the condensation of the universal etheric substance into the primary nebula

      which later on becomes our solar system, this being the correspondence to

      the Self-contemplation of Spirit as passing into specific activity instead

      of remaining absorbed in simple awareness of Being. Then this

      self-recognition would lead to the conception of still more specific

      activity having its appropriate polar opposite, or material correspondence,

      in the condensation of the nebula into a solar system.

      Now at this stage Spirit's conception of itself is that of Activity, and

      consequently the material correspondence is Motion, as distinguished from

      the simple diffused ether which is the correspondence of mere awareness of

      Being, But what sort of motion? Is the material movement evolved at this

      stage bound to take any particular form? A little consideration will show

      us that it is. At this initial stage, the first awakening, so to say, of

      Spirit into activity, its consciousness can only be that of activity

      _absolute_; that is, not as related to any other mode of activity because

      as yet there is none, but only as related to an all-embracing Being; so

      that the only possible conception of Activity at this stage is that of

      _Self-sustained_ activity, not depending on any preceding mode of activity

      because there is none. The law of reciprocity therefore demands a similar

      self-sustained motion in the material correspondence, and mathematical

      considerations show that the only sort of motion which can sustain a

      self-supporting body moving _in vacuo_ is a rotary motion bringing the body

      itself into a spherical form. Now this is exactly what we find at both

      extremes of the material world. At the big end the spheres of the planets

      rotating on their axes and revolving round the sun; and at the little end

      the spheres of the atoms consisting of particles which, modern science

      tells us, in like manner rotate round a common center at distances which

      are astronomical as compared with their own mass. Thus the two ultimate

      units of physical manifestation, the atom and the planet, both follow the

      same law of self-sustained motion which we have found that, on _a priori_

      grounds, they ought in order to express the primary activity of Spirit. And

      we may note in passing that this rotary, or _absolute_, motion is the

      combination of the only two possible _relative_ modes of motion, namely,

      motion from a point and motion to it, that is to say centrifugal and

      centripetal motion; so that in rotary, or absolute, motion we find that

      both the polarities of motion are included, thus repeating on the purely

      mechanical side the primordial principle of the Unity including the Duality

      in itself.

      But the Spirit wants something more than mechanical motion, something more

      alive than the preliminary Rota, and so the first step toward

      individualized consciousness meets us in plant life. Then on the principle

      that each successive stage affords the platform for a further outlook,

      plant life is followed by animal life, and this by the Human order in which

      the liberty of selecting its own conditions is immensely extended. In this

      way the Spirit's expression of itself has now reached the point where its

      polar complementary, or Reciprocal, manifests as Intellectual Man--thus

      constituting the Fourth great stage of Spirit's Self-recognition. But the

      Creative Process cannot stop here, for, as we have seen, its root in the

      Self-contemplation of Spirit renders it of necessity an Infinite

      Progression. So it is no use asking what is its ultimate, for it has no

      ultimate--its word is "Excelsior"--ever Life and "Life more Abundant."

      Therefore the question is not as to finality where there is none, but as to

      the next step in the progression. Four kingdoms we know: what is to be the

      Fifth? All along the line the progress has been in one direction, namely,

      toward the development of more perfect Individuality, and therefore on the

      principle of continuity we may reasonably infer that the next stage will

      take us still further in the same direction. We want something more perfect

      than we have yet reached, but our ideas as to what it should be are very

      various, not to say discordant, for one person's idea of better is another

      person's idea of worse. Therefore what we want to get at is some broad

      generalization of principle which will be in advance of our past

      experiences. This means that we must look for this principle in something

      that we have not yet experienced, and the only place where we can possibly

      find principles which have not yet manifested themselves is _in gremio

      Dei_--that is, in the innermost of the Originating Spirit, or as St. John

      calls it, "in the bosom of the Father." So we are logically brought to

      personal participation in the Divine Ideal as the only principle by which

      the advance into the next stage can possibly be made. Therefore we arrive

      at the question, What is the Divine Ideal like?