Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/375

 sequent show a declining civilization, indicated by less skilful and less artistic works. Though there is now no doubt that there was a most early, refined civilization, it is not necessary to assume that skill in manufacturing was a development contemporaneous with the first moral elevation, for the knowledge and life essential to high moral attainment may exist apart from mechanical skill.

The first civilization being a spiritual one, as the Word, reason, and history affirm, and as is shown by the universality and persistency of worship as far back as investigation can be carried, it is evident that the spirit of that civilization would not be the development of external things, or the accumulation of natural riches, as it is today, but the development of the spiritual and the acquisition of spiritual riches, which are wisdom and love. It is evident that wisdom would relate to the laws and truths appertaining to the moral and spiritual elevation of man, and that that love would be the unselfish, altruistic love, such as is of God. The spirit of that early civilization, considering the state of man and his relation to the Creator, must have been the desire and endeavor to become an image and likeness of God through the acquisition of love and wisdom from Him; for then the spirit of God descended