of the evolutionary process, because the inner factor dominates the 'outer' and the outer' cannot germinate unless it has been 'fructified' by the inner. '* The failure to realise or recognise the existence of an 'inner' factor or spiritual germ, as well as of an 'outer' factor or physical germ is a serious lack in Western Science and has resulted in much confusion of thought as regards the evolutionary process, and in an ignoring of facts of occult science, which, if they were generally known, would give a great impetus to the advance of western scientific knowledge, and lead to a better understanding of Indian thought and life, and to a fuller appreciation of eastern teachings. Moreover, it will cause us to modify greatly our western views about heredity and to ask ourselves seriously how much of heredity is traceable to the outer factor, and how much of it to the inner' factor. To-day, the 'inner' factor is still entirely ignored by many ardent social reformers and politicians, who, believing only in the outer' factor or ' physical,' would seek to improve the human race by 'physical' means alone, and to get rid of 'degeneracy' and 'disease' and of the so-called 'unfit' by methods which, in the light of Theosophy and of Eastern Science, cannot be justified either ethically or intellectually. Among these unsound methods are the mischievous Neo-Malthusian practices and C. D. Acts (for the regulation of vice), which are recommended by medical men; the practice of Vaccination, of Vivisection, and of Inoculation against plague, cholera, and other diseases, and the establishment of Pasteur Institutes and of other places for the manufacture of serums, antitoxins and lymphs. They are the logical outcome of an intellectual materialism, which, in its worship of the material side of Nature, ignores the more important spiritual side. The latest of these mischievous methods, which some medical men in England are now urging us to adopt and to enforce, is the so-called 'sterilisation' of the 'unfit.' Americans have already blindly accepted this medical recommendation, and one of the United States has sanctioned compulsory 'sterilisation.' A School of Eugenics has grown up in London during the last few years, which also seeks to apply the physical method for the solution of the great social problem that is stirring man's hearts in England to-day. Such methods are inevitably doomed to end in failure, because they ignore the 'inner' • Secret Doctrine, i. 244. factor which dominates the outer' factor in all the kingdoms of Nature, and dominates it more powerfully and effectively as we ascend from the mineral to the human kingdom. Mendelism and Darwinism, or Mendel's and Darwin's results obtained by experiments with peas and other forms of vegetable and animal life, are accepted and believed by many to be applicable in every detail to the human kingdom. Hence, the insatiable desire of the vivisectors for more and more facilities for vivisection experiments; hence too, the fallacious views about the action and cause of heredity. The only effectual way of combating these errors is to spread the occult truths taught by Madame Blavatsky, and outlined in my first paper viz, the presence of a spiritual germ which dominates the physical germ, and is "the cause of the hereditary transmission of faculties, and all the inherent qualities in man."* The essential ground-plan is the same for all the kingdoms, whether we view the physical, the physiological, the chemical or the spiritual (consciousness) expression of it. But the degree or stage of physical evolution reached in these four kingdoms is very different. The same is true of the degree or stage of spiritual evolution reached in these four kingdoms. Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, touches upon this question in the concluding paragraph of his book on Darwinism. He says: "We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It shows us how man's body may have been developed from that of a lower animal form under the law of natural selection; but it also teaches us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties which could not have been so developed, but must have had another origin; and for this origin we can only find an adequate cause in the unseen universe of spirit." † The occult teachings are far Wallace has not yet reached the Blavatsky, although he has reached much nearer to it than Darwin, more explicit, and show that Dr. occult truth taught by Madame L. C. APPEL, B.Sc., B. S., M. B., (LOND.) * Secret Doctrine i. 238. + Darwinism, by A. R. Wallace, p. 478. MAN THE STORY OF THE CROSS. ANY students have asked as to the origin of the story of the Apart from the historical account, I do not think there is anything existing which does not bear the impress of this story, since it tells of the first great sacrifice of the Logos in the making of this Universe, when from the Unmanifest He assumed the three manifested aspects, or personæ. No thought is possible that is not already inherent in the Grand Concept of the Unmanifest; and no object, however trivial, can become, before a concept (purposive) has passed to idea and thence to form. Only in form does concept become manifest. There is but one creative force, thought. Everything that is, was and will be for ever. "Thoughts are things." Thinking is the means, and Nature is the law of approach towards these things; for Nature is, as the word implies, the "law of birth." It comes from the same root as natal, national, nativity, etc., all of which indicate the life-stream, the stream of becoming, of being born. Theosophically, it is another name for Root Ray, which is the basis of being. It is the "thing in itself" and not its presentment. It is by trying to be other than ourselves that we get away from the truth of our own being. Yet this truth is the greatest thing in us. It gives the form by furnishing the name. As the Bhagavaḍ-Gīṭā has it: "The faith of each is shaped according to his nature, O Bhārața. The man consists in his faith. That which his faith is, he is even that." Faith, according to Deussen, is " transcendental knowledge." It is knowledge that is not arrived at by any process of intellection, but knowledge which the heart intuits. It is identical with Truth, the Root Ray, or Nature. Matter, or Mater, it is which clothes the thought by delimiting the area of the thinking. It is that mode of Spirit which following the law of birth renders visible that which was before invisible. The thought is not more real because of its crystallisation into being, but only more apparent on a lower plane. Matter defines, i.e., it makes finite what before was infinite. It brings to objectivity that which was concept, and in this process illustrates the story of the Cross. In the first letter of the word Truth, the old symbol of the Cross, we have the Egyptian Tau, or Path, the undeviating line of life in sacrifice, whose virtue is rectitude and uprightness. The word Aunk † means life. The horizontal line is the eternal line of action poised and established on uprightness, the level and the perpendicular of masons. In this line of Eternal Causality we have the two hypothetical points of relative causality, called cause and effect. Their distance from each other is arbitrary, but they have a mutual relationship to a common centre, from which they are equidistant. This mid-most point, the point of balance, is established on uprightness, and may be called the point of harmony and justice. It can never be deflected; is fixed and immutable. It is the point of the mutual negation of the pair of opposites, cause and effect; for it is that point at which cause has passed from cause and has not yet become effect-where effect inheres, yet cannot be said to be cause. Deussen, in his Elements of Metaphysics, postulates three infinities as necessary to manifestation, viz., Infinite Time, Infinite Space, and Infinite Causality; but to my mind these three are one, called by Gauḍapāḍaka on the Māṇdukyopanishat, a fourth, and so called because, although it inheres in each of the three Infinities equally, it cannot be said to be any one of them. Let us take then the horizontal line of the letter T, the line of causality, as proceeding in infinite Time. It will then be seen that the two extremes would be the points Past and Future, mutually related to that point we call Present. Press back the Past as far as you will, and its relative Future is removed equally in the opposite direction. But midway between them we have ever that point, the Present, in which lies the heritage of all the Past, the potentiality of all the Future. It is the seed of Time which is ever becoming. It is the living germ. There is no point in Time upon which one can put his finger and say: "This is the point Present"; for, even as it is said, what was the Present has become Past, and bears a relation to another point in Future Time to the negation of the Present. Yet there is no time like the Present. The whole gist of life to the Occultist is merged in it. In this way I think it typifies the Cross, the point Present being the Christ crucified between the two thieves in Time-the Past and the Future. The Future is the thief that repents and passes with the Christ (the Present) into Para-dise (beyond space). The Past is irrevocable. In that there is no room for repentance. But it is equally saved, its whole fruition being already with the Christ. Being freed from the pair of opposites the point Present has no relation to Time. All of our great spiritual Teachers have been Men who lived as if the thing of the moment were the only thing they lived for, were born to do. Concentrating themselves on the work in hand, living intensely in the Present, pouring their whole life-energy into the thing of the moment, their Point Present expands until it transcends Time and Space, and Past and Future lose their identity in the eternal Now. ("Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.") This is the great At-one-ment. In this way we can see how a great Master said in truth: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life ; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." Just as causality and time have been dealt with, so Space can be illustrated in the same way. The positiveness, with which we assert (owing to its inherency) that a thing has been, is reflected in Space, in Place. Here is positive place with its relative There (less positive, that is, potential), both of which are merged in the Everywhere, as a common mediator, which again, in transcending Place as conditioned space, is lost in the Nowhere, or no-place. This does not mean annihilation, but true freedom, beyond space limitations. Let us take again this story of the Cross as related to objects, number, and motion. In all objects there are three manifested aspects and an invisible fourth. All objects are made up of an infinite number of atoms, and gifted with a definite form, together with a power of cohesion or binding principle as mediator between substance and form. Thus Substance, Form, and Cohesion are the three guņas of objectivity, while that Reality, which was before and which survives the destruction of the object, is its Purpose. This prior to its manifestation was Pure Concept (Thought) and this it is eternally. Now as to number, which H.P.B. says, underlies and guides the formative hand of Nature. We have been so used to dealing with things in positive quantity, that to speak of "degrees of nothing" sounds absurd, save to the expert in mathematics. The decimal system illustrates this, and |