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NATURE.

The term "Nature" is used to express "the Universe as distinguished from the Creator; Creation; the world of created things; the powers which carry on creation; the powers concerned to produce existing phenomena, whether in sum or in detail." The term "Nature" expresses more fully the activities of the Universe or Cosmos. It is the Universe or Cosmos expressing itself in activities of Life. "Nature," then, may be considered as the expressed and expressing Life of the Universe or Cosmos.

THE BEGINNING.

The philosophers who have recognized and realized the Spiritual nature of the Universe, and the immanence of Life and Mind in Nature, have speculated deeply regarding the manner or process whereby Spirit creates the Cosmos and endows Nature with her evolutionary tendency. In order to understand the "how" of the Cosmic processes, the student must imagine a "beginning," although the highest teaching is positive that there is no beginning. The student must assume a beginning in order to picture the creative processes.

THE "MOTHER NATURE."

By placing ourselves in the position of an observer of a system of Universes, just before the dawn for them, we would see in the Universal Mind of Spirit the vague manifestations of subconscious activity forcing their way up toward the field of consciousness. Toward dawn there would be manifested an almost infinitely subtle and tenuous materializing or "congealing" of the Universal Substance, caused by the formation of a nebulous idea of a nascent Universe. (By "nascent" is meant "coming into being; being developed.") As the idea develops in Universal Mind it takes on a greater and still greater degree of materiality, just as does an idea of the human mind when one is "thinking out" an invention, a poem, a picture, or any other product of constructive imagination. After a time there appears a peculiar tenuous quasi-material substance, which is the "Mother Nature" of matter and physical energy and in which abides also the possibilities of life and mind. This "Mother Nature" is akin to the Universal Ether of Science. The Hindus distinguish between the three aspects of this "Mother Substance," calling the Matter-Principle Akaska , the Energy-Principle Prana , the Mental-Principle Manas . Western Science combines the three in its conception of the Universal Ether.

CREATION OF THE ATOMS.

The "Mother Nature" then begins to manifest inactivities, urged on by the development of the idea in the Infinite Mind of Spirit. Changes, modifications, and combinations of the evolving energy produce infinitesimally tiny particles of Something which is neither energy nor matter and yet which has characteristics of both. These particles are in constant vibration, as, in fact, are all created forms of energy or matter. In each is the possibility of life and mind, pressing forward for expression. These particles circle around each other and form a miniature universe of whirling mites, which have a unity of activity, thus forming a larger particle. These larger particles, in turn circling around each other, form a still larger, and so on, until finally is evolved the particle known to Science to-day as the "ion," "corpuscle," "electron," etc., which are now perceived to group together, and form the "atom" of matter.

This entire process, remember, is purely mental in character— merely the growth and development of the idea of the Nature forming in Universal Mind.

THE APPEARANCE OF MATTER.

With the birth of the atom, matter appears. Matter, which the uninformed mind regards as the most real substance in Nature, really is merely the product of the ideative thought of the Universal Mind of Spirit. All matter is produced in this way; there is no other way in which it can be produced. Just as man may distinguish the difference between his thoughts and his mind , so is there this difference between matter and the Infinite Mind that thinks it into being as an idea. The "idea" of matter entertained by the Infinite Mind of Spirit gives to matter its peculiar and special characteristics. Matter is just what it is, merely because the "idea" of it held in the Infinite Mind of Spirit makes it just what it is. Matter does not make itself what it is. Nor does its "just-what-it-is" character arise from or by chance, for there is no such thing as chance. The idea of matter includes the ideas of weight, extension, and all the other qualities of matter. The characteristics of matter are thought into it by means of the idea of matter in Universal Mind. And the laws governing and determining the activities of matter are also thought into being in the same idea. It is just as if a man were to form the idea of a new thing called matter in the course of writing a strange story of a strange new world, with this difference, that when Universal Mind forms an idea that idea is imposed upon all other creations of Universal Mind. Everything that follows in the course of the evolving idea is bound by the laws and terms of the idea imposed upon it in its creation.

THE STORY OF EVOLUTION.

The rest of the story from this point on is but the familiar and oft-repeated tale of Evolution as taught by modern Science. Atoms of various kinds and degrees of vibration and arrangements of particles developed different characteristics. Likes and dislikes began to manifest between them. Affinities caused certain of them to form unions and groups, and new and strange forms of Matter appeared by reason of the different combinations. It will be seen, of course, that this evolution of form and variety arose solely by reason of the evolution at the idea of Creation. The inner idea always was the direct cause of the material form and characteristics. The inner always preceded the outer.

Atoms combined and formed molecules of a new form of matter. The molecules grouped themselves together and formed masses of material form. The vibrations of Energy playing in and through matter changed its vibrations from time to time by the activities of heat, the latter being entirely a matter of vibration. The higher the vibration, the farther apart from each other do the molecules separate; the lower the vibrations, the closer together do they approach each other. These degrees of nearness, or farness, caused the differences between solids, fluids, gases, and the ultra-gaseous forms of Matter. Nebulæ appeared; suns were formed; planets were thrown off from suns; worlds were created.

APPEARANCE OF THE LIFE FORMS.

The cooling worlds manifested new forms. As the possibility of the appearance of life and mind forms developed, the life and mind immanent in matter began to assert itself and moulded forms of matter to accommodate them. This, too, of course, was part of the evolving "idea" in Infinite Mind. The crystals of the mineral first began to manifest intelligent growth and reproduction of form from the mother liquor. Then began the evolution toward organic life forms. Using the terms of modern Science, let us say that first begins to appear the radiobes, then comes the chlomacea, then the gymnospores and the angiospores. The chromacea is a peculiar form of matter, comprising the characteristics of both mineral and plant life. It is found in the deposits upon damp rocks, bark of trees, etc. From it develop the angiospores, which are the simplest forms of plant life, and the gymnospores, which are the simplest forms of animal life.

From the above lowly forms to the moneron of Haeckel is but a step, although that step took millions of years of time to make the transformation. The moneron is the tiny glue-drop-like cell found at the bottom of the ocean bed, without organs, without even a nucleus, and yet manifesting life and mind. Then came the amœba, the protozoa, and the variety of elementary life forms; then the starfishes, the sea urchins, the molluscs; then evolved the fishes, the reptiles, the birds, the marsupials, the lower forms of mammals; then the higher forms; then, at last, primitive man. To go into detail here is but to repeat the pages of the familiar text-books. And throughout all this process— during all these ages of time—there was working the evolving idea in the Infinite Mind of Spirit. The evolution toward Life and of Life is ever working out and unfolding in the idea. Living forms are ever being thought into being.