Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/312

 the earth passed into conditions more serviceable to the higher tendencies of creative force, the superior forms were successively brought forth.

The infinite potencies in the Creator have a certain order in Him. This order is one of use. It is illustrated by the faculties in man, who is the Creator's image and likeness, wherein the hearing serves the eye, and the eye the intellect, and the faculty of understanding serves the affections. Potencies from the Creator descending into the spiritual world form it into a series of uses whereby the lower forces serve the higher, thus forming a spiritual kingdom of uses. These spiritual forces become incorporated in nature, and form it into a natural kingdom of uses, wherein the lower serve the higher; as attraction, osmosis, and capillarity aid the force that constructs the plant or the animal body; or as the heat and light of the sun aid in chemical changes; or as the earth serves plant life, and plant life serves animals, and animals serve man, and developed man serves the Creator, whose essential life is "not to be ministered unto but to minister." Consequently the ascending scale of created forms is due to the general design of use, and they were brought forth as the earth ascended in its state of adaptability and preparation, which preparation the law of use itself wrought.