as this, almost the
final secret of the Cosmos, no single human agency acting alone can hope
to achieve the final revelation, while all acting together could hardly
escape falling into "the falsehoods of their own imaginings" if they
relied solely on their unaided efforts in the intellectual sphere.

Assuming then that life is an enduring process of the redemption of
matter through the interpenetration of spirit, what is a possible method
of action? To explain what I mean I must use a diagrammatic figure, but
I admit this must be not only inadequate but misleading, for instead of
the two dimensions of a diagram, we must postulate three, with time
added as a vital element, and, I dare say, a "fourth dimension" as well.
Confessing inadequacy in the symbol, let us conceive of a space divided
into four strata. The lowest of these is the primary unknowable, the
region of pure spirit, pure spirit itself, the creative energy of the
universe, the unconditioned Absolute, in the terms of Christian
theology, Almighty God. The second is the plane of matter, an area of
potential, but in itself inert and indeterminate. The third is the space
of what we call life in all its forms, the area in which the
transformation and redemption take place. The fourth is the ultimate
unknowable, that is to say, that which follows on after life and
receives the finished product of redemption.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM NO. 1. The interpenetration of Matter by Spirit.
_x,_ The primary Unknowable; _x',_ the ultimate Unknowable; _[Greek:
alpha],_ the plane of Matter; _[Greek: beta],_ the plane of Life.]

Now there is eternally in process a penetration of the stratum of matter
by jets of the _elan vital_ from the realm of pure spirit, each as it
were striving to detach from the plane of matter some small portion,
which is transformed in its passage through life and achieves entrance
into the ultimate unknowable, when the process of redemption is, for
this small particle, completed. Always, however, is exerted the
gravitational pull of matter, and the energy that drove through, instead
of pursuing a right line, tends to bend in a parabolic curve, like the
trajectory of a cannon ball. In the completion of the process some
portion of redeemed matter "gets by," so to speak, but other portions do
not; they return to their source of origin and are reabsorbed in matter,
becoming subject to the operation of future interpenetrating jets of
spiritual energy. The u