And these doctrines have their roots wholly and solely in the true understanding of life. Only he who understands life will be able to take his lessons from life itself. He will draw up no capricious schemes, for he knows that no other fundamental laws of life will prevail in the future than such as prevail in the present. Theosophy will therefore of necessity have respect for the existing state of things. Even, should it still find in what is existent, very much that might be improved, yet it will not fail to perceive in the present the germs of the future. But it knows, too, that for all things nascent there is a growth and a development. Therefore the germs for a transformation and for a future growth will appear to Theosophy in the existing state of things. It invents no schemes, it only calls them forth from what already exists. But that which is so called forth becomes in a certain sense itself a scheme, for it contains within itself the nature of evolution. For this very reason the theosophical way of delving into the nature of man must yield the most fruitful and practical means for the solution of the vitally important questions of the present time. It is my purpose to apply this to one such question, namely that of education. We do not intend to advance any claims or pronounce a learned dissertation, but to portray simply the child nature. From a study of the nature of the growing man, the educational standpoint here suggested will develop quite naturally. But to proceed rightly with such a study it is necessary to contemplate the hidden nature of man in general. That which is cognised by the physical perception, that which the materialistic view of life considers to be the only important element in the nature of man, namely, his physical body, forms, according to spiritual research, only a part, a principle of human nature. This physical body is subject to the same laws of physical life, is composed of the same matter and forces, as all the rest of the so-called lifeless world. Theosophy, therefore, maintains that man possesses this physical aspect in common with the whole of the mineral kingdom. And it considers as physical body that part only in man which is able to mix, unite, to build up and to dissolve the very same materials, and after identical laws, as are also at work in the mineral world. Now besides this physical body, Theosophy recognizes a second element in the constitution of man—namely a vital or etheric body. And that there may be no cause for the physicist to reject the term etheric body we would point out that etheric is here used in a different sense from the hypothetical ether of physics, and it must be taken to mean here that which is about to be described.