The Hidden Power And Other Papers upon Mental Science. Thomas Troward

under opposite conditions, a truth which the so-called

      "magicians" of the middle ages expressed by two triangles placed

      inversely to one another. We are apt to fall into the mistake of

      supposing that results of opposite character require powers of opposite

      character to produce them, and our conceptions of things in general

      become much simplified when we recognise that this is not the case, but

      that the same power will produce opposite results as it starts from

      opposite poles.

      Accordingly the inverted application of the same principle which gives

      rise to liberty and power constitutes the entanglement from which we

      need to be delivered before power and liberty can be attained, and this

      principle is expressed in the law that "as a man thinks so he is." This

      is the basic law of the human mind. It is Descarte's "_cogito, ergo

      sum_." If we trace consciousness to its seat we find that it is purely

      subjective. Our external senses would cease to exist were it not for the

      subjective consciousness which perceives what they communicate to it.

      The idea conveyed to the subjective consciousness may be false, but

      until some truer idea is more forcibly impressed in its stead it

      remains a substantial reality to the mind which gives it objective

      existence. I have seen a man speak to the stump of a tree which in the

      moonlight looked like a person standing in a garden, and repeatedly ask

      its name and what it wanted; and so far as the speaker's conception was

      concerned the garden contained a living man who refused to answer. Thus

      every mind lives in a world to which its own perceptions give objective

      reality. Its perceptions may be erroneous, but they nevertheless

      constitute the very reality of life for the mind that gives form to

      them. No other life than the life we lead in our own mind is possible;

      and hence the advance of the whole race depends on substituting the

      ideas of good, of liberty, and of order for their opposites. And this

      can be done only by giving some sufficient reason for accepting the new

      idea in place of the old. For each one of us our beliefs constitute our

      facts, and these beliefs can be changed only by discovering some ground

      for a different belief.

      This is briefly the rationale of the maxim that "as a man thinks so he

      is"; and from the working of this principle all the issues of life

      proceed. Now man's first perception of the law of cause and effect in

      relation to his own conduct is that the result always partakes of the

      quality of the cause; and since his argument is drawn from external

      observation only, he regards external acts as the only causes he can

      effectively set in operation. Hence when he attains sufficient moral

      enlightenment to realise that many of his acts have been such as to

      merit retribution he fears retribution as their proper result. Then by

      reason of the law that "thoughts are things," the evils which he fears

      take form and plunge him into adverse circumstances, which again prompt

      him into further wrong acts, and from these come a fresh crop of fears

      which in their turn become externalised into fresh evils, and thus

      arises a circulus from which there is no escape so long as the man

      recognises nothing but his external acts as a causative power in the

      world of his surroundings.

      This is the Law of Works, the Circle of Karma, the Wheel of Fate, from

      which there appears to be no escape, because the complete fulfilment of

      the law of our moral nature to-day is only sufficient for to-day and

      leaves no surplus to compensate the failure of yesterday. This is the

      necessary law of things as they appear from external observation only;

      and, so long as this conception remains, the law of each man's

      subjective consciousness makes it a reality for him. What is needed,

      therefore, is to establish the conception that external acts are NOT the

      only causative power, but that there is another law of causation,

      namely, that of pure Thought. This is the Law of Faith, the Law of

      Liberty; for it introduces us to a power which is able to inaugurate a

      new sequence of causation not related to any past actions.

      But this change of mental attitude cannot be brought about till we have

      laid hold of some fact which is sufficient to afford a reason for the

      change. We require some solid ground for our belief in this higher law.

      Ultimately we find this ground in the great Truth of the eternal

      relation between spirit in the universal and in the particular. When we

      realise that substantially there is nothing else _but_ spirit, and that

      we ourselves are reproductions in individuality of the Intelligence and

      Love which rule the universe, we have reached the firm standing ground

      where we find that we can send forth our Thought to produce any effect

      we will. We have passed beyond the idea of two opposites requiring

      reconciliation, into that of a duality in which there is no other

      opposition than that of the inner and the outer of the same unity, the

      polarity which is inherent in all Being, and we then realise that in

      virtue of this unity our Thought is possessed of illimitable creative

      power, and that it is free to range where it will, and is by no means

      bound down to accept as inevitable the consequences which, if unchecked

      by renovated thought, would flow from our past actions.

      In its own independent creative power the mind has found the way out of

      the fatal circle in which its previous ignorance of the highest law had

      imprisoned it. The Unity of the Spirit is found to result in perfect

      Liberty; the old sequence of Karma has been cut off, and a new and

      higher order has been introduced. In the old order the line of thought

      received its quality from the quality of the actions, and since they

      always fell short of perfection, the development of a higher

      thought-power from this root was impossible. This is the order in which

      everything is seen from _without_. It is an inverted order. But in the

      true