To be taken seriously, thinkers felt the need to frame their ideas in quasi-scientific terms and invoke the hard physical sciences in support of them. We have already seen examples in the passages quoted above on vibration, which cite “modern science” and “physical science” as authorities. (Our own time has its updated version of this: metaphysical writers invoke quantum physics and relativity—often in garbled and almost unrecognizable forms—in much the same way.)
