losing their limiting walls; the positive body of E 4, on losing its wall, becomes two bodies, one consisting of the two particles, marked b, distinguishable by the linear arrangement of the contained ultimate atoms, enclosed in a wall, and the other being the third body enclosed in E 4 and now set free.  The negative body of E 4 similarly, on losing its wall, becomes two bodies, one consisting of the two particles marked b’, and the second the remaining body, being set free.  These free bodies do not remain on E 3 but pass immediately to E 2, leaving the positive and negative bodies, each containing two particles, as the representatives of hydrogen on E 3.  On taking these bodies a step higher their wall disappears, and the internal bodies are set free, those containing the atoms arranged lineally being positive, and those with the triangular arrangement being negative.  These two forms represent hydrogen on E 2, but similar bodies of this state of matter are found entering into other combinations, as may be seen by referring to f on E 2 of nitrogen (N).  On raising these bodies yet one step further, the falling away of the walls sets the contained atoms free, and we reach the ultimate physical atom, the matter of E 1.  The disintegration of this sets free particles of astral matter, so that we have reached in this the limit of physical matter.  The Theosophical reader will notice with interest that we can thus observe seven distinct substates of physical matter, and no more.

The ultimate atom, which is the same in all the observed cases, is an exceedingly complex body, and only its main characteristics are given in the diagram.  It is composed entirely of spirals, the spiral being in its turn composed of spirillae, and these again of minuter spirillae.  A fairly accurate drawing is given in Babbitt’s “Principles of Light and Colour,” p. 102.  The illustrations there given of atomic combinations are entirely wrong and misleading, but if the stove-pipe run through the centre of the single atom be removed, the picture may be taken as correct, and will give some idea of the complexity of this fundamental unit of the physical universe.

Turning to the force side of the atom and its combinations, we observe that force pours in the heart-shaped depression at the top of the atom, and issues from the point, and is changed in character by its passage; further, force rushes through every spiral and every spirilla, and the changing shades of colour that flash out from the rapidly revolving and vibrating atom depend on the several activities of the spirals; sometimes one, sometimes another, is thrown into more energetic action, and with the change of activity from one spiral to another the colour changes.