evidently several terms of a regular progressive series, and the natural
presumption is that the series continues where we are no longer able to
observe it. Further probability is lent to this assumption by the
remarkable fact that--if we assume one dot to be what corresponds to an
atom on the seventh or highest of our planes (as is suggested in _The
Ancient Wisdom_, p. 42) and then suppose the law of multiplication to begin
its operation, so that 49 dots shall form the atom of the next or sixth
plane, 2401 that of the fifth, and so on--we find that the number indicated
for the physical atom (496) corresponds almost exactly with the calculation
based upon the actual counting of the coils. Indeed, it seems probable that
but for the slight growth of the three thicker wires of the atom the
correspondence would have been perfect.

It must be noted that a physical atom cannot be directly broken up into
astral atoms. If the unit of force which whirls those millions of dots into
the complicated shape of a physical atom be pressed back by an effort of
will over the threshold of the astral plane, the atom disappears instantly,
for the dots are released. But the same unit of force, working now upon a
higher level, expresses itself not through one astral atom, but through a
group of 49. If the process of pressing back the unit of force is repeated,
so that it energises upon the mental plane, we find the group there
enlarged to the number of 2401 of those higher atoms. Upon the buddhic
plane the number of atoms formed by the same amount of force is very much
greater still--probably the cube of 49 instead of the square, though they
have not been actually counted. Therefore one physical atom is not
_composed of_ forty-nine astral or 2401 mental atoms, but _corresponds_ to
them, in the sense that the force which manifests through it would show
itself on those higher planes by energising respectively those numbers of
atoms.