of Mental Species, is the result of the induced realization of the Absolute Mind as a result of the concentration of mental faculties on the operation of natural law in the form of functions. The further we trace the function the nearer we approach the idea of the function, and which idea and the intelligence that governs it constitute the function in its ultimate and Absolute sense. It is the effect of these ideas and the principle that governs them on the mind of the student that is the cause of all education and growth. This is why so much progress has been made in the last century. To the unconscious effect of this on scientific investigators can be traced our great legacy of light and learning. This vision comes as we know, in a measure, from the study of natural science. Apperception takes the place of perception and things become visible which before were invisible to the bodily senses. But even with this faculty developed to its highest possible development, it is difficult to separate the natural from the unnatural. This apperception, as we have just said, comes as a result of an unconscious realization of the Absolute Mind. But this is not sufficient. To see the natural in its true light and be able to separate natural law from phenomena, we must become conscious of the Absolute Mind; let this mind take control of us and as a result we see natural law and its activities apart from ourselves. Then, and only then, are we able to study the Origin of Mental Species without being constantly harassed and tempted by natural phenomena which is forever ready to impose its deception on the credulous senses. Such a realization of the Absolute Mind as came to some of the characters recorded in the Bible turned to the study and explanation of the functions of nature, inclusive of man, would establish a school of science which would be science indeed. These men saw the Universe of Principle of which obvious nature is but an inverse and unstable mirage. To see this Principle as St. John saw it and then use this Light to explain nature and its functions instead of being satisfied with apocalyptic visions is the only way man will ever know himself, as well as the world of nature, and be able to protect himself from unseen powers. Then will the three mighty powers referred to by Huxley, "the power of an invisible God, the power of my fellow-man, and the power of brute nature," become the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah and peace will reign in proportion to man's understanding of them. Man will know God, he will know nature, and he will know and protect himself from brute nature, which brute nature consists of the unnatural in man. We have heard a great deal about the "intelligence of nature." We must, however, make a distinction between the intelligence of nature and intelligence about nature. The intelligence attributed to nature is not intelligence at all; it is instinct. It is merely nature, and nature is not intelligent in the conscious sense in which enlightened man uses the word. The bird builds a nest for the same reason that the blood circulates through its body. The bird has no more control over the apparent freedom of one than it has over the other. Because we with our intelligence about nature can see where the bird can choose in building and not building. (Metaphysics is the oldest of the sciences, and would still survive, even if all of the rest were swallowed up in the abyss of an all-destroying barbarism.) Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, page 25. a nest, we think the bird can do likewise. We are giving the bird credit for something it does not possess. We have read much about the faculty of location along with other attributes of primitive man, but while possessing these he herded no cattle, cultivated no ground, and laid up nothing for unseasonable times. The faculties he possessed were not intelligence in its correct sense; it was merely habit. Had he been intelligent he would have conserved some energy as well as dissipating force. The intelligence of nature we hear so much about does not teach the nature of natural things.1 Men who live in the forest and are physically near nature often know the least about it. This is the point where primitive man loses his unconscious hold of the Absolute Mind through the beginning of reason and the consciousness of correlatives and becomes superstitious. Likewise at this same period in the dawn of Spirit influence on the senses, the religious mind lets go of natural intelligence and reverts to superstition. While the last statement carried us far into the realm of the thought-out mind, it uncovers something that man has often caught glimpses of, i. e., the periodic law. The natural man with his intelligence of nature, which is merely habitual and periodical, gradually gives way to the inspired man with his intelligence about nature until the purification of his mentality enables 1 (The whole bee and ant community is unintelligent, stagnant. Aside from the merely mechanical business of getting food and reproducing, there can be no community of interest Whatever originality the bee and the ant may have originally possessed, the perfect discipline and complete protection under which they have so long lived have reduced them, ages ago, to mere automata.) Excerpt from an Editorial on Kultur, Specialization and Arrested Species in the Scientific American, New York, November 2, 1918. him to see his own Substance, or spiritual self, and this sight reacts on his natural attributes. The periodicity of functions is a law of nature which will be understood when men are able, through the Absolute sense, to see the functions apart from matter. Through this form of knowledge the time, tides and seasons of all things will constitute the physiology of nature. Such tangents with this periodic law as hinted at in the nature of our tidal ancestors will be highways to the higher hope on earth; the tides of the ocean will carry us farther into the realm of periodic and tidal action until the tides and periods of mind will be understood. Blood and water will no longer be their classification for the function will be understood and this understanding will erase forever from consciousness the material sense of things. CHAPTER XVI PSYCHOLOGY The study of the phenomena of the mind under the term psychology has resulted in the same chaos of conjectures and speculations as the study of the functions of the body under the term physiology. From all of their study and investigations they have never deduced a law of any permanent value. Moreover, I am told by ethical students that much that was formerly regarded as substantial has been abandoned. Of course, in writing on this subject I have reference, as I did in writing about physiology, to its relation to the fundamental principles that must in some way be responsible for the origin of mental activity. While we do not deny these researches have had an enlightening effect, they have also been responsible for much cruelty resulting from the influence of such branches of it as criminology. It may be claimed, and with some reason, that the cause of the genesis of thought lies in the realm of metaphysics. Likewise, however, could the different medical schools say they have nothing to do with life or death, they only treat diseases. Genesis and decay imply a cause and effect and any method whose purpose is to explain life or death must of necessity carry its researches beyond mere phenomena. Unfortunately the students of psychology have devoted their attention mostly to the study of diseased mentalities instead of healthy ones. Just as healers of diseases have devoted their time to the study of diseased |