246 LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY. 



tentializing Essence, which is the " complex, continent, and 

 basis" of the preceding, and hence the medium of volitional 

 operation. We will suppose, then (what can not be essentially 

 ' erroneous), that from the empyrean heights of infinite perfec- 

 tion, where God, before creation began, had from eternity 

 dwelt in inconceivable greatness and perfection, this seven-fold 

 and three-fold Ray emanating from his own Person, descended 

 by volition, and at its lowest extremity, resolved its most ex- 

 terior essences (represented by the outer triangle) into atomic 

 particles, which, in forms and constitutions, corresponded to 

 archetypes previously existing in the Divine consciousness, 

 and which were designed to be wrought into the structure of 

 this universe and all it contains. Let the central point in the 

 diagram, then, represent the atomic or lowest stage of creation, 

 this being the physical Germ from which the great Tree of 

 universal Being was to grow. From this central point, it will 

 be observed, proceeds a spiral line, which, while constantly 

 receding from the center, winds around through six radii, and 

 completes the circuit of the diagram on the center of the de- 

 scending Ray, on which it commenced. This spiral line, in 

 passing around, represents the inception, progress, and comple- 

 tion, of the first Circle, Series, or Complete Degree of Forms. 

 From the center of the descending Ray, and the apex of a 

 second and more interior triangle, the same spiral line thence 

 continues, and, completing another circuit while perpetually 

 receding from the center, represents the course of the next 

 higher and corresponding Circle of creations. And so, com- 

 mencing every time at the point representing the completion 

 of the previous Circle (this, at the same time, being the focus 

 of a more interior Degree of the Divine generative Principle), 

 it continues its corresponding circuits around the diagram, all 

 the while expanding from the center, and thus representing the 



