We have seen that there is some reason for believing that, simultaneously with the birth or coming to consciousness of what we have called the divine soul, there occurs within us the formation of a ‘spiritual’ or very subtly material body. This body, if only composed of atoms, may easily be so fine and subtle as to pass practically unchanged through ordinary gross matter—the walls, for instance, and other obstacles that surround us. (At this moment there is an astronomical theory current that the stellar universe consists of two vast star-systems which are passing in nearly opposite directions right _through each other_.) If composed of electrons its subtlety and pervasive powers must be much greater. Moreover, its fineness and subtlety would make it difficult of destruction. The ordinary agents of death—physical violence, water, fire, and so forth—would, as already pointed out, hardly reach it; and it is easy to suppose that it might continue onwards and perdure in stability and activity for thousands of years. Even the Atom of matter, which is now regarded as a complex system of electrons, is supposed to have an immensely extended lifetime—nearly two thousand years in the case of Radium, and much longer in the case of all other substances; and if two thousand years or thereabouts is the minimum lifetime of an atom, it is not difficult to suppose that the lifetime of a subtle body composed as above described may be equally or much more extended. During its lifetime, the radio-active atom, slowly disintegrating, pours out a prodigious amount of energy; and in the process apparently is transformed and takes on other characters and qualities. Radium for instance, or rather some products of its disintegration, are thought to take on the characters of Helium and of Lead. And similarly we have every reason to believe that the subtle body of Man is continually pouring out energy on all sides, radiating like a sun—pouring out mental states, sensible forms, influences of all kinds, even images of itself, and so continually entering into a wider life and touch with others, and undergoing a slow transformation of its outer form. At the same time—and leading to the same results—it is continually storing up in its recesses impressions and memories for the seed of future expression and development.