English
But without attempting to forecast in detail the pro- cesses associated with that far distant event, we may expand the statement with reference to the remote past when our own planet was in process of construc- tion, by the addition of a great deal more detail, not merely interesting on its own account but conducive, when fully understood, to a better comprehension than is obtainable in any other way of many physical pheno- mena in progress on the earth at the present time. The condensation of what I have described above as the vast planetary nebulz out of which the earth was composed, was not in fact a process accomplished at one coup. In harmony with the analogies which nature suggests around us in every direction, the growth of the planet itself was a gradual process and the first condensation gave rise to a globe very much smaller in magnitude than this on which we now stand, but which in the progress of ages was destined to be the nucleus around which the complete planet should be constructed. Recent occult information on this subject which I have been enabled to put forward since the publication of this work in its first edition,* enables us to comprehend not merely the successive stages of our planet’s growth but in some mieasure the present * See Translation 38 of the,London Lodge of the Theosophical Society, ‘‘ The Constitution of the Earth.” THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 291 condition of its interior, in a way which no scientific investigation has as yet provided for. It is just worth while before passing on to an account of the successive stages, to take note of the fact that in a work put together from the point of view of ordinary astronomy, “the Nebular Theory,” by Mr. William Ford Stanley, that author recognises the possibility as suggested by purely physical considerations, that the planets were not formed by one single operation but by a series of successive condensations. And another representative of exoteric science on wholly different grounds has come to the conclusion that the interior of the earth in its present state exhibits a condition of things which would be in harmony with the idea of successive con- densations. It may be inore convenient, however, to record this independent testimony when the occult explanation of what seems actually to have taken place, has been more fully set forth. | The actual fact I understand to be that the planet on which we are at present living was the result of several condensations of nebulous matter, and the constitution of the Earth at this mature period of its existence is only to be understood by reference to this method of development. The nucleus having been formed in the first instance in the way already described, a considerable time was allowed to elapse before the second deposition of matter took place. In this interval the surface of the nucleus had time to solidify and cool down to temperatures in which all but its more volatile ingredients assumed, on the surface, the solid state. Then another clash of meteoric streams surrounded the 292 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. young Earth with a huge envelope of fresh nebulous matter. I say “nebulous” because the heat engen- dered by the collision of the meteor streams would resolve the meteoric matter back again into its primi- tive state. It is necessary, indeed, that such a return should be included in the process in order to provide the growing Earth with the varied materials required in its composition. Meteoric matter for the most part is simple in its composition, and very largely made up of certain metals of which iron is the most abundant. But a planet consisting almost entirely of iron would not be a suitable home for the evolutions it might be destined to bear. Occult teaching in reference to the constitution of matter comes in here to relieve us of the embarrassment this thought suggests. Thrown back into the nebulous condition by the intense heat of the meteoric collision the matter of the meteor streams, even if it had all been iron to begin with, would be once more in the etheric state—in that state in which Sir William Crookes has called it “ protyle’”’ in connection with his extremely admirable and occultly justified theory of “ the Genesis of the Elements.’’ From that state it would be capable of rearranging its atoms in the varied forms of the many chemical elements required for the service of a life-bearing planet. The new envelope of nebulous matter is destined to condense into a complete solid shell surrounding the original nucleus, and here it is for the first time in the course of this explanation necessary to interpolate an idea for which we are not fully prepared by any ordinary habits of scientific thought. When the outer shell THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 293 has been completely solidified, the condition of things we find to exist is this: The volatile ingredients in the composition of the original nucleus have not been, as expectation might have led us to expect, squeezed through the newly deposited shell of solid matter, but have been confined within that at an enormous pressure and at a corresponding temperature. At the stage of the Earth’s growth we have reached in imagination, we have an interior globe of solid matter, the central portions of which are still at an enormously high tein- perature while the outer crust is relatively cool. But on the surface of that crust there exists a stratum of compressed gaseous matter, largely consisting of water in its gaseous form, at the temperature, or even exceeding through contraction the temperature of the nebula which condensed upon it. We cannot expect at this stage of our knowledge to understand precisely how the condensation is so effected as to keep the gaseous matter within the new shell, but no extravagant amount of intellectual modesty is required to induce us to recognise that there may be laws of nature which coine into play when new planets are being constructed, the full details of which are missing as yet from our present catalogue of such laws. The outer shell having in its turn had time to cool down so that its least volatile ingredients are solid, and its more volatile ingredients in the atmospheric state around it, a third process sets in. Again there is a clash of meteor streams, another vast nebulous sheath is condensed around the growing globe and in time this forms a second shell with a stratum of con- 294 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. fined gaseous matter between it and the interior shell. Further operations of a similar character are carried on at later stages of the planet’s growth until it arrives at maturity, and consists as at present of six concentric spheres or shells surrounding a central nucleus, with strata of hot gaseous matter intervening between each sphere and its neighbours. The outer shells are of considerably greater thickness than those immediately surrounding the nucleus, and the outermost of all, with which we are concerned, is much the thickest of all, as will be seen by reference to the annexed diagram, which shows a section of the Earth and gives what I am assured is an approximately correct idea of the proportions of the different parts. I have not on this drawing endeavoured to represent the shallow stratum of heated matter which does actually exist at a depth of about twenty-five or thirty miles below the surface. It is of a wholly different character from the interstitial spaces of hot condensed gases. It is simply a portion of the Earth’s solid shell which is hot by reason of the fact that it was an extra nebulous condensation superimposed upon the other- wise completely finished planet, with an end in view no doubt which I do not as vet exactly understand, but which I believe to have related in some way to the ultimate development of the vegetable kingdom. ‘The surface layer of hot matter (as it may be called by comparison with the interstitial layers far down in the depths of the globe), was a kind of “ top dressing,” to use an agricultural expression, which seems to have been provided for as regards the actual material used THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 295 up, by the disintegration of the two outer shells of the Moon. Some forecast of this condition of things has been already embodied in theosophic writings as mentioned above, but the present explanations will advance our comprehension of the matter to some extent. Leaving over for the moment the fuller inter- pretation of the statement just made about the two outer shells of the Moon, let us keep to the Earth’s history till that is further developed. The final “ top-dressing ’’ was not designed to form a new shell separate in any way from the great crust already formed. It did not operate to confine between itself and the established surface any atmospheric gases. It was simply a hot layer of physical matter, the more volatile portions of which remained in the atmosphere of the globe already formed, while the solid portions settled down and beginning to cool from the outside, eventually established the conditions now prevailing. Of course at first the whole new layer of physical matter twenty-five imiles thick was incandescent, but the cool- ing and solidification of the surface prepared the way for the establishment thereon of the geological deposits with which we are familiar, and eventually for the development of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The direction of rotation of all the concentric spheres is the same, and the axis of rotation identically the same, but the rapidity of rotation increases from within outwards. Each new shell deposited as the growth of the planet proceeds rotates with an increased velocity compared with its predecessor.