WHILE not falling strictly within the purpose of this work, there are certain facts connected with the very beginnings of physical life that are of sufficient interest and importance to merit brief notice. For these facts the world is indebted to scientific investigation; for the explanation of them, it must look to the philosophies of the East.

All life in the organic kingdoms of nature proceeds from a cell; this cell being in essence a unit body of Protoplasm. Subjected to chemical analysis after death, Protoplasm differs in its chemical constituents in no wise from matter undoubtedly belonging to the so-called inorganic kingdom beneath, thus showing plainly that in matter itself is not to be found the cause of the subsequent evolution of form and function; but that something besides mere chemical properties has been added to the material molecules. This is further shown by the fact that the chief difference in the simple protozoic or proto- phytic cell and the highly organized and synthesized plant or animal consists in the fact that in the cell the function is complex, while in the plant or animal it is the form.. The beginnings of life thus traced down to the unit cell of Protoplasm seems a very simple and basic starting point, when in fact, it is the form only which has become simplified, the function has been plunged into a more intricate maze of obscurity.

That which in the higher organism was the work of hosts of differentiated cells and complex organs, is in the cell all accomplished without any such aid; the simple, unorganized, undifferentiated speck of Protoplasm performing many of the complex and all of the necessary functions of life without any of that specialization of labor in the complex form. Desiring to change its locality, limbs are protruded for the occasion; feeling hungry, a temporary stomach is manufactured, and so on; all the varied functions of locomotion, nutrition, reproduction, digestion, with many others, being done by means of the same undifferentiated protoplasmic substance, showing clearly that there is an inner power merely using the Protoplasm to exhibit these functions. It is thus seen that the function which seemed so simple when the form was complex has almost passed beyond the possibility of explanation when the form in turn has become simple.

It is evident that the idea of all subsequent evolution of form is potentially present in the first simple cell, and that all modification or differentiation which follows is but the slow expression of this ideal potency in form. Therefore, an entity utterly without experience upon this plane would of necessity begin in the humblest forms, and only very gradually modify these as the result of widened conscious experience. The fact that in the lowly forms of life the function greatly exceeds the form in complexity, shows conclusively that there is an inner entity synthesizing these functions, and that evolution in all its phases is but the outer response to the inner idea, and, as ideas necessitate an ideator, an inner entity is therefore necessitated.

In these humblest beginnings of life, too, are to be found many analogies to and confirmations of the tenet of Theosophy that everything in the Universe proceeds out of Unity and will rebecome Unity when the Universe disappears objectively and enters upon its subjective cycle, or Pralaya. In its first differentiation or manifestation this Unity evolved Duality, which Duality, together with the Force which brought it about, constitute the three Basic Aspects or Hypostases of the Absolute. Transposing these terms to the physical plane, in Protoplasm may be recognized the analogue of Primordial Substance; it being, in its relation to this plane, homogeneous and capable of differentiation into any organic form, no matter how complex the latter may be. The intelligence which guides and the force which brings about further evolutionary processes are the correspondences to the Conscious-Aspect and Force-Aspect of the Causeless Cause, respectively.

Taking up some of the processes of Embryology, we can find therein the analogies to the Creative processes upon even the highest planes. Thus the Basic Unity is shown in the unit cell of protoplasm; duality supervenes in its first and entirely inexplicable fission. In its further differentiation into ectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm, there is a purely physical correspondence of a law which obtains upon the plane of the very highest differentiation. In the central development of Spencer, may be recognized the archaic symbol of the Point in the Circle; in the axial, the point has become a line or diameter, and so on. The symbology of the East becomes luminous with meaning once it is intelligently applied to nature's processes.

Within and because of this Primordial Duality arise all of those polar opposites, such as attraction and repulsion, positive and negative states, spirit and matter, and - upon the purely physical plane - male and female. That sex is a differentiation upon the physical plane only, is shown by the fact that all reproduction is at first purely asexual. Sex, upon this plane, corresponds to a principle which causes differentiation upon those higher. As the Protoplasm responds more and more to the inner energy, there is first the cell specialization for the reproductive act, and then this differentiation, with many variants and partial reversions to the primal type, becomes extended to individuals. Sexual differentiation is but another instance of the widening of conscious area through experience of the "pairs of opposites." As a purely physical process, the theory of anabolic and katabolic differentiation of energy very probably explains its origin; but the inner cause of the anabolism and katabolism is still as much a mystery as ever unless we recognize the inner entity undergoing conscious experience in the only school and by the sole method of which we can conceive - that of experience of the "opposites," by virtue of which the very Universe itself exists.