of forms, the Cause of all
things, the Unity that produces diversity by means of the various
vehicles which serve it as methods of expression.

Science says that intelligence, or, to be more generic, consciousness,
results from the action of matter. This is a mistake.

Consciousness does not change in proportion as the cells of the body
are renewed; rather it increases with physical unconsciousness, as in
somnambulism.

Thought is not the fruit of the brain; it offers itself to the latter,
ready made, so to speak; the loftiest intellectual or artistic
inspirations are flashes which strike down into the awaiting brain,
when maintaining that passive expectant attitude which is the
condition in which a higher message may be received.

The senses are not the thinking-principle. They need to be controlled
by consciousness; thus, people blind from birth, when suddenly made to
see, cannot judge either distance or perspective; like animals and
primitive men, they see nothing but colours on a surface.

Science says also: the organ is created for the function it has to
perform; again a mistake. The eyes of the foetus are constructed in
the darkness of the womb. The human germ, notwithstanding its
unconsciousness and its simplicity of structure, develops a body that
is complex and capable of a considerable degree of consciousness;
though itself unintelligent, it produces prodigies of intelligence in
this body; here, consequently, the effect would be greatly superior to
the cause, which is absurd. Outside of the body and the germ is a
supreme Intelligence which creates the models of forms and carries out
their construction. This Intelligence is the Soul of the world.

If Consciousness _per se_, or the Soul, is above all direct proof at
the present stage of human evolution, the vehicles through which it
functions are more or less apparent to us provided they are capable of
affecting the brain. At the present stage of human evolution, this is
the case only with the astral body; the other bodies are too fine to
manifest through the nervous system such characteristics as are
calculated to furnish scientists with a proof of their existence; they
can only be felt and proved in and by _Yoga_.[3]

It is not without importance, however, to set forth the proofs of the
existence of a vehicle of consciousness immediately above the
physical, for it affords us a wider horizon and throws far more light
on the rest of the subject.

PRO