It has been stated by astronomers that if it were possible for one world to be out of time for a moment, that all systems would be thrown into chaos, so perfect is the law of order in nature. Now there must be a mind and will that is holding everything in its place. There is a thought that has built everything. There is a will that controls all, and that will is like the will which governs the machinery of our bodies. When we get further on in this course of lectures, we will show you that there are reasons for believing that not only is there an intelligent cause, but that this intelligent cause has actually the form of man. The old philosopher and astronomer who gave to us the picture we have in the common almanac of today — of the man with the twelve zodiacal signs around him — had a reason for it; and we will show you further that Swedenborg, although considered a dreamer and visionary, agreed exactly with all the visions and prophecies of antiquity; that the planet earth and its inhabitants were all members of one great body, one grand man....We then conclude that the God of the solar system, the power which controls life within the limits of that system, is in the form of man, and works through the grand functions of the solar man. The same evidence teaches us that we may carry the idea of man into the ecliptic through which our sun travels in its revolutions around its centre, and so we may go on eternally and still find the form of man interior to all created suns and worlds, tracing this divine principle yet more and more interior, until the mind is lost in its inquiries into the mystery of what this God-man is....We reach the conclusion that all that we call matter is only another state of existence of the same Being or Cause. When we have an idea of a spiritual and unseen being that we call God, we, with the ancient cabalists, formulate an idea of a place or state of perfect white light, which light is the source of all fire, but of a fire that is creative, gives life, but destroys nothing.

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The object of considering, in these lectures, the seven creative principles, is to bring us into a mental condition where we shall cease to see evil as an absolute principle, and recognize the useful and good in everything. We learn that there is nothing in the universe, but what is necessary to the accomplishment of an ultimate purpose. When we come to realize this as a fact, or, as Paul expressed it, that "all things work together for good," we see that all things are working with unanimity and harmony, and for the purpose of forwarding a common object, viz., the building of a perfect man. What is most needed now is to look upon this world as a great factory, where men and all living things are engaged in the work of preparing our planet to become a paradise. When we get the thought clearly defined in our minds, that all Nature is working with us and for us, that we are parts of the Infinite Soul, and that, as parts thereof, we should overlook our father's workshop with the interest which sons should feel in caring for the factory of their father, then we shall be in harmony with Nature in all its forms.

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[E]very thought of ours is as much our child, our offspring, as a child that is incarnate in the flesh.

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"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive 1st, Power; 2d, Riches; 3d, Wisdom; 4th, Strength; 5th, Honor; 6th, Glory; 7th, Blessing."

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We cannot but admire and wonder when we look into this process, and see a mind at work there whose capacity so far surpasses the human intellect. This law of order, united with the other principles, gives every plant, every vegetable, and every animal their distinct form, by virtue of the quality of the germ-life coming from its parental source. That germ-life has been organized with power to gather around it like elements, to mature principles of which it was the expression, and it always carries it out to the letter of the law, making no mistakes; so we are in the habit of looking into each other's faces, and saying, "You look like your mother," and "you look like your father," and so on. Again, we look into each other's faces, and we read there the nature of the person. We say that person has something good; that person is disposed to live in this or that way. How do we know? We know only because this divine architect has done his work perfectly. He has made no mistake; he has expressed his thought in perfect language. Not only has he done this so that we may read character from physiognomy or phrenology of mankind, but this principle of reading character from the language of form, was the first principle of thought. As animals came into being on this planet and began to devour one the other, self-protection became the one thought most necessary; and in the work of self-protection there came fear, and they at once began to take cognizance, and to look at and judge of the objects that were approaching them, whether they should fear them or not.

Thus, animals began to recognize the image of a thing before they did the nature of it; this must, of necessity, be the first starting-point, — that of judging from physiognomy, as we call it. We go into the woods, and the wild beasts know each other. Some will feed together because they realize that they do not antagonize each other, and, as soon as an antagonistic beast comes along, they flee for their lives. How do they know? Here, again, the language of form stands out, and they know from the image what is combined and embodied in the form. They know, at least, this, that it is a form of antagonism and destruction to them. Thus, the faculty of mind in man to-day, that enables him to judge of things and qualities by form, is the most perfectly developed faculty in the human brain; and this should be the one that we utilize to the greatest advantage. In my thought and study, years past, I saw that every line upon the face spoke a language; and every mark that comes there, without injury, tells a story; it speaks of some in-working principle. Yes, every line upon the hand is a hieroglyphic that tells of one's minute character; even the formation of the nails on the fingers, the shape of the hand, every minute particle of the man, reveals the character therein expressed.

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As the worlds are changing in their position, the solar fluid is being changed and altered systematically. According to this definite mechanical law there are constantly changing thought-potencies being imparted to the world; and, as these changing thought-potencies are received, it affects all vegetation and animal life. When the human mind is perfected to a greater degree, and has become polarized on the God of the universe, as was the mind of the Hebrew prophets, whose desire was to know the ultimate and future of this world, and the object of creation, then, musing upon the cause of the wonders of creation that we see around us, endeavoring to rise higher and higher, we shall get above this fermenting mass, and, as with them, so this imaging power that does its perfect work in nature will continue to do its perfect work in our brain. With them the life-forces were more and more perfected until they were so refined in their life that they could sense the very essence of the creative mind, — the mind of the great workman that we see forming and arranging and controlling this wonderful workshop, nature, and causing it all to work together toward one great object. Thus they, by constant meditation, were enabled to actually sense that mind, to actually collect and think the thoughts of this Infinite Soul, long years before they had wrought out their ultimation in physical form. For, through aspiration, they collected the creative thought; it took image in their brain, and was clothed like a seed with their essence, and prepared for its descent into matter, the same as a seed is clothed with a shell to prepare it for the earth. So the thought, emanating from the infinite mind, that was sent earthward to bring into the world an order of humanity who should enact certain parts in the great drama of life, in order to produce desired results upon this planet, was collected, imaged, and realized in their minds.

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Humanity is involved in series, and stand intimately related each to the other, and thus we are constantly being acted upon by minds both above and beneath us; and, were we isolated from this magnetic relation with other minds, we would be astonished at finding how dependent the individual is; in fact, apart from the series of which we are an entity, individuality would be a mere cipher.

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Force, then, is first, negative conservative magnetism, and is a principle of bondage or binding. It is a principle that, when carried into the realm of mind or matter, binds, restrains; and thus all men to-day are bound and held by woman. Every man is bound by her, — confined within the sphere of her limitations, out of which he cannot go without a struggle and effort of his own will; this, however, is not the voluntary action of her will, but is the magnetic potencies generated through her, and, as he cannot wholly escape limitations, neither can he advance save as she advances with him. Here then is laid the arena of combat, — of a struggle between the two great forces of creation which we now see active in domestic life, the positive and negative, between the effort of man to become spiritual and like his Creator, and the effort of the negative principle to hold and bind in the gestative sphere. The interior of woman is masculine. And it is incumbent on woman, at the present time, that she pause and think. Now this is contrary to her outward nature, which does not pertain to thought, but love; therefore she must think from the interior, the intuitive. She is magnetic, holding, binding, restraining the object of her love, to keep it within the limits of her own sphere; this is her outward nature; when she stops and thinks interiorly, reasonably and logically, she will find a place of higher usefulness where she can be free and become spirit, like the author of being, and thus advance with man....

Now the mother-nature, considered as a distinct principle, has no reason. The law of order in the pure mother-principle has no place. The feminine principle, as manifested in the higher order of womanhood, is not a reasoning principle, but it acts from the spontaneous soul, from within. It acts from the law of its nature, and we call it intuition. Intuition, when governed by cohesion, struggles against human progress. If you have a son, and that son has an inclination to a life that is not according to the life your father lived, not according to that you yourself are living, you at once condemn it, and at once begin to struggle against it. If a man or woman attempts to live on a different plane of existence from that on which you are, you condemn it, and do all in your power to hold on to that friend, and bind him in the sphere of your own existence. These are thoughts that we ought to think about, because we are in the time of progress....

The office of this mother-principle is to preserve and hold spirits in material bodies. That is why the ancient philosophers said it was impossible for woman to become a master, because her nature was that which took hold of, and bound all things in the flesh, and would not admit of that unfoldment that led into the spirit and the transmutation of the flesh. Therefore, they said, it was an absolute necessity that woman should go down to the grave and return as man in the second incarnation; for it was so believed by them. (For instance, you who today are here as women, the next time you will return as men. Again, you pass away and return as women, and so on, alternately. This is in harmony with the law of reincarnation. In connecting these subjects I am necessitated to throw out many things that may seem vague and unreasonable to those who have not thought deeply on such subjects, too great to expound in a single lecture. This is a new field of thought to the Occident, but not to the Orient.)

Woman has got to stop and think and try to unite her soul with the great Mother of the Universe. She has got to begin to look at herself and her companion, not as flesh, not as body, or as mere material. As long as she does, just so long will she be an adversary, and so long she herself will be bound in earth and will know nothing of the higher life, and the object of her love, because of that flesh she loves and clings to, will struggle against her, and slip out of her hands, and she will be found deserted and alone. The time has come when that mother-love must begin to take higher form. The divine Mother loves all her children alike, and so woman has to consider all as her children, all as objects of her special care and protection, and the husband as counterpart of her spirit, and not merely of the flesh, and that this spirit is a part of her spirit and as such it must be the object of her love, the object that she must try to aid, to unfold, and to free from its encumberings of earth. That, you see, at once reverses all the action of the old love-life. That is a question that she must consider. For as long as the action of her present life is that manifestation that belongs to cohesion alone, it is holding the persons she loves; it is binding their thought, consequently hindering their action, and keeping them just as they are.

Should this principle of cohesion have sway from this time, all would stop thinking and acting. Everything would be at a dead stand-still. We bless that divine principle; we should, and do admire and adore the mother-love. Yet, while it is good, it is good only while it is useful. There is nothing permanent that does not serve a use. Keep this maxim ever before you, that the great law of the Infinite Mind is that the use of a thing determines whether it is good or not. Now, when as mothers, as wives, those of you whose natures are overflowing with that divine maternal principle, and who have looked higher, deeper, more into the real man and the real woman, have discerned that a man is not the flesh, but the spirit, the soul, then will you begin to find that your relation to him is the relation of one-half of his being, and that Paul had in mind a law which is beyond that understood today when he said, "The man is not without the woman or the woman without the man in the Lord." Therefore the first thing to do is to conquer self, conquer this maternal nature in its lesser manifestations. Mothers and sisters, conquer yourselves! Men and brothers, rise above it; do not allow it to hinder your progress!