52 PRINCIPLES OF SYNTHESIS. 



from origins to ultimates. And as the wonderful powers 

 of analogy have conducted us with apparent safety through 

 the immense labyrinths of the stellar creations, in our efforts 

 to trace them downward to their common source, we should 

 not despair of deriving some substantial aid from the same 

 mode of reasoning, when applied to the solution of those more 

 profound and important questions which are embraced in a 

 synthetical investigation of the system of Being. 



As forming the basis of the process of investigation now to 

 be pursued, we here lay it down, as a self-evident proposition, 

 that each and every effect is germinally contained in its cause, 

 and hence, when developed, necessarily corresponds to its cause. 

 Were this not the case, neither cause nor effect could properly 

 be called such, and there could be no conceivable sequential 

 relation between the two. 



For example, in the order of tangible developments by 

 which man is surrounded, the Vegetable Kingdom precedes, 

 and serves as the material so.urce, of the Animal Kingdom. It 

 therefore forms the material element of the cause of the 

 Animal Kingdom, though a more essential element of the 

 cause of this and all other creations, is of a spiritual character, 

 supplied from a source that is above the particular creation to 

 which it applies, as will be further illustrated hereafter. But 

 the two kingdoms, sustaining toward each other, as they do, 

 the relations of the material element of a cause, and the 

 material element of an effect, stand, thus far, as mutual cor- 

 respondents and exponents of each other. In like manner, the 

 Vegetable Kingdom stands as a material correspondent and 

 exponent of the Mineral Kingdom, which is its material source 

 and cause, and contains the fundamental principles of its com- 

 position and physical properties, though in a lower degree. So 

 the Mineral Kingdom, in like manner, has its physical corre- 



