this. If we find
ruts on a road we may ask, "To what are they due?" And the reply may be,
"To a carriage." It may further be asked: "Whence did the carriage come?
Whither is it going?" An answer founded on fact is again possible. We may
then proceed to ask, "Who occupied the carriage? What purpose had the
person in using it? What was he, or she, doing?" At last, however, we
shall reach a point at which inquiry by means of facts finds its natural
limit; and on inquiring further we get away from the original questions.
We only continue the inquiry mechanically, as it were.

In such matters as the one brought forward as a comparison, it is easy to
see where facts demand the end of the inquiry. It is not so evident when
we are face to face with great cosmic questions. But as the result of
really exact observation, it will nevertheless be seen that all inquiry as
to origins must come to an end at the Saturn condition portrayed above.
For we have reached a region in which beings and events are no longer
justified by that from which they proceed, but by themselves.

As a result of the Saturn evolution it appears that the human germ
developed up to a certain point. It attained the low, dim state of
consciousness described above. We must not imagine that its evolution does
not begin until the last of the Saturn stages. The Lords of Will carry on
their work through all conditions. Only the result is most striking to
clairvoyant perception in the last period. There is nothing like a fixed
boundary between the activities of the several groups of beings. If it is
said that the Lords of Will work first, then the Lords of Wisdom, and so
on, it is not meant that they are working only at that time. They are
working all through the Saturn evolution; only their activity can best be
observed during the periods specified. The several groups have, as it
were, the leadership at those times.

Thus the whole Saturn evolution appears as a working out of what streamed
forth from the Lords of Will through the Lords of Wisdom, Motion, Form,
and the rest. Through this process those spiritual beings themselves
experience evolution. For instance, after they have received their life
reflected back from Saturn, the Lords of Wisdom stand on a different level
than before. The result of that activity exalts the faculties of their own
being. The consequence is that, on the completion of such activity,
something similar to human sleep comes upon them. To th