THE LIFE PRINCIPLE YIELDS ITS POWER

THE LIFE PRINCIPLE YIELDS ITS POWER TO MAN IN PROPORTION AS MAN COMES INTO AN INTELLECTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF IT: THERE IS NO LIMIT TO THE SUPPLY: THERE NEED BE NO LIMIT TO THE DEMAND.

DESIRE, just as we all recognise it in ourselves and others a hundred times a day, is the Principle of Attraction in its external expression through all things—plants, animals and man.

Desires increase with increasing intelligence; hence, man has more and more varied desires than any life below him; and his desires will constantly increase in numbers and daring as he goes on gaining ideas and working out the possibilities contained in the Principle of Attraction.

As these possibilities are unlimited, man's power gets to be unlimited also, in proportion as he becomes consciously, or intelligently, one with the Life Principle, which he does by learning his relation to it.

The race, as it stands today, has almost no recognition of the truths I am trying to make apparent to the reader. It has made for itself a personal God, on whom it has bestowed such powers as its limited intelligence has been able to suggest. But even from this God it has divorced itself in belief, and has devised various ways of becoming one with Him.

It is a little singular how close an approach this comes to the true saving thought. Theology believes the race to be separated from God, and that it must make the atonement (at-one-ment) with Him before it can be saved; before it can become whole or "holy."

Its mistake is in supposing that God is a person; what theologians call God is really the Principle of Attraction, which runs through all things and is impersonal, and truly omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, which it is beyond the power of a personal being to be, no matter how great a God He is.

Theology declares that man has to make a conjunction with its God, by prayers, in order to be saved. Science says that a man must make a conjunction with the Principle of Attraction, through an understanding of it and of his relation to it, in order to be saved. Theology goes no further in the matter than the prospective saving of the soul. Science declares that, through an intelligent recognition of the truth, the body can be saved.

There is a close resemblance in these two plans; no doubt the first is a foreshadowing of the second.

But I must speak further of the God of theology. If anyone doubts that He was the creation of an infant race, he has but to examine His character in order to believe it. In what I am saying I wish to appeal to the reason of the reader; and I ask him to put aside his inherited prejudices and think for himself. He will probably consider me irreverent in much that I say, simply because he will not reason, but prefers to cling to the foolish beliefs of a dead past, and die with these beliefs, rather than to think for himself upon lines of truth that are new to him.

With regard to a personal God, what but a baby race could imagine that a great being would be pleased with an unfailing stream of obsequious praise, poured constantly into His listening ears? What but a baby race could suppose that this unbroken deluge of flattery was a necessity to the happiness of a great being, or that it would turn the tide of His wrath away from the unfortunate wretches He had made, apparently on purpose to curse, if they failed to render Him the proper amount of praise?

That this personal God was the creation of the half-civilised chieftains of a semi-barbarous race is to be seen by its resemblance to its creators. The chieftains loved power and praise and spoils, and were unmerciful to those who refused to yield to their demands. The God they invented was no larger than themselves. No men can create a God larger than themselves. Having made a God in their own likeness and of their own size, they supplemented His deficiency by giving Him some supernatural power, either to destroy or bless. And this, with some improvements due to the growth of the race, is the God of theology at this time. Is it any wonder that theology is alarmed at the falling away from the creeds? It surely has a right to be.

It is because the word "God" does really mean, in the eyes of the public, just what I have described that I cannot use it to express my meaning. If the word was universally accepted as meaning the Principle of Attraction that runs through, and infuses with life, every atom in the universe, I would use it. But there are only a few who give it this meaning.

To be divorced from this personal God, if such a being could exist, would be no great disaster. Indeed, the race would be better off without Him than with Him.

But to be divorced from the universal spirit of life—the Principle of Attraction—would be instant annihilation. On the other hand, to know more of the Principle of Attraction than we know now would be to have more life, more health, more strength, more intelligence, more beauty, more opulence. Or rather, it would be to be these things, instead of having them. To mental creatures, such as we become by our conjunction with the Life Principle through our ability to recognise it, knowing more is being more.

The crying want of the race is a remedy for present conditions of sickness, poverty, the feebleness of old age, and death. The whole strength of my effort in writing is to furnish a clue to this remedy. Now is the time to be saved. Tomorrow will not only bring its own needs, but its own remedies.

The great and comprehensive statement of Mental Science is this: Man is conjoined to the eternal Life Principle. He is that principle its very self in objectivity; and in proportion as he becomes intellectually conscious of this, the greatest of all truths, he finds an unfailing supply to all his needs, and grows constantly more and more into a knowledge of his own mastery.

We are manifestations of the unchanging Life Principle; of the Universal Spirit of Being: the inextinguishable "I AM." This hidden fund of vital power is the internal man. Man is the external of it. And the seeming two are one. Whoever sees this truth and believes it perfectly has made the atonement—the at-one-ment—and he can proceed in the road of eternal knowing until he has conquered every disability in life—disease, weakness, old age, poverty and death.

When the race understands the truth I have just made plain, it will appreciate its own dignity and worth and power; and then there will be no more trouble, no more shedding of tears, no more poverty or sorrow, no more anxiety or fear. We shall know that we are one with the deathless, diseaseless, opulent Life Principle, and that our progression through the realms of the universe will be by constantly knowing more and more of the power of the principle which is the vital spark within us.

A condensed expression of the ideas I have been giving you would read as follows: There is but one substance; this substance is both seen and unseen. On the unseen side it is the Universal Principle of Attraction; on the seen side it is intelligence, or mind, falsely called dead matter.

All nature is but the comprehension or the understanding of the Principle of Attraction. All nature is intelligence in a myriad varying shades of recognition of the power of the Life Principle. Intelligence is not to be confounded with the words soul or spirit, for intelligence is substance; the substance that is mistakenly called dead matter. It is a thing to be seen and handled and smelled and tasted. All of the so-called matter in the universe is intelligence or mind; it is not dead; it thinks. It is the recognition of the Law of Attraction inherent in all things. That which recognises is intelligence; it may be called brain; it is a particled substance, and all the visible things are made of it; and it is not dead.

The Life Principle yields its power to man in proportion as man comes into an intellectual understanding of it. There is no limit as to the supply one may receive. There need be no limit to anyone's demand.

All growth is by desire. In the animal desire seems not to soar away from the body, but to be expressed in it and through it. Thus, the little amoeba, which is but a tiny drop of protoplasm, becomes hungry. It floats in the water, and, in coming in contact with some other form of life which will serve it as food, it folds its body about it, holding it enclosed as one might hold an acorn in his hand. When it has absorbed the nutriment it unfolds its body, and allows the residue to fall out, as one would open one's hand to let the acorn fall.

The amoeba has neither mouth, hands, feet, eyes, ears, nor anything resembling a digestive system; but it has a desire for food. In a higher organisation, to which it would seem that the desire of this little creature had ascended, the demand increases, and the result of this increased demand is a compulsion upon nature to furnish it with a better digestive system. So it, or the desire within it, evolves to higher and still higher forms of life, growing stronger in its demands with each upward step—calling louder, and yet louder, upon nature for better means of supplying its desires, until it comes to possess not only a digestive system, but eyes to see its prey, olfactory nerves to smell it, ears to hear it, feet to run after it, and claws to capture it.

All this is the development of use, through blind and unconscious desire. It is by this kind of development that the body of the man has been built, and his brain ripened to his present plane of intelligence.

But he may stand at this point till the crack of doom, and be nothing more than the animal man, unless he begins to make his brain serve him in his farther development. It was at this point that the characters of the Old Testament stopped. They were a splendid type of men on the unconscious plane of growth, but they had not advanced to the conscious plane; that plane where men can shape their lives as they please through their reasoning power. And no man can conquer disease and death until he arrives at this point in development.

The moment man's brain begins to serve him in a reasoning capacity he is passing out of the domain of unconscious, unreasoning or blind growth into the realm of conscious or reasoning growth.

There was never a time during the period of man's unconscious growth when he could have escaped the penalty of unconscious life, which is death.

Desire is the infusing principle of man, and of all things below him. Desire is the Principle of Attraction drawn to organisation through recognition.

All desire points to the attainment of more light, more life, more intelligence, whether the creature that projects the desire is conscious of it or not. A man may think he desires nothing but wealth; but it is not so; his desire is surely pointing beyond wealth to the high knowledge that will redeem him from all his disabilities.

The upward struggle of the immortal mind is always from darkness to light; from ignorance to intelligence; from death to life. The animals have desired this light and intelligence and life unconsciously, and their desire has met with ready response; their aspirations have been answered; gradually the principle of desire, as expressed individually in the lower order of creatures, has lifted all expressions of life from low to higher until man is here as the highest of all.

How does it happen that man is so in the dark concerning himself?

To answer this question will be to go over a good deal that has already been said. But this matter is so new in public thought, and so difficult to understand, that I must repeat many things again and again, even though I violate all literary precedent. I am not trying to do brilliant writing; I am trying to make the greatest idea that ever came into the world so plain that everyone who reads may understand. I know that this idea is true, and that it embraces the salvation of the race here, in the world where we live; and how can I attach importance to the manner in which I communicate it? I have tried to systematise the subject so as to avoid repetition, but it is too big; I can only handle it in detached masses. The reader will have to connect the parts as the entire argument becomes familiar to him or her.

My question, "How does it happen that man is so in the dark concerning himself?" will at least take the subject from a different standpoint and help to make it clearer.

It is because man was not created a perfect creature; it is because his individual existence is of a comparatively short duration; it is because he is a growth that is still growing, and has not yet attained the full stature of the truly wise man.

Man has created himself little by little all through the ages. Always latent in the Principle of Attraction as a possibility, yet there was a time when two or three atoms—tiny points of recognition impelled by desire—came together and formed the beginning of his personality. These points of intelligence being fused into one, became a magnet of greater potency than the single magnets or atoms around them, and as a centre of attraction had more power to draw others to themselves; and individual growth commenced.

The tiny creature thus begun kept on growing all the time, both internally and externally, as its desires increased. The more it recognised as needful to its use the more effort it put forth. Its trust in the Principle of Attraction was not clouded by doubt as man's is. Doubt is one of the firstfruits of reason, and reason had not yet arrived. Doubt came later and did all it could do to kill desire and to destroy the individual life; but the refining intellect of the constantly developing creature reached the stage of clearer perception, and grew out of the doubt that kills into the faith that cures.

The basis of all growth is desire. Desire is the unacknowledged factor in the evolution of man. It is the "corner stone" which the builders have rejected.

The Life Principle in man has only one mode of expression, only one voice; it is the voice of desire. It is the feeling of some want. It is, as it were, the projection of a little voice that cries, "More," "more!"

The mighty power of this tiny voice—not loud, but never relaxing its insistence—has proved more magical than the enchanted wand, even in its first faint, almost inaudible cry. A mere speck, invisible through the most powerful microscope; an almost infinitesimal drop of protoplasm, perhaps, yet so much incarnate desire, and crying for food; crying for a more enlarged life; a wider comprehension of truth—the little voice reaching upward and expanding outward, and the very universe stooping to fill the baby mouth, as it always stoops in beneficent motherhood to the demand of desire.

The first life that sent out its cry for "more," "more," became a standing demand upon the infinite life, and the supply was equal to the demand; is always equal to all demand, when the demand is accompanied by faith.

All through the period of unconscious growth the little beginners of life never lost faith in the mother. Such intelligence as they possessed never once suggested the idea of curtailing their demands or of crucifying their desires. To crush their desires was to crush their lives.

Desire is the Law of Attraction individualised in the creature. In other words, the Principle of Attraction expresses itself individually in desire. The Principle of Attraction becomes clothed upon by the recognition of the creature, and individuality is the result.

So the desire in a man is the deathless principle in him; it is the Principle of Attraction drawn to cohesion by his recognition or understanding.

A belief in our desires is necessary to insure their manifestation on the external plane.

All through the period of our unconscious or unreasoning growth we did not question our desires; we obeyed them; we yielded them a blind obedience, and what was the result? Why this, that desire was drawn forth to organisation until the tiny drop of protoplasm had created itself a digestive system, and a most complex and beautiful form, adapted to every possible emergency. Speaking from a mechanical standpoint, desire, which we will say corresponds to steam, had built itself a splendid engine, and even an engineer (the brain) that was to direct the engine. But the engineer at first did not know his duty, and for thousands of years he has been trying to learn it. It has taken him all this time to get acquainted with his engine and the power that propels it.

As it is man's highest privilege to make mistakes, since it is the only way he has of learning how not to make them, his first mistake was to imagine that his propelling power—the steam in his boiler, his desire—was a dangerous foe, and to endeavour to repress it.

"I must crucify my desire," was the first exclamation he made upon becoming conscious of its presence. "Desire is the devil," shouted the voice of the clergy for two thousand years; and numberless monasteries were built in whose seclusion it was easy to crucify desire; easy to dam up the Principle of Attraction in the man and prevent it from flowing forth.

It is a matter of history how even kings and princes voluntarily submitted to whipping on the bare back as a penalty for having entertained desire. Desire was the inveterate foe of the race. Desire was the serpent in Eden that tempted Eve. Put it this way, and let us see how that fable stands.

Let us say that the Garden of Eden was man's condition of unconscious or unreasoning growth; it was that early condition in which he conformed to the demands of his animal being unquestioningly. There was never a conscientious scruple to trouble him in the gratification of his wants; his life, though on the animal or unreasoning plane, was whole in itself; no side feeling ever pulled him from the path of his leading inclination; he devoured other animals without compunction; he regretted nothing; consequently he was in a condition of ease, or repose.

This was the animal Eden; it was man's condition before his reasoning faculties were awakened to vex him with questions he could not answer, and to arouse his doubts concerning many things. In this Eden he did not work for a living; he lived off what came to his hand. But Eve, the intuitional part of man, whose desires reached upward into aspiration, partook of the tree of knowledge in the midst of the garden, and her eyes were opened so that she knew good from evil.

Here came to the race the first faint intimation of the existence of a principle of justice, and this feeling kept growing until it gradually brought some illumination to the dull intellect, and pushed conditions to a higher level. Thus was the animalised life broken into. Life and its relations assumed a moral aspect, and the first Eden, the Eden of unthinking animal ease, had disappeared. Men began to labour for their bread; their growing brains projected new questions for solution, and these questions were answered by the faint light of such intelligence as they had; and false beliefs—beliefs in their own weakness and helplessness—were the result. They were intellectually weak and their opinions were weak also.

In the old Eden only the brute instinct was recognised; this instinct was devoid of conscience. But the mother love for the child, and, farther on, the mother sympathy for other mothers, interposed a check. Eve has always moulded Adam. Her tenderer nature has constantly stood at the portals of his more robust intelligence, and when he saw her as she really was he saw that she had the apple in her hand. She had eaten first of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and she begged him to eat. He did so, and the primitive Eden of animal content was closed to the race forever.

They went forth (if I may pursue the fable) to learn the lesson of how to attain another Eden—that Eden in which they shall have conquered all the "curses" they were doomed to pass through, and become masters over them.

These curses were only curses in name; they were blessings in disguise, because they were experiences that strengthened the intellect of man, and made him a more powerful creature. He began to conquer the earth, and his conquests demonstrated his own power of mastery to himself. He began to get an idea of his own strength and ability; he began to trust himself more, and to lean less on the imaginary God that he had previously been leaning on; the God upon whom he had leaned for thousands of years before finding out that there was no help to be obtained from Him; that the only help a man could have, had to be evolved out of his own creativeness.

This is the great lesson he has been so many centuries in extracting from his experiences. These experiences have seemed very hard to him; the more so because he did not know what they were for. Hundreds of generations he waded through them, finding life to be little more than the Slough of Despond, and never learning any better during the term of his earthly existence.

The race was gradually improving, but it almost seemed as if it was at the expense of the individual, whose sufferings were building a foundation of hope for it in the future.

And all of this gradual growth was by the increasing desire or aspirations of the people for something better than they had known.

Desire is the unacknowledged factor in personal growth.

But is not desire a selfish thing?

It certainly appears to be a selfish thing, but self is the basis of individual existence, and selfishness must continue in the individual until an understanding of high truth comes to him. Then, by degrees, from selfishness is evolved selfhood, and, with this more intelligent form of selfishness there proceeds a gradually growing sense of justice that modifies the injurious effects of primordial selfishness.

As the intelligence grows, the selfish principle, without ever ceasing to be the principle of self, ceases to manifest its power on the animal plane. Growth in knowledge eventually makes all things right.

Selfishness is the basis of individualism. Perhaps I had better say "self," instead of "selfishness," for in the long run this word self is the proper one. But let it go; let the word selfishness remain, and let it stand in its blackest colours until the explanation comes that will convert it into an angel of light.

Self or selfishness is the basis of individualism; and individualism is the one potent fact that stands head and shoulders above every other fact, except that great and inclusive truth, that the Law of Attraction exists and fills all space, being absolutely omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, and that mind or intelligence is the visible expression of it.

Individualism, then, is the interpreter of the Law of Attraction; and the Law might as well not exist as not to have the interpreter, who has the wisdom to render its power apparent on the external side of life.

Individualism is, therefore, the necessity of the Law; and, while it begins in a grade of intelligence so low as to be rightly called ignorance, instead of intelligence, yet, like everything else, it grows out of its narrow bounds until it sees in its neighbour another self, and one similar to the self it finds in its own body; and its brain goes to work to bring forth an adjustment that culminates, first, in a sense of justice, and later still, in the lovingness that is to become the breath of the new life in the whole race. This change from what appears to be the very fiend of individuality to the God-man, with supernal powers, both to do and to love, is a mere matter of growth through the acquisition of knowledge.

Every living creature, no matter how selfish or ignoble it may appear to be, is an interpreter of the Law of Attraction; it is the spoken word of the Life Principle. Wherever the Life Principle speaks, it utters but one word, and that word is the indivisible "I."

And so man's selfishness, or what appears to be selfishness, is based upon the fact that he is the spoken word of that universal spirit of life which is the Grand Unit or Universe, and which cannot speak a word that would invalidate its wholeness; a word that is less than "I."

And thus it is that every man, and everything on its way up toward man, is a unit and only knows one word; only knows and recognises the "I." This is imputed to him as selfishness, and is selfishness, until knowledge comes to correct his mistakes and to justify him in his self-love.

So it is now seen how man is the representative of all. "Man is a microcosm," said one who was beginning to see the light. "Man is a macrocosm," said another, who saw far and away over the head of the other.

Man is a macrocosm because he is nothing less than a universe. This is the fact he must learn; it is in learning this fact that he will know that he is no longer under the dominion of disease and death.

I have written much of the Principle of Attraction, and how it is expressed in the individual as desire; often as desire of an intensely selfish character; but I have now justified it by showing its origin. As life proceeds, a better word may be substituted for desire—a word that will seem to draw atoms into closer relationship with each other: that word is Love.

With every step in evolution from lower to higher, our desires become not only more numerous, more complex and varied, but they also become stronger and warmer. They are felt to be the moving spirit of every action, as, indeed, they ought to be, for they are nothing less than the voice of the one eternal Life Principle, that for all these years men have supposed to be a personal God.

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MAN'S DESTINY IS ALWAYS IN HIS OWN HANDS

MAN'S DESTINY IS ALWAYS IN HIS OWN HANDS: AND HE MAY SHAPE HIS FUTURE AS HE PLEASES.

THERE is only one attracting power; it is the Life Principle. It is the same in essence in the horse-shoe magnet and in the mother's yearning for her child. It is this same thing that brings lovers together in marriage, and partners in business. It is a hidden motor to every movement that ever was made, unintelligent movements no less than intelligent ones. It is this that draws the moisture out of the earth on which the tree feeds, and the substance out of the sun's rays with which it colours itself in beauty.

The Principle of Attraction accounts for all things and is responsible for all things. Being perfect, it is, therefore, unchangeable. It is the spirit of vitality in man, and in the flowers and beasts, and it has but one voice—the voice of desire, and the voice speaks for just one thing; it speaks for happiness.

The methods by which man pursues happiness may be just or unjust. The desire which is the Principle of Attraction has nothing to do with his methods. The desire exists, and this is all. The desire is the vitalising spirit in the man; it is his true, pure, unsinning self. The methods by which he attempts to actualise his desires have, in the main, proved to be mistakes; and these mistakes, forming his personality, are expressed not only in his individual character, but in his body. The greatest mistake man has ever made is to attribute his mistakes to the Divine Spirit of desire within him, when nothing was wrong but his limited intelligence. It is because he has made this vital mistake that he has spent ages in crucifying his desires, instead of cultivating his intelligence, concerning their gratification. What he now needs to do is to learn the immense importance of his desires, and to seek just and humane methods of gratifying them.

In proportion as he sees the strength and importance of his own desires, he will see the strength and importance of his neighbour's desires; and as desire is pure love drawn from the infinite Principle of Attraction, he will hold his neighbour's desires as sacredly as he holds his own; and so justice will be enthroned among men. Justice, that factor which harmonises all influences and in the end produces heaven on earth, can never be born of anything but man's recognition of the noble character of desire; for when man recognises desire he recognises love, and love is the Principle of Attraction in individual manifestation. So when man recognises desire within himself and understands its origin and meaning, he will have found his own moving spirit, and he will see its relation to the infinite Life Principle. He will also see that every step of his growth, from his first inception, has been by the greater and still greater recognition of this living spirit of vitality within him; and that his farther growth, all through eternity, will depend upon the still increasing power of his intelligence to recognise more, and yet more, of the vital Love Principle within him as expressed by desire.

If this and similar statements have made their proper impression upon the reader, he or she will perceive how it is that man, as to his personality, is simply intelligence or mind; and how the whole visible universe is mind in different degrees of unfoldment; and he/she will also see from this fact how it is that man's destiny is entirely in his own hands, and always has been, though he did not know it. He or she may see, too, how from this point he/she may begin to do their own growing.

Since man as to his personality, and this is the visible part of himself, is altogether intelligence or mind, it therefore follows that the more truth he possesses the more he shows forth; the truth being that the Principle of Attraction is the one diseaseless and deathless thing, and that this Principle of Attraction is the true self within him—his untrue or false self being the mistaken estimate he has placed upon his true self.

As man's intelligence is expressed in thought, which shapes itself into beliefs, his body or his personality is made up of his beliefs. A man shows forth his beliefs in his person. Knowing this to be so, Jesus spoke that wonderfully condensed sentence, the most comprehensive sentence ever yet spoken, "As a man believes, so is he." When he believes error he shows forth error, or incarnates error in his personality (his body). As error cannot endure, it therefore follows that unless the man corrects his erroneous beliefs his personality (body) will fall away from him. All sickness and weakness and deformity are the effects resultant from our beliefs, and end in the complete dissolution of the body, unless saving knowledge comes in time to arrest them.

It is an undeniable fact that, in spite of the improved condition of the world, its better sanitary influence and better food, its fewer hours of labour and its greater spread of books, diseases are multiplying all the time, and that lives seem to perish more easily and with less apparent cause than ever before. This is because the new light is dawning more and more clearly, and the old consolidated beliefs of a hundred ages are losing their hold upon the people, before the new knowledge has come in such power as will save them.

Because of this fact the most intelligent of the world's physicians have lost faith in medicine and stand aghast at their own helplessness. Many of them have retired from practice from motives of pure conscientiousness.

To repeat my ideas of desire—for I can never make this point too strong—the basis of all growth is desire. Indeed, the Principle of Attraction itself, that one and only principle on which every external manifestation of life depends, is desire; and desire is love in expression or externalisation; love seeking and attracting that which is related to it.

All growth of the individual, therefore, is effected through desire, and desire is the motor power of every effort; and external life means effort, and has no other object but effort exerted in the direction of happiness. The secret of the steel magnet is desire, and, no doubt, the entire universal system of planets is regulated and sustained in equipoise through this great factor alone.

The words desire and love are almost synonymous. Both are love; but, while love seems to be quiescent, desire appears to be the reaching forth or the yearning of love, or love in motion, reaching out after an object.

Man, in his growth, has nothing to do with the Life Principle, or the one vitality. That is to say, no effort of his can add to it or take from it. It exists independent of him. It simply IS. His prerogative is confined exclusively to the recognition of it; to the getting of a large enough perception of its greatness, or a big enough estimate of it, and of his connection with it.

It is so mighty a power that human intelligence has but the faintest fraction of an idea concerning it, and yet this majestic power is within the individual in indescribable greatness. It is the force within a man that actuates every movement he makes.

To connect the belief of sin, disease and death with this ever-flowing, eternal potency is an absurdity, and yet our minds, in ignorance of this mighty truth, have done this thing, and in this way have given to the external world our weak, wretched personalities, that are standing libels on our real selves, the great and undying possibilities within us.

This Principle of Attraction and love which manifests itself in numberless desires in the man is the real man. It is the universal spirit of life focused to expression; an up-springing jet from that one unquenchable force which men have called God. The infusing Life Principle within a man is a power all his own, which has been drawn to coherence or personal comprehension out from the same source that sends the world spinning through space in obedience to its unerring law, and it is as great, as unconquerable, as its source.

This mighty creature, then, is the real man; is the true individual; he is the Principle of Attraction individualised. Jesus saw this whole truth, and when they asked him, "Art thou God?" hoping he would condemn himself by his answer, he could not deny it, even though he knew they were ignorant of his meaning, and would probably murder him for the truth he spoke.

For my part, I think I can say, without boasting, that I am rapidly growing to the point in intelligence where I can understand such a man, for instance, as Mohammed, a man who lived comparatively alone with himself, and who studied himself until he gained a perception of his own greatness; gained a constantly growing perception of the power within him, until, looking at it in some supreme moment, he could not restrain his convictions of truth, but cried in exaltation, "Surely I am God."

There are days when it is as easy for me to believe this of myself, and of every living soul, as it is to believe ourselves men and women. Mohammed's mistake was in believing the stupendous fact of himself only, whereas he should have seen that all are gods in the same sense that he was.

Jesus said as much when he quoted Psalm 82:6 saying, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, Ye are gods?' If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; why say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?".

The difference of seeing for ourselves alone, and of seeing for ourselves and all others equally, is the difference between injustice and justice, or between hell and heaven. To see within others the same sinless spirit of life that we see within ourselves is to abrogate those lines of inequality we have considered as race fixtures, and to liberate every living soul to the freedom of the infinite possibility of growth. This wipes out hell in every one of its varied forms, and establishes the harmony of an acknowledged and deeply understood fraternal equality. Your desire for happiness is as sacred as my desire, and my desire is as sacred as yours. When we shall learn the binding claim of desire through knowing that it is the voice of infinite wisdom within us, it will become the most loving pleasure of our lives to help each other to actualise it.

I have made much of the word "recognition," and no wonder; for the word means nothing less than the Principle of Attraction in external expression. It means vitality as showing forth in nature. Recognition and all of its kindred words, such as intelligence, mind, thought, are synonymous, and the mental word which harmonises with them is light. Intelligence, mind, recognition—this is all there is of nature. It is all there is of man so far as his visible life is concerned, and his visible life is the only matter of vital importance to him, because it is that side of him from which the activities he delights in are projected; the side from which all his happiness comes; the side that makes room for his effort.

What does it matter that the Life Principle exists, unless there are creatures to recognise and make use of it? Recognition of the Life Principle is as important as the Life Principle itself. Man is God's necessity quite as much as God is man's necessity; which is to say, that without expression of itself the Life Principle cannot exist. Let us, then, stop belittling ourselves, since in doing this we belittle the eternal Principle of Life.

It has often been said that a man's estimate of God was a measure of his own size, and this is true. It explains many things in the popular theologies that are, otherwise, inexplicable; for instance, the little, revengeful and jealous character so many men attach to their personal God, making Him not much larger than the heathen idol whose worship they condemn so loudly.

"God and man are one," which means that man is one with the Principle of Attraction that animates all nature, all things. On the invisible side of life that one is the Principle of Attraction; on the visible side it is nature, with man as its head; and visible man is the great fact that concerns us now. The Principle of Attraction forever is. We can do nothing for it; but we, on the visible side, are growing creatures, and we grow by a recognition of the infallible character of the Principle of Attraction. There is no more limit to growing than there is a limit to the omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of the Life Principle itself. Therefore, it is man you have to deal with in this external life, which will always be external to us, and which is of infinite importance. Let us not, therefore, belittle it, or belittle him and his desires connected with it.

Each individual "I" is forever the centre of the universe to himself. All things exist for the "I," even the Life Principle. Without the "I" the Life Principle would exist in vain. Man and the Life Principle are forever reciprocal in interchange. Life exists, the one unquenchable fire of divine passion. Man recognises this passion, and by reason of recognition becomes its unquenchable expression, forever growing in brightness, in illuminating power, as he recognises it more and more. Man in his weakness has all of these ages been looking for a God upon whom to lean; but man himself is the only god there is. Upon this point my whole theory hangs; and this website is the cudgel taken up in defence of the long-abused race. It is the race's champion against its own accusations.

A knowledge of one's own self-existence—this is strength. Strength is the first and most desirable attribute of man, because every noble quality is strength's overplus. No man can be wise who is not first strong. Wisdom expresses itself in strength. No man can be generous who is not strong. No man can live nobly and worthily until he has acquired that measure of intellectual strength, where he can stand alone in his individuality and give freely without asking anything in return. All giving that is not from an overplus of strength is selfish giving; it is giving for a motive. The motives that prompt this kind of giving are various. One person gives for a greater return; it is a business investment. Another gives for the love of approbation; another to satisfy the claims of his conscience. All give with an ignoble motive except he whose giving is the overplus of strength. The giver may not realise this, but the very nature of the case makes it true.

Weakness leans and begs perpetually; its every act holds self in reserve—but strength flows outward; it overflows—and it can only overflow in love; pure, unadulterated love. Being full, it asks nothing in return for what it gives. It simply seeks to make others as strong and loving as it is. This is the point toward which humanity is now tending by a better recognition of its individuality; for there is nothing in the world that gives a man strength but the knowledge of his own power.

There is brute strength which dies with the brute; there is intellectual strength, which is the vitalising spirit of the man; the real true man—and this is the strength that cannot die. This is the strength I am now writing of, whose overplus is love.

In order to be in much greater health and strength and beauty than we have ever realised, nothing is necessary but a better knowledge of ourselves. The reader will have learned from the foregoing pages that man is not simply a physical creature, subject to what is called the "laws of causation," but that he is purely a mental statement, or a mental estimate, of a certain amount of power which he has imbibed from the Principle of Attraction through his intellectual faculties. Moreover, man has himself made this statement or estimate of himself, and has the power to correct the errors he has made as rapidly as he discovers them. The errors in his statement show forth in weaknesses, diseases, poverty, old age and death.

Since I have explained man's relation to the Principle of Attraction; since I have shown that he is one with that unalterable and undying power; that he himself is all mind and records in his body as much as he can understand of the Principle of Attraction—it must be seen that he makes a great mistake in calling himself a weak and feeble creature, "a worm of the dust," and other expressions like this. I have shown that man is purely a mental creature, and since he is so, a belief in weakness will make him weak, because his beliefs are his external conditions. Therefore, let every student of these truths begin to reason on the foolish old charges against themselves, which he or she has all their life been taught to believe would be pleasing to God; let them discard all feeling of humility, that attribute so lauded by the creeds, and learn to believe that the universe needs men and women, and not things.

Humility is the most accursed of all the so-called virtues. It is usually born of sycophancy, and it blights every man and woman who assumes its hypocritical garb. Sycophancy is the child of fear, and until people are fearless they will never attain that freedom which means perfect health and strength. Humility has nothing to do with aspiration. Aspiration is the man's true means of growth, and aspiration is bold. It claims its own and gets it, while humility, like some slimy moisture, clings to the man and poisons his very nature. Humility, if men and women were conscious of its character, would be an insult to the Life Principle.

In a study like this repetitions are essential; so I say again the reason that each individual "I" seems to themselves to be the centre of all things, is because of the omnipresence of the Life Principle. There being no circumference, each "I" is the spoken word of the infinite and omnipotent, and its own recognition of itself renders it the centre from its own point of view. This thought will bear immense elaboration; but much must be left to the developing thought of the reader.

The spiritual interpretation of each individual "I" is eternal life; therefore, the individual that understandingly proclaims the "I" proclaims the universal life also, and announces the fact that he or she is one with it. The person who denies the "I" denies the Life Principle.

Let the reader discard at once and forever the soul-crushing humility he or she has been taught to cultivate as a priceless virtue, and begin to extol themselves. Let he or she not extol themselves in the spirit of vanity, based on the groundless and ignorant assumption of their own superiority over other people, but let them, after perceiving the great truth of their being, and realising their oneness with the Principle of Attraction within them, begin at once to declare their own strength and worth. Let them not hesitate to declare their own Godhood, not in the spirit of boasting, but in the understanding of truth.

In this declaration, if made understandingly, a grand sense of justice takes possession of the man or woman; they perceive that what they declare for themselves they cannot help declaring for their neighbours, and even for their worst enemy. This declaration of the man or woman's individual Godhood is the one unerring peacemaker. It is the beginning of the harmony that means heaven on earth. It is the only way to realise the all-important and all-inclusive commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

Every good thing in the Bible is condensed in these few words, and the whole of it is made attainable through the knowledge that the Life Principle is in us and is we, and that we are in it and are it. "You are the temple of the living God "—the Life Principle made manifest, made visible and audible—the spoken word. Is not the word one with the speaker? Then put away all foolish humility and stand forth in the self-confessed dignity of Godhood.

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MAN IS ONE AND INDIVISIBLE

HE IS IN THE LIKENESS OF THE UNIVERSE: THE ATTEMPT TO DIVIDE HIM INTO TWO PARTS IS DEATH.

THE men of the old time to whom the hope of eternal life in the flesh was a constant source of vitality, even though they placed the fruition of this hope ahead of their own generation, owed their longevity to the fact that they did not cut man in two and make body and soul of him, but thought of him as a unit, who would either die all over or live all over.

It is not astonishing that men of all ages have tried to save their bodies even after death; the pyramids are standing today because the Egyptians believed in the body and expected it to be resurrected some time. The desire for an extension of life in the body is world-wide, and efforts have been made in a hundred different ways to accomplish this result.

Strange stories of persons who have conquered death have lived in the imagination of the people until they seem like fixed facts in history. The Wandering Jew had such fascination that it is a popular book even yet. The stories that reach us from the far East of people who are hundreds of years old linger in our thoughts, and seem true in the face of all our experience to the contrary. "The masters" who are supposed by many to be living somewhere in secluded places in Tibet have their existence vouched for by thousands of people, some of whom claim to have seen and conversed with them. "The secret brotherhood" has existed hundreds of years, and it is affirmed that there are still living members who were initial members at its far away beginning.

I am not pretending to vouch for the truth of these reports. I am only trying to establish the fact that the idea of conquering death is as old as time; that it has been a race desire from the first.

In a former section I wrote a sentence that may seem strange; an explanation of which will go a long way toward showing the amount of intellectual growth that had to take place in the race before the conquest of death became possible. The desire was implanted and the men of that time believed it, but they did not believe it possible of achievement to them. They believed it sufficiently for it to show its effect in their living to a great age. They had no idea of a soul, and they attributed great importance to the body; much more than their followers did, who afterward invented the idea of the soul, and began to think that the body was of little worth; and who began to die much earlier than their fathers on account of this belief.

"As a man believes, so is he."

This sentence contains a volume of wisdom; for below it's surface meaning lies the implied fact that a man is a mental creature; that he is all mind; and it is because he is all mind that he has the power to save himself from death. Evolution has proved that not only is man all mind in every atom of his body, but that all things in the universe are mind; that the universe itself is but a mental statement.

The reason for the assertion that all things are mental is apparent, since it is now known that there is no such thing as dead matter; that what was once called dead matter is only a low form of mental substance, on its way upward from still lower conditions by virtue of the innate power of growth which is latent in all things. And how are all things coming upward in the scale of being? I answer, by the power of thought. It is a demonstrated fact that everything thinks; or, at least, that it possesses in latency the power to think, and in the natural process from low to high will in time begin to think. It is because this is true that we say, "All is mind."

This fact, for it is an undeniable fact, confirmed by the highest authority in the world, and published in the works of such scientists as all students look up to, establishes a most remarkable truth, namely, that every atom or molecule, no matter how far back we trace it, or how apparently dead it seems, is really a seed germ of immortal unfoldment. And, what is more, its unfoldment depends upon the principle of desire within it. And to desire is to think, even though the thought is of too low a grade for us to understand.

To desire is to think; and to think proves that the creature, rock, tree or man, that does the thinking, is a mental creature; therefore, we say there is no dead matter, but that all is mind ranging the whole universe of intelligence from abject ignorance up to the wisdom of the gods.

Emerson says that there is but one God, and that we are all different expressions of it. The Mental Science student means the same thing when he says there is but one life, of which we are individual manifestations.

If there is but one life, then life is omnipresent. It fills all space. There is nothing outside of it. There is no outside.

There is but one life. This life is the universal Law of Attraction which permeates all things, and which is the basis of being; the power that men call God.

This Law of Attraction holds the visible universe in place; adjusts the atoms to each other by a method that cannot err; arranges and holds the planets in their relation to other planets by the same law. It is a self-existent principle. Perhaps it would be more nearly correct if I should call it the Principle of Attraction, since the word law suggests formulation into established rule, and this will not convey the meaning I wish to give.

All races of men have felt the presence and the power of this Principle of Attraction (whose ultimate expression is love or life) in a myriad of different forms. Feeling it and not comprehending it, being governed by their own narrow and childish ideas, they conceived a personality for it, and said it was "somebody who made all things"—and they called it God.

"God," they say, "created." He first made the world out of nothing, after which he had material to make other things, and so He made man and the animals out of the dust of the earth.

This idea belongs to the early intellectual awakening of a baby race. The race had grown to a place mentally where it began to ask questions of itself, and its answers were suited to its infantile development.

But to retain these answers now, at a time when the great body of the thinking world has outgrown them, and to bolster them up by every system of popular religious education in vogue, is a fearful thing and must be ended, so that Truth shall have her say and be glorified, even as error has been glorified in the past.

But the Principle of Attraction exists; the undeviating principle of life exists. It has never been violated and never will be. And this is our hope. It is unchanging, disease-less, deathless; and it is a complete understanding of this fact that conforms us to it in a way that renders us diseaseless and deathless.

The Principle of Attraction does permeate all visible forms. It is one with all substance; and no doubt an expanded and spiritual interpretation of the word "God" has been the foundation for the expression that "God and man are one."

For in spite of the personal and, therefore, limited interpretation of the word "God," there have been in all ages a few thinkers who were not confined to its narrow meaning, but were able to see it in an enlarged sense; in a sense that represented it as the moving impulse of all visible life. And these men have said, "God and man are one."

A more scientific statement of the same truth would have been "The Principle of Attraction and man" (or all nature, for that matter) "are one."

This last sentence is the very quintessence of the reasoning whereby I have based my belief in man's power to save himself from death. If man is all mind, if he is infused by the Principle of Attraction, and thereby one with this principle, and if the principle is indestructible, then man is indestructible also, provided he understands the truth of the matter. The truth that man is one with the Principle of Attraction—the life principle—exists beyond the power of the universe to disprove; but even though it does exist, and is the truth of all truths, it is also true that man must recognise it before, as an individual, he becomes consciously joined with the principle; before he becomes "one with the Father." It is the consciousness of the truth that makes man one with the life principle.

Man is the Principle of Attraction as expressed in use. He is this principle, its very self in objectivity, while the principle is the man in subjectivity, and the two are one. The man is the self-conscious side of the principle, and unless his self-consciousness leads him into a knowledge of his relation to the Life Principle he will die. It is only his knowledge of his relation to the Life Principle that can save him; but when he comes into this knowledge he is one with the Life Principle, and as indestructible as it is.

When he comes to this tremendous place in his knowing he begins to see his unlimited possibilities as an individual resident upon the earth, working on the external or earth plane; and he is no longer willing to surrender his chances of carrying out these possibilities by yielding up his body. He wants his body, because it is his body, not his soul that is the expression of the Life Principle. His soul is but a "makeshift" invented to tide him over from one life to another when he should lose his body—a loss which he supposed to be inevitable.

Man is a consciousness of the Life Principle; he is a recogniser of it, and he shows forth as much of its power and possibilities as he recognises.

This sentence explains the whole philosophy of existence. It is the key that unlocks the entire mystery of the universe. Here is a condensed statement of it:

The Life Principle exists.

The Life Principle draws; it has but one function; that is, to draw or attract. This attracting power is the seed germ of every manner of growth, and exists in the atom as well as in the planet; it holds the atoms together and it holds the planets together also.

Each creature or thing is made visible, or manifests its objective existence, by its recognition of the Principle of Attraction within its own body. The tree recognises a certain amount of the Principle of Attraction, and this amount shows forth in the form and character of the tree. An animal recognises more of the power embodied in the Principle of Attraction and is possessed of more intelligence, which shows forth in superior powers; as, for instance, the power to roam about.

We are in the realm of mind; there is no dead matter; the world is all mind; its mountains and seas and rocks are all mind. But they are mind of a very low grade of intelligence. The smallest blade of grass that grows has more intelligence than the earth, and proves it by its power to ascend above the earth. So long as the blade of grass can recognise a higher good than the soil beneath it, it can, by virtue of this recognition, overcome the earth's attraction. It feels the superior attraction of the sun.

In the universe of mind it is intelligence, and not bulk, or what we call dead weight, that makes the strength of a magnet.

Every creature that obeys the Principle of Attraction, and simply lives and grows, without a knowledge of how it is done, is on the plane of unconscious growth; and not until men acquire a consciousness of what growth is, and by what means it proceeds, will they conquer death. They are only partial developments of the one great truth that allies them to the Life Principle, and they must become whole in this particular or they will surely die.

The Life Principle (which is the Principle of Attraction, these two expressions meaning the same thing) must have intelligent recognition; a recognition so full and complete as to render the creature a constantly growing exponent of its own possibilities and power. This involves the constant acquisition of knowledge; the constantly widening recognition of the Life Principle. The Life Principle then being individualised in the man, becomes the ever-flowing fountain of perpetual being within him. This was the fountain that Ponce de Leon was seeking; but he made the mistake of seeking it outside of himself, when it was within him. If he had sought aright he would have found it, for it surely does exist, and its deathless waters are for us, who, by searching within ourselves, can find them.

The procession of ever-enlarging growths on the animal plane, all leading up to man, are more or less unconscious of the power they represent. Their recognition of the Life Principle is expressed in what they are and what they do. Their brains have not ripened to that point where they can say, from the basis of reason, "There is a supreme power within me, which I recognise as being able to overcome all obstacles to never-ending growth, and to liberate me entirely from the world's ignorant beliefs, into which I was born and which I still represent."

This new thought movement, which begins to be universal, and which points in the direction of the conquest of death, is the most important step in advance that has ever been taken. It is nothing less than the passage of the whole people from the stage of blind, unconscious growth to that of conscious growth.

Blind, unconscious growth, be it remembered well, is growing as the trees and animals grow—without a knowledge of how or why we grow. All growths that do not expand to an understanding of the Principle of Attraction within them, and thereby learn to do their own growing, must, necessarily, die after a time; they are abortions of truth, whose mission was unfulfilled by reason of their ignorance.

Every ascending step in the procession of creatures, from the beginning, has been marked by a fresh accession of vitality in the new species, or race. Vitality is the result of intelligence. In a universe that is all mind there is but one way to develop vitality; it is by the constant recognition of more and greater truths. Man has completed his animal or unconscious growth, which has developed him into a working organism, or laboratory for the manifestation of conscious intelligence. He stands at this point now—the point where there is no further progression for him under the law of unconscious growth, or the method of growth expressed blindly in uses.

He stands at the point of the new and great departure; that departure to which all nature has been silently approaching. So important is his position and responsibility that one backward step now would plunge the world into another dark age, from which it would take centuries to recover; from which it might never recover, for worlds die in the bud, before their possibilities are unfolded, just as plants do.

So important is the present situation that the failure to use it judiciously would, to millions of us, render the world a nonentity, and make life as if it had never been.

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THE STUDY OF MAN

A FEW men have cherished life-long visions of cheating death, though without that belief in their hopes that would prompt them to search for a continuance of life in a way likely to lead to the desired result. There have been many Ponce de Leons in the world. History is strewed thick with them. Writers have embodied their hopes, half disguised, in many writings. Bulwer-Lytton, Hawthorne and others I can recall. Elixirs have been concocted as life protractors, and have sold readily until found to be failures. There has been more than one Brown Sequard who deceived others by being honestly deceived himself.

But before all these comparatively modern searchers for the fountain of perpetual youth, there existed in the long past many men, who believed with all their minds that the time would come when the race would conquer death. The thought was the goal to all their hopes. They did not seem to expect this conquest to happen in their time, but they believed that the race was gradually growing toward a period when it could be done.

Has the Bible student observed that the Old Testament does not treat of the soul of man? If it does, I have not found it out, either from my own reading or from my talk with other Bible students. From one end of it to the other it seems to consider man in the light of a bodily creature, as if his life were purely external, and related to the external world alone; in other words, as if man had no soul, but looked forward to the time when he would conquer death in the body. If this is true, it seems astonishing, in the light of present knowledge, that these prophets of the old time should have so correctly predicted the course that future events would take. But they were natural men; they were at one with the law of growth—the Principle of Attraction—as it manifested itself in them. They were simply a part of Nature, like the trees and animals; and it was Nature itself that shone through their sayings, and prophesied its own power when men should have ripened to an understanding of them.

This is the true explanation concerning the power of those old seers to predict coming events. They were in the direct line of growth, and the growth principle made utterance through them. They did not talk of their souls; at least, it is my belief that they did not. They seemed to be unconscious of their souls, even if they possessed them. They did not project their thoughts and hopes into another sphere beyond and outside of the present world; the full force of their entire being was centred in the world in which they lived; and what was the result?

Why this—they lived hundreds of years here in strength and health.

I know how the claim to longevity as related of these men in the Old Testament is now scouted and rejected by persons who consider themselves thinkers; but if these thinkers would think farther on the subject, they would see no folly in accepting the statement as recorded.

For my part, I perceive the probability that these accounts are true; and I perceive it—not because the Bible has recorded it, but because the study of evolution shows the possibility of it, and, indeed, confirms the fact that this strange phenomenon was one of the natural periods of growth through which the race would necessarily pass.

It begins to be seen that there are two distinctly marked periods in the history of man. One of these periods I call the period of his unconscious growth, and the other period that of his conscious growth.

Man has ascended from the forms of life that lie below him, and, though he stands at the head of them, he is nevertheless composed of the same material that they are, and partakes of their nature.

The animals and plants all belong to the unconscious plane of life; and man, so long as he remains in his condition of animalhood, belongs to this plane also. It is only recently that man is beginning to emerge from this plane, and step forth into the plane of conscious existence, where his deviation from his previous condition of animalhood is showing forth in an increased intelligence, so marked as to change the entire basis of his life from physical to mental.

The difference between conscious life, and life on the unconscious plane, is in the use of the reasoning powers. On the unconscious plane men do not reason to any great extent. It is this fact that gives us the right to call them unconscious; and the word "unconscious," as I use it, only relates to their power, or lack of power, to examine the operation of their own minds as the law of growth operates in them.

In one sense all life is conscious; but in the sense I speak of there is a growth which proceeds without being observed by the person or persons in whom it is going on. This is what I call growth on the unconscious plane. A man grows; he lives his allotted number of years and dies; he may have been a thinker on many subjects, and may have brought forth great truths, but until he turns his attention to himself—to the study of man, to the law of growth as it proceeds in his own body, he will not have ascended to what I call the conscious plane of life. This conscious plane is that plane where the man no longer lives the vegetable life of his predecessors, but uses his reasoning powers to the extent of their development, and from the animal stage of life on to the thinking, reasoning stage; and this ascent may not only be called an ascent from unconscious to conscious life, but from a condition of ignorance to one of intelligence; from animal to human; from physical to mental.

Life on the unconscious plane, the plane where man is ignorant of himself and his powers, may fitly be called the vegetable plane. It is true that even on this plane a man has advanced a long way above the vegetable, but he is still under what he calls the law of heredity, which holds him in the path his fathers trod, and which he accepts as an inevitable necessity, just as the vegetable does. This feature of growth marks the unconscious plane—the unreasoning or ignorant plane; the plane where men accept things as they find them, without examining themselves to discover whether they have not the power within themselves to project entirely new conditions, which shall forever obliterate the old ones.

On the unconscious or comparatively unthinking plane, man is stationary and helpless as compared with man when he has ascended to the conscious or reasoning plane. On the former plane he accepts his condition as final, or nearly so. It is true that he sees some chance of improvement now and then, and tries to develop this chance. In this way there has been a slow but sure upward movement, from the unconscious or ignorant plane to the conscious or intelligent plane; so that, as the ages have passed, the race has kept slowly becoming more intelligent, until there comes to be among its numbers a few who perceive that the source of all power lies embodied in man himself, and that the great study by which race advancement may be quickened a hundred-fold is the study of man.

The study of man has begun, and as it proceeds the change from unconscious to conscious life proceeds. The condition of the animal man is no longer such a compact and formidable state of ignorance as it once was; it is being broken into by the new thought of the few independent thinkers, who are investigating themselves and their wonderful powers, and whose freshly acquired knowledge is filtering down among the masses, where it promises to make great changes in the thoughts and beliefs of the unconscious multitude.

The conscious life into which we are entering by the simple unfoldment of our reasoning faculties is called the mental life. And all nature, everything, is on its way upward from the unconscious or animal plane to the conscious or mental plane.

In strict truth, the animal or unconscious plane is mental also, the same as the conscious plane; but it is a more ignorant form of mentality than the high, reasoning, or conscious plane. The word "mental" is as applicable to one plane as the other. All the expressions of life from low to high are mental, as I have constantly endeavoured to prove to the reader; and the difference I am attempting to explain exists only in the quality of the mentality, as manifested by different creatures on different planes of development.

The transposition from what is called the physical forms of life to the mental forms of life is in the different degrees of intelligence that the creatures on the different planes are capable of showing forth. It is on this account that Mental Science makes the statement that "all is mind"; mind in a state of unconsciousness with regard to itself, and mind with sufficient knowledge to be conscious of itself and the faculties it possesses. Therefore, the difference between conscious life and unconscious life is a difference in the degrees of intelligence manifested between different classes of beings.

Man in his early stages of growth makes a closer approach to the conscious state than the animals below him in development. Thus the human being, even in his most savage state, is more conscious of himself and his power than the monkeys or other animals.

All is mind, of which every creature and plant from the lowest form of life up to the most gifted human being is a mental expression, and the form that each creature or plant shows forth marks the degree of its mentality.

Each creature or plant, no matter how small and inferior, has aspirations or desires that reach higher than its present conditions. These aspirations or desires ascend higher than the environment of its life will permit it to realise in the undeveloped state of its intelligence; so the mere fact of the existence of these aspirations or desires calls for a higher grade of creatures in which to become embodied. They form a basis of life, as it were, or serve as a demand upon nature for the next higher type, which shall show forth more intelligence than the former one; and thus the chain of being is preserved, even though the forms of being are always changing. And so evolution proceeds.

I will repeat this idea, which I consider very important, as showing the march of mind as expressed in desire.

Every sane desire of every creature is finally attained. If this attainment fails to show forth in the creature itself, it goes on to development in some other ego. In the scale of evolution it is the ungratified desire of the lower creature that produces another grade of creature higher than itself—so mighty is desire, and so unerring is the fulfilment.

It is the desire for food in the first jelly-like forms of life that prompts their development on a higher plane. These little forms of translucent jelly, having neither hands nor feet nor mouth nor eyes, are nevertheless attracted to some tiny bit of food floating in the water, about which they put forth parts of themselves until the object is enveloped within their bodies. After the nutriment in the food has been absorbed, the body unfolds and lets the residue pass out. Here is the beginning of hands and feet and eyes and ears and a brain and a digestive system. This development was by desire; desire for food. The desire for food being gratified led to a thousand other desires; the number and greatness of desires kept increasing, and the higher grades of life increased in consequence until man came. The increase of desires in the creature added link after link to the chain of being from the atom to the man.

And what is man but a bundle of desires? His desires are much more numerous and far-reaching than those of any of his predecessors. And as he is the culmination of all the desires of all his predecessors, not one single desire of which has failed to be gratified, he has a perfect right to believe that his own desires, great as they are getting to be, will be gratified also.

It is evident that desire is the mainspring of all growth. It is also evident that no desire can exist that cannot be met by the object desired; and thus a new marriage is formed; new desires are begotten, and growth proceeds.

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The Power is yours, but you are not the Power.

The Power is yours, but you are not the Power.

Realise the humility inherent in that sentence. Without the Power you are nothing. With the Power you are all-powerful.

Do not lose your sense of perspective. Keep your place in the scheme of things. You are the agent for the Force, not the Force itself.

I cannot urge you too strongly to read over that last paragraph again and again. Therein is the fatal pitfall clearly placed before you. Be warned, and avoid it.

When you secure this sense of humility, you can maintain it by continually giving thanks mentally for the gifts that come to you.

* * * * *

Regard your thoughts as boomerangs. If you think an evil thought of any person or anything, you will be the loser. It is your mental attitude that is disturbed and there is no one but yourself to blame. All thoughts are boomerangs. They come back to the thinker.

Whatever you think, will happen to you. Therefore think well. Think good. Think Order, Harmony and Peace. Then shall these things be added unto you.

One final matter must be dealt with. This study would not be complete without it. I want to deal with Failure.

So far I have not admitted the possibility of failure and I do not do so now. If you fail, you have not obeyed the rules which I have endeavoured to put before you. And so, here is your mental attitude towards failure. If something that you wanted has not come to pass, the fault is yours.

The Power is there. The Power wants you to have your desire. If you have not received it, do not blame the Power, blame yourself.

If there is failure, and you examine the Mental Attitude you held prior to the event, you will inevitably find one of these things.

1. Your desire was not constructive.

2. You doubted the Power's ability to give you your desire.

3. You have particularised or, in other words, you have wanted things exactly your way instead of the way of Infinite Wisdom.


Epilogue

The world around us is visibly in a bad way. There is poverty, neglect and unhappiness. There are wars and rumours of war. This condition of things has been brought about by collective wrong thinking throughout the centuries, and nothing can change it but collective right thinking.

Service and Love must reign, if Evolution is to proceed swiftly and surely. Pacts and Treaties alone will not do it. Tariffs or Free Trade alone will not do it. Hope lies only in the practical expression of the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. The Bible is the only practical text book of economics, and Christ the only perfect example by Whose Teaching the nations may come to live in Peace and Security.

Those of mankind whose mentalities are in a sufficient state of enlightenment can learn consciously the principles of Mental Science. All must live out the Grand Creed of Christianity.

The crying need of the world today is for leaders of faith and vision, leaders who realise that Christ is the Perfect Statesman.

War and Depression came to teach us the lessons which we must all learn. Have the nations of Europe and America learned the lessons? At one time it appeared that they had, but now it is difficult to tell. If the lessons have not been learned, greater troubles still are to come.—Some prophets say they are coming now—within the lifetime of most of us. A terrible thought, which in itself should speed the learning of the lessons.

Do not try to thrust Christian principles down other peoples throats, they are not digested that way. Practise them yourself, and so supply leadership.

Do not fear. The Lessons will be learned. There have been four kingdoms already. The Mineral Kingdom, the Vegetable Kingdom, the Animal Kingdom and the Kingdom of Man. Only one more Kingdom remains un-demonstrated THE KINGDOM OF THE SPIRIT in which all things shall be made perfect.

(Ephesians 2:19-22) So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

(The 21st [Century] Revelation 1-7) Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any divide. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son."

(The 2nd Genesis 1-3) Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he ceased from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

MAN IS THE POWER OF THE UNIVERSE MADE MANIFEST IN HUMAN FORM

I AM THE POWER OF THE UNIVERSE MADE MANIFEST IN HUMAN FORM

WE ARE ONE.

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How to Drive The Machine

Mental Attitude

FROM now onwards I am writing for two distinct classes of reader. For those who have carefully read and pondered upon all that has gone before, and, secondly, for those who have skipped through the above and commenced reading here, and who do not intend to concern themselves with what has preceded it.

Therefore, there will, inevitably, be a certain amount of repetition of what has already been argued out and adopted. But this may not be a bad thing, as the reiteration will help to impress the facts clearly on the mind.

From now onwards, I am endeavouring to make all statements in a positive and definite fashion, so that there may be no ambiguity whatsoever.

It has been decided, in previous sections, that each and every human being on this earth has at their immediate disposal Unlimited Power capable of achieving any and every desire, provided certain clearly stated rules are implicitly obeyed.

Please realise what Infinite Power means.

Infinite Power created the stars and maintains them in their courses. Does that give you some conception of Infinite Power? Think it well over, and try to realise it.

Having realised it, you will realise also that it must, of necessity, be more than adequate to deal with your petty troubles and obstacles. If you are honest with yourself, you must recognise that a power that can control millions of planets will not be baffled, let alone beaten, by such conditions as surround you.

So the first thing to do is to get a clear conception of the absolute fact that there is an Infinity of Power available.

Now try, for the sake of practicability, to endow that Infinite Power with a Personality. What is the result? You will at once agree that, if you are going to make use of the Power of this Great Person, you must ask It to do those things which It is disposed to do. In other words, what you ask It to do must coincide with Its own plans.

It would obviously be useless to ask It to do something directly contrary or harmful to Its own work. So the lesson to be learned is summed up in "Thy will, not mine."

Or if you prefer it another way "My Will in so far as it coincides with Thy will."

Now that statement, you may say, has limited the Power. Not a bit of it. As far as you are concerned, the Power desires nothing but your Complete and Unending Happiness. Well, surely your desires do not exceed that Statement. You are not such a fool as to desire unhappiness for yourself. So anything that is for your own development and contentment is available.

To proceed to the next point: Get out of your mind once and for all that you are embarking on a lazy life, in which you sit back and everything is brought to you with no effort on your part. Far from it, you have got to work hard and incessantly. Even, when you rest your physical body, devote yourself to that one object. In other words, work at the job of recreation.

Someone may ask "Why must I work? If this Power is Infinite, surely it can do its job without me?" You are quite right. It can do its job without you. But it has certain definite channels for its operations and you are one of them. You cannot expect the Power to do for you what can only be done through you.

In previous sections we have shown that your mind is a part of the great Universal Mind or Power, and as far as you and your world are concerned, you and your personality are the headquarters and distributing centre of the Power.

Do you understand that? If you are not prepared to co-operate, the Power will turn to those who will. But the Power is so infinite that there is amply enough for us all to make full use of it by co-operation—that, in fact, is what the Power itself desires. It wants to recognize itself at work in and through everyone.

So you must be the agent for the Power in your particular sphere.


An Efficient Agent

How can you be an efficient agent? That is the next question.

It is simply answered in three words. Correct Mental Attitude. And it is to this subject that we must most seriously address ourselves from now until the end of this final and main section of the web page.

Your thoughts must all be Constructive.

Now think that out carefully and try to realise its full meaning. On reflection you will find that to have consistently constructive thoughts means cutting out completely all evil thoughts. Envy, hatred and fear are immediately ruled out, and these are but three destructive thoughts on which to commence war.

Guard against Envy.

Whatever anyone else has, you can have, if it really is for your ultimate happiness. The world is full to overflowing with good things. There is plenty for everyone, if you go the right way about it. So, you see, Envy is mere foolishness and small-mindedness. Broaden your mind, and raise your ideals, and other peoples' possessions will cease to trouble you. If you live a full and healthy mental life, your wants will be supplied and you will be happy and contented.

Guard against Hatred.

It is a valueless thing. If you hate a person, are you made happier by that hate? Of course not. Then why on earth waste valuable time and energy on such fruitless effort?

Guard against Fear.

What are you afraid of?

What is your fear? To be afraid is to be mentally and emotionally disturbed in advance of an incident. What is the result of this state of mind? From a study of Mental Science above we have learned that to fear a thing is definitely to assist its coming to pass, which you must admit is an action of amazing stupidity. Another result of this state of mind is that you have decidedly reduced your powers of resistance.

If I am to have a tough fight tomorrow morning, shall I sit up all night in fear and trembling and greet my adversary with hollow eyes and a wobbly fist? Or shall I sleep soundly and well, and arise in the pink of condition and ready to take on anything ? The reply is obvious.

So, apply to your thoughts this test. Is my thought on this subject constructive or destructive? If it is constructive, take heart and go forward with renewed vigour, knowing positively that Almighty Power is with you. If it is destructive, take yourself in hand severely and change your thoughts. It will be difficult at first and you will be clumsy at it, but eventually constructive thought will become, in an everyday phrase, second nature to you.

Now, when a problem is presented to you, bring your imagination into play at once. In your imagination see the job completed and the problem solved. That is the first thing to do. Why? Because by doing so you present to your subconscious mind a complete and detailed picture of what is wanted, and Universal Mind, the all-Powerful, will know exactly what is required and what must be done to bring that mental picture to materialisation.

Having arrived at your complete, imagined picture, concentrate on it. Do not lose sight of it. Keep on recalling it before your mind's eye. What is your will for, but to help you do that? Keep saying mentally: "This perfect thing is the job finished, and I am on my way to it." Allow no doubt or hesitation to creep into your mental attitude. Why should it, when you have Infinite Power at your disposal? Do not be afraid of adopting a direct tone towards your subconscious mind. Avoid mere spineless "wishing," and vague day-dreaming. The Power is there to serve you and loves to do it because, in serving you, It is hastening on to Its own objective.

And what is Its objective? Nothing less than complete and unending happiness for yourself and the entire human family. And what is Its motivation? Love. For this all-pervading Spirit of Life is Love Itself.

Have you ever sat down to a job and found your mind wandering? Of course you have, but you need be like that no longer if you deal with the tendency promptly and efficiently. Do not sit back wearily and say "I have no powers of concentration." Of course you have powers of concentration if you control them. When you see your job before you, prompt your subconscious mind with the mental statement "This one job I do," knowing at the same time that Infinite Power is at your disposal and your mental picture is already complete and the job will be done. Outside events and circumstances will come to your aid in a way that will at first amaze and then delight you.

For some reason, as I am writing these lines I can almost hear someone say "I have much to worry me, and I do worry." I sympathise. Let us see what can be done.

It is little use me saying "Don't worry" because that is not a constructive, positive statement. But I Can say "Have faith. There is an infinite Power at your disposal which can and will deal with your trouble for you whether it be through you or through someone else," Have faith.

If you ring up on the telephone for a taxi to come to your door in an hour's time to take you to the station, you would not spend that hour in an agony of worry and suspense, wondering if the taxi will come. If you were doubtful about it, you would start to walk. But it is inconceivably stupid to rely on your own legs and powers of endurance when the taxi is coming. Ring up and the taxi will come. That has been very definitely put once and for all. "Ask and you shall receive." Can any promise be clearer or less ambiguous?

By "ask" it means define your needs. Spend some little time doing that. Select a time in the morning and just before you go to sleep at night for this definite purpose. During that period call up, in perfect imagery, before your mind's eye, the ideal that is yours. See it actually accomplished. See it perfect. See it complete in every detail. Having secured the vision and dwelt on it, say over to yourself "By the Power which is in me, this thing is actually brought to pass." Realise the full meaning of the sentence and all that it implies. Appreciate that, as soon as a thing is complete on the mental plane, Infinite Power is instantly at work bringing it about on the physical plane.


Service and Generalisation

THERE are two other aspects of Mental Attitude either of which requires a small book devoted entirely to it, but we will endeavour to give them in rough here.

The first is summed up in the word "Service." We have already regarded each one of us as an agent for the Infinite Power of Supply, and, if we continue that view of the position, we will realise that the successful agent is the one who concentrates all their energies on "passing on" the goods for which they are agent. He or she does not waste their time endeavouring to store up the goods but tries to keep them moving as fast and as freely as they can.

If you are a garage proprietor, and have been appointed district agent for a leading make of motor car, you would naturally do everything in your power to ensure a big outlet for the models as they come through to you from the supplier. If you simply stored them in your garage, and made no effort of any kind to pass them on to others, all your available space would be very soon filled, and your supplier would seek another and more progressive agent.

The same thing exactly applies in your mental attitude towards your own supplies as they come from the Infinite Supplier.

Presumably you are going to use Mental Science to ensure for you an adequate supply of happiness, service, peace and love. Therefore you must act as agent for these things and pass them on freely to any and everyone with whom you come into contact, otherwise the stream will be dammed and the flow of Infinite supply will cease as far as you are concerned and will find other and freer channels through which to progress. Get it into your head that to have fresh supplies you must make room by passing on what you already have.

The other aspect is summed up in the word "Generalisation." In your asking for supply, concentrate on the end, not on the means to the end. Let me illustrate that statement as clearly as I can. Suppose you want money with which to purchase a home of your own for your wife and children. Do not concentrate your mental powers on the money but upon the happiness, peace, and contentment which such a home will bring.

The reason for this becomes obvious if you reflect for a moment. Peace, Happiness and Contentment are your aims, but there may be quite one hundred ways by which they may come to you. All of them are known to the All-Seeing Wisdom of the Infinite Power, and for you to particularise one special way is automatically to close the other 99—any one of which may be, and probably is, much better and more suitable than your way.

Your way has only been chosen according to your very limited powers of perception.

Concentrate on the end you desire to achieve, and have complete faith that a means to that end will be chosen which will be the best possible for you.

How can I make this next proviso sufficiently clear to you?

Realise throughout your whole being that your physical and material self is helpless without the Power. You, as you are; the you that is finite and earthly is completely inadequate and incapable without the aid of the Power.

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