spiritual race, called by some the "Progenitors" or "Pitris," by others the "Planetary Spirits" or "Descending Dhyan Chohans." This curve marks the downward evolution of man's spiritual nature, the development of the soul.*

As we should expect from the Oriental character and high antiquity of the cosmogony of Genesis,-dating as it does from a time when the "downward evolution of the soul" had not progressed so far as it now has, and when man had not yet lost his spiritual insight—, we find this doctrine of man's divine progenitors clearly visible. In the case of the plants, animals, and marine creatures, we found terms applied which could only be used of a regular, unbroken process. When we reach Man, a new and striking expression is introduced

"The Elohim created man in their image, in the image of the Elohim created they man."

The pressure of the descending evolution of the Planetary Spirits or Elohim-seeking for objective, physical existence-upon the previously formed animal kingdom, caused the evolution of a fitting pyhsical vehicle from the highest representatives of that kingdom. Hence we get physical man as we know him, descended on the one side from the animal kingdom, and on the other from his divine progenitors, the Planetary Spirits. We have compared this dual evolution to two converging curves. A too great attraction towards the material, physical side of man's nature keeps the modern materialist from seeing more than one of these curves. The modern Scientist is colour-blind to spirit, to him man is merely—

"A quintessence of dust."

But to intuitional minds at the present day, as to our more spiritual ancestors, both curves are visible; besides the physical man they could see the spiritual man

"In action like an angel; in apprehension like a God."

To return to the standpoint from which we viewed the previous kingdoms, we perceive that the introduction of this new factor in evolution corresponds to the addition from above of a new element in the series of ascending spirituality. With man is added the Fire-Element, in its aspect of the divine light of reason. It corresponds to manas in Eastern systems. Another aspect of manas, considered idealistically this time, by virtue of which it "creates for itself an external world of delight," would correspond to the quality of colour in the fire element. Of the earliest races of men

There is an important point in the teachings of the Secret Doctrine which has been continually neglected. The above described evolution-the spiritual falling into the physical, or from mineral up to man, takes place only during the 1st of the two subsequent Rounds. At the beginning of the fourth "Round" in the middle of which begins the turning point upward-i. e., from the physical up to the spiritual, man is said to appear before anything else on earth, the vegetation which covered the earth belonging to the 3d Round, and being quite etherial, transparent. The first man (Humanity) is Etherial too, for he is but the shadow (Chhaya) "in the image" of his progenitors, be cause he is the "astral body" or image of his Pitar (father). This is why in India gods are said to have no shadows. After which and from this primeval race, evolution supplies man with a "coat of skin" from the terrestrial elements and kingdom-mineral, vegetable, and animal.-[H. P. B.]

1 Vide Sankaracharva's "Viveka Chudamani.”

we learn that they were purely frugivorous and perhaps andro

gyne.

With the formation of man the cosmogony of Genesis closes. We are justified in supposing that, as the union of form with the elements of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire produced the objective Mineral, Vegetable, Animal, and Human kingdoms, so these elements, divorced from Form, should have their appropriate kingdoms of beings, or forms of life, if we can use this term for something so widely different from all ordinary forms of life. These subjective kingdoms of the four elements would correspond to the Rosicrucian conceptions of "primordial earth" and the "Fire, Air, and Water Elementals."

We may go further than this, and, carrying on our inference, postulate for the spiritual ether, and even for the divine Logos, their appropriate qualities of being. To a conception somewhat similar to what the last of these would involve, the Gnostics gave the name of Æons; for the first-the ether-beings-we have the Indian titles of gandharva,-celestial musician,-or Deva. But having gone thus far, we are driven a step further. We have already seen all the links in the chain of elements in ascending spirituality picked up one by one by the ascending tide of Evolution, up to the elemental fire; let us advance a step, and postulate that the other two emanations or planes-the Ether-Spirit and the Logosshould ultimately be picked up by the Evolutionary tide. With the resumption of the first, instead of a human being we should have a "Spiritual Man," and from a re-union with the Logos we should have a "Divine Man, Perfected and Eternal," or, giving to these conceptions the names already appropriated to them in the East, we should have in the first case a Mahatma, in the second a perfect Buddha.

It is now time to point out that the pure elements of Ether, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth are not these bodies as we know them. The five classes of objects (corresponding to these five elements) known to us, being all on the physical plane, all belong properly to a single category, and may be called for the sake of distinction the Mundane Elements. To make this clearer, let us suppose that Mundane Earth-the mineral kingdom in its various forms-is composed of five parts of the element earth, while Mundane Water (everything cognized by the sense of taste) is composed of four parts of the element of earth added to one part of the element of water. Similarly the Air-element known to us on the physical plane (corresponding, as we have seen, to the sense of touch) is composed of four parts of the earth element, with one part of the pure elemental air added; and the Fire and Ether elements as known to our physical or waking consciousness are each composed of four parts-with one part of fire and ether respectively added.

These considerations will prepare us to believe that the real elements are purer and more spiritual than their representatives

on the physical plane,* and that they will be represented by different compounds on each plane (or as it is called in some works, planet) on the water plane (or planet): for instance, what we may for convenience term Undine Earth will be represented by four parts of the Water element and one part of the earth-element; Undine water will be five parts elemental water; while Undine air will be composed of four parts elemental water, added to one part elemental air, and so on.

The composition of the elements as present on each plane or planet may similarly be deduced by observing carefully the principle which governs these combinations. We should warn our read

ers that these examples are given by way of illustration, and not as representing accurately and numerically the combined elements as they actually occur; they are really formed on a much more complex principle.1

In our illustrations we have, for convenience sake, confined ourselves to the five objective elements, though of course it must not be forgotten that the energising spirit runs through the whole series on every plane.

The pure spiritual or elemental ether is the macrocosmic counterpart of that principle of the microcosm termed Buddhi by Eastern mystics.

The Logos corresponds to Atma in the same speculations.

We have seen that to the four principles-Form or Linga, Vitality or Jiva, Substance or Sthula Sarira, motion under desire or Kama-of the animal, Man has added a fifth,-corresponding to the macrocosmic elemental Fire,-human reason, or Manas.

Our speculations as to the two superhuman Kingdoms are also in harmony with these eastern theories; the element of Buddhi being added to form the Mahatma; and Atma completing the Buddha, perfected and divine.

The perfect Euddha, though not possessing a physical body, or, indeed, being united to principles on any of the objective planes, will still retain the spiritual counterparts of these principles corresponding to groups of experiences gained on each plane. It is by these spiritual principles that the Buddha is richer than the Æon; it is in virtue of them that the Ascending excels the Descending Planetary Spirit, or Dhyan Chohan. These spiritual principles, constitute the end and aim of evolution, and justify the cosmic expansion and involution.

The evolutionary tide, in generating the higher kingdoms, has flowed, as we have seen, from the earth-element towards pure Spirit.

This is one reason for calling the objective phenomenal world an "illusion." It is an illusion and ever impermanent because the matter of which the objects are composed continually returns to the primordial condition of matter, where it is invisible to mortal eyes. The earth, water, air, and fire that we think we see are respectively only the effects produced on our senses by the primordial matter held in either of the combinations that bring about the vibration properly belonging to those classes: the moment the combination is entirely broken, the phenomena cease and we see the objects no more.-[H. P. B.] 1 Vide Man; Fragments of Forgotten History, p. 13 note.

2 Vide "Esoteric Buddhism."

In obedience to this tendency, man in achieving his apotheosis must, gradually loosing his hold on the world of Matter, add to his treasure in the worlds divine; until humanity becomes ever freer, stronger, and more perfect, and returns at last, refreshed, to his home in the bosom of the perfect God.

CHARLES JOHNSTON, F. T. S.

ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC AFFINITIES BETWEEN MAN AND NATURE*

W

ITHOUT going too deeply into certain vexed questions based upon what the orthodox men of science please to term the "hypothetical" conclusions of the Psychological School, whenever we meet with discoveries made by the former, coinciding perfectly with the teachings of the latter, we think ourselves entitled to make them known to the world of skeptics. For instance, this psychological, or spiritual, school holds that "every being and naturally-formed object is in its beginning, a spiritual or monadial entity" which, having its origin in the spiritual or monadial plane of existence, must necessarily have as many relations with the latter as it has with the material or sensuous plane in which it physically develops itself. That "each, according to species, evolves from its monadial centre an essential aura, which has positive and negative magnetoïd relations with the essential aura of every other, and that, mesmeric attraction and repulsion exhibiting a strong analogy with magnetic attraction and repulsion, this analogous attraction and repulsion obtains not only between individuals of the same, but of different species, not only in animate but in inanimate nature." (Clairvoyance, Hygienic and Medical, by Jacob Dixon, L. S. A. L.)

Thus if we give our attention but to the electric and magnetic fluids in men and animals, and the existing mysterious but undoubted interrelation between these two, as well as between both of them and plants and minerals, we will have an inexhaustible field of research, which may lead us to understand more easily the production of certain phenomena. The modification of the peripheral extremities of nerves by which electricity is generated and discharged in certain genera of fishes, is of the most wonderful character, and yet, to this very day its nature remains a mystery to exact science. For when it has told us that the electric organs of the fish generate the electricity which is rendered active by nervous influence, it has given us an explanation as hypothetical as that of the psychologists whose theories it rejects in toto. The horse has nerves and muscles as well as a fish, and even more so; the existence of animal electricity is a well-established fact, and the presence of muscular currents has been found in the undivided as well as in the divided This article was first printed by H. P. Blavatsky in The Theosophist for February,

muscles of all the animals, and even in those of man. And yet by the simple lashing of its feeble tail a small electrical fish prostrates a strong horse! Whence this electric power, and what is the ultimate nature and essence of the electric fluid? Whether as a cause or effect, a primary agent or a correlation, the reason for each of its manifestations is yet hypothetical. How much, or how little has it to do with vital power? Such are the ever-recurring and always unanswerable queries. One thing we know, though, and that is, that the phenomena of electricity as well as those of heat and phosphorescence, within the animal body, depend on chemical actions; and that these take place in the system just as they would in a chemist s laboratory; ever modified by and subjected to this same mysterious Proteus-the Vital Principle, of which science can tell us nothing.

The quarrel between Galvani and Volta is well known. One was backed by no less an authority than Alexander Humboldt, the other by the subsequent discoveries of Matteucci, Dubois Reymond, Brown-Sequard, and others. By their combined efforts, it was positively established that a production of electricity was constantly going on in all the tissues of the living animal economy; that each elementary bundle of fibrils in a muscle was like a couple in a galvanic battery; and that the longitudinal surface of a muscle acts like the positive pole of a pile, or galvanic battery, while the transverse surface acts like the negative pole. The latter was discovered by one of the greatest physiologists of our century-Dubois Reymond; who, nevertheless, was the greatest opponent of Baron Reichenbach, the discoverer of the Od Force, and ever showed himself the most fierce and irreconcilable enemy of transcendental speculation, or what is best known as the study of the occult, i. e., the yet undiscovered forces in nature.

Every newly-discovered power, each hitherto unknown correlation of that great and unknown Force or the Primal Cause of all, which is no less hypothetical to skeptical science than to the common credulous mortals, was, previous to its discovery, an occult power of nature. Once on the track of a new phenomenon science gives an exposition of the facts-first independent of any hypothesis as to the causes of this manifestation; then-finding their account incomplete and unsatisfactory to the public, its votaries begin to invent generalizations, to present hypotheses based upon a certain knowledge of principles alleged to be at work by reasserting the laws of their mutual connection and dependence. They have not explained the phenomenon; they have but suggested how it might be produced, and offered more or less valid reasons to show how it could not be produced, and yet a hypothesis from their opponents' camp, that of the Transcendentalists, the Spiritualists and Psychologists, is generally laughed down by them before almost these latter have opened their mouths. We will notice a few of the newly-discovered electromagnetic phenomena which are still awaiting an explanation.

In the systems of certain people the accumulation and secretion of electricity, reach under certain conditions, to a very high degree.