CHAPTER V.
PHILOSOPHY OF PROGRESSION.
If we wish to arrive at an accurate knowledge of any subject, we must endeavor to ascertain what is fundamental to that subject. If we need to investigate accurately any science, we need to inform ourselves as early as possible of the fundamental principles pertaining to that science. There is no better way to study the history of creation than by studying it as revealed in the phenomena of Nature. When I can investigate Nature in her operations, and ascertain the laws by which she performs her work, I then can arrive—at least approximately—at the philosophy of Nature, in attaining which I attain the philosophy of divine manifestation. There can be no interpolation there. The Divine Artificer works alone in the fields of Nature, and where I can discover the manifestation of wisdom and power, there I come directly into communication with the Divine Being in that plane of action and manifestation; and when I learn what the law of action and manifestation is in that department, I learn so much of the method of the divine work, or of the divine order. I propose, then, briefly to call your attention to the teachings of God upon this subject of progression, as manifested in the fields of Nature; and will then ask you to accompany me in endeavoring to ascertain what are some of its fundamental laws.
Were I to inquire what is the apparent design of everything we behold, we must see that it is pointing to the ultimating of an individualized, immortal, intelligent being, who should be capable of understanding all truth, and being perfected in every true affection. Everything tends to bring about that great result—the unfolding of an immortal being. God and the material universe seem to be laboring to beget an individualized being in the image of both God and the universe—God as the absolute and infinite, and matter as the finite, uniting, produce a being which partakes of both the absolute or infinite and the finite. When viewed from one plane he is infinite; when viewed from another plane he is finite; so that between God and matter man is mediate. I would say, then, in simple language, God is the father of the spirit, and matter the mother of his form. The first step in the path of unfolding, as taught by Nature, is that of individualizing form. The next step is that of individualizing life, of producing individuality. The last step is that of producing personality, making the individual a personal being. The form is necessarily finite. The mind can conceive of it only as finite, and as composed of that which is the absolute, finite matter, which, separate from the divine being, has no life or power. It is not self-sufficient nor conscious.
If we can suppose that matter shall be divested from all connection with media which can impress upon it a condition, we speak of it as being amorphous matter, or matter without form. If we unite it then with one medium, as electricity, we find it tending to produce the gaseous condition, the nebular condition. Form is not yet attained. If we unite with it still another medium which is a little different from electricity, forms of the mineral kingdom are produced. We have here the first degree of form, but as yet there is not life or individuality. Now the next advance is to induce in that form a condition which shall make it receptive of life, for that which is to be individualized is life. So, then, in passing through the elaborating influences of the mineral kingdom, it arrives at a certain point, a sort of culminating point, where it joins upon the vegetable kingdom; and the line between these kingdoms is passed by such imperceptible gradations—so slow in the unfolding of forms—that it is impossible for the naturalist to tell accurately where the one begins and where the other ends; but the vegetable kingdom is manifestly begun when there is found the incorporation of a new principle into a new form—a principle looking to organization—giving matter an organic structure. When the principle known as the life-force is introduced, then it is understood that mineral has passed and the vegetable is commenced. As soon as this is unfolded, we have a second advance of form—life in its first degree; or, in other words, individualization commences. Form has passed to its second degree, and goes on elaborating degree after degree, producing diverse organic forms, until it is prepared to receive another and a more interior principle—consciousness—until by imperceptible degrees we arrive at the animal kingdom. We have then the animal form, the third or finishing degree of form, and the second degree of life, and the first degree of consciousness. Man in his animal nature is the completion; of the highest form. Life has yet one more degree to pass through; consciousness has yet two more degrees to pass through before it is complete. The next advance is to a higher principle of consciousness—to a more enduring principle of life, without changing the material form, and that is to the spiritual degree of unfolding.
Looking to the highest types of the animal and the lowest types of men, we will observe that they approach very near to each other. Naturalists have been divided in opinion as to whether or not man was an animal projected on a little higher plane, and whether or not the difference is not merely one of degree. I say that when man is developed, we find him developing or individualizing a higher principle. Individuality was first started in the vegetable; the principle of vitality in the animal. The second degree of individuality was where the animal became individualized on a higher plane of life, on a plane of consciousness belonging to what we call the nerve-medium. Man individualizes upon the second degree of consciousness and the third degree of life, completing an individuality. He becomes to us the highest type of form and life in the finite; and a large class of philosophers and theologians conceive man as formed in the divine image, and suppose the expression that God made man in his own image, to refer to an external as well as internal likeness.
Man as an individual occupies the highest plane; he has attained to the third degree of life as a Spiritual being, consequently he becomes immortal. If the third degree of life brings man into communion with the self-living and divine, he becomes immortal; if not, then he is not immortal; for that only is immortal which receives into itself that which is self-living, self-sufficient, and self-existent, that which can not be dissolved or disorganized. If man has not attained to that plane which joins upon that which is self-existent, he is not immortal. The simple fact that man can think, will, and act, proves nothing for his immortality. The dog can act, and think, and will, but that does not make the animal immortal. Those who base immortality upon that, do not perceive its real basis. Man becomes immortal by his relation to that which is self-existent and self-sufficient, and has that self-sufficient condition brought into him by induction. He receives it by a sort of divine induction. I have brought in a chart to illustrate the principle of induction or the law of progression. You observe that man stands at the head of form and life, though not at the head of consciousness. He is as a finite being produced only to the second degree of consciousness. That is the last step man took. Man has advanced to the second degree of consciousness, which looks to the relational and finite, hence man as a moral being, as a finite being; and that which he investigates in virtue of his faculties as a moral being must be finite. He can therefore only investigate in the sphere of the finite. The moment he attempts to embrace the infinite, and translate that into the finite, that moment he is pushing his investigations beyond his development.
But there is not only this second degree of consciousness, which notices the relation, but there is a third degree, which notices or perceives the absolute. It perceives not only outward form and mediate relation, but the absolute essence of all being. Man attains to that, not because that third nature is individualized in him, but because by reason of its conjunction upon that condition which is known as the absolute, he has that condition in him by a sort of induction—a non-individualized condition, a sort of resident divinity in him, gives him this third degree.
Now permit me to illustrate the principle of induction. You understand, when electric conditions are produced, that there is such a thing as causing them by induction. You understand that negative attracts positive, and that positive attracts negative—that where these opposite conditions prevail there is a tendency to bring them together. Similar conditions repel, and opposite conditions attract, each other. We understand that all electrical currents are double—that there is a primary and a secondary current. In vitality, in nerve-aura, in whatever acts as a medium, there is a double current. The second current is within the primary, and runs in the opposite direction. It is more interior than the primary. Now, if I have a body charged positively, and I bring it into a certain relation to another body, it imparts its electricity to it. This is called producing the condition by induction. I speak now of progression under this law of induction.
Suppose, now, that we take the two great principles of life—consciousness and action on the one hand, and death, unconsciousness, or inertia on the other hand—one being impartive and the other negative and receptive. God on the one hand and matter on the other. (Pardon me for speaking of God as a principle, the subject requires it. Whatever is attempted to be explained in language must necessarily be considered as finite.) Now, whatever pertains to the divine and absolute on the one hand, the very opposite pertains to matter on the other hand; hence we speak of the sufficiency of Deity and the inertia of matter. This principle of inertia, however, is as essential to the development of form and individuality in the finite as the principle of consciousness is to the conscious being. Without the two conditions, that which is mediate could not be elaborated or produced. God’s creative agency, the positive current, passes out upon matter, from which there is a current returning to mind, in which negative current individualization takes place. The returning current first begins to elaborate form; next, with the progress of matter, comes individuality; next, personality. The formative principle is in the secondary current, which produces induction; but that which is interior to form and elaborates it is the induced or positive current, which partakes of the positive or energetic action of the divine current, so to speak. In this way, by induction, form after form is elaborated and made to become the receptive of certain conditions. Matter has no power of itself, but at the same time is receptive of influences or conditions.
Two theories have prevailed respecting the origin of man. One is what we call the theory of supernaturalism, which supposes that the divine being, at a certain period of time, when every other condition was fulfilled, came down, and by special power formed man in his present shape, and imparted to him his present spiritual life; and that from that man thus formed, and a woman formed for his companion, sprang all the rest of the human family. Others, who adhere to this idea in general, suppose that there was a plurality of parents, from whom the human race have proceeded. The opposite theory is, that man has been developed from the animal kingdom—that he is a development of the animal in a higher plane. This theory was advocated by La Marc. Now, I believe in neither theory. The truth lies between the two. In the outset I made this remark, which I intended to be understood as meaning all that it implied: that God is the Father of the spirit, while matter is the mother of the form. Matter is finite in all its attributes and qualities. God is infinite in all his attributes and qualities. Man is taken from the finite in his lower plane. His form is nourished and fed by its connection with the finite, and when the spirit is separated therefrom, this portion of man goes to decay; and so far as he is concerned as an individual, he is no more. On the other hand, man comes from the infinite, in the higher department of his being, so that man partakes of both the finite and the infinite. He is in the image of his mother, as well as of his father. He is created in the image of God and the image of matter. He has both an individuality and a personality. In his finity he is an individual; in his divinity he is personal. Therefore man contains in himself all the germinal elements of the universe, and also the representative elements of the Divine Being.
As a being of form man became receptive of conditions. The mineral eventually became receptive of the principle of life, which developed the vegetable kingdom. The moment this life-principle began to work in producing organic structure and multiplying relations and conditions, a variety of forms succeeded, until forms were brought to such a point that they became receptive of a higher principle—the nerve principle or consciousness, and the animal kingdom was the result. The vegetable kingdom only produced the form. The spirit came into it by induction from the other direction. The vegetable did not produce the animal; it merely produced the conditions by which this conscious principle could be induced into the individuality developed by the vegetable. That individuality was raised out of the vegetable and placed upon the animal plane, and a new kingdom was born by the application of the law of commensurability. Eventually form was elaborated through the entire animal kingdom until the highest form the nerve-principle could produce, was produced.
The human form was elaborated through the animal kingdom, but the spirit was not elaborated there. When the nerve-principle had done its best, had fulfilled its highest possible condition, and had brought form to join upon spirit, the condition of spirit was induced into this form; and the induction of that spirit raised the form of the animal kingdom into the human kingdom; and the first man thus stood forth, produced by the divine breath breathing into him, consequently the difference between the lowest man and the highest animal was very slight. The man, to be sure, takes his animal body, appetites, senses, and the laws which govern in the development of his body, from the animal, but not that which pertained to his spiritual, nature. It received this from above by the induction of the divine principle which took hold of the form and raised him out of the animal kingdom; so that man does not trace his parentage to the animal but to God. He has been begotten by the spirit and power of God, operating through every plane of being and action from the crystal to the divine. I detract nothing from the divine wisdom and power when I say that God works in an orderly and methodic manner. Forms are of the earth, but the spirit is from heaven. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the lord from heaven.
Every operation on the material side of the universe looks to the ultimating of a form which shall be so perfect as to become receptive of a spirit which shall be capable of living forever, of being conscious of all that is, of being truly affected by that which it perceives. There is not an operation in nature, not even the progress of the comet in its path, which does not look to the production of a human being, the production of an immortal soul. There is not a manifestation of power or wisdom in the world which is not laboring and conspiring to accomplish this great end of producing a son, a child of God, which shall be capacitated to be receptive of its divine origin. We shall eventually see that every law which we now think is working for destruction, is but the going forth of the divine power to produce the being, man.
I said that man was not immortal in consequence of his spirit-individuality alone. The reason that man is immortal is very manifest. The highest principle in the animal individuality is the nerve-principle, the principle of consciousness which can perceive material forms and material phenomena. That interior principle is not unfolded in the animal. The inmost principle of the animal, I grant, is spiritual, but that principle is not individualized. The animal has only the nerve-principle, but in the spirit-principle; and joining perceive facts and phenomena; but he can not perceive relations—has no desire after relations—and knows nothing of moral duties. He can not be active in that way, because his highest individuality is his mere nervous individuality. God does not breathe into the animal that breath of life which makes him a living soul. But man is individualized not only in this nerve-principle, but in the spirit-principle; and joining upon the infinite he does take the divine breath into him as the inmost principle of his being. Man is immortal by his relation to the self-sufficient and self-existent. It is his relation to God that makes him immortal. The animal is not immortal, because he has not this relation. Man having this higher principle individualized in him becomes a religious being.
In the example heretofore cited of Sir Isaac Newton and his dog perceiving the falling of an apple, the dog was seen as observing only the fact, while Sir Isaac Newton observed the law, which he called gravitation; yet not being developed in his divine consciousness, which perceives the absolute and divine, he could not tell the absolute cause of the phenomenon. The dog is in the manifestational sphere, while Sir Isaac Newton was developed in the manifestational and relational, but not yet in the absolute, but was capable of being developed in that sphere by induction. Man is therefore a microcosm. He has all those conditions which pertain to the universe. He is its fruit. There are three stages in the development of man: first, form; second, individuality; third, personality—to which Jesus made allusion in speaking of the development of fruit, saying that there was first the blade, next the ear, and after that the full corn. Man, standing at the head of the development, is the fruit of the universe. He is the grand ultimate of all preceding action. He is the footings-up of all that is and all that has been. There is no condition of being not a condition of relation in the wide universe which man does not contain in some department of his being; and just as he unfolds in his conscious nature, does he represent different spheres in the Spiritual world. If in self-lust, he registers his name in that department of the Spiritual universe called Gehenna, if in charity, he records his name in the sphere Paradise; and if in divine love—if the divine is so developed in him that it is a ruling love—he is registered in heaven; and then it is he perceives God. If he is developed like the Man of Nazareth, so that his Father’s will is his will, so that he can bow submissively to it, whether it be to inflict pain and death or life and prosperity, he is born into the absolute or divine. This, then, is the simple law of unfolding. Man becomes in the Spirit-world what he is in himself. When you determine where his ruling love is, you have determined his sphere; and if he is to manifest to this world, he will manifest according to the sphere he is in. He advances by the same principle of induction as is concerned in the development of his personality. It is as the poet remarks:
Understand, then, each individual is a link in that chain, all put together in the various degrees of unfolding. So that “as each lifts his lower friends, can each into superior joys ascend.” As you would raise yourselves, raise the man next below you. As you would labor to save yourself, labor to save your neighbor. Your salvation consists in saving others. There is no way in which a man so entirely defeats his own happiness as when he attempts to make that happiness his highest end. The pleasure-seekers will bear me witness that the real happiness is in performing some duty or fulfilling some end, not with a view to getting happiness. If a man seeks after right, he can not avoid happiness.
Now you can understand that it depends upon you and me to determine our plane—to determine our condition in the Spirit-world.
Jesus said to his disciples that when he should go to his Father, they would see him no more, meaning that he should no longer appear in his form—no longer appear in the spheres of manifestation—Gehenna and Paradise. He can only be communed with by those in the same condition. But previous to going to his Father he told them, “A little while and ye shall see me.“ He was living then in his physical body, talking with his disciples through their natural understanding. He told them he was going to be gone a little while, and would return; but after that he would go to their Father, and they would see him no more. He first went to Paradise, from whence he could manifest himself. During forty days after his crucifixion he remained in Paradise, which joins the natural sphere, and manifested himself from time to time, endeavoring to open communication between the Spiritual and natural sphere. Having spent forty days developing his apostles as mediums, he went to his Father, into a sphere which is not one of manifestation, and they saw him no more. I do not mean that he went to a particular place, but that he went into a more interior condition; that is, he retired from the external to the absolute and divine, and of course could no longer be made manifest; and according to the description, he was separated from his disciples, and a cloud received him out of sight—not a literal cloud, but that interior condition of divine personality which made him invisible to them as a spiritual being, where he has continued from that time to the present. The second sphere, Paradise, is that in which angels are said to be God’s messengers. God can not directly communicate his consciousness to us in this sphere. He simply give his consciousness to his angels, who translate it into the external sphere.
In speaking of the Divine Being as nearly as possible in external language, I would say that He is a personality, but not an individuality. Individuality is finite necessarily; therefore all the ideas originating from such an individuality are finite; hence if you attempt to portray the Infinite in your imagination, you make him finite, and just so sure as you attempt to make that finite image or idea represent the Infinite, that moment you involve yourself in inextricable confusion. You make an individual of God and make him finite. By personality, which is quite another thing, I refer to this principle of consciousness. That being only has attained personality where the subject arises and the object terminates within himself. That being is a personality alone who possesses self-existence and self-sufficiency. Now I standing before you am liable to influences outside of myself. An act arising from such influences is not strictly mine, not depending entirely upon me for its existence. If you influence me, and my act be a good one, you are entitled to part of the credit; if it be bad, you are chargeable with part of the censure. You can see that under this law of motive, which belongs to the first and second spheres of mind, no action depending upon outward condition is perfect, not being self-sufficient or self-existent. It belongs to the individuality; but when the act is of such a character that it can not receive outward influence arising from a sort of divine spontaneity, it is self-existent and self-sufficient, and the person capable of such an act may be said to be a personality; that is, he is becoming independent—attaining to a self-sufficiency and self-existence. An individual is neither. It is only that which receives. Hence man, who is said to be begotten the child of God, has another’s self-sufficiency. All that he has he has received. Said Jesus, speaking from the natural plane, “I can of my own self do nothing. As I hear I judge. It is not I that doeth the work, but the Father that dwelleth in me that doeth the work.” So you will understand what I mean when I say that man as a separate individual has a finite being, but in his connection with the Divine Being he becomes a personality, not of his own, but as a personality in God. The universal and eternal personality of God is in him. This is the relation we sustain as finite beings to the Infinite.
I expect not to convey my idea in a very clear manner. I can only point in the direction, and say investigate in that direction and you will find the infinite. I can only give a negative description of the infinite by saying what it is not, and ask you to pursue the positive in your inmost consciousness; and after a little while you will see some glimmering of the instinct infinite. Then all your doubts about the infinite will cease. You will then be able to perceive, although not able to describe, how it is that there is an infinite Father whose love and wisdom is over all his works.