nd descent of forms or substances in the
greatest, and in our least universe: similar also is the descent of
all forces and powers which flow from them. But all their perfection
consists in the possibility and virtue of varying themselves, or of
changing states, which possibility increases with their elevations,
so that in number it exceeds all the series of calculations unfolded
by human minds, and still inwardly involved by them: which
infinities finally become what is finite in the Supreme. Our ideas
are merely progressions by variations of form, and thus by actual
changes of state_."

His sense of the beauty and orderliness of the whole process, and
his despair of communicating it, find characteristic utterance in
the following passage:

"_If thou could'st discern, my beloved, how distinctly and
ordinately these forms are arranged and connected with each other,
from the mere aspect and infinity of so many wonderful things
connected with each other, from the mere aspect and infinity of so
many wonderful things conspiring into one, thou would'st fall down,
from an inmost impulse, with sacred astonishment, and at the same
time pious joy, to perform an act of worship and of love before such
an architect_."

In his description of the manner in which these forms cohere and
successively unfold, he introduces one of the basic concepts of
higher space thought; namely, that in the "descent of forms" from
space to space, that which in the higher exists all together--that
is, _simultaneously_--can only manifest itself in the lower
piecemeal--that is, _successively_. He says:

"_Nothing is together in any texture or effect which was not
successively introduced; and everything is therein, according as
order itself introduces it: wherefore simultaneous order derives its
birth, nature and perfection from successive orders, and the former
is only rendered perspicuous and plain by the latter.... What is
supreme in things successive takes the inmost place in things
simultaneous: thus things superior in order super-involve things
inferior and wrap them together, that these latter may become
exterior in the same order: by this method first principles, which
are also called simple, unfold themselves, and involve themselves in
things posterior or compound: wherefore every perfection of what is
outermost flows forth from inmost principles by their series: hence
thy beauty, my daughter, the only parent of which is order itself_."

T