To the above, we have to add the unavoidable deduction that there can not be opposing factors in the universe, whether existing as force, matter, or consciousness; because these would be either equal, and produce universal inertia, or unequal, in which case the greater must necessarily have overcome the lesser in the unthinkable durations of the eternities of the past. An early conception of the importance of this simple and logical law, that unity in essence must underlie every manifestation in nature, however differentiated and opposed such manifestations may appear, will clear away a mass of theological rubbish from our first postulates, at the very outset. If all matter, force, and consciousness proceed from unity, even though that unity remain for us an Unknowable Causeless Cause, still it effectually excludes the possibility of evil, as such, from the cosmic scheme. Hence, Satans, Ahri- mans, Beelzebubs, or Plutos are relegated to realms of ignorance and fear in which they had their birth, and good and evil become only relative and conditioned aspects of the play of the absolute, impersonal law of Cause and Effect.

* Geometric Psychology.

A study of evolution in general, then, is necessarily prefaced by the admission or postulating of three great Aspects of the one Unknowable Root, or Causeless Cause. These are, as already pointed out, Consciousness, Substance, and Force. Consciousness, often referred to as "spirit," embraces all that manifestation of the Absolute which we term subjective. Substance is the root of all matter and form, or the Object * side of nature, while Force or Motion relates the one to the other and causes all the bewildering complexity of form and function in the Cosmos. The absolute potentialities of Consciousness, Force, and Matter are and must ever remain infinite and unchanged. Yet the degree to which each is manifested in successive Universes must ever remain relative and finite. Hence, all the vast scheme of evolution which we perceive in nature is due solely to the correlations and combinations of these three Immutable and Universal Bases. We can not say, even at the end of a great manvantara, or the duration of a Universe, that anything has been added to the sum total of the Force, Consciousness, or Matter within the great Mother and Container of all - Space. Only their mutual relations have been somewhat changed.

Consciousness, which before existed as an undifferentiated part of the Whole, has acquired Self-Consciousness, or a new quality or potency; but as Consciousness per se it remains unmodified. So of Force and Substance ; they have been brought into newer and perhaps grander correlations, but as basic potentialities they remain unaltered. Nor can an end of this change of relation, or evolution as it appears to us, ever be predicated, for infinite potentialities of variation require infinite time for their manifestation. A dim conception of the possibilities of changes and of conscious experiences which never had a beginning, and of which no end can be predicated, may be had from a study of the law of permutation. The combinations possible with two elements are but two, but with three they rise to six; with four, to twenty-four; with five to one hundred and twenty; and so on, ever increasing until we are driven to the recognition that an infinite series of atoms, such as are at the base of physical manifestation, even, must be capable of infinite combinations and correlations, and hence require infinite duration for that manifestation.

* Cf. Secret Doctrine, Vol I, page 16.

Approaching the survey of evolution from its material or Substance Aspect - the only one recognized by modern science - we may obtain a relative and limited idea of the manner in which matter takes on or descends into objective form by the following illustration:

Imagine a large vessel or receptacle filled with a solution of some salt to the saturation point when heated to 100°. As long as this temperature is maintained the solution is perfectly transparent. No one would suspect any solid material hidden in its crystal clearness. But now let the rate of vibration be changed in the fluid; let the temperature fall to, say, 6o°, and out of that which was before so clear, crystallizes a solid mass which renders the whole solution translucent, opaque, or it may so change its molecular relations as to cause it to become a solid.

From this comparison we may at least faintly conceive of that which transpires within the Universe at the dawn of a manvan - tara; for then Space may be likened to a clear, transparent, ethereal fluid, holding in potentiality the future Universe, which, so to speak, crystallizes out by a change of vibration within this universal, homogeneous substance.

If we imagine matter as it exists upon our earth to pass into greater and still greater degrees of attenuation and dissociation - as, for example, when iron become gaseous - we will arrive ultimately at a state in which it is evenly distributed throughout the Cosmos, and subjected to conditions so different from any that now obtain, or at least that we can perceive, that we can no longer term it matter, but, rather, as approximating that eternal Substance, its (to us) subjective Root. To aid in forming some idea of the extreme attenuation and molecular dissociation to which matter in its cosmic condition is thus subjected, it is necessary to remember how minute the specks we know as planets are when compared to the space in which they revolve.

The old illustration of Herschel as to the immense distances involved in visible space may aid us here:

Suppose one wished to construct a model of the solar system in which its proportions, though reduced, would be accurately preserved; and that for this purpose he should take a globe two feet in diameter to represent the sun. Then the earth, reduced to a corresponding size and in its proper position, would be represented by a pea placed at a distance of two hundred and fifteen feet from the globe; Jupiter, by an orange, placed a quarter of a mile away; and Neptune, our farthest planet, by a plum, at a distance of a mile and a quarter. On the same scale, Sirius, one of the brightest fixed stars, would be removed to the distance of forty thousand miles, so that it would require a space of nearly twice the entire circumference of the earth for a model to be constructed in which the earth is represented by a pea! Now, Sirius is not the nearest star; but the very closest one to our sun - Alpha Centaur - is 20,000,000,000,000,000 of miles distant, and within at least one-third of this vast extent of space our sun and his little band of planets represent all the visible matter, except a few wandering comets and systems of meteors.