e accustomed servitors, though often
blundering, are the best available guides to knowledge. But it lies in
the nature of the case that they are useless when the investigation is
to be into modes of existence which cannot impress themselves on our
nerve-ends. For instance, what we know as colour is the vibration
frequency of etheric waves striking on the retina of the eye, between
certain definite limits--759 trillions of blows from the maximum, 436
trillions from the minimum--these waves give rise in us to the
sensation which the brain translates into colour. (Why the 436
trillion blows at one end of a nerve become 'Red' at the other end we
do not know; we chronicle the fact but cannot explain it.) But our
capacity to respond to the vibration cannot limit the vibrational
capacity of the ether; to _us_ the higher and lower rates of vibration
do not exist, but if our sense of vision were more sensitive we should
see where now we are blind. Following this line of thought we realise
that matter may exist in forms unknown to us, in modifications to
which our senses are unable to respond. Now steps in the Eastern Sage
and says: 'That which you say _may_ be, _is_; we have developed and
cultivated senses as much superior to yours as your eye is superior to
that of the jelly-fish; we have evolved mental and spiritual faculties
which enable us to investigate on the higher planes of being with as
much certainty as you are investigating on the physical plane; there
is nothing _supernatural_ in the business, any more than your
knowledge is supernatural, though much above that accessible to the
fish; we do not speculate on these higher forms of existence; we
_know_ them by personal study, just as you know the fauna and flora of
your world. The powers we possess are not supernatural, they are
latent in every human being, and will be evolved as the race
progresses. All that we have done is to evolve them more rapidly than
our neighbours, by a procedure as open to you as it was to us. Matter
is everywhere, but it exists in seven modifications of which you only
know four, and until lately only knew three; in those higher forms
reside the causes of which you see the effects in the lower, and to
know these causes you must develop the capacity to take cognisance of
the higher planes.'"

Then followed a brief outline of the cycle of evolution, and I went
on: "What part does man play in this vast drama of a universe?
Needless to say, he is