The Dore Lectures on Mental Sciencel. Thomas Troward

it, the book, the picture, the music, are

      meaningless to us: to appreciate them we must share the mental

      attitude of their creator. This is a universal principle; if we

      do not enter into the Spirit of a thing, it is dead so far as we

      are concerned; but if we do enter into it we reproduce in

      ourselves the same quality of life which called that thing into

      existence.

      Now if this is a general principle, why can we not carry it to a

      higher range of things? Why not to the highest point of all? May

      we not enter into the originating Spirit of Life itself, and so

      reproduce it in ourselves as a perennial spring of livingness?

      This, surely, is a question worthy of our careful consideration.

      The spirit of a thing is that which is the source of its inherent

      movement, and therefore the question before us is, what is the

      nature of the primal moving power, which is at the back of the

      endless array of life which we see around us, our own life

      included? Science gives us ample ground for saying that it is not

      material, for science has now, at least theoretically, reduced

      all material things to a primary ether, universally distributed,

      whose innumerable particles are in absolute equilibrium; whence

      it follows on mathematical grounds alone that the initial

      movement which began to concentrate the world and all material

      substances out of the particles of the dispersed ether, could not

      have originated in the particles themselves. Thus by a necessary

      deduction from the conclusions of physical science, we are

      compelled to realize the presence of some immaterial power

      capable of separating off certain specific areas for the display

      of cosmic activity, and then building up a material universe with

      all its inhabitants by an orderly sequence of evolution, in which

      each stage lays the foundation for the development of the stage,

      which is to follow--in a word we find ourselves brought face to

      face with a power which exhibits on a stupendous scale, the

      faculties of selection and adaptation of means to ends, and thus

      distributes energy and life in accordance with a recognizable

      scheme of cosmic progression. It is therefore not only Life, but

      also Intelligence, and Life guided by Intelligence becomes

      Volition. It is this primary originating power which we mean when

      we speak of "The Spirit," and it is into this Spirit of the whole

      universe that we must enter if we would reproduce it as a spring

      of Original Life in ourselves.

      Now in the case of the productions of artistic genius we know

      that we must enter into the movement of the creative mind of the

      artist, before we can realize the principle which gives rise to

      his work. We must learn to partake of the feeling, to find

      expression for which is the motive of his creative activity. May

      we not apply the same principle to the Greater Creative Mind with

      which we are seeking to deal? There is something in the work of

      the artist which is akin to that of original creation. His work,

      literary, musical, or graphic is original creation on a miniature

      scale, and in this it differs from that of the engineer, which is

      constructive, or that of the scientist which is analytical; for

      the artist in a sense creates something out of nothing, and

      therefore starts from the stand-point of simple feeling, and not

      from that of a pre-existing necessity. This, by the hypothesis of

      the case, is true also of the Parent Mind, for at the stage where

      the initial movement of creation takes place, there are no

      existing conditions to compel action in one direction more than

      another. Consequently the direction taken by the creative impulse

      is not dictated by outward circumstances, and the primary

      movement must therefore be entirely due to the action of the

      Original Mind upon itself; it is the reaching out of this Mind

      for realization of all that it feels itself to be.

      The creative process thus in the first instance is purely a

      matter of feeling--exactly what we speak of as "motif" in a work

      of art.

      Now it is this original feeling that we need to enter into,

      because it is the fons et origo of the whole chain of causation

      which subsequently follows. What then can this original feeling

      of the Spirit be? Since the Spirit is Life-in-itself, its feeling

      can only be for the fuller expression of Life--any other sort of

      feeling would be self-destructive and is therefore inconceivable.

      Then the full expression of Life implies Happiness, and Happiness

      implies Harmony, and Harmony implies Order, and Order implies

      Proportion, and Proportion implies Beauty; so that in recognizing

      the inherent tendency of the Spirit towards the production of

      Life, we can recognise a similar inherent tendency to the

      production of these other qualities also; and since the desire to

      bestow the greater fulness of joyous life can only be described

      as Love, we can sum up the whole of the feeling which is the

      original moving impulse in the Spirit as Love and Beauty--the

      Spirit finding expression through forms of beauty in centres of

      life, in harmonious reciprocal relation to itself. This is a

      generalized statement of the broad principle by which Spirit

      expands from the innermost to the outermost, in accordance with a

      Law of tendency inherent in itself.

      It sees itself, as it were, reflected in various centres of life

      and energy, each with its appropriate form; but in the first

      instance these reflections can have no existence except within

      the originating Mind. They have their first beginning as mental

      images, so that in addition to the powers of Intelligence and

      Selection, we must also realise that of Imagination as belonging

      to the Divine Mind; and we must picture these powers as working

      from the