Page:The Other Life.djvu/49

 forces, powers, substances of the natural and the spiritual worlds conspire to produce and to perpetuate the human form. And the cause of this stupendous fact is, that they are all animated from moment to moment by the creative breath of God, who is himself a Divine Man.

The Human Form is, therefore, the universal form. God is a Man; heaven is a Man; the universe is a Man; society is a Man; the church is a Man; government is a Man. Men, spirits, and angels are units in these composites; microcosms in these macrocosms, as every atom of a crystal is an infinitesimal repetition of the crystal itself. There is nothing outside of this human form. All inferior forms, animal, vegetable, mineral, are fragments, portions, repetitions, prophecies of the grand type. Everything in nature points, like the old signs of the zodiac, to some part of the human body.

Every living form, vegetable or animal, advances by stages of growth and development to a certain typical adult standard, in which it fully manifests its life and fulfills its uses. Growth and development are different. By development a simple substance assumes a more complex form. The contents of the egg develop into the chick. Food is developed into blood. Blood is developed into nervous fluid. By