If we wish to arrive at an accurate knowledge of any subject, we must endeavor to ascertain what is fundamental to that subject. If we need to investigate accurately any science, we need to inform ourselves as early as possible of the fundamental principles pertaining to that science. There is no better way to study the history of creation than by studying it as revealed in the phenomena of Nature. When I can investigate Nature in her operations, and ascertain the laws by which she performs her work, I then can arrive—at least approximately—at the philosophy of Nature, in attaining which I attain the philosophy of divine manifestation. There can be no interpolation there. The Divine Artificer works alone in the fields of Nature, and where I can discover the manifestation of wisdom and power, there I come directly into communication with the Divine Being in that plane of action and manifestation; and when I learn what the law of action and manifestation is in that department, I learn so much of the method of the divine work, or of the divine order. I propose, then, briefly to call your attention to the teachings of God upon this subject of progression, as manifested in the fields of Nature; and will then ask you to accompany me in endeavoring to ascertain what are some of its fundamental laws.
Were I to inquire what is the apparent design of everything we behold, we must see that it is pointing to the ultimating of an individualized, immortal, intelligent being, who should be capable of understanding all truth, and being perfected in every true affection. Everything tends to bring about that great result—the unfolding of an immortal being. God and the material universe seem to be laboring to beget an individualized being in the image of both God and the universe—God as the absolute and infinite, and matter as the finite, uniting, produce a being which partakes of both the absolute or infinite and the finite. When viewed from one plane he is infinite; when viewed from another plane he is finite; so that between God and matter man is mediate. I would say, then, in simple language, God is the father of the spirit, and matter the mother of his form. The first step in the path of unfolding, as taught by Nature, is that of individualizing form. The next step is that of individualizing life, of producing individuality. The last step is that of producing personality, making the individual a personal being. The form is necessarily finite. The mind can conceive of it only as finite, and as composed of that which is the absolute, finite matter, which, separate from the divine being, has no life or power. It is not self-sufficient nor conscious.
If we can suppose that matter shall be divested from all connection with media which can impress upon it a condition, we speak of it as being amorphous matter, or matter without form. If we unite it then with one medium, as electricity, we find it tending to produce the gaseous condition, the nebular condition. Form is not yet attained. If we unite with it still another medium which is a little different from electricity, forms of the mineral kingdom are produced. We have here the first degree of form, but as yet there is not life or individuality. Now the next advance is to induce in that form a condition which shall make it receptive of life, for that which is to be individualized is life. So, then, in passing through the elaborating influences of the mineral kingdom, it arrives at a certain point, a sort of culminating point, where it joins upon the vegetable kingdom; and the line between these kingdoms is passed by such imperceptible gradations—so slow in the unfolding of forms—that it is impossible for the naturalist to tell accurately where the one begins and where the other ends; but the vegetable kingdom is manifestly begun when there is found the incorporation of a new principle into a new form—a principle looking to organization—giving matter an organic structure. When the principle known as the life-force is introduced, then it is understood that mineral has passed and the vegetable is commenced. As soon as this is unfolded, we have a second advance of form—life in its first degree; or, in other words, individualization commences. Form has passed to its second degree, and goes on elaborating degree after degree, producing diverse organic forms, until it is prepared to receive another and a more interior principle—consciousness—until by imperceptible degrees we arrive at the animal kingdom. We have then the animal form, the third or finishing degree of form, and the second degree of life, and the first degree of consciousness. Man in his animal nature is the completion; of the highest form. Life has yet one more degree to pass through; consciousness has yet two more degrees to pass through before it is complete. The next advance is to a higher principle of consciousness—to a more enduring principle of life, without changing the material form, and that is to the spiritual degree of unfolding.
Looking to the highest types of the animal and the lowest types of men, we will observe that they approach very near to each other. Naturalists have been divided in opinion as to whether or not man was an animal projected on a little higher plane, and whether or not the difference is not merely one of degree. I say that when man is developed, we find him developing or individualizing a higher principle. Individuality was first started in the vegetable; the principle of vitality in the animal. The second degree of individuality was where the animal became individualized on a higher plane of life, on a plane of consciousness belonging to what we call the nerve-medium. Man individualizes upon the second degree of consciousness and the third degree of life, completing an individuality. He becomes to us the highest type of form and life in the finite; and a large class of philosophers and theologians conceive man as formed in the divine image, and suppose the expression that God made man in his own image, to refer to an external as well as internal likeness.
Man as an individual occupies the highest plane; he has attained to the third degree of life as a Spiritual being, consequently he becomes immortal. If the third degree of life brings man into communion with the self-living and divine, he becomes immortal; if not, then he is not immortal; for that only is immortal which receives into itself that which is self-living, self-sufficient, and self-existent, that which can not be dissolved or disorganized. If man has not attained to that plane which joins upon that which is self-existent, he is not immortal. The simple fact that man can think, will, and act, proves nothing for his immortality. The dog can act, and think, and will, but that does not make the animal immortal. Those who base immortality upon that, do not perceive its real basis. Man becomes immortal by his relation to that which is self-existent and self-sufficient, and has that self-sufficient condition brought into him by induction. He receives it by a sort of divine induction. I have brought in a chart to illustrate the principle of induction or the law of progression. You observe that man stands at the head of form and life, though not at the head of consciousness. He is as a finite being produced only to the second degree of consciousness. That is the last step man took. Man has advanced to the second degree of consciousness, which looks to the relational and finite, hence man as a moral being, as a finite being; and that which he investigates in virtue of his faculties as a moral being must be finite. He can therefore only investigate in the sphere of the finite. The moment he attempts to embrace the infinite, and translate that into the finite, that moment he is pushing his investigations beyond his development.
But there is not only this second degree of consciousness, which notices the relation, but there is a third degree, which notices or perceives the absolute. It perceives not only outward form and mediate relation, but the absolute essence of all being. Man attains to that, not because that third nature is individualized in him, but because by reason of its conjunction upon that condition which is known as the absolute, he has that condition in him by a sort of induction—a non-individualized condition, a sort of resident divinity in him, gives him this third degree.
Now permit me to illustrate the principle of induction. You understand, when electric conditions are produced, that there is such a thing as causing them by induction. You understand that negative attracts positive, and that positive attracts negative—that where these opposite conditions prevail there is a tendency to bring them together. Similar conditions repel, and opposite conditions attract, each other. We understand that all electrical currents are double—that there is a primary and a secondary current. In vitality, in nerve-aura, in whatever acts as a medium, there is a double current. The second current is within the primary, and runs in the opposite direction. It is more interior than the primary. Now, if I have a body charged positively, and I bring it into a certain relation to another body, it imparts its electricity to it. This is called producing the condition by induction. I speak now of progression under this law of induction.
Suppose, now, that we take the two great principles of life—consciousness and action on the one hand, and death, unconsciousness, or inertia on the other hand—one being impartive and the other negative and receptive. God on the one hand and matter on the other. (Pardon me for speaking of God as a principle, the subject requires it. Whatever is attempted to be explained in language must necessarily be considered as finite.) Now, whatever pertains to the divine and absolute on the one hand, the very opposite pertains to matter on the other hand; hence we speak of the sufficiency of Deity and the inertia of matter. This principle of inertia, however, is as essential to the development of form and individuality in the finite as the principle of consciousness is to the conscious being. Without the two conditions, that which is mediate could not be elaborated or produced. God’s creative agency, the positive current, passes out upon matter, from which there is a current returning to mind, in which negative current individualization takes place. The returning current first begins to elaborate form; next, with the progress of matter, comes individuality; next, personality. The formative principle is in the secondary current, which produces induction; but that which is interior to form and elaborates it is the induced or positive current, which partakes of the positive or energetic action of the divine current, so to speak. In this way, by induction, form after form is elaborated and made to become the receptive of certain conditions. Matter has no power of itself, but at the same time is receptive of influences or conditions.
Two theories have prevailed respecting the origin of man. One is what we call the theory of supernaturalism, which supposes that the divine being, at a certain period of time, when every other condition was fulfilled, came down, and by special power formed man in his present shape, and imparted to him his present spiritual life; and that from that man thus formed, and a woman formed for his companion, sprang all the rest of the human family. Others, who adhere to this idea in general, suppose that there was a plurality of parents, from whom the human race have proceeded. The opposite theory is, that man has been developed from the animal kingdom—that he is a development of the animal in a higher plane. This theory was advocated by La Marc. Now, I believe in neither theory. The truth lies between the two. In the outset I made this remark, which I intended to be understood as meaning all that it implied: that God is the Father of the spirit, while matter is the mother of the form. Matter is finite in all its attributes and qualities. God is infinite in all his attributes and qualities. Man is taken from the finite in his lower plane. His form is nourished and fed by its connection with the finite, and when the spirit is separated therefrom, this portion of man goes to decay; and so far as he is concerned as an individual, he is no more. On the other hand, man comes from the infinite, in the higher department of his being, so that man partakes of both the finite and the infinite. He is in the image of his mother, as well as of his father. He is created in the image of God and the image of matter. He has both an individuality and a personality. In his finity he is an individual; in his divinity he is personal. Therefore man contains in himself all the germinal elements of the universe, and also the representative elements of the Divine Being.
As a being of form man became receptive of conditions. The mineral eventually became receptive of the principle of life, which developed the vegetable kingdom. The moment this life-principle began to work in producing organic structure and multiplying relations and conditions, a variety of forms succeeded, until forms were brought to such a point that they became receptive of a higher principle—the nerve principle or consciousness, and the animal kingdom was the result. The vegetable kingdom only produced the form. The spirit came into it by induction from the other direction. The vegetable did not produce the animal; it merely produced the conditions by which this conscious principle could be induced into the individuality developed by the vegetable. That individuality was raised out of the vegetable and placed upon the animal plane, and a new kingdom was born by the application of the law of commensurability. Eventually form was elaborated through the entire animal kingdom until the highest form the nerve-principle could produce, was produced.