Evolution of Life. 103 



I have sometimes taken the triangle as the very 

 simplest image which thought can form. You 

 may have triangles of any size, you may have 

 triangles of almost any shape, provided only three 

 lines are used, and those lines are right lines, or 

 unbent. What is the governing characteristic of 

 the triangle ? That its three angles, formed by the 

 meeting of enclosing sides, must be equal to two 

 right angles. Now supposing that you have the 

 power of brain, the power of abstraction, to 

 take ten, twenty or thirty concrete triangles and 

 hold them in the mind as though you were looking 

 at them in outer form, to create their mental images 

 so that every form is present in your mind, you 

 directing your attention to them all at the same time, 

 then if out of these many concrete objects that have 

 the particular properties in common of the three 

 right lines that enclose and the sum of the three 

 angles equalling two right angles if you can draw 

 out the idea of that common property, separated 

 from every concrete triangle, and make it an object 

 in consciousness, then you will have risen from the 

 concrete to the abstract, and will have some idea of 

 what is meant by an archetype in the higher world. 

 The earliest actions of the Deity in evolving a 

 system are of this nature; He generates certain 

 types or archetypes, and by the sub-division and 



