from the very nature of the creative process, but the law of the
universal relation admits of particular specialization exactly in
the same way as all other natural laws--it is simply applying to
the supreme Law of Life the same method by which we have learnt
to make iron float, that is to say by a fuller recognition of
what the Law is in itself. Whatever other meanings we may apply
to the name Messiah, it undoubtedly stands for the absolutely
perfect manifestation in the individual of all the infinite
possibilities of the Principle of Life.

Now it was because this grand ideal is the basis on which the
Hebrew nationality was founded that Jesus made this statement.
This foundation had been lamentably misconceived by the Jewish
people; but nevertheless, however imperfectly, they still held by
it, and from them this ideal has spread throughout the Christian
world. Here also it continues to be lamentably misconceived,
nevertheless it is still retained, and only needs to be
recognized in its true light as a universal principle, instead of
an unintelligible dogma, to become the salvation of the world.
Hence, as affording the medium through which this supreme ideal
has been preserved and spread, it is true that "Salvation is of
the Jews."

Their fundamental idea was right but their apprehension of it was
wrong--that is why the Master at the same time sweeps away the
national worship of the temple and preserves the national idea of
the Messiah; and this is equally true of the Christian world at
the present day. If salvation is anything real it must have its
cause in some law, and if there is a law it must be founded upon
some universal principle: therefore it is this principle which we