THEFOURKINGDOMS 57
have the faculties of feeling, motion, growth, propagation,
and sense-perception. In addition, man has the faculty of
speech, a superior structure of the brain, and also hands—
which are a very great physical advantage. We may note
especially the development of the thumb, which makes the
hand much more valuable than even that of the anthropoid.
Man has also evolved a definite language in which to
express his feelings and thoughts, all of which places the
dense body of the human being in a class by itself, beyond
the three lower kingdoms.
To account for these differences in the four kingdoms
we must go to the invisible Worlds, and seek the causes
which give one kingdom that which is denied to another.
To function in any world, and express the qualities
peculiar to it, we must first possess a vehicle made of its
material. In order to function in the dense Physical World it
is necessary to have a dense body, adapted to our environ-
ment. Otherwise we should be ghosts, as they are commonly
called, and be invisible to most physical beings. So we must
have a vital body before we can express life, grow, or exter-
nalize the other qualities peculiar to the Etheric Region.
To show feeling and emotion it is necessary to have a
vehicle composed of the materials of the Desire World, and
a mind formed of the substance of the Region of Concrete
Thought is necessary to render thinking possible.
When we examine the four kingdoms in relation to the
Etheric Region, we find that the mineral does not possess a
separate vital body, and at once we see the reason why it
cannot grow, propagate, or show sentient life.
As an hypothesis necessary to account for other known
facts, material science holds that in the densest solid, as in
the rarest and most attenuated gas, no two atoms touch each