the advance into the next stage can possibly be made. Therefore we arrive
at the question, What is the Divine Ideal like?





CHAPTER III

THE DIVINE IDEAL


What is the Divine Ideal? At first it might appear hopeless to attempt to
answer such a question, but by adhering to a definite principle we shall
find that it will open out, and lead us on, and show us things which we
could not otherwise have seen--this is the nature of principle, and is what
distinguishes it from mere rules which are only the application of
principle under some particular set of conditions. We found two principles
as essential in our conception of the Originating Spirit, namely its power
of Selection and its power of Initiative; and we found a third principle as
its only possible Motive, namely the Desire of the LIVING for ever
increasing Enjoyment of Life. Now with these three principles as the very
essence of the All-originating Spirit to guide us, we shall, I think, be
able to form some conception of that Divine Ideal which gives rise to the
Fifth Stage of Manifestation of Spirit, upon which we should now be
preparing to enter.

We have seen that the Spirit's Enjoyment of Life is necessarily a
_reciprocal_--it must have a corresponding fact in manifestation to answer
to it; otherwise by the inherent law of mind no consciousness, and