Creation. 283. 



But even though we should remove every misappre- 

 hension that tends to render difficult our conception 

 of the relation, when we try to represent in thought 

 the creative act, we reach at that point a breach of 

 continuity over which knowledge cannot carry us. 

 The transition from power immanent in a " most pure 

 Spirit," to energy as we know it operative in the 

 physical universe, cannot be effected by science. We 

 must believe ; we cannot see : " By faith we under- 

 stand that the worlds were made by the word of 

 God." * There is, however, within experience, an 

 instance which helps us to conceive, though we can- 

 not comprehend, the transition. We know ourselves- 

 as willing, and we see that act of the spirit embodied 

 in the origination of physical change. The transition 

 from the act of the spirit of which we are immediately 

 conscious, to the external operation revealed to us by 

 sense, is not cleared up by any known or conceivable 

 explanation. Science is here, in our most constant 

 and intimate experience, as much at fault as in the 

 attempt to conceive that primal act of the Infinite 

 Spirit which " in the beginning " issued in the existence 

 of manifested energy which " created the heavens 

 and the earth." 



Maintaining that creation is both possible to thought 

 and possible in fact, we advance to the affirmation 

 that creation is consonant with experience. This posi- 



* Hebrews xi., 3. 



