Chapter 7
MAN UNFINISHED
Abel Leighton
Allen
The Message
of New Thought
"All parts away for the progress
of souls,
All religion, all solid things,
arts,
governments,
All that was or is apparent upon
the
Globe
Or any globe, falls into niches
and corners
Before the procession of souls
along the
Grand Roads of the
Universe."
WALT
WHITMAN.
MAN has ever stalked over the world
like an idle somnambulist, in a dream
of bewilderment, unconscious of the
boundless resources of his own nature
and the illimitable heights that the
fully developed man may reach.
Limitation always clouded his vision.
Of the limitless reservoirs of mental
life within himself, he was totally
oblivious. He has been a stranger to
himself, an unguided wanderer, ignorant
of his own greatness and
possibilities.
Man supposed he was made in an instant,
the result of a fiat, and that his
limitations were set by the divine
decree that brought him into existence.
He was never told that he was not
finished or of the slumbering
possibilities within himself. But he is
awakening from his long dream, to the
realization that "The full measure of a
man has never been taken" and that the
infinite path of progress stretches
away before him.
Elmer Gates, who has given the
profoundest thought to the human mind
and has analyzed it as carefully as any
modern psychologist, says: "That
through consciousness we put ourselves
en rapport with cosmic mind.
Subconsciousness is the great ocean of
mental life; our conscious states are
merely the ripples that strike on the
shore."
I quote the following extract from the
lectures on mental science delivered in
Edinburgh by Judge Troward:
"We have experimental proof of the
existence in ourselves of
transcendental faculties, the full
development of which would place us in
a perfectly new sphere of life. . .
.
"Universal intelligence subsists
throughout Nature, inherent in every
one of its manifestations. For the
present, it will be sufficient to
realize that the subjective mind in
ourselves is the same subjective mind
which is at work throughout the
universe, giving rise to the infinitude
of natural forms with which we are
surrounded and in like manner giving :
rise to ourselves.
"We never get beyond the law of cause
and effect We externalize in our
outward circumstances precisely our
ideas of the universal mind.
"Man has depths which reach beyond all
our philosophical soundings, with
lights that no seer has ever revealed
to us, with reachings of his being only
divinely felt in his own soul and never
revealed to others.
"Man is a religious being, not
conscious of his greatness and infinite
possibilities. To him all life is the
reaching out for these possibilities.
The search for the larger life is the
endeavor to find himself.
"Whatever gives us larger being to
life, whatever brings us to the goal,
whatever solves our problems, breaks
the clouds before our eyes, helps us to
look up, teaches us to step forward, is
a religious service."
We feel the breath of inspiration at
the realization that the subconscious
mind within is one and the same as the
Universal Mind that produces all things
in Nature with which we are surrounded,
and which produces also ourselves. Why
should not man be a religious being,
when a thought of such moment enters
into his consciousness? It enables him
to see a new meaning, nay, a kinship,
in every object of Nature, from the
grass-blade beneath his feet to the
planets circling through endless
space.
When this truth dawns on man's reason
and consciousness, he sees a religious
meaning in all beauty, in all order, in
all harmony, in all that opens the mind
to truth, in every new revelation of
Nature. It all enriches life and leads
man upward and helps him in his
struggle to see and know God.
"Why has the heart restless
yearnings
For heights and steeps untrod?
Some call it the voice of
longing,
And others the Voice of God."
Victor Hugo remarks that "The religious
fact is not the Church; it is the
opening of the rose, it is the breaking
of the dawn, it is the nesting of the
bird. The religious fact is Nature,
holy and eternal."
Man has not yet conceived of his own
greatness and possibilities. The
evolutionary processes of Nature have
culminated in the production of a being
who walks the earth in an erect
position, his brain at the summit, who
is capable of thought, of emotion, and
of abstract reasoning. He is the
highest type that has yet appeared upon
the earth. He is also a religious
being, conscious of his own
individuality, his own soul, and a
mysterious longing for something,
divinely felt, faintly dreamed of, but
nor yet realized.
From the great soul within, man
sometimes feels the surging of an
inexpressible power, a restless
feeling, welling up within him, seeking
recognition and expression. We are all
conscious at times of this divine
unrest, a striving force within, a
cosmic urge prompting us to effort,
pushing us onward and upward to
something greater. It is the great soul
within seeking to find its true
expression. It is the divine calling to
the divine in man.
Carlyle says: "Man's unhappiness as I
construe it comes of his greatness; it
is because there is an infinite in him,
which with all his cunning he cannot
quite bury under the finite."
Emerson declares that "A Man is the
facade of a temple, wherein all wisdom
and all good abide."
With all his powers, with a reason
divine, an imagination bridging the
infinite, man is not yet a perfect
being. He is only in the process of
creation, he is unfinished. He is
undergoing an evolutionary development,
he is still far from the goal at which
in due time he will arrive.
As we take a survey of the world and
the various types of plant and animal
life, their change and development, as
we study the rock and the mineral, and
observe the workings of Nature, we
discover that creation is yet
unfinished. The master hand is still at
work: Creation is now as rapid as in
the six days mentioned in Genesis. Her
processes never rest. The rocks are
still building, glacial action still
goes on, the rivers continue to carry
silt to the seas. Nature's laboratory
was never more active, since the earth
first swung into its orbit.
The theologian has always considered
and spoken of creation as finished.
Until science and reason demonstrated
its impossibility, he contended that
the world and all created things that
dwell thereon, including man, were
created in six days of twenty-four
hours each. He also said God was
satisfied with His work and rested on
the seventh day. This was his
conclusion because, he said, he had
read it in a book. Man read a different
account in the open book of Nature, in
the rocks, the rivers, the lakes, and
the eternal hills.
The same unseen forces that are
building the rock and manifesting in
new created forms, is also at work in
man, developing new power,
strengthening existing faculties, and
pushing man onward toward a more
complete and perfect state. Man has not
been symmetrically developed. His
advisers limited their efforts to the
cultivation of his spiritual
side, and that mainly through the
influence of the emotions. Fear was the
incentive held before his mind. The
preparation was not so much for this,
as for a future life. His slumbering
possibilities were not known. If he was
to be great or strong, it would be in
another state of existence.
Man is a triune being, and to make him
a perfect man requires a three-fold
development. That development only is
normal and symmetrical that endeavors
to perfect him physically, mentally,
and spiritually. The development of one
phase of his being and not the others
is abnormal. The theologian was never
able properly to instruct man, because
he never understood man. What did he
know of the subconscious mind in man?
What understanding had he of the hidden
forces and powers in man? It was the
blind leading the blind.
Modern psychology has enabled man to
discover himself. Through it he is
gaining faint glimpses of the powers of
the great soul within, of that
reservoir of intelligence and wisdom to
which he may find access when he has
learned the way. He is learning the
potency of thought: that thought is his
empire, that thought is the avenue to
the infinite treasures of the
subconscious mind, and that thought can
control his entire personality.
Man is only at the threshold of real
greatness and real power, only with
feeble taps is he knocking at the door
of the great within. When he has
awakened to the consciousness of the
forces within himself, to build a
perfect body, to develop higher mental
and spiritual powers, he will look upon
man as he is today as a pygmy and a
dwarf. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
neither has it entered into the
imagination of man to conceive of the
glories that await the coming
man.
Henry Harrison Brown, writing on
creative thought, says: "Man as thinker
shapes the universal energy into forms
of use and beauty, through his thought
in mechanics and art. The absolute
creates within itself by bodying itself
forth in a universe cognizant to the
senses of man, first as cosmic energy,
then as matter. Man is thus the
absolute, becoming cognizant of itself.
Man is God thinking; elsewhere all
creation is God working.
"Wind and wave are manifestations of
the working of the absolute; the
unconditioned and unindividualized.
Here it manifests in lower octaves; in
the rose and bird it has gained in
pitch, still higher its rise in human
thought. Thought is a form and a most
potent form of universal energy. Man is
God individualized. The kingdom of God
is within you. Kingdom: power, thought
is this kingdom.
"Man is the only individuality among
all the manifestations of God that can
think, can say 'I am.'
"My power as an individual begins and
ends with my power to create thought
forms. These forms life takes as molds
into which to flow and shape
itself.
"This is the one and only great fact in
human experience, the one fact which
when understood will redeem the race
from all slavery to matter and will
give man control of his destiny. The
great fact is by thought power to build
ideals; man controls that subconscious
divinity which he is. The conscious man
controls the God in man."
These are great words coming from a
noteworthy modern thinker. They strike
the keynote of modern psychology. They
point man to the pathway of power and
accomplishment. They show him how to
reach the great subconscious, the
source of all power. Like all great
teaching his message is simple,
concise, and easily comprehended. How
unlike the impenetrable mazes theology
has always set before man. Thought is
the force that opens the
door to the store- house of wisdom and
power. By thought power to build
ideals, man becomes a builder, a
creator; he controls the subconscious
divinity which he is. Long ago modern
psychology demonstrated that the
subconscious obeys the mandates of
thought, is amenable to the power of
suggestion. Here the same truth is
stated in another way. The discovery of
the law of suggestion marks the birth
of modern psychology, and modern
psychology is the great revelation to
man of his own masterful powers.
We can all follow the simple rules laid
down for our guidance. We can create
ideals if we desire. We can develop
ideals of health, of mental
superiority, of high moral standards,
of power and success. When we have
learned to form and hold these ideals,
with confidence in results, we have
opened the door to the great
within.
Christian D. Larson, who has written so
understandingly of man's hidden forces,
says: "The destiny of every individual
is hourly being created by himself, and
that something that determines what he
is, to create at any particular time,
is nothing more or less than his
ideals."
The real secret of man's power, then,
is to create proper ideals or thought
forms, and thus control the
subconscious divinity within him. As
thought controls the subconscious, the
great reservoir of intelligent forces,
so man directs his own welfare and
destiny. The key, then, to man's power
is to think constructively, think
positively, create ideals of health, of
cheerfulness, of happiness, and of
accomplishment. When he has learned
this secret, he has become master over
things and circumstances. At last we
come back to the great truth, as a man
thinketh in his heart so is he.
Science is finding evidence
corroborative of what the philosopher
has thought, of what the
idealists have always laid claim to,
that thought controls matter, that
mental images are molds into which
cosmic life and energy flow; that
matter is thus shaped into forms,
corresponding with the ideals first
created. Results have been published of
an experiment by means of the
infallible test of the camera, that
would seem to bear out the claim that
thoughts may be embodied in mental
forms or images and that atoms and
molecules of matter will shape
themselves into forms corresponding to
those images.
The materialistic scientist may view
this statement with utter incredulity,
but it is no more unthinkable or
improbable than that thought and even
the human voice may be carried over
long distances by means of no other
conductor than either that fills all
space. It is not as mysterious as life
or growth, which we know exist but do
not understand and a thousand phenomena
which baffle all understanding.
Professor Larkin recently said: "You
can separate heat from light and use
each separately, and do many wonderful
things with both these totally unknown
forces, in a suitable laboratory.
'Unknown' is used here purposely, for
nothing is now known as to what
anything really is."
The experiments referred to, by which
thoughts were transformed into visible
forms, were conducted by Dr. Charles W.
Littlefield. He asserts that he created
mental images in solutions of inorganic
compounds placed upon photographic
slides, and the forms thereby created
were successfully photographed and the
photographs exhibited for inspection.
Dr. Littlefield, in giving the results
of his experimentation, says: "In the
chemical analysis of all living things
we find two classes of compounds, the
organic and the inorganic. The former
class is represented by albumen, sugar,
starch, and oil, while the latter is
represented by the compounds of soda,
lime, magnesia, iron, potash, and
silicon, as made up by the union of
these with sulfur, phosphorus,
chryoline, fluorine, and oxygen, making
twelve mineral compounds, commonly
known as tissue salts.
"These thought images were held in the
mind while the attention was fixed upon
a drop of the solution of one of the
mineral salts of organic life upon a
microscopic slide and afterward
photographed.
"In other words, these are thoughts
photographed through matter. Since
these thought forms are fixed in the
same kind of mineral compounds which
are now known to be not only the
builders of the human organism, but
also the material medium of all its
functions, both physical and psychical,
they furnish us some very interesting
and reliable data upon which to
construct a rational system of
psychophysics, not only embracing an
explanation of every known form of
mental manifestation through matter,
but also suggesting possibilities in
psychology almost beyond belief."
These experiments would seem to bear
out the conclusion that mind, external
to matter, can control matter. If this
is an established fact, its importance
can scarcely be overestimated.
Someone asks how this can be done. What
is the explanation of mind shaping
matter, when matter is separated by
distance from the person sending forth
the thought? An impossibility, you
say.
In answer to the expressed doubt, it
might well be said this is the result
of investigation, of experiment. Its
cause is in the field of science and it
is the business of the scientist to
find it and offer it to the world. This
suggestion, however, may be offered,
not as a conclusion, but only as a
hypothesis from which to reason.
Scientists tell us there are no solids
in Nature. What seem to us the hardest
and densest substances are not solids,
but the electrons and corpuscles
forming the same are separated and do
not touch, but revolve around each
other with certain great and specific
velocities. All Nature is in motion,
all is vibratory.
It has been well said that thoughts are
forces. If they are forces, it follows
that they can create vibrations and
also that they can travel through
space. If thoughts send vibrations
through space, is it not possible for
them to affect the atoms and molecules
of which matter is composed, which
scientists tell us are in constant and
rapid motion?
The wireless instrument creates
vibrations that travel through ether,
penetrating and passing through what we
call solid substances, to be again
taken up by a like instrument and
translated into language. Scientists
sum up the recent results of wireless
telegraphy as follows: "Boats have
been steered to right or left, stopped,
started, reversed, accelerated,
retarded, and controlled in every way
by an operation in a wireless plant on
the shore. No wire from man to
boat--waves of electric force
only."
Mental telepathy seems to be an
established fact, which is nothing less
than sending thoughts through space,
which are received, understood, and
translated by other minds. If thoughts
were not forces, how could this be? If
they did not create vibrations, it
would seem difficult to understand how
they could travel through space.
Professor Larkin, in an article on the
power of thought, said: "it is natural
for us to think that no object can be
formed without a previously formed
thought pattern. This would be as
impossible as for an iron casting
without a mold and a mold without a
pattern.
"The word 'matter' as used in chemistry
and physics cannot be applied to
matter, cannot exist until electrons
revolve around each other at definitive
and fixed high specific speeds,
specific velocities being a fundamental
fact in Nature." He then related that
another photographic test had been made
of thought images, revealing similar
results to those above related.
That there is something in the life
force which controls matter, uses it,
and shapes it, is the latest utterance
of philosophy.
Henri Bergson, professor of philosophy
in the College de France, Paris, now
attracting the attention of the
philosophers of the world, is among the
recent champions of these ideals. As he
views it, the world and man are only in
the process of creation; man is
becoming and passing through an
evolutionary process, a process of
growth and development. He teaches that
there is a super-materialistic or
psychic element in life, as the vital
force, which molds matter to its own
use. He holds that wherever there is
life, creation is still going on, and
that creation is ever bringing
something new into existence.
His philosophy will set new ideals
before man and lead him to greater
things, a life of reality,
growth, and development. When man
becomes conscious of the creative and
ever-renewing forces within himself, he
will find the renewing hand of Nature,
which is ever leading him toward the
new and perfect.
The fact that scholars and students
from every part of the world are
listening to Bergson's utterances
proves that his philosophy has struck a
responsive chord which is to have a
marked effect in molding modern
thought. It all leads to one central
thought, that man is becoming conscious
of the greatness of his own being and
the illimitable powers of his own mind
and soul; that he is constantly and
forever evolving, passing through the
processes of creation and growth,
gradually reaching higher and higher
levels, moving onward and upward toward
the perfect man that he is yet to be.
When the consciousness of this truth
takes possession of his entire being
and personality, he will make mental
and moral strides such as man has not
yet experienced in reaching out toward,
the ultimate goal.
Chapter
8
* * * * *
The Message of New Thought
Table of
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