The Creative Process in the Individual. Thomas Troward
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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?
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