ance
in our studies.

We have now got at some reason why concrete material form is a necessity of
the Creative Process. Without it the perfect Self-recognition of Spirit
from the Individual standpoint, which we shall presently find is the means
by which the Creative Process is to be carried forward, would be
impossible; and therefore, so far from matter being an illusion, it is the
necessary channel for the self-differentiation of Spirit and its Expression
in multitudinous life and beauty. Matter is thus the necessary Polar
Opposite to Spirit, and when we thus recognize it in its right order we
shall find that there is no antagonism between the two, but that together
they constitute one harmonious whole.

CHAPTER II

THE SELF-CONTEMPLATION OF SPIRIT

If we ask how the cosmos came into existence we shall find that ultimately
we can only attribute it to the Self-Contemplation of Spirit. Let us start
with the facts now known to modern physical science. All material things,
including our own bodies, are composed of combinations of different
chemical elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, &c. Chemistry
recognizes in all about seventy of these elements each with its peculiar
affinities; but the more advanced physical science of the present day finds
that they are all composed of one and the same ultimate substance to which
the name of Ether has been given, and that the difference between an atom
of iron and an atom of oxygen results only from the difference in the
number of etheric particles of which each is composed and the rate of their
motion within the sphere of the atom, thus curiously coming back to the
dictum of Pythagoras that the universe has its origin in Number and Motion.
We may therefore say that our entire solar system together with every sort
of material substance which it contains is made up of nothing but this one
primary substance in various degrees of condensation.

Now the next step is to realize that this ether is everywhere. This is
shown by the undulatory theory of light. Light is not a substance but is
the effect produced on the eye by the impinging of the ripples of the ether
upon the retina. These waves are excessively minute, ranging in length from
1-39,000th of an inch at the red end of the spectrum to 1-57,000th at the
violet end. Next remember that these waves are not composed of advancing
particles of the medium but pass onwards by the push which each particle in
the line of m