creation, and, as we found in the first lecture, this factor is
Spirit--that invisible power which concentrates-the primordial
ether into forms, and endows those forms with various modes of
motion, from the simply mechanical motion of the planet up to the
volitional motion in man. And, since this is so, the primary
affirmative factor can only be the Feeling and the Thought of the
Universal Spirit.* Now, by the hypothesis of the case, the
Universal Spirit must be the Pure Essence of Life, and therefore
its feeling and thought can only be towards the continually
increasing expression of the livingness which it is; and
accordingly the specialization, of which we are in search, must
be along the line of affording it a centre from which it may more
perfectly realize this feeling and express this thought: in other
words the way to specialize the generic principle of Spirit is by
providing new mental conditions in consonance with its own
original nature.

* See my "Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science."


The scientific method of enquiry therefore brings us to the
conclusion that the required conditions for translating the
racial or generic operation of the Spirit into a specialized
individual operation is a new way of THINKING mode of thought
concurring with, and not in opposition to, the essential forward
movement of the Creative Spirit itself. This implies an entire
reversal of our old conceptions. Hitherto we have taken forms and
conditions as the starting point of our thought and inferred that
they are the causes of mental states; now we have learnt that the
true order of the creative process is exactly the reverse, and