greater than our own, shows that they are of various ages --- some quite young, some arrived at maturity, and some passing into old age. Their creation must therefore be assigned to different epochs, and we thus see the Originating Spirit exercising the powers of Selection and Volition as to the time when, as well as to the place where, a new world-system shall be inaugurated.

Now it is this power of inauguration that all the ancient systems of teaching attribute to the Divine Word. It is the passing of the undifferentiated into differentiation, of the unmanifested into manifestation, of the unlocalised into localisation. It is the ushering in of what the Brahminical books call a Manvantara, or world-period, and in like manner our Bible says that "In the beginning was the Word". The English word word is closely allied to the Latin word verbum, which signifies both "word" and "verb". Grammarians tell us that the verb to be is a verb-substantive, that is, it does not indicate any action passing from the subject to the object.

Now this exactly describes the Spirit in its Eternity. We cannot conceive of it except as always BEING; but the distribution of world-systems both in time