Imatges de pàgina
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From the standpoint of time the process of creation, properly speaking, was completed in an instant; but the process of the perfection, or distinction and adornment of the corporeal universe (ia, lxx, i, c.) lasted through six vast cycles, the process of the union of the corporeal universe with the spiritual, and the consummation of the divine purposes in the creation, lasts through seven cycles, while the divine Providence, or preservative and over-ruling power, endures forever.

The process of the beautification of the corporeal universe, or cosmic evolution, may be thus summarized.

First Cycle.—The universe was originally without structure or solidity, consisting of preelemental atoms floating in the dark sea of Ether. By the Divine Power the motion of these atoms became more and more intense until light was generated, which filled all space. Portions of this cosmic dust were aggregated by circular motion into nebulae, leaving the inter-nebular spaces dark.

Second Cycle.—The nebulae became disintegrated and evolved into solar systems, by the separation of concentric layers from the inner nucleus, and the gradual accumulation of each layer into a single globe. In each planetary globe the central portion became more dense, elements and mixed substances were generated (Archean Age), and the lower lighter gaseous portion formed an atmosphere around it, which was gradually cleared up by the separation of vapor, in the form of clouds, from the fluid surface of the planet.

Third Cycle.—The process of contraction and consolidation resulted in the emergence of continents above the level of the fluid surface of the sea, and living organisms began to appear (Silurian and Devonian Ages).

Fourth Cycle.—In the meantime the central portion of each nebular system had concentrated into a sun, and the outer layers thrown off by the planets in their shrinkage, had become aggregated into satellites. The more concentrated solar heat in the clearer atmosphere caused the destruction of the rich vegetation that had covered the earth (Carboniferous Age), which was soon replaced by still more beautiful types (Permian and Triassic Ages).

Fifth Cycle.—By the divine power myriads of living creatures were developed out of the waters, including vast reptiles, from which birds evolved (Jurassic Age.)

Sixth Cycle.—And out of the earth (after a period of submergence—evening—the Cretaceous Age) insects and mammals were developed (morning—Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene Ages) in greater and greater variety, culminating in man, who, though he had, like all other living creatures, been derived from the slime of the earth, received a spiritual and immortal soul, instead of the material and mortal one possessed by other animals.

By his intellect and free will he was, as it were, the image of the divine nature, of which the lower creatures were but shadows (vestigia).

Seventh Cycle.—As the highest of corporeal creatures and the terrestrial representative of the spiritual world, man was, by divine right, the ruler and enjoyer of all the lower universe, and was destined to inhabit and subdue the whole earth.

The production of man was the consummation and end of natural evolution, and in the Seventh Cycle (Quarternary and Recent Ages) the Divine work in nature came to an end (so far as the production of new types of creatures is concerned), and the Divine blessing was upon man, to whose free initiative the further progress of the world was left.

The existence and all the appetencies, potentialities and activities, of all creatures, as the term of the one eternal creative act, depend constantly and entirely upon God, who abides in them by His essence, presence and power, and contains them in Himself by His immensity, His knowledge and His love, and by Him alone can being be literally imparted; but all natural effects are the immediate product of a complex series of secondary causes, which are manifestations and participations of the Divine causality.

All the activities of coporeal and material things (including all animals except man, who is potentially self-determining) are influenced by the heavenly bodies (the sun, moon and stars, that is to say, all suns, planets and satellites), and guided and controlled by angels—the spiritual realm having jurisdiction over the corporeal.

Man himself is so influenced and controlled, in his non-volitional activities, and he also receives from the angelic world illuminations and impulses which as a free agent he is able either to accept or reject.

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tion the elements entered into combination, thus generating compound substances; by the joint operation of these two laws the compound substances became more and more complex and were united into mixed substances, and by the law of succession and accumulation of forms the most complex compounds and mixtures generated the lowest living organisms. By the law of expansion these were more and more differentiated, and by that of the succession of forms higher and higher organisms were developed.

It is a law of the corporeal universe that every individual generates its own kind; so that the offspring is of the same species as the parent. But species differ from one another by more and less (Summa, ia 2aa, Hi, I, c), so that by the accumulation of new peculiarities new species are developed, their typical representatives being very distinct, while the less typical ones grade imperceptibly into the serially adjacent species (ia, lxxviu, 2, c).

On the lowest plane of corporeal existence the form is completely submerged in matter, and the principle of multiplicity, unconsciousness and passivity is completely dominant. In bving organisms the form begins to dominate over the matter, and greater and greater unity arises, until in animals consciousness and motion appear, followed in the higher animals by an ever-increasing degree of sensation and cognition.

The most superior among the brute animals represent the highest forms and the most complete domination of the form over the matter, to which the active potentialities of nature (informed corporeal matter, with its seminal reasons) can give rise.

Thus the "earth-slime" was predisposed as perfectly as possible for the reception of the spiritual principle by which the corporeal and celestial realms are linked together.

Accordingly, in man the soul, instead of being a direct product of the seminal reasons in matter, and having a power and existence dependent upon matter and confined within its limits, is a spiritual principle, having the power of knowing spiritual (abstract and supra-material, or universal) truths, and of self-determination (free action or rational volition) and being, therefore, like every self-determining being, naturally immortal.

In man Nature first found a mind by which to know God, a voice by which to consciously praise Him, and a will by which to purposely cooperate in the consummation of His vast designs.

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With him was completed the whole series of creatures, manifesting, participating in, knowing and enjoying the Divine Perfections in an endless variety of manners and degrees.

There was left, in the natural order of things, only such further God-manifestation as would result from the free intention and cooperation of mankind, and the evolution of beneficent social organisms resulting from this free human cooperation, under the same laws by which the inanimate substances and biological organisms were produced.

But the infinite wisdom and love of God had eternally recognized and decreed a still higher measure of self-manifestation and self-giving which no created intellect could ever have imagined or foreseen.

This involved nothing less than an apotheosis, as it were, of the whole creation by a union with the Godhead altogether above the possibilities of Nature.

This was accomplished by the joining of a created nature with the person of the Eternal Logos, in the unity of a single substance.

Man is a microcosm, or lesser universe, containing within himself the elementary, vegetative and animal principles, on the one hand, and the spiritual principle on the other. He alone among creatures is a compendium, as it were, of all that exists. It was, therefore, human nature which was chosen as the instrument of this Supreme Work; a human nature inheriting the legitimate kingship of the human race, and representing the three great branches into which it is divided.

This Incarnation took place at the mid-point of history, in that central land from which the three grand divisions (European-American, African and Asiatic-Australasian) of the inhabitable earth radiate, at the meeting-point of the three primeval civilizations (of Thrace-Phrygia, Mesopotamia and Egypt) and of all the great world-empires.

Just as animal nature was predisposed in the Tertiary Age to receive the crown of spirituality in the First Adam, so human nature was predisposed through the long segregation and Divine training of Israel under the Mosaic economy to receive the crown of Divinity in the Second Adam.

Just as the animal progenitors of the first man brought forth an animal which was also a man, so the Virgin Mother of Jesus

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