LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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