the
ideal forms, into which matter endowed with life was to develop;
_without_ any _necessary_ reference to how, or in what time, the Divine
creation was actually realized or accomplished on earth. It may be that
the _form_ so conceived and drawn in Nature's book by the Divine
Designer is a final form, up to which development shall lead, and beyond
which (at least in a material sense) it shall not go; or it may be that
it is a type intended to be transitory;[1] but _both the intermediate
and final forms must take their origin first in the Divine Mind, and be
prescribed from the Heavenly Throne,_ before the obedient matter and
forces and the life-endowment could co-operate to result in the
realization of the forms and the population of the globe.

[Footnote 1: The idea which I am endeavouring to make clear is well
illustrated by another passage in one of the Mosaic books--the account
of the Tabernacle. Moses had no idea of his own of the structure, its
furniture, implements, or the forms of these. The narrative expressly
states that the Divine power originated the designs, and caused Moses to
understand them. In a human work the designer would have drawn the
objects with measures and specifications, and given the papers to the
workmen. With the Divine work, where the design is in the Divine
Thought, and the workmen and builders are forces and elementary matter,
the process is a mystery, but in its practical bearing is understood
from analogy. The Tabernacle was truly God's _creation_, because it was
all commanded in design and "pattern" by the Almighty before Moses put
together the materials that realized the pattern in the camp of Israel.]

The reason why it is the _essential_ part, is, that when once the Divine
command issued, the result followed inevitably--that will "go without
saying."

In human affairs, also, we speak of the architect having _created_ the
palace or cathedral, or the ironclad; meaning thereby not the slow
process of cutting and joining stone, or riveting steel plates, but the
higher antecedent act of mind in evoking the ideal form and providing
for all contingencies in the adaptation and subsequent working of the
finished structure. And if we limit this use of the term "creation"
somewhat in speaking of human works, it is because the concept of the
human mind so often fails of realization; that it is one thing to
design, and another to accomplish. The grandest design for a palace may
fail to s