lower degrees of manifestation is not equal to the intelligence of the
complex _whole_, as a whole. This is a radical law which we cannot
impress upon our minds too deeply. The degree of spiritual intelligence
is marked by the wholeness of the organism through which it finds
expression; and therefore the more highly organised being has a degree
of spirit which is superior to, and consequently capable of exercising
control over, all lower or less fully-integrated degrees of spirit; and
this being so, we can now begin to see why the spirit that is the
"innermost within" of all things is responsive as well as intelligent.

Being intelligent, it _knows_, and spirit being ultimately all there is,
that which it knows is itself. Hence it is that power which recognises
itself; and accordingly the lower powers of it recognise its higher
powers, and by the law of attraction they are bound to respond to the
higher degrees of themselves. On this general principle, therefore,
spirit, under whatever exterior revealed, is necessarily intelligent and
responsive. But intelligence and responsiveness imply personality; and
we may therefore now advance a step further and argue that _all_ spirit
contains the elements of personality, even though, in any particular
instance, it may not yet be expressed as that individual personality
which we find in ourselves.

In short, spirit is always personal in its nature, even when it has not
yet attained to that degree of synthesis which is sufficient to render
it personal in manifestation. In ourselves the synthesis has proceeded
far enough to reach that degree, and therefore we recognise ourselves as
the manifestation of personality. The human kingdom is the kingdom of
the manifestation of that personality, which is of the essence of
spiritual substance on every plane. Or, to put the whole argument in a
simpler form, we may say that our own personality must necessarily have
had its origin in that which is personal, on the principle that you
cannot get more out of a bag than it contains.

In ourselves, therefore, we find that more perfect synthesis of the
spirit into manifested personality which is wanting in the lower
kingdoms of nature, and, accordingly, since spirit is necessarily that
which knows itself and must, therefore, recognise its own degrees in its
various modes, the spirit in all degrees below that of human personality
is bound to respond to itself in that superior degree which constit