612 THE BAY BAMBOO RAT. 
to geological strata, and, after disappearing in one order of animals, to “ crop out,” so to 
speak, in another distant order, or even in another class or division. 
All external objects are, in their truest sense, visible embodiments or incarnations of 
Divine ideas which are roughly sculptured in the hard granite that underlies the living and 
breathing surface of the world above ; pencilled in delicate tracery wpon each bark flake 
that encompasses the tree trunk, each leaf that trembles in the breeze, each petal that fills 
the air with fragrant effluence ; assuming a living and breathing existence in the rhythmic 
throbbings of the heart-pulse that urges the life-stream through the body of every animated 
being ; and attainjng their greatest perfection in Man, who is thereby bound, by the very 
fact of his existence, to outspeak and outact the Divine ideas, which are the true instincts 
of humanity, before they are crushed or paralysed by outward ciggumstances. Only thus 
can man be truly the image and likeness of God, only thus can the Divine ideas be truly 
manifested in him to the world. For just in proportion as he shrinks from speaking the 
truth that is in him, or from acting the good that is in him, so far he stifles the commencing 
outbirth of Divine power, and becomes less and less godlike. 
Hence the necessity for the infinitely varied forms of animal life. Until man has 
learned to realize his own microcosmal being, and will himself develop and manifest the 
god-thoughts that are continually inbreathed into his very essential nature, it needs that 
the creative ideas should be incarnated and embodied in every possible form, so that they 
may retain a living existence upon earth. 
This principle les at the very root of all material formations. It is but obscurely 
shadowed in those portions of the creation which we term inanimate, but becomes more 
and more perceptible in every being in proportion as it assumes a more perfect form and 
a higher organization. In Man we see its very highest development, and recognise the 
absolute necessity of that great truth which has animated almost every form of theology 
upon the face of the earth, namely, the visible incarnation of Divinity in human form. 
