Man, O not men! a chain of linked thought, Of love and might to be divided not, Compelling the elements with adamantine stress; As the sun rules, even with a tyrant’s gaze, The unquiet republic of the maze Of Planets, struggling fierce towards heaven’s free wilderness. Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul, Whose nature is its own divine control, Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea; Familiar acts are beautiful through love; Labor and pain and grief, in life’s green grove, Sport like tame beasts,—none knew how gentle they could be! In the foregoing verses, the doctrine of Brotherhood is enunciated. Shelly refers to humanity as one, composed of its many units,—the one-life running through all; and also, in the first two lines, to the fact admitted by occultism, but sneered at by science, and dogmatic theology, that this “chain of linked thought,” compels the elements, and actually affects the course and destiny of the world. That is, that the Karma of the physical world, indissolubly bound up in that of the individuals upon it, is moulded and concentrated by the force of men’s thoughts and lives. To carry this out in one direction, we say that esoteric theosophy teaches that the inclination of the earth’s axis is made greater or less by the influence of the wickedness or goodness of the people upon the earth, thus bringing down what the people call evils, such as glacial disturbances, cyclones, earthquakes and other vicissitudes of earthly life. However fanciful this theory may appear, it remains for us quite true; and as the scientific world has no reason to give for the inclination of the axis, or for the precession of the equinoxes, we are entitled to hold an opinion where they have none. For the devout Christian this theory ought to have merits, if he chooses to remember that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for their wickedness. They grew so horribly bad that fire was brought upon them either from heaven or beneath. If it ever happened, it must have been a cyclic disturbance. Science pooh-poohs it. Did it take place, then it was the culminating point for the dynamic power of the evil deeds and thoughts of the inhabitants. In many places in the Christian bible, reference is made to the crying out to the Lord of the blood of the slain. Now as blood has no power to cry out, we must try in some way to make sense of these expressions, and the only way is by giving to the thoughts which produce deeds of violence, a dynamic power. It would then be easy to attribute to the blood the ability to cry out for justice, instead of saying that the deeds of blood require compensation.