"Certainly not," she said, "but as a teacher of your people I would have you follow the natural law and begin your work at the beginning. From what I can learn, your own country is now passing through its Transition Period, similar to that described in Norrena's lecture, and hence the first great duty of your people is to abolish poverty. When the fear of want is removed from every household the first effect will be to place better pre-natal conditions around the mothers, and the next generation will be placed on a higher plane physically, intellectually and morally. This is the first step that your people must take and then the Home may be introduced for the scientific adaptation of pre-natal influences to specific purposes. Then you will begin to determine in advance whether the child shall be an inventor, scientist, philosopher, poet, musician, teacher or explorer. The Homes are scientifically adapted to specific purposes, while economic independence and general education lift the entire people to a higher plane of being along every line of human effort. What your people need now, is the general, mental and moral uplifting of the victims of your present system, and to this end, my advice to you would be, to confine your first work to the solution of the problem, 'How to abolish poverty.'" "But would you," I asked, "discourage these specific measures at this time because the masses are poor?" "Of course not," said Bona Dea, "for those who are able to apply them, but I would first place these advanced scientific methods within the reach of the entire people by establishing economic independence for all. This is simply following the natural law of human development." "Will you," I asked, "please explain just what you regard as the natural law of human development?" "It is the law of growth," said Bona Dea, "and always begins at the base and works its way upward. The plant germinates in the earth and then pushes its way upward towards the light. The growth of the animal organism from conception to maturity is along the same line of progression, from the bottom of the scale, toward the top. In the growth of human civilization and the mental, moral and spiritual elevation of the race, the same general law of evolution holds good. The elevating influence must reach the people through their environments. The real man and the real woman, is the ego or spirit. The physical body is the outermost environment of the individual being. By improving the physical conditions we stimulate the mental organism into a healthy activity, and the result is intellectual growth, and spiritual unfoldment. Such is the natural law of human progress from the physical through the mental to its culmination in the spiritual or divine, which is the very highest type to which we aspire."