For those who accept revelation, a third and a distinct mode of being and of action is also made known, namely, the direct and immediate or, in the sense here given to the term, the supernatural.

An analogous relationship runs through and connects all these modes of being and of action.

The higher mode in each case employs and makes use of the lower, the action of which it occasionally suspends or alters, as gravity is suspended by electro-magnetic action, or the living energy of an organic being restrains the inter-actions of the chemical affinities belonging to its various constituents.
Thus conscious will controls and directs the exercise of the vital functions according to desire, and moral consciousness tends to control desire in obedience to higher dictates.[312] The action of living {287} organisms depends upon and subsumes the laws of inorganic matter.

Similarly the actions of animal life depend upon and subsume the laws of organic matter.

In the same way the actions of a self-conscious moral agent, such as man, depend upon and subsume the laws of animal life.