present stage of our knowledge, if any man claims that anything becomes annihilated, he is only making himself absurd. It is only uneducated people who would advance such a proposition, and it is curious that modern knowledge coincides with what those old philosophers taught. The ancients proceeded in their inquiry by taking up mind as the basis; they analyzed the mental part of this universe and came to certain conclusions, while modern science is analyzing the physical part, and it also comes to the same conclusions. Both analyses must lead to the same truth. You must remember that the first manifestation of this _Prakriti_ in the cosmos is what the _Sânkhyas_ called _Mahat_. We may call it universal intelligence, the great principle; that is the literal meaning. The first manifestation of _Prakriti_ is this intelligence; I would not translate it by self-consciousness, because that would be wrong. Consciousness is only a part of this intelligence, which is universal. It covers all the grounds of consciousness, sub-consciousness and super-consciousness. In Nature, for instance, certain changes are going on before your eyes which you see and understand, but there are other changes so much finer that no human perception can catch them. They are from the same cause, the same _Mahat_ is making these changes. There are other changes, beyond the reach of our mind or reasoning, all this series of changes is in this _Mahat_. You will understand it better when I come to the individual. Out of this _Mahat_ comes the universal egoism, and these are both material. There is no difference between matter and mind save in degree. It is the same substance in finer or grosser form; one changes into the other, and this will exactly coincide with the modern physiological research, and it will save you from a great deal of fighting and struggling to believe that you have a mind separate from the brain, and all such impossible things. This substance called _Mahat_ changes into the material egoism, the fine state of matter, and that egoism changes into two varieties. In one variety it changes into the organs. Organs are of two kinds--organs of sensation and organs of reaction. They are not the eyes or nose, but something finer, what you call brain centres, and nerve centres. This egoism becomes changed, and out of this material are manufactured these centres and these nerves. Out of the same substance, the egoism, is manufactured a yet finer form, the _tanmâtras_, fine particles of matter, those for instance which strike your nose and cause you to smell. You cannot perceive these fine particles, you can only know that they are there. These _tanmâtras_ are manufactured out of that egoism, and out of these _tanmâtras_, or subtle matter, is manufactured the gross matter, air, water, earth, and all the things that we see and feel. I want to impress this on your mind. It is very hard to grasp it, because,