The Dore Lectures on Mental Sciencel. Thomas Troward

      of the individual to the Universal Originating Spirit; and the

      first step towards ascertaining this is to realize what the

      Universal Spirit must be in itself. We have already done this to

      some extent, and the conclusions we have arrived at are:--

      That the essence of the Spirit is Life, Love, and Beauty.

      That its Motive, or primary moving impulse, is to express the

      Life, Love and Beauty which it feels itself to be.

      That the Universal cannot act on the plane of the Particular

      except by becoming the particular, that is by expression through

      the individual.

      If these three axioms are clearly grasped, we have got a solid

      foundation from which to start our consideration of the subject

      for to-day.

      The first question that naturally presents itself is,

      If these things be so, why does not every individual express the

      life, love, and beauty of the Universal Spirit? The answer to

      this question is to be found in the Law of Consciousness. We

      cannot be conscious of anything except by realizing a certain

      relation between it and ourselves. It must affect us in some way,

      otherwise we are not conscious of its existence; and according to

      the way in which it affects us we recognize ourselves as standing

      related to it. It is this self-recognition on our own part

      carried out to the sum total of all our relations, whether

      spiritual, intellectual, or physical, that constitutes our

      realization of life. On this principle, then, for the REALIZATION

      of its own Livingness, the production of centres of life, through

      its relation to which this conscious realization can be attained,

      becomes a necessity for the Originating Mind. Then it follows

      that this realization can only be complete where the individual

      has perfect liberty to withhold it; for otherwise no true

      realization could have taken place. For instance, let us consider

      the working of Love. Love must be spontaneous, or it has no

      existence at all. We cannot imagine such a thing as mechanically

      induced love. But anything which is formed so as to automatically

      produce an effect without any volition of its own, is.nothing but

      a piece of mechanism. Hence if the Originating Mind is to realize

      the reality of Love, it can Only be by relation to some being

      which has the power to withhold love. The same applies to the

      realization of all the other modes of livingness; so that it is

      only in proportion, as the individual life is an independent

      centre of action, with the option of acting either positively or

      negatively, that any real life has been produced at all. The

      further the created thing is from being a merely mechanical

      arrangement, the higher is the grade of creation. The solar

      system is a perfect work of mechanical creation, but to

      constitute centres which can reciprocate the highest nature of

      the Divine Mind, requires not a mechanism, however perfect, but a

      mental centre which is, in itself, an independent source of

      action. Hence by the requirements of the case man should be

      capable of placing himself either in a positive or a negative

      relation to the Parent Mind, from which he originates; otherwise

      he would be nothing more than a clockwork figure.

      In this necessity of the case, then, we find the reason why the

      life, love, and beauty of the Spirit are not visibly reproduced

      in every human being. They ARE reproduced in the world of nature,

      so far as a mechanical and automatic action can represent them,

      but their perfect reproduction can only take place on the basis

      of a liberty akin to that of the Originating Spirit itself, which

      therefore implies the liberty of negation as well as of

      affirmation.

      Why, then, does the individual make a negative choice? Because he

      does not understand the law of his own individuality, and

      believes it to be a law of limitation, instead of a Law of

      Liberty. He does not expect to find the starting point of the

      Creative Process reproduced within himself, and so he looks to

      the mechanical side of things for the basis of his reasoning

      about life. Consequently his reasoning lands him in the

      conclusion that life is limited, because he has assumed

      limitation in his premises, and so-logically cannot escape from

      it in his conclusion. Then he thinks that this is the law and so

      ridicules the idea of transcending it. He points to the sequence

      of cause and effect, by which death, disease, and disaster, hold

      their sway over the individual, and says that sequence is law.

      And he is perfectly right so far as he goes--it is a law; but not

      THE Law. When we have only reached this stage of comprehension,

      we have yet to learn that a higher law can include a lower one so

      completely as entirely to swallow it up.

      The fallacy involved in this negative argument, is the assumption

      that the law of limitation is essential in all grades of being.

      It is the fallacy of the old shipbuilders as to the impossibility

      of building iron ships. What is required is to get at the

      PRINCIPLE which is at the back of the Law in its affirmative

      working, and specialize it under higher conditions than are

      spontaneously presented by nature, and this can only be done by

      the introduction of the personal element, that is to say an

      individual intelligence capable of comprehending the principle.

      The question, then, is, what is the principle by which we came

      into being? and this is only a personal application of the

      general question, How did anything come into being? Now, as I

      pointed out in the preceding article, the ultimate deduction from

      physical science is that the originating movement takes place in

      the Universal Mind, and is analogous to that of our own

      imagination; and as