FOOTNOTES:
[41] Each part possesses in a potential state the properties of the whole.
[42] The kingdoms that are invisible to physical sight are as interesting as those we see, but we have no occasion to speak of them here. Logic compels us to acknowledge them until the time comes when human development enables them to be discovered and affords direct proof of their existence.
[43] We do not mean to affirm that evolutionists have not committed serious errors in their theory of development. But the law they have set prominently forth is one of the fundamental expressions of the working of God in the Universe.
[44] The vibratory impressions that constitute the memory of the Universe. See in Chapter 4, the final Objection.
[45] See L'or et la Transmutation des métaux, by Tiffereau.
[46] Such as the one with the magnet which, if too great a weight is suspended to its armature, loses strength, and this it only regains by degrees when "fed" with successively stronger charges. A steel spring that has borne too great a weight loses strength, and may break if subjected anew to the same weight that "fatigued" it. Pieces of iron break after being "fatigued" by a weight they easily carried before. Professor Kennedy made very useful experiments regarding the "fatigue" of metals at the time when metallic bridges were continually breaking, thus causing great perplexity in the engineering world.
[47] There has been much discussion as to the causes of Evolution.
In his Progress and Poverty, Henry George endeavours to show that Evolution is in no way brought about by individual or collective heredity. He says that the factors of Progress are: First, the mind, which causes the advance of civilisation when not exercised solely in the "struggle for life," or in frequent conflicts between nation and nation; second, association or combination, which ensures all the benefits to be derived from division of work; third, justice, which harmonises the units of the social body, and without which civilisation decays and dies.
H. George saw only these elements in evolution; consequently, he could neither solve the problem of progress nor explain the rise and fall of empires. Indeed, egoism and war are in no way, as he says they are, the sole causes of the fall of races: the soil cannot feed a great nation for an indefinite period even if the country is prevented by emigration from becoming over-populated; the very nature itself of the civilisation of the time prevents it from continuing for ever. Modern western races, for instance, have for centuries past been developing energy and intelligence; a limit must be fixed to that particular line of progress, under penalty of destroying equilibrium both in the individual and the race.
If, indeed, man is to learn strength and intelligence, he must also develop love, or he will fail. The Elder Brothers behind Evolution control the advance of the races in accordance with the plan of God, whose servants they are.
The real cause of evolution does not lie in environment, as H. George and his school would have it: it is in the divine Will, incarnate in the Universe. It is God who creates the world, God who fills it with life, guides it and permits its development. All the laws of Nature are the expression of the supreme Intelligence; all progress is nothing but the realisation of the possibilities of the divine Will.
The evolutionary edifice is based on solidarity, and here environment is undoubtedly an indispensable factor in development; still, it only acts as the field or soil, and soil without seed remains barren.
The mind is also a powerful lever in evolution, but it affects only one side of the matter. Association or co-operation facilitates only the growth of certain faculties whilst checking the development of others. Justice calls forth only certain individual and social forces, and leaves many of them in a state of stagnation.
In a word, H. George forgets that there is no useless force in the whole of Nature; that they all collaborate in the general task, and finally that there would be no progress, were it not for the existence of opposing forces. If, e.g., egoism were non-existent, those still incapable of working without the hope of personal gain would lack a powerful incentive to action. True is the saying that evil is the stepping-stone to good.
Were the Law of Rebirths known, it would prove to be an explanation of the problems of evolution.
[48] A few theologians have feebly affirmed the possibility of human life on other planets than the Earth, but their voices have either been stifled or have met with no echo.
At the Congress of Fribourg, in Switzerland, August, 1897, evolution was adopted by an assembly of 700 eminent Catholics—laymen and clergy. Dr. Zahn said that although creation is possible a priori, it is a posteriori so very improbable that it ought to be rejected; that those who believe in this creation rely upon the literal interpretation of Genesis, whilst the contemporary students of the Bible affirm that the book is allegorical, that God, in the beginning created the elements and gave them power to evolve in all the forms that characterise the organic and inorganic worlds. One voice alone was raised in protest, but it was drowned beneath the refutations of the rest. The question, however, might be asked: How is the transition made from one kingdom to another? What is the missing link? Who is to interpret the Bible if it is an allegorical book? Is it the Church which has always imposed the letter of the Bible and condemned all who have attempted to set forth its spirit?
[49] In hypnosis, indeed, the thought suggested is strong enough to modify organic life and bring about hematic extravasion (stigmata), burnings, vomiting, etc.... In certain ecstatic cases, fixity of thought produces analogous effects. No one who has studied these questions can have the slightest doubt that mind dominates matter.
[50] We say force-matter, for there is no force without matter, they are the two poles of the same thing. Moreover, what is considered force in relation to dense matter plays the rôle of matter to subtler forces; electricity, e.g., is force-matter, probably capable of serving as a vehicle for subtler force-matter, just as it plays the rôle of force in relation to its conductors. Force is born and dies with matter and vice versâ; both alike arise from the activity of God.
[51] The sensations it calls forth vary with the forms. That which burns us, gives life to other beings; water, which suffocates us, enables fishes to live; whilst air suffocates creatures that live in the water, etc.
[52] All this must be taken figuratively. God does not incarnate Himself. He is the All. To our limited conceptions, He seems to limit Himself, in order to be the Life of a Universe.
[53] Here, too, we are speaking relatively; in reality, there are no fragments of the Absolute. We describe the process as it seems to us in the world of illusion.
[54] Being: Divinity.
[55] Force-matter.
[56] Forms.
[57] The movement given to the germ by the union of its positive and negative forces.
[58] The "builders" are inferior beings utilised by Nature in every process of germination and development. To certain readers, this will perhaps appear to be an aberration of the theosophic imagination, in which case we recommend them to supply us with a better theory and to believe in that, until the time comes when the functioning of the "inner senses" takes place in them, and enables them to perceive these beings in action.
[59] Teratological phenomena attributable to the imagination of the mother are so numerous that they cannot be refuted. The case mentioned here is taken from Van Helmont's De Injectis Materialibus. The woman in question had been present at the decapitation of thirteen soldiers, condemned to death by the Duc d'Alva. In the same work are two other instances which occurred under similar circumstances: in the first, the fœtus at birth was lacking a hand; and in the second, it was the whole arm that was missing; whilst, what is perhaps even stranger than this, neither arm, nor hand, nor head were found, they had been absorbed by the body of the mother.
[60] To be strictly logical, one should say round the only centre, the one Being, but looked upon from the side of manifestation, evolution appears as stated.
[61] Hellenbach, in his book, Magie der Zahlen, says regarding the number seven.
"The law governing the phenomena on which our knowledge is based decrees that the vibrations of sound and light regularly increase in number, that they are grouped in seven columns, and that the vibratory elements of each column have so close a relation to one another that not only can it be expressed in figures, but it is even confirmed by practice in music and chemistry.
"The fact that this variation and periodicity are governed by the number seven cannot be disputed; it is not a matter of chance: there is a cause and we ought to discover it."
In his table of the elements grouped according to atomic weight, Mendelejef also acknowledges that the number seven controls what he calls the Law of periodical function. He reaches conclusions similar to those of Hellenbach.
Dr. Laycock, in his Articles on the Periodicity of Vital Phenomena (Lancet) 1842, sums up as follows:—
"It is, I think, impossible to come to any less general conclusion than this, that, in animals, changes occur every 3-1/2, 7, 14, 21 or 28 days, or at some definite period of weeks."
[62] See Man and his Bodies, by A. Besant.
[63] The size of the causal body varies according to its development. It has been named causal, because it contains within itself the causes or germs of all the other bodies, with the exception of the denser part of the physical. We say denser because the physical body is double: its etheric part belongs to the causal body, its visible part comes from the parents.
[64] The mental body, which is, as it were, an ephemeral flower of the causal, is born and developed in each incarnation, disintegrating after the devachanic (heavenly) life.
[65] It moves more or less freely on the astral plane, according to the development of the astral body. In men of low development, this body cannot be separated from the physical, under penalty of a nightmare which brings about a waking condition.
[66] The atoms interpenetrate in consequence of their differences of tenuity.
[67] Later on, the centre of consciousness passes from the human to the superhuman state and ascends unceasingly until it reaches the centre of the Divinity incarnate in the world.
[68] When this centre is fixed in one of the higher bodies, the buddhic for instance, the man has passed into the superhuman stage.
[69] As sand, placed on a plate in a state of vibration, assumes varying forms.
[70] The soul acting in the mental, the astral, and more especially—in the average man—the physical body. The Individuality is the soul acting in the causal body.
[71] See the diagram in the chapter on the Atom in The Ancient Wisdom, by A. Besant.
[72] We have seen that the organs formed by these tissues are the special work of a particular being controlled by lofty Intelligences.
[73] As the building of the body is reaching completion, the Ego (the Soul) begins to make use of the new instrument. It is at about the age of seven years that the development of the nerve centres becomes sufficiently advanced to allow of the brain receiving the vibrations of the soul; up to this point, the real man has scarcely had any influence upon the body, although the mental projection (the mental body) which he has formed can express itself to a certain extent much earlier, from the seventh month of fœtal life; up to this time, the instinctive energies of the astral body alone affect the embryo.
[74] In Kâmaloka (Purgatory). The desires, in purgatory, cannot be satisfied, because there is no physical body to express them, and this causes a state of suffering which has been compared to a burning fire. This fire burns up the passions and leaves behind only the "germs," which the causal body takes up and bequeaths to the future astral body. But for this providential burning away, the passions would exist from early childhood in the future incarnation, i.e., at a time when the Ego has no hold whatever upon the new personality, and when the latter would be terribly affected by this influx of the forces of evil.
[75] Souls are of different ages: the savage is not so old as the civilised man, while the latter is the younger brother of those strong and wise Souls who compose the vanguard of humanity.
[76] It is impossible for heredity and environment to supply all the conditions that a soul's evolution calls for, and nothing but these conditions; that is the reason Providence intervenes in the interests of justice.
[77] It is in this great body, with which we are in sympathy, though we claim the right to dispute their theories when we regard them as erroneous, that this hypothesis is met with more especially. True, certain schools of lower occultism teach it also, but they form a minority, and are of no importance.
[78] Harmony is established when there is vibratory synchronism of all the states of matter of the different bodies i.e., when each slate of matter in a body vibrates in unison with the analogous states of matter of all the other bodies.
[79] When the "life wave" has ended its cycle on this earth, it passes in succession over the other planets of our chain and leaves the earth in a state of slumber. This slumber ceases with the return of the "life wave"; it becomes death when the evolution of the chain is accomplished. See A. P. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism.
[80] At a certain stage on the Path, return to earth is no longer obligatory.