s they
did, a certain place in the body politic in the actual condition of the
world, the Rishis as little thought of interfering with them, as of
restraining the tigers of the jungle from their habits. That did not
affect what the Rishis did themselves.

The aspirant to longevity then must be on his guard against two dangers.
He must beware especially of impure and animal* thoughts. For Science
shows that thought is dynamic, and the thought-force evolved by nervous
action expanding outwardly, must affect the molecular relations of the
physical man. The inner men,** however sublimated their organism may
be, are still composed of actual, not hypothetical, particles, and are
still subject to the law that an "action" has a tendency to repeat
itself; a tendency to set up analogous action in the grosser "shell"
they are in contact with, and concealed within.

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* In other words, the thought tends to provoke the deed.--G.M.

** We use the word in the plural, reminding the reader that, according
to our doctrine, man is septenary.--G.M.
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And, on the other hand, certain actions have a tendency to produce
actual physical conditions unfavourable to pure thoughts, hence to the
state required for developing the supremacy of the inner man.

To return to the practical process. A normally healthy mind, in a
normally healthy body, is a good starting-point. Though exceptionally
powerful and self-devoted natures may sometimes recover the ground lost
by mental degradation or physical misuse, by employing proper means,
under the direction of unswerving resolution, yet often things may have
gone so far that there is no longer stamina enough to sustain the
conflict sufficiently long to perpetuate this life; though what in
Eastern parlance is called the "merit" of the effort will help to
ameliorate conditions and improve matters in another.

However this may be, the prescribed course of self-discipline commences
here. It may be stated briefly that its essence is a course of moral,
mental, and physical development, carried on in parallel lines--one
being useless without the other. The physical man must be rendered more
ethereal and sensitive; the mental man more penetrating and profound;
the moral man more self-denying and philosophical. And it may be
mentioned that all sense of restraint--even if self-imposed--is useless.
Not only is all "goodness" that results from the compulsion of physical
force, threat