and evil. Once while guiding a sprightly little girl through some wild-flower gardens near the Garden of the Gods in Colorado she ran to me holding a great bouquet of flowers and asked: "Are the flowers always happy?” I replied they were and received through the child's question the revelation that explained why they were always happy. The explanation was that they had no consciousness to make them unhappy. Necessarily the dawn of choosing, or the genesis of human intelligence must have been coeval with the faculty of locomotion, or perhaps between the periods of movement and locomotion. Every study of man, from the oldest bibles or sacred books down to the most recent works on psychology, have consisted of efforts to explain the origin of good and evil. The legend of the serpent and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, when translated into mental activities, becomes nothing more than a reference to this period when man ceased to be a mere natural habit and began to feel attractions and repulsions and attempted to control conditions affecting him. It is regrettable that efforts to separate good from evil have consisted mostly of an effort to change our opinions of right and wrong instead of explaining how we become possessed of them. Unfortunately for this method, man, excepting natural students, has never been advanced by direct education. Man imbibes knowledge before he accepts it. The human mind is far more inclined to murder than to suicide. To change one's opinion about some established belief is a matter of more importance than we have been taught to believe. What we generally regard as man here in earth is the sum and substance of his opinions. To change a vital part of this consists of making a man over again. In fact, it is a self-effacement inconceivable without some help from a source of power greater than the opinions themselves. Here the Origin of Mental Species takes up the problem and explains the availability of a substance which determines the origin and value of these opinions. We have endeavored to put into words the processes and methods by which the felt-out mind came into existence. Likewise have we tried to explain the origin of the thought-out mind which we are now considering and which will later occupy a large part of our attention. Most important to the understanding of this process is the fact that the Absolute substance which makes all growth and intelligence possible must be kept constantly before the vision of the mind. Moreover, we must be mindful of the fact that we began by seeing with the material or bodily vision when we were nothing more than a camera. Consequently it will be well to begin with this primitive vision before proceeding to the vision of the mind. SUBSTANCE-SPIRIT-ABSOLUTE MIND- This mind consists of the principles and activities governed by this principle. The generally accepted name for these activities when in action and expressed through matter either mental or material is functions. Naming is not explaining and words have no meaning beyond the graven image in consciousness. Unless we desymbolize the word and see the substance implied by the "meaning of the word" we do not know the meaning; we only have a belief of it. If there were anything in earth to compare Spirit or Substance with we could say: it is like this or like that, for this is as far as language takes us. How are we who have seen this to describe what we have seen when there is no medium through which to express it? This has been the cause of the endless quarrel about God. Each one has expressed, or tried to express, himself in symbols and convey to the other what the graven image of the symbols meant to himself. The theory of the Origin of Mental Species recognizes this humanly insurmountable obstacle; breaks away from the beaten path and presupposes the realization of spirit by a process of education. In fact, there is nothing startingly new about it except when applied to those subjects which have been regarded as the exclusive field of religion. We study the rules of arithmetic, work examples and thereby imbibe the principles of mathematics. We do the same thing in political economy, in mechanics and if the same process is carried out in the study of spiritual subjects we will get the same results. 1 “What is Spirit?” asks Hegel in his remarkable essay on Spirit. He then answers his own question in these words: "It is the one immutable homogeneous Infinitepure Identity." There are volumes of this, both religious and philosophical. Our educated senses have given these statements a meaning and the meaning of them is just in proportion to our knowledge of what Spirit consists of; therefore, the words have no meaning. Unless we have seen Spirit, and it is possible to do so, these words are useless except it be to create in us a sense of reverence for something we cannot see, and this is the im and substance of most persons' religious sense. ilosophy of History-Hegel (Page 414). One word used commonly, and often imperfectly, carries with it the highest expression of Spirit known to the educated senses. That word is Principle. A leading dictionary gives this definition of Principle: "A source of origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element or cause." The definition of principle is "fundamental substance." Again we are confronted with the question: What is substance? To continue these definitions in words or human symbols would result in Goethe's despairing cry: "Words, mere words, repeated ever." The subject of these definitions is substance, necessarily the object of them is substance. But until we know what substance is these analogous awakenings will never do more than remind us of the belief in the existence of something we have outlined as substance. We cannot too often remind ourselves of the danger of believing that we know a thing; for this belief forbids progress. Mr. Haeckel reached this same conclusion when he wrote: "The number of world-riddles has been continually diminishing in the course of the nineteenth century through the aforesaid progress of a true knowledge of nature. Only one comprehensive riddle of the Universe now remains the problem of substance. What is the real character of this mighty world-wonder that the realistic scientist calls nature or the universe, the idealistic philosopher calls Substance, or the Cosmos, and the pious believer calls Creator or God?"2 As a result of this substance mental species originate; necessarily we must see Substance to correctly under1 International Dictionary-Webster. 2 The Riddle of the Universe-Ernest Haeckel (Page 380). 1 stand the Origin of Mental Species. Hegel says: "Only Spirit recognizes Spirit." This statement implies the necessity of developing a spiritual or substance sense before we can see substance and this is the secret of the whole matter. The symbols evolved through the development of the senses convey no actual meaning of anything outside of themselves. When we are convinced of this, we realize the insufficiency of a psychology deduced from and induced by the evolution of the sense impressions. To know more we must be more and this being consists of a consciousness of Substance as a reality. Until we have developed this consciousness intelligently we cannot separate the evolved sense impressions from those derived from Spirit-Substance which must be the basis of the only enduring psychology. We have taken the stand in the first part of this work that man develops just in the proportion that he consciously or unconsciously yields to the animating power of truth. His growth from mere sentient matter, we contended, was dependent on his realization of truth. Furthermore we contended that the body assumed the erect attitude and form of enlightened man just in proportion to his growth in intelligence. We still further insisted that in the world of organized thought, called civilized, he advanced just in proportion to his ability to defend himself mentally. Psychology must explain this development and growth and the only way to do this is to become conscious of the Absolute Intelligence or life and study this process of development apart from one's self. To do this we must see, with the vision of the mind, Principle and its functions in action. The human name for 1 Philosophy of History-Hegel (Page 416). |