MORE ABOUT THE ALL-PERVADING TATTVAAKASHARECENT scientific discoveries which havetumbled century-honored theories fromtheir pedestals to an abyss where we arehastening to bury them in that oblivion of disusewhich the world heaps upon its recognized errors,make it important to the student that a little morespace be given to pointing out the interesting corroborationof the Tattvic Law which we can findin all of these wonders.The greatest bar to scientific progress is statedin this trenchant form by Mme. Blavatsky:" Pure force is nothing in the world of physics;it is ALL in the domain of Spirit ! " Now, noticethis particularly. It is the world of force whichthe modern scientist is beginning to penetrate; aworld of such stupendous forces as astounds him,and at every step he is coming nearer to the TattvicLaw.The " Forty-nine Fires " of the Vedas are theseven permutations of the Tatfuas and the twoforces, hidden as yet and undefined, behind the posi-7576 The Law of the Rhythmic Breathtive and negative currents of Prana (7 x 7 = 49).Every one of these has well-determined chemicaland physical potencies in contact with terrestrialmatter, and a distinct function in the physical andspiritual worlds, with a corresponding relation toa human psychic faculty. To the ancient Hinduadept all these hidden forces were as an open book,and years ago India's initiates accurately predictedPage 41The Law of the Rhythmic Breath - E. A. Fletcher.txtall the amazing discoveries and inventions of recentyears, which have furnished new foundationsfor science and kept the world marvelling.Out of the invisible, Sir William Crookes, withhis " radiant matter," and Roentgen, with his Xray,lured two of these " Forty-nine Fires." Withthe X-ray, the principle of radio-activity whichrevolutionized science was established; and itpaved the way for the discovery of the twentiethcenturymarvel, radium, which disclosed radioactivityas an actual property of matter. No oneconversant with the Tattvic Law can doubt thatradium and all the radio-active substances can beproperly classified among the " Forty-nine Fires "of the Vedas.In all these progressions and permutations, thehigher, more subtle plane, or state, of matter ispositive to the next lower, and every lower one isthe result of the interaction of the positive andnegative phases of the next higher state.Radium furnishes us with invaluable data corroTheAll-Pervading Akasha 77berating the Tattvic Law. But in order to comprehendthe velocity of these vibrations (whichare ceaselessly bombarding us) and the intricacyof the Tattvic permutations, a few words concerningthe nature of atoms will be helpful. Theword atom is still defined in standard dictionaries,and in text-books upon physics published withinthe present decade, as that ultimate particle of amolecule which is indivisible. In a very slipshodfashion, atom has also been defined as interchangeablewith molecule, and, therefore, it has creptinto very general usage in the same sense. Althougha molecule is described as " The smallestportion of any substance in which its properties reside,"it is possible, by means of heat or some otherchemical agent, to separate a molecule into twoor more particles, called atoms, " and these cannotbe further divided " was the ultimatum ofNatural Philosophy. Until quite recently, thehydrogen atom was the smallest mass of matterknown to science, and, therefore, the accepted unitof atomic weight.But what says Prof. George Darwin as to this?" It has been proved that the simplest of all atomsnamely, that of hydrogen consists of eighthundred separate parts, while the number of atomsin the denser metals must be counted by tens ofthousands. These separate parts have been calledcorpuscles, or electrons, and may be d