Evolution of Form. 127 



to which it vibrates ; and if that note be sung near 

 the lamp-glass, you will hear the note sound out 

 independently from the lamp-glass, as though the 

 lamp-glass were singing ; the glass has vibrated in 

 answer to the vibrations of the sound sung to it, it 

 having the capacity of that vibration in it, and thus 

 it reproduces the note. If you increase the force of 

 that note, if you continue vibration after vibration, 

 beyond the point at which the glass is able to res- 

 pond, your glass will shiver into pieces, shivered by 

 the force of the effort to respond to vibrations be- 

 yond its limit of rigidity. I only take that as an 

 illustration, as a picture ; it is true in every world 

 of form ; and if Ishvara were to send forth vibra- 

 tions too swift, too subtle for the form which He is 

 ensouling to respond to, that form would be 

 shivered into pieces, and its evolution would 

 be stopped ; nature would have again to begin 

 to build a similar form in order to again reach 

 the point which it had already reached. This 

 patience of Ishvara is the thing that strikes us 

 first as we study the evolution of forms. How slow 

 are the changes, how gradual the modifications, 

 what thousands of successive forms are worked in, 

 how wellnigh imperceptible are the changes in their 

 minuteness, although so great when we look at them 

 in the mass ; that is one great principle to bear in 

 mind. 



