THE SELF-CONTEMPLATION OF SPIRIT

      If we ask how the cosmos came into existence we shall find that ultimately

      we can only attribute it to the Self-Contemplation of Spirit. Let us start

      with the facts now known to modern physical science. All material things,

      including our own bodies, are composed of combinations of different

      chemical elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, &c. Chemistry

      recognizes in all about seventy of these elements each with its peculiar

      affinities; but the more advanced physical science of the present day finds

      that they are all composed of one and the same ultimate substance to which

      the name of Ether has been given, and that the difference between an atom

      of iron and an atom of oxygen results only from the difference in the

      number of etheric particles of which each is composed and the rate of their

      motion within the sphere of the atom, thus curiously coming back to the

      dictum of Pythagoras that the universe has its origin in Number and Motion.

      We may therefore say that our entire solar system together with every sort

      of material substance which it contains is made up of nothing but this one

      primary substance in various degrees of condensation.

      Now the next step is to realize that this ether is everywhere. This is

      shown by the undulatory theory of light. Light is not a substance but is

      the effect produced on the eye by the impinging of the ripples of the ether

      upon the retina. These waves are excessively minute, ranging in length from

      1-39,000th of an inch at the red end of the spectrum to 1-57,000th at the

      violet end. Next remember that these waves are not composed of advancing

      particles of the medium but pass onwards by the push which each particle in

      the line of motion gives to the particle next to it, and then you will see

      that if there were a break of one fifty-thousandth part of an inch in the

      connecting ether between our eye and any source of light we could not

      receive light from that source, for there would be nothing to continue the

      wave-motion across the gap. Consequently as soon as we see light from any

      source however distant, we know that there must be a continuous body of

      ether between us and it. Now astronomy shows us that we receive light from

      heavenly bodies so distant that, though it travels with the incredible

      speed of 186,000 miles per second, it takes more than two thousand years to

      reach us from some of them; and as such stars are in all quarters of the

      heavens we can only come to the conclusion that the primary substance or

      ether must be universally present.

      This means that the raw material for the formation of solar systems is

      universally distributed throughout space; yet though we find that millions

      of suns stud the heavens, we also find vast interstellar spaces which show

      no sign of cosmic activity. Then something has been at work to start cosmic

      activity in certain areas while passing over others in which the raw

      material is equally available. What is this something? At first we might be

      inclined to attribute the development of cosmic energy to the etheric

      particles themselves, but a little consideration will show us that this is

      mathematically impossible in a medium which is equally distributed

      throughout space, for all its particles are in equilibrium and so no one

      particle possesses _per se_ a greater power of originating motion than any

      other. Consequently the initial movement must be started by something

      which, though it works on and through the particles of the primary

      substance, is not those particles themselves. It is this "Something" which

      we mean when we speak of "Spirit."

      Then since Spirit starts the condensation of the primary substance into

      concrete aggregation, and also does this in certain areas to the exclusion

      of others, we cannot avoid attributing to Spirit the power of Selection and

      of taking an Initiative on its own account.

      Here, then, we find the _initial_ Polarity of Universal Spirit and

      Universal Substance, each being the complementary of the other, and out of

      this relation all subsequent evolution proceeds. Being complementary means

      that each supplies what is wanting in the other, and that the two together

      thus make complete wholeness. Now this is just the case here. Spirit

      supplies Selection and Motion. Substance supplies