Evolution of Form. 135 



characteristics of the physical world a fact inex- 

 pressibly important for evolution. For, each of 

 those sheaths or koshas as the student of 

 Vedanta calls them, and there is no better word 

 every one of them is latent in and around the 

 physical atom ; and in the upward evolution, every 

 one of them becomes active and strong as evolution 

 proceeds, sheath after sheath being vitalised. How 

 could these koshas, or sheaths, of ours learn to res- 

 pond to the vibrations of the evolving life, unless 

 every one of them was latently present in us, 

 waiting to be brought into activity ? The root of 

 that possibility lies in the atom itself, with all its 

 interpenetrating spheres of life and matter, the 

 sheaths that are within it and around it. That is 

 not the only thing which we understand ; as this 

 conception grows clear, we understand a phrase 

 that had often puzzled us in the old days, that "the 

 spirit is senseless on the plane of matter." What 

 does that mean ? The spirit, the very essence of 

 consciousness, senseless and helpless on the plane 

 of matter ! Why ? Because if you take spirit as 

 pure spirit, the intermediate sheaths are not there 

 by which the matter-vibrations are able to reach it, 

 and without these sheaths it is unable to receive 

 and respond to the vibrations of physical matter. It 

 remains unconscious of their very existence, there 



