the “seven planets” manifest themselves either for good or for evil according to the nature of the person in whom they become manifest. Thus, for instance, that universal element which is symbolized as {symbol} will become manifested in man as universal love or as selfishness according to his condition. If {symbol} rules his {symbol} he will have self-control; but if his {symbol} rules his love, he will give way to his lusts. If the element of {symbol} in him rules his {symbol}, his intelligence will be of a terrestrial nature belonging to the spirit of the earth; but if his intelligence is master over his earthly elements, he will be capable of high aspirations. If the element of {symbol} rules his {symbol}, he will employ his intellect for the purpose of satisfying his greed, but if {symbol} is the master of his {symbol} he will be of a noble character. All this is merely said to hint at the sublimity of alchemical science and call attention to the universal truth; that _every principle, in whatever plane of existence it may exist, is not a product of the form in which it develops and manifests itself; but that the form is the field for its development and manifestation_; in the same sense as the universal sunlight is not a product of the bodies upon which it shines, but the bodies are instruments for the development and manifestation of the qualities of light. Thus the life, consciousness, will, virtue, passion, or any other spiritual, emotional, or physical state of a man is not the product of his form, but a manifestation of a universal life principle becoming manifested in him according to the conditions presented by his constitution. Life is only one, manifesting itself in animals as animal life, in plants as vegetable life, etc. Consciousness is only one, manifesting itself as true self-consciousness in spiritual beings, and as instincts in the lower animal kingdom. Love is only one and universal, otherwise it could not manifest everywhere the same qualities; it does not belong to one individual or one country; it is born in heaven; but it becomes manifest upon the earth in men, animals, plants and minerals, under different aspects according to the conditions which it finds. Everything is a manifestation of one primordial Unity revealing itself in a threefold aspect. Man himself is nothing more than a manifestation of the universal power that called him into existence and built up his bodily form. He is not his body nor his mind; but the expression upon a lower plane of a higher individual state of being; one of the letters that constitute the great alphabet of humanity. Being continually deluded by the illusion caused by the apparent isolation of his form and its separation from other forms of existence, he imagines himself to be something essentially separated from other beings, and thus he forgets his own universal nature. Only when man begins to realise what he himself in reality is, can he begin