, 

But part of God — he feels the Chrift within ! 

No fierce Jehovah with a frowning mien 

He worships. Nay, through love, and not through fear. 
He seeks tne truth, and. Jinds its source is near I 

He feels and owns the power of things uoseen, 

"Where once he scolfed. Ood's great primeval plan 

Is fast unfolding in the soul of wan.— Ella. W. Wilcox. 



KEELY AND HIS DISCOVERIES. 



CHAPTER I. 
1872 TO 1882. 

INTEODUCTOBY. 

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 onr 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 orison, 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 hardlv know how to combine the two, or show their 
bearings upon each other. For myself, I think now, as I thought and 
said io 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 Eev. H. W. Watson, 
D.Sc, F.E.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 

B 



2 The Keely Mystery. 

endj is by collecting what has been written and printed^ 
which bears npon^ and elacidates this subject. 

It is now very generally known that Mr. Keely, while pur- 
suing 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 afber 
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 OP 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 mis- 
understood 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 specula- 
tion, 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 invest- 
ment. 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 



Introductory. 3 

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 7 

B 2 



4 The Keely Mystery. 

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 com- 
pany, 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 com- 
pany 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 * Trecisury 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 loaited 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 



i€ 



Introductory. 5 

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, depre- 
ciation 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 buoy- 
ant, 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 judg- 
ment upon him and his efforts. The Daily News in Phil- 
adelphia, on May 25th, 1886, contained a most sensible 
editorial, with the heading 

What has Keely Discovbbed ? 

" 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 recog- 
nized 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 



6 The Keely Mystery. 

presence of a number of yisitors. Some^ at leasts of these 
visitors were qualified for critical observation, and the note- 
worthy 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 deaUng 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 com- 
pressed 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, ~ ~ ' 

Lbt 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 Led-ger 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 



Introductory. 7 

any former occasioD. The matter for a long time has pre- 
sented itself to us in but two aspects mainly. Firsts there 
was large public interest in the asserted development of 
physical force by new and very strange means — very interest- 
ing 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. Eeely and the stockholders of his com- 
pany, 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. Man- 
kind, 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 



8 The Keely Mystery. 

solye 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 sereral 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 — some- 
thing 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 lift- 
ing 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 Uving 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. 



Introductory. 9 

Just when we are beginning to know how to read the book^ 
we are forced to close its pages becanse the iuteliectaal eye- 
sight 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 onr 
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. Stem, 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 bills are shadows, and they flow 
From form to form, and nothing stands ; 
They melt like mists, the solid lands ; 
Like clonds they shape themselves and ^o.*^ 

In MeTtioriam, cxziii., 2nd Stanza. 

This is good poetry ; better stilly 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 coeval with the 
world's earliest settling down to a steady, solid, and respect- 
able 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 



lo The Keely Mystery. 

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 Thon hast laid the foundations of the earth, 
and the hearens are the work of Thy hands. They shall 
perish, bat 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 con- 
tinued his researches, as he has done during these intervening 
years, from lack of the funds necessary to carry them on. 
But there wore men who knew the worth of the discovery, 
and who, sanguine as to almost immediate results, did some- 
thing 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 pro- 
gress : 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. 

BTHBB THE TBUE PROTOPLASM, AN EPITOME Of MACVICAR^S 

SKETCH OP A PHILOSOPHY. 

All that has been predicted of atomsi their attractions and repnlsiona, 
according to the primary laws of their being, only becomes intelligible 
when we assume the presence of mind. — Sib John F. W. Heeschell 
(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. F&aseb, Darkness and Light in the Land of 
Egypt. 

Fob 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 eflRorts 
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 con- 
centrated in this direction up to the year 1882. Engino 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. 



1 2 The Keely Mystery. 

and it was not nntil 1 884 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 oflF 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 in- 
vented by Keely,of Philadelphia, and the subjectof a communica- 
tion 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 propor- 
tions. 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 



Ether the True Protoplasm. 13 

of materials avail against the power that givesi and indeed is^ 
strength of materials ? This^ however^ is but a metaphysical 
doabt^ 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 Foecb — Ethebic 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 concen- 
trated 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 dis- 
coverer. He knows its nature and its power. By the opera- 
tion 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 insur- 
mountable, during years in which no disinterested hands 



14 The Keely Mystery. 

were extended to aid him, no encouraging words of apprecia- 
tion bestowed npon him by the scientists whom he vainly 
tried to interest in his experiments ; assailed by calnmnies, 
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, engineer- 
ing 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 explain- 
ing, 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 



Ether the True Protoplasm. 1 5 

and colonrs. Mr. Keely will himself^ in his theoretical expose 
make known the manner in which he was led^ by the writings 
of Dr. Macvicar and Mrs. Hughes^ into the knowledge which 
raised the yeil 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 grayity. 

The question has been asked whether science^ having 
destroyed &ith^ has supplied us with anything better. But 
has science destroyed faith 7 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 soid 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" *Hhe celestial ocean of 



1 6 The Keely Mystery. 

imiyersal 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 conneciei 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 com- 
ments. If the scaffolding be good the edifice will appear in 
time. If worthless, no edifice can be constructed. There- 
fore, it must be remembered that it is only with the scaffold- 
ing that we have to do at present. If it has been left for our 
age to demonstrate the truth or the falsity of certain deduc- 
tions 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 



Ether the True Protoplasm, 1 7 

thing as intaition^ 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 plagae 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 sub- 
lime : 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 sp&jiales et au-dessus d'elles, il y^ lieu a une science ^ Ji zf // 
plus haute et plus gen6rale, et, c'est ce qu^ on i^pil^philo- Cy^y^^^^^^^^ 
Sophie.'' — (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 Char- 
pignon, " 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 phemomena 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 

c 



1 8 The Keely Mystery. 

effect that every individaalized object tends to assimilate 
itself to itself^ in saccessive 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 prgperties, 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 im- 
mediately 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 pre- 
viously 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 legiti- 
mate deductions from cosmical law, the forms and structures 
of these molecules must always be as symmetrical as the re- 
action 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 attrac- 
tive 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, Macvioar 
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 



Ether the True Protoplasm. 1 9 

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 nataral 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 pro- 
ceeds. But when it is considered that all of these chemical 
atoms, before they have come into the chemist's hands, hare 
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 mole- 
cular, 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 develop- 
ment 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 

2 



A 



20 The Keely Mystery. 

by Kriiss and Nilson in certain rare Scandinarian 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 con- 
tinues — 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 de- 
velopment 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, diffiised 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, per- 
sonality — 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 6od« 
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 iutellectual regard 
which it may possibly have, unless that unity be an in- 
telligent 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 



Ether the True Protoplasm. 2 1 

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 con- 
ceived 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 l^ss is 
it entitled to the name of protoplasm ; nay, it alone must be 
jnstly 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 sub- 
stance 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 proto- 
plasm, 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 pro- 
perties under certain restrictions ; the ground of the remark- 
able persistency and permanence of well-oonstituted species ; 



22 The Keely Mystery. 

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 actiyity, as operations of the cosmical law of assimila- 
tion. 

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 ; espe- 
cially 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. Pur- 
suing the old view as to the cause of the state of tension 
induced in the dilute sulphuric acid, the continuous decom- 
position 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 pos- 
session, from the first, of a master- thought, which, if he carry 
it along with him, will present all nature as a harmony; 



Ether the Time Protoplasm. 23 

explainmg 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 dissimi- 
lar, 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 multi- 
plicity, identity and difEerence, are everywhere interwoven, 
and in such harmony that nature is everywhere beautiful. 

It is not necessary here to repeat the illastrations by which 
Macvidar 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-manifestiug 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 them- 
selves 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 
6g?> 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 



24 The Keely Mystery. 

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 ports 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 out- 
ward 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 conse- 
quence 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 



Ether the True Protoplasm. 25 

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 
2ixe forces or powers ; when viewed as statical, they are «w5- 
stances. 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, \i 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. 



26 The Keely Mystery. 

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 efiect 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 corre- 
sponds 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 ; 



Ether the True Protoplasm. 27 

then, in obedience to what has been stated, that object mast 
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 con- 
ception 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 them- 
selves also— not, indeed, in the centres of their being, and as 
unimpressed and without ideas, but a« 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 accord- 
ingly. 

Such, then, according to Macvicar, is the nature of mind or 
spirit. It is a being so constituted as to be at once in posses- 
sion of ideas, and so far fixed ; and also in possession of un- 
determined 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 feel- 
ing, 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 



28 The Keely Mystery. 

situation in the system of the nnirerse^ 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 ulti- 
mately 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 



Ether the True Protoplasm. 29 

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 " etheric force," 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 Mac- 
vicar 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 EEELY's PBOBLEMS. 

1885 TO 1887. 

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

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

SiE James Csichton Bbowi^e. 

In November 1884, Mr. Keely obtained a standard for pro- 
gressive 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 rota- 
tion 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 indepen- 
dent of the circular chord of resonation as set up mechanically. 



The Nature of Keel^s Problems. 31 

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 in- 
sinuations 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 negatiza- 
tion of an etheric substance to produce vacuum. The mer- 
cury may be delivered to me by an expert : I will operate 
from an open mercury bath : using the most perfect mercury 
gauge obtaiuable, 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 evolu- 
tions. ... As soon as I have been able to combine all the posi- 
tive and negative forces of etheric vibration in the triple vibra- 
tory 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 



32 The Keely Mystery. 

to AericU 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. Yester- 
day 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, disappoint- 
ments, etc., etc. I have been frozen in at my workshop ; 
and all things seemed to go wrong ; but my present suc- 
cesses 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 



The Nature of Keelys Problems. 33 

to denote the true condition^ as regards safefcy in my different 
vibratory operations/' " Without the aid sent me from on 
high there would hare 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 per- 
fect 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 vibra- 
tory etheric force would, as far as my researches are concerned^ 
have been lost to the world. I feel that the world is waiting 
fur 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 under- 
standing 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 



34 71^ Keely Mystery. 

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 engalphed me in its 
fascinating vortex.'^ . . . 

'' May 20^A. — Yesterday was a day of trials and disappoint- 
ments. 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 fright- 
ful velocity : then I suddenly retracted to the negative, bringing 
the velocity down from about 1500 per minute to 160. 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 dum- 
founded, 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 rota- 
tion." 

^^ June \si, 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 



The Nature of Keelys Problems. 35 

strain of the past few weeks^ the struggles and disappoint- 
ments 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 
requirenxents 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 philo- 
sophy 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 ab- 
surdity. The rock I am standing on can no more be moved 
by a whirlwind of such attacks than the atmospheric distur- 
bance 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 Ihth. — 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 

D 2 



36 The Keely Mystery. 

organisms. Though destructiye to a great degree in its 
explosive positions^ it is the medium by which the whole sys- 
tem 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 condi- 
tion 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." . . . 

Augvsi 5^A.— Mr. Keely wrote to one of his friends, — "I 
have met with an accident to the Liberator. I was experi- 
menting 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 efiect of the explosion.*^ 

The orders of intensification for accelerating dissociation 
would not be understood by any explanations that could be 



The Nature of Keelys Problems. . 37 

made, if anaccompanied 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 refresh- 
ing 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 insensi- 
bility. 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 circivit of high 
vibration that breaks up the molecular magnetism which is 
recognized as cohesion. 

The acceleration of these orders is governed by the intro- 
ductory 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 liberatx)r engine and gun. 

''My second system of dissociation I consider complete, 
as far as the liberation of the ether is concerned, but not 



/ 

/ 



38 The Keely Mystery. 

sufficiently complete, as yet, in its devices for indicating and 
governing the vibratory etherio circoit, to make it a safe 
medium. 

"My third system embraces aerial and sub-marine navi- 
gation. The experimental sphere intended to test the com- 
bination of the positive and negative rotation is nearly 
completed. 

..." I have done everything that I could do to demon- 
strate 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 believ- 
ing 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 
criticaUy as it is being put together. The safety arrange- 
ments 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 consider- 
ably 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 approach- 
ing 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 Hue pro- 
gressive links of transmittive sympathy from the crude mole- 
cular to tlie high ethericJ* . . . 



The Nature of Keely's Problems. 39 

^^ Decemher 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 con- 
sideration associated with the mechanical part of the enter- 
prise, 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 inter- 
ferences from exhibitions to which I have been subjected in 
the past. I feel more and more the great importance of devot- 
ing 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 con- 
fidence in the near completion of his " struggles.*' The stock- 
holders were enthusiastic, and the stockbrokers were on the 
qui vivBy anticipating a great rise in the shares of The Keely 
Motor Company. Mr. Collier had written in August to 
Major Ricarde-Seaver ^ : " The Bank of England is not more 

* 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. 



40 The Keely Mystery. 

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. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SYMPATHETIC VIBRATORY FORCE, 1887. 

the teleological view was opposed to tbe mechanica], which re- 
garded the tmiyerse as a collocation of mere facts without any farther 
significance. The mechanical view looked backward to the antecedents 
of a phenomenon, and explained things by reducing them to their 
lowest terms ; the teleolotdcal or philosophical view looked forward to 
the end or purpose which was being reahzed, which was the reason of 
the whole development, and in the aeepest sense its canse. Mechanical 
explanation was an infinite progress, which conld nltimately explain 
nothing ; in the last resort, cwusae efflcientes pendent a finatihus. In 
defining the nature of the end which it thns asserted, philosophy had to 
wage unsparing battle against the naturalistic tendencies ox our time. 
— (Jrom a Remew of Frofesaor 8eth*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 nnmber 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 



/ 



\2 The Keely Mystery. 

newly-known force in Nature which is more powerful than 
any other agent in inspiring to renewed elEorts ; 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 satis- 
faction 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 pre- 
paration, to any new system, no matter how solid its founda- 
tion, 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. 



Sympathetic Vibratory Force. 43 

' There are some seorets whicb, wlio knows not now, 
Mnst, 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 bar- 
ring 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 



/ 

/ 



44 The Keely Mystery. 

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 etherio 
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 acou- 
stics, 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. 

Boget 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 



Sympathetic Vibratory Force. 45 

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 con- 
sidered 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 obser- 
vations in 1802, during which time the fact was disputed 
most strenuously by many, while, in our time. Professor 



46 The Keely Mystery. 

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 accom- 
plished is made known. The delays which have occurred in 
bringing before the worid 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 appre- 
ciation 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 specu- 
lative 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 di£&cult 
to procure any favourable reception for doctrines which are 
objectionable only because they are deemed to be incom- 
patible 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 accom- 
modate 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 infor- 
mant was imposing upon his creduUty when giving him an 
accurate description of the steam-engine. Now what would 
be thought of that philosopher who, in attempting to com- 
municate an adequate idea of the operation of the steam- 



Sympathetic Vibratory Force. 47 

engine, should content himself with a mere description of its 
mechanism — of its wheels and levers, and cylinders and 
pistons — ^keeping entirely out of yiew 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— depen- 
dent 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 opera- 
tions 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 P But what is 
this, when compared to the astonishing truths which modem 
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 



I 



48 The Keely Mystery. 

causes? When Newton said that gravitation held the 
world together, he assigned no reason why the heavenly 
bodies do not fly ofE 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 experi- 
ments, he became convinced of the insufficiency of that prin- 
ciple 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 ex- 
periments 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. 

B^clard almost completely demonstrated the truth of 
Rogers hypothesis concerning the action of "the nervous 
fiuid '* 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 Pro- 



Sympathetic Vibratory Force. 49 

feasor Keil^ of Jena^ also made some yery interesting experi- 
ments of the same character^ one of which tends to demon- 
strate the susceptibility of the neryous system to the magnetic 
influence^ and the efficacy of the magnet in the care 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 fiuid^ writes Colquhoun, in 1836, whether secreted 
by, or merely conducted by the neryes, 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 know- 
ledge 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 dis- 
tant 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 u;e are dealing with molecula/r vibration taking 

B 



50 The Keely Mystery. 

place so energetically as to give rise to luminous radiation y 
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 govern- 
ing 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- 



Sympathetic Vibratory Force. 51 

np 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, com- 
pound ether a resultant of this subdivision j that, if metallic 
mediums are brought nnder 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 difierentiation 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 
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 sym- 
pathetically through a difEerential 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 inter- 

* The Btretchinff of a catgat chord over a resonator set to the ohord 
of B flat ia precisely the same in its resultant issue as the steel wire set 
over the same resonator. 

E 2 



52 The Keely Mystery. 

missions on transmission were so freqnent 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 trath of his theory of the law governing 
the atomic triplets in their association. Differentiation, 
by compoand negative vibration of their neutral centres, 
causes antagonism, and thus the great attractive power that 
aggregates them becomes one of dispersion or expansion, accom- 
panied by immense velocity of rotation, which carries its 
influence through the whole volume of air, 230 cubic inches 
contained in sphere, within its 33J 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 alto- 
gether upsetting the "compressed air" theory of Professor 
Barker, Dr. Hall, and others of less note. 

" In setting the conditions of molecular sympathetic trans- 
mission 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 differenti- 
ation of sympathetic flow, seems at first sight to controvert 
the very law established by the great Creator, which consti- 
tutes harmony — a paradoxical position which has heretofore 
misled physicists who have propounded and set forth most 
erroneous doctrines, because they have accepted the introduc- 
tory 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 en- 
countered in his persevering efforts to use the etherio 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 difier- 
ence — ^that, in order to show insulation to the sceptical, he 



Sympathetic Vibratory Force. 53 

passes the etherio cnrrent through blocks of glass in running 
his vibratory devices. 

When Keely's system is finished, theu^ 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 T!he Arena of 
October, 1891, having the title Healing through Mind, Dr. Wood 
says : *' Tmth may be considered as a rounded unit. Truths have 
various aud 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 rale 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 in- 
vinible potency of a higher order, and practically conclude that it is non- 
existent." — Healing through Mind, 



CHAPTER V. 

ETHERIC VIBRATION. THB 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 genera- 
tions 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 



Etheric Vibration. 55 

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 pro- 
pounded to the world, reveals the identity of facts which seem 
dissimilar, binding together into a system the most uncon- 
nected 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 i^n^-/afuj|rof afalse 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 dis- 
covery 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 e:^pressing 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 P But not until the 



S6 714^ Keely Mystery. 

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 Tyndali has said that the 
men who go close to the mouth of Nature and listen to her 
comimunications 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 afiecting 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 prin- 
cipal 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 truths 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 ^' * after his discovery of the circulation of the 

1 Iq Latin " oircalator " means " qnaok." 



Etheric Vibration. 57 

bloody — ^whioh discovery was ridiculed by his colleagues, and 
compeers. The same reception awaited Jenner's introduction 
of yaccination. 

The reyelation of new truths is compared to the upheaval of 
rocks which reveal deeply-hidden strata. Stolid conservatism 
dislikes and avoids such f acts^ because they involve new think- 
ing 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 stand- 
point 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 ; /or they 
are the laws which Kepler predicted would in this century be 
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 e2q)ansive 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 



58 The Keely Mystery. 

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 pre- 
dicted that they would soon be abandoned, and, if not 
given up, that they would starve the poor, destroy canal 
interests, crush thousands in fearful acxsidents, and cover the 
land with horror. 

When I say that the existence of this force is estahlisiied^ 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 B-ome 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. 59 



Etheric Vibration. 

The late editor of the New York Home Journal, noticing 
the preceding paper^ which appeared in LippincoWs 
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 P 
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 me- 
chanical 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 micro- 
phonic 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 equili- 
brium 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 disturb- 



6q The Keely Mystery. 

ance of the equilibriam being effected by a medium thoroaghly 
vibratory in its character. The vapour which Keely pro- 
duces from this liberator is perfectly free from all hu- 
midity^ 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 improve- 
ments which Keely has made in his mechanism, feeUng 
his way in the dark as it were^ he sometimes speaks of 
having *' stupidly stumbled over them/^ of " seeming acci- 
dent," 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 mole- 
cular and atomic leads — an action that was absolutely essen- 
tial 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 Ood 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 ^ome Jowmal. 
"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 



EtJieric Vibration, 6i 

he has conqnered too many of the stapendoas problems, 
which barricaded his way in the past, not to feel equally 
sanguine now of erentual 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 under- 
stood. 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 deprecia- 
tory 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 sub- 
mitted to the vibratory circuit. Thus, the finer the substance 
the greater the power and the velocity under such vibra- 
tion. 

The vapour from the liberator, registered at 20,000 pounds 
per square inch, has a range of atomic motion of 1333^^ the 



f 

i 



62 The Keely Mystery. 

diameter of the atmospheric molecaloj with constant rotary 
ribratory action. At 10,000 pounds, 666| ; at 5000, 333^ ; 
at 2500, 166|; at 1250, 83i; at 625, 41 1. The higher the 
range of atomic motion the greater is its tenuity, and the 
range is according to the registered pressure. This rule can- 
not 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 60 to 57 inches ; 
ranging down to 30 inches, or 57 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 radia- 
phonic in their character, and thoroughly independent of all 
outside forces in their spheres of action. In fact, no conceiv- 
able 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 mathe- 
matical precision, their continuous vibratory revolution of in- 
conceivable 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 de- 
monstration ever made has done more than this. We ought 



Etheric Vibration. 63 

to know that the possibilities of saccess 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 io, 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 



64 The Keely Mystery. 

law of assimilation on molecular action^ says : '' Daring this 
retreat of matter into ether in single material elements or 
units of weighty 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 Eeely has^ over and over, demonstrated, as 
a fact ; also showing how gravitation operates as a lever : 
etheric wave motion : concentration under vibratory concus- 
sion : and negative vacuous tenuity. « 

Mrs. P. 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 thj 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 beb'ef 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.^' 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE POXTNTAIN HEAD OF FORCE. 

Those who occnpy themselves with the mysteries of molecalar ribra- 
tion bear the victorious wreaths of saccessfal discovery, and show that 
every atom teems with wonders not less incomprehensible than those of 
the vast and bright far-off snns. — 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 tne inmost focus of life, the human 
will, or in the cosmic spaces occupied only by the ultimate atoms. The 
en^neer 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 role 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. — Geoege 
Pekry. 

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

CiCEBO. 

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 ex- 
perimenter 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 
cany. 

Those who know the most of Mr. Keely's philosophy, and 

p 



66 The Keely Mystery. 

of his inventions to apply this new force to mechanics^ are the 
most sangaine 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 com- 
ing — that he was not bom 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 demonstra- 
tion 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 existencOi 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 con- 
ceive. 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 igno- 
rant 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 7 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 spiiit, 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 



The Fountain Head of Force. 67 

on only by the will. J a/m an effective force in both these 
worlds.'^ 

Newton said that this snbtle ether penetrates through 
all, even the hardest bodies, and is concealed in their sub- 
stance. 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 '^ at0(D,*' to light up or kiudle. 
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 respon- 
sive 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. Aiid 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, 

F 2 



68 The Keely Mystery. 

nay, in the circnmstances it is alone legitimatOi 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 dis- 
play; 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 
fiUeth all in all, but it must surely retain an aura of the 
spiritual nature. This, then, is the comer-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 meta- 
physical 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 pui*e 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 resist- 
ing 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 
inertisB is alone admitted.'* In Keely^s philosophy, as in 
Dr. Macvicar's ''Sketch of a Philosophy,'^ the economy of 



The Fountain Head of Force. 69 

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 conse- 
quence, that, to keep the break out of sight, the entire doc- 
trine 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 dimne immanence in natural law, God 
was not transiently present in nature — that is, in a mere 
creative moment ; nor has He now left the wor Id in a state of 
orphanage, bereft of a deific influence and c^re, 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 th^it 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 



70 The Keely Mystery. 

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 80,000 pounds to 
the square inch, when modem scientists support Herschel's 
views, as they do, unhesitatingly ; rather should they be 
surprised at the marvellous perseverance which has kept 
Eeely, 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 dis- 
coverer and inventor been unmi;Ddf ul 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 



The Fountain Head of Force. 7 1 

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 lie 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 pro- 
phecies 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 KSY TO THE PROBLEMS. EEBLT's SEOBETS. 

Causa latefc, 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 re- 
gard 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 



The Key to the Problems. 73 

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, im- 
material, and homogeneous entities, having their origin and 
unity in one great intelligent personal vdll force.** 

The Duke of Argyll says : — " We know nothing of the 
ultimate seat of force. Science, in the modem 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 manifestatious 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, w/ien 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 



74 The Keely Mystery, 

anticipation^ and one that eren now is widely, though yagnelj, 
entertained." 

The Egyptians worshipped Ba, their name for the san, 
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 har- 
mony 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 oE 
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 efiSuence 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 com- 



The Key to the Problems. 75 

mercial yalae to the pnblic. Keely replied that he had 
written thoasands 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 regu- 
lated 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 etherio 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. 



76 The Keely Mystery. 



KEELY'S SECRETS. 1888. 

Part I. 

Science is to know tilings.— Hebodotus. 

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

Truth is not attained throagh reflection, but thronffh immediate 
intnition. We neither originate thought nor its form. — ^A&tan 
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. — 
Fbanz Habtkann, M.D. 

John Worbbll Keely — the discoverer of compound inter- 
etheric force, as the result of more than twenty years of per- 
sistent eflTort 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 de- 
velopment 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 Key to the Problems, 77 

the anderside of a powerful, weighted lever. The superfioial 
area of this piston was eqnal 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 them- 
selves satisfied, Keely diverted his etheric gas to the 
exciting work of firing a cannou, 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 dannon 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 



78 The Keely Mystery. 

power produced was so humid that he could not, when he 
attempted to utilize it, obtain its theoretical value in work. 
This diflBculty 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.^ 

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. Beproaching 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 iu 1816, had formed a " Faraday Phospho-Genetic 
Badiant Company," to enable him to experiment : ftilly 
cognizant of all that Crookes has since discovered, and liiad 
taken for his base in experimenting the principle involved nIu 
Orookes's discovery. Not succeeding at first, we will suppo&^e 
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 main- 
tained 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 



^ 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. 



I«*IPI 



The Key to the Problems. 79 

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 ''|ihe supposed 
duty*' of his client's imparting his " secrets/' as ordered by 
the Couift 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 con- 
siderable 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, iQasmuch as he is dealing with the subject 
of sound, or acoustics, but in a much more involred 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, uni- 
formity 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 
hannony (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 



8o The Keely Mystery, 

has prodaced, will be a work rather for scientists than for 
mechanicians or engineers/' 

Keely's " Theoretical Expose " 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 them- 
selves ''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 ihe 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 trans- 
mitting 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 pre- 
vents 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 



The Key to the Problems. 8 1 

son-sentient atoms. Dynaspheric force, composed of non- 
sentient atoms, is the force that has been already mechanically 
appb'ed 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 ap- 
paratus 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 dis- 
coveries 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 re- 
searches, 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 





82 The Keely Mystery. 

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 modem 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 
Boscoe, 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 indivisi- 
bility of the atom, he asks this question : ", Notwith- 
standing the properties of these elements have been studied, 
and are now known with a degree of precision formerly un- 
dreamt of, have the atoms of our present elements been made 
to yield ? " He continues : '* A negative answer must un- 
doubtedly be given, for even the highest of terrestrial tempera- 
tures, 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 inven- 
tions 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 
Geniliniprisoned 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 



The Key to the Problems. 83 

using in experiments with reckless and wanton waste ! Pop 
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 timesj 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 con- 
dition 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. Boscoe 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 electricifcy, 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 be filled with something. This is where the Genjp— 
"the all-pervading ether" — has made its secret abode 
through untold SBons, 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 re- 
searches, 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 

G 2 



84 The Keely Mystery. 

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 conmiunicate 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 sub- 
ject than Thales had announced two thousand years before. 
Von Kleist in Leyden, Gollinson 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, shouldKeely'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 dis- 
covery 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 



The Key to the Problems. 85 

years ; bnt 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 blasts 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 scafiblding 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^ baiSed 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 ex- 
periment. 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 experi- 
ments. 

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 



86 The Keely Mystery. 

operated apon the principle of pressure and exhaustion^ by the 
expansion of steam or other analogous gas which impinges 
upon an abutment^ such as the pistdn 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 develop- 
ing 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 con- 
ducted in this manner — that is to say, the power will be gene- 
rated, 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/' jper «e, pro- 
duced, 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 employ- 
ment will be more easily acquired than is the necessary 
skill required to enable one to safely operate a steam-engine. 



The Key to the Problems. 87 

'' 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 over- 
come : 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 pro- 
duction 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 sym- 
pathetic vibration, for the purpose of liberating a vapoury or 
etherio 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 thp 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 



88 The Keely Mystery. 

the leyer is lowered there is no ezhanstion^ into the atmo* 
sphere of the room, of any up-lifbing 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 uniuitiated 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 sewiug 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 
apriori 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 



The Key to the Problems. 89 

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 Boyal Society, and the ^Pendulo- 
graph 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 pro- 
ducing 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 chang- 
ing 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 Tork, 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 observa- 

^ 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. Bamsay, of Glasgow, has shown to his students of 
harmony for many a year. A pen, placed by means of a universal- 
jointed arrangement between anv 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 corre- 
sponding 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. 



go The Keely Mystery. 

tion in the progress of science and hnman genius, inasmuch 
as in countries far distant from each other men have fallen 
into the same tracks, and have made similar and correspond- 
ing 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, elec- 
tricity, magnetism, etc." 



The Key to the Problems. 91 

When the time is ripe^ these are of the trae scientists who 
will come to the front '' to lead as progress leads/' men who 
know how to wait apon 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 : — 

Yerily many tlunkers of this age, 
Aye, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, 
Are wrong in jnst my sense who understood 
Onr natural world too insularly, as if 
No spiritual counterpart completed it, 
ConsummatiDg 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 Kebly's Discovert in its Relations to the 

Cure of 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, dodx)rs do devilish little when they 
do not do harm. Sick people always feel they are neglected, unless 
they are well drugged, les imbeciles ! 

Propessor Magendib (before the students of his 
class in " The Allopathic College of Paris "). 



92 The Keely Mystery. 

In the year 1871, the writer was sent from Paris to Sohwal- 
bach^ by Dr. Beylard^ and recommended to the care of Dr. 
Adolph Genth. She said to the physician^ " I wish for your 
opinion and yonr 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 Gt)od 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 
Equilibriufn 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 Key to the Problems. 93 

the fossil specimens of antediluvian qnackery, bat among 
those who are called " irregulars/' because they have the 
courage to depart from the tracks trodden out by their pre- 
decessors. 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 toinsform sound again into 
mechanical motion, we would have a thousand-fold multiplica- 
tion 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 modem 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 



94 The Keely Mystery, 

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 augmenta- 
tion 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 f 
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 qnly 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 transmis- 
sion ; 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 differ* 
ential harmony to the mass of immediate cerebral surround- 
ings. 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. 



The Key to the Problems. 95 

negative, and nentral position. When we take into considera- 
tion the strnctnral condition of the human brain, we ought not 
to be bewildered by the infinite variety of its sympathetic im- 
pulses ; 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 versa, 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 bom- 
bardment 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. 



96 The Keely Mystery. 

There is no condition of tke 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 dis- 
cordant gprouping 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 com- 
pared to a knot on a TioUn string. As long as this knot 
remains it is impossible to elicit, from its sympathetic sur- 
roundings, the condition which transfers pure concordance to 
its resonating body. Discordant conditions, t.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 P 

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 assimi- 
lation. The different strings represent the different yentricles 
and conrolutions. 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 combina- 
tion, 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 sympa- 
thetic 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 66|- against the 100 



The Key to the Problems. 97 

pure, taking the full volnme as one. If tliis 66f or even 100 
exists in one organ alone^ and the surrounding ones are 
normal, then a condition can be easily brought about to esta- 
blish the concordant harmony or equation to that organ. It 
is as rare to find a negative condition of 66|- against the 
volume of the whole cerebral mass^ as it is to find a coincident 
between differentiation ; or, more plainly, between two indi- 
viduals 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-sympa- 
thetic, 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 Expos6 " is given to science, 
there are few who will fathom the full meaning of these views. 

His discoveries embrace the manner or way of obtain- 
ing the keynote, or ''chord of mass," of mineral, vege- 
table, 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-^heric 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 

H 



98 The Keely Mystery. 

straggle to attain this end. Still less, if possible^ is he under- 
stood 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 modem Gagliostro/' will be forced to acknowledge that he 
has done a giant's work for true science^ even thougli he 
should not live to attain commercial success. But history will 
not forget that, in the nineteenth century, the story of Prome- 
theus 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 instru- 
ment. 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 " diflTerential 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 treat- 
ment 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 eflBcacy in the cure of certain infirmi- 
ties. 



The Key to the Problems. 99 

As Cheston Moms, 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 hare not yet studied deeper causation. Materia Medica 
lacks the exact elements of a science. The just preponder- 
ance, 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 grovm more subtle and more 
numerous. . . . Only when internal, divine forces come to be 
relied upon, rather than outside reinforcement, will deteriora- 
tion cease. Said Plato, ' You ought not to attempt to cure 
the body without the soul.' " 



H 2 



CHAPTER VIII. 

1888. 

HELPERS ON THE BOAD^ AND HINDEBEBS. 

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. 
" JSot as I will" 

The next '^ helper on the road '' was an Austrian nobleman^ 
the Chevalier Griez de Bonse^ 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 men- 
tions 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 vibra- 
tions 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 con- 
tempt of court, without the shadow of an excuse in the 



Helpers on the Road, and Hinder ers. loi 

opinions of men who had followed the proceedings against 
him. 

Under the heading, "Keely's Sanday 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 after- 
noon, 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 
Ungered. 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 ivorld 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-job- 
bing operations, until Keely is looked upon by men of 



102 The Keely Mystery. 

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 financi- 
ally or not, is entitled to the admiration of all who believe, 
with Browning, that '' eflPort, not success, makes man greaf 
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 Eeely^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 ^eely 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 seemjng chance 
was imparted to him, he made colossal strides across that un- 
known tract, the boundaries of which others are now but 
beginning to explore. Colonel Le Mat was no false prophet, 
Lq Figaro was no untrustworthy herald, when the announce- 
ment was made by this French inventor to Monsieur 
Chevreuil, 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 dis- 
covery. 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 piotion. 
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 



* 



Helpers on the Road, and Hinder ers. 103 

does. There has been groand in the past for sach a state- 
mentj it is tme^ bat 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 con- 
ception^ in regard to other men being anable to control the 
operations of my inventions on the sympathetic attractive 
system^ is as incorrect as woald 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 con« 
ception. The inventor must be sanguine of success; he must 
day by day think that he is on the eve of perfecting his inven- 
tion^ in order to keep up his courage to persevere to the 
end ; othervnse^ how could he work, year afber 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 appa- 
ratus 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 mar- 
vellous work ? Do men of science hail him as a great 



r •« 



104 The Keely Mystery. 

discoverer^ or hold out the hand of fellowship? Do people 
do honoar to the man whose sole entreaty to them will be 
to receive from his hands a gift a thousand times more pre- 
cious to them than steam engine or dynamo ? It is a literal 
fact that if Eeely 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 news- 
paper 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 bom of conscious inferiority, are at this moment put- 
ting 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 bum 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 dMre ' of injunctions, and orders, and suits, 
to crush them out of a world they have had the imperti- 
nence to try to improve, and the folly to imagine they could 
save from suflfering, 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 work- 
shop to denounce him as a Cagliostro; while others, com- 



..• ^ 



Helpers on the Road, and Hinderers. 105 

potent to jndge^ liave refused to witness the prodaotion 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 Ameri- 
can 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 oft which had instituted 
law proceedings against him, which threatened him with the 
indignity of imprisonment, he destroyed many of his mar- 
vellous 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 modem 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 no- 
thing 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 Boyal Society of 
Edinburgh, Major Bicarde-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 modem science. 



io6 The Keely Mystery. 



€t 



Beyond disintegration lies dispersion^ a^d 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 modem 
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 Hhe proto- 
plasm of all things/ As to the ' law of gravity,' it appears 
in the light of Keely's erperiments, 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, P.R.S.,* 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 here- 
after 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 

^ By his advocacy of Eeely's claims, as a discoverer, Major Ricarde- 
Seaver had reason to fear that he would lose his election to member- 
ship of the Athenssnm Club in London ; as be 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. 



Helpers on the Road, and Hinderers. 107 

toil tliat now makes bitter the existence of the vast majority, 
that snch a man should have been left unaided^ because 
in all the ranks of science there was not foand 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 commdrcoj of specula- 
tion, 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 ridi- 
cule 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 i^eculatiDg 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 Donesy-Cabbao£ Race. 

HOW MUCH LONOEB 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 



io8 The Keely Mystery. 

5,000,000 dols. of new stock representing a new discovery 
veiled in mystery, which is to far outstrip his former one, on 
which 6,000,000 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 remain- 
ing 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 hungiy 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 a^ist him in his refiections 
by a few facts. More than fifteen years ago Keely made him- 
self 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 oth^r 
rejected applications, was withdrawn from inspection ; but it 



Helpers on the Road^ and Hinder ers. 109 

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 profit- 
able, 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 Cen- 
tennial 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 unintel- 
ligible jargon ; but the point of it all was that he said the 
thing ran in consequence of its internal mechanical arrange- 
ment — or, in other words, that by combining pieces of metal 
in a certain way power was generated without any other ex- 
pense than that required to construct the apparatus. Natur- 
ally 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 with- 
out 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. 



no The Keely Mystery. 

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 de- 
clined down to the present time, when its ralue is admitted to 
be nothing. 

In riew 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 comer 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 remark- 
able 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. Dicesbson. 
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 4hat Keely made the announcement that he had 



/ 



Helpers on the Road, and Hinderers. 1 1 1 

proved the uselessness of building engines to employ the ether 
as a motive power ; which could only be ased as the mediam 
for the power which he had discovered, namely, a condition 
of sympathetic vibration, associated both positively and nega- 
tively with the polar stream. 

The statement made of the issae 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 Eeely affirmed 
he could produce with it '' an indefinite amount of horse 
power without current expense,'^ is denied. The sugges- 
tion that £eely could be sent to prison was welcomed by those 
who eventually acted upon it, with the result that Judge 
Pinletter committed Keely to Moyamensing Prison, for con- 
tempt 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 Eeely 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 
takei^ 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 



^« 



112 714^ Keely Mystery. 

been compelled to do so at a proper stage of the case is con- 
ceded. But to make an order not only to exUbit it^ but to 
operate it, the practical e£Fect of which was to wring from 
him his defence in advance of any issue joined, was an impro* 
yident and excessive exercise of Chancery powers. We are 
of opinion that the order was improvidently made. It follows 
that the Jeamed court had no power to enforce it by attach- 
ment. 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 satbfaction the valne 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 vei7 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 tne 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 iu 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 100,000/. 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, S 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 pne other omestion 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 P " 

" 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, out it is fuU of interest, and if haft that is narrated of 
Mr. Keely be true, he is indeed a wonderful man ! — Th^ Toiler. 



»# 



CHAPTER IX. 

1889—1890. 

KBBLY SUPPOBTED BY DISTINGUISHED MEN OP SCIENCE. 

AERIAL NAVIGATION. 

Is not ether infinitely more rare and more snbtle than air, and exceed- 
infflj more elastic and more active ? Does it not easily penetrate all 
bodies P And is it not by its elastic force diffused through the uni- 
verse ?— 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 demon- 
strations. Capitalists also were appealed to, to convince 
themselves of the existence of an unknown force, and of Mr. 
Keely's honesty in his efibrts 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 Philo- 
sophy," 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. 

I 



1 14 714^ Keely Mystery. 

Since 1888 he tas 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 un- 
known 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 ap- 
pliances. 

"Joseph Lbidi." 



" Philadelphia, AprU 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. 

''Jakes 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. Zol ver Preston, in his " Physics of the Ether," says : " A 



Keely Supported by Distinguished Men of Science. 115 

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 lights 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 sub- 
jugate it is quite another thing. The one may be stumbled 
over; the other can only be attained after laborious investiga- 
tion. 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 com- 
plete revelation of the universe. There are more things in 

I 2 



1 1 6 The Keely Mystery. 

heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the materialistic 
science of our age, or in our philosophy. " All we have 
cognizance of aroand as 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 eflTorts, 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 depart- 
ment 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.' K 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 pos- 
sibility 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 spirit- 
ual 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 in- 



Keely Supported by Distinguished Men of Science. 117 

debted 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 instru- 
ments, 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 impos- 
sibility 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 &ith 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 pur- 
pose placing the latest aspect of Mr. Keely, perhaps the best 
abused man in America, and his investigations before the 
readers of -4n J to--4tt«^ria; " continuing,— 

'* Under the heading of ' The Keely Motor Again,' Invention^ 
of London, on October 19th, printed a communication, men- 
tioning 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 con- 
vinced himself that Keely had discovered a new force, has 
received the following letter : — 

'' 909, Wahiut 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 work- 



1 1 8 The Keely Mystery. 

shop 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 
farther 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 
farther 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 experi- 
ments will be condacted 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* 

^* 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 experi- 
ments were to have been made, and which I may mention, en 



^ The PhiladeJ^hia Inquirer of March 30, 1890, copied this article 
from Anglo-Austria, headed " The Keely Motor : some observations on 
the invention from a foreign publication." 



Keely Supported by Distinguished Men of Science. 119 

passant, liad 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 our- 
selves 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 in- 
ventions have been principally devices, enabling him to ex- 
periment 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 



I20 The Keely Mystery. 

ribs, paralyzing his left side for six weeks at one time, and 
frequently bursting iron tubes as if they were pipe steins. 

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 ex- 
periments, 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 Baleigh: these gentlemen, misled by 
Professor Barker's assertion, that Keely was deceiving his 
dupes with compressed air, refused to witness his experi- 
ments. 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, un- 
impeded 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 con- 
vinced 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 con- 
vinced 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 con- 
sideration the marvellous advance which Mr. Keely has made 



^^ 



Keely Supported by Distinguished Men of Science. 121 

in the past five years in perfecting his liberator, we shoald 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 pre- 
sent 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 experi- 
ment 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^Ausiria^ 
March, 1890. 



SOME RECENT EXPERIMENTS.' 

Copy of a Letter addressed to Pbofessor Dewab of the Boyal 

Institution of Great Britain. 

Dbab PfM)PESSOB DiWAB, — As I havo 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 

* From the Evenina Telegraph, Philadelphia, April 13th, 1890: 
headed " Professor Leioy's Adherence to the New Force." 



122 The Keely Mystery. 

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 Uni- 
versity. 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 beaati- 
fnl evidence of the wisdom of the plan adopted by Mr. Eeely 
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 stiU in partial 
ignorance concerning. He admits now that he cannot con- 
struct 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 con- 
dition 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 revolu- 
tions. 

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. Prom 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 fhe overcoming of gravity 



Keely Supported by Distinguished Men of Science. i£ 



for aerial navigation^ Mr. Keelj ased a model of an air-ship^ 
weighing about eight pounds, which, when the differentiated 
wire of silver and platinum was attached to it, communi- 
cating 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 changiug 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 efiect 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 invita- 
tion to tiake 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 dis- 
charge itself with a noise like the rushing of steam to an 
expulsion as gentle as the breathings of an infant. The 



1 24 The Keely Mystery. 

three sabdivisions acted simultaneouBlj^ showing instan- 
taneoas 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 rever- 
ence 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 pendulograpbs 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 



Keely Supported by Distinguished Men of Science. 125 

of Lord WimborDO^ was another instrament 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. Aboat 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 suc- 
ceeded in inventing the modern dynamo machine I Such 
a fact would mean the concentration of hund/reds of 
years of scientific discovery and invention into the single 
life of one man. Such a result would be simply marvel- 
lous.'^ 

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 hold- 
ing 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 win^s of the gnatSi 
Destroys their heads and all their little brains/ 

Light is still light ; 
And although I am stung by the angriest wasp, 

I ^1 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 de- 
monstrations, more inexplicable than any feats of legerdemain, 
should have brought upon him the suspicion of fradulent re- 
presentation, concerning the production of the force and its 



1 26 The Keely Mystery. 

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 prin- 
ciple 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 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 per- 
petual 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 



Keely Supported by Distinguished Men of Science. 127 

of it in all particulars is easy and simple. In ascending the 
positire force is nsed^ 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 aflfected 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, notwithstand- 
ing, 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 dis- 
covery, 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 pro- 
ceedings in a position where he had to choose between con- 



128 The Keely Mystery. 

tinning 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. 



CHAPTER X. 
1881—1891. 

THE KEBLY MOTOE BUBBLE. MACVICAr's LOGICAL ANALYSIS. 

For it is well known that bodies act npon one another by the attrac- 
tion of gravity, magnetism, and electricity ; and these instances show 
the tenonr and course of Natnre and make it not improbable that there 
may be more attractive powers than these. For Nature is very con- 
sonant and comfortable to herself.— Sir Isaac Newton. 

The Scotch aathor^ 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 mecanique 
celeste of mind is still waiting its Newton to disclose them to 
us." 

Looking upon the discorerer 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-pneu- 
matic-pulsating-vaouo engine, when, " accidentally," the first 
evolution of disintegration was made. The focalization of 
this quadruple force, acting on one general centre of concen- 



1 30 The Keely Mystery. 

tration^ produced partial molecular subdivision, resulting in a 
pressure of some three thousand pounds per square inch. Mr. 
Eeely 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 elimina- 
tion 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- 
attradtion. 

In 1878 Mr. Keely conceired 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 incompre- 
hensible that a man who believes he has been specially 



The Keely Motor Bubble. 131 

endowed by Providence to convey great traths to the world, 
shonld have destroyed instraments which were the resnlt of 
the labonr of many years of research ; bnt Schopenhauer tells 
ns 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 ofiered 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 

E 2 



132 The Keely Mystery. 

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 condi- 
tions, 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 un- 
willing 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 diffi- 
culties 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 Keely Motor Bubble. 133 

the adaptations of his power already known to him or 
hereafter possible of discovery by him. Mr. Lorimer added : 
— "And now, in concluBion, 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 considera- 
tion ; 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 Uth, 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, aud 
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 



134 ^^ Keely Mystery. 

anticipated almost immediate mechanical saccess, np to the 
hoar 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 sangnine 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 Gk)d 
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, &cts 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 



The Keely Motor Bubble. 135 

we are^ let ns show it by onr acts^ and^ if not^ let as act like 
men, worthy the important trust before ns. If I am over- 
estimating the character and importance of this work^ yon can 
show it to me ; and 'per contra, if I am correct^ yon can and 
will accept the responsibilities of the position yon 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 in- 
dustrial arts and sciences, may be esteemed the most valuable 
discovery of civilization in modem -or in ancient times, inas- 
much 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 IbUqt felt justified in withhold- 
ing the transfer, the existing contracts might be a good foun- 
dation 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 manage- 



1 36 The Keely Mystery. 

ment; 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 manage* 
ment, 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 follow- 
ing a policy which, at best, aimed no farther than at the re- 
couping 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 con- 
trolling 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 pay- 
ments 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 



The Keely Motor Bubble. 137 

enterprise to the world. In the opinion of Mr. Lorimer^ 
daring 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 eyidence, 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 



1 38 The Keely Mystery. 

financially among a few impatient believers. Still it does 
not seem to me to be wise to carse the inventor^ or his inven- 
tions because he has not given ns 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 practi- 
cal 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 witness- 
ing 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 incal- 
culable amounts of latent force exist in the molecular spaces ; 
but in the opinion of scientists, molecular aggregation is at- 
tended 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 coui*se, 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 nomencla- 
ture. 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 



The Keely Motor Bubble. 1 39 

writings was like reading Persian without a dictionary. 
Another learned professor said that they seemed to him to 
be composed in an anknown tongue^ so profoundly unin- 
telligible 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 efiect upon the scientists present, 
one of awe ; so completely were they ti*ansfixed 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 an^d 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 look- 
ing for figures, movements, and laws everywhere, and for re- 
jecting all other conceptions as intruders. But of all such 



I40 The Keely Mystery. 

other conceptions^ there is nothing so difficalt and so intract- 
able, 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 impene- 
trability, 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 7 asks Macvicar ; and the Newton whom 



The Keely Motor Bubble. 141 

he anticipated would give a micanique celeste to mankind^ 
solves the problem, answers the question by his discovery of 
the cerebelic 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 inter- 
weaving of which the beautiful system of creation is con- 
stituted, 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 con- 
trast after all. The law of couples, of opposites, of reciprocal 
action between two contrasted yet homogeneous and har- 
monizing 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 in- 
fluence everywhere. Hence faith and sight, identity and 
difEerence, 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 con- 
sistent, mind and matter ought always to be viewed as dis- 
tinct, and the opposite poles of being ; inet'tia^ or unvarying 
submissiveness to the laws of motion being the character- 
istic 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 im» 



142 The Keely Mystery. 

pulses 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 adf-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- 
direcUce 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 ex- 
pression 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 



The Keely Motor Bubble. 143 

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 speakings and extend 
to him that discriminating appreciation of his work and en- 
couragement which the New York Home Journal, Truths 
Detroit Tribune, Chicago Herald, Toledo Blade, Atlanta Con- 
stitution. 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 mnst originate, 
Not any time we break the spell 
That binds ns to the ineffable. 
Indeed, we all are evermore 
Having to do with God : for we 
His very kind and offspring he : 
And to His offspring the benign 
Fails not to give benignant sign." 



144 The Keely Mystery. 

From New Torh 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 un- 
discovered 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 XL 

VIBRATORY SYMPATHETIC POLAR PLOWS. — KBELy'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 cload, ' Oar doctrines make no way.' 
All too high they stand above the nations, 

Shontinc^ forth their trnmpet-calls sublime, 
Shouting downwards their interpretations 

Of the wondrous secrets bom 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 mncli energy does 
Keely expend in the production of the force he is handb'ng ? " 
or again, " Can Keely shoy^ 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 mechani- 
cal 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 sym- 
pathetic 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 correspond- 
ing expenditure of force in some form or other. The amount 
of force covered by a human volition cannot be measured, yet 

L 



146 The Keely Mystery. 

it produces the wonderful effects that are exhibited ou 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 hopeloss in regard 
to convincing the scientific world of the value of his dis- 
coveries 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 P '' 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 



^ 



Vibratory Sympathetic Polar Flows. 147 

bigots. And so history now repeats itself. Were it possible 
to convince scientists &a 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 wonder, 
f ul 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 Yibrophone, 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 sus- 
tained many and grievous reverses. But, even so, such is the 
elasticity of the human mind, such is the energy of that im- 
mortal and godlike principle which lives within us, that we are 
baffled without being discouraged, our very defeats quicken- 
ing 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; 

L 2 



The Keely Mystery. 

every straggle issumg 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 occupy- 
ing themselves with the mysteries of electro-magnetic radiation, 
with the action of the ether, with the structure of the mole- 
cule, 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 modem 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 atmo- 
sphere, 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. 



Keelys Contributions to Science. 

" Oar 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 mag- 
netism 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 fop one instant, would fall apart, molecules 
and atoms, and return to the ether in which they originated. 



kebly's contributions to science.^ 

An infinitely snbtle snbstance, ont of which all other substances are 
constitnted, in varying forms, passes back again into simplicity. The 
same principle onderlies the harmonies of music and the motion of 
heavenly bodies. — Pythagoeas. 

One of the most arduous problems is that of energies acting at dis- 
tances. Are they real P Of all those that appear incontroUable, one 
onl^ 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 
torces through space. Behind this question arises the most important 
problem of all, that of the nature ana properties of the substance which 
nils space, — ^the ether,— -its structure, its motion, its limits, if it pos- 
sesses any. We find this subject of research, day by day, predominat- 
ing over all others. It seems as though a knowledge of ether should 
not only reveal to us the natnre of that imponderable substance, but 
will unveil to us the essence of matter itself and of its inherent proper- 
ties, weight and inertia. Soon the question set by modem physics will 
be, " Are not all things due to conditions of ether P " That is, the ulti- 
mate end of our science ; these are the most exalted summits to which 
we can hope to attain. Shall we ever reach them P Will it be soon P 
We cannot answer. — ^Pbof. Henbi Hebtz, in La, Bevue 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.^ 



j> 



From Lippincoifs Magazine, July, 1890. Edited by J. M. Stoddart. 



1 50 The Keely Mystery. 

Let as see what Keely^ in his researclies^ has done for 
science ; althongh, 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 cen- 
tury 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 experi- 
mental 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 Bemsen, 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 ? 



Keeiy$ Contributions to Science. 1 5 1 

1st. Afber a lifetime of research into the laws governing vibra- 
tions^ which develop this forco^ 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^ 
throaghoat animate and inanimate natare^ 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 rale its action in each^ as 
nndeviatingly 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 nega- 
tive attraction,'' — it being necessary to use the word " attrac-^ 
tion/' 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 mole- 
cular 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 introduc- 
tory 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 inspec- 
tion 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 



n 



152 , The Keely Mystery, 

propulsioBi 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 Guvier 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 celes- 
tial 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 prin- 
ciple 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, enhar- 
monic, 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 efiect \ 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 con- 
centration is, in comparison to their accumulation, as the 
tornado's force to the waft of the butterfly's wing. The en- 
harmonic 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 



Keeiys Contributions to Science. 153 

remain until that supreme law which governs disturbance of 
equilibrium again induces sympathetic concordant concen- 
tration^ 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." 

6 th. These same researches have enabled Keely to pro- 
nounce 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 aggre- 
gation 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 sub- 
division 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 plane- 



154 The Keely Mystery. 

tary systems ; for at a certain range of the greater distance^ 
harmony is estabiished^ 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 pro- 
pulsive 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 en- 
deavouriug to determine the nature of the triune action of 
the polar terrestrial stream, or envelope, as regards its vibra- 
tory philosophy. He is seeking to demonstrate its sympa- 
thetic 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 terres- 
trial envelope, without which all living organisms would 
cease to exist. He classes the cohesive force of molecular 
masses as the dominant oi*der 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 revital- 
ization of what is continually being displaced by negative 
dispersion. These mechanical conditions are principally 
difierential 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 



Keelys Contributions to Science. 155 

range of molecular motion, induced by the proper acoustic 
force, the molecules become repellent^ and that when the 
sympathetic centres are inflaenced by a yibration 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 aerial 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 sub- 
servient to a certain range of motion, between their oscilla- 
tions. If this condition were broken up, the rotation of 
planets would cease; if destroyed at a given point of re- 
cession, 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 sigh- 
ings of the wind. 

Again, to answer the often-asked question, '^ What has 
Keely done ? '' .^^^^^.^U^^^ 

9th. He has IwoKen joints of his fingers and thumbs, he 
has broken his ribs, ne has had his left side paralyzed for 



156 The Keely Mystery. 

weeks^ he has lost the sight of one eye for months, in his 
hand-to-hand fi^t with the genii that he has encountered, 
and cannot completely subdue until he has effected the con- 
dition 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 kiUed. 

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 accom- 
plish 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 P 

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 Expos^ or Philosophical Analysis of Vibro- 
Molecular, Vibro-Atomic, and Sympathetic Vibro-Etheric 
Forces, as applied to induce Mechanical Eotation by Negative 
Sympathetic Attraction. 

II. Explanatory Analysis of Vibro -Acoustic Mechanism in 
all its Different Groupings or Combinations to induce Pro- 
pulsion and Attraction (sympathetically) by the Power of 
Sound-Force ; as also the Different Conditions of Intensity, 



/ 



Keelys Contributions to Science. 1 5 7 

both Positive and Negative, on the Progressive Octaves to 
Ozonic Liberation and Luminosity. 

IIL The Determining Principle of Matter, or the Connective 
Link between the Finite and the Infinite, progressively con- 
sidered from the Crude Molecular to the Compound Liter- 
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 Magneto." 

Newton was indebted to Gilbert for his discovery of the so- 
called law of gravitation. Keely defines gravity as trans- 
mittive 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 ap- 
plication, 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 pre- 
paration 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. Jast as useless would it be to expect every 



158 The Keely Mystery. 

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 demon- 
strate 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 them- 
selves with his theories. Yet^ notwithstanding Professor 
Crooke's psychical researches and Professor Biicker's experi- 
ments 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 re- 
searches 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 min- 
eral; that the action of mind over matter thoroughly sub- 
stantiates 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 



Keelys Contributions to Science. 159 

brain, goyeming correctly the graduating and setting-up of 
the true sympathetic vibratory positions in machinery, neces- 
sary to commercial success ; that these flows come in on 
the order of the fifth and seyenth positions of atomic sub- 
diyision, 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 aad 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. 

1 1th. 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 evi- 
dence of the truth of the claims he ofi*ers. 

Geniushas 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 apti- 
tudes and facilities as he has been endowed with at his birth. 



i6o The Keely Mystery. 

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 pro- 
foundly ignorant has but small pretensions to the character of 
a philosopher." Galileo said, afler pronouncing his abjura- 
tion, " E pur si muove '' (" But it does move "). What signi- 
fied 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 modem 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 createsi up- 
holds, guides, and governs the universe. " The whole world- 






Keelys Contributions to Science. i6i 

process^'' says Yon Hartmann^ '' in its context is only a logical 
process ; bat 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 contem- 
plating 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 '* through- 
out 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 modem 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 im- 
prisoned 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 Scientijique, "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. More- 
over, the crowds of researchers are full of ardour. We must 
therefore welcome with confidence all the efibrts 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 

M 



1 62 The Keely Mystery. 

days of his inventions, which for many years furnished him 
with the necessary f ands, expecting almost immediate finan- 
cial success. The sneers of men of science crying ^' Charla- 
tan/' the ridicule of the public press, and the denunciations of 
the ignorant have been mighty factors in debasing the Talue 
of the shares of the company. The courage, faith, and con- 
tributing capacity of nearly all the stockholders have given 
out ; and it is fortunate that now Mr. Keely's work of evolu- 
tion 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 con- 
dition 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 mechani- 
cal difficulties Keely has conquered before attaining his pre- 



Keeiys Contributions to Science. 163 

sent degree of snccess^ in which he thinks he has mastered 
all that pertains to the principle of the force that he is dealing 
with, so &r as necessary for commercial purposes, the difficul- 
ties that he still has to contend with being merely the minor 
ones of mechanical detail. The fact that so mnch of Mr. 
Eeely'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 leger- 
demain can be performed, night after night, year in and year 
out, vnthout 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 know- 
ledge 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, confess- 
ing ignorance of the laws that govern the force he has dis- 
covered^ he has plodded on through all these years, experi- 
menting upon its nature, with instruments of his own inven- 
tion, 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 etherio 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. 

M 2 



164 The Keely Mystery. 

The theory of elliptic ftmctions, the calcalas of probabilities, 
are bat 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/' ' 

On the 28th of May, 1889, Mr. Keely 's workshop was 
visited by several men interested to see and judge for them- 
selves of the nature of his researches. Among them were 
Professor Leidy, of the University of Pennsylvania, and 
James M. WiUcox, 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 con- 
victing 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, keep- 
ing 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 admira- 
tion 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 witness- 
ing 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 

^ Quotation from one of Keely's letters in 1885. 



1 



Keelys Contributions to Science. 165 

air from talking in the operating room^ to toach even^ as well 
as why it is that, although he is willing to take apart and 
explain the constraction 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 ap- 
proached 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 7 " 

Norman Lockyer, in his "Chemistry of the Sun,*' con- 
firms Keely's theories when he writes, " The law which con- 
nects 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 simi- 
lar 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 OoUison and Yon Kliest and Muschenbrock ; 
and now Keely and Hertz and Depuy and Riicker and 



1 66 The Keely Mystery. 

Lockyer are examples. Never has a discovery leading to a 
new system been begun and perfected by the same individual 
so fai* as Eeely is doing ; but^ as Morley has said, '^ the repre- 
sentative 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 Eeely'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 Eeely 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 dis- 
close, as far as it is in his power to do so. 



CHAPTER XII. 
1891. 

VIBRATORY PHYSICS. — TRUE SCIENCE. 

We seem to be approacliiDg a theory as to the constmctioo of ether. 
Hertz has produced vibrations, vibrating more than one hundred million 
times per second. He made nse of the principle of resonance. Yon 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, Leucippos, Anax- 
agoras, 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 in- 
divisible. 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 pre- 
vailed concerning the cause of physical phenomena, are souud 
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. 



1 68 The Keely Mystery. 

They are right ; for, until the world had undergone a state 
of preparation for another revelation of truth, the man who 
demonstrated all that Keelj is now prepared to demonstrate 
would have been burned alive as a wizard. To use the words 
of Babeock, 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 np to nature's God, 
understanding and explaining, as no man before ever under- 
stood and explained, how simple is '' the mysterious way in 
which God works His wonders to perform.'' 

Mr. Babcock continues : — " Human comprehension is in- 
adeqoate 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, engineer- 
ing, and warfare." Up to within two years, Keely, this 
discoverer of unknown laws of nature, lias 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 uncer- 
tainty, 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 : 



Vibratory Physics. 169 



ti 



The system of arranging introdactory etheric impulses by 
compound chords set by di£FerentiaI harmonies, is one that the 
world of science has never recognized, simply because the 
struggles of physicists, combating with the solution of the 
conditions goveming 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 neces- 
sary to its analysis, the bare truth remains that the con- 
ditions 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 move- 
ments 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. JBTe 
Ima invented instruments which demonstrate in many variations 
the colours of sounds registering the number of necessary vibra- 
tions to produce each variation. The transmissive synipathetic 
chord of B fiat, third octave, when passing into inaudibility, 



1 70 Tfie Keely Mystery. 

would induce billious 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 
oyer 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 luminqsity, and registered a percussive mole- 
cular 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, un- 
shipping 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 sufiScient 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 decom- 
posed into ether ? 



j> 






Vibratory Physics. 1 7 1 

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 r '' 

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 mole- 
cular 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 suffi- 
cient 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 experi- 



172 The Keely Mystery. 

menty 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 o^ 
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 
lif&m 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 collec- 
tions 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 night- 
mare 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 



Vibratory Physics. 1 73 

may be divided and sabdivided by a certain order of vibra- 
tion. During all these years in which he has given exhibitions 
of the operation of his generators^ liberators, and disintegra- 
tors, in torn, each being an improyement, successively, on the 
preceding one, no one has attempted to give to the pablic 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 10,000Z. 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 op Aqueous Disintegration. 

The peculiar conditions as associated with the gaseous 
elements of which water is composed, as regards the differ- 
ential 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 dissocia- 
tion. The differential antagonistic range of motion, so favour- 
ing 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. 



1 74 The Keely Mystery. 

These triple conditions are focalized on the neutral centre of 
said instroment so as to induce perfect harmony or con- 
cordance to the chord-note of the mass-chord of the instru- 
ment'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 concentratiye thirds^ between the transmitter and dis- 
integrator. 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 dis- 
integrator, 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 dis- 
sociation 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 struc- 
ture (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 



Vibratory Physics. 175 

their different positions by set screws. Tbe 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 instru- 
ment. Concordance is thus effected between the disintegra- 
tor and the ninths of the scale at base of ti*ansmitters 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 condi- 
tions 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 condi- 
tion 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 mani- 
pulations in manufacturing them for commercial uses ; in the 



I y6 The Keely Mystery. 

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 trans- 
ferring 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 molecu- 
lar 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 
10 study. 

The graduating of a perfectly constructed instrument, to a 
condition to transmit sympathetically, is no standard what- 
ever 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 sym- 
pathetic 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 



Vibratory Physics. 177 

of 150^000, the most amazing Tariation 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 sympa- 
thetic transmission; as will alsoberealizedthestupidity 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 sensity, as regards its 
mass chords. Keely writes : — 

'' That tuning forks can be so constructed as to show coinci- 
dent 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 receptive- 
ness. By differentiating them to concordant thirds, they 
induce a condition of molecular bombardment between them- 
selves, 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 

N 



1 78 The Keely Mystery. 

the neutral centre. The action of the magnetic flow is doal 
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, tor 
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. 

MiNEBAL Disintegration. 

I have been repeatedly urged to repeat my disintegrations 
of quartz rock ; but it has beeh 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 per- 
fect, 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 ; 



Vibratory Physics. 1 79 

when this problem ceased to be paradoxical in its character. 
As I have said^ there are uo 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 varia- 
tions that exist in compound molecular structures ; or in other 
words to graduate such, so as to bring them to a successful 
operation. . . . 

Kbbly. 

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 mag* 
netic 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. AH the dominant conditions of nature 
represent the focal centres towards which like surrounding 
ones become sympathetically subservient. The rapid rota- 
tion 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 asso- 
ciated 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 

N 2 



i8o The Keely Mystery. 

mntfa, in order to indace 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 J by vihrophonic trajection to and from centres of new- 
trality, 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, un- 
adulterated, 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 combina- 
tion, when focalized, represents concordant harmony, as be- 
tween 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 



Vibratory Physics. 1 8 1 

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*82 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 mole- 
cular volume of the metal that the sphere is composed of, B 
natural. This or any other antagonistic chords 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^ \ 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 



1 82 The Keely Mystery. 

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 f inch diameter^ each one to be set on 
the chord of B flat^ which is done by sliding the small dia- 
phragm 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 an- 
tagonism 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 re- 
maining work on the device is finished by painting the interior 
of the globe^ one hemisphere black and one white, and attach- 
ing a rubber bulb such as is used to spray perfume, to the 
hollow end of the shaft. This bulb equates vibratory undula- 
tions, 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 con- 
cordance necessary to induce rotation. 

Philosophy of Teansmission and Rotation op 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, Gths, and 9ths ; octaves harmonic ; having the 3rd domi- 
nant ; the 6th enharmonic, and the 9th diatonic. 



Vibratory Physics. 183 

The chord mass representing the musical sphere, being the 
sympathetic etherio 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 concord- 
ance, 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 susceptive- 
ness 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 dis- 
turbed by discordants; which, focalizing on the resonating 
sevenths of resonators, or tubes attached to ring, the sympa- 
thetic 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, repre- 
sents a pure sympathetic concordant under perfect equation 
ready to receive the sympathetic, or to reject the non-sympa- 
thetic. If a pure sympathetic chord is transmitted coincident 



184 The Keely Mystery. 

to its fall 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 discord- 
ance. . . . 

Kbely. 

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-magnotisrn 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 
ell 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 



Vibratory Physics. 185 

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 Wieder- 
mann 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 -ss differ- 
ences 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 P " 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 XII r. 
1891. 



'*MOBB science/' 



The only hope for science is more science. — Deummond. 

Philosophy must finally endeavour to be itself constrnctive." Here 
Professor Seth laid stress on the necessity of a teleological view of the 
aniverse, not in the paltry, mechanical sense sometimes associated with 
the word teleology, but as vindicating the existence of an end or organic 
nnity 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 bom out of nothing, 
but had its fount, somewhere and somehow, in a more perfect Goodness 
and Truth.— Review of Peopessoe Seth's address. 

Believe nothing which is unreasonable, and reject nothing as un- 
reasonable 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 oy a certain amount 
of primitive intelligence. — Edison, 

HiSTOEY 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 



''More Science^ 187 

to themselves too mucli learning to permit them to admit the 
possibility of any new revelation of truth. In every age of 
onr world, to meet the requirements of the age, in its step-by- 
step progress from barbarism to civilization and enlighten- 
ment^ there have appeared extraordinary men, having know- 
ledge 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 per- 
formance 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 representa- 
tive of a larger age must be greater in genius than any prede- 
cessor. 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 



1 88 The Keely Mystery. 

broken upon the world of science, and tliat 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 I '^ 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 instru- 
ments 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 bom 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 Tenny- 
son has said, — 

" When reigD the world's great bridals, chaste and calm, 
Then springs the coming race that mles mankind." 

Not the least among the many applications of Keely's dis- 
coveries 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 de- 
teriorating. 

" There is no truer trnth 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 religions and organized social forms 



' * More Science!^ 1 89 

and babits of life in harmony witb these spontaneons crea- 
tions. 

" 0, ye delicions fables ! where the wave 

And woods were peopled and the air with things 
So lovely ! Why, ah why, has Science grave 
Scattered afar yoar sweet imaginings P '* 

asks Barry Cornwall. Bat now that we have entered npon a 
more advanced age in tbonght^ as in all things pertaining to 
discovery and practical application, or invention^ a critical 
defining intellectual age^ we most henceforth depend npon 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 worlds 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 



1 90 The Keely Mystery. 

world to confonnd 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, 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 in- 
vigorate 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 senti- 
ment, 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 exclu- 
sively 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 eter- 
nally active, and the intellect which had discovered the exist- 
ence 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 



' * More Science. " 191 

infinite space — and the mind that measnres 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 f ufil it in eternal safety. 
We make no argument, but we cannot ignore all the intima- 
tions 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 sus- 
pense, 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, reveal- 
ing 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 



■-»* 



192 The Keely Mystery. 

University of Pennsylvania, to his work of researcL '* Nowj 
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 develop- 
ments of the force displayed by Keely, in his researching ex- 
periments 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 specula- 
tive optimists), pur 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 amelio- 
rated condition of the masses which will end the mighty con- 
flict now so blindly being waged between capital and labour.* 
And to the eye of faith, it is not difBcult to look beyond the 
intervening 89ons 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 wo aid 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, 
BiS their acknowledgment would have done, from the persecu- 
tions that have operated so detrimentally against the comple- 
tion of researches which should have been finished before any 
attempt was made to apply the discovery to commercial ends. 



^ 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 popnlation is abont 1,500,000,000 inhabitants. Steam 
has accordingly trebled man's working power, enabling him to econo- 
mize his physical strength while attending to his intellectual develop- 
ment. Our race, which seems to have reached its limit of physical 
development, is ready to enter upon the foretold stage of psychical 
evolution. 



'* More Science'' I93 

No scientist who witnessed the production of the force, dis- 
played 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 acknow- 
ledged 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 in- 
ference 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 oflfspring of God, how rich must be our in- 
heritance ! If we are the children of God, why do we not 

o 



1 94 The Keely Mystery. 

trast our Father ? Bat this is not stiience ! A philosopher 
has said that if ever a human being needed divine pitj^ 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 intelli- 
gence, 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 hypo- 
thesis 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 con- 
ception 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 



* ' More Science. " 195 

places^ is an anknown law to the finite mind, comprehended 
only by the Infinite One. . . . 

Some of onr 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 ofispring, shall be spirit 
also. Nor can Being in any object be so attenuated, or so far 
removed from Him who fiUeth 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 

2 



196 The Keely Mystery, 

under the dominion of the world of spirit. Nor is this a new 
truth. According to Diogenes Laertius, 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 Mag- 
nate''), 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 be^n " bom 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 modem 
theology has construed it. The great and universal Trinity 
of cause, motion and matter — or of will, thought and manifes- 



' * More Science! * 197 

tation — was known to the Rosicmcians 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 
obscufe 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 hope- 
less 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 succesful 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 experi- 
ment 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 



igS The Keely Mystery. 

mast never let go their hold of it until it has been tested in 
all its possibilities. The same words which Lathrop nses^ 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.'** 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 

* Carried out in the taking of the forts one after another during our 
civil war, which other generals had been unable to do. 



" More Science'' 199 

paradoxes and anomalies, the study of which led him on 
to fresh discoveries whereby he has been able to extend 
the boundary of ascertained trath 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 enjoy- 
ment 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. Bat, 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 pro- 
posed 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 



2CX) The Keely Mystery. 

immense difference of volume in the planets exist without 
disorganizing the harmonious action that has always character- 
ized 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 philo- 
sophy 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 accumu- 
lation 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 biUiard 
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. 



*' More Science^ 201 

AgaiDy Mr. Keely, in explanation of the working of his 
engine, writes : — In the conception of any machine hereto- 
fore 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 con- 
ception 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 substaoce, 
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 in- 
dependent 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 difierence, 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 



202 The Keely Mystery. 

moves in a mysterioas way His wonders to perform ; and if 
He has chosen me as the tool to carve oat 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 re- 
proach. 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 oar 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 sub- 
division, or positive association with luminiferous ether. In 
my introdactory 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 
Inminiferous ether is developed in its crade form, as far as my 
researches prove. I think this idea will be pronoanced, by 
the physicists of the present day, a wild freak of the imagina- 
tion. 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 



^* More Science^ 203 

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 sub- 
stance 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 I Here is a substance of 



204 The Keely Mystery. 

mach 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 sub- 
stance. This is a problem that would confound those who 
stop to recognize ii 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 ou in our physical state eternally, as there 
would be no physical depreciation. But this physical deprecia- 
tion 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 expose 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 
modem 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 announce- 
ment 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 



" More Science r 205 

garb it may appear^ welcoming whaterer new message it may 
have to deliver. . . . 

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

'^ In stadies such as these we are passing from the investi- 
gation 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 constracted 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." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

VIBRATORY PHYSICS. — THE CONNECTING LINK BETWEBN MIND AND 

MATTER. 

The elements of Nature are made of the will of God. — Hermes 
Trismegiatua. 

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 ; bat 
reyereotly 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 con- 
quereth for evermore. — Eadras. 

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 investiga- 
tions have not bestowed upon modern science any result*- ta 



Vibratory Physics. 207 

justify the langaage 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 vibratioa which 
controls nature's highest and most general operations : — the 
identical force which Faraday divined when he wrote, in 
1836 : " ThuSy 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.* Dr. Gerard, of Paris, in 

} The paper which Mr. J. F. Nisbet was commissioned to write, in 
behalf of this discoverer's claims on the world for patience, while pnr- 
sning his researches (and paid in advance for writing), illustrates the 
truth of this assertion. Mr. Nisbet's essay, entitled ** The Present 
Aspect of the Molecular Theory, or Mr. Keely's Relations to Modem 
Science,*' closes with these lines : — " If science looks askance at Mr. 
Keely's professions, therefore, it has its reasons for doing so. I'hese 
reasons, as I have shown, are not mere prejudices. In more than one 
line of inquiry they have, what seems to be, a substantial basis of fact, 
which most be explained away br'fore Mr. Keely's theory of * etheric 
force ' can commend itself to the mind of the impartial observer.*' 

Fortunately, for the interests of science and of humanity, the 
threatened prosecution of Mr. Keely (for obtaining money under false 



2o8 The Keely Mysteiy. 

his work on '^ Nervoas 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 bat 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 extra- 
ordinary power of assimilation to read so fluently the open 
book of nature, and to be able wisely to interpret her admir. 
able laws : it is, therefore, with profound admiration that I 
here render homage to this man of science/' 

Dr. G6rard*8 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 been diflScult to explain this 
fact intelligently ; but thanks to the scientific progress of the 
period, everyone now knows how electricity is produced, and 
how applied, to use in lighting our houses. He continues : 
''Let us say, then, in few words, how matters stand, for it 
will serve to illustrate how it is with our brain, the mechanism 
of which is precisely the same — only that our apparatus is 
much more perfect and much less costly. 

'* A dynamo-electric machine is placed at any given spot ; 
its object, being put in action, is to withdraw from the earth 
its neutral electricity, to decompose it into its two conditions 
and to collect, upon accumulators, the electricity thus 
separated. As soon as the accumulators are charged, the 
electricity is disposable ; that is, our lamps can be lighted. 
But what is marvellous in all this is that the forces of nature 
can be transformed at will. Should we not wish for light, we 

pretences) was checkmated by Provost Pepper's action, early in 
January, before Mr. Nisbet wrote to America that he coald not 
commence his paper until he had received more information ; sending 
a series of questions to be answered. by Mr. Keely. The sa perficial charac- 
ter of the essay will be seen, when printed, as well as that Mr. Nisbet 
promised more than he was able to perform when he accepted the cheque 
m order to enable him to devote time to the writing of a paper, for an 
influential quarter, which it was hoped would enlist public sympathy in 
Keely's behalf. But that power which is mightier than the sword, in put- 
ting down error and injustice, has hitherto turned its weapons against 
Keely (with some rare exceptions) as Mr. Nisbet did in his essay. — 0. J.M. 



Vibratory Physics, 209 

tarn a knob and we have sounds heat, motion, chemical 
action, magnetism. Little seems wanting to create intelligence, 
so entirely do these accumulated forces lend themselves to all 
the transformations which their engineer may imagine and 
desire. But let us consider how greatly superior is our 
cerebral mechanism to all invented mechanism. In order to 
light a theatre we require a wide space, a dynamo-electric 
machine of many horse-power, accumulators filling many 
receptacles, a considerable expense in fuel, and clever 
mechanicians. In the human organism these engines are in 
miniature, one decimetre cube is all the space occupied by our 
brain ; no wheels, no pistons, nothing to drive the apparatus, 
we suffice ourselves. In this sense, each of us can say, like 
the philosopher Biaz :— Omnia mecum porto. Our cerebral 
organ not only originates motion, heat, sound, light, chemical 
actions, magnetism ; but it produces psychic forces, such as 
will, reasoning, judgment, hatred, love, and the whole series 
of intellectual faculties. They are all derived from the same 
source, and are always identical to each other, so long as the 
cerebral apparatus remains intact. The variations of our 
health alone are capable of causing a variation in the intensity 
and quality of our productions. 

"With a maximum of physical and moral health, we 
produce a maximum of physical and moral results. Our 
manual labour and our intellectual productions are always 
exactly proportionate to the integrity of our mechanism.'^ 

Dr. Gerard has, it will be seen, grasped the same truth 
that Buckle enunciated in his lecture. The Influence of 
Women on the Progress of Knowledge, when he affirmed 
that not one single discovery that had ever been made has 
been connected with the laws of the mind that made it: 
declaring that until this connection is ascertained our know- 
ledge has no sure basis, as '' the laws of nature have their 
sole seat, origin, and function in the human mind." This is 
the foundation stone of vibratory physics, that all force is 
mind force. 

All the forces of nature, writes Keely, proceed from the 
one governing force; the source of all life, of all energy. 
These sympathetic flows, or streams of force, each consists of 

p 



2IO The Keely Mystery, 

three currents, harmonic, enharmonic, and dominant; this 
classification governing all orders of positive and negative 
radiation. The sympathetic flow called *' Animal Magnetism ^* 
is the transmissive link of sympathy in the fourth, or inter- 
atomic, subdivision of matter. It is the most intricate of 
problems to treat philosophically; isolated as it is from all 
approach by any of the prescribed rules in "the orthodox 
scheme of physics/* It turns upon the interchangeable sub- 
division of inter-atomic acting agency, or the force of the mind. 
The action of this etheric flow, in substances of all kinds, is 
according to the character of the molecular interferences 
which exist in the volume of their atomic groupings. These 
interferences proceed from some description of atomic chemical 
nature, which tend to vary the uniformity of structure in the 
atomic triplets of each molecule. If these groupings were 
absolutely uniform there would be but one substance in 
nature, and all beings inhabiting this globe would be simul- 
taneously impressed with the same feelings and actuated by 
the same desires ; but nature has produced unUmited variety. 
Science, as yet, has not made so much as an introductory 
attempt to solve this problem of '* the mind flow,*' but has 
left it with the hosts of impostors, who always beset any field 
that trenches on the land of marvel. 

Professor Olive Lodge, in his address before the British 
Association, at Cardiff, said : " Let me try to state what this 
field is, the exploration of which is regarded as so dangerous. 
I might call it the borderland of physics and psychology. I 
might call it the connection between life and energy ; or the 
connection between mind and matter. It is an intermediate 
region, bounded on the north by psychology, on the south 
by physics, on the east by physiology, and on the west by 
pathology and medicine. An occasional psychologist has 
groped down into it and become a metaphysician. An 
occasional physicist has wandered up into it and lost his base, 
to the horror of his quondam brethren. Biologists mostly 
look at it askance, or deny its existence. A few medical 
practitioners, after long maintenance of a similar attitude, 
have begun to annex a portion of its western frontier. . . . 
Why not leave it to the metaphysicians ? I say it has been 



Vibratory Physics, 2 1 1 

left to them' long enough. They have explored it with in- 
snfScient equipment. Their methods are not our methods ; 
they are unsatisfactory to us, as physicists. We prefer to 
creep slowly from our base of physical knowledge ; to engineer 
carefully as we go, establishing forts, constructing roads, and 
thoroughly exploring the country, making a progress very 
slow but very lasting. The psychologists from their side 
may meet us. I hope they will : but one or the other of us 
ought to begin. . . ." 

In America, we have Buchanan and many others investi- 
gating in this field ; and Dr. Bowne, the orthodox Dean of 
the Boston University, in his answer to Herbert Spencer, 
answering the question, '^ What is Force ? " tells us : '* Not 
gravitation, nor electricity, nor magnetism, nor chemical 
affinity, but will, is the typical idea of force. Self-determina- 
tion, volition is the essence of the only causation we know. 
Will is the sum-total of the dynamic idea : it either stands 
for that or nothing. Now science professes itself unable to 
interpret nature without this metaphysical idea of power. 
The experiments made by Professor Barker and others, which 
are said to establish the identity of heat and mental force, 
really prove only a correlation between heat and the nervous 
action which attends thinking. Nervous action and heat 
correlate, but the real point is to prove that nervous action 
and mental force correlate. This has never been done." 

" The concept of will,'' says Arthur Schopenhauer, " has 
hitherto commonly been subordinated to that of force ; but I 
reverse the matter entirely, and desire that every force in 
nature be thought of as will. It must not be supposed that 
this is mere verbal quibbling and of no consequence : rather 
it is of the greatest significance and importance.'' 

Thus it will be seen that the field which Professor Lodge, 
with rare courage, invited his fellow-physicists to enter and 
bring with them their appropriate methods of investigation 
(unless these philosophers are astray) may prove to be " the 
immense and untrodden field " which Buckle said must be 
conquered before Science can arrogate to herself any know- 
ledge of nature's laws that is not purely empirical. A little 
reflection will enable the average mind to see in the signs of 

p 2 



!ij2 The Keely Mystery. 

the times a tendency to movements on a grander scale, snch 
as are involred in the higher view which Keely is himself now 
taking since his researches have extended beyond the order 
he was pursuing when he was thinking only of mechanical 
success. 

Man's progress has been so enormous that nothing too 
extravagant can be imagined for the future, when once 
psychical investigation is conducted as proposed by Professor 
Lodge; who is trying to unravel the mystery as to what 
force is, and by what means exerted. There is something 
here not definitely provided for in the orthodox scheme 
of physics; but Keely's themes explain this mystery. 
" Luminiferous ether,'' he writes, " or celestial mind force, a 
compound inter-etheric element, is the substance of which 
everything visible is composed. It is the great sympathetic 
protoplastic element ; life itself. Consequently, our physical 
organisms are composed of this element This focalizing, or 
controlling media^ of the physical, has its seat in the cerebral 
convolutions; from which sympathetic radiation emanates. 
This sympathetic outreach is mind flow proper, or will force ; 
sympathetic polarization to produce action ; sympathetic 
depolarization to neutralize it. Polar and depolar differentia- 
tion, resulting in motion. The true protoplastic element 
sympathetically permeates all forms and conditions of matter ; 
having, for its attendants, gravity, electricity, and magnetism ; 
the triple conditions born in itself. In fact, it is the soul of 
matter ; the element from which all forms of motion receive 
their introductory impulse." 

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 the professors present. Keely 
answered, I have discovered so little, in comparison with 
what remains to be discovered, that I cannot call myself a 
discoverer. Another of the professors present took Keely 
by the hand and said, You are a great discoverer. 

Had the discoverer of this unknown force not been dependent 
upon a company, '' a ring," for funds to pursue his investiga- 



Vibratory Physics. 213 

tions, scientists would have better understood the nature of 
this work at an earlier stage of his experimental research ; but 
following close upon Keely's production of the latent force 
carried in all forms of aggregated matter^ he became entangled 
in the meshes of an organization that cared nothing for science, 
and a great deal for the wealth which^ it was seen by practical 
business men^ must sooner or later accrue as the result of a 
costless motive power. In other words, those who interested 
themselves in Keely's discoveries were interested solely in 
their marketable value ; or if there chanced to be one who 
was not so interested, that one was not of sufficient influence 
in the scientific world to be able to induce capitalists to come 
forward and contribute towards saving the discovery to this 
ftg6> hy protecting the discoverer from the persecution that he 
was subjected to from those who had the management of the 
commercial affairs of the company. 

Aratus, the poet of Gilicia, the author of " Phenomena/' 
wrote, *^ We are the offspring of God;'* and St. Paul, quot- 
ing Aratus, continued, " In Him we live and move and have 
our being.'' From that hour, down the blood-stained path 
of the age to the present^ there have been men, spiritually 
endowed, who have taught that He who created, commands 
and governs, the universe, sustains it by the power of His will ; 
and that were it not for the celestial streams of radiation, tnis 
superhuman influence, constantly flowing into all created 
forms, the universe would pass out of existence, would perish 
in a moment. So well did Macvicar, the great Scotch divine, 
understand this conception of Deity, that he wrote, "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 ' via 
inertias * is alone admitted." 



214 The Keely Mystery. 

We call this the sphere of the natural ; but, when we come 
to higher workings of natural laws^ with which we are not 
familiar^ we designate them as '^ supernatural ; '' and scientists 
witnessing some of Eeely's experiments, like those of over- 
coming gravity, of rotation of the needle of a compass/ of 
the disintegration of water, etc., and not believing in 
any workings of laws unknown to them, followed in the 
footsteps, still unobliterated, of the narrow-minded, bigoted 
persecutors of Galileo ; and have denounced Keely as ^' a 
modern Cagliostro/' When men of more extended research 
have been on the eve of investigating for themselves they 
have, until 1889, been deterred from doing so by the repre- 
sentations made to them that Keely was *' using compressed 
air to humbug his audiences.'^ Until Professor Leidy and Dr. 
Willcox gave their attention to Mr. Keely's claims as the 
discoverer of a new form of energy, the way was not open 
for Mr. Keely to disclose his conjectures, his hypotheses and 
his theories. Regrettable as this fact has seemed to be, it is 
now seen that any previous revelation of his discovery, 
other than to scientists, might have been premature ; so little 
did Keely himself know, until within two years, of the develop- 
ments he has at last reached in his work of evolution. The 
time was not ripe for the disclosure. 

It is a canon of science that molecular aggregation generally 
involves dissipation of energy. On the contrary, for more than 
fifteen years Keely has demonstrated that all molecular aggre- 
gation is attended with an absorption of energy ; relieving by 
vibratory power the latent force held in a few drops of water 
and showing thereby a pressure of from ten to fifteen tons per 
square inch ; claiming that resultant development of any force 
and of all forces is only accomplished by conditions that 
awaken the latent energy carried during molecular aggrega- 
tion. It is conceded by those most conversant with the nature 
of Keely's discoveries that he must either create force, or 
liberate latent energy. As Omnipotence alone creates, it 
follows that science must be wrong in two of her most 

* This is effected by polarization and denolarizatioii, and the rotation 
of a non-magnetic needle by molecular differentiation : both needles re- 
volving about 120 times in a second. 



Vibratory Physics. 2 1 5 

fandamental laws; one relating to the indivisibility of the 
atom; the other to the dissipation of energy in molecalar 
aggregation. This^ Keely establishes in the one experiment 
of disintegration of water, releasing from three drops the 
latent energy carried^ during and from the time of molecalar 
aggregation, and showing a pressure of fifteen tons to the 
square inch. Therefore, it is not " a waste of time and 
thought " to give attention to Keely's theories, and to investi- 
gate from the standpoint of vibratory physics, instead of 
setting limits to' the operations of Nature and the power of 
the Almighty from the narrow platform of mechanical physics ? 

Kbbly's Theories. 

The action of Nature's sympathetic flows, writes Keely, regu- 
lates the differential oscillatory range of motion of the planetary 
masses as regards their approach toward and recession from 
each other. These flows may also be compared to the flow of 
the magnet which permeates the field, existing between the 
molecules themselves, sensitizing the combined neutral centres 
of the molecules without disturbing, in the least, the visible 
molecular mass itself. In the planetary masses — balanced as 
it were in the scales of universal space, like soap-bubbles 
floating in a field of atmospheric air — the concentration of 
these sympathetic streams evolves the universal power which 
moves them in their oscillating range of motion to and from 
each other. This sympathetic triple stream focalizes and 
defocalizes on the neutrals of all such masses; polarizing 
and depolarizing, positive and negative action, planetary 
rotation, etc., etc. It is thus that all the conditions governing 
light, heat, life, vegetation, motion, are all derived from the 
velocity of the positive and negative interchange of celestial 
sympathy with the terrestrial. 

Every harmonious condition of Nature's evolutions is 
governed by one incontrovertible law ; that of concordant 
assimilative harmony. This concordant key is the ruling one 
over all the antagonistic, negative, discordant ones ; the one 
that diverts the disturbance of sympathetic equilibrium to one 
general concenti*ative centre for redistribution. Harmony 



2 1 6 The Keely Mystery. 

concentrates, harmony distributes. The focalizing point of 
concordant sympathetic concentration is the percussive 
electric field, where the velocity of its sympathetic streams 
rebounds with a power that throws them far out into universal 
space ; and so far beyond their equative centre of equilibrium 
as to bring them in sympathy with the universal attraction of 
the combined nentral centres of all planetary masses. 



Sympathetic Stbeams which Control the Action and 
Reaction of all Visible Forks of Matter. 

What is light and heat, and how are they evolved? and 
why are they so intensely perceptible as emanating from the 
solar world P 

Light and heat, considered theoretically, belong to the 
highest orders of the phenomenal. They can only be ac- 
counted for by the velocity of sympathetic streams, as inter- 
changeable to and from centres of negative and attractive 
focalization. In considering the velocity of vibration, as 
associated with the projection of a ray of lights to be at least 
one hundred thousand billions per second, it is easy to 
account for the origin and demonstration of these two 
elements by the action of celestial sympathetic streams. 

1st. Light and heat are not evolved until the force of the 
vibratory sympathetic stream, from the neutral centre of the sun, 
comes into atomic percussive action against the molecular atmo- 
sphere or envelope of our planet. The visibility of the planets 
can only be accounted for in this way, some in a great degree, 
some in less. Innumerable thousands, it may be, remain 
invisible to us by not having the conditions surrounding them, 
and associated with them, which favour the atomic and mole- 
cular antagonistic friction necessary to make them visible. 
The velocity of a steel ball passing through the atmospheric 
envelope, at a speed of thousands of billions times less than 
an etheric sympathetic stream, would be dissipated into vapour 
in an indefinite period of a second of time. Light and heat, in 
a certain sense, are one and the same ; light giving heat, and 
heat giving light. The whole mystery, as associated with 



Vibratory Physics. 217 

their evolution, is explained by the bombardment of the 
sympathetic etheric stream on the dense portion of the 
molecular, iu seeking the sympathetic, concordant, neutral 
centre of the planetary mass that surrounds the point of 
focalization. 

The positive and negative interchange of this true sympa- 
thetic stream keeps intact the magnetic force of the polar 
envelope of the earth ; making it, as it were, a great magnet 
of itself. The fact of this magnetic force being universally 
present, on and in onr planet, proves the immeasurable speed 
and power of etheric sympathetic interchange. Thus it is 
that, from the velocity of these sympathetic rays, the earth's 
standard of heat and light is evolved and kept in balance. 
This interchange of sympathetic radiation, between the solar 
world and its system of planets, equates the sympathetic 
volume by the reception of the full amount expended on sym- 
pathetic distribution; thus showing the never-ending restoration 
of equilibrium by the same medium that disturbs it during 
intermittent sympathetic action. There are very many facts 
in vibratory physics which prove that the volume of heat, 
supposed by many to emanate from the sun, if concentrated 
upon a centre of the volume represented by the sun, would 
give enough focal force, if projected upon the system of 
planets that is under its control, to vaporize them in one 
month's time. A ray of heat one billion times greater than 
the whole volume of the sun represents could not pass through 
the dark vacuous boundaries which lie between us and the sun 
without being neutralized and absorbed. 



What is Electricitt? 

Electricity is the result of three differentiated sympathetic 
flows, combining the celestial and terrestrial flows by an order 
of assimilation negatively attractive in its character. It is 
one of Nature's eflbrts to restore attractive differentiation. In 
analyzing this triple union in its vibratory philosophy, I find 
the highest order of perfection in this assimilative action of 
Nature. The whole condition is atomic, and is the introduc- 



2 1 8 The Keely Mystery. 

tory one which has an affinity for terrestrial centres, uniting 
magneticaUy with the Polar stream ; in other words, uniting 
with the Polar stream by neutral affinity. The magnetic or 
electric forces of the earth are thus kept in stable equilibrium 
by this triune force, and the chords of this force may be 
expressed as 1st, the dominant, 2nd, the harmonic, and 3rd, 
the enharmonic. The value of each is, one to the other, in the 
rates of figures, true thirds. E flat — transmissive chord or 
dominant; A flat — harmonic; A double flat — enharmonic. 
The unition of the two prime thirds is so rapid^ when the 
negative and the positive conditions reach a certain range of 
vibratory motion, as to be compared to an explosion. During 
this action the positive electric stream is liberated and imme- 
diately seeks its neutral terrestrial centre, or centre of highest 
attraction. 

The power of attractive vibration of the solar forces is the 
great coincident towards which the terrestrial-magnetic- 
sympathetic flow is diverted. This force is the celestial 
current that makes up the prime third of the triple associa- 
tion. It also induces aqueous disintegration and thermal 
concentration, the two prime conductors towards this coinci- 
dent chord of sympathy with itself. Without this aqueous 
disintegration there would be no connective link between the 
celestial and terrestrial. There would exist nothing but a 
condition of luminous radiation on the order of the aurora — a 
reaching out for the concordant without any sympathetic 
diversion to create unstable equilibrium of terrestrial 
magnetism. In fact, under such a condition, the absence 
of the sun on one side, or the absence of water on 
the other, the magnetic or electric force would remain 
in a stable state of equilibrium, or the highest order 
of the chaotic. Disturbance of equilibrium and sympathetic 
equation constitute the dual power that governs all the varied 
forms of life and motion which exist terrestrially, of which the 
electric or magnetic is the prime mover and regulator. All 
electrical action, no matter of what character, has its sympa- 
thetic birth by the intervention of that current of the triune 
flow, which I call the dominant, with the Polar harmonic 
current; all sympathetic flows being composed of three 



Vibratory Physics. 219 

currents. They become associative one with the other only 
near the junction of terrestrial interference. The great 
yacaons field which exists between the planetary ranges holds 
this portion of the etheric flow free of all antagonism, molecn- 
larly or otherwise, till the associative point is reached ; so 
wonderfully planned by the Great Creator, for instant electric 
evolution and assimilation with terrestrial centres of attraction. 
I call this intervention, atomic-inter-molecular and molecular 
density. The combination of the action of the triune sympa- 
thetic-celestial stream with the same intervening medium 
induces heat and light, as the resultant of these corpuscular 
confiictions with sympathetic celestial and terrestrial focalized 
centres of neutral radiation. I do not recognize electricity, 
nor light, nor heat as coming from the sun. These conditions, 
according to my theories, emanate from atomic and inter- 
atomic interference on induced molecular vibration, by 
sympathetic etheric vibration, the celestial-attractive being 
the prime mover. In my estimation this is not at all pheno- 
menal ; it is only phenomenal as far as the knowledge of its 
action in mechanical physics is concerned. Physicists have 
been working in the wrong direction to lead them to associate 
themselves with Nature's sympathetic evolutions.^ The 
expression '^ Electricity attracts at a distance '' is as bad as, if 
not worse than, the ^' microbe of the magnef Clerk Maxwell 
seems, when theorizing on sound transmission by an atmo- 
spheric medium, not to have taken into consideration the 
philosophy attending the phenomena of the origination of 
electric streams in celestial space. Light is one of the 
prominent evolved mediums in electric action, and is evolved 
by corpuscular bombardment induced by sympathetic streams 
acting between the neutral centres of planetary masses, all of 
which are under a condition of unstable equilibrium. These 
unstable conditions were bom in them, and were thus designed 

^ Electricians are now admitting that, in electric currents the energy 
does not flow through, or along the wire, itself ; hat is actually trans- 
mitted hy the ether vibrations outside of the wire, just as in Keely's 
experiments, running his musical sphere' with a fine *' thread " of silk, 
the energy is not transmitted through the sewing-silk, which acts only 
as the medium that makes the transfer of energy in this way possible ; 
though not itself transferring it. 



220 The Keely Mystery. 

by the Architect of Creation in order to perpetuate the con- 
nective link between the dispersing positive and the attractive 
negative. The action that indaces this link I call sympathetic 
planetary oscillation. 



Attraction, Propulsion, &c. 

The action of the magnetic flow is daal in its evolntion, 
both attractive and propulsive. The inclination of the plane 
on which the subtle stream moves, either to the right or to the 
left, has nothing to do with positive or negative conditions. 
The difference in conditions of what is called, by electricians, 
positive and negative electricity, is the difference between 
receptive and propulsive vibrations. They can be right or 
left receptive, or right or left propulsive. The positive 
vibrations are the radiating ; the negative vibrations are the 
ones that are attracted toward the neutral centre. 

The negative-sympathetic polar stream is the magnetic flow 
proper, and it is in sympathetic coincidence with the second 
atomic flow ; the electric current is the first and second order 
of atomic vibration, a dual force, the flow of which is too 
tenuous to displace the molecules. It can no more do so than 
the flow from a magnet can displace the molecules of a glass 
plate when it is passed under it. The flow from a magnet is 
too fine to disturb the plate molecules, but passes as freely 
between thorn as a current of air would through a coarse 
sieve. 

Like poles do not repel each other, simply because there is 
a perfect sympathetic equation between them ; the same in 
unlike poles. If a differentiation of 33^ against 100 is 
established between them, whether like or unlike, they 
become attractive to each other. They become repellent after 
differentiating them, 66| of the one against 100 of the other, 
by sympathetic vibration. 

Taking into consideration even the introductory conditions 
of the etheric stage, etheric vibration has proved to me that 
the higher the velocity of its rotating stream the greater is its 
tendency towards the neutral centre or centre of sympathetic 



Vibratory Physus, 221 

coiacidcnce. Were it otherwise, how could there ever be any 
planetary formations or the building up of risible structures ? 
If a billiard ball were rotated to a certain velodty, it would 
separate in pieces^ and the pieces would fly off in a tangent ; 
but if it were a ball of ether, the higher the velocity of 
rotation the stronger would be the tendency 'of its corpus- 
cules to seek its centre of neutrality, and to hold together. 

It is not a magnetic force that is borne on the etheric 
atom which gives it its power to draw to it streams of co- 
incidence. The magnet is only susceptive to certain aggre- 
gated forms of matter; iron, for instance, and its prepara- 
tions. 

All moving bodies of visible matter produce heat as 
according to their velocity. The flow of gases only induces 
thermal reduction from molecular friction. By this term it 
must not be understood that the molecules actually come in 
contact, and rub against each other. There is no pressure, 
however great, that can cause molecular contact. The area 
of the volume of the molecule can be reduced by enormous 
pressure, and the tension thus brought to bear on their rotat- 
ing envelopes induces heat. The heat thus induced is a 
positive proof of the wonderful velocity of the etheric 
envelope. If the molecules were dead — which is an infinite 
impossibility — to sympathetic vibration, and without a 
rotatory envelope if all the pressure possible to conceive 
were brought to bear upon them, it would not induce the 
slightest thermal change. 

Enkiigy. 

Energy is a sympathetic condition inherent in all forms 
of aggregated matter, visible and invisible. It is ever 
present, in its latent condition, and is aroused by the 
sympathetic disturbers of its equilibrium. By this con- 
servation it becomes transferable. The sympathetic corre- 
lation of will-force in the cerebral convolutionary centres 
transfers its energy to the physical organism. 

Bring a steel rod in contact with a magnet, and the latent 
energy in the rod is brought into action without its becoming 



222 The Keely Mystery. 

impregnated by its magnetic exciter. Energy is an infinite 
latent force. If it did not exist it conld not be generated. 
Consequently, there would be no energy to lose nor to con- 
serve. The volume of latent energy in the etheric domain 
never increases nor ever grows less. It will remain the 
same, as yesterday to-day and for ever. 



Inaudible Vibrations. 

Nature has established her sympathetic concordants from 
the birth of the neutral centres of the planets. This is 
gravity ; therefore gravity is fixed, inherent. There is no 
flight of gravity. The difference in the condition of the 
sympathetic nerve centres, and the variations in the chord 
aggregation of the masses, as established in the man or woman 
at birth, constitutes the molecular condition of the individual. 
The molecular state of animals, vegetables, and minerals, 
depends upon the aggregation of their chord centres. It is 
impossible to make two coins from one die the same in its 
molecular aggregation. The mere picking up of a coin and 
replacing it causes billions of molecules to be lost. This 
produces a change in the chord of mass of the coin. As this 
fact has only been developed by persistent progressive research, 
it is quite easy to comprehend the nature of the difficulties 
that lie in the way of perfecting devices for the guidance of 
artificers and mechanics, whereby they can bring a proper 
vibratory action into play to induce positive sympathetic 
transmission. In order to transmit my knowledge by de- 
monstration it will be necessary to have much more perfect 
instruments than those crude devices which I first constructed 
for my researches. One of my perfected instruments shows 
to the eye, in the molecular effects produced by a certain 
order of vibration, when the chord of harmony is established 
between two neutral centres. Another, when connected with 
the sympathizer, denotes accurately, by the colour of a certain 
sound or combination of sounds the number of vibrations 
that are necessary to induce certain effects of mechanical 
combinations. 

Inaudible vibrations are tested by the magnetic needle 



Vibratory Physics. 223 

and soand coloars. Every gaseous molecole is a resonator 
of itself and is sensitive to any and all sounds induced^ 
whether accordant or discordant. At the normal density of 
the atmosphere we hear a volume of sound, focalized by the 
combined association of every molecule brought under sound 
influence. When we reduce the atmospheric volume of a 
chamber to 50/100, then the ear is sensitive to the reduction 
of the acoustic force evolved on the same ratio, and so on, 
until sound becomes inaudible. This inaudibility to our 
organ of hearing is no proof whatever of any reduction of 
the acoustic force evolved on the introductory impulse given 
to the bell. It is only a proof that the number of the mole- 
cules left for the acoustic force to act upon has been so re- 
duced by increasing the vacuum, that the concentration 
of sound from the diminished number cannot be heard. 
The ear is not susceptible to the acoustic force emanating 
from one molecule, nor even from the concentration of one 
hundred millions of billions of molecules. The highest 
vacuum that can be induced, taking but a cubic inch in 
volume to act upon, will leave a residual number of mole- 
cules one hundred billion times as great as the above given 
number, and yet be perfectly inaudible when all their acoustic 
forces are focalized. 

The audible has been conquered in my instruments to 
that extent which brings me into sympathetic contact with 
the inaudible, the vitalized conditions of which as regards 
sympathetic union with the terrestrial are the pure and only 
essentials necessary towards establishing the sensitive link, 
between the instrument and terrestrial chord-masses, in order 
to run sympathetic machinery. But there is still before me 
a vast region to be explored before the keystone of this 
sympathetic arch is set in position to carry the high order of 
sympathetic transfer that I aim at. I have every reason to 
hope that when I have mastered these mechanical difficulties 
I shall be able to control this most subtle of Nature^s forces. 
When this is done, the commercial engine will soon follow. 
There is no truer nor quicker way to reach that end than the 
one I am now pursuing. My obligations on this line once 
fulfilled, T shall be at liberty to turn my attention to the 



224 The Keely Mystery. 



consideration of the mental forces associated with the physical^ 
and in fact the solution of the mechanical problem is one and 
the same in principle, as is the physical and mental. When 
one is solved all is solved. The convolations which exist in 
the cerebral field are entirely governed by the sympathetic 
conditions that sarround them. 

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

All abnormal discordant aggregations in these resonating 
convolntions prodnce differentiation to concordant trans- 
mission; and according as these differentiations exist in 
volume^ so the transmissions are discordantly transferred, 
producing antagonism to pure physical action. Thns, in 
motor ataxy, a differentiation of the minor thirds of the 
posterior parietal lobule produces the same condition between 
the retractors and exteriors 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 differ- 
ential harmony to the mass of immediate cerebral surround- 
ings. 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 con- 
sideration 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. There is no structure 
whatever — animal, vegetable, or 'mineral — that is not built up 
from the cosmic ether. Certain orders of attractive vibration 
produce certain orders of structure ; thus the infinite variety 
of effects ; more especially in the cerebral organs. Discord- 
ance cannot exist in the molecule proper. Discordance in 
any mass is the result of differentiated groups induced by 
antagonistic chords, and any differentiated mass can be 



Vibratory Physics. 22 



brought to a condition of harmony or equation by proper 
chord media^ and an equated sympathy produced whether 
the mass be metal or brain. 

There is good reason for believing that insanity is simply 
a condition of differentiation in the mass-chords of the con- 
volutions^ which creates an antagonistic molecular bombard- 
ment towards the neutral or attractive centres of such 
convolutions. This 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,y differentiation of mass) produce negatization 
to coincident action. Pure sympathetic concordants are as 
antagonistic to negative discordants as the negative is to the 
positive j 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, when 
properly brought to bear upon them. . . . 

Josiah Boyce is right as regards correspondent sympa- 
thetic association between two conditions. If concordance 
can be established, even of unlike states, no matter whether 
it be of the high tenuous forces of nature, gases with liquids, 
liquids with solids, solids with gases, the structural conditions 
can be perfectly adverse. Their neutral centres are the 
focalized seat of sympathetic concordance for controlling 
any differentiation that may exist outside, or in the mass 
that surrounds them. Certain orders of vibration can reach 
these centres and establish a concordant flow of sympathy, 
independent of any and all mass antagonism ; in other words, 
certain orders of sympathetic vibratory transmission can 
correct and equate all differentiation that may exist between 
physical organisms and their cerebellic flows. Discord is 
disease. Harmony is health. — Kkelt. 



The Standard calls attention to the fact that Lord Bose- 
bery has pointed out how fast mental disease of one form or 
another is growing among the population of London — so fast 
that a new asylum, containing 5000 patients, must be built 

Q 



226 The Keely Mystery. 

every five years. " This/' said his lordship, " is a penalty of 
civilization/' 

When we take into consideration the effect upon the 
nerves, in sensitive organizations, of living in the vicinity of 
railways, more especially of the elevated railways in cities, the 
incessant jarring vibrations which are communicated to 
houses, even from underground railways, to say nothing of 
the piercing shrieks of the steam whistle, is it to be wondered 
at that mental disorders and nervous diseases are on the in- 
crease ? With this increase of the most terible form of afflic- 
tion, the remedy will follow ; for our necessities are known to 
One who "with a Father's care and aflfectionate attention 
supplies the wants, as they arise, of the worlds which lie like 
children in His bosom/' Sympathetic Vibratory Physics will, 
in due time, make known the curableness of many disorders 
now considered incurable. 

On this subject Mr. Keely writes: — Every disease that 
the physical organism is subject to has its connective link in 
the cerebral domain; where it unerringly telegraphs, as it 
were, its molecular differentiations, through the spinal dura 
mater or physical sympathetic transmitter, and vice versd 
back again. The sympathetic communication, as between the 
physical and mental forces, shows up truthfully the pure con- 
ditions that govern the celestial and terrestrial link of sym- 
pathy, as between the finite and the Infinite in planetary 
suspension. The whole system governing the suspension of 
the innumerable planetary masses,' — the infinite certainty and 
harmony of their eccentric and. concentric evolutions and 
revolutions, in their orbital and oscillating ranges of motion, 
— ^the triune sympathetic streams of Infinity that permeate 
their molecular masses— •focalizing and defocalizing on their 
neutral centres of attraction — are all subservient to that Great 
Ruling Power : Mind-Flow. There is not a grain of sand, 
nor an invisible corpuscule of floating matter, that does not 
come under the same rule that governs the most mighty of 
planets. • . . 

" All's love, yet all's law." 

As the offspring of God, only by living in love and 



Vibratory Physics. 227 

harmony can we falfil the law and maintain health and 
happiness, either individaally in family life^ or collectively in 
our intercourse with the world. As Goethe taught : — 

Let the Qod within thee speak, 
Love all things that lovely be, 
And God will show His l>eBt to thee. 



q2 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OP HISTORY. — KBBLY THE POUNDER OP A 

SYSTEM. 

" Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
Were half tne wealth bestowed on camps and conrts, 
G-iven to redeem the hnman mind from error, 
There were no need of arsenals and forts." 

As long as men remain " demons of selfishness and iffnoranoe," so 
long will they fight for their torn to tyrannize over their brother men. 
Instmction and education can alone prepare the way for a peaceful 
solution of the greatest problem that mankind has ever had to deal 
with ; for, before we can hope to enter into a * brotherhood of humanity,' 
the earth must be 'filled with the knowledge of the Lord.' — ^H. O. 
Wabd, in the Nationalization News. 

As for myself I hold the firm conviction that unflagging research 
will be rewarded by an insight into natural mysteries snch as now can 
rarely be conceived. — Peof. Wm. Crookes. 

Though ''it is the spirit that quickeneth, and the flesh profiteth 
nothing,*' the grand reign of the Spirit will not commence until the 
material world shall be completely under man's control. — ^Behan, 
Ihiture of Science, 

If truth is to obtain a complete victory, if Christianity is ever really 
to triumph on the earth, then must the State become Christian and 
science become Christian. Such then is the two-fold problem which 
our age is called upon to solve. — Frederich von Schleoel. 

I come soon and will renew all things. — Scriptv/re, 

Frederich von Schlboel, in his Lecture *^ On the General 
Spirit of the Age/' (1846) says. There are in the history of 
the eighteenth century, many phenomena which occurred so 
suddenly, so instantaneously, that although on deeper con* 
fiideration we may discover their efificient causes in the past, 
in the natural state of things, and in the general situation of 
the world, yet are there many circumstances which prove that 



The Philosophy of History. 229 

there was a deliberate, though secret, preparation of events, 
as, indeed, in many instances has been actually demonstrated. 
In tracing the origin of this '* secret and mysterious branch 
of illuminism," and its influence in regard to the true restora- 
tion of society founded on the basis of Christian justice, 
Schlegel gives it as his opinion that the order of Templars was 
the channel by which this esoteric influence was introduced 
into the West, handing down the Solomonian traditions 
connected with the very foundation of this order, and the 
religious masonic symbols which admit of a Christian inter- 
pretation : but, as he says, the idea of an esoteric society 
for the propagation of any secret doctrine is not compatible 
with the very principle of Christianity itself; for Christianity 
is a divine mystery which lies open to all. 

Continuing from Schlegel's writings, the Christian faith has 
the living God and His revelation for its object, and is itself 
that revelation ; hence every doctrine taken from this source 
is something real and positive, while, in science, the absolute 
is the idol of vain and empty systems, of dead and abstract 
reason. In the absolute spirit of our age, and in the absolute 
character of its faction?, there is a deep-rooted intellectual 
pride, which is not so much personal or individual as social, 
for it refers to the historical destiny . of mankind and of this 
age in particular. Actuated by this pride, a spirit exalted by 
moral energy, or invested with external power, fancies it can 
give a real existenca to that which can only be the work of 
God ; as from Him alone proceed all those mighty and real 
regenerations of the world, among which Christianity — a 
revolution in the high and divine sense of the word— occupies 
the first place. For the last three hundred years this human 
pride has been at work ; a pride that wishes to originate 
events, instead of humbly awaiting them and of resting con- 
tented with the place assigned to it among those events. . . . 
It was indeed but a very small portion of this illuminism of the 
eighteenth century that was really derived from the truths of 
Christianity and the pure light of Revelation. The rest was 
the mere work of man, consequently vain and empty ; or at 
least defective, corrupt in parts, and on the whole destitute 
of a solid foundation; — therefore devoid of all permanent 



230 The Keely Mystery. 

strength and duration. But when once, after the complete 
victory of truth, the divine Reformation shall appear, that 
human Reformation which till now has existed will sink 
to the ground and disappear from the world. Then, by the 
universal triumph of Christianity, and the thorough religious 
regeneration of the age, of the world, and of governments 
themselves, will dawn the era of a true Christian Illuminism. 
This period is not perhaps so remote from our own as the 
natural indolence of the human mind would be disposed to 
believe, says Schlegel. 

Never was there a period that pointed so strongly, so clearly, 
so generally towards the future, as our own. In order to com- 
prehend in all its magnitude the problem of our age, the 
birth of Christianity must be the great point of survey to 
which we must recur ; in order to examine clearly what has 
remained incomplete, what has not yet been attained. For, 
unquestionably, all that has been neglected, in the earlier 
periods and stages of Christian civilization, must be made good 
in this true, consummate regeneration of society. If truth is 
to obtain a complete victory — if Christianity is really to 
triumph on the earth, then must the state become Christian 
and science become Christian. Such then is the two-fold pro- 
blem which our age is called upon to solve. Whatever man 
may contribute towards the religious regeneration of 
government and science, Schlegel reasons that we must 
look for the consummation, in silent awe, to a higher Pro- 
vidence, to the creative fiat of a last period of dispensation, 
to *' the dawn of an approaching era of love and harmony,'* 
which will emancipate the human race from the bondage in 
which it has been held by false teachings ; leading men and 
nations to consider and estimate time, and all things temporal, 
not by the law and feeling of eternity : — but for temporal in- 
terests, or from temporal motives ; forgetting the thoughts 
and faith of eternity. All progress in the great work of 
the religions regeneration of science Schlegel hails as the 
noblest triumph of genius; for it is, he says, precisely 
in the department of physics that the problem is the most 
difficult ; and all that rich and boundless treasure of new 
discoveries in nature, which are ever better understood when 



The Philosophy of History. 2 3 1 

viewed iu connection with the high truths of religion, must be 
looked upon as the property of Christian science. Our 
various systems of philosophic Rationalism, he foretells, 
will fall to the ground: and vulgar Rationalism, which is 
but an emanation of the higher, will finally disappear. 
Then science will become thoroughly Christian. In the pro- 
gress of mankind now, as in the past, a divine hand and conduct- 
ing Providence are clearly discernible. Earthly and visible 
power has not alone co-operated in this progress; — that 
the struggle has been, in part, carried on under divine, and 
against invisible might, has been substantiated by Schlegel on 
firm and solid grounds, if not proved to mathematical evi- 
dence ; which evidence, as he remarks, is neither appropriate 
nor applicable to the subject. Schlegel concludes his work 
on The Philosophy of History, by a retrospective view of 
society, considered in reference to that invisible world and 
higher region, from which a pure philosophy teaches us the 
operations of this visible world proceed ; in which its great 
destinies have their root, and which is the ultimate and highest 
term of all its movements. 

Both Schlegel and Keely teach that we shall prize with 
deeper, more earnest and more solid affection the great and 
divine era of man's redemption and emancipation, by Chris- 
tianity, the more accurately we discriminate between what is 
essentially divine and unchangeably eternal in this revelation 
of love, and those elements of destruction which false teach- 
ings have opposed thereto or intermingled therewith ; tracing 
in the special dispensations of Providence, for the advance- 
ment of Christianity and the progress of civilization and 
regeneration, the wonderful concurrence of events towards the 
single object of divine love, or the unexpected exercise of 
divine justice long delayed. (See Vera Vita, by David 
Sinclair.) 

Sir G. G. Stokes Bart., M.P., reasoning on the difficulties as 
to good arising out of evil, says. In our study of nature we 
are most forcibly impressed with the uniformity of her laws. 
Those uniform laws are, so far as we can judge, the method by 
which the ordinary course of nature is carried on. That is to 
say, if we recognize the ordinary course of nature as designed 



232 The Keely Mystery. 

by a Sapreme Being, that it is according to His will that the 
coarse of Nature should^ as a mle^ be carried on in this regular 
methodical manner, we should expect^ therefore, to find the 
operation of regular laws in the moral, no less than in the 
physical world, although their existence is less obvious on 
account of the freedom of the will . . . 

There is a conflict of opinion and a restlessness of men's 
minds at the present day ; but we may confidently hope that 
if men will in a straightforward manner seek after what is 
true, and that in a humble spirit, without arrogating to them- 
selves the monopoly of truth and contemning others whose 
opinions may be different, the present conflict of opinion will 
in time settle down. . . . 

It is in this frame of mind that searchers after truth are now 
examining the claims of Keely as a discoverer, and as the 
founder of a new and pure philosophy. If the most important 
subject and the first problem of philosophy is, as Schlegel 
declares, the restoration in man of the lost image of God, so 
far as this relates to science, all revolution, as well as all 
revelation, must tend toward the full understanding of this 
restoration in the internal consciousness, and not until it is 
really brought about will the object of pure philosophy be 
fully attained. 

The philosophy of history shows clearly how, in the first 
ages of the world, the original word of Divine revelation 
formed the firm central point of faith for the future reunion of 
the dispersed race of man; how later, amidst the various 
powers intellectual as well as political which (in the middle 
period of the world) all ruling nations exerted on their times, 
according to the measure allotted to them, it was alone the 
power of eternal love in the Christian religion which truly 
emancipated and redeemed mankind ; and how the pure light 
of this Divine truth, universally difiused through the world 
and through all science, will crown in conclusion the progress 
of this restoration in the future. 

The fulfilment of the term of all Christian hope and Divine 
promise is reserved for the last period of consummation — 
for the new dispensation which the closing century is ushering 
in. The esoteric meaning of the second coming of our Lord is 



The Philosophy of History, 233 

thus intimated to those who are watching for the triumph of 
jostioe and truth. *' Behold I come quickly ; and my reward 
is with me, to give every man according to his work/' 

Theosophy interprets the often-quoted Scripture passage of 
" the seven Spirits which are before His throne '* as the 
cosmical, creative, sustaining, and world-governing potencies, 
the principles of which God avails Himself as His instruments, 
organs, and media. This is what the Eabbala implies with its 
seven " Sephiroth,'* what Schelling means by the " potencies," 
or principles in the inner life of God ; and it is by their 
emergence, separation, and tension that they become cosmical 
potencies. If we stop short at these general considerations, 
this is precisely the idea of Theosophy. When it is asked 
what special activities are to be ascribed to each of the seven 
Spirits, striving to apprehend more closely the uncreated 
potencies through which the Deity works in its manifestation, 
and to which Scripture itself makes unmistakable allusion, 
revelation is silent, intimating only by veiled suggestions. 
It is here that Theosophy leads the way to the open book of 
Nature : the title-page of which we have only begun to turn. 

Theosophy, says Bishop Martensen, signifies wisdom in 
God : '' Church Theology is not wise in assuming a hostile 
attitude towards Theosophy, because it hereby deprives itself 
of a most valuable leavening influence, a source of renewal 
and rejuvenescence, which Theology so greatly needs, exposed 
as it is to the danger of stagnating in barren and dreary 
scholasticism and cold and trivial criticism. In such a course 
no real progress can be made in the Christian apprehension 
of truth.'' Jacob Bohme, who was the greatest and most 
famous of all Theosophists in the world,' said of philosophers 
and other disputants who attack not only Theosophy but 
also theology, and even Christianity itself, in the name of 
modern science : — " Every spirit sees no further than its 
mother, out of which it has its original, and wherein it stands ; 
for it is impossible for any spirit, in its own natural power to 
look into another principle, and behold it, except it be re- 
generated therein." This is what Christ taught: "Ye must 

^ See ''Jacob Bohme, his Life and Teaching; or, Studies in 
Theosophy," by Dr. Hans Lassen Martensen. 



234 '^^ Keely Mystery. 

be born again/* Only those who are regenerated, by the 
principle of which Christ spoke to Nicodemus, can under- 
stand the quickening of the Spirit which comes alone from 
Him who gives this new birth to all who seek it, and in 
whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden : — 
" hidden, not in order that they may remain secret, but in 
order that they may ever increasingly be made manifest and 
appropriated by ns." 

Jacob Bohme, who was born in 1575, ''brought to the 
birth " an idea which, three centuries later, is developing into 
a system of pure philosophy, that promises to "cover the 
earth with wisdom and understanding in the deep mysteries 
of God/* 

Bohme gave birth to an idea. Keely is giving birth to a 
system. Both are exceedingly imperfect in the expression of 
their views; yet in points of detail each possesses a firm 
dialectical grip. In their writings both seem overwhelmed 
by the vast extent of the realm they are exploring. Both 
find in harmony the object and the ending of the world's 
development. Conflicting with modem science at very many 
points, visionary as both appear to be, powerful expression is 
given to an idea of life both in the macrocosm and the 
microcosm, the validity of which can be questioned only by 
materialism. The idea of the one and the system of the 
other teach that when Nature is affirmed in God it is in a 
figurative and symbolical sense : — that it is, in comparison 
with what we call nature, something infinitely more subtile 
and super-material than matter; that it is the source of 
matter; a plenitude of living forces and energies. This 
system teaches, as '' Waterdale *' has expressed it, "the 
existence of a Great Almighty, as being in virtue of the 
perfect organization of the universe, even as the existence of 
man is incidental to the organic structure of his body ;" and 
that the attribute of omniscience is represented by "the 
perfect conveyance of signs of atomic movement in vibratory 
action through the length and breadth of our universe." We 
are led by it to look from nature up to nature's God and to 
comprehend the attributes of deity as never before in any 
other system. It lays hold, with a giant^s grasp, of the heart 



The Philosophy of History. 255 

of the problems which science is wrestling with. It answers 
the question asked by Professor Oliver Lodge in his paper, 
read at Cardiff, last August, "By what means is force 
exerted, and what definitely is force P '' It was a bold specu- 
lation of Professor Lodge, who is known as " a very careful 
and sober physicist," when, after admitting that there i^ 
herein something not provided for in the orthodox sc\eme 
of physics, he suggested that good physicists should carry 
their appropriate methods of investigation into the field of 
psychology, admitting that a line of possible advance lies in 
this direction. Without speculation science could never 
advance in any direction; discussion precedes reform, there 
can be no progress without it. It required rare courage for a 
physicist to step from the serried ranks that have always 
been ready to point their javelins at psychologists, and to 
show, with the torch of science, the hand on the signpost at 
the cross roads pointing in the right direction. It is the 
great high road of knowledge ; but those who would explore 
it must do so with cautious tread, until the system of 
sympathetic association is completed which Keely is bringing 
to birth, for the road is bordered with pitfalls and quicksands 
and the mists of ignorance envelop it. 

Ernest fienan, in " The Future of Science," illustrates the 
thesis that, henceforth, the advancement of civilization is to 
be the work of science ; the word science being used in its 
largest signification as covering intellectual achievement in 
every direction open to the mind, and the co-ordination of the 
results in a progressive philosophy of life. The fundamental 
distinction which is expressed or implied, on every page, is 
that the earlier processes of civilization belong to an age of 
spontaneity, of unreflective productivity; an age that ex- 
pressed itself in myths, created religions, organized social 
forms and habits, in harmony with the spontaneous creations ; 
and that we have now entered upon the critical, defining, 
intellectual age; in short, as Mr. Nisbet has said, that the 
evolution of the human race has passed from the physiological 
into the psychical field ; and that it is in the latter alone, 
henceforward, that progress may be looked for toward a 



236 The Keely Mystery. 

higher civilization.^ Philosophy, that is to say, rational 
research, is alone capable of solving the question of the future 
of humanity, says Renan. " The really efficacious revolution, 
that which will give its shape to the future, will not be a 
political, it will be a religious and moral revolution. Politics 
has exhausted its resources for solving this problem. The 
politician is the offscouring of humanity, not its inspired 
teacher. The great revolution can only come from men of 
thought and sentiment. It does not do to expect too much 
from governments. It is not for them to reveal to humanity 
the law for which it is in search. What humanity needs is a 
moral law and creed ; and it is from the depths of human 
nature that they will emerge, and not from the well-trodden 
and sterile pathways of the official world.** In order to know 
whence will come a better understanding of the religion 
which Christ taught, '^ the religion of the future, we must 
always look in the direction of liberty, equality, and 
fraternity.'* Not the French Commune liberty to cut one 
another's throats (an equality of misery, and a fraternity of 
crime), but that liberty to know and to love the truth of 
things which constitutes true religion, and which when it is 
bestowed without money and without price, as it will be, 
'' humanity will accomplish the remainder, without asking 
anyone for permission." No one can say from what part of 
the sky will appear the star of this new redemption. The 
one thing certain is that the shepherds and the Magi will be 
once more the first to perceive it, that the germ of it is 
already formed, and that if we were able to see the present 
with the eyes of the future, we should be able to distinguish, 
in the complication of the hour, the imperceptible fibre which 
will bear life for the future. It is amid putrefaction that the 
germ of future life is developed, and no one has the right to 
say, " This is a rejected stone,** for that stone may be the 
corner-stone of the future edifice. Human nature is with- 



^ The apparent comprehension of Keely's dincovery by Mr. Nisbet, 
was what led the compiler of this work to apply to bim for help, in 
making known the nature of the researches which Keely is pnrsniog, at 
the time that Keely was threatened with imprisonment, m 1890, for 
obtaining money under false pretences. 



The Philosophy of History. 237 

out reproach, continnes Benan (UAvenir de la Science), 
and proceeds toward the perfect by means of forms 
successiyely and diversely imperfect. All the ideas which 
primitive science had formed of the world appear narrow, 
trivial, and ridiculous to us after that which progressive 
research has proven to be true. The fact is thafc science has 
only destroyed her dreams of the past, to put in their stead a 
reality a thousand times superior; but were science to remain 
what it is, we should have to submit to it while cursing it, for 
it has destroyed and not builded up again ; it has awakened 
man from a sweet sleep without smoothing the reality to him. 
What science gives us is not enough, we are still hungry. 
True science is that which belongs neither to the school nor 
the drawing-room, but which corresponds exactly to the wants 
of man. Hence true science is a religion which will solve for 
men the eternal problems, the solution of which his nature 
imperatively demands. Herein lies the hope of humanity ; 
for, like a wild beast, the uneducated masses stand at bay ; 
ready to turn and rend those who are willing to keep them in 
their present condition, in order to be able to make them 
answer their own purposes. ... I am firmly convinced, 
continues Kenan, for my own part, that unless we make 
haste and elevate the people, we are upon the eve of a terrible 
outbreak of barbarism. For if the people triumph in their 
present state, it will be worse than it was with the Franks 
and Vandals. They will destroy of their own accord the 
instrument which might have served to elevate them; we 
shall then have to wait until civilization once more emerges 
spontaneously from the profound depths of nature. Morality, 
like politics, is summed up, then, in this grand saying : To 
elevate the people. If I were to see humanity collapse on its 
own foundations, mankind again slaughter one another in 
some fateful hour, I should still go on proclaiming that per- 
fection is human nature^s final aim, and that the day must 
come when reason and perfection shall reign supreme. 

Sailing, sailing in the same stannoh ship— - 

We are sailing on together ; 
We see the rocks and we mark the shoals, 

And we watoh for cyclone weather. 



238 The Keely Mystery. 

The perils we run for one alone 

Are perils for all together,— 
The harbour we make for one alone, 

Makes haven for all, through the weather. 

Stand bj yoar ship : be brave, brothers mine ! 

Be brave, for we'll stand together ! 
We'll yet reach the port for wluch we sail 

In this black and stormy weather. 

Sailing, sailing the same stormy sea. 

We are sailing all together ! 
There are rocks ahead and shoals beneath, 

And 'round us hurricane weather. 

I see in the West a star arise, 
That will guide us all together : — 

Stand firm by your helm and trast in Qod 
Who pilots us through this weather. 

The dawn of morning breaks in the skies 
Which will bring mankind together ; — 

To havens of peace, to havens of bliss. 
We'll ride through this cyclone weather. 



ClA&A JsSSUP liOOBB. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
1891. 

AN APPEAL IN BEHALF 07 THE CONTINUANCE OF KBELys 

BESSABCHBS. 

There is a distinot advantage in having one section of scientifio men 
beginning their work nntrammelled by preconceived notions. — Sn- 
ffineering, 

A knowledge of scientific theories seems to kill all knowledge of 
scientific facts. — Fbofessor Schuster. 

Tizean fonnd that the speed of lieht is increased in water which 
moves in the same direction as the light. This resnlt must be dae 
either to the motion of matter throngh the medium, or to the fact that 
moving matter carries the ether with it. The whole question of matter 
and motion as a medium is a vital one, and we shall hardly make any 
serious advance before experiment has found a new opening.— Fbofessor 

SCUUSTER. 

HovF Mb. EIeely^ in 1891, was able to secure the Attention 
OF Men of Science to his beseabchino Experiments. 

DuBiNG the summer of 1890, Mr. Keely was harassed by 
threats, said to proceed from disappointed stockholders in the 
Keely Motor Company, of suits at law for '* obtaining money 
under false pretences.^' After making many unsuccessful 
attempts with the editors of leading magazines in London, 
Boston, and New York, to bring before the public the claims 
of Mr. Keely for sympathy in his colosssJ work, the pro- 
posals of an editor, on the staff of the London Times (who 
had the year before introduced himself to Mrs. Bloomfield 
Moore to obtain information of Keely) to make known the re- 
searches of the persecuted discoverer and his need of assistance, 
at that time, were accepted. The programme, as laid out by 



240 The Keely Mystery. 

this editor, was to use his extended influence with the leading 
journals throughout Great Britain^ and to have brief notices of 
Keely inserted \ to be followed up with a magazine article, for 
which the material was furnished. Later this aiTangement 
was modified by the editor, who then proposed to write an 
essay for some influential journal, handling the various mole- 
cular and atomic theories ; pointing out wherein Keely's views 
were original, and showing their revolutionizing tendencies. 
This work, which was to have been commenced in November, 
was delayed nntil all need was over. When the editor wrote 
to Philadelphia in January, 1891, that he had been unable to 
commence his work for want of sufficient material (enclosing 
questions to be answered by Mr. Keely before he could set 
about it), the answer returned was that the threatened troubles 
were over, that Mr. Keely had gained the protection of men of 
science, and the order for the essay was countermanded. At 
this very time a subscription was in circulation to raise money 
from disaffected stockholders for the purpose of bringing the 
threatened action at law, in case Mr. Keely did not resume 
work on his engine, instead of pursuing researches in order to 
gain more knowledge of the operation of this unknown polar 
force in nature. 

It was at this juncture that the late Professor Joseph Leidy, 
that eminent man of science who had been the first to recog- 
nize the importance of Keely's discovery to the scientific 
world, arranged with the Provost of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania that an appeal should be made to the trustees, the 
faculty and the professors of that institution, to permit Keely 
to continue his researches for science under their protection. 

Accordingly, on the 14th of January, 1891, a paper entitled 
*^ Keely's Discoveries '* was read at the house of Provost 
Pepper. The answer sent by one of the professors, in reply 
to Dr. Pepper^s invitation, probably expressed the views held 
by all the distinguished men who assembled to listen to the 
appeal, which was to the efiect that the professor would be 
present to hear the paper read, if the Provost wished it ; but, 
if he came, he should make it very unpleasant for the reader, as 
he had no faith in Keely nor in his discoveries. All those who 
were present listened with attention, and among the few who 



An Appeal in Behalf of Science, 241 

became interested in the claims of Keely as a discoverer, 
was the professor who had made this remark. The preamble 
to the appeal was read by the Provost, Dr. Pepper. 



PSEAHBLB. 

Before commencing to read my paper I wish to lay before 
yon the object of this effort to interest men of science in the 
researches of a man who, in the cause of justice alone, is 
entitled to have his life's work fairly represented to you. 
Some of our men of science have, unwittingly, been the 
medium by which great injustice has been done to Mr. Keely ; 
and to others also, by placing me before the world as a woman 
whom the Keely Motor Company management has robbed of 
large sums of money ; whereas, in truth, I have never been in 
any way involved by the Keely Motor Company. 

In the winter of 1881-82, Mr. Keely, who was dependent 
upon " The Keely Motor Company " for the means to continue 
his researches, as to the nature of the unknown force he had 
discovered, was virtually abandoned by the Company, Him- 
self as ignorant as were its managers of the source of the 
mysterious energy he had stumbled over, he was driven to 
despair by their action ; and, when I was led to his assistance, 
I found his wife's roof mortgaged over her head, and that, 
his honour assailed, he had resolved to take his life rather 
than submit to the indignities threatening him. At this 
time I had taken from my private estate ten thousand dollars, 
to found a small public library to my father's memory, in the 
town of Westfield, Hampden Co., Massachusetts. After con- 
vincing myself that Mr. Keely had made a great discovery, I 
felt that if this money could save his discovery, jeopardized 
as it was, it was my duty to so appropriate it. At that time, 
Mr. Keely thought half of the amount so appropriated 
would be all that he should require ; but, unfortunately, his 
efforts were for years confined to the construction of an engine 
for the Company that had abandoned him. Later, he com- 
menced researches which resulted in the discovery that he 
had unknowingly imprisoned the ether; greatly increasing 
my interest in his work. 



242 The Keely Mystery, 

The plan to which I shall allude in my paper^ as framed by 
Professor Leidy for Mr. Keely to follow, and approved by 
Professor Hertz, of Bonn, and Professor Fitzgerald, of Trinity 
College, Dablin, may be summed up as one that permits Mr. 
Keely to pursue his researches on his own line, without further 
investigation, up to the completion of his system in a form 
which will enable him to give to commerce with one hand his 
model for aerial navigation, and to science, with the other, the 
knowledge that is necessary for extending its researches in the 
field of radiant energy — ^which Mr. Keely has been exploring 
for so many years. I ask the prestige of your sympathy, 
as well as cfor your interest in Mr. Keely's work, on this 
basis ; and if in one year you are not convinced that satisfactory 
results have been attained for science, I will promise to leave 
Mr. Keely in the bands of the *' usurers and Shylocks of com- 
merce," who have already forced him into renouncing seven- 
eighths of his interest in what the Keely Motor Company 
claims as its property. 

At present I do not desire from anyone endorsement of 
Keely's discoveries. Until his system is completed he wishes 
to avoid all discussion and all public mention of the anticipated 
value of his inventions. Mr, Keely^s programme of experi- 
mental research, as laid down by himself last March, when I 
first proposed to furnish him with all the funds needed to 
carry it out, comprises its continuance until he has gained 
sufficient knowledge of the energy he is controlling — which 
is derived from the disintegration of water — to enable him 
to impart to others a system that will permit men of science to 
produce and to handle the energy, and enable him to instruct 
artisans in the work which lies in their province ; viz., the 
construction of machines to apply this costless motive power in 
mechanics. 

The prestige of your interest in Mr. Keely*s labours can 
alone secure to him freedom to pursue researches on his own 
road ; a course pronounced by Professor Leidy, Professor 
Hertz, and Professor Fitzgerald, to be " the only proper line 
for him to pursue.'* i 

The building of an engine is not in Mr. Keely^s province. 
His researches completed to that point which is necessary, for 



An Appeulin Behalf of Science, 243 

perfect control of the force, practical application will follow. 
The result of his experimental work for nine months on 
this line has been such as to rerive the interest of the specu- 
Iati7e management of the Eeely Motor Company^ to that 
extent that Mr. Keely is now offered the support of its stock- 
holders if he will resume construction of an engine ; and this 
after more than seven years of failure on the part of the 
company to furnish him with one dollar to carry on ''the 
enterprise/' 

The oflScial Report put forth in January by the Keely Motor 
Company managers annulled my contract with Mr. Eeely; 
but he is willing to abide by it^ if I am able to continue to 
furnish him with the necessary funds. This position of affairs 
has forced me to the front, to ask whether you will place 
it in my power to renew the contract with Mr. Keely ; or 
leave him under the control of men who seem to be oblivi- 
ous of the interests of the stockholders of the company in their 
" clamour *' for an engine. When this system is completed, in 
its application to mechanics, the present mode of running 
engines with shafts and beltings will disappear, creating a 
revolution in all branches of industry. 

Looking at my request from another point of view, do you 
not think it due to extend to Mr. Keely an opportunity to 
prove all that one of your number is ready to announce as his 
conviction in regard to the claims of Mr. Keely ? You all 
know to whom I refer — Professor Joseph Leidy. '' Oh, Leidy 
is a biologist,'^ said an English physicist not long since ; ''get 
the opinion of a physicist for us." If I did not wish for the 
opinion of physicists, I should not have appealed to you for 
help at this most critical juncture. But I also ask that no 
opinion be given by any physicist until Mr. Keely's theories 
are understood and demonstrated, by experiment. Yes, Dr. 
Leidy is a biologist, and what better preparation could a man 
have than a study of the science of life to enable him to 
discern between laws of nature as invented by physicists, 
and nature's operations as demonstrated by Keely ? 

The science of life has not been the only branch to which 
Dr. Leidy has given profound attention ; it is his extensive 
and accurate knowledge of its methods, limits, and tendencies, 

R 2 



244 ^^ Keely Mystery. , 

which prepared the way for that quick comprehension of possi- 
bilities, lyuig hidden from the sight of those men of science 
whose minds have rested (rusted?) in the dead grooves of 
mechanical physics. In Dr. Leidy we find entire scientific 
and intellectual liberty of thought, with that love of justice 
and truth which keeps its possessor from arrogance and in- 
tolerance, leading him with humility to '' prove all things and 
hold fast to trath.^' To such men the world owes all that we 
have of advance since the days when science taught that the 
earth is flat, arguing that were it round the seas and oceans 
would fall off into space. In Dr. Leidy's name and in justice 
to him, I ask your sanction to and approval of my efforts to 
preserve Keely 's discoveries for science ; — discoveries which 
explain, not only the causes of the planetary motions but the 
source of the one eternal and universal force. 

An Appeal in Behalf of Science. 

A paper read by Mrs. Bloomfield Moore at the house of Provost 
Pepper on the evening of Jan nary 14th, 1891, before members of the 
boanl of trustees and professors of the University of Pennsylvania. 



Each day he wrought, and better than he planned, 
Shape breeding shape beneath his restless hand ; 
The soul without still helps the soul within, 
And its deft magio endj what we begin. 

GEoaeE Eliot. 

I hope that I do not seem to be too presumptuous in my 
effort to awaken an interest, on your part, in the discoveries of 
Keely which have aroused a marked degree of attention 
among some of the most learned men in Europe. 

I should hardly have ventured to ask the prestige of your 
support to be given to Mr. Keely, in his further scientific re- 
searches, were it not that one of your number folly realizes, I 
think, the important nature of these researches. Ton all know 
to whom I refer — Professor Joseph Leidy. In his book, 
'^ Fresh Water Rhizopods of North America,^' he says, in his 
concluding remarks : '* I may perhaps continue in the same 
field of research and give to the reader further results, but I 
cannot promise to do so, for though the subject has proved 
to me an unceasing source of pleasure I see before me so 



An Appeal in Behalf of Science. 245 

many wonderfal things in other fields, that a strong impulse 
disposes me to leap the hedges to examine them." I have 
reason to know that, had Dr. Leidy not followed this impulse, 
our age might hare been robbed of its birthright. 

It was not until I appealed to Professor Leidy and Dr. 
Willcox, to convince themselves whether I was right or wrong 
in extending aid to Mr. Keely, that their decision enabled me 
to continue to assist him until he has once more made such 
advances, in experimental research, as to cause the managers 
of the Keely Motor Company to believe that his engine is near 
completion, and that they can dispense with outside assistance 
hereafter. 

But I know as it has been in the past so will it be again, 
and that, as the months glide away, if no engine is completed, 
the company will once more desert the discoverer ; while, if 
he is allowed to pursue his researches, up to the completion of 
his system under your protection, his discoveries will be 
guarded for science, and the interests of the stockholders will 
not be sacrificed to the greed of speculators, as has so often 
been done iu the past. 

As I have had occasion to say, elsewhere, after the warning 
given in the history of Huxley's Bathybius, Professor Leidy 
would not have risked his world-wide reputation by the 
endorsement of Keely's claims, as the discoverer of hidden 
energy in inter-molecular and atomic spaces, had he not tested 
the demonstrations until fully convinced of the discovery of a 
force previously unknown to science, and of the honesty of Mr. 
Keely in his explanations. Therefore, following the advice of 
Professor 6. Fr. Fitzgerald, of Dublin, I do not ask for further 
investigations. Until Professor Leidy and Dr. Willcox came 
to the front, in May, 1891, Mr. Keely had no influential 
supporters, and was under such a cloud, from his connection 
with speculators, that to advocate his integrity of purpose and 
to uphold the importance of his work, was enough to awaken 
doubts as to the sanity of his upholders. 

We are told by Herodotus that science is to know things 
truly ; yet past experience shows us that what has been called 
knowledge at one period of time is proved to be but folly in 
another age. Science is to know things truly, and the laws of 



246 The Keely Mystery. 

nature are the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Through- 
oat the universe the same laws are at work and regulate all 
things. Men interpret these laws to suit their own ideas. 
The system which Keely is unfolding shows us that there is 
not one grain of sand, nor one invisible corpuscule of floating 
matter, that does not come under the same law that governs 
the most mighty planet, and that all forms of matter are 
aggregated under one law. " The designs of the Creator as 
expounded by our latest teachers/' writes Oilman, "have 
required millions of ages to carry out. They are so vast 
and complex that they can only be realized in the sweep of 
ages. One design is subordinated by another without ever 
being lost sight of, until the time has arrived for its complete 
fulfilment. These designs involve an infinitude of effort, 
ending often in what, to our view, looks like failure, to be 
crowned after a series of ages with complete success at last." 

In this long chain of physical causes, says Dr. Willcox, 
seemingly endless, but really commencing with that one link 
that touches the hand of Him who made all matter, and all 
potencies that dwell within matter, this cosmical activity has 
been ceaseless, these cosmical effects numerous past concep- 
tion, by which universal nature has slowly unfolded and 
become the universe of to-day. 

In this way both Christianity and science unfold their truths 
progressively. Truth, like the laws of nature, never changes ; 
yet truth as an absolute thing, existing in and by itself, is 
relatively capable of change ; for as the atoms hold in their 
tenacious grasp undreamed-of potencies, so truths hold germs 
potential of all growth. Each new truth disclosed to the 
world, when its hour of need comes, unfolds and reveals un- 
dreamed-of means of growth. As the Rev. George Boardnian 
has said of Christianity, so may it be said of science : Being a 
perennial vine, it is ever yielding new wine. 

A philosopher has said that if ever a human being needed 
divine pity it is the pseudo-scientist who believes in nothing 
but what he can prove by his own methods. In the light of 
Keely' s discoveries, science will have to admit that when she 
concentrates her attention upon matter, to the exclusion of 
mind, she is as the hunter who has no string in reserve for his 



A n Appeal in Behalf of Science. 247 

bow. Wlien she recognizes tliat a fall and adequate science 
of matter is impossible to man, and that the science of mind 
is destined nltimately to attain to a much higher degree of 
perfection than the science of matter — that it will give the 
typical ideas and laws to which all the laws of physics must 
be referred — then science will be better supplied with stringy 
than she now is, to bring her quarry down. 

It is Professor Leidy's and Dr. Willcox*s second strings, to 
their bows, which will enable you to secure to science the 
richest quarry that has ever been within its reach. I know 
that the experience of Professor Rowland, as related by him, 
must have had the effect to prejudice you against Mr. Keely. 
Professor Fitzgerald writes to me on this subject: *'I am 
sorry that Mr. Keely did not cut the wire, wherever Pro- 
fessor Rowland asked to have it cut, because it will un- 
doubtedly be said that he had some sinister reason for not 
doing so, whatever his real reasons were ; but, of course, when 
one cuts a bit off a valuable string one prefers naturally to 
cut the bit off the end^ as Keely did, rather than out of the 
middle." This very wire which Mr. Keely did cut at one 
end, twice^ for Professor Rowland, one of the pieces falling into 
my hand, is now in Professor Fitzgerald's possession. It was 
the offensive manner of Professor Rowland when he seized 
the shears, telling Keely it was his guilty conscience which 
made him refuse to cut the wire, and that it must be cut in 
the middle, which put Keely on the defensive, causing him to 
refuse to allow Professor Rowland to cut it. 

It would seem that the professor in the Johns Hopkins 
University, from his remarks on that occasion, thought, 
instead of an experiment in negative attraction, that Keely 
was imposing upon the ignorant by giving a simple experi- 
ment in pneumatics, familiar to all schoolboys. Professor 
Rowland did not realize how low he was rating the powers of 
discernment of a professor in the University of Pennsylvania 
who had witnessed Keely's experiments again and again, 
when his instruments or devices were in perfect working order. 
Mr. Keely, who was ambitious to show Professor Rowland that 
his disintegrator had no connection with any concealed 
apparatus, had suspended it from the ceiling by a staple. The 



248 The Keely Mystery. 

hook had given way^ and the jar to the instrnment in falling 
to the floor disarranged its interior construction on that day. 
To those who have not witnessed any of Keely's experiments, 
under favourable conditions, his theories naturally seem vague 
speculations ; but not one theory has Keely put forward, as a 
theory, which he has not demonstrated as having a solid 
foundation in fact. Some of our men of science once settled 
the problem of the origin of life to their own satisfaction, only 
to learn in the end that speculation is not science; but this 
very problem is one the solution of which Keely now seems 
to be approaching. 

It 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. The force 
of the mind on matter is an illustration of the power of the 
finer over the crude, but the law making the crude forms of 
matter subservient to the finer or higher forms, is an unknown 
law to finite minds. 

Buckle has asserted that the highest of our so called laws 
of nature are as yet purely empirical ; and that, until some law 
is discovered which is connected with the laws of the mind 
that made it, our knowledge has no sure basis. So saturated 
has Mr. Keely's mind been with his discovery of this law that 
he has contented himself to remain ignorant in physics, as 
taught by the schools; and also with simpler matters it would 
seem; while testing and building up his hypotheses into a 
system which no one but himself can complete, and which 
without completion must be lost to the world. I should form 
a very poor opinion of the mind that would accept an hypo- 
thesis as anything more than the signpost at cross roads, 
which points to the direction that may be taken. In physics 
the very first fact to which the learner is intro'duced is already 
sophisticated by hypotheses. Every experiment in chemistry 
is but a member of a series, all based upon some one or other 
of many hypotheses ; which are as necessary to the construc- 
tion of a system as is the scaffolding which is used in building 
an edifice. If the scaffolding proves unsound it does not affect 
the edifice, as it can be at once replaced with material more 
solid. So an hypothesis, which is merely a conjecture or a 



An Appeal in Behalf of Science. 249 

saggestion, cannot affect the solidity of a philosophy or a 
system. It must be tested and found to support all the facts 
which bear upon it, and capable of accounting for them^ before 
it can be accepted as a theory. 

It is my wish to have the professors of the University of 
Pennsylvania meet at my house the founder of a system 
which, in my opinion, embraces a pure philosophy : to listen 
to his theories, and to elicit from him such information as to 
the natare of his researches, in what is called electro-magnetic 
radiation, as I trust will convince them that I have not been 
pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp during the years that my mind 
has been concentrated on the work in which Mr, Keely is 
engaged. The bearings of this work are so various that I 
shall not have time to touch upon more than the one which 
interests me beyond any or all of the others; namely, its con- 
nection with the medical art. Appreciating as I do the life 
of self-denial which physicians who are devoted to their pro- 
fession must lead, and having in their ranks relatives and 
many warm friends on both sides of the ocean (one of them, 
my nephew, Dr. Jessup, is here to-night) I trust that what 
I say of the medical art will not be misconstrued. 

The great sorrows of my life have come upon me through the 
ignorance of medical men, who, I know, followed their best 
judgment in the course of treatment that they pursued in the 
illnesses of those dear to me. When my children were in 
their infancy I had reason to embrace the opinions of Pro- 
fessor Magendie, as set forth in one of his lectures before the 
students of his class in the Allopathic College of Paris. These 
are his words : '^ 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 about 
medicine P I do not, nor do I know anyone who does know 
anything about it. Natare does a great deal ; imagination 

does a great deal, doctors do d h little when they do no 

harm." 

Later in life, in 1871, I was sent, while suffering with 
neurasthenia, from Paris to Schwalbach Baths by Dr. Bey lard, 
who recommended me to the care of Dr. Adolph Genth ; to 



250 The Keely Mystery. 

whom, in my first interview, I said : ^' I wish for your 
opinion, and for yoar advice, if you can give it to me without 
prescribing 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 our patients, if we did not dose them." 
A terrible excuse for the use of those agencies which Dr. 
John Good has said have sent more human beings to their 
graves than war, pestilence and famine combined. 

One of Mr. Keely's discoveries shapes his theory that all 
nervous and brain disorders may be cured by equating the 
differentiation that exists in the disordered structure. When 
his system is completed, medical men will have a new domain 
opened to them for expenment. Gross material agencies, 
such as drugs, will be replaced by the finer forces of nature : 
light, as taught by the late Dr. Pancoast of our city, and 
magnetism, as experimented with by the late Professor Keil 
of Jena, showing the eflScacy of the ordinary magnet in the 
cure of certain infirmities, — these experiments were com- 
municated by him more than fifty years since to the Boyal 
Society of London. 

Paracelsus taught that man is nourished and sustained by 
magnetic power, which he called the universal motor of nature. 
In Switzerland, in Italy and in Prance, the light-treatment is 
now being tested; red light used in cases of melancholia; 
blue light in cases of great nervous excitement, operating like 
magic in some instances. Dr. Oscar Jennings, the electrician 
at St. Anne's Hospital for the Insane in Paris, tells me that 
students, versed in Biblical lore, declare that the esoteric 
teachings of the Book of Job enunciate a system of light-cure. 
Ostensibly because of my faith in the importance of Keely's 
discoveries, as opening up new fields of research to medical 
men, an invalid daughter (suffering from puerperal mania after 
the birth of her third child) was taken from me, in conform- 
ance with orders of the Swedish guardian of her monied 
interests in Sweden, and I was summoned before the Police 
Direction, in Vienna, and required to bind myself not to 
experiment upon my child. It is well known to the London 
experts in mental disorders, the most distinguished of whom 
I have consulted, that my daughter's treatment, while she was 



An Appeal in Behalf of Science. 2 5 1 

under my care, had been confined to giving no medicine, 
forcing no food, and such changes from time to time in her 
surroundings as she needed^ with a few electric baths. 

The orthodox practice of medicine is nothing more and 
nothing less than " a system of blind experiment," as it has 
been called. 

At the opening of a clinical society in London, Sir Thomas 
Watson said : '' We try this and not succeeding we try 
that, and ba£Bed again we try something else.'' Other 
eminent medical men have given utterance to these aphorisms : 
" The science of medicine is founded on conjecture and im- 
proved by murder ; " " Mercury has made more cripples than 
war ; *' " Ninety-nine medical facts are medical lies ; " '* Every 
dose of medicine is a blind experiment ; " " The older physicians 
grow the more sceptical they become of the virtues of their 
own medicines.'' Dr. Ridge said : " Everything in nature is 
acknowledged to be governed by law. It is singular, how- 
ever, that while science endeavours to reduce this to actual 
fact in all other studies, those of health and disease have not 
hitherto been arranged under any law whatever." 

Keely's system, should he live to complete it, will show that 
nature works under one law in everything ; that discord is 
disease, that harmony is health. He believes that nervous and 
brain disorders are curable ; but he will never have the leisure 
to enter this field of research himself, and it will be left for 
physicians to pursue their experiments to that point where 
they shall be able to decide whether he is right or wrong. 
This is why I seek to interest medical men in Keely's belief ; 
his theories of latent energy he is able to handle without help, 
and to demonstrate a solid foundation for them on facts. 
" Nothing can lie like a fact," said Velpeau. But nature's 
laws are infallible facts, and the facts referred to by Velpeau 
are of the order of the fallible ones enunciated by science, 
such as " The atom is indivisible." *' The atomis infinitely 
dirisible," saysKeely, repeating Schopenhauer's words, whose 
writings I dare say he has never read. 

Professor George Fr. Fitzgerald, of Trinity College, Dublin, 
in closing a lecture delivered before the British Association 
last March, on '^ Electro-magnetic Badiation,'' enunciates a 



252 The Keely Mystery, 

possible theory of ether and matter. This hypothesis, he 
says, explains the differences in nature as differences of 
motion. If it be true, ether and matter — gold, air, wood, 
brains — are but different motions. You will be able to judge 
of the marvellous mechanism invented by Keely, for his re- 
searches, when I tell you that by his demonstrations with these 
instruments, he is able to place this hypothesis in the rank 
of theories, boldly announcing that all motion is thought, and 
that all force is mind force. With a clearness that character- 
izes his great brain he has plunged through the deep and 
broad questions surrounding the mechanism of the universe, 
and he claims, on behalf of science, as did the late Provost 
Jellett of the British Association, ^' the right to prosecute its 
investigations until it attains to a mechanical explanation of all 
things." 

In this lecture professor Fitzgerald, commenting upon 
Professor Hertz's experiments in the vibration of ether waves, 
says : '' If there is reason to think that any greater oscillation 
might disintegrate the atom, we are still a long way from it.'' 
Does not this statement border on an admission that the atom 
may be divisible ? Those who are pursuing their researches 
in this field are farther off than they know from the great 
central truth which Faraday did not live long enough to 
reach, although conjectured by him. 

We have not only Faraday's discoveries, but those of 
Scheele, the Swedish chemist, as an example of exact observa- 
tions leading to erroneous conclusions. The investigations of 
Scheele led up to the rich harvest which has since b^en reaped 
from a knowledge of the nature of the compounds of organic 
chemistry. Scheele was one of the founders of quantitative 
analysis, but the phlogistic theory advanced by him was 
overthrown — the fate of all theories which are not based on 
solid foundations. Faraday admitted that his own ideas on 
gravitating force, and of the ether, were but vague impres- 
sions of his mind thrown out as matter for speculation. He 
left no theory on these lines, for he had nothing to offer as the 
result of demonstration, nor even of sufBcient consideration to 
broach a theory : merely impressions, which are allowable for 
a time as guides to thought and farther research. Yet more 



An Appeal in Behalf of Science. 253 

than once did these speculations of his giant intellect touch 
upon one of nature's hidden laws, the greatest one yet made 
known to man. Had Faraday lived long enough to pursue 
his researches, from his starting point of conjecture, he would 
have been, without doubt, instead of Keely, the discoverer of 
the latent or hidden potencies existing in all forms of matter, 
visible and invisible. But the physicists of his time looked 
upon his speculations as contrary to the received dogmas of 
science, and preferred their own errors to his speculations. 
They saw the signpost, but took the road directly opposite to 
the one Faraday had pointed out. 

It is admitted that even a false theory, when rightly con- 
structed, has its uses, and that, instead of hindering, it hastens 
the advance of knowledge. Every one, possessing the slightest 
acquaintance with the history of astronomy, knows that the 
doctrines of cycles, epicycles and ellipses, were begotten 
naturally and necessarily out of each other ; and that if Kepler 
had not propounded speculative errors Newton would not have 
hit upon speculative truth. It has been said that when men 
of science disclaim hypotheses, or speculation, they are either 
unfit for their vocation or, like Newton, they are better than 
their creed. Hypotheses are at once the effect and the cause 
of progress. One might as well attempt to preserve and 
employ an army without organization as to preserve and em- 
ploy phenomena without a theory to weld them into one. 
But the theory must be provisionally, if not positively, true ; 
it must be intelligible and consistent ; it must explain a 
greater number of facts and reconcile a greater variety of 
apparent contradictions than any which has preceded it ; and 
it must have become developed not by the addition merely, 
but by the addition and solution, of subsidiary explanations. 
I ask of you an examination of Keely's theories before giving 
an opinion of them. 

Time only can decide whether Keely's hypotheses and 
theories will outlive these tests. If not, his system must be 
overthrown, as past systems have been, to make room for a 
better one. All that I ask is that he may have the oppor- 
tunity to develop it under your encouragement. There are 
scientists in Europe ready to assist him with pecuniary 



254 The Keely Mystery. 

assistance. They know enough — those who are interested in his 
discoveries — to know that they can help him in no other way. 

Professor Hertz of Bonn, said to me : '' Keely must work 
out his system himself to that point where he can instruct 
physicists to repeat his experiments." Picking up a photo- 
graph of Keely's instruments of research, grouped together, 
he added : *' No man is likely to be a fraud who is working 
on these lines.'' 

Science is alert^ on tiptoe as it were, waiting for the one 
mighty explanation of the force, *' behind the framework of 
nature/* which has hitherto '' eluded its skill ; '^ and which the 
system of Keely makes clear to the understanding, demon- 
strating that one power, one law, reigns throughout creation ; 
the immaterial controlling the material, after the divine order 
and law of creation that the immaterial should govern the 
material — that the whole realm of matter is under the do- 
minion of the immaterial. But ^' the known always excludes 
the unknown " when in opposition to it. As in past genera- 
tions, so now in ours, physicists have said : '' We will not 
waste our time in looking at facts and phenomena which 
cannot be accepted in opposition to established principles of 
science and to known laws of nature ; and which, even if we 
beheld we should not believe." 

The recognition and practical application of new truths are, 
as has been said, notoriously slow processes. Harvey's 
beneficent discovery excited vehement opposition from his 
contemporaries. Professor Riolan combated this discovery 
with as much obstinacy as violence ; even denying the 
existence and the functions of lymphatic vessels. Harvey 
himself united with Riolan in opposing the discoveries of 
Aselli and Pacquet respecting the lymphatic system. Jenner's 
discovery met with the same opposition, and more than forty 
years elapsed before the suggestion of Sir Humphrey Davy 
became of practical use. Mr, Wills was so affected by the 
ridicule which he encountered in his experiments with nitrous 
oxide in destroying physical pain, that he abandoned them. 
Nearly half a century later Dr. Morton was assailed by several 
of our journals in America for the use of ether in producing 
anaBsthesia ; as also was Sir James Simpson for his use of 
ether and chloroform. 



An Appeal in Behalf of Science. 255 

The scientists excommunicated Dr. Wigan, who had proved 
by anatomical examination that each brain-hemisphere is a 
perfect brain ; that we have, in fact, two brains, as we have two 
eyes and two ears. His experiences as a physician were de- 
clared to be impostures or delusions ; his deductions fallacious. 
They could not be true, because they were inconsistent with 
the established principles of physiology and mental science. 
And with such experiences in the past, we should keep in mind 
that the powers of nature are so mysterious and inscrutable 
that men must be cautious in limiting them to the ordinary 
laws of experience. Proclus wrote of the power of mind or 
will to set up certain vibrations — not in the grosser atmo- 
spheric particles whose undulations beget light, sound, heat^ 
electricity — but in the latent immaterial principle of force, of 
which modem science knows scarcely anything. 

What is beyond their own power, men cannot comprehend 
to be in the power of others. Said Sextus : " If by magic 
you mean a perpetual research among all that is most latent 
and obscure in nature, I profess that magic, and he who does 
so comes nearer to the fountain of all knowledge.** 

Sir Isaac Newton said : " It is well known that bodies act 
upon one another by the attractions 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 
powers of attraction than these. For nature is very consonant 
and conformable to herself.^' 

With such intimations of the hidden force that is ever in 
operation, ''behind the framework of nature,** shall we, 
because it is hidden from science, refuse to listen to the 
explanations which Mr. Keely is now prepared to give ? All 
nature is a compound of conflicting, and therefore of counter- 
balancing and equilibrating, forces. Without this there could 
be no such thing as stability. In nature nothing is great and 
nothing is little, writes Figuier. Sir Henry Boscoe says : '' 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 around our sun.*' If you admit 
this, as stated by one of your own orthodox scientists, why 
refuse to admit the possibility of the subdivision of all corpus- 



256 The Keely Mystery. 

cles of matter, which Eeely declares can be done by certain 
orders of vibration^ thns showing up new elements ? I do not 
ask endorsement of Keely's theories ; but if physicists did not 
think it possible to rupture the atom^ would they be calcu- 
lating the chances of doing so, as Professor Fitzgerald has 
doneP 

Why not admit that certain tenets of science may prore to 
be nothing more than hypotheses^ too hastily adopted as 
theories^ and that Eeely has succeeded, as he claims, to have 
discovered the order of vibration, which by increasing the 
oscillation of the atom, causes it to rupture itself? This 
introductory impulse is given at forty-two thousand eight 
hundred vibrations, instead of one hundred millions ; which, 
having been reached by Professor Hertz, failed to tear apart 
the atom, and convinced Professor Fitzgerald of the '^ long 
way off ^' that they still are from rupturing it. But even this 
conclusion was arrived at under an erroneous hypothesis ; for 
the atomic charge does not oscillate across the diameter of the 
atom, and its possible radiating power was calculated on this 
hypothesis. 

Again, as to the canons of science, which are proved by 
Mr. Keely's researches to be erroneous : take the one which 
teaches that molecular aggregation is ever attended with dis- 
sipation of energy. From whence, then, comes the immense 
force which is liberated from the constituents of gunpowder 
by its exciter, fire ? — which is a certain order of vibration. 
Concussion, another order of vibration, releases the hidden 
energy stored in the molecules of dynamite, which tears the 
rocks asunder as if they were egg-shells. Still another order 
of vibration, which Keely has discovered, dissociates the 
supposed elements of water, releasing from its corpuscular 
embrace almost immeasurable volumes of force. 

The discoverer of this law of nature has long been harassed 
and made to feel like a galley-slave chained to a rock, while 
with Prometheus aspirations he is seeking to bring down fire 
and light from heaven for his fellow-men. 

When Professor Leidy followed his impulse to leap the 
hedge which divided his special field of research from the 
domain that Keely was exploring, his was the first effort made 



An Appealin Behalf of Science. 257 

by a man of science to save to the world " the hidden know- 
ledge '* bestowed npon one who, in my opinion, is alone 
capable of completing his system in a form to transmit this 
knowledge to others. I doubt not that this will seem to you 
as the language of fanaticism; but my convictions do not 
come from things hoped for. They are the result of the 
evidence of things seen, year after year, for nearly a decade 
of years. 

As a school-girl, fifty years ago, I had the privilege of 
attending courses of lectures at Tale College, where experi- 
ments were given in natural philosophy and in chemistry; 
which kept up the interest that was awakened in earlier 
years; when, with my mineral hammer and basket, my 
father took me in his walks, laying the foundation of that love 
of true science which has made the discoveries of Keely of such 
intense interest to me. 

Superficial as was and still is my knowledge of science, in 
its various branches, my interest has never abated ; and thus, 
by my course of reading, I have kept myself abreast of the most 
advanced writers of modern thought, preparing the way for the 
help that I have been able to give Mr. Keely by putting books 
into his hands which, after more than twelve years of blind 
struggles to grapple with the force he had stumbled over, 
helped him to comprehend its nature, sooner than he would 
have done had he been left to work out his conjectures un- 
aided, he tells me. 

Marvellous as is the extent of Keely's knowledge of 
vibratory physics, I doubt very much whether he knows 
enough of mechanical physics to perform the trickery which 
Professor Rowland accused him of attempting. "Of course 
every one is looking for a trick where Keely is concerned," 
writes a Baltimore man ; and, so long as speculations in the 
stock of the Keely Motor Company are authorized by the 
managers of that company, or efforts made to dispose of it 
before any practical result is attained, so long will Keely be 
unjustly suspected of being in league with them to obtain 
money under false pretences. 

It was after six or seven years of failure on the part of the 
stockholders of the company to furnish Keely with one dollar, 

8 



258 The Keely Mystery. 

even, that I made a contract with him in April, 1890, to 
supply all that he needed for the completion of his system ; 
having first received the assurance of Mr. Keely's lawyer that 
he would carry out the united wishes of Mr. Keely and myself. 
At that time this announcement was made in the public 
journals : — 

''There has been placed in the hands of Professor Leidy 
a fund for the use of inventor John W. Keely. The stipula- 
tion attached is that no use shall be made of the financial 
assistance for speculative purposes. This provision, which is 
made in the interests of the Keely Motor Company as well as 
for science, will end with the first attempt to speculate on the 
stock by exhibitions given of the operations of unpatentable 
engines. Professor Leidy holds the fund at his disposition, 
and will pay all bills for instruments constructed for re- 
searching purposes.'' 

The report issued last month by the directors of the Keely 
Motor Company annulled this contract; and it now remains 
for your board to decide whether I shall, in behalf of science, 
continue to supply Mr. Keely with the means of continuing 
his researches, under the protecting auspices of the University 
of Pennsylvania, or leave him in the hands of those who are so 
blind to their own interests, as holders of stock in the Keely 
Motor Company, they cannot be made to see that their only 
hope of commercial success lies in the completion of the 
system that Keely is developing ; and that the course pro- 
posed by Professor Leidy, and commended by Professor 
Hertz and Professor Fitzgerald, for Keely to follow, is the 
only one that will ever enable him to complete it. 

This system is as much a work of evolution as is any one 
of the slow operations of nature. "Truth can afford to 
wait : '' she knows that the Creator of all things never 
hurries. In these twenty years of toil Keely's patient per- 
severance has been godlike. It is the sharpest rebuke that 
could be uttered to those whose impatient " hue and cry " has 
been, *' Give us a commercial engine and we will immortalize 
you ; " — grinding from him, meantime, seven-eighths of his 
interests in his inventions. 

But in his labours Keely finds a recompense that, as yet. 



An Appeal in Behalf of Science. 2 59 

" the world knows not of;*' for day by day he sees the once, 
to him, obscure domain lit up with ever-increasing glory ; a 
domain the boundaries of which are the boundaries of the 
universe : the entrance into which promises the fulfilment of 
the hopes of those who look forward to '^ a time when we shall 
no longer go to the blind to lead the blind in our search to 
make life worth living ; but, instead, be able to promote, in 
accordance with scientific method and in harmony with law, 
the physical, intellectual and moral evolution of our race/' 

As of Newton, with the change of one word only, so one 
day will it be said of Keely : — 

All intellectnal eye — our solar roand 

First gazing throngh, he by the blended power 

Of laws etherio, universal, saw 

The whole in silent harmony revolve. 

What were his raptnres then ! How pure ! How strong ! 

And what the triumphs of old Ghreece and Rome 

With his comnared P When Nature and her laws 

Stood all disclosed to him, and open laid 

Their every hidden glory to his flew. 



On the 23rd of March, following the reading of this address. 
Professor Koenig, who had become deeply interested in Mr. 
Keely 's researches^ wrote : — 

*'With regard to the experiments, which I saw at Mr. 
Keely's, I venture upon the following suggestion, as a test of 
the nature of the force Mr. Keely is dealing with. The revo- 
lution of the compass as a result of negative polar attraction. 
It is stated in Mr. Keely's paper that he finds gold, silver, 
platinum, to be excellent media for the transmission of these 
triple currents. Now it is well known that these same metals 
are most diamagnetic, that is, unafiected by magnetic influ- 
ences. If, therefore, a needle be made of one of these metals 
and suspended in place of the steel needle, in the compass, and 
put under the influence of Mr. Keely^s force, it ought to 
revolve the same as the steel needle will under magnetic and 
polar and anti-polar influence. If Mr. Keely could make such 
a needle revolve, it would convince me that he is dealing with 
a force unknown to physicists." 

To this reqoirement Mr. Keely replied : " To run a needle, 
composed of non-magnetic material, by polar and depolar action 

8 2 



26o The Keely Mystery. 

is a matter of as infinite impossibility as would be the raising 
of a heavy weight from the bottom of a well by sacking a 
vacuam in it^ or the inhalation of water into the lungs 
instead of air^ to sustain life/^ 

However, at Dr. Brinton's suggestion, Mr. Keely took up 
a line of research that was new to him, and succeeded in making 
a needle of the three metals, gold, silver and platinum, rotate 
by differential molecular action ; induced by negative attractive 
outreach, which is as free of magnetic force as a cork. 

Professor Brinton had so mastered Keely's working hypo- 
theses as to say, early in April, that he was sure he could 
make them understood by any intelligent person — writing of 
them : " All that is needed now is to show that Keely's experi- 
ments sustain the principles that underlie these hypotheses- 
As soon as Professor Koenig is prepared to report on the 
purely technical and physical character of the experiments, I 
shall be ready to go into full details as to their significance in 
reference to both matter and mind. It will be enough for me 
if Dr. Koenig is enabled simply to say that the force handled 
by Keely is not any one of the already well-known forces. 
Let him say that, and I will undertake to say what it is,'* 

On the evening of the'Hjbh of April, the Provost of the 
University of Pennsylvania, with others who were invited, 
met at Mrs. Moore's house to hear the report of the " observa- 
tion" of Mr. Keely's researching experiments. The result 
was not made public ; as it was desired, by all concerned, that 
nothing should be made known which could in any way influ- 
ence the price of the stock of the company, to which Mr. 
Keely is under obligations ; and which, as far as marketable 
value is concerned, is quite worthless until his system is com- 
pleted to that point where some one device or machine can be 
patented. But, after Professor Koenig had made his report to 
those assembled, and Professor Brinton had read his abstract, 
all that had been asked for Mr. Keely, in behalf of the interests 
of science, was conceded to him. Mr. Keely has been able to 
continue his researches, up to the present time, without the 
delays which actions-at-law would have occasioned. 

Professor Brinton, before making public his ^' Abstract of 
Keely^s Philosophy,*' wishes to add two parts, one on the difli- 



An Appeal in Behalf of Science. 261 

culties in the way of physicists in understanding Eeely's 
theories ; the other on the relations of the conditions of the 
inter-etheric order to the laws of mind. 

The address of Mrs. Moore, type-copied, was sent to 
various editors and men of science in Philadelphia, as well as 
to leading capitalists ; and, in this crisis of Keely^s connection 
with the stockholders of The Keely Motor Company, some 
of these editors rendered substantial aid in making known 
his critical position; most notably the Inquirer, owned by 
Mr. Elverson, and the Hveniny Telegraph, owned by Mr. 
Warburton, with the result that a decided change in public 
opinion took place, after these journals announced, in April, 
that Professor Koenig had tested the energy, employed by 
Keely, with the most sensitive galvanometer of the univer- 
sity, in the presence of Professor Leidy, Professor Brinton, 
Doctor Tuttle (a Baltimore physicist) and others, finding no 
trace of electricity ; and by other tests no magnetism. The two 
professors who thoroughly investigated Keely^s theories, and 
observed his demonstrations, were chosen because they possessed 
the qualities of mind which Herbert Spencer said constitute the 
first condition of success in scientific research, viz. " an honest 
receptivity and a willingness io abandon all preconceived 
notions, however cherished, if they be found to contradict the 
truth.'' 

Professor Leidy and Dr. Willcox, during their observations 
of Keely 's progressive experimental researches, had expressed 
no opinion of Keely's theories, other than that they did not 
correspond with their own ideas; but Professor Koenig boldly 
said, *' I not only think Mr. Keely's theories possible, but I 
consider them quite probable." Professor Brinton, who made 
a study of Keely's theories, so mastered them as to be able to 
suggest to Keely a new line of research, required by Dr. 
Koeuig in the tests proposed; and the synopsis of Keely's 
philosophy, prepared by Doctor Brinton, has made Keely's 
hitherto unintelligible language intelligible to men of science. 

Notwithstanding this favourable result, a New York jour- 
nalisfc, under a fictitious name, pretended to have discovered that 
Keely is a fraud, using well-known forces ; which statements 
were published (with woodcuts of instruments discarded by 



262 The Keely Mystery. 

Keely two years before) in the New York Herald and The Press, 
in Philadelphia. It is amusing to see how '^ history repeats 
itself; " for, in the year 1724, in a letter to the Royal Society, 
Hatzfeldt attacked Sir Isaac Newton in much the same spirit. 
One would suppose in reading what Hatzfeldt has written 
of an invention of his time, that it had been written, word 
for word, of this ignorant investigator of Keely's experi- 
ments in researching. After commenting upon the corruption 
of human nature as shown, in his day, by want of veracity,, 
and the tendency to vicious misrepresentation, he says : " If 
the said machine was contrived according to the weak sense 
and understanding of those who pretend it to be moved in 
other ways than that declared, it would have been discerned 
before this. 

"And those who pretend it to be moved by water, or air, 
or magnetism, one of which (meaning water) even our most 
famous author did in the beginning affirm it to be moved by, 
is so very weak that I don't at all think it deserving to be 
considered. 

*' And what is still worse, to pretend it to be a cheat is a 
manner of proceeding which is neither consistent with equity 
nor common sense. As long as arts and sciences have the 
misfortune of depending on the direction of such like persons^ 
no progress toward truth can be made, but I shall make it 
sufficiently appear that there is yet more truth behind the 
hill than ever has been brought to light. There be persons 
who, when disappointed of gain, turn their shafts against 
those who have circumvented them. 

"All those who know anything of philosophy know that 
gravity is generally (and chiefly by Sir Isaac Newton and his 
followers) denied to be essential to matter, which I shall not 
only prove the contrary of, but I shall likewise show the pro- 
perties in matter, on which the principle depends, to be the 
most glorious means to prove the existence of God, and to 
establish natural religion.^* 

Is it not rather remarkable that, after a sleep of nearly two 
centuries, it is again claimed that gravity is inherent in all 
matter? 

It has been very generally supposed that Keely is working at 



An Appeal in Behalf of Science. 263 

haphazard^ as it were ; in other words, that he has no theory 
to go upon. Professor Brinton writes of Keely's theories : 
'' Mr. Keely has a coherent and intelligent theory of thingSj 
or philosophy, on which he lays out his work and proceeds 
in his experiments.'* March 6th, the same professor writes : 
*' Keely's paper on Latent Force in intermolecnlar spaces is 
dear enough and instructive, but the average reader will find 
the perusal up-hill work, from lack of preliminary teaching. 
Naturally, Mr. Keely, whose mind has been busy with this 
topic for years, and who is more familiar with it than with 
any other, does not appreciate how blankly ignorant of it is 
the average reader. Also naturally he writes above the heads 
of his audience.'* 

A correspondent in Invention, London, writes December 12, 
1891 : We have at various times in these columns alluded to the 
investigations of the Philadelphia scientist, J. W. Keely, and 
this researcher — ^who is now stated to be engaged in finding a 
method whereby the power * which he professes to have dis- 
covered can be employed as a motor in the place of steam — is 
just now the object of considerable attention in the press of 
the United States. To summarize the present state of the 
criticism to which this man is subjected, we may mention that 
for some time past The New York Herald, among other papers, 
has been printing a series of articles that have been recently 
prepared by an American inventor named Browne, professing 
to show how Keely has, for nearly twenty years, been deceiv- 
ing expert engineers, shrewd men of the world, some few uni- 
versity professors and others, by the use of compressed air, 
obtaining testimonials of his discovery of an unknown force in 
nature. In reading his articles any one who has seen the 
photographs — as the writer has done — of the researching 
instruments discarded by Keely, in past years, and those that 
he is now employing in their place, cannot fail to detect the 
misstatements and misrepresentations made. 

Mr. Browne (?) even overrides the testimony of the late 
Professor Leidy, Dr. Willcox, Dr. Koenig, Dr. Brinton — the 

' Mr. Keely explains the energy be is handling to be a condition of 
sympathetic vibration, associated with the Polar stream of onr planet, 
positively and negatively. 



264 The Keely Mystery. 

Baltimore physicist — Dr. Tattle, and the engineers Linville 
and Le Van, all of whom have tested the force used by Keely, 
and admitted that no electricity^ no magnetism^ no compressed 
air is used. Without endorsing in the slightest anything that 
Keely has discovered, or claims to have discovered, we think 
that, with the English love of fair play, both sides should 
always fairly be heard before either is condemned, and as Mr. 
Keely has consented to instruct a well-known English 
physicist in his method of producing the force handled, 
there is every chance of the truth being known, and the 
correct state of the matter divulged to the scientific world at 
large, when, mayhap, this rival inventor may have to retract 
his assertions or stand a suit for libel. We do not say it will be 
so — we only assert it may be. Professor Brinton, who has 
made a study of Keely 's methods, writes this mouth to a friend 
in London : — ** Theeirpo5«/of Keely's alleged methods continues 
each week. Some of the proposed explanations are plausible, 
others are plainly absurd. They only serve to attract renewed 
attention to Keely. I have written to the editor to ask him to 
arrange a meeting for me with the writer, but I have not yet 
been able to discover the Mr. Browne,* of Brooklyn, who is 
the supposititious author.'' 

Mr. Keely has chosen the successor ' of Professor Tyndall, 
at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, as the physicist to 
whom he will communicate his method. This will be welcome 
news indeed to scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, 
and the result will be awaited with anxiety alike by both the 
friends and foes of Keely. We shall watch for the result, as 
will our American confreres. — Wm, Norman Brown. 



' Mr. B. (not Browne) was afterwards discovered to be an inventing 
jonmalist, who had been ** disappointed of gain/' and whose statemente 
concerning Dr. Leidy had to be corrected. 

- Professor Dewar's visit to Keely *s workshop has been delayed until 
he goes to America as Eoyal Commissioner this year. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
1891. 

HOBE OF EJCELT's THEORIES. — HIS TBADUCEBS EXPOSED. 

It was in India that man first recognized the fact that force is in- 
destructible and eternal. This implies ideas more or less distinct of 
that which we now term its correlation and conservation. The changes 
which we witness are in its distribution. — Pbof£ssob Dkafbb. 

" For all things that be not true, be lies." 

There is a principle in music which has jet to be discovered. — Sib 
John Hebschbl. 

From the Chicago Tribune. 

That was a happy inspiration which led the Qaintet Club, of 
Philadelphia, to pay a visit to the workshop of Keely a few 
weeks ago. Its members had been told that the illustrious 
inventor had employed the power of music to develop the 
wonderful forces of nature, and evolve by a law of sympathetic 
vibrations a mighty energy through the disintegration of a 
few drops of water. Naturally they were anxious to go. 
They were familiar with the claim made by Paganini that he 
could throw down a building if he knew the chord of the 
mass of masonry, and wanted to know if it were possible that 
the dream of the great violinist is realized at last. 

So nearly as can be made oi^t from the mysterious language 
of the man of many promises, there is a harmony of the 
universe that is controllable by the strains of music. Each 
of the molecules composing a mass of matter is in a state of 
incessant oscillation, and these movements can be so much 
changed by means of musical vibration that the matter will 
be disintegrated, its constituent molecules fly apart, and a 



266 The Keely Mystery. 

propulsive force be generated similar to that which is evolved 
by the touching of a match to a single grain of powder stored 
in a magazine. He holds that matter is nothing but forces 
held in equilibrium, and that if the equilibrium be once 
destroyed the most tremendous consequences will ensue. 

According to the report, he proved to the satisfaction of 
more than one member of the club that he has already 
discovered the means of calling out this force, and is able to 
partially control it. In their presence he caused a heavy 
sphere to rotate rapidly or slowly, according to the notes 
given by the instrument on which he played. The sphere 
was so isolated as to prove that it could not be acted on 
by electricity or in any other way than by the sound waves. 
He disintegrated water into what he calls *' etheric vapour *' 
by means of a tuning fork and a zither. The disintegration 
of only four drops of water produced a pressure of 27,000 
pounds to the square inch, and three drops of the harmless 
liquid fired off a cannon " with a tremendous roar." 

All this is wonderful — if true. And it is strangely 
parallel to the most advanced lines of modern thought in 
a scientific direction, if not coincident with them. There is 
the point. Is there a '^ thin partition '' dividing the wisdom 
of the schools from the insanity of Keely, or will he yet prove 
his right to take rank among the greatest of earth's inventors ? 
If he can do what is at present claimed for him, doing it 
honestly and without any hocus-pocus to beguile the fools, he 
has already earned a title higher than that worn by any man 
of the age. If he is simply cheating those to whom he 
exhibits his mechanism, he is one of the biggest charlatans 
that ever drew breath, and ought to be scouted accordingly. 
And here is the diflSculty. The visit alluded to is claimed to 
have been made on May 9th, or fully six weeks ago. Surely 
if such results were achieved then, as reported by the 
Philadelphia Inquirer, many others would ere this have been 
asked and permitted to witness a repetition of the experi- 
ments, and the scientific world would now be in a blaze 
of excited admiration of the man and his methods. But 
nothing further is said about it. Keely is still plodding away 
in his workshop, and the world is still rolling round in happy 



More of Keeiys Theories. 267 

ignorance of what he has done towards revolationizing existing 
lines of thought and modes of action. Surely something is 
radically wrong. The scientists owe it to themselves as well 
as ttO the inventor to see to it that this condition is not 
allowed to continue. They shonld appoint a commission to 
investigate, and find out whether Keely is a genius worthy of 
the highest honours and rewards that can be bestowed^ an 
arrant impostor, whose fittest place would be the penitentiary, 
or a crank that ought to be put in a lunatic asylum. It is 
hard to resist the conclusion that he is one or the other 
of these, and in either case he is not getting his deserts. Let 
Keely be scientifically investigated. He has been permitted 
to remain in obscurity too long already. He should be 
reported on, no matter whether the result be to raise a 
mortal to the skies or send an alleged angel down to the 
depths of infamy as a life-long deceiver of his species.*' 

[The Tribune is informed that the report was correct in 
every particular, and that Professor D. G. Brinton, of the 
University of Pennsylvania, has prepared a paper on the sub- 
ject, and will publish it when Mr. Keely is ready to have his 
system made known. — Ed. Inquirer.'] 

The writer of this article in the Chicago Tribune has ex- 
pressed the prevailing sentiment of our time, in regard to 
Keely, as far as those are concerned who are in ignorance 
of the fact that Keely has discovered an unknown energy, 
and is working out a system which he must himself first 
learn, by researches into the laws of nature goTerning it, 
before he can apply it to mechanics, or make it even so much 
as understood by others. 

The unprincipled journalist before alluded to, after fail- 
ing in an attempt to obtain admission to Mr. Keely's work- 
shop, wrote a series of articles for the press, recounting 
Keely 's researching experiments in 1889 and 1890, as 
then shown to Professor Joseph Leidy, Dr. James Willcox, 
and others. This journalist, who professed to give wood- 
cuts of Keely*s researching instruments, was entirely igno- 
rant of the fact that the experiments which he described 
had never once been repeated, during the last eighteen 
months; Keely having taken up researches on another 



268 The Keely Mystery. 

line, as soon as he had gained sufficient control of the 
force he was handling to cause the solid bronze weight 
weighing six and three quarters lbs., to rise in the jar, rest 
midway, or remain stationary at will. The " Generator,*' 
described by this journalist in the Philadelphia Press of 
November 1st, 1891, never had any existence beyond the 
journalist's brain and the woodcut. It was represented as a 
square structure, *'big and thick walled enough to hold a 
donkey engine," whereas the true disintegrator (or improved 
generator) is round, and about the size of the wheel 
of a baby's perambulator. This form of generator Mr. 
Keely has been using for about three years; suspending 
it from a staple in the ceiling, or against the wall, when 
using it in the dissociation of the so-called elements of water. 
Consequently, it was impossible for the force to be *' conducted 
from a reservoir eight or ten squares distance," as suggested 
by this inventing journalist, who says that he ''spent sleepless 
nights'' in devising the way in which the generator was operated 
by Keely : asserting that " this extraordinary force was loaded 
like electricity through a wire and discharged like sj^eam 
through a pipe.*' 

In a romance called " The Prince and the Pauper " these 
lines occur : " For, look you, an it were not true, it would be 
a lie. It surely would be. Think on't. For all things that be 
not ti^ue, be lies, — thou canst make nought else out of it." 
Never were truer words written, and equally true is it that, 
as another author has written, " If the boy who cannot speak 
the truth, lives to be a man, and becomes a journalist, he will 
invent lie after lie as long as he can get a Journal to print 
them and to pay him for them." There are very few men, who 
take up journalism in the spirit of a St. Beuve. Quite as few 
are there who are competent to write, in any way, of Keely's 
discoveries and all that they involve. Even among men of 
science, only one man has been found who is able to com- 
prehend Keely's theories, and to handle them in a way to make 
them intelligible to others. S. Laing, in " Modern Thought," 
says, " Science traces everything back to primeval atoms and 
germs, and there it leaves us. How came these atoms and 
energies there, from which this wonderful universe of worlds 



\ 



More of Keeiys Theories. 269 

has been evolved by inevitable laws ? What are they in their 
essence, and what do they mean ? The only answer is, " It is 
unknowable. It is behind the veil. Spirit may be matter, 
matter may be spirit.** Keely's researches have been of a 
nature which, grappling with these mysteries, has brought 
them to the light. He tells us that spirit is the soul of 
matter, and that no matter exists without a soul. 

More of Kb£lt*s Theories. 

The sympathetic conditions that we call mind are no more 
immaterial in their character than light or electricity. The 
substance of the brain is molecular, while the subst^ance of the 
mind that permeates the brain is inter-etheric, and is the 
element by which the brain is impregnated ; exciting it into 
action and controlling all the conditions of physical motion, 
as long as the sympathetic equatative is in harmony, as 
between the first, second, and third orders of transmission ; 
molecular, atomic and etheric. By this soul-substance is the 
physical controlled. In order to trace the successive triple 
impulses, taking the introductory one of sympathetic negative 
outreach, towards the cerebral neutrals, which awakens the 
latent element to action, we find that mind may be considered 
a specific order of inter-atomic motion sympathetically in- 
fluenced by the celestial flow, and that it becomes when thus 
excited by this medium a part and parcel of the celestial itself. 
Only under these conditions of sympathetic assimilation can it 
assert its power over the physical organisms; the finite 
associated with the infinite. 

The brain is not a laboratory. It is as static as the head 
\ of the positive negative attractor,^ until influenced by certain 

• orders of vibration, when it reveals the true character of the 

I outreach so induced. The brain is the high resonating 

I receptacle where the sympathetic celestial acts, and where 

molecular and atomic motion exhibits itself, as according to 
the intensification brought to bear upon it by the celestial 
mind flow. 

The cerebral forces, in their control of the physical 



\ 
\ 

« 



t 



^ One of Keely's researching instrumentB. 



2 JO The Keely Mystery. 

organism, reveal to us the infinite power of the finer or 
spiritual fluid, though not immaterial, over the crude mole- 
cular. The luminous, etheric, protoplastic element, which is 
the highest tenuous condition of the ether, fills the regions of 
infinite space, and in its radiating outreach gives birth to the 
prime neutral centres that carry the planetary worlds through 
their ranges of motion. 

If the minds of aU the most learned sages, of all time, 
were concentrated into one mind, that one would be too 
feeble, in its mental outreach, to comprehend the conditions 
associated with the fourth order of sympathetic condensation. 
The controversies of the past in regard to the condensation of 
invisible matter prove this. The chemistry of the infinite and 
the chemistry 6f the finite are as wide apart, in their 
sympathetic ranges, as is the velocity of light from the move- 
ment of the hour-hand of a clock. Even the analysis of the 
visible conditions taxes our highest powers of concentration. 

The question naturally arises. Why is this condition of 
ether always under a state of luminosity of an especial order ? 
Its characteristics are such, from its infinite tenuity and 
the sympathetic activity with which it is impregnated, that - 

it possesses an order of vibratory, oscillatory velocity, which -^ J 

causes it to evolve its own luminosity. This celestial, latent 
power, that induces luminosity in this medium, is the same 
that registers in all aggregated forms of matter, visible and 
invisible. It is held in corpuscular embrace until liberated by 
a compound vibratory negative medium. 

What does this activity represent, by which luminosity 
is induced in the high etheric realm? Does not the force 
following permeation by the Divine Will show that even this 
order of ether, this luminiferous region, is bounded by a 
greater region still beyond ? — that it is but the shore which 
borders the realm, from which the radiating forces of the 
Infinite emanate: the luminiferous being the intermediate 
which transfers the will force of the Almighty towards the 
neutral centres of all created things, animate and inanimate, 
visible and invisible ; even down into the very depths of all 
molecular masses. The activity of the corpuscles, in all 
aggregations, represents the outflow of this celestial force. 



More of Keely's Theories. 271 

from the laminiferoas track, towards all these molecular 
centres of neutralitj, and reveals to as the connecting link 
between mind and matter. How plainly are we thus taught 
that God is everywhere, and at the same time in every 
place. It gives us a new sense of the omniscience and omni- 
presence of the Creator. In these researches I am brought so 
near to the celestial conditions that my pen is ready to &H 
from my hand while writing on this subject ; so more and 
more sensibly do I feel my abject ignorance of its depths. . . . 

These conditions of luminosity have no thermal forces 
iassociated with them; although^ paradoxically^ all thermal 
conditions emanate from that source. The tenuity of this 
element accounts for it. It is only when these sympathetic 
streams come in conflict with the cruder elementary conditions^ 
either the molecular or atomic^ that heat is evolved from its 
latent state, and a different order of light from the etheric 
luminous is originated, which has all the high conditions of 
thermal force associated with it : the sun being the inter- 
mediate transmitter. Thus is shown the wonderful velocity 
of these sympathetic streams emanating from celestial space. 

The sympathetic forces transmitted by our solar planet, to 
\ which our earth is so susceptible, are continuously received 

from the luminiferous realm ; the sympathetic volume of which, 
as expended, is constantly equated by the exhaustless will- 
force of the Creator. Had the solar energy been subservient 
to what physicists ascribe it, the sun would have been a dead 
planet thousands of centuries ago, as also all planets depending 
upon it as an intermediate. 

In fact, all planetary masses are sympathetic-transferring- 
mediums, or intermediates, of this prime, luminous, dominant 
element. In the vibratory subdivision of matter^ as pro- 
gressive evolution has been analyzed, it is evident that these 
transfers of sympathetic force extend beyond the limits of our 
orbital range, from system to system, throughout the realms of 
space : these progressive systems becoming themselves, after a 
certain range of sympathetic motion, sympathetic intermediates, 
as included in the whole of one system, exemplified so beauti- 
fully in the cerebral convolutions, with their connective sym- 
: pathy for each other ; transferring as a whole on the f ocaliz- 



1 



f 



272 The Keely Mystery. 

ing centre, from whicH it radiates to all parts of the physical 
organism, controlling in all its intricate yariety the sympathetic 
action, of our movements. 

" What is there that we really know ? '* asks Buckle. " We 
talk of the law of gravitation, and yet we know not what 
gravitation is ; we talk of the conservation of force and dis- 
tribution of forces, and we know not what forces are." " The 
vibratory principles now discovered in physics,^' says Hem- 
street, ^'are so fine and attenuated that they become ah 
analogy to mental or cerebral vibrations." Let us see what 
Keely*s system of vibratory physics says of gravity, cohesion, 
etc. 

What is Gravity ? — Gravity is an eternal existing con- 
dition in etheric space, from which all visible forms are con- 
densed. Consequently, it is inherent in all forms of matter, 
visible and invisible. It is not subject to time nor space. It 
is an established connective link between all forms of matter 
from their birth, or aggregation. Time is annihilated by it, 
as it has already traversed space when the neutral centres of 
the molecules were established. 

Oraviiy, then, is nothing more than an attractive, sym- 
pathetic stream, flowing towards the neutral centre of the 
earth, emanating from molecular centres of neutrality; con- 
cordant with the earth's centre of neutrality, and seeking its 
medium of affinity with a power corresponding to the cha- 
racter of the molecular mass. 

What is Cohesion? — Cohesion is sympathetic negative 
attraction. It is the negative, vibratory assimilation, or 
aggregation, of the molecules, acting according to the density 
or compactness of the molecular groupings on their structures. 
The differing character of molecular densities, or molecular 
range of motion, represents differing powers of attraction. 
The lower the range of motions on the molecular vibrations of 
these structures, the greater is the attractive force that holds 
them together ; and vice versa. 

What is Heat ? Heat may be classed as a vibro- atomic 
element, not exceeding 14,000 vibrations per second at its 
greatest intensity, latent in all conditions of matter both 
visible and invisible. The velocity of the sympathetic flows 



More of Keeiys Theories. 273 

which emanate from our solar world, the sun, coming into 
contact with our atmospheric medium, liberates this element 
in all the diflPerent degrees of intensity that give warmth to 
our earth. Light is another resultant; the different inten- 
sities of which are produced according to the different angles 
of this sympathetic projectment. 

The light that emanates from a glow-worm is the resultant 
of the action of the sympathetic medium of the insect itself on 
a centre of phosphorescent matter, which is included in its 
structure. The resultant of the two conditions are quite 
different, but they are governed by the same laws of sym- 
pathetic percussion. 

Radiation is the term used to express the reaching out of 
the thermal element, after its liberation from its corpuscular 
imprisonment, to be re-absorbed or returned again to its 
sympathetic environment ; teaching us a lesson in the equation 
of disturbance of sympathetic equilibrium. 

Force. 

'^ By what means is force exerted, and what definitely is 
force ? Given that force can be exerted by an act of will, do 
we understand the mechanism by which this is done ? And if 
there is a gap in our knowledge between the conscious idea of 
a motion and the liberation of muscular energy needed to 
accomplish it, how do we know that a body may not be moved 
without ordinary material contact by an act of will ? '* These 
questions were asked by Professor Lodge in his paper on 
" Time ; " and as Keely contends that all metallic substances 
after having been subjected to a certain order of vibration 
may be so moved, let us see how he would answer these 
questions. When Faraday endeavoured to elaborate some of 
his ^^ unscientific notions in regard to force and matter,'^ men 
of science then said that Faraday's writings were not trans- 
latable into scientific language. The same has been said of 
Keely's writings. Pierson says, *' The very fact that there is 
about the product of another's genius what you and I cannot 
understand is a proof of genius, i.e., of a superior order of 
faculties." Keely, who claims to have discovered the existence 
of hidden energy in all aggregations of matter, imprisoned 

T 



2 74 The Keely Mystery. 

there by the infinite velocity of molecnlar rotation, asserts 
that '' physicisbs in their mental rambles in the realm of 
analytical chemistry, analytical as understood by them, have 
failed to discover the key-note which is associated with the 
flow of the mental element ; '' that " they have antagonized or 
subverted all the conditions," in this unexplored territory of 
negative research, which he has demonstrated as existing in 
reference to latent energy locked in corpuscular space. These 
antagonisms might have been sooner removed had those 
physicists who witnessed some of Keely^s experiments, while he 
was still working blindfold as it were, in past years, not 
belonged to that class of scientists *^ who only see what they 
want to see, and who array facts and figures adroitly on the 
side of preconceived opinion/' Since the last meeting of the 
British Association, Keely, in writing of some of the addresses 
delivered, says : '' It delights me to find that physicists are 
verging rapidly toward a region which, when they reach, will 
enable them to declare to the scientific world what they now 
deny ; rt*., thai immense volumes of energy exist in all conditions 
of corpuscular spaces. My demonstrations of this truth have been 
ignored by them and now they must find it out for themselves. 
I do not doubt that they will reach it in their own way. I accept 
Professor Stoney's idea that an apsidal motion might be 
caused by an interaction between high and low tenuous 
matter ; but such conditions, even of the highest accelerated 
motion, are too far down below the etheric realm to infiuence 
it sympathetically, even in the most remote way. I mean by 
this that no corpuscular action, nor interaction can disturb or 
change the character of etheric vibrations. The conception of 
the molecule disturbing the ether, by electrical discharges from 
its parts, is not .correct ; as the highest conditions associated 
with electricty come under the fourth descending order of 
sympathetic condensation, and consequently its corpuscular 
realm is too remote to take any part towards etheric dis- 
turbance. Hypothesis is one thing and actual experimental 
demonstration is another; one being as remote from the 
other as the electrical discharges from the recesses of the mole- 
cule are from the tenuous condition of the universal ether. The 

• 

conjecture as regards the motion being a series of harmonic 



More of Keeiys Theories. 275 

elliptic ones, accompanied by a slow apsidal one, I believe to 
be correct. . . . The combination of these motions would 
necessarily prodnce two circular motions of diflTerent ampli- 
tudes whose differing periods might correspond to two lines of 
the spectrum, as conjectured, and lead the experimenter, 
perhaps, into a position corresponding to an ocular illusion. 
Every line of the spectrum, I think, consists not of two close 
lines, but of compound triple lines : though not until an in- 
strument has been constructed, which is as perfect in its parts 
as is the sympathethic field that environs matter, can any 
truthful conclusion be arrived at from demonstration. 

It must be remembered that Keelv claims to have demon- 
strated the subdivision of matter in seven distinct orders : 
molecular y intermolecular, atomic, inter -atomic, etheric, inter- 
ethericy reaching the compound inter-etheric in the seventh 
order. In commenting farther upon the experimental re- 
searches of men of science to show whether ether in contact with 
moving matter is affected by the motion of such matter, Keely 
writes : " The motion of any matter of less tenuity than the ether 
cannot affect it any more than atmospheric air could be held 
under pressure in a perforated chamber. The tenuous flow of 
a magnet cannot be waived aside by a plate of heavy glass, and 
yet the magnetic flow is only of an inter-atomic character and 
far more crude than the introductory etheric. The etheric 
element would remain perfectly static under the travel of the 
most furious cyclone ; it would pass through the molecular 
interstices of any moving projectile with the same facility that 
atmospheric air would pass though a coarse sieve. Ether 
could not be affected by the motion of less tenuous matter, 
but if the matter were of the same tenuous condition it would 
sympathetically associate itself with it ; consequently there 
would be no motion any more than motion accompanies 
gravity. 

In the same way that the mind flow induces motion on the 
physical organism, sympathetic flows on molecular masses 
induce motion on the molecular. The motion of the mole- 
cules in all vegetable ajid mineral forms in nature are the 
results of the sympathetic force of the celestial mind flow, or 
the etheric luminous, over terrestrial matter. This celestial 

T 2 



276 The Keely Mystery. 

flow is the controlling medium of the universe, and one of its 

closest associates is gravity The molecule is a world 

in itself, carrying with it all the ruling sympathetic conditions 
which govern the greatest of the planetary masses. It 
oscillates within its etheric rotating envelope with an inconceiv- 
able velocity, without percussing its nearest attendant, and is 
always held within its sphere of action by the fixed gravital 
power of its neutral centre, in the same sympathetic order that 
exists between the planetary worlds. The dissociation of aggre- 
gated molecules by intermolecular vibration does not disturb 
even to an atomic degree these fixed neutral points. Each 
molecule contributes its quota to the latent electrical force, 
which shows up by explosion after its gathering in the storm 
clouds, and then it returns to the molecular embrace it origin- 
ally occupied. You may call this return, absorption ; but it 
gets there first during corpuscular aggregation, and comes 
from there, or shows itself, during sympathetic disturbance of 
equilibrium. 

There are three kinds of electricity, the harmonic and en- 
harmonic, which, with their leader, the dominant, form the 
first triple. Their sympathetic associations evolve the energy 
of matter. The dominant is electricity luminous, or pro- 
pulsive positive. The harmonic, or the magnetic, which is 
the attractive, with its wonderful sympathetic outreach, is 
the negative current of the triune stream. The enharmonic, 
or high neutral, acts as the assimilative towards the re- 
instatement of sympathetic disturbance. In electric lighting, 
the velocity of the dynamos accumulates only the harmonic 
current — by atomic and inter-atomic conflict — transferring 
one two hundred thousandth of the light that the dominant 
current would give, if it were possible to construct a device 
whereby it could be concentrated and dispersed. But this 
supreme portion can never be handled by any finite mode. 
Each of these currents has its triple flow, representing the 
true lines of the sympathetic forces that are constantly 
assimilating with the polar terrestrial envelope. The rotation 
of the earth is one of the exciters that disturbs the equili- 
brium of these sensitive streams. The alternate light and 
darkness induced by this motion helps to keep up the ac- 



More of Keelys Theories. 277 

tivity of these streams^ and the consequent assimilation and 
dissimilation. The light zone being ever followed by the 
dark zone, holds the sympathetic polar wave constant in its 
flactnations. This fact may be looked upon as the foundation 
of the fable that the world rests upon a tortoise. The rota- 
tion of the earth is controlled and continued by the action of 
the positive and negative sympathetic celestial streams. Its 
pure and steady motion, so free from intermitting impulses, 
is governed to the most minute mathematical nicety by the 
mobility of the aqueous portion of its structure, i.6., its 
oceans and ocean's anastomosis. There is said to be a grain 
of truth in the wildest fable, and herein we have the elephant 
that the tortoise stands on. The fixed gravital centres of 
neutrality, the sympathetic concordants to the celestial out- 
reach, that exist in the inter-atomic position, are the connec- 
tive sympathetic links whereby the terrestrial is held in inde- 
pendent suspension. We cannot say that this corresponds to 
what the elephant stands upon, but we can say, ^^ This is the 
power whereby the elephant is sympathetically suspended.'' 

The Atom. 

Question asked in Clerk Maxwell's memoirs : *' Under what 
form, right, or light, can an atom be imagined?" Keely 
replies. It eludes the grasp of the imagination, for it is the 
introductory step to a conception of the eternity of the dura- 
tion of matter. The magnitude of the molecule, as compared 
to the inter-atom, is about on the same ratio as a billiard ball 
to a grain of sand ; the billiard ball being the domain where- 
in the triple inter-molecules rotate, the inter- molecules again 
being the field wherein the atomic triplets sympathetically 
act, and again progressively, in the inter-atomic field, the first 
order of the etheric triplets begins to show its sympathetic 
inreach for the centres of neutral focalization. It is im- 
possible for the imagination to grasp such a position. Inter- 
atomic subdivision comes under the order of the fifth dimen- 
sional space in etheric condensation. Atoms and corpuscules 
can be represented by degrees of progressive tenuity, as ac- 
cording to progressive subdivision, but to imagine the 
ultimate position of the atomic alone would be like trying to 



278 The Keely Mystery. 

take a measurement of immeasurable space. We often speak 
of the borders of the infinite. No matter what the outreach 
may be, nor how minute the corpuscular subdivision, we still 
remain on the borders, looking over the far beyond, as ono 
on the shore of a boundless ocean who seeks to cross it with 
his gaze. Therefore, philosophically speaking, as the atom 
belongs to the infinite and the imagination to the finite, it can 
never be comprehended in any form or light, nor by any 
right \ for in the range of the imagination it is as a bridge of 
mist which can never be crossed by any condition that is 
associated with a visible molecular mass, that is, by mind as 
associated with crude matter. 

Sympathetic Outreach 

is not induction. They are quite foreign to each other in 
principle. Sympathetic outreach is the seeking for concord- 
ance to establish an equation on the sympathetic disturbance 
of equilibrium. When a magnet is brought into contact with 
a keeper, there is no induction of magnetism from the magnet 
into the keeper. The static force of the magnet remains un- 
changed, and the action between the two may be compared to 
a sympathetic outreach of a very limited range of motion. 
The sympathetic outreach of the moon towards the earth, has 
a power strong enough to extend nearly a quarter of a million 
of miles to lift the oceans out of their beds. This is not the 
power of induction. . . . 

The sympathetic envelope of our earth owes its volume and 
its activity entirely to celestial radiating forces. Reception 
and dispersion-are kept up by atomic and inter-atomic conflict, 
as between the dominant and enharmonic. 

Silver represents the 3rd, gold the 6th, and platina the 
9th, in their links of association, one to the other, in the 
molecular range of their motions, when submitted to vibratory 
impulses. 

If an introductory impulse, representing the sympathetic 
chord of transmission, say B flat, or any other chord, be given 
to a sectional transmitting wire, the molecular triple, that is 
carried sympathetically along the path of such transmitter, by 
the differentiation induced, excites high sympathy with the 



More of Keely's Theories, 2 79 

polar terrestrial stream. The polar terrestrial, being triane in 
its character, requires a triune sympathizer to meet its diffe- 
rential requirements : silver the harmonic^ gold the enhar- 
monic, and platina the dominant. When this triple metallic 
condition is properly sensitized, by any chord on the domi- 
nant, combined molecular, differentiated action is induced; 
showing a condition approaching magnetism in its develop- 
ment of related sympathy, without having the conditions 
that are truly magnetic, as this term (magnetic) is understood 
by all physicists. 

Magnetism is not polar negative attraction, any more 
than polar negative attraction is magnetism ; for polar nega- 
tive attraction shows positive sympathetic outreach, of a high 
order ; which is a condition entirely foreign to magnetism. 

Sympathetic negative atti'action is not the resultant of 
electrical sympathization, but it includes the full triune flow ; 
the dominant being the leader and associate of the celestial. 
The sympathetic outreach, of negative attraction, is the power 
that holds the planetary masses in their orbital ranges of 
oscillatory action. Magnetism has no outreach, but it per- 
vades all terrestrial masses — all planetary masses. It is highly 
electrical in its character, in fact magnetism is bom of 
electricity ; whereas negative attraction is not, but it has a 
sympathetic outreach for magnetism. Magnetism is static. 
Sympathetic negative attraction reaches from planet to planet ; 
but electricity does not, nor does magnetism. Sympathetic 
negative attraction is born of the celestial, and impregnates 
every mass that floats in space : seeking out all magnetic or 
electric conditions; and all these masses are subservient to 
celestial outreach. All the magnets in the world could not 
induce rotation, no matter how differentiated, but polar nega- 
tive attraction induces rotation. 

Htdbogin. 

The horizon of matter, which has been thought to rest 
over attenuated hydrogen, may extend to infinite reaches 
beyond, including stuffs or substances which have never been 
revealed to the senses. Beings fashioned of this attenuated 



28o The Keely Mystery. 

substance might walk by our side unseen, nor casta shadow in 
the noon-day sun. — Hudson Tuttle. 

This supposition of itself admits that hydrogen is a com- 
pound. If it were indivisible it would assimilate with the 
high luminous^ from which all substances are formed or 
aggregated. If hydrogen were a simple it could not be confined. 
No molecular structure known to man can hold the inter- lumi- 
nous ; not even the low order of it that is chemically liberated. 
The word " attenuated " admits that hydrogen is a compound. 
I contend that hydrogen is composed of three elements, with 
a metallic base, and comes under the order of the second 
atomic, both in vibration and sympathetic outreach. 

Hydrogen exists only where planetary conditions exist : 
there it is always present, but never in uninterfered space. 
There is much celestial material that has never been revealed 
to the senses. My researches lead me to think that hydrogen 
carries heat in a latent condition, but I do not believe it will 
ever be possible to originate a device that will vibrate hydrogen 
with a velocity to induce heat. 

The word imponderable as applied to a molecule is incorrect. 
All gases as well as atmospheric air are molecular in their 
structures. If atmospheric air is subdivided, by atomic .vibra- 
tion, it merely dissociates the hydrogen from the oxygen ; 
neither of which, though disunited, passes from the inter- 
molecular state; and not until hydrogen is sympathetically 
subdivided in its inter-molecular structure by inter-atomic 
vibrations can it assimilate with the introductory etheric 
element. There is a wonderful variation of gravital sympathy 
between the gaseous elements of compounds, all of which comes 
under the head of molecular. . . . 

Under date of October 1st, 1891, Mr. Keely writes: I see 
no possibility of failure, as I have demonstrated that my 
theories are correct in every particular, as far as I have gone; — i-, 
and if I am not handicapped in any way during the next 
eight months, and my depolarizer is perfect, I will then be 
prepared to demonstrate the truth of all that I assert in re- 
ference to disintegration, cerebral diagnosis, aerial supension 
and dissociation, and to prove the celestial gravital link of 
sympathy as existing between the polar terrestrial and equa- 



! 



More of Keelys Theories, 2 8 1 

tion of mental disturbance of equilibrium. It is a broad 
assertion for one man, and ' an ignorant man ' at that, to 
make ; but the proof will then be so overwhelming in its 
truthful simplicity that the most simple-minded can understand 
it. Then I will be prepared to give to science and to com- 
merce a system that will elevate both to a position far above 
that which they now occupy. 

Again, November 4th, Mr. Keely says : The proper system 
for the treatment of cerebral differentiation is not yet known 
to the physician of to-day. The dissimilarities of opinion 
existing, with regard to any case, are confounding. When the 
true system is recognized, the vast number of physical experi- 
mentalists, now torturing humanity, will die a natural death. 
Until this climax is reached, physical suffering must go on 
multiplying at the same ratio that experimentalists increase. 
Molecular differentiation is the fiend that wrecks the physical 
world, using the seat of the cerebral forces as its intermediate 
transmitter. It is the devastating dragon of the universe, 
and will continue to devastate until a St. George arises to 
destroy it. The system of equating molecular differentiation 
is the St. George that will conquer. 

When my system is completed for commerce, it will be 
ready for science and art. I have become an extensive night 
worker, giving not less than eighteen hours a day, in times of 
intensification. I have timed my race for life and I am bound 
to make it. . . . 

New York Truthy 15th May, ]890, in commenting upon 
Keely's claims to have " annihilated gravity and turned the 
mysterious polar current to a mill-race,^' continues : ** I 
sincerely hope that Mr. Keely may prove, as prom late 
DEVELOPMENTS HB IS LIKE TO DO, that the hidden spii*it of the 
Cosmos, which men call Deity, First Cause, Nature, and other 
sonorous but indefinite names, has manifested itself to him ; 
that the music of the spheres is a truth, not an imagination, 
and that vibration, which is sight, hearing, taste and smell, is 
in serious verity, all else. The fable of Orpheus and Arion 
may have a foundation in actual physics, the harmonies that 
move our souls to grief or joy as music, may be the same as 
those that govern and impel the stars in their courses, cause 



282 The Keely Mystery. 

molecules to crystallize into symmetry, and from symmetry 
into life. Who shall say P If the accounts op Keely's latb 

ACHIEVEMENTS BE TBUE, AND THET ABE HONESTLY VOUCHED FOK 
BY HEN OF WORTH AND NOTE, THEN THE SECRET IS LAID BABE, THE 

CORE OF BEING IS OPENED OUT. In this age of dawning reason 
the candle cannot always be hidden under a bushel ; some 
enterprising hand will lift the obstruction and let the light 
shine before men." 

Two years have nearly passed away since this was written, 
during which time Mr. Keely has been engaged in perfecting 
his system for aerial navigation. He has, one by one, over- 
come all obstacles, and so far gained control, of the mysterious 
polar current, that he has been able to exhibit on the thirds, 
or molecular graduation of the propeller of his air-ship, 120 
revolutions in a minute ; and on the sixths, or atomic gradua- 
tion, 360 revolutions in a minute. He still has the etheric 
field to conquer ; but those who know how many years he 
has been making his mistakes steppiugstones in his upward 
progress, surmounting obstacle after obstacle which would 
have dismayed a less courageous soul, feel little doubt that he 
will " make the race," which he has timed for life, and reach 
the goal a conqueror, notwithstanding he is still so often 
'' handicapped.'^ 

All those who had the privilege of witnessing Keely'a re- 
searching experiments, in the spring of 1890, when he first 
succeeded in raising the metal weight, and who were 
sufficiently acquainted with the laws of physics to understand 
the conditions under which the weight was raised, pronounced 
the force by which it was affected to be an unknown force. 
Had the weight been but a nail or a feather, lifted under 
such conditions, physicists know that, after he has gained as 
perfect control of it as we now have of steam, air-ships 
weighing thousands of tons can be raised to any height in 
our atmosphere, and the seemingly untraversable highways of 
the air opened to commerce. 

This force is not, like steam or electricity, fraught with 
danger in certain states to those who use it ; for, after the 
molecular masd of the vessel has been fitted to the conditions 
required, its control becomes of such a nature that seemingly 



More of Keelys Theories. 28 



-> 



a star might as soon go astray^ and be lost to the universe^ 
as for the aerial ship to meet with an accident^ unless its 
speed was pushed to that point where gravity resumes its 
control. In fact, Keely asserts that there is no known force 
so safe to use as the polar terrestrial force, for when the 
celestial and terrestrial conditions are once set up, they re- 
main for ever ; perpetual molecular action the result. 

In using the word celestial, Keely refers to the air, in the 
same sense that terrestrial refers to the earth. 

Wide through the waste of ether, sun and star 

All linked by harroony, which is the chain 
That binds to earth the orbs that wheel afar 

Through the blae fields of Nature's wide domain. 

Pbecival. 



From the New York Home Journal, 

THE SONG OP THE CAKBONS.* 

A weird, sweet melody, faint and far, 

A humming murmur, a rhythmic ring. 
Floats down from the tuwer where the lenses are : — 

Can you hear the song which the carbons sing P 

Millions of SBons have rolled away 
In the grand chorale which the stars rehearse, 

Since the note, bo sweet in our soug to-day. 
Was struck in the chord of the universe. 

The vast vibration went floating on 

Through the diapason of space and time. 
Till the impulse swelled to a deeper tone. 

And mellowed and thrilled with a finer rhyme. 

Backward and forward the atoms go 

In the surging tide of that soundless sea, 
Whose billows from nowhere to nowhere flow. 

As they break on the sands of eternity. 

Yet, through all the coasts of the endless All, 

In the ages to come, as in ages gone. 
We feel but the throb of that mystic thrall 

Which binds responsive the whole in one. 

^ The universal physical law of molecular vibration is finely illus- 
trated in the carbon pencils of the electric arc light used in some of the 
largest lighthonses. The molecular stir set np in the armatures of the 
dynamo machines by rapid magnetization and demagnetization is trans- 
mitted to the carbon points of the lantern, and reappears as a distinct 
musical tone. 



284 The Keely Mystery. 

We feel but the pulse of that viewless hand 
Which ever has been and still shall be, 

In the stellar orb and the grain of sand. 
Through nature's endless paternity. 

The smile which plays in the maiden's glance, 
Or stirs in the oeat of an insect's wing. 

Is of kin with the north light's spectral dance. 
Or the dazzliug zoue of the planet's ring. 

From our lonely tower aloft in air. 
With the breezes aroand us, tranquil and free, 

When the storm rack pales in the lightning's glare. 
Or the starlight sleeps in the sleeping sea, 

We send our greeting through breathless space, 
To our distant cousins, the nebulaB, 

And catch in the comet's misty trace, 
But a drifting leaf from the tribal tree. 

The song we hum is but one faint sound 
In the hymn which echoes from pole to pole» 

Which fills the domes of creation's round, 
And catches its key from the over-soul. 

And when it ceases all life shall fail, 
Time's metronome shall arrested stand ; 

All voice be voiceless, the stars turn pale, 
And the great conductor shall drop his wand. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A PIONEBB IN AN UNKNOWN REALM. 

Thas, either present elements are the true elements, or there is a 
probabUitj of eventaallv obtaining some more high and general power 
of Nature, even than electricity ; and which, at the same time, might 
reyeal to ns an entirely new grade of the elements of matter, now 
hidden from our view and almost from our suspicion. — The Nature 
of the Chemical Elements, Fabadat, 1836. 

A mysterious force exists in the vibrations of the ether, called sound, 
which science and invention have so far failed to utilize ; but which, no 
doubt in the near future, will come under man's control, for driving the 
wheels of industry. — Thought as Force, E. S. Huntington. 



Force and force{ 
No end of forces ! Have they mind like men P 

Browning. 

The Spectator^ commenting on the jubilee of the Chemical 
Society, last year, said it was notable for two remarkable 
speeches ; one by Lord Salisbury, and the other by Sir Lyon 
Playfair. Lord Salisbury reminded his hearers that about one 
hundred years ago, a very celebrated tribunal had informed 
Lavoisier that the French Republic had no need of chemists ; 
" but," said his Lordship, *' Lavoisier, though a man of very 
advanced opinions, was behind this age/' Lord Salisbury pro- 
ceeded to exalt chemistry as an instrument of the higher 
educational discipline. Astronomy, he said, was hardly more 
than a science of things that probably are ; for, at such 
distance in space, it was impossible to verify your inferences. 
Geology he regarded as a science of things as they probably 
were ; verification being impossible after such a lapse of time. 
But chemistry he treated as a science of things as they 
actually are at the present time. The Spectator remarks : — 
Surely that is questionable. All hypothesis is more or 



286 The Keely Mystery. 

less a matter of probability. No one has ever verified the 
existence of atoms. 

Sir Lyon Playfair, following Lord Salisbury, said, Boyle has 
been called the father of chemistry and the brother of the Earl 
of Cork ; ironically hinting, perhaps, that Lord Salisbury was 
reflecting as much immediate glory on chemistry, by his 
interest in it, as did the relationship of the first considerable 
chemist to the Irish earl. Sir Lyon, acknowledging the 
revolutionizing progress of chemistry, remarked that within 
the last fifty years it had seen great changes ; then, oxygen 
was regarded as the universal lover of other elements ; and 
nitrogen was looked upon as a quiet, confirmed bachelor ; 
but oxygen had turned out to be a comparatively respectable 
bigamist, that only marries two wives at a time ; and nitrogen 
had turned out to be a polygamist ; generally requiring three 
conjugates, and sometimes five, at a time. The false teach- 
ings of physicists in the past were admitted, including Sir 
Lyon's own errors; his old conceptions concerning carbonic 
acid and carbonic oxide all having broken down, under the 
crushing feet of progress. After all, says the Spectator^ it 
seems that the French revolutionists should have welcomed 
chemistry, instead of snubbing it, for it has been the most 
revolutionary of sciences. 

At the present time, notwithstanding the experiences of 
the past. Science stands as calmly on the pedestal, to which 
she has exalted herself, as if not even an earthquake could 
rock its foundations. In her own opinion, she holds the 
key to nature's domains. Some few there are who are ready 
to admit that it is possible Nature still holds the key herself; 
and who are not unwilling to encounter another revolution, if 
they can extend their knowledge of Nature's laws ; even 
though it may leave only ruins, where now all is supposed to 
be so solid as to defy earthquakes and other revolutionizing 
forces. 

In reviewing the history of the onward march of chemistry 
in the past, we find that Robert Boyle, who lived from 1627 to 
1691, was the first chemist who grasped the idea of the dis- 
tinctions between an elementary and a compound body. He 
has been called the first scientific chemist, and he certainly did 



A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm. 287 

much to advance chemical science, particularly in the border- 
land of chemistry and physics, but he did this more by his 
overthrow of false theories, than in any other way. It was 
left for Scheele (born 1742), an obscure Swedish chemist 
whose discoveries extended over the whole range of chemical 
science, and his French contemporary, Lavoisier (bom 1743), 
to bring about a complete revolution in chemistry. Thus, 
step by step, and period by period, experimental science has 
prepared the way to reach that elevation which humanity is 
destined eventually to attain, when all errors have been dis- 
carded and truth reigns triumphant. The question has been 
asked, in view of the past history of discovery, what may not 
the science of the future accomplish in the unseen pathways 
of the air ? That still unconquered field lies before us, and 
we know that it is only a question of time when man will hold 
dominion there with as firm sway as he now holds it on land 
and sea. 

Physics and chemistry walk hand in hand. Scientists cannot 
cut the tie that joins them together in experimental science. 
Physics treats of the changes of matter without regard to its in- 
ternal constitution. The laws of gravitation and cohesion belong 
to physical science. They concern matter without reference to 
its composition. Chemistry makes us acquainted with the consti- 
tuents of the difierent forms of matter, their proportions and the 
changes which they are capable of bringing about in each other. 
But notwithstanding the lessons of the past, both chemistry 
and physics are blind to what the future has in store for them. 
Scientists have erected barriers to progress, building them so 
as to appear of solid masonry on the ground of false hypotheses ; 
but, when the hour is ripe, these will be swept away as if by a 
cyclone, leaving not one stone on another. It was Boyle who 
overthrew the so-called Aristotelian doctrine, and Paracelsus's 
teachings of the three constitutents of matter, disputed first by 
Van Helmont. Boyle taught that chemical combination con- 
sists of an approximation of the smallest particles of matter, and 
that a decomposition takes place when a third body is present, 
capable of exerting on the particles of the one element a 
greater attraction than is exei*cised by the particles of the 
element with which it is combined. In this conjecture there 



288 The Keely Mystery. 

is just a hint of the grand potentialities in the unknown realm 
which is now being explored by Keely, the discoverer of the 
order of vibration that releases the latent force held in the 
interstitial spaces of the constituents of water ; one order of 
vibration, being more in sympathy. with one of the elements of 
water than with the other, possesses a greater attraction for 
that element and thereby ruptures its atoms, showing up new 
elements. Not all men of science are willing to admit the 
atomic theory; although it explains satisfactorily all the 
known laws of chemical combination. Dalton, accepting the 
teachings of the ancients as to the atomic constitution of 
matter, was the first to propound a truly chemical atomic 
theory ; a quantitative theory, declaring that the atoms of the 
different elements are not of the same weight, and that the 
relative atomic weights of the elements are the proportions, by 
weight, in which the elements combine. All previous theories, 
or suggestions, had been simply qualitative. Berzelius, the 
renowned Swedish chemist, advancing Dalton's atomic theory, 
laid* the foundation stones of chemical science, as it now exists. 
Since his day, by the new methods of spectrum analysis, 
elements unknown before have been discovered; and re- 
searchers in this field are now boldly questioning whether all 
the supposed elements are really undecomposable substances, 
and are conjecturing that they are not. On this subject Sir 
Henry Roscoe says : — 

** So far as our chemical knowledge enables us to judge, we 
may assume, with a considerable degree of probability, that 
by the application of more powerful means than are known at 
present, chemists will succeed in obtaining still more simple 
bodies from the so-called elements. Indeed, if we examine 
the history of our science, we find frequent examples occurring 
of bodies, that only a short time ago were considered to be 
elementary, which have been shown to be compounds, upon 
more careful examination.'* 

What the chemist's retort has failed to accomplish has been 
efiected by the discoverer of latent force existing in all forms 
of matter, where it is held locked in the interstitial spaces, 
until released by a certain order of vibration. As yet, the 
order of vibration which releases this force, has not been dis-> 



A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm. 289 

corered in any forms of matter, excepting in the constituents 
of gunpowder, dynamite, and water. The Chinese are sup- 
posed to have invented, centuries before the birth of Christ, 
the explosive compound gunpowder, which requires that order 
of vibration known as heat to bring about a rupture of the 
molecules of the- nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, of which it is 
composed. Dynamite requires another order of vibration — 
concussion — to release the latent force held in the molecular 
embrace of its constituents. The order of vibration dis- 
covered by Keely, which causes the rupture of the molecular 
and atomic capsules of the constituents of water, must remain 
— though in one point only — a secret with the discoverer, until 
he has completed his system for science, and some one patent- 
able invention. Let physicists be incredulous or cautious, it 
matters not to him. He has proved to his own satisfaction 
the actual existence of atoms and their divisibility — and, to 
the satisfaction of thousands capable of forming an opinion, 
the existence of an unknown force. Men of science have 
not been in any haste to aid him, either with money or with 
sympathy, in his researches ; and he will take his own time to 
bestow upon them the fruit of those researches. 

Those who have not clear ideas as to the nature of elemen- 
tary bodies — molecules and atoms — may like to know that 
elements are defined as simple substances, out of which no 
other two or more essentially differing substances have been 
obtained. Compounds are bodies out of which two or more 
essentially differing substances have been obtained. A mole- 
cule is the smallest part of a compound or element that is 
capable of existence in a free state. Atoms are set down, by 
those who believe in the atomic theory, as the indivisible con- 
stituents of molecules. Thus, an element is a substance 
made up of atoms of the same kind ; a compound is a sub- 
stance made up of atoms of unlike kind. 

Over seventy elements are now known, out of which, or com- 
pounds of these with each other, our globe is composed, and 
also the meteoric stones which have fallen on our earth. The 
science of chemistry aims at the experimental examination of 
the elements and their compounds, and the investigation of 
the laws which regulate their combination one with another. 

u 



290 The Keely Mystery. 

For example, in the year 1805, Gay-Lussac and Von Humboldt 
found that one volume of oxygen combines with exactly two 
volumes of hydrogen to form water, and that these exact pro- 
portions hold good at whatever temperature the gases are 
brought into contact. Oxygen and hydrogen are now classi- 
fied as elementary bodies. 

The existence of atoms, if proved, as claimed by the pioneer 
of whom we write, confirms Priestly's idea that all discoveries 
are made by chance ; for it certainly was by a mere chance, 
as we view things with our limited knowledge, that Keely 
stumbled over the dissociation of the supposed simple 
elements of water by vibratory force ; * thus making good 
Roscoe's assumption that, by the application of more powerful 
means than were known to him, still more simple bodies 
would be shown up. Had Keely subdivided these corpuscles 
of matter, after a method known to physicists, he would have 
been hailed as a discoverer, when it was announced by Arthur 
Goddard, in the British Mercantile Gazette, in 1887, that Keely 
declared electricity to be a certain form of atomic vibration of 
what is called the luminiferous ether. 

Had Keely been better understood, science might have 
been marching with giant strides across this unknown realm 
during the many years in which men of learning have refused 
to witness the operation of the dissociation of water, because 
one of their number decided, in 1876, that Keely was using 
compressed air. Fixing bounds to human knowledge, she still 
refuses to listen to the suggestion that what she has declared 
as truth may be as grossly erroneous as were her teachings in 
the days when the rotation of the earth was denied; this 
denial being based upon the assertions of all the great 
authorities of more than one thousand years, that the earth 
could not move because it was flat and stationary. Herodotus 
ridiculed those who did not believe this. For two thousand 
years after the daily rotation of the earth was first suggested, 



^ It will be a matter of interest to those who have given attention to 
the laws of heredity to know that John Ernst Worrell Keely is a grand- 
son of a German composer, Ernst, who led the Baden-Baden onmestra 
in his day ; and that Keely's experiments in vibration had their origin 
in his knowledge of mnsic, and were commenced in his childhood. 



A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm. 291 

the idea was disputed and derided. The history of the past, 
says General Drayson, who claims to hare discovered a third 
movement of the earth, teaches us that erroneous theories 
were accepted as grand truths by all the scientific authorities 
of the whole world during more than fire thousand years.^ 
Although the daily rotation of the earth and its annual 
revolution around the sun had been received as facts 
by the few advanced minds, some five hundred years before 
Christ, yet the obstructions caused by ignorance and prejudice 
prevented these truths from being generally accepted until 
about three hundred years ago, when Copernicus first, and 
afterwards Galileo, revived the theory of the earth's two 
principal movements. Human nature is the same as in the 
days when Seneca said that men would rather cling to an 
error than admit they were in the wrong; so it is not 
strange that General Drayson, as the discoverer of a third 
movement, has not received the attention that he deserves, 
although his mathematical demonstrations seem to be beyond 
dispute. 

With Keely's claim, that latent force exists in all forms of 
matter, it is different ; for it is susceptible of proof by experi- 
ment. In the days when the sphericity of the earth was 
denied, for the asserted reason that the waters of the 
oceans and seas on its surface would be thrown off in its 
revolutions were it so, because water could not stay on a round 
ball,'' the statement could not be disputed ; the theory of the 
laws of gravitation being then unknown. Copernicus and 
Galileo had nothing but theories to offer ; consequently it took 
long years to overcome the bigotry and the baneful influence of 
the great authorities of the time. It is otherwise with Keely, 
who, for fifteen years and more, has been demonstrating this 
discovery to thousands of men ; some of whom, but not all, 
were competent to form an opinion as to whether he was 
"humbugging with compressed air,'* or with a concealed 
dynamo, or, still more absurd, with tricks in suction, as 
asserted by a learned professor. 

Now that some of our men of science have consented to form 

* See " UntroddeD Gronnd in Astronomy and Geology." 

D 2 



292 The Keely Mystery. 

their opinions from observation, without interfering with the 
lines of progressive experimental research which the dis- 
coverer is pursuing, there seems to be no doubt as to the 
result; nor of the protection of the discovery by science. 
Truth' is mighty, and must in the end prevail over mere 
authority. 

It has been said that we need nothing more than the 
history of astronomy to teach us how obstinately the strong- 
holds of error are clung to by incompetent reason ers; but 
when a stronghold is demolished, there is nothing left to cling 
to. Sir John Lubbock says : — The great lesson which science 
teaches is how little we yet know, and how much we have still 
to learn. To which it might be added, and how much we 
have to unlearn ! 

All mysteries are said to be either truths concealing 
deeper truths, or errors concealing deeper errors ; and thus, 
as the mysteries unfold, truth or error will show itself in a 
gradually clearer light, enabling us to distinguish between 
the two. It is now left for men of science to decide as to the 
nature of the mysteries which Keely is slowly unfolding, and 
whether his demonstrations substantiate his theories. They 
have been invited to follow him in his experimental research, 
step by step ; to bestow upon him sympathy and encourage- 
ment, so long withheld, until he reaches that stage where he 
will no longer need their protection. Then, if science is 
satisfied that he has gained a treasure for her, in his years of 
dead-work, she must step aside and wait patiently until he 
has fulfilled his obligq/tions to those who organized themselves 
into a company to aid him, long before she came forward to 
interest herself in his behalf. Those men of science who 
have refused to countenance this great work, even by 
witnessing experiments made to prove the discovery of an 
unknown force, are men who attempt no explanation of the 
miracles of nature by which we are surrounded, assuming that 
no explanation can be g^ven \ but, as Bacon has said, he is a 
bad mariner, who concludes, when all is sea around him, that 
there is no land beyond. 

If the multitude of so-called laws of nature could be resolved 
into one grand universal law, would it not be considered a 



A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm. 293 

great step in the progress of scientific knowledge ? This is 
what our pioneer claims for his discoveries, one law working 
throughout nature, in all things ; for, as Macvicar says, the 
productive and conservative agency in creation, as it exists 
and acts, does not consist of two things, '' idea '' and 
*' power " ; but of a unity embracing both, for which there is 
DO special name. The relation between the Creator and the 
Creation, the First Cause and what he has effected, is alto- 
gether inscrutable ; but intelligence acting analytically, as it 
cannot be kept from doing, insists on these two elements in 
the problem, viz. idea and power. 

^' The law of the universe is a distinct dualism while the 
creative energies are at work ; and of a compound union when 
at rest." 

The hypothesis that motion can only be effected mechani- 
cally, by pressure or traction or contact of some kind, is an 
utterly helpless one to explain even familiar movements. 
Gravitation itself, the grandest and most prevailing pheno- 
menon of the material universe, has set all genius at defiance 
when attempting to conceive a mechanism which might 
account for it. The law of sympathetic association, or 
sympathetic assimilation, between two or more atoms, or 
masses of atoms, explains this grand phenomenon; but 
Roscoe, in theorizing on the atomic theory, says that from 
purely chemical considerations it appears unlikely the exist- 
ence of atoms will ever be proved. It never could have 
been proved by mechanical physics nor by chemistry. The 
law which locks the atoms together would have remained an 
unknown law, had not Keely opened the door leading into 
one of nature's domains which was never entered before, 
unless by the fabled Orpheus, who, mythology tells us, was 
killed because he revealed to man what the gods wished to 
conceal. Certainly, whether Orpheus ever existed or not, the 
principle which Pythagoras promulgated as the teaching of 
Orpheus is disclosed in one of Keely's discoveries. 

In the great fresco of the school of Athens, by Raphael, 
Pythagoras is represented as explaining to his pupils his 
theory that the same principle underlies the harmonies o^ 
music and the motion of heavenly bodies. One of these 



294 The Keely Mystery. 

pupils holds in his hand a tablet^ shaped like a zither^ on 
which are inscribed the Greek words, Diapason, Diapente, 
Diatessaron. Of the diapason, or concord of all, Spenser 
writes, in The Faerie Queen : — 

Nine was the circle set in heaven's place, 
All which compacted made a goodly diapase. 

Here we have a clue to the Thirds, Sixths and Ninths 
of Keely's theories, in the operation of his polar negative 
attractor. The conception of the Pythagoreans of music, as 
the principle of the creation's order, and the mainstay and 
supporter of the material world, is strictly in accordance with 
the marvellous truths which are now being unfolded to 
science. Rightly divined Browning when he wrote of 

. . . music's mystery, which mind fails 
To fathom ; its solution no mere clue ; 

and Cardinal Newman also, when he discoursed of musical 
sounds, " under which great wonders unknown to us seem to 
have been typified,'* as *'the living' law of divine government." 
Since the days of Leucippus, poets and philosophers have often 
touched upon the mysteries hidden in sound, which are now 
being revealed in the experimental researches of Keely. These 
truths make no impression on those who are not gifted with 
any comprehension of nature's harmonious workings, and 
are regarded as flights of fancy and of rhetoric. Among the 
utterances of inspiration — and all truth is inspired — one of the 
most remarkable, when taken in connection with these dis- 
coveries, is found in these eloquent words of the Dean of Boston 
University in his " Review of Herbert Spencer," printed in 
1876 :— 

'^ Think of the universal warring of tremendous forces 
which is for ever going on, and remember that out of this 
strife is born, not chaos void and formless, but a creation of 
law and harmony. Bear in mind, too, that this creation is 
filled with the most marvellous mechanisms, with the most 
exquisite contrivances, and with forms of the rarest beauty. 
Remember, also, that the existence of these forms for even a 
minute depends upon the nicest balance of destructive forces. 



A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm. 295 

Abysses of chaos yawn on every side, and yet creation holds 
on its way. Nature's keys need bat to be jarred to turn the 
tane into unutterable discord, and yet the harmony is pre- 
served. Bring hither your glasses-^and see that, from atomic 
recess to the farthest depth, there is naught but ' toil co- 
operant to an end/ All these atoms move to music; all 
march in tune. Listen until you catch the strain, and then 
say whether it is credible that a blind force should originate 
aud maintain all this.'' 

Sir John Herschel said : — There is some principle in the 
science of music that has yet to be discovered. 

It is this principle which has been discovered by Keely. 
Let his theories be disputed as they have been, and as they 
still may be, the time has come in which his supporters claim 
that he is able to demonstrate what he teaches ; is able to 
show how superficial are the foundations of the strongholds to 
which physicists are clinging; and able to prove purity of 
conditions in physical science which not even the philosophers 
and poets of the past have so much as dreamed of in their 
hours of inspiration. 

ways are made, 

Bnrdeos are lifted, or are laid. 

By some great law anseen and still, 

Onfathomed purpose to fulfil. 

Our materialistic physicists, our Comtist and agnostic 
philosophers, have done their best to destroy our faith. 

Of him who will not believe in Soul because his scalpel 
cannot detect it, Browning wrote : 



To know of, tliink aboa1 
Is all man's snm of faculty effects, 
When exercised on earth's least atom. 
What was. what is, what may such atoms be ?^ 
Unthinkable, nnkDOwable to man. 
Yet, since to think and know fire through and through 
Exceeds man, in the warmth of fire unknown ? 
Its uses — are they so unthiDkableP 
Pass from such obvious power to powers uoseen, 
T3ndreamed of save in their sure consequence : 
Take that we spoke of late, which draws to ground 
The staff my hand lets fall ; it draws at least — 
Thus much man thinks and knows, if nothing more. 

These lines were written in reference to Keely's discovery 



296 The Keely Mystery. 

of the infinite subdivision of the atom ; for not until a much 
later period was Browning influenced by a New York 
journalist to look upon Keely as '^a modem Cagliostro/' 
Keely's discovery was the key-note of " Ferishtah's Fancies/' 
written by Browning before he met this journalist. 

Professor Koenig writes : — I have long given up the idea 
of understanding the Universe; with a little insight into 
its microcosm^ I would feel quite satisfied ; as every day it 
becomes more puzzling. 

But there are no boundaries set to knowledge in the life of 
the Soul, and these discoveries reach out so far towards the 
Infinite, that we are led by them to realize how much there is 
left for science to explore in the supposed unfathomable 
depths of the etheric domain, whence proceeds the influence 
that connects us with that infinite and eternal energy from 
which all things proceed. 

The attitude of willingness to receive truths, of whatever 
nature, now manifested by men of science in regard to Keely's 
experimental research, is shared by all who are not ^^ wise in 
their own conceit.'' They stand ready to welcome, while wait- 
ing for proof, the discovery of Darwin's grand-niece, Mrs. F. J. 
Hughes, as now demonstrated by Keely, viz., that the laws which 
develop and control harmonies, develop and control the uni- 
verse ; and they will rejoice to be convinced (as Keely teaches) 
that all corpuscular aggregation absorbs energy, holding it 
latent in its embrace until liberated by a certain order of vibra- 
tion ; that nature does not aggregate one form of matter under 
one law, and another form of matter under another law. When 
this has been demonstrated, to their entire satisfaction, they 
will acknowledge that Faraday's speculations on the nature of 
force and matter pointed the way to Keely^s discoveries. 
Some broad-minded men have been pursuing lines of researcb 
which give evidence of their desire to solve the problem for 
themselves as to the mode of rupturing the atom, which science 
declares to be indivisible. Before any great scientific 
principle receives distinct enunciation, says Tyndall, it has 
dwelt more or less clearly in many minds. The intellectual 
plateau is already high, and our discoverers are those who. 



A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm. 297 

like peaks above the plateau^ rise over the general level of 
thought at the time. If^ as Browning has said^ 

Tie not what man does which exalts him, bnt what man would do, 

surely this discoverer merits the sympathy and the admiration 
of all men, whether he succeeds commercially or not, for his 
persistent efforts to make his discoveries of use to the world. 
Keely has always said that scientists would never be able to 
understand his discoveries until he had reached some practical 
or commercial result. Only now he sees an interest awakened 
among men of science, which is as gratifying to him as it is 
unexpected. For the first time in his life, he is working with 
the appreciation of men competent to comprehend what he 
has done in the past, and what remains to be done in the future, 
without one aspiration on their part for monetary results. 

Foremost among these men was the late Joseph Leidy, Pro- 
fessor of Biology in the University of Pennsylvania; but 
physicists were not satisfied to take the opinion of this great 
man, because he was a biologist. What better preparation 
than the study of the science of life could a man have to 
qualify him for discriminating between laws of nature as con- 
jectured by physicists^ and Nature's operations as demonstrated 
by Keely ? 

To such men^ possessing entire scientific and intellectual 
liberty of thought, with that love of justice and truth which 
keeps its possessor from self-conceit, arrogance and intolerance, 
the world owes all that we now possess of scientific advance, 
since the days when men believed the thunder and lightning 
to be the artillery of the gods. 

LuciPEB, SejHemhery 1892. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

LATBNT FORCE IN INTERSTITIAL SPACES — ELECTRO-MAGNETIC 
RADIATION — MOLECULAR DISSOCIATION. 

(By John Ernst Worrell Keely.) 

The atom is infinitely divisible. — Arthur Schopenhauer, 

For thon well knowest that the imbecility of our understanding, in 
not comprehending the more abstruse and retired causes of things, is not 
to be ascribed to any defect in their nature, bnt in our own hoodwinkt 
intellect. — P. 6, A Ternary of Paradoxes. — Van Helmont. 

The advance of science, which for a time overshadowed philosophy, 
bas brought men face to face once more with ultimate questions, and 
has revefued the impotence of science to deal with its own conditions and 
pre-suppoBitions. The needs of science itself call for a critical doctrine 
of knowledge as the basis of an ultimate theorv of things. Philosophy 
must criticize not only the categories of science but also the metaphysical 
systems of the past. — Prop. Seth. 

, Latent Force. 

Science, even in its highest progressive conditions, cannot 
assert anything definite. The many mistakes that men of 
science have made in the past prove the fallacy of asserting. 
By doing so they bastardize true philosophy and, as it were, 
place the wisdom of God at variance ; as in the assertion that 
latent power does not exist in corpuscular aggregations of 
matter, in all its diflFerent forms, visible or invisible. 

Take, for example, gunpowder, which is composed of three 
different mediums of aggregated matter, saltpetre, charcoal, and 
sulphur, each representing different ordets of molecular density 
which, when associated under proper conditions, gives what is 
called an explosive compound. In fact it is a mass which is 
made susceptible at any moment by its exciter fire, which is 
an order of vibration, to evolve a most wonderful energy in 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces. 299 

volume many thoasanda of times greater than the volume it 
represents in its molecular mass. If it be not latent force that 
is thus liberated by its exciter^ a mere spark, what is it P Are 
not the gases that are evolved in such great volume and power 
held latent in the molecular embrace of its aggregated matter^ 
before being excited into action ? If this force is not com- 
pressed there, nor placed there by absorption, how did it get 
there ? And by what power was it held in its quiescent state ? 
I contend that it was placed there at the birth of the molecule 
by the law of sympathetic etheric focalization towards the 
negative centres of neutrality with a velocity as inconceivable 
in its character as would be the subdivision of matter to an 
ultimate end. Again, what is the energy that is held in the 
molecular embrace of that small portion of dynamite which by 
slight concussion, another order of vibration, evolves volumes of 
terrific force, riving the solid rock and hurling massive pro- 
jectiles for miles ? If it is not latent power that is excited into 
action, what is it ? Finally, what is held in the interstitial cor- 
puscular embrace of water, which by its proper exciter 
another form of vibration, is liberated showing almost im- 
measurable volume and power? Is not this energy latent, 
quiet, until brought forth by its sympathetic negative ex- 
citer? Could the force thus evolved from these different 
substances be confined again, or pressed back and absorbed 
into the interstitial spaces occupied before liberation, where 
the sympathetic negative power of the Infinite One originally 
placed it ? * 



^ There are some paradoxical conditions shown up in the disintegra- 
tion of water which require farther research to ^et at the solution. 
In disintegratinff, say five drops of water in a steel bnlb of two cobic 
inches volnme of atmospheric air, the force generated by the triple 
order of vibration, when weighed on a lever, shows ten tons pressure per 
square inch. In using the same number of drops in the same bnlb, and 
associating it with a tube of two hundred cubic inches, the result is 
the same in the force developed per square inch as is shown on the 
volume of the one of two cubic inches. The solution of this problem 
seems to rest in the fact that the gaseous element thereby induced even 
in minute quantities, most possess the property of exciting atmo- 
spheric air to that extent as to force it to give up, to quite an extended 
degree, the latent energy that is held in its corpuscular depths. This 
introductory medium seems to act on the air in the same manner that 
a spark of fire acts on a magazine of gunpowder. 



300 The Keely Mystery, 

If latent force is not accnmulated and held in oorpnscnlar 
aggregations how is it that progressive orders of disintegra- 
tion of water induce progressive coDditions of increased 
volume and of higher power ? I hold that in the evolved gases 
of all explosive compounds, dynamite or any other, there 
exists deeper down in the corpuscular embrace of the gaseous 
element, induced by the first explosion, a still greater degree 
of latent energy that could be awakened by the proper con- 
dition of vibration ; and still further on ad infinitum,^ 

Is it possible to imagine that mere molecular dissociation 
could show up such immense volumes of energy^ unassociated 
with the medium of latent force ? 

The question arises, How is this sympathetic power held 
in the interstitial corpuscular condition ? 

Answer, — By the incalculable velocity of the molecular and 
atomic etheric capsules/ which velocity represents billions of 
revolutions per second in their rotations. We shall imagine a 
sphere of twelve inches in diameter, representing a magni- 
fied molecule surrounded by an atmospheric envelope of one 
sixteenth of an inch in depth ; the envelope rotating at a 
velocity of the same increased ratio of the molecule^s magni- 
fication. At the veiy lowest estimate it would give a velocity 
of six hundred thousand miles per second, or twenty-four 
thousand times the circumference of the earth in that time- 
Is it possible to compute what the velocity would be, on the 
same ratio, up to the earth's diameter ? * It is only under 
such illustrations that we can be brought even to faintly 
imagine the wonderful sympathetic activity that exists in the 
molecular realm. An atmospheric film, rotating on a twelve 
inch sphere at the same ratio as the molecular one, would be 
impenetrable to a steel-pointed projectile at its greatest 
velocity ; and would hermetically enclose a resisting pressure 
of many thousands of pounds per square inch. The latent 

The ether is the capsule to the molecnles and atoms all the way 
np to the perfect stream of structural ether. 

' A volume of pure ether equivalent to the atmospheric displace- 
ment caused by our Earth, could be compressed and absorbed in a 
volume of one cubic inch, by the velocity and sympathetic power of the 
etheric triple flows, focalizing toward the neutral centre, at the birth 
of the molecule. 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces. 301 

force evolved in the disintegration of water proves this fact ; 
for under etheric evolution, in progressive orders of vibra- 
tion, these pressures are evolved, and show their energy on a 
lever especially constructed for the purpose, strong enough 
for measuring a force over three times that of gunpowder. 
We shall continue this subject a little farther, and this little 
farther will reach out into infinity. The speculations of the 
physicists of the present age, in regard to latent energy, 
would neutralize the sympathetic conditions that are asso- 
ciated with the governing force of the cerebral and the muscular 
organism. The evolution of a volition, the infinite exciter, 
arouses the latent energy of the physical organism to do its 
work ; differential orders of brain-force acting against each 
other under dual conditions. If there were no latent energy 
to arouse sympathetically, there would be no action in the 
physical frame ; as all force is will-force. 

AH the evolutions of latent power in its varied multi- 
plicity of action induced by its proper exciters, prove the con- 
necting link between the celestial and the terrestrial, the finite 
and the infinite. (See Appendix I.) 

There would be no life, and therefore no action in aggre- 
gated matter, had the latent negative force been left out of it. 

If a bar of steel or iron is brought into contact with a 
magnet, the latent force that the steel or iron is impregnated 
with is aroused, and shows its interstitial latent action by 
still holding another bar. But this experiment does not give 
the most remote idea of the immensity of the force that 
would show itself on more progressive exciters. Enough 
alternate active energy could be evolved, by the proper sym- 
pathetic exciter, in one cubic inch of steel to do the work of 
a horse, by its sympathetic association with the polar force in 
alternate polarization and depolarization. 

This is the power that I am now getting under control 
(using the proper exciters as associated with the mechanical 
media) to do commercial work. In other words, I am 
making a sympathetic harness for the polar terrestrial force : 
first, by exciting the sympathetic concordant force that exists 
in the corpuscular interstitial domain, which is concordant to 
it; and secondly, after the concordance is established, by 



302 The Keely Mystery. 

negatizing the thirds^ sixths^ and ninths of this concordance, 
thereby inducing high velocities with great power by inter- 
mittent negation^ as associated with the dominant thirds. 

Again : Take away the sympathetic latent force that all 
matter is impregnated with, the connective link between the 
finite and the infinite would be dissociated, and gravity would 
be neutralized ; bringing all visible and invisible aggregations 
back into the great etheric realm. 

Here let me ask, What does the term cohesion mean ? 
What is the power that holds molecules together, but electro- 
magnetic negative attraction ? What is the state that is 
brought about by certain conditions of sympathetic vibration, 
causing molecules to repel each other^ but electro-magnetic 
radiation ? 

It must not be understood that the character of the action 
of the latent force liberated from liquids and gases is the 
same, in its evolution, as that of the latent force existing in 
metals. The former shows up an elastic energy, which 
emanates from the breaking up of their rotating envelopes ; 
increasing, at the same time, the range of their corpuscular 
action : thus giving, under confinement, elastic forces of an 
almost infinite chareu)ter. Sy liberation from the tube it is 
confined in, it seeks its medium of concordant tenuity with a 
velocity greater than that of light. 

In metals, the latent force, as excited by the same sympa- 
thizer, extends its range of neutral sympathetic attraction 
without corpuscular rupture, and reaches out as it were to link 
itself with its harmonic sympathizer, as long as its exciter is 
kept in action. When its exciter is dissociated, its outreach 
nefitles back again into the corpuscular embrace of the mole- 
cular mass that has been acted upon.^ 

This is the polar sympathetic harness, as between metallic 
mediums and the polar dominant current, — the leader of the 
triune stream of the terrestrial flow. (See Appendix II.) 

The velocity of the sympathetic bombarding streams, to- 
wards the centres of neutrality, in the corpuscular atoms, 
during sympathetic aggregation of visible molecular masses 
(in registering the latent force in their interstitial spaces), is 

* This is what Keely terme ** sjmpathetic outreach." 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces. 303 

thousands of times greater than that of the most sensitive 
explosives. An atmospheric stream of that velocity would 
atomize the plate of an ironclad, if brought to bear on it. 

If the evolution of the power of a volition be set down as 
one, what number would that represent in the power evolved 
by such volition on the physical organism ? To answer this 
we must first be able, mentally, to get do¥ni to the neutral 
central depths of the corpuscular atoms, where gravity ceases, 
to get its unit ; and in the second place we must be able to 
weigh it as against the force physically evolved. 

How true, '' the finer the force the greater the power ! ** 
and the greater is the velocity, also ; and the more mathe- 
matically infinite the computation. 

Tet all these conditions of evolution and concentration are 
accomplished by the celestial mind force, as associated with 
terrestrial brain matter. 

The first seal is being broken, in the book of vibratory 
philosophy : the first stepping-stone is placed toward reach- 
ing the solution of that infinite problem, — the source of 
life. 

Theoey op Vibratory Lift for Air-Ships. 

All molecular masses of terrestrial matter are composed of 
the ultimate ether, — from which all things originally ema- 
nated. They are sympathetically drawn towards the earth^s 
centre, as according to the density of their molecular aggre- 
gation, minus their force or sympathetic outreach towards 
celestial association. In other words, the celestial fiow as 
controlling terrestrial physical organisms. 

The sympathetic outflow from the celestial streams reaches 
the infinite depths of all the diversified forms of matter. 
Thus it is seen that the celestial fiow« which permeates, to its 
atomic depths, the teiTCStrial convolutions of all matter, forms 
the exact sympathetic parallel to the human brain-fiow and 
the physical organism, — a perfect connective link of con- 
trolling sympathy, or sympathetic control. Under certain 
orders of sympathetic vibration, polar and anti-polar, the at- 
tractive sympathies of either stream can be intensified^ so 
as to give the predominance to the celestial or to the terres- 
trial. 



304 The Keely Mystery. 

If the predominance be given to the celestial, to a certain 
degree, on a mass of metal, it will ascend from the earth's 
surface, towards the etheric field, with a velocity as according 
to the dominant concentration that is brought to bear on the 
negative thirds of its mass chords, by inducing high radiation 
from their neutral centres, in combination with the power of 
the celestial attractive. 

The power of the terrestrial propulsive and celestial attrac- 
tive to lift ; and these conditions reversed, or the celestial 
propulsive and the terrestrial attractive, to descend. Asso- 
ciating these conditions with the one of corpuscular bombard- 
ment, it is evident to me with what perfection an air-ship of 
any number of tons weight can, when my system is completed, 
be controlled in all the varied movements necessary for com- 
plete commercial use at any desired elevation, and at any 
desired speed. It can float ofE into atmospheric space as 
gentle in motion as thistle-down, or with a velocity out- 
rivalling a cyclone.^ 

ELBCTRO-MAaNBTIC RADIATION. 

If the persistency of our vision could be reversed, so as to 
have the power to follow the track of the molecule's oscil- 
lations under a high condition of vibratory acceleration, as- 
sociated with the assisting power of the finest instruments 
known at present in scientific research, it would not help us 
to determine the period of time wherein the sympathetic 
actions in nature are propagated. Therefore, we cannot, 
with any degree of certainty, establish a foundation whereon 
observation, so associated, is reliable. (Theoretically ex- 
plained in ' Soul of Matter.') 

As far as my researches have gone, I find that there is 
but one condition approaching reliability ; and that is in 
computing the intermittent periodic disturbances along a 

^ A facetious journalist commenting ou this paper reprints its last 
paragraphs as " the only part that is perfectly lucid to the lay mind," 
contmning : — ** We trust Keely will continue to bombard his corpuscles 
until he accomplishes it. And when he does, all other scientific men of 
this or any other age will sink by comparison into insignificance. Let 
no man say he cannot do it. Mr. Keely, the world is still waiting for 
you.** 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces, 305 

nodal vibratory transmitter — ^the nodes of gold^ silver and 
platina — a fixed nnmber placed at snch different distances, 
along its line, as to take np and equalize (bj a certain order 
of vibratory transmissions) the chord masses of the nodal 
interferences between the triple metals of which the nodes 
are composed, and also the acoustic introductory impulse of 
whatever chord is set. This will determine the rate of their 
accelerated molecular oscillation, so induced beyond their 
normal standard, and give us some definite figures in the 
computing of vibrations, thousands of billions of times more 
than those of light. 

Light is induced by electro- magnetic percussion emanating 
from the ether, and in its action represents the plane of 
magnetism. In fact it is the plane of magnetism when under 
polarization.^ Some scientific theories of the past have taught 
us that electricity and magnetism are one and the same 
thing. Sympathetic vibratory philosophy teaches that they 
are two distinct forces of one of the triune sympathetic family. 

I will try to make comprehensible the computation of the 
number (even to infinity) of the corpuscular oscillations, in- 
duced on the introductory ninths, over their normal standard. 
The molecules of all visible masses, when not influenced by 
surrounding acoustic vibratory impulses, move at a rate of 
20,000 oscillations per second, one third of their diameters. 
We have before us one of these masses ; either a silver dollar, 
a pound weight, a horse-shoe, or any other metallic medium, 
which I associate to one of my nodal transmitters, the other 
end of which is attached to the clustered thirds (or third 
octave) of my focalizing neutral concentrator. Another 
transmitter, of gold, silver and platina sections, is attached to 
the sixth cluster of same disk, the other end of which is con- 

* Platina wires the thickness of a fine hair associated with each of 
the nine nodal beads, and concentrated towards a general centre of 
focalization, attaching the other end of the wires to the focal centre, 
will determine, by the magnetic conduction, the number of corpuscular 
oscillations per second induced by a thought, either positive or negative, 
in the central centres. These are the only conditions — those of 
magnetic conduction — whereby the evolution of a thought can be com- 
puted in regard to its force under propagation, as against the amount 
of latent energy set free to act as induced by such thought on the 
physical organism. 



3o6 The Keely Mystery. 

nected to resonating sphere on my compound instrument : 
all of whicli must be brought to a state of complete rest. 
Then, a slight tap, with a vulcanite rubber hammer on the 
chladna resonating disk, will accelerate the 20,000 molecular 
oscillations to 180,000 per second, — an increase of nine times 
the normal number. The nine nodes each touching the ex- 
treme end, next the mass operated upon, in this arrangement ; 
silver, gold, platina, make up the nine. When I associate the 
seventh, I start with gold and end with platina ; always on 
the triplets. Silver represents the lowest introductory third, 
gold the next, and platina the highest. If we start with a 
gold node, the multiplication on oscillation will be nine times 
nine, or 81 times the 20,000 \ which is 1,620,000 per second. 
Each node represents one wave length of a certain number of 
vibrations when shifted along the transmitter, over the 
section representing its opposite metal. The shifting of the 
gold one over the silver extreme section will hold the corpus- 
cular range of the mass velocity at 1,620,000 per second : the 
introductory chord being set at B, third octave. It requires 
an accelerated oscillation on the molecules of a soft steel 
mass, at that chord, of a transmissive multiplication of the 
full nine, in order to induce a rotary action on the neutral 
centre indicator of focalizing disk; which by computation, 
means, per second, 156,057,552,198,220,000 corpuscular in- 
termittent oscillations to move the disk 110 revolutions per 
second. This only represents the multiplication on the first 
nodal dissociator of the ninth. The second transition, on 
same, would mean this number multiplied by itself, and the 
residue of each multiplication by itself 81 times progressively. 
This throws us infinitely far beyond computation, leaving us 
only on the second of the full ninth, towards reaching the 
sympathetic corpuscular velocity attending the high Inmini- 
ferous. I have induced rotation up to 123 revolutions per 
second on a neutral indicator that required billions of vibra- 
tions per second to accomplish ; but even this vibration re- 
presents only a minute fraction of the conditions governing 
the sympathetic vitality which exists in the far luminous 
centres. 

The interposition of hydrogen gas between soap-film, of 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces. 307 

the differential diameters of thirds, illaminated by a solar ray 
in whose focus a quiescent prism is set posteriorly — the prism 
to be adjusted at the proper distance and angle, to throw the 
seven colours through the film enclosing the hydrogen in a 
way that will give the bow an arch of three feet — will register 
deep down, inaudible tones or sounds, and indicate their 
different conditions by the dissolving and re-dissolving of 
certain of the colours of such arch. To conduct such experi- 
ments properly necessitates, first, a location as nearly isolated 
from all extraneous audible sounds as is possible to get ; and 
second, a pedestal of the lowest vibrating materia], the base 
of it set deep in the earth, to arrange the instruments upon ; 
and third, a room of the highest resonating qualities to en- 
close them. Under such conditions the inaudible sounds 
emanating from the operator, would have to be neutralized by 
a negative device to get at the proper conditions while under 
his manipulation. Thus the hidden inaudible world of sounds 
could be shown up, as the microscope shows up to the eye 
the hidden invisible forms of nature. 

The condition of the mechanical requirements necessary 
to conduct successfully the line of research that I am now 
pursuing, will never be properly appreciated until the beauty 
of this system is shown up under perfect control for commer- 
cial use. 

I have spoken elsewhere of the almost infinite difficulties 
of getting into position, to hold hydrogen gas in suspension 
between soap-film a proper period of time, to conduct these 
experiments. The setting of the other parts of the apparatus 
is quite easy in comparison. All wave propagations, electro- 
magnetic or otherwise, by being thus reflected can bo 
measured in regard to the time of their propagation ; all of 
which are introductorily subservient to the Inminiferous ether. 
The theory put forward by " men of science," in regard to 
electro-magnetic forces shows that they are misled by the 
imperfection of their instruments. They are trying to measure 
the infinite by the finite; necessitating terms of avoidance, 
to the instantaneous propagation of nature's sympathetic 
evolutions, of the same nature as the one advanced in the 
assertion that force does not exist in the interstitial embrace 
of all matter. 

X 2 



308 The Keely Mystery. 

Maxwell's theory is correct that the plane of polarized 
light is the plane of the magnetic force. The sympathetic 
vibrations associated with polarized light constitute the pure 
coincident of the plane of magnetism. Therefore, they both 
tend to the same path, for both are inter-atomic, assimilating 
sympathetically, in a given time, to continue the race to- 
gether ; although one precedes the other at the time of ex- 
perimental evolution. The time is approaching when electro- 
magnetic waves with an outreach of two feet will be produced, 
having an energy equal to that now shown up on the magnet 
when it is about to kiss its keeper ; and showing a radiating 
force too stupendous for actual measurement. 

I have already shown, to a certain point, the power of 
this radiation, by breaking a rope that had a resisting strain 
of over two tons, which was attached to the periphery of a 
steel disk, twelve inches in diameter, moving at the slow rate 
of one revolution in two minutes ; its molecular structure 
vitalized with 42,800 vibrations per second. There was no 
retardation while breaking the rope, and no acceleration when 
it was broken. This experiment has been repeated scores of 
times, before scores of visitors who came to my laboratory for 
the purpose of seeing it. 

A computation of the conditions, already shown up in part, 
proves conclusively that the power of an electro-magnetic wave 
at an outreach of ten inches would be, if properly developed, 
equal to a lifting force of 36,000 pounds on a disk but three 
inches in diameter. Ten of such on the periphery of a vibra- 
tory disk, 86 inches in diameter, would represent 360,000 
pounds actual lift at one revolution per minute. Perfect 
depolarization at one hundred times per minute would re- 
present 360,000,000 pounds, lifted twelve times per minute, or 
1000 horse power in the same time. An excess of 100 extra 
revolutions, under the same conditions, would meau 2000 horse 
power per minute. 

By this new system, to perfect which I am now devoting 
all my time and my energies, dynamos will become a thing of 
the past, eventually ; and electric lighting will be conducted 
by a polar negative disk, independent of extraneous power to 
run it, other than that of sympathetic polar attraction, as 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces. 309 

simple in its coDStrnction^ almost^ as an ordinary type-writing 
machine. 



Answers made in Letters feom Mb. Keely, to Questions 

ASKED of Him. 

Light incident to any body that absorbs or reflects it does 
not press upon it. The radiometer of Professor Crookes's 
invention is not operated by the pressure of light, but by cor- 
puscular bombardment on the reflecting side of its vanes. 

You have called my attention to the receding movement in 
the metal silver, which it assumes when the flow of an alternat- 
ing current from an electro-magnet, in front, is thrown upon it. 
This does not prove that light presses upon it to induce that 
movement. It moves by inter-atomic bombardment of some 
800 millions of corpuscular percussions a second; or, more 
truly by inter-sympathetic vibrations. If a homogeneous 
disk of gold, silver and platina, in proper proportions, were 
made the medium of interference, the resultant action would 
be startling in showing up the movement of molecular an- 
tagonistic thirds. The movement would be very erratic 
and gyroscopic. If the same disk were used or an intermediate 
transmitter to a negative focalizer, or in other words a polar 
radiator only one of which is in existence, by a nodal wire of 
gold, silver and platina, the effect on the disk at the negative 
terminus would be to set into action the latent force held in its 
molecular embrace, and would cause it to sympathetically 
adhere to the focalizer, with a power that would make it 
practically inseparable. 

Professor Fitzgerald's lecture on electro-magnetic radia- 
tion shows that scientific men are beginning to realize, and 
that fairly, the truths appertaining to the new philosophy. 
The professor admits that electricty and magnetism are of 
differential character, and he is right. The progressive sub- 
division, induced on molecules by different orders of sym- 
pathetic vibration, and the resultant conditions evolved on the 
inter-molecule and inter-atom, by introductory etheric disper- 
sion, prove that the magnetic flow of itself is a triple one, as 
is also the electric. Again, the professor says that electricity 



3 lo The Keely Mystery. 

and magnetism woald be essentially intercbangeable if sach a 
thing existed as magnetic conduction, adding : ^ It is in 
this difference that we must look for the difference between 
electricity and magnetism/ Thus you see how plain it is that 
progressive scientists are approaching true science. The 
rotation of the magnetic needle, as produced in my resetirching 
experiments, proves conclusively that the interchange spoken 
of, in Professor Fitzgerald's lecture, is a differentiated vibra- 
tory one, in which the dominant and enharmonic forces 
exchange compliments with each other, in a differential way ; 
thus inducing rotation, in other words polarization and 
depolarization. 

The transmission of sympathetic atomic vibration, through 
a triple nodal transmitter, induces an inter-atomic percussion, 
that results in triple atomic subdivision, not oscillating across 
the diameter of the atom, but accelerating to an infinite degree 
the atomic film that surrounds it and at the same time extending 
the vibratory range of the atom far enough to set free the 
gaseous atomic element. 

Molecular Dissociation. 

If our sight could reach into the remote depths of the inter- 
stitial spaces which exist between the molecular ranges, and 
observe their wonderful action, in their oscillating motion, to 
and from each other, as guided by the Infinite in their sphere 
of vibrating action — could we comprehend the astonishing 
velocity of their gaseous capsules, combined as it is with the 
accompanying acoustic force, we would be, as it were, paralyzed 
with amazement. But we would then only be bordering on 
the still more remote depths of the interstitial atomic realm, 
stretching far down towards the neutral depths of the inter- 
atomic ; and again, still farther to the borders of its etheric 
neutral radiating centre. 

If our earth were to be submitted to the force governing 
the rotative action of the molecule, in its gaseous envelope, 
and its oscillatory range of motion were in the same ratio to 
the differential magnitude of each, the force of the vibration 
induced by its atmospheric surrounding would, in a short 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces. 3 1 1 

time, disintegrate its full volame, precipitating it into a ring of 
impalpable inter-molecalar dast, many thousands of miles in 
diameter. If brought face to face with such conditions we 
could better understand the mighty and sympathetic force 
which exists in the far remote domain of the molecular and 
atomic embrace. 

The question arises, how and by what means are we able 
to measure the velocity of these capsules and the differential 
range of their vibratory action ? Also, how can we prove 
beyond dispute the facts relating to their sympathetic 
government 7 By progressive disintegration ; this is the only 
way ; and it is accomplished by the proper exciters of vibratory 
focalization ; the introductory acoustic impulses which negatize 
their molecular, inter-molecular, atomic and inter-atomic 
media of neutral attractions, towards their focalized centres 
of sympathetic aggregation. 

I hold that the sympathetic neutral flow which exists in 
this remote region is the latent power that, under the disinte- 
gration of water, is liberated ; showing immense volume and 
infinite pressure. The same condition of latent power exists 
in metallic masses and, paradoxical as it may seem, exerts its 
force, under the proper exciter, only in a negative attractive 
way, while in water in a positive one. In minerals under 
liberation this latent power seeks its medium of tenuous 
equilibrium, leaving behind an impalpable dust, that represents 
molecular dissociation. 

In order to get at the conditions which govern and give 
introductory impulses to that peculiar force which acts on the 
sympathetic medium that associates matter with matter, 
inducing magnetic antagonisms, it will be necessary to 
explain the triune conditions that govern sympathetic 
streams ; as also the triune conditions of corpuscular 
association. 

AH forces in nature arc mind forces : magnetic, electric, 
galvanic, acoustic, solar, are all governed by the triune 
streams of celestial infinity; as also the molecular, inter- 
molecular, atomic. And inter-atomic. The remote depths of 
all their acoustic centres become subservient to the third, 
sixth, and ninth position of the diatonic, harmonic and en- 



1 



3 1 2 The Keely Mystery, 

harmonic chords ; which, when resonantly induced, concen- 
trate concordant harmony, by reducing their range of 
corpuscular motion, drawing them as if towards each other's 
neutral centre of attractive infinity. 

The sympathetic acoustic exciters, or impulses, are: 1st. 
the third diatonic; 2nd. the harmonic sixths neutralizing 
affinity; 3rd. the enharmonic ninths — positive acceleration, 
which induces infinite trajective velocity from neutral centres ; 
in other words, neutral radiation. 

Every molecule in nature represents, without variation, 
the same chord. Variations that show up in the mass chord 
of different visible aggregations, are accounted for by the 
non-uniformity of their molecular groupingH. If all were 
molecularly homogeneous, the chord masses of all structures 
would be perfectly alike in their resonant impulses. 

When the triple introductory impulse is transmitted 
towards the mass to be sensitized, it subserves the molecular 
concordant thirds and antagonizes the discordant sixths 
extending the range of their oscillating paths; and thus 
induces the highest order of repellent antagonism towards the 
centre of neutral equilibrium. 

We will now follow out, in their prog^e^sive orders, the 
conditions necessary to give to these acoustic introductory 
impulses the power, as transmitted through the proper media, 
to induce molecular dissociation. 

First : If I wish to disturb and bring into action the 
latent force held in the embrace of any molecular mass, I 
first find out what the harmonic chord or note of its mass 
represents ; and as no two masses are alike, it would seem to 
necessitate an infinite number of variations to operate on 
different masses ; but such is not the case. All masses can 
be subserved to one general condition by the compound 
mechanical devices which I use for that purpose. We will 
suppose that the mass to be experimented upon, when 
chorded, represents B flat. Then, first, the negative radiating 
focalizing bar on the disk is liberated from its dampening 
rod, and associated with the inngnetic defocalizing one. 
There are seven ranges of bars in all. 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces. 313 

(See sjnnbol representing sympathetic transmissive chord of 
B flat^ third octave on third diatonic.) 
The seven assemblings are in this order : 

Electro Harmonic 

DomixiMit Magnetic Diatonic Enharmonic. Negative 
Srd. 6bb8. 7ths. 

I. 11. III. iiii. mil. iiini. iiiiin. 

Twenty-eight in number. 

The second stepistoliberate^according to symbolic meaning, 
second harmonic bar on sixth?; or neutralizing one^ and thirds 
enharmonic ninths^ which is the one counting from negative 
sevenths. Now all is in readiness for the transmissive nodal 
wire, one end of which must be attached to the magnetic 
dispersing ring, over the negative- sevenths cluster, and the 
other end to the high polar negative attractor. Theu, one 
end of a transmitting wire, of very fine proportions of gold, 
silver and platina, is connected to the resonating sphere, and 
the other end to the mass to be experimented upon. I then 
give to the syren a rotatory impulse of a velocity to indicate 
the concordant of the mass attached. If the introductory 
settings are all right, the neutral centre indicator will rotate 
with high velocity : and a single tap on the chladna wave- 
plate is all that is necessary to induce pure evolution. 

Either attraction or dispersion can be induced on any 
mass by setting the instrument to the proper triple introduc- 
tory positions, towards the mass chords it represents, either 
positive or negative. 

This system of evolution might be expressed as disin- 
tegration induced by the intensified oscillations of inter-atomic- 
electro-raagnetic waves. 

How plainly this principle of harmonic sympathetic 
evolution indicates the structural condition of the atom as 
one of wonderfully complex form ; as also is the progressive 
step toward it in the molecular and inter-molecular field. 

During the effect induced by disintegration of molecular 
mineral masses, there is no molecular collision when forced 
asunder from their radiating centres of neutrality. Their 
atomic and inter-atomic centres seek their media of tenuous 
aflSnity in the far borders of the etheric field, leaving all 



3 14 The Keely Mystery. 

metallic masses^ that are associated with thetn, behind in their 
virgin form. 

Keynote of electric-magnetic sympathy, transmissive com- 
binations, Srds, on the subdivision of first octave B flat, 
diatonic. 6ths, on same subdivision of 3rds, octave harmonic ; 
and 9th8, on the same subdivision of 6ths, octave enharmonic. 

I find that there is no medium in the range of vibratory 
philosophic research, that is as unerringly exact, towards the 
centre of sympathetic attraction, as the negative attractive 
influence of a certain triple association of the metallic masses 
of gold, silver and platina. In fact they are as accurate 
indicators of the earth^s terrestrial sympathetic envelope, 
and its triple focalized action towards the earth^s neutral 
centre, as the magnet is an indicator of the diversion of the 
atti'active flow of the dominant current of the electric stream. 
Although much has been written on the subject, the con- 
ditions attending the continuous flow of the magnet remains 
a problem that has never been solved by any other theory. 
Yet the solution is very simple when harmonic vibratory in- 
fluence is brought to bear upon it. 

The harmonic attractive chord, thirds, induces a nodal 
interference on that third of the triune combination of the 
terrestrial envelope, that is immediately associated with this 
medium of interference, and moves towards the negative pole 
of the magnet, then flows through it to re-associate with the 
full triune combination, through the positive, thus : — 



Dominant 

Harmonic 

Enharmonic 
The triune stream ; one cnrrent of which is diverted from the 
Dominant, flowing in at the Negative end of the magnet ; and oat to 
join the trinne terrestrial stream at the Positive end. 



The continuous flow of the magnet is merely a diversion 
of that portion of the terrestrial envelope that electricians 
have never controlled. This third current, of this triune 
stream, has never been subdivided and only slightly diverted 
towards the negative pole of the magnet, flowing unbrokenly 
back to associate sympathetically with the full triune com- 



■^^^^ 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces, 3 1 5 

bination of the earth's negative neutral force.* Thus the 
problem is solved of the continaous and never-ending force of 
the magnet^ in carrying its load without any diminution of 
its energy. There is no influence, as yet known, that can 
break up its line of sympathetic flow as associated with the 
triune combination. Polarization and de-polarization, in its 
action, is nodal negative interference, intermittently excited, 
inducing differencial disturbance of polar sympathetic equili- 
brium. 

The attractive power, evolved by a magnet in sustaining 
its load, is no evidence that it is molecularlj attractive : for, 
under the influence of the dominant current of the electric 
stream, the range of its molecular mass is not extended ; but 
by the action induced in atomic vibration, the latent, or un- 
disturbed power, that is locked up in its atomic embrace, is 
put into sympathetic action, and evolves the force that is 
recognized as magnetic. When its exciter is removed, it 
returns to atomic recesses to remain perfectly latent, until 
again brought into action by its proper exciter. 

When a steel unmagnetized bar is associated with a mag- 
netized one, the latent force in the unmagnetized one is sym- 
pathetically brought into action, associating itself to the 
magnetic pne, without depreciating the power of it one iota. 
Dissociation and association between the two bars can go on 
indefinitely with the same result. 

The suspension and propelling of an atmospheric navi- 
gator of any number of tons weight, can be successfully 
accomplished by thus exciting the molecular mass of the 
metal it is constructed of ; and the vibratory neutral negative 
attraction evolved, will bring it into perfect control, commer- 

* It is always interesting to trace the ^erm of a scientific idea, 
hypothesis, or established tmth. A writer m La Lumiere Electrique, 
vol. xlv., has drawn attention to the fact that Descartes gave a theory 
of magnetism, in 1656, which resembles the modem conception of lines 
of stress in the ether. He considers that all magnets are traversed by 
a subtle fluid which flows out at the North Pole, and carvin? round, in 
the ether, re-enters at the South Pole, thus completing the circuit. 
Some of the greatest doctrines of science have recurred again and 
again, like the tnotif of a piece of music, until they finally assume a 
definite shape and become a working ^art of human progress ; as will 
be seen when Keely's system is recognized. 



3^6 The Keely Mystery. 

cially, by keeping it in sympathy with the earth's triune polar 
stream. There is enoagh of this latent power locked up in 
the embrace of the iron ore, that is contained in our planet, 
which, if liberated and applied to proper vibratory machinery, 
would furnish force enough to run the commercial power of 
the world : leaving millions of times more to draw upon, as 
the needs increase. The velocity of the vibration governing 
the flow of the magnetic stream, comes under the head of the 
first inter-atomic, and ranges from 800,000 to 780,000 vibra- 
tions per second ; the first order above odour permeating the 
molecules, of the glass plate of the compass (with the same 
facility that atmospheric air would go through an ordinary 
sieve through which it passes), to arouse sympathetically in 
the needle the concordant condition that harmonizes with its 
own. The course of this sympathetic fiow is governed by the 
full harmonic chord; and, consequently, moves in straight 
lines ; thus transmitting its sympathy free of molecular inter- 
ferences. 

The order of vibration associated with the transmission of 
odour acts by sympathetic negative interference; and, con- 
sequently, moves in circles, with a velocity of 220,000 per 
second, at least. 

If in any way the circle of its rotatory diameter could be 
reduced to that of its corpuscular structure, then a bottle 
containing an odorous substance, though sealed as hermeti- 
cally as an Edison-light bulb, could no more confine its cor- 
puscles than an open chimney the smoke ascending from the 
fire burning at its base. 

The sympathetic influence of the terrestrial envelope gets 
its introductory impulse from the infinite depths of the earth's 
neutral centre. This impulse radiates in undulating lines far 
enough into etheric space to become sympathetically as- 
sociated with the etheric (or Infinite) under the same condi- 
tions that associate the mental with the physical organism of 
man. We can define man's molecular condition in its physical 
organism as the earth, and its connective link with the con- ,4 

volutionary cerebral centres as the Infinite etheric domain. 
Thus, we have, represented in the planetary masses moving in 
etheric space, the same conditions of governing rule as exists 
between the mental and physical forces. 



Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces. 317 

With this medium it is plain to see how simply God works, 
as well as mysterioasly, His wonders to perform ; the mental 
forces kept vitalized from the great store-house of the etheric 
realm; and^ in controlling the physical, the deficit caused 
thereby renewed and kept balanced by the power of its sym- 
pathetic concordant receptiveness. 

Any visible molecular mass of metal can be so im- 
pregnated by triple orders of sympathetic vibration as to give 
it the same sympathetic transmissive qualities that exist in the 
mental forces, which make such mass subservient to either the 
attractive or repulsive conditions of terrestrial sympathy. 

Gravity is nothing more than a concordant attractive sym- 
pathetic stream flowing towards the neutral centre of the 
earth. This force is inherent in all visible and invisible 
aggregated forms of matter, from the very birth of a planet, 
around whose centre the molecules cluster by the sympathetic 
a£Snity which is thus induced. If these conditions had 
always maintained a neutral position in etheric space, no 
planet would ever have been evolved. These conditions have 
been fixed by the Infinite. These rotating neutral centres, 
set in celestial space, have been endowed with the power of 
rotation to become their own accumulators. It is through the 
action of these sympathetic forces of the Infinite etheric 
realm that planets are born, and their volume of matter 
augmented. 

If we pick up an object, we feel a resisting power in it 
which physicists call gravity ; but they do not explain what 
gi*avity is. It is simply a sympathetic flow, proceeding from 
the molecular centres of neutrality ; which flow is concordant 
with the earth's neutral centre of same, seeking this medium 
of its affinity with a power corresponding to the character of 
its molecular mass. There is no actual weight in the molecules 
of the mass of which the earth is composed. If the sym- 
pathetic negative polar stream that flows towards the neutral 
centre of the earth were cut off from it, the earth's molecular 
mass would become independent, and would float away into 
space as would a soap-bubble filled with warm air. 

The gravital flow comes, in this system, under the order of 
the sympathetic concordant of the 9ths, and belongs to that 
third of the triune combination called polar propulsive. 



3 1 8 The Keely Mystery. 

Magnetism is polar attraction. 
Gravity is polar propulsion. 

Both magnetism and gravity can be accelerated by the 
proper medium of sympathetic vibratory influencea 

A Conjecture. 

If we take into proper consideration the sympathetic 
affinity that exists between the centres of the cerebral convo- 
lutionary organism, and the polar terrestrial forces^ as linked 
to the celestial, or Infinite, the harmonizing effects they 
have on the normal brain^ and the antagonistic negative bom- 
bardment of these streams on the abnormal one, is it not 
possible, by the diversion of pure, sympathetic streams, to 
antagonize abnormal conditions, by concordant or magnetic 
polar sympathetic mechanical exciters, and thus to induce pure 
normal equilibrium of its corpuscular mass ? — which means 
perfect mental restoration. 



1 



CHAPTER XX. 
1892. 

PBOOBESSIYE SCIENCE — KEBLY^S PRESENT POSmON. 

{A Review of the Situation.) 

Thid amount of repetition to some will probably appear to be tedious, 
but only b^ varied iteration can alien conceptions be forced on reluctant 
minds. — Hbbbbbt Spencer. 

The researches of Lodge in England and of Hertz in Germany ^ive 
us an almost infinite ranse of ethereal vibrations. . . . Here is unfolded 
to us a new and astonishing world, — one which it is hard to conceive 
should contain no possibilities of transmitting and receiving intelli- 
gence. . . . Here also is revealed to us the bewildering possibility of 
telegraphy without wires, posts, cables, or any of our present costly 
appliances. ... As for myself, I hold the firm conviction that unflag- 
ging research will be rewarded by an insight into natural mysteries, sucn 
as now can rarely be conceived. — P&ofessor Wm. Crogkbs, M.B.A., 
F.K.S., &o» 

Vibratory Philosophy teaches that " in the great workshop of Nature 
there are no lines of demarcation to be drawn between the most exalted 
speculation and common-place practice, and that all knowledge must 
lead up to one great result ; that of an intelligent recognition of the 
Creator through His works.'' 

" Facts are the body of science ; specalation is its soul." 

It has been said that there is nothing more sublime in the 
history of mind than the lonely straggles which generate and 
precede success. After the admission made by Professor 
Biicker, M.A.^ at the last meeting of the British Association^ 
that the ether may be " the material of which all matter is 
composed/' and that " we may, perhaps, be able to use and 
control the ether as we now use and control steam/' there 
would seem to be grounds for hoping that Eeely's '' lonely 
and prolonged struggles " to utilize in mechanics the ether 



320 The Keely Mystery. 

product which he obtains from his method of dissociating 
the elements of water^ will be more universally recognized 
and appreciated than they have yet been. Discovery may 
be unsought and instantaneous^ but the inventions for 
utilizing discoveries may be, and generally are, the work of 
years. 

Keely first imprisoned the ether in 1872, when its existence 
was denied \ or, if admitted by a few, it was called " the hypo- 
thetical ether/' In 1888, Professor Henri Hertz discovered 
and announced, in the JRevue des Deux Mondes, that the ether 
is held in a state of bondage in all electro-magnetic engines. 
Not until this fact had been made known, were there any 
scientific men, with one notable exception, who were willing 
to admit it was possible that Keely might also have 
" stumbled over *' the manner of effecting its imprison- 
ment. 

The nature of Keely's researches, and the length of time 
in which he has been absorbed by the necessary dead-work, 
attendant upon research before a discovery can be utilized, 
may be gathered from a letter recently written by Mr. 0. G. 
Till, of Brooklyn, New York :— 

*^ In Keely's early struggles, somewhere about twenty years 
ago, I became acquainted with him, and helped him then to 
the best of my ability. Indeed I may say that I was god- 
father to his discovery ; for I was with him when the idea 
first entered his head that he could combine steam and water 
to ran an engine. At that time he made a crude machine, 
which he actually ran for some time ; and this was the original 
model of the Pneumatic- Pulsating- Vacuo-Engine, in the opera- 
tion of which he discovered his present force. Prom that day 
to this he has been in pursuit of some method as a medium to 
use what he calls his etheric force with. That he has actually 
discovered a new force there is not a shadow of doubt. In 
those days I have known him to sell and pawn everything of 
value in his house to obtain means to continue his investiga- 
tions with the money thus acquired ; and I am sure that he 
will eventually give to the world the greatest boon that has 
been received by it since the advent of Christianity,'* etc., etc. 

It has been very generally thought that Keely is pursuing 



Progressive Science. 321 

the ignis fatwaa of perpetual motion. No greater mistake 
could have been made. The genuineness of his claims as a 
discoverer rests upon a correct answer to the question, " 1$ 
hydrogen gas an element or a compound ? *' 

Science, as Herodotus said, is to know things truly : but 
science tells us that hydrogen is a simple, that the atom is 
not divisible, and that latent energy is not locked in the 
interstitial spaces of all forms of matter from their birth or 
aggregation. Keely's system of Vibratory Physics refutes 
these canons of science. How absurd must seem the idea 
to many that the schools can be wrong, and that Keely, who 
has been branded by some of these schools as an impostor, 
should be right: but time will show whether Keely 's dis- 
coveries have " come to stay." The history of the past shows 
us that science has never been infallible ; that like Christ- 
ianity she unfolds her truths progressively. Keely teaches 
that an unknown potency is held in the atom's tenacious 
grasp, until released by an introductory impulse given by a 
certain order of vibration, depending upon the mass-chord of 
the aggregation ; which impulse so increases the oscillation of 
the atoms as to rupture their etheric capsules. All great 
truths hold germs potential of ever-increasing growth. It 
took half a century for the "Principia " of Newton to overcome 
the contempt that was showered upon it ; and now progres- 
sive science is overshadowing Newton's vast attainments. In 
his giant mind was born the hypothesis that the ether is the 
cause of light and gravity. Keely has been teaching for 
years, that ether is the medium of all force. For every 
effect science requires an efficient cause. Hence, when 
Faraday found no definite knowledge in exact sciences to 
satisfy him on certain points he was led into speculative 
science, or the preliminary reaching after truths which we 
feel must exist by reason of certain effects that come under 
our observation, analogous to already known laws: — ''re- 
duced facts lie behind us ; speculative ones lie before us ; " 
and without these latter science could make no progress. 
Faraday was only speculating when he said : '* Thus either 
present elements are the true elements ; or else there is the 
probability before us of obtaining some more high and 

T 



322 The Keely Mystery. 

general power of nature even than electricity ; and which, at 
the same time, might reveal to us an entirely new grade of 
elements of matter, now hidden from our view and almost 
from our suspicion/' 

Faraday's keen perception and acute practical judgment, 
were never better exemplified than in Keely's discovery of 
Negative Attraction ; the laws governing which he is still 
researching ; theorizing that it is the energy which controls 
the planetary masses in their advance toward each other, 
and in their recession from each other, — the energy which 
lifts the seas and the oceans out of their beds, and replaces 
them once in twenty- four hours ; in other words, explaining 
the mystery of the action of gravity. 

Had Faraday lived longer he might have anticipated 
Keely in one of his discoveries ; for he certainly was on the 
road to it, in the views of force and matter which he held 
that were not in accordance with the accepted views of his 
time ; and which were then set aside as ^^ wild speculations/* 
by the physicists who complained of his '' want of mathe- 
matical accuracy,'* of his " entertaining notions altogether 
distinct from the views generally held by men of science," 
who continued their experimental researches on their own 
lines. 

In 1885, before Keely's scientific explorations had taught 
him that no engine can ever be constructed by which the 
ether can be used and controlled, as we now use and control 
steam, he wrote, in a letter to a friend, " I shall not forestall 
an unproved conclusion, but fight step by step the dark paths 
I am exploring, knowing that, should I succeed in proving 
one single fact in science heretofore unknown, I shall in so 
doing be rewarded in the highest degree. In whatever 
direction the human mind travels it comes quickly to a 
boundary line which it cannot pass. There is a knowable 
field of research, bordered by an unknown tract. My ex- 
perience teaches me how narrow is the strip of territory 
which belongs to the knowable, how very small the portion 
that has been traversed and taken possession of. The 
further we traverse this unknown territory, the stronger will 
become our faith in the immovable order of the world ; for, 



Progressive Science. 323 

at each adTancing step, we find fresh fruits of the immatable 
laws that reign over all things, — from the falling apple, up to 
the thoughts, the words, the deeds, the will of man : and we 
find these laws irreversible and eternal, order and method 
reigning throughout the universe. Some details of this uni- 
versal method have been worked up, and we know them by 
the names of 'gravitation/ 'chemical aflBnity,* 'nerve-power/ 
&c. These material certainties are as sacred as moral cer- 
tainties. . • • The nearest approach to a certainty is made 
through harmony with nature's laws. The surest media are 
those which nature has laid out in her wonderful workings. 
The man who deviates from these paths will sufier the penalty 
of a defeat, as is seen in the record of ' perpetual motion ' 
seekers. I have been classed with such dreamers ; but I 
find consolation in the thought that it is only by those men 
who are utterly ignorant of the great and marvellous truths 
which I have devoted my life to demonstrate and to bring 
within reach of all. I believe the time is near at hand when 
the principles of etheric evolution will be established, and 
when the world will be eager to recognize and accept a 
system that will certainly create a revolution for the highest 
benefits of mankind, inaugurating an era undreamed of 
by those who are now ignorant of the existence of this 
etheric force." These views which have guided Keely in all 
his researches cannot be made known to any just, discerning 
mind without an accompanying perception of the gross way 
in which he has been misrepresented by his defamers; as 
well as some appreciation of the scientifically cautious 
manner in which he has pursued his investigations, since he 
abandoned his efforts to construct an engine that would hold 
the ether in rotation. 

At the present time Keely is concentrating his efforts on 
the perfecting of his mechanical conditions to that point 
where, according to his theories, he will be able to establish, 
on the ninths, a sympathetic affinity with pure, polar, negative 
attraction, minus magnetism. In his own opinion he has so 
nearly gained the summit, or completion of his " gradua- 
tion," as to feel that he holds the key to the control of the 
infinitely tenuous conditions which lie before him to be con- 

Y 2 



324 The Keely Mystery. 

quered, before he gains mastery of the group of depolar disks 
that he is now working upon. Twenty-six groaps are com- 
pleted, and when the twenty-seventh and last group is under 
equal control, Keely expects to establish a circuit of vibratory 
force, for running machinery : both for aerial navigation and 
for terrestrial use. If this resulfc be obtained, Keely will then 
be in a position to give his system to science ; and to demon- 
strate the ever-operative immanence of the Infinite builder of 
all things of whom our Lord said, **My Father worketh 
hitherto, and I work.'^ 

In commercial use Keely expects that when the motion has 
been once set up, in any of his machines, it will continue until 
the material is worn out. It is this claim which has caused 
Keely to be classed with perpetual-motion seekers. 

For years Keely has been trying to utilize his discoveries for 
the material and moral advantage of humanity : and yethe feels^ 
as Buckle has said of the present acquirements of science, that 
the ground only is broken, that the crust only is touched. 
The loftiest pinnacle which has been reached by the men who 
are foremost in their constructions of the method by which 
the one source of all energy works in the material world, is 
too insignificant a position to obtain even an outlook towards 
the vast realm that Keely figuratively describes as the infinite 
brain; or the source from which all "sympathetic-leads" 
emanate, that connect mind with matter. Realizing that all 
conditions of matter are but as vain illusions, he never falters 
in his determination to reach after the hidden things of God, 
if haply he may find them. Even the goal which he seeks to 
attain lies, in his own estimation, on the outermost border 
of this crust ; and well he knows that it never can be reached 
in any other way than by principles of exact science and by 
pursuing a path that is at all times lighted by reason. 

Believing that " the horizon of the world of matter, which has 
been thought to rest over hydrogen, extends to infinite reaches, 
including substances which have never been revealed to the 
senses," he knows how unfathomable is the ocean that lies 
beyond, and like Newton compares himself to 'one who is 
gathering pebbles on its shore. 

Science, which has ever been interested both in the infinitely 



Progressive Science. 325 

small and infinitely great^ has in our age dropped the only 
clue that can guide through the obscure labyrinth which 
leads into depths of nature lying beyond the knowledge of 
our unaided senses. 

The evolution of the human race, says Nesbit, has passed 
from the physiological into the psychological field; and it is in 
the latter alone that progress may be looked for. 

This is the realm into which Keely's efforts, to give to the 
world a costless motive power, have slowly conducted him 
through the black darkness of the region in which he has 
been fighting his way, for a score of years, in behalf of true 
science and humauity. 

Lord Derby has said that modern science, on its popular 
side, is really a great factory of popular fallacies ; that its ex- 
pounders in one decade are kept busy refuting the errors to 
which the preceding decade has given currency. There is 
hardly a branch of science, he says, susceptible of general and 
wide-reaching conclusions, which might not be revolution- 
ized by some discovery to-morrow. 

If Keely is able to establish his theories, physical science 
will have to abandon the positions to which she clings, and 
forced to admit that there exists a purity of conditions in 
Vibratory Physics unknown in mechanical physics, undreamed 
of even in philosophy ; for he will then be in a position to 
demonstrate the outflow of the Infinite mind as sympathetically 
associated with matter visible and invisible. 

Of this philosophy Professor Daniel G. Brinton has said, 
** It is so simple, beautiful and comprehensive in its vibratory 
theory that I hope it will be found experimentally to be true. 
To me all commercial and practical results, motors, air-ships, 
engines, are of no importance by the side of the theoretical 
truth of the demonstrations of this cosmic force. As soon as 
Dr. Koenig is prepared to report on the purely technical and 
physical character of the experiments, I shall be, in fact I am, 
ready to go into full details as to their significance in reference 
to both matter and mind. It will be enough for me if Dr. 
Koenig is able to say that the force handled by Keely is not 
gravity, electricity, magnetism, compressed air, nor other of 
the well-known forces. Let him say that, and I will under^ 



326 The Keely Mystery. 

take to say what the force is/' Tests were made last year by 
Dr. Koenig and Dr. Tuttle, a Baltimore physicist, in the pre- 
sence of other men of science with the most sensitive galvano- 
meter belonging to the University of Pennsylvania, all of 
whom were satisfied that no known force had been detected. 

The abstract of Keely 's philosophy, written by Dr. Brinton, 
has made Keely's theories intelligible for the first time. Each 
new discovery necessitates a new vocabulary; and Keely's 
writings are obscure because of his new nomenclature. When 
Faraday^s ideas differed from those held by the authorities of 
his time, they were pronounced to be "untranslatable into 
scientific language ; '* and as was then said of Faraday, so can 
it now be said of Keely, with equal truth, that, working at the 
very boundaries of our knowledge, his mind habitually dwells 
" in the boundless contiguity of shade " by which that know- 
ledge is surrounded. 

The brain of an Aristotle was needed to discern and grasp 
Keely^s meaning, to interpret and define it. Dr. Brinton 
never touches a subject without throwing light upon it, and 
his penetrating mind perceived the ideas to be defined in all 
their relations. His keen logical acumen separated and 
classified them in their order, in a true, sound, and scientific 
manner. In the words of Sir James Crichton Browne, who 
heard Professor Brinton read this abstract in London, ''Pro- 
fessor Brinton's synopsis is an able, lucid and logical paper." 

Now that such distinguished men are interesting them- 
selves in Keely's discoveries, there is no longer any danger of 
their being lost to science ; nor to commerce, if his life is spared. 
The action of Dr. Pepper (Provost of the University of Penn- 
sylvania) in January, 1891, gave Keely all the protection that 
he then needed in order to continue his researches up to the 
completion of his system. 

Prof essor Dewar of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 
whose Cambridge duties prevented him from keeping the 
engagement made for him to visit Mr. Keely's workshop in 
December, 1891, is now compelled to wait, until notified that 
Keely is in a position to demonstrate his theories, as it is desir- 
able that he should not be interrupted in the critical work 
that is at present engrossing him, at times eighteen hours out 



^ 



Progressive Science. 327 

of the twenty-foar. But althoagh Keely has not instracted 
anyone in his method of disintegrating water, to obtain the 
ether, which he uses as the medium of the polar force^ he does 
not withhold the principle by which he obtains it. Sir John 
Herschell said, " There is a principle in the science of music 
that has yet to be discovered.'* Pythagoras taught that the 
principle which underlies the harmonies of music, underlies 
the motion of the heavenly bodies. It is this principle which 
Keely has discovered ; but until he has utilized it in mechanics, 
he has nothing more to sell than Sir Isaac Newton had when 
he discovered gravity, as Professor Fitzgerald has said. 

Discovery and invention are walking side by side in our 
age, the glorious scientific age of the world. Never before 
have they so linked themselves together, working for human- 
ity ; and it is but natural that those savants who have seen no 
demonstrations of the force Keely is handling should regard 
with apathy claims, which, if established, would sweep away 
like chaff before a whirlwind, some of the canons of their 
schools. In fact, this apathy is a great improvement upon 
the active persecution of the learned men who hurried 
Copernicus and Galileo to prison, and established the 
Inquisition to deal with heretics in science as well as heretics 
in religion. Commerce rushed Keely into a dungeon ; 
science looking on in approval; notwithstanding that con- 
jectures of the most celebrated modem member of its school 
supported Keely's teachings. Galileo was brought before the 
Inquisition ; the tribunal pronounced him a deluded teacher 
and a lying heretic. They intended to subject him to the 
severest torture and death. Galileo was old, and felt that he 
could not endure such a terrible death. He knelt on the 
crucifix, with one hand on the Bible, and renounced all. When 
he arose, however, it is reported that he whispered to one 
of the attendants, *' The earth does move for all that.*' Sir 
Isaac Newton has written of the possibility of discovering 
unknown forms of energy, in Nature, in these strong words : 
*' For it is well known that bodies act upon one another by 
the attractions of gravity, magnetism and electricity, and 
these instances show the tenor and course of nature and make 
it not improbable that there may be more powers of attraction 



328 The Keely Mystery. 

than these. For Natare is very consonant and conformable to 
herself/' 

All progress of whatever kind would be put back^ if it were 
in the power of bigots to arrest its triumphal march, as they 
have done in the past, but the evolution of the human race 
remains in the hands of the Infinite One, who never fails to 
open up new paths when the farther development of human- 
ity requires it. All systems may be said to have descended 
from previous ones. " The ideas of one generation are the 
mysterious progenitors of those in the next. Each age is the 
dawn of its successor; and in the eternal advance of truth, 

* There always is a rising sun, 
The day is ever bat begun.' ** 

Religious and scientific reformation have always gone hand 
in hand, says Dr. Lowber. In fact, religious science is su- 
perior to any other science. As Christianity is the pure religion 
which contains the truth of all the rest, so it is the highest of 
the sciences, for it represents the development of the highest 
faculty of the human nature. Beligion develops manhood as 
nothing else will, and Christianity represents the highest culture 
to which it is possible for man to attain. • • . 

The system, now being evolved and worked out to demon- 
stration by Keely, restores, by religious science, the faith 
of which materialistic science has been robbing the world, 
thus confirming Dr. Lowber's assertions that materialists will 
never be able to reduce all natural and spiritual forces to 
mere vibratory action of matter ; and that the reformatory 
movement in philosophy, which characterizes our age, will 
continue until all the sciences point to God and immortality. 

A writer in Oalignani's Messenger, March 2, 1892, says : 
" When the nineteenth century closes, the most marvellous 
period ever known to man will be stored away in Time's 
granary. Can the twentieth century by any possibility be 
more productive, more fertile, more prolific of wonders than its 
predecessor ? The face of the world has been changed ; space 
has been annihilated ; science puts ^ a girdle round about the 
earth in forty minutes.* We may be almost excused if we are 
tempted to believe that the serpent's promise is fulfilled in our 



Progressive Science. 329 

persons, and we are as gods. Alas for human complacency I 
Perhaps onr descendants a thousand years hence will look upon 
us as pigmies. Be that as it may, the past and the present 
are ours^ with their achievement^ and we believe we shall hand 
down to posterity a goodly heritage." 

The New York Kome Journal^ of the week before Christmas, 
1892, points out, in itB leader, the road on which this advance 
in the cause of humanity may be made. The writer^ 
Mr. Howard Hinton, says: ''The spirit of the salutation, 
' A Merry Christmas,' lies in the desire that peace and good- 
wiU shall reign among men, nor, if we may trust the intima- 
tions of the latest science, will this universality of good wishing 
be without avail in effecting its own accomplishment. For, 
as we are told by the wise men of science, every thought, 
every mental impulse of ours, sets in motion, in that realm of 
ether which it is said interfuses all coarser forms of matter, 
certain vibrations, corresponding in force to their cause, which 
have power to communicate themselves to other minds favour- 
ably conditioned to receive them, and so excite in them like 
thoughts and impulses. 

** And are not common observation and individual experi- 
ence in accord with this suggestion of science ? Do we not 
say at times that a certain thought is in the air, revealing itself 
contemporaneously tty many widely separated minds without 
any recognizable means of communication ? And do we not 
sometimes find a noble, or it may be an ignoble, impulse 
breaking out in a community with a suddenness and univer- 
sality that would seem to transcend all the ordinary forms of 
the contact of mind with mind ? Perhaps, too, this theory of 
vibratory communication through an ethereal medium may 
explain, in part at least, that ' Welt-Geist,* that ' Spirit of the 
Age,' of which the philosophers discourse so bravely. 

** Again, there are times — if the experiences and obseiTations 
of sensitive minds have any worth — when a general spirit of 
expectancy seems to be awakened, as if the world were on the 
eve of some new and epoch-making revelation of science, or 
some new enthusiasm of regenerative impulse. Are we not 
now, at this hour, in this mood of silent expectancy, thrilled 
with an indefinable awe of what the brooding life of the world 



330 The Keely Mystery. 

is maturing for the sons of men? — sensitive, perhaps, to 
ethereal vibrations that have not yet accumulated force for 
expression in conscious thought or for the definite determina- 
tion of our hearts' desires ? 

"This may be fanciful. It may be simply that we are 
beginning to perceive that physical science has reached a stage 
of development when some new and more central truth, some 
profounder generalization, is needed to give further impulse 
to its essential progress. It may be that we are becoming 
aware that the conditions of society are such that some new 
unifying motive, some new enthusiasm of humanity is needed 
for its salvation ; and that therefore we wait in expectancy for 
what — knowing that there can be no let nor hindrance in the 
onward movement of life — we feel in our hearts must come. 

" And yet does not this sense of expectancy seem to com- 
municate itself from mind to mind by some other means than 
that of oral or written expression, and to touch with more or 
less force even minds that are free from these intellectual 
anticipations ? Are there not certain intellects at the fore-front 
of the world's progress, and certain hearts, filled above the 
ordinary measure with the love of mankind, who are thus 
centres of power, from whom spread ever widening circles of 
vibratory emanations that gradually involve all minds in a 
common thought and all hearts in a common purpose ? ' Many 
men of many minds.' Yes, truly ; but there is the one mind 
of humanity that thinks and thinks, and alone has the power 
to externalize its thought as part of the world's history, while 
all purely individual thought is blown finally into the abyss of 
the Absolute Nothing. 

" But it is not only the great souls that thus move and shape 
the world. We are all, in various degrees, centres and distri- 
butors of the ethereal force, so far as we are in touch with its 
waves of vibration. We can all make our thoughts, if they 
are one with the thought of humanity, and our desires, if they 
are one with the heart of humanity, felt by our fellows in ex- 
tending circles of effluence till finally the very clods of human 
kind know the stirrings of a new life and wake to the higher 
reality as from a dream. 

'' And if individually we can thus set in movement this 



Progressive Science. 331 

ethereal medium^ how must not this movement be quickened 
and extended when collectively we give utterance to some 
great thought and heart's desire^ announcing it in song and 
prayer and merry-making. Hence the use and potency of the 
great f estivals^ the best and sweetest of which is the Christmas 
festival that we are now about to celebrate — the Evening Star 
of the year that is passing, the Morning Star of the new.'' 



CHAPTER XXI. 

FAITH BY SCIEKCB: THB DAWN OP A NEW ORDER OF THINGS. 

" All for each and each for all/' 

God will take account of the selfishness of wealth, and His quarrel 
has yet to be fought out. — Rev. F. Bobebtsgn. 

All the great things of time have been done by single men, from Judas 
Maccabeus down to OromwelL We hear the age spoken of as degenera- 
tive because of the vast accumulations of wealth. But wealth may be 
a power for beneficence, as great brains may be, and we haye no more 
reason for regretting large fortunes than large heads. No doabt to 
secure a perfect equality of all people we need small heads, and small 
heads or empty heads go with empty purses. By no other means can 
you level us. So also by wealth the world has been moved, and will 
continae to be moved. Can we consecrate money power to humanity, 
as we do mind power ? We do not see why not. And in our judgment 
anyone who does not feel the change that is going on mast be blind. 
It is not legislation that will produce a moral revolution, but a new 
enthusiasm. The future holds for us a grand enthusiasm of this sort — 
a moralization of property and possession. — Social Science in Science 
Siftings. 

A wave of unrest seems to be passing over the world. Uneasiness 
prevails on every side. We walk gingerly as though on the edge of a 
precipice. Discontent is spreading every where. 1 he struggle between 

capital and labour threatens to reach unheard-of proportions 

What is the meaning of the general restlessness r What are its 
causes P Is the world growing old and effete P Is the human race 
worn outP Is this generation incapable of the great achievements of 
the past? Does its materialism clog its powers and prevent its pro* 
gressP Is the world going wrong for want of an iaeal? A people 
which does not believe in its lofty mission will never accomplish it. 
Science has made gigantic strides in our days ; but have its discoveries 
added much to the sum of human happiness P It has contributed to 
our material comfort in various ways, but it has not done much for the 
federation of the world. The ^resLt growth of luxury is not a good, but 
an evil, if it rob us of our belief in our ^reat destiny and if it weaken 
our endeavour. If '* the time is out of joint," is it not possible that 
worship of wealth is responsible for it P " He who makes haste to be 
rich shall not be innocent." Ours is emphatically the age in which 
men " make haste to be rich," without much regard to the means. 



\ 



Faith by Science. 333 

Capital has profited undnly at the expense of labour ; employers have 
attained to lortune too quickly for the welfare of the employed. Com- 
merce has forsaken the path of safety to indnlge in rash and reckless 
specidation. Businesses have been converted into companies more for 
the benefit of vendors and financial houses than for the public. Com- 
pany promotion has been carried to reckless lengths, and schemes for 
getting rich rapidly — schemes of the South Sea bubble order — ^have 
multiplied in every part of the civilized world. The Kemesis has come 
in the shape of restlessness, discontent, paralysis of trade, strikes, dis- 
organization of finance, demoralization of Bourses, and general 
insecurity. It is a fact proved countless times in history that whenever 
a national nc ed is felt, a man is raised up to supply the want. — Oalig* 
nam's Messenger, 

The first seal is being broken in the book of vibratory philosophy ; 
the first stepping-stone is placed toward reaching the solution of that 
infinite problem, the origin of Ufe.— John E&nst Wobbell Eeblt, 1890. 

The seals are opened, as it were, under the sign Leo— as believing 
that such an ase is coming on in which prophecy may be fulfilled that 
the earth be tilled with the knowledge of the Lora, which shall cover it 
with wisdom and understanding in the deep mysteries of God. — Janb 
Lead, 1699. 

Evils bear in themselves the causes of their own extirpation. 
Providence is bringing the old order of things to a close in order to 
provide place for something better and higher. — Julian Hawthorne. 

Professor Rowland, in his paper on the " Spectra of Metals/' 
which he read at Leeds, says that the object of his research is 
primarily to find out what sort of things molecules are, and 
in what way they vibrate. The primary object of Mr. 
Xeely's researches has been to find out all that he could about 
the laws that control vibrations, and on this line of research 
he made his discoveries, as to " what sort of things molecules 
and atoms are, and in what way they vibrate." One of the 
editors of the Times, in London, in January, 1891, wrote out 
this question for Keely to answer : — " What impulse led you 
primarily into the research of acoustic physics ? '* Keely 
replied, "An impulse associated sympathetically with my 
mental organism from birth, seemingly, as I was acutely 
sensible of it in my childhood. Before I had reached my 
tenth year, researching in the realm of acoustic physics had 
a perfect fascination for me; my whole organism seemed 
attuned as if it were a harp of a thousand strings ; set for the 
reception of all the conditions associated with sound force as 
a controlling medium, positive and negative ; and with an 
intensity of enjoyment not to be described. From that time 



334 ^^^ Keely Mystery. 

to the present^ I have been absorbed in this research » and it 
has opened up to me the laws that govern the higher work- 
ings of nature's sympathetic, hidden forces; leading me 
gradually on to the solution of the problem relating to the 
conditions that exist between the celestial and terrestrial out- 
reaches, viz., polar negative attraction." Another question 
asked by the same editor : '* What is the main difficulty 
to be overcome before completing the system for commer- 
cial benefit ? " Answer : " The principal difficulty rests in 
equating the thirds of the thirds of the transmitters 
(y.d., the gold, silver, and platina sections, of which the 
transmitting wires are composed) to free them of molecular 
differentiation. The full control of this force can never be 
accomplished, until pure molecular equation is established 
between the nodal interferences (that result in their manu- 
facture) and the chord mass of their sectional parts. When 
this has been done, the chasm between the alternation of the 
polar forces, which now exists, preventing the inducing of 
polar and depolar conditions, will be bridged over and com- 
mercial benefits at once established as the result. The devices 
for inducing these conditions, primarily, are perfect ; but the 
pure, connective link on transmission has to be equated, 
before continued mechanical rotation and reversion can be 
attained." 

As has already been said, Keely's researches have all been 
on the line of vibrations; and it was while pursuing them 
that he *' stumbled over," to use his own words, the inter- 
atomic subdivision of the molecule, which released the Geni 
that for years thereafter was his master. Keely's attention 
not having been turned to molecules and atoms, he was not 
able, in the earliest years of his discovery of the existence of 
a ** force of nature more powerful and more general even than 
electricity," to form any opinion as to the origin of the force. 
He was as one who, in the thick darkness of an under- 
ground labyrinth, found himself face to face with a giant, 
whose form even he could not see to lay hold of in a death 
grapple ; but when a germ of the knowledge that he needed 
fell on his mind, he was quick to seize it, and the acorn gprew 
into an oak. Here again, to use his own words : '' I was as 



Faith by Science. 335 

a bonlder resting on the summit of a mountain^ until an 
introductory impulse was given to start it on its course ; then 
rushing onwards and carrying all before it, when the goal 
is reached its concussion will produce the crash that will 
awaken a sleeping world." 

Priestley proclaimed it as his belief that all discoveries are 
made by chance ; but Providence sends chance, and the 
man of genius is he who is able to improve all opportunities 
and mould them to his own ends. In a discovery, says 
Edison, there must be an element of the accidental, and an 
important one too; discovery is an inspiration, while an 
invention is purely deductive. The story of the apple 
dropping from the tree, and Newton starting with a species 
of " Eureka," he rejects absolutely. Maintaining that an 
abstract idea or a natural law may, in one sense, be invented, he 
giyes it as his opinion that Newton did not discoyer the 
theory of gravitation, but invented it ; and that he might 
have been at work on the problem for years, inventing 
theory after theory, to which he found it impossible to fit his 
facts. That Keely claims to have discovered an unknown 
source of energy has not seemed to disturb the equilibriums 
of some of the men of science who have witnessed the 
demonstrations of the force, as much as that he should have 
invented theories in regard to the operation of the laws that 
control it. For a man who had lived more than half a 
century without troubling himself as to the existence of 
molecules and atoms to suddenly awaken to the knowledge 
of their existence, and to invent theories as to " what sort of 
things they are and how they vibrate," was sufficient proof, 
in their eyes, that he invented his discovery ; but men who 
are, in thought, reaching out into unknown realms, are the 
very men who are most likely to lay hold of a discovery ; — as 
did Bell, who, speculating upon the nature of sound, filed an 
invention for his telephone before he discovered that articulate 
speech could be conveyed aloug a wire. It was in the same 
way that Keely, speculating upon the nature of vibration, was 
led into the field of invention ; and while experimenting 
with one of his inventions, he suddenly stepped into that 
great unknown territory which lies beyond the horizon of 



336 The Keely Mystery. 

ordinary matter. It took him nearly a score of years to find 
out where he was. Tears of experiment followed before he 
was able to snmmon the Geni at will ; for when his lever first 
regfistered a pressure of 2000 lbs., while subjecting water to 
the action of multiplied vibrations, he had no idea how to 
proceed, as far as the number of vibrations were concerned, to 
repeat the operation. Commencing at a certain point, he 
increased the vibrations day by day until, six years later, he 
was able to effect the dissociation at will. But at that time 
Mr. Keely had too much mechanical work to do to give any 
of his time to theorizing. He was in the clutches of a 
speculating Keely Motor Company, whose cry was, " Give us 
an engine ! ^' and day and night this toiler fought his way in 
the underground labyrinth, thinking only of a commercial 
engine. It was not until Macvicar's ** Sketch of a Philo- 
sophy " fell into Mr. Keely's hands that he realized he had 
imprisoned the ether. This was in 1884, and, four years 
later, in 1888, Professor Hertz of Bonn announced that we 
were using the ether, without knowing it, in all electro- 
magnetic engines. By this time Keely's researches in 
vibratory physics had led him well on his way in the 
construction of hypotheses as to " what sort of things mole- 
cules are, and in what way they vibrate." An hypothesis 
treats a supposed thing as an existing thing, for the purpose 
of proving, by experimental demonstration, whether the 
supposition is correct or not. At a critical juncture, Mrs. 
J. F. Hughes (a grand-niece of Charles Darwin), hearing of 
Keely's researches, became interested in his work; and her 
book on " The Evolution of Tones and Colours " was sent to 
Mr. Keely. An expression used by Mrs. Hughes in that 
work, brought a suggestion to Mr. Keely. The veil of 
darkness was rent asunder which had enveloped him in 
what he called '* Egyptian blackness," and from that time 
he worked no longer in the dark. 

Pythagoras taught that the same law which underlies har- 
monies underlies the motion of the heavenly bodies, or, as 
Mrs. Hughes has expressed it, " The law which develops 
and controls harmony, develops and controls the universe." 
Mr. Keely, nothing daunted by the vast extent, the stupen- 



Faith by Science. 337 

dous '* oatreach " of the domain, the boundary line of which 
he had thos crossed, concentrated all his energies upon '^ the 
situation ; " thinking thereafter, not alone of the interests of 
commerce as before, but of the developing of a system, which 
he could give to science in the same hour that he should 
hand over, to those whose thoughts were only on financial 
gain, the inventions that our age is demanding, in the in- 
terests of humanity, with the stern voice of the master 
necessity ; a voice that never fails to make itself heard in 
"the voice of the people/' Experiment after experiment 
justified his hypotheses, and converted them into theories. 
To keep pace with the wants of humanity, invention must 
now walk side by side with philosophy. It took half a cen- 
tury for the *^ Principia *' of Newton to tread down the con- 
tempt and opposition that its publication met with ; and now 
progressive knowledge is overshadowing Newton's vast at- 
tainments. Faraday, after discovering electro-magnetic con- 
ditions, »s related to latent or hidden energy, did not pursue 
his researches far enough to establish a theory as to the 
mode of transference of magnetic force, though, in some of 
his speculations on the line of force, he hit upon truths now 
advanced in Keely's theories. The physicists of Faraday's 
time could not reach up to him. They complained of his 
" obscurity of language," of his '' want of mathematical pre- 
cision,'* of his '* entertaining notions regarding matter and 
force altogether distinct from the views generally held by 
men of science." It is not then to be wondered at that 
modern physicists took up lines of research more in accord- 
ance with their own views. The experiences of one age are re- 
peated in another age ; and the same charges that were brought 
against Faraday are now brought against Keely ; coupled with 
shameful attempts to prove him to be " a fraud ; " a man 
" living upon the credulity of his victims ; " "a modern 
Cagliostro ; " '' an artful pretender." The question is often 
asked, *^Is he not an ignorant man?" Yes, so ignorant, 
that he knows how ignorant he is ; so ignoaant, that he 
asserts with Anaxagoras, that intelligent will is the disposer 
and cause of everything ; and not satisfied with asserting 
this great truth, he has devoted the remnant of his days to 

z 



338 The Keely Mystery. 

finding out and demonstrating how this cause operates 
throughout nature. But ignorant as Keely has always con- 
fessed himself to be, he knows more of the mysterious laws 
of nature which hold the planets in their courses and exert 
their dynamic effect upon the tides, more of the ''shock 
effect *' which, brought to bear upon molecules, causes their 
disruption and supplies the fine fluid thus liberated, that 
extends the *' shock effect,** as Frederick Major has conjec- 
tured, to the atoms that compose them. Ignorant as Keely 
is, he knows that " out of the strife of tremendous forces 
which is ever going on in nature, is born a creation of law 
and harmony ; " that from atomic recesses to the farthest 
depth there is naught but '' toil co-operant to an end/' that 
'' all these atoms march in time, and that it is no blind cause 
which originates and maintains all.'' Admitting his ignor- 
ance, Keely claims with Dr. Watson that '' the many who are 
compelled to walk should not scoff at those who try to fly." 
All who agree in believing that " the advance of the modern 
school of natural philosophy affords no justification for the 
intolerant and exclusive position taken by certain physicists,'* 
will be ready to examine Keely's theories, in the light of his 
demonstrations, even although they have been stigmatized as 
fallacies. Science owes large obligations to many fallacions 
theories. 

Canon Moseley has said that the perfecting of the theory of 
epicycles is due to the astrologers of the middle ages ; and 
that but for them the system of Copernicus would have re- 
mained a bare speculation, as did that of Pythagoras for 
more than two thousand years. In the same way that as- 
trology nurtured astronomy, chemistry was cradled by 
alchemy. 

Keely welcomes criticism of his theories, and is able to 
answer all who come to him with criticisms in a proper 
spirit. To quote one of his own expressions, *' as far as a 
physical truth is concerned I never throw up the sponge for 
any one." Of Professor Crookes, Keely wrote quite recently: 
" Your friend is wrong in saying that I dabble in chemical 
heresies. There must be some misunderstanding on his part, 
for I have never asserted that nitrogen is a necessary con- 



Faith by Science. 339 

stituent of water. I only said that, after a thousand experi- 
ments had been conducted, there was a residual deposit, in 
one of my tubes, of a resinous substance that showed nitro- 
genous elements, which I could not account for. I consider 
Professor Crookes one of the greatest of discoverers, and, 
when he understands my system, he will be oue of the first to 
endorse it.^* 

A philosophical journalist says of the force discovered by 
Keely, that " it is harder to believe in than either steam or 
electricity, because it has no visible manifestation in nature. 
It does not rise in white clouds from every boiling kettle, or 
flash with vivid light in every thunderstorm. It does not 
show itself in the fall of every loosened body to the earth, 
like gravitation, nor can it be discovered, like oxygen, by 
chemical investigation. If it exists at all, it is in a form 
entirely passive, giving no hint of its presence until it is 
brought out by the patient investigator, as the sculptors 
chisel brings out the beautiful statue from the shapeless mass 
of marble. 

" Working thus entirely in the dark, with an intangible, 
imponderable, invisible something whose nature and at- 
tributes are all unknown, and whose characteristics differ 
essentially from tho'Se of any other known force, what 
wonder if the inventor's progress is slow and his disappoint- 
ments many ? Mr. Keely may be deceived, or he may have 
discovered an actual force which he is unable to harness ; but 
the fact that he is very slow in perfecting whatever discovery 
he may have made is no proof that he has not made a very 
great one. 

** Far be it from us to say in this age of scientific marvels, 
that any proposition whatever is impossible of accomplish- 
ment ; but while we wait for Mr. Keely to make his alleged 
discovery public, before we become enthusiastic over it, we 
would not set it down as a fraud and the reputed discovery as a 
humbug. It is the nature of inventors to be enthusiastic and 
to think that they are on the eve of success when, in fact, a 
great deal remains to be done. 

'^ Especially is this the case in the development of a hither- 
to unknown force. James Watt had a comparatively straight 

z 2 



340 The Keely Mystery. 

road to travel from his mother's tea-kettle to his first steam- 
engine, but it took him many years to traverse it. More than 
a lifetime elapsed after Franklin drew electricity from a cloud 
before Morse sent it over a telegraph wire, and Morse himself 
worked for years to make it available for business purposes ; 
while men are still constantly finding new adaptations of the 
mysterious force of which that was the first practical applica- 
tion/' 

But, as Frederick Major has said, '* Science at present is 
too full of its own erroneous theories to accept or even notice 
theories outside of science, until practically proved, and 
probably not even then unless they can foist them upon the 
public as partially their own." These words are not appli- 
cable to all men of science. There are some, among those 
most eminent, who, in the spirit of true science, are quite pre- 
pared for other roads to knowledge than those of our three 
hundred years old induction school. The late Professor W. 
K. Clifford, F.R.S., was one of those men who, in their 
earnest desire for " truth at any cost," was ready to advance 
in every direction open to him. No " fear of a false step " 
held him back. He did not belong to the category of philo- 
sophical sceptics whom Dr. Stoney has so well classified as 
damping all advance, unless it can be carried on, from the 
beginning, under such conditions of perfection as are impos- 
sible in the early stages of every discovery and of almost 
every inquiry. Professor Stoney has well described Keely's 
method of work in these remarks : " In the scientific method 
of investigating the validity of our beliefs, we take our exist- 
ing beliefs as our starting point, or a careful selection of 
those which are fitted to enable us to advance. After the 
legitimate consequences of these have been worked out, the 
inquirer finds himself in a better position to return and test 
the validity of the bases on which he proceeded. After these 
revisions, and such corrections as he finds possible, he makes a 
step of a like kind farther forward : after which another revision 
and another advance. Thus real progress is accomplished. 
Probabilities acquire strength and accumulate ; and in the end 
a state of mind is attained replete with knowledge of the 
realities within and around us. The sea of knowledge on 



I 



Faith by Science. 341 

which man makes his brief voyage is for the most part un- 
fathomable. He cannot hope, except near shore, to measure 
the whole depth, and thus attain philosophical certainty. But 
the scientific student may diligently use such a sounding line 
as he possesses — that of probability — and with it explore wide 
expanses under which there are no rocks nor shoals within the 
utmost depth that he can plumb, and over which he may 
securely sail. Compare this with the situation of the philo- 
sophical sceptic, groping among rocks along the shore, and 
not venturing beyond the shallow margin which he can probe 
with his little pole.*' 

Professor Clifibrd struck out boldly in this unfathomable 
ocean of knowledge, when he admitted the infinite divisibility 
of the atom, which is one of the bases of Keely's theories. 
And how exquisitely did his penetrating vision pierce the 
mists of materialism when he wrote : — '* Every time that 
analysis strips from nature the gilding that we prized, she is 
forging thereat a new picture more glorious than before, to 
be suddenly revealed by the advent of a new sense whereby 
we see it — a new creation, at sight of which the sons of God 
shall have cause to shout for joy. What now shall I say of 
this new-grown perception of Law, which finds the infinite in 
a speck of dust, and the act of eternity in every second of 
time ? Shall I say that it kills our sense of the beautiful, and 
takes all the romance out of nature ? And, moreover, that it 
is nothing more than a combining and reorganizing of our 
old experiences ; that it never can give us anything really 
new ; that we must progress in the same monotonous way for 
ever. But wait a moment. What if this combining and 
organizing is to become first habitual, then organic and un- 
conscious, so that the sense of law becomes a direct percep- 
tion ? Shall we not then be really seeing something new ? 
Shall there not be a new revelation of a g^eat and more per- 
fect cosmos, a universe fresh-born, a new heaven and a new 
earth P Mors janua vitse, by death to this world we enter 
upon a new life in the next. Doubtless there shall by-and-by 
be laws as far transcending those we now know as they do 
the simplest observation. The new incarnation may need a 
second passion ; but, evermore, beyond it is the Easter glory." 



342 The Keely Mystery. 

In these words there is the true ring of divinely inspired 
prophecy to those who know of the pure philosophy which 
Keely's system unfolds ; teaching the " wondrous ways of Him 
who is perfect in knowledge/' Professor CliflTord was one of 
those whom Ernest Senan has classified as scouts in the 
great army, who divine beforehand that which becomes ere 
long patent to all. In their rapid and venturesome advance 
they catch sight before the others of the smiling plains and 
lofty peaks. The student of nature has been compared to a 
hound, wildly running after, and here and there chancing on 
game, universal exploration, a beating up of the game on 
all sides, that and that only is the sole possible method. 
And this is the spirit of those who pursue their researches in 
a scientific frame of mind : while those who enter the field in 
a sceptical mood, are indisposed to step out of the beaten 
track where they feel sure of their footing. 

They have no ambitions to meet the fate of the trilobites in 
Professor Cliffbrd's amusing apologue. " Once upon a time — 
much longer than six thousand years ago — the Trilobites were 
the only people that had eyes; and they were only just 
beginning to have them. Some of the Trilobites, even, had as 
yet no signs of coming sight. So that the utmost they could 
know was that they were living in darkness, and that per- 
haps there was such a thing as light. But at last one of them 
got so far advanced that when he happened to come to the top 
of the water in the daytime he saw the sun. So he went down 
and told the others that in general the world was light, 
but there was one great light which caused it all. Then they 
killed him for disturbing the commonwealth ; but they con^ 
sidered it impious to doubt that in general the worid was 
light, and that there was one great light which caused it all. 
And they had great disputes about the manner in which they 
had come to know this. Afterwards, another of them got so 
far advanced that when he happened to come to the top of 
the water, in the night-time, he saw the stars. So he went 
down and told the others that in general the world was dark, 
but that, nevertheless, there were a great number of little 
lights in it. Then they killed him for maintaining false 
doctrines ; but from that time there was a division amongst 



Faith by Science. 343 

them, and all the Trilobites were split in two parties, some 
maintaining one thing and some the other, until such time as 
so many of them had learned to see that there could be no 
doubt about the matter that both of the sayant Trilobites 
were right." 

Bacon has compared, the mind of man to a prisoner in a 
cave with his back to the light, who sees only shadows of the 
events passing outside. 

Dr. Stoney, in his paper on " Natural Science and On- 
tology," frames a working hypothesis, which leads up to 
Keely's theory, that " the laws of the universe are the laws 
of thought.*' "This is a very different thing,*' gays Dr. 
Stoney, "from saying that they are the laws of human 
thought. The laws of human thought bear to them the same 
small proportion which the laws of the action of the wheels 
of a watch upon one another bear to the entire science of 
dynamics. . . . Natural science is thus, as it were, the study 
of an ever-changing shadow cast in a special and very indirect 
way by the mighty march of actual events." 

*' The history of philosophy," writes Ernest Renan, " should 
be the history of the thoughts of mankind. Hence we must 
look upon philology, or the study of ancient literatures, as a 
science having a distinct object, v/2., the knowledge of the 
human intellect." 

The philologist and the chemist, because of the results of 
the researches of the one, and of the nature of the researches 
of the other, are the students who are best able to compre- 
hend the discoveries of Keely. *' It is the characteristic and 
the pride of modern science to attain its most lofty results 
only through the most scrupulous methods of experiment, 
and to arrive at the knowledge of the highest laws of nature, 
its hands resting on its apparatus. If the highest truths can, 
as it were, emanate from the alembic and the crucible, why 
should they not equally be the result of the study of the re- 
mains of the past, covered with the dust of ages ? Shall the 
philologist who toils on words and syllables be less honoured 
than the student of chemistry labouring in his laboratory ? 
It is impossible to guess beforehand what may result from 
philological researches, any more than one can know^ in 



344 ^'^^ Keely Mystery. 

digging a miue, the wealtli it may contain. We may be on 
our way to the discovery of a new world. Science always 
presents itself to man as an unknown country. The most 
important discoveries have been brought about in a round- 
about way. Very few problems have been deliberately 
grappled with at the outset, * taken at the core.' There is 
nothing more diflScult to foretell than the importance with 
which posterity will invest this or that order of facts ; the 
researches that will be abandoned, the researches that will 
be continued. In looking for one thing one may stumble 
upon another ; in the pursuit of a mere vision, one may hit 
upon a magnificent reality." 

When a result has been attained, it is difficult to realize the 
trouble its attainment has cost, says Ernest Senan in ^^ The 
Future of Science.'* 

Of this nature have been the researches of the present dis- 
tinguished Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution ; 
leading him into a discovery, the great importance of which 
the future alone can unfold. 

Professor Dewar's brilliant success in producing liquid 
oxygen will be remembered by all who had the privilege of 
witnessing it last year, on the occasion of the celebration of 
Faraday's Centenary. Its production is attended with the 
greatest difficulties ; so great that Professor Dewar even felt 
doubts as to his being successful in his attempt at that time, 
which made his complete success all the more gratifying to 
him. When produced, it is difficult to hold and difficult to 
manipulate ; but nothing daunted by these difficulties. Pro- 
fesaor Dewar continued his researches, subjecting it to tests 
which no mind less penetrating than his own would ever have 
thought of, with the result that, most unexpectedly to himself, 
he has *^hit upon a magnificent reality.'' The ordeal to 
which, with consummate skill, he subjected this unstable 
fluid, disclosed its marvellous affinity for the magnet ; and 
iron is now no longer able to claim the distinction which it 
has hitherto enjoyed, of monopolizing the affections of the 
magnet. Sir Robert Ball, LL.D., F.R.S., in commenting 
upon this impoi*tant and most interesting addition to our 
knowledge of the properties of oxygen, says : — " Seeing that 



Faith by Science, 345 

water, which is so largely composed of oxygen, is not at- 
tracted by a magnet, it might certainly have seemed unlikely 
that a liquid which was nothing but pure oxygen should be 
affected to any noteworthy degree. I suspect, however, that 
Professor Dewar must have had some sagacious reason for 
anticipating that the magnet would treat liquid oxygen with 
much more attention than it bestowed on water. At all 
events, whether he expected it or not, the result as described 
was of the most extraordinary character. The liquid oxygen 
was vehemently attracted by the great magnet ; it seems to 
have leaped from the vessel, to have clung round the poles, 
and continued to adhere to them until it had all evaporated 
and resumed the form of gas. The appreciation of this dis- 
covery will be shared not alone by chemists, but by all who 
are interested in the great truths of nature.*' 

When Mr. Keely fell upon his discovery of an unknown 
force, he had not the faintest conception of the infinite extent, 
nor of the nature, of the territory he had invaded. Step by 
step he has been led on through years of patient and persistent 
research, yet even now feeling that he has but lifted one 
comer of the veil of the goddess of nature, and that a life- 
time is too short to do more than this. The physicists whom 
Keely, in the earlier years of his discovery, invited to confer 
with him as to the origin of the force which was generated 
by the disintegration of water, preferred rather to pronounce 
him an impostor, after witnessing his demonstrations, than to 
admit that such results should have escaped the penetration 
of their all-powerful methods. "It indicates,'* says Dr. 
Watson, '* a mistaken apprehension of the basis of our own so 
highly valued system of inquiry, that we should arrogate to 
it absolute exclusiveness, and deride, as though they were 
searchers after proved impossibilities, all those who choose to 
make the trial whether truth may be sought by any method 
besides our own.'' 

History repeats itself, but on new planes. It is not those 
who are mighty in their own eyes whom Providence chooses as 
instruments to reveal new truths to the world when the needs 
of humanity require " a new order of things," The evolution 
of the human race is slow but sure. If in one century some 



I 



346 The Keely Mystery. 

backward steps are taken^ in the next with giant strides all is 
regained that seemed to have been lost. Each age answers 
the need of its own time. " The condition of mankind, during 
the last quarter of the fifteenth centary, bore some curious 
analogies to its state at present/' writes Julian Hawthorne, 
under the heading, " The New Columbus." " A certain stage 
or epoch of human life seemed to have run its course and come 
to a stop. The impulses which had started it were exhausted. 
Once more, it seems, we have reached the limits of a dispensa- 
tion, and are halted by a blank wall. There is no visible 
way over it, nor around it. We cannot stand still ; still less 
can we turn back. What is to happen? What happens 
when an irresistible force encounters an impenetrable barrier ? 
That was the question asked in Columbus' day, and he found 
an answer to it. Are we to expect the appearance of a 
new Columbus to answer it again? What Columbus can 
help us out of our dangers now ? The time has come when 
the spirit of Columbus shall avouch itself, vindicating the 
patient purpose of Him who brings the flower from the 
seed. Great discoveries come when they are needed ; never 
too early nor too late. When nothing else will serve the turn, 
then, and not till then, the rock opens and the spring gushes 
forth. Who that has considered the philosophy of the 
infinitely great and of the infinitely minute can doubt the in- 
exhaustibleness of nature ? And what is nature but the cha- 
racteristic echo of the spirit of man P A prophet has arisen, 
during these latter days, in Philadelphia, who is commonly 
regarded as a charlatan; but men, cognizant of the latest 
advances of science, admit themselves unable to explain upon 
any known principles the effects he produces." 

• ••.«•• 

'' What we are to expect is an awakening of the soul ; 
the rediscovery and rehabilitation of the genuine and indestruc- 
tible religious instinct. Such a religious revival will be 
something very different from what we have known under 
that name. It will be a spontaneous and joyful realization by 
the soul of its vital relations with its Creator. Nature will be 
recognized as a language whereby God converses with man. 
The interpretation of this language, based as it is upon an 



Faith by Science. 347 

eternal and living symbolism^ containing infinite depths 
beyond depths of meanings will be a sufficient study and 
employment for mankind for ever. Science will become, in 
truth, the handmaid of religion, in that it will be devoted 
to reporting the physical analogies of spiritual truths, and 
following them out in their subtler details. Hitherto the 
progress of science has been slow, and subject to constant 
error and revision. But as soon as physical research begins 
to go hand in hand with moral or psychical research it will 
advance with a rapidity hitherto unimagined, each assisting 
and classifying the other. 

"The attitade of men towards one another will undergo 
a corresponding change. It is already become evident that 
selfishness is a colossal failure. • . . Recent social theorists 
propose a universal co-operation, to save the waste of per- 
sonal competition. But competition is a wholesome and 
vital law ; it is only the direction of it that requires altera- 
tion. When the cessation of working for one's livelihood 
takes place, human energy and love of production will not 
cease with it, but will persist and must find their channels. 
But competition to outdo each in the service of all is free 
from collisions, and its range is limitless. Not to support life, 
but to make life more lovely, will be the effort ; and not to 
make it more lovely for one's self alone but for one's neigh- 
bour. Nor is this all. 

" The love of the neighbour will be a true act of divine wor- 
ship, since it will then be acknowledged that mankind, though 
multiplied to human sense, is in essence one \ and that in this 
universal one, which can have no self-consciousness, God is 
incarnate. 

** The divine humanity is the only real and possible object 
of mortal adoration, and no genuine sentiment of human 
brotherhood is conceivable apart from its recognition. But, 
with it, the stature of our common manhood will grow toward 
the celestial. Obviously, with thoughts and pursuits of this 
calibre to engage our attention, we shall be very far from 
regretting those which harass and enslave us to day. Leaving 
out of account the extension of psychical faculties, which will 
enable the antipodes to commune together at will, and even 



348 The Keely Mystery. 

give ns the means of oommnnicatiiig with the inhabitants of 
other planets^ and which will so simplify and deepen language 
that audible speech, other than the musical sounds indicative 
of emotion^ will be regarded as a comic and clumsy archaism^ 
— apart from all this, the fathomless riches of wisdom to be 
gathered from the commonest daily objects and outwardly 
most trivial occurrences, will put an end to all craving for 
merely physical change of place and excitement Gradually 
the human race will become stationary, each family occupying 
its own place, and living in patriarchal simplicity, though 
endowed with power and wisdom that we should now con- 
sider god-like. . . . We have only attempted to indicate what 
regions await the genius of the new Columbus ; nor does the 
conjecture seem too bold that perhaps they are not so distant 
from us in time as they appear to be in quality." 

If we turn, from this seemingly Utopian forecast, to the 
matter-of-fact utterances of Ernest Benan, we will find that 
he anticipates nothing less as the destiny of humanity, than 
the perfecting of it as a unity. Asserting that the nineteenth 
century is preparing the way for the enfranchisement of the 
mind, he proceeds logically to show how this evolution is to 
be brought about, strong in the faith that Providence will 
not fail in its design to secure the ultimate happiness of the 
human race. To quote, at length, from Benan : — *' It is the 
law of science, as of every human undertaking, to draw its 
plans on a large scale, and with a great deal that is super- 
fluous around them. Mankind finally assimilates only a small 
number of the elements of food. But the portions that 
have been eliminated played their part in the act of nutrition. 
So the countless generations that have appeared and dis- 
appeared like a dream, have served to build the great Babel 
of humanity which uprises toward the sky, each layer of 
which means a people. In God*s vast bosom all that lived 
will live again, and then it will be true to the very letter that 
not a glass of water, not a word that has furthered the divine 
work of progress will be lost. That is the law of humanity ; 
an enormous and lavish expenditure of the individual; fop 
God only sets Himself the large, general plan ; and each 
created being finds subsequently in himself the instincts 



Faith by Science. 349 

which make Hs lot as mild as possible. All help to accelerate 
the day when the knowledge of the world shall equal the 
world, when the subject and the object having become iden- 
tified, God will be complete. Philosophy up till now has q j 
scarcely been anything but fancy, mpr/ori, and science has // 
only been an insignificant display of learning. As for us, we / 
hare shifted the field of the science of man. We want to 
know what his life is, and life means both the body and the 
soul ; not placed facing one another like clocks that tick in 
time, not soldered together like two difierent metals, but 
united into one two-fronted phenomenon which cannot be 
divided, without destroying it. It is time to proclaim the fact 
that one sole Cause has wrought everything in the domain of 
intellect, operating according to identical laws, but among 
different surroundings. 

'^ The lofty serenity of science becomes possible only when 
it handles its imperturbable instrument with the inflexibility 
of the geometrician, without anger and without pity. True 
science, the complete and felt science, will be for the future, 
if civilization is not once again arrested in its march by blind 
superstition and the invasion of barbarism, in one form or 
another. But it is contended that the inferiority of the philo- 
sophy of science consists in its being accessible to the small 
minority. This is, on the contrary, its chief title to glory, 
showing us that we should labour to hasten the advent of the 
blessed day in which all men will have their place in the sun- 
shine of intelligence, and will live in the true light of the 
children of God. It is the property of hope to hope against 
hope, and there is nothing which the past does not justify us 
in hoping from the future of humanity. Perfect happiness, 
as I understand it, is that all men should be perfect. I can- 
not understand how the opulent man can fully enjoy his 
happiness while he is obliged to veil his face in presence of 
the misery of a portion of his fellow-creatures. There can 
only be perfect happiness when all are equal, but there will 
only be equality when all are perfect Thus we see that it is 
not a question of being happy ; it is a question of being per- 
fect ; a question of true religion, the only thing which is 
serious and sacred. Inequality is legitimate whenever in- 



350 The Keely Mystery. 

equality is necessary for the good of humanity. Bights create 
themselves like other things. Tbe French Revolution is not 
legitimate because it has taken place^ but it took place be- 
cause it was legitimate ; the freeing of the negroes was 
neither achieved nor deserved by the negroes, but by the 
progress in civilization of their masters. Eight is the pro- 
gress of humanity; there is no right in opposition to this 
progress, and, vice versd, progress legitimizes everything. 
Never, since the origin of things, has human intelligence set 
itself so terrible a problem as the one which now menaces our 
age. Upon the one hand, it is necessary to preserve the 
conquests already secured for civilization; while upon the 
other, all must have their share in the blessings of this civil- 
ization. It took centuries to conceive the possibility of a 
society without slavery. The traveller who looks only at the 
horizon of the plain, risks not seeing the precipice or the 
quagmire at his feet. In the same way, humanity when look- 
ing only to the distant object is tempted to make a jump for 
it, without regard to the intermediate objects against which it 
may not improbably dash itself to pieces. Socialism is, 
therefore, right to the extent of discerning the problem, but 
solves it badly; or rather socialism is not yet possible of 
solution. Reforms never triumph directly ; they triumph by 
compelling their adversaries to partially adopt them in order 
to overcome them. It might be said of reforms as of the 
crusades : ' Not one succeeded : all succeeded.' ' As one 
sees the tide bringing the ever- collapsing waves upon the 
shore, the feeling aroused is one of powerlessness. The wave 
arrived so proudly, and yet it is dashed to pieces against the 
sand, and it expires in a feeble career against the shore which 
it seemed about to devour. But, upon reflection, one finds 
that this process is not as idle as it seems ; for each wave, as 
it dies away, has its effect ; and all the waves combined make 
the rising tide against which heaven and hell would be power- 
less. Humanity, when it is fatigued, is willing to pause ; but 
to pause is not to rest. The calm is but an armistice and a 
breathing space. It is impossible for society to find calm in 
a state when it is suffering from an open wound such as that 
of to-day. The age is oppressed by this inevitable and 



Faith by Science. 35 1 

seemingly insoluble problem. We barricade ourselves in one 
party, in order not to see the reasons of the other side. The 
conservatives are wrong, for the state of things which they 
uphold, and which they do right to uphold, is intolerable. 
The revolutionists are wrong ; for it is absurd to destroy 
when you have nothing to put in place of what you destroy. 
At these epochs, doubt and indecision are the truth; the 
man who is not in doubt is either a simpleton or a charlatan. 
Bevolutions must be made for well-ascertained principles, and 
not for tendencies which have not yet been formulated in a 
practical manner. They are the upheavals of the everlasting 
Enceladus turning over when Etna weighs too heavily upon 
him. It is horrible that one man should be sacrificed to the 
enjoyment of another. If it were merely a question of self- 
indulgence, it would be better that all should have Spartan 
fare, than that some should have luxuries and others go 
hungry ; but, as long as material ease is to a certain extent 
the indispensable condition of intellectual perfection, the 
sacrifice is not effected for the enjoyment of another indi- 
vidual, of the luxuries of life, but it is made upon behalf of 
society as a whole. A society is entitled to what is necessary 
for its existence, however great may be the apparent injustice 
resulting for the individual. It is the idea of the ancient 
sacrifice — the man for the nation. If the object of life were 
but self-indulgence, it would not be unreasonable that each 
one should claim his share, and from this point of view any 
enjoyment which one might procure at the expense of others 
would be in reality an injustice and a robbery : but the object 
of life, the aim of society, should be the greatest possible 
perfecting of all. The State is neither an institution of 
police, as Smith would have it, nor a charity bureau and a 
hospital as the Socialists would have it. It is a machine for 
making progress. In the state of things which I should like 
to see, manual labour would be the recreation of mental 
labour. The immense majority of humanity is still at school : 
to let them out too soon would be to encourage them in idle- 
ness. Necessity, says Herder, is the weight of the clock 
which causes all the wheels to turn. Without the idea of 
progress, all the ideas of humanity are incomprehensible. 



•• ' .. 



352 Th-e Keely Mystery. 

We must keep our machines in order, if we would bring down 
paradise upon earth ; and paradise will be here below when 
all have their share in light, perfection, beauty, and there- 
fore in happiness. 

*' It matters little whether the law grants or refuses liberty 
to new ideas, for they make their way all the same; they 
come into existence without the law, and they are all the 
better for this than if they had grown in full legality. 
When a river which has overflown its banks pours onward, 
you may erect dykes to arrest its progress, but the flood 
continues to rise; you may work with eager energy and 
employ skilful labourers to make good all the fissures, but the 
flood will continue to rise until the torrent has surmounted the 
obstacle, or until, by making a circuit of the dyke, it comes 
back by some other way to inundate the land which you have 
attempted to protect from it/* 

These are the advanced views of Ernest Renan, who still 
sees nothing before us but a fresh cataclysm, a general up- 
heaval and chaos, terrible disturbances when human intelli- 
gence will be checkmated, thrown off the rails so to speak, by 
events as yet unparalleled. We have not yet suffered 
sufficiently, he says, to see the kingdom of heaven. When a 
few millions of men have died of hunger, when thousands 
have devoured one another, when the brains of the others, 
carried off their balance by these darksome scenes, have 
plunged into extravagancies of one kind and another, then 
life will begin anew. Suffering has been for man the mistress 
and the revealer of great things. Order is an end, not a 
beginning; but out of respect for the rights of bears and 
lions are we to open the bars of a menagerie ? Are these 
beasts to be let loose upon men P No, for humanity and 
civilization must be saved at any cost. But these problems, 
which make up the capital question of the nineteenth century, 
are, in a speculative sense, insoluble ; they will be solved by 
brute force, says Benan. The crowd behind is ever pressing 
forward ; those in the foremost ranks are toppled over into 
the yawning gulf, and when their bodies have filled up the 
abyss, the last comers pass over on the level.'' 

But let us suppose that what pseudo-science has wrested 



Faith by Science. 353 

from us^ tme science is ready to restore ; ready to offer all 
tliat Benan himself tells us is necessary to open the way for 
the elevation of the people, by giving all men a share in the 
delights of edncation ; thus widening the basis of the brother- 
hood of humanity^ and making room for all at thebanqaeting- 
table of knowledge, enabling men to be '^perfect in their 
measure,*' for " absolute equality is as impossible in humanity 
as it would be in the animal reign. Each part is perfect in 
the hierarchy of the parts when it is all that it can be, and does 
well all that it ought to do/^ 

Let us suppose that true science offers confirmation 
of all that revelation has taught of the attributes of the 
Creator of all things^ reiterating the promise of a time when 
this knowledge shall be spread over the face of the whole 
earth and made known to all men. Let tis imagine that/ in 
addition to the opening of these floodgates of knowledge^ the 
time is drawing near when machinery, unknown now, will be 
employed to help the workman in his task, and abridge his 
hours of labour, leaving leisure for the cultivation of his mind. 
Aristotle has told us what would be the result, " if every in- 
strument could work of its own accord, if the spindles 
worked of themselves, if the bow played the violin without 
being held, the contractors could do without workmen and the 
masters without slaves.'' Man would so master nature that 
material requirements would no longer be the supreme 
motive, and human activity would be directed towards the 
things of the mind. In such a state of existence men of 
intelligence would ''conquer the infinite." 

We are living in a period of wondrous revelations of the 
power of God, and the crowning discovery of this epoch 
promises the fulfilment of Scripture prophecy in a dispensation 
of harmony and peace, that will restore to mankind that 
measure of faith in God and immortality, which can alone give 
strength '' to endure the evil days without feeling the weight 
of them '' that lie between the present time and the realization 
of our hopes for the perfection of humanity. With the 
knowledge that lies in this new revelation of the power of the 
All-Mighty, no hopes seem chimerical or Utopian. We shall all 
be as gods, when the fulness of the love of God and the power 

A a 



354 '^^ Keely Mystery. 

of God is made known to, and understoood by, all men. 
Tossing as we are in a seething whirlpool of scepticism, 
threatened as are the nations with dangers on all sides, if we 
were bereft of our God, as the leading lights of science would 
have us believe, there would be no hope for humanity. But 
though the anchor of ancient faiths has been swept away by 
materialism, the sheet-anchor of faith by science has been 
let down from heaven, as it were in our hour of peril, for the 
saving of the peoples : teaching as often before that the world 
lies in the bosom of God, like a child in its mother's arms, 
who with watchful solicitude ministers to its wants as they 
arise. 

Religion as revealed to us by our Holy Master, Jesus 
Christ, is to know and to love the truth of things. When this 
religion is understood and practised, then, and not before, will 
the earth be full of the knowledge that it is God who is, and 
that all the rest only appears to be. If anarchy and disorder 
would but wait for this time to arrive, no devastating 
cataclysms, no destroying whirlwinds, will come as fore- 
runners to prepare the way, as in the past, for progress. The 
light now dawning will usher in "the new order of things,'* 
and we may expect that aii era of material prosperity will soon 
set in, such as the world has never dreamed of; arresting the 
outbreak of barbarism which seems near at hand. There are 
some who contend that this revelation of an unknown force 
will, in the hands of anarchists, put back the progress of 
civilization and enlightenment for centuries ; there are others 
who proclaim that it will take the bread from the mouths of 
the hungry and swell the sums amassed by capitalists. But 
history shows that discovery heralds progress, and walks 
with it hand in hand. With the costless and unlimited 
power which will be made available, in every direction 
where power is required, all works of improvement will be 
carried out on a far grander scale than has ever been antici- 
pated. The great polar stream, with its exhaustloss supply of 
energy, places at our disposal a force as harmless as the 
current that draws its keeper to the magnet. We have but 
to " hook our machinery on to the machinery of nature," and 
we have a safe and harmless propelling and controlling 



Faith by Science. 355 

force, the conditions of which when once set up remain for 
ever, perpetual molecular action the result. Another step 
made toward the conquering of the material world which 
must precede the advent of the reign of the spirit. 

Schlegel foresaw that the only hope for a brotherhood of 
humanity lay in the thorough religious regeneration of the 
State and of science, and that through these combined powers 
the underlying purpose of Eternal Mind is to be made known, 
covering the earth with the knowledge of God as the waters 
cover the beds of the seas, obtaining a complete triumph for 
Christianity. 

It would fill with despair the hearts of those who are work- 
ing to bring about this end (so slow, so retrograde at times 
does the evolution seem to be) did they not know that they 
have an Invincible Power working with them. 

History has again repeated itself, and truth has once more 
had its birth in a stable. A star has arisen in the West which 
heralds to all races what the Star of Bethlehem heralded in 
Judea, viz. the coming of the time when the earth shall be 
filled with the knowledge of the Lord. There are both Magi 
and shepherds now, as of old, who have watched for the 
rising of this star, and who were the first to behold the gold 
and crimson light of the approaching dawn ; in which Faith, 
which modem science has crucified and laid away in its 
sepulchre, will have its resurrection and dwell on earth for 
evermore— the tabernacle of God with men. 



THE DAWN. 



Danie called his lifetime^ " The time of my debt** 

I. 

Have I not paid my debt, God, 

What have I left to give P 
Tet blest my life in rendering all 

To help the nations live 
In harmony, in peace, in love, 

As nations aU will be, 
When knowledge trne shall cover earth 

As waters cover sea*. 

A a 2 



356 The Keely Mystery. 

n. 

Nailed to the cross are all my hopes- 

Thou hast not spared me aught : 
Bat raised thereby above the world 

Its treasures count as naught : 
Empty its titles and its show, 

Its honours and its fame ; 
Better the love of God to know 

Than riches, rank, or name. 



Two ayenues there are, 'tis said. 

From paltry passions yile. 
From all calamities of earth. 

From artifice and wile. 
Science and Art their yotaries lead 

From <}uicksands and from shoal ; 
Their guiding torches held aloft 

Will light us to our goal. 



IV. 

When ended this — ^my '• time of debt " — 

'Tis only Thou canst know ; 
But when the longed-for quittance comes 

I stay not here below. 
Till then give me the torch of Art 

To li^ht my pathway drear, 
Let Science lift my thoughts to Thee, 

My lonely hours to cheer. 



V. 

And when my lif e-lons debt is paid — 

My soul from body free — 
No bondage can enslaye me more. 

For I shall go to Thee. 
Hasten the hour when summons comes, 

To take me to my home ; 
Here haye I liyed an exile's life. 

An exile foi*ced to roam. 



VI. 

The face of love was turned from me 

When most I felt its need. 
And in the wilds my feet were set 

To plough and sow the seed. 
Ashes and tears to me were giyen ; 

I sat not by the way. 
With folded hands to make lament, 

But laboured day by day. 



Faith by Science. 357 

VII. 

Thou hast not dealt one nseless blow. 

What time I worked in field : 
Eaoh tear of blood, each hoar of toil, 

Increased the harvest 3rield ; 
And now the farrows all are plonghed, 

If I have paid my debt, 
By waters still, in paths of peace, 

Thou wilt my footsteps set. 

VIII. 

iBons may pass before my hopes 

For earth are all f alfiued ; 
But let " ihje dawn " approach, I pray, 

Before my lips are stilled ! 
And let tme knowledge cover earth 

As waters cover sea — 
Knowledge of trath, knowledge of love, 

Knowledge, dear God, of Thee I 

IX. 

I wait the music of the spheres, 

The rhythmic pulse of earth, 
Which, when Death's angelus doth ring. 

Announce immortal birth : 
In that blest home beyond the veil 

No discord rends the air 
The law of harmony prevails 

And love reigns everywhere. 



CONCLUSION. 

KEELY^S PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY. 

Mr. Keelj begins with sonnds whose vibrations can be known and 
registered. I presume that the laws of ratio, position, duality, and 
continuity, all the laws which go to mould the plastic air bj elastic 
bodies into the sweetness of music, will also be found ruling and 
determining all in the high silence of interior vibrations, which hold 
together or shake asunder the combinations that we call atoms and 
ultimate elements. — The Science of Mtmc, D. C. Bamsat. Edited 
hy the Bev. John Andbew. Marcus Ward & Co. 

What Keely has discovered in nhysics, I am in some measure 
credited with discovering in metapnysics : this is nothing strange, 
according to this philosopny, wbich shows that many people may dimne 
the same original truth at the same time by means of the etherio 
element wbich connects the Deity, the source of all truth, with all His 
crCH tares. — Preface to Vera Vita; or, the Philosophy of Sympathy, 
David Sinclair. Author of A New Creed. Dig by, Long « Co., 
London. 

Abstract of Keely' s Physical Philosophy in its main features 
up to the point of practical application ; by Professoe 
Daniel G. Bbinton, of the Pennsylvania University ; 
subject to modifications and additions when Keely has 
made public his system. 

The fundamental conception of the Universe is force mani- 
festing itself in rhythmical relations. 

This definition is exhaustive^ including both thought and 
extension, matter and mind. The law for the one is the law 
for the other. The distinction between them is simply 
relative, i.e. quantitative, not qualitative. 

The rhythmic relations in which force acts are everywhere, 
under all conditions, and at all times, the same. They are 
found experimentally to be universally expressible by the 
mathematical relations of thirds. 



Keely's Physical Philosophy. 359 

These threefold relations may be expressed with regard to 
their results as, — 

I. Assimilative. 
II. Individualizing. 
III. Dominant or Besultant. 

From these three actions are derived the three funda- 
mental 

LAWS OF BEING. 

I. Law of Assimilation : every individualized object assimi- 
lates itself to all other objects. 

II. Law of Individualization : every such object tends to 
assimilate all other objects to itself. 

III. Law of the Dominant : every such object is such by 
virtue of the higher or dominant force which controls these 
two tendencies. 

Applying these fundamental laws to an explanation of the 
universe, as it is brought to human cognition, all manifestations 
of force may be treated as modes of vibrations. 

The essential diflTerences give rise to three modes of 
vibration : — 

I. The Radiating : called also the " Dispersing," the " Pro- 
pulsive,'' the "Positive," and the " Enharmonic." 

II. The Focalizing: called also the "Negative," the 
''Negative Attractive," the "Polarizing," and the "Har- 



monic." 



III. The Dominant: called also the "Etheric,'* or the 
" Celestial." 

These, it will be noted, correspond to the three laws of 
being. It is not to be understood that any one of these 
three modes of vibration can exist independently. Each by 
itself is called a " current," and all three must be present in 
every '* stream " or " flow *' of force. The relations of the 
currents in every flow are expressible in thirds, and it is 
experimentally demonstrable that the relation of the three 
are in the order named : as 33^ : 66| : 100. 

The evolution of what is called " matter " from the difierent 



I 



360 The Keely Mystery. 

modes of vibration is through the action of the second law, 
that of focalization, or " negative attraction/' or " negative 
affinity." 

Where the vibrations under this mode meet, and are main- 
tained in a state of mutual affinity or equilibrium^ there is 
established what is called a '* neutral centre," or, as otherwise 
expressed, *' a centre of sympathetic coincidence/' 

The terms ** neutral attraction," " neutral affinity," " negative 
attraction," or " polar negative attraction," are employed to 
express the property of a mode of vibration to direct its 
components towards such centre. 

As no current or flow of force can be composed of one 
mode of vibration only, but must always be composed of three 
modes uniting in varying thirds, we have Ix2x3 = 6as 
the total possible forms of sympathetic coincidence, or, to 
speak in ordinary terms, there can be six; and six only, 
possible forms of individualized being. These are what 
Keely calls the six orders of atomic subdivision, or orders 
of vibratory motion, and he names them as follows : 

I. Molecular. 

IL Inter-molecular. 
III. Atomic. 
IV. Inter-atomic. 

V. Etheric. 
VI. Inter-etheric. 

In this list the forms of matter are arranged in the mathe- 
matical sequence of the rapidity of the oscillations of their 
constituent members ; the proportion being proved by ex- 
periment to be as follows : for the molecular orders : 

1 : 3 : 9 : 27 : 81 : 243. 

This arithmetical progression changes in the atomic orders 
to a geometrical progression as follows : 

3 : 9 : 81 : 6561 : 43046721, etc. 

This same method of progression is believed to hold in all 
the orders of vibrations above the molecular, and soon passes 
into mathematical infinity. 

Actually, however, all matter of which we are capable of 



Keeiys Physical Philosophy. 361 

cognition through the mediam of our senses is in one of 
three forms of aggregation : 

I. Molecular. 
II. Atomic. 
III. Etheric: 

in each of which the controlling mode of vibration is respec- ' 
tively, 

I. The Enharmonic. 
II. The Harmonic. 
III. The Dominant. 

But it must be understood that each of these modes is a 
positive and real constituent of every atom and molecule. 

It will be seen that as every form of material aggregation 
18 to be considered as a *' neutral centre of attraction," where 
the vibratory force of all three orders are held in "sym- 
pathetic coincidence,^* that is, in balanced activity or har- 
monized motion, and not by any means cancelled or mutually 
destroyed, there is no diminution of force, but only tem- 
porary suspension of its radiating or propulsive activity or 
expression. 

This is the foundation of Keely's doctrine of *' latent force,'' 
and of the indefinite power which can be obtained by break- 
ing up the harmonious balance or equation of forces of every 
mode, which exists in every "neutral centre,'* that is to say in 
every mass of matter. 

Insomuch as every mass of matter consists thus, in fact, 
of vibrations in harmonic equilibrium, related by simple pro- 
portions of thirds, it follows that every mass of every descrip- 
tion stands in harmonic relation to every other mass. This is, 
in part, what is meant by the sympathy of all forms of matter 
and of motion ; and it is through the study of the methods of 
increasing or diminishing this sympathy that we reach prac- 
tical results in this field of research. At present this is best 
accomplished by resonance ; that is, through the harmonic 
vibrations created by musical instruments, bringing out the 
acoustic world as the microscope reveals the hidden visual 
world. 



362 The Keely Mystery. 

Every visible or tangible mass of matter mast be regarded 
as an aggregation of molecules ; the molecules being the true 
centres of the equated forces of " neutralized attraction.^' 

These molecules have been experimentally proved by Keely 
to be formed of all three modes of vibration ; the proof being 
that they respond to all three modes when subjected to the 
tests of compound concordant impulses. 

When in that state of neutral aggregation which we know 
as matter^ each molecule is in perpetual oscillation^ the range 
of the oscillation being one-third of the molecule, and its 
rapidity 20^000 oscillations in a second. 

It is through the disturbance of this oscillatory equilibrium, 
by means of resonant impulses, that Keely alters the relations 
of the vibratory impulses which constitute matter. This he 
does by striking the same chord in three octaves, representing 
the ihiriy sixth, and ninth of the scale. 

Of these, the sixth reduces the range of molecular vibra- 
tions or oscillations ; and, by thus bringing nearer to each 
other the neutral centres, increases solidification. 

The ninth extends the range of molecular oscillation, and 
thus tends to give greater tenuity to the mass. It induces 
*' trajectile velocity " from neutral centres, or " neutral radia- 
tion." Experiment shows that molecular dissociation does 
not take place until the molecule attains an oscillation ap- 
proaching, if not fully reaching two-thirds of its diameter. 
This can be eflfected by means of the action of the "en- 
harmonic" or '^radiating'' current applied to the mass, 
after its nwlecules have once been disturbed by an '' in- 
troductory impulse /' that is, by the musical note above men- 
tioned. 

The third represents the " dominant," and when brought 
under control of a harmonic resonant impulse induces a 
complete rearrangement of the modes of vibration and 
oscillation ; in other words, will transform the mass either 
into its component initial forces, or into some other form of 
matter. 

It is the study of the dominant to which Keely has de- 
voted his recent researches. He aims to control the power 
he evolves by altering the dominant or etheric mode of vibra- 
tion in the triplicate flows of force. 



Keelys Physical Philosophy. 363 

As all molecales and masses are mere centres of harmonized 
vibrations, temporarily held in suspension by simple laws 
identical with those of resonance^ it follows that these centres 
can be broken up or divided by certain orders of vibration 
impinging upon and disturbing them. 

It is a familiar fact that a cord in vibration tends to pro- 
dace a similar vibration in a cord placed near it. This pro- 
perty belongs to all vibrations, whether resonant or not, and 
they exert it in proportion to the '* order *' to which they 
belong. The distance in space to which this power extends, 
or can be extended^ is what is called ^' the sympathetic out- 
reach '' of the current or flow. 

In this manner we have " sympathetic negative attraction/* 
and *' sympathetic positive propulsion," with reference to the 
" outreach " of the third or dominant current of the stream, 
which is allied to the order of etheric vibrations. 

Each molecule of a given mass of matter represents the 
same harmonic chord or note in its oscillatory motion. The 
''chord of the mass " is, therefore, the chord of every mole- 
cule of the mass. 

But as the condition of absolutely stable equilibrium is 
theoretical only, and does not exist in nature, the chord of 
the mass is constantly changing. Yet we must learn to 
control this '' chord of the mass " by resonant induction, if we 
would gain command of the molecular forces. 

Keely believes he has solved this problem, by the invention 
of a mechanical device which brings the chords of all masses 
within the conditions of a few simple acoustic tests. 

The range of molecular oscillation is afiected diflferently in 
diflerent substances when submitted to the same vibratory 
impulse, and these ranges can be measured. 

In the three metals, silver, gold, and platina, we obtain the 

proportions 3 : 6 : 9 : — As this is the primary relation 

of the modes of vibration, a wire made of these three metals 
is peculiarly adapted to transmit concordant impulses : and 
nodes made of these substances placed upon a wire, trans- 
mitting resonant vibrations, indicate, by the diflerent orders of 
vibration induced in them, the rate of oscillations of the 
atomic constituents. 



364 The Keely Mystery. 

The phenomenon of rotation arises from the harmonic inter- 
action of the dominant and enharmonic elements of the flow : 
in other words, the first and thirds the third and ninths etc. ; 
those whose vibrations bear the proportions to each other 
33J : 100. 

A practical example of rotation is a wheel in revolution on 
its axis. This is force in its commercial or economic aspect. 
To accomplish this result by molecular vibratory action, we 
must gain control of the '' negative attractive '* or " enhar- 
monic " current of the triple flow, and the problem is then 
solved up to any limit of power. 



APPENDIX I. 

More than four centuries B.C., Leucippus and his disciple 
Democritus — who expounded the atomic theory of his master 
— introduced the doctrine of indivisible atoms, possessing 
within themselves a principle of energy. Democritus, it is 
said, travelling in search of wisdom, visited the Gymno- 
sophists of India (who, by leading ascetic lives, thought they 
could effect a reunion of the spiritual nature of man, with the 
divine essence of Deity), and in so doing incurred the risk of 
being deprived of the rites of sepulture by his ''waste of 
patrimony," there being a law in Abdera to that effect. 

Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles and other philo- 
sophers, had taught that matter was indefinitely divisible, 
but Leucippus and Democritus were the first to assert that 
these particles or atoms were originally destitute of all 
qualities except form and energy ; and they are, therefore, 
called the originators of the atomic philosophy ; which is the 
basis of Keely^s system of sympathetic physics. 

Sympathetic physics teaches that light is an etheric evo- 
lution, propagated by sympathetic conflict between celestial 
and terrestrial outflows : solar tensions as against terrestrial 
condensation. True luminosity cannot be induced in any 
other way. The high order of triple vibration, that induces 
(progressively) molecular and intermolecular separation, 
shows luminous results which, when thus mechanically pro- 
duced, are virtually on a small scale, a fac-simile of nature's 
operations. " All such experiments that I have made,^' writes 
Keely, " resulted in vortex motion invariably, both sympa- 
thetically and otherwise. Vortex motion follows nature in 
all corpuscular action. 

" The undulatory theory, regarding light, I have not been 



366 Appendix I. 

able to reconcile myself to, as anything bat bypothetical. 
The conditions which govern electro-magnetic radiation, dis- 
prove the theory in many particulars. The vortex action in- 
duced in space, by the differential conflict between the low 
and high ten|o^, shows up results that harmonize with the 
conditions accompanying the dissociation of hydrogen and 
oxygen, in disintegrating water: viz., vortex action of the 
highest order, but peripheral only. If it were not so, the 
ether could not be held in suspension, neither in the molecular 
nor atomic envelopes. Undulatory effects are produced by 
certain conditions of sound; and by other conditions quite 
opposite effects. In organ pipes, of a certain calibre, very 
sensitive waves occur at intervals; as according to the 
character of the sound evolved; but on a combination of 
resonators composed of brass tubes of more than nine in 
number, a wave of sound, induced by certain chords passing 
over them, produces high vortex action of the air enclosed in 
them. The vibration of tuning forks induces alternate con- 
ditions of the air that surrounds them, if in open atmosphere ; 
but quite a different action presents itself when the forks are 
exercised in resonating tubes, set to thirds of the mass chord 
they represent. Then high vortex action is the instant re- 
sult. Vibrators cannot be set promiscuously in tubes, and 
get such results, any more than a musician can render a 
musical composition on the violin before tuning it. The con- 
ditions under which light is evolved negatize whatever is 
associated with undulation, as this word is understood by 
physicists. Aqueous undulations there are, but not etheric 
undulations. 

" The mighty forces latent in corpuscular matter, by which 
we are surrounded, are all held in oscillating vortex action 
by the Infinite Designer of workings hidden from us, until 
the time is ripe for their disclosure. This latent, registered 
power interchanges sympathetically with the celestial radi- 
ating streams, whereby light, heat, electricity, magnetism 
and galvanic action are propagated in their different orders, 
vitalizing ail nature with their life-giving principles. When 
this great scientific and religious truth has been made known, 
and established by demonstration, all controversy as to the 



Appendix /. 367 

source of energy will be for ever silenced. If I am the 
chosen instrument to develop this knowledge, and to make 
known the conditions which surround this pure truth, it is 
only that I may hand the key to those who will use it to enter 
the doorway that opens into the inaudible, and thus gain an 
insight into the now invisible region of the operation of 
Nature's most powerful governing forces, in the control over 
terrestrial mind by celestial matter/' 



APPENDIX II. 

The flow of electricity, as set down in Keely's system, is 
governed by triple conditions : let. the dominant or high 
vibratory; 2nd. the sub-dominant or low vibratory; 8rd. 
the harmonic or undulatory ; In combination one flow, 
Keely writes : — *' When electrical experts can construct a 
mechanical device whereby the low vibratory C/Onditions of 
the sub-dominant can be assimilated to the harmonic undu- 
latory, by thirds, they will be able to run their dynamos with- 
out any extraneous appliances. An introductory impulse, on 
a certain order of vibration, being all that would be required 
to give the sub-dominant a concordant relation to the domi- 
nant ; which would more effectually operate the dynamo than 
any number of steam-engines ; allowing the harmonic stream 
to be the governor. This concordance, as towards the 
dominant, would only excite its sympathetic action in a way 
that would divert the ruling conditions of the two, without 
being submitted to the destructive effects of the dominant 
current. I think many lives will be lost before such a posi- 
tion is attained. Tesla has reached out almost to the crest of 
the harmonic wave, leaving all electrical explorers far behind 
him. It is only when such a condition is reached that the 
true value of electrical lighting will be understood, and ex- 
traneous power dispensed with ; but, in my opinion, the 
present conditions for transferring power will remain un- 
altered, in the use of electricity, for generations. 

"There is but one position to arrive at, that will redeem the 
many failures of the past decade, in attempts to find an 
economizing medium for commercial benefit in regard to 
power; and that position will be attained when the polar 
sympathetic harness is completed, which will give to the 
world the control of the polar forces." 



Appendix 11. 369 

In reply to the question, " What do yon include in the polar 
forces ? ^' Keely answers, " Magnetism, electricity, and gravital 
sympathy ; each stream composed of three currents^ or triune 
streams, which make up the governing conditions of the con- 
trolling medium of the universe : the infinite ninths that I am 
now endeavouring to graduate to a sympathetic mechanical 
combination, will, if I succeed, close my researches in sympa- 
thetic physics, and complete my system. These sympathetic 
streams from celestial space, percussing on the dense atmo- 
spheric environment of our earth, by their infinite velocities, 
wrest from their atomic confinement the latent energies which 
we call heat and light/' 

QiLestion. — And where do these sympathetic conditions or 
streams of force have their origin ? 

Answer, — ' So God created man in His own image, in the 
image of God created He him : male and female created He 
them,' Genesis i. 27/' All sympathetic conditions, or streams 
offeree, are derived (if we dare to make use of such a term in 
speaking of Deity) from the cerebral convolutions of the Infi- 
nite: from the centre of the vast realm of the compound 
luminous. From the celestial intermediate, the brain of Deity, 
proceed the sympathetic flows that vitalize the polar terrestrial 
forces.'* — Keely. 



B D 



APPENDIX III. 

SoHE faint idea of the infinite patience which the nature of 
Keely's work requires may be gained by a knowledge of his 
process of converting straight tubes into resonating rings. 
The tubes, in sections long enough to form a semicircle^ are 
passed between triple rollers^ which are set to give them a 
slight bend. They are then fastened to a bed-plate^ and a 
steel ball^ the exact diameter of the interior of the tnbe^ is 
passed into it and forced through it. It is then passed 
between the rollers again; which are set so as to slightly 
increase the curvature^ and again the interior of the tube is 
corrected by the steel ball. This process is intermittently 
continued until the semicircle is reached. Each process of 
bending and correcting requires over two hours. Eighty 
bends are sometimes necessary for the completion of the full 
circle. When the two semicircles, which form the circle, are 
finished, they are placed in a steel mould and kept under 
hydraulic pressure for two or thi'ee days, to correct any 
lateral deflection which has taken place in bending them. 
They are then taken out of the moulds and screwed rigidly to 
a face-plate, and joined together by a solder of refined brass 
and silver. Next they are placed in a hot sand bath of 
sufficient volume to require seventy-two hours to cool down. 
This corrects the differentiation in their molecular groupings. 
They are then submitted to a vibratory flow from tiie 
sympathetic negative transmitter, until their intonation, by 
pei*cussion, represents a pure unmixed chord. The indicator, 
attached to the rings, denotes when this condition is attained. 
They are then centred on a steel shaft and rotated at the 
rate of 2000 revolutions per minute, surrounded by the triple 



Appendix III. 371 

circait ring. If the indicator^ on the circnit ring^ should vary 
five degrees on a subdivision of 8000^ the process for 
correcting has to be repeated until the variations are reduced 
to three; which is near enough to be considered perfect, 
inasmuch as the circular resonator will then hold the neutral 
focalization intact during the graduation of the full ninths, 
or triple triplets^ for sympathetic association to polar negative 
attraction. 

Professor Dewar's recent brilliant achievements, in his line 
of experimental research, not only have an important bearing 
upon one of the greatest problems of modern science, but 
upon the science of the future, as forecast by Keely. 

Thermal radiation (and its negative, cold), the field of 
Professor Dewar's researches, in Keely's system comes below 
the first atomic ; while celestial sympathetic radiation comes 
as the fountain head ; the compound inter-etheric, from which 
all aggregated matter springs, the governing force of all 
aggregations. If there were no sympathetic radiation from 
the great celestial centre, space would be void of suspended, 
or floating, earthy and gaseous matter ; consequently, planetary 
worlds would never have had their birth and growth. 

The suggestion of Professor Dewar, that an increase in low 
temperatures might lead to the liquefying of hydrogen, is an 
admission that hydrogen may be a compound ; for no simple 
can ever be condensed into a visible form. Keely's experi- 
mental researches have proved, to his own satisfaction, that 
all known gases are compounds, inasmuch as, when the 
intensity which accompanies sympathetic vibration, in his 
process, is brought to bear upon any gas, it submits to 
dissociation. 

The low temperatures with which Professor Dewar is 
dealing cause molecular motion to cease; but the matter 
thus experimented upon is not ''dead matter'' after this 
cessation of motion. Nothing can rob matter of the latent 
energy which it contains ; water is not robbed of it by being 
frozen. The oxygen and hydrogen still occupy their rela- 
tive positions and conditions, without depreciation of their 
vitality. Were water dead matter when frozen, its molecular 
activity could not be restored by elevating its temperature. 

B b 2 



372 Appendix III. 

Matter can never be robbed of its soul by any conditions of 
intensity of heat nor of cold that could be brought to bear 
upon it. 

When Professor Dewar uses the term " dead/' in regard to 
matter^ it is purely in reference to the present orthodox 
theory of heat energy. Take the analogy of a tuning fork or 
a bell ; both are dead^ so far as sound is concerned, if they 
are not in vibration ; — they can be examined at rest or in 
motion, but science has not yet been able to do the same 
thing with those general motions of a molecular uature called 
heat. This is what Professor Dewar means by the term 
'' dead/^ knowing well that the molecular activity can return 
alike to the fork or the molecule ; only the energy must be 
supplied from some other source. Such are the conditions 
with which orthodox science is dealing, without acknowledg- 
ing Deity as the fountain head of all force. 

Not until Professor Dewar has witnessed the dissociation 
of hydrogen will he be able to judge of the truth of the 
claim, that for nearly twenty years Keely has been research- 
ing the nature of the product of this dissociation : leading 
him to define and classify force and energy very much as 
Grant Allen has done in his heretical work, on this subject, 
published by Longmans & Co., in 1887. 

James B. Alexander, in his book on ''The Dynamic 
Theory,'^ * makes this distinction between Force and Energy : 

'' Energy is simply the motion of material bodies, large or 
small. Force is the measure of energy, its degree or quantity. 
. . . The ether is the universal agent of Energy, and the medium 
in all motion and phenomena. It may with propriety be called 
the Soul of Things/* 

' The Dynamic Theory of Life and Mind." The Housekeeper Press, 
Minneapohs, Minn.