e Self-contemplation of the Spirit, and
that this necessarily produces a Reciprocal corresponding to the idea
embodied in the contemplation, and thus manifesting that idea in a
correlative Form. We have found that in this way the externalization of the
idea progresses from the condensation of the primary nebula to the
production of human beings as a race, and that at this point the simple
_generic_ reproduction of the idea terminates. This means that up to, and
including, _genus homo_, the individual, whether plant, animal, or man, is
what it is simply by reason of race conditions and not by exercise of
deliberate choice. Then we have seen that the next step in advance must
necessarily be by the individual becoming aware that he has power to mold
the conditions of his own consciousness and environment by the creative
power of his thought; thus not only enabling him to take a conscious part
in his own further evolution but precluding him from evolving any further
except by the right exercise of this power; and we have found that the crux
of the passage from the Fourth to the Fifth Kingdom is to get people so to
understand the nature of their creative power as not to use it
destructively. Now what we require to see is that the Creative Process has
always only one way of working, and that is by Reciprocity or Reflection,
or, as we might say, by the law of Action and Re-action, the re-action
being always equivalent and correspondent to the action which generated it.
If this Law of Reciprocity be grasped then we see how the progress of the
Creative Process must at length result in producing a being who himself
possesses the power of independent spiritual initiative and is thus able to
carry on the creative work from the stand-point of his own individuality.

Now the great crux is first to get people to see that they possess this
power at all, and then to get them to use it in the right direction. When
our eyes begin to open to the truth that we do possess this power the
temptation is to ignore the fact that our power of initiative is itself a
product of the similar power subsisting in the All-originating Spirit. If
this origin of our own creative faculty is left out of sight we shall fail
to recognize the Livingness of the Greater Life within which we live. We
shall never get nearer to it than what we may call its _generic_ level, the
stage at which the Creative Power is careful of the type or race but is
careless of the indiv