Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/46

42 coming into the dawning light of spiritual day. It was only, however, a confused and general acknowledgment of the importance of eternal things. But now there is a firmament created, and that firmament is called heaven. Naturally our minds revert to the skies above. But, naturally speaking, sky is only empty space. It may be filled with auras or ethers or still more delicate forms of aeriform matter; but there is no flat surface called sky, like a great dome, painted blue, grey or black. So the idea of waters beneath the firmament may take the form of tangible thought, but that of waters above the firmament by no possibility; for there is no such thing as above the sky; it is sky all the way through into the remotest depths of spacial immensity.

We must leave behind all natural ideas here, and remember that we are considering a spiritual parable. In this sense the allusion is to the firmament of the mind its heavenly regions, those elevated realms of will and understanding which can think of, comprehend and love heavenly or spiritual things. Mental philosophers have long ago observed and classified the different faculties of the mind. We know that the mathematical faculty does not enable us to sing, nor the musical faculty run the mental machinery which performs intricate arithmetical