An evolution which is absolutely continuous, and in which the present is the necessary outcome of the past, and that by degrees infinitely small, may be a manifestation of unconscious force, but can not be a manifestation of living Will. If nature be a manifestation of God--the unfolding of an eternal purpose of Love--this manifestation must ever be open to receive _new_ additions, the intercalation of new principles, and the superinduction of new laws working for a nobler end. All limitations from the scientific stand-point are illogical and absurd. This law would determine our conception of the universe as an aggregation of combined evolutions from several intermediate principles or beginnings, rather than an evolution from a single first matter or first force. _The creation of the new_, whether as primordial element, or primary force, or principle of life, or rational soul, is the fundamental idea of the _supernatural_--that is, the production of something which is not a necessary out-birth from pre-existing conditions and laws.[185] Therefore what is commonly, though perhaps incorrectly, styled "miraculous interposition," must itself be a law of the Divine manifestation, and the law of uniformity must be subordinated to the more general law of progressive development, which subordinates the inorganic to the organic, the physical to the moral world. 3. _This manifestation must be_ CONSECUTIVE. _Not only must it be a succession of steps or phases, but the entire series must be so related and concatenated as to present an Order of Thought--an ascending development toward a foreseen and predetermined end._ If it were not so, every thing would be _isolated_ and _disconnected_, and consequently unintelligible. There would be a succession of phenomena, but no manifestation of thought; a series of dissolving views presented to the sense, but no revelation to the understanding. Isolated phenomenal changes might be continued through untold ages, but the past would have no connection with the present, and would be unknown and lost to all the future. A revelation of the Infinite Mind to finite intelligences, made through the manifold and diversified phenomena of nature, must be a connected and related whole, so that from phenomena actually observed we may infer antecedent conditions, and anticipate future evolutions; otherwise it could not be understood. To be intelligible, a process of development must be the product of thought, and it must reveal thought--that is, it must be _consecutive_.[186] 4. _This manifestation must be_ HARMONIOUS. _Notwithstanding its multiplicity of parts and manifold stages, it must be a unity--a Cosmos._