44: Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts, and Letters. 



an intelligence acting otherwise than in accordance with law. 

 So that if the Supreme Intelligence is to communicate with 

 man, it must be in obedience to the laws which control our 

 mental activities. The Divine thought must, then, like hu- 

 man conceptions, be communicated bj means of physical 

 symbols. 



The Supreme Intelligence, being the final generalization, 

 must possess all knowledge, and the only intelligent action 

 possible to him from our point of view, is from this absolute 

 generalization towards the concrete and individual. The ab- 

 solute general is purely subjective, which, to become cogni- 

 zable, must be rendered objective. This can be secured to us 

 only through the intervention of material forms. From this 

 point of view, matter is only the symbol of thought — thought 

 apart from the thinker. The first result of the divine activity 

 in self-manifestation would be the analysis of being into sub- 

 jective and objective — that is the discrimination of mind and 

 matter, which terms are severally the final generalizations of 

 the two fundamental divisions of science. Matter, then, mere 

 formless, chaotic matter, would be the first result of creative 

 activity. Following the development of this idea in its con- 

 tinually increasing individuality, as new attributes are sever- 

 ally added, matter assumes determinate form and becomes 

 related in systems, as the various so-called elementary sub- 

 stances are discriminated, until finally all truth, capable of be- 

 ing revealed by inorganic matter, is presented to us. 



Add the idea of organism and we have the two great 

 divisions of phenomena — material and vital. The higher the 

 generalization, the fewer will be the attributes composing the 

 concept, and thus the simpler will be the form symbolizing its 

 expression. As in the case of matter, the first result of the 

 divine activity was mere matter, undiscriminated by any fur- 

 ther attribute ; so here, we have, as the first organic creation, 

 a concrete expression of the highest possible generalization 

 comprising the fewest possible attributes — that is, forms of 



