xvn MYSTERY OF THE CELL 353 



than we are. Now we, who, as they all tell us, are poor 

 miserable creatures of a day, have yet got to know much of 

 the universe, to apply its forces, and thus to modify nature 

 so, an eternity of progress at the same rate (and as there 

 is progress there is no cause why it should stop) must 

 necessarily have produced an infinite result that is, beings 

 which as compared with us would be gods. And as you 

 cannot diminish eternity, then long ages before the first 

 rudiment of life appeared upon the earth, long before all the 

 suns we see had become suns, the infinite development had 

 been at work and must have produced gods of infinite 

 degrees of power, any one of whom would presumably 

 be quite capable of starting such a solar system as ours, 

 or one immensely larger and better, and of so determining 

 the material constitution of an "earth" as to initiate and 

 guide a course of development which would have resulted 

 in a far higher being than man. Once assume a mind- 

 developing power from all eternity, and it must, now, and at 

 all earlier periods of the past have resulted in beings of 

 infinite power what we should term Gods ! 



It may, I think, be stated generally, that whatever has an 

 inherent power of increase or decrease, of growth, develop- 

 ment, or evolution, cannot possibly have existed from a 

 past " eternity " unless the law of its evolution is an ever- 

 recurrent identical cycle, in which case, of course, it may, 

 conceivably, have existed from eternity and continue through 

 an eternity of future cycles, all identical ; and, therefore, such 

 cycles could never produce anything that had not been 

 produced an infinite number of times before. Is this a 

 satisfactory outcome for an eternal self-existent universe? 

 Is this easier, simpler, more rational, more scientific, more 

 philosophical, than to posit one supreme MIND as self- 

 existent and eternal, of which our universe and all universes 

 are the manifestations ? And yet the " infinity and 

 eternity " men call themselves " monists," and claim to be 

 the only logical and scientific thinkers. With them 

 matter, ether, life (surely three absolutely distinct things) 

 with all the wonderful laws, and forces, and directive 

 agencies which they imply, and without which none of them 

 could for a moment exist, all are to be accounted for and 



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