Metathesis

“ It is just as absurd to say that kinetic manifestations would have been the same in the absence of metakinesis, as to say that the metakinetic manifestations, the thoughts and emotions, would have been the same in the absence of kinesis. It is just as absurd to say that the physical series would have been the same in the absence of mind, as to say that the mental series would have been the same in the absence of bodily organization. For on this view consciousness is no mere by-product of neural processes, but is simply one aspect of them. ”

“ According to the monistic hypothesis, every mode of kinesis has its concomitant mode of metakinesis, and when the kinetic manifestations assume the form of the molecular processes in the human brain, the metakinetic manifestations assume the form of human consciousness. All matter is not conscious, because consciousness is the metakinetic concomitant of a highly specialized order of kinesis. ”

“ But the metakinetic unity is as completely one, indivisible, and enduring, as is the physical organism which is its kinetic counterpart. No one questions that there is an enduring organism of which certain visible activities are occasional manifestations; no one who has adequately grasped the teachings of monism can question that the enduring ego, of which certain states of consciousness are occasional manifestations, is the metakinetic equivalent of the organic kinesis. ”

“ Construction, destruction! There is no death of atoms: really nothing is generated, nothing destroyed: the change is but the rearranging of ultimate elements; and how is a drug to influence any more than would be in case of the affinities of chemistry?
Hazy conceptions, crude means! The ultimate cell multiplies by division to become bone, nails, hair, ligaments, muscles, fat, the brain, the whole body. Where along the line in the reconstructive work called by a disease or injury is a medicine to apply with power to aid? ”

“ Never imagine that you thoroughly understand metaphysical healing at this period from perusing this work, or any other that can be written on the subject. Our personal instructions are what plant you on the spiritual basis of which we treat, lifting you above the old and perishing fossils of the schools, and mentally fitting you to begin this far-off, unattained, and glorious science. We tear down before we build; and this demolishing more than building is the task of teaching metaphysics. ”

“ The Old Vitalist, who was essentially a Materialist, has evolved into the New Vitalist, who is, as every genuine scientist must be, finally a metaphysician. And as the New Vitalist turns from the disputes of his youth to the future of his science, he will cease to boggle at the name Vitalist, or at the inevitable, ancient, popular, and quite correct use of the term Force to denote metaphysical as well as physical overcomers of inertia. ”

“ He, of all men on earth, knew and could prove, that the human body was only a mental construction, that the very atoms in it were held together by the force of a patterned idea, and by nothing else. The pattern on which the body was constructed, the blue-print for the bones, flesh, and organs, this was an idea, and nothing more. ”

“ I say an eternal element, because, regarded philosophically, the belief in metempsychosis seems a kind of unconscious anticipation of the principle now known as ‘Conservation of Energy.’ Nothing that has ever existed can be lost, either in life or by death. All is but change; and hence souls do not perish, but return again and again in ever-changing forms. Moreover, later developments of metempsychosis, especially as conceived by Lessing, can without difficulty be harmonised with the modern idea of evolution from lower to higher forms.”
“That’s all,” Julius whispered, looking round at me. ”

“ As soon as we have touched on such matters as the chemical phenomenon of catalysis, we are on the threshold of a subject which, if we were able to pursue it, would soon lead us far into the special domain of physiology; and there it would be necessary to follow it if we were dealing with growth as a phenomenon in itself, instead of merely as a help to our study and comprehension of form. ”

“ The metaphysical scientist, understanding that all is mind, commences with causation; that which forms the body according to its belief, and makes the belief right, gets the image of cicatrization, abnormal growths, dislocation, curvatures, etc., expelled from the thought, and sets the belief to building more symmetrically; or, better still, with the truth of being destroys the error or belief in matter to such an extent, the phenomenon of Truth instead of error, harmony instead of discord, suppleness instead of stiffness and deformity, appears at once. ”

“ Development which supervenes upon metamorphosis is the production of cooperative organs all necessary to the life, growth and reproduction of the individual, and these organs have different powers, which in physiology are called functions. The exercise of functions is accomplished by metabolism, which is the recombination of chemical particles so that new particles come to take the place of those rejected. ”

“ At one time the effects are said to take place according to laws of a Higher Mechanics which are still to be discovered43. At another time, in complete contradiction of the general spirit of the system, metaphysical conceptions are introduced: each particle of the vital fluid is said to have a determined idea of the whole mechanism and organism44, and according to this, it forms the body and preserves it by its motion. By means of this fluid the soul operates upon the body, and the instincts and the passions have their source in this material sensitive soul. ”

“ After careful examination of the discovery in metaphysics that mind governs the body not in part but wholly, we submitted our metaphysical system of treating disease to the broadest practical proofs. Our theory has gradually gained ground, and established its own proof whenever it has been employed honestly and under circumstances that permitted its demonstration as the most effectual curative agent in medical practice. ”

“ So by slow degrees the thoughts, not only of man, but also of nature-spirits and devas, and even of animals so far as they do think, are evolving the elemental essence which surrounds them — slowly teaching here a few atoms, and there a few atoms, to respond to this or that different rate of oscillation, until at last a stage will be reached when all the particles of the essence shall be ready to answer at any moment to any possible rate of vibration, and that will be the completion of their evolution. ”

“ In other words, certain kinetic phenomena have for us inevitable metakinetic implications.
Now, when we pass from man to the lower animals, the metakinetic implications become progressively less inevitable and less forcible as the kinesis becomes more dissimilar from that which obtains in the human organism. The only metakinesis that we know directly is our own human consciousness. ”

“ Metaphysic is the negation or absorption of physiology—physiology of chemistry—chemistry of mechanical philosophy. Similarly in mechanics, when we can no further go we arrive at chemistry—when chemistry becomes organic we arrive at physiology: when we pass from the outward and animal to the inward nature of man we arrive at moral and metaphysical philosophy. These sciences have each of them their own methods and are pursued independently of one another. ”

“ So all bodies are subject to that force which we call weight; all substances, all matter abandoned to itself, falls to the earth."
Just here Miss Miette shifted uneasily on her chair, wishing to make an observation, but not daring.
"Come, Miss Miette," said Monsieur Roger, who saw this manoeuvre, "you have something to tell us. Your little tongue is itching to say something. Well, speak; we should all like to hear you."
"Monsieur Roger," said Miette, "is not smoke a substance?"
"Certainly; the word substance signifies something that exists. Smoke exists. Therefore it is a substance." ”

“ Chemistry teaches that thought-force, like muscle-force, comes from the food, and demonstrates that the force evolved by the brain, like that produced by the muscle, comes not from the disintegration of its own tissue, but is the converted energy of burning carbon. ”

“ The product will appear as in infinite metamorphosis.
(From the stand-point of reflection, as continually on the leap from fluid to solid, without ever reaching, however, the required form.—Organizations that do not live in the grosser element, at least live on the deep ground of the aërial sea—many pass over, by metamorphoses, from one element into another; and what does the animal, whose vital functions almost all consist in contractions, appear to be, other than such a leap?) ”

“ These states of substance often exhibit interesting critical points in which secular changes are accelerated by sudden metagenesis, especially at critical points of temperature and pressure. Thus changes of state are secular metageneses accelerated in sudden metageneses. ”

“ By admitting molecular affections into the vicious circle of mechanical equivalence, it has, however, imported into it an insuppressibly qualitative element, that sooner or later, by its intense expansiveness, will break the narrowing spell, and open to scientific knowledge new fields of unexpected wealth.
The whole mechanical view of Nature rests chiefly on the supposition that effects are equal to their causes, that they are indeed the causes themselves, metamorphosed in appearance. ”

“ Thus to be defined from without is, in principle, to be distracted within. And, the smaller the element, the more wide is this dissipation of its essence—a dissipation too thorough to be deep, or to support the title of an intestine division. [6] But, on the contrary, the expansion of the element should increase harmony, for it should bring these external relations within the inner substance. By growth the element becomes, more and more, a consistent individual, containing in itself its own nature; and it forms, more and more, a whole inclusive of discrepancies and reducing them to system. ”

“ THE TENTH LESSON SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION. One of the things that repel many persons who have had their attention directed to the subject of Metempsychosis for the first time, is the idea that they have evolved as a soul from individual lowly forms, for instance that they have at one time been an individual plant, and then an individual animal form, and then an individual higher animal form, and so on until now they are the particular individual human form contemplating the subject. ”

“ To fully understand the method of healing which I apply, it is necessary to understand one of the great natural laws, the discovery of which by the great chemists, Justus von Liebig and Julius Hensel, has shown us the path along which to proceed.
This law demonstrates that, in the last analysis, nature is a unit, a composition of a number of elements, each one possessing distinct qualities, the combination of which produces the various manifestations of life. ”

“ Materia medica, like its narcotics, pacifies mortal mind, and so helps the body, but it leaves both mind and body worse for the stupor and abnormal state it induces. Systems of metaphysics improve mortal mind and body, for they bring out the immortal facts of both, namely that Life is continuous and harmonious, and, like a two-edged sword, they amputate error on both sides, destroy it in mortal mind, and thus prevent or remove its effects on the body. ”

“ As regards the physical sciences, the metaphysician has indeed by this time probably learned his lesson. We are not likely to-day to repeat the mistake of supposing that it is for us as metaphysicians to dictate what shall be the physicist's or chemist's definition of matter or mass or elementary substance or energy, or how he shall formulate the laws of motion or of chemical composition. ”

“ Motility is the key to the understanding of vitality and organization. With little trouble any one can now convince himself that living motion is actually accomplished by the operations which I have here disclosed.
A certain organic substance expands under chemical composition, and afterward contracts under chemical decomposition. Its disintegration is incited by the dynamical influences of the medium; its reintegration is brought about by its own inherent chemical affinity, which affinitive power effects its combination with complemental material furnished by the medium. ”

“ Thus does he disdain the path of inductive research shown us by La Mettrie, and sin against one of the first rules of philosophizing—"Entia non creanda sunt sine necessitate"; for what purpose does consciousness serve, what mechanism? And if the atoms feel, what need of organs of sense? He furthermore overlooks the difficulty that I have fully pointed out, of comprehending how the numerous "atom-souls" can give rise to the aggregated consciousness of the whole brain. ”

“ When we reflect on the innumerable stimulations to which the organism is subjected from so many various points, and remember further that each stimulation leaves behind it a tremor which does not immediately subside, we shall conceive something of the excessive complexity of the mechanism, and marvel how any order is established in the chaos. What we must firmly establish in our minds is that the mechanism is essentially a fluctuating one, its elements being combined, recombined, and resolved under infinite variations of stimulation. ”

“ Even the results of mutilation involve an intrinsic factor, for they range, according to the organ and organism affected, from complete regeneration to the most imperfect healing. In the effects of exercise, of physiological activity and the gross results of such external agencies as food, temperature, climate, light, pressure and so forth the intrinsic factor appears to become more important. ”