46 MATERIAL BEGINNINGS AND 



kingdoms are lost in the great common mass of original cha- 

 otic matter. 



But in thus tracing back all forms and kingdoms to their 

 respective and immediate predecessors, we at the same time 

 trace backward the one and analogous kingdom of Universal 

 Matter as such (which includes all the other kingdoms), from 

 its highest to its lowest forms ; and as there is a point beneath 

 which all kingdoms lose their identity, and their essences are 

 merged in an anterior kingdom, so analogy would seem to in- 

 dicate that there is a prior point of attenuation and refinement 

 at which the great kingdom of Matter also loses its character 

 as matter or physical substance, and thus that it originated as 

 matter, from a prior source, as did all its included sub-king- 

 doms. This idea would appear in greater clearness and force 

 of probability, if contemplated in the light of the doctrine of 

 Series, Degrees, and Correspondences, hereafter to be brought 

 into view ; and it will receive incidental confirmation as we 

 proceed to consider the origin of Motion. 



If (contrary to an extreme probability, not to say absolute 

 certainty, established in previous remarks) the hypothesis is 

 still insisted upon, that the chaotic matter of which this uni- 

 verse is composed, consists of the dissolved elements of a pre- 

 vious material universe, the question will still arise, Whence 

 originated the matter composing that universe 1 And so we 

 may extend our inquiries back through a thousand imagined 

 pre-existent universes ; but the mind must come to a resting- 

 place somewhere. It is logically just as certain that there was 

 a first universe (if we are mistaken in supposing that this is 

 the first), as it is that there was a first vegetable form or class 

 of forms, which latter proposition is positively demonstrated 

 by facts in geology. And after we have gone back in imagi- 

 nation, to an absolutely first universe, the question will still 



