The Hidden Power And Other Papers upon Mental Science. Thomas Troward
Читать онлайн книгу.
word "goodness." The Spirit is Life, hence its generic tendency must
always be lifeward or to the increase of the livingness of every
individual. And since it is universal it can have no particular
interests to serve, and therefore its action must always be equally for
the benefit of all. This is the generic character of spirit; and just as
water, or electricity, or any other of the physical forces of the
universe, will not work contrary to their generic character, so Spirit
will not work contrary to its generic character.
The inference is obvious. If we would use Spirit we must follow the law
of the Spirit which is "Goodness." This is the only limitation. If our
originating intention is good, we may employ the spiritual power for
what purpose we will. And how is "goodness" to be defined? Simply by the
child's definition that what is bad is not good, and that what is good
is not bad; we all know the difference between bad and good
instinctively. If we will conform to this principle of obedience to the
generic law of the Spirit, all that remains is for us to study the law
of the proportion which exists between the more and less fully
integrated modes of Spirit, and then bring our knowledge to bear with
determination.
The law of spirit, to which our investigation has now led us, is of the
very widest scope. We have followed it up from the conception of the
intelligence of spirit, subsisting in the initial atoms, to the
aggregation of this intelligence as the conscious identity of the
individual. But there is no reason why this law should cease to operate
at this point, or at any point short of the whole. The test of the
soundness of any principle is that it can operate as effectively on a
large scale as on a small one, that though the nature of its field is
determined by the nature of the principle itself, the extent of its
field is unlimited. If, therefore, we continue to follow up the law we
have been considering, it leads us to the conception of a unit of
intelligence as far superior to that of the individual man as the unity
of his individual intelligence is superior to that of the intelligence
of any single atom of his body; and thus we may conceive of a collective
individuality representing the spiritual character of any aggregate of
men, the inhabitants of a city, a district, a country, or of the entire
world.
Nor need the process stop here. On the same principle there would be a
superior collective individuality for the humanity of the entire solar
system, and finally we reach the conception of a supreme intelligence
bringing together in itself the collective individualities of all the
systems in the universe. This is by no means a merely fanciful notion.
We find it as the law by which our own conscious individuality is
constituted; and we find the analogous principle working universally on
the physical plane. It is known to physical science as the "law of
inverse squares," by which the forces of reciprocal attraction or
repulsion, as the case may be, are not merely equivalent to the sum of
the forces emitted by the two bodies concerned, but are equivalent to
these two forces multiplied together and divided by the square of the
distance between them, so that the resultant power continually rises in
a rapidly-increasing ratio as the two reciprocally exciting bodies
approach one another.
Since this law is so universal throughout physical nature, the doctrine
of continuity affords every ground for supposing that its analogue holds
good in respect of spiritual nature. We must never lose sight of the
old-world saying that "a truth on one plane is a truth on all." If a
principle exists at all it exists universally. We must not allow
ourselves to be misled by appearances; we must remember that the
perceptible results of the working of any principle consist of two
factors--the principle itself or the active factor, and the
subject-matter on which it acts or the passive factor; and that while
the former is invariable, the latter is variable, and that the operation
of the same invariable upon different variables must necessarily produce
a variety of results. This at once becomes evident if we state it
mathematically; for example, _a_, _b_ or _c_, multiplied by _x_ give
respectively the results _ax_, _bx_, _cx_, which differ materially from
one another, though the factor _x_ always remains the same.
This law of the generation of power by attraction applies on the
spiritual as well as on the physical plane, and acts with the same
mathematical precision on both; and thus the human individuality
consists, not in the mere aggregation of its parts, whether spiritual or
corporeal, but in the _unity_ of power resulting from the intimate
association into which those parts enter with one another, which unity,
according to this law of the generation of power by attraction, is
infinitely superior, both in intelligence and power, to any less fully
integrated mode of spirit. Thus a natural principle, common alike to
physical and spiritual law, fully accounts for all claims that have ever
been made for the creative power of our thought over all things that
come within the circle of our own particular life. Thus it is that each
man is the centre of his own universe, and has the power, by directing
his own thought, to control all things therein.
But, as I have said above, there is no reason why this principle should
not be recognised as expanding from the individual until it embraces
the entire universe. Each man, as the centre of his own world, is
himself centred in a higher system in which he is only one of
innumerable similar atoms, and this system again in a higher until we
reach the supreme centre of all things; intelligence and power increase
from centre to centre in a ratio rising with inconceivable rapidity,
according to the law we