(2) The fundamental law in that system, the central point from which all emerges, around and towards which all gravitates, and upon which is hung all its philosophy, is the One Homogeneous Divine SUBSTANCE‐PRINCIPLE, the One Radical Cause. ... Some few, whose lamps shone brighter, have been led From cause to cause to nature’s secret head, And found that one first Principle must be.... It is called “Substance‐Principle,” for it becomes “Substance” on the plane of the manifested Universe, an Illusion, while it remains a “Principle” in the beginningless and endless abstract, visible and invisible, SPACE. It is the omnipresent Reality; impersonal, because it contains all and everything. Its _Impersonality_ is the _fundamental conception_ of the System. It is latent in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself. (3) The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute Essence. To call it “Essence,” however, is to sin against the very spirit of the philosophy. For though the noun may be derived in this case from the verb _esse_, “to be,” yet IT cannot be identified with a “being” of any kind, that can be conceived by human intellect. IT is best described as neither Spirit nor Matter, but both. Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti are One, in reality, yet TWO in the universal conception of the Manifested, even in the conception of the One Logos, the first “Manifestation,” to which, as the able lecturer shows, in the “Notes on the _Bhagavadgîtâ_,” IT appears from the objective standpoint as Mûlaprakriti, and not as Parabrahman; as its Veil, and not the One Reality hidden behind, which is unconditioned and absolute. (4) The Universe, with everything in it, is called Mâyâ, because all is temporary therein, from the ephemeral life of a fire‐fly to that of the sun. Compared to the eternal immutability of the ONE, and the changelessness of that Principle, the Universe, with its evanescent ever‐ changing forms, must be necessarily, in the mind of a philosopher, no better than a will‐o’‐the‐wisp. Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.