Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/320

 there is the faculty of reproduction. Reproduction is not therefore from germs transmitted from ancient ancestors, nor from the division of cells, though the latter accompany reproduction, but from the perpetual activity of the creative force shaping substance into correspondential forms. Reproduction is perpetual creation, and the natural universe is a theater representing the spiritual world and the Divine Government.

The seed has within it the rudimentary essentials of all that unfolds out of it. Because the initial form is potentially in the seed, it is a seed. As every plant and animal is first formed potentially in the seed, the subsequent process of growh is development. In the first instance the seed or rudimentary form of man, being created, was developed immediately to a state which enabled man to sustain himself from nature, then highly adapted to his nourishment. He could not have been developed into a rational being instantaneously, for the development of the human mind requires the free use of the will and understanding. But he could, without the