root of every conceivable mode
of Life. Without it Life could not be. Every form of expression implies
the selection of all that goes to make up that form, and the passing-by
of whatever is not required for that purpose; hence a desire for that
which is selected in preference to what is laid aside. And this
selective desire is none other than the universal Law of Attraction.

Whether this law acts as the chemical affinity of apparently unconscious
atoms, or in the instinctive, if unreasoned, attractions of the
vegetable and animal worlds, it is still the principle of selective
affinity; and it continues to be the same when it passes on into the
higher kingdoms which are ruled by reason and conscious purpose. The
modes of activity in each of these kingdoms are dictated by the nature
of the kingdom; but the activity itself always results from the
preference of a certain subject for a certain object, to the exclusion
of all others; and all action consists in the reciprocal movement of the
two towards each other in obedience to the law of their affinity.

When this takes place in the kingdom of conscious individuality, the
affinities exhibit themselves as mental action; but the principle of
selection prevails without exception throughout the universe. In the
conscious mind this attraction towards its affinity becomes desire; the
desire to create some condition of things better than that now existing.
Our want of knowledge may cause us to make mistakes as to what this
better thing really is, and so in seeking to carry out our desire we may
give it a wrong direction; but the fault is not in the desire itself,
but in our mistaken notion of what it is that it requires for its
satisfaction. Hence unrest and dissatisfaction until its true affinity
is found; but, as soon as this is discovered, the law of attraction at
once asserts itself and produces that better condition, the dream of
which first gave direction to our thoughts.

Thus it is eternally true that desire is the cause of all feeling and
all action; in other words, of all Life. The whole livingness of Life
consists in receiving or in radiating forth the vibrations produced by
the law of attraction; and in the kingdom of mind these vibrations
necessarily become conscious out-reachings of the mind in the direction
in which it feels attraction; that is to say, they become desires.
Desire is therefore the mind seeking to manifest itself in some form
which as yet exists on