Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/298



discussion of so great a subject as the creation of the first living forms requires an extensive premise, for both what was prior thereto and the universal laws of creation are involved. All of the principles stated in the foregoing chapters are essential in the introduction of the subject. However, the general principles upon which the law of creation rests may be here summarized, which are these: the existence of a Divine Human Person as the Creator and the First Cause; the existence of a spiritual world and a natural world related as soul and body; the universe constituted of discrete degrees arranged in successive order descending from the substance of vital action in the Creator to the passive rock; the efflux of vital energy from the Creator, and its reception and communication by Correspondence to the different degrees; the universe a reproduction of the form of the