But there are stages in the acquirement of this knowledge, and we may learn much if we will, from those who themselves are still in process of learning; for all human beings stand on one or other of the rungs of the ladder of evolution.  The primitive stand at its foot; we who are civilized beings have already climbed part of the way.  But though we can look back and see rungs of the ladder below us which we have already passed, we may also look up and see many rungs above us to which we have not yet attained.  Just as men are standing even now on each of the rungs below us, so that we can see the stages by which man has mounted, so also are there men standing on each of the rungs above us, so that from studying them we may see how man shall mount in the future.  Precisely because we see men on every step of this ladder, which leads up to a glory which as yet we have no words to express, we know that the ascent to that glory is possible for us.  Those who stand high above us, so high that They seem to us as gods in Their marvellous knowledge and power, tell us that They stood not long since where we are standing now, and They indicate to us clearly the steps which lie between, which we also must tread if we would be as They.

Chapter III

THE FORMATION OF A SOLAR SYSTEM

The beginning of the universe (if ever it had a beginning) is beyond our ken.  At the earliest point of history that we can reach, the two great opposites of spirit and matter, of life and form, are already in full activity.  We find that the ordinary conception of matter needs a revision, for what are commonly called force and matter are in reality only two varieties of Spirit at different stages in evolution and the real matter or basis of everything lies in the background unperceived.  A French scientist has recently said:  “There is no matter; there are nothing but holes in the aether.”  This also agrees with the celebrated theory of Professor Osborne Reynolds.  Occult investigation shows this to be the correct view, and in that way explains what Oriental sacred books mean when they say that matter is an illusion.

The ultimate root-matter as seen at our level is what scientists call the aether of space. [This has been described in Occult Chemistry under the name of koilon.] To every physical sense the space occupied by it appears empty, yet in reality this aether is far denser than anything of which we can conceive.  Its density is defined by Professor Reynolds as being ten thousand times greater than that of water, and its mean pressure as seven hundred and fifty thousand tons to the square inch.