Besides Creator and creature, nothing else can be; and whatever else seems to be, must be only a seeming. Nature, therefore, is the shadow of a shade, but it serves an indispensable use. For since there can be no direct communication between finite and Infinite--God and man--a medium or common ground is needed, where they may meet; and nature, the shadow which the Infinite causes the finite to project, is just that medium. Man, looking upon this shadow, mistakes it for real substance, serving him for foothold and background, and assisting him to attain self-consciousness. God, on the other hand, finds in nature the means of revealing Himself to His creature without compromising the creature's freedom. Man supposes the universe to be a physical structure made by God in space and time, and in some region of which He resides, at a safe distance from us His creatures: whereas, in truth, God is distant from us only so far as we remove ourselves from our own inmost intuitions of truth and good. But what is that substance or quality which underlies and gives homogeneity to the varying forms of nature, so that they seem to us to own a common origin?--what is that logical abstraction upon which we have bestowed the name of matter? scientific analysis finds matter only as forms, never as itself: until, in despair, it invents an atomic theory, and lets it go at that. But if, discarding the scientific method, we question matter from the philosophical standpoint, we shall find it less obdurate. Man, considered as a mind or spirit, consists of volition and intelligence; or, what is the same, of emotion or affection, and of the thoughts which are created by this affection. Nothing can be affirmed of man as a spirit which does not fall under one or other of these two parts. Now, a creature consisting solely of affections and thoughts must, of course, have something to love and to think about. Man's final destiny is no doubt to love and consider his Creator; but that can only be after a reactionary or regenerative process has begun in him. Meanwhile, he must love and consider the only other available object--that is, himself. Manifestly, however, in order to bestow this attention upon himself, he must first be made aware of his own existence. In order to effect this, something must be added to man as spirit, enabling him to discriminate between the subject thinking and loving, and the object loved and thought of. This additional something, again, in order to fulfill its purpose, must be so devised as not to appear an addition: it must seem even more truly the man than the man himself. It must, therefore, perfectly represent or correspond to the spiritual form and constitution; so that the thoughts and affections of the spirit may enter into it as into their natural home and continent.