The same thing applies to the astral and mental bodies. In the cell-life
which permeates them there is as yet nothing in the way of intelligence,
but there is a strong instinct always pressing in the direction of what is
for its development. The life animating the matter of which such bodies are
built is upon the outward arc of evolution, moving downwards or outwards
into matter, so that progress for it means to descend into denser forms of
matter, and to learn to express itself through them. Unfoldment for the man
is just the opposite of this; he has already sunk deeply into matter and is
now rising out of that towards his source. There is consequently a constant
conflict of interests between the man within and the life inhabiting the
matter of his vehicles, inasmuch as its tendency is downward, while his is
upward.

The matter of the astral body (or rather the life animating its molecules)
desires for its evolution such undulations as it can get, of as many
different kinds as possible, and as coarse as possible. The next step in
its evolution will be to ensoul physical matter and become used to its
still slower oscillations; and as a step on the way to that, it desires the
grossest of the astral vibrations. It has not the intelligence definitely
to plan for these; but its instinct helps it to discover how most easily to
procure them.

The molecules of the astral body are constantly changing, as are those of
the physical body, but nevertheless the life in the mass of those astral
molecules has a sense, though a very vague sense, of itself as a whole--as
a kind of temporary entity. It does not know that it is part of a man's
astral body; it is quite incapable of understanding what a man is; but it
realizes in a blind way that under its present conditions it receives many
more waves, and much stronger ones, than it would receive if floating at