Note 1 — Chapter V · ETHERIC VIBRATION. THE KEY FORCE.

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 principal 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 truth, 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”1 after his discovery of the circulation of the blood,—which discovery was ridiculed by his colleagues and compeers. The same reception awaited Jenner’s introduction of vaccination.