Science and the Infinite - Sydney T. Klein (free e books to read online .txt) 📗

Again, as the human mind forms a thought, clothes it in physical language, and sends it forth in such a form as not only affects our material sense of hearing, but conveys to the hearer the very thought itself, so the whole Physical Universe is a temporary and Space-limited representation of the Reality which is behind, is in fact the materialisation of the Will or Thought of the Great Spirit. The "taking root" or advent of the Spiritual to the genus homo, made it possible for man to interpret the Good, Beautiful, and True in the phenomena of nature, and, as we, by studying these materialisations, gain knowledge of the Reality, and our personalities become real powers, so may we at length approach the point where we may feel that we are thinking, or having divulged to us, the very thoughts of God; and, though it may never be possible in this life to form a full conception of the Reality, we may, I think, even with our present state of knowledge, aspire to understand the messages conveyed to us in some of the multitudinous forms, under which these thoughts are presented to us, and I propose giving an example of this later on in this View.

Once more, in the case of a picture, it is possible, by examining and comparing a number of certain short lines in perspective, to discover not only the position occupied by the Artist, but also the point to which all those lines converge; so by examining and combining certain lines of Thought on the Physical Plane, and following them as far as we can with our present knowledge towards the point where our Ideals of the Good, Beautiful, and True intersect, we may reach the position from which we may be able to form, although through a glass darkly, even a conception of the Great Reality, and therefore of Its Offspring the Transcendental Ego, and its connection with the Universe.

As the whole of Nature is the temporary and Space-limited manifestation of the Reality, so the individual Physical Ego is the manifestation in Time and Space of the Transcendental Ego or true Personality. The Physical Ego is its transient expression and has no other use beyond this life. Each Physical Ego helps, or should help forward, the general improvement of the Race towards perfection. Each generation should come into being a step nearer to the Spiritual, until it can be pictured that at the final consummation, there will be nothing imperfect, no shadow left; the full complement of Spiritual Personalities being complete in the Great All-Father.

Do we not then see clearly that the Physical Ego, comprised in what we call "I am," "I perceive," "I think," "I conceive," "I remember," is transient, and has only to do with the progress of the Race? It is the Shadow or Image in the Physical Universe of that Personality which Transcends Time and Space. Take away a small portion of the Brain, the organ of the Mind, and Memory is wiped out, remove the greater part of it and the manifestation of the Physical Ego is destroyed; though the body is as much alive as before, there is apparently nothing left but the physical life, which it has in common with all animals, plants, and probably, as strongly suggested by late discoveries in Radio-activity, even with what is called inorganic matter. The Brain, and therefore the Ego, is not a necessity for Physical life; this is clearly seen in the lower forms of life—it would be difficult to point out the brain of a Cabbage or an Oak Tree.

In the last forty years we have entered upon a new era of religion and philosophy; we hear no more of the old belief that the study of scientific facts leads to atheism or irreligion; we begin to see that Religion and Science must go hand in hand towards elucidating the Riddle of the Universe, and such a change enables us even to aspire to show, as I now propose to do, that it is possible, by examining certain phenomena in Nature, to reach that point where we may feel that we are listening to and understanding, though through a glass darkly, what may be called the very Thoughts of the Great Reality. I will take for examination the subject most intimately connected with the title of this View—namely, the nature of the growth of the Transcendental Personality, upon what that growth depends, and how we may understand that the attainment to Everlasting Life is dependent upon that growth.

I have already pointed out in View Two that the Transcendental Personality, being Spiritual, and therefore akin to the Great Reality, may be said to have no free-will of itself. Its will or influence must always be working towards perfection in the form "Let Thy Will, which is also my will, be done"; the efficacy of its influence with the Great Reality depends on its growth or nourishment by the knowledge of the Good, Beautiful, and True ever bringing it more and more nearly into perfect touch or sympathy with the All-loving. The power of prayer therefore depends upon two conditions; it must be in the form of "Let thy Will be done," and that which prays must be capable of making its petition felt, by having already gained a knowledge of what that Will is. I am, of course, not referring to that form of prayer which, alas with so many, seems to be the attempt to get as much out of the Absolute as is possible, with the least amount of trouble.

If now we carefully examine the Phenomena around us, we make the extraordinary discovery that this power to influence is the very basis of survival and of progress throughout the universe. In the organic world all Nature seems to be praying in one form or another, and only those that pray with efficacy, based upon the above two conditions, survive in the struggle for existence. The economy of Nature is founded upon that inexorable law the "Survival of the Fittest"; every organism that is not in sympathy with its environment, and cannot therefore derive help and nourishment from its surroundings, perishes. Darwin tells us that the colours of flowering plants have been developed by the necessity of attracting the bees, on whose visits depends the power of plants to reproduce their species; those families of plants which do not as it were pray to the bees with efficacy, fail to attract, are not therefore fertilised, and disappear without leaving successors. Flowers may also be said to be praying to us by their beauty, or usefulness, and in some cases, as with orchids, by their marvellous shapes. We answer their prayer by building hot houses and tending them with care, because they please us, and therefore we help them to live; while, on the contrary, those plants that have not developed these qualities are not only neglected, but, in some cases, as with weeds, we take special trouble to exterminate them, because their existence is distasteful to us.

Charles Darwin also tells us that Heredity and Environment are the prime influences under which the whole Organic World is sustained; in other words, every organism has implanted in it by heredity the principle of life, but the conditions under which it will be possible for that life to expand and come to perfection, rest entirely upon its power to bring itself into harmony with its environment. This principle of life does not come naked into the world, it is fortified by heredity, with power gained by its parents in their struggle for existence, and in their persistence to get into sympathy with their environment. The knowledge they gained, by this struggle, they have handed down to their offspring, and given it thereby the possibility of also gaining for itself that knowledge of, and power to get into sympathy with, its environment, upon which its future existence will depend. So may we not see that in the Spiritual World, these two conditions dominate, and that it is only by the clear comprehension of their reality that we can understand how all-important it is for the soul to bring itself nearer and nearer into harmony with its environment, the Spiritual, and how the efficacy of prayer depends upon the Knowledge of what is the Will of God?

We have received from our Spiritual Father the principle of Everlasting Life, and the aspirations which, if followed, will enable that life to expand and come to perfection; but, as in the case of physical organism, the gift is useless unless we elect to use those aspirations aright, and gain thereby a knowledge of our Spiritual Environment, which alone can bring us into sympathy with the Great Reality. Without this "Knowledge of God," we can see by analogy on the Organic Plane that Everlasting Life is impossible—we are as weeds and shall be rooted out. This is no figment of the imagination, it seems to be the only conclusion we can come to if Nature is the work of Nature's God, and Man is made in the image (spiritual) of that God. Herbert Spencer came to the same conclusion when defining everlasting existence. He says: "Perfect correspondence would be perfect life; were there no changes in the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there would be Eternal Existence and Eternal Knowledge" (Principles of Biology).

The power of influence, by sympathetic action, may also be seen in another direction; consider the fact that if we are in a room with a piano and we sing a certain note, say E flat, we not only hear that note coming back from the piano, but, if we examine the strings, we find that all the E flats are actually vibrating in sympathy, because they are in perfect harmony with the note given out by the voice; but none of the other strings are responding because they are out of harmony. With this simile in mind, let us consider the curious fact that a moth always lays its eggs on that particular plant upon which the caterpillars, when they hatch out of these eggs, must feed. The study of the Life History of Insects has always been of great interest to me, as I firmly believe that we are on the verge of a great discovery, and that the first indications are being revealed to us through the investigation of the Biology of Insects. Some of you may, perhaps, have watched this progress of ovipositing, as I have done, and noticed how the female moth will hover in a peculiar way over different plants, but does not alight until she comes to a plant near akin to the one she is seeking. She then alights, but remains, on tip-toe as it were, with legs outstretched and wings quivering, and soon mounts again into the air; it is only when she alights on the proper food plant that she shows unmistakably that she knows her quest is ended and her eggs are laid. This particular plant has no other attractions for her, she takes her food irrespectively from any other flower which secretes honey, and yet, when she is ready to fulfil her destiny, she is unerringly drawn towards that particular plant which must be the food of her offspring. What is this wonderful sense? We call it instinct, a name which is made to cover all other senses in the lower animals, of which we have no cognisance ourselves. Let us take our own senses as a guide: we find that they are all based on the appreciation of frequencies, of greater or less rapidity, by means of organs specially adapted to