In the two preceding lectures I have endeavoured to reach some
conception of what the All-originating Spirit is in itself, and
of the relation of the individual to it. So far as we can form
any conception of these things at all we see that they are
universal principles applicable to all nature, and, at the human
level, applicable to all men: they are general laws the
recognition of which is an essential preliminary to any further
advance, because progress is made, not by setting aside the
inherent law of things, which is impossible, but by specializing
it through presenting conditions which will enable the same
principle to act in a less limited manner. Having therefore got a
general idea of these two ultimates, the universal and the
individual, and of their relation to one another, let us now
consider the process of specialization. In what does the
specialization of a natural law consist? It consists in making
that law or principle produce an effect which it could not
produce under the simply generic conditions spontaneously
provided by nature. This selection of suitable conditions is the
work of Intelligence, it is a process of consciously arranging
things in a new order, so as to produce a new result. The
principle is never new, for principles are eternal and universal;
but the knowledge that the same principle will produce new
results when working under new conditions is the key to the
unfoldment of infinite possibilities. What we have therefore to
consider is the working of Intelligence in providing specific
conditions for the operation of universal principles, so as to
bring about new results which will transcend our past
experiences. The process does not consist in the introduction of
new elements, but in making new combinations of elements which
are always present; just as our ancestors had no conception of
carriages that could go without horses, and yet by a suitable
combination of elements which were always in existence, such
vehicles are common objects in our streets today. How, then, is
the power of Intelligence to be brought to bear upon the generic
law of the relation between the Individual and the Universal so
as to specialize it into the production of greater results than
those which we have hitherto obtained?
All the practical attainments of science, which place the
civilized world of to-day in advance of the times of King Alfred
or Charlemagne, have been gained by a uniform method, and that a
very simple one. It is by always enquiring what is the
affirmative factor in any existing combination, and asking
ourselves why, in that particular combination, it does not act
beyond certain limits. What makes the thing a success, so far as
it goes, and what prevents it going further? Then, by carefully
considering the nature of the affirmative factor, we see what
sort of conditions to provide to enable it to express itself more
fully. This is the scientific method; it has proved itself true
in respect of material things, and there is no reason why it
should not be equally reliable in respect of spiritual things
also.
Taking this as our method, we ask, What is the affirmative factor
in the whole creation, and in ourselves as included in the
creation, and, as we found in the first lecture, this factor is
Spirit--that invisible power which concentrates-the primordial
ether into forms, and endows those forms with various modes of
motion, from the simply mechanical motion of the planet up to the
volitional motion in man. And, since this is so, the primary
affirmative factor can only be the Feeling and the Thought of the
Universal Spirit.* Now, by the hypothesis of the case, the
Universal Spirit must be the Pure Essence of Life, and therefore
its feeling and thought can only be towards the continually
increasing expression of the livingness which it is; and
accordingly the specialization, of which we are in search, must
be along the line of affording it a centre from which it may more
perfectly realize this feeling and express this thought: in other
words the way to specialize the generic principle of Spirit is by
providing new mental conditions in consonance with its own
original nature.
* See my "Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science."
The scientific method of enquiry therefore brings us to the
conclusion that the required conditions for translating the
racial or generic operation of the Spirit into a specialized
individual operation is a new way of THINKING mode of thought
concurring with, and not in opposition to, the essential forward
movement of the Creative Spirit itself. This implies an entire
reversal of our old conceptions. Hitherto we have taken forms and
conditions as the starting point of our thought and inferred that
they are the causes of mental states; now we have learnt that the
true order of the creative process is exactly the reverse, and
that thought and feeling are the causes, and forms and conditions
the effects. When we have learnt this lesson we have grasped the
foundation principle on which individual specialization of the
generic law of the creative process becomes a practical
possibility.
New Thought, then, is not the name of a particular sect, but is
the essential factor by which our own future development is to be
carried on; and its essence consists in seeing the relation of
things in a New Order. Hitherto we have inverted the true order
of cause and effect; now, by carefully considering the real
nature of the Principle of Causation in itself--causa causans as
distinguished from cause causata--we return to the true order and
adopt a new method of thinking in accordance with it.
In themselves this order and this method of thinking are not new.
They are older than the foundation of the world, for they are
those of the Creative Spirit itself; and all through the ages
this teaching has been handed down under various forms, the true
meaning of which has been perceived only by a few in each
generation. But as the light breaks in upon any individual it is
a new light to him, and so to each one in succession it becomes
the New Thought. And when anyone reaches it, he finds himself in
a New Order. He continues indeed to be included in the universal
order of the cosmos, but in a perfectly different way to what he
had previously supposed; for, from his new standpoint, he finds
that he is included, not so much as a part of the general effect,
but as a part of the general cause; and when he perceives this he
then sees that the method of his further advance must be by
letting the General Cause flow more and more freely into his own
specific centre, and he therefore seeks to provide thought
conditions which will enable him to do so.
Then, still employing the scientific method of following up the
affirmative factor, he realizes that this universal causative
power, by whatever name he may call it, manifests as Supreme
Intelligence in the adaptation of means to ends. It does so in
the mechanism of the planet, in the production of supply for the
support of physical life, and in the maintenance of the race as a
whole. True, the investigator is met at every turn with
individual failure; but his answer to this is that there is no
cosmic failure, and that the apparent individual failure is
itself a part of the cosmic process, and will diminish in
proportion as the individual attains to the recognition of the
Moving Principle of that process, and provides the necessary
conditions to enable it to take a new starting point in his own
individuality. Now, one of these conditions is to recognize it as
Intelligence, and to remember that when working through our own
mentality it in no way changes its essential nature, just as
electricity loses none of its essential qualities in passing
through the special apparatus which enables it to manifest as
light.
When we see this, our line of thought will run something as
follows:--"My mind is a centre of Divine operation. The Divine
operation is always for expansion and fuller expression, and this
means the production of something beyond what has gone before,
something entirely new, not included in past experience, though
proceeding out of it by an orderly sequence of growth. Therefore,
since the Divine cannot change its inherent nature, it must
operate in the same manner in me; consequently in my own special
world, of which I am the centre, it will move forward to produce
new conditions, always in advance of any that have gone before."
This is a legitimate line of argument, from the premises
established in the recognition of the relation between the
individual and the Universal Mind; and it results in our looking
to the Divine Mind, not only as creative, but also as directive--
that is as determining the actual forms which the conditions for
its manifestation will take in our own particular world, as well
as supplying the energy for their production. We miss the point
of the relation between the individual and the universal, if we
do not see that the Originating Spirit is a FORMING power. It is
the forming power throughout nature, and if we would specialize
it we must learn to trust its formative quality when operating
from its new starting point in ourselves.
But the question naturally arises, If this is so, what part is
taken by the individual? Our part is to provide a concrete centre
round which the Divine energies can play. In the generic order of
being we exercise upon it a force of attraction in accordance
with the innate pattern of our particular individuality; and as
we begin to realize the Law of this relation, we, in our turn,
are attracted towards the Divine along the lines of least
resistance, that is on those lines which are most natural to our
special bent of mind. In this way we throw out certain
aspirations with the result that we intensify our attraction of
the Divine forces in a certain specific manner, and they then
begin to act both through us and around us in accordance with our
aspirations. This is the rationale of the reciprocal action be
tween the Universal Mind and the individual mind, and this shows
us that our desires should not be directed so much to the
acquisition of particular THINGS as to the reproduction in
ourselves of particular phases of the Spirit's activity; and
this, being in its very nature creative, is bound to externalize
as corresponding things and circumstances. Then, when these
external facts appear in the circle of our objective life, we
must work upon them from the objective stand-point. This is where
many fall short of completed work. They realize the subjective or
creative process, but do not see that it must be followed by an
objective or constructive process, and consequently they are
unpractical dreamers and never reach the stage of completed work.
The creative process brings the materials and conditions for the
work to our hands; then we must make use of them with diligence
and common-sense--God will provide the food, but He will not cook
the dinner.
This, then, is the part taken by the individual, and it is thus
that he becomes a distributing centre of the Divine energy,
neither on the one hand trying to lead it like a blind force, nor
on the other being himself under a blind unreasoning impulsion
from it. He receives guidance because he seeks guidance; and he
both seeks and receives according to a Law which he is able to
recognize; so that he no more sacrifices his liberty or dwarfs
his powers, than does an engineer who submits to the generic laws
of electricity, in order to apply them to some specific purpose.
The more intimate his knowledge of this Law of Reciprocity
becomes, the more he finds that it leads on to Liberty, on the
same principle by which we find in physical science that nature
obeys us precisely in the same degree to which we first obey
nature. As the esoteric maxim has it "What is a truth on one
plane is a truth on all." But the key to this enfranchisement of
body, mind, and circumstances is in that new thought which
becomes creative of new conditions, because it realizes the true
order of the creative process. Therefore it is that, if we would
bring a new order of Life, Light, and Liberty into our lives we
must commence by bringing a new order into our thought, and find
in ourselves the starting point of a new creative series, not by
the force of personal will, but by union with the Divine Spirit,
which in the expression of its inherent Love and Beauty, makes
all things new.