272 THE WORLD-ENEBGY 



But doubtless also any living unit can originate only 

 in conformity with the Method of the World-Energy, a 

 Method which has already been shown in the present vol- 

 ume to be the Method of Reason. It is, in fact, no other 

 than that Method of which scientists have for a long 

 time been so industriously and successfully tracing out 

 the rudimentary aspects under the name of the "Laws 

 of Nature." . It is that Method the logical order of 

 which is vaguely intimated in the now hackneyed phrase, 

 "from the simple to the complex." In other words, the 

 Method of the World-Energy presents itself to us as the 

 absolute Method of Evolution, in which creation takes 

 place with unfailing logical sequence. Everywhere there 

 is absolute order, unbending law. Any degree of complex- 

 ity in a given unit, whether organic or inorganic, necessa- 

 rily presupposes that such unit has come to be what it is 

 only by a progressive development, the stages of which 

 have a fixed order. And such unit can attain to any 

 further degree of complexity only by passing through a 

 further series of stages equally unalterable in their serial 

 relation. Nature leaps no chasms, only because " Nature" 

 is but the outer manifestation of Reason. And just as 

 Nature is the outer form of Reason, so Reason is the 

 inner substance, the vital principle of Nature. It is to 

 the Totality of which these are the complementary aspects 

 that I have applied the term World-Energy, and by 

 which I mean : the one Substance, the primal Cause, the 

 Logos, "without which was not anything made that hath 

 been made." 



But if Nature is to be regarded as but the more ele- 

 mentary aspect of the Word', that is, the outer form or 

 expression, of the Logos or divine Reason, then there is 



