________________
THE TRUTH
87
25—THE ORGANISING FORCES OF
THE BODY
There is a striking correspondence between our impulses and the capacities of the organism to gratify them. The grasping hand is intended to gratify the impulse that would seize its object, the feet, to enable the individual to approach an object of desire or escape from an enemy; the stomach is to receive and digest the nourishment taken.
Why this correspondence? Whence this correspondence, if the organizing forces are not the individual impulses themselves ?
The impulses survive; they cannot be wiped out with death; for they are rooted in the being of the soul which is immortal. They are active longings, and not mere inert rubbish. They must be doing something when the embryo is in the process of development in the mother's womb. But what else can they be doing there except shaping the bodily limbs and organs by their agitation and vibrations ?
It is obvious that some force or forces must be there in operation at the time in the mother's womb. It is also obvious now that the soul itself is present-must be present–in the womb when the organism is being built up. The soul is not a quiescent, un-moving idle substance; it is in association with matter, and in a constant
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