PRIMEVAL OPERATIONS. 71 



existence, saying nothing of those numerous sub-modes of ope- 

 ration, commonly called laws, which grow out of them. The 

 essential principles of these general laws, in their simple and 

 combined states, and in their various degrees of sublimation 

 and ascension, as applicable to the different degrees of creation, 

 will, we apprehend, be found to involve a sufficient explanation 

 of every mode in which original Divine Force operates in the 

 production of the various phenomena of creation. 



Considering, then, that the primeval chaotic materials, out 

 of which the universe was formed, did not originally, and of 

 themselves, possess any force or motion, we proceed, in the 

 light of the foregoing principles, to inquire more particularly 

 Whence, and how, originated the forces, laws, and motions 

 from whose diversified operations has resulted the stupendous 

 system of being by which we are surrounded, and of which 

 we are a part 1 and what was the order of progressive devel- 

 opment, and what is the general structural form of the cosmi- 

 cal universe, which must have legitimately resulted from these 

 causes ? And, as it has been before shown that all the prin- 

 ciples that are involved in the infinite, may be epitomized in 

 the infinitesimal, we may, for the sake of convenience, and 

 without injury to the argument, reduce the subject of our con- 

 templations to an imaginary scale of magnitude which may 

 easily be conceived by the human mind, and which will allow 

 of all progressive operations being surveyed as from a single 

 stand-point. 



The influence which may most naturally be conceived to 

 have first acted upon primordial matter to impel it to ascending 

 developments, was Divine Love. Now, Divine Love corre- 

 sponds to Heat is, indeed, spiritual heat itself, and thus is the 

 first expansive impulse of mind. It is so in man, as well as in 



