136 Evolution of Life and Form. 



being no bridge by which they can pass over and 

 affect that life. This is really a perfectly simple 

 statement of Madame Blavatsky's, but it is one that 

 I have heard challenged over and over again as 

 entirely meaningless, as conveying no idea, for how 

 could consciousness be unconscious in any region ? 

 A little more knowledge would make us less rapid 

 in our condemnation of our betters. That idea, 

 then, we will take to help us in the first conception 

 of how evolution can take place. 



Now let us look how, in the downward arc that 

 we spoke of, Ishvara is imparting qualities. Accord- 

 ing to the nature of the vibrations that He sends 

 and of the matter that answers to them will be the 

 quality imparted. As to the idea that difference 

 of vibrations implies a difference of manifestation, 

 let me buttress myself on the great reputation of 

 Sir William Crookes. He issued, two or three years 

 ago, I don't remember the exact date, in 1896 I 

 think, a table of vibrations, confined of course to 

 the physical world ; a very interesting table, giving 

 a series of classified vibrations and pointing out 

 which were known to science, and gave rise to what 

 we call sound, light, electricity, and so on, the 

 difference of vibratory frequency, and the subtlety 

 of the matter in which the vibration was set up, 

 giving rise to a particular impression, received and 

 answered by a sensation in us. 



