Iii — Embryons
“The form is in the archetype before it appears in the work, in the divine mind before it exists in the creature.”
As the male impregnates the female, so mind charges matter with form and fecundity; the spermatic world being life in transmission and body in embryo; the egg a genesis and seminary of forms, the kingdoms of animated nature sleeping coiled in its yolk, and awaiting the quickening magnetism that ushers them into light. Herein the human embryon unfolds in series the lineaments of all forms in the living hierarchy, to be fixed at last in its microcosm, unreeling therefrom its faculties into filamental organs, spinning so minutely the threads, “that were it physically possible to dissolve away all other members of the body, there would still remain the full and perfect figure of a man. And it is this perfect cerebro-spinal axis, this statue-like tissue of filaments, that, physically speaking, is the man.”L The mind contains him spiritually, and reveals him physically to himself and his kind. Every creature assists in its own formation, souls being essentially creative and craving form.
“The creature ever delights in the image of the Creator;
And the soul of man will in a manner clasp God to herself;
Having nothing mortal, she is wholly inebriated of God;
For she glories in the harmony under which the human body exists.”
Throughout the domain of spirit desire creates substance wherein all creatures seek conjunction, lodging and nurture. Nor is there anything in nature save desire holding substances together, all things being dissolvable and recombinable in this spiritual menstruum.
“’Tis the blossom whence there blows
Everything that lives and grows;
It doth make the heavens to move
And the sun to burn in love:
The strong to weak it seeks to yoke,
And makes the ivy climb the oak,
Under whose shadows lions wild,
Softened thereby grow tame and mild.
It all medicine doth appease,
It burns the fishes in the seas,
Not all the skill its wounds can stanch,
Not all the sea its thirst can quench:
It did make the bloody spear
Once a leafy coat to wear,
While in his leaves there shrouded lay
Sweet birds for love that sing and play;
And of all the joyful flame,
Bud and blossom this we name.”