Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/261

 formed. The creative energy, operating through these, formed the highest substances of nature from which the sun is constituted by still further compression, less complex composition, and the consequent withdrawing of activity to that degree which characterizes the natural world. Through the instrumentality of the sun and from it, degrees of matter are formed in a like way until the aura, ether, air, and lastly the rock are formed, which last, being of the simplest and grossest composition, and having activity withdrawn in the last degree, is inert and passive. The process is illustrated by the gathering together of the atoms of sulphur when in the gaseous form and their condensation into the mineral. If a true and adequate conception of creation is had, it is necessary to perceive that creation, having been thus put forth, is held in being perpetually from within by the Creator from whom it came into existence, wherefore subsistence is perpetual existence. Such is the relation between a superior degree and a lower one that were the superior degrees removed, the lower would immediately be dissipated.

Having made these observations, it may now be said that matter in itself is spiritual substance