II.  The general proposition, that when once a cause is removed its effect vanishes, is not universally applicable.  Take, for instance, the following example:—­If you once communicate a certain amount of momentum to a ball, velocity of a particular degree in a particular direction is the result.  Now, the cause of this motion ceases to exist when the instantaneous sudden impact or blow which conveyed the momentum is completed; but according to Newton’s first law of motion, the ball will continue to move on for ever and ever, with undiminished velocity in the same direction, unless the said motion is altered, diminished, neutralized, or counteracted by extraneous causes.  Thus, if the ball stop, it will not be on account of the absence of the cause of its motion, but in consequence of the existence of extraneous causes which produce the said result.

Again, take the instance of subjective phenomena.

Now the presence of this ink-bottle before me is producing in me, or in my mind, a mental representation of its form, volume, colour and so forth.

The bottle in question may be removed, but still its mental picture may continue to exist.  Here, again, you see, the effect survives the cause.  Moreover, the effect may at any subsequent time be called into conscious existence, whether the original cause be present or not.

Now, in the ease of the filth principle above mentioned-the entity that came into existence by the combination of Brahmam and Prakriti—­if the general proposition (in the “Fragments of Occult Truth”) is correct, this principle, which corresponds to the physical intelligence, must cease to exist whenever the Brahmam or the seventh Principle should cease to exist for the particular individual; but the fact is certainly otherwise.  The general proposition under consideration is adduced in the “Fragments” in support of the assertion that whenever the seventh principle ceases to exist for any particular individual, the sixth principle also ceases to exist for him.  The assertion is undoubtedly true, though the mode of stating it and the reasons assigned for it, are to my mind objectionable.

It is said that in cases where tendencies of a man’s mind are entirely material, and all spiritual aspirations and thoughts were altogether absent from his mind, the seventh principle leaves him either before or at the time of death, and the sixth principle disappears with it.  Here, the very proposition that the tendencies of the particular individual’s mind are entirely material, involves the assertion that there is no spiritual intelligence or spiritual Ego in him, it should then have been said that, whenever spiritual intelligence ceases to exist in any particular individual, the seventh principle ceases to exist for that particular individual for all purposes.  Of course, it does not fly off anywhere.  There can never be any thing like a change of position in the case of Brahmam.* The assertion merely means that when there is no recognition whatever of Brahmam, or spirit, or spiritual life, or spiritual consciousness, the seventh principle has ceased to exercise any influence or control over the individual’s destinies.