CHAPTER III MIND In the process of determining the origin of mental species, the last thing we see is something that has unconsciously given us the courage to deny the reality of much that has been taught us, and, moreover, to continue an investigation which our senses tell us is futile. So, in beginning the study of the origin of mental species, the negative nature of the human mind1 will persistently manifest itself. But science is synonymous with courage and we prove our right to use the name by our courage. The denials of those around us, along with preconceived ideas imbibed from study, are difficult to overcome. They are, however, but feeble attempts of the negative attributes of matter compared with the denials in our own conscience. In dealing with the question of Mind, we must give names to the different activities previously named mind, and explain what we mean by the words Mind and minds. Moreover, in explaining ourselves we will be compelled to bear in mind, and likewise ask the student to keep in mind, the thought that many of the names and terms we will be compelled to use have been defined in his own mind very differently from the meaning we wish to convey. We shall, however, avoid these as The term (human mind) has reference to the human consciousness compounded out of the sensations of the felt-out and thought-out minds, relatively influenced by the inspired and revealed minds, and which constitutes the sum of our earthly intelligence. much as possible, and ask the reader to be mindful of the fact that the definition is not in the lexicon but in his own consciousness. Experience has taught the futility of teaching any one to believe anything, or even believing something ourselves, when one has already a fixed belief on the subject. While we may believe we are open to conviction, there are images in our consciousness that forbid the forming of a new concept. When we attempt to conceive something that cannot be conceived, in the accepted meaning of the word, it becomes a more difficult task. The highest form of human concept means some form of human outline, whereas, when we have reached the final sense of things there is no outline. This is only reached by a process of elimination, and since the human mind substitutes one illusion for another we will be compelled in this work to find and avail ourselves of the power that destroys illusions. HUMAN THOUGHT-OUT OR RELATIVE MIND The human thought-out mind consists of the classified sense impressions. These impressions are what are made on the sensitized plate of the camera. The primitive man has little more than these impressions and he wanders in this mirror-maze endeavoring to account for objects that are ever recurring to him in some strange manner. The most lasting ones are those that have caused him either fear or suffering. As a result he is constantly harassed by mental imagery that is productive of fear. It is a state without activity, without entity or intelligence, and the gleam of intelligence that enables him in this crude state to compare and in terrogate is a gleam of light from the immaterial intelligence, which will gradually destroy the images, explain phenomena and produce an enlightened man. Such is the dawn of sentient consciousness, where the thought-out mind begins to develop by explaining the sensations and pictures of the felt-out mind. Here is the origin of conscious mental species. At this period life is little more than a moving picture film and excites nothing except wonder with its correlative fear. But, since wonder is interrogative we realize that the desire for the explanation of phenomena is the beginning of intelligence. At this period man is but a feeble expression of intelligence. While it seems a long stretch of imagination backward to this time, we are relieved of this necessity by the available material at hand. There is today in the world every phase of man, from the first dawn of sentient consciousness to the highest intelligence the world has ever known. Therefore our work does not need to be speculative or imaginative. We have the material before us and we have only to make the comparison. Viewing man physically we find perfect specimens expressing every stage of intelligence; not only from savagery to civilization, but there are civilized men whose bodies are exactly alike who mentally express every stage that man has passed through from Jesus of Nazareth to the hypothetical incarnation of evil personified as the Devil. MORTAL FELT-OUT OR RELATIVE MIND The evolved, felt-out, or relative mind which constitutes the activity of all bodies classified under the terms material, mineral, vegetable and animal, is the sensa tion in matter which has been classified and explained in various ways, from chemistry in the mineral kingdom to the circulation of the blood, conception, fœtal development and parturition in the animal. This evolved mind is best studied in the vegetable world. In the animal world, where it preponderates, the student becomes confused with the thought-out mind. In man, where the felt-out mind begins to yield to the thought-out, it is still more difficult to follow. Plant life manifests an intelligence that has ever been the marvel of studious men and women. Yet it has no thinking faculty. Under the same conditions it always does the same thing. It is, however, subject to remarkable development or extinction under climatic conditions. Moreover, when undergoing these changesthe effect of soil and atmospheric conditions-it manifests remarkable strategy, courage and fortitude. So remarkable is this unthinking intelligence that the propagation of the species is attended by less pain and complexity than when under the influence of the reaction of the thought-out mind. Vegetable and animal species come into existence without seed or cultivation, sometimes existing for long geological periods to disappear eventually. These species did not originate from seed, and if they so originated it would be unthinkable that the principle of this delicate construction and color could be in the seed. We must find the law that enables the plant to grow in the seedless earth; learn why such a process takes place and what is the intelligence of the process. Such explanations as climate and soil with their attendants-light, heat and air-only explain the transformation of the obvious. This is the work of the naturalist with which we have nothing to do further than we have explained would be necessary to illustrate our problems. It is with the origin of species that we have to deal. What we wish to determine is where and how these species originate; how they came into existence on a planet that was once igneous rock. They must have existed in some state when there was no world, and if they did, what was their substance; how does this state affect the obvious which we have called nature? This is the point to which the analysis of the felt-out mind leads us. SPIRIT IMMATERIAL INTELLIGENCE- OR The last brief in our declaration of principles must consist of a declaration of the existence of Principle or Absolute Mind. Since the human must begin with the obvious and work back to the cause, it has been the process of this brief outline of the work necessary to determine the origin of mental species. We must here postulate what we wish to make obvious. The two forms of mind that we have described are not mind in its correct sense, but attenuated states of matter which have become so mobile and are subject to such rapid changes in form and color that we have heretofore regarded them as mind. We will now briefly consider what constitutes Mind in its correct sense. There is a universe of Principle, Immaterial-Intelligence, or Spirit that is the ever-living, undying and unalterable substance that is the life, the principle (activity, not outline) of everything. This UniverseSubstance-exists whether there are worlds, constella |