Unity means Uniformity. St. Paul puts
this very clearly when he says, if the whole body be an eye, where would
be the hearing, etc. (1 Cor. xii, 14). How could you paint a picture
without distinction of form, colour, or tone? Diversity in Unity is the
necessity for any sort of expression, and if it be the case in our own
bodies, as St. Paul points out, how much more so in the expressing of
the Eternal Life through endless ages and limitless space! Once we grasp
this idea of the unity and progressiveness of Life going on _ad
infinitum_, what boundless vistas of possibility open before us. It
would be enough to stagger the imagination were it not for our old
friends, the Law and the Word. But these will always accompany us, and
we may rely upon them in all worlds and under all conditions. This Law
of Unity is what in natural science is known as the Law of Continuity,
and the Ancient Wisdom has embodied it in the Hermetic axiom "Sicut
superius, sicut inferius; sicut inferius, sicut superius"--As above, so
below; as below, so above. It leads us on from stage to stage, unfolding
as it goes; and to this unfolding there is no end, for it is the Eternal
Life finding ever fuller expression, as it can find more and more
suitable channels through which to express itself. It can no more come
to an end than numbers can come to an end.

But it _must_ find suitable channels. Let there be no mistake about
this. Perhaps some one may say: Cannot it _make_ suitable channels for
any sort of expression that it needs? The answer is, that it can, and it
does so up to a certain point. As we have seen, the Word, Thought, or
Initial Impulse of the Ever-Living Spirit starts a centre of cosmic
activity in which the mathematical element of Law at once asserts
itself; thenceforward everything goes on according to certain broad
principles of sequence. This is a Generic Creation, creation according
to _genera_ or classes, like the "archetypal ideas" of Plato. This
creation is governed by a Law of Averages, and the legal maxim "De
minimis non curat lex"--the Law cannot trouble about minorities--applies
to it. This generic law keeps the class going, and slowly advancing,
simply as a class, but it can take no notice of individuals as such. As
Tennyson puts it in "In Memoriam," speaking of Nature:

"So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life."

This mode of creation reaches its highest level, at any rate in our
world, in