English
Seven Manvantaras succeed each other in due order, this we are now going through being the fourth, and the worlds of each succeeding Manvantara are themselves evolved afresh each time, though each in turn must be thought of as a Re-incarnation of its predecessor rather than as an entirely fresh creation. Meanwhile within the limits of the solar system of which we form a part, there are other chains of Manvantaras in progress connected with other planets, visible and invisible, and in all we are given to understand that there are thus seven schemes of planetary evolution, all having some touch with the physical plane, and deriving their vital energies from the sun. At certain very exalted stages of spiritual progress the foremost representatives of humanity in the very vanguard of our evolution are in a position to acquire definite knowledge concerning these other schemes, and some information on the subject has filtered down to occult students of our level. We are thus enabled to form a comprehensive conception of the solar system as a whole, and even to appreciate to some extent the nature of the great design it represents. Seven, as we have long recognised, is the root num- ber of our system—in so far, at any rate, as that system THE SYSTEM TO WHICH 4VE BELONG. 273 is in any way concerned with physical manifestation— and the simple invariability of the law makes the great plan in question more easily intelligible than it would be otherwise. The solar system includes (we must take care not to fall into the arrogant mistake that might be involved in saying it consists of) seven great schemes of planetary evolution, in each of which there are some worlds, one or more, on the physical plane. The schemes are not all designed to match one another, and in some more than in others the higher planes of Nature are engaged in their design. Theosophists are well used now to the conception that super-physical planes of Nature may be just as real and the mani- festations thereon just as objective as those which affect the physical senses. The astral and Devachanic planes are available as areas of manifestation within the solar system as completely as the physical plane, and indeed, over and above the seven planetary schemes, to which I have already referred, there are some others which are altogether established on the higher planes and have no physical planets connected with their evolution at any time. It will not be possible to say much of these at present, but the recognition of the fact that they exist will help to bring order into our thinking at a later stage of this inquiry. Our own scheme makes a larger draught than any other but one on the resources of the physical plane, and at the period of our present Manvantara three planets of our own series are on this plane; but the constitution of the various chains is varied in this respect. Each scheme of evolution is worked out by means T 274 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. of a series of seven Manvantaras. Each Manvantara includes an evolutionary process, such as that set forth in Theosophic teaching in reference to the seven rounds of our planetary chain. As each round includes a world period of activity on each planet in turn, and as each of these world periods is divided into seven great racial cycles, we may get a view of the propor- tionate magnitude of a race period—itself extending over some millions of years—as compared with the whole system to which we belong, if we bear in mind the following progression : Seven root race periods make up one world period. Seven world periods (following each other on as many planets in succession), one round. Seven rounds one Manvantara. Seven Manvantaras, one scheme of evolution. Seven schemes of evolution (more or less contem- poraneous in their activity), the solar system. Some of these schemes are much more advanced than others, but before going into a more minute account of the condition in which we find the whole stupendous undertaking at the present time, it will be desirable to go back in imagination to its beginning, and appreciate the beautiful intuition with which modern science—not always entitled to as much credit —has divined with a very close approach to accuracy the condition in which our system existed before any of its planets were differentiated. The nebular hypothesis is one of the grandest achievements of which the unassisted human intellect THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 275 has ever shown itself capable. That hypothesis closely harmonises with Theosophic teaching on this subject, even though that teaching expands and interprets it in a way that would not be possible from the narrow platform of thought which recognises only one order of matter. The theory that solar systems were each, in the first instance, vast aggregations of highly heated and very attenuated matter—gaseous, or perhaps even more attenuated still—and that by degrees each such nebula was subjected to a cooling and contracting process which condensed its nucleus, and so forth, is generally attributed to the great astronomer I aplace. Some writers trace the genesis of the idea to Tycho Brahe, who suggested that stars were formed by the condensation of the ethereal substance of which he supposed the Milky Way to be composed. Kepler extended the idea by suggesting that the nebular substance may originally have pervaded all space, instead of being confined to the Milky Way, and other great thinkers in turn suggested further modifications of the original conception. It was immensely fortified when the researches of Sir William Herschell showed us over 2000 separate nebule within range of the telescope, and then, in the last year of the eighteenth century, Laplace worked out the whole scheme far more systematically than any of his precursors, and developed it into pretty much the shape in which the astronomical world generally accepts it now. Taplace showed how the planets of a system could be successively formed by the rupture, from the central 276 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. mass of the nebula, of great external rings of condensing matter. The whole nebula was assumed to have been originally in rotation, so the rings would themselves continue to rotate in the same way. By degrees the rings would themselves be somewhere ruptured, and then the matter of which they were composed would roll up and aggregate itself either into great globular planetary bodies, or into swarms of smaller meteoric masses. Concurrently with the development of the whole idea, speculation has concerned itself with the question how the nebula in the first instance was probably formed. According to one view, sometimes spoken of as the vortex theory, matter is supposed to be drawn in with a whirling motion around some already existing nucleus. By another—the impact theory—the original nebula is supposed to be due to the collision in space between two cold and extinct suns moving in different directions with planetary velocities. The heat engen- dered by such an appalling catastrophe is recognised as sufficient to volatilise all the matter of which the two globes consisted, and to set up, in this way, a new nebula of glowing incandescent gas, which would be set in rotation by the nature of the collision which caused it, as the chances would be enormous against the exact encounter of the two bodies centre to centre. At present, I think, the impact theory of nebular origins is most in favour, and it is profoundly inter- esting to learn from our exalted teachers that, though as a matter of fact it is not the method of development that was actually adopted in the case of our own solar THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 277 system, it has been employed in the course of Nature with some other systems, and can be brought into harmony with those activities on higher planes than the physical, which our Theosophic instincts will at once assure us must always be mainly instrumental in bringing a solar system into existence. The method actually adopted at the inauguration of our own solar system was one concerned entirely, in the first instance, with higher planes of Nature. On some level of superphysical matter a force was set in action which had the effect of creating what we may think of—without claiming, in this respect, to think with exactitude—as a vast electric field extending over a region of space greater by far than the area included in the orbit of Neptune. The region of space affected would, to begin with, be pervaded by matter of a certain order, or indeed of certain orders. The more we comprehend the spirit of occult teaching, the more clearly we realise the idea that space is nowhere empty and vacant. It may contain nothing that affects some given set of limited senses, but for all that it is a plenum rather than a vacuum. Something pervades all space with which we can concern ourselves in thought. Recognising this, and recognising also that matter on other planes than the physical is clearly subject to limitations—so that what we habitually talk of, for example, as the astral plane is not a homogeneous infinitude but is the astral plane of this earth—Esoteric students sometimes puzzle over the question, What plane in the ascending series is common to the solar system, what 278 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. common to the cosmos? The answer to the riddle is to be found in the fact that each plane is represented by matter in several—the usual seven—stages of refinement. The lower sub-planes are in all cases specialised around each planet; but in each case the highest sub-plane is co-extensive with the solar system—with the universe itself, for all we know to the contrary.