THE PSYCHICAL ELEMEXT. 



turning to itself as a fresh individual. In 

 this process of ever-recurrent individuation, 

 or of self-reproduction, it exists wholly. The 

 cell must be creative, yea self-creative, im- 

 aging therein the Creator, undoubtedly at a 

 considerable distance. So, if we ask whence 

 comes this self-creative power of the cell, we 

 have to trace it back primarily to the self- 

 creative All, of which the cell is both a mani- 

 festation and a constituent part, even in its 

 far-off minuteness. Indeed, to be a member of 

 the Whole, it must in some way reflect that 

 Whole of which it is a member. 



Accordingly one has to affirm that this pro- 

 cess of the cell is not only physical but psy- 

 chical; its movement is in and with matter, 

 but its ordering principle is the Self. Not 

 simply my or your Self, but the Self, the All- 

 Self, if one may so say. To be sure I and you 

 must identify the process of the cell with our 

 own ultimate process, that of our Ego; all 

 true knowledge is, indeed, to investigate the 

 process of the thing with the process of 

 thought. I can never understand the cell till 

 I make it truly mine appropriate it inter- 

 nally; which appropriation takes place when 

 I fetch up, assimilate, and unite the essence 

 of the cell with my own essence, proclaiming 

 both of us as one in all our difference. Thus 

 there is a bond conjoining us in our cognition, 



