Thomas Troward - The Law and the Word

not think. They follow certain fixed laws which we have no power to

alter. Therefore we are confronted at the outset by a broad distinction

between two modes of Motion--the Movement of Thought and the Movement of

Cosmic Energy--the one based upon the exercise of Consciousness and

Will, and the other based upon Mathematical Sequence. This is why that

system of instruction known as Free Masonry starts by erecting the two

symbolic pillars Jachin and Boaz--Jachin so called from the root "Yak"

meaning "One," indicating the Mathematical element of Law; and Boaz,

from the root "Awáz" meaning "Voice" indicating Personal element of Free

Will. These names are taken from the description in I Kings vii, 21 and

II Chron. iii, 17 of the building of Solomon's Temple, where these two

pillars stood before the entrance, the meaning being that the Temple of

Truth can only be entered by passing between them, that is, by giving

each of these factors their due relation to the other, and by realizing

that they are the two Pillars of the Universe, and that no real progress

can be made except by finding the true balance between them. Law and

Personality--these are the two great principles with which we have to

deal, and the problem is to square the one with the other.

Let me start, then, by considering some well established facts in the

physical world which show how the known Law acts under certain known

conditions, and this will lead us on in an intelligible manner to see

how the same Law is likely to work under as yet unknown conditions. If

we had to deal with unknown laws as well as unknown conditions we

should, indeed, be up a gum tree. Fancy a mathematician having to solve

an equation, both sides of which were entirely made up of unknown

quantities--where would he be? Happily this is not the case. The Law is

ONE throughout, and the apparent variety of its working results from the

infinite variety of the conditions under which it may work. Let us lay a

foundation, then, by seeing how it works in what we call the common

course of Nature. A few examples will suffice.

Hardly more than a generation ago it was supposed that the analysis of

matter could not be carried further than its reduction to some seventy

primary chemical elements, which in various combinations produced all

material substances; but there was no explanation how all these

different elements came into existence. Each appeared to be an original

creation, and there was no accounting for them. But now-a-days, as the

rustic physician says in Molière's play of the "Médecin Malgré Lui,"

"nous avons changé tout cela." Modern science has shown conclusively

that every kind of chemical atom is composed of particles of one

original substance which appears to pervade all space, and to which the

name of Ether has been given. Some of these particles carry a positive

charge of electricity and some a negative, and the chemical atom is

formed by the grouping of a certain number of negatively charged

particles round a centre composed of positive electricity around which

they revolve; and it is the number of these particles and the rate of

their motion that determines the nature of the atom, whether, for

instance, it will be an atom of iron or an atom of hydrogen, and thus we

are brought back to Plato's old aphorism that the Universe consists of

Number and Motion.

The size of these etheric particles is small beyond anything but

abstract mathematical conception. Sir Oliver Lodge is reported to have

made the following comparison in a lecture delivered at Birmingham. "The

chemical atom," he said, "is as small in comparison to a drop of water

as a cricket-ball is compared to the globe of the earth; and yet this

atom is as large in comparison to one of its constituent particles as

Birmingham town-hall is to a pin's head." Again, it has been said that

in proportion to the size of the particles the distance at which they

revolve round the centre of the atom is as great as the distance from

the earth to the sun. I must leave the realization of such infinite

minuteness to the reader's imagination--it is beyond mine.

Modern science thus shows us all material substance, whether that of

inanimate matter or that of our own bodies, as proceeding out of one

primary etheric substance occupying all space and homogeneous, that is

being of a uniform substance--and having no qualities to distinguish one

part from another. Now this conclusion of science is important because

it is precisely the fact that out of this homogeneous substance

particles are produced which differ from the original substance in that

they possess positive and negative energy and of these particles the

atom is built up. So then comes the question: What started this

differentiation?

The electronic theory which I have just mentioned takes us as far as a

universal homogeneous ether as the source from which all matter is

evolved, but it does not account for how motion originated in it; but

perhaps another closely allied scientific theory will help us. Let us,

then, turn to the question of Vibrations or Waves in Ether. In

scientific language the length of a wave is the distance from the crest

of one wave to that of the wave immediately following it. Now modern

science recognizes a long series of waves in ether, commencing with the

smallest yet known measuring 0.1 micron, or about 1/254,000 of an inch,

in length, measured by Professor Schumann in 1893, and extending to

waves of many miles in length used in wireless telegraphy--for instance

those employed between Clifden in Galway and Glace Bay in Nova Scotia

are estimated to have a length of nearly four miles. These

infinitesimally small ultra-violet or actinic waves, as they are called,

are the principal agents in photography, and the great waves of wireless

telegraphy are able to carry a force across the Atlantic which can

sensibly affect the apparatus on the other side; therefore we see that

the ether of space affords a medium through which energy can be

transmitted by means of vibrations.

But what starts the vibrations? Hertz announced his discovery of the

electro-magnetic waves, now known by his name, in 1888; but, following

up the labours of various other investigators, Lodge, Marconi and others

finally developed their practical application after Hertz's death which

occurred in 1894. To Hertz, however, belongs the honour of discovering

how to generate these waves by means of sudden, sharply defined,

electrical discharges. The principle may be illustrated by dropping a

stone in smooth water. The sudden impact sets up a series of ripples all

round the centre of disturbance, and the electrical impulse acts

similarly in the ether. Indeed the fact that the waves flow in all

directions from the central impulse is one of the difficulties of

wireless telegraphy, because the message may be picked up in any

direction by a receiver tuned to the same rate of vibration, and the

interest for us consists in the hypothesis that thought-waves act in an

analogous manner.

That vibrations are excited by sound is beautifully exemplified by the

eidophone, an instrument invented, I believe, by Mrs. Watts-Hughes, and

with which I have seen that lady experiment. Dry sand is scattered on a

diaphragm on which the eidophone concentrates the vibrations from music

played near it. The sand, as it were, dances in time to the music, and