The Hidden Power And Other Papers upon Mental Science. Thomas Troward

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      This innermost of all is absolute Spirit. It is Life as yet not

      differentiated into any specific mode; it is the universal Life which

      pervades all things and is at the heart of all appearances.

      To come into the knowledge of this is to come into the secret of power,

      and to enter into the secret place of Living Spirit. Is it illogical

      first to call this the unknowable, and then to speak of coming into the

      knowledge of it? Perhaps so; but no less a writer than St. Paul has set

      the example; for does he not speak of the final result of all searchings

      into the heights and depths and lengths and breadths of the inner side

      of things as being, to attain the knowledge of that Love which passeth

      knowledge. If he is thus boldly illogical in phrase, though not in fact,

      may we not also speak of knowing "the unknowable"? We may, for this

      knowledge is the root of all other knowledge.

      The presence of this undifferentiated universal life-power is the final

      axiomatic fact to which all our analysis must ultimately conduct us. On

      whatever plane we make our analysis it must always abut upon pure

      essence, pure energy, pure being; that which knows itself and recognises

      itself, but which cannot dissect itself because it is not built up of

      parts, but is ultimately integral: it is pure Unity. But analysis which

      does not lead to synthesis is merely destructive: it is the child

      wantonly pulling the flower to pieces and throwing away the fragments;

      not the botanist, also pulling the flower to pieces, but building up in

      his mind from those carefully studied fragments a vast synthesis of the

      constructive power of Nature, embracing the laws of the formation of all

      flower-forms. The value of analysis is to lead us to the original

      starting-point of that which we analyse, and so to teach us the laws by

      which its final form springs from this centre.

      Knowing the law of its construction, we turn our analysis into a

      synthesis, and we thus gain a power of building up which must always be

      beyond the reach of those who regard "the unknowable" as one with

      "not-being."

      _This_ idea of the unknowable is the root of all materialism; and yet no

      scientific man, however materialistic his proclivities, treats the

      unanalysable residuum thus when he meets it in the experiments of his

      laboratory. On the contrary, he makes this final unanalysable fact the

      basis of his synthesis. He finds that in the last resort it is energy of

      some kind, whether as heat or as motion; but he does not throw up his

      scientific pursuits because he cannot analyse it further. He adopts the

      precisely opposite course, and realises that the conservation of energy,

      its indestructibility, and the impossibility of adding to or detracting

      from the sum-total of energy in the world, is the one solid and

      unchanging fact on which alone the edifice of physical science can be

      built up. He bases all his knowledge upon his knowledge of "the

      unknowable." And rightly so, for if he could analyse this energy into

      yet further factors, then the same problem of "the unknowable" would

      meet him still. All our progress consists in continually pushing the

      unknowable, in the sense of the unanalysable residuum, a step further

      back; but that there should be no ultimate unanalysable residuum

      anywhere is an inconceivable idea.

      In thus realising the undifferentiated unity of Living Spirit as the

      central fact of any system, whether the system of the entire universe or

      of a single organism, we are therefore following a strictly scientific

      method. We pursue our analysis until it necessarily leads us to this

      final fact, and then we accept this fact as the basis of our synthesis.

      The Science of Spirit is thus not one whit less scientific than the

      Science of Matter; and, moreover, it starts from the same initial fact,

      the fact of a living energy which defies definition or explanation,

      wherever we find it; but it differs from the science of matter in that

      it contemplates this energy under an aspect of responsive intelligence

      which does not fall within the scope of physical science, as such. The

      Science of Spirit and the Science of Matter are not opposed. They are

      complementaries, and neither is fully comprehensible without some

      knowledge of the other; and, being really but two portions of one whole,

      they insensibly shade off into each other in a border-land where no

      arbitrary line can be drawn between them. Science studied in a truly

      scientific spirit, following out its own deductions unflinchingly to

      their legitimate conclusions, will always reveal the twofold aspect of

      things, the inner and the outer; and it is only a truncated and maimed

      science that refuses to recognise both.

      The study of the material world is not Materialism, if it be allowed to

      progress to its legitimate issue. Materialism is that limited view of

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