uilt up continually by the insetting of fresh
materials. With every moment tiny molecules are passing away from it;
with every moment tiny molecules are streaming into it. The outgoing
stream is scattered over the environment, and helps to rebuild bodies
of all kinds in the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms,
the physical basis of all these being one and the same.

The idea that the human tabernacle is built by countless
_lives_, just in the same way as the rocky crust of our Earth
was, has nothing repulsive in it for the true mystic....
Science teaches us that the living as well as the dead
organism of both man and animal are swarming with bacteria of
a hundred various kinds; that from without we are threatened
with the invasion of microbes with every breath we draw, and
from within by leucomaines, robes, aerobes, anaerobes, and what
not. But Science never yet went so far as to assert with the
Occult Doctrine that our bodies, as well as those of animals,
plants, and stones, are themselves altogether built up of
such beings, which, except larger species, no microscope can
detect. So far as regards the purely animal and material
portion of man, Science is on its way to discoveries that
will go far towards corroborating this theory. Chemistry and
physiology are the two great magicians of the future, who are
destined to open the eyes of mankind to the great physical
truths. With every day, the identity between the animal and
physical man, between the plant and man, and even between the
reptile and its nest, the rock, and man, is more and more
clearly shown. The physical and chemical constituents of all
being found to be identical, chemical Science may well say
that there is no difference between the matter which composes
the ox and that which forms man. But the Occult Doctrine is
far more explicit. It says: Not only the chemical compounds
are the same, but the same infinitesimal _invisible lives_
compose the atoms of the bodies of the mountain and the
daisy, of man and the ant, of the elephant, and of the tree
which shelters him from the sun. Each particle--whether you
call it organic or inorganic--_is a life_.[6]

These "lives" which, separate and independent, are the minute vehicles
of Prana, aggregated together form the molecules and cells of the
physical body, and they stream in and str