(6) If thou would'st see Him too through things that suffer death, both on the earth and in the deep, think of a man's being fashioned in the womb, my son, and strictly scrutinize the art of Him who fashions him, and learn who fashioneth this fair and godly image of the Man. Who [then] is He who traceth out the circles of the eyes; who He who boreth out the nostrils and the ears; who He who openeth [the portal of] the mouth; who He who doth stretch out and tie the nerves; who He who channels out the veins; who He who hardeneth the bones; who He who covereth the flesh with skin; who He who separates the fingers and the joints; who He who widens out a treading for the feet; who He who diggeth out the ducts; who He who spreadeth out the spleen; who he who shapeth heart like to a pyramid; who He who setteth ribs together; who He who wideneth the liver out; who He who maketh lungs like to a sponge; who He who maketh belly stretch so much; who he who doth make prominent the parts most honorable, so that they may be seen, while hiding out of sight those of least honor?

(25) Thus all creatures are relatively ignorant yet relatively wise; comparatively nothing yet comparatively all. The microscope reveals to man his significance; the telescope, his insignificance. Through the eternities of existence man is gradually increasing in both wisdom and understanding; his ever-expanding consciousness is including more of the external within the area of itself. Even in man's present state of imperfection it is dawning upon his realization that he can never be truly happy until he is perfect, and that of all the faculties contributing to his self-perfection none is equal in importance to the rational intellect. Through the labyrinth of diversity only the illumined mind can, and must, lead the soul into the perfect light of unity.

(1) IN the Beginning of the last preceding Chapter, it is mentioned, that it is not strange for a Man to write, speak, and teach of the Creation of the World, though he was not present when it was doing, if he has but the Knowledge in the Spirit. For there he sees in the Mother, as in a Glass, the Genetrix of every Thing; for one Thing always lies in another, and the more is sought, the more is found, and there is no need to cast the Mind beyond this World; for all is to be found in this World, yea in every Thing that lives and moves. Whatsoever any looks upon, and searches into, he shall find the Spirit with the Fiat therein; and the divine Virtue [or Power discovers, or] beholds itself in all Things, as it is written, the Word is near thee, even in thy Heart and Lips. For when the Light of God dawns, or breaks forth in the Center of the Spirit of the Soul, then the Spirit of the Soul sees very well the Creation of this World, as in a clear Glass, and nothing is far off.

(84) When God had thus gently incorporated it, or compacted it together, then it found and felt itself to be mighty and powerful, and saw that it had or possessed a body more beautiful than the figures were, that were without, distinct from it; thereupon it became high minded, and elevated itself in its body, and would be more severe and eager than the Salitter was, which was without, distinct from its body.

(3) And being conjoined, begins to operate, Coagulating first, then vivifying What for its matter it had made consistent. The active virtue, being made a soul As of a plant, (in so far different, This on the way is, that arrived already,) Then works so much, that now it moves and feels Like a sea-fungus, and then undertakes To organize the powers whose seed it is. Now, Son, dilates and now distends itself The virtue from the generator's heart, Where nature is intent on all the members. But how from animal it man becomes Thou dost not see as yet; this is a point Which made a wiser man than thou once err So far, that in his doctrine separate He made the soul from possible intellect, For he no organ saw by this assumed. Open thy breast unto the truth that's coming, And know that, just as soon as in the foetus The articulation of the brain is perfect, The primal Motor turns to it well pleased At so great art of nature, and inspires A spirit new with virtue all replete,

(22) It is difficult for many to realize that they are actual universes; that their physical bodies are a visible nature through the structure of which countless waves of evolving life are unfolding their latent potentialities. Yet through man's physical body not only are a mineral, a plant, and an animal kingdom evolving, but also unknown classifications and divisions of invisible spiritual life. just as cells are infinitesimal units in the structure of man, so man is an infinitesimal unit in the structure of the universe. A theology based upon the knowledge and appreciation of these relationships is as profoundly just as it is profoundly true.

(6) Therefore though we speak of the Creation of the World, as if we had been by as present, and had seen it, none ought to marvel at it, nor hold it for impossible. For the Spirit that is in us, which one Man inherits from the other, that was breathed out of the Eternity into Adam, that same Spirit has seen it all, and in the Light of God it sees it still; and there is nothing that is far off, or unsearchable: For the eternal Birth, which stands hidden in the Center of Man, that does nothing [that is] new, it knows, works and does even the same that ever it did from Eternity; it labours for the Light and for the Darkness, and works in great Anguish; but when the Light shines therein, then there is mere Joy and Knowledge in its Working.

(12) Seeing then God is all in all, and has created Man to his Image and Similitude, to live with him eternally in his Love, Light, Joy and Glory, therefore we cannot say, that he was merely created out of the Corruptibility of this World, for therein is no eternal perfect Life, but Death, and Perplexity, Anguish, and Necessity; but as God dwells in himself, and goes through all his Works incomprehensibly to them, and is hindered by nothing, so was the Similitude before him out of the pure Element; it was indeed created in this World, yet the Kingdom of this World should not comprehend that [Image,] but the Similitude (Man) should mightily, and in perfect [Power or] Virtue, rule through the Essences (with the Essences out of the pure Element of the paradisical holy Limbus) through the Dominion of this World.

(6) Proceeding from this assumption of the first theologians that man is actually fashioned in the image of God, the initiated minds of past ages erected the stupendous structure of theology upon the foundation of the human body. The religious world of today is almost totally ignorant of the fact that the science of biology is the fountainhead of its doctrines and tenets. Many of the codes and laws believed by modern divines to have been direct revelations from Divinity are in reality the fruitage of ages of patient delving into the intricacies of the human constitution and the infinite wonders revealed by such a study.

(7) In nearly all the sacred books of the world can be traced an anatomical analogy. This is most evident in their creation myths. Anyone familiar with embryology and obstetrics will have no difficulty in recognizing the basis of the allegory concerning Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the nine degrees of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the Brahmanic legend of Vishnu's incarnations. The story of the Universal Egg, the Scandinavian myth of Ginnungagap (the dark cleft in space in which the seed of the world is sown), and the use of the fish as the emblem of the paternal generative power--all show the true origin of theological speculation. The philosophers of antiquity realized that man himself was the key to the riddle of life, for he was the living image of the Divine Plan, and in future ages humanity also will come to realize more fully the solemn import of those ancient words: "The proper study of mankind is man."

(36) The Universe is immensely varied, the container of all the Reason-Principles and of infinite and diverse efficacies. In man, we are told, the eye has its power, and the bones have their varied powers, and so with each separate part of hand and of foot; and there is no member or organ without its own definite function, some separate power of its own- a diversity of which we can have no notion unless our studies take that direction. What is true of man must be true of the universe, and much more, since all this order is but a representation of the higher: it must contain an untellably wonderful variety of powers, with which, of course, the bodies moving through the heavens will be most richly endowed.

We cannot think of the universe as a soulless habitation, however vast and varied, a thing of materials easily told off, kind by kind- wood and stone and whatever else there be, all blending into a kosmos: it must be alert throughout, every member living by its own life, nothing that can have existence failing to exist within it.

And here we have the solution of the problem, "How an ensouled living form can include the soulless": for this account allows grades of living within the whole, grades to some of which we deny life only because they are not perceptibly self-moved: in the truth, all of these have a hidden life; and the thing whose life is patent to sense is made up of things which do not live to sense, but, none the less, confer upon their resultant total wonderful powers towards living. Man would never have reached to his actual height if the powers by which he acts were the completely soulless elements of his being; similarly the All could not have its huge life unless its every member had a life of its own; this however does not necessarily imply a deliberate intention; the All has no need of intention to bring about its acts: it is older than intention, and therefore its powers have many servitors.

(2) Accordingly, in that He was so mighty and so fair, He willed that some one else should have the power to contemplate the One He had made from Himself. And thereon He made man,—the imitator of His Reason and His Love. The Will of God is in itself complete accomplishment; inasmuch as together with His having willed, in one and the same time He hath brought it to full accomplishment. And so, when He perceived that the “essential” [man] could not be lover of all things, unless He clothed him in a cosmic carapace, He shut him in within a house of body,—and ordered it that all [men] should be so,—from either nature making him a single blend and fair-proportioned mixture.

(12) Now that this is demonstratively and certainly thus, [appears] in that it is written; And God breathed into him the a living Breath, whereby Man became a living Soul. All other Creatures which were produced out of the corruptible Limbus by the Fiat, in all those the Will in the Fiat had awakened the Spirit in their Center, and every Creature's Spirit went forth out of the Essence and Property of its own self, and mixed afterwards with the Spirit of the great World, of the Stars and Elements, and that ought not to have been in Man, his Spirit ought not to have mixed itself [or been united] with the Spirit of the Stars and Elements. The two Principles (viz. the Darkness and the Spirit of the Air) ought to have stood still in such a Substance [as should be the Image of God;] and therefore he breathed into him the diving Breath; understand God's Breath, that is, the paradisical Breath or Spirit, [viz.] the Holy Spirit; that should be the Breath of the Soul, in the Center of the Soul. And the Spirit which went forth out of the Limbus, or out of the Quinta Essentia (which is of the a Condition of the Stars) that was to have Power over the fifth Essence of this World. For Man was in one only Essence [or Substance,] and there was also but one only Man that God thus created, and he could have lived for ever. And although God had brought the Stars again into their Ether, and also had withdrawn the Matrix of the Elements, and the Elements also back into nothing, yet Man would have continued still. Besides, he had the paradisical Center in him, and he could have generated again out of himself, out of his Will, and have awakened the Center; and so should have been able in Paradise to generate an angelical Host, without Misery or Anguish, also without tearing [rending or dividing in himself;] and such a Man he ought to have been, if he must continue in Paradise, and be eternal without Decay; for Paradise is holy, and in that Respect Man also ought to have been holy, for the Virtue [and Power] of God and Paradise consists in Holiness. The deep Gate of the Soul.

(2) Therefore now I direct the Reader to the Creatures, that he may search into them, and so he shall find all Things, and that more wonderfully than any Man can write or speak, if we be born of God. We must not a think with our Understanding and Skill, of God's making or creating, as of a Man that makes something, as a Potter makes a Vessel of a Lump of Clay, or a Stone-Cutter or Carver makes an Image after his Pleasure; and if it does not please him, then he breaks it again: No, the Works of God, in the Creation of the World, were altogether fixt and stedfast, good and perfect, as Moses writes: And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.

(3) "Very well," replied the Spirit of the River, "am I then to regard the universe as great and the tip of a hair as small?" "Not at all," said the Spirit of the Ocean. "Dimensions are limitless; time is endless. Conditions are not invariable; terms are not final. Thus, the wise man looks into space, and does not regard the small as too little, nor the great as too much; for he knows that there is no limit to dimension. He looks back into the past, and does not grieve over what is far off, nor rejoice over what is near; for he knows that time is without end. He investigates fulness and decay, and does not rejoice if he succeeds, nor lament if he fails; for he knows that conditions are not invariable. He who clearly apprehends the scheme of existence, does not rejoice over life, nor repine at death; for he knows that terms are not final. "What man knows is not to be compared with what he does not know. The span of his existence is not to be compared with the span of his non-existence. With the small to strive to exhaust the great, necessarily lands him in confusion, and he does not attain his object. How then should one be able to say that the tip of a hair is the ne plus ultra of smallness, or that the universe is the ne plus ultra of greatness?"

(19) All this the Glimpse [or Discovery] of the Senses brings into the Will of the Mind [and sets it] before the King, before the Light of the Life, and there it is tried. And the King gives it first to the Eyes, which must see what God is among all these, and what pleases them. And here now begins the wonderful Form [or Framing] of Man, 1 out of the Complexions, where the Constellation has formed the Child in the Mother' Body [or Womb] so variously in its Regions. For according to what the Constellation, in the Time of the Incarnation of the Child, in the Wheel that stands therein, and has its Aspect, (when the Dwelling of the four Elements, and the House of the Stars in the Head, in the Brains, are built by the Fiat,) according to that is the Virtue also in the Brains, and so in the Heart, Gall, Lungs, and Liver; and according to that is the Inclination of the Region of the Air; and according to that also a Tincture springs up, to [be] a Dwelling of the Life, as may be seen in the wonderful [Variety in the] Senses and Forms [or Shapes] of Men.

(7) Behold how many arts [employed] on one material, how many labors on one single sketch; and all exceeding fair, and all in perfect measure, yet all diversified! Who made them all? What mother, or what sire, save God alone, unmanifest, who hath made all things by His Will?

(78) But now the Salitter of the earth and of the water is no more able to change or alter itself in its dead being, and shew forth itself infinitely, as it did in the heavenly place or seat; but when the qualifying or fountain spirits form the body, then it riseth up in the power and virtue of the light.

(3) Discern what size the water is, that it is immeasurable (and) incomprehensible, both its beginning and its end. It supports the earth; it blows in the air where the gods and the angels are. But in him who is exalted above all these there is the fear and the light, and in him are my writings revealed. I have given them as a service to the creation of the physical things, for it is not possible for anyone to stand without that One, nor is it possible for the aeon to live without him. It is he who possesses what is in him by discerning (it) in purity.

(1) First he appeared in the class of inorganic things, For years he lived as one of the plants, Remembering naught of his inorganic state so different; And when he passed from the vegetive to the animal state He had no remembrance of his state as a plant, Except the inclination he felt to the world of plants, Like the inclination of infants towards their mothers, Which know not the cause of their inclination to the breast, Or the excessive inclination of young disciples The disciple's partial reason comes from that Reason,