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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The material comprised in this volume has been selected from unpublished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