remains the same, but the difference of what is put at the end of it makes
the whole thing a broom or a rake. Now the thinking and feeling power is
the stick, and the conception which it forms is the thing at the end of the
stick, so that the quality of its consciousness will be determined by the
ideas which it projects; but to be conscious at all it must project ideas
of some sort.

Now of one thing we may be quite sure, that the Spirit of Life must _feel
alive_. Then to feel alive it must be conscious, and to be conscious it
must have something to be conscious of; therefore the contemplation of
itself as standing related to something which is not its own originating
self _in propria persona_ is a necessity of the case; and consequently the
Self-contemplation of Spirit can only proceed by its viewing itself as
related to something standing out from itself, just as we must stand at a
proper distance to see a picture--in fact the very word "existence" means
"standing out." Thus things are called into existence or "outstandingness"
by a power which itself does not stand out, and whose presence is therefore
indicated by the word "subsistence."

The next thing is that since in the beginning there is nothing except
Spirit, its primary feeling of aliveness must be that of being alive _all
over_; and to establish such a consciousness of its own universal
livingness there must be the recognition of a corresponding _relation_
equally extensive in character; and the only possible correspondence to
fulfil this condition is therefore that of a universally distributed and
plastic medium whose particles are all in perfect equilibrium, which is
exactly the description of the Primary Substance or ether. We are thus
philosophically led to the conclusion that Universal Substance must be
projected by Universal Spirit as a necessary consequence of Spirit's own
inherent feeling of Aliveness; and in this way we find that the great