manifests are on the lower.

After another vast period of similar length, it is found that the downward
pressure has caused this process to repeat itself; once more the life has
identified itself with its forms, and has taken up its residence upon the
lower mental levels, so that it is capable of ensouling bodies in the
astral world. At this stage we call it the third elemental kingdom.

We speak of all these forms as finer or grosser relatively to one another,
but all of them are almost infinitely finer than any with which we are
acquainted in the physical world. Each of these three is a kingdom of
Nature, as varied in the manifestations of its different forms of life as
is the animal or vegetable kingdom which we know. After a long period spent
in ensouling the forms of the third of these elemental kingdoms it
identifies itself with them in turn, and so is able to ensoul the etheric
part of the mineral kingdom, and becomes the life which vivifies that--for
there is a life in the mineral kingdom just as much as in the vegetable or
the animal, although it is in conditions where it cannot manifest so
freely. In the course of the mineral evolution the downward pressure causes
it to identify itself in the same way with the etheric matter of the
physical world, and from that to ensoul the denser matter of such minerals
as are perceptible to our senses.

In the mineral kingdom we include not only what are usually called
minerals, but also liquids, gases and many etheric substances the existence
of which is unknown to western science. All the matter of which we know
anything is living matter, and the life which it contains is always
evolving. When it has reached the central point of the mineral stage the
downward pressure ceases, and is replaced by an upward tendency; the
outbreathing has ceased and the indrawing has begun.

When mineral evolution is completed, the life has withdrawn itself again
into the astral world, but bearing with it all the results obtained through
its experiences in the physical. At this stage it ensouls vegetable forms,
and begins to show itself much more clearly as what we commonly call
life--plant-life of all kinds; and at a yet later stage of its development
it leaves the vegetable kingdom and ensouls the animal kingdom. The
attainment of this level is the sign that it has withdrawn itself still
further, and is now working from the lower mental world. In order to work
in physical matter from that