could look back to the time of those struggles, there would seem to you nothing strange or abnormal in the story; for you would see it repeated with less vividness in the smaller struggles where the Sons of the Fire were purging and redeeming the earth, in order that the later human evolution might take place. We pass from those four Avatâras, every one of which comes within what is called the Satya Yuga of the earth--not of the race remember, not the smaller cycle, but of the earth--the Satya Yuga of the earth as a whole, when periods of time were of immense length, and when progress was marvellously slow. Then we come to the next age, that which we call the Treta Yuga, that which is, in the theosophical chronology--and I put the two together in order that students may be able to work their way out in detail--the middle of the third Root Race, when humanity receives the light from above, and when man as man begins to evolve. How is that evolution marked? By the coming of the Supreme in human form, as Vâmana, the Dwarf. The Dwarf? Yes; for man was as yet but dwarf in the truly human stature, although vast in outer appearance; and He came as the inner man, small, yet stronger than the outer form; against him was Bali, the mighty, showing the outer form, while Vâmana, the Dwarf, showed the man that should be. And when Bali had offered a great sacrifice, the Dwarf as a Brâhmaṇa came to beg. It is curious this question of the caste of the Avatâras. When we once come to the human Avatâras, They are mostly Kshattriyas, as you know, but in two cases. They are Brâhmaṇas, and this is one of them; for He was going to beg, and Kshattriya might not beg. Only he to whom the earth's wealth should be as nothing, who should have no store of wealth to hold, to whom gold and earth should be as one, only he may go to beg. He was an ancient Brâhmaṇa, not a modern Brâhmaṇa.