Page 15 (part 6)

The Second Round brought forth and developed two Elements -- Fire and Earth -- and its humanity, adapted to this condition of Nature, if we can give the name Humanity to beings living under conditions unknown to men, was -- to use again a familiar phrase in a strictly figurative sense (the only way in which it can be used correctly) -- "a two-dimensional species." The processes of natural development which we are now considering will at once elucidate and discredit the fashion of speculating on the attributes of the two , three , and four or more "dimensional Space;" but in passing, it is worth while to point out the real significance of the sound but incomplete intuition that has prompted -- among Spiritualists and Theosophists, and several great men of Science, for the matter of that* -- the use of the modern expression, "the fourth dimension of Space." To begin with, of course, the superficial absurdity of assuming that Space itself is measurable in any direction is of little consequence. The familiar phrase can only be an abbreviation of the fuller form -- the " Fourth dimension of MATTER in Space. "** But it is an unhappy phrase even thus expanded, because while it is perfectly true that the progress of evolution may be destined to introduce us to new characteristics of matter, those with which we are already familiar are really more numerous than the three dimensions. The faculties, or what is perhaps the best available term, the characteristics of matter, must clearly bear a direct relation always to the senses of man. Matter has extension, colour, motion (molecular motion), taste, and smell, corresponding to the existing senses of man, and by the time that it fully develops the next characteristic -- let us call it for the moment P ERMEABILITY -- this will correspond to the next sense of man -- let us call it " N ORMAL C LAIRVOYANCE;" thus, when some bold thinkers have been thirsting for a fourth dimension to explain the passage of matter through matter, and the production of knots upon an endless cord, what they were really in want of, was a sixth characteristic of matter. The three dimensions belong really but to one attribute or characteristic of matter -- extension; and [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * Professor Zollner's theory has been more than welcomed by several Scientists --who are Spiritualists -- Professors Butlerof and Wagner, of St. Petersburg, for instance. ** "The giving reality to abstractions is the error of Realism. Space and Time are frequently viewed as separated from all the concrete experiences of the mind, instead of being generalizations of these in certain aspects." (Bain, Logic , Part II., p. 389.) [[Vol. 1, Page]] 252 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. popular common sense justly rebels against the idea that under any condition of things there can be more than three of such dimensions as length, breadth, and thickness. These terms, and the term "dimension" itself, all belong to one plane of thought, to one stage of evolution, to one characteristic of matter. So long as there are foot-rules within the resources of Kosmos, to apply to matter, so long will they be able to measure it three ways and no more; and from the time the idea of measurement first occupied a place in the human understanding, it has been possible to apply measurement in three directions and no more. But these considerations do not militate in any way against the certainty that in the progress of time -- as the faculties of humanity are multiplied -- so will the characteristics of matter be multiplied also. Meanwhile, the expression is far more incorrect than even the familiar one of the "Sun rising or setting." We now return to the consideration of material evolution through the Rounds. Matter in the second Round, it has been stated, may be figuratively referred to as two-dimensional. But here another caveat must be entered. That loose and figurative expression may be regarded -- in one plane of thought, as we have just seen -- as equivalent to the second characteristic of matter corresponding to the second perceptive faculty or sense of man. But these two linked scales of evolution are concerned with the processes going on within the limits of a single Round. The succession of primary aspects of Nature with which the succession of Rounds is concerned, has to do, as already indicated, with the development of the "Elements" (in the Occult sense) -- Fire, Air, Water,* Earth. We are only in the fourth Round, and our catalogue so far stops short. The centres of consciousness (destined to develop into humanity as we know it) of the third Round arrived at a perception of the third Element Water.** Those of the fourth Round have added [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * The order in which these Elements are placed above is the correct one for esoteric purposes and in the Secret Teachings. Milton was right when he spoke of the "Powers of Fire, Air, Water, Earth"; the Earth, such as we know it now, had no existence before the 4th Round, hundreds of million years ago, the commencement of our geological Earth. The globe was " fiery , cool and radiant as its ethereal men and animals during the first Round," says the Commentary, uttering a contradiction or paradox in the opinion of our present Science; " luminous and more dense and heavy during the second Round; watery during the Third!" Thus are the elements reversed. ** If we had to frame our conclusions according to the data furnished to us by the [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol. 1, Page]] 253 THE GREAT ARCHAEUS. earth as a state of matter to their stock as well as the three other elements in their present transformation. In short, none of the so-called elements were, in the three preceding Rounds, as they are now. For all we know, FIRE may have been pure AKASA, the first Matter of the Magnum Opus of the Creators and "Builders," that Astral Light which the paradoxical Eliphas Levi calls in one breath "the body of the Holy Ghost," and in the next "Baphomet," the "Androgyne Goat of Mendes"*; AIR, simply [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- [[Footnote continued from previous page]] geologists, then we would say that there was no real water -- even during the Carboniferous period. We are told that gigantic masses of carbon, which existed formerly spread in the atmosphere as Carbonic Acid, were absorbed by plants, while a large proportion of that gas was mixed in the water. Now, if this be so, and we have to believe that all the Carbonic Acid which went to compose those plants that formed bituminous coal, lignite, etc., and went towards the formation of limestone, and so on, that all this was at that period in the atmosphere in gaseous form, then, there must have been seas and oceans of liquid carbonic acid? But how then could the carboniferous period be preceded by the Devonian and Silurian ages -- those of Fishes and Molluscs -- on that assumption? Barometric pressure, moreover, must have exceeded several hundred times the pressure of our present atmosphere. How could organisms, even so simple as those of certain fishes and molluscs, stand that?