X. The Second, or Hyperborean, Race

We can therefore say that man strove to climb upwards; in the firemist he was to evolve higher qualities—in a human sense—than he had possessed before. The other beings, however, strove downwards towards the material. Their course of evolution was to seek expression for their creative forces in ever denser and denser material forms; but in a wider sense this in no wise meant a degradation for them. We must come to a very clear understanding on this point: it requires higher power and capacity to control denser than rarer forms of matter. These higher beings, too, had in former periods of their evolution a power as limited in extent as that of man at the present time. And they, like man to-day, once had dominion only over that which took place within them; they had no control over the outer coarse matter. They now strove to reach a condition in which they should magically direct external things, and were, therefore, at this period ahead of man in evolution. Man reached upwards, striving first to embody the mind in finer substances, so that it could afterwards direct its activity outwards. He had already assimilated reason, and now became possessed of magic power in order to permeate with reason the surrounding world. Thus man advanced upwards through the stage of the firemist, while his companions pressed downwards through the same stage in order to increase their power.