The Secret Doctrine speaks of the seven "Imperishable Laya Centers" produced by Fohat. "The Great Breath digs through space seven holes into Laya to cause them to circumgirate during Manvantaras" (vol. I, p. 147). And the idea is given that around these are other neutral centers, and around these yet others again and again.

Each cycle, great or small, is an evolution complete in itself, but also forms a part of a larger evolution. The human body is a beautiful example of this. Each cell in the body has its cycle of birth, growth and decay; but each cell is part of a tissue that is born, grows, matures, and dies; each tissue is part of an organ that also has its cycle of birth and death; and again, each organ helps to form a body that passes through all these stages. The idea may be carried further, for each individual forms part of a family, each family is part of a nation, while again, each nation is an organic part of a race, and all are subject to the same law of birth, growth and death.

In Isis Unveiled (vol. I, 5) Madame Blavatsky says that the Chaldean philosophers "Divided the interminable periods of human existence into cycles, during each of which mankind gradually reached the culminating point of highest civilization, and gradually relapses into abject barbarism."

Cyclic law seems to be universal, each planet, for instance, has its cycle. The moon has a cycle of nineteen years-that is after a period of nineteen years the new and full moons return on the same days of the month. The sun's cycle is 28 years, at the end of which the days of the month fall again on the same days of the week. The cycle of Jupiter is thirty-six years. These astronomical cycles are not without effect on our race.

The greatest cycle with which we are acquainted is the Brahmarandeha, or complete life of Brahma. It is made up (according to eastern teachings) of four yugas or cycles, but the races of men are not all affected by the same yuga at the same time-some races being in one cycle and some in another.

The eastern books call these cycles Krita, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali (black). The last mentioned yuga-Kali, or the black-is the one which effects our mental and spiritual development most powerfully to-day. The first five-thousand years of this cycle ended with the close of the nineteenth century.

A Krita yuga contains 1,728,000 of our years; a Treta yuga is made up of 1,296,000 of these years; a Dvapara yuga contains 864,000 mortal years; and a Kali yuga is the shortest and holds 432,000 of these years. These four yugas make up a Maha, or great yuga of 4,320,000 years, and seventy-one of these make the reign of one Manu, or, 306,720,000 years, and fourteen Manus make 4,294,080,000 years. If we add the dawns or twilights between each Manu we have 25,920,000

years more.

These reigns and dawns (of Manus) make a thousand Maha yugas, which is one Kalpa, or day of Brahma-4,320,000,000 years.

Brahma's nights equal his days, so a day and night of Brahma make 8,640,000,000 years. Three hundred and sixty of these days make a year of Brahma, and one hundred of these years make a complete life of Brahma, that is, 311,040,000,000,000 years of our solar system. An enormous period that we can hardly form any conception of.

If we think of it in another way we may get a glimpse of what it means. Our earth is now in a condition of molecular vibration, and this dominant vibration continues through one day of Brahma, or, 4,320 millions of years. This is the time required for all the planets of our solar system to come into conjunction, an event that will surely make great changes in our planet, and we are told that at the beginning and end of these cycles great cataclysms occur-floods, earthquakes, fire, etc.

This cycle will comprise the duration of our world in its present state before it passes into pralaya, or changes its present rate of vibration for another. There are several smaller cycles that ended with the close of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. I have already noted that the first five thousand years of Kali yuga ended at that time. Madam Blavatsky says, "The Messianic cycle of the Samaritan Jesus, of man connected with Pisces" also ended then.

She goes on to say that it is a cycle "Historic and not very long, but very occult, lasting about 2,155 solar years but having a true significance only when computed by lunar months. It occurred 2410 B. C. and 255 B. C., or when the Equinox entered into the sign of the Ram, and again into that of Pisces."

She further says that when it enters the sign Aquarius (which it did about the year 1900 )"Psychologists will have some extra work to do, and the psychic idiosyncrasies of humanity will enter on a great change" (Studies in Occultism, vol. V, note on page 233).

There are two cycles that are of very great importance to us, and which it will greatly profit us to study.

The first of these is the one hundred year cycle under which the Theosophical Society was born and lives. "A year of the gods" is a hundred years of mortals, and this year of the gods is the hundred year cycle under which all the work of the Theosophical Society is done. If we read carefully what H. P. Blavatsky, W. Q. Judge, and other theosophical writers have said on this topic it seems clear that a year of the gods is like any other year in that it has its times and seasons, such as seed time and harvest, and these seasons must be carefully observed by us if we would work successfully for Theosophy. For instance, during the last quarter of the century it is possible for the Masters to work with us and give us help from the material and psychic

sides of life. Physical and psychic phenomena are then possible and easy to produce, but at the close of the cycle, that ceases to be possible and we can only then come into contact with the Masters on their own spiritual plane. All teaching and influence from the Lodge during the first quarter of the century must come from the inside, and not from the outside.

As at the beginning of the second half of the last century the thoughts of men began to change, and the scientific doctrine of evolution, the appearance of spiritualism, and the study of Orientalism opened the way for the Messenger of the Lodge, so it will be at the half cycle in this century, the way will begin to open for the coming of the new Messenger who will appear about the year 1975 and will carry our movement upward and forward. This is a subject well worth careful study.

The second cycle to which I desire to draw your attention is that of Reincarnation, for by it most important effects are produced on human life. The law is, that individuals and nations return to earth life in streams at regular recurring intervals of (roughly speaking) fifteen hundred years. "One generation cometh and another goeth," but both have been before and will come again, producing new civilizations as the cycles sweep round.

Each generation carries away with it experiences that in Devachan are worked up into faculty, and then returning with this increased power takes hold of civilization as it finds it and carries it forward another stage. In this way the old Aryan, Greek, and Roman civilizations return, but each time on a higher plane.

But with each century there are individuals reincarnating who by special work and training in a previous life gave special development to certain faculties, and so reappear as geniuses in that direction. Sometimes they are soldiers like Napoleon; or again they are artists, musicians, statesmen, mechanics, or inventors.

A study of this cycle is most important in practical life. We are here to gather experience, to perform the duties that knowledge reveals to us, and to build up the future by our experience of the past. The thoughts we think now will form the world in which we shall have to live. Thoughts of selfishness make one kind of a world for us, while thoughts of unselfishness, compassion and aspiration will lift us into an entirely different world and finally set us free from this cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Fraternally yours.

JOHN SCHOFIELD.

Labour and Capital,* by Prof. Goldwin Smith. In the form of a letter addressed "To My Labour Friend" Professor Smith has written a very clear and impartial summary of the issues between Capital and Labour. It does not pretend to be anything more than this. He but touches upon the principal questions which are in the forefront of the political and economic arena, stating the points with his accustomed lucidity; mentioning the arguments of both sides; showing how these may often be reconciled, or how they depart from the facts of experience, and winds up by an appeal for mutual consideration and tolerance and effort at understanding. points out that the existing system can only be changed by a violence that would do irremediable injury to both sides, or by a slow growth and evolution; and that understanding and patience are absolutely necessary to make the slower process successful. While not profound, the little book is so clearly written and has such a temperate and elevated spirit that we must welcome it as a valuable contribution to this great discussion. G. H.

He

The Beloved Vagabond,t by William J. Locke. This is a novel. It has no avowed aim except to entertain-but occasionally we need entertainment. And in this novel we get ideal entertainment, in so far as that is ideal which exactly serves its purpose. The author has found himself. His earlier works were, for the most part, expressions of moods. This one shows artistic enlightenment. Note what Paragot, the Vagabond, says to his protégé and pupil: "But you, my little Asticot, have the Great Responsibility before you. It is for you to uplift a corner of the veil of Life and show joy to men and women where they would not have sought it." Again: "Let me, he urges, be able to point to you as one 'who sees God beneath a leper's skin and proclaims Him bravely, who reveals the magical beauty of humanity and compels the fool and the knave and the man with the muck-rake and the harlot to see it, and sends them away with hope in their hearts, and faith in the destiny of the race and charity to one another'-let me see this, my son, and, by heavens! I shall have done more with my life than erect a temple made by hands-and I shall have justified my existence." That is the aim-the purely theosophical aim-which William J. Locke has discovered and which unobtrusively (most requisite merit!) inspires his latest work. We wish that artists everywhere could be imbued with the same spirit. Their achievements might then more often be even as his : beyond praise. R. P.

Persia, Past and Present, by A. V. Williams Jackson. In the preface to this record of an important if hurried trip to the holyland of Zoroastrianism, Professor Jackson says: "I was tempted at first to label some of the chapters with a warning, This chapter is dedicated to the student,' and to prefix to others a prefatory line, 'Dedicated to the general reader." At times, both the general reader and the student will regret that the author did not permit this intention to develop into two distinct books. To merge satisfactorily the discussion of the technical details involved in the identification of relics of a long-departed civilization and a now obscure religion with a graphic description of a country and people of which the Occident of to-day knows little, is a difficult task. That the author has succeeded as well as he has, is evidence both of his skill and his zeal.

Published by The Macmillan Company, New York. tJohn Lane, London and New York. Price, $1.50.

The Macmillan Company, New York, 1906.

To the readers of the THEOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, as to Professor Jackson himself, the chief interest of the trip lies in the light which it throws on the religion of Zoroaster and the present condition of his disciples. By dint of hard and incessant work the author traveled in something more than two months from Baku on the Caspian Sea through Azarbaijan, the reputed birthplace of Zoroaster, to Shiraz on the south, and thence northward again to Yezd, the stronghold to-day of the few remaining Zoroastrians, to Teheran, and so back to the Caspian. In the course of this vast loop, Professor Jackson examined a number of ruined fire temples, tombs and inscriptions of the Achæmenian and Sasanian dynasties, saw the ruins of Persepolis and Pasargadæ, and at Yezd had an opportunity to study the life and customs of the long-persecuted Zoroastrians.

Despite his enthusiasm for his subject, the picture that Professor Jackson draws of the plateau of Iran is not an attractive one. The birthplace of a great religion, of advanced civilizations and mighty empires, the soil seems to have been exhausted by its labors in the past, and the country, once so pregnant with life and vigor, now lies like a colossal, cold hearth, a vast and empty expanse of mountain and desert. The altars of Zoroaster are deserted; the divine fire has gone from the dreary plateau. Here and there in this desolation Zoroastrianism still lingers, but, except at Yezd, even the eager search of Professor Jackson could discover only a stray straggler or two. In the latter city, however, there is a community of eight thousand. In the author's own words:

"Situated amid a sea of sand which threatens to engulf it, Yezd is a symbolic home for the isolated band of Zoroastrians that still survives the surging waves of Islam that swept over Persia with the Mahommedan conquest twelve hundred years ago. Although exposed to persecution and often in danger from storms of fanaticism, this isolated religious community, encouraged by the buoyant hope characteristic of its faith, has been able to keep the sacred flame of Ormazd alive and to preserve the ancient doctrines and religious rites of its creed. . . . In a way, the Moslem creed was easy of acceptance for Persia, since Mohammed himself had adopted elements from Zoroastrianism to unite with Jewish and Christian tenets in making up his own religion.”

Those who refused to take advantage of this easy escape from persecution took refuge in India, where they became the ancestors of the Bombay Parsis, the real defenders to-day of the faith of Zoroaster, or found a remote and none too safe home in Yezd. But even in this citadel of the religion persecution has done its work, and though the ritual prescribed in the Avesta nearly three thousand years ago is still in the main observed, circumstances have compelled certain modifications. In particular, the authority of the priesthood is much diminished, since the unruly have always the option of conforming to the regulations of the Moslems around them. The temptation is considerable, for, although active persecution ceased some years ago, the Gabars, as they are generally called, are still subject to various restrictions and occasionally endangered by outbreaks of Moslem fanaticism.

Nevertheless, Professor Jackson sees a bright future for the Gabars of Yezd. As his reputation had preceded him, he was welcomed with open arms. On one occasion he was escorted to the temple of Atash Bahram, and though he made no attempt to see the flame itself, was permitted to hear from the adjoining room the chants of the priest. "My ear caught at once," he says, "the voices of the white-robed priests who were chanting in the presence of the sacred element a hymn of praise sung by Zoroaster of old. It was a glorification of Verethragna, the Angel of Victory, in the Bahram Yasht, and I felt a thrill as I heard the Avestan verses-verethroghnem ahuradhatem yazamaide, we worship the Angel of Victory, created by Ahura'ring out from behind the walled recess where the fire was hidden." A survival of the ancient custom of animal sacrifice to be found in the "Sacrifice to Mithra," is, the author was informed, dying out and the Zoroastrians, both in Persia and in India, believe that the true sacrifice is bloodless, an offering of "good thoughts, good words, good deeds,” accompanied by praise and thanksgiving.

Space does not permit of any discussion of Professor Jackson's inspection of the tombs, inscriptions and sculptures of ancient Persia. Yet it is impossible not to make some comment, however brief, upon the remarkable zeal with which he pursued his researches at the cost of great personal fatigue and not a little danger. Thoroughly prepared for his trip by years of work, he was enabled to meet the relics of antiquity as old friends, and his book must be of value to all who are interested in the civilization of ancient Persia and the religion of Zoroaster. The little attention that these subjects receive from American scholars will make the results of his second trip this spring the more valuable. E. B. M.