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move in their own element. Another school argued that as Zro in
vapour combined the virtues of the liquid and the solid Zro, so a
fiery state might be produced which would so impregnate their
bodies as to make them 'mates of the aether'. This school held
that fiery Zro already existed in Nature, "in the heart of the
Living Atla", and asserted that those who died by absorption into
Atla passed straight to Venus. Many of them therefore tried hard
to obtain messages from that planet. Familiar with Newton's first
law of motion, they further held it possible to prepare Zro in
such a state that a current of it could never be deflected or
dissipated, and so, if it could be made in sufficient quantity, a
bridge to Venus might be built by which they might travel. They
therefore tunneled through the planet, as previously explained,
to have a sort of cannon for the Zro. But as their supply was
pitifully insufficient, they endeavoured also to prepare a Zro
which would have the power of multiplying itself. Alchemical
tradition has some record of this problem.
Yet another group of magicians argued that as Nature had cast
off the planets from the Sun--a disputed point, some thinking
this due to magic, which if so completely destroys the argument--
it would be contrary to Nature to cause the planets to fall back
into it. They busied themselves with attempts to increase the
Earth's gravitational pull, and (alternatively) to check her
course. Their schemes were generally regarded as Utopian--yet
they could boast of the discovery of the Zro that lightened
bodies, and of a kind of aether-screen which generated mechanical
power in inexhaustible quantities by making matter slightly
opaque to aether. This engine only worked on a very small scale.
A screen two inches long would tear itself from fastenings that
would have held an earthquake, while the rocks in its
neighbourhood would melt in a few minutes, and the sea boil
instantly where its rays struck. The most brilliant of this
school asserted "Matter is a strain in the aether." He explained
gravitation in this way. Place two ivory spheres in a rubber
tube; the strain on the tube is least when the balls touch. The
tendency is therefore for them to come together. Friction alone
checks them. Now aether is infinitely elastic and without
friction. From these data he calculated the Law of Inverse
Squares.
A more mystic school saw life everywhere. It knew all that we
know, and more, about ions and electrons; it saw every phenomenon
as a manifestation of will. The crowning glory of this school was
the discovery that Zro in its ninth stage, eaten and drunken with
concentrated intention, produced the desired result, whatever
(within wide limits) that result might be. This went far to
supersede the use of all specialized forms of Zro, and so to
unify the magical practice.
It seems curious with all this magic, Magic itself should be
the thing most deplored. But it was the means, and, as such,
"that which is in particular not the end". The word for Magic,
'Ijynx', was the only dissyllable in the language, for Magic was
the essentially two-fold thing, more two-fold (in a way) than the
number two itself. It is interesting here to sketch briefly the
mathematics of Atlas. The task is not easy, as their minds worked
very differently from ours.
The number 1 was a fairly simple idea; but two was not only
two, but also 'the result of adding 1 to 1' and 'the root of 4'.
The numbers grew in complexity out of all reason. Seven was 6
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