A glance at the progress of creation in the production of our earth and its inhabitants might serve for an illustration of the same process and progress of worlds in the vast expanse of the universe, as these are continually brought into existence. The object is one throughout, being—as we shall see fully elsewhere—to develop and perfect individualised, self-conscious, immortal spirits, manifested in the image and likeness of the Central Cause and destined for the Summer Spheres. The process of formation is always from lower to higher, from crude to refined, from simple to complicated, from imperfect to perfect—but in distinct degrees or congeries. Thus, after the sun gave birth to our planet—and it was the same with all other earths—the action of vitality within the particles of matter, and its constant emanation in the form of heat, light, electricity, etc., produced new compounds, possessing the vital principle in sufficient quantities to give definite forms, from those of crystallisation up to sensation and intelligence. The last is the highest or ultimate attribute of things on earth, and is possessed or attained in perfection by man alone.2
In the course of time, when "the waters had subsided," the heat and light emanating from the sun acted upon the surfaces of rocks, abrading, decomposing and uniting with their elements, and with the waters of the seas, as also with rain and mist, to produce other compounds of more perfect nature. Thus large beds of gelatinous matter were formed beneath the water level. Thus soil was first formed, a combination of material susceptible of developing vegetable life, both marine and terrestrial. The first vegetable forms, springing from slimy rocks, were simple in their structure—lichens or cryptogamous plants. They elaborated from their own substance a germ or nucleus of vitality, enclosed within a receptacle capable of preserving and sustaining it, till the favourable action of the elements could bring forth from each an image or likeness of its parent. Thereafter the organised substance or body of the original plant died—having fulfilled its object of existence—and the elements of which it was composed mingled with the thin soil on the surface of the rocks, adding to its substance, increasing its complexity and refining its particles, so that with the return of the vernal equinox—and the genial rays of the sun—not only the seeds of the old lichen unfolded but a new and more complicated plant made its appearance. Thus the ever-present and working principle of vitality and creative energy, acting and reacting upon the materials of our globe, started the kingdoms of Nature, each new type being dependent upon all that preceded it for existence and being yet distinct from its predecessors.
Certain conditions, proportions and combinations of elementary inorganic substances are required to produce a vegetable, and vegetable growth is dependent upon elementary regimen, while animals—which cannot be produced or sustained thereby—depend in their turn upon the vegetable kingdom, and this must therefore have preceded them. Were it possible for vegetation to be blotted out from the face of the earth, the animal kingdom would soon be annihilated also. So are all types in the endless chain of organic and inorganic substances the links in one system of cause and effect; so fixed and unvarying are those laws of the Father which regulate all His works.
In this manner vegetation has been traced to its beginnings; but in the depths of the warm seas there were slowly developed other points of life, till minute fishes flourished in myriads therein. On the face of the solid earth, the first animals were huge in physical organisation, mere gastric receptacles for the digestion of dense forms of vegetable matter. They were steps in a flight of stairs for laws and materials to walk upward to the plane of finer organisations.