Transformation, under the various forms of transfiguration, transmutation and change, forms the subject of many fascinating stories which adorn the pages of romance, mythology, science and symbology. It may be said to exhibit itself as the dominant force in the world of matter—the changeful, restless world with which we change and to which, while dressed in its elements, we are held. The disobedience of Lot’s wife changed her material form into a pillar of salt; the fated Niobe was transformed into a rugged rock which forever was bathed by her tears; the glance of Medusa turned her victims into stone, her blood turned trees into coral; the stone which Rhea duped Cronus into swallowing in the belief that it was one of his children—indeed, the whole legend concerning the devouring of his offspring by the old god, is illustrative of the process of nature which forever consumes that which it produces. Nature is a veritable alchemist, a royal transmuter, turning the precious into the base and the base into the precious, regardless of dignity, rank or name. Parable and symbol have ever been the ornate coverings beneath which lie securely hidden from the superficial gaze the secrets with which searching man has played for ages. The work of these intrepid scientists had, at certain periods of the world’s history, to be carefully concealed from the vulgar and intolerant mind which was continually endeavouring to bind the thoughts of men within the slavery of a fixed dogma. The true meaning of this dogma was indeed far better known and understood by the faithful searchers into the mysteries of nature than by all the narrow agents seeking to suppress them. But they were compelled to wait till the champions of liberty in the material world had swept back the devils of intolerance which darkened the way to spiritual and material freedom. The waiting for the right time to present their discoveries to the people did not suspend their researches—it rather advanced them. Nearly 600 years before the Christian era the poetical philosopher Xenophanes wrote of fossil fishes, shells and other petrifaction found on high mountains and in quarries, which he instanced as indicating changes on the earth’s surface, certain lands sinking beneath the sea and certain lands rising out of it. The earlier examinations of these remains were considered as evidence of a subtle tractable power inherent in the earth. Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno taught that God entered His Spirit into eternal matter, producing the earth, thus eternally filled with the potential Spirit.