cret Key-word. The unity of all the material
universe in its prakriti, ether, prana and manasa, was the corner
stone of this knowledge. The three planes above prakriti were
called Astral, and in common speech there was the ordinary
division into two planes, visible and invisible, or "Spirit," as
the invisible was called, and "Matter," as the visible was
called. Only in the hidden secret doctrine of physics, and in
the open metaphysics which were a "stumbling block" and
"foolishness" to those who had not the "inner light" of the
physics, were the three divisions of the "astral" made known, and
the true distinction between the spirit of the three higher
planes and the matter of the four lower was kept out of the
metaphysics, or only vaguely alluded to.

There is no "oriental science" because the oriental does not
attach the same value to merely physical knowledge that we do.
But that must not be understood to imply that there is no
oriental physics. In all the matters that interest us now, as
far as principles are concerned, the oriental knew all that we
know. He knew it thousands of years ago, when our ancestors were
sleeping with the cave bears.

"That is all the good it did him," the scientist says. No. That
is not true. It is perfectly true that the oriental, the
Babylonian who carved on the Black Stone now in the British
Museum the five moons of Jupiter, exposing himself to the
derision of our astronomers prior to their own discovery of the
fifth moon in 1898, did not care particularly whether there were
four moons or five, and had no sale for any telescopes he might
make, for no one else cared particularly. But it was not true
that he did not care for any and all knowledge that would improve
his spiritual condition by giving him correct ideas of the
universe and of his own part in it. To him life was more than
meat and the body more than raiment. He was more afraid of sin
than of ignorance. We are more afraid of ignorance than of sin.
He preferred to better men's moral condition; we prefer to
better their physical condition.

If one of the Sages of the East could be called up and put on the
stand to be questioned, he would say, substantially:

"You are right in regard to your ether, and to prakriti being
ether that has been dropped a great octave in vibration. Your
physical atom is surrounded by a molecule of ether, this molecule
containing many atoms of ether. The chording vibration does
prod