Chapter 1614

[←1605]

In “The Transmigration of Life-Atoms” (Five Years of Theosophy, p. 535), we say of the Jîva, or Life-Principle, in order to better explain a position which is but too often misunderstood: “It is omnipresent ... though [on this plane of manifestation often] ... in a dormant state [as in stone].... The definition which states that when this indestructible force is ’disconnected with one set of atoms [molecules ought to have been said] it becomes immediately attracted by others,’ does not imply that it abandons entirely the first set [because the atoms themselves would then disappear], but only that it transfers its vis viva, or living power—the energy of motion, to another set. But because it manifests itself in the next set as what is called kinetic energy, it does not follow that the first set is deprived of it altogether; for it is still in it, as potential energy or life latent.” Now what can Hæckel mean by his “not identical atoms, but their peculiar motion and mode of aggregation,” if it is not the same kinetic energy we have been explaining? Before evolving such theories, he must have read Paracelsus and studied Five Years of Theosophy without properly digesting the teachings.