76 UNITY OF SYSTEM. 



common origin, and will cease with his present existence; and not only so, 

 but this superiority in its progress becomes more remote from a higher state. 

 If the present creation had been ordained to originate from nothing, and 

 to be susceptible of progress, no answer could be given to the inquiry, — 

 Why is its perfection so limited, and why do not its various beauties co- 

 exist, instead of the development of one of them always requiring the ces- 

 sation of some other one? But it is certain that the works of the Creator, 

 unlike the works of man, have not an existence separate from Him, but 

 that the present or visible creation, and every part of it, is merely the 

 middle state, — beginning in and ending in an eternal manifestation of power. 



The term middle part is conventional, rather than fully expressive of 

 the creation, for, as will appear, like as the measurements of space and 

 the epochs of time do not add to or diminish from eternity and infinity, 

 so the present creation does not really (as the middle part in visible ob- 

 jects which connects the beginning with the end) divide or come between 

 the eternal life which precedes and succeeds it, and by which alone it 

 exists, but may rather be termed a divergence from it; and one of the 

 objects in these notes is to shew that the law of divergence governs all 

 nature, and may in like manner be traced in each of its parts, and in 

 every creature. According to this law the present world, whether collec- 

 tively or individually, makes no real progress in its developments: they are 

 all divergences, have one common origin, and their various perfections pass 

 away by the law of degradation. Its inability to raise itself declares it to be 

 partial, or incomplete and deficient; all its strength consists in or is derived 

 from its beginning, which is also its end, that is, the eternal life. This 

 Power is said to be suppressed from the foundation of the world; and 

 though every individual plant, and animal, and higher creature derives its 

 being and continuance from this Power, as much as a stream depends on 

 its source, yet the life of every creature throughout the earth diverges 

 from, and is more or less opposed to, its source, or to the same power in 

 its eternal state, which is thus said to be suppressed. And this suppression 

 is necessary for the natural creation, which could not otherwise exist in 

 its various adaptations and counteractions — a time will come when the sup- 

 pression will cease, and then the present creation will be changed, or be 

 wholly renewed. 



As thus the existences of all creatures do not begin from nothing, but 

 from an eternal Power, all the divergences have their origin in Him, and 

 He, as it were, bears them, or is answerable for them, and they will all 

 return to or be renewed in Him, excepting the cases of responsibility, where 

 the divergence is persevered in, though a conviction of its end may be 

 acquired, and the being is then cut off in the divergence, or divided from 

 the eternal source, to which the gratifications of even this life are all 



