CHAPTER I.

TH^ PHYSICAL PLAN^.
We have just seen that the source from which a universe proceeds is a manifested Diivne Being, to whom in the modern form of the Ancient Wisdom the name Logos, or Word, has been given. The name is drawn from Greek philosophy, but perfectly expresses the ancient idea, the Word which emerges from the Silence, the Voice, the Sound, by which the worlds come into being. We must now trace the evolution of spirit-matter, in order that we may un- derstand something of the nature of the materials with which we have to deal on the physical plane, or physical world. For it is in the potentialities wrapped up, involved, in the spirit-matter of the physical world that lies the possibility of evolution. The whole process is an unfolding, self-moved from within and aided by intelligent beings without, who can retard or quicken evolution, but cannot trans- cend the capacities inherent in the materials. Some idea of these earliest stages of the world's ''becom- ing" is therefore necessary, although any attempt to go into minute details would carry us far beyond the limits of such an elementary treatise as the present. A very cursory sketch must suffice.
TH^ world's '"bejcoming." 41
Coming forth from the depths of the One Exist- ence, from the One beyond all thought and all speech, a Locos, by imposing on Himself a limit, circumscribing voluntarily the range of His own Being, becomes the manifested God, and tracing the limiting sphere of His activity thus outlines the area of His universe. Within that sphere the universe is born, is evolved, and dies; it lives, it moves, it has its being in Him ; its matter is His emanation ; its forces and energies are currents of His life; He is immanent in every atom, all-pervading, all sustain- ing, all-evolving; He is its source and its end., its cause and its object, its centre and circumference; it is built on Him as its sure foundation, it breathes in Him as its encircling space; He is in everything and everything in Him. Thus have the Sages of the Ancient Wisdom taught us of the beginning of the manifested worlds.
From the same source we learn of the Self-un- folding of theLoGos into a threefold form ; the First Logos, the Root of all Being; from Him the Sec- ond, manifesting the two aspects of Life and Form, the primal duality, making the two poles of nature between which the web of the universe is to be woven — Life-Form, Spirit-Matter, Positive-Nega- tive, Active-Receptive, Father-Mother of the worlds. Then the Third Logos, the Universal Mind, that in which all archetypically exists, the source of beings, the fount of fashioning energies, the treasure-house in which are stored up all the archetypal forms which are to be brought forth and elaborated in
42 THK ANCIENT WISDOM.
lower kinds of matter during the evolution of the universe. These are the fruits of past universes, brought over as seeds for the present.
The phenomenal spirit and matter of any universe are finite in their extent and transitory in their du- ration, but the roots of spirit and matter are eter- nal. The root of matter* has been said by a pro- found writer to be visible to the Logos as a veil thrown over the One Existence, the supreme Brah- manf — to use the ancient name.
It is this 'Veil" which the Logos assumes for the purpose of manifestation, using it for the self-im- posed limit which makes activity possible. From this He elaborates the matter of His universe, being Himself its informing, guiding, and controlling life.J Of what occurs on the two higher planes of the universe, the seventh and the sixth, we can form but the haziest conception. The energy of the Logos as whirling motion of inconceivable rapidity ''digs holes in space" in this root of matter, and this vor- tex of life encased in a film of the root of matter is the primary atom; these and their aggregations, spread throughout the universe, form all the subdi- visions of spirit-matter of the highest or seventh plane. The sixth plane is formed by some of the * Mulaprakriti. t Parabrahman.
t Hence He is called "The Lord of Maya," in some Eastern Scriptures, Maya, or illusion, being the principle of form ; form is regarded as illusory, from its transitory nature and perpetual transformations, the life which expresses itself under the veil of form being the reality.
MAKING O? TH^ UNIVERSE. 43
countless myriads of these primary atoms setting up a vortex in the coarsest aggregations of their own plane, and this primary atom enwalled with spiral strands of the coarsest combinations of the seventh plane becomes the finest unit of spirit-matter, or atom, of the sixth plane. These sixth-plane-atoms and their endless combinations form the subdivi- sions of the spirit-matter of the sixth plane. The sixth-plane-atom, in its turn, sets up a vortex in the coarsest aggregations of its own plane, and, with these coarsest aggregations as a limiting wall, be- comes the finest unit of spirit-matter, or atom, of the fifth plane. Again, these fifth-plane-atoms and their combinations form the subdivisions of the spirit-matter of the fifth plane. The process is re- peated to form successively the spirit-matter of the .fourth, the third, the second, and the first planes. These are the seven great regions of the universe, so far as their material constituents are concerned. A clearer idea of them will be gained by analogy when we come to master the modifications of the spirit-matter of our own physical world.*
The word "spirit-matter" is used designedly. It
♦The student may find the conception clearer if he think of the fifth-plane-atoms as Atma ; those of the fourth plane as Atma enveloped in Buddhi-matter ; those of the third plane as Atma enveloped in Buddhi- and Manas-matter; those of the second as Atma enveloped in Buddhi-, Manas- and Kama- matter; those of the lowest as Atma enveloped in Buddhi-, Manas-, Kama- and Sthula-matter. Only the outermost is active in each case, but the inner are there, though latent, ready to come into activity on the upward arc of evolution.
44 the: ancie;nt wisdom.
implies the fact that there is no such thing as "dead" matter; all matter is living, the tiniest particles are lives. Science speaks truly in affirming: "No force without matter, no matter without force." They are wedded together in an indissoluble marriage throughout the ages of the life of a universe, and none can wrench them apart. Matter is form, and there is no form which does not express a life; spirit is life, and there is no life that is not limited by a form. Even the Logos, the supreme Lord, has during manifestation the universe as His form, and so down to the atom.
This involution of the life of the Logos as the en- souling force in every particle, and its successive en- wrapping in the spirit-matter of every plane, so that the materials of each plane have within them in a hidden, or latent condition, all the form- and force- possibilities of all the planes above them as well as those of their own — these two facts make evolution certain and give to the very lowest particle the hid- den potentialities which will render it fit — as they become active powers — to enter into the forms of the highest beings. In fact, evolution may be summed up in a phrase : it is latent potentialities becoming active powers.
The second great wave of evolution, the evolution of form, and the third great wave, the evolution of self-consciousness, will be dealt with later on. These three currents of evolution are distinguishable on our earth in connection with humanity; the mak- ing of the materials, the building of the house, and
THRE^ CONDITIONS 01^ MATTER. 45
the growing of the tenant of the house, or, as said above, the evolution of spirit-matter, the evolution of form, the evolution of self-consciousness. If the reader can grasp and retain this idea, he will find it a helpful clue to guide him through the labyrinth of facts.
We can now turn to the detailed examination of the physical plane, that on which our world exists and to which our bodies belong.
Examining the materials belonging to this plane, we are struck by their immense variety, the innu- merable differences of constitution in the objects around us, minerals, vegetables, animals, all differ- ing in their constituents : matter hard and soft, transparent and opaque, brittle and ductile, bitter and sweet, pleasant and nauseous, colored and col- orless. Out of this confusion three subdivisions of matter em.erge as a fundamental classification : mat- ter is solid, liquid and gaseous. Further examina- tion shows that these solids, liquids, and gases are made up by combinations of much simpler bodies, called by chemists "elements," and that these ele- ments may exist in a solid, liquid, or gaseous condi- tion without changing their respective natures. Thus the chemical element oxygen is a constituent of wood, and in combination with other elements forms the solid wood fibres ; it exists in the sap with another element, yielding a liquid combination as water; and it exists also in it by itself as gas. Un- der these three conditions it is oxygen. Further, pure oxygen can be reduced from a gas to a liquid,
46 TH^ ANCIEINT WISDOM.
and from a liquid to a solid, remaining pure oxygen all the time, and so with other elements. We thus obtain as three subdivisions, or conditions, of mat- ter on the physical plane, solid, liquid, gas. Search- ing further, we find a fourth condition, ether, and minuter search reveals that this ether exists in four conditions as well defined as those of solid, liquid, and gas ; to take oxygen again as an example : as it may be reduced from the gaseous condition to the liquid and the solid, so it may be raised from the gaseous through four etheric stages, the last of which consists of the ultimate physical atom, the disintegration of the atom taking the matter out of the physical plane altogether, and into the next plane above. In the annexed plate three gases are shown in the gaseous and four etheric states ; it will be observed that the structure of the ultimate physi- cal atom is the same for all, and that the variety of the ''elements" is due to the variety of ways in which these ultimate physical atoms combine. Thus the seventh subdivision of physical spirit-matter is composed of homogeneous atoms ; the sixth is com- posed of fairly simple heterogeneous combinations of these, each combination behaving as a unit; the fifth is composed of more complex combinations, and the fourth of still more complex ones, but in all cases these combinations act as units ; the third subdivi- sion consists of yet more complicated combina- tions, regarded by the chemist as gaseous atoms or "elements," and on this subdivision many of the combinations have received special names, oxygen,
MEANING OF PLANE. 47
hydrogen, nitrogen, chlorine, etc., and each newly discovered combination now receives its name; the second subdivision consists of combinations in the liquid condition, whether regarded as elements such as bromine, or as combinations such as water or al- cohol ; the first subdivision is composed of all solids, again whether regarded as elements, such as iodine, gold, lead, etc., or as compounds, such as wood, stone, chalk, and so on.
The physical plane may serve the student as a model from which by analogy he may gain an idea of the subdivisions of the spirit-matter of other planes. When a Theosophist speaks of a plane, he means a region throughout which spirit-matter ex- ists, all whose combinations are derived from a par- ticular set of atoms ; these atoms, in turn, are units possessing similar organizations, whose life is the life of the Logos veiled in fewer or more coverings according to the plane, and whose form consists of the solid, or lowest subdivision of matter, of the plane immediately above. A plane is thus a division in nature, as well as a metaphysical idea.
Thus far we have been studying the results in our own physical world of the evolution of spirit-matter in our division of the first or lowest plane of our system. For countless ages the fashioning of materials has been going on, the current of the evolution of spirit-matter, and in the materials of our globe we see the outcome at the present time. But when we begin to study the inhabitants of the physical plane, we come to the evolution
48 THK ANCIENT WISDOM.
of form, the building of organisms out of these materials.
When the evolution of materials had reached a sufficiently advanced state, the second great life- wave from the Logos gave the impulse to the evolu- tion of form, and He became the organizing force* of His universe, countless hosts of entities, entitled Buildersf taking part in the building up of forms out of combinations of spirit-matter. The life of the Logos abiding in each form is its central, control- ling, and directing energy. This building of forms on the higher planes cannot here be conveniently studied in detail; it may suffice to say that all forms exist as Ideas in the mind of the Logos, and that in this second life-wave these were thrown outwards as models to guide the Builders. On the third and second planes the early spirit-matter combinations are designed to give it facility in assuming shapes organized to act as units, and gradually to increase its stability when shaped into an organism. This process went on upon the third and second planes, in what are termed the three elemental kingdoms, the combinations of matter formed therein being called generally "elemental essence," and this es- sence being moulded into forms by aggregation, the
* As Atma-Buddhi, indivisible in action, and therefore spoken of as the Monad. All forms have Atma-Buddhi as controlling life.
t Some are lofty spiritual Intelligences, but the name covers even the building Nature-spirits. The subject is dealt with in