scious identity of the
individual. But there is no reason why this law should cease to operate
at this point, or at any point short of the whole. The test of the
soundness of any principle is that it can operate as effectively on a
large scale as on a small one, that though the nature of its field is
determined by the nature of the principle itself, the extent of its
field is unlimited. If, therefore, we continue to follow up the law we
have been considering, it leads us to the conception of a unit of
intelligence as far superior to that of the individual man as the unity
of his individual intelligence is superior to that of the intelligence
of any single atom of his body; and thus we may conceive of a collective
individuality representing the spiritual character of any aggregate of
men, the inhabitants of a city, a district, a country, or of the entire
world.

Nor need the process stop here. On the same principle there would be a
superior collective individuality for the humanity of the entire solar
system, and finally we reach the conception of a supreme intelligence
bringing together in itself the collective individualities of all the
systems in the universe. This is by no means a merely fanciful notion.
We find it as the law by which our own conscious individuality is
constituted; and we find the analogous principle working universally on
the physical plane. It is known to physical science as the "law of
inverse squares," by which the forces of reciprocal attraction or
repulsion, as the case may be, are not merely equivalent to the sum of
the forces emitted by the two bodies concerned, but are equivalent to
these two forces multiplied together and divided by the square of the
distance between them, so that the resultant power continually rises in
a rapidly-increasing ratio as the two reciprocally exciting bodies
approach one another.

Since this law is so universal throughout physical nature, the doctrine
of continuity affords every ground for supposing that its analogue holds
good in respect of spiritual nature. We must never lose sight of the
old-world saying that "a truth on one plane is a truth on all." If a
principle exists at all it exists universally. We must not allow
ourselves to be misled by appearances; we must remember that the
perceptible results of the working of any principle consist of two
factors--the principle itself or the active factor, and the
subject-matter on which it acts or the passive fac