106 METAPHYSICS 



ment of the immaterial pabulum put within his reach, 

 through his exercise of the psychological and spiritual 

 faculties and energies of which he is consciously or 

 unconsciously possessed. 



Of course, it has been denied all along the ages, and 

 is still denied, that man lives by anything else than bread, 

 and affirmed that his wants are entirely material ; of these 

 beliefs it does not concern us here to speak beyond 

 expressing from the point of view of science, that man 

 really consists of an admixture of material and immaterial 

 entities, that these entities are indestructible, and at their 

 severance by death both entities continue to pursue their 

 respective destinies in such manner as their respective 

 elements by the laws of matter and energy determine. 



The life, the ego, being an immaterial independent 

 existence, pursues its concrete course, while the material 

 body is reduced to its original condition or elements by 

 the analytic activity of mother earth. 



As the breath of life was originally infused into 

 primitive man, and continues generation after generation 

 to be infused into him as he " arrives on the scene," so 

 does that life or vital principle which dominated and 

 innervated even his pre-breathing organism remain un- 

 touched by the incidence of death, and continues to live 

 when the material necessity of drawing the breath of life 

 has ceased, and complete dynamic freedom been obtained, 

 in obedience to the immaterial and dynamic necessity 

 contained in the pregnant words : " man liveth by every 

 word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." That 

 is to say, in obedience to the inalienable and inviolate laws 

 of the universe, a few of which laws have only yet been 

 dimly or imperfectly realised by the intellect of even the 

 greatest exponents of " natural truth," but sufficiently 

 clearly, nevertheless, to warrant the statement quoted, and 

 to proclaim the continuance of the eternal truth contained 

 therein. 



As bread is essential for the physical sustenance and 

 life of man, so is the law of immaterial or dynamic 

 sustenance to maintain and develop the inner and 

 immortal life of man, and to perpetuate the great evolu- 

 tionary work, of which the material part only has been 



