THE EDINBURGH LECTURES ON MENTAL SCIENCE. Thomas Troward

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

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

      student.

      Form implies extension in space and also limitation within certain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      will appear further on.

      The opposite conception is that of things expressing themselves through

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      substantial entity.

      THE HIGHER MODE OF INTELLIGENCE CONTROLS THE LOWER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      principle of intelligence. This is clearly demonstrated by the grand

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

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

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

      insisting upon. Every advance in science consists in discovering new

      subtleties of connection in this magnificent universal order, which already

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

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

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

      the conclusion that a paramount intelligence must be inherent in the

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

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

      things.

      The СКАЧАТЬ