ic elements or their combinations. These
etheric elementary substances combine and unite; our elementary
substances simply following in their combinations the law which
they inherit from their parents. They take form and shape. They
vibrate through one octave, and take solid liquid or gaseous form
in ether, as their types here in our world take it in prakriti,
as their vibrations are increased or diminished. In short, the
ether is the prototype of our physical or prakritic world, out of
which it is made and a product of which it is.

As this ether is "physical" matter, the same as prakriti, one
harmonic law covering both, and as this ether fills all space,
Modern Science divides physical matter into two kinds, which, for
convenience in differentiation, are here called prakritic and
etheric.

Matter is something--science does not know or care to know what
--in vibration. A very low octave of vibration produces
prakriti; a very high octave of vibration produces ether. The
vibration of prakriti ends in thousands; that of ether begins in
billions. Between them there is a gulf of vibrations that has
not yet been bridged. For that reason science divides matter
into two "planes," or octaves, of vibration--the matter of this
visible and tangible plane being called prakriti and that of the
invisible and intangible plane being called etheric. Across this
gulf the two planes respond to each other, note for note, the
note in trillions chording when the note in thousands is struck.
Note for note, chord for chord, they answer one another, and the
minutest and the most complex phenomena are alike the result of
this harmonic vibration, that of the ether supplying Force and
that of the prakriti a Medium in which it can manifest.

This knowledge of ether is not guesswork or fancy, and, while it
is as impossible of proof as the axioms of geometry, it is worthy
the same credence and honor. We are working on physical axioms
exactly as we work on geometrical axioms.

Modern science represents each and every prakritic atom as a
globe like the earth, floating in space and surrounded by an
atmosphere of ether. "The subdivision of prakritic matter until
we reach etheric atoms chemically united to make the physical
unit" is the correct definition of an atom. The prakritic
physical atom has length, breadth and thickness. And it has an
atmosphere of ether which not only interpenetrates the atom as
oxygen and hydrogen interpen