The Theatrocrat: A Tragic Play of Church and StageDavidson, John
General
The Theatrocrat: A Tragic Play of Church and Stage
Davidson, John
Drama
I styled the Universe a Memory rushing into Consciousness. It may
also be called by as many metaphysics as there are properties and
qualities in Matter, and in Matter's accomplishment, man--a Will to
Happiness, a Will to Misery; a Will to be Hydrogen, fully developed
in all the hottest stars; a Will to Love, a Will to Hate; a Will to
be Lightning, into which everything devolves on its way back to the
Ether; a Will to Live, a Will to Die; a Will to Beauty, the
metaphysic of art; a Will to be the Ether, which everything was, and
is, and will again be. I say this to remind the reader that all
mental and spiritual qualities and properties are contained in the
forms of Matter which become at last fully conscious in man.
There was truth in astromancy. Man, consisting of the same
Matter as the stars, felt his kinship, and, being uninstructed, built
up assiduously his judicial astrology to explain, what every atom
of his body knew subconsciously, his identity with Sirius and
Aldebaran. There was truth in alchemy, more truth than in astrology.
The prime idea of alchemy, the transmutation of Matter, is absolutely
true. Uranium, thorium, radium, have been detected in the act of
secreting and producing other elements, which new elements, it is
almost certain, change, possibly by way of hydrogen, into
electricity--rapidly in the cases of uranium and thorium, very
slowly in the case of radium--and from electricity devolve back into
the primitive form of Matter, the Ether. And such is the history of
all Matter: from the Ether through cycles of change back to the
Ether. Man, being this transmutable, indestructible matter become
conscious, had from the beginning the knowledge of these properties
of Matter within him, and, while still uninstructed, conceived the
ideas of the transmutation of metals by the philosopher's stone, and
of the prolonging of life indefinitely by that same philosopher's
stone dissolved into the elixir of life: the one idea, practically
true; the other, a fantastic intimation of the indestructibility of
the Matter of which man consists. There was truth in witchcraft and
sorcery. Modern hypnotism can exhibit phenomena as wonderful as
anything recorded of black magic or white; and I am certain when I
remember the properties and qualities of the elements of which he is
compounded, that there are other material powers in man awaiting
discovery. I understand the list of human elements is correct as far
as it goes: about some eighteen are given, including those that are
barely traceable. I cannot conceive what further powers may be
discovered in man; but I allow myself an interlude to suggest that
there are other elements besides the current list in the Matter of
which he consists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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