CHAPTER XXI ARRESTED SPECIES In considering the subject of arrested species three distinct factors predominate. They are luxury, belief and Revelation. While environment is a vitally important factor we will find, as we proceed, that the three factors, luxury, belief and Revelation comprise a large part of what is considered environment. Under the law of favored races a species will develop a condition suited to its environment. However, when the species has fitted itself to its environment it has reached a state of luxury that forbids further development. This is quite evident, for when a species has fitted itself, or in other words adapted itself to its environment the struggle for existence ceases and as a result the adaptation or appropriation of the Ultimate Element likewise ceases. While the law of favored races will produce a species some change in conditions mental or physical is necessary to cause a variation whereby a higher development becomes possible. When a race has developed sufficient intelligence to supply itself with the necessities of life and also defend itself from invasion there ceases to be any further demand on its faculties and as a consequence the faculties cease to develop. This law of sufficiency applies to man as well as animals. A species evolved to fit its environment will merely continue this fitting until some change in its environment requires it to adjust itself to a new condition. If the species develops the faculty of adjust ment it will survive. The faculty of adjustment is the most useful of all of the faculties, for it is evident that without this faculty a species or race cannot adjust itself to a changing condition. The slave owning races are examples that furnish us unlimited material from which we may learn useful lessons. Slave owning races, whether ants or men, never advance beyond the point we have referred to as the law of sufficiency and when this condition has been interfered with the race has suffered retardation, decline and arrestment. Sometimes they have lost all relation to, and consciousness of, their previous state. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans are notable examples. Of course, in considering the struggle for existence we must not confuse the natural and relatively peaceful struggle of nature with the struggle for existence where intent and purpose have been consciously or unconsciously added to this struggle. Undoubtedly nature appears cruel to our thought-out methods, purposes and desires which often contradict nature, but to nature itself, nature is never cruel. Too often man has attempted to conceal his own venality and human ambition by giving them a natural significance. Evolution is never violent and revolutions that have been attributed to evolution have been the result of man's failure to observe the natural processes of evolution and adjust himself accordingly. The necessity of adaptation presupposes that faculty of adjustment necessary to the maintenance of a state of equilibrium in a specializing race and is effected by growth which is continually demanding new adjustments. Luxury and material sufficiency being inimical to growth the ruling class fails to keep up with the progress of the struggling element. Paternalism, specialization and protection must terminate in either an arrested race or revolution. The law of progress is the effect of the appropriation of Substance which is the law of God. Where men yield to the influence of inspiration progress becomes an irresistible power before which the conventional lies compacted out of the compensation of natural, thought-out customs must go down. The inspired man struggling for material, intellectual and spiritual luxury which he sees others enjoying, will overtake those who have become surfeited with these luxuries and as a consequence have ceased to develop the faculties through which they derive these luxuries. In human processes so closely allied to nature there. are comforting incidents and compensating accidents. Conspicuous among these are romance and mythology and so closely are they linked to the natural that many of us who have wrought long and earnestly in the inspired thought-out world when wearied of meticulous. precision turn to them for comfort. But growth is effected by anticipating the real. However, when we attempt to conceive life an exact science and the Holy Ghost its sufficiency there is a sense of weariness. But we must remember the law of compensation attends all progress and completeness must be sufficient. The beauties of the natural thought-out world being largely belief we must advance beyond that point and to do so the effect of believing must be overcome. We have said in this work that belief was the one profane. word of language. Just as physical nature discards the old to make way for the new that growth may be continued, so in the world of thinking the processes of the past must be discarded if we wish to grow in intelligence. Belief is the result of contemplation. Evidences of the existence of powers and processes caused man to believe in their existence. The Nineteenth Psalm and Addison's paraphrase of this Psalm represent the highest form of belief. However, when we have reduced the thing contemplated to the principle seen through inspired vision and furthermore have reduced the principle we have seen to practice (which practice we have named science), we no longer believe we know. If people who use the word believe would attempt to abolish its use for one day they would realize what a factor it is in their life. Webster's dictionary defines the word "belief" as: "A state or habit of mind in which trust, confidence, or reliance is placed in some person or thing; trust; confidence; faith.' Paul in one of his epistles gives the word faith a more scientific significance when he defines it as an invisible Substance. If we have not seen the substance of the thing contemplated as we see the substance of the exact sciences we have advanced no farther than the law of probabilities. The word Substance in its highest sense is synonymous with power and when we have seen the Substance of a belief we derive a power just to the extent that we have seen the substance. The greatest enemies of the prophets both glorified and inglorious have been those who have believed their teachings. As a result of their merely believing they had no power to convey to those they taught. Necessarily they only taught others to believe like themselves. It is written of Jesus that His word was with power and moreover it is written that Jesus conveyed this power to those He taught. This is true, in a measure, of all science whether physical, natural or metaphysical. Another unfortunate feature of belief is that it has no reality; no entity; and therefore it cannot be contradicted. Two demonstrable forces, even though they are merely highly attenuated chemical action or visualized thought in the nature of probabilities are sufficiently cognizable and substantial to yield to superior power or logical analysis but belief being nothing more than a shadow cast upon the senses it is subject to neither power nor analysis. The worst effect of belief is that it prevents investigation. If we believe, we can go no further. In belief there is nothing to investigate because we know. No progress can be made because we have gone as far as belief can take us. Belief closes to thought and investigation the leaden gates of intolerance and guards these gates with the flaming sword of bigotry. To believe in God precludes all possibility of ever, by scientific investigation, learning anything about Him. Likewise if we believe the material world was made in a period of time comprehensible to the senses we will never investigate its origin, growth and development. Besides, if we believe that the mass of sensations in which fear and pain predominate constitutes man we will never separate these co-ordinated sensations from the senseless perfect man evolved in Principle. Moreover if our ideas of right and wrong continue to be what we believe we will continue to torture those we love, harm those we would help, and kill those we would cure. Until we understand the correct relations of human beings in organized |