{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25931/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25931","id":"gutenberg_25931","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25931","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Religion and science"],"text":"E-text prepared by David Clarke, Diane Monico, and the Project Gutenberg\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\nSCIENCE AND THE INFINITE\n\nOr\n\nThrough a Window in the Blank Wall\n\nby\n\nSYDNEY T. KLEIN\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: \"THE MYSTERY OF THE APEX\"\n\nVIEW NO. 3]\n\n\n\nSecond Impression\n\nLondon\nWilliam Rider & Son, Limited\nCathedral House, Paternoster Row, E.C.\n1917\n\nFirst Published November 1912\nReprinted September 1917\n\n\n\n\nTO\n\nTHE RIGHT HON.\n\nARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIn venturing to prepare this little volume for the eyes of the reading\npublic, I am fully aware of the difficulties of the subject and the\ninadequacy of the expressions I have been able to employ, but I have\nmade the attempt at the request of those who have found consolation in\nsome of the thoughts herein embodied; and the messages left by others\nbefore they passed away, embolden me to hope that many others may find\nin this volume some points of interest which will help them to\nappreciate better the \"joys\" which this life has for those who know\nhow to look for them, and that perhaps others may even gain a clearer\nconception of that which awaits us beyond the Veil.\n\nMany of us allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the small worries and\nvexations of everyday life, clothing them with a reality quite\ndisproportionate to their importance; we are too apt to look at them,\nas it were, through a powerful microscope, piling power upon power of\nmagnification, until we have made mountains out of mole-hills,\nwhereas if we treated them at their true value we should look at them\nthrough a telescope, in the reverse direction, when they would appear\nnot only trivial, but would be seen to be too remote to have any\nmaterial effect on our lives.\n\nThe sub-title of this volume, and indeed its inception, arose from my\nlately coming in contact with one of those establishments which are\ndoing for humanity what a mother's arms do for the child who is \"sick\nunto death\"--a beautiful home with cheerful rooms and cheerful nurses,\nwhere patients are tenderly cared for after severe operations, carried\nthrough by our most famous surgeons, some cases, alas, almost hopeless\nfrom the first. At the head of this establishment was one of those\nkindly self-abnegating personalities, whose loving sympathy and\nencouragement have comforted the dying and smoothed the path for many\na weary pilgrim passing from this life to the next. With immense\nresponsibilities on her shoulders, and after a day full of strenuous\nwork, the head of this establishment would often sit through the night\nfor hours by the couch of those whose lives could not possibly be\nprolonged for more than a few days. It was a few simple answers\nelicited by the questions brought to me from those poor sufferers, and\nthe way such answers seemed to calm anxieties connected with the fear\nof death and to render the impenetrable Veil more transparent, which\nsuggested the title, \"Through a Window in the Blank Wall.\"\n\nI do not wish to lay claim to having made any startling discovery;\nsimilar thoughts, especially those concerning the non-reality of Time\nand Space, have no doubt occurred to others, but the whole problem\n\"What is the Reality?\" has been insistently pressing on me ever since\nI can remember, and I have tried to give here in simple colloquial\nlanguage, without any attempt at rhetoric, the conclusions I have\npersonally come to as to what is the Truth.\n\nThe study of ancient and modern philosophic theories is useful as\nshowing how impossible it is, for even the greatest thinkers of any\nage, to grasp the Absolute with our understanding or to measure the\nInfinite with our finite units. The propounders of all these theories\nseem to me to be, without exception, looking in the wrong direction\nfor the \"Reality of Being\"; they are all arguing from the standpoint\nof \"Intellectualism\" in a similar manner to that of the \"Theologians\"\nreferred to in View Three. Our latest expositor of this, M. Henri\nBergson, bases his theory upon \"Life\" being the Reality; this he\npostulates is a \"flowing\" in Time, and _Movement_ therefore becomes\nfor him the Reality; and yet we know that Motion is but the product\nof Time and Space, and these are only the two modes or _limitations_\nunder which our senses act and upon which our very consciousness of\nliving depends. Surely the Absolute cannot be localised, must be\nOmnipresent, and therefore independent of Space--cannot have a\nbeginning or end, must be Omniscient, and therefore independent of\nTime; these two unrealities can therefore have no existence in\n\"Reality of Being.\" If, then, there is any truth in \"Intuition,\" we\nhave, in this theory, the Reality, \"Life,\" not only limited by the\nunreal but actually dependent for its very existence upon those\nlimitations! In these Views I have attempted, on the contrary, to show\nthat Time and Space have no existence apart from our Physical Senses;\nthey are the modes only under which we appreciate motion, or what we\ncall physical phenomena, and as our conceptional knowledge is based\nupon our perceptional knowledge, our very consciousness of living is\nlimited by Time and Space, and we must surely therefore look behind\nconsciousness itself, beyond the conditioning in Time and Space for\nthe Reality of Being, otherwise _physical motion_, the product of\nthese two limitations, would become the Reality of Being.\n\nI have also suggested reasons for looking upon physical life as a\nmode of frequency, akin to Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Chemical\nAction, the Vibration of a Tuning Fork, or the Swing of a Pendulum,\nand therefore a transient phenomenon having to do only with the Race;\nLife can under these conditions only be looked upon as a reality in\nthe same sense in which all other forms of energy or matter appear\nreal to our finite senses--namely, as the shadows or manifestations of\nthe Absolute on our limited plane of Consciousness.\n\nHowever strongly I may be convinced--as I am--of the truth of my\narguments, and however sure I may be that many others will not only\nagree with my conclusions, but will see that in \"Introspection\" rather\nthan in \"Intellectualism\" lies the key to the Mystery, I do not wish\nto appear dogmatic in any of the suggestions contained in this volume;\nI am stating my own convictions, but at the same time I fully\nrecognise that the presentation of the Absolute, with its infinite\nvariety of aspects, must necessarily be different to every individual;\nwe are all of the same genus, but each individual Ego is, as it were,\na different species, and I do not therefore expect that my attempt to\nsolve the Riddle of the Universe will appeal to all alike. It is,\nhowever, a true saying that \"there is something to be learnt from\nevery human being,\" and if I have by these suggestions succeeded in\naugmenting the number of those who have already started on the true\n\"Quest,\" and have helped, however imperfectly, to enrich some lives\nwith the \"joy\" of knowing their oneness with the All-loving, my aim\nhas indeed been attained.\n\n                    SYDNEY T. KLEIN.\n\n  \"HATHERLOW,\" REIGATE,\n    _1st June 1912._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                         PAGE\n    VIEW ONE\n\nCLEARING THE APPROACH                       1\n\n    VIEW TWO\n\nTHE VISION                                 19\n\n    VIEW THREE\n\nMYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM                    36\n\n    VIEW FOUR\n\nLOVE IN ACTION                             71\n\n    VIEW FIVE\n\nTHE PHYSICAL FILM                         100\n\n    VIEW SIX\n\nSPACE                                     122\n\n    VIEW SEVEN\n\nTIME                                      141\n\n    VIEW EIGHT\n\nCREATION                                  165\n\n\n\n\nSCIENCE AND THE INFINITE\n\n\n\n\nVIEW ONE\n\nCLEARING THE APPROACH\n\n\nThe proof that the Human Race is still in its infancy may be seen in\nthe fact that we still require Symbolism to help us to maintain and\ncarry forward abstract thought to higher levels, even as children\nrequire picture books for that purpose. The Glamour of Symbolism,\nRapture of Music, and Ideal of Art, which come to us in later years,\nhad their beginnings when to the child every blade of grass was a\nfairy tale and a grass plot a marvellous fairy forest. The great\naspiration of the Human Race is to gain a knowledge of the Reality,\nthe Noumenon behind the phenomenon; but the fact that from infancy we\nhave been accustomed to confine our attention wholly to the objective,\nbelieving that to be the reality, has surrounded us with a concrete\nboundary wall through which we can only at times, with difficulty, get\ntransient glimpses of that which is beyond. It is only in recent\nyears that we have been able to realise that it is the Invisible which\nis the Real, that the visible is only its shadow or its manifestation\nin the Physical Universe, and that Time and Space have no existence\napart from our physical senses, in short, that they are only the modes\nor limits under which those senses act or receive their impressions\nand by which they are necessarily rendered finite.\n\nThe difficulty is that our physical senses only perceive the surface\nof our surroundings, and that we have hitherto been looking at the\nWoof of Nature as though it were the glass of a window covered with\npatterns, smudges, flies, &c., comprising all that we call physical\nphenomena and which, when analysed in terms of Time and Space, produce\nthe appearance of succession and motion. It requires a keener\nperception, unbounded by these limitations, to look through the glass\nat the Reality which is beyond. I propose then in a series of short\nviews, through a window not hitherto unshuttered and in a direction\nwhich I believe has not before been attempted, to lead those of my\nreaders who have the necessary aspiration, patience, and, above all,\nstrenuous persistence, to a watch-tower, situated well above the mists\nand illusions of our ordinary everyday thoughts, whence they will find\nit possible to get a glimpse of a strange new country, and where those\nwho have by practice once attained to its clear perception, will be\nable to continue the study by themselves and thus get further insight\ninto that wonderful region of Thought which I have called \"True\nOccultism\"--the knowledge of the Invisible which is the Real in place\nof the Visible which is only its shadow.\n\nLet us first try and understand the conditions under which phenomena\nare presented to us. In our perception of sight, we find the greater\nthe light, the greater the shadow; a light placed over a table throws\na shadow on the floor, though not sufficient to prevent our seeing the\npattern of the carpet; increase the light and the shadow appears now\nso dark that no pattern or carpet can be seen; not that there is now\nless light under the table but the light above has to our sense of\nsight created or made manifest a greater darkness. Thus, throughout\nthe Universe, as interpreted by our Physical Ego, we find phenomena\nranging themselves under the form of positive and negative, the\napparently Real and the Unreal.\n\nThe Good making manifest its negative Evil.\nThe Beautiful \"    \"      \"     \"     Ugly.\nThe True      \"    \"      \"     \"     False.\nKnowledge     \"    \"      \"     \"     Ignorance.\nLight         \"    \"      \"     \"     Darkness.\nHeat          \"    \"      \"     \"     Cold.\n\nBut the negatives have no real existence. As in the case of light we\nsee that the shadow is only the absence of light, so the negative of\nGoodness, _i.e._ Evil, may in reality be looked upon as folly or\nwasting of opportunity for exercising the Good. Owing to their\nlimitations our thoughts are based upon _relativity_, and it is hardly\nthinkable that we could, under our present conditions, have any\ncognisance of the positive without its negative; we shall in fact see\nlater on that it is by examining the Physical, the negative or shadow,\nthat we can best gain a knowledge of the Spiritual, the positive or\nreal.\n\nThe first step to a clear understanding of this, is to recognise that\nit is not we who are looking out upon Nature but that it is the\nReality which is ever trying to enter and come into touch with us\nthrough our senses, and is persistently trying to waken within us a\nknowledge of the sublimest truths. It is difficult to realise this, as\nfrom infancy we have been accustomed to confine our attention wholly\nto the objective, believing that to be the reality.\n\nLet us try and grasp this fact. If we analyse our sense of sight, we\nfind that the only impression made on our bodies by external objects\nis the image formed upon the retina; we have no cognisance of the\nseparate electro-magnetic rills forming that image, which, reflected\nfrom all parts of an object, fall upon the eye at different angles,\nconstituting form, and with different frequencies giving colour to\nthat image; that image is only formed when we turn our eyes in the\nright direction to allow those rills to enter; and, whereas those\nrills are incessantly beating on the outside of our sense organ when\nthe eyelid is closed, they can make no impression unless we allow them\nto enter by raising that shutter. It is not then any volition from\nwithin that goes out to seize upon and grasp the truths from Nature,\nbut the phenomena are as it were forcing their way into our\nconsciousness. This is more difficult to realise when the object is\nnear to us, as we are apt to confound it with our sense of touch,\nwhich requires us to stretch out our hand to the object, but it is\nclearer when we take an object far away. In our telescopes we catch\nthe rills of light which started from a star a thousand years ago and\nthe image is still formed on the retina _now_ although those rills are\nin fact a thousand years old and, invisible to our unaided eye, have\nbeen falling upon mankind from the beginning of life on this globe,\ntrying to get an entrance to consciousness. It was, however, only\nwhen, by evolution of thought, the knowledge of optics had produced\nthe telescope that it became possible not only for that star to make\nitself known to us but to declare to us its distance, its size, and\nconditions of existence, and even the different elemental substances\nof which it was composed a thousand years ago. Yet, when we now allow\nits image to form on the retina, our consciousness insists on fixing\nits attention upon that star as an outside object, refusing to allow\nthat it is only an image inside the eye and making it difficult to\nrealise that that star may have disappeared and had no existence for\nthe past 999 years, although in ordinary parlance we are looking at\nand seeing it there now.\n\nI have referred above to the sense of touch; it is, I think, clear\nthat the first impression a child can have of sight must take the form\nof feeling the image on its retina, as though the object were actually\ninside the head, and it could have no idea that it was outside until,\nby touching with the hand, it would gradually learn by experience that\nthe tangible outside object corresponded with the image located in the\nhead; this is fully borne out by the testimony of men who, born blind,\nhave, by an operation, received their sight late in life; in each case\ntheir first experience of seeing gave the impression that the object\nwas touching the eye, and they were quite unable to recognise by sight\nan object such as a cup or plate or a round ball which they had\ncommonly handled and knew perfectly well by touch; in fact, the idea\nof an object formed by the sense of touch is so absolutely different\nto that formed by the sense of sight that it would be impossible\nwithout past experience to conclude that the two sensations referred\nto one and the same object. The image formed on the retina has nothing\nin common with the sense of hardness, coldness, and weight experienced\nby touch, the only impression on the retina being that of colour or\nshade, and an outline; it is, however, hardly conceivable that even\nthe outline of form would be recognised by the eye until touch had\nproved that form comprised also solidity and that the two ideas had\ncertain motions in common both in duration in Time and extension in\nSpace.\n\nAgain, our senses of sight and hearing are alike based on the\nappreciation of frequencies of different rapidity; brightness and\ncolour in light are equivalent to loudness and pitch in sound, but in\nsound we have no equivalent to perception of form or situation in\nspace; it gives us no knowledge of the existence of objects when\nsituated at great distances, nor can movements be followed even at\nshort distances without having material contact, by means of the air,\nwith the object; sight indeed appears to have to do with Space- and\nsound with Time-perception. In examining Nature by means of our\nsenses we find we are so hemmed in by what we have always taken for\ngranted and so bound down by modes of reasoning derived from what we\nhave seen, heard, or felt in our daily life, that we are sadly\nhampered in our search after the truth. It is difficult to sweep the\nerroneous concepts aside and make a fresh start. In fact the great\ndifficulty in studying the Reality underlying Nature is analogous to\nour inability to isolate and study the different sounds themselves\nwhich fall upon the ear, if our own language is being uttered, without\nbeing forced to consider the meaning we have always attached to those\nsounds.\n\nLet us now go back to the contention that it is not we who are looking\nout upon Nature but that our senses are being bombarded from without;\nwe are living in a world of continuous and multitudinous changes, and\nas our senses require change or motion for their excitation, without\nthose changes we could have no cognisance of our surroundings, we\nshould have no consciousness of living; but if we base our thought\nentirely on sense perception, taking for granted that Time and Space\nhave reality instead of recognising that they are only modes or limits\nunder which those senses act, the Wall will ever remain opaque to us.\nLet us try and make this clearer. If we analyse the impression we\nreceive from Motion, we find it is made up of the product of our two\nlimitations, it is the time that an object takes to go over a certain\nspace. We must come therefore to the conclusion also that Motion\nitself has no existence in reality apart from our senses. The result\nof not being able to appreciate this, is that the finiteness of our\nsense, caused by its dependence on Motion for excitation, surrounds us\nwith illusions; one of these illusions is what we call solidity or\ncontinuity of sensation. If you hold a cannon-ball in your hand,\nperception by the sense of touch tells you that it is continuous, or\nwhat is called solid and hard; but it is not so in reality except as a\nconcept limited by our finite senses. A fair analogy would be to liken\nit to a swarm of bees, for we know that it is composed of an immense\nnumber of independent atoms or molecules which are darting about, and\ncircling round each other at an enormous speed but never touching;\nthey are also pulsating at a definite enormous rate; we can at will\nincrease their motion by heat or reduce by cold; if our touch\nperception were sensitive enough we should feel those motions and\nshould not have the sensation of a solid. We have a similar case of\nlimitation in our other senses, which we shall grasp better in another\nView through our Window. We can hear beats only up to fifteen in a\nsecond, beyond that number they give the sensation of a musical or\ncontinuous sound. In our sense of sight we can see pulsations or\nintermittent flashes up to only six in a second, beyond that number\nthey give the sensation of a continuous light; a gas jet, if\nextinguished and relit six times in a second, can be seen to flicker,\nbut beyond that rate is to our sense of sight a steady flame. The\neffect may also be shown by making the top of a match red-hot; when\nstationary or moving slowly, it is a point of light, but, moved\nquickly, it becomes a continuous line of light.\n\nEven apart from our senses we find Motion giving the characteristics\nof solidity: a wheel with only a few spokes, if rotated quickly\nenough, becomes quite impermeable to any substance, however small,\nthrown at it; a thin jet of water only half an inch in diameter, if\ndischarged at great pressure equivalent to a column of water of 500\nmetres, cannot be cut even with an axe, it resists as though it were\nmade of the hardest steel; a thin cord, hanging from a vertical axis,\nand being revolved very quickly, becomes rigid, and if struck with a\nhammer it resists and resounds like a rod of wood; a thin chain and\neven a loop of string, if revolved at great speed over a vertical\npulley, becomes rigid and, if allowed to escape from the pulley, will\nrun along the ground as a hoop.\n\nNow with regard to this limit of time perception, which gives us the\nphenomenon of Solidity, I have lately been able to devise an\narrangement which, acting as a microscope for Time, gives the\nsensation of an increase in sight perception up to several thousand\nunits per second; it is based on the fact that though the eye can only\nsee six times per second it can see for the one-millionth part of a\nsecond. An example of this is the well-known experiment of seeing a\nbullet in its flight; the bullet makes electrical connection resulting\nin a spark which illuminates the bullet when opposite the eye. The\nelectrical spark exists only for the millionth of a second, and as the\nbullet in that time has no perceptible movement it is seen standing\nabsolutely still with all marks upon it quite visible to the eye. When\nSight perception is increased up to the rate at which time may be said\nto flow for any particular object we apparently get into the reality,\nthe permanent _now_ where motion ceases to exist as a sensation. A\ntuning-fork, kept vibrating, by means of an electro-magnet, at 2000\ntimes per second, may to our sense of sight be gradually slowed down\nand, optically, brought absolutely to a standstill, for as long as\ndesired, and the smallest irregularity of its surface may be minutely\nexamined, though it continues to be heard and felt vibrating at that\nenormous rate. I have made several experiments in this direction, and\nsome very curious facts connected with the sensation of Motion are\nbrought to light by means of this increase in perceptive power. If the\nsense of sight is increased to 125 units per second, motion at the\nrate of one inch per second is barely visible; taking the common\nhouse-fly, whose wings vibrate about 400 times per second, its units\nof perception would appear to be about two-thirds of those beats, as I\nfound it had no cognisance of Motion below two inches per second; you\ncan put your finger on any fly provided you do not approach it faster\nthan the above rate, it turns its head up to look at your finger but\ncan see no motion in it; if you approach at over three inches per\nsecond it will always fly away before you are within a foot. I found\nthat a dragon-fly, whose wings vibrate about 200 times per second, had\nonly half the number of unit perceptions of the fly and could\napparently see motion at about one inch per second but not under. In\nthe converse of the above we have then the principle of a Microscope\nfor Time, somewhat similar to the Microscope for Space of our\nlaboratories. If our perception were increased sufficiently we could\nslow down any motion for examination, however rapid; there would be no\ndifficulty in following a lightning flash or even arresting its\nvisible motion for purposes of investigation without interfering with\nthe natural sequence of cause and effect.\n\nIf, on the other hand, our perception were decreased below six times\nper second, all motion would be accelerated, until with perception\nreduced to one unit in twenty-four hours the sun would appear only as\na band across the sky, and we could not follow its motion any more\nthan, as we have seen, we could follow the point of a red-hot match.\nIf perception were reduced far enough, plants and trees would grow up\nvisibly before our eyes. But we must leave this subject now, as this\nand the Time Microscope will be treated in a later View.\n\nLet us try and appreciate the fact that, under our present conditions,\nour conceptions of the immense and minute--namely, extension in Space,\nand that of quick and slow or duration in Time--are purely relative,\nand that from this arise those pseudo-conceptions which we call the\ninfinitely extended and the infinitely lasting. Under our present\nlimitations it is impossible for us to grasp the whole of any Truth,\nif we could do that, there would be no such mystery of Infinity to\npuzzle us; we could, as it were, see all around it, but that is again\nlooking through another window. We are now considering _relativity_.\nIf we cut off the very end of the point of the finest needle, we get\nso minute a particle of steel that it is hardly visible to the naked\neye, and yet we know that that small speck contains not only millions\nbut millions of millions of what are called atoms, all in intense\nmotion and never touching each other. Try and conceive how small each\nof these atoms must be, and then try and grasp the fact, only lately\nproved by the discovery of Radio-activity, that each of these atoms is\na great family made up of bodies analogous to the planets of our solar\nsystem and whose rate of motion is comparable only to that of Light.\nThis is not theory, it is fact clearly demonstrated to us by the study\nof Radio-activity. Curiously enough, we know more about these bodies\nthan we do of the atom itself; we actually know their size and weight\nand the speed with which they move. We do not yet know what is at the\ncentre of this system, but we do know that each of these bodies is as\nfar away from the centre as our planet is from the sun (93,000,000\nmiles), and as far from its neighbours as our planet is, _relatively\nto its size_. And now, for the purpose of grasping this subject of\nrelativity, I want you to ask yourself whether it is conceivable that\na world, so small as those bodies are, could possibly be inhabited by\nsentient beings. Leaving you to form your own conclusion upon this\npoint, I will ask you to follow me down another path leading to the\nelucidation of the same subject.\n\nIf at this moment we and all our surroundings were reduced to half\ntheir size and everything were moving twice as quickly, we should\nabsolutely have no cognisance of any change, neither could we possibly\nnote any difference if everything were reduced to a hundredth part of\nthe original size and were going a hundred times quicker; and even\nwhen reduced a thousand or a million times, or to such minuteness that\nthe whole of our solar system with its revolving planets became no\nlarger than one of those atoms in the needle point, and the whole of\nthe starry universe therefore reduced to the size of the needle point,\nits millions of suns coinciding with the millions of planetary systems\nin that steel particle--our earth would still revolve round the sun,\nthough no larger than one of those minute planetary particles and\ntravelling at the rate of light, but we should still have no knowledge\nof any change, in fact, our life would go on as usual, though it was\ndifficult a few minutes ago to think it conceivable that so small a\nglobe could be inhabited by sentient beings.\n\nOnce more let us consider that the change is made in the direction of\nexpansion in space and slowing down of Time; let all our surroundings\nbe so enormously increased that each of the atoms in the steel point\nbecame as large as our solar system and the steel point as large as\nthe visible universe, each atom therefore taking the place of a star,\nand motion being reduced in proportion; it is still absolutely\ninconceivable that we could know of any change having taken place,\nthough the length of our needle, which was at first, say, one inch,\nwould now be so great that light, travelling 186,000 miles per second,\nwould take 500,000 years to traverse its length, and the stature of\neach one of us would be so great that light would require over\n36,000,000 years to travel from head to foot, and that 36,000,000\nyears would have to be multiplied 163,000,000 times, making 5860\nmillions of millions of years to represent the time that an ordinary\n_sneeze_ would take under such conditions. And yet we have only gone\ntowards the infinitely great exactly as far as we at first went\ntowards the infinitely small, and it is still absolutely inconceivable\nthat we could be conscious of any change, our everyday life would go\non as usual, we should be quite oblivious to the fact that every\nsecond of time, with all its incidents and thoughts, had been\nlengthened to 5860 millions of millions of years. Do we not now begin\nto grasp the fact that immensity and minuteness in extension, and\nmotion in duration, are figments only of our finite minds, that Time\nand Space have no objective reality apart from our physical senses,\nthat they are only the modes under which we receive impressions of our\nsurroundings? With perfect perception we should know that the only\nReality is the Spiritual, the Here comprising all Space and the Now\nall Time.\n\nOne more look through the window before we part, and we may see what I\nconsider the greatest miracle in our everyday life: The Inner-self of\neach one of us, being part of the Reality or Spiritual, is independent\nof Space limitations and must therefore be _Omnipresent_, is\nindependent of Time and therefore _Omniscient_. This inevitable\ndeduction will be explained more fully in another View.\n\nIt is from this store of knowledge that our Physical Ego is ever\ntrying to win fresh forms of thought, and, in response to our\npersistent endeavours, that Inner-self, from time to time, buds out a\nnew thought; the Physical Ego has already prepared the clothing with\nwhich that bud must be clad before it can come into conscious thought,\nbecause, as Max Mueller has shown us, we have to form words before we\ncan think; so does the Physical Ego clothe that ethereal thought in\nphysical language, and by means of its organ of speech it sends that\nthought forth into the air in the form of hundreds of thousands of\nvibrations of different shapes and sizes, some large, some small, some\nquick, some slow, travelling in all directions and filling the\nsurrounding space; there is nothing in those vibrations but physical\nmovement, but each separate movement is an integral part or thread of\nthat clothing. Another Physical Ego receives these multitudinous\nvibrations by means of its sense organ, weaves them together into the\nsame physical garment, and actually becomes possessed of that ethereal\nthought--an unexplained marvel, and probably the most wonderful\noccurrence in our daily existence, especially as it often enables the\nsecond Physical Ego to gain fresh knowledge from its own Real\nPersonality. Now, in connection with this, consider the fact, already\nemphasized, that it is not we who are looking out upon Nature, but\nthat it is the Reality which is ever trying to make itself known to us\nby bombarding our sense organs with the particular physical impulses\nto which those organs can respond, and, if we aspire to gain a\nknowledge of what is behind the physical, it is clear that all our\nendeavours must be towards weaving these impulses into garments and\nthen learning from them the sublime Truths which the Reality is ever\ntrying to divulge to us.\n\n\n\n\nVIEW TWO\n\nTHE VISION\n\n\n\"Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven,\" is in true consonance\nwith the old philosophic dictum that \"Everything in heaven must have\nits counterpart on earth\"; in other words, the Reality has all Its\nmultitudinous manifestations, every noumenon its phenomenon, in the\nphysical universe. If we now examine those traits of our surroundings\nwhich affect us most, and best help us to reach the highest level of\nabstract thought of which our nature is capable, we find that it is\nthe recognition of the Beauty (comprising also the Good and the True)\nin everything, which constitutes the power held over our minds by what\nwe may call the Glamour of Symbolism, the Rapture of Music, and the\nIdeal of Art. But this influence is still only _sensuous_, it does not\ncarry us beyond the extension of that Wonderment and Enchantment which\nhad their birth with our first visit to Fairyland. This is, I think,\nevident, as Beauty is not the Reality; it is only what may be called\nthe sensuous expression of the Reality or Spiritual on the physical\nplane. Although we have no words to express, nor indeed minds to\ngrasp, the wonders and glories of that which is behind the Veil, it is\npossible for some of us to get a glimpse of it through our Window, and\nto those the following pages may be helpful, but to others the Wall\nwill remain blank; and, here at the commencement, I should like to\nwarn those who have not been through a certain experience, to which I\nshall refer, that no words of mine will open the Window for them; at\nthe same time it is probable that many of my readers, who think at\nthis stage that they have no knowledge of the subject of this View,\nwill, as we proceed, recognise in the view through the Window\nsomething they have experienced more than once in their lifetime, and\nto these I address myself.\n\nLet us first try to understand what we know concerning ourselves. The\nlonger one lives and the more one studies the mystery of \"Being,\" the\nmore one is forced to the conclusion that in every Human Being there\nare two Personalities, call them what you like--\"the _Real_ and its\nImage,\" \"the _Spiritual_ and its Material Shadow,\" or \"the\n_Transcendental_ and its Physical Ego.\" The former in each of these\nduads is, as referred to in our first View, not conditioned in Time\nand Space, is independent of Extension and Duration, and must\ntherefore be Omnipresent and Omniscient, whereas the latter, being\nsubservient to Time and Space, can only think in finite words,\nrequires succession of ideas to accumulate knowledge, is dependent on\nperception of movements for forming concepts of its surroundings, and,\nwithout this perception, it would have no knowledge of existence.\n\nLet us go back into the far distant past, before the frame and brain\nof what we now call the genus Homo was fully developed: he was then an\nanimal pure and simple, conscious of living but knowing neither good\nnor evil; there was nothing in his thoughts more perfect than himself;\nit was the golden age of innocency; he was a being enjoying himself in\na perfect state of nature with absolute freedom from responsibility of\naction. But, as ages rolled on, under the great law of evolution, his\nbrain was enlarging and gradually being prepared for a great and\nwonderful event, which was to make an enormous change in his mode of\nliving and his outlook on the future. As seeds may fall continually\nfor thousands of years upon hard rock without being able to germinate,\nuntil gradually, by the disintegration of the rock, soil is formed,\nenabling the seed at last to take root; so for countless ages was the\nmind of that noble animal being prepared until, in the fulfilment of\ntime, the Spiritual took root and he became a living soul. The change\nwas marvellous; he was now aware of something higher and more perfect\nthan himself, he found that he was able to form ideals above his\nability to attain to, resulting in a sense of inferiority, akin to a\n\"Fall\"; he was conscious of the difference of Right and Wrong, and\nfelt happy and blessed when he followed the Good, but ashamed and\naccursed when he chose the Evil; he became upright in stature, and\nable to communicate his thoughts and wishes to his fellows by means of\nlanguage; and by feeling his freedom to choose between the Good,\nBeautiful, and True on one hand, and the Evil, Ugly, and False on the\nother, he became aware that he was responsible and answerable to a\nmysterious higher Being for his actions. This at once raised him far\nabove other animals, and he gradually began to feel the presence\nwithin him of a wonderful power, the nucleus of that Transcendental\nSelf which had taken root, and which, from that age to this, has urged\nMan ever forward first to form, and then struggle to attain, higher\nIdeals of Perfection. As a mountaineer who, with stern persistence,\nstruggles upward from height to height, gaining at each step a clearer\nand broader view, so do we, as we progress in our struggle upwards,\ntoward the understanding of Perfection, ever see more and more clearly\nthat the Invisible is the Real, that the visible is only its shadow,\nthat our Spiritual Personality is akin to that Great Reality, that we\ncannot search out and know that Personality; it is not an idea, it\ncannot be perceived by our senses, any more than we can see a sound by\nour sense of sight or measure an Infinity by our finite units; all we\ncan so far do is to feel and mark its effect in guiding our Physical\nEgo to choose the real from the shadow, the plus from the minus,\nreceiving back in some marvellous mode of reflex action the power to\ndraw further nourishment from the Infinite. As that Inner Personality\nbecomes more and more firmly established, higher ideals and knowledge\nof the Reality bud out, and, as these require the clothing of finite\nexpressions before they can become part of our consciousness, so are\nthey clothed by our Physical Ego and become forms of thought; and,\nalthough the Physical Ego is only the shadow or image, projected on\nthe physical screen, of the Real Personality, we are able, by\nexamining these emanations and marking their affinity to the Good, the\nBeautiful, and the True, to attain at times to more than transient\nglimpses of the loveliness of that which is behind the veil. As in a\nriver flowing down to the sea, a small eddy, however small, once\nstarted with power to increase, may, if it continues in midstream,\ninstead of getting entangled with the weeds and pebbles near the\nbank, gather to itself so large a volume of water, that, when it\nreaches the sea, it has become a great independent force; so is each\nof us endowed, as we come into this life, with a spark of the Great\nReality, with potential force to draw from the Infinite in proportion\nto our conscientious endeavours to keep ourselves free from the\ndeadening effects of mundane frivolities and enticements, turning our\nfaces ever towards the light rather than to the shadow, until our\npersonality becomes a permanent entity, commanding an individual\nexistence when the physical clothing of this life is worn out, and for\nus all shadows disappear.\n\nIf man became a conscious being on some such analogous lines as\nindicated, it is clear that he is, as it were, the offspring of two\ndistinct natures, and subject to two widely separated influences; the\nSpiritual ever urging him towards improvement in the direction of the\nReal or Perfect, and the Physical or Animal instincts inviting him in\nthe opposite direction. These latter instincts are not wrong in\nthemselves, in a purely animal nature, but are made manifest as urging\nhim in the direction of the shadow or Imperfect when they come in\ncontact, and therefore in competition, with the Spiritual. Neither the\nSpiritual nor the Physical can be said to possess Free-will; they must\nwork in opposite directions, but this competition for influence over\nour actions provides the basis for the exercise of man's\nFree-will--the choice between progression and stagnation. The\nSpiritual influence must conquer in the long run, as every step under\nthat influence is a step towards the Real and can never be lost; the\napparent steps in the other direction are only negative or retarding,\nand can have no real existence, except as a drag on the wheel which is\nalways moving in the direction of Perfection, thus hindering the\nprocess of growth of the Personality.\n\nThe stages in development of the Physical Ego and its final absorption\nin the Transcendental may perhaps be stated as follows--\n\nThe Physical Ego loquitur:\n\n     \"I become aware of being surrounded by phenomena, I will to\n     see--I perceive and wonder what is the meaning of\n     everything--I begin to think--I reflect by combining former\n     experiences--I am conscious that I am, and that I am free to\n     choose between Right and Wrong, but that I am responsible\n     for my actions to a Higher Power; that what I call 'I am' is\n     itself only the shadow, or in some incomprehensible sense\n     the breathing organ, of a wonderful divine Afflatus or Power\n     which is growing up within, or in intimate connection with\n     me, and which itself is akin to the Reality. Owing to my\n     senses being finite I cannot with my utmost thought form a\n     direct concept of that power, although I feel that it\n     comprises all that is good and real in me, and is in fact my\n     true personality; I am conscious of it ever urging me\n     forward towards the Good, Beautiful, and True, and that each\n     step I take in that direction (especially when taken in\n     opposition to the dictates of physical instincts) results in\n     a further growth of that Transcendental Self. With that\n     growth I recognise that it is steadily gaining power over my\n     thoughts and aspirations. I learn that the whole physical\n     Universe is a manifestation of the Will of the Spiritual,\n     that every phenomenon is as it were a sublime thought, that\n     it should be my greatest individual aspiration to try to\n     interpret those thoughts, or when, as it seems at present,\n     our stage in the evolution of thought is not far enough\n     advanced, I should during my short term of life do my best\n     to help forward the knowledge of the Good, Beautiful, and\n     True for those who come after. As I grow old the Real Ego in\n     me seems to be taking my place, the central activity of my\n     life is being shifted, as I feel I am growing in some way\n     independent of earthly desires and aspirations, and, when\n     the term of my temporary sojourn here draws to a close, I\n     feel myself slackening my hold of the physical until at last\n     I leave go entirely, and my physical clothing, having\n     fulfilled its use, drops off and passes away, carrying with\n     it all limitations of Time and Space. I awake as from a\n     dream to find my true heritage in the Spiritual Universe.\"\n\nIf we try to form a conception of the stages of growth of the\nTranscendental Self it would, I think, be somewhat as follows:\n\nThe first consciousness}\n  of the Spiritual     } I know that Love is the Summum Bonum.\n  entity would be....  }\n\nAs it became nourished } I love.\n  it would be....      }\n\nThen....                 I love with my whole being.\n\n\nThen....                 I know that I am part of God and God is Love.\n\n\n\nAnd lastly....           I am perfected in Loving and Knowing.\n\nAnd the above is the best description I have been able to formulate of\nthe development of the Mystical Sense by means of which we can get a\nview of the Reality through our Window. I will try to give my own\nexperience of this, which will, I know, wake an echo in other hearts,\nas I have met those who have felt the same. From a child I always had\nan intense feeling that Love was the one thing above all worth having\nin life, and, as I grew older and became aware that my real self was\nakin to the Great Spirit, at certain times of elation or what might\nbe called a kind of ecstasy, I had an overpowering sense of longing\nfor union with the Reality, an intense love and craving to become one\nwith the All-loving. When analysed later in life this was recognised\nas similar in kind, though different in degree, to the feeling which,\nwhen in the country, surrounded by charming scenery, wild flowers, the\ndepths of a forest glade, or even the gentle splash of a mountain\nstream, makes one always want to open one's arms wide to embrace and\nhold fast the beautiful in Nature, as though one's Physical Ego, wooed\nby the Beautiful which is the sensuous (not sensual) expression of the\nSpiritual, longed to become one with the Physical, as the Personality\nor Transcendental Ego craves to become one with the Reality. It is the\nsame intense feeling which makes a lover, looking into the eyes of his\nbeloved, long to become united in the perfection of loving and\nknowing, to be one with that being in whom he has discovered a\nlikeness akin to the highest ideal of which he himself is capable of\nforming a conception.\n\nAs in heaven, so on earth the Physical Ego, though only a shadow, has\nin its sphere the same fundamental characteristic craving as the\nTranscendental Personality has for that which is akin to it, and it is\nthis wonderful love that, as the old adage says, makes the world go\nround. It is the most powerful incentive on earth, and is implanted\nin our natures for the good and furtherance of the race; it is, in\nfact, the manifestation on the material plane of that craving of the\nInner self for union with, and being perfected in loving and knowing,\nthat Infinite Love of which it is itself the likeness. If we can\nrealise that everything on the physical plane is a shadow, symbol, or\nmanifestation of that which is in the Transcendental, the Mystical\nSense, through contemplating these as symbols, enables us at certain\ntimes, alas! too seldom and fleeting in character, to get beyond the\nPhysical; but those of my readers who have been _there_ will know how\nimpossible it is to describe, in direct words, which would carry any\nmeaning, either the path by which the experience is gained or a true\naccount of the experience itself. I will try, however, and I think I\nmay be able to lead my readers, by indirect inductive suggestion, to a\nview of even these difficult subjects, by using the knowledge we have\nalready gained in our first view through this Window. If an artist\nwere required to draw a representation of the Omniscient\nTranscendental Self, budding out new forms of thought in response to\nthe conscientious efforts of, and the providing of suitable clothing\nby, the Physical Ego, as referred to in View No. 1, he would be\nobliged to make use of symbolic forms, and I want to make it quite\nclear that the description I am attempting must necessarily be clothed\nin symbolic language and reasoning, and must not be taken as in any\nway the key by which the door of \"the sanctuary\" may be opened; it is\nonly possible by it to help the mind to grasp the fact that there is a\nWindow through which such things may be seen, the rest depends upon\nthe personality of the seer.\n\nNow bear in mind that it is not we who are looking out upon Nature,\nbut that it is the Reality, which, by means of the physical, is\npersistently striving to enter into our consciousness, to tell us\nwhat? [Greek: Theos agape estin] (God is Love). As in Thompson's\nsuggestive poem, \"The Hound of Heaven\"--the Hidden which desires to be\nfound--the Reality is ever hunting us, and will never leave us till He\nhas taught us to know and therefore to love Him, and, as seen in our\nfirst view, the first step is to try to see through the woof of nature\nto the Reality beyond. To this may also be added the attempt to hear\nthe \"silence\" beyond the audible. Try now to look upon the whole\n\"visible\" as a background comprising landscape, sea, and sky--we shall\nget help in this direction in a later View--and then bring that\nbackground nearer and nearer to your consciousness. It requires\npractice, but it can be done; it may help you if you remember the\nfact that the whole of that visible scene is actually depicted on the\n_surface_ of your retina and _has no other existence for you_. The\nnearer you can get the background to approach, the more clearly you\ncan see that the whole physical world of our senses is but a thin\nveil, a mere soap film, which at death is pricked and parts asunder,\nleaving us in the presence of the Reality underlying all phenomena.\nThe same may be accomplished with the \"audible,\" which is indeed part\nof the same physical film, though this is not at first easy to\nrecognise. As pointed out in View No. 1, there is little in common\nbetween our sense of sight and hearing; but the chirp of birds, the\nhum of bees, the rustle of wind in the leaves, the ripple of a stream,\nthe distant sound of sheep bells, and lowing of cattle form a\nbackground of sound which may be coaxed to approach you; the only\nknowledge you have of such sounds is their impression or image on the\nflat tympanum of your ear; they have _no other existence for you_; and\nagain you may recognise that the physical is but a thin transient\nfilm. With the approach of the physical film all material sensation\nbecomes as it were blurred, as near objects become when the eye looks\nat the horizon, and gradually escapes from consciousness.\n\nI have tried in the foregoing to suggest a method by which our Window\nmay be unshuttered; it has necessarily been only an oblique view and\nclothed in symbolic phraseology, but those who have been able to grasp\nits meaning will now have attained to what may be called a state of\n_self-forgetting_, the silencing or quieting down of the Physical Ego;\nsight and sound perceptions have been put in the background of\nconsciousness, and it becomes possible to worship or love the very\nessence of beauty without the distraction of sense analysis and\nsynthesis or temptation to form intellectual conceptions.\n\nWe are now prepared to attempt the last aspect of our view--namely,\nthe description of what is experienced when the physical mists have\nbeen evaporated by the Mystical Sense. Again we find that no direct\ndescription is possible, language is absolutely inadequate to describe\nthe unspeakable, communications have to be physically transmitted in\nwords to which finite physical meanings have been allocated. The still\nsmall voice which may at times of Rapture be momentarily experienced\nin Music, is something much more wonderful than can be formed by\nsounds, and this perhaps comes nearest to the expression necessary for\ndepicting the vision of the soul; but it cannot be held or described,\nit is quickly drowned by the physical sense of audition. As the\nGlamour of Symbolism can only be transmitted to one who has passed\nthe portal of Symbolic Thought, the Rapture of Music can only be truly\nunderstood by one who has already experienced it, and the Ideal of Art\nrequires a true artistic temperament to comprehend it, so it is, I\nbelieve, impossible to describe, with any chance of success, this\nwonderful experience to any but those whom Mr. A. C. Benson, in his\n_Secret of the Thread of Gold_, very aptly describes as having already\nentered \"the Shrine.\" Those who have been _there_ will know that it is\nnot at all equivalent to a vision, it is not anything which can be\nseen or heard or felt by touch; it is entirely independent of the\nphysical senses; it is not Giving or Receiving, it is not even a\nreceiving of some new knowledge from the Reality; it has nothing to do\nwith thought or intellectual gymnastics; all such are seen to be but\nmist. The nearest description I can formulate is:--A wondrous feeling\nof perfect peace;--absolute rest from physical interference;--perfect\ncontentment;--the sense of Being-one-with-the-Reality, carrying with\nit a knowledge that the Reality or Spiritual is nearer to us and has\nmuch more to do with us than the Physical has, if we could only see\nthe truth and recognise its presence;--that there is no real\ndeath;--no finiteness and yet no Infinity;--that the Great Spirit\ncannot be localised or said to be anywhere, but that everywhere is\nGod;--that the whole of what we call Creation is an instantaneous\nThought of the Reality;--that it is only by the process of analysing\nin Time and Space that we imagine there is such a thing as succession\nof events;--that the only Reality is the _Spiritual_, the _Here_\nembracing all Space and the _Now_ embracing all Time.\n\nHow few of us who are now drawing towards the end of our sojourn here,\nhave not, at certain times during our lives, experienced something\nakin to what I have tried to put before you in the above! Does not a\nparticular scent, a beautiful country scene, a phrase in music, the\nbeauty or pathos in a picture, symbolic sculpture in a grand\ncathedral, or even a chance word spoken in our hearing, every now and\nthen waken in our innermost consciousness an enchanting memory of some\nwonderful happy moment of the past when the sun seemed to have been\nshining more brightly, the birds singing more merrily, when everything\nin nature seemed more alive, and our very beings seemed wrapped up in\nan intense love of our surroundings? On those occasions we were not\nfar from seeing behind the veil, though we did not recognise it at the\ntime; but when we now look back, with experience gained by advancing\nyears, and consider those visions of the past, we cannot help seeing\nthat the physical film was to our eyes more transparent at those\ntimes, and the very joy of their remembrance seems to be giving us a\nprescience of that which we shall experience, when for each one of us\nthe physical film is pricked and passes away like a scroll.\n\n\n\n\nVIEW THREE\n\nMYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM\n\n\n\"Who can doubt that the Mystics know more than the Theologians, and\nthat the Poets know more than the Scientists? for this inner\napprehension is surely the highest and truest kind of Knowledge.\" Such\nwere the words written to me lately by a clergyman of great learning\nand of unimpeachable orthodoxy, whose mature knowledge of the Higher\nMysteries has been gained by a life-long study of the Divine. In View\nNo. 1 we saw that the first step towards opening our Window, was to\ngrasp the fact that it is not we who are _looking out_ upon Nature,\nbut that it is the Reality which is ever trying to enter and to _come\ninto_ touch with us, through our senses, and is persistently trying to\nwake within us a knowledge of the sublimest truths: but this has not\nyet been appreciated by the Theologian; he is looking _outwards_\ninstead of _inwards_, and asks the question, based on _intellectual_\nconception, in the form \"Can I find out the Absolute so that I may\npossess Him?\" and the answer ever comes back, \"_No_, because I am\ntrying to storm the _Sanctuary_ of the Unthinkable, the Infinite, by\nmeans of a Ladder which cannot reach beyond our finite conceptions,\nand can deal therefore only with the shadows, cast by the outlying\nramparts, upon our physical plane.\" An example of this is surely seen\nin the lecture lately delivered by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Gore) to\nthe University of Oxford (13th February 1912, reported in the\n_Guardian_ of 16th February), when he made the statement that the\ngreatest difficulty we have is to recognise that the Absolute is a God\nof Love. His exact words were: \"I believe that there are a great many\nof us who know, perhaps from bitter experience, that whatever\ndifficulties there are about religious belief are difficulties about\nbelieving in a God of Love; whatever is our experience, and however\nsunny is our disposition, any steady thinking will make it apparent\nthat thought, apart from the Christian revelation, presumed and\naccepted, or reflected unconsciously, has never got at it, and even\nafter it has been in the world, thought is continually finding it hard\nto retain the idea of God the Creator, or the truth that God is Love,\npartly owing to the limitations of human thinking, partly, and even\nmore, owing to the experience of man and of nature.\"\n\nOn the other hand the Mystic, with _introspection_, asks the question\nin the form \"Can the Absolute find me out and possess me and thus\nmake me feel that that which is within me is akin to, is, in fact, a\npart of Him and that I am possessed thereby?\" and the answer ever\ncomes back from those who are on the true Quest:--\"_Yes_; because the\nUnthinkable, the Hidden which desires to be found, is ever trying to\ncome into our Consciousness to waken the knowledge that His\n_Sanctuary_, or what is called the Kingdom of Heaven, is within us,\nthat we are not an external but an internal creation of the\nAll-loving.\" Such a realisation is, as pointed out in \"The Vision,\"\nfar above Analysis and Synthesis or Intellectual gymnastics, which can\ndeal only with the finite and are seen to be but Mist. How many\nvaluable thoughts are wrecked and lost from our inability to formulate\nand describe them intellectually, even in our own consciousness. We\nare too apt to lay the blame upon, and to doubt, the Truth of those\nconceptions, because we are unable to find words to express them; the\nvery act of attempting to analyse such thoughts in Time and Space\ndestroys our power of carrying them to higher levels. Those who have\nonce realised that the knowledge of the Absolute is the true Divine\nLife within us, can, as we have seen, at certain times and under\ncertain conditions, experience that wonderful joy of perception by\nmeans of what I have called the Eye of the Soul; but that is missed\nby those who are always asking questions, and arguing, about what that\nknowledge consists in; the command \"Seek and ye shall find, knock and\nit shall be opened unto you, ask and it shall be given you,\" was not\nmeant for the intellect but for the Heart, not for logical controversy\nbut for inward discernment, not for physical enjoyment but for the\nnourishment of the Transcendental Ego. All things _may_ be possible to\nhim that believeth, but how much more is this true of him who, as\nreferred to in View No. 2, is perfected in \"Loving and Knowing.\" The\nnearer we get to that consciousness of Being-one-with-the-Reality, the\nmore we see and can meditate upon the wonderful \"joy\" which permeates\nall creation; but without that consciousness it is invisible, and the\nworld is dark and evil and unloving, and to many, alas! appears more\nthe handiwork of a Devil than of a God of Love.\n\nMysticism is not, as the man in the street generally thinks, the study\nof the \"Mysterious,\" but is the attempt to gain a knowledge of the\nReality, the ultimate Truth in everything, especially the perception\nof that wonderful Transcendental Power which is growing up within, or\nin close connection with, each one of us. The study of the Physical\nSciences, as also of the various forms of Religion around us, is\nuseful and fascinating in the domain of \"Intellectualism,\" but does\nnot take us far towards the goal of our aspirations. I shall, however,\nattempt to show, in my next View, that by examining the phenomena of\nNature and realising that they are symbols only of the Noumenon, the\nReality, which is behind them, it is possible to reach a point where\nwe may even feel that we are thinking, or having divulged to us, what\nmay be called the very thoughts of the Absolute. We shall see that\nthis can only be accomplished by first recognising that the Invisible\nis the Real, that the visible is only its shadow, that all our\nsurroundings are but the images, or outlines, of the Reality cast on\nthe Physical plane of our Senses; to accomplish this, we have to\nunderstand the use of _Symbolic_ Thought for sustaining and carrying\nconceptions to a higher level; because, as already explained, we can\nonly express and, indeed, think of the Invisible or Infinite under\nterms of the Visible or Finite. Let me give you a glimpse at what may\nbe called the \"Glamour of Symbolism\"; it is difficult to explain to\nthose who have not yet thought of or felt it, but the following may be\nhelpful:\n\nThink of the loveliest story or poem you have ever read, the most\nentrancing music you have ever heard, or the most beautiful paintings\nyou have ever seen, and think how, at the end, you experienced a\nwonderful glow of enchantment with the concept as a whole, apart from\nspecialising any particular character or event in the story, phrase in\nthe music, or subject in the pictures; then do the same with one of\nthose wonderful cathedrals of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, the\nepoch of that beautiful Gothic style which I shall show was founded\nupon the highest mystical form of Symbolism possible to those who\nlived at the then zenith of Mystical Thought in the history of the\nworld. The number of cathedrals built during those three centuries was\nso prodigious that, without the documentary evidence which we have, it\nwould be absolutely incredible. Every part of those buildings, even to\nthe smallest decorations, was, as shown by any of the old writers on\nReligious Symbolism, such as Durandus, planned to symbolise some\nbeautiful thought, aspiration, tradition, or religious belief. The\nhighest Thinkers, Artists, Poets, Philosophers, and Mystics in those\ncenturies became Architects, and, in pure contemplation of and love\nfor the Divine, helped to beautify design by giving up their lives and\nenergies to the work without reward. It was, in fact, at that period\nthe surest means by which they could record their ideals and\naspirations. Before the advent of the printing press, with its\nfacilities for spreading knowledge broadcast, they appreciated that\nTectonic Art and Iconography were the means by which they could best\npermanently record and teach their aspirations to the masses. Every\nbeautiful thought found its expression in some symbol of artistic\ndesign. Each Cathedral was, in fact, a beautiful complete _story_,\nand, when this has been fully grasped, the enchantment of the whole,\nthe thread of gold running through the whole of that wonderful pile,\nis what may be called the Glamour of Symbolism.\n\nFor the last 400 years, Archaeologists, Architects, and others\ninterested in the history of Tectonic art, have been trying without\navail to discover what is called \"the lost secret of Gothic\nArchitecture\"; even Sir Christopher Wren had a try and expressed his\nopinion that it was lost for ever. They were all looking in the wrong\ndirection, confining themselves to the mists of physical intellectual\nperception, and could not get beyond that limited range of thought. I\npropose now, in illustration of this View, to show what this secret\nwas. It has the making of a fascinating Romance; it is the most\nwonderful example of what I will call \"the Evolution of Thought as\ndepicted by Human strivings after the Transcendental in Mediaeval\nMysticism.\" I shall give it in a brief form, touching only on those\nessential points which require a very slight knowledge of Geometry,\nbut those interested in the subject may refer to _Ars Quatuor\nCoronatorum_ (vol. xxiii., 1910), where I have given the whole\nsubject, _in extenso_, under the title \"Magister Mathesios.\"\n\nTo understand the subject it is necessary to recognise fully the place\nGeometry held, not only among Mediaeval Builders, but also in Classical\ntimes; it was recognised in those early times as the head of all the\nSciences, and was the A, B, C of Hellenic Philosophy. Come back with\nme 2300 years, to the time when the \"Greek Age of Reason\" was at its\nzenith, and Plato, the greatest of the philosophers, was teaching at\nAthens, working thus, let it be known to his honour, solely for the\nlove he bore to science, for he always taught gratuitously. What\nqualification was required of those who attended his Academy? Look up\nover the porch, and you will see written in large capitals these\nwords:\n\n    [Greek: MEDEIS AGEOMETRETOS EISITO\n                 MOU TEN STEGEN.]\n\n\"Let no one who is ignorant of Geometry enter my doors.\"\n\nAt the root of Socratic teaching was the idea that wisdom is the\nattribute of the Godhead, and Plato, for twenty years the companion\nand most favoured pupil of Socrates, was imbued with that doctrine,\nand, having arrived at the conclusion that the impulse to find out\nTRUTH was the necessity of intellectual man, he saw in Geometry the\nkeystone of all Knowledge, because, among all other channels of\nthought, it alone was the exponent of absolute and undeniable truth.\nHe tells us that \"Geometry rightly treated is the Knowledge of the\nEternal\"; and Plutarch gives us yet another instance of Plato's\nteaching concerning this subject, in which he looks upon God as the\nGreat Architect, when he says, \"Plato says that God is always\ngeometrising.\" Holding, therefore, as Plato did, that God was a great\nGeometer, and that the aim of philosophy was the acquisition of a\nknowledge of the Eternal, it is natural that he should make a\nknowledge of Geometry imperative on those wishing to study philosophy.\nThis was continued also by those philosophers who succeeded Plato in\nthe management of the Academy, as we are told that Zenocrates turned\naway an applicant for admission, who knew no geometry, with the words:\n\n    [Greek: poreuou, labas gar ouk echeis tes philosophias.]\n\n\"Depart, for thou hast not the _grip_ of philosophy.\"\n\nIn connection with the idea that God was a Geometer, must be taken the\ncontention held by the Egyptians, and after them the Greeks and Arabs,\nthat the Right-Angled Triangle symbolised the nature of the Universe;\nit was called the law of the three squares, because in every\nRight-Angled Triangle, as expounded by the Pythagorean Theorem, the\nsquares, formed on the two sides containing the Right Angle, must\ntogether be exactly equal to the square on the third side, whatever\nthe shape of the triangle may be. The Right Angle at an early date\ngave its name to the odd numbers, which were called, by the Greeks,\ngnomonic numbers, as personifying the male sex, and the Right-Angled\nTriangle was also called the Nuptial Figure, or Marriage, the\nPythagorean Theorem receiving the name, [Greek: to theorema tes\nnymphes] (the Theorem of the Bride). Plutarch, in his _Osiris and\nIsis_, tells us in explanation of this, \"The Egyptians imagined the\nnature of the Universe like this most beautiful triangle, as Plato\nalso seems to have done in his work on the _State_, when he sketches\nthe picture of Matrimony under the form of a Right-Angled Triangle.\nThat triangle contains one of the perpendiculars of three, the base of\nfour, and the hypotenuse of five parts, the square of which is equal\nto the squares of those sides containing the right angle. The\nperpendicular (three) is the Male, Osiris, the originating principle\n([Greek: arche]); the base (four) is the Female, Isis, the receptive\nprinciple ([Greek: hypodoche]); and the Hypotenuse (five) is the\noffspring of both, Horus, the product ([Greek: apotelesma]).\" The\ncentral feature of this triangle, upon which its property is based,\nis the Right Angle. The Greeks gave to this Right Angle the name of\n_Gnomon_ (meaning Knowledge), and it has ever since been, under the\nform of a carpenter's \"square,\" the emblem or symbol of an Architect,\nthe Master Mason, as personifying the Great Architect of the\nUniverse--namely, He who has the knowledge of Geometry; and, as the\nRight-Angled Triangle represented the Universe, it was upon the\n_perfection_ of this Gnomon, or knowledge, that the very existence of\nthe Universe depended, because the law of the three squares only holds\ngood when that angle is perfect.\n\nThe Secret handed down in the Craft, from Architect to Architect, was\nhow to form a perfect right angle, or, as it was called, the \"Square,\"\nwithout possibility of Error, and this I have called \"the Knowledge of\nthe Square.\" Vitruvius, who, at the beginning of our Era, wrote his\nthesis on Tectonic art, which is still the text-book of Architecture\nfor Ancient buildings, says Pythagoras taught his followers to form a\ngnomon, or square, as follows: \"Take three rods, of three lengths,\nfour lengths, and five lengths long; with these form a triangle, and,\nif each rod be squared, you have 9, 16, and 25, and the areas of the\ntwo former will be equal to the latter.\"\n\nNow let us come to the closing years of the tenth century. What a\nstrange condition of the building craft was to be seen all over\nEurope; not a church was being built, nor had been built, for the last\ntwenty years; the thousand years after Christ was drawing to its\nclose, everybody was waiting for, and expecting, the world to come to\nan end; no new undertakings were begun. How much money went into the\nhands of the Monasteries and other Religious Houses, as peace\nofferings for the future welfare of the givers, nobody can say; it was\nprobably enormous. When, however, the eleventh century was well\nstarted and the crisis was over, churches were built on a large scale,\nas shown by the numerous remains we have of Norman buildings of the\nlast half eleventh century, and building was probably at its height\nabout A.D. 1140 to 1150; but at this period an extraordinary thing\nhappened. Hitherto the arches in the Norman style were round-headed\nand their columns enormously thick to carry them; but suddenly the\nstyle changed into the beautiful Gothic all over Europe. No single\ncountry can claim precedence, it was almost simultaneous; churches\nhalf finished in the round style were not only completed in the\npointed, but had parts already built altered to the new style. What,\nthen, determined this sudden change, resulting in a wonderful\naccession of beauty to Architectural design? We must go to the\nMonasteries and Religious Houses to find the explanation. These Houses\nhad become the Patrons of Masonry, the providers of the funds for\nbuilding Cathedrals, &c.; it naturally followed that, growing up\nalongside the Operative Science, there was a Religious symbolism being\ngradually formed which attached itself specially to the tools used by\nMasons, and thus formed the basis of Moral teaching--\"to act on the\nSquare,\" \"to keep within the bounds of the Compasses,\" \"to be Level in\nall your dealings,\" &c., &c. A wonderful, new, and Mystical form of\nSymbolism was opened to them with the advent of Geometry. The\ntext-book of Geometry was unknown throughout the whole of Europe,\nomitting Spain, from the sixth to the beginning of the twelfth\ncentury; it was, as I have pointed out, well known in Greece before\nour Era, and continued to be so up to about the sixth century A.D. In\nthe fourth century lived the Greek, Theon of Alexandria, so well known\nfor his edition of Euclid's Elements, with notes, from which all Greek\nMSS. which first came to light in the sixteenth century were taken,\nbeing entitled [Greek: ek ton Theonos synousion], \"from Theon's\nLectures,\" and which he probably used as a text-book in his classes;\nbut these MSS. had all been lost before the seventh century, and were\nnot recovered again until the sixteenth century, when Simon Grynaeus,\nthe greatest Greek scholar on the Continent, and companion of\nMelancthon and Luther, discovered a copy in Constantinople. Meanwhile,\nTheon's edition had been translated into Arabic, and thus preserved by\nthe Mohammedans, and it was only at the beginning of the twelfth\ncentury that Athelard of Bath, who had been travelling in the East,\ncame to study at Cordova, in Spain, and there found the Arabic MSS. of\nEuclid; these he translated into Latin, and this translation must have\ncome into the hands of the patrons of the building craft at the very\ntime when the Gothic style had its origin; it was the only Latin\ntranslation known in Europe, and was, some centuries later, the\ntext-book of the first printed edition of Euclid.\n\nThe Operative Masons had always formed their Right-Angled Triangles by\nmeans of mundane measures of 3, 4, and 5 units to each side\nrespectively, as was done by the Harpedonaptae of Egypt 5000 years ago,\nand 2500 years later by Pythagoras, and this same method continues to\nbe used to this day; but to those of a religious turn of mind, who had\nonly lately become conversant with Euclid, and looked upon Geometry\nnot only as the height of all learning, but, as they progressed in the\nknowledge of its bearing on the Science of building, actually made it\nsynonymous with Tectonic Art (the old MSS. which have come down to us\nfrom that time _invariably_ state that \"at the head of all the\nSciences stands _Geometry which is Masonry_\"), there must have come a\nwave of wonderful enthusiasm when they first discovered that the\nGeometrical way of creating a Right Angle, as given in Euclid I. ii.,\nwas by means of an Equilateral Triangle, by joining the Apex with the\ncentre of the base. This Equilateral Triangle was the earliest symbol\nwe know of the Divine _Logos_ in connection with that wonderful figure\nthe Vesica Piscis; and as the Bible declared that the Universe was\ncreated by the Logos (the Word), so the Square which represented the\nUniverse was naturally created by means of the Equilateral Triangle. A\ngreat mystery this must have appeared to those who, like the Hellenic\nphilosophers, postulated that everything on Earth has its counterpart\nin Heaven, and who, in their religious mysticism, were always looking\nfor signs of the transcendental in their temporal surroundings.\n\nBut in what awe and reverence must they have held Geometry, when they\nfurther found that the Equilateral Triangle, representing the Logos,\nwas itself generated, as shown in the _first_ Problem of Euclid, upon\nwhich the whole Science of Geometry was therefore based, by the\nintersection of two Circles! These two Circles were held by the\nGreeks, at the beginning of our Era, to represent the Past and Future\nEternities generating the Logos; but the whole figure (Euclid I. i.)\nwas at the time we are now dealing with looked upon by Mediaeval\nArchitects as representing the Three Divine _personae_, and that part,\nor _cavity_, of the figure which is bounded by the Arcs of the two\ncircles, and which takes to itself one-third of each of the two\ngenerating circles (making its perifera exactly equal with that\nremaining to each of the two circles, all three therefore being\n_co-equal_), and in which the Equilateral Triangle is formed (_vide_\nfrontispiece), was naturally held by the Mediaeval Architects, and\nindeed from earliest times, as the most sacred Christian\nEmblem--namely, that of _Regeneration_ or \"New Birth.\"\n\nThe Cavity is evidently referred to in the Mystical Gospel of St. John\n(iii. 16), in the question by and answer to Nicodemus, and it was the\neye of the needle referred to in St. Mark x. 25, in answer to the\nquestion in verse 17, and again in St. Luke xviii. 25. In later ages\nthis symbol was extensively used by the Christian Church to surround\nthe \"Soul of a Saint\" after death (illustrated in _Magister\nMathesios_). The date of the birth of a Saint was always given as the\ndate on which he or she died and had been born again in the Spiritual\nLife, and the Saint was depicted in a Vesica Piscis, the vulva of the\n_Ruach_ or Holy Spirit, representing this new birth. To show the\nextraordinary reverence and high value attached to this symbol, it is\nonly necessary to remember that, from the fourth century, when Theon\nof Alexandria lectured on Geometry, and onwards, all Seals of\nColleges, Abbeys, Monasteries, and other religious communities, as\nwell as of ecclesiastical persons, have been made invariably of this\nform, and they continue to be made so to this day. It was also in\nallusion to this most sacred ancient emblem that Tertullian, and other\nearly Fathers, spoke of Christians as \"Pisciculi.\" It was called the\n\"Vesica Piscis\" (Fish's Bladder), and named, no doubt, by the Greeks\nat the beginning of our Era, for the purpose of misleading the\nignorant from the true meaning of the Figure.\n\nOne can well understand the object which led the learned Rabbi\nMaimonides, the greatest savant of the Middle Ages, when addressing\nhis pupils in the twelfth century, to command his hearers: \"When you\nhave discovered the meaning thereof, do not divulge it, because the\npeople cannot philosophise nor understand that to the Infinite there\nis no such thing as Sex;\" but later on the noted writer on Symbolism,\nDurandus, in the introduction to his book, is more explicit, and gives\nthe real meaning as follows: \"The Mystical Vesica Piscis ... wherein\nthe Divinity and, more rarely, the Blessed Virgin are represented,\nhas no reference, except in name, to a fish, but represents the\nAlmond, the symbol of Virginity and self-production.\"\n\nThe Vesica Piscis, and its name, is intimately connected with the\ndiscovery, by Augustus Caesar in the century preceding our Era, as\nnarrated by Baronius, of a prophecy in one of the Sibylline books,\nforetelling \"a great event coming to pass in the birth of One who\nshould prove to be the true 'King of Kings,' and Augustus Caesar\ntherefore dedicated an altar in his palace to this unknown God.\"\nEusebius and St. Augustine inform us that the first letter of each\nline of the verses from the Erythrean Sibyl containing this prophecy,\nformed the word [Greek: ICHTHYS] (a fish), and were taken as\nrepresenting the sentence: [Greek: Iesous Christos Theou Huios\nSoter](\"Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour\"). Based upon this\ndiscovery arose that extraordinary enthusiasm, during the second,\nthird, and fourth centuries, for hunting up further prophecies in\nPagan sources, resulting in a great number of Sibylline verses being\ninvented, giving the minutest details in the Life of our Lord. These\nfabrications seem to have been at that time generally accepted by the\nmasses as true prophecies, though we know now that they were written\nsome centuries after the events they were supposed to foretell.\n\nLet us now return to the Vesica Piscis. In the paintings and\nsculptures of the Middle Ages, we find it constantly used to\ncircumscribe the figure of the Saviour, especially whenever He is\nrepresented as judging the world and in His glorified state. Many\nbeautiful examples of this in Anglo-Saxon work of the tenth century\nmay be seen in King Edgar's Book of Grants to Winchester Cathedral and\nthe famous Breviary of St. Ethelwolfe. Numerous illustrations of these\nand other pictures of the Middle Ages, as also diagrams of the\nproperties of the Vesica Piscis, can be seen in the volume I have\nalready referred to dealing fully with this subject.\n\nThe building fraternity was a purely Christian community; the First\nCrusade raised a great enthusiasm for building Christian Churches, and\nbrought in large gifts of money for that purpose. Up to 1140 Norman\nArchitecture held sway, having the \"Square\" for its unit, its greatest\nsymbol being the _Gnomon_, representing knowledge; but about that\ntime, as we have seen, arose from the study of Geometry, the head of\nall learning, a Mystical form having the mysterious figure of the\nVesica Piscis, the true Gothic Arch, with the Equilateral Triangle\nenclosed as its unit, and symbolising the Trinity in Unity. The\nrecognition of the import of the Trinity was paramount throughout\nthose early days; all important documents began with an Invocation of\nthe _Tres Personae_, or were garnished with symbolic illustrations\nthereof; all the old MSS., already referred to, which have come down\nto us from that period, invariably commence with \"In the name of the\nFather and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.\"\n\nIt can therefore be readily understood what determined the sudden\nchange between 1140-1150, resulting in that wonderful accession of\nbeauty to architectural design which we find in the Gothic. The\nincentive had to be a strong one, and of an eminently religious\ncharacter, to accomplish the radical change of throwing over so\nabsolutely the Norman, and commencing to build entirely on what are\ncalled Gothic lines. A careful examination of the proportions of the\nstructures themselves, and the character of the decorations found in\nthe finest examples of buildings representing that style, at once\nshows us that the incentive was the symbolism attached to the\nmysterious figure called the Vesica Piscis, which appears to be not\nonly the principal feature upon which the whole style rests, but is\nalso employed, as a symbol of the Divine, wherever we have Gothic\nArchitecture, either in painted windows or mural decorations. Every\nCathedral has its Vesica Piscis, often of enormous dimensions.\nGeometry was synonymous with Masonry, and the very _foundation_\nof the Science of Geometry, as expounded by Euclid, was his\n_first_ proposition. _Every single problem_ in the whole of his\nbooks necessitates for its construction the use of this one\nfoundation--namely, \"how to form an Equilateral Triangle,\" and this is\nthe Mystical form of \"the Knowledge of the Square.\" This triangle,\nsymbolising the Logos, is therefore not only the _beginning_ of the\nScience of Geometry, and therefore of Masonry, the Head of all the\nSciences, but it is by that triangle that all Geometrical forms, and\ntherefore forms of knowledge, are _made_, and it became the most\nmysterious and secret symbol of the Logos, for is it not written by\nSt. John that \"In the beginning was the Logos, and by it were all\nthings made\"; so the Vesica Piscis, the cradle of the Logos, became\nthe great _secret_ of Masonry, the foundation as we find it upon which\nGothic Architecture was evolved, the means by which its wonderful\nplans were laid down, and the most reverenced figure in Religious\nSymbolism, as shown by its use in seals, engravings, sculptures,\npictures, &c., throughout the Middle Ages.\n\nLet me make this clearer. The more one examines the typical points in\nthe Saxon, Norman, and Gothic styles of Architecture, the more clearly\none sees that the Architects of the two former used circles and\nsquares on their tracing-boards, as units for their proportions, in\ndrawing up both ground plans and elevations, with here and there\nsuggestions only of the Equilateral Triangle having been made use of\nin some of the smaller details; whereas the Gothic Architects seem to\nhave used the Vesica Piscis almost entirely. This explains the reason\nwhy true Gothic buildings have always been said to be built mainly on\nthe basis of the Equilateral Triangle; this naturally follows, because\nthe use of the Vesica creates, and therefore necessitates, the\nappearance of the Equilateral Triangle in every conceivable situation.\nThe following quotation is typical of the leading essay writers on\nthis subject: \"The Equilateral Triangle enters largely into, if it\ndoes not entirely control, all mediaeval proportions, particularly in\nthe ground plans. In Chartres Cathedral the apices of two Equilateral\nTriangles (_vide_ frontispiece to these Views), whose common base is\nthe internal length of the transept, measured through the two western\npiers of the intersection, will give the interior length, one apex\nextending to the east end of the chevet within the aisles, the other\nto the original termination of the Nave westward, and the present\nextent of the side aisles in that direction. With slight deviation,\nmost, if not all, the ground plans of the French Cathedrals are\nmeasurable in this manner, and their choirs may be so measured almost\nwithout exception. Troyes Cathedral is in exact proportion with that\nof Chartres, and the choirs of Rheims, Beauvais, St. Ouen at Rouen,\nand others are equally so. Bourges Cathedral, which has no transept,\nis exactly three Equilateral Triangles in length inside, from the East\nend of the outer aisle to the Eastern columns supporting the West\nTowers. Most English Cathedrals appear to have been constructed in\ntheir original plans upon similar rules.\" White's Classical Essay on\nArchitecture compares the Norman with the Gothic, where he says: \"In\nwhat is usually called the Norman period, the general proportions and\noutlines of the Churches are reducible to certain rules of setting out\nby the plain Square. As Architecture progressed the Square gradually\ndisappeared, and the proportion of general outline, as well as of\ndetail, fell in more and more with applications of the Equilateral\nTriangle, till the art, having arrived at its culminating point, or\nthat which is generally acknowledged to be its period of greatest\nbeauty and perfection in the thirteenth and the beginning of the\nfourteenth centuries, again began to decline. With this decline the\nEquilateral Triangle was almost lost sight of, and then a mode of\nsetting out work by diagonal squares was taken up, for such is the\nbasis found exactly applicable to the work of the fifteenth century,\nsince which time mathematical proportions have been generally\nemployed.\" And after referring to numerous scale drawings of Churches,\nwindows, doors, and arches, he points out that every student of Church\narchitecture must pronounce those of the untraceried and traceried\nfirst point to be the most beautiful of all, those of the Norman to be\na degree less so, and those of the perpendicular and debased to be far\ninferior to either, and in that analysis we find that the Equilateral\nTriangle was used almost exclusively for determining one order (the\nGothic), the Square for another (the Norman), and the Square\ndiagonally divided for the other (the debased).\n\nNow let me try to describe the wonderful properties of the Vesica\nPiscis, so that you may understand the mystery which shrouded it in\nthe minds of those Mediaeval builders. The rectangle formed by the\nlength and breadth of this figure, in the simplest form, has several\nextraordinary properties; it may be cut into three equal parts by\nstraight lines parallel to the shorter side, and these parts will all\nbe precisely and geometrically similar to each other and to the whole\nfigure,--strangely applicable to the symbolism attached at that time\nto the Trinity in Unity,--and the subdivision may be proceeded with\nindefinitely without making any change in form. However often the\noperation is performed, the parts remain identical with the original\nfigure, having all its extraordinary properties, the Equilateral\nTriangle appearing everywhere, whereas no other rectangle can have\nthis curious property.\n\nIt may also be cut into four equal parts by straight lines parallel to\nits sides, and again each of these parts will be true Vesicas, exactly\nsimilar to each other, and to the whole, and of course the Equilateral\nTriangle is again everywhere.\n\nAgain, if two out of the tri-subdivisions mentioned above be taken,\nthe form of these together is exactly similar, geometrically, to half\nthe original figure, and again the Equilateral Triangle is ubiquitous\non every base line.\n\nAgain, the diagonal of the rectangle is exactly double the length of\nits shorter side, which characteristic is absolutely _unique_, and\ngreatly increases its usefulness for plotting out designs; and this\nproperty of course holds good for all the rectangles formed by the\noriginal figure and for the other species of subdivision. But perhaps\nits most mysterious property (though not of any practical use) to\nthose who had studied Geometry, and to whom this figure was the symbol\nof the Divine Trinity in Unity, so dear to them, was the fact that it\nactually put into their hands the means of _trisecting_ the Right\nAngle.\n\nNow, the three great problems of antiquity which engaged the attention\nand wonderment of geometricians throughout the Middle Ages, were \"the\nSquaring of the Circle,\" \"the Duplication of the Cube,\" and lastly,\n\"the Trisection of an Angle,\" even Euclid being unable to show how to\ndo it; and yet it will be seen that the diagonal of one of the\nsubsidiary figures in the tri-subdivision, together with the diagonal\nof the whole figure, actually trisect the angle at the corner of the\nrectangle. It is true that it only showed them how to trisect one kind\nof angle, but it was that particular angle which was so dear to them\nas symbolising their craft, and which was created by the Equilateral\nTriangle. All these unique properties place the figure far above that\nof a square for practical work, because even when the diagonal of a\nsquare is given, it is impossible to find the exact length of any of\nits sides or _vice versa_; whereas in the Vesica rectangle the\ndiagonal is exactly double its shorter side, and upon any length of\nline which may be taken on the tracing-board as a base for elevation,\nan Equilateral Triangle will be found whose sides are of course all\nequal and therefore known, as they are equal to the base, and whose\nline joining apex to centre of base is a true Plumb line, forming at\nits foot the perfect right angle, so important in the laying of every\nstone of a building.\n\nIn the volume referred to I have given a skeleton plan upon such a\nscale of subdivision that a tracing-board, of 5 feet by 8 feet, would\nbe divided up into over one million parts, and, as all these\nsubdivisions are perfect representations of the original Vesica figure\nwith all its properties, the design of the largest building, with the\nminutest detail, could be drafted with absolute accuracy. There are\nmany other curious properties of this Figure, but they are difficult\nto explain without diagrams. I will, however, give one more example of\nits creative power. The problem of describing a Pentagon must have\npuzzled architects considerably in those early times, but this was\nagain easily accomplished by means of the Vesica. Albrecht Duerer, the\ngreat designer and engraver, who lived at the end of the fifteenth\ncentury, refers to the Vesica in his works (_Dureri Institutune\nGeometricarum_, lib. ii. p. 56) in a way which shows that it was as\ncommonly known in his time as the Circle, Square, and Triangle. His\ninstructions for forming a Pentagon are: \"Designa circino invariato\ntres piscium vesicas\" (describe with unchanged compasses three vesicae\npiscium). Three similar circles are described with centres at the\nangles of an Equilateral Triangle, forming the three Vesicae, by means\nof which the Pentagon is drawn, and from which also we get a beautiful\nform of arch very common in the thirteenth century (_vide_\nillustrations in _Magister Mathesios_). This is also the method used\nin that old manuscript of the fifteenth century named \"Geometria\ndeutsch.\" In this old MS. it is also shown that the easiest method for\nfinding the centre of a circle, however large, or any segment of a\ncircle, is by means of the Vesica Piscis. And just as we see so many\nCathedrals of the Middle Ages are stated by antiquarians to have been\nplanned on the Equilateral Triangle, so do we find the Pentagon\nappearing as the basis of Architectural designs of buildings of a\nlater date, such as Liverpool Castle, Chester Castle, and other\nsimilar structures; but the true means by which each were laid down,\nas in the case of the Equilateral Triangle, was again the Vesica\nPiscis. A beautiful example of decoration, on the basis of the Vesica,\nis seen in the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey.\n\nI will conclude this subject by quoting from the summing up by Prof.\nKerrich (Principal Librarian to the University of Cambridge in 1820),\nin his masterly Essay on Architecture, where he gives the different\nforms of what he calls the \"Mysterious Figure,\" used in the most\nnoted Gothic buildings: he says, \"I would in nowise indulge in\nconjectures as to the reference these figures might possibly have to\nthe most sacred mysteries of religion; independently of any such\nallusion, their properties are of themselves sufficiently\nextraordinary to have struck all who have observed them.\"\n\nFrom earliest Christian times the principal _doctrine_ based upon the\nMysticism of the Neo-platonists and the Kabalists was what was called\nthe [Greek: Gnosis], the Knowledge of the All, and the fundamental\nbasis of this, as of all esoteric teaching from the beginning of\nHistory, was _Procreation_. From the first dawn of civilisation the\n\"Great One\" always had an enemy with whom he had to fight; having\nconquered, he married that enemy, and their offspring was Life or\nDuration. In the oldest forms, as in Persia and ancient Egypt, it was\nLight and Darkness, \"Ormuz and Ahriman,\" \"Osiris and Isis,\" the Light\nconquering Darkness, the Day conquering Night, resulting in Time and\nduration. In the Eleusinian Mysteries it was the \"Sun and Earth\"\nproducing Vegetable Life, and in the [Greek: Gnosis] it was the\n\"Ainsoph and Ignorance,\" resulting in True Knowledge or Everlasting\nLife.\n\nIn the Vesica Piscis (_vide_ frontispiece) we see two Equilateral\nTriangles formed on the same base, similar to what we found in the\nground-plan of Chartres and other Gothic Cathedrals; these two\ntriangles symbolised to the Mediaeval Builders the Divine and Human\nNatures of the Logos, the Word, the Creator; they are both procreated\nand enclosed in the Vesica; the one having the Apex pointed upwards,\nrepresented Divine or Spiritual Life, and in that I have placed the\n\"Tetragrammaton,\" the Word or name of God (Jehovah), which, throughout\nthe Jewish race for thousands of years, was held to be so sacred that\nthey did not dare to utter it aloud. It was, at this time, depicted in\nthe Equilateral Triangle, the symbol of the Logos, becoming thus the\nMasonic Word of the Middle Ages, and was probably used, exoterically,\nfor purposes of recognition among members of the Great Building\nSocieties, with the introduction of Gothic Architecture; but the\n_esoteric_ teaching, which was known only to the elite of the Craft\nand not by the Ordinary Operatives, was the mystical _procreation_ of\nthat triangle, the doctrine of Spiritual or New Birth, symbolised by\nthat mysterious figure which we have seen was the very foundation\nstone of Geometry, and therefore of Tectonic Art, the Head of all\nlearning, and the great Secret of Gothic Architecture, called for\nesoteric purposes \"Vesica Piscis.\" The Triangle, having the Apex\npointing downwards, represented Human or Physical Life, and I have\nplaced therein a representation of _sacrificial_ death, which we shall\nsee was introduced, as a necessity, for the good of the Race.\n\nAs \"everything in Heaven has its counterpart on Earth,\" so may we see,\nby introspection, that the _reflecting_ surface, the thin, physical\nfilm between the Human and Divine, is represented by that Base, and\nHuman Life then becomes truly, as it should be, the reflection of the\nDivine.\n\nOne more glance through the Window at what I will call--\n\n    \"The Mystery of the Apex.\"\n\nThe earliest forms of Life, the unicellular \"Beings,\" whether animal\nor vegetable--for both divisions, if they can be said to be divided,\nhave the same protoplasmic cell as basis of life--were, and are still,\nimmortal except for accidents; they are not subject to natural death\nas we know it; they multiply by fission and not by \"budding.\" It was\nonly with the building up of cell upon cell into communities, and the\nadvent of polycellular beings of greater and greater complexity of\nstructure, that the \"Wisdom\" behind natural laws introduced death as\nan _adaptation_, to prevent monstrosities in the shape of mutilated\nspecimens being perpetuated on the earth. Life is purely physical and,\nin conformity with the modes under which our physical senses act, has\nthe appearance of tri-unity. As white light is seen to be composed of\nbut three primary colours, as Music is based on the Triad, as Space is\nknown to us in three dimensions only, and Geometry, \"the Head of all\nLearning,\" is based upon the Circle, Square, and Triangle, so may we\nsee life in its three primary aspects: the Animal, Vegetable, and\nMaterial. The last-mentioned aspect, though long suspected, from the\ninvestigation of Crystallography, to have in some mysterious way a\ncommon basis with the animal and vegetable, was not fully grasped\nuntil, in the last few years, we have been able to study in our\nlaboratories the actual evolution, or more correctly devolution, of\nmatter from one form to another; and as all plants and animals are\nfound to be built up of the same identical protoplasmic cells, so are\nwe now able to break down and analyse not only these cells but even\nthe very structure of matter, and find that all substances are built\nup of exactly the same bricks, the different forms known to us as\nElements being the _designs_ of the great Architect upon which each\nstructure has been built; and these completed designs again are used\nand become the \"ashlars\" of the higher forms of plant and animal\nstructure. As Evolution in the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms has\ngiven us Species, so in the Material it has developed Elements. The\nstructures of animal and vegetable life are of comparatively recent\nformation, and are still apparently progressing in the direction of\ncomplexity, whereas the structures of matter appear to have long\npassed the stage of highest complexity, and the elements are now\nundergoing the retrograde process of being transformed, by\nradio-activity, from the more complex into simpler elements of lower\natomic denominations--namely, having fewer bricks in each atom.\n\nAll these material designs are more or less radio-active--namely,\nchanging into other elements, but some, like radium, polonium, &c.,\nare active to an extraordinary extent. Each molecule or atom may be\nlooked upon as an _aperture_, more or less open, through which we have\nflowing the equivalent of what may be called a leak from the Infinite,\nthe changing of one element into another being represented by the\nchange of shape or activity of that aperture. Countless ages ago these\napertures were, by evolution, growing more and more complex in shape,\nbut when the limit of complexity was reached and the _Apex_ was\npassed, an adaptation, somewhat analogous to death in the animal and\nvegetable, must have come into play, with the result that these\napertures are now becoming more and more simple in their shape and\nactivity. The Infinite referred to above may be diagnosed by some as\nbeing in the fourth dimension of space, or it may even be comprised\nwithin the Ether of our known three dimensions, for the discovery of\nradio-activity has enabled us to see that Ether is not only as dense\nas iron, but millions of times denser than that metal, every cubic\nfoot, or probably cubic inch, being capable of supplying millions of\nhorse-power if it could only be tapped. A homely simile of this leak\nfrom the Infinite may be seen in a glass of aerated water, where an\nirregularity of surface, a crumb of bread, or a grain of sand becomes\nthe means by which carbonic-dioxide escapes from the interstices of\nthe water.\n\nRadio-active substances then are really forges for forming new\nstructures of matter or forms of energy, rather than quarries from\nwhich they are cut, and we seem to get a glimpse of the origin of\nlife, perhaps itself the cause of \"retrogression\" in the material,\ncoming through from the Reality, the Infinite beyond the physical\nUniverse.\n\nLife and its processes are well symbolised by a triangle, the base of\nwhich is the \"Divide\" between the Real and its reflections or shadows\non the Material plane, and through which all energy percolates. One\nside of the triangle represents anabolism, or the process of building\nup, and the other katabolism, the process of breaking down, and at the\nApex is the Mystical \"Terror of the Threshold,\" the \"Ainsoph\" (_vide_\nfrontispiece), which introduced _sacrificial_ death to the Physical,\nas an adaptation in the evolution of, and for the good of, the Human\nrace. With the death of the Physical, the rending of the Veil, as we\nhave seen in View Two, all Shadows and Reflections disappear, and, in\nplace of \"seeing as through a glass darkly,\" the Soul has its true\nbirth, and at last enters upon its heritage in the Divine Life, face\nto face with the Reality, the Good, the Beautiful, and the True.\n\n\n\n\nVIEW FOUR\n\nLOVE IN ACTION\n\n\nIn the preceding Views we have seen that Time and Space have no real\nexistence apart from our physical senses; they are only modes or\nconditions under which those senses act, and by which we gain a very\nlimited and illusory knowledge of our surroundings. Our very\nconsciousness of living depends upon our perception of multitudinous\nchanges in our surroundings, and our very thoughts are therefore also\nlimited by Time and Space, because _change_ is dependent on those two\nlimits, the very basis of perceived motion being the time that an\nobject takes to go over a certain space; we must therefore look behind\nconsciousness itself, beyond the conditioning in Time and Space, for\nthe true reality of Being. We have seen that man is the offspring of\ntwo distinct natures--the Spiritual or Transcendental and the Material\nor Physical; the former is the Real, the latter is only a shadow. If\nwe now try to consider the connection between these two natures, we\nhave to recognise that, with all our advance in Knowledge during the\nlast hundred years, we are indeed still as children playing with\npebbles on the sea-shore, knowing neither why we are placed there, nor\nwhat those pebbles are, or whence they came. Though we seem ever to be\ndiscovering fresh truths concerning their relations one with another,\nwhen arranged in different patterns, built up into new forms, or split\nup into smaller fragments, we have to acknowledge (substituting\nthoughts for pebbles) that we are still only learning our alphabet and\nthe simple rules of multiplication, addition, and division, which must\nbe mastered before we can hope to take the real step towards\nunderstanding.\n\nWe are surrounded by mysteries; we are indeed a mystery to ourselves,\nwe do not even know how the Physical Ego is connected with the\nphysical world; how the sense organs, receiving the impression of\nmultitudinous and diverse frequencies of different intensities,\ntransmit them to the brain, and how the mind is able to combine all\nthese impressions and form concepts. But by examining the Physical\nUniverse, we seem to see clearly that the only Reality is the\nSpiritual, the Here, and the Now, that our real _Personality_ being\nSpiritual is independent of Space and Time limitations, and is\ntherefore Omnipresent and Omniscient; it may indeed be not only\nconnected with the Physical Ego of this World, but be in close working\nconnection with other Physical Egos in the Universe, and may, in some\nwonderful process, through its affinity with the Great Spirit, be\nhelping them to progress in other directions possibly quite beyond our\npower to conceive under the conditions we are accustomed to here.\n\nA great forest tree forms each year a multitude of separate buds; each\nof these buds is an independent plant which has only a temporary\nexistence and has no present knowledge of the other buds, but it is by\nmeans of all these buds and the leaves they develop, that the tree is\nnourished and increases from year to year. Still more wonderful is the\nfact that it is these temporary existences which, in accordance with\nthe general law of life-production, form special \"ovules,\" which we\ncall seeds, each of which has the potentiality for growing up into a\ngreat forest tree, which, in its turn, is capable of pushing forth\ntemporary existences in countless directions. We have, in the above\nprocess of creating a forest tree, a likeness on the Physical Plane to\nwhat I would suggest is the process not only of the creation of the\nRace, but, on the Transcendental Plane, the multiplication of\npermanent personalities by means of, or in connection with, the\ntemporary and Space-limited Human Physical Ego.\n\nAgain, as the human mind forms a thought, clothes it in physical\nlanguage, and sends it forth in such a form as not only affects our\nmaterial sense of hearing, but conveys to the hearer the very thought\nitself, so the whole Physical Universe is a temporary and\nSpace-limited representation of the Reality which is behind, is in\nfact the materialisation of the Will or Thought of the Great Spirit.\nThe \"taking root\" or advent of the Spiritual to the genus homo, made\nit possible for man to interpret the Good, Beautiful, and True in the\nphenomena of nature, and, as we, by studying these materialisations,\ngain knowledge of the Reality, and our personalities become real\npowers, so may we at length approach the point where we may feel that\nwe are thinking, or having divulged to us, the very thoughts of God;\nand, though it may never be possible in this life to form a full\nconception of the Reality, we may, I think, even with our present\nstate of knowledge, aspire to understand the messages conveyed to us\nin some of the multitudinous forms, under which these thoughts are\npresented to us, and I propose giving an example of this later on in\nthis View.\n\nOnce more, in the case of a picture, it is possible, by examining and\ncomparing a number of certain short lines in perspective, to discover\nnot only the position occupied by the Artist, but also the point to\nwhich all those lines converge; so by examining and combining certain\nlines of Thought on the Physical Plane, and following them as far as\nwe can with our present knowledge towards the point where our Ideals\nof the Good, Beautiful, and True intersect, we may reach the position\nfrom which we may be able to form, although through a glass darkly,\neven a conception of the Great Reality, and therefore of Its Offspring\nthe Transcendental Ego, and its connection with the Universe.\n\nAs the whole of Nature is the temporary and Space-limited\nmanifestation of the Reality, so the individual Physical Ego is the\nmanifestation in Time and Space of the Transcendental Ego or true\nPersonality. The Physical Ego is its transient expression and has no\nother use beyond this life. Each Physical Ego helps, or should help\nforward, the general improvement of the Race towards perfection. Each\ngeneration should come into being a step nearer to the Spiritual,\nuntil it can be pictured that at the final consummation, there will be\nnothing imperfect, no shadow left; the full complement of Spiritual\nPersonalities being complete in the Great All-Father.\n\nDo we not then see clearly that the Physical Ego, comprised in what we\ncall \"I am,\" \"I perceive,\" \"I think,\" \"I conceive,\" \"I remember,\" is\ntransient, and has only to do with the progress of the Race? It is the\nShadow or Image in the Physical Universe of that Personality which\nTranscends Time and Space. Take away a small portion of the Brain, the\norgan of the Mind, and Memory is wiped out, remove the greater part of\nit and the manifestation of the Physical Ego is destroyed; though the\nbody is as much alive as before, there is apparently nothing left but\nthe physical life, which it has in common with all animals, plants,\nand probably, as strongly suggested by late discoveries in\nRadio-activity, even with what is called inorganic matter. The Brain,\nand therefore the Ego, is not a necessity for Physical life; this is\nclearly seen in the lower forms of life--it would be difficult to\npoint out the brain of a Cabbage or an Oak Tree.\n\nIn the last forty years we have entered upon a new era of religion and\nphilosophy; we hear no more of the old belief that the study of\nscientific facts leads to atheism or irreligion; we begin to see that\nReligion and Science must go hand in hand towards elucidating the\nRiddle of the Universe, and such a change enables us even to aspire to\nshow, as I now propose to do, that it is possible, by examining\ncertain phenomena in Nature, to reach that point where we may feel\nthat we are listening to and understanding, though through a glass\ndarkly, what may be called the very Thoughts of the Great Reality. I\nwill take for examination the subject most intimately connected with\nthe title of this View--namely, the nature of the growth of the\nTranscendental Personality, upon what that growth depends, and how we\nmay understand that the attainment to Everlasting Life is dependent\nupon that growth.\n\nI have already pointed out in View Two that the Transcendental\nPersonality, being Spiritual, and therefore akin to the Great Reality,\nmay be said to have no free-will of itself. Its will or influence must\nalways be working towards perfection in the form \"Let Thy Will, which\nis also my will, be done\"; the efficacy of its influence with the\nGreat Reality depends on its growth or nourishment by the knowledge of\nthe Good, Beautiful, and True ever bringing it more and more nearly\ninto perfect touch or sympathy with the All-loving. The power of\nprayer therefore depends upon two conditions; it must be in the form\nof \"Let thy Will be done,\" and that which prays must be capable of\nmaking its petition felt, by having already gained a knowledge of what\nthat Will is. I am, of course, not referring to that form of prayer\nwhich, alas with so many, seems to be the attempt to get as much out\nof the Absolute as is possible, with the least amount of trouble.\n\nIf now we carefully examine the Phenomena around us, we make the\nextraordinary discovery that this power to influence is the very basis\nof survival and of progress throughout the universe. In the organic\nworld all Nature seems to be praying in one form or another, and only\nthose that pray with efficacy, based upon the above two conditions,\nsurvive in the struggle for existence. The economy of Nature is\nfounded upon that inexorable law the \"Survival of the Fittest\"; every\norganism that is not in sympathy with its environment, and cannot\ntherefore derive help and nourishment from its surroundings, perishes.\nDarwin tells us that the colours of flowering plants have been\ndeveloped by the necessity of attracting the bees, on whose visits\ndepends the power of plants to reproduce their species; those families\nof plants which do not as it were pray to the bees with efficacy, fail\nto attract, are not therefore fertilised, and disappear without\nleaving successors. Flowers may also be said to be praying to us by\ntheir beauty, or usefulness, and in some cases, as with orchids, by\ntheir marvellous shapes. We answer their prayer by building hot houses\nand tending them with care, because they please us, and therefore we\nhelp them to live; while, on the contrary, those plants that have not\ndeveloped these qualities are not only neglected, but, in some cases,\nas with weeds, we take special trouble to exterminate them, because\ntheir existence is distasteful to us.\n\nCharles Darwin also tells us that Heredity and Environment are the\nprime influences under which the whole Organic World is sustained; in\nother words, every organism has implanted in it by heredity the\nprinciple of life, but the conditions under which it will be possible\nfor that life to expand and come to perfection, rest entirely upon its\npower to bring itself into harmony with its environment. This\nprinciple of life does not come naked into the world, it is fortified\nby heredity, with power gained by its parents in their struggle for\nexistence, and in their persistence to get into sympathy with their\nenvironment. The knowledge they gained, by this struggle, they have\nhanded down to their offspring, and given it thereby the possibility\nof also gaining for itself that knowledge of, and power to get into\nsympathy with, its environment, upon which its future existence will\ndepend. So may we not see that in the Spiritual World, these two\nconditions dominate, and that it is only by the clear comprehension of\ntheir reality that we can understand how all-important it is for the\nsoul to bring itself nearer and nearer into harmony with its\nenvironment, the Spiritual, and how the efficacy of prayer depends\nupon the Knowledge of what is the Will of God?\n\nWe have received from our Spiritual Father the principle of\nEverlasting Life, and the aspirations which, if followed, will enable\nthat life to expand and come to perfection; but, as in the case of\nphysical organism, the gift is useless unless we elect to use those\naspirations aright, and gain thereby a knowledge of our Spiritual\nEnvironment, which alone can bring us into sympathy with the Great\nReality. Without this \"Knowledge of God,\" we can see by analogy on the\nOrganic Plane that Everlasting Life is impossible--we are as weeds and\nshall be rooted out. This is no figment of the imagination, it seems\nto be the only conclusion we can come to if Nature is the work of\nNature's God, and Man is made in the image (spiritual) of that God.\nHerbert Spencer came to the same conclusion when defining everlasting\nexistence. He says: \"Perfect correspondence would be perfect life;\nwere there no changes in the environment but such as the organism had\nadapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency\nwith which it met them, there would be Eternal Existence and Eternal\nKnowledge\" (_Principles of Biology_).\n\nThe power of influence, by sympathetic action, may also be seen in\nanother direction; consider the fact that if we are in a room with a\npiano and we sing a certain note, say E flat, we not only hear that\nnote coming back from the piano, but, if we examine the strings, we\nfind that all the E flats are actually vibrating in sympathy, because\nthey are in perfect harmony with the note given out by the voice; but\nnone of the other strings are responding because they are out of\nharmony. With this simile in mind, let us consider the curious fact\nthat a moth always lays its eggs on that particular plant upon which\nthe caterpillars, when they hatch out of these eggs, must feed. The\nstudy of the Life History of Insects has always been of great interest\nto me, as I firmly believe that we are on the verge of a great\ndiscovery, and that the first indications are being revealed to us\nthrough the investigation of the Biology of Insects. Some of you may,\nperhaps, have watched this progress of ovipositing, as I have done,\nand noticed how the female moth will hover in a peculiar way over\ndifferent plants, but does not alight until she comes to a plant near\nakin to the one she is seeking. She then alights, but remains, on\ntip-toe as it were, with legs outstretched and wings quivering, and\nsoon mounts again into the air; it is only when she alights on the\nproper food plant that she shows unmistakably that she knows her quest\nis ended and her eggs are laid. This particular plant has no other\nattractions for her, she takes her food irrespectively from any other\nflower which secretes honey, and yet, when she is ready to fulfil her\ndestiny, she is unerringly drawn towards that particular plant which\nmust be the food of her offspring. What is this wonderful sense? We\ncall it instinct, a name which is made to cover all other senses in\nthe lower animals, of which we have no cognisance ourselves. Let us\ntake our own senses as a guide: we find that they are all based on the\nappreciation of frequencies, of greater or less rapidity, by means of\norgans specially adapted to vibrate in sympathy with those pulsations,\nand thus we gain knowledge of external things. Two tuning forks or two\norgan pipes when vibrating close to each other, give out a pure\nmusical note when they are in perfect harmony, and they then have, as\nit were, \"rest\" together; but when one is put even slightly out of\nharmony, there is, in place of a pure musical note, a rise and fall of\nsound in heavy throbs, strangely characteristic of \"quarrelling\"; in\nfact, discord and \"unrest.\"\n\nIn our sense of hearing we can only appreciate up to 40,000 vibrations\nin a second as a musical sound, whereas, with Light and other\nelectrical phenomena, as we shall see in a later View, we can\nappreciate sympathetic frequencies of not only many millions, but\nindeed millions of millions in a second, and yet it is possible that,\nin the sense (of insects) we are now examining of life appreciating\nlife, we may be in the presence of frequencies as far removed from\nlight as light is from sound. If, then, we may follow the analogy from\nour highest senses, we seem to get a clear explanation of the mystery\nof insect discrimination. The insect, in her then state, could have no\npleasure in the presence of certain plants, their modes of frequency\nbeing out of sympathy with that particular Insect Life, and, it may be\nconceived that, not only is there no inducement for the insect to\nalight on that plant, but that even in its near proximity that insect\nwould feel discomfort or restlessness; when, however, a plant is\nreached which is near akin to the one required, less antipathy or\nunrest would be felt, and, when the true species of plant is reached,\nall would be harmony, pleasure, and rest, the functions of Insect Life\nwould be vivified, and its life-work accomplished under the influences\nof sympathetic action.\n\nI have made several other investigations on this subject, but I must\nonly give one more to illustrate the higher form of Animal Life\nappreciating Animal Life. There is a large class of insects, called\nIchneumonidae, which lay their eggs in the bodies of caterpillars, and,\nas in the case of a moth laying its egg on the special food plant upon\nwhich its caterpillar can feed, so does each species of these insects\nunerringly lay its eggs in the body of a particular kind of\ncaterpillar. It must be a wonderful sense which can enable an\nIchneumon Fly to do this; it has never seen that caterpillar before,\nas the egg, from which its own caterpillar was hatched, was laid\ninside the body of one of those caterpillars, and the caterpillar upon\nwhich it fed had been eaten up and disappeared at least six months\nbefore the Ichneumon Fly had even made its way out of its own cocoon;\nand yet this insect is not only forced, by some mysterious power, to\nlay its egg in the body of a caterpillar, but there is only one\nspecies which will serve its purpose, and it has to hunt up this\nparticular caterpillar from among thousands of other different\nspecies.\n\nLet me put before you what is, perhaps, the most mysterious\nillustration which we have under this heading, wherein the Ichneumon\nFly cannot even get sight of its prey, nor employ any sense similar to\nour own for its detection. There are several species of moths whose\ncaterpillars live in the very heart of trees. We will take the case of\nthe caterpillar of Zeuzera Aesculi, the Leopard Moth; the egg of this\nMoth is laid in a crevice of the bark, and, when first hatched, the\nsmall larva penetrates through the bark into the centre of an apple,\npear, or plum tree, and then commences to eat its way upwards, forming\nat first a very small tunnel, but gradually increasing it, as the\ncaterpillar grows larger, into a passage of about half an inch in\ndiameter. In such a position, surrounded as it is by solid wood, the\nthickness of which would probably not be less than one and a half or\ntwo inches, we might suppose that the caterpillar would be safe from\nits enemies, but it is not: there is a large Ichneumon Fly which\ncannot propagate its species unless it can lay its eggs in the body of\nthis particular caterpillar. This Ichneumon Fly can, from outside, not\nonly tell that inside the stem of that tree there is a caterpillar,\nbut can locate the exact spot, and, still more wonderful, is able to\ndetermine whether or not that caterpillar is the particular species it\nis in search of. There are numerous other species of moths whose\ncaterpillars feed in the centre of trees, and yet this female\nIchneumon is able to mark down as her prey, although far out of reach\nof any sense known to us, that one species which alone can serve her\npurpose. As soon as she has located the exact position of the\ncaterpillar, she unsheathes a long delicate ovipositor, with which\nshe is provided, and drills it right through the intervening solid\nwood until it pierces the body of the caterpillar; she then lays an\negg down that long tube into its body and repeats the process two or\nthree times. The caterpillar itself does not appear to feel any\ninconvenience from this process and continues to feed and grow larger;\nbut it has the seeds of death within itself, and the two or three\nlittle caterpillars, which hatch out of the eggs of the Ichneumon, are\nalso growing rapidly inside it. At last, when the time comes that the\nlarge caterpillar should have been full fed, and it has eaten its way\noutwards until it rests close under the bark, preparatory to turning\ninto a chrysalis, its enemies finish their destructive work, and, if\nthe tree is then opened, the empty skin and cartilage skeleton of the\nlarge caterpillar is found, together with two or three large cocoons.\nThese cocoons, if kept, will produce in due time specimens of the\nIchneumon Fly, and these will in their turn go about their murderous\nwork as soon as their proper hunting season comes round again.\n\nThis is only an isolated case out of thousands of similar occurrences\nin every locality; in fact, if you walk along any palings in the\ncountry in the early summer, you will see at every few steps the\nevidence of similar tragedies. Those of you who live in the country\nmust often have seen on palings little heaps containing a dozen or\nmore of the small yellow Microgaster Cocoons, and if these are\nexamined carefully they will be found to be surrounding the skin of a\ncaterpillar. These minute cocoons may be kept under a wine glass and,\nfrom each a minute Ichneumon Fly, with (if a female) its sharp\novipositor, will emerge in due time. It is curious what mistakes can\nbe made even by intelligent persons. I have had the skin of the\ncaterpillar and this little heap of yellow Microgaster Cocoons sent me\nto examine, and have been seriously asked whether this was not a true\ncase of Parthenogenesis; the suggestion being that the caterpillar had\nactually laid eggs, instead of waiting until it had become a moth, and\nthat its efforts, to alter the course of nature, had been too much for\nits constitution and it had died in the act! There are other\nillustrations I should have liked to give but space will not permit,\nthe most remarkable being, perhaps, the knowledge a Queen Bee\npossesses of the proximity of another Queen, even when that other is\nstill in the pupa state, sealed up in a waxen cell. I have made\nnumerous experiments with Queens of the common black English Bee\n(_Apis mellifica_), and also the yellow-striped Italian Bee (_Apis\nligustica_), which belong to the same order (_Hymenoptera_) as the\nIchneumon Flies, and the same marvellous sense of life appreciating\nlife at a distance, and through solid matter, is experienced.\n\nIf we now follow the same Thought by examining the Inorganic, we make\nthe extraordinary discovery that this power to influence, based on\nsympathetic action, is the very mainspring by which physical work can\nbe sustained, and upon it depends entirely the very action of our\nphysical senses. Our senses are based upon the appreciation of\nVibration, in the Air and Ether, of greater or less rapidity,\naccording to the presence in our organs of processes capable of acting\nin sympathy with those frequencies. The limits within which our senses\ncan thus be affected are very small; the ear can only appreciate\nthirteen or fourteen octaves in sound, and the eye less than one\noctave in light; beyond these limits, owing to the absence of\nprocesses which can be affected sympathetically, all is silent and\ndark to us. This capacity for responding to vibration under\nsympathetic action is not confined to Organic Senses; the physical\nforces, and even inert matter, are also sensitive to its influences,\nas I will now demonstrate to you.\n\nIn wireless telegraphy it is absolutely necessary that the transmitter\nof the electro-magnetic waves should be brought into perfect harmony\nwith the receiver--without that condition it is impossible to\ncommunicate at a distance; again, a heavy pendulum or swing can, by a\ncertain force, be pushed, say an inch, from its position of rest, and\neach successive push will augment the swing, but only on one\ncondition, namely, that the force is applied in sympathy with the\npendulum's mode of swing; if the length of the pendulum is 52 feet,\nthe force must be applied only at the end of each eight seconds, as,\nalthough the pendulum at first is only moving one inch, it will take\nfour seconds to traverse that one inch, the same as it would take to\ntraverse 10 feet or more, and will not be back at the original\nposition till the end of eight seconds; if the force is applied before\nthat time the swing of the pendulum would be hindered instead of\naugmented. Even a steam engine must work under this influence if it is\nto be effective; there may be enough force in a boiler to do the work\nof a thousand horse-power, but, unless the slide valve is arranged so\nthat the steam enters the cylinder at exactly the right moment,\nnamely, in sympathy with the thrust of the piston, no work is\npossible.\n\nTo understand the next example I want you first to recognise that,\napart from its physical qualities, every material body has certain,\nwhat may be called, traits of character, which belong to it alone;\nthere is generally one special trait or \"partial,\" namely, the\ncharacteristic which it is easiest for the particular body to\nmanifest, but I shall show you that by sympathetic action others can\nbe developed. I have several pieces of ordinary wood, used for\nlighting fires, each of which, according to its size and density, has\nits special characteristic; if you examined each by itself you would\nhardly see that they are different from one another except slightly in\nlength, but if I throw them down on the table, you would hear that\neach of them gives out a clear characteristic note of the musical\nscale: to carry this a step forward, I have a long, heavy, iron bar,\nabout 4 feet long and 2 inches thick, so rigid that no ordinary manual\nforce can move it out of the straight, and, from mere handling, you\nwould find it difficult to imagine that it would be amenable to soft\ninfluences. But I have studied this inert mass, and, as each person\nhas special characteristics, some being more partial than others to,\nsay, Literary pursuits, Athletics, Music, Poetry, Engineering,\nScience, or Metaphysics, so I am able to show that this iron mass has\nnot only a number of these \"partials,\" some of which are\nextraordinarily beautiful and powerful, audible over long distances,\nbut that by the lightest touch of certain small generating rubbers,\nnot more than an ounce in weight and tipped with cork or leather,\neach of which has been put into perfect sympathy with one of those\ntraits, I can make that mass demonstrate them both optically and\naudibly; but, without those special sympathetic touches, it is silent\nand remains an inert mass. This result is obtained by physical contact\nbetween the instrument and the mass, but we will now carry this\nanother step forward and deal with the subject of the action of\nInfluence at a distance, or what may be called Prayer, between two of\nthese rigid masses. From what we have already seen, it is clear that\nthe Soul of man could not possibly pray with efficacy to a graven\nimage; there is nothing in sympathy between them, and, without\nsympathetic action, influence is impossible; but it is quite possible\nfor Matter to pray with efficacy to Matter, provided the material\nsoul, if we may use the analogy, is brought into perfect sympathy with\nthe material god, and I can now put before you an experiment showing\nthis taking place.\n\nI have another heavy bar of iron, not so long but of the same\nthickness as the one already described, and have found its strongest\ncharacteristic; I have another small rubber, fashioned so that its\ncharacteristic is in perfect sympathy with that of the bar, namely,\nthat the number of vibrations, in a second, of the instrument are\nexactly equal to those of the iron mass, and it is, therefore, as we\nsaw in the last experiment, able by contact to influence the bar\nsympathetically. The slightest touch throws the bar into such violent\nvibration that a great volume of sound is produced, which can be heard\na quarter of a mile away. The result of this sympathetic touch is far\nfrom being transient, in fact, the bar will continue to move, audibly,\nfor a long time. This movement in the mass of iron was started by\nphysical contact, but having once started the bar praying, willing, or\nthinking, whichever you like to call it, that bar now has the power to\naffect, without contact, another rigid bar of iron even when removed\nto great distances, provided the second bar possesses a similar\ncharacteristic, and that that characteristic has been brought into\nperfect _sympathy_ with that of the first bar. I have a second bar\nwhich fulfils these conditions, and, although, at the outset, it had\nno power whatever to respond, it has been gradually, as it were,\neducated, namely, brought nearer and nearer into sympathy with the\nfirst bar, until it is now able to respond across long distances; it\nhas acted across the whole length of one of the largest halls in\nLondon so strongly that it could be heard by all present. We will now\nreverse the process of bringing these bars into sympathy, and I will\nthrow the first out of harmony by slightly changing its\ncharacteristic; the change is extremely small, quite inappreciable to\nthe human ear, the bar giving out as full and pure a note as it did\nbefore the alteration was made; in fact, the change is so slight that\nit can still, with a little force, be stimulated by the same\ngenerator, and yet the whole power to influence has been lost; the\nfirst bar, although it is praying with great force, gets no response\nfrom the second bar, and, even if the bars are now brought on to the\nsame table and put within a few inches of each other, there is still\nno reply, there is no sympathetic action, the efficacy of prayer\nbetween the two has been completely destroyed.\n\nDo we not then see the principle upon which the efficacy of Prayer\ndepends, that the whole object of a Human Soul, when using the words\n\"Thy Will be done,\" is to bring itself closer and closer into perfect\nsympathy with the Absolute? When that is accomplished, we may\nunderstand, from our simile, that not only shall we and our\naspirations be influenced by the Will of the Deity, but that then our\nwishes, in their turn, must have great power with God, and it becomes\npossible for even \"Mountains to be removed and cast into the midst of\nthe sea.\"\n\nHow truly the Philosopher Paul at the beginning of our Era recognised\nthat the knowledge of God, which Christ Himself tells us is\nEverlasting Life, may be gained by the study of the material creation;\nHis words were sadly overlooked by many who, half a century ago, were\nafraid that the discoveries of Science were dangerous to belief in the\nDivine. He says: the unrighteous shall be without excuse because \"The\ninvisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly\nseen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His\neverlasting power and divinity\" (Romans i. 18 to 20, R.V.).\n\nWe have seen the truth of this wonderful statement, we have traced the\nreflection of the greatest attribute of the Deity, Divine Love, on the\nmaterial plane. What has been the result of our investigation? We find\nthat throughout the whole of Nature the one great universal power is\nSympathy.\n\n'Tis verily \"love that makes the world go round.\" What a marvellous\nconclusion to our investigation! Let us see where it leads us. The\nwhole of creation is the materialisation of the Thoughts of the Deity;\nwe have, therefore, in the forces of Nature, the impress of the very\nEssence of God. Our Innermost Self is an emanation from Him, and\nPrayer, which, at the beginning, is only a striving to bring ourselves\ninto harmony with the Deity, must, as the Soul grows in strength and\nknowledge, become a great power working under the wonderful principle\nof Sympathy. True prayer, indeed, becomes \"_Love in Action_,\" and,\nunder certain conditions, Prayer may actually be looked upon as the\ngreatest physical force in Nature. But let us carry this one step\nfurther: can we, by our analogy of Matter praying, understand why \"the\nknowledge of God is Everlasting Life\"? Look at the first iron bar, and\nwatch how, as long as it keeps on vibrating, the second bar, _because\nit is in sympathy_, will be kept in motion. If it were possible for\nthe first bar to vibrate for ever, the second bar would, speaking\nmaterially, have everlasting life, through its being in perfect\nsympathy with the first bar; without this connection the bar would be\nlifeless. Now apply this to our Transcendental Personality; it is\nbeing nourished, the knowledge of God is increasing, it is at last\npulsating in perfect harmony with the Deity, and when, for it, the\nMaterial Universe disappears, its _affinity_ to Infinite Love must\ngive it Everlasting Life. Everything that has not that connection is\nbut a shadow which will cease to be manifest when the Great Thought is\ncompleted, the volition of the Deity is withdrawn, and the Physical\nUniverse ceases to exist; nothing can then exist except that which is\nperfected, that which is of the essence of God--namely, the\nSpiritual. Perfect harmony will then reign supreme, such happiness as\ncannot be described in earthly language nor even imagined by our\ncorporeal senses; hence, in the many passages referring to that\nwondrous Life hereafter, we are not told what Heaven is like but only\nwhat is not to be found there:\n\n    \"Eye hath not seen nor ear heard,\n    Neither have entered into the heart of man\n    The things that God hath prepared for them\n    that love Him.\"--1 COR. ii. 9.\n\nThere are several other phenomena which I might have examined, but I\nchose this particular aspect of the Reality, as best illustrating the\nsubject I am trying to elucidate in these Views, though it was\nprobably the most difficult one to bring home to the general reading\npublic. There are, I know, from personal knowledge, many of my readers\nwho will have been able to follow and appreciate what I have attempted\nto demonstrate, but to those who have not grasped the connection\nbetween the Infinite and Finite, the Transcendental and the Physical\nEgo, the Real and its Shadow, a few more words of explanation may be\nhelpful.\n\nIt is easy to see that the negatives, Cold, Ignorance, Falsehood,\nUgliness are manifestations of their positives, as given in my list\nin View One, and it is also not difficult to show that Evil or Sin is\ndependent upon Good in the same way as the Shadow depends upon Light\nfor its manifestation. Do not let me be misunderstood; I have never\nsuggested that these negatives or negations have not the appearance of\nrealities to us, under our present conditions of existence; they\nindeed have to be dealt with by us as realities, but they are only\nmanifested as phenomena on the physical plane, because our Senses, and\ntherefore Thoughts, are limited by Time and Space and therefore\ndependent upon _relativity_.\n\nLet me put the case of Good and Evil before you, as analogous to, say,\nLight and Shadow. Moral laws and responsibility thereto are dependent\nupon the existence of Goodness; the purely animal Homo was, as I have\npointed out, free from sin or responsibility until the advent of the\nSpiritual made manifest, in that animal, the physical Ego and raised\nhim far above all other animals. Man thus became a responsible moral\nbeing, a living soul, aware of Right, and therefore of Wrong, and\ncertain acts then became for him sin that were not sin before. Thus\nthe advent of Christ, and, in a less degree, the coming into the world\nof every good man, so raised, and is raising, the level of moral\nrectitude that things become sin that were not sin before; St. Paul\nhimself specially recognises this when he says that without law there\nis no sin. The Goodness, then, brought into the world by Christ, did\nnot create sin but made it manifest, and gave it the appearance of\nreality under our present conditions of life and thought. How well the\nMystic Paul understood that the Invisible is the Real, and that the\nVisible--namely, the phenomena of nature--is only dependent upon Time\nfor its manifestation. His words are: \"For the things which are seen\nare temporal, but the things which are not seen are Eternal.\"\n\nI have tried in these Views to use only simple everyday language, and\nam fully aware how inadequate are the words I have employed; but my\nreaders will have, I hope, recognised how difficult, and in many cases\nimpossible, it is, in treating these metaphysical subjects, to find\nwords to express the exact meaning; we have to describe the Infinite\nin terms of the finite, and by use of imperfect finite analogies to\nget a glimpse of the otherwise unthinkable, and even then it requires\na mystical sense, or what St. Paul called spiritual discernment, to\nsee beyond the physical mists. If the whole of the phenomena of Nature\nmust be looked upon as the manifestation of the Divine Noumenon, it\nfollows that Matter is as divine as the Spiritual, though not as real;\nit is His shadow, or the outline of His very image, thrown upon the\nmaterial plane of our sensations; and the principle of sympathetic\naction, upon which, as we have seen, the whole power to influence\ndepends throughout the Universe, becomes surely the best symbol we can\nuse for understanding the efficacy of prayer and the connection\nbetween our Transcendental Self and the All-loving. Realise that the\nTranscendental Ego is a Spirit, and therefore akin to the Great\nSpirit, not only in essence, but in \"loving and knowing communion,\"\nthen look at my last experiment, where we saw two material bodies\n(remember they are shadow manifestations of the Reality) which could\ninfluence each other from the fact that they were akin, not only in\nsubstance, but in perfect sympathetic communion.\n\nIf now we watch the shadows of two human beings thrown upon a wall,\nand see those shadows shaking hands and embracing each other, are we\nnot justified in concluding that those images give us a true\nexplanation of what is really taking place? and is not that exactly\nwhat I have done? have I not shown, as I proposed to do, that it is\npossible by examining the phenomena of Nature (the shadows of the\nReality) to reach that point where we may even feel that we are\nlistening to, or having divulged to us, some of what may be called the\nvery thoughts of the Great Reality?\n\n\n\n\nVIEW FIVE\n\nTHE PHYSICAL FILM\n\n\nWe have seen in former Views that the whole Phenomenal Universe, as\nperceived by our senses, and all intellectual thoughts or concepts\nbased on those perceptions, are, in reality, only mists or shadows;\nthey have no existence apart from our physical senses, and may be\nlikened to a thin film, which at death is pricked and passes away like\na scroll, leaving us face to face with the Reality. We thus seemed to\ngrasp that all phenomena, including our Physical Egos, are but the\nshadows or outline of the Reality, as depicted on our limited plane of\nconsciousness; but these phenomena, having Motion for their basis, are\nnone the less real to us under our present outlook, limited as it is\nby conditioning in Time and Space, and we have to deal with them as\nrealities in our everyday life. I want to make this distinction clear\nin the present View.\n\nThose of us who were youngsters in the 'sixties, and were fortunate\nenough to be taken to that land of wonders for children, the London\nPolytechnic, will remember seeing what were called Professor Pepper's\nGhosts. By means of a large sheet of glass on the stage, the\n_reflection_ of a human being (otherwise invisible), which we will\ncall the \"_unreal_,\" was, by the audience, seen walking alongside the\npeople on the stage, and it was impossible to say which was the real\nand which the unreal. When the unreal was made to appear further back\non the stage, it was apparently seen through the real figures and they\nappeared as ghosts, for they were seen to be transparent. If now we\nfix, perpendicularly on a table, a small pane of glass, and place,\nsay, an orange in front and another orange behind it, we can arrange\nso that an observer, looking through the glass, sees two oranges\nalongside each other, one being the real and the other the unreal,\nand, with proper lighting and dark background, it is impossible to\ndetermine which is which, as they are both apparently real oranges. We\nwill call the real, A, and the unreal, B; we now also introduce a\nhuman hand on both sides of the glass, and again we have apparently\ntwo real hands close to the oranges; if the real hand is now seen to\ntry to touch the B orange, it passes through it, but it can take up\nthe A; and the same result is seen when the unreal hand tries to grasp\nthem, except that it can grasp the B but not the A; it is, in fact,\nonly the unreal that can apprehend the unreal, and the real the real.\n\nThe above simile may help some of my readers to understand how the\nphenomena of Nature, though having no real existence apart from our\nsenses, have the appearance of reality to us, because both we and the\nwhole Phenomenal Universe are the unreal of our analogy, namely, the\nreflection or shadow of the Real on the physical plane. If we run\nagainst a stone wall, which is also part, with us, of the shadow, we\nhurt ourselves and acknowledge its existence, but to the Real it would\nnot be an obstruction at all, it is not there. We know that this wall\nis not really solid, it is made up of Atoms revolving round each other\nbut never touching, but the man in the street would give as the reason\nwhy it hurt, that it was dense, or what is called hard; if the wall\nwere made of hay, or cotton wool, or of sunbeams, we should not suffer\nby running against it; in fact, the denser anything becomes, the more\nit shows its character of being real to our senses. If we take this as\nthe true explanation for the Physical Universe, we are met with\nsomething quite beyond our powers of comprehension, when we try to\nform a conception of the all-pervading Ether; unless we may look upon\nit as actually a _presentation_ of the Reality itself. If we wave our\nhand, we can feel the obstruction of the air, but we cannot feel the\nEther. We think our earth very solid, and we know it is rushing round\nthe sun at the enormous rate of 60,000 miles per hour, but it finds no\nobstruction in the Ether, there is no retardation of its velocity; and\nyet the study of Radio-Activity has quite lately shown us that that\nEther is not only as dense as iron, or a hundred or a thousand times\ndenser, but millions of times denser than that metal; and yet it\npermeates all matter like a sieve. In Sir Oliver Lodge's words, \"the\nEther is so dense that matter by comparison is like a gossamer or a\nfilmy imperceptible mist.\" We can, therefore, by again using our\n\"Ghost\" analogy, understand why matter cannot obstruct the Ether, or\nvice versa; there is no perceivable friction between them, unless, as\nI shall presently suggest, we may find something akin to obstruction\nby Matter, not to Ether itself, but to its pressure, in the phenomenon\nof Gravitation.\n\nThe evidence we are gradually winning from Radio-Activity seems to be\nleading us to the conclusion that all forms of matter are but\ndifferent motions or strains in the Ether (perhaps, as Lord Kelvin\nthought, in the form of vortices), that the different atoms of which\nmatter is composed are, as suggested in View Three, _apertures_ of\ndifferent complexity of outline--namely, those points at which Ether\nis absent or its density attenuated. Have we not apparently here\nanother example of Positive and Negative, the Invisible the Ether, as\nthe Real, and the Visible, the Material Universe, as its Negative the\nUnreal, similar to our list of Positives and Negatives in View One?\nEther itself cannot be explained by any of the known dynamical laws,\nthough it is probably the very root and cause of all of them; it is\nabsolutely beyond our plane of perception or conception. We can only\nperceive certain effects of its presence when it comes into our\nlimited world of consciousness, under the aspects of Time and\nSpace--namely, in its movements, which we classify as forms of matter\nand modes of energy.\n\nIt is only lately that we have been able to see clearly that the\neffects known to us as Light, Heat, Electricity, and Magnetism are\ncaused by pulsations or rills of different rapidity in the Ether (this\nwill be referred to in a later View); it is also probably the cause of\nwhat we call Gravitation, and we shall see that the action of\nGravitation may, after all, be not in the direction of a pull but must\nbe looked upon as a pushing force. Gravitation is common to all\nmatter; in common language, every particle attracts every other\nparticle with a force directly proportional to its mass, and\ninversely to the square of its distance; it is a very weak force\ncompared with others we know, and difficult to measure except when a\nlarge mass of matter is involved. Perhaps this will be clearer, and\nnot far from the truth, if I say that the force of Gravitation exerted\nbetween two masses of matter compared with that which we find acting\nbetween the constituents of matter--namely, in chemical affinity, is\ncomparable to the difference existing between the density of matter\nand the density of Ether.\n\nThe latest calculation of the pressure of the Ether is almost\ninconceivable--namely, about 25,000 tons on the square inch, or\n3,600,000 tons on the square foot; it may well therefore be that, in\nthe degree of permeability of matter by the Ether, when we can\ncalculate it, will be found the explanation of what we call\nGravitation between two masses; they are each shielding the other from\nEther pressure, in its own direction, with an obstructive force equal\nto its mass. The reason why the earth appears to attract us, is that\nit is shielding us from a certain amount of pressure in its direction;\nand we know that we are also apparently attracting every particle of\nthe earth with a force proportionate to our mass, because we are,\nhowever slightly, shielding the earth from pressure in our direction;\nif this is the true explanation, Gravitation is a phenomenon of the\nEther; it will be seen to be a movement of matter in the line of least\npressure, and is therefore a push and not a pull.\n\nLet us now come down to what we understand better concerning the\nsubject of this View.\n\nThe question, \"What is Truth?\" \"What is the Reality?\" goes to the very\nroot of the Riddle of the Universe. We are all trying in one direction\nor another to answer this question. As knowledge increases, old\ntheories become untenable and have to be discarded, and, in their\nplace, fresh ones are formulated to account for new phases of\nphenomena. There seems a general impression, among even thinking\npeople, that scientists are wedded to, and always trying to find\nproofs for, their last theories, but this is not the case. The\nendeavour of the true seeker after truth is not so much to discover\nfresh facts which coincide with existing theories, as to find\nphenomena which cannot be explained thereby; there is indeed more joy\nover one fact which does not agree with preconceived theory, than over\nninety-nine facts which are found to fall under that heading. In our\neveryday life we have become so accustomed to take for granted that\nwhat we see, hear, or feel by touch must be real, that it is difficult\nfor the man in the street to realise that our senses woefully deceive\nus; that perception without knowledge often leads us astray into false\nconcepts, and these false concepts lead us into difficulties which\nrequire fresh concepts to be formed, and these again demand further\nand more exact knowledge to be applied to perceived phenomena. This\nnecessity for overcoming difficulties is the greatest incentive we\nhave for gaining fresh knowledge of our surroundings. Owing to the\nfact, as already pointed out, that our sense perceptions are based\nupon the appreciation of change or motion, and must therefore be\nlimited in Time and Space, and that the trueness of our conceptions of\nthe Reality is dependent upon the knowledge which can be brought to\nbear upon those perceptions, we are forced to postulate two aspects of\nthe Universe; one of these is what may be called the Visible, Finite,\nor Physical, which indeed carries the appearance of Reality to our\nlimited senses, though it has no real existence for us apart from\nthose senses, and the other is that which transcends our utmost\nconception, which we call the Invisible, the Infinite, or Spiritual.\n\nAt the outset of all investigation, we are forced to recognise that\nthe only way we can approach conception of the Infinite is necessarily\nin the form of a negative, the negative applying to those things of\nwhich we have cognisance; we carry our thought to the utmost limit\npossible with our present knowledge, and, when we have come to a\nstandstill, we conceive the Infinite to be not that but something\nfurther on. As our knowledge increases by small steps, that something\nfurther on seems ever to be flying from our grasp by mighty strides,\nuntil we are forced to bow our heads and recognise that we are in the\npresence of, though still not in sight of, the Reality. A divine\nimpulse is ever urging us forward to greater conceptions but\nshattering our hopes, and giving us a feeling akin to despair, if we\narrogate to ourselves a greater power of conception than we have\nknowledge to sustain; we have to approach the study with, indeed, that\nfeeling of elation which the consciousness of our origin and destiny\nwakes within us, giving us a feeling of certainty that we are capable,\nin the hereafter, of attaining to the highest summit of knowledge, but\nwith that humility, in the present, which makes us acknowledge that he\nwho knows most knows most how little he knows. In this frame of mind\nlet us now examine our surroundings.\n\nWe are living in a world of continuous and multitudinous changes; in\nfact, without change, we could have no cognisance of our surroundings,\nwe should have no consciousness of living. We have become so\naccustomed to certain sensations that we are apt to take them, as\nfacts, and scoff at the suggestion that they are non-realities. I\npropose, however, to show that what we perceive are not Realities, and\ntrue conception of our surroundings depends upon the knowledge which\nwe can bring to bear to interpret the meaning of these sensations. It\nis only in response to our conscientious endeavours to form new\nconcepts that knowledge is being daily revealed to us; the more we\nprogress in Knowledge the more we see that Perception alone without\nKnowledge leads to false concepts, and these in their turn create\nfatal obstacles and difficulties to our progress towards the true\nappreciation of the Universe. Let me give a few examples.\n\nIn early times the Sun and the Stars were seen to revolve round the\nEarth once every day, and, without Knowledge of Astronomy, this was\ntaken for granted as an absolute fact, and was looked upon as a\nreality; later on, however, it was noted that the Stars never changed\ntheir relative positions; this necessitated a new concept, namely,\nthat they were fixed on the inner surface of a huge globe, which was\nalso revolving. This false concept brought other difficulties into\nplay, the question arose as to what was beyond the globe, and also the\ndifficulty that, when the Stars as well as the Sun were found to be\nat such enormous distances from the Earth, their rates of motion were\nquite inconceivable. Even in the case of the Sun the motion represents\nover twenty-five million miles per hour, and the apparent motion of\nthe Stars is thousands of times faster than Light travels. These\ninsuperable difficulties were not swept away until, by the advance of\nKnowledge, the falsity of Conception, based only upon appearance, was\nmade manifest, and it was seen that it was the Earth which revolved\nand not the Stars. Even then, owing to its supposed antagonism to what\nwas stated in the Bible, the new Conception was opposed with great\nbitterness, it being long looked upon and denounced as a sacrilegious\ninvention, and anybody daring to promulgate such a doctrine was\nthreatened with death.\n\nOur present Conception, that the Earth turns round on its axis once\nevery day, and rolls in its orbit round the Sun once in every year,\nmay be called a Reality to our finite Senses; but I shall show later\non that, except for the finiteness of our senses and the imperfection\nof our Knowledge, the Concept is not a true one. With perfect\nPerception and perfect Knowledge we shall see that, apart from the two\nlimitations or modes under which our physical senses act, there can be\nno such thing as Motion, because the very essence of Motion is but\nthe product of those limitations, namely, Time and Space.\n\nWe are so accustomed to take everything for granted, that it may\nperhaps seem strange to question whether it can even be asserted that\nwe have ever seen matter. Let us turn towards a common object in this\nroom. We catch in our eyes the multitudinous impulses which are\nreflected from its surface under circumstances somewhat similar to\nthose in which a cricketer \"fields\" a ball; he puts his hand in the\nway of the moving ball and catches it, and, knowing the distance of\nthe batsman, he perhaps recognises, by the hard impact of the ball,\nthat the batsman has strong muscles, but he cannot be said to _see_\nthe batsman by that impact, nor can he gain thereby any idea as to his\ncharacter. So it is with objective intuition; we direct our eyes\ntowards an object, and catch thereby rays of light reflected from that\nobject at different angles, and, by combining all these directions, we\nrecognise _form_, and come to the conclusion that we are looking at,\nsay, a chair. The eye also tells us that rays are coming in greater\nquantity from some parts of it, and we know that those parts are\n_polished_; the eye again catches rays giving higher or lower\nfrequencies of vibration, and we call that _colour_; our eyes also\ntell us that it intercepts certain rays reflected from other objects\nin the room, and we know that it is not _transparent_ to light; and\nthose are our sight perceptions of a wooden chair.\n\nWe may go a little further by \"pushing,\" when we know, by the amount\nof resistance compared with the power exerted, what force of gravity\nis being exerted by and on that chair, and we declare it heavy or\nlight, but by these means we get no nearer to the knowledge of what\nmatter is. By tests and reagents we can resolve wood into other forms\nwhich we call Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, &c., which, because\nwe cannot divide them into any other known substances, we call\n\"Elements,\" but we can only look at these in the same way as we are\nlooking at the chair. Chemists, however, carry us a little further,\nand show us that the Elementary substances have not only their likes\nand dislikes, but their passionate desires and lukewarmness to others\nof their ilk, and, when opportunity offers, they break up with great\nviolence any ordinary friendship existing between them and their\nneighbours, and seize on their coveted prey with a strength of will\nsurpassing anything experienced in the Organic World; and this new\nassociation they maintain, until they, in their turn, are\ndispossessed, or they encounter another substance of still greater\nattraction, when they leave their first love and take up new\nconnections.\n\nI shall touch upon the subject of what matter is later on; meanwhile\nlet us consider how, owing to our senses being limited by the\nconsiderations of Time and Space, we are surrounded by inconceivables,\nand yet it is those very inadequate conceptions which force us to\nacquire Knowledge; the greatest incentive we have to pursue our\ninvestigation is, as we have seen, the fact that Perception without\nsufficient Knowledge leads us into difficulties. Let me give you two\ninstances of these inconceivables. Infinite Space is inconceivable by\nus, but it is also quite as inconceivable, or perhaps even more so, to\nthink of Space being limited, and yet we are forced to declare that\none of these two must be true. Again, Matter is either composed of\nultimate bodies, of a certain size which cannot be divided, or is\ninfinitely divisible; both of these are inconceivable, the latter for\nthe same reason as that of the Infinity of Space, and the former\nbecause it is inconceivable that the ultimate body could not be\ndivided into two parts by a sharp edge forced between its two sides,\nor by a stronger force than at present holds it together; it has\nindeed been suggested as an explanation that, if an atom could be\ndivided, it might cease to be matter, that its parts would have no\nexistence, but it is difficult to conceive how two nothings can form\none something.\n\nAnother example of Perception leading to a false Concept is our Sense\nof Pain; we apply a red-hot coal to the tip of one of our fingers and\nour Perception would have us believe that we feel intense pain at the\npoint of contact, but we know this to be a false Concept, as it can be\nshown that the pain is only felt at the brain: there are in\ncommunication with different parts of our body small microscopical\nnerve threads, any of which may be severed with a pen-knife close to\nthe base of the skull, with the result that no pain can then be felt,\nalthough the fingertip is just as much alive and is seen to be burning\naway.\n\nAnother example is our Sense of Hearing. A musical sound is made up of\na certain number of pushes in a second, but each push is silent. It is\nonly, as we have seen, a musical sound to our Sense when the pushes\nrecur at intervals of not more than the sixteenth part of a second.\nThe prongs of a tuning-fork, vibrating 500 times per second, seem to\nbe travelling very quickly, but are really only moving at the rate of\n10 inches per second, or not much over half a mile per hour, when the\namplitude is the hundredth part of an inch, which gives quite a loud\nsound.\n\nLight is also composed of rills in the Ether, but the rill itself is\nnot Light, it is only Light when these rills strike, with a certain\nenormous frequency, on a special organ adapted for, we might say,\ncounting these frequencies, and if these frequencies fall below that\ncertain number, or above twice that number per second, there is no\nSense of Sight.\n\nHow few people have ever realised what a wonderful Counting Machine\nthey possess in their organ of Sight! I think the best method I can\nadopt, to bring this clearly before you, is to take our tuning-fork,\nvibrating 500 times per second, a rapidity which to some will be even\ndifficult to comprehend, and then ask you to consider how long that\nfork must continue to vibrate before it has accomplished the full\nnumber of frequencies, which must necessarily impinge upon the eye in\none second of time, before the phenomenon of sight becomes possible.\nThat tuning-fork would have not only to continue its vibrations\nwithout diminution for seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, months, years,\nor hundreds of years, but for 30,000 years before it has accomplished\nthe full number of pulsations which, as Ether waves, must strike the\neye in one second of time, to give the impression of Light; the\ncalculation is easy, the rills of Red Light are so small that 40,000\nof these only cover one inch of length, and light travels 186,000\nmiles per second. If therefore the number of inches in 186,000 miles\nare multiplied by the 40,000, and the product is divided by the 500\ntimes which the tuning-fork vibrates in one second, you have the\nnumber of seconds that tuning-fork must vibrate, before it has\ncompleted the number of impacts which, in one second of time, must\nfall on our retina to give us the impression of red light; and that\ntuning-fork would have to vibrate nearly twice as long, say 50,000\nyears, to reach the number of impulses which strike the eye in one\nsecond of time and give the impression of violet light; and between\nthese two limits are situated the colours--Orange, Yellow, Green,\nBlue, and Indigo.\n\nWhat a marvellous sense then is Sight, when we find that, not only can\nit grasp these innumerable vibrations, but can actually differentiate\ncolours, appreciating as a different colour each increase of about\none-tenth in these multitudinous frequencies; and it is principally by\nmeans of this Sense of Sight that we gain a knowledge of what is\nhappening around us. And yet what strides we have made in the last two\nhundred years to improve upon that instrument! With all its wonderful\ncapabilities, we shall see later on that the eye is a very imperfect\ninstrument for seeing very small objects, or even large objects when\nat a great distance. With the present compound Microscope, only\ndeveloped in the last hundred years, and its apochromatic lenses,\ninvented only in the last forty years, we are able to see and\nphotograph objects of a minuteness immeasurably beyond the power of\nthe human eye, and, with our telescopes, we can see and photograph\nstars far beyond the possibility of vision by the unaided eye; and\nyet, by the stellar spectroscope, we are actually able to examine and\nidentify the very atoms of which that distant star is composed, or\nrather was composed hundreds of thousands of years ago; we can compare\nthose atoms with the same atoms in our laboratories, and we find that,\nthough the former are hundreds of thousands of years older than the\nlatter, they show absolutely no signs of wear or loss of energy,\nthough they have been for that enormous time, and are still, pulsating\nat the rate of not only millions but billions of times per second; and\nthough the pulsations they emit have travelled across such a vast\ndepth of space that the mind cannot even imagine the distance, there\nhas not been any diminution in the numbers of pulsations per second,\nnor the slightest slowing down of the rate of flight at which they\nstarted on their journey from that far-off world. If there had been\nthe _slightest_ change we could detect it at once by means of the\nSpectroscope.\n\nWith another instrument we are able, not only to hear but to converse\naudibly, as long as we like, with another human being a thousand miles\naway, who is also sitting comfortably in his own arm-chair and\nspeaking to us with as much freedom as though we were both in the same\nroom. With another instrument we can go further, and exchange\nthoughts, in a few seconds, with a being on the other side of the\nworld, by means of a thin wire that is itself fixed, and does not\nmove, and we have lately invented another means by which we can do the\nsame, over several thousands of miles, without even a connecting wire.\nWith another instrument we have gone far beyond the facility with\nwhich the Printing press enabled us to communicate our thoughts to our\nfellow human beings, we can actually imprint our very words and\nlaughter upon a wax cylinder and send it to the antipodes, and our\nfriends there, with a similar instrument, can not only hear and\nrecognise our very voice, but can make that voice repeat our thoughts\naudibly, to a thousand others at the same time, and can repeat that\nprocess for hundreds of times without exhausting that voice. With\nanother instrument we can depict on a film, not only the images of our\nfriends but their very actions, which may also be sent to any\ndistance, and the persons, thereon depicted, may be seen by their\nrelatives alive and going about their everyday employments, with every\nmovement exact to life. We can cross the Ocean against the wind and\nwaves by means of harnessed sunbeams, without any exertion of our own,\nat the rate of an express train, which train, by the by, is also moved\nby the same means; we can dive to the bottom of the sea and journey\nthere for hours, in perfect safety, without coming to the surface, and\nwe are even developing wings, or their equivalent, which from\nimmemorial tradition we were not to possess before we had finished\ndoing our duty properly in this world and had gained admission to the\nnext.\n\nWe can do all these things, but how ignorant we still are in the\ncommonest doings of Nature! By giving up our whole lifetime, and\nspending millions of pounds, we could never make a grain of wheat or\nan acorn, and wherever we turn we find ourselves confronted with\nmysteries beyond our power to explain from a finite material\nstandpoint; even in material vibrations we meet a mystery almost\nbeyond our power to comprehend. Take for instance those small insects,\nof the family of Grasshoppers, which make the primaeval woods of\nCentral America give out a noise like the roaring of the sea, a\nwondrous sound never to be forgotten by those who have heard it. By\nmeans of a kind of rasp one of these insects creates a sound which\nDarwin states can be heard to the distance of one mile: these insects\nweigh less than the hundredth part of an ounce, and the instrument by\nwhich the noise is made, weighs much less than one-tenth of the total\ninsect; it is less therefore than one thousandth part of an ounce in\nweight, and yet it is found, by calculation, that this small\ninstrument is actually able to move at the enormous rate of a thousand\nvibrations per second and keep in motion for hours, from five to ten\nmillion tons of matter, and it does this so powerfully that every\nparticle of that enormous bulk of matter gives out a sound audible to\nour ears. But even these millions of tons are not its limit of action,\nfor we know that these vibrations must go on until, in the end, every\nparticle of matter connected with this earth has been affected by each\nof those vibrations.\n\nAll our difficulties of understanding the true meaning of these and\nother phenomena around us are, as I have already pointed out, caused\nby our inability to recognise that vibration or motion has no reality,\nit is a pseudo-conception arising from the fact that our senses are\nentirely dependent upon the two modes or limitations, Time and Space,\nfor their very action, and that, as conceptional knowledge is based\nupon perceptional knowledge, our very consciousness of living is also\ndependent upon these same limitations. We have seen that Motion is\nnothing but the product of these two modes of perceptions, and, in my\nnext Views, I shall examine these elusive limitations, these two\nmysteries of Time and Space, the forever and the never-ending; I shall\ntrace them to the utmost limit of our conception, and try to gain\nthereby a clearer insight into the fact, not only that the whole\nPhysical Universe is but a transient and Space-limited phenomenon, a\nthin film which our senses have erected and which divides us from the\nReality, but that, if our power of _introspection_ were fully\ndeveloped, we should know that the Reality is nearer and dearer to us,\nand has much more to do with us, even in this life, than has the\nphysical.\n\n\n\n\nVIEW SIX\n\nSPACE\n\n\nWe have seen that our very thoughts, and therefore consciousness of\nliving, are limited by Time and Space, but we cannot with the utmost\nendeavour conceive a limit to Time and Space; they are two twin\nsisters, alike in many respects but different in others, and we shall\nrealise later on that they are readily interchangeable. The sensuous\naspect of Motion is, as we have seen, the time that an object takes to\ngo over a certain space--namely, what is called the rate at which it\npasses from one point to another, and we cannot imagine Motion unless\nit contains both of these modes in however small a quantity; we may\nhave the greatest imaginable space traversed in a moment of time, or\nthe smallest imaginable space covered in what may be called, for want\nof a better word, an eternity, but we still have to postulate what we\ncall Motion; this, of course, follows from the fact that our thoughts\nrequire both these modes for forming concepts. If we compare our\nconception of Matter with that of Time and Space, we see that the two\nlatter are not separately the object of any sense, but are the modes\nor conditions under which all our senses act, to a greater or less\ndegree, and these conditions cannot therefore carry the same\nimpression of objectivity to our senses as Matter does, except perhaps\nin the sense that all physical phenomena are simply motion, and motion\nis the product of both of these limitations but not of either of them\nseparately.\n\nIf we analyse our conceptions of Time and Space we seem forced to\npostulate that they are both infinitely divisible and infinitely\nextensible; they are both what is called continuous and not discrete,\nwe cannot conceive any minimum in their division; both duration in\nTime and extension in Space can be reduced, as it were, to a\nmathematical point; nor can we conceive any maximum in either duration\nor extension. They are both therefore comprised in every conception\npossible to our consciousness; all parts of Time are time and all\nparts of Space are space; there are no holes, as it were, in Space\nwhich are not space, nor intervals in Time which are not time, they\nare both complete units; Space cannot be limited except by space, and\nTime cannot be limited except by time. So far they are alike, but, on\nthe other hand, Space is comprised of three dimensions--namely,\nlength, breadth, and depth, whereas Time has the appearance to us of\ncomprising one dimension only--namely, length.\n\nUnder our present conditions we can only think of one finite subject\nat a time, and, at that moment, all other subjects are cancelled. We\ncan therefore only think of points in Time and Space as situated\nbeyond, or in front of, other fixed points, which again must be\nfollowed by other points; we cannot fix a point in either so as to\nexclude the thought of a point beyond; we can only in fact examine\nthem in a form of finite sequences.\n\nThe Idea of Infinity, which we shall refer to in a later View and show\nto be a false conception, is therefore a necessary result of the\nlimitation of our thoughts; our physical Ego cannot conceive beyond\nthe Finite as long as we are conscious of living under present\nconditions. With every act of perception by our senses, we have\ntherefore not only intuition of the Visible or Finite, but we become\nat the same moment aware of an Invisible Infinite beyond. Time appears\nto us as an inconceivable, intangible something, which gives us the\nimpression of movement without anything that moves it. Space is an\nomnipresent, intangible, inconceivable nothing, outside of which\nnothing which has existence can be even thought to exist. Let us now\ntry and get an insight into what we mean by perception of distance in\nspace.\n\nThe appreciation of distance depends upon what is called _parallax_,\nor the apparent displacement of projectment of an object when seen by\nour two eyes separately. If you hold up a finger and look at it, with\neach eye separately, you will see that the finger is projected by each\neye on to a different part of the background; the angle which the\nlines of sight, from each eye, make when they meet at the object, is\ncalled the angle of parallax, and the further the object is away the\nsmaller that angle becomes; it is, in fact, the angle subtended, at\nthe object, by the distance between the two eyes. As the object is\nbrought nearer the eyes have to be inclined inwards to impinge on that\nobject; the appreciation of distance then, in our sense of sight, is\ndependent upon our perception of the amount of inclination of those\ntwo lines of sight, and is therefore an acquired knowledge. The\ndistance between the eyes is about 2-1/2 inches, and this is a very\nshort base line upon which to estimate distance; in fact, without the\nhelp of perspective and known dimensions of surrounding objects, it is\ndoubtful if anyone could by its means estimate distance beyond a few\nhundred yards. The object would, of course, also have to be an unknown\none, as, otherwise, the converse of the above comes into play, and the\ndistance could be estimated by the angle which the known diameter of\nthe object subtends at the eye; but this necessitates the size of the\nobject being known beforehand and the employment of perspective.\n\nWe can extend our perception of distances by, ourselves, moving from\none place to another, gaining thereby a longer base line, and noting\nthe displacement of projection of the object on a distant background;\nby that means, distance up to several miles can probably be\nappreciated. But, when we try to determine the distance of, say, the\nMoon (240,000 miles away), we are helpless, especially as we have no\nmarked background, except in the case of occultations of the Sun or\nStars. But the Astronomer at once comes to our aid; a distance of\nseveral miles is carefully measured on a level plane, and, by placing\ntelescopes at the extremities of that known line, we can mark the\ninclination of those telescopes to each other when focussed upon a\nparticular mountain peak on the moon; by this means we know the angle\nof parallax (180 deg. less the sum of the two angles of inclination), and,\nfrom this and our known length of base line, we can calculate the\ndistance. When however we go a step further and attempt to calculate\nthe distance of the Sun (93,000,000 miles), we find our last base line\nagain absolutely inadequate. But the astronomer helps us again; we now\nseparate our two telescopic eyes by the whole diameter of the earth\n(7900 miles); this is accomplished by taking from the Equator two\nsimultaneous observations of the Sun, at its rising and setting; for\nwhen the Sun is setting, at say the Equinox, it is at that moment\nrising at exactly the other side of the earth; the inclination of the\ntwo telescopes, directed to a certain point on the Sun, will now give\nthe distance approximately, though even this base line is too short\nfor exactitude. When however we attempt to go still further and try to\nascertain the distance of stars, which are a million times further off\nthan the Sun, such a base line is quite out of the question. How then\ncan we get a base line for our telescopes longer than the whole width\nof the earth? The Astronomer again provides the means. The earth takes\none year to complete its vast orbit round the sun, and the diameter of\nthat path is 186,000,000 miles. This is made our new base line for\nseparating our telescopes; an observation of a star is taken, say,\nto-day, and after waiting six months, to enable the earth to reach the\nother extremity of its vast orbit, another observation is taken, and\nyet it is found, as we shall see later on, that the distance of the\nnearest fixed star is so _stupendous_ that even this base line, of\n186,000,000 miles, shows absolutely no inclination between the two\ntelescopes except in about a dozen cases, and even in those the angle\nof parallax, perceivable, is so minute that no reliable distance can\nbe calculated; we can only say that the star is at least as far away\nas a certain distance, but it may be much farther.\n\nLet us now try by other means to get a clearer insight into the\nsubject of this View, by tracing Space to the utmost limit of human\nconception. I think the best method I can adopt will be to take you,\nin imagination, for a journey as far as is possible by means of the\nbest instruments at our disposal.\n\nWe will start outwards from the Sun, and glance on our way at the\nworlds involved in the Solar System. Let us first understand what are\nthe dimensions of our central Luminary. The distance of the Moon from\nthe Earth is 240,000 miles, but the dimensions of the Sun are so great\nthat, were the centre of the Sun placed where the centre of the Earth\nis, the surface of the Sun would not only extend as far as the Moon,\nbut as far again on the other side, and that would give the radius\nonly of the enormous circumference of the Sun; another way to\nunderstand its size is, to remember that, light travelling 186,000\nmiles per second, would actually take five seconds to go across its\ndisc. Let us now start outward from this vast mass. The first world we\nmeet is the little planet Mercury, only 3000 miles in diameter,\nrevolving round the Sun at a distance of 36 million miles. We next\ncome upon Venus, at a distance of 67 million miles. She is only 400\nmiles smaller in diameter than our Earth, and, with the dense\natmosphere with which she is surrounded, animal and vegetable life\nsimilar to that on our Earth would be possible. Continuing our course,\nwe arrive at our Earth, situated 93 million miles away from the Sun.\nStill speeding on, a further 50 million miles brings us to Mars, with\na diameter of nearly 5000 miles, and accompanied by two miniature\nmoons. The sight of this planet in a good instrument is most\ninteresting. Ocean beds and continents are visible, and the telescope\nshows large tracts of snow, though not necessarily formed from water\n(perhaps carbonic dioxide), surrounding its polar regions, which\nincrease considerably during the winter, and decrease during the\nsummer seasons on that planet; but there are no canals! The fact that\nour largest and best telescopes failed to show these imaginary canals,\nwas an insurmountable barrier to the advocates of these markings, but\nthe \"Canalites\" made their contention ridiculous when they actually\nsuggested that the reason for this failure to perceive them was that\nour telescopes were too large to see such small markings! How such a\nstatement could have been made is incomprehensible on any supposition,\nas everybody knows that the whole use of size, or what is called\naperture, in a telescope, is to help us to see more clearly small and\nfaint markings.\n\nThe distances we now have to travel become so great that I shall not\nattempt to give them; you can, however, form an idea of the tremendous\nspaces we are traversing when you consider that each successive planet\nis nearly double as far from the Sun as the preceding one.\n\nIn the place where, by Bode's law, we should expect to have found the\nnext world, we find a group of small planets, ranging in size from\nabout 200 miles in diameter down to only a few hundred yards. They\npass through nearly the same point once in each of their periods of\nrevolution round the Sun, and it has been suggested that they are\nfragments of a great globe rent asunder by some mighty catastrophe;\nover 400 of these little worlds have been discovered and have received\nnames, or are known under certain numbers.\n\nWe now continue our voyage over the next huge space and arrive at\nJupiter, the largest and grandest of the planets. This world is more\nthan 1000 times larger than our Earth, its circumference being\nactually greater than the distance from the Earth to the Moon. It has\nseven moons, and its year is about twelve times as long as ours.\nPursuing our journey, we next come to Saturn. It is nearly as large as\nJupiter, and has a huge ring of planetary matter revolving round it in\naddition to seven moons. Further and further we go, and the planets\nbehind us are disappearing, and even the Sun is dwindling down to a\nmere speck; still we hurry on, and at last alight on another planet,\nUranus, about sixty times larger than our Earth; we see moons in\nattendance, but they have scarcely any light to reflect; the Sun is\nonly a star now; but we must hasten on deeper and deeper into space.\nWe shall again, as formerly, have to go nearly as far beyond the last\nplanet as that planet is from the Sun. The mind cannot grasp these\nhuge distances. Still we travel on to the last planet, Neptune,\nrevolving on its lonely orbit; sunk so deep into space that, though it\nrushes round the Sun at the rate of 22,000 miles per hour, it takes\n164 of our years to complete one revolution. Now let us look back from\nthis remote point. What do we see? One planet only, Uranus, is visible\nto the unaided eye; the giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, have\ndisappeared, and the Sun itself is now only a star; practically no\nheat, no light, all is darkness in this solitary world; the Sun is\n1000 times smaller than we see it from the earth, and gives,\ntherefore, only one-thousandth part of its heat and light. Thus far\nhave we gone, and, standing there at the enormous distance of\n3,000,000,000 miles from our starting-point, we can begin to\ncomprehend the vast limits of the solar system; we can begin to\nunderstand the ways of this mighty family of planets and satellites.\nBut let us not set up too small a standard whereby to measure the\nInfinity of Space. We shall find, as we go on, that this stupendous\nsystem is but an infinitesimal part of the whole universe.\n\nLet us now look forward along the path we are to take. We are standing\non the outermost part of our Solar System, and there is no other\nplanet towards which we can wing our flight; but all around are\nmultitudes of stars, some shining with a brightness almost equal to\nwhat our Sun appears to give forth at that great distance, others\nhardly visible, but the smallest telescope increases their number\nenormously, and presents to our mind the appalling phantom of\n_immensity_ in all its terror, standing there to withstand our next\ngreat step. How are we to continue on our journey when our very senses\nseem paralysed by this obstruction, and even imagination is powerless\nfrom utter loneliness? One guide only is there to help us, the\nmessenger which flits from star to star, universe to universe; Light\nit is which will help us to appreciate even these bottomless depths.\nNow, Light travels 186,000 miles per second, or 12 million miles every\nminute of time. It therefore takes only about four hours to traverse\nthe huge distance between our Sun and Neptune, where we are now\nsupposed to be standing; but to leap across the space separating us\nfrom the nearest star, it would require many years for Light,\ntravelling at 186,000 miles every second of that time, to span the\ndistance. There are, in fact, only fifteen stars in the whole heaven\nthat could be reached, on the wings of Light, in sixteen years!\n\nLet us use this to continue our voyage. On a clear night the human eye\ncan perceive thousands of stars, in all directions, scattered without\nany apparent order or design; but in one locality, forming a huge ring\nround the heavens, there is a misty zone called the Milky Way. Let us\nturn a telescope with a low aperture on this, and what a sight\npresents itself! Instead of mist, myriads of stars are now seen\nsurrounded by nebulous haze. We put a higher aperture on, and thus\npierce further and further into space; the haze is resolved into\nmyriads more stars, and more haze comes up from the deep beyond,\nshowing that the visual ray was not yet strong enough to fathom the\nmighty distance; but let the full aperture be applied and mark the\nresult. Mist and haze have disappeared; the telescope has pierced\nright through the stupendous distance, and only the vast abyss of\nspace, boundless and unfathomable, is seen beyond.\n\nLet us pause here for a moment to think what we have done. Light,\ntravelling with its enormous velocity, requires on an average\nconsiderably over ten years to traverse the distance between our Solar\nSystem and Stars of the first magnitude, but the dimensions of the\nMilky Way are built up on such a huge scale that to traverse the whole\nstratum would require us to pass about 500 stars, separated from each\nother by this same tremendous interval; 10,000 years may therefore be\ncomputed as the shortest time which light, travelling with its\nenormous velocity, would take to sweep across the whole cluster, it\nbeing borne in mind that the Solar System is supposed to be located\nnot far from the centre of this great star cluster, and that the\ncluster comprises all stars visible arrayed in a flat zone, the edges\nof which, where the stratum is deepest, being the locality of the\nMilky Way.\n\nLet us once more continue our journey. We have traversed a distance\nwhich even on the wings of light we could only accomplish in many\nthousands of years, and now stand on the outskirts of our great star\ncluster, in the same way, and I hope with the same aspirations, as\nwhen we paused the last time on the confines of our Solar System.\nBehind us are myriads of shining orbs, in such countless numbers that\nhuman thought cannot even suggest a limit, and yet each of these is a\nmighty globe like our Sun, the centre of a planetary system,\ndispensing light and heat under conditions similar to what we are\naccustomed to here. Let us, however, turn our face away from these\nclusterings of mighty suns, and look steadfastly forward into the\nunbroken darkness, and once more brace our nerves to face that\nterrible phantom--_Immensity_.\n\nWe require now the most powerful instruments that science can put into\nour hands, and by their aid we will again essay to make another stride\ntowards the appreciation of our subject. In what, to the unaided eye,\nwas unbroken darkness, the telescope now enables us to discern a\nnumber of luminous points of haze, and towards one of these we\ncontinue our journey. The myriads of suns in our great star cluster\nare soon being left far behind; they shrink together, resolve\nthemselves into haze, until the once glorious universe of countless\nmillions of suns has dwindled down to a mere point of light, almost\ninvisible to the naked eye. But look forward: the luminous cloud to\nwhich we are urging our flight has expanded, until what, at one time,\nwas a mere patch of brightness, has now swelled into a mighty star\ncluster; myriads of suns burst into sight--we have traversed a\ndistance which even on the wings of light would take hundreds of\nthousands of years, and have reached the confines of another Milky Way\nas glorious and mighty as the one we have left; whose limits light\nwould require 10,000 years to traverse; and yet, in whatever direction\nthe telescope is placed, star clusters are to be seen strewn over the\nsurface of the heavens.\n\nLet us take now the utmost limit of telescopic power in all\ndirections. Where are we after all but in the centre of a sphere whose\ncircumference is 100,000 times as far from us as one of the nearest\nfixed stars, a distance that light would take over a million years to\ntraverse, and beyond whose circuit, infinity, boundless infinity,\nstill stretches unfathomed as ever? We have made a step, indeed, but\nperhaps only towards acquaintance with a new order of infinitesimals.\nOnce the distances of our Solar System seemed almost infinite\nquantities; compare them with the intervals between the fixed stars,\nand they become no quantities at all. And now when the spaces between\nthe stars are contrasted with the gulfs of dark spaces separating\nfirmaments, they absolutely vanish away. Can the whole firmamental\ncreation in its turn be nothing but a corner of some mightier scheme?\nBut let us not go on to bewilderment: we have passed from planet to\nplanet, star to star, universe to universe, and still infinite space\nextends for ever beyond our grasp. We have gone as far towards the\ninfinite as our sight, aided by the most powerful telescope, can hope\nto go. Is there no way then by which we can continue our journey\nfurther towards the appreciation of this infinity? A few years ago we\nshould probably have denied that it was possible for man to go\nfurther; but quite lately a new method of observation has been\ndeveloped, and we will try and use this to continue our flight.\n\nThe reason why, to our sight, an object becomes apparently smaller and\nsmaller as it is withdrawn from the eye, until it at last disappears\nentirely, is that the eye is a very imperfect instrument for viewing\nobjects at a great distance; it can only form an image of an object\nwhen that object is near enough to subtend a certain angle, or, in\npopular language, to show itself a certain size--the rays of light\nmust converge--in fact, the eye cannot single out and appreciate\nparallel rays: could it do this, objects would not appear to grow\nsmaller as they are removed. A pencil might be removed to the Moon,\n240,000 miles away, and would still appear to the eye the same size as\nit does here close to you; with perfect vision there would be no such\nthing as perspective, but, with our present conditions of sight, the\nresult would be inconvenient. We should never be able to see, at one\nand the same time, anything larger than the pupil of our eye. The\nbeauties of the landscape would be gone, and our dearest friends would\npass us unheeded and unseen; everyday life would resolve itself into a\ntask similar to that of attempting to read our newspaper every morning\nby means of a powerful microscope; we should commence by getting on to\na big black blotch, and, after wandering about for half an hour, we\nmight perhaps then begin to find out that we were looking at the\nlittle letter \"e,\" but anything like reading would be quite out of the\nquestion. We may, therefore, with our limited aperture of sight, be\nthankful that our eyes have the imperfection of not appreciating\nparallel rays. But we will now consider how this imperfection may be\nremedied by science.\n\nThere are two different ways of doing this--viz., first, by increasing\nthe amount of light received, by means of telescopes of great\naperture; and secondly, by employing an artificial retina a thousand\ntimes more sensitive than the human. Now, the human retina receives\nthe impression of what it looks at in a very minute fraction of a\nsecond, provided of course that the eye is properly focussed, and no\nfurther impression will be made by keeping the eye fixed on that\nobject; but in celestial photography, when the telescope is turned\ninto a camera, the sensitive plate, having received the impression in\nthe first second, may be exposed not only for many seconds, or\nminutes, or hours, but for an aggregate of even days by re-exposure,\nevery second of which time details on that plate new objects, sunk so\ndeep in the vast depths of space as to be immeasurably beyond the\npower of the human eye, even through telescopes hundreds of times more\npowerful than the largest instruments that science has enabled us to\nconstruct; and yet here is laid before us a faithful chart, by means\nof which we may once more continue our journey through space. A short\nexposure will show us firmaments and nebulae just outside the range of\nour greatest telescopes, and every additional second extends our\nvision by such vast increases of distances that the brain reels at the\nthought; and yet, as we have seen, exposures of these sensitive plates\nmay be, and have been, made not only for seconds, but for thousands\nand even hundreds of thousands of seconds! And still there is no end,\nno end where the weary mind can rest and contemplate; the finite mind\nof man can only cry out that there is no limit. In spite of all its\nstrivings and groping by aid of speculative philosophy, the finite\ncannot attain to the Infinite, nor get any nearer to where the mighty\nsea of time breaks in noiseless waves on the dim shore of eternity.\n\nIn this journey through space we have apparently exhausted our power\nof conception of the _extension_ of this View. Although we have\ntravelled in one direction only, our flight was applicable to every\npossible known direction _outwards_ into the vast abyss of Infinite\nspace. But there is another path, by which we can also travel with\nprofit to our understanding of this subject, running in the opposite\ndirection--namely, _inwards_. Just as the outward journey seemed to\ntake us towards the appreciation of what our finite senses call the\ninfinitely great, so does this other path appear to intend to\ninfinity, in the opposite direction, leading us to appreciate what is\ncalled the infinitely small. We have already considered this direction\nin View One, under the heading of \"Relativity,\" and by combining these\ntwo experiences, we may see still more clearly that our very\nconception of Space is one of the modes only under which motion or\nphysical phenomena are presented to our consciousness.\n\n\n\n\nVIEW SEVEN\n\nTIME\n\n\nIn the last View I referred to the mysteries of Time and Space as\ntwin-sisters; they have, as we saw, many aspects in common, and are\nthe two modes or conditions under which all our senses act and by\nwhich our thoughts are limited. We arbitrarily divide each of these\ntwo mysteries into two parts, which parts are separated from each\nother, in either case, by a point which has, apparently, as its\ncentre, our very consciousness of living. In the case of Space we call\nthis point the HERE, and on one side of it, as we saw in our last\nView, we have extension towards the infinitely great, and, on the\nother, intension towards the infinitely small. In the case of Time we\ncall the middle point the NOW, and on one side of this we place the\nduration of Time towards the future, and, on the other, we place what\nwe call the duration of Time towards the past. In the case of Space we\nhave the here and the _overthere_, equivalent in Time to the present\nand the _future_, but, though Time and Space are, as it were,\ntwin-sisters, upon whose combined action depends our very\nconsciousness of living, we do not treat them both equally.\n\nIt is a remarkable fact that the human race on this particular world\nhas, in some inexplicable way, come to look upon the future as\nnon-existent until we arrive at, and are able to perceive, with our\nsenses, what is happening there; this is all the more inexplicable\nwhen we realise that in traversing Space we certainly have to _move_\nto get anywhere, but in traversing Time we have nothing equivalent to\nmovement. This curious way of looking upon the future as non-existent,\nmay be another sign that our race is still in its infancy, but is more\nprobably caused by human beings having always hitherto looked upon\nTime not only as a reality but as actually moving or extending along a\nline from past to future eternity; whereas, under our present outlook,\nwe have no consciousness of the existence of Time except by intervals\nbetween successive thoughts; our consciousness of the very existence\nof Time is based upon our Physical Ego repeating the _present_, by\nsaying to itself the words, Now--Now--Now; but there is nothing that\ncan be called movement in this, any more than if you are standing\nstill and saying, Here--Here--Here--relating to Space. Time is, as it\nwere, \"marking time,\" and as the present in time is common to all\nspace, Time is \"marking time\" everywhere, and the Now therefore\nincludes the whole of the past and the whole of future eternity\neverywhere. We shall get a clearer understanding of this later on;\nmeanwhile, we are face to face with the fact that we look upon the\nfuture as non-existent.\n\nThis curious state of things is probably only accidental to the\npresent stage of development of the human mind, and may, at any time,\nbe rectified by perhaps either a slight rearrangement of that slender\nnetwork of nerves upon which depends our faculty of thinking, or the\njoining together of a few microscopical filaments attached to the\ncells in the grey cortical layer, or even a single bridge thrown\nacross from one convolution to another of the brain; a very slight\nalteration would open up to our consciousness the present existence of\nthe future. The prime perceivable difference between our brains and\nthose of the Apes and lower animals is the larger number of\nenfoldments, or convolutions, that are developed by the Human. Each\nnew line of thought, or sequence of thoughts, requires, and is\nprovided with, a new wrinkle or small convolution, and it probably\nonly requires the attention of the human race to be fixed, for a time,\non the consideration of this subject, to evolve the slight alteration,\nor bridge, necessary to enable us to see that the future, as also the\npast, does actually exist and is included in the Now. It may make this\na little clearer to consider that if you maintain that, in traversing\nthe duration of time, the future does not exist until you arrive\nthere, you should also in fairness insist that, in travelling through\nthe extension of Space, your destination, say Rome, does not exist\nuntil you get there and can see it with your senses.\n\nAs we have, in the former six Views, been gradually mounting above the\nmists and illusions of our everyday thoughts, and can look through our\nWindow with, I hope, a clearer vision, I shall venture in this present\nView to carry the subject of the _Future_ still further, and show\nthat, just as we have now before us and can read the papyri which were\nwritten 5000 years ago, so it is possible to conceive that books,\nwritten and being written and printed 5000 years hence, are _at\npresent_ in existence, and that it is even possible the human race has\nactually already read them; whether we shall be able to see them and\nread them in our own lifetime may be open to question; that may again\ndepend upon the development of special cross-circuiting of brain\nfilaments. Meanwhile, in order to carry our present View to the utmost\nlimit of our conception, in a manner somewhat similar to what we did\nfor Space, I will again ask you to join me in a thought-flight\ntowards the appreciation of this second great Mystery.\n\nWith this object in view we will first consider the human senses of\nsight and hearing, commencing with sound, or the vibrations which\naffect the tympanum of the human ear. Sound travels in air at about\n1130 feet per second, and if the vibrating body, giving out the sound,\noscillates sixteen times in one second, it follows that, spreading\nover this 1130 feet, there will be sixteen waves, giving a length of\nabout 70 feet to each wave. This is the lowest sound that the human\near can appreciate as a musical note, and is, what may be called, the\nfourth Octave above one vibration in one second. When the number of\nvibrations in a second sinks below sixteen, the ear no longer\nappreciates them as a musical sound, but is able to hear them as\nseparate vibrations or beats. The easiest way of illustrating this is\nby means of a revolving disc, with sixteen holes pierced at regular\nintervals round the edge, and a jet of high-pressure air, which is\nforced through each of the holes successively as they revolve. When\nthe disc does not quite complete one revolution in a second, only\nfifteen puffs come to the ear in a second of time, and they are heard\nas puffs; but when the rate reaches one revolution in a second, the\nsound, as if by magic, changes into the lowest musical sound. The same\nresult may be obtained in a more pronounced form by means of\nexplosions or pistol shots; when these are slow and heard separately,\nthey are painful and almost unbearable to the ear, but, as soon as\ntheir rapidity, namely, at sixteen per second, gets beyond the power\nof the ear to differentiate between the explosions, the impression, as\nif by magic, changes into a continuous or musical sound, like a\nthirty-foot pipe note of an organ.\n\nTo go back to our disc. The octave above this lowest musical note is\nobtained by doubling the rate of puffs, namely, by revolving the disc\ntwice in one second, and the next octave by revolving four times in a\nsecond, and so on, doubling each time, until, at about the thirteenth\noctave, the sound has become so high that the majority of listeners\ncannot hear it, and fancy it must have stopped, whereas a few will\nstill be saying: \"How shrill it is!\" At last, at about the fourteenth\noctave, when there are 20,000 beats to the second and each wave is\nabout half an inch long, it passes beyond human audition, and,\nalthough we can show that the air is still vibrating, all is silent,\nthe human ear being incapable of hearing so many beats in a second\neven as a continuous sound, though I have evidence to show that many\ninsects can hear probably considerably beyond this limit. It is,\nhowever, possible to make these higher vibrations perceptible to our\nsenses by means of what are called sensitive flames: we can actually,\nby these, measure the length of these silent waves, and as we know the\nrate at which they travel, we can at once compute the number which\noccur in a second of time, and thus ascertain their pitch. By this\nmeans we can follow for about three more octaves above the audible\nlimit, namely, up to 160,000 pulsations per second, with a length of\nwave of one-twelfth of an inch.\n\nTwo and a half octaves above these numerically, _i.e._ at about the\ntwentieth octave, we reach the frequency of Electro-Magnetic Rills,\nused by the Marconi System of wireless telegraphy, which pulsate at\nabout 950,000 per second, and have a wave-length of something like\n1000 feet. The reason for this great increase in length of wave is\ncaused by these frequencies being propagated in the Ether at the rate\nof 186,000 miles per second, instead of, as with sound waves, in the\nair, at only 1130 feet per second. We can trace these particular\nfrequencies, called, after their discoverer, Hertzian waves, for about\nfifteen octaves, when we arrive at the frequency of 32,000,000,000 in\na second, with a wave-length decreased to a quarter of an inch; we\ncan render the effect of these waves visible, but have no physical\norgan by which we can feel these pulsations. After this, however, we\nget into the region of frequencies which, though still of exactly the\nsame kind, we know and can feel as Radiant heat; these are situated in\nthe next fourteen octaves, and bring us up to those subtle frequencies\nwhich affect another of our sense organs, and which we appreciate as\nlight; these we have already seen have the enormous frequency of\n530,000,000,000,000 pulsations per second for red light, up to\n930,000,000,000,000 per second for violet, and having wave-lengths so\nsmall that it takes 40,000 and 70,000 of them respectively to cover\none inch in length. There is only a little over half an octave that\nthe eye can appreciate as light, and then all is darkness; but we can\nstill go on further by the help of Science: beyond the violet we have\nthe actinic or chemical rays, which are used in photography, and which\nenable us to trace the frequencies for a further two octaves. Beyond\nthis we cannot pierce with our present knowledge; but there may be,\nand probably are, latent in our nature, senses which, properly\ndeveloped, will be able to appreciate still more subtle vibrations,\nand organs which, perhaps, even now are being prepared for the\nreception of these influences.\n\nWe have no organs yet developed for receiving and appreciating what\nare called Wireless waves, but we have already been able to devise\nphysical Receivers, of wonderful sensitiveness, for them and other\nwaves of the same nature, such as those of Radiant heat. In the case\nof Radiant heat, the Bolometer invented by Professor Langley has been\nable to receive and record a change of temperature of the one\nmillionth of a degree Centigrade, and can easily make visible the heat\nof a candle at a distance of one and a half miles. In wireless\ntelegraphy also the Receiver, perfected by Marconi, is affected by\nrills, made by a splash of electric discharge, over 3000 miles away.\nIf our eyes were sensitive to these frequencies, both of which are\ncomposed, as is also light, of electro-magnetic rills, we could see\nanything that was happening anywhere in the world, for they go through\nmatter as though it did not exist, as light passes through glass;\nindeed, if our region of Sight waves was only put an octave lower we\ncould not use glass in our windows, it would be too opaque, we should\nbe obliged to have our windows made of thin slabs of carbon or other\nsubstances permeable to Radiant heat waves. Science indeed steadily\npoints to electricity and magnetism being a form of motion, and it may\nbe that in these invisible rays we may some day discover the nature\nof those mysterious forces; and, even far beyond those, as suggested\nin View Four, we may in the not far distant future be able to\nappreciate Physical Life itself as a mode of frequency.\n\nWe want, as it were, a special \"Time Microscope,\" which I have already\nreferred to, to examine these vibrations, and a method similar to that\nalready mentioned in \"Space,\" under Celestial Photography, by which we\nmay traverse and examine hundreds or thousands of octaves by each\nsecond of exposure; for, although the path extends to infinity, we\nhave already arrived at the utmost limits of our finite senses, and\nfind that after all we can only appreciate fifty-one octaves, a few\ninches only, as it were, along the line of Infinite extent, reaching\nfrom the finite up to the Reality; and even so it must be borne in\nmind that we have only travelled in one direction, whereas the path we\nhave taken extends in the opposite direction also to infinity. We\nstarted with sixteen vibrations in a second, as the lowest number of\nbeats we human beings can appreciate as a musical sound; let us now\ndescend by octaves. The octave below is eight vibrations in a second,\nand there are probably many animals that can only hear these as a\nmusical sound; the next octave is four, then two, and then one\nvibration in a second. But we do not stop there; the octave below\nthis is one vibration in two seconds, then in four seconds, eight\nseconds, sixteen seconds, and so on, until it is possible to conceive\nthat even one frequency in a million years might be appreciated as a\nmusical sound, or even as one of the colours of the spectrum, by a\nbeing whose time sensations were enormously extended in both\ndirections, but still finite.\n\nOnce more we must call a halt. Our finite minds become bewildered in\nattempting even to glance at these infinities of time.\n\nWe measure space by miles, yards, feet, and inches; we measure time by\nyears, hours, minutes, and seconds; and by these finite units we try\nto fathom these two marvellous infinities. With our greatest efforts\nof thought we find, however, that we can get relatively no distance\nwhatever from the HERE of Space and the NOW of Time. It is true that\nthe present, as a mathematical point, appears to be hurrying and\nbearing us with it along the line stretching from the past to future\neternity, but in reality we get no further from the one nor nearer to\nthe other. Let us change our view and examine this subject under a\ndifferent aspect.\n\nFirst of all, look round a room and note the different objects to be\nseen. Even in a small room we do not see the objects as they really\n_are_ at this instant, but only as they _were_ at a certain fixed\nlength of time ago. The present time is common to every point in space\nand each person is in the present, but only to his own perception; to\neveryone else in the room, each individual is, at this moment, being\nseen acting in the past; those objects which are further away are\nbeing seen further behind in point of time than those that are nearer;\nin fact, however near we are to an object, we can never see it as it\nis but only as it was. We are dealing with very minute differences\nhere, they being based upon the rate at which light travels; but they\nare differences which are known with a wonderful degree of accuracy.\n\nWe have here another example of how perception without knowledge leads\nto false concepts. When anyone views an extended landscape, he thinks\nthat his sight shows him that the same point of Time, which he is\nexperiencing, is common to every man, animal, plant, or material\nvisible there, but we know now that he is seeing every part of that\nscene in the past compared with himself. Just as all objects therein\nare situated at separate distinct points of space, so to our vision\nthe objects of that scene are acting or existing in different epochs\nof time. An Artist gives us on a flat surface a picture of that\nlandscape, and his representations of all objects in that scene\nappear therefore to us as being in the same moment of Time, but to get\nthat effect he has to draw objects at a distance smaller than those\nclose at hand; a fly in the foreground has to be drawn larger than a\nhorse supposed to be in the distance, though both are on the same flat\nsurface; they have the same parallax and are therefore the same\ndistance from the observer, and as this produces a similar image on\nour retina, we accept it though we know it is only a make-believe; it\nserves its purpose by giving us an impression on our retina which we\nhave learnt to interpret as representing that landscape, but such a\npicture would indeed be a marvel of absurdity to a being who had\nperfect sight, such as we have already referred to, and who could\nappreciate parallel rays; in such a vision there would be no\nperspective, no vanishing point in perception.\n\nNow let us take a wider landscape. The Moon is 240,000 miles distant.\nWe do not, therefore, ever see her as she is but as she was 1-1/4\nseconds ago. In the same way we see the Sun as he was eight minutes\nago, and we see Jupiter as he was nearly an hour ago. Let us look\nstill further to one of the nearest fixed stars. We at this moment\nonly see that star as it was more than ten years ago; that star may\ntherefore have exploded or disappeared ten long years ago, and yet we\nstill see it shining, and shall continue to see it _there_ until the\nlong line of light has run itself out; all around us, in fact, we see\nthe appearance of blazing suns not as they are now but as they were\nthousands of years ago, and, by the aid of the telescope and of our\nsensitive plate, we are only now recording the light which started\nfrom clusters and firmaments probably millions of years ago.\n\nNow let us take the converse of this. To anybody on the moon at this\nmoment the earth would be seen from there not as it is, but as it was\n1-1/4 seconds ago, and from the sun as it was eight minutes ago, and\nif we were in Jupiter, and were looking back, we should, at this\nparticular moment, be viewing what was happening on this earth, and\nseeing what each of us was doing an hour ago. Now let us go in\nimagination to one of the nearest fixed stars, and looking back we\nshould see what was happening ten years ago; going still further to a\nfar-off cluster, the light would only just now be arriving there,\nwhich started from the earth at the time when man first appeared; or\nwe might go to so remote a distance that the scene of the formation of\nthe Solar System would be only now arriving there, and all the events\nwhich have taken place from that remote time to the present would, as\ntime rolled on, reach there in exactly the same succession as they\nhave happened on this earth; and remember that we should be looking,\nfrom that great distance, at all these past events with the same\nintuitional advantage as though we were actually present here in time,\nfor however near we are to an object, we never see it as it is but\nonly as it was in the past.\n\nLet us but turn to any point of space and we shall find at each point,\naccording to its remoteness, the actual scenes of the past being\nenacted, in fact it may be said that throughout infinite space every\nevent in past eternity is now indelibly recorded.\n\nA murder committed hundreds of years ago, in a country house, may\nnever have been found out, the criminal and his victim have alike\nturned to dust, the blood has been washed from the floor, the very\nhouse and its surroundings have crumbled and disappeared, and in their\nplace a waving corn field is all that can be seen, but at this very\nmoment if we were at a certain point in space, we should now be\nwitnessing there, the whole actual living scene from beginning to end,\nas though we were present _here_ hundreds of years ago: the murderer\nstanding over his victim, the knife driven in and the blood gushing\nout. If we went further away we should at this same moment be seeing\nthe criminal just arriving and knocking at the door of that house,\nthen going upstairs into the room, and the same terrible scene with\nall its minutiae would again be enacted. From a point still further\nremoved, we should now see him, say, having lunch at a country inn\nsome miles away, concocting his villainy, then he would be seen\nwalking across the fields towards the house, again knocking at the\ndoor, mounting the staircase, and once more would that murderous scene\nbe enacted before our eyes, and so on for ever; the scene, with the\nhouse and its surroundings, have indeed been completely swept away\nfrom the present _here_, but the whole tragedy will always be acting\nin the future _there_ in the presence of the Reality.\n\nLet us now come, in imagination, towards the earth, from some far-off\ncluster of stars. If we traverse the distance in one year, the whole\nof the events from the formation of this world would appear before us,\nonly thousands of times quicker. Make the journey in a month, a day,\nan hour, a second, or a moment of time, and all past events, from the\ngrandest to the most trivial, would be acted in an infinitesimal\nportion of time.\n\nWhen we have fully grasped this we recognise that Omniscience is\nsynonymous with Omnipresence, and some may find, in this thought, a\nglimpse of that Great Book wherein are said to be registered every\nthought, word, and deed, which, in the direction of the Reality, has\nhelped to nourish, or, in the direction of the shadow, has tended to\nstarve the personality of each one of us; for we know that every word\nwe utter, or that has been uttered from the beginning of the world,\nand every motion of our brain connected with thought is indelibly\nimprinted upon every atom of matter. If our sense of perception were\ngreatly increased we need not go to Palestine to see on the rocks\nthere the impressions of the image of Christ and His disciples, or of\nthe words they uttered as they passed by, but any stone by the wayside\n_here_ would show His every action and resound with every word He\nuttered. In fact, every particle of matter on this earth is a witness\nto that which has happened, every point in space and every moment of\ntime contains the history of the past in the smallest minutiae. The\n_Here_, embracing all space, and the _Now_, embracing all time, are\nthe only realities to the Omniscient.\n\nLet us once more change the scene and we may grasp even more clearly\nthat Time and Space are not realities but are only modes or conditions\nunder which our material senses act. A tune may be played either a\nthousand times slower or a thousand times quicker, but it still\nremains the same tune, it contains the same sequence of notes and\nproportion in time, the only characteristics by which we recognise a\ntune. And so in the same way with our sense of sight, an event may be\ndrawn out to a thousand times its length or acted a thousand times\nquicker, it is still the same scene. An insect vibrates its wings\nseveral thousands of times in a second and must be cognisant of each\nbeat, whereas we have seen that we, with our Senses of Sight and\nHearing, can only appreciate respectively at the most seven and\nsixteen vibrations in a second as separate beats. That insect must\ntherefore be able to follow a flash of lightning under the conditions\nof a Time microscope magnifying a thousand times compared with our\nvision. The whole life of some of these insects extends over a few\nhours only, but owing to their quick unit of perception it is to them\nas full of detail as our life of seventy years; but to them there is\nno day and night, the Sun is always stationary in the Heavens, they\ncan have no cognisance of Seasons.\n\nI have already referred in View One to the curious results of\nincreasing our unit of perception by a Time Microscope, and I will now\ncarry the investigation of this subject a step further.\n\nAs conceptional knowledge is based on perceptional knowledge, and we\ncan only perceive about six times per second, and as the principal\nforms of knowledge are gained through the eye, we are conceiving\nprogress in phenomena under a very restricted outlook; we cannot\nrecognise such slow motions as, for instance, the hour-hand of a\nwatch, the growth of a tree, or rise of the tide, except by noting the\nchange that has occurred after a long interval; there is therefore a\nwhole world of events which we cannot see. Owing to this limit, in our\nunit of time perception, we also cannot perceive events which are\ntaking place beyond a certain quickness, they become blurred and give\nthe impression of continuity, and constitute another world of events\nlost to us. For the same reason there is a whole world of sensation\nlost to us by our limited unit of sound perception; we cannot follow\nseparate sound-events if they occur quicker than sixteen in a second,\nbeyond that they become blurred and give the impression of continuity.\nIf, on the other hand, our units of perception were increased a\nthousandfold, as is probably the case with some insects, our conscious\nlives would contain a thousand more events than they do at present,\nand, as the consciousness of length of life is dependent upon the\nnumber of events that have been perceived, we should under these\nconditions have passed on this earth a life equivalent to, say, 70,000\nyears under our present restricted unit; every second of that long\nperiod would have been as full of events for us as is a second in our\npresent life of seventy years. If, on the other hand, our unit of\nperception were decreased a thousandfold, our length of life, based\nupon perception of events, would be no longer than 25-1/2 of our\npresent days; if our life were actually reduced to that period (so as\nto regain our present units of perception) we should be old and\ngrey-headed before the sun had risen for the twenty-fifth time since\nour birth. If our unit of perception, with our length of life, were\nagain reduced a thousandfold, the whole of our life of seventy years\nwould now only be equal to forty-three minutes, and, in the whole of\nthat life, we could only see the sun move ten degrees, namely, twenty\nof its own diameters in the heaven; if we were born, say, at noon on\nmidsummer's day, we could never have any idea of anything but daytime,\nand neither our fathers, nor grandfathers, nor great-grandfathers for\nfifteen generations before them could have seen the sun rise; but\nthere would have been a tradition, handed down from a far distant past\ngeneration, that a long time ago, beyond the memory of man, there was\nno sun at all, everything was pitch dark, and that time was called the\n\"Great Shadow.\" If their records could have gone still further back\nfor the same length of time they would have heard that, before the\n\"Great Shadow,\" the sun was always shining in the heavens, and that\nthat great \"Sun\" day lasted twice as long as the great shadow.\n\nTo understand more clearly this subject of Time perception let me put\nanother aspect before you; we are looking, say, at an insect whose\nwings are beating several thousand times per second, and, with our\nvision limited to six times per second, it would be impossible to\ncount the number of hairs on that wing, or to see which of those hairs\nwere split, or were bent from the straight, but, if we travelled away\nfrom that insect into space at the rate of light, and were looking\nback, the present would then always be with us; the wing, although\nstill vibrating at that enormous rate, would appear to be stationary,\nand so would every other moving thing on the earth, however quick its\nmovement, and everything would continue in that motionless state for a\nmillion years, provided we continued our flight with the rays of\nlight. If we travelled a little slower than light, say one minute less\nin a thousand years, the same scene would be presented to us, but,\nthat which was acted upon this earth during one minute of Time, would\nnow take a thousand years to accomplish; the swiftest railway train\nwould appear standing still, it would take 5-3/4 days and nights to\ncover each inch of ground. It is thus possible to again understand how\nthe flight of a bird or the lightning flash might be examined under\nconditions of time which would lead to the discovery and tracing of\neven the principle of life itself. But let us go one step further and\nincrease our flight beyond the rate at which light travels: scenes\nwould now progress in the opposite direction to that which we are\naccustomed to; men would get out of bed and dress themselves at night\nand go to bed in the morning; old men would grow young again; tall\ntrees would grow backwards and enter the earth, embedding themselves\nin the seed, and the seed would rise upwards to the branch that\nnourished it; the blood would turn into chyle, into food in the\nstomach, into the piece of meat, which would be transferred from the\nmouth to the plate, and would then be cut on to the joint, the joint\nwould go down to the kitchen and be uncooked, would be carried to the\nbutcher to be cut on to the carcase, and the animal would come to life\nand go out into the fields. Human bodies would be formed in the ground\nfrom the dust of the Earth, passing through what we call corruption to\nincorruption, the dead would be taken from their graves, brought back\nto their homes and put to bed; the Doctor would arrive, a miracle\nwould happen, the patient would come to life; though this would hardly\nbe a feather in the cap of the Doctor, as it would be seen that the\nmedicine came out from the mouth of the patient, would be put into\nbottles to be thrown away, and it would be the Doctor who had to pay\nthe Fee, and the bigger the Doctor the bigger the Fee he would have to\npay. The future would in fact change places with the past, the effect\nwould give birth to the cause as presented to our finite senses, and,\nthough it is difficult to realise, it is indeed just as true, or\nuntrue, that we come into this world through the grave, instead of in\nthe way we are accustomed to, because to the Reality there is no\nchange, the Here and the Now comprising all beginnings and ends, all\ncauses and effects.\n\nIn this flight on the wings of light we did not in reality depart in\nthe least from the Here, because there is no such thing as space, it\nis all included in a mathematical point, the Here; and as the whole of\ntime is included in the Now, the Future, however remote with all\nevents therein, is existent in the present; the writers of books 5000\nyears hence are therefore writing them now, and the Human Race has\nread and is reading them _now_; we have always hitherto maintained\nthat these things are only \"going to happen\" 5000 years hence, but in\nreality all events in the future are events in the same Now in which\nwe are living at the present moment, and, as it is just as true, that\ntime is flowing from the Future to the Present and on to the Past, as\nin the contrary direction (of our present outlook), so it is quite\nconceivable that we may some day, in the not far distant future, not\nonly realise that the future exists already, but that we may even be\nable to handle and read the books written 5000 years hence, in a\nsimilar manner to that which enables us now to handle and read those\nwhich were written 5000 years ago.\n\n\n\n\nVIEW EIGHT\n\nCREATION\n\n\nIn our first View we saw the necessity of clearing away the weeds, the\nmoss, and the lichen from the stem of our Real Personality before that\nTranscendental Self could send forth fresh buds for the advancement of\n_conscious_ thought to higher levels; we found that the first step\ntowards this clearing the approach to our window, was to recognise\nthat a knowledge of the Truth was to be gained by the use of\n\"Introspection\" rather than by Intellectualism--to realise, in fact,\nthat it is not we, with our intellects, who are looking out upon\nNature, but that it is the Absolute looking into us and ever trying to\nteach us divine truths concerning the \"Reality of Being.\" We saw that\nthe phenomena, which our senses would have us believe to be the\nreality or solidity of our material surroundings, are illusions\ncreated by the fact that those senses are limited in their perception\nto that which is conditioned in Time and Space, necessitating _motion_\nas the basis of our perceptions, and that, when the rate of motion\nexceeds our units of perception, we have the impression of continuity\nof events, which we accept as the objective existence of matter; we\nalso saw that the duration of Time and extension of Space had no\nexistence for us apart from those senses, our very consciousness of\nthese two non-realities depending upon \"relativity\"--they could, in\nfact, be increased or diminished indefinitely, without our knowing\nthat any change had been made.\n\nIn our second View I attempted to take another step forward by showing\nhow, by means of this \"Introspection,\" it was even possible to\nunderstand that these two limitations might be eliminated from\nconsciousness; we then realised that the whole Physical Universe is\nbut a thin film, set up by our finite Senses, between our\nConsciousness and the \"Reality of Being\"; we saw that this could only\nbe understood when, by the Mystical Sense, we realised that physical\nphenomena were but symbols or shadows of the Reality or Noumenon\nunderlying them.\n\nIn our next View I gave an example of the use of Mystical and\nSymbolical thought, leading, in the fourth View, to the subject of\nEverlasting Life and the Efficacy of Prayer, wherein I tried to show\nthat by examining the phenomena of Nature, as depicted on the Physical\nFilm, it is possible to reach a point where we may even feel that we\nare actually listening to, or having divulged to us, the very thoughts\nof the Absolute. This led to the next View, where we examined the\nPhysical Film itself, and this we analysed in the next two Views into\nthose component parts, by means of which this Film presents to our\nsenses the impression of the whole Physical Universe as an objective\nreality.\n\nWe have seen that it is the Invisible which is the Real, that the\nvisible is only its shadow; that the Invisible, as distinguished from\nthe Visible, is not in a place apart from the Physical, but is the\nReality of which the visible constitutes the boundary lines or planes\nin our consciousness, as lines and planes are the visible boundaries\nof solids. The Kingdom of Heaven is not a locality but a _state_ of\nDivine \"loving and knowing communion\"; it is within us in the sense\nthat we are interior and not exterior entities of the \"Reality of\nBeing.\"\n\nWe have now arrived at a point where we can better realise that the\nAbsolute cannot be localised or bounded by space, and must be\nOmnipresent--cannot be conditioned in Time, and must therefore be\nOmniscient--the Here comprising all Space, and the Now all Time in the\n\"Reality of Being.\"\n\nWith these conclusions before us I will ask you to form a new\nconception of Creation. All creation around us is the materialisation\nof the Thought of the Deity. He does not require time to think as we\ndo--the whole of the Universe is therefore one instantaneous Thought\nof the Great Reality; the forming of this world and its destruction,\nthe appearance of man, the birth and death of each one of us are\nabsolutely at the same instant; it is only our finite minds which\nnecessitate drawing this Thought out into a long line, and our want of\nknowledge and inability to grasp the whole, which force us to conceive\nthat one event happened before or after another. In our finite way we\nexamine and strive to understand this wondrous Thought, and at last, a\nDarwin, after a life spent in accumulating facts on this little\nisolated spot of the Universe, discovers what appears to be a law of\nsequence, and calls it the evolution theory; but this is probably only\none of countless other modes by which the _intent_ of that Thought is\nworking towards completion, the apparent direction of certain lines on\nthat great tracing board of the Creator, whereon is depicted the whole\nplan of His work.\n\nLet me give a simple example of Creation by a \"word,\" which even our\nfinite minds can grasp. When I utter the word _Cat_, it starts a\npractically instantaneous thought in your minds, the power of that\nthought being dependent upon the knowledge you have gained. If you\nanalyse it you will find that, though practically instantaneous, it\ncomprises all the sensations you have ever felt on that subject\nthroughout your life. It commenced, perhaps, when you were only a year\nold, and, sitting on your mother's knee, your hand was made to stroke\na kitten, and you felt it was soft and it gave you pleasure. Later on,\nwhen you were older, you had it in your arms, and you felt the first\nintimation of that wonderful \"[Greek: storge],\" which manifests itself\nin most children in their love for dolls; you found it delightful to\ncuddle and that it purred. Later on, you found that it played with a\nreel of cotton, and that it could scratch, make horrid noises, and\ncountless other things, which not only make up the life of a cat, but\nconnect it with the world around us. All these thousand and one facts\nare now drawn out, by analysis in Time and Space, into a long line,\nand are placed one in front of the other; but the thought started by\nthe word Cat was a fair example of an instantaneous creation.\n\nOne other example of an instantaneous thought. Let us suppose a large\nroom fitted with, say, a hundred thousand volumes, comprising all the\nknowledge gained by every Specialist in every Science concerning the\nplan of Creation. In our finite minds, under the limits of Time and\nSpace, the word representing the contents of that library would start,\nwhen uttered, an instantaneous thought analogous to that of our last\nexample, according to the knowledge that each individual had already\nacquired of the contents of those books; but this knowledge had only\nbeen gained by taking down each volume separately and reading one book\nat a time, beginning at the beginning and taking each page and each\nword in succession, and a lifetime would not suffice to enable us to\nread them all; whereas, if our knowledge were _complete_, the word\nrepresenting the contents of that room would start an instantaneous\nthought, comprising not only every book, but every chapter, page,\nword, letter, and punctuation contained in that library, or in one\nwhich comprised all knowledge from the beginning to the end of Time.\n\nIt is a well-known fact that at the approach of death, when the\nperceptive senses are completely, or almost completely, in abeyance,\nas in the \"self-forgetting\" referred to in \"The Vision,\" the duration\nof Time appears to have no reality; in numerous cases of drowning,\nwhere the person has been no more than one or two minutes under water,\nthe whole of a long life, with every forgotten trivial occurrence and\nthe multitude of thoughts attached thereto, have been brought vividly\nbefore the mind, as it were, instantaneously; those also who have been\nput under nitrous-oxide gas, though the life of the body is not\naffected, know how, with departure of sense perception, the sense of\nTime is completely annihilated. I have myself experimented under such\nconditions, and attempted to realise the duration of time by counting\nsteadily, one, two, three, four, &c., and had no knowledge whatever\nthat between, say, \"four\" and \"five\" there was a complete hiatus of\nseveral minutes when, for me, time had vanished; I was still counting\nsteadily when the anaesthetic had passed away, and it was quite\nimpossible to realise that such time had elapsed, as I had not reached\nmore than the twelfth count, whereas, according to the time expired, I\nshould have reached the fiftieth or sixtieth. A number of examples of\nwhat may be called instantaneous thoughts created in the mind of a\nsleeper have been collected, and many of us have had similar\nexperiences. I give one as an example: \"Maury was ill in bed and\ndreamed of the French Revolution. Bloody scenes passed before him. He\nheld long conversations with Robespierre, Marat, and other monsters of\nthat time, was dragged before the tribunal, was condemned to death,\nand carried through a great crowd of people, bound to a plank. The\nguillotine severed his head from his shoulders. He woke with terror to\nfind that a rail over the bed had got unfastened and had fallen upon\nhis neck like a guillotine, and, as his mother who was sitting by him\ndeclared, at that very moment.\"\n\nIn the above case the whole scene was started instantaneously in his\nbrain, but in waking his mind analysed it in Time and Space and spread\nit out into a long historical record. The opposite process to this,\nnamely, the building up a thought-picture, is what we do every day\nwhen we form and combine our conceptions under the dominion of Time\nand Space, until we have accumulated in our minds a multitude of\nconcepts which form as it were a single subject, somewhat analogous to\na painter when he has completed his picture, a writer his book, an\narchitect his house, or even a mechanic his machine. An interesting\nexample of a musician constructing a thought-picture is given by\nMozart himself:\n\n     \"When I am all right and in good spirits, either in a\n     carriage or walking, and at night when I cannot sleep,\n     thoughts come streaming in and at their best. Whence and how\n     I know not, I cannot make out. The things which occur to me\n     I keep in my head, and hum them also to myself--at least\n     others have told me so. If I stick to it, there soon come,\n     one after another, useful crumbs for the pie, according to\n     counterpoint, harmony of the different instruments, &c. This\n     now inflames my soul, that is if I am not disturbed. Then it\n     keeps on growing, and I keep on expanding it more distinctly,\n     and the thing, however long it be, becomes indeed almost\n     finished in my head, so that I can always survey it in spirit\n     like a beautiful picture or a fine person, and also hear in\n     imagination, not indeed successively, as by and by it must\n     come out, but all together. That is a delight! All the\n     invention and construction go on in me as in a fine strong\n     dream, but the overhearing it all at once is still the best.\"\n\nWith these illustrations before us may we not carry the analogy even\nfurther, and see that, as our conception of a Cat was made up of\nnumberless small acquisitions of knowledge, some of which had to be\ndiscarded, or eliminated as errors, from our minds as our knowledge\ngrew, and as each true fact became confirmed and impressed upon our\nbrain it made itself a _permanent_ record and became a centre to be\nused for gaining further knowledge; so in this wonderful Thought of\nthe Great Reality, whose mind may be said to be omnipresent, each\nindividual soul is a working unit in the plan of Creation; each unit\nas it gains a knowledge of the Will of the Deity forms for itself a\n_personality_ helping forward the work towards its fulfilment;\nwithout that knowledge there can be no personality, no unit in the\ngreat completed thought, no life hereafter.\n\nThe True Life is fulfilled by him who has progressed so far in the\nknowledge of the Divine as to realise that he is the offspring of the\nAbsolute, and therefore stands face to face with his Transcendental\nPersonality, his [Greek: Christos], of which the Physical Ego is only\nthe outline or boundary form visible in the physical universe. Each\nindividual has free will to define his own boundaries, his own\nlimitations; he builds up the walls of the house in which he lives,\nand he has power to brick up or open out the windows through which he\nmay see the Truth; happy are those whose windows are open, but many,\nalas, choose to make the wall opaque by confining their attention to\nthe physical shadows, or by strangling their spiritual intuition and\npreventing all advance in thought by blind subservience to obsolete\ndogmas.\n\nWe are instruments of Divine purpose in the scheme of Creation. Each\nindividual Physical Ego seems to be a Micro-Cosmos, imaging the\nUniverse, the Macro-Cosmos. As the phagocytes, the policemen of the\nblood, flock to a breach in the human body to overcome any invasion of\nthe enemy, whether poisons or bacteria, which would otherwise detract\nfrom that progress of cell formation upon which the scheme of human\nlife depends, so do the true lovers of the Divine meet, by active\nresistance, any attempt of the enemies of the Good, Beautiful and True\nto retard the advancement of the scheme of Creation to its ultimate\ngoal of perfection. The human body is composed of innumerable cells\nand several special colonies of cells, which we call organs, each of\nwhich has its special work to do, and secretes and discharges special\nfluids necessary for the welfare of the whole body. All of these cells\nare alive, and myriads of them are moving on their own account,\napparently quite independent of, and in complete ignorance of, the\nfeeling and perception of the whole body; they are, however,\nmicroscopical units of that body, and its welfare depends upon their\ncontribution of work; it is, in fact, only through their ceaseless\nactivities that the life in that body is maintained--a phenomenon\nanalogous to that described in the simile of a Forest Tree in View\nFour. So are we integral parts of the scheme of Creation, and each\nact, either in accordance with the Divine purpose or the reverse, is\nhelping forward or retarding the completion of that Thought, though\nlike the cells we are ignorant of the end which Creation has in view.\n\nIn this life we seem indeed to be only, as it were, in embryo! The\nstudy of embryology has lately shown us clearly how the clothing of\nour Physical Ego has been formed, during the past millions of years,\nfrom the lowest forms of life. Each one of us has, during what may be\ncalled his lifetime, gone through all the different stages of\nevolutionary development which, since the beginning of life on this\nplanet, have been employed to build up the human body in its present\nform. Embryology has shown us that, during gestation, each human\nembryo is a _replica_ of the past; it passes through the different\nImago stages from protoplasm to man, being unrecognisable at certain\nstages from a monad, an amoeba, a fish with gills, a lizard, and a\nmonkey with a tail and dense clothing of hair over the whole body. The\nhuman embryo has also, at an early stage, the thirteenth pair of ribs,\nwhich is found in lower animals and is still seen in a rudimentary\nform in anthropoid apes, but which disappears from the human embryo\nbefore birth. Each generation, under evolutionary development, will\nwitness a further advancement in the clothing of the Physical Ego,\nuntil it may be conceived that a hundred thousand years hence our\npresent stage of development will be seen only as one of the stages\nthrough which the embryo has to pass before birth at that distant\ntime. May we not even glimpse at the future to which evolution is\ncarrying us? For in any of these stages we see organs forming whose\nuse only comes into play long after that stage has been passed; so\nalso, in the new rudimentary forms of thought which are started by\nevery fresh discovery may we not some day be able to descry the\nheights which we are destined to attain if we earnestly seek after\nTruth?\n\nRadio-Activity has shown us that all forms of matter are but different\ncombinations of one primal brick; by synthesis thousands of new forms\nof matter, unknown in Nature, are actually now being built up in our\nlaboratories, and the number of such combinations cannot conceivably\nbe limited; so do we also see that all the known forms of energy in\nnature are interchangeable, one with another, with exactly known\nequivalents and ratios, pointing to their being only different\ncombinations of one unit of energy. If such is the case, it would seem\nto follow that there are countless other forces of which we at present\nhave no cognisance, but which may at any time come within our field of\ninvestigation.\n\nIn our life here we are steadily progressing from the lower to the\nhigher form of being, from the purely Physical towards the\nTranscendental, each generation starting from a higher level; the\nboundary line between the Physical and Transcendental is being\ncontinually advanced towards the latter, and it may well be, as I\nhave already suggested in View IV, that we are even now on the eve of\ndiscovering a new force, or aspect of Creation, which will open a\nwider view and give us a clearer knowledge of the goal which we are\ndestined to reach hereafter.\n\nEach generation will, according to the teaching of Embryology,\ngradually come into the world at a higher stage of development than\nits predecessors, until the last Physical Ego, at its birth, will\ncoincide with the final stage of development, when there will be no\nmore physical clothing, the disintegration of Matter being completed,\nand, it can be pictured that at the final consummation, there will be\nnothing imperfect, no shadow left, that all will be spiritual. The\nobject of Creation would therefore appear to be the population of the\nReal Universe with spiritual entities, until the whole Spiritual\nUniverse will be taken up by Transcendental Personalities, which will\nbe one with the Reality, and the Great Thought completed.\n\nOnce more let us recognise that we are dependent for knowledge of\nsurroundings upon our perception of movements, and that as our\nconceptional knowledge is based on perceptional knowledge, our\nthoughts are limited by Time and Space and can only deal with finite\nsubjects. From this arises all our difficulty of understanding the\nInfinite; we cannot under our present conditions know the whole\nTruth; if we could do that we should be able, as it were, to look all\nround the subject, and Infinity would then be seen to be a\npseudo-conception of our finite thoughts. We can only think of one\nfinite subject at a time, and, at that moment, all other subjects are\ncancelled; we can, in fact, only think in sequences, and, taking the\nparticular Infinities of duration and extension which we have been\nexamining, we can only think of points in Time and Space as existing\nbeyond or before other fixed points, which again must be followed by\nother points. We cannot fix a point in Time or Space so as to exclude\nthe thought of a point beyond; the idea of an Infinite is therefore a\nnecessary result of the limitation of our thoughts. The whole Truth is\nthere before us, but we can only examine it in a form of finite\nsequences. A book contains a complete story, but we can only know that\nstory by taking each word in succession and insisting that one word\ncomes in front of another, and yet the story is lying before us\ncomplete. So with Creation; we are forced to look upon it as a long\nline going back to past eternity, and another long line going on to\nfuture eternity, and, with our limitations, we can only think of all\nevents therein as happening in sequence; but eliminate Time and we\nbecome Omniscient, the whole of Creation would be before us as an\nInstantaneous Thought of God.\n\nAccordingly under the dominion of Time we appear to be in a similar\nposition to that of a being whose senses are limited to\none-dimensional space--namely, to a line; we can only have cognisance\nof what is in front and behind, we have no knowledge of what is to the\nright or left, we appear to be limited to looking lengthwise in Time,\nwhereas an Omniscient and Omnipresent Being looks at Time crosswise\nand sees it as a whole. A small light, when at rest, appears as a\npoint of light, but when we apply quick motion, the product of Time\nand Space, to it, we get the appearance of a line of light, and this\ncontinuous line, formed by motion of a point, is, I think, analogous\nto the Physical Universe appearing to our finite senses as continuous\nin Time duration and Space extension, though really comprised in the\nNow and the Here, the whole of Creation being therefore an\nInstantaneous Thought.\n\nA consideration of our limitation in Space may also be useful to show\nhow impossible it is for us to hope to see by our senses the Reality\nor by our thoughts to know the Spiritual. Our senses and thoughts are\nlimited to a Space of three dimensions, and we can therefore only see\nor know that part of the Absolute which is or can be represented to\nus in three dimensions; a being whose senses were limited to a\nUniverse of one dimension--namely, a _line_, could have no real\nknowledge of another being who was in a Universe of two\ndimensions--namely, a _flat surface_, except so far as the\ntwo-dimensional being could be represented within his line of\nsensation; so also the two-dimensional being, on a _plane_, could have\nno true knowledge of a being like ourselves in a Universe of three\ndimensions. To his thoughts, limited within two dimensions, a being\nlike ourselves would be unthinkable, except so far as our nature could\nbe made manifest on his plane; so can it be seen that we, limited by\nour finite senses to Time and Space, and our consciousness dependent\nupon that limited basis of thought, can only know that aspect of the\nReality which can be manifested within that range of thought--namely,\nas Motion, or what we call physical phenomena.\n\nLet me attempt just one more view before we part, which may make this\nconception of Creation, as an Instantaneous Thought, even clearer to\nour finite senses. Imagine a Spectator endowed with the same sense of\nvision that we have--namely, limited to six units of perception per\nsecond, but able to look on, as it were, from outside the Universe,\nwithout himself being affected by any alteration that takes place in\nwhat may be called the flow of time. Consider some of the changes he\nwould witness if Time were gradually eliminated from phenomena. The\ninhabitants, who at first were seen walking by slow, successive steps,\nwould soon be seen gliding from place to place, the movement of their\nlegs having passed beyond the sense of vision; the next stage would\nsee the inhabitants unrecognisable as human beings when walking,\nalthough they would still be visible if they stood still, they would\nbe moving too fast for sight, they would be seen only as lines or\nbands extended between their points of departure and destination; then\nday and night would be following each other so quickly that soon the\nday would only be a flicker of light, till, when the week became equal\nto one second of the Spectator's time, day and night would disappear\nas separate phenomena; then the week, the month, and the year would in\nturn flicker, solidify, or become continuous, and disappear with all\nthe multitudinous events contained therein; human life would then be\naffected, would flicker, and follow the same course; to the Spectator\nthe birth of each individual would become coincident with his death,\nand Nations would be seen to rise and progress towards their\ndestination without any evidence of individual existence; the Human\nRace itself would next succumb, then the whole of planetary life,\nthen the formation and destruction of Solar Systems, then the\ngathering together and dissemination of firmaments, and, finally, the\nbeginning and end of the very Universe would coincide. Motion, or\nPhysical phenomena, and therefore Matter, would vanish, and the Great\ninstantaneous Thought be complete. We seem to have been able to\nglimpse from our Watch Tower, though through a glass darkly, the whole\nTruth, and to see that the Infinity of Time is a figment of our finite\nsenses and is comprised in the Now. The same treatment, followed by\nthe same result, may be applied to the Infinity of Space, and we again\nsee that all Space is comprised in the Here; it is only by the\nconditions of our existence in this physical universe, _insisting_ on\nour analysing everything in Time and Space that Motion or Change\nbecome the very basis of our Consciousness.\n\nWe have seen that the Idea of Infinity is a necessary result of our\nfinite senses, that the only Reality is the Spiritual, the Here and\nthe Now; that the Riddle of the Universe is not to be solved by the\n_Intellect_ but by that method which is employed by those who are\nearnestly following the \"Quest of the Grail\"--namely, by realising\nthat our True Personality or Transcendental Ego is an emanation from\nthe Absolute; that we are one-with Him, and that it is by following\nthe old Hellenic command \"[Greek: Gnothi seauton]\" (Know\nthyself)--namely, by _Introspection_, that we can hope to attain to\nthe understanding of what is the Reality of Being.\n\n\nFINIS\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes\n\n   Page 27: Braces } on multiple lines represent one large brace\n   encompassing those lines.\n\n   Page 53: Huios or Hyios. The Rule doesn't seem to address the\n   possibility of upsilon coming first in a diphthong: upsilon iota\n   is not common, but \"Hui\" looks more plausible than \"Hyi\".\n\n   Page 176: The word amoeba had an oe ligature in the original book.\n\n   Page 184: Typo Gnothe changed to Gnothi.","title":"Science and the Infinite; or, Through a Window in the Blank Wall","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":43297}