part in the early stages of human evolution, cannot

directly affect its growth. The Thinker can work into himself only the experiences that can be repro- duced in the vibrations of the causal body, and these must belong to the mental region, and be highly in- tellectual or loftily moral in their character; other- wise its subtle matter can give no sympathetic vibration in answer. A very little reflection will convince any one how little material, suitable for the growth of this lofty body, he affords by his daily life; hence the slowness of evolution, the little prog- ress made. The Thinker should have more of him- self to put out in each successive life, and, when this is the case, evolution goes swiftly forward. Persistence in evil courses reacts in a kind of in- direct way on the causal body, and does more harm than the mere retardation of growth; it seems after a long time to cause a certain incapacity to respond to the vibrations set up by the opposite good, and thus to delay growth for a considerable period after the evil has been renounced. Directly to injure the causal body evil of a highly intellectual and
132 The ancient wisdom
refined kind is necessary, the "spiritual evil" men- tioned in the various Scriptures of the world. This is fortunately rare, rare as spiritual good, and found only- among the highly progressed, whether they be following the Right-hand or the Left-hand Path.*
The habitat of the Thinker, of the Eternal Man, is on the fifth subplane, the lowest level of the "form- less" region of the mental plane. The great masses of mankind are here, scarce yet awake, still in the infancy of their life. The Thinker develops con- sciousness slowly, as his energies, playing on the lower planes, there gather experience, which is in- drawn with these energies as they return to him treasure-laden with the harvest of a life. This Eter- nal Man, the individualized Self, is the actor in every body that he wears; it is his presence that gives the feeling of "I" alike to body and mind, the "I" being that which is self-conscious and which, by illusion, identifies itself with that vehicle in which it is most actively energizing. To the man of the senses the "I" is the physical body and the desire- nature ; he draws from these his enjoyment, and he thinks of these as himself, for his life is in them. To the scholar the "I" is the mind, for in its exer- cise lies his joy and therein his life is concentrated.
* The Right-hand Path is that which leads to divine man- hood, to Adeptship used in the service of the worlds. The Left-hand Path is that which also leads to Adeptship, but to
Adeptship that is used to frustrate the progress of evolution and is turned to selfish individual ends. They are sometimes called the White and Black Paths respectively.
THE PURE REASON 133
Few can rise to the abstract heights of spiritual philosophy, and feel this Eternal Man as "I," with memory ranging back over past lives and hopes ranging forward over future births. The physiolo- gists tell us that if we cut the finger we do not really feel the pain there where the blood is flowing, but that the pain is felt in the brain, and is by imagina- tion thrown outwards to the place of injury ; the feel- ing of pain in the iinger is, they say an illusion; it is put by imagination at the point of contact with the object causing the injury ; so also will a man feel pain in an amputated limb, or rather in the space the limb used to occupy. Similarly does the one "I," the Inner Man, feel suffering and joy in the sheaths which enwrap him, at the points of contact with the external world, and feels the sheath to be himself, knowing not that this feeling is an illusion, and that he is the sole actor and experiencer in every sheath. Let us now consider, in this light, the relations between the higher and lower mind and their action on the brain. The mind, Manas, the Thinker, is one, and is the Self in the causal body; it is the source of innumerable energies, of vibrations of in- numerable kinds. These it sends out, raying out- wards from itself. The subtlest and finest of these are expressed in the matter of the causal body, which alone is fine enough to respond to them; they form what we call the Pure Reason, whose thoughts are abstract, whose method of gaining knowledge is intuition; its very "nature is knowledge," and it recognizes truth at sight as congruous with itself.
134 the: ancient wisdom
Less subtle vibrations pass outwards, attracting the matter of the lower mental region, and these are the Lower Manas, or lower mind — the coarser energies of the higher expressed in denser matter; these we call the intellect, comprising reason, judgment, im- agination, comparison, and the other mental facul- ties; its thoughts are concrete, and its method is logic; it argues, it reasons, it infers. These vibra- tions, acting through astral matter on the etheric brain, and by that on the dense physical brain, set up vibrations therein, which are the heavy and slow reproductions .of themselves — heavy and slow, be- cause the energies lose much of their swiftness in moving the heavier matter. This feebleness of re- sponse when a vibration is initiated in a rare me- dium and then passes into a dense one is familiar to every student of physics. Strike a bell in air and it sounds clearly; strike it in hydrogen, and let the hydrogen vibrations have to set up the atmospheric waves, and how faint the result. Equally feeble are the workings of the brain in response to the swift and subtle impacts of the mind; yet that is all that the vast majority know as their "consciousness."
The immense importance of the mental workings of this "consciousness" is due to the fact that it is the only medium whereby the Thinker can gather the harvest of experience by which he grows. While it is dominated by the passions it runs riot, and he is left unnourished and therefore unable to develop; while it is occupied wholly in mental activities con- cerned with the outer world, it can arouse only his
TH^ THINKKR AT WORK 135
lower energies; only as he is able to impress on it the true object of its life, does it commence to fulfil its most valuable functions of gathering what will arouse and nourish his higher energies. As the Thinker develops he becomes more and more con- scious of his own inherent powers, and also of the workings of his energies on the lower planes, of the bodies which those energies have drawn around him. He at last begins to try to influence them, using his memory of the past to guide his will, and these impressions we call "conscience" when they deal with morals, and "flashes of intuition" when they enlighten the intellect. When these impres- sions are continuous enough to be normal, we speak of their aggregate as "genius." The higher evolu- tion of the Thinker is marked by his increasing control over his lower vehicles, by their increasing susceptibility to his influence, and their increasing contributions to his growth. Those who would de- liberately aid in this evolution may do so by a care- ful training of the lower mind and of the moral character, by steady and well-directed effort. The habit of quiet, sustained, and sequential thought, directed to non-worldly subjects, of meditation, of study, develops the mind-body and renders it a bet- ter instrument; the effort to cultivate abstract think- ing is also useful, as this raises the lower mind to- wards the higher, and draws into it the subtlest materials of the lower mental plane. In these and cognate ways all may actively co-operate in their own higher evolution, each step forward making the
136 The ancient wisdom
succeeding steps more rapid. No effort, not even the smallest, is lost, but is followed by its full effect, and every contribution gathered and handed inwards is stored in the treasure-house of the causal body for future use. Thus evolution, however slow and halt- ing, is yet ever onwards, and the divine Life, ever unfolding in every soul, slowly subdues all things to itself.