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We found lying upon the window a volume of Virgil, as if it were a common hand-book, and also Helmont's book on Medicine, whom, in an introduction, which they have made to it, they make pass for one of their sect, although in his life time he did not know anything about Quakers; and if they had been in the world, or should have come into it, while he lived, he would quickly have said, no, to them; but it seems these people will make all those who have had any genius, in any respect, more than common, pass for theirs; which is certainly great pride, wishing to place themselves far above all others; whereas, the most of them, whom I have seen as yet, are miserably self-minded, in physical and religious knowledge.
What, then, does van Helmont's discovery of the gaseous state of matter tell us, if we regard it in the light of our newly acquired insight into the trend of evolution both within and without man?
Other cures for which van Helmont vouched included a man who was exceedingly fat; he touched the stone every morning with the tip of his tongue and very speedily lost weight. Van Helmont's own wife was cured of a marked edema of the leg. Similarly, a servant maid who had had severe attacks of erysipelas which were "badly cured," and the leg leaden colored and swollen, was cured almost immediately.
As an important example, I would indicate Boyle's discussion of one of van Helmont's alleged cures. Van Helmont described the remarkable cures brought about by a man identified only by the name of Butler. Apart from van Helmont's discussion, we can find no trace of him in medical annals, and van Helmont's own account is extremely skimpy.
About half a century after van Helmont's discovery a treatise called Contra Levitatem was published in Florence by the Accademia del Cimento. It declares that a science firmly based on observation has no right to speak of Levity as something claiming equal rank with, and opposite to, Gravity. This attitude was in accord with the state into which human consciousness had entered at that time.
He therefore took, and changed slightly, a word signifying a particular cosmic condition which seemed to be imaged in the new condition he had just discovered. Van Helmont's account brings us face to face with a number of riddles.
And as he was fingering at my heart, and discoursing sneeringly about Van Helmont's dreams of the Archaeus, and the animal spirit which dwells within the solar plexus, Eleanor glided by again, like an angel, and drew my soul out of the knot of nerves, with one velvet finger-tip.
He drew attention to the overwhelming effects which might result from a cause which was so minute that it could not be perceived by the senses. We cannot here go into the theoretical background which underlay van Helmont's conceptions, but we must mention at least briefly his idea of a basic mechanism.
The fact that the existence of this state of ponderable matter was quite unknown up to such a relatively recent date has been completely forgotten to-day. Moreover, it is so remote from current notions that anyone who now calls attention to van Helmont's discovery is quite likely to be met with incredulity. As a result, there is no account of the event that puts it in its true setting.
The evolutionary changes which we observe in the earth and in man are in fact a single process, working through a variety of manifested forms. From this conception of the parallel evolution of earth and man light falls also on the historic event represented by van Helmont's discovery.
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