1nCnVqgFI

—
586 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
theories with regard to the evolution of Atoms—their last formation
into compound chemical molecules being produced within our terrestrial
workshops in the Karth's atmosphere and not elsewhere—as
strangely agreeing with the evolution of Atoms shown on Mr. Crookes'
plates. Several times already it has been stated in this volume that
Marttanda, the Sun, had evolved and aggregated, together with his
seven smaller Brothers, from his Mother Aditi's bosom, that bosom
being Prima Maier-ia—the lecturer's primordial Protyle. Esoteric
Doctrines teach the existence of
An antecedent form of energy having periodic cycles of ebb and swell, rest and
activity.*
And behold a great scholar in Science now asking the world to
accept this as one of his postulates! We have shown the "Mother,"
fiery and hot, becoming gradually cool and radiant, and this same
Scientist claims as his second postulate—a scientific necessity, it would
seem
An internal action, akin to cooling, operating slowly in the protyle.
Occult Science teaches that the "Mother" lies stretched in Infinity,
during Pralaya, as the great Deep, the ''dry Waters of Space," according
to the quaint expression in the Catechism, and becomes wet only
after the separation and the moving over its face of Narayana, the
Spirit zvhich is ijivisible Flame, which never burns, but sets on fire all
that it touches, and gives it life and generation.]
And now Science tells us that "the first-born element . . . most
nearly allied to protyle" would be ''hydrogen . . . which for some
time would be the only existing form of matter" in the Universe.
What says Old Science It answers: Just so; but we would call
ilydrogen (and Oxygen), which—in the pre-geological and even pre-
^enetic ages—instils the fire of life into the "Mother" by incubation, the
spirit, the noumeyion, of that which becomes in its grossest form Oxygen
and Hydrogen and Nitrogen on Earth—Nitrogen being of no divine
origin, but merely an earth-born cement for uniting other gases and
fluids, and serving as a sponge to carry in itself the Breath of Eife,
pure air.:!: Before these gases and fluids become what they are in our
atmosphere, they are interstellar Ether; still earlier and on a deeper
plane—something else, and so on in infinitum. The eminent and
learned gentleman must pardon an Occultist for quoting him at
• Ibid., p. 21.
+ "The Ivord is a consuniiug^r«." "In him was life, and the life was the light of men."
X Which if separated alchcmically would yield the Spirit of Life, and its Elixir.
such