Annie Besant, C. W. Leadbeater
Occult Chemistry
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Table of contents
PREFACE.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
APPENDIX.
NOTES
PREFACE.
When
undertaking to prepare a new edition of this book I received
permission from the authors to "throw it into the form in which
you think it would be most useful at the present time." It was
left to my discretion, "What to use and what to omit." I
have not found it necessary to avail myself to any considerable
extent of this latter permission. But as the contents of the book
were originally arranged the reader was ill-prepared to appreciate
the importance of the later research for want of introductory matter
explaining how it began, and how the early research led up to the
later investigation. I have therefore contributed an entirely new
preliminary chapter which will, I hope, help the reader to realise
the credibility of the results attained when the molecular forms and
constitution of the numerous bodies examined were definitely
observed. I have not attempted to revise the records of the later
research in which I had no personal share, so from the beginning of
Chapter III to the end the book in its present form is simply a
reprint of the original edition except for the correction of a few
trifling misprints.I
have thus endeavoured to bring into clear prominence at the outset
the scientific value of the light the book sheds on the constitution
of matter. The world owes a debt to scientific men of the ordinary
type that cannot be over-estimated, but though they have hitherto
preferred to progress gradually, from point to point, disliking leaps
in the dark, the leap now made is only in the dark for those who will
not realise that the progress to be accomplished by means of
instrumental research must sooner or later be supplemented by subtler
methods. Physical science has reached the conception that the atoms
of the bodies hitherto called the chemical elements are each composed
of minor atoms. Instrumental research cannot determine by how many,
in each case. Occult research ascertained the actual number in some
cases by direct observation and then discovered the law governing the
numbers in all cases, and the relation of these numbers to atomic
weights. The law thus unveiled is a demonstration of the accuracy of
the first direct observations, and this principle once established
the credibility of accounts now given as to the arrangement of minor
atoms in the molecules of the numerous elements examined, seems to me
advanced to a degree approximating to proof.It
remains to be seen—not how far, but rather how soon the scientific
world at large will accept the conclusions of this volume as a
definite contribution to science, blending the science of the
laboratory with that variety that has hitherto been called occult.
CHAPTER I.
A
PRELIMINARY SURVEY.The
deep interest and importance of the research which this book
describes will best be appreciated if introduced by an account of the
circumstances out of which it arose. The first edition, consisting
mainly of articles reprinted from the
Theosophist, dealt
at once with the later phases of the research in a way which, though
intelligible to the occult student, must have been rather bewildering
to the ordinary reader. These later phases, however, endow the
earlier results with a significance that in the beginning could only
be vaguely conjectured. I am the better entitled to perform the task
that has been assigned to me—that of preparing the present
edition—by reason of the fact that it was in my presence and at my
instigation that the first efforts were made to penetrate the mystery
previously enshrouding the ultimate molecule of matter.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
