THE HL 7 MAN FORM. 37 



V. 



THE HUMAN FORM. 



The culmination of Nature's hierarchy of 

 shapes is finally embodied in a shape the 

 last physical shape, it would seem, and a kind 

 of resumption and transfiguration of them 

 all. The life-stuff receives its ultimate in- 

 corporation, and appears incapable of rising 

 higher. The Psyche repelled by the refrac- 

 tory material, is thrown back upon itself, and 

 starts a new world of its own, that of con- 

 sciousness. Therewith the drama of Nature 

 with its long line of shapes we may even 

 call them characters has concluded. 



It is agreed that the highest manifestation 

 of the Psyche in the Physis is to be seen in 

 the Human Form. From the beginning' there 

 has been a gradual evolution of physical 

 shapes of life till man has been reached, who 

 is supposed to be the topmost rung of the 

 ladder. So we see hanging down the aeons 

 that marvelous chain of life-forms, every link 

 of which is different from yet interrelated 

 with the rest. Moreover every link manifests 

 some gradation of the psychical revealed in 

 the plrysical, till the supreme revelation in 

 man is attained. 



Given an elemental life-stuff or protoplasm 



