could realize that it is but a method of fascination, which fascination is always drawing us back to a consciousness of the attributes of the flesh, wherein and whereby originates the very abuses they are trying to escape, they would learn that the only way to escape them is to cease talking about them. Furthermore, inversely expressed, it is ever present to silence the voice or palsy the tongue of the parent who should teach within the sacred precincts of the home its ensnaring and enslaving methods. In proportion as man has been raised by the processes of civilization above the natural, his burden of responsibility has increased. Nature has a method of her own and the conventions of mankind have antagonized her, hence the cross on which so many have been crucified. We must learn the nature of these induced activities if we hope to overcome them. Not by studying them as a. power, but by learning they are not a power when we can avail ourselves of the Absolute Mind which conquers and dissolves the insidious foe.

Aside from the effects of these induced activities, there is another less distasteful but equally unfortunate effect of them. It is the personal dislikes which cause us so much annoyance. It accounts for the inharmony of families and the feuds growing out of them. But more important still is its being the cause of what is often described as an unaccountable dislike of man and wife, which dislike often results in divorce. This often takes place after years of normal living attended by the responsibility of raising children. This is probably the most unfortunate condition for which it is responsible. It inspires argument, colors conversation with hatred and puts a sting in every statement, thus preventing

harmonious conclusions. It is the prejudice which attaches itself to every belief. This prejudice often separates children from their parents, especially when the children have early in life advanced beyond the understanding of their parents. It is this expression of these induced activities in the form of prejudice which has been responsible for religious persecution, both material and mental, with its resultant factional bitterness and unchristian wars. It accuses unjustly and is responsible for the misrepresentation and malice from which we have all suffered.

An equally important effect of it has been its effect on the minds of those who are religiously inclined but not scientifically educated. Discerning what has been termed the ills of the flesh, they have turned away from it and attempted to escape them entirely by being absorbed in the Ultimate Element. However, it is these induced activities from which they have tried to escape and which they have failed to separate from the normal, natural man resulting in their going to the opposite extreme. Life freed from this pernicious activity would consist of the answer to the prayer, "Thy Kingdom come in earth as it is in Heaven," and life would have few crosses and little woe.

We cannot escape it except by destroying it and we can never destroy it until we have separated it in our consciousness from both the normal, healthy felt-out and thought-out existence and the Absolute Immaterial Element. And what is very important, when we understand the theory of the Origin of Mental Species, this ceases to be a personal matter. When we understand this, we no longer correct the child but the error, we no longer

fight the man but the manifestation; and to do this we separate them from the enemy and invoke their aid to destroy it. What a wonderful warfare it will be when we have enlisted under the banner of science in the army of truth to destroy this deceiver who not only makes us enemies to each other but to ourselves! This final war will end the warfare of science and theology, the antagonism of religions, promote a mutual understanding among men, and out of this will grow the only religion that will ever establish peace on earth, namely, the extension of science until it acquaints us intelligently with the Ultimate Element, with its attribute of health. and harmony, which harmony we believe to be God.

CHAPTER IX

DIFFICULTIES OF THE THEORY

"Whence are we? Whither are we going? Whence this earth of ours and the plants and animals which make it their home? Whence the sun, the moon, and stars-those distant and brilliant, yet mysterious representatives of our visible universe? Did they have a beginning, or have they existed from all eternity? And if they had a beginning, are they the same now as they were when they first came into existence, or have they undergone changes, and if so, what are the nature and factors of such changes? Are the development and mutations of things to be referred to the direct and immediate action of an all-powerful Creator, or are they rather to be attributed to the operation of certain laws of nature, laws which admit of determination by human reason, and which, when known, serve as a norm in our investigations and experiments in the organic and inorganic worlds? Are there special interventions on the part of a Supreme Being in the government of the universe, and are we to look for frequent if not constant exhibitions of the miraculous in the natural world? Has God's first creation of the universe and all it contains, of the earth and all that inhabits it, been followed by other creations at diverse periods, and if so, when and where has such creative power been manifested?

"These are a few of the many questions about the genesis and development of things which men asked themselves in the infancy of our race. And these are ques

tions which philosophers are still putting to themselves, and which, notwithstanding the many thousands of years during which they have been under discussion, have today a greater and more absorbing interest than in any former period of human history."

991

I have quoted the above comprehensive question from "Evolution and Dogma," by Professor J. A. Zahm, C.S.C., for several reasons. Some of these reasons will become evident as we proceed, while others we will briefly consider now.

The trouble with works dealing with final causes is that they are almost invariably written by either religious or scientific specialists. Necessarily, as a result of their limitations, they produce a limited work. This is especially the case when they have allied themselves with some school or class. They are so in the habit of explaining what they know that they never open their minds to what you are trying to express to them. Moreover, they insist on explaining everything from their own hypothetical norm. The question quoted was written by a teacher of physics, a scientist, a student, a professed religionist and an unpretentious, pious man. It was written just at the time when evolution was in the hands of that element (ever present), which when anything new and useful comes into the world perverts it and makes a fetish out of it. But the counterpoise of intelligence rescued evolution from a strangulating myopia. About this time, through one of those general and unexplainable awakenings which come to men of one mind like Divine intervention, there came the realization that evolution was not an intelligent force. This explained 1 Evolution and Dogma-Zahm (Page 14).