the matter, choose, just now, and for our purpose, to assume that
the doctrines of Esoteric Buddhism are what Sinnett says they are,
because they suggest to my mind so many attractive avenues for my
imagination to wander in.

There are two main points in this book which give it its chief interest:
(1) "The past history of the human race as now living on this planet;"
and (2) "The manner in which, and the circumstances under which, any
individual man works out his own salvation." But before entering upon
these, we should say a word about the Buddhist statements regarding the
nature of man.

Seven is the sacred number in the Buddhist system. As there are seven
worlds in the planetary chain, seven kingdoms in Nature, seven
root-races of men, in like manner man is a sevenfold being, continuing,
through untold millions of years, his existence as an individual, yet
changing, one knows not how many times, many of his component elements.
As the Buddhist sees the mortal body to be dissolved into its molecules,
and these molecules to be transferred with their inherent vitality to
other organisms, so some of his higher elements, among them his "astral
body," his impulses and desires, under the name, as our author gives it,
of _animal soul_, may separate from the more enduring parts of his
composition, and become lost to him in Nature's great store of material
substance. As there is an _animal soul_, the seat of those
faculties which we possess in common with the lower beings about us, so
there is a _human soul_, the seat of intelligence; and, higher
still, a _spiritual soul_, possessing powers of which as yet we
know but little, yet destined to give us, when it shall be more fully
developed, new powers of sense, new avenues for the entrance of
knowledge, by which we shall be able to communicate directly with
Nature, and become as much greater than the present race of men, as
_that_ is greater than the lowest brutes. Above all these elements
of man, controlling all, and preserving its individuality throughout, is
"spirit." Yet even this, when absorbed into Nirvana, is lost in that
great whole which includes all things and is Nature herself. Lost, do I
say?--yes, lost for inconceivable ages upon ages, yet destined to come
forth again at some moment in eternity, and to begin its round through
the everlasting cycle of evolution.

Here, you will say, is materialism. As the intelligent man of early ages
looked out upon the world, he