the most fleeting human
thought, responding with inconceivable delicacy in an infinitesimal
fraction of a second to a vibration set up in it even by an entirely
unconscious exercise of human will or desire. But the moment that by
the influence of such thought or exercise of will it is moulded into a
living force--into something that may correctly be described as _an_
elemental--it at once ceases to belong to the category we are
discussing, and becomes a member of the artificial class. Even then
its separate existence is usually of the most evanescent character,
and as soon as its impulse has worked itself out it sinks back into
the undifferentiated mass of that particular subdivision of elemental
essence from which it came. It would be tedious to attempt to
catalogue these subdivisions, and indeed even if a list of them were
made it would be unintelligible except to the practical student who
can call them up before him and compare them. Some idea of the leading
lines of classification can, however, be grasped without much trouble,
and may prove of interest. First comes the broad division which has
given the elementals their name--the classification according to the
kind of matter which they inhabit. Here, as usual, the septenary
character of our evolution shows itself, for there are seven such
chief groups, related respectively to the seven states of physical
matter--to "earth, water, air and fire," or to translate from mediaeval
symbolism to modern accuracy of expression, to the solid, liquid,
gaseous and etheric conditions. It has long been the custom to pity
and despise the ignorance of the alchemists of the middle ages,
because they gave the title of "elements" to substances which modern
chemistry has discovered to be compounds; but in speaking of them thus
slightingly we have done them great injustice, for their knowledge on
this subject was really wider, not narrower, than ours. They may or
may not have catalogued all the sixty or seventy substances which we
now call elements; but they certainly did not apply that name to them,
for their occult studies had taught them that in that sense of the
word there was but one element, Akasha itself, of which these and all
other forms of matter were but modifications--a truth which some of
the greatest chemists of the present day are just beginning to
suspect.

The fact is that in this particular case our despised forefathers'
analysis went several steps deeper than our own