The Creative Process in the Individual | Page 9

selecting its own conditions is immensely
extended. In this way the Spirit's expression of itself has now reached
the point where its polar complementary, or Reciprocal, manifests as
Intellectual Man--thus constituting the Fourth great stage of Spirit's
Self-recognition. But the Creative Process cannot stop here, for, as we
have seen, its root in the Self-contemplation of Spirit renders it of
necessity an Infinite Progression. So it is no use asking what is its
ultimate, for it has no ultimate--its word is "Excelsior"--ever Life and
"Life more Abundant." Therefore the question is not as to finality
where there is none, but as to the next step in the progression. Four
kingdoms we know: what is to be the Fifth? All along the line the
progress has been in one direction, namely, toward the development of
more perfect Individuality, and therefore on the principle of continuity
we may reasonably infer that the next stage will take us still further in
the same direction. We want something more perfect than we have yet
reached, but our ideas as to what it should be are very various, not to
say discordant, for one person's idea of better is another person's idea of
worse. Therefore what we want to get at is some broad generalization
of principle which will be in advance of our past experiences. This
means that we must look for this principle in something that we have
not yet experienced, and the only place where we can possibly find
principles which have not yet manifested themselves is in gremio
Dei--that is, in the innermost of the Originating Spirit, or as St. John
calls it, "in the bosom of the Father." So we are logically brought to
personal participation in the Divine Ideal as the only principle by which
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 consequently no enjoyment, could accrue; and therefore by the law
of continuous progression the required Reciprocal should manifest as a
being awakening to the consciousness of the principle by which he
himself comes into existence.
Such an awakening cannot proceed from a comparison of one set of
existing conditions with another, but only from the recognition of a
Power which is independent of all conditions, that is to say, the
absolute Self-dependence of the Spirit. A being thus awakened would
be the proper correspondence of the Spirit's Enjoyment of Life at a
stage not only above mechanical motion or physical vitality, but even
above intellectual perception of existing phenomena, that is to say at
the stage where the Spirit's Enjoyment consists in recognizing itself as
the Source of all things. The position in the Absolute would be, so to
speak, the awakening of Spirit to the recognition of its own Artistic
Ability. I use the word "Artistic" as more nearly expressing an almost
unstatable idea than any other I can think of, for the work of the artist
approaches more closely to creation ex nihilo than any other form of
human activity. The work of the artist is the expression of the self that
the artist is, while that of the scientist is the comparison of facts which
exist independently of his own personality. It is true that the realm of
Art is not without its methods of analysis, but the analysis is that of the
artist's own feeling and of the causes which give rise to it. These are

found to contain in themselves certain principles which are
fundamental to all Art, but these