This shows us that in essence the thing already existed in the thought. Omega is already potential in Alpha, just as in the Pythagorean system all numbers are said to proceed from unity and to be resolvable back again into it. Now it is this general principle of the already existence of the thing in the thought that we have to lay hold of, and as we find it true in an architect's design of the house that is to be, so we find it true in the great work of the Architect of the Universe.

When we see this we have realised a general principle which we find at work everywhere. That is the meaning of a general principle: it can be applied to any sort of subject; and the use of studying general principles is to give them particular application to anything we may have to deal with. Now what we have to deal with most of all is ourselves, and so we come to the consideration of Alpha and Omega in the human being.

But if we grasp the truth that the thing is already in the thought, do we not see that this transcendent Omega must be already existent in the Divine ideal of every one of us? If time does not exist on the plane of the absolute, does it not follow that this glorified humanity is a present fact in the Divine Mind? And if this is so, then this fact is eternally true regarding every human being. If it is true that the thing exists in the thought, it is equally true that the thought finds form in the thing; and since things exist under the relative conditions of time and space, they are necessarily subject to a law of Growth, so that while the subsistence of the thing in the thought is perfect ab initio, the expression of the thought in the thing is a matter of gradual development.

Our share in this work commences with the recognition of the Divine ideal of man, and thus finding the pattern by which we are to be guided. For since the person to be created after this pattern is oneself, it follows that, by whatever process the Divine ideal transforms itself into concrete reality, the place where this process is to work must be within ourselves: in other words, the creative action of the Spirit takes place through the laws of our own mentality. If it is a true maxim that the thing must take form in the thought before the thought can take form in the thing, then it is plain that the Divine Ideal can only be externalised in our objective life in proportion as it is first formed in our thought; and it takes form in our thought only to the extent to which we apprehend its existence in the Divine Mind.

By the nature of the relation between the individual mind and the Universal Mind, it is strictly a case of reflection; and in proportion as the mirror of our own mind blurs or clearly reflects the image of the Divine ideal, so will it give rise to a correspondingly feeble or vigorous reproduction of it in our external life.

This being the rationale of the matter, why should we limit our conception of the Divine ideal of ourselves? Why should we say, "I am too mean a creature ever to reflect so glorious an image", or, "God never intended such a limitless ideal to be reproduced in human beings". In saying such things we expose our ignorance of the whole Law of the Creative Process. We shut our eyes to the fact that the Omega of completion already subsists in the Alpha of conception, and that the Alpha of conception would be nothing but a lying illusion if it was not capable of expression in the Omega of completion. The creative process in us is that we become the individual reflection of what we realise God to be relatively to ourselves, and therefore if we realise the Divine Spirit as the infinite potential of all that can constitute a perfected human being, this conception must, by the Law of the Creative Process, gradually build up a corresponding image in our mind, which in turn will act upon our external conditions.

Now the fact which, in our past experience, we have not grasped is that the human mind forms a new point of departure for the work of the Creative Spirit; and in proportion as we see this more and more clearly, the more we shall find ourselves entering into a new order of life in which we become less and less subject to the old limitations. This is not a reward arbitrarily bestowed upon us for holding dogmatically to certain mere verbal statements. It is the natural result of understanding the supreme law of our own being. On its own plane it is as purely scientific as the law of chemical reaction; only here we are not dealing with the interaction of secondary causes, but with the Self-originating action of Spirit. Hence a new force has to be taken into account which does not occur in physical science: the power of Feeling.

Thought creates form, but it is feeling that gives vitality to thought. Thought without feeling may be constructive as in some great engineering work, but it can never be creative as in the work of the artist or musician; and that which originates within itself a new order of causation is, so far as all pre-existing forms are concerned, a creation ex nihilo, and is therefore Thought expressive of Feeling. It is this indissoluble union of Thought and Feeling that distinguishes creative thought from merely analytical thought and places it in a different category. Therefore, if we are to afford a new starting point for carrying on the work of creation, it must be by assimilating the feeling of the Originating Spirit as part and parcel of its thought — it is that entering into the Mind of the Spirit of which I spoke in the first address.

Now the images in the Mind of the Spirit must necessarily be generic. The reason for this is that by its very nature the Principle of Life must be prolific — that is, tending to Multiplicity; and therefore the original Thought-image must be fundamental to whole races, and not exclusive to particular individuals. Consequently the images in the Mind of the Spirit must be absolute types of the true essentials of the perfect development of the race — just what Plato meant by archetypal ideas. This is the perfect subsistence of the thing in the thought. Therefore it is that our evolution as centres of creative activity, the exponents of new laws and through them of new conditions, depends on our realising in the Divine Mind the archetype of mental perfection, at once as thought and feeling.

But, as I have said, it is simply generic in itself, and it becomes active and specific only by a purely personal relation to the individual. But once more we must realise that nothing can take place except according to Law, and therefore this specific relation is nothing arbitrary, but arises out of the generic Law applied under specific conditions. And since what makes a law generic is precisely the fact that it does not supply the specific conditions, it follows that the conditions for the specialising of the Law must be provided by the individual. Then it is that his recognition of the originating creative movement, as arising from combined Thought and Feeling, becomes a practical working asset. The individual realises that there is a Heart and Mind of the Spirit reciprocal to his own heart and mind; that he is not dealing with a flimsy abstraction, nor yet with a mere mathematical sequence, but with something that is pulsating with a Life as warm and vivid and full of interest as his own — nay, more so, for it is the Infinite of all that he himself is.

And his recognition goes even further than this, for since this specialisation can only take place through the individual himself, it logically follows that the Life, which he thus specialises, becomes his own life. Quoad the individual it does not know itself apart from him. But this self-recognition through the individual cannot in any way change the inherent nature of the Creative Spirit, and therefore to the extent to which the individual perceives its identification with himself, he places himself under its guidance, and so he becomes one of those who are "led by the Spirit". Thus he begins to find the Alpha and Omega of the Divine ideal reproduced in himself — in a very small degree at present, but containing the principle of perpetual growth into an infinite expansion of which we can as yet form no conception.

St John sums up the whole of this position in his memorable words: "Beloved now are we the Sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear (i.e. become clear to us) we shall be like Him; for (i.e. the reason for all this) we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).