CHAPTER II DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES I may here premise that in determining the origin of mental species we must deal with and consider of first importance what is known as the Invisible Universe. We may use the language of the Bible and name the Invisible Universe spirit; we may use the language of an eminent biologist and name the Invisible Universe substance; we may use the language of a great naturalist and name the Invisible Universe essence; we may use the language of an engineer and name the Invisible Universe principle; we may leave the Invisible Universe nameless or we may name it, the fact remains that it is to a knowledge of the Invisible Universe we owe all our progress. The realization of the Invisible Universe has been fragmentary, and as a result of this, we have been kept in a state of speculation. Whenever we have realized an idea we have rushed off to make a material image of the idea. Two things have prompted this action. One was a desire to make money, the other pride in having discovered something. Instead of viewing our achievements through their expressions in matter, let us spend some time in contemplating our discoveries in their primal form and primitive substance. It is astonishing how much beauty is lost when we contemplate ideas in the dissolving elements. The exact sciences live on throughout generations untouched and untarnished by the process of the ages. We use the substance of these imperishable things as the supreme court of life's activities with little thought of its nature, its constituent elements or its possible sacredness.1 Until we have determined the nature of this indestructible substance, we will continue to be speculators, unintelligent prospectors and Cyclopean gropers in our scientific research. However, in this we are not attempting something new; neither are we plunging into an unknown world. What astonishes us most as we continue our investigations is how much is known of this world of principle and design in a fragmentary way. It is lack of appreciation, along with human exultation that has forbidden our following this lead of ideas to the mother lode. Like profligate miners we have squandered our new-found wealth and awakened from our intoxication to go prospecting again. The first principle in determining the origin of mental species is the existence of the immaterial universe. A few illustrations may not be out of place here. If we get the idea of a number we immediately counterfeit it materially, and call it a figure. The number is an idea in principle and the figure is an outline. We discover a principle in mechanics and we make an image of it. Every invention is but the application of some idea, and every enduring idea is but a ray of understanding that has come from this universe of principle. It contains the intelligence that constitutes and determines the species in the process of evolution, just as the idea that we conceive, or rather receive, constitutes and determines the machine we construct. 1"Who can explain what is the essence of the attraction of gravity." Origin of Species-Darwin (Page 304, Vol. II). It is in this immaterial universe that everything scientific originates. It is the source from which we derived everything that we have had in the past, that we possess now, and will have in the future. The principal channel through which this has come to us has been experience; sometimes intelligently directed experiment and sometimes prayer. If, instead of blind groping, we should stop a few moments and contemplate this source that gives us power over the elemental reactions that beset us here, we will find ourselves in a world very much unlike the one in which we have previously lived. We will learn where we got our power over matter as well as how to get more. We will then understand the Fourth Dimension and its operative principle as well as learning what life is. This will explain the phenomena of nature and the legerdemain of the fakir. Man will experiment intelligently, he will build scientifically, and at the same time, he will have power to repair the waste in his own body and mind, a waste that has taken many a genius out of the world just when he was ready to do some marvelous work. This immaterial substance and intelligence which constitutes the life, substance and design of all things is life. This life is the activity of all that is obvious, though not so in a material sense. The action of bodies is derived from this, but the activity manifest to the senses is but a potential resistance to this. When the activity of a body ceases, we call it death. However, it is the potential that has ceased to operate, and not the power that potentized it. It is the power that manifests itself through chemical action and reaction but is not the chemical action itself. It is the fundamental cause of all action but as we see action mostly through the senses, we do not see the primal cause of action, but rather the effect. It is with primal principle that we must get acquainted. We can only do this by turning our gaze away from the material outline and holding in thought the immaterial idea of every form; the immaterial principle of every action as well as the immaterial substance of every object. We must hold in mind always the plant before it grows, the animal before it exists, as well as man before he assumed material or bodily form. By this process we dematerialize everything. We contemplate everything as an idea in mind-the principle of its construction before it was made obvious to the senses. We hereby open up a channel of thought not speculative. We then behold all things existing and acting in principle wholly apart from the evanescent phenomena that heretofore held our attention. THE INVISIBLE UNIVERSE The principle that constitutes or determines the species of plants and animals must be something wholly independent of the plant or animal itself. The plant has no consciousness of this fact, for if it did, the consciousness would die with the plant, yet the plant grows year after year with scarcely any modification. Some established species have not changed visibly in history, and geological discoveries have revealed instances of the existence of species for a long period. The origin of the obvious species has been given sufficient consideration until we have more knowledge of the principle which makes them possible obviously. Everything obvious must have an unseen guiding power that impels its growth. However, to avoid the pitfalls of illusion we must bear in mind that this principle is never in the animal or plant; neither is the animal or plant conscious of it. Plants and animals assume the same forms year after year and generation after generation. If the system. or bodily process is a habit, where does that habit exist after dissolution? Is the embryo intelligent, and if so where is the intelligence? It is not in the seed, for the first plant does not grow from a seed. These questions are necessary and pertinent to the determining of the origin of mental species. Furthermore, only by getting rid of many previous concepts of the obvious, can we get a glimpse of the substance that makes possible the existence of the obvious. What has been often laid aside by naturalists and philosophers as impossible of knowing has gradually grown into a school known as the unknowable. The conclusions thus reached have had the effect of limitation on those who have not known of their existence in an intelligent way. It is this class of people who present a solid front to any attempt to go beyond this point of limitation. Equally obstructive has been that class of people who settle everything by saying, "God made it." This mental state is, figuratively speaking, the trench deadlock of enlightenment and progress. The student is always a student, but the people who only reflect the conclusions reached by students never advance. It is this unconscious limitation that must be broken down if we would advance. The study of the evolution of the |