We have now paved the way for understanding what is meant by

THE EDINBURGH LECTURES ON MENTAL SCIENCE

BY THOMAS TROWARD LATE DIVISIONAL JUDGE, PUNJAB

THE WRITER AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATES THIS LITTLE VOLUME TO HIS WIFE

FOREWORD.

This book contains the substance of a course of lectures recently given by

the writer in the Queen Street Hall, Edinburgh. Its purpose is to indicate

the _Natural Principles_ governing the relation between Mental Action and

Material Conditions, and thus to afford the student an intelligible

starting-point for the practical study of the subject.

T.T.

March, 1904.

CONTENTS.

I.--SPIRIT AND MATTER.

II.--THE HIGHER MODE OF INTELLIGENCE CONTROLS THE LOWER

III.--THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT

IV.--SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE MIND

V.--FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE MIND

VI.--THE LAW OF GROWTH

VII.--RECEPTIVITY.

VIII.--RECIPROCAL ACTION OF THE UNIVERSAL AND INDIVIDUAL MINDS

IX.--CAUSES AND CONDITIONS

X.--INTUITION

XI.--HEALING

XII.--THE WILL

XIII.--IN TOUCH WITH SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

XIV.--THE BODY

XV.--THE SOUL

XVI.--THE SPIRIT

I.

SPIRIT AND MATTER.

In commencing a course of lectures on Mental Science, it is somewhat

difficult for the lecturer to fix upon the best method of opening the

subject. It can be approached from many sides, each with some peculiar

advantage of its own; but, after careful deliberation, it appears to me

that, for the purpose of the present course, no better starting-point could

be selected than the relation between Spirit and Matter. I select this

starting-point because the distinction--or what we believe to be such--

between them is one with which we are so familiar that I can safely assume

its recognition by everybody; and I may, therefore, at once state this

distinction by using the adjectives which we habitually apply as expressing

the natural opposition between the two--_living_ spirit and _dead_ matter.

These terms express our current impression of the opposition between spirit

and matter with sufficient accuracy, and considered only from the point of

view of outward appearances this impression is no doubt correct. The

general consensus of mankind is right in trusting the evidence of our

senses, and any system which tells us that we are not to do so will never

obtain a permanent footing in a sane and healthy community. There is

nothing wrong in the evidence conveyed to a healthy mind by the senses of a

healthy body, but the point where error creeps in is when we come to judge

of the meaning of this testimony. We are accustomed to judge only by

external appearances and by certain limited significances which we attach

to words; but when we begin to enquire into the real meaning of our words

and to analyse the causes which give rise to the appearances, we find our

old notions gradually falling off from us, until at last we wake up to the

fact that we are living in an entirely different world to that we formerly

recognized. The old limited mode of thought has imperceptibly slipped away,

and we discover that we have stepped out into a new order of things where

all is liberty and life. This is the work of an enlightened intelligence

resulting from persistent determination to discover what truth really is

irrespective of any preconceived notions from whatever source derived, the

determination to think honestly for ourselves instead of endeavouring to

get our thinking done for us. Let us then commence by enquiring what we

really mean by the livingness which we attribute to spirit and the deadness

which we attribute to matter.

At first we may be disposed to say that livingness consists in the power of

motion and deadness in its absence; but a little enquiry into the most

recent researches of science will soon show us that this distinction does

not go deep enough. It is now one of the fully-established facts of

physical science that no atom of what we call "dead matter" is without

motion. On the table before me lies a solid lump of steel, but in the light

of up-to-date science I know that the atoms of that seemingly inert mass

are vibrating with the most intense energy, continually dashing hither and

thither, impinging upon and rebounding from one another, or circling round

like miniature solar systems, with a ceaseless rapidity whose complex

activity is enough to bewilder the imagination. The mass, as a mass, may

lie inert upon the table; but so far from being destitute of the element of

motion it is the abode of the never-tiring energy moving the particles with

a swiftness to which the speed of an express train is as nothing. It is,

therefore, not the mere fact of motion that is at the root of the

distinction which we draw instinctively between spirit and matter; we must

go deeper than that. The solution of the problem will never be found by

comparing Life with what we call deadness, and the reason for this will

become apparent later on; but the true key is to be found by comparing one

degree of livingness with another. There is, of course, one sense in which

the quality of livingness does not admit of degrees; but there is another

sense in which it is entirely a question of degree. We have no doubt as to

the livingness of a plant, but we realize that it is something very

different from the livingness of an animal. Again, what average boy would

not prefer a fox-terrier to a goldfish for a pet? Or, again, why is it that

the boy himself is an advance upon the dog? The plant, the fish, the dog,

and the boy are all equally _alive_; but there is a difference in the

quality of their livingness about which no one can have any doubt, and no

one would hesitate to say that this difference is in the degree of

intelligence. In whatever way we turn the subject we shall always find that

what we call the "livingness" of any individual life is ultimately measured

by its intelligence. It is the possession of greater intelligence that

places the animal higher in the scale of being than the plant, the man

higher than the animal, the intellectual man higher than the savage. The

increased intelligence calls into activity modes of motion of a higher

order corresponding to itself. The higher the intelligence, the more

completely the mode of motion is under its control: and as we descend in

the scale of intelligence, the descent is marked by a corresponding

increase in _automatic_ motion not subject to the control of a

self-conscious intelligence. This descent is gradual from the expanded

self-recognition of the highest human personality to that lowest order of

visible forms which we speak of as "things," and from which

self-recognition is entirely absent.

We see, then, that the livingness of Life consists in intelligence--in

other words, in the power of Thought; and we may therefore say that the

distinctive quality of spirit is Thought, and, as the opposite to this, we

may say that the distinctive quality of matter is Form. We cannot conceive

of matter without form. Some form there must be, even though invisible to

the physical eye; for matter, to be matter at all, must occupy space, and

to occupy any particular space necessarily implies a corresponding form.

For these reasons we may lay it down as a fundamental proposition that the

distinctive quality of spirit is Thought and the distinctive quality of

matter is Form. This is a radical distinction from which important

consequences follow, and should, therefore, be carefully noted by the

student.

Form implies extension in space and also limitation within certain

boundaries. Thought implies neither. When, therefore, we think of Life as

existing in any particular _form_ we associate it with the idea of

extension in space, so that an elephant may be said to consist of a vastly

larger amount of living substance than a mouse. But if we think of Life as

the fact of livingness we do not associate it with any idea of extension,

and we at once realize that the mouse is quite as much alive as the

elephant, notwithstanding the difference in size. The important point of

this distinction is that if we can conceive of anything as entirely devoid

of the element of extension in space, it must be present in its entire

totality anywhere and everywhere--that is to say, at every point of space

simultaneously. The scientific definition of time is that it is the period

occupied by a body in passing from one given point in space to another,

and, therefore, according to this definition, when there is no space there

can be no time; and hence that conception of spirit which realizes it as

devoid of the element of space must realize it as being devoid of the

element of time also; and we therefore find that the conception of spirit

as pure Thought, and not as concrete Form, is the conception of it as

subsisting perfectly independently of the elements of time and space. From

this it follows that if the idea of anything is conceived as existing on

this level it can only represent that thing as being actually present here

and now. In this view of things nothing can be remote from us either in

time or space: either the idea is entirely dissipated or it exists as an

actual present entity, and not as something that _shall_ be in the future,

for where there is no sequence in time there can be no future. Similarly

where there is no space there can be no conception of anything as being at

a distance from us. When the elements of time and space are eliminated all

our ideas of things must necessarily be as subsisting in a universal here

and an everlasting now. This is, no doubt, a highly abstract conception,

but I would ask the student to endeavour to grasp it thoroughly, since it

is of vital importance in the practical application of Mental Science, as

will appear further on.

The opposite conception is that of things expressing themselves through

conditions of time and space and thus establishing a variety of _relations_

to other things, as of bulk, distance, and direction, or of sequence in

time. These two conceptions are respectively the conception of the abstract

and the concrete, of the unconditioned and the conditioned, of the absolute

and the relative. They are not opposed to each other in the sense of

incompatibility, but are each the complement of the other, and the only

reality is in the combination of the two. The error of the extreme idealist

is in endeavouring to realize the absolute without the relative, and the

error of the extreme materialist is in endeavouring to realize the relative

without the absolute. On the one side the mistake is in trying to realize

an inside without an outside, and on the other in trying to realize an

outside without an inside; both are necessary to the formation of a

substantial entity.

II.

THE HIGHER MODE OF INTELLIGENCE CONTROLS THE LOWER.

We have seen that the descent from personality, as we know it in ourselves,

to matter, as we know it under what we call inanimate forms, is a gradual

descent in the scale of intelligence from that mode of being which is able

to realize its own will-power as a capacity for originating new trains of

causation to that mode of being which is incapable of recognizing itself at

all. The higher the grade of life, the higher the intelligence; from which

it follows that the supreme principle of Life must also be the ultimate

principle of intelligence. This is clearly demonstrated by the grand

natural order of the universe. In the light of modern science the principle

of evolution is familiar to us all, and the accurate adjustment existing

between all parts of the cosmic scheme is too self-evident to need

insisting upon. Every advance in science consists in discovering new

subtleties of connection in this magnificent universal order, which already

exists and only needs our recognition to bring it into practical use. If,

then, the highest work of the greatest minds consists in nothing else than

the recognition of an already existing order, there is no getting away from

the conclusion that a paramount intelligence must be inherent in the

Life-Principle, which manifests itself _as_ this order; and thus we see

that there must be a great cosmic intelligence underlying the totality of

things.

The physical history of our planet shows us first an incandescent nebula

dispersed over vast infinitudes of space; later this condenses into a

central sun surrounded by a family of glowing planets hardly yet

consolidated from the plastic primordial matter; then succeed untold

millenniums of slow geological formation; an earth peopled by the lowest

forms of life, whether vegetable or animal; from which crude beginnings a

majestic, unceasing, unhurried, forward movement brings things stage by

stage to the condition in which we know them now. Looking at this steady

progression it is clear that, however we may conceive the nature of the

evolutionary principle, it unerringly provides for the continual advance of

the race. But it does this by creating such numbers of each kind that,

after allowing a wide margin for all possible accidents to individuals, the

race shall still continue:--

"So careful of the type it seems

So careless of the single life."

In short, we may say that the cosmic intelligence works by a Law of

Averages which allows a wide margin of accident and failure to the

individual.

But the progress towards higher intelligence is always in the direction of

narrowing down this margin of accident and taking the individual more and

more out of the law of averages, and substituting the law of individual

selection. In ordinary scientific language this is the survival of the

fittest. The reproduction of fish is on a scale that would choke the sea

with them if every individual survived; but the margin of destruction is

correspondingly enormous, and thus the law of averages simply keeps up the

normal proportion of the race. But at the other end of the scale,

reproduction is by no means thus enormously in excess of survival. True,

there is ample margin of accident and disease cutting off numbers of human

beings before they have gone through the average duration of life, but

still it is on a very different scale from the premature destruction of

hundreds of thousands as against the survival of one. It may, therefore, be

taken as an established fact that in proportion as intelligence advances

the individual ceases to be subject to a mere law of averages and has a

continually increasing power of controlling the conditions of his own

survival.

We see, therefore, that there is a marked distinction between the cosmic

intelligence and the individual intelligence, and that the factor which

differentiates the latter from the former is the presence of _individual_

volition. Now the business of Mental Science is to ascertain the relation

of this individual power of volition to the great cosmic law which provides

for the maintenance and advancement of the race; and the point to be

carefully noted is that the power of individual volition is itself the

outcome of the cosmic evolutionary principle at the point where it reaches

its highest level. The effort of Nature has always been upwards from the

time when only the lowest forms of life peopled the globe, and it has now

culminated in the production of a being with a mind capable of abstract

reasoning and a brain fitted to be the physical instrument of such a mind.

At this stage the all-creating Life-principle reproduces itself in a form

capable of recognizing the working of the evolutionary law, and the unity

and continuity of purpose running through the whole progression until now

indicates, beyond a doubt, that the place of such a being in the universal

scheme must be to introduce the operation of that factor which, up to this

point, has been, conspicuous by its absence--the factor, namely, of

intelligent individual volition. The evolution which has brought us up to

this standpoint has worked by a cosmic law of averages; it has been a

process in which the individual himself has not taken a conscious part. But

because he is what he is, and leads the van of the evolutionary procession,

if man is to evolve further, it can now only be by his own conscious

co-operation with the law which has brought him up to the standpoint where

he is able to realize that such a law exists. His evolution in the future

must be by conscious participation in the great work, and this can only be

effected by his own individual intelligence and effort. It is a process of

intelligent growth. No one else can grow for us: we must each grow for

ourselves; and this intelligent growth consists in our increasing

recognition of the universal law, which has brought us as far as we have

yet got, and of our own individual relation to that law, based upon the

fact that we ourselves are the most advanced product of it. It is a great

maxim that Nature obeys us precisely in proportion as we first obey Nature.

Let the electrician try to go counter to the principle that electricity

must always pass from a higher to a lower potential and he will effect

nothing; but let him submit in all things to this one fundamental law, and

he can make whatever particular applications of electrical power he will.

These considerations show us that what differentiates the higher from the

lower degree of intelligence is the recognition of its own self-hood, and

the more intelligent that recognition is, the greater will be the power.

The lower degree of self-recognition is that which only realizes itself as

an entity separate from all other entities, as the _ego_ distinguished from

the _non-ego_. But the higher degree of self-recognition is that which,

realizing its own spiritual nature, sees in all other forms, not so much

the _non-ego_, or that which is not itself, as the _alter-ego_, or that

which is itself in a different mode of expression. Now, it is this higher

degree of self-recognition that is the power by which the Mental Scientist

produces his results. For this reason it is imperative that he should

clearly understand the difference between Form and Being; that the one is

the mode of the relative and, the mark of subjection to conditions, and

that the other is the truth of the absolute and is that which controls

conditions.

Now this higher recognition of self as an individualization of pure spirit

must of necessity control all modes of spirit which have not yet reached

the same level of self-recognition. These lower modes of spirit are in

bondage to the law of their own being because they do not know the law;

and, therefore, the individual who has attained to this knowledge can

control them through that law. But to understand this we must inquire a

little further into the nature of spirit. I have already shown that the

grand scale of adaptation and adjustment of all parts of the cosmic scheme

to one another exhibits the presence _somewhere_ of a marvellous

intelligence, underlying the whole, and the question is, where is this

intelligence to be found? Ultimately we can only conceive of it as inherent

in some primordial substance which is the root of all those grosser modes

of matter which are known to us, whether visible to the physical eye, or

necessarily inferred by science from their perceptible effects. It is that

power which, in every species and in every individual, becomes that which

that species or individual is; and thus we can only conceive of it as a

self-forming intelligence inherent in the ultimate substance of which each

thing is a particular manifestation. That this primordial substance must be

considered as self-forming by an inherent intelligence abiding in itself

becomes evident from the fact that intelligence is the essential quality of

spirit; and if we were to conceive of the primordial substance as something

apart from spirit, then we should have to postulate some other power which

is neither spirit nor matter, and originates both; but this is only putting

the idea of a self-evolving power a step further back and asserting the

production of a lower grade of undifferentiated spirit by a higher, which

is both a purely gratuitous assumption and a contradiction of any idea we

can form of undifferentiated spirit at all. However far back, therefore, we

may relegate the original starting-point, we cannot avoid the conclusion

that, at that point, spirit contains the primary substance in itself, which

brings us back to the common statement that it made everything out of

nothing. We thus find two factors to the making of all things, Spirit

and--Nothing; and the addition of Nothing to Spirit leaves _only_ spirit:

x + 0 = x.

From these considerations we see that the ultimate foundation of every form

of matter is spirit, and hence that a universal intelligence subsists

throughout Nature inherent in every one of its manifestations. But this

cryptic intelligence does not belong to the particular _form_ excepting in

the measure in which it is physically fitted for its concentration into

self-recognizing individuality: it lies hidden in that primordial substance

of which the visible form is a grosser manifestation. This primordial

substance is a philosophical necessity, and we can only picture it to

ourselves as something infinitely finer than the atoms which are themselves

a philosophical inference of physical science: still, for want of a better

word, we may conveniently speak of this primary intelligence inherent in

the very substance of things as the Atomic Intelligence. The term may,

perhaps, be open to some objections, but it will serve our present purpose

as distinguishing _this_ mode of spirit's intelligence from that of the

opposite pole, or Individual Intelligence. This distinction should be

carefully noted because it is by the response of the atomic intelligence to

the individual intelligence that thought-power is able to produce results

on the material plane, as in the cure of disease by mental treatment, and

the like. Intelligence manifests itself by responsiveness, and the whole

action of the cosmic mind in bringing the evolutionary process from its

first beginnings up to its present human stage is nothing else but a

continual intelligent response to the demand which each stage in the

progress has made for an adjustment between itself and its environment.

Since, then, we have recognized the presence of a universal intelligence

permeating all things, we must also recognize a corresponding

responsiveness hidden deep down in their nature and ready to be called into

action when appealed to. All mental treatment depends on this

responsiveness of spirit in its lower degrees to higher degrees of itself.

It is here that the difference between the mental scientist and the

uninstructed person comes in; the former knows of this responsiveness and

makes use of it, and the latter cannot use it because he does not know it.

III

THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT.

We have now paved the way for understanding what is meant by "the unity of

the spirit." In the first conception of spirit as the underlying origin of

all things we see a universal substance which, at this stage, is not

differentiated into any specific forms. This is not a question of some

bygone time, but subsists at every moment of all time in the _innermost_

nature of all being; and when we see this, we see that the division between

one specific form and another has below it a deep essential unity, which

acts as the supporter of all the several forms of individuality arising out

of it. And as our thought penetrates deeper into the nature of this

all-producing spiritual substance we see that it cannot be limited to any

one portion of space, but must be limitless as space itself, and that the

idea of any portion of space where it is not is inconceivable. It is one of

those intuitive perceptions from which the human mind can never get away

that this primordial, all-generating living spirit must be commensurate

with infinitude, and we can therefore never think of it otherwise than as

universal or infinite. Now it is a mathematical truth that the infinite

must be a unity. You cannot have two infinites, for then neither would be

infinite, each would be limited by the other, nor can you split the

infinite up into fractions. The infinite is mathematically essential unity.

This is a point on which too much stress cannot be laid, for there follow

from it the most important consequences. Unity, as such, can be neither

multiplied nor divided, for either operation destroys the unity. By

multiplying, we produce a plurality of units of the same scale as the

original; and by dividing, we produce a plurality of units of a smaller

scale; and a plurality of units is not unity but multiplicity. Therefore if

we would penetrate below the outward nature of the individual to that

innermost principle of his being from which his individuality takes its

rise, we can do so only by passing beyond the conception of individual

existence into that of the unity of universal being. This may appear to be

a merely philosophical abstraction, but the student who would produce

practical results must realize that these abstract generalizations are the

foundation of the practical work he is going to do.

Now the great fact to be recognized about a unity is that, _because_ it is

a single unit, wherever it is at all the _whole_ of it must be. The moment

we allow our mind to wander off to the idea of extension in space and say

that one part of the unit is here and another there, we have descended from

the idea of unity into that of parts or fractions of a single unit, which

is to pass into the idea of a multiplicity of smaller units, and in that

case we are dealing with the relative, or the relation subsisting between

two or more entities which are therefore _limited by each other_, and so

have passed out of the region of simple unity which is the absolute. It is,

therefore, a mathematical necessity that, because the originating Life-

principle is infinite, it is a single unit, and consequently, wherever it

is at all, the _whole_ of it must be present. But because it is _infinite_,

or limitless, it is everywhere, and therefore it follows that the _whole_

of spirit must be present at every point in space at the same moment.

Spirit is thus omnipresent _in its entirety_, and it is accordingly

logically correct that at every moment of time _all_ spirit is concentrated

at any point in space that we may choose to fix our thought upon. This is

the fundamental fact of all being, and it is for this reason that I have

prepared the way for it by laying down the relation between spirit and

matter as that between idea and form, on the one hand the absolute from

which the elements of time and space are entirely absent, and on the other

the relative which is entirely dependent on those elements. This great fact

is that pure spirit continually subsists in the absolute, whether in a

corporeal body or not; and from it all the phenomena of being flow, whether

on the mental plane or the physical. The knowledge of this fact regarding

spirit is the basis of all conscious spiritual operation, and therefore in

proportion to our increasing recognition of it our power of producing

outward visible results by the action of our thought will grow. The whole

is greater than its part, and therefore, if, by our recognition of this

unity, we can concentrate _all_ spirit into any given point at any moment,

we thereby include any individualization of it that we may wish to deal

with. The practical importance of this conclusion is too obvious to need

enlarging upon.

Pure spirit is the Life-principle considered apart from the matrix in which

it takes relation to time and space in a particular form. In this aspect it

is pure intelligence undifferentiated into individuality. As pure

intelligence it is infinite responsiveness and susceptibility. As devoid of

relation to time and space it is devoid of individual personality. It is,

therefore, in this aspect a purely impersonal element upon which, by reason

of its inherent intelligence and susceptibility, we can impress any

recognition of personality that we will. These are the great facts that the

mental scientist works with, and the student will do well to ponder deeply

on their significance and on the responsibilities which their realization

must necessarily carry with it.

IV.

SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE MIND.

Up to this point it has been necessary to lay the foundations of the

science by the statement of highly abstract general principles which we

have reached by purely metaphysical reasoning. We now pass on to the

consideration of certain natural laws which have been established by a long

series of experiments and observations, the full meaning and importance of

which will become clear when we see their application to the general

principles which have hitherto occupied our attention. The phenomena of

hypnosis are now so fully recognized as established scientific facts that

it is quite superfluous to discuss the question of their credibility. Two

great medical schools have been founded upon them, and in some countries

they have become the subject of special legislation. The question before us

at the present day is, not as to the credibility of the facts, but as to

the proper inferences to be drawn from them, and a correct apprehension of

these inferences is one of the most valuable aids to the mental scientist,

for it confirms the conclusions of purely _a priori_ reasoning by an array

of experimental instances which places the correctness of those conclusions

beyond doubt.

The great truth which the science of hypnotism has brought to light is the

dual nature of the human mind. Much conflict exists between different

writers as to whether this duality results from the presence of two

actually separate minds in the one man, or in the action of the same mind

in the employment of different functions. This is one of those distinctions

without a difference which are so prolific a source of hindrance to the

opening out of truth. A man must be a single individuality to be a man at

all, and, so, the net result is the same whether we conceive of his varied

modes of mental action as proceeding from a set of separate minds strung,

so to speak, on the thread of his one individuality and each adapted to a

particular use, or as varied functions of a single mind: in either case we

are dealing with a single individuality, and how we may picture the

wheel-work of the mental mechanism is merely a question of what picture

will bring the nature of its action home to us most clearly. Therefore, as

a matter of convenience, I shall in these lectures speak of this dual

action as though it proceeded from two minds, an outer and an inner, and

the inner mind we will call the subjective mind and the outer the

objective, by which names the distinction is most frequently indicated in

the literature of the subject.

A long series of careful experiments by highly-trained observers, some of

them men of world-wide reputation, has fully established certain remarkable

differences between the action of the subjective and that of the objective

mind which may be briefly stated as follows. The subjective mind is only

able to reason _deductively_ and not inductively, while the objective mind

can do both. Deductive reasoning is the pure syllogism which shows why a

third proposition must necessarily result if two others are assumed, but

which does not help us to determine whether the two initial statements are

true or not. To determine this is the province of inductive reasoning which

draws its conclusions from the observation of a series of facts. The

relation of the two modes of reasoning is that, first by observing a

sufficient number of instances, we inductively reach the conclusion that a

certain principle is of general application, and then we enter upon the

deductive process by assuming the truth of this principle and determining

what result must follow in a particular case on the hypothesis of its

truth. Thus deductive reasoning proceeds on the assumption of the

correctness of certain hypotheses or suppositions with which it sets out:

it is not concerned with the truth or falsity of those suppositions, but

only with the question as to what results must necessarily follow supposing

them to be true. Inductive reasoning; on the other hand, is the process by

which we compare a number of separate instances with one another until we

see the common factor that gives rise to them all. Induction proceeds by

the comparison of facts, and deduction by the application of universal

principles. Now it is the deductive method only which is followed by the

subjective mind. Innumerable experiments on persons in the hypnotic state

have shown that the subjective mind is utterly incapable of making the

selection and comparison which are necessary to the inductive process, but

will accept any suggestion, however false, but having once accepted any

suggestion, it is strictly logical in deducing the proper conclusions from

it, and works out every suggestion to the minutest fraction of the results

which flow from it.

As a consequence of this it follows that the subjective mind is entirely

under the control of the objective mind. With the utmost fidelity it

reproduces and works out to its final consequences whatever the objective

mind impresses upon it; and the facts of hypnotism show that ideas can be

impressed on the subjective mind by the objective mind of another as well

as by that of its own individuality. This is a most important point, for it

is on this amenability to suggestion by the thought of another that all the

phenomena of healing, whether present or absent, of telepathy and the like,

depend. Under the control of the practised hypnotist the very personality

of the subject becomes changed for the time being; he believes himself to

be whatever the operator tells him he is: he is a swimmer breasting the

waves, a bird flying in the air, a soldier in the tumult of battle, an

Indian stealthily tracking his victim: in short, for the time being, he

identifies himself with any personality that is impressed upon him by the

will of the operator, and acts the part with inimitable accuracy. But the

experiments of hypnotism go further than this, and show the existence in

the subjective mind of powers far transcending any exercised by the

objective mind through the medium of the physical senses; powers of

thought-reading, of thought-transference, of clairvoyance, and the like,

all of which are frequently manifested when the patient is brought into the

higher mesmeric state; and we have thus experimental proof of the existence

in ourselves of transcendental faculties the full development and conscious

control of which would place us in a perfectly new sphere of life.

But it should be noted that the control must be _our own_ and not that of

any external intelligence whether in the flesh or out of it.

But perhaps the most important fact which hypnotic experiments have

demonstrated is that the subjective mind is the builder of the body. The

subjective entity in the patient is able to diagnose the character of the

disease from which he is suffering and to point out suitable remedies,

indicating a physiological knowledge exceeding that of the most highly

trained physicians, and also a knowledge of the correspondences between

diseased conditions of the bodily organs and the material remedies which

can afford relief. And from this it is but a step further to those numerous

instances in which it entirely dispenses with the use of material remedies

and itself works directly on the organism, so that complete restoration to

health follows as the result of the suggestions of perfect soundness made

by the operator to the patient while in the hypnotic state.

Now these are facts fully established by hundreds of experiments conducted

by a variety of investigators in different parts of the world, and from

them we may draw two inferences of the highest importance: one, that the

subjective mind is in itself absolutely impersonal, and the other that it

is the builder of the body, or in other words it is the creative power in

the individual. That it is impersonal in itself is shown by its readiness

to assume any personality the hypnotist chooses to impress upon it; and the

unavoidable inference is that its realization of personality proceeds from

its association with the particular objective mind of its own

individuality. Whatever personality the objective mind impresses upon it,

that personality it assumes and acts up to; and since it is the builder of

the body it will build up a body in correspondence with the personality

thus impressed upon it. These two laws of the subjective mind form the

foundation of the axiom that our body represents the aggregate of our

beliefs. If our fixed belief is that the body is subject to all sorts of

influences beyond our control, and that this, that, or the other symptom

shows that such an uncontrollable influence is at work upon us, then this

belief is impressed upon the subjective mind, which by the law of its

nature accepts it without question and proceeds to fashion bodily

conditions in accordance with this belief. Again, if our fixed belief is

that certain material remedies are the only means of cure, then we find in

this belief the foundation of all medicine. There is nothing unsound in the

theory of medicine; it is the strictly logical correspondence with the

measure of knowledge which those who rely on it are as yet able to

assimilate, and it acts accurately in accordance with their belief that in

a large number of cases medicine will do good, but also in many instances

it fails. Therefore, for those who have not yet reached a more interior

perception of the law of Nature, the healing agency of medicine is a most

valuable aid to the alleviation of physical maladies. The error to be

combated is not the belief that, in its own way, medicine is capable of

doing good, but the belief that there is no higher or better way.

Then, on the same principle, if we realize that the subjective mind is the

builder of the body, and that the body is subject to no influences except

those which reach it through the subjective mind, then what we have to do

is to impress _this_ upon the subjective mind and habitually think of it as

a fountain of perpetual Life, which is continually renovating the body by

building in strong and healthy material, in the most complete independence

of any influences of any sort, save those of our own desire impressed upon

our own subjective mind by our own thought. When once we fully grasp these

considerations we shall see that it is just as easy to externalize healthy

conditions of body as the contrary. Practically the process amounts to a

belief in our own power of life; and since this belief, if it be thoroughly

domiciled within us, will necessarily produce a correspondingly healthy

body, we should spare no pains to convince ourselves that there are sound

and reasonable grounds for holding it. To afford a solid basis for this

conviction is the purpose of Mental Science.

V.

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE MIND.

An intelligent consideration of the phenomena of hypnotism will show us

that what we call the hypnotic state is the _normal_ state of the

subjective mind. It _always_ conceives of itself in accordance with some

suggestion conveyed to it, either consciously or unconsciously to the mode

of objective mind which governs it, and it gives rise to corresponding

external results. The abnormal nature of the conditions induced by

experimental hypnotism is in the removal of the normal control held by the

individual's own objective mind over his subjective mind and the

substitution of some other control for it, and thus we may say that the

normal characteristic of the subjective mind is its perpetual action in

accordance with some sort of suggestion. It becomes therefore a question of

the highest importance to determine in every case what the nature of the

suggestion shall be and from what source it shall proceed; but before

considering the sources of suggestion we must realize more fully the place

taken by subjective mind in the order of Nature.

If the student has followed what has been said regarding the presence of

intelligent spirit pervading all space and permeating all matter, he will

now have little difficulty in recognizing this all-pervading spirit as

universal subjective mind. That it cannot _as universal mind_ have the

qualities of objective mind is very obvious. The universal mind is the

creative power throughout Nature; and as the originating power it must

first give rise to the various _forms_ in which objective mind recognizes

its own individuality, before these individual minds can re-act upon it;

and hence, as pure spirit or _first cause_, it cannot possibly be anything

else than subjective mind; and the fact which has been abundantly proved by

experiment that the subjective mind is the builder of the body shows us

that the power of creating by growth from within is the essential

characteristic of the subjective mind. Hence, both from experiment and from

_a priori_ reasoning, we may say that where-ever we find creative power at

work there we are in the presence of subjective mind, whether it be working

on the grand scale of the cosmos, or on the miniature scale of the

individual. We may therefore lay it down as a principle that the universal

all-permeating intelligence, which has been considered in the second and

third sections, is purely subjective mind, and therefore follows the law of

subjective mind, namely that it is amenable to any suggestion, and will

carry out any suggestion that is impressed upon it to its most rigorously

logical consequences. The incalculable importance of this truth may not

perhaps strike the student at first sight, but a little consideration will

show him the enormous possibilities that are stored up in it, and in the

concluding section I shall briefly touch upon the very serious conclusions

resulting from it. For the present it will be sufficient to realize that

the subjective mind in ourselves is _the same_ subjective mind which is at

work throughout the universe giving rise to the infinitude of natural forms

with which we are surrounded, and in like manner giving rise _to ourselves

also_. It may be called the supporter of our individuality; and we may

loosely speak of our individual subjective mind as our personal share in

the universal mind. This, of course, does not imply the splitting up of the

universal mind into fractions, and it is to avoid this error that I have

discussed the essential unity of spirit in the third section, but in order

to avoid too highly abstract conceptions in the present stage of the

student's progress we may conveniently employ the idea of a personal share

in the universal subjective mind.

To realize our individual subjective mind in this manner will help us to

get over the great metaphysical difficulty which meets us in our endeavour

to make conscious use of first cause, in other words to create external

results by the power of our own thought. Ultimately there can be only one

first cause which is the universal mind, but because it is universal it

cannot, _as universal_, act on the plane of the individual and particular.

For it to do so would be for it to cease to be universal and therefore

cease to be the creative power which we wish to employ. On the other hand,

the fact that we are working for a specific definite object implies our

intention to use this universal power in application to a particular

purpose, and thus we find ourselves involved in the paradox of seeking to

make the universal act on the plane of the particular. We want to effect a

junction between the two extremes of the scale of Nature, the innermost

creative spirit and a particular external form. Between these two is a

great gulf, and the question is how is it to be bridged over. It is here,

then, that the conception of our individual subjective mind as our personal

share in the universal subjective mind affords the means of meeting the

difficulty, for on the one hand it is in immediate connection with the

universal mind, and on the other it is immediate connection with the

individual objective, or intellectual mind; and this in its turn is in

immediate connection with the world of externalization, which is

conditioned in time and space; and thus the relation between the subjective

and objective minds in the individual forms the bridge which is needed to

connect the two extremities of the scale.

The individual subjective mind may therefore be regarded as the organ of

the Absolute in precisely the same way that the objective mind is the organ

of the Relative, and it is in order to regulate our use of these two organs

that it is necessary to understand what the terms "absolute" and "relative"

actually mean. The absolute is that idea of a thing which contemplates it

as existing _in itself_ and not in relation to something else, that is to

say, which contemplates the essence of it; and the relative is that idea of

a thing which contemplates it as related to other things, that is to say as

circumscribed by a certain environment. The absolute is the region of

causes, and the relative is the region of conditions; and hence, if we wish

to control conditions, this can only be done by our thought-power operating

on the plane of the absolute, which it can do only through the medium of

the subjective mind. The conscious use of the creative power of thought

consists in the attainment of the power of Thinking in the Absolute, and

this can only be attained by a clear conception of the interaction between

our different mental functions. For this purpose the student cannot too

strongly impress upon himself that subjective mind, on whatever scale, is

intensely sensitive to suggestion, and as creative power works accurately

to the externalization of that suggestion which is most deeply impressed

upon it. If then, we would take any idea out of the realm of the relative,

where it is limited and restricted by conditions imposed upon it through

surrounding circumstances, and transfer it to the realm of the absolute

where it is not thus limited, a right recognition of our mental

constitution will enable us to do this by a clearly defined method.