Thus the two ultimate
units of physical manifestation, the atom and the planet, both follow the
same law of self-sustained motion which we have found that, on _a priori_
grounds, they ought in order to express the primary activity of Spirit. And
we may note in passing that this rotary, or _absolute_, motion is the
combination of the only two possible _relative_ modes of motion, namely,
motion from a point and motion to it, that is to say centrifugal and
centripetal motion; so that in rotary, or absolute, motion we find that
both the polarities of motion are included, thus repeating on the purely
mechanical side the primordial principle of the Unity including the Duality
in itself.
But the Spirit wants something more than mechanical motion, something more
alive than the preliminary Rota, and so the first step toward
individualized consciousness meets us in plant life. Then on the principle
that each successive stage affords the platform for a further outlook,
plant life is followed by animal life, and this by the Human order in which
the liberty of selecting its own conditions is immensely extended. In this
way the Spirit's expression of itself has now reached the point where its
polar complementary, or Reciprocal, manifests as Intellectual Man--thus
constituting the Fourth great stage of Spirit's Self-recognition.
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