modern physical science. All material things,
including our own bodies, are composed of combinations of different
chemical elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, &c. Chemistry
recognizes in all about seventy of these elements each with its peculiar
affinities; but the more advanced physical science of the present day finds
that they are all composed of one and the same ultimate substance to which
the name of Ether has been given, and that the difference between an atom
of iron and an atom of oxygen results only from the difference in the
number of etheric particles of which each is composed and the rate of their
motion within the sphere of the atom, thus curiously coming back to the
dictum of Pythagoras that the universe has its origin in Number and Motion.
We may therefore say that our entire solar system together with every sort
of material substance which it contains is made up of nothing but this one
primary substance in various degrees of condensation.
Now the next step is to realize that this ether is everywhere. This is
shown by the undulatory theory of light. Light is not a substance but is
the effect produced on the eye by the impinging of the ripples of the ether
upon the retina. These waves are excessively minute, ranging in length from
1-39,000th of an inch at the red end of the spectrum to 1-57,000th at the
violet end. Next remember that these waves are not composed of advancing
particles of the medium but pass onwards by the push which each particle in
the line of motion gives to the particle next to it, and then you will see
that if there were a break of one fifty-thousandth part of an inch in the
connecting ether between our eye and any source of light we could not
receive light from that source, for there would be nothing to continue the
wave-motion across the gap. Consequently as soon as we see light from any
source however distant, we know that there must be a continuous body of
ether between us and it. Now astronomy shows us that we receive light from
heavenly bodies so distant that, though it travels with the incredible
speed of 186,000 miles per second, it takes more than two thousand years to
reach us from some of them; and as such stars are in all quarters of the
heavens we can only come to the conclusion that the primary substance or
ether must be universally present.
This means that the raw material for the formation of solar systems is
universally distributed throughout space; yet though we find that millions
of suns stud the heavens, we also find vast interstellar spaces which show
no sign of cosmic activity. Then something has been at work to start cosmic
activity in certain areas while passing over others in which the raw
material is equally available. What is this something? At first we might be
inclined to attribute the development of cosmic energy to the etheric
particles themselves, but a little consideration will show us that this is
mathematically impossible in a medium which is equally distributed
throughout space, for all its particles are in equilibrium and so no one
particle possesses _per se_ a greater power of originating motion than any
other. Consequently the initial movement must be started by something
which, though it works on and through the particles of the primary
substance, is not those particles themselves. It is this "Something" which
we mean when we speak of "Spirit."
Then since Spirit starts the condensation of the primary substance into
concrete aggregation, and also does this in certain areas to the exclusion
of others, we cannot avoid attributing to Spirit the power of Selection and
of taking an Initiative on its own account.
Here, then, we find the _initial_ Polarity of Universal Spirit and
Universal Substance, each being the complementary of the other, and out of
this relation all subsequent evolution proceeds. Being complementary means
that each supplies what is wanting in the other, and that the two together
thus make complete wholeness. Now this is just the case here. Spirit
supplies Selection and Motion. Substance supplies something from which
selection can be made and to which Motion can be imparted; so that it is a
_sine qua non_ for the Expression of Spirit.
Then comes the question, How did the Universal Substance get there? It
cannot have made itself, for its only quality is inertia, therefore it must
have come from some source having power to project it by some mode of
action not of a material nature. Now the only mode of action not of a
material nature is Thought, and therefore to Thought we must look for the
origin of Substance. This places us at a point antecedent to the existence
even of primary substance, and consequently the initial action must be that
of the Originating Mind upon Itself, in other words, Self-contemplation.
At this primordial stage neither Time nor Space can be recognized, for both
imply measurement of successive intervals, and in the primary movement of
Mind upon itself the only consciousness must be that
