CHAPTER VII - CONCLUSION
In this book we have considered the two systems of psychology, the Eastern and the Western. Taken together we have a complete picture of man as a living soul, functioning through a certain mechanism. Part of this, the etheric body with its centres, is subtle, unseen and beyond the reach of our five senses, and another part is in the dense physical realm, namely the endocrine glands and the nervous system, which control the rest of the dense physical manifestation. These two parts, we believe, form one whole.
The soul is always the great reality, the expression of the one life, which is made up of the etheric and dense bodies. It is the soul force playing upon and functioning through the etheric body which evolves the specialised centres in that body, and which in turn acts upon the dense physical.
The question which appeals most strongly to the Western mind is how to achieve greater efficiency in operation. Man, the soul, is limited in his operating efficiency by the condition of his instrument. If the glands, nervous system and the etheric body with its centres are out of adjustment and not functioning properly, man, the soul, must repair or heal them. It is only because man is essentially [129] a living soul that we can even conceive of his glands as not functioning properly, much less proceed to study, correct and perfect them.
Work directly upon the glands and the nerve centres through the use of medicines and by other means is essentially repair work, and is limited to the highest state of those particular glands and nerve centres originally created by the particular man in question. The same is equally, and if anything, more emphatically true of the centres in the etheric body which can be affected by certain Oriental practices of breathing, mantras and posture. Such practices are most dangerous, often, indeed, leading to insanity. Eventually, it is to be hoped, we shall have sufficient knowledge and experience to work with intelligence directly upon the centres and thus he able to control more effectively the neuroses and glands of the physical body.
Three theories apparently emerge as the result of our investigation, and form a triple hypothesis to account for man as an organism, demonstrating life, self-consciousness and intelligent purpose.
The first is: As a man's glands and nervous system, so is he. His temperament, natural qualities and intelligent handling of his life experiences and of his environment are determined by his endocrine system. So says the West.
The second is: As a man's centres, so is he. The quiescence or the activity of certain focal points of energy in the human, etheric body, determine his character, his method of expression, his type and [130] also the tenure of his body. His activities on the physical plane are entirely dependent upon the qualities of force flowing through his centres. So says the East.
The third is: The glands and neuroses as well as the centres are conditioned by the control or lack of control exerted by the soul.
It might be argued that we have only succeeded in pushing the whole matter back into the realms of the unseen and the unprovable. But is this really so? Have not many factors now accepted as realities emerged from the speculations and vague hypotheses of the past ages? Has not what was regarded as unprovable in the past been proved and demonstrated in the present age? Might it not be possible to apply a technique and employ a method which may in time suffice, through the mass of direct available evidence, to give us a clearer perception of the factors which are at present so obscure to us?
The West comes forward as we have seen with its facts concerning the structure. Man's mechanism is determined by his endocrine system plus the nervous system, the response apparatus. Can we approach the subject from this standpoint and by a treatment of the human glands produce perfection of the human body and thus eventually lead man out into the full light of the soul? Can divinity be unfolded through physical means? Or, accepting the Eastern position that the centres are the mediums of expression for the soul, and responsible [131] for the building and control of the body, through the nervous system and the glands, can we investigate and apply a recognisably dangerous method and work directly on or through the centres?
Is there a third way by means of which we can avoid the purely physical approach and also the danger of awakening the centres prematurely? May it not be possible to arrive at a solution and a method which will give the soul the full use of its instrument, and produce that perfect interplay between soul and body which a right activity of the centres is claimed to bring about?
There is a way whereby man can ascertain that he is really a soul, and therefore is able to control his instrument of expression, the threefold lower nature, the sum total of psychical and mental states. Through this method it is possible to bring about a union of the wisdom of the East and the knowledge of the West, so that the best aspects of each system can be available to mankind as a whole.
In considering the possibility of man discovering his soul, there must be, to start with, a willingness to accept an hypothesis, for hypotheses have always been the starting point for knowledge. We assume then, as a working hypothesis that man is a soul and possesses a body, and that there is a unifying medium linking these two in the form of an energy body.
[132]
Those who have sought to ascertain the fact of the existence of the soul and of its vitalising apparatus hitherto can be divided into two groups. There are the mystics who have employed aspiration and emotion, plus physical means, and there are those who are more purely mental in calibre, and who have utilised the intellect and the mind, in order to arrive at spiritual knowledge. This long line of knowers of God have used different terminologies, but it is immaterial for our purpose whether they call the soul the self, the Beloved, the One, or God, or Christ. The mystic flagellated and misused his body through fasting and over-discipline. He thus reduced the claims of the fleshly appetites. To this he added an intense devotion for the Beloved and a longing for the Vision. At the close of years of strenuous exercise he found that which he sought, and was united with that Beloved.
The second group employed the reason and practised mind control, plus stern emotional and physical control. Through the one-pointedness of their search they, too, found reality and came into a wide consciousness of the eternal plan, arriving at union with the Universal Soul.
Both groups bear testimony to the truth of the existence of the Soul, but, limited by their peculiar bent and method, their testimony is one-sided. One is too visionary, mystical and emotional; the other too academic, intellectual and form-building. Now, through the wide dissemination of human [133] knowledge and the close intercourse existing between minds through the medium of literature, the spoken word and travel, the time has come when a fusion is, for the first time, generally possible, and, from the past conclusions of the philosophers and saints of both hemispheres, we should be able to work out a system and a method which will be for our day and generation the mode of spiritual achievement.
It becomes therefore practical for certain initial steps to be taken and these might be summarised as follows:
(a) A sane treatment of the physical body, utilising the knowledge of the West, particularly with reference to preventive medicine and the general health of the endocrine system.
(b) An intellectual understanding and application of the basic facts of modern psychology and a sane psycho-analysis, thus arriving at a knowledge of the mechanism, mental, emotional and physical, through which the soul seeks expression.
(c) A recognition of the fact that, as the physical body is an automaton, responsive to and controlled by the desires and the emotional nature, so these emotional states of consciousness (extending all the way from love of food to love of God) may be controlled by the reasoning mind.
(d) Growing out of all this will come a study of the laws of mind, and thus the relationship between the mind and the brain may be understood and utilised.
[134]
When these four points are grasped and their effect is felt in man's personality, we shall have the integrated and coordinated organism; the structure can then be regarded as ready for direction by the soul. The above stages must be understood, not as proceeding sequentially, but as going forward simultaneously. It is also apparent that perfect intellectual knowledge of the soul and of the world which that soul reveals is only possible to the man who has this outlined equipment. A sense of God, an appreciation of the true and beautiful, and a contact with the mystical vision is at all times possible to those whose heart centre is awake and functioning. Such Lovers of God have existed through the ages; they feel, sense, love and adore, but the link between soul, mind and brain is lacking. When to this mystical equipment there is added the intellectual, then the head centre is awakened, the pineal gland is no longer in an atrophied condition, but is known to be the seat of the soul and of the directing spiritual will. When both these centres are awakened we have the great outstanding spiritual personalities who work with consecrated heart and brain and set their seal on world thought. Hitherto the way of the mystic has been the way of the majority, and the way of the intellect has been for the few. But the race is now at the stage where, basing its hypothesis upon the mystical experiences of the many, it can go forward from feeling and adoration to knowledge, and from love of God into knowledge of God.
[135]
This will be the case when the wisdom of the East is added to the knowledge of the West and the technique of the science of the soul is imposed upon our Western intellectual types. It is impossible to enlarge at length upon this technique. It might, however, be briefly described as being divided into eight stages which can be listed as follows:
1. Control of our relations to others, summed up under the word harmlessness which is defined in the East by the Five Commandments. These are: Harmlessness, truth to all beings, abstention from theft, from incontinence and from avarice. [ciii]1
2. Purity of life as outlined in the Five Rules: Internal and external purification, contentment, fiery aspiration, spiritual reading and devotion to Ishvara (the divine Self). [civ]2
3. Poise.
4. Right control of the life force and hence direct action by the soul upon the etheric body. This control of energy and therefore of the centres and of the physical body is only possible after a man has achieved purity and poise. He is not permitted knowledge of the laws governing energy until such time as he has learned, through discipline, the control of the animal nature, and has reached a point where he is no longer swayed by moods and selfishness.
5. Abstraction. A term which covers the power to centre one's consciousness in the head and there [136] to function as a soul, or to withdraw the outgoing consciousness front things objective and tangible, and so turn it within.
6. Attention or concentration. This is one-pointed living, and involves also the bringing the mind into activity in the place of the emotions. Thus the emotional and physical man are controlled by the focussed mind.
7. Meditation is prolonged attention or concentration and gives the power to focus the mind upon the soul and its concerns. This produces radical changes in the organism and substantiates the truth of the statement that, "as a man thinketh, so is he."
8. Contemplation is the act of the soul in its own realm as it looks out over the forms and contacts the energies found in the fifth or spiritual kingdom in nature. This act is followed by the pouring down into the brain (by way of the controlled mind) of soul knowledge and energy. This activity of the soul produces what has been called illumination: it brings about the energising of the entire man and awakens the centres in proper rhythm and progression.
This consciously directed spiritual energy playing through the vital body and the centres should, it is claimed, bring physical man and the endocrine system eventually into such a condition that we should have perfect health and therefore a perfect apparatus for soul expression. In this way we are taught that man can arrive at a definite knowledge of the soul, and can know himself to be "the deeper [137] Being," able to use his mechanism with definite purpose, and thus function as a soul.
A study of the lives of the great mystics, saints and adepts of both hemispheres will give much information about the phenomenal effects resulting from following the above method, even after we have eliminated much that savours of hallucination and psychopathic conditions. Forms of clairvoyance, of prevision and of telepathic communication, clairaudient faculties and the peculiar power to psychometrise are frequently seen. It should be remembered, however, that all these powers have their spiritual manifestations and also their lower. A. E. Powell says:
"There are, roughly, two main kinds of clairvoyance, the lower and the higher. The lower variety appears sporadically in undeveloped people, such as the savages of Central Africa, and is a sort of massive sensation vaguely belonging to the whole etheric body, rather than an exact and definite sense-perception communicated through a specialized organ. It is practically beyond man's control. The Etheric Double being in exceedingly close relationship with the nervous system, any action on one of them reacts speedily on the other. In the lower clairvoyance the corresponding nervous disturbance is almost entirely in the sympathetic system.
In more developed races the vague sensitiveness usually disappears as the mental faculties are developed. Later on, when the spiritual man begins to unfold, he regains clairvoyant power. This time, however, the faculty is precise and exact, under the control of the will, and exercised through a sense-organ. Any [138] nervous action set up is almost exclusively in the cerebro-spinal system.
The lower forms of psychism are most frequent in animals and very unintelligent human beings. Hysterical and ill-regulated psychism is due to the small development of the brain and the dominance of the sympathetic system, the large nucleated ganglionic cells in this system containing a very large proportion of etheric matter, and thus being easily affected by the coarser astral vibrations." [cv]3
It has been frequently noticed that cats and dogs and low-grade human beings can frequently see and hear that which the normal and more intelligent person fails to register. This faculty is, however, unconscious, and the man is frequently an hallucinated victim. The saint and seer likewise see and hear, but their powers are utilised at will and are entirely under their control. A large field for investigation in these matters lies open to all psychical investigators, and when the hypothesis of the vital body and the centres is admitted, much real knowledge may come.
It is claimed by the teachers of the Eastern science of the soul that the awakening of the various centres reveals states of subtler matter than the physical. It is mainly, however, with the centres above the diaphragm that the spiritual man concerns himself, conferring, as they do, such powers as spiritual perception, correct understanding and interpretation of one's fellowmen, so that, like Christ, we know what is in man, and can grasp why [139] a man is what he is, and acts as he does. The force of inspiration, the highest power of them all, works out as the inspiring of creative work through the medium of the throat centre, and of humanitarian enterprises through the medium of the heart centre.
The second effect claimed by this group is the transference of the force below the diaphragm to the centres above. Through evolution and the effect of meditation work a man is able to function consciously through his three major centres, (head, heart and throat) leaving the three lower centres, (the base of the spine, sacral centre and solar plexus) to carry on their normal function of energising the body automatically, so that the digestive apparatus and the reproductive system and certain aspects of the nervous mechanism can carry forward their work. According to this theory, the majority of people live "below the diaphragm" and the life force is centred in the purely animal and sensory life; the sex life and the emotional life are dominant, and all the force flowing into and through the sacral centre and the solar plexus go to the stimulation of certain physiological and lower psychical processes. As man evolves, however, the direction of the force changes. We have seen that the force is dual, being partially life force and partially soul force, one expressing itself through the blood and the other through the nervous system. The life force aspect continues to carry forward its function of vitalising and empowering all [140] the organs and structures of the body, but the soul force, hitherto relatively quiescent, begins to turn upwards. The soul force in the centre at the base of the spine is carried to the head via the spinal canal, passing through each centre in turn, gathering increasing soul energy at each point.
The psychological effects of this transfer of consciousness are interesting. When the soul is "enthroned" (as the scientific Oriental books put it) in the head, it attracts upward to itself, through the power of its magnetism, the force latent at the base of the spine. Thus is produced the complete blending of spiritual energy and the force in matter itself through the attractive energy of the soul. This is what is meant by the arousing of the Kundalini power and it should be done by the magnetism of the dominant soul, and not by meditation on any specific centre or by conscious action on the force of matter.
The soul energy of the sacral centre must be carried to the highest creative centre, the throat. The emphasis will then be laid on creative work carried forward for the sake of the group and not on the active sex life of the man concerned.
The energy of the solar plexus centre has, equally, to be transferred and carried to the heart, and the consciousness then is no longer self-centred and purely selfish, but the man becomes group-conscious and inclusive in his attitude to people and to life. He is no longer antagonistic and exclusive. He knows and understands. He pities, [141] loves and serves. There is a wide field for research once this relationship between centre and centre, and between centre and glands, is grasped; the effects, physiological as well as psychical, will warrant close study.
It is interesting also to note another claim made by students of the Ageless Wisdom. When man has reached a fairly high state of evolution the throat centre is functioning and he is beginning to take his place in the work of the world; he has a definite output in some field of world activity. His personality then may be regarded as organised, and he can be deemed to have reached his maturity. The psychologists tell us that the pituitary body is the seat of the emotional and mental characteristics. In one lobe the reasoning mind has its seat, whilst the other is responsible for the imaginative emotional faculties, and the power to visualise. In man, with creative power, and, therefore, with a developed personality, the two lobes of the pituitary body are equal to the demand, and from them can be deduced the status of the material aspect, the mechanism through which the soul moves and expresses itself. This gland is concerned with the centre between the eyebrows. This centre is negative to the centre in the head which is responsive to the energy of the Soul. When through conformity to the outlined technique, the soul assumes control, energises the head centre and brings the pineal gland from an atrophied to a functioning condition as in the days of childhood, the positive aspect [142] begins to play its part. A relationship is set up between the negative centre and its counterpart, the pituitary body, and the positive centre and its counterpart, the pineal gland. As time proceeds, it is claimed, a magnetic field is set up, soul and body meet, the father and mother come into relationship and the soul is brought to the birth in the consciousness of man. This is the birth of the Christ in the House of God, and the coming into being of the true man; of this the sex organs and their reproductive activities on the physical plane are the outer concretised symbol. The perversions of sex magic so widely prevalent are a distortion of this true spiritual union or fusion between the two centres of energy in the head, which are, in their turn, figurative of the relation between soul and body. Sex magic relegates the process to the centre below the diaphragm and to a relation between two persons on the physical plane. The true process is carried forward within a man's own nature, centred in the head and the relation is between the soul and the body, instead of between man and woman.
Another effect claimed for this relationship between the two head centres and their corresponding glands is that the interplay between the two produces the shining forth of a light. There is much corroborative evidence in this connection in the Scriptures of the world, including Christ's injunction to His followers to "let their light shine." There is cumulative evidence also in the lives of [143] the mystics, who again and again in their writings bear testimony to a light that has been seen. I sent out a letter to a group of students (who have been studying meditation for several years) asking if they were aware of any phenomena of interest as the result of their work. The letter was not sent to neurotics and visionary types, but to men and women of good standing in the business, artistic and literary fields, and with accomplishment to their credit. Seventy-five per cent testified to seeing a light in the head. Were they hallucinated? Were they the victims of their imaginations? What was it they saw? and constantly see?
An interesting field for investigation lies here also, and the results may have a basis in the fact, now recognised by science, that light is matter, and matter is light. When the soul is functioning and the man has achieved conscious union with that soul, he may then, through the extra stimulation involved, become aware of the light of the etheric body at its main point of junction with the physical body at the most important centre in the body, the head centre. Professor Bazzoni says:
"We have seen that all forms of matter on the earth are made up of 92 different kinds of atoms grouped into molecules which, taken together in countless millions, form all of the bodies which we see about us and indeed for that matter, our own bodies. Now, any one of these 92 kinds of atoms when stimulated in certain ways well known to science can be made to give off light—generally coloured light—and the nature of [144] this light is peculiar and characteristic for each of the 92 atoms." [cvi]4
Does this throw any light on our problem, provided the hypothesis of an etheric body is admitted? Is the halo around the heads of saints and of deity in all the ancient pictures of both hemispheres an indication that the artists knew they were painting illuminated men in the physical as well as in the spiritual sense? These things should be investigated, and either proved or disproved.
The possibility of unifying the two great schools of thought which seek to account for the unit man in terms of Western achievement and of Eastern philosophy based on a technique of soul control is therefore in the nature of an experiment. Given the willingness to accept what the Western student regards as hypothetical and given an open mind, what can be done of specific and practical import to demonstrate as truth or to reject as false the arguments put forward in this book?
Maeterlinck quotes Herbert Spencer to the effect that:
"Perpetually to construct ideas requiring the utmost stretch of our faculties and perpetually to find that such ideas must be abandoned as futile imaginations, may realize to us more fully than any other course the greatness of that which we vainly strive to grasp.... By continually seeking to know and being continually thrown back with a deepened conviction of the impossibility of knowing, we may keep alive the consciousness [145] that it is alike our highest wisdom and our highest duty to regard that through which all things exist as the Unknowable." [cvii]5
But may it not be possible, however, to clear our vision somewhat and "deepening our conviction," arrive at a better understanding of the forms and aspects which veil that unknowable Essential Reality in whose Body we "live and move and have our being?"
Granted that it is the phenomenal world, whether it is the human family we are considering, or the forms visioned and contacted in the Kingdom of the Soul, it may be eventually proved true that, progressively, the forms (as they mount in the scale of being) may reveal to us expanding truths about that Essential Life. As the mechanism develops and improves so may our concepts of Divinity. Edward Carpenter expresses this idea in the following words:
"Dr. Frazer, in the conclusion of his great work, The Golden Bough, bids farewell to his readers with the following words: `The laws of Nature are merely hypotheses devised to explain that ever-shifting phantasmagoria of thought which we dignify with the high-sounding names of the World and the Universe. In the last analysis magic, religion and science are nothing but theories (of thought); and as science has supplanted its predecessors, so it may hereafter itself be superseded by some more perfect hypothesis, perhaps by some perfectly different way of looking at phenomena, of registering the shadows on the screen—of [146] which we in this generation can form no idea.' I imagine Dr. Frazer is right in thinking that `a way of looking at phenomena' different from the way of science, may some day prevail. But I think this change will come, not so much by the growth of Science itself or the extension of its `hypotheses,' as by a growth and expansion of the human heart and a change in its psychology and powers of perception." [cviii]6
Maeterlinck sums this up very succinctly when he says: "It behooves us therefore to clear away conceptions that emanate only from our body, even as the mists that veil the daylight from our sight emanate only from the lowlands. Pascal has said, once and for all: `The narrow limits of our being conceal infinity from our view.'" [cix]7
Practical suggestions must be made in the attempt to disprove the supernatural (if it might be so expressed) and prove that the subjective states to which the mystic and seer testify are simply demonstrations of natural forces and powers. These powers man has failed as yet to recognise and control, just as he failed centuries ago to cognise those forces which he is now able, to some extent at least, to understand and use, and which are the glory of our present civilisation. Let us prove one of these soul powers to be a fact in nature and the portals of a new world will open before humanity. Dr. Leary appreciates this when he says:
[147]
"It is somehow felt that there are some qualities, some traits at least of some personalities, which cannot be accounted for in terms of the activity of any physical structure. Nor is this an unimportant point which can be summarily dismissed as mere superstition; it is too widespread, too highly charged with emotion, too much shared in even by some psychologists to be ignored. And it is worth while once more mentioning, if there be any such traits, spiritual or what not, which by definition or assumption are not based on structure, the admission of even the smallest and seemingly most unimportant of these will inevitably and completely negative the whole field of science, for determinism to be true determinism must be completely so." [cx]8
First it should be possible to found a laboratory where the claims of the student of the Oriental philosophy in connection with the vitalising soul can be substantiated or proved false. The phenomena of death can be studied from the angle of the withdrawal of the soul. The radiations from the human body have, of course, received attention, but specific investigation of the spine and its relation to the centres is as yet a new field of study, though Dr. Baraduc of the Sorbonne, Paris, did some interesting work in this connection forty-five years ago. His book,L'Ame Vitale, is suggestive, though conjectural, and his contentions need substantiating.
The whole subject of the vital body and its effects on the nervous system and the glands open up an immense field for study; whilst the relationship [148] of the ether-body of man not only to his nerve apparatus but to the planetary etheric body or the ether in which he, as an organism, has his place, is yet an untouched field.
Secondly it should be possible to gather testimony as to the fact and nature of the light in the head to which so many testify.
The recent spectacular experiments into the nature of telepathy are tending in the right direction, but this technique of telepathy is as yet in its infancy; much will be revealed when a distinction is made between communication from mind to mind, which is mental telepathy, and that much rarer form of communication between soul and soul and between soul and brain. This latter form has been called inspiration and has brought into being the Scriptures and the so-called "inspired" writings of the world, and has guided the mental processes of the great inventors and scientists, poets and artists.
Telepathy and inspiration are as dependent upon the individual human etheric body and its relation to the universal ether as is light itself or the radio. They bear witness to this subtler world of spirit and of soul.
Pupin in the epilogue to The New Reformation says:
"The creative power of the soul is the only guide in our attempts to decipher the meaning of this ultra-material substance. It furnishes the most reliable standard of comparing the soul of one man with the soul of another man and with that of lower animals. [149] This comparison, resembling, to some extent, the scientific methods of quantitative measurement, has been going on ever since civilization began. The procedure of this inquiry is in many ways equivalent to the scientific method of inquiry by observation, experiment and calculation; what it lacks in precision it makes up by its vast number of trials and errors extending over many centuries of qualitative measurements by careful comparison. It resulted in the universal verdict, that not only is the soul of man far superior to the animal soul, but that this difference is immeasurably greater than the difference in their bodily structures. The comparison revealed also an element in this difference which towers high above all the other differentiating elements; it is the spiritual element. The creative power of the human soul has created a new world in human consciousness; it is the spiritual world." [cxi]9
Among other possible avenues of research is the carrying forward of the work of Dr. Kilner with the human aura, which he has embodied in his book, The Human Atmosphere. Still further lines of investigation into the supernormal powers have been well summed up for us in a recent statement from an Australian periodical called The Federal Independent, and from which two paragraphs are here quoted:
"New light on Christ's walking on the waters was thrown recently by a scientist who has been making a special study of Einstein's newest theory of relativity. As a result of his investigations Professor H.H. Sheldon says that he may find it possible to assert that the Biblical narrative at which the sceptics have so long [150] mocked is a fact explicable by scientific laws. `The miracle can be accepted by the most sceptical minds as soon as they recognize the fact that the basic laws of relativistic mechanics and of electricity can be reduced to one formula, and that the power of electromagnetism can influence and completely control gravitation,' said Professor Sheldon. According to Einstein's latest mathematical theory there is only one substance and one universal law containing electric and gravitational components, both of which are united into a single formula, and each of which influences the other. Dr. Sheldon now believes that as a result of this discovery such things as keeping aeroplanes aloft without engines or material support, and stepping out of a window into the air without fear of falling, are avenues of investigation easily suggested. `If this theory stands up as a proof that electricity and gravitation are virtually the same, we can actually isolate ourselves from the force of gravitation,' he declared. In actual proof of these seemingly incredible possibilities, Dr. Sheldon showed how a bar of permalloy, which is usually sensitive to magnetism, will remain suspended seemingly by air alone, if a magnet is placed underneath it.
In the light of Einstein's new theory, therefore, it may be that Christ's freedom from the accepted laws of gravitation, which would have forced Him to sink as soon as His feet touched the surface of the sea, was due to a prodigious amount of electro-magnetism in His own body, and from a force springing from the strength of His personality and vitality. In all the paintings of Christ He is shown with a halo about His head. Once this halo was regarded as the product of His disciples' overwrought imaginations. But during the last few years science, along with many students of psychic phenomena, has shown by means of actual experiments that every human being has an aura which [151] strongly resembles that refulgence emanating from any powerful electric machine.
Such a statement is a further proof that science is rapidly crossing the border-line separating things material from things spiritual. Once we realize that the knowledge of higher laws can overcome the resistance of lower laws, then we shall enter our true spiritual heritage."
We stand expectantly awaiting the dawn of that day when religion will stand upon a scientific basis and the truths to which the ages bear witness will be substantiated and proven, for, as Dr. Pupin further tells us:
"Yes, God's spiritual realities are invisible, but they are illustrated and made intelligible by the physical realities revealed in the physical things which are made. According to this interpretation of the Apostle's words the physical and the spiritual realities supplement each other. They are the two terminals of the same realities, one terminal residing in the human soul, and the other in the things of the external world. Here is one of the fundamental reasons why Science and Religion supplement each other. They are the two pillars of the portal through which the human soul enters the world where the divinity resides." [cxii]10
Then there will emerge a new race, with new capacities, new ideals, new concepts about God and matter, about life and spirit. Through that race and through the humanity of the future there will be seen not only a mechanism and a structure, but a soul, an entity, who, using the mechanism, will [152] manifest its own nature, which is love, wisdom and intelligence.
Science has even recognised this ultimate possibility and noted that the trend of the evolutionary process is towards a more perfect adaptation between the form and the life. Everywhere throughout creation a purpose is working out, a will towards perfection is manifesting. That purpose and that will are controlled by love and wisdom and those two types of energy—the purpose of spirit and the attractive force of the soul—are intelligently applied to the perfecting of the matter aspect. Spirit, soul and body—a divine triplicity—manifest in the world and will carry all forward towards a consummation that is pictured for us in the Scriptures of the world in a wealth of imagery, of colour and of form. Browning's vision of this truth and his expression of it will sum up for us the results of our study and will be a fitting close for this essay:
"—and God renews
His ancient rapture. Thus He dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at last
To man—the consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life; whose attributes had here and there
Been scattered o'er the visible world before,
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole,
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some point where all these scattered rays should meet
[153]
Convergent in the faculties of man....
When all the race is perfected alike
As man, that is; all tended to mankind,
And, man produced, all has its end thus far;
But in completed man begins anew
A tendency to God. Prognostics told
Man's near approach; so in man's self arise
August anticipations, symbols, types
Of a dim splendour ever on before
In that eternal circle life pursues.
For men begin to pass their nature's bound,
And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant
Their proper joys and griefs; they grow too great
For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade
Before the unmeasured thirst for good; while peace
Rises within them ever more and more.
Such men are even now upon the earth,
Serene amid the half-formed creatures round."
[cxiii]11
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