Each culmination is the termination of a line of successive embodiments toward a certain point of perfect expression in one direction; and while there may be latent suggestions of other lines in the same series of embodiments, there is always a dominant purpose, in each embodiment of that series, in the direction of the culmination.

In illustration of this you have the typical states of mere physical enjoyment: the glutton, the one whose happiness consists in the amount of food consumed, and this is made the basis of competition. There are some who are typical of that state even now upon the earth. Yon will discover that the achievement in that direction, when it amounts to what is considered an achievement, is really almost marvelous as a tax upon physical endurance. It is not difficult to perceive that this state was idealized in the Epicureans, whose motto was borrowed from an honored source. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you may die." In the Bacchanalian feasts and revels of your Anglo-Saxon ancestors no man was considered a devotee who did not finally sink with stupor at the end of a banquet. The race has yet a sufficient number of those who have not risen above this shrine. Yon can possibly conceive of the state of heroism in which humanity must have existed when the highest victory, the noblest exaction, the greatest conquest, was that which was put into the stomach 1

It is not very long since the evidence of the highest civilization consisted in the greatest amount of physical strength. The prize ring la a remnant of that which in ancient Borne was the test, almost, of the highest humanity. You have, the model of art and intelligence, the example of Greece, to prove to you that physical strength was considered the standard of human perfection. The feats of the gladiators and the wonderful skill of the athletes will serve to illustrate this; while in the tournaments, in ancient days, prowess was recognized in the greatest physical strength. Achilles was scarcely more admired then than now. The ideal Hercules still remains the type of perfect manhood, and even Jove, the Thunderer, is worshiped upon more mountains than Olympus.

In ancient Egypt, those deities who presided over man's physical well-being were the Gods that were most revered: revealing to the senses the majesty of their power, leading man to conquest and victory by the violence of physical force. The remnant of that age, which once was universal, is now to be found in those states of the race, some types of which are existent upon the earth to-day, who have nothing beyond the physical bo far as revealed; who merely exist for that first stage of expression, yet the culminations in that direction are always to be found where there is achievement in any physical enterprise. The colossal architecture of Egypt includes a culmination in that direction, although accompanied by another impelling force which is soon to be found dominant. Modern armies fighting at a distance, with weapons that do not bring them into hand-to-hand conflicts, illustrate another kind of force, a more complex state of expression; but the kind of courage or skill found in the prize ring, or in those contests between individuals, who, face to face and hand to hand, enter into tests of mere physical strength without any moral aim, without any sense of patriotism, without any object in view save the privilege of pounding one another into a recognition of the brute strength of one or the other of the combatants, illustrates the typical childhood of the race, and of individual expressions in the first contact with human existence. Were this the end, the states of humanity that express nothing higher would indeed be hopeless.

That which was witnessed in Borne and Greece as legitimate amusement for the highest in the land, is now tolerated among sporting men only. The typical Hercules of antiquity was the typical victory by bodily strength. No one can doubt but that in some state he has expressed that same victory.

The spirit of each embodiment is the breath, or impetus, from the Soul toward a culmination. A culmination is the highest point that can possibly be attained in a given line. In that past age all humanity was being expressed on that physical plane, there are those still attaining perfection and conquest in that direction; whatever is less than a culmination or perfection in a given line is an embodiment toward it, so that the small contests of the weaklings of those ages were but steps toward the accomplishment of the Herculean state. Those who have outgrown the prize ring, and the desire for physical contest, ma; safely conclude that in a past condition they hare expressed themselves to the fullest extent in that direction. Every step toward this culmination is a step, however, toward the knowledge of its fallacy.

When physical perfection is reached, it is simply to reveal that there is something beyond; as one may climb up, out of breath, a great steep of a mountain that seems to be high, only to discover that it is the smallest height, and that he must descend into a valley to reach the next one beyond; these typical descents are the weaknesses in human life, whether physical, mental, or moral; so after Hercules comes the pigmy to illustrate that true strength is not in the body. This being the first stage of victory, it is also the first revelation of weakness.

The merely physical victory contains its own defeat.

Matter in organic form contains the elements of disintegration. Physical indulgence implies satiety; and material achievement is followed by material decline. As matter is the first obstacle encountered in expression, so to vanquish matter seems at first to be the only end; but as vanquishment does not come by mere victory in material things, a more excellent way is shown.

The second general degree or stage of expression is that of the intellect.

Hermes (another name for Mercury) was the god of the intellect: trade, commerce, invention, mathematics, indeed all learning, as well as thievery and robbery, were typified in this ancient deity.