ized for purposes of
reincarnation for the most backward entities, but it was an
improvement on this type which was required, and this was most easily
achieved by the Manu, through working out on the astral plane in the
first instance, the architype originally formed in the mind of the
Logos.

From the Etheric Second Race, then, was evolved the Third--the
Lemurian. Their bodies had become material, being composed of the
gases, liquids and solids which constitute the three lowest
sub-divisions of the physical plane, but the gases and liquids still
predominated, for as yet their vertebrate structure had not solidified
into bones such as ours, and they could not, therefore, stand erect.
Their bones in fact were pliable as the bones of young infants now
are. It was not until the middle of the Lemurian period that man
developed a solid bony structure.

To explain the possibility of the process by which the etheric form
evolved into a more physical form, and the soft-boned physical form
ultimately developed into a structure such as man possesses to-day, it
is only necessary to refer to the permanent physical atom.[15]
Containing as it does the essence of all the forms through which man
has passed on the physical plane, it contained consequently the
potentiality of a hard-boned physical structure such as had been
attained during the course of the Third Round, as well as the
potentiality of an etheric form and all the phases which lie between,
for it must be remembered that the physical plane consists of four
grades of ether as well as the gases, liquids and solids which so many
are apt to regard as alone constituting the physical. Thus, every
stage of the development was a natural process, for it was a process
which had been accomplished in ages long past, and all that was needed
was for the Manu and the Beings who aided him, to gather round the
permanent atom the appropriate kind of matter.

[Sidenote: Organs of Vision.]

The organs of vision of these creatures before they developed bones
were of a rudimentary nature, at least such was the condition of the
two eyes in front with which they sought for their food upon the
ground. But there was a third eye at the back of the head, the
atrophied remnant of which is now known as the _pineal gland_. This,
as we know, is _now_ a centre solely of astral vision, but at the
epoch of which we are speaking it was the chief centre not only of
astral but of physical sight. Referring