its place in the order of the whole is not that of the
Originator. It is not Life in itself, but is a function of life;
it is an effect and not the cause. The reason why this is so is
because intellectual study is always the study of the various
laws which arise from the different RELATIONS of things to one
another; and it therefore presupposes that these things together
with their laws are already in existence. Consequently it does
not start from the truly creative stand-point, that of creating
something entirely new, creation ex nihilo as distinguished from
CONSTRUCTION, or the laying-together of existing materials, which
is what the word literally means. To recognize evil as a force to
be reckoned with is therefore to give up the creative stand-point
altogether. It is to quit the plane of First Cause and descend
into the realm of secondary causation and lose ourselves amid the
confusion of a multiplicity of relative causes and effects
without grasping any unifying principle behind them.

Now the only thing that can release us from the inextricable
confusion of an infinite multiplicity is the realization of an
underlying unity, and at the back of all things we find the
presence of one Great Affirmative principle without which nothing
could have existence. This, then, is the Root of Life; and if we
credit it with being able, not only to supply the power, but also
the form for its manifestation we shall see that we need not go
beyond this SINGLE Power for the production of anything. It is
Spirit producing Substance out of its own essence, and the
Substance taking Form in accordance with the movement of the
Spirit. What we have to realize is, not only that this is the way
in which the cosmos is brought into existence, but also that,
because the Spirit finds a new centre in ourselves, the same