ot any longer be regarded as the
results of vibrations in the physical brain, that at least we must go
beyond these limitations when dealing with the results of the study
of consciousness, as it is now studied amongst scientific men. They
will no longer, then, regard thought as the product of matter. They
certainly will not be prepared to go as far as I now propose to go,
and say that the thinking organism is the production of thought--the
very antithesis, you will agree, of the other position, but which is
vital to the understanding of the unfolding of the powers of
consciousness through matter. It is recognised in ordinary biology
that the function appears before the organ. There I am on safe
scientific ground. It is recognised that the exercise of the function
gradually builds up the organ. All the researches into the simpler
forms of organisms go to prove that. It is also recognised that when
the exercise of the function has built the organ in a very simple
form, the exercise of the function continually improves the organ
which originally it builded. So far we are hand in hand with ordinary
science. I think I shall not go too far in saying that a large number
of the more scientific psychologists of to-day will at least agree
that the brain as you find it in the adult man is very largely the
result of the exercise of thinking through the earlier years of life.
I do not think they would go so far as to say that thinking has
literally produced it. They would, however, judging by very many
things that have been said, be willing to admit that by hard thinking
we can improve our apparatus of thought. That is one reason for
thinking hard--in order to think better. And the harder you think, the
more will your thinking instrument improve.

In my next step, however, I cannot by any stretching of ordinary
science persuade it to accompany me, or give me a foundation; for the
point is that your consciousness, working on the next plane above the
one on which the organ of consciousness is being built, is the shaper
of that mechanism. To put it concretely: your physical brain is built
up from the astral plane, and it is your consciousness working in
matter finer than the physical which builds up the brain in the
forming child within the limits laid down by karma. Now, that is a
general law for healthy evolution. You will see the importance of this
law a little further on. Every body which we possess--physical,
astral, mental, budd