by him in the past. Only repeated lives
on earth, in conjunction with the facts set forth by occult science as
taking place in spiritual regions between two earthly lives,--only this
view can afford a satisfactory explanation of present human life looked at
from every side. I say expressly "present" human life, for occult
investigation shows that the cycle of earthly life certainly had a
beginning, and at that time man's spiritual being, which later entered a
bodily frame, existed under different conditions. In the following chapter
we shall go back to this primeval condition of human existence. When it
has been shown, from the reports of occult science how human beings
received their present form in connection with the evolution of the earth,
it will also be possible to indicate more precisely how the spiritual germ
of man's being descends from superphysical worlds into a bodily form, and
how the spiritual law of causation, or "human destiny," is developed.

CHAPTER IV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN

From the foregoing observations it will be seen that man's being is built
up of four principles: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral
body, and the vehicle of the ego. The ego works within the three other
principles, and transforms them. By means of this transformation, are
formed on a lower level, the sentient-soul, the rational- or
intellectual-soul, and the consciousness-soul: on a higher level of human
existence, are formed the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man.
The relations existing between these human principles and the whole
universe are of a most varied character and their evolution is related to
that of the universe. By studying this evolution an insight is obtained
into the deeper mysteries of man's being.

It is clear that human life is related in the most varied ways to the
environment or dwelling place in which it evolves. Physical science,
through the facts presented to it, has already been driven to the opinion
that the earth itself, man's dwelling place in the broadest sense of the
word, has undergone evolution. Science points to former conditions of the
earth when man, in his present form, did not yet exist on our planet and
it shows how man has slowly and gradually evolved to his present condition
from primitive states of civilization. Physical science, therefore, comes
also to the conclusion that there is a connection between man's evolution
and that of the heavenly