initial commit of ebook 25638HEADmain

10 files changed, 17160 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/25638-8.txt b/25638-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f7f3a71
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25638-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5657 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hidden Power, by Thomas Troward
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Hidden Power
+       And Other Papers upon Mental Science
+
+
+Author: Thomas Troward
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 29, 2008  [eBook #25638]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIDDEN POWER***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
+   as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
+   typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the
+   like) have been corrected. Corrections [in brackets] in the
+   text are explained in a note at the end of the book.
+
+   Numbers within curly brackets preceded by a carat character were
+   superscripted in the original. Example: X^{2}.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HIDDEN POWER
+
+And Other Papers upon Mental Science
+
+by
+
+T. TROWARD
+
+Late Divisional Judge, Punjab. Honorary Member of the
+Medico-Legal Society of New York. First Vice-President
+International New Thought Alliance
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Robert M. McBride & Company
+
+Copyright, 1921, by S. A. Troward
+All rights reserved
+
+Sixth Printing September 1936
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHER'S NOTE
+
+
+The material comprised in this volume has been selected from unpublished
+manuscripts and magazine articles by Judge Troward, and "The Hidden
+Power" is, it is believed, the last book which will be published under
+his name. Only an insignificant portion of his work has been deemed
+unworthy of permanent preservation. Whenever possible, dates have been
+affixed to these papers. Those published in 1902 appeared originally in
+"EXPRESSION: A Journal of Mind and Thought," in London, and to some of
+these have been added notes made later by the author.
+
+The Publishers wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to Mr. Daniel M.
+Murphy of New York for his services in the selection and arrangement of
+the material.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                                     PAGE
+
+      I The Hidden Power                                        1
+
+     II The Perversion of Truth                                42
+
+    III The "I Am"                                             59
+
+     IV Affirmative Power                                      63
+
+      V Submission                                             67
+
+     VI Completeness                                           74
+
+    VII The Principle of Guidance                              81
+
+   VIII Desire as the Motive Power                             85
+
+     IX Touching Lightly                                       92
+
+      X Present Truth                                          96
+
+     XI Yourself                                               99
+
+    XII Religious Opinions                                    105
+
+   XIII A Lesson from Browning                                113
+
+    XIV The Spirit of Opulence                                118
+
+     XV Beauty                                                123
+
+    XVI Separation and Unity                                  129
+
+   XVII Externalisation                                       141
+
+  XVIII Entering into the Spirit of It                        146
+
+    XIX The Bible and the New Thought
+          I. The Son                                          153
+         II. The Great Affirmation                            166
+        III. The Father                                       178
+         IV. Conclusion                                       185
+
+     XX Jachin and Boaz                                       192
+
+    XXI Hephzibah                                             197
+
+   XXII Mind and Hand                                         204
+
+  XXIII The Central Control                                   209
+
+   XXIV What is Higher Thought                                213
+
+    XXV Fragments                                             215
+
+
+
+
+THE HIDDEN POWER AND OTHER ESSAYS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE HIDDEN POWER
+
+
+To realise fully how much of our present daily life consists in symbols
+is to find the answer to the old, old question, What is Truth? and in
+the degree in which we begin to recognise this we begin to approach
+Truth. The realisation of Truth consists in the ability to translate
+symbols, whether natural or conventional, into their equivalents; and
+the root of all the errors of mankind consists in the inability to do
+this, and in maintaining that the symbol has nothing behind it. The
+great duty incumbent on all who have attained to this knowledge is to
+impress upon their fellow men that there is an _inner side_ to things,
+and that until this _inner_ side is known, the things themselves are not
+known.
+
+There is an inner and an outer side to everything; and the quality of
+the superficial mind which causes it to fail in the attainment of Truth
+is its willingness to rest content with the outside only. So long as
+this is the case it is impossible for a man to grasp the import of his
+own relation to the universal, and it is this relation which constitutes
+all that is signified by the word "Truth." So long as a man fixes his
+attention only on the superficial it is impossible for him to make any
+progress in knowledge. He is denying that principle of "Growth" which is
+the root of all life, whether spiritual intellectual, or material, for
+he does not stop to reflect that all which he sees as the outer side of
+things can result only from some germinal principle hidden deep in the
+centre of their being.
+
+Expansion from the centre by growth according to a necessary order of
+sequence, this is the Law of Life of which the whole universe is the
+outcome, alike in the one great solidarity of cosmic being, as in the
+separate individualities of its minutest organisms. This great principle
+is the key to the whole riddle of Life, upon whatever plane we
+contemplate it; and without this key the door from the outer to the
+inner side of things can never be opened. It is therefore the duty of
+all to whom this door has, at least in some measure, been opened, to
+endeavour to acquaint others with the fact that there is an inner side
+to things, and that life becomes truer and fuller in proportion as we
+penetrate to it and make our estimates of all things according to what
+becomes visible from this interior point of view.
+
+In the widest sense everything is a symbol of that which constitutes its
+inner being, and all Nature is a gallery of arcana revealing great
+truths to those who can decipher them. But there is a more precise
+sense in which our current life is based upon symbols in regard to the
+most important subjects that can occupy our thoughts: the symbols by
+which we strive to represent the nature and being of God, and the manner
+in which the life of man is related to the Divine life. The whole
+character of a man's life results from what he really believes on this
+subject: not his formal statement of belief in a particular creed, but
+what he realises as the stage which his mind has actually attained in
+regard to it.
+
+Has a man's mind only reached the point at which he thinks it is
+impossible to know anything about God, or to make any use of the
+knowledge if he had it? Then his whole interior world is in the
+condition of confusion, which must necessarily exist where no spirit of
+order has yet begun to move upon the chaos in which are, indeed, the
+elements of being, but all disordered and neutralising one another. Has
+he advanced a step further, and realised that there is a ruling and an
+ordering power, but beyond this is ignorant of its nature? Then the
+unknown stands to him for the terrific, and, amid a tumult of fears and
+distresses that deprive him of all strength to advance, he spends his
+life in the endeavour to propitiate this power as something naturally
+adverse to him, instead of knowing that it is the very centre of his own
+life and being.
+
+And so on through every degree, from the lowest depths of ignorance to
+the greatest heights of intelligence, a man's life must always be the
+exact reflection of that particular stage which he has reached in the
+perception of the divine nature and of his own relation to it; and as we
+approach the full perception of Truth, so the life-principle within us
+expands, the old bonds and limitations which had no existence in reality
+fall off from us, and we enter into regions of light, liberty, and
+power, of which we had previously no conception. It is impossible,
+therefore, to overestimate the importance of being able to realise the
+symbol _for_ a symbol, and being able to penetrate to the inner
+substance which it represents. Life itself is to be realised only by the
+conscious experience of its livingness in ourselves, and it is the
+endeavour to translate these experiences into terms which shall suggest
+a corresponding idea to others that gives rise to all symbolism.
+
+The nearer those we address have approached to the actual experience,
+the more transparent the symbol becomes; and the further they are from
+such experience the thicker is the veil; and our whole progress consists
+in the fuller and fuller translation of the symbols into clearer and
+clearer statements of that for which they stand. But the first step,
+without which all succeeding ones must remain impossible, is to convince
+people that symbols _are_ symbols, and not the very Truth itself. And
+the difficulty consists in this, that if the symbolism is in any degree
+adequate it must, in some measure, represent the form of Truth, just as
+the modelling of a drapery suggests the form of the figure beneath. They
+have a certain consciousness that somehow they are in the presence of
+Truth; and this leads people to resent any removal of those folds of
+drapery which have hitherto conveyed this idea to their minds.
+
+There is sufficient indication of the inner Truth in the outward form to
+afford an excuse for the timorous, and those who have not sufficient
+mental energy to think for themselves, to cry out that finality has
+already been attained, and that any further search into the matter must
+end in the destruction of Truth. But in raising such an outcry they
+betray their ignorance of the very nature of Truth, which is that it can
+never be destroyed: the very fact that Truth is Truth makes this
+impossible. And again they exhibit their ignorance of the first
+principle of Life--namely, the Law of Growth, which throughout the
+universe perpetually pushes forward into more and more vivid forms of
+expression, having expansion everywhere and finality nowhere.
+
+Such ignorant objections need not, therefore, alarm us; and we should
+endeavour to show those who make them that what they fear is the only
+natural order of the Divine Life, which is "over all, and through all,
+and in all." But we must do this gently, and not by forcibly thrusting
+upon them the object of their terror, and so repelling them from all
+study of the subject. We should endeavour gradually to lead them to see
+that there is something interior to what they have hitherto held to be
+ultimate Truth, and to realise that the sensation of emptiness and
+dissatisfaction, which from time to time will persist in making itself
+felt in their hearts, is nothing else than the pressing forward of the
+spirit within to declare that inner side of things which alone can
+satisfactorily account for what we observe on the exterior, and without
+the knowledge of which we can never perceive the true nature of our
+inheritance in the Universal Life which is the Life Everlasting.
+
+
+II
+
+What, then, is this central principle which is at the root of all
+things? It is Life. But not life as we recognise it in particular forms
+of manifestation; it is something more interior and concentrated than
+that. It is that "unity of the spirit" which _is_ unity, simply because
+it has not yet passed into diversity. Perhaps this is not an easy idea
+to grasp, but it is the root of all scientific conception of spirit; for
+without it there is no common principle to which we can refer the
+innumerable forms of manifestation that spirit assumes.
+
+It is the conception of Life as the sum-total of all its undistributed
+powers, being as yet none of these in particular, but all of them in
+potentiality. This is, no doubt, a highly abstract idea, but it is
+essentially that of the centre from which growth takes place by
+expansion in every direction. This is that last residuum which defies
+all our powers of analysis. This is truly "the unknowable," not in the
+sense of the unthinkable but of the unanalysable. It is the subject of
+perception, not of knowledge, if by knowledge we mean that faculty which
+estimates the _relations_ between things, because here we have passed
+beyond any questions of relations, and are face to face with the
+absolute.
+
+This innermost of all is absolute Spirit. It is Life as yet not
+differentiated into any specific mode; it is the universal Life which
+pervades all things and is at the heart of all appearances.
+
+To come into the knowledge of this is to come into the secret of power,
+and to enter into the secret place of Living Spirit. Is it illogical
+first to call this the unknowable, and then to speak of coming into the
+knowledge of it? Perhaps so; but no less a writer than St. Paul has set
+the example; for does he not speak of the final result of all searchings
+into the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the inner side
+of things as being, to attain the knowledge of that Love which passeth
+knowledge. If he is thus boldly illogical in phrase, though not in fact,
+may we not also speak of knowing "the unknowable"? We may, for this
+knowledge is the root of all other knowledge.
+
+The presence of this undifferentiated universal life-power is the final
+axiomatic fact to which all our analysis must ultimately conduct us. On
+whatever plane we make our analysis it must always abut upon pure
+essence, pure energy, pure being; that which knows itself and recognises
+itself, but which cannot dissect itself because it is not built up of
+parts, but is ultimately integral: it is pure Unity. But analysis which
+does not lead to synthesis is merely destructive: it is the child
+wantonly pulling the flower to pieces and throwing away the fragments;
+not the botanist, also pulling the flower to pieces, but building up in
+his mind from those carefully studied fragments a vast synthesis of the
+constructive power of Nature, embracing the laws of the formation of all
+flower-forms. The value of analysis is to lead us to the original
+starting-point of that which we analyse, and so to teach us the laws by
+which its final form springs from this centre.
+
+Knowing the law of its construction, we turn our analysis into a
+synthesis, and we thus gain a power of building up which must always be
+beyond the reach of those who regard "the unknowable" as one with
+"not-being."
+
+_This_ idea of the unknowable is the root of all materialism; and yet no
+scientific man, however materialistic his proclivities, treats the
+unanalysable residuum thus when he meets it in the experiments of his
+laboratory. On the contrary, he makes this final unanalysable fact the
+basis of his synthesis. He finds that in the last resort it is energy of
+some kind, whether as heat or as motion; but he does not throw up his
+scientific pursuits because he cannot analyse it further. He adopts the
+precisely opposite course, and realises that the conservation of energy,
+its indestructibility, and the impossibility of adding to or detracting
+from the sum-total of energy in the world, is the one solid and
+unchanging fact on which alone the edifice of physical science can be
+built up. He bases all his knowledge upon his knowledge of "the
+unknowable." And rightly so, for if he could analyse this energy into
+yet further factors, then the same problem of "the unknowable" would
+meet him still. All our progress consists in continually pushing the
+unknowable, in the sense of the unanalysable residuum, a step further
+back; but that there should be no ultimate unanalysable residuum
+anywhere is an inconceivable idea.
+
+In thus realising the undifferentiated unity of Living Spirit as the
+central fact of any system, whether the system of the entire universe or
+of a single organism, we are therefore following a strictly scientific
+method. We pursue our analysis until it necessarily leads us to this
+final fact, and then we accept this fact as the basis of our synthesis.
+The Science of Spirit is thus not one whit less scientific than the
+Science of Matter; and, moreover, it starts from the same initial fact,
+the fact of a living energy which defies definition or explanation,
+wherever we find it; but it differs from the science of matter in that
+it contemplates this energy under an aspect of responsive intelligence
+which does not fall within the scope of physical science, as such. The
+Science of Spirit and the Science of Matter are not opposed. They are
+complementaries, and neither is fully comprehensible without some
+knowledge of the other; and, being really but two portions of one whole,
+they insensibly shade off into each other in a border-land where no
+arbitrary line can be drawn between them. Science studied in a truly
+scientific spirit, following out its own deductions unflinchingly to
+their legitimate conclusions, will always reveal the twofold aspect of
+things, the inner and the outer; and it is only a truncated and maimed
+science that refuses to recognise both.
+
+The study of the material world is not Materialism, if it be allowed to
+progress to its legitimate issue. Materialism is that limited view of
+the universe which will not admit the existence of anything but
+mechanical effects of mechanical causes, and a system which recognises
+no higher power than the physical forces of nature must logically result
+in having no higher ultimate appeal than to physical force or to fraud
+as its alternative. I speak, of course, of the tendency of the system,
+not of the morality of individuals, who are often very far in advance of
+the systems they profess. But as we would avoid the propagation of a
+mode of thought whose effects history shows only too plainly, whether in
+the Italy of the Borgias, or the France of the First Revolution, or the
+Commune of the Franco-Prussian War, we should set ourselves to study
+that inner and spiritual aspect of things which is the basis of a system
+whose logical results are truth and love instead of perfidy and
+violence.
+
+Some of us, doubtless, have often wondered why the Heavenly Jerusalem is
+described in the Book of Revelations as a cube; "the length and the
+breadth and the height of it are equal." This is because the cube is the
+figure of perfect stability, and thus represents Truth, which can never
+be overthrown. Turn it on what side you will, it still remains the
+perfect cube, always standing upright; you cannot upset it. This figure,
+then, represents the manifestation in concrete solidity of that central
+life-giving energy, which is not itself any one plane but generates all
+planes, the planes of the above and of the below and of all four sides.
+But it is at the same time a city, a place of habitation; and this is
+because that which is "the within" is Living Spirit, which has its
+dwelling there.
+
+As one plane of the cube implies all the other planes and also "the
+within," so any plane of manifestation implies the others and also that
+"within" which generates them all. Now, if we would make any progress in
+the spiritual side of science--and _every_ department of science has its
+spiritual side--we must always keep our minds fixed upon this "innermost
+within" which contains the potential of all outward manifestation, the
+"fourth dimension" which generates the cube; and our common forms of
+speech show how intuitively we do this. We speak of the spirit in which
+an act is done, of entering into the spirit of a game, of the spirit of
+the time, and so on. Everywhere our intuition points out the spirit as
+the true essence of things; and it is only when we commence arguing
+about them from without, instead of from within, that our true
+perception of their nature is lost.
+
+The scientific study of spirit consists in following up intelligently
+and according to definite method the same principle that now only
+flashes upon us at intervals fitfully and vaguely. When we once realise
+that this universal and unlimited power of spirit is at the root of all
+things and of ourselves also, then we have obtained the key to the whole
+position; and, however far we may carry our studies in spiritual
+science, we shall nowhere find anything else but particular developments
+of this one universal principle. "The Kingdom of Heaven is _within_
+you."
+
+
+III
+
+I have laid stress on the fact that the "innermost within" of all things
+is living Spirit, and that the Science of Spirit is distinguished from
+the Science of Matter in that it contemplates Energy under an aspect of
+responsive intelligence which does not fall within the scope of physical
+science, as such. These are the two great points to lay hold of if we
+would retain a clear idea of Spiritual Science, and not be misled by
+arguments drawn from the physical side of Science only--the livingness
+of the originating principle which is at the heart of all things, and
+its intelligent and responsive nature. Its livingness is patent to our
+observation, at any rate from the point where we recognise it in the
+vegetable kingdom; but its intelligence and responsiveness are not,
+perhaps, at once so obvious. Nevertheless, a little thought will soon
+lead us to recognise this also.
+
+No one can deny that there is an intelligent order throughout all
+nature, for it requires the highest intelligence of our most
+highly-trained minds to follow the steps of this universal intelligence
+which is always in advance of them. The more deeply we investigate the
+world we live in, the more clear it must become to us that all our
+science is the translation into words or numerical symbols of that order
+which already exists. If the clear statement of this existing order is
+the highest that the human intellect can reach, this surely argues a
+corresponding intelligence in the power which gives rise to this great
+sequence of order and interrelation, so as to constitute one harmonious
+whole. Now, unless we fall back on the idea of a workman working upon
+material external to himself--in which case we have to explain the
+phenomenon of the workman--the only conception we can form of this power
+is that it is the Living Spirit inherent in the heart of every atom,
+giving it outward form and definition, and becoming in it those
+intrinsic polarities which constitute its characteristic nature.
+
+There is no random work here. Every attraction and repulsion acts with
+its proper force collecting the atoms into molecules, the molecules into
+tissues, the tissues into organs, and the organs into individuals. At
+each stage of the progress we get the sum of the intelligent forces
+which operate in the constituent parts, _plus_ a higher degree of
+intelligence which we may regard as the collective intelligence superior
+to that of the mere sum-total of the parts, something which belongs to
+the individual _as a whole_, and not to the parts as such. These are
+facts which can be amply proved from physical science; and they also
+supply a great law in spiritual science, which is that in any collective
+body the intelligence of the whole is superior to that of the sum of the
+parts.
+
+Spirit is at the root of all things, and thoughtful observation shows
+that its operation is guided by unfailing intelligence which adapts
+means to ends, and harmonises the entire universe of manifested being in
+those wonderful ways which physical science renders clearer every day;
+and this intelligence must be in the generating spirit itself, because
+there is no other source from which it could proceed. On these grounds,
+therefore, we may distinctly affirm that Spirit is intelligent, and that
+whatever it does is done by the intelligent adaptation of means to ends.
+
+But Spirit is also responsive. And here we have to fall back upon the
+law above stated, that the mere sum of the intelligence of Spirit in
+lower degrees of manifestation is not equal to the intelligence of the
+complex _whole_, as a whole. This is a radical law which we cannot
+impress upon our minds too deeply. The degree of spiritual intelligence
+is marked by the wholeness of the organism through which it finds
+expression; and therefore the more highly organised being has a degree
+of spirit which is superior to, and consequently capable of exercising
+control over, all lower or less fully-integrated degrees of spirit; and
+this being so, we can now begin to see why the spirit that is the
+"innermost within" of all things is responsive as well as intelligent.
+
+Being intelligent, it _knows_, and spirit being ultimately all there is,
+that which it knows is itself. Hence it is that power which recognises
+itself; and accordingly the lower powers of it recognise its higher
+powers, and by the law of attraction they are bound to respond to the
+higher degrees of themselves. On this general principle, therefore,
+spirit, under whatever exterior revealed, is necessarily intelligent and
+responsive. But intelligence and responsiveness imply personality; and
+we may therefore now advance a step further and argue that _all_ spirit
+contains the elements of personality, even though, in any particular
+instance, it may not yet be expressed as that individual personality
+which we find in ourselves.
+
+In short, spirit is always personal in its nature, even when it has not
+yet attained to that degree of synthesis which is sufficient to render
+it personal in manifestation. In ourselves the synthesis has proceeded
+far enough to reach that degree, and therefore we recognise ourselves as
+the manifestation of personality. The human kingdom is the kingdom of
+the manifestation of that personality, which is of the essence of
+spiritual substance on every plane. Or, to put the whole argument in a
+simpler form, we may say that our own personality must necessarily have
+had its origin in that which is personal, on the principle that you
+cannot get more out of a bag than it contains.
+
+In ourselves, therefore, we find that more perfect synthesis of the
+spirit into manifested personality which is wanting in the lower
+kingdoms of nature, and, accordingly, since spirit is necessarily that
+which knows itself and must, therefore, recognise its own degrees in its
+various modes, the spirit in all degrees below that of human personality
+is bound to respond to itself in that superior degree which constitutes
+human individuality; and this is the basis of the power of human thought
+to externalise itself in infinite forms of its own ordering.
+
+But if the subordination of the lower degrees of spirit to the higher is
+one of the fundamental laws which lie at the bottom of the creative
+power of thought, there is another equally fundamental law which places
+a salutary restraint upon the abuse of that power. It is the law that we
+can command the powers of the universal for our own purposes only in
+proportion as we first realise and obey their generic character. We can
+employ water for any purpose which does not require it to run up-hill,
+and we can utilise electricity for any purpose that does not require it
+to pass from a lower to a higher potential.
+
+So with that universal power which we call the Spirit. It has an
+inherent generic character with which we must comply if we would employ
+it for our specific purposes, and this character is summed up in the one
+word "goodness." The Spirit is Life, hence its generic tendency must
+always be lifeward or to the increase of the livingness of every
+individual. And since it is universal it can have no particular
+interests to serve, and therefore its action must always be equally for
+the benefit of all. This is the generic character of spirit; and just as
+water, or electricity, or any other of the physical forces of the
+universe, will not work contrary to their generic character, so Spirit
+will not work contrary to its generic character.
+
+The inference is obvious. If we would use Spirit we must follow the law
+of the Spirit which is "Goodness." This is the only limitation. If our
+originating intention is good, we may employ the spiritual power for
+what purpose we will. And how is "goodness" to be defined? Simply by the
+child's definition that what is bad is not good, and that what is good
+is not bad; we all know the difference between bad and good
+instinctively. If we will conform to this principle of obedience to the
+generic law of the Spirit, all that remains is for us to study the law
+of the proportion which exists between the more and less fully
+integrated modes of Spirit, and then bring our knowledge to bear with
+determination.
+
+
+IV
+
+The law of spirit, to which our investigation has now led us, is of the
+very widest scope. We have followed it up from the conception of the
+intelligence of spirit, subsisting in the initial atoms, to the
+aggregation of this intelligence as the conscious identity of the
+individual. But there is no reason why this law should cease to operate
+at this point, or at any point short of the whole. The test of the
+soundness of any principle is that it can operate as effectively on a
+large scale as on a small one, that though the nature of its field is
+determined by the nature of the principle itself, the extent of its
+field is unlimited. If, therefore, we continue to follow up the law we
+have been considering, it leads us to the conception of a unit of
+intelligence as far superior to that of the individual man as the unity
+of his individual intelligence is superior to that of the intelligence
+of any single atom of his body; and thus we may conceive of a collective
+individuality representing the spiritual character of any aggregate of
+men, the inhabitants of a city, a district, a country, or of the entire
+world.
+
+Nor need the process stop here. On the same principle there would be a
+superior collective individuality for the humanity of the entire solar
+system, and finally we reach the conception of a supreme intelligence
+bringing together in itself the collective individualities of all the
+systems in the universe. This is by no means a merely fanciful notion.
+We find it as the law by which our own conscious individuality is
+constituted; and we find the analogous principle working universally on
+the physical plane. It is known to physical science as the "law of
+inverse squares," by which the forces of reciprocal attraction or
+repulsion, as the case may be, are not merely equivalent to the sum of
+the forces emitted by the two bodies concerned, but are equivalent to
+these two forces multiplied together and divided by the square of the
+distance between them, so that the resultant power continually rises in
+a rapidly-increasing ratio as the two reciprocally exciting bodies
+approach one another.
+
+Since this law is so universal throughout physical nature, the doctrine
+of continuity affords every ground for supposing that its analogue holds
+good in respect of spiritual nature. We must never lose sight of the
+old-world saying that "a truth on one plane is a truth on all." If a
+principle exists at all it exists universally. We must not allow
+ourselves to be misled by appearances; we must remember that the
+perceptible results of the working of any principle consist of two
+factors--the principle itself or the active factor, and the
+subject-matter on which it acts or the passive factor; and that while
+the former is invariable, the latter is variable, and that the operation
+of the same invariable upon different variables must necessarily produce
+a variety of results. This at once becomes evident if we state it
+mathematically; for example, _a_, _b_ or _c_, multiplied by _x_ give
+respectively the results _ax_, _bx_, _cx_, which differ materially from
+one another, though the factor _x_ always remains the same.
+
+This law of the generation of power by attraction applies on the
+spiritual as well as on the physical plane, and acts with the same
+mathematical precision on both; and thus the human individuality
+consists, not in the mere aggregation of its parts, whether spiritual or
+corporeal, but in the _unity_ of power resulting from the intimate
+association into which those parts enter with one another, which unity,
+according to this law of the generation of power by attraction, is
+infinitely superior, both in intelligence and power, to any less fully
+integrated mode of spirit. Thus a natural principle, common alike to
+physical and spiritual law, fully accounts for all claims that have ever
+been made for the creative power of our thought over all things that
+come within the circle of our own particular life. Thus it is that each
+man is the centre of his own universe, and has the power, by directing
+his own thought, to control all things therein.
+
+But, as I have said above, there is no reason why this principle should
+not be recognised as expanding from the individual until it embraces
+the entire universe. Each man, as the centre of his own world, is
+himself centred in a higher system in which he is only one of
+innumerable similar atoms, and this system again in a higher until we
+reach the supreme centre of all things; intelligence and power increase
+from centre to centre in a ratio rising with inconceivable rapidity,
+according to the law we are now investigating, until they culminate in
+illimitable intelligence and power commensurate with All-Being.
+
+Now we have seen that the relation of man to the lower modes of spirit
+is that of superiority and command, but what is his relation to these
+higher modes? In any harmoniously constituted system the relation of the
+part to the whole never interferes with the free operation of the part
+in the performance of its own functions; but, on the contrary, it is
+precisely by means of this relation that each part is maintained in a
+position to discharge all functions for which it is fitted. Thus, then,
+the subordination of the individual man to the supreme mind, so far from
+curtailing his liberty, is the very condition which makes liberty
+possible, or even life itself. The generic movement of the whole
+necessarily carries the part along with it; and so long as the part
+allows itself thus to be carried onwards there will be no hindrance to
+its free working in any direction for which it is fitted by its own
+individuality. This truth was set forth in the old Hindu religion as the
+Car of Jaggarnath--an ideal car only, which later ages degraded into a
+terribly material symbol. "Jaggarnath" means "Lord of the Universe," and
+thus signifies the Universal Mind. This, by the law of Being, must
+always move forward regardless of any attempts of individuals to
+restrain it. Those who mount upon its car move onward with it to
+endlessly advancing evolution, while those who seek to oppose it must be
+crushed beneath its wheels, for it is no respecter of persons.
+
+If, therefore, we would employ the universal law of spirit to control
+our own little individual worlds, we must also recognise it in respect
+to the supreme centre round which we ourselves revolve. But not in the
+old way of supposing that this centre is a capricious Individuality
+external to ourselves, which can be propitiated or cajoled into giving
+the good which he is not good enough to give of his own proper motion.
+So long as we retain this infantile idea we have not come into the
+liberty which results from the knowledge of the certainty of Law.
+Supreme Mind is Supreme Law, and can be calculated upon with the same
+accuracy as when manifested in any of the particular laws of the
+physical world; and the result of studying, understanding and obeying
+this Supreme Law is that we thereby acquire the power to _use_ it. Nor
+need we fear it with the old fear which comes from ignorance, for we can
+rely with confidence upon the proposition that the whole can have no
+interest adverse to the parts of which it is composed; and conversely
+that the part can have no interest adverse to the whole.
+
+Our ignorance of our relation to the whole may make us appear to have
+separate interests, but a truer knowledge must always show such an idea
+to be mistaken. For this reason, therefore, the same responsiveness of
+spirit which manifests itself as obedience to our wishes, when we look
+to those degrees of spirit which are lower than her own individuality,
+must manifest itself as a necessary inflowing of intelligence and power
+when we look to the infinity of spirit, of which our individuality is a
+singular expression, because in so looking upwards we are looking for
+the higher degrees of _ourself_.
+
+The increased vitality of the parts means the increased vitality of the
+whole, and since it is impossible to conceive of spirit otherwise than
+as a continually expanding principle of Life, the demand for such
+increased vitality must, by the inherent nature of spirit, be met by a
+corresponding supply of continually growing intelligence and power.
+Thus, by a natural law, the demand creates the supply, and this supply
+may be freely applied to any and every subject-matter that commends
+itself to us. There is no limit to the supply of this energy other than
+what we ourselves put to it by our thought; nor is there any limit to
+the purposes we may make it serve other than the one grand Law of Order,
+which says that good things used for wrong purposes become evil. The
+consideration of the intelligent and responsive nature of spirit shows
+that there can be no limitations but these. The one is a limitation
+inherent in spirit itself, and the other is a limitation which has no
+root except in our own ignorance.
+
+It is true that to maintain our healthy action within the circle of our
+own individual world we must continually move forward with the movement
+of the larger whole of which we form a part. But this does not imply any
+restriction of our liberty to make the fullest use of our lives in
+accordance with those universal principles of life upon which they are
+founded; for there is not one law for the part and another for the
+whole, but the same law of Being permeates both alike. In proportion,
+therefore, as we realise the true law of our own individuality we shall
+find that it is one with the law of progress for the race. The
+collective individuality of mankind is only the reproduction on a larger
+scale of the personal individuality; and whatever action truly develops
+the inherent powers of the individual must necessarily be in line with
+that forward march of the universal mind which is the evolution of
+humanity as a whole.
+
+Selfishness is a narrow view of our own nature which loses sight of our
+place in relation to the whole, not perceiving that it is from this very
+relation that our life is drawn. It is ignorance of our own
+possibilities and consequent limitation of our own powers. If,
+therefore, the evidence of harmonious correlation throughout the
+physical world leads irresistibly to the inference of intelligent
+spirit as the innermost within of all things, we must recognise
+ourselves also as individual manifestations of the same spirit which
+expresses itself throughout the universe as that power of intelligent
+responsiveness which is Love.
+
+
+V
+
+Thus we find ourselves to be a necessary and integral part of the
+Infinite Harmony of All-Being; not merely recognising this great truth
+as a vague intuition, but as the logical and unavoidable result of the
+universal Life-principle which permeates all Nature. We find our
+intuition was true because we have discovered the law which gave rise to
+it; and now intuition and investigation both unite in telling us of our
+own individual place in the great scheme of things. Even the most
+advanced among us have, as yet, little more than the faintest
+adumbration of what this place is. It is the place of _power_. Towards
+those higher modes of spirit which we speak of as "the universal," the
+law of man's inmost nature makes him as a lens, drawing into the focus
+of his own individuality all that he will of light and power in streams
+of inexhaustible supply; and towards the lower modes of spirit, which
+form for each one the sphere of his own particular world, man thus
+becomes the directive centre of energy and order.
+
+Can we conceive of any position containing greater possibilities than
+these? The circle of this vital influence may expand as the individual
+grows into the wider contemplation of his unity with Infinite Being; but
+any more comprehensive law of relationship it would be impossible to
+formulate. Emerson has rightly said that a little algebra will often do
+far more towards clearing our ideas than a large amount of poetic
+simile. Algebraically it is a self-evident proposition that any
+difference between various powers of _x_ disappears when they are
+compared with _x_ multiplied into itself to infinity, because there can
+be no ratio between any determinate power, however high, and the
+infinite; and thus the relation between the individual and All-Being
+must always remain the same.[1]
+
+    [Footnote 1: X^{2} : X^{n} :: X^{10} X^{n}.]
+
+But this in no way interferes with the law of growth, by which the
+individual rises to higher and higher powers of his own individuality.
+The unchangeableness of the relation between all determinate powers of
+_x_ and infinity does not affect the relations of the different powers
+of _x_ between themselves; but rather the fact that the multiplication
+of _x_ into itself to infinity is mentally conceivable is the very proof
+that there is no limit to the extent to which it is possible to raise
+_x_ in its determinate powers.
+
+I trust unmathematical readers will pardon my using this method of
+statement for the benefit of others to whom it will carry conviction. A
+relation once clearly grasped in its mathematical aspect becomes
+thenceforth one of the unalterable truths of the universe, no longer a
+thing to be argued about, but an axiom which may be assumed as the
+foundation on which to build up the edifice of further knowledge. But,
+laying aside mathematical formulæ, we may say that because the Infinite
+is infinite there can be no limit to the extent to which the vital
+principle of growth may draw upon it, and therefore there is no limit to
+the expansion of the individual's powers. Because we are _what_ we are,
+we may _become_ what we will.
+
+The Kabbalists tell us of "the lost word," the word of power which
+mankind has lost. To him who discovers this word all things are
+possible. Is this mirific word really lost? Yes, and No. It is the open
+secret of the universe, and the Bible gives us the key to it. It tells
+us, "The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart." It is
+the most familiar of all words, the word which in our heart we realise
+as the centre of our conscious being, and which is in our mouth a
+hundred times a day. It is the word "I AM." Because I am what I am, I
+may be what I will to be. My individuality is one of the modes in which
+the Infinite expresses itself, and therefore I am myself that very power
+which I find to be the innermost within of all things.
+
+To me, thus realising the great unity of all Spirit, the infinite is not
+the indefinite, for I see it to be the infinite of _Myself_. It is the
+very same I AM that I am; and this not by any act of uncertain favour,
+but by the law of polarity which is the basis of all Nature. The law of
+polarity is that law according to which everything attains completion by
+manifesting itself in the opposite direction to that from which it
+started. It is the simple law by which there can be no inside without an
+outside, nor one end of a stick without an opposite end.
+
+Life is motion, and all motion is the appearance of energy at another
+point, and, where any work has been done, under another form than that
+in which it originated; but wherever it reappears, and in whatever new
+form, the vivifying energy is still the same. This is nothing else than
+the scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy, and it is upon
+this well-recognised principle that our perception of ourselves as
+integral portions of the great universal power is based.
+
+We do well to pay heed to the sayings of the great teachers who have
+taught that all power is in the "I AM," and to accept this teaching by
+faith in their bare authority rather than not accept it at all; but the
+more excellent way is to know _why_ they taught thus, and to realise for
+ourselves this first great law which all the master-minds have realised
+throughout the ages. It is indeed true that the "lost word" is the one
+most familiar to us, ever in our hearts and on our lips. We have lost,
+not the word, but the realisation of its power. And as the infinite
+depths of meaning which the words I AM carry with them open out to us,
+we begin to realise the stupendous truth that we are ourselves the very
+power which we seek.
+
+It is the polarisation of Spirit from the universal into the particular,
+carrying with it all its inherent powers, just as the smallest flame has
+all the qualities of fire. The I AM in the individual is none other than
+the I AM in the universal. It is the same Power working in the smaller
+sphere of which the individual is the centre. This is the great truth
+which the ancients set forth under the figure of the Macrocosm and the
+Microcosm, the lesser I AM reproducing the precise image of the greater,
+and of which the Bible tells us when it speaks of man as the image of
+God.
+
+Now the immense practical importance of this principle is that it
+affords the key to the great law that "as a man thinks so he is." We are
+often asked why this should be, and the answer may be stated as follows:
+We know by personal experience that we realise our own livingness in two
+ways, by our power to act and our susceptibility to feel; and when we
+consider Spirit in the absolute we can only conceive of it as these two
+modes of livingness carried to infinity. This, therefore, means infinite
+susceptibility. There can be no question as to the degree of
+sensitiveness, for Spirit _is_ sensitiveness, and is thus infinitely
+plastic to the slightest touch that is brought to bear upon it; and
+hence every thought we formulate sends its vibrating currents out into
+the infinite of Spirit, producing there currents of like quality but of
+far vaster power.
+
+But Spirit in the Infinite is the Creative Power of the universe, and
+the impact of our thought upon it thus sets in motion a veritable
+creative force. And if this law holds good of one thought it holds good
+of all, and hence we are continually creating for ourselves a world of
+surroundings which accurately reproduces the complexion of our own
+thoughts. Persistent thoughts will naturally produce a greater external
+effect than casual ones not centred upon any particular object.
+Scattered thoughts which recognise no principle of unity will fail to
+reproduce any principle of unity. The thought that we are weak and have
+no power over circumstances results in inability to control
+circumstances, and the thought of power produces power.
+
+At every moment we are dealing with an infinitely sensitive medium which
+stirs creative energies that give form to the slightest of our
+thought-vibrations. This power is inherent in us because of our
+spiritual nature, and we cannot divest ourselves of it. It is our truly
+tremendous heritage because it is a power which, if not intelligently
+brought into lines of orderly activity, will spend its uncontrolled
+forces in devastating energy. If it is not used to build up, it will
+destroy. And there is nothing exceptional in this: it is merely the
+reappearance on the plane of the universal and undifferentiated of the
+same principle that pervades all the forces of Nature. Which of these is
+not destructive unless drawn off into some definite direction?
+Accumulated steam, accumulated electricity, accumulated water, will at
+length burst forth, carrying destruction all around; but, drawn off
+through suitable channels, they become sources of constructive power,
+inexhaustible as Nature itself.
+
+And here let me pause to draw attention to this idea of accumulation.
+The greater the accumulation of energy, the greater the danger if it be
+not directed into a proper order, and the greater the power if it be.
+Fortunately for mankind the physical forces, such as electricity, do not
+usually subsist in a highly concentrated form. Occasionally
+circumstances concur to produce such concentration, but as a rule the
+elements of power are more or less equally dispersed. Similarly, for the
+mass of mankind, this spiritual power has not yet reached a very high
+degree of concentration. Every mind, it is true, must be in some measure
+a centre of concentration, for otherwise it would have no conscious
+individuality; but the power of the individualised mind rapidly rises as
+it recognises its unity with the Infinite life, and its
+thought-currents, whether well or ill directed, then assume a
+proportionately great significance.
+
+Hence the ill effects of wrongly directed thought are in some degree
+mitigated in the great mass of mankind, and many causes are in operation
+to give a right direction to their thoughts, though the thinkers
+themselves are ignorant of what thought-power is. To give a right
+direction to the thoughts of ignorant thinkers is the purpose of much
+religious teaching, which these uninstructed ones must accept by faith
+in bare authority because they are unable to realise its true import.
+But notwithstanding the aids thus afforded to mankind, the general
+stream of unregulated thought cannot but have an adverse tendency, and
+hence the great object to which the instructed mind directs its power is
+to free itself from the entanglements of disordered thought, and to help
+others to do the same. To escape from this entanglement is to attain
+perfect Liberty, which is perfect Power.
+
+
+VI
+
+The entanglement from which we need to escape has its origin in the very
+same principle which gives rise to liberty and power. It is the same
+principle applied under inverted conditions. And here I would draw
+particular attention to the law that any sequence followed out in an
+inverted order must produce an inverted result, for this goes a long way
+to explain many of the problems of life. The physical world affords
+endless examples of the working of "inversion." In the dynamo the
+sequence commences with mechanical force which is ultimately transformed
+into the subtler power of electricity; but invert this order, commence
+by generating electricity, and it becomes converted into mechanical
+force, as in the motor. In the one order the rotation of a wheel
+produces electricity, and in the opposite order electricity produces the
+rotation of a wheel. Or to exhibit the same principle in the simplest
+arithmetical form, if 10÷2=5 then 10÷5=2. "Inversion" is a factor of the
+greatest magnitude and has to be reckoned with; but I must content
+myself here with only indicating the general principle that the same
+power is capable of producing diametrically opposite effects if it be
+applied under opposite conditions, a truth which the so-called
+"magicians" of the middle ages expressed by two triangles placed
+inversely to one another. We are apt to fall into the mistake of
+supposing that results of opposite character require powers of opposite
+character to produce them, and our conceptions of things in general
+become much simplified when we recognise that this is not the case, but
+that the same power will produce opposite results as it starts from
+opposite poles.
+
+Accordingly the inverted application of the same principle which gives
+rise to liberty and power constitutes the entanglement from which we
+need to be delivered before power and liberty can be attained, and this
+principle is expressed in the law that "as a man thinks so he is." This
+is the basic law of the human mind. It is Descarte's "_cogito, ergo
+sum_." If we trace consciousness to its seat we find that it is purely
+subjective. Our external senses would cease to exist were it not for the
+subjective consciousness which perceives what they communicate to it.
+
+The idea conveyed to the subjective consciousness may be false, but
+until some truer idea is more forcibly impressed in its stead it
+remains a substantial reality to the mind which gives it objective
+existence. I have seen a man speak to the stump of a tree which in the
+moonlight looked like a person standing in a garden, and repeatedly ask
+its name and what it wanted; and so far as the speaker's conception was
+concerned the garden contained a living man who refused to answer. Thus
+every mind lives in a world to which its own perceptions give objective
+reality. Its perceptions may be erroneous, but they nevertheless
+constitute the very reality of life for the mind that gives form to
+them. No other life than the life we lead in our own mind is possible;
+and hence the advance of the whole race depends on substituting the
+ideas of good, of liberty, and of order for their opposites. And this
+can be done only by giving some sufficient reason for accepting the new
+idea in place of the old. For each one of us our beliefs constitute our
+facts, and these beliefs can be changed only by discovering some ground
+for a different belief.
+
+This is briefly the rationale of the maxim that "as a man thinks so he
+is"; and from the working of this principle all the issues of life
+proceed. Now man's first perception of the law of cause and effect in
+relation to his own conduct is that the result always partakes of the
+quality of the cause; and since his argument is drawn from external
+observation only, he regards external acts as the only causes he can
+effectively set in operation. Hence when he attains sufficient moral
+enlightenment to realise that many of his acts have been such as to
+merit retribution he fears retribution as their proper result. Then by
+reason of the law that "thoughts are things," the evils which he fears
+take form and plunge him into adverse circumstances, which again prompt
+him into further wrong acts, and from these come a fresh crop of fears
+which in their turn become externalised into fresh evils, and thus
+arises a circulus from which there is no escape so long as the man
+recognises nothing but his external acts as a causative power in the
+world of his surroundings.
+
+This is the Law of Works, the Circle of Karma, the Wheel of Fate, from
+which there appears to be no escape, because the complete fulfilment of
+the law of our moral nature to-day is only sufficient for to-day and
+leaves no surplus to compensate the failure of yesterday. This is the
+necessary law of things as they appear from external observation only;
+and, so long as this conception remains, the law of each man's
+subjective consciousness makes it a reality for him. What is needed,
+therefore, is to establish the conception that external acts are NOT the
+only causative power, but that there is another law of causation,
+namely, that of pure Thought. This is the Law of Faith, the Law of
+Liberty; for it introduces us to a power which is able to inaugurate a
+new sequence of causation not related to any past actions.
+
+But this change of mental attitude cannot be brought about till we have
+laid hold of some fact which is sufficient to afford a reason for the
+change. We require some solid ground for our belief in this higher law.
+Ultimately we find this ground in the great Truth of the eternal
+relation between spirit in the universal and in the particular. When we
+realise that substantially there is nothing else _but_ spirit, and that
+we ourselves are reproductions in individuality of the Intelligence and
+Love which rule the universe, we have reached the firm standing ground
+where we find that we can send forth our Thought to produce any effect
+we will. We have passed beyond the idea of two opposites requiring
+reconciliation, into that of a duality in which there is no other
+opposition than that of the inner and the outer of the same unity, the
+polarity which is inherent in all Being, and we then realise that in
+virtue of this unity our Thought is possessed of illimitable creative
+power, and that it is free to range where it will, and is by no means
+bound down to accept as inevitable the consequences which, if unchecked
+by renovated thought, would flow from our past actions.
+
+In its own independent creative power the mind has found the way out of
+the fatal circle in which its previous ignorance of the highest law had
+imprisoned it. The Unity of the Spirit is found to result in perfect
+Liberty; the old sequence of Karma has been cut off, and a new and
+higher order has been introduced. In the old order the line of thought
+received its quality from the quality of the actions, and since they
+always fell short of perfection, the development of a higher
+thought-power from this root was impossible. This is the order in which
+everything is seen from _without_. It is an inverted order. But in the
+true order everything is seen from _within_.
+
+It is the thought which determines the quality of the action, and not
+_vice versa_, and since thought is free, it is at liberty to direct
+itself to the highest principles, which thus spontaneously reproduce
+themselves in the outward acts, so that both thoughts and actions are
+brought into harmony with the great eternal laws and become one in
+purpose with the Universal Mind. The man realises that he is no longer
+bound by the consequences of his former deeds, done in the time of his
+ignorance, in fact, that he never was bound by them except so far as he
+himself gave them this power by false conceptions of the truth; and thus
+recognising himself for what he really is--the expression of the
+Infinite Spirit in individual personality--he finds that he is free,
+that he is a "partaker of Divine nature," not losing his identity, but
+becoming more and more fully himself with an ever-expanding perfection,
+following out a line of evolution whose possibilities are inexhaustible.
+
+But there is not in all men this knowledge. For the most part they still
+look upon God as an individual Being external to themselves, and what
+the more instructed man sees to be unity of mind and identity of nature
+appear to the less advanced to be an external reconciliation between
+opposing personalities. Hence the whole range of conceptions which may
+be described as the Messianic Idea. This idea is not, as some seem to
+suppose, a misconception of the truth of Being. On the contrary, when
+rightly understood it will be found to imply the very widest grasp of
+that truth; and it is from the platform of this supreme knowledge alone
+that an idea so comprehensive in its adaptation to every class of mind
+could have been evolved. It is the translation of the relations arising
+from the deepest laws of Being into terms which can be realised even by
+the most unlearned; a translation arranged with such consummate skill
+that, as the mind grows in spirituality, every stage of advance is met
+by a corresponding unfolding of the Divine meaning; while yet even the
+crudest apprehension of the idea implied is sufficient to afford the
+required basis for an entire renovation of the man's thoughts concerning
+himself, giving him a standing ground from which to think of himself as
+no longer bound by the law of retribution for past offences, but as free
+to follow out the new law of Liberty as a child of God.
+
+The man's conception of the _modus operandi_ of this emancipation may
+take the form of the grossest anthropomorphism or the most childish
+notions as to the satisfaction of the Divine justice by vicarious
+substitution, but the working result will be the same. He has got what
+satisfies him as a ground for thinking of himself in a perfectly new
+light; and since the states of our subjective consciousness constitute
+the realities of our life, to afford him a convincing ground for
+_thinking_ himself free, is to make him free.
+
+With increasing light he may find that his first explanation of the
+_modus operandi_ was inadequate; but when he reaches this stage, further
+investigation will show him that the great truth of his liberty rests
+upon a firmer foundation than the conventional interpretation of
+traditional dogmas, and that it has its roots in the great law of
+Nature, which are never doubtful, and which can never be overturned. And
+it is precisely because their whole action has its root in the
+unchangeable laws of Mind that there exists a perpetual necessity for
+presenting to men something which they can lay hold of as a sufficient
+ground for that change of mental attitude, by which alone they can be
+rescued from the fatal circle which is figured under the symbol of the
+Old Serpent.
+
+The hope and adumbration of such a new principle has formed the
+substance of all religions in all ages, however misapprehended by the
+ignorant worshippers; and, whatever our individual opinions may be as to
+the historical facts of Christianity, we shall find that the great
+figure of liberated and perfected humanity which forms its centre
+fulfils this desire of all nations in that it sets forth their great
+ideal of Divine power intervening to rescue man by becoming one with
+him. This is the conception presented to us, whether we apprehend it in
+the most literally material sense, or as the ideal presentation of the
+deepest philosophic study of mental laws, or in whatever variety of ways
+we may combine these two extremes. The ultimate idea impressed upon the
+mind must always be the same: it is that there is a Divine warrant for
+knowing ourselves to be the children of God and "partakers of the Divine
+nature"; and when we thus realise that there is solid ground for
+_believing_ ourselves free, by force of this very belief we _become_
+free.
+
+The proper outcome of the study of the laws of spirit which constitute
+the inner side of things is not the gratification of a mere idle
+curiosity, nor the acquisition of abnormal powers, but the attainment of
+our spiritual liberty, without which no further progress is possible.
+When we have reached this goal the old things have passed away and all
+things have become new. The mystical seven days of the old creation have
+been fulfilled, and the first day of the new week dawns upon us with its
+resurrection to a new life, expressing on the highest plane that great
+doctrine of the "octave" which the science of the ancient temples traced
+through Nature, and which the science of the present day endorses,
+though ignorant of its supreme significance.
+
+When we have thus been made free by recognising our oneness with
+Infinite Being, we have reached the termination of the old series of
+sequences and have gained the starting-point of the new. The old
+limitations are found never to have had any existence save in our own
+misapprehension of the truth, and one by one they fall off as we advance
+into clearer light. We find that the Life-Spirit we seek is _in
+ourselves_; and, having this for our centre, our relation to all else
+becomes part of a wondrous living Order in which every part works in
+sympathy with the whole, and the whole in sympathy with every part, a
+harmony wide as infinitude, and in which there are no limitations save
+those imposed by the Law of Love.
+
+I have endeavoured in this short series of articles to sketch briefly
+the principal points of relation between Spirit in ourselves and in our
+surroundings. This subject has employed the intelligence of mankind from
+grey antiquity to the present day, and no one thinker can ever hope to
+grasp it in all its amplitude. But there are certain broad principles
+which we must all grasp, however we may specialise our studies in
+detail, and these I have sought to indicate, with what degree of success
+the reader must form his own opinion. Let him, however, lay firm hold of
+this one fundamental truth, and the evolution of further truth from it
+is only a question of time--that there is only One Spirit, however many
+the modes of its manifestations, and that "the Unity of the Spirit is
+the Bond of Peace."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PERVERSION OF TRUTH
+
+
+There is a very general recognition, which is growing day by day more
+and more widespread, that there is a sort of hidden power somewhere
+which it is within our ability, somehow or other, to use. The ideas on
+this subject are exceedingly vague with the generality of people, but
+still they are assuming a more and more definite form, and that which
+they appear to be taking with the generality of the public is the
+recognition of the power of suggestion. I suppose none of us doubts that
+there is such a thing as the power of suggestion and that it can produce
+very great results indeed, and that it is _par excellence_ a hidden
+power; it works behind the scenes, it works through what we know as the
+subconscious mind, and consequently its activity is not immediately
+recognisable, or the source from which it comes. Now there is in some
+aspects, its usefulness, its benefit, but in other aspects there is a
+source of danger, because a power of this kind is obviously one which
+can be used either well or ill; in itself it is perfectly neutral, it
+all depends on the purpose for which it is used, and the character of
+the agent who employs it.
+
+This recognition of the power of suggestion is in many instances taking
+a most undesirable form, and I commend to your notice, in support of
+this observation, numerous advertisements in certain classes of
+magazines--many of you must have seen many specimens of that
+kind--offering for a certain sum of money to put you in the way of
+getting personal influence, mental power, power of suggestion, as the
+advertisements very unblushingly put it, for any purpose that you may
+desire. Some of them even go into further particulars, telling you the
+particular sort of purposes for which you can employ this, all of them
+certainly being such uses as no one should ever attempt to make of it.
+
+Therefore, this recognition of the power of suggestion, say even as a
+mere money-making power, to leave alone other misapplications of it, is
+a feature which is taking hold, so to say, of certain sections of the
+public who do not realise a higher platform in these things. It is
+deplorable that it should be so, but it is in the nature of things
+unavoidable. You have a power which can be used affirmatively, and which
+can be used negatively, which can be used for higher purposes, and can
+be used for lower purposes, and consequently you will find numbers of
+people who, as soon as they get hold of it, will at once think only of
+the lower purposes, not of the higher.
+
+In support of what I say--although this is by no means, I suppose,
+intended as a low application, probably it is intended as a high
+application, but I cannot say I agree with it--but to show you that I
+am talking from actual facts I will read you a note which I have made
+from the _Daily Mail_, of the 20th January, that I daresay some of you
+may have seen. It is an article headed "Killing by Prayer," and the
+article goes on to say that a certain circular has been sent round to
+the different hospitals and other places where the study of vivisection
+goes forward to this effect. In this circular, signed with the letters
+"M. C.," the writer says that he accidentally heard of a person who was
+in the habit of praying from time to time for the death of one of our
+leading vivisectors and that always the man indicated died. That is what
+M. C. heard by chance during conversation at a hotel dinner. Then
+thinking over this, M. C. goes on to say that he (or she) tried praying
+that the man most likely to cause suffering to innocent subjects by his
+experiments might be removed, and the consequence was that about a
+fortnight later one of our most distinguished medical scientists died.
+
+I do not know who the scientist in question was; I daresay some of you
+may be aware of the name. However, that is what the _Daily Mail_ tells
+us, and it also states that the Anti-Vivisection Societies were
+unanimous in condemning this circular, and very properly so. Now you see
+the sender of that circular, whoever he was, obviously thought he was
+doing a very good piece of work. I myself am by no means any friend of
+vivisection. I do not think any one can have a real knowledge of the
+truth and remain in touch with it, but I certainly agreed with the
+Anti-Vivisection Societies in condemning such a circular as that. You
+see there is the assumption that prayer, or mental power, can be used to
+remove a person from the stage of life, and M. C. claims that he did it
+in the case of this particular scientist.
+
+That brings back another parallel, almost, I might say, an historical
+parallel, to our mind; that of Dr. Anna Kingsford, taking place perhaps
+some forty years ago, who claimed--of course she was a very strong
+anti-vivisectionist--that by thought-power she caused the death of
+Claude Bernard, the great vivisection scientist of France. Certainly at
+the time that she put out her forces he did die, but on the other hand,
+it has been remarked that it was from that very date that her own
+break-up commenced, and never ceased till she herself passed into the
+other world. So you see these actions are likely to revert to the
+sender, even if they are successful.
+
+Now in these two cases the ultimate object was not a low one, it was one
+which was supposed to be for the benefit of humanity and of the dumb
+creation. But that does not justify the means. The maxim, "The end
+justifies the means," is the greatest perversion of truth, and still
+more so if this hidden power, the power of suggestion, is used to injure
+any one for a more personal motive than in these cases which I have
+cited. The lower the motive, the lower the action becomes, and to
+suppose that because mental means are employed they make any difference
+in the nature of the act is a very great mistake.
+
+It has been sometimes my painful duty to sentence people to death for
+murder, and therefore I claim that I have a very fair knowledge of what
+differentiates murder from those cases in which life is taken which do
+not amount to murder; and speaking from the judicial experience of a
+great many years, and the trial of a large number of cases which have
+involved the question whether the death penalty should be passed or not,
+I have no hesitation in saying that to kill by mental means is just as
+much murder as to kill by poison or the dagger. Speaking judicially, I
+should have not the least hesitation in hanging any one who committed
+murder by means of mental suggestion. Psychological crime, remember, is
+crime just the same; possibly it is more deeply dyed crime, because of
+the greater knowledge which must go along with it. I say that the
+psychological criminal is worse than the ordinary criminal.
+
+One of the teachings of the Master is on this very point. I refer you to
+the miracle of the fig tree. You know that he exhibited his power of
+killing not a person, not even an animal, but a tree. And when the
+disciples said to him, see how this tree which you cursed has withered
+away, he replied, Well, you can do exactly the same thing, and goes on
+to say, nothing shall be impossible to you. Therefore if you can kill
+fig trees, you can kill people, but, "forgive, if you have aught
+against any," that your heavenly Father may forgive you.
+
+He says in effect: now you have seen that this hidden power can be used
+to the destruction of life, at your peril use it otherwise than as a
+Divine power. Use it with prayer to God and with forgiveness of all
+against whom you have any sort of grudge or ill-feeling, and if its use
+is always prefaced in this way, according to the Master's directions,
+then nobody can use it to injure another either in mind, body or estate.
+
+Perhaps some of you may be inclined to smile if I use the word
+"sorcery," but at the present day, under one name or another, scientific
+or semi-scientific, it is nothing but the old-world sorcery which is
+trying to find its way among us as the hidden power. Sorcery is the
+inverted use of spiritual power. That is the definition of it, and I
+speak upon authority. I refer you to the Bible where you will find
+sorcery takes a prominent place among the list of those things which
+exclude from the heavenly Jerusalem; the heavenly Jerusalem not being a
+town or a city in this place or that place, but the perfected state of
+man. Therefore, use sorcery, and you cannot reach that heavenly state.
+
+It is on this account that we find in Revelations that wonderful
+description of two symbolical women; they represent two modes of the
+individual soul. Of course they go further, they indicate national
+things, race evolution and so on. Why? Because all national movements,
+all race evolutions, have their root in the development of the
+individual. A nation or a race is only a collection of individuals, and
+therefore if a principle once spreads from one individual to another, it
+spreads to the nation, it spreads to the race. So, therefore, these two
+symbolical women represent primarily two modes of soul, two modes of
+thought. You know perfectly well the description of the two women. One,
+the woman clothed with the sun, standing with the moon under her feet,
+and with a diadem of stars about her head; the other seated upon an
+earthly throne, holding a golden cup, and the cup is full of
+abominations. Those are the two women, and we know that one of them is
+called in the Scripture, Babylon, and we know which one that is. One of
+the marks of this woman--mind you that means the class of
+individuality--is the mark of sorcery, the mark of the inverted use of
+spiritual and mental powers.
+
+But what is the end of it? The end is that this Babylon becomes the
+habitation of devils, the hold--or, as the original Greek has it, the
+prison of evil, an unclean spirit, the cage of every unclean bird. That
+is the development which takes place in each individual who sets out to
+misuse this mental power. The misuse may have a very small beginning, it
+may be such as is taught in a certain school, which I am told exists in
+London, where shop assistants are trained in the use of magnetic power,
+in order to decoy or compel unknowing purchasers into buying what they
+do not want. I am told there is such a school; I cannot quote you my
+authority. That is a trifling matter. I go into a shop and spend two or
+three shillings in buying something which, when I get home, I find
+absolutely useless, and I say, "How in the name of fortune did I come to
+buy this rubbish?" Well, I must have been hypnotised into it. It does
+not make much difference to me, but it makes a great deal of difference
+to the young man or young woman who has hypnotised me, because it is the
+first step on the downward path. It may be only a matter of sixpence,
+but it leads on step by step, and unless that path is retraced, the
+final end is that of Babylon. Therefore it is that St. John says, "I
+heard a voice from Heaven saying, 'Come forth, my people, out of
+her'"--and that is out of Babylon--"come forth, my people, out of
+her"--that is out of this inverted mode of using spiritual power--"come
+forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins
+and that ye shall receive not of her plague." Therefore, against this
+inverted use of the hidden power I warn every one from the first day
+when he begins to realise that there is such a thing as mental or
+spiritual power which can be exercised upon other persons.
+
+Are we then on this account to go continually in terror of suffering
+from malicious magnetism, fearing that some enemy here, or some enemy
+there, is turning on this hidden power against us? If so, we should go
+in trepidation continually. No, I do not think there is the least
+reason for us to go in fear in this way. To begin with there are
+comparatively few who know the law of suggestion sufficiently well to
+use it either affirmatively or negatively, and of those who do know it
+sufficiently to make use of it, I am convinced that the majority would
+wish only to use it in all kindness, and for the benefit of the person
+concerned. That, I am confident, is the attitude of nine-tenths, or I
+might perhaps say ninety-nine hundredths, of the students of this
+subject. They wish to do well, and look upon their use of mental power
+as an additional means of doing good. But after all, human nature is
+human nature, and there remains a small minority who are both able and
+willing to use this hidden power injuriously for their own purposes.
+
+Now how are we to deal with this minority? The answer is simple. Just
+see them in their true light, see them for what they really are, that is
+to say, persons who are ignorant of the real spiritual power. They think
+they have it, and they have not. That is what it is. See them in their
+true light and their power will fall away from them. The real and
+ultimate power is that of the affirmative; the negative is destructive,
+the affirmative is constructive. So this negative use of the hidden
+power is to be destroyed by the use of the affirmative, the constructive
+power. The affirmative destroys the negative always in one way, and that
+is not by attacking it, not by running at it like a bull in a china
+shop; but by building up life. It is always a building power--it is
+building, building, building life and more life, and when that life
+comes in, the negative of necessity goes out.
+
+The ultimate affirmative position is that of conscious union with the
+source of life. Realise this, and you need not trouble yourself about
+any action of the negative whatever. Seek conscious union with the
+ultimate, the first cause, that which is the starting point of all
+things, whether in the universe or in yourself as the individual. That
+starting point is always present; it is the same yesterday, to-day and
+forever, and you are the world and the universe in miniature, and it is
+always there working in you if you will recognise it. Remember the
+reciprocity between yourself and this truly hidden power. The power of
+suggestion is _a_ hidden power, but the power which creates all things
+is _the_ hidden power which is at the back of all things. Now realise
+that it is in yourselves and you need trouble about the negative no
+longer. This is the Bible teaching regarding Christ; and that teaching
+is to bring about this conscious personal union with the Divine
+All-creating Spirit as a present living power to be used day by day.
+
+The Bible tells us there is such a thing as the mystery of iniquity,
+that is to say, the mystery of the spiritual power used invertedly, used
+from the diabolical standpoint; and when the Bible speaks of the mystery
+of iniquity, it means what it says. It tells us there are powers and
+principalities in the invisible world which are using precisely these
+same methods on an enormous scale; because, remember one thing, there is
+never any departure in any part of the Universe from the universal rule
+of law; what is law upon earth is law in Heaven, law in Hell, law in the
+invisible and law in the visible; that never alters. What is done by any
+spiritual power, whether it is a spiritual power of evil or of good, is
+done through the mental constitution which you have. No power alters the
+law of your own mind, but a power which knows the law of your mind can
+use it.
+
+Therefore, it is so essential that you should know the law of your own
+mind and realise its continual amenability to suggestion. That being so,
+the great thing is to get a standard for fundamental, unchangeable, and
+sufficient suggestion to which you can always turn, and which is
+automatically impressed upon your subconscious mind so deeply that no
+counter-suggestion can ever take its place; and that is the mystery of
+Christ, the Son of God. That is why we are told of the mystery of
+Christ, the mystery of godliness in opposition to the mystery of
+iniquity; it is because both the mystery of the Divine and the mystery
+of the diabolical are seeking to work through you, and they can only
+work through you by the law of your own mental constitution, that is to
+say, by the law of subconscious mind acting and re-acting upon your
+conscious mind and upon your body, and so upon your circumstances.
+
+The mystery of Christ is no mere ecclesiastical fiction. People have
+distorted it, and made it not clear, by trying to explain what at that
+time and in those days was not properly known, by trying to explain what
+they did not know; because what is commonly now known regarding the laws
+of mind was unknown then. But now this light has come we begin to see
+that the Bible teaching regarding Christ has a great and a deep meaning,
+and it is for these reasons St. Paul said to the Corinthians: "Little
+children of whom I travail again in birth, until Christ be formed in
+you." That is why he speaks of "Christ in you the hope of glory," that
+is to say, the Christ conception, the realisation of the Christ
+principle as exhibited in the Christ person, brings you in touch with
+the personal element in the Universal Spirit, the divine creative, first
+moving Spirit of the Universe.
+
+Then you see that realising this as your fundamental fact, it is
+continually impressed upon your subconscious mind, even when you are not
+thinking of it, because that is the action of the subconscious mind to
+take in and reason and argue in its own deductive way upon things of
+which you are not at the moment consciously thinking. Therefore it is
+that the realisation of that great promise of redemption, which is the
+backbone of the Bible from the first chapter of Genesis to the last
+chapter of Revelations, is according to a scientific law. It is not a
+hocus-pocus business, it is not a thing which has been arranged this way
+and might just as well have been arranged in some other; it is not so
+because some arbitrary Authority has commanded it, and the Authority
+might just as well have commanded it some other way.
+
+No, it is so because the more you examine it, the more you will find
+that it is absolutely scientific; it is based upon the natural
+constitution of the human mind. And it is therefore that "Christ," as
+set forth in the Bible--whether in the Old Testament symbology, or in
+the New Testament personality--"is the fulfilling of the law," in the
+sense of specialising in the highest degree that which is common to all
+humanity. As we realise this more and more, and specialise it more and
+more, so we shall rise to higher and higher intercourse and more and
+more consciousness of reciprocal identity, reciprocal life with the
+Universal Power, which will raise us above any possibility of being
+touched by any sort of malicious suggestion.
+
+If anybody should be, then, so ill-willed towards us and so lamentably
+ignorant of spiritual truth himself as to seek to exercise the power of
+malicious suggestion against us, I pity the person who tries to do it.
+He will get nothing out of it, because he is firing peas out of a
+pea-shooter against an iron-clad war vessel. That is what it amounts to;
+but for himself it amounts to something more. It is a true saying that
+"Curses return home to roost." I think if we study these things, and
+consider that there is a reason for them, we need not be in the least
+alarmed about negative suggestion, or malicious magnetism, of being
+brought under the power of other minds, of being got over in some way,
+of being done out of our property, of being injured in our health, or
+being hurt in our circumstances, and so on.
+
+Of course if you lay yourself open to that kind of thing, you will get
+it. "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." That is why the Scripture
+says, "He that breaketh through a hedge, a serpent shall bite him." That
+is the serpent that some of us know something about, that is our old
+enemy Nahash. Some of you, at any rate, are sufficiently trained in the
+inner sciences to know the serpent Nahash. Break down the hedge, that is
+to say, the conscious control of your own mind, and above all the hedge
+of the Divine love and wisdom with which God himself will surround you
+in the personality of His Son, break down this hedge and of course
+Nahash comes in. But if you keep your hedge--and remember the old Hebrew
+tradition always spoke of the Divine Law as "the hedge"--if you keep
+your hedge unbroken, nothing can come in except by the door. Christ
+said, "I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved."
+
+I have spoken of the two great mysteries, the mystery of godliness and
+the mystery of iniquity, the mystery of Christ and the mystery of
+anti-Christ. Now, it is not necessary, mind you, that you should
+understand these mysteries in full in order to get into your right
+position. If it were necessary that we should fully understand these
+mysteries, either to get away from the one or to get into the other, I
+think all of us would have an uncommonly bad chance. I certainly should.
+I can touch only the fringe of these things, but we can realise the
+principle of the affirmative and the principle of the negative which
+underlies them both; one is the mystery of light, the other is the
+mystery of darkness.
+
+I do not say do not study these mysteries; they are exactly what we
+ought to study, but do not think that you remain in a state of danger
+until you have completely fathomed the mystery. Not a bit of it. You can
+quite get on the right side without understanding the whole thing,
+exactly as you travel on a railway without understanding the mechanism
+of the engine which takes you along.
+
+So then we have these two mysteries, that of light and that of darkness,
+and therefore what we have to do is to exercise our will to receive the
+mystery of light, and then that will make for itself a centre in our own
+hearts and beings, and you will become conscious of that centre. Whether
+you understand it or not, you will become conscious of it--and then from
+that centre, that centre of light in yourself, you can start everything
+in your life, whether spiritual or temporal. You do not have to go
+further back; you do not have to analyse the why and the wherefore of
+these things in order to get your starting point. It may interest you
+afterwards, it may strengthen you afterwards to do so, but for a
+practical starting point you must realise the Divine presence in
+yourself, which is the son of God manifested in you, that is the Divine
+principle of personality speaking within yourself.
+
+So then, having realised this as your centre, you carry the
+all-originating affirmative power with you, all through everything that
+you do and everything that you are; day and night it will be there, it
+will protect you, it will guide you, it will help you. And when you want
+to do so you can consciously apply to it and it will give you
+assistance, and because you take this as your starting point, it will
+manifest itself in all your conditions; because, remember, it is a very
+simple law of logic that whatever you start with will manifest itself
+all down the sequence which comes from it. If you start with the colour
+red you can make all sorts of modifications and bring out orange, purple
+and brown, but the red basis will show itself all down the scale of
+colour, and so if you start with a basis of blue, blue will show itself
+all down the scale of various colours.
+
+Therefore, if you start with the affirmative basis, the one starting
+point of the Divine spirit, not taking it lower down the stream, but
+going to the fountain head, that affirmative principle of life will flow
+all through, showing its own quality to the very tips of your fingers
+and beyond that out into all your circumstances. So that the divine
+presence will be continuously with you, not as a consequence of your
+joining this Church or that, following this idea, or that teacher, but
+because you know the truth for yourselves, and you have realised it as
+an actual living experience in your own mind and in your own heart; and
+therefore it is that this personal recognition of the Divine love and
+wisdom and power is what St. Paul calls "Christ in you, the hope of
+glory."
+
+Each one who recognises this, is one who answers the Biblical
+description of a true Israelite indeed. That word "Israelite" in the
+Bible is a very deeply symbolical word, and carries an immense amount of
+meaning with it. So get this recognition as the real working fact that
+each one of you is an Israelite indeed, and if so, then make yourselves
+perfectly happy with the everlasting statement, which is as true now as
+it was on the day on which it was uttered: "There is no divination or
+enchantment against Israel."
+
+1909.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE "I AM"
+
+
+We often do not sufficiently recognise the truth of Walt Whitman's pithy
+saying, "I am not all contained between my hat and my boots," and forget
+the two-fold nature of the "I AM," that it is at once both the
+manifested and the unmanifested, the universal and the individual. By
+losing sight of this truth we surround ourselves with limitations; we
+see only part of the self, and then we are surprised that the part fails
+to do the work of the whole. Factors crop up on which we had not
+reckoned, and we wonder where they come from, and do not understand that
+they necessarily arise from that great unity in which we are all
+included.
+
+It is the grand intelligence and livingness of Universal Spirit
+continually pressing forward to manifestation of itself in a glorious
+humanity.
+
+This must be effected by each individual's recognition of his power to
+co-operate with the Supreme Principle through an intelligent conception
+of its purpose and of the natural laws by which that purpose is
+accomplished--a recognition which can proceed only from the realisation
+that he himself is none other than the same Universal Principle in
+particular manifestation.
+
+When he sees this he sees that Walt Whitman's saying is true, and that
+his source of intelligence, power, and purpose is in that Universal
+Self, which is his as well as another's just because it is universal,
+and which is therefore as completely and entirely identified with
+himself as though there were no other expression of it in the world.
+
+The understanding which alone gives value to knowledge is the
+understanding that, when we employ the formula "I am, therefore I can,
+therefore I will," the "I AM" with which the series starts is a being
+who, so to speak, has his head in heaven and his feet upon the earth, a
+perfect unity, and with a range of ideas far transcending the little
+ideas which are limited by the requirements of a day or an hour. On the
+other hand, the requirements of the day and the hour are real while they
+last, and since the manifested life can be lived only in the moment that
+now is, whether it be to-day or ten thousand years hence, our need is to
+harmonise the life of expression with the life of purpose, and by
+realising in ourselves the source of the highest purposes to realise
+also the life of the fullest expression.
+
+This is the meaning of prayer. Prayer is not a foolish seeking to change
+the mind of Supreme Wisdom, but it is an intelligent seeking to embody
+that wisdom in our thoughts so as more and more perfectly to express
+_it_ in expressing _ourselves_. Thus, as we gradually grow into the
+habit of finding this inspiring Presence _within ourselves_, and of
+realising its forward movement as the ultimate determining factor in all
+true healthful mental action, it will become second nature to us to have
+all our plans, down to the apparently most trivial, so floating upon the
+undercurrent of this Universal Intelligence that a great harmony will
+come into our lives, every discordant manifestation will disappear, and
+we shall find ourselves more and more controlling all things into the
+forms that we desire.
+
+Why? Because we have attained to _commanding_ the Spirit and making it
+obey us? Certainly not, for "if the blind lead the blind both shall fall
+into the ditch"; but because we are _companions_ of the Spirit, and by a
+continuous and growing intimacy have changed, not "the mind of the
+Spirit," but our own, and have learned to think from a higher
+standpoint, where we see that the old-world saying "know thyself"
+includes the knowledge of all that we mean when we speak of God.
+
+
+      I AM IS ONE
+
+This may seem a very elementary proposition, but it is one of which we
+are too apt to lose sight. What does it mean? It means everything; but
+we are most concerned with what it means in regard to ourselves, and to
+each of us personally it means this. It means that there are not two
+Spirits, one which is myself and one which is another. It means that
+there is not some great unknown power external to myself which may be
+actuated by perfectly different motives to my own, and which will,
+therefore, oppose me with its irresistible force and pass over me,
+leaving me crushed and broken like the devotee over whom the car of
+Jaggarnath has rolled. It means that there is only one mind, one motive,
+one power--not two opposing each other--and that my conscious mind in
+all its movements is only the one mind expressing itself as (not merely
+through) my own particular individuality.
+
+There are not two I AMS, but one I am. Whatever, therefore, I can
+conceive the Great Universal Life Principle to be, that I am. Let us try
+fully to realise what this means. Can you conceive the Great Originating
+and Sustaining Life Principle of the whole universe as poor, weak,
+sordid, miserable, jealous, angry, anxious, uncertain, or in any other
+way limited? We know that this is impossible. Then because the I AM is
+one it is equally untrue of ourselves. Learn first to distinguish the
+true self that you are from the mental and physical processes which it
+throws forth as the instruments of its expression, and then learn that
+this self controls these instruments, and not vice versa. As we advance
+in this knowledge we know ourselves to be unlimited, and that, in the
+miniature world, whose centre we are, we ourselves are the very same
+overflowing of joyous livingness that the Great Life Spirit is in the
+Great All. The I AM is One.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+AFFIRMATIVE POWER
+
+
+Thoroughly to realise the true nature of affirmative power is to possess
+the key to the great secret. We feel its presence in all the innumerable
+forms of life by which we are surrounded and we feel it as the life in
+ourselves; and at last some day the truth bursts upon us like a
+revelation that we can wield this power, this life, by the process of
+Thought. And as soon as we see this, the importance of regulating our
+thinking begins to dawn upon us. We ask ourselves what this thought
+process is, and we then find that it is thinking affirmative force into
+forms which are the product of our own thought. We mentally conceive the
+form and then think life into it.
+
+This must always be the nature of the creative process on whatever
+scale, whether on the grand scale of the Universal Cosmic Mind or on the
+miniature scale of the individual mind; the difference is only in degree
+and not in kind. We may picture the mental machinery by which this is
+done in the way that best satisfies our intellect--and the satisfying of
+the intellect on this point is a potent factor in giving us that
+confidence in our mental action without which we can effect
+nothing--but the actual externalisation is the result of something more
+powerful than a merely intellectual apprehension. It is the result of
+that inner mental state which, for want of a better word, we may call
+our emotional conception of ourselves. It is the "self" which we _feel_
+ourselves to be which takes forms of our own creating. For this reason
+our thought must be so grounded upon knowledge that we shall _feel_
+the truth of it, and thus be able to produce in ourselves that mental
+attitude of feeling which corresponds to the condition which we desire
+to externalise.
+
+We cannot think into manifestation a different sort of life to that
+which we realise in ourselves. As Horace says, "_Nemo dat quod non
+habet_," we cannot give what we have not got. And, on the other hand, we
+can never cease creating forms of some sort by our mental activity,
+thinking life into them. This point must be very carefully noted. We
+cannot sit still producing nothing: the mental machinery _will_ keep on
+turning out work of some sort, and it rests with us to determine of what
+sort it shall be. In our entire ignorance or imperfect realisation of
+this we create negative forms and think life into them. We create forms
+of death, sickness, sorrow, trouble, and limitation of all sorts, and
+then think life into these forms; with the result that, however
+non-existent in themselves, to us they become realities and throw their
+shadow across the path which would otherwise be bright with the
+many-coloured beauties of innumerable flowers and the glory of the
+sunshine.
+
+This need not be. It is giving to the negative an affirmative force
+which does not belong to it. Consider what is meant by the negative. It
+is the absence of something. It is not-being, and is the absence of all
+that constitutes being. Left to itself, it remains in its own
+nothingness, and it only assumes form and activity when we give these to
+it by our thought.
+
+Here, then, is the great reason for practising control over our thought.
+It is the one and only instrument we have to work with, but it is an
+instrument which works with the greatest certainty, for limitation if we
+think limitation, for enlargement if we think enlargement. Our thought
+as feeling is the magnet which draws to us those conditions which
+accurately correspond to itself. This is the meaning of the saying that
+"thoughts are things." But, you say, how can I think differently from
+the circumstances? Certainly you are not required to say that the
+circumstances _at the present moment_ are what they are not; to say so
+would be untrue; but what is wanted is not to think from the standpoint
+of circumstances at all. Think from that interior standpoint where there
+are no circumstances, and from whence you can dictate what circumstances
+shall be, and then leave the circumstances to take care of themselves.
+
+Do not think of this, that, or the other particular _circumstances_ of
+health, peace, etc., but of health, peace, and prosperity themselves.
+Here is an advertisement from _Pearson's Weekly_:--"Think money. Big
+moneymakers _think_ money." This is a perfectly sound statement of the
+power of thought, although it is only an advertisement; but we may make
+an advance beyond thinking "money." We can think "Life" in all its
+fulness, together with that perfect harmony of conditions which includes
+all that we need of money and a thousand other good things besides, for
+some of which money stands as the symbol of exchangeable value, while
+others cannot be estimated by so material a standard.
+
+Therefore think Life, illumination, harmony, prosperity,
+happiness--think the things rather than this or that condition of them.
+And then by the sure operation of the Universal Law these things will
+form themselves into the shapes best suited to your particular case, and
+will enter your life as active, living forces, which will never depart
+from you because you know them to be part and parcel of your own being.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+SUBMISSION
+
+
+There are two kinds of submission: submission to superior force and
+submission to superior truth. The one is weakness and the other is
+strength. It is an exceedingly important part of our training to learn
+to distinguish between these two, and the more so because the wrong kind
+is extolled by nearly all schools of popular religious teaching at the
+present day as constituting the highest degree of human attainment. By
+some this is pressed so far as to make it an instrument of actual
+oppression, and with all it is a source of weakness and a bar to
+progress. We are forbidden to question what are called the wise
+dispensations of Providence and are told that pain and sorrow are to be
+accepted because they are the will of God; and there is much eloquent
+speaking and writing concerning the beauty of quiet resignation, all of
+which appeals to a certain class of gentle minds who have not yet learnt
+that gentleness does not consist in the absence of power but in the
+kindly and beneficent use of it.
+
+Minds cast in this mould are peculiarly apt to be misled. They perceive
+a certain beauty in the picture of weakness leaning upon strength, but
+they attribute its soothing influence to the wrong element of the
+combination. A thoughtful analysis would show them that their feelings
+consisted of pity for the weak figure and admiration for the strong one,
+and that the suggestiveness of the whole arose from its satisfying the
+artistic sense of balance which requires a compensation of this sort.
+But which of the two figures in the picture would they themselves prefer
+to be? Surely not the weak one needing help, but the strong one giving
+it. By itself the weak figure only stirs our pity and not our
+admiration. Its form may be beautiful, but its very beauty only serves
+to enhance the sense of something wanting--and the something wanting is
+strength. The attraction which the doctrine of passive resignation
+possesses for certain minds is based upon an appeal to sentiment, which
+is accepted without any suspicion that the sentiment appealed to is a
+false one.
+
+Now the healthful influence of the movement known as "The Higher
+Thought" consists precisely in this--that it sets itself rigorously to
+combat this debilitating doctrine of submission. It can see as well as
+others the beauty of weakness leaning upon strength; but it sees that
+the real source of the beauty lies in the strong element of the
+combination. The true beauty consists in the power to confer strength,
+and this power is not to be acquired by submission, but by the exactly
+opposite method of continually asserting our determination not to
+submit.
+
+Of course, if we take it for granted that all the sorrow, sickness,
+pain, trouble, and other adversity in the world is the expression of the
+will of God, then doubtless we must resign ourselves to the inevitable
+with all the submission we can command, and comfort ourselves with the
+vague hope that somehow in some far-off future we shall find that
+
+    "Good is the final goal of ill,"
+
+though even _this_ vague hope is a protest against the very submission
+we are endeavouring to exercise. But to make the assumption that the
+evil of life is the will of God is to assume what a careful and
+intelligent study of the laws of the universe, both mental and physical,
+will show us is not the truth; and if we turn to that Book which
+contains the fullest delineation of these universal laws, we shall find
+nothing taught more clearly than that submission to the evils of life is
+not submission to the will of God. We are told that Christ was
+manifested for this end, that he should destroy him that hath the power
+of death--that is, the devil. Now death is the very culmination of the
+Negative. It is the entire absence of all that makes Life, and whatever
+goes to diminish the living quality of Life reproduces, in its degree,
+the distinctive quality of this supreme exhibition of the Negative.
+Everything that tends to detract from the fulness of life has in it this
+deathful quality.
+
+In that completely renovated life, which is figured under the emblem of
+the New Jerusalem, we are told that sorrow and sighing shall flee away,
+and that the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick. Nothing that obscures
+life, or restricts it, can proceed from the same source as the Power
+which gives light to them that sit in darkness, and deliverance to them
+that are bound. Negation can never be Affirmation; and the error we have
+always to guard against is that of attributing positive power to the
+Negative. If we once grasp the truth that God is life, and that life in
+every mode of expression can never be anything else than Affirmative,
+then it must become clear to us that nothing which is of the opposite
+tendency can be according to the will of God. For God (the good) to will
+any of the "evil" that is in the world would be for Life to act with the
+purpose of diminishing itself, which is a contradiction in terms to the
+very idea of Life. God is Life, and Life is, by its very nature,
+Affirmative. The submission we have hitherto made has been to our own
+weakness, ignorance, and fear, and not to the supreme good.
+
+But is no such thing as submission, then, required of us under any
+circumstances? Are we always to have our own way in everything?
+Assuredly the whole secret of our progress to liberty is involved in
+acquiring the habit of submission; but it is submission to superior
+Truth, and not to superior force. It sometimes happens that, when we
+attain a higher Truth, we find that its reception requires us to
+re-arrange the truths which we possessed before: not, indeed, to lay any
+of them aside, for Truth once recognised cannot be again put out of
+sight, but to recognise a different relative proportion between them
+from that which we had seen previously. Then there comes a submitting of
+what has hitherto been our highest truth to one which we recognise as
+still higher, a process not always easy of attainment, but which must be
+gone through if our spiritual development is not to be arrested. The
+lesser degree of life must be swallowed up in the greater; and for this
+purpose it is necessary for us to learn that the smaller degree was only
+a partial and limited aspect of that which is more universal, stronger,
+and of a larger build every way.
+
+Now, in going through the processes of spiritual growth, there is ample
+scope for that training in self-knowledge and self-control which is
+commonly understood by the word "submission." But the character of the
+act is materially altered. It is no longer a half-despairing resignation
+to a superior force external to ourselves, which we can only vaguely
+hope is acting kindly and wisely, but it is an intelligent recognition
+of the true nature of our own interior forces and of the laws by which a
+robust spiritual constitution is to be developed; and the submission is
+no longer to limitations which drain life of its livingness, and against
+which we instinctively rebel, but to the law of our own evolution which
+manifests itself in continually increasing degrees of life and strength.
+
+The submission which we recognise is the price that has to be paid for
+increase in any direction. Even in the Money Market we must invest
+before we can realise profits. It is a universal rule that Nature obeys
+us exactly in proportion as we first obey Nature; and this is as true in
+regard to spiritual science as to physical. The only question is whether
+we will yield an ignorant submission to the principle of Death, or a
+joyous and intelligent obedience to the principle of Life.
+
+If we have clearly grasped the fact of our identity with Universal
+Spirit, we shall find that, in the right direction, there is really no
+such thing as submission. Submission is to the power of another--a man
+cannot be said to submit to himself. When the "I AM" in us recognises a
+greater degree of I AM-ness (if I may coin the word) than it has
+hitherto attained, then, by the very force of this recognition, it
+_becomes what it sees_, and therefore naturally puts off from itself
+whatever would limit its expression of its own completeness.
+
+But this is a natural process of growth, and not an unnatural act of
+submission; it is not the pouring-out of ourselves in weakness, but the
+gathering of ourselves together in increasing strength. There is no
+weakness in Spirit, it is all strength; and we must therefore always be
+watchful against the insidious approaches of the Negative which would
+invert the true position. The Negative always points to some external
+source of strength. Its formula is "I AM NOT." It always seeks to fix a
+gulf between us and the Infinite Sufficiency. It would always have us
+believe that that sufficiency is not our own, but that by an act of
+uncertain favour we may have occasional spoonfuls of it doled out to us.
+Christ's teaching is different. We do not need to come with our pitcher
+to the well to draw water, like the woman of Samaria, but we have _in
+ourselves_ an inexhaustible supply of the living water springing up into
+everlasting life.
+
+Let us then inscribe "No Surrender" in bold characters upon our banner,
+and advance undaunted to claim our rightful heritage of liberty and
+life.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+COMPLETENESS
+
+
+A point on which students of mental science often fail to lay sufficient
+stress is the completeness of man--not a completeness to be attained
+hereafter, but here and now. We have been so accustomed to have the
+imperfection of man drummed into us in books, sermons, and hymns, and
+above all in a mistaken interpretation of the Bible, that at first the
+idea of his completeness altogether staggers us. Yet until we see this
+we must remain shut out from the highest and best that mental science
+has to offer, from a thorough understanding of its philosophy, and from
+its greatest practical achievements.
+
+To do any work successfully you must believe yourself to be a _whole_
+man in respect of it. The completed work is the outward image of a
+corresponding completeness in yourself. And if this is true in respect
+of one work it is true of all; the difference in the importance of the
+work does not matter; we cannot successfully attempt _any_ work until,
+for some reason or other, we believe ourselves able to accomplish it; in
+other words, until we believe that none of the conditions for its
+completion is wanting in us, and that we are therefore complete in
+respect of it. Our recognition of our completeness is thus the measure
+of what we are able to do, and hence the great importance of knowing the
+fact of our own completeness.
+
+But, it may be asked, do we not see imperfection all around? Is there
+not sorrow, sickness, and trouble? Yes; but why? Just for the very
+reason that we do not realise our completeness. If we realised _that_ in
+its fulness these things would not be; and in the degree in which we
+come to realise it we shall find them steadily diminish. Now if we
+really grasp the two fundamental truths that Spirit is Life pure and
+simple, and that external things are the result of interior forces, then
+it ought not to be difficult to see why we should be complete; for to
+suppose otherwise is to suppose the reactive power of the universe to be
+either unable or unwilling to produce the complete expression of its own
+intention in the creation of man.
+
+That it should be unable to do so would be to depose it from its place
+as the creative principle, and that it should be unwilling to fulfil its
+own intention is a contradiction in terms; so that on either supposition
+we come to a _reductio ad absurdum_. In forming man the creative
+principle therefore _must_ have produced a perfect work, and our
+conception of ourselves as imperfect can only be the result of our own
+ignorance of what we really are; and our advance, therefore, does not
+consist in having something new added to us, but in learning to bring
+into action powers which already exist in us, but which we have never
+tried to use, and therefore have not developed, simply because we have
+always taken it for granted that we are by nature defective in some of
+the most important faculties necessary to fit us to our environment.
+
+If we wish to attain to these great powers, the question is, where are
+we to seek them? And the answer is _in ourselves_. That is the great
+secret. We are not to go outside ourselves to look for power. As soon as
+we do so we find, not power, but weakness. To seek strength from any
+outside source is to make affirmation of our weakness, and all know what
+the natural result of such an affirmation must be.
+
+We are complete _in ourselves_; and the reason why we fail to realise
+this is that we do not understand how far the "self" of ourselves
+extends. We know that the whole of anything consists of _all_ its parts
+and not only of some of them; yet this is just what we do not seem to
+know about ourselves. We say rightly that every person is a
+concentration of the Universal Spirit into individual consciousness; but
+if so, then each individual consciousness must find the Universal Spirit
+to be the infinite expression of _itself_. It is _this_ part of the
+"Self" that we so often leave out in our estimate of what we are; and
+consequently we look upon ourselves as crawling pygmies when we might
+think of ourselves as archangels. We try to work with the mere shadows
+of ourselves instead of with the glorious substance, and then wonder at
+our failures. If we only understood that our "better half" is the whole
+infinite of Spirit--that which creates and sustains the universe--then
+we should know how complete our completeness is.
+
+As we approach this conception, our completeness becomes a reality to
+us, and we find that we need not go outside ourselves for anything. We
+have only to draw on that part of ourselves which is infinite to carry
+out any intention we may form in our individual consciousness; for there
+is no barrier between the two parts, otherwise they would not be a
+whole. Each belongs perfectly to the other, and the two are one. There
+is no antagonism between them, for the Infinite Life can have no
+interest against its individualisation of _itself_. If there is any
+feeling of tension it proceeds from our not fully realising this
+conception of our own wholeness; we are placing a barrier somewhere,
+when in truth there is none; and the tension will continue until we find
+out where and how we are setting up this barrier and remove it.
+
+This feeling of tension is the feeling that we are _not using our Whole
+Being_. We are trying to make half do the work of the whole; but we
+cannot rid ourselves of our wholeness, and therefore the whole protests
+against our attempts to set one half against the other. But when we
+realise that our concentration _out of_ the Infinite also implies our
+expansion _into_ it, we shall see that our _whole_ "self" includes both
+the concentration and the expansion; and seeing this first
+intellectually we shall gradually learn to use our knowledge practically
+and bring our whole man to bear upon whatever we take in hand. We shall
+find that there is in us a constant action and reaction between the
+infinite and the individual, like the circulation of the blood from the
+heart to the extremities and back again, a constant pulsation of vital
+energy quite natural and free from all strain and exertion.
+
+This is the great secret of the livingness of Life, and it is called by
+many names and set forth under many symbols in various religions and
+philosophies, each of which has its value in proportion as it brings us
+nearer the realisation of this perfect wholeness. But the thing itself
+is Life, and therefore can only be suggested, but not described, by any
+words or symbols; it is a matter of personal experience which no one can
+convey to another. All we can do is to point out the direction in which
+this experience is to be sought, and to tell others the intellectual
+arguments which have helped us to find it; but the experience itself is
+the operation of definite vital functions of the inner being, and no one
+but ourselves can do our living for us.
+
+But, so far as it is possible to express these things in words, what
+must be the result of realising that the "self" in us includes the
+Infinite as well as the Individual? All the resources of the Infinite
+must be at our disposal; we may draw on them as we will, and there is no
+limit save that imposed by the Law of Kindness, a self-imposed
+limitation, which, because of being _self_-imposed, is not bondage but
+only another expression of our liberty. Thus we are free and all
+limitations are removed.
+
+We are also no longer ignorant, for since the "self" in us includes the
+Infinite we can draw thence all needed knowledge, and though we may not
+always be able to formulate this knowledge in the mentality, we shall
+_feel_ its guidance, and eventually the mentality will learn to put this
+also into form of words; and thus by combining thought and experience,
+theory and practice, we shall by degrees come more and more into the
+knowledge of the Law of our Being, and find that there is no place in it
+for fear, because it is the law of perfect liberty. And knowing what our
+whole self really is, we shall walk erect as free men and women
+radiating Light and Life all round, so that our very presence will carry
+a vivifying influence with it, because we realise ourselves to be an
+Affirmative Whole, and not a mere negative disintegration of parts.
+
+We know that our whole self includes that Greater Man which is back of
+and causes the phenomenal man, and this Greater Man is the true human
+principle in us. It is, therefore, universal in its sympathies, but at
+the same time not less individually _ourself_; and thus the true man in
+us, being at once both universal and individual, can be trusted as a
+sure guide. It is that "Thinker" which is behind the conscious
+mentality, and which, if we will accept it as our centre, and realise
+that it is not a separate entity but _ourself_, will be found equal to
+every occasion, and will lead us out of a condition of servitude into
+"the glorious liberty of the sons of God."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE PRINCIPLE OF GUIDANCE
+
+
+If I were asked which of all the spiritual principles ranked first, I
+should feel inclined to say the Principle of Guidance; not in the sense
+of being more essential than the others, for _every_ portion is equally
+essential to the completeness of a perfect whole, but in the sense of
+being first in order of sequence and giving value to all our other
+powers by placing them in their due relation to one another. "Giving
+value to our _other_ powers," I say, because this also is one of our
+powers. It is that which, judged from the standpoint of personal
+self-consciousness, is above us; but which, realised from the point of
+view of the unity of all Spirit, is part and parcel of ourselves,
+because it is that Infinite Mind which is of necessity identified with
+all its manifestations.
+
+Looking to this Infinite Mind as a Superior Intelligence from which we
+may receive guidance does not therefore imply looking to an external
+source. On the contrary, it is looking to the innermost spring of our
+own being, with a confidence in its action which enables us to proceed
+to the execution of our plans with a firmness and assurance that are in
+themselves the very guarantee of our success.
+
+The action of the spiritual principles in us follows the order which we
+impose upon them by our thought; therefore the order of realisation will
+reproduce the order of desire; and if we neglect this first principle of
+right order and guidance, we shall find ourselves beginning to put forth
+other great powers, which are at present latent within us, without
+knowing how to find suitable employment for them--which would be a very
+perilous condition, for without having before us objects worthy of the
+powers to which we awake, we should waste them on petty purposes
+dictated only by the narrow range of our unilluminated intellect.
+Therefore the ancient wisdom says, "With all thy getting, get
+understanding."
+
+The awakening to consciousness of our mysterious interior powers will
+sooner or later take place, and will result in our using them whether we
+understand the law of their development or not, just as we already use
+our physical faculties whether we understand their laws or not. The
+interior powers are natural powers as much as the exterior ones. We can
+direct their use by a knowledge of their laws; and it is therefore of
+the highest importance to have some sound principle of guidance in the
+use of these higher faculties as they begin to manifest themselves.
+
+If, therefore, we would safely and profitably enter upon the possession
+of the great inheritance of power that is opening out before us, we
+must before all things seek to realise in ourselves that Superior
+Intelligence which will become an unfailing principle of guidance if we
+will only recognise it as such. Everything depends on our recognition.
+Thoughts are things, and therefore as we _will_ our thoughts to be so we
+_will_ the thing to be. If, then, we will to use the Infinite Spirit as
+a spirit of guidance, we shall find that the fact is as we have willed
+it; and in doing this we are still making use of our own supreme
+principle. And this is the true "understanding" which, by placing all
+the other powers in their correct order, creates one grand unity of
+power directed to clearly defined and worthy aims, in place of the
+dispersion of our powers, by which they only neutralise each other and
+effect nothing.
+
+This is that Spirit of Truth which shall guide us into all Truth. It is
+the sincere Desire of us reaching out after Truth. Truth first and Power
+afterwards is the reasonable order, which we cannot invert without
+injury to ourselves and others; but if we follow this order we shall
+always find scope for our powers in developing into present realities
+the continually growing glory of our vision of the ideal.
+
+The ideal is the true real, but it must be brought into manifestation
+before it can be shown to be so, and it is in this that the _practical_
+nature of our mental studies consists. It is the _practical_ mystic who
+is the man of power; the man who, realising the mystical powers within,
+fits his outward action to this knowledge, and so shows his faith by his
+works; and assuredly the first step is to make use of that power of
+infallible guidance which he can call to his aid simply by desiring to
+be led by it.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+DESIRE AS THE MOTIVE POWER
+
+
+There are certain Oriental schools of thought, together with various
+Western offshoots from them, which are entirely founded on the principle
+of annihilating all desire. Reach that point at which you have no wish
+for anything and you will find yourself free, is the sum and substance
+of their teaching; and in support of this they put forward a great deal
+of very specious argument, which is all the more likely to entangle the
+unwary, because it contains a recognition of many of the profoundest
+truths of Nature. But we must bear in mind that it is possible to have a
+very deep knowledge of psychological facts, and at the same time vitiate
+the results of our knowledge by an entirely wrong assumption in regard
+to the law which binds these facts together in the universal system; and
+the injurious results of misapprehension upon such a vital question are
+so radical and far-reaching that we cannot too forcibly urge the
+necessity of clearly understanding the true nature of the point at
+issue. Stripped of all accessories and embellishments, the question
+resolves itself into this: Which shall we choose for our portion, Life
+or Death? There can be no accommodation between the two; and whichever
+we select as our guiding principle must produce results of a kind proper
+to itself.
+
+The whole of this momentous question turns on the place that we assign
+to desire in our system of thought. Is it the Tree of Life in the midst
+of the Garden of the Soul? or is it the Upas Tree creating a wilderness
+of death all around? This is the issue on which we have to form a
+judgment, and this judgment must colour all our conception of life and
+determine the entire range of our possibilities. Let us, then, try to
+picture to ourselves the ideal proposed by the systems to which I have
+alluded--a man who has succeeded in entirely annihilating all desire. To
+him all things must be alike. The good and the evil must be as one, for
+nothing has any longer the power to raise any desire in him; he has no
+longer any feeling which shall prompt him to say, "This is good,
+therefore I choose it; that is evil, therefore I reject it"; for all
+choice implies the perception of something more desirable in what is
+chosen than in what is rejected, and consequently the existence of that
+feeling of desire which has been entirely eliminated from the ideal we
+are contemplating.
+
+Then, if the perception of all that makes one thing preferable to
+another has been obliterated, there can be no motive for any sort of
+action whatever. Endue a being who has thus extinguished his faculty of
+desire with the power to create a universe, and he has no motive for
+employing it. Endue him with all knowledge, and it will be useless to
+him; for, since desire has no place in him, he is without any purpose
+for which to turn his knowledge to account. And with Love we cannot
+endue him, for that is desire in its supreme degree. But if all this be
+excluded, what is left of the man? Nothing, except the mere outward
+form. If he has actually obtained this ideal, he has practically ceased
+to be. Nothing can by any means interest him, for there is nothing to
+attract or repel in one thing more than in another. He must be dead
+alike to all feeling and to all motive of action, for both feeling and
+action imply the preference for one condition rather than another; and
+where desire is utterly extinguished, no such preference can exist.
+
+No doubt some one may object that it is only evil desires which are thus
+to be suppressed; but a perusal of the writings of the schools of
+thought in question will show that this is not the case. The foundation
+of the whole system is that _all_ desire must be obliterated, the desire
+for the good just as much as the desire for the evil. The good is as
+much "illusion" as the evil, and until we have reached absolute
+indifference to both we have not attained freedom. When we have utterly
+crushed out _all_ desire we are free. And the practical results of such
+a philosophy are shown in the case of Indian devotees, who, in pursuance
+of their resolve to crush out _all_ desire, both for good and evil
+alike, become nothing more than outward images of men, from which all
+power of perception and of action have long since fled.
+
+The mergence in the universal, at which they thus aim, becomes nothing
+more than a self-induced hypnotism, which, if maintained for a
+sufficient length of time, saps away every power of mental and bodily
+activity, leaving nothing but the outside husk of an attenuated human
+form--the hopeless wreck of what was once a living man. This is the
+logical result of a system which assumes for its starting-point that
+desire is evil in itself, that every desire is _per se_ a form of
+bondage, independently of the nature of its object. The majority of the
+followers of this philosophy may lack sufficient resolution to carry it
+out rigorously to its practical conclusions; but whether their ideal is
+to be realised in this world or in some other, the utter extinction of
+desire means nothing else than absolute apathy, without feeling and
+without action.
+
+How entirely false such an idea is--not only from the standpoint of our
+daily life, but also from that of the most transcendental conception of
+the Universal Principle--is evidenced by the mere fact that anything
+exists at all. If the highest ideal is that of utter apathy, then the
+Creative Power of the universe must be extremely low-minded; and all
+that we have hitherto been accustomed to look upon as the marvellous
+order and beauty of creation, is nothing but a display of vulgarity and
+ignorance of sound philosophy.
+
+But the fact that creation exists proves that the Universal Mind thinks
+differently, and we have only to look around to see that the true ideal
+is the exercise of creative power. Hence, so far from desire being a
+thing to be annihilated, it is the very root of every conceivable mode
+of Life. Without it Life could not be. Every form of expression implies
+the selection of all that goes to make up that form, and the passing-by
+of whatever is not required for that purpose; hence a desire for that
+which is selected in preference to what is laid aside. And this
+selective desire is none other than the universal Law of Attraction.
+
+Whether this law acts as the chemical affinity of apparently unconscious
+atoms, or in the instinctive, if unreasoned, attractions of the
+vegetable and animal worlds, it is still the principle of selective
+affinity; and it continues to be the same when it passes on into the
+higher kingdoms which are ruled by reason and conscious purpose. The
+modes of activity in each of these kingdoms are dictated by the nature
+of the kingdom; but the activity itself always results from the
+preference of a certain subject for a certain object, to the exclusion
+of all others; and all action consists in the reciprocal movement of the
+two towards each other in obedience to the law of their affinity.
+
+When this takes place in the kingdom of conscious individuality, the
+affinities exhibit themselves as mental action; but the principle of
+selection prevails without exception throughout the universe. In the
+conscious mind this attraction towards its affinity becomes desire; the
+desire to create some condition of things better than that now existing.
+Our want of knowledge may cause us to make mistakes as to what this
+better thing really is, and so in seeking to carry out our desire we may
+give it a wrong direction; but the fault is not in the desire itself,
+but in our mistaken notion of what it is that it requires for its
+satisfaction. Hence unrest and dissatisfaction until its true affinity
+is found; but, as soon as this is discovered, the law of attraction at
+once asserts itself and produces that better condition, the dream of
+which first gave direction to our thoughts.
+
+Thus it is eternally true that desire is the cause of all feeling and
+all action; in other words, of all Life. The whole livingness of Life
+consists in receiving or in radiating forth the vibrations produced by
+the law of attraction; and in the kingdom of mind these vibrations
+necessarily become conscious out-reachings of the mind in the direction
+in which it feels attraction; that is to say, they become desires.
+Desire is therefore the mind seeking to manifest itself in some form
+which as yet exists only in its thought. It is the principle of
+creation, whether the thing created be a world or a wooden spoon; both
+have their origin in the desire to bring something into existence which
+does not yet exist. Whatever may be the scale on which we exercise our
+creative ability, the motive power must always be desire.
+
+Desire is the force behind all things; it is the moving principle of
+the universe and the innermost centre of all Life. Hence, to take the
+negation of desire for our primal principle is to endeavour to stamp out
+Life itself; but what we have to do is to acquire the requisite
+knowledge by which to guide our desires to their true objects of
+satisfaction. To do this is the whole end of knowledge; and any
+knowledge applied otherwise is only a partial knowledge, which, having
+failed in its purpose, is nothing but ignorance. Desire is thus the
+sum-total of the livingness of Life, for it is that in which all
+movement originates, whether on the physical level or the spiritual. In
+a word, desire is the creative power, and must be carefully guarded,
+trained, and directed accordingly; but thus to seek to develop it to the
+highest perfection is the very opposite of trying to kill it outright.
+
+And desire has fulfilment for its correlative. The desire and its
+fulfilment are bound together as cause and effect; and when we realise
+the law of their sequence, we shall be more than ever impressed with the
+supreme importance of Desire as the great centre of Life.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+TOUCHING LIGHTLY
+
+
+What is our point of support? Is it in ourselves or outside us? Are we
+self-poised, or does our balance depend on something external? According
+to the actual belief in which our answer to these questions is embodied
+so will our lives be. In everything there are two parts, the essential
+and the incidental--that which is the nucleus and _raison d'être_ of the
+whole thing, and that which gathers round this nucleus and takes form
+from it. The true knowledge always consists in distinguishing these two
+from each other, and error always consists in misplacing them.
+
+In all our affairs there are two factors, ourselves and the matter to be
+dealt with; and since _for us_ the nature of anything is always
+determined by our thought of it, it is entirely a question of our belief
+which of these two factors shall be the essential and which the
+accessory. Whichever we regard as the essential, the other at once
+becomes the incidental. The incidental can never be absent. For any sort
+of action to take place there must be _some_ conditions under which the
+activity passes out into visible results; but the same sort of activity
+may occur under a variety of different conditions, and may thus produce
+very different visible results. So in every matter we shall always find
+an essential or energising factor, and an incidental factor which
+derives its quality from the nature of the energy.
+
+We can therefore never escape from having to select our essential and
+our incidental factor, and whichever we select as the essential, we
+thereby place the other in the position of the incidental. If, then, we
+make the mistake of reversing the true position and suppose that the
+energising force comes from the merely accessory circumstances, we make
+_them_ our point of support and lean upon _them_, and stand or fall with
+them accordingly; and so we come into a condition of weakness and
+obsequious waiting on all sorts of external influences, which is the
+very reverse of that strength, wisdom, and opulence which are the only
+meaning of Liberty.
+
+But if we would ask ourselves the common-sense question Where can the
+centre of a man's Life be except in himself? we shall see that in all
+which pertains to us the energising centre must be in ourselves. We can
+never get away from ourselves as the centre of our own universe, and the
+sooner we clearly understand this the better. There is really no energy
+in _our_ universe but what emanates from ourselves in the first
+instance, and the power which appears to reside in our surroundings is
+derived entirely from our own mind.
+
+If once we realise this, and consider that the Life which flows into us
+from the Universal Life-Principle is at every moment _new_ Life entirely
+undifferentiated to any particular purpose besides that of supporting
+our own individuality, and that it is therefore ours to externalise in
+any form we will, then we find that this manifestation of the eternal
+Life-Principle _in ourselves_ is the standpoint from which we can
+control our surroundings. We must lean firmly on the central point of
+our own being and not on anything else. Our mistake is in taking our
+surroundings too much "_au grand serieux_." We should touch things more
+lightly. As soon as we feel that their weight impedes our free handling
+of them they are mastering us, and not we them.
+
+Light handling does not mean weak handling. On the contrary, lightness
+of touch is incompatible with a weak grasp of the instrument, which
+implies that the weight of the tool is excessive relatively to the force
+that seeks to guide it. A light, even playful handling, therefore
+implies a firm grasp and perfect control over the instrument. It is only
+in the hands of a Grinling Gibbons that the carving tool can create
+miracles of aerial lightness from the solid wood. The light yet firm
+touch tells not of weakness, but of power held in reserve; and if we
+realise our own out-and-out spiritual nature we know that behind any
+measure of power we may put forth there is the whole reserve of the
+infinite to back us up.
+
+As we come to know this we begin to handle things lightly, playing with
+them as a juggler does with his flying knives, which cannot make the
+slightest movement other than he has assigned to them, for we begin to
+see that our control over things is part of the necessary order of the
+universe. The disorder we have met with in the past has resulted
+precisely from our never having attempted consciously to introduce this
+element of our personal control as part of the system.
+
+Of course, I speak of the _whole_ man, and not merely of that part of
+him which Walt Whitman says is contained between his hat and his boots.
+The _whole_ man is an infinitude, and the visible portion of him is the
+instrument through which he looks out upon and enjoys all that belongs
+to him, his own kingdom of the infinite. And when he learns that this is
+the meaning of his conscious individuality, he sees _how_ it is that he
+is infinite, and finds that he is one with Infinite Mind, which is the
+innermost core of the universe. Having thus reached the true centre of
+his own being, he can never give this central place to anything else,
+but will realise that relatively to this all other things are in the
+position of the incidental and accessory, and growing, daily in this
+knowledge he will learn so to handle all things lightly, yet firmly,
+that grief, fear, and error will have less and less space in his world,
+until at last sorrow and sighing shall flee away, and everlasting joy
+shall take their place. We may have taken only a few steps on the way as
+yet, but they are in the right direction, and what we have to do now is
+to go on.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+PRESENT TRUTH
+
+
+If Thought power is good for anything it is good for everything. If it
+can produce one thing it can produce all things. For what is to hinder
+it? Nothing can stop us from thinking. We can _think_ what we please,
+and if to think is to form, then we can form what we please. The whole
+question, therefore, resolves itself into this: Is it true that to think
+is to form? If so, do we not see that our limitations are formed in
+precisely the same way as our expansions? We think that conditions
+outside our thought have power over us, and so we think power into them.
+So the great question of life is whether there is any _other_ creative
+power than Thought. If so, where is it, and what is it?
+
+Both philosophy and religion lead us to the truth that "in the
+beginning" there was no other creative power than Spirit, and the only
+mode of activity we can possibly attribute to Spirit is Thought, and so
+we find Thought as the root of all things. And if this was the case "in
+the beginning" it must be so still; for if all things originate in
+Thought, all things must be modes of Thought, and so it is impossible
+for Spirit ever to hand over its creations to some power which is not
+itself--that is to say, which is not Thought-power; and consequently all
+the forms and circumstances that surround us are manifestations of the
+creative power of Thought.
+
+But it may be objected that this is God's Thought; and that the creative
+power is in God and not Man. But this goes away from the self-evident
+axiomatic truth that "in the beginning" nothing could have had any
+origin except Thought. It is quite true that nothing has any origin
+except in the Divine Mind, and Man himself is therefore a mode of the
+Divine Thought. Again, Man is self-conscious; therefore Man is the
+Divine Thought evolved into _individual_ consciousness, and when he
+becomes sufficiently enlightened to realise this as his origin, then he
+sees that he is a reproduction _in individuality_ of the _same_ spirit
+which produces all things, and that his own thought in individuality has
+exactly the same quality as the Divine Thought in universality, just as
+fire is equally igneous whether burning round a large centre of
+combustion or a small one, and thus we are logically brought to the
+conclusion that our thought must have creative power.
+
+But people say, "We have not found it so. We are surrounded by all sorts
+of circumstances that we do not desire." Yes, you _fear_ them, and in so
+doing you _think_ them; and in this way you are constantly exercising
+this Divine prerogative of creation by Thought, only through ignorance
+you use it in a wrong direction. Therefore the Book of Divine
+Instructions so constantly repeats "Fear not; doubt not," because we can
+never divest our Thought of its inherent creative quality, and the only
+question is whether we shall use it ignorantly to our injury or
+understandingly to our benefit.
+
+The Master summed up his teaching in the aphorism that knowledge of the
+Truth would make us free. Here is no announcement of anything we have to
+do, or of anything that has to be done for us, in order to gain our
+liberty, neither is it a statement of anything _future_. Truth _is_ what
+is. He did not say, you must wait till something becomes true which is
+not true _now_. He said: "Know what _is_ Truth now, and you will find
+that the Truth concerning yourself is Liberty." If the knowledge of
+Truth makes us free it can only be because in truth we are free already,
+only we do not know it.
+
+Our liberty consists in our reproducing on the scale of the individual
+the same creative power of Thought which first brought the world into
+existence, "so that the things which are seen were not made of things
+which do appear." Let us, then, confidently claim our birthright as
+"sons and daughters of the Almighty," and by habitually thinking the
+good, the beautiful, and the true, surround ourselves with conditions
+corresponding to our thoughts, and by our teaching and example help
+others to do the same.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+YOURSELF
+
+
+I want to talk to you about the livingness there is in being yourself.
+It has at least the merit of simplicity, for it must surely be easier to
+be oneself than to be something or somebody else. Yet that is what so
+many are constantly trying to do; the self that is their own is not good
+enough for them, and so they are always trying to go one better than
+what God has made them, with endless strain and struggle as the
+consequence. Of course, they are right to put before them an ideal
+infinitely grander than anything they have yet attained--the only
+possible way of progress is by following an ideal that is always a stage
+ahead of us--but the mistake is in not seeing that its attainment is a
+matter of growth, and that growth must be the expansion of something
+that already exists in us, and therefore implies our being what we are
+and where we are as its starting point. This growth is a continuous
+process, and we cannot do next month's growth without first doing this
+month's; but we are always wanting to jump into some ideal of the
+future, not seeing that we can reach it only by steadily going on from
+where we are now.
+
+These considerations should make us more confident and more comfortable.
+We are employing a force which is much greater than we believe ourselves
+to be, yet it is not separate from us and needing to be persuaded or
+compelled, or inveigled into doing what we want; it is the substratum of
+our own being which is continually passing up into manifestation on the
+visible plane and becoming that personal self to which we often limit
+our attention without considering whence it proceeds. But in truth the
+outer self is the surface growth of that individuality which lies
+concealed far down in the deeps below, and which is none other than the
+Spirit-of-Life which underlies all forms of manifestation.
+
+Endeavour to realise what this Spirit must be in itself--that is to say,
+apart from any of the conditions that arise from the various relations
+which necessarily establish themselves between its various forms of
+individualisation. In its homogeneous self what else can it be but pure
+life--Essence-of-Life, if you like so to call it? Then realise that as
+Essence-of-Life it exists in the innermost of _every one_ of its forms
+of manifestation in as perfect simplicity as any we can attribute to it
+in our most abstract conceptions. In this light we see it to be the
+eternally self-generating power which, to express itself, flows into
+form.
+
+This universal Essence-of-Life is a continual becoming (into form), and
+since we are a part of Nature we do not need to go further than
+ourselves to find the life-giving energy at work with all its powers.
+Hence all we have to do is to allow it to rise to the surface. We do not
+have to _make_ it rise any more than the engineer who sinks the
+bore-pipe for an artesian well has to make the water rise in it; the
+water does that by its own energy, springing as a fountain a hundred
+feet into the air. Just so we shall find a fountain of Essence-of-Life
+ready to spring up in ourselves, inexhaustible and continually
+increasing in its flow, as One taught long ago to a woman at a wayside
+well.
+
+This up-springing of Life-Essence is not another's--it is our own. It
+does not require deep studies, hard labours, weary journeyings to attain
+it; it is not the monopoly of this teacher or that writer, whose
+lectures we must attend or whose books we must read to get it. It is the
+innermost of _ourselves_, and a little common-sense thought as to how
+anything comes to be anything will soon convince us that the great
+inexhaustible life must be the very root and substance of us, permeating
+every fibre of our being.
+
+Surely to be this vast infinitude of living power must be enough to
+satisfy all our desires, and yet this wonderful ideal is nothing else
+but what we already are _in principio_--it is all there in ourselves
+now, only awaiting our recognition for its manifestation. It is not the
+Essence-of-Life which has to grow, for that is eternally perfect in
+itself; but it is our recognition of it that has to grow, and this
+growth cannot be forced. It must come by a natural process, the first
+necessity of which is to abstain from all straining after being
+something which at the present time we cannot naturally be. The Law of
+our Evolution has put us in possession of certain powers and
+opportunities, and our further development depends on our doing just
+what these powers and opportunities make it possible for us to do, here
+and now.
+
+If we do what we are able to do to-day, it will open the way for us to
+do something better to-morrow, and in this manner the growing process
+will proceed healthily and happily in a rapidly increasing ratio. This
+is so much easier than striving to compel things to be what they are
+not, and it is also so much more fruitful in good results. It is not
+sitting still doing nothing, and there is plenty of room for the
+exercise of all our mental faculties, but these faculties are themselves
+the outcome of the Essence-of-Life, and are not the creating power, but
+only that which gives direction to it Now it is this moving power at the
+back of the various faculties that is the true innermost self; and if we
+realise the identity between the innermost and the outermost, we shall
+see that we therefore have at our present disposal all that is necessary
+for our unlimited development in the future.
+
+Thus our livingness consists simply in being ourselves, only more so;
+and in recognising this we get rid of a great burden of unnecessary
+straining and striving, and the place of the old _sturm und drang_ will
+be taken, not by inertia, but by a joyous activity which knows that it
+always has the requisite power to manifest itself in forms of good and
+beauty. What matters it whither this leads us? If we are following the
+line of the beautiful and good, then we shall produce the beautiful and
+good, and thus bring increasing joy into the world, whatever particular
+form it may assume.
+
+We limit ourselves when we try to fix accurately beforehand the
+particular form of good that we shall produce. We should aim not so much
+at having or making some particular thing as at expressing all that we
+are. The expressing will grow out of realising the treasures that are
+ours already, and contemplating the beauty, the affirmative side, of all
+that we are _now_, apart from the negative conceptions and detractions
+which veil this positive good from us. When we do this we shall be
+astonished to see what possibilities reside in ourselves as we are and
+with our present surroundings, all unlovely as we may deem them: and
+commencing to work at once upon whatever we find of affirmative in
+these, and withdrawing our thought from what we have hitherto seen of
+negative in them, the right road will open up before us, leading us in
+wonderful ways to the development of powers that we never suspected, and
+the enjoyment of happiness that we never anticipated.
+
+We have never been out of our right path, only we have been walking in
+it backwards instead of forwards, and now that we have begun to follow
+the path in the right direction, we find that it is none other than the
+way of peace, the path of joy, and the road to eternal life. These
+things we may attain by simply living naturally with ourselves. It is
+because we are trying to be or do something which is not natural to us
+that we experience weariness and labour, where we should find all our
+activities joyously concentrated on objects which lead to their own
+accomplishment by the force of the love that we have for them. But when
+we make the grand discovery of how to live naturally, we shall find it
+to be all, and more than all, that we had ever desired, and our daily
+life will become a perpetual joy to ourselves, and we shall radiate
+light and life wherever we go.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
+
+
+That great and wise writer, George Eliot, expressed her matured views on
+the subject of religious opinions in these words: "I have too profound a
+conviction of the efficacy that lies in all sincere faith, and the
+spiritual blight that comes with no faith, to have any negative
+propagandism left in me." This had not always been her attitude, for in
+her youth she had had a good deal of negative propagandism in her; but
+the experience of a lifetime led her to form this estimate of the value
+of sincere faith, independently of the particular form of thought which
+leads to it.
+
+Tennyson also came to the same conclusion, and gives kindly warning:--
+
+    "O thou who after toil and storm
+      May'st seem to have reached a purer air,
+      Whose faith has centred everywhere,
+    Nor cares to fix itself to form.
+      Leave thou thy sister when she prays
+    Her early heaven, her happy views,
+    Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse
+      A life that leads melodious days."
+
+And thus these two great minds have left us a lesson of wisdom which we
+shall do well to profit by. Let us see how it applies more particularly
+to our own case.
+
+The true presentment of the Higher Thought contains no "negative
+propagandism." It is everywhere ranged on the side of the Affirmative,
+and its great object is to extirpate the canker which gnaws at the root
+of every life that endeavours to centre itself upon the Negative. Its
+purpose is constructive and not destructive. But we often find people
+labouring under a very erroneous impression as to the nature and scope
+of the movement, and thus not only themselves deterred from
+investigating it, but also deterring others from doing so. Sometimes
+this results from the subject having been presented to them unwisely--in
+a way needlessly repugnant to the particular form of religious ideas to
+which they are accustomed; but more often it results from their
+prejudging the whole matter, and making up their minds that the movement
+is opposed to their ideas of religion, without being at the pains to
+inquire what its principles really are. In either case a few words on
+the attitude of the New Thought towards the current forms of religious
+opinion may not be out of place.
+
+The first consideration in every concern is, What is the object aimed
+at? The end determines the means to be employed, and if the nature of
+the end be clearly kept in view, then no objectless complications will
+be introduced into the means. All this seems too obvious to be stated,
+but it is just the failure to realise this simple truth that has given
+rise to the whole body of _odium theologicum_, with all the persecutions
+and massacres and martyrdoms which disgrace the pages of history, making
+so many of them a record of nothing but ferocity and stupidity. Let us
+hope for a better record in the future; and if we are to get it, it will
+be by the adoption of the simple principle here stated.
+
+In our own country alone the varieties of churches and sects form a
+lengthy catalogue, but in every one of them the purpose is the same--to
+establish the individual in a satisfactory relation to the Divine Power.
+The very fact of any religious profession at all implies the recognition
+of God as the Source of life and of all that goes to make life; and
+therefore the purpose in every case is to draw increasing degrees of
+life, whether here or hereafter, from the Only Source from which alone
+it is to be obtained, and therefore to establish such a relation with
+this Source as may enable the worshipper to draw from It all the life he
+wants. Hence the necessary preliminary to drawing consciously at all is
+the confidence that such a relation actually has been established; and
+such a confidence as this is exactly all that is meant by Faith.
+
+The position of the man who has not this confidence is either that no
+such Source exists, or else that he is without means of access to It;
+and in either case he feels himself left to fight for his own hand
+against the entire universe without the consciousness of any Superior
+Power to back him up. He is thrown entirely upon his own resources, not
+knowing of the interior spring from which they may be unceasingly
+replenished. He is like a plant cut off at the stem and stuck in the
+ground without any root, and consequently that spiritual blight of which
+George Eliot speaks creeps over him, producing weakness, perplexity, and
+fear, with all their baleful consequences, where there should be that
+strength, order, and confidence which are the very foundation of all
+building-up for whatever purpose, whether of personal prosperity or of
+usefulness to others.
+
+From the point of view of those who are acquainted with the laws of
+spiritual life, such a man is cut off from the root of his own Being.
+Beyond and far interior to that outer self which each of us knows as the
+intellectual man working with the physical brain as instrument, we have
+roots penetrating deep into that Infinite of which, in our ordinary
+waking state, we are only dimly conscious; and it is through this root
+of our own individuality, spreading far down into the hidden depths of
+Being, that we draw out of the unseen that unceasing stream of Life
+which afterwards, by our thought-power, we differentiate into all those
+outward forms of which we have need. Hence the unceasing necessity for
+every one to realise the great truth that his whole individuality has
+its foundation in such a root, and that the ground in which this root
+is embedded is that Universal Being for which there is no name save that
+of the One all-embracing I AM.
+
+The supreme necessity, therefore, for each of us is to realise this
+fundamental fact of our own nature, for it is only in proportion as we
+do so that we truly live; and, therefore, whatever helps us to this
+realisation should be carefully guarded. In so far as any form of
+religion contributes to this end in the case of any particular
+individual, for him it is true religion. It may be imperfect, but it is
+true so far as it goes; and what is wanted is not to destroy the
+foundation of a man's faith because it is narrow, but to expand it. And
+this expanding will be done by the man himself, for it is a growth from
+within and not a construction from without.
+
+Our attitude towards the religious beliefs of others should, therefore,
+not be that of iconoclasts, breaking down ruthlessly whatever from _our_
+point of view we see to be merely traditionary idols (in Bacon's sense
+of the word), but rather the opposite method of fixing upon that in
+another's creed which we find to be positive and affirmative, and
+gradually leading him to perceive in what its affirmativeness consists;
+and then, when once he has got the clue to the element of strength which
+exists in his accustomed form of belief, the perception of the contrast
+between that and the non-essential accretions will grow up in his mind
+spontaneously, thus gradually bringing him out into a wider and freer
+atmosphere. In going through such a process as this, he will never have
+had his thoughts directed into any channel to suggest separation from
+his spiritual root and ground; but he will learn that the rooting and
+grounding in the Divine, which he had trusted in at first, were indeed
+true, but in a sense far fuller, grander, and larger every way than his
+early infantile conception of them.
+
+The question is not how far can another's religious opinions stand the
+test of a remorseless logic, but how far do they enable him to realise
+his unity with Divine Spirit? That is the living proof of the value of
+his opinion to himself, and no change in his opinions can be for the
+better that does not lead him to a greater recognition of the livingness
+of Divine Spirit in himself. For any change of opinion to indicate a
+forward movement, it must proceed from our realising in some measure the
+true nature of the life that is already developed in us. When we see
+_why_ we are _what_ we are _now_, then we can look ahead and see what
+the same life principle that has brought us up to the present point is
+capable of doing in the future. We may not see very far ahead, but we
+shall see where the next step is to be placed, and that is sufficient to
+enable us to move on.
+
+What we have to do, therefore, is to help others to grow from the root
+they are already _living_ by, and not to dig their roots up and leave
+them to wither. We need not be afraid of making ourselves all things to
+all men, in the sense of fixing upon the affirmative elements in each
+one's creed as the starting-point of our work, for the affirmative and
+life-giving is always true, and Truth is always _one_ and consistent
+with itself; and therefore we need never fear being inconsistent so long
+as we adhere to this method. It is worse than useless to waste time in
+dissecting the negative accretions of other people's beliefs. In doing
+so we run great risks of rooting up the wheat along with the tares, and
+we shall certainly succeed in brushing people up the wrong way;
+moreover, by looking out exclusively for the life-giving and affirmative
+elements, we shall reap benefit to ourselves. We shall not only keep our
+temper, but we shall often find large reserves of affirmative power
+where at first we had apprehended nothing but worthless accumulations,
+and thus we shall become gainers both in largeness of mind and in stores
+of valuable material.
+
+Of course we must be rigidly unyielding as regards the _essence_ of
+Truth--_that_ must never be sacrificed--but as representatives, in
+however small a sphere, of the New Thought, we should make it our aim to
+show others, not that their religion is wrong, but that all they may
+find of life-givingness in it is life-giving because it is part of the
+One Truth which is always the same under whatever form expressed. As
+half a loaf is better than no bread, so ignorant worship is better than
+no worship, and ignorant faith is better than no faith. Our work is not
+to destroy this faith and this worship, but to lead them on into a
+clearer light.
+
+For this reason we may assure all inquirers that the abandonment of
+their customary form of worship is no necessity of the New Thought; but,
+on the contrary, that the principles of the movement, correctly
+understood, will show them far more meaning in that worship than they
+have ever yet realised. Truth is one; and when once the truth which
+underlies the outward form is clearly understood, the maintenance or
+abandonment of the latter will be found to be a matter of personal
+feeling as to what form, or absence of form, best enables the particular
+individual to realise the Truth itself.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+A LESSON FROM BROWNING
+
+
+Perhaps you know a little poem of Browning's called "An Epistle
+Containing the Strange Medical Experiences of Karshish, the Arab
+Physician." The somewhat weird conception is that the Arab physician,
+travelling in Palestine soon after the date when the Gospel narrative
+closes, meets with Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead, and in this
+letter to a medical friend describes the strange effect which his vision
+of the other life has produced upon the resuscitated man. The poem
+should be studied as a whole; but for the present a few lines selected
+here and there must do duty to indicate the character of the change
+which has passed upon Lazarus. After comparing him to a beggar who,
+having suddenly received boundless wealth, is unable to regulate its use
+to his requirements, Karshish continues:--
+
+    "So here--we call the treasure knowledge, say,
+    Increased beyond the fleshly faculty--
+    Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,
+    Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven:
+    The man is witless of the size, the sum,
+    The value in proportion of all things."
+
+In fact he has become almost exclusively conscious of
+
+    "The spiritual life around the earthly life:
+    The law of that is known to him as this,
+    His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here,"
+
+and the result is a loss of mental balance entirely unfitting him for
+the affairs of ordinary life.
+
+Now there can be no doubt that Browning had a far more serious intention
+in writing this poem than just to record a fantastic notion that flitted
+through his brain. If we read between the lines, it must be clear from
+the general tenor of his writings that, however he may have acquired it,
+Browning had a very deep acquaintance with the inner region of spiritual
+causes which give rise to all that we see of outward phenomenal
+manifestation. There are continual allusions in his works to the life
+behind the veil, and it is to this suggestion of some mystery underlying
+his words that we owe the many attempts to fathom his meaning expressed
+through Browning Societies and the like--attempts which fail or succeed
+according as they are made from "the without" or from "the within." No
+one was better qualified than the poet to realise the immense benefits
+of the inner knowledge, and for the same reason he is also qualified to
+warn us of the dangers on the way to its acquisition; for nowhere is it
+more true that
+
+    "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,"
+
+and it is one of the greatest of these dangers that he points out in
+this poem.
+
+Under the figure of Lazarus he describes the man who has practically
+grasped the reality of the inner side of things, for whom the veil has
+been removed, and who knows that the external and visible takes its rise
+from the internal and spiritual. But the description is that of one
+whose eyes have been so dazzled by the light that he has lost the power
+of accommodating his vision to the world of sense. He now commits the
+same error from the side of "the within" that he formerly committed from
+the side of "the without," the error of supposing that there is no vital
+reality in the aspect of things on which his thoughts are not
+immediately centered. This is want of mental balance, whether it shows
+itself by refusing reality to the inward or the outward. To be so
+absorbed in speculative ideas as to be unable to give them practical
+application in daily life, is to allow our highest thoughts to evaporate
+in dreams.
+
+There is a world of philosophy in the simple statement that there can be
+no inside without an outside, and no outside without an inside; and the
+great secret in life is in learning to see things in their wholeness,
+and to realise the inside and the outside simultaneously. Each of them
+without the other is a mere abstraction, having no real existence, which
+we contemplate separately only for the purpose of reviewing the logical
+steps by which they are connected together as cause and effect. Nature
+does not separate them, for they are inseparable; and the law of nature
+is the law of life. It is related of Pythagoras that, after he had led
+his scholars to the dizziest heights of the inner knowledge, he never
+failed to impress upon them the converse lesson of tracing out the steps
+by which these inner principles translate themselves into the familiar
+conditions of the outward things by which we are surrounded. The process
+of analysis is merely an expedient for discovering what springs in the
+realm of causes we are to touch in order to produce certain effects in
+the realm of manifestation. But this is not sufficient. We must also
+learn to calculate how those particular effects, when produced, will
+stand related to the world of already existing effects among which we
+propose to launch them, how they will modify these and be modified by
+these in turn; and this calculation of effects is as necessary as the
+knowledge of causes.
+
+We cannot impress upon ourselves too strongly that reality consists of
+both an inside and an outside, a generating principle and a generated
+condition, and that anything short of the reality of wholeness is
+illusion on one side or the other. Nothing could have been further from
+Browning's intention than to deter seekers after truth from studying the
+principles of Being, for without the knowledge of them truth must always
+remain wrapped in mystery; but the lesson he would impress on us is that
+of guarding vigilantly the mental equilibrium which alone will enable
+us to develop those boundless powers whose infinite unfolding is the
+fulness of Life. And we must remember above all that the soul of life is
+Love, and that Love shows itself by service, and service proceeds from
+sympathy, which is the capacity for seeing things from the point of view
+of those whom we would help, while at the same time seeing them also in
+their true relations; and therefore, if we would realise that Love which
+is the inmost vitalising principle even of the most interior powers, it
+must be kept alive by maintaining our hold upon the exterior life as
+being equally real with the inward principles of which it is the
+manifestation.
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE SPIRIT OF OPULENCE
+
+
+It is quite a mistake to suppose that we must restrict and stint
+ourselves in order to develop greater power or usefulness. This is to
+form the conception of the Divine Power as so limited that the best use
+we can make of it is by a policy of self-starvation, whether material or
+mental. Of course, if we believe that some form of self-starvation is
+necessary to our producing good work, then so long as we entertain this
+belief the fact actually is so _for us_. "Whatsoever is not of
+faith"--that is, not in accordance with our honest _belief_--"is sin";
+and by acting contrary to what we really believe we bring in a
+suggestion of opposition to the Divine Spirit, which must necessarily
+paralyse our efforts, and surround us with a murky atmosphere of
+distrust and want of joy.
+
+But all this exists in, and is produced by, our _belief_; and when we
+come to examine the grounds of this belief we shall find that it rests
+upon an entire misapprehension of the nature of our own power. If we
+clearly realise that the creative power in ourselves is _unlimited_,
+then there is no reason for limiting the extent to which we may enjoy
+what we can create by means of it. Where we are drawing from the
+_infinite_ we need never be afraid of taking more than our share. That
+is not where the danger lies. The danger is in not sufficiently
+realising our own richness, and in looking upon the externalised
+products of our creative power as being the true riches instead of the
+creative power of spirit itself.
+
+If we avoid this error, there is no need to limit ourselves in taking
+what we will from the infinite storehouse: "All things are yours." And
+the way to avoid this error is by realising that the true wealth is in
+identifying ourselves with the _spirit_ of opulence. We must be opulent
+in our _thought_. Do not "think money," as such, for it is only one
+means of opulence; but _think opulence_, that is, largely, generously,
+liberally, and you will find that the means of realising this thought
+will flow to you from all quarters, whether as money or as a hundred
+other things not to be reckoned in cash.
+
+We must not make ourselves dependent on any particular _form_ of wealth,
+or insist on its coming to us through some particular channel--that is
+at once to impose a limitation, and to shut out other forms of wealth
+and to close other channels; but we must enter into the _spirit_ of it.
+Now the spirit is Life, and throughout the universe Life ultimately
+consists in _circulation_, whether within the physical body of the
+individual or on the scale of the entire solar system; and circulation
+means a continual flowing around, and the _spirit_ of opulence is no
+exception to this universal law of all life.
+
+When once this principle becomes clear to us we shall see that our
+attention should be directed rather to the giving than the receiving. We
+must look upon ourselves, not as misers' chests to be kept locked for
+our own benefit, but as centres of distribution; and the better we
+fulfil our function as such centres the greater will be the
+corresponding inflow. If we choke the outlet the current must slacken,
+and a full and free flow can be obtained only by keeping it open. The
+spirit of opulence--the opulent mode of thought, that is--consists in
+cultivating the feeling that we possess all sorts of riches which we can
+_bestow upon others_, and which we can bestow _liberally_ because by
+this very action we open the way for still greater supplies to flow in.
+But you say, "I am short of money, I hardly know how to pay for
+necessaries. What have I to give?"
+
+The answer is that we must always start from the point where we are; and
+if your wealth at the present moment is not abundant on the material
+plane, you need not trouble to start on that plane. There are other
+sorts of wealth, still more valuable, on the spiritual and intellectual
+planes, which you can give; and you can start from this point and
+practise the spirit of opulence, even though your balance at the bank
+may be nil. And then the universal law of attraction will begin to
+assert itself. You will not only begin to experience an inflow on the
+spiritual and intellectual planes, but it will extend itself to the
+material plane also.
+
+If you have realised the _spirit_ of opulence you _cannot help_ drawing
+to yourself material good, as well as that higher wealth which is not to
+be measured by a money standard; and because you truly understand the
+_spirit_ of opulence you will neither affect to despise this form of
+good, nor will you attribute to it a value that does not belong to it;
+but you will _co-ordinate_ it with your other more interior forms of
+wealth so as to make it the material instrument in smoothing the way for
+their more perfect expression. Used thus, with understanding of the
+relation which it bears to spiritual and intellectual wealth, material
+wealth becomes _one with them_, and is no more to be shunned and feared
+than it is to be sought for its own sake.
+
+It is not money, but the _love_ of money, that is the root of evil; and
+the _spirit_ of opulence is precisely the attitude of mind which is
+furthest removed from the love of money for its own sake. It does not
+believe in money. What it does believe in is the generous feeling which
+is the intuitive recognition of the great law of circulation, which does
+not in any undertaking make its first question, How much am I going to
+_get_ by it? but, How much am I going to _do_ by it? And making _this_
+the first question, the getting will flow in with a generous profusion,
+and with a spontaneousness and rightness of direction that are absent
+when our first thought is of receiving only.
+
+We are not called upon to give what we have not yet got and to run into
+debt; but we are to give liberally of what we _have_, with the knowledge
+that by so doing we are setting the law of circulation to work, and as
+this law brings us greater and greater inflows of every kind of good, so
+our out-giving will increase, not by depriving ourselves of any
+expansion of our own life that we may desire, but by finding that every
+expansion makes us the more powerful instruments for expanding the life
+of others. "Live and let live" is the motto of the true opulence.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+BEAUTY
+
+
+Do we sufficiently direct our thoughts to the subject of Beauty? I think
+not. We are too apt to regard Beauty as a merely superficial thing, and
+do not realise all that it implies. This was not the case with the great
+thinkers of the ancient world--see the place which no less a one than
+Plato gives to Beauty as the expression of all that is highest and
+greatest in the system of the universe. These great men of old were no
+superficial thinkers, and, therefore, would never have elevated to the
+supreme place that which is only superficial. Therefore, we shall do
+well to ask what it is that these great minds found in the idea of
+Beauty which made it thus appeal to them as the most perfect outward
+expression of all that lies deepest in the fundamental laws of Being. It
+is because, rightly apprehended, Beauty represents the supremest living
+quality of Thought. It is the glorious overflowing of fulness of Love
+which indicates the presence of infinite reserves of Power behind it. It
+is the joyous profusion that shows the possession of inexhaustible
+stores of wealth which can afford to be thus lavish and yet remain as
+exhaustless as before. Read aright, Beauty is the index to the whole
+nature of Being.
+
+Beauty is the externalisation of Harmony, and Harmony is the
+co-ordinated working of all the powers of Being, both in the individual
+and in the relation of the individual to the Infinite from which it
+springs; and therefore this Harmony conducts us at once into the
+presence of the innermost undifferentiated Life. Thus Beauty is in most
+immediate touch with the very arcanum of Life; it is the brightness of
+glory spreading itself over the sanctuary of the Divine Spirit. For if,
+viewed from without, Beauty is the province of the artist and the poet,
+and lays hold of our emotions and appeals directly to the innermost
+feelings of our heart, calling up the response of that within us which
+recognises itself in the harmony perceived without, this is only because
+it speeds across the bridge of Reason with such quick feet that we pass
+from the outmost to the inmost and back again in the twinkling of an
+eye; but the bridge is still there and, retracing our steps more
+leisurely, we shall find that, viewed from within, Beauty is no less the
+province of the calm reasoner and analyst. What the poet and the artist
+seize upon intuitionally, he elaborates gradually, but the result is the
+same in both cases; for no intuition is true which does not admit of
+being expanded into a rational sequence of intelligible factors, and no
+argument is true which does not admit of being condensed into that rapid
+suggestion which is intuition.
+
+Thus the impassioned artist and the calm thinker both find that the only
+true Beauty proceeds naturally from the actual construction of that
+which it expresses. It is not something added on as an afterthought, but
+something pre-existing in the original idea, something to which that
+idea naturally leads up, and which presupposes that idea as affording it
+any _raison d'être_. The test of Beauty is, What does it express? Is it
+merely a veneer, a coat of paint laid on from without? Then it is indeed
+nothing but a whited sepulchre, a covering to hide the vacuity or
+deformity which needs to be removed. But is it the true and natural
+outcome of what is beneath the surface? Then it is the index to
+superabounding Life and Love and Intelligence, which is not content with
+mere utilitarianism hasting to escape at the earliest possible point
+from the labour of construction, as though from an enforced and
+unwelcome task, but rejoicing over its work and unwilling to quit it
+until it has expressed this rejoicing in every fittest touch of form and
+colour and exquisite proportion that the material will admit of, and
+this without departing by a hairbreadth from the original purpose of the
+design.
+
+Wherever, therefore, we find Beauty, we may infer an enormous reserve of
+Power behind it; in fact, we may look upon it as the visible expression
+of the great truth that Life-Power is infinite. And when the inner
+meaning of Beauty is thus revealed to us, and we learn to know it as the
+very fulness and overflowing of Power, we shall find that we have
+gained a new standard for the guidance of our own lives. We must begin
+to use this wonderful process which we have learnt from Nature. Having
+learnt how Nature works--how God works--we must begin to work in like
+manner, and never consider any work complete until we have carried it to
+some final outcome of Beauty, whether material, intellectual, or
+spiritual. Is my intention good? That is the initial question, for the
+intention determines the nature of the essence in everything. What is
+the most beautiful form in which I can express the good I intend? That
+is the ultimate question; for the true Beauty which our work expresses
+is the measure of the Power, Intelligence, Love--in a word, of the
+quantity and quality of our own life which we have put into it. True
+Beauty, mind you--that which is beautiful because it most perfectly
+expresses the original idea, not a mere ornamentation occupying our
+thoughts as a thing apart from the use intended.
+
+Nothing is of so small account but it has its fullest power of
+expression in some form of Beauty peculiarly its own. Beauty is the law
+of perfect Thought, be the subject of our Thought some scheme affecting
+the welfare of millions, or a word spoken to a little child. True Beauty
+and true Power are the correlatives one of the other. Kindly expression
+originates in kindly thought; and kindly expression is the essence of
+Beauty, which, seeking to express itself ever more and more perfectly,
+becomes that fine touch of sympathy which is artistic skill, whether
+applied in working upon material substances or upon the emotions of the
+heart. But, remember, first Use, then Beauty, and neither complete
+without the other. Use without Beauty is ungracious giving, and Beauty
+without Use is humbug; never forgetting, however, that there is a region
+of the mind where the use is found in the beauty, where Beauty itself
+serves the direct purpose of raising us to see a higher ideal which will
+thenceforward permeate our lives, giving a more living quality to all we
+think and say and do.
+
+Seen thus the Beautiful is the true expression of the Good. From
+whichever end of the scale we look we shall find that they accurately
+measure each other. They are the same thing in the outermost and the
+innermost respectively. But in our search for a higher Beauty than we
+have yet found we must beware of missing the Beauty that already exists.
+Perfect harmony with its environment, and perfect expression of its own
+inward nature are what constitute Beauty; and our ignorance of the
+nature of the thing or its environment may shut our eyes to the Beauty
+it already has. It takes the genius of a Millet to paint, or a Whitman
+in words, to show us the beauty of those ordinary work-a-day figures
+with which our world is for the most part peopled, whose originals we
+pass by as having no form or comeliness. Assuredly the mission of every
+thinking man and woman is to help build up forms of greater beauty,
+spiritual, intellectual, material, everywhere; but if we would make
+something grander than Watteau gardens or Dresden china shepherdesses,
+we must enter the great realistic school of Nature and learn to
+recognise the beauty that already surrounds us, although it may have a
+little dirt on the surface. Then, when we have learnt the great
+principles of Beauty from the All-Spirit which is it, we shall know how
+to develop the Beauty on its own proper lines without perpetuating the
+dirt; and we shall know that all Beauty is the expression of Living
+Power, and that we can measure our power by the degree of beauty into
+which we can transform it, rendering our lives,
+
+    "By loveliness of perfect deeds,
+    More strong than all poetic thought."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+SEPARATION AND UNITY
+
+
+I
+
+"The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me" (John xiv,
+30). In these words the Grand Master of Divine Science gives us the key
+to the Great Knowledge. Comparison with other passages shows that the
+terms here rendered "prince" and "world" can equally be rendered
+"principle" and "age." Jesus is here speaking of a principle of the
+present age so entirely opposed to that principle of which he himself
+was the visible expression, as to have no part in him. It is the utter
+contradiction of everything that Jesus came to teach and to exemplify.
+The account Jesus gave of himself was that he came "to bear witness to
+the Truth," and in order that men "might have life, and that they might
+have it more abundantly"; consequently the principle to which he refers
+must be the exact opposite of Truth and Life--that is, it must be the
+principle of Falsehood and Death.
+
+What, then, is this false and destructive principle which rules the
+present age? If we consider the gist of the entire discourse of which
+these are the concluding words, we shall find that the central idea
+which Jesus has been most strenuously endeavouring to impress upon his
+disciples at their last meeting before the crucifixion, is that of the
+absolute identity and out-and-out oneness of "the Father" and "the Son,"
+the principle of the perfect unity of God and Man. If this, then, was
+the great Truth which he was thus earnestly solicitous to impress upon
+his disciples' minds when his bodily presence was so shortly to be
+removed from them--the Truth of Unity--may we not reasonably infer the
+opposing falsehood to be the assertion of separateness, the assertion
+that God and man are not one? The idea of separateness is precisely the
+principle on which the world has proceeded from that day to this--the
+assumption that God and man are not one in being, and that the matter is
+of a different essence from spirit. In other words, the principle that
+finds favour with the intellectuality of the present age is that of
+duality--the idea of two powers and two substances opposite in kind,
+and, therefore, repugnant to each other, permeating all things, and so
+leaving no wholeness anywhere.
+
+The entire object of the Bible is to combat the idea, of two opposing
+forces in the world. The good news is said to be that of
+"reconciliation" (2 Cor. v. 18), where also we are told that "all things
+are from God," hence leaving no room for any other power or any other
+substance; and the great falsehood, which it is the purpose of the Good
+News to expose, is everywhere in the Bible proclaimed to be the
+suggestion of duality, which is some other mode of Life, that is not the
+One Life, but something separate from it--an idea which it is impossible
+to state distinctly without involving a contradiction in terms.
+Everywhere the Bible exposes the fiction of the duality of separation as
+the great lie, but nowhere in so emphatic and concentrated a manner as
+in that wonderful passage of Revelations where it is figured in the
+mysterious Number of the Beast. "He that hath understanding let him
+count the number of the Beast ... and his number is six hundred and sixty
+and six" (Rev. xiii, 18, R.V.). Let me point out the great principle
+expressed in this mysterious number. It has other more particular
+applications, but this one general principle underlies them all.
+
+It is an established maxim that every unity contains in itself a
+trinity, just as the individual man consists of body, soul, and spirit.
+If we would perfectly understand anything, we must be able to comprehend
+it in its threefold nature; therefore in symbolic numeration the
+multiplying of the unit by three implies the completeness of that for
+which the unit stands; and, again, the threefold repetition of a number
+represents its extension to infinity. Now mark what results if we apply
+these representative methods of numerical expression to the principles
+of Oneness and of separateness respectively. Oneness is Unity, and
+1 × 3 = 3, which, intensified to its highest expression, is written
+as 333. Now apply the same method to the idea of separateness. Separateness
+consists of one and another one, each of which, according to the
+universal law, contains a trinity. In this view of duality the totality
+of things is two, and 2 × 3 = 6, and, intensifying this to its highest
+expression, we get 666, which is the Number of the Beast.
+
+Why of the Beast? Because separateness from God, or the duality of
+opposition, which is also a duality of polarity, which is Dual-Unity,
+recognises something as having essential being, which is not the One
+Spirit; and such a conception can be verbally rendered only by some word
+that in common acceptance represents something, not only lower than the
+divine, but lower than the human also. It is because the conception of
+oneself as a being apart from God, if carried out to its legitimate
+consequences, must ultimately land all who hold it in a condition of
+things where open ferocity or secret cunning, the tiger nature or the
+serpent nature, can be the only possible rule of action.
+
+Thus it is that the principle of the present age can have no part in
+that principle of Perfect Wholeness which the Great Master embodied in
+His teaching and in Himself. The two ideas are absolutely incompatible,
+and whichever we adopt as our leading principle, it must be to the
+entire exclusion of the other; we cannot serve God and Mammon. There is
+no such thing as partial wholeness. Either we are still in the
+principle of Separateness, and our eyes are not yet open to the real
+nature of the Kingdom of Heaven; or else we have grasped the principle
+of Unity without any exception anywhere, and the One Being includes all,
+the body and the soul alike, the visible form and the invisible
+substance and life of all equally; nothing can be left out, and we stand
+complete here and now, lacking no faculty, but requiring only to become
+conscious of our own powers, and to learn to have confidence in them
+through "having them exercised by reason of use."
+
+The following communication from "A Foreign Reader," commenting on the
+Number of the Beast, as treated by Judge Troward in "Separation and
+Unity," is taken from _EXPRESSION_ for 1902, in which it was first
+published. Following is Judge Troward's reply to this letter.
+
+    Dear Mr. Editor.--A correspondent in the current number of
+    _Expression_ points out the reference in the Book of
+    Revelation to the number 666 as the mark of the Beast,
+    because the trinity of mind, soul, and body, if considered as
+    unity, may be expressed by the figures 333, and therefore
+    duality is 333 × 2 = 666.
+
+    I think the inverse of the proposition is still more
+    startling, and I should like to point it out. Instead of
+    multiplying let us try dividing. First of all take unity as
+    the unit one and divide by three (representing of course the
+    same formula, viz., mind, soul and body). Expressed by a
+    common fraction it is merely 1/3, which is an incomplete
+    mathematical figure. But take the decimal formula of one
+    divided by three, and we arrive at .3 circulating, i. e.,
+    .3333 on to infinity. In other words, the result of the
+    proposition by mathematics is that you divide this formula of
+    spirit, soul, and body into unity, and it remains true to
+    itself ad infinitum.
+
+    Now we come to consider it as a duality in the same way.
+    Expressed as a vulgar fraction it is 2/3; but as a decimal
+    fraction it is .6666 ad infinitum. I think this is worth
+    noting.
+
+        Yours very faithfully,
+              A Foreign Reader.
+
+      Brussels, Aug. 14, 1902.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Dear Editor.--I return with many thanks the very interesting
+    letter received with yours, and I am very glad that my
+    article should have been instrumental in drawing forth this
+    further light on the subject.
+
+    This, moreover, affords an excellent illustration of one
+    great principle of Unity, which is that the Unity repeats
+    itself in every one of its parts, so that each part taken
+    separately is an exact reproduction (in principles) of the
+    greater Unity of which it is a portion. Therefore, if you
+    take the individual man as your unit (which is what I did),
+    and proceed by multiplication, you get the results which were
+    pointed out in my article. And conversely, if you take the
+    Great Unity of All-Being as your unit, and proceed by
+    division, you arrive at the result shown by your foreign
+    correspondent. The principle is a purely mathematical one,
+    and is extremely interesting in the present application as
+    showing the existence of a system of concealed mathematics
+    running through the whole Bible. This bears out what I said
+    in my article that there were other applications of the
+    principle in question, though this one did not at the time
+    occur to me.
+
+    I am much indebted to your correspondent for the further
+    proof thus given of the correctness of my interpretation of
+    the Number of the Beast. Both our interpretations support
+    each other, for they are merely different ways of stating the
+    same thing, and they have this advantage over those generally
+    given, that they do not refer to any particular form of evil,
+    but express a general principle applicable to all alike.
+
+        Yours sincerely,
+                       T.
+
+      London, Aug. 30, 1902.
+
+
+II
+
+It may perhaps emphasize my point if I remind my readers that it was the
+conflict between the principles of Unity and separation that led to the
+crucifixion of Jesus. We must distinguish between the charge which
+really led to his death, and the merely technical charge on which he was
+sentenced by the Roman Governor. The latter--the charge of opposition to
+the royal authority of Cæsar--has its significance; but it is clear from
+the Bible record that this was merely formal, the true cause of
+conviction being contained in the statement that of the chief priests:
+"We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself
+the Son of God."
+
+The antagonism of the two principles of Unity and separation had first
+been openly manifested on the occasion when Jesus made the memorable
+declaration, "I and my Father are one." The Jews took up stones to stone
+him. Then said Jesus unto them, "Many good works have I shown you from
+my Father; for which of those works do ye stone Me?" The Jews replied,
+"For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that
+thou, being a man, makest thyself God." Jesus said, "Is it not written
+in your law, I said ye are gods? If He called them gods, unto whom the
+Word of God came (and the Scriptures cannot be broken), say ye of him,
+whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou
+blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" Here we have the
+first open passage of arms between the two opposing principles which led
+to the scene of Calvary as the final testimony of Jesus to the principle
+of Unity. He died because he maintained the Truth; that he was one with
+the Father. That was the substantive charge on which he was executed.
+"Art thou the son of the Blessed?" he was asked by the priestly
+tribunal; and the answer came clear and unequivocal, "I am." Then said
+the Council, "He hath spoken blasphemy, what further need have we of
+witnesses?" And they all condemned him to be worthy of death.
+
+Jesus did not enter into a palpably useless argument with judges whose
+minds were so rooted in the idea of dualism as to be impervious to any
+other conception; but with a mixed multitude, who were not officially
+committed to a system, the case was different. Among them there might
+be some still open to conviction, and the appeal was, therefore, made to
+a passage in the Psalms with which they were all familiar, pointing out
+that the very persons to whom the Divine word was addressed were styled
+"gods" by the Divine Speaker Himself. The incontrovertibleness of the
+fact was emphasised by the stress laid upon it as "Scripture which
+cannot be broken;" and the meaning to be assigned to the statement was
+rendered clear by the argument which Jesus deduced from it. He says in
+effect, "You would stone me as a blasphemer for saying of myself what
+your own Scriptures say concerning each of you." The claim of unity with
+"the Father," he urges, was no unique one, but one which the Scripture,
+rightly understood, entitled every one of his hearers to make for
+himself.
+
+And so we find throughout that Jesus nowhere makes any claim for himself
+which he does not also make for those who accept his teaching. Does he
+say to the Jews, "Ye are of this world; I am not of this world?" Equally
+he says of his disciples, "They are not of the world, even as I am not
+of the world." Does he say, "I am the light of the world?" Equally, he
+says, "Ye are the light of the world." Does he say, "I and my Father are
+one?" Equally he prays that they all might be one, even as we are one.
+Is he styled "the Son of God?" Then St. John writes, "To them gave he
+power to become sons of God, even to as many as believe on his name;"
+and by belief on the name we may surely understand belief in the
+principle of which the name is the verbal representation.
+
+The essential unity of God and man is thus the one fact which permeates
+the whole teaching of Jesus. He himself stood forth as its living
+expression. He appealed to his miracles as the proofs of it: "it is the
+Father that doeth the works." It formed the substance of his final
+discourse with his disciples in the night that he was betrayed. It is
+the Truth, to bear witness to which, he told Pilate, was the purpose of
+his life. In support of this Truth he died, and by the living power of
+this Truth he rose again. The whole object of his mission was to teach
+men to realise their unity with God and the consequences that must
+necessarily follow from it; to draw them away from that notion of
+dualism which puts an impassable barrier between God and man, and thus
+renders any true conception of the Principle of Life impossible; and to
+draw them into the clear perception of the innermost nature of Life, as
+consisting in the inherent identity of each individual with that
+Infinite all-pervading Spirit of Life which he called "the Father."
+
+"The branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine;" the power of
+bearing fruit, of producing and of giving forth, depends entirely on the
+fact that the individual is, and always continues to be, as much an
+organic part of Universal Spirit as the fruit-bearing branch is an
+organic part of the parent stem. Lose this idea, and regard God as a
+merely external Creator who may indeed command us, or even sometimes be
+moved by our cries and entreaties, and we have lost the root of
+Livingness and with it all possibility of growth or of liberty. This is
+dualism, which cuts us off from our Source of Life; and so long as we
+take this false conception for the true law of Being, we shall find
+ourselves hampered by limitations and insoluble problems of every
+description: We have lost the Key of Life and are consequently unable to
+open the door.
+
+But in proportion as we abide in the vine, that is, consciously realise
+our perpetual unity with Originating Spirit, and impress upon ourselves
+that this unity is neither bestowed as the reward of merit, nor as an
+act of favour--which would be to deny the Unity, for the bestowal would
+at once imply dualism--but dwell on the truth that it is the innermost
+and supreme principle of our own nature; in proportion as we consciously
+realise this, we shall rise to greater and greater certainty of
+knowledge, resulting in more and more perfect externalisation, whose
+increasing splendour can know no limits; for it is the continual
+outflowing of the exhaustless Spirit of Life in that manifestation of
+itself which is our own individuality.
+
+The notion of dualism is the veil which prevents men seeing this, and
+causes them to wander blindfolded among the mazes of endless perplexity;
+but, as St. Paul truly says, when this veil is taken away we shall find
+ourselves changed from glory to glory as by the Lord the Spirit. "His
+name shall be called Immanuel," that is "God _in_ us," not a separate
+being from ourselves. Let us remember that Jesus was condemned by the
+principle of separation because he himself was the externalisation of
+the principle of Unity, and that, in adhering to the principle of Unity
+we are adhering to the only possible root of Life, and are maintaining
+the Truth for which Jesus died.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+EXTERNALISATION
+
+
+Who would not be happy in himself and his conditions? That is what we
+all desire--more fulness of life, a greater and brighter vitality in
+ourselves, and less restriction in our surroundings. And we are told
+that the talisman by which this can be accomplished is Thought. We are
+told, Change your modes of thought, and the changed conditions will
+follow. But many seekers feel that this is very much like telling us to
+catch birds by putting salt on their tails. If we can put the salt on
+the bird's tail, we can also lay our hand on the bird. If we can change
+our thinking, we can thereby change our circumstances.
+
+But how are we to bring about this change of cause which will in its
+turn produce this changed effect? This is the practical question that
+perplexes many earnest seekers. They can see their way clearly enough
+through the whole sequence of cause and effect resulting in the
+externalisation of the desired results, if only the one initial
+difficulty could be got over. The difficulty is a real one, and until it
+is overcome it vitiates all the teaching and reduces it to a mere paper
+theory. Therefore it is to this point that the attention of students
+should be particularly directed. They feel the need of some solid basis
+from which the change of thought can be effected, and until they find
+this the theory of Divine Science, however perfect in itself, will
+remain for them nothing more than a mere theory, producing no practical
+results.
+
+The necessary scientific basis exists, however, and is extremely simple
+and reasonable, if we will take the pains to think it out carefully for
+ourselves. Unless we are prepared to support the thesis that the Power
+which created the universe is inherently evil, or that the universe is
+the work of two opposite and equal powers, one evil and the other
+good--both of which propositions are demonstrably false--we have no
+alternative but to say that the Originating Source of all must be
+inherently good. It cannot be partly good and partly evil, for that
+would be to set it against itself and make it self-destructive;
+therefore it must be good altogether. But once grant this initial
+proposition and we cut away the root of all evil. For how can evil
+proceed from an All-originating Source which is good altogether, and in
+which, therefore, no germ for the development of evil is to be found?
+Good cannot be the origin of evil; and since nothing can proceed except
+from the one Originating Mind, which is only good, the true nature of
+all things must be that which they have received from their
+Source--namely, good.
+
+Hence it follows that evil is not the true nature of anything, and that
+evil must have its rise in something external to the true nature of
+things. And since evil is not in the true nature of the things
+themselves, nor yet in the Universal Mind which is the Originating
+Principle, there remains only one place for it to spring from, and that
+is our own personal thought. First we suppose evil to be as inherent in
+the nature of things as good--a supposition which we could not make if
+we stopped to consider the necessary nature of the Originating
+Principle. Then, on this entirely gratuitous supposition, we proceed to
+build up a fabric of fears, which, of course, follow logically from it;
+and so we nourish and give substance to the Negative, or that which has
+no substantial existence except such as we attribute to it, until we
+come to regard it as having Affirmative power of its own, and so set up
+a false idea of Being--the product of our own minds--to dispute the
+claims of true Being to the sovereignty of the universe.
+
+Once assume the existence of two rival powers--one good and the other
+evil--in the direction of the universe, and any sense of harmony becomes
+impossible; the whole course of Nature is thrown out of gear, and,
+whether for ourselves or for the world at large, there remains no ground
+of certainty anywhere. And this is precisely the condition in which the
+majority of people live. They are surrounded by infinite uncertainty
+about everything, and are consequently a prey to continual fears and
+anxieties; and the only way of escape from this state of things is to
+go to the root of the matter, and realise that the whole fabric of evil
+originates in our own inverted conception of the nature of Being.
+
+But if we once realise that the true conception of Being necessarily
+excludes the very idea of evil, we shall see that, in giving way to
+thoughts and fears of evil, we are giving substance to that which has no
+real substance in itself, and are attributing to the Negative an
+Affirmative force which it does not possess--in fact, we are creating
+the very thing we fear. And the remedy for this is always to recur to
+the original nature of Being as altogether Good, and then to speak to
+ourselves thus: "My thought must continually externalise something, for
+that is its inherent quality, which nothing can ever alter. Shall I,
+then, externalise God or the opposite of God? Which do I wish to see
+manifested in my life--Good or its opposite? Shall I manifest what I
+know to be the reality or the reverse?" Then comes the steady resolve
+always to manifest God, or Good, because that is the only true reality
+in all things; and this resolve is with power because it is founded upon
+the solid rock of Truth.
+
+We must refuse to know evil; we must refuse to admit that there is any
+such thing to be known. It is the converse of this which is symbolised
+in the story of the Fall. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou
+shalt surely die" was never spoken of the knowledge of Good, for Good
+never brought death into the world. It is eating the fruit of the tree
+of a so-called knowledge which admits a second branch, the knowledge of
+evil, that is the source of death. Admit that evil has a substantive
+entity, which renders it a subject of knowledge, and you thereby create
+it, with all its consequences of sorrow, sickness and death. But "be
+sure that the Lord He is God"--that is, that the one and Only Ruling
+Principle of the universe, whether within us or around us, is Good and
+Good only--and evil with all its train sinks back into its original
+nothingness, and we find that the Truth has made us free. We are free to
+externalise what we will, whether in ourselves or our surroundings, for
+we have found the solid basis on which to make the needed change of
+mental attitude in the fact that the Good is the only reality of Being.
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+ENTERING INTO THE SPIRIT OF IT
+
+
+"Entering into the spirit of it." What a common expression! And yet how
+much it really means, how absolutely everything! We enter into the
+spirit of an undertaking, into the spirit of a movement, into the spirit
+of an author, even into the spirit of a game; and it makes all the
+difference both to us and to that into which we enter. A game without
+any spirit is a poor affair; and association in which there is no spirit
+falls to pieces; and a spiritless undertaking is sure to be a failure.
+On the other hand, the book which is meaningless to the unsympathising
+reader is full of life and suggestion to the one who enters into the
+spirit of the writer; the man who enters into the spirit of the music
+finds a spring of refreshment in some fine recital which is entirely
+missed by the cold critic who comes only to judge according to the
+standard of a rigid rule; and so on in every case that we can think of.
+If we do not enter the spirit of a thing, it has no invigorating effect
+upon us, and we regard it as dull, insipid and worthless. This is our
+everyday experience, and these are the words in which we express it.
+And the words are well chosen. They show our intuitive recognition of
+the spirit as the fundamental reality in everything, however small or
+however great. Let us be right as to the spirit of a thing, and
+everything else will successfully follow.
+
+By entering into the spirit of anything we establish a mutual vivifying
+action and reaction between it and ourselves; we vivify it with our own
+vitality, and it vivifies us with a living interest which we call its
+spirit; and therefore the more fully we enter into the spirit of all
+with which we are concerned, the more thoroughly do we become _alive_.
+The more completely we do this the more we shall find that we are
+penetrating into the great secret of Life. It may seem a truism, but the
+great secret of Life is its Livingness, and it is just more of this
+quality of Livingness that we want to get hold of; it is that good thing
+of which we can never have too much.
+
+But every fact implies also its negative, and we never properly
+understand a thing until we not only know what it is, but also clearly
+understand what it is not. To a complete understanding the knowledge of
+the negative is as necessary as the knowledge of the affirmative; for
+the perfect knowledge consists in realising the relation between the
+two, and the perfect power grows out of this knowledge by enabling us to
+balance the affirmative and negative against each other in any
+proportion that we will, thus giving flexibility to what would otherwise
+be too rigid, and form to what would otherwise be too fluid; and so, by
+uniting these two extremes, to produce any result we may desire. It is
+the old Hermetic saying, "_Coagula et solve_"--"Solidify the fluid and
+dissolve the solid"; and therefore, if we would discover the secret of
+"entering into the spirit of it," we must get some idea of the negative,
+which is the "not-spirit."
+
+In various ages this negative phase has been expressed in different
+forms of words suitable to the spirit of the time; and so, clothing this
+idea in the attire of the present day, I will sum up the opposite of
+Spirit in the word "Mechanism." Before all things this is a mechanical
+age, and it is astonishing how great a part of what we call our social
+advance has its root in the mechanical arts. Reduce the mechanical arts
+to what they were in the days of the Plantagenets and the greater part
+of our boasted civilisation would recede through the centuries along
+with them. We may not be conscious of all this, but the mechanical
+tendency of the age has a firm grip upon society at large. We habitually
+look at the mechanical side of things by preference to any other.
+Everything is done mechanically, from the carving on a piece of
+furniture to the arrangement of the social system. It is the mechanism
+that must be considered first, and the spirit has to be fitted to the
+mechanical exigencies. We enter into the mechanism of it instead of into
+the Spirit of it, and so limit the Spirit and refuse to let it have its
+own way; and then, as a consequence, we get entirely mechanical action,
+and complete our circle of ignorance by supposing that this is the only
+sort of action there is.
+
+Yet this is not a necessary state of things even in regard to "physical
+science," for the men who have made the greatest advances in that
+direction are those who have most clearly seen the subordination of the
+mechanical to the spiritual. The man who can recognise a natural law
+only as it operates through certain forms of mechanism with which he is
+familiar will never rise to the construction of the higher forms of
+mechanism which might be built up upon that law, for he fails to see
+that it is the law which determines the mechanism and not vice versa.
+This man will make no advance in science, either theoretical or applied,
+and the world will never owe any debt of gratitude to him. But the man
+who recognises that the mechanism for the application of any principle
+grows out of the true apprehension of the principle studies the
+principle first, knowing that when _that_ is properly grasped it will
+necessarily suggest all that is wanted for bringing it into practical
+use.
+
+And if this is true in regard to so-called physical science, it is _a
+fortiori_ true as regards the Science of Spirit. There is a mechanical
+attitude of mind which judges everything by the limitations of past
+experiences, allowing nothing for the fact that those experiences were
+for the most part the results of our ignorance of spiritual law. But if
+we realise the true law of Being we shall rise above these mechanical
+conceptions. We shall not deny the reality of the body or of the
+physical world as facts, knowing that they also are Spirit, but we shall
+learn to deny their power as causes. We shall learn to distinguish
+between the _causa causta_ and the _causa causans_, the secondary or
+apparent physical cause and the primary or spiritual cause, without
+which the secondary cause could not exist; and so we shall get a new
+standpoint of clear knowledge and certain power by stepping over the
+threshold of the mechanical and entering into the spirit of it.
+
+What we have to do is to maintain our even balance between the two
+extremes, denying neither Spirit nor the mechanism which is its form and
+through which it works. The one is as necessary to a perfect whole as
+the other, for there must be an _outside_ as well as an _inside_; only
+we must remember that the creative principle is always _inside_, and
+that the outside only exhibits what the inside creates. Hence, whatever
+external effect we would produce, we must first enter into the spirit of
+it and work upon the spiritual principle, whether in ourselves or
+others; and by so doing our insight will become greatly enlarged, for
+from without we can see only one small portion of the circumference,
+while from the centre we can see the whole of it. If we fully grasp the
+truth that Spirit is Creator, we can dispense with painful
+investigations into the mechanical side of all our problems. If we are
+constructing from without, then we have to calculate anxiously the
+strength of our materials and the force of every thrust and strain to
+which they may be subjected, and very possibly after all we may find
+that we have made a mistake somewhere in our elaborate calculations. But
+if we realise the power of creating from within, we shall find all these
+calculations correctly made for us; for the same Spirit which is Creator
+is also that which the Bible calls "the Wonderful Numberer."
+Construction from without is based upon analysis, and no analysis is
+complete without accurate quantitative knowledge; but creation is the
+very opposite of analysis, and carries its own mathematics with it.
+
+To enter into the spirit of anything, then, is to make yourself one in
+thought with the creative principle that is at the centre of it; and
+therefore why not go to the centre of all things at once, and enter into
+the Spirit of Life? Do you ask where to find it? _In yourself_; and in
+proportion as you find it there, you will find it everywhere else.
+Look at Life as the one thing that is, whether in you or around you; try
+to realise the livingness of it, and then seek to enter into the Spirit
+of it by affirming it to be the whole of what you are. Affirm this
+continually in your thoughts, and by degrees the affirmation will grow
+into a real living force within you, so that it will become a second
+nature to you, and you will find it impossible and unnatural to think in
+any other way; and the nearer you approach this point the greater you
+will find your control over both body and circumstances, until at last
+you shall so enter into the Spirit of it--into the Spirit of the Divine
+creative power which is the root of all things--that, in the words of
+Jesus, "nothing shall be impossible to you," because you have so entered
+into the Spirit of it that you discover yourself to be _one with it_.
+Then all the old limitations will have passed away, and you will be
+living in an entirely new world of Life, Liberty and Love, of which you
+yourself are the radiating centre. You will realise the truth that your
+Thought is a limitless creative power, and that you yourself are behind
+your Thought, controlling and directing it with Knowledge for any
+purpose which Love motives and Wisdom plans. Thus you will cease from
+your labours, your struggles and anxieties, and enter into that new
+order where perfect rest is one with ceaseless activity.
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE BIBLE AND THE NEW THOUGHT
+
+
+I
+
+_The Son_
+
+A deeply interesting subject to the student of the New Thought movement
+is to trace how exactly its teaching is endorsed by the teaching of the
+Bible. There is no such thing as new thought in the sense of new Truth,
+for what is truth now must have been truth always; but there is such a
+thing as a new presentment of the old Truth, and it is in this that the
+newness of the present movement consists. But the same Truth has been
+repeatedly stated in earlier ages under various forms and in various
+measures of completeness, and nowhere more completely than in the
+Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. None of the older forms of
+statement is more familiarly known to our readers than that contained in
+the Bible, and no other is entwined around our hearts with the same
+sacred and tender associations: therefore, I have no hesitation in
+saying that the existence of a marked correspondence between its
+teaching and that of the New Thought cannot but be a source of strength
+and encouragement to any of us who have been accustomed in the past to
+look to the old and hallowed Book as a storehouse of Divine wisdom. We
+shall find that the clearer light will make the rough places smooth and
+the dim places luminous, and that of the treasures of knowledge hidden
+in the ancient volume the half has not been told us.
+
+The Bible lays emphatic stress upon "the glorious liberty of the sons of
+God," thus uniting in a single phrase the twofold idea of filial
+dependence and personal liberty. A careful study of the subject will
+show us that there is no opposition between these two ideas, but that
+they are necessary correlatives to each other, and that whether stated
+after the more concentrated method of the Bible, or after the more
+detailed method of the New Thought, the true teaching proclaims, not our
+independence of God, but our independence in God.
+
+Such an enquiry naturally centres in an especial manner around the
+sayings of Jesus; for whatever may be our opinions as to the nature of
+the authority with which he spoke, we must all agree that a peculiar
+weight attaches to those utterances which have come down to us as the
+_ipsissima verba_ from which the entire New Testament has been
+developed; and if an identity of conception in the New Thought movement
+can be traced here at the fountain-head, we may expect to find it in the
+lower streams also.
+
+The Key to the Master's teaching is to be found in his discourse with
+the Woman of Samaria, and it is contained in the statement that "the
+Father" is Spirit, that is, Spirit in the absolute and unqualified sense
+of the word, as appears from the original Greek, and not "A Spirit" as
+it is rendered in the Authorised Version: and then as the natural
+correlative to "the Father" we find another term employed, "the Son."
+The relation between these two forms the great subject of Jesus'
+teaching, and, therefore, it is most important to have some definite
+idea of what he meant by these terms if we would understand what it was
+that he really taught.
+
+Now if "the Father" be Spirit, "the Son" must be Spirit also; for a son
+must necessarily be of the same nature as his father. But since "the
+Father" is Spirit, Absolute and Universal, it is evident that "the Son"
+cannot be Spirit, Absolute and Universal, because there cannot be two
+Universal Spirits, for then neither would be universal. We may,
+therefore, logically infer that because "the Father" is Universal
+Spirit, "the Son" is Spirit not universal; and the only definition of
+Spirit not-universal is Spirit individualised and particular. The
+Scripture tells us that "the Spirit is Life," and taking this as the
+definition of "Spirit," we find that "the Father" is Absolute,
+Originating, Undifferentiated Life, and "the Son" is the same Life
+differentiated into particular forms. Hence, in the widest sense of the
+expression, "the Son" stands for the whole creation, visible or
+invisible, and in this sense it is the mere differentiation of the
+universal Life into a multiplicity of particular modes. But if we have
+any adequate idea of the intelligent and responsive nature of
+Spirit[2]--if we realise that because it is Pure Being it must be
+Infinite Intelligence and Infinite Responsiveness--then we shall see
+that its reproduction in the particular admits of innumerable degrees,
+from mere expression as outward form up to the very fullest expression
+of the infinite intelligence and responsiveness that Spirit is.
+
+    [Footnote 2: _Intelligence_ and _Responsiveness_ is the
+    Generic Nature of Spirit in _every_ Mode, and it is the
+    _concentration_ of this into centres of consciousness that
+    makes personality, i. e., _self_-conscious individuality.
+    This varies immensely in degree, from its first adumbration
+    in the animal to its intense development in the Great Masters
+    of Spiritual Science. Therefore it is called "The Power that
+    Knows Itself"--It is the power of _Self_-recognition that
+    makes _personality_, and as we grow to see that our
+    personality is not all contained between our hat and our
+    boots, as Walt Whitman says, but _expands_ away into the
+    Infinite, which we then find to be _the Infinite of
+    ourselves_, the _same_ I AM that I am, so _our personality_
+    expands and we become conscious of ever-increasing degrees of
+    Life-in-ourselves.]
+
+The teachings of Jesus were addressed to the hearts and intelligences of
+men, and therefore the grade of sonship of which he spoke has reference
+to the expression of Infinite Being in the human heart and intellect.
+But this, again, may be conceived of in infinite degrees; in some men
+there is the bare potentiality of sonship entirely undeveloped as yet,
+in others the beginnings of its development, in others a fuller
+development, and so on, until we can suppose some supreme instance in
+which the absolutely perfect reproduction of the universal has been
+attained. Each of these stages constitutes a fuller and fuller
+expression of sonship, until the supreme development reaches a point at
+which it can be described only as the perfect image of "the Father"; and
+this is the logical result of a process of steady growth from an inward
+principle of Life which constitutes the identity of each individual.
+
+It is thus a necessary inference from Jesus' own explanation of "the
+Father" as Spirit or Infinite Being that "the Son" is the Scriptural
+phrase for the reproduction of Infinite Being in the individual,
+contemplated in that stage at which the individual does in some measure
+begin to recognise his identity with his originating source, or, at any
+rate, where he has capacity for such a recognition, even though the
+actual recognition may not yet have taken place. It is very remarkable
+that, thus defining "the Son" on the direct statement of Jesus himself,
+we arrive exactly at the definition of Spirit as "that power which knows
+itself." In the capacity for thus recognising its identity of nature
+with "the Father" is it that the potential fact of sonship consists, for
+the prodigal son was still a son even before he began to realise his
+relation to his "Father" in actual fact. It is the dawning of this
+recognition that constitutes the spiritual "babe," or infant son; and by
+degrees this consciousness grows till he attains the full estate of
+spiritual manhood. This recognition by the individual of his own
+identity with Universal Spirit is precisely what forms the basis of the
+New Thought; and thus at the outset the two systems radiate from a
+common centre.
+
+But I suppose the feature of the New Thought which is the greatest
+stumbling-block to those who view the movement from the outside is the
+claim it makes for Thought-power as an active factor in the affairs of
+daily life. As a mere set of speculative opinions people might be
+willing to pigeon-hole it along with the philosophic systems of Kant or
+Hegel; but it is the practical element in it which causes the
+difficulty. It is not only a system of Thought based upon a conception
+of the Unity of Being, but it claims to follow out this conception to
+its legitimate consequences in the production of visible and tangible
+external results by the mere exercise of Thought-power. A ridiculous
+claim, a claim not to be tolerated by common sense, a trespassing upon
+the Divine prerogative, a claim of unparalleled audacity: thus the
+casual objector. But this claim is not without its parallel, for the
+same claim was put forward on the same ground by the Great Teacher
+Himself as the proper result of "the Son's" recognition of his relation
+to "the Father." "Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you";
+"Whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive, and
+nothing shall be impossible unto you"; "All things are possible to him
+that believeth." These statements are absolutely without any note of
+limitation save that imposed by the seeker's want of faith in his own
+power to move the Infinite. This is as clear a declaration of the
+efficacy of mental power to produce outward and tangible results as any
+now made by the New Thought, and it is made on precisely the same
+ground, namely, the readiness of "the Father" or Spirit in the Universal
+to respond to the movement of Spirit in the individual.
+
+In the Bible this movement of individualised Spirit is called "prayer,"
+and it is synonymous with Thought, formulated with the intention of
+producing this response.
+
+    "Prayer is the heart's sincere desire,
+     Uttered or unexpressed,"
+
+and we must not let ourselves be misled by the association of particular
+forms with particular words, but should follow the sound advice of
+Oliver Wendell Holmes, and submit such words to a process of
+depolarisation, which brings out their real meaning. Whether we call our
+act "prayer" or "thought-concentration," we mean the same thing; it is
+the claim of the man to move the Infinite by the action of his own mind.
+
+It may be objected, however, that this definition omits an important
+element of prayer, the question, namely, whether God will hear it. But
+this is the very element that Jesus most rigorously excludes from his
+description of the mental act. Prayer, according to the popular notion,
+is a most uncertain matter. Whether we shall be heard or not depends
+entirely upon another will, regarding whose action we are completely
+ignorant, and therefore, according to this notion, the very essence of
+prayer consists of utter uncertainty. Jesus' conception of prayer was
+the very opposite. He bids us believe that we have already in fact
+received what we ask for, and makes this the condition of receiving; in
+other words, he makes the essential factor in the mental action to
+consist in Absolute Certainty as to the corresponding response in the
+Infinite, which is exactly the condition that the New Thought lays down
+for the successful operation of Thought-power.
+
+It may, however, be objected that if men have thus an indiscriminate
+power of projecting their thought to the accomplishment of anything they
+desire, they can do so for evil as easily as for good. But Jesus fully
+recognised this possibility, and worked the only destructive miracle
+recorded of him for the express purpose of emphasising the danger. The
+reason given by the compilers of the Gospel for the destruction of the
+fig-tree is clearly inadequate, for we certainly cannot suppose Jesus so
+unreasonable as to curse a tree for not bearing fruit out of season. But
+the record itself shows a very different purpose. Jesus answered the
+disciples' astonished questioning by telling them that it was in their
+own power, not only to do what was done to the fig-tree, but to produce
+effects upon a far grander scale; and he concludes the conversation by
+laying down the duty of a heart-searching forgiveness as a necessary
+preliminary to prayer. Why was this precept so particularly impressed in
+this particular connection? Obviously because the demonstration he had
+just given of the valency of thought-power in the hands of instructed
+persons laid bare the fact that this power can be used destructively as
+well as beneficially, and that, therefore, a thorough heart-searching
+for the eradication of any lurking ill-feeling became an imperative
+preliminary to its safe use; otherwise there was danger of noxious
+thought-currents being set in motion to the injury of others. The
+miracle of the fig-tree was an object-lesson to exhibit the need for the
+careful handling of that limitless power which Jesus assured his
+disciples existed as fully in them as in himself. I do not here attempt
+to go into this subject in detail, but enough has, I think, been shown
+to convince us that Jesus made exactly the same claim for the power of
+Thought as that made by the New Thought movement at the present day. It
+is a great claim, and it is, therefore, encouraging to find such an
+authority committed to the same assertion.
+
+The general principle on which this claim is based by the exponents of
+the New Thought is the identity of Spirit in the individual with spirit
+in the universal, and we shall find that this, also, is the basis of
+Jesus' teaching on the subject. He says that "the Son can do nothing of
+himself, but what he seeth the Father do these things doeth the Son in
+like manner." It must now be sufficiently clear that "the Son" is a
+generic appellation, not restricted to a particular individual, but
+applicable to all; and this statement explains the manner of "the Son's"
+working in relation to "the Father." The point this sentence
+particularly emphasises is that it is what he sees the Father doing that
+the Son does also. His doing corresponds to his seeing. If the seeing
+expands, the doing expands along with it. But we are all sufficiently
+familiar with this principle in other matters. What differentiates an
+Edison or a Marconi from the apprentice who knows only how to fit up an
+electric bell by rule of thumb? It is their capacity for seeing the
+universal principles of electricity and bringing them into particular
+application. The great painter is the one who sees the universal
+principles of form and colour where the smaller man sees only a
+particular combination; and so with the great surgeon, the great
+chemist, the great lawyer--in every line it is the power of insight that
+distinguishes the great man from the little one; it is the capacity for
+making wide generalisations and perceiving far-reaching laws that raises
+the exceptional mind above the ordinary level. The greater working
+always results from the greater seeing into the abstract principles from
+which any art or science is generated; and this same law carried up to
+the universal principles of Life is the law by which "the Son's" working
+is proportioned to his seeing the method of "the Father's" work. Thus
+the source of "the Son's" power lies in the contemplation of "the
+Father," the endeavour, that is, to realise the true nature of Being,
+whether in the abstract or in its generic forms of manifestation.[3]
+This is Bacon's maxim, "Work as God works"; and similarly the New
+Thought consists before all things in the realisation of the laws of
+Being.
+
+    [Footnote 3: Everything depends on this principle of
+    Reciprocity. By contemplation we come to realize the true
+    nature of "Spirit" or "the father." We learn to disengage the
+    _variable_ factors of particular _Modes_ from the
+    _invariable_ factors which are the essential qualities of
+    Spirit underlying _all_ Modes. Then when we realize these
+    essential qualities we see that we can apply them under any
+    mode that we will: in other words _we_ supply the _variable_
+    factor of the combination by the action of our Thought, as
+    Desire or Will, and thus combine it with the _invariable_
+    factor or "constant" of the _essential_ law of spirit, thus
+    producing what result we will. This is just what we do in
+    respect to physical nature--e. g., the electrician supplies
+    the _variable_ factor of the particular Mode of application,
+    and the _constant_ laws of Electricity _respond_ to the
+    nature of the invitation given to them. This _Responsiveness_
+    is _inherent_ in Spirit; otherwise Spirit would have no means
+    of expansion into manifestation. Responsiveness is the
+    principle of Spirit's Self-expression. We do not have to
+    create responsive action on the part of electricity. We can
+    safely take this Responsiveness for granted as pure natural
+    law. Our desire first works on the Arupa level and thence
+    concentrates itself through the various Rupa levels till it
+    reaches complete external manifestation.]
+
+And the result of the seeing is that "the Son" does the same things as
+"the Father" "in like manner." The Son's action is the reproduction of
+the universal principles in application to specific instances. The
+principles remain unaltered and work always in the same manner, and the
+office of "the Son" is to determine the particular field of their
+operation with regard to the specific object which he has in view; and
+therefore, so far as that object is concerned, the action of "the Son"
+becomes the action of "the Father" also.
+
+Again, there is no concealment on the part of "the Father." He has no
+secrets, for "the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that
+himself doeth." There is perfect reciprocity between Spirit in the
+Universal and in Individualisation, resulting from the identity of
+Being; and "the Son's" recognition of Love as the active principle of
+this Unity gives him an intuitive insight into all those inner workings
+of the Universal Life which we call the arcana of Nature. Love has a
+divine gift of insight which cannot be attained by intellect alone, and
+the old saying, "Love will find out the way," has greater depths of
+meaning than appear on the surface. Thus there is not only a seeing, but
+also a showing; and the three terms--"looking, seeing, showing"--combine
+to form a power of "working" to which it is impossible to assign any
+limit.
+
+Here, again, the teaching of Jesus is in exact correspondence with that
+of the New Thought, which tells us that limitations exist only where we
+ourselves put them, and that to view ourselves as beings of limitless
+knowledge, power, and love is to become such in outward manifestation of
+visible fact. Any objection, therefore, to the New Thought teaching
+regarding the possibilities latent in Man apply with equal force to the
+teachings of Jesus. His teaching clearly was that the perfect
+individuality of Man is a Dual-Unity, the polarisation of the Infinite
+in the Manifest; and it requires only the recognition of this truth for
+the manifested element in this binary system to demonstrate its identity
+with the corresponding element which is not externally visible. He said
+that He and his Father were One, that those who had seen him had seen
+the Father, that the words which he spoke were the Father's, and that it
+was the Father who did the works. Nothing could be more explicit.
+Absolute unity of the manifested individuality with the Originating
+Infinite Spirit is asserted or implied in every utterance attributed to
+Jesus, whether spoken of himself or of others. He recognises only one
+radical difference, the difference between those who know this truth and
+those who do not know it. The distinction between the disciple and the
+master is one only of degree, which will be effaced by the expansive
+power of growth; "the disciple, when he is perfected, shall be as his
+Master."
+
+All that hinders the individual from exercising the full power of the
+Infinite for any purpose whatever is his lack of faith, his inability to
+realise to the full the stupendous truth that he himself is the very
+power which he seeks. This was the teaching of Jesus as it is that of
+the New Thought; and this truth of the Divine Sonship of Man once taken
+as the great foundation, a magnificent edifice of possibilities which
+"eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart
+of man to conceive," grows up logically upon it--a glorious heritage
+which each one may legitimately claim in right of his common humanity.
+
+
+II
+
+_The Great Affirmation_
+
+I take it for granted that my readers are well acquainted with the part
+assigned to the principle of Affirmation in the scheme of the New
+Thought. This is often a stumbling-block to beginners; and I feel sure
+that even those who are not beginners will welcome every aid to a deeper
+apprehension of this great central truth. I, therefore, purpose to
+examine the Bible teaching on this important subject.
+
+The professed object of the Bible is to establish and extend "the
+Kingdom of God" throughout the world, and this can be done only by
+repeating the process from one individual to another, until the whole
+mass is leavened. It is thus an individual process; and, as we have seen
+in the last chapter, God is Spirit and Spirit is Life, and, therefore,
+the expansion of "the Kingdom of God" means the expansion of the
+principle of Life in each individual. Now Life, to be life at all, must
+be Affirmative. It is Life in virtue of what it is, and not in virtue of
+what it is not. The quantity of life in any particular case may be very
+small; but, however small the amount, the quality is always the same:
+it is the quality of Being, the quality of Livingness, and not its
+absence, that makes it what it is. The distinctive character of Life,
+therefore, is that it is Positive and not Negative; and every degree of
+negativeness, that is, every limitation, is ultimately traceable to
+deficiency of Life-power.
+
+Limitations surround us because we believe in our inability to do what
+we desire. Whenever we say "I cannot" we are brought up sharp by a
+limitation, and we cease to exercise our thought-power in that direction
+because we believe ourselves stopped by a blank wall of impossibility;
+and whenever this occurs we are subjected to bondage. The ideal of
+perfect Liberty is the converse of all this, and follows a sequence
+which does not thus lead us into a _cul-de-sac_. This sequence consists
+of the three affirmations: I am--therefore I can--therefore I will; and
+this last affirmation results in the projection of our powers, whether
+interior or external, to the accomplishment of the desired object. But
+this last affirmation has its root in the first; and it is because we
+recognise the Affirmative nature of the Life that is in us, or rather of
+the Life which we are, that the power to will or to act positively has
+any existence; and, therefore, the extent of our power to will and to
+act positively and with effect, is exactly measured by our perception of
+the depth and livingness of our own Being. Hence the more fully we learn
+to affirm that, the greater power we are able to exercise.
+
+Now the ideal of perfect Liberty is the entire absence of all
+limitation, and to have no limitation in Being is to be co-extensive
+with All-Being. We are all grammarians enough to know that the use of a
+predicate is to lead the mind to contemplate the subject as represented
+by that predicate; in other words, it limits our conception for the time
+being to that particular aspect of the subject. Hence every predicate,
+however extensive, implies some limitation of the subject. But the ideal
+subject, the absolutely free self, is, by the very hypothesis, without
+limitation; and, therefore, no predicate can be attached to it. It
+stands as a declaration of its own Being without any statement of what
+that Being consists in, and therefore it says of itself, not "I am this
+or that," but simply I am. No predicate can be added, because the only
+commensurate predicate would be the enumeration of Infinity. Therefore,
+both logically and grammatically, the only possible statement of a fully
+liberated being is made in the words I am.
+
+I need hardly remind my readers of the frequency with which Jesus
+employed these emphatic words. In many cases the translators have added
+the word "He," but they have been careful, by putting it in italics, to
+show that it is not in the original. As grammarians and theologians they
+thought something more was wanted to complete the sense, and they
+supplied it accordingly; but if we would get at the very words as the
+Master himself spoke them, we must strike out this interpolation. And as
+soon as we have done so there flashes into light the identity of his
+statement with that made to Moses at the burning bush, where the full
+significance of the words is so obvious that the translators were
+compelled to leave the place of the predicate in that seeming emptiness
+which comes from filling all things.
+
+Seen thus, a marvellous light shines forth from the instruction of the
+Great Teacher: for in whatever sense we may regard him as a Great
+Exception to the weak and limited aspect of humanity with which we are
+only too familiar, we must all agree that his mission was not to render
+mankind hopeless by declaring the path of advance barred against them,
+but "to give light to them that sit in darkness," and liberty to them
+that are bound, by proclaiming the unlimited possibilities that are in
+man waiting only to be called forth by knowledge of the Truth. And if we
+suppose any personal reference in his words, it can, therefore, be only
+as the Great Example of what man has it in him to become, and not as the
+example of something which man can never hope to be; an Exception,
+truly, to mankind as we see them now, but the Exception that proves the
+rule, and sets the standard of what each one may become as he attains to
+the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
+
+Let us, therefore, by striking out this interpolation, restore the
+Master's words as they stand in the original: "Except ye believe that I
+am, ye shall die in your sins." This is an epitome of his teaching.
+
+"The last enemy that shall be overcome is death," and the "sting," or
+fatal power, of death is "sin." Remove that, and death has no longer any
+dominion over us; its power is at an end. And "the strength of sin is
+the Law": sin is every contradiction of the law of Being; and the law of
+Being is infinitude; for Being is Life, and Life in its innermost
+essence is the limitless I am. Dying in our sins is thus not a
+punishment for doubting a particular theological dogma, but it is the
+unavoidable natural consequence of not realising, not believing in, the
+I am. So long as we fail to realise its full infinitude in ourselves, we
+cut ourselves off from our conscious unity with the Infinite Life-Spirit
+which permeates all things. Without this principle we have no
+alternative but to die--and this because of our sin, that is, because of
+our failure to conform to the true Law of our Being, which is Life, and
+not Death. We affirm Death and Negation concerning ourselves, and
+therefore Death and Negation are externalised, and thus we pay the
+penalty of not believing in the central Law of our own Life, which is
+the Law of all Life. The Bible is the Book of Principles, and therefore
+by "dying" is meant the acceptance of the principle of the Negative
+which culminates in Death as the sum-total of all limitations, and which
+introduces at every step those restrictions which are of the nature of
+Death, because their tendency is to curtail the outflowing fulness of
+Life.
+
+This, then, is the very essence of the teaching of Jesus, that unbelief
+in the limitless power of Life-in-ourselves--in each of us--is the one
+cause of Death and of all those evils which, in greater or lesser
+measure, reproduce the restrictive influences which deprive Life of its
+fulness and joy. If we would escape Death and enter into Life, we must
+each believe in the I am in ourselves. And the ground for this belief?
+Simply that nothing else is conceivable. If our life is not a portion of
+the life of Universal Spirit, whence comes it? We are because that is.
+No other explanation is possible. The unqualified affirmation of our own
+livingness is not an audacious self-assertion: it is the only logical
+outcome of the fact that there is any life anywhere, and that we are
+here to think about it. In the sense of Universal Being, there can be
+only One I am, and the understanding use of the words by the individual
+is the assertion of this fact. The forms of manifestation are infinite,
+but the Life which is manifested is One, and thus every thinker who
+recognises the truth regarding himself finds in the I am both himself
+and the totality of all things; and thus he comes to know that in
+utilising the interior nature of the things and persons about him, he
+is, in effect, employing the powers of his own life.
+
+Sometimes the veil which Jesus drew over this great truth was very
+transparent. To the Samaritan woman he spoke of it as a spring of Life
+forever welling up in the innermost recesses of man's being; and again,
+to the multitude assembled at the Temple, he spoke of it as a river of
+Life forever gushing from the secret sources of the spirit within us.
+Life, to be ours at all, must be ourselves. An energy which only passed
+through us, without being us, might produce a sort of galvanic activity,
+but it would not be Life. Life can never be a separate entity from the
+individuality which manifests it; and therefore, even if we conceive the
+life-principle in a man so intensified as to pulsate with what might
+seem to us an absolutely divine vitality, it would still be no other
+than the man himself. Thus Jesus directs us to no external source of
+life, but ever teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, and that
+what is wanted is to remove those barriers of ignorance and ill-will
+which prevent us from realising that the great I am, which is the
+innermost Spirit of Life throughout the universe, is the same I am that
+I am, whoever I may be.
+
+On another memorable occasion Jesus declared again that the I am is the
+enduring principle of Life. It is this that is the Resurrection and the
+Life; not, as Martha supposed, a new principle to be infused from
+without at some future time, but an inherent core of vitality awaiting
+only its own recognition of itself to triumph over death and the grave.
+And yet, again hear the Master's answer to the inquiring Thomas. How
+many of us, like him, desire to know the way! To hear of wonderful
+powers latent in man and requiring only development is beautiful and
+hopeful, if we could only find out the way to develop them; but who will
+show us the way? The answer comes with no uncertain note. The I am
+includes everything. It is at once "the Way, the Truth, and the Life":
+not the Life only, or the Truth only, but also the Way by which to reach
+them. Can words be plainer? It is by continually affirming and relying
+on the I am in ourselves as identical with the I am that is the One and
+Only Life, whether manifested or unmanifested, in all places of the
+universe, that we shall find the way to the attainment of all Truth and
+of all Life. Here we have the predicate which we are seeking to complete
+our affirmation regarding ourselves. I am--what? the Three things which
+include all things: Truth, which is all Knowledge and Wisdom; Life,
+which is all Power and Love; and the unfailing Way which will lead us
+step by step, if we follow it, to heights too sublime and environment
+too wide for our present juvenile imaginings to picture.
+
+As the New Testament centres around Jesus, so the old Testament centres
+around Moses, and he also declares the Great Affirmation to be the
+same.[4] For him God has no name, but that intensely living universal
+Life which is all in all, and no name is sufficient to be its
+equivalent. The emphatic words I am are the only possible statement of
+the One-Power which exhibits itself as all worlds and all living beings.
+It is the Great I am which forever unfolds itself in all the infinite
+evolutionary forces of the cosmic scheme, and which, in marvellous
+onward march, develops itself into higher and higher conscious
+intelligence in the successive races of mankind, unrolling the scroll of
+history as it moves on from age to age, working out with unerring
+precision the steady forward movement of the whole towards that ultimate
+perfection in which the work of God will be completed. But stupendous
+as is the scale on which this Providential Power reveals itself to Moses
+and the Prophets, it is still nothing else than the very same Power
+which Jesus bids us realise in ourselves.
+
+    [Footnote 4: The Old Testament and the New treat the I AM
+    from its opposite poles. The Old Testament treats it from the
+    relation of the _Whole to the Part_, while the New Testament
+    treats it from the relation of the _Part to the Whole_. This
+    is important as explaining the relation between the Old and
+    New Testaments.
+
+    (a) "My Word shall not return unto me void but shall
+    accomplish that whereunto I send it."
+
+    (b) The Principle here indicated is that of the Alternation
+    and Equation between Absorption and Radiation--a taking-in
+    before, and a giving-out.
+
+    (c) "_Order_"--Whatever betrays this is "Disorder."
+
+    (d) "_Conscious_"--It is the degree of _consciousness_ that
+    always marks the transition from a lower to a higher Power of
+    Life. The _Life_ of _All Seven_ Principles _must_ always be
+    present in us, otherwise we should not exist at all;
+    therefore it is the degree in which we learn to _consciously_
+    function in each of them that marks our advance into higher
+    kingdoms within ourselves, and frequently outside ourselves
+    also.
+
+    (e) The Central Radiating Point of our Individuality is _One_
+    with All-Being.
+
+    (f) _Equilibrium_--Note the difference between the Living
+    Equilibrium of Alternate Rhythmic _Pulsation_ (the whole
+    Pulsation Doctrine) and the dead equilibrium of merely
+    _running down_ to a _dead level_. The former implies the
+    Doctrine of the Return, the Upward Arc compensating the
+    Downward Arc--The deadness of the latter results from the
+    absence of any such compensation. The Upward Arc results from
+    the contemplation of the Highest Ideal.
+
+    (g) Spirit cannot leave any portion of its Nature behind it.
+    It _must_ always have _all_ the qualities of Spirit in it,
+    even though the lower parts of the individuality are not yet
+    conscious of it.
+
+    (h) The Great Affirmation is The Guide to the whole Subject.]
+
+The theatre of its operations may be expanded to the magnificent
+proportions of a world-history, or contracted to the sphere of a single
+individuality: the difference is only one of scale; but the
+Life-principle is always the same. It is always the principle of
+confident Affirmation in the calm knowledge that all things are but
+manifestations of itself, and that, therefore, all must move together in
+one mighty unity which admits of no discordant elements. This "unity of
+the spirit" once clearly grasped, to say I am is to send the vibrations
+of our thought-currents throughout the universe to do our bidding when
+and where we will; and, conversely, it is _to_ draw in the vitalising
+influences of Infinite Spirit as from a boundless ocean of Life, which
+can never be exhausted and from which no power can hold us back. And all
+this is so because it is the supreme law of Nature. It is not the
+introduction of a new order, but simply the allowing of the original and
+only possible order to flow on to its legitimate fulfilment. A Divine
+Order, truly, but nowhere shall we find anything that is not Divine; and
+it is to the realisation of this Divine and Living Order that it is the
+purpose of the Bible to lead us. But we shall never realise it around us
+until we first realise it within us. We can see God outside only by the
+light of God inside; and this light increases in proportion as we
+become conscious of the Divine nature of the innermost I am which is the
+centre of our own individuality.
+
+Therefore, it is that Jesus tells us that the I am is "the door." It is
+that central point of our individual Being which opens into the whole
+illimitable Life of the Infinite. If we would understand the old-world
+precept, "know thyself," we must concentrate our thought more and more
+closely upon our own interior Life until we touch its central radiating
+point, and there we shall find that the door into the Infinite is indeed
+opened to us, and that we can pass from the innermost of our own Being
+into the innermost of All-Being. This is why Jesus spoke of "the door"
+as that through which we should pass in and out and find pasture.
+Pasture, the feeding of every faculty with its proper food, is to be
+found both on the within and the without. The livingness of Life
+consists in both concentration and externalisation: it is not the dead
+equilibrium of inertia, but the living equilibrium of a vital and
+rhythmic pulsation. Involution and evolution must forever alternate, and
+the door of communication between them is the I am which is the living
+power in both. Thus it is that the Great Affirmation is the Secret of
+Life, and that to say I am with a true understanding of all that it
+implies is to place ourselves in touch with all the powers of the
+Infinite.
+
+This is the Universal and Eternal Affirmation to which no predicate is
+attached; and all particular affirmations will be found to be only
+special differentiations of this all-embracing one. I will this or that
+particular thing because I know that I can bring it into
+externalisation, and I know that I can because I know that I am, and so
+we always come back to the great central Affirmation of All-Being.
+Search the Scriptures and you will find that from first to last they
+teach only this: that every human soul is an individualisation of that
+Universal Being, or All-Spirit, which we call God, and that Spirit can
+never be shorn of its powers, but like Fire, which is its symbol, must
+always be fully and perfectly itself, which is Life in all its unlimited
+fulness.
+
+In assigning to Affirmation, therefore, the importance which it does,
+the New Thought movement is at one with the teaching of Jesus and Moses
+and of the entire Bible. And the reason is clear. There is only one
+Truth, and therefore careful seeking can bring men only to the same
+Truth, whether they be Bible-writers or any other. The Bible derives its
+authority from the inherent truth of the things it tells of, and not
+vice versa; and if these things be true at all, they would be equally
+true even though no Bible had ever been written. But, taking the Great
+Affirmation as our guide, we shall find that the system taught by the
+Bible is scientific and logical throughout, and therefore any other
+system which is scientifically true will be found to correspond with it
+in substance, however it may differ from it in form; and thus, in their
+statements regarding the power of Affirmation, the exponents of the New
+Thought broach no new-fangled absurdity, but only reiterate a great
+truth which has been before the world, though very imperfectly
+recognised, for thousands of years.
+
+
+III
+
+_The Father_
+
+If, as we have seen, "the Son" is the differentiating principle of
+Spirit, giving rise to innumerable individualities, "the Father" is the
+unifying principle by which these innumerable individualities are bound
+together into one common life, and the necessity for recognising this
+great basis of the universal harmony forms the foundation of Jesus'
+teaching on the subject of Worship. "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh,
+when neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, shall ye worship
+the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not; we worship that which we
+know; for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is
+when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth"
+(Revised Version). In these few words the Great Teacher sums up the
+whole subject. He lays particular stress on the kind of worship that he
+means. It is, before all things, founded upon knowledge.
+
+"We worship that which we know," and it is this knowledge that gives the
+worship a healthful and life-giving quality. It is not the ignorant
+worship of wonderment and fear, a mere abasement of ourselves before
+some vast, vague, unknown power, which may injure us if we do not find
+out how to propitiate it; but it is a definite act performed with a
+definite purpose, which means that it is the employment of one of our
+natural faculties upon its proper object in an intelligent manner. The
+ignorant Samaritan worship is better than no worship at all, for at
+least it realises the existence of some centre around which a man's life
+should revolve, something to prevent the aimless dispersion of His
+powers for want of a centripetal force to bind them together; and even
+the crudest notion of prayer, as a mere attempt to induce God to change
+his mind, is at least a first step towards the truth that full supply
+for all our needs may be drawn from the Infinite. Still, such worship as
+this is hampered with perplexities, and can give only a feeble answer to
+the atheistical sneer which asks, "What is man, that God should be
+mindful of him, a momentary atom among unnumbered worlds?"
+
+Now the teaching of Jesus throws all these perplexities aside with the
+single word "knowledge." There is only one true way of doing anything,
+and that is knowing exactly what it is we want to do, and knowing
+exactly why we want to do it. All other doing is blundering. We may
+blunder into the right thing sometimes, but we cannot make this our
+principle of life to all eternity; and if we have to give up the blunder
+method eventually, why not give it up now, and begin at once to profit
+by acting according to intelligible principle? The knowledge that "the
+Son," as individualised Spirit, has his correlative in "the Father," as
+Universal Spirit, affords the clue we need.
+
+In whatever way we may attempt to explain it, the fact remains that
+volition is the fundamental characteristic of Spirit. We may speak of
+conscious, or subconscious or super-conscious action; but in whatever
+way we may picture to ourselves the condition of the agent as
+contemplating his own action, a general purposeful lifeward tendency
+becomes abundantly evident on any enlarged view of Nature, whether seen
+from without or from within, and we may call this by the general name of
+volition. But the error we have to avoid is that of supposing volition
+to take the same form in Universal Spirit as in individualised Spirit.
+The very terms "universal" and "individual" forbid this. For the
+universal, as such, to exercise specific volition, concentrating itself
+upon the details of a specific case, would be for it to pass into
+individualisation, and to cease to be the Absolute and Infinite; it
+would be no longer "the Father," but "the Son." It is therefore exactly
+by not exercising specific volition that "the Father" continues to be
+"the Father," or the Great Unifying Principle. But the volitional
+quality is not on this account absent from Spirit in the Universal; for
+otherwise whence would that quality appear in ourselves? It is present;
+but according to the nature of the plane on which it is acting. The
+Universal is not the Specific, and everything on the plane of the
+Universal must partake of the nature of that plane. Hence volition in
+"the Father" is not specific; and that which is not specific and
+individual must be generic. Generic volition, therefore, is that mode of
+volition which belongs to the Universal, and generic volition is
+tendency. This is the solution of the enigma, and this solution is
+given, not obscurely, in Jesus' statement that "the Father" seeks those
+true worshippers who worship Him in spirit and in truth.
+
+For what do we mean by tendency? From the root of tendere, to stretch;
+it signifies a pushing out in a certain definite direction, the tension
+of some force seeking to expand itself. What force? The Universal
+Life-Principle, for "the Spirit is Life." In the language of modern
+science this "seeking" on the part of "the Father" is the expansive
+pressure of the Universal Life-Principle seeking the line of least
+resistance, along which to flow into the fullest manifestation of
+individualised Life. It is a tendency which will take manifested form
+according to the degree in which it meets with reception.
+
+St. John says, "This is the boldness that we have towards him, that if
+we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us; and if we know
+that He heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the
+petitions that we have asked of Him" (1 John v. 14). Now according to
+the popular notion of "the will of God," this passage entirely loses its
+value, because it makes everything depend on our asking "according to
+His will," and if we start with the idea of an individual act of the
+Divine volition in each separate case, nothing short of a special
+revelation continually repeated could inform us what the Divine will in
+each particular instance was. Viewed in this light, this passage is a
+mere jeering at our incapacity. But when once we realise that "the will
+of God" is an invariable law of tendency, we have a clear standard by
+which to test whether we may rightly expect to get what we desire. We
+can study this law of tendency as we would any other law, and it is this
+study that is the essence of true worship.
+
+The word "worship" means to count worthy; to count worthy, that is, of
+observation. The proverb says that "imitation is the sincerest form of
+flattery" more truly we may say that it is the sincerest worship. Hence
+the true worship is the study of the Universal Life-Principle "the
+Father," in its nature and in its modes of action; and when we have thus
+realised "the Law of God," the law that is inherent in the nature of
+Infinite Being, we shall know that by conforming our own particular
+action to this generic law, we shall find that this law will in every
+instance work out the results that we desire. This is nothing more or
+less miraculous than what occurs in every case of applied science. He
+only is the true chemist or engineer who, by first learning how to obey
+the generic tendency of natural laws, is able to command them to the
+fulfilment of his individual purposes; no other method will succeed.
+Similarly with the student of the divine mystery of Life. He must first
+learn the great laws of its generic tendency, and then he will be in a
+position to apply that tendency to the working of any specific effect he
+will.
+
+Common sense tells us what the law of this tendency must be. The Master
+taught that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and for the
+Life-Principle to do anything restrictive of the fullest expansion of
+life, would be for it to act to its own destruction. The test,
+therefore, in every case, whether our intention falls within the scope
+of the great law, is this: Does it operate for the expansion or for the
+restriction of life? and according to the answer we can say positively
+whether or not our purpose is according to "the will of God." Therefore
+so long as we work within the scope of this generic "will of the Father"
+we need have no fear of the Divine Providence, as an agency, acting
+adversely to us. We may dismiss this bugbear, for we ourselves are
+manifestations of the very power which we call "the Father." The I am is
+one; and so long as we preserve this unity by conforming to the generic
+nature of the I am in the universal, it will certainly never destroy the
+unity by entering upon a specific course of action on its own account.
+
+Here, then, we find the secret of power. It is contained in the true
+worship of "the Father," which is the constant recognition of the
+lifegivingness of Originating Spirit, and of the fact that we, as
+individuals, still continue to be portions of that Spirit; and that
+therefore the law of our nature is to be perpetually drawing life from
+the inexhaustible stores of the Infinite--not bottles of water-of-life
+mixed with other ingredients and labelled for this or that particular
+purpose, but the full flow of the pure stream itself, which we are free
+to use for any purpose we desire. "Whosoever will, let him take the
+water of life freely." It is thus that the worship of "the Father"
+becomes the central principle of the individual life, not as curtailing
+our liberty, but as affording the only possible basis for it. As a
+planetary system would be impossible without a central controlling sun,
+so harmonious life is impossible without the recognition of Infinite
+Spirit as that Power, whose generic tendency serves to control each
+individual being into its proper orbit. This is the teaching of the
+Bible, and it is also the teaching of the New Thought, which says that
+life with all its limitless possibilities is a continual outflow from
+the Infinite which we may turn in any direction that we desire.
+
+But, it may be asked, what happens if we go counter to this generic law
+of Spirit? This is an important question, and I must leave the answer
+for further consideration.
+
+
+IV
+
+_Conclusion_
+
+I concluded my last chapter with the momentous question, What happens if
+we go counter to the generic law of Spirit? What happens if we go
+counter to any natural law? Obviously, the law goes counter to us. We
+can use the laws of Nature, but we cannot alter them. By opposing any
+natural law we place ourselves in an inverted position with regard to
+it, and therefore, viewed from this false standpoint, it appears as
+though the law itself were working against us with definite purpose. But
+the inversion proceeds entirely from ourselves, and not from any change
+in the action of the law. The law of Spirit, like all other natural
+laws, is in itself impersonal; but we carry into it, so to speak, the
+reflection of our own personality, though we cannot alter its generic
+character; and therefore, if we oppose its generic tendency towards the
+universal good, we shall find in it the reflection of our own opposition
+and waywardness.
+
+The law of Spirit proceeds unalterably on its course, and what is spoken
+of in popular phraseology as the Divine wrath is nothing else than the
+reflex action which naturally follows when we put ourselves in
+opposition to this law. The evil that results is not a personal
+intervention of the Universal Spirit, which would imply its entering
+into specific manifestation, but it is the natural outcome of the
+causes that we ourselves have set in motion. But the effect to ourselves
+will be precisely the same as if they were brought about by the volition
+of an adverse personality, though we may not realise that in truth the
+personal element is our own. And if we are at all aware of the
+wonderfully complex nature of man, and the various interweavings of
+principles which unite the material body at one end of the scale to the
+purely spiritual Ego at the other, we shall have some faint idea of on
+how vast a field these adverse influences may operate, not being
+restricted to the plane of outward manifestation, but acting equally on
+those inner planes which give rise to the outer and are of a more
+enduring nature.
+
+Thus the philosophic study of Spirit, so far from affording any excuse
+for laxity of conduct, adds an emphatic definiteness to the Bible
+exhortation to flee from the wrath of God. But, on the other hand, it
+delivers us from groundless terrors, the fear lest our repentance should
+not be accepted, the fear lest we should be rejected for our inability
+to subscribe to some traditional dogma, the fear of utter uncertainty
+regarding the future--fears which make life bitter and the prospect of
+death appalling to those who are in bondage to them. The knowledge that
+we are dealing with a power which is no respecter of persons, and in
+which is no variableness, which is, in fact, an unalterable Law, at
+once delivers us from all these terrors.
+
+The very unchangeableness of Law makes it certain that no amount of past
+opposition to it, whether from ignorance or wilfulness, will prevent it
+from working in accordance with its own beneficent and life-giving
+character as soon as we quit our inverted position and place ourselves
+in our true relation towards it. The laws of Nature do not harbour
+revenge; and once we adapt our methods to their character, they will
+work for us without taking any retrospective notice of our past errors.
+The law of Spirit may be more complex than that of electricity, because,
+as expressed in us, it is the law of conscious individuality; but it is
+none the less a purely natural law, and follows the universal rule, and
+therefore we may dismiss from our minds, as a baseless figment, the fear
+of any Divine power treasuring up anger against us on account of
+bygones, if we are sincerely seeking to do what is right now. The new
+causes which we put in motion now will produce their proper effect as
+surely as the old causes did; and thus by inaugurating a new sequence of
+good we shall cut off the old sequence of evil. Only, of course, we
+cannot expect to bring about the new sequence while continuing to repeat
+the old causes, for the fruit must necessarily reproduce the nature of
+the seed. Thus we are the masters of the situation, and, whether in this
+world or the next, it rests with ourselves either to perpetuate the
+evil or to wipe it out and put the good in its place. And it may be
+noticed in passing that the great central Christian doctrine is based
+upon the most perfect knowledge of this law, and is the practical
+application to a profound problem of the deepest psychological science.
+But this is a large subject, and cannot be suitably dealt with here.
+
+Much has been written and said on the origin of evil, and a volume might
+be filled with the detailed study of the subject; but for all practical
+purposes it may be summed up in the one word limitation. For what is the
+ultimate cause of all strife, whether public or private, but the notion
+that the supply of good is limited? With the bulk of mankind this is a
+fixed idea, and they therefore argue that because there is only a
+certain limited quantity of good, the share in their possession can be
+increased only by correspondingly diminishing some one else's share. Any
+one entertaining the same idea, naturally resents the attempt to deprive
+him of any portion of this limited quantity; and hence arises the whole
+crop of envy, hatred, fraud, and violence, whether between individuals,
+classes, or nations. If people only realised the truth that "good" is
+not a certain limited quantity, but a stream continuously flowing from
+the exhaustless Infinite, and ready to take any direction we choose to
+give it, and that each one is able by the action of his own thought to
+draw from it indefinitely, the substitution of this new and true idea
+for the old and false one of limitation would at one stroke remove all
+strife and struggle from the world; every man would find a helper
+instead of a competitor in every other, and the very laws of Nature,
+which now so often seem to war against us, would be found a ceaseless
+source of profit and delight.
+
+"They could not enter into rest because of unbelief," "they limited the
+Holy One of Israel": in these words the Bible, like the New Thought,
+traces all the sorrow of the world--that terrible _Weltschmerz_ which
+expresses itself with such direful influence through the pessimistic
+literature of the day--to the one root of a false belief, the belief in
+man's limitation. Only substitute for it the true belief, and the evil
+would be at an end. Now the ground of this true belief is that clear
+apprehension of "the Father" which, as I have shown, forms the basis of
+Jesus' teaching. If, from one point of view, the Intelligent Universal
+Life-Principle is a Power to be obeyed, in the same sense in which we
+have to obey all the laws of Nature, from the opposite point of view, it
+is a power to be used. We must never lose sight of the fact that
+obedience to any natural law in its generic tendency necessarily carries
+with it a corresponding power of using that law in specific application.
+This is the old proverb that knowledge is power. It is the old paradox
+with which Jesus posed the ignorant scribes as to how David's Lord could
+also be his Son. The word "David" means "Beloved" and to be beloved
+implies that reciprocal sympathy which is intuitive knowledge. Hence
+David, the Beloved, is the man who has realised his true relation as a
+Son to his Father and who is "in tune with the Infinite." On the other
+hand, this "Infinite" is his "Lord" because it is the complex of all
+those unchangeable Laws from which it is impossible to swerve without
+suffering consequent loss of power; and on the other, this knowledge of
+the innermost principles of All-Being puts him in possession of
+unlimited powers which he can apply to any specific purpose that he
+will; and thus he stands towards them in the position of a father who
+has authority to command the services of his son. Thus David's "Lord,"
+becomes by a natural transition his "Son."
+
+And it is precisely in this that the principle of "Sonship" consists. It
+is the raising of man from the condition of bondage as a servant by
+reason of limitation to the status of a son by the entire removal of all
+limitations. To believe and act on this principle is to "believe on the
+Son of God," and a practical belief in our own sonship thus sets us free
+from all evil and from all fear of evil--it brings us out of the kingdom
+of death into the kingdom of Life. Like everything else, it has to grow,
+but the good seed of liberating Truth once planted in the heart is sure
+to germinate, and the more we endeavour to foster its growth by seeking
+to grasp with our understanding the reason of these things and to
+realise our knowledge in practice, the more rapidly we shall find our
+lives increase in livingness--a joy to ourselves, a brightness to our
+homes, and a blessing expanding to all around in ever-widening circles.
+
+Enough has now been said to show the identity of principle between the
+teaching of the Bible and that of the New Thought. Treated in detail,
+the subject would extend to many volumes explanatory of the Old and New
+Testaments, and if that great work were ever carried out I have no
+hesitation in saying that the agreement would be found to extend to the
+minutest particulars. But the hints contained in the foregoing papers
+will, I hope, suffice to show that there is nothing antagonistic between
+the two systems, or, rather, to show that they are one--the statement of
+the One Truth which always has been and always will be. And if what I
+have now endeavoured to put before my readers should lead any of them to
+follow up the subject more fully for themselves, I can promise them an
+inexhaustible store of wonder, delight, and strength in the study of the
+Old Book in the light of the New Thought.
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+JACHIN AND BOAZ
+
+
+"And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand,
+and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand
+Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz." (II Chron. iii, 17.)
+
+Very likely some of us have wondered what was the meaning of these two
+mysterious pillars set up by Solomon in front of his temple, and why
+they were called by these strange names; and then we have dropped the
+subject as one of those inexplicable things handed down in the Bible
+from old time which, we suppose, can have no practical interest for us
+at the present day. Nevertheless, these strange names are not without a
+purpose. They contain the key to the entire Bible and to the whole order
+of Nature, and as emblems of the two great principles that are the
+pillars of the universe, they fitly stood at the threshold of that
+temple which was designed to symbolise all the mysteries of Being.
+
+In all the languages of the Semitic stock the letters J and Y are
+interchangeable, as we see in the modern Arabic "Yakub" for "Jacob" and
+the old Hebrew "Yaveh" for "Jehovah." This gives us the form "Yachin,"
+which at once reveals the enigma. The word Yak signifies "one"; and the
+termination "hi," or "him," is an intensitive which may be rendered in
+English by "only." Thus the word "Jachin" resolves itself into the words
+"one only," the all-embracing Unity.
+
+The meaning of Boaz is clearly seen in the book of Ruth. There Boaz
+appears as the kinsman exercising the right of pre-emption so familiar
+to those versed in Oriental law--a right which has for its purpose the
+maintenance of the Family as the social unit. According to this
+widely-spread custom, the purchaser, who is not a member of the family,
+buys the property subject to the right of kinsmen within certain degrees
+to purchase it back, and so bring it once more into the family to which
+it originally belonged. Whatever may be our personal opinions regarding
+the vexed questions of dogmatic theology, we can all agree as to the
+general principle indicated in the role acted by Boaz. He brings back
+the alienated estate into the family--that is to say, he "redeems" it in
+the legal sense of the word. As a matter of law his power to do this
+results from his membership in the family; but his motive for doing it
+is love, his affection for Ruth. Without pushing the analogy too far we
+may say, then, that Boaz represents the principle of redemption in the
+widest sense of reclaiming an estate by right of relationship, while the
+innermost moving power in its recovery is Love.
+
+This is what Boaz stands for in the beautiful story of Ruth, and there
+is no reason why we should not let the same name stand for the same
+thing when we seek the meaning of the mysterious pillar. Thus the two
+pillars typify Unity and the redeeming power of Love, with the
+significant suggestion that the redemption results from the Unity. They
+correspond with the two "bonds," or uniting principles spoken of by St.
+Paul, "the Unity of the Spirit which is the Bond of Peace," and "Love,
+which is the Bond of Perfectness."
+
+The former is Unity of Being; the latter, Unity of Intention: and the
+principle of this Dual-Unity is well illustrated by the story of Boaz.
+The whole story proceeds on the idea of the Family as the social unit,
+the root-conception of all Oriental law, and if we consider the Family
+in this light, we shall see how exactly it embodies the two-fold idea of
+Jachin and Boaz, unity of Being and unity of Thought. The Family forms a
+unit because all the members proceed from a common progenitor, and are
+thus all of one blood; but, although this gives them a natural unity of
+Being of which they cannot divest themselves, it is not enough in itself
+to make them a united family, as unfortunately experience too often
+shows. Something more is wanted, and that something is Love. There must
+be a personal union brought about by sympathetic Thought to complete the
+natural union resulting from birth. The inherent unity must be expressed
+by the Individual volition of each member, and thus the Family becomes
+the ideally perfect social unit; a truth to which St. Paul alludes when
+he calls God the Father from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is
+named. Thus Boaz stands for the principle which brings back to the
+original Unity that which has been for a time separated from it. There
+has never been any separation of actual Being--the family right always
+subsisted in the property even while in the hands of strangers,
+otherwise it could never have been brought back; but it requires the
+Love principle to put this right into effective operation.
+
+When this begins to work in the knowledge of its right to do so, then
+there is the return of the individual to the Unity, and the recognition
+of himself as the particular expression of the Universal in virtue of
+his own nature.
+
+These two pillars, therefore, stand for the two great spiritual
+principles that are the basis of all Life: Jachin typifying the Unity
+resulting from Being, and Boaz typifying the Unity resulting from Love.
+In this Dual-Unity we find the key to all conceivable involution or
+evolution of Spirit; and it is therefore not without reason that the
+record of these two ancient pillars has been preserved in our
+Scriptures. And finally we may take this as an index to the character of
+our Scriptures generally. They contain infinite meanings; and often
+those passages which appear on the surface to be most meaningless will
+be found to possess the deepest significance. The Book, which we often
+read so superficially, hides beneath its sometimes seemingly trivial
+words the secrets of other things. The twin pillars Jachin and Boaz bear
+witness to this truth.[5]
+
+    [Footnote 5: The following comment was made by Judge Troward,
+    after the publication of this paper in _Expression_:
+
+    "_The Two Pillars_ of the Universe are Personality and
+    Mathematics, represented by Boaz and Jachin respectively.
+    This is the broadest simplification to which it is possible
+    to reduce things. Balance consists in preserving the
+    Equilibrium or Alternating Current between these two
+    Principles. Personality is the Absolute Factor. Mathematics
+    are the Relative Factor, for they merely Measure different
+    Rates or Scales. They are absolute in this respect. A
+    particular scale having been selected all its sequences will
+    follow by an inexorable Law of Order and Proportion; but the
+    selection of the scale and the change from one scale to
+    another rests entirely with Personality. What Personality can
+    not do is to make one Scale produce the results of another,
+    but it can set aside one scale and substitute another for it.
+    Hence Personality contains in itself the Universal Scale, or
+    can either accommodate itself to lower rates of motion
+    already established, or can raise them to its own rate of
+    motion. Hence Personality is the grand Ultimate Fact in all
+    things.
+
+    "Different personalities should be regarded as different
+    degrees of consciousness. They are different degrees of
+    emergence of The Power that knows Itself."]
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+HEPHZIBAH
+
+
+"Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more
+be termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land
+Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married"
+(Isaiah lxii, 4). The name Hephzibah--or, as it might be written,
+Hafzbah--conveys a very distinct idea to any one who has lived in the
+East, and calls up a string of familiar words all containing the same
+root _hafz_, which signifies "guarding" or "taking care of," such as
+_hafiz_, a protector, _muhafiz_, a custodian, as in the word _muhafiz
+daftar_, a head record-keeper; or again, _hifazat_, custody, as
+_bahifazat polis_, in custody of the police; or again, _daim-ul-hafz_,
+imprisonment for life, and other similar expressions.
+
+All words from this root suggest the idea of "guarding," and therefore
+the name Haphzibah at once speaks its own meaning. It is "one who is
+guarded," a "protected one." And answering to this there must be some
+power which guards, and the name of this power is given in Hosea ii, 16,
+where it is called "Ishi." "And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord,
+that thou shalt call me Ishi; and thou shalt call me no more Baali."
+"Baali" means "lord," "Ishi" means "husband," and between the two there
+is a whole world of distinction.
+
+To call the Great Power "Baali" is to live in one world, and to call it
+"Ishi" is to live in another. The world that is ruled over by Baali is a
+world of "miserable worms of the dust" and such crawling creatures; but
+the world that is warmed and lightened by "Ishi" is one in which men and
+women walk upright, conscious of their own divine nature, instead of
+dodging about to escape being crushed under the feet of Moloch as he
+strides through his dominions. If the name Baali did not suggest a wrong
+idea there would be no need to change it for another, and the change of
+name therefore indicates the opening of the mind to a larger and sounder
+conception of the true nature of the Ruling Principle of the universe.
+It is no imperious autocrat, the very apotheosis of self-glorification,
+ill-natured and spiteful if its childish vanity be not gratified by
+hearing its own praises formally proclaimed, often from lips opened only
+by fear; nor is it an almighty extortioner desiring to deprive us of
+what we value most, either to satisfy its greed or to demonstrate its
+sovereignty. This is the image which men make of God and then bow
+terrified before it, offering a worship which is the worship of Baal,
+and making life blank because all the livingness has been wiped
+out of it.
+
+Ishi is the embodiment of the very opposite conception, a wise and
+affectionate husband, instead of a taskmaster exploiting his slaves. In
+its true aspect the relation of husband and wife is entirely devoid of
+any question of relative superiority or inferiority. As well ask whether
+the front wheel or the back wheel of your bicycle is the more important.
+The two make a single whole, in which the functions of both parts are
+reciprocal and equally necessary; yet for this very reason these
+functions cannot be identical.
+
+In a well-ordered home, where husband and wife are united by mutual love
+and respect, we see that the man's function is to enter into the larger
+world and to provide the wife with all that is needed for the
+maintenance and comfort of the home, while the function of the woman is
+to be the distributor of what her husband provides, in doing which she
+follows her own discretion; and a sensible man, knowing that he can
+trust a sensible wife, does not want to poke his finger into every pie.
+Thus all things run harmoniously--the woman relieved of responsibilities
+which are not naturally hers, and the man relieved of responsibilities
+which are not naturally his. But let any perplexity or danger arise, and
+the woman knows that from her husband she will receive all the guidance
+and protection that the occasion may require, he being the wise and
+strong man that we have supposed him, and having this assurance she is
+able to pursue the avocations of her own sphere undisturbed by any fears
+or anxieties.
+
+It is this relation of protection and guidance that is implied by the
+word Hephzibah. It is the name of those who realise their identity with
+the all-ordering Divine Spirit. He who realises this unity with the
+Spirit finds himself both guided and guarded. And here we touch the
+fringe of a deep natural mystery, which formed the basis of all that was
+most valuable in the higher mysteries of the ancients, and the substance
+of which we must realise if we are to make any progress in the future,
+whatever form we may adopt to convey the idea to ourselves or others. It
+is the relation of the individual mind to the Universal Mind, the
+combination of unity with independence which, though quite clear when we
+know it by personal experience, is almost inexpressible in words, but
+which is frequently represented in the Bible under the figure of the
+marriage relations.
+
+It is a basic principle, and in various modes pervades all Nature, and
+has been symbolised in every religion the world has known; and in
+proportion as the individual realises this relation he will find that he
+is able to _use_ the Universal Mind, while at the same time he is guided
+and guarded by it. For think what it would be to wield the power of the
+Universal Mind without having its guidance. It would be the old story of
+Phaeton trying to drive the chariot of the Sun, which ended in his own
+destruction; and limitless power without corresponding guidance would be
+the most terrible curse that any one could bring upon his head.
+
+The relation between the individual mind and the Universal Mind, as
+portrayed in the reciprocally connected names of Hephzibah and Ishi,
+must never be lost sight of; for the Great Guiding Mind, immeasurably
+as it transcends our intellectual consciousness, is not another than
+_ourselves_. It is The One Self which is the foundation of all the
+individual selves, and which is, therefore, in all its limitlessness, as
+entirely one with each individual as though no other being existed.
+Therefore we do not have to go out of ourselves to find it, for it is
+the expansion to infinity of all that we truly _are_, having, indeed, no
+place for those negative forms of evil with which we people a world of
+illusion, for it is the very Light itself, and in it all illusion is
+dispelled; but it is the expansion to infinity of all in us that is
+Affirmative, all that is really living.
+
+Therefore, in looking for its guiding and guarding we are relying upon
+no borrowed power from _without_, held at the caprice and option of
+another, but upon the supreme fact of our own nature, which we can use
+in what direction we will with perfect freedom, knowing no limitation
+save the obligation not to do violence to our own purest and highest
+feelings. And this relation is entirely _natural_. We must steer the
+happy mean between imploring and ignoring. A natural law does not need
+to be entreated before it will work; and, on the other hand, we cannot
+make use of it while ignoring its existence.
+
+What we have to do, therefore, is to take the working of the law for
+granted, and make use of it accordingly; and since that is the law of
+Mind, and Mind is Personality, this Power, which is at once _ourselves_
+and above ourselves, may be treated as a Person and may be spoken with,
+and its replies received by the inner ear of the heart. Any scheme of
+philosophy that does not result in this personal intercourse with the
+Divine Mind falls short of the mark. It may be right so far as it goes,
+but it does not go far enough, and fails to connect us with our vital
+centre. Names are of small importance so long as the intercourse is
+real. The Supreme Mind with which we converse is only to be met in the
+profoundest depths of our own being, and, as Tennyson says, is more
+perfectly ourselves than our own hands and feet. It is our natural Base;
+and realising this we shall find ourselves to be in very truth "guarded
+ones," guided by the Spirit in all things, nothing too great and nothing
+too trivial to come within the great Law of our being.
+
+There is another aspect of the Spirit in which it is seen as a Power to
+be used; and the full flow of life is in the constant alternation
+between this aspect and the one we have been considering, but always we
+are linked with the Universal Mind as the flower lives by reason of its
+root. The connection itself is intrinsic, and can never be severed; but
+it must be consciously realised before it can be consciously used. All
+our development consists in the increasing consciousness of this
+connection, which enables us to apply the higher power to whatever
+purpose we may have in hand, not merely in the hope that it _may_
+respond, but with the certain knowledge that by the law of its own
+nature it is bound to do so, and likewise with the knowledge that by
+the same law it is bound also to guide us to the selection of right
+objects and right methods.
+
+Experience will teach us to detect the warning movement of the inner
+Guide. A deepseated sense of dissatisfaction, an indescribable feeling
+that somehow everything is not right, are the indications to which we do
+well to pay heed; for we are "guarded ones," and these interior
+monitions are the working of that innermost principle of our own being
+which is the immediate outflowing of the Great Universal Life into
+individuality. But, paying heed to this, we shall find ourselves
+guarded, not as prisoners, but as a loved and honoured wife, whose
+freedom is assured by a protection which will allow no harm to assail
+her; we shall find that the Law of our nature is Liberty, and that
+nothing but our own want of understanding can shut us out from it.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+MIND AND HAND
+
+
+I have before me a curious piece of ancient Egyptian symbolism. It
+represents the sun sending down to the earth innumerable rays, with the
+peculiarity that each ray terminates in a hand. This method of
+representing the sun is so unusual that it suggests the presence in the
+designer's mind of some idea rather different from those generally
+associated with the sun as a spiritual emblem; and, if I interpret the
+symbol rightly, it sets forth the truth, not only of the Divine Being as
+the Great Source of all Life and of all Illumination, but also the
+correlative truth of our individual relation to that centre. Each ray is
+terminated by a hand, and a hand is the emblem of active working; and I
+think it would be difficult to give a better symbolical representation
+of innumerable individualities, each working separately, yet all
+deriving their activity from a common source. The hand is at work upon
+the earth, and the sun, from which it is a ray, is shining in the
+heavens; but the connecting line shows whence all the strength and skill
+of the hand are derived.
+
+If we look at the microcosm of our own person we find this principle
+exactly reproduced. Our hand is the instrument by which all our work is
+done--literary, artistic, mechanical, or household--but we know that all
+this work is really the work of the mind, the will-power at the centre
+of our system, which first determines what is to be done, and then sets
+the hand to work to do it; and in the doing of it the mind and hand
+become one, so that the hand is none other than the mind working. Now,
+transferring this analogy to the microcosm, we see that we each stand in
+the same relation to the Universal Mind that our hand does to our
+individual mind--at least, that is our normal relation; and we shall
+never put forth our full strength except from this standpoint.
+
+We rightly realise our will as the centre of our individuality, but we
+should do better to picture our individuality as an ellipse rather than
+a circle, a figure having two "conjugate foci," two equilibriated
+centres of revolution rather than a single one, one of which is the
+will-power or faculty of _doing_, and the other the consciousness or
+perception of _being_. If we realise only one of these two centres we
+shall lose both mental and moral balance. If we lose sight of that
+centre which is our personal will, we shall become flabby visionaries
+without any backbone; and if, in our anxiety to develop backbone, we
+lost sight of the other centre, we shall find that we have lost that
+which corresponds to the lungs and heart in the physical body, and that
+our backbone, however perfectly developed, is rapidly drying up for
+want of those functions which minister vitality to the whole system, and
+is only fit to be hung up in a museum to show what a rigid, lifeless
+thing the strongest vertebral column becomes when separated from the
+organisation by which alone it can receive nourishment. We must realise
+the one focus of our individuality as clearly as the other, and bring
+both into equal balance, if we would develop all our powers and rise to
+that perfection of Life which has no limits to its glorious
+possibilities.
+
+Keeping the ancient Egyptian symbol before used, and considering
+ourselves as the hand, we find that we derive all our power from an
+infinite centre; and because it is infinite we need never fear that we
+shall fail to draw to ourselves all that we require for our work,
+whether it be the intelligence to lay hold of the proper tool, or the
+strength to use it. And, moreover, we learn from the symbol that this
+central power is generic. This is a most important truth. It is the
+centre from which all the hands proceed, and is as fully open to any one
+hand as to any other. Each hand is doing its separate work, and the
+whole of the central energy is at its disposal for its own specific
+purpose. The work of the central energy, as such, is to supply vitality
+to the hands, and it is they that differentiate this universal power
+into all the varied forms of application which their different aptitudes
+and opportunities suggest. We, as the hands, live and work because the
+Central Mind lives and works in us. We are one with it, and it is one
+with us; and so long as we keep this primal truth before us, we realise
+ourselves as beings of unlimited goodness and intelligence and power,
+and we work in the fulness of strength and confidence accordingly; but
+if we lose sight of this truth, we shall find that the strongest will
+must get exhausted at last in the unequal struggle of the individual
+against the universe.
+
+For if we do not recognise the Central Mind as the source of our
+vitality, we are literally "fighting for our own hand," and all the
+other hands are against us, for we have lost the principle of connection
+with them. This is what must infallibly happen if we rely on nothing but
+our individual will-power. But if we realise that the will is the power
+by which we give out, and that every giving out implies a corresponding
+taking in, then we shall find in the boundless ocean of central living
+Spirit the source from which we can go on taking in _ad infinitum_, and
+which thus enables us to give out to any extent we please. But for wise
+and effective giving out a strong and enlightened will is an absolute
+necessity, and therefore we do well to cultivate the will, or the active
+side of our nature. But we must equally cultivate the receptive side
+also; and when we do this rightly by seeing in the Infinite Mind the one
+source of supply, our will-power becomes intensified by the knowledge
+that the whole power of the Infinite is present to back it up; and with
+this continual sense of Infinite Power behind us we can go calmly and
+steadily to the accomplishment of any purpose, however difficult,
+without straining or effort, knowing that it shall be achieved, not by
+the hand only, but by the invincible Mind that works through it. "Not by
+might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE CENTRAL CONTROL
+
+
+In contemplating the relations between body, soul, and spirit, between
+Universal Mind and individual mind, the methodised study of which
+constitutes Mental Science, we must never forget that these relations
+indicate, not the separateness, but the unity of these principles. We
+must learn not to attribute one part of our action to one part of our
+being, and another to another. Neither the action nor the functions are
+split up into separate parts. The action is a whole, and the being that
+does it is a whole, and in the healthy organism the reciprocal movements
+of the principles are so harmonious as never to suggest any feeling than
+that of a perfectly whole and undivided self. If there is any other
+feeling we may be sure that there is abnormal action somewhere, and we
+should set ourselves to discover and remove the cause of it. The reason
+for this is that in any perfect organism there cannot be more than one
+centre of control.
+
+A rivalry of controlling principles would be the destruction of the
+organic wholeness; for either the elements would separate and group
+themselves round one or other of the centres, according to their
+respective affinities, and thus form two distinctive individualities,
+or else they would be reduced to a condition of merely chaotic
+confusion; in either case the original organism would cease to exist.
+Seen in this light, therefore, it is a self-evident truth that, if we
+are to retain our individuality; in other words, if we are to continue
+to exist, it can be only by retaining our hold upon the central
+controlling principle in ourselves; and if this be the charter of our
+being, it follows that all our future development depends on our
+recognising and accepting this central controlling principle. To this
+end, therefore, all our endeavours should be directed; for otherwise all
+our studies in Mental Science will only lead us into a confused
+labyrinth of principles and counter-principles, which will be
+considerably worse than the state of ignorant simplicity from which we
+started.
+
+This central controlling principle is the Will, and we must never lose
+sight of the fact that all the other principles about which we have
+learnt in our studies exist only as its instruments. The Will is the
+true self, of which they are all functions, and all our progress
+consists of our increased recognition of the fact. It is the Will that
+says "I AM"; and therefore, however exalted, or even in their higher
+developments apparently miraculous, our powers may be, they are all
+subject to the central controlling power of the Will. When the
+enlightened Will shall have learnt to identify itself perfectly with the
+limitless powers of knowledge, judgment, and creative thought which are
+at its disposal, then the individual will have attained to perfect
+wholeness, and all limitations will have passed away for ever.
+
+And nothing short of this consciousness of Perfect Wholeness can satisfy
+us. Everything that falls short of it is in that degree an embodiment of
+the principle of Death, that great enemy against which the principle of
+Life must continue to wage unceasing war, in whatever form or measure it
+may show itself, until "death is swallowed up in victory." There can be
+no compromise. Either we are affirming Life, as a principle, or we are
+denying it, no matter on how great or how small a scale; and the
+criterion by which to determine our attitude is our realisation of our
+own Wholeness. Death is the principle of disintegration; and whenever we
+admit the power of any portion of our organism, whether spiritual or
+bodily, to induce any condition _independently of the intention of the
+Will_, we admit that the force of disintegration is superior to the
+controlling centre in ourselves, and we conceive of ourselves as held in
+bondage by an adversary, from which bondage the only way of release is
+by the attainment of a truer way of thinking.
+
+And the reason is that, either through ignorance or carelessness, we
+have surrendered our position of control over the system as a whole, and
+have lost the element of _Purpose_, around which the consciousness of
+individuality must always centre. Every state of our consciousness,
+whether active or passive, should be the result of a distinct _purpose_
+adopted by our own free will; for the passive states should be quite as
+much under the control of the Will as the active. It is the lack of
+_purpose_ that deprives us of power. The higher and more clearly defined
+our purpose, the greater stimulus we have for realising our control over
+_all_ our faculties for its attainment; and since the grandest of all
+purposes is the strengthening and ennobling of Life, in proportion as we
+make this our aim we shall find ourselves in union with the Supreme
+Universal Mind, acting each in our individual sphere for the furtherance
+of the same purpose which animates the ruling principle of the Great
+Whole, and, as a consequence, shall find that its intelligence and
+powers are at our disposal.
+
+But in all this there must be no strain. The true exercise of the Will
+is not an exercise of unnatural force. It is simply the leading of our
+powers into their natural channels by intelligently recognising the
+direction in which those channels go. However various in detail, they
+have one clearly defined common tendency towards the increasing of
+Life--whether in ourselves or in others--and if we keep this steadily in
+view, all our powers, whether interior or exterior, will be found to
+work so harmoniously together that there will be no sense of independent
+action on the part of any one of them. The distinctions drawn for
+purposes of study will be laid aside, and the Self in us will be found
+to be the realisation of a grand ideal being, at once individual and
+universal, consciously free in its individual wholeness and in its
+joyous participation in the Life of the Universal Whole.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+WHAT IS HIGHER THOUGHT?
+
+
+Resolution passed October, 1902, by the Kensington Higher Thought
+Centre.
+
+    _"That the Centre stands for the definite teaching of
+    absolute Oneness of Creator and Creation--Cause and
+    Effect--and that nothing which may contradict or be in
+    opposition to the above principles be admitted to the 'Higher
+    Thought' Centre Platform._
+
+    _"By Oneness of Cause and Effect is meant, that Effect (man)
+    does consist only of what Cause is; but a part (individual
+    personality) is not therefore co-extensive with the whole."_
+
+This Resolution is of the greatest importance. Once admit that there is
+_any_ Power outside yourself, however beneficent you may conceive it to
+be, and you have sown the seed which must sooner or later bear the fruit
+of "_Fear_" which is the entire ruin of Life, Love and Liberty. There is
+no _via media_. Say we are only reflections, however accurate, of The
+Life, and in the admission we have given away our Birthright. However
+small or plausible may be the germ of thought which admits that we are
+anything less in principle than The Life Itself, it must spring up to
+the ultimate ruin of the Life-Principle itself. We _are_ It itself. The
+difference is only that between the generic and the specific of the
+_same_ thing. We must contend earnestly, both within ourselves and
+outwardly, for the _one great foundation_ and never, now on to all
+eternity, admit for a single instant any thought which is opposed to
+this, the Basic Truth of Being.
+
+The leading ideas connected with Higher Thought are (I) That Man
+controls circumstances, instead of being controlled by them, and (II) as
+a consequence of the foregoing, that whatever teaches us to _rely_ on
+power _borrowed_ from a source _outside_ ourselves is _not_ Higher
+Thought; and that whatever explains to us the _Infinite_ source of _our
+own inherent_ power and the consequent _limitless_ nature of that power
+_is_ Higher Thought. This avoids the use of terms which may only puzzle
+those not accustomed to abstract phraseology, and is substantially the
+same as the resolution of October, 1902.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+FRAGMENTS
+
+
+  1. God is Love.
+     Man, having the understanding of God, speaks the Word of Power.
+
+  2. Man gives utterance to God.
+
+  3. The Father is Equilibrium.
+     The Son is Concentration of the _same_ Spirit.
+     The Spirit is Projection.
+
+_The Tri-une Relation_--always consists of these Three:
+
+(I) The Potential--(II) The Ideal--(III) The Concrete.
+
+(I) The Potential is Life in its most highly abstract mode not yet
+brought into Form even as Thought. Not particularised in _any_ way.
+
+(II) The Ideal is the particularising of the Potential into a certain
+Formulated Thought.
+
+(III) The Concrete is the Manifestation of the Formulated Thought in
+Visible Form.
+
+What everybody wants is to become _more alive_--as Jesus said, "I am
+come that they might have Life and might have it more abundantly"--and
+it is only on the basis of realising ourselves as a _perfect unity
+throughout_, not made up of opposing parts, and that unity _Spirit_,
+that we can realise in ourselves the _Livingness_ which _Spirit is_, and
+which we _as Spirit_ ought to be.
+
+
+HENCE PERFECT DEMONSTRATION.
+
+    "The Truth shall make you Free"
+    Life    :
+    Love    : = The Truth
+    Liberty :
+
+The Ultimate Truth will always be found to consist of these three, and
+anything that is contrary to them is contrary to Fundamental Truth.
+
+
+WORSHIP
+
+Worship consists in the recognition of the _Personal_ Nature of Holy
+Spirit, and in the Continual Alternation (Pulsation) between the two
+positions of "I am the Person that Thou art," and "Thou art the Person
+that I am." The Two Personalities are One.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+
+Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
+
+   page 64: extra word removed
+
+      that we shall _feel_ the [the] truth of it,
+
+   page 102: typographical error corrected
+
+      straining and striving, and the place of the old
+      _strum[sturm] und drang_ will be taken, not by inertia, but
+      by a joyous activity which knows that it
+
+   page 151: extra word removed
+
+      in proportion as you find it there, you will [will] find it
+      everywhere else.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIDDEN POWER***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 25638-8.txt or 25638-8.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/6/3/25638
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/25638-8.zip b/25638-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2196ecb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25638-8.zip
diff --git a/25638-h.zip b/25638-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..caebe6e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25638-h.zip
diff --git a/25638-h/25638-h.htm b/25638-h/25638-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2586f36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25638-h/25638-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,5830 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Hidden Power, by Thomas Troward</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         text-indent: 2em;
+         }
+
+   p.citation { /* author citation at end of blockquote or poem */
+	text-align: right;
+	font-variant: small-caps;
+	}
+
+   p.quotsig { /* author signature at end of letter */
+	margin-left: 35%;
+	text-indent: -4em; /* gimmick to move 2nd line right */
+	}
+
+    p.noindent  {text-indent: 0em;}
+
+    h1,h2,h3 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    hr { width: 33%;
+	 margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+
+    table {margin: 2em auto 2em auto; text-align: center; border-collapse: collapse; width: 600px;}
+     .tda {text-align: right; padding-right: .5em; text-indent: 0;}
+     .tdb {text-align: left; padding-right: .5em; text-indent: 0;}
+     .tdb2 {text-align: left; padding-right: .5em; text-indent: 2em;}
+     .tdc {text-align: right; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: 0;}
+
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    .trans_note       {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em; border: solid 2px;
+                       padding-bottom: .2em; padding-top: .2em;
+                       padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;}
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 92%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+                text-align: right;
+              } /* page numbers */
+
+
+    .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;}
+
+    .bb       {border-bottom: solid 2px;}
+    .bl       {border-left: solid 2px;}
+
+    .center   {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    .caption  {font-weight: bold;}
+
+    .figcenter   {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+
+
+    .footnotes        {border: dashed 1px;}
+    .footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+    .footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+    .fnanchor         {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;}
+
+    .poem             {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
+    .poem br          {display: none;}
+    .poem .stanza     {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+    .poem span.i0     {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i2     {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i4     {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i1     {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+
+    hr.full { width: 100%;
+              margin-top: 3em;
+              margin-bottom: 0em;
+              margin-left: auto;
+              margin-right: auto;
+              height: 4px;
+              border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */
+              border-style: solid;
+              border-color: #000000;
+              clear: both; }
+    pre      {font-size: 85%;}
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hidden Power, by Thomas Troward</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Hidden Power</p>
+<p>       And Other Papers upon Mental Science</p>
+<p>Author: Thomas Troward</p>
+<p>Release Date: May 29, 2008  [eBook #25638]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIDDEN POWER***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Kevin Handy, John Hagerson,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>THE<br />
+HIDDEN POWER<br />
+
+<small>And Other Papers Upon Mental Science</small></h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>T. TROWARD</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Late Divisional Judge, Punjab.<br />
+Honorary Member of the Medico-Legal Society of New York.<br />
+First Vice-President International New Thought Alliance</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/publogo.jpg" width="60" height="102" alt="logo" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK</p>
+
+<p class="center">ROBERT M. McBRIDE &amp; COMPANY<br /></p>
+
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1921, by<br />
+<span class="smcap">S. A. Troward</span><br />
+<i>All rights reserved</i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Sixth Printing September 1936</i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><small><i>Printed in the<br />
+United States of America</i></small>
+</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>PUBLISHER'S NOTE</h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The material comprised in this volume has been selected from unpublished
+manuscripts and magazine articles by Judge Troward, and "The Hidden
+Power" is, it is believed, the last book which will be published under
+his name. Only an insignificant portion of his work has been deemed
+unworthy of permanent preservation. Whenever possible, dates have been
+affixed to these papers. Those published in 1902 appeared originally in
+"EXPRESSION: A Journal of Mind and Thought," in London, and to some of
+these have been added notes made later by the author.</p>
+
+<p>The Publishers wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to Mr. Daniel M.
+Murphy of New York for his services in the selection and arrangement of
+the material.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr>
+
+
+<th class="tda">CHAPTER</th>
+<th class="tdc" colspan="2">PAGE</th>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tda"><a href="#I">I</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Hidden Power</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#I">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#II">II</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Perversion of Truth</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#II">42</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#III">III</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The "I Am"</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#III">59</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#IV">IV</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Affirmative Power</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#IV">63</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#V">V</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Submission</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#V">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#VI">VI</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Completeness</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#VI">74</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#VII">VII</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Principle of Guidance</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#VII">81</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#VIII">VIII</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Desire as the Motive Power</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#VIII">85</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#IX">IX</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Touching Lightly</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#IX">92</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#X">X</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Present Truth</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#X">96</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XI">XI</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Yourself</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XI">99</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XII">XII</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Religious Opinions</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XII">105</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XIII">XIII</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">A Lesson from Browning</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XIII">113</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XIV">XIV</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Spirit of Opulence</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XIV">118</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XV">XV</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Beauty</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XV">123</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XVI">XVI</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Separation and Unity</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XVI">129</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XVII">XVII</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Externalisation</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XVII">141</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Entering into the Spirit of It</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XVIII">146</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XIX">XIX</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Bible and the New Thought</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"></td><td class="tdb2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#SON">I.</a> The Son</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#SON">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"></td><td class="tdb2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#GREAT">II.</a> The Great Affirmation</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#GREAT">166</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"></td><td class="tdb2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#FATHER">III.</a> The Father</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#FATHER">178</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"></td><td class="tdb2"><span class="smcap"><a href="#CONCLUSION">IV.</a> Conclusion</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#CONCLUSION">185</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XX">XX</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Jachin and Boaz</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XX">192</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XXI">XXI</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Hephzibah</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XXI">197</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XXII">XXII</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Mind and Hand</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XXII">204</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">The Central Control</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XXIII">209</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">What is Higher Thought</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XXIV">213</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tda"><a href="#XXV">XXV</a></td>
+<td class="tdb"><span class="smcap">Fragments</span></td>
+<td class="tdc"><a href="#XXV">215</a></td></tr>
+
+
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_HIDDEN_POWER_AND_OTHER_ESSAYS" id="THE_HIDDEN_POWER_AND_OTHER_ESSAYS"></a>THE HIDDEN POWER AND OTHER ESSAYS</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">The Hidden Power</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>To realise fully how much of our present daily life consists in symbols
+is to find the answer to the old, old question, What is Truth? and in
+the degree in which we begin to recognise this we begin to approach
+Truth. The realisation of Truth consists in the ability to translate
+symbols, whether natural or conventional, into their equivalents; and
+the root of all the errors of mankind consists in the inability to do
+this, and in maintaining that the symbol has nothing behind it. The
+great duty incumbent on all who have attained to this knowledge is to
+impress upon their fellow men that there is an <i>inner side</i> to things,
+and that until this <i>inner</i> side is known, the things themselves are not
+known.</p>
+
+<p>There is an inner and an outer side to everything; and the quality of
+the superficial mind which causes it to fail in the attainment of Truth
+is its willingness to rest content with the outside only. So long as
+this is the case it is impossible for a man to grasp the import <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>of his
+own relation to the universal, and it is this relation which constitutes
+all that is signified by the word "Truth." So long as a man fixes his
+attention only on the superficial it is impossible for him to make any
+progress in knowledge. He is denying that principle of "Growth" which is
+the root of all life, whether spiritual intellectual, or material, for
+he does not stop to reflect that all which he sees as the outer side of
+things can result only from some germinal principle hidden deep in the
+centre of their being.</p>
+
+<p>Expansion from the centre by growth according to a necessary order of
+sequence, this is the Law of Life of which the whole universe is the
+outcome, alike in the one great solidarity of cosmic being, as in the
+separate individualities of its minutest organisms. This great principle
+is the key to the whole riddle of Life, upon whatever plane we
+contemplate it; and without this key the door from the outer to the
+inner side of things can never be opened. It is therefore the duty of
+all to whom this door has, at least in some measure, been opened, to
+endeavour to acquaint others with the fact that there is an inner side
+to things, and that life becomes truer and fuller in proportion as we
+penetrate to it and make our estimates of all things according to what
+becomes visible from this interior point of view.</p>
+
+<p>In the widest sense everything is a symbol of that which constitutes its
+inner being, and all Nature is a gallery of arcana revealing great
+truths to those who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>can decipher them. But there is a more precise
+sense in which our current life is based upon symbols in regard to the
+most important subjects that can occupy our thoughts: the symbols by
+which we strive to represent the nature and being of God, and the manner
+in which the life of man is related to the Divine life. The whole
+character of a man's life results from what he really believes on this
+subject: not his formal statement of belief in a particular creed, but
+what he realises as the stage which his mind has actually attained in
+regard to it.</p>
+
+<p>Has a man's mind only reached the point at which he thinks it is
+impossible to know anything about God, or to make any use of the
+knowledge if he had it? Then his whole interior world is in the
+condition of confusion, which must necessarily exist where no spirit of
+order has yet begun to move upon the chaos in which are, indeed, the
+elements of being, but all disordered and neutralising one another. Has
+he advanced a step further, and realised that there is a ruling and an
+ordering power, but beyond this is ignorant of its nature? Then the
+unknown stands to him for the terrific, and, amid a tumult of fears and
+distresses that deprive him of all strength to advance, he spends his
+life in the endeavour to propitiate this power as something naturally
+adverse to him, instead of knowing that it is the very centre of his own
+life and being.</p>
+
+<p>And so on through every degree, from the lowest depths of ignorance to
+the greatest heights of intelli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>gence, a man's life must always be the
+exact reflection of that particular stage which he has reached in the
+perception of the divine nature and of his own relation to it; and as we
+approach the full perception of Truth, so the life-principle within us
+expands, the old bonds and limitations which had no existence in reality
+fall off from us, and we enter into regions of light, liberty, and
+power, of which we had previously no conception. It is impossible,
+therefore, to overestimate the importance of being able to realise the
+symbol <i>for</i> a symbol, and being able to penetrate to the inner
+substance which it represents. Life itself is to be realised only by the
+conscious experience of its livingness in ourselves, and it is the
+endeavour to translate these experiences into terms which shall suggest
+a corresponding idea to others that gives rise to all symbolism.</p>
+
+<p>The nearer those we address have approached to the actual experience,
+the more transparent the symbol becomes; and the further they are from
+such experience the thicker is the veil; and our whole progress consists
+in the fuller and fuller translation of the symbols into clearer and
+clearer statements of that for which they stand. But the first step,
+without which all succeeding ones must remain impossible, is to convince
+people that symbols <i>are</i> symbols, and not the very Truth itself. And
+the difficulty consists in this, that if the symbolism is in any degree
+adequate it must, in some measure, represent the form of Truth, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>just as
+the modelling of a drapery suggests the form of the figure beneath. They
+have a certain consciousness that somehow they are in the presence of
+Truth; and this leads people to resent any removal of those folds of
+drapery which have hitherto conveyed this idea to their minds.</p>
+
+<p>There is sufficient indication of the inner Truth in the outward form to
+afford an excuse for the timorous, and those who have not sufficient
+mental energy to think for themselves, to cry out that finality has
+already been attained, and that any further search into the matter must
+end in the destruction of Truth. But in raising such an outcry they
+betray their ignorance of the very nature of Truth, which is that it can
+never be destroyed: the very fact that Truth is Truth makes this
+impossible. And again they exhibit their ignorance of the first
+principle of Life&mdash;namely, the Law of Growth, which throughout the
+universe perpetually pushes forward into more and more vivid forms of
+expression, having expansion everywhere and finality nowhere.</p>
+
+<p>Such ignorant objections need not, therefore, alarm us; and we should
+endeavour to show those who make them that what they fear is the only
+natural order of the Divine Life, which is "over all, and through all,
+and in all." But we must do this gently, and not by forcibly thrusting
+upon them the object of their terror, and so repelling them from all
+study of the subject. We should endeavour gradually to lead them to see
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>that there is something interior to what they have hitherto held to be
+ultimate Truth, and to realise that the sensation of emptiness and
+dissatisfaction, which from time to time will persist in making itself
+felt in their hearts, is nothing else than the pressing forward of the
+spirit within to declare that inner side of things which alone can
+satisfactorily account for what we observe on the exterior, and without
+the knowledge of which we can never perceive the true nature of our
+inheritance in the Universal Life which is the Life Everlasting.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>What, then, is this central principle which is at the root of all
+things? It is Life. But not life as we recognise it in particular forms
+of manifestation; it is something more interior and concentrated than
+that. It is that "unity of the spirit" which <i>is</i> unity, simply because
+it has not yet passed into diversity. Perhaps this is not an easy idea
+to grasp, but it is the root of all scientific conception of spirit; for
+without it there is no common principle to which we can refer the
+innumerable forms of manifestation that spirit assumes.</p>
+
+<p>It is the conception of Life as the sum-total of all its undistributed
+powers, being as yet none of these in particular, but all of them in
+potentiality. This is, no doubt, a highly abstract idea, but it is
+essentially that of the centre from which growth takes place by
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>expansion in every direction. This is that last residuum which defies
+all our powers of analysis. This is truly "the unknowable," not in the
+sense of the unthinkable but of the unanalysable. It is the subject of
+perception, not of knowledge, if by knowledge we mean that faculty which
+estimates the <i>relations</i> between things, because here we have passed
+beyond any questions of relations, and are face to face with the
+absolute.</p>
+
+<p>This innermost of all is absolute Spirit. It is Life as yet not
+differentiated into any specific mode; it is the universal Life which
+pervades all things and is at the heart of all appearances.</p>
+
+<p>To come into the knowledge of this is to come into the secret of power,
+and to enter into the secret place of Living Spirit. Is it illogical
+first to call this the unknowable, and then to speak of coming into the
+knowledge of it? Perhaps so; but no less a writer than St. Paul has set
+the example; for does he not speak of the final result of all searchings
+into the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the inner side
+of things as being, to attain the knowledge of that Love which passeth
+knowledge. If he is thus boldly illogical in phrase, though not in fact,
+may we not also speak of knowing "the unknowable"? We may, for this
+knowledge is the root of all other knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>The presence of this undifferentiated universal life-power is the final
+axiomatic fact to which all our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>analysis must ultimately conduct us. On
+whatever plane we make our analysis it must always abut upon pure
+essence, pure energy, pure being; that which knows itself and recognises
+itself, but which cannot dissect itself because it is not built up of
+parts, but is ultimately integral: it is pure Unity. But analysis which
+does not lead to synthesis is merely destructive: it is the child
+wantonly pulling the flower to pieces and throwing away the fragments;
+not the botanist, also pulling the flower to pieces, but building up in
+his mind from those carefully studied fragments a vast synthesis of the
+constructive power of Nature, embracing the laws of the formation of all
+flower-forms. The value of analysis is to lead us to the original
+starting-point of that which we analyse, and so to teach us the laws by
+which its final form springs from this centre.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing the law of its construction, we turn our analysis into a
+synthesis, and we thus gain a power of building up which must always be
+beyond the reach of those who regard "the unknowable" as one with
+"not-being."</p>
+
+<p><i>This</i> idea of the unknowable is the root of all materialism; and yet no
+scientific man, however materialistic his proclivities, treats the
+unanalysable residuum thus when he meets it in the experiments of his
+laboratory. On the contrary, he makes this final unanalysable fact the
+basis of his synthesis. He finds that in the last resort it is energy of
+some kind, whether <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>as heat or as motion; but he does not throw up his
+scientific pursuits because he cannot analyse it further. He adopts the
+precisely opposite course, and realises that the conservation of energy,
+its indestructibility, and the impossibility of adding to or detracting
+from the sum-total of energy in the world, is the one solid and
+unchanging fact on which alone the edifice of physical science can be
+built up. He bases all his knowledge upon his knowledge of "the
+unknowable." And rightly so, for if he could analyse this energy into
+yet further factors, then the same problem of "the unknowable" would
+meet him still. All our progress consists in continually pushing the
+unknowable, in the sense of the unanalysable residuum, a step further
+back; but that there should be no ultimate unanalysable residuum
+anywhere is an inconceivable idea.</p>
+
+<p>In thus realising the undifferentiated unity of Living Spirit as the
+central fact of any system, whether the system of the entire universe or
+of a single organism, we are therefore following a strictly scientific
+method. We pursue our analysis until it necessarily leads us to this
+final fact, and then we accept this fact as the basis of our synthesis.
+The Science of Spirit is thus not one whit less scientific than the
+Science of Matter; and, moreover, it starts from the same initial fact,
+the fact of a living energy which defies definition or explanation,
+wherever we find it; but it differs from the science of matter in that
+it contemplates this energy under an aspect of responsive <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>intelligence
+which does not fall within the scope of physical science, as such. The
+Science of Spirit and the Science of Matter are not opposed. They are
+complementaries, and neither is fully comprehensible without some
+knowledge of the other; and, being really but two portions of one whole,
+they insensibly shade off into each other in a border-land where no
+arbitrary line can be drawn between them. Science studied in a truly
+scientific spirit, following out its own deductions unflinchingly to
+their legitimate conclusions, will always reveal the twofold aspect of
+things, the inner and the outer; and it is only a truncated and maimed
+science that refuses to recognise both.</p>
+
+<p>The study of the material world is not Materialism, if it be allowed to
+progress to its legitimate issue. Materialism is that limited view of
+the universe which will not admit the existence of anything but
+mechanical effects of mechanical causes, and a system which recognises
+no higher power than the physical forces of nature must logically result
+in having no higher ultimate appeal than to physical force or to fraud
+as its alternative. I speak, of course, of the tendency of the system,
+not of the morality of individuals, who are often very far in advance of
+the systems they profess. But as we would avoid the propagation of a
+mode of thought whose effects history shows only too plainly, whether in
+the Italy of the Borgias, or the France of the First Revolution, or the
+Commune of the Franco-Prussian War, we should set ourselves to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>study
+that inner and spiritual aspect of things which is the basis of a system
+whose logical results are truth and love instead of perfidy and
+violence.</p>
+
+<p>Some of us, doubtless, have often wondered why the Heavenly Jerusalem is
+described in the Book of Revelations as a cube; "the length and the
+breadth and the height of it are equal." This is because the cube is the
+figure of perfect stability, and thus represents Truth, which can never
+be overthrown. Turn it on what side you will, it still remains the
+perfect cube, always standing upright; you cannot upset it. This figure,
+then, represents the manifestation in concrete solidity of that central
+life-giving energy, which is not itself any one plane but generates all
+planes, the planes of the above and of the below and of all four sides.
+But it is at the same time a city, a place of habitation; and this is
+because that which is "the within" is Living Spirit, which has its
+dwelling there.</p>
+
+<p>As one plane of the cube implies all the other planes and also "the
+within," so any plane of manifestation implies the others and also that
+"within" which generates them all. Now, if we would make any progress in
+the spiritual side of science&mdash;and <i>every</i> department of science has its
+spiritual side&mdash;we must always keep our minds fixed upon this "innermost
+within" which contains the potential of all outward manifestation, the
+"fourth dimension" which generates the cube; and our common forms of
+speech show how intuitively we do this. We speak of the spirit in which
+an act is done, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>of entering into the spirit of a game, of the spirit of
+the time, and so on. Everywhere our intuition points out the spirit as
+the true essence of things; and it is only when we commence arguing
+about them from without, instead of from within, that our true
+perception of their nature is lost.</p>
+
+<p>The scientific study of spirit consists in following up intelligently
+and according to definite method the same principle that now only
+flashes upon us at intervals fitfully and vaguely. When we once realise
+that this universal and unlimited power of spirit is at the root of all
+things and of ourselves also, then we have obtained the key to the whole
+position; and, however far we may carry our studies in spiritual
+science, we shall nowhere find anything else but particular developments
+of this one universal principle. "The Kingdom of Heaven is <i>within</i>
+you."</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+<p>I have laid stress on the fact that the "innermost within" of all things
+is living Spirit, and that the Science of Spirit is distinguished from
+the Science of Matter in that it contemplates Energy under an aspect of
+responsive intelligence which does not fall within the scope of physical
+science, as such. These are the two great points to lay hold of if we
+would retain a clear idea of Spiritual Science, and not be misled by
+arguments drawn from the physical side of Science <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>only&mdash;the livingness
+of the originating principle which is at the heart of all things, and
+its intelligent and responsive nature. Its livingness is patent to our
+observation, at any rate from the point where we recognise it in the
+vegetable kingdom; but its intelligence and responsiveness are not,
+perhaps, at once so obvious. Nevertheless, a little thought will soon
+lead us to recognise this also.</p>
+
+<p>No one can deny that there is an intelligent order throughout all
+nature, for it requires the highest intelligence of our most
+highly-trained minds to follow the steps of this universal intelligence
+which is always in advance of them. The more deeply we investigate the
+world we live in, the more clear it must become to us that all our
+science is the translation into words or numerical symbols of that order
+which already exists. If the clear statement of this existing order is
+the highest that the human intellect can reach, this surely argues a
+corresponding intelligence in the power which gives rise to this great
+sequence of order and interrelation, so as to constitute one harmonious
+whole. Now, unless we fall back on the idea of a workman working upon
+material external to himself&mdash;in which case we have to explain the
+phenomenon of the workman&mdash;the only conception we can form of this power
+is that it is the Living Spirit inherent in the heart of every atom,
+giving it outward form and definition, and becoming in it those
+intrinsic polarities which constitute its characteristic nature.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is no random work here. Every attraction and repulsion acts with
+its proper force collecting the atoms into molecules, the molecules into
+tissues, the tissues into organs, and the organs into individuals. At
+each stage of the progress we get the sum of the intelligent forces
+which operate in the constituent parts, <i>plus</i> a higher degree of
+intelligence which we may regard as the collective intelligence superior
+to that of the mere sum-total of the parts, something which belongs to
+the individual <i>as a whole</i>, and not to the parts as such. These are
+facts which can be amply proved from physical science; and they also
+supply a great law in spiritual science, which is that in any collective
+body the intelligence of the whole is superior to that of the sum of the
+parts.</p>
+
+<p>Spirit is at the root of all things, and thoughtful observation shows
+that its operation is guided by unfailing intelligence which adapts
+means to ends, and harmonises the entire universe of manifested being in
+those wonderful ways which physical science renders clearer every day;
+and this intelligence must be in the generating spirit itself, because
+there is no other source from which it could proceed. On these grounds,
+therefore, we may distinctly affirm that Spirit is intelligent, and that
+whatever it does is done by the intelligent adaptation of means to ends.</p>
+
+<p>But Spirit is also responsive. And here we have to fall back upon the
+law above stated, that the mere sum of the intelligence of Spirit in
+lower degrees of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>manifestation is not equal to the intelligence of the
+complex <i>whole</i>, as a whole. This is a radical law which we cannot
+impress upon our minds too deeply. The degree of spiritual intelligence
+is marked by the wholeness of the organism through which it finds
+expression; and therefore the more highly organised being has a degree
+of spirit which is superior to, and consequently capable of exercising
+control over, all lower or less fully-integrated degrees of spirit; and
+this being so, we can now begin to see why the spirit that is the
+"innermost within" of all things is responsive as well as intelligent.</p>
+
+<p>Being intelligent, it <i>knows</i>, and spirit being ultimately all there is,
+that which it knows is itself. Hence it is that power which recognises
+itself; and accordingly the lower powers of it recognise its higher
+powers, and by the law of attraction they are bound to respond to the
+higher degrees of themselves. On this general principle, therefore,
+spirit, under whatever exterior revealed, is necessarily intelligent and
+responsive. But intelligence and responsiveness imply personality; and
+we may therefore now advance a step further and argue that <i>all</i> spirit
+contains the elements of personality, even though, in any particular
+instance, it may not yet be expressed as that individual personality
+which we find in ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>In short, spirit is always personal in its nature, even when it has not
+yet attained to that degree of synthesis which is sufficient to render
+it personal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>in manifestation. In ourselves the synthesis has proceeded
+far enough to reach that degree, and therefore we recognise ourselves as
+the manifestation of personality. The human kingdom is the kingdom of
+the manifestation of that personality, which is of the essence of
+spiritual substance on every plane. Or, to put the whole argument in a
+simpler form, we may say that our own personality must necessarily have
+had its origin in that which is personal, on the principle that you
+cannot get more out of a bag than it contains.</p>
+
+<p>In ourselves, therefore, we find that more perfect synthesis of the
+spirit into manifested personality which is wanting in the lower
+kingdoms of nature, and, accordingly, since spirit is necessarily that
+which knows itself and must, therefore, recognise its own degrees in its
+various modes, the spirit in all degrees below that of human personality
+is bound to respond to itself in that superior degree which constitutes
+human individuality; and this is the basis of the power of human thought
+to externalise itself in infinite forms of its own ordering.</p>
+
+<p>But if the subordination of the lower degrees of spirit to the higher is
+one of the fundamental laws which lie at the bottom of the creative
+power of thought, there is another equally fundamental law which places
+a salutary restraint upon the abuse of that power. It is the law that we
+can command the powers of the universal for our own purposes only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>in
+proportion as we first realise and obey their generic character. We can
+employ water for any purpose which does not require it to run up-hill,
+and we can utilise electricity for any purpose that does not require it
+to pass from a lower to a higher potential.</p>
+
+<p>So with that universal power which we call the Spirit. It has an
+inherent generic character with which we must comply if we would employ
+it for our specific purposes, and this character is summed up in the one
+word "goodness." The Spirit is Life, hence its generic tendency must
+always be lifeward or to the increase of the livingness of every
+individual. And since it is universal it can have no particular
+interests to serve, and therefore its action must always be equally for
+the benefit of all. This is the generic character of spirit; and just as
+water, or electricity, or any other of the physical forces of the
+universe, will not work contrary to their generic character, so Spirit
+will not work contrary to its generic character.</p>
+
+<p>The inference is obvious. If we would use Spirit we must follow the law
+of the Spirit which is "Goodness." This is the only limitation. If our
+originating intention is good, we may employ the spiritual power for
+what purpose we will. And how is "goodness" to be defined? Simply by the
+child's definition that what is bad is not good, and that what is good
+is not bad; we all know the difference between bad and good
+instinctively. If we will conform to this principle of obedience to the
+generic law of the Spirit, all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>that remains is for us to study the law
+of the proportion which exists between the more and less fully
+integrated modes of Spirit, and then bring our knowledge to bear with
+determination.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+<p>The law of spirit, to which our investigation has now led us, is of the
+very widest scope. We have followed it up from the conception of the
+intelligence of spirit, subsisting in the initial atoms, to the
+aggregation of this intelligence as the conscious identity of the
+individual. But there is no reason why this law should cease to operate
+at this point, or at any point short of the whole. The test of the
+soundness of any principle is that it can operate as effectively on a
+large scale as on a small one, that though the nature of its field is
+determined by the nature of the principle itself, the extent of its
+field is unlimited. If, therefore, we continue to follow up the law we
+have been considering, it leads us to the conception of a unit of
+intelligence as far superior to that of the individual man as the unity
+of his individual intelligence is superior to that of the intelligence
+of any single atom of his body; and thus we may conceive of a collective
+individuality representing the spiritual character of any aggregate of
+men, the inhabitants of a city, a district, a country, or of the entire
+world.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nor need the process stop here. On the same principle there would be a
+superior collective individuality for the humanity of the entire solar
+system, and finally we reach the conception of a supreme intelligence
+bringing together in itself the collective individualities of all the
+systems in the universe. This is by no means a merely fanciful notion.
+We find it as the law by which our own conscious individuality is
+constituted; and we find the analogous principle working universally on
+the physical plane. It is known to physical science as the "law of
+inverse squares," by which the forces of reciprocal attraction or
+repulsion, as the case may be, are not merely equivalent to the sum of
+the forces emitted by the two bodies concerned, but are equivalent to
+these two forces multiplied together and divided by the square of the
+distance between them, so that the resultant power continually rises in
+a rapidly-increasing ratio as the two reciprocally exciting bodies
+approach one another.</p>
+
+<p>Since this law is so universal throughout physical nature, the doctrine
+of continuity affords every ground for supposing that its analogue holds
+good in respect of spiritual nature. We must never lose sight of the
+old-world saying that "a truth on one plane is a truth on all." If a
+principle exists at all it exists universally. We must not allow
+ourselves to be misled by appearances; we must remember that the
+perceptible results of the working of any principle consist of two
+factors&mdash;the principle itself or the active factor, and the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>subject-matter on which it acts or the passive factor; and that while
+the former is invariable, the latter is variable, and that the operation
+of the same invariable upon different variables must necessarily produce
+a variety of results. This at once becomes evident if we state it
+mathematically; for example, <i>a</i>, <i>b</i> or <i>c</i>, multiplied by <i>x</i> give
+respectively the results <i>ax</i>, <i>bx</i>, <i>cx</i>, which differ materially from
+one another, though the factor <i>x</i> always remains the same.</p>
+
+<p>This law of the generation of power by attraction applies on the
+spiritual as well as on the physical plane, and acts with the same
+mathematical precision on both; and thus the human individuality
+consists, not in the mere aggregation of its parts, whether spiritual or
+corporeal, but in the <i>unity</i> of power resulting from the intimate
+association into which those parts enter with one another, which unity,
+according to this law of the generation of power by attraction, is
+infinitely superior, both in intelligence and power, to any less fully
+integrated mode of spirit. Thus a natural principle, common alike to
+physical and spiritual law, fully accounts for all claims that have ever
+been made for the creative power of our thought over all things that
+come within the circle of our own particular life. Thus it is that each
+man is the centre of his own universe, and has the power, by directing
+his own thought, to control all things therein.</p>
+
+<p>But, as I have said above, there is no reason why this principle should
+not be recognised as expanding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>from the individual until it embraces
+the entire universe. Each man, as the centre of his own world, is
+himself centred in a higher system in which he is only one of
+innumerable similar atoms, and this system again in a higher until we
+reach the supreme centre of all things; intelligence and power increase
+from centre to centre in a ratio rising with inconceivable rapidity,
+according to the law we are now investigating, until they culminate in
+illimitable intelligence and power commensurate with All-Being.</p>
+
+<p>Now we have seen that the relation of man to the lower modes of spirit
+is that of superiority and command, but what is his relation to these
+higher modes? In any harmoniously constituted system the relation of the
+part to the whole never interferes with the free operation of the part
+in the performance of its own functions; but, on the contrary, it is
+precisely by means of this relation that each part is maintained in a
+position to discharge all functions for which it is fitted. Thus, then,
+the subordination of the individual man to the supreme mind, so far from
+curtailing his liberty, is the very condition which makes liberty
+possible, or even life itself. The generic movement of the whole
+necessarily carries the part along with it; and so long as the part
+allows itself thus to be carried onwards there will be no hindrance to
+its free working in any direction for which it is fitted by its own
+individuality. This truth was set forth in the old Hindu religion as the
+Car of Jaggarnath&mdash;an ideal car only, which later <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>ages degraded into a
+terribly material symbol. "Jaggarnath" means "Lord of the Universe," and
+thus signifies the Universal Mind. This, by the law of Being, must
+always move forward regardless of any attempts of individuals to
+restrain it. Those who mount upon its car move onward with it to
+endlessly advancing evolution, while those who seek to oppose it must be
+crushed beneath its wheels, for it is no respecter of persons.</p>
+
+<p>If, therefore, we would employ the universal law of spirit to control
+our own little individual worlds, we must also recognise it in respect
+to the supreme centre round which we ourselves revolve. But not in the
+old way of supposing that this centre is a capricious Individuality
+external to ourselves, which can be propitiated or cajoled into giving
+the good which he is not good enough to give of his own proper motion.
+So long as we retain this infantile idea we have not come into the
+liberty which results from the knowledge of the certainty of Law.
+Supreme Mind is Supreme Law, and can be calculated upon with the same
+accuracy as when manifested in any of the particular laws of the
+physical world; and the result of studying, understanding and obeying
+this Supreme Law is that we thereby acquire the power to <i>use</i> it. Nor
+need we fear it with the old fear which comes from ignorance, for we can
+rely with confidence upon the proposition that the whole can have no
+interest adverse to the parts of which it is composed; and con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>versely
+that the part can have no interest adverse to the whole.</p>
+
+<p>Our ignorance of our relation to the whole may make us appear to have
+separate interests, but a truer knowledge must always show such an idea
+to be mistaken. For this reason, therefore, the same responsiveness of
+spirit which manifests itself as obedience to our wishes, when we look
+to those degrees of spirit which are lower than her own individuality,
+must manifest itself as a necessary inflowing of intelligence and power
+when we look to the infinity of spirit, of which our individuality is a
+singular expression, because in so looking upwards we are looking for
+the higher degrees of <i>ourself</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The increased vitality of the parts means the increased vitality of the
+whole, and since it is impossible to conceive of spirit otherwise than
+as a continually expanding principle of Life, the demand for such
+increased vitality must, by the inherent nature of spirit, be met by a
+corresponding supply of continually growing intelligence and power.
+Thus, by a natural law, the demand creates the supply, and this supply
+may be freely applied to any and every subject-matter that commends
+itself to us. There is no limit to the supply of this energy other than
+what we ourselves put to it by our thought; nor is there any limit to
+the purposes we may make it serve other than the one grand Law of Order,
+which says that good things used for wrong purposes become evil. The
+consideration of the intelli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>gent and responsive nature of spirit shows
+that there can be no limitations but these. The one is a limitation
+inherent in spirit itself, and the other is a limitation which has no
+root except in our own ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that to maintain our healthy action within the circle of our
+own individual world we must continually move forward with the movement
+of the larger whole of which we form a part. But this does not imply any
+restriction of our liberty to make the fullest use of our lives in
+accordance with those universal principles of life upon which they are
+founded; for there is not one law for the part and another for the
+whole, but the same law of Being permeates both alike. In proportion,
+therefore, as we realise the true law of our own individuality we shall
+find that it is one with the law of progress for the race. The
+collective individuality of mankind is only the reproduction on a larger
+scale of the personal individuality; and whatever action truly develops
+the inherent powers of the individual must necessarily be in line with
+that forward march of the universal mind which is the evolution of
+humanity as a whole.</p>
+
+<p>Selfishness is a narrow view of our own nature which loses sight of our
+place in relation to the whole, not perceiving that it is from this very
+relation that our life is drawn. It is ignorance of our own
+possibilities and consequent limitation of our own powers. If,
+therefore, the evidence of harmonious correlation throughout the
+physical world leads irresistibly to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>inference of intelligent
+spirit as the innermost within of all things, we must recognise
+ourselves also as individual manifestations of the same spirit which
+expresses itself throughout the universe as that power of intelligent
+responsiveness which is Love.</p>
+
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>Thus we find ourselves to be a necessary and integral part of the
+Infinite Harmony of All-Being; not merely recognising this great truth
+as a vague intuition, but as the logical and unavoidable result of the
+universal Life-principle which permeates all Nature. We find our
+intuition was true because we have discovered the law which gave rise to
+it; and now intuition and investigation both unite in telling us of our
+own individual place in the great scheme of things. Even the most
+advanced among us have, as yet, little more than the faintest
+adumbration of what this place is. It is the place of <i>power</i>. Towards
+those higher modes of spirit which we speak of as "the universal," the
+law of man's inmost nature makes him as a lens, drawing into the focus
+of his own individuality all that he will of light and power in streams
+of inexhaustible supply; and towards the lower modes of spirit, which
+form for each one the sphere of his own particular world, man thus
+becomes the directive centre of energy and order.</p>
+
+<p>Can we conceive of any position containing greater <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>possibilities than
+these? The circle of this vital influence may expand as the individual
+grows into the wider contemplation of his unity with Infinite Being; but
+any more comprehensive law of relationship it would be impossible to
+formulate. Emerson has rightly said that a little algebra will often do
+far more towards clearing our ideas than a large amount of poetic
+simile. Algebraically it is a self-evident proposition that any
+difference between various powers of <i>x</i> disappears when they are
+compared with <i>x</i> multiplied into itself to infinity, because there can
+be no ratio between any determinate power, however high, and the
+infinite; and thus the relation between the individual and All-Being
+must always remain the same.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> X<sup>2</sup>&nbsp;:&nbsp;X<sup>n</sup>&nbsp;::&nbsp;X<sup>10</sup>&nbsp;X<sup>n</sup>.</p></div>
+
+<p>But this in no way interferes with the law of growth, by which the
+individual rises to higher and higher powers of his own individuality.
+The unchangeableness of the relation between all determinate powers of
+<i>x</i> and infinity does not affect the relations of the different powers
+of <i>x</i> between themselves; but rather the fact that the multiplication
+of <i>x</i> into itself to infinity is mentally conceivable is the very proof
+that there is no limit to the extent to which it is possible to raise
+<i>x</i> in its determinate powers.</p>
+
+<p>I trust unmathematical readers will pardon my using this method of
+statement for the benefit of others to whom it will carry conviction. A
+relation once clearly grasped in its mathematical aspect becomes
+thenceforth <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>one of the unalterable truths of the universe, no longer a
+thing to be argued about, but an axiom which may be assumed as the
+foundation on which to build up the edifice of further knowledge. But,
+laying aside mathematical formul&aelig;, we may say that because the Infinite
+is infinite there can be no limit to the extent to which the vital
+principle of growth may draw upon it, and therefore there is no limit to
+the expansion of the individual's powers. Because we are <i>what</i> we are,
+we may <i>become</i> what we will.</p>
+
+<p>The Kabbalists tell us of "the lost word," the word of power which
+mankind has lost. To him who discovers this word all things are
+possible. Is this mirific word really lost? Yes, and No. It is the open
+secret of the universe, and the Bible gives us the key to it. It tells
+us, "The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart." It is
+the most familiar of all words, the word which in our heart we realise
+as the centre of our conscious being, and which is in our mouth a
+hundred times a day. It is the word "I AM." Because I am what I am, I
+may be what I will to be. My individuality is one of the modes in which
+the Infinite expresses itself, and therefore I am myself that very power
+which I find to be the innermost within of all things.</p>
+
+<p>To me, thus realising the great unity of all Spirit, the infinite is not
+the indefinite, for I see it to be the infinite of <i>Myself</i>. It is the
+very same I AM that I am; and this not by any act of uncertain favour,
+but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>by the law of polarity which is the basis of all Nature. The law of
+polarity is that law according to which everything attains completion by
+manifesting itself in the opposite direction to that from which it
+started. It is the simple law by which there can be no inside without an
+outside, nor one end of a stick without an opposite end.</p>
+
+<p>Life is motion, and all motion is the appearance of energy at another
+point, and, where any work has been done, under another form than that
+in which it originated; but wherever it reappears, and in whatever new
+form, the vivifying energy is still the same. This is nothing else than
+the scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy, and it is upon
+this well-recognised principle that our perception of ourselves as
+integral portions of the great universal power is based.</p>
+
+<p>We do well to pay heed to the sayings of the great teachers who have
+taught that all power is in the "I AM," and to accept this teaching by
+faith in their bare authority rather than not accept it at all; but the
+more excellent way is to know <i>why</i> they taught thus, and to realise for
+ourselves this first great law which all the master-minds have realised
+throughout the ages. It is indeed true that the "lost word" is the one
+most familiar to us, ever in our hearts and on our lips. We have lost,
+not the word, but the realisation of its power. And as the infinite
+depths of meaning which the words I AM carry with them open out to us,
+we begin to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>realise the stupendous truth that we are ourselves the very
+power which we seek.</p>
+
+<p>It is the polarisation of Spirit from the universal into the particular,
+carrying with it all its inherent powers, just as the smallest flame has
+all the qualities of fire. The I AM in the individual is none other than
+the I AM in the universal. It is the same Power working in the smaller
+sphere of which the individual is the centre. This is the great truth
+which the ancients set forth under the figure of the Macrocosm and the
+Microcosm, the lesser I AM reproducing the precise image of the greater,
+and of which the Bible tells us when it speaks of man as the image of
+God.</p>
+
+<p>Now the immense practical importance of this principle is that it
+affords the key to the great law that "as a man thinks so he is." We are
+often asked why this should be, and the answer may be stated as follows:
+We know by personal experience that we realise our own livingness in two
+ways, by our power to act and our susceptibility to feel; and when we
+consider Spirit in the absolute we can only conceive of it as these two
+modes of livingness carried to infinity. This, therefore, means infinite
+susceptibility. There can be no question as to the degree of
+sensitiveness, for Spirit <i>is</i> sensitiveness, and is thus infinitely
+plastic to the slightest touch that is brought to bear upon it; and
+hence every thought we formulate sends its vibrating currents out into
+the infinite of Spirit, producing there currents of like quality but of
+far vaster power.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Spirit in the Infinite is the Creative Power of the universe, and
+the impact of our thought upon it thus sets in motion a veritable
+creative force. And if this law holds good of one thought it holds good
+of all, and hence we are continually creating for ourselves a world of
+surroundings which accurately reproduces the complexion of our own
+thoughts. Persistent thoughts will naturally produce a greater external
+effect than casual ones not centred upon any particular object.
+Scattered thoughts which recognise no principle of unity will fail to
+reproduce any principle of unity. The thought that we are weak and have
+no power over circumstances results in inability to control
+circumstances, and the thought of power produces power.</p>
+
+<p>At every moment we are dealing with an infinitely sensitive medium which
+stirs creative energies that give form to the slightest of our
+thought-vibrations. This power is inherent in us because of our
+spiritual nature, and we cannot divest ourselves of it. It is our truly
+tremendous heritage because it is a power which, if not intelligently
+brought into lines of orderly activity, will spend its uncontrolled
+forces in devastating energy. If it is not used to build up, it will
+destroy. And there is nothing exceptional in this: it is merely the
+reappearance on the plane of the universal and undifferentiated of the
+same principle that pervades all the forces of Nature. Which of these is
+not destructive unless drawn off into some definite direction?
+Accumulated steam, accumulated electricity, accumu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>lated water, will at
+length burst forth, carrying destruction all around; but, drawn off
+through suitable channels, they become sources of constructive power,
+inexhaustible as Nature itself.</p>
+
+<p>And here let me pause to draw attention to this idea of accumulation.
+The greater the accumulation of energy, the greater the danger if it be
+not directed into a proper order, and the greater the power if it be.
+Fortunately for mankind the physical forces, such as electricity, do not
+usually subsist in a highly concentrated form. Occasionally
+circumstances concur to produce such concentration, but as a rule the
+elements of power are more or less equally dispersed. Similarly, for the
+mass of mankind, this spiritual power has not yet reached a very high
+degree of concentration. Every mind, it is true, must be in some measure
+a centre of concentration, for otherwise it would have no conscious
+individuality; but the power of the individualised mind rapidly rises as
+it recognises its unity with the Infinite life, and its
+thought-currents, whether well or ill directed, then assume a
+proportionately great significance.</p>
+
+<p>Hence the ill effects of wrongly directed thought are in some degree
+mitigated in the great mass of mankind, and many causes are in operation
+to give a right direction to their thoughts, though the thinkers
+themselves are ignorant of what thought-power is. To give a right
+direction to the thoughts of ignorant thinkers is the purpose of much
+religious teaching, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>which these uninstructed ones must accept by faith
+in bare authority because they are unable to realise its true import.
+But notwithstanding the aids thus afforded to mankind, the general
+stream of unregulated thought cannot but have an adverse tendency, and
+hence the great object to which the instructed mind directs its power is
+to free itself from the entanglements of disordered thought, and to help
+others to do the same. To escape from this entanglement is to attain
+perfect Liberty, which is perfect Power.</p>
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+<p>The entanglement from which we need to escape has its origin in the very
+same principle which gives rise to liberty and power. It is the same
+principle applied under inverted conditions. And here I would draw
+particular attention to the law that any sequence followed out in an
+inverted order must produce an inverted result, for this goes a long way
+to explain many of the problems of life. The physical world affords
+endless examples of the working of "inversion." In the dynamo the
+sequence commences with mechanical force which is ultimately transformed
+into the subtler power of electricity; but invert this order, commence
+by generating electricity, and it becomes converted into mechanical
+force, as in the motor. In the one order the rotation of a wheel
+produces electricity, and in the opposite order electricity produces the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>rotation of a wheel. Or to exhibit the same principle in the simplest
+arithmetical form, if 10&divide;2=5 then 10&divide;5=2. "Inversion" is a factor of the
+greatest magnitude and has to be reckoned with; but I must content
+myself here with only indicating the general principle that the same
+power is capable of producing diametrically opposite effects if it be
+applied under opposite conditions, a truth which the so-called
+"magicians" of the middle ages expressed by two triangles placed
+inversely to one another. We are apt to fall into the mistake of
+supposing that results of opposite character require powers of opposite
+character to produce them, and our conceptions of things in general
+become much simplified when we recognise that this is not the case, but
+that the same power will produce opposite results as it starts from
+opposite poles.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly the inverted application of the same principle which gives
+rise to liberty and power constitutes the entanglement from which we
+need to be delivered before power and liberty can be attained, and this
+principle is expressed in the law that "as a man thinks so he is." This
+is the basic law of the human mind. It is Descarte's "<i>cogito, ergo
+sum</i>." If we trace consciousness to its seat we find that it is purely
+subjective. Our external senses would cease to exist were it not for the
+subjective consciousness which perceives what they communicate to it.</p>
+
+<p>The idea conveyed to the subjective consciousness may be false, but
+until some truer idea is more forcibly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>impressed in its stead it
+remains a substantial reality to the mind which gives it objective
+existence. I have seen a man speak to the stump of a tree which in the
+moonlight looked like a person standing in a garden, and repeatedly ask
+its name and what it wanted; and so far as the speaker's conception was
+concerned the garden contained a living man who refused to answer. Thus
+every mind lives in a world to which its own perceptions give objective
+reality. Its perceptions may be erroneous, but they nevertheless
+constitute the very reality of life for the mind that gives form to
+them. No other life than the life we lead in our own mind is possible;
+and hence the advance of the whole race depends on substituting the
+ideas of good, of liberty, and of order for their opposites. And this
+can be done only by giving some sufficient reason for accepting the new
+idea in place of the old. For each one of us our beliefs constitute our
+facts, and these beliefs can be changed only by discovering some ground
+for a different belief.</p>
+
+<p>This is briefly the rationale of the maxim that "as a man thinks so he
+is"; and from the working of this principle all the issues of life
+proceed. Now man's first perception of the law of cause and effect in
+relation to his own conduct is that the result always partakes of the
+quality of the cause; and since his argument is drawn from external
+observation only, he regards external acts as the only causes he can
+effectively set in operation. Hence when he attains suffi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>cient moral
+enlightenment to realise that many of his acts have been such as to
+merit retribution he fears retribution as their proper result. Then by
+reason of the law that "thoughts are things," the evils which he fears
+take form and plunge him into adverse circumstances, which again prompt
+him into further wrong acts, and from these come a fresh crop of fears
+which in their turn become externalised into fresh evils, and thus
+arises a circulus from which there is no escape so long as the man
+recognises nothing but his external acts as a causative power in the
+world of his surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>This is the Law of Works, the Circle of Karma, the Wheel of Fate, from
+which there appears to be no escape, because the complete fulfilment of
+the law of our moral nature to-day is only sufficient for to-day and
+leaves no surplus to compensate the failure of yesterday. This is the
+necessary law of things as they appear from external observation only;
+and, so long as this conception remains, the law of each man's
+subjective consciousness makes it a reality for him. What is needed,
+therefore, is to establish the conception that external acts are NOT the
+only causative power, but that there is another law of causation,
+namely, that of pure Thought. This is the Law of Faith, the Law of
+Liberty; for it introduces us to a power which is able to inaugurate a
+new sequence of causation not related to any past actions.</p>
+
+<p>But this change of mental attitude cannot be brought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>about till we have
+laid hold of some fact which is sufficient to afford a reason for the
+change. We require some solid ground for our belief in this higher law.
+Ultimately we find this ground in the great Truth of the eternal
+relation between spirit in the universal and in the particular. When we
+realise that substantially there is nothing else <i>but</i> spirit, and that
+we ourselves are reproductions in individuality of the Intelligence and
+Love which rule the universe, we have reached the firm standing ground
+where we find that we can send forth our Thought to produce any effect
+we will. We have passed beyond the idea of two opposites requiring
+reconciliation, into that of a duality in which there is no other
+opposition than that of the inner and the outer of the same unity, the
+polarity which is inherent in all Being, and we then realise that in
+virtue of this unity our Thought is possessed of illimitable creative
+power, and that it is free to range where it will, and is by no means
+bound down to accept as inevitable the consequences which, if unchecked
+by renovated thought, would flow from our past actions.</p>
+
+<p>In its own independent creative power the mind has found the way out of
+the fatal circle in which its previous ignorance of the highest law had
+imprisoned it. The Unity of the Spirit is found to result in perfect
+Liberty; the old sequence of Karma has been cut off, and a new and
+higher order has been introduced. In the old order the line of thought
+received its quality from the quality of the actions, and since they
+always <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>fell short of perfection, the development of a higher
+thought-power from this root was impossible. This is the order in which
+everything is seen from <i>without</i>. It is an inverted order. But in the
+true order everything is seen from <i>within</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is the thought which determines the quality of the action, and not
+<i>vice versa</i>, and since thought is free, it is at liberty to direct
+itself to the highest principles, which thus spontaneously reproduce
+themselves in the outward acts, so that both thoughts and actions are
+brought into harmony with the great eternal laws and become one in
+purpose with the Universal Mind. The man realises that he is no longer
+bound by the consequences of his former deeds, done in the time of his
+ignorance, in fact, that he never was bound by them except so far as he
+himself gave them this power by false conceptions of the truth; and thus
+recognising himself for what he really is&mdash;the expression of the
+Infinite Spirit in individual personality&mdash;he finds that he is free,
+that he is a "partaker of Divine nature," not losing his identity, but
+becoming more and more fully himself with an ever-expanding perfection,
+following out a line of evolution whose possibilities are inexhaustible.</p>
+
+<p>But there is not in all men this knowledge. For the most part they still
+look upon God as an individual Being external to themselves, and what
+the more instructed man sees to be unity of mind and identity of nature
+appear to the less advanced to be an external <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>reconciliation between
+opposing personalities. Hence the whole range of conceptions which may
+be described as the Messianic Idea. This idea is not, as some seem to
+suppose, a misconception of the truth of Being. On the contrary, when
+rightly understood it will be found to imply the very widest grasp of
+that truth; and it is from the platform of this supreme knowledge alone
+that an idea so comprehensive in its adaptation to every class of mind
+could have been evolved. It is the translation of the relations arising
+from the deepest laws of Being into terms which can be realised even by
+the most unlearned; a translation arranged with such consummate skill
+that, as the mind grows in spirituality, every stage of advance is met
+by a corresponding unfolding of the Divine meaning; while yet even the
+crudest apprehension of the idea implied is sufficient to afford the
+required basis for an entire renovation of the man's thoughts concerning
+himself, giving him a standing ground from which to think of himself as
+no longer bound by the law of retribution for past offences, but as free
+to follow out the new law of Liberty as a child of God.</p>
+
+<p>The man's conception of the <i>modus operandi</i> of this emancipation may
+take the form of the grossest anthropomorphism or the most childish
+notions as to the satisfaction of the Divine justice by vicarious
+substitution, but the working result will be the same. He has got what
+satisfies him as a ground for thinking of himself in a perfectly new
+light; and since the states <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>of our subjective consciousness constitute
+the realities of our life, to afford him a convincing ground for
+<i>thinking</i> himself free, is to make him free.</p>
+
+<p>With increasing light he may find that his first explanation of the
+<i>modus operandi</i> was inadequate; but when he reaches this stage, further
+investigation will show him that the great truth of his liberty rests
+upon a firmer foundation than the conventional interpretation of
+traditional dogmas, and that it has its roots in the great law of
+Nature, which are never doubtful, and which can never be overturned. And
+it is precisely because their whole action has its root in the
+unchangeable laws of Mind that there exists a perpetual necessity for
+presenting to men something which they can lay hold of as a sufficient
+ground for that change of mental attitude, by which alone they can be
+rescued from the fatal circle which is figured under the symbol of the
+Old Serpent.</p>
+
+<p>The hope and adumbration of such a new principle has formed the
+substance of all religions in all ages, however misapprehended by the
+ignorant worshippers; and, whatever our individual opinions may be as to
+the historical facts of Christianity, we shall find that the great
+figure of liberated and perfected humanity which forms its centre
+fulfils this desire of all nations in that it sets forth their great
+ideal of Divine power intervening to rescue man by becoming one with
+him. This is the conception presented to us, whether we apprehend it in
+the most literally material sense, or as the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>ideal presentation of the
+deepest philosophic study of mental laws, or in whatever variety of ways
+we may combine these two extremes. The ultimate idea impressed upon the
+mind must always be the same: it is that there is a Divine warrant for
+knowing ourselves to be the children of God and "partakers of the Divine
+nature"; and when we thus realise that there is solid ground for
+<i>believing</i> ourselves free, by force of this very belief we <i>become</i>
+free.</p>
+
+<p>The proper outcome of the study of the laws of spirit which constitute
+the inner side of things is not the gratification of a mere idle
+curiosity, nor the acquisition of abnormal powers, but the attainment of
+our spiritual liberty, without which no further progress is possible.
+When we have reached this goal the old things have passed away and all
+things have become new. The mystical seven days of the old creation have
+been fulfilled, and the first day of the new week dawns upon us with its
+resurrection to a new life, expressing on the highest plane that great
+doctrine of the "octave" which the science of the ancient temples traced
+through Nature, and which the science of the present day endorses,
+though ignorant of its supreme significance.</p>
+
+<p>When we have thus been made free by recognising our oneness with
+Infinite Being, we have reached the termination of the old series of
+sequences and have gained the starting-point of the new. The old
+limitations are found never to have had any existence save <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>in our own
+misapprehension of the truth, and one by one they fall off as we advance
+into clearer light. We find that the Life-Spirit we seek is <i>in
+ourselves</i>; and, having this for our centre, our relation to all else
+becomes part of a wondrous living Order in which every part works in
+sympathy with the whole, and the whole in sympathy with every part, a
+harmony wide as infinitude, and in which there are no limitations save
+those imposed by the Law of Love.</p>
+
+<p>I have endeavoured in this short series of articles to sketch briefly
+the principal points of relation between Spirit in ourselves and in our
+surroundings. This subject has employed the intelligence of mankind from
+grey antiquity to the present day, and no one thinker can ever hope to
+grasp it in all its amplitude. But there are certain broad principles
+which we must all grasp, however we may specialise our studies in
+detail, and these I have sought to indicate, with what degree of success
+the reader must form his own opinion. Let him, however, lay firm hold of
+this one fundamental truth, and the evolution of further truth from it
+is only a question of time&mdash;that there is only One Spirit, however many
+the modes of its manifestations, and that "the Unity of the Spirit is
+the Bond of Peace."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">The Perversion of Truth</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>There is a very general recognition, which is growing day by day more
+and more widespread, that there is a sort of hidden power somewhere
+which it is within our ability, somehow or other, to use. The ideas on
+this subject are exceedingly vague with the generality of people, but
+still they are assuming a more and more definite form, and that which
+they appear to be taking with the generality of the public is the
+recognition of the power of suggestion. I suppose none of us doubts that
+there is such a thing as the power of suggestion and that it can produce
+very great results indeed, and that it is <i>par excellence</i> a hidden
+power; it works behind the scenes, it works through what we know as the
+subconscious mind, and consequently its activity is not immediately
+recognisable, or the source from which it comes. Now there is in some
+aspects, its usefulness, its benefit, but in other aspects there is a
+source of danger, because a power of this kind is obviously one which
+can be used either well or ill; in itself it is perfectly neutral, it
+all depends on the purpose for which it is used, and the character of
+the agent who employs it.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This recognition of the power of suggestion is in many instances taking
+a most undesirable form, and I commend to your notice, in support of
+this observation, numerous advertisements in certain classes of
+magazines&mdash;many of you must have seen many specimens of that
+kind&mdash;offering for a certain sum of money to put you in the way of
+getting personal influence, mental power, power of suggestion, as the
+advertisements very unblushingly put it, for any purpose that you may
+desire. Some of them even go into further particulars, telling you the
+particular sort of purposes for which you can employ this, all of them
+certainly being such uses as no one should ever attempt to make of it.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, this recognition of the power of suggestion, say even as a
+mere money-making power, to leave alone other misapplications of it, is
+a feature which is taking hold, so to say, of certain sections of the
+public who do not realise a higher platform in these things. It is
+deplorable that it should be so, but it is in the nature of things
+unavoidable. You have a power which can be used affirmatively, and which
+can be used negatively, which can be used for higher purposes, and can
+be used for lower purposes, and consequently you will find numbers of
+people who, as soon as they get hold of it, will at once think only of
+the lower purposes, not of the higher.</p>
+
+<p>In support of what I say&mdash;although this is by no means, I suppose,
+intended as a low application, probably it is intended as a high
+application, but I cannot <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>say I agree with it&mdash;but to show you that I
+am talking from actual facts I will read you a note which I have made
+from the <i>Daily Mail</i>, of the 20th January, that I daresay some of you
+may have seen. It is an article headed "Killing by Prayer," and the
+article goes on to say that a certain circular has been sent round to
+the different hospitals and other places where the study of vivisection
+goes forward to this effect. In this circular, signed with the letters
+"M. C.," the writer says that he accidentally heard of a person who was
+in the habit of praying from time to time for the death of one of our
+leading vivisectors and that always the man indicated died. That is what
+M. C. heard by chance during conversation at a hotel dinner. Then
+thinking over this, M. C. goes on to say that he (or she) tried praying
+that the man most likely to cause suffering to innocent subjects by his
+experiments might be removed, and the consequence was that about a
+fortnight later one of our most distinguished medical scientists died.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know who the scientist in question was; I daresay some of you
+may be aware of the name. However, that is what the <i>Daily Mail</i> tells
+us, and it also states that the Anti-Vivisection Societies were
+unanimous in condemning this circular, and very properly so. Now you see
+the sender of that circular, whoever he was, obviously thought he was
+doing a very good piece of work. I myself am by no means any friend of
+vivisection. I do not think any one can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>have a real knowledge of the
+truth and remain in touch with it, but I certainly agreed with the
+Anti-Vivisection Societies in condemning such a circular as that. You
+see there is the assumption that prayer, or mental power, can be used to
+remove a person from the stage of life, and M. C. claims that he did it
+in the case of this particular scientist.</p>
+
+<p>That brings back another parallel, almost, I might say, an historical
+parallel, to our mind; that of Dr. Anna Kingsford, taking place perhaps
+some forty years ago, who claimed&mdash;of course she was a very strong
+anti-vivisectionist&mdash;that by thought-power she caused the death of
+Claude Bernard, the great vivisection scientist of France. Certainly at
+the time that she put out her forces he did die, but on the other hand,
+it has been remarked that it was from that very date that her own
+break-up commenced, and never ceased till she herself passed into the
+other world. So you see these actions are likely to revert to the
+sender, even if they are successful.</p>
+
+<p>Now in these two cases the ultimate object was not a low one, it was one
+which was supposed to be for the benefit of humanity and of the dumb
+creation. But that does not justify the means. The maxim, "The end
+justifies the means," is the greatest perversion of truth, and still
+more so if this hidden power, the power of suggestion, is used to injure
+any one for a more personal motive than in these cases which I have
+cited. The lower the motive, the lower the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>action becomes, and to
+suppose that because mental means are employed they make any difference
+in the nature of the act is a very great mistake.</p>
+
+<p>It has been sometimes my painful duty to sentence people to death for
+murder, and therefore I claim that I have a very fair knowledge of what
+differentiates murder from those cases in which life is taken which do
+not amount to murder; and speaking from the judicial experience of a
+great many years, and the trial of a large number of cases which have
+involved the question whether the death penalty should be passed or not,
+I have no hesitation in saying that to kill by mental means is just as
+much murder as to kill by poison or the dagger. Speaking judicially, I
+should have not the least hesitation in hanging any one who committed
+murder by means of mental suggestion. Psychological crime, remember, is
+crime just the same; possibly it is more deeply dyed crime, because of
+the greater knowledge which must go along with it. I say that the
+psychological criminal is worse than the ordinary criminal.</p>
+
+<p>One of the teachings of the Master is on this very point. I refer you to
+the miracle of the fig tree. You know that he exhibited his power of
+killing not a person, not even an animal, but a tree. And when the
+disciples said to him, see how this tree which you cursed has withered
+away, he replied, Well, you can do exactly the same thing, and goes on
+to say, nothing shall be impossible to you. Therefore if you can kill
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>fig trees, you can kill people, but, "forgive, if you have aught
+against any," that your heavenly Father may forgive you.</p>
+
+<p>He says in effect: now you have seen that this hidden power can be used
+to the destruction of life, at your peril use it otherwise than as a
+Divine power. Use it with prayer to God and with forgiveness of all
+against whom you have any sort of grudge or ill-feeling, and if its use
+is always prefaced in this way, according to the Master's directions,
+then nobody can use it to injure another either in mind, body or estate.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps some of you may be inclined to smile if I use the word
+"sorcery," but at the present day, under one name or another, scientific
+or semi-scientific, it is nothing but the old-world sorcery which is
+trying to find its way among us as the hidden power. Sorcery is the
+inverted use of spiritual power. That is the definition of it, and I
+speak upon authority. I refer you to the Bible where you will find
+sorcery takes a prominent place among the list of those things which
+exclude from the heavenly Jerusalem; the heavenly Jerusalem not being a
+town or a city in this place or that place, but the perfected state of
+man. Therefore, use sorcery, and you cannot reach that heavenly state.</p>
+
+<p>It is on this account that we find in Revelations that wonderful
+description of two symbolical women; they represent two modes of the
+individual soul. Of course they go further, they indicate national
+things, race evolution and so on. Why? Because all national <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>movements,
+all race evolutions, have their root in the development of the
+individual. A nation or a race is only a collection of individuals, and
+therefore if a principle once spreads from one individual to another, it
+spreads to the nation, it spreads to the race. So, therefore, these two
+symbolical women represent primarily two modes of soul, two modes of
+thought. You know perfectly well the description of the two women. One,
+the woman clothed with the sun, standing with the moon under her feet,
+and with a diadem of stars about her head; the other seated upon an
+earthly throne, holding a golden cup, and the cup is full of
+abominations. Those are the two women, and we know that one of them is
+called in the Scripture, Babylon, and we know which one that is. One of
+the marks of this woman&mdash;mind you that means the class of
+individuality&mdash;is the mark of sorcery, the mark of the inverted use of
+spiritual and mental powers.</p>
+
+<p>But what is the end of it? The end is that this Babylon becomes the
+habitation of devils, the hold&mdash;or, as the original Greek has it, the
+prison of evil, an unclean spirit, the cage of every unclean bird. That
+is the development which takes place in each individual who sets out to
+misuse this mental power. The misuse may have a very small beginning, it
+may be such as is taught in a certain school, which I am told exists in
+London, where shop assistants are trained in the use of magnetic power,
+in order to decoy or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>compel unknowing purchasers into buying what they
+do not want. I am told there is such a school; I cannot quote you my
+authority. That is a trifling matter. I go into a shop and spend two or
+three shillings in buying something which, when I get home, I find
+absolutely useless, and I say, "How in the name of fortune did I come to
+buy this rubbish?" Well, I must have been hypnotised into it. It does
+not make much difference to me, but it makes a great deal of difference
+to the young man or young woman who has hypnotised me, because it is the
+first step on the downward path. It may be only a matter of sixpence,
+but it leads on step by step, and unless that path is retraced, the
+final end is that of Babylon. Therefore it is that St. John says, "I
+heard a voice from Heaven saying, 'Come forth, my people, out of
+her'"&mdash;and that is out of Babylon&mdash;"come forth, my people, out of
+her"&mdash;that is out of this inverted mode of using spiritual power&mdash;"come
+forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins
+and that ye shall receive not of her plague." Therefore, against this
+inverted use of the hidden power I warn every one from the first day
+when he begins to realise that there is such a thing as mental or
+spiritual power which can be exercised upon other persons.</p>
+
+<p>Are we then on this account to go continually in terror of suffering
+from malicious magnetism, fearing that some enemy here, or some enemy
+there, is turning on this hidden power against us? If so, we should go
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>in trepidation continually. No, I do not think there is the least
+reason for us to go in fear in this way. To begin with there are
+comparatively few who know the law of suggestion sufficiently well to
+use it either affirmatively or negatively, and of those who do know it
+sufficiently to make use of it, I am convinced that the majority would
+wish only to use it in all kindness, and for the benefit of the person
+concerned. That, I am confident, is the attitude of nine-tenths, or I
+might perhaps say ninety-nine hundredths, of the students of this
+subject. They wish to do well, and look upon their use of mental power
+as an additional means of doing good. But after all, human nature is
+human nature, and there remains a small minority who are both able and
+willing to use this hidden power injuriously for their own purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Now how are we to deal with this minority? The answer is simple. Just
+see them in their true light, see them for what they really are, that is
+to say, persons who are ignorant of the real spiritual power. They think
+they have it, and they have not. That is what it is. See them in their
+true light and their power will fall away from them. The real and
+ultimate power is that of the affirmative; the negative is destructive,
+the affirmative is constructive. So this negative use of the hidden
+power is to be destroyed by the use of the affirmative, the constructive
+power. The affirmative destroys the negative always in one way, and that
+is not by attacking it, not by running at it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>like a bull in a china
+shop; but by building up life. It is always a building power&mdash;it is
+building, building, building life and more life, and when that life
+comes in, the negative of necessity goes out.</p>
+
+<p>The ultimate affirmative position is that of conscious union with the
+source of life. Realise this, and you need not trouble yourself about
+any action of the negative whatever. Seek conscious union with the
+ultimate, the first cause, that which is the starting point of all
+things, whether in the universe or in yourself as the individual. That
+starting point is always present; it is the same yesterday, to-day and
+forever, and you are the world and the universe in miniature, and it is
+always there working in you if you will recognise it. Remember the
+reciprocity between yourself and this truly hidden power. The power of
+suggestion is <i>a</i> hidden power, but the power which creates all things
+is <i>the</i> hidden power which is at the back of all things. Now realise
+that it is in yourselves and you need trouble about the negative no
+longer. This is the Bible teaching regarding Christ; and that teaching
+is to bring about this conscious personal union with the Divine
+All-creating Spirit as a present living power to be used day by day.</p>
+
+<p>The Bible tells us there is such a thing as the mystery of iniquity,
+that is to say, the mystery of the spiritual power used invertedly, used
+from the diabolical standpoint; and when the Bible speaks of the mystery
+of iniquity, it means what it says. It tells us there are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>powers and
+principalities in the invisible world which are using precisely these
+same methods on an enormous scale; because, remember one thing, there is
+never any departure in any part of the Universe from the universal rule
+of law; what is law upon earth is law in Heaven, law in Hell, law in the
+invisible and law in the visible; that never alters. What is done by any
+spiritual power, whether it is a spiritual power of evil or of good, is
+done through the mental constitution which you have. No power alters the
+law of your own mind, but a power which knows the law of your mind can
+use it.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, it is so essential that you should know the law of your own
+mind and realise its continual amenability to suggestion. That being so,
+the great thing is to get a standard for fundamental, unchangeable, and
+sufficient suggestion to which you can always turn, and which is
+automatically impressed upon your subconscious mind so deeply that no
+counter-suggestion can ever take its place; and that is the mystery of
+Christ, the Son of God. That is why we are told of the mystery of
+Christ, the mystery of godliness in opposition to the mystery of
+iniquity; it is because both the mystery of the Divine and the mystery
+of the diabolical are seeking to work through you, and they can only
+work through you by the law of your own mental constitution, that is to
+say, by the law of subconscious mind acting and re-acting upon your
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>conscious mind and upon your body, and so upon your circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The mystery of Christ is no mere ecclesiastical fiction. People have
+distorted it, and made it not clear, by trying to explain what at that
+time and in those days was not properly known, by trying to explain what
+they did not know; because what is commonly now known regarding the laws
+of mind was unknown then. But now this light has come we begin to see
+that the Bible teaching regarding Christ has a great and a deep meaning,
+and it is for these reasons St. Paul said to the Corinthians: "Little
+children of whom I travail again in birth, until Christ be formed in
+you." That is why he speaks of "Christ in you the hope of glory," that
+is to say, the Christ conception, the realisation of the Christ
+principle as exhibited in the Christ person, brings you in touch with
+the personal element in the Universal Spirit, the divine creative, first
+moving Spirit of the Universe.</p>
+
+<p>Then you see that realising this as your fundamental fact, it is
+continually impressed upon your subconscious mind, even when you are not
+thinking of it, because that is the action of the subconscious mind to
+take in and reason and argue in its own deductive way upon things of
+which you are not at the moment consciously thinking. Therefore it is
+that the realisation of that great promise of redemption, which is the
+backbone of the Bible from the first chapter of Genesis to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>the last
+chapter of Revelations, is according to a scientific law. It is not a
+hocus-pocus business, it is not a thing which has been arranged this way
+and might just as well have been arranged in some other; it is not so
+because some arbitrary Authority has commanded it, and the Authority
+might just as well have commanded it some other way.</p>
+
+<p>No, it is so because the more you examine it, the more you will find
+that it is absolutely scientific; it is based upon the natural
+constitution of the human mind. And it is therefore that "Christ," as
+set forth in the Bible&mdash;whether in the Old Testament symbology, or in
+the New Testament personality&mdash;"is the fulfilling of the law," in the
+sense of specialising in the highest degree that which is common to all
+humanity. As we realise this more and more, and specialise it more and
+more, so we shall rise to higher and higher intercourse and more and
+more consciousness of reciprocal identity, reciprocal life with the
+Universal Power, which will raise us above any possibility of being
+touched by any sort of malicious suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>If anybody should be, then, so ill-willed towards us and so lamentably
+ignorant of spiritual truth himself as to seek to exercise the power of
+malicious suggestion against us, I pity the person who tries to do it.
+He will get nothing out of it, because he is firing peas out of a
+pea-shooter against an iron-clad war vessel. That is what it amounts to;
+but for himself it amounts to something more. It is a true saying that
+"Curses <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>return home to roost." I think if we study these things, and
+consider that there is a reason for them, we need not be in the least
+alarmed about negative suggestion, or malicious magnetism, of being
+brought under the power of other minds, of being got over in some way,
+of being done out of our property, of being injured in our health, or
+being hurt in our circumstances, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Of course if you lay yourself open to that kind of thing, you will get
+it. "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." That is why the Scripture
+says, "He that breaketh through a hedge, a serpent shall bite him." That
+is the serpent that some of us know something about, that is our old
+enemy Nahash. Some of you, at any rate, are sufficiently trained in the
+inner sciences to know the serpent Nahash. Break down the hedge, that is
+to say, the conscious control of your own mind, and above all the hedge
+of the Divine love and wisdom with which God himself will surround you
+in the personality of His Son, break down this hedge and of course
+Nahash comes in. But if you keep your hedge&mdash;and remember the old Hebrew
+tradition always spoke of the Divine Law as "the hedge"&mdash;if you keep
+your hedge unbroken, nothing can come in except by the door. Christ
+said, "I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved."</p>
+
+<p>I have spoken of the two great mysteries, the mystery of godliness and
+the mystery of iniquity, the mystery of Christ and the mystery of
+anti-Christ.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> Now, it is not necessary, mind you, that you should
+understand these mysteries in full in order to get into your right
+position. If it were necessary that we should fully understand these
+mysteries, either to get away from the one or to get into the other, I
+think all of us would have an uncommonly bad chance. I certainly should.
+I can touch only the fringe of these things, but we can realise the
+principle of the affirmative and the principle of the negative which
+underlies them both; one is the mystery of light, the other is the
+mystery of darkness.</p>
+
+<p>I do not say do not study these mysteries; they are exactly what we
+ought to study, but do not think that you remain in a state of danger
+until you have completely fathomed the mystery. Not a bit of it. You can
+quite get on the right side without understanding the whole thing,
+exactly as you travel on a railway without understanding the mechanism
+of the engine which takes you along.</p>
+
+<p>So then we have these two mysteries, that of light and that of darkness,
+and therefore what we have to do is to exercise our will to receive the
+mystery of light, and then that will make for itself a centre in our own
+hearts and beings, and you will become conscious of that centre. Whether
+you understand it or not, you will become conscious of it&mdash;and then from
+that centre, that centre of light in yourself, you can start everything
+in your life, whether spiritual or temporal. You do not have to go
+further back; you do not have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>to analyse the why and the wherefore of
+these things in order to get your starting point. It may interest you
+afterwards, it may strengthen you afterwards to do so, but for a
+practical starting point you must realise the Divine presence in
+yourself, which is the son of God manifested in you, that is the Divine
+principle of personality speaking within yourself.</p>
+
+<p>So then, having realised this as your centre, you carry the
+all-originating affirmative power with you, all through everything that
+you do and everything that you are; day and night it will be there, it
+will protect you, it will guide you, it will help you. And when you want
+to do so you can consciously apply to it and it will give you
+assistance, and because you take this as your starting point, it will
+manifest itself in all your conditions; because, remember, it is a very
+simple law of logic that whatever you start with will manifest itself
+all down the sequence which comes from it. If you start with the colour
+red you can make all sorts of modifications and bring out orange, purple
+and brown, but the red basis will show itself all down the scale of
+colour, and so if you start with a basis of blue, blue will show itself
+all down the scale of various colours.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, if you start with the affirmative basis, the one starting
+point of the Divine spirit, not taking it lower down the stream, but
+going to the fountain head, that affirmative principle of life will flow
+all through, showing its own quality to the very tips of your fingers
+and beyond that out into all your circum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>stances. So that the divine
+presence will be continuously with you, not as a consequence of your
+joining this Church or that, following this idea, or that teacher, but
+because you know the truth for yourselves, and you have realised it as
+an actual living experience in your own mind and in your own heart; and
+therefore it is that this personal recognition of the Divine love and
+wisdom and power is what St. Paul calls "Christ in you, the hope of
+glory."</p>
+
+<p>Each one who recognises this, is one who answers the Biblical
+description of a true Israelite indeed. That word "Israelite" in the
+Bible is a very deeply symbolical word, and carries an immense amount of
+meaning with it. So get this recognition as the real working fact that
+each one of you is an Israelite indeed, and if so, then make yourselves
+perfectly happy with the everlasting statement, which is as true now as
+it was on the day on which it was uttered: "There is no divination or
+enchantment against Israel."</p>
+
+<p>1909.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">The &ldquo;I Am&rdquo;</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>We often do not sufficiently recognise the truth of Walt Whitman's pithy
+saying, "I am not all contained between my hat and my boots," and forget
+the two-fold nature of the "I AM," that it is at once both the
+manifested and the unmanifested, the universal and the individual. By
+losing sight of this truth we surround ourselves with limitations; we
+see only part of the self, and then we are surprised that the part fails
+to do the work of the whole. Factors crop up on which we had not
+reckoned, and we wonder where they come from, and do not understand that
+they necessarily arise from that great unity in which we are all
+included.</p>
+
+<p>It is the grand intelligence and livingness of Universal Spirit
+continually pressing forward to manifestation of itself in a glorious
+humanity.</p>
+
+<p>This must be effected by each individual's recognition of his power to
+co-operate with the Supreme Principle through an intelligent conception
+of its purpose and of the natural laws by which that purpose is
+accomplished&mdash;a recognition which can proceed only from the realisation
+that he himself is none other than the same Universal Principle in
+particular manifestation.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When he sees this he sees that Walt Whitman's saying is true, and that
+his source of intelligence, power, and purpose is in that Universal
+Self, which is his as well as another's just because it is universal,
+and which is therefore as completely and entirely identified with
+himself as though there were no other expression of it in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The understanding which alone gives value to knowledge is the
+understanding that, when we employ the formula "I am, therefore I can,
+therefore I will," the "I AM" with which the series starts is a being
+who, so to speak, has his head in heaven and his feet upon the earth, a
+perfect unity, and with a range of ideas far transcending the little
+ideas which are limited by the requirements of a day or an hour. On the
+other hand, the requirements of the day and the hour are real while they
+last, and since the manifested life can be lived only in the moment that
+now is, whether it be to-day or ten thousand years hence, our need is to
+harmonise the life of expression with the life of purpose, and by
+realising in ourselves the source of the highest purposes to realise
+also the life of the fullest expression.</p>
+
+<p>This is the meaning of prayer. Prayer is not a foolish seeking to change
+the mind of Supreme Wisdom, but it is an intelligent seeking to embody
+that wisdom in our thoughts so as more and more perfectly to express
+<i>it</i> in expressing <i>ourselves</i>. Thus, as we gradually grow into the
+habit of finding this inspiring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> Presence <i>within ourselves</i>, and of
+realising its forward movement as the ultimate determining factor in all
+true healthful mental action, it will become second nature to us to have
+all our plans, down to the apparently most trivial, so floating upon the
+undercurrent of this Universal Intelligence that a great harmony will
+come into our lives, every discordant manifestation will disappear, and
+we shall find ourselves more and more controlling all things into the
+forms that we desire.</p>
+
+<p>Why? Because we have attained to <i>commanding</i> the Spirit and making it
+obey us? Certainly not, for "if the blind lead the blind both shall fall
+into the ditch"; but because we are <i>companions</i> of the Spirit, and by a
+continuous and growing intimacy have changed, not "the mind of the
+Spirit," but our own, and have learned to think from a higher
+standpoint, where we see that the old-world saying "know thyself"
+includes the knowledge of all that we mean when we speak of God.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">I AM IS ONE</p>
+
+<p>This may seem a very elementary proposition, but it is one of which we
+are too apt to lose sight. What does it mean? It means everything; but
+we are most concerned with what it means in regard to ourselves, and to
+each of us personally it means this. It means that there are not two
+Spirits, one which is myself and one which is another. It means that
+there is not some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>great unknown power external to myself which may be
+actuated by perfectly different motives to my own, and which will,
+therefore, oppose me with its irresistible force and pass over me,
+leaving me crushed and broken like the devotee over whom the car of
+Jaggarnath has rolled. It means that there is only one mind, one motive,
+one power&mdash;not two opposing each other&mdash;and that my conscious mind in
+all its movements is only the one mind expressing itself as (not merely
+through) my own particular individuality.</p>
+
+<p>There are not two I AMS, but one I am. Whatever, therefore, I can
+conceive the Great Universal Life Principle to be, that I am. Let us try
+fully to realise what this means. Can you conceive the Great Originating
+and Sustaining Life Principle of the whole universe as poor, weak,
+sordid, miserable, jealous, angry, anxious, uncertain, or in any other
+way limited? We know that this is impossible. Then because the I AM is
+one it is equally untrue of ourselves. Learn first to distinguish the
+true self that you are from the mental and physical processes which it
+throws forth as the instruments of its expression, and then learn that
+this self controls these instruments, and not vice versa. As we advance
+in this knowledge we know ourselves to be unlimited, and that, in the
+miniature world, whose centre we are, we ourselves are the very same
+overflowing of joyous livingness that the Great Life Spirit is in the
+Great All. The I AM is One.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Affirmative Power</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>Thoroughly to realise the true nature of affirmative power is to possess
+the key to the great secret. We feel its presence in all the innumerable
+forms of life by which we are surrounded and we feel it as the life in
+ourselves; and at last some day the truth bursts upon us like a
+revelation that we can wield this power, this life, by the process of
+Thought. And as soon as we see this, the importance of regulating our
+thinking begins to dawn upon us. We ask ourselves what this thought
+process is, and we then find that it is thinking affirmative force into
+forms which are the product of our own thought. We mentally conceive the
+form and then think life into it.</p>
+
+<p>This must always be the nature of the creative process on whatever
+scale, whether on the grand scale of the Universal Cosmic Mind or on the
+miniature scale of the individual mind; the difference is only in degree
+and not in kind. We may picture the mental machinery by which this is
+done in the way that best satisfies our intellect&mdash;and the satisfying of
+the intellect on this point is a potent factor in giving us that
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>confidence in our mental action without which we can effect
+nothing&mdash;but the actual externalisation is the result of something more
+powerful than a merely intellectual apprehension. It is the result of
+that inner mental state which, for want of a better word, we may call
+our emotional conception of ourselves. It is the "self" which we <i>feel</i>
+ourselves to be which takes forms of our own creating. For this reason
+our thought must be so grounded upon knowledge that we shall <i>feel</i>
+the truth of it, and thus be able to produce in ourselves that mental
+attitude of feeling which corresponds to the condition which we desire
+to externalise.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot think into manifestation a different sort of life to that
+which we realise in ourselves. As Horace says, "<i>Nemo dat quod non
+habet</i>," we cannot give what we have not got. And, on the other hand, we
+can never cease creating forms of some sort by our mental activity,
+thinking life into them. This point must be very carefully noted. We
+cannot sit still producing nothing: the mental machinery <i>will</i> keep on
+turning out work of some sort, and it rests with us to determine of what
+sort it shall be. In our entire ignorance or imperfect realisation of
+this we create negative forms and think life into them. We create forms
+of death, sickness, sorrow, trouble, and limitation of all sorts, and
+then think life into these forms; with the result that, however
+non-existent in themselves, to us they become realities and throw their
+shadow across the path which would otherwise be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>bright with the
+many-coloured beauties of innumerable flowers and the glory of the
+sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>This need not be. It is giving to the negative an affirmative force
+which does not belong to it. Consider what is meant by the negative. It
+is the absence of something. It is not-being, and is the absence of all
+that constitutes being. Left to itself, it remains in its own
+nothingness, and it only assumes form and activity when we give these to
+it by our thought.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, is the great reason for practising control over our thought.
+It is the one and only instrument we have to work with, but it is an
+instrument which works with the greatest certainty, for limitation if we
+think limitation, for enlargement if we think enlargement. Our thought
+as feeling is the magnet which draws to us those conditions which
+accurately correspond to itself. This is the meaning of the saying that
+"thoughts are things." But, you say, how can I think differently from
+the circumstances? Certainly you are not required to say that the
+circumstances <i>at the present moment</i> are what they are not; to say so
+would be untrue; but what is wanted is not to think from the standpoint
+of circumstances at all. Think from that interior standpoint where there
+are no circumstances, and from whence you can dictate what circumstances
+shall be, and then leave the circumstances to take care of themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Do not think of this, that, or the other particular <i>circumstances</i> of
+health, peace, etc., but of health, peace, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>and prosperity themselves.
+Here is an advertisement from <i>Pearson's Weekly</i>:&mdash;"Think money. Big
+moneymakers <i>think</i> money." This is a perfectly sound statement of the
+power of thought, although it is only an advertisement; but we may make
+an advance beyond thinking "money." We can think "Life" in all its
+fulness, together with that perfect harmony of conditions which includes
+all that we need of money and a thousand other good things besides, for
+some of which money stands as the symbol of exchangeable value, while
+others cannot be estimated by so material a standard.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore think Life, illumination, harmony, prosperity,
+happiness&mdash;think the things rather than this or that condition of them.
+And then by the sure operation of the Universal Law these things will
+form themselves into the shapes best suited to your particular case, and
+will enter your life as active, living forces, which will never depart
+from you because you know them to be part and parcel of your own being.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Submission</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>There are two kinds of submission: submission to superior force and
+submission to superior truth. The one is weakness and the other is
+strength. It is an exceedingly important part of our training to learn
+to distinguish between these two, and the more so because the wrong kind
+is extolled by nearly all schools of popular religious teaching at the
+present day as constituting the highest degree of human attainment. By
+some this is pressed so far as to make it an instrument of actual
+oppression, and with all it is a source of weakness and a bar to
+progress. We are forbidden to question what are called the wise
+dispensations of Providence and are told that pain and sorrow are to be
+accepted because they are the will of God; and there is much eloquent
+speaking and writing concerning the beauty of quiet resignation, all of
+which appeals to a certain class of gentle minds who have not yet learnt
+that gentleness does not consist in the absence of power but in the
+kindly and beneficent use of it.</p>
+
+<p>Minds cast in this mould are peculiarly apt to be misled. They perceive
+a certain beauty in the picture <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>of weakness leaning upon strength, but
+they attribute its soothing influence to the wrong element of the
+combination. A thoughtful analysis would show them that their feelings
+consisted of pity for the weak figure and admiration for the strong one,
+and that the suggestiveness of the whole arose from its satisfying the
+artistic sense of balance which requires a compensation of this sort.
+But which of the two figures in the picture would they themselves prefer
+to be? Surely not the weak one needing help, but the strong one giving
+it. By itself the weak figure only stirs our pity and not our
+admiration. Its form may be beautiful, but its very beauty only serves
+to enhance the sense of something wanting&mdash;and the something wanting is
+strength. The attraction which the doctrine of passive resignation
+possesses for certain minds is based upon an appeal to sentiment, which
+is accepted without any suspicion that the sentiment appealed to is a
+false one.</p>
+
+<p>Now the healthful influence of the movement known as "The Higher
+Thought" consists precisely in this&mdash;that it sets itself rigorously to
+combat this debilitating doctrine of submission. It can see as well as
+others the beauty of weakness leaning upon strength; but it sees that
+the real source of the beauty lies in the strong element of the
+combination. The true beauty consists in the power to confer strength,
+and this power is not to be acquired by submission, but by the exactly
+opposite method of continually asserting our determination not to
+submit.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of course, if we take it for granted that all the sorrow, sickness,
+pain, trouble, and other adversity in the world is the expression of the
+will of God, then doubtless we must resign ourselves to the inevitable
+with all the submission we can command, and comfort ourselves with the
+vague hope that somehow in some far-off future we shall find that</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Good is the final goal of ill,"</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">though even <i>this</i> vague hope is a protest against the very submission
+we are endeavouring to exercise. But to make the assumption that the
+evil of life is the will of God is to assume what a careful and
+intelligent study of the laws of the universe, both mental and physical,
+will show us is not the truth; and if we turn to that Book which
+contains the fullest delineation of these universal laws, we shall find
+nothing taught more clearly than that submission to the evils of life is
+not submission to the will of God. We are told that Christ was
+manifested for this end, that he should destroy him that hath the power
+of death&mdash;that is, the devil. Now death is the very culmination of the
+Negative. It is the entire absence of all that makes Life, and whatever
+goes to diminish the living quality of Life reproduces, in its degree,
+the distinctive quality of this supreme exhibition of the Negative.
+Everything that tends to detract from the fulness of life has in it this
+deathful quality.</p>
+
+<p>In that completely renovated life, which is figured <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>under the emblem of
+the New Jerusalem, we are told that sorrow and sighing shall flee away,
+and that the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick. Nothing that obscures
+life, or restricts it, can proceed from the same source as the Power
+which gives light to them that sit in darkness, and deliverance to them
+that are bound. Negation can never be Affirmation; and the error we have
+always to guard against is that of attributing positive power to the
+Negative. If we once grasp the truth that God is life, and that life in
+every mode of expression can never be anything else than Affirmative,
+then it must become clear to us that nothing which is of the opposite
+tendency can be according to the will of God. For God (the good) to will
+any of the "evil" that is in the world would be for Life to act with the
+purpose of diminishing itself, which is a contradiction in terms to the
+very idea of Life. God is Life, and Life is, by its very nature,
+Affirmative. The submission we have hitherto made has been to our own
+weakness, ignorance, and fear, and not to the supreme good.</p>
+
+<p>But is no such thing as submission, then, required of us under any
+circumstances? Are we always to have our own way in everything?
+Assuredly the whole secret of our progress to liberty is involved in
+acquiring the habit of submission; but it is submission to superior
+Truth, and not to superior force. It sometimes happens that, when we
+attain a higher Truth, we find that its reception requires us to
+re-arrange the truths which we possessed before: not, indeed, to lay any
+of them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>aside, for Truth once recognised cannot be again put out of
+sight, but to recognise a different relative proportion between them
+from that which we had seen previously. Then there comes a submitting of
+what has hitherto been our highest truth to one which we recognise as
+still higher, a process not always easy of attainment, but which must be
+gone through if our spiritual development is not to be arrested. The
+lesser degree of life must be swallowed up in the greater; and for this
+purpose it is necessary for us to learn that the smaller degree was only
+a partial and limited aspect of that which is more universal, stronger,
+and of a larger build every way.</p>
+
+<p>Now, in going through the processes of spiritual growth, there is ample
+scope for that training in self-knowledge and self-control which is
+commonly understood by the word "submission." But the character of the
+act is materially altered. It is no longer a half-despairing resignation
+to a superior force external to ourselves, which we can only vaguely
+hope is acting kindly and wisely, but it is an intelligent recognition
+of the true nature of our own interior forces and of the laws by which a
+robust spiritual constitution is to be developed; and the submission is
+no longer to limitations which drain life of its livingness, and against
+which we instinctively rebel, but to the law of our own evolution which
+manifests itself in continually increasing degrees of life and strength.</p>
+
+<p>The submission which we recognise is the price that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>has to be paid for
+increase in any direction. Even in the Money Market we must invest
+before we can realise profits. It is a universal rule that Nature obeys
+us exactly in proportion as we first obey Nature; and this is as true in
+regard to spiritual science as to physical. The only question is whether
+we will yield an ignorant submission to the principle of Death, or a
+joyous and intelligent obedience to the principle of Life.</p>
+
+<p>If we have clearly grasped the fact of our identity with Universal
+Spirit, we shall find that, in the right direction, there is really no
+such thing as submission. Submission is to the power of another&mdash;a man
+cannot be said to submit to himself. When the "I AM" in us recognises a
+greater degree of I AM-ness (if I may coin the word) than it has
+hitherto attained, then, by the very force of this recognition, it
+<i>becomes what it sees</i>, and therefore naturally puts off from itself
+whatever would limit its expression of its own completeness.</p>
+
+<p>But this is a natural process of growth, and not an unnatural act of
+submission; it is not the pouring-out of ourselves in weakness, but the
+gathering of ourselves together in increasing strength. There is no
+weakness in Spirit, it is all strength; and we must therefore always be
+watchful against the insidious approaches of the Negative which would
+invert the true position. The Negative always points to some external
+source of strength. Its formula is "I AM NOT." It always <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>seeks to fix a
+gulf between us and the Infinite Sufficiency. It would always have us
+believe that that sufficiency is not our own, but that by an act of
+uncertain favour we may have occasional spoonfuls of it doled out to us.
+Christ's teaching is different. We do not need to come with our pitcher
+to the well to draw water, like the woman of Samaria, but we have <i>in
+ourselves</i> an inexhaustible supply of the living water springing up into
+everlasting life.</p>
+
+<p>Let us then inscribe "No Surrender" in bold characters upon our banner,
+and advance undaunted to claim our rightful heritage of liberty and
+life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Completeness</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>A point on which students of mental science often fail to lay sufficient
+stress is the completeness of man&mdash;not a completeness to be attained
+hereafter, but here and now. We have been so accustomed to have the
+imperfection of man drummed into us in books, sermons, and hymns, and
+above all in a mistaken interpretation of the Bible, that at first the
+idea of his completeness altogether staggers us. Yet until we see this
+we must remain shut out from the highest and best that mental science
+has to offer, from a thorough understanding of its philosophy, and from
+its greatest practical achievements.</p>
+
+<p>To do any work successfully you must believe yourself to be a <i>whole</i>
+man in respect of it. The completed work is the outward image of a
+corresponding completeness in yourself. And if this is true in respect
+of one work it is true of all; the difference in the importance of the
+work does not matter; we cannot successfully attempt <i>any</i> work until,
+for some reason or other, we believe ourselves able to accomplish it; in
+other words, until we believe that none of the con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>ditions for its
+completion is wanting in us, and that we are therefore complete in
+respect of it. Our recognition of our completeness is thus the measure
+of what we are able to do, and hence the great importance of knowing the
+fact of our own completeness.</p>
+
+<p>But, it may be asked, do we not see imperfection all around? Is there
+not sorrow, sickness, and trouble? Yes; but why? Just for the very
+reason that we do not realise our completeness. If we realised <i>that</i> in
+its fulness these things would not be; and in the degree in which we
+come to realise it we shall find them steadily diminish. Now if we
+really grasp the two fundamental truths that Spirit is Life pure and
+simple, and that external things are the result of interior forces, then
+it ought not to be difficult to see why we should be complete; for to
+suppose otherwise is to suppose the reactive power of the universe to be
+either unable or unwilling to produce the complete expression of its own
+intention in the creation of man.</p>
+
+<p>That it should be unable to do so would be to depose it from its place
+as the creative principle, and that it should be unwilling to fulfil its
+own intention is a contradiction in terms; so that on either supposition
+we come to a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>. In forming man the creative
+principle therefore <i>must</i> have produced a perfect work, and our
+conception of ourselves as imperfect can only be the result of our own
+ignorance of what we really are; and our advance, therefore, does not
+consist in having something new added to us, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>in learning to bring
+into action powers which already exist in us, but which we have never
+tried to use, and therefore have not developed, simply because we have
+always taken it for granted that we are by nature defective in some of
+the most important faculties necessary to fit us to our environment.</p>
+
+<p>If we wish to attain to these great powers, the question is, where are
+we to seek them? And the answer is <i>in ourselves</i>. That is the great
+secret. We are not to go outside ourselves to look for power. As soon as
+we do so we find, not power, but weakness. To seek strength from any
+outside source is to make affirmation of our weakness, and all know what
+the natural result of such an affirmation must be.</p>
+
+<p>We are complete <i>in ourselves</i>; and the reason why we fail to realise
+this is that we do not understand how far the "self" of ourselves
+extends. We know that the whole of anything consists of <i>all</i> its parts
+and not only of some of them; yet this is just what we do not seem to
+know about ourselves. We say rightly that every person is a
+concentration of the Universal Spirit into individual consciousness; but
+if so, then each individual consciousness must find the Universal Spirit
+to be the infinite expression of <i>itself</i>. It is <i>this</i> part of the
+"Self" that we so often leave out in our estimate of what we are; and
+consequently we look upon ourselves as crawling pygmies when we might
+think of ourselves as archangels. We try to work with the mere shadows
+of ourselves instead of with the glorious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>substance, and then wonder at
+our failures. If we only understood that our "better half" is the whole
+infinite of Spirit&mdash;that which creates and sustains the universe&mdash;then
+we should know how complete our completeness is.</p>
+
+<p>As we approach this conception, our completeness becomes a reality to
+us, and we find that we need not go outside ourselves for anything. We
+have only to draw on that part of ourselves which is infinite to carry
+out any intention we may form in our individual consciousness; for there
+is no barrier between the two parts, otherwise they would not be a
+whole. Each belongs perfectly to the other, and the two are one. There
+is no antagonism between them, for the Infinite Life can have no
+interest against its individualisation of <i>itself</i>. If there is any
+feeling of tension it proceeds from our not fully realising this
+conception of our own wholeness; we are placing a barrier somewhere,
+when in truth there is none; and the tension will continue until we find
+out where and how we are setting up this barrier and remove it.</p>
+
+<p>This feeling of tension is the feeling that we are <i>not using our Whole
+Being</i>. We are trying to make half do the work of the whole; but we
+cannot rid ourselves of our wholeness, and therefore the whole protests
+against our attempts to set one half against the other. But when we
+realise that our concentration <i>out of</i> the Infinite also implies our
+expansion <i>into</i> it, we shall see that our <i>whole</i> "self" includes both
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>concentration and the expansion; and seeing this first
+intellectually we shall gradually learn to use our knowledge practically
+and bring our whole man to bear upon whatever we take in hand. We shall
+find that there is in us a constant action and reaction between the
+infinite and the individual, like the circulation of the blood from the
+heart to the extremities and back again, a constant pulsation of vital
+energy quite natural and free from all strain and exertion.</p>
+
+<p>This is the great secret of the livingness of Life, and it is called by
+many names and set forth under many symbols in various religions and
+philosophies, each of which has its value in proportion as it brings us
+nearer the realisation of this perfect wholeness. But the thing itself
+is Life, and therefore can only be suggested, but not described, by any
+words or symbols; it is a matter of personal experience which no one can
+convey to another. All we can do is to point out the direction in which
+this experience is to be sought, and to tell others the intellectual
+arguments which have helped us to find it; but the experience itself is
+the operation of definite vital functions of the inner being, and no one
+but ourselves can do our living for us.</p>
+
+<p>But, so far as it is possible to express these things in words, what
+must be the result of realising that the "self" in us includes the
+Infinite as well as the Individual? All the resources of the Infinite
+must be at our disposal; we may draw on them as we will, and there is no
+limit save that imposed by the Law of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> Kindness, a self-imposed
+limitation, which, because of being <i>self</i>-imposed, is not bondage but
+only another expression of our liberty. Thus we are free and all
+limitations are removed.</p>
+
+<p>We are also no longer ignorant, for since the "self" in us includes the
+Infinite we can draw thence all needed knowledge, and though we may not
+always be able to formulate this knowledge in the mentality, we shall
+<i>feel</i> its guidance, and eventually the mentality will learn to put this
+also into form of words; and thus by combining thought and experience,
+theory and practice, we shall by degrees come more and more into the
+knowledge of the Law of our Being, and find that there is no place in it
+for fear, because it is the law of perfect liberty. And knowing what our
+whole self really is, we shall walk erect as free men and women
+radiating Light and Life all round, so that our very presence will carry
+a vivifying influence with it, because we realise ourselves to be an
+Affirmative Whole, and not a mere negative disintegration of parts.</p>
+
+<p>We know that our whole self includes that Greater Man which is back of
+and causes the phenomenal man, and this Greater Man is the true human
+principle in us. It is, therefore, universal in its sympathies, but at
+the same time not less individually <i>ourself</i>; and thus the true man in
+us, being at once both universal and individual, can be trusted as a
+sure guide. It is that "Thinker" which is behind the conscious
+men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>tality, and which, if we will accept it as our centre, and realise
+that it is not a separate entity but <i>ourself</i>, will be found equal to
+every occasion, and will lead us out of a condition of servitude into
+"the glorious liberty of the sons of God."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">The Principle of Guidance</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>If I were asked which of all the spiritual principles ranked first, I
+should feel inclined to say the Principle of Guidance; not in the sense
+of being more essential than the others, for <i>every</i> portion is equally
+essential to the completeness of a perfect whole, but in the sense of
+being first in order of sequence and giving value to all our other
+powers by placing them in their due relation to one another. "Giving
+value to our <i>other</i> powers," I say, because this also is one of our
+powers. It is that which, judged from the standpoint of personal
+self-consciousness, is above us; but which, realised from the point of
+view of the unity of all Spirit, is part and parcel of ourselves,
+because it is that Infinite Mind which is of necessity identified with
+all its manifestations.</p>
+
+<p>Looking to this Infinite Mind as a Superior Intelligence from which we
+may receive guidance does not therefore imply looking to an external
+source. On the contrary, it is looking to the innermost spring of our
+own being, with a confidence in its action which enables us to proceed
+to the execution of our plans <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>with a firmness and assurance that are in
+themselves the very guarantee of our success.</p>
+
+<p>The action of the spiritual principles in us follows the order which we
+impose upon them by our thought; therefore the order of realisation will
+reproduce the order of desire; and if we neglect this first principle of
+right order and guidance, we shall find ourselves beginning to put forth
+other great powers, which are at present latent within us, without
+knowing how to find suitable employment for them&mdash;which would be a very
+perilous condition, for without having before us objects worthy of the
+powers to which we awake, we should waste them on petty purposes
+dictated only by the narrow range of our unilluminated intellect.
+Therefore the ancient wisdom says, "With all thy getting, get
+understanding."</p>
+
+<p>The awakening to consciousness of our mysterious interior powers will
+sooner or later take place, and will result in our using them whether we
+understand the law of their development or not, just as we already use
+our physical faculties whether we understand their laws or not. The
+interior powers are natural powers as much as the exterior ones. We can
+direct their use by a knowledge of their laws; and it is therefore of
+the highest importance to have some sound principle of guidance in the
+use of these higher faculties as they begin to manifest themselves.</p>
+
+<p>If, therefore, we would safely and profitably enter upon the possession
+of the great inheritance of power <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>that is opening out before us, we
+must before all things seek to realise in ourselves that Superior
+Intelligence which will become an unfailing principle of guidance if we
+will only recognise it as such. Everything depends on our recognition.
+Thoughts are things, and therefore as we <i>will</i> our thoughts to be so we
+<i>will</i> the thing to be. If, then, we will to use the Infinite Spirit as
+a spirit of guidance, we shall find that the fact is as we have willed
+it; and in doing this we are still making use of our own supreme
+principle. And this is the true "understanding" which, by placing all
+the other powers in their correct order, creates one grand unity of
+power directed to clearly defined and worthy aims, in place of the
+dispersion of our powers, by which they only neutralise each other and
+effect nothing.</p>
+
+<p>This is that Spirit of Truth which shall guide us into all Truth. It is
+the sincere Desire of us reaching out after Truth. Truth first and Power
+afterwards is the reasonable order, which we cannot invert without
+injury to ourselves and others; but if we follow this order we shall
+always find scope for our powers in developing into present realities
+the continually growing glory of our vision of the ideal.</p>
+
+<p>The ideal is the true real, but it must be brought into manifestation
+before it can be shown to be so, and it is in this that the <i>practical</i>
+nature of our mental studies consists. It is the <i>practical</i> mystic who
+is the man of power; the man who, realising the mystical powers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>within,
+fits his outward action to this knowledge, and so shows his faith by his
+works; and assuredly the first step is to make use of that power of
+infallible guidance which he can call to his aid simply by desiring to
+be led by it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Desire as the Motive Power</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>There are certain Oriental schools of thought, together with various
+Western offshoots from them, which are entirely founded on the principle
+of annihilating all desire. Reach that point at which you have no wish
+for anything and you will find yourself free, is the sum and substance
+of their teaching; and in support of this they put forward a great deal
+of very specious argument, which is all the more likely to entangle the
+unwary, because it contains a recognition of many of the profoundest
+truths of Nature. But we must bear in mind that it is possible to have a
+very deep knowledge of psychological facts, and at the same time vitiate
+the results of our knowledge by an entirely wrong assumption in regard
+to the law which binds these facts together in the universal system; and
+the injurious results of misapprehension upon such a vital question are
+so radical and far-reaching that we cannot too forcibly urge the
+necessity of clearly understanding the true nature of the point at
+issue. Stripped of all accessories and embellishments, the question
+resolves itself into this: Which shall we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>choose for our portion, Life
+or Death? There can be no accommodation between the two; and whichever
+we select as our guiding principle must produce results of a kind proper
+to itself.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of this momentous question turns on the place that we assign
+to desire in our system of thought. Is it the Tree of Life in the midst
+of the Garden of the Soul? or is it the Upas Tree creating a wilderness
+of death all around? This is the issue on which we have to form a
+judgment, and this judgment must colour all our conception of life and
+determine the entire range of our possibilities. Let us, then, try to
+picture to ourselves the ideal proposed by the systems to which I have
+alluded&mdash;a man who has succeeded in entirely annihilating all desire. To
+him all things must be alike. The good and the evil must be as one, for
+nothing has any longer the power to raise any desire in him; he has no
+longer any feeling which shall prompt him to say, "This is good,
+therefore I choose it; that is evil, therefore I reject it"; for all
+choice implies the perception of something more desirable in what is
+chosen than in what is rejected, and consequently the existence of that
+feeling of desire which has been entirely eliminated from the ideal we
+are contemplating.</p>
+
+<p>Then, if the perception of all that makes one thing preferable to
+another has been obliterated, there can be no motive for any sort of
+action whatever. Endue a being who has thus extinguished his faculty of
+desire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>with the power to create a universe, and he has no motive for
+employing it. Endue him with all knowledge, and it will be useless to
+him; for, since desire has no place in him, he is without any purpose
+for which to turn his knowledge to account. And with Love we cannot
+endue him, for that is desire in its supreme degree. But if all this be
+excluded, what is left of the man? Nothing, except the mere outward
+form. If he has actually obtained this ideal, he has practically ceased
+to be. Nothing can by any means interest him, for there is nothing to
+attract or repel in one thing more than in another. He must be dead
+alike to all feeling and to all motive of action, for both feeling and
+action imply the preference for one condition rather than another; and
+where desire is utterly extinguished, no such preference can exist.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt some one may object that it is only evil desires which are thus
+to be suppressed; but a perusal of the writings of the schools of
+thought in question will show that this is not the case. The foundation
+of the whole system is that <i>all</i> desire must be obliterated, the desire
+for the good just as much as the desire for the evil. The good is as
+much "illusion" as the evil, and until we have reached absolute
+indifference to both we have not attained freedom. When we have utterly
+crushed out <i>all</i> desire we are free. And the practical results of such
+a philosophy are shown in the case of Indian devotees, who, in pursuance
+of their resolve to crush out <i>all</i> desire, both for good and evil
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>alike, become nothing more than outward images of men, from which all
+power of perception and of action have long since fled.</p>
+
+<p>The mergence in the universal, at which they thus aim, becomes nothing
+more than a self-induced hypnotism, which, if maintained for a
+sufficient length of time, saps away every power of mental and bodily
+activity, leaving nothing but the outside husk of an attenuated human
+form&mdash;the hopeless wreck of what was once a living man. This is the
+logical result of a system which assumes for its starting-point that
+desire is evil in itself, that every desire is <i>per se</i> a form of
+bondage, independently of the nature of its object. The majority of the
+followers of this philosophy may lack sufficient resolution to carry it
+out rigorously to its practical conclusions; but whether their ideal is
+to be realised in this world or in some other, the utter extinction of
+desire means nothing else than absolute apathy, without feeling and
+without action.</p>
+
+<p>How entirely false such an idea is&mdash;not only from the standpoint of our
+daily life, but also from that of the most transcendental conception of
+the Universal Principle&mdash;is evidenced by the mere fact that anything
+exists at all. If the highest ideal is that of utter apathy, then the
+Creative Power of the universe must be extremely low-minded; and all
+that we have hitherto been accustomed to look upon as the marvellous
+order and beauty of creation, is nothing but a display of vulgarity and
+ignorance of sound philosophy.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the fact that creation exists proves that the Universal Mind thinks
+differently, and we have only to look around to see that the true ideal
+is the exercise of creative power. Hence, so far from desire being a
+thing to be annihilated, it is the very root of every conceivable mode
+of Life. Without it Life could not be. Every form of expression implies
+the selection of all that goes to make up that form, and the passing-by
+of whatever is not required for that purpose; hence a desire for that
+which is selected in preference to what is laid aside. And this
+selective desire is none other than the universal Law of Attraction.</p>
+
+<p>Whether this law acts as the chemical affinity of apparently unconscious
+atoms, or in the instinctive, if unreasoned, attractions of the
+vegetable and animal worlds, it is still the principle of selective
+affinity; and it continues to be the same when it passes on into the
+higher kingdoms which are ruled by reason and conscious purpose. The
+modes of activity in each of these kingdoms are dictated by the nature
+of the kingdom; but the activity itself always results from the
+preference of a certain subject for a certain object, to the exclusion
+of all others; and all action consists in the reciprocal movement of the
+two towards each other in obedience to the law of their affinity.</p>
+
+<p>When this takes place in the kingdom of conscious individuality, the
+affinities exhibit themselves as mental action; but the principle of
+selection prevails without exception throughout the universe. In the
+conscious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>mind this attraction towards its affinity becomes desire; the
+desire to create some condition of things better than that now existing.
+Our want of knowledge may cause us to make mistakes as to what this
+better thing really is, and so in seeking to carry out our desire we may
+give it a wrong direction; but the fault is not in the desire itself,
+but in our mistaken notion of what it is that it requires for its
+satisfaction. Hence unrest and dissatisfaction until its true affinity
+is found; but, as soon as this is discovered, the law of attraction at
+once asserts itself and produces that better condition, the dream of
+which first gave direction to our thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is eternally true that desire is the cause of all feeling and
+all action; in other words, of all Life. The whole livingness of Life
+consists in receiving or in radiating forth the vibrations produced by
+the law of attraction; and in the kingdom of mind these vibrations
+necessarily become conscious out-reachings of the mind in the direction
+in which it feels attraction; that is to say, they become desires.
+Desire is therefore the mind seeking to manifest itself in some form
+which as yet exists only in its thought. It is the principle of
+creation, whether the thing created be a world or a wooden spoon; both
+have their origin in the desire to bring something into existence which
+does not yet exist. Whatever may be the scale on which we exercise our
+creative ability, the motive power must always be desire.</p>
+
+<p>Desire is the force behind all things; it is the mov<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>ing principle of
+the universe and the innermost centre of all Life. Hence, to take the
+negation of desire for our primal principle is to endeavour to stamp out
+Life itself; but what we have to do is to acquire the requisite
+knowledge by which to guide our desires to their true objects of
+satisfaction. To do this is the whole end of knowledge; and any
+knowledge applied otherwise is only a partial knowledge, which, having
+failed in its purpose, is nothing but ignorance. Desire is thus the
+sum-total of the livingness of Life, for it is that in which all
+movement originates, whether on the physical level or the spiritual. In
+a word, desire is the creative power, and must be carefully guarded,
+trained, and directed accordingly; but thus to seek to develop it to the
+highest perfection is the very opposite of trying to kill it outright.</p>
+
+<p>And desire has fulfilment for its correlative. The desire and its
+fulfilment are bound together as cause and effect; and when we realise
+the law of their sequence, we shall be more than ever impressed with the
+supreme importance of Desire as the great centre of Life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Touching Lightly</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>What is our point of support? Is it in ourselves or outside us? Are we
+self-poised, or does our balance depend on something external? According
+to the actual belief in which our answer to these questions is embodied
+so will our lives be. In everything there are two parts, the essential
+and the incidental&mdash;that which is the nucleus and <i>raison d'&ecirc;tre</i> of the
+whole thing, and that which gathers round this nucleus and takes form
+from it. The true knowledge always consists in distinguishing these two
+from each other, and error always consists in misplacing them.</p>
+
+<p>In all our affairs there are two factors, ourselves and the matter to be
+dealt with; and since <i>for us</i> the nature of anything is always
+determined by our thought of it, it is entirely a question of our belief
+which of these two factors shall be the essential and which the
+accessory. Whichever we regard as the essential, the other at once
+becomes the incidental. The incidental can never be absent. For any sort
+of action to take place there must be <i>some</i> conditions under which the
+activity passes out into visible results; but the same sort of activity
+may occur under a variety <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>of different conditions, and may thus produce
+very different visible results. So in every matter we shall always find
+an essential or energising factor, and an incidental factor which
+derives its quality from the nature of the energy.</p>
+
+<p>We can therefore never escape from having to select our essential and
+our incidental factor, and whichever we select as the essential, we
+thereby place the other in the position of the incidental. If, then, we
+make the mistake of reversing the true position and suppose that the
+energising force comes from the merely accessory circumstances, we make
+<i>them</i> our point of support and lean upon <i>them</i>, and stand or fall with
+them accordingly; and so we come into a condition of weakness and
+obsequious waiting on all sorts of external influences, which is the
+very reverse of that strength, wisdom, and opulence which are the only
+meaning of Liberty.</p>
+
+<p>But if we would ask ourselves the common-sense question Where can the
+centre of a man's Life be except in himself? we shall see that in all
+which pertains to us the energising centre must be in ourselves. We can
+never get away from ourselves as the centre of our own universe, and the
+sooner we clearly understand this the better. There is really no energy
+in <i>our</i> universe but what emanates from ourselves in the first
+instance, and the power which appears to reside in our surroundings is
+derived entirely from our own mind.</p>
+
+<p>If once we realise this, and consider that the Life <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>which flows into us
+from the Universal Life-Principle is at every moment <i>new</i> Life entirely
+undifferentiated to any particular purpose besides that of supporting
+our own individuality, and that it is therefore ours to externalise in
+any form we will, then we find that this manifestation of the eternal
+Life-Principle <i>in ourselves</i> is the standpoint from which we can
+control our surroundings. We must lean firmly on the central point of
+our own being and not on anything else. Our mistake is in taking our
+surroundings too much "<i>au grand serieux</i>." We should touch things more
+lightly. As soon as we feel that their weight impedes our free handling
+of them they are mastering us, and not we them.</p>
+
+<p>Light handling does not mean weak handling. On the contrary, lightness
+of touch is incompatible with a weak grasp of the instrument, which
+implies that the weight of the tool is excessive relatively to the force
+that seeks to guide it. A light, even playful handling, therefore
+implies a firm grasp and perfect control over the instrument. It is only
+in the hands of a Grinling Gibbons that the carving tool can create
+miracles of aerial lightness from the solid wood. The light yet firm
+touch tells not of weakness, but of power held in reserve; and if we
+realise our own out-and-out spiritual nature we know that behind any
+measure of power we may put forth there is the whole reserve of the
+infinite to back us up.</p>
+
+<p>As we come to know this we begin to handle things lightly, playing with
+them as a juggler does with his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>flying knives, which cannot make the
+slightest movement other than he has assigned to them, for we begin to
+see that our control over things is part of the necessary order of the
+universe. The disorder we have met with in the past has resulted
+precisely from our never having attempted consciously to introduce this
+element of our personal control as part of the system.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, I speak of the <i>whole</i> man, and not merely of that part of
+him which Walt Whitman says is contained between his hat and his boots.
+The <i>whole</i> man is an infinitude, and the visible portion of him is the
+instrument through which he looks out upon and enjoys all that belongs
+to him, his own kingdom of the infinite. And when he learns that this is
+the meaning of his conscious individuality, he sees <i>how</i> it is that he
+is infinite, and finds that he is one with Infinite Mind, which is the
+innermost core of the universe. Having thus reached the true centre of
+his own being, he can never give this central place to anything else,
+but will realise that relatively to this all other things are in the
+position of the incidental and accessory, and growing, daily in this
+knowledge he will learn so to handle all things lightly, yet firmly,
+that grief, fear, and error will have less and less space in his world,
+until at last sorrow and sighing shall flee away, and everlasting joy
+shall take their place. We may have taken only a few steps on the way as
+yet, but they are in the right direction, and what we have to do now is
+to go on.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Present Truth</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>If Thought power is good for anything it is good for everything. If it
+can produce one thing it can produce all things. For what is to hinder
+it? Nothing can stop us from thinking. We can <i>think</i> what we please,
+and if to think is to form, then we can form what we please. The whole
+question, therefore, resolves itself into this: Is it true that to think
+is to form? If so, do we not see that our limitations are formed in
+precisely the same way as our expansions? We think that conditions
+outside our thought have power over us, and so we think power into them.
+So the great question of life is whether there is any <i>other</i> creative
+power than Thought. If so, where is it, and what is it?</p>
+
+<p>Both philosophy and religion lead us to the truth that "in the
+beginning" there was no other creative power than Spirit, and the only
+mode of activity we can possibly attribute to Spirit is Thought, and so
+we find Thought as the root of all things. And if this was the case "in
+the beginning" it must be so still; for if all things originate in
+Thought, all things must be modes of Thought, and so it is impossible
+for Spirit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>ever to hand over its creations to some power which is not
+itself&mdash;that is to say, which is not Thought-power; and consequently all
+the forms and circumstances that surround us are manifestations of the
+creative power of Thought.</p>
+
+<p>But it may be objected that this is God's Thought; and that the creative
+power is in God and not Man. But this goes away from the self-evident
+axiomatic truth that "in the beginning" nothing could have had any
+origin except Thought. It is quite true that nothing has any origin
+except in the Divine Mind, and Man himself is therefore a mode of the
+Divine Thought. Again, Man is self-conscious; therefore Man is the
+Divine Thought evolved into <i>individual</i> consciousness, and when he
+becomes sufficiently enlightened to realise this as his origin, then he
+sees that he is a reproduction <i>in individuality</i> of the <i>same</i> spirit
+which produces all things, and that his own thought in individuality has
+exactly the same quality as the Divine Thought in universality, just as
+fire is equally igneous whether burning round a large centre of
+combustion or a small one, and thus we are logically brought to the
+conclusion that our thought must have creative power.</p>
+
+<p>But people say, "We have not found it so. We are surrounded by all sorts
+of circumstances that we do not desire." Yes, you <i>fear</i> them, and in so
+doing you <i>think</i> them; and in this way you are constantly exercising
+this Divine prerogative of creation by Thought, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>only through ignorance
+you use it in a wrong direction. Therefore the Book of Divine
+Instructions so constantly repeats "Fear not; doubt not," because we can
+never divest our Thought of its inherent creative quality, and the only
+question is whether we shall use it ignorantly to our injury or
+understandingly to our benefit.</p>
+
+<p>The Master summed up his teaching in the aphorism that knowledge of the
+Truth would make us free. Here is no announcement of anything we have to
+do, or of anything that has to be done for us, in order to gain our
+liberty, neither is it a statement of anything <i>future</i>. Truth <i>is</i> what
+is. He did not say, you must wait till something becomes true which is
+not true <i>now</i>. He said: "Know what <i>is</i> Truth now, and you will find
+that the Truth concerning yourself is Liberty." If the knowledge of
+Truth makes us free it can only be because in truth we are free already,
+only we do not know it.</p>
+
+<p>Our liberty consists in our reproducing on the scale of the individual
+the same creative power of Thought which first brought the world into
+existence, "so that the things which are seen were not made of things
+which do appear." Let us, then, confidently claim our birthright as
+"sons and daughters of the Almighty," and by habitually thinking the
+good, the beautiful, and the true, surround ourselves with conditions
+corresponding to our thoughts, and by our teaching and example help
+others to do the same.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Yourself</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>I want to talk to you about the livingness there is in being yourself.
+It has at least the merit of simplicity, for it must surely be easier to
+be oneself than to be something or somebody else. Yet that is what so
+many are constantly trying to do; the self that is their own is not good
+enough for them, and so they are always trying to go one better than
+what God has made them, with endless strain and struggle as the
+consequence. Of course, they are right to put before them an ideal
+infinitely grander than anything they have yet attained&mdash;the only
+possible way of progress is by following an ideal that is always a stage
+ahead of us&mdash;but the mistake is in not seeing that its attainment is a
+matter of growth, and that growth must be the expansion of something
+that already exists in us, and therefore implies our being what we are
+and where we are as its starting point. This growth is a continuous
+process, and we cannot do next month's growth without first doing this
+month's; but we are always wanting to jump into some ideal of the
+future, not seeing that we can reach it only by steadily going on from
+where we are now.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>These considerations should make us more confident and more comfortable.
+We are employing a force which is much greater than we believe ourselves
+to be, yet it is not separate from us and needing to be persuaded or
+compelled, or inveigled into doing what we want; it is the substratum of
+our own being which is continually passing up into manifestation on the
+visible plane and becoming that personal self to which we often limit
+our attention without considering whence it proceeds. But in truth the
+outer self is the surface growth of that individuality which lies
+concealed far down in the deeps below, and which is none other than the
+Spirit-of-Life which underlies all forms of manifestation.</p>
+
+<p>Endeavour to realise what this Spirit must be in itself&mdash;that is to say,
+apart from any of the conditions that arise from the various relations
+which necessarily establish themselves between its various forms of
+individualisation. In its homogeneous self what else can it be but pure
+life&mdash;Essence-of-Life, if you like so to call it? Then realise that as
+Essence-of-Life it exists in the innermost of <i>every one</i> of its forms
+of manifestation in as perfect simplicity as any we can attribute to it
+in our most abstract conceptions. In this light we see it to be the
+eternally self-generating power which, to express itself, flows into
+form.</p>
+
+<p>This universal Essence-of-Life is a continual becoming (into form), and
+since we are a part of Nature we do not need to go further than
+ourselves to find <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>the life-giving energy at work with all its powers.
+Hence all we have to do is to allow it to rise to the surface. We do not
+have to <i>make</i> it rise any more than the engineer who sinks the
+bore-pipe for an artesian well has to make the water rise in it; the
+water does that by its own energy, springing as a fountain a hundred
+feet into the air. Just so we shall find a fountain of Essence-of-Life
+ready to spring up in ourselves, inexhaustible and continually
+increasing in its flow, as One taught long ago to a woman at a wayside
+well.</p>
+
+<p>This up-springing of Life-Essence is not another's&mdash;it is our own. It
+does not require deep studies, hard labours, weary journeyings to attain
+it; it is not the monopoly of this teacher or that writer, whose
+lectures we must attend or whose books we must read to get it. It is the
+innermost of <i>ourselves</i>, and a little common-sense thought as to how
+anything comes to be anything will soon convince us that the great
+inexhaustible life must be the very root and substance of us, permeating
+every fibre of our being.</p>
+
+<p>Surely to be this vast infinitude of living power must be enough to
+satisfy all our desires, and yet this wonderful ideal is nothing else
+but what we already are <i>in principio</i>&mdash;it is all there in ourselves
+now, only awaiting our recognition for its manifestation. It is not the
+Essence-of-Life which has to grow, for that is eternally perfect in
+itself; but it is our recognition of it that has to grow, and this
+growth cannot be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>forced. It must come by a natural process, the first
+necessity of which is to abstain from all straining after being
+something which at the present time we cannot naturally be. The Law of
+our Evolution has put us in possession of certain powers and
+opportunities, and our further development depends on our doing just
+what these powers and opportunities make it possible for us to do, here
+and now.</p>
+
+<p>If we do what we are able to do to-day, it will open the way for us to
+do something better to-morrow, and in this manner the growing process
+will proceed healthily and happily in a rapidly increasing ratio. This
+is so much easier than striving to compel things to be what they are
+not, and it is also so much more fruitful in good results. It is not
+sitting still doing nothing, and there is plenty of room for the
+exercise of all our mental faculties, but these faculties are themselves
+the outcome of the Essence-of-Life, and are not the creating power, but
+only that which gives direction to it Now it is this moving power at the
+back of the various faculties that is the true innermost self; and if we
+realise the identity between the innermost and the outermost, we shall
+see that we therefore have at our present disposal all that is necessary
+for our unlimited development in the future.</p>
+
+<p>Thus our livingness consists simply in being ourselves, only more so;
+and in recognising this we get rid of a great burden of unnecessary
+straining and striving, and the place of the old <i>sturm und drang</i> will
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>be taken, not by inertia, but by a joyous activity which knows that it
+always has the requisite power to manifest itself in forms of good and
+beauty. What matters it whither this leads us? If we are following the
+line of the beautiful and good, then we shall produce the beautiful and
+good, and thus bring increasing joy into the world, whatever particular
+form it may assume.</p>
+
+<p>We limit ourselves when we try to fix accurately beforehand the
+particular form of good that we shall produce. We should aim not so much
+at having or making some particular thing as at expressing all that we
+are. The expressing will grow out of realising the treasures that are
+ours already, and contemplating the beauty, the affirmative side, of all
+that we are <i>now</i>, apart from the negative conceptions and detractions
+which veil this positive good from us. When we do this we shall be
+astonished to see what possibilities reside in ourselves as we are and
+with our present surroundings, all unlovely as we may deem them: and
+commencing to work at once upon whatever we find of affirmative in
+these, and withdrawing our thought from what we have hitherto seen of
+negative in them, the right road will open up before us, leading us in
+wonderful ways to the development of powers that we never suspected, and
+the enjoyment of happiness that we never anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>We have never been out of our right path, only we have been walking in
+it backwards instead of forwards, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>and now that we have begun to follow
+the path in the right direction, we find that it is none other than the
+way of peace, the path of joy, and the road to eternal life. These
+things we may attain by simply living naturally with ourselves. It is
+because we are trying to be or do something which is not natural to us
+that we experience weariness and labour, where we should find all our
+activities joyously concentrated on objects which lead to their own
+accomplishment by the force of the love that we have for them. But when
+we make the grand discovery of how to live naturally, we shall find it
+to be all, and more than all, that we had ever desired, and our daily
+life will become a perpetual joy to ourselves, and we shall radiate
+light and life wherever we go.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Religious Opinions</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>That great and wise writer, George Eliot, expressed her matured views on
+the subject of religious opinions in these words: "I have too profound a
+conviction of the efficacy that lies in all sincere faith, and the
+spiritual blight that comes with no faith, to have any negative
+propagandism left in me." This had not always been her attitude, for in
+her youth she had had a good deal of negative propagandism in her; but
+the experience of a lifetime led her to form this estimate of the value
+of sincere faith, independently of the particular form of thought which
+leads to it.</p>
+
+<p>Tennyson also came to the same conclusion, and gives kindly warning:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O thou who after toil and storm<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">May'st seem to have reached a purer air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose faith has centred everywhere,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor cares to fix itself to form.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Leave thou thy sister when she prays<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her early heaven, her happy views,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A life that leads melodious days."<br /></span>
+</div></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And thus these two great minds have left us a lesson of wisdom which we
+shall do well to profit by. Let us see how it applies more particularly
+to our own case.</p>
+
+<p>The true presentment of the Higher Thought contains no "negative
+propagandism." It is everywhere ranged on the side of the Affirmative,
+and its great object is to extirpate the canker which gnaws at the root
+of every life that endeavours to centre itself upon the Negative. Its
+purpose is constructive and not destructive. But we often find people
+labouring under a very erroneous impression as to the nature and scope
+of the movement, and thus not only themselves deterred from
+investigating it, but also deterring others from doing so. Sometimes
+this results from the subject having been presented to them unwisely&mdash;in
+a way needlessly repugnant to the particular form of religious ideas to
+which they are accustomed; but more often it results from their
+prejudging the whole matter, and making up their minds that the movement
+is opposed to their ideas of religion, without being at the pains to
+inquire what its principles really are. In either case a few words on
+the attitude of the New Thought towards the current forms of religious
+opinion may not be out of place.</p>
+
+<p>The first consideration in every concern is, What is the object aimed
+at? The end determines the means to be employed, and if the nature of
+the end be clearly kept in view, then no objectless complications will
+be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>introduced into the means. All this seems too obvious to be stated,
+but it is just the failure to realise this simple truth that has given
+rise to the whole body of <i>odium theologicum</i>, with all the persecutions
+and massacres and martyrdoms which disgrace the pages of history, making
+so many of them a record of nothing but ferocity and stupidity. Let us
+hope for a better record in the future; and if we are to get it, it will
+be by the adoption of the simple principle here stated.</p>
+
+<p>In our own country alone the varieties of churches and sects form a
+lengthy catalogue, but in every one of them the purpose is the same&mdash;to
+establish the individual in a satisfactory relation to the Divine Power.
+The very fact of any religious profession at all implies the recognition
+of God as the Source of life and of all that goes to make life; and
+therefore the purpose in every case is to draw increasing degrees of
+life, whether here or hereafter, from the Only Source from which alone
+it is to be obtained, and therefore to establish such a relation with
+this Source as may enable the worshipper to draw from It all the life he
+wants. Hence the necessary preliminary to drawing consciously at all is
+the confidence that such a relation actually has been established; and
+such a confidence as this is exactly all that is meant by Faith.</p>
+
+<p>The position of the man who has not this confidence is either that no
+such Source exists, or else that he is without means of access to It;
+and in either case he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>feels himself left to fight for his own hand
+against the entire universe without the consciousness of any Superior
+Power to back him up. He is thrown entirely upon his own resources, not
+knowing of the interior spring from which they may be unceasingly
+replenished. He is like a plant cut off at the stem and stuck in the
+ground without any root, and consequently that spiritual blight of which
+George Eliot speaks creeps over him, producing weakness, perplexity, and
+fear, with all their baleful consequences, where there should be that
+strength, order, and confidence which are the very foundation of all
+building-up for whatever purpose, whether of personal prosperity or of
+usefulness to others.</p>
+
+<p>From the point of view of those who are acquainted with the laws of
+spiritual life, such a man is cut off from the root of his own Being.
+Beyond and far interior to that outer self which each of us knows as the
+intellectual man working with the physical brain as instrument, we have
+roots penetrating deep into that Infinite of which, in our ordinary
+waking state, we are only dimly conscious; and it is through this root
+of our own individuality, spreading far down into the hidden depths of
+Being, that we draw out of the unseen that unceasing stream of Life
+which afterwards, by our thought-power, we differentiate into all those
+outward forms of which we have need. Hence the unceasing necessity for
+every one to realise the great truth that his whole individuality has
+its foundation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>in such a root, and that the ground in which this root
+is embedded is that Universal Being for which there is no name save that
+of the One all-embracing I AM.</p>
+
+<p>The supreme necessity, therefore, for each of us is to realise this
+fundamental fact of our own nature, for it is only in proportion as we
+do so that we truly live; and, therefore, whatever helps us to this
+realisation should be carefully guarded. In so far as any form of
+religion contributes to this end in the case of any particular
+individual, for him it is true religion. It may be imperfect, but it is
+true so far as it goes; and what is wanted is not to destroy the
+foundation of a man's faith because it is narrow, but to expand it. And
+this expanding will be done by the man himself, for it is a growth from
+within and not a construction from without.</p>
+
+<p>Our attitude towards the religious beliefs of others should, therefore,
+not be that of iconoclasts, breaking down ruthlessly whatever from <i>our</i>
+point of view we see to be merely traditionary idols (in Bacon's sense
+of the word), but rather the opposite method of fixing upon that in
+another's creed which we find to be positive and affirmative, and
+gradually leading him to perceive in what its affirmativeness consists;
+and then, when once he has got the clue to the element of strength which
+exists in his accustomed form of belief, the perception of the contrast
+between that and the non-essential accretions will grow up in his mind
+spontaneously, thus gradually bringing him out into a wider <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>and freer
+atmosphere. In going through such a process as this, he will never have
+had his thoughts directed into any channel to suggest separation from
+his spiritual root and ground; but he will learn that the rooting and
+grounding in the Divine, which he had trusted in at first, were indeed
+true, but in a sense far fuller, grander, and larger every way than his
+early infantile conception of them.</p>
+
+<p>The question is not how far can another's religious opinions stand the
+test of a remorseless logic, but how far do they enable him to realise
+his unity with Divine Spirit? That is the living proof of the value of
+his opinion to himself, and no change in his opinions can be for the
+better that does not lead him to a greater recognition of the livingness
+of Divine Spirit in himself. For any change of opinion to indicate a
+forward movement, it must proceed from our realising in some measure the
+true nature of the life that is already developed in us. When we see
+<i>why</i> we are <i>what</i> we are <i>now</i>, then we can look ahead and see what
+the same life principle that has brought us up to the present point is
+capable of doing in the future. We may not see very far ahead, but we
+shall see where the next step is to be placed, and that is sufficient to
+enable us to move on.</p>
+
+<p>What we have to do, therefore, is to help others to grow from the root
+they are already <i>living</i> by, and not to dig their roots up and leave
+them to wither. We need not be afraid of making ourselves all things to
+all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>men, in the sense of fixing upon the affirmative elements in each
+one's creed as the starting-point of our work, for the affirmative and
+life-giving is always true, and Truth is always <i>one</i> and consistent
+with itself; and therefore we need never fear being inconsistent so long
+as we adhere to this method. It is worse than useless to waste time in
+dissecting the negative accretions of other people's beliefs. In doing
+so we run great risks of rooting up the wheat along with the tares, and
+we shall certainly succeed in brushing people up the wrong way;
+moreover, by looking out exclusively for the life-giving and affirmative
+elements, we shall reap benefit to ourselves. We shall not only keep our
+temper, but we shall often find large reserves of affirmative power
+where at first we had apprehended nothing but worthless accumulations,
+and thus we shall become gainers both in largeness of mind and in stores
+of valuable material.</p>
+
+<p>Of course we must be rigidly unyielding as regards the <i>essence</i> of
+Truth&mdash;<i>that</i> must never be sacrificed&mdash;but as representatives, in
+however small a sphere, of the New Thought, we should make it our aim to
+show others, not that their religion is wrong, but that all they may
+find of life-givingness in it is life-giving because it is part of the
+One Truth which is always the same under whatever form expressed. As
+half a loaf is better than no bread, so ignorant worship is better than
+no worship, and ignorant faith is better than no faith. Our work is not
+to destroy this faith and this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>worship, but to lead them on into a
+clearer light.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason we may assure all inquirers that the abandonment of
+their customary form of worship is no necessity of the New Thought; but,
+on the contrary, that the principles of the movement, correctly
+understood, will show them far more meaning in that worship than they
+have ever yet realised. Truth is one; and when once the truth which
+underlies the outward form is clearly understood, the maintenance or
+abandonment of the latter will be found to be a matter of personal
+feeling as to what form, or absence of form, best enables the particular
+individual to realise the Truth itself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">A Lesson from Browning</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>Perhaps you know a little poem of Browning's called "An Epistle
+Containing the Strange Medical Experiences of Karshish, the Arab
+Physician." The somewhat weird conception is that the Arab physician,
+travelling in Palestine soon after the date when the Gospel narrative
+closes, meets with Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead, and in this
+letter to a medical friend describes the strange effect which his vision
+of the other life has produced upon the resuscitated man. The poem
+should be studied as a whole; but for the present a few lines selected
+here and there must do duty to indicate the character of the change
+which has passed upon Lazarus. After comparing him to a beggar who,
+having suddenly received boundless wealth, is unable to regulate its use
+to his requirements, Karshish continues:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"So here&mdash;we call the treasure knowledge, say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Increased beyond the fleshly faculty&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The man is witless of the size, the sum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The value in proportion of all things."<br /></span>
+</div></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In fact he has become almost exclusively conscious of</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The spiritual life around the earthly life:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The law of that is known to him as this,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and the result is a loss of mental balance entirely unfitting him for
+the affairs of ordinary life.</p>
+
+<p>Now there can be no doubt that Browning had a far more serious intention
+in writing this poem than just to record a fantastic notion that flitted
+through his brain. If we read between the lines, it must be clear from
+the general tenor of his writings that, however he may have acquired it,
+Browning had a very deep acquaintance with the inner region of spiritual
+causes which give rise to all that we see of outward phenomenal
+manifestation. There are continual allusions in his works to the life
+behind the veil, and it is to this suggestion of some mystery underlying
+his words that we owe the many attempts to fathom his meaning expressed
+through Browning Societies and the like&mdash;attempts which fail or succeed
+according as they are made from "the without" or from "the within." No
+one was better qualified than the poet to realise the immense benefits
+of the inner knowledge, and for the same reason he is also qualified to
+warn us of the dangers on the way to its acquisition; for nowhere is it
+more true that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,"</span></div></div>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>and it is one of the greatest of these dangers that he points out in
+this poem.</p>
+
+<p>Under the figure of Lazarus he describes the man who has practically
+grasped the reality of the inner side of things, for whom the veil has
+been removed, and who knows that the external and visible takes its rise
+from the internal and spiritual. But the description is that of one
+whose eyes have been so dazzled by the light that he has lost the power
+of accommodating his vision to the world of sense. He now commits the
+same error from the side of "the within" that he formerly committed from
+the side of "the without," the error of supposing that there is no vital
+reality in the aspect of things on which his thoughts are not
+immediately centered. This is want of mental balance, whether it shows
+itself by refusing reality to the inward or the outward. To be so
+absorbed in speculative ideas as to be unable to give them practical
+application in daily life, is to allow our highest thoughts to evaporate
+in dreams.</p>
+
+<p>There is a world of philosophy in the simple statement that there can be
+no inside without an outside, and no outside without an inside; and the
+great secret in life is in learning to see things in their wholeness,
+and to realise the inside and the outside simultaneously. Each of them
+without the other is a mere abstraction, having no real existence, which
+we contemplate separately only for the purpose of reviewing the logical
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>steps by which they are connected together as cause and effect. Nature
+does not separate them, for they are inseparable; and the law of nature
+is the law of life. It is related of Pythagoras that, after he had led
+his scholars to the dizziest heights of the inner knowledge, he never
+failed to impress upon them the converse lesson of tracing out the steps
+by which these inner principles translate themselves into the familiar
+conditions of the outward things by which we are surrounded. The process
+of analysis is merely an expedient for discovering what springs in the
+realm of causes we are to touch in order to produce certain effects in
+the realm of manifestation. But this is not sufficient. We must also
+learn to calculate how those particular effects, when produced, will
+stand related to the world of already existing effects among which we
+propose to launch them, how they will modify these and be modified by
+these in turn; and this calculation of effects is as necessary as the
+knowledge of causes.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot impress upon ourselves too strongly that reality consists of
+both an inside and an outside, a generating principle and a generated
+condition, and that anything short of the reality of wholeness is
+illusion on one side or the other. Nothing could have been further from
+Browning's intention than to deter seekers after truth from studying the
+principles of Being, for without the knowledge of them truth must always
+remain wrapped in mystery; but the lesson he would impress on us is that
+of guarding vigilantly the mental <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>equilibrium which alone will enable
+us to develop those boundless powers whose infinite unfolding is the
+fulness of Life. And we must remember above all that the soul of life is
+Love, and that Love shows itself by service, and service proceeds from
+sympathy, which is the capacity for seeing things from the point of view
+of those whom we would help, while at the same time seeing them also in
+their true relations; and therefore, if we would realise that Love which
+is the inmost vitalising principle even of the most interior powers, it
+must be kept alive by maintaining our hold upon the exterior life as
+being equally real with the inward principles of which it is the
+manifestation.</p>
+
+<p>1902.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">The Spirit of Opulence</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>It is quite a mistake to suppose that we must restrict and stint
+ourselves in order to develop greater power or usefulness. This is to
+form the conception of the Divine Power as so limited that the best use
+we can make of it is by a policy of self-starvation, whether material or
+mental. Of course, if we believe that some form of self-starvation is
+necessary to our producing good work, then so long as we entertain this
+belief the fact actually is so <i>for us</i>. "Whatsoever is not of
+faith"&mdash;that is, not in accordance with our honest <i>belief</i>&mdash;"is sin";
+and by acting contrary to what we really believe we bring in a
+suggestion of opposition to the Divine Spirit, which must necessarily
+paralyse our efforts, and surround us with a murky atmosphere of
+distrust and want of joy.</p>
+
+<p>But all this exists in, and is produced by, our <i>belief</i>; and when we
+come to examine the grounds of this belief we shall find that it rests
+upon an entire misapprehension of the nature of our own power. If we
+clearly realise that the creative power in ourselves is <i>unlimited</i>,
+then there is no reason for limiting the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>extent to which we may enjoy
+what we can create by means of it. Where we are drawing from the
+<i>infinite</i> we need never be afraid of taking more than our share. That
+is not where the danger lies. The danger is in not sufficiently
+realising our own richness, and in looking upon the externalised
+products of our creative power as being the true riches instead of the
+creative power of spirit itself.</p>
+
+<p>If we avoid this error, there is no need to limit ourselves in taking
+what we will from the infinite storehouse: "All things are yours." And
+the way to avoid this error is by realising that the true wealth is in
+identifying ourselves with the <i>spirit</i> of opulence. We must be opulent
+in our <i>thought</i>. Do not "think money," as such, for it is only one
+means of opulence; but <i>think opulence</i>, that is, largely, generously,
+liberally, and you will find that the means of realising this thought
+will flow to you from all quarters, whether as money or as a hundred
+other things not to be reckoned in cash.</p>
+
+<p>We must not make ourselves dependent on any particular <i>form</i> of wealth,
+or insist on its coming to us through some particular channel&mdash;that is
+at once to impose a limitation, and to shut out other forms of wealth
+and to close other channels; but we must enter into the <i>spirit</i> of it.
+Now the spirit is Life, and throughout the universe Life ultimately
+consists in <i>circulation</i>, whether within the physical body of the
+individual or on the scale of the entire solar system; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>and circulation
+means a continual flowing around, and the <i>spirit</i> of opulence is no
+exception to this universal law of all life.</p>
+
+<p>When once this principle becomes clear to us we shall see that our
+attention should be directed rather to the giving than the receiving. We
+must look upon ourselves, not as misers' chests to be kept locked for
+our own benefit, but as centres of distribution; and the better we
+fulfil our function as such centres the greater will be the
+corresponding inflow. If we choke the outlet the current must slacken,
+and a full and free flow can be obtained only by keeping it open. The
+spirit of opulence&mdash;the opulent mode of thought, that is&mdash;consists in
+cultivating the feeling that we possess all sorts of riches which we can
+<i>bestow upon others</i>, and which we can bestow <i>liberally</i> because by
+this very action we open the way for still greater supplies to flow in.
+But you say, "I am short of money, I hardly know how to pay for
+necessaries. What have I to give?"</p>
+
+<p>The answer is that we must always start from the point where we are; and
+if your wealth at the present moment is not abundant on the material
+plane, you need not trouble to start on that plane. There are other
+sorts of wealth, still more valuable, on the spiritual and intellectual
+planes, which you can give; and you can start from this point and
+practise the spirit of opulence, even though your balance at the bank
+may be nil. And then the universal law of attrac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>tion will begin to
+assert itself. You will not only begin to experience an inflow on the
+spiritual and intellectual planes, but it will extend itself to the
+material plane also.</p>
+
+<p>If you have realised the <i>spirit</i> of opulence you <i>cannot help</i> drawing
+to yourself material good, as well as that higher wealth which is not to
+be measured by a money standard; and because you truly understand the
+<i>spirit</i> of opulence you will neither affect to despise this form of
+good, nor will you attribute to it a value that does not belong to it;
+but you will <i>co-ordinate</i> it with your other more interior forms of
+wealth so as to make it the material instrument in smoothing the way for
+their more perfect expression. Used thus, with understanding of the
+relation which it bears to spiritual and intellectual wealth, material
+wealth becomes <i>one with them</i>, and is no more to be shunned and feared
+than it is to be sought for its own sake.</p>
+
+<p>It is not money, but the <i>love</i> of money, that is the root of evil; and
+the <i>spirit</i> of opulence is precisely the attitude of mind which is
+furthest removed from the love of money for its own sake. It does not
+believe in money. What it does believe in is the generous feeling which
+is the intuitive recognition of the great law of circulation, which does
+not in any undertaking make its first question, How much am I going to
+<i>get</i> by it? but, How much am I going to <i>do</i> by it? And making <i>this</i>
+the first question, the getting will flow in with a generous profusion,
+and with a spontaneousness <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>and rightness of direction that are absent
+when our first thought is of receiving only.</p>
+
+<p>We are not called upon to give what we have not yet got and to run into
+debt; but we are to give liberally of what we <i>have</i>, with the knowledge
+that by so doing we are setting the law of circulation to work, and as
+this law brings us greater and greater inflows of every kind of good, so
+our out-giving will increase, not by depriving ourselves of any
+expansion of our own life that we may desire, but by finding that every
+expansion makes us the more powerful instruments for expanding the life
+of others. "Live and let live" is the motto of the true opulence.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Beauty</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>Do we sufficiently direct our thoughts to the subject of Beauty? I think
+not. We are too apt to regard Beauty as a merely superficial thing, and
+do not realise all that it implies. This was not the case with the great
+thinkers of the ancient world&mdash;see the place which no less a one than
+Plato gives to Beauty as the expression of all that is highest and
+greatest in the system of the universe. These great men of old were no
+superficial thinkers, and, therefore, would never have elevated to the
+supreme place that which is only superficial. Therefore, we shall do
+well to ask what it is that these great minds found in the idea of
+Beauty which made it thus appeal to them as the most perfect outward
+expression of all that lies deepest in the fundamental laws of Being. It
+is because, rightly apprehended, Beauty represents the supremest living
+quality of Thought. It is the glorious overflowing of fulness of Love
+which indicates the presence of infinite reserves of Power behind it. It
+is the joyous profusion that shows the possession of inexhaustible
+stores of wealth which can afford to be thus lavish and yet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>remain as
+exhaustless as before. Read aright, Beauty is the index to the whole
+nature of Being.</p>
+
+<p>Beauty is the externalisation of Harmony, and Harmony is the
+co-ordinated working of all the powers of Being, both in the individual
+and in the relation of the individual to the Infinite from which it
+springs; and therefore this Harmony conducts us at once into the
+presence of the innermost undifferentiated Life. Thus Beauty is in most
+immediate touch with the very arcanum of Life; it is the brightness of
+glory spreading itself over the sanctuary of the Divine Spirit. For if,
+viewed from without, Beauty is the province of the artist and the poet,
+and lays hold of our emotions and appeals directly to the innermost
+feelings of our heart, calling up the response of that within us which
+recognises itself in the harmony perceived without, this is only because
+it speeds across the bridge of Reason with such quick feet that we pass
+from the outmost to the inmost and back again in the twinkling of an
+eye; but the bridge is still there and, retracing our steps more
+leisurely, we shall find that, viewed from within, Beauty is no less the
+province of the calm reasoner and analyst. What the poet and the artist
+seize upon intuitionally, he elaborates gradually, but the result is the
+same in both cases; for no intuition is true which does not admit of
+being expanded into a rational sequence of intelligible factors, and no
+argument is true which does not admit of being condensed into that rapid
+suggestion which is intuition.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thus the impassioned artist and the calm thinker both find that the only
+true Beauty proceeds naturally from the actual construction of that
+which it expresses. It is not something added on as an afterthought, but
+something pre-existing in the original idea, something to which that
+idea naturally leads up, and which presupposes that idea as affording it
+any <i>raison d'&ecirc;tre</i>. The test of Beauty is, What does it express? Is it
+merely a veneer, a coat of paint laid on from without? Then it is indeed
+nothing but a whited sepulchre, a covering to hide the vacuity or
+deformity which needs to be removed. But is it the true and natural
+outcome of what is beneath the surface? Then it is the index to
+superabounding Life and Love and Intelligence, which is not content with
+mere utilitarianism hasting to escape at the earliest possible point
+from the labour of construction, as though from an enforced and
+unwelcome task, but rejoicing over its work and unwilling to quit it
+until it has expressed this rejoicing in every fittest touch of form and
+colour and exquisite proportion that the material will admit of, and
+this without departing by a hairbreadth from the original purpose of the
+design.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever, therefore, we find Beauty, we may infer an enormous reserve of
+Power behind it; in fact, we may look upon it as the visible expression
+of the great truth that Life-Power is infinite. And when the inner
+meaning of Beauty is thus revealed to us, and we learn to know it as the
+very fulness and overflowing of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> Power, we shall find that we have
+gained a new standard for the guidance of our own lives. We must begin
+to use this wonderful process which we have learnt from Nature. Having
+learnt how Nature works&mdash;how God works&mdash;we must begin to work in like
+manner, and never consider any work complete until we have carried it to
+some final outcome of Beauty, whether material, intellectual, or
+spiritual. Is my intention good? That is the initial question, for the
+intention determines the nature of the essence in everything. What is
+the most beautiful form in which I can express the good I intend? That
+is the ultimate question; for the true Beauty which our work expresses
+is the measure of the Power, Intelligence, Love&mdash;in a word, of the
+quantity and quality of our own life which we have put into it. True
+Beauty, mind you&mdash;that which is beautiful because it most perfectly
+expresses the original idea, not a mere ornamentation occupying our
+thoughts as a thing apart from the use intended.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is of so small account but it has its fullest power of
+expression in some form of Beauty peculiarly its own. Beauty is the law
+of perfect Thought, be the subject of our Thought some scheme affecting
+the welfare of millions, or a word spoken to a little child. True Beauty
+and true Power are the correlatives one of the other. Kindly expression
+originates in kindly thought; and kindly expression is the essence of
+Beauty, which, seeking to express itself ever more and more perfectly,
+becomes that fine touch of sym<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>pathy which is artistic skill, whether
+applied in working upon material substances or upon the emotions of the
+heart. But, remember, first Use, then Beauty, and neither complete
+without the other. Use without Beauty is ungracious giving, and Beauty
+without Use is humbug; never forgetting, however, that there is a region
+of the mind where the use is found in the beauty, where Beauty itself
+serves the direct purpose of raising us to see a higher ideal which will
+thenceforward permeate our lives, giving a more living quality to all we
+think and say and do.</p>
+
+<p>Seen thus the Beautiful is the true expression of the Good. From
+whichever end of the scale we look we shall find that they accurately
+measure each other. They are the same thing in the outermost and the
+innermost respectively. But in our search for a higher Beauty than we
+have yet found we must beware of missing the Beauty that already exists.
+Perfect harmony with its environment, and perfect expression of its own
+inward nature are what constitute Beauty; and our ignorance of the
+nature of the thing or its environment may shut our eyes to the Beauty
+it already has. It takes the genius of a Millet to paint, or a Whitman
+in words, to show us the beauty of those ordinary work-a-day figures
+with which our world is for the most part peopled, whose originals we
+pass by as having no form or comeliness. Assuredly the mission of every
+thinking man and woman is to help build up forms of greater beauty,
+spiritual, intellectual, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>material, everywhere; but if we would make
+something grander than Watteau gardens or Dresden china shepherdesses,
+we must enter the great realistic school of Nature and learn to
+recognise the beauty that already surrounds us, although it may have a
+little dirt on the surface. Then, when we have learnt the great
+principles of Beauty from the All-Spirit which is it, we shall know how
+to develop the Beauty on its own proper lines without perpetuating the
+dirt; and we shall know that all Beauty is the expression of Living
+Power, and that we can measure our power by the degree of beauty into
+which we can transform it, rendering our lives,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"By loveliness of perfect deeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More strong than all poetic thought."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Separation and Unity</span></h2>
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<p>"The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me" (John xiv,
+30). In these words the Grand Master of Divine Science gives us the key
+to the Great Knowledge. Comparison with other passages shows that the
+terms here rendered "prince" and "world" can equally be rendered
+"principle" and "age." Jesus is here speaking of a principle of the
+present age so entirely opposed to that principle of which he himself
+was the visible expression, as to have no part in him. It is the utter
+contradiction of everything that Jesus came to teach and to exemplify.
+The account Jesus gave of himself was that he came "to bear witness to
+the Truth," and in order that men "might have life, and that they might
+have it more abundantly"; consequently the principle to which he refers
+must be the exact opposite of Truth and Life&mdash;that is, it must be the
+principle of Falsehood and Death.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, is this false and destructive principle which rules the
+present age? If we consider the gist <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>of the entire discourse of which
+these are the concluding words, we shall find that the central idea
+which Jesus has been most strenuously endeavouring to impress upon his
+disciples at their last meeting before the crucifixion, is that of the
+absolute identity and out-and-out oneness of "the Father" and "the Son,"
+the principle of the perfect unity of God and Man. If this, then, was
+the great Truth which he was thus earnestly solicitous to impress upon
+his disciples' minds when his bodily presence was so shortly to be
+removed from them&mdash;the Truth of Unity&mdash;may we not reasonably infer the
+opposing falsehood to be the assertion of separateness, the assertion
+that God and man are not one? The idea of separateness is precisely the
+principle on which the world has proceeded from that day to this&mdash;the
+assumption that God and man are not one in being, and that the matter is
+of a different essence from spirit. In other words, the principle that
+finds favour with the intellectuality of the present age is that of
+duality&mdash;the idea of two powers and two substances opposite in kind,
+and, therefore, repugnant to each other, permeating all things, and so
+leaving no wholeness anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The entire object of the Bible is to combat the idea, of two opposing
+forces in the world. The good news is said to be that of
+"reconciliation" (2 Cor. v. 18), where also we are told that "all things
+are from God," hence leaving no room for any other power or any other
+substance; and the great falsehood, which it is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>the purpose of the Good
+News to expose, is everywhere in the Bible proclaimed to be the
+suggestion of duality, which is some other mode of Life, that is not the
+One Life, but something separate from it&mdash;an idea which it is impossible
+to state distinctly without involving a contradiction in terms.
+Everywhere the Bible exposes the fiction of the duality of separation as
+the great lie, but nowhere in so emphatic and concentrated a manner as
+in that wonderful passage of Revelations where it is figured in the
+mysterious Number of the Beast. "He that hath understanding let him
+count the number of the Beast ... and his number is six hundred and sixty
+and six" (Rev. xiii, 18, R.V.). Let me point out the great principle
+expressed in this mysterious number. It has other more particular
+applications, but this one general principle underlies them all.</p>
+
+<p>It is an established maxim that every unity contains in itself a
+trinity, just as the individual man consists of body, soul, and spirit.
+If we would perfectly understand anything, we must be able to comprehend
+it in its threefold nature; therefore in symbolic numeration the
+multiplying of the unit by three implies the completeness of that for
+which the unit stands; and, again, the threefold repetition of a number
+represents its extension to infinity. Now mark what results if we apply
+these representative methods of numerical expression to the principles
+of Oneness and of separateness respectively. Oneness is Unity, and
+1&nbsp;&times;&nbsp;3&nbsp;=&nbsp;3, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>which, intensified to its highest expression, is written as 333.
+Now apply the same method to the idea of separateness. Separateness
+consists of one and another one, each of which, according to the
+universal law, contains a trinity. In this view of duality the totality
+of things is two, and 2&nbsp;&times;&nbsp;3&nbsp;=&nbsp;6, and, intensifying this to its highest
+expression, we get 666, which is the Number of the Beast.</p>
+
+<p>Why of the Beast? Because separateness from God, or the duality of
+opposition, which is also a duality of polarity, which is Dual-Unity,
+recognises something as having essential being, which is not the One
+Spirit; and such a conception can be verbally rendered only by some word
+that in common acceptance represents something, not only lower than the
+divine, but lower than the human also. It is because the conception of
+oneself as a being apart from God, if carried out to its legitimate
+consequences, must ultimately land all who hold it in a condition of
+things where open ferocity or secret cunning, the tiger nature or the
+serpent nature, can be the only possible rule of action.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is that the principle of the present age can have no part in
+that principle of Perfect Wholeness which the Great Master embodied in
+His teaching and in Himself. The two ideas are absolutely incompatible,
+and whichever we adopt as our leading principle, it must be to the
+entire exclusion of the other; we cannot serve God and Mammon. There is
+no such thing as partial wholeness. Either we are still in the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>principle of Separateness, and our eyes are not yet open to the real
+nature of the Kingdom of Heaven; or else we have grasped the principle
+of Unity without any exception anywhere, and the One Being includes all,
+the body and the soul alike, the visible form and the invisible
+substance and life of all equally; nothing can be left out, and we stand
+complete here and now, lacking no faculty, but requiring only to become
+conscious of our own powers, and to learn to have confidence in them
+through "having them exercised by reason of use."</p>
+
+<p>The following communication from "A Foreign Reader," commenting on the
+Number of the Beast, as treated by Judge Troward in "Separation and
+Unity," is taken from <i>EXPRESSION</i> for 1902, in which it was first
+published. Following is Judge Troward's reply to this letter.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear Mr. Editor.&mdash;A correspondent in the current number of
+<i>Expression</i> points out the reference in the Book of
+Revelation to the number 666 as the mark of the Beast,
+because the trinity of mind, soul, and body, if considered as
+unity, may be expressed by the figures 333, and therefore
+duality is 333&nbsp;&times;&nbsp;2&nbsp;=&nbsp;666.</p>
+
+<p>I think the inverse of the proposition is still more
+startling, and I should like to point it out. Instead of
+multiplying let us try dividing. First of all take unity as
+the unit one and divide by three (representing of course the
+same formula, viz., mind, soul and body). Expressed by a
+common fraction it is merely <sup>1</sup>/<sub>3</sub>, which is an incomplete
+mathematical figure. But take the deci<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>mal formula of one
+divided by three, and we arrive at .3 circulating, i. e.,
+.3333 on to infinity. In other words, the result of the
+proposition by mathematics is that you divide this formula of
+spirit, soul, and body into unity, and it remains true to
+itself ad infinitum.</p>
+
+<p>Now we come to consider it as a duality in the same way.
+Expressed as a vulgar fraction it is <sup>2</sup>/<sub>3</sub>; but as a decimal
+fraction it is .6666 ad infinitum. I think this is worth
+noting.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+Yours very faithfully,<br />
+A Foreign Reader.</p>
+
+<p>Brussels, Aug. 14, 1902.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear Editor.&mdash;I return with many thanks the very interesting
+letter received with yours, and I am very glad that my
+article should have been instrumental in drawing forth this
+further light on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>This, moreover, affords an excellent illustration of one
+great principle of Unity, which is that the Unity repeats
+itself in every one of its parts, so that each part taken
+separately is an exact reproduction (in principles) of the
+greater Unity of which it is a portion. Therefore, if you
+take the individual man as your unit (which is what I did),
+and proceed by multiplication, you get the results which were
+pointed out in my article. And conversely, if you take the
+Great Unity of All-Being as your unit, and proceed by
+division, you arrive at the result shown by your foreign
+correspondent. The principle is a purely mathematical one,
+and is extremely interesting in the present application as
+showing the existence of a system of concealed mathematics
+running through the whole Bible. This bears out what I said
+in my article that there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>were other applications of the
+principle in question, though this one did not at the time
+occur to me.</p>
+
+<p>I am much indebted to your correspondent for the further
+proof thus given of the correctness of my interpretation of
+the Number of the Beast. Both our interpretations support
+each other, for they are merely different ways of stating the
+same thing, and they have this advantage over those generally
+given, that they do not refer to any particular form of evil,
+but express a general principle applicable to all alike.</p>
+
+<p class="quotsig">
+Yours sincerely,<br />
+T.</p>
+<p>London, Aug. 30, 1902.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<p>It may perhaps emphasize my point if I remind my readers that it was the
+conflict between the principles of Unity and separation that led to the
+crucifixion of Jesus. We must distinguish between the charge which
+really led to his death, and the merely technical charge on which he was
+sentenced by the Roman Governor. The latter&mdash;the charge of opposition to
+the royal authority of C&aelig;sar&mdash;has its significance; but it is clear from
+the Bible record that this was merely formal, the true cause of
+conviction being contained in the statement that of the chief priests:
+"We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself
+the Son of God."</p>
+
+<p>The antagonism of the two principles of Unity and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>separation had first
+been openly manifested on the occasion when Jesus made the memorable
+declaration, "I and my Father are one." The Jews took up stones to stone
+him. Then said Jesus unto them, "Many good works have I shown you from
+my Father; for which of those works do ye stone Me?" The Jews replied,
+"For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that
+thou, being a man, makest thyself God." Jesus said, "Is it not written
+in your law, I said ye are gods? If He called them gods, unto whom the
+Word of God came (and the Scriptures cannot be broken), say ye of him,
+whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou
+blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" Here we have the
+first open passage of arms between the two opposing principles which led
+to the scene of Calvary as the final testimony of Jesus to the principle
+of Unity. He died because he maintained the Truth; that he was one with
+the Father. That was the substantive charge on which he was executed.
+"Art thou the son of the Blessed?" he was asked by the priestly
+tribunal; and the answer came clear and unequivocal, "I am." Then said
+the Council, "He hath spoken blasphemy, what further need have we of
+witnesses?" And they all condemned him to be worthy of death.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus did not enter into a palpably useless argument with judges whose
+minds were so rooted in the idea of dualism as to be impervious to any
+other conception; but with a mixed multitude, who were not officially
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>committed to a system, the case was different. Among them there might
+be some still open to conviction, and the appeal was, therefore, made to
+a passage in the Psalms with which they were all familiar, pointing out
+that the very persons to whom the Divine word was addressed were styled
+"gods" by the Divine Speaker Himself. The incontrovertibleness of the
+fact was emphasised by the stress laid upon it as "Scripture which
+cannot be broken;" and the meaning to be assigned to the statement was
+rendered clear by the argument which Jesus deduced from it. He says in
+effect, "You would stone me as a blasphemer for saying of myself what
+your own Scriptures say concerning each of you." The claim of unity with
+"the Father," he urges, was no unique one, but one which the Scripture,
+rightly understood, entitled every one of his hearers to make for
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>And so we find throughout that Jesus nowhere makes any claim for himself
+which he does not also make for those who accept his teaching. Does he
+say to the Jews, "Ye are of this world; I am not of this world?" Equally
+he says of his disciples, "They are not of the world, even as I am not
+of the world." Does he say, "I am the light of the world?" Equally, he
+says, "Ye are the light of the world." Does he say, "I and my Father are
+one?" Equally he prays that they all might be one, even as we are one.
+Is he styled "the Son of God?" Then St. John writes, "To them gave he
+power to become sons of God, even to as many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>as believe on his name;"
+and by belief on the name we may surely understand belief in the
+principle of which the name is the verbal representation.</p>
+
+<p>The essential unity of God and man is thus the one fact which permeates
+the whole teaching of Jesus. He himself stood forth as its living
+expression. He appealed to his miracles as the proofs of it: "it is the
+Father that doeth the works." It formed the substance of his final
+discourse with his disciples in the night that he was betrayed. It is
+the Truth, to bear witness to which, he told Pilate, was the purpose of
+his life. In support of this Truth he died, and by the living power of
+this Truth he rose again. The whole object of his mission was to teach
+men to realise their unity with God and the consequences that must
+necessarily follow from it; to draw them away from that notion of
+dualism which puts an impassable barrier between God and man, and thus
+renders any true conception of the Principle of Life impossible; and to
+draw them into the clear perception of the innermost nature of Life, as
+consisting in the inherent identity of each individual with that
+Infinite all-pervading Spirit of Life which he called "the Father."</p>
+
+<p>"The branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine;" the power of
+bearing fruit, of producing and of giving forth, depends entirely on the
+fact that the individual is, and always continues to be, as much an
+organic part of Universal Spirit as the fruit-bearing branch is an
+organic part of the parent stem. Lose this idea, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>and regard God as a
+merely external Creator who may indeed command us, or even sometimes be
+moved by our cries and entreaties, and we have lost the root of
+Livingness and with it all possibility of growth or of liberty. This is
+dualism, which cuts us off from our Source of Life; and so long as we
+take this false conception for the true law of Being, we shall find
+ourselves hampered by limitations and insoluble problems of every
+description: We have lost the Key of Life and are consequently unable to
+open the door.</p>
+
+<p>But in proportion as we abide in the vine, that is, consciously realise
+our perpetual unity with Originating Spirit, and impress upon ourselves
+that this unity is neither bestowed as the reward of merit, nor as an
+act of favour&mdash;which would be to deny the Unity, for the bestowal would
+at once imply dualism&mdash;but dwell on the truth that it is the innermost
+and supreme principle of our own nature; in proportion as we consciously
+realise this, we shall rise to greater and greater certainty of
+knowledge, resulting in more and more perfect externalisation, whose
+increasing splendour can know no limits; for it is the continual
+outflowing of the exhaustless Spirit of Life in that manifestation of
+itself which is our own individuality.</p>
+
+<p>The notion of dualism is the veil which prevents men seeing this, and
+causes them to wander blindfolded among the mazes of endless perplexity;
+but, as St. Paul truly says, when this veil is taken away we shall find
+ourselves changed from glory to glory as by the Lord <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>the Spirit. "His
+name shall be called Immanuel," that is "God <i>in</i> us," not a separate
+being from ourselves. Let us remember that Jesus was condemned by the
+principle of separation because he himself was the externalisation of
+the principle of Unity, and that, in adhering to the principle of Unity
+we are adhering to the only possible root of Life, and are maintaining
+the Truth for which Jesus died.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Externalisation</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>Who would not be happy in himself and his conditions? That is what we
+all desire&mdash;more fulness of life, a greater and brighter vitality in
+ourselves, and less restriction in our surroundings. And we are told
+that the talisman by which this can be accomplished is Thought. We are
+told, Change your modes of thought, and the changed conditions will
+follow. But many seekers feel that this is very much like telling us to
+catch birds by putting salt on their tails. If we can put the salt on
+the bird's tail, we can also lay our hand on the bird. If we can change
+our thinking, we can thereby change our circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>But how are we to bring about this change of cause which will in its
+turn produce this changed effect? This is the practical question that
+perplexes many earnest seekers. They can see their way clearly enough
+through the whole sequence of cause and effect resulting in the
+externalisation of the desired results, if only the one initial
+difficulty could be got over. The difficulty is a real one, and until it
+is overcome it vitiates all the teaching and reduces it to a mere paper
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>theory. Therefore it is to this point that the attention of students
+should be particularly directed. They feel the need of some solid basis
+from which the change of thought can be effected, and until they find
+this the theory of Divine Science, however perfect in itself, will
+remain for them nothing more than a mere theory, producing no practical
+results.</p>
+
+<p>The necessary scientific basis exists, however, and is extremely simple
+and reasonable, if we will take the pains to think it out carefully for
+ourselves. Unless we are prepared to support the thesis that the Power
+which created the universe is inherently evil, or that the universe is
+the work of two opposite and equal powers, one evil and the other
+good&mdash;both of which propositions are demonstrably false&mdash;we have no
+alternative but to say that the Originating Source of all must be
+inherently good. It cannot be partly good and partly evil, for that
+would be to set it against itself and make it self-destructive;
+therefore it must be good altogether. But once grant this initial
+proposition and we cut away the root of all evil. For how can evil
+proceed from an All-originating Source which is good altogether, and in
+which, therefore, no germ for the development of evil is to be found?
+Good cannot be the origin of evil; and since nothing can proceed except
+from the one Originating Mind, which is only good, the true nature of
+all things must be that which they have received from their
+Source&mdash;namely, good.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it follows that evil is not the true nature of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>anything, and that
+evil must have its rise in something external to the true nature of
+things. And since evil is not in the true nature of the things
+themselves, nor yet in the Universal Mind which is the Originating
+Principle, there remains only one place for it to spring from, and that
+is our own personal thought. First we suppose evil to be as inherent in
+the nature of things as good&mdash;a supposition which we could not make if
+we stopped to consider the necessary nature of the Originating
+Principle. Then, on this entirely gratuitous supposition, we proceed to
+build up a fabric of fears, which, of course, follow logically from it;
+and so we nourish and give substance to the Negative, or that which has
+no substantial existence except such as we attribute to it, until we
+come to regard it as having Affirmative power of its own, and so set up
+a false idea of Being&mdash;the product of our own minds&mdash;to dispute the
+claims of true Being to the sovereignty of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>Once assume the existence of two rival powers&mdash;one good and the other
+evil&mdash;in the direction of the universe, and any sense of harmony becomes
+impossible; the whole course of Nature is thrown out of gear, and,
+whether for ourselves or for the world at large, there remains no ground
+of certainty anywhere. And this is precisely the condition in which the
+majority of people live. They are surrounded by infinite uncertainty
+about everything, and are consequently a prey to continual fears and
+anxieties; and the only way <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>of escape from this state of things is to
+go to the root of the matter, and realise that the whole fabric of evil
+originates in our own inverted conception of the nature of Being.</p>
+
+<p>But if we once realise that the true conception of Being necessarily
+excludes the very idea of evil, we shall see that, in giving way to
+thoughts and fears of evil, we are giving substance to that which has no
+real substance in itself, and are attributing to the Negative an
+Affirmative force which it does not possess&mdash;in fact, we are creating
+the very thing we fear. And the remedy for this is always to recur to
+the original nature of Being as altogether Good, and then to speak to
+ourselves thus: "My thought must continually externalise something, for
+that is its inherent quality, which nothing can ever alter. Shall I,
+then, externalise God or the opposite of God? Which do I wish to see
+manifested in my life&mdash;Good or its opposite? Shall I manifest what I
+know to be the reality or the reverse?" Then comes the steady resolve
+always to manifest God, or Good, because that is the only true reality
+in all things; and this resolve is with power because it is founded upon
+the solid rock of Truth.</p>
+
+<p>We must refuse to know evil; we must refuse to admit that there is any
+such thing to be known. It is the converse of this which is symbolised
+in the story of the Fall. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou
+shalt surely die" was never spoken of the knowledge <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>of Good, for Good
+never brought death into the world. It is eating the fruit of the tree
+of a so-called knowledge which admits a second branch, the knowledge of
+evil, that is the source of death. Admit that evil has a substantive
+entity, which renders it a subject of knowledge, and you thereby create
+it, with all its consequences of sorrow, sickness and death. But "be
+sure that the Lord He is God"&mdash;that is, that the one and Only Ruling
+Principle of the universe, whether within us or around us, is Good and
+Good only&mdash;and evil with all its train sinks back into its original
+nothingness, and we find that the Truth has made us free. We are free to
+externalise what we will, whether in ourselves or our surroundings, for
+we have found the solid basis on which to make the needed change of
+mental attitude in the fact that the Good is the only reality of Being.</p>
+
+<p>1902.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Entering into the Spirit of It</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>"Entering into the spirit of it." What a common expression! And yet how
+much it really means, how absolutely everything! We enter into the
+spirit of an undertaking, into the spirit of a movement, into the spirit
+of an author, even into the spirit of a game; and it makes all the
+difference both to us and to that into which we enter. A game without
+any spirit is a poor affair; and association in which there is no spirit
+falls to pieces; and a spiritless undertaking is sure to be a failure.
+On the other hand, the book which is meaningless to the unsympathising
+reader is full of life and suggestion to the one who enters into the
+spirit of the writer; the man who enters into the spirit of the music
+finds a spring of refreshment in some fine recital which is entirely
+missed by the cold critic who comes only to judge according to the
+standard of a rigid rule; and so on in every case that we can think of.
+If we do not enter the spirit of a thing, it has no invigorating effect
+upon us, and we regard it as dull, insipid and worthless. This is our
+everyday experience, and these are the words in which we express it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+And the words are well chosen. They show our intuitive recognition of
+the spirit as the fundamental reality in everything, however small or
+however great. Let us be right as to the spirit of a thing, and
+everything else will successfully follow.</p>
+
+<p>By entering into the spirit of anything we establish a mutual vivifying
+action and reaction between it and ourselves; we vivify it with our own
+vitality, and it vivifies us with a living interest which we call its
+spirit; and therefore the more fully we enter into the spirit of all
+with which we are concerned, the more thoroughly do we become <i>alive</i>.
+The more completely we do this the more we shall find that we are
+penetrating into the great secret of Life. It may seem a truism, but the
+great secret of Life is its Livingness, and it is just more of this
+quality of Livingness that we want to get hold of; it is that good thing
+of which we can never have too much.</p>
+
+<p>But every fact implies also its negative, and we never properly
+understand a thing until we not only know what it is, but also clearly
+understand what it is not. To a complete understanding the knowledge of
+the negative is as necessary as the knowledge of the affirmative; for
+the perfect knowledge consists in realising the relation between the
+two, and the perfect power grows out of this knowledge by enabling us to
+balance the affirmative and negative against each other in any
+proportion that we will, thus giving flexibility to what would otherwise
+be too rigid, and form to what would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>otherwise be too fluid; and so, by
+uniting these two extremes, to produce any result we may desire. It is
+the old Hermetic saying, "<i>Coagula et solve</i>"&mdash;"Solidify the fluid and
+dissolve the solid"; and therefore, if we would discover the secret of
+"entering into the spirit of it," we must get some idea of the negative,
+which is the "not-spirit."</p>
+
+<p>In various ages this negative phase has been expressed in different
+forms of words suitable to the spirit of the time; and so, clothing this
+idea in the attire of the present day, I will sum up the opposite of
+Spirit in the word "Mechanism." Before all things this is a mechanical
+age, and it is astonishing how great a part of what we call our social
+advance has its root in the mechanical arts. Reduce the mechanical arts
+to what they were in the days of the Plantagenets and the greater part
+of our boasted civilisation would recede through the centuries along
+with them. We may not be conscious of all this, but the mechanical
+tendency of the age has a firm grip upon society at large. We habitually
+look at the mechanical side of things by preference to any other.
+Everything is done mechanically, from the carving on a piece of
+furniture to the arrangement of the social system. It is the mechanism
+that must be considered first, and the spirit has to be fitted to the
+mechanical exigencies. We enter into the mechanism of it instead of into
+the Spirit of it, and so limit the Spirit and refuse to let it have its
+own way; and then, as a consequence, we get entirely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>mechanical action,
+and complete our circle of ignorance by supposing that this is the only
+sort of action there is.</p>
+
+<p>Yet this is not a necessary state of things even in regard to "physical
+science," for the men who have made the greatest advances in that
+direction are those who have most clearly seen the subordination of the
+mechanical to the spiritual. The man who can recognise a natural law
+only as it operates through certain forms of mechanism with which he is
+familiar will never rise to the construction of the higher forms of
+mechanism which might be built up upon that law, for he fails to see
+that it is the law which determines the mechanism and not vice versa.
+This man will make no advance in science, either theoretical or applied,
+and the world will never owe any debt of gratitude to him. But the man
+who recognises that the mechanism for the application of any principle
+grows out of the true apprehension of the principle studies the
+principle first, knowing that when <i>that</i> is properly grasped it will
+necessarily suggest all that is wanted for bringing it into practical
+use.</p>
+
+<p>And if this is true in regard to so-called physical science, it is <i>a
+fortiori</i> true as regards the Science of Spirit. There is a mechanical
+attitude of mind which judges everything by the limitations of past
+experiences, allowing nothing for the fact that those experiences were
+for the most part the results of our ignorance of spiritual law. But if
+we realise the true law <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>of Being we shall rise above these mechanical
+conceptions. We shall not deny the reality of the body or of the
+physical world as facts, knowing that they also are Spirit, but we shall
+learn to deny their power as causes. We shall learn to distinguish
+between the <i>causa causta</i> and the <i>causa causans</i>, the secondary or
+apparent physical cause and the primary or spiritual cause, without
+which the secondary cause could not exist; and so we shall get a new
+standpoint of clear knowledge and certain power by stepping over the
+threshold of the mechanical and entering into the spirit of it.</p>
+
+<p>What we have to do is to maintain our even balance between the two
+extremes, denying neither Spirit nor the mechanism which is its form and
+through which it works. The one is as necessary to a perfect whole as
+the other, for there must be an <i>outside</i> as well as an <i>inside</i>; only
+we must remember that the creative principle is always <i>inside</i>, and
+that the outside only exhibits what the inside creates. Hence, whatever
+external effect we would produce, we must first enter into the spirit of
+it and work upon the spiritual principle, whether in ourselves or
+others; and by so doing our insight will become greatly enlarged, for
+from without we can see only one small portion of the circumference,
+while from the centre we can see the whole of it. If we fully grasp the
+truth that Spirit is Creator, we can dispense with painful
+investigations into the mechanical side of all our problems. If we are
+constructing from without, then we have to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>calculate anxiously the
+strength of our materials and the force of every thrust and strain to
+which they may be subjected, and very possibly after all we may find
+that we have made a mistake somewhere in our elaborate calculations. But
+if we realise the power of creating from within, we shall find all these
+calculations correctly made for us; for the same Spirit which is Creator
+is also that which the Bible calls "the Wonderful Numberer."
+Construction from without is based upon analysis, and no analysis is
+complete without accurate quantitative knowledge; but creation is the
+very opposite of analysis, and carries its own mathematics with it.</p>
+
+<p>To enter into the spirit of anything, then, is to make yourself one in
+thought with the creative principle that is at the centre of it; and
+therefore why not go to the centre of all things at once, and enter into
+the Spirit of Life? Do you ask where to find it? <i>In yourself</i>; and in
+proportion as you find it there, you will find it everywhere else.
+Look at Life as the one thing that is, whether in you or around you; try
+to realise the livingness of it, and then seek to enter into the Spirit
+of it by affirming it to be the whole of what you are. Affirm this
+continually in your thoughts, and by degrees the affirmation will grow
+into a real living force within you, so that it will become a second
+nature to you, and you will find it impossible and unnatural to think in
+any other way; and the nearer you approach this point the greater you
+will find your control over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>both body and circumstances, until at last
+you shall so enter into the Spirit of it&mdash;into the Spirit of the Divine
+creative power which is the root of all things&mdash;that, in the words of
+Jesus, "nothing shall be impossible to you," because you have so entered
+into the Spirit of it that you discover yourself to be <i>one with it</i>.
+Then all the old limitations will have passed away, and you will be
+living in an entirely new world of Life, Liberty and Love, of which you
+yourself are the radiating centre. You will realise the truth that your
+Thought is a limitless creative power, and that you yourself are behind
+your Thought, controlling and directing it with Knowledge for any
+purpose which Love motives and Wisdom plans. Thus you will cease from
+your labours, your struggles and anxieties, and enter into that new
+order where perfect rest is one with ceaseless activity.</p>
+
+<p>1902.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">The Bible and the New Thought</span></h2>
+
+
+<h3><a name="SON" id="SON"></a>I<br />
+
+<i>The Son</i></h3>
+
+<p>A deeply interesting subject to the student of the New Thought movement
+is to trace how exactly its teaching is endorsed by the teaching of the
+Bible. There is no such thing as new thought in the sense of new Truth,
+for what is truth now must have been truth always; but there is such a
+thing as a new presentment of the old Truth, and it is in this that the
+newness of the present movement consists. But the same Truth has been
+repeatedly stated in earlier ages under various forms and in various
+measures of completeness, and nowhere more completely than in the
+Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. None of the older forms of
+statement is more familiarly known to our readers than that contained in
+the Bible, and no other is entwined around our hearts with the same
+sacred and tender associations: therefore, I have no hesitation in
+saying that the existence of a marked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>correspondence between its
+teaching and that of the New Thought cannot but be a source of strength
+and encouragement to any of us who have been accustomed in the past to
+look to the old and hallowed Book as a storehouse of Divine wisdom. We
+shall find that the clearer light will make the rough places smooth and
+the dim places luminous, and that of the treasures of knowledge hidden
+in the ancient volume the half has not been told us.</p>
+
+<p>The Bible lays emphatic stress upon "the glorious liberty of the sons of
+God," thus uniting in a single phrase the twofold idea of filial
+dependence and personal liberty. A careful study of the subject will
+show us that there is no opposition between these two ideas, but that
+they are necessary correlatives to each other, and that whether stated
+after the more concentrated method of the Bible, or after the more
+detailed method of the New Thought, the true teaching proclaims, not our
+independence of God, but our independence in God.</p>
+
+<p>Such an enquiry naturally centres in an especial manner around the
+sayings of Jesus; for whatever may be our opinions as to the nature of
+the authority with which he spoke, we must all agree that a peculiar
+weight attaches to those utterances which have come down to us as the
+<i>ipsissima verba</i> from which the entire New Testament has been
+developed; and if an identity of conception in the New Thought movement
+can be traced here at the fountain-head, we may expect to find it in the
+lower streams also.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Key to the Master's teaching is to be found in his discourse with
+the Woman of Samaria, and it is contained in the statement that "the
+Father" is Spirit, that is, Spirit in the absolute and unqualified sense
+of the word, as appears from the original Greek, and not "A Spirit" as
+it is rendered in the Authorised Version: and then as the natural
+correlative to "the Father" we find another term employed, "the Son."
+The relation between these two forms the great subject of Jesus'
+teaching, and, therefore, it is most important to have some definite
+idea of what he meant by these terms if we would understand what it was
+that he really taught.</p>
+
+<p>Now if "the Father" be Spirit, "the Son" must be Spirit also; for a son
+must necessarily be of the same nature as his father. But since "the
+Father" is Spirit, Absolute and Universal, it is evident that "the Son"
+cannot be Spirit, Absolute and Universal, because there cannot be two
+Universal Spirits, for then neither would be universal. We may,
+therefore, logically infer that because "the Father" is Universal
+Spirit, "the Son" is Spirit not universal; and the only definition of
+Spirit not-universal is Spirit individualised and particular. The
+Scripture tells us that "the Spirit is Life," and taking this as the
+definition of "Spirit," we find that "the Father" is Absolute,
+Originating, Undifferentiated Life, and "the Son" is the same Life
+differentiated into particular forms. Hence, in the widest sense of the
+expression, "the Son" stands for the whole <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>creation, visible or
+invisible, and in this sense it is the mere differentiation of the
+universal Life into a multiplicity of particular modes. But if we have
+any adequate idea of the intelligent and responsive nature of
+Spirit<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>&mdash;if we realise that because it is Pure Being it must be
+Infinite Intelligence and Infinite Responsiveness&mdash;then we shall see
+that its reproduction in the particular admits of innumerable degrees,
+from mere expression as outward form up to the very fullest expression
+of the infinite intelligence and responsiveness that Spirit is.</p>
+
+
+<p>The teachings of Jesus were addressed to the hearts and intelligences of
+men, and therefore the grade of sonship of which he spoke has reference
+to the expression of Infinite Being in the human heart and intellect.
+But this, again, may be conceived of in infinite degrees; in some men
+there is the bare potentiality of sonship entirely undeveloped as yet,
+in others the beginnings of its development, in others a fuller
+development, and so on, until we can suppose some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>supreme instance in
+which the absolutely perfect reproduction of the universal has been
+attained. Each of these stages constitutes a fuller and fuller
+expression of sonship, until the supreme development reaches a point at
+which it can be described only as the perfect image of "the Father"; and
+this is the logical result of a process of steady growth from an inward
+principle of Life which constitutes the identity of each individual.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus a necessary inference from Jesus' own explanation of "the
+Father" as Spirit or Infinite Being that "the Son" is the Scriptural
+phrase for the reproduction of Infinite Being in the individual,
+contemplated in that stage at which the individual does in some measure
+begin to recognise his identity with his originating source, or, at any
+rate, where he has capacity for such a recognition, even though the
+actual recognition may not yet have taken place. It is very remarkable
+that, thus defining "the Son" on the direct statement of Jesus himself,
+we arrive exactly at the definition of Spirit as "that power which knows
+itself." In the capacity for thus recognising its identity of nature
+with "the Father" is it that the potential fact of sonship consists, for
+the prodigal son was still a son even before he began to realise his
+relation to his "Father" in actual fact. It is the dawning of this
+recognition that constitutes the spiritual "babe," or infant son; and by
+degrees this consciousness grows till he attains the full estate of
+spiritual manhood. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>recognition by the individual of his own
+identity with Universal Spirit is precisely what forms the basis of the
+New Thought; and thus at the outset the two systems radiate from a
+common centre.</p>
+
+<p>But I suppose the feature of the New Thought which is the greatest
+stumbling-block to those who view the movement from the outside is the
+claim it makes for Thought-power as an active factor in the affairs of
+daily life. As a mere set of speculative opinions people might be
+willing to pigeon-hole it along with the philosophic systems of Kant or
+Hegel; but it is the practical element in it which causes the
+difficulty. It is not only a system of Thought based upon a conception
+of the Unity of Being, but it claims to follow out this conception to
+its legitimate consequences in the production of visible and tangible
+external results by the mere exercise of Thought-power. A ridiculous
+claim, a claim not to be tolerated by common sense, a trespassing upon
+the Divine prerogative, a claim of unparalleled audacity: thus the
+casual objector. But this claim is not without its parallel, for the
+same claim was put forward on the same ground by the Great Teacher
+Himself as the proper result of "the Son's" recognition of his relation
+to "the Father." "Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you";
+"Whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive, and
+nothing shall be impossible unto you"; "All things are possible to him
+that believeth." These statements are absolutely without any note of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>limitation save that imposed by the seeker's want of faith in his own
+power to move the Infinite. This is as clear a declaration of the
+efficacy of mental power to produce outward and tangible results as any
+now made by the New Thought, and it is made on precisely the same
+ground, namely, the readiness of "the Father" or Spirit in the Universal
+to respond to the movement of Spirit in the individual.</p>
+
+<p>In the Bible this movement of individualised Spirit is called "prayer,"
+and it is synonymous with Thought, formulated with the intention of
+producing this response.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Prayer is the heart's sincere desire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Uttered or unexpressed,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and we must not let ourselves be misled by the association of particular
+forms with particular words, but should follow the sound advice of
+Oliver Wendell Holmes, and submit such words to a process of
+depolarisation, which brings out their real meaning. Whether we call our
+act "prayer" or "thought-concentration," we mean the same thing; it is
+the claim of the man to move the Infinite by the action of his own mind.</p>
+
+<p>It may be objected, however, that this definition omits an important
+element of prayer, the question, namely, whether God will hear it. But
+this is the very element that Jesus most rigorously excludes from his
+description of the mental act. Prayer, according to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>the popular notion,
+is a most uncertain matter. Whether we shall be heard or not depends
+entirely upon another will, regarding whose action we are completely
+ignorant, and therefore, according to this notion, the very essence of
+prayer consists of utter uncertainty. Jesus' conception of prayer was
+the very opposite. He bids us believe that we have already in fact
+received what we ask for, and makes this the condition of receiving; in
+other words, he makes the essential factor in the mental action to
+consist in Absolute Certainty as to the corresponding response in the
+Infinite, which is exactly the condition that the New Thought lays down
+for the successful operation of Thought-power.</p>
+
+<p>It may, however, be objected that if men have thus an indiscriminate
+power of projecting their thought to the accomplishment of anything they
+desire, they can do so for evil as easily as for good. But Jesus fully
+recognised this possibility, and worked the only destructive miracle
+recorded of him for the express purpose of emphasising the danger. The
+reason given by the compilers of the Gospel for the destruction of the
+fig-tree is clearly inadequate, for we certainly cannot suppose Jesus so
+unreasonable as to curse a tree for not bearing fruit out of season. But
+the record itself shows a very different purpose. Jesus answered the
+disciples' astonished questioning by telling them that it was in their
+own power, not only to do what was done to the fig-tree, but to produce
+effects upon a far grander scale; and he concludes the conversation by
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>laying down the duty of a heart-searching forgiveness as a necessary
+preliminary to prayer. Why was this precept so particularly impressed in
+this particular connection? Obviously because the demonstration he had
+just given of the valency of thought-power in the hands of instructed
+persons laid bare the fact that this power can be used destructively as
+well as beneficially, and that, therefore, a thorough heart-searching
+for the eradication of any lurking ill-feeling became an imperative
+preliminary to its safe use; otherwise there was danger of noxious
+thought-currents being set in motion to the injury of others. The
+miracle of the fig-tree was an object-lesson to exhibit the need for the
+careful handling of that limitless power which Jesus assured his
+disciples existed as fully in them as in himself. I do not here attempt
+to go into this subject in detail, but enough has, I think, been shown
+to convince us that Jesus made exactly the same claim for the power of
+Thought as that made by the New Thought movement at the present day. It
+is a great claim, and it is, therefore, encouraging to find such an
+authority committed to the same assertion.</p>
+
+<p>The general principle on which this claim is based by the exponents of
+the New Thought is the identity of Spirit in the individual with spirit
+in the universal, and we shall find that this, also, is the basis of
+Jesus' teaching on the subject. He says that "the Son can do nothing of
+himself, but what he seeth the Father do these things doeth the Son in
+like manner." It must <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>now be sufficiently clear that "the Son" is a
+generic appellation, not restricted to a particular individual, but
+applicable to all; and this statement explains the manner of "the Son's"
+working in relation to "the Father." The point this sentence
+particularly emphasises is that it is what he sees the Father doing that
+the Son does also. His doing corresponds to his seeing. If the seeing
+expands, the doing expands along with it. But we are all sufficiently
+familiar with this principle in other matters. What differentiates an
+Edison or a Marconi from the apprentice who knows only how to fit up an
+electric bell by rule of thumb? It is their capacity for seeing the
+universal principles of electricity and bringing them into particular
+application. The great painter is the one who sees the universal
+principles of form and colour where the smaller man sees only a
+particular combination; and so with the great surgeon, the great
+chemist, the great lawyer&mdash;in every line it is the power of insight that
+distinguishes the great man from the little one; it is the capacity for
+making wide generalisations and perceiving far-reaching laws that raises
+the exceptional mind above the ordinary level. The greater working
+always results from the greater seeing into the abstract principles from
+which any art or science is generated; and this same law carried up to
+the universal principles of Life is the law by which "the Son's" working
+is proportioned to his seeing the method of "the Father's" work. Thus
+the source of "the Son's" power lies in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>the contemplation of "the
+Father," the endeavour, that is, to realise the true nature of Being,
+whether in the abstract or in its generic forms of manifestation.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>
+This is Bacon's maxim, "Work as God works"; and similarly the New
+Thought consists before all things in the realisation of the laws of
+Being.</p>
+
+
+<p>And the result of the seeing is that "the Son" does the same things as
+"the Father" "in like manner." The Son's action is the reproduction of
+the universal principles in application to specific instances. The
+principles remain unaltered and work always in the same manner, and the
+office of "the Son" is to determine the particular field of their
+operation with regard <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>to the specific object which he has in view; and
+therefore, so far as that object is concerned, the action of "the Son"
+becomes the action of "the Father" also.</p>
+
+<p>Again, there is no concealment on the part of "the Father." He has no
+secrets, for "the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that
+himself doeth." There is perfect reciprocity between Spirit in the
+Universal and in Individualisation, resulting from the identity of
+Being; and "the Son's" recognition of Love as the active principle of
+this Unity gives him an intuitive insight into all those inner workings
+of the Universal Life which we call the arcana of Nature. Love has a
+divine gift of insight which cannot be attained by intellect alone, and
+the old saying, "Love will find out the way," has greater depths of
+meaning than appear on the surface. Thus there is not only a seeing, but
+also a showing; and the three terms&mdash;"looking, seeing, showing"&mdash;combine
+to form a power of "working" to which it is impossible to assign any
+limit.</p>
+
+<p>Here, again, the teaching of Jesus is in exact correspondence with that
+of the New Thought, which tells us that limitations exist only where we
+ourselves put them, and that to view ourselves as beings of limitless
+knowledge, power, and love is to become such in outward manifestation of
+visible fact. Any objection, therefore, to the New Thought teaching
+regarding the possibilities latent in Man apply with equal force to the
+teachings of Jesus. His teaching clearly was that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>the perfect
+individuality of Man is a Dual-Unity, the polarisation of the Infinite
+in the Manifest; and it requires only the recognition of this truth for
+the manifested element in this binary system to demonstrate its identity
+with the corresponding element which is not externally visible. He said
+that He and his Father were One, that those who had seen him had seen
+the Father, that the words which he spoke were the Father's, and that it
+was the Father who did the works. Nothing could be more explicit.
+Absolute unity of the manifested individuality with the Originating
+Infinite Spirit is asserted or implied in every utterance attributed to
+Jesus, whether spoken of himself or of others. He recognises only one
+radical difference, the difference between those who know this truth and
+those who do not know it. The distinction between the disciple and the
+master is one only of degree, which will be effaced by the expansive
+power of growth; "the disciple, when he is perfected, shall be as his
+Master."</p>
+
+<p>All that hinders the individual from exercising the full power of the
+Infinite for any purpose whatever is his lack of faith, his inability to
+realise to the full the stupendous truth that he himself is the very
+power which he seeks. This was the teaching of Jesus as it is that of
+the New Thought; and this truth of the Divine Sonship of Man once taken
+as the great foundation, a magnificent edifice of possibilities which
+"eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>of man to conceive," grows up logically upon it&mdash;a glorious heritage
+which each one may legitimately claim in right of his common humanity.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Intelligence</i> and <i>Responsiveness</i> is the
+Generic Nature of Spirit in <i>every</i> Mode, and it is the
+<i>concentration</i> of this into centres of consciousness that
+makes personality, i. e., <i>self</i>-conscious individuality.
+This varies immensely in degree, from its first adumbration
+in the animal to its intense development in the Great Masters
+of Spiritual Science. Therefore it is called "The Power that
+Knows Itself"&mdash;It is the power of <i>Self</i>-recognition that
+makes <i>personality</i>, and as we grow to see that our
+personality is not all contained between our hat and our
+boots, as Walt Whitman says, but <i>expands</i> away into the
+Infinite, which we then find to be <i>the Infinite of
+ourselves</i>, the <i>same</i> I AM that I am, so <i>our personality</i>
+expands and we become conscious of ever-increasing degrees of
+Life-in-ourselves.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Everything depends on this principle of
+Reciprocity. By contemplation we come to realize the true
+nature of "Spirit" or "the father." We learn to disengage the
+<i>variable</i> factors of particular <i>Modes</i> from the
+<i>invariable</i> factors which are the essential qualities of
+Spirit underlying <i>all</i> Modes. Then when we realize these
+essential qualities we see that we can apply them under any
+mode that we will: in other words <i>we</i> supply the <i>variable</i>
+factor of the combination by the action of our Thought, as
+Desire or Will, and thus combine it with the <i>invariable</i>
+factor or "constant" of the <i>essential</i> law of spirit, thus
+producing what result we will. This is just what we do in
+respect to physical nature&mdash;e. g., the electrician supplies
+the <i>variable</i> factor of the particular Mode of application,
+and the <i>constant</i> laws of Electricity <i>respond</i> to the
+nature of the invitation given to them. This <i>Responsiveness</i>
+is <i>inherent</i> in Spirit; otherwise Spirit would have no means
+of expansion into manifestation. Responsiveness is the
+principle of Spirit's Self-expression. We do not have to
+create responsive action on the part of electricity. We can
+safely take this Responsiveness for granted as pure natural
+law. Our desire first works on the Arupa level and thence
+concentrates itself through the various Rupa levels till it
+reaches complete external manifestation.</p></div>
+
+<h3><a name="GREAT" id="GREAT"></a>II<br />
+
+<i>The Great Affirmation</i></h3>
+
+<p>I take it for granted that my readers are well acquainted with the part
+assigned to the principle of Affirmation in the scheme of the New
+Thought. This is often a stumbling-block to beginners; and I feel sure
+that even those who are not beginners will welcome every aid to a deeper
+apprehension of this great central truth. I, therefore, purpose to
+examine the Bible teaching on this important subject.</p>
+
+<p>The professed object of the Bible is to establish and extend "the
+Kingdom of God" throughout the world, and this can be done only by
+repeating the process from one individual to another, until the whole
+mass is leavened. It is thus an individual process; and, as we have seen
+in the last chapter, God is Spirit and Spirit is Life, and, therefore,
+the expansion of "the Kingdom of God" means the expansion of the
+principle of Life in each individual. Now Life, to be life at all, must
+be Affirmative. It is Life in virtue of what it is, and not in virtue of
+what it is not. The quantity of life in any particular case may be very
+small; but, however small the amount, the quality is always the same:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+it is the quality of Being, the quality of Livingness, and not its
+absence, that makes it what it is. The distinctive character of Life,
+therefore, is that it is Positive and not Negative; and every degree of
+negativeness, that is, every limitation, is ultimately traceable to
+deficiency of Life-power.</p>
+
+<p>Limitations surround us because we believe in our inability to do what
+we desire. Whenever we say "I cannot" we are brought up sharp by a
+limitation, and we cease to exercise our thought-power in that direction
+because we believe ourselves stopped by a blank wall of impossibility;
+and whenever this occurs we are subjected to bondage. The ideal of
+perfect Liberty is the converse of all this, and follows a sequence
+which does not thus lead us into a <i>cul-de-sac</i>. This sequence consists
+of the three affirmations: I am&mdash;therefore I can&mdash;therefore I will; and
+this last affirmation results in the projection of our powers, whether
+interior or external, to the accomplishment of the desired object. But
+this last affirmation has its root in the first; and it is because we
+recognise the Affirmative nature of the Life that is in us, or rather of
+the Life which we are, that the power to will or to act positively has
+any existence; and, therefore, the extent of our power to will and to
+act positively and with effect, is exactly measured by our perception of
+the depth and livingness of our own Being. Hence the more fully we learn
+to affirm that, the greater power we are able to exercise.</p>
+
+<p>Now the ideal of perfect Liberty is the entire ab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>sence of all
+limitation, and to have no limitation in Being is to be co-extensive
+with All-Being. We are all grammarians enough to know that the use of a
+predicate is to lead the mind to contemplate the subject as represented
+by that predicate; in other words, it limits our conception for the time
+being to that particular aspect of the subject. Hence every predicate,
+however extensive, implies some limitation of the subject. But the ideal
+subject, the absolutely free self, is, by the very hypothesis, without
+limitation; and, therefore, no predicate can be attached to it. It
+stands as a declaration of its own Being without any statement of what
+that Being consists in, and therefore it says of itself, not "I am this
+or that," but simply I am. No predicate can be added, because the only
+commensurate predicate would be the enumeration of Infinity. Therefore,
+both logically and grammatically, the only possible statement of a fully
+liberated being is made in the words I am.</p>
+
+<p>I need hardly remind my readers of the frequency with which Jesus
+employed these emphatic words. In many cases the translators have added
+the word "He," but they have been careful, by putting it in italics, to
+show that it is not in the original. As grammarians and theologians they
+thought something more was wanted to complete the sense, and they
+supplied it accordingly; but if we would get at the very words as the
+Master himself spoke them, we must strike out this interpolation. And as
+soon as we have done so there flashes into light the identity of his
+statement <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>with that made to Moses at the burning bush, where the full
+significance of the words is so obvious that the translators were
+compelled to leave the place of the predicate in that seeming emptiness
+which comes from filling all things.</p>
+
+<p>Seen thus, a marvellous light shines forth from the instruction of the
+Great Teacher: for in whatever sense we may regard him as a Great
+Exception to the weak and limited aspect of humanity with which we are
+only too familiar, we must all agree that his mission was not to render
+mankind hopeless by declaring the path of advance barred against them,
+but "to give light to them that sit in darkness," and liberty to them
+that are bound, by proclaiming the unlimited possibilities that are in
+man waiting only to be called forth by knowledge of the Truth. And if we
+suppose any personal reference in his words, it can, therefore, be only
+as the Great Example of what man has it in him to become, and not as the
+example of something which man can never hope to be; an Exception,
+truly, to mankind as we see them now, but the Exception that proves the
+rule, and sets the standard of what each one may become as he attains to
+the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Let us, therefore, by striking out this interpolation, restore the
+Master's words as they stand in the original: "Except ye believe that I
+am, ye shall die in your sins." This is an epitome of his teaching.</p>
+
+<p>"The last enemy that shall be overcome is death,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> and the "sting," or
+fatal power, of death is "sin." Remove that, and death has no longer any
+dominion over us; its power is at an end. And "the strength of sin is
+the Law": sin is every contradiction of the law of Being; and the law of
+Being is infinitude; for Being is Life, and Life in its innermost
+essence is the limitless I am. Dying in our sins is thus not a
+punishment for doubting a particular theological dogma, but it is the
+unavoidable natural consequence of not realising, not believing in, the
+I am. So long as we fail to realise its full infinitude in ourselves, we
+cut ourselves off from our conscious unity with the Infinite Life-Spirit
+which permeates all things. Without this principle we have no
+alternative but to die&mdash;and this because of our sin, that is, because of
+our failure to conform to the true Law of our Being, which is Life, and
+not Death. We affirm Death and Negation concerning ourselves, and
+therefore Death and Negation are externalised, and thus we pay the
+penalty of not believing in the central Law of our own Life, which is
+the Law of all Life. The Bible is the Book of Principles, and therefore
+by "dying" is meant the acceptance of the principle of the Negative
+which culminates in Death as the sum-total of all limitations, and which
+introduces at every step those restrictions which are of the nature of
+Death, because their tendency is to curtail the outflowing fulness of
+Life.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, is the very essence of the teaching of Jesus, that unbelief
+in the limitless power of Life-in-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>ourselves&mdash;in each of us&mdash;is the one
+cause of Death and of all those evils which, in greater or lesser
+measure, reproduce the restrictive influences which deprive Life of its
+fulness and joy. If we would escape Death and enter into Life, we must
+each believe in the I am in ourselves. And the ground for this belief?
+Simply that nothing else is conceivable. If our life is not a portion of
+the life of Universal Spirit, whence comes it? We are because that is.
+No other explanation is possible. The unqualified affirmation of our own
+livingness is not an audacious self-assertion: it is the only logical
+outcome of the fact that there is any life anywhere, and that we are
+here to think about it. In the sense of Universal Being, there can be
+only One I am, and the understanding use of the words by the individual
+is the assertion of this fact. The forms of manifestation are infinite,
+but the Life which is manifested is One, and thus every thinker who
+recognises the truth regarding himself finds in the I am both himself
+and the totality of all things; and thus he comes to know that in
+utilising the interior nature of the things and persons about him, he
+is, in effect, employing the powers of his own life.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the veil which Jesus drew over this great truth was very
+transparent. To the Samaritan woman he spoke of it as a spring of Life
+forever welling up in the innermost recesses of man's being; and again,
+to the multitude assembled at the Temple, he spoke of it as a river of
+Life forever gushing from the secret <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>sources of the spirit within us.
+Life, to be ours at all, must be ourselves. An energy which only passed
+through us, without being us, might produce a sort of galvanic activity,
+but it would not be Life. Life can never be a separate entity from the
+individuality which manifests it; and therefore, even if we conceive the
+life-principle in a man so intensified as to pulsate with what might
+seem to us an absolutely divine vitality, it would still be no other
+than the man himself. Thus Jesus directs us to no external source of
+life, but ever teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, and that
+what is wanted is to remove those barriers of ignorance and ill-will
+which prevent us from realising that the great I am, which is the
+innermost Spirit of Life throughout the universe, is the same I am that
+I am, whoever I may be.</p>
+
+<p>On another memorable occasion Jesus declared again that the I am is the
+enduring principle of Life. It is this that is the Resurrection and the
+Life; not, as Martha supposed, a new principle to be infused from
+without at some future time, but an inherent core of vitality awaiting
+only its own recognition of itself to triumph over death and the grave.
+And yet, again hear the Master's answer to the inquiring Thomas. How
+many of us, like him, desire to know the way! To hear of wonderful
+powers latent in man and requiring only development is beautiful and
+hopeful, if we could only find out the way to develop them; but who will
+show us the way? The answer comes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>with no uncertain note. The I am
+includes everything. It is at once "the Way, the Truth, and the Life":
+not the Life only, or the Truth only, but also the Way by which to reach
+them. Can words be plainer? It is by continually affirming and relying
+on the I am in ourselves as identical with the I am that is the One and
+Only Life, whether manifested or unmanifested, in all places of the
+universe, that we shall find the way to the attainment of all Truth and
+of all Life. Here we have the predicate which we are seeking to complete
+our affirmation regarding ourselves. I am&mdash;what? the Three things which
+include all things: Truth, which is all Knowledge and Wisdom; Life,
+which is all Power and Love; and the unfailing Way which will lead us
+step by step, if we follow it, to heights too sublime and environment
+too wide for our present juvenile imaginings to picture.</p>
+
+<p>As the New Testament centres around Jesus, so the old Testament centres
+around Moses, and he also declares the Great Affirmation to be the
+same.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> For <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>him God has no name, but that intensely living universal
+Life which is all in all, and no name is sufficient to be its
+equivalent. The emphatic words I am are the only possible statement of
+the One-Power which exhibits itself as all worlds and all living beings.
+It is the Great I am which forever unfolds itself in all the infinite
+evolutionary forces of the cosmic scheme, and which, in marvellous
+onward march, develops itself into higher and higher conscious
+intelligence in the successive races of mankind, unrolling the scroll of
+history as it moves on from age to age, working out with unerring
+precision the steady forward movement of the whole towards that ultimate
+perfection in which the work of God will be completed. But <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>stupendous
+as is the scale on which this Providential Power reveals itself to Moses
+and the Prophets, it is still nothing else than the very same Power
+which Jesus bids us realise in ourselves.</p>
+
+
+<p>The theatre of its operations may be expanded to the magnificent
+proportions of a world-history, or contracted to the sphere of a single
+individuality: the difference is only one of scale; but the
+Life-principle is always the same. It is always the principle of
+confident Affirmation in the calm knowledge that all things are but
+manifestations of itself, and that, therefore, all must move together in
+one mighty unity which admits of no discordant elements. This "unity of
+the spirit" once clearly grasped, to say I am is to send the vibrations
+of our thought-currents throughout the universe to do our bidding when
+and where we will; and, conversely, it is <i>to</i> draw in the vitalising
+influences of Infinite Spirit as from a boundless ocean of Life, which
+can never be exhausted and from which no power can hold us back. And all
+this is so because it is the supreme law of Nature. It is not the
+introduction of a new order, but simply the allowing of the original and
+only possible order to flow on to its legitimate fulfilment. A Divine
+Order, truly, but nowhere shall we find anything that is not Divine; and
+it is to the realisation of this Divine and Living Order that it is the
+purpose of the Bible to lead us. But we shall never realise it around us
+until we first realise it within us. We can see God outside only by the
+light <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>of God inside; and this light increases in proportion as we
+become conscious of the Divine nature of the innermost I am which is the
+centre of our own individuality.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, it is that Jesus tells us that the I am is "the door." It is
+that central point of our individual Being which opens into the whole
+illimitable Life of the Infinite. If we would understand the old-world
+precept, "know thyself," we must concentrate our thought more and more
+closely upon our own interior Life until we touch its central radiating
+point, and there we shall find that the door into the Infinite is indeed
+opened to us, and that we can pass from the innermost of our own Being
+into the innermost of All-Being. This is why Jesus spoke of "the door"
+as that through which we should pass in and out and find pasture.
+Pasture, the feeding of every faculty with its proper food, is to be
+found both on the within and the without. The livingness of Life
+consists in both concentration and externalisation: it is not the dead
+equilibrium of inertia, but the living equilibrium of a vital and
+rhythmic pulsation. Involution and evolution must forever alternate, and
+the door of communication between them is the I am which is the living
+power in both. Thus it is that the Great Affirmation is the Secret of
+Life, and that to say I am with a true understanding of all that it
+implies is to place ourselves in touch with all the powers of the
+Infinite.</p>
+
+<p>This is the Universal and Eternal Affirmation to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>which no predicate is
+attached; and all particular affirmations will be found to be only
+special differentiations of this all-embracing one. I will this or that
+particular thing because I know that I can bring it into
+externalisation, and I know that I can because I know that I am, and so
+we always come back to the great central Affirmation of All-Being.
+Search the Scriptures and you will find that from first to last they
+teach only this: that every human soul is an individualisation of that
+Universal Being, or All-Spirit, which we call God, and that Spirit can
+never be shorn of its powers, but like Fire, which is its symbol, must
+always be fully and perfectly itself, which is Life in all its unlimited
+fulness.</p>
+
+<p>In assigning to Affirmation, therefore, the importance which it does,
+the New Thought movement is at one with the teaching of Jesus and Moses
+and of the entire Bible. And the reason is clear. There is only one
+Truth, and therefore careful seeking can bring men only to the same
+Truth, whether they be Bible-writers or any other. The Bible derives its
+authority from the inherent truth of the things it tells of, and not
+vice versa; and if these things be true at all, they would be equally
+true even though no Bible had ever been written. But, taking the Great
+Affirmation as our guide, we shall find that the system taught by the
+Bible is scientific and logical throughout, and therefore any other
+system which is scientifically true will be found to correspond with it
+in substance, however <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>it may differ from it in form; and thus, in their
+statements regarding the power of Affirmation, the exponents of the New
+Thought broach no new-fangled absurdity, but only reiterate a great
+truth which has been before the world, though very imperfectly
+recognised, for thousands of years.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The Old Testament and the New treat the I AM
+from its opposite poles. The Old Testament treats it from the
+relation of the <i>Whole to the Part</i>, while the New Testament
+treats it from the relation of the <i>Part to the Whole</i>. This
+is important as explaining the relation between the Old and
+New Testaments.</p>
+
+<p>(a) "My Word shall not return unto me void but shall
+accomplish that whereunto I send it."
+</p><p>
+(b) The Principle here indicated is that of the Alternation
+and Equation between Absorption and Radiation&mdash;a taking-in
+before, and a giving-out.
+</p><p>
+(c) "<i>Order</i>"&mdash;Whatever betrays this is "Disorder."
+</p><p>
+(d) "<i>Conscious</i>"&mdash;It is the degree of <i>consciousness</i> that
+always marks the transition from a lower to a higher Power of
+Life. The <i>Life</i> of <i>All Seven</i> Principles <i>must</i> always be
+present in us, otherwise we should not exist at all;
+therefore it is the degree in which we learn to <i>consciously</i>
+function in each of them that marks our advance into higher
+kingdoms within ourselves, and frequently outside ourselves
+also.
+</p><p>
+(e) The Central Radiating Point of our Individuality is <i>One</i>
+with All-Being.
+</p><p>
+(f) <i>Equilibrium</i>&mdash;Note the difference between the Living
+Equilibrium of Alternate Rhythmic <i>Pulsation</i> (the whole
+Pulsation Doctrine) and the dead equilibrium of merely
+<i>running down</i> to a <i>dead level</i>. The former implies the
+Doctrine of the Return, the Upward Arc compensating the
+Downward Arc&mdash;The deadness of the latter results from the
+absence of any such compensation. The Upward Arc results from
+the contemplation of the Highest Ideal.
+</p><p>
+(g) Spirit cannot leave any portion of its Nature behind it.
+It <i>must</i> always have <i>all</i> the qualities of Spirit in it,
+even though the lower parts of the individuality are not yet
+conscious of it.
+</p><p>
+(h) The Great Affirmation is The Guide to the whole Subject.</p></div>
+
+<h3><a name="FATHER" id="FATHER"></a>III<br />
+
+<i>The Father</i></h3>
+
+<p>If, as we have seen, "the Son" is the differentiating principle of
+Spirit, giving rise to innumerable individualities, "the Father" is the
+unifying principle by which these innumerable individualities are bound
+together into one common life, and the necessity for recognising this
+great basis of the universal harmony forms the foundation of Jesus'
+teaching on the subject of Worship. "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh,
+when neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, shall ye worship
+the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not; we worship that which we
+know; for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is
+when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth"
+(Revised Version). In these few words the Great Teacher sums up the
+whole subject. He lays particular stress on the kind of worship that he
+means. It is, before all things, founded upon knowledge.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We worship that which we know," and it is this knowledge that gives the
+worship a healthful and life-giving quality. It is not the ignorant
+worship of wonderment and fear, a mere abasement of ourselves before
+some vast, vague, unknown power, which may injure us if we do not find
+out how to propitiate it; but it is a definite act performed with a
+definite purpose, which means that it is the employment of one of our
+natural faculties upon its proper object in an intelligent manner. The
+ignorant Samaritan worship is better than no worship at all, for at
+least it realises the existence of some centre around which a man's life
+should revolve, something to prevent the aimless dispersion of His
+powers for want of a centripetal force to bind them together; and even
+the crudest notion of prayer, as a mere attempt to induce God to change
+his mind, is at least a first step towards the truth that full supply
+for all our needs may be drawn from the Infinite. Still, such worship as
+this is hampered with perplexities, and can give only a feeble answer to
+the atheistical sneer which asks, "What is man, that God should be
+mindful of him, a momentary atom among unnumbered worlds?"</p>
+
+<p>Now the teaching of Jesus throws all these perplexities aside with the
+single word "knowledge." There is only one true way of doing anything,
+and that is knowing exactly what it is we want to do, and knowing
+exactly why we want to do it. All other doing is blundering. We may
+blunder into the right <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>thing sometimes, but we cannot make this our
+principle of life to all eternity; and if we have to give up the blunder
+method eventually, why not give it up now, and begin at once to profit
+by acting according to intelligible principle? The knowledge that "the
+Son," as individualised Spirit, has his correlative in "the Father," as
+Universal Spirit, affords the clue we need.</p>
+
+<p>In whatever way we may attempt to explain it, the fact remains that
+volition is the fundamental characteristic of Spirit. We may speak of
+conscious, or subconscious or super-conscious action; but in whatever
+way we may picture to ourselves the condition of the agent as
+contemplating his own action, a general purposeful lifeward tendency
+becomes abundantly evident on any enlarged view of Nature, whether seen
+from without or from within, and we may call this by the general name of
+volition. But the error we have to avoid is that of supposing volition
+to take the same form in Universal Spirit as in individualised Spirit.
+The very terms "universal" and "individual" forbid this. For the
+universal, as such, to exercise specific volition, concentrating itself
+upon the details of a specific case, would be for it to pass into
+individualisation, and to cease to be the Absolute and Infinite; it
+would be no longer "the Father," but "the Son." It is therefore exactly
+by not exercising specific volition that "the Father" continues to be
+"the Father," or the Great Unifying Principle. But the volitional
+quality is not on this account absent from Spirit in the Universal; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>for
+otherwise whence would that quality appear in ourselves? It is present;
+but according to the nature of the plane on which it is acting. The
+Universal is not the Specific, and everything on the plane of the
+Universal must partake of the nature of that plane. Hence volition in
+"the Father" is not specific; and that which is not specific and
+individual must be generic. Generic volition, therefore, is that mode of
+volition which belongs to the Universal, and generic volition is
+tendency. This is the solution of the enigma, and this solution is
+given, not obscurely, in Jesus' statement that "the Father" seeks those
+true worshippers who worship Him in spirit and in truth.</p>
+
+<p>For what do we mean by tendency? From the root of tendere, to stretch;
+it signifies a pushing out in a certain definite direction, the tension
+of some force seeking to expand itself. What force? The Universal
+Life-Principle, for "the Spirit is Life." In the language of modern
+science this "seeking" on the part of "the Father" is the expansive
+pressure of the Universal Life-Principle seeking the line of least
+resistance, along which to flow into the fullest manifestation of
+individualised Life. It is a tendency which will take manifested form
+according to the degree in which it meets with reception.</p>
+
+<p>St. John says, "This is the boldness that we have towards him, that if
+we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us; and if we know
+that He heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the
+peti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>tions that we have asked of Him" (1 John v. 14). Now according to
+the popular notion of "the will of God," this passage entirely loses its
+value, because it makes everything depend on our asking "according to
+His will," and if we start with the idea of an individual act of the
+Divine volition in each separate case, nothing short of a special
+revelation continually repeated could inform us what the Divine will in
+each particular instance was. Viewed in this light, this passage is a
+mere jeering at our incapacity. But when once we realise that "the will
+of God" is an invariable law of tendency, we have a clear standard by
+which to test whether we may rightly expect to get what we desire. We
+can study this law of tendency as we would any other law, and it is this
+study that is the essence of true worship.</p>
+
+<p>The word "worship" means to count worthy; to count worthy, that is, of
+observation. The proverb says that "imitation is the sincerest form of
+flattery" more truly we may say that it is the sincerest worship. Hence
+the true worship is the study of the Universal Life-Principle "the
+Father," in its nature and in its modes of action; and when we have thus
+realised "the Law of God," the law that is inherent in the nature of
+Infinite Being, we shall know that by conforming our own particular
+action to this generic law, we shall find that this law will in every
+instance work out the results that we desire. This is nothing more or
+less miraculous than what occurs in every case of applied <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>science. He
+only is the true chemist or engineer who, by first learning how to obey
+the generic tendency of natural laws, is able to command them to the
+fulfilment of his individual purposes; no other method will succeed.
+Similarly with the student of the divine mystery of Life. He must first
+learn the great laws of its generic tendency, and then he will be in a
+position to apply that tendency to the working of any specific effect he
+will.</p>
+
+<p>Common sense tells us what the law of this tendency must be. The Master
+taught that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and for the
+Life-Principle to do anything restrictive of the fullest expansion of
+life, would be for it to act to its own destruction. The test,
+therefore, in every case, whether our intention falls within the scope
+of the great law, is this: Does it operate for the expansion or for the
+restriction of life? and according to the answer we can say positively
+whether or not our purpose is according to "the will of God." Therefore
+so long as we work within the scope of this generic "will of the Father"
+we need have no fear of the Divine Providence, as an agency, acting
+adversely to us. We may dismiss this bugbear, for we ourselves are
+manifestations of the very power which we call "the Father." The I am is
+one; and so long as we preserve this unity by conforming to the generic
+nature of the I am in the universal, it will certainly never destroy the
+unity by entering upon a specific course of action on its own account.</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Here, then, we find the secret of power. It is contained in the true
+worship of "the Father," which is the constant recognition of the
+lifegivingness of Originating Spirit, and of the fact that we, as
+individuals, still continue to be portions of that Spirit; and that
+therefore the law of our nature is to be perpetually drawing life from
+the inexhaustible stores of the Infinite&mdash;not bottles of water-of-life
+mixed with other ingredients and labelled for this or that particular
+purpose, but the full flow of the pure stream itself, which we are free
+to use for any purpose we desire. "Whosoever will, let him take the
+water of life freely." It is thus that the worship of "the Father"
+becomes the central principle of the individual life, not as curtailing
+our liberty, but as affording the only possible basis for it. As a
+planetary system would be impossible without a central controlling sun,
+so harmonious life is impossible without the recognition of Infinite
+Spirit as that Power, whose generic tendency serves to control each
+individual being into its proper orbit. This is the teaching of the
+Bible, and it is also the teaching of the New Thought, which says that
+life with all its limitless possibilities is a continual outflow from
+the Infinite which we may turn in any direction that we desire.</p>
+
+<p>But, it may be asked, what happens if we go counter to this generic law
+of Spirit? This is an important question, and I must leave the answer
+for further consideration.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>IV<br />
+
+<i>Conclusion</i></h3>
+
+<p>I concluded my last chapter with the momentous question, What happens if
+we go counter to the generic law of Spirit? What happens if we go
+counter to any natural law? Obviously, the law goes counter to us. We
+can use the laws of Nature, but we cannot alter them. By opposing any
+natural law we place ourselves in an inverted position with regard to
+it, and therefore, viewed from this false standpoint, it appears as
+though the law itself were working against us with definite purpose. But
+the inversion proceeds entirely from ourselves, and not from any change
+in the action of the law. The law of Spirit, like all other natural
+laws, is in itself impersonal; but we carry into it, so to speak, the
+reflection of our own personality, though we cannot alter its generic
+character; and therefore, if we oppose its generic tendency towards the
+universal good, we shall find in it the reflection of our own opposition
+and waywardness.</p>
+
+<p>The law of Spirit proceeds unalterably on its course, and what is spoken
+of in popular phraseology as the Divine wrath is nothing else than the
+reflex action which naturally follows when we put ourselves in
+opposition to this law. The evil that results is not a personal
+intervention of the Universal Spirit, which would imply its entering
+into specific manifestation, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>but it is the natural outcome of the
+causes that we ourselves have set in motion. But the effect to ourselves
+will be precisely the same as if they were brought about by the volition
+of an adverse personality, though we may not realise that in truth the
+personal element is our own. And if we are at all aware of the
+wonderfully complex nature of man, and the various interweavings of
+principles which unite the material body at one end of the scale to the
+purely spiritual Ego at the other, we shall have some faint idea of on
+how vast a field these adverse influences may operate, not being
+restricted to the plane of outward manifestation, but acting equally on
+those inner planes which give rise to the outer and are of a more
+enduring nature.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the philosophic study of Spirit, so far from affording any excuse
+for laxity of conduct, adds an emphatic definiteness to the Bible
+exhortation to flee from the wrath of God. But, on the other hand, it
+delivers us from groundless terrors, the fear lest our repentance should
+not be accepted, the fear lest we should be rejected for our inability
+to subscribe to some traditional dogma, the fear of utter uncertainty
+regarding the future&mdash;fears which make life bitter and the prospect of
+death appalling to those who are in bondage to them. The knowledge that
+we are dealing with a power which is no respecter of persons, and in
+which is no variableness, which is, in fact, an un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>alterable Law, at
+once delivers us from all these terrors.</p>
+
+<p>The very unchangeableness of Law makes it certain that no amount of past
+opposition to it, whether from ignorance or wilfulness, will prevent it
+from working in accordance with its own beneficent and life-giving
+character as soon as we quit our inverted position and place ourselves
+in our true relation towards it. The laws of Nature do not harbour
+revenge; and once we adapt our methods to their character, they will
+work for us without taking any retrospective notice of our past errors.
+The law of Spirit may be more complex than that of electricity, because,
+as expressed in us, it is the law of conscious individuality; but it is
+none the less a purely natural law, and follows the universal rule, and
+therefore we may dismiss from our minds, as a baseless figment, the fear
+of any Divine power treasuring up anger against us on account of
+bygones, if we are sincerely seeking to do what is right now. The new
+causes which we put in motion now will produce their proper effect as
+surely as the old causes did; and thus by inaugurating a new sequence of
+good we shall cut off the old sequence of evil. Only, of course, we
+cannot expect to bring about the new sequence while continuing to repeat
+the old causes, for the fruit must necessarily reproduce the nature of
+the seed. Thus we are the masters of the situation, and, whether in this
+world or the next, it rests with our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>selves either to perpetuate the
+evil or to wipe it out and put the good in its place. And it may be
+noticed in passing that the great central Christian doctrine is based
+upon the most perfect knowledge of this law, and is the practical
+application to a profound problem of the deepest psychological science.
+But this is a large subject, and cannot be suitably dealt with here.</p>
+
+<p>Much has been written and said on the origin of evil, and a volume might
+be filled with the detailed study of the subject; but for all practical
+purposes it may be summed up in the one word limitation. For what is the
+ultimate cause of all strife, whether public or private, but the notion
+that the supply of good is limited? With the bulk of mankind this is a
+fixed idea, and they therefore argue that because there is only a
+certain limited quantity of good, the share in their possession can be
+increased only by correspondingly diminishing some one else's share. Any
+one entertaining the same idea, naturally resents the attempt to deprive
+him of any portion of this limited quantity; and hence arises the whole
+crop of envy, hatred, fraud, and violence, whether between individuals,
+classes, or nations. If people only realised the truth that "good" is
+not a certain limited quantity, but a stream continuously flowing from
+the exhaustless Infinite, and ready to take any direction we choose to
+give it, and that each one is able by the action of his own thought to
+draw from it indefinitely, the substitution of this new and true idea
+for the old and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>false one of limitation would at one stroke remove all
+strife and struggle from the world; every man would find a helper
+instead of a competitor in every other, and the very laws of Nature,
+which now so often seem to war against us, would be found a ceaseless
+source of profit and delight.</p>
+
+<p>"They could not enter into rest because of unbelief," "they limited the
+Holy One of Israel": in these words the Bible, like the New Thought,
+traces all the sorrow of the world&mdash;that terrible <i>Weltschmerz</i> which
+expresses itself with such direful influence through the pessimistic
+literature of the day&mdash;to the one root of a false belief, the belief in
+man's limitation. Only substitute for it the true belief, and the evil
+would be at an end. Now the ground of this true belief is that clear
+apprehension of "the Father" which, as I have shown, forms the basis of
+Jesus' teaching. If, from one point of view, the Intelligent Universal
+Life-Principle is a Power to be obeyed, in the same sense in which we
+have to obey all the laws of Nature, from the opposite point of view, it
+is a power to be used. We must never lose sight of the fact that
+obedience to any natural law in its generic tendency necessarily carries
+with it a corresponding power of using that law in specific application.
+This is the old proverb that knowledge is power. It is the old paradox
+with which Jesus posed the ignorant scribes as to how David's Lord could
+also be his Son. The word "David" means "Beloved" and to be beloved
+implies that recip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>rocal sympathy which is intuitive knowledge. Hence
+David, the Beloved, is the man who has realised his true relation as a
+Son to his Father and who is "in tune with the Infinite." On the other
+hand, this "Infinite" is his "Lord" because it is the complex of all
+those unchangeable Laws from which it is impossible to swerve without
+suffering consequent loss of power; and on the other, this knowledge of
+the innermost principles of All-Being puts him in possession of
+unlimited powers which he can apply to any specific purpose that he
+will; and thus he stands towards them in the position of a father who
+has authority to command the services of his son. Thus David's "Lord,"
+becomes by a natural transition his "Son."</p>
+
+<p>And it is precisely in this that the principle of "Sonship" consists. It
+is the raising of man from the condition of bondage as a servant by
+reason of limitation to the status of a son by the entire removal of all
+limitations. To believe and act on this principle is to "believe on the
+Son of God," and a practical belief in our own sonship thus sets us free
+from all evil and from all fear of evil&mdash;it brings us out of the kingdom
+of death into the kingdom of Life. Like everything else, it has to grow,
+but the good seed of liberating Truth once planted in the heart is sure
+to germinate, and the more we endeavour to foster its growth by seeking
+to grasp with our understanding the reason of these things and to
+realise our knowledge in practice, the more rapidly we shall find our
+lives increase in living<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>ness&mdash;a joy to ourselves, a brightness to our
+homes, and a blessing expanding to all around in ever-widening circles.</p>
+
+<p>Enough has now been said to show the identity of principle between the
+teaching of the Bible and that of the New Thought. Treated in detail,
+the subject would extend to many volumes explanatory of the Old and New
+Testaments, and if that great work were ever carried out I have no
+hesitation in saying that the agreement would be found to extend to the
+minutest particulars. But the hints contained in the foregoing papers
+will, I hope, suffice to show that there is nothing antagonistic between
+the two systems, or, rather, to show that they are one&mdash;the statement of
+the One Truth which always has been and always will be. And if what I
+have now endeavoured to put before my readers should lead any of them to
+follow up the subject more fully for themselves, I can promise them an
+inexhaustible store of wonder, delight, and strength in the study of the
+Old Book in the light of the New Thought.</p>
+
+<p>1902.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Jachin and Boaz</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>"And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand,
+and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand
+Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz." (II Chron. iii, 17.)</p>
+
+<p>Very likely some of us have wondered what was the meaning of these two
+mysterious pillars set up by Solomon in front of his temple, and why
+they were called by these strange names; and then we have dropped the
+subject as one of those inexplicable things handed down in the Bible
+from old time which, we suppose, can have no practical interest for us
+at the present day. Nevertheless, these strange names are not without a
+purpose. They contain the key to the entire Bible and to the whole order
+of Nature, and as emblems of the two great principles that are the
+pillars of the universe, they fitly stood at the threshold of that
+temple which was designed to symbolise all the mysteries of Being.</p>
+
+<p>In all the languages of the Semitic stock the letters J and Y are
+interchangeable, as we see in the modern Arabic "Yakub" for "Jacob" and
+the old Hebrew "Yaveh" for "Jehovah." This gives us the form<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> "Yachin,"
+which at once reveals the enigma. The word Yak signifies "one"; and the
+termination "hi," or "him," is an intensitive which may be rendered in
+English by "only." Thus the word "Jachin" resolves itself into the words
+"one only," the all-embracing Unity.</p>
+
+<p>The meaning of Boaz is clearly seen in the book of Ruth. There Boaz
+appears as the kinsman exercising the right of pre-emption so familiar
+to those versed in Oriental law&mdash;a right which has for its purpose the
+maintenance of the Family as the social unit. According to this
+widely-spread custom, the purchaser, who is not a member of the family,
+buys the property subject to the right of kinsmen within certain degrees
+to purchase it back, and so bring it once more into the family to which
+it originally belonged. Whatever may be our personal opinions regarding
+the vexed questions of dogmatic theology, we can all agree as to the
+general principle indicated in the role acted by Boaz. He brings back
+the alienated estate into the family&mdash;that is to say, he "redeems" it in
+the legal sense of the word. As a matter of law his power to do this
+results from his membership in the family; but his motive for doing it
+is love, his affection for Ruth. Without pushing the analogy too far we
+may say, then, that Boaz represents the principle of redemption in the
+widest sense of reclaiming an estate by right of relationship, while the
+innermost moving power in its recovery is Love.</p>
+
+<p>This is what Boaz stands for in the beautiful story <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>of Ruth, and there
+is no reason why we should not let the same name stand for the same
+thing when we seek the meaning of the mysterious pillar. Thus the two
+pillars typify Unity and the redeeming power of Love, with the
+significant suggestion that the redemption results from the Unity. They
+correspond with the two "bonds," or uniting principles spoken of by St.
+Paul, "the Unity of the Spirit which is the Bond of Peace," and "Love,
+which is the Bond of Perfectness."</p>
+
+<p>The former is Unity of Being; the latter, Unity of Intention: and the
+principle of this Dual-Unity is well illustrated by the story of Boaz.
+The whole story proceeds on the idea of the Family as the social unit,
+the root-conception of all Oriental law, and if we consider the Family
+in this light, we shall see how exactly it embodies the two-fold idea of
+Jachin and Boaz, unity of Being and unity of Thought. The Family forms a
+unit because all the members proceed from a common progenitor, and are
+thus all of one blood; but, although this gives them a natural unity of
+Being of which they cannot divest themselves, it is not enough in itself
+to make them a united family, as unfortunately experience too often
+shows. Something more is wanted, and that something is Love. There must
+be a personal union brought about by sympathetic Thought to complete the
+natural union resulting from birth. The inherent unity must be expressed
+by the Individual volition of each member, and thus the Family becomes
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>the ideally perfect social unit; a truth to which St. Paul alludes when
+he calls God the Father from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is
+named. Thus Boaz stands for the principle which brings back to the
+original Unity that which has been for a time separated from it. There
+has never been any separation of actual Being&mdash;the family right always
+subsisted in the property even while in the hands of strangers,
+otherwise it could never have been brought back; but it requires the
+Love principle to put this right into effective operation.</p>
+
+<p>When this begins to work in the knowledge of its right to do so, then
+there is the return of the individual to the Unity, and the recognition
+of himself as the particular expression of the Universal in virtue of
+his own nature.</p>
+
+<p>These two pillars, therefore, stand for the two great spiritual
+principles that are the basis of all Life: Jachin typifying the Unity
+resulting from Being, and Boaz typifying the Unity resulting from Love.
+In this Dual-Unity we find the key to all conceivable involution or
+evolution of Spirit; and it is therefore not without reason that the
+record of these two ancient pillars has been preserved in our
+Scriptures. And finally we may take this as an index to the character of
+our Scriptures generally. They contain infinite meanings; and often
+those passages which appear on the surface to be most meaningless will
+be found to possess the deepest significance. The Book, which we often
+read so super<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>ficially, hides beneath its sometimes seemingly trivial
+words the secrets of other things. The twin pillars Jachin and Boaz bear
+witness to this truth.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The following comment was made by Judge Troward,
+after the publication of this paper in <i>Expression</i>:
+</p><p>
+"<i>The Two Pillars</i> of the Universe are Personality and
+Mathematics, represented by Boaz and Jachin respectively.
+This is the broadest simplification to which it is possible
+to reduce things. Balance consists in preserving the
+Equilibrium or Alternating Current between these two
+Principles. Personality is the Absolute Factor. Mathematics
+are the Relative Factor, for they merely Measure different
+Rates or Scales. They are absolute in this respect. A
+particular scale having been selected all its sequences will
+follow by an inexorable Law of Order and Proportion; but the
+selection of the scale and the change from one scale to
+another rests entirely with Personality. What Personality can
+not do is to make one Scale produce the results of another,
+but it can set aside one scale and substitute another for it.
+Hence Personality contains in itself the Universal Scale, or
+can either accommodate itself to lower rates of motion
+already established, or can raise them to its own rate of
+motion. Hence Personality is the grand Ultimate Fact in all
+things.
+</p><p>
+"Different personalities should be regarded as different
+degrees of consciousness. They are different degrees of
+emergence of The Power that knows Itself."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Hephzibah</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>"Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more
+be termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land
+Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married"
+(Isaiah lxii, 4). The name Hephzibah&mdash;or, as it might be written,
+Hafzbah&mdash;conveys a very distinct idea to any one who has lived in the
+East, and calls up a string of familiar words all containing the same
+root <i>hafz</i>, which signifies "guarding" or "taking care of," such as
+<i>hafiz</i>, a protector, <i>muhafiz</i>, a custodian, as in the word <i>muhafiz
+daftar</i>, a head record-keeper; or again, <i>hifazat</i>, custody, as
+<i>bahifazat polis</i>, in custody of the police; or again, <i>daim-ul-hafz</i>,
+imprisonment for life, and other similar expressions.</p>
+
+<p>All words from this root suggest the idea of "guarding," and therefore
+the name Haphzibah at once speaks its own meaning. It is "one who is
+guarded," a "protected one." And answering to this there must be some
+power which guards, and the name of this power is given in Hosea ii, 16,
+where it is called "Ishi." "And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord,
+that thou shalt call me Ishi; and thou shalt call me no more Baali."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+"Baali" means "lord," "Ishi" means "husband," and between the two there
+is a whole world of distinction.</p>
+
+<p>To call the Great Power "Baali" is to live in one world, and to call it
+"Ishi" is to live in another. The world that is ruled over by Baali is a
+world of "miserable worms of the dust" and such crawling creatures; but
+the world that is warmed and lightened by "Ishi" is one in which men and
+women walk upright, conscious of their own divine nature, instead of
+dodging about to escape being crushed under the feet of Moloch as he
+strides through his dominions. If the name Baali did not suggest a wrong
+idea there would be no need to change it for another, and the change of
+name therefore indicates the opening of the mind to a larger and sounder
+conception of the true nature of the Ruling Principle of the universe.
+It is no imperious autocrat, the very apotheosis of self-glorification,
+ill-natured and spiteful if its childish vanity be not gratified by
+hearing its own praises formally proclaimed, often from lips opened only
+by fear; nor is it an almighty extortioner desiring to deprive us of
+what we value most, either to satisfy its greed or to demonstrate its
+sovereignty. This is the image which men make of God and then bow
+terrified before it, offering a worship which is the worship of Baal,
+and making life blank because all the livingness has been wiped
+out of it.</p>
+
+<p>Ishi is the embodiment of the very opposite conception, a wise and
+affectionate husband, instead of a taskmaster exploiting his slaves. In
+its true aspect the re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>lation of husband and wife is entirely devoid of
+any question of relative superiority or inferiority. As well ask whether
+the front wheel or the back wheel of your bicycle is the more important.
+The two make a single whole, in which the functions of both parts are
+reciprocal and equally necessary; yet for this very reason these
+functions cannot be identical.</p>
+
+<p>In a well-ordered home, where husband and wife are united by mutual love
+and respect, we see that the man's function is to enter into the larger
+world and to provide the wife with all that is needed for the
+maintenance and comfort of the home, while the function of the woman is
+to be the distributor of what her husband provides, in doing which she
+follows her own discretion; and a sensible man, knowing that he can
+trust a sensible wife, does not want to poke his finger into every pie.
+Thus all things run harmoniously&mdash;the woman relieved of responsibilities
+which are not naturally hers, and the man relieved of responsibilities
+which are not naturally his. But let any perplexity or danger arise, and
+the woman knows that from her husband she will receive all the guidance
+and protection that the occasion may require, he being the wise and
+strong man that we have supposed him, and having this assurance she is
+able to pursue the avocations of her own sphere undisturbed by any fears
+or anxieties.</p>
+
+<p>It is this relation of protection and guidance that is implied by the
+word Hephzibah. It is the name of those who realise their identity with
+the all-ordering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> Divine Spirit. He who realises this unity with the
+Spirit finds himself both guided and guarded. And here we touch the
+fringe of a deep natural mystery, which formed the basis of all that was
+most valuable in the higher mysteries of the ancients, and the substance
+of which we must realise if we are to make any progress in the future,
+whatever form we may adopt to convey the idea to ourselves or others. It
+is the relation of the individual mind to the Universal Mind, the
+combination of unity with independence which, though quite clear when we
+know it by personal experience, is almost inexpressible in words, but
+which is frequently represented in the Bible under the figure of the
+marriage relations.</p>
+
+<p>It is a basic principle, and in various modes pervades all Nature, and
+has been symbolised in every religion the world has known; and in
+proportion as the individual realises this relation he will find that he
+is able to <i>use</i> the Universal Mind, while at the same time he is guided
+and guarded by it. For think what it would be to wield the power of the
+Universal Mind without having its guidance. It would be the old story of
+Phaeton trying to drive the chariot of the Sun, which ended in his own
+destruction; and limitless power without corresponding guidance would be
+the most terrible curse that any one could bring upon his head.</p>
+
+<p>The relation between the individual mind and the Universal Mind, as
+portrayed in the reciprocally connected names of Hephzibah and Ishi,
+must never be lost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>sight of; for the Great Guiding Mind, immeasurably
+as it transcends our intellectual consciousness, is not another than
+<i>ourselves</i>. It is The One Self which is the foundation of all the
+individual selves, and which is, therefore, in all its limitlessness, as
+entirely one with each individual as though no other being existed.
+Therefore we do not have to go out of ourselves to find it, for it is
+the expansion to infinity of all that we truly <i>are</i>, having, indeed, no
+place for those negative forms of evil with which we people a world of
+illusion, for it is the very Light itself, and in it all illusion is
+dispelled; but it is the expansion to infinity of all in us that is
+Affirmative, all that is really living.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, in looking for its guiding and guarding we are relying upon
+no borrowed power from <i>without</i>, held at the caprice and option of
+another, but upon the supreme fact of our own nature, which we can use
+in what direction we will with perfect freedom, knowing no limitation
+save the obligation not to do violence to our own purest and highest
+feelings. And this relation is entirely <i>natural</i>. We must steer the
+happy mean between imploring and ignoring. A natural law does not need
+to be entreated before it will work; and, on the other hand, we cannot
+make use of it while ignoring its existence.</p>
+
+<p>What we have to do, therefore, is to take the working of the law for
+granted, and make use of it accordingly; and since that is the law of
+Mind, and Mind is Personality, this Power, which is at once <i>ourselves</i>
+and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>above ourselves, may be treated as a Person and may be spoken with,
+and its replies received by the inner ear of the heart. Any scheme of
+philosophy that does not result in this personal intercourse with the
+Divine Mind falls short of the mark. It may be right so far as it goes,
+but it does not go far enough, and fails to connect us with our vital
+centre. Names are of small importance so long as the intercourse is
+real. The Supreme Mind with which we converse is only to be met in the
+profoundest depths of our own being, and, as Tennyson says, is more
+perfectly ourselves than our own hands and feet. It is our natural Base;
+and realising this we shall find ourselves to be in very truth "guarded
+ones," guided by the Spirit in all things, nothing too great and nothing
+too trivial to come within the great Law of our being.</p>
+
+<p>There is another aspect of the Spirit in which it is seen as a Power to
+be used; and the full flow of life is in the constant alternation
+between this aspect and the one we have been considering, but always we
+are linked with the Universal Mind as the flower lives by reason of its
+root. The connection itself is intrinsic, and can never be severed; but
+it must be consciously realised before it can be consciously used. All
+our development consists in the increasing consciousness of this
+connection, which enables us to apply the higher power to whatever
+purpose we may have in hand, not merely in the hope that it <i>may</i>
+respond, but with the certain knowledge that by the law of its own
+nature it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>is bound to do so, and likewise with the knowledge that by
+the same law it is bound also to guide us to the selection of right
+objects and right methods.</p>
+
+<p>Experience will teach us to detect the warning movement of the inner
+Guide. A deepseated sense of dissatisfaction, an indescribable feeling
+that somehow everything is not right, are the indications to which we do
+well to pay heed; for we are "guarded ones," and these interior
+monitions are the working of that innermost principle of our own being
+which is the immediate outflowing of the Great Universal Life into
+individuality. But, paying heed to this, we shall find ourselves
+guarded, not as prisoners, but as a loved and honoured wife, whose
+freedom is assured by a protection which will allow no harm to assail
+her; we shall find that the Law of our nature is Liberty, and that
+nothing but our own want of understanding can shut us out from it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Mind and Hand</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>I have before me a curious piece of ancient Egyptian symbolism. It
+represents the sun sending down to the earth innumerable rays, with the
+peculiarity that each ray terminates in a hand. This method of
+representing the sun is so unusual that it suggests the presence in the
+designer's mind of some idea rather different from those generally
+associated with the sun as a spiritual emblem; and, if I interpret the
+symbol rightly, it sets forth the truth, not only of the Divine Being as
+the Great Source of all Life and of all Illumination, but also the
+correlative truth of our individual relation to that centre. Each ray is
+terminated by a hand, and a hand is the emblem of active working; and I
+think it would be difficult to give a better symbolical representation
+of innumerable individualities, each working separately, yet all
+deriving their activity from a common source. The hand is at work upon
+the earth, and the sun, from which it is a ray, is shining in the
+heavens; but the connecting line shows whence all the strength and skill
+of the hand are derived.</p>
+
+<p>If we look at the microcosm of our own person we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>find this principle
+exactly reproduced. Our hand is the instrument by which all our work is
+done&mdash;literary, artistic, mechanical, or household&mdash;but we know that all
+this work is really the work of the mind, the will-power at the centre
+of our system, which first determines what is to be done, and then sets
+the hand to work to do it; and in the doing of it the mind and hand
+become one, so that the hand is none other than the mind working. Now,
+transferring this analogy to the microcosm, we see that we each stand in
+the same relation to the Universal Mind that our hand does to our
+individual mind&mdash;at least, that is our normal relation; and we shall
+never put forth our full strength except from this standpoint.</p>
+
+<p>We rightly realise our will as the centre of our individuality, but we
+should do better to picture our individuality as an ellipse rather than
+a circle, a figure having two "conjugate foci," two equilibriated
+centres of revolution rather than a single one, one of which is the
+will-power or faculty of <i>doing</i>, and the other the consciousness or
+perception of <i>being</i>. If we realise only one of these two centres we
+shall lose both mental and moral balance. If we lose sight of that
+centre which is our personal will, we shall become flabby visionaries
+without any backbone; and if, in our anxiety to develop backbone, we
+lost sight of the other centre, we shall find that we have lost that
+which corresponds to the lungs and heart in the physical body, and that
+our backbone, however perfectly developed, is rapidly dry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>ing up for
+want of those functions which minister vitality to the whole system, and
+is only fit to be hung up in a museum to show what a rigid, lifeless
+thing the strongest vertebral column becomes when separated from the
+organisation by which alone it can receive nourishment. We must realise
+the one focus of our individuality as clearly as the other, and bring
+both into equal balance, if we would develop all our powers and rise to
+that perfection of Life which has no limits to its glorious
+possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>Keeping the ancient Egyptian symbol before used, and considering
+ourselves as the hand, we find that we derive all our power from an
+infinite centre; and because it is infinite we need never fear that we
+shall fail to draw to ourselves all that we require for our work,
+whether it be the intelligence to lay hold of the proper tool, or the
+strength to use it. And, moreover, we learn from the symbol that this
+central power is generic. This is a most important truth. It is the
+centre from which all the hands proceed, and is as fully open to any one
+hand as to any other. Each hand is doing its separate work, and the
+whole of the central energy is at its disposal for its own specific
+purpose. The work of the central energy, as such, is to supply vitality
+to the hands, and it is they that differentiate this universal power
+into all the varied forms of application which their different aptitudes
+and opportunities suggest. We, as the hands, live and work because the
+Central Mind lives and works in us. We are one with it, and it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>is one
+with us; and so long as we keep this primal truth before us, we realise
+ourselves as beings of unlimited goodness and intelligence and power,
+and we work in the fulness of strength and confidence accordingly; but
+if we lose sight of this truth, we shall find that the strongest will
+must get exhausted at last in the unequal struggle of the individual
+against the universe.</p>
+
+<p>For if we do not recognise the Central Mind as the source of our
+vitality, we are literally "fighting for our own hand," and all the
+other hands are against us, for we have lost the principle of connection
+with them. This is what must infallibly happen if we rely on nothing but
+our individual will-power. But if we realise that the will is the power
+by which we give out, and that every giving out implies a corresponding
+taking in, then we shall find in the boundless ocean of central living
+Spirit the source from which we can go on taking in <i>ad infinitum</i>, and
+which thus enables us to give out to any extent we please. But for wise
+and effective giving out a strong and enlightened will is an absolute
+necessity, and therefore we do well to cultivate the will, or the active
+side of our nature. But we must equally cultivate the receptive side
+also; and when we do this rightly by seeing in the Infinite Mind the one
+source of supply, our will-power becomes intensified by the knowledge
+that the whole power of the Infinite is present to back it up; and with
+this continual sense of Infinite Power behind us we can go calmly and
+steadily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>to the accomplishment of any purpose, however difficult,
+without straining or effort, knowing that it shall be achieved, not by
+the hand only, but by the invincible Mind that works through it. "Not by
+might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."</p>
+
+<p>1902.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">The Central Control</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>In contemplating the relations between body, soul, and spirit, between
+Universal Mind and individual mind, the methodised study of which
+constitutes Mental Science, we must never forget that these relations
+indicate, not the separateness, but the unity of these principles. We
+must learn not to attribute one part of our action to one part of our
+being, and another to another. Neither the action nor the functions are
+split up into separate parts. The action is a whole, and the being that
+does it is a whole, and in the healthy organism the reciprocal movements
+of the principles are so harmonious as never to suggest any feeling than
+that of a perfectly whole and undivided self. If there is any other
+feeling we may be sure that there is abnormal action somewhere, and we
+should set ourselves to discover and remove the cause of it. The reason
+for this is that in any perfect organism there cannot be more than one
+centre of control.</p>
+
+<p>A rivalry of controlling principles would be the destruction of the
+organic wholeness; for either the elements would separate and group
+themselves round one or other of the centres, according to their
+respective affinities, and thus form two distinctive individualities,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>or else they would be reduced to a condition of merely chaotic
+confusion; in either case the original organism would cease to exist.
+Seen in this light, therefore, it is a self-evident truth that, if we
+are to retain our individuality; in other words, if we are to continue
+to exist, it can be only by retaining our hold upon the central
+controlling principle in ourselves; and if this be the charter of our
+being, it follows that all our future development depends on our
+recognising and accepting this central controlling principle. To this
+end, therefore, all our endeavours should be directed; for otherwise all
+our studies in Mental Science will only lead us into a confused
+labyrinth of principles and counter-principles, which will be
+considerably worse than the state of ignorant simplicity from which we
+started.</p>
+
+<p>This central controlling principle is the Will, and we must never lose
+sight of the fact that all the other principles about which we have
+learnt in our studies exist only as its instruments. The Will is the
+true self, of which they are all functions, and all our progress
+consists of our increased recognition of the fact. It is the Will that
+says "I AM"; and therefore, however exalted, or even in their higher
+developments apparently miraculous, our powers may be, they are all
+subject to the central controlling power of the Will. When the
+enlightened Will shall have learnt to identify itself perfectly with the
+limitless powers of knowledge, judgment, and creative thought which are
+at its disposal, then the individual will have attained to perfect
+whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>ness, and all limitations will have passed away for ever.</p>
+
+<p>And nothing short of this consciousness of Perfect Wholeness can satisfy
+us. Everything that falls short of it is in that degree an embodiment of
+the principle of Death, that great enemy against which the principle of
+Life must continue to wage unceasing war, in whatever form or measure it
+may show itself, until "death is swallowed up in victory." There can be
+no compromise. Either we are affirming Life, as a principle, or we are
+denying it, no matter on how great or how small a scale; and the
+criterion by which to determine our attitude is our realisation of our
+own Wholeness. Death is the principle of disintegration; and whenever we
+admit the power of any portion of our organism, whether spiritual or
+bodily, to induce any condition <i>independently of the intention of the
+Will</i>, we admit that the force of disintegration is superior to the
+controlling centre in ourselves, and we conceive of ourselves as held in
+bondage by an adversary, from which bondage the only way of release is
+by the attainment of a truer way of thinking.</p>
+
+<p>And the reason is that, either through ignorance or carelessness, we
+have surrendered our position of control over the system as a whole, and
+have lost the element of <i>Purpose</i>, around which the consciousness of
+individuality must always centre. Every state of our consciousness,
+whether active or passive, should be the result of a distinct <i>purpose</i>
+adopted by our own free will; for the passive states should be quite as
+much <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>under the control of the Will as the active. It is the lack of
+<i>purpose</i> that deprives us of power. The higher and more clearly defined
+our purpose, the greater stimulus we have for realising our control over
+<i>all</i> our faculties for its attainment; and since the grandest of all
+purposes is the strengthening and ennobling of Life, in proportion as we
+make this our aim we shall find ourselves in union with the Supreme
+Universal Mind, acting each in our individual sphere for the furtherance
+of the same purpose which animates the ruling principle of the Great
+Whole, and, as a consequence, shall find that its intelligence and
+powers are at our disposal.</p>
+
+<p>But in all this there must be no strain. The true exercise of the Will
+is not an exercise of unnatural force. It is simply the leading of our
+powers into their natural channels by intelligently recognising the
+direction in which those channels go. However various in detail, they
+have one clearly defined common tendency towards the increasing of
+Life&mdash;whether in ourselves or in others&mdash;and if we keep this steadily in
+view, all our powers, whether interior or exterior, will be found to
+work so harmoniously together that there will be no sense of independent
+action on the part of any one of them. The distinctions drawn for
+purposes of study will be laid aside, and the Self in us will be found
+to be the realisation of a grand ideal being, at once individual and
+universal, consciously free in its individual wholeness and in its
+joyous participation in the Life of the Universal Whole.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">What Is Higher Thought?</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>Resolution passed October, 1902, by the Kensington Higher Thought
+Centre.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>"That the Centre stands for the definite teaching of
+absolute Oneness of Creator and Creation&mdash;Cause and
+Effect&mdash;and that nothing which may contradict or be in
+opposition to the above principles be admitted to the 'Higher
+Thought' Centre Platform.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"By Oneness of Cause and Effect is meant, that Effect (man)
+does consist only of what Cause is; but a part (individual
+personality) is not therefore co-extensive with the whole."</i></p></div>
+
+<p>This Resolution is of the greatest importance. Once admit that there is
+<i>any</i> Power outside yourself, however beneficent you may conceive it to
+be, and you have sown the seed which must sooner or later bear the fruit
+of "<i>Fear</i>" which is the entire ruin of Life, Love and Liberty. There is
+no <i>via media</i>. Say we are only reflections, however accurate, of The
+Life, and in the admission we have given away our Birthright. However
+small or plausible may be the germ of thought which admits that we are
+anything less in principle than The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>Life Itself, it must spring up to
+the ultimate ruin of the Life-Principle itself. We <i>are</i> It itself. The
+difference is only that between the generic and the specific of the
+<i>same</i> thing. We must contend earnestly, both within ourselves and
+outwardly, for the <i>one great foundation</i> and never, now on to all
+eternity, admit for a single instant any thought which is opposed to
+this, the Basic Truth of Being.</p>
+
+<p>The leading ideas connected with Higher Thought are (I) That Man
+controls circumstances, instead of being controlled by them, and (II) as
+a consequence of the foregoing, that whatever teaches us to <i>rely</i> on
+power <i>borrowed</i> from a source <i>outside</i> ourselves is <i>not</i> Higher
+Thought; and that whatever explains to us the <i>Infinite</i> source of <i>our
+own inherent</i> power and the consequent <i>limitless</i> nature of that power
+<i>is</i> Higher Thought. This avoids the use of terms which may only puzzle
+those not accustomed to abstract phraseology, and is substantially the
+same as the resolution of October, 1902.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">Fragments</span></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">1. God is Love.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Man, having the understanding of God, speaks the Word of Power.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">2. Man gives utterance to God.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">3. The Father is Equilibrium.<br />
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Son is Concentration of the <i>same</i> Spirit.<br />
+
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Spirit is Projection.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Tri-une Relation</i>&mdash;always consists of these Three:</p>
+
+<p>(I) The Potential&mdash;(II) The Ideal&mdash;(III) The Concrete.</p>
+
+<p>(I) The Potential is Life in its most highly abstract mode not yet
+brought into Form even as Thought. Not particularised in <i>any</i> way.</p>
+
+<p>(II) The Ideal is the particularising of the Potential into a certain
+Formulated Thought.</p>
+
+<p>(III) The Concrete is the Manifestation of the Formulated Thought in
+Visible Form.</p>
+
+<p>What everybody wants is to become <i>more alive</i>&mdash;as Jesus said, "I am
+come that they might have Life and might have it more abundantly"&mdash;and
+it is only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>on the basis of realising ourselves as a <i>perfect unity
+throughout</i>, not made up of opposing parts, and that unity <i>Spirit</i>,
+that we can realise in ourselves the <i>Livingness</i> which <i>Spirit is</i>, and
+which we <i>as Spirit</i> ought to be.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Hence perfect demonstration.</span></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+"The Truth shall make you Free"<br />
+Life&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;:<br />
+Love&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;:&nbsp;&nbsp;= The Truth<br />
+Liberty&nbsp;&nbsp;:<br />
+
+</p></div>
+
+<p>The Ultimate Truth will always be found to consist of these three, and
+anything that is contrary to them is contrary to Fundamental Truth.</p>
+
+
+<h4>WORSHIP</h4>
+
+<p>Worship consists in the recognition of the <i>Personal</i> Nature of Holy
+Spirit, and in the Continual Alternation (Pulsation) between the two
+positions of "I am the Person that Thou art," and "Thou art the Person
+that I am." The Two Personalities are One.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="trans_note">
+<p class="center"><big>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</big></p>
+<p class="noindent">
+
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
+typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have
+been corrected. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#Page_64">page 64</a> extra word removed: that we shall <i>feel</i> [the] the truth of it</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#Page_102">page 102</a> typographical error corrected: and the place of the old <i>strum[sturm] und drang</i> will be taken, not by inertia,</p>
+
+
+<p class="noindent">
+<a href="#Page_151">page 151</a> extra word removed: in proportion as you find it there, you will [will] find it
+everywhere else.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIDDEN POWER***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 25638-h.txt or 25638-h.zip *******</p>
+<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br />
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/6/3/25638">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/3/25638</a></p>
+<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.</p>
+
+<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.</p>
+
+
+
+<pre>
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license)</a>.
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a>
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a>
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a>
+
+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
+</pre>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/25638-h/images/publogo.jpg b/25638-h/images/publogo.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f840ed7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25638-h/images/publogo.jpg
diff --git a/25638.txt b/25638.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b4002bd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25638.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5657 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hidden Power, by Thomas Troward
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Hidden Power
+       And Other Papers upon Mental Science
+
+
+Author: Thomas Troward
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 29, 2008  [eBook #25638]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIDDEN POWER***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+   Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
+   as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious
+   typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the
+   like) have been corrected. Corrections [in brackets] in the
+   text are explained in a note at the end of the book.
+
+   Numbers within curly brackets preceded by a carat character were
+   superscripted in the original. Example: X^{2}.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HIDDEN POWER
+
+And Other Papers upon Mental Science
+
+by
+
+T. TROWARD
+
+Late Divisional Judge, Punjab. Honorary Member of the
+Medico-Legal Society of New York. First Vice-President
+International New Thought Alliance
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Robert M. McBride & Company
+
+Copyright, 1921, by S. A. Troward
+All rights reserved
+
+Sixth Printing September 1936
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHER'S NOTE
+
+
+The material comprised in this volume has been selected from unpublished
+manuscripts and magazine articles by Judge Troward, and "The Hidden
+Power" is, it is believed, the last book which will be published under
+his name. Only an insignificant portion of his work has been deemed
+unworthy of permanent preservation. Whenever possible, dates have been
+affixed to these papers. Those published in 1902 appeared originally in
+"EXPRESSION: A Journal of Mind and Thought," in London, and to some of
+these have been added notes made later by the author.
+
+The Publishers wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to Mr. Daniel M.
+Murphy of New York for his services in the selection and arrangement of
+the material.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                                     PAGE
+
+      I The Hidden Power                                        1
+
+     II The Perversion of Truth                                42
+
+    III The "I Am"                                             59
+
+     IV Affirmative Power                                      63
+
+      V Submission                                             67
+
+     VI Completeness                                           74
+
+    VII The Principle of Guidance                              81
+
+   VIII Desire as the Motive Power                             85
+
+     IX Touching Lightly                                       92
+
+      X Present Truth                                          96
+
+     XI Yourself                                               99
+
+    XII Religious Opinions                                    105
+
+   XIII A Lesson from Browning                                113
+
+    XIV The Spirit of Opulence                                118
+
+     XV Beauty                                                123
+
+    XVI Separation and Unity                                  129
+
+   XVII Externalisation                                       141
+
+  XVIII Entering into the Spirit of It                        146
+
+    XIX The Bible and the New Thought
+          I. The Son                                          153
+         II. The Great Affirmation                            166
+        III. The Father                                       178
+         IV. Conclusion                                       185
+
+     XX Jachin and Boaz                                       192
+
+    XXI Hephzibah                                             197
+
+   XXII Mind and Hand                                         204
+
+  XXIII The Central Control                                   209
+
+   XXIV What is Higher Thought                                213
+
+    XXV Fragments                                             215
+
+
+
+
+THE HIDDEN POWER AND OTHER ESSAYS
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE HIDDEN POWER
+
+
+To realise fully how much of our present daily life consists in symbols
+is to find the answer to the old, old question, What is Truth? and in
+the degree in which we begin to recognise this we begin to approach
+Truth. The realisation of Truth consists in the ability to translate
+symbols, whether natural or conventional, into their equivalents; and
+the root of all the errors of mankind consists in the inability to do
+this, and in maintaining that the symbol has nothing behind it. The
+great duty incumbent on all who have attained to this knowledge is to
+impress upon their fellow men that there is an _inner side_ to things,
+and that until this _inner_ side is known, the things themselves are not
+known.
+
+There is an inner and an outer side to everything; and the quality of
+the superficial mind which causes it to fail in the attainment of Truth
+is its willingness to rest content with the outside only. So long as
+this is the case it is impossible for a man to grasp the import of his
+own relation to the universal, and it is this relation which constitutes
+all that is signified by the word "Truth." So long as a man fixes his
+attention only on the superficial it is impossible for him to make any
+progress in knowledge. He is denying that principle of "Growth" which is
+the root of all life, whether spiritual intellectual, or material, for
+he does not stop to reflect that all which he sees as the outer side of
+things can result only from some germinal principle hidden deep in the
+centre of their being.
+
+Expansion from the centre by growth according to a necessary order of
+sequence, this is the Law of Life of which the whole universe is the
+outcome, alike in the one great solidarity of cosmic being, as in the
+separate individualities of its minutest organisms. This great principle
+is the key to the whole riddle of Life, upon whatever plane we
+contemplate it; and without this key the door from the outer to the
+inner side of things can never be opened. It is therefore the duty of
+all to whom this door has, at least in some measure, been opened, to
+endeavour to acquaint others with the fact that there is an inner side
+to things, and that life becomes truer and fuller in proportion as we
+penetrate to it and make our estimates of all things according to what
+becomes visible from this interior point of view.
+
+In the widest sense everything is a symbol of that which constitutes its
+inner being, and all Nature is a gallery of arcana revealing great
+truths to those who can decipher them. But there is a more precise
+sense in which our current life is based upon symbols in regard to the
+most important subjects that can occupy our thoughts: the symbols by
+which we strive to represent the nature and being of God, and the manner
+in which the life of man is related to the Divine life. The whole
+character of a man's life results from what he really believes on this
+subject: not his formal statement of belief in a particular creed, but
+what he realises as the stage which his mind has actually attained in
+regard to it.
+
+Has a man's mind only reached the point at which he thinks it is
+impossible to know anything about God, or to make any use of the
+knowledge if he had it? Then his whole interior world is in the
+condition of confusion, which must necessarily exist where no spirit of
+order has yet begun to move upon the chaos in which are, indeed, the
+elements of being, but all disordered and neutralising one another. Has
+he advanced a step further, and realised that there is a ruling and an
+ordering power, but beyond this is ignorant of its nature? Then the
+unknown stands to him for the terrific, and, amid a tumult of fears and
+distresses that deprive him of all strength to advance, he spends his
+life in the endeavour to propitiate this power as something naturally
+adverse to him, instead of knowing that it is the very centre of his own
+life and being.
+
+And so on through every degree, from the lowest depths of ignorance to
+the greatest heights of intelligence, a man's life must always be the
+exact reflection of that particular stage which he has reached in the
+perception of the divine nature and of his own relation to it; and as we
+approach the full perception of Truth, so the life-principle within us
+expands, the old bonds and limitations which had no existence in reality
+fall off from us, and we enter into regions of light, liberty, and
+power, of which we had previously no conception. It is impossible,
+therefore, to overestimate the importance of being able to realise the
+symbol _for_ a symbol, and being able to penetrate to the inner
+substance which it represents. Life itself is to be realised only by the
+conscious experience of its livingness in ourselves, and it is the
+endeavour to translate these experiences into terms which shall suggest
+a corresponding idea to others that gives rise to all symbolism.
+
+The nearer those we address have approached to the actual experience,
+the more transparent the symbol becomes; and the further they are from
+such experience the thicker is the veil; and our whole progress consists
+in the fuller and fuller translation of the symbols into clearer and
+clearer statements of that for which they stand. But the first step,
+without which all succeeding ones must remain impossible, is to convince
+people that symbols _are_ symbols, and not the very Truth itself. And
+the difficulty consists in this, that if the symbolism is in any degree
+adequate it must, in some measure, represent the form of Truth, just as
+the modelling of a drapery suggests the form of the figure beneath. They
+have a certain consciousness that somehow they are in the presence of
+Truth; and this leads people to resent any removal of those folds of
+drapery which have hitherto conveyed this idea to their minds.
+
+There is sufficient indication of the inner Truth in the outward form to
+afford an excuse for the timorous, and those who have not sufficient
+mental energy to think for themselves, to cry out that finality has
+already been attained, and that any further search into the matter must
+end in the destruction of Truth. But in raising such an outcry they
+betray their ignorance of the very nature of Truth, which is that it can
+never be destroyed: the very fact that Truth is Truth makes this
+impossible. And again they exhibit their ignorance of the first
+principle of Life--namely, the Law of Growth, which throughout the
+universe perpetually pushes forward into more and more vivid forms of
+expression, having expansion everywhere and finality nowhere.
+
+Such ignorant objections need not, therefore, alarm us; and we should
+endeavour to show those who make them that what they fear is the only
+natural order of the Divine Life, which is "over all, and through all,
+and in all." But we must do this gently, and not by forcibly thrusting
+upon them the object of their terror, and so repelling them from all
+study of the subject. We should endeavour gradually to lead them to see
+that there is something interior to what they have hitherto held to be
+ultimate Truth, and to realise that the sensation of emptiness and
+dissatisfaction, which from time to time will persist in making itself
+felt in their hearts, is nothing else than the pressing forward of the
+spirit within to declare that inner side of things which alone can
+satisfactorily account for what we observe on the exterior, and without
+the knowledge of which we can never perceive the true nature of our
+inheritance in the Universal Life which is the Life Everlasting.
+
+
+II
+
+What, then, is this central principle which is at the root of all
+things? It is Life. But not life as we recognise it in particular forms
+of manifestation; it is something more interior and concentrated than
+that. It is that "unity of the spirit" which _is_ unity, simply because
+it has not yet passed into diversity. Perhaps this is not an easy idea
+to grasp, but it is the root of all scientific conception of spirit; for
+without it there is no common principle to which we can refer the
+innumerable forms of manifestation that spirit assumes.
+
+It is the conception of Life as the sum-total of all its undistributed
+powers, being as yet none of these in particular, but all of them in
+potentiality. This is, no doubt, a highly abstract idea, but it is
+essentially that of the centre from which growth takes place by
+expansion in every direction. This is that last residuum which defies
+all our powers of analysis. This is truly "the unknowable," not in the
+sense of the unthinkable but of the unanalysable. It is the subject of
+perception, not of knowledge, if by knowledge we mean that faculty which
+estimates the _relations_ between things, because here we have passed
+beyond any questions of relations, and are face to face with the
+absolute.
+
+This innermost of all is absolute Spirit. It is Life as yet not
+differentiated into any specific mode; it is the universal Life which
+pervades all things and is at the heart of all appearances.
+
+To come into the knowledge of this is to come into the secret of power,
+and to enter into the secret place of Living Spirit. Is it illogical
+first to call this the unknowable, and then to speak of coming into the
+knowledge of it? Perhaps so; but no less a writer than St. Paul has set
+the example; for does he not speak of the final result of all searchings
+into the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the inner side
+of things as being, to attain the knowledge of that Love which passeth
+knowledge. If he is thus boldly illogical in phrase, though not in fact,
+may we not also speak of knowing "the unknowable"? We may, for this
+knowledge is the root of all other knowledge.
+
+The presence of this undifferentiated universal life-power is the final
+axiomatic fact to which all our analysis must ultimately conduct us. On
+whatever plane we make our analysis it must always abut upon pure
+essence, pure energy, pure being; that which knows itself and recognises
+itself, but which cannot dissect itself because it is not built up of
+parts, but is ultimately integral: it is pure Unity. But analysis which
+does not lead to synthesis is merely destructive: it is the child
+wantonly pulling the flower to pieces and throwing away the fragments;
+not the botanist, also pulling the flower to pieces, but building up in
+his mind from those carefully studied fragments a vast synthesis of the
+constructive power of Nature, embracing the laws of the formation of all
+flower-forms. The value of analysis is to lead us to the original
+starting-point of that which we analyse, and so to teach us the laws by
+which its final form springs from this centre.
+
+Knowing the law of its construction, we turn our analysis into a
+synthesis, and we thus gain a power of building up which must always be
+beyond the reach of those who regard "the unknowable" as one with
+"not-being."
+
+_This_ idea of the unknowable is the root of all materialism; and yet no
+scientific man, however materialistic his proclivities, treats the
+unanalysable residuum thus when he meets it in the experiments of his
+laboratory. On the contrary, he makes this final unanalysable fact the
+basis of his synthesis. He finds that in the last resort it is energy of
+some kind, whether as heat or as motion; but he does not throw up his
+scientific pursuits because he cannot analyse it further. He adopts the
+precisely opposite course, and realises that the conservation of energy,
+its indestructibility, and the impossibility of adding to or detracting
+from the sum-total of energy in the world, is the one solid and
+unchanging fact on which alone the edifice of physical science can be
+built up. He bases all his knowledge upon his knowledge of "the
+unknowable." And rightly so, for if he could analyse this energy into
+yet further factors, then the same problem of "the unknowable" would
+meet him still. All our progress consists in continually pushing the
+unknowable, in the sense of the unanalysable residuum, a step further
+back; but that there should be no ultimate unanalysable residuum
+anywhere is an inconceivable idea.
+
+In thus realising the undifferentiated unity of Living Spirit as the
+central fact of any system, whether the system of the entire universe or
+of a single organism, we are therefore following a strictly scientific
+method. We pursue our analysis until it necessarily leads us to this
+final fact, and then we accept this fact as the basis of our synthesis.
+The Science of Spirit is thus not one whit less scientific than the
+Science of Matter; and, moreover, it starts from the same initial fact,
+the fact of a living energy which defies definition or explanation,
+wherever we find it; but it differs from the science of matter in that
+it contemplates this energy under an aspect of responsive intelligence
+which does not fall within the scope of physical science, as such. The
+Science of Spirit and the Science of Matter are not opposed. They are
+complementaries, and neither is fully comprehensible without some
+knowledge of the other; and, being really but two portions of one whole,
+they insensibly shade off into each other in a border-land where no
+arbitrary line can be drawn between them. Science studied in a truly
+scientific spirit, following out its own deductions unflinchingly to
+their legitimate conclusions, will always reveal the twofold aspect of
+things, the inner and the outer; and it is only a truncated and maimed
+science that refuses to recognise both.
+
+The study of the material world is not Materialism, if it be allowed to
+progress to its legitimate issue. Materialism is that limited view of
+the universe which will not admit the existence of anything but
+mechanical effects of mechanical causes, and a system which recognises
+no higher power than the physical forces of nature must logically result
+in having no higher ultimate appeal than to physical force or to fraud
+as its alternative. I speak, of course, of the tendency of the system,
+not of the morality of individuals, who are often very far in advance of
+the systems they profess. But as we would avoid the propagation of a
+mode of thought whose effects history shows only too plainly, whether in
+the Italy of the Borgias, or the France of the First Revolution, or the
+Commune of the Franco-Prussian War, we should set ourselves to study
+that inner and spiritual aspect of things which is the basis of a system
+whose logical results are truth and love instead of perfidy and
+violence.
+
+Some of us, doubtless, have often wondered why the Heavenly Jerusalem is
+described in the Book of Revelations as a cube; "the length and the
+breadth and the height of it are equal." This is because the cube is the
+figure of perfect stability, and thus represents Truth, which can never
+be overthrown. Turn it on what side you will, it still remains the
+perfect cube, always standing upright; you cannot upset it. This figure,
+then, represents the manifestation in concrete solidity of that central
+life-giving energy, which is not itself any one plane but generates all
+planes, the planes of the above and of the below and of all four sides.
+But it is at the same time a city, a place of habitation; and this is
+because that which is "the within" is Living Spirit, which has its
+dwelling there.
+
+As one plane of the cube implies all the other planes and also "the
+within," so any plane of manifestation implies the others and also that
+"within" which generates them all. Now, if we would make any progress in
+the spiritual side of science--and _every_ department of science has its
+spiritual side--we must always keep our minds fixed upon this "innermost
+within" which contains the potential of all outward manifestation, the
+"fourth dimension" which generates the cube; and our common forms of
+speech show how intuitively we do this. We speak of the spirit in which
+an act is done, of entering into the spirit of a game, of the spirit of
+the time, and so on. Everywhere our intuition points out the spirit as
+the true essence of things; and it is only when we commence arguing
+about them from without, instead of from within, that our true
+perception of their nature is lost.
+
+The scientific study of spirit consists in following up intelligently
+and according to definite method the same principle that now only
+flashes upon us at intervals fitfully and vaguely. When we once realise
+that this universal and unlimited power of spirit is at the root of all
+things and of ourselves also, then we have obtained the key to the whole
+position; and, however far we may carry our studies in spiritual
+science, we shall nowhere find anything else but particular developments
+of this one universal principle. "The Kingdom of Heaven is _within_
+you."
+
+
+III
+
+I have laid stress on the fact that the "innermost within" of all things
+is living Spirit, and that the Science of Spirit is distinguished from
+the Science of Matter in that it contemplates Energy under an aspect of
+responsive intelligence which does not fall within the scope of physical
+science, as such. These are the two great points to lay hold of if we
+would retain a clear idea of Spiritual Science, and not be misled by
+arguments drawn from the physical side of Science only--the livingness
+of the originating principle which is at the heart of all things, and
+its intelligent and responsive nature. Its livingness is patent to our
+observation, at any rate from the point where we recognise it in the
+vegetable kingdom; but its intelligence and responsiveness are not,
+perhaps, at once so obvious. Nevertheless, a little thought will soon
+lead us to recognise this also.
+
+No one can deny that there is an intelligent order throughout all
+nature, for it requires the highest intelligence of our most
+highly-trained minds to follow the steps of this universal intelligence
+which is always in advance of them. The more deeply we investigate the
+world we live in, the more clear it must become to us that all our
+science is the translation into words or numerical symbols of that order
+which already exists. If the clear statement of this existing order is
+the highest that the human intellect can reach, this surely argues a
+corresponding intelligence in the power which gives rise to this great
+sequence of order and interrelation, so as to constitute one harmonious
+whole. Now, unless we fall back on the idea of a workman working upon
+material external to himself--in which case we have to explain the
+phenomenon of the workman--the only conception we can form of this power
+is that it is the Living Spirit inherent in the heart of every atom,
+giving it outward form and definition, and becoming in it those
+intrinsic polarities which constitute its characteristic nature.
+
+There is no random work here. Every attraction and repulsion acts with
+its proper force collecting the atoms into molecules, the molecules into
+tissues, the tissues into organs, and the organs into individuals. At
+each stage of the progress we get the sum of the intelligent forces
+which operate in the constituent parts, _plus_ a higher degree of
+intelligence which we may regard as the collective intelligence superior
+to that of the mere sum-total of the parts, something which belongs to
+the individual _as a whole_, and not to the parts as such. These are
+facts which can be amply proved from physical science; and they also
+supply a great law in spiritual science, which is that in any collective
+body the intelligence of the whole is superior to that of the sum of the
+parts.
+
+Spirit is at the root of all things, and thoughtful observation shows
+that its operation is guided by unfailing intelligence which adapts
+means to ends, and harmonises the entire universe of manifested being in
+those wonderful ways which physical science renders clearer every day;
+and this intelligence must be in the generating spirit itself, because
+there is no other source from which it could proceed. On these grounds,
+therefore, we may distinctly affirm that Spirit is intelligent, and that
+whatever it does is done by the intelligent adaptation of means to ends.
+
+But Spirit is also responsive. And here we have to fall back upon the
+law above stated, that the mere sum of the intelligence of Spirit in
+lower degrees of manifestation is not equal to the intelligence of the
+complex _whole_, as a whole. This is a radical law which we cannot
+impress upon our minds too deeply. The degree of spiritual intelligence
+is marked by the wholeness of the organism through which it finds
+expression; and therefore the more highly organised being has a degree
+of spirit which is superior to, and consequently capable of exercising
+control over, all lower or less fully-integrated degrees of spirit; and
+this being so, we can now begin to see why the spirit that is the
+"innermost within" of all things is responsive as well as intelligent.
+
+Being intelligent, it _knows_, and spirit being ultimately all there is,
+that which it knows is itself. Hence it is that power which recognises
+itself; and accordingly the lower powers of it recognise its higher
+powers, and by the law of attraction they are bound to respond to the
+higher degrees of themselves. On this general principle, therefore,
+spirit, under whatever exterior revealed, is necessarily intelligent and
+responsive. But intelligence and responsiveness imply personality; and
+we may therefore now advance a step further and argue that _all_ spirit
+contains the elements of personality, even though, in any particular
+instance, it may not yet be expressed as that individual personality
+which we find in ourselves.
+
+In short, spirit is always personal in its nature, even when it has not
+yet attained to that degree of synthesis which is sufficient to render
+it personal in manifestation. In ourselves the synthesis has proceeded
+far enough to reach that degree, and therefore we recognise ourselves as
+the manifestation of personality. The human kingdom is the kingdom of
+the manifestation of that personality, which is of the essence of
+spiritual substance on every plane. Or, to put the whole argument in a
+simpler form, we may say that our own personality must necessarily have
+had its origin in that which is personal, on the principle that you
+cannot get more out of a bag than it contains.
+
+In ourselves, therefore, we find that more perfect synthesis of the
+spirit into manifested personality which is wanting in the lower
+kingdoms of nature, and, accordingly, since spirit is necessarily that
+which knows itself and must, therefore, recognise its own degrees in its
+various modes, the spirit in all degrees below that of human personality
+is bound to respond to itself in that superior degree which constitutes
+human individuality; and this is the basis of the power of human thought
+to externalise itself in infinite forms of its own ordering.
+
+But if the subordination of the lower degrees of spirit to the higher is
+one of the fundamental laws which lie at the bottom of the creative
+power of thought, there is another equally fundamental law which places
+a salutary restraint upon the abuse of that power. It is the law that we
+can command the powers of the universal for our own purposes only in
+proportion as we first realise and obey their generic character. We can
+employ water for any purpose which does not require it to run up-hill,
+and we can utilise electricity for any purpose that does not require it
+to pass from a lower to a higher potential.
+
+So with that universal power which we call the Spirit. It has an
+inherent generic character with which we must comply if we would employ
+it for our specific purposes, and this character is summed up in the one
+word "goodness." The Spirit is Life, hence its generic tendency must
+always be lifeward or to the increase of the livingness of every
+individual. And since it is universal it can have no particular
+interests to serve, and therefore its action must always be equally for
+the benefit of all. This is the generic character of spirit; and just as
+water, or electricity, or any other of the physical forces of the
+universe, will not work contrary to their generic character, so Spirit
+will not work contrary to its generic character.
+
+The inference is obvious. If we would use Spirit we must follow the law
+of the Spirit which is "Goodness." This is the only limitation. If our
+originating intention is good, we may employ the spiritual power for
+what purpose we will. And how is "goodness" to be defined? Simply by the
+child's definition that what is bad is not good, and that what is good
+is not bad; we all know the difference between bad and good
+instinctively. If we will conform to this principle of obedience to the
+generic law of the Spirit, all that remains is for us to study the law
+of the proportion which exists between the more and less fully
+integrated modes of Spirit, and then bring our knowledge to bear with
+determination.
+
+
+IV
+
+The law of spirit, to which our investigation has now led us, is of the
+very widest scope. We have followed it up from the conception of the
+intelligence of spirit, subsisting in the initial atoms, to the
+aggregation of this intelligence as the conscious identity of the
+individual. But there is no reason why this law should cease to operate
+at this point, or at any point short of the whole. The test of the
+soundness of any principle is that it can operate as effectively on a
+large scale as on a small one, that though the nature of its field is
+determined by the nature of the principle itself, the extent of its
+field is unlimited. If, therefore, we continue to follow up the law we
+have been considering, it leads us to the conception of a unit of
+intelligence as far superior to that of the individual man as the unity
+of his individual intelligence is superior to that of the intelligence
+of any single atom of his body; and thus we may conceive of a collective
+individuality representing the spiritual character of any aggregate of
+men, the inhabitants of a city, a district, a country, or of the entire
+world.
+
+Nor need the process stop here. On the same principle there would be a
+superior collective individuality for the humanity of the entire solar
+system, and finally we reach the conception of a supreme intelligence
+bringing together in itself the collective individualities of all the
+systems in the universe. This is by no means a merely fanciful notion.
+We find it as the law by which our own conscious individuality is
+constituted; and we find the analogous principle working universally on
+the physical plane. It is known to physical science as the "law of
+inverse squares," by which the forces of reciprocal attraction or
+repulsion, as the case may be, are not merely equivalent to the sum of
+the forces emitted by the two bodies concerned, but are equivalent to
+these two forces multiplied together and divided by the square of the
+distance between them, so that the resultant power continually rises in
+a rapidly-increasing ratio as the two reciprocally exciting bodies
+approach one another.
+
+Since this law is so universal throughout physical nature, the doctrine
+of continuity affords every ground for supposing that its analogue holds
+good in respect of spiritual nature. We must never lose sight of the
+old-world saying that "a truth on one plane is a truth on all." If a
+principle exists at all it exists universally. We must not allow
+ourselves to be misled by appearances; we must remember that the
+perceptible results of the working of any principle consist of two
+factors--the principle itself or the active factor, and the
+subject-matter on which it acts or the passive factor; and that while
+the former is invariable, the latter is variable, and that the operation
+of the same invariable upon different variables must necessarily produce
+a variety of results. This at once becomes evident if we state it
+mathematically; for example, _a_, _b_ or _c_, multiplied by _x_ give
+respectively the results _ax_, _bx_, _cx_, which differ materially from
+one another, though the factor _x_ always remains the same.
+
+This law of the generation of power by attraction applies on the
+spiritual as well as on the physical plane, and acts with the same
+mathematical precision on both; and thus the human individuality
+consists, not in the mere aggregation of its parts, whether spiritual or
+corporeal, but in the _unity_ of power resulting from the intimate
+association into which those parts enter with one another, which unity,
+according to this law of the generation of power by attraction, is
+infinitely superior, both in intelligence and power, to any less fully
+integrated mode of spirit. Thus a natural principle, common alike to
+physical and spiritual law, fully accounts for all claims that have ever
+been made for the creative power of our thought over all things that
+come within the circle of our own particular life. Thus it is that each
+man is the centre of his own universe, and has the power, by directing
+his own thought, to control all things therein.
+
+But, as I have said above, there is no reason why this principle should
+not be recognised as expanding from the individual until it embraces
+the entire universe. Each man, as the centre of his own world, is
+himself centred in a higher system in which he is only one of
+innumerable similar atoms, and this system again in a higher until we
+reach the supreme centre of all things; intelligence and power increase
+from centre to centre in a ratio rising with inconceivable rapidity,
+according to the law we are now investigating, until they culminate in
+illimitable intelligence and power commensurate with All-Being.
+
+Now we have seen that the relation of man to the lower modes of spirit
+is that of superiority and command, but what is his relation to these
+higher modes? In any harmoniously constituted system the relation of the
+part to the whole never interferes with the free operation of the part
+in the performance of its own functions; but, on the contrary, it is
+precisely by means of this relation that each part is maintained in a
+position to discharge all functions for which it is fitted. Thus, then,
+the subordination of the individual man to the supreme mind, so far from
+curtailing his liberty, is the very condition which makes liberty
+possible, or even life itself. The generic movement of the whole
+necessarily carries the part along with it; and so long as the part
+allows itself thus to be carried onwards there will be no hindrance to
+its free working in any direction for which it is fitted by its own
+individuality. This truth was set forth in the old Hindu religion as the
+Car of Jaggarnath--an ideal car only, which later ages degraded into a
+terribly material symbol. "Jaggarnath" means "Lord of the Universe," and
+thus signifies the Universal Mind. This, by the law of Being, must
+always move forward regardless of any attempts of individuals to
+restrain it. Those who mount upon its car move onward with it to
+endlessly advancing evolution, while those who seek to oppose it must be
+crushed beneath its wheels, for it is no respecter of persons.
+
+If, therefore, we would employ the universal law of spirit to control
+our own little individual worlds, we must also recognise it in respect
+to the supreme centre round which we ourselves revolve. But not in the
+old way of supposing that this centre is a capricious Individuality
+external to ourselves, which can be propitiated or cajoled into giving
+the good which he is not good enough to give of his own proper motion.
+So long as we retain this infantile idea we have not come into the
+liberty which results from the knowledge of the certainty of Law.
+Supreme Mind is Supreme Law, and can be calculated upon with the same
+accuracy as when manifested in any of the particular laws of the
+physical world; and the result of studying, understanding and obeying
+this Supreme Law is that we thereby acquire the power to _use_ it. Nor
+need we fear it with the old fear which comes from ignorance, for we can
+rely with confidence upon the proposition that the whole can have no
+interest adverse to the parts of which it is composed; and conversely
+that the part can have no interest adverse to the whole.
+
+Our ignorance of our relation to the whole may make us appear to have
+separate interests, but a truer knowledge must always show such an idea
+to be mistaken. For this reason, therefore, the same responsiveness of
+spirit which manifests itself as obedience to our wishes, when we look
+to those degrees of spirit which are lower than her own individuality,
+must manifest itself as a necessary inflowing of intelligence and power
+when we look to the infinity of spirit, of which our individuality is a
+singular expression, because in so looking upwards we are looking for
+the higher degrees of _ourself_.
+
+The increased vitality of the parts means the increased vitality of the
+whole, and since it is impossible to conceive of spirit otherwise than
+as a continually expanding principle of Life, the demand for such
+increased vitality must, by the inherent nature of spirit, be met by a
+corresponding supply of continually growing intelligence and power.
+Thus, by a natural law, the demand creates the supply, and this supply
+may be freely applied to any and every subject-matter that commends
+itself to us. There is no limit to the supply of this energy other than
+what we ourselves put to it by our thought; nor is there any limit to
+the purposes we may make it serve other than the one grand Law of Order,
+which says that good things used for wrong purposes become evil. The
+consideration of the intelligent and responsive nature of spirit shows
+that there can be no limitations but these. The one is a limitation
+inherent in spirit itself, and the other is a limitation which has no
+root except in our own ignorance.
+
+It is true that to maintain our healthy action within the circle of our
+own individual world we must continually move forward with the movement
+of the larger whole of which we form a part. But this does not imply any
+restriction of our liberty to make the fullest use of our lives in
+accordance with those universal principles of life upon which they are
+founded; for there is not one law for the part and another for the
+whole, but the same law of Being permeates both alike. In proportion,
+therefore, as we realise the true law of our own individuality we shall
+find that it is one with the law of progress for the race. The
+collective individuality of mankind is only the reproduction on a larger
+scale of the personal individuality; and whatever action truly develops
+the inherent powers of the individual must necessarily be in line with
+that forward march of the universal mind which is the evolution of
+humanity as a whole.
+
+Selfishness is a narrow view of our own nature which loses sight of our
+place in relation to the whole, not perceiving that it is from this very
+relation that our life is drawn. It is ignorance of our own
+possibilities and consequent limitation of our own powers. If,
+therefore, the evidence of harmonious correlation throughout the
+physical world leads irresistibly to the inference of intelligent
+spirit as the innermost within of all things, we must recognise
+ourselves also as individual manifestations of the same spirit which
+expresses itself throughout the universe as that power of intelligent
+responsiveness which is Love.
+
+
+V
+
+Thus we find ourselves to be a necessary and integral part of the
+Infinite Harmony of All-Being; not merely recognising this great truth
+as a vague intuition, but as the logical and unavoidable result of the
+universal Life-principle which permeates all Nature. We find our
+intuition was true because we have discovered the law which gave rise to
+it; and now intuition and investigation both unite in telling us of our
+own individual place in the great scheme of things. Even the most
+advanced among us have, as yet, little more than the faintest
+adumbration of what this place is. It is the place of _power_. Towards
+those higher modes of spirit which we speak of as "the universal," the
+law of man's inmost nature makes him as a lens, drawing into the focus
+of his own individuality all that he will of light and power in streams
+of inexhaustible supply; and towards the lower modes of spirit, which
+form for each one the sphere of his own particular world, man thus
+becomes the directive centre of energy and order.
+
+Can we conceive of any position containing greater possibilities than
+these? The circle of this vital influence may expand as the individual
+grows into the wider contemplation of his unity with Infinite Being; but
+any more comprehensive law of relationship it would be impossible to
+formulate. Emerson has rightly said that a little algebra will often do
+far more towards clearing our ideas than a large amount of poetic
+simile. Algebraically it is a self-evident proposition that any
+difference between various powers of _x_ disappears when they are
+compared with _x_ multiplied into itself to infinity, because there can
+be no ratio between any determinate power, however high, and the
+infinite; and thus the relation between the individual and All-Being
+must always remain the same.[1]
+
+    [Footnote 1: X^{2} : X^{n} :: X^{10} X^{n}.]
+
+But this in no way interferes with the law of growth, by which the
+individual rises to higher and higher powers of his own individuality.
+The unchangeableness of the relation between all determinate powers of
+_x_ and infinity does not affect the relations of the different powers
+of _x_ between themselves; but rather the fact that the multiplication
+of _x_ into itself to infinity is mentally conceivable is the very proof
+that there is no limit to the extent to which it is possible to raise
+_x_ in its determinate powers.
+
+I trust unmathematical readers will pardon my using this method of
+statement for the benefit of others to whom it will carry conviction. A
+relation once clearly grasped in its mathematical aspect becomes
+thenceforth one of the unalterable truths of the universe, no longer a
+thing to be argued about, but an axiom which may be assumed as the
+foundation on which to build up the edifice of further knowledge. But,
+laying aside mathematical formulae, we may say that because the Infinite
+is infinite there can be no limit to the extent to which the vital
+principle of growth may draw upon it, and therefore there is no limit to
+the expansion of the individual's powers. Because we are _what_ we are,
+we may _become_ what we will.
+
+The Kabbalists tell us of "the lost word," the word of power which
+mankind has lost. To him who discovers this word all things are
+possible. Is this mirific word really lost? Yes, and No. It is the open
+secret of the universe, and the Bible gives us the key to it. It tells
+us, "The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart." It is
+the most familiar of all words, the word which in our heart we realise
+as the centre of our conscious being, and which is in our mouth a
+hundred times a day. It is the word "I AM." Because I am what I am, I
+may be what I will to be. My individuality is one of the modes in which
+the Infinite expresses itself, and therefore I am myself that very power
+which I find to be the innermost within of all things.
+
+To me, thus realising the great unity of all Spirit, the infinite is not
+the indefinite, for I see it to be the infinite of _Myself_. It is the
+very same I AM that I am; and this not by any act of uncertain favour,
+but by the law of polarity which is the basis of all Nature. The law of
+polarity is that law according to which everything attains completion by
+manifesting itself in the opposite direction to that from which it
+started. It is the simple law by which there can be no inside without an
+outside, nor one end of a stick without an opposite end.
+
+Life is motion, and all motion is the appearance of energy at another
+point, and, where any work has been done, under another form than that
+in which it originated; but wherever it reappears, and in whatever new
+form, the vivifying energy is still the same. This is nothing else than
+the scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy, and it is upon
+this well-recognised principle that our perception of ourselves as
+integral portions of the great universal power is based.
+
+We do well to pay heed to the sayings of the great teachers who have
+taught that all power is in the "I AM," and to accept this teaching by
+faith in their bare authority rather than not accept it at all; but the
+more excellent way is to know _why_ they taught thus, and to realise for
+ourselves this first great law which all the master-minds have realised
+throughout the ages. It is indeed true that the "lost word" is the one
+most familiar to us, ever in our hearts and on our lips. We have lost,
+not the word, but the realisation of its power. And as the infinite
+depths of meaning which the words I AM carry with them open out to us,
+we begin to realise the stupendous truth that we are ourselves the very
+power which we seek.
+
+It is the polarisation of Spirit from the universal into the particular,
+carrying with it all its inherent powers, just as the smallest flame has
+all the qualities of fire. The I AM in the individual is none other than
+the I AM in the universal. It is the same Power working in the smaller
+sphere of which the individual is the centre. This is the great truth
+which the ancients set forth under the figure of the Macrocosm and the
+Microcosm, the lesser I AM reproducing the precise image of the greater,
+and of which the Bible tells us when it speaks of man as the image of
+God.
+
+Now the immense practical importance of this principle is that it
+affords the key to the great law that "as a man thinks so he is." We are
+often asked why this should be, and the answer may be stated as follows:
+We know by personal experience that we realise our own livingness in two
+ways, by our power to act and our susceptibility to feel; and when we
+consider Spirit in the absolute we can only conceive of it as these two
+modes of livingness carried to infinity. This, therefore, means infinite
+susceptibility. There can be no question as to the degree of
+sensitiveness, for Spirit _is_ sensitiveness, and is thus infinitely
+plastic to the slightest touch that is brought to bear upon it; and
+hence every thought we formulate sends its vibrating currents out into
+the infinite of Spirit, producing there currents of like quality but of
+far vaster power.
+
+But Spirit in the Infinite is the Creative Power of the universe, and
+the impact of our thought upon it thus sets in motion a veritable
+creative force. And if this law holds good of one thought it holds good
+of all, and hence we are continually creating for ourselves a world of
+surroundings which accurately reproduces the complexion of our own
+thoughts. Persistent thoughts will naturally produce a greater external
+effect than casual ones not centred upon any particular object.
+Scattered thoughts which recognise no principle of unity will fail to
+reproduce any principle of unity. The thought that we are weak and have
+no power over circumstances results in inability to control
+circumstances, and the thought of power produces power.
+
+At every moment we are dealing with an infinitely sensitive medium which
+stirs creative energies that give form to the slightest of our
+thought-vibrations. This power is inherent in us because of our
+spiritual nature, and we cannot divest ourselves of it. It is our truly
+tremendous heritage because it is a power which, if not intelligently
+brought into lines of orderly activity, will spend its uncontrolled
+forces in devastating energy. If it is not used to build up, it will
+destroy. And there is nothing exceptional in this: it is merely the
+reappearance on the plane of the universal and undifferentiated of the
+same principle that pervades all the forces of Nature. Which of these is
+not destructive unless drawn off into some definite direction?
+Accumulated steam, accumulated electricity, accumulated water, will at
+length burst forth, carrying destruction all around; but, drawn off
+through suitable channels, they become sources of constructive power,
+inexhaustible as Nature itself.
+
+And here let me pause to draw attention to this idea of accumulation.
+The greater the accumulation of energy, the greater the danger if it be
+not directed into a proper order, and the greater the power if it be.
+Fortunately for mankind the physical forces, such as electricity, do not
+usually subsist in a highly concentrated form. Occasionally
+circumstances concur to produce such concentration, but as a rule the
+elements of power are more or less equally dispersed. Similarly, for the
+mass of mankind, this spiritual power has not yet reached a very high
+degree of concentration. Every mind, it is true, must be in some measure
+a centre of concentration, for otherwise it would have no conscious
+individuality; but the power of the individualised mind rapidly rises as
+it recognises its unity with the Infinite life, and its
+thought-currents, whether well or ill directed, then assume a
+proportionately great significance.
+
+Hence the ill effects of wrongly directed thought are in some degree
+mitigated in the great mass of mankind, and many causes are in operation
+to give a right direction to their thoughts, though the thinkers
+themselves are ignorant of what thought-power is. To give a right
+direction to the thoughts of ignorant thinkers is the purpose of much
+religious teaching, which these uninstructed ones must accept by faith
+in bare authority because they are unable to realise its true import.
+But notwithstanding the aids thus afforded to mankind, the general
+stream of unregulated thought cannot but have an adverse tendency, and
+hence the great object to which the instructed mind directs its power is
+to free itself from the entanglements of disordered thought, and to help
+others to do the same. To escape from this entanglement is to attain
+perfect Liberty, which is perfect Power.
+
+
+VI
+
+The entanglement from which we need to escape has its origin in the very
+same principle which gives rise to liberty and power. It is the same
+principle applied under inverted conditions. And here I would draw
+particular attention to the law that any sequence followed out in an
+inverted order must produce an inverted result, for this goes a long way
+to explain many of the problems of life. The physical world affords
+endless examples of the working of "inversion." In the dynamo the
+sequence commences with mechanical force which is ultimately transformed
+into the subtler power of electricity; but invert this order, commence
+by generating electricity, and it becomes converted into mechanical
+force, as in the motor. In the one order the rotation of a wheel
+produces electricity, and in the opposite order electricity produces the
+rotation of a wheel. Or to exhibit the same principle in the simplest
+arithmetical form, if 10/2=5 then 10/5=2. "Inversion" is a factor of the
+greatest magnitude and has to be reckoned with; but I must content
+myself here with only indicating the general principle that the same
+power is capable of producing diametrically opposite effects if it be
+applied under opposite conditions, a truth which the so-called
+"magicians" of the middle ages expressed by two triangles placed
+inversely to one another. We are apt to fall into the mistake of
+supposing that results of opposite character require powers of opposite
+character to produce them, and our conceptions of things in general
+become much simplified when we recognise that this is not the case, but
+that the same power will produce opposite results as it starts from
+opposite poles.
+
+Accordingly the inverted application of the same principle which gives
+rise to liberty and power constitutes the entanglement from which we
+need to be delivered before power and liberty can be attained, and this
+principle is expressed in the law that "as a man thinks so he is." This
+is the basic law of the human mind. It is Descarte's "_cogito, ergo
+sum_." If we trace consciousness to its seat we find that it is purely
+subjective. Our external senses would cease to exist were it not for the
+subjective consciousness which perceives what they communicate to it.
+
+The idea conveyed to the subjective consciousness may be false, but
+until some truer idea is more forcibly impressed in its stead it
+remains a substantial reality to the mind which gives it objective
+existence. I have seen a man speak to the stump of a tree which in the
+moonlight looked like a person standing in a garden, and repeatedly ask
+its name and what it wanted; and so far as the speaker's conception was
+concerned the garden contained a living man who refused to answer. Thus
+every mind lives in a world to which its own perceptions give objective
+reality. Its perceptions may be erroneous, but they nevertheless
+constitute the very reality of life for the mind that gives form to
+them. No other life than the life we lead in our own mind is possible;
+and hence the advance of the whole race depends on substituting the
+ideas of good, of liberty, and of order for their opposites. And this
+can be done only by giving some sufficient reason for accepting the new
+idea in place of the old. For each one of us our beliefs constitute our
+facts, and these beliefs can be changed only by discovering some ground
+for a different belief.
+
+This is briefly the rationale of the maxim that "as a man thinks so he
+is"; and from the working of this principle all the issues of life
+proceed. Now man's first perception of the law of cause and effect in
+relation to his own conduct is that the result always partakes of the
+quality of the cause; and since his argument is drawn from external
+observation only, he regards external acts as the only causes he can
+effectively set in operation. Hence when he attains sufficient moral
+enlightenment to realise that many of his acts have been such as to
+merit retribution he fears retribution as their proper result. Then by
+reason of the law that "thoughts are things," the evils which he fears
+take form and plunge him into adverse circumstances, which again prompt
+him into further wrong acts, and from these come a fresh crop of fears
+which in their turn become externalised into fresh evils, and thus
+arises a circulus from which there is no escape so long as the man
+recognises nothing but his external acts as a causative power in the
+world of his surroundings.
+
+This is the Law of Works, the Circle of Karma, the Wheel of Fate, from
+which there appears to be no escape, because the complete fulfilment of
+the law of our moral nature to-day is only sufficient for to-day and
+leaves no surplus to compensate the failure of yesterday. This is the
+necessary law of things as they appear from external observation only;
+and, so long as this conception remains, the law of each man's
+subjective consciousness makes it a reality for him. What is needed,
+therefore, is to establish the conception that external acts are NOT the
+only causative power, but that there is another law of causation,
+namely, that of pure Thought. This is the Law of Faith, the Law of
+Liberty; for it introduces us to a power which is able to inaugurate a
+new sequence of causation not related to any past actions.
+
+But this change of mental attitude cannot be brought about till we have
+laid hold of some fact which is sufficient to afford a reason for the
+change. We require some solid ground for our belief in this higher law.
+Ultimately we find this ground in the great Truth of the eternal
+relation between spirit in the universal and in the particular. When we
+realise that substantially there is nothing else _but_ spirit, and that
+we ourselves are reproductions in individuality of the Intelligence and
+Love which rule the universe, we have reached the firm standing ground
+where we find that we can send forth our Thought to produce any effect
+we will. We have passed beyond the idea of two opposites requiring
+reconciliation, into that of a duality in which there is no other
+opposition than that of the inner and the outer of the same unity, the
+polarity which is inherent in all Being, and we then realise that in
+virtue of this unity our Thought is possessed of illimitable creative
+power, and that it is free to range where it will, and is by no means
+bound down to accept as inevitable the consequences which, if unchecked
+by renovated thought, would flow from our past actions.
+
+In its own independent creative power the mind has found the way out of
+the fatal circle in which its previous ignorance of the highest law had
+imprisoned it. The Unity of the Spirit is found to result in perfect
+Liberty; the old sequence of Karma has been cut off, and a new and
+higher order has been introduced. In the old order the line of thought
+received its quality from the quality of the actions, and since they
+always fell short of perfection, the development of a higher
+thought-power from this root was impossible. This is the order in which
+everything is seen from _without_. It is an inverted order. But in the
+true order everything is seen from _within_.
+
+It is the thought which determines the quality of the action, and not
+_vice versa_, and since thought is free, it is at liberty to direct
+itself to the highest principles, which thus spontaneously reproduce
+themselves in the outward acts, so that both thoughts and actions are
+brought into harmony with the great eternal laws and become one in
+purpose with the Universal Mind. The man realises that he is no longer
+bound by the consequences of his former deeds, done in the time of his
+ignorance, in fact, that he never was bound by them except so far as he
+himself gave them this power by false conceptions of the truth; and thus
+recognising himself for what he really is--the expression of the
+Infinite Spirit in individual personality--he finds that he is free,
+that he is a "partaker of Divine nature," not losing his identity, but
+becoming more and more fully himself with an ever-expanding perfection,
+following out a line of evolution whose possibilities are inexhaustible.
+
+But there is not in all men this knowledge. For the most part they still
+look upon God as an individual Being external to themselves, and what
+the more instructed man sees to be unity of mind and identity of nature
+appear to the less advanced to be an external reconciliation between
+opposing personalities. Hence the whole range of conceptions which may
+be described as the Messianic Idea. This idea is not, as some seem to
+suppose, a misconception of the truth of Being. On the contrary, when
+rightly understood it will be found to imply the very widest grasp of
+that truth; and it is from the platform of this supreme knowledge alone
+that an idea so comprehensive in its adaptation to every class of mind
+could have been evolved. It is the translation of the relations arising
+from the deepest laws of Being into terms which can be realised even by
+the most unlearned; a translation arranged with such consummate skill
+that, as the mind grows in spirituality, every stage of advance is met
+by a corresponding unfolding of the Divine meaning; while yet even the
+crudest apprehension of the idea implied is sufficient to afford the
+required basis for an entire renovation of the man's thoughts concerning
+himself, giving him a standing ground from which to think of himself as
+no longer bound by the law of retribution for past offences, but as free
+to follow out the new law of Liberty as a child of God.
+
+The man's conception of the _modus operandi_ of this emancipation may
+take the form of the grossest anthropomorphism or the most childish
+notions as to the satisfaction of the Divine justice by vicarious
+substitution, but the working result will be the same. He has got what
+satisfies him as a ground for thinking of himself in a perfectly new
+light; and since the states of our subjective consciousness constitute
+the realities of our life, to afford him a convincing ground for
+_thinking_ himself free, is to make him free.
+
+With increasing light he may find that his first explanation of the
+_modus operandi_ was inadequate; but when he reaches this stage, further
+investigation will show him that the great truth of his liberty rests
+upon a firmer foundation than the conventional interpretation of
+traditional dogmas, and that it has its roots in the great law of
+Nature, which are never doubtful, and which can never be overturned. And
+it is precisely because their whole action has its root in the
+unchangeable laws of Mind that there exists a perpetual necessity for
+presenting to men something which they can lay hold of as a sufficient
+ground for that change of mental attitude, by which alone they can be
+rescued from the fatal circle which is figured under the symbol of the
+Old Serpent.
+
+The hope and adumbration of such a new principle has formed the
+substance of all religions in all ages, however misapprehended by the
+ignorant worshippers; and, whatever our individual opinions may be as to
+the historical facts of Christianity, we shall find that the great
+figure of liberated and perfected humanity which forms its centre
+fulfils this desire of all nations in that it sets forth their great
+ideal of Divine power intervening to rescue man by becoming one with
+him. This is the conception presented to us, whether we apprehend it in
+the most literally material sense, or as the ideal presentation of the
+deepest philosophic study of mental laws, or in whatever variety of ways
+we may combine these two extremes. The ultimate idea impressed upon the
+mind must always be the same: it is that there is a Divine warrant for
+knowing ourselves to be the children of God and "partakers of the Divine
+nature"; and when we thus realise that there is solid ground for
+_believing_ ourselves free, by force of this very belief we _become_
+free.
+
+The proper outcome of the study of the laws of spirit which constitute
+the inner side of things is not the gratification of a mere idle
+curiosity, nor the acquisition of abnormal powers, but the attainment of
+our spiritual liberty, without which no further progress is possible.
+When we have reached this goal the old things have passed away and all
+things have become new. The mystical seven days of the old creation have
+been fulfilled, and the first day of the new week dawns upon us with its
+resurrection to a new life, expressing on the highest plane that great
+doctrine of the "octave" which the science of the ancient temples traced
+through Nature, and which the science of the present day endorses,
+though ignorant of its supreme significance.
+
+When we have thus been made free by recognising our oneness with
+Infinite Being, we have reached the termination of the old series of
+sequences and have gained the starting-point of the new. The old
+limitations are found never to have had any existence save in our own
+misapprehension of the truth, and one by one they fall off as we advance
+into clearer light. We find that the Life-Spirit we seek is _in
+ourselves_; and, having this for our centre, our relation to all else
+becomes part of a wondrous living Order in which every part works in
+sympathy with the whole, and the whole in sympathy with every part, a
+harmony wide as infinitude, and in which there are no limitations save
+those imposed by the Law of Love.
+
+I have endeavoured in this short series of articles to sketch briefly
+the principal points of relation between Spirit in ourselves and in our
+surroundings. This subject has employed the intelligence of mankind from
+grey antiquity to the present day, and no one thinker can ever hope to
+grasp it in all its amplitude. But there are certain broad principles
+which we must all grasp, however we may specialise our studies in
+detail, and these I have sought to indicate, with what degree of success
+the reader must form his own opinion. Let him, however, lay firm hold of
+this one fundamental truth, and the evolution of further truth from it
+is only a question of time--that there is only One Spirit, however many
+the modes of its manifestations, and that "the Unity of the Spirit is
+the Bond of Peace."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PERVERSION OF TRUTH
+
+
+There is a very general recognition, which is growing day by day more
+and more widespread, that there is a sort of hidden power somewhere
+which it is within our ability, somehow or other, to use. The ideas on
+this subject are exceedingly vague with the generality of people, but
+still they are assuming a more and more definite form, and that which
+they appear to be taking with the generality of the public is the
+recognition of the power of suggestion. I suppose none of us doubts that
+there is such a thing as the power of suggestion and that it can produce
+very great results indeed, and that it is _par excellence_ a hidden
+power; it works behind the scenes, it works through what we know as the
+subconscious mind, and consequently its activity is not immediately
+recognisable, or the source from which it comes. Now there is in some
+aspects, its usefulness, its benefit, but in other aspects there is a
+source of danger, because a power of this kind is obviously one which
+can be used either well or ill; in itself it is perfectly neutral, it
+all depends on the purpose for which it is used, and the character of
+the agent who employs it.
+
+This recognition of the power of suggestion is in many instances taking
+a most undesirable form, and I commend to your notice, in support of
+this observation, numerous advertisements in certain classes of
+magazines--many of you must have seen many specimens of that
+kind--offering for a certain sum of money to put you in the way of
+getting personal influence, mental power, power of suggestion, as the
+advertisements very unblushingly put it, for any purpose that you may
+desire. Some of them even go into further particulars, telling you the
+particular sort of purposes for which you can employ this, all of them
+certainly being such uses as no one should ever attempt to make of it.
+
+Therefore, this recognition of the power of suggestion, say even as a
+mere money-making power, to leave alone other misapplications of it, is
+a feature which is taking hold, so to say, of certain sections of the
+public who do not realise a higher platform in these things. It is
+deplorable that it should be so, but it is in the nature of things
+unavoidable. You have a power which can be used affirmatively, and which
+can be used negatively, which can be used for higher purposes, and can
+be used for lower purposes, and consequently you will find numbers of
+people who, as soon as they get hold of it, will at once think only of
+the lower purposes, not of the higher.
+
+In support of what I say--although this is by no means, I suppose,
+intended as a low application, probably it is intended as a high
+application, but I cannot say I agree with it--but to show you that I
+am talking from actual facts I will read you a note which I have made
+from the _Daily Mail_, of the 20th January, that I daresay some of you
+may have seen. It is an article headed "Killing by Prayer," and the
+article goes on to say that a certain circular has been sent round to
+the different hospitals and other places where the study of vivisection
+goes forward to this effect. In this circular, signed with the letters
+"M. C.," the writer says that he accidentally heard of a person who was
+in the habit of praying from time to time for the death of one of our
+leading vivisectors and that always the man indicated died. That is what
+M. C. heard by chance during conversation at a hotel dinner. Then
+thinking over this, M. C. goes on to say that he (or she) tried praying
+that the man most likely to cause suffering to innocent subjects by his
+experiments might be removed, and the consequence was that about a
+fortnight later one of our most distinguished medical scientists died.
+
+I do not know who the scientist in question was; I daresay some of you
+may be aware of the name. However, that is what the _Daily Mail_ tells
+us, and it also states that the Anti-Vivisection Societies were
+unanimous in condemning this circular, and very properly so. Now you see
+the sender of that circular, whoever he was, obviously thought he was
+doing a very good piece of work. I myself am by no means any friend of
+vivisection. I do not think any one can have a real knowledge of the
+truth and remain in touch with it, but I certainly agreed with the
+Anti-Vivisection Societies in condemning such a circular as that. You
+see there is the assumption that prayer, or mental power, can be used to
+remove a person from the stage of life, and M. C. claims that he did it
+in the case of this particular scientist.
+
+That brings back another parallel, almost, I might say, an historical
+parallel, to our mind; that of Dr. Anna Kingsford, taking place perhaps
+some forty years ago, who claimed--of course she was a very strong
+anti-vivisectionist--that by thought-power she caused the death of
+Claude Bernard, the great vivisection scientist of France. Certainly at
+the time that she put out her forces he did die, but on the other hand,
+it has been remarked that it was from that very date that her own
+break-up commenced, and never ceased till she herself passed into the
+other world. So you see these actions are likely to revert to the
+sender, even if they are successful.
+
+Now in these two cases the ultimate object was not a low one, it was one
+which was supposed to be for the benefit of humanity and of the dumb
+creation. But that does not justify the means. The maxim, "The end
+justifies the means," is the greatest perversion of truth, and still
+more so if this hidden power, the power of suggestion, is used to injure
+any one for a more personal motive than in these cases which I have
+cited. The lower the motive, the lower the action becomes, and to
+suppose that because mental means are employed they make any difference
+in the nature of the act is a very great mistake.
+
+It has been sometimes my painful duty to sentence people to death for
+murder, and therefore I claim that I have a very fair knowledge of what
+differentiates murder from those cases in which life is taken which do
+not amount to murder; and speaking from the judicial experience of a
+great many years, and the trial of a large number of cases which have
+involved the question whether the death penalty should be passed or not,
+I have no hesitation in saying that to kill by mental means is just as
+much murder as to kill by poison or the dagger. Speaking judicially, I
+should have not the least hesitation in hanging any one who committed
+murder by means of mental suggestion. Psychological crime, remember, is
+crime just the same; possibly it is more deeply dyed crime, because of
+the greater knowledge which must go along with it. I say that the
+psychological criminal is worse than the ordinary criminal.
+
+One of the teachings of the Master is on this very point. I refer you to
+the miracle of the fig tree. You know that he exhibited his power of
+killing not a person, not even an animal, but a tree. And when the
+disciples said to him, see how this tree which you cursed has withered
+away, he replied, Well, you can do exactly the same thing, and goes on
+to say, nothing shall be impossible to you. Therefore if you can kill
+fig trees, you can kill people, but, "forgive, if you have aught
+against any," that your heavenly Father may forgive you.
+
+He says in effect: now you have seen that this hidden power can be used
+to the destruction of life, at your peril use it otherwise than as a
+Divine power. Use it with prayer to God and with forgiveness of all
+against whom you have any sort of grudge or ill-feeling, and if its use
+is always prefaced in this way, according to the Master's directions,
+then nobody can use it to injure another either in mind, body or estate.
+
+Perhaps some of you may be inclined to smile if I use the word
+"sorcery," but at the present day, under one name or another, scientific
+or semi-scientific, it is nothing but the old-world sorcery which is
+trying to find its way among us as the hidden power. Sorcery is the
+inverted use of spiritual power. That is the definition of it, and I
+speak upon authority. I refer you to the Bible where you will find
+sorcery takes a prominent place among the list of those things which
+exclude from the heavenly Jerusalem; the heavenly Jerusalem not being a
+town or a city in this place or that place, but the perfected state of
+man. Therefore, use sorcery, and you cannot reach that heavenly state.
+
+It is on this account that we find in Revelations that wonderful
+description of two symbolical women; they represent two modes of the
+individual soul. Of course they go further, they indicate national
+things, race evolution and so on. Why? Because all national movements,
+all race evolutions, have their root in the development of the
+individual. A nation or a race is only a collection of individuals, and
+therefore if a principle once spreads from one individual to another, it
+spreads to the nation, it spreads to the race. So, therefore, these two
+symbolical women represent primarily two modes of soul, two modes of
+thought. You know perfectly well the description of the two women. One,
+the woman clothed with the sun, standing with the moon under her feet,
+and with a diadem of stars about her head; the other seated upon an
+earthly throne, holding a golden cup, and the cup is full of
+abominations. Those are the two women, and we know that one of them is
+called in the Scripture, Babylon, and we know which one that is. One of
+the marks of this woman--mind you that means the class of
+individuality--is the mark of sorcery, the mark of the inverted use of
+spiritual and mental powers.
+
+But what is the end of it? The end is that this Babylon becomes the
+habitation of devils, the hold--or, as the original Greek has it, the
+prison of evil, an unclean spirit, the cage of every unclean bird. That
+is the development which takes place in each individual who sets out to
+misuse this mental power. The misuse may have a very small beginning, it
+may be such as is taught in a certain school, which I am told exists in
+London, where shop assistants are trained in the use of magnetic power,
+in order to decoy or compel unknowing purchasers into buying what they
+do not want. I am told there is such a school; I cannot quote you my
+authority. That is a trifling matter. I go into a shop and spend two or
+three shillings in buying something which, when I get home, I find
+absolutely useless, and I say, "How in the name of fortune did I come to
+buy this rubbish?" Well, I must have been hypnotised into it. It does
+not make much difference to me, but it makes a great deal of difference
+to the young man or young woman who has hypnotised me, because it is the
+first step on the downward path. It may be only a matter of sixpence,
+but it leads on step by step, and unless that path is retraced, the
+final end is that of Babylon. Therefore it is that St. John says, "I
+heard a voice from Heaven saying, 'Come forth, my people, out of
+her'"--and that is out of Babylon--"come forth, my people, out of
+her"--that is out of this inverted mode of using spiritual power--"come
+forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins
+and that ye shall receive not of her plague." Therefore, against this
+inverted use of the hidden power I warn every one from the first day
+when he begins to realise that there is such a thing as mental or
+spiritual power which can be exercised upon other persons.
+
+Are we then on this account to go continually in terror of suffering
+from malicious magnetism, fearing that some enemy here, or some enemy
+there, is turning on this hidden power against us? If so, we should go
+in trepidation continually. No, I do not think there is the least
+reason for us to go in fear in this way. To begin with there are
+comparatively few who know the law of suggestion sufficiently well to
+use it either affirmatively or negatively, and of those who do know it
+sufficiently to make use of it, I am convinced that the majority would
+wish only to use it in all kindness, and for the benefit of the person
+concerned. That, I am confident, is the attitude of nine-tenths, or I
+might perhaps say ninety-nine hundredths, of the students of this
+subject. They wish to do well, and look upon their use of mental power
+as an additional means of doing good. But after all, human nature is
+human nature, and there remains a small minority who are both able and
+willing to use this hidden power injuriously for their own purposes.
+
+Now how are we to deal with this minority? The answer is simple. Just
+see them in their true light, see them for what they really are, that is
+to say, persons who are ignorant of the real spiritual power. They think
+they have it, and they have not. That is what it is. See them in their
+true light and their power will fall away from them. The real and
+ultimate power is that of the affirmative; the negative is destructive,
+the affirmative is constructive. So this negative use of the hidden
+power is to be destroyed by the use of the affirmative, the constructive
+power. The affirmative destroys the negative always in one way, and that
+is not by attacking it, not by running at it like a bull in a china
+shop; but by building up life. It is always a building power--it is
+building, building, building life and more life, and when that life
+comes in, the negative of necessity goes out.
+
+The ultimate affirmative position is that of conscious union with the
+source of life. Realise this, and you need not trouble yourself about
+any action of the negative whatever. Seek conscious union with the
+ultimate, the first cause, that which is the starting point of all
+things, whether in the universe or in yourself as the individual. That
+starting point is always present; it is the same yesterday, to-day and
+forever, and you are the world and the universe in miniature, and it is
+always there working in you if you will recognise it. Remember the
+reciprocity between yourself and this truly hidden power. The power of
+suggestion is _a_ hidden power, but the power which creates all things
+is _the_ hidden power which is at the back of all things. Now realise
+that it is in yourselves and you need trouble about the negative no
+longer. This is the Bible teaching regarding Christ; and that teaching
+is to bring about this conscious personal union with the Divine
+All-creating Spirit as a present living power to be used day by day.
+
+The Bible tells us there is such a thing as the mystery of iniquity,
+that is to say, the mystery of the spiritual power used invertedly, used
+from the diabolical standpoint; and when the Bible speaks of the mystery
+of iniquity, it means what it says. It tells us there are powers and
+principalities in the invisible world which are using precisely these
+same methods on an enormous scale; because, remember one thing, there is
+never any departure in any part of the Universe from the universal rule
+of law; what is law upon earth is law in Heaven, law in Hell, law in the
+invisible and law in the visible; that never alters. What is done by any
+spiritual power, whether it is a spiritual power of evil or of good, is
+done through the mental constitution which you have. No power alters the
+law of your own mind, but a power which knows the law of your mind can
+use it.
+
+Therefore, it is so essential that you should know the law of your own
+mind and realise its continual amenability to suggestion. That being so,
+the great thing is to get a standard for fundamental, unchangeable, and
+sufficient suggestion to which you can always turn, and which is
+automatically impressed upon your subconscious mind so deeply that no
+counter-suggestion can ever take its place; and that is the mystery of
+Christ, the Son of God. That is why we are told of the mystery of
+Christ, the mystery of godliness in opposition to the mystery of
+iniquity; it is because both the mystery of the Divine and the mystery
+of the diabolical are seeking to work through you, and they can only
+work through you by the law of your own mental constitution, that is to
+say, by the law of subconscious mind acting and re-acting upon your
+conscious mind and upon your body, and so upon your circumstances.
+
+The mystery of Christ is no mere ecclesiastical fiction. People have
+distorted it, and made it not clear, by trying to explain what at that
+time and in those days was not properly known, by trying to explain what
+they did not know; because what is commonly now known regarding the laws
+of mind was unknown then. But now this light has come we begin to see
+that the Bible teaching regarding Christ has a great and a deep meaning,
+and it is for these reasons St. Paul said to the Corinthians: "Little
+children of whom I travail again in birth, until Christ be formed in
+you." That is why he speaks of "Christ in you the hope of glory," that
+is to say, the Christ conception, the realisation of the Christ
+principle as exhibited in the Christ person, brings you in touch with
+the personal element in the Universal Spirit, the divine creative, first
+moving Spirit of the Universe.
+
+Then you see that realising this as your fundamental fact, it is
+continually impressed upon your subconscious mind, even when you are not
+thinking of it, because that is the action of the subconscious mind to
+take in and reason and argue in its own deductive way upon things of
+which you are not at the moment consciously thinking. Therefore it is
+that the realisation of that great promise of redemption, which is the
+backbone of the Bible from the first chapter of Genesis to the last
+chapter of Revelations, is according to a scientific law. It is not a
+hocus-pocus business, it is not a thing which has been arranged this way
+and might just as well have been arranged in some other; it is not so
+because some arbitrary Authority has commanded it, and the Authority
+might just as well have commanded it some other way.
+
+No, it is so because the more you examine it, the more you will find
+that it is absolutely scientific; it is based upon the natural
+constitution of the human mind. And it is therefore that "Christ," as
+set forth in the Bible--whether in the Old Testament symbology, or in
+the New Testament personality--"is the fulfilling of the law," in the
+sense of specialising in the highest degree that which is common to all
+humanity. As we realise this more and more, and specialise it more and
+more, so we shall rise to higher and higher intercourse and more and
+more consciousness of reciprocal identity, reciprocal life with the
+Universal Power, which will raise us above any possibility of being
+touched by any sort of malicious suggestion.
+
+If anybody should be, then, so ill-willed towards us and so lamentably
+ignorant of spiritual truth himself as to seek to exercise the power of
+malicious suggestion against us, I pity the person who tries to do it.
+He will get nothing out of it, because he is firing peas out of a
+pea-shooter against an iron-clad war vessel. That is what it amounts to;
+but for himself it amounts to something more. It is a true saying that
+"Curses return home to roost." I think if we study these things, and
+consider that there is a reason for them, we need not be in the least
+alarmed about negative suggestion, or malicious magnetism, of being
+brought under the power of other minds, of being got over in some way,
+of being done out of our property, of being injured in our health, or
+being hurt in our circumstances, and so on.
+
+Of course if you lay yourself open to that kind of thing, you will get
+it. "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." That is why the Scripture
+says, "He that breaketh through a hedge, a serpent shall bite him." That
+is the serpent that some of us know something about, that is our old
+enemy Nahash. Some of you, at any rate, are sufficiently trained in the
+inner sciences to know the serpent Nahash. Break down the hedge, that is
+to say, the conscious control of your own mind, and above all the hedge
+of the Divine love and wisdom with which God himself will surround you
+in the personality of His Son, break down this hedge and of course
+Nahash comes in. But if you keep your hedge--and remember the old Hebrew
+tradition always spoke of the Divine Law as "the hedge"--if you keep
+your hedge unbroken, nothing can come in except by the door. Christ
+said, "I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved."
+
+I have spoken of the two great mysteries, the mystery of godliness and
+the mystery of iniquity, the mystery of Christ and the mystery of
+anti-Christ. Now, it is not necessary, mind you, that you should
+understand these mysteries in full in order to get into your right
+position. If it were necessary that we should fully understand these
+mysteries, either to get away from the one or to get into the other, I
+think all of us would have an uncommonly bad chance. I certainly should.
+I can touch only the fringe of these things, but we can realise the
+principle of the affirmative and the principle of the negative which
+underlies them both; one is the mystery of light, the other is the
+mystery of darkness.
+
+I do not say do not study these mysteries; they are exactly what we
+ought to study, but do not think that you remain in a state of danger
+until you have completely fathomed the mystery. Not a bit of it. You can
+quite get on the right side without understanding the whole thing,
+exactly as you travel on a railway without understanding the mechanism
+of the engine which takes you along.
+
+So then we have these two mysteries, that of light and that of darkness,
+and therefore what we have to do is to exercise our will to receive the
+mystery of light, and then that will make for itself a centre in our own
+hearts and beings, and you will become conscious of that centre. Whether
+you understand it or not, you will become conscious of it--and then from
+that centre, that centre of light in yourself, you can start everything
+in your life, whether spiritual or temporal. You do not have to go
+further back; you do not have to analyse the why and the wherefore of
+these things in order to get your starting point. It may interest you
+afterwards, it may strengthen you afterwards to do so, but for a
+practical starting point you must realise the Divine presence in
+yourself, which is the son of God manifested in you, that is the Divine
+principle of personality speaking within yourself.
+
+So then, having realised this as your centre, you carry the
+all-originating affirmative power with you, all through everything that
+you do and everything that you are; day and night it will be there, it
+will protect you, it will guide you, it will help you. And when you want
+to do so you can consciously apply to it and it will give you
+assistance, and because you take this as your starting point, it will
+manifest itself in all your conditions; because, remember, it is a very
+simple law of logic that whatever you start with will manifest itself
+all down the sequence which comes from it. If you start with the colour
+red you can make all sorts of modifications and bring out orange, purple
+and brown, but the red basis will show itself all down the scale of
+colour, and so if you start with a basis of blue, blue will show itself
+all down the scale of various colours.
+
+Therefore, if you start with the affirmative basis, the one starting
+point of the Divine spirit, not taking it lower down the stream, but
+going to the fountain head, that affirmative principle of life will flow
+all through, showing its own quality to the very tips of your fingers
+and beyond that out into all your circumstances. So that the divine
+presence will be continuously with you, not as a consequence of your
+joining this Church or that, following this idea, or that teacher, but
+because you know the truth for yourselves, and you have realised it as
+an actual living experience in your own mind and in your own heart; and
+therefore it is that this personal recognition of the Divine love and
+wisdom and power is what St. Paul calls "Christ in you, the hope of
+glory."
+
+Each one who recognises this, is one who answers the Biblical
+description of a true Israelite indeed. That word "Israelite" in the
+Bible is a very deeply symbolical word, and carries an immense amount of
+meaning with it. So get this recognition as the real working fact that
+each one of you is an Israelite indeed, and if so, then make yourselves
+perfectly happy with the everlasting statement, which is as true now as
+it was on the day on which it was uttered: "There is no divination or
+enchantment against Israel."
+
+1909.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE "I AM"
+
+
+We often do not sufficiently recognise the truth of Walt Whitman's pithy
+saying, "I am not all contained between my hat and my boots," and forget
+the two-fold nature of the "I AM," that it is at once both the
+manifested and the unmanifested, the universal and the individual. By
+losing sight of this truth we surround ourselves with limitations; we
+see only part of the self, and then we are surprised that the part fails
+to do the work of the whole. Factors crop up on which we had not
+reckoned, and we wonder where they come from, and do not understand that
+they necessarily arise from that great unity in which we are all
+included.
+
+It is the grand intelligence and livingness of Universal Spirit
+continually pressing forward to manifestation of itself in a glorious
+humanity.
+
+This must be effected by each individual's recognition of his power to
+co-operate with the Supreme Principle through an intelligent conception
+of its purpose and of the natural laws by which that purpose is
+accomplished--a recognition which can proceed only from the realisation
+that he himself is none other than the same Universal Principle in
+particular manifestation.
+
+When he sees this he sees that Walt Whitman's saying is true, and that
+his source of intelligence, power, and purpose is in that Universal
+Self, which is his as well as another's just because it is universal,
+and which is therefore as completely and entirely identified with
+himself as though there were no other expression of it in the world.
+
+The understanding which alone gives value to knowledge is the
+understanding that, when we employ the formula "I am, therefore I can,
+therefore I will," the "I AM" with which the series starts is a being
+who, so to speak, has his head in heaven and his feet upon the earth, a
+perfect unity, and with a range of ideas far transcending the little
+ideas which are limited by the requirements of a day or an hour. On the
+other hand, the requirements of the day and the hour are real while they
+last, and since the manifested life can be lived only in the moment that
+now is, whether it be to-day or ten thousand years hence, our need is to
+harmonise the life of expression with the life of purpose, and by
+realising in ourselves the source of the highest purposes to realise
+also the life of the fullest expression.
+
+This is the meaning of prayer. Prayer is not a foolish seeking to change
+the mind of Supreme Wisdom, but it is an intelligent seeking to embody
+that wisdom in our thoughts so as more and more perfectly to express
+_it_ in expressing _ourselves_. Thus, as we gradually grow into the
+habit of finding this inspiring Presence _within ourselves_, and of
+realising its forward movement as the ultimate determining factor in all
+true healthful mental action, it will become second nature to us to have
+all our plans, down to the apparently most trivial, so floating upon the
+undercurrent of this Universal Intelligence that a great harmony will
+come into our lives, every discordant manifestation will disappear, and
+we shall find ourselves more and more controlling all things into the
+forms that we desire.
+
+Why? Because we have attained to _commanding_ the Spirit and making it
+obey us? Certainly not, for "if the blind lead the blind both shall fall
+into the ditch"; but because we are _companions_ of the Spirit, and by a
+continuous and growing intimacy have changed, not "the mind of the
+Spirit," but our own, and have learned to think from a higher
+standpoint, where we see that the old-world saying "know thyself"
+includes the knowledge of all that we mean when we speak of God.
+
+
+      I AM IS ONE
+
+This may seem a very elementary proposition, but it is one of which we
+are too apt to lose sight. What does it mean? It means everything; but
+we are most concerned with what it means in regard to ourselves, and to
+each of us personally it means this. It means that there are not two
+Spirits, one which is myself and one which is another. It means that
+there is not some great unknown power external to myself which may be
+actuated by perfectly different motives to my own, and which will,
+therefore, oppose me with its irresistible force and pass over me,
+leaving me crushed and broken like the devotee over whom the car of
+Jaggarnath has rolled. It means that there is only one mind, one motive,
+one power--not two opposing each other--and that my conscious mind in
+all its movements is only the one mind expressing itself as (not merely
+through) my own particular individuality.
+
+There are not two I AMS, but one I am. Whatever, therefore, I can
+conceive the Great Universal Life Principle to be, that I am. Let us try
+fully to realise what this means. Can you conceive the Great Originating
+and Sustaining Life Principle of the whole universe as poor, weak,
+sordid, miserable, jealous, angry, anxious, uncertain, or in any other
+way limited? We know that this is impossible. Then because the I AM is
+one it is equally untrue of ourselves. Learn first to distinguish the
+true self that you are from the mental and physical processes which it
+throws forth as the instruments of its expression, and then learn that
+this self controls these instruments, and not vice versa. As we advance
+in this knowledge we know ourselves to be unlimited, and that, in the
+miniature world, whose centre we are, we ourselves are the very same
+overflowing of joyous livingness that the Great Life Spirit is in the
+Great All. The I AM is One.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+AFFIRMATIVE POWER
+
+
+Thoroughly to realise the true nature of affirmative power is to possess
+the key to the great secret. We feel its presence in all the innumerable
+forms of life by which we are surrounded and we feel it as the life in
+ourselves; and at last some day the truth bursts upon us like a
+revelation that we can wield this power, this life, by the process of
+Thought. And as soon as we see this, the importance of regulating our
+thinking begins to dawn upon us. We ask ourselves what this thought
+process is, and we then find that it is thinking affirmative force into
+forms which are the product of our own thought. We mentally conceive the
+form and then think life into it.
+
+This must always be the nature of the creative process on whatever
+scale, whether on the grand scale of the Universal Cosmic Mind or on the
+miniature scale of the individual mind; the difference is only in degree
+and not in kind. We may picture the mental machinery by which this is
+done in the way that best satisfies our intellect--and the satisfying of
+the intellect on this point is a potent factor in giving us that
+confidence in our mental action without which we can effect
+nothing--but the actual externalisation is the result of something more
+powerful than a merely intellectual apprehension. It is the result of
+that inner mental state which, for want of a better word, we may call
+our emotional conception of ourselves. It is the "self" which we _feel_
+ourselves to be which takes forms of our own creating. For this reason
+our thought must be so grounded upon knowledge that we shall _feel_
+the truth of it, and thus be able to produce in ourselves that mental
+attitude of feeling which corresponds to the condition which we desire
+to externalise.
+
+We cannot think into manifestation a different sort of life to that
+which we realise in ourselves. As Horace says, "_Nemo dat quod non
+habet_," we cannot give what we have not got. And, on the other hand, we
+can never cease creating forms of some sort by our mental activity,
+thinking life into them. This point must be very carefully noted. We
+cannot sit still producing nothing: the mental machinery _will_ keep on
+turning out work of some sort, and it rests with us to determine of what
+sort it shall be. In our entire ignorance or imperfect realisation of
+this we create negative forms and think life into them. We create forms
+of death, sickness, sorrow, trouble, and limitation of all sorts, and
+then think life into these forms; with the result that, however
+non-existent in themselves, to us they become realities and throw their
+shadow across the path which would otherwise be bright with the
+many-coloured beauties of innumerable flowers and the glory of the
+sunshine.
+
+This need not be. It is giving to the negative an affirmative force
+which does not belong to it. Consider what is meant by the negative. It
+is the absence of something. It is not-being, and is the absence of all
+that constitutes being. Left to itself, it remains in its own
+nothingness, and it only assumes form and activity when we give these to
+it by our thought.
+
+Here, then, is the great reason for practising control over our thought.
+It is the one and only instrument we have to work with, but it is an
+instrument which works with the greatest certainty, for limitation if we
+think limitation, for enlargement if we think enlargement. Our thought
+as feeling is the magnet which draws to us those conditions which
+accurately correspond to itself. This is the meaning of the saying that
+"thoughts are things." But, you say, how can I think differently from
+the circumstances? Certainly you are not required to say that the
+circumstances _at the present moment_ are what they are not; to say so
+would be untrue; but what is wanted is not to think from the standpoint
+of circumstances at all. Think from that interior standpoint where there
+are no circumstances, and from whence you can dictate what circumstances
+shall be, and then leave the circumstances to take care of themselves.
+
+Do not think of this, that, or the other particular _circumstances_ of
+health, peace, etc., but of health, peace, and prosperity themselves.
+Here is an advertisement from _Pearson's Weekly_:--"Think money. Big
+moneymakers _think_ money." This is a perfectly sound statement of the
+power of thought, although it is only an advertisement; but we may make
+an advance beyond thinking "money." We can think "Life" in all its
+fulness, together with that perfect harmony of conditions which includes
+all that we need of money and a thousand other good things besides, for
+some of which money stands as the symbol of exchangeable value, while
+others cannot be estimated by so material a standard.
+
+Therefore think Life, illumination, harmony, prosperity,
+happiness--think the things rather than this or that condition of them.
+And then by the sure operation of the Universal Law these things will
+form themselves into the shapes best suited to your particular case, and
+will enter your life as active, living forces, which will never depart
+from you because you know them to be part and parcel of your own being.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+SUBMISSION
+
+
+There are two kinds of submission: submission to superior force and
+submission to superior truth. The one is weakness and the other is
+strength. It is an exceedingly important part of our training to learn
+to distinguish between these two, and the more so because the wrong kind
+is extolled by nearly all schools of popular religious teaching at the
+present day as constituting the highest degree of human attainment. By
+some this is pressed so far as to make it an instrument of actual
+oppression, and with all it is a source of weakness and a bar to
+progress. We are forbidden to question what are called the wise
+dispensations of Providence and are told that pain and sorrow are to be
+accepted because they are the will of God; and there is much eloquent
+speaking and writing concerning the beauty of quiet resignation, all of
+which appeals to a certain class of gentle minds who have not yet learnt
+that gentleness does not consist in the absence of power but in the
+kindly and beneficent use of it.
+
+Minds cast in this mould are peculiarly apt to be misled. They perceive
+a certain beauty in the picture of weakness leaning upon strength, but
+they attribute its soothing influence to the wrong element of the
+combination. A thoughtful analysis would show them that their feelings
+consisted of pity for the weak figure and admiration for the strong one,
+and that the suggestiveness of the whole arose from its satisfying the
+artistic sense of balance which requires a compensation of this sort.
+But which of the two figures in the picture would they themselves prefer
+to be? Surely not the weak one needing help, but the strong one giving
+it. By itself the weak figure only stirs our pity and not our
+admiration. Its form may be beautiful, but its very beauty only serves
+to enhance the sense of something wanting--and the something wanting is
+strength. The attraction which the doctrine of passive resignation
+possesses for certain minds is based upon an appeal to sentiment, which
+is accepted without any suspicion that the sentiment appealed to is a
+false one.
+
+Now the healthful influence of the movement known as "The Higher
+Thought" consists precisely in this--that it sets itself rigorously to
+combat this debilitating doctrine of submission. It can see as well as
+others the beauty of weakness leaning upon strength; but it sees that
+the real source of the beauty lies in the strong element of the
+combination. The true beauty consists in the power to confer strength,
+and this power is not to be acquired by submission, but by the exactly
+opposite method of continually asserting our determination not to
+submit.
+
+Of course, if we take it for granted that all the sorrow, sickness,
+pain, trouble, and other adversity in the world is the expression of the
+will of God, then doubtless we must resign ourselves to the inevitable
+with all the submission we can command, and comfort ourselves with the
+vague hope that somehow in some far-off future we shall find that
+
+    "Good is the final goal of ill,"
+
+though even _this_ vague hope is a protest against the very submission
+we are endeavouring to exercise. But to make the assumption that the
+evil of life is the will of God is to assume what a careful and
+intelligent study of the laws of the universe, both mental and physical,
+will show us is not the truth; and if we turn to that Book which
+contains the fullest delineation of these universal laws, we shall find
+nothing taught more clearly than that submission to the evils of life is
+not submission to the will of God. We are told that Christ was
+manifested for this end, that he should destroy him that hath the power
+of death--that is, the devil. Now death is the very culmination of the
+Negative. It is the entire absence of all that makes Life, and whatever
+goes to diminish the living quality of Life reproduces, in its degree,
+the distinctive quality of this supreme exhibition of the Negative.
+Everything that tends to detract from the fulness of life has in it this
+deathful quality.
+
+In that completely renovated life, which is figured under the emblem of
+the New Jerusalem, we are told that sorrow and sighing shall flee away,
+and that the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick. Nothing that obscures
+life, or restricts it, can proceed from the same source as the Power
+which gives light to them that sit in darkness, and deliverance to them
+that are bound. Negation can never be Affirmation; and the error we have
+always to guard against is that of attributing positive power to the
+Negative. If we once grasp the truth that God is life, and that life in
+every mode of expression can never be anything else than Affirmative,
+then it must become clear to us that nothing which is of the opposite
+tendency can be according to the will of God. For God (the good) to will
+any of the "evil" that is in the world would be for Life to act with the
+purpose of diminishing itself, which is a contradiction in terms to the
+very idea of Life. God is Life, and Life is, by its very nature,
+Affirmative. The submission we have hitherto made has been to our own
+weakness, ignorance, and fear, and not to the supreme good.
+
+But is no such thing as submission, then, required of us under any
+circumstances? Are we always to have our own way in everything?
+Assuredly the whole secret of our progress to liberty is involved in
+acquiring the habit of submission; but it is submission to superior
+Truth, and not to superior force. It sometimes happens that, when we
+attain a higher Truth, we find that its reception requires us to
+re-arrange the truths which we possessed before: not, indeed, to lay any
+of them aside, for Truth once recognised cannot be again put out of
+sight, but to recognise a different relative proportion between them
+from that which we had seen previously. Then there comes a submitting of
+what has hitherto been our highest truth to one which we recognise as
+still higher, a process not always easy of attainment, but which must be
+gone through if our spiritual development is not to be arrested. The
+lesser degree of life must be swallowed up in the greater; and for this
+purpose it is necessary for us to learn that the smaller degree was only
+a partial and limited aspect of that which is more universal, stronger,
+and of a larger build every way.
+
+Now, in going through the processes of spiritual growth, there is ample
+scope for that training in self-knowledge and self-control which is
+commonly understood by the word "submission." But the character of the
+act is materially altered. It is no longer a half-despairing resignation
+to a superior force external to ourselves, which we can only vaguely
+hope is acting kindly and wisely, but it is an intelligent recognition
+of the true nature of our own interior forces and of the laws by which a
+robust spiritual constitution is to be developed; and the submission is
+no longer to limitations which drain life of its livingness, and against
+which we instinctively rebel, but to the law of our own evolution which
+manifests itself in continually increasing degrees of life and strength.
+
+The submission which we recognise is the price that has to be paid for
+increase in any direction. Even in the Money Market we must invest
+before we can realise profits. It is a universal rule that Nature obeys
+us exactly in proportion as we first obey Nature; and this is as true in
+regard to spiritual science as to physical. The only question is whether
+we will yield an ignorant submission to the principle of Death, or a
+joyous and intelligent obedience to the principle of Life.
+
+If we have clearly grasped the fact of our identity with Universal
+Spirit, we shall find that, in the right direction, there is really no
+such thing as submission. Submission is to the power of another--a man
+cannot be said to submit to himself. When the "I AM" in us recognises a
+greater degree of I AM-ness (if I may coin the word) than it has
+hitherto attained, then, by the very force of this recognition, it
+_becomes what it sees_, and therefore naturally puts off from itself
+whatever would limit its expression of its own completeness.
+
+But this is a natural process of growth, and not an unnatural act of
+submission; it is not the pouring-out of ourselves in weakness, but the
+gathering of ourselves together in increasing strength. There is no
+weakness in Spirit, it is all strength; and we must therefore always be
+watchful against the insidious approaches of the Negative which would
+invert the true position. The Negative always points to some external
+source of strength. Its formula is "I AM NOT." It always seeks to fix a
+gulf between us and the Infinite Sufficiency. It would always have us
+believe that that sufficiency is not our own, but that by an act of
+uncertain favour we may have occasional spoonfuls of it doled out to us.
+Christ's teaching is different. We do not need to come with our pitcher
+to the well to draw water, like the woman of Samaria, but we have _in
+ourselves_ an inexhaustible supply of the living water springing up into
+everlasting life.
+
+Let us then inscribe "No Surrender" in bold characters upon our banner,
+and advance undaunted to claim our rightful heritage of liberty and
+life.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+COMPLETENESS
+
+
+A point on which students of mental science often fail to lay sufficient
+stress is the completeness of man--not a completeness to be attained
+hereafter, but here and now. We have been so accustomed to have the
+imperfection of man drummed into us in books, sermons, and hymns, and
+above all in a mistaken interpretation of the Bible, that at first the
+idea of his completeness altogether staggers us. Yet until we see this
+we must remain shut out from the highest and best that mental science
+has to offer, from a thorough understanding of its philosophy, and from
+its greatest practical achievements.
+
+To do any work successfully you must believe yourself to be a _whole_
+man in respect of it. The completed work is the outward image of a
+corresponding completeness in yourself. And if this is true in respect
+of one work it is true of all; the difference in the importance of the
+work does not matter; we cannot successfully attempt _any_ work until,
+for some reason or other, we believe ourselves able to accomplish it; in
+other words, until we believe that none of the conditions for its
+completion is wanting in us, and that we are therefore complete in
+respect of it. Our recognition of our completeness is thus the measure
+of what we are able to do, and hence the great importance of knowing the
+fact of our own completeness.
+
+But, it may be asked, do we not see imperfection all around? Is there
+not sorrow, sickness, and trouble? Yes; but why? Just for the very
+reason that we do not realise our completeness. If we realised _that_ in
+its fulness these things would not be; and in the degree in which we
+come to realise it we shall find them steadily diminish. Now if we
+really grasp the two fundamental truths that Spirit is Life pure and
+simple, and that external things are the result of interior forces, then
+it ought not to be difficult to see why we should be complete; for to
+suppose otherwise is to suppose the reactive power of the universe to be
+either unable or unwilling to produce the complete expression of its own
+intention in the creation of man.
+
+That it should be unable to do so would be to depose it from its place
+as the creative principle, and that it should be unwilling to fulfil its
+own intention is a contradiction in terms; so that on either supposition
+we come to a _reductio ad absurdum_. In forming man the creative
+principle therefore _must_ have produced a perfect work, and our
+conception of ourselves as imperfect can only be the result of our own
+ignorance of what we really are; and our advance, therefore, does not
+consist in having something new added to us, but in learning to bring
+into action powers which already exist in us, but which we have never
+tried to use, and therefore have not developed, simply because we have
+always taken it for granted that we are by nature defective in some of
+the most important faculties necessary to fit us to our environment.
+
+If we wish to attain to these great powers, the question is, where are
+we to seek them? And the answer is _in ourselves_. That is the great
+secret. We are not to go outside ourselves to look for power. As soon as
+we do so we find, not power, but weakness. To seek strength from any
+outside source is to make affirmation of our weakness, and all know what
+the natural result of such an affirmation must be.
+
+We are complete _in ourselves_; and the reason why we fail to realise
+this is that we do not understand how far the "self" of ourselves
+extends. We know that the whole of anything consists of _all_ its parts
+and not only of some of them; yet this is just what we do not seem to
+know about ourselves. We say rightly that every person is a
+concentration of the Universal Spirit into individual consciousness; but
+if so, then each individual consciousness must find the Universal Spirit
+to be the infinite expression of _itself_. It is _this_ part of the
+"Self" that we so often leave out in our estimate of what we are; and
+consequently we look upon ourselves as crawling pygmies when we might
+think of ourselves as archangels. We try to work with the mere shadows
+of ourselves instead of with the glorious substance, and then wonder at
+our failures. If we only understood that our "better half" is the whole
+infinite of Spirit--that which creates and sustains the universe--then
+we should know how complete our completeness is.
+
+As we approach this conception, our completeness becomes a reality to
+us, and we find that we need not go outside ourselves for anything. We
+have only to draw on that part of ourselves which is infinite to carry
+out any intention we may form in our individual consciousness; for there
+is no barrier between the two parts, otherwise they would not be a
+whole. Each belongs perfectly to the other, and the two are one. There
+is no antagonism between them, for the Infinite Life can have no
+interest against its individualisation of _itself_. If there is any
+feeling of tension it proceeds from our not fully realising this
+conception of our own wholeness; we are placing a barrier somewhere,
+when in truth there is none; and the tension will continue until we find
+out where and how we are setting up this barrier and remove it.
+
+This feeling of tension is the feeling that we are _not using our Whole
+Being_. We are trying to make half do the work of the whole; but we
+cannot rid ourselves of our wholeness, and therefore the whole protests
+against our attempts to set one half against the other. But when we
+realise that our concentration _out of_ the Infinite also implies our
+expansion _into_ it, we shall see that our _whole_ "self" includes both
+the concentration and the expansion; and seeing this first
+intellectually we shall gradually learn to use our knowledge practically
+and bring our whole man to bear upon whatever we take in hand. We shall
+find that there is in us a constant action and reaction between the
+infinite and the individual, like the circulation of the blood from the
+heart to the extremities and back again, a constant pulsation of vital
+energy quite natural and free from all strain and exertion.
+
+This is the great secret of the livingness of Life, and it is called by
+many names and set forth under many symbols in various religions and
+philosophies, each of which has its value in proportion as it brings us
+nearer the realisation of this perfect wholeness. But the thing itself
+is Life, and therefore can only be suggested, but not described, by any
+words or symbols; it is a matter of personal experience which no one can
+convey to another. All we can do is to point out the direction in which
+this experience is to be sought, and to tell others the intellectual
+arguments which have helped us to find it; but the experience itself is
+the operation of definite vital functions of the inner being, and no one
+but ourselves can do our living for us.
+
+But, so far as it is possible to express these things in words, what
+must be the result of realising that the "self" in us includes the
+Infinite as well as the Individual? All the resources of the Infinite
+must be at our disposal; we may draw on them as we will, and there is no
+limit save that imposed by the Law of Kindness, a self-imposed
+limitation, which, because of being _self_-imposed, is not bondage but
+only another expression of our liberty. Thus we are free and all
+limitations are removed.
+
+We are also no longer ignorant, for since the "self" in us includes the
+Infinite we can draw thence all needed knowledge, and though we may not
+always be able to formulate this knowledge in the mentality, we shall
+_feel_ its guidance, and eventually the mentality will learn to put this
+also into form of words; and thus by combining thought and experience,
+theory and practice, we shall by degrees come more and more into the
+knowledge of the Law of our Being, and find that there is no place in it
+for fear, because it is the law of perfect liberty. And knowing what our
+whole self really is, we shall walk erect as free men and women
+radiating Light and Life all round, so that our very presence will carry
+a vivifying influence with it, because we realise ourselves to be an
+Affirmative Whole, and not a mere negative disintegration of parts.
+
+We know that our whole self includes that Greater Man which is back of
+and causes the phenomenal man, and this Greater Man is the true human
+principle in us. It is, therefore, universal in its sympathies, but at
+the same time not less individually _ourself_; and thus the true man in
+us, being at once both universal and individual, can be trusted as a
+sure guide. It is that "Thinker" which is behind the conscious
+mentality, and which, if we will accept it as our centre, and realise
+that it is not a separate entity but _ourself_, will be found equal to
+every occasion, and will lead us out of a condition of servitude into
+"the glorious liberty of the sons of God."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE PRINCIPLE OF GUIDANCE
+
+
+If I were asked which of all the spiritual principles ranked first, I
+should feel inclined to say the Principle of Guidance; not in the sense
+of being more essential than the others, for _every_ portion is equally
+essential to the completeness of a perfect whole, but in the sense of
+being first in order of sequence and giving value to all our other
+powers by placing them in their due relation to one another. "Giving
+value to our _other_ powers," I say, because this also is one of our
+powers. It is that which, judged from the standpoint of personal
+self-consciousness, is above us; but which, realised from the point of
+view of the unity of all Spirit, is part and parcel of ourselves,
+because it is that Infinite Mind which is of necessity identified with
+all its manifestations.
+
+Looking to this Infinite Mind as a Superior Intelligence from which we
+may receive guidance does not therefore imply looking to an external
+source. On the contrary, it is looking to the innermost spring of our
+own being, with a confidence in its action which enables us to proceed
+to the execution of our plans with a firmness and assurance that are in
+themselves the very guarantee of our success.
+
+The action of the spiritual principles in us follows the order which we
+impose upon them by our thought; therefore the order of realisation will
+reproduce the order of desire; and if we neglect this first principle of
+right order and guidance, we shall find ourselves beginning to put forth
+other great powers, which are at present latent within us, without
+knowing how to find suitable employment for them--which would be a very
+perilous condition, for without having before us objects worthy of the
+powers to which we awake, we should waste them on petty purposes
+dictated only by the narrow range of our unilluminated intellect.
+Therefore the ancient wisdom says, "With all thy getting, get
+understanding."
+
+The awakening to consciousness of our mysterious interior powers will
+sooner or later take place, and will result in our using them whether we
+understand the law of their development or not, just as we already use
+our physical faculties whether we understand their laws or not. The
+interior powers are natural powers as much as the exterior ones. We can
+direct their use by a knowledge of their laws; and it is therefore of
+the highest importance to have some sound principle of guidance in the
+use of these higher faculties as they begin to manifest themselves.
+
+If, therefore, we would safely and profitably enter upon the possession
+of the great inheritance of power that is opening out before us, we
+must before all things seek to realise in ourselves that Superior
+Intelligence which will become an unfailing principle of guidance if we
+will only recognise it as such. Everything depends on our recognition.
+Thoughts are things, and therefore as we _will_ our thoughts to be so we
+_will_ the thing to be. If, then, we will to use the Infinite Spirit as
+a spirit of guidance, we shall find that the fact is as we have willed
+it; and in doing this we are still making use of our own supreme
+principle. And this is the true "understanding" which, by placing all
+the other powers in their correct order, creates one grand unity of
+power directed to clearly defined and worthy aims, in place of the
+dispersion of our powers, by which they only neutralise each other and
+effect nothing.
+
+This is that Spirit of Truth which shall guide us into all Truth. It is
+the sincere Desire of us reaching out after Truth. Truth first and Power
+afterwards is the reasonable order, which we cannot invert without
+injury to ourselves and others; but if we follow this order we shall
+always find scope for our powers in developing into present realities
+the continually growing glory of our vision of the ideal.
+
+The ideal is the true real, but it must be brought into manifestation
+before it can be shown to be so, and it is in this that the _practical_
+nature of our mental studies consists. It is the _practical_ mystic who
+is the man of power; the man who, realising the mystical powers within,
+fits his outward action to this knowledge, and so shows his faith by his
+works; and assuredly the first step is to make use of that power of
+infallible guidance which he can call to his aid simply by desiring to
+be led by it.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+DESIRE AS THE MOTIVE POWER
+
+
+There are certain Oriental schools of thought, together with various
+Western offshoots from them, which are entirely founded on the principle
+of annihilating all desire. Reach that point at which you have no wish
+for anything and you will find yourself free, is the sum and substance
+of their teaching; and in support of this they put forward a great deal
+of very specious argument, which is all the more likely to entangle the
+unwary, because it contains a recognition of many of the profoundest
+truths of Nature. But we must bear in mind that it is possible to have a
+very deep knowledge of psychological facts, and at the same time vitiate
+the results of our knowledge by an entirely wrong assumption in regard
+to the law which binds these facts together in the universal system; and
+the injurious results of misapprehension upon such a vital question are
+so radical and far-reaching that we cannot too forcibly urge the
+necessity of clearly understanding the true nature of the point at
+issue. Stripped of all accessories and embellishments, the question
+resolves itself into this: Which shall we choose for our portion, Life
+or Death? There can be no accommodation between the two; and whichever
+we select as our guiding principle must produce results of a kind proper
+to itself.
+
+The whole of this momentous question turns on the place that we assign
+to desire in our system of thought. Is it the Tree of Life in the midst
+of the Garden of the Soul? or is it the Upas Tree creating a wilderness
+of death all around? This is the issue on which we have to form a
+judgment, and this judgment must colour all our conception of life and
+determine the entire range of our possibilities. Let us, then, try to
+picture to ourselves the ideal proposed by the systems to which I have
+alluded--a man who has succeeded in entirely annihilating all desire. To
+him all things must be alike. The good and the evil must be as one, for
+nothing has any longer the power to raise any desire in him; he has no
+longer any feeling which shall prompt him to say, "This is good,
+therefore I choose it; that is evil, therefore I reject it"; for all
+choice implies the perception of something more desirable in what is
+chosen than in what is rejected, and consequently the existence of that
+feeling of desire which has been entirely eliminated from the ideal we
+are contemplating.
+
+Then, if the perception of all that makes one thing preferable to
+another has been obliterated, there can be no motive for any sort of
+action whatever. Endue a being who has thus extinguished his faculty of
+desire with the power to create a universe, and he has no motive for
+employing it. Endue him with all knowledge, and it will be useless to
+him; for, since desire has no place in him, he is without any purpose
+for which to turn his knowledge to account. And with Love we cannot
+endue him, for that is desire in its supreme degree. But if all this be
+excluded, what is left of the man? Nothing, except the mere outward
+form. If he has actually obtained this ideal, he has practically ceased
+to be. Nothing can by any means interest him, for there is nothing to
+attract or repel in one thing more than in another. He must be dead
+alike to all feeling and to all motive of action, for both feeling and
+action imply the preference for one condition rather than another; and
+where desire is utterly extinguished, no such preference can exist.
+
+No doubt some one may object that it is only evil desires which are thus
+to be suppressed; but a perusal of the writings of the schools of
+thought in question will show that this is not the case. The foundation
+of the whole system is that _all_ desire must be obliterated, the desire
+for the good just as much as the desire for the evil. The good is as
+much "illusion" as the evil, and until we have reached absolute
+indifference to both we have not attained freedom. When we have utterly
+crushed out _all_ desire we are free. And the practical results of such
+a philosophy are shown in the case of Indian devotees, who, in pursuance
+of their resolve to crush out _all_ desire, both for good and evil
+alike, become nothing more than outward images of men, from which all
+power of perception and of action have long since fled.
+
+The mergence in the universal, at which they thus aim, becomes nothing
+more than a self-induced hypnotism, which, if maintained for a
+sufficient length of time, saps away every power of mental and bodily
+activity, leaving nothing but the outside husk of an attenuated human
+form--the hopeless wreck of what was once a living man. This is the
+logical result of a system which assumes for its starting-point that
+desire is evil in itself, that every desire is _per se_ a form of
+bondage, independently of the nature of its object. The majority of the
+followers of this philosophy may lack sufficient resolution to carry it
+out rigorously to its practical conclusions; but whether their ideal is
+to be realised in this world or in some other, the utter extinction of
+desire means nothing else than absolute apathy, without feeling and
+without action.
+
+How entirely false such an idea is--not only from the standpoint of our
+daily life, but also from that of the most transcendental conception of
+the Universal Principle--is evidenced by the mere fact that anything
+exists at all. If the highest ideal is that of utter apathy, then the
+Creative Power of the universe must be extremely low-minded; and all
+that we have hitherto been accustomed to look upon as the marvellous
+order and beauty of creation, is nothing but a display of vulgarity and
+ignorance of sound philosophy.
+
+But the fact that creation exists proves that the Universal Mind thinks
+differently, and we have only to look around to see that the true ideal
+is the exercise of creative power. Hence, so far from desire being a
+thing to be annihilated, it is the very root of every conceivable mode
+of Life. Without it Life could not be. Every form of expression implies
+the selection of all that goes to make up that form, and the passing-by
+of whatever is not required for that purpose; hence a desire for that
+which is selected in preference to what is laid aside. And this
+selective desire is none other than the universal Law of Attraction.
+
+Whether this law acts as the chemical affinity of apparently unconscious
+atoms, or in the instinctive, if unreasoned, attractions of the
+vegetable and animal worlds, it is still the principle of selective
+affinity; and it continues to be the same when it passes on into the
+higher kingdoms which are ruled by reason and conscious purpose. The
+modes of activity in each of these kingdoms are dictated by the nature
+of the kingdom; but the activity itself always results from the
+preference of a certain subject for a certain object, to the exclusion
+of all others; and all action consists in the reciprocal movement of the
+two towards each other in obedience to the law of their affinity.
+
+When this takes place in the kingdom of conscious individuality, the
+affinities exhibit themselves as mental action; but the principle of
+selection prevails without exception throughout the universe. In the
+conscious mind this attraction towards its affinity becomes desire; the
+desire to create some condition of things better than that now existing.
+Our want of knowledge may cause us to make mistakes as to what this
+better thing really is, and so in seeking to carry out our desire we may
+give it a wrong direction; but the fault is not in the desire itself,
+but in our mistaken notion of what it is that it requires for its
+satisfaction. Hence unrest and dissatisfaction until its true affinity
+is found; but, as soon as this is discovered, the law of attraction at
+once asserts itself and produces that better condition, the dream of
+which first gave direction to our thoughts.
+
+Thus it is eternally true that desire is the cause of all feeling and
+all action; in other words, of all Life. The whole livingness of Life
+consists in receiving or in radiating forth the vibrations produced by
+the law of attraction; and in the kingdom of mind these vibrations
+necessarily become conscious out-reachings of the mind in the direction
+in which it feels attraction; that is to say, they become desires.
+Desire is therefore the mind seeking to manifest itself in some form
+which as yet exists only in its thought. It is the principle of
+creation, whether the thing created be a world or a wooden spoon; both
+have their origin in the desire to bring something into existence which
+does not yet exist. Whatever may be the scale on which we exercise our
+creative ability, the motive power must always be desire.
+
+Desire is the force behind all things; it is the moving principle of
+the universe and the innermost centre of all Life. Hence, to take the
+negation of desire for our primal principle is to endeavour to stamp out
+Life itself; but what we have to do is to acquire the requisite
+knowledge by which to guide our desires to their true objects of
+satisfaction. To do this is the whole end of knowledge; and any
+knowledge applied otherwise is only a partial knowledge, which, having
+failed in its purpose, is nothing but ignorance. Desire is thus the
+sum-total of the livingness of Life, for it is that in which all
+movement originates, whether on the physical level or the spiritual. In
+a word, desire is the creative power, and must be carefully guarded,
+trained, and directed accordingly; but thus to seek to develop it to the
+highest perfection is the very opposite of trying to kill it outright.
+
+And desire has fulfilment for its correlative. The desire and its
+fulfilment are bound together as cause and effect; and when we realise
+the law of their sequence, we shall be more than ever impressed with the
+supreme importance of Desire as the great centre of Life.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+TOUCHING LIGHTLY
+
+
+What is our point of support? Is it in ourselves or outside us? Are we
+self-poised, or does our balance depend on something external? According
+to the actual belief in which our answer to these questions is embodied
+so will our lives be. In everything there are two parts, the essential
+and the incidental--that which is the nucleus and _raison d'etre_ of the
+whole thing, and that which gathers round this nucleus and takes form
+from it. The true knowledge always consists in distinguishing these two
+from each other, and error always consists in misplacing them.
+
+In all our affairs there are two factors, ourselves and the matter to be
+dealt with; and since _for us_ the nature of anything is always
+determined by our thought of it, it is entirely a question of our belief
+which of these two factors shall be the essential and which the
+accessory. Whichever we regard as the essential, the other at once
+becomes the incidental. The incidental can never be absent. For any sort
+of action to take place there must be _some_ conditions under which the
+activity passes out into visible results; but the same sort of activity
+may occur under a variety of different conditions, and may thus produce
+very different visible results. So in every matter we shall always find
+an essential or energising factor, and an incidental factor which
+derives its quality from the nature of the energy.
+
+We can therefore never escape from having to select our essential and
+our incidental factor, and whichever we select as the essential, we
+thereby place the other in the position of the incidental. If, then, we
+make the mistake of reversing the true position and suppose that the
+energising force comes from the merely accessory circumstances, we make
+_them_ our point of support and lean upon _them_, and stand or fall with
+them accordingly; and so we come into a condition of weakness and
+obsequious waiting on all sorts of external influences, which is the
+very reverse of that strength, wisdom, and opulence which are the only
+meaning of Liberty.
+
+But if we would ask ourselves the common-sense question Where can the
+centre of a man's Life be except in himself? we shall see that in all
+which pertains to us the energising centre must be in ourselves. We can
+never get away from ourselves as the centre of our own universe, and the
+sooner we clearly understand this the better. There is really no energy
+in _our_ universe but what emanates from ourselves in the first
+instance, and the power which appears to reside in our surroundings is
+derived entirely from our own mind.
+
+If once we realise this, and consider that the Life which flows into us
+from the Universal Life-Principle is at every moment _new_ Life entirely
+undifferentiated to any particular purpose besides that of supporting
+our own individuality, and that it is therefore ours to externalise in
+any form we will, then we find that this manifestation of the eternal
+Life-Principle _in ourselves_ is the standpoint from which we can
+control our surroundings. We must lean firmly on the central point of
+our own being and not on anything else. Our mistake is in taking our
+surroundings too much "_au grand serieux_." We should touch things more
+lightly. As soon as we feel that their weight impedes our free handling
+of them they are mastering us, and not we them.
+
+Light handling does not mean weak handling. On the contrary, lightness
+of touch is incompatible with a weak grasp of the instrument, which
+implies that the weight of the tool is excessive relatively to the force
+that seeks to guide it. A light, even playful handling, therefore
+implies a firm grasp and perfect control over the instrument. It is only
+in the hands of a Grinling Gibbons that the carving tool can create
+miracles of aerial lightness from the solid wood. The light yet firm
+touch tells not of weakness, but of power held in reserve; and if we
+realise our own out-and-out spiritual nature we know that behind any
+measure of power we may put forth there is the whole reserve of the
+infinite to back us up.
+
+As we come to know this we begin to handle things lightly, playing with
+them as a juggler does with his flying knives, which cannot make the
+slightest movement other than he has assigned to them, for we begin to
+see that our control over things is part of the necessary order of the
+universe. The disorder we have met with in the past has resulted
+precisely from our never having attempted consciously to introduce this
+element of our personal control as part of the system.
+
+Of course, I speak of the _whole_ man, and not merely of that part of
+him which Walt Whitman says is contained between his hat and his boots.
+The _whole_ man is an infinitude, and the visible portion of him is the
+instrument through which he looks out upon and enjoys all that belongs
+to him, his own kingdom of the infinite. And when he learns that this is
+the meaning of his conscious individuality, he sees _how_ it is that he
+is infinite, and finds that he is one with Infinite Mind, which is the
+innermost core of the universe. Having thus reached the true centre of
+his own being, he can never give this central place to anything else,
+but will realise that relatively to this all other things are in the
+position of the incidental and accessory, and growing, daily in this
+knowledge he will learn so to handle all things lightly, yet firmly,
+that grief, fear, and error will have less and less space in his world,
+until at last sorrow and sighing shall flee away, and everlasting joy
+shall take their place. We may have taken only a few steps on the way as
+yet, but they are in the right direction, and what we have to do now is
+to go on.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+PRESENT TRUTH
+
+
+If Thought power is good for anything it is good for everything. If it
+can produce one thing it can produce all things. For what is to hinder
+it? Nothing can stop us from thinking. We can _think_ what we please,
+and if to think is to form, then we can form what we please. The whole
+question, therefore, resolves itself into this: Is it true that to think
+is to form? If so, do we not see that our limitations are formed in
+precisely the same way as our expansions? We think that conditions
+outside our thought have power over us, and so we think power into them.
+So the great question of life is whether there is any _other_ creative
+power than Thought. If so, where is it, and what is it?
+
+Both philosophy and religion lead us to the truth that "in the
+beginning" there was no other creative power than Spirit, and the only
+mode of activity we can possibly attribute to Spirit is Thought, and so
+we find Thought as the root of all things. And if this was the case "in
+the beginning" it must be so still; for if all things originate in
+Thought, all things must be modes of Thought, and so it is impossible
+for Spirit ever to hand over its creations to some power which is not
+itself--that is to say, which is not Thought-power; and consequently all
+the forms and circumstances that surround us are manifestations of the
+creative power of Thought.
+
+But it may be objected that this is God's Thought; and that the creative
+power is in God and not Man. But this goes away from the self-evident
+axiomatic truth that "in the beginning" nothing could have had any
+origin except Thought. It is quite true that nothing has any origin
+except in the Divine Mind, and Man himself is therefore a mode of the
+Divine Thought. Again, Man is self-conscious; therefore Man is the
+Divine Thought evolved into _individual_ consciousness, and when he
+becomes sufficiently enlightened to realise this as his origin, then he
+sees that he is a reproduction _in individuality_ of the _same_ spirit
+which produces all things, and that his own thought in individuality has
+exactly the same quality as the Divine Thought in universality, just as
+fire is equally igneous whether burning round a large centre of
+combustion or a small one, and thus we are logically brought to the
+conclusion that our thought must have creative power.
+
+But people say, "We have not found it so. We are surrounded by all sorts
+of circumstances that we do not desire." Yes, you _fear_ them, and in so
+doing you _think_ them; and in this way you are constantly exercising
+this Divine prerogative of creation by Thought, only through ignorance
+you use it in a wrong direction. Therefore the Book of Divine
+Instructions so constantly repeats "Fear not; doubt not," because we can
+never divest our Thought of its inherent creative quality, and the only
+question is whether we shall use it ignorantly to our injury or
+understandingly to our benefit.
+
+The Master summed up his teaching in the aphorism that knowledge of the
+Truth would make us free. Here is no announcement of anything we have to
+do, or of anything that has to be done for us, in order to gain our
+liberty, neither is it a statement of anything _future_. Truth _is_ what
+is. He did not say, you must wait till something becomes true which is
+not true _now_. He said: "Know what _is_ Truth now, and you will find
+that the Truth concerning yourself is Liberty." If the knowledge of
+Truth makes us free it can only be because in truth we are free already,
+only we do not know it.
+
+Our liberty consists in our reproducing on the scale of the individual
+the same creative power of Thought which first brought the world into
+existence, "so that the things which are seen were not made of things
+which do appear." Let us, then, confidently claim our birthright as
+"sons and daughters of the Almighty," and by habitually thinking the
+good, the beautiful, and the true, surround ourselves with conditions
+corresponding to our thoughts, and by our teaching and example help
+others to do the same.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+YOURSELF
+
+
+I want to talk to you about the livingness there is in being yourself.
+It has at least the merit of simplicity, for it must surely be easier to
+be oneself than to be something or somebody else. Yet that is what so
+many are constantly trying to do; the self that is their own is not good
+enough for them, and so they are always trying to go one better than
+what God has made them, with endless strain and struggle as the
+consequence. Of course, they are right to put before them an ideal
+infinitely grander than anything they have yet attained--the only
+possible way of progress is by following an ideal that is always a stage
+ahead of us--but the mistake is in not seeing that its attainment is a
+matter of growth, and that growth must be the expansion of something
+that already exists in us, and therefore implies our being what we are
+and where we are as its starting point. This growth is a continuous
+process, and we cannot do next month's growth without first doing this
+month's; but we are always wanting to jump into some ideal of the
+future, not seeing that we can reach it only by steadily going on from
+where we are now.
+
+These considerations should make us more confident and more comfortable.
+We are employing a force which is much greater than we believe ourselves
+to be, yet it is not separate from us and needing to be persuaded or
+compelled, or inveigled into doing what we want; it is the substratum of
+our own being which is continually passing up into manifestation on the
+visible plane and becoming that personal self to which we often limit
+our attention without considering whence it proceeds. But in truth the
+outer self is the surface growth of that individuality which lies
+concealed far down in the deeps below, and which is none other than the
+Spirit-of-Life which underlies all forms of manifestation.
+
+Endeavour to realise what this Spirit must be in itself--that is to say,
+apart from any of the conditions that arise from the various relations
+which necessarily establish themselves between its various forms of
+individualisation. In its homogeneous self what else can it be but pure
+life--Essence-of-Life, if you like so to call it? Then realise that as
+Essence-of-Life it exists in the innermost of _every one_ of its forms
+of manifestation in as perfect simplicity as any we can attribute to it
+in our most abstract conceptions. In this light we see it to be the
+eternally self-generating power which, to express itself, flows into
+form.
+
+This universal Essence-of-Life is a continual becoming (into form), and
+since we are a part of Nature we do not need to go further than
+ourselves to find the life-giving energy at work with all its powers.
+Hence all we have to do is to allow it to rise to the surface. We do not
+have to _make_ it rise any more than the engineer who sinks the
+bore-pipe for an artesian well has to make the water rise in it; the
+water does that by its own energy, springing as a fountain a hundred
+feet into the air. Just so we shall find a fountain of Essence-of-Life
+ready to spring up in ourselves, inexhaustible and continually
+increasing in its flow, as One taught long ago to a woman at a wayside
+well.
+
+This up-springing of Life-Essence is not another's--it is our own. It
+does not require deep studies, hard labours, weary journeyings to attain
+it; it is not the monopoly of this teacher or that writer, whose
+lectures we must attend or whose books we must read to get it. It is the
+innermost of _ourselves_, and a little common-sense thought as to how
+anything comes to be anything will soon convince us that the great
+inexhaustible life must be the very root and substance of us, permeating
+every fibre of our being.
+
+Surely to be this vast infinitude of living power must be enough to
+satisfy all our desires, and yet this wonderful ideal is nothing else
+but what we already are _in principio_--it is all there in ourselves
+now, only awaiting our recognition for its manifestation. It is not the
+Essence-of-Life which has to grow, for that is eternally perfect in
+itself; but it is our recognition of it that has to grow, and this
+growth cannot be forced. It must come by a natural process, the first
+necessity of which is to abstain from all straining after being
+something which at the present time we cannot naturally be. The Law of
+our Evolution has put us in possession of certain powers and
+opportunities, and our further development depends on our doing just
+what these powers and opportunities make it possible for us to do, here
+and now.
+
+If we do what we are able to do to-day, it will open the way for us to
+do something better to-morrow, and in this manner the growing process
+will proceed healthily and happily in a rapidly increasing ratio. This
+is so much easier than striving to compel things to be what they are
+not, and it is also so much more fruitful in good results. It is not
+sitting still doing nothing, and there is plenty of room for the
+exercise of all our mental faculties, but these faculties are themselves
+the outcome of the Essence-of-Life, and are not the creating power, but
+only that which gives direction to it Now it is this moving power at the
+back of the various faculties that is the true innermost self; and if we
+realise the identity between the innermost and the outermost, we shall
+see that we therefore have at our present disposal all that is necessary
+for our unlimited development in the future.
+
+Thus our livingness consists simply in being ourselves, only more so;
+and in recognising this we get rid of a great burden of unnecessary
+straining and striving, and the place of the old _sturm und drang_ will
+be taken, not by inertia, but by a joyous activity which knows that it
+always has the requisite power to manifest itself in forms of good and
+beauty. What matters it whither this leads us? If we are following the
+line of the beautiful and good, then we shall produce the beautiful and
+good, and thus bring increasing joy into the world, whatever particular
+form it may assume.
+
+We limit ourselves when we try to fix accurately beforehand the
+particular form of good that we shall produce. We should aim not so much
+at having or making some particular thing as at expressing all that we
+are. The expressing will grow out of realising the treasures that are
+ours already, and contemplating the beauty, the affirmative side, of all
+that we are _now_, apart from the negative conceptions and detractions
+which veil this positive good from us. When we do this we shall be
+astonished to see what possibilities reside in ourselves as we are and
+with our present surroundings, all unlovely as we may deem them: and
+commencing to work at once upon whatever we find of affirmative in
+these, and withdrawing our thought from what we have hitherto seen of
+negative in them, the right road will open up before us, leading us in
+wonderful ways to the development of powers that we never suspected, and
+the enjoyment of happiness that we never anticipated.
+
+We have never been out of our right path, only we have been walking in
+it backwards instead of forwards, and now that we have begun to follow
+the path in the right direction, we find that it is none other than the
+way of peace, the path of joy, and the road to eternal life. These
+things we may attain by simply living naturally with ourselves. It is
+because we are trying to be or do something which is not natural to us
+that we experience weariness and labour, where we should find all our
+activities joyously concentrated on objects which lead to their own
+accomplishment by the force of the love that we have for them. But when
+we make the grand discovery of how to live naturally, we shall find it
+to be all, and more than all, that we had ever desired, and our daily
+life will become a perpetual joy to ourselves, and we shall radiate
+light and life wherever we go.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+RELIGIOUS OPINIONS
+
+
+That great and wise writer, George Eliot, expressed her matured views on
+the subject of religious opinions in these words: "I have too profound a
+conviction of the efficacy that lies in all sincere faith, and the
+spiritual blight that comes with no faith, to have any negative
+propagandism left in me." This had not always been her attitude, for in
+her youth she had had a good deal of negative propagandism in her; but
+the experience of a lifetime led her to form this estimate of the value
+of sincere faith, independently of the particular form of thought which
+leads to it.
+
+Tennyson also came to the same conclusion, and gives kindly warning:--
+
+    "O thou who after toil and storm
+      May'st seem to have reached a purer air,
+      Whose faith has centred everywhere,
+    Nor cares to fix itself to form.
+      Leave thou thy sister when she prays
+    Her early heaven, her happy views,
+    Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse
+      A life that leads melodious days."
+
+And thus these two great minds have left us a lesson of wisdom which we
+shall do well to profit by. Let us see how it applies more particularly
+to our own case.
+
+The true presentment of the Higher Thought contains no "negative
+propagandism." It is everywhere ranged on the side of the Affirmative,
+and its great object is to extirpate the canker which gnaws at the root
+of every life that endeavours to centre itself upon the Negative. Its
+purpose is constructive and not destructive. But we often find people
+labouring under a very erroneous impression as to the nature and scope
+of the movement, and thus not only themselves deterred from
+investigating it, but also deterring others from doing so. Sometimes
+this results from the subject having been presented to them unwisely--in
+a way needlessly repugnant to the particular form of religious ideas to
+which they are accustomed; but more often it results from their
+prejudging the whole matter, and making up their minds that the movement
+is opposed to their ideas of religion, without being at the pains to
+inquire what its principles really are. In either case a few words on
+the attitude of the New Thought towards the current forms of religious
+opinion may not be out of place.
+
+The first consideration in every concern is, What is the object aimed
+at? The end determines the means to be employed, and if the nature of
+the end be clearly kept in view, then no objectless complications will
+be introduced into the means. All this seems too obvious to be stated,
+but it is just the failure to realise this simple truth that has given
+rise to the whole body of _odium theologicum_, with all the persecutions
+and massacres and martyrdoms which disgrace the pages of history, making
+so many of them a record of nothing but ferocity and stupidity. Let us
+hope for a better record in the future; and if we are to get it, it will
+be by the adoption of the simple principle here stated.
+
+In our own country alone the varieties of churches and sects form a
+lengthy catalogue, but in every one of them the purpose is the same--to
+establish the individual in a satisfactory relation to the Divine Power.
+The very fact of any religious profession at all implies the recognition
+of God as the Source of life and of all that goes to make life; and
+therefore the purpose in every case is to draw increasing degrees of
+life, whether here or hereafter, from the Only Source from which alone
+it is to be obtained, and therefore to establish such a relation with
+this Source as may enable the worshipper to draw from It all the life he
+wants. Hence the necessary preliminary to drawing consciously at all is
+the confidence that such a relation actually has been established; and
+such a confidence as this is exactly all that is meant by Faith.
+
+The position of the man who has not this confidence is either that no
+such Source exists, or else that he is without means of access to It;
+and in either case he feels himself left to fight for his own hand
+against the entire universe without the consciousness of any Superior
+Power to back him up. He is thrown entirely upon his own resources, not
+knowing of the interior spring from which they may be unceasingly
+replenished. He is like a plant cut off at the stem and stuck in the
+ground without any root, and consequently that spiritual blight of which
+George Eliot speaks creeps over him, producing weakness, perplexity, and
+fear, with all their baleful consequences, where there should be that
+strength, order, and confidence which are the very foundation of all
+building-up for whatever purpose, whether of personal prosperity or of
+usefulness to others.
+
+From the point of view of those who are acquainted with the laws of
+spiritual life, such a man is cut off from the root of his own Being.
+Beyond and far interior to that outer self which each of us knows as the
+intellectual man working with the physical brain as instrument, we have
+roots penetrating deep into that Infinite of which, in our ordinary
+waking state, we are only dimly conscious; and it is through this root
+of our own individuality, spreading far down into the hidden depths of
+Being, that we draw out of the unseen that unceasing stream of Life
+which afterwards, by our thought-power, we differentiate into all those
+outward forms of which we have need. Hence the unceasing necessity for
+every one to realise the great truth that his whole individuality has
+its foundation in such a root, and that the ground in which this root
+is embedded is that Universal Being for which there is no name save that
+of the One all-embracing I AM.
+
+The supreme necessity, therefore, for each of us is to realise this
+fundamental fact of our own nature, for it is only in proportion as we
+do so that we truly live; and, therefore, whatever helps us to this
+realisation should be carefully guarded. In so far as any form of
+religion contributes to this end in the case of any particular
+individual, for him it is true religion. It may be imperfect, but it is
+true so far as it goes; and what is wanted is not to destroy the
+foundation of a man's faith because it is narrow, but to expand it. And
+this expanding will be done by the man himself, for it is a growth from
+within and not a construction from without.
+
+Our attitude towards the religious beliefs of others should, therefore,
+not be that of iconoclasts, breaking down ruthlessly whatever from _our_
+point of view we see to be merely traditionary idols (in Bacon's sense
+of the word), but rather the opposite method of fixing upon that in
+another's creed which we find to be positive and affirmative, and
+gradually leading him to perceive in what its affirmativeness consists;
+and then, when once he has got the clue to the element of strength which
+exists in his accustomed form of belief, the perception of the contrast
+between that and the non-essential accretions will grow up in his mind
+spontaneously, thus gradually bringing him out into a wider and freer
+atmosphere. In going through such a process as this, he will never have
+had his thoughts directed into any channel to suggest separation from
+his spiritual root and ground; but he will learn that the rooting and
+grounding in the Divine, which he had trusted in at first, were indeed
+true, but in a sense far fuller, grander, and larger every way than his
+early infantile conception of them.
+
+The question is not how far can another's religious opinions stand the
+test of a remorseless logic, but how far do they enable him to realise
+his unity with Divine Spirit? That is the living proof of the value of
+his opinion to himself, and no change in his opinions can be for the
+better that does not lead him to a greater recognition of the livingness
+of Divine Spirit in himself. For any change of opinion to indicate a
+forward movement, it must proceed from our realising in some measure the
+true nature of the life that is already developed in us. When we see
+_why_ we are _what_ we are _now_, then we can look ahead and see what
+the same life principle that has brought us up to the present point is
+capable of doing in the future. We may not see very far ahead, but we
+shall see where the next step is to be placed, and that is sufficient to
+enable us to move on.
+
+What we have to do, therefore, is to help others to grow from the root
+they are already _living_ by, and not to dig their roots up and leave
+them to wither. We need not be afraid of making ourselves all things to
+all men, in the sense of fixing upon the affirmative elements in each
+one's creed as the starting-point of our work, for the affirmative and
+life-giving is always true, and Truth is always _one_ and consistent
+with itself; and therefore we need never fear being inconsistent so long
+as we adhere to this method. It is worse than useless to waste time in
+dissecting the negative accretions of other people's beliefs. In doing
+so we run great risks of rooting up the wheat along with the tares, and
+we shall certainly succeed in brushing people up the wrong way;
+moreover, by looking out exclusively for the life-giving and affirmative
+elements, we shall reap benefit to ourselves. We shall not only keep our
+temper, but we shall often find large reserves of affirmative power
+where at first we had apprehended nothing but worthless accumulations,
+and thus we shall become gainers both in largeness of mind and in stores
+of valuable material.
+
+Of course we must be rigidly unyielding as regards the _essence_ of
+Truth--_that_ must never be sacrificed--but as representatives, in
+however small a sphere, of the New Thought, we should make it our aim to
+show others, not that their religion is wrong, but that all they may
+find of life-givingness in it is life-giving because it is part of the
+One Truth which is always the same under whatever form expressed. As
+half a loaf is better than no bread, so ignorant worship is better than
+no worship, and ignorant faith is better than no faith. Our work is not
+to destroy this faith and this worship, but to lead them on into a
+clearer light.
+
+For this reason we may assure all inquirers that the abandonment of
+their customary form of worship is no necessity of the New Thought; but,
+on the contrary, that the principles of the movement, correctly
+understood, will show them far more meaning in that worship than they
+have ever yet realised. Truth is one; and when once the truth which
+underlies the outward form is clearly understood, the maintenance or
+abandonment of the latter will be found to be a matter of personal
+feeling as to what form, or absence of form, best enables the particular
+individual to realise the Truth itself.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+A LESSON FROM BROWNING
+
+
+Perhaps you know a little poem of Browning's called "An Epistle
+Containing the Strange Medical Experiences of Karshish, the Arab
+Physician." The somewhat weird conception is that the Arab physician,
+travelling in Palestine soon after the date when the Gospel narrative
+closes, meets with Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead, and in this
+letter to a medical friend describes the strange effect which his vision
+of the other life has produced upon the resuscitated man. The poem
+should be studied as a whole; but for the present a few lines selected
+here and there must do duty to indicate the character of the change
+which has passed upon Lazarus. After comparing him to a beggar who,
+having suddenly received boundless wealth, is unable to regulate its use
+to his requirements, Karshish continues:--
+
+    "So here--we call the treasure knowledge, say,
+    Increased beyond the fleshly faculty--
+    Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,
+    Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven:
+    The man is witless of the size, the sum,
+    The value in proportion of all things."
+
+In fact he has become almost exclusively conscious of
+
+    "The spiritual life around the earthly life:
+    The law of that is known to him as this,
+    His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here,"
+
+and the result is a loss of mental balance entirely unfitting him for
+the affairs of ordinary life.
+
+Now there can be no doubt that Browning had a far more serious intention
+in writing this poem than just to record a fantastic notion that flitted
+through his brain. If we read between the lines, it must be clear from
+the general tenor of his writings that, however he may have acquired it,
+Browning had a very deep acquaintance with the inner region of spiritual
+causes which give rise to all that we see of outward phenomenal
+manifestation. There are continual allusions in his works to the life
+behind the veil, and it is to this suggestion of some mystery underlying
+his words that we owe the many attempts to fathom his meaning expressed
+through Browning Societies and the like--attempts which fail or succeed
+according as they are made from "the without" or from "the within." No
+one was better qualified than the poet to realise the immense benefits
+of the inner knowledge, and for the same reason he is also qualified to
+warn us of the dangers on the way to its acquisition; for nowhere is it
+more true that
+
+    "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,"
+
+and it is one of the greatest of these dangers that he points out in
+this poem.
+
+Under the figure of Lazarus he describes the man who has practically
+grasped the reality of the inner side of things, for whom the veil has
+been removed, and who knows that the external and visible takes its rise
+from the internal and spiritual. But the description is that of one
+whose eyes have been so dazzled by the light that he has lost the power
+of accommodating his vision to the world of sense. He now commits the
+same error from the side of "the within" that he formerly committed from
+the side of "the without," the error of supposing that there is no vital
+reality in the aspect of things on which his thoughts are not
+immediately centered. This is want of mental balance, whether it shows
+itself by refusing reality to the inward or the outward. To be so
+absorbed in speculative ideas as to be unable to give them practical
+application in daily life, is to allow our highest thoughts to evaporate
+in dreams.
+
+There is a world of philosophy in the simple statement that there can be
+no inside without an outside, and no outside without an inside; and the
+great secret in life is in learning to see things in their wholeness,
+and to realise the inside and the outside simultaneously. Each of them
+without the other is a mere abstraction, having no real existence, which
+we contemplate separately only for the purpose of reviewing the logical
+steps by which they are connected together as cause and effect. Nature
+does not separate them, for they are inseparable; and the law of nature
+is the law of life. It is related of Pythagoras that, after he had led
+his scholars to the dizziest heights of the inner knowledge, he never
+failed to impress upon them the converse lesson of tracing out the steps
+by which these inner principles translate themselves into the familiar
+conditions of the outward things by which we are surrounded. The process
+of analysis is merely an expedient for discovering what springs in the
+realm of causes we are to touch in order to produce certain effects in
+the realm of manifestation. But this is not sufficient. We must also
+learn to calculate how those particular effects, when produced, will
+stand related to the world of already existing effects among which we
+propose to launch them, how they will modify these and be modified by
+these in turn; and this calculation of effects is as necessary as the
+knowledge of causes.
+
+We cannot impress upon ourselves too strongly that reality consists of
+both an inside and an outside, a generating principle and a generated
+condition, and that anything short of the reality of wholeness is
+illusion on one side or the other. Nothing could have been further from
+Browning's intention than to deter seekers after truth from studying the
+principles of Being, for without the knowledge of them truth must always
+remain wrapped in mystery; but the lesson he would impress on us is that
+of guarding vigilantly the mental equilibrium which alone will enable
+us to develop those boundless powers whose infinite unfolding is the
+fulness of Life. And we must remember above all that the soul of life is
+Love, and that Love shows itself by service, and service proceeds from
+sympathy, which is the capacity for seeing things from the point of view
+of those whom we would help, while at the same time seeing them also in
+their true relations; and therefore, if we would realise that Love which
+is the inmost vitalising principle even of the most interior powers, it
+must be kept alive by maintaining our hold upon the exterior life as
+being equally real with the inward principles of which it is the
+manifestation.
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE SPIRIT OF OPULENCE
+
+
+It is quite a mistake to suppose that we must restrict and stint
+ourselves in order to develop greater power or usefulness. This is to
+form the conception of the Divine Power as so limited that the best use
+we can make of it is by a policy of self-starvation, whether material or
+mental. Of course, if we believe that some form of self-starvation is
+necessary to our producing good work, then so long as we entertain this
+belief the fact actually is so _for us_. "Whatsoever is not of
+faith"--that is, not in accordance with our honest _belief_--"is sin";
+and by acting contrary to what we really believe we bring in a
+suggestion of opposition to the Divine Spirit, which must necessarily
+paralyse our efforts, and surround us with a murky atmosphere of
+distrust and want of joy.
+
+But all this exists in, and is produced by, our _belief_; and when we
+come to examine the grounds of this belief we shall find that it rests
+upon an entire misapprehension of the nature of our own power. If we
+clearly realise that the creative power in ourselves is _unlimited_,
+then there is no reason for limiting the extent to which we may enjoy
+what we can create by means of it. Where we are drawing from the
+_infinite_ we need never be afraid of taking more than our share. That
+is not where the danger lies. The danger is in not sufficiently
+realising our own richness, and in looking upon the externalised
+products of our creative power as being the true riches instead of the
+creative power of spirit itself.
+
+If we avoid this error, there is no need to limit ourselves in taking
+what we will from the infinite storehouse: "All things are yours." And
+the way to avoid this error is by realising that the true wealth is in
+identifying ourselves with the _spirit_ of opulence. We must be opulent
+in our _thought_. Do not "think money," as such, for it is only one
+means of opulence; but _think opulence_, that is, largely, generously,
+liberally, and you will find that the means of realising this thought
+will flow to you from all quarters, whether as money or as a hundred
+other things not to be reckoned in cash.
+
+We must not make ourselves dependent on any particular _form_ of wealth,
+or insist on its coming to us through some particular channel--that is
+at once to impose a limitation, and to shut out other forms of wealth
+and to close other channels; but we must enter into the _spirit_ of it.
+Now the spirit is Life, and throughout the universe Life ultimately
+consists in _circulation_, whether within the physical body of the
+individual or on the scale of the entire solar system; and circulation
+means a continual flowing around, and the _spirit_ of opulence is no
+exception to this universal law of all life.
+
+When once this principle becomes clear to us we shall see that our
+attention should be directed rather to the giving than the receiving. We
+must look upon ourselves, not as misers' chests to be kept locked for
+our own benefit, but as centres of distribution; and the better we
+fulfil our function as such centres the greater will be the
+corresponding inflow. If we choke the outlet the current must slacken,
+and a full and free flow can be obtained only by keeping it open. The
+spirit of opulence--the opulent mode of thought, that is--consists in
+cultivating the feeling that we possess all sorts of riches which we can
+_bestow upon others_, and which we can bestow _liberally_ because by
+this very action we open the way for still greater supplies to flow in.
+But you say, "I am short of money, I hardly know how to pay for
+necessaries. What have I to give?"
+
+The answer is that we must always start from the point where we are; and
+if your wealth at the present moment is not abundant on the material
+plane, you need not trouble to start on that plane. There are other
+sorts of wealth, still more valuable, on the spiritual and intellectual
+planes, which you can give; and you can start from this point and
+practise the spirit of opulence, even though your balance at the bank
+may be nil. And then the universal law of attraction will begin to
+assert itself. You will not only begin to experience an inflow on the
+spiritual and intellectual planes, but it will extend itself to the
+material plane also.
+
+If you have realised the _spirit_ of opulence you _cannot help_ drawing
+to yourself material good, as well as that higher wealth which is not to
+be measured by a money standard; and because you truly understand the
+_spirit_ of opulence you will neither affect to despise this form of
+good, nor will you attribute to it a value that does not belong to it;
+but you will _co-ordinate_ it with your other more interior forms of
+wealth so as to make it the material instrument in smoothing the way for
+their more perfect expression. Used thus, with understanding of the
+relation which it bears to spiritual and intellectual wealth, material
+wealth becomes _one with them_, and is no more to be shunned and feared
+than it is to be sought for its own sake.
+
+It is not money, but the _love_ of money, that is the root of evil; and
+the _spirit_ of opulence is precisely the attitude of mind which is
+furthest removed from the love of money for its own sake. It does not
+believe in money. What it does believe in is the generous feeling which
+is the intuitive recognition of the great law of circulation, which does
+not in any undertaking make its first question, How much am I going to
+_get_ by it? but, How much am I going to _do_ by it? And making _this_
+the first question, the getting will flow in with a generous profusion,
+and with a spontaneousness and rightness of direction that are absent
+when our first thought is of receiving only.
+
+We are not called upon to give what we have not yet got and to run into
+debt; but we are to give liberally of what we _have_, with the knowledge
+that by so doing we are setting the law of circulation to work, and as
+this law brings us greater and greater inflows of every kind of good, so
+our out-giving will increase, not by depriving ourselves of any
+expansion of our own life that we may desire, but by finding that every
+expansion makes us the more powerful instruments for expanding the life
+of others. "Live and let live" is the motto of the true opulence.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+BEAUTY
+
+
+Do we sufficiently direct our thoughts to the subject of Beauty? I think
+not. We are too apt to regard Beauty as a merely superficial thing, and
+do not realise all that it implies. This was not the case with the great
+thinkers of the ancient world--see the place which no less a one than
+Plato gives to Beauty as the expression of all that is highest and
+greatest in the system of the universe. These great men of old were no
+superficial thinkers, and, therefore, would never have elevated to the
+supreme place that which is only superficial. Therefore, we shall do
+well to ask what it is that these great minds found in the idea of
+Beauty which made it thus appeal to them as the most perfect outward
+expression of all that lies deepest in the fundamental laws of Being. It
+is because, rightly apprehended, Beauty represents the supremest living
+quality of Thought. It is the glorious overflowing of fulness of Love
+which indicates the presence of infinite reserves of Power behind it. It
+is the joyous profusion that shows the possession of inexhaustible
+stores of wealth which can afford to be thus lavish and yet remain as
+exhaustless as before. Read aright, Beauty is the index to the whole
+nature of Being.
+
+Beauty is the externalisation of Harmony, and Harmony is the
+co-ordinated working of all the powers of Being, both in the individual
+and in the relation of the individual to the Infinite from which it
+springs; and therefore this Harmony conducts us at once into the
+presence of the innermost undifferentiated Life. Thus Beauty is in most
+immediate touch with the very arcanum of Life; it is the brightness of
+glory spreading itself over the sanctuary of the Divine Spirit. For if,
+viewed from without, Beauty is the province of the artist and the poet,
+and lays hold of our emotions and appeals directly to the innermost
+feelings of our heart, calling up the response of that within us which
+recognises itself in the harmony perceived without, this is only because
+it speeds across the bridge of Reason with such quick feet that we pass
+from the outmost to the inmost and back again in the twinkling of an
+eye; but the bridge is still there and, retracing our steps more
+leisurely, we shall find that, viewed from within, Beauty is no less the
+province of the calm reasoner and analyst. What the poet and the artist
+seize upon intuitionally, he elaborates gradually, but the result is the
+same in both cases; for no intuition is true which does not admit of
+being expanded into a rational sequence of intelligible factors, and no
+argument is true which does not admit of being condensed into that rapid
+suggestion which is intuition.
+
+Thus the impassioned artist and the calm thinker both find that the only
+true Beauty proceeds naturally from the actual construction of that
+which it expresses. It is not something added on as an afterthought, but
+something pre-existing in the original idea, something to which that
+idea naturally leads up, and which presupposes that idea as affording it
+any _raison d'etre_. The test of Beauty is, What does it express? Is it
+merely a veneer, a coat of paint laid on from without? Then it is indeed
+nothing but a whited sepulchre, a covering to hide the vacuity or
+deformity which needs to be removed. But is it the true and natural
+outcome of what is beneath the surface? Then it is the index to
+superabounding Life and Love and Intelligence, which is not content with
+mere utilitarianism hasting to escape at the earliest possible point
+from the labour of construction, as though from an enforced and
+unwelcome task, but rejoicing over its work and unwilling to quit it
+until it has expressed this rejoicing in every fittest touch of form and
+colour and exquisite proportion that the material will admit of, and
+this without departing by a hairbreadth from the original purpose of the
+design.
+
+Wherever, therefore, we find Beauty, we may infer an enormous reserve of
+Power behind it; in fact, we may look upon it as the visible expression
+of the great truth that Life-Power is infinite. And when the inner
+meaning of Beauty is thus revealed to us, and we learn to know it as the
+very fulness and overflowing of Power, we shall find that we have
+gained a new standard for the guidance of our own lives. We must begin
+to use this wonderful process which we have learnt from Nature. Having
+learnt how Nature works--how God works--we must begin to work in like
+manner, and never consider any work complete until we have carried it to
+some final outcome of Beauty, whether material, intellectual, or
+spiritual. Is my intention good? That is the initial question, for the
+intention determines the nature of the essence in everything. What is
+the most beautiful form in which I can express the good I intend? That
+is the ultimate question; for the true Beauty which our work expresses
+is the measure of the Power, Intelligence, Love--in a word, of the
+quantity and quality of our own life which we have put into it. True
+Beauty, mind you--that which is beautiful because it most perfectly
+expresses the original idea, not a mere ornamentation occupying our
+thoughts as a thing apart from the use intended.
+
+Nothing is of so small account but it has its fullest power of
+expression in some form of Beauty peculiarly its own. Beauty is the law
+of perfect Thought, be the subject of our Thought some scheme affecting
+the welfare of millions, or a word spoken to a little child. True Beauty
+and true Power are the correlatives one of the other. Kindly expression
+originates in kindly thought; and kindly expression is the essence of
+Beauty, which, seeking to express itself ever more and more perfectly,
+becomes that fine touch of sympathy which is artistic skill, whether
+applied in working upon material substances or upon the emotions of the
+heart. But, remember, first Use, then Beauty, and neither complete
+without the other. Use without Beauty is ungracious giving, and Beauty
+without Use is humbug; never forgetting, however, that there is a region
+of the mind where the use is found in the beauty, where Beauty itself
+serves the direct purpose of raising us to see a higher ideal which will
+thenceforward permeate our lives, giving a more living quality to all we
+think and say and do.
+
+Seen thus the Beautiful is the true expression of the Good. From
+whichever end of the scale we look we shall find that they accurately
+measure each other. They are the same thing in the outermost and the
+innermost respectively. But in our search for a higher Beauty than we
+have yet found we must beware of missing the Beauty that already exists.
+Perfect harmony with its environment, and perfect expression of its own
+inward nature are what constitute Beauty; and our ignorance of the
+nature of the thing or its environment may shut our eyes to the Beauty
+it already has. It takes the genius of a Millet to paint, or a Whitman
+in words, to show us the beauty of those ordinary work-a-day figures
+with which our world is for the most part peopled, whose originals we
+pass by as having no form or comeliness. Assuredly the mission of every
+thinking man and woman is to help build up forms of greater beauty,
+spiritual, intellectual, material, everywhere; but if we would make
+something grander than Watteau gardens or Dresden china shepherdesses,
+we must enter the great realistic school of Nature and learn to
+recognise the beauty that already surrounds us, although it may have a
+little dirt on the surface. Then, when we have learnt the great
+principles of Beauty from the All-Spirit which is it, we shall know how
+to develop the Beauty on its own proper lines without perpetuating the
+dirt; and we shall know that all Beauty is the expression of Living
+Power, and that we can measure our power by the degree of beauty into
+which we can transform it, rendering our lives,
+
+    "By loveliness of perfect deeds,
+    More strong than all poetic thought."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+SEPARATION AND UNITY
+
+
+I
+
+"The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me" (John xiv,
+30). In these words the Grand Master of Divine Science gives us the key
+to the Great Knowledge. Comparison with other passages shows that the
+terms here rendered "prince" and "world" can equally be rendered
+"principle" and "age." Jesus is here speaking of a principle of the
+present age so entirely opposed to that principle of which he himself
+was the visible expression, as to have no part in him. It is the utter
+contradiction of everything that Jesus came to teach and to exemplify.
+The account Jesus gave of himself was that he came "to bear witness to
+the Truth," and in order that men "might have life, and that they might
+have it more abundantly"; consequently the principle to which he refers
+must be the exact opposite of Truth and Life--that is, it must be the
+principle of Falsehood and Death.
+
+What, then, is this false and destructive principle which rules the
+present age? If we consider the gist of the entire discourse of which
+these are the concluding words, we shall find that the central idea
+which Jesus has been most strenuously endeavouring to impress upon his
+disciples at their last meeting before the crucifixion, is that of the
+absolute identity and out-and-out oneness of "the Father" and "the Son,"
+the principle of the perfect unity of God and Man. If this, then, was
+the great Truth which he was thus earnestly solicitous to impress upon
+his disciples' minds when his bodily presence was so shortly to be
+removed from them--the Truth of Unity--may we not reasonably infer the
+opposing falsehood to be the assertion of separateness, the assertion
+that God and man are not one? The idea of separateness is precisely the
+principle on which the world has proceeded from that day to this--the
+assumption that God and man are not one in being, and that the matter is
+of a different essence from spirit. In other words, the principle that
+finds favour with the intellectuality of the present age is that of
+duality--the idea of two powers and two substances opposite in kind,
+and, therefore, repugnant to each other, permeating all things, and so
+leaving no wholeness anywhere.
+
+The entire object of the Bible is to combat the idea, of two opposing
+forces in the world. The good news is said to be that of
+"reconciliation" (2 Cor. v. 18), where also we are told that "all things
+are from God," hence leaving no room for any other power or any other
+substance; and the great falsehood, which it is the purpose of the Good
+News to expose, is everywhere in the Bible proclaimed to be the
+suggestion of duality, which is some other mode of Life, that is not the
+One Life, but something separate from it--an idea which it is impossible
+to state distinctly without involving a contradiction in terms.
+Everywhere the Bible exposes the fiction of the duality of separation as
+the great lie, but nowhere in so emphatic and concentrated a manner as
+in that wonderful passage of Revelations where it is figured in the
+mysterious Number of the Beast. "He that hath understanding let him
+count the number of the Beast ... and his number is six hundred and sixty
+and six" (Rev. xiii, 18, R.V.). Let me point out the great principle
+expressed in this mysterious number. It has other more particular
+applications, but this one general principle underlies them all.
+
+It is an established maxim that every unity contains in itself a
+trinity, just as the individual man consists of body, soul, and spirit.
+If we would perfectly understand anything, we must be able to comprehend
+it in its threefold nature; therefore in symbolic numeration the
+multiplying of the unit by three implies the completeness of that for
+which the unit stands; and, again, the threefold repetition of a number
+represents its extension to infinity. Now mark what results if we apply
+these representative methods of numerical expression to the principles
+of Oneness and of separateness respectively. Oneness is Unity, and
+1 x 3 = 3, which, intensified to its highest expression, is written
+as 333. Now apply the same method to the idea of separateness. Separateness
+consists of one and another one, each of which, according to the
+universal law, contains a trinity. In this view of duality the totality
+of things is two, and 2 x 3 = 6, and, intensifying this to its highest
+expression, we get 666, which is the Number of the Beast.
+
+Why of the Beast? Because separateness from God, or the duality of
+opposition, which is also a duality of polarity, which is Dual-Unity,
+recognises something as having essential being, which is not the One
+Spirit; and such a conception can be verbally rendered only by some word
+that in common acceptance represents something, not only lower than the
+divine, but lower than the human also. It is because the conception of
+oneself as a being apart from God, if carried out to its legitimate
+consequences, must ultimately land all who hold it in a condition of
+things where open ferocity or secret cunning, the tiger nature or the
+serpent nature, can be the only possible rule of action.
+
+Thus it is that the principle of the present age can have no part in
+that principle of Perfect Wholeness which the Great Master embodied in
+His teaching and in Himself. The two ideas are absolutely incompatible,
+and whichever we adopt as our leading principle, it must be to the
+entire exclusion of the other; we cannot serve God and Mammon. There is
+no such thing as partial wholeness. Either we are still in the
+principle of Separateness, and our eyes are not yet open to the real
+nature of the Kingdom of Heaven; or else we have grasped the principle
+of Unity without any exception anywhere, and the One Being includes all,
+the body and the soul alike, the visible form and the invisible
+substance and life of all equally; nothing can be left out, and we stand
+complete here and now, lacking no faculty, but requiring only to become
+conscious of our own powers, and to learn to have confidence in them
+through "having them exercised by reason of use."
+
+The following communication from "A Foreign Reader," commenting on the
+Number of the Beast, as treated by Judge Troward in "Separation and
+Unity," is taken from _EXPRESSION_ for 1902, in which it was first
+published. Following is Judge Troward's reply to this letter.
+
+    Dear Mr. Editor.--A correspondent in the current number of
+    _Expression_ points out the reference in the Book of
+    Revelation to the number 666 as the mark of the Beast,
+    because the trinity of mind, soul, and body, if considered as
+    unity, may be expressed by the figures 333, and therefore
+    duality is 333 x 2 = 666.
+
+    I think the inverse of the proposition is still more
+    startling, and I should like to point it out. Instead of
+    multiplying let us try dividing. First of all take unity as
+    the unit one and divide by three (representing of course the
+    same formula, viz., mind, soul and body). Expressed by a
+    common fraction it is merely 1/3, which is an incomplete
+    mathematical figure. But take the decimal formula of one
+    divided by three, and we arrive at .3 circulating, i. e.,
+    .3333 on to infinity. In other words, the result of the
+    proposition by mathematics is that you divide this formula of
+    spirit, soul, and body into unity, and it remains true to
+    itself ad infinitum.
+
+    Now we come to consider it as a duality in the same way.
+    Expressed as a vulgar fraction it is 2/3; but as a decimal
+    fraction it is .6666 ad infinitum. I think this is worth
+    noting.
+
+        Yours very faithfully,
+              A Foreign Reader.
+
+      Brussels, Aug. 14, 1902.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Dear Editor.--I return with many thanks the very interesting
+    letter received with yours, and I am very glad that my
+    article should have been instrumental in drawing forth this
+    further light on the subject.
+
+    This, moreover, affords an excellent illustration of one
+    great principle of Unity, which is that the Unity repeats
+    itself in every one of its parts, so that each part taken
+    separately is an exact reproduction (in principles) of the
+    greater Unity of which it is a portion. Therefore, if you
+    take the individual man as your unit (which is what I did),
+    and proceed by multiplication, you get the results which were
+    pointed out in my article. And conversely, if you take the
+    Great Unity of All-Being as your unit, and proceed by
+    division, you arrive at the result shown by your foreign
+    correspondent. The principle is a purely mathematical one,
+    and is extremely interesting in the present application as
+    showing the existence of a system of concealed mathematics
+    running through the whole Bible. This bears out what I said
+    in my article that there were other applications of the
+    principle in question, though this one did not at the time
+    occur to me.
+
+    I am much indebted to your correspondent for the further
+    proof thus given of the correctness of my interpretation of
+    the Number of the Beast. Both our interpretations support
+    each other, for they are merely different ways of stating the
+    same thing, and they have this advantage over those generally
+    given, that they do not refer to any particular form of evil,
+    but express a general principle applicable to all alike.
+
+        Yours sincerely,
+                       T.
+
+      London, Aug. 30, 1902.
+
+
+II
+
+It may perhaps emphasize my point if I remind my readers that it was the
+conflict between the principles of Unity and separation that led to the
+crucifixion of Jesus. We must distinguish between the charge which
+really led to his death, and the merely technical charge on which he was
+sentenced by the Roman Governor. The latter--the charge of opposition to
+the royal authority of Caesar--has its significance; but it is clear from
+the Bible record that this was merely formal, the true cause of
+conviction being contained in the statement that of the chief priests:
+"We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself
+the Son of God."
+
+The antagonism of the two principles of Unity and separation had first
+been openly manifested on the occasion when Jesus made the memorable
+declaration, "I and my Father are one." The Jews took up stones to stone
+him. Then said Jesus unto them, "Many good works have I shown you from
+my Father; for which of those works do ye stone Me?" The Jews replied,
+"For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that
+thou, being a man, makest thyself God." Jesus said, "Is it not written
+in your law, I said ye are gods? If He called them gods, unto whom the
+Word of God came (and the Scriptures cannot be broken), say ye of him,
+whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou
+blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" Here we have the
+first open passage of arms between the two opposing principles which led
+to the scene of Calvary as the final testimony of Jesus to the principle
+of Unity. He died because he maintained the Truth; that he was one with
+the Father. That was the substantive charge on which he was executed.
+"Art thou the son of the Blessed?" he was asked by the priestly
+tribunal; and the answer came clear and unequivocal, "I am." Then said
+the Council, "He hath spoken blasphemy, what further need have we of
+witnesses?" And they all condemned him to be worthy of death.
+
+Jesus did not enter into a palpably useless argument with judges whose
+minds were so rooted in the idea of dualism as to be impervious to any
+other conception; but with a mixed multitude, who were not officially
+committed to a system, the case was different. Among them there might
+be some still open to conviction, and the appeal was, therefore, made to
+a passage in the Psalms with which they were all familiar, pointing out
+that the very persons to whom the Divine word was addressed were styled
+"gods" by the Divine Speaker Himself. The incontrovertibleness of the
+fact was emphasised by the stress laid upon it as "Scripture which
+cannot be broken;" and the meaning to be assigned to the statement was
+rendered clear by the argument which Jesus deduced from it. He says in
+effect, "You would stone me as a blasphemer for saying of myself what
+your own Scriptures say concerning each of you." The claim of unity with
+"the Father," he urges, was no unique one, but one which the Scripture,
+rightly understood, entitled every one of his hearers to make for
+himself.
+
+And so we find throughout that Jesus nowhere makes any claim for himself
+which he does not also make for those who accept his teaching. Does he
+say to the Jews, "Ye are of this world; I am not of this world?" Equally
+he says of his disciples, "They are not of the world, even as I am not
+of the world." Does he say, "I am the light of the world?" Equally, he
+says, "Ye are the light of the world." Does he say, "I and my Father are
+one?" Equally he prays that they all might be one, even as we are one.
+Is he styled "the Son of God?" Then St. John writes, "To them gave he
+power to become sons of God, even to as many as believe on his name;"
+and by belief on the name we may surely understand belief in the
+principle of which the name is the verbal representation.
+
+The essential unity of God and man is thus the one fact which permeates
+the whole teaching of Jesus. He himself stood forth as its living
+expression. He appealed to his miracles as the proofs of it: "it is the
+Father that doeth the works." It formed the substance of his final
+discourse with his disciples in the night that he was betrayed. It is
+the Truth, to bear witness to which, he told Pilate, was the purpose of
+his life. In support of this Truth he died, and by the living power of
+this Truth he rose again. The whole object of his mission was to teach
+men to realise their unity with God and the consequences that must
+necessarily follow from it; to draw them away from that notion of
+dualism which puts an impassable barrier between God and man, and thus
+renders any true conception of the Principle of Life impossible; and to
+draw them into the clear perception of the innermost nature of Life, as
+consisting in the inherent identity of each individual with that
+Infinite all-pervading Spirit of Life which he called "the Father."
+
+"The branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine;" the power of
+bearing fruit, of producing and of giving forth, depends entirely on the
+fact that the individual is, and always continues to be, as much an
+organic part of Universal Spirit as the fruit-bearing branch is an
+organic part of the parent stem. Lose this idea, and regard God as a
+merely external Creator who may indeed command us, or even sometimes be
+moved by our cries and entreaties, and we have lost the root of
+Livingness and with it all possibility of growth or of liberty. This is
+dualism, which cuts us off from our Source of Life; and so long as we
+take this false conception for the true law of Being, we shall find
+ourselves hampered by limitations and insoluble problems of every
+description: We have lost the Key of Life and are consequently unable to
+open the door.
+
+But in proportion as we abide in the vine, that is, consciously realise
+our perpetual unity with Originating Spirit, and impress upon ourselves
+that this unity is neither bestowed as the reward of merit, nor as an
+act of favour--which would be to deny the Unity, for the bestowal would
+at once imply dualism--but dwell on the truth that it is the innermost
+and supreme principle of our own nature; in proportion as we consciously
+realise this, we shall rise to greater and greater certainty of
+knowledge, resulting in more and more perfect externalisation, whose
+increasing splendour can know no limits; for it is the continual
+outflowing of the exhaustless Spirit of Life in that manifestation of
+itself which is our own individuality.
+
+The notion of dualism is the veil which prevents men seeing this, and
+causes them to wander blindfolded among the mazes of endless perplexity;
+but, as St. Paul truly says, when this veil is taken away we shall find
+ourselves changed from glory to glory as by the Lord the Spirit. "His
+name shall be called Immanuel," that is "God _in_ us," not a separate
+being from ourselves. Let us remember that Jesus was condemned by the
+principle of separation because he himself was the externalisation of
+the principle of Unity, and that, in adhering to the principle of Unity
+we are adhering to the only possible root of Life, and are maintaining
+the Truth for which Jesus died.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+EXTERNALISATION
+
+
+Who would not be happy in himself and his conditions? That is what we
+all desire--more fulness of life, a greater and brighter vitality in
+ourselves, and less restriction in our surroundings. And we are told
+that the talisman by which this can be accomplished is Thought. We are
+told, Change your modes of thought, and the changed conditions will
+follow. But many seekers feel that this is very much like telling us to
+catch birds by putting salt on their tails. If we can put the salt on
+the bird's tail, we can also lay our hand on the bird. If we can change
+our thinking, we can thereby change our circumstances.
+
+But how are we to bring about this change of cause which will in its
+turn produce this changed effect? This is the practical question that
+perplexes many earnest seekers. They can see their way clearly enough
+through the whole sequence of cause and effect resulting in the
+externalisation of the desired results, if only the one initial
+difficulty could be got over. The difficulty is a real one, and until it
+is overcome it vitiates all the teaching and reduces it to a mere paper
+theory. Therefore it is to this point that the attention of students
+should be particularly directed. They feel the need of some solid basis
+from which the change of thought can be effected, and until they find
+this the theory of Divine Science, however perfect in itself, will
+remain for them nothing more than a mere theory, producing no practical
+results.
+
+The necessary scientific basis exists, however, and is extremely simple
+and reasonable, if we will take the pains to think it out carefully for
+ourselves. Unless we are prepared to support the thesis that the Power
+which created the universe is inherently evil, or that the universe is
+the work of two opposite and equal powers, one evil and the other
+good--both of which propositions are demonstrably false--we have no
+alternative but to say that the Originating Source of all must be
+inherently good. It cannot be partly good and partly evil, for that
+would be to set it against itself and make it self-destructive;
+therefore it must be good altogether. But once grant this initial
+proposition and we cut away the root of all evil. For how can evil
+proceed from an All-originating Source which is good altogether, and in
+which, therefore, no germ for the development of evil is to be found?
+Good cannot be the origin of evil; and since nothing can proceed except
+from the one Originating Mind, which is only good, the true nature of
+all things must be that which they have received from their
+Source--namely, good.
+
+Hence it follows that evil is not the true nature of anything, and that
+evil must have its rise in something external to the true nature of
+things. And since evil is not in the true nature of the things
+themselves, nor yet in the Universal Mind which is the Originating
+Principle, there remains only one place for it to spring from, and that
+is our own personal thought. First we suppose evil to be as inherent in
+the nature of things as good--a supposition which we could not make if
+we stopped to consider the necessary nature of the Originating
+Principle. Then, on this entirely gratuitous supposition, we proceed to
+build up a fabric of fears, which, of course, follow logically from it;
+and so we nourish and give substance to the Negative, or that which has
+no substantial existence except such as we attribute to it, until we
+come to regard it as having Affirmative power of its own, and so set up
+a false idea of Being--the product of our own minds--to dispute the
+claims of true Being to the sovereignty of the universe.
+
+Once assume the existence of two rival powers--one good and the other
+evil--in the direction of the universe, and any sense of harmony becomes
+impossible; the whole course of Nature is thrown out of gear, and,
+whether for ourselves or for the world at large, there remains no ground
+of certainty anywhere. And this is precisely the condition in which the
+majority of people live. They are surrounded by infinite uncertainty
+about everything, and are consequently a prey to continual fears and
+anxieties; and the only way of escape from this state of things is to
+go to the root of the matter, and realise that the whole fabric of evil
+originates in our own inverted conception of the nature of Being.
+
+But if we once realise that the true conception of Being necessarily
+excludes the very idea of evil, we shall see that, in giving way to
+thoughts and fears of evil, we are giving substance to that which has no
+real substance in itself, and are attributing to the Negative an
+Affirmative force which it does not possess--in fact, we are creating
+the very thing we fear. And the remedy for this is always to recur to
+the original nature of Being as altogether Good, and then to speak to
+ourselves thus: "My thought must continually externalise something, for
+that is its inherent quality, which nothing can ever alter. Shall I,
+then, externalise God or the opposite of God? Which do I wish to see
+manifested in my life--Good or its opposite? Shall I manifest what I
+know to be the reality or the reverse?" Then comes the steady resolve
+always to manifest God, or Good, because that is the only true reality
+in all things; and this resolve is with power because it is founded upon
+the solid rock of Truth.
+
+We must refuse to know evil; we must refuse to admit that there is any
+such thing to be known. It is the converse of this which is symbolised
+in the story of the Fall. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou
+shalt surely die" was never spoken of the knowledge of Good, for Good
+never brought death into the world. It is eating the fruit of the tree
+of a so-called knowledge which admits a second branch, the knowledge of
+evil, that is the source of death. Admit that evil has a substantive
+entity, which renders it a subject of knowledge, and you thereby create
+it, with all its consequences of sorrow, sickness and death. But "be
+sure that the Lord He is God"--that is, that the one and Only Ruling
+Principle of the universe, whether within us or around us, is Good and
+Good only--and evil with all its train sinks back into its original
+nothingness, and we find that the Truth has made us free. We are free to
+externalise what we will, whether in ourselves or our surroundings, for
+we have found the solid basis on which to make the needed change of
+mental attitude in the fact that the Good is the only reality of Being.
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+ENTERING INTO THE SPIRIT OF IT
+
+
+"Entering into the spirit of it." What a common expression! And yet how
+much it really means, how absolutely everything! We enter into the
+spirit of an undertaking, into the spirit of a movement, into the spirit
+of an author, even into the spirit of a game; and it makes all the
+difference both to us and to that into which we enter. A game without
+any spirit is a poor affair; and association in which there is no spirit
+falls to pieces; and a spiritless undertaking is sure to be a failure.
+On the other hand, the book which is meaningless to the unsympathising
+reader is full of life and suggestion to the one who enters into the
+spirit of the writer; the man who enters into the spirit of the music
+finds a spring of refreshment in some fine recital which is entirely
+missed by the cold critic who comes only to judge according to the
+standard of a rigid rule; and so on in every case that we can think of.
+If we do not enter the spirit of a thing, it has no invigorating effect
+upon us, and we regard it as dull, insipid and worthless. This is our
+everyday experience, and these are the words in which we express it.
+And the words are well chosen. They show our intuitive recognition of
+the spirit as the fundamental reality in everything, however small or
+however great. Let us be right as to the spirit of a thing, and
+everything else will successfully follow.
+
+By entering into the spirit of anything we establish a mutual vivifying
+action and reaction between it and ourselves; we vivify it with our own
+vitality, and it vivifies us with a living interest which we call its
+spirit; and therefore the more fully we enter into the spirit of all
+with which we are concerned, the more thoroughly do we become _alive_.
+The more completely we do this the more we shall find that we are
+penetrating into the great secret of Life. It may seem a truism, but the
+great secret of Life is its Livingness, and it is just more of this
+quality of Livingness that we want to get hold of; it is that good thing
+of which we can never have too much.
+
+But every fact implies also its negative, and we never properly
+understand a thing until we not only know what it is, but also clearly
+understand what it is not. To a complete understanding the knowledge of
+the negative is as necessary as the knowledge of the affirmative; for
+the perfect knowledge consists in realising the relation between the
+two, and the perfect power grows out of this knowledge by enabling us to
+balance the affirmative and negative against each other in any
+proportion that we will, thus giving flexibility to what would otherwise
+be too rigid, and form to what would otherwise be too fluid; and so, by
+uniting these two extremes, to produce any result we may desire. It is
+the old Hermetic saying, "_Coagula et solve_"--"Solidify the fluid and
+dissolve the solid"; and therefore, if we would discover the secret of
+"entering into the spirit of it," we must get some idea of the negative,
+which is the "not-spirit."
+
+In various ages this negative phase has been expressed in different
+forms of words suitable to the spirit of the time; and so, clothing this
+idea in the attire of the present day, I will sum up the opposite of
+Spirit in the word "Mechanism." Before all things this is a mechanical
+age, and it is astonishing how great a part of what we call our social
+advance has its root in the mechanical arts. Reduce the mechanical arts
+to what they were in the days of the Plantagenets and the greater part
+of our boasted civilisation would recede through the centuries along
+with them. We may not be conscious of all this, but the mechanical
+tendency of the age has a firm grip upon society at large. We habitually
+look at the mechanical side of things by preference to any other.
+Everything is done mechanically, from the carving on a piece of
+furniture to the arrangement of the social system. It is the mechanism
+that must be considered first, and the spirit has to be fitted to the
+mechanical exigencies. We enter into the mechanism of it instead of into
+the Spirit of it, and so limit the Spirit and refuse to let it have its
+own way; and then, as a consequence, we get entirely mechanical action,
+and complete our circle of ignorance by supposing that this is the only
+sort of action there is.
+
+Yet this is not a necessary state of things even in regard to "physical
+science," for the men who have made the greatest advances in that
+direction are those who have most clearly seen the subordination of the
+mechanical to the spiritual. The man who can recognise a natural law
+only as it operates through certain forms of mechanism with which he is
+familiar will never rise to the construction of the higher forms of
+mechanism which might be built up upon that law, for he fails to see
+that it is the law which determines the mechanism and not vice versa.
+This man will make no advance in science, either theoretical or applied,
+and the world will never owe any debt of gratitude to him. But the man
+who recognises that the mechanism for the application of any principle
+grows out of the true apprehension of the principle studies the
+principle first, knowing that when _that_ is properly grasped it will
+necessarily suggest all that is wanted for bringing it into practical
+use.
+
+And if this is true in regard to so-called physical science, it is _a
+fortiori_ true as regards the Science of Spirit. There is a mechanical
+attitude of mind which judges everything by the limitations of past
+experiences, allowing nothing for the fact that those experiences were
+for the most part the results of our ignorance of spiritual law. But if
+we realise the true law of Being we shall rise above these mechanical
+conceptions. We shall not deny the reality of the body or of the
+physical world as facts, knowing that they also are Spirit, but we shall
+learn to deny their power as causes. We shall learn to distinguish
+between the _causa causta_ and the _causa causans_, the secondary or
+apparent physical cause and the primary or spiritual cause, without
+which the secondary cause could not exist; and so we shall get a new
+standpoint of clear knowledge and certain power by stepping over the
+threshold of the mechanical and entering into the spirit of it.
+
+What we have to do is to maintain our even balance between the two
+extremes, denying neither Spirit nor the mechanism which is its form and
+through which it works. The one is as necessary to a perfect whole as
+the other, for there must be an _outside_ as well as an _inside_; only
+we must remember that the creative principle is always _inside_, and
+that the outside only exhibits what the inside creates. Hence, whatever
+external effect we would produce, we must first enter into the spirit of
+it and work upon the spiritual principle, whether in ourselves or
+others; and by so doing our insight will become greatly enlarged, for
+from without we can see only one small portion of the circumference,
+while from the centre we can see the whole of it. If we fully grasp the
+truth that Spirit is Creator, we can dispense with painful
+investigations into the mechanical side of all our problems. If we are
+constructing from without, then we have to calculate anxiously the
+strength of our materials and the force of every thrust and strain to
+which they may be subjected, and very possibly after all we may find
+that we have made a mistake somewhere in our elaborate calculations. But
+if we realise the power of creating from within, we shall find all these
+calculations correctly made for us; for the same Spirit which is Creator
+is also that which the Bible calls "the Wonderful Numberer."
+Construction from without is based upon analysis, and no analysis is
+complete without accurate quantitative knowledge; but creation is the
+very opposite of analysis, and carries its own mathematics with it.
+
+To enter into the spirit of anything, then, is to make yourself one in
+thought with the creative principle that is at the centre of it; and
+therefore why not go to the centre of all things at once, and enter into
+the Spirit of Life? Do you ask where to find it? _In yourself_; and in
+proportion as you find it there, you will find it everywhere else.
+Look at Life as the one thing that is, whether in you or around you; try
+to realise the livingness of it, and then seek to enter into the Spirit
+of it by affirming it to be the whole of what you are. Affirm this
+continually in your thoughts, and by degrees the affirmation will grow
+into a real living force within you, so that it will become a second
+nature to you, and you will find it impossible and unnatural to think in
+any other way; and the nearer you approach this point the greater you
+will find your control over both body and circumstances, until at last
+you shall so enter into the Spirit of it--into the Spirit of the Divine
+creative power which is the root of all things--that, in the words of
+Jesus, "nothing shall be impossible to you," because you have so entered
+into the Spirit of it that you discover yourself to be _one with it_.
+Then all the old limitations will have passed away, and you will be
+living in an entirely new world of Life, Liberty and Love, of which you
+yourself are the radiating centre. You will realise the truth that your
+Thought is a limitless creative power, and that you yourself are behind
+your Thought, controlling and directing it with Knowledge for any
+purpose which Love motives and Wisdom plans. Thus you will cease from
+your labours, your struggles and anxieties, and enter into that new
+order where perfect rest is one with ceaseless activity.
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE BIBLE AND THE NEW THOUGHT
+
+
+I
+
+_The Son_
+
+A deeply interesting subject to the student of the New Thought movement
+is to trace how exactly its teaching is endorsed by the teaching of the
+Bible. There is no such thing as new thought in the sense of new Truth,
+for what is truth now must have been truth always; but there is such a
+thing as a new presentment of the old Truth, and it is in this that the
+newness of the present movement consists. But the same Truth has been
+repeatedly stated in earlier ages under various forms and in various
+measures of completeness, and nowhere more completely than in the
+Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. None of the older forms of
+statement is more familiarly known to our readers than that contained in
+the Bible, and no other is entwined around our hearts with the same
+sacred and tender associations: therefore, I have no hesitation in
+saying that the existence of a marked correspondence between its
+teaching and that of the New Thought cannot but be a source of strength
+and encouragement to any of us who have been accustomed in the past to
+look to the old and hallowed Book as a storehouse of Divine wisdom. We
+shall find that the clearer light will make the rough places smooth and
+the dim places luminous, and that of the treasures of knowledge hidden
+in the ancient volume the half has not been told us.
+
+The Bible lays emphatic stress upon "the glorious liberty of the sons of
+God," thus uniting in a single phrase the twofold idea of filial
+dependence and personal liberty. A careful study of the subject will
+show us that there is no opposition between these two ideas, but that
+they are necessary correlatives to each other, and that whether stated
+after the more concentrated method of the Bible, or after the more
+detailed method of the New Thought, the true teaching proclaims, not our
+independence of God, but our independence in God.
+
+Such an enquiry naturally centres in an especial manner around the
+sayings of Jesus; for whatever may be our opinions as to the nature of
+the authority with which he spoke, we must all agree that a peculiar
+weight attaches to those utterances which have come down to us as the
+_ipsissima verba_ from which the entire New Testament has been
+developed; and if an identity of conception in the New Thought movement
+can be traced here at the fountain-head, we may expect to find it in the
+lower streams also.
+
+The Key to the Master's teaching is to be found in his discourse with
+the Woman of Samaria, and it is contained in the statement that "the
+Father" is Spirit, that is, Spirit in the absolute and unqualified sense
+of the word, as appears from the original Greek, and not "A Spirit" as
+it is rendered in the Authorised Version: and then as the natural
+correlative to "the Father" we find another term employed, "the Son."
+The relation between these two forms the great subject of Jesus'
+teaching, and, therefore, it is most important to have some definite
+idea of what he meant by these terms if we would understand what it was
+that he really taught.
+
+Now if "the Father" be Spirit, "the Son" must be Spirit also; for a son
+must necessarily be of the same nature as his father. But since "the
+Father" is Spirit, Absolute and Universal, it is evident that "the Son"
+cannot be Spirit, Absolute and Universal, because there cannot be two
+Universal Spirits, for then neither would be universal. We may,
+therefore, logically infer that because "the Father" is Universal
+Spirit, "the Son" is Spirit not universal; and the only definition of
+Spirit not-universal is Spirit individualised and particular. The
+Scripture tells us that "the Spirit is Life," and taking this as the
+definition of "Spirit," we find that "the Father" is Absolute,
+Originating, Undifferentiated Life, and "the Son" is the same Life
+differentiated into particular forms. Hence, in the widest sense of the
+expression, "the Son" stands for the whole creation, visible or
+invisible, and in this sense it is the mere differentiation of the
+universal Life into a multiplicity of particular modes. But if we have
+any adequate idea of the intelligent and responsive nature of
+Spirit[2]--if we realise that because it is Pure Being it must be
+Infinite Intelligence and Infinite Responsiveness--then we shall see
+that its reproduction in the particular admits of innumerable degrees,
+from mere expression as outward form up to the very fullest expression
+of the infinite intelligence and responsiveness that Spirit is.
+
+    [Footnote 2: _Intelligence_ and _Responsiveness_ is the
+    Generic Nature of Spirit in _every_ Mode, and it is the
+    _concentration_ of this into centres of consciousness that
+    makes personality, i. e., _self_-conscious individuality.
+    This varies immensely in degree, from its first adumbration
+    in the animal to its intense development in the Great Masters
+    of Spiritual Science. Therefore it is called "The Power that
+    Knows Itself"--It is the power of _Self_-recognition that
+    makes _personality_, and as we grow to see that our
+    personality is not all contained between our hat and our
+    boots, as Walt Whitman says, but _expands_ away into the
+    Infinite, which we then find to be _the Infinite of
+    ourselves_, the _same_ I AM that I am, so _our personality_
+    expands and we become conscious of ever-increasing degrees of
+    Life-in-ourselves.]
+
+The teachings of Jesus were addressed to the hearts and intelligences of
+men, and therefore the grade of sonship of which he spoke has reference
+to the expression of Infinite Being in the human heart and intellect.
+But this, again, may be conceived of in infinite degrees; in some men
+there is the bare potentiality of sonship entirely undeveloped as yet,
+in others the beginnings of its development, in others a fuller
+development, and so on, until we can suppose some supreme instance in
+which the absolutely perfect reproduction of the universal has been
+attained. Each of these stages constitutes a fuller and fuller
+expression of sonship, until the supreme development reaches a point at
+which it can be described only as the perfect image of "the Father"; and
+this is the logical result of a process of steady growth from an inward
+principle of Life which constitutes the identity of each individual.
+
+It is thus a necessary inference from Jesus' own explanation of "the
+Father" as Spirit or Infinite Being that "the Son" is the Scriptural
+phrase for the reproduction of Infinite Being in the individual,
+contemplated in that stage at which the individual does in some measure
+begin to recognise his identity with his originating source, or, at any
+rate, where he has capacity for such a recognition, even though the
+actual recognition may not yet have taken place. It is very remarkable
+that, thus defining "the Son" on the direct statement of Jesus himself,
+we arrive exactly at the definition of Spirit as "that power which knows
+itself." In the capacity for thus recognising its identity of nature
+with "the Father" is it that the potential fact of sonship consists, for
+the prodigal son was still a son even before he began to realise his
+relation to his "Father" in actual fact. It is the dawning of this
+recognition that constitutes the spiritual "babe," or infant son; and by
+degrees this consciousness grows till he attains the full estate of
+spiritual manhood. This recognition by the individual of his own
+identity with Universal Spirit is precisely what forms the basis of the
+New Thought; and thus at the outset the two systems radiate from a
+common centre.
+
+But I suppose the feature of the New Thought which is the greatest
+stumbling-block to those who view the movement from the outside is the
+claim it makes for Thought-power as an active factor in the affairs of
+daily life. As a mere set of speculative opinions people might be
+willing to pigeon-hole it along with the philosophic systems of Kant or
+Hegel; but it is the practical element in it which causes the
+difficulty. It is not only a system of Thought based upon a conception
+of the Unity of Being, but it claims to follow out this conception to
+its legitimate consequences in the production of visible and tangible
+external results by the mere exercise of Thought-power. A ridiculous
+claim, a claim not to be tolerated by common sense, a trespassing upon
+the Divine prerogative, a claim of unparalleled audacity: thus the
+casual objector. But this claim is not without its parallel, for the
+same claim was put forward on the same ground by the Great Teacher
+Himself as the proper result of "the Son's" recognition of his relation
+to "the Father." "Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you";
+"Whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive, and
+nothing shall be impossible unto you"; "All things are possible to him
+that believeth." These statements are absolutely without any note of
+limitation save that imposed by the seeker's want of faith in his own
+power to move the Infinite. This is as clear a declaration of the
+efficacy of mental power to produce outward and tangible results as any
+now made by the New Thought, and it is made on precisely the same
+ground, namely, the readiness of "the Father" or Spirit in the Universal
+to respond to the movement of Spirit in the individual.
+
+In the Bible this movement of individualised Spirit is called "prayer,"
+and it is synonymous with Thought, formulated with the intention of
+producing this response.
+
+    "Prayer is the heart's sincere desire,
+     Uttered or unexpressed,"
+
+and we must not let ourselves be misled by the association of particular
+forms with particular words, but should follow the sound advice of
+Oliver Wendell Holmes, and submit such words to a process of
+depolarisation, which brings out their real meaning. Whether we call our
+act "prayer" or "thought-concentration," we mean the same thing; it is
+the claim of the man to move the Infinite by the action of his own mind.
+
+It may be objected, however, that this definition omits an important
+element of prayer, the question, namely, whether God will hear it. But
+this is the very element that Jesus most rigorously excludes from his
+description of the mental act. Prayer, according to the popular notion,
+is a most uncertain matter. Whether we shall be heard or not depends
+entirely upon another will, regarding whose action we are completely
+ignorant, and therefore, according to this notion, the very essence of
+prayer consists of utter uncertainty. Jesus' conception of prayer was
+the very opposite. He bids us believe that we have already in fact
+received what we ask for, and makes this the condition of receiving; in
+other words, he makes the essential factor in the mental action to
+consist in Absolute Certainty as to the corresponding response in the
+Infinite, which is exactly the condition that the New Thought lays down
+for the successful operation of Thought-power.
+
+It may, however, be objected that if men have thus an indiscriminate
+power of projecting their thought to the accomplishment of anything they
+desire, they can do so for evil as easily as for good. But Jesus fully
+recognised this possibility, and worked the only destructive miracle
+recorded of him for the express purpose of emphasising the danger. The
+reason given by the compilers of the Gospel for the destruction of the
+fig-tree is clearly inadequate, for we certainly cannot suppose Jesus so
+unreasonable as to curse a tree for not bearing fruit out of season. But
+the record itself shows a very different purpose. Jesus answered the
+disciples' astonished questioning by telling them that it was in their
+own power, not only to do what was done to the fig-tree, but to produce
+effects upon a far grander scale; and he concludes the conversation by
+laying down the duty of a heart-searching forgiveness as a necessary
+preliminary to prayer. Why was this precept so particularly impressed in
+this particular connection? Obviously because the demonstration he had
+just given of the valency of thought-power in the hands of instructed
+persons laid bare the fact that this power can be used destructively as
+well as beneficially, and that, therefore, a thorough heart-searching
+for the eradication of any lurking ill-feeling became an imperative
+preliminary to its safe use; otherwise there was danger of noxious
+thought-currents being set in motion to the injury of others. The
+miracle of the fig-tree was an object-lesson to exhibit the need for the
+careful handling of that limitless power which Jesus assured his
+disciples existed as fully in them as in himself. I do not here attempt
+to go into this subject in detail, but enough has, I think, been shown
+to convince us that Jesus made exactly the same claim for the power of
+Thought as that made by the New Thought movement at the present day. It
+is a great claim, and it is, therefore, encouraging to find such an
+authority committed to the same assertion.
+
+The general principle on which this claim is based by the exponents of
+the New Thought is the identity of Spirit in the individual with spirit
+in the universal, and we shall find that this, also, is the basis of
+Jesus' teaching on the subject. He says that "the Son can do nothing of
+himself, but what he seeth the Father do these things doeth the Son in
+like manner." It must now be sufficiently clear that "the Son" is a
+generic appellation, not restricted to a particular individual, but
+applicable to all; and this statement explains the manner of "the Son's"
+working in relation to "the Father." The point this sentence
+particularly emphasises is that it is what he sees the Father doing that
+the Son does also. His doing corresponds to his seeing. If the seeing
+expands, the doing expands along with it. But we are all sufficiently
+familiar with this principle in other matters. What differentiates an
+Edison or a Marconi from the apprentice who knows only how to fit up an
+electric bell by rule of thumb? It is their capacity for seeing the
+universal principles of electricity and bringing them into particular
+application. The great painter is the one who sees the universal
+principles of form and colour where the smaller man sees only a
+particular combination; and so with the great surgeon, the great
+chemist, the great lawyer--in every line it is the power of insight that
+distinguishes the great man from the little one; it is the capacity for
+making wide generalisations and perceiving far-reaching laws that raises
+the exceptional mind above the ordinary level. The greater working
+always results from the greater seeing into the abstract principles from
+which any art or science is generated; and this same law carried up to
+the universal principles of Life is the law by which "the Son's" working
+is proportioned to his seeing the method of "the Father's" work. Thus
+the source of "the Son's" power lies in the contemplation of "the
+Father," the endeavour, that is, to realise the true nature of Being,
+whether in the abstract or in its generic forms of manifestation.[3]
+This is Bacon's maxim, "Work as God works"; and similarly the New
+Thought consists before all things in the realisation of the laws of
+Being.
+
+    [Footnote 3: Everything depends on this principle of
+    Reciprocity. By contemplation we come to realize the true
+    nature of "Spirit" or "the father." We learn to disengage the
+    _variable_ factors of particular _Modes_ from the
+    _invariable_ factors which are the essential qualities of
+    Spirit underlying _all_ Modes. Then when we realize these
+    essential qualities we see that we can apply them under any
+    mode that we will: in other words _we_ supply the _variable_
+    factor of the combination by the action of our Thought, as
+    Desire or Will, and thus combine it with the _invariable_
+    factor or "constant" of the _essential_ law of spirit, thus
+    producing what result we will. This is just what we do in
+    respect to physical nature--e. g., the electrician supplies
+    the _variable_ factor of the particular Mode of application,
+    and the _constant_ laws of Electricity _respond_ to the
+    nature of the invitation given to them. This _Responsiveness_
+    is _inherent_ in Spirit; otherwise Spirit would have no means
+    of expansion into manifestation. Responsiveness is the
+    principle of Spirit's Self-expression. We do not have to
+    create responsive action on the part of electricity. We can
+    safely take this Responsiveness for granted as pure natural
+    law. Our desire first works on the Arupa level and thence
+    concentrates itself through the various Rupa levels till it
+    reaches complete external manifestation.]
+
+And the result of the seeing is that "the Son" does the same things as
+"the Father" "in like manner." The Son's action is the reproduction of
+the universal principles in application to specific instances. The
+principles remain unaltered and work always in the same manner, and the
+office of "the Son" is to determine the particular field of their
+operation with regard to the specific object which he has in view; and
+therefore, so far as that object is concerned, the action of "the Son"
+becomes the action of "the Father" also.
+
+Again, there is no concealment on the part of "the Father." He has no
+secrets, for "the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that
+himself doeth." There is perfect reciprocity between Spirit in the
+Universal and in Individualisation, resulting from the identity of
+Being; and "the Son's" recognition of Love as the active principle of
+this Unity gives him an intuitive insight into all those inner workings
+of the Universal Life which we call the arcana of Nature. Love has a
+divine gift of insight which cannot be attained by intellect alone, and
+the old saying, "Love will find out the way," has greater depths of
+meaning than appear on the surface. Thus there is not only a seeing, but
+also a showing; and the three terms--"looking, seeing, showing"--combine
+to form a power of "working" to which it is impossible to assign any
+limit.
+
+Here, again, the teaching of Jesus is in exact correspondence with that
+of the New Thought, which tells us that limitations exist only where we
+ourselves put them, and that to view ourselves as beings of limitless
+knowledge, power, and love is to become such in outward manifestation of
+visible fact. Any objection, therefore, to the New Thought teaching
+regarding the possibilities latent in Man apply with equal force to the
+teachings of Jesus. His teaching clearly was that the perfect
+individuality of Man is a Dual-Unity, the polarisation of the Infinite
+in the Manifest; and it requires only the recognition of this truth for
+the manifested element in this binary system to demonstrate its identity
+with the corresponding element which is not externally visible. He said
+that He and his Father were One, that those who had seen him had seen
+the Father, that the words which he spoke were the Father's, and that it
+was the Father who did the works. Nothing could be more explicit.
+Absolute unity of the manifested individuality with the Originating
+Infinite Spirit is asserted or implied in every utterance attributed to
+Jesus, whether spoken of himself or of others. He recognises only one
+radical difference, the difference between those who know this truth and
+those who do not know it. The distinction between the disciple and the
+master is one only of degree, which will be effaced by the expansive
+power of growth; "the disciple, when he is perfected, shall be as his
+Master."
+
+All that hinders the individual from exercising the full power of the
+Infinite for any purpose whatever is his lack of faith, his inability to
+realise to the full the stupendous truth that he himself is the very
+power which he seeks. This was the teaching of Jesus as it is that of
+the New Thought; and this truth of the Divine Sonship of Man once taken
+as the great foundation, a magnificent edifice of possibilities which
+"eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart
+of man to conceive," grows up logically upon it--a glorious heritage
+which each one may legitimately claim in right of his common humanity.
+
+
+II
+
+_The Great Affirmation_
+
+I take it for granted that my readers are well acquainted with the part
+assigned to the principle of Affirmation in the scheme of the New
+Thought. This is often a stumbling-block to beginners; and I feel sure
+that even those who are not beginners will welcome every aid to a deeper
+apprehension of this great central truth. I, therefore, purpose to
+examine the Bible teaching on this important subject.
+
+The professed object of the Bible is to establish and extend "the
+Kingdom of God" throughout the world, and this can be done only by
+repeating the process from one individual to another, until the whole
+mass is leavened. It is thus an individual process; and, as we have seen
+in the last chapter, God is Spirit and Spirit is Life, and, therefore,
+the expansion of "the Kingdom of God" means the expansion of the
+principle of Life in each individual. Now Life, to be life at all, must
+be Affirmative. It is Life in virtue of what it is, and not in virtue of
+what it is not. The quantity of life in any particular case may be very
+small; but, however small the amount, the quality is always the same:
+it is the quality of Being, the quality of Livingness, and not its
+absence, that makes it what it is. The distinctive character of Life,
+therefore, is that it is Positive and not Negative; and every degree of
+negativeness, that is, every limitation, is ultimately traceable to
+deficiency of Life-power.
+
+Limitations surround us because we believe in our inability to do what
+we desire. Whenever we say "I cannot" we are brought up sharp by a
+limitation, and we cease to exercise our thought-power in that direction
+because we believe ourselves stopped by a blank wall of impossibility;
+and whenever this occurs we are subjected to bondage. The ideal of
+perfect Liberty is the converse of all this, and follows a sequence
+which does not thus lead us into a _cul-de-sac_. This sequence consists
+of the three affirmations: I am--therefore I can--therefore I will; and
+this last affirmation results in the projection of our powers, whether
+interior or external, to the accomplishment of the desired object. But
+this last affirmation has its root in the first; and it is because we
+recognise the Affirmative nature of the Life that is in us, or rather of
+the Life which we are, that the power to will or to act positively has
+any existence; and, therefore, the extent of our power to will and to
+act positively and with effect, is exactly measured by our perception of
+the depth and livingness of our own Being. Hence the more fully we learn
+to affirm that, the greater power we are able to exercise.
+
+Now the ideal of perfect Liberty is the entire absence of all
+limitation, and to have no limitation in Being is to be co-extensive
+with All-Being. We are all grammarians enough to know that the use of a
+predicate is to lead the mind to contemplate the subject as represented
+by that predicate; in other words, it limits our conception for the time
+being to that particular aspect of the subject. Hence every predicate,
+however extensive, implies some limitation of the subject. But the ideal
+subject, the absolutely free self, is, by the very hypothesis, without
+limitation; and, therefore, no predicate can be attached to it. It
+stands as a declaration of its own Being without any statement of what
+that Being consists in, and therefore it says of itself, not "I am this
+or that," but simply I am. No predicate can be added, because the only
+commensurate predicate would be the enumeration of Infinity. Therefore,
+both logically and grammatically, the only possible statement of a fully
+liberated being is made in the words I am.
+
+I need hardly remind my readers of the frequency with which Jesus
+employed these emphatic words. In many cases the translators have added
+the word "He," but they have been careful, by putting it in italics, to
+show that it is not in the original. As grammarians and theologians they
+thought something more was wanted to complete the sense, and they
+supplied it accordingly; but if we would get at the very words as the
+Master himself spoke them, we must strike out this interpolation. And as
+soon as we have done so there flashes into light the identity of his
+statement with that made to Moses at the burning bush, where the full
+significance of the words is so obvious that the translators were
+compelled to leave the place of the predicate in that seeming emptiness
+which comes from filling all things.
+
+Seen thus, a marvellous light shines forth from the instruction of the
+Great Teacher: for in whatever sense we may regard him as a Great
+Exception to the weak and limited aspect of humanity with which we are
+only too familiar, we must all agree that his mission was not to render
+mankind hopeless by declaring the path of advance barred against them,
+but "to give light to them that sit in darkness," and liberty to them
+that are bound, by proclaiming the unlimited possibilities that are in
+man waiting only to be called forth by knowledge of the Truth. And if we
+suppose any personal reference in his words, it can, therefore, be only
+as the Great Example of what man has it in him to become, and not as the
+example of something which man can never hope to be; an Exception,
+truly, to mankind as we see them now, but the Exception that proves the
+rule, and sets the standard of what each one may become as he attains to
+the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
+
+Let us, therefore, by striking out this interpolation, restore the
+Master's words as they stand in the original: "Except ye believe that I
+am, ye shall die in your sins." This is an epitome of his teaching.
+
+"The last enemy that shall be overcome is death," and the "sting," or
+fatal power, of death is "sin." Remove that, and death has no longer any
+dominion over us; its power is at an end. And "the strength of sin is
+the Law": sin is every contradiction of the law of Being; and the law of
+Being is infinitude; for Being is Life, and Life in its innermost
+essence is the limitless I am. Dying in our sins is thus not a
+punishment for doubting a particular theological dogma, but it is the
+unavoidable natural consequence of not realising, not believing in, the
+I am. So long as we fail to realise its full infinitude in ourselves, we
+cut ourselves off from our conscious unity with the Infinite Life-Spirit
+which permeates all things. Without this principle we have no
+alternative but to die--and this because of our sin, that is, because of
+our failure to conform to the true Law of our Being, which is Life, and
+not Death. We affirm Death and Negation concerning ourselves, and
+therefore Death and Negation are externalised, and thus we pay the
+penalty of not believing in the central Law of our own Life, which is
+the Law of all Life. The Bible is the Book of Principles, and therefore
+by "dying" is meant the acceptance of the principle of the Negative
+which culminates in Death as the sum-total of all limitations, and which
+introduces at every step those restrictions which are of the nature of
+Death, because their tendency is to curtail the outflowing fulness of
+Life.
+
+This, then, is the very essence of the teaching of Jesus, that unbelief
+in the limitless power of Life-in-ourselves--in each of us--is the one
+cause of Death and of all those evils which, in greater or lesser
+measure, reproduce the restrictive influences which deprive Life of its
+fulness and joy. If we would escape Death and enter into Life, we must
+each believe in the I am in ourselves. And the ground for this belief?
+Simply that nothing else is conceivable. If our life is not a portion of
+the life of Universal Spirit, whence comes it? We are because that is.
+No other explanation is possible. The unqualified affirmation of our own
+livingness is not an audacious self-assertion: it is the only logical
+outcome of the fact that there is any life anywhere, and that we are
+here to think about it. In the sense of Universal Being, there can be
+only One I am, and the understanding use of the words by the individual
+is the assertion of this fact. The forms of manifestation are infinite,
+but the Life which is manifested is One, and thus every thinker who
+recognises the truth regarding himself finds in the I am both himself
+and the totality of all things; and thus he comes to know that in
+utilising the interior nature of the things and persons about him, he
+is, in effect, employing the powers of his own life.
+
+Sometimes the veil which Jesus drew over this great truth was very
+transparent. To the Samaritan woman he spoke of it as a spring of Life
+forever welling up in the innermost recesses of man's being; and again,
+to the multitude assembled at the Temple, he spoke of it as a river of
+Life forever gushing from the secret sources of the spirit within us.
+Life, to be ours at all, must be ourselves. An energy which only passed
+through us, without being us, might produce a sort of galvanic activity,
+but it would not be Life. Life can never be a separate entity from the
+individuality which manifests it; and therefore, even if we conceive the
+life-principle in a man so intensified as to pulsate with what might
+seem to us an absolutely divine vitality, it would still be no other
+than the man himself. Thus Jesus directs us to no external source of
+life, but ever teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, and that
+what is wanted is to remove those barriers of ignorance and ill-will
+which prevent us from realising that the great I am, which is the
+innermost Spirit of Life throughout the universe, is the same I am that
+I am, whoever I may be.
+
+On another memorable occasion Jesus declared again that the I am is the
+enduring principle of Life. It is this that is the Resurrection and the
+Life; not, as Martha supposed, a new principle to be infused from
+without at some future time, but an inherent core of vitality awaiting
+only its own recognition of itself to triumph over death and the grave.
+And yet, again hear the Master's answer to the inquiring Thomas. How
+many of us, like him, desire to know the way! To hear of wonderful
+powers latent in man and requiring only development is beautiful and
+hopeful, if we could only find out the way to develop them; but who will
+show us the way? The answer comes with no uncertain note. The I am
+includes everything. It is at once "the Way, the Truth, and the Life":
+not the Life only, or the Truth only, but also the Way by which to reach
+them. Can words be plainer? It is by continually affirming and relying
+on the I am in ourselves as identical with the I am that is the One and
+Only Life, whether manifested or unmanifested, in all places of the
+universe, that we shall find the way to the attainment of all Truth and
+of all Life. Here we have the predicate which we are seeking to complete
+our affirmation regarding ourselves. I am--what? the Three things which
+include all things: Truth, which is all Knowledge and Wisdom; Life,
+which is all Power and Love; and the unfailing Way which will lead us
+step by step, if we follow it, to heights too sublime and environment
+too wide for our present juvenile imaginings to picture.
+
+As the New Testament centres around Jesus, so the old Testament centres
+around Moses, and he also declares the Great Affirmation to be the
+same.[4] For him God has no name, but that intensely living universal
+Life which is all in all, and no name is sufficient to be its
+equivalent. The emphatic words I am are the only possible statement of
+the One-Power which exhibits itself as all worlds and all living beings.
+It is the Great I am which forever unfolds itself in all the infinite
+evolutionary forces of the cosmic scheme, and which, in marvellous
+onward march, develops itself into higher and higher conscious
+intelligence in the successive races of mankind, unrolling the scroll of
+history as it moves on from age to age, working out with unerring
+precision the steady forward movement of the whole towards that ultimate
+perfection in which the work of God will be completed. But stupendous
+as is the scale on which this Providential Power reveals itself to Moses
+and the Prophets, it is still nothing else than the very same Power
+which Jesus bids us realise in ourselves.
+
+    [Footnote 4: The Old Testament and the New treat the I AM
+    from its opposite poles. The Old Testament treats it from the
+    relation of the _Whole to the Part_, while the New Testament
+    treats it from the relation of the _Part to the Whole_. This
+    is important as explaining the relation between the Old and
+    New Testaments.
+
+    (a) "My Word shall not return unto me void but shall
+    accomplish that whereunto I send it."
+
+    (b) The Principle here indicated is that of the Alternation
+    and Equation between Absorption and Radiation--a taking-in
+    before, and a giving-out.
+
+    (c) "_Order_"--Whatever betrays this is "Disorder."
+
+    (d) "_Conscious_"--It is the degree of _consciousness_ that
+    always marks the transition from a lower to a higher Power of
+    Life. The _Life_ of _All Seven_ Principles _must_ always be
+    present in us, otherwise we should not exist at all;
+    therefore it is the degree in which we learn to _consciously_
+    function in each of them that marks our advance into higher
+    kingdoms within ourselves, and frequently outside ourselves
+    also.
+
+    (e) The Central Radiating Point of our Individuality is _One_
+    with All-Being.
+
+    (f) _Equilibrium_--Note the difference between the Living
+    Equilibrium of Alternate Rhythmic _Pulsation_ (the whole
+    Pulsation Doctrine) and the dead equilibrium of merely
+    _running down_ to a _dead level_. The former implies the
+    Doctrine of the Return, the Upward Arc compensating the
+    Downward Arc--The deadness of the latter results from the
+    absence of any such compensation. The Upward Arc results from
+    the contemplation of the Highest Ideal.
+
+    (g) Spirit cannot leave any portion of its Nature behind it.
+    It _must_ always have _all_ the qualities of Spirit in it,
+    even though the lower parts of the individuality are not yet
+    conscious of it.
+
+    (h) The Great Affirmation is The Guide to the whole Subject.]
+
+The theatre of its operations may be expanded to the magnificent
+proportions of a world-history, or contracted to the sphere of a single
+individuality: the difference is only one of scale; but the
+Life-principle is always the same. It is always the principle of
+confident Affirmation in the calm knowledge that all things are but
+manifestations of itself, and that, therefore, all must move together in
+one mighty unity which admits of no discordant elements. This "unity of
+the spirit" once clearly grasped, to say I am is to send the vibrations
+of our thought-currents throughout the universe to do our bidding when
+and where we will; and, conversely, it is _to_ draw in the vitalising
+influences of Infinite Spirit as from a boundless ocean of Life, which
+can never be exhausted and from which no power can hold us back. And all
+this is so because it is the supreme law of Nature. It is not the
+introduction of a new order, but simply the allowing of the original and
+only possible order to flow on to its legitimate fulfilment. A Divine
+Order, truly, but nowhere shall we find anything that is not Divine; and
+it is to the realisation of this Divine and Living Order that it is the
+purpose of the Bible to lead us. But we shall never realise it around us
+until we first realise it within us. We can see God outside only by the
+light of God inside; and this light increases in proportion as we
+become conscious of the Divine nature of the innermost I am which is the
+centre of our own individuality.
+
+Therefore, it is that Jesus tells us that the I am is "the door." It is
+that central point of our individual Being which opens into the whole
+illimitable Life of the Infinite. If we would understand the old-world
+precept, "know thyself," we must concentrate our thought more and more
+closely upon our own interior Life until we touch its central radiating
+point, and there we shall find that the door into the Infinite is indeed
+opened to us, and that we can pass from the innermost of our own Being
+into the innermost of All-Being. This is why Jesus spoke of "the door"
+as that through which we should pass in and out and find pasture.
+Pasture, the feeding of every faculty with its proper food, is to be
+found both on the within and the without. The livingness of Life
+consists in both concentration and externalisation: it is not the dead
+equilibrium of inertia, but the living equilibrium of a vital and
+rhythmic pulsation. Involution and evolution must forever alternate, and
+the door of communication between them is the I am which is the living
+power in both. Thus it is that the Great Affirmation is the Secret of
+Life, and that to say I am with a true understanding of all that it
+implies is to place ourselves in touch with all the powers of the
+Infinite.
+
+This is the Universal and Eternal Affirmation to which no predicate is
+attached; and all particular affirmations will be found to be only
+special differentiations of this all-embracing one. I will this or that
+particular thing because I know that I can bring it into
+externalisation, and I know that I can because I know that I am, and so
+we always come back to the great central Affirmation of All-Being.
+Search the Scriptures and you will find that from first to last they
+teach only this: that every human soul is an individualisation of that
+Universal Being, or All-Spirit, which we call God, and that Spirit can
+never be shorn of its powers, but like Fire, which is its symbol, must
+always be fully and perfectly itself, which is Life in all its unlimited
+fulness.
+
+In assigning to Affirmation, therefore, the importance which it does,
+the New Thought movement is at one with the teaching of Jesus and Moses
+and of the entire Bible. And the reason is clear. There is only one
+Truth, and therefore careful seeking can bring men only to the same
+Truth, whether they be Bible-writers or any other. The Bible derives its
+authority from the inherent truth of the things it tells of, and not
+vice versa; and if these things be true at all, they would be equally
+true even though no Bible had ever been written. But, taking the Great
+Affirmation as our guide, we shall find that the system taught by the
+Bible is scientific and logical throughout, and therefore any other
+system which is scientifically true will be found to correspond with it
+in substance, however it may differ from it in form; and thus, in their
+statements regarding the power of Affirmation, the exponents of the New
+Thought broach no new-fangled absurdity, but only reiterate a great
+truth which has been before the world, though very imperfectly
+recognised, for thousands of years.
+
+
+III
+
+_The Father_
+
+If, as we have seen, "the Son" is the differentiating principle of
+Spirit, giving rise to innumerable individualities, "the Father" is the
+unifying principle by which these innumerable individualities are bound
+together into one common life, and the necessity for recognising this
+great basis of the universal harmony forms the foundation of Jesus'
+teaching on the subject of Worship. "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh,
+when neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, shall ye worship
+the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not; we worship that which we
+know; for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is
+when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth"
+(Revised Version). In these few words the Great Teacher sums up the
+whole subject. He lays particular stress on the kind of worship that he
+means. It is, before all things, founded upon knowledge.
+
+"We worship that which we know," and it is this knowledge that gives the
+worship a healthful and life-giving quality. It is not the ignorant
+worship of wonderment and fear, a mere abasement of ourselves before
+some vast, vague, unknown power, which may injure us if we do not find
+out how to propitiate it; but it is a definite act performed with a
+definite purpose, which means that it is the employment of one of our
+natural faculties upon its proper object in an intelligent manner. The
+ignorant Samaritan worship is better than no worship at all, for at
+least it realises the existence of some centre around which a man's life
+should revolve, something to prevent the aimless dispersion of His
+powers for want of a centripetal force to bind them together; and even
+the crudest notion of prayer, as a mere attempt to induce God to change
+his mind, is at least a first step towards the truth that full supply
+for all our needs may be drawn from the Infinite. Still, such worship as
+this is hampered with perplexities, and can give only a feeble answer to
+the atheistical sneer which asks, "What is man, that God should be
+mindful of him, a momentary atom among unnumbered worlds?"
+
+Now the teaching of Jesus throws all these perplexities aside with the
+single word "knowledge." There is only one true way of doing anything,
+and that is knowing exactly what it is we want to do, and knowing
+exactly why we want to do it. All other doing is blundering. We may
+blunder into the right thing sometimes, but we cannot make this our
+principle of life to all eternity; and if we have to give up the blunder
+method eventually, why not give it up now, and begin at once to profit
+by acting according to intelligible principle? The knowledge that "the
+Son," as individualised Spirit, has his correlative in "the Father," as
+Universal Spirit, affords the clue we need.
+
+In whatever way we may attempt to explain it, the fact remains that
+volition is the fundamental characteristic of Spirit. We may speak of
+conscious, or subconscious or super-conscious action; but in whatever
+way we may picture to ourselves the condition of the agent as
+contemplating his own action, a general purposeful lifeward tendency
+becomes abundantly evident on any enlarged view of Nature, whether seen
+from without or from within, and we may call this by the general name of
+volition. But the error we have to avoid is that of supposing volition
+to take the same form in Universal Spirit as in individualised Spirit.
+The very terms "universal" and "individual" forbid this. For the
+universal, as such, to exercise specific volition, concentrating itself
+upon the details of a specific case, would be for it to pass into
+individualisation, and to cease to be the Absolute and Infinite; it
+would be no longer "the Father," but "the Son." It is therefore exactly
+by not exercising specific volition that "the Father" continues to be
+"the Father," or the Great Unifying Principle. But the volitional
+quality is not on this account absent from Spirit in the Universal; for
+otherwise whence would that quality appear in ourselves? It is present;
+but according to the nature of the plane on which it is acting. The
+Universal is not the Specific, and everything on the plane of the
+Universal must partake of the nature of that plane. Hence volition in
+"the Father" is not specific; and that which is not specific and
+individual must be generic. Generic volition, therefore, is that mode of
+volition which belongs to the Universal, and generic volition is
+tendency. This is the solution of the enigma, and this solution is
+given, not obscurely, in Jesus' statement that "the Father" seeks those
+true worshippers who worship Him in spirit and in truth.
+
+For what do we mean by tendency? From the root of tendere, to stretch;
+it signifies a pushing out in a certain definite direction, the tension
+of some force seeking to expand itself. What force? The Universal
+Life-Principle, for "the Spirit is Life." In the language of modern
+science this "seeking" on the part of "the Father" is the expansive
+pressure of the Universal Life-Principle seeking the line of least
+resistance, along which to flow into the fullest manifestation of
+individualised Life. It is a tendency which will take manifested form
+according to the degree in which it meets with reception.
+
+St. John says, "This is the boldness that we have towards him, that if
+we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us; and if we know
+that He heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the
+petitions that we have asked of Him" (1 John v. 14). Now according to
+the popular notion of "the will of God," this passage entirely loses its
+value, because it makes everything depend on our asking "according to
+His will," and if we start with the idea of an individual act of the
+Divine volition in each separate case, nothing short of a special
+revelation continually repeated could inform us what the Divine will in
+each particular instance was. Viewed in this light, this passage is a
+mere jeering at our incapacity. But when once we realise that "the will
+of God" is an invariable law of tendency, we have a clear standard by
+which to test whether we may rightly expect to get what we desire. We
+can study this law of tendency as we would any other law, and it is this
+study that is the essence of true worship.
+
+The word "worship" means to count worthy; to count worthy, that is, of
+observation. The proverb says that "imitation is the sincerest form of
+flattery" more truly we may say that it is the sincerest worship. Hence
+the true worship is the study of the Universal Life-Principle "the
+Father," in its nature and in its modes of action; and when we have thus
+realised "the Law of God," the law that is inherent in the nature of
+Infinite Being, we shall know that by conforming our own particular
+action to this generic law, we shall find that this law will in every
+instance work out the results that we desire. This is nothing more or
+less miraculous than what occurs in every case of applied science. He
+only is the true chemist or engineer who, by first learning how to obey
+the generic tendency of natural laws, is able to command them to the
+fulfilment of his individual purposes; no other method will succeed.
+Similarly with the student of the divine mystery of Life. He must first
+learn the great laws of its generic tendency, and then he will be in a
+position to apply that tendency to the working of any specific effect he
+will.
+
+Common sense tells us what the law of this tendency must be. The Master
+taught that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and for the
+Life-Principle to do anything restrictive of the fullest expansion of
+life, would be for it to act to its own destruction. The test,
+therefore, in every case, whether our intention falls within the scope
+of the great law, is this: Does it operate for the expansion or for the
+restriction of life? and according to the answer we can say positively
+whether or not our purpose is according to "the will of God." Therefore
+so long as we work within the scope of this generic "will of the Father"
+we need have no fear of the Divine Providence, as an agency, acting
+adversely to us. We may dismiss this bugbear, for we ourselves are
+manifestations of the very power which we call "the Father." The I am is
+one; and so long as we preserve this unity by conforming to the generic
+nature of the I am in the universal, it will certainly never destroy the
+unity by entering upon a specific course of action on its own account.
+
+Here, then, we find the secret of power. It is contained in the true
+worship of "the Father," which is the constant recognition of the
+lifegivingness of Originating Spirit, and of the fact that we, as
+individuals, still continue to be portions of that Spirit; and that
+therefore the law of our nature is to be perpetually drawing life from
+the inexhaustible stores of the Infinite--not bottles of water-of-life
+mixed with other ingredients and labelled for this or that particular
+purpose, but the full flow of the pure stream itself, which we are free
+to use for any purpose we desire. "Whosoever will, let him take the
+water of life freely." It is thus that the worship of "the Father"
+becomes the central principle of the individual life, not as curtailing
+our liberty, but as affording the only possible basis for it. As a
+planetary system would be impossible without a central controlling sun,
+so harmonious life is impossible without the recognition of Infinite
+Spirit as that Power, whose generic tendency serves to control each
+individual being into its proper orbit. This is the teaching of the
+Bible, and it is also the teaching of the New Thought, which says that
+life with all its limitless possibilities is a continual outflow from
+the Infinite which we may turn in any direction that we desire.
+
+But, it may be asked, what happens if we go counter to this generic law
+of Spirit? This is an important question, and I must leave the answer
+for further consideration.
+
+
+IV
+
+_Conclusion_
+
+I concluded my last chapter with the momentous question, What happens if
+we go counter to the generic law of Spirit? What happens if we go
+counter to any natural law? Obviously, the law goes counter to us. We
+can use the laws of Nature, but we cannot alter them. By opposing any
+natural law we place ourselves in an inverted position with regard to
+it, and therefore, viewed from this false standpoint, it appears as
+though the law itself were working against us with definite purpose. But
+the inversion proceeds entirely from ourselves, and not from any change
+in the action of the law. The law of Spirit, like all other natural
+laws, is in itself impersonal; but we carry into it, so to speak, the
+reflection of our own personality, though we cannot alter its generic
+character; and therefore, if we oppose its generic tendency towards the
+universal good, we shall find in it the reflection of our own opposition
+and waywardness.
+
+The law of Spirit proceeds unalterably on its course, and what is spoken
+of in popular phraseology as the Divine wrath is nothing else than the
+reflex action which naturally follows when we put ourselves in
+opposition to this law. The evil that results is not a personal
+intervention of the Universal Spirit, which would imply its entering
+into specific manifestation, but it is the natural outcome of the
+causes that we ourselves have set in motion. But the effect to ourselves
+will be precisely the same as if they were brought about by the volition
+of an adverse personality, though we may not realise that in truth the
+personal element is our own. And if we are at all aware of the
+wonderfully complex nature of man, and the various interweavings of
+principles which unite the material body at one end of the scale to the
+purely spiritual Ego at the other, we shall have some faint idea of on
+how vast a field these adverse influences may operate, not being
+restricted to the plane of outward manifestation, but acting equally on
+those inner planes which give rise to the outer and are of a more
+enduring nature.
+
+Thus the philosophic study of Spirit, so far from affording any excuse
+for laxity of conduct, adds an emphatic definiteness to the Bible
+exhortation to flee from the wrath of God. But, on the other hand, it
+delivers us from groundless terrors, the fear lest our repentance should
+not be accepted, the fear lest we should be rejected for our inability
+to subscribe to some traditional dogma, the fear of utter uncertainty
+regarding the future--fears which make life bitter and the prospect of
+death appalling to those who are in bondage to them. The knowledge that
+we are dealing with a power which is no respecter of persons, and in
+which is no variableness, which is, in fact, an unalterable Law, at
+once delivers us from all these terrors.
+
+The very unchangeableness of Law makes it certain that no amount of past
+opposition to it, whether from ignorance or wilfulness, will prevent it
+from working in accordance with its own beneficent and life-giving
+character as soon as we quit our inverted position and place ourselves
+in our true relation towards it. The laws of Nature do not harbour
+revenge; and once we adapt our methods to their character, they will
+work for us without taking any retrospective notice of our past errors.
+The law of Spirit may be more complex than that of electricity, because,
+as expressed in us, it is the law of conscious individuality; but it is
+none the less a purely natural law, and follows the universal rule, and
+therefore we may dismiss from our minds, as a baseless figment, the fear
+of any Divine power treasuring up anger against us on account of
+bygones, if we are sincerely seeking to do what is right now. The new
+causes which we put in motion now will produce their proper effect as
+surely as the old causes did; and thus by inaugurating a new sequence of
+good we shall cut off the old sequence of evil. Only, of course, we
+cannot expect to bring about the new sequence while continuing to repeat
+the old causes, for the fruit must necessarily reproduce the nature of
+the seed. Thus we are the masters of the situation, and, whether in this
+world or the next, it rests with ourselves either to perpetuate the
+evil or to wipe it out and put the good in its place. And it may be
+noticed in passing that the great central Christian doctrine is based
+upon the most perfect knowledge of this law, and is the practical
+application to a profound problem of the deepest psychological science.
+But this is a large subject, and cannot be suitably dealt with here.
+
+Much has been written and said on the origin of evil, and a volume might
+be filled with the detailed study of the subject; but for all practical
+purposes it may be summed up in the one word limitation. For what is the
+ultimate cause of all strife, whether public or private, but the notion
+that the supply of good is limited? With the bulk of mankind this is a
+fixed idea, and they therefore argue that because there is only a
+certain limited quantity of good, the share in their possession can be
+increased only by correspondingly diminishing some one else's share. Any
+one entertaining the same idea, naturally resents the attempt to deprive
+him of any portion of this limited quantity; and hence arises the whole
+crop of envy, hatred, fraud, and violence, whether between individuals,
+classes, or nations. If people only realised the truth that "good" is
+not a certain limited quantity, but a stream continuously flowing from
+the exhaustless Infinite, and ready to take any direction we choose to
+give it, and that each one is able by the action of his own thought to
+draw from it indefinitely, the substitution of this new and true idea
+for the old and false one of limitation would at one stroke remove all
+strife and struggle from the world; every man would find a helper
+instead of a competitor in every other, and the very laws of Nature,
+which now so often seem to war against us, would be found a ceaseless
+source of profit and delight.
+
+"They could not enter into rest because of unbelief," "they limited the
+Holy One of Israel": in these words the Bible, like the New Thought,
+traces all the sorrow of the world--that terrible _Weltschmerz_ which
+expresses itself with such direful influence through the pessimistic
+literature of the day--to the one root of a false belief, the belief in
+man's limitation. Only substitute for it the true belief, and the evil
+would be at an end. Now the ground of this true belief is that clear
+apprehension of "the Father" which, as I have shown, forms the basis of
+Jesus' teaching. If, from one point of view, the Intelligent Universal
+Life-Principle is a Power to be obeyed, in the same sense in which we
+have to obey all the laws of Nature, from the opposite point of view, it
+is a power to be used. We must never lose sight of the fact that
+obedience to any natural law in its generic tendency necessarily carries
+with it a corresponding power of using that law in specific application.
+This is the old proverb that knowledge is power. It is the old paradox
+with which Jesus posed the ignorant scribes as to how David's Lord could
+also be his Son. The word "David" means "Beloved" and to be beloved
+implies that reciprocal sympathy which is intuitive knowledge. Hence
+David, the Beloved, is the man who has realised his true relation as a
+Son to his Father and who is "in tune with the Infinite." On the other
+hand, this "Infinite" is his "Lord" because it is the complex of all
+those unchangeable Laws from which it is impossible to swerve without
+suffering consequent loss of power; and on the other, this knowledge of
+the innermost principles of All-Being puts him in possession of
+unlimited powers which he can apply to any specific purpose that he
+will; and thus he stands towards them in the position of a father who
+has authority to command the services of his son. Thus David's "Lord,"
+becomes by a natural transition his "Son."
+
+And it is precisely in this that the principle of "Sonship" consists. It
+is the raising of man from the condition of bondage as a servant by
+reason of limitation to the status of a son by the entire removal of all
+limitations. To believe and act on this principle is to "believe on the
+Son of God," and a practical belief in our own sonship thus sets us free
+from all evil and from all fear of evil--it brings us out of the kingdom
+of death into the kingdom of Life. Like everything else, it has to grow,
+but the good seed of liberating Truth once planted in the heart is sure
+to germinate, and the more we endeavour to foster its growth by seeking
+to grasp with our understanding the reason of these things and to
+realise our knowledge in practice, the more rapidly we shall find our
+lives increase in livingness--a joy to ourselves, a brightness to our
+homes, and a blessing expanding to all around in ever-widening circles.
+
+Enough has now been said to show the identity of principle between the
+teaching of the Bible and that of the New Thought. Treated in detail,
+the subject would extend to many volumes explanatory of the Old and New
+Testaments, and if that great work were ever carried out I have no
+hesitation in saying that the agreement would be found to extend to the
+minutest particulars. But the hints contained in the foregoing papers
+will, I hope, suffice to show that there is nothing antagonistic between
+the two systems, or, rather, to show that they are one--the statement of
+the One Truth which always has been and always will be. And if what I
+have now endeavoured to put before my readers should lead any of them to
+follow up the subject more fully for themselves, I can promise them an
+inexhaustible store of wonder, delight, and strength in the study of the
+Old Book in the light of the New Thought.
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+JACHIN AND BOAZ
+
+
+"And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand,
+and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand
+Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz." (II Chron. iii, 17.)
+
+Very likely some of us have wondered what was the meaning of these two
+mysterious pillars set up by Solomon in front of his temple, and why
+they were called by these strange names; and then we have dropped the
+subject as one of those inexplicable things handed down in the Bible
+from old time which, we suppose, can have no practical interest for us
+at the present day. Nevertheless, these strange names are not without a
+purpose. They contain the key to the entire Bible and to the whole order
+of Nature, and as emblems of the two great principles that are the
+pillars of the universe, they fitly stood at the threshold of that
+temple which was designed to symbolise all the mysteries of Being.
+
+In all the languages of the Semitic stock the letters J and Y are
+interchangeable, as we see in the modern Arabic "Yakub" for "Jacob" and
+the old Hebrew "Yaveh" for "Jehovah." This gives us the form "Yachin,"
+which at once reveals the enigma. The word Yak signifies "one"; and the
+termination "hi," or "him," is an intensitive which may be rendered in
+English by "only." Thus the word "Jachin" resolves itself into the words
+"one only," the all-embracing Unity.
+
+The meaning of Boaz is clearly seen in the book of Ruth. There Boaz
+appears as the kinsman exercising the right of pre-emption so familiar
+to those versed in Oriental law--a right which has for its purpose the
+maintenance of the Family as the social unit. According to this
+widely-spread custom, the purchaser, who is not a member of the family,
+buys the property subject to the right of kinsmen within certain degrees
+to purchase it back, and so bring it once more into the family to which
+it originally belonged. Whatever may be our personal opinions regarding
+the vexed questions of dogmatic theology, we can all agree as to the
+general principle indicated in the role acted by Boaz. He brings back
+the alienated estate into the family--that is to say, he "redeems" it in
+the legal sense of the word. As a matter of law his power to do this
+results from his membership in the family; but his motive for doing it
+is love, his affection for Ruth. Without pushing the analogy too far we
+may say, then, that Boaz represents the principle of redemption in the
+widest sense of reclaiming an estate by right of relationship, while the
+innermost moving power in its recovery is Love.
+
+This is what Boaz stands for in the beautiful story of Ruth, and there
+is no reason why we should not let the same name stand for the same
+thing when we seek the meaning of the mysterious pillar. Thus the two
+pillars typify Unity and the redeeming power of Love, with the
+significant suggestion that the redemption results from the Unity. They
+correspond with the two "bonds," or uniting principles spoken of by St.
+Paul, "the Unity of the Spirit which is the Bond of Peace," and "Love,
+which is the Bond of Perfectness."
+
+The former is Unity of Being; the latter, Unity of Intention: and the
+principle of this Dual-Unity is well illustrated by the story of Boaz.
+The whole story proceeds on the idea of the Family as the social unit,
+the root-conception of all Oriental law, and if we consider the Family
+in this light, we shall see how exactly it embodies the two-fold idea of
+Jachin and Boaz, unity of Being and unity of Thought. The Family forms a
+unit because all the members proceed from a common progenitor, and are
+thus all of one blood; but, although this gives them a natural unity of
+Being of which they cannot divest themselves, it is not enough in itself
+to make them a united family, as unfortunately experience too often
+shows. Something more is wanted, and that something is Love. There must
+be a personal union brought about by sympathetic Thought to complete the
+natural union resulting from birth. The inherent unity must be expressed
+by the Individual volition of each member, and thus the Family becomes
+the ideally perfect social unit; a truth to which St. Paul alludes when
+he calls God the Father from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is
+named. Thus Boaz stands for the principle which brings back to the
+original Unity that which has been for a time separated from it. There
+has never been any separation of actual Being--the family right always
+subsisted in the property even while in the hands of strangers,
+otherwise it could never have been brought back; but it requires the
+Love principle to put this right into effective operation.
+
+When this begins to work in the knowledge of its right to do so, then
+there is the return of the individual to the Unity, and the recognition
+of himself as the particular expression of the Universal in virtue of
+his own nature.
+
+These two pillars, therefore, stand for the two great spiritual
+principles that are the basis of all Life: Jachin typifying the Unity
+resulting from Being, and Boaz typifying the Unity resulting from Love.
+In this Dual-Unity we find the key to all conceivable involution or
+evolution of Spirit; and it is therefore not without reason that the
+record of these two ancient pillars has been preserved in our
+Scriptures. And finally we may take this as an index to the character of
+our Scriptures generally. They contain infinite meanings; and often
+those passages which appear on the surface to be most meaningless will
+be found to possess the deepest significance. The Book, which we often
+read so superficially, hides beneath its sometimes seemingly trivial
+words the secrets of other things. The twin pillars Jachin and Boaz bear
+witness to this truth.[5]
+
+    [Footnote 5: The following comment was made by Judge Troward,
+    after the publication of this paper in _Expression_:
+
+    "_The Two Pillars_ of the Universe are Personality and
+    Mathematics, represented by Boaz and Jachin respectively.
+    This is the broadest simplification to which it is possible
+    to reduce things. Balance consists in preserving the
+    Equilibrium or Alternating Current between these two
+    Principles. Personality is the Absolute Factor. Mathematics
+    are the Relative Factor, for they merely Measure different
+    Rates or Scales. They are absolute in this respect. A
+    particular scale having been selected all its sequences will
+    follow by an inexorable Law of Order and Proportion; but the
+    selection of the scale and the change from one scale to
+    another rests entirely with Personality. What Personality can
+    not do is to make one Scale produce the results of another,
+    but it can set aside one scale and substitute another for it.
+    Hence Personality contains in itself the Universal Scale, or
+    can either accommodate itself to lower rates of motion
+    already established, or can raise them to its own rate of
+    motion. Hence Personality is the grand Ultimate Fact in all
+    things.
+
+    "Different personalities should be regarded as different
+    degrees of consciousness. They are different degrees of
+    emergence of The Power that knows Itself."]
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+HEPHZIBAH
+
+
+"Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more
+be termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land
+Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married"
+(Isaiah lxii, 4). The name Hephzibah--or, as it might be written,
+Hafzbah--conveys a very distinct idea to any one who has lived in the
+East, and calls up a string of familiar words all containing the same
+root _hafz_, which signifies "guarding" or "taking care of," such as
+_hafiz_, a protector, _muhafiz_, a custodian, as in the word _muhafiz
+daftar_, a head record-keeper; or again, _hifazat_, custody, as
+_bahifazat polis_, in custody of the police; or again, _daim-ul-hafz_,
+imprisonment for life, and other similar expressions.
+
+All words from this root suggest the idea of "guarding," and therefore
+the name Haphzibah at once speaks its own meaning. It is "one who is
+guarded," a "protected one." And answering to this there must be some
+power which guards, and the name of this power is given in Hosea ii, 16,
+where it is called "Ishi." "And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord,
+that thou shalt call me Ishi; and thou shalt call me no more Baali."
+"Baali" means "lord," "Ishi" means "husband," and between the two there
+is a whole world of distinction.
+
+To call the Great Power "Baali" is to live in one world, and to call it
+"Ishi" is to live in another. The world that is ruled over by Baali is a
+world of "miserable worms of the dust" and such crawling creatures; but
+the world that is warmed and lightened by "Ishi" is one in which men and
+women walk upright, conscious of their own divine nature, instead of
+dodging about to escape being crushed under the feet of Moloch as he
+strides through his dominions. If the name Baali did not suggest a wrong
+idea there would be no need to change it for another, and the change of
+name therefore indicates the opening of the mind to a larger and sounder
+conception of the true nature of the Ruling Principle of the universe.
+It is no imperious autocrat, the very apotheosis of self-glorification,
+ill-natured and spiteful if its childish vanity be not gratified by
+hearing its own praises formally proclaimed, often from lips opened only
+by fear; nor is it an almighty extortioner desiring to deprive us of
+what we value most, either to satisfy its greed or to demonstrate its
+sovereignty. This is the image which men make of God and then bow
+terrified before it, offering a worship which is the worship of Baal,
+and making life blank because all the livingness has been wiped
+out of it.
+
+Ishi is the embodiment of the very opposite conception, a wise and
+affectionate husband, instead of a taskmaster exploiting his slaves. In
+its true aspect the relation of husband and wife is entirely devoid of
+any question of relative superiority or inferiority. As well ask whether
+the front wheel or the back wheel of your bicycle is the more important.
+The two make a single whole, in which the functions of both parts are
+reciprocal and equally necessary; yet for this very reason these
+functions cannot be identical.
+
+In a well-ordered home, where husband and wife are united by mutual love
+and respect, we see that the man's function is to enter into the larger
+world and to provide the wife with all that is needed for the
+maintenance and comfort of the home, while the function of the woman is
+to be the distributor of what her husband provides, in doing which she
+follows her own discretion; and a sensible man, knowing that he can
+trust a sensible wife, does not want to poke his finger into every pie.
+Thus all things run harmoniously--the woman relieved of responsibilities
+which are not naturally hers, and the man relieved of responsibilities
+which are not naturally his. But let any perplexity or danger arise, and
+the woman knows that from her husband she will receive all the guidance
+and protection that the occasion may require, he being the wise and
+strong man that we have supposed him, and having this assurance she is
+able to pursue the avocations of her own sphere undisturbed by any fears
+or anxieties.
+
+It is this relation of protection and guidance that is implied by the
+word Hephzibah. It is the name of those who realise their identity with
+the all-ordering Divine Spirit. He who realises this unity with the
+Spirit finds himself both guided and guarded. And here we touch the
+fringe of a deep natural mystery, which formed the basis of all that was
+most valuable in the higher mysteries of the ancients, and the substance
+of which we must realise if we are to make any progress in the future,
+whatever form we may adopt to convey the idea to ourselves or others. It
+is the relation of the individual mind to the Universal Mind, the
+combination of unity with independence which, though quite clear when we
+know it by personal experience, is almost inexpressible in words, but
+which is frequently represented in the Bible under the figure of the
+marriage relations.
+
+It is a basic principle, and in various modes pervades all Nature, and
+has been symbolised in every religion the world has known; and in
+proportion as the individual realises this relation he will find that he
+is able to _use_ the Universal Mind, while at the same time he is guided
+and guarded by it. For think what it would be to wield the power of the
+Universal Mind without having its guidance. It would be the old story of
+Phaeton trying to drive the chariot of the Sun, which ended in his own
+destruction; and limitless power without corresponding guidance would be
+the most terrible curse that any one could bring upon his head.
+
+The relation between the individual mind and the Universal Mind, as
+portrayed in the reciprocally connected names of Hephzibah and Ishi,
+must never be lost sight of; for the Great Guiding Mind, immeasurably
+as it transcends our intellectual consciousness, is not another than
+_ourselves_. It is The One Self which is the foundation of all the
+individual selves, and which is, therefore, in all its limitlessness, as
+entirely one with each individual as though no other being existed.
+Therefore we do not have to go out of ourselves to find it, for it is
+the expansion to infinity of all that we truly _are_, having, indeed, no
+place for those negative forms of evil with which we people a world of
+illusion, for it is the very Light itself, and in it all illusion is
+dispelled; but it is the expansion to infinity of all in us that is
+Affirmative, all that is really living.
+
+Therefore, in looking for its guiding and guarding we are relying upon
+no borrowed power from _without_, held at the caprice and option of
+another, but upon the supreme fact of our own nature, which we can use
+in what direction we will with perfect freedom, knowing no limitation
+save the obligation not to do violence to our own purest and highest
+feelings. And this relation is entirely _natural_. We must steer the
+happy mean between imploring and ignoring. A natural law does not need
+to be entreated before it will work; and, on the other hand, we cannot
+make use of it while ignoring its existence.
+
+What we have to do, therefore, is to take the working of the law for
+granted, and make use of it accordingly; and since that is the law of
+Mind, and Mind is Personality, this Power, which is at once _ourselves_
+and above ourselves, may be treated as a Person and may be spoken with,
+and its replies received by the inner ear of the heart. Any scheme of
+philosophy that does not result in this personal intercourse with the
+Divine Mind falls short of the mark. It may be right so far as it goes,
+but it does not go far enough, and fails to connect us with our vital
+centre. Names are of small importance so long as the intercourse is
+real. The Supreme Mind with which we converse is only to be met in the
+profoundest depths of our own being, and, as Tennyson says, is more
+perfectly ourselves than our own hands and feet. It is our natural Base;
+and realising this we shall find ourselves to be in very truth "guarded
+ones," guided by the Spirit in all things, nothing too great and nothing
+too trivial to come within the great Law of our being.
+
+There is another aspect of the Spirit in which it is seen as a Power to
+be used; and the full flow of life is in the constant alternation
+between this aspect and the one we have been considering, but always we
+are linked with the Universal Mind as the flower lives by reason of its
+root. The connection itself is intrinsic, and can never be severed; but
+it must be consciously realised before it can be consciously used. All
+our development consists in the increasing consciousness of this
+connection, which enables us to apply the higher power to whatever
+purpose we may have in hand, not merely in the hope that it _may_
+respond, but with the certain knowledge that by the law of its own
+nature it is bound to do so, and likewise with the knowledge that by
+the same law it is bound also to guide us to the selection of right
+objects and right methods.
+
+Experience will teach us to detect the warning movement of the inner
+Guide. A deepseated sense of dissatisfaction, an indescribable feeling
+that somehow everything is not right, are the indications to which we do
+well to pay heed; for we are "guarded ones," and these interior
+monitions are the working of that innermost principle of our own being
+which is the immediate outflowing of the Great Universal Life into
+individuality. But, paying heed to this, we shall find ourselves
+guarded, not as prisoners, but as a loved and honoured wife, whose
+freedom is assured by a protection which will allow no harm to assail
+her; we shall find that the Law of our nature is Liberty, and that
+nothing but our own want of understanding can shut us out from it.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+MIND AND HAND
+
+
+I have before me a curious piece of ancient Egyptian symbolism. It
+represents the sun sending down to the earth innumerable rays, with the
+peculiarity that each ray terminates in a hand. This method of
+representing the sun is so unusual that it suggests the presence in the
+designer's mind of some idea rather different from those generally
+associated with the sun as a spiritual emblem; and, if I interpret the
+symbol rightly, it sets forth the truth, not only of the Divine Being as
+the Great Source of all Life and of all Illumination, but also the
+correlative truth of our individual relation to that centre. Each ray is
+terminated by a hand, and a hand is the emblem of active working; and I
+think it would be difficult to give a better symbolical representation
+of innumerable individualities, each working separately, yet all
+deriving their activity from a common source. The hand is at work upon
+the earth, and the sun, from which it is a ray, is shining in the
+heavens; but the connecting line shows whence all the strength and skill
+of the hand are derived.
+
+If we look at the microcosm of our own person we find this principle
+exactly reproduced. Our hand is the instrument by which all our work is
+done--literary, artistic, mechanical, or household--but we know that all
+this work is really the work of the mind, the will-power at the centre
+of our system, which first determines what is to be done, and then sets
+the hand to work to do it; and in the doing of it the mind and hand
+become one, so that the hand is none other than the mind working. Now,
+transferring this analogy to the microcosm, we see that we each stand in
+the same relation to the Universal Mind that our hand does to our
+individual mind--at least, that is our normal relation; and we shall
+never put forth our full strength except from this standpoint.
+
+We rightly realise our will as the centre of our individuality, but we
+should do better to picture our individuality as an ellipse rather than
+a circle, a figure having two "conjugate foci," two equilibriated
+centres of revolution rather than a single one, one of which is the
+will-power or faculty of _doing_, and the other the consciousness or
+perception of _being_. If we realise only one of these two centres we
+shall lose both mental and moral balance. If we lose sight of that
+centre which is our personal will, we shall become flabby visionaries
+without any backbone; and if, in our anxiety to develop backbone, we
+lost sight of the other centre, we shall find that we have lost that
+which corresponds to the lungs and heart in the physical body, and that
+our backbone, however perfectly developed, is rapidly drying up for
+want of those functions which minister vitality to the whole system, and
+is only fit to be hung up in a museum to show what a rigid, lifeless
+thing the strongest vertebral column becomes when separated from the
+organisation by which alone it can receive nourishment. We must realise
+the one focus of our individuality as clearly as the other, and bring
+both into equal balance, if we would develop all our powers and rise to
+that perfection of Life which has no limits to its glorious
+possibilities.
+
+Keeping the ancient Egyptian symbol before used, and considering
+ourselves as the hand, we find that we derive all our power from an
+infinite centre; and because it is infinite we need never fear that we
+shall fail to draw to ourselves all that we require for our work,
+whether it be the intelligence to lay hold of the proper tool, or the
+strength to use it. And, moreover, we learn from the symbol that this
+central power is generic. This is a most important truth. It is the
+centre from which all the hands proceed, and is as fully open to any one
+hand as to any other. Each hand is doing its separate work, and the
+whole of the central energy is at its disposal for its own specific
+purpose. The work of the central energy, as such, is to supply vitality
+to the hands, and it is they that differentiate this universal power
+into all the varied forms of application which their different aptitudes
+and opportunities suggest. We, as the hands, live and work because the
+Central Mind lives and works in us. We are one with it, and it is one
+with us; and so long as we keep this primal truth before us, we realise
+ourselves as beings of unlimited goodness and intelligence and power,
+and we work in the fulness of strength and confidence accordingly; but
+if we lose sight of this truth, we shall find that the strongest will
+must get exhausted at last in the unequal struggle of the individual
+against the universe.
+
+For if we do not recognise the Central Mind as the source of our
+vitality, we are literally "fighting for our own hand," and all the
+other hands are against us, for we have lost the principle of connection
+with them. This is what must infallibly happen if we rely on nothing but
+our individual will-power. But if we realise that the will is the power
+by which we give out, and that every giving out implies a corresponding
+taking in, then we shall find in the boundless ocean of central living
+Spirit the source from which we can go on taking in _ad infinitum_, and
+which thus enables us to give out to any extent we please. But for wise
+and effective giving out a strong and enlightened will is an absolute
+necessity, and therefore we do well to cultivate the will, or the active
+side of our nature. But we must equally cultivate the receptive side
+also; and when we do this rightly by seeing in the Infinite Mind the one
+source of supply, our will-power becomes intensified by the knowledge
+that the whole power of the Infinite is present to back it up; and with
+this continual sense of Infinite Power behind us we can go calmly and
+steadily to the accomplishment of any purpose, however difficult,
+without straining or effort, knowing that it shall be achieved, not by
+the hand only, but by the invincible Mind that works through it. "Not by
+might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."
+
+1902.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE CENTRAL CONTROL
+
+
+In contemplating the relations between body, soul, and spirit, between
+Universal Mind and individual mind, the methodised study of which
+constitutes Mental Science, we must never forget that these relations
+indicate, not the separateness, but the unity of these principles. We
+must learn not to attribute one part of our action to one part of our
+being, and another to another. Neither the action nor the functions are
+split up into separate parts. The action is a whole, and the being that
+does it is a whole, and in the healthy organism the reciprocal movements
+of the principles are so harmonious as never to suggest any feeling than
+that of a perfectly whole and undivided self. If there is any other
+feeling we may be sure that there is abnormal action somewhere, and we
+should set ourselves to discover and remove the cause of it. The reason
+for this is that in any perfect organism there cannot be more than one
+centre of control.
+
+A rivalry of controlling principles would be the destruction of the
+organic wholeness; for either the elements would separate and group
+themselves round one or other of the centres, according to their
+respective affinities, and thus form two distinctive individualities,
+or else they would be reduced to a condition of merely chaotic
+confusion; in either case the original organism would cease to exist.
+Seen in this light, therefore, it is a self-evident truth that, if we
+are to retain our individuality; in other words, if we are to continue
+to exist, it can be only by retaining our hold upon the central
+controlling principle in ourselves; and if this be the charter of our
+being, it follows that all our future development depends on our
+recognising and accepting this central controlling principle. To this
+end, therefore, all our endeavours should be directed; for otherwise all
+our studies in Mental Science will only lead us into a confused
+labyrinth of principles and counter-principles, which will be
+considerably worse than the state of ignorant simplicity from which we
+started.
+
+This central controlling principle is the Will, and we must never lose
+sight of the fact that all the other principles about which we have
+learnt in our studies exist only as its instruments. The Will is the
+true self, of which they are all functions, and all our progress
+consists of our increased recognition of the fact. It is the Will that
+says "I AM"; and therefore, however exalted, or even in their higher
+developments apparently miraculous, our powers may be, they are all
+subject to the central controlling power of the Will. When the
+enlightened Will shall have learnt to identify itself perfectly with the
+limitless powers of knowledge, judgment, and creative thought which are
+at its disposal, then the individual will have attained to perfect
+wholeness, and all limitations will have passed away for ever.
+
+And nothing short of this consciousness of Perfect Wholeness can satisfy
+us. Everything that falls short of it is in that degree an embodiment of
+the principle of Death, that great enemy against which the principle of
+Life must continue to wage unceasing war, in whatever form or measure it
+may show itself, until "death is swallowed up in victory." There can be
+no compromise. Either we are affirming Life, as a principle, or we are
+denying it, no matter on how great or how small a scale; and the
+criterion by which to determine our attitude is our realisation of our
+own Wholeness. Death is the principle of disintegration; and whenever we
+admit the power of any portion of our organism, whether spiritual or
+bodily, to induce any condition _independently of the intention of the
+Will_, we admit that the force of disintegration is superior to the
+controlling centre in ourselves, and we conceive of ourselves as held in
+bondage by an adversary, from which bondage the only way of release is
+by the attainment of a truer way of thinking.
+
+And the reason is that, either through ignorance or carelessness, we
+have surrendered our position of control over the system as a whole, and
+have lost the element of _Purpose_, around which the consciousness of
+individuality must always centre. Every state of our consciousness,
+whether active or passive, should be the result of a distinct _purpose_
+adopted by our own free will; for the passive states should be quite as
+much under the control of the Will as the active. It is the lack of
+_purpose_ that deprives us of power. The higher and more clearly defined
+our purpose, the greater stimulus we have for realising our control over
+_all_ our faculties for its attainment; and since the grandest of all
+purposes is the strengthening and ennobling of Life, in proportion as we
+make this our aim we shall find ourselves in union with the Supreme
+Universal Mind, acting each in our individual sphere for the furtherance
+of the same purpose which animates the ruling principle of the Great
+Whole, and, as a consequence, shall find that its intelligence and
+powers are at our disposal.
+
+But in all this there must be no strain. The true exercise of the Will
+is not an exercise of unnatural force. It is simply the leading of our
+powers into their natural channels by intelligently recognising the
+direction in which those channels go. However various in detail, they
+have one clearly defined common tendency towards the increasing of
+Life--whether in ourselves or in others--and if we keep this steadily in
+view, all our powers, whether interior or exterior, will be found to
+work so harmoniously together that there will be no sense of independent
+action on the part of any one of them. The distinctions drawn for
+purposes of study will be laid aside, and the Self in us will be found
+to be the realisation of a grand ideal being, at once individual and
+universal, consciously free in its individual wholeness and in its
+joyous participation in the Life of the Universal Whole.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+WHAT IS HIGHER THOUGHT?
+
+
+Resolution passed October, 1902, by the Kensington Higher Thought
+Centre.
+
+    _"That the Centre stands for the definite teaching of
+    absolute Oneness of Creator and Creation--Cause and
+    Effect--and that nothing which may contradict or be in
+    opposition to the above principles be admitted to the 'Higher
+    Thought' Centre Platform._
+
+    _"By Oneness of Cause and Effect is meant, that Effect (man)
+    does consist only of what Cause is; but a part (individual
+    personality) is not therefore co-extensive with the whole."_
+
+This Resolution is of the greatest importance. Once admit that there is
+_any_ Power outside yourself, however beneficent you may conceive it to
+be, and you have sown the seed which must sooner or later bear the fruit
+of "_Fear_" which is the entire ruin of Life, Love and Liberty. There is
+no _via media_. Say we are only reflections, however accurate, of The
+Life, and in the admission we have given away our Birthright. However
+small or plausible may be the germ of thought which admits that we are
+anything less in principle than The Life Itself, it must spring up to
+the ultimate ruin of the Life-Principle itself. We _are_ It itself. The
+difference is only that between the generic and the specific of the
+_same_ thing. We must contend earnestly, both within ourselves and
+outwardly, for the _one great foundation_ and never, now on to all
+eternity, admit for a single instant any thought which is opposed to
+this, the Basic Truth of Being.
+
+The leading ideas connected with Higher Thought are (I) That Man
+controls circumstances, instead of being controlled by them, and (II) as
+a consequence of the foregoing, that whatever teaches us to _rely_ on
+power _borrowed_ from a source _outside_ ourselves is _not_ Higher
+Thought; and that whatever explains to us the _Infinite_ source of _our
+own inherent_ power and the consequent _limitless_ nature of that power
+_is_ Higher Thought. This avoids the use of terms which may only puzzle
+those not accustomed to abstract phraseology, and is substantially the
+same as the resolution of October, 1902.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+FRAGMENTS
+
+
+  1. God is Love.
+     Man, having the understanding of God, speaks the Word of Power.
+
+  2. Man gives utterance to God.
+
+  3. The Father is Equilibrium.
+     The Son is Concentration of the _same_ Spirit.
+     The Spirit is Projection.
+
+_The Tri-une Relation_--always consists of these Three:
+
+(I) The Potential--(II) The Ideal--(III) The Concrete.
+
+(I) The Potential is Life in its most highly abstract mode not yet
+brought into Form even as Thought. Not particularised in _any_ way.
+
+(II) The Ideal is the particularising of the Potential into a certain
+Formulated Thought.
+
+(III) The Concrete is the Manifestation of the Formulated Thought in
+Visible Form.
+
+What everybody wants is to become _more alive_--as Jesus said, "I am
+come that they might have Life and might have it more abundantly"--and
+it is only on the basis of realising ourselves as a _perfect unity
+throughout_, not made up of opposing parts, and that unity _Spirit_,
+that we can realise in ourselves the _Livingness_ which _Spirit is_, and
+which we _as Spirit_ ought to be.
+
+
+HENCE PERFECT DEMONSTRATION.
+
+    "The Truth shall make you Free"
+    Life    :
+    Love    : = The Truth
+    Liberty :
+
+The Ultimate Truth will always be found to consist of these three, and
+anything that is contrary to them is contrary to Fundamental Truth.
+
+
+WORSHIP
+
+Worship consists in the recognition of the _Personal_ Nature of Holy
+Spirit, and in the Continual Alternation (Pulsation) between the two
+positions of "I am the Person that Thou art," and "Thou art the Person
+that I am." The Two Personalities are One.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+
+Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:
+
+   page 64: extra word removed
+
+      that we shall _feel_ the [the] truth of it,
+
+   page 102: typographical error corrected
+
+      straining and striving, and the place of the old
+      _strum[sturm] und drang_ will be taken, not by inertia, but
+      by a joyous activity which knows that it
+
+   page 151: extra word removed
+
+      in proportion as you find it there, you will [will] find it
+      everywhere else.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIDDEN POWER***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 25638.txt or 25638.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/6/3/25638
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
diff --git a/25638.zip b/25638.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d3bbe29
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25638.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eed62d0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #25638 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25638)