Our sphere of research is simplified by dividing its objects into matter
and mind, so as to have but two centers of thought. Many have concluded
that the address of matter to our senses has made it easy to pursue
knowledge respecting bodies, while the invisibility of mind presents
insurmountable difficulties, but this conclusion is scarcely supported
by facts. If men have erred with reference to their own intellects, they
have also made many and egregious blunders concerning matter and its
qualities. We think the study of mind is just as easy as the study of
matter. Here a man has nothing to do but look into himself. With my mind
I think, reason, reflect, remember, hate, love, grieve, rejoice,
imagine, contrive, invent and will, and this very mind is conscious of
all these operations; so in this study there ought to be no mistake. We
lay it down as a truth of first importance, that all minds are alike. As
gold is gold, so mind is mind, throughout the universe. My mind is
myself, which I carry with me everywhere; it is my own personality from
which I can never part. It is the individual Walker. _Individual_ is
defined thus: An object which is, in the strict and primary sense, one,
and can not be logically divided.
An _individual_ is not absolutely indivisible, but that which can not be
divided without losing its name and distinctive qualities.
Individuality, like personal identity, belongs properly to
intelligences. Consciousness reveals it to us that no being can be put
in our place nor confounded with us, nor we with others. I am one and
indivisible. You can not amputate any of the faculties of the mind. It
is a mind which no one dissects or divides. We are assured that we are
the offspring of God. Paul says this truth had been promulgated by one
of the Athenian poets, and it was so correct that Heaven's seal was
placed upon it. Being the offspring of God we are essentially like our
Great Father Spirit, for it is one of the laws of God that the child or
descendant shall always be like its progenitor; not like him in body,
for God is a spirit. A spirit hath not flesh and bone. We are therefore
like Him in spirit. Being the offspring of the divine intelligence
declares the nature of that intelligence, just as the stream declares
the nature of the water in the fountain which feeds it. As the fountain
is the antecedent of the stream, so God is the antecedent of life and
intelligence, from whom all spirits came, and to whom all spirits must
return.
Our studies in respect of mind are wonderfully simplified when we
recollect that in ourselves we see all other men, spirit or mind being
in its essence and attributes essentially the same; but the fountain is
always greater than the stream, so God is more wise and powerful than
any of his offspring. But as each perfect sunbeam, however small or
weak, has all the essential properties of light, and each grain of pure
silver all the properties of that metal, so mind, as the living
offspring of the divine mind, is in the "likeness and image of God."
This branch of study becomes remarkably simple when we reflect that in
ourselves we see all men and women, angels and demons, and even God
himself. The whole universe of mind is reflected in that inner-man
mirror which we call _ourself_. We have guarded this subject by the
language, _the essential attributes of mind_. By this qualifier we wish
it understood that mind, like body, has its accidental or acquired
qualities. Vice, virtue, folly, wisdom, malignity and benevolence are
not essential to mind, but like the accidents of matter known as
roughness or smoothness, softness, hardness, blackness, etc., are merely
qualities or attributes of its conduct. Vice is vicious action and
virtue is virtuous action. But action arises from will and will from
thought. All minds are free agents, being vicious or virtuous from their
own choice. There is as much piety, morality or immorality in the
flowing of the Wabash river as there is in involuntary action. So
ability to choose is the great factor of morality, virtue, immorality,
and vice.
In scientific investigations lying in the realm of the physical there
are countless objects to engage our thoughts, but here we have but one,
and we always carry it about with us and are continually using it. Our
_consciousness_ is to all the operations of our spirits what seeing,
touching, hearing, tasting and smelling is to surrounding bodies. It
enables us to examine all the minds in the universe. Would you like to
have an organ which would enable you to see spirits? In your
_consciousness_ you have a faculty superior to all the five senses put
together. In our consciousness we see and feel ourselves, and in so
doing we see not only the minds of others, but our great Father himself.
We can not tell what instincts are in the bee, or what sagacity is in a
spaniel, because we are neither spaniels nor bees, but we are of a more
noble race. We are in possession of minds or spirits, and consequently
identified with all minds or spirits, so the science of mind, or
psychology, is the knowledge of ourselves.
Christianity, as a spiritual system, takes us and all its votaries into
this intellectual temple, where we may certainly know God through a
correct knowledge of self. In this temple we have a sample of the
spirits of men, angels and demons, and over all, an example of the
spirit we worship. These invisible intelligences are the wonderful
agencies through which good and evil are effected. Natural laws are
only the rules by which the great Father Spirit acts. Laws are rules by
which agents act, and they always imply agents. Men of olden times are
often spoken of as great metaphysicians. Who has not heard of Homer,
Herodotus, Pindar, Demosthenes, Aristotle, Plato and many others. But
those ancient men, here as in physics, dealt so much in fancy that they
were not disposed to enter into the simple examination of their own
minds or spirits. Entangled in the doctrines of chance, fate and destiny
they robbed the Creator of the sceptre of the universe. They placed
Jove, their supreme deity, under a decree that he could not change;
confessed that he could not, in many instances, help them when he
desired to do so. The greatest hindrances to progress among them were
their failures to know the true character of Jove, or their want of a
correct knowledge of God, and the distinction between mind and matter.
They failed to separate between the two. Their gods were continually in
an abominable quarrel about some interest that involved human welfare,
and for that very reason their theory of mind was nothing but a confused
mass of childish stories. They had no starting point from which to
reason. They, failing to separate between mind and matter, were led into
endless theories about what they denominated the animal and intellectual
soul. The idea of one of their own poets that we are God's offspring was
of no avail, in science, to them, because they neither knew themselves
nor their gods. We are, therefore, indebted to the Bible for our
superior knowledge in the science of mind. If the Gospel had never
reached us we would have been as great dreamers in mental science as the
mystics of India.
The doctrine of one Creator, who is a perfect spirit, and the father of
our spirits, and that he presides over all nature for the good of the
whole; that matter is inert, and moves not unless as it is moved; that
all life and force is in mind or spirit; that all spirits are free
agents, and act from choice; that all spirits have the same essential
attributes; and that man is of the divine "_genos_" kind or sort, and,
as an intellectual being, is therefore in the image of God, has
simplified and extended our researches in the science of mind, and based
them on reason and common sense as well as revelation. From such
considerations the doctrine of universal brotherhood has proceeded along
with the equal, civil, political and religious rights of all mankind.
The ultimate fruit of all is the abolition of oppression and slavery
throughout the world, and the desire to see all men elevated to their
proper rank as intellectual and moral beings. Thus our views of God and
nature, of mind and matter, are of immense practical value to our race.
Do you say mind or spirit does not belong as a real factor to science?
Well, we are astonished! Science is correct, or certain knowledge
arising from a deep and rational inquiry into the object or subject of
investigation. The question therefore comes back again, have we any
knowledge of mind? This is to ask, whether consciousness is knowledge!
The term comes from the Latin "_con_," which signifies together, and
"_scio_," I know, and is used to convey the idea that we know the thing
altogether, that is, have perfect or full knowledge. It is the mind's
testimony concerning itself. Now, if I can become acquainted with
external and material objects through my senses, certainly my
consciousness of my own mental operations is, and must be, more certain
and self-evident. In judging, reasoning, reflecting, choosing, desiring,
remembering, loving, hating and hoping, along with all other operations
of mind, I must know the operation intimately, perfectly and altogether.
If I am reflecting, I know it, and this consciousness is science, is
certain knowledge, is the very thing from which no man can escape so
long as he is a rational being. Here is my individuality, my
personality, in that which is the indivisible unit of my nature, from
which I can not emigrate, and one attribute of which I can not
amputate--the _I_! The thief may escape from justice, but he can not
escape from the dishonest wretch--_himself_.
The murderer in America may flee to England or France, but through
conscious memory he is, and will forever be, compelled to keep company
with the murderous villain. He has this consciousness and will keep it
through eternity, even though he should be pardoned. Here, then, is
certain knowledge, more than seeing, hearing, or any other sense
belonging to the physical, for it is the conscious knowledge of that
which sees and hears, and which reaches out through the senses and
connects itself with the objective. It is therefore certain that, in
case there is no such thing as mental science, there is no such thing as
science at all, in all the realm of the universe; because the mind, in
the act of knowing, knows itself or is conscious of its own operations,
otherwise it could know nothing whatever, could not be mind.
Have we not the most certain evidence of the existence of mind? Is light
a certain evidence that there is light, or a source of light? Is not
reasoning a proof that there is something which reasons? Can there be
light without a cause? Can there be invention without an inventive
being? The mind is like a telescope in this respect, that it shows
itself in showing that about which it is occupied. The man who is
content to believe what he sees, hears, tastes, smells and feels, is
only a sensuous believer--an animal, and not a man. Reason's glory is
that it perceives the invisible.
OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO REVELATION--No. IV.