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

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СКАЧАТЬ by a natural law, the demand creates the supply, and this supply

      may be freely applied to any and every subject-matter that commends

      itself to us. There is no limit to the supply of this energy other than

      what we ourselves put to it by our thought; nor is there any limit to

      the purposes we may make it serve other than the one grand Law of Order,

      which says that good things used for wrong purposes become evil. The

      consideration of the intelligent and responsive nature of spirit shows

      that there can be no limitations but these. The one is a limitation

      inherent in spirit itself, and the other is a limitation which has no

      root except in our own ignorance.

      It is true that to maintain our healthy action within the circle of our

      own individual world we must continually move forward with the movement

      of the larger whole of which we form a part. But this does not imply any

      restriction of our liberty to make the fullest use of our lives in

      accordance with those universal principles of life upon which they are

      founded; for there is not one law for the part and another for the

      whole, but the same law of Being permeates both alike. In proportion,

      therefore, as we realise the true law of our own individuality we shall

      find that it is one with the law of progress for the race. The

      collective individuality of mankind is only the reproduction on a larger

      scale of the personal individuality; and whatever action truly develops

      the inherent powers of the individual must necessarily be in line with

      that forward march of the universal mind which is the evolution of

      humanity as a whole.

      Selfishness is a narrow view of our own nature which loses sight of our

      place in relation to the whole, not perceiving that it is from this very

      relation that our life is drawn. It is ignorance of our own

      possibilities and consequent limitation of our own powers. If,

      therefore, the evidence of harmonious correlation throughout the

      physical world leads irresistibly to the inference of intelligent

      spirit as the innermost within of all things, we must recognise

      ourselves also as individual manifestations of the same spirit which

      expresses itself throughout the universe as that power of intelligent

      responsiveness which is Love.

      Thus we find ourselves to be a necessary and integral part of the

      Infinite Harmony of All-Being; not merely recognising this great truth

      as a vague intuition, but as the logical and unavoidable result of the

      universal Life-principle which permeates all Nature. We find our

      intuition was true because we have discovered the law which gave rise to

      it; and now intuition and investigation both unite in telling us of our

      own individual place in the great scheme of things. Even the most

      advanced among us have, as yet, little more than the faintest

      adumbration of what this place is. It is the place of _power_. Towards

      those higher modes of spirit which we speak of as "the universal," the

      law of man's inmost nature makes him as a lens, drawing into the focus

      of his own individuality all that he will of light and power in streams

      of inexhaustible supply; and towards the lower modes of spirit, which

      form for each one the sphere of his own particular world, man thus

      becomes the directive centre of energy and order.

      Can we conceive of any position containing greater possibilities than

      these? The circle of this vital influence may expand as the individual

      grows into the wider contemplation of his unity with Infinite Being; but

      any more comprehensive law of relationship it would be impossible to

      formulate. Emerson has rightly said that a little algebra will often do

      far more towards clearing our ideas than a large amount of poetic

      simile. Algebraically it is a self-evident proposition that any

      difference between various powers of _x_ disappears when they are

      compared with _x_ multiplied into itself to infinity, because there can

      be no ratio between any determinate power, however high, and the

      infinite; and thus the relation between the individual and All-Being

      must always remain the same.

      But this in no way interferes with the law of growth, by which the

      individual rises to higher and higher powers of his own individuality.

      The unchangeableness of the relation between all determinate powers of

      _x_ and infinity does not affect the relations of the different powers

      of _x_ between themselves; but rather the fact that the multiplication

      of _x_ into itself to infinity is mentally conceivable is the very proof

      that there is no limit to the extent to which it is possible to raise

      _x_ in its determinate powers.

      I trust unmathematical readers will pardon my using this method of

      statement for the benefit of others to whom it will carry conviction. A

      relation once clearly grasped in its mathematical aspect becomes

      thenceforth one of the unalterable truths of the universe, no longer a

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