A. Piazzi Smyth was a F.R.A.S., who investigated, studied and made measurements of the Great Pyramid. Being a very patriotic Englishman, as well as a very orthodox Christian, he evolved and promulgated the theory that the geometric measurements of the Great Pyramid proved that the scientific basis of its construction was to demonstrate that the British inch, and not the metric system, is the true standard of lineal measurements; and further that the religious purpose in building the Pyramid was to enforce the orthodox idea of the Sabbath and as a warning against the Continental Sunday.

Q. Page 14, what does it mean, "Until all the units which are ready are perfected?"

A. There is always a certain proportion of human beings who have had sufficient experience to carry them into a higher stream of evolution, leaving the best of those who have not advanced so far to take their places. They never leave until others have been raised to take their places. Perfected beings exemplify universal brotherhood, that being their acquired nature. All is under law, nothing is left to chance. The higher the being, the more fully is the law of brotherhood expressed. One wouldn't expect those who came from the animal kingdom on the moon as incipient humanity to have had the same experience as those who were self-conscious when the earth began. There are always those who pass out of any system through advancement and those who remain to perfect their experience, while still others come in from the kingdoms below.

Q. In regard to septenary nature, when a being is perfected here does he begin at the bottom on a higher sphere? In other words, there are only seven principles: is it a continuous going through them in the scale of perfectibility?

A. When you perfect yourself in the septenary degree of any evolution, then you have the basis for a septenary evolution of a much higher kind. (For example, the difference between our planet, the earth, and Venus.)

Q. It is said a knowledge of the Three Fundamental Propositions of The Secret Doctrine gives a means of solution to every problem of life. How could a knowledge of the "Fundamentals" help me to determine whether I should go to war or not?

A. The Three Fundamental Propositions show one thing: that the aim of existence and evolution is the right progress of all beings. Everything tending to justice, human freedom and progression, is a right basis for action. Even in the first "Fundamental" one gets the general motive. Applying that motive particularly, one asks: "What is my duty in taking part in any individual or collective action?" Our moral support should be given to every right action, even if we cannot help more actively. But, if we can actively help, we should do so. Under the second

"Fundamental" there is the Law of Periodicity: that means the return of individuals who work out the effects of causes produced by them. Under this comes all the karmic settlements between nations. If we belong to a nation which goes to war, that makes it our duty to act with that nation so far as its government is disposed to act for general human betterment. If our nation is at peace, then our support should go to that nation which is striving to bring about the best results for humanity at large and, in this determination, the liking for one nation more than another should not enter. It is entirely a question of human progression and the best means to that end. This calls for discrimination and each must find that for himself. The "Third Fundamental" indicates that the Universe is composed of beings of every grade, and that among mankind there are many degrees of development and understanding. So we must always take into consideration the general principles and ideals that govern any man and any nation.

Q. What is patience, Theosophically considered?

A. Consideration for others. An undisturbed condition of mind, a steadiness and a quietness in regard to any thing that comes to pass. This leaves our best judgment ready for action.

Q. Page 15, Chapter II, "The first differentiation, speaking metaphysically as to time, is Spirit." What does that mean?

A. Time can be reckoned only by action and reaction, and until there is action, there is no time. Before there is any time there must be the spiritual entities coming out of the homogeneous state into activity. The phrase means: "Time" was not until these spiritual entities began to act. Time means the beginning of action and establishes the cycles. (See S. D. I-Stanza I.)

Q. Do not all the good thoughts sent out by these people who pray for the unfortunates of the war do good, some good, at least, to those who are prayed for?

A. We are still imbued with the old fallacy of praying to some outside power or being. Neither prayers to any supposed God or Masters even, are of any avail. Power either exists within, or not at all. All the power that any being exerts or can exert in any direction is what he himself is able to arouse within himself. Good and kind thoughts for others are good for those who think them, but they have no effect outside, unless the arouser of those thoughts has both the knowledge, will and power to direct them; and beings differ greatly in these. Most thoughts are like soap-bubbles and do not travel very far. Thoughts to be effective must not only be free from all selfish taint, but they must be sustained. The Masters, who of all beings are the most capable of sustained thought and have the power and knowledge, are not able to affect the minds of the people of the world, because those minds are constantly full of active, selfish thoughts. If Masters were able to affect humanity by their thoughts, they wouldn't have to write books. If people, who can hear and read words intended

to arouse the best in them, benefit so little by them, what hope is there in fugitive thinking?

If

The most powerful wireless, capable of sending messages all over the world, would be a most useless expenditure of force unless there were receiving stations attuned to the sending one. we think kindly of another and that other is in a receptive mood, the thought will reach; but who is able to tell when the object of his thought will be receptive?

As the parable says, "First make clean the inside of the platter," before we try to serve wholesome food. The best help we can give others, and the most power we can acquire, is by getting rid of our defects, by subduing the personality, and giving play to our spiritual forces and faculties. Then there will be power and knowledge as to when, where and how to act or to refrain from the action-producing thoughts.

Q. Chapter III-Why is it that we are so much behind what we were thousands of years ago, spiritually?

A. Because the consciousness engaged in external things caused the intellect, the power of reasoning from premises to conclusions, to grow at the expense of the spiritual, direct knowledge. We were so busy learning the characteristics of matter that the consciousness of being spirit was lost. We have aroused desire for external things and these lead directly away from the consciousness of being spirit.

There is a spiritual aroma in every pleasing thing, so we seek aromas, forgetting the nature of our being, and this pursuit is purposeless and endless. Unless we attain to the consciousness of spiritual being (a purposeful existence in spirit not in matter) we remain bound by the conditions of physical existence.

This so-called "descent" was necessary in order for us to know matter in its various divisions and phases-in other words, to understand the nature of other and smaller lives. The real purpose is not achieved by eternally living among them and upon them; and desire arises from pursuing what is pleasant among them and avoiding the unpleasant. Nature is composed of heterogeneous lives. In using them we pursue those which are homogeneous with our acquired nature and endeavor to avoid those that are not. From this, desire and aversion arise.

Intellect comes from seeing differences and comparing them. Intellect once gained may be used to perpetuate material existence, or as an instrument of the spirit in guiding and controlling the lower lives of this plane.

Q. Why is it that animals have keener senses than man?

A. Because we have added intellect to them and dulled them by excess of use or depended on our perceptions rather than our senses. The latter become dulled by lack of dependence on them. Consider smell, for instance; we don't smell a person out. The animals depend upon their senses; we smell so many things merely as pleasant or unpleasant, without regard to the psychology

of them, that we have lost the range which comes from deeper perceptions.

Q. Would "permeability" mean that any one sense would perform the functions of all the others?

A. "Permeability" is the seeing back beyond the appearance of a thing to the nature that caused that appearance. Take a stone, for example: the first thing that strikes you in a stone is its density. For most people one stone is just like another stone. But the mineralogist knows the differences by separation of the particles Chemistry goes still farther; it gets the different qualities in the stone and shows its constituent parts-the various kinds of elements that make it up. But all these are physical. "Permeability" not only gives all that mineralogy and chemistry give, but discloses the essential nature which is the basis of each physical expression. It determines the nature of the various conscious beings that compose the stone, and there are many such classes.

Or consider a tree, for instance: first the tree is seen with its trunk, branches, leaves and what not; then the tree within the bark, the veins of the tree; then the various arteries through which the sap, the blood of the tree, flows; then the pulsation of the heart of the tree in the root, which causes the circulation of the blood (sap) to flow, and then the nature of the lives that cause the expression of the tree-thus bringing gradually the sense of the feeling of the nature of the being, which we call "tree." That is "permeability" carried to its highest point. In its lower degrees it might stop short at any point-one might see only a portion of these qualities.

Or consider the point of view of a speaker to an audience: those present are all see-ers; but while they all see him, he doesn't see them all, and for the time being he acts as a synthetic consciousness. There is always a guiding consciousness over all the smaller lives, and the guiding consciousness which expresses itself in that way is called "tree,"-guiding all the lives that express themselves in bark, sap, root, blossoms and fruit. "The eyes of the Highest see through the eyes of the lowest."

If the process is once carried out with the tree, to whatever extent we may be able to carry it, the reflection of a tree upon our visual organ will always carry with it that sense of life and being which we have gained of it. Seeing, with us, has two aspects— one is the mere reflection of the thing seen, with little or no sense of its nature; the other deeper aspect, a small, greater or full perception of the nature of the object which causes the reflection. Every object seen presents life and being in their many phases. We ought, however, to apply our understanding to the hearts of men. The root of all being is the same, knowledge. Thus, in man especially, we should seek for that point where differentiation begins and trace the inevitable outcome. We can do this best in our own hearts with what we see in others as our landmarks or indications.

Q. What is a "Round"? Would circling round the seven centers of consciousness mean seven times on one plane of substance? Or what constitutes a "center of consciousness?"

A. A "Round" is one circling through the seven centers of consciousness. Each kind of substance is a center of consciousness, just as the physical plane is a center for us now. Though there are but four planes, on re-ascending to the next plane above where we are, our store of consciousness has been added to, through experience, so that it.becomes a new and different center -although on the same plane. (A real new plane, because we have a new outlook entirely.)

The seven great centers of consciousness pertain to the seven original hierarchies of being; these, by differentiating substance, create a new center of consciousness and so on from state to state through the seven rounds or states of substance and consciousness.

On the re-ascent we work in the substance in a different way, owing to the added experience. For instance, you return to a place after being away from it. You look at it from a different point of view; so every thing in that place has a different relation to you.

SECRET DOCTRINE EXTRACTS*

Those tribes of savages, whose reasoning powers are very little above the level of the animals, are not the unjustly disinherited, or the unfavoured, as some may think-nothing of the kind. They are simply those latest arivals among the human Monads, which were not ready: which have to evolve during the present Round, as on the three remaining globes (hence on four different planes of being) so as to arrive at the level of the average class when they reach the Fifth Round. One remark may prove useful, as food for thought to the student in this connection. The MONADS of the lowest specimens of humanity (the "narrowbrained" savage South-Sea Islander, the African, the Australian) had no Karma to work out when first born as men, as their more favoured brethren in intelligence had. The former are spinning out Karma only now; the latter are burdened with past, present, and future Karma. In this respect the poor savage is more fortunate than the greatest genius of civilised countries.

From the Original Edition Vol. II, p. 168; see Vol. II, pp. 177-178 Third Edition. 1 The term here means neither the dolicho-cephalic nor the brachyo-cephalic, nor yet skulls of a smaller volume, but simply brains devoid of intellect generally. The theory which would judge of the intellectual capacity of a man according to his cranial capacity, seems absurdly illogical to one who has studied the subject. The skulls of the stone period, as well as those of African Races (Bushmen included) show that the first are above rather than below the average of the brain capacity of the modern man, and the skulls of the last are on the whole (as in the case of Papuans and Polynesians generally) larger by one cubic inch than that of the average Frenchman. Again, the cranial capacity of the Parisian of to-day represents an average of 1437 cubic centimètres compared to 1523 of the Auvergnat.