Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/358

 it, acts into or upon the purest substance of the body imbuing it with corresponding life and endeavor. Thereby mental states, which are first causes, flow down into the body and produce there corresponding effects. That the causes originate in the mind and that the mind is the formative essential, are shown from the well known effect of the mental impressions of mothers upon the embryo. Peculiarities reappear in offspring because the mind is substance and form in which the peculiarities inhere, and because the mind impresses itself upon the least part of the spiritual and of the natural body, and hence upon the offspring. Under favorable circumstances such peculiarities produce corresponding effects in the body.

The fact that the human fœtus in its development successively resembles types of lower orders of animals, has been used as confirmatory of Evolution; it being thought that the fœtus could not take such forms were it not originally derived from them. This phenomenon is the direct result of development, and in no way confirms Evolution. As the human form is composed of successive planes or degrees coincident with those