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BOOK III

REVELATIONS OF MIND AND SOUL

I

THE OUTWARD AND INWARD¹

The body of man is a form and as such is transient and changeable; the internal does not change. The true man is inward; that which is outward—his form—is an effect. Mind acts upon body, not body upon mind. The reality is that which is within, and that upon which it acts is visible and mortal, like other appearances. The visible is not the real, and that which is unseen is that also which is eternal. Yet outward searching after truth and inductions drawn from the appearances of external substances have been regarded as the only way to demonstrate tangible realities. So also the external and manifest have been made the test of inward truth. The generality of men are convinced of the reality of things only in proportion as evidence appeals to their senses. Whatsoever is invisible and imperceptible is for them doubtful or visionary. The external tests of truth and reality are, however, invariably deceptive. Reasoning from cause to effect is the one sure guide to truth; and then analogy and association may follow, as carrying direct evidence to the mind of that which is beyond the senses. Cause and reality are within; without are effects and ultimates: prove therefore the visible by the in-

¹ See The Principles of Nature, Part I, being collated extracts.

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The Outward and Inward

visible; and if this should seem at first sight a reversal of the usual process followed in reasoning—which is inductive or upward from effect to cause, rather than from cause to effect downward—its justification will be found where few only might expect it, namely, in a philosophical consideration of ideas. Here above all it may seem that the mind of man is dependent on impressions received from without, but such impressions are occasions only for the generation of activity on the part of that which is within and invisible, being the mind itself. Every thought is an unrestrained production of a mind—acted upon by forms, reflections, sounds, associations and so forth.¹ The cause of all such is invisible. It is not the form, substance, sound or word that produces thought, but the irresistible impression which these produce upon the mind. There is the cause in the first place and, secondly, the effect produced, the thought, idea or ultimate ranking third in the series. Moreover, no physical manifestation is produced unless that which is cause or prompter exists previously; but this is thought. And antecedent to the thought itself

¹ The limitations of thought are recognised, however, on several occasions by Davis. He says, for example, that deeper than thought is the fountain; that in spirit each is like all and all are like unto each; but in thought each is individualised and removed from the other. By means of the inner spirit and the life therein, there is notwithstanding a meeting and melting together of thoughts possible, as between personalities. It is said also that the thoughts of reflective men are from two very different sources: one is spiritual, or from the fountain of principles; the other is sensuous, or from the battle-ground of sensations; and while these are shared by us in common with the brute creation, we are not unerring therein, as the animals themselves are, the reason alleged being that we are constructed for unlimited development. More than half of humanity is dependent for its thoughts on the senses and is therefore in an unrisen state, cherishing no higher hopes or faith. But when a man thinks from the ideas or essential principles of which his higher consciousness is compounded, his thoughts are identified with the impersonal, sublime and eternal. He discerns truth as an absolute, not a relative principle.—The Great Harmonia, Vol. V, pp. 25-27.

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The Harmonial Philosophy

is the mind in which it dwells. Here again is developed the principle established previously—that the visible and external are effects and ultimates of unseen though real producing causes. But if we carry the consideration further and admit that no mind can be individualised without the previous existence of physical organisation, it will follow that such organisation postulates another antecedent, being elementary existence, the matter of the cosmos; and hence arises in its turn the greater and inevitable postulate of a self-existent, unchangeable and sternal Principle—the absolute of things unseen, the Fountain, the Sun, the Great Illuminator, the Positive Mind. Therefore, from whatsoever direction our start is made, we are brought to the touchstone of truth in all things, above or below—that the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are unseen are eternal. And as the mind—but not that which is without it—generates thought or ideas by coming in contact with external exciting causes—of the local and temporal order—in this natural body of our humanity, so is there the Great Mind which in certain states or modes, not local and temporal, comes in contact after another manner with the mind of man and generates impressions therein, thoughts and ideas, whereby the spiritual world flows through our inward being. And those who know this state by personal experience can do no otherwise thence-forward than prove the visible by the invisible, for there is that within them which is a link between the outward and inward.