r the problem. His
material, the food for mental growth, is only a few notes that serve to
keep the experience in his mind. At first all that they signify is not
obvious, but as he turns the various points over and over in his mind
their significance becomes clearer and fuller. It is the subjective
process of digestion. Little by little new light dawns in the student's
mind. Finally he has complete comprehension of the mathematical
principles involved, and the process of assimilation is finished. This
subjective period is the complement of the objective period and they
must go on alternating or intellectual growth will stop. When the
process of digestion and assimilation is finished the student must
return to the classroom for further mental food and when he arrives it
is by virtue of the fact that he did digest the previous lesson that he
is able to take a higher and more difficult one. And precisely so it is
with the reincarnating soul. In the interval between incarnations it so
assimilates the experiences of the last physical life that it comes to
rebirth with added abilities which enable it to take higher and more
difficult lessons than it could previously master.

In the case of both physical growth by eating and mental growth by
instruction there is no possible escape from the law of alternating
periods of objective and subjective activity. When the child has
digested and assimilated a meal there is but one possible thing that can
follow--return to his source of supply for another meal. When the
student has digested and assimilated the lesson given to him the only
possibility of further mental growth lies in his return to the
class-room for more material. And so it is with the human soul in its
work of evolving its latent powers and possibilities. There is no other
road forward but the cyclic one that brings it back to the physical life
incarnation after incarnation, but always at a higher point than it
previously touched. The very hunger of the child that insures its return
to the table for more food is analogous to the desire of the soul for
sentient expression that brings it to rebirth.

These alternating periods with the element of constant return are found
everywhere in the economy of nature. All her evolutionary expressions
are cyclic. But the cyclic movement is not in closed circles. It
represents a spiral. The "evolutionary ladder" that the soul climbs is a
winding stairway. In its upward progress it make