AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 253 



an infinite internality which is forever completely 

 unfolded in the infinitely manifold world-in-space. 



Whence, once more, the universe can never grow old 

 nor decay. The absolute, eternal process, of which 

 the "universe" itself is but the outer form and reve- 

 lation, preserves the whole in perennial vigor, trans- 

 forming death into life, and decay into renewed youth. 

 For the Process which preserves is itself the Whole which 

 is preserved. 



Evidently, too, in this all-comprising process the 

 " plan " could not be first deliberated upon and then put 

 in execution the "world" being formed and then left 

 to fulfil the complex divine Purpose, running on by mere 

 "physical" energy until it fulfils the plan, runs down 

 and collapses into nonentity or mere wastes of equili- 

 brated but "useless" energy. On the contrary, if the 

 foregoing argument has led to any result, it is that 

 creation is the eternal vital fact or deed; that the divine 

 Spirit is the truth and sole substance of the world, and 

 that, apart from this, there is absolutely nothing. Were 

 the divine Energy for a moment to cease its activity, the 

 world must that instant vanish utterly. 



On the other hand, the divine Spirit itself, as absolute 

 energy, bears in its own nature the absolute necessity of 

 activity. For energy is real only as active. The very 

 law of the conservation of energy presupposes this. 

 Thus God is everywhere revealed before our eyes. And 

 if we fail to behold Him it is because we are blind, and 

 not because He is hidden. The pantheism of antiquity, 

 in which all is God, is replaced by the pantheism of 

 Christianity, in which God is all and (therefore) in all. 



Des Cartes was right in saying that the same power 



