Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/144

 of which the soul is made; that which produces affection and thought in the soul; that of which the spiritual world and all its forms are made. Natural substance or matter commences with the sun, in which spiritual substance terminates. So as we think of something real when we say matter or natural substance, we are to think of something just as real when spiritual substance is mentioned.

Recalling that nature ascends by successive degrees from the implastic, inert rock to the sensitive atmospheres that lie about the sun that they may be charged with its vivifying energies, and communicate them to the air and to the more solid matters of the earth, it may be perceived that nature is an ascending series of effects; that is, the forces in the air, water, and rock are effects of the lowest order, and must originate in a corresponding cause; the forces in ether are effects of a higher order, necessarily from a correspondingly higher cause; the forces in the aura are still higher effects, originating in a still higher cause. Consequently, as there is an ascending series of effects, there must be a like series of causes; or, as the effect- world is an ascending series of effects, the cause-world is an ascending series of causes; and this must be true even though the effects be derived from one general cause,