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THE STRESS OF THE HIDDEN SPIRIT
force, a discernible momentum and say "Here is an entity called Law or Nature.” The seed evolves a tree because tree is the idea involved in the seed ; it is a process of manifestation in form, not a creation. If there were no insistent idea we should have a world of chances and freaks, not a world of law-there would be no such idea as the nature of things, if there were not an originating and ordering intelligence manifesting a particular idea in forms. And the form varies, is born, perishes, the idea is eternal. The form is the manifestation or appearance, the idea is the truth. The form is phenomenon, the idea is reality.
Therefore in all things the Hindu thinker sees the stress of the hidden spirit. We see it as Prajna, the universal Intelligence, conscious in things unconscious, active in things inert. The energy of Prajna is what the Europeans call Nature. The tree does not and cannot shape itself, the stress of the hidden Intelligence shapes
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