And if man is the final point of progress in the world of nature, he is, in his primitive state, only at the threshold of the spiritual world.

But he is not an entire stranger to the spiritual--the germ is in him, and the spiritual is consequently not an alien world for him.

If the spiritual were something entirely foreign it would be vain to expect much progress through mere impulses from without.

On the contrary, it is the spiritual that makes man really great, and is the most fundamental part of his nature.
The two stages of life, then, are present in man--the natural and the spiritual; the former highly developed, the latter, at first, in an undeveloped state.
Now the great aim of the universe is to pass gradually from the natural to the spiritual plane of life.

This does not mean that the latter is the product of the former stage, for this is not the case.