otion gives to the particle next to it, and then you will see
that if there were a break of one fifty-thousandth part of an inch in the
connecting ether between our eye and any source of light we could not
receive light from that source, for there would be nothing to continue the
wave-motion across the gap. Consequently as soon as we see light from any
source however distant, we know that there must be a continuous body of
ether between us and it. Now astronomy shows us that we receive light from
heavenly bodies so distant that, though it travels with the incredible
speed of 186,000 miles per second, it takes more than two thousand years to
reach us from some of them; and as such stars are in all quarters of the
heavens we can only come to the conclusion that the primary substance or
ether must be universally present.

This means that the raw material for the formation of solar systems is
universally distributed throughout space; yet though we find that millions
of suns stud the heavens, we also find vast interstellar spaces which show
no sign of cosmic activity. Then something has been at work to start cosmic
activity in certain areas while passing over others in which the raw
material is equally available. What is this something? At first we might be
inclined to attribute the development of cosmic energy to the etheric
particles themselves, but a little consideration will show us that this is
mathematically impossible in a medium which is equally distributed
throughout space, for all its particles are in equilibrium and so no one
particle possesses _per se_ a greater power of originating motion than any
other. Consequently the initial movement must be started by something
which, though it works on and through the particles of the primary
substance, is not those particles themselves. It is this "Something" which
we mean when we speak of "Spirit."

Then since Spirit starts the condensation of the primary substance into
concrete aggregation, and also does this in certain areas to the exclusion
of others, we cannot avoid attributing to Spirit the power of Selection and
of taking an Initiative on its own account.

Here, then, we find the _initial_ Polarity of Universal Spirit and
Universal Substance, each being the complementary of the other, and out of
this relation all subsequent evolution proceeds. Being complementary means
that each supplies what is wanting in the other, and that the two together
thus make complete wh