exceptions?" Well, I would not have written this book if I
did not suppose that First Cause works by universal Law, and it is just
because It does so that I believe It _will_ work for me and my concerns.
The Law makes no exceptions, but it can be specialized through the power
of the Word. Then our sceptic says, "What, do you think _your_ word can
do that?" To which I reply, "It is not my word because I am not using it
in my lower personality, as John Smith or Mary Jones, but in that higher
personality which recognizes only one all-embracing Personality and
itself as included in that."

Which comes first, the Law or the Word?

The distribution of the solar systems in space, the localization of the
Spirit in specific areas of cosmic activity, proclaims the starting of
all manifestation through the "Word." Then the operation of Law follows
with mathematical precision, just as when we write 2 x 2 we cannot avoid
getting 4 as the result--only there is no reason why we should not write
2 x 3 and so get 6 instead of 4. Let it be borne in mind that the Law
flows from the Word, and not _vice versa_, and you have got the clue to
the enigma of Life.

How far we shall be able to make practical use of this clue depends, of
course, on our acceptance of its principle.

The Directing Power of the Word is _inherent_ in the Word, and we cannot
alter it. _It is the Law_ OF _the Law_, and so, like any other law, it
cannot be broken, but its action can be inverted. We cannot deprive the
Word of its efficacy, but our denial of it as the Word of Expansion is
equivalent to an affirmation of it as the Word of Contraction, and so
the Law acts towards us as a Limitation. But the fault is not in the
Law, but in the way we use the Word. Now if the reader grasps this, he
will see that the less we trouble ourselves about what appear to us to
be the visible and calculable causes of things, the freer we must become
from the burden of anxiety; and as we advance step by step to a clearer
recognition of the true order of Cause and Effect, so all intermediate
causes will fade from our view. Only the two extremes of the sequence of
Cause and Effect will remain in sight. First Cause, moving as the Word,
starting a sequence, and the desired result terminating it, as the Word
taking Form in Fact. The intermediate links in the chain will be there,
but they will be seen as effects, not causes. The wider the
generalization we thus make, the less we shall need