THE CONQUEST OF THE SUPRA-WORLD 145 



to adapt its surroundings to itself. An outside 

 spectator might look as fruitlessly for the seat of 

 the solar "soul" as he does for the human soul in 

 the cells of the brain. He would note certain acti- 

 vities and adaptations, and if they resembled his 

 own he would postulate life or even consciousness. 

 He might notice a growth of the single system into 

 a cluster of systems, or the break-up of several 

 systems to form another system on a higher scale. 

 Our imagination almost forsakes us at this point, 

 until we arrive at the borders of the galaxy, and 

 behold ! we have again a living thing, like the 

 amoeba under the cover-glass, which is as wonder- 

 ful as a living galaxy, and fraught with infinitely 

 greater possibilities than a dead galaxy. But in 

 this vast process just sketched, which has taken a 

 thousand million years to accomplish itself, a living 

 ><j has been born into the supra-world, there to 

 live a life akin to that of our earthly organisms, 

 but extending over practically infinite time, and 

 counting its seconds by the parade of galaxies. Its 

 long evolution, the " Conquest of the Supra- world," 

 will count as an insignificant fraction of a second 

 :i mere nothing. It will, in its own estimation, have 

 been born afresh at a definite and sharply defined 

 epoch, with no assignable pro-existence. It will 

 enter upon its vivid life in the supra-world, con- 

 scious of the all-absorbing Present, and oblivious 

 <>f the ages during which it was slowly and labori- 



