"magicians" of the middle ages expressed by two triangles placed
inversely to one another. We are apt to fall into the mistake of
supposing that results of opposite character require powers of opposite
character to produce them, and our conceptions of things in general
become much simplified when we recognise that this is not the case, but
that the same power will produce opposite results as it starts from
opposite poles.
Accordingly the inverted application of the same principle which gives
rise to liberty and power constitutes the entanglement from which we
need to be delivered before power and liberty can be attained, and this
principle is expressed in the law that "as a man thinks so he is." This
is the basic law of the human mind. It is Descarte's "_cogito, ergo
sum_." If we trace consciousness to its seat we find that it is purely
subjective. Our external senses would cease to exist were it not for the
subjective consciousness which perceives what they communicate to it.
The idea conveyed to the subjective consciousness may be false, but
until some truer idea is more forcibly impressed in its stead it
remains a substantial reality to the mind which gives it objective
existence. I have seen a man speak to the stump of a tree which in the
moonlight looked like a person standing in a garden, and repeatedly ask
its name and what it wanted; and so far as the speaker's conception was
concerned the garden contained a living man who refused to answer. Thus
every mind lives in a world to which its own perceptions give objective
reality. Its perceptions may be erroneous, but they nevertheless
constitute the very reality of life for the mind that gives form to
them. No other life than the life we lead in our own mind is possible;
and hence the advance of the whole race depends on substituting the
ideas of good, of liberty, and of order for their opposites. And this
can be done only by giving some sufficient reason for accepting the new
idea in place of the old. For each one of us our beliefs constitute our
facts, and these beliefs can be changed only by discovering some ground
for a different belief.
This is briefly the rationale of the maxim that "as a man thinks so he
is"; and from the working of this principle all the issues of life
proceed. Now man's first perception of the law of cause and effect in
relation to his own conduct is that the result always partakes of the
quality of the cause; and since his argument is drawn from external
observation only, he regards external acts as the only causes he can
effectively set in operation. Hence when he attains sufficient moral
enlightenment to realise that many of his acts have been such as to
merit retribution he fears retribution as their proper result. Then by
reason of the law that "thoughts are things," the evils which he fears
take form and plunge him into adverse circumstances, which again prompt
him into further wrong acts, and from these come a fresh crop of fears
which in their turn become externalised into fresh evils, and thus
arises a circulus from which there is no escape so long as the man
recognises nothing but his external acts as a causative power in the
world of his surroundings.
This is the Law of Works, the Circle of Karma, the Wheel of Fate, from
which there appears to be no escape, because the complete fulfilment of
the law of our moral nature to-day is only sufficient for to-day and
leaves no surplus to compensate the failure of yesterday. This is the
necessary law of things as they appear from external observation only;
and, so long as this conception remains, the law of each man's
subjective consciousness makes it a reality for him. What is needed,
therefore, is to establish the conception that external acts are NOT the
only causative power, but that there is another law of causation,
namely, that of pure Thought. This is the Law of Faith, the Law of
Liberty; for it introduces us to a power which is able to inaugurate a
new sequence of causation not related to any past actions.
But this change of mental attitude cannot be brought about till we have
laid hold of some fact which is sufficient to afford a reason for the
change. We require some solid ground for our belief in this higher law.
Ultimately we find this ground in the great Truth of the eternal
relation between spirit in the universal and in the particular. When we
realise that substantially there is nothing else _but_ spirit, and that
we ourselves are reproductions in individuality of the Intelligence and
Love which rule the universe, we have reached the firm standing ground
where we find that we can send forth our Thought to produce any effect
we will. We have passed beyond the idea of two opposites requiring
reconciliation, into that of a duality in which there is no other
opposition than that of the inner and the outer of the same unity, the
polarity which is inherent in all Being, and we then realise that in
virtue of this unity our Thought is possessed of illimitable creative
power, and that it is free to range where it will, and is by no means
bound down to accept as inevitable the consequences which, if unchecked
by renovated thought, would flow from our past actions.
In its own independent creative power the mind has found the way out of
the fatal circle in which its previous ignorance of the highest law had
imprisoned it. The Unity of the Spirit is found to result in perfect
Liberty; the old sequence of Karma has been cut off, and a new and
higher order has been introduced. In the old order the line of thought
received its quality from the quality of the actions, and since they
always fell short of perfection, the development of a higher
thought-power from this root was impossible. This is the order in which
everything is seen from _without_. It is an inverted order. But in the
true