Page:A Collection of Esoteric Writings.djvu/36

22 Before proceeding to examine the nature of these seven entities, a few general explanations are indispensably necessary.

I. The secondary principles arising out of the combination of primary principles are quite different in their nature from the entities out of whose combination they came into existence. The combinations in question are not of the nature of mere mechanical juxtapositions, as it were. They do not even correspond to chemical combinations. Consequently no valid inferences as regards the nature of the combinations in question can be drawn by analogy from the nature [variety?] of these combinations.

II. The general proposition that when once a cause is removed its effect vanishes, is not universally applicable. Take, for instance, the following example:—if you once communicate a certain amount of momentum to a ball, velocity of a particular degree in a particular direction is the result. Now, the cause of this motion ceases to exist when the instantaneous sudden impact or blow which conveyed the momentum is completed; but, according to the first Law of Motion, the ball will continue to move on for ever and ever with undiminished velocity in the same direction unless the said motion is altered, diminished, neutralized or counteracted by extraneous causes. Thus, if the ball stop, it will not be on account of the absence of the cause of its motion, but in consequence of the existence of extraneous causes which produce the said result.

Again, take the instance of subjective phenomena.

Now the presence of this ink-bottle before me is producing in me or in my mind a mental representation of its form, volume, colour and so forth. The bottle in question may be removed, but still its mental picture may continue to exist. Here, again, you see, the effect survives the cause. Moreover, the effect may at any subsequent time be called into conscious existence, whether the original cause be present or not.