Thus, while the astronomer has achieved marvels in the elucidation of the visible relations of the orbs of space, he has learnt nothing of their inner constitution.  His science has led him no farther towards a reading of that inner mystery than has that of the geologist, who can tell us only of the earth’s superficial layers, and that of the physiologist, who has until now been able to deal only with man’s outer shell, or Sthula Sarira.  Occultists have asserted, and go on asserting daily, the fallacy of judging the essence by its outward manifestations, the ultimate nature of the life-principle by the circulation of the blood, mind by the gray matter of the brain, and the physical constitution of sun, stars and comets by our terrestrial chemistry and the matter of our own planet.  Verily and indeed, no microscopes, spectroscopes, telescopes, photometers, or other physical apparatuses can ever be focused on either the macro-or micro-cosmical highest principles, nor will the mayavirupa of either yield its mystery to physical inquiry.  The methods of spiritual research and psychological observation are the only efficient agencies to employ.  We have to proceed by analogy in everything to be sure.  Yet the candid men of science must very soon find out that it is not sufficient to examine a few stars—­a handful of sand, as it were, from the margin of the shoreless, cosmic ocean—­to conclude that these stars are the same as all other stars—­our earth included; that, because they have attained a certain very great telescopic power, and gauged an area enclosed in the smallest of spaces when compared with what remains, they have, therefore, concurrently perfected the survey of all that exists within even that limited space.  For, in truth, they have done nothing of the kind.  They have had only a superficial glance at that which is made visible to them under the present conditions, with the limited power of their vision.  And even though it were helped by telescopes of a hundred-fold stronger power than that of Lord Rosse, or the new Lick Observatory, the case would not alter.  No physical instrument will ever help astronomy to scan distances of the immensity of which that of Sirius, situated at the trifle of 130,125,000,000,000 miles away from the outer boundary of the spherical area, or even that of (a) Capella, with its extra trifle of 295,355,000,000,000* miles still farther away, can give them, as they themselves are well aware, the faintest idea.  For, though an Adept is unable to cross bodily (i.e., in his astral shape) the limits of the solar system, yet he knows that, far stretching beyond the telescopic power of detection, there are systems upon systems, the smallest of which would, when compared with the system of Sirius, make the latter seem like an atom of dust imbedded in the great Shamo desert.  The eye of the astronomer, who thinks he also knows of the existence of such systems, has never rested upon them, has never caught of them, even that spectral glimpse, fanciful and hazy as the incoherent vision in a slumbering mind that he has occasionally had of other systems, and yet he verily believes he has gauged infinitude!  And yet these immeasurably distant worlds are brought as clear and near to the spiritual eye of the astral astronomer as a neighbouring bed of daisies may be to the eye of the botanist.