Page 40 (part 7)

Crookes, speaking of the "dominant atomicities," enumerates seven groups of these, for he says: -- "As the mighty focus of creative energy goes round, we see it in successive cycles sowing in one tract of space seeds of lithium, potassium, rubidium, and caesium; in another tract, chlorine, bromine, and iodine; in a third, sodium, copper, silver, and gold; in a fourth, sulphur, selenium, and tellurium; in a fifth, beryllium, calcium, strontium, and barium; in a sixth, magnesium, zinc, cadmium, and mercury; in a seventh, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth" -- which makes seven groupings on the one hand. And after showing "in other tracts the other elements -- namely, aluminium, gallium, indium, and thallium; silicon, germanium, and tin; carbon, titanium, and zirconium." He adds: "While a natural position near the neutral axis is found for the three groups of elements relegated by Professor Mendeleeff to a sort of Hospital for Incurables -- his eighth family." It might be interesting to compare these "seven of the eighth family of 'incurables'" with the allegories concerning the seven primitive sons of "Mother, Infinite Space," or Aditi, and the eighth son rejected by her. Many a strange coincidence may thus be found between "those intermediate links . . . named 'meta-elements or elementoids and those whom occult science names their noumenoi ,' the intelligent minds and rulers of those groupings of Monads and Atoms. But this would lead us too far. Let us be content with finding the confession of the fact that "this deviation from absolute homogeneity should mark the constitution of these molecules or aggregations of matter which we designate elements and will perhaps be clearer if we return in imagination to the earliest dawn of our material universe, and, face to face with the Great Secret, try to consider the processes of elemental evolution." Thus finally Science, in the person of its highest representatives, in order to make itself clearer to the profane, adopts the phraseology of such old adepts as Roger Bacon, and returns to the "protyle." All this is hopeful and suggestive of the "signs of the times." Indeed these "signs" are many and multiply daily; but none are more important than those just quoted. For now the chasm between the occult "superstitious and unscientific " teachings and "exact" science is completely bridged, and one, at least, of the few eminent chemists of the day is in the realm of the infinite possibilities of occultism. Every new [[Vol. 1, Page]] 554 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. step he will take will bring him nearer and nearer to that mysterious centre, from which radiate the innumerable paths that lead down Spirit into matter, and which transform the gods and the living monads into man and sentient nature. But we have something more to say on this subject in the following section. ------- [[This page continued in next section]]