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“You may say that there is no evidence that man ever produces a particle of Matter out of himself; and I will admit that this is so. But there is plenty of evidence that he produces shapes and forms: and if he produces shapes and forms that is all we need. For, what Matter is in the abstract no one has the least experience and knowledge. All that we know is that the things we see are shapes and forms of what we call Matter. And if (as is possible and indeed probable) Matter is of the same stuff as Mind—only seen and invisaged from the opposite side—then the shapes and forms of the actual world are the shapes and forms of Mind, thus projected for us mutually to witness and to understand.”
But we do not need to fall back upon metaphysical speculations in order to support our general contention that there is Mental Image back of every phase and form of Physical Creation. Throughout all Nature we may find striking instances and illustrations of the general principles that there is an “idea,” or “mental image or form,” present in all of Nature’s creative processes, from the formation of a crystal to the development of the forms of living creatures. The formation of a crystal; the development of the plant or tree from the seed; the evolution of the living form from the eggcells; all of these reveal to us the fact that “idea” or “mental form” is immanent and involved in every process of birth and growth in Nature. This being perceived, we are justified in claiming that “All Creation is Mental Creation”—the materialization of a mental form, image, or idea.
Throughout all Nature we may perceive the presence of an Inner Image or Form which serves as the framework or pattern upon which Nature materializes her objective forms. These ideal forms have attracted the attention of the philosophers, and they have sought to account for their presence. From the time of Plato down to the present, philosophers have speculated concerning the nature and evident presence of these ideal forms upon which Nature builds her material shapes and structures. In the above quotation from Carpenter you will note the reference to “the evolution out of Mindstuff of forms which are the expressions and images of underlying feeling; these forms, at first vague and undetermined in outline, rapidly gather definition, and clearness, and materiality, and press forward toward expression in the outer world.”
Paul Carus, a modern philosopher, also says: “All science consists in describing forms, and tracing their changes. All differences that we can scientifically comprehend are the forms of matter or energy. All that we can do or try to do is by molding and remolding things. Forms are the types of possible entities, and do not exist as such in the shape of material realities, but we cannot say that they are nonexistent, nor that they are nought. They are ‘maybes’ or potentialities, and according to the law of their combination the things of the material world are molded. They are the factors which determine material reality; and in this sense pure forms are more important than are material and actual things. They are superreal, and their superreality contains the norms of all existence. Pure Form looks like nonentity, and yet the laws of Pure Form are the factors that determine existence in all of its details. Pure Form conditions the Cosmic Order and governs the universe.”
The “Pure Form” of the philosophers is undoubtedly immaterial in its nature; it clearly must be Mental Form; In other words, Nature is seen to proceed just as does man in his work of creation. She builds the material universe upon mental patterns, or upon mental frameworks. Just how or why this is so the human mind is unable to grasp, but all investigation reveals the fact that the creative processes proceed in just this way. In this correspondence between human creative activity, and that of the Cosmos, we have a striking illustration of the principle embodied in the ancient Hermetic axiom: “As above, so below; as within, so without.” The Macrocosm and the Microcosm evidently work under the same laws, and manifest according to the same general principles.
Beginning with the particles of which the atoms are composed, and with the atoms of which all forms of matter are composed, we see the creation of material forms apparently proceeding in accordance with some preexisting pattern, ideal form, type or idea. Atoms group themselves in certain combinations, forming certain elements of matter, all of which forms are true to general types, and are as nearly identical as the bits of metal which are cut out by the same die or else produced from the same mold. This uniformity and adherence to type certainly is explainable only upon the hypothesis that before the material form is produced there must exist some pattern, type, idea or mental form which governs the materialization. There is no hitormiss, or higgledlypiggledy arrangement of the atoms—they group themselves according to typical forms, and these forms must exist ideally before the material form can be produced.
That which we call the “inner nature” of anything is really a combination of certain inherent “mental forms” which are constantly striving to express themselves in action and objective appearance. The “inner nature” of the atom is clearly represented in and by its activities—the “inner nature” of the animal is likewise so represented by its action and its physical form. The voluntary, selfmoved, spontaneous actions of any particular thing clearly represent the “inner nature” of that particular thing. The differences between classes of things result from the difference in the “inner natures,” and the “inner natures” are merely the ideal forms or types, the mental images, which constitute the elemental and essential basis of the character of those things.
The operation and manifestation of these “inner natures,” or creative ideal forms, has a striking illustration in the case of the crystallization of the minerals or chemical elements. These crystals are formed in the “mother liquor” according to wellknown and clearly defined shape, form and order. Each species of crystal has its own particular form and arrangement—some have a range of several of such forms, each, however, being true to type and pattern. Each species of crystal obeys its own order and rule concerning its form. Crystals grow just as do plants, according to a certain pattern and typeform. These forms and orders of arrangement are not caused by outside forces or energies—they result from the “in forces” of the mineral or chemical substance—from the operation of internal, inherent energy, and in response to some inner idea, form or pattern which constitutes the “inner nature” of the mineral or chemical compound.
In the same way, we find that in the material form of the germ of the acorn there dwells an “inner nature” composed of these ideal forms or mental images, these inner patterns. These inner forces determine the material form which the sprout, root, leaves, and the complete tree shall assume. The deviations from the ideal forms result from the influence of external forces serving to modify and deflect, to cramp and to hinder, the expression of the inner form—but the inner pattern is always there doing the best it can to represent itself truly in material appearance. In every acorn there abides the design, pattern, form, and idea of the future oak—and the acorn never evolves and unfolds anything not according to that pattern, design or idea. In the same way, the seed or germ or every plant, animal, or human being contains within itself its “inner nature” composed of ideal form and pattern, type or mold.
It is this “inner nature” or ideal form that causes the acorn to develop into the oak, instead of into the pinetree. It causes the egg of the chicken to develop into a chick, and not into a baby hawk. It causes the creature to develop from seedgerm into completed adult form, always true to type and ideal pattern. Scientists who have witnessed the unfoldment of living forms from the reproductive cells, or eggbody, have testified in glowing words of wonder and admiration to the evident presence of “something like a directive mind” at work in the processes under way in the tiny speck of protaplasm which we call the reproductive cell or egg of the animal.
Huxley, describing the development of the tiny egg of a newt (small aquatic salamander) said: “The plastic matter undergoes changes so rapid, and so purposelike in their succession, that one can only compare them to those operated by a skilled modeler upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invisible trowel, the mass is divided and subdivided. Then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the lines to be occupied by the spinal column, and molded the contour of the body; pinching up the head at one end, the tail at the