found the suggestions by intuition rather than by reading, all the more is his work a sign of the times.

He would have us think of the forms and structures of living things. as consequences and not as causes of Life. In other words, Life, Consciousness, Mind-call It what we will-uses form, structure, body, in order to draw back into Itself the force which It emanated from Its own Nature in the beginning. Perhaps, one should apologize to M. Houssay for using a Neoplatonic idiom to paraphrase his thought, for he claims a hearing as physicist, not as mystic. But he is partly to be blamed for our boldness, since he uses almost the same idiom himself.

But, to return to the laboratory-M. Houssay asks what is it that separates organic behaviour from inorganic, what is it that makes us distinguish between an Amoeba and an atom of nitrogen. There is no question yet of consciousness. Doubtless, the Amoeba is more sentient than the nitrogen, but both of them are so remote from us that the term, consciousness, applied to either, is equally unintelligible. It is a question of objective modes of behaviour, to be registered and compared by laboratory methods.

"Since the superior form of energy, in the scientific domain, is mechanical energy, the most beautiful example of the rehabilitation of energy by Life would certainly be that which would show how living beings have become more and more capable of producing that form of energy, in appearance, spontaneously, but in reality because they have become veritable accumulators of it" (p. 160).

The lowliest organism is distinguished from its mineral environment by the steady conversion of chemical into mechanical energy, so that it transforms more energy than can immediately be used, and stores it up for future use. Perhaps, here is one clue to one of the mysteries. of form. The form of the organism, which appears to us as stuff or matter, is in reality a representation of potential mechanical energy oras M. Houssay expresses it—“an incarnation of mechanical energy."

"All the forms, whose successive progression we can follow, all these structures are the result of successive modellings undergone through the ages under the influence of all the activities of the world, so that the forces which appear to emanate from the living creature are only the exodus of forces formerly introduced, accumulated and reserved" (p. 175).

"Chemical energy, actually elaborated by the creature from food, is transformed into mechanical energy in the muscular fibre itself by reason of the fibre's structure. This last structure is the result of accumulated mechanical energy, reserved under the form of elastic energy" (p. 169). Herein is expressed the mystery of the adaptation of the living structure to its environment. A creature has evolved a particular structure, because that structure is an accumulation of mechanical energy, which is changed from potential to kinetic in a way best

calculated to meet the resistance of a particular environment. The body of a fish is adapted to water, as the body of a bird is adapted to air.

The organism as individual must spend more than it can collect, must lose the property of motion and die. But the essence of organic life is transmitted to the offspring,-that essence which is the increasing power of accumulating energy. Thus each succeeding generation may start with a greater power than its predecessor. There are failures, of course-both for individuals and species, for power increases by use; if it be not used, there will be degeneration. Life must lift force from a state of inertia, and in so doing must Itself assume a physical nature. The physical nature tends to draw force down, even while Life tends to pull it up. This physical tendency seems to have objective expression in the hardening and separating of the tissues. M. Houssay calls bone an internal excretion, a sediment of inertia which the organism. cannot throw off. The process of hardening or ankylosis terminates in physical death. Perhaps, we have here one explanation of the necessity of cycles. In order to conquer brute matter, Life must "fall into generation,"—that is, must cast aside old forms and ever make for Itself new. It must use a succession of vehicles.

3

In the plant, the major effort of Life seems to be directed towards the accumulation of higher forms of chemical energy. The animal, assimilating the energy stored in the plant, converts it into mechanical energy, to be released at once or stored in elastic muscles, ready to act when an outer stimulus is conveyed to them through the nerves.

But in the higher animals the nerves also convey an inner stimulus. The inner stimulus is not a physico-chemical nexus; it is something which is known directly as consciousness. It controls and dominates ever more effectively the automatic responses of the animal to external physicochemical attractions and repulsions. In man the seat of consciousness becomes the centre of all his forces, the part of his nature to which all else tends to be subordinated. It is manifested as intelligence, imagination, desire, emotion, will, the faculty of choice. Man has ceased to be merely an accumulator of physical energies. He is even in his lowest types-a psyche, a living soul.

Whence comes psychic energy? How does the inner stimulus awaken?

By the power of Life, it is said; by a continuation of the process of rehabilitating energy, which had already been effective in transmuting food into movement. At this point, appears another of M. Houssay's penetrating intuitions. He thinks of the lower physical energies as being somehow derived from a prior psychic energy. Our individual selves illustrate this principle. We imagine and will an action, and the action follows; imagination and will have generated mechanical energy.

This struggle of life with matter, in its physical aspects, seems to be expressed by the Sanskrit term, Nitya Pralaya, defined in the Theosophical Glossary as "a stage of chronic change and dissolution, the stages of growth and decay."

So, the Anima Mundi, the World-Soul, creates the visible universe, by the power of Its Imagination and Will. Psychic energy, existing prior to other energies, is, indeed, unknown to modern science, but the alchemists have used its potencies.

M. Houssay has perhaps surmised the existence of the skandhas, of the "elementals" which make manifestation necessary. "Mens agitat molem, said the ancient dualism, and we say today that matter is energy; it is energy alone which, in its mutations, transforms that which our senses term matter. The psychic energy, from which all could descend . . would be thus nearer to the origin than other types of energy physically known. It would be also nearer to the end, since upon the earth at least, it is the last to manifest itself phenomenally" (p. 186).

As the lower animals restore and accumulate mechanical energy, the higher restore and accumulate psychic energy. The process of rehabilitation is carried a step further.

But rehabilitation is not thereby completed. Human consciousness is a phenomenon of marvellous spontaneity and power, but still it is only phenomenon, an appearance, a reflection of Real Consciousness. It is the Real, not its reflection, that all creation seeks as the Supreme Good.

"The study of things shows goodness (bonté) emerging from the confusion of struggles and immolations, as clearly as it shows intelligence flashing and leaping from automatic matter" (p. 225). But what is goodness? It is easy to say that it is the sign of a union of noumenon and phenomenon, that it is the Real Itself incarnating in a form and not merely Its reflection. But what must be some qualities of the Real, when thus incarnated?

"The man the most social, the most representative of the new estate, the ideal-if one will-is he who thinks the most of others and the least of himself" (p. 223). The appearance of separateness or individuality, impressed upon evolving things from the elemental force-centres to man, passes away, and, in its stead, arises the realization that "The All is One," that the highest principle of all creatures is one and the same. The Good reveals itself in man as the breaking down of egoism. Whereever is self-giving, the sacrifice of personal desire, there is the Good. When self-giving has become absolute, inevitable, then, truly, "a pilgrim hath returned back from the other shore."

Thus M. Houssay concludes his argument: "The arrival of life in the Good and in Intelligence can be conceived truly only as a return, a rehabilitation of energy, a last reflection of the First Cause, which has emerged from continuous degradation. It is less a progress than a salvation (sauvetage), if these words so brutal and precise can be thus employed." Before Abraham was, I am.

STANLEY V. LADOW.

11.

AN INTERPRETATION OF LAO TSE'S BOOK OF THE WAY AND OF

RIGHTEOUSNESS

II

Thirty spokes unite in the nave. The use of the car depends on the empty space for the axle.

Clay is fashioned into vessels. The use of the vessels depends on the empty space within.

Doors and windows are framed in making a house. The use of the house depends on their empty spaces.

Therefore utility depends on what is manifest, but the use of a thing depends on what is unmanifest.

T

HE point which Lao Tse wishes to make appears to be that, while the material universe presents itself to our senses as stable and solid, its whole life depends upon immanent Spirit, the Logos, the vital stream which he calls the Way, and which in itself is not manifest to the senses.

The same general thought is expressed by Paul, following Philo and Plato: "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead."

To put the same thought in a more modern way: Matter is useful because of the force which is manifested through it, and force is useful because of the yet more unmanifest Spirit which inwardly guides it.

But Lao Tse has in mind also a direct application to conduct: The heart must be made empty of desires, in order that the Spirit of the Way may enter and possess it. Then only the life comes to its true use.

12.

The five colours blind the eyes of men.
The five tones deafen the ears of men.

The five tastes deceive the mouths of men.

Impetuous motion, the passion of pursuit, madden the hearts of men.
The desire of possessions goads men to injurious acts.

Therefore the holy man is concerned with what is within, and not with the desire of the eyes.

Therefore he renounces what is without and cleaves to what is within.

The five colours, as enumerated by the Chinese commentator, are: red, blue, yellow, white and black. To the five notes of the scale, Chinese names are given. The five tastes are: sweet, sharp, acid, salt and bitter. Lao Tse is preaching a little sermon, not so much on the illusions of the five senses, as on fascination through the five senses. Perhaps

the quaintest of all the sermons on this theme is found in one of the tracts attributed to Shankaracharya: "Beguiled by the five senses, five creatures meet with death, the deer, elephant, moth, fish and bee." The deer is lured by music; the elephant is killed while ecstatically rubbing his head against a tree; the moth drawn to the flame is a universal simile; the fish is lured by the bait; the bee, attracted by the scent of the flower, is eaten by birds. The Sanskrit text draws the moral: "What, then, of man, allured by all the senses at once?"

The truth, in the larger philosophical sense, would seem to be that the outward-looking senses had their part in guiding us into manifested life. But the tide has turned; we should be on our homeward way. Therefore we must turn back, and look within. There we shall find the Way, leading us homeward.

13.

The wise man shuns fame equally with infamy. His body weighs him down like a great misfortune.

What mean the words: He shuns fame equally with infamy? There is something base in fame. To have it, is to be full of apprehension; to lose it, is to be full of apprehension.

Therefore it is said: He shuns fame equally with infamy.

What mean the words: His body weighs him down like a great misfortune?

If we suffer great misfortunes, it is because we have bodies.

When we no longer have bodies, what misfortunes can we suffer? Therefore, when a man shrinks from governing the kingdom, he may be trusted to govern the kingdom; when he is unwilling to govern the kingdom, he is fit to govern the kingdom.

Here again, the lesson is detachment. Attachment to the body, a perpetual gratification of the appetites of the body, causes most of the maladies of the body. But the body used as the soul's instrument, not pampered and indulged, is full of vigour.

So the vanity which seeks fame and popular renown renders a man vulnerable to every breath of popular displeasure, so that there are no such cowards as politicians. He who is quite indifferent to fame will dare all things.

The kingdom, as before, means both the earthly and the mystical kingdom. The safe ruler is he who has freed himself from the slavery of ambitious vanity. He who has trampled self under foot, is ready to be entrusted with the task of governing himself.

The same truth is taught in Light on the Path: That power which the disciple shall covet is that which shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes of men.

14.

You seek the Way, but see it not: it is called colourless.
You listen, but hear it not: it is called soundless.

You would grasp it, but cannot touch it: it is called bodiless.