slumbered in copper and zinc, which lay quietly beside silver. As soon
as all three are brought together under the required conditions silver
is consumed in flame. A dry seed of a plant may preserve the
slumbering power of growth through two or three thousand years and
then reappear under favorable conditions. Sir G. Wilkinson, the great
archaeologist, found some grains of wheat in a hermetically sealed
vase in a grave at Thebes, which must have lain there for three
thousand years. When Mr. Pettigrew sowed them they grew into plants.
Some vegetable roots found in the hands of an Egyptian mummy, which
must have been at least two thousand years old, were planted in a
flower-pot, and they grew and flourished. Thus, whenever the latent
powers get favorable conditions, they manifest according to their
nature, even after thousands of years.
Similarly, there are many instances of slumbering mental powers. After
remaining dormant for a long period in our normal condition, they may,
in certain abnormal states--such as madness, delirium, catalepsy,
hypnotic sleep and so forth-flash out into luminous consciousness and
throw into absolute oblivion the powers that are manifesting in the
normal state. Talents for eloquence, music, painting, and uncommon
ingenuity in several mechanical arts, traces of which were never found
in the ordinary normal condition, are often evolved in the state of
madness. Somnambulists in deep sleep have solved most difficult
mathematical problems and performed various acts with results which
have surprised them in their normal waking states. Thus we can
understand that each individual mind is the storehouse of many powers,
various impressions and ideas, some of which manifest in our normal
state, while others remain latent. Our present condition of mind and
body is nothing but the manifested form of certain dormant powers that
exist in ourselves. If new powers are roused up and begin to manifest
the whole nature will be changed into a new form. The manifestation of
latent powers is at the bottom of the evolution of one species into
another. This idea has been expressed in a few words by Patanjali, the
great Hindu evolutionist who lived long before the Christian
era. [Footnote: The reader ought to know that the doctrine of
Evolution was known in India long before the Christian era. About the
seventh century, B. C., Kapila, the father of Hindu Evolutionists,
explained this theory for the first time through logic and
science. Sir Monier Monier Williams says: "Indeed if I may be allowed
the anachronism, the Hindus were Spinozites more than 2,000 years
before the existence of Spinoza; and Darwinians many centuries before
Darwin; and Evolutionists many centuries before the doctrine of
Evolution had been accepted by the scientists of our time and before
any word like Evolution existed in any language of the world." (P. 12,
"Hinduism and Brahminism.") Prof. Huxley says: "To say nothing of
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